1:00pm UTC
Thursday, October 19th, 2023
To paraphrase: “What do you all think sovereignty means? Vibes? Papers? Essays? Losers.”
Adamkhan.net
Thursday, April 25th, 2024
In contrast with the Jonathan Freedland piece I linked to earlier, Armin Rosen’s survey “The Israel-Gaza war has changed everything: The norms of war are being rewritten in real-time” in Unherd is simultaneously more detailed yet more humble.
Much of what’s happened since October 7 is without any real precedent … we are deep into the unknown, and were there long before this past week. The sides have notched accomplishments that are both novel and gruesome enough to demand real analytic humility…
I just used the term “midwit” in a post, I’m pretty sure for the first time, but some tendril of editorial integrity made me look it up and it is discomfiting. One nice definition:
An internet term that ironically, is something only an actual midwit would try to use on in the internet to look vErY sMaRt.
Yes — there should be a term for a derogatory term the very use of which classifies you as an instance of it. At any rate, since I had to hold back from using it myself, I am inclined to think I am indeed a midwit, or if not one, only slightly not one.
Someone who is around average intelligence but is so opinionated and full of themselves that they think they’re some kind of genius.
And:
Generally found in the 105-120 IQ range. These are the people who are considered “gifted” in primary school and perhaps “honors” in high school.
I notice myself trying to think but cannot; I can merely react.
Jonathan Freedman, a Jewish columnist for The Guardian, which in itself tells a tale, pens a column “In this shadow war between Iran and Israel, the outline of a different future is visible”. I can understand Palestinians’ disgusting murderous thuggery better than I can understand such sickly magpies within the nest. And he may not even be wrong in his conclusions! It’s the myriad of little things that bug me, the Olympian chin-rubbing despite being Jewish himself. First, the subtitle, which perhaps he didn’t write, but nonetheless reflects his conclusion:
Both seem keen to limit hostilities, and key Arab states are ready to resist Tehran. But real change will require new Israeli leadership
Israel is required to change its government! (No need for any change in Iran.)
It doesn’t help that the leaderships in both Iran and Israel are under constant pressure from elements that are even more bellicose.
Some insane and insulting parallels are being drawn here.
The hitherto crypto-alliance of Israel and those Sunni states that fear Tehran more than they fear Tel Aviv has stepped into the light.
Fear Tel Aviv? Firstly, that’s Jerusalem to you bub, though given that The Guardian is a British publication, which still shamefully does not recognize Israel as Jerusalem’s capital — I mean Jerusalem as Israel’s capital — no doubt “Tel Aviv” is editorial policy, but you are complicit in this policy, your name is in the byline. Secondly: fear? Hate I would say is more accurate; the Arabs never feared that Israel was going to invade or overthrow them.
Israel would have to do what the US and others are asking: offer the Palestinians a political horizon, one that holds out the prospect of an eventual Palestinian state.
Which others are these? Westerners project their desire for a Palestinian state onto Middle Easterners, who only pay lip service to this notion, because they are close enough to know that Palestinians are part of the problem not the solution. Resolving to being just like the Ayatollahs where it matters, Palestinians’ modus operandi is mass murder and the destabilization and overthrow of any polity they can, so that responsible Middle Easterners prefer to see them contained not empowered.
Normally I would just skip over such pap as this, especially if in The Guardian, which I only look at occasionally for movie reviews and design inspiration. But Israel’s Channel 12 hosts the Unholy podcast with Freedland to which people I know listen to devotedly, and who know him personally slightly as he sends his kids to the same Jewish school in northwest London. Why oh why does he not know better.
Wednesday, April 24th, 2024
Every paragraph with its little bombshell: Edward Luttwak is in full elegant force in “Iran is weaker than we think” in Unherd. The opening paragraph:
It is only now, almost 16 years since Obama first entered the White House with the private determination to end Iran’s “death to America” hostility at all costs, that his Iran policy has achieved the exact opposite of what he had wanted: direct warfare, with US fighters intercepting Iran’s bombardment drones. All along, it was a policy that had two different faces: one perfectly reasonable, and the other perfectly delusional.
Such casual rhythm before the zing at paragraph’s end! Later we get a Luttwakian paradox of strategy:
The [Iranian] Revolutionary Guards finally failed strategically because their Arab recruitment policy was so successful that it overshot the culminating point of success: seeing the historic Sunni capital of Damascus under Shia domination, and Baghdad the very seat of the Sunni Arab Caliphate ruled by Iran’s agents, Sunni Arab states from Morocco to Jordan and Saudi Arabia, which had repeatedly fought Israel from 1948, moved to abandon their hostility, openly or discreetly.
And we end with striking, real-world evidence that demonstrates the strategic theories posited within. I won’t quote this evidence so as not to spoil the end of this masterful op-ed.
