The Pitfalls of Cloud Computing

23 Oct 2009

I’m really generalising, but Web 2.0 start-ups have tended to rely on quickly gaining a critical mass of users or traffic, then figuring out how to monetise that base before venture capital funding runs out. When this bet doesn’t pan out, it could result in products being cut, or the venture folding completely.

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Only Aliya can save Israel. Oh really?

21 Oct 2009

More than 60 years after Israel’s miraculous creation, we need to start asking how long Israel’s insatiable appetite for Aliya will continue. Israel is already the home to a plurality of Jews in the world today. What percentage of the world’s Jewish population will eventually satisfy her need?

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Israel Needs a Palestinian Entity

19 Oct 2009

Unfortunately, the pseudo-Halachic claptrap around the concept of the Land of Israel has clouded the issues and undermined Israel’s strategic and geopolitical case for adjusting her borders with rump Palestine.

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easyComment – Firefox Add-On for the Serial Commenter

12 Oct 2009

I’ve now come across the easyComment Firefox Extension, which does an excellent job of submitting your profile details (name, e-mail address and Home Page) each time you can’t resist chipping into a discussion.

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Another Milestone for Maskil – My First Anti-Semitic Hate Comment

8 Oct 2009

This comment, I’m afraid, crossed the line into that murky territory and starts to generalise and build theories around why we (as a “race”) are supposedly the way we are.
Enough said. To Adam979 and everyone who thinks and acts like him: Drop Dead.

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Intermarriage – Straight Talk or Just More of the Same? (Part 2)

6 Oct 2009

We need to reframe the issue. Rather than saying “Intermarriage is the greatest threat to Jewish survival, etc.”, ad nauseum, we should be saying “integrating the intermarried into our communities is our greatest challenge, and our greatest need.”

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Intermarriage – Straight Talk or Just More of the Same? (Part 1)

5 Oct 2009

There is a “common sense” or common understanding that everyone subscribes to, that anyone marrying out is lost to the Jewish people. Until that common sense is replaced by another, more positive message, we’ll be fighting a losing battle.

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Time for Straight-Talk About Assimilation?

2 Oct 2009

To use some metaphors from the marketing world, our well-funded Jewish organisations and their well-groomed officials need to stop blaming the customer – the ex or non-affiliated Jew – for the crisis within Judaism and the Jewish world, and instead look at the product and the way it’s marketed more closely. In commerce and industry, blaming the customer for your loss of market share or mind share is a quick path to unemployment or irrelevance. It’s not very different in the world of continuity and faith.

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Greening the Negev – Lessons from the Sahel

29 Sep 2009

While the KKL-JNF no doubt still has much to teach Africa regarding desert reclamation, perhaps some of these age-old African techniques can be modified and applied to the Negev, particularly if ways can be found to mechanise them, or at least make them somewhat less labour-intensive. (Labour is far more plentiful in Africa, and much less of a social issue than in Israel, unless we can find ways to reignite enthusiasm for a Kibbutz Volunteer culture.)

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Kidnapping of IDF Soldiers – Not Just Resistance, but Rescue

22 Sep 2009

While we all place the highest possible value on the life of each soldier, the national interest, our history in the 20th Century and our duty to the kidnapped soldier demand that such a rescue attempt be made, and that it be one of the first options to be considered. A rescue mission – even an unsuccessful one – must surely be preferable to three years of living hell for the victim and his kin, and three years of national humiliation and anguish for the country.

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