Welcome back CLT

The central limit theorem makes a strong comeback in six sigma !!!

Man I miss those college days!!!😭😭

My Gift List

So the gift season for me just passed and I've heard a lot of complaining about how I'm so difficult to shop for!!

I mean come on! I'm a pure bred Bahraini guy and there's only 3 things we like...count them with me now

3!! that's right! So lets spell them out shall we...

1) we like to show off
2) we like girls
3) we like money

In THAT order!!

and they're all related really when you think about it. Simply put, numbers 1 and 3 are there for us to get number 2...seems like an easy enough equation to remember...doesn't it.

Anyway back to our main topic which is buying a gift for me...

To make things simple I will compile a list of gifts that I will enjoy receiving, pretty much like an amazon wish list. For your information this list took me about 5 minutes to compile so dont give me any crap about me being difficult to shop for.

So in no particular order...here it is (Momo's gift list)

• Dark/Metal shaving kit (Preferably ones that accept Gillette razor blades)
• Tobasco Gallon Jug or any Hot Sauce/Chili/Spices Related gift
  

• Personalized Leather Portfolio

• Montblanc Pen
  
• Cool wall art canvas prints
  

• A good novel (Fantasy/Science Fiction/mystery)
• A DVD box set

And that's just of the top of my head... So next time someone says I'm hard to buy a gift for they have no excuse....!!!

~sam

So I'm ranting again...

So I'm bored out of my mind ... again

I just hate this transition phase during new years...There is absolutely nothing to do. Everybody seems to be hiding in their homes afraid to come out for some reason and you can't even watch anything decent on TV.

And since I don't have a decent book to read, or game to play...I'm stuck cleaning up my room and playing "lost in blue" on my Nintendo DS.


I don't even have a decent new year resolution yet!

So everyday I basically sit down and watch "Black Adder" episodes which make me laugh...just a bit (I've seen the show a hundred times already)


Ooh and I finally finished watching "Jekyll" which was nice. I only found out recently the show actually went on to conclusion. I stopped watching the show when I thought it went on hiatus for like 3 months or something.

A Cat

I just found this too...I just couldn't not post it

By richius at 2009-12-29

XBMC 9.11

Well, it was another boring day in the old homestead so I did what I usually do when I'm bored out of my mind and browsed over to lifehacker.com

Now lifehacker has been a particularly favorite pit-stop of mine since my days as an intern at BDO. There's always at least one decent post to read and expand from.

So when I saw the post about the XBMC update, I didn't hestiate to head on over and download it for my home media Center

(which I am proud to say now includes a 37" Full-HD Samsung LCD TV connected via HDMI to my PS3 for all that 1080p HD glory!!)

Ahem...too many acronyms in that sentence...

anyway, so yeah...I downloaded the thing and IT WAS BEAUTIFUL...


since they apparently switched directX it is faster, sweeter and all around better than anything I expected to get out of that old computer of mine, but...and thats a big BUT


...It didn't play video...I KNOWWWWWWWW!!!

I mean that's the point of the whole exercise, isn't it?? What good is a media center that doesn't play video...

So I check the forums and apparently this bug has been around since November! and there is no fix!

So I try my best, update drivers, play around with directX..nothing works

So I give in and try to reinstall the old version, but wait...there's a catch

The new install effed up my library, It can't display movies and shows properly with thumbs and synopses and fanart...

By this time I'm sacred out of my mind...I remember how long it took me to compile that stupid library in the first place...but no matter what I do it doesnt work...and I have to uninstall my previous profile, install the old version of xbmc (AGAIN) and compile the library from scratch...which is what I have been doing for the last 5-6 hours

So the moral of the story boys and girls...is always backup your crap!

had I exported my library before I made the update I would not have been in this position...


C'est la vie

MM

Darkly dreaming dexter

So I just finished reading this novel, the first novel of the dexter series by jeff lindsay which is the basis of the popular TV series of the same name.

In fact, the fourth season just ended two days ago and I have to say, it was fan-freaking-tastic. I don't usually like to quote other bloggers out there in the blogsphere, but i really DO love how the show "operates outside my comfort zone".

I have to say though that when this season started I thought it was the worst season yet, but it really started to pick up in the last few episodes. I can even tell you the exact moment it miraculously transformed, for me, it was the instant you find out about Arthur's connection to Christine hill, the reporter, it was a classic Dexter twist that put everything up to that point in a new light.

And how about that ending folks, I truly did not see that one coming, and although I'm usually all for killing off main characters if it benefits the storyline, I can't help but feel a little sad to see that particular character die...


Anyway, back to what I was saying, I just finished reading the novel and I have to say...I didn't like it!!!

It kind of ... well ... it sucked!

I didn't care at all for any of the two dimensional characters portrayed in the novel. There was barely any character development, heck there was hardly any plot development.

But that could be coming from the fact that I already watched the show before reading the book.

Characters that seemed alive and entertaining in the show suddenly became dead and uninteresting, Angel Batista - sad, lonely, looking for love after his wife left with his daughter became Batista-no relation which means less than squat to me since I have zero knowledge of Cuban history.

FYI: Fulgencio Batista was the Cuban president and dictator before the whole Fidel Castro and the Cuban revelation thingy...hey don't look at me...I barely know my own country's history!

back to the subject at hand...and what the F is with all the stupid fart jokes Dexter keeps making?

