Josh

word association graph game thing?

desh — Sun, 06 Apr 2014 22:12:43 GMT

Hey...does anyone remember that word graph association game thing that was popular on LJ a few years ago? The one where there was a growing graph of words/phrases/names, each connected to other words/phrases/names they were somehow associated with, either by being members of the same category (e.g. poker players) or in some other way. The words weren't initially visible, and the object was to try to traverse the entire grid, which spanned something like 5x5 screens, by guessing the words. I'm trying to find it and (ironically, perhaps) having trouble thinking of the right words to Google it with...

EDIT: I found it! http://shygypsy.com/farm/p.cgi

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convergence

desh — Tue, 12 Feb 2013 21:20:53 GMT

I feel like my hobby these days, and how I spend my free time, is convergence. Everything I want to do is of the form "Make X work on/in Y" or "Get information about X via my Y". I've been interested in this for a few years, ever since I got my Ambient Orb to tell me about Phillies scores on Shabbat.

* Get information about [the Center City eruv] via [Twitter, and therefore, via text message]
* Make [the multi-synagogue Shavuot program I went to in DC last year] work in [Philadelphia]
* Get information about [the time of day the way the rabbis of olden times calculated it] via my [future Pebble wristwatch]
* Make [my Wii remote] work on [my new Kindle Fire tablet]
* Make [NES games] work on [my tablet]

And none of this even mentions my Raspberry Pi, which is great at this sort of thing, and which I haven't even really started playing with.

Oh, and I guess my other hobbies these days are playing / learning to play bridge, and planning for my upcoming spring training & cruise trip in March. Those aren't about convergence.

And all of this explains why I feel so busy lately even though I "don't have that much going on". Huh! There you go, then.

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Workflow

desh — Mon, 11 Feb 2013 15:40:00 GMT

Today's XKCD reminds me of my time as a LiveJournal volunteer.

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Accuweather accuracy

desh — Tue, 11 Dec 2012 13:34:49 GMT

So a few months ago I decided to start a Wordpress blog on which to post occasional things that aren't really about me personally and that I'd be happy to have reach a wider audience. And yesterday I posted something fun: the first data I've gotten from my research into whether Accuweather's 25-day forecasts are at all accurate. Have a look, if you like.

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OCD

desh — Tue, 04 Dec 2012 17:26:16 GMT

When I was a kid, it used to really bother me if I (or even other people) did certain things in one direction without later "reversing" it. For example, if there was a room with two entrances, such that I could leave the room by one entrance and come back in through the other, I'd then want to go back and cycle around the other way to make it even. If I did that 3 or 4 times in the same direction, I might want to "undo" it 3 or 4 times.

It annoyed me that I did this, and I tried to break myself of it. One thing I tried was to take note of a particular TV commercial that I saw a LOT at the time. In part of it, a kid spins around clockwise in a chair, maybe once or maybe a few times. Of course, he never goes back and spins counterclockwise. So I tried to watch the commercial as much as I could, and convince myself that the kid was just never going to "even things out". It bothered me at first, but in the end, I think it helped.

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exerpt from a great conversation I'm having right now

desh — Fri, 02 Nov 2012 04:02:05 GMT

("Great" because it involves me talking about myself a lot, natch.)

"So I guess the theme to my questioning these days is, how compelling/important/required does Judaism (in the form of Shabbat practice, or anything else really) seem to me in the presence of strong community? Weak community? Community that I have to work really hard to create? No community?"

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x-post from a Facebook comment

desh — Tue, 10 Jul 2012 18:21:52 GMT

I am embarrassed to admit that I subconsciously know which parts of my 6-block walking commute have trees with low branches overhanging the sidewalk. I find myself cringing when I get near them, head buried in my phone reading some interesting blog post, because I've probably run into all of them before.

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Maybe call me?

desh — Thu, 05 Jul 2012 15:11:31 GMT

Bringing this over here from Facebook. Your challenge: Create the best possible poem or very short story, using only words found in the lyrics of the song "Call Me Maybe". synecdochic and others might enjoy the challenge!

Word list: a all and as ask at baby bad before beg blowin' borrow boys but call came chase crazy didn't dimes don't fall feel fell for foresight gave going hard have here's hey holdin' hot I I'd I'll in into is it it's jeans just kiss know life look looked looking maybe me met missed my never night no nothing now number other pennies real right ripped should showin' skin so soul stare steal still tell that the think this threw time to took trade try was wasn't way well where wind wish with would you you're your

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Parx report

desh — Wed, 04 Jul 2012 03:19:04 GMT

Up $10 on the living social deal ($20 cash -> $30 in slot dollars), even on slots, down $30 on Pai Gow Tiles, up $85 on Craps, net up $65. And I'm in line for free food. I'll take that any day!

