Is Google NOW incredible or creepy? Is NOW kosher?

There sometimes is a fine line between incredible and creepy.The Times hints at this in a review of phone app technology that seems to know what you are thinking, especially Google NOW.

Case in point. Yesterday I had to go from Teaneck, NJ to Forest Hills Queens, NY to attend the funeral for my sister's father-in-law. Knowing the possible traffic situations I figured on leaving my house an hour earlier, at Noon. I actually left about 12:15.

The event time and location were in my Google Calendar. And so,  I was on the GWB I got an alert from Google NOW at about 12:30 - telling me I had better leave now to get to the funeral on time.

First I thought, this is incredible. Then I thought, this is creepy. Finally I thought, NOW is not a New Yorker and does not have a clue about the time you need for getting around the city, especially for potential parking time.

The Times observes:

Already, an app called Google Now is an important part of Google’s Internet-connected glasses. As a Glass wearer walks through the airport, her hands full of luggage, it could show her an alert that her flight is delayed.

Google Now is “kind of blowing my mind right now,” said Danny Sullivan, a founding editor of Search Engine Land who has been studying search for two decades. “I mean, I’m pretty jaded, right? I’ve seen all types of things that were supposed to revolutionize search, but pretty much they haven’t. Google Now is doing that.”

The Times mentions some of the other amazing feats that NOW can offer - once you give up your privacy entirely to Google. I have it on my phone and I've been kept apprised by NOW of package deliveries, (Google's imagined) travel time to home and work and other meetings, stock prices, nearby restaurant recommendations and more.

Bottom line? Let me say I certify that NOW is kosher. You will have to judge for yourself whether it is incredible or creepy.

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The Incredible Pebble Watch and the Free Caddie Golf App and the Pebble Bike App

I play golf, I have a Samsung Galaxy S3 android smartphone. I started to use the Free Caddie app for determining distance to the green.

The problem was that the phone is hard to see in the bright sunlight and it is awkward to keep pulling out your phone to see the distance to green.

Then I discovered that the new Pebble smart watch can connect via bluetooth to the golf app. So I bought one at Best Buy. And I opened it and played a round of golf with it. Yes - it is awesome. It works.

I love the watch and the app. The watch also receives your email and your texts and can control your music. It is shiny and red and cool.

And I discovered now that it's a bike computer too. The free Pebble Bike app works great - tracking your biking mileage and speed, average speed, altitude, ascent, ascent rate and slope (beta) - even when your phone is in the zipper bag under the seat! Nothing more to buy. Wow.

They are rare. Get one right away here at Amazon or Ebay. Or try to Get one from Best Buy.

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Free Awesome Torah and Haftorah Chanting Apps from PocketTorah

Barak forwarded this from Eytan Kurshan (first posted on 4/17/12)...

Hi everyone,

I wanted to let you know that I was involved in the creation of an app which has just launched! It is called PocketTorah and is available here. 

The app contains a recording of every aliyah in the Torah as well as all Haftorot. If you'd like to hear me, I recorded the parshiyot from Tazria to Acharei-Mot.

There is also a separate module containing recordings of just the trope of Torah, Haftorah, and Megilah....

Congrats to Rabbi Charlie Schwartz and Russel Neiss for putting this all together.

Eytan

We downloaded and reviewed the apps. They are awesome.

"PocketTorah is an application that  will provide the user the ability to learn the weekly Torah and Haftarah portion anywhere, at any time, on any mobile device or computer for free."

Denominational Alert! These two apps obviously were designed for Conservative, Reform and Reconstructionist Jews. There are women Torah readers recorded on the apps, so officially they are not suitable for Orthodox users.

Learn to chant

1. Download for iOS
2. Download for Android
3. Use it on any computer in a web browser using Chrome or Safari.

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Forbes: Waze Will be the Wikipedia of All Maps and the Search Bar for the Real World

Forbes has a background article on Waze in the aftermath of the news that Google will buy the company. What Waze Adds To Google: A View From Waze's CEO

It turns out that Waze is not just a GPS app for your car on your smartphone. Waze is a community of users who will contribute to the indexing of the physical world. It aspires to be to the actual earth, what Google is to the Internet. Or something like that.

After reading the interview with the CEO of Waze, it seems to me that Waze wants to be more the user edited Wikipedia of the real world of roads and traffic. And keep in mind that the crowd-sourced quality of Wikipedia information is not always the greatest.

Bardin said the new user interface for search was the map. But how did Waze build its own maps, which are thought to be just as good, if not at times better, than the ones $410-billion-market-cap Apple produced? By crowd-sourcing GPS data, and “combining the algorithms of people.” It sounds straightforward in theory, but it involved building a hierarchical structure of passive users and editors, a self-managed community like Wikipedia. The community has country managers who oversee area managers, who then oversee the editors, with each level having a greater level of permissions to alter Waze’s maps.

