University

In February, not a long time after I first met Joah, the woman who changed my life, I gave my applications for the Tel Aviv University to study Biology. Why Biology, some would ask, especially when I'm so deep into Computer Science?

Because I happen to like these things. Recently I found out that Genetic Algorithms are used to optimise SQL statements which has a very large complexity such as joins. You can read about it on the PostgreSQL site.

So, today I got a call saying that I got in!!! Starting October, I'm a member of the TAU slave camp! Woohooo!

I wish I could get in touch with Joah so I could tell her..

Operating System as a psycho-analysis

A week or two ago my friend Omer (who also responds to rants on this blog from time to time*) and I had a talk on the phone, in which he mentioned that over the years, I switched from Windows to Linux, while he was still using Windows, then I switched from Linux to FreeBSD, and he stayed in Windows, then I switched to Solaris, and he stayed in Windows, then for a short time I returned to Linux, him still being a Windows guy, and now I am using a Mac, and him? Still in Windows.

"What could this mean?" he pondered loudly. "Could this mean that I have a problem with commitment", I said in grave fear, "And that you have a problem accepting change and trying new things?"

A few seconds later we disregarded it by being too silly, and started thinking of something completely different.

Now, I know Joah is going to jump at this "Can't commit" thing. Baby, they're just operating systems. Not people.

* And probably is one of the few actual readers of it.

The MoIN Saga Continues

Going to Salame 53 revealed that the place is actually a club called Adam's which could accomodate up to 299 people, according to the sign above it.

A closer inspection of the building revealed another interesting detail: The EO's department which is not a department office is located on the side of the building, without any direct or non-direct signs leading you there. I had to literally Guess.

Reaching the office it was locked with a guard on the inside. Stating my business the guard refered me ot a note on the door stating that the office is dealing with public requests on Monday, Tuesday or Wednesday only. What does the office do on the rest of the week? Obvioulsy it's open today, probably on Sunday as well. What do they do there, if not taking care of public requests, while it's the reason there IS an employment office in the first place?

I will call them soon and get a new number for the Jerusalem office. I'll also try the phone information service. Obviously they have a better idea at where and how to reach each office in the givernment, much better than government offices themselves.

Hello, Haim's Butcher Shop Slash Ministry of Itern office!

As my quest continues to get Joah to live with me, I've encountered larger beasts and more furious devils than anyone has ever encountered, even in the Princess Mononoki starting scene. Let me try and recapture one of those chases after an official who could actually try and help us, apparently of his good will as the Ministry of Iternals aren't really dealing with Internals.

First, calling the MoIN lead me to hours of waiting on the phone until someone picks up to answer. I should be working in MoIN: Working only between 8:30 to 12:30, and not having to actually answer the phone and Work.

After finally reaching them, I was redirected to the Employment Office which, for obvious reasons, had no-one to answer the phone at. The time was 9:30 am. Luckily, the automatic message in the answering machine gave in the EO's direct number, so I could call them again and again without actually waiting on the MoIN again.

Getting a live voice from the EO, I was told that the EO does no longer take care of employment of foreign workers, hence I should get in touch wtih the office at Salame 53 in Tel Aviv. Now, this raises two questions, which I've asked. Answers as they were given are in brackets:

1. Does the Salame 53 in Tel Aviv office has a phone so I could call them instead of going? ("They should do. I don't know it though").
2. Should I actually Want to go to that office, on what times is it open? ("I think it's between 8am to 1pm, but don't take my word on it, as I'm not sure").

Now, I'm not blaming the poor chap who answered the phone: He was rather nice, unlike all the other MoIN employees I enountered in the last week. Especially the one from Salame 53, which answered only 2 hours after I started nagging that number (I got the number from the phone information service. It's silly, I thought that the MoIN and EO knew about that service).