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horizontal Shabbat elevator

desh — Wed, 27 Jun 2012 16:27:54 GMT

Another post in the series of exploring the less logical sides (at least as viewed by an outsider) of my Jewish practice:

So I don't usually travel on Shabbat, from Friday sundown to Saturday after dark. This is one of many Shabbat restrictions I observe. But it's not really just one restriction. There are a handful of more fundamental Shabbat restrictions that lead to reasons why one might not travel:

One may not kindle or extinguish a fire on Shabbat, which is perhaps part of what you're doing if you're operating a vehicle.
Even if you question the "fire" one as it applies to vehicles, operating a vehicle certainly involves manipulating current electricity, which is something else people (including me) avoid, even if its connection to pre-modern restrictions is tenuous. Does your car have spark plugs?
If someone else is driving you, they are probably doing some of the above things specifically for your benefit, which can be seen as comparable to doing them yourself. (Are they dropping you off somewhere other than where they're getting out? Do they idle the car longer for you to get in? And so on.)
If you are taking public transportation, you are typically engaging in a commercial transaction, exchanging money for a ticket and/or exchanging a ticket for access to a vehicle. In addition to the above problems. (Does the bus driver make a stop for you? Do you have to swipe your subway pass through an electric reader?)
Outside an eruv, one may not carry on Shabbat. Do you have keys with you? A bus ticket? Your bike? (Yes, riding a bike may be considered carrying; it tends to be defined a bit more broadly in this ritual context than in the common English usage of the word.)
There is the issue of "t'chum", that one may simply not travel beyond a certain distance on Shabbat. I think the limit is about 2 kilometers, or if you're in a city, then 2 kilometers beyond the edge of the city.

In addition to the negative ("don't do X") commandment to not work on Shabbat, there's also a positive ("do X") commandment to create a holy and restful atmosphere on Shabbat. Sitting in traffic to get to something on time probably does not qualify.

OK. So normally I don't travel on Shabbat, for all of the above reasons. But this Saturday afternoon, I have a wedding to attend in Wilmington. I tried and failed to find a reasonable and inexpensive place to stay nearby, and doing so would anyway possibly have meant spending the first 20 or so hours of Shabbat alone and bored. (Not exactly a holy atmosphere.) So attending the wedding means traveling.

And I think I figured out how. I'm taking a train there. Why is this OK with me? Well, with the caveat that this justification might not work for all Jews who observe similar Shabbat restrictions, here's my thought process:

I'm not driving, so there's no kindling anything for me.
For the same reason, no electricity either.
The way commuter trains operate, they don't do anything different for an extra passenger. They're still making the same stops, for the same length of time, whether I'm on there or not. So I'm not causing any train worker to do the above things for my benefit.
Before Shabbat, I am buying a monthly train pass from a friend. When using the pass, no value is deducted from the pass when one takes a train, so there is no real transaction happening. The pass is simply permission to enter the train. In addition, in Philadelphia, commuter rail passes are not swiped or scanned. One simply shows one's pass to a conductor, who then continues down the train without stopping to write you a receipt or anything.
I will enter the train inside an eruv, so carrying is not an issue at that point. When I exit the train, I'll just leave the pass there! (Good thing the wedding is June 30th; no one will have much use for a June monthly pass at that point.) I won't need to carry anything else (I can wear my keys), so I'm good on that count.
As far as t'chum goes, I'm fine with considering Wilmington part of the same city as Philadelphia. The U.S. Census Bureau does.

And as far as the Shabbat atmosphere goes, I think I'm good on that count too. I'm doing my usual Shabbat things with my usual community for most of Shabbat, before I go and get on a train Saturday mid-afternoon. One might argue that attending a wedding is not conducive to a Shabbat atmosphere, but that's a separate question. (I would be going anyway, even if I didn't travel; I'd just try harder to find somewhere to stay within walking distance.)

Anyway, a train is really a perfect solution to the traveling problem. I have heard it referred to as a "horizontal Shabbat elevator". Some buildings such as hotels operate a "Shabbat elevator" for observant Jewish guests. Such an elevator runs continuously and stops on every floor, enabling guests to ride it without operating electricity themselves. A commuter train is the same thing, just horizontally and over a greater distance.

And congrats to Jeff and Sarah!

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Shabbats this summer

desh — Mon, 11 Jun 2012 15:22:15 GMT

Because I'm crazy:

5/25: Silver Spring, MD (and for Shavuot too)
6/1: Philly (Minyan Tikvah, and a wedding Sunday!)
6/8: Boston (and a wedding Sunday!)
6/15: Philly (no plans yet)
6/22: Philly (and possibly New York on Saturday night to Sunday)
6/29: Wilmington, DE (and a wedding Saturday night!)
7/6: Philly (no plans yet)
7/13: Brooklyn
7/20: DC
7/27: Philly (no plans yet)
8/3: Philly (Minyan Tikvah)
8/10: Rindge, NH
8/17: Schwenksville, PA

Yes, that's 13 straight weeks where I might be home for Shabbat less than half the time. We'll see how nuts I actually am...

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Rituals and signs of the approaching summer

desh — Thu, 24 May 2012 02:35:28 GMT

Opening day
The first time I wear shorts out of the house
When they fill Rittenhouse Square's fountain with water
When I find out who's playing at Folk Fest
When my Folk Fest volunteer committee asks me if I'm working this summer
My first raspberry
My first blueberry
When I put my winter comforter away
The NHL playoffs
Finishing all the season finales
When both of the above are done, and all that's left to watch is baseball
When Friday night services end and it's still light out
When the 7-day forecast doesn't show any highs below 70 (21°C)
The first time you can find parking in Center City on a Friday afternoon, because everyone's left for the beach
When people walking outside start wearing brighter colors
When you can see the arms and legs of the people walking outside

Seriously love this time of year.

