31.08.04
replaced old motd
back from the provence
didn't even put up an email auto-reply which got some people wondering, but i was just away for four days in the seriously unreal provence.
long post to follow.
26.08.04
the 51st state
this pretty much knocked me away - on the cover of the boston globe today, over the fold, was a 6x4'' color photo of gal fridman, the surfer who was the first israeli to win olympic gold. entitled: 'an olympic first for israel'
my god was i flattered. i had no idea that boston was so closely related to israel.
and that in a country that doesn't even show events on tv that don't have their own athletes in it.
and since we're on it, the picture of him biting down on the gold medal, as a friend of mine here put it 'does really nothing to perpetuate stereotypes, now does it?'
and since you all think i'm a pinko appeaser by now anyway, i may just as well throw into the mix that, incidentally, the uae won their first medal ever in athens, too.
hockfield for president
big news here in my pond: susan hockfield was elected mit's 16th president
Sat, 28 Aug 2004 18:34
is that really big news or is that irony?
- cynthia
Tue, 31 Aug 2004 16:27
for mit it's big news, no? a new president. and a woman on top of that. i was excited about it.
- guy
kimiko texting
my favorite olympic moment so far had nothing to do with protein drinks. it was kimiko soldati sitting on her towel beside the pool and text messaging between jumps.
suffice to make a grown man go 'aww'.
"Before the third round, I (messaged) him, 'I'm a fighter, I'm not gonna give up,' " she said. "And he messaged, 'Way to go. Believe.' "
and of course, i'm always rooting for the thirty-something with a dream.
Wed, 1 Dec 2004 07:24
You may find it interesting to check out the sites about... Thanks!!!
-
wedding bands
some preliminary pics from a wedding present i'm working on.
update: final pics online. tomorrow it's off to france to hand it over. i hope they'll like it.
Thu, 26 Aug 2004 13:07
what is it? the side view looks interesting...
- jodi
Thu, 26 Aug 2004 23:58
it's two interlocked rings 'suspended in negative space' with the wedding date running through one of the rings. it's a wedding present i made....
- guy
25.08.04
ethical a.i patented
don't know how much of this is due to the journalist's misunderstanding, but apparently someone has filed for a patent on ethical a.i.
The patent, Inductive Inference Affective Language Analyzer Simulating AI (# 6,587,846) introduces the concept of the Ten Ethical Laws of Robotics. According to a statement from inventor John LaMuth, the patent represents the first AI system incorporating ethical/motivational terms, enabling a computer to reason and speak ethically, serving in roles specifying sound human judgment.
new column: a digital all-nighter
this week's column is up, two days later than usual. it is entitled 'a digital all-nighter'.
this one's about midnight madness, an all-night scavenger hunt in new york in which i played this weekend. dave and sheel put up some photos.
in a strange coincidence, searching for midnight madness VI (last year), i came across 'sweet blog o'mine', to which i'm connected in a totally unrelated way through cynthia (or was it also through the late dayli?)
23.08.04
you guys just walk
it's almost like there's too many people volunteering, so some are just given random things to do.
Mon, 23 Aug 2004 13:37
*lol*
well all i know is that a friend of mine got me to donate $20 to some cause she was walking for which i never would have given otherwise. something about the pressure of friends makes these things successful, as illogical as they sound when you take them apart.
- cynthia
Mon, 23 Aug 2004 15:27
i see - so it's much like getting people to donate through a guilt trip?
"damn you, i'm sweating out here, can't you even spring a tenner?"
- guy
Tue, 24 Aug 2004 08:11
ha--pretty much. and the more pushy the friend, the more money people donate. she got something like $1400, and it was all for some home for pregnant teens--not on the top of anyone's charity list. and they only walked like 1 mile.
- cynthia
Tue, 24 Aug 2004 09:05
I'll be walking home tonight...
- COLORBLIND
22.08.04
shooting star
a few dozen fatah members, some armed, went out last night to the streets of ramallah, and tried to prevent residents in restaurants, coffee shops and other locations to watch the 'arab superstar' competition.
