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Briefs

Sunday, April 11th, 2021

With this panegyric to airport culture, Eva Wiseman riffs on a Vice story about young Britons going to the airport to get (earthly) high and hang out. As a Briton I find this awesome, even while as an Israeli I find it a bit pitiful (ie, just go to the beach!).

Wednesday, September 30th, 2020

Great long piece in The Guardian on the aviation meltdown.

Thursday, September 17th, 2020

Israel Aviation Industries’ long-established Heron flew to Ben-Gurion, marking the first ever landing of a drone at a civilian airport.

Sunday, April 19th, 2020

Marc Andreessen: Build, baby!

Sunday, January 26th, 2020

Two interestingly contrarian pieces in the Daily Mail by authorities in their respective fields: “Ja, we Germans are jealous of Brexit” by Alexander Von Schoenburg, editor-at-large of Bild; and “Why woke diets featuring superfoods such as avocado are leading to a surge of distressing gut problems” by Luci Daniels, former chairman of the British Dietetic Association.

Tuesday, October 8th, 2019

11 Brilliant Ways To Redeem Virgin Atlantic Flying Club Miles by Spencer Howard at GodSaveThePoints. Most are not actually flying Virgin Atlantic but their partner airlines

Saturday, September 28th, 2019

September 25th, 2019, a Virgin Atlantic plane landed in Tel Aviv for the first time. Airplane travel writer Gilbert Ott was aboard.

Tuesday, September 24th, 2019

New business jets for 2019.

James Ketchell completes his gyrocopter global circumnavigation, apparently the first person to do so. Awesome.

Monday, July 1st, 2019

The bastards finally did it: Sde Dov Airport, within walking distance from Tel Aviv, closes. You’d have thought that enough powers-that-be would have liked a nice little airfield within 5 minutes of town. Well, hopefully eventually they’ll build another one in the Med. Update: They’re still talking. Umpteen objections submitted regarding the existing plan.

Saturday, September 8th, 2018

McKinsey offers suggestions for lean airline operations. I find this oddly exciting.

Tuesday, August 21st, 2018

This Globes article reports interesting stats re Israeli air traffic. After the domestic carriers, Wizz Air is the top airline by flights, Turkish Airlines by passengers. They’re followed by EasyJet and Aeroflot. Nasty rhetorical exchanges between the national leaders notwithstanding, the Turkish national carrier will soon operate 10 flights a day to Israel!

Tuesday, January 2nd, 2018

This 1-hour Smithsonian production is a history of America in the Roaring 20s, with amazing newly-colorized footage. Richly effortlessly narrated by Liev Schreiber, it remedies our black & white impression of this not-so-distant mirror. There are things I should have learned about in school but did not, particularly the Greenwood massacre.

Saturday, September 9th, 2017

Enjoy this superb little series on contemporary American commercial aviation by Slate, from security theatre to the pilot shortage.

Monday, September 5th, 2016

In this report on Ryanair’s service between Budapest and Eilat, anna.aero lists the low-cost airlines flying to Israel. All the others fly to Ben-Gurion. So that’s Eilat to Budapest in February roundtrip for 85€!!!

Monday, July 18th, 2016

Life meets Goblin. Franky Zapata flies his Flyboard Air in Monaco during the Grand Prix on May 29th, 2016 [via my Dad].

Thursday, July 24th, 2014

Some strategic implications for Israel of Hamas’s tunnels and rockets by JCPA.

Sunday, July 15th, 2012

The stuffed former pet cat looks eerily alive reborn as a remote control helicopter. I just don’t know what to think or feel or say about this.

Wednesday, May 9th, 2012

“Nation on the Move” is the magnificent second episode of the America Revealed PBS series. Interestingly, the show is British-made.

Friday, February 17th, 2012

Francis Fukuyama builds a drone. Yes, that Francis Fukuyama.

Saturday, October 8th, 2011

Today: a world where big stuff can never get done.

