Pacific Jewish Center | Rabbi » gizmodo

The Arctic Light Video by TSO Photography: Beauty Beyond Words

rabbifink — Fri, 03 Jun 2011 15:48:03 +0000

And now for something completely different…

If my last three posts offended you or made no sense to you, I hope I can win you back with today’s post.

This is one of most beautiful videos I have ever seen.

It was shot in the arctic circle and demonstrates one of the more fascinating phenomena on planet earth. The sun barely rises above the horizon, moves a bit to the side and then sets shortly thereafter.

Much of Jewish law is predicated on when the sun rises and sets. It assumes a fairly balanced day as far as daylight and darkness with variations for summer and winter. But I just can’t imagine a 2 hour Shabbos or 2 hour fast day. Maybe that is why orthodox Jews don’t live (as far as I know,) in the arctic circle.

Our world is so beautiful. Enjoy it!

Link for complete description: Vimeo

Via: Gizmodo

We Always Knew Freedom and Liberty Were Lightning Rod Topics

rabbifink — Fri, 15 Oct 2010 16:00:20 +0000

Check out this amazing picture.

Persistence pays off. Photographer Jay Fine waited over 40 years for this picture. And it is spectacular.

A bolt of lightning striking the Statue of Liberty. Wow.

What’s the message?

Perhaps that freedom and liberty are a lightning rod topic. Some people value it, others don’t. Some people want to spread the message of freedom and liberty, others say don’t impose specific values on others. Some say we have freedom and liberty in the United States of America, others say that we do not. Some say that America stands for freedom and liberty, others want to take that away. Plenty to think about…

Anyway, here is the pic. Enjoy.

Pic: Caters via Jay Fine

HT: Gizmodo

An Interesting Alternative to Prison

rabbifink — Sun, 15 Aug 2010 18:03:56 +0000

I have visited a prison and a jail. (My Visit With Judith Clark at Bedford Hills Correctional Facility) I have learned a lot about the failures of our current system of incarceration and it sickens me. As a (relatively) outspoken individual I have made my opinions known to anyone who will listen.

I tell them that I am against prison in principle. I don’t think anyone should go to prison. It’s a waste of money and far worse it is a waste of a human being. People accomplish almost nothing while incarcerated. Society gives them a free ride and they produce next to nothing for society.

The first response I hear is usually related to the safety of society. That somehow we, on the outside, are safer if the criminals are isolated, on the inside. While this is generally true, most crimes do not affect the middle or upper class of society . Most crimes are not violent. Most criminals that go to prison have someone step into their place in their social circle and the crimes continue. I know this is a pretty weak position, but I think that incarceration is also a weak position.

The next thing that I hear is almost always a challenge. “Do you have a better solution?” To which I have been saying “I think so”. Prisons are as an old insitution. They hearken back to a time that it was the only option for incapacitation. The loss to society caused by providing criminals with a prison was worthwhile because there was no other real option. Incarceration is a old system that was the best they could do.

I propose that criminals be monitored. Conviction of a crime is a waiver of one’s privacy. There is no privacy in jail. Instead of tossing them in a cell and monitoring that way, criminals should be monitored by corrections officers. They can be mother or fathers to their families. They must find jobs, they must be productive members of society and only if they lapse back into crime would they go to jail.

To me, this was a sci-fi idea that I had no way of determining its effectiveness or cost. Monitoring was a idea, but just an idea with no real data to back up the idea.

Last week I read a very well written article in The Atlantic (I don’t regularly read The Atlantic, I saw the article linked on Gizmodo) about Monitoring.

It demonstrates the feasibility of the idea and its preference over incarcertation for all but the most dangerous criminals. It explains how badly the current system is failing and the attractiveness of this alternative solution.

I highly recommend the article and I highly recommend the system as described in the article.

Currently, it costs about $50,000 a YEAR to incarcerate a criminal in California. No wonder we have a budget crisis. Monitoring is a much cheaper solution. It is a more humane solution. It is a more productive solution. It is the solution of the future.

The only question that remains is how long will it take us to reach “the future”.

I say, the future is now.

Link: Prison Without Walls

Pacific Jewish Center on Gizmodo.com (well, not really)

rabbifink — Thu, 15 Jul 2010 14:33:51 +0000

Last night I saw an interested post on Gizmodo.com, a favorite technology blog of mine.

Google Maps has sattelite pictures of nearly the entire world. When you take pictures of everything, you’re going to catch some funny things.

Google has satelite pictures and “Street View” pictures which are (the ultimate stalking tool and) depict the view from the street. Most of the wacky Google Maps pictures are Street View pictures.

For a change, Gizmodo found a really cool satellite picture.

