Growing up A little - Egypt's 2012 Election

I am not really found of growing up myself , but when it comes to Egypt I believe it is critical that we all leave behind our childhood manners and grow up a little, because , let's face it , like all of us , you had those moments in your childhood, when you were playing and then , when you started to lose , suddenly felt the urge to flip the chess bored/cut the PS power etc, or maybe just call the other person a cheater, what about that time when you cheated to get yourself out of that situation ? Then time passed , you learned to accept loss with a good spirit and be happy about it because after all, it's the game that counts. But the truth is, for some , accepting loss was only because it was a game , nothing more nothing less , but when it comes to elections , they just can't accept loss , in fact , they are still the same irresponsible children who would not accept the rules of the game they are playing , for democracy is simply the right of the people to rule themselves , democracy never said floul ( what's left of the falling regime ) should not enter the presidential race, to be honest I unless you can prove they are criminals, anyone has the right to enter the presidential race , and people vote for those that they prefer. The inconvenient truth is that in democracy you can't exclude anyone because everyone has the right to choose how he wants to be ruled , and whether he want's a floul , a socialist ,a rebel , or an Islamist his choice must be respected and the majority's opinion will be above all , and if you don't like it then you can take power and declare 2nd kingdom (or republic if you want) as a dictatorship , but don't ask for democracy if you will only apply half of it, play the game by it's rules or don't play at all, and above all, as long as the elections were authentic, accept defeat.

Ahamd Shafiq , Mohamed Morsy , Amr Moussa, Abou El Foutouh , Hamdin Sabhy are all people that I would hate to see ruling my country , but if one of them in a clean election, then we would all just have to accept it and start collaborating with him for the creation of a new powerful Egypt, and remember , in 4 years you get to choose again and this time Egyptians will be more experienced and won't make the same mistake twice.

For Sleep

Time management is an essential skill to life , as people grow older they learn to respect and appreciate that skill – hopefully by wisdom instead of by a tough life lesson- , because time management is the skill that allows all other skills to emerge ,shine and reach their full potential after getting cleaning the dust accumulated by time misuse. In fact , time management helps people decide what their priorities are and helps them focus on their tasks so that they can finish them in time , stress free and while managing to get your regular ( if you are lucky enough to have one , that is )dose of sleep.

How do you manage your time? Simple , you create a list of the things you need to do, sort them by priority  ( try to make the list look small , because if you are as lazy as I am it will be hard to motivate yourself to finish them if the list is 10 km long , you will be slightly demotivated and won’t finish anything at all, trust me that’s coming from experience. Remember to estimate the time of each action so you don’t overload you day and give yourself breaks so you can renew your energy and go back to work with a fresh brain.

Ok so now you’ve got your list ready? Great ! now next step , execute it . No don’t give that look , come on honestly I am sure you saw that coming? No? well sorry to break this down to you but you have to work on accomplishing them now , don’t worry they’ll be done on time if you don’t get very distracted  , take my word for it I am writing this article at 12:48 am (time management , how ironic ) , that’s about 7 hours before it’s due ( well actually 48 minutes late but  that’s nothing, you can always forge the date if you want but I don’t recommend that , it’s useless ).

Now the most important step , is self discipline, you can make plans to manage you time in the most brilliant of ways , but all of that will be worthless if you cannot bring yourself to follow  (follow  is not the freest of words , how about embrace? )  that plane , resist all temptations to create a new plan or derive the original one if you know that you are only doing this to procrastinate and waste time ( and you can’t trick your conscience so don’t pretend you taught it for your own good , that’s pointless and lying to yourself only makes things worst and pushes to feel guilty, makes you despise yourself and destroys your ego, so an off topic advice, always be truthful to yourself , don’t try to give excuses for your mistakes , confront yourself with the truth, accept  it and learn to love it and be happy with it, then try to be better, or else you will be miserable ). Tame your cravings so you only focus on what you have to do ( Red Alert 2, minesweeper , facebook and 1984 can all wait , math can’t ), and finish it.

I am going to have to conclude this now as it is already 1:11 am ( yes I did procrastinate a little while writing this , but I am an IB student it helps me concentrate ) , however sleep has became one of my top priorities these days, so I’ll fight of the will to write a verbose blog post ( because I m very talkative) well it’ actually 615 words so I guess I am fine , and fight off the alluring sight of the internet right after I finish this blog post ( no facebook, no twitter no http://ahmed-khaled-tawfik.blogspot.com/ -visit it there is a reason I copy pasted the link - , straight to sleep , and that my friends is self control.

Goodnight, and please forgive the sheer stupidity  of this article and the prodigious amount of mistakes I am sure I committed, I need sleep . 

