Author: Mark

There are a bunch of interesting things taking place this weekend. Tonight theres the NANTA Korean Cultural Performance which is also free to watch. Then there is the Auto Moto 16 car show which I have yet to pass by but I’m hoping to do so today. I’m also a sucker for car boot sales and there is one this Saturday at The English School. Check out the full list of events below:

Thursday
The Honey Bee Exhibition
Auto Moto 16
Art Exhibition: Complicity
NANTA – Korean Cultural Performance
Rooftop Movie: The Purple Rose of Cairo
The Avenues Food Market

Friday
The Honey Bee Exhibition
Auto Moto 16
The Avenues Food Market

Saturday
The Honey Bee Exhibition
Auto Moto 16
Qout Market
Yoga at the Park
Car Boot Sale at The English School
Madeenah Tour: Sulaibikhat Coast
K’S PATH Shelter Open Day
Protein Sheikhas: Bootcamp
Rooftop Movie: A Girl Walks Home Alone At Night
The Avenues Food Market

If you’d like to share an event on the blog [Email Me]
For a full list of upcoming events click [Here]

Sometimes events get canceled, postponed or have details changed. Always double check info with organizers.

As promised, here is the video I spoke about yesterday morning on Kuwait’s vision for 2035. The video is pretty long at 23 minutes so if you want to skip to the interesting parts forward to minute 13:48. Just to give you an idea of how large Bubiyan Island is, Manhattan New York is 87 square kilometres while Bubiyan is 863 square kilometres. It’s literally ten times larger so you can imagine how wasted the space is right now.

Watching the video gives me the impression that fixing Kuwait is going to be such a difficult task that they decided it might be easier to just build a new Kuwait from scratch on Bubiyan. I’m curious to know if alcohol be legal on the islands? My guess it would have to be if they’re hoping to attract tourism. [YouTube]

If you haven’t taken the survey yet I’d really appreciate it if you do. I’m hoping to close the survey tomorrow so I can spend the weekend going through all the feedback and comments so I can start planning for 2016. It short, it takes two minutes and every feedback counts. Here is the [Link]

Last week Netflix announced it was going to start blocking users who are accessing their content via services like VPN, DNS and proxies. Now that Netflix is available all over the world they’re trying to geo-lock the users in the countries they’re based in. But, for those of you who’ve tried accessing Netflix Kuwait you might have noticed it’s missing content the US version has (like House of Cards).

I’m personally still accessing Netflix using my US based DNS because I don’t like being limited with what to watch. I was a bit concerned that once Netflix starts blocking these services I’d be stuck with local Netflix content but from what I’ve been reading online, it doesn’t look like thats going to happen. According to various news articles I read it seems what Netflix wants to do isn’t technically possible or at least not foolproof so we’re safe for now. Check out this article with more details on this [Here]

Yesterday the Amir was presented a video showing a proposed project for developing the Kuwaiti islands Boubyan, Failaka, Awha, Warba and Miskan. I watched the video late last night and I’m in complete awe. The video presentation is around 20 minutes long and showcases ideas on what could be done to our islands. It was pretty inspirational and really made me realize how lucky we are to have all these islands around us. But, it also made me realize how we are under utilizing the islands even though there is so much potential.

I don’t have permission to share the video just yet, I was told it should be launching officially sometime today so for now I’ll just share some screenshots below. I’ve already uploaded the video online so once I get the green light I’ll share it right away.

Kuwait Up To Date uploaded a video a couple of hours ago showing the kitchen at the restaurant Tick-it inside the Kuwait Airport on fire. Based on the video it looks like security personal were trying to contain the fire with extinguishers but were having difficulty since the fire was still burning by the end of the video. If anyone has any more info on this share it below. [YouTube]

The intro is hilarious! No idea who this guy is but he’s actually a pretty entertaining host. FYI it’s in Arabic. [YouTube]

Since around 2007 and up until last year I had basically been loyal to one earphone brand and thats Ultimate Ears. They were so good that I ended up going through three pairs, I started with the Ultimate Ears SuperFi 5 Pro in 2007 and then upgraded to the TripleFi 10 until they stopped working so I bought a second pair of the same ones. I just couldn’t find anything better for the price and decided to stick to them even though they had failed me. Then last year my second pair started failing as well so I decided to look for an alternative.

After a lot of research I ended up getting the Sennheiser IE80. There were a number of factors that played into my decision with the main ones being the sound signature, the price, the comfort and the brand. Trying to buy a pair of earphones without being able to try them on and listening to them is extremely difficult. Why would you choose a pair of $150 earphones over a pair of $100 ones or how much better do a pair of $500 or even $1,000 pair of earphones sound over a $300 pair? Theres an earphone at every price point and I had to go through tons of reviews and read hundreds of different comments by people in various forums before I could finally decide on a pair. What made things more complicated with me was that I didn’t really have a budget. I didn’t mind paying $70 and I wouldn’t have minded paying $500 since music is important for me and so I really need to have great sounding earphones. I think I might have even been willing to pay a $1,000 if it meant I’d be getting ear euphoria followed by a happy ending from an Eastern European model.

