Category: curiosity

Visit to the Neeman Library in TAU

Today I came again to the Neeman Library in Tel Aviv University (last time was before the Hamakor General Assembly on Sunday Dec. 18). The purpose of my visit was to read papers about the workings of the human visual and auditory systems, for a project.

Today I read an interesting paper published at 1968 by someone called Yilmaz.

After reading the paper, I went to the librarian responsible for running searches and asked her to search for Yilmaz’s biography and list of publications.

Power went out and the librarian’s computer turned off.

After few minutes, power came back. The librarian turned on her PC, and after the computer finished rebooting, she started running a search.

Power went out again.

I joked with her that “Someone” (with capital S) does not want me to know about Yilmaz. I decided to call it a day and go back home.

As I approached the exit of the library’s building, power came back.

Yes! We have no bananas!

Yes! We have no bananas! Also, you can have both tea and no tea. However, you will be requested to leave your common sense to the loving care of your spouse.

Recently, there was a discussion in the Israeli Python mailing list about teaching the concept of a null string to schoolchildren in a Python course. The surprising thing is that in the world of Python and other programming languages, you can have both a string with characters and a string with no characters (“null string”), as long as they are assigned to different variables.

Few years ago, there was a Linux installation party in an obscure Israeli city. The compulsory trashcan got the label “/dev/null” (it was my own proud hand which wrote those fateful letters), and when it was emptied, someone took a shot of its location and labelled it as “/dev/null unmounted”.

Dizengoff Center, Tel Aviv

This evening I found myself with some free time on my hands while in Dizengoff Center.
So I wandered around its less traveled corridors.
Turns out that top floors of the Dizengoff Center have corridors, which qualify to be high-class bohemian areas. The top floors have all sorts of strange shops. Occult, cabala, gifts, scents, tattoos, piercing, you name it. Those shops look well-maintained, clean, high class. Unlike your usual bohemian quarters.
Do not bother to look for those shops at the bottom floors. The bottom floors have more conventional mix of shops – clothes, restaurants and cafes, electrical appliances, bookshops and other conventional stuff.

The big surprise is why Dizengoff Center is not more famous for its collection of strange shops in far away corridors.

Google – really dangerous or victim of propaganda?

I have read in yet another blog that the blogger is appreciating what Google are doing but is sacred stiff of them.
Thus, the anti-Google propaganda has started.
Since it is well-known that they have a formidable competitor, which is now in its corrupt monopolist stage of life, I am wondering whether the danger from Google is currently real, or is merely propaganda spread by the current formidable competitor.