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Are Geeks in Saudi Arabia Just Like Us?
Robin 'Roblimo' Miller (of NewsForge and sometimes Slashdot) spent five days in Saudi Arabia's capital, Riyadh, meeting with local Linux advocates and users, and wrote five articles while he was there. The article titles are Saudi Arabia: Linux advocates in white robes, Saudi Space Institute techies love their new Linux computer, Meet Saudi Arabia's most famous computer expert, Saudi open source conference opens minds, and Linux and open source opportunities in the Mideast. This is the first in-depth look ever at open source (and programming in general) in a conservative Islamic country. Roblimo concludes that under the robes, Saudi geeks are much like geeks everywhere, but from comments on the stories it looks like a lot of people don't agree.
And? Geeks are the same everywhere.
You are not the customer.
Roblimo concludes that under the robes, Saudi geeks are much like geeks everywhere
What's that exactly supposed to mean?
Or . . .
Show them a picture of Natalie Portman and gauge their reaction.
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
It depends. Do they use Vi or *shudder*Emacs?
#include "sig.h"
There is no comparison. Here in America we play Dungeons and Dragons. Over in the Middle East its Dunes and Djinis. Nope, nothing in common.
C - A language that combines the speed of assembly with the ease of use of assembly.
In Saudi Arabia the Linux zealot will blow himself up when his company goes with a Microsoft solution.
They can't collect hard-drives full of porn.
> Roblimo concludes that under the robes, Saudi geeks are much like geeks everywhere
Even the most rudimentary biological knowledge should have tipped you off that what's under the robes is just like what's under the jeans, kilt, or lederhosen.
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
They're just like the geeks in the USA, except that their non-existant girlfriends have fewer rights.
You are in error. No-one is screaming. Thank you for your cooperation.
I found at least a dozen anonymous surfing sites that let me view all the porn anyone could want in less than 30 minutes
Surfing pr0n in Saudi and then writing about it. I hope he gets out of the country.
KDE vs. GNOME on a whole new level!!!
in saudi arabia, geeks have the advantage of women being forced to marry them.....
I am the Alpha and the Omega-3
Ten differences between a Saudi geek and a Stateside geek:
1. The Saudi geeks don't have cellars.
2. They browse from right to left.
3. Stateside geeks have longer hacking sessions, not being required to stop for prayers every few hours.
4. Saudi geeks have better weather.
5. Saudi geeks drink tea, while stateside geeks drink coffee.
6. Saudi geeks get more work done, not reading Slashdot as often.
7. Stateside geeks wear sandals, Saudi geeks wear Gucci.
8. Stateside geeks rarely dress in white.
9. Saudi geeks speak at least two languages - Arab and English. Stateside geeks hardly speak at all.
10. Saudi geeks go camel-riding in the weekends. Stateside geeks don't have weekends.
My blog
Lets see... cultural differences...differences in governments and law... different educational systems... they smell like ass - oh wait, all nerds smell like that. Guess they're not so different after all.
it's a brotherhood.
(someone corrects my syntax)
...people in glass houses don't throw stones unless your adulterous sister is inside.
Women aren't even allowed to drive in Saudi Arabia
You say that like it's a bad thing...
Yes they are, only thinner.
.... as well as the Indian and Pakistani ones.
They hate each other but love FreeBSD over Linux/Windows. Oh how sweet. Lets hug each other.
http://saveie6.com/
Shouldn't this story have the camel logo which the previous one sported? How many penguins are in Saudi Arabia?
[ Just after terrorism is stopped, Israeli colonies (or "settlements") in Palestine are dismantled, an agreement is reached over the holy sites, a stable democratic Palestinian state emerges sharing Jerusalem as a capital with Israel, free circulation between these two countries is instored and peace and collaboration treaties are signed between Israel and all Arab states, there'll be nothing to prevent Saudis from teaming up with Israelis.]
"Linux" -- "BSD" -- "Linux" -- "BSD"
aw, the hell with them, just push the button Ali.
He peeked under the robes to see if they are like Scotsman.
[leaps behind politically correct flame-proof wall]
A firewall can not protect you from yourself. Turn off what you do not need. Do not use the firewall to do your work.
And before any of you smart-assed Euros ask me if I'm an American, I'm not. I'm Canadian.
And from one Canadian to another, please do us all a favour and move somewhere where your brand of sophisticated political analysis and your fantastic social skills will be more thoroughly appreciated. I hear there's a lot of open land in Texas just waiting to be developed.