Tue, 24 Aug 2004 00:00
If my people were tortured and humiliated in Israeli prisons on a regular basis, and those that are lucky enough not to be in prison were living in a military regime worse than Apartheid (according to a recent UN report, endorsed by Mazuz) I would have done anything to stop my people from taking this opium-to-the-masses in the form of this British/American/Israeli TV shit that just makes them forget.
- gili
Tue, 24 Aug 2004 01:24
i'll be the first to oppose what's on TV these days, and obviously i have little patience for our good ole occupation, but i still think that the image of armed fighters trying to prevent people from watching tv is -- er -- ridiculous. not to mention wrong.
but then again armed forces are protecting wto events. so maybe it's just fair.
- guy
20.08.04
a bigger knife
some robots just romp and play, others romp and play waving knives bigger than themselves.
via hans.
jalbum
control freaks of the digital photography world unite: jalbum is here. sigh.
no more self coding of thumbnail pages, although i doubt i'll be able to make those fancy city separators on that app.
19.08.04
replaced old motd
"tobacco today, sex tomorrow. in three or four years
it'll probably be against
the law to smile at strangers."
-- auggie wren in 'smoke'
Sun, 22 Aug 2004 12:37
I don't buy this. I don't buy that people in NYC smiles at strangers more than in Boston. I don't buy that smiling at a stranger can give any indication that the person is better positioned to become your friend. And.... if you see what happens in Israel (the state of the smiling faces...) when you look at a stranger for a couple of seconds too long (answer is that you get stabbed) I would pick Boston over any other warm and fuzzy city.
- gili
pita and eggs
but if my life was a michel gondry movie, all that would happen would be a dry thorn and some dust blowing across the dining table unnoticed by us but not the viewer, and maybe a beetle that's indigenous to lebanon would cross the unbroken yolk of saeed's egg.
Thu, 19 Aug 2004 14:46
how eloquent.
- jodi
Thu, 19 Aug 2004 14:52
sounds lovely. i miss cooking meals for people.
- cynthia
radio again
went on that radio show again. gotta tell you, this improv thing is not easy. maybe i should think about what i'm going to say a little in advance the next time.
you know, for the listeners' sake.
18.08.04
chat with abdel moneim said
abdel-moneim had another interesting look at that core psychological problem: both nation's myths are based on the 'few against many' paradigm. the only thing is, they're reversed.
jewish paranoia always talks about the jewish few being overrun by the killing many, and just like the many spaniards/russians/germans persecuted and killed the helpless jewish few, now it's '300 million arabs wanting to throw us into the sea'.
arab paranoia, on the other hand, can be summarized as 'the educated and equipped few rule the powerless many', and to them, israel fits right into this pattern, with its sophisticated army, educated government and atomic bomb. just like the few turks, and the few brits, now it's the few america-backed jews that are back in town to exert their force on the helpless arab nation.
16.08.04
new column: the google of online dating
this week's column is up, entitles 'the google of online dating'
Mon, 16 Jul 2007 06:51
I like the title - but too bad that I can't read the article :(
- Willium Nelson
12.08.04
olympic tattoos
in passing i heard that the olymics started today.
between you and me, i couldn't care less.
but this is pretty damn cool.
Fri, 13 Aug 2004 11:41
i'm just glad you said "couldn't care less" rather than "could care less", like most lazy grammar-challenged americans do.
- cynthia
Fri, 13 Aug 2004 20:04
So which one of these did you especially like?
- Ady
'the corporation' visited
minor spoilers
'oh i wish i had some honey bunches of oats', says the well-trained american refugee. 'or some mountain dew red alert'. brands are american culture. and guess who's making a buck out of it. not you.
bike against bush
little plug here for my main man josh kinberg from parsons' design and technology program, who is taking his project literally to the streets and releases bikes against bush to greet the rnc.
Bikes Against Bush is a one-of-a-kind, interactive protest/performance occurring simultaneously online and on the streets of NYC during the upcoming Republican National Convention. Using a Wireless Internet-enabled bicycle outfitted with a custom-designed printing device, the Bikes Against Bush bicycle can print spray-chalk text messages sent from web users directly onto the streets of Manhattan.
xm-8
so are there more machismo letters? more badass ones? and then more subtle, and gentle letters? and if so, why?
