This keeps popping up in conversations… so… time for a blog post.

I have a Twitter account, mainly because nowadays not having one can make life a tad complicated. There are many people and organizations who's Twitter posts are the only real way of staying in the loop with them. But I don't really use Twitter, and I really do not in any way like the service.

What appears on my Twitter page is actually my Facebook activities that get forwarded to Twitter via this brilliant little tool: IFTTT, and I basically log onto the service every once in a very very blue moon. That being said, if I'm following you on Twitter, that means I DO see your posts. How? Well… that's where it gets complicated and here's also one of the major reasons why I don't like Twitter.

You see, Twitter actually has user feeds. Or "had", to be more precise. They were never highly advertised, didn't show up on the user pages and didn't get detected by browsers, but they were active and I generally developed the habit of subscribing to the RSS feeds of the people I follow, and checking their updates on Feedly [or previously GReader], which is what I actually do check pretty frequently. This wasn't working too badly, but a while back, Twitter made some changes to their API which resulted in a change in the general format of the feed address. Major pain, as I had to re-subscribe to all the feeds. Now, as of last week, Twitter has officially retired their REST API 0.1, and with it, their RSS feeds!!

Of course someone already came up with a service to take care of this problem [probably using Google Scripts or something similar], so now you can use "Twitter-RSS" to generate Twitter RSS feeds… well… obviously. But then this also means one more round of re-subscription to _all_ my Twitter contacts, yes, all the 80-something of them.  But the real disaster is of course happening to anyone who ever wrote a piece of code using the V0.1 API…. and from what I've seen, it's a good number of people. Ask me again why I just luuuv Twitter.

So anyway, you can see my Facebook activities on Twitter, and I can see your Tweets via Feedly, which works but is slightly dysfunctional, and a tad ridiculous. So, if you would like to keep in touch / stay in the loop with me, how about just trying my Facebook instead? As much as I'm not a big fan of Facebook, for a long list of reasons, it's what I'm currently actively using. 

Labels: Aasemoon, Social Networks, Technology, Web

Due to my collection of genetic peculiarities, I've undergone quite a number of tests and studies throughout my life. However last night during the "Quantified Self" meetup, I realized I've never actually looked into my sleeping patterns and stages. Given my truly weird lifelong sleeping habits, I think it might be interesting to do so.
For as long as I remember, I've slept an average of 4 hours per cycle. As a child perhaps I would stay in bed longer, but the 4 hours were all the sleep I needed, and it's still the same. I can force myself into sleeping more, that actually can at times work, but it will result in something like what people usually experience when they don't get enough sleep. There have also been times when I've gone for a number of days with much less than that, or no sleep what-so-ever. And then I sleep for a much longer time, and all is well. The little sleep that I get is quite enough, and I've basically never had a problem with being tired, sleepy or out of energy during the day. None of this has ever had a negative effect on my health, mental sharpness and so on. The few hours that I sleep are usually deep, unbroken, and apparently quite fulfilling! [Some years ago there was a study about this, titled "The Sleepless Elite". Didn't offer much in terms of answers though…]
The other odd bit is the way I dream. I've heard in many occasions, including last night at the QS event, about people attempting to induce lucid dreams. There's been quite a good deal of speculations about the positive or negative results of doing that. The thing about me, is that I don't have anything other than fully lucid dreams! I dream quite a lot, I tend to remember my dreams clearly, and in my 29 years, I have never had a dream that wasn't lucid. I've been trying to figure this one out, talking to psychologists, neurologists, and you name it…. so far I've not come any closer to knowing why.
So with all this, it was very interesting for me to look at the sleep charts created by "Zeo Sleep Manager". The device detects and records your REM, Light and Deep sleeping stages [among other features…]. This is something I've never tried, and I do wonder, with my little "situation", how my chart would look like. Perhaps I should give it a try.
More on the QS meetup, it was also interesting to see Last.fm presented as a self tracking tool. I just realized that I've been doing this for quite a few years now… I listen to humongous amounts of music on daily basis, and I can't really tell you what kind of music "I like". Depending on my mood and state of mind, I could be listening to just about anything. What I'm listening to is a reflection of my psychological patterns, and for many years now, my close friends and I have been looking at my Last.fm charts to get an idea of "how I've been doing"! So yes, haha, Last.fm is in fact the perfect self tracking/study tool! =)
And that's about all I have to say for now….