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TV

desh — Thu, 10 May 2012 22:17:12 GMT

In honor of Parenthood's renewal, my current TV watching:

Current shows, in approximate order of how much I like them
1. Parenthood
2. Sherlock
3. Arrested Development (yes, it counts as current, dammit)
4. NCIS (yeah, yeah)
5. Girls
6. House (got back in it to see the last half-season)
7. Suburgatory
8. New Girl
9. Modern Family (would be higher if Cam weren't so annoying this season)
10. Glee
11. Law & Order: SVU
Honorable mentions (shows I'm kind of halfheartedly following a bit): Happy Endings, Don't Trust the B---- in Apt 23, Best Friends Forever

Past shows, actively watching or between seasons
1. The Wire
2. Srugim
3. In Treatment

Past or present shows I might watch back seasons of at some point
1. Parenthood
2. Sports Night
3. Friday Night Lights
4. Freaks and Geeks (seriously still haven't seen it)

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desh — Fri, 04 May 2012 13:42:57 GMT

I DECLARE TODAY CAPSLOCK FRIDAY.

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desh — Mon, 16 Apr 2012 14:48:38 GMT

http://xkcd.com/1043/ is sad to me. Why couldn't LJ or DW have taken off like Tumblr? Is it just because it's harder to post cat macros and other dumb photo-based memes on LJ/DW? I bet it is.

Once again, sad that there's nowhere on the internet where more than a handful of my friends posts and reads long-form personal posts. There used to be, and it was awesome.

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desh — Sun, 18 Mar 2012 23:06:07 GMT

Not feeling well. Put on sweatpants and walked outside to head to Walgreen's to get some random antihistamines to try. Ran into someone I know, who I haven't seen in awhile. Found myself walking with him for a block. Explained that I wasn't feeling well and was headed to Walgreen's, as a way to excuse my attire.

Excuse my attire? When it's sweatpants? What has happened to me?!?!?!

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BZ was right

desh — Wed, 07 Mar 2012 03:51:46 GMT

Yes, BZ was right. At least about me. With this post, I am announcing my decision to become a "1-day yom tov (1DYT) Jew", rather than the "2-day yom tov (2DYT) Jew" I've been (with some exceptions) up until now. This is effective immediately and indefinitely. This is a decision I am not taking lightly at all, and I'd like to write a bit about the background of the problem and my thought processes leading up to this decision.

***

A brief aside -- why am I deciding now? There is in some sense a "halo" of a month preceding many Jewish holidays. (For one example, the entire month of Elul, the last month of the year, is an introspective lead-up to Rosh Hashanah, the first day of the new year. For another example, many people have the custom to not eat any matzah after Purim, a holiday that falls a month before Passover, so that the matzah one is commanded to eat on the first night of Passover is a new taste that you're not used to.) I was thinking about switching to 1DYT during the holidays this fall, but didn't let myself reach a conclusion on the issue until the 23rd of Cheshvan, a month after the holidays ended. I've been turning the issue over in my head since then, making sure I'm comfortable with it, and I want to "lock in" my decision before Purim, which is this week. I think it's important to make decisions like this without too much input from the exhaustion and emotions one experiences during a holiday and anticipates beforehand. I need to make this decision with a cool and objective eye to my Jewish practice and the principles that underly it, and the only good way to do so is to decide when there are no holidays nearby.

***

So, if you're new to this topic, what am I talking about? There are 6 (depending on how you count) "major" Jewish holidays, ones mentioned in the torah and on which some forms of work are prohibited for some or all of the holiday (or "yom tov"). Those are Rosh Hashanah (1st of Tishrei, the September/October month), Yom Kippur (10th of Tishrei), the first day of Sukkot (15th-21st of Tishrei), Shemini Atzeret (22nd of Tishrei, right as Sukkot ends), the first and last days of Pesach/Passover (15th-21st of Nisan, the March/April month), and Shavuot (6th of Sivan, the May/June month, but yet not really the 6th of Sivan; see below).

For various reasons, Rosh Hashanah is handled differently than the other holidays on the list, and is observed for 2 days by most of the Jewish world. And Yom Kippur, with its fasting component, is observed by all of the Jewish world as 1 day, because it would be unsafe to fast from food and water for longer. But the other 5 days are observed for one day by parts of the Jewish world (mostly Reform Jews and Israelis), and are extended to a 2nd day by other parts of the Jewish world (mostly non-Reform Jews outside Israel). This means, for example, that even though Passover is a 7-day holiday with 2 "major" days according to the torah, most Passover-observant Jews in the US who make the "major" vs. "minor" (not-working vs. working, or yom tov vs. regular holiday) distinction will observe it for 8 days, with the 1st, 2nd, 7th, and 8th days as major holidays. Even Jews who don't make that distinction will still tend to have seders on the 1st two nights, rather than just the 1st. (But not in Israel!) And similarly, Sukkot plus Shemini Atzeret is either 8/2 days (total/major) or 9/4. And Shavuot is either 2 days of not working, or just 1.