Thu, 12 Aug 2004 16:19
b d l m n v w y - gentle
c f h j k p q r s t x z - badass
All vowels - unisex
- Ady
Thu, 12 Aug 2004 16:28
K is a strong letter.
- jodi
Sun, 22 Aug 2004 15:24
I am deeply insulted.
- yb
two pleas
two simple pleas to website designers and bloggers:
- please put your links and shit on a right-side bar, especially if you have tons of information there. i'm sick and tired of waiting for all the information i am not in the least interested in to load before the actual content loads. if you're nifty with css or html and can make the bottom of your page load to the left side, big up yourself.
- please do not open external links in a new window. i know, as most people do, how to open links in a new window if i'm so inclined. that should be the choice of the reader, not the writer. why would you want to make your site feel like a porn site?
this has been a public service announcement sponsored by citizens concerned with my sanity.
11.08.04
you and i - we're going to colonize space
signing up for a conference run by the american institute of aeronautics and astronautics, to which my work is somewhat related, i had to fill out a form indicating my interests in the field.
now i'm not really part of that community, so most of the form was, let's say, somewhat irrelevant.
but when i had to pick my areas of professional interest, i just couldn't help it, and checked '0670 - Space Colonization'.
Wed, 11 Aug 2004 13:39
what's "terraforming" ?
- udi
Wed, 11 Aug 2004 13:58
er - heck if i know. maybe creating new habitable planets?
"The American People deserve" it, as their website says.
- guy
Wed, 11 Aug 2004 20:12
Terrafom - V. Modify and alter the surface and atmosphere of a planet as to enable life on said planet to be the same as life exists on Earth. (Courtesy of Babylon).
Guy, you were right :-)
- Ady
Wed, 11 Aug 2004 23:33
god ady, you're *literally* cramping my style here with your html tags.
and well, i guess there's a good reason they asked me to speak at an aero/astro conference.
although my understanding of terraforming is probably not it.
- guy
Thu, 12 Aug 2004 02:45
Sorry about that. Didn't realize that would happen. Consider it free QA for your site :-)
- Ady
10.08.04
nicer number
didn't know you could do that, really.
and it was just one of those things where you make an on-the-spot decision, and just flow with it as your self confidence grows with your succeess.
i got my cellphone activated today, and i didn't like the area code they gave me, so in an uncharacteristic move, i called them and asked for the regular 617 code.
when they didn't have one, i decided to try my luck and asked the guy 'for a nicer number'. and yeah, he totally gave me one.
should have asked for an even nicer one but i didn't want to seem too greedy.
Tue, 10 Aug 2004 19:44
Hey, you might want to try this with your new number:
http://www.phonetic.com/
It lets you check if your phone number has words in it - makes for easier way to memorize it. Like my home number, is XXX-XXX-ONLY.
- Ady
anniversary
today, two years ago, i mounted that fateful alitalia flight from tel aviv to new york city.
Tue, 10 Aug 2004 14:07
happy anniversary!
- udi
Wed, 11 Aug 2004 01:36
Many happy returns (And I mean that literally)
- vlvl
Thu, 12 Aug 2004 03:59
How good to travel but how great to return
- Nerd Genius
- COLORBLIND
09.08.04
a stranger's touch
it's almost unnoticable, that hint of a stranger touching your house and trying to put everything back in place.
Tue, 10 Aug 2004 01:22
naked?
- vlvl
Tue, 10 Aug 2004 01:34
when i'm pictured, it's always naked.
- guy
Tue, 10 Aug 2004 02:16
is pandora there with you, egging you on?
- jodi
more okcupid
so what if this is turning into the okcupid blog. i like people who are having fun with statistics.
Fact of the week: running a query across our mail databases tells us there are over 500 references to the phrase 'my wife' written by over 200 different SINGLE users. You guys are sick.
Mon, 9 Aug 2004 21:49
Hilarious. Ok, ok, I've fallen for them now.
