aww, so sweet!

http://www.thankyoutony.com/

Democracy Day

The purpose of the Back to Israel day is to carry the message that the
occupation is wrong, period. It is our interest, no less than the
Palestinians, to end the occupation. Israel cannot be called a democracy
as long as it occupies the Palestinians in the territories.
http://www.backtoisrael.org/indexEnglish.html

Mono Mania

Java dead, .NET dead, Mono live?

http://fb2.hu/x10/Articles/MonoForFun.html

chat on Hello

michaelbsh: does the last 1 look familiar?
yish: what, the pub? or the beer head?
michaelbsh: the beverage, look again
yish: sorry..
yish: G?
yish: Ana, too light!
michaelbsh: brown sugar over cappuccino foam , close nough though
yish: yeah, I thought that - but the context had me off track.
yish: although that place could be a caf'e now that I look at it again
michaelbsh: your craving lead u astray
michaelbsh: it's le brasserrie
yish: actually, my craving is for the latte(r)
yish: which is just ready. and an almond croissant to accompany it
michaelbsh: can you transfer, odours thru hello, i mean now that the
firewall is OFF?
yish: does your machince support OTP? http://www.rru.com/webodor/rfc.html
michaelbsh: my cophee machince?
yish: anyway, coffee's done. I need to write a paper. can we continue later?
michaelbsh: hopefully
michaelbsh: ciao
yish: ciao

yo man, yidishkait, yeah?

http://shabot6000.com/sedaclub/

ENGAGE

http://liberoblog.com/

/*"Engage*/ was set up in response to the Association of University
Teacher’s decision to
take steps towards an academic and cultural boycott of Israel
/*Engage */opposes Israel’s occupation of the West Bank and Gaza. We are
in favour of the foundation of a Palestinian state alongside the state
of Israel. We do not believe that Israel is an ‘illegitimate state’. We
are for reconciliation between Israeli Jews and Palestinians.
*1 . /Engage /opposes the idea of an academic or cultural boycott of
Israel.*·
*2 . /Engage/ aims to encourage, facilitate and publicise positive links
between Israeli, Palestinian, British and global academia. /Engage/ is
for closer engagement, not boycotts.*
*/3 . Engage/ stands up against antisemitism in our universities, in our
unions and in our students unions. *"

http://liberoblog.com/

Especialy provocative is:

Howard Jacobson on anti-Zionism

*Thursday, April 28th, 2005* at *5:18 am* by *Administrator*

Allow me, in the light of the Association of University Teachers
decision to boycott Israeli Universities, to voice a heresy.
Anti-Zionism *is*, after all, anti-Semitism.

I say after all because until now I have always resisted the conflation
of anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism. I have suffered very little
anti-Semitism personally, and don’t find it under every stone. I don’t
think Jews, by virtue of their victimization in the past, have any right
to expect exemption from the usual rough and tumble of opinion. And I
don’t consider it a mark of ill will towards Israel - indeed it might
well denote the very opposite - to oppose its policies when they are
inhumane.

http://liberoblog.com/2005/04/28/howard-jacobson-on-anti-zionism/

Boycotting Israel: the uses of history Stephen Howe - openDemocracy

A good background article:
http://www.opendemocracy.net/debates/article-2-97-2451.jsp

(thanks, Imshin http://imshin.blogspot.com/)

Lessons from Brazil

Brazil has decided to force all its public sector into open source. Microsoft reacts by offering it a $40 version of windows. Brazil not impressed:

http://news.zdnet.co.uk/software/linuxunix/0,39020390,39196592,00.htm

http://searchenterpriselinux.techtarget.com/originalContent/0,289142,sid39_gci1081255,00.html

And, while we're at it, the Guardian compares MS office and OpenOffice:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/online/businesssolutions/story/0,,1471339,00.html

You brought the boycott upon yourselves: Gush Shalom letter to Bar Ilan University, 26 April

Now, Bar-Ilan is a different story:

http://gush-shalom.org/biu.html

The University of Haifa is saddened and not a little outraged by this attempt to erect barriers and obstruct the flow of ideas

The University of Haifa is saddened and not a little outraged by the
utterly unjust and unjustifiable decision of the AUT and by its attempt
to erect barriers and obstruct the flow of ideas within the
international academic community

http://www.haifa.ac.il/etc/res_eng.html

Grant Robinson : Guess-the-google launcher

http://grant.robinson.name/projects/guess-the-google/

After creating Montage-a-google, several people wrote
to me suggesting I make a game based on the same
technology. Montage-a-google is a simple web app that
uses Google's image search to generate a large gridded
montage of images based on keywords (search terms)
entered by the user. Guess-the-google reverses this
process by picking the keywords for you, the player
must then guess what keyword made up the image - it's
surprisingly addictive.

