E-Monk's Live Blog

Incomplete list, based on my own opinions only, and most probably I forgot quite a lot of things. Albums: Sufjan Stevens, "Age Of Adz", Chemical Brothers - "Hanna", Elbow - "Build A Rocket Boys", Beastie Boys - "Hot Sauce Committee Part 2". Songs: Justice - On n' On , Lana Del Ray - Video Games , Tim Minchin - Storm , Balkan Beat Box - Political Fuck . Movies: "Limitless", "Source Code", "Adjustment Bureau". Television: Homeland (new TV series), BBC documentary programmes, Dexter, Top Gear. Non-violent and vibrant social protests in Israel. Atheism, rationalism. Hanging around with Eva. No more Harry Potter. Dri Fit/Clima Cool clothes. Museumsinsel (Berlin). Slightly less cynicism, slightly more openness. McLaren MP4-12C (and I apologize for being 8 years old with this last choice).

You can surprise even the most prepared nation on earth (talking about Japan). It is possible to write a song with less than one note (according to Charlie Brooker, referring to Rebecca Black's "Friday"). If economic policy makers tell you everything is under control, get ready for a crush. When the crush happens, if they tell you recovery has started, get ready for a "double dip". Every dog indeed has its day (and this year many dogs reached their respective days). The lessons from France 1889 were not learned: toppling a dictator does not guarantee democracy. Democracy is illusive and often misunderstood, but it's still the least worst political system and it's the most precious asset the Western world has. Germans are to food what French are to cars. And vice versa. HTC still makes better phones than other firms, even when they are having a bad year. The people who you care about most, will annoy you most. It won't stop you from continuin...

I listen to the radio. I get eMails and twits using push technology directly to both my phone and my laptop. I check my Facebook page and several news web sites. I read a blog now and then and even write my own opinions on 2 different blogs. Surely I am not an activist or a radical, but I think I'm involved and opinionated. But it's too much. We are being bombarded by so many news items, blog posts, status lines and video clips, all of them are supposed to help us form an opinion or convince us to support a certain side in a political debate. But in most occasions, this information tsunami does not actually make us rethink or contemplate. At best it will strengthen our opinions, at worst it will cause panic, but in most occasions, it just confuses us. It feels like a fog, made of words, sounds, pictures and clips in which we have to blindly navigate, a cloud of memes that struggle to catch on and multiply. And this fog is just getting thicker and thicker and distracts us ...

It was an intensive week. A lot of driving, a lot of walking, not a lot of sleep and not a lot of food. At some times it was rather stressful, but mostly because of unnecessary worrying from my account and happenings that I could not really control. But considering the amount of road I covered during those days, that week went by quite smoothly. I decided not to make a concrete plan, just a flexible list of things to see and do. I should remember this idea for the next times, it worked nicely. And I rediscovered photography. I never actually left it, but I was hugely disappointed by the photos I took in Berlin. This time though, probably because of my (usually) relaxed stated of mind it turned out very well. I take pictures exclusively for fun and I am sure that the quality of my captures is in directly relation to my state of mind while I take them. The fact that one of the pictures was well received by complete strangers in a photography forum just proves this point. And I enjo...

When I was younger, I was a great believer in the idea of paperless office. I was excited about the idea that technologies like computers, PDAs and Tablet PCs will completely replace the paper for transferring and managing information. At that time, in the beginning of the former decade, it seemed promising, however both technical and conceptual problems prevented this dream from happening.  And I left this concept behind as well. I couldn't leave my notebook and replace it with a laptop or a PDA. To make things even "worse", I found out that using paper actually helps the environment: apparently most of the world's paper is made in North America where trees for paper production are being grown in huge tree farms, or as we call them "artificial forests". The paper companies want to keep producing papers, which means that for every tree they cut, they have to plant at least one to replace it. This means that ironically enough, paper is one of the more ecolo...

I have been an Israeli since the age of 3 years and one month. I was not born here, but I don't know any other reality. The fact that I travel quite a lot and hold a double citizenship does not change this fact either. I wonder if in other nations you have this feeling, that we have right now. It feels as if the whole country is holding its breath, waiting for the deal to go through and we'll be able to finally see our boy back home. It is not similar to the feeling of watching a sports team playing abroad. This feels more like waiting for a complicated surgery to end after a long period of suffering. And like the surgery, there's going to be a long recovery process, which will include a risks and dangers. But this wound has to be healed, and I hope our government will have the sense and courage to make this decision. This decision might have negative and tragic consequences in the future, but at least we will enter this future united. Update: the deal was approved and will...

I'm tired of politics and economics. So I started looking for a new phone, and I decided to to try and understand the evolution of the mobile phone through the phone that I owned, and to figure out what I'm actually looking for in my next device. So here it goes: Ericsson T388 Year of purchase: 1997. Wireless technology: brain-frying TDMA Battery life: standby time of 40 hours, easily replaceable. Display type: 3-line, alpha-numeric, black and white LCD. What I liked about it: It was my first mobile phone, it was fairly compact, it never restarted and it fit perfectly inside a military vest. What I disliked about it: It was small but bulky, awful battery life (and it tended to detouch), the mouth piece broke easily and was mostly useless. Conclusion: You never forget your first one. For good or worse. Nokia 6120 Year of purchase: 1999 Wireless technology: TDMA Battery life: About 2 weeks. Display type: black and white LCD What I liked: It was much slimme...

