Tuesday, October 31, 2006

Preemptive Psychotherapy

I was thinking about something and then I had the thought of "Preemptive psychotherapy." I got curious to see if such a thing existed, so I tried a Google search and a Yahoo search. Yahoo came up with nothing and Google came with one link which actually just mentions the term but had no relationship to any sort of psychotherapy.

"Preemptive psychotherapy," should not be such an alien idea if psychotherapy is considered "Care of the soul" as there should be no limits on how often care of the soul should take place. And who said that souls that do not suffer from "depression" should not get any "care."

Now regarding the cost of such a thing, I am sure that for many people who do not have "problems," the cost would be prohibitive.

Wednesday, October 25, 2006

Revised Eid

In the spirit of the Eid(actually this has nothing to do with spirit of the Eid, but with my need to offer my two(more like 10)cents,) I hereby offer my suggestions to improve the Eid:

1) Phone call before coming over to visit. The fact people do not call is a case in point regarding old habits dying hard. Back in the 70s most people did not have phones, so that is why they used to visit without calling advance. With everyone and his cousin having a mobil nowadays it no longer makes sense not to call in advance and see if people are staying home or going out.
2) Give gifts instead of giving money; if one got money, one spends it. That can not happen with a gift. Also with gift, one can remember a few years down the line that he got a certain gift from a certain person for the Eid of 2006.

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Sunday, October 22, 2006

Actual Inflation Numbers

Approx 2 weeks after I wrote my Pizza Inflation blog, I learned that the actual inflation numbers for 2005 and 2006 are around 7%, so I was actually on the mark.

It also makes sense that the government decided to postpone the increase in fuel prices to the middle of next year. Otherwise, we would have ended up with something like 8-8.5%.

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Female Employee Quota

The other day, I went to visit one of my annoying customers (90% of my customers are annoying to varying degrees). Any, what is somewhat peculiar about this customer is that this customer is in Naour which is very close to Marj Al Hamam, and to Amman in general. I would even consider this customer inside Amman. The peculiar part is that this customer has over one 100 employees and not a single one of them is a female. So when I was there annoyed at this fact, that was when it hit me; why doesn't the government have a law that specifies a quota for women workers just like they did for the lower house?

I can already see problems in the implementation, especially in areas where companies do not have their own buses and the public transportation service to this area is poor.

Well for starters, the government can start with a very small quota, something like 5-10% for companies with more than 50 employees. Additionally, the Government need not fully implement such a project. It can start with a pilot project in the Sahab industrial zone, or something of sort.

One of the other hurdles that could face such an endeavor is the that fact that we are in the 21st century, and still some families prohibit their daughters from engaging in any sort of work or even seeking employment.

This is a very sorry state of affairs. But the Government has to start somewhere. And that somewhere is with a quota system.

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Government Copies My Ideas

Back in May, I wrote:

"I have really no solution for this problem; I really do not know how to make the Jordanian people want to work, or accept menial jobs instead of no jobs. Maybe having mandatory military service would help, not the previously used 2 yrs version, which I bet sucked big time, and cost the government too much, but a 90 days version. Suggesting this is a bit hypocritical on my part, because I would not even do military service for money."

Here is the link:

http://mohammedraeiblog.blogspot.com/2006_05_01_mohammedraeiblog_archive.html

This week, I was reading the newspapers and guess what, the Government wants to bring back the mandatory military service and for 90 days. Is it coincidence or someone in the Government is stealing my ideas?

Wednesday, October 18, 2006

Jordan Sucks Up The Water

I was looking up some facts about Jordan and other countries on the Wikipedia. Then I nocticed something: On the page for Jordan, Jordan had an area of 89,342 kmĀ², with water being negative 0.01%. Yes Negative. I am not sure if this a typing mistake. But if not, it sort of does explain our water problems.

Monday, October 16, 2006

Qualifications Of The Minister of Culture

Subject to securing a work permit, I am willing to relocate to the USA, Western Europe, Canada, or any country where English is the primary language.
I was talking with my friend about various culturally oriented issues and the subject of the minister of culture came up. As I do not watch the news or read the local paper I did not know who the culture minister of the month was. My friend said that the last or current one was/is a poet. He also said that he was not very good. I said that is normal, the best doctor can not run a hospital; the best sales man is not well suited to be a sales manager and so on. This is well know in the management world and is well documented, but somehow the government did not hear about it. So they still put mediocre performing people to serve as ministers. Anyway, I will be going a list of qualifications for the various minister's positions. Today I will start with the minister of culture. So here I go:

1) No moustache, and no big belly
2) Good command of English language. Command of additional languages a big plus.
3) A BS/BA degree as minimum but no PhD's as PhD's tend to be too impractical
4) Lived abroad for at least a few years
5) Does not consider the Maa'n Dabkeh Group great
6) Visited at least 20 art shows and knows a few local artists
7) Attended many cultural events in and outside Jordan, including art shows, theater, music concerts and the like.
8) Can work with other people and has a vision
9) Has limited interest in control
10) Can work with local artists, musicians, the foreign embassy donor community on "promoting" and "improving" culture, through the holding of various events and also improve the quality of local TV and Radio programming.
11) Must have an IQ of at least 120
12) Must have an EQ of at least 110

One other suggestion regarding choosing ministers, I know that in most countries, ministers are chosen by the prime minister. But that is very stupid, IMNSHO(in my not so humble opinion.) This a job and I think a job at the level of minister should no be decided by one person (the prime minister in this case). In an ideal situation, the minister would choose 3 candidates for each position, and a non partisan panel would interview these candidates, review their credentials and previous work and choose the most qualified person for the job.

