Interesting article by a hijab-wearing American Muslim.

During my senior year of high school, a teacher I had known for four years asked me off-hand where I had learned my English. He was so impressed that I managed to rid myself of all traces of an Arab accent. After an awkward pause, as it slowly dawned on me that no, he was not joking, and yes, he really thought I was an immigrant, I had to explain to him that I had been born 10 minutes away from the school building. The reason my English was so accent-less was because I really was an American, even with my hijab on.

[ The Harvard Crimson Online :: Opinion ]

Reminds me of when I was in Mecca, so many people asked where I was from. I said America. They looked puzzled, and would change the question: "where are your people from?", to which I'd say America. Usually more puzzled looks, sometimes the offering of "you mean Syria?". Basically the thought of an Irish American Muslim was just not conceivable.

I don't have to go to smoky clubs, or listen to crap pop radio stations, and get to find great music. Sure it's a few years old. Sure Sousa's been listening to this guy for years, I'm sure. But I like a new find:

Fantastic Plastic Machine is the project of Japanese DJ Tomoyuki Tanaka. Much of his music reflects a strong bossa nova influence; other tracks are representative of Happy Charm Fool Dance Music

[ Variety Is the Spice of Life - Fantastic Plastic Machine ]

FPM on Rhapsody Radio for those so inclined.

Not davidkearns.com, but Doceus:

Developers will work closely with our VP of technology to architect and deliver solutions for DC-area businesses, associations, and non-profit organizations.

[ Doceus - About Doceus - Employment Opportunities ]

And this job description neglected to say that all employees get to work with me!

Whether or not you are a fan of NPR, hopefully you can appreciate a good story:

Our storyteller shares the tale of an animal rescue -- or an attempt at an animal rescue -- involving a beaver, a box, great compassion and perhaps a bit too much beer.

[ NPR : The Great Beaver Rescue Effort ]

I'm always happy to hear of people willing to carry on story telling traditions, especially when they are this entertaining.

I've just received an email from gmail:

Thanks for signing up to be updated on the latest Gmail happenings. We hope it's been worth the wait, because we're excited to finally offer you an invitation to open a free Gmail account!

Since the email that I gave them now feeds into my gmail account, I received this invitaiton about gmail via gmail, but gmail was nice enough to tag my gmail invite as spam.

I assume that this means that gmail is invite-only no more. Though I still have 50 invitations available to me.

Update: someone should tell Google, though, as the graphic still reads beta...

I may have thought I'd see this on a Microsoft website someday:

ph34r my l33t skillz

[ Microsoft's parent's primer to computer slang ]

But never placed there on purpose, by Microsoft.

As seen on Joe Grossberg and Slashdot.

Odd, no mention of Micro$oft or 114m4 or Micro$ofty 114m4Z...

Which reminds me, I should be wary of my Sidekick II and it's evil H4X0R calculator:

Note the "secret" message typed in the calculator...

A.San did point out that there is only one true way to discover if your kid is a hacker.

Frequently I find Anisa Mehdi's editorials a bit too liberal, but this one is spot on:

Now that the elections in Iraq are over, the work of writing the Iraqi constitution can begin. A Shi'ite religious party will have the most representatives, raising some concerns that the constitution will be based on Islamic law. But commentator Anisa Mehdi says that basing the new constitution on the laws of Islam is a good idea.

[ NPR : Islamic Law and the Iraqi Constitution ]

Though I think pointing out terrorists justifications for obscene acts of violence has little to do with Islamic law.

Does anyone else think this is a good idea?

Ubisoft and U.S. giant Electronic Arts are holding talks two months after Ubisoft dismissed EA's acquisition of a near-20 percent stake in the French video game maker as "hostile," the Wall Street Journal said on Wednesday.

[ Yahoo! News - Ubisoft, EA Hold Preliminary Talks -Paper ]

Does anyone else care? Stop the madness!

When Dari got me hooked on this stuff, I had no idea:

Listen, if you haven't yet, to the great pop stars of Senegal: Youssou N'Dour, Cheikh Lo, Baaba Maal. You'll adore what you hear and discover what they have in common, like the hustle and ping of their sound, etched with koras and horns. The other is what they sing about: transfixing passion, not for earthly lovers but for the holy men, marabouts, the Sufi saints of Islam.

