Kamangir (Archer)

World Cup 2006

Kamangir | January 31, 2006 | Category Iran

Yes, I think Iran should be banned from soccer’s 2006 World Cup. Unlike the respectful 86% of participants which believe that would be politics interfering in sports, I think there is a serious link here.

Economy vs. Freedom

Kamangir | January 31, 2006 | Category Iran

72% of people participating the QuickVote think Google should have agreed to censor its contents in China (see). Google people have their own reasons, they say they perform the same censorship in other countries like France, Germany, and the states. Google is censoring itself to satisfy Beijing to not to censor it. It seems that the “quickly growing Chinese economy” is a very good temptation to convince fans of free information society in Google to step backward. I tried a few offensive words in the Chinese version of Google (see) and I was able to see results. Also, searching “Tiananmen” was successful (see). Maybe because I am not inside China.

True Confessions

Kamangir | January 30, 2006 | Category Iran

Aiotollah Montazeri is amongst the disciples of Aiotollah Khomeini when he took over the power in 1979. He was the deputy of Khomeini for a couple of years before struggles happened and he went to exile to Najaf-Abad and then to a few other places inside Iran. Now, he is one of the hard liners in criticizing the Islamic Republic and even the supreme leader himself. In a recent interview with Newsweek, he draws a very tolerant picture of himself and tries to show how acceptable the Islamic Republic regime was decided to be (see). He blames extremists for manipulating the idea and practicing their own view, which he believes is obviously not democratic.

The interesting part of the story to me is when the reporter asks him about occupying US embassy and he replies “occupying US embassy is like occupying somewhere in the states.” He continues, “it was a wrong move, even though, I was approving of that at the time.” He then finishes by saying “with those days views, many people and also me were approving of it” (also, see this (see)).

It’s good to see how Iranian politicians start to realize and confess that they are not immune from mistake. Still, I am not sure if they would accept to be trailed for what they have done. Do you think anybody would accept arranging a court to decide about the way Iranian political prisoners were treated in the eighties?

Return to Castle Wolfenstein

Kamangir | January 30, 2006 | Category Iran

I have never had a clue that “Return to Castle Wolfenstein”, “Doom” or “Quake” are based on something true (see). I desperately need to know which portion of the stories about the holocaust are true. Though, I should mention that even the fact that your tribe may have been tortured to death does not allow you to invade others’ land, just because your great great great grand father had been living there.

Story from Iran

Kamangir | January 30, 2006 | Category Iran

Are they looking for sneaky writers who offend their values?

This is not a new story. Actually, nothing is not unlike what you would expect, if you have spent a few years in Iran. The story begins like this. A famous blogger, whose name is not known (see), writes a funny story about how to avoid AIDS (see). That story talks about a virus which entered Iran in 1979 and affected many people. Using controversial words and expressions, the author deliberately exemplifies the Islamic extremism to AIDS and asks the reader to avoid any contact with it. Then, Elham Afrootan, reported to be a computer operator in a local newspaper puts this article in the recent issue and sends it for publication. As it is Iran, the story continues with 20,000 to 30,000 local people demonstrating in the streets and the ultra-right newspaper Kayhan vowing for a sever punishment (see). Regime’s first assumption is that Elham is the author of the story. However, the original author declares his existence (see) but avoids to disclose his identity because of being afraid that his family will be tortured (see). He refers to the rumors that officials have told Elham’s parents that she will be burnt alive. Also, recently, after bus drivers in Tehran arranged a strike, police attacked them with tear gases, reportedly hitting a child with tear gases in face. The sad story develops when the head of judiciary of Hormozgan, the province in which the newspaper is published, talks about “deliberate plan’s to abrupt the celebration for victory of the revolution”. He implicitly rejects any coincidence (see). Then, he goes by using words that I have no translation for them. Things like “sneaky criminals who betray our values”. He finishes with promising to be “impartial” and “reluctant to emotions”.

As always, the slogans are like “Down to Anti Velaiat-e Fighih”.

Kayhan believes there are 20,000 to 30,000 people here (see).

Short Paper

Kamangir | January 28, 2006 | Category Iran

Proving that Noise Exists Everywhere

Arash Kamangir

Discussion Compare Figures 1 and 2.