Why add a day? Well, to understand that, you have to go back to the original definition of months, or really the calendar as a whole, in Judaism. Months start on a new moon; the lunar cycle is about 29.5 days. So months are either 29 or 30 days long. Now we have a fixed calendar, with each month either 29 days or 30 according to various predetermined rules. But back in the days of a unified Jewish people, the sanhedrin, the central religious court, would declare a new month after hearing testimony from people who actually witnessed the new moon, which could theoretically happen on either of two days. (The sanhedrin was actually really good at astronomy, and knew the "right" answer, but still relied on the witnesses.) Only after the sanhedrin declared a new month could you know when to observe any holidays in that month! So to facilitate that, after the month was declared, they would send out messengers far and wide to tell people that the month began on so-and-so day.

The messengers, of course, could only travel so far so fast. Two months, Tishrei and Nisan, were particularly key so people knew which day to start observing Sukkot and Pesach. (Still not talking about Shavuot just yet.) So how far could messengers actually get from the 1st of the month to the 15th? It was decided that they could usually only get as far as the edge of Israel. Anyone living further from Jerusalem than that could not count on the messengers arriving in time, and so would have to hedge their bets and observe both possible days of the holidays. So ever since then, Israelis have done 1DYT, and most non-Israelis have done 2DYT. (Here and elsewhere, for simplicity of language only, I'm ignoring those Jews who are totally secular and, for some or all of these holidays, don't observe at all. I'm only talking about Jews who choose to participate in the "conversation of Jewish law", as a teacher of mine might put it.)

***

Much of what I wrote above, I originally learned when studying Hilchot Kiddush Hachodesh, a section of Maimonides' Mishneh Torah (a key Jewish law code), with a college friend about 7 years ago. The first half of Kiddush Hachodesh goes into all of the details of how this stuff worked with messengers, testimony, and other sanhedrin stuff. (Additional similar topics like adding an extra month on leap years were also discussed.) In learning about this, I came to the realization that Shavuot is quite different than the other holidays under discussion. Shavuot, rather than having a fixed date, is observed after counting 49 days from the start of Pesach. That means that even though it falls in Sivan, the relevant month for determining the correct day of Shavuot is not Sivan but Nisan! And messengers could easily get everywhere relevant in two months! Maimonidies admits this, stating that 2DYT Jews should observe 2 days of Shavuot only in order to not make a distinction between the holidays (chapter 3 halacha 12). I found that reasoning less than compelling, and decided that year to only keep one day of Shavuot from then on. Since 2005, I have not been a 1DYT or 2DYT Jew, but rather the only 1.8DYT Jew I know. This learning and this decision both set the groundwork for my latest decision.

In retrospect, my Shavuot decision sidestepped an important stage of the reasoning necessary to make a decision like this. So maybe there was never a good reason to observe two days of Shavuot. There was never a good reason to avoid eating pork, either. Not all Jewish law comes from logical reasons, and in fact there are technical terms in Jewish law to distinguish a chok (plural chukim), a law with no logical basis, from a mishpat, a law with a logical basis. I do not regularly throw away chukim as part of my Jewish practice (though I cast no judgment on those who do). So why should I not just treat the 2nd day of Shavuot as a chok, as something I have to observe as much as the 1st?

I think in the end, this reasoning doesn't work for me. I think I need my chukim to have more textual basis than 2DYT. One could consider the observance of Shavuot at all as a chok in non-agricultural societies who don't have a harvest then. But the torah says Shavuot is one day long. There is an unbroken tradition of Jews observing Shavuot for only one day for as long as Shavuot has existed. This is all also true for the other holidays in question. And there is evidence that where one comes down on this issue depends on where your parents come down on this issue. To me, that places this decision in the category of "minhag", a word often translated as "custom" but which has more legal force than a mere custom. Minhagim can absolutely be binding. But they can affect different Jews in different ways depending on what their family tradition is, and there's no universal right answer.

It's worth pointing out here that I don't have a family tradition when it comes to most areas of Jewish law. Neither of my parents relate to Judaism at all the way I do. Though I recognize it's important to incorporate my family history into my Jewish life, I'm still striking out on my own with these decisions.

***

OK, so that's where I've been for awhile. There are 1DYT people, and they're following a legitimate minhag. I adopted their minhag when it comes to Shavuot, but I still accepted the reasoning, the nod to history and messengers, when it comes to 2DYT for the other non-Shavuot holidays. So what changed?

I think the first thing to actually get me thinking about changing my stance was considering the role Israel plays in the 1DYT/2DYT distinction. Without delving too deeply into politics, I can at least say that it's long been clear to me that I feel fully actualized as an observant Diaspora Jew. While Israel happens to be the source of a lot of great Jewish learning and music and culture that indirectly ends up having many positive effects on my life, it's not home to me. Some people frame 2DYT as a "punishment" for living in the Diaspora, which seems so problematic to me that it throws into question the entire 2DYT enterprise. After all, the whole original point of 2DYT was based on physical distance from the geographic center of Judaism, back when there was such a thing. I strongly feel that my Judaism, that the modern Judaism I practice, doesn't have a geographic center.

