Great. Now we officially have a military hunta.

Cool tool of the month: the Google DeskBar

Quite a different blog.

I call him the major. Every morning (for the last year or so) I take Gali on my bike to her nursery. On our way, we short cut through Chester Terrace. Every day when we pass through (unless we're 8 minutes late or more), we see him. All clad in tweed and tie, pipe between his teeth, cleaning his silver BMV. Caressing her lush German body with a soapy chamois. Every day. Shine or snow.

Today, for the first time, we nodded good morning at each other.

A new era has dawned.

Yesterday Itamar & I went got a bike for Hadas. There was one I borrowed from Tamar when I was here getting organized, and left it locked in Noam's yard. Its been there ever since (about 1.5 yrs). Lillian told me that occasionally one of the neighbors would wonder about it, and she'd say: "yes. What do we do about that bike there? I wonder who left it..."

So we took Itamar's bike on the 31 bus and went to see what can be done about it. Oh, did I mention the key was lost, about a week after I locked it there? And it had one of those D-locks, which are supposed to be unbreakable.

I won't post the details here (although the baddies probably know them) but it took us exactly 2.5 minutes to break it. I'll never trust a D-lock again.

Then we sprayed some cyclers' snake oil (aka WD40) and puffed the tires up, had some tea, and cycled home together. Now we can start doing family cycle trips. Can't wait (although Hadas is a bit cautious about it, saying she has to see if the bike fits her first).

By the way, I just checked. The distance is roughly 4.something KM. Not bad for a 7 year old!

Normally, I delete chain letters as soon as they land in my inbox. I find them offensive to my religeous beliefs. But this one is different.

---

It's fun. Read, or don't. Play along, or don't. I'd love to hear from folks.

-Jen

here's what you're supposed to do...and try not to be LAME and spoil the
fun! Just give in. Copy (not forward) this entire e-mail and paste into a
new e-mail that you can send. Change all of the answers so that they apply
to you. Then, send this to a whole bunch of people you know *INCLUDING* the
person who sent it to you. The theory is that you will learn a lot of little
known facts about your friends. It is fun and easy!!!!




