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Every now and then I invite different people to write on the blog and last week I asked John Peaveler if he’d be interested to share stories regarding animals and wildlife in Kuwait. John is the managing director of Kuwait Society for the Protection of Animals and Their Habitat (K’S PATH) whom I’ve posted about a number of times before and a groups work I highly support. He’s already got his first post up which you can check below.

Expat and the City has an interesting post on how Chinese prostitutes have taken over American housing areas in Fahaheel and Mahboula. The girls are trying to pick up guys during the day and night without even trying to stay low key. Where are the cops? Nowhere in sight. The reason I’ve chosen to highlight her post is because it’s related in a slight way to my 5àsec post from yesterday and my numerous complaints on how cops parked traffic lights on the Gulf Road watch cars run red lights and not care.

It’s easy and obvious to blame the cops for not doing their job but personally I no longer blame them. I think the cops are frustrated and have just given up caring but for good reason. Why should they waste their time handing out tickets or arresting people when everyone has wasta to get out of a ticket or a misdemeanor? I can imagine how demoralizing this must be for them.

Check out Expat and the City’s post [Here]

PAWS are a group made up of part-time local and expat volunteers who are committed to protecting animal welfare in Kuwait. Recently they got a notice from their land owner to vacate their shelter in Kebed and they now desperately need financial help to move and set up a new shelter. They currently have over 100 dogs and 80 cats which need a new home. For more details on the situation as well as information on how you can help visit their website [Here]

The next BarCamp in Kuwait is taking place early November and registration is now open. BarCamp is an event that takes place around the world at various times of the year. The subject in focus is technology and people usually present and share ideas or creations like the Bacon Vending Machine in the video below from BarCamp Kuwait 3. It’s more of a fun event than a serious one and if you’re into this it’s a great way to meet new people.

[YouTube]

Location: Ibtisam Hall at The Regency, Al-Bida’a, Kuwait
Date: Saturday, November 3, 2012
Time: 3:00 PM to 10:00 PM

For more information including details on how to sign up visit the BarCamp Kuwait blog [Here]

I hope I’m not too late posting about this but I just found out from Kuwaitiful’s blog that not only is Kuwait competing at the Paralympics but that since 1980 they’ve won 49 medals including 10 gold. Why did I just hear about this!

At the current Paralympics that’s taking place in London Kuwait has a total of six athletes competing. For more details check out Kuwaitiful’s post [Here]

Local resident Jamal Sleeq has retained his Guinness World Record for most prayer beads by owning 3,642 pieces. He also is the Guinness World Record holder for the largest Opaline glass collection. You can watch a video report about his prayer beads collection from back in May below.

[YouTube]

via Speakin’ the Blues

I’ve been using BlackBerry in Kuwait ever since Zain introduced it back in 2007 (they were still called MTC Vodafone). My first BlackBerry was the 8700 and although it looked horrible it had a battery that used to last forever.

I was originally just using the BB for work emails but then once BlackBerry’s picked up in Kuwait I started using it for chatting as well. Everyone I knew seemed to have a BB so it was a pretty practical way of communicating. A few years have gone by though and things are not longer the same. Hardly anyone I know chats on BlackBerry anymore and the only reason I was keeping it around was because of our Diwaniya Group. But since we’ve moved the group to WhatsApp there is no longer a reason to keep my BlackBerry. The only person still holding out is Marzouq but he’s caving in as well.

I just canceled my BlackBerry service and I don’t think I’m going to miss it. I just hope BlackBerry released BlackBerry Messenger for the iPhone and Android devices since WhatsApp is really crap compared to it.

Pei Wei the fast food Asian Diner owned by PF Changs opened last night at the Avenues food court. I passed by earlier today for lunch and tried them out and as a first experience it wasn’t bad. They serve 5 different kind of Asian cuisines: Chinese, Japanese, Thai, Korean and Vietnamese. It’s half self service so when you first walk in you need to go to the cash register to place your order and pay. But, once you place your order you can wait at your table and they’ll bring the dishes to you and pick up the plates once you’re done. For the soft drinks they hand you empty plastic cups and you fill them up yourself from their soda station.

I ordered the Chicken Thai Dynamite (pictured above) and thought it was good but needed more sauce while the rice should have been stickier since I had trouble picking it up with my chopsticks (then again I’m really terrible with chopsticks). Price wise I think it’s on the high side for a fast food joint. My dish cost KD3.750 but the portion was pretty decent so that make things a bit better.

I’ve scanned their menu and uploaded onto the blog so if you want to check it out you can do so by downloading it from [Here]

I was going to pass by Kout Way this weekend but Me Blogging beat me to the punch. Kout Way is a new restaurant located on Baghdad Street right next to DoDo and La Baguette. They’re sort of a fast food restaurant but specializing in Kuwaiti dishes like machboos and murabyan.