One of the most important factors in choosing an earphone would be the amount and quality of bass they had. I listen to a lot of electronic music and really need deep bass to thoroughly enjoy the music. But I didn’t want boomy bass and I also didn’t want the rest of the sound spectrum to be muddled. Based on what I read the Sennheiser IE80’s fit into what I was looking for. They also cost around $280 which wasn’t too bad and from all the reviews I read they seemed to be very comfortable as well so I went a head and ordered a pair last July while I was in LA.

When I first got the IE80’s I was actually disappointed with the sound since I found them too bright and lacking deep bass. Even when I tried all the different earphone tips provided with the earphones I couldn’t get the bass to the level I needed it to be. After going back to some forums and reading up I noticed a lot of people were recommending to combine the IE80’s with a pair of Comply T-500 Foam Tips. So I ordered a pair of those tips and I’m so glad I did. They completely changed how the earphones sounded by providing better isolation which resulted in much deeper bass. Since then I’ve been using the IE80’s frequently including on 5 plane trips that were over 10 hours long. They’re very comfortable and they sound insanely good, better than any pair of earphones I’ve previously used. The only down side I have with them is their carrying case which I find a bit too big and bulky to carry and also not that practical to use. Other than that minor issue I’d highly recommend these earphones. If when you do get a pair and the bass seems a bit weak even after burning them in then do what I did and order the Comply tips as well.

I bought my pair of IE80’s from Amazon for KD86 [Link] but they’re available locally at aDawliah for KD117. The Comply T-500 tips cost me another KD5 and I bought those from Amazon as well [Link].

Boulevard is a project that seems like it’s been under construction for an eternity. The first time I posted about the project it was back in 2010 and the project was already well under way by then. Boulevard is located in Salmiya right off the 5th Ring Road and opposite Souk Salmiya. It’s a large project that contains a bunch of things including a mall, a restaurant complex, parks and even a cricket field. I passed by it last April and was impressed with the size of the whole thing but the project still didn’t have any water back then so there was no greenery or lakes. But, a reader just emailed me recent photos of the place and looks pretty nice. According to the reader, Boulevard is expected to open in 3 months time but no official date has been set yet. Check out all the photos below.

A user sent me a link to a proposal by the Directorate General of Civil Aviation on drones and other unmanned aircrafts. I’ve been going through the proposal now and here are some points I think are worth highlighting:

For Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UAS) Under 5KG (Private Use)
– The UAS shall not be operated within 300 Meters of any person, vessel, vehicle or structure not under the control of the UAS operator; and additionally, during take-off or landing the UAS shall not be flown within 200 Meters of any person, unless that person is under the control of the aircraft operator;

– UAV shall not be operated over a congested areas, except with the permission of the DGCA; it shall not fly over public or private properties, or within 5km of Kuwait’s airport outer fence, Heliports, Helicopter landing Sites, and airfields and shall remain clear of control zones.

– DGCA UAV Registration required for UAV which have a total mass including batteries and equipment greater than 1/2kg. Registration shall be done through proper entity.

For Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UAS) Under 5KG (Commercial Use)
– DGCAA UAV Registration. Registration shall be done through proper entity.

– DGCA UAS Operating Approval.

– DGCA Security Approval when equipped with camera or other scanning or surveillance equipment.

For Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UAS) Over 5KG and Under 25KG (Private Use)
– DGCA approval shall be obtained if operating outside flying clubs air space or the DGCA allocated defined zones.

– UAV shall not be operated near public and private properties;

– Use of video or image capturing device shall be prohibited;

– The applicant shall fill DGCA form to purchase this category.The form can be obtained from proper entity.

So basically if you own a drone or any other unmanned air vheicle you’re going to have to register it. If you’re shooting video and selling the footage then you’re going need to also get approval to operate the drone and approval from the air aviation security department. Finally if you’ve got one of the larger aircraft (over 5KG) like the hobby planes, then you’re going to be very limited on where you could use the aircraft plus you need fill out a form to be able to purchase one.

One thing I found odd is how sometimes they say UAS and sometimes UAV. So I started googling some of the points from the document and turns out they’ve just copied pasted a bunch of stuff from different proposals around the world including from the British CAA and the Emirati GCAA.

If you’d like to download the proposal and check it out, here is the [Link]

Image is a screenshot of drone footage from film Inspiring Kuwait
Thanks Abdulwahab

We’re getting another TEDx event in Kuwait this year and it’s going to be held on March 24th under the theme of “greater than me”. The list of speakers hasn’t been finalized yet nor information on tickets, but you could follow them on [Instagram], [Facebook] or their [Website] to stay posted on any updates.