Tuesday, April 23rd, 2024
Monday, April 22nd, 2024
In The Wall Street Journal, this geopolitical news article on Finland is the first one I can recall reading anywhere. Swimming into focus are renewed tensions with the new Russia. Th
Since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in early 2022, Finland has ramped up its military spending, boosting its defense budget to above 2% and snapping up U.S. rocket systems, as well as Israeli antitank and air-defense systems. The country is preparing to base F-35 jet fighters it will receive from the U.S. just over 100 miles from its border with Russia.
I wish for Finland and Israel to explore each other much more.
Sunday, April 21st, 2024
War and warming. What are the chances this bonkers piece is a hoax designed to embarrass its publisher The Nation. People took time and effort to ensure it is written in full sentences and well copy-edited.
Friday, April 19th, 2024
Great lengthy interview with Giora Eiland, always with cogent orthogonal ideas on important Israeli geopolitical realities.
The Israeli story was, Hamas is like ISIS, and ISIS is like Hamas. No! That’s not the case. ISIS was a bunch of crazies from Baghdad who, unopposed, gained control of western Iraq and those who lived there. But it didn’t represent the people, not in Mosul or elsewhere. Gaza more resembles 1930s Germany, where an extremist party won elections, with the support of most of the people, and quickly unified the military and civil government into one entity. What happened on October 7 is that the State of Gaza went to war against the State of Israel. State against state. Now, the state of Gaza does have vulnerabilities. It doesn’t have sufficient fuel, food and water of its own. You can impose a legitimate boycott on that state until the state returns all of your hostages. Humanitarian for humanitarian.
I’m not sure whether to be disappointed or relieved that Eiland is granted the levers of power.
Wednesday, April 17th, 2024
Cool, calm, collected, and with casually brilliant staging. IDF Chief of Staff Herzi Halevi provides the official Israeli miltary speech in response to the massive Iranian missile attack.
Amidst all this it’s a happy thought that Germany sold Israel a doomsday device (Dolphin subs) and a couple of decades later Israel is selling Germany an anti-doomsday device. Ben-Gurion and Adenhauer.
Tuesday, April 16th, 2024
OK I need to stop reading the news, but one more, this diatribe in Arutz7:
To me, the word “State” has demeaning connotations in the English speaking world. What other country on this planet is referred to and refers to itself as the State of…….? To be referred to as a “State” implies a not quite equal status with other nations, implying some benevolent authority has graciously bestowed a degree of autonomy to Israel. It is time that Israelis and Diaspora Jews refer to Israel as Israel, period.
I see no need to take issue with the term “state”; we are in good company with the United States of America. Like them we explicitly acknowledge the legalistic framework within which the American and Israeli peoples live at liberty. There may even be some positive connotations; we live now in a state of Israel, as opposed to the previous state. At any rate, many nationstates have political prefixes that are ignored and shortened to their national names: République française is just France, for example, and the State of Israel is usually referred to as just Israel.
Giora Eiland’s commentary on Channel 12 last night warranted its own story this morning on Arutz7, with him arguing that the response to Iran’s attack should be to focus on Lebanon.
Israel does not need to attack in Iran. There is no reason for it, and it has the potential to become complicated militarily, as well as regionally and with all of our friends – and the achievement will not be significant, regardless. If you want to put Iranians in their place and maybe even test them – there are two other arenas: One is in Syria.
There is merit here, though I think his suggested mechanism, to announce Israel’s return to the North for the school year, is fatuous. Both the low- and the high-level attacks from Hamas and Iran respectively point to a response aginst the mid-level main threat from Lebanon. Even if it doesn’t happen visibly — Bibi’s response seems to be to keep things simple and retaliate against actual perpetrators — it does feel like the appropriate true focus.
Kudos to Britain’s Daily Mail for publishing the Foundation for Defense of Democracies’ piece “Why Israel’s failure to strike back at Iran could lead to NUCLEAR WAR” by FDD’s chief exec Mark Dubowitz and senior fellow Jacob Nagel.
Israel was acting well within the rules of its dangerous neighborhood by taking out [Mohammad Reza Zahedi, commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps-Quds Force in Syria and Lebanon]. But the Ayatollah responded with a potentially catastrophic barrage on Israeli civilians, military bases and government facilities. If Iran walks away from this moment without paying a severe price, Tehran may be emboldened to deploy its weapons again. And the next time, these drones and missiles may be armed with nuclear or chemical payloads.
Their conclusion is indisputable and anything else is either appeasement or overthinking.
Monday, April 15th, 2024
Wonderful piece in Commentary by Seth Cropsey (I jumped to the family name and he is indeed the son of University of Chicago scion Joseph Cropsey) ““American Strategy on the Brink” that really gets to the heart of the matter”: The United States is shirking its responsibilities on the world stage:
All three instances of ongoing violence [Israel, Ukraine, Taiwan] stem fundamentally from a crisis in American power. These theaters are afire because Washington refuses to recognize what it is—the center of a loosely democratic system that spans Eurasia and the Americas. Culturally and strategically, the Rimland is being punished for the blindness at its core.
