Category Archives: stupid

Apr 7 2013

Computer hackers Anonymous are no match against Israel

So much for the world famous computer hacking syndicate ‘Anonymous’  who wants to pick on the only democratic country in the middle east.  The country with the largest number of technology patents in the world proportional to the population.

The web site they produced to show their plans to hurt Israel’s infrastructure:

Erm, it got hacked by Israel!!!

anonymous are lamers

Nice touch showing proper history of this part of the world to those not in the know.

Today seems to be no actual damage to Israeli sites, some propaganda is reusing previous successful attacks on Israel and pretend its 2013 material.

Nov 19 2012

Hamas in Hebrew

A local Israeli I work with told me something interesting today:-

The word Hamas, the political movement that controls the Gaza strip, has eerily similar word in Hebrew.

I am not going to tell you, you have to find out for yourself:- :)

http://translate.google.com/

here is the text you need to copy and paste into:

חמס

Here is Psalms 140 in Hebrew which it also occurs in.  Click on above link or click here http://study.interlinearbible.org/psalms/140.htm (if you have a Windows XP computer you might need to add Hebrew support to read this)

Aug 12 2012

Riding on a Colt

Zechariah 9:9 from the OT talks about a prophecy of a future Messiah of Israel:-

9 Rejoice greatly, Daughter Zion!
Shout, Daughter Jerusalem!
See, your king comes to you,
righteous and victorious,
lowly and riding on a donkey,
on a colt, the foal of a donkey.

In my neighbourhood I noticed this:-

This banner on the car says “Baruch ha ba melech moshiach”   in English:  Welcome to king of the messiah.

My thinking is the Ukrainian Rabbi fella (actually he died in about 1994) which some religious Jews think is the Moshiach and maybe someone’s interpretation of the scriptures here was the Moshiach would come on this Mitsubishi Colt!! *

Actually I do get Arab children coming up my street on a donkey sometimes.

The New Testament explains the fulfillment of this:-

Matthew 21

21 As they approached Jerusalem and came to Bethphage on the Mount of Olives, Jesus sent two disciples, 2 saying to them, “Go to the village ahead of you, and at once you will find a donkey tied there, with her colt by her. Untie them and bring them to me. 3 If anyone says anything to you, say that the Lord needs them, and he will send them right away.”

4 This took place to fulfill what was spoken through the prophet:

5 “Say to Daughter Zion,
‘See, your king comes to you,
gentle and riding on a donkey,
and on a colt, the foal of a donkey.’”

6 The disciples went and did as Jesus had instructed them. 7 They brought the donkey and the colt and placed their cloaks on them for Jesus to sit on. 8 A very large crowd spread their cloaks on the road, while others cut branches from the trees and spread them on the road. 9 The crowds that went ahead of him and those that followed shouted,

“Hosanna to the Son of David!”

“Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!”

“Hosanna in the highest heaven!”

10 When Jesus entered Jerusalem, the whole city was stirred and asked, “Who is this?”

11 The crowds answered, “This is Jesus, the prophet from Nazareth in Galilee.”

Talking of the Mount of Olives, further up this street is a park you can stand and see across Jerusalem.   This Google Streetmap below shows the Mount of Olives, you can see by the ‘whiter’ area of the hill, as it contains thousands of graves.

* My mistake, this is actually a Mitsubishi Lancer.


View Larger Map
Jul 8 2012

Elo Sushi

Been busy not blogging due to hectic schedule and entertaining a friend who is visiting Israel and staying with me.

Its always funny how one word in one language can meaning something humorous in another language.

Take this:-

This looks like this sign is saying ‘elo.    Saying ‘ello (Israelis drop Hs in a similar way to the French)   is more of a way getting someone’s attention than a greeting in this country.

However if you read this in Hebrew cursive script its just the word “Sushi” funnily enough.

 

Jun 18 2012

Skype and voice over IP services in Ethiopia banned

This apparently is my 500th blog post, wow.    I have never really had much of an opinion about control of the internet by governments, until I saw this yesterday;

Ethiopia bans Skype; 15 years of jail time possible

This is very sad as I have a close friend who used to live in Israel who is of Ethiopian origin who has gone back there.   The above article mentions 700,000 out of 84m people, (less than 1%) have internet access.

Last time I called him on Skype a few months ago I missed his call, then he was offline as  the internet connection was too unreliable for me to call him back, so I rang him from my Skype account to his mobile using some credit which worked pretty good.   So this is a good solution although can’t remember how much I spent last time.

With violence at a high amongst believers in Ethiopia, its sad that cutting off a cheap form of communication makes things harder for families on either side there.  Foreigners should be careful what they say on the phone to friends there as its likely all calls are monitored.

There is only one ISP in Ethiopia and its owned by the government, there is an interesting wiki article here about the laws of the web in the north eastern African state.

This really awful for African Jews in Israel who almost certainly still have family and friends back there.   Israel has 1.5% Jews of Ethiopian descent, and there are many more who want to come back soon.

Note to anyone in Ethiopia who has any type of computer, especially Christians doing ministry projects out there, get yourself a free piece of software (Windows or Mac) called Truecrypt to encrypt drives (internal or external) on your computer, if you are worried about any information which is sensitive in case a computer is seized by any form of hostile government.

A blogger who writes on Ethiopia mentions more on this here: http://transformingethiopia.wordpress.com/2012/06/14/new-telecom-crime-bill-grossly-criminalising-individual-liberty-at-stake/#more-5785

 

Jun 11 2012

6. Jaffa/Tel Aviv – Odd ball shops

Interesting shops in Tel Aviv.

Yes this is Pork!!

And prawns!

Some things are kosher though

A humous restaurant is pretending to be a synagogue!

Vintage gear.

Although Yaffo down the road is a bit different:

These are Jaffa’s famous second hand markets.  I like trawling through car boot sales but there was nothing interesting here that day.   Although they forgot to bring stuff in, and several TVs were left out in the rain.

1. Jaffa/Tel Aviv – coastal city of oranges

2. Jaffa/Tel Aviv – Graffiti and wall art

3. Jaffa/Tel Aviv – Whales and hovering trees

4. Jaffa/Tel Aviv – Independence day and a concrete stable

5. Jaffa/Tel Aviv – Rabin

6. Jaffa/Tel Aviv – Odd ball shops

May 9 2012

Olympics and Palestinians

Various news sites I sometimes read came up with this:

Apparently the Olympics web site admitted an ‘error’ on their web site, and changed it later.  They also ought to realise that official languages in Israel are Hebrew, Arabic, English and Russian too.

Also Israel is considered part of ‘Europe’ here: http://www.london2012.com/countries/area=europe/ the rest of the Middle East is under Asia: http://www.london2012.com/countries/area=asia/

Looking at the official web site via the search engine, there is no mention of the 40 years anniversary of the tragedy that killed 11 Israelis in 1972 Olympics in Munich.   There really ought to be a special moment to remember that sometime in the schedule this year.

I wasn’t aware that the Palestinians have a representation this year even though they are not a sovereign nation as of yet, I don’t even know that they have a national anthem if they were to get a medal, after quickly checking out Wikipedia there is one disturbingly, the lyrics shown translated into English have some worrying theme, read this Wiki article on it here.  Here is another article from Arabic Wikipedia also in case perhaps I am being unfair.

Is there any calls from any moderate Arabic speaking country to challenge them into having a song with less violent sounding words I wonder? Rather than a  ”volcano of my vendetta” or “And my intention a bullet and a volcano retaliation” or whatever it is.

The Olympics shouldn’t be a political event.  But it should recognise people lost from terrorism in 1972, just as it should kick out cheats and dopers, and so far the authority are making a very poor effort.

Interesting related article:- Nazi Germany involved with the 1936 games in Berlin

Apr 22 2012

Using Google Streetmap view in your blog, possible security concerns to be aware of

As Google recently release Streetmap view in Israel and Ukraine recently, I’m betting that lots of bloggers interested in the middle east will want to make use of this in their writings.

