Things I have stumbledupon

So I recently downloaded StumbleUpon (which Ebay bought for $75,000,000) and I have found a few interesting things with it

Such useful things like how to build your own yurt

Or some really interesting things like what money really is and how it works

Turning yourself into a lie detector

you also get this useless and fun wastes of time

or other randomness


Then I found this, which reminded me to post
http://www.xinureturns.com/
which lets you freely check tons of stats about your page. So I checked HAeD and then I checked this blog...

and I looked at where people had linked to me through technorati while I was away and not blogging
http://bogieworks.blogs.com/treppenwitz/2007/04/the_time_of_our.html
http://www.balashon.com/2007/04/begilufin.html
http://ninjamess.livejournal.com/17783.html
http://daledamos.blogspot.com/
http://curiousjew.blogspot.com/

No Time For Blogging

Well I really just don't have the time to blog, or actually do anything else. I have to work on time management. The fact that I am writing this now shows that I might actually start getting there. The process of Aliyah takes a while and there is much bureaucracy to go through. After going on a long journey to Lishkat Giyus Tel Hashomer (Tel Hashomer Recruitment office) and not even getting past the information desk outside the offices, and faxing a few times, and calling many times until I find out a good way to avoid the long telephone menus and actually reach a person in a few seconds instead of waiting on hold for 5 minutes and thn being disconneted, and then having Liora (she is the best), the yeshiva Secretary to call on my behalf, I finnaly got my tzav rishon (first call up) to be in a week, more about why that's so important later.

If you think I haven't being a good job of keeping up my blog now, be prepared when I go into the wilderness for 7 weeks this summer.

For now before I got to bed I will relate one story:

I was getting my phone fixed today. My phone does everything but ring which is a bit of a problem when it is also your alarm clock and you don't always have it in a place where you can feel the vibrations. After starting at the place I bought my phone, they told me I needed to go to the "Orange" store, which luckily was about 600 meters down the road, at least something was going right. I figure while I am there I might see about other plans instead of my current pay-as-you-go.
It had a nice atmosphere and you could see through a big window into the area where the technicians were working; it was still a place where you had to wait and wait of course. They gave me no trouble about warranties or faults or this or that. They just checked that I didn't accidentally have it on silent and took it in. Meanwhile I had a sales rep explain to me that I shouldn't buy now, and should wait until I get a certain status in the process of the army (which an Israeli is explaining to me as I write this). I learn a bit of mishna Eruvin as I wait for my phone to be fixed. The phone works for about 3 rings before dieing again, but by that time the store already closes in ten minutes and I am busy at the doctor filling out driving license forms. The interesting Israeli story to this:
There were these two guys, I was trying to figure out how to refer to them, they were an amazing sociological or psychological phenomenon. One was "dati" and the other was "hiloni", but I wouldn't consider either one religious or ethical secular. The word that kept on creeping into my head was the ביריונים beryonim of the mishna (or from the movie Kazablan). I guess thugs, but it wouldn't do them justice, maybe "grown-up" Arsim. The manager was working at the checkout, where I was buying a set of headphones (so I could listen to the radio for news in Hebrew and spend less of my computer time reading the news). They get fed up and walk around the shop, so I sit down on the stool where one of them was sitting.
He comes back and says "I was here first, so get up" but not in such a menacing way, and I happened to agree with him that even though he left he still was there first so I said "yah sure go ahead sit". As the rest of the customers and I wait in line and other people keep coming up and complaining about how its been an hour, even though "the computer says very clearly that you have been waiting 14 minutes, but I will do my best", this guy keeps on being pushy to the manager about finding two girlfriends of his work at the shop. In Israel, that's fair enough, you push for the unusual things for your friends and you sometimes get what you are after.
The manager was accepting his actions, as he was on the phone with one of the girls, she was telling him that they should come to the shop with a CV. He asks her to hire them on the spot or at least guarantee them jobs by tomorrow or the day after. She explains to him that as much as she has a role, "Orange" also is involved and you can't cut corners like this in a real company, because it just won't work even for her. She is helpful, giving him information, telephone numbers, and a website, but he wants a fax number for the CVs. She explains that "Orange"'s website has fax details but that she doesn't have the number for a fax to accept CVs in the shop. He gets fed up and gets her to take the phone from him to talk to the girl herself.
Meanwhile the "dati"(and by that I mean he was wearing a kipa) friend is on the store's phone making calls. Neither has any respect for anyone in the store or any societal norms and are pushing it to the point where I would think in America or any other western country you would ask them to please step out of the shop.
I laugh a bit about how ridiculous this is that people are barely phased by this here. The guy who now has nothing to do as the manger is talking on his cell phone yells at me "are you laughing at me?", I wanted to answer "YES! you are acting like thugs out of a movie and everyone is demurring to your every wish", but I just said "yah just the situation."
He wasn't happy and he said back "Well if you keep laughing, I am going to make you cry," which just wanted to make me laugh more. He got distracted and was just going around being bothersome.
While he was away a well biult guy said to me "you can't go around talking talking like that, not everyone in the world is a nice person like you."
The manager replies "yah you have to be careful you can't argue with these guys you have to just agree."

While this is atypical, I could only imagine this happening to me in Israel.

Instead of capitulating to the every whim of these thugs we should get them negotiating with the Palestinians, maybe show the Palestinians that if we wanted to really be ruthless thugs with nothing in mind but ourselves we could be. It would be a nice way to set the tone before entering real negotiations.

Aliyah in 27.5 hours with Nefesh B'Nefesh from JFK

I haven't blogged in a while. Too busy dealing with Aliyah preperations and seeing friends and family.

There have been so many things I have wanted to blog about and have written out whole posts including links in my head, but they have remained there.

