Aliaa Magda Elmahdy

Aliaa Magda Elmahdy, the Egyptian girl who – together with his boy friend – posed fully naked on the internet, is beaten up by some protesters and taken out from Al-tahrir square’s recent protests, while being protected by some others. And this is happening at the eve of the international day for the elimination of violence against women.

Her boy friend, Kareem Amer, spent four years in prison for blog posting deemed insulting to Islam and for calling Mubarak a symbol of tyranny. Now under the new regime some Islamists demand sharia punishment for this couple.


Not only what they did would be perceived as hurtful by the conservative sectors of the Middle Eastern society, but also many seculars criticized their action to be “too early”. Their argument was that the act was not mature enough and did not convey a comprehensible message for the society, considering its expensive cost of  giving threatening messages to the fundamental Islamists.

It is true that it may give enough reason to the conservatives to be scared of the secular sectors of the revolution and it may make them keener on hijacking the revolution from the other rivals. But, sooner or later the Middle East would need such radical actions done not only in the sexual realm but also in other areas, simply to make the society numb to such “pain”. Bringing sexual taboos to the public sphere is an inevitable step to proceed. Let’s hope this specific act won’t cost more than it achieved.

Cabin trip with “Save the children”

After two years of volunteering at “Save the Children” I joint my first cabin trip with them. Of course only for few hours in the chilling part rather than the hiking part (too much nature for me). Thanks to every one in charge, especially in charge of cooking food, when I was just watching!

And also to Dirk who showed some of us the way when we were lost in the woods.

Conservation of memes

There is a pseudo-scientific theory going to shape in my mind. This is based on my newly discovered “principle of meme conservation”:

Memes of a closed society will remain constant over time.

The theory is a populist attempt trying to show that the “meme“s stay and remain in a society forever. In this best seller piece of crap, I will bring examples of invasion or immigration between civilizations that carry different memes throughout the history to show why I think that new memes coming into a population, just like genes, will eternally stay untouched in the host society.

Given that the whole “Memetics” is still considered as pseudo-science, this unfalsifiable peace of work will not as well follow a valid scientific methodology. So I can combine it with even more disciplines and branches of science.

Our chemistry of memes will then suggest that the immigrant atomic memes may be combined with the other memes (like the host memes) shaping new cultural “molecules” that can have completely different characteristics than the atomic memes.

The theory will also have applications in sociology, as an example dealing with the problem of integration of migrants: When new atomic memes brought into a society by a  group of immigrants are combined by the host memes, the emerged culture which have radically different features than the pure imported memes gives a temporary illusion of integration. Such integration, however, never takes place in the sense that cultural atoms will stay eternally unchanged and once their molecules fall apart, even after ages, play their role again. They will only perish if their carrying population dies, migrates or extincts for example by stopping reproduction.

The “principle of meme conservation”, which is a meme itself will reach millions of readers through my best seller book. It will be welcome by many right-wing politicians across the world and will thus be transferred to millions of minds. Unfortunately, this multiplication would break the “conservation of memes” in a contradiction to its own principal claim. Then I shall change my mind and apologize to the scientific world. So… why not changing my mind now and forget about a principle that did never exist and will then never exist according to my “principle of meme conservation”?! :-/

Traitor to the country!


A controversial poster: This year, SAIH ‘s annual campaign was fronted by a poster spread around all the Norwegian academic cities. Their controversial poster entitled “Beware! They are educated!” shows a group of dictators escaping from protesting students. The illustrated dictators are Hitler, Gaddafi, Mugabe, Kim Jong-il, Stalin, and Ayatollah Khomeini. On October 14 SAIH wrote under “Khomeini in a bad company” that they have received a letter from the Iranian embassy in Oslo. The letter asks them to remove the posters since it illustrates Ayatollah Khomeini among 5 brutal dictators:

[…] “The Embassy of The Islamic Republic of Iran strongly protests against this action and wants your organization to remove this picture as soon as possible”; it is further stated in the email from the embassy. […]

For half a century SAIH has defended student’s right for free speech and this time the organization itself is entitled to the same right: In a press release, they referred to their main objective: “We defend students’ free speech” and announced that they will not comply with the request from the embassy. This press release led to a coverage by many Norwegian newspapers, first and foremost by Aftenposten which cited the embassy’s claim in their article: “You have offended the feelings of a great nation”.

