Currently, we’re discussing the situation in Israel; I see that
Dan Gillmor has arrived there to report on the Israel high-tech industry. I am afraid he’ll have no problem getting into nice hotels and restaurants; tourism in Israel is very weak these days.

Better to bore the boss than the whole team

I gave a talk (via teleconference and e-meeting) about the IBM Academy of Technology to my team at work today. I’d planned to use a slightly-edited version of a presentation prepared by the Academy Office, and by happy coincidence, sent it to my boss yesterday along with some slides for him to use in introducing this series of talks.

He liked the slides I’d prepared for him, but had some pointed questions about the Academy presentation — such as asking whether it was suitable for this audience, since the interesting stuff began at about the 20th slide. And after thinking about it for a few seconds, I agreed with him…and not because he signs my appraisal. So I spent some time writing a brand new presentation intended for the team, and I think the people who called in appreciated it. The saddest part of the story is that it took me less time to write a new presentation than I’d spent trying to adapt the other presentation!

Jews in Space

Jerusalem, we have a problem.

As if weightlessness, cramped conditions and the enormity of the galaxy were not worrying enough, a crew member of the next space shuttle mission is facing an additional problem: How do you observe the Sabbath when it occurs once every 10 1/2 hours in orbit?
[via Jenny]

Shortwave Radio Makes Major Media

“Night after night I was in hotels where my modem became useless after the switchboard was closed down for the evening. I might have saved myself the pain of watching too many talk shows on French television had I brought a shortwave radio along.” [New York Times]

The song for the morning: “91 pieces of spam in my mail, 91 pieces of spam…you take one down, pass it around, there’s 91 pieces of spam in my mail.”

The Battlebots tournament was great fun; we sat in an area loaded with contestants, who knew more about what was going on than I did (and even had a list of the upcoming bouts). There was plenty of robot carnage, and the food was still good, too. I had to sign an NDA, so I can’t reveal any results, but I will warn you to watch out for Evil Cheese Wedge when season 5.0 finally airs on Comedy Central.

On the way home, even though it was quite late, we stopped at Krispy Kreme in Union City for a pick-me-up (giving tired kids a sugar infusion at 11pm is a good idea, right?). It took forever to find the Krispy Kreme (it’s way back in the back of the Union Landing complex), and then there was a long line, giving us plenty of time to see the hot doughnuts being made. As we approached the registers, a nice lady handed each of the kids a free hot doughnut…then she gave one to each of the adults, too. We had originally only planned to get one doughnut each, but walking out after getting the free ones seemed like it might be slightly tacky, so we wound up buying a dozen doughnuts instead and eating more in the car. Good marketing!

Time to get back to work; unfortunately, not all of my e-mail over the weekend was spam, and I need to do something with the rest of it. Where’s the delete key?