Waiting for a miracle

The story is told of a religious man living in a house in the middle of nowhere.
One rainy morning he gets up and turns on the radio and hears a flood warning. “I’ll be OK”, he says to himself. “God will save me.”
As the day goes on, the rain gets heavier and the river bursts [...]

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Historic times?

My son had a bagrut exam this week in history. We were listening to the news broadcast on the radio the other day and they were talking about Bibi’s Bar Ilan speech, the criminal antics of Dudu Topaz and the unrest in Iran. “This” I said to him, refering to the latter item “is what [...]

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Millipede

Photographed on a wall on my way this morning. Overall length like 20 cm. Thought I’d share it with you all.

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Spin – the movie

Saw this on Shaul B’s blog “free thought”.

[Click here to watch, if the video doesn't show]
Made me think of the old paradoxes connected with free-will, pre-destination, time travel and the like. How far do the consequences go? What would happen if you were to fiddle with natural cause and effect?
More down [...]

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Terabyte

With three digital cameras in our household, the hard disk on our home computer is rapidly running out of space.
I was looking online for a new drive yesterday and discovered that 1 and even 2 TB (that’s TB for terabyte or 1000 GB or 1,000,000 MB) drives  are now becoming the standard. I can get [...]

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Call for photos of Jewish life in Hesse pre-Shoah

I got an email last week from a researcher working for the Fritz Bauer Institut in Frankfurt. She is looking for photos of pre-Shoah Jewish life in the area. This is the email I got:

**** Search for private photos from Hesse *****
( the areas around Frankfurt,Darmstadt, Wiesbaden,
Kassel, Fulda, Marburg, Hanau, Giessen, etc.)
This is to announce [...]

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“The weak strata”

That is Hebrew PC-speak for “poor people”. In Hebrew “השכבות החלשות” or “HaShkhavot HaHalashot”. I heard on the radio this morning that the proposed imposition of VAT on fruit and vegetables may cause the weak strata to buy less fresh food. Why not just say “the poor”?

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Cyborg beetles

An article I saw in Technology Review. A researcher named Michel Maharbiz at the University of California, Berkeley has fitted out giant flower beetles like the one on the right with electrodes and a receiver. He can then fly them from a remote control connected to his laptop.
Dr. Haharbiz is very proud of his creations that [...]

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How does the Tanakh say “angry”?

Back to “HaTanakh Hayah BeEmet” (התנ”ך היה באמת, דר. ליאורה רביד 2009) which I have commented on several times (here, here and here) over the last couple of weeks. This time Liora Ravid makes the assertion that the term “ויחר אף” means particularly violent anger – which it may but also may not, as I [...]

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New look

As you will notice there is a new look to Rafi’s Studio! I was a bit bored of the old theme and this new one looks a bit more stylish so here goes. Any comments from the readership?
I have also just completed reorganizing all my categories and recategorizing the 238 posts that make up this [...]

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