[ Skipping the Hello/Hello parts ]
ME: Is this the employment office department for foreign workers?
HIM: No. [Explaining which office it is, which eventually means they handle foreign workers]
ME: I want to employ a foreign worker as a company.
HIM: For what task?
ME: International Secretary
HIM: You can't. She's not professional enough.
ME: What are you talking about? You haven't even heard what she can Do!
HIM: ...
ME: She has ten years of experience in her field of fundra..
HIM: Not professional enough. You will never get a permit. Waste of time to request it actually.
ME: [Sighing heavily] So you mean to tell me all the foreign workers who clean and do contruction work have PhDs in that field?
HIM: There are NO foreign workers doing cleaning or contruction work in Israel.


At this point I asked the guy what are the criterias for someone to be professional, and he directed me to the Jerusalem office. Calling the number he gave me lead me to Haim's Butcher shop, and calling back to the Salame 53 office yielded (surprisingly) no response.

Now, the question is raised: Why have a department for foreign workers if you would never accept anyone?

Tabbed Browsing

I heard many people talking about tabbed browsing using VS 2005's help browser - Even this guy hadn't skipped from mentioning it. I just wonder: Tabbed Browsing really has been around for a long time in other browsers... If people like this feature so much, why not switch a browser to a better one?

Maybe I'm missing something.

Orange Stripes

Finally, some sanity.. It's nice to see people like that, in a time where all you can see around are orange stripes been hung by people who might not even know what the fight is all about - They just heard it's wrong so for them, it's wrong. I think some percentage of them just wear the stripe because they think it's a new fashion, like the Nike Charity Band.

Turning to Phase 2

This passing week, when Joah was in Israel, we went to see the Ministry of Internals and were given the information needed for getting a work permit. Joah finding a job here is Great, and makes us both very exciting!

So, in order to get a work permit one needs to have an employer, the employer needs to pay a tax for employing a foreign worker, give a good reason for employing such a worker and finally, get a reference from the Employment Office.

Now we need to see to it that the employer meets all these rules. Also, Joah and I are thinking about an option of her moving here before settling with a job from abroad, as it is very difficult to manage. An option is for her to move here and start seeking for a job, specifically with the English Schools.

Will post in when I have more news.

Work Interviews

So, Joah is coming to Israel this week!

She's actually at the airport as we speak, cruising around shops and everything.

This week is very important. We're going to a few job interviews, one of them set up by my father. High chances on that one! If it all goes well, we'll go and try to get a work permit.

The thing is this: For reasons not to be explained here, Joah will only get Aliyah rights in March next year. We want to live together sooner than that, so we're trying to see if she can get a temporary work permit until she gets the permanent Aliyah ones.

If this works out, she can say goodbye to her current work, and we can start preparing the whole moving procedure, which we planned partially already.

Wish us luck!

Trackback System - Activated

Alright, Trackback system is activated, via HaloScan's service. They actually have an automatic installer for Blogger.com, so it was even easy.

I hope it'll be enjoyable!

Skype and Adverts

As I added the new adverts for Skype (You can click the adverts for this one, guys!), I wanted to let you know what I think of this.

Now, I usually don't like banners, adverts and the like. I added two advert systems here: One of Skype, whcih I just added, and one of Google AdSense. I'll go briefly about AdSense and then I will go in length about what I think about Skype and it's services.

Google AdSense is remarkable in the way that it gives your site adverts that are in direct link to the contents of your site. No need for fancy coding on your part, no need to create specific keywords, no need to do anything but paste a small portion of code into your site, which scans your content and deliver you with targeted adverts. Now, this is very important especially to bloggers, I presume: Blogs change their contents daily, and having adverts that are connected to the Current content without having to jerk around with the blog's template code is a relaxing feature, most of all.

Now about Skype. Skype had served me and Joanna for almost all the time we know each other. It has provided us a way to communicate by voice (as we live in different countries still, sadly), and when she wasn't near the computer (at work, with friends etc) it had provided me with a cheap option (Check out their call rates on SkypeOut!) for calling her cellular phone or land line.