1. First Name: Yishay
2. Were you named after anyone? No. Its a biblical name (aka Jessie, father of king David), but I don't think that counts.
3. Do you wish on stars? No.
4. Which finger is your favourite? middle.
5. When did you last cry? Today. Not a major downpour, but still..
6. Do you like your handwriting? Yes
7. What is your favourite lunch meat? cold beef roast
8. Any bad habits? Smoking, drinking, staying up latter then I should, picking between the toes of my feet when no one is watching (yuck!)
9. What's in your CD player right now? Nothing. too late, everyone sleeping.
10. Do you believe in soul mates? Yes. I have at least 3.
11. Are you a daredevil? Yes, but a scared-shitless kind of daredevil.
12. Have you ever told a secret you swore not to tell? Really! What kind of person do you think I am? Oh, did you hear about...
13. Do looks matter? Would it be worth the bother of getting around this world if not?
14. Have you ever misused a word and it sounded absolutely stupid? Today, or just this week?
15. Do you think there is a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow? No, but I remember seeing a golden rainbow after smoking some good pot.
16. Do fish have feelings? Probably not, and if so - only before you eat them.
17. Are you trendy? I'm a whole fringin' sub-culture.
18. How do you release anger? You don't want to know. (Seriously, its not that bad. I usually talk my head off for 5 minutes and forget about it)
19. Where are your second homes? I'm still looking for my first.
20. Do you trust others easily? Yes.
21. What was your favourite toy as a child? Erector. Do they still make that?
22. What class in school do you think is totally useless? The teaching class.
23. Do you have a journal? No.
24. Do you use sarcasm a lot? Only when it's necessary.
25. Have you ever been in a mosh pit? God. I need a dictionary for that one. Hang on. Ur, yup. About 20 years ago. Does that make me old?
26. What do you look for in a boy/girl? A person.
27. What are your nicknames? Yish.
28. Would you ever bungee jump? No.
29. Do you untie your shoes when you take them off? I wear boots. But on the rare occasions that I wear trainers, yes.
30. Do you think that you are strong? Yes.
31. What's your favourite ice cream flavour? Perline.
32. What's your favourite colour? No such thing.
33. What is your least favourite food? Standard English / American bread.
34. How many wisdom teeth do you have? 2 (I think)
35. Are you in love with anyone? 3 people.
36. How many people have a crush on you right now? The same 3, I hope.
37. Who do you miss most right now? My sister.
38. Do you want everyone you send this to, to send it back? Of course!
39. What are you wearing? Black trousers. Dark blue T.
40. What are you listening to right now? The tick of the kitchen clock.
41. What are the last 4 digits of your home phone number? 2441
42. What was the last thing you ate? One-sided chocolate coated hob-nobs. 2 of them.
43. If you were a crayon, what colour would you be? Either black or white. Not sure.
44. How is the weather right now? London.
45. Who is the last person you talked to on the phone? My sister.
46. First thing you notice about the opposite sex? Eyes.
48. How are you today? Better now. Was too tired earlier, and didn't like it. Looks like tomorrow will be just as bad.
49. Favourite Drink? Context dependant.
50. Favourite alcoholic drink? Irish single malt.
51. Favourite sports? Cycling.
52. Hair colour? Blackish brown.
53. Eye colour? Green - grey.
54. Do you wear contacts? No
55. Siblings and their ages: Nilly, 32. Gidi, 27.
56. What is your favourite month? November.
57. Favourite food? Fresh baked bread and olive oil
58. Last movies you watched? Cold mountain, Love actually, Kill Bill.
59. Favourite day of the year? April 7th.
60. Are you too shy to ask someone out? No, but I have no intentions.
61. Scary movies or happy endings? Any, as long as they're not dumb.
62. Summer or winter? Winter.
63. Hugs or kisses? All that and more.
64. Relationships or one-night stands? Relationships, preferably life long.
65. Do you want your friends to write back? sure
66. Who is most likely to respond? Pim.
67. Who is least likely to respond? Gidi (just to spite him).
69. What books are you reading? Ana Isabel's thesis, "Apprenticeship in thinking" / Rogoff, and the fatal eggs.
70. Favourite Song? "Ve'Aich Shelo" Ariel Zilber. Its not the real name, but I forgot it.
71. Favourite board game? Go, but I don't remember the rules.
72. What did you watch on TV last night? Last 10 minutes of the evening news, 5 out of which were commercials.
73. Favourite smells? Bread baking. Wet soil. And a few that are too intimate to mention here.
74. What is the first thing you think of when you wake up in the morning? "oh no, not again" (not, but I like the quote anyway).

Spent a good part of this Friday evening trying to make sense of our bank accounts. Then, for recreation, I had a look at my mail. I found one msg from Michael, joyfully notifying me that

A publicity-shy Russian researcher who labours in near seclusion may have solved one of the oldest and most obscure problems in mathematics, the Poincare Conjecture.
[...]
Answering the question may help scientists better understand the shape of the universe. Beyond that, it may have no application whatsoever to everyday life.

Blimey.

So, must look that one up, right? Well. Here it is, strait from wikipedia:

Every simply connected compact 3-manifold without boundary is homeomorphic to a 3-sphere.

believe me, my bank accounts are harder.

Oops. I had a bug in my blog template. The archives were MIA. Any no one complained. I wonder...

The mailing list of the Keshet democratic school hosted a heated thread about how democratic the school should be. Um. Interesting, don't get a lot of discussion on how tyrannical the system should be in tyrannical systems. Never mind.

Every time I find myself witnessing such an argument, I remember my man Winston

Many forms of Government have been tried, and will be tried in this world of sin and woe. No one pretends that democracy is perfect or all-wise. Indeed, it has been said that democracy is the worst form of government except all those other forms that have been tried from time to time."

Winston Churchill, November 11, 1947

I think that is true for education as much as it is true for governance. I actually think that if you reject it in education, you have a hard job justifying it elsewhere.

As my (two) faithful readers have surely, noticed, I've been fooling around with blogccessories. I figured, if I'm blogging, might as well do it properly.

A couple of night ago we went to see Cold Mountain at the Screen on the Hill* in Belsize park. Truly moving, extremely well done. Although, when I told Sophie it has beautiful scenes, and beautifully characters, she said there's no way you'll see someone attractive in the Appalachians. I wouldn't know.

Anyway, it really is well done, but I got pretty depressed on the way back. I wonder. This whole war thing is so pointless, useless, wrong. The movie does get this message across. Is it because I come from a place where the issue is not, er, theoretic, that I took it so hard?

