Blog/November 2020/Nov 20th

Nov 20th

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The week was relatively quiet. Esther’s car needed to pass its annual license test as well as its annual “check up”. She told me, “let the garage take it to the test as well”. I said, “Pshaw, woman! They won’t do that!”. But “pshaw” might have been too strong an epithet: it turns out they do indeed do just that. For a nominal fee, they are willing to stand in line on your behalf. It’s absolutely glorious!

If you read last-week’s edition, you may remember I had undergone a root-canal procedure. The pain didn’t decrease with time as it should have done, so I bothered the dentist and he gave me a prescription for antibiotics. I’m happy to say the pain is finally going away. Praise the Lord, and pass the amoxycillin!

Then yesterday, Dear Wife travelled to the Argentinian Embassy in Herzliya in order to take care of some paperwork necessary for her to help her brothers with their father’s estate. Their bureaucracy is worse than ours, which is saying something. She left around 8 in the morning and didn’t return until after 5 in the evening. To be fair, she also went to visit Sarah, and took care of some other business as well. It was a long, long, day.

Of passing interest:

• Using finely ground iron-powder as a renewable fuel, for industry.
• Mission Impossible: a lawyer explains how difficult it is to get a gun license in New York City. I thought Israel was tough!
• What gives you the right? On “positive” vs “negative” rights.
• Cancel-culture: when friends don’t let friends disagree.
• The FTC says Zoom lied to users about their “end-to-end” encryption for years.
• Does the Left really believe in “science”?
• In Norway, the walls have ears.

My long-time readers will perhaps recall that I am always trying out alternatives to Facebook etc; I’m not alone in that quest. I recently joined “Parler”, which is a Twitter-alternative. If you believe the legacy media, you might think it’s populated by right-wing extremists. It is not: it’s simply a “free-speech” version of Twitter, with far fewer users at present and quite a few well-known personalities (mostly right-leaning, though not exclusively). I encourage you to check it out, if you’re interested in something new. The software is at least usable…

… which differentiates it rather starkly from “Gab”, which still hasn’t managed to get its software-act together. That platform is quite useless. “Minds” never did take off (as far as I can tell), so you can forget that one as well. The plain truth is: it is very difficult to build good software platforms, and it is extremely difficult to attract users to them, away from the behemoths of the industry. I wish the alternatives great good luck, but it’s almost as difficult a road as Trump’s electoral court-challenges. I’d also encourage you to watch The Social Dilemma if you’ve got Netflix (or can view it in some <ahem> alternate way).

It’s been on the chilly side this week, and scheduled to get a bit chillier for shabbat. Rain may be in the offing as well. The clouds are already congealing…

We’re going to “live with the parasha” this shabbat! On the menu:
homemade ḥalla, red-lentil soup (just like Esau likes!), chicken wings, baked chicken, smoked mackerel, various other salatim, and banana cake.

Until next time,
shabbat shalom!

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