From “Israel’s Splendid Isolation” by John Podhoretz in Commentary:
Jews literally did not have the means or the ability to defend themselves for more than two millennia. Now we do. And when we do, we become unnerving. The very phrase “Jewish army” was, since 70 C.E.., the definition of an oxymoron. Now it conjures up something powerful, and the fact that it’s powerful at all means for many that it’s far too powerful. When Israel acts in its own defense, it alienates these people and these nations. And thereby “isolates” itself.
I can say it with confidence: I love you jpod.
Writing brief essays now on X, Victor Davis Hanson lists Ten Ways to Guarantee a Theater-wide War:
Vapid “Don’t!” … Abruptly pull out of Afghanistan … Chinese spy balloon … [okay a] “minor” invasion [of Ukraine] … Seem eager to resume the Iran Deal …
Etc.
Monday, April 8th, 2024
This Dearborn crowd musters up a “Death to America” chant (though the speaker to his credit doesn’t say it). Stupid fucks.
Rice cultures around the world do tend to exhibit similar cultural characteristics, including less focus on self, more relational or holistic thinking and greater in-group favoritism than wheat cultures.
The last time I came across this sort of diet-based sociology was in Nietzsche, where it struck me as both significant and true while feeling outlandish and ridiculous when repeated. So it’s nice to see it treated academically. Here’s one bit in Nietzsche, Aphorism #134 in La Gaya Scienza (he probably mentions it elsewhere too):
Pessimists as Victims. When a profound dislike of existence gets the upper hand, the after-effect of a great error in diet of which a people has been long guilty comes to light. The spread of Buddhism (not its origin) is thus to a considerable extent dependent on the excessive and almost exclusive rice-fare of the Indians, and on the universal enervation that results therefrom.
I enjoyed this very nice primer on editing by Eva Parish. Of her 9 recommendations, the one I fall down on most in my own occasional scribblings is “Be aware of your tone”, which is actually quite an expansive, non-technical problem. I guess I try to mix up the high and low due to insecurity that I’m a bore and aim to jolt and amuse the reader awake — but Eva argues that the mix is confusing and distracting.
I think however she is wrong to restore commas after prefixing subordinate clauses. Her examples:
Example: If you’re looking for me I’ll be in my office.
Revision: If you’re looking for me, I’ll be in my office.
Example: Due to the fog our flight was delayed.
Revision: Due to the fog, our flight was delayed.
My take instead: if the sentence is unambiguous without the comma then lean towards omitting it. Especially with the second example, with the clause being only four syllables long, the comma slows down the reader so much that the music of the sentence is broken. “Fog our flight” cannot be misinterpreted — nobody thinks of fogging a flight. Indeed the lack of a comma foretells to the reader they can confidently plow ahead through a well-tended sentence.
Her admonition to avoid the vague “this” — is new to me or else I’d forgotten it from The Little Red Schoolhouse, even though it fits very much into the Schoolhouse’s insistence of chaining sentences together nicely, and I will keep it in mind.
Via Hacker News, this Chrome for Developers post dives into browser colors beyond RGB.
Saturday, April 6th, 2024
He’s very good, is Brendan O’Neill, and I’m glad The Spectator is publishing him. “The Truth About Friendly Fire”:
Across social media, the cry goes up: Israel did this on purpose. It seems Israel is the only state not allowed to make mistakes. Where us decent Westerners kill friends in error, Israel does it intentionally, with malice at its heart.
Who would have thought this would be published in such a well-known British magazine. There is hope.
It seems that some in the West are seeking to launder their reputations through attacking Israel. From Cameron to Biden, powerful men who have been involved in wars far more horrific and far less justified than Israel’s war on Hamas, are now pontificating against the Jewish State.
But their finger-wagging attempt at rehabilitating their own reputations by slighting others’ — and hang the risk even unto civilization itself — does burnish at least one aspect of their respective reputations, ie being a sleazeball.
Thursday, April 4th, 2024
How gratifying, the plethora of common-sense comments reacting to this rather less-than-sensible Telegraph story “How international law could force Britain to stop arms sales to Israel” which furthers the tradition of latching on to that weird and mealy-mouthed “plausible” ruling by the ICJ.
Was this the Court’s intent, to say something with plausible deniability so that the very many people who want it to have said a thing can act as if it did? I in turn am latching on to that possibility to accuse it all of being quite transparent, truly despicable, and dangerously corrosive.
Wednesday, April 3rd, 2024
In Mosaic Magazine, a sweeping history of Israel v. Lebanon by Raphael BenLevi.
Israel’s geography currently provides it with reasonably defensible borders on three sides: the Mediterranean to the west, the Sinai Desert to the south, and the Jordan Valley to the east. Israel’s northern border, however, is not defined by a sea, a vast desert, or even a major river. Rather it is a man-made line that cuts through mountains, valleys, farms, and forests. This has been the case since antiquity, making the northern border of ancient Israel the hardest to defend.
