http://henrykisor.com/blog/2006/12/14/sometimes-the-press-just-effs-up/ demonstrates just how funny can newspaper gaffes be sometimes. My all-time favorite is the gaffe in an Israeli newspaper from a generation ago. It was about a woman who owes 1000 nights to a tax collector (the Israeli word for night – layla – can easily be a misspelling for the name of the former Israeli monetary unit – lira, if both are written in Hebrew).
Author: Omer Zak
I am deaf since birth. I played with big computers which eat punched cards and spew out printouts since age 12. Ever since they became available, I work and play with desktop size computers which eat keyboard keypresses and spew out display pixels.
Among other things, I developed software which helped the deaf in Israel use the telephone network, by means of home computers equipped with modems. Several years later, I developed Hebrew localizations for some cellular phones, which helped the deaf in Israel utilize the cellular phone networks.
I am interested in entrepreneurship, Science Fiction and making the world more accessible to people with disabilities.
Holocaust Denial Jamboree in Tehran, Iran – few footnotes
- I saw nowhere any mention of the fact that when the Neturei Karta accuse the Zionists of causing the Holocaust, they imply that the Holocaust did happen.
- The story about Iranian attitudes during the Holocaust is not given wide publicity either. Those were different times altogether.
- Nor are the stories of the “Tehran Children” being publicized. They were Jewish children, who were sent to Tehran to be rescued from the Nazis. They lived there during the World War II and eventually immigrating to Israel.
Addendum from December 15, 2006:
It seems that Yasser Arafat financed the Neturei Karta and bought their support.
Static vs. dynamic aspects of brain structure
There is a book called “On Intelligence” by Jeff Hawkins, and it is about yet another theory of the human brain’s operation. The author pointed out several gaps in current researches in neurology and AI.
However, the book dealt with static aspects of the brain’s structure. It omitted the dynamics. In particular, the following points were not covered:
- Factors affecting formation, destruction and strength of synapses connecting two neurons to each other (see also: Hebbian learning).
- Growth of axons and dendrites – where do they prefer to grow?
- Initial wiring in a fetus’ brain.
- Existence and effect of any chemical means for non-local communication between neurons.
- How are new neurons created and how do they integrate into the existing network?
The only dynamic aspect of brain operation, which was dealt with by the book, was the firing pattern of neurons.
Absolute vs. Relative Poverty Line
Economists and politicians routinely argue in favor of basing social assistance programs upon relative poverty lines. Such programs have the effect of favoring equalization of income in a country, rather than emphasizing the idea of a safety net for that country’s residents.
Paul Graham has an interesting paragraph in his Mind the Gap article:
If I had a choice of living in a society where I was materially much better off than I am now, but was among the poorest, or in one where I was the richest, but much worse off than I am now, I’d take the first option. If I had children, it would arguably be immoral not to. It’s absolute poverty you want to avoid, not relative poverty. If, as the evidence so far implies, you have to have one or the other in your society, take relative poverty.
In light of this observation, it can be seen that each day, several people from 3rd world countries vote by their feet in favor of absolute poverty lines. They do so by immigrating to more affluent countries. They do so even if they are illegal immigrants. They do so even if they end up being in one of the lowest socioeconomic classes in the affluent country of their choice. They do so because they believe that they and their families would be better off being illegal immigrants in an affluent country rather than be legal and sometimes relatively prosperous in their country of origin.
The most interesting observation for me is that economists and politicians discuss feelings of resentment and discrimination among people who find themselves below relative poverty lines, while ignoring that those people probably value more adequate schooling and medical care for their children, which are better for the poor in affluent countries than for the middle class in 3rd world countries.
One more observation is that humans can be divided into immigrant types and non-immigrant types. The above discussion applies to immigrant types i.e. people who are willing to take a risk, immigrate to an unknown country, try to survive there without the familiar faces and patterns of life – with hope of doing better. Non-immigrant types value more stability and security, and are willing to forego opportunities in favor of this. It is possible that non-immigrants (who are usually the majority in countries without significant percentage of immigrants among their residents) are the ones who favor relative poverty lines.
Memorial Event to Commemorate 11th anniversary of Itzhak Rabin's Assassination
Tonight, I was physically present in the memorial event held to commemorate 11th anniversary of Itzhak Rabin’s assassination. The event was held in Rabin Square, Tel Aviv.
I was physically present, but not really present there.
I did not see the Sign Language interpreter, nor was a podium for her to stand on was to be seen. I have the interpreter’s cellular phone number, so I SMSed her. After about half an hour, I walked away and indulged in some dead tree shopping (15th issue of “Dreams at Aspamia”). Later I got her reply (she cannot answer SMS messages in middle of interpreting).
Turns out that she was to be shown only on the big screens which show what is happening on the podium. And even then – only when there are speeches rather than songs and music (even though she is expert also in rendering music in Sign Language). This explanation was accompanied by two short words about the IQ level of the event’s organizers.