Figure 1) Number of verses of different suras of Quran (adopted from [1]).

Figure 2) Fitting God’s names into the pattern shown in Figure 1(adopted from [1]).

Conclusion Even God himself can not get rid of noise and non-linear effects. See how he has to approximate his name. Also, as clearly seen here, God is also hardly struggling with outlier points.

References [1] Collection of Islamic Miracle (see).

Mind Reader

Kamangir | January 28, 2006 | Category Iran

This is from Sobhaneh (see). The mind reader (see) asks to choose a two-digit number and then look how it shows ab-(a+b). For a few minutes I was really astonished! How is it really working? The original flash is from (see).

Answer: ab-(a+b)=9a. See how all 9k numbers have the same symbol. The wise idea, though, is to change this symbol in every turn. Nice, isn’t it?

Obvious Junk Mail

Kamangir | January 28, 2006 | Category Iran

Tex to HTML

Kamangir | January 27, 2006 | Category Iran

It so happened that I am to be journalized again. This time, regretfully, the paper concerns pixel-based skin detection for pornography filtering. When I talked with Mike about it, he had a very simple question “so one day you decided this would be my research area?” After that, he was so generous that he proposed to do all he could do whenever I decided to restart the project. I think as our ancestors tend to say there is some blessing in this project; everybody suggests to give a hand.
Yet, I had a problem. I wrote that paper in TeX as always I do. Though, the Iranian journal in which it is to be published (IJEEE) (see) asked for the doc file. How should I do this? The answer was to find a converter and I did find a very good one. It is called TTH and does its job pretty well (see see). Just compile your file and then write in command line “tth something.tex” a file named something.html is made which includes everything! Nice and easy!

Denying Holocaust

Kamangir | January 25, 2006 | Category Iran

I think the “fact” that Jewish people have been living in ancient Jerusalem does not justify the occupation of Palestine. It is like Iran invading Macedonia because they killed many Iranians hundreds of years ago. At the same time, I see no meaning for Ahmadinejad stating “Israel should be wiped off the map”. It is interesting though to see Shirak threatening Iran that France may use nuclear weapons to defeat terrorists. It is like nobody is afraid of saying unreasonable words.

There was a Persian article in Gooya (see) about how idiot and criminal are all those people who deny Holocaust. I have heard that many people believe that Holocaust is just a myth. With the power of media, I would not be surprised to see them making whole sets of events that never exist. Like what CNN did to Ahmadinejad. A translator is claimed to translate a sentence like “we have the right to have peaceful nuclear technology” as “we have the right to have nuclear weaponry” and then CNN broadcasted it all over the world. They apologized later, but did it reduce the tension made by the later action? It is like media are doing their act as tools for the super powers more professionally, these days.

Being a lie or being a truth, Holocaust is now a “fact”. When trying to prove it is wrong, one would actually make people suspicious about his own ambitions.

Isn’t it more reasonable to try to stop another disaster, like what is going to happen in Iran if Ahmadinejad remains in power?

News With No Comment

Kamangir | January 25, 2006 | Category Iran

Claiming to be the Imam Zaman’s wife, an Iranian woman collected hundreds of thousands of dollars (see). She was collecting this money for building a very big mosque and had started the process when she was arrested a few days ago.

ebay.com stopped an auction on a Sonography picture of Angelina Julie’s fetus (see). During two days, more than fifty people took part in the auction proposing a bid of over five thousand dollars.

Small Mistake

Kamangir | January 25, 2006 | Category Iran

This is from Shargh (see) and thanks to a friend (see) of a friend (see).

A terrorist group in Iraq kidnapped French “Bernar Blanch” (spelling may be not so correct) asking French government to bring their troops out of Iraq. Yesterday, French state minister described that France has no troops in Iraq and asked the kidnappers to release the man (or woman). Sometimes people make small mistakes..

The War

Kamangir | January 24, 2006 | Category Iran

Is It Really Going to Be a War Between Iran and the World?

Cartoons

Kamangir | January 24, 2006 | Category Iran

Iran may be invaded, but at least we have all these cartoons.

Three Musketeers

Kamangir | January 24, 2006 | Category Iran

This cartoon is titled “united against the world” (see). The guy, Nik Ahang kosar’s symbol, is saying “three musketeers”.