The article mirrors one that I linked to from exactly three months ago on Gaza by Jean-Pierre Filiu in Foreign Affairs.
We all know that if these tattooed trustafarians who think men can breastfeed went anywhere near Gaza their pronouns would be was / were quicker than you could say ‘Free Palestine!’.
Brendan O’Neill, “The unbearable sanctimony of the ‘pro-Palestine’ set”
Tuesday, April 2nd, 2024
In an interview with Israeli radio station 103fm, Yarden Pivko, daughter of Hamas hostage Itzik Gelertner, denounces the Kaplanistas hijacking the hostage crisis. Kudos to 103fm for airing this despite their and all media-luvvy institutional sympathy for Kaplanism.
Sunday, March 31st, 2024
Good ep of Mike Doran and Gadi Taub’s allcaps ISRAEL UPDATE podcast “Is the US Stabbing Israel in the Back?”
It’s in The Guardian so you know what’s coming in this restaurant review of Freddie’s, a New York-style non-kosher Jewish deli, plus they telegraph it in the title, so that in falling for the clickbait I skip the whole salt-beef bit to the predictable meat of the thing:
For all my lack of faith or observance these dishes, kept alive by a vestigial memory of the shtetl, root me. Then I hesitated. Could I really write about a Jewish restaurant given the current political turmoil? Would I get abuse for doing so? Surely better to keep shtum. At which point I knew I had no choice: I had to write about it. The horrendous campaign of the government and armed forces of Israel in Gaza cannot be allowed to make being Jewish a source of shame. When Hamas mounted their 7 October attack on Israel, they committed both an atrocity and a provocation. With so many hostages taken, there were no good options for the Israeli government. Nevertheless, they managed to choose the very worst one. They have killed thousands, starved many more, destroyed homes and turned their country into a pariah. As it happens, they have also made life for Jews who live outside Israel and have no responsibility for the decisions its government takes, so very much harder. I deplore what Israel is doing. But that doesn’t mean I can “refute” my Jewishness. That is a surrender to antisemitism. And so I sit here with my terrific salt beef sandwich and my chocolate mousse, indulging that bit of my Jewish identity which makes sense to me. It’s not much, but it’s all I have.
As a British Israeli my reaction to this sort of thing is always a multi-level “ugh”. But having returned recently to my native Glasgow for a Jewish funeral, I was reminded of what I would likely have been if my parents hadn’t made Aliyah to Israel when I was a child — and moreover since I have now lived in the UK again for a long time is arguably what I have reverted back to being. (Noooooo!)
Nonetheless it’s hard for me to feel anything but contempt for people who stroke the tiger in the hope it will eat them last.
And yet I must understand that as people who are primarily Britons their prism is the BBC, and as right-thinking people it’s likely The Guardian and its ilk, so this is what they may actually believe. But is the reviewer truly speaking in good faith? He says Israel chose the very worst course of action but does not articulate what other better ones might have been. Write a very stroppy letter?
Also, if a sandwich is the extent of his Jewish identity, he’d probably do better shucking it off altogether and embracing something else more all-encompassingly. I don’t mean that disparagingly, but men are meaning machines and if he’s not getting much out of Judaism then it is occupying a space in his soul that could perhaps otherwise be more fruitfully filled.
Levantine Israel is such a monumental and cosmic gift — especially for the rain-soaked British Jew who must otherwise seek any anthropological depth in Druidism and sun in other countries such as Spain (a pretty fabulous alternative it’s true). So I think it is folly for a British Jew to not embrace that mainline connection to Israel; Britons have a passion for the Middle East and now Jewish Britons have their own ancient piece of it again.
But that is all very well when it was done for you as a child or if you are wealthy enough to maintain an additional home and travel frequently. But for most of us, as I was reminded at the funeral, we grow up and get up and go to work, lifelong dalliances with distant exotic countries way beyond reach. And even for those who have the means to have additional homes, the center of gravity of their psyche and viewpoint is British. I need to understand that about British Jews who did not make Aliyah, which is most of them.
On one hand, I can see how the current war unites Jews in their fate, while on the other I can see how the cleavage in the West between appeasement and struggle runs right down the middle of Diaspora Jewry.
With this return to protests the Kaplanistas have chosen to learn nothing, to refuse to acknowledge their part in contributing to the machdal of Oct 7. They think they are melach ha-aretz, the salt of the earth, but in fact serve as perhaps-not-so-unwitting secular neturei karta [Update 2024 April 6: via Gadi Taub, they’ve been dubbed Neturei Kaplan!], prepared like their nihilistic sociological counterparts the BLM supporters to try to blow up their own societies just to see what happens next. As such they are the very opposite of the responsible and the educated that they fancy themselves to be, and undermine the mamlachtiut they ostensibly are out to promote. They give succor and encouragement to the enemy whom they presume, in their relapse back to provincial Orientalism, has no agency. And there is the minor issue of giving the gleeful foreign media an easy way to further bash Israel. As they air their internal grievances to Sky News I hope for the sake of their souls they each feel a sickly yet potentially redemptive wonder of: “What the hell am I doing”.