Until recently, this piece was nothing more than an interesting side note to the discussion for me. But over the past year or so, for reasons that would take an entirely separate long post to fully discuss, I have grown more willing to let my gut take a driving role in my decisions about Jewish law. If something in Judaism feels wrong to me, or lacks meaning, or even if I just can't relate to it, then I'm willing to revisit my understanding of the law to see if I can bring it in line with my other principles. (Though I have virtually no relationship to Reform Judaism, my understanding is that this is the kind of individualistic informed and critical approach to Jewish law is very much a tenet of that movement's philosophy. Whether or not that plays out in Reform synagogues.)

So, I turned to modern sources. BZ has blogged many, many words on the issue of 1DYT, but the most valuable posts might be the three posts analyzing denominational approaches and legal rulings (teshuvot) on the issue. The latter post analyzes the Conservative approach. Though I do not consider myself a Conservative Jew, I was raised as such, and find much of the movement closer to my Jewish practice than any other organized body or philosophy. So I started there.

What I found was a little disappointing. On the one hand, I found that if I was looking for some sort of permission, some acknowledgment that 1DYT is an acceptable Conservative practice, I could find it (albeit directed to a mara d'atra, a legal decisor for a local community, rather than to an individual). Rabbis Philip Sigal and Abraham J. Ehrlich ruled in 1969 that 1DYT is OK. On the other hand, they did it with the lack of conviction and deference toward other more "authentic-seeming" movements that seems typical of the Conservative movement. They conclude by treating 1DYT as something of a concession, rather than something like an affirmation of a literal and contextual reading of the torah, or of a proud assertion of decentralized authority in Judaism, or anything along those lines. And of course, there are dissenting views too. In the end, nothing here really spoke to me.

Rather, the point that most spoke to me was from a Reform teshuvah. (Perhaps this shouldn't have been surprising.) This 1999 teshuvah declares: "For when we declare a second day of yom tov, we are not simply making a statement of identity, planning a creative worship experience, or arranging an experiment in spirituality. We are declaring a festival. When we say that a day is a yom tov, we mark it as holy; we transform it from ordinary time into sacred time; we make kodesh out of chol. We arrogate to ourselves the power of the ancient Sanhedrin to announce to the Jewish world--indeed, even to God--that such-and-such a date shall be a festival. And when we declare a yom tov sheni, that is, a festival day on a date that according to the Torah is not a festival at all, we create an actual festival day with all its relevant duties and restrictions." The torah declares that on 6 days we must work. Only the days set aside by the torah as special are exceptions to that. Making extra days into holidays is a big deal. It's not an exercise in piety, and it's not just a way to err on the side of being strict and be done with the issue. It's a real question, an important question, a question that deserves the right answer, and it was less clear to me than ever what that answer is.

Unfortunately, after years of thinking and reading about this question, the final tipping point in my decision was a bit anticlimactic. This past tishrei, which like always had 7 days of yom tov in about 3 weeks, was a more difficult and exhausting stretch for me than ever. Coming as it did less than two months after I finished an intensive 8-week yeshiva program this summer, a program that prompts participants to rethink the role Judaism plays in their lives, I found myself uncomfortably angry with Judaism. Simchat Torah, the raucous and upbeat celebration that brings the holiday season to an end, was more of a relief than a joy. I resented Judaism more than ever, and had to change something for my Jewish life to be sustainable. Given my newfound willingness to let my external principles affect my Jewish choices, given the extent to which I was already on the fence on the 1DYT issue from a strictly legal and traditional standpoint, and given my anger and frustration, the answer seemed clear. Not wanting to make a decision out of anger and frustration, I sat on the idea for a month, and now for almost 4 more months. The emotions subsided, but the reasoning and the decision didn't.

In the end, the only aspect of this that I'm uncomfortable with is the lack of primary sources. Aside from Hilchot Kiddush Hachodesh, which I first read a number of years ago and have only skimmed since, I looked at very few key pre-modern sources in making my decision. Unfortunately, I don't have the skills or language to do work like that on my own. I do have the skills to do it with help, though, and so I hope that I will continue to research and revisit my decision over time. I still have a lot to learn, and I look forward to the learning. But learning is always at least somewhat disconnected with practice, and at least for now, I know what my practice is. And I'm comfortable with and proud of my practice.

And I'm confident in my status as an authentic, independent, actualized participant in the living conversation of Jewish law, practice, and life.

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February of awesomeness?

desh — Mon, 05 Mar 2012 03:26:54 GMT

So I've had a freaking blast the past month or so. I'm still not that good at February or March, but the combination of the mild winter and keeping super-busy has apparently kept my mind off of the late-winter doldrums at least to some extent.

This weekend, for example! Friday night I was invited to IFE & AE's for dinner. That was awesome, because we've become rather good friends in the 7 months since I've met them, but for various reasons they hadn't had people (that I know of) over for a Shabbat meal yet. They have an amazing house, and make chicken with Terra chips. When a friendship is based around Shabbat meals, there's a certain extent to which it doesn't seem real enough until you've each been over the other's place, and I'm glad we've reached that point. Then, on Saturday, rather than just relaxing like I'd planned, RC had me over for a last-minute cholent lunch. I had meat twice this Shabbat, which I haven't done in as long as I can remember. Seriously, it might be 5 years since the last time.