Ubuntu - Linux for Human Beings

Yet another CD bootable linux, but with a nice spiel and an installer:

http://www.ubuntulinux.org/

"Ubuntu" is an ancient African word, meaning "humanity to others". Ubuntu also means "I am what I am because of who we all are". The Ubuntu Linux distribution brings the spirit of Ubuntu to the software world.

Armenians Mark 90th Anniversary Of Start Of Massacres

(24 April )

Armenians from around the world today commemorated the 90th anniversary
of what they call "Genocide Day" -- the start of mass deportations and
killings of their ethnic kin during the final years of the Ottoman
Empire. For decades, survivors of those events and their descendants
have lobbied for international recognition that "genocide" occurred. But
successive Turkish governments have denied the kllings were aimed at
exterminating the Christian Armenian population.

http://www.rferl.org/featuresarticle/2005/4/2AB84233-D27D-4F79-A944-60DC647592AF.html

Steal This Poem v1.2

This poem is copyleft,

you are free to distribute it, and diffuse it

dismantle it, and abuse it

reproduce it, and improve it

and use it

for your own ends

and with your own ending

http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/regions/oxford/2004/10/298739.html

Why I hate flash sites

Basically, because they're a poor cover-up for crap design.
I mean, Flash is cool. Flash is great, but I'm sick of seeing sites where someone thought they could get away with not bothering about functionality, usability or esthetics just by using flash.

So, for the benefit of those garage designers who can't afford to run a user survey, here's a few things I'd like to be able to do on your site:

1. Copy your phone number into my contact management software.
2. Bookmark or link to a specific bit of information I liked.
3. Set my own font size (yes, I'm sure it looks great on 860x640. Get a life).
4. See the name of the page I'm looking at in my title bar.
5. Send you a link to a page with a typo and see you fix it in 5 minutes, without it costing a small nations GDP.
6. Zoom in on a picture.
   

Get the idea?

Even my kid brother has a site.

Guardian Unlimited | Online | The source of inspiration

The source of inspiration

Government has much to learn from the open source movement. It should
start by using open methods to encourage the spread of good ideas, says
a recent report. Michael Cross investigates

http://www.guardian.co.uk/online/story/0,3605,1464055,00.html

SCIgen - An Automatic CS Paper Generator

Generate your own CS paper.

BBC NEWS | Americas | Prank fools US science conference

Rooter: A Methodology for the Typical Unification of Access Points and
Redundancy
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/4449651.stm

Dear Charlie Owen,

Please find attached, for your information:
- the responses from the spokespeaple of Haifa, Jerusalem, and Bar-Ilan universities.
- the joint response of the The Inter-Senate Committee of the Israeli Universities for the defence of Academic Freedom
- an opinion article by Douglas Davis, from the spectator

You may also find this article informative:
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=JPost/JPArticle/ShowFull&cid=1112668198058

Even before commenting on the content of the motions, I find several issues disturbing:
1. Item 55A.1 specifically moves AGAINST constructive dialogue. This does not carry the flavour of a peace seeking act. Even if the AUT votes for a boycott, it should have the decency to face Israeli academics and explain its position.
2. The proposers had not gone to the trouble of asking the accused parties for their response. I don't believe that this is the model of justice that the AUT wants to promote in the middle east.

As for the idea of the boycott, I suggest we take Afghanistan and Iraq as an examples. Boycotts enforced quite vigorously by institutions much more powerful than the AUT had the sole effect of harming the innocent, without the slightest effect on government policies in those countries.
I also find it quite odd that the boycott resurfaces in a period in which we witness first signs of reconciliation and reestablishment of Israeli - Palestinian dialogue.

If the AUT wants to contribute to peace and justice in the middle east, I suggest it does so by constructively supporting local initiatives, such as:
http://www.machsomwatch.org/
http://www.taayush.org/
http://www.ipcri.org/
http://www.m-e-e-t.org/

I would be more than happy to answer any questions you may have.

best,

- Yishay

Charlie Owen wrote:

-----Original Message-----
From: Yishay Mor Sent: 18 April 2005 03:56 PM
To: Charlie Owen
Subject: Re: AUT - European & international affairs

thank you. could you outline your position on these motions? are you aware of the responses made by the three accused universities?