Also, it is now starting a SkypeIn service, which is not yet working in Israel. Now, as a guy who has no phone at home, Skype has replaced the calling-out procedure at times: I just call from Skype, as it's the same cost as a local call to a land line phone here, and cheaper than most cellular companies on a cellular call. SkypeIn replaces the receiving-calls procedure: After purchasing a number at SkypeIn's service, your friends, colleagues, family and wrong numbers can call your number as if it was a land line, and be charged as if it was a land line as well. More so, you can purchase a SkypeIn in another country (say, the United Kingdom), and your friends (say, woman of your life) could call there for a local call's rate from any phone.

Another great feature they added recently is the VoiceMail, which means that even if you're not there to get to the phone, you will still be able to hear messages left to you. This service comes free with purchasing the SkypeIn service, or can be purchased separately.

Now, WHY would anyone with a land line want this sort of thing? I will give you the status in Israel, but I am sure it's the same everywhere else: If you have purchased only Internet Connection from your Supplier (Specifically Cables connection, so you don't need a land line to call, as it is with ADSL), that costs here (Infrastructure + ISP) around 120 NIS a month. SkypeIn costs 30 Euro a year, so that's approximately 14 NIS a month. That's cheaper than anything you would find in the land line rivals.

Besides, when you have SkypeIn, you can go abroad, and just login to Skype from your lap top there (provided you get internet connection there) - And your family and friends can still call you for local rates, and you to them!

I just love Skype as a service. So I had to put on adverts. To tell you the truth, I don't think I'll see any money from it - But I think it's worth my while to share Skype with anyone who doesn't know about it yet, and it's new services to those of you who haven't heard about Those yet.

Explorer on Mac OS X

Okay, I wanted to join the Skype Affiliate Program, and the CJ site didn't work neither on Safari nor Camino.

Going to my Applications folder yielded no results: No Internet Explorer to rescue me from this site, which obviously does not support diversity and cross-platform(ity), was found on my hard drive. So, against every common sense, and risking the price of my soul, I moved on to download Internet Explorer 5.2.3 for Mac OS X.

To my surprise, I have found this in the installation manual:

Installation instructions

Before you install this download:

Quit any other programs that are running, including virus-protection programs, because they might interfere with installation.

Now, why would installing Internet Explorer interfere with OTHER applications? What is it doing, in it's installation phase? Also, is Microsoft (Justifiably) afraid that a virus-protection program would deny the Internet Explorer installation, claiming it to be the worst thing to install on your computer if you want a virus free enviroment, or worse, claiming the software to be the virus it is? I'm pretty scared now of this irreversable procedure done to my lovely Mac. Wish me luck.

Kabbalah, Shmabbalah, Yabbalah!

Now, not only does this site sells the foolish, oh-so-American Kaballah gizmos, it actually can't copy from its own drawings. If you please, check out this drawing of the Ten Sefirot. Then, compare it to the quote I have from their explanation of the drawing:

The 10 Sefirot
The Kabbalistic ten Sefirot correspond to qualities of G-d.
They consist of, in descending order:

Keter (the crown)
Chokhmah (wisdom)
Binah (intuition, understanding)
Chessed (mercy) or
Gedulah (greatness)
Guevourah (strength)
Tifereth (glory)
Netzach (victory)
Hod (majesty)
Yessod (foundation)
Malkhout (sovereignty).

Honestly. So silly.

A googler for a day

So, if you're looking for a job at Google, you might get across this.

