yonkeltron » Judaism

Thank you to JOPP!

Jonathan Magen — Fri, 05 Dec 2008 03:00:40 +0000

I just got back from a workshop run by the JOPP. What a blast! I was really honored with the chance to give a talk to a fantastic crowd with good questions. Thank you to all the fine folks over at JOPP and all the people who showed up to listen to me rant about social technologies and the under-30 demographic. It was great to be in the same room with talented educators and committed professionals from whom I can learn so much.

One of the more interesting things that I heard was how so many non-profits are paying for services that they could get for free with a little bit of know-how. Are people really still paying for podcasting? While there are some things out there worth paying for (specifically, select services), I am shocked and amazed that there are still organizations out there who haven’t looked into Free/Open Source Software! Don’t they wonder where great products like Firefox and OpenOffice.org come from?

It seems to me like there are plenty of folks out there who could still seriously benefit from the chance to get their hands on real resources to expand their organizations. It’s the hardworking non-profits and the community groups that need to be reached by Free/Open Source Software evangelism because they are the people who stand to benefit the most from it.

Computers are supposed to empower people, remember? This topic deserves further thought.

Not your Mama’s skin condition

Jonathan Magen — Tue, 13 May 2008 14:59:45 +0000

I just got done watching Ben-Hur with my girlfriend Sarah and it was the first time I had seen it in several years. Naturally, we were prompted to check the Leprosy article on Wikipedia. Much to my surprise, it would seem that there is a difference between true Leprosy and the biblical plague known as Tza’arat (צערת). While the former is a legitimate disease, the latter is actually a condition comprised of a number of illnesses, afflictions and maladies capable of affliction people, clothes and houses. Basically, don’t get Leprosy because it’s a horrible disease which will ruin your body and don’t piss off God because Tza’arat is worse and will consume both you and your stuff.

Things To Learn

Jonathan Magen — Sat, 24 Feb 2007 00:12:33 +0000

I have not had a great deal of time recently. That being said, I have accrued a list of subjects I desire to learn and technologies I wish to become familiar with. Some of them are neat and others are less captivating. If anyone sees something on this list that they find interesting, please do not hesitate to get in touch with me.

PyKDE/PyQT – I would really like to get a hang of GUI programming in order to further my programming horizons. Given my love of KDE in general and the immenent release of KDE4, I feel like now is an excellent time to get aquainted with this seemingly excellent development platform. I have already found a few good tutorials to help a Python programmer like myself get a decent start.
Parallel Python – While my professors tend to be more into the high performance computing stuff like OpenMP and MPI, I find the idea of a 1700 line quicksort algorithm to be a little intimidating. While the whole concept of a lighter weight language (like NESL) is not new, I fancy the idea of using Python to do interesting things.
OpenLaszlo – I like the web. I wish I had a better understanding of how to make neat things for the web. As such, the OpenLaszlo concept of writing an application once and then being able to have it served up as either Flash or DHTML/AJAX seems very promising and flexible. There are some cool demos where the exact same application can be launched served up in either form.
Unit Testing – Even after the launch of the Google Testing Blog, there really isn’t enough out there for people to dive into unit testing for software components. I really do wish that the Google folks, who seem to be awful keen on testing, would put out some good introductory material. That being said, I am eyeing the O’Reilly book…
Jabber – I just like Jabber in general. Ever since I really got into the concepts during last year’s brief project, I’ve been craving a portable Jabber-enabled device so that I can keep in touch from any WiFi hotspot. Really, I just want to do something interesting and fun with it.
Talmudic Logic – With the recent developments in the Conservative Movement, I have been reminded of just how rich the body of Jewish Law can be. It seems like, with my newfound exposure to discrete mathematics, I might be in a position to explore some of these concepts in a more comprehensive fashion.
Wavelets – One of my development partners (the delightfully Turkish one) is quite fascinated with wavelets. His enthusiasm has spread to me after I saw how powerful they can be when analyzing data.

I feel like there is more but I just can’t remember at the moment.

Dershowitz Deliver Us !

Jonathan Magen — Mon, 22 Jan 2007 18:04:51 +0000

According to multiple – sources, former US President Jimmy Carter has agreed to a public debate with Alan Dershowitz. This event will be streamed live from Brandeis where Carter’s tush-whooping will take place.
Here’s to many a “Dersho-wizz-bang” and “Dersho-what-now” as Alan the Annihilator takes Jimbo to school.

Zion Beckons

Jonathan Magen — Thu, 14 Dec 2006 13:07:42 +0000

In about 15 minutes, I’m leaving for Israel. I’ll be back in two weeks once I’ve thoroughly gotten my Zionist on.

Conservative Judaism on Wikipedia

Jonathan Magen — Tue, 28 Nov 2006 00:02:16 +0000

Now don’t get me wrong I love Wikipedia. I appreciate the breadth and general freedom of the whole project and the ease with which people can contribute and collaborate. That being said, I am very displeased with the progress of the articles in the Conservative Judaism series. I’ve been tagging and editing things like mad but the general quality has not been increasing as quickly and substantially as I would have liked. If you give a crap and are knowledgeable enough to help fix things, please do.

