My favorite coffee place Arabica just opened up their second location in Kuwait and it’s HUGE. The new location which they’ve called the Arabica Roastery consists of two main areas, the main coffeeshop with interior and outdoor seating, and the roastery where they’ll be selling beans to businesses (B2B) as well as offer training on how to make coffee.
Arabica will also be selling coffee making gear at this location. So for example you’ll be able to buy an AeroPress or a coffee dripper from them, and they’ll show you how to use them properly and get the best tasting coffee out of them. With the new location they’ve also introduced new items on their menu, most notably Matcha Latte and baguette sandwiches.
The new Arabica Roastery is located in Shuwaikh on the same street as Lilly Center and right next to the newly opened Healthy Feast. Their opening hours as of this post is from 4PM to 10PM. Here is their location on [Google Maps] and their instagram is @arabica.kuwait
One of my favorite healthy restaurants just opened up in Shuwaikh a few days back. Healthy Feast is a whole foods restaurant that serves fresh, local, organic and gluten free dishes. I probably pass by their Bneid Al Gar location once a week or so but that location is pretty tiny and difficult to have a conversation with someone without everybody around you eavesdropping. Their new location is a lot bigger and they’ve even added new dishes to the menu.
The new Healthy Feast is located in Shuwaikh on the same street as Lilly Center and right next to the newly opened Arabica Roastery. Their opening hours as of this post is from 3PM to 10PM. Here is their location on [Google Maps] and their instagram is @healthy_feast
If you want to read my previous post on Healthy Feast, click [Here]
Around 10 days back there was a rumor going around that Talabat went under a cyberattack. I got a few messages saying that Talabat accounts were hacked and that users credit card and Knet information was compromised. I figured that was bullshit because Talabat doesn’t save our bank details, I wish it did so I wouldn’t have to enter my Knet information every single damn time I order something. A couple of days later, the Talabat CEO issued the following statement:
“We are aware of the rumors circulating today around Talabat, and would like to reassure our customers that these are absolutely false. We have experienced no disruption within our system and no customer issues have been reported around this. Our online payment is processed via trusted third party platforms and we do not store any banking information on our system. As a business that was established in Kuwait in 2004, data security is paramount to our business model and we have made security and privacy a core part of our structure.” Abdulhamid Alomar, CEO, Talabat
After that things kinda went quiet until yesterday people started leaving comments on the blog and emailing me asking me if Knet was down. Then, this morning a reader emailed me telling me the twitter user DedSec (@DedSecIsHere) had been taking credit for the recent attacks. Based on what I could put together from his tweets, he had previously contacted people at the various institutes warning them of security holes only to be ignored. So I decided to get in touch with him via Twitter and find out what was going on.
First thing I needed to do was verify he was who he says he was and not just someone pretending to be the hacker involved in the recent attacks. So I asked him if he could prove it to me and he replied asking if he should bring down my banks website. Literally 45 seconds later, my banks website was down. Freaky.
According to DedSec, he had been contacting and warning different government and private institutes of their cybersecurity flaws for months now, only to be ignored or told they would fix them soon. But none of them fixed any of the issues he highlighted which left their security vulnerabilities wide open for other hackers who didn’t have the institutes best intention in mind to exploit. Since everyone was ignoring him, DedSec decided to bring down their servers himself so he could grab their attention and hopefully listen to him. He shared with me a list of different businesses that included banks, food ordering websites and telecoms that had security holes, and according to him, the institute with the weakest security system was a payment gateway (lawyer told me I can’t mention which), even though they had received a lot of warnings.
DedSec explained to me that by having a weak security system, it would make it easy to launch attacks on, including “man-in-the-middle attacks” where a hacker can spy on the connection and get the data that is not encrypted properly. So even though your information isn’t saved on their system, there is a potential for it to be read as the information is relayed from your end to their servers end.
@AzizAlW My main goal is to show how bad is the protection, Kuwait has a strong youth with cyber intelligence who are ignored
The more I spoke to DedSec, the more I realized how frustrated he was with the lack of qualified people involved in securing some of our important websites. His pinned tweet states that Kuwait has talented young people with cyber intelligence that are being ignored. He told me there were hacker groups from Iraq, Iran and the USA who have been penetrating our systems and quietly stealing our data. I asked him how he knew that and he replied telling me that he did what IT departments haven’t been doing, and that is checking the server logs for unusual activity.
me and @master_roomi are fixing those problems that i found in the websites instead of attacking them, have a chill day everyone
As I finish up this post, DedSec’s last tweet states that he has now teamed up with Raed Alroomi (@master_roomi), a retired Colonel and information security and cyber crime consultant to fix the exploits he’s found instead of attacking the websites. Hopefully now with Raed’s help, local institutes will finally patch up their vulnerabilities.
Update: Here is an interview with Raed Alroomi that was just posted onto YouTube that discusses the recent attacks. It’s in Arabic but in short, the attacks this week were DDoS attacks, he recommends you don’t use your Knet card online for the next few days until things settle down, and finally he wants to bring all the Kuwaiti hackers and Kuwaiti IT specialist together to volunteer and run penetration tests on the important government websites. He thinks the government should support the local talent and that they should be more involved in securing important local websites.