A crazy looking plane just above a residential street was spotted.

The street was Rose Avenue. The cross street was Lincoln Avenue. That is exactly where the Pacific Jewish Center Annex is located. Sure enough, the satellite photo of our annex has a crazy looking plane in the picture.

Original post and photo on Gizmodo: Google Maps Catches Airplane Cruising Down a California Street

(Click the photo to enlarge)

Incredible Visual Of The BP Oil Spill

rabbifink — Thu, 27 May 2010 15:58:09 +0000

I was almost too scared to watch this video clip.

We’ve all seen images and video of the leak in the oil rig. We seen some horrific images of wildlife affected by the oil “spill”.

But it’s hard to get a sense of just how massive this disaster actually is.

Then I saw this time lapse video.

NASA has been taking satellite photos of the region and you can see the change in landscape visually. You can see the color of the water changes and you can see how far the oil spill’s reach extends.

The oil is grey in the video and the reason it appears and disappears depends on currents and recovery efforts.

(HT Gizmodo)

NASA Spending Millions To Find Water On The Moon

rabbifink — Fri, 09 Oct 2009 04:18:07 +0000

Am I missing something?

Normally I stay out of politics. But I think this issue transcends politics.

Friday October 9, 2009 at approximately 7:31 AM EST NASA is going to bomb the moon. This is an exercise designed to confirm or deny the existence of water on the moon. Video of the anticipated explosion is below.

The cost for such an exercise? $79,000,000. Yes. Seventy-nine million dollars. Are we running out of water on the Blue Planet that we need to find water on the moon!?

I plan a longer post on my opinion on Space Exploration, but in honor of tomorrow’s bombing I will provide you with just one figure that is sure to blow your mind.

NASA has a public record of their yearly budget request. Take a look at it by clicking NASA Budget 2010.

If you dig around there for a few minutes you’ll find what I found. The actual 2010 NASA Budget Request from the Federal Government is enumerated. The number? Astronomical (hehe).

$18.686 Billion. Yes. That is right. $18,686,000,000

We spend a lot of money each year on space exploration. Is this the best use of such extravagant funding?

So again. Am I missing something?

If you want to see $79,000,000 explode in outer space you can find links by clicking here for Gizmodo’s links.

And as promised, here is the video:

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

Shame on Gizmodo | Shame on Us Too

rabbifink — Mon, 20 Jul 2009 03:21:20 +0000

One of my favorite gadget blogs ran a despicable headline for a post yesterday. Gizmodo is a great blog when it comes to getting information, reviews and opinions on the latest technology and gadgets. Unfortunately, yesterday they disgraced their reputation with a pretty offensive headline.

The headline garnered enough attention that they ultimately changed it to something less offensive.

There is a normal Orthodox Jewish couple who have a vacation home. Originally, the building did not have motion sensing lights but recently changed the system to a motion sensing system. On Shabbos the couple did not wish to be forced to walk in a hallway that would trigger the lights on. They requested the building swap the new system for the old one at their expense. The building refused. The couple sued.

Gizmodo posted the following headline: “Orthodox Couple Imprisoned By Superstition Blame Motion Sensing Light Instead”.

Proof:

Subsequently, the headline was changed to “Orthodox Jewish Couple Sues Over Motion Sensing Light“.

I posted the link on Facebook hoping to get some comments from my Facebook friends. I got a few interesting responses.

One commenter hit the two points that I want to discuss on this blog.

1 – The halachic ramifications of motion sensors and Shabbos for the Orthodox Jew.

2 – The reaction of a non-Jew to a halacha adherent Jew.

I do not want to get into a nitty gritty halachic discourse of motion sensors on Shabbos. Suffice to say, the issue is not black and white. On Shabbos one may not act in a way that will automatically produce a desired result that violates Shabbos. Completing a circuit to turn on a light is a violation of Shabbos. By activated the sensor, one automatically produced the desired result of turning on the light.

There is leeway when the result is not automatic or when the result is not desired.

I am all for striving to keep halacha. When I am met with a choice between what I want and what halacha demands I try my best to choose halacha. So for example, if I am driving late at night and I pull into a rest stop and they have a fast food joint serving burgers that are not kosher I have a choice. I want a burger but halacha demands that my burgers be kosher. I choose to leave the rest stop burgerless. I will not sue the restaurant for not providing kosher burgers. Right?

Now, I know this is a little different from the vacation home. But, it is the same principle. If halacha will not allow for me act a certain way, guess what? I am not going to act that way. Even if I really, really, really want to. So, I know that in the vacation home there are other factors, such as broken promises and flawed reasoning. However, if it were me, or anyone that I advise I would trade that place for a new one.