Monday, September 26th, 2011

Conrad Black, facing more jail time, remains irrepressible.

Thursday, August 11th, 2011

The reprap, a self-replicating 3d-printer. Most mind-boggling thing ever.

Thursday, June 30th, 2011

Fox News slideshow from the 49th Paris Air Show.

Sunday, June 12th, 2011

Al Schwimmer, founder of Israel Aircraft Industries, dies at 94. Haaretz obit.

Wednesday, April 13th, 2011

GAGA-1, a hobby balloon satellite.

O reason not the need — give us the Immersive Cocoon.

Wednesday, January 6th, 2010

Over at The Atlantic, this is perhaps the piece and subsequent conversation in the comments on applying the Israeli airport security method in the USA. “I’d say, as a generalization, screeners here possess above-average intelligence, whereas your average TSA screener seems to be a working stiff.” Yes, and working stiff seems an overstatement.

Thursday, December 3rd, 2009

Climategate so far.
Just how close were we to catastrophe at Copenhagen?

Friday, July 31st, 2009

EasyJet begins Luton-Tel Aviv flights in November, 2009. With a suitcase, the all-inclusive cost of a return flight is £135, less than half of current prices!

Monday, September 22nd, 2008

Replacing Heathrow with a 24-hour artificial island-based airport in the Thames Estuary.

index topics flying flying

Arab Insanity Eroding

Wednesday, January 20th, 2021

What shame, to have tainted with one’s own madness such benevolent bodies as civil aviation, non-combatant status in war — even United Nations human rights bodies.

Denver Met

Tuesday, May 8th, 2018

My intent here is not only to participate in a conference but to suck up myriad Americana as a thirsty exile catapulted back in for a primer.
Yes

It’s a Somewhat Rauschenberg World

Tuesday, April 4th, 2017

I don’t like this use of animals, like Damien Hirst’s. The artist could not have asked the goat for permission so should not have assumed it was granted.

Black Tracks the Presidents

Monday, January 30th, 2017

The great virtue of Conrad Black’s Flight of the Eagle is its steady track across the entirety of the nation’s history, treating each president equally under its own law and order.

Homepage Design 2016

Monday, August 15th, 2016

No matter the screen size, a web site should feel like itself, even if it doesn’t look it. So do “mobile first” second.
Yes

From iPhone 4S to 6S: An Appreciation

Monday, December 21st, 2015

The increased size, something I was so hesitant about, feels fine to me now. And because it’s thinner it feels less obtrusive in my pocket.

Spectreview

Thursday, November 12th, 2015

With the villain’s quasi-sibling bond to the hero, 2015’s 007 movie deflates to an incestuous Möbius Strip.

In Gaza, Israel Should Own its Terrible Tactic

Sunday, August 3rd, 2014

Although such excoriating labels as “collective punishment” and “state terrorism” aren’t entirely wrong regarding Israel’s application of the Dahieh Doctrine in Gaza, history does suggest that the method is effective in fighting a fundamentally defensive war.

Go Deny Yourself

Monday, June 17th, 2013

This four-letter little word undermines our modern values of tolerance and presumption of innocence.

Some Consumer Affairs

Monday, December 17th, 2012

I’ve tried to enjoy schlepping water, thinking that it serves to keep us to some human roots.
Yes

From Nokia N95 to iPhone 4S

Wednesday, April 11th, 2012

Annoyances and upsets with the iPhone 4S have been more than offset by its screen, the silkiness of its surfaces, the camera, and the third-party market for both software and hardware.

2001: A Space Odyssey: Dry, Juicy, Linear, Luminous

Saturday, February 4th, 2012

The dancers in the ape-suits; how they move is an incredibly energetic output for us. Contrast their physical reaction when witnessing the monolith to that of the astronauts in the newly-minted 21st century.

The Mouse and the Cantilever

Sunday, October 9th, 2011

Steve Jobs we lost at the age of 56; when Frank Lloyd Wright reached that age it was 1923, the time of merely his second comeback with Tokyo’s Imperial Hotel.