A busy busy weekend with a bunch of markets and live music events taking place. The IMPROVengers are also back again this weekend. Check out the full list of events below:
A couple of years back I put together a list of local online shopping stores and ever since I’ve been quietly updating it. But now it got to the point where I also felt I needed to organize the list properly which is why I decided to create a new updated list.
Below are all the local online shopping websites I am aware of. If there are any missing let me know in the comments, the websites have to be based in Kuwait and allow you to purchase items directly from it.
I’ve been wanting to shutdown the Community (Forum) section of the blog for some time now. With the introduction of my Classifieds section it pulled a lot of traffic away from the forum and then with the introduction of Kuwestions, it basically pulled whatever traffic that was left.
The only reason I actually kept the forum up this long was for sentimental reasons. I know a couple who met in the forum and ended up getting married (How cool is that?), so kinda figured they’d want to keep all their first messages to each other. I already got in touch with them and told them to go in and save all their old conversations and once they’re done doing that I’ll probably close it down.
So if anybody else has any important messages in their account they’d like to save, do it pretty soon. [Link]
The razor-thin future of smartphones has finally arrived! The Moto Z is a seriously impressive smartphone as a standalone. But once you teach it some new tricks, you end up transforming your Qualcomm Snapdragon 820, 4GB RAM, 5.5” Quad HD design to an entirely new device.
Think a super-zoom camera, a boom-box, a projector and even a powerhouse. These new tricks are your Moto Mods. How does it work? Moto Mods snap easily onto any Moto Z phone, fitting perfectly and securely.
The Moto mods collection include:
• Style Shell adding your own dash to your phone
• Incipio Power Pack mod giving you an additional 60% battery life
• Insta-Share Projector mod modifying your phone to be a 70” screen on any surface
• Hasselblad True Zoom mod with True 10X optical zoom
• JBL Soundboost mod giving high quality JBL audio and speaker phone
The Moto Z is available with FREE JBL MOD at X-cite for 206 KD. [Link]
By now its clear that Shuwaikh has become the new hotspot. VOL.1 and Super/Foods were already giving me a reason to start heading there, ARABICA is soft launching this weekend as well (invite only) and more and more places are planning to open up in that block. Argania is another new complex that is also opening up in a couple of months in that area and it looks to be pretty cool as well:
“Argania, short for Argania Spinosa, is the Latin name for the Argan tree, found in the southwestern region of Morocco. Presenting to businesses and the public a unique escape directly within the heart of a thriving commercial zone, Argania has been designed in line with its traditional Moroccan roots, complemented by soothing water and landscape features.”
The project’s external garden and space is inspired by morrocan architecture. It is a mixed use development with retail and F&B outlets. Expected opening date end of Q1, 2017. Project is owned and developed by ALARGAN International Real Estate Company (www.alargan.com)
Fathering the Grey is a new E.P. by Kuwaiti singer/songwriter Tareq Almulaifi. I was recently put in touch with him and kinda liked his stuff so wanted to feature his work on the blog.
Tareq got involved with music when he was really young. Since he moved a lot throughout his childhood (his father was a diplomat), he turned to music since it was his only constant wherever he went. He played percussion in each school he moved to as well as joining the school choirs. Once he picked up a guitar and started singing and writing his own music, he’s been doing it ever since. He currently lives in New York and does music full time either playing his own stuff or collaborating with different artists as a singer-songwriter (like the KID SINGAPORE video above) while also working as a drummer for hire. He plays drums for an average of 3 bands at a time, some of which are Lilly Wolf, Da Nomads and Wild Blue Yonder.
You can check out his E.P. Fathering the Grey on [Apple Music] or [Spotify]
You can also keep up with what he’s doing by checking out his website tareqalmulaifi.com or by following him on instagram @tareqalmulaifi
The new expansion terminal that’s being constructed near the cargo terminal is currently 30% complete and will be operational by November of this year. This is not the new triangle shaped terminal designed by Foster+Partners that will eventually replace our current airport. That airport is set to be completed by 2022, this new expansion terminal on the other hand is being constructed in the mean time to relieve pressure from our current airport. The new expansion terminal will have 14 gates and will be operated by Kuwait Airways. With new planes and now a new terminal, Kuwait Airways are really upping their game. [Link]
I’ve wanted an instant film camera ever since I was a kid since I always found them a bit magical because you’re kinda creating something out of nothing. It’s the same reason I’ve always had a thing for fax machines, you put the paper in the machine on one end then, a few seconds later, it starts coming out on another machine all the way on the other side of the country. But for some reason I never ended up getting an instant film camera, probably because I didn’t really have a reason to get one. I’ve always had cameras growing up and later digital cameras and phone cameras so the need for an instant camera wasn’t there, until I saw the Leica Sofort. I’m not a Leica fan. I think Leica M series are over hyped, extremely over priced, and I can’t understand why anyone would want to shoot with a manual focus camera. But, when I saw the Sofort I just fell in love with the way it looked. It had a great minimal and very retro design while also not costing an arm and a leg.