Nothing , and that's why it works

2 year's ago I read a story called "les mise en boîte " , the protagonist of the storey is a little girl who discoverd her ability to ask peopel questions that directs them the way she wants (  best case scenario) or bemuse their mind with a question they can't answer so they leave her alone, in the middle of the story the protagonist asks her teacher what forces her to obey him  , the teacher's response was very simple yet confusing "nothing , and that's why it works" , the girl was astonished and obeyed her teacher. At that point , I stopped reading and started contemplating the teacher's response for that question was on my mind since I was shorter then a chair , since nothing is forcing us, why do we CHOOSE obey ???? Is it because we're afraid ? Is it because we're confused ?? Is it because we believe we're better off obeying ?? Maybe because we belive those we obey are smarter or superior ?Is it because we trust that those we chose to obey and that they only want our good ?? Is it a question of weakness and strength ? Is it a question of gratitude ? Maybe knowledge and ignorance ? Perhaps because peopel are thaught to obey or they are too afraid or lazy to think for themselfs ?Etc...

I had all these questions in my head , and for a year I had decided to adapt the " nothing " as an answer even thought I doubted it ,because I needed an answer that would be valid for ALL cases , and because I discovered that all the other answers weren't really primary reasons but merely secondary reasons. 

Then came the 25 Jan revolution . and I witnessed  the egyptian society in a very critical and unique time ,and suddenly it was obvious as the sun why  people choose to follow and why some choose to disobey , and that I was blind to that reason because - without realizing it- I was always thinking with a rather anarchic logic , but the truth is there is a social contract sustaining each society in the world, usually emerging from religions and the culture of that society , that contract is a set of unwritten laws that all or most of the society  believes it would help the society evolve into a better one , and it is that contract who has the power to give authority or take it , and because almost every body is ready to do whatever is necessary to help in his own and his society's evolution, then almost everybody choose to follow these rules , and as it happens that these rules always give authority to a unified governing organization (governed by the social contract and some other stuff) who's goal is to protect the society , secure it's evolution and keep these unwritten rules applied ( sometimes even by writing them or writing rules to secure them , for example they protect the value of work by not giving mush money/privlages to those who don't work and they protect the value of knowledge by giving superior jobs to the most knowledgable etc...). 

But what happens if that governing corps doesn't respect that social contract? The answer is simple ' the governed get the right stop obeying and to express there anger and discontent , threw riots , news paper articles , strikes , even terrorist acts ( destroying a parliament or any authoritarian symbol etc ..) or civil disobedience. The last is very special , because as the mahatama Ghandi once realized , they as or more effective then riots , not bloody at all , in fact it's carectrised by complete abscence of violence , for civil disobedience is simple , people just stop obeying the government , stop going to work , stay in their houses paralyzing the economy and the country and striking the government where it hurts all while limiting the government's ability to react in a hostile manner. 

Personally , I believe civil disobedience is the best solution for Egypt these days , while the riots and protests continue , I really don't want to see any more blood shed in the streets and never desire to hear the television broadcasting the death and injury toll at the latest protest or strike (or at any other occasion ) again. I believe Egypt has lost more then enough of it's loving people already.

A Good friend

They say all you need in life is good friends , and I can only disagree with such statement , as you need oxygen , water , food , money etc... but really  if it wasn't for your friends , would all these things have any taste at all?

A friend is anybody you love and have a stable deeper then the normal good-morning-how-is-work  relation , someone you enjoy going out with or talking to. You can have hundreds of colleagues and connections ,and tens of friends, it's easy to form new friendships and you can do it anytime , anywhere with the conditions that there would be other humans there ( you don't even have to talk a commune language )   , but good friends are really rare , you can't make them out of the thin air and once you have one , they bring out the best of you and you bring out the best of them.

A good friend , is a person who is always authentic around you , never wearing a mask and never changing faces , he is the person who fears for your friendship does his best to preserve it and would never lose contact with you even if he immigrates routinely . He is the person whose opinion you can't ignore even if you have your mind set on something and nobody else could make you change your mind about it .

He is the person who is always honest and direct to you about your flaws and mistakes but is always trying to change you to be better ,yet he accepts you for who you are . He would warn before you do something stupid ( and how surprisingly frequent is that ) , and when you don't listen he would tag along with you and risk bearing the consequences of your bigot actions just to make sure you stay out of troubles (or don't fall in them alone ) and don't end up killing yourself or with a broken leg, or simply to be there to call the ambulance quickly . He  would understand the motives behind most of your actions and would always act in a way never to embarrass you , and even better help you achieve your goal . He is the first person you think of when you're in trouble and the first who calls you to know if you are going well once he hears about prison breaks , he would always know what gifts to get you on your birthday and when to give it  to you ( if you hate birthday's), and -shockingly- he is the one person you don't wonder for hours about which gift to buy him on his birthday , he also happens to be one of the people for whom you buy gifts sometimes even if it's not their birthday and who would get you gifts without any occasion.

