The prototypical computer whiz of popular imagination — pasty, geeky, male — has failed to live up to his reputation. Research shows that among the primary creators of Web content (blogs, graphics, photographs, web sites) are not your typical geek stereotype, but actually, teenage girls.

A study published in December by the Pew Internet & American Life Project found that among Web users ages 12 to 17, significantly more girls than boys blog (35 percent of girls compared with 20 percent of boys) and create or work on their own Web pages (32 percent of girls compared with 22 percent of boys). Girls also eclipse boys when it comes to building or working on Web sites for other people and creating profiles on social networking sites (70 percent of girls 15 to 17 have one, versus 57 percent of boys 15 to 17).

Video posting was the sole area in which boys outdid girls: boys are almost twice as likely as girls to post video files. This is not because girls are not proficient users of the technology, Professor Palfrey said. He suggested, rather, that videos are often less about personal expression and more about impressing others. It’s an ideal way for members of a subculture — skateboarders, snowboarders — to demonstrate their athleticism, he said.

[via NYT]

Here’s an awesome list of the world before Web 2.0 via CopyBrighter. For more details check out Copy Brighter.

1. Before YouTube… there was “America’s Funniest Home Video”

2. Before Twitter… there was IRC.

3. Before blogs… there were ‘zines.

4. Before podcasts… there were codelines.

5. Before blogrolls and comments… there were web rings and guest books.

6. Before Facebook… there was the 20th annual high school reunion.

7. Before Skype… there were k0dez and bridges.

8. Before eBay… there was the pawn shop.

9. Before the iPhone… there was the PayPhone.

10. Before P2P file sharing… there was Columbia House Records.

11. Before Craigslist… there was the men’s room wall.

12. Before Digg… there was your local newspaper’s “Top Stories of the Year” issue.

Here’s another little cool infograph that represents the most popular social networking sites in the world. Most of the Arab world is blank save for Jordan (Facebook), Lebanon (Facebook), Egypt (Facebook), Tunisia (Hi5), Kuwait (Hi5) and the UAE(Facebook).

Pretty cool interface is the only reason I’m sharing this.

60% Geek

It started with shoes, furniture, and computers, now, you can customize your very own “wakaleh” car. Volkswagen and their outsourcers have been busy during the past 6 months designing and building the brand new Volkswagen UK site that allows you to customize your car before you buy.

Nifty stuff.

Changing Tides
Omar is kinda sick of anticipating.
Hiba is Amazed yet Shocked !
Sama’ is thinking.
David ponders.
Nick is ready to go boldly into the world.
Rama need a change :S.
Tareq is shifting areas.
Yosra is excited, nervous, excited, happy, happy.
Ola is battling some of those same old doubts and insecurities.
Alaa I Neeed a Change!!!
Naseem is waiting on the world to change.

Beginning of the month
Ola is happy :)
Amer is LA ALLAH HAPPY :)
Mahmoud is having a great time :)
Asil LOVIN’ iT !
Sara is so in loveeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee.
Mona is sooooo happy her leeeeen is with her!!
Kareem is feeling so dame go00od ; ).
Husam is stumbling with happiness.

Super Tuesday
Mohamed is following the results of Super Tuesday (well, Super Wednesday, technically, it’s already tomorrow here…)
Biesan is concerned about Hillary’s status.
Nour is هيلاري قاعدتلي على أعصابي.
Sherien is on her way to vote.
Farah is elated! it’s super tuesday..go hillary
Fares is going to see Hillary Clinton tomorrow. I’d rather see Hayfa Wahbi but Hillary is OK.

Misc.
Shadi LOST season 4 has begun …
Jeff just received the heating bill, and has determined that it will actually be cheaper to burn rolls of $5 bills from now on…
Lulwa is missing her gauloises amigo gucci-communist phase.

Related:
September and the summer is over
The end of August
Weekend Update
Beginning of January

Nothing much has changed since last year. I didn’t watch the Oscar-nominated bunch of movies for 2008, and I didn’t hear of 96% of them either (though for honesty’s sake, I did watch and love Ratatouille). I also do not watch the Oscars in my life, as I cannot think of anything more boring to kill a few hours of my year on [Oscar surprise face].

