V = I·R

Tuesday, February 9, 2010

Windows are dangerous

This is not another PC vs. Mac post. It's a reference to something my rabbi said when he heard a speaker express an opinion that owning Internet at home is dangerous because a child may use it to visit sites with terrible content. My rabbi commented on that: "Having windows in your house is also dangerous".

Monday, February 8, 2010

Labels



Two ways exist of uniting Jews with Torah. One is to bring Torah down to Jews. Another is to elevate the Jews up to Torah.

On Google Mail, one has labels to the left of the messages. The labels are used instead of placing the messages in folders. This way, each message can have multiple labels (e.g., "personal", "shidduch", "humor", "New York"), can be grouped with other messages in more than one way, and can be searched through multiple keywords.

One can assign a label to a message through the "Labels" drop-down menu. One can also drag: either drag a message onto a label, or drag a label onto a message.

The interesting thing is: if you drag a label onto the message, the latter stays in your Inbox but acquires the particular label (it becomes added to the left of the message's subject). Then you can repeat this with the other labels. But if you drag the message onto the label, it disappears from the Inbox and can be found by clicking on the label. Then, other labels can be assigned to it.

This reminded me of two ways a person can associate himself with Torah, with Yiddishkeit. One way is making "frum Jew" one of his labels. He is a frum Jew. He is also a medical student. He is also someone who plays poker. He is also someone who enjoys kayaking. He can be identified by any of these labels, but generally speaking, he is still in the same place he was before (in his "Inbox"), even though he acquired additional labels (and perhaps lost some) — one of which happens to be frum Yiddishkeit.

The second way is for the person to move fully from the place where he was and acquire for himself a completely new identity: that of a frum Jew. All that he is becomes seen (by himself and others) exclusively through the light of Yiddishkeit. And, inside that "location" (the mission given to one by Hashem), he may attach other labels, look at them, and identify himself with them, but only on the terms of the new main identity.

Which way is right? Which way does Chassidus (i.e., the Rebbeim from the Alter Rebbe to the Rebbe) say one should do it? Is there one way that's better for all, or is it different for each person? Can there be combinations?

Sunday, February 7, 2010

Bella, ciao



(translation)

Saturday, February 6, 2010

Regarding poetry

Все ужасней и гаже стихи,
С каждым веком они только хуже.
Каждый мнит, что он с рифмою дружен,
А стихи невозможно плохи.

Все в поэзию прут – от сохи,
От тоски, от безделья и скуки.
Им бы делом занять свои руки,
Вместо этого пишут стихи.

(source)

Thursday, February 4, 2010

Communist mitzva tank

...during the Civil War in Russia. Well, not a tank but a train.

Anyone can make a mistake

In the news:
Romanian Ministry of Defense decided to send its contribution to helping the unfortunate islanders of Haiti after the earthquake. From the army airport, it sent a battalion of mountain infantry with 2000 tons of humanitarian aid — food, water, blankets, medicine. Because of an unfortunate mistake, however, the battalion was sent to a wrong place: to the island of Tahiti in French Polynesia, in Pacific Ocean. Romanian minister of defense, Gabriel Oprea, comments: “No need to make a big sensation out of this. The names are very similar. Haiti, Tahiti, Maiti, Papiti. Devil take them all.”
If you think I am lying, this is the original:
Un incident hilar a avut loc ieri in Tahiti, dupa ce un batalion de vanatori de munte din Romania a fost subiectul unei crize isterice de ras pe insula paradiziaca din Polinezia Franceza.

Din cauza unei confuzii regretabile, Ministerul Apararii a gresit destinatia ajutoarelor pentru victimele cutremurului din Haiti, expediind un batalion de vanatori de munte, precum si 2000 de tone de provizii, apa, paturi, medicamente si alimente intr-o directie total opusa, respectiv in insula Tahiti, aflata in Pacificul de Sud.


"Eu zic ca nu trebuie sa facem un spectacol din chestia asta. Adica, numele seamana foarte, foarte mult. Haiti, Tahiti, Mahiti, Papiti. Sa le ia dracu', suna la fel", a declarat pentru times.ro Ministrul Apararii, Gabriel Oprea.

And they say that only Americans are bad at geography.

This is not the first time Romanians want to help and mess up. In 1943, they were covering the flanks of Nazi army during the Battle of Stalingrad. Soviet tanks plowed through Romanians (and their friends Italians; the only ones missing from the scene were French — and that’s because they were busy sulking after having been conquered in two weeks), encircled Germans and destroyed the whole 6th Army, turning the tide of the war.

Be passionate

Monday, February 1, 2010

Are daled amos enough?

It has become customary to say that a man needs only six feet of land. But a corpse needs six feet, not a person.
 — Anton Chekhov
I had the following conversation with someone as a part of Yud Shvat farbrengen. Originally I didn’t want to post it until I thought it through completely, but was nevertheless persuaded to post anyway. The topic of the conversation was how much a person should be a human vs. a chossid.

Regarding Russian roads...

Question: How come Russia has such bad roads?
Answer: It’s a form of national defense.

Some footage from German “Eastern front” (i.e., Russia) during WWII:



By the way, that song (which is very funny, if you speak this most cultured language) is from a very popular Russian movie Gardemariny (“Marine Guards” — think of it as Russian “Three Musketeers”), which had some of the cheesiest musical scenes in the history of the Soviet cinematography:



Of course, now that we are on the topic of cheesy Soviet music scenes — a little dance in Ivan the Terrible’s court:

Get out!

Dedicated to all the people in yeshiva/seminary/kollel and to all misnagdim.


Regarding pirates...

Friday, January 29, 2010

Monotheism

In Judaism, we believe there is only http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/b/b8/999_Perspective.png/300px-999_Perspective.pngG-d.

Update: After much deliberation (see comments), it was determined that this is in fact heresy. But the reason this is not what we believe in illustrates what Rambam (and numerous others) meant when he said that G-d is one but not (just) in a numerical sense (not “one but not two”).

iPad

The world intelligentsia responds to the new phenomenon. Click on the images to enlarge.

If you’re ever bored at work...

...you can do things like this (but don’t look if you get disgusted easily, especially by bugs; or if you hate modern art).