A good friend is the person who gained so much of  your trust that you don't mind him using your laptop without your "surveillance"- even if you believe privacy is as essential for your existence as air and water - , not just because you don't mind him knowing those tiny little secrets that makes every one of us who they are , but also because you are sure he wouldn't be digging for them anyway ( not to mention he might be already knows most of  them)  . He's just someone who is more then trust worthy and as close as a brother to you , someone who knows stuff about you that you don't know about yourself , yet he doesn't just accepts all your flaws, he enjoys them,  all while trying his best to "fix you " and in return - without even being conscience of it - you find yourself doing the same. A good friend would always do what's better for you ( even if it's against your will ) , he's that person you can't really get angry from , one of the few people that can really hurt you with their words or actions ( yet he never does) . He is the one individual that you would happily take the blame for him ( well you wouldn't be happy for being falsely accused  , but you get my point ) , and he is one of the rare people who wouldn't accept it and would denounce themselves to save you (all while getting you into more trouble because you didn't reveal who was the true criminal from the start, but it;s the intentions that count ) , and then if you are in a really bad mood or after a terrible situation , just a brief eye contact with them would suffice to make you both explode in laughter no matter how disastrous the situation was.

 That is A Good Friend.

Who is your "role model "?

I can't remember how many times I have been asked this question since I was five , by my family , by my friends , by my teachers , and by an innumerable number of strangers . It have been asked so many times it has almost lost it's meaning to me , and for many times I had given the same overused answer " I don't know " , unless the person would require an answer and insist that I have a role model and that I have to ADMIT it, sometimes even shout in my face and threaten with whatever they can do to harm me if I don't admit who is my role model ( which should be considered as an act of ideological terrorism ) and if they don't get the answer to that enigma that have troubled philosophers since the down of men and which would have ended all wars , ended poverty and kept earth stable in it's orbit around the sun .they would just leave - luckily - while mumbling about how our generation is the worst since the creation of men and how Egypt is gonna become a Somalian colony by the time we are twenty etc...

Back on topic , the reason I never reely had a role model is - I guess - because I never had a real goal (except for one that I have had my whole life, but I don't need row models to guide me for that goal ) in life, because I have very high standards for a role model ( they have to be perfect , period ) . And because I realise I have some boundaries and I don't want to choose a role model then not excel at all they excelled  at ( I know there is a contradiction in the last two sentences , that's partly why I have no role model . I also don't see myself on the path of any other man, and partly in defiance to that specific stranger whom I mentioned in the first paragraph  .

 I have no role model , but I do have an ever growing list of people I respect and/or have inspired me ( I am skipping the religious and family characters, it too personal ) . 

Tesla's most famous legacy , the Tesla Coils

Nicola Tesla : One of the founders of modern age physics and the man who was ahead of his age by at least a hundred years ( some of his ideas are just starting to be researched now ) , the real and first inventor of the radio ( but it wasn't admitted till after he died so Marconi still was the one to keep the Nobel prize) , the radar, Tesla coils , the Columbus egg  and over 200 other inventions , he was the first to create artificial thunder coming from the sky, his researches permitted the creation of X-rays and hundreds of modern day machines . But what actually made him on the top of the people who inspired me is because of his researches on wireless electricity and electromagnetic fields .( Tesla appears on the 100 Serbian Dinar)

Utopia , the only long novel by A.K.T

A.K.Towfiq : A modern Egyptian writer , and he was the reason I started loving reading and his series and novels are the main reason I know most of the people on this list . Aside from that , he was one of the people who taught me how to think ( I started reading his books at a really young age ) and left a huge imprint on my life and personality.



The 25 jan rebels : Needless to say , these guys changed ( and are changing ) not just my life , but the way I see that life .

Napoleon :
Gorge Orwell :
C.A.Crumlish

I'll keep editing this post and add more when I have time ( the list is huge ) 

About SOPA, PIPA, and internet freedom ...