And the big brag from the CEO that earned the company a bid of over $1 billion: “Whenever you’re going onto the web, you start with a search bar,” he said. “Wherever you’re going in the real world, you’re going to start with Waze.”

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Is Edward Snowden Jewish?

Okay, fine. New Yorker bloggers debate whether Edward Snowden is a hero or a villain:

• Jeffrey Toobin: Edward Snowden Is No Hero
• John Cassidy: Why Edward Snowden Is a Hero

But what we want to know: is Edward Snowden Jewish?

We will go out on a limb here and, even lacking firm evidence, based on his bio, we will say, no, Edward Snowden is not a Jew. 

US News on NBC news reports: "Born June 21, 1983, he grew up in Wilmington, N.C., but later moved to Ellicott City, Md., he told The Guardian. His mother, Wendy, is the chief deputy clerk for administration and information technology at the federal court in Baltimore, a court official told NBC News. His father, Lonnie, is a former Coast Guard officer who lives in Pennsylvania, the Allentown Morning Call reported. A neighbor said he has an older sister who is an attorney."

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Google Will Buy Israeli Waze App for > $1 Billion

Google is buying Waze - an excellent GPS and traffic app that I have used on my Samsung Galaxy S3. I use it as a second source of traffic information as I make my way across America's worst road - the Cross Bronx Distressway. It's fairly accurate and offers creative alternative routes when needed.

Join 648,000 others. Get Waze from Google Play.

This is great news for the Israeli high tech sector.

This is bad news for United Jewish Appeal and Federation fund raisers. Even though there is poverty and need in Israel, it gets harder to raise money in the US for destitute Israelis, each time another Israeli company reaches a billion dollar valuation.

Google said to be close to buying Waze, developer of crowdsourced map app
By Elizabeth Heichler, IDG News Service

Google is close to a deal to acquire Waze, maker of the eponymous crowdsourced mapping app, for at least $1 billion, according to the Wall Street Journal and others.

The potential deal was first reported by Israeli business site Globes which said it would be worth $1.3 billion, citing sources.

Started in Israel, now with offices in Palo Alto headed by CEO Noam Bardin, the company says it has about 45 million users in 193 countries, according to the Journal. Waze originated in 2006 as an open-source mapping project led by CTO Ehud Shabtai; the company formed two years later with venture-capital backing, according to information on its website.

The app allows users to tap into shared traffic and navigation information. Data on road obstacles, rush-hour snarls, accidents and the like can be shared with other drivers in real time. The most recent version of the app delivered last month, Waze 3.7, includes integration with Facebook that places Facebook events in users' navigation lists and allows them to see the progress of Waze-using friends travelling to the same event. Users can also join the community of map editors to improve data on the maps themselves, which use TIGER (Topologically Integrated Geographic Encoding and Referencing) data from the US Census Bureau. The app is free, supported by location-based advertising.

How to use waze.

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Inventing the Past: Michael Broyde and Morton Smith

The Jewish Channel's Steven I. Weiss continued his outstanding investigative reporting with a new story on Rabbi Michael Broyde of Emory University, "Investigation Reveals Additional Questionable Identity With Connections to Broyde’s Scholarship". It now appears certain that Broyde invented letters by two imaginary rabbis to support his opinions on religious matters. Weiss also found that an 83 page article published by Broyde in the journal Tradition was bolstered in part by evidence from Broyde's manufactured authorities and was published with subventions funded by Emory and the Templeton Foundation.

The Broyde matter has reminded us of Morton Smith, another professor at a major university who went to great lengths to invent a religious letter to boost his reputation and his scholarly agenda.

Wikipedia summarizes the Smith matter in an article that starts, "Morton Smith (May 29, 1915 – July 11, 1991) was an American professor of ancient history at Columbia University. He is best known for his controversial discovery of the Mar Saba letter, a letter attributed to Clement of Alexandria containing excerpts from a Secret Gospel of Mark, during a visit to the monastery at Mar Saba in 1958."

Along with many other professors of religion, we believe that Smith's discovery was an intricate hoax that he perpetrated out of some unknown and twisted scholarly motives. Smith was quite clever in committing and defending his deception. And there remain a few scholars who still accept the authenticity of Smith's find.

Weiss now has proven conclusively in his reporting that Broyde committed equally intricate academic hoaxes. In our view though Broyde's hoaxes are far less clever and dramatic than Smith's.

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Technology to the Rescue to Solve the Social Problem of Sock Puppets

The integrity and value of social networks and of commercial product and service reviews depends on the authenticity of the content.

Big companies like Amazon and big universities like Cornell and others are hard at work developing policies and algorithms to solve the problem of sock puppet posting of reviews and other content on the Internet.

