Mind Soup

This was the first post we came across by Malik's Lebanon . It's a cute idea, but we're a bit worried that One Directioners (is that the official name of the fandom?) might take it seriously and possibly murder Malik's workers when they find out it's a joke.  Abril foul indeed, good one NGNO !  XXL Energy released an original new flavor inspired by Lebanon. haha Oh Beirut+ TV , how we wish all of what you said was true! Watch the episode here.   Selfie sticks gone too far spotted on Mashable . Update: Apparently this is not a joke? We weep for the future of our planet. A very apparent fake product release was announced by Barry M , the Nip Dip would hypothetically allow you to apply glitter to your nipples.Not sure how we feel about this one... We love it when law enforcement agencies have a sense of humor, good one GMP Radcliffe   One of our favorites (if not absolute favorite) was obviou...

When was the last time when you saw a QR code in an advertisement and were excited to scan it, or on the back of your soda can and put it down to see what the code redirects too? Or even worse, when was the last time you stopped your car to snap a QR on a billboard? Chances are that the answer is long time ago, and you’re not alone. There are many reasons as to why QR codes are not getting hype anymore. The most common reason is that, believe it or not, a lot of people are still not aware what QR codes are or how to use them. Many don’t even notice their presence. QR stands for Quick Response. These codes are two dimensional barcodes and are supposed to be a simple way to link the user to other content such as website links, phone numbers, contact information or other text. The user scans the code using an application on their smartphone to encode its content. But even after you explain the concept to many people, they still do not use it very regularly out of inconvenienc...

After the success of “Blogging Lebanon” last December, Online Collaborative at the American University of Beirut proudly announces its annual conference for this year “Social Media Changing Lives”. There is no doubt that social media is expanding drastically in the world, and especially in the Middle East, yet this change is not only related to technology and the internet. Social Media is revolutionizing every aspect of our lives. The aim of this conference is to discuss how social media is changing fields such as education, culture, business, media and journalism, music and art, NGOs, politics, religion, human rights, science, the environment and the personal lives of everyone who is using them. This conference will be taking place on December 16, 2011 at 12:00 PM at Issam Fares Hall at the American University of Beirut . The conference is open to the general public, and is free of charge. However, due to the limited capacity, it is required that you register beforehand so yo...

What I donated on Cityville As you might know A massive 8.9 magnitude earthquake hit the Pacific Ocean nearby Northeastern Japan at around 2:46pm on March 11 (JST) causing damage with blackouts, fire and tsunami [ google ]. And I'm sure a lot of you would like to help, no matter how small the contribution. Here's a way that I found that you can donate to Japan through social games (and for free). Zynga is a social network game developer located in San Francisco, California, United States. The company develops browser-based games that work both stand-alone and as application widgets on social networking websites such as Facebook and MySpace. [ wikipedia ] They are now offering 100% price donations when you buy premium items that are designed for this purpose. And yes, I am saying "buy", but in fact you won't be spending a dime (well real ones anyway). Zynga's "Save the Children" Campaign If you are like me, you would have probably played...

My friends and probably people who follow me on twitter probably know that I do not like Apple (probably much more than not liking - perhaps despising). I'm sick of people keep bombarding their Apple products in my face every time I say something, and I am sick of the shameless brainwashed promotions from live conversations to social media to TV programs and ads. Upon the request of one of my friends, I would like to share my reasons for this hatred to Apple as a whole, and not any certain product. The Apple brainwashed culture   It is perhaps what I hate about it the most: the over-zealous fans (or shall I call addicts) who are eating, drinking and breathing Apple and are basically walking billboards for the company. I like Google and Facebook and you don't see me shamelessly promoting them like crazy every chance I get. And it's not even just that, Apple owners think they are better than other people, that they are some sort of super-humans. Let me tell you this: o...

I was doing some google search a while ago and I was totally struck by  google.com 's front page. Google.com (not even the Lebanese version  google.com.lb  that I don't use because it returns the search in Arabic even though I try to change it all the time) has the Lebanese flag on its main logo to celebrate Lebanese Independences day which falls today (November 22). I'm glad that at least google is giving this day some attention. Personally, I don't care that much since I don't believe that Lebanon is completely independent anyway. Ironically if you press on the link, you would see this leads to a search result for "Lebanon Independence Day". The third result for this search would be:  PressTV - Iran hails Lebanon Independence Day . Could my point BE any more proven? Snap shot from google.com Happy Lebanese Independence Everyone!

December is proving to be a very busy month for me, as well as social media enthusiasts and Arab intellectuals. Below are four conferences/forums/conventions To kick December off, AUB's Online Collaborative will be hosting its first Blogging Lebanon convention on December 3 where Lebanese bloggers and Arab and International bloggers in Lebanon in the area will be joining to share their experience and give valuable insight about the blogging scene in the Arab World. Click here for the latest information about this event . The Arab Thought Foundation is holding its annual conference " Fikr 9 " which will take place this year in Beirut on December 8 & 9 with a special workshop for youth on December 7. This year's conference has the theme of "Building the Future." The conference will address the major issues facing the Arab World. During my meeting with the organizers last week, they have expressed their great enthusiasm about welcoming bloggers who...

Remember a while back, I was writing for Align, the business school newspaper at AUB, and then dramatically got fired for expressing my opinion on my personal blog? ( more info ) Well get this... They still published my articles online, without mentioning my name. I'm pretty sure this breaks some copyright laws or something. What crime did I commit for them not to mention my name? Last time I checked, I didn't murder anyone. Well at least google knows the truth!  It's bad enough that they haven't paid me yet for the two months I worked there. Well, to be fair, none of the other staff writers got their pay checks yet! Imagine that. People working for almost four months now haven't been paid a dime. I am seriously glad that I got "fired" early on. Way to be proffessional, Align!

I have recieved an interesting email recently from Anne Lee, who has informed me that Mind Soup is a googlewhack. A Googlewhack is a kind of a contest for finding a Google search query consisting of exactly two words without citation marks, that return exactly one hit, no less no more. A Googlewhack must consist of two actual words found in a dictionary. A Googlewhack is considered legitimate if both of the searched-for words appear as live links in Answers.com in the blue bar above the Google results. Published googlewhacks are shortlived, since when published to a web site, the new number of hits will become at least two, one to the original hit found, and one to the publishing site. For that reason, I will not publish what exactly the two words, to preserve this googlewhack as long as possible. Can you find them on your own? If you do, please click here to inform me. Here are the official rules of googlewhack. Thank you Anne Lee for informing me.

I have been reading a book called 55 Ways to Have Fun With Google and found the section below under chapter 9 and I thought I'd share it with you guys. You can download the whole book here . We might forget how much fun a search engine is, and how much time it saves us in doing everyday things, until the internet connection is interrupted and we’re left without Google. (Or, and this happens more rarely, when Google itself is down.) But usually after some minutes, things are back to normal – and we got our extended memory, our library of more books we could ever read, our information center, and our universal answer machine. And now, for just a moment, I would like you to imagine what today’s life would be without all that. What life would be without Google... and how much more time we’d be spending on solving our problems. Finding Your Lost Keys With Google: You enter “How to find lost keys” into Google, and the pages you find suggest to search every place again. Time spent...