- Ady
Tue, 10 Aug 2004 14:11
you know, I spent several hours last night answering questions, and some time thinking about it today. I think I may have the wrong ideas when it comes to how I think I would want my ideal match to answer a lot of those questions. maybe I'm lying to myself. just goes to show that science can only go so far in helping us with these things. it can't tell when we are not being honest with ourselves. at least OK cupid hasn't presented that yet. I think they could run a sort of "300-questionaire" query to pick up on inconsistencies between several answers to related questions.
- udi
new column: prepare the patient, the robot is here
just on time like swiss clockwork, this week's column is up, entitled 'prepare the patient, the robot is here'.
future, robots, useless, radio
pop, fizz, decouple
08.08.04
like potatoes and boiling oil
what's really lame are the quizes that people send you on the internet. you know 'what's on your mousepad', 'what horse would you be if you were in a bestiality porn flick' and shit.
Mon, 9 Aug 2004 06:56
Considering that a lame site like JDate is about to issue an IPO for 100 Million US$, I think that these guys can actually make some nice money out of this.
P.S.
Remeber how in 2000 everybody was introduced to the verb "monetize"?
- vlvl
Mon, 9 Aug 2004 07:01
Which reminds me that JDate/Cupid just posted their annual results. It would seem that a subscription to a dating site costs an average of 24.95$, while a subscription to a jewish dating site costs 34.95$. Weird.
- vlvl
Mon, 9 Aug 2004 09:11
Except that this is always going to be free.
Seriously, this is the next big thing. They're going to be the next google I believe. Their model is selling ads to people acccording to their questions/answers. And it's the only dating service where even private messages are free.
And their questions make so much more sense. They usually have two halves to multiple choice questions.
My recent favorite:
Religion: Christian/Jewish/... and I'm very serious/serious/not serious/laughing about it.
- guy
Mon, 9 Aug 2004 09:11
That's not weird. A kosher sandwitch costs $12 :)
- guy
'this is my wife'
his mission was to investigate suspicions on undeclared food sales on an amusement boat run by a local smalltime businessman. so he went on the boat and ordered some turkey skewers and fries.
u-haul insurance
i know i'll have grown up when i won't feel stupid to have taken out insurance for a u-haul truck.
sort your friends
i'll come back to write a little more about this newest discovery of mine, but i'll be damned if okcupid isn't going to be the hottest thing on the web soon.
any service that writes this gets my respect:
Why Invite Your Friends To OkCupid?
Because you can:
- browse your friends' friends
- compare test scores
- scientifically measure how good your friendships are
- analyze personalities and single out weak links
- sort your friends by how they match you
in short, everything you ever wanted to do with your friends!
brilliant.
07.08.04
replaced old motd
if this were your blog, you'd be home now.
06.08.04
dirt
Sat, 7 Aug 2004 11:00
"Stains are badges of an exciting life". something is indeed very wrong. Still, even if they're just selling detergetn, at least their message is one that sends people to play outdoors. If you want to see another stupid ad campaign, check out this one from burger king. The company I work for did the "interventions". ugh.
- Udi
Sat, 7 Aug 2004 12:47
Regardless of its fucked-up-ness, I kind of like it. Hey, it got the job done, right? You saw the ad, went to their sight, and know what they're tyring to sell. Not only that, but you got (at least) two other people to do the same. I"d say it worked. And yes, we do spend too much time indoors.
- Ady
Sat, 7 Aug 2004 13:04
what would that job be? for me to look at their site and think they're out of their minds?
i've been meaning to visit their site since i saw this in january, so it only took them a marketing effort of 7 months of billboard and subway ads to get me to go there, and immediately forget what company it is that they're trying to promote. i can't see how their marketing dollars were put to good use here.
but that's not even my main point. the main point is that getting dirty is commercialized...i mean - getting dirty?
i should start a campaign for oxygen.
everyone is trying to sell something. anything. just sell - so you can have more money and work more and be more pressured. it just doesn't make sense to me.
maybe i'm just in a bad mood.
- guy
Sat, 7 Aug 2004 17:39
it's just a lame advertisement. i see this and i just see some frustrated creative type working for an ad agency trying to come up with a way to stand out, a different way to sell laundry detergent. i don't think it's worth getting upset over.
