Migration in progress...

I have just purchased a mighty webspace. 20,000 MB of space, 25 MySQL servers, 1000 E-Mail accounts, etc.

I am in the process of copying all the files to the new server. As soon as that is done, I will point the domain to it. Once the domain is being transferred from one server to the other, Barobax.net might experience downtimes for a period of up to 48 hours.

Waterloo Night V pics will be up on the new server.

Waterloo Night V

Over 200 people attended ISAW's Waterloo Night V last night. Thanks to all the people who made it happen and a success.

I will create a public album for Waterloo Night. However, since I didn't take any pictures, I will need to collect them from others. If you have pictures which you would like to show up in the album, please send them to pooya@barobax.net as soon as possible.

If you would like to send a large number of pictures, you can ZIP them. You can do so very easily using Windows XP. In the folder that contains the pictures, select all the pictures that you would like to ZIP. Right-Click on one of the pictures you've selected and then click on Send-To > Compressed (zipped) folder. A ZIP file will be created in that folder. Attach the ZIP file in your email and send it.

If you took pictures in very high-resolution, they might end up being quite large. Some mail clients do not support very large attachments. Usually, making each attachment less than 10MB is safe.

Another 500 MBs filled up!!

I have reached my 500MB quota on Barobax.net server for the second time. I have to consider buying space. If any of you guys know severs which are fast and provide space of about 3-4 GBs for cheap, let me know. (I'm looking for just space. I'm happy with my webhosting co.)

Happy Birthday!

Today is Sanam's Birthday. So here's a HUGE Happy Birthday from me and all the people who love her :)

TAVALLODET MOBARAK SANAM

$25 Million gift to School of Computer Science

In case you haven't heard yet, School of Computer Science in an announcement made today in DC received a gift of 25 Million Dollars by a UW Alumni. David Cheriton who is now a professor at Stanford has made this contribution and University of Waterloo has renamed the School of Computer Science to David R. Cheriton School of Computer Science.

UW will take this money and invest it in order to retain its value and will take an annual interest of about 4%. So this means that the school of CS will recieve $1 million in interest each year.

Hopefully, this means that now I have higher chances of getting into grad school and that my funding will be higher.

If you'd like to read more about this visit the following:

www.studentlifecentre.com : David R. Cheriton School of Computer

UW's official news release

Google Analytics

I'd like to thank Hootan and Shahab who introduced me to Google Analytics. I gave it a test-drive last night and here's a little about this new service by Google:

- Their servers are super slow, even their own pages take a long time to load.

- It doesn't work! I installed the script and then had to verify it through a procedure requested by Google. However, it kept saying that the script isn't installed.

- It targets e-commerce websites which do business through their website and would like to attract customers and to persuade them to buy items online.

- Google Analytics seems to be a marketing tool rather than a statistics provider.

- Although I don't see any BETA signs there, it seems to be in Beta stage. It looks like a pet project as some of the links are broken!

- I couldn't get a feel of how it works but it seems like it provides statistics for the webmaster and not visitors of the sites. So in order to see the stats you must login which is annoying.

It's interesting to see that Google is getting its feet wet with virtually every single web related application in the World. It should come as no surprise that the bubble will burst at some point and their $400+ share will drop. As far as Google Analytics go, it seems exciting and once they manage to pull it all together, I will give it another shot. For now, StatCounter seems to be performing well. Cheers and thanks again.

ISAW becomes victim of vandalism

In a series of actions, ISAW's posters have gone missing from several locations on and off campus. Pizza Nova first reported that a Waterloo Night poster went missing from their store. This news was followed by one that claimed some Bomber Night posters were missing in DC and others were covered by our previous posters from Movie Night.

This organized crime will not go unpunished and vandalisers will be reported to FEDS and UW Police upon recognition.

ISAW's executives claim that they have evidence of the people who stole posters from Pizza Nova and are conducting further investigation.

I know this sounds so much like a movie, but it's true. I'll update you as soon as more information becomes available.

First Snow Up Close

If you'd like to give the photo i've inserted above a closer look, click here.

New Counter Installed

I finally switched to another statistics provider. I've put it in Beta stage to see how it works. The link is at the bottom of the page as before. One thing I like about this counter is that it allows you to distinguish between unique visits and page loads. I've setup unique visits so that all the visits made by one person in 12 hours are counted as 1 visit, but incerement the number of page loads.

Also, the counter can be made invisible. So, if it works well, I will be intalling it on all main pages of Barobax.net. This will produce a more accurate result.

We'll see how it goes.

Babak Amini in Waterloo Night

On Saturday night Payam and I were in Toronto and we visited Babak Amini. Babak has accepted our invitation to Waterloo Night. There will be a short interview with him and he will also play guitar. For those of you who are interested in his works, this will be a great opportunity to see him. We will also pick a couple of questions for him from the audience.

More Poster For You!

By popular demand, I have inserted the male (?) version of the poster for your viewing pleasure.

Waterloo Night & Bomber Night

Waterloo Night is on November 26. I'm looking for very short funny clips or images to be viewed in Waterloo Night. It's for a little program we have, and if you have anything that you think is funny AND appropriate for the families and children please either put a link here or send it to pooya@barobax.net.

It's kind of difficult to find stuff that is funny and yet not political or sexual. That's why I'm calling for help.