While I might not care for who grabbed an Oscar, I do love to see what the happy, shiny people wore to the red carpet. It always proves the same old something; if you don’t have taste, you really can’t work it together, no matter how many stylists style you, how much money you have, if its Gucci or Chanel, or how many Oscars line up your shelf at home.

And now for Hollywood’s plastic wonder people…

The Went-to-the-Oscars-Drunk Group:

I’m afraid I have no idea who this is, but it doesn’t matter, because she’s trying to look like a MERMAID. I hope she keeps this dress for next year’s Halloween party, because I haven’t seen anyone dressed as Little Mermaid in a while.
Check out the green lady behind her too, who’s dressed out like a little teacup. I know Disney had some limelight yesterday with they’re brilliant Ratatouille, but that is not a good enough excuse to have a communal Disney-themed Oscar night.

This is definitely the worst outfit I have ever seen. She looks like Paris Hilton’s pocket-pooch dressed up.  The shoes too. What the hell was she thinking.

This marks my ultimate Oscar upset. The usually well-dressed Penelope Cruz absolutely looks witchy in this frumpy outfit. It looks more like an abaya with cut-off shoulders and the scarf wrapped around her waist belly-dancer style. Eww.

A cross between a garbage-bag and bride of death is never a good idea, Tilda Swinton, whoever you are.

I’m sort of getting depressed at how ugly this year’s dresses are. What’s up with the gloves lady?!

Arabian-nights meets Elizabeth Taylor. Haha. Check out her shoes too. They have BUCKLES on them.

The fabric guy at Soo2 IlTelyan downtown called. Now that you’re done with his fabric, he wants it back.

Wow, I’m HYPNOTIZED.

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The Fire-Your-Stylist Group:

What are my grandmother’s curtains doing in the Oscars?

What. The. Hell. Is. Jessica. Alba. Wearing.

That’s just a worse version of Jessica Alba’s dress. It reminds me of
the display mannequins of Indian tailors in Riyadh, especially with the
rest of the fabric trailing down like that.


The Cruella Deville look was never cool.

Is she pregnant? If she is, then this dress isn’t that bad. If she’s
not, then it is. Regardless, I totally hate the jewelery-thingy-collar.


Not hideous, but it is frumpy. Is frumpiness fashionable this year or what..?

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The Wow-You-Look-Good-Tonight Group:

And no, not because it’s red, although that might give it some points. It drapes her body gorgeously.

I put this here because I think Cate Blanchett worked great with her pregnancy. She looks elegant and comfortable. I like that.

I can’t figure out if this is “Could have done better” or “You look gorgeous”, but it’s certainly pretty. Especially when compared to the rest.

I don’t know why Renee Zellweger always looks the same. But this is a nice dress on her anyway.

It’s orange, but it’s pretty. I think it’s my favorite Oscar dress.

Keisha Whitaker obviously changed her stylist. She actually looks very good this year- very elegant in an understated way.

Who do you think looks the best and who looks the worst?

I always thought of Beat FM as a Play 99.6 knock off, complete with a hideous brand and terrible music. Looking back now, I don’t think I ever gave their music much interest because I could never get my mind off one of the worst billboards in the history of Amman’s advertisements, which was displayed on Safeway Shmesani for a very long time a few years ago.

I guess the dudes at Beat realized that their brand was bad and gave it a pretty cool makeover. I personally love it, it instantly transformed the radio channel into hip, young, energetic and experimental as far as I’m concerned. Does anyone know who rebranded it? Let’s hope Mood is next!

The old brand:

The new brand:

This wall was made from 7,200 bananas. I love the texture and curvature, it’s just so cool. It’s part of artist Stefan Sagmeister’s exhibition
“Things I Have Learned In My Life So Far.” [link via BB]

Designer (aka Assaf): “Booma shoes are cool, they’re gorgeous.”
Reef: “It’s Puma you idiot.”
Designer (aka Assaf): “I’m not the idiot you loser, English is the idiot. It’s such a stupid language. WHY THE HELL WOULD THEY HAVE TWO LETTERS THAT ARE EXACTLY THE SAME?! It’s sooo stupid. It’s like having light red and slightly lighter red in the same brand. That’s shitty branding. It’s confusing. What the hell.”

