In the first year of high school in Egypt (equivalent to grade 10 in North America), I had a story called Operation Mastermind by L.G. Alexander, published by Longmans. This was in the mid 1970s.

If Drupal was a country, what would its constitution say?

We, [FAPI] arrays [organized into] nodes ...

Or at least that is what this post on Drupal comments by Bert Boerland implies ...

The Dilbert cartoon strip has a very funny, yet telling one today.

Pointy Haired Bossess (PHBs) often treat number of sheep in a herd like number of programmers on a team. So, for a project that requires 300 man days, the PHB hires 300 people to finish the project in one day!

Hint: See The Mythical Man Month for more details. 

Also see it in the archives.

I managed to induct a non-Egyptian into the "I love Egyptian fava beans" club.

Noel Hidalgo tweeted: "Dear world, fava beans rule".

There are several ways to eat cooked fava beans: see the Egyptian Cuisine Recipes web site ful medames section.

Another scam claiming to be from "Microsoft and AOL email beta".

From: MICROSOFT GOLDEN JUBILEE PROMOTION <crowsds@cox.net>
Date: Aug 31, 2007 4:16 AM
Subject: CONTACT YOUR CLAIMS AGENT(MR KEN GATE) FOR CLAIMS PROCEDURE

Dear Lucky winner,

GOLDEN JUBILEE PROMOTION BY MICROSOFT

The gap between rich and poor is widening. An example from the USA, is that a CEO makes in one day, what a worker makes in an entire year.

Chief executive officers of big U.S. companies earned roughly as much each day last year as the average American production worker did in 12 months, according to a study published Wednesday by advocates of a higher U.S. minimum wage.

The CEOs were paid an average $10.8 million US — including salaries, bonuses and stock options— or more than 364 times the average worker's $29,544, the authors say.

I saw this a while back, and thought that it raises a good point: the cost of experience! 

A furnace repairman coming to a home and after looking at the furnace for about a minute and a half, listening to the rumbles and gurgles. He takes his hammer out and at once precise place he hits the furnace. The furnace starts up and runs fine as if it was brand new.

The bill was $200.

The homeowner asks why so much when all he did was hit it once with a hammer?

The repairman takes back the bill, and itemizes the bill still totaling $200.

Another advance fee fraud email, with a bit of a new wording. 

From: "Mr. Jubril Abubakar." <JubrilAbubakar@new.rr.com>
Date:  Aug 28, 2007 7:59 PM     
Subject: CONTACT MY A/C OFFICER FOR YOUR CHEQUE OF US$700.000.00 COMPENSATION!     

Dear Partner,

Its been quite a long time and maybe you may have forgotten completely about me and my transaction. In all case, I thank God and I am happy to inform you about my success in getting those funds transferred under the co-operation of a new partner from paraguay.

I have very little time to read general blogs. I visit random blogs of various Egyptians occasionally when a link is passed on to me or when I am lost or something.

I don't know when the topic of this post started to happen, but I am amazed at the amount of foul language in use by Egyptian bloggers currently.

Perhaps it is a meme that I missed, or perhaps something else.

Previously, extremely offensive language was used only by anonymous posters when they tried ad hominen attacks on the blogger. Alaa and Manal's blog had many of these for example.

Drupaller Noel Hidalgo is traveling the world in seven months and documenting Open Source, Drupal, freedom, and many other aspects of his experience in his Luck of Seven web site.

In Antwerp, he met with Drupal founder, Dries Buytaert, and interviewed him.

The interview is now up on the Luck of Seven web site.

Warning for those on a slow link: this is 132MB.