"Roblimo concludes that under the robes,"
Um, I don't know about you guys, but I really, really don't want to go there.
less Geek -> Geek -> more Geek
;)
Emacs Vi Emacs
Vi is for pussies.
"I only speak the truth"
Karma: null(Mostly affected by an unassigned variable)
Most Slashdot commenters these days seem to be avowed members of the antiamerican, antisemitic, antiwar left (and rather shrill ones at that).
You missed out "anti-hot-coffee". Just try suggesting that serving hot coffee isn't such a bad idea and see what kind of reaction you get.
Fetch.... THE COMFY CHAIR!!!!!
Nobody expects the Saudi Inquisition!
* And remember, it's spelled N-e-t-s-c-a-p-e, but it's pronounced "Mozilla."
Seriously, I'd take a few cocks up the ass if it meant I didn't have to wear wool in the middle of a fucking desert.
Many countries place quotas on immigrants from various other countries. So, whether Greeks who emigratate to Saudi Arabia can get to a level that they can form a robust community... oh, wait. GEEKS.
Signatures are a waste of bandwi (buffering...)
Here's an article from a newspaper editor who went to Saudi Arabia to train reporters for a year:
...A middle-aged Saudi told me, "I am worried about the next generation. They don't see any real women at all. You don't see each other's wives, daughters, sisters. Everything is masculine. And yet they are bombarded by images. They can easily see porn. They live in the imagination of sex all the time. We don't grow naturally, to be loved, not to be loved--we don't undergo these changes. Two-thirds of the marriages here are basically loveless. Many men cheat--there's a lot going on underground." ...The absence of socialization between men and women struck me as a potent factor in terrorist fantasies. The hijackers who killed themselves on September 11th were propelled in part by the notion of being rewarded in the afterlife with the company of virgins. Such abstractions don't seem quite so strange in a country whe
http://www.lawrencewright.com/art-saudi.html
He has a number of surprising insights into the repressive and mysogynistic Saudi society. If not all Saudi's are sexist, then a very large majority of them. And contrary to expectations, the younger generation are even worse because they grew-up in an even worse society than their parents.
Here's an excerpt:
The self-effacement of an entire sex, and, in consequence, of sexuality itself, was the most unnerving feature of Saudi life. I could go through an entire day without seeing any women, except perhaps some beggars sitting on the curb outside a prince's house. Almost all public space, from the outdoor terrace at the Italian restaurant to the sidewalk tables at Starbucks, belonged to men. The restaurants had separate entrances for "families" and "bachelors," and I could hear women scurrying past, hidden by screens, as they went upstairs or to a rear room. The only places I was sure to see women were at the mall and the grocery store, and even there they seemed spookily out of place. Many of them wore black gloves, and their faces were covered entirely--not even a pair of plummy, heavy-lidded Arabian eyes apparent. Sometimes I couldn't tell what direction they were facing. It felt to me as if the women had died, and only their shades remained...
Abdullah al-Shehri, a professor of linguistics at King Abdul Aziz University, explained during a long conversation in a Starbucks. "There is a religious term, khalwah, which means a man and a woman who are unrelated and are behind a closed door," Abdullah said. "There is another term, ikhtilat. This is an invented term. It's heard only in Saudi Arabia, and is never mentioned in any religious text. It means 'mixing of more than two men and women.' There is a confusion between these two terms in the Saudi mind. The Prophet said whenever a man and a woman are in khalwah Satan will join them. But ikhtilat is part of the Saudi tribal culture. Before I was born, in the thirties and forties men and women used to celebrate weddings together. Now bride and groom have separate wedding celebrations."
"Traditions say that eating alone with your female relatives is shameful," Raid Qusti, a journalist, wrote earlier this year in a daring column for the Arab News. "Where in our religion does it say that sitting with your own family is forbidden?" Qusti complained that many Saudi men thought it was taboo to utter a woman's name in public. "Ask any Saudi male in the street what the names of his wife or daughters are, and you will either have embarrassed him or insulted him. Islamic? Not in any way." There are some parts of the country where a woman never unveils--her husband and children see her face only when she dies. "Women will always be the core issue that will hinder any social progress in Saudi Arabia," Qusti wrote. "We limit their roles in public, ban them from public participation in decision making, we doubt them and confine them because we think they are the source of all seduction and evil in the world. And then we say proudly: 'We are Muslims.'"