Marwane El Kharbili

Sep 19, 2008

L'amour a la marocaine...

J'ai toujours ete un facon de l'humour noir bien sombre et mechant, a la sauce ironie acide... Bon, c'est peut-etre une facon un peu extreme de voir les choses :D Mais pour en venir au sujet, il s'agit de l'amour au maroc. Vous me direz, mais l'amour...c'est une chose universelle, tout le monde doit connaitre, tout le monde doit avoir des idees similaires sur le sujet...Non, les marocains, pour ceux qui ne les connaissent pas, sont une sous-espece du genre humain qu'aucune science connue ne pourrait ni comprendre ni expliquer. Les journalistes de TelQuel, periodique que j'adore tout simplement, avec lesquels je ne suis pas d'accord sur un nombre de choses, surtout lorsqu'il s'agit de religion, avaient ecrit une chronique il y a 3 ans sur l'amour au maroc. ceux qui connaissent le style des petits gars de TelQuel ne seront pas surpris par le melange d'ironie et de serieux avec lequel ils parlent de la chose. cette ironie qui nous est bien propre nouspermet de rire de nos problemes, de nos defauts et de nos peurs sans pour autant deprimer ou penser au suicide, c'est la solution miracle qui a permis au marocains de survivre a des siecles d'histoire mouvante. Done tout cela, c'est pour vous motiver a jeter un coup d'oeil a l'article en ligne de TelQuel: Les marocains et l'amour. Bonne lecture!

Marwane El Kharbili.

Sep 10, 2008

Control SOX ROI Calculator

Doing it once not being a rule, this time I got something useful to say actually :D

I found this Internal Controls ROI calculator through the Inside Sarbanes-Oxley Blog. This calculator by Aline should help you explain your management that every penny spent of creating and managing internal controls actually get back in your pocket in ways that are not directly to see.

Marwane El Kharbili

Sep 6, 2008

Check your nerdiness!

On Dr. gernot Starke's blog (IT & more), I discovered a link to a page evaluating one's own nerdiness score. I decided I had no problem with that and that I would be very curious to know what my score would be. I do not think being nerdy is a bad thing, I even appreciate working with nerds. I have to say because of my background I have been in contact with many of them, but a lot less now that I have started my professional career. Nerds are actually very funny people, and most of them have very specific views on the world and on people. It is always very interesting to talk to nerds, but you certainly have got to come from the same background as them, at least to understand what they are saying and be able to discuss with them.

I will say nothing about the questions you'll get, so you'll be able to be surprised. But the questions are really asked by a nerd, although these questions are really primary class level for a real nerd, i.e. they are extremely easy and quick to answer if you have at least been a nerd or lived and spent much time around nerds :D

One thing before I tell the results, I have been trying for years to quit my short but intensive nerdy times and I really answered intuitively, as quick as possibel and most of all, honestly (means that I answered what I think and not what I know a nerd would answer). So I took the test and....my score is...:
______________________________________________

Overall, you scored as follows:

16% scored higher (more nerdy),
1% scored the same, and
83% scored lower (less nerdy).

What does this mean? Your nerdiness is:

High-Level Nerd. You are definitely MIT material, apply now!!!.
______________________________________________

Lol, isn't that funny....euuh...I guess only a nerd would find this funny...ok, ok, it's not funny :D

Oh and now my score is from now on to be seen for ever on my blog, look for it!

Marwane El Kharbili.

PS: If you are really a nerd, then this website is for you: plenty of nerd tests.

Sep 2, 2008

Google's protocol buffers

Google made its protocol buffers language publicly available. Our american pals have been using this data description language internally for a long time and because of its simplicity and thus ease (and speed) of processing has quite some advantages when compared to XML. If you only need a simple serialization data format to convey information and do not need complex processing techniques, then you might wanna have a look at protocol buffers. Protocol buffers provides simple models: lists and records while making the size of data necessary to encode information 3 to 10 times smaller than XML-based formats (dialects). Parsing is said to be 20 to 100 times quicker. Using the simple list and record structures, it is possible to generate classes in a target language such as python or java or any language of choice in order to write logic for those structures.

The language has now gone open source. So something similar to IDL but google guys say it is not as complicated. See google's announcement here and the page of the project on google code here, where you can among other things download the project.

Marwane El Kharbili

Source: JournalDuNet: http://www.journaldunet.com/developpeur/breve/international/29225/google-propose-une-alternative-a-xml.shtml