The Stairwell People

I know there's quite a lot of information about what's going on in the Gaza area the last few days, but I found a blog-post written by someone who actually lives nearby. It's amazing, how this guy and his acquaintances hold on to their good spirit during this rough time:

It's the third time I've returned from the stairwell with my family in the last hour. Overall, we've been air-struck five times since the morning hours, four of those attacks being preceded by alarms.

The radio is turned on and up in several strategical spots in the house, and my thoughts were interfered dozens of times by special broadcasts, so forgive me for my regular cynicism being a bit lame today.

Following the recent conflict, my job-time was reduced to only two or three hours a day, the upshot being a lot of extra time for me to do what I actually like and excel at - writing.

I won't exhaust you with phrases like blood-curdling explosions, howling sky and other over-dramatic horror-movie cliches, because as you already know - I tend to focus on the bright side of life. So, as I did before, I will show you the joyful aspects of a crazy era.

First of all, I'll start by telling you that I live in an apartment building with no strongroom. Therefore, the routine is to go to the stairwell when the alarm sounds.

0200 hours - "Get up", shouts Mom and manages to wake one of us. The other one (a.k.a Myself) throws my brother out of his bed and drags him to the stairwell. He wakes up and starts walking by himself just a second before being dragged down the stairs. Two hits are heard in a distance, and another woman comes out of her apartment. A few minutes go by, and we go back to our flats.

0300-0400 hours - Mom says there were a few additional strikes, some of them preceded by the alarm and the rest just happening without warning signs, booming through the air as a "surprise" call at a birthday party. She stands guard, until finally being caught by exhaustion. We wake up in the morning to find out nothing hit our neighborhood.

0700 hours - "Get up", Mom shouts once again, and we race towards the stairwell to the sounds of the alarm and the alarm-clock combined. A handful of neighbors join us, a few still wearing their pajamas and others who have been awake for a while looking more organized and fresh.

During the morning another strike starts, and we try to get used to the idea of another rough day. Everyone gets ready for being refugees - we put everything we might need in the worst case within reach; We walk 'round the house with our shoes on, so we don't get caught in the cold if we have to run; Everyone's phones are in their pockets, and sweaters are waiting just next to the door.

Noon approaches. Between strikes we tidy our house. I joke and say that's for a case of a hit - so that the house looks pretty on CNN. My brother answers me with the oh-so-obvious "If the house gets hit it will go all messy anyway" claim.

Noon is already there. Another strike begins. The routine's as always: go down the stairs and stick to the wall. The neighbors show up, and a few words are said.

Back home, listening to the radio and watching TV at the same time. Every now and then the radio stops its chatter for a second or two. Usually after the pause comes the word "alarm". This time the pause is followed by a commercial break, or just a few refreshing breaths for radio-guy. He's human too, you know.

An hour passes by, and the radio pauses again. "We just heard of an alarm..." the anchor starts, and we all get ready to run for the door and break the lock on our way out, but the sentence goes on "in Ashdod". It's not us this time. Back to whatever we were doing.

The radio pauses again, and this time we don't need the anchor to say anything - the alarm outside is playing loud and clear. Mom was just trying to get some rest, but we have to help her get up and get the hell out of there. The stairwell, again. more neighbors this time.

Another strike hits. A long lasting siren, after which four explosions are counted. This time every single person in the building joins us, and people talk about their experiences of the day. We have to get ready for the possibility of a night in the shelter, say a few neighbors, and next thing start discussions about the house-committee and who's behind payments.

On the next strike we will probably bring coffee and cookies, and if there's another one after that, I guess we will start baking together in the shelter. War or not - at least we get along pretty well.

The neighbors joke with each other and assign the different tasks: That family brings the coffee and cookies, the other one brings chairs, and we are responsible for an oven. We just forgot to assign someone with spreading a red carpet on the stairs, but never mind - we'll go over that one on the next strike.

And just so you know - This guy lives in the Israeli city of Be'er-Sheva. Almost one million Israeli citizens are now in the bombing range of Hamas. Go figure why we blame Israel for everything...

(Original blog-post by Elad, translated by Yair Mohr)

DivX Videos on the Web - The End?

Last Monday, web-users all over the world were shocked as DivX announced its decision to shut down Stage6, its proprietary and unique service allowing people to upload real high-quality video in the DivX format (Yes, the one you can use to burn on CD's and watch on your TV's DVD player), download it to their machines or just stream it online.

