September 2004 Archives

Gershon Elber, a CS student at Israel's Technion Institute has produced 3D Models of some of M.C. Escher's optical illusions.

Not bad renderings, but still not as impressive as the working Escher fountain.

If you're an old computer gamer¹ you've probably played or at least heard of Lucas Arts classic Monkey Island series. I know I'm about a decade behind on this, but it just recently came to my attention that the dueling insults were actually written by Orson Scott Card, author of the Ender's Game series and many others.

Two random links of pseudo-relevance: 1. His website has interesting pictures of him at a sci fi conference in Israel. 2. See I-Mockery's Monkey Island 2 Outtakes.

1. Meaning, you're a geek who likes playing old computer games or you're just an old geek who used to be a gamer back in the good 'ol days.

A little while ago, Rabbi Josh Joseph of the Orthodox Caucus contacted me about a publication they were putting out about dating. Someone tipped him off to this website,¹ and they decided to publish the post called Mixed Blessings about the phrase "Im Yirtzeh Hashem By You." I had no idea it was going to be distributed in this past week's edition of the Jewish Week.

I haven't had time to look at all of the articles just yet, but some of them seem worth checking out. In addition to the website, you can download the PDF version.

It's an interesting development considering I never expected this blog to have any such effect and I'm curious to see how this might develop. Of course, I suppose I'll have to get more consistent about posting....

1. Apparently, I've written a few times about my take on dating.

You might recall that last year was my first foray into hazanut when I did neilah. This year, I added mussaf to the repertoire. Not as good as I would have hoped, but not bad considering I have no formal training. Even knowing about this CD didn't help because the library's audio desk was closed for the month and isn't opening until Monday.

The timing was a little better this year. We started at 8:30, mussaf was finished at around 2:00, minha was at 5:00, neilah at 6:15 and we were finished with some time left over. This might seem a little quick compared to your typical shul. The major difference is that we cut out most of the silly hazzanut - the superfluous ay nay nay's. It also helped that we didn't have to wait for an absurdly long time for a rabbi to finish davening.¹ There was still plenty of singing, but almost no draying or wasted time. People davened with kavvanah, said every word,² and we still had a lot of time for reflection. Actually, I'd like to see more shuls adopt a model like this and cut down on the silliness which can actually get in the way of a meaningful service.

1. One year at YU, during the waiting for hazarat hashatz and other down time on Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur I started and finished Mishnayot Sanhedrin.
2. Minus of course, several hafsakot piyutim.

Et hata'ai ani mazkir hayom.

I stand before you embaressed at the lack of posting and the near extinction of this blog. The past summer has been a whirlwind in my personal and professional life, and it's far from over. I'm going to try to write what I can when I can, but the real world must take precedence over the virtual one.