My reaction: Here comes my featured chronicle in Norway’s largest newspaper, Aftenposten entitled “They suppress all the critics” pointing out that in an under any authoritarian regime an embassy represents a government, not a nation:

The Iranian embassy’s intolerant reaction to SAIH’s campaign stands as a symbol of how Iranian authorities suppress all criticism from students in Iran.

This chronicle was followed by an interview with Adresseavisen (The main regional newspaper): “Iranian student supports the student campaign”. I cliamed in the interview that I know of many Iranian students at NTNU who would support the campaign but they do not dare to side with the campaign and its poster, due to the potential risk when they visit their homeland.

Government’s reaction to my article/interview: Some Iranian governmental websites covered the story supporting the action by the Iranian embassy and condemning the poster together with my article. Teribon, an Iranian governmental news portal wrote with a very tense and ideological tone in their article “Iranian embassy in Norway reacted to a blaspheming poster of Imam Khomeini“:

[…] But this was not the end of the story. Nima Darabi one of the Iranian students in Trondheim had an article in Aftenposten. In that text which was fully traitorous to the country [Iran], he supported SAIH’s action. He said that Iranian embassies are not representing the Iranian people and if Europeans are willing to listen to the voice of the Iranian people, they should instead hear it among the angry Iranian crowds protesting outside the embassies. Bringing up the electoral fraud accusations in the recent presidency election [June 2009], he made his article even more betrayal.

Fardanews, another governmental website close to the head of the parliament, cited the same paragraph in  “[Iranian] Greens in Norway, allies with anti-Iranian groups against Imam Khomeini”.

Back-scratching Religion

I was willing to start my new religion but they closed submissions for create your own religion competition:

My Back-scratching cult highlights one of the best and yet most ignored joys granted to us by the mother nature. Unlike other religions, it is consistent with known scientific facts given a strong revolutionary explanation. And its ideology addresses one of the most essential problems of human being: Why do we itch and why we enjoy being scratched? In this religion, I’m not only a holy prophet but also a living evidence. And all of you can be!

What I have not yet decided is if the act of back-scratching should be a core concept or just one of the rituals. I will prototype my idea sometime soon anyways. Messengers don’t need to meet deadlines. God decides when it’s time for my revelation!

p.s. Guess what’s the latest album by Peter Gabriel called: Scratch My Back. He will dedicate it to me once he gets his hands on me!

Rhythm Adaptation Experiment Instruction

Introduction:

Goal: Sensorimotor synchronization (SMS) is the rhythmic synchronization between a timed sensory stimulus and a motor response. In this experiment we will have you performing an SMS task of hearing/watching a tempo changing recurrent auditory/visual stimulus and response to it by generating a corresponding sequence of click sounds.
Task: You are supposed to generate a one-to-one response in synchronization with the auditory/visual sequence of clicks/flashes. Your sensory act is to listen or watch the sequence generated by a computer application and your motor response will be your hand-clapping, finger-tapping or hitting a given weight against a pad. Your results will be analyzed to discover how humans synchronize with a perceived changing rhythm under different circumstances. We are particularly seeking if different subjects act considerably different given their individual properties (musical background, age, gender, etc).

Anonymity: Your results with remain anonymous and will not be reported, published anywhere with your name; however, you can ask the test holders to give you your own analyzed plots in case that you want to know more about your characteristics of rhythm-adaptation.
Safety: Basically there will be no harm caused by such tests, however, if you have a background in epileptic seizure or any neural disorder you may please inform the experimenters. Besides your arm/hand/fingers that you will use during the test must be in a healthy condition.

Compensation: The experiment will be done in two days. For each day, a subject needs to perform a 45 minutes trial and at the second day takes two cinema tickets for accomplishing both trials.

Instructions for the first day experiment (Auditory Rhythm Adaptation):

