Author Archives: jik

Dell Sucks

The following is a letter I just sent to a customer support supervisor at Dell.

Visit http://english.thekotel.org/. Note the section header “Bar/Bat Mitzva”. Click on it. Search the entire section for any mention of celebration of a Bat Mitzva ceremony at the Kotel. If you find one, let me know, because I sure couldn’t. I’ve therefore just sent the Western Wall Heritage Foundation, the owners of the site, a message… Read More »

MacOS X — so right, and yet so wrong

My wife and I finally caved in and bought a new computer for her, an iMac G5. Her old, slow PowerMac running Mac OS 9 just couldn’t cut it anymore. The slowness, crashes, hangs, and nondeterministic behavior just finally got to be too much to bear. Also, now that the kids are starting to use… Read More »

“Papers, please.”

On the 9th of December 2005, Deborah Davis will be arraigned in U.S. District Court in a case that will determine whether Deb and the rest of us in the USA live in a free society, or in a country where we must show “papers” whenever a cop demands them. One morning in late September… Read More »

Rabbi Mordecai Tendler case?

While searching for material on the Web about the agunah problem to answer a question someone asked about whether excommunication is still used within Judaism, I came upon news I hadn’t previously heard, concerning the expulsion earlier this year of Rabbi Mordecai Tendler from the Rabbinical Council of America (RCA).

Hurrah for the US of A! We’re Number Too!

Seen recently on the lid of a jar of Cains tartar sauce, produced in literate Ayer, Mass.: REFRIGERATE AFTER OPENING TO INSURE FRESHNESS Enough said.

Junk faxes: The FCC falls down on the job

After a long hiatus, I recently started receiving junk faxes again. Having tired of the rigmarole of figuring out who sent them and how to sue them in small claims court, and being cognizant of the fact that a recent Massachusetts superior court ruling may in fact preclude suits against junk faxers by individuals in… Read More »

FootSmart: Totally Evil or Totally Incompetent?

Updated 8/29/2015: And… They’re spamming me again. Now, it’s through the “salesforce marketing cloud.” I’ve unsubscribed using the link in today’s spam, and I also sent a complaint to SalesForce. We’ll see if anything comes of it (I doubt it). Updated 1/31/2006: I’ve put on-line the statement of claim I was intending to use to… Read More »

Vote!

Tomorrow is election day in the US. Since it’s an odd year, there are no elections for Federal offices tomorrow, except perhaps for a few special elections scattered here and there. Nevertheless, if there is a state or local election in your community, and you are eligible to vote, and you don’t vote tomorrow, then… Read More »

“Google Print” is here to stay

Google has embarked on an ambitious project to scan millions of books into an online, searchable database. Many people and organizations object to the project on the grounds that it infringes on these books’ copyrights. These include the Authors Guild and the Association of American Publishers, both of which have filed suit to stop Google… Read More »