Archive for general
September 11, 2006 at · Filed under general
maskit said there is no easy way to navigate between the photos in flickr (the basic "back" and "forward" buttons), which i thought is inconceivable since it should be the most basic feature.
so the answer is that of course there is a way, it is just not very intuitive.
when you look at a photo on the right side of the page there is a picture of the previous photo and the next photo on the set. clicking on the right photo (the next) will move you forward in the set.
i still think they should add a simple back & forward buttons.
September 8, 2006 at · Filed under general
i was in israel, on vacation and working , so i kind of neglected my blogging duties.
but anyway now i am back.
August 17, 2006 at · Filed under general, politics
my previous post dealt with how israel's chief of staff found time to sell his portfolio on the day the conflict started (July 12th). it appears dan halutz is not alone. haim ramon , israel's justice minister is likely to be charged with sexual harassment as a result of forcefully french kissing an ex-government employee on that same day.
according to the accuser ramon arrived to a special cabinet meeting to discuss the kidnapping. at the same time a party was going on in the office. the accuser wanted to have her picture taken with the minister, and when they were left alone in the room, he grabbed her and tried to stick his tongue in her mouth..
so while the chief of staff was thinking about his pocket, ramon was thinking with what is underneath his pocket.
truly admirable behavior at a time of crisis.
somehow i think dicks played a major role in this conflict. olmert, peretz, nasrallah and israeli generals seemed to be driven by their egos (i.e. trying to show who has a bigger dick), more than by anything else. which also plays into a broader theory i have about the origin of the current war between fundamentalist islam and the west, which i believe is probably the result of depressed sexual needs (which is also my explanation to the settlement movement in the west-bank).
August 15, 2006 at · Filed under general, politics
"it may be kosher, but it stinks" is a known israeli saying. it is pretty self-explanatory. what dan halutz did may be legal, but it fails the smell test.
so what did he do? on july 12th several hours after the israeli soldiers were kidnapped, and as the large scale military operation was about to begin, halutz found the time to call his broker and tell him to sell-off his portfolio (was not worth much, about $30K).
what is troubling about this is not that he found the time to make the call (it is a very short call, saying "sell"), or that he is not a very sophisticated investor (it would have been much better to short the market), what is troubling is that as israel was dealing with an escalating crisis his small portfolio made it to the list of priorities of things he should take care of.
i won't go into the speculation of what does it means with regard to his belief in the army, the length of the campaign, etc… to me it is an indication that the guy is immoral and incompetent.
July 25, 2006 at · Filed under general
last night just as we were getting ready to go sleep we heard gully barking really loud, and started smelling a really foul smell. as i stepped out to the deck the smell was overwhelming. gully was barking/trying to catch a skunk, and the skunk sprayed him with his awful smelling stuff stored in his anal scent glands..
the skunk was young and small, but the stink it generated was amazingly strong. this is a great defensive mechanism. if i was a predator i will put the skunk at the last place on my menu. it is not worth it.
we took gully to be groomed and try and take out the smell. the groomer said it may take 2 MONTHS to remove the smell completely.
July 23, 2006 at · Filed under general
above is the reason i have not been blogging for the past week..
yaara was born on July 18th at 1:15am in the morning. she came out almost 4 weeks early..
you can find more pictures here.
July 8, 2006 at · Filed under general
in this weekend's edition of the new-york times sunday magazine there is an article by Steven Levitt and Stephen Dubner (the guys that wrote Freakonomics). they are writing about the issue of organ transplants and why it makes sense to look beyond the taboo and allow people to sell their organs.
they make the case that this will benefit all of the involved, since today there is a significant backlog of people waiting on a transplant, there are people willing to donate (or rather sell) their organs, but this type of trade is illegal. they also mention that even in Europe where some countries have an "opt-out" policy (where someone needs to specifically say he is not willing to donate his organs in case he dies, otherwise the organs will be used) there is still a shortage.
the obvious argument against letting people sell their organs is that it will create a situation where the poor will be selling their organs to get a bit more cash, and the rich will be able to enjoy it. their answer is that while it is a unfortunate deprive the poor of potential revenues?