- cynthia
and what kind of fucked up domain name is postil.com anyway?
'Dear Citizen'... herein lies the whole difference between the israeli postal authority and the usps. Not 'Dear Customer', but 'Dear Citizen'.
if you'll leave
corny? unempowered? yeah, so what? true love.
and when you'll return you will carry me in your two hands
from the field to the river
you'll wash my face and say words
like only you know
Fri, 6 Aug 2004 23:23
this is beautiful...
- Jodi Forlizzi
Fri, 6 Aug 2004 23:35
hmmm... yes.
Who wrote this?
- Ady
Sat, 7 Aug 2004 01:51
It's from the Idan Reicher project...one of the saddest songs I got to know recently.
- guy
Sun, 8 Aug 2004 02:34
Idan Reichel, not Reicher.
- vlvl
collaborative games
you know how computer games make kids all just stare at a screen and ignore everyone around them? so yeah, then they came up with multi-player games. great. now we have two kids on the subway with gameboys staring into a screen each with a cable running between them.
Fri, 6 Aug 2004 23:54
i can see my twin nephews coming to blows over these games. they already nearly do with the less-interactive xbox games.
- cynthia
cycling on fresh tar
it doesn't happen too often, but it's still brilliant: cycling on fresh tar. or skating on it for that matter.
the combination of the smooth ride and that smell that reminds me of my childhood is hard to beat.
Fri, 6 Aug 2004 23:53
are you being serious about it being a good thing? and that the smell reminds you of your childhood? i don't bike and i don't know what smells you were accustomed to as a child, so i'm just wondering...
- cynthia
Sat, 7 Aug 2004 01:58
yes i'm serious. and about the smell - when i was planning to write this, i thought: what a city kid i am, that the smell of fresh tar reminds of my childhood.
but then i realized that every smell reminds me of my childhood. i never smell something and think of any other time - just like MIT smells like germany to me.
actually, one smell reminds me of something else: the smell of eucaliptus trees reminds me of the army.
and while i'm on it and ranting - is it just me or do you agree that every country's airports smell differently, and no matter how much airports try to look the same, i just need to step off a flight to know where i am. with my eyes shut.
better with my eyes shut.
- guy
Sat, 7 Aug 2004 09:44
smells can be very powerful. i have smells that remind me of people, but none that remind me of my childhood. and i haven't been to enough non-american airports to have noticed the smells, so someone else will have to answer that. outside the US, the only airport i've been to is spain, and i can't recall any particular smell.
- cynthia
03.08.04
marbles
had a dream about marbles tonight, and when i woke up i thought that marbles must be the worst business to be in.
they gotta be cheap, since kids buy them; they seem to be not
trivial to manufacture (i - for one - have no clue how to
even start making marbles); they last forever, so there's not
much resale value like printer cartridges; and they are very
heavy to ship.
mental note - stay away from the marble business.
02.08.04
something new for your family?
reading this amusing ap story, i noticed some ad links that were just too cute.
"want to serve your family something new?" just above "surf singles near you safely"? i mean, seriously, that would be something new for your family, wouldn't it? something new to discuss over dinner after you've been kicked out.
and to clarify, if things get a little too hairy, there's an ad link right below it: "need a lawyer? get tips on finding one".
we live in a crazy world. and i'm not just saying this because i saw a robot cut open someone's skull today. foh realz.
Tue, 3 Aug 2004 01:42
I just read that story. These airline security people are such idiots. Did anyone think to try to interview the guy on the plane?
- Udi
Tue, 3 Aug 2004 06:54
an accident in the AI lab?
- cynthia
Tue, 3 Aug 2004 08:18
Udi - i'm actually surprised they didn't keep him arrested for 3 months. but yeah, It's rare to see security people that are not complete idiots. i'm sure they still pat your bag from the bottom in Israel when you go into the cinema.
and cynthia - no, no accident. a surgeon robot in germany.
- guy
new column: space for the masses
almost forgot, but this week's column is up, entitled 'space for the masses'.
also, i know that i've been pretty bad about updating the local versions recently, and i'll probably regret it. hope to get my wits together at some point and do that.
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