Labels: Aasemoon, Events, Life, QS, Science, Technology

So here's something I received in the post recently, from Venice. It's a dip pen, entirely made out of glass, also known as a "Murano Glass Pen". Thanks to a good friend I recently learned about the existence of these... yes, I had never seen one of these before, which given my general obsession with odd writing/drawing equipment, says something about the rarity of these pens. Apparently they're quite old, and even less popular than normal dip pens. 

I must say this is definitely the smoothest dip pens [or generally drawing / writing equipment] that I've ever used. The numerous cuts around the tip allow the pen to hold onto enough ink to fill a page with, without any need for re-dipping. And the glass tip simply draws like a dream... Honestly the pen feels like magic in my hand. I'm generally a huge fan of dip pens, but this is just mind blowing. 

Labels: Aasemoon, Art, Drawing, Fun, Obsessions

Due to requests from friends [since a very long time ago] and some recent developments, I finally sat down and came up with a way of having private content on Verse. The code and the solution itself are somewhat messy, mainly because a Wiki is basically not designed for private content [quite the opposite...]. But well, so far it looks like it works. It is now possible to have private categories, all items belonging to which would be private. Private categories can be accessed by certain user groups.

It should be kept in mind though, that this is basically like a lock on a diary. It is simply for the purpose of picking and choosing what content will be shared with whom, but it should not in any way be considered truly secure. So basically don't store your credit card numbers in there please.

Now, anyone who wants to use this feature, should tell me to set category[s] and user group[s] for them.

Labels: Aasemoon, Coding, Web Development, Website

Labels: Aasemoon, Coding, Programming, Projects, Software, Technology, Web, Web Development, Website

Labels: Aasemoon, Life

Oh, right, I forgot to mention.... the pictures and movies from Fasnacht 2011 parades are online! You can check them out here. =)

I was at the venue both in Biberist and Solothurn this year, so there's photos and videos from both. It was quite a lot of fun being there, and I'm still collecting confetti from my clothing, shoes and the flat's floor. =P As you may notice in a couple of Solothurn videos / pics, I was given a bit of an up close and personal confetti shower so when I got home, I was looking like a very colourful clown of some sort, specially since confetti has a way of sticking and staying in my curly hair. =P

A few examples:

Labels: Aasemoon, Events, Fun, Life, Switzerland, Weeee =D

I have to start this by saying that I'm not trying to "bash" vegetarians or vegetarianism. I'm not an anti-veg, and I don't have a problem with vegetarians or vegans for that matter. Generally I'm a kind of person who believes that every human being is entitled to their own opinions and beliefs, and I respect people's way of life, regardless of how different from mine they may be. I have to insist on all of the above, because I don't want to cause any misunderstandings.

I don't know how exactly this started, but I'm currently feeling exceedingly tired and annoyed, as a result of a collection of encounters that I have had with vegetarian people during the past couple of years. When did vegetarianism turn into a religion? And why is it that a very large percentage of the people who turn veg, see it fit to try to either convert you, or act as if you're somehow unholy?

I read the labels on the food products I buy [or anything else for that matter] quite carefully. I pay close attention to my diet, nutritional balance, and needs of my body. I do sports and I exercise every day, sometimes heavily. Generally I pay attention to my health and fitness. Apparently, this somehow makes me the perfect target. First I am "invited" to take the "next step", then comes the bickering and well, if you know anything about me you probably know that I don't react too well to someone trying to poke at me using arguments that they can't properly and logically defend. And yes, I'm afraid most of the times the discussion comes to an uncomfortable halt once you bring the medical and nutritional facts to the tables. Facts that unfortunately most of these terrifyingly passionate vegies didn't think to read through before they chose vegetarianism not only for themselves, but for the rest of us as well.