Me Blogging has some great pictures and a bit more info which you can check out [Here]

It’s been over 2 years since I last updated the 248AM App and it desperately needed a makeover. I personally felt the App was all over the place trying to be too many things at the same time so with this update I’ve simplified it down to the bare minimum. I’ve removed everything not related to the blog and have left only four main tabs which are the current sections of the blog: 248AM, 248PM, Newsworthy and Events. I’ve also updated it to support Retina displays (finally) and I also managed to shrink the App size down to just 1.8MB.

So if you already have the 248AM App installed on your phone there should be an update waiting for you in the App Store. If you’ve never installed the App before you can do so by searching for 248AM in the App Store or by clicking [Here]

I’m out of the country right now so didn’t experience it but looks like an earthquake with a magnitude of 4.2 hit Kuwait around 7:30 in the morning. [Source]

via Blogger Mathai and Sun2

According to a post on Mental Floss, Kuwait is among 21 countries with only one Olympic medal. I don’t think that is bad considering how tiny Kuwait is and how there is very little interest in track and field or most other Olympic sports. [Link]

Kuwait’s only Olympic medal was won by Fehaid Aldeehani in the men’s double trap shooting event at the 2000 Summer Olympics in Sydney. Fehaid is competing again in this years London Olympics and was the flag bearer during the opening ceromony (pictured above).

Thanks Ds

Batman the Dark Knight Rises releases 26 days later in MENA after International release

It seems the reason Batman: The Dark Knight Rises isn’t out yet in the region is because Joseph Chacra & Sons, the Warner Bros licensee of the region decided to postpone the release. The reasons they’re claiming behind this delay is the fact Ramadan is a slow season for them with 45% drop in sales and that watching movies in Ramadan is haram.

Blogger Moey started an online campaign to try and get them to release the movie on time but they wouldn’t change their minds and even started deleting users comments and negative posts from their Facebook page. Watch Moeys video above and then check out the following links to his blog posts:

Update on The Dark Knight Rises
The Crime That Warner Bros Lebanon Committed Online

So if there is anyone to blame for us not watching The Dark Knight Rises this Ramadan it’s not Cinescape but Warner Bros Middle East.

The Fixtures just posted a short interview with Nasser Al Sayegh who is Kuwait’s first nuclear engineer. He seems like a smart guy (obviously) and if people like him ran the plant Kuwait would be in safe hands so it’s too bad Kuwait scrapped all their nuclear ambitions. You can read the interview with Nasser on The Fixture’s blog [Here]

In case you missed it, here is a previous video interview with Nasser taken from AlRai TV. [YouTube]

Update: Some readers have pointed out in the comments that Nasser is not the first Kuwaiti to get a degree in Nuclear engineering. But, it’s possible he might be the only Kuwaiti nuclear engineer to actually work in the field. I’m trying to get some more clarification on this.

Update2: Nasser has posted the following comment in relation to the above:

To clarify things up I’m the first specialized person in the nuclear field In Kuwait. Although the others did get there certificates before me they didn’t actually work in a nuclear reactor so all what they have is theoretical backgrounds. I’m also the only person in the gulf that has a security clearance to work in nuclear reactors around Europe.

Originally I was planning to write a small post on my experience with the Synology backup drive and maybe compare it to my Drobo but in all honesty, the thing turned out to be a lot more than just a simple backup drive and so the tiny post has turned into a much bigger one.

Synology DS1511+ Web Interface

Firstly a quick brief about what the Synology DS1511+ is. In it’s most simplest form it’s an external backup hard drive that can take up to five 3TB hard drives and has data protection which means if one of the five hard drives fail my data is still protected. But the DS1511+ (from here on I’ll just call it the Synology) is also a mini server and so doesn’t require to be connected to a computer.

Xbench disk test

Performance wise the Synology turned out to be a lot faster than my Drobo. How fast? Copying a 2.48GB file from my computer over FireWire 800 to the Drobo took 4 minutes and 30 seconds. Copying the exact same file over gigabit ethernet to the Synology took just 42 seconds. That’s over 10 6 times as fast!

So yeah if you’re looking for a backup drive to put all your important files onto it and still have your data protected in case the drive fails, the Synology is great. But, the Synology is also more complicated to setup than the Drobo. Cost wise they’re selling the Synology drives in Kuwait for cheaper than Amazon and you can find them at either Blink (where I got mine from) or Cameo. Cameo also has the newer but slightly more expensive DS1512+.

Now that I got all that out of the way this second part is what REALLY makes the Synology cool. Continue below for the second part of this review.