It reminds me of a joke of a man who was so just and good that when he died and reached The Pearly Gates, he was given the choice of whether to go to Heaven or Hell (Obviously this is a Christian joke). So, he floats to Heaven and takes a look and he see all the people being really happy, drinking their Tea, playing Cricket (he was British), and everything was made of gold and silver. He thought to himself "Well, that's nice!" and moved on to check out Hell. Now, when he got there, he could see people dancing, partying, drinking alcohol 'till they got so drunk they couldn't identify between a demon and a fallen angel. Now he thought "Wow, that's great!" and he went back to the Gates and told the guard that he wanted Hell. Granting his request, he fell from the sky into the eternal fires of Hell, and joins the party. Five minutes after his arrival, he hears a demon in the speaker screaming: "Okay fools, the 10 minutes break is over! Back to another 1000 years of slavery in horrible conditions!".

Now, obviously I'm not saying that about Google, heaven forbid! I'm one of their biggest fans. I just don't like these kind of pictures as they remind me of this joke, which is derived from the always wise saying: "If they have a choice of what to show you, they're not even going to bother showing you the carpet they just put all the dirt under".

Something like that.

Standing up to live

Some phylosophical note, as I am really tired and these kind of things actually seem amusing to me at the moment. My Personalised Google Home has a Quote of the Day kind of service. So today it showed me "How vain it is to sit down to write when you have not stood up to live." by Henry David Thoreau.

I think that luckily, I'm living up some of my life.. So I can sit down to write these silly things in this blog from time to time. That's a nice thought about life, I guess.

The Trip Home

Home is a lonely, boring place without Joah. Incidently, it's also stinky, disgusting and filled with junk without her - As I forgot to clean out the trash before I left it, and I am sure she would have reminded me had she been here.

About my trip home. As I said in the earlier post, the flight was delayed by 40 minutes for unknown reasons. I am grateful that the generous guy had only 15 minutes left in his account, as it later been realised that the flight was delayed only by 25 minutes, despite what the signs said so deliberately.

I am starting to develop a hatred to Heathrow Terminal Two.

Just to make a comment about that accoursed Terminal's signs: As I was looking for Gate 4, the gate I was [finally] assigned to, I saw a sign right next to the Dixons shop I was at saying:

Gates 1-10
Terminal 1

With an arrow pointing forward. Any normal person (and even the un-normal, such as myself) would think that this means that the Gates 1-10 of Terminal One are at that direction. So, knowing I need Terminal Two (yet thinking in my head "But I AM at Terminal Two!") I started searching for a sign that would give out the location of Gate 4 at Terminal Two.

Unfortunately, none was found and only after walking across the terminal I have got assistance from a shopkeeper who told me to go back to where I was, and that the lines were different lines even though not separated by any logical manner.

Did I mention I am starting to develop a hatred to Heathrow Terminal Two?

The flight in itself was not too bad - This time they actually gave me a cheese sandwich and not fed me to bloody meat. However, I was afraid all through the flight that I would miss my transfer to Israel, and thus be terribely late - Not to mention worrying my beloved Joah and family quite a lot. Finally, when we drew near Zurich, Switzerland, the transfer gates were announced and the Israel transfer passengers were told to head to the ground people for assistance. I could actually hear myself requesting a free flight for making me miss my flight and losing a work day.

Eventually, I didn't miss the lfight. But I did get to be called for "urgently". For those who ever had the chance to wait in airports, you know what I'm talking about. "Mr. Ben Dov, please hurry up URGENTLY to Gate A64" was heard all over the airport, as I am truely hurrying up to it, cutting people on the escalators, whispering through my lips "I Bloody Know..".. I held a whole plane. If you were on that flight, I truely apologise. But it wasn't my fault, you see. Really. Honestly.

The flight to Israel was quite good though. I finally remembered to order a vegeterian meal, which revealed itself as some good spiced asian food (tofu and vegetables in some really hot spices). Also, I had all 3 seats for myself in both flights, but I couldn't actually sleep as I saw some other guys who had the same situation do. I managed to fall asleep for 30 minutes just before we landed, though.