As reported by The Telegraph, a handbook by and for Palestine Action! Absolutely mental.
Saturday, March 30th, 2024
Eichler’s personal Eichler in Silicon Valley is on sale. It’s great, like mid-level Wright and perhaps a bit of Neutra combined.
Friday, March 29th, 2024
Good to see Amos Atza-El, Mr Middle Israel as he self-declares, still at it, this time on Russia and how Putin’s romance with the Jihadis echoes Stalin’s with the Nazis.
Thursday, March 28th, 2024
The most awesome new pic of Fallingwater I’ve perhaps ever seen beyond the standard 3/4 view. This is by Andrew Pielage, who was an official Artist-In-Residence at the time. The viewpoint and the lighting give us each step’s full floating horizontality and their cumulative effect. I can imagine Mr Wright commending the image.
Wednesday, March 27th, 2024
One of the principal functions of a modern university is to provide… masses of human material capable of exercising the responsibilities while accepting the limitations of a bureaucratic career.
Walter Russell Mead, Twilight of the Wonks
Friday, March 22nd, 2024
Culture is cultural appropriation is culture.
ASK
Tuesday, March 19th, 2024
Bibi to AIPAC and Bibi with John Spencer, urban warfare historian. What a high-octane human.
Sunday, March 17th, 2024
From what looks like his regular chair in his cluttered leafy office, Dan Schueftan — or should we call him Dr Dugri — provides a primer on Israel (dugri meaning something like English’s plainspokenness or brass tacks).
Reading up on Schueftan however, despite all the sagacity he seems the intellectual architect of much of the present misery, having advocating for unilateral withdrawals.
In retrospect one might be able to guess that this would be the general thrust of his advice, given his mercurial impatient demeanor; and that he gets the listener’s acquiescence — perhaps in Ariel Sharon’s case against their better judgment — with his many “ok?”s.
Saturday, March 16th, 2024
What a splendid piece by Charles Moore in The Telegraph on Israel.
Britain (with other powers) claims that Israel has been, in international law, the “occupying power” in Gaza even after it left the place in 2005. This is a strange idea, since the definition of occupation is “effective control”, which Israel even now does not have over the whole of Gaza.
If their subscription department was a bit less shady I’d totally resubscribe.
The official rejoinder to Chuck Schumer’s “Lost His Way” speech, given within days of Nathan Glazer’s statement at the Oscars:
We stand here as men who refute their Jewishness and the Holocaust being hijacked by an occupation which has led to conflict for so many innocent people.
comes not from the Israeli government but from the Likud Party, thereby demonstrating the very content of its statement: that Israel is indeed “an independent and proud democracy” complete with political parties proud of their heritage.
Benny Gantz made a commendable statement condemning the speech to which Arutz Sheva commendably dedicated a story. While the Likud’s statement is exquisitely-crafted English, Gantz’s is more Israeli — less catty, more direct: first unabashed fulsome praise, then: “but he made a mistake.” Blunt yet surgical. Lapid meanwhile chose to harness the speech to rail on Netanyahu.
We make such a fuss of all these bloviations even as the situation rages. I like the take by Danny Cohen, a producer on Glazer’s movie, who, as reported by The Hill, said on the Unholy podcast:
My support for Israel is unwavering. Listen, it’s his film. He can stand up there and choose his own words.”
Thursday, March 14th, 2024
The worst news I’ve seen in a while [Hebrew]: The head of a Gaza clan has been assassinated by Hamas for collaborating with Israel. We need to not be fuckups in this crucial endeavor: empowering, enabling and ensuring acceptable alternatives to Hamas is the capstone to victory; all the battlefield victories come to naught without it and we are back to square one alongside some demolished buildings and bereaved locals.
Wednesday, March 13th, 2024
Anti-Israel Jews are not a political but a clinical sub-category.
Edward Luttwak
Howard Jacobson, I didn’t know you had it in you. So there is such a thing as a well-known public intellectual British Jew with at least half a bollock.
Wednesday, March 6th, 2024
Campy? It’s bloody rocket fuel darling. Happy 50th, Queens White and Black.
Thank you, past and likely future Prime Minister Naftali Bennett, in particular for this Twitter post in memoriam for Dennis Yekimov, killed in action in Gaza. That big wide intelligent friendly face, and in the biographical notes:
He would hike dozens of kilometers in streams and in the hills of Jerusalem and the whole country.
Younger, betters versions of myself, that is how I see these heroic guys, who have so much to lose and are willing to lose it, and are doing so in the hundreds.
Monday, February 26th, 2024
My impression is that R2-D2 and C-3PO were the Laurel and Hardy, the comedy relief, with one being the superior intellect and dominant personality, pushing around a more innocent friend.