But before we get to the actual health facts, I also have to make a mention of another questionable reasoning the religious vegies usually bring up [very often when all else seems to fail], and that's the whole animal cruelty discussion. Well, I don't wear Merino wool or fur or anything of the sort. I don't eat in McDonald's or any of the similar chains. I think what these corporations do to animals is indeed criminal. But is that in any way the same as what humans have traditionally been doing for millenniums now?

When the Native Americans hunted a buffalo, they killed it as quickly and painlessly as possible. They did so for their survival, and they used pretty much every part of the animal for a purpose, so that nothing went to waste. Like them, I believe in nature, and in it's rules and balance. In the cycle of nature there are billions of examples of bigger living organisms feeding off of smaller ones. I don't see anything wrong with that. To me, that's as correct and  natural as it gets. However, unfortunately us human beings have turned into the only animals who kill other living beings just for the heck of it, or torture other living beings for our own profit, and I truly despise that. But how does it make any sense to say that use of meat or other animal products in the traditional sense is also "animal cruelty"??! "Meat is murder"? Really? If that's the case then I suppose mother nature is the biggest murderer of all eh?

So now let's get back to the health and nutrition side of things. I'm not going to try to explain the medical facts myself seeing that I don't have a degree in any of the related fields, but instead I have decided to create a reference list below, from a number of quite well written articles on the web that explain everything.

Of course I have to add a few notes of commons sense as well. In general what a person's body needs and what keeps them healthy is to a good extent depending on the person's body type, age, sex, life style, form and amount of activities and many other details. To recommend a diet [more like a life style in this case] to someone without taking account all the variables of their life, is generally a very bad idea. I for instance have a somewhat above the average amount of physical and mental activity per cycle, and I hardly ever sleep. The following articles will give you an idea as to how it would be an extremely bad idea for someone like me to become a vegetarian.

Also, if your diet used to consist of so much meat that you may have expired from Gout, your new vegetarian diets is most certainly much healthier. If you pay a good deal of attention to your vegetarian diet and make sure to include replacements for what you don't eat, you can certainly have a more healthy diet than most people in this world. But again, that doesn't mean that vegetarianism can be healthy for everyone and in fact, very often it is not, specially since it becomes a severe pain to create a "real" healthy vegetarian diet, which is something that many vegetarians don't seem to realize.    

The list of articles and references below is something that I'm compiling [with help from friends] so that from now on I can just forward people with "suggestions" to it, instead of having to say/type it all again each time. I have gone through the articles that I'm listing, with a couple of doctor friends, to make certain of their validity. If you'd like to add anything to this article or the links list, either log onto Verse and do so, or contact me. Enjoy reading! ;)

[I have posted this article and the actual links list on this Verse page. This way anyone else interested can edit and contribute, so that we can have a more complete reference in time.]

Labels: Aasemoon, Health, Life, Nutrition, Thoughts

I know, I've been quiet lately. I know you folks have been expecting to hear/read quite a bit more about how things are developing here. Well, truth is I recently lost someone of weight in my life under rather strange circumstances. As a result, I've fallen back a bit from all forms of online communications, while I'm trying to deal with this. But I'm still here and I do read all that you write.

This is quite difficult, I'm completely heart-broken and to all honesty it couldn't have come at a more complicated point in my life. Nonetheless, I'll get past it soon. I'll survive... always do.

-

P.S.: As far as music therapy goes, I came across this track a few days ago quite accidentally on MTV DE. And I totally fell in love with the band.

Labels: Aasemoon, Friends, Life, Music, Sad

A couple of weeks ago, I had an offer to do some modelling for a pretty well known Italian fashion brand. The offer came to me through an Italian musician/artist friend of mine who is active in that field, and in touch with the founder of that brand. I told my friend that I was very flattered [which I really, truly am, believe me! =)], but working in that specific field is just not an interest of mine, and really not in harmony with my life style and fields of activity and work that I'm interested and involved in.