Adhering to halacha is about making a choice to allow halacha to control your life and not your whims and desires at any given moment. There will be times where the choice is hard or the alternative is very tempting, those are the times where you show your strength of character by making what you believe to be the right choice. Those are not the times to sue because you have been made uncomfortable in your adherence to halacha.

There may be great merit to the lawsuit. I find that all irrelevant. I think, avoiding a legal brouhaha over halacha is more important than the principle of who is right and who is wrong in this situation.

Second, the offensive headline that originally appeared on Gizmodo bothered me. I am NOT an overly sensitive person. I do not cry “Anti-Semitism at every opportunity I get (ala Uncle Leo). I don’t even call this “Anti-Semitism”, I call this insensitivity.

There is nothing against Jewish people, per se, when calling religion a superstition. But there is a tremendous breach of sensitivity.

Gizmodo writer, Jack Lofton doesn’t believe in religion in general and that’s okay. I am not going to call him names about his lack of faith or question his theology publicly. That is just not appropriate for a gadget blog. If he were writing on a religion blog, or even an anti-religion blog then Jack’s opinion about religion might be relevant. Here, it was not and inserting his bigoted opinion was insensitive.

I do not read the headline as an affront to Judaism or even religion in general. I read the headline as an affront to civility.

We live in a big world, with a lot of people. Not everyone is going to agree. You can try and convince everyone you are right or lash out against those who do not. But ultimately, we are not all going to agree. So let agree on this, let’s choose not to fight about our disagreements and otherwise be friends. I mantioned this revolutionary concept on this blog a little while ago. We have more in common than not. Let’s stop fighting about God, or anything else we feel strongly about and move on.

Also, Jack, Gizmodo is the wrong place to make your point about religion.

Time and place, Jack. Showing your prejudice against religion is ugly, it is especially ugly when it is not at all connected to the content of your post. I read Gizmodo for technology news and content. Just because you have a soapbox does not mean you can shout whatever you want whenever you want. Time and place.

Jack, please don’t make fun of other people’s beliefs on one of my favorite gadget blogs. Thanks.

Update: To his credit, the writer apologized.

Kosher Navigation

rabbifink — Thu, 19 Feb 2009 22:43:37 +0000

I love technology. My world is full of iPhones, digital cameras, blogs and Wii. There are a lot of people who adhere to a stricter Jewish lifestyle than mine. Their world is without these toys. The main objection to these tech toys is the access they provide to content that could be dangerous to a spiritual lifestyle. Therefore as a general rule there is a resistance to any device which has internet access. As we all know there is no limit to the dangers of the internet…

In Israel there is a strong market for products that have their web access disabled. These products are usually preceded by the word “Kosher” like Kosher Phones. The word kosher is commonly used in reference to foods that an observant Jew knows are fit for consumption in accordance with the Jewish dietary laws. I spoke about this in detail at a Connections a few weeks back. I recommend checking that out.

One of my earliest posts on the blog discussed the kosher vending machines popping up in the New York area. They are programmed to turn off on Shabbos to prevent any profits on Shabbos which adheres to the restriction of conducting business on Shabbos. I noted the proliferation of comments on the blog which I was linking to that discussed the ideas and philosophies of Shabbos. It was quite interesting to me that on a mainstream gadget blog there was so much discussion about Shabbos.

It happened again. There was a post today about the Kosher GPS. A GPS navigation system that restricts internet access and has a database of kosher restaurants as well as many prayers and Psalms in the device. Kudos to MIO for producing such a great product!

Granted the linked blog has a very tongue-in-cheek tone to its posting but the comments are where the action is. Millions of people who never thought about the dangers of technology can gain new perspective from the blog and its comments. Not to mention all the good PR for those of us who are observant Jews. No we are not Amish. Yes we love progress. We are just careful how we use our resources.

Technology can be destructive but I guess this product illustrates the other side of the coin. Technology can and should be used for the right reasons. Like any single thing in our world – it can be used for good and bad. We have learned a lot about this in our Mesillas Yesharim class. In the spirit of this post I will be blogging about the good uses of technology over the next few days so stay tuned.

Happy Hanukah Too: Kosher Machine Only Serves 24/6 Because It's Shomer Shabbos

rabbifink — Sat, 20 Dec 2008 00:47:48 +0000

Happy Hanukah Too: Kosher Machine Only Serves 24/6 Because It’s Shomer Shabbos.

On a gadget blog commentors get a full on education about Shabbos!

It is incredible how many people know about Shabbos and now have a grasp of some of the concepts. Eventually we are going to do a Shabbos Connections with community wide Shabbos participation and invitations. Until then I guarantee if you want a Shabbos meal just stop in the Shul on the Beach during services. You will be invited by someone!