i have a problem with just letting people trade organs, because of the rich vs. poor situation. i think a possible solution can be to put a system together where people who pay for a transplant will have to pay double the price, the additional funds to be used to fund a transplant for someone with no means. this will create a system that essentially for every "rich" guy getting a transplant, a "poor" person will get one too.
there will remain the problem of the poor selling their organs, and sometime maybe doing so in a moment of weakness (either because they were pressured, didn't realize what they are getting themselves into, were in a vulnerable mental state, etc.), but i think the system can try to prevent these cases and overall i agree with the authors that the current system is very problematic
June 27, 2006 at · Filed under general
in its weekend edition the wSJ had a piece (paid site) about copycat chefs, taking ideas for dishes from other restaurants and offering it on their own menus.
it gives the example of dishes from WD-50 in NYC (which i really like for its innovative courses), and how a chef in australia basically copied a dish. the chef admitted to copying, but said he is often telling his customers that the dishes were inspired by certain american chefs.
egullet.com did more research on the issue and found that indeed many restaurants are copying dishes from other restaurants (not only the ingredients, but also the style of serving, as can be seen in the picture).
this prompted certain chefs to look into IP rights, patents and other means of legal protection for their recipes, which i think is ridiculous, and also does not make business sense. to submit a patent the chef will probably need to spend over $15K, and by the time he gets the patent (2-3 years later), probably already spent over $50K. and with the constant innovations in the kitchen, what used to be hip and novel 2 years ago, may be irrelevant today. plus lets assume the chef get the patent, then he need to go look for people who violated the patent, and take them to court?.. sounds like a waste of time and money.
i think it is perfectly ok to copy a dish you saw somewhere (you still need to reverse engineer the actual recipe), and that when you do copy a dish just add in the menu "inspired by/based on <_____> "
June 26, 2006 at · Filed under general
In a letter to Gates and his wife, Buffett wrote: "You have committed yourselves to a few extraordinarily important but underfunded issues, a policy that I believe offers the highest probability of your achieving goals of great consequence."
Gates and his wife said in a statement on their foundation's Web site: "We are awed by our friend Warren Buffett's decision to use his fortune to address the world's most challenging inequities, and we are humbled that he has chosen to direct a large portion of it to the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation."
this is truly amazing. hopefully it will set an example to other billionaires to do more for charity. this represents 80% of his net worth (so his kids still have what to look for..).
June 22, 2006 at · Filed under general
i read about the nightmare call some guy had trying to cancel his AOL account, and then tom sent me a link to an interview with the guy that includes a recording of the call.
this comes as no surprise to me. i been through similar experiences with AOL, Vonage and TiVo, and the only reason i don't remember more examples is that i usually just don't deal with these guys (my wife does…).
you can sign up for services on the web. they will take your billing information willingly, but when it comes to canceling, it's a different story:
- they don't let you cancel the account online (including online-only services, which is ridiculous)
- you have to be an online detective to find the phone number for customer service, or to a special number in case you want to cancel (so they can keep you on hold an extra 10 minutes).
- when you finally call them (during business hours only) you have to wait a v-e-r-y long time to speak with an actual person, and i believe the waiting music/infommercials are designed to make you hang-up
- then dealing with the customer service rep is another torture
AOL claims they fired the employee who took the call. it is probably true, but i doubt he did something which is really against the company's policy. the calls i had with customer service reps from different companies trying to cancel stuff are too similar. i believe there is an industry practice and guidelines on how to deal with customers calling to cancel, and known tactics to use in order to avoid the cancellation.
i know for a fact that some companies have special customer service reps to deal with cancellation calls, and i am sure they are measured on their success rate in preventing the customer from leaving. they'll use tactics such as give you credit for 1, 2 months for you to give them another chance (knowing that in many cases you will not pass on a free offer, and then forget to cancel), upgrade your service for free for a while, etc. it does not sound too evil, but the result is people forget to cancel. this approach is a bit similar to rebates, which is a topic for another post.. but the thing about rebates is that much less than 50% of people actually submit/collect them.
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