My intention, on the basis of what I have read, is to vote for the
motions, although I shall of course listen to all the arguments for and
against at the council meeting.

I am not aware of any responses by the universities.

Charlie Owen.
------------------------------------------------------------------
Thomas Coram Research Unit
Institute of Education, University of London
27 Woburn Square London WC1H 0AA UK
Tel: 020 7612 6942 Fax: 020 7612 6927
email: c.owen@ioe.ac.uk
URL: http://www.ioe.ac.uk/people/CharlieOwen
------------------------------------------------------------------

There's a rumor going round, about a conspiracy between MS & Fiat to have a TBox in every car - a MS powered computer that controls everything from the headlights to the movie the kids are watching in the back seat.

Aside from the inevitable joke, do you really think MS would trust their OS that much themselves? I mean, you can believe Fiat would go for a thing like this, but MS has good lawyers. They wouldn't take the liability risk.

Besides, the only mention of anything of this sort on either the MS or Fiat websites is a Fiat press release from July 2004.

It is now exactly 24 hours since I stoped smoking. Please tell me that I'm smarter, faster and sexier. Please.

The AUT council also resolved to boycott three Israeli universities, based on evidence presented by Open U and Bermingham.

It strikes me as a bit odd that no one bothered to e-mail the secretariats of the accused universities to ask for their comments on the charges brought against them.

So, for the convinience of the inquisative:

Bar Ilan University spokesperson: biuspoke@mail.biu.ac.il
Hebrew University spokesperson: orits@savion.cc.huji.ac.il

AUT - European & international affairs

In case you're an academic in Birmingham, you may find this interesting:

55 Executive Council welcomes the recent ceasefire between Israel and
Palestine as a valuable respite in the damage caused to higher education
and the working lives of higher education personnel in Palestine.
Council reaffirms its support for colleagues in Palestinian institutions
working in these difficult and sometimes dangerous conditions, and urges
LAs to further develop the twinning programme bringing together their
institution with those in Palestine. Council asks the executive to
continue to develop its links with the Palestinian Federation of Unions
of University Professors and Employees with the view to providing
further support.

Council also recognises that the peaceful resolution of the problems
facing the Middle East will not be brought about by the erection of
barriers, but by open dialogue. Council therefore calls on the executive
to establish contact with the Israeli Higher Education Union
representatives.

55A.1 Birmingham Delete second paragraph.

http://www.aut.org.uk/index.cfm?articleid=1182

Talk? With Israelis? Don't be daft! These apes - there's only one language they understand.

Just finished reading



It had my stomach in a knot for a week. I honestly lost sleep. Its worth it.

Teaching as performance in the electronic classroom

"Through all the intellectual storms of history, teaching has remained,
above all, a performance art that unfolds in real time."

http://firstmonday.org/issues/issue10_4/brent/

Fortean Slips: Toilet Paper Plagiarism

In the age of chaos theory and fractal geometry, mathematics is no
longer as drab, boring and awful as it used to be. These exciting new
maths escape the confines of incomprehensible geeky formulae to live and
breathe in the world around us; their beauty is reflected in the grains
of sand on a shifting shoreline... in the whorls of cream stirred into a
cup of coffee... even in the cottony-soft quilted pattern on a roll of
toilet paper.

Yes, toilet paper. Which brings us to one of the dangers inherent in
dabbling in these latest breakthroughs in mathematical science: unlike
Sir Isaac Newton and Rene Descartes, the guys who invented this
newfangled stuff are still around to sue your ass.

In a unique accusation of copyright infringement, distinguished
mathematical physicist Sir Roger Penrose has filed a lawsuit over the
decorative design on a brand of toilet paper. He charges that the
Kimberly-Clark Corporation unlawfully appropriated an important
geometric pattern of his creation and imprinted it on rolls of Kleenex
Quilted bathroom tissue. He is demanding that all existing stock of the
offensively designed T.P. be confiscated and destroyed, and wants an
inquiry into Kimberly-Clark's profits so that suitable damages may be
assessed.

http://parascope.com/articles/slips/fs_151.htm