The last time I took a survey on the blog was in 2010. The feedback I got from everyone helped me improve the blog by allowing me to better understand who my readers are, what kind of content you’re interested in and what issues you might have.

Since its been more than 5 years since the last survey I figured it was time for another one. I’ve decided to keep the survey as simple as possible with just 18 questions that can be all answered in under two minutes. If you could please take the time and answer them that would be great. Your opinion matters. [Link]

I was just adding last years stats to my blogs media kit when I realized traffic on the blog this past year had increased tremendously over the previous year. I obviously knew traffic had increased since I monitor the stats on a daily basis but I hadn’t expected this much growth. I had roughly guessed traffic had increased by around 30% but after collecting all the data, it turns out traffic had increased by 56% over the previous year.

Page Views
2012: 3,525,263
2013: 3,089,212
2014: 3,037,706
2015: 4,509,005

Unique Visitors
2012: 2,615,214
2013: 2,289,155
2014: 1,941,236
2015: 2,858,175

What caused the traffic increase?
One theory I have is my content had improved which in return caused more interest. Another theory is that people were coming back to the blog because they were getting bored of instagram or maybe they realized the kind of content I was providing wasn’t available on instagram. Another reason I think is that people today are overwhelmed with content but with my blog I try to limit it to just three posts a day. That makes it easy to follow since I provide curated content instead of quantity. But, whatever the reason may be, the influx of traffic kept this blog alive.

The result?
Only my close friends know this but I was actually considering closing down the blog last February on the blogs 10 year anniversary. Traffic had dropped in 2014 and so I started losing interest in the blog. I tend not to spend a lot of time on projects, I like doing and try a lot of things and I jump from one project to another fairly quickly. Working 10 years on a single project was just incredibly long and if my blog had hit its peak then maybe it was about time I moved and obsessed over something else.

But last January I noticed traffic had started increasing and then when my blogs 10 year anniversary came about, traffic had increased even more. I thought that was an interesting turnaround and so I decided to hold off on closing down the blog just to see where all this was going. Every single month last year ended up performing better than the year before. The resurgence in traffic got me excited again about blogging and I started enjoying it like I did in the old days.

What now?
As long as traffic keeps increasing and as long as I continue to generate income from this blog I’m going to continue blogging.

A lot of people don’t understand the importance of my advertisers. If it wasn’t for my advertisers I would have shut down the blog a long time ago. My advertisers play a big role in keeping this blog alive and so do my readers. If it wasn’t for my readers coming back every day to read what I had to say I would have also shut down the blog a long time ago. I wouldn’t want to write if nobody was reading.

So as long as all the stars continue to align, then this blog will continue to stay up.

If you’re interested in visiting the Botanical Garden at Bayan Palace I have some good news (and a bit of bad news as well). The Bayan Botanical Garden is open to the general public every Thursday. You don’t need special permission or anything of the sort. All you need to do is give security your civil ID and they will let you access the garden.

The Bayan Botanical Garden contains three different zones with different kind of plants in each. It’s not that big but it’s still pretty cool and most of the plants are labeled with their names. There isn’t a guide book that contains details on the plants so if you’re really curious to know more about each plant be prepared to wikipedia from your phone.

Now for the bit of bad news. The Bayan Botanical Garden is open every Thursday… from 9AM to 1PM. That pretty much sucks for everyone who has a job. It also explains why the only other visitors at the garden while I was there were housewives with their kids. Still, it’s better than having no access at all. If you’d like to visit the garden, here is the location of the entrance on [Google Maps]

Thanks Maaz!

Busy weekend but super busy Saturday. Lots of things to do but the most popular event is probably the Russell Peters show. If you haven’t bought tickets already you’re out of luck since they’re already sold out. Check out the full list of events for this weekend below:

Thursday
The Honey Bee Exhibition
The Avenues Food Market
Good Vibes Festival
Film Screening: Vanishing of the Bees
Rooftop Movie: A Master Builder

Friday
The Honey Bee Exhibition
The Avenues Food Market
Gingerbread Cookie Decoration
Chill-Out Fridays

Saturday
The Honey Bee Exhibition
The Avenues Food Market
Spark Marathon
Farmers Trip
Guided Tour: Old Kuwait City
Yoga at the Park
Madeenah Tour: An Unexpected Landscape
Protein Sheikhas: Bootcamp
Art and a Burger on the Side
Urban Beekeeping: Talk and Live Demonstration
Rooftop Movie: Mood Indigo
Russell Peters Almost Famous in Kuwait

If you’d like to share an event on the blog [Email Me]
For a full list of upcoming events click [Here]

Note: Sometimes events get canceled, postponed or have details changed. I try to make sure all the information is accurate but always double check with the organizers to be sure.