I should get back to blogging soon. Meanwhile I am still packing and somehow 210 pounds just isn't enough.

100 lbs for a set of Talmud Bavli
and about another hundred for a green mini set of kehati mishnayot, a rambam, a large set of Kehati, an english midrash rabbah, and more
then some clothing.

What most annoyed me is finding out that most suitcases way a bit over 10 lbs. Isn't there a better way to construct suitcases so that they don't take up a fifth of the weight that you are often allowed

Anyway, if anyone wants to meet me at the airport on May 1st at 1:15PM.

And to add another link to a Jewish site that has enough links:
http://onlysimchas.com/galleries/index.cfm?fuseaction=viewsimcha&simchaid=60385&simchatypeid=11

Apparently, Jdate gets 135% more traffic than the second most trafficked Jewish websites, or all other major Jewish websites put together, don't know if that's true. Maybe someone can verify that.

Of course I will be wearing my Hultza/Tilboshet for the flight.

You too can fly Nefesh B'Nefesh. Unless you are already Israeli or live outside the US & Canada & UK. If so then at least there is the Global Aliyah Centre which is a free call from almost anywhere you might live, or at worst a free skype call. They will help you with just about anything Israel & Aliyah related
http://www.jewishagency.org/JewishAgency/English/Aliyah/Contact+Addresses/GCI/

Haveil Havalim #110 is up

Haveil Havalim #110 is up this time on soccer dad

Go check out the interesting posts. I won't bias you by saying which ones I liked.
I just should have submitted a better one myself.

meh, I have been using it for a while

Meh - the word that's sweeping the internet

How was my weekend? Meh. The mehness of it is indescribable. Just one big, fat meh. If you are an old-media kind of reader, "meh" won't mean a whole lot to you. The word has appeared in the national press three times in the past year. If you gain new vocabulary from conversation, it is probably unfamiliar. If you can't be torn from the web, however, you will almost certainly know it, and its meaning.

Meh means rubbish. It means boring. It means not worth the effort, who cares, so-so, whatever. It is the all-purpose dismissive shrug of the blogger and messageboarder. And it is ubiquitous. On the I Love Music messageboard, for example, 4,010 separate discussion threads feature the use of "meh". - The Guardian

I have been using this word on and offline for years now. So my response to this article is "meh"

RSS feeds - right wing conspiracy? not any more

So I just started using RSS feeds. I have been so hesitant to do this for some reason. Normally I am the first one to try to get my hands on technology, but this one took me a while to get comfortable with. While setting up some RSS feeds with this blog
Subscribe in a reader

I finally decided to start using the myself. I actually like it, it means I can quickly browse many blogs and see when people actually update. I am using Google reader , and I have to say so far I am really impressed.

Now the title mentions a right wing conspiracy. So what is this conspiracy?
the RSS feed symbol is Orange. It is very clear that they are protesting the disengagement. Don't worry Feed Icons is here to save the day for those left wing bloggers who are tired of the right wing imperialism and neo-colonization of the blogosphere feeds

Not a fan of orange? Download the package and customize the icon to your liking. It is believed that as a symbol, the feed icon is recognizable enough that it doesn't need to be restricted to one colour.

I'll stick with orange, thank you. Its my protest to the anti-disengagement folks attempt to take a colour and give it political connotations. Everything in Israel is already political, do we really need to politicize colours?

Take up blogging!

In my opinion, blogging is an activty that everyone should take up. We have so much to say, so just say it. If you keep it professional and well kept, all the better for the world.

Anyway, Arielle started up her blog again after seeing me start up this blog, it can be found here

Statcounter - 1

So I have a little Javascript code that tells me who is visiting the blog. Just installed in yesterday, and there are a few surprising results.

First of all is that 40 people have visited, even if you guys don't comment! go ahead comment!

over 60% of you use FireFox. Thats pretty good, some of you even use Safari.

Now the most surprising thing is which keywords led to this blog, so far only one has. Want to guess? I never would have got it right, turns out its
"high-temperature superconductors"
Thanks to my post on Cool Physics.

Blogger rights in Egypt

I talked about Orthomom, and now a much more serius case of blogger rights is taking place in Egypt.
Its a pity because Egypt is one of the more moderate Arab nations.

An Alexandria court convicted an Egyptian blogger on Thursday for insulting both Islam and Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak and sentenced him to four years in jail over his writings on the Internet.

Abdel Karim Suleiman, 22-year-old former law student is getting four years in Jail for this

He described some of the companions of the Muslim prophet Mohammad as "terrorists," and has likened Mubarak to dictatorial pharaohs who ruled ancient Egypt.

The last part is especially interesting, because it makes us think if we should relate to Egypt in at all the same way as we relate to the Biblical Egypt. Also the modern day Persia/Iran which is once again threatening to wipe out the Jews "Men, Women, and Children in one day", can we compare Iran's nuclear ambitions with Haman?

"I was hoping that he would get a harsher sentence because he presented to the world a bad image of Egypt. There are things that one should not talk about, like religion and politics. He should have got a 10-year sentence," said lawyer Nizar Habib, who attended the trial as a member of the public.

Nizar Habib, my friend, you just gave me a worse impression of Egpyt than anything this blogger my have written would give me

Anonymous Blogging - Orthomom

This doesn't really affect me, because I am not doing this anonymously. Still, I think blogger rights are important. So I want to tell everyone about this case.

Its a bit ridiculous, considering the comments did not come from orthomom.
People don't understand that that bloggers are not responsible for the people's bad commenting on their blogs, any more than people are responsible for graffiti that is drawn on their wall.

A full deconstruction of the case can be found on Orthomom's blog