For a long time there have been only a few options if you wanted Hebrew on your keyboard. Your options were to spend two hours pasting stickers onto your keyboard like a 5 year old doing a bad Science Fair Project (cursing yourself repeatedly for getting every single sticker crooked), or to buy a keyboard with ...
While I have never really heard of Christian television, aside from things like "the 700 Club," apparently there is a whole culture of Christian television. The Trinity Broadcasting Network, a Christian television network with over "275 television stations in the U.S. and on thousands of other cable television systems around the world in 75 countries" has been airing a show called Bibleman since 1996. In Bibleman the title character is a "human transformed by the Word of God," and battles the forces of evil. This all seems fine (alright, maybe a little wacky, but nothing inherently "wrong" with it) until you see an excerpt from a 2002 episode which was recently posted online by Rapture Ready, in which Bibleman battles it out with a ridiculously over the top New York Jew stereotyped character who hosts a talk show. So much for good Christian values, huh? Video after the jump ...
A few weeks ago, MTV posted some interesting new videos as part of their Think Campaign, which tries to make it so that " you, your friends, and your favorite celebrities can get informed, get heard and take action on the issues that matter to you most." Two of these Public Service Announcements focus on the Holocaust. MTV has also released a piece entitled "I'm Still here" featuring Elijah Wood, Ryan Gosling, Kate Hudson, Oliver Hudson, Brittany Murphy, Amber Tamblyn, and Joaquin Phoenix as "they share stories from the diaries of young people who experienced firsthand the terror of daily life during the Holocaust." Videos after the jump. ...
I just stumbled on a Wired article from November of 2004 which profiles Jonah Ottensoser, an engineer for the Star-K. "A retired helicopter engineer who is himself Orthodox, Ottensoser teaches Sabbath law to technical teams at companies like General Electric, Electrolux, and Viking. His job: to guide them in building electronic brains and mechanical guts that are Sabbath-compliant." The article ...
There was a lot of buzz around this year's Academy Awards. One of the films that was generating a significant amount of buzz because of its unusualness was Brazil's official entry for Best Foreign Language Film. The film is titled "The Year My Parents Went on Vacation" and it is unique because the story revolves around the Jewish Community in Sao Paolo, Brazil. Official synopsis: "Eleven-year-old Mauro finds himself suddenly being raised by strangers after his parents are forced to go into hiding during a brutal crackdown in 1970 by the Brazilian military government. Hastily deposited on his paternal grandfather's – his "Zaydee's" – doorstep, Mauro is thrust into a vibrant Jewish neighborhood and further dramatic circumstances place him in the care of old Shlomo. Left with the promise that his parents will return in time for the World Cup, Mauro and his new friends revel in excitement as Brazil's team advances. In the end, however, he realizes a world beyond fun and games." The Year My Parents Went on Vacation is now playing at a theater near you. I will be posting a full review in the next few days, but until then you can find the trailer as well as the many locations where this film is playing after the jump. ...
Sharon Weinberger has written an article for Wired's Danger Room about her experience as the subject of a test involving a Sonic Blaster at a Jeruslaem hotel. Sharon's reaction when she first heard about the less-lethal weapon's existence was "A puke ray? An honest-to-God puke ray? Right here in Jerusalem?" I have to say that my reaction would have been the same, but Sharon went a few steps further than I would dare. She contacted Dr. Maurice Goldman, a retired dentist who is the designer of Inferno, and arranged a demonstration of the device's effect which is supposed to induce wonderful sensations such as "vertigo, nausea, and pain in the chest." Here is how Sharon described the experience: "I'm not sure words can do justice to what can only be described as the most unbearable, gut-wrenching noise I've ever heard in my life." ...
The city of Kiryat Yam is suing Google for a description which was posted on Google Earth that portrays the history of the city in a negative light. The following is the description at issue: "This is one of the Palestinian localities evacuated and destroyed after the 1948 Arab-Israeli war. For basic information about this locality, including brief history, the 1948 events, its current status, pictures and statistics, visit: www.palestineremembered.com." The Herald Tribune quotes Yossi Ben-Artzi of Haifa University as saying that "That's simply complete nonsense, Kiryat Yam was built on sand dunes, and there wasn't any Palestinian village in the area. The lands were bought in 1939 by the Gav Yam construction company." The problem with this is that the description was not made by anyone at Google, or even anyone associated with Google. The description was posted by the user Thameen_Darby, who lives in Jenin. The fact is, my feelings about the accuracy of this description should not even enter into the conversation. ...
In the past few days, Annalee Newitz, editor of IO9, has come under fire for the images that she posted of what appears to be a bomb disposal robot inspecting a suicide bomber who was lying dead on the ground. The robot was looking for a possible second round of explosives. Israel uses robots extensively to keep their human troops out of harm's way whenever and wherever they possibly can. These photos offer a rarely seen glimpse into the day-to-day use of the advanced military robots we hear about. Link to full gallery after the jump ...
Festivus is celebrated each year on December 23rd. For the uninitiated, Festivus comes from a Seinfeld episode in which George Costanza's father creates a holiday because he is sick and tired of the commercialism of the "holiday season," you can read more about it here. What started as a sitcom plot point is now celebrated by many people around the world each year. The question ...
So did you hear the big announcement today? No, not the iPod announcements coming from Moscone West, the other groundreaking announcement of the day. Getting little press today, because of the SteveNote, is a small application released by Microsoft called The Microsoft Keyboard Layout Creator that has major impact on the Modern Orthodox Jew. According to Microsoft this application allows you to "easily define your own keyboard layout for a language Microsoft doesn't support ... ...