Friendship is for Weenies

Thursday, March 25th, 2010

It’s amazing, given the adulation he enjoyed elsewhere, that the Israeli public knew from the start not to trust US President Obama.

Before the Setup

Monday, March 8th, 2010

It’s 1983: Go for the Apple IIe with 64k that could be opened up as a hobbyist machine? Or the smaller, sleeker and newer IIc with double the memory but a closed case?

At Modi’in Mall

Thursday, July 30th, 2009

There’s nothing else around here except empty desolate pretty hills. The Israel Trail passes by a bit to the west. The shops are mostly franchises, almost all homegrown: Super-Pharm, Aroma, Tzomet Sfarim, Cup O’ Joe’s, LaMetayel, Mega, Fox, Castro, H&O.
Yes

The Israel I Love, the Bad So Far

Thursday, July 16th, 2009

If the signage were a bit more effective, the staff’s diction and demeanor more professional, then we might have avoided this testy altercation.

Shanghai Europe

Tuesday, January 20th, 2009

So, finally, we stopped yesterday; the Israeli assault on Gaza of late 2008/early 2009 is over. With it, Israel lost moral purity and made vital strategic gains.
Yes

Panning for MacBook Pro

Friday, January 9th, 2009

Even if it did nothing, was just a prop in a futuristic movie, the MacBook Pro would be impressive; it’s like a sculpture of my previous computer, the MacBook, except it’s actually an improved computer!

Stop Yesterday

Wednesday, December 31st, 2008

Is the goal of Israel’s current assault on Gaza to discourage Hamas from firing rockets or to render them incapable of doing so? These are two quite different projects.

Short-circuiting Place-based Longing

Saturday, December 13th, 2008

If there’s one tangible benefit to having lived in a variety of places it’s that it furnishes evidence of the futility of longing to be elsewhere.

A Crawl Across Crawley, Part 1

Thursday, August 7th, 2008

Irit, the Jam and I walk from Brighton to Gatwick Airport.

Clash of the Midgets

Monday, March 10th, 2008

I was annoyed to have my sauna moments despoiled and dominated, reverberating with this old geezer’s most naff yap.
Yes

Israel’s Greatest Victory Since Osirak?

Thursday, January 24th, 2008

If Ariel Sharon’s withdrawal from Gaza was part of a masterplan to staunch the damage done by the victory of the Six Day War in 1967, then today we see another step in its unfolding.

The Small Adventures, Part 2

Monday, January 7th, 2008

There in the empty restaurant by the water at Dieppe I had toast with foie gras, a carafe of red wine, a huge plate of mussels and chips, and finally a crème brûlée. Somehow, though I’ve eaten in restaurants hundreds of times, I felt grown up.
Yes

The Small Adventures

Monday, December 10th, 2007

Late for the 11pm train to Milan, we enquired frantically among the taxis for one who’d accept the two dogs and take us to Termini Station so I could begin our journey to Britain.

Tony Blair and the Four-State Solution

Friday, December 7th, 2007

Ariel Sharon’s disengagement policy reflected an understanding that ownership of the Palestinian issue is shared with Egypt and Jordan. If Tony Blair were to acquire this view, perhaps he really could help facilitate an end to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

A Restoration and Return

Thursday, October 25th, 2007

There she was, sitting outside the apartment block! How did she do it? Dogs—or at least Jam—must have some sort of navigational sense we don’t understand.

Curs to Fate

Monday, October 22nd, 2007

Yesterday I lost Jam in Villa Borghese, the central park here in Rome, some five miles from Talenti, the neighborhood where we’re staying. She has not turned up since.
Yes

Jam and Bread, Jam and Bread!

Saturday, October 13th, 2007

My dog Jam has spent over a third of her time here in Italy as her fixtures have fallen away—first Maddie, then me. But now I’m back!
Yes

This Trip’s Last Day

Tuesday, October 9th, 2007

I went to Astor Place Haircutters. I crossed Manhattan Bridge on foot. I walked west along Canal St, seeking a bamboo steamer.