When I got to Israel, I decided to take the train to save on money - I would take the train to Tel Aviv, then a taxi from Tel Aviv would cost less than half the price it would cost from the airport. That's what I did, but the train left 30 minutes after I got onboard. In Tel Aviv itself, I saw the unbeleivable - No taxis in the train station. Only 20 minutes later a taxi bothered to show up, and it's driver clearly chose the longest way to get to my place (in fact, after getting somewhere near my place, he said "So where do you want to go?" and when I repeated the street's name, he said "Ohh!! You should have said so earlier, I would've gone by a different route".. Horrible!).

Now I'm home, and I need to clean up. I hate cleaning up. And I miss Joah.

Leaving England

It's always sad to leave England. I always get very emotional, as it's leaving my love behind. I just can't wait for her to just move to Israel and we wouldn't need this stupidly expensive travel service.

The most stupid thing about it is that I went through Departures a few minutes after boarding should have started, and the minute I went through security (few moments after saying goodbye and going through the gate of no-return, at least for this journy), the flight information changed from Go to Departures to Delayed.

You wonder how I can write this? So no, I don't have a laptop and WiFi paid for, neither did I pay for internet. I was about to go to the Dixons shop here, as I wanted to check the prices on Digital Cameras (as the one I had bought with Joah was stolen from me) and they had a pay-for-internet computers here. As I was sitting down to toy around with one, the guy sitting next to me told me that I had to pay, but since he just finished using his, I can use his spare time. I actually got 15 minutes free (2 pounds) which is really nice of him.

Sometimes the people in the world really encourage me into thinking humanity still has a chance to not destroy itself entirely.

Okay, 3 minutes left. Next time I blog, it will be from Israel.. Unfortunately, without my beloved Joah. :-(

RSS Visualizer

I am at the Mac Shop and I just found out about one of the coolest things in the new Tiger edition of Mac OS X: RSS Visualizer!

Why do shower curtains billow inwards?

Just a couple of weeks ago, I asked this question to Joah, and here! A scientist came up with an answer. Which just shows you, all you need to do is ask.

Worthwhile to know Japanese

The lady and myself went to eat out yesterday. Went to a nice Japanese place called Asakusa in Camden Town. Even though the place wasn't too expensive in itself (we've seen places which are Very expensive), we have reason to believe they had different prices if you knew Japanese.

To be more specific: We were handed down menus. We actually could, as a couple, afford a nice meal of 2 sets (around 10 sushi and a bunch of tempura) and 2 starter meal (cooked aubergine and tofu steak) and of course green tea. However, there was a group next to us, a group of Japanese people - They kept ordering, and they got sets of sushi for a family! Like.. 40 or 50 sushis on this huge dish. At some point they got a whole fish at their table, and that's not counting the other sets of dishes they already had on their table when we got there, including a huge pot of soup, which they just took whenever they wanted some and some other goodies which I cannot recall at the moment. Now, I know it's not polite to look at someone else's dish.. But they really did have a lot of food.

Back to the menus, though - Even though we were handed a set of menus, and even though the prices weren't really reaching for the skies, there was a different menu, and all sort of little "ads", sticked on all the walls, written strictly in Japanese. It's easy to believe that they were cheaper - Mostly because their prices on these pseudo menus didn't reach the prices we've seen on our menu. Next time I'm there, I'm going to speak Japanese. It's better economy.

One thing to say about the restaurant though - Even though it was Packed, and I mean Really packed, they let us in really quick and the food didn't take too long to be served, and it was really good food. Also, they were really nice about just placing kosher fish in it ("No clabs?").

War of the Worlds

Eating a lot of Humus does get your head boggled. But still, not boggled enough to notice that War of the Worlds, the new movie with Tom Cruise, is set out in New Jersey, while the original book was written in the scenery of England. The hero of the book was barely wed, yet the hero of the movie is married and fights to save his children as well.

What will they bring us next? The struggle for survival of Kermit and Ms. Piggy against the evil Gonzo Tribe?

Technorati Tags: Life

CoffeeRants now features: Joah!