I don't believe in invisible, unproven things. They may exist, and people surely religiously believe in them (literally) but when they fail, they do it so spectacularly and inexplicably. When an airplane crashes, it also does it spectacularly, but at least you can gather hard evidence and explain what happened, how it happened, and whether we can prevent it in the future. When one of the "invisible hands" - the of god and the one of the market fails, we can usually explain what happened, but we can rarely explain how it happened and we can never prevent things of happening in the future. When an airplane crashes, the solutions that are being given may include re-engineering the failed parts, changes to the maintenance procedures or sometimes, simply decide to stop using the aircraft altogether, like the Concorde in 2003. But the believers in those invisible hands, will still religiously protect their beliefs, saying things like "we lost our faith, that's why we...

XERXES: The Internet? REG: What? XERXES: The Internet. REG: Oh. Yeah, yeah. They did give us that. Uh, that's true. Yeah. COMMANDO #3: And the GPS. LORETTA: Oh, yeah, the GPS, Reg. Remember how ships and vehicles used to get lost befor that? REG: Yeah. All right. I'll grant you the Internet and the GPS are two things that the Americans have done. MATTHIAS: And the afforable car. REG: Well, yeah. Obviously the afforable car. I mean, the afforable cars go without saying, don't they? But apart from the GPS, the Internet, and the afforable car-- COMMANDO: Green revolution. XERXES: Electronics. COMMANDOS: Huh? Heh? Huh... COMMANDO #2: European Union. COMMANDOS: Ohh... REG: Yeah, yeah. All right. Fair enough. COMMANDO #1: And Coca Cola. COMMANDOS: Oh, yes. Yeah... FRANCIS: Yeah. Yeah, that's something we'd really miss, Reg, if the Americans left. Huh. COMMANDO: Rock music. LORETTA: And it's safe to speak your mind, Reg. FRANCIS: Yeah, they certainly know ho...

It's not for me to decide if god exists, I can only choose whether to believe in its existence or not. One of my main issues with any organized religions is the idea that ordinary human beings assume the authority to speak for god and interpret its meaning. Hence if I decide that god doesn't exist and try to convince others, I'm not better than any of those rabbis, priests, qadis and ayatollahs who do the opposite. I don't believe god exists. I don't think god exists, but co-existence is a more important than the question of god's existence. I see no reason act like a jerk during religious ceremonies, in the same way that I hate the fact that as a Jew in Israel I cannot marry in a civil ceremony. The status quo between religion and secularism in Israel has to change and become more flexible and understanding for the sake of both sides.

Some people will understand you if you talk to them and say what's on your mind. Others will not react to words, but will react to actions. The people who are close to you will understand that something is bothering you just by observing your behavior. And a few will simply not get it. They think that they have a synaptic connection to everyone, and if they get no information through this connection, then everything is alright. Regardless if you talk to them, behave strangely or even go through extreme measures. Maybe they do understand that something is wrong but choose to ignore the problem, maybe they think it will just go away, but most probably they are too self absorbed to actually notice. Try to avoid these people. It's simply not worth your mental health.

Many times in the past 10 years I wondered how would you comment on the increasingly functional and complex gadgets that appeared during the last decade. How would you react to the metamorphose of your beloved Apple from a small and alternative computer maker into the technology powerhouse that they today. What would you say about the rise of Google and Wikipedia as the predominant providers of knowledge, the Facebook generation and the loss of privacy. How would you include references to the war terror attacks, the war in Iraq and the credit crunch in your stories. How would you try to help the people of the Indian ocean, New Orleans, Haiti and Japan. What would you write in the obituaries for George Harrison, John Entwistle, Gerry Rafferty and rock music in general? But I don't like "what if" questions. Instead, today I keep asking myself where are you? Are you working in a diner alongside Elvis? Are you playing music with your dream band? Maybe quietly typing a book on...

Working in customer support exposed me to a wide variety of people, with wide variety of intelligence quotients. I know that it's politically correct to say that intelligence has nothing to do with how descent a person is, but it's actually true. The strange thing though is how little education has with real-life intelligence and the ability to solve problems. Life saving surgeons and fearsome lawyers often panic in front of a small sat-nav system (which we call GPS here in Israel). It's even more weird watching self-proclaimed electrical engineers and members of the IT crowd struggle with consumer electronics and laptops. In my honest opinion, a technician that won't even try to look for a solution and instead call customer support - is not a good technician. Anyway, here are some real quotes from conversations me and my colleagues had in the past 3 months: Customer: My PDA is not working! Support: How did it happen? Cus tomer: It got a little wet. Support: Okay, t...

I am quitting my job and most of my friends know it by now. Some of them supported me, some of them said it is not a good idea, but surprisingly none of them criticized me for this decision, maybe because I was complaining endlessly ever since I accepted it (sorry about it, guys). Also it was somewhat predictable, considering the fact I expressed my wish to quit about 2 days after I began working there. In my defense, I did give it a chance - I stayed there for 4 months, but at the end I realized that it wasn't meant to be, for several reasons which I will not list here. All I can say is that it wasn't the salary, nor my colleagues and not even the working conditions. I did not find a new job yet and I am open to suggestions. So if anyone needs a relatively good IT or HD guy, who actually likes this profession and is interested in it, please let me know.

Some time before noon I received another phone call which began the same as any other of the 70-odd phone calls I get every day. I answered and asked the customer with the usual "how may I help you?". The man on the other side of the line said "I purchased this laptop just yesterday and Windows won't boot. Can you replace it?" I replied "Yes, but maybe we can save you the burden of bringing it here if we can perform a successful recovery". He was willing to cooperate and I started my explanation. Me: "Turn off the laptop" Customer: "It's already turned off" Me: "Good. So now please turn it on, and immediately after the display shows the manufacturer's logo, quickly press F9 to start the recovery process" Customer: "Okay, now I see a light blue screen with some graphics on it" Me: "And what is it written there? Which options do you see?" Customer: "I can't read it. I don't have my re...