Skyward Fire

Today, I complete my 6 exact months here in UAE. And truly so it has been an adventure, one of it’s kind. Things unfurled in ways I did not expect them to, but it had truly been a journey full of shock and awe, good and bad.

Honestly speaking, despite all the bad press that Dubai usually gets, I love it here. And there’s scores of reasons why. We’re all people, none of us are perfect. But the media has a thing for inflated bad publicity and that’s what Dubai has always got, specially from Western media. But I shall speak unbiased, unprejudiced. I’m no fan of monarchy, and a lot of things that UAE advocates. But I love Dubai. Every place, every person, every entity has it’s own flaws, and we’re all flawed in our special ways. But that is what makes it even more fun.

I’ve had the pleasure of roaming around the city plenty of times, but it has never seemed enough. This one time not along ago in the first week of February, I was with my girlfriend there. Every single new trip is an experience of it’s own. Here’s to exactly what makes Dubai so special (with quite a few contributions from my friends on Twitter).

• Contrary to what the RTA has to say and everyone else’s traffic vows, owning your own car is more convenient in every single way that public transport. Cabs are expensive, and buses will confuse you. Metros are a good initiative but they’re not widespread right now. Eventually, may be. But the city will be difficult for you to measure if you don’t have you own car
• Karak chai. Two words. That’s it. There are a lot of places in Dubai, and in the other Emirates where you’ll find the most refreshing karak ever
• The Shawarma, preferably at Beirut Restaurant & Grill or Wildpeeta
• Leaving your car unlocked and not worrying about not finding it the next day except in Deira & Bur Dubai
• You can go to the beaches what ever time of the year you wish to (just don’t get too kinky)
• The map of the city changes every week. If you think what is where, you have no idea what you’re getting yourselves into
• You can roam around Bastakiya even when its the middle of the summer and walk into the galleries and cafes
• You can wear flip-flops and sandals all year round. Though I don’t prefer this one since a lot of premier places have dress-codes that only allow closed formal wear, plus, all the outdoorsy elements wont do your feet any good
• The locals are really nice and pleasant people
• Carrot Cake at Lime Tree Cafe, Jumeirah
• Thanks to Burj Khalifa, you can climb the highest man-made structure ever built
• You don’t have to speak neither Arabic nor English to live here
• Nothing beats the 8:00 PM view from Burj Al Arab while you slip in some good wine at Skyview Bar
• The banks will increase your credit limit just when you’re thinking of buying that fancy new flat-screen
• It is easier to get a new credit card than it is to get your bank account statement
• The sea food at Saffron, Atlantis The Palm
• Fly Dubai!
• You can reach most of the worlds destinations within 5 to 7 hours. Europe, Africa and most of Asia. Where ever you may need to go
• Thai food at Lemongrass, Lamcy Plaza
• There is no fixed time for having sheesha. 3 AM, 6 AM, 2 PM ..
• Cops will stop you just to check out your ‘cool ride’

The new Apple iPad is the newest addition amongst Apple’s window of products. At 0.5” thick with a 1GHz Apple A4 custom-designed chip, this certainly stands out as one of the signature Apple products. But ever since the launch, it has been a victim of Apple-bashing from people who like to judge things even before trying it out, and jumping to conclusions about certain things and features. And one of the many things that got bashed up include even the nomenclature of the product. No one bitches about a letter pad sounding anything like a tampon, so what’s so intriguing about making fun of this product anyway?

The specifications of the Apple iPad are nothing exciting, true that. But it’s too early to speak considering how, like the iPhone, even this might eventually evolve into a really handy gadget. One can’t live up to everyone’s expectations these days. It has no USB port, no flash support, it can’t multi-task (expecting much from a 1GHz ARM core is a joke), it can’t make phone calls (unless you’re using VOIP over 3G), and it has no card reader. These drawbacks and upset a lot of people. But I’m sure Apple will eventually resolve at least some of these issues with firmware updates (flash support) and other hardware upgrades, like it did with the iPhone.

In a profit-driven market, it’s easy to guess what restrictions AT&T might have implemented on the deal they have with Apple for the iPad so as to make sure that people use the data bandwidth, and Apple’s App Store as much as possible. So, the iPad has been dubbed as an iPhone on steroids. It has no front camera, which I was personally expecting to see. But the fact that it weighs a little over 700 grams and marks about 10 hours battery life (actual usage statistics may come down to 6-7 hours) still makes it worth a consideration. It’s a shame it’s being compared to the iPhone, and some are comparing it to netbooks. It must be understood that this is a new product category. It’s too early to say if the iPad pleases or disappoints. Justin Williams has a nice article on why he does not want an iPad.

Considering the fact that 3G data charges in India, and here in UAE, and in a lot of countries around the world is still pretty high, the iPad will take time to pan out. Those who have been thinking of the iPad as a potential gaming machine might reconsider, since the lack of hardware keys and only multi-touch makes it kind of difficult to imagine how one would play anything on something so big while chilling out. And $500 isn’t cheap for what Apple has to offer even for a starting range. What you’re getting for that is a closed system that can’t run any standard apps or games, can’t run any standard operating systems, can’t do most of the stuff you’d want it to do, you’re forced upon some of that Apple DRM love, and if you want more, you have to pay more. Classic Apple!

Chrome OS based future products based on Dual core Atom/Dual Core Cortex A9 Nvidia Tegra2 will blow this thing away if Apple doesn’t satisfy it’s users soon, since that would be a cheaper and a more productive alternative. The Apple iPad has a very simplistic approach, and is not for a heavy user. You use a toaster to toast and you use a juicer to juice. Apple’s R&D is innovative, and thinks out of the box. But when it comes to implementing their finds on to their products, they are never in a rush to do so. They took 2 years to bring copy-paste to the iPhone, and that says a lot about how Apple thinks. No matter what, their products sell. And no matter what, people wait. So we’ll have to give it time and see how the Apple iPad actually unfurls. If not, we’ll always have HP Slate!

Internet is not the most reliable sources of information, specially if the particular source we’re talking about is a screenshot of CNN article hosted on Angelfire. Come on people, seriously? There’s absolutely nothing on CNN about it, but people are believing a CNN story screenshot which is hosted on a third party website.

Everyone has been talking about it, and since Twitter is pretty hip these days, the whole deal with trending topics hardly gave the rumor time to spread. It’s out like wildfire, with almost 400 tweets every second containing the phrase “RIP Johnny Depp”. What the screenshot contains is text from a hoax from back in 2004. Yes, it’s the same damn thing. For a moment even I was stunned to hear the same. But a little researching on the internet is all that is takes. The screenshot in question is this.

The rumor mill is nothing new for celebrities, but we have got to think how much jokes like these hurt the fans, friends and families of the celebrities, and the celebrities themselves. It’s a way of creating traffic, generating mindless chaos, and wasting other people’s time. And I pity those who’re responsible for all this, even though it is just for the heck of some fun.