Archive for the 'Off-topic' Category

CAPTCHA: A Wonderful Adventure in Exhibition Space

Posted on April 7th, 2013 · Posted in Off-topic

Somehow my career has repeatedly led me into doing unexpected and wonderful things. One such piece of serendipity has been the role I landed at the Jerusalem Science Museum as the curator of an exhibition in honor of Alan Turing. This project took a year and half, and gave me the occasion to work with some amazing people at the museum, interact with many more from around the world, and learn so much about that tragic genius, Alan Turing, of which I wrote here before. Now we’re finally done, and the exhibition is open to the public. It wasn’t my.. Read more

Alan Turing’s Earthshaking Philosophical Insight

Posted on October 12th, 2012 · Posted in Off-topic

Being the curator of the Alan Turing Year exhibition at the Jerusalem Science Museum, I was invited to sit on a panel dedicated to Turing’s legacy at the ICON Science Fiction, Imagination and The Future festival in Tel Aviv. My talk there was well received, and touches on some interesting truths, so I decided to share its content here. I hope you enjoy it as much as I have! Incidentally, Alan Turing’s life and work will be the basis of a new lecture I will be adding to my public speaking offerings. The subject is a fascinating one on so.. Read more

A marvelous knowledge capture application

Posted on March 25th, 2012 · Posted in Off-topic

I was at the annual conference of the Israeli Knowledge Management Forum and saw a presentation of a very neat tool, from one of the seemingly countless small startups we have in this country whose creativity never ceases to amaze. The company is Streamitup, and its product is a complete learning delivery solution based on capture of classroom lectures and their delivery to students on demand at a later time via computer. This in itself is nothing unusual; we see it on YouTube all the time – and it is usually as a fuzzy distance shot of the speaker and.. Read more

Hooray! Graffiti for Android!

Posted on March 12th, 2012 · Posted in Off-topic

Love my new Samsung Galaxy S2 – but typing on its touch keyboard is hardly my idea of fun. And the handwriting recognition that came on it reminds me of  the notorious Apple Newton. Oh, how I missed the Graffiti system on my old Palm Pilot! Graffiti was a stylus-based handwriting system that improved the recognition by replacing some of the harder-to-recognize letter forms with simplified versions, while keeping most characters to a single stroke.  You needed a bit of practice to master it, but this was a minor and worthwhile investment, because the system had excellence performance even on.. Read more

They’re taking over! (In a good way)

Posted on October 3rd, 2011 · Posted in Off-topic

So we’ve made the switch back from Daylight Saving Time yesterday at 2AM, and like every year I got up in the morning and made the round of the house to set all clocks, watches, computers and other devices one hour back. This is always a bore – there are so many time-aware contraptions in a typical home… But this time I noticed one new thing – about half of these contraptions did not need resetting. The computers changed their time on their own (seems trivial to you folks elsewhere, but in Israel the changeover date follows the Jewish calendar.. Read more

Tribute to a favorite bookseller

Posted on September 29th, 2011 · Posted in Off-topic

My recent trip to the US was a pleasure, except for one shock: I went to the nearest Borders bookstore, and discovered the bookseller chain had closed forever the preceding week. I do favor small independent bookstores, and have been worried about their tendency to disappear under pressure of the larger chains; still, I had to admit that Borders had a pleasant aspect that provided a bookworm with a delightful experience. Seeing it go under – one can surmise, due to the pressure of Internet-based alternatives and other shifts in information consumption habits of the 21st century – was profoundly.. Read more

Now, Facebook has its medals!

Posted on August 15th, 2011 · Posted in Analysis and Opinion, Off-topic

One common response to mention of Facebook among the Gen X and Baby Boomer (in other words, over 30) crowd is the disdainful “Why would I want people to know what I had for breakfast?!”  Use of Facebook, these people declare, is shallow and silly. Now, it is true that many people – and not just youngsters – post to their Facebook stream rather unimportant  snippets from their daily routine; and their Friends on the service can ignore it or react to it with equally inane comments. But that’s hardly unique to Facebook; people getting together in a bar or.. Read more

The future is here!

Posted on June 23rd, 2011 · Posted in Off-topic

I was entering a parking lot at Bar Ilan university near Tel Aviv and noticed a brand new sign near the pay booth (left photo). I couldn’t believe my eyes… the sign says, in case Hebrew is Greek to you: “Parking for electric cars. Better place“. Of course we’ve all read about Better Place, Shai Agassi’s start-up company that is planning to convert the entire state of Israel to electric cars, by providing a nationwide infrastructure of charging points and by adding to gas stations robotic systems that will replace spent batteries with fully charged ones in less time than.. Read more

The iPad is mightier than the pen

Posted on June 7th, 2011 · Posted in Off-topic

It has been remarked that younger people tend not to wear watches, because their ubiquitous cellphones and other computing devices make them superfluous (interestingly, this brings back the action of having to fish something out of your pocket to read the time -  a throwback to the Victorian pocket watch, without the chain!). But I’ve just been informed of another victim to portable computing, and it goes back much earlier than the watch. I was talking to a friend who is also a consultant and he told me that in his workshops the attendees often sit with iPads and other.. Read more

Ask your users!

Posted on April 30th, 2011 · Posted in Off-topic

Today I was writing my monthly Newsletter (this always seems to slide to the last day of the month ) and as I was re-reading it – I always do, aware of Murphy lurking in the shadows – I noted this passage, relating to choosing a video conferencing system: Talk to your IT people about your options; but remember that the key thing is user perception and willingness. You may want to raise the subject in a group or staff meeting, and identify what the best usage model would be in the context of their collaboration needs. Then work with.. Read more