We walked back, over the hill (Primrose, that is). I thought how totally shitty it is that in so many places in the world people are still getting killed or maimed for nothing one way or another. Then I thought, hey, one of those places is mine. Looking over the London skyline, I wondered why I can't call this place mine.

I guess because it isn't. Never will be. Don't really want it to be. I guess that means I'm fucked.


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*: There web site is so crapy, I refuse to link to it.

Duh. Again.

About a year ago I was chatting with Mark about the possibilities of photo-messaging phones, and I had this idea, about posting to a blog directly from your mobile.

and here it is.

Only, of course, it's someone else's.

So, since I never bother to do anything with my insights anyway, here's my plan: any killer idea I have, I'll post here. If you read it, do it, and get rich - send me some chocolates (or a porch, or something..)

Jen and I finally got IM-ing, which is a bit embarrassing for two geeks like us (embarrassing that it took us so long). And in 5 minutes I learnt quite a bit about American politics. Apparently, just as depressing as ours. But what's more important, is that Jen has a Blog, and so does John, and they have (no surprise here) the most wonderful wedding album (I wouldn't have linked to it had there not been a link on Jen's blog).

Have you singed the petition?

Animal stories

In Tanzania, they're using rats to sniff out mines. Apparently, the rats have a much better attitude then dogs, and are also more intelligent. Well, better then the story about the The CIA-s Kitty Cat spies. Apparently, our leaders of the world spent 2M$ over several years implanting bugs in a cat's body. They used the tail for aerial.

The 2M$ agent kitty was run over by a taxi on its way to its first mission.

Kinda reminds you of the story about the American spy in Siberia...

Are they for real?

Our group is made up of many people, Jordanians, Palestinians, Indians, Americans, Russians and Israelis. Some of us are Jewish, some Christians, some Hindus and other of us are Muslim.

Believe it or not, we all love and respect each other.

We all work and play together. Our families on many occasions eat at the same dinner table. We trust each other and are very close friends with each other. As a group, the most important thing in our life is our children, our families and love ones and of course our friends.

Salon.com calls it The enigma of Earth Station 5.

Even The Economist mentions them.

More than 8000 people have signed a petition calling for the release of the convicted refusniks.. Sorry, Hebrew only, but I just had to have a link to the left bank.

Took the kids brass rubbing at St. Martins in the field. So English. Yet, I must admit, in the end I found myself fervourosly exposing the hidden charm and chaste of lady something, armed with a hard piece of gold colored wax.

After we accomplished our artistic missions, we had lunch at the Crypt Cafe. One of my favorites in London. Quite a bizarre place. The food looks very chick, and is probably quite tasty. We settled for our home-made sandwiches, and a cup of hot chocolate / cappuccino.

About vantage points. I tried to resist snapping back, but what can I do? Its my nature...

You know, sometimes, if you have your nose stuck against a wall (excuse the pitifully pun), you can't really see much beyond it.

So Naive, so simple, so beautiful.

Zero tolerance

Hoaxes, Urban legends, Chain letters and Spam are among the persistent ills of the internet. Recently I have been receiving quite a bit of this "genre". In some occasions, I have responded somewhat bluntly. My apologies if I have hurt someone's feelings.

However, my concern with this kind of communication goes beyond plain irritation. As annoying as these mails are, in my eyes they signify a much deeper problem.

I think we all agree that participating in a democratic society requires accepting responsibility for your actions and words. When sharing information with the community, this means that you have reasonable basis to believe that this information is indeed true. Suppose I would call a few of my friends and tell them that I heard that so-and-so has been involved in criminal activity, and therefor should not be trusted with community funds. You would expect me to have hard evidence for this fact, or else would consider my actions severely unacceptable. Now, suppose that when considering several sites for our school, I circulated a rumour that a particular site is located above a unique geological formation, which guarantees us an oil well in our back yard, which would fund our school for the next 100 years. In this case, not only would you see my conduct as inappropriate, you would also politely suggest that I seek urgent help.

Why is it, that when we go into "cyber space", we let down all social and cognitive defences?
Do you really think that there are computer viruses which, when you say cheese, jump out of your computer and bite your nose?
Do you really think that Bill Gates has pledged to send you 240,00$ if you will but a sock on your ear?
And do you really think your kindergarten friend knows about a "serious deadly internet worm that spreads faster then light" but Ha'aretz, NY Times, and all the anti-virus companies haven't heard of?