Here are three examples:

1. Cornell software fingers fake online reviews: Cornell brainiacs have come up with software that spots fake reviews, something we humans aren't good at. Fictitious happy customers beware.

2. A sock puppet detection algorithm on virtual spaces. Knowledge-Based Systems (January 2013), 37, Complete, pg. 366-377.

"On virtual spaces, some individuals use multiple usernames or copycat/forge other users (usually called “sock puppet”) to communicate with others. Those sock puppets are fake identities through which members of Internet community praise or create the illusion of support for the product or one’s work, pretending to be a different person. A fundamental problem is how to identify these sock puppets.

"In this paper, we propose a sock puppet detection algorithm which combines authorship-identification techniques and link analysis. Firstly, we propose an interesting social network model in which links between two IDs are built if they have similar attitudes to most topics that both of them participate in; then, the edges are pruned according a hypothesis test, which consider the impact of their writing styles; finally, the link-based community detection for pruned network is performed. Compared to traditional methods, our approach has three advantages: (1) it conforms to the practical meanings of sock puppet community; (2) it can be applied in online situation; (3) it increases the efficiency of link analysis. In the experimental work, we evaluate our method using real datasets and compared our approach with several previous methods; the results have proved above advantages."

3. Amazon Tackles Review Problem, Deletes Wrong Reviews (Forbes): Amazon is quite strict about their policy. They take questionable reviews right down, and if questioned they explain it bluntly:

I’m sorry for any previous concerns regarding your reviews on our site. We do not allow reviews on behalf of a person or company with a financial interest in the product or a directly competing product. This includes authors, artists, publishers, manufacturers, or third-party merchants selling the product.

We have removed your reviews as they are in violation of our guidelines. We will not be able to go into further detail about our research.

I understand that you are upset, and I regret that we have not been able to address your concerns to your satisfaction. However, we will not be able to offer any additional insight or action on this matter.

As is often the case in the world of high-tech, social problems can be solved in part by developing even more high tech.

We recommend these books for you!

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App Measures Your Brainwaves to Know When You're Busy

We like this, been waiting for it for decades.

Gizmodo reports, "Automatic Do-Not-Disturb Measures Your Brainwaves to Know When You’re Busy."

Italian-born neuroscientist Ruggero Scorcioni has developed a new technology that will help you get stuff done by deflecting phone calls or other notifications away when you're busy. Finally, technology to help keep your brainspace clear when you need it.

Ruggero showed us his tech implemented as an app on smartphone at an AT&T event in New York this morning. The technology works by measuring your brainwave activity using a commercially available headset which talks to your phone via Bluetooth. When your activity goes above a certain adjustable threshold, Ruggero's app automatically holds your calls using a publicly available AT&T API.

The key to Ruggero's app are the algorithms he uses to process the brainwave data. Beyond simply holding your calls, Ruggero says the technology could be used to hold your e-mail notifications and other interruptions until you've got the mental bandwidth to address them. He won an AT&T hack-a-thon back in January, and used the $30,000 prize to start his new company Brainyno. Here's hoping he finds a way to keep those pesky Facebook alerts from distracting you when you're trying to work.

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Google Keep Kosher?

Keep Kosher?

Yes we think that Google's newest service called "Keep" is glatt Kosher. It's a keeper.

Here is what Google says about Keep:

Quickly capture what’s on your mind and recall it easily wherever you are. Create a checklist, enter a voice note or snap a photo and annotate it. Everything you add is instantly available on all your devices – desktop and mobile.

With Google Keep you can:
• Keep track of your thoughts via notes, lists and photos
• Have voice notes transcribed automatically
• Use homescreen widgets to capture thoughts quickly
• Color-code your notes to help find them later
• Swipe to archive things you no longer need
• Turn a note into a checklist by adding checkboxes
• Use your notes from anywhere - they are safely stored in the cloud and available on the web at http://drive.google.com/keep

Watch "Google Keep" on YouTube

Get the Android App for your phone or tablet.

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Is TV Kosher for Dogs?

Is TV kosher for dogs? Yes it is, now that the Israeli Dog Channel offering, DOGTV, is live in California, at $9.95 a month.

TV channel for dogs launched in Israel

An Israeli cable TV company has launched a television channel that is aimed primarily at dogs.

The channel, available in Israel via the Yes satellite company was first launched last February in California's second-largest city San Diego, where it reached some 483,000 homes.

"DOGTV is scientifically developed and Pup approved. DOGTV is cable's first television network for dogs that is created exclusively for canines, and the humans who love them," the Jerusalem Post quoted the company's website as reading.

It further read that the channel provides TV for dogs with three types of programming offering relaxing and stimulating content as well as positive behavioural reinforcements.

The company's site said that dogs that are left alone tend to become anxious so the calming sounds and music in the relaxing segments on DOGTV were created to keep them peaceful.

