Filed under: Uncategorized
There are about 6.7 billion people in our planet today. What percent of the world population are aware that Obama won the election, and is about to become president of the US? What percent of those have high hopes for a positive change and brighter future? I don’t have numbers, but my feeling its over 80%. Think about it, more than 5 billion people put their hopes on a single human being.
The American citizens hope for re-bounce in the economy, better health care, ending the US involvement in Iraq, world leadership towards good, improvement of the US image in the world, conduct according to higher moral standards, and much much more. The Arab world, the Palestinians, the Syrian, the Iranian, other Arab and Muslim nations hope Obama would move away from the ‘clash of civilizations’ viewpoint to ‘cooperation among civilizations’ path. The Palestinians and the Israelis hope the new administration would bring to a viable process toward peace in the region. The south American’s hope for better economy and relation on the basis of equality between the Americas. The Europeans hope the US policy will be closer to the EU social democratic values. Africans, Russian, Chinese, Japanese, Indians, each have hopes for a better future as the new US president is taking office.
I can’t imagine how a person can sustain so much hope.
The problem with ‘too much hope’ is that win-win solutions can not always be found. The Obama administration will have to take decisions that will do good for many, but may disapoint hopes held by others. Obama, and his administrationn will do mistakes, as any human administration does. The danger with hope is that once it is shuttered, the result is worse than ever. So keep your hopes up, but make sure you hold tight to reality. And be patient. A better future is awaiting, I hope.
Filed under: conflict
I stumbled upon Cenk’s video in YouTube Who Is Responsible For The Gaza Strip Conflict?. It is a must-watch for the people involved; the Israelies and Palestinians, and for anyone interested in the conflict. Cenk does a brave attempt to understand and explain the current phase of the conflict and what is the right way to move forward. I am an Israeli, and I don’t agree with some of the stated facts , conclusions etc., but I think I recognize a sincere attempt when I see one.
I have been reading a lot of blogs and forums discussing the ongoing cycle of violence in Gaza. Most opinions stated are one sided, mostly express hate to Israel and most of them are ignorant of the sequence of events, the conflict’s roots and history. Many use half-truths or complete inventions to base their opinions, conclusions and solutions.
Reading these type of blogs and forum discussions made me sad. Viewing Cenk’s video made me think. This is human nature I suppose. When someone calls you fascist or murderer or whatever, you no longer listen. When someone tries to step into your shoes and makes a real attempt to understand, you listen. You don’t necessarily agree, but you listen, you understand better how others view the conflict, and take a second look at your own opinions and views. Eventually these kind of inputs make a difference. It is making a difference to me.
I followed the link to Cenk’s show in The Young Turks . The Young Turks is a US nationwide liberal talk show broadcasting over the Internet. Cenk has a lot of charisma, he is a great entertainer and a smart man. I wish I could leave this at that, say ‘great job’ and recommend to add the Young Turks to your favorite news channel list.
I watched Cenk’s other shows. The first was an interview with Norman Finkelstein. Mr. Finkelstein is a Jew who invented a hate-Israel industry of his own and lives out of it. Watching the show gave me an uneasy feeling beyond Mr. Finkelstein hate-talk. The uneasy feeling was that it was as if Cenk was using Mr. Finkelstein as his alter ego, to express what he would really like to say out loud.
As the Gaza crisis evolves, Cenk anger takes the better of him. His rhetorics changed to a one-sided anti-Israel propaganda; Hard Not To Be Angry With Israel . Cenk accuses Israel as for deliberately targeting red cross trucks to drive away humanitarian aid. He accuses Israel of targeting the UN school and gives a one sided account blaming Israel for the entire crisis. At that point I wouldn’t have been surprised if he would turn the incident where 4 Israeli soldiers were killed by friendly fire at the beginning of the crisis to some other deliberate Israeli conspiracy.
So, what is the purpose of this open letter? It’s a pledge for Cenk to understand the power that he has at his hands. Cenk, you are talented, smart, charismatic and a Muslim. You have a show watched by many. You are a role model for many. As a result, you have the power to do good. Or bad. All I’m asking (and its hard, I know) is to keep this in mind during the show. You have the easier path, to express your anger, which is probably shared by your colleagues and audience, or you can try the harder path. The harder path is to do the extra effort and take a second look even at stories and reports by people you appreciate, to interview smart, knowledgeable and charismatic people which could explain the Israeli perspective of things, etc. I think the harder path would make a difference to the good on the long run for both sides.