I wrote a few days ago, with some screen shots of my browser, I have noticed a few things that you might want to be aware of:

Firstly, if you make screen shots of your computer’s browser, be sure to obliterate any occurrences of your name or email address you see, this is quite important when using Google’s services which are all tied to a Gmail address.

Where I have written an “X” – don’t use this URL as a link to your site at the top of your browser, it won’t work, it will just take a click directly to the regular maps.google.com address.

Instead click on the little chain icon here as shown by arrow, this will give you a usable URL your visitors can click on to get to a certain angle of street you want to look at.

Now this bit is important:

If lets says, you enter your home or workplace address, then jump to a different place, the URL you plan to make public will show the original place I did a search for.   Zoom on this pic and look at the underlined bits I have highlighted in orange.

Hence, be careful!  you might give private details of where you live or work to the whole world!

Instead, clear any search inquiry, and just zoom straight in on the place you want to take a shot off, copy and paste the URL you plan to make public on your blog or social media, and look carefully at the (very long) URL to make sure there is nothing personal that indicate a previous search you did.

Here is an example of this done without care:

http://maps.google.com/maps?q=downing+street,+london,+uk&hl=en&ll=51.506967,-0.124023&spn=0.007519,0.01929&sll=37.0625,-95.677068&sspn=39.099308,79.013672&hq=downing+street,&hnear=London,+United+Kingdom&t=m&z=16&layer=c&cbll=51.506967,-0.124023&panoid=cgfjh0ts_Mc38hIdERRcoQ&cbp=12,329.67,,0,2.6

This web address actually is close to Embankment in London, but I actually changed the location of the place I was searching from 10 Downing Street to another location, but the search terms are still embedded in the URL.

I tend to paste this into a different web browser, in this case Internet Explorer 9 which I don’t use very often, clearly shows where I searched for.

So there you have it, just be careful if you want to show Streetmap view snapshots of places, and have fun!

Mar 11 2012

Premium priced motorway lanes between Jerusalem and Tel aviv?

I was helping out at a robotics event in Tel Aviv that encourages youth in learning technology and engineering.

Leaving the house early, we took this motorway from Jerusalem to Tel Aviv, I spotted something odd on this highway I have not seen this before.

It’s a little hard to make it out maybe, but it would appear you have to pay extra to use this fast lane, just in case owning and running a car isn’t hurting your pocket enough.  There are already toll roads in some parts of Israel too.

When you take a trip on a train or get a flight, you have the option of paying a bit (actually quite a lot) more to get a better seat, or nicer food, etc, it seems that this business model is now planned for motorists as well maybe?

Back in the UK, I remember the government did an experimental idea to make certain lanes only usable for cars with two or more passengers, this would be a better idea to keep traffic down and get people to share cars, rather than have premium prices lanes I think.

Feb 23 2012

Can we overload prayers to help our Christians brothers and sisters in Iran?

Following recent news that the Iranian Christian Pastor Yousef Nadarkhani held in a prison had been sentenanced to death, I decided to email the Iranian embassy politely in the UK to tell them how angry I was with this decision.   Hes been offered leniency if he rejects Christianity and takes up Islam, which he has refused to do so.

http://aclj.org/iran/execution-orders-issued-pastor-youcef-nadarkhani

A while back the UK embassy in Tehran was broken into and looted.   I don’t know if there are many people in the UK office doing any administration.   Sounds like a tough job trying to do PR for a company that flaunts the ability to destroy another neighbouring country by saying they will “wipe them off the map”.

I looked in the spam folder of my email and saw this today, their mail server rejected my email as their mailbox is full.

I wonder if this means that lots of Christians (or indeed anyone upset by this decision) have emailed the Islamic republic’s UK operations and overloaded their mail system.   Or maybe their IT systems are just are rubbish as their human rights.

Of course, if this many people were praying for this man’s release and safety, without compromising his life with Jesus, you can’t pray too much, my loving God has infinite capacity for requests to him.  I hope all Christians feel compelled to pray to see this innocent man’s wife and children get to see him come home safely.