Post-Shabbat, I decided to bail on a pre-Purim party because I had a big day today. And today! I went on a "Hidden Philadelphia" hike through tunnels and bridges in Center City that I didn't know existed! It was amazing! DS leads hikes every so often, and I've never been before, but I'm so glad I went. Actually getting out and doing something physical for once, triggering my latent sense of adventure, exploring my beloved city, and being social in a way I'm not usually. (Aside from when I go to retreats and conferences, most of my socialization happens with people I already know, at meals or services or smaller parties or whatever. I never go to bars or big parties, and rarely go to events I'm not running. Meeting new people! Outside my comfort zone! And liking it! What the hell!)

Afterwards, went to a Princess Bride viewing party (still one of the best movies ever). And then left when the movie was over to visit another friend and help teach her how to lead services (even though she basically already knew). Even that was fun and a bit of an ego boost -- apparently there's this skill that I not only have, but have strongly enough to teach it to someone else in a strong and coherent way! It felt amazing.

So now I'm home and exhausted, but wanted to take some time to write up about my weekend and the past month before it fades into the background.

February 3rd-5th I went to the Yeshivat Hadar reunion retreat. It was great to see a few friends from the summer! But I mainly hung out with friends I know from other contexts and who happened to also go to Hadar in previous years. It hit me just how many people I know, and the extent to which JITW played a role in all of the social networking I've done in the Jewish world over the years. Also, EmFish and I had a really important conversation, in which I basically cornered her (after months of warning) and asked her a bunch of theological questions I had that had been on my mind for awhile, and which I knew she was uniquely the right person to answer. It helped a lot with some religious issues I'd been having. Thanks!

During the next week I met the father of some friends of mine, who is now living in Philly part time. Glad to give him a little bit of an anchor here outside of work, when he doesn't really know non-Penn people at all. And then the next weekend was the start of BAM's week-long visit with me. Shabbat was nice, with a small Heymish and then Tikvah home-hosted lunches. And then on Sunday the 12th, BAM and I spent the entire day (for long stretches of which were joined by some other friends) at the US 2012 Curling Nationals! It was amazing; the culmination of my journey from an ironic curling fan to a casual curling fan to a real curling fan. So much fun in person! Not the least of which was because I developed a crush on Emilia Juocys.

BAM hung out here for the next week, including a Mates of State concert on Thursday, until the weekend of the 17th-19th, when we went to the NHC Chesapeake Retreat! Annually the highlight of my February/March, it was even better this time because a good dozen or so Philadelphians came, and it finally really felt like a critical mass of my home community was merging with my NHC one. It was also great, of course, to see non-Philly NHC friends. Staying up until 2:15am Saturday night singing and jamming and partying was unbelievably fun; I never want to do anything like that anywhere else, but 'peake is exactly my kind of party atmosphere. And then Sunday was about 40 people at the traditional kosher-meat Chinese lunch the day after.

Last weekend, the 24th-26th, was when outcastspice randomly visited! How amazing was that! And I had an awesome Shabbat dinner of 8 total people, for which I did all the cooking (with a little help from Spice), which I should remind myself is a hard thing to do, even if I still struggle with the cooking a bit. And then Saturday was Minyan Tikvah. It was, I think, the best Tikvah services ever. Really strong davening and singing along. And a good crowd for lunch after, to boot. And then Saturday night was the Heartless Bastards concert that I was more excited about than any concert in at least a year or two. It was great, even if it didn't quite live up to my expectations.

Concerts: 3 (Mates of State, The Wild Bohemians (a local Fat Tuesday supergroup), and Heartless Bastards)
Overnight guests: 3
Parties/meals at my apartment: 2 (monthly-ish game night too!)
Times eating meat: 4 (WTF? That's so much!)
Spectator sporting events better than the super bowl: 1
Times seeing out-of-town friends: Over and over...

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Password management: KeePass

desh — Mon, 30 Jan 2012 15:43:30 GMT

I asked on Facebook last week about password management tools, and have been playing around with one ever since: KeePass ( http://keepass.info ). I rather like it, and I figured I would share what I found.

KeePass version 2 (not to be confused with KeePassX) runs on Windows (via .NET), Linux (via mono), and OSX (also via mono), and it has some community-contributed versions for mobile devices. I've tried it so far on Win XP, Linux Mint, and KeePassDroid for Android 2.3.

First of all, it's fully free and open source. The "free" part, in terms of not having to pay money, is nice. But the "open source" part I think is vital for a security program like this. The source code can be and has been fully vetted by programmers, so we know there are no secret backdoors, security holes, or anything along those lines. (Of course no software is fully secure, but open source software has the best chance to be free from already-known problems, and has the best chance to quickly fix problems discovered in the future.) Given that I am creating a database to store all of my passwords in one place, a "single point of failure" if you will, I would not trust anything less than fully open software.

Now, with that out of the way, here's what it can do:

* Store an arbitrary number of passwords. With each password, you can store a username, URL, tags, notes, and so on. You can file passwords into folders within the database if you like. The passwords can be your existing ones, or...

