965malls

after receiving a number of emails from friends and families in beirut alerting me about this syndicate of criminals presenting themselves as sales promoters at gas stations, giving you key rings with tracking device chips allowing them to follow you, i received yesterday more of the same on whatsapp from a friend here in kuwait.

while investigating the story on the net, i found out that this is an email hoax sent across the globe - this baseless rumor grew out of a 2008 promotional campaign in which caltex south africa, gave out solar-powered flashing key fobs to advertise its diesel fuel - each fob contained an led, a battery, and a computer chip - apparently someone dismantled one of the devices, found the chip inside, and jumped to conclusion that it was some sort of rfid transmitter - the rumor that it was a "tracking device" used by criminals was promulgated on a radio talk show and quickly found its way onto the internet - full story here.

then i read on another blog called serentipity a post entitled "tips for identifying an email hoax", in which the same email is mentioned as an example - i found the tips interesting and i recommend you read the post.

to our friends & families in lebanon, i invite them to relax & chill, all this is pure nonsense! and if this email finds its way to kuwait, and it will, you know now what to do with it..

alqabas reported yesterday that a group of air controllers at kuwait international airport are planning to raise a complaint to the head of civil aviation against air control management - the cause? pure neglect, which is jeopardizing the lives of every passenger in kuwait regardless of the airline.

it seems that 2 airplanes can collide anytime at kuwait airport as the flying distance between the planes have been reduced from 80 miles to 40 miles without having a back-up radar, which is against international laws & regulations set by the international civil aviation organization (icao).

what makes things even worse, is the air traffic management at the civil aviation who actually brought a back-up radar that is not compliant with international rules & regulations and which has been rejected back in the 90s as it proved completely unreliable - the radar suddenly shows virtual objects that don’t exist in real life or makes real life objects disappear from the screen!! go figure what the hell is happening in the skies!!

it seems that walking into a disaster is now only a question of time at an airport that already hosts a rusty national airline, suffers from mismanagement, and now lacks proper safety procedures as the cherry on top!

danderma came up with this great initiative, ranking the top 100 blogs in kuwait almost on a monthly basis, following alexa ranking - while reading her march results, we wondered how the list would look like if it were segmented by language - we basically built on danderma's list and the findings were quite interesting.

1. 20 of the top 50 blogs are purely in arabic
2. 12 blogs are purely in english
3. 18 blogs use both languages, depending on the post

this of course changes the rankings drastically - it places 248am as the most popular english blog in kuwait followed by danderma and bananaq8 becomes the most popular blog in the combo category followed by meenakon - q8ping remains number 1 in both arabic & all blogs categories followed by aboflan.

we believe ranking blogs should be segmented, just like it is done in other media channels, like newspapers - it gives a more comprehensive picture of the blogging universe.

beit 7, the historical kuwaiti house that has been renovated and transformed into a vibrant modern restaurant is now offering breakfast - on the menu lebanese breakfast including labneh, eggs, beans, cheese etc...

the weather is lovely nowadays and the newly renovated outside seating area is perfect for breakfast - one thing is still missing, more umbrellas for those who like to stay in the shade..