Bomber Night is on November 24. Finally, we'll get to party this term. I have designed a poster for it which is pending approval by the execs. But I will insert it here for your viewing pleasure.

Annoying Pop-ups

Recently I noticed that when I open barobax.net a pop-up opens up. At first, I thought my computer has spyware, but then I noticed that the same happens on my laptop. I suspected that the statistics script that I use on my website might be causing it since only recently they were bought by another company. They changed from Nedstat to WebStats4U. Anyhow, I Googled the two keywords Netstats4U and popup and found out that so many other bloggers are having the same problem and they've also realized it's a problem with the stats script.

So, soon I will say bye bye to Webstats4U. It's a pitty because I'll lose all the history of the stats, but the annoying pop-ups aren't worth it.

Some clips

معرفی فیلم

No More Free Printing @ DC

To whom it may concern,

The software that was responsible for printing jobs and charging your WatCard at the DC Library has now been modified. This modification fixes the bug which allowed students make free prints.

Quicky for cheap-ass-abusers: Put money in your WatCard. No more free prints at DC.

Sidenote: Free printing is still available at MC. For instructions on how to do so you must find one of the following people: a Persian, a Paki or a Chinese. We guarantee that you will find your answer. Interestingly enough, we're stereotyping here. ;)

Stereotyping is Fun!!

We all stereotype:

زرتشتیها آدمهای خوبین
بابا یارو آخونده، معلومه شکمش سیره
ایرانیها بد رانندگی می کنن
اروپاییها متمدن هستن
هندیها و آفریقایها و چینیها خیلی آدمهای کثیفی هستن
عربها پولدارن
بالاشهریهای تهران با فرهنگن
اصفهانیا زرنگ و خسیسن

…and so many others of this type. Stereotyping occurs so often that in many occasions we’ve gotten used to it. It is actually worthwhile to think how such stereotypes form and how bad is it to stereotype.

I personally don't know how some stereotypes turn out to be so common. Are people from Isfahan really greedy? Are they generally greedy? Are most of them greedy? Are a good chunk of them greedy? Is this a myth?

We try to see patterns in the world, even when there is not. I learned this from my philosophy class. We look at the moon and see a face in it. Similarly we look at ethnic groups and we try to see a pattern there, even if there isn't.

I believe that geographic location, race, nationality, gender, age and culture all play substantial roles in people's behavior. I'm even guessing that some of these stereotypes might apply to a group of the people which they refer to. For example you can argue the following:

Iranians (except a negligible number of them) live in Iran.
The road system, traffic laws and population have negatively affected the traffic in Iran.
Traffic in Iran is problematic and frustrating.
People tend to drive badly under problematic and frustrating driving conditions.
Therefore,

Iranians drive badly.

Once you think about it, this can be a valid argument. But what we have to be careful is whether stereotyping would be correct or not. If we say Iranians drive badly, that means that even if the driving conditions change, most Iranians will drive badly. In a sense we have stereotyped Iranians' driving habits based on their nationality. We're also indirectly saying that if we grab a Canadian for example and put him or her in Tehran's street, he would still be driving very smoothly and nicely after spending one or two months in the streets of Tehran. Clearly, we're making a mistake here.

We should be careful how we use certain pieces of information, how we interpret patterns in the world and how we categorize people. Even if it's true that many Japanese people are smart, we still can't stereotype, because we don't know whether each Japanese person that we pick falls into the smart category or not. Thus, it is totally invalid to draw conclusions based on stereotypes and hasty generalizations.

Persian Arts Exhibition @ UW

Yet another announcement. GISO (Graduate Iranian Student Association) has organized an arts exhibition for next week. You're welcome to submit your photos, paintings, caligraphy, etc. for them to put up. They will put up a little stand for you and also ask you to write a little paragraph about yourself to be displayed next to your work.

Your work will be on display for 2 days and then will be returned to you. If you'd like to participate please inform them as soon as possible. You can contact Vahid: vahidmash@gmail.com

I hear they have already 100 photos submitted in addition to caligraphies and paintings. I have personally submitted 14 photos. Even if you're not submitting any work, you're still welcome to visit the exhibition and enjoy looking at other people's works include "moi". Please see the comments for the exact date, time and location. Thanks to Shiva.

DISCLAMER for Negin: In case you go, 3 of the photos I have sumitted have butterflies in them. Be careful. :)

Below is one of the 14 photos which I submitted. Again, for your viewing pleasure.

Waterloo Night V

ISAW is in the process of organizing its fifth Waterloo Night. For those who don't know, Waterloo Night is Iranian Student Association of Waterloo's musical and poetic event. It's been a success in the past years and each year it has gotten better, with last year's guests exceeding 250 if I am not mistaken.

Anyways, the reason I am posting this is because I thought many of you might be encouraged to have a part in this event. Perhaps, you have a good voice and you'd like to sing a song. Or you have a poem which you've written. Comedy and sarcasm are also welcome. If you play any musical instruments you're surely invited to play either solo or with a group. I'm personally, doing a little performance thing myself.

Also, if you like photography or you're just interested in making this event a success, there are many ways you can help. You can leave a comment here with your contact info, or you can email Payam whose the head organizer of the event at: payamgh@gmail.com

For your viewing pleasure I have inserted the event's poster which was designed by me and Payam.