Yours, bluetegu.
Filed under: Life
I went to a concert yesterday. Beethoven’s symphony no. 9 in d minor op. 125. It was the second concert in a raw that the person sitting next to me brought with him(her) a small plastic water bottle and sipped from it while listening. Nothing to complain up till now. The problem is the terrible crackling noises that come out of these plastic bottles. No matter how careful these water-enthusiastic neighbors were, the bottle always joined the orchestra in the most troubling way possible. Crackkkkkk!!!!! I think that unintentionally the hand holding the bottle presses the bottle in accord with the music, up to the point where the plastic folds back to produce the effect.
‘Don’t bring in food or drink’ signs don’t help. People view water bottles as a survival kit, not as drink. Maybe the routine ‘do you have a weapon with you?’ question should be supplemented with a ‘do you have a crackling water bottle?’ question at the entrance. Anyhow, my plea to the thirsty concert people is to bring water in other more silent containers.
Filed under: Entrepreneurship
I had to prepare a presentation for an important meeting scheduled to the end of the week. I first looked for presentation building tools. I looked at several apps from the online presentation apps list from mashable, but nothing came close to Powerpoint. So, I decided I’ll settle with powerpoint and look for a presentation sharing site I can upload my Powerpoint presentation and share it with a controlled group.
Disclaimer: I had only a day to prepare the presentation, so take my conclusions and recommendations here with a grain of salt. This is not a comprehensive research, only my experience from the tools that came up first in search and were available for immediate trial.
The presentation I prepared was rather short, it had 14 slides, and was less than half a mega byte in size. The presentation includes animation, a self prepared template with graphics and several slides that included both English and Hebrew fonts within text boxes. I saved the presentation in ppt format (not pptx).
I tried Google’s documents, slideshare, authorStream and slideboom at this order. Apart from Google, I didn’t hear of any of the other sites beforehand, and they were picked by Google-searching for ‘online presentation’ or ‘presentation share’ or similar. I didn’t bother looking into sites for which online presentation was not their main business, e.g. document or file sharing sites. The last three all convert the power point presentations to flash.
Google document’s online presentation is not mature enough. The text spilled out of several slides. This is probably because the presentation is not shown full screen, rather the right pane is kept for online chat, and the width vs. length ratio is changed. Google does not support animation either. I’m a Google fan, but this is not good enough.
Slideshare are probably doing the best online marketing, as they appear first in all relevant search. Before registering to their service I checked whether I can control with whom I can share the presentation, and they provide several options to my satisfaction. However, once I uploaded the presentation I was disappointed from the result. First, they do not support animation, at least for now. Second, my graphics looked really bad, as if the screen resolution was changed to a very course one.
I found a link to authorStream from the slideshare support forum. Someone complained about the lack of animation support, and another commented that authorStream supports animation and provided the link. I registered, uploaded the presentation and the animation worked. Well almost. all the slides the contained Hebrew fonts were not converted correctly. The ppt to flash conversion replaced the Hebrew fonts with small squares and as a result also changed the placement of the text boxes on the slide. Not good enough.
I went back to Googeling and found slideboom. The slideboom site gives the impression that they had good graphical designers and cared about how their site looks like. It doesn’t give the immediate cloned-site impression, although I have no idea whether they are leaders or followers. They do lack in documentation. It was hard to figure out whether you have the option to keep your presentation private. It turns out that you can, up to 20 private presentations. They have limited controlled-group-sharing features, basically you can either have a private presentation or share it with all. But, they did a good job in Powerpoint conversion. I uploaded the presentation and it displays animation as should, and shows the slides with combined English and Hebrew as supposed to. The resolution was fine as well. The only caveat I found is that I couldn’t run the presentation on my widescreen Debian Linux workstation. Not sure why.
Filed under: Entrepreneurship
Let’s start from the end of the story: One of three projects posted on software outsourcing sites starts somehow like this: I first need a clone site for abc.com and then build up some more functionality on top of that… Abc can be anything from a successful gambling site, a known online project management software site, a relatively new e-commerce site and anything else you can think of. The price tags are in most cases around or below $3000.