[ Caught Up in the Aura of a Senegalese Saint (New York Times, requires registration) ]

I don't know much about this West African Sufi movement, but my brothers in Senegal sure know how to play some great tunes. If you Rhapsody, or even Napster, I recommend at least sampling a few tunes. Come to think of it, Dari digs the Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan too. Based on his recent post, perhaps I should check out the Sufi roots of Hall and Oates.

Apparently there is a large movement afoot:

"As adults we must each own our own beliefs," said Prof. Fidelma O'Leary, biology, St. Edward's University, to a packed auditorium in Goldwin Smith on Friday night. Her lecture, "An American Woman's Jihad," detailed her spiritual journey as an Irish-American Muslim.

[ The Cornell Daily Sun - An American Woman's Jihad ]

OK, maybe not, but the did put "Irish-American Muslim" in print. Maybe we should form a PAC so we can be heard on the hill.

This is what I've been saying:

It's still pretty scary. Leave your debt unattended for just five years, and it will triple in value. Are you gaining any understanding of just how profitable business has been for many credit-card issuers?

[ How to Owe $40,000 by Doing Nothing [Fool.com: Commentary] February 11, 2005 ]

Well, maybe not quite, but since when did loan-shark like practices become legal? Isn't this the sort of thing that we actually need protection against? If anything is going to ruin the US economy it's this sort of crap (IMHO).

Props: G$

Ashley said something about a design she's working on being freaky. I beg to differ, this is freaky:

Mr. Cage isn't promoting pachinko palaces in these ads as much as a company that makes the machines that take the money from the customers who go into those palaces.

[ Japander.com ]

Of course so are:

• Domokun
• Spong Monkies
• Ninjas

But these are all old, where are today's fun freaky websites?

Apple users think their OS is soooooo superior to Windows, well witness:

A few days ago I needed to install software from ISO images. There were two possibilies[sic]: burning the ISO images to a CD-ROM or using a virtual CD-ROM drive that can mount ISO images. My preference went out to the latter, so I decided to Google for it. And apparently Microsoft has an unsupported "Virtual CD-ROM Control Panel for Windows XP".

[ Tom's corner - Mounting ISO images in a virtual CD-ROM drive ]

Now Windows has a non-supported, hard to find, extra install to give it much needed functionality that MacOS has had for about a decade or so. Take that Steve Jobs!

This is the stuff that Fan Boy's like me live for:

According to various Japanese publications, the new Resident Evil 4 team is encountering a few problems porting Resident Evil 4 to the PS2. Why do you ask? Hardware, Hardware, Hardware.

[ GAF - News - Resident Evil 4 Porting Issues? ]

Now how to get this info into a time capsule and send it back to the year 2000...

The tech I've been waiting for is finally headed our way. Sure the FlipStart still isn't out, and the OQO isn't quite what I'm looking for, but the competition is heating up, and the lines between handtops and tablets are blurring:

The FlyBook (FB) from Dialogue, a Taiwan based manufacturer, just barely squeaks in as a handtop. While it may not fit in your pocket and is bigger than other handtops, I seriously doubt that the OQO / FlipStart will fit into any regular pocket either. It's an extremely powerful handtop with more connectivity options than any other device I've seen, and as such, may warrant more than a passing look for those who find the OQO/FlipStart/U70 too limiting.

[ Handtops.com- FlyBook ahoy ]

And did I mention it does GPRS? The only thing that puzzles me is why it isn't running XP tablet.

I concur with Tony:

I'm not totally enamored with the DS yet. I toyed around with the Metroid game, which was pretty cool, but I still haven't been "WOW"ed by anything DS-related yet. Well that was until I saw this.

[ ButtonMashing.com ]

Feel the Magic: XY/XX was intreaging, but not enough to buy it. I did get a copy of Mario 64 DS, but it still feels like more of the same. I have a feeling that the PSP forced Nintendo's hand and they had to release the platform without sufficient launch titles. I think the DS will really shine when some of the multi-player and online capabilities are revealed, and more titles like the one here. I can now imagine a dead sexy Resident Evil title on the DS, as well as a cell-shaded Zelda title.

At what point does Nintendo's "kiddie" rep fuel itself?

Nintendo has definitely embraced the kid-friendly image but maybe the embrace has turned into a bear hug and Nintendo can't let it go.

[ ButtonMashing.com: Some light reading. ]

Sure, my license plates announce to the world that I'm a total fan boy, but I still think that I can be objective. The fact of the matter is that this is how I see the current three consoles:

• X Box
  
  Pros:
  
  Games all have at least a T rating, if not M. Anything that even begins to smack of less than T gets a dose of blood or guts or sex to boost the rating, thus no games for kids.
  