I, Thou and Pastor Bob

Friday, October 5th, 2007

At the Calvary Church here in Fort Lauderdale the Biblical locations feel so far away that they can be abstracted and spiritualized. There is religious energy here.
Yes

The Big and Easy

Wednesday, September 26th, 2007

The American stage is grand, as are the achievements and ambitions, but daily life seems lamed by a compulsive denaturing.

A Drop in Time

Monday, August 27th, 2007

The camera hit the ground lens first, bashing it in so that it would no longer wind in and out, and couldn’t switch on. Without it, my perception of an important personal era was degraded.

A Ride to Gatwick Airport

Wednesday, August 15th, 2007

Airports. They’re so charged, so symbolic, and so empty once you’re at one; I dream of them so often.

Only the Rustle in the Trees

Friday, June 29th, 2007

Grief, loss — these are the great teachers surely. What one has will pass.

A Cabaret, Old Chum

Monday, June 18th, 2007

It’s a last bastion of civility, being allowed to drink at Penn Station, Brian mused ruefully as we carried our beers to his train home to Great Neck.

Fatahland and Hamastan

Saturday, June 16th, 2007

Now Israel has a dog in a real Palestinian fight: the nationalists rather than the Islamists.
Yes

Stars, Stripes & Superlatives

Monday, June 4th, 2007

Here in Los Angeles I am bombarded with superlatives. Daniel’s record collection. The Bikram Yoga College of India world headquarters. Larry David’s Curb Your Enthusiasm. All mixed in with the most ravaging mediocrity.

Shite on Brighton

Friday, May 18th, 2007

“Like many provincial towns,” the Private Eye reviewer stabs, “Brighton, as depicted in this hacked-together tribute, defines itself more by what it isn’t than by what it is. It’s not London, for one thing.”

Daily Yin

Tuesday, May 1st, 2007

For my first test of the day as day, I open the back door and step outside to the little patio to see the sky and feel the air. I realize not everybody does this, so if people tell me I’m a miserable bastard then perhaps this little habit will correct their impression.

Mind the Dream

Thursday, April 26th, 2007

Dreaming about our passed companions as if they are alive requires tricks to the dreaming mind to overcome what it believes and knows to be true.

The Dharma Tits

Wednesday, April 18th, 2007

Buddhism is the philosophy and psychology closest to Cognitive Therapy and vice versa.
Yes

Still Got the Jam

Monday, March 12th, 2007

Jam was one of Maddie’s nine puppies, the one who remained after the others were all taken. That was always my plan, to keep the runt.

Such a Tramp

Tuesday, March 6th, 2007

Maddie, who died 18 months ago today, was a mangy mutt and stank, but she was also among the most beautiful dogs I’ve ever seen and for me the longest, richest, widest, deepest streak of feeling lucky.

So You Noticed

Monday, February 26th, 2007

I have had something very flattering: a request. Juan Carlos has asked me for comments on Casino Royale.

Reminds Me of Tel Aviv

Thursday, February 15th, 2007

You get to a stage in life where you are already formed by the past. Thoughts and dilemmas about place are either central questions or a distraction from real issues.

Fly the Blag

Tuesday, February 13th, 2007

Ryanair has brought wretchedness to the skies. Rather than existing on a privileged plane, you stew in a poisoned atmosphere.

Approaching Infinite Justice

Monday, February 12th, 2007

Immediately after 9/11, the burgeoning war on terror was named “Operation Infinite Justice”. Within days it was renamed “Operation Enduring Freedom”, but is the new name a mere cloaking of the first?

On the Seventh Day

Thursday, February 8th, 2007

The Mrs is skeptical of David Allen’s Getting Things Done self-management system because it eschews the rigors of time management in lieu of what feels right. But GTD is about informed feeling.