Begging Forgiveness

Jonathan Magen — Fri, 29 Sep 2006 17:25:05 +0000

I would like to take this opportunity to appologize for any hurt or wrongdoing that I have incurred upon you over the past year. I have likely been sarcastic, impatient, snippy, arrogant and in all likelyhood, kind of a jerkface at some point or another. I may have ignored your opinions, forgot to thank you for something or neglected to notice and appreciate the positive things about you.

I am truly sorry for these actions. I beg your understanding as I am only human and plead for your forigveness.

Davidson School UniqueQuest Participants

Jonathan Magen — Mon, 28 Aug 2006 01:27:49 +0000

Meet the dynamic duo of Cheryl and Norman between 2:00 and 2:30 at a Seattle-based coffee house between 102^nd and 125^th on Broadway to receive a task worth up to 4000 points.

Back From Camp

Jonathan Magen — Tue, 22 Aug 2006 05:39:12 +0000

Back from camp. It was an absolutely wonderful summer. I’ve been back for a week and have been enjoying the chance to unpack and sleep (On the subject of sleep, I’m suffering from a bit of the phase shift).

In more recent news, my father was kind enough to let me use his old desktop as a new house server. It’s an (only slightly) aged Dell machine with a 1.6ghz P4, 512mb RAM and 40gb hdd. The 40gb disk is what has me most worried. When I booted it up to install Debian Sarge, I noticed a screen out of place in the normal boot sequence. The screen informed me that the Dell Disk Utility had found the hard disk to be “operating outside of normal parameters”. I don’t know what that means because the only additional information I could get out of the utility was that I was supposed to contact Dell support for a replacement disk. I ignored the warning knowing full well that once I removed the Dell Utility Partition, the error message would be no more. Sure enough, after throwing XFS on the disk (after the advice of my friend Ryan), the machine booted into Sarge nicely. I’ll watch the disk and if it fails, I’ll replace it with a nice new 250gb disk.
After getting the server setup and configured, I realized that the minor trouble with my pipe was getting worse. I know have an average ping time of 2.5 seconds to any outside server. I called Comcast to ask them what the deal was and they reported that the cable modem registered an average ping time of 3.8 – 4.2 seconds. Before I continue, I need to pose this bit of wierdness: How is the pingtime from my side of the cable modem less than the ping time from the cable modem itself? I can’t figure it out! In any case, there is a field servoid coming to take a look at things on the morrow. By noon tommorrow, things should be at least on the way to being back to normal. Hopefully, my upcoming experience will be more positive than the encounters of other folks.

Brit Sheker

Jonathan Magen — Mon, 01 May 2006 07:26:21 +0000

In looking over the official website of Brit Tzedek v’Shalom, I have come to a conclusion: This organization is misleading.

This may seem harsh at first. Let’s break it down.

A Google search for the word “Israel” on the BTVS website yields “about 15,100” results.
A Google search for the word “Palestinian” yields “about 12,700” results.
A Google search for the word “Terrorism” yields “about 351” results.
Google searches for the words “Zion“, “Zionism” and “Zionist” yield about 389 results combined.

How can I be so harsh as to judge by the numbers like that? The answer is simple. In an age and climate where even the term “Palestinian Territories” has become loaded, the very act of making mention matters. For an organization that translates it’s own name as “The Jewish Alliance for Justice and Peace”, they seem to have forgotten that one crucial part of being Jewish, Zionism.

Instead of dealing with the issues, such as why the American Jews they seek to mobilize are still calling Israel after bombing to make sure none of their friends or family are hurt, BTVS has chosen to skirt the issue and pay more attention to the pieces of Israeli governmental policy that make them non-neutral than the murder of Jews in the holy land. The page which supposedly contains the political positions of BTVS, entitled “Where We Stand”, doesn’t even go so far as to mention terrorism, let alone condemn it.

If BTVS is about peace, then why would one of their action alerts instruct members to thank their senators for voting against a foreign aid bill that contained the following text:

(Sec. 1032) Provides that any assistance to the Palestinian Authority (PA) may only be provided when the President certifies to Congress that: (1) providing direct assistance to the PA is important to U.S. security interests; and (2) the PA has made demonstrable progress in combating terrorism and dismantling terror networks and cooperating with Israel’s security services, eliminating anti-Israel incitement, and has taken steps to ensure democracy and financial transparency.

………..

(Sec. 1415) Condemns and enumerates the attacks on U.S. citizens by Palestinian terrorists and demands that the PA work with Israel to protect all innocent individuals, regardless of citizenship, from terrorist atrocities. Offers congressional condolences to the families of U.S. citizens killed by Palestinian terrorist attacks.

How is this a bad thing? The action alert itself reads more like a piece of Palestinian propaganda than a plea for peace.
Why can BTVS not realize that while supporting Israel can include the criticizing of Israeli governmental policy, it doesn’t mean being a yes-man or offering silent consent to Palestinian terror.