Now, I know what some would respond: "What's the harm? I sent you some information. You judge it, and if you don't believe it, hit the delete key." Well, the same argument goes for all the "real world" examples I gave. Would you accept it there? Probably not. Because in the real world, if you say something, YOU are responsible for your words, not the receiver. Well, its time to realize - this is the real world too. The same norms apply here. The only difference is that verifying is much, much easier. Usually, a 5 minute trip to google or wikipedia would do*. Which means that you have absolutely no excuse for spreading disinformation and other junk.

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*: If you read Hebrew, Hanan Cohen's site is a useful place to go as well.

Last night Hadas & me went to see the new year born on Primrose hill. The site was amazing. Like a disney version of the opening scene of Blade Runner. The sky was clouded, and beneath our feet the city lights sprawled endlessly. The whole cityscape was sizzling and crackling in bursts of blue, red, green and white. Occasionally a rocket would go whining over our heads and explode in a spray of colours and smoke. In the distance the London eye was throbbing like a fluorescent heart, until at midnight it too exploded with interleaved circles of white fire, the size of a small hurricane. All around us were hundreds of people sipping champagne in delicate flutes, ignoring the biting wind, singing and snapping photos with their mobile phones.

About that incident in Meskha. Its not that I'm worried that the soldier that shot Gil Ma'smati will walk. I'm sure that he'll do his month. Who knows, maybe even his commander will keep him company. The thing is, he's really not to blame. I mean, he's a trained worrier. A semi-snipper, serving in the west bank. There's a good chance that he's acted simmilarly before, and was told that's the right thing to do. Ok, there's a thin line between A and B. Lines get very thin when you do long periods in the west bank.

We sent the kid there, we gave him a gun, we told him to use it whichever way he thinks would work - we don't want to know - just let us have our esspresso in peace. We should be on trial, not him.

Looks like rather than starting a blog-war, Pim has started a dai-blogue between Imshin and myself. I have this itch that we're stretching the boundaries of the genre a bit too far. I would have stopped at saying that I know for a fact how nice Pim is, and that although I know practically nothing about Imshin, she comes through her writing as a good soul. Should really stop there before it gets too sticky.

But then Imshin sounded like she had one of those moments we all have. So I just thought I'd say:

You know, neither wolves nor sheep are free. Wolves must hunt, sheep must be hunted. Humans can be free. We can choose to be a vegetarian wolf or a ferocious lamb. Choosing not to inflict pain does not mean you chose to let others inflict it on you. In the end of the day, all humans want the same things: health, love, sufficient means of survival, a future for our children. I choose to provide these essentials to myself, I choose not to deny them from others.

And about influencing others. You know, that incident in Mescha - I truly believe that such an event could not have happened in my regiment. Not because there aren't any simple-minded, trigger happy young soldiers in my regiment. Because there are enough honest men there. And the presence of an honest person inspires honesty in his / her surroundings. Nothing uber-spiritual here. Its just that you know you go back to the same tent with the same mates, and have you dark coffee with them, and then you have to look them in the eyes.

Besides, you have kids. You can't really believe that your goodness does not transcend.

To Blog or not to Blog? I keep reminding myself of William Gibson's words:

I've found blogging to be a low-impact activity, mildly narcotic and mostly quite convivial, but the thing I've most enjoyed about it is how it never fails to underline the fact that if I'm doing this I'm definitely not writing a novel – that is, if I'm still blogging, I'm definitely still on vacation.

Or, in my case - not writing my PhD. And the problem with the PhD is, if I have a keyboard, I'm not on vacation.

Oh well, just one little entry can't hurt..

J. is one of our close friends here in London. She helped us immensely when we were haphazardly organizing our move, even before she actually knew us. We've stayed friends since, though as often happens - never meet as much as we'd like. Celebrating Jewish holidays with their friends and family has become one of our family traditions.

On the 25th, at around 4pm, J.'s mother, Ruth, passed away, after battling cancer. I was always amazed by the spirit of hope Ruth inspired in her surroundings, throughout her battle with the illness. יהי זכרה ברוך (Ye'hee Zichra Baruch)

Yesterday Golani troops fired at protesters at a demonstration against the separation fence. Gil Na'amati, an Israeli citizen from Kibbutz Re'im in the Negev sustained serious wounds, while an American tourist was lightly hurt.

From my reading, it looks like the demonstration was not a very quite one. Still. Live amo? But the worst bit is the soldiers excuse: "we didn't know they were Israelis".