Blog/November 2016/Nov 18th

November 18th

All three of us have been working very hard this week. Not much more to say about that, except we’re all quite tired. I’ve got more than the usual preparations to do today for shabbat, so I’ll make this short.

The weather has been cooling down to seasonal norms, and is expected to be more or less normal in the near term.

A few things of note:

• A $5 USB device which can password-protected computers
• The US flight and fright syndrome
• Anti-semitism ascendant in the Democrat party
• Food for thought about Trump
• Fascinating video from a former KGB agent about brainwashing

Lately my work on 8th has taken a back-seat to my paid contract work. But I am still working on developing and improving it. I most recently updated the “GUI” library it uses to the latest version, and discovered some new bugs in that library <sigh>. I discovered that bug while working on something else — something which used to work, with the old version. This is why software needs lots of QA.

Here in Israel, some in our government have put forth a law to outlaw loudspeakers at places of worship. The law has come to be called “The Muʼezzin Law”, since the only “places of worship” in Israel which regularly broadcast extremely loud noises are the mosques. Point of reference: we are 2.5km (about 1.5 miles) from the nearest mosque, but their 4am “wakeup call to the faithful” is loud enough to wake us up. So I welcome this law, personally.

Some in the Arab community also welcome the law; but most (or the most vocal, anyway) oppose it. They claim it is “anti-Muslim”. How, then, do they explain that Saudi Arabia has similar laws, or that Egypt is passing similar laws? Thought so. It remains to be seen whether or not the gov’t has the cojones to actually enforce the law… I’m skeptical.

Fortunately for us, the weather is cold and we can simply close the windows and reduce the noise level to just “annoying” rather than “outrageous”.

We’re going to take it easy this shabbat (as we generally do). Sarah’s abandoned us, so we don’t have her to kick around today.

This shabbat it’s just Esther and me. Since she’s under the weather, I’m cooking. I’m the best cook, I only use the very best ingredients! Trust me!!

We’ll try to enjoy:
roast beef and roasted potatoes, lentil stew, egg salad, tuna salad, various salatim, and honey-cake (she made that a while ago…).

Until next time,
shabbat shalom!

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