Blog/August 2015/Aug 28th

Aug 28th (See this week's devar torah)

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Summer weddings. Delivery madness. Work, work and more work! And thankfully, more pleasant weather…

We successfully attended our third of the three summer weddings to which we were invited so far. Having attended numerous Jewish weddings in the past, I’ve noticed that there are some things which are commonly accepted and I want to know why:

• Why do the Rabbis often hijack the ḥuppa to make a speech? We’ve all heard it all before, let my people go!
• Why do they always read the ketuba out loud? Most of the people present don’t understand Aramaic, and the ketuboth are (almost) always identical save the details of the couple and witnesses. Just say, “here’s the ketuba” and dayyenu!
• Why does the band have to play so loudly your dental work comes loose? Do they have to make up for lack of skill with volume?

<sigh>

One of the small pleasures of the modern era is that you can order items “online” and have them delivered straight to your abode, so you don’t have to waste your time in a mall only to find the item you want is out of stock. It’s a pleasure, that is, when the delivery works as it should, and the store you order from is prompt in fulfilling the order.

Two places I recently ordered from were slow to fulfill. One of them, I think, because it works as a government supplier — so no rush, there. The other, because one item wasn’t in stock — out of some dozen items. Instead of shipping a partial order, they held out for the item to come in. OK, that’s at least reasonable. They finally shipped, registered mail, from the Tel Aviv area this Monday. We still haven’t received the package. I could have walked to Tel Aviv and back by now!

The third place was extremely prompt in fulfilling the order. Shipped out the same day! But the delivery service chose to deliver when we were out of the house, so they said they would return the next day. But they didn’t, nor did they call to explain or reschedule. So we received that order only yesterday, which should have arrived two days prior. Sometimes it is better to go to the mall.

We have received quite a lot of interest in our “Raspberry Pi” release, and good feedback; so it’s been a busy week addressing new issues which were raised, and preparing a second release (probably this coming week). We published more videos. And we’ve started “reaching out” to publishers and providers of embedded devices, so hopefully those efforts will bear fruit (probably not raspberries…) in the near term.

Some items of note:

• Jeb Bush comes out against encryption. I guess there was too much chlorine in his gene pool. Doesn’t he realize that the cat’s out of the bag on that one?
• Microsoft has decided to play coy regarding the contents of its Windows 10 updates. Because “what you don’t know, won’t hurt you”.
• Not to mention that your fancy car security systems are not secure at all.
• But don’t worry! The NSA has your back when it comes to upcoming crypto-threats. Sleep tight!

Sarah went on a walkabout surrounded by kangaroos in the amazing “Gan-guru” near Beit She’an. It’s an Australian-themed park. Can you imagine? Well anyway, she had a great time and came back exhausted.

The weather is supposed to continue to be seasonal, B”H!

It’s just us for shabbat this week. Esther’s out part of the day, so there’s no guarantees — but we might have:
meatballs, teriyaki tofu, roasted veggies, veggie chili, rice, salatim, and fruit.

Until next time,
shabbat shalom!

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