Mark Hamill
Monday, February 19th, 2024
Forget a 2-state solution: emulate the Emirates! In English, Mordechai Kedar explains a political horizon to Arutz Sheva. Update: In the wake of Bibi’s outline for post-war Gaza announced just a few days later, Kedar seems prescient, so much so that either he has the Cabinet’s ear or was tasked to float the notion.
As Rumsfeld say, if you can’t fix problem, make it bigger. So what we’re going for is not a 2-state nor even a 3-state but an 8+ statelets solution! I wonder if the Biden Administration will grudgingly go along with this. You know what, I’m guessing they will. Viva la chamulot!
Wednesday, February 14th, 2024
Gadi Taub at his best, in Tablet, saying “Sorry, but There Is No Two-State Solution”.
As a sidenote, it’s getting harder to differentiate among the various competent public intellectuals in terms of style these days; this could have been written by any number of people — Seth Mandel for one, who seems to be writing everything in Commentary these days.
Tuesday, February 13th, 2024
Jeremiah Rozman:
I want a homeland, not a 22,000 sq. km. Yad Vashem … Victory will ensure both Israel’s security and its image.
Monday, February 12th, 2024
Jason Fried again, with an insight into Apple’s new Vision Pro that one important value proposition is recording:
What I think is super interesting about the Apple Vision Pro is the potential to be able to literally see through someone else’s eyes. Not just see their field of vision — you can get at that with head or eyeglass mounted cameras — but to actually see where they’re looking. To know what they’re focused on. To lock in with them. To see how they see. To watch them look from their point of view. Standing in someone’s shoes is one thing, but even if you could do that, you’d still be looking through your own eyes. But to literally see as they’d see from someone else’s point-of-view perspective feels groundbreaking. If I was making an app for this, I’d call it “See With”.
Fed Rate Cuts Slipping Away...
ANDROID...
Why lesbians die younger than straight women...
World's billionaires should pay minimum 2% wealth tax, say G20 ministers...
UPDATE: DRUDGE APP IPHONE, IPAD...
'UFO' over NYC baffles passenger flying out of LaGuardia...
'The announcement we've found alien life could be couple years away'...
Germany takes aims at Spain and Greece for not giving Ukraine Patriot missiles...
Russia arrests FORBES reporter over social media posts on Bucha massacre...
Asia's next war could be triggered by rusting warship on disputed reef...
'Europe could die': Macron urges stronger defenses, economic reforms...
As bird flu spreads in cows, fractured response has echoes of early covid...
Celebs head to DC for correspondents' dinner...
Massive blaze burns iconic Oceanside Pier...
Scientists consider Cat 6 for mega-hurricane era...
The Return of Stagflation?
TikTok Ban May Devastate Online Communities
Now Congress Must Defend Democracy at Home by Saving Press
The Democrats' Plan To Steal the Presidency for Good
Only Dictators Have Immunity From Criminal Acts While in Power
Alvin Bragg Wants the 2016 Election on Trial
Elon Musk vs. the Globalist Censors
The Dark Money Network Shaping the Biden Admin
MAGA 2.0
Speaker 'Moses' Johnson Drowns House GOP in Red Sea
For the Sake of Democracy, Celebrate Mike Johnson
Iran's Nightmares
Welcome to Another ‘American Century.' Also: We Suck
Restore Order and Crush Campus Jihadist Thugs
How Columbia's Campus Was Torn Apart Over Gaza
Links for the intellectually curious, ranked by readers.
Aviator (YC S21) is hiring engineers to build a dev productivity platform
What We Train Our Brains For
The Universe as a Computer
Qwen1.5-110B
Pharo 12
Show HN: Mendeleej.com - an Interactive Periodic Table
H5N1 prevalence in milk suggest US bird flu outbreak in cows is widespread
European privacy regulator will stop using its own social media platforms
Radicle is an open source, peer-to-peer code collaboration stack built on Git
OpenVoice: Instant Voice Cloning
A BSD person tries Alpine Linux
It's Been a Year and Georgia.gov Continues to Be Hacked
Multiple Displays on a Mac Sucks
Passkeys: A Shattered Dream
Jeff Lawson buys The Onion
Prepared for the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations
Iran's Appeasers in Washington
The "Better" Civilians of Gaza
The Pro-War Protest Movement
Biden: "The Security of Israel Is Critical. I Will Always Make Sure that Israel Has What It Needs to Defend Itself"
Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine Calls for Escalation of U.S. Student Protests Against Israel
To Be (Visibly) Jewish in the Ivy League
Israel's Defense Minister Voices Support for IDF Unit Slated for U.S. Sanctions
Qatar, a Leading Sponsor of Terrorism, Is Not an Impartial Mediator
Argentina Asks Interpol to Arrest Iran Interior Minister over Jewish Center Bombing
Dutch Security Service: 10 Terror Plots Foiled in Europe in 2023
Hizbullah TV: Northern Gaza Markets Are Full of Food Supplies
Britain's House of Commons Leader: "UK Can Learn Lessons from Israel on How to Mount a Formidable Defense"
Israel Readying to Evacuate Palestinians from Rafah ahead of Planned Offensive
If You Truly Care about Humanity in the Gaza War, Choose the Side of the Jews
White House Demands "Answers" from Israel after Gaza Hospital Mass Grave Claims
Future of Humanity Institute shuts: what’s next for ‘deep future’ research?