The site added that unlike any other TV channel, every frame and every sound on the channel is designed 100 percent for dogs.

The company has claimed that years of research led it to develop special content to meet the specific characteristics of canine vision and hearing, like enhanced colouring to emphasize details and stress on contrast, brightness, and frame rate; and the use of sound effects, music and specific ranges of frequencies that best suit dogs.(ANI)

See more news about the channel.

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Larissa MacFarquhar in The New Yorker on The Talmudic Life and Tragic Death of Aaron Swartz

Larissa MacFarquhar in The New Yorker published a long profile of what we call the The Talmudic Life and Tragic Death of the young technology visionary Aaron Swartz (REQUIEM FOR A DREAM: Aaron Swartz was brilliant and beloved. But the people who knew him best saw a darker side).

We see his life as Talmudic because he was such a thorough questioner of all sides of reality. The profile describes Aaron's persistent Talmudic temperament:

He believed that there were objective facts about what made people’s lives better, and that these were the facts that mattered. He disliked any analysis that attributed social consequence to amorphous, subjective, unmeasurable, unfixable causes.

“I think the essential fight of his life was to never be satisfied that he’d figured out the fight of his life,” Ben Wikler says. “He was constantly trying to figure out how to be more effective and what he should be working on. He had a beautiful willingness to change his mind completely.” It is a vertiginous thing to have so much freedom—to be always self-skeptical, always testing the reasons for your beliefs, always prepared to abandon them for something better. If you can do anything you want, then every day becomes an existential problem—an empty space of possibility that has no ceiling but also no walls and no floor.

“Much more than any particular thing he did, the self-reflection and self-doubt,” Alec Resnick says. “Being willing to say, ‘All of these things are bad, but we can work on making something better.’ To be preoccupied by the ethical ramifications of your actions, and to strip away most of the limits on how, ethically, you can behave.” To think continuously about changing the world is to spend your life looking at what is bad in it. To be attached to the world is to be attached to the world as it is, and not for any reason, because reasons can always be countered. To consider the world from first principles, to think about how well it would work if everything were different, is to be ready to throw away everything you know. Radical idealism and a sense of limitless possibility are the brighter facets of absolute rejection...

We see his death as Talmudic because that is how his father came to terms with it, i.e., the angel of death made a mistake, a scenario taken directly from the Talmud... as this sad sad article concludes, citing Aaron's father and the Talmud text, without further comment:

There’s this passage in Gemara about whether the angel of death can make a mistake. Gemara is part of the Talmud, and so the—I think about that. You know, it just doesn’t seem to make sense to me. But I don’t know, I—I just think it’s not a question I’ll ever answer.
--Robert Swartz

Rabbi Joseph, when he came to the following verse, wept: But there is that is swept away without judgment. He said: Is there anyone who passes away before one’s allotted time?1—Yes, as in the story heard by Rabbi Bibi bar Abaye, who was frequently visited by the Angel of death. Once the latter said to his messenger: Go, bring me Miriam, the women’s hairdresser! He went and brought him Miriam, the children’s nurse. Said he to him:2 I told thee Miriam, the women’s hairdresser. He answered: If so, I will take her back. Said he to him: Since thou hast brought her, let her be added.3 But how were you able to get her?4—She was holding a shovel in her hand and was heating and raking the oven. She took it and put it on her foot and burnt herself; thus her luck was impaired and I brought her. Said Rabbi Bibi bar Abaye to him: Have ye permission to act thus? He answered him: Is it not written: “There is that is swept away without judgment”?

1 I.e., although the person has committed no sin to merit shortening of life.
2 I.e., the Angel of death to his messenger.
3 I.e., to the dead.
4 Since it was not yet her time to die.

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Our Great Grandfather Harris Epstein the Inventor

I am named after my great-grandfather, Harris (Tzvee) Epstein, aka, Epstein the Inventor, who lived in New York City and Spring Valley. I probably inherited my technical curiosity from him.

He was the inventor and patent holder of many practical items, a folding umbrella, an extension ladder, a double sided toothbrush, a vegetable grater and more. Here are of his patents with their links from Google Patent search:

SIGNALING APPARATUS US Pat. 1060898 - H. EPSTEIN. SIGNALING APPARATUS, APPLICATION PILED JAN. 26, 19.11. Patented May 6,1913.

EXTENSION LADDER US Pat. 949529 - Filed Feb 10, 1909

VEGETABLE GRATER US Pat. 1799963 - Filed Apr 4, 1930... UNITED STATES PATENT OFFICE HARRIS EPSTEIN, OF ROCKAWAY BEACH, NEW YORK VEGETABLE GRATER

GAS-CONTROLLING DEVICE US Pat. 968457 - Filed Jan 11, 1910

FOLDING UMBRELLA Patent number: 1666692 Filing date: Jan 29, 1927 Issue date: Apr 17, 1928

TOOTH BRUSH Patent number: 1111144 Filing date: Oct 4, 1913 Issue date: Sep 22, 1914

Papa Epstein, as he was called by his grandchildren, sure would have liked the age of the personal computer and the Internet, especially the iPad and smart phone.