Don’t Panic!

Monday, July 12th, 2004

An academic romp through Jewish American comedy starts out as a veritable rollercoaster ride, but grinds to halt with its obsession with one Bob Dylan.

Photographing a Handsome Old Man

Saturday, July 10th, 2004

I want to get people in my pics, but it’s tougher when you’re no longer a wide-eyed teenager, because people generally don’t like to think they are a spectacle.

The Beauty of Rain

Friday, December 19th, 2003

Rain makes the rocks shine. It puts in motion things that are otherwise static. It illustrates gravity most prettily.

Ode to Salame

Monday, December 1st, 2003

It’s supposed to be the arsehole of Tel Aviv, Salame Street, running east-west at its southern tip, but it always does me darn good.

I Love Laundry

Wednesday, November 19th, 2003

How pleasing it is to have my own washing machine. If all isn’t right with the world, not even in my world, at least the laundry cycle is functioning.

Lovely Scenery, But Walks Getting Boring

Tuesday, November 18th, 2003

Unless I drive somewhere new, it’s not much fun to just step out the door and wander. But driving to go for a walk seems a tad ridiculous.

For Love of Economy

Monday, November 17th, 2003

It disturbs me to be driving a car that gets fewer kilometers to the shekel than did my previous.

Shinui and the Seven-Year Itch

Tuesday, May 20th, 2003

How refreshing to see Asian faces out shopping in Tel Aviv, or Africans riding the bus to Ra’anana. With them Israel is given fresh wellsprings of culture.

Allah Help the Jackals

Tuesday, May 13th, 2003

While it’s obvious that overplaying your power can result in a downfall, it’s less obvious that underplaying it also leads to trouble. America did this in the 1970s under Carter. Israel seems to have done it almost perennially.
Yes

For Tel Aviv, Better a Skylift Than a Subway

Wednesday, March 12th, 2003

Rather than copycatting a transportation system from the 19th century, Israel could inject into its civic planning the same audacity and resourcefulness that it has historically brought to agriculture and defence.
Yes

Canada Obscura

Monday, July 8th, 2002

There’s not a patch of water to be seen—the most liquid thing is the word “Coffee” on one of the low-slung strip-mall buildings. It’s a scene more artful than art itself.

Tour of Kitchen Duty

Monday, May 20th, 2002

There was yelling and spray and I raced to keep up. One can enjoy, briefly, the company of men.

Shiny Bright Toadstool

Thursday, August 27th, 1998

In Israel’s case, burgernomics don’t add up because significant factors contribute to the 30%-odd surcharge on a Big Mac.

The Fresh Jewels of Spring Mound

Tuesday, July 14th, 1998

Quality of life in Tel Aviv is fundamentally enhanced by two simple factors: trees are everywhere, and so are apartments.

Independence Park Up for Grabs?

Tuesday, July 7th, 1998

To this day men of many ages walk these bushes, they delicately lurk these bushes, and stand in places odd to choose.

We Tri Harder

Monday, January 19th, 1998

A land could be governed not only by the three separate arms of government, but by three sovereign states.
Yes

Tira Saunters

Sunday, August 18th, 1996

The one-lane road is empty; down below is the Sharon Plain, looking vast. Israel may be a small country but we’re still speaking here of land.

A Call to Thumbs

Friday, October 22nd, 1993

When you hitchhike it’s out of your hands, and that’s therapeutic. Paradoxically, you also see how much control you do have.
 

Briefs (cont’d)

Thursday, April 15th, 2021

If you want to feel like Western society is convulsing, there’s an app for that.
Ross Douthat, The Decadent Society

ASK

Craig Mod reveals the consolations of we the web-literate as he tinkers with his servers. Plus the man walks and writes rather well and is probably tall to boot.

Monday, April 12th, 2021

OK I haven’t actually read this yet but really honestly intend to. Via Robin Rendle on CSS Tricks via Jim Nielsen’s Blog, A Complete Guide To Accessible Front-End Components by Vitaly Friedman in Smashing Magazine.