Judge dismisses superconductivity physicist’s lawsuit against university
Bird flu in US cows: is the milk supply safe?
NIH pay raise for postdocs and PhD students could have US ripple effect
Algorithm ranks peer reviewers by reputation — but critics warn of bias
‘Shut up and calculate’: how Einstein lost the battle to explain quantum reality
China's Moon atlas is the most detailed ever made
Scientists urged to collect royalties from the ‘magic money tree’
Hello puffins, goodbye belugas: changing Arctic fjord hints at our climate future
Rat neurons repair mouse brains — and restore sense of smell
Air-travel climate-change emissions detailed for nearly 200 nations
NATO is boosting AI and climate research as scientific diplomacy remains on ice
Are robots the solution to the crisis in older-person care?
Garden-variety fungus is an expert at environmental clean-ups
Plastic pollution: three numbers that support a crackdown
Kuwait’s PM will serve as emir’s deputy if emir is abroad - KUNA
Israel pounds Gaza as West Bank violence surges
Iran’s Khamenei praises ‘success’ of military after Israel attack
Israeli PM Netanyahu says he will fight any sanctions on army battalions
Hamas says US military aid to Israel ‘green light’ for Gaza ‘aggression’
Emir of Qatar begins Asia tour with state visit to Philippines
Sudan’s horrific war is being fueled by weapons from foreign supporters of rival generals, UN says
Iran president to visit Pakistan, boost ties: Islamabad
Sultan of Oman to visit UAE on Monday - WAM
Gaza officials, Hamas say 50 bodies exhumed at hospital
A quarterly magazine of urban affairs, published by the Manhattan Institute, edited by Brian C. Anderson.
Baby Blues
Democratic states lead the U.S. birth dearth.San Francisco Conservatives
10 Blocks podcastThe Deep-State Virus
A recent book chronicles how critical theorists captured American intelligence agencies.Inflation’s Last-Mile Problem
Total spending in the economy and nominal wage growth can help us see whether monetary policy is on track.The Pyrrhic Victory of “Gender Identity”
By obscuring the definition of “women,” the Biden administration’s new Title IX rules undermine the very people whom the law was intended to help.“If poetry is worth anything, it is worth getting mad about.” A.O. Scott on the late <strong>Helen Vendler</strong>
Thanks to a recent antitrust trial, we have a clear look at the <strong>business of books</strong>. What it reveals isn’t pretty
Readers crave inspirational stories of women through history becoming kickass revolutionaries. That narrative flattens the <strong>Bluestockings</strong>
<strong>Penelope Fitzgerald</strong>, long expected to produce works of genius, only began writing serious fiction at the age of 62. How come?
Imagine a robot’s version of the <strong>history of the world</strong>: machinic developments, heroic software engineers, new chip architecture
As you navigate the cul-de-sacs of modern coupledom, Laura Kipnis has some advice: <strong>Don’t divorce a memoirist</strong>
“A death by bureaucracy.” Why is the University of Oxford shuttering its <strong>Future of Humanity Institute</strong>?
What makes TikTok’s technology so special, that the app may be banned in the US?
Israel-Gaza war: Palestinian baby girl delivered by caesarean section from dying mother’s womb passes away
Gustav Klimt painting auctioned for US$32 million was the subject of a claim of ownership just before its sale
China eyes food security boost from gene-cloned Asian soybean rust ‘breakthrough’, could save US$2 billion per year
Chinese food-delivery giant Meituan to debut in Saudi Arabia’s capital Riyadh as international expansion quickens
Israel prepares forces as conflict with Hezbollah in Lebanon intensifies
Ukraine pulls Abrams tanks from front after losing 5 to Russian attacks: US officials
Haiti crisis: transitional government takes power as gangs hold capital ‘hostage’
EU to tell Beijing of plan to blacklist more Chinese businesses for breaching Russia sanctions
Taiwan to tear down Chiang Kai-shek statues, Hong Kong’s sushi packaging guessing game: SCMP’s 7 highlights of the week
Brain candy for Happy Mutants
Truth Social's inflated $5 Billion valuation will leave MAGA minion investors broke, says finance expert
Taliban announces it will start stoning women to death in public
Deadly AM radio tower experiment: hot dog speaks on contact
Trump spokesperson proudly wears T-shirt with loud, "blonde" neo-Nazi message
Calling all students! You can snag this student-friendly HP Chromebook for less than $70
EV owners are shocked that tires wear out
NY Times continues forgiving Justice Thomas
Discover the explosive overlooked art of fireworks packaging
Georgia GOP official who cried "stolen election" voted illegally 9 times, and is a felony check forgery convict
Elon's most recent "significant" changes to "X" are not significant
"The short skirt that you chose to wear encourages fantasy" — 75-year-old professor's sick email to honors presentation student
Marjorie Taylor Greene confuses Biden with Obama, and it's more than just delusional — as in racist (video)
Cosplaying cowpoke Lauren Boebert failing out of her new district
Sam Bankman-Fried imprisoned for 25 years and ordered to pay $11.2bn
Post correction and retraction
Hassan Sayed, banned from Princeton?
