The Loss of Honor
Responding to an episode of Simon Sinek’s podcast again… We are missing a lot without honor. I agree that honor is about maintaining moral standards and gentleperson-like behavior. And many religious people who claim to have moral standards rarely have honor. Honor is not necessarily about being of service or being necessary but it’s definitely about not being a harm to society and being a standup citizen. I think the problem we have with the IDF today as opposed to all that we hear from the US army about people being professional, wanting to be there, and being very honorable and easily sacrificing for each other and the greater good, is that in the IDF, we claim to have high moral standards but the soldiers themselves, from what we see in the news, are very dishonorable. Which is funny in a country where one of the most celebrated movies with one of the most celebrated songs is one about honor.
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19 Years
This blog has been up for 19 years counting last Monday. Of course, avid readers remember that I had a blog before this which I made in high school so I’ve been blogging closer to 25 years. This years has been… a thing. I’m just tired about everything. For many reasons. I’m sure you can relate to at least some.
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The Power of a Dog
by Rudyard Kipling and Eran Arbel I love and despise the original song for what it means and I always come back to it.However, despite it still being very strong, I find that it has aged very badly in several respects.So, here’s my riff on it. There is sorrow enough in the natural wayFrom the assholes and dipshits that fill our day;And when we are certain of sorrow in store,Why do we always arrange for more?Fellow Humans, I bid you bewareOf giving your heart to a dog to tear. Adopt a pup and you will recieveLove so strong, undying, that you cannot concieve.With a dog in your life, it’s hard to burn outWhen you can always see, joy in a snoutNevertheless it is hardly fairTo risk your heart for a dog to tear. When those precious years, far too little,Are growing shorter and slower, it’llBe hard to be happy, when that little pupper,Now a tired senior, eating a last supper.Then you will find, that you need to bearThat you’ve given your heart to a dog to tear. When the creature you nurtured, played with its paws,Who greeted you daily, morning, evening, because,When the body runs its course, and will is depleted,You have to let go, father time undefeated.Allow the vet, the final dose, to administerFor you have given your heart to a dog to tear. We’ve sorrow enough, happiness rare,Car crashes, wars, disease, and despair.Our love, like theirs, is the grip of a vice,Once it attaches, it stays there for Continue Reading →
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הפרכה זה חשוב
מדע זה לא רק גוף של ידע, זאת דרך מחשבה. קוראים לה ‘השיטה המדעית’ (The Scientific Method). חלק חשוב מהשיטה המדעית היא ‘יכולת הפרכה’ (או Falsifiability). זאת אומרת, מה צריך לקרות, איזה ניסוי עם איזו תוצאה תשמיד את ‘התאוריה’ (Theory) לחלוטין או לפחות תשלח אותה חזרה לאזור ‘ההשערה’ (Hypothesis). כן, גם לתאוריות כמו תאוריות הכבידה יש הפרכה. אם תעשו ניסוי של להחזיק תפוח ואז לעזוב אותו, אבל במקום ליפול הוא ימריא לשמיים, זה יפריך את תאוריית הכבידה. לתאוריות שאין להן הפרכה אנחנו קוראים תיאוריות קונספירציה (כי כל דבר שתגיד להם רק יאשש את התאוריה) או אמונה. למה כל ניפוח השכל הזה? כי הרבה פעמים בהרבה מקומות עכשיו קורה לנו שמגיע אחת עם תיאוריה שאפשר להפריך ואחת עם תיאוריה שאי אפשר להפריך (בדרך כלל על ידי הטענה ש’אלוהים אמר’ או ‘זאת זכותנו הטבעית’ או יותר בכללי, ‘כי ככה’) והן צריכות להגיע לאיזו שהיא הסכמה. אבל אם אי אפשר לדון בטענות, בגורמים, באילו ניסויים אפשר לעשות כדי לדעת מה הדרך הטובה יותר, אי אפשר להתקדם. לא משנה מה תהיה התוצאה, הצד שמייצגת מי שהפסידה (לרוב בגלל שקול אחד יותר היה נגדה) יהיה מאוכזב הרבה יותר מאשר הצד השני. ולמי שלא זוכר, המטרה של פשרה (קרי, דמוקרטיה) היא שכולם יהיו מאוכזבים כמה שיותר במידה שווה. אז, אם אפשר, בחייאת ראבאק, להוציא ממוקדי השלטון את המטורפים הדתיים, החשובים בזכות עצמם, הגזענים צרי האופקים, וכל אלו שלא יכולים להביא הוכחות יוצאות מהכלל לתמוך בטענות שלהם.
Posted in No Category and tagged Democracy, Politics, Religion, Science by Eran with comments disabled.
The Last APOD Wallpaper Pack
I started making these packs a while ago because I found a lot of APOD images to be very high quality, quite beautiful, and a great addition to any wallpaper collection. I would go over each year’s images, filter out those that are good looking, conform to a standard 16:9 format (or can be mildly squashed/stretched to fit) or with a background that allows them to sit neatly with black borders, and collect them all in a special folder for wallpaper use. I kind of fell off the wagon for a bit until a good friend of mine told me she likes it and wanted more of it. So I did more of them. Then, a ten years ago, said friend tragically died. That hurt, a lot, and I lost the passion for it. Then I realised that this past February would have been Keren Embar’s 46th birthday and this year we will be marking a decade of our loss. I’m crying now just thinking about it. Not just because she was a very meaningful friend and one of the best people I ever knew, but this was also a great loss for her doctorate field and could have done so much for science and our understanding of our environment. Just a glancing search for her name pulled up tens of papers, citations, and articles about her work, even though she just finished her PhD before she died. I don’t think I’ll do more of these. But I wanted to Continue Reading →
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Unity Tidbit: Build Automation for iOS
Look, it’s now easy to build an app for iOS without an actual mac on your desk, using Unity Build Automation (formerly Unity Cloud Build). This is a summary of the official tutorial which is, by the way, unique. I mean, iOS is it’s own special part of the Build Automation guide. Here’s what you need to do: And that’s it! Easy, right? The answer is no, by the way. Glad to see it’s just as easy now as it was in a Game Jam long ago when someone asked as why we had an Android, PC, and web version of our game but no iPhone version. (I heard they stopped using the fax, though. Maybe it was outside my process.)
Posted in No Category and tagged C#, Programming, Unity, Work by Eran with comments disabled.