The Advertisement Guy

Kamangir | January 24, 2006 | Category Iran

In his newly released tape, Bin Ladan invites people to read a book (see). That helped the lucky writer to reach a record high of sales. Though, he says he does not feel embarrassed because of Bin Ladan approving his book. The book is reported to blame the states for its interferences to the abroad countries.

Do Not Be Afraid

Kamangir | January 23, 2006 | Category Iran

Ahmadinejad met Qatar’s deputy prime minister. What is he saying to him now? I think something like, “Do not be afraid at all! I am really having a very good time. You know, all those idiots in the states and Europe are just wasting their time. I even had a very good dinner last night.”

Tickling

Kamangir | January 23, 2006 | Category Iran

Question: Assume that you are a top politician in Angolia. Also, assume that Angolia is seriously accused of having links to terrorists. While always declaring that you have very good ambitions, your government is pursuing a nuclear program and at the same time your president expresses “Ofgholia should be wiped off the map”. Unfortunately, Ofgholians are serious people when it comes to defeating an enemy.
Just when everything is becoming more and more tense and the world is starting a hostile approach to stop your country’s dangerous movements, you go to visit a guy in a neighbour country. Whom will you select to meet?

Answer: If that’s Iran, Larijani meets with Moghtada Sadr (see see). Sadr makes it clear that they would be there for Iranians when anybody attacks Iran.

Note: France is sending strange signals about using “any kind of force” to stop terrorists.

p.s. For sure, there was a time when threatening west with terrorism was a serious choice. Now, it is more like tickling them.

USS Reagan

Kamangir | January 23, 2006 | Category Iran

This is USS Reagan, an American gigantic ship with a nuclear engine. How much does it cost? Why is it really needed?

The Indian Way

Kamangir | January 20, 2006 | Category Iran

This is also from BBC (see the second image). These soldiers are Indian border guards preparing fancy acrobatic shows for the celebration of 55th anniversary of foundation of Indian republic. Do they think they can threaten their enemies by these odd creatures?

The Female Man

Kamangir | January 20, 2006 | Category Iran

This is from Persian BBC. The title reads “Hassan Nahid, the female player accepts a present from Saffar Harrandi” (see the 6th image). The point is that Nahid is a female name in Iran, while it is also a last name. BBC Persian is making funny mistakes these days. Koroush believes they sometimes do intentional ones (see).

Top Image Searches in Yahoo!

Kamangir | January 18, 2006 | Category Iran

Yahoo! has published the top searches of 2005 (see). The report extensively discusses different categories like celebrity, products, entertainment, and sports. In the overall results of image searches (I have still interest in image processing!), the ten top keywords are all female celebrity names and I felt so depressed when I realized that I barely have ever heard the name of half of them. The only entry there that I really know was Angelina Jolie. Checking the names, I realized why some people rather call Internet the cybersex.

Ugly Exhibition

Kamangir | January 18, 2006 | Category Iran

A 6-year-old boy and a 4-year-old girl had an engagement party in a Tehran suburb (see see). As father to Amir Hossein, the groom, mentions “nobody was believing when we sent them invitation cards”. He adds “we will get them married when they become juveniles”. He describes that he was planning to have a birthday party for his son when after seeing Hanie, the bride, he told himself “why not having an engagement party which has more fun in it?” He finishes by advising all parent to make marriage easy.

192Gfps

Kamangir | January 18, 2006 | Category Iran

In many real-world projects, it is important to give an approximate elapsed time for your algorithm. This is more important when you are working on online or semi-online applications like video compression or manipulation. To have an estimate, I searched the web and found TMS320C6713 manufactured by Texas Instrument. This DSP is able to do one billion computations in a second (that’s technically 1Gfps). Now, in a joint project between IBM, SONY, and TOSHIBA they produced Cell, a nine-core processor which beats the record high of 192Gfps.

2094 Days Behind the Bars

Kamangir | January 17, 2006 | Category Iran

Ganji’s wife published an open letter in his 2094th day behind the bars. She beings her letter by a verse of Quran which reads “Please God, do not surrounder us by people who do not have sympathy for us” (see).