Sunday, April 11th, 2021

With this panegyric to airport culture, Eva Wiseman riffs on a Vice story about young Britons going to the airport to get (earthly) high and hang out. As a Briton I find this awesome, even while as an Israeli I find it a bit pitiful (ie, just go to the beach!).

Friday, April 9th, 2021

Israel’s INSS thinktank believes it’s time to more firmly oppose Assad’s Syria. Israel’s mostly hands-off approach towards this horrendous conflict on her borders may well go down in history as the main stain on Netanyahu’s record. Yet if Israel could have tipped the scales of civil war at some point to get rid of Assad, would things have been any better? We know from other interventions, eg Libya, the vacuum and chaos that would most likely have ensued. Very hard.

Insight into the burgeoning Greek-Israeli relationship.

Thursday, April 8th, 2021

Tucker Carlson speaks truth to the Biden Administration’s Executive Order on Advancing Racial Equity and Support for Underserved Communities and the corporations following in its woke wake. His example of airline pilots, as provided by United, is just too easy.

Apple’s new Find My service for 3rd-party products seems very cool. It leverages all the installed Apple devices around the world, kind of like a land-based GPS.

Wix is a tawdry Israeli success story. Wix’s dirty trix (by Matt Mullenweg, to be fair, the creator of WordPress).

Saturday, April 3rd, 2021

China bails out Iran with $400b deal as part of a Turkish-Iranian-Pakistani alliance, explains house favorite David P. Goldman.

Friday, April 2nd, 2021

In 10 parts, John McWhorter’s very necessary The Elect: The Threat to a Progressive American from Anti-Black Antiracists.

It’s hard to do a really good job on anything you don’t think about in the shower.

Paul Graham, The Top Idea in Your Mind

Content is information you don’t need.

Paul Graham, Post-Medium Publishing

Thursday, April 1st, 2021

In his Telegraph column, the invaluable Ambrose Evans-Pritchard lays it out that the UK has actually handled Covid pretty well:

We can see in hindsight that the UK began the war on Covid much as it has begun almost every major war over recent centuries: half asleep, in utter shambles, with obsolete contingency plans. The first wave had echoes of the Norway campaign in 1940, or the great retreat of the British Expeditionary Force in August 1914. It always seems to take time for Britons to pull themselves together. Ultimately they do. By the end of the First World War, the British armed forces were arguably the best-run logistical machine on the planet.

Monday, March 29th, 2021

Strong medicine, this, and brave of Tablet to publish it. Dubbing deplorables as The Smiths, Angelo M. Codevilla beseeches regular Americans to simply disengage from the new American oligarchy.

And in the same publication, a transcription of an interview with the caustic political philosopher, The Codevilla Tapes.

Thursday, March 11th, 2021

By 2005 or so, it will become clear that the Internet’s effect on the economy has been no greater than the fax machine’s.

Paul Krugman

Monday, March 8th, 2021

Cool — 10 upcoming skyscrapers. Interestingly, most of them seem to be in Toronto. I love the Zaha Hadid one, if that ever gets built.

Saturday, March 6th, 2021

Cal Newport takes on GTD in the run-up to his new book against email as the world’s abysmal task management system.

The piece does start like a Tad Friend-esque hatchet job on Merlin Mann but that’s just a way to appeal to your squalid New Yorker reader.

Tuesday, February 23rd, 2021

Up with the revolution! Death to me!

Thursday, February 18th, 2021

Andy Bell outlines new CSS functionality in Smashing Magazine.

Monday, February 15th, 2021

Howard Oakley provides this survey of paintings of trains.

Echolalia

Meaningless repetition of another person’s spoken words as a symptom of psychiatric disorder

The politicians are engaged in endless echolalia. The governor here (cum-Secretary of Commerce) actually had the chutzpah to say, “I know you’re all unhappy with the speed of vaccination, but our strategy is working.”

Alan Weiss

Friday, February 5th, 2021

In a sign of the times of economic inequality in America, Cheap RV Living by Bob Wells, a long-time VanDweller, is increasingly relevant.

Wednesday, January 27th, 2021

Like Anna Karenina’s brother, it’s not that the United States media has a bad memory, rather it has acquired an excellent forgettery. Victor Davis Hanson remembers nonetheless.

Tuesday, January 26th, 2021

A survey of American research on minimum wage by David Neumark & Peter Shirley at the National Bureau of Economic Research.

Ra’anana-based Vertical Field signed with Emirates Smart Solutions & Technologies (ESST) to build a pilot of its vertical farms in the United Arab Emirates. Major cool.

Sunday, January 24th, 2021

Upending the conventional wisdom that happiness does not increase beyond an annual household income of $75,000, this study, using random ongoing smartphone check-ins, demonstrates a continued increase in well-being as income rises.

Thursday, January 21st, 2021

Dated but still interesting: The Guardian looks at the rather disappointing design of Japanese newspaper websites.

Tuesday, January 19th, 2021

Nice backgrounder at Stat News on the history of mRNA vaccines.

Saturday, January 9th, 2021

A great grounds-eye view of the upset in Washington DC, “What I Saw at the Capitol Riot” by Declan Leary in The American Conservative.

To my left I hear “We don’t need Gitmo,” and I’m not quite sure what’s meant by it. From the same general area comes “I’ll donate a vaccination—.223 hollow point.” A little less ambiguous. Somebody with a megaphone is in the middle of a speech: “If you stand for nothing, you gotta stand for something.” Close enough. A young woman with a bullhorn of her own lets out a lone motherfucker. An older man looks at me with a smile and asks if she kisses her mother with that mouth. A few seconds later the same voice drones at nobody in particular: Pussy, pussyyyyy, pussy, pusssaaaaaaayyyyyy.

Tuesday, January 5th, 2021

From the CDC, US vaccination numbers. So far the state that’s done best is South Dakota at 3%.

Friday, January 1st, 2021

Cute, if harrowing: the no-longer economically viable Simpsons household, a piece in The Atlantic by Dani Alexis Ryskamp.

2020, the good news, by Doron Peskin at Israel’s Calcalist

Friday, December 25th, 2020

The potential for warm relations between Israel and Morocco may be more than with the Gulf nations, this piece argues, as relations have been significant for some time.

Thursday, December 24th, 2020

The Basecamp fellows have released a new web development paradigm, Hotwire. I don’t quite get it, but with their pedigree and skill as the makers of Ruby on Rails, this could be big.

Tuesday, December 22nd, 2020

This lengthy interview with Secretary-General Sayyid Nasrallah may be useful for insight into Hezbollah’s perspectives. There are some bizarre connections, such as the notion that Israel invaded Lebanon in 1982 because of deep concern regarding Iran’s “liberation of Khorramshahr” in the Iran-Iraq War.

Monday, December 21st, 2020

High Output Management

Andrew S. Grove

♦♦♦♦♦

In his careful, cogent and memorable take on effective management, Silicon Valley founding father Andy Grove places a surprising emphasis on meetings; he has the temerity to take issue with — or at least, refine — Peter Drucker’s admonition that they’re a waste of time. Grove’s issue: meetings are the very medium of management; his refinement: that there are actually two major types of meeting, routine and ad hoc, and it’s where there’s a profusion of the latter that something’s amiss.

This erstwhile CEO of Intel notes that while most management books are targeted either at the very top or the very bottom — at the CEO or at those who directly manage frontline workers — the majority of managers manage other managers, and it’s for them he mostly writes, the middle managers.

The book has the authority of someone eager to share lessons from his own extensive experience — indeed he seems to have always worked with one eye towards gaining such knowledge, in no small part because being able to convey what one knows ensures that one actually understands it; that is, managers should also write and teach.

