His & Hers Q8

I was lucky enough to have a sneak peek for the new payment technology with Ali Abulhasan that has been released today (officially next week). A way to make payments and receive payments all using the same interface.

Let us start with the Consumer part:

As a consumer, just by adding your number the app will provide you automatically with certain bills and subscriptions such as operators, internet subscription, OSN, etc. With over 50 businesses currently on board, this will make your payments much simpler and faster.

Payents can be done with K-net or a credit card. Each payment you make will be documented with the receipt. With reports that will show you where and how much you spend on different sectors and businesses. On top of that you can have your subscriptions automatically renewed if you want.

When purchasing from different businesses, the customer has the ability to complain if anything does go wrong. At the same time, the app will take the complaints seriously and provide the customers with a rating mechanism. The more complaints, the rating button will change colours to show it. This gives you the knowledge that a business might have some problems. Even make businesses know their problems and fix it.

Now if you have a business, then this app is for you.

As business you have a great way to sell your products and services with a click of a few buttons. To register (whether a small business or large) it will take you 10 minutes if you have all the papers ready.

Once registered you create your business profile and ink it to different social apps. For instance you can link your Instagram and any pics you have there can be added to your list of products in the app to sell on spot. You add you contact information, your payment info and you have a running online shop. No hassle.

Now the app does provide you with different ways for selling your products/services. However the point that I really liked what the Point-Of-Sale feature. This feature makes you charge a customer on spot in your shop or booth and the receipt will be received by the customer. It’s like a new cash machine.

Try it out now at GoTapNow whether you are a customer or business and enjoy the new experience that might change how you start paying your bills.

Arabique released his newest video for his single “Matter Of Time”. Produced by Quincy Kwalae.

One of my favorite Kuwaiti hip hop artists.

The Mystro from Bahrain released the video for “Rocking with the Best” featuring Daffy and Humble Abdul from Kuwait and Young Blaze of the USA.

I am talking here as a Hybrid. Being half Kuwaiti from my fathers side and half Egyptian from my mothers side, it always made me wonder: am I different from others? This hybrid talk doesn’t mean if I like the food of both countries, talk in both languages (dialects) or support both countries. the list goes on here. My point is, if I am a hybrid does that make me a more open minded person?

Before I talk about myself in particular I had to hit our dear followers on Twitter who gave me some more understanding. Most agreed that hybrids are more open minded, some provided more details:

Hamad Al-Sabah tweeted “Depends on how parents choose to bring them up. Mother tends to influence kids more in terms of language, mentality, etc. I’m a Kuwaiti/US hybrid. My philosophy: choose best from both worlds”

In Hamad’s case he mentions how the mother has more influence on kids. I agree with that and that is why we usually see the hybrids taking a mentality that is quite the same as their mother.

Moh’d Al-Shemmeri tweeted “depends on the whole environment. Some western cultures are closed minded. But most of the cases of a hybrid here, yes. Cuz the dad wants an open minded partner. If he doesn’t find it here. He’ll find it somewhere else.”

Mohammed does have a point that not all western cultures are open.

Of course there are some that disagreed:

Thuraya tweeted “hmmm~ nah mala shogol- it goes down to personal choices and values. trust me mixed folks aren’t transcendental beings.”

A choice is always there for anyone. I can say I know open minded people who are not hybrids.

Just before I go to my own view, Shamael Al-Shariekh tweeted about third culture kids “Being a 3rd culture kid broadens your horizon is ways that many locally born & raised kids don’t get. You become more accepting of other people & their belief systems (Hindus, Atheists, etc.). but at the same time, you stay true to your own cultural identity as an Arab/Muslim. The only tough thing is that sometimes it’s difficult to socialize w/ typical Kuwaitis b/c they sound provincial and unexposed.”

Third culture kids have a different characteristic because because they learn from other cultures and not just from parents. This can give another way on how we pick up our mentality really.

I do not think being a hybrid makes you more open minded, however it makes you accept others. One thing I learned as a hybrid is that I do not have to be a racist. I accept friends from any country. I do not see my self as a superior nationality over the other. This is what really makes a hybrid. It is nice to have a multicultural mentality because sometimes you can have more choices.

Open mindedness can be defined in different ways in our society. Some might see it as a catastrophe and some might see it as a development of the human race. This depends on how we are raised and educated.

I need to note that being a hybrid does not mean being cooler. It doesn’t matter what your hybrid nationalities are. It doesn’t make us the better person. At the end, we are all humans aren’t we?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9wODKKGza0s

Just saw the music video at 248am for BigMo’s new single Clarification.