I mean once was funny, twice was ok, but he just keeps repeating them with a new line every few chapters...not funny.

The only character I enjoyed in the book was captain Mathews which was a surprise since I never really cared for him in the series. I loved his straightforwardness and Dexter's funny comments about him like how he has such a diverse vocabulary due to writing police reports for many years.

and the book did explain some of the quirks the detective LaGuerta character - she wasn't a lieutenant in the book- displayed in the first season.

Her mannerisms always felt a little weird for me in that first season and didn't really make a lot of sense given how the story turned out. Its like they started out by trying to make her closer to her book counterpart, but then they suddenly changed their minds. So now I know.

Overall I'm glad I didn't pay the BD 6.800 for this book at "the bookstore" or is it the "bookshelf"? anyway its that place in Budaya or the BD 5.400 in Jashenmal for this piece of crap writing.

I may just read the other books of the series out of respect to the show and also I want to see how the dark passenger turns out to be the spirit of some diety. Yes, that was a spoiler and I read it in the reviews on amazon so you get to read it too!!!

Most people seemed to think that he just turned the genre around last minute, but knowing that I think he made it pretty clear in the first book where he was heading with this dark passenger crap.

Anyway, this was my rant for the day...hopefully someone will read it and benefit from it somewhere.

Later

~MM

10 things I love about my new Nokia E72

1. Control my downloaded torrents

Using Utorrent WebUI mini I can check download rates and add new torrents remotely so I can download anything I want before I get back and have it ready by the time I’m home. Its this tiny add on that you download to utorrent after you activate WebUI in the preferences which adds a phone compatible webpage to the WebUI GUI
I love checking my speed and ratios on the go!!


2. Search!!

I loved the search function on my old E61i and now the new E72 makes it even better!
Instead of wading through 5000 messages the search function makes it easy to find the one you want. You can also search media, contacts and your calendar for whatever you want. The new search function is more refined and easier to navigate not to mention significantly faster. I love having it on my standby screen ready at a moment’s notice.

3. Check weather, time, exchange rates, news, flights and email.

The phone has the wonderful “world traveler” software preinstalled and preset email configurations for Nokia’s OVI mail, Gmail and Windows live hotmail among others. This makes setting up your email as simple as typing in your login and password.

Plus now that they actually got the phone to work automatically with gmail I don’t have to wait for the phone to download ALL my emails before I can read them. This was a royal pain with my e61i and I’m glad they fixed it.


4. The OVI store

Ok, I don’t really love this cheap imitation of apple’s app store, but Its still nice. The way everything is presented, its easy to find what you’re looking for and downloading and installing is much simpler and much faster thanks to the improved processor inside the phone

5. I love me some Active notes!!!!

Anyone who knows me can tell you how terrible my memory is, and that is exactly why “Notes” has always been one of my favorite applications in the Nokia E61i. And now they’re even better!
I always use notes when I’m driving around town trying to find the best deals on different products, or I want to leave myself a reminder to check out a new movie, game or restaurant. The fact that they are only text never really bothered me till I saw what you could do with the new and improved “active notes”.

Now you can add images, phone numbers, files that are stored on your phone and you can even link them to a contact so they display when you make or receive a call from that contact number!!

Who wouldn’t want to see “Don’t forget to buy her this necklace on your anniversary in September” accompanied by a picture of the aforementioned necklace when they get a call from their significant other??

6. Dictionary
Now who can honestly tell me they didn’t wish they had a dictionary in their phone!! I love the way the Finnish think!!

7. Wirelessly plug into my Upnp network at home

There was this wonderful new addition to symbian devices which I stumbled upon when I first got my new E72 called home media that can access media servers on your network. Now I can share new media from my phone and stream music to my phone from my laptop, PS3 and TV media Center!!
This is amazing all I have to do is pick whatever I want to listen to and it plays it perfectly directly on my phone! I can’t get it to play movies on my phone yet, but I have yet to try real media files. I’ll post an update If I find a way to do it.



8. One touch keys

Although you no longer have that wildcard key that you had on the E61i, with four quick access keys to the menu. Calendar, contacts and email exchange (which you can reconfigure if you are so inclined) you now have the two application keys free to set to whatever you need.

I have mine set to camera and active notes. In addition to the 6 standby applications I can access anything I want with fewer click than ever before.

9. Flashlight, Bluetooth and silent keys

The e61i didn’t have a camera flash (or autofocus for that matter) so you couldn’t use it as a flashlight which you can do by simply pressing the spacebar on the E72.

You also had to memorize the Blue arrow + ctrl combination to activate/deactivate your Bluetooth connection. Now you have a single clearly marked key to perform this action.

And of course you can switch your phone to silent mode by pressing and holding “ctrl” which you could also do with older models albeit with a different key, but now it is clearly marked and you don’t need to look through the manual to know about it.

10. Predictive calling

Instead of remembering numbers you can simply type in names and the phone will automatically display possible contacts. For example if you want to call “John Doe” you can simply type the name on the keyboard and you can make the call!

Amazing stuff!! I really love this new device and this new OS. I cant wait to see what else they come up with in the future.