Scotland again

Last Thursday and Friday I was in Edinburgh, Scotland again. From Saudi to Scotland and back to Saudi. The reason was the same as last time, run a Factory Acceptance Test on fiber optics. Nothing special to mention, the program was excatly the same as last time, same hotel, same tests, same courtesy tour with the customer representatives, the only difference was the temperature, much colder this time. But I have some new pictures. I'm back in Saudi since Saturday and until tomorrow night. Tomorrow morning I have an important technical presentation for the customer and the consultants.

Censorship

The picture below is the visible face of the censorship in Saudi Arabia. This page pops-up when you try to open pages or contens which are on the black list of the Ministry of Interior. Content filtering is applied to all international traffic. All international traffic is redirected through a proxy farm which, apart from filtering the content, blocks a number os sites, according to two lists: one containing 'immoral' sites (pornography, drug use, gambling, religious conversion of muslims), the other based on directions from a security committee, run by the Ministry of Interior.

However, as with many other things here, there is no clear criteria. As an examle, Hi5 is blocked yet access to Facebook is unhindered...

National Museum in Riyadh

Yesterday afternoon (weekend here), I went to the National Museum in Riyadh. Those who know me know that sooner or later I would have to go there...:) And it was great, really worth the 10 saudi riyals (only 2 euro!!!). It gives a very good insight into the history of Saudi Arabia, through as many as 8 exhibition halls. These halls cover the following themes: Man and Universe, The Arabian Kingdoms, the pre-Islamic era, prophet Mohammed's Mission, Islam and the Arab Peninsula, the first and second Saudi State, the unification of the Kingdom, the Hajj and the two Holy Mosques (Mecca and Medina). Each exhibition features different types of antiques, manuscripts, documents and display boards. I was positively surpised by how impartial (for Saudi standards) the presented information was and I will definitely go again. I just went through 5 of the 8 halls, I read everything on display, analyze all maps, etc. How boring does that sound??!! I know, that's why I went alone:)