Blog/August 2017/Aug 4th

August 4th

This week we commemorated the “9th of Av”, the most solemn fast-day on the Jewish calendar. The weather was hot that day, just to give an added bit of dismay that we are still fasting rather than feasting. Perhaps next year…

Later in the week we commemorated our 10th “aliyaversary”, e.g. our 10th year in The Land. We celebrated by going out for dinner at “Agas ve-Tapuaḥ”, which is conveniently located and has a very good chef. The six of us — three Aarons and three Casdens — enjoyed a convivial time and a great meal. Here’s to the next 10 years!

And now for something a little bit different: movie/book review!

Some time ago, I re-read the (very long) Les Misérables by Victor Hugo, the 19th-century French novelist. I had originally read it as a teenager, and forgotten most of it. Perhaps because it is so long. But upon re-reading it, I was struck by two things. First, at least a third of the book is completely unnecessary to the plot development, and the rest could be condensed quite a bit as well. But they got paid by the word in those days, and the French are prolix anyway. Second, the story is a masterpiece of character development. You become invested in the characters, and their motivations and aspirations.

SPOILER: Too bad they all die.

Then there’s the latest movie version, which is a “musical” based on the Broadway musical, which was based on the book. What can I say? Stay away, stay far away from this movie!

First: the “music” was mostly uninspired and uninspiring. Second: the actors mostly could not sing, which did nothing to bolster the insipid music. Third: there was no character development. If you hadn’t read the book, you would not understand why anything was happening. Fourth: important characters were simply glossed over or excised. Fifth: it was too long, despite missing important parts! Everything was sung, so just saying “I’m leaving” took five minutes. That time could have been better spent explaining why in the world the person was leaving. Finally: because of the singing, I had to have subtitles turned on just so I could understand the “dialog”.

For example, in the book there is a pair of truly vile people, the Thénardiers; initially dishonest innkeepers and later simply criminals. They are crucial to the development of the story, and whenever they show up you feel a sense of dread. In the movie, however, they seem to be comic-relief; and there is no explanation at all of who they are or why they’re there. Had you not read the book, you would be mystified.

Don’t waste your time on the movie, save your souls!

This week also saw the end of the shortest tenure ever of a White House staffer. “The Mooch” is swimming with the fishes, and the hilarity of the most tumultuous US administration in living memory just goes on and on. And while pundits Left and Right find plenty of material for their quips, the Republic deteriorates in front of our eyes. Sad!

At the end of last week, I got a Raspberry Pi 3 so I could make a new port of 8th to the 64-bit version of that platform. This week I worked on that, and it’s about 99% done. In the process, I found some pretty egregious bugs in the 64-bit ARM code (in 8th) which would prevent the 64-bit iOS version from working correctly. Since nobody has complained, I assume nobody has actually tried to deploy an iOS app using 8th in the Apple Store (except for me, but that was before I made some changes which screwed up the 64-bit ARM code).

And I did a lot of schmoozing on LinkedIn, concentrating on people who are familiar with Forth or with “functional programming languages” as well as on “embedded” developers and CTOs and CEOs. There’s a lot of interest, but it just takes a great deal of time and effort to get people to sign on the dotted line. <sigh>

At the beginning of the week, before the fast-day, we went to Ramat Gan and visited Sarah. We brought her some things she had forgotten to bring, we took her to lunch, and I stopped at a store to pick up a new phone. It turns out my old phone had mysteriously shrunk to where I found it difficult to read the screen. Imagine!

This coming week we’re looking forward to more pleasant weather than we’ve had; at least for the next several days. A welcome change.

This shabbat, we’ve got mail. I mean, we’ve got guests for lunch. We’ll serve up:
home-made ḥalla, kebabs, baked salmon, roasted chicken, various salatim, and plum tart.

Until next time,
shabbat shalom!

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