Apr 16 2012
Mathemagics
I officially joined the the Association Of Magicians In Trøndelag (FAMIT), as a mathemagician.
Feb 15 2012
Internet and Organizing Student Protests in Iran
After more than one year that I hadn’t left the city of Trondheim, for a couple of days eventually I traveled to Oslo. This was to give a talk at the event Human rights, democracy and the students’ struggle in Iran, organized by SAIH. Not to cover the story from one side, the opposition, the Iranian embassy’s representatives were also invited to give a speech at the event, but they chose not to take part.
Iran is essential to development in the Middle East in the years to come and may both solve and aggregate existing and future conflicts in several countries. What are the interests of the Islamic Republic?
Iranian students have a unique position in the current geopolitical environment. What is it like to be a student in Iran? The participation in the development of a republic of 80 million inhabitant and several large ethnic minorities are underreported issues in Western media. Students advocating democracy and human rights often do so at great risks to themselves and even their families.
To further understand these issues, we invite you to this seminar where the current political situation in the area will be debated.
The panel
- Mahmood Reza Amiri Moghaddam – Iran expert and researcher at the Institute of Basic Medical Sciences, UiO
- Nima Darabi - data scientist, Zedge
- Josef Asad Taghizadehnaser, politically active Azerbaijani
You can download my presentation “Internet and Organizing Student Protests in Iran”. It won’t be so useful, however, as most of the information was carried out orally.
Jan 16 2012
Syria… Syria…
This video is full of Energy. Every Friday in the past several months, Syrians occupy the streets to fight against their regime and celebrate their future victory. Dozens of them get shot and never go back home that day. And they again gather the next Friday. And the next Friday…
Jan 13 2012
My loser present self
I never had a commitment device. Neither I was ever taught how to get one. In that sense, sacrificing my future in favor of my present has always been of my habits. As time goes by present becomes past and now I look back: my present self has already lost the battle against my past self (my past has won, to put it nicely!).
Now if I regret and if make myself commit to future, my present self will again lose, this time in a battle against my future self. This means that my present is the loser of all my lifespan, and life now sucks more than ever. If this is me at my worst, which is quite pleasant, then let’s drink a toast to all my selves!
Jan 05 2012
Round…
Like a clock whose hands are sweeping, past the minutes of its face.
And the world is like an Apple, working based on Mac OS.
Dec 24 2011
God Jul!
As far as I’m informed Jul is a cozy continuation of midwinter’s celebration in the Nordic countries. And even though Jesus Christ did not offer the planet something pleasurable to celebrate, YET happy Christmas holidays!
Dec 19 2011
Rot in hell, you Kim Jong-il!
This video broadcast by North Korean state media shows mass mourning of North Koreans following the death of their dictator, Kim Jong-il.
It’s very hard to get an idea what’s going on there in a land that one to two million people (5% to 10% of its population) are detained in jail as political prisoners and the rest are kept in a bigger jail, but should we get fooled by an image that their dictatorship tries to give to the world?!
An outsider should be a bit careful to make judgements when facing a received image like this. No matter how brain-washed a nation could be, this is most probably a show organized by the governmental propaganda. Compare the size of the mourning crowd to the whole capital’s population to avoid “induction”. They were the same nation with South Koreans and were divided only 60 years ago. I wish a miracle sets them free.
Dec 11 2011
uʍop ǝpısdn
Boy: “Why are you swinging hung by your knees?”
Girl (in skirt): “¡uʍop ǝpısdn ɹǝʇʇǝq ɥɔnɯ sʞooן pןɹoʍ ǝɥʇ”
Boy: “So do you!”
p.s. Its Zedge TxT version on my new peofile.
Nov 30 2011
I never saw my-old-self
Now he’s gone crazy and has told everyone: A man arrested at Large Hadron Collider claims he’s from the future!
Believe me I’m not bullshitting! This man who calls himself Eloi is right. He had left the future long before my departure. He arrived later, however, since he couldn’t time-travel directly and had to stop a couple of “time”s.
I actually met him back in 2076. I was a kid when he picked me up and flied to a far old café: “You’ll make this place happen!”, he said. And I thought he’s mental. Eloi claimed he knows me and I don’t know him yet: “Not yet!”, he was repeating. He wished he had brought me to that weird place only two years earlier, to show me an old man who so wanted to visit me but he was told not to, strictly:
You could see your-old-self! Nima died without knowing that he could see you.
It was the first time I heard this name. Let me keep the details but he told me some stories, and that after the old man died, things turned out to be very different: “Nima should have come to tell you what he knew”. And then he gave me a note:
[You will grow and this time, remember you MUST meet that little kid to tell him what you will know...]
For many years I kept that note, but it was lost before I had to escape my homeland. I knew Persian from my biological mom. So it was not hard to make up stories after I arrived here. And the note was right! Many things indeed became clear throughout my life. But I never figured out what is that I will know and how long I should wait…
p.s. By the way, P=NP in case you were wondering!
Nov 26 2011
1432
The numbers in this group photo marks the order by which the Arab dictators have fallen during this year:
1. Zine El Abidine Ben Ali (Tunisia)
2. Hosni Mubarak (Egypt)
3. Muammar Gaddafi (Libya)
4. Ali Abdullah Saleh (Yemen)
But do you know what 1432 is?
1432 AH is the current year in the Islamic lunar calendar which is over this mid-night. A year which gave birth to the Arab spring, successfully removed four dictators, and gave its turn to the next lunar year!
p.s. I don’t know who was the genius who annotated this picture. It came up after the fall of Gaddafi.
p.s. With especial thanks to the Yemeni dictator, Saleh, who finally signed the power transition plan and by not postponing it to the next year gave a new meaning to this pic.
p.s. Just to avoid confusion, as I said before, the Islamic lunar calendar which is the official calendar in the four mentioned lands is different from the Persian solar calendar we use in Iran.
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