Thursday, November 15, 2012

Egypt-- Go to Hell

A Message from Israel to our Cousins of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt:

Your country has so many problems-- overcrowding, corruption, poverty, lawlessness, lack of human rights. And, you have your own form of home grown terrorism in the Sinai.

So why focus your thoughts and attention on us? We have a terrorist problem, and its none of your business. Take care of your own problems, and stop trying to distract your people from them by focusing on the "crimes" of the "Zionists". We have nothing against you. We have a peace treaty, we hold none of your territory, and we don't attack you (even though attacks on us come from your territory).

So leave us alone. And if you don't control the extremists in your own territory and prevent them from attacking us, we'll act in the Sinai too.

If you don't like it you can go to Hell.

Wednesday, November 7, 2012

Some thoughts on Windows 8

I've being working on Windows 8 on my notebook computer for about a week.

The bottom line: The marriage between a desktop interface and the new graphic interface is unsuccessful.

The new GUI, with its large live tiles and mouse/swiping gestures, is great for a tablet touch screen, but seems to have no advantage whatsoever on a desktop. Desktop OS's have advanced tremendously over the years, giving users many new capabilities including multitasking, mutliple re-sizing windows, shortcuts and other tools to help productivity. The Metro GI is quite simply a regression. It is a necessary compromise for a smaller touch screen of a tablet, but for a full size computer you simply have nothing to do with it. The "live" tiles are just a gimmick, and not worth the awkward compromises which make getting down to real work much slower and more difficult. On the desktop if you really want something "live" just install one of the many widgets available.  To be honest, I spend 99% of my time working from the desktop. The other 1% when I go back to the new user interface, I find that I am asking myself, "what am I doing here?". Furthermore, I installed one the free Windows-7 type start menus (Classic Shell), in order to bypass the new interface. The "apps" in the Windows store consist of programs that are the equivalent of widgets that already exist for the desktop environment.

In the course of a week I have discovered a few quirky things, some of which have to do with the interface, and others are just oversight. A few examples:

1. Getting to the "full" control panel is a pain. It does not show up on the dumbed-down, over-simplified "settings" charm on the home screen, but does from the desktop. I finally made myself a shortcut tile on the home screen.  The "PC Settings" screen from the new interface is completely useless.

2. Microsoft has been pushing Skydrive as a default place to store your files, and they include a Skydrive app in the home screen. Yet, Microsoft forgot to tell you that you need to install the Skydrive desktop program to make it work! Otherwise you have no way of actually storing files on Skydrive. This was particularly strange since I had it installed on my Windows 7 system, which I upgraded to Windows 8, but somehow the program did not get carried over.

3. Security settings were altered, without letting me know. When I emailed myself Powerpoint files, I got an non-informative error message that there was a problem with the file. Powerpoint then offered to repair the file, which did not work. After a few frustrating hours I discovered that Windows and Office tag the files as suspicious, and don't let you open them unless you unblock them, via "trust" settings in Office. At least the error message should have told me this!

4. The Metro interfaced Internet Explorer is, again, good for a tablet, but for the desktop is completely awkward. No folders, favorites or toolbars. Yes, you get full screen, but so what? The same is true for the dumbed-down mail and calendar apps. They are a regression from all of the feature rich programs that we have gotten used to. It is a throwback to the days of MSDOS based programs.

Basically, I plan on using my Windows 8 like Windows 7, and ignoring the new interface.

I'm not sure what Microsoft had in mind with Windows 8.

Monday, November 5, 2012

An Open Letter to the Turkish People

The Israeli people are friends of the Turkish people. There are many Israelis of Turkish origin, who maintain a link between our peoples. Our businessmen continue to make deals with your businessmen. We have respect for the Turkish culture and history, and, up until a few years ago, we visited your country in droves.

In contrast, your government headed by PM Erdogan is conducting a disastrous foreign policy. A few years ago your Foreign Minister proudly boasted of his "zero problems with neighbors" strategy. Now, a few years later, you have problems with everybody. Not only are relations with Israel at a low point (due to your government's bottomless stupidity and Erdogan's stubborn contempt for Israel), but you are in conflict with Syria, Iraq, Iran, Armenia and the Kurds. Every day Erdogan blows off more steam at Israel, making baseless accusations and hollow threats.

However, your government's attempt to portray itself as the leader of the Muslim world, by sacrificing its relations with Israel, has backfired. It was easily predictable, too. Because when you decide to cozy up with the likes of Ahmadinejad, Assad and other assorted dictators, it's hard to be a democracy. Then, you have your show trials of Israeli military officials involved in the Marmara affair. These trials will be worthy of an American television court program.

Perhaps Erdogan's strategy of distancing himself from the West (and Israel) seemed like a sensible short term strategy to gain favor with Iran and the Arabs, and increase trade. But now you are paying the price. Even your military is suffering technological losses due to its cutoff from the Israeli military industries. Erdogan should reconsider his strategy, and realize that if Turkey wishes to maintain a democracy, it has no choice but to remain close with its natural allies--democracies-- of which Israel is the only one in the Middle East.

Sunday, September 16, 2012

The Muslim Inferiority Complex

I think much of the Muslim rioters' recent behavior and protest of the Muhommed flick can be explained by well known psychological phenomena.

I recently saw an Arab commentator in the news referring to the fact that Muslims are "touchy" when it comes to their prophet. That's a bit of an understatement, but it is revealing in terms of the Muslim emotional structure and makeup.

When you are strong and confident in your beliefs, you aren't shaken easily. Other's insults or challenges are met with disdain, disgust, and are perhaps refuted. The Jews deal with this all of the time. They will publish a rebuttal, or complain to their congressman, etc. This is true not only the the liberal USA but with Jews around the world. I can't recall ever seeing a "jewish riot" because somebody insulted their religious beliefs. However, this was not always so. Both Judaism and Christianity went through phases in which they committed violence in the name of religious belief. The bible is full of such exhortations. Yet we got past that (althought the Christians did so much later). Only when you are yourself ambivalent or unsure about something, when somebody pricks that sensitive area, you become defensive and angry. If Muslims themselves were confident and comfortable with who Muhammed really was, they would not react in this way.

Looking at the Muslims is like looking in the mirror at what we were thousands of years ago. A violent, jealous and insecure people who still aspire to convert the rest of the world to the one true religion. Yet when they look at us, and we reflect back to them what they really are, they become "offended", angry and violent. Its a reaction to the cognitive dissonance regarding the status of Islam in the world today.

At the same time the Muslim's hypocricy screams to the heavens. Arab country's daily newspapers and television are filled with inciting and hateful images regarding Jews and Christians, yet when a little scorn comes their way from Western countries, they become "insulted",  hysterical and violent (despite their characterization of Islam as a religion of peace and love...)

Perhaps it will take a few hundred more years of social progress in the Arab and Muslim world, when they, too, will stop becoming violent over "insult" and symbols. A drawing of Mohammed isn't worth a single human life.