This is somewhat a better system, but then the problem that arises is how to choose the best people for this panel? I do not know the answer yet, so I will leave it for another blog.

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Wednesday, October 11, 2006

They Never Learn

When I travel to the US, EU, or even Lebanon, I visit shopping malls. These shopping malls have least one rest room on every floor. This is somewhat logical. But it would appear that logic and common sense are a scarce commodity here in Jordan.

The "old" building of the Mecca mall has restrooms only on the food court floor and only at one end. This is very annoying for people who go to the mall as they have to specifically go to that particular floor if they wanted to use the restroom.

One would expect such a problem to be rectified in the new Mecca mall extension. Alas, it is somewhat stupid on my part to take such a thing for granted; even logical stuff can not be taken for granted in a country like Jordan.

Anyway, the Mecca mall extension, still has a problem in terms of the fact that you can not find restrooms on every floor. This is sad, as I do know for sure that in engineering handbooks for commercial buildings, they list everything from bathrooms, HVAC, to floorings, etc. They do not even leave the minutest detail to chance. It is a shame that people who designed the extension building probably did not bother to read these handbooks, or maybe never heard of them.

Tuesday, October 10, 2006

Jordan TV

I am not sure if I wrote about this before, but despite the fact that I do not watch TV in general, I can not help but complain about Jordan TV. I am not sure what is wrong with these guys, but they never have a decent looking female news announcers. The beauty level of these news announcers is much lower than the Jordanian average. I highly suspect that:

A) TV Jordan does not pay good salaries or good benefits

B) Wasta and cronyism

C) Hiring announcers with a certain ethnic heritage and not others

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Friday, October 06, 2006

Really Funny Article

I found this really funny article on the thenation.com website:

http://www.thenation.com/doc/20060925/us_to_undermine_gates


The not so funny part is that if you did not know that this article is not a humor one, you would totally believe it.

This sort of thing is not very far fetched.

If they said that this was not a humor article and that they uncovered a secret US government program for such Misanthropic aims, I have would totally believe it.

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Wednesday, October 04, 2006

Fight AIDS

I leave my computer on at least for 14 hours every day, during that time I am away from the computer for at least 4.

Well, the other day I got an e-mail from IHIQS regarding donating computer time towards a certian distributed computing projects, which I no longer can remember.

Anyhow, I did some digging up on the internet to find out how I can help the rest of humanity by donating free computer(CPU) cycles.

One of the most interesting projects is the fightAIDS@home.

To help, visit the following website:

http://fightaidsathome.scripps.edu/

There is no money involved what so ever.

To know about other distributed computing projects, there is a list on the Wikipedia

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_distributed_computing_projects

The Genius

Some of us do not want to pay $$$$ for software, and the truth is some companies like M$ overcharge many $$$ for their software.


Some nice guys/gals write software and put it up to be used for free. There are several websites that have tons of free software, like zdnet, and download.com and so on. The problem is that they do not tell you in a really meaningful way which software is really good. They have a star based rating system which is marginally helpful in the absence of a meaningful review

Enter my cousin's "free ware genius" website:
http://www.freewaregenius.com
With this website, you will probably never need to pay for software again. That being said, the nice guys/gals who write the free software need to earn a living, with that in mind I would suggest that if you like the software you have downloaded, that you make a small donation to the software writer, if his/her website or download page allows it.

Tuesday, October 03, 2006

Vital Friends



I finished reading "Vital Friends." This is a great book and very easy to read. It is only 152 pages if you exclude the appendices. So, it can be finished in a few sittings.

Here are some of the books findings:

*People who have friend(s) at work are significantly less likely to quit.
*They are also happier
*Have less health problems

The book recommends that companies enourage on the job friendships and not to totally seperate one's social life from ones work life.

The Book then talks about the different types of friends and the different roles they play in helping ones well being and career at work.

Finally, the book talks about how to grow these friendships and making them
stronger.

I have the hard cover edition, which I got as a gift from my cousin. If you are not happy with work, one of the reasons could be the fact you have no best friends at work. If this is the case, go ahead and buy the hard cover edition. Otherwise, you can wait until the soft cover or paper back version is out. Even for those of us who are happy with their work and friendships this book offers some good information and would help you better understand your friendships.

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