The work culture that is German, something about France too
Trade reform and economic growth
What should I ask Paul Bloom?
Thursday assorted links
The Prisoner’s Dilemma of Non-Competes
The Norwegian ban on smart phones in middle schools
Why do I prefer current airport procedures?
It’s happening, Reid Hoffman AI twin edition, wwrgs?
Wednesday assorted links
Imagine recording and storing everything you read
What can LLMs never do?
What is the proper policy toward tourists?
More Tuesday links
Rumors and news on everything Apple since 1997
iPad Air screens, Spotify complaints, and a TikTok ban on the AppleInsider Podcast
Following a great launch quarter, China iPhone sales are pretty bad so far in 2024
Peloton producer says Apple Watch saved her life
The Worst of WWDC - Apple's biggest missteps on the way to success
How to Use Apple Managed Device Attestation to secure networks
Arizona TSMC facility continues to fight cultural battles, rising costs & logistical hurdles
If you're seeing canceled Apple iPhone trade-in notifications today, you're not alone
iPhone 18 will probably get TSMC's newly announced next-generation 1.8nm chip process
Apple Card promotion offers users 10% cash back on Nike purchases
FCC votes to restore net neutrality protections in the United States
Spotify is still complaining about Apple's EU App Store rules
Patrick Wardle teams up with ex-Apple researcher to boost Mac security for all
Opinions on corporate and brand identity work.
Announced: Brand New will Shift to Subscription Model
Spotted: New Logo for Blue Islands
Linked: Louis Vuitton Architecture
Noted: New Name and Logo for St. Louis City SC
Reviewed: Friday Likes 339: From Studio MPLS, Wade and Leta, and Unifikat Design Studio
Spotted: New Logo and Identity for Vitkus Clinic by Tandemo
Spotted: New Logo and Identity for Netgen by IDnaGroup
Linked: Biden &Harris &Decimal
Noted: New Logo and Identity for Correos de México by Carl Forsell
Reviewed: New Logo and Identity for BERA by How & How
Spotted: New Logo for Playtika
Spotted: New Logo and Identity for The 19th by Page 33 Studio
Linked: Objects may be Closer than they Ap-pear
Noted: New Logo and Identity for Zappos Adaptive by Eric&Todd
Reviewed: New Logo and Identity for Lot61 by Smörgåsbord
Biting the hand that feeds IT
UK's Investigatory Powers Bill to become law despite tech world opposition
45 Drives adds Linux-powered mini PCs, workstations to growing compute lineup
IBM and LzLabs to clash in UK court over Software Defined Mainframe
UK agriculture department slammed for paper pushing despite tech splurges
Help! My mouse climbed a wall and now it doesn't work right
VMware’s end-user compute community told to brace for ‘Omnissa’ shift
Flaws in Chinese keyboard apps leave 750 million users open to snooping, researchers claim
Atlassian loses half its CEOs, but customers stay solid after Server products exit support
Intel excited by PC sales pop and GPU prospects, but investors aren’t because the outlook is poor
What's up with Alphabet and Microsoft lately? Profits, sales – and AI costs
Amazon to blow $11B on cluster of Indiana bit barns
Cops cuff man for allegedly framing colleague with AI-generated hate speech clip
experiments in refactored perception
The Dark Forest Anthology of the Internet
My essay The Extended Internet Universe, where I coined the term “cozyweb” (probably in my top 5 most successful memes) is featured in this cute little collectible book, The Dark Forest Anthology of the Internet put together by Yancey Strickler (whom you may have heard of as the cofounder of Kickstarter). Yancey’s essay, The Dark Forest […]Stack Map of the World
I’ve been buried neck deep in work stuff this week, but I did find time to make this stack diagram of the world, inspired by the xkcd Dependency cartoon. Randall Munroe draws better than me, but in my favor, I use more colors. Did you know most of the high-purity quartz needed for the semiconductor […]Istanbul: A Tale of Three Cities by Bettany Hughes
I started reading Istanbul: A Tale of Three Cities by Bettany Hughes while I was in Istanbul last November and finally finished it last week. It’s a really solid and absorbing book, and far too dense and rich with detail to zip through, which is why I read it a dozen or so pages a […]