The words SOPA and PIPA have been everywhere on the internet lately . For those who don’t know what they are , SOPA and PIPA are drafts for two laws that will allow the American government to shut down any website containing or linking to copyrighted materials without prior notice and fine them , maybe even put the people responsible for the website and copyright infringements in jail . PIPA is a law that forces ISP’s to block certain websites from their users, and even before mentioning any more details, this is screaming "POLICE STATE ". In other words , if the American government or a copyright holder deems a website as a copyright violators it reports it to the American Justice Department , and if the website domain is within the USA it is immediately shut down , if it’s not it’s reported to the ISP’s so that they would block it from their users ( of course proxy servers like the ones used during the Arab spring to bypass government censorship will be blocked too ). SOPA and PIPA have been supported by major copyright holders ( Microsoft , Apple , Universal Studios etc… ) and opposed by companies like Google, Mozilla , The Wikimedia Foundation, Facebook etc…  most of the general public and the internet community ( Anonyms , Wikileaks , The Pirate Bay , Whited00r etc…) .

There are four main points of objection to this projects ( four since people who want SOPA and PIPA not to pass as laws so that they could use pirated materiel don’t count ):

1.    1.    This is censuring the internet , hence heavily censoring free speech and the freedom of expression to exaggerated extent ( for example : if a political figure uses a flyer to campaign it’s agenda, and you edit what’s written on the flyer to use that flyer in a blog post were you explain what you believe is their true agenda, the political figure is free to accuse you of copyright violation and shut down your whole blog and force you to pay a fine for violating their copyrights, it can also be used by the US government as an excuse to censer all sites they deem inappropriate for US citizens , such powers could be abused by any corrupted regime to come  ).

2.     2.        The US government has been heavily criticizing the Chinese internet censorship ( all thought it’s also primarily with the agenda of stopping online piracy ) for years . Also if the US government does it , and considering its current superpower state , then all governments will be censoring the internet if they want to without any real international objection because it will have to be a strong objection against both the US government ( the one that is so zealous about “freedom” that it will destroy it’s own economy in a long destructive war “just” to bring freedom to a middle eastern country ) , and the other government .

3.     3.        SOPA is punishing the whole internet community for the act of one , for example if one copyrighted video is illegally  posted or was linked to by a video on YouTube , the whole site with all the useful and legal videos on it will be shut down , or if a blog on blogger contains copyrighted materiel illegally then the whole domain ( in that case blogger including  all its blogs ) get’s shut down or blocked .

4.    4.          There is no prior notice before taking down the “guilty” website .

In the mean time SOPA and PIPA seem to be pose no real threat to internet freedom because thanks to the worldwide protests ( online and in the streets ) the draft  is almost cancelled ( well postponed but is likely to be withdrawn or modified ). Some of the most important factors that led to what is considered today as the internet and free speech victory over the monopolies are:

1.    The White House objection : president Barrack Obama announced the White House won’t agree on any law that limits freedom of speech

 2. . The online “peaceful” protests of Wikipedia , Google , Mozilla etc… : Where tens of the most used websites in the world either blacked out their websites or posted anti-censorship logos on the “American censorship day”.

3. Anonyms: The lax group of hacktivists who have been relatively calm since the first quarter of the Arab spring except for some NATO websites attacked, have threatened to respond if SOPA and PIPA were passed by the congress . The Megaupload shut down by the American department of justice got them furious and responded by taking down websites belonging to the Department Of Justice , the FBI , the copyright.gov website and several key entertainment websites ( the RIAA foe example ) in an attaq considered the biggest ( by targets and number of Anons participating ) in history .

Hopefully , the congress will get the message and the bill won’t be passed . 

New Year's Resolution



A Real New Year's "Resolution"

It’s this time of the year again, the time where everybody see a new year coming ( already !!!!!!) , realize that 365 days have passed and that they don't have a pause button for time. A time where people are forced look back on the old year , contemplate what they have achieved or lost during that year, and , always whether they are satisfied with it or not , realize they have much to do and  much to change and that this new year is a blank page hat haven’t been filled yet with their mistakes and failures , and that they have the chance to shape it and fill it in any way they want. And that is what I believe is what the new year celebrations are all about ( I can't find another reason other then refreshing the economy and this ) . The beauty of this time of the year is not just the fact that it symbolizes new beginnings , birthday's do too yet I hate them , I believe the real beauty of this event is that almost everybody in the world is preparing  (even if it's only in his mind no matter how much they say they think new year's resolutions are useless) a list of resolutions to make him a better person and make the world a better place, therefor there is, even if for less then a month, a "change" that happens somewhere , and the world actually becomes a much better place for a while.

Now real, long lasting changes rarely happy because of new year's resolutions , it's life events , reflection ,true will and determination that causes a change ( positive or negative ) to happen , but still,  it gives me hope to see that people everywhere realize what  needs to be changed and want to change to a better person.