The new blog member will rant as well about - and drink even more coffee than - The blog's majestic founder, Aviad.

Please welcome Joah into the blog!

As a side note, I also added GoogleAds. I don't know why - Blogger.com just suggested it and I had to apply, by some strange force of marketism.

Technorati Tags: England, Life

Picasa/Hello for the Mac!

Google released some great time ago a software called Picasa, which is a very nice Free application to manage your computer's photos. It's very good, very flexible, and very easy to use.

Some time ago, Google launched another application, a sub-application of Picasa, called Hello. This application enables you to share photos with friends, and also, using the Hello servers, to host photos for your blog.

In this thread, people are asking Google to unleash the two onto other operating systems, more specifically the Mac. If you are a Mac user, please join the thread - Maybe it'll make some difference. :-)

Technorati Tags: Mac

Curry tracking

I wonder if my department should do the same with Roladin cakes:

The Eclipse teams in Ottawa are now tracking the number of takeout dinners ordered from Shaan Curry House during the 3.1 release cycle.

And of course, a picture is worth a thousand words..

Technorati Tags: Developer

Atom Feed

Just in case you were wondering, there IS an Atom feed. It can now be found on the navigation bar to the right.

Atom feeds are just like RSS feeds, and most RSS syndication tools support both feed types. I know RSS is more common, and is more widely supported, but unfortunately Blogger.com only supports Atom.

Kanji Cards

Woohoo! Back to learning the Kanji! Look what I've got:

"Kanji Cards Volume 1" (Alexander Kask)

Technorati Tags: Japanese

Java and DataSet

If only Java had a bloody DataSet, everything would be easier. Especially if you could take a bunch of JavaBeans and just stuff them into a DataSet, created dynamically with some XML descriptor.

I might have to code this thing myself; Could be a nice project to do, not to mention helpful when later on developing Java / .NET distributed applications - The well-known interop would actually be easier.

My first rant yet, and more to come as I rant a lot - Aloud or deep inside.

Technorati Tags: Developer, DotNet, Java

First things first

I guess I should start with something though.

I said before I was bored: It is not entirely true. I am actually just waiting for some things to finish up before I leave for Camden Town, and I just finished reading "The Timewaster Letters" (Robin Cooper), which was very amusing while it lasted. I can recommend it safely to everyone who loves a good practical joke, especially when done on other people.

Back to Camden Town. Yes, even though I am an Israeli Citizen (and a proud one at that), I am now in England, during a work week. The reason for this is simple: I came to live at the woman of my life's apartment for the coming week, before going back to working and missing her over seas.

And this is where two pieces from the introduction come together: England and Aliyah - We are now working on doing Aliyah, or rather for Her to do Aliyah - Which means, to make it short, to take all the stuff and move to Israel.

The process doesn't seem that simple and thus is painful for us both: But we are patient and do what we can in the meantime, hence us visiting each other frequently.

I will say more about this as I have more to say about the subject. As for now, we've just found a way to get a work permit in Israel until the Aliyah process is complete and we're thinking about re-fixing the house in England so it could be rented out.

With a lot of will and some luck, it would work out and soon we'll be living together in the country of milk and honey.

Technorati Tags: England, Life

Introduction

I am not a man of big introductions, so I will make this short.

Hello! My name is Aviad Ben Dov. I am really opening a blog because I am bored. Not bored of life, of my work or at my leisure time, just bored at the moment.

I will not go into details about all the things I do in life, as even if there aren't many of them, I don't want a long introduction. I will only present a few key words here, to stir up imagination:

Israel.
England.
Mac.
Java.
DotNet.
Karate.
Aliyah.
UML.

That's it for now. Not that I do not do more than those specified, it's just that I can't really think of them right now.

Hope this didn't take too much of your time, and hopefully I get bored again soon to write some more (I have a feeling I WILL get bored again really soon but.. Heck).

Technorati Tags: Life