[Augmented repost from 12/17/06]

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Google's "Rabbi" Swiffy will Convert Flash to HTML5

Our Samsung Galaxy S3 phone (which CNET calls the best device of the year) surprisingly does not support Flash. Our iPad never supported Flash. These devices do support HTML5. So we went out to look for ways to convert Flash to HTML5.

Our initial result was good. We recommend Google's "Rabbi" Swiffy if you want to convert from Flash SWF to HTML5. It worked for us on a fairly complicated Flash animated graphic.

Note, this free converter works in beta mode for small Flash files, a typical Google limitation. If you try a larger one you get told, “Sorry, Swiffy currently does not convert SWF files larger than 1024 KB.”

Google says:

Swiffy converts Flash SWF files to HTML5, allowing you to reuse Flash content on devices without a Flash player (such as iPhones and iPads). Swiffy can't yet convert DoubleClick Studio creatives.
...Swiffy 5.0 introduces experimental support for ActionScript 3.0.

Swiffy can be used in two ways:

• With the Swiffy Extension, you can directly publish to HTML5 from Adobe Flash Professional.
• On the Swiffy homepage, you can upload your SWF file to convert it to HTML5.

Both methods will always use the most recent version of Swiffy.

How Swiffy works

Swiffy converts a SWF file to an HTML page that contains an efficient representation of the file as a JSON object. The HTML page uses the Swiffy runtime (a JavaScript library) to render the animation using mainly SVG. Compiled ActionScript code is also contained in the JSON file and executed as JavaScript in the browser.

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Stunning Cell Phone - Samsung Galaxy S3

We upgraded our cell phone to the stunning Samsung Galaxy S3.



In particular we love the clarity of the display and the speed of the processor and the Android system. The battery is a weakness. Especially when Sprint's signal is hard to find, the battery runs down quickly.

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Get the Kindle Babylonian Talmud in English

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The Introduction to Zev Zahavy's book, "Whence and Wherefore: The Cosmological Destiny of Man Scientifically and Philosophically Considered"

Here is the introduction to the Kindle Edition in honor of Zev Zahavy's recent sheloshim, thirty days since his passing. This book was originally published by my dad in 1978.

Whence and Wherefore by Zev Zahavy
The Cosmological Destiny of Man Scientifically and Philosophically Considered. An Analysis Relating to "In the Centre of Immensities" by Sir Bernard Lovell

Now that man is a bona fide space traveler, it appears to be a propitious time to call for a new chapter in the enduring search for ultimate truths.

The technological record of human progress from the ancient period of a Sumerian bronze age to the current era of complex, multinational, computerized societies is a magnificent tribute to the impressive ingenuity of the human intellect. Man may justifiably take pride in his vast array of technological triumphs.

Certainly, the human specimen has traversed a long, rugged road since the early days of the ox-drawn plow and that prosaic lethargic era when simple mathematics were inscribed in fundamental ideograms upon cuneiform tablets. Today, man spans oceans and continents in a few short hours; communicates with the speed of light; harnesses the nuclear might of the unseen atom; prepares to visit neighboring planets; and charts the course of stellar phenomena at distant outposts of his universe.

Nevertheless, there is something radically amiss. Man’s vainglory is tempered by the sordid fact that his society teeters perilously on the brink of perdition and ruination.

It is a pathetic situation. Is this a logical reward for more than five thousand years of patient searching and suffering? Must civilization emerge as nothing more than a cruel, self-inflicted hoax?

Of what value is the stunning record of technological triumphs if, consequently, the human soul languishes in a more harrowing nebulosity of existentialist despair? Why must the psyche of twentieth-century man endure the pangs of depressing anguish? Why does it seem that many more individuals are finding life futile and meaningless?

Judging from a general assessment of the present, and endeavoring a simple prognosis for the future, man’s experiment with a radically secular society has proved to be a dismal failure. The secular life has spawned a brutally amoral milieu. Human freedom has been translated into a cunning device for fiendish dominion and ruthless guile. One is tempted to conclude that species Homo sapiens is fast reverting back to the degrading rank of a savage beast.

Whereas God was once the chief inspiration for decent living, today brazen souls snidely allude to the Divine One’s demise. There is a diabolical ulterior motive behind the attempt to exclude God from appearing in the human picture. By publishing God’s obituary, man hopes to emerge as the uncontested supreme entity in the universe. With God out of the way, man believes that he is free to pamper his every conceit and caprice.