This step is a really tragic event, as Stage6 was the only video site in the world which had absolutely no low-fi content, like YouTube, Google Video etc, and moreover, had no intentions of using special online-storage compressing methods that usually result in non-familiar file formats that you have to dig really hard in order to find a compatible player for (not to speak of the special browser add-ons or piracy sites you have to use for the download links in most video sites).

The DivX company had its reasons for this decision.

Officially, it declared "the continued operation of Stage6 is a very expensive enterprise that requires an enormous amount of attention and resources that we are not in a position to continue to provide". In plain words: the site operation demanded not only a gigantic amount of storage space for the uncompressed videos, but also high-bandwidth-servers capable of delivering so much content to so many users so fast. So high a bandwidth, that you can actually refer to it as an aircraft-carrier, assuming YouTube is a canoe.

Unofficially, as the announcement implies, there is a wave of lawsuits coming DivX's way, due to its policy of obviously encouraging people to upload copy-protected materials without caring for censorship, even if there was a statement saying the company would not accept this kind of behaviour, a statement that was completely ignored even by the company itself, having countless illegal content "featured" at the site's main page. Closing the site might hold the suers back.

According to the declaration, the company tried raising other companies' interest in buying the service, without success. There is nothing odd about that, for other companies are aware of the huge budget the service requires, so huge that I doubt even Microsoft's ability to handle it. In addition, other companies prefer sticking to the FlashVideo (FLV) format, rather than pushing their luck with the Production Studios lurking around the corner for every new attempt at letting people use DivX (DVD's illegal alternative) on the web.

But it doesn't mean DivX will cease to exist in any form it currently has. DivX-video-dedicated illegal storage services will probably pop-out eventually, and the DivX company will be ready: Right now they are preparing their future version of DivX Web Player, together with a new search-engine dedicated to DivX videos on the web.

Will it be enough to replace the best video-storage service that ever existed? Only time will tell.

This post is an adapted translation of my recent Hebrew post at: http://www.tapuz.co.il/Blog/ViewEntry.asp?EntryId=1202864

A new beginning?

How do you start a blog? Write something about yourself, maybe? Or maybe just dive in and start telling the world and it dog about your crazy ventures, like my plan to publish an unofficial Hebrew translation for "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows" which, from my experience, would have been much more loyal to the original, and a higher class of language (not to mention less typing errors) than the official? Or is it better to go with a humorous essay in an attempt to draw audience, joking about why I decided to open a blog in English, when I have a perfect little blog in Hebrew (actually, it's pretty obvious - not enough potential readers)?

So untill you (and I) figure out an answer, remember: If London is flooded and 5000 people die in France every week, it doesn't mean you can't possibly conclude that the process described in "The Day After Tomorrow" hasn't necessarily begun yet (sorry, I saw "Shrek the Third" yesterday...)!

(p.s. - This was the original starting post for this blog, before I imported my older English blog into it)

Bus-Airport Ltd.

Not easy are the military life in Israel. Not even for those who, most of the time, do what our dear global language often refers to as "nothing". Like me.

And so I found myself, in the middle of the day, sitting in an Internet Cafe' in the Central Bus Station in Jerusalem, called (how original) "Cafe' Net", drinking an "XXL" cup of Ice-Coffee and, well - waiting for a bus. How strange it is, when you actually think about it, that the Israeli transportation corporation, EGGED, has raised the marketing of public transportation to a state of art: Every big city in the country has a "Central Bus Station", which is actually a mall, but much more crowded and with all the shoppers messing around with bags the size of nuclear bombs. And then there are the platforms: A line of parking slots for buses, every one with a number, and a bunch of electronic boards showing the bus-lines' "boarding-times". Just like in an airport, but without the Duty-Free shops. And another difference: When you come down from a long bus ride you don't need to re-set your watch. But it doesn't mean you don't need to learn how to deal with language and culture differences...

So, until the next post - remember not to step on other passenger's feet or bags, and stop calling the driver's chair "cockpit"!

a non-consolation for a nonchalant start

I want to start this post, and this blog, with a not-so-consolating thought: I'm very sorry for myself. I will probably have to put hours and hours of thoughts for evry sentence I write in my blog, just to discover nobody reads blogs written in English by non-English speakers.

but still - writing in English is a good way of improving my skills at just that, so let this new experience start.