  1. The test is done in an anechoic chamber (an acoustically dead room) that absorbs sound perfectly. The pyramid-shaped pieces on the walls and floor are covered by carbon and iron, so you may watch your clothes not to get dirty if you lean on them.
  2. Please switch off your phone and take off your watch, wristband, etc. Piercing is fine. The idea is that you should feel comfortable during the test and do not attach considerable weight to your hand. Since the room’s floor is covered by a grid, it will be very hard to find your small accessories back if they are dropped from your hand or the experiment test. So you may hand them to the experimenters before you start the required task.
  3. Your task is to generate a one-to-one response in synchronization with the auditory sequence of clicks you hear.
  4. To make the click sound, you can choose your dominant hand, in case that you are left-handed or right-handed. But you must use the same hand during the whole session.
  5. You will be blindfolded. Please relax, sit comfortably and focus on the stimuli during the each session. The test needs your 100% attention.
  6. There are three different motor tasks and you will be told by the experimenters by which mean you generate the click sounds:
    • For the finger-tapping sessions, you are asked to use the wrist to lead an abrupt, pulsed action and to suddenly release the downward force on the laptop computer keyboard’s space button.
    • For the clapping sessions, you use a take a figure-to-palm position of the right hand relative to the left hand (or vice versa) forming a right angle with a natural curvature.
    • For the weight-hitting sessions, you will be given a metal cylinder (a group of them taped to each other). Your task is holding them vertically in your preferred hand and to make the click sound by hitting the weight against a metal pad. Please keep your elbow fixed on the experiment table and do not twist your wrist to hit the pad.
  7. Each trial will take up to 45 minutes and has three session
  8. Each session lasts 13 minutes and is divided into three stimuli sequences of 4 minutes each, with two short breaks. You need to remain seated during a session but you can take a longer break when the experimenter gets back to you, once you finish a session.
  9. In each 4-minute sequence of auditory stimuli you will listen to a series of a single piano note via a microphone. You are asked to follow the changing rhythm and simultaneously generate a click sound in synchronization with any click you hear. This means that if the tempo changes you should adapt to it as soon as you can.
  10. If your task is not clear, please feel free to ask the experimenter before you start.

Instructions for the second day experiment (Visual Rhythm Adaptation):

  1. The test is done in an anechoic chamber (an acoustically dead room) that absorbs sound perfectly. The pyramid-shaped pieces on the walls and floor are covered by carbon and iron, so you may watch your clothes not to get dirty if you lean on them.
  2. Please switch off your phone and take off your watch, wristband, etc. Piercing is fine. The idea is that you should feel comfortable during the test and do not attach considerable weight to your hand. Since the room’s floor is covered by a grid, it will be very hard to find your small accessories back if they are dropped from your hand or the experiment test. So you may hand them to the experimenters before you start the required task.
  3. Your task is to generate a one-to-one response in synchronization with the visual sequence of flashes you observe.
  4. To make the click sound, you can choose your dominant hand, in case that you are left-handed or right-handed. But you must use the same hand during the whole session.
  5. You need to stare at the flashing screen during a session. Sit comfortably and be prepared for focusing on the stimuli. The test needs your 100% attention.
  6. There are three different motor tasks and you will be told by the experimenters by which mean you generate the click sounds:
    • For the finger-tapping sessions, you are asked to use the wrist to lead an abrupt, pulsed action and to suddenly release the downward force on the laptop computer keyboard’s space button.
    • For the clapping sessions, you use a take a figure-to-palm position of the right hand relative to the left hand (or vice versa) forming a right angle with a natural curvature.
    • For the weight-hitting sessions, you will be given a metal cylinder (a group of them taped to each other). Your task is holding them vertically in your preferred hand and to make the click sound by hitting the weight against a metal pad. Please keep your elbow fixed on the experiment table and do not twist your wrist to hit the pad.
  7. This trial will take up to 45 minutes and has three sessions:
  8. Each session lasts 13 minutes and is divided into three stimuli sequences of 4 minutes each, with two short breaks. You need to remain seated during a session but you can take a longer break when the experimenter gets back to you, once you finish a session.
  9. In each 4-minute sequence of visual stimuli you will watch a black screen that continuously flashes in white. The flashing light changes its frequency and you are asked to follow the visual rhythm and simultaneously generate a click sound in synchronization with any white flash you observe. Each white flash takes 300mS and is long enough to perceive but try to make the sound immediately when the screen becomes white, not when it turns back to black.
  10. If your task is not clear, please feel free to ask the experimenter before you start.

Please contact i@nim.ir in case that you are interested in taking part in the experiment. Thanks for consideration! 🙂

Parazit

Parazit is an Iranian political comedy show launched by Voice of America in 2008. Three weeks ago I was the exact 200,000th member joining  their Facebook page and I will – according to them – receive a “very very nice present”!

Growing exponentially, Parazit has so far become the most popular Persian page on Facebook with more than a thousand of new joiners each of these days. Given that Facebook is filtered in Iran their actual fans are way beyond this.

Suprisingly a couple of weeks after Washington Post  called them the Daily show of Iran and so did the CNN, Jon Stewart actually invited them to his show. Here it comes: