Blog/August 2016/Aug 26th

August 26th (See this week's devar torah)

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It was such a busy week! And yet, I can sum it up in a few sentences…

Early in the week I contacted a former co-worker who is currently doing freelance work, and asked if he would be interested in working with me. He said yes, and almost immediately we started getting lots of interest from potential clients.

So the week — for me, anyway — was spent mostly on the phone and composing emails and meeting people. The good news is: things are looking very positive. The downside: I need to find more highly talented freelancers to help with the load. If everything that’s in the queue right now comes to fruition simultaneously, we’ll be 400% overbooked. We could handle 200%, but 400% is a bit much.

The weather’s remained constant, a sure sign that Israeli summer is in full swing. No rain, no drastic changes in temperature. Cool at night, hot during the day.

It’s been a while, so politics:

• I present for your edification the unflappable President Obama. Indeed, his eloquence is unparalleled.
• His Administration is surely comprised only of honest men (and women, etc…). Obviously, they had to pay back interest to Iran. That country, of course, will not even consider using the funds for any ill purpose.
• One the one hand, we’ve got the Cheetos™-colored candidate. Nobody, not even he, knows what he stands for — but based on his statements and public behavior, it looks like his family tree was a bit incestuous.
• And on the other hand, we’ve got the lying sack-of-cr*p candidate. We do know what she stands for: namely, whatever perpetuates her hold on power, at any price.
• This leads one to ponder: might we not be better off electing the SMOD in 2016? It’s true, the destruction would be total; but at least we can count on it!

We all use Skype, Facebook, WhatsApp and other various services to communicate and share information with others. WhatsApp recently added “end to end encryption” to their service, which is a good (great, actually) thing. One flaw in that system is that you can tell WhatsApp to back up your conversations etc., and then you can restore them later. The conversations appear to be stored somewhere unencrypted — since I restored them on another device, without having to present any kind of password. Hmmm… But the far more disturbing news is the recent revelation that WhatsApp is going to share information with Facebook.

I would therefore like to encourage people to seriously consider installing “Signal”, a communications program which uses strong encryption, and which has been reviewed by well-known cryptographers and privacy advocates. It’s free, it’s very easy to use, and nobody (not even they) can intercept or read your messages or hear your calls. It works on Android and iOS, and there’s an “app” for Google Chrome. It all works very much like WhatsApp, but the encryption and the code has been reviewed by well-known professionals, and your data are shared with nobody you don’t approve.

In other news: Daniela starts working this coming week, we wish her success in her new job!

In weird news: a study concludes that human-kind’s lack of hair may be the key to our success (as a species). I’m hopeful that means that as I go more bald, I will be more successful. One can hope!

Meanwhile, we in the Holy Land are looking forward to a very quiet shabbat. The three of us as well as the rest of our fellow HolyLandians. After all the activity this week, we need a good rest.

This shabbat the three of us will enjoy:
homemade ḥalla, roast beef, roasted potatoes, leek quiche, tabbouleh salad, split-pea soup, rice, salatim, cupcakes, (yes: we still have ḥalvah. ¡Ay, dios mío!).

Until next time,
shabbat shalom!

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