Blog/November 2025/Nov 21st

Nov 21st

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I had a pretty busy week, all told. First off, we went to get our eyes checked and to get new prescriptions if necessary. On the strength of a friend’s recommendation, we went to the Jerusalem Multidisciplinary College’s eye clinic. It’s staffed with third and fourth-year students, supervised by their professors­— and it’s much less expensive than going to a “regular” optician.

So you’re there for about two hours, while they do a very complete eye examination, including both vision testing and eye health. I was impressed by the thoroughness and professionalism of the student who took care of me. Esther was a bit less impressed with her student, but them’s the breaks.

After all that, my guy decided I needed a stronger reading prescription, but that my vision for distance didn’t need any correction; he also changed my astigmatism prescription. Esther’s student didn’t change her prescription at all.

Then, since I was there, I went to their glasses shop to order a pair. The cost was about a third of what I had paid for my previous pair. So I’ll be going back, sure enough!

Some stuff:

• Various nerd-news: 1: lcamtuf says LLMs have won, when it comes to writing. 2: Thousands of customers imperiled after F5 network ransacked. 3: You only need $750 worth of equipment to pilfer data from satellites. 4: Schneier asks, will AI strengthen or undermine democracy?
• Damned glad we left Seattle when we did!
• Uri on the most insidious trick used by Jew-haters.
• History buffs: soldier uniforms in the (US) Revolutionary War.
• Jewish archaeology buffs: a fascinating overview with Dr. Joe Uziel, head of the Dead Sea Scrolls unit at the Israel Antiquities Authority.

I’d been complaining of tooth pain for a while, and finally went to the dentist this week. He probed around and noted two areas that need help. Then he took x-rays and exclaimed loudly, “Wow! You’ve got a hole in your tooth!”. I’d been told some time ago that there was an “incipient cavity” forming there, but I didn’t feel any pain and forgot about it. Well, sir, the bacteria didn’t forget about it!

So he fixed that up, saying he was cautiously hopeful I wouldn’t need a root-canal (he took almost half the tooth away). But now, thankfully, most of my tooth pain is gone! So, I suppose that one tooth was radiating bad vibes everywhere. I still have to take care of the other issues, but they’ll wait for now.

And then, we went to my half-second-cousin-twice-removed’s bar-mitzvah. I think we’re wrapping up the visits-to-distant-cousins for the near future. I need time to reset my brain…

Though we had some real rain and cold last shabbat, this time ‘round we’re looking at dry and hot (around 28/29C) which is unacceptable! We don’t have any cooling in the forecast until Tuesday. This just ain’t right!

We’ve got guests this shabbat! They’ll endure:
homemade ḥalla, lentil soup, barbecued chicken, veggie pashtida, slow-cooker brisket, various salatim, and fruit pastry.

Until next time,
shabbat shalom and ḥodesh ṭov!

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