So my friend relayed my response to his friend [a lady working for the brand], and then came the real surprise. A few days ago my friend told me that his friend had said that she was wondering why I had said no to the offer, since she had seen my profile on Facebook [oh, yeah!] and I had listed "modelling" as one of my interests. Apparently she was very curious as to whether I have an offer from some other brand or agency that I somehow found more interesting. =P

Well, as you can imagine I had very big round eyes when I read my friend's message saying all that. I knew that unless I was suffering from multiple personalities disorder, I couldn't have possibly listed "modeling" as an interest of mine, and to all honestly I don't think my friend believed that I had done so either. =P So then I ended up doing some digging in my own Facebook profile, and guess what... I discovered that I did in fact have the keyword "modeling" in there. Quite a few times too actually. Page names such as "Modeling the World" and "NLP Modeling" and numerous others with the "modeling" keyword most certainly are listed in my interests. =P Except of course, [well here comes the funny], those are all about  _SCIENTIFIC MODELLING_!!! D'UH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Here's the moral of my story, and my advice to all the recruiters out there: Make sure your target model is interested in the same kind of modelling as you are. =P And when you see something with the word modelling in it on someone's FB profile, CLICK ON IT, you'll see it may or may not have anything to do with your kind of modelling. And yes, there are, in fact, OTHER KINDS OF MODELLING in this world! =PP

We're still having a good laugh over this so thank you..... ;))))

Labels: Aasemoon, Friends, Funny, Life, Silly

A while ago I was asked this question on Formspring: "Which people inspire(d) you? (name a few if there are too many) Explain how they inspired you." I ended up writing a pretty lengthy answer to it... and I was planning on turning it into a blog post, but hadn't gotten around to doing so yet. Interestingly enough though, I've been receiving the same question from various people in different contexts all over the place, so I guess it's best to write it down here and refer everyone to it. So, below is the answer to the question, and here is a link to the original question.

---

Hmm. This is an interesting question with a pretty huge answer. =) Yes, there are indeed too many people who inspire me. It may be that I get inspired easily, by many things, ranging from very simple to very sophisticated. It could be a single sentence that someone says, or the simplest act, and what I get out of it could be massive.

Ok, lets name a few, more or less randomly and off the top of my head.

- My mom. Mahroo Araeenejad. =) She's the strongest person I know, with a pretty much unbreakable spirit. She's the power house, the one to rely on. And not just for me, for everyone around her. She has a heart bigger than this universe and a soul purer than sunshine. She inspires me in more ways than I can count.

- My uncle. Dr. Mehdi Ghalibafian, also known as "the father of Iranian concrete science". His wisdom, his dedication, his courage, his knowledge, his resourcefulness, his intelligence, his fantastic sense of humor, his kindness and his amazing personality will always be a source of inspiration to me.

- Isaac Asimov. His books, specially the robot series, were among my main reasons for getting interested in robotics, AI and futuristic technology as a child, and later on choosing that as my main field of study and research.

- Frank Herbert. The author of the Dune series. His books are life changing. Food for mind and soul.

- The Little Prince. The adorable fictional character of Antoine de Saint-Exupéry's legendary book of the same name. This book is like a road guide to life for me.

- Mike Oldfield. His music speaks to me, very often saying that not even the sky is a limit.

- Albert Einstein. I don't think I need to explain this one. ;)

- Thomas Edison. The God of "if at first you don't succeed, try try try again".

- My friend TanTan. She has many many amazing qualities, but something about her that really inspires me is how truly fantastic a friend she is. I mean really, there's being friends and then there's being her.... <3

- Vincent van Gogh. Hard to explain. There's something I see / feel in his paintings that is very difficult to put into words, but it's quite inspiring. I read his biography as a kid and it had a great effect on me somehow.

This list could go on forever. Really, for EVER. It would include friends, musicians, scientists, engineers, writers, artists [and certain demoscene artists / musicians / coders would have their special place!]. But time is limited, and as I said, this is just a few, off the top of my head. This turned into an essay. Perhaps I'm going to make it into a blog post. And add it to Verse, so I can add people to it in time. Thanks for the idea. =)

Cheers!

Labels: Aasemoon, Answers, Family, Friends, Life

It was really "interesting" today, when I ended up having to do a bit of an analysis on certain footsteps on my website visitor tracking tools to find out that it's been in fact people, human beings, who have attacked Verse with stupid commercial posts and some other nonsensical twaddle. Oh, and guess what, some of them even went ahead and posted links on Twitter, to the garbage they had posted to Verse. Here's a couple of examples [it might be a bot posting the stuff to Twitter though, of that I'm not certain...]:

http://twitter.com/#!/julie86smith/statuses/1207024033464320

http://twitter.com/#!/lutushia/statuses/1298952494260224

Of course the links in the posts now direct to deleted pages... I deleted the contributions of all these users from Verse, and reported them to Twitter. I also made a rather big change to Verse's registration system today. I've changed the code so that it's no longer possible to simply register an account and start using Verse. New users now have to request for an account, and then one of the admins would have to review their request and permit the account to be created, before the user can use Verse. This isn't all that conventional for a wiki system... but oh well, people have to misuse absolutely everything, and you end up having to deal with it.

Labels: Aasemoon, Coding, Spam, Web, Web Development, Website

Me loves watches. Me really really really loves old style pocket watches. Here's my beloved mechanical skeleton pocket watch. =)

Labels: Aasemoon, Watches, Weeee =D

Well this is somewhat funny. It's been 2 weeks since a 5.5 magnitude [5.0 according to some sources] quake shook Toronto and a number of other cities, and I'm still receiving messages saying things like "Oh... uh... wait... what? But I thought you were joking!! Since when does it quake in Toronto?". Or "OH MY GOD OH MY GOD OH MY GOD OH MY GOD are you alive? Are you ok? I just figured out that there REALLY was a pretty serious quake in Toronto!!!!". =P

Yes. There really was a quake in Toronto on June 23rd. Neither me, nor any of those major news agencies that wrote about it, made the whole 5.5 magnitude of it up. I was at home at the time of the quake, having lunch, or trying to. As I'm sure you all already know, I live on the 23rd [top] floor of a not terribly new building, and I can assure you that you wouldn't possibly doubt the reality of the quake, would you have been here with me, enjoying the very very real swings of this giant rollercoaster. ;) And even if that wouldn't convince you, I'm sure when stuff on the walls and shelves started dropping down on your head, you'd be sold.

I could hear the walls cracking and see small particles coming off the ceiling. I was about to move the coffee table to the balcony... My neighbours were completely freaked. Shouting, screaming, crying.... High-rise buildings are still being inspected for structural damage. Apparently the quake shook Toronto, Quebec [worst damage apparently], and parts of the USA. This wasn't the 1st quake I've experienced in my life, but it was the 1st in Canada and it was definitely one of the scarier ones. But anyway, I'm alive! =P

P.S.: Yes, if it would have come down to it, I would have jumped off the balcony.

Labels: Aasemoon, Canada, Life

So I decided to create myself an "Ask Box" too [or whatever you like to call it! ;)]. Simple, ask me anything you like and I'll answer it if I can. =) If you have an account on the website, you can choose to include your user info, or just ask anonymously. Otherwise, it's basically anonymous unless you decide to include a name. Oh and apparently it's also possible to add / follow people. So, here's mine!

Labels: Aasemoon, BlaBla, Web

Yesterday, I turned 27. =) I like the fact that the number has a 7 in it, which has always been lucky for me. ;) I guess it makes sense, given that this is most probably going to be the year of big changes. As in, _HUGE_Migrating Around The Globe_, sort of changes. Which I'm of course looking forwards to. We had a nice little party with friends, after which we went out to a Greek restaurant where I had one of my favourite dishes: Grilled Octopus. Ok, I know that maybe hard to believe for some, but Octopus really is VERY yummy, and I totally love it. =D I even took a picture for proof. [Yet again!]

I would like to thank all my friends for the very nice birthday wishes, cards, eCards and.... Thanks you so much, it means a whole lot to me. =) 

Labels: Aasemoon, Baaroon, Birthday, Family, Friends, Happy, Life, Weeee =D

A while ago I mentioned something about looking for the perfect pen to draw with. Something that would work for my crazy doodles. Today a good friend asked me if I had managed to find what I was looking for. Well, actually I did! =) I tried a rather large range of similar pens to find what I would be comfortable with, and interesting enough, it turns out the perfect drawing pen is in fact a Stylo Sharpie Pen! =D

I'm a pretty big fan of the whole family of Sharpie markers. But I didn't even know that Sharpie had these Stylo pens. Apparently they're new. =) They have very fine tips, smooth waterproof ink, and of course they come in this very pretty sky blue which is just perfect! =D

I also tried out a similar sort of pen produced by Pentel. That was also quite cool, but somehow the Sharpie managed to win me. I think it's the colour! ;)

Here's a photo of my new friend:

And here's more info.