* You can create passwords with it. You can set rules to match the rules of a given site (min/max characters, optionally allow or disallow capital letters, numbers, symbols, etc) and just click a generate button. There's also a neat feature called "generate additional entropy", which assures you a "more random" password, but really it's just fun to wiggle your mouse around for 15 seconds because a program tells you to. By default it hides passwords, but you can always show them. You can also one-click copy a password. But the coolest way to actually use the passwords is...

* Global auto-type. When you're logged into your KeePass database, you can press ctrl-alt-A (or whatever key combination you set) when you get to a login screen for a website. It will detect which website it is, and automatically fill in your username and password for you. It can take a small amount of trial and error to get set up for a given website, which I find easy but which you may not want to do. In that case, you can still use the regular copying feature.

* The database is stored in a single file. I keep it in my Dropbox folder, so it's automatically synced across my work and home computers and half-automatically to my phone. You can unlock the database with a single global password (and for the love of all that is holy please make this your most random, most secure password ever), or you can set a "key file", a random other file on your system that you have to choose instead of a password (and for the love of all that is holy please don't ever edit or delete the key file). I wish you could also use securID or something like that for further authentication, but it is what it is.

And that's all! I think it meets all of my needs, and I'm gradually shifting over to using it for most of my websites. I recommend you try it if you're looking for something like this! And even if you're not looking, how much longer will it be until the next time you get one of those "we've been hacked" emails from Zappos, Dreamhost, your bank, or someone else?

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desh — Sun, 01 Jan 2012 07:07:24 GMT

Pearl Jam – Breath
Counting Crows – A Long December
Gandalf Murphy and the Slambovian Circus of Dreams – Alice in Space

.עד כאן 2011

To 2012 — may it not suck.

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desh — Wed, 21 Dec 2011 15:21:30 GMT

Man, I remember back in the day when shitty LJ redesigns actually affected my life, actually bothered me enough to matter.

Good times.

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Recently I've been worrying about:

desh — Wed, 14 Dec 2011 15:34:44 GMT

1. The government's unwillingness to actually do what economists tell them they need to do to fix our broken country and to take care of people who need help

2. The fact that the Senate is too dysfunctional to do anything at all

3. The possibility that the Republicans might actually nominate someone electable (and all non-incumbents will be pretty electable in 2012 due to #1 and #2 above, as well as due to the European debt crisis, which is kind of #3b on this list)

4. Google suspending people's accounts for no reason

5. Brain aneurisms

6. Police brutality

7. A cold winter

8. The environment being destroyed, thus ruining everything for the next generation

9. The hasty arrival of the next generation before I'm ready, in the form of all my pregnant friends

So how are you?

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lyrics meme

desh — Wed, 30 Nov 2011 13:59:06 GMT

Because I really can never get enough of it. Not that many of you read this journal anyway, but dammit, I don't care!

Below are the first lines of twenty songs picked kind of at random from my music collection (or sometimes second lines if the first line is a giveaway). Comment with the artist/song for the ones you know, and the one who gets the most right wins the top prize: pride at getting the most right.

Comments screened. Google is cheating.

1. Movin' to the country, gonna eat a lot.
2. Hunger and the lights are off, honey. Trying to find my head. Don't recall lying down in this black bed.
3. Dance your cares away.
4. I thought the ghost was starting to fade. It hadn't haunted me in days.
5. I liked the way my hand looked on your head.
6. My little dog ran away the other day. Yeah, yeah.
7. This here is the place where I will be staying. There isn't a number; you can call the pay phone.
8. I'm me, me be. Goddamn, I am. I can, sing and here me, know me.
9. Behind her eyes there's curtains, and they've been closed to hide the flames.
10. That young boy without a name, anywhere I'd know his face. In this city the kid's my favorite.
11. I'm undecided about you again. Mightn't be right that you're not here.
12. I wanna see him. I wanna wish him luck. I wanna shake his hand, wanna call his name.
13. I'm suffering lonely ones too, and I can't resist sending this on a whim.
14. Did you hear about the elephant? Ran wild from the circus tent, killed a crowd of ten, before they shot him dead.
15. Well women and children need kisses, not the man in my life I know. And I been going to mystery misses; I respect the art of the show.
16. One dream one soul, one prize, one goal, one golden glance of what should be.
17. For every calm there is a storm, but it is often out of view. It changes paths, it changes forms, just like our souls, like they often do.
18. See this ancient river bed. See where all my follies led.
19. Hey there little man. Get out of my frying pan.
20. Pistol shots. Gun shots. Pistol shots. Gun shots. Bullets from a revolver. Bullets from a gun.

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teaching

desh — Wed, 16 Nov 2011 15:10:26 GMT

So with the promotion I got gradually over the past 6 months or so, one of my responsibilities, as of a month ago, is teaching a technical class to other folks in my department and 2 related departments. The proprietary system we all program in is really esoteric, with a bunch of strange and confusing aspects that have built up over the years. Newer features make more sense and are easier for people with programming backgrounds to understand, but they're still often complicated. Older features are just plain ridiculous. Those of us who have been here awhile have gotten used to these quirks, and were around for the creation of many of them, but the majority of folks in these 3 departments have been around for 2 years or less. So they gotta learn (and old timers may need refreshers), and classroom-style learning is an important component of that learning that was missing.