The logic goes as follows: Don’t be inventive. Don’t think of a new service or put your effort on studying what your potential customer requirements are and how to best address them. Don’t spend your resources on designing usable human interface and don’t spend time on a unique graphical design. Just wait and look for successful web service and then clone it. Spend your money on web advertising and search-engine-optimization and you have a good start with minimum investment. Soon any head start the cloned site had will be history.
This may be the major reason why there are dozens of similar online services for what ever you need. Actually when I looked for a software outsourcing online service I first selected the one that came up first in Google search. Only later I discovered that like any other online service, there are very many of them, most of them clones of one or two original services. I actually saw a project that was requesting bids on cloning the outsourcing site it was submitted to.
Maybe it is not illegal. Maybe it even gives us the customers more selection to choose from, and better prices or services due to the increased competition. Still, there is something wrong here. As a result, when I look for an online service, I do an extra search step to find out which of the similar services is the original and which ones are the clones. When deciding on which of the services to take I add some points to the original service creator. I’m even willing to pay a bit extra for the service.
Any thought appreciated….
Filed under: Life
I got my new Toyota Prius last week. I am a satisfied customer. According to the car meter the fuel consumption measured in last 100Km was about 5.5 liter per 100KM (>18 km/L or > 42miles/Gallon). The car runs great and the switching between the gasoline and electrical engine is smooth. Everyone loves driving a new car but here there is the additional feeling that you ‘have done the right thing’ in choosing the Prius. Here are the major points with no particular order:
- Being Environmental Friendly
- Saving money on fuel
- Driving a modern car
- Getting more for you money (due to tax relief on hybrid cars)
The car has an elegant design, the engine is strong enough, the climate control works great and the controls are modern and easy to use. I’m almost 2 meters tall (6.5 feet) and I suffer from backaches. The internal design of the car leaves me enough room to feel comfortable driving and the driver seat is very comfortable and holds my back.
I purchased the basic Prius trim level model. The more expensive model is equipped with cruise control. I seldom use cruise control as distances in Israel are short. The price I paid for the car is 145,000 NIS which is about $45,000 in today’s currency rate. I can only envy the US price of $21,500 according to http://www.toyota.com/prius-hybrid/. BTW, I chose a blue color which is somewhat different from bot blue options in that site. I added reverse sensors, Bluetooth mobile phone speaker, protection stripes on the sides and made the windows a bit darker. I also added an anti-theft automatic system (you must enter a code to ignite), which is a must requirement from the insurance company.
Here are some improvement suggestions or things you have to get used to; The Drive vs. Reverse gear selection is weird. To drive in reverse you need to push the handle forward, while to shift to drive you need to pull it downward. I find this counter intuitive and wonder what made Toyota decide to to design it this way. In any case this is minor and you get to use to it quickly. You also need to get used to the split back window seen through the drivers front mirror. There is no electric socket in the baggage compartment at rear, which I find useful. There isn’t any controls that limit the gear shift if you need to. I use this to control the speeds going downhill.
I find that my driving is calmer when I’m driving the Prius. There is joy in knowing the electric motor is charging when you no longer press the gas pedal, or that only the electric motor is used. It changes the way I drive the car, and for the better.
Filed under: Books
I just finished reading Daniel Mendelsohn’s book, in its Hebrew translation. It took me three days from start to finish . Daniel’s odyssey unravels the story of his family before and during the Holocaust. Daniels does a great job in sharing with us his thoughts, feeling and impressions during his quest, up to a point that you can imagine being there with him, or even being him, relentlessly and obsessively fighting against oblivion. You can not underestimate his relentless not declaring ‘done’ at any given point in time prior to knowing ‘all that can be known’. I also liked the way the author intertwines the Biblical stories and interpretations in a way that adds new perspective to the horrific events that unfold. Many questions or observations that deserve discussion are triggered by this book. For me, one of the interesting ones is the feeling that Daniel describes of guidance, or help, that he feels that he receives, to complete his mission. The feeling that someone above (or below) wanted him to succeed and therefore helped to ensure that he will meet the right people at the right time, and not that a series of fortunate coincidences have happened. It is as if, like Abraham, once it has been proven that he is indeed determined to complete his mission, e.g. he is a true believer, god or someone above decided that he is worth receiving guidance. This feeling, of ‘personal guidance’, which is alien to secular people like Daniel as well as myself on the one hand, while on the other hand is so deeply planted in us, is for me an unsolved puzzle. Ratio against Emotion.
During his visit to Vienna, Daniel finds out that the new quarter of the Jewish cemetery is almost vacant, the graves there dating only up to the 30th. He observes that through what is not there, i.e. newer graves, you get a perspective on the destruction of the Jewish communities that once flourished there. Similarly, two items which are not mentioned or discussed in the text, seem to remain hanging unsolved after reading this book. The first is Daniel’s feelings towards Israel and the second is his true feelings towards mixed gentile-Jewish marriages.
My impression reading the book is that Daniel does his best not to reveal his feelings towards Israel. I had an uneasy feeling that the author ‘does not agree with’, ‘is ashamed of’, ‘disagree with the behavior of’ or even ‘hates’ what Israel represents. It seems that it is much easier for him to view Jews within their victim roles along the long history of persecution. It is harder to accept Jews responsible for their faith with the good and bad that comes with that responsibility. It is as if he needs to always be reassured that he (or we as Jews) are always on the ‘good’ side. This lack of love to Israel is hurting. I think that this aspect of change in one or two generations from the grandfather who ‘loved Israel’, practiced religion, was proud of being American and what it represents, to Daniel’s beliefs and political opinions is an interesting story behind the story. I may be totally wrong here of course, and this only represents my uninformed impressions.
The second story behind the story is the approach for mix marriages, which really stands for the importance of maintaining Jewish identity in future generations. I, as a Jew living in Israel, did not need to face this issue. All girls and the majority of women I met were Jewish, I fell in love with one and married her. In the US (or anywhere else) the majority of women a non-orthodox Jew meet are non-Jewish and the question of Jewish identity is forced upon him. Here again, Daniel which made his choice, and married a gentile, shies away from sharing his thoughts with us. According to Jewish rules, his offspring will not be considered Jewish. Viewed in this perspective, the story is a search for the Jewish identity beyond the strict religious definition of a Jew. The journey ends with a satisfactory answer to the prescribed question, but without an answer to what can be considered a Jewish identity and whether it can be passed on to future generations.
To summarize, Daniel Mendelsohn made the right decision leaving the two issues above out of this book. His success as a writer introduces those as hidden layers in his story. Go read the book!
Filed under: Life
Ok, here it goes. I took my son to the dentist, parked the car near the clinic, with the intention that while he is being treated I’ll go and draw money from the nearest ATM. I needed 3000 in cash for the last payment on his braces. It was a hot day and the nearest ATM was 10 minutes away. The ATM cash withdrawal preset options goes up to 2500, but it also provides the option to specify other amounts. I chose to withdraw 4000. After doing some churning noises the ATM machine spitted out my credit card without any cash. I tried to draw 3000 or try to 2500 preset option but with no avail. It was getting late. I decided to go a bit further to try the ATM at my bank. The ATM at that bank told me that I have already withdrawn the maximum for today. I printed my account activity report, and there it was, I just withdrew 4000. That is not good. I probably need to call someone at the bank to clear this up. But first let’s make sure that the 4000 didn’t just pop out at the first ATM machine.
While going back I remembered that I had my car keys with me in my hand. They weren’t in my pockets. I turned my bag inside out but no keys. I went back to my bank’s ATM but nothing. No keys at the ATM machine nor at the automatic account query machine. No one has seen the keys. It is hot outside. Sweat is running down my neck. It is getting late. I go back to the first ATM but nothing, no keys. I look inside my bag again, taking out each item and placing it in my pockets, but nothing. Great, I’ll have to call my wife to take a taxi and bring the spare keys. Everything is going my way. While I’m feeling as low as possible a strange thought comes to my mind; If there is God the car keys will pop out somehow. I look at my pockets again, but nothing. The bank door is closed but behind it I can see a guard sitting on his stool. He opens to door for two women going out of the bank. I quickly hold the door before he closes it and ask about the keys. Amazingly he hands them out to me saying someone has just found it and gave it to him.
It is very hot. I stride back to the dentist. I’ll have to pay him for the braces some other time. Surprisingly I’m happy. I called for divine intervention and there it was, quick and clear. It kept me smiling while I was waiting for my son in the clinic. I told my son what has just happened. He did ask whether it meant I will no longer eat shrimps (I failed to mention I’m a secular Jew). I don’t think I’ll go that far, at least not immediately.