BigMo is one of my favorite Kuwaiti hip hop artists and I really think his style is one of the best. Something you do not hear everyday unfortunately. With Clarification, he gave the chilling type of beats. Something you can hit on the radio going back home at night don’t you think?

You can check some of his music on his Youtube Channel.

Recently I have noticed that what people enjoy as I claim a “hobby”, then they would define themselves an expert in that field. Of course as an expert you become a “consultant” and you brag about what you know and don’t know. I believe we have some good people with knowledge of the field. People you would trust in that field. So during the last couple of years we had a surge of these so called experts in different fields. Let us cover some fields shall we?

Political Activist:

With all the enjoyable political issues going on, Twitter (unfortunately) created many political activist that people think they understand everything. Sadly we do not read by ourselves, go check out the facts and the history of different events and figures. However a political activist would be famous just because he was “rude” or think they have information that will destroy their opponent. Whether orange or blue, just tweet some stuff about dignity and praise a member of the opposition and you my friend become a well known political activist.

Social Media Expert:

Get a few articles and some infographics from Mashable and ‘ta da’ you are a social media expert. They will tell you how to get more followers, study the right tweets to tweet and most probably bombard us with ads in tweets. A typical social media advertising, not really rocket science. One point I would like to talk about blogs that have a twitter and instagram just to promote their posts. there is no interaction what so ever. It’s up to them. However, it’s called Social for a reason. We do not have to open up every single account in every single social app. If someone gives me an advice to do the opposite (open an account in every social media app ever created) I would most probably block them on Twitter.

Fashionistas:

We have more fashion experts that the population of Kuwait. No really wear a mix of Prada, YSL, Chanel and all those designers and you should be talking about the Grammies red carpet fashion. No matter how ugly your outfit looks, as long as it costs my salary then it is good. Of course the famous quote ”انت اشعرفك بالفاشن” will be repeated here. It’s not about a designer clothes or not, it’s about the mentality that as long as it’s a famous designer then it is good. In P2BK this year, there was more fashion shops than cupcake shops. An indication that this is getting out of hand.

Chefs:

Since studying abroad and I knew that cooking is a hobby. It is a hobby when you do not know the basics of cookings. It is a hobby when you don’t know about other cuisines. It is a hobby if you cook with things that are already made. bas…

The above are only recent, we did have a period of time where we had Apple experts, Google experts, Body building experts, car experts and the list goes on and on. In all the fields above, there are people that I follow and trust their word when they talk. Why? because they do not brag about it. They talk about it out of experience and knowledge and not because it is something you do in your spare time.

People who claim they are experts are the ones who think they are always right and never wrong. They think that whats in their head is the only way to go and not the other way. The ones that do not take advice from others and disregard others. Learning form your mistakes makes you an expert.

This was my tweet on the first episode of iWish. I wanted to write about it from the first day but I did not want to judge it early so I thought I would give it more time. I think I gave it more than it deserves really. I have may points I want to cover: (note I am comparing this with Masterchef, Project Runway and The Apprentice)

• A basic reality show covers what is happening right now. Now what happened before the last episode. That why iWish is not considered a “reality show” as they claim. I mean running reruns of their “edited” daily life is not real.

• Having 3 different types of topics to cover (cooking, fashion, business) is one of the worst ideas they ever thought of. First, timings were bad and it they had to cut out many different scenes just to make it into their time slot. On top of that they are stretching out the “finale” with their abroad contest. It gets boring.

• The video shooting was dreadful. enough said.

• The challenges are weak. I mean who would “catch a fish” from a tank? Or who would not have skills in sewing if you are into fashion? Check out the US reality shows like this and see how challenges are done.

• Reality shows is all about dedication and when it is about contests then it would have been being dedicated to something you love and work hard for it.

• One point, in any competition when you do not abide with the rules you are kicked out “automatically”.

• With all due respect to the judges, however some judges see “their point of view” and what they see “nice”. Not if others will like it or not. It was about will this interest the judge or not. Not intrest the community somehow.

• Contestants lacked the basics. When you are in love with what you do you will learn it without needing an eduction. It comes naturally. However when you do not know the basic terms in what you like to do. This becomes a hobby not a passion.

• The elimination process is so sad I don’t even want to talk about it. No strict rules and no clear targets to adhere to really.

I always wanted our TVs to advance a bit and create new things. Even if this means they need to “copy” some of the ideas we see from other countries. However when you “copy” and make a mess out of it then this is even worse. At least come up with a way to have a better dedicated reality show.

We lack in creativity and we try to get something from abroad. Something Kuwaitis like and try to make it “Kuwaiti”. this is our problem.