But how long can man hide from God, and how successfully can man fare in the parole of his own recognizance? Can man prod his own Freudian superego to formulate the necessary humanist recipe for a safe and sane society if all he has to fall back on is his ferocious id? Can man truly hope to guarantee his survival in a civilization that declares that God is obsolete? In the contemporary secularist environment that man has fashioned, and that predominantly ignores the divine presence, is man more secure–or is he more vulnerable to self-extinction?

We are living at a time when the existentialist plight of man is at a critical stage. The arsenals are overflowing with sophisticated weaponry that could very well wipe civilization from the face of the globe. The possibility of wholesale decimation is a real threat to the coming generations. Yet, the truth of the matter is that man does not want to be expunged from his little’ home in the solar system. Can man deter the ominous threat of an Armageddon?

If ever there was a time for serious introspection, it is now. If ever there was a time for a healing of breaches and a binding-up of fratricidal wounds, it is now. If ever there was a time for people of differing nationalities and cultures to extend a handclasp of sincere amity and harmony, it is now.

However, lest we succumb to the lure of futile idyllic dreams and utopian visions, let us consider a more realistic appraisal of the situation at hand. The scoundrels who presently abound in this world of ours are not going to relinquish their positions of power merely for the sake of serving the cause of world tranquility. Millions of innocents sadly must look forward to continued periods of inequity, hardship, and suffering. The present perpetrators of devilish designs will be succeeded by newer breeds of their ilk, and they will continue to impose upon the innocent multitude the venomous pattern of malicious hatred and falsehood, along-with its practice of arbitrary discrimination and evil persecution.

Is it futile, then, to hope that the masses of people of good conscience everywhere may learn to pool their talents in the interest of human survival? If the common good is thwarted because of narrowly divisive national lines, perhaps in a world fast becoming increasingly interdependent, an endeavor should be made at least to develop a common camaraderie along humanistic lines.
Why should not the scientist and the theist walk side by side in service of an existentially impoverished humanity? After all, both are simultaneously pledged to the task of aiding mankind. Their partnership in pursuit of this humanitarian ideal will afford a much needed ray of hope for the future of civilization. The scientist and the theist do tread the same path toward a search for ultimate truth, although they operate on different levels of investigation.

It is in the hope that a new harmony may prevail between science and theology that prompted the writing of this book. There is reason to believe that modern science and. modern theistic existentialism may develop into the leading cooperative components of a revitalized contemporary civilization. Assuming that knowledge is power, the combined might of both these disciplines should be enormous. The raging battle for the control of man’s mind is the most crucial struggle in our contemporary era. There is a lesson to be learned from the fastidious sponsors of evil. They resolutely exploit the full force of perverse propaganda with all the power at their command. Therefore, we must recognize the need to speak out, and we dare not remain silent. Unfortunately, however, the theistic existentialist position has been woefully inexpressive, and little has been done to counteract the specious sophistry of current insidious spokesmen. It is sad, because although the pronouncements of the purveyors of evil are widespread, their ulterior motive is narrowly egocentric and self-serving. Surely, the time is at hand when the clear voice of sincere seekers of truth must resound throughout the world unto all the inhabitants thereof.

Given the factual elucidations of science in harmonious coordination with profound theistic concepts, a new found partnership may develop that will have no rival in the search for ultimate truth. More than ever, modern man thirsts for the wellspring of truth. Science and theology share alike an earnest dedication to the principles of truth and knowledge. Together, they may reawaken the dormant spirit of man and infuse his newly inspired soul with a sense of valid purpose. Life may gain a fresh impetus to reflect valid meaning for the human situation.

In line with such a design, this modest work proceeds to offer an analysis of the cosmic drama in two sections. Part one unveils the first act, and the curtain rises to present an enlightened diagnosis of the cosmological problem. This analysis comes from the pen of the world-renowned scientist and distinguished scholar, Sir Bernard Lovell, who has gained wide respect as Professor of Radio Astronomy and Director of the Experimental Station, Nuffield Radio Laboratories, Jodrell Bank, under the auspices of the University of Manchester in Cheshire, England. The essay, “In the Centre of Immensities,” was first presented by Sir Bernard Lovell in August 1975, in Guildford Cathedral as his Presidential Address to the British Association, and it was reprinted in a shortened form in the New York Times Magazine on November 16, 1975, under the title “Whence.”

The British Association for the Advancement of Science was organized in 1831 to give a more systematic direction to scientific inquiry, and “to promote the intercourse of the cultivators of science with one another and with foreign philosophers.” Accordingly, “Wherefore,” which forms the second part of this work, indulges in a theistic exposition reflecting modern existentialist principles, and since it is authored by an American professor of the City University of New York, it should qualify, from the British Association’s point of view, as the product of a “foreign philosopher.”