Most of the people present in the rally was Leftists, of the “Peace Now” variety. I came there because war for accessibility is my 1st priority, and trumps other political considerations. However, once I was present and saw their slogans, I poignantly recalled how the Palestinians forced the Israelis to elect Bibi Netanyahu (from the camp which opposed Rabin’s peace policies) rather than Shimon Peres (who encouraged Rabin to adopt the peace policies which provoked his assassin) in the elections held after Rabin’s assassination. The Palestinians accomplished this by putting bombs in few busses and exploding them, killing passengers – including Arabs who happened to ride on the busses with Jews.
Links to previous Web pages about Rabin and accessibility:
Proposed Substitute to the Planned Controversial Gay-Lesbian Parade in Jerusalem
The religion-driven homophobes are threatening with widespread violence if the parade takes place as planned.
There are several voices calling on the Gay-Lesbian community to cancel the parade because of the violence threats. I suggest that instead of, or in addition to, the parade, an attempt be made to collect and publicize statistics about lives, which were ruined due to homophobia – demonstrating that such a parade is still essential:
- How many youths, in the age of army service, commit suicide each year because they found that they have unacceptable sexual orientation?
- How many teenagers are thrown out of their homes each year into the streets because they are homosexual and their parents are homophobes?
When the newspapers will routinely write about homosexuals, who were thrown out of their homes by their homophobe parents or committed suicide, the way they (the newspapers) write today about beaten women and women, who were murdered by their husbands, provocative parades might be unnecessary.
Some people slow down when they have the ball
As someone who is interested in side businesses, I have a pet peeve in the form of certain businesspeople wannabes.
There is a guy, whom we’ll call N. We have been in contact for few months. N wants to develop a line of specialty products (exact details are confidential information). He asked for my help with some things, such as looking for people to work with him.
I know someone, who manufactures special soaps, and who could help N. I told N to contact the specialty soap manufacturer.
Yesterday evening I met N and we reviewed progress since our last meeting. I told him that I talked with two people who need extra income. However they are not salespeople types, so they prefer not to work with him. I asked him if he contacted the special soap manufacturer.
A mistake.
N told me that he did not progress because of the holidays. After the holidays ended, he needed a week to recover from the pressures of the holidays. Besides, his computer is now out of order (as typical of MS-Windows XP driven computers nowadays). All kinds of excuses.
Then he asked, nagged and begged me to recall if I know other people who could work with him.
I saw that he is the type who is very fast and efficient when the ball is entrusted upon someone else. But once he has the ball and depends upon no one else to make a progress in realizing his plans, he does not run with the ball. On the other hand, he has all kinds of excuses to stall and wait and waste time – INSTEAD OF RUNNING LIKE HELL WITH THE BALL!
I know more people like N. They run circles around other people when not burdened with the ball. But once you do your part and pass the ball to them to continue to work on your joint business idea, they stall and delay and procrastinate.
Now, I have to write off, as irrecoverable loss, the time spent discussing ideas and operations with him.
Avoidance of wheel reinvention vs. NIH – possible influencing factors?
Basically, this is a true story. However, some of the details were made different from what happened in reality.
Once upon a time, in a nonprofit organization, which will remain nameless, a volunteer sysadmin set up a PC to serve as the nonprofit’s public server, serving few Web sites, managing mailing lists and some other services.
The guy was clever and configured the OS (Linux) on the PC in a nonstandard but highly secure way.
Few years later, other volunteers took over the PC. They preferred not to bother to learn how the system is configured and how to administer it. They preferred instead to reconfigure the PC to a more conventional and familiar configuration.
End of story.
The arguments, which erupted due to the above preference, led me to ponder the general question: when and why do software professionals prefer to reinvent the wheel?
On one hand, operating systems and computer languages are not, as a rule, reinvented all the time. Most people are content to learn an existing environment, become expert in it and stick to it. Only very few venture forth and write a new OS or a development framework for a new programming language.
On the other hand, when confronted by legacy software or existing installation, several people prefer to discard any existing work and start from afresh.
What differentiates among those two extremes? I tried to build a list of the relevant variables:
- How well is the framework designed for extensibility or for building upon it?
- Quality and thoroughness of documentation – especially instructions how to make changes to the system.
- Amount of wisdom invested in the basic system design, which is worthy of learning due to its own sake.
In the case of the above story, the first two variables seem to explain the reluctance of the other volunteers to use the first volunteer’s system.
How to simulate the Second Lebanon War?
http://www.pointlesswasteoftime.com/games/wargames.html
(Thanks to
Jews ask: may we be granted a nakba, too?
Between 1945 and 2006, worldwide Jewish population grew by 32%. Worldwide non-Jewish Palestinian population multiplied more than 7 times (growth by 676%). Detailed figures appear in the table below.
In view of those figures, it should be asked why were the Palestinians favored by having a nakba.
| Year | Jews | Palestinians |
| 1922 | 668 000 | |
| 1931 | 861 000 | |
| 1939 | 17 000 000 | |
| 1945 | 11 000 000 | 1 211 000 |
| 2006 | 14 600 000 | 9 400 000 |
Before 1948, Jews living in Palestine were usually considered to be Palestinians. However, the Palestinian population figures in the above table exclude those Jews.
Sources: