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(Eid blessings).

Today is the first day after Ramadan, known as the Eid-al-Fitr, one of the two main Islamic holidays (the other being the Eid-al-Kabir which celebrates Abraham’s sacrifice and occurs after the yearly Hajj pilgrimage).

The month of Ramadan is the one in which the Quran was revealed, and after a month of fasting, muslims emerge with a newly refreshed appreciation for God’s gifts of food and drink (remarkably similar, in fact, to the American holiday of Thanksgiving).

My best wishes on this festive occasion and may you find peace and joy, wherever you are.

The Chinese government sends executed men’s families invoices for the cost of the bullet. Not to be outdone, the German secret service bills the people it is tapping…

I just returned from a cousin’s wedding in Houston. One very effective way I found to make the flight bearable is to carry an Apple iPod MP3 player with a pair of Sony MDR-NC10 noise-canceling earbuds.

The iPod holds hundreds of CDs’ worth of music (without being interrupted constantly by the PA) and its lithium-ion battery lasts enough for a Paris-San Francisco flight. The Sony earbuds cancel noise passively (as ear plugs) and actively through destructive interference, and reduces engine noise to a low hum, so even pianissimo passages in classical music are audible.

Updated (2004-04-02):

I have trouble making the Sony earbuds stick in my ear, they have a tendency to work their way loose. I have switched to a better solution, the Etymotic ER-4P earphones reviewed here.

I’ve redesigned the site with a custom template based on Bryan Bell’s Moveable Radio Modern. Why the stark black and white design? Because when there are large colored areas in a layout, the perception of colors is skewed, not a good thing when you have many photos on a site.