The Leica Sofort comes in three colors, white, orange and mint. I knew right away I wanted the Mint color but when I tried finding one it was completely sold out everywhere online. After searching for a couple of days I finally ended up finding one shop in London that still had the mint colored Leica and quickly placed my order. When my package finally arrived to Kuwait and I opened it I right away knew I made the right choice in color. It just works really well with the retro look, the orange I think would have looked a bit like a toy while the white would have just been boring (for me at least). I’ve had the camera now for two weeks and I’ve used it in a variety of different environments. What I’ve concluded is that the camera is a hit and miss when it comes to the pictures, but thats not a surprise, thats actually exactly what I was expecting from an instant film camera.
I’ll start with the good stuff, the battery lasts a pretty long time. It comes with a small rechargeable battery which I charged on the first day for like an hour. Since then I’ve used the camera to take around 80 photos and the battery is still showing as full. Another great thing about the camera is that it uses Fuji Instax Mini films which you can find all over Kuwait. I’ve been getting mine from Xcite and a double pack which contains 2×10 packs sells for KD5. That means each photo I take costs 250fils which isn’t that bad. I think the camera performed best when I took it to the “Walk This Way” sneaker event this past weekend since the photos came out looking like they were taken in the 80s or 90s which fit perfectly with the theme of the event. The portrait shots all came out great and best part is, after I took the photos, I just handed the pictures over. Like souvenirs they could keep. Even when the results didn’t come out as expected (like the ones above), the photos still had a pretty cool look.
But like I said the camera is a hit and miss. The exposure is all over the place, some portrait shots using the flash resulted in the subjects being super overexposed with washed out colors while other times the shots came out perfectly exposed with all the colors still intact. During bright sunlight a lot of shots would also be overexposed and even when I chose to underexpose (there is an option for that) it didn’t really do much. But, my biggest gripe with the camera is the fact that all the settings reset back to the default settings once you turn the camera off. One of the things I like about this camera is you have options you can choose from like selecting between four scene settings for different lighting situations, having the flash on or off, if you’d like to over expose or under expose a shot and finally most importantly, the camera has two focus modes, close (under 3m) and far. Since I mostly shoot landscape or architectural shots I would want my settings to be no flash and the focus set to further than 3m. But I need to set that up every time I turn on the camera because by default, the camera sets the flash to auto and the focus distance to close. On more than one occasion I’ve taken photos only to have them come out blurry because I forgot to set the focus or I’ve had the flash go off because I forgot to turn it off. Super annoying and I don’t understand why Leica decided to do this.
Overall though I’m happy with the camera. Yes the output isn’t consistent and sometimes random, but I like that because every time I take a picture I now eagerly wait for the photo to develop to see what I got. It’s a surprise every time. The Leica Sofort cost me around KD95 including shipping via PostaPlus to Kuwait. It’s not cheap, but it is one of the cheapest Leica’s you can buy. The camera that is the closest to it in terms of capabilities is the Fuji Mini 90 which I’ve read is what the Sofort is possibly based off. The Mini 90 costs around KD40 on Amazon without shipping or tax so basically half the price of the Leica. If you’re interested in getting the Sofort, I got it from Dale Photographic whom as of this post have all three colors in stock. [Link]
The blog “Ladies who do lunch in Kuwait” posted a review on their experience watching CATS at the newly opened Jaber Al-Ahmad Cultural Centre. I’d say the review leaned towards being negative more than the positive. The main issues they had were the upper level seats being so far away from the stage, the value of the tickets, the super long lines to the restroom and the snack stand as well as the difficulty getting to the fountain/restaurants area of the park after the show was over. You can check out their impressions [Here]
Did you watch CATS? How was your experience? Let us know in the comments below.
The Eco Experts recently revealed the “most toxic countries in the world” and Kuwait came in second place. The data was compiled by taking five environmental factors into account:
– Energy consumption per capita
– CO2 emissions from fuel combustion
– Air pollution levels
– Deaths attributable to air pollution
– Renewable energy production.
Even though last year I posted a study which ranked Kuwait’s air quality as the 9th worst in the world, I still found this new study as surprising as I found that one. I guess because when I imagine bad air quality I imagine those articles in the news about China, where the smog is so bad planes can’t land and visibility is down to nothing. But here, I mean other than the occasional dust storms, the weather is usually pretty clear and doesn’t seem polluted at all.
But it is.
A friend found out the local US Embassy has a Real-time Air Quality Index (AQI) which you can check out from your phone or browser. According to the index, the air quality at this very moment as I write this post is “Very Unhealthy”. That’s pretty scary. You can check the AQI yourself by clicking [Here]
Now if we go back to the list of most toxic countries, you’ll notice something in common with the top 10:
1- Saudi Arabia
2- Kuwait
3- Qatar
4- Bahrain
5- United Arab Emirates
6- Oman
7- Turkmenistan
8- Libya
9- Kazakhstan
10- Trinidad and Tobago
All 10 nations are all heavily involved in the oil and gas industry. If you want to read more about this study, here is a [Link]
Maybe a doctor can chime in in the comments below about the potential health issues that can be caused by this.
Update: Since I published the post the current air quality index has gone up to the status of “Hazardous”! WTF?!