I’m not sure why I find this extremely interesting, but I’m very inspired by an autistic girl called Carly Fleischmann, who is unable to speak a word due to her autism. Two years ago, working with pictures and symbols on a computer keyboard, she started typing and spelling out words, and the computer became her voice.

“It feels like my legs are on first and a million ants are crawling up my arms,” Carly said through the computer. “It is hard  tobe autistic because no one understands me. People look at me and assume I am dumb because I can’t talk or I  actdifferently than them. I think people get scared with things that look or seem different than them. Autism is hard because you want to act one way, but you can’t always do that. It’s sad that sometimes people don’t know that sometimes I can’t stop myself and they get mad at me. If I could tell people one thing about autism it would be that I don’t want to be this way. But I am, so don’t be mad. Be understanding.”

[link]

Quite honestly, I’d take a pair of laceless sneakers any day over laces, yet when I came upon this guide, I grinned anyway. Shoe Lacing, the website of Ian Fieggen (aka Professor Shoelace), is probably the best shoelace website in the universe. [via, hat-tip Tarik]

Some lacing ideas:

And my favorites:

Wow. Gorgeous. Fore more, check out the website.

Welch’s is taking out full-page print ads in People magazine this month that give readers a chance to sample its grape juice by licking the ad. The front of the advertisement shows a huge bottle of the juice, while the back has a strip that peels up and off, with text that reads: “For a TASTY fact, remove & LICK.” [link]

While scent technology — such as scratch-and-sniff ads or fragrant ink
– is commonplace in magazines, lickable ads are still in the
experimental stages.

I think if I bought the magazine, I’d most definitely not be able to resist trying it out. Would you?

I found my aunt’s 12th grade geography book when I was 15. It was published when pan-Arabism was still shining some time in the mid 70’s, and I was paging through it, amused at the rather vintage look of the colorful maps.

Then I get to a section entitled “Our Arab World”.  I run my fingers through the map, tracing out Riyadh where we grew up, Bahrain where we spent our holidays, and randomly thinking about the Gulf War as my eyes zoned over Iraq.

My eyes drift a bit lower, and I realize that there’s a very important place missing. I look at my aunt and ask her, “Where’s Dubai on the map?”

She chuckles, “Dubai? I had not heard of Dubai until a few years ago.”

Dubai in 1990 prior to the craziness:

The same street in 2003:

[Link of images]

This little infograph traces the evolution of Nintendo charachters, from side-view pixel people to horrendously details 3D figurines. I am personally very fascinated by how drastically animation has developed in the past century. I mean, even Disney shut down their 2D studios (which sucks, I think). I wonder if the 3D fad will ever fade, or if it will be plastered in with the years. Will anyone ever look at Beauty and the Beast with vintage amusement?

I’m totally siding with Wikipedia. History doesn’t just belong to modern-day Muslims, especially if it is related to Islam as done by Muslims of other centuries. After all, modern-day Muslims are a very, very small part of all the Muslims in history, and these modern-day Muslims have absolutely no right to try to negate the history of Islam’s other Muslims.

Historical negation aside, these images were taken from Islamic manuscripts intended to actually SPREAD Islam by using images when most people in the world did not know how to write or read. That actually makes them a pretty lofty cause as far as Islam is concerned, because they did manage to convert some Berber, Persian, and East Asians to Islam.

So yeah, go Wikipedia. [link]

1. Dye your hair a crazy color. A week ago, I went to the hairdresser to get my hair dyed and cut, and I asked for bright red. The colorist went into a fit, saying that bright red is a hideous, hideous color for hair. Offended, I told him that I wore my hair pink for a while. He asked, “How old were you?” I said, “Seventeen.” He said, “You can do anything when you’re seventeen, but you can’t when you’re older.”

2. Get as many piercings as you can. I fondly remember when my ears were pierced to death, until they got infected at seventeen and I had to do away with all but three-an-ear.

3. Spend your entire summer vacation sleeping in till 5:00 PM.

4. Get insanely passionate about something unrealistic and freak everyone out getting really cheesy about it.

5. Figure out what something important to anchor to, ex. what you love in life, delve deeper about God, etc.

Tagged by Dave.

Can’t really think of many, as I think that 18 isn’t as important as 21. I can think of a whole list of things you need to do before you finish college, but not many before you turn 18. Can you think of any? If you can, please share your comments or blog about it yourself.