A note of deep gratitude is extended to the esteemed and respected scholar Sir Bernard Lovell, for granting permission to publish his superlative essay, which inclines toward the view that the essence of modern man derives from his primeval source in stellar space. The exploration of this theme from a scientific direction is accomplished with thoughtful insight and consummate skill.
As we proceed to the task of further enucleation, and after completing a brief journey through the portals of current scientific observation and judgment as outlined in the first section, we arrive at the second division of our work, which examines the grand cosmic drama in the domain of “Wherefore” and beyond.

It is felt in the “Wherefore” analysis that a consistently logical scientist should be able to harmonize theistic doctrines and scientific facts with dispassionate equanimity; and even as the new wave of space-age science progresses, it should not be unsettling to witness the blossoming of a hardy strain of resolute theistic scientists who may handily succeed the egregious atheistic breed of the twentieth century.

On the basis of this assumption, we may anticipate the time when the fad of atheism will commence to wane, and in its stead, the universal acknowledgement of God will become a sine qua non for future generations. It matters little what man concludes in eras of illogical fancies. God remains ever invincible, and He must inevitably emerge as the total victor. This concept, certainly, is hardly new, but its reaffirmation in the light of current atheistic trends that have produced a marked convolution of existentialist and psychological ego-deification, makes such a project an essential task for our age.
Long ago, wise King Solomon asserted that there is nothing new under the sun. It should not surprise us, therefore, to discern that the essence of the plot of the unfolding cosmic spectacle is quite succinctly reflected in the simple declaration of a dedicated prophet, whose word from the ancient past re-echo with urgent persistency today: “And God shall be sovereign over all the earth; in that day, God shall be one, and His name one.” (Zechariah 14:9)

Buy Whence and Wherefore at Amazon.

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Detroit News: What is a Kosher Amigo Shabbat Scooter?

The Amigo Shabbat Scooter is a clever invention. We had bought one for our dad in 2007. It helped him get to shul on Shabbat.

Kosher scooters help Jews keep faith

Mich. company's device gets disabled Orthodox followers to synagogue

ORALANDAR BRAND-WILLIAMS
The Detroit News

Wixom --Michael Balkin observes traditional Jewish practices, but walking to services has been difficult for the past 20 years.

A worsening neurological disorder has made walking more than a few steps nearly impossible for the 59-year-old West Bloomfield resident. But in recent years, things have improved for Balkin, thanks to a motorized -- and perfectly kosher -- scooter.

"Now I'm able to do whatever and go to Shul and do whatever I want and how I want," said Balkin.

Orthodox Jews don't drive vehicles or use anything motorized during the Shabbat, or Sabbath, which lasts from sundown Friday to nightfall Saturday. But a Bridgeport company has rolled out specially designed scooters that allow Orthodox Jews to follow their beliefs and still make it to the synagogue.

Amigo Mobility International Inc. began making the Shabbat-approved scooters five years ago. It uses a module manufactured in Israel and certified by the Zomet Institute, an Israeli nonprofit that specializes in electronics that meet Halakha, or Jewish religious law.

The scooters, which cost $2,500 to $3,500, are sometimes covered by insurance. Amigo sells the scooters at a a store in Wixom the company opened two years ago to meet the needs of the estimated 7,000 Orthodox Jews in Metro Detroit.

Scott Chappell, the manager of the Amigo Mobility Center on Wixom Road, said the company was approached by the local Orthodox Jewish community for a scooter model that could help homebound individuals to be able to get to the synagogue during Shabbat.

"It's designed in such as way that on Fridays and Saturdays, it's a special mode and during the week it is a standard mode," Chappell said.

The Shabbat-approved scooter carries a special black-and-white sticker that has to be displayed at all times so others know it meets Halakha law, said Chappell. "(Others) will see that it has been certified by Zomet."

Balkin said he has used the Shabbat-authorized scooters during his trips to Israel. He was happy that he was able to get one in the United States. Deborah Balkin says she's glad that the scooter has given her husband more mobility so that "he doesn't have to stay home on Shabbat."

"He can go to services," said a smiling Deborah Balkin. "We can walk to a friend's house on Shabbat. It keeps him from being isolated. One of the worst things for a person who is ill is to be isolated."

Iris Rosen, who is not Orthodox, but uses a scooter to get around, said she is happy to see the technology come to the United States.

"It's amazing. It's proven. It's approved by the Orthodox community. It's definitely, definitely a good thing," said Rosen, a Farmington Hills resident.

Rabbi Jason Miller, who has been studying the use of technology and Judaism, said the technology has allowed Balkin and others to be more physically comfortable and practice their faith "without violating the tradition."

