Off to GUADEC tomorrow! I feel relatively prepared, I shaved and packed 4 US-Europe plug adapters. If you forgot yours, don’t buy one, you could borrow.

I also prepared my talk. You should come, it’s on Wednesday at 11:15 AM in the Seville room. It’s going to be extremely nontechnical, but I hope you could follow. I don’t think a single acronym will be mentioned, although I don’t hold me to that. We will be discussing the software development process, design, things we take for granted every day, and door knobs.

Do you know how sometimes there is something old at the back of your fridge that you are scared to take out because it probably smells super bad? And you know how it doesn’t get any better with time as you think “if it wasn’t nasty last month, it has to be nasty now!”.
That is sometimes how I feel about my blog, if last month I didn’t blog in a long time, today I didn’t blog in a really really long time! So I am probably officially not a blogger any more.
I still owe some obligatory posts, specifically about my day job, and about the fact that  and giving a prez there.
But now let’s talk about my new toy. Did I need it? Probably not. My T400 is a portable workstation that gives me everything I need. But every 2 years or so I decide to splurge on a new machine, and I am happy to say that I have become increasingly satisfied with my choices each time. My T400 refuses to die or become obsolete, it’s black unimpressive looks doesn’t allow it to get stolen. But it’s been 2 years!
I have been looking at the Thinkpad X series for a while, and debating whether the X201 was ergonomically large enough for full days of work. The X300/X301, priced north of 3k, always seemed obscenely expensive, but I was curious what made it so (is it the whale penis leather exterior?). It’s been lauded as Lenovo’s answer to the Macbook Air, but I have seen those in reality, they looked paper thin. The X301 does not look as miraculous, not even in the sales photos.
One day, while reading the interblogs, I came across a $1,700 discount for the X301. I impulsively clicked “checkout” (after clicking “add 2 year warranty” and “add to basket”). Then came my favorite part about ordering a Thinkpad: the weeks long wait for them to assemble it, ship it, get through customs, and hoping the UPS does not lose it in the back of a truck in rural Wisconsin. After this period, you are sure that the UPS guy is going to deliver pure joy to your doorstep, as this photo suggests:

It’s a pretty nice machine, everything I liked about my T400 in a reduced package. Large enough to work on, but extremely light. Is it worth the $3,000 price tag? No. $1,300? Yes.
My favorite feature is not the 128 GB solid state drive, it’s the fact that the earphone jack is on the side, and not in front like in the T400. The front jack just didn’t work for me, it was super awkward.
My biggest disappointed has been the fingerprint reader. It does not work on Linux, what’s up with that? Are we in 1995? I really looked forward to unlocking my GNOME key ring with my middle finger, that would be so cool.
OK, enough with this guilty materialistic blogging. Next post will either be about my upcoming GUADEC talk about universal design, my fun happy times working on Telepathy and friends, or Israel’s rapid decline from nationalist chauvinism to overt fascism.

I really like Agave Dream. Found it on the right hand side of the co-op freezer. It has this chalky texture that I love, my housemates don’t, so more for me! I really like the lavender flavor, vanilla is OK.

During work hours my web browser will often find itself in some political blog, occasionally I can’t help myself and I will spend time banging out some ranty comment in the post. Often the comment is moderated since I inconveniently didn’t confirm the blogger’s point of view.
Daniel Gordis wrote this, and I couldn’t help but reply. Since I spent time writing it, maybe it’s worth a post of my own? You’re welcome.

You may not like it, but I am extremely encouraged by where young people, in particular young American Jews are taking us. A new generation is taking a fresh look at Israel today, and it doesn’t like what it sees.
On one hand we learn about the American civil rights movement, about separation of church and state, about a progressive immigration policy, about multi-cultural multi-ethnic society, and about the rule of law. We learn to cherish and defend these principles especially as Jewish minority, especially after our experience in the Old World. And then we go to Hebrew school, where first we are lied to (“a people without a land, for a land without a people”), and later we are told to love Israel, an ethnocentric state where one set of laws does not apply to half of it’s population, where a secret police reigns supreme, where it views 1/5 of it’s population at best as a blight in the landscape and at worst as a fifth column or a “demographic time-bomb”.
We are lucky that this new Jewish generation is not outright schizophrenic, but overall has understood these contradictions in its education.
“Pro-Israel” advocates will try to re-brand and encourage the narrative of a pluralistic, secular, gay-friendly and technologically advanced Israel that is contrasted with its dark, backwards, violent, and poor neighbors. This is meant to appeal to democratic and progressive ears, but it is nothing more than veiled racism that simply rekindles our fear of the unfamiliar, of the brown, and of smelly poor people.
You say “the only association they have with Israel is the conflict with the Palestinians”. A good observation. The Israeli-Palestinian conflict rightly eclipses every other aspect of Israel’s image. It cannot be overstated, any attempt to trivialize it is simply dishonest. Even the word “conflict” deceives, as it implies the clash of two equal parties, where the reality is of an occupying power and a (increasingly) dispossessed and disenfranchised population.
Judging by the comments on this post, it seems like your readership is mostly middle-aged and concerned about their children’s attitude towards Israel. I just hope your kids manage to remind you what it’s all about and help you snap out of the euphoria and delusion you have been in since ‘67. Your children’s expensive education does not teach them to agree with you, even though you are footing the bill.

I was reminded of my moderated comment when I saw this essay by Peter Beinart that was just posted on The New York Review of Books.