  Most appealing due to on-line play excellence, thus best liked for death matches and Madden (and other sports too, I guess).
  
  Most choices in controllers. I like seeing some of the crazy controllers that people come up with for the XBox. There are all types of gamers and they appreciate all types of controls. I would like to see the NextBox have mice available for it without having to hack it, that would silence a large number of FPS PC gamers.
  
  Best FPS experience due to Halo & Halo 2. What can I say, picking up Bungie was a great move for Microsoft, and one that has gone the farthest to making them a contender.
  
  Cons:
  
  New to games, still trying to figure out what everyone wants. Not able to be all things to all people. Too concerned about their image to release games like Katamari Damacy or Pikmin.
  
  Likely to have culture conflicts with Microsoft proper. Microsoft truly wants to build the one ring to rule them all, and could be forcing things on the NextBox that will make it unpalatable to the gaming community at large.
  
  
• PS2
  
  Pros:
  
  Biggest library. Again a vicious cycle. If you want to maximize your sales you write your games for a minimum of the console that most people have (unless you're a 2nd party developer). Thus the Playstation gets the most games because it has the most games.
  
  Most appealing due to breadth of games. Best platform for RPGs due to exclusive on Final Fantasy series. More best fighting games.
  
  Cons:
  
  Crappy hardware. Higher failure rate than any other console. Crappy support for getting things fixed too.
  
  Only 2 friggin' ports. Why not just put in 4 ports and fore go the stupid multi-tap?!?!?
  
  Most expensive console (especially with above crappy multi-tap)
  
  Super crappy website. Sure that has little to do with the purchase of a console, but I really think Sony can do better.
  
  
• GameCube
  
  Pros:
  
  Great first party games, great second party games. Best designed hardware giving great value for the money. Tight controls over hardware and software reducing the chance of buying crappy 2nd or 3rd party software or peripherals.
  
  Tons of innovation means you never know what to expect. If something is hot in games there is a good chance that Nintendo tried it first (except on-line, but I agree with Nintendo).
  
  Cons:
  
  "Kiddie" rep keeps "mature" gamers from considering the platform. This one drives me crazy, there are adult oriented titles out for the Cube, and for the most part these titles are only when necessary. I think that the blood and gore and extreme violence are great in Resident Evil 4 and Eternal Darkness, but somewhat unnecessary in PS2's Mark of Kri. This means that I can't play these games with my impressionable young daughter around, and cuts into my gaming time.
  
  Rep also seems to make people think that the Cube is less powerful than other platforms. I'm not sure where this comes from. The base specs for the Cube put it squarely between the PS2 and XBox in terms of power. I'm amazed by some things on the PS2 that would seem commonplace on the Cube. So many reviews of RE4 expressed surprise in the quality of the game on the Cube, but I think it's par for the course. Of course XBox has the most power here, but the Cube still is heads above the PS2 across the board.

I currently own a GameCube (duh) and a PS2. The PS2 came down to a price that I was willing to give it a chance, and I'm glad that I have. There are enough gems for the PS2 that it was well worth picking up: Ico, Ratchet & Clank, Kingdom Hearts. Due to my current experience I'll be doing everything to ensure that I have a Nintendo Revolution and PS3 around their launch dates.

As for XBox, I'm starting to see the appeal. I still don't understand why I'd want to go on-line and get my butt whipped by an anonymous 12 year old at every game that I buy, but there are a few XBox titles that I'd love to play: Halo, Halo 2, and Fable for example. If the NextBox will be backward compatible, I'll likely wait for it's price to sink a bit, if not I'll likely pick up a 2nd hand XBox.

Where has Nintendo gone wrong? Lost too much in the 2nd party arena. I don't pretend to know everything about the inter-workings of the gaming business, but they let slip Rare, Silicon Knights, and an exclusive on Resident Evil 4. Surely one of those at a minimum was worth a few bucks on Nintendo's part. Rare hasn't come up with much for the XBox, and I'm not sure what happened to Silicon Knights, but Resident Evil 4 rocks. If Nintendo would just pony up the cash to turn the Resident Evil series into a Nintendo exclusive, and bundle RE4 with cubes, I think they'd sell a ton. Perhaps they are already giving up on the GameCube and have something certain with the Revolution, we'll have to wait for the gunfight at E3 to tell for sure.