"We should all see this as a benefit to our community no matter where you are on the observance spectrum," said Miller, also the rabbi of Oakland County-based Tamarack Camps and the spiritual leader of Congregation T'chiyah in Oak Park.

"There are many rabbis out there who would give him permission to drive to synagogue on the Sabbath but on a psycho-spiritual level for someone with his observance patterns they would still be uncomfortable with this leniency," said Miller.

"His (scooter) allows him to be part of the community on the Sabbath and to feel comfortable in knowing that he hasn't compromised his observance.

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Remembering Our 1964 Red Citroen DS19

In 2007 the NY Times reminded me of my 1964 Red Citroen DS19 with a picture spread of the author's car and a nice little story.

This essay is mentioned in the Times' spread.

The New Citroen
by Roland Barthes 1957

I think that cars today are almost the exact equivalent of the great Gothic cathedrals: I mean the supreme creation of an era, conceived with passion by unknown artists, and consumed in image if not in usage by a whole population which appropriates them as a purely magical object.

It is obvious that the new Citroen has fallen from the sky inasmuch as it appears at first sight as a superlative object. We must not forget that an object is the best messenger of a world above that of nature: one can easily see in an object at once a perfection and an absence of origin, a closure and a brilliance, a transformation of life into matter (matter is much more magical than life), and in a word a silence which belongs to the realm of fairy-tales. The D.S. - the "Goddess" - has all the features (or at least the public is unanimous in attributing them to it at first sight) of one of those objects from another universe which have supplied fuel for the neomania of the eighteenth century and that of our own science-fiction: the Deesse is first and foremost a new Nautilus.

This is why it excites interest less by its substance than by the junction of its components. It is well known that smoothness is always an attribute of perfection because its opposite reveals a technical and typically human operation of assembling: Christ's robe was seamless, just as the airships of science-fiction are made of unbroken metal. The D.S 19 has no pretensions about being as smooth as cake-icing, although its general shape is very rounded; yet it is the dove-tailing of its sections which interest the public most: one keenly fingers the edges of the windows, one feels along the wide rubber grooves which link the back window to its metal surround. There are in the D.S. the beginnings of a new phenomenology of assembling, as if one progressed from a world where elements are welded to a world where they are juxtaposed and hold together by sole virtue of their wondrous shape, which of course is meant to prepare one for the idea of a more benign Nature.

We are therefore dealing here with a humanized art, and it is possible that the Deesse marks a change in the mythology of cars. Until now, the ultimate in cars belonged rather to the bestiary of power; here it becomes at once more spiritual and more object-like, and despite some concessions to neomania (such as the empty steering wheel), it is now more homely , more attuned to this sublimation of the utensil which one also finds in the design of contemporary household equipment.

The dashboard looks more like the working surface of a modern kitchen than the control room of a factory; the slim panes of matt fluted metal, the small levers topped by a white ball, the very simple dials, the very discreetness of the nickel-work, all this signifies a kind of control exercised over motion rather than performance. One is obviously turning from an alchemy of speed to a relish in driving.

The public, it seems, has admirably divined the novelty of the themes which are suggested to it. Responding at first to the neologism (a whole publicity campaign had kept it on the alert for years), it tries very quickly to fall back on a behaviour which indicates adjustment and a readiness to use ("You've got to get used to it"). In the exhibition halls, the car on show is explored with an intense, amorous studiousness: it is the great tactile phase of discovery, the moment when visual wonder is about to receive the reasoned assault of touch (for touch is the most demystifying of all senses, unlike sight, which is the most magical). The bodywork, the lines of union are touched, the upholstery palpated, the seats tried, the doors caressed, the cushions fondled; before the wheel, one pretends to drive with one's whole body. The object here is totally prostituted, appropriated: originating from the heaven of Metropolis, the Goddess is in a quarter of an hour mediatized, actualizing through this exorcism the very essence of petit-bourgeois advancement.

©Roland Barthes from Mythologies Vintage ISBN 0 09 997220 4 1957

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Are iPhones, Android devices, iPads, and Blackberrys Kosher?

David Assaf (in his wonderful Hebrew blog "Oneg Shabbat") writes at some length and detail about how a few 19th century rabbis apparently permitted speaking on a telephone on Shabbat.

He ends up with a "that was then, this is now" contrast citing a rabbinic wall poster that was seen in Givat Shaul in Jerusalem a few weeks ago. The poster warns Jews that "iPhones, Android devices, iPads, Blackberrys, MP4 and the like" and all video players and Internet devices, all of these "endanger the sanctity of the house of Israel" and they are bringing a "spiritual Holocaust" upon those who use them, "G-d Forbid..." 

"It is surely forbidden to own or use these devices" the rabbis warn. 

Just so there is no confusion, we disagree with those rabbis. We rule that these devices are kosher, permitted for use by all Jews. We are sure that is a relief for some of our readers.

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