Ron at 05:41, 13 February 2026

2026-02-13T05:41:45Z

Ron: Created page with "{{blog}} {{comment|Feb 6th}} Mostly a week of work for us. Esther deals with humans, unfortunately, and so has many tales of woe regarding said persons’ lack of intellect...."

2026-02-06T05:33:11Z

Created page with "{{blog}} {{comment|Feb 6th}} Mostly a week of work for us. Esther deals with humans, unfortunately, and so has many tales of woe regarding said persons’ lack of intellect...."

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{{blog}} {{comment|Feb 6th}}

Mostly a week of work for us. Esther deals with humans, unfortunately, and so has many tales of woe regarding said persons’ lack of intellect. I deal with fewer humans, but have many similar stories. Alas!

This week I implemented a new [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Full-text_search full-text search] engine for the [https://mechon-mamre.org/search.htm Mechon-Mamre] website. Until now, it was using a free web-based search engine, which did a rather poor job. Since the contents of the site are mostly static, it made sense to build an index in a database which could be queried without going to another site. So naturally, I [https://8th-dev.com/forum/index.php?topic=3107.0 wrote a script in “8th”] to scrape the web-pages into a usable form, and then another script to serve up the search results.

Excellent job, Ron! Now I’m working on refining it so Hebrew searches are more complete. To that end, I needed to “tokenize” Hebrew for the [https://sqlite.org SQLite database] so that, for example, שלום and שלם are both found when asking for שלום. That’s because the Biblical text very often uses “deficient spelling” (כתיב חסר), making simple searches find fewer matches than expected.

So I bravely asked ChatGPT to come up with an appropriate tokenizer for the SQLite FTS5 full-text-search system, and it enthusiastically gave me code which neither compiled, nor actually used the API I told it to, nor worked correctly when I fixed that. However, I did get it to work, and soon I’ll update the search engine on the site with the improved version.

Of interest:
* My friend’s interesting post on [https://penamacorrespondent.blog/doing-the-math/ the Hebrew calendar] among other things.
* On [https://lisaliel.substack.com/p/pope-donald “Pope Donald”]
* The [https://critiqueanddigest.substack.com/p/contested-order “Contested Order”]: analysis of the power shifts in the Red Sea. And by the same author, the rise, triumph, and crisis [https://critiqueanddigest.substack.com/p/the-rise-triumph-and-crisis-of-jewish of Jewish conservatism].
* NYC’s snow situation is smelly. At least, they have [https://nypost.com/2026/02/01/us-news/nyers-fume-over-trash-buildup-days-after-winter-storm/ the warmth of collectivism].
* Iran: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DQ09pxe75lM IRGC tries to seize US ship], and the [https://www.jpost.com/middle-east/iran-news/article-885630 talks fall apart] and IR [https://www.jpost.com/middle-east/iran-news/article-885711 makes further threats].
* “Palestinians”: [https://www.jpost.com/middle-east/article-885439 Abbas announces elections] (not for him, he’s never leaving office). A “Gazan hero” and hospital director turns out to have been [https://www.jpost.com/middle-east/article-885264 a Ḥamas colonel]. I am shocked, shocked!
* Kisin: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=99GtWMO5toI How they lie] and why they do it.

To expand a bit on my friend’s post: the ins and outs of the Hebrew calendar calculations are detailed by Rambam in [https://mechon-mamre.org/i/3800n.htm The Laws of the Sanctification of the Month] (that version’s in Hebrew, there are English ones out there). What’s fascinating to me is that according to Nachum Dershowitz in [https://archive.org/details/calendricalcalcu0000ders “Calendrical Calculations”], the duration we Jews use for the lunar month, codified around 200CE, was — at that time — the most accurate of the ancient calendars!

Of further note is that we only use calculations for the calendar because we don’t currently have a Sanhedrin (High Court) in Jerusalem which can sanctify the months based on testimony of witnesses. So for the time being, we continue to use the calculations established by our Sages ob”m.

It’s supposed to be somewhat warmer for ''shabbat'', and it’s been warmer than average for February here. We could use cooler weather now; the plants are going crazy!

This ''shabbat'' we’re on our own, and the menu includes:
 
homemade ''ḥalla'',
chicken soup,
[https://whatjewwannaeat.com/zaatar-roasted-chicken-over-sumac-potatoes/ ''zaʿtar'' chicken],
with sumac potatoes,
various ''salatim'',
and brownies.
 

Until next time, 
''shabbat shalom''! 

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Blog/February 2026/Feb 6th - Revision history

Ron at 05:41, 13 February 2026

Ron: Created page with "{{blog}} {{comment|Feb 6th}} Mostly a week of work for us. Esther deals with humans, unfortunately, and so has many tales of woe regarding said persons’ lack of intellect...."