Labels: Aasemoon, Creations, Drawing

Norooz.... it's here again. =) Time goes by fast, doesn't it? Well, I have to admit, it's been a very interesting year. A lot of interesting events happened this year, in many various contexts and directions. And from what I see right now, the coming year is probably going to be even more adventurous. Some crazy things are in the making, lets just say that for now. ;)

Tomorrow at 1:35 PM Toronto time, 6:35 PM Zurich time, and 9:05 PM Tehran time, the Persian year 2569 [1389] starts. Happy Norooz everyone, and wish you all a fantastic new year. =) 

Labels: Aasemoon, Iran, Life, Norooz, Persian

A few months ago, a neighbour's cat walked right into my bedroom when I opened the flat door to come in. After inspecting my bedroom for a bit, he found himself a comfy place on a mini table under my window, and that was that. The cat didn't seem to want to go out! =) I tried picking him up and putting him on the floor and leading him to the door, but he just turned around and went right back to where he was. Then I sat down and started doing some work on my notebook, and the cat would just circle around my chair and rub his fur to my feet. =)) Any attempts of getting him to get out was completely unsuccessful. Until finally after about an hour of playing around in my bedroom, he finally "accepted" to go back home.  

If you know anything about raccoons, you probably know that they never let you get close to them. They raid people's backyards and if one of them finds its way to your kitchen, you should probably say goodbye to any food you had in there. =) And they seem to detect human presence from kilometres away, 'cause the only thing you get to see of them is their cute behinds jumping up and down running away from you with the speed of light. =) And then, once when I was sitting under the rain, in my aunt's backyard, I noticed one of these cute creatures slowly walking towards me... I was expecting it to just turn around and go away at some point, but that didn't happen. It walked right to the spot where I was sitting, and then it climbed up my jeans all the way to my knee, so that it's eyes were looking directly into mine. It was extremely odd! I even petted the raccoon's back a bit. So it was just sitting there on my knee for some minutes.. I don't even know how long. And then it decided to leave..... it was a very cute encounter. =)

Yesterday, I noticed that a couple of pigeons were in the balcony again... up to some mischief. I love them really, but they make a bloody mess in the balcony that seeing how I'm on the 23rd floor, is slightly difficult to get cleaned. ;) Anyway, I knocked a few times on the glass door to the balcony... quite certain that they would be scared and leave. Well, that didn't happen! So I stepped in the balcony, excepting them to fly away any second now. That didn't happen either. At some point, I found myself face to face with the pigeons... close enough that I could see all the shiny pretty colours in their eyes. And I was laughing my head off too, seeing how they were just.. standing there watching me! =D So at the end I gave up... and walked back in.... it's as if they knew the threat was simply non-exiting! =P I swear, one of them was totally giving me the "yeah, right" look! =)))))

And these are just a few..... so... what is it with animals and me anyway? Any theories? =)))

Labels: Aasemoon, Animals, Funny, Life, Nature, Thoughts

Seeing how there's now about a good 2000 photos  in my Lothlorien gallery, I decided it was time for a "favourites" album.. which was in fact suggested by a few friends already. So I asked a bunch of my friends to vote for their favourites, the photos they think should be placed in the favourites album, a few weeks ago. And now I finally got a chance to sit down and go through all the suggestions, pick them and collect them in the new album. And here it is, check out our Favourites album. =)

Of course new suggestions are always welcome, so if you think that the album is missing something, let me know. There are no rules, the photo can be from any album on Lothlorien. The only semi-rule is: it's best if your suggestion hasn't already been posted to the "Me" album. But if you absolutely have to, then it's ok. =))

Labels: Aasemoon, Art, Friends, Photography