Category Archives: Viva!

IRIN | Slave to the algorithm – Islamic scholar gave birth to computers and Silicon Valley!

The ninth-century polymath Muhammad ibn Musa al-Khwarizmi began his most famous book: “When I considered what people generally want in calculating, I found that it is always a number.” A millennium later, people want a lot of calculating, and luckily al-Khwarizmi lent his name to the simple mathematical concept that helps us to meet that need: the algorithm.An algorithm is only a set of step-by-step instructions for carrying out a task. For example, my recipe for Plumpy’Nut Surprise is the algorithm I follow when I have Jan Egeland over for dinner. (Jan, if you’re reading this, I hope you’re feeling better.) Yet algorithms are more powerful than they first appear. Google’s internet search? Based on algorithms. Amazon’s book recommendations? Based on algorithms. Facebook’s news feed? Go on, guess.

Source: IRIN | Slave to the algorithm

Ieshia Evans, woman in protest photo, describes Baton Rouge arrest as ‘work of God’ – ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)

Ms Evans, the mother of a five-year-old son, travelled to Baton Rouge “because she wanted to look her son in the eyes to tell him she fought for his freedom and rights,” according to R Alex Haynes, who said on Facebook he had known Ms Evans since childhood.A jail log from the East Baton Rouge Sheriff’s Office showed an Ieshia Evans, 35, was booked on a charge of simple obstruction of a highway and had been released from custody.Reuters could not reach Ms Evans for comment.After her arrest, Ms Evans ended another Facebook post with: “Peace, love, blk power!#blacklivesmatter.”She asked friends not to give interviews on her behalf, saying she wanted to tell her own story, but later said she was not ready to speak to reporters.”I want to get home to my son,” she wrote. “I’ve been through a lot.”

Source: Ieshia Evans, woman in protest photo, describes Baton Rouge arrest as ‘work of God’ – ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)

Egyptian Aak 2016 -Week 27 -2016 (July 4-10)

Great run down on the previous week – good links

Nervana

FM in Israel

Egyptian foreign minister visits Israel

Top Headlines

  • Egyptian foreign minister to talk Middle East peace in rare visit to Israel
  • Egypt to receive alleged Egypt Air MS804 wreckage washed ashore in Israel
  • Traders are betting Egypt will weaken the pound as soon as Tuesday
  • Egypt considers retaliations for Italy’s decision to cut military supplies

 Main Headlines

 Monday

 Tuesday

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#In the Shadows of Men

نادية حرحش

How many times did I feel the ravages of divorce and its painful flaming burns? How often have I thought that marriage under the shadow of one man is more merciful? And yet, inhaling the air of freedom is different. Feeling that I’d been freed from the prison I used to share with him was, by itself, an achievement. I was breathing again. All I wanted was to take a fresh breath. I needed that sigh of relief. The divorce made me see houses through its windows. Peering into homes from the outside revealed something different about the people inside—how we live inside our homes in double standards and lies.

What I have seen of the man’s world makes me feel as though the tragedy of my marriage was nothing but normal. I came to realize that betrayal may be a fundamental part of society. I will not place the…

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NYTimes: Philando Castile Shooting Fits a Pattern of Violence Toward Blacks, Governor Says

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/08/us/philando-castile-falcon-heights-shooting.html?smprod=nytcore-iphone&smid=nytcore-iphone-share

Before Black Lives Matter made this type of shooting to the front of everyone’s minds, can you imagine how many lives have been cut short by this type of execution in the last 55 years?

Eat away: Italian study shows pasta doesn’t make you fat – The Local

It turns out, that even among people who don’t follow a healthy Mediterranean diet, pasta is still associated with a more streamlined physique. But why does pasta make you slimmer?The precise mechanisms are still a mystery, but scientists think it has to do with the foods we tend to eat pasta with.“Pasta intake was observed as being associated with the intake of other important food groups, such as tomatoes, garlic, olive oil and onions,” – foods, which can all be helpful when losing weight.The true extent of pasta’s weight loss powers will perhaps be revealed by a future study. Until then, feel free to tuck into as much pasta as you like, safe in the knowledge that a plate of spaghetti in and of itself is not going to cause you to balloon. Buon appetito!

Source: Eat away: Italian study shows pasta doesn’t make you fat – The Local

In the shadows of a Narcissist

Freedom is your destiny! “Another moment of trying to liberate myself … liberate myself from all the fears that lock me and prevent me from feeling free …” People, things and ideas only have the power you give to them. Never an easy path for any of us – you are doing a grand job – just you – the power and freedom in you from birth is now reborn!

نادية حرحش

As I am approaching, finally, the date of the launching of my book. A feeling that is mixed with many different emotions and sensations. From the moment I realized the book was finally printed out, the stir of emotions didn’t stop. A mixture of happiness that is tilled blocked, but yet felt. Fear of failure in terms of not having the book meeting the expectations of the people. Worries of what this entire new step is taking me towards. Expectations that are high and low. Dreams that are sneaking out of the locks of my suppression.

Amid all this, I am looking forward that date … embracing it with all my ability with hope and a horizon of a new opportunity in life.

I felt cared about in many ways as I posted about it on Facebook. I kind of didn’t expect that people really care or even bother to…

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Ramadan and terror under the name of God

At times like these, one can almost succumb to the wish that God could smite down the enemies of God and humanity – especially those who claim to kill in God’s name and not their self-delusions. But God is about peace, love, justice, and mercy. May God bless, have mercy, and forgive those who have been murdered and mercy, blessing and forgiveness to the murderers, as well.

نادية حرحش

Is it Ramadan that is causing all this outrage among the Muslims? As if all this violence and crimes have been saved to sprint out in this month.Last year like these days of the holy month killings erupted from Tunisia, to Kuwait, to Egypt. Sinai and Sheikh Zweid ….This year the expansion of islamic terror. I feel embarrassed to call it this …but what can it be called other than that . all this terror . this horrific non stop murders of innocents in hundreds from so called muslims to muslims. In Iraq hundreds were lost in a horrific last days of Ramadan scenes … In Mecca… the holiest Muslim site.

I was looking into my previous articles and found this . Each time I think that what we experience from a deterioration of humanity under the name of God only gets worse. All fight under the name of…

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the sin of being occupied

ISIS is a danger that suddenly popped out and the world is organizing its efforts to exterminate. Living under this occupation is like an inhibited disease that keeps eating us from within. It is not serial murders that can make the difference. But the systematic ethnic cleansing that continues to take place since 67 years.
We are deemed by an evil stronger than that masked under fanatic slogans that call for death to others… we are a systematic operation of extermination that continues to make is the sacrifice of a sin we never committed.

نادية حرحش

A year after the ugly murder of Mohammad Abu Khdeir on the hand of a group of fanatic Jews. The fanatic army of the state of Israel hunted down another young life, pointing again to Ramadan. A young (17 years) man smuggling himself out to the Aqsa on a Friday prayer.
In the last weeks, shootings on the Qalandia check point appeared like becoming a norm. And our passivity towards it, as if with everything else, is nothing but a norm as well. We make some shallow screams in that instant and then our life continues in the same tone the moment next.
Sometimes it feels as if this earth on this very ground is hungry for the blood of its people. As if those slain bodies are nothing but a natural sacrifice the earth needs from its people.
Whatever the mystery behind this continuous tragedy of being on this…

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