Grove defines the aim of management as increasing the productivity of subordinates, which can be achieved in only two ways: by improving their skills and by improving their motivation. Skills are improved by training, which the manager should undertake himself, considering it not busywork but an opportunity to solidify his own understanding and role-model corporate behavior. Motivation meanwhile is improved best via one-on-one performance reviews. These measures for corporate success are bracingly clear and specific — both the reasoning behind them and how to undertake them.

A refugee from Nazi Europe, Grove may be a legend yet the book is suffused with a democratic humility, a great American sense that success can be approached by all as an engineering problem. A book among books.

PS — A high testament: I actually remembered all these points without reopening High Output Management. I don’t think that’s ever happened before.

Wednesday, December 16th, 2020

What a huge story, Britain and France’s commitment to nuclear power, despite it being economically nonsensical in 2020, what with renewables ever cheaper. The amazing Ambrose Evans-Pritchard on nuclear power as a way to finance the Royal Navy.

The architect would surely be pleased that there is once again a Frank Lloyd Wright hotel in Japan — though he’d probably say: Just the one? (Actually it’s not by Wright but Arata Endo, who seems a tasteful and disciplined disciple.)

The first lab-grown chicken meat will be served at a Singapore restaurant this weekend!

Good old Speccie:

For Britain, there are many lessons to be learned from the IDF, a democratic military machine that relies heavily on technology to engage enemies on various fronts and in diverse contexts.

This from “Britain is right to pursue closer military ties to Israel” by Jake Wallis Simons. I had not known that the source of Israel’s tip-off regarding Syria’s North Korean nuclear reactor was a British spy.

Definitely not of general interest, Global state in SSR with Vue and Node.js at sum.cumo.

Israel intercepts a cruise missile in a test of its 3-tier missile defence system.

Tuesday, December 15th, 2020

Ross Douthat in his typical perfect way essays on American childbearing in the really nice magazine Plough.

Monday, December 14th, 2020

Israel to boost its alternative meat industry.. How wonderful is that. If it happens.

Dave Rupert does a nice job (April 2018) listing the pitfalls of card UIs. I’m beginning to think though that for Rupert, a long list of drawbacks is throat-clearing for “I’m going ahead with this.”

Friday, December 11th, 2020

Well all this looks like too much fun: trailers for upcoming Marvel TV shows. It is indeed the best of times, the worst of times.

I’ve been surprised and disappointed by just how many people are hesitant to take up the COVID-19 vaccines now coming online. In this concerned Nautilus article “How to Build Trust in Covid-19 Vaccines”, the authors take on the issue with sober good sense, eg:

Mandatory vaccination policies should be avoided because they could backfire. More acceptable would be tying vaccination status to travel or access to public places.

Thursday, December 10th, 2020

Now Morocco!

Monday, November 30th, 2020

Fisking Obama.

 
 

•••

Newsroll ↻

A quarterly magazine of urban affairs, published by the Manhattan Institute, edited by Brian C. Anderson.

experiments in refactored perception

  • Here’s why we don’t understand heavier-than-air flight

    If you’ve been reading popular science websites or magazines lately, then you may have heard the news: we don’t understand how airplanes work. For example: This fact may surprise you, given that humans have been successfully designing, building, and flying airplanes for over a century now. But I’m afraid that the articles are pretty clear: […]

  • Kinds of Potential

    I’ve been thinking about the idea of potential lately, especially in the sense of the phrase “technological potential” as applied to say countries, growth sectors, trends, and charismatic engineering companies like SpaceX. Or on a smaller scale, things like just a workbench with tools. For instance, what sort of potential does a well-stocked workbench have? […]

  • Elderblog Sutra: 12

    The last time I added to this blogchain, in July 2020, I was thinking about the metaphor of angkorwatification of elder blogs — the rewilding of an essentially complete, but ruined-and-restored structure, with plant life reasserting itself. A different tree metaphor has been on my mind lately, that of Groot, the ancient character in Guardians […]