Now, I should point out that teaching kind of terrifies me. I imagine this is relatively common in the world at large, but not in my circles. For many of my friends, teaching Hebrew School or doing bar/t mitzvah tutoring is a good default part-time job to get if they need a little more money. Many of those same folks regularly give d'var torahs ("word of torah", basically a short teaching on a Jewish topic, often given during Shabbat services at places where a full-fledged sermon would be out of place) without it being an issue. They might teach 1-hour workshops or 6-hour (over 4 days) classes at learning-based Jewish retreats I go to. Not to mention the people employed full-time as teachers! I don't do any of those things; they all intimidate me a lot. Often I feel like I don't know enough to teach about anything. Often (especially when it comes to teaching kids) I know that I know enough, but I still worry about filling up the time, moving too fast, controlling the class (yes, less relevant for adults), and so on. It's a hard job, and I have a ton of respect for people who do it for a living.

Before last month, I've had 2 main teaching experiences in my life. One was the most random job I've ever had: When I was about 23-24, I had a part-time job as a "second voice" in a school that trained people to be court reporters. After the students' first semester, most of their classes consisted of practicing writing on steno machines at increasing speeds and in various different courtroom-simulated environments. Basically, different types of legal transcripts would be read to the class, while the reader stared at a stopwatch to make sure he stayed at exactly 160 (or whatever) words per minute. When the student could pass a test at a particular speed, they moved up to the next class. A class instructor could easily teach by him- or herself if it's a class on jury instructions or something like that, but a class on testimony or medical testimony or multivoice (with 4 or 5 different people in the transcript, usually objecting lawyers and such), you'd need more than one person reading. So my job was to be the witness or the judge or whatever in those classes. I was a sort of teaching assistant, except my role was completely limited to doing this careful reading aloud. And even so, I was nervous for the first few months! I had no responsibilities of lesson planning, classroom control, or anything else, but I was still nervous! Over time I loosened up a bit, and even made relevant conversation with the class during breaks in the dictation (which wasn't easy, given that I don't know steno). I still miss that job.

The other experience was the teaching class I took my senior year of high school, as an elective. In retrospect it was clearly meant as Hebrew School teaching prep, but I didn't realize that at the time. And I honestly don't know why I even took the class, aside from liking the teacher. Toward the end of the year, we had to arrange to student-teach one class somewhere. Most of us went to a Hebrew School, but I contacted the school where I went to elementary school and arranged to teach a 6th grade math class. I prepared a ton, and it was still incredibly difficult. I introduced the kids to the formula for the area of a rectangle, and then moved on to the area of a (right) triangle, all in 40 minutes. The speed seemed appropriate for me, a math guy, but in retrospect may have been WAY too fast for them. And, to make matters worse, I handed out large Hershey bars to the kids as a demonstration tool. In a 1st period class. I bet all of their 2nd and 3rd period teachers HATED me that day. Anyway, I was very nervous, I didn't make eye contact with the kids once, and I have no idea if they retained any information I taught them.

Anyway. I was really nervous for the first class at work 3 weeks ago. The class existed in a previous incarnation years ago (taught by the people who were writing the system features, not those of us who design and implement their use), and one complaint I had was that the examples were under-prepared. So I went whole-hog, spending a good day and a half preparing what I was going to say and which examples (taken from our real code rather than made-up) I was going to use. I spent a ton of time on it and I was really nervous, even though it was all material I knew very well. And even though I was only teaching for half of the 1-hour block; my plan has been to have different people teach different topics.

So it went really well. As did the 2nd class (when I again taught about half the time) and the 3rd (where I planned the lesson but didn't teach at all). I started getting less nervous.

Yesterday was the 4th class, and I didn't spend as much time preparing. I think I was still prepared enough, but I also think the class went terribly. The concept I was teaching was much more complicated than I realized, and I lost people early on. I tried to make up for it by making it more interactive, calling on people to explain the next step rather than just explaining it myself. But the same few people (most of whom have been here for years, like me) kept volunteering to answer, and none of the new people were getting it at all. This may be the nature of the material, that they need to see and try it multiple times before it sinks in, but that's not what I anticipated happening at all. We all left frustrated, I'm sure, and now I'm worried again about next time.

This stuff is hard!

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actualizing TV

desh — Tue, 18 Oct 2011 16:02:22 GMT

I feel like I've finally actualized being the TV addict that part of me has always wanted to be. Here's what I'm watching these days:

Current Dramas
NCIS
Sherlock (dammit it still counts as current even though there's almost a 2-year gap between seasons)
Glee
L&O: SVU (I can't quit you)

Current Comedies
Modern Family
New Girl
Suburgatory
2 Broke Girls (at least for one more episode)

Shows I'm Actively Watching Back Seasons Of
In Treatment
Arrested Development
The Wire (on hiatus for now but will start on Season 3 soon)
Dr. Katz, Professional Therapist (a bit)
[I finally tried Always Sunny, but gave up quickly. Not for me.]

An Approximately Ordered List Of Current Shows I May Try
Homeland
Big Bang Theory
Community
Person Of Interest
Breaking Bad

Any other suggestions?

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