short (and medium) takes

Yesterday I heard two songs (one from a psalm) from a group with the unlikely name "Ooolites" (or perhaps technically "Malcolm Dalglish and the..."). Very skilled singers (no vibrato! do you know how hard that is?!), nice harmonies, pleasant sound. They seem to have two albums. I don't know how representative these two tracks are of the albums, but I think I'm going to have to find out.

From Slashdot by way of siderea: the "why your anti-spam proposal won't work" form letter.

At last night's board meeting I had a wording quibble (a matter of precision and clarity) over a proposed bylaws change. One of the other board members suggested that I was being overly picky because I'm a technical writer. Hello? This is a matter of law. Law should be precise and clear. I happen to be in a profession that emphasizes that; this is an asset. (We have a couple lawyers on the board; I'm surprised one of them didn't speak up.) Sheesh -- amateurs. :-)

Speaking of law, I'm reading from Mishpatim tomorrow morning -- the "eye for eye, tooth for tooth" section. We are used to thinking of this as being harsh (sharia, anyone? no thanks), which is why the rabbis reinterpreted it to monetary damages. But with that interpretation, I wonder if this is actually lenient. Consider civil damages today in the US, where payments sometimes seem to be way out of proportion to actual damage, and are wildly inconsistent. And we distinguish based on who the victim is; the torah does not.

Twice within the past couple weeks I've been approached by people on the streets selling raffle tickets. Both conversations began with "would you like to buy a raffle ticket?" and "what for?"; then they diverged. One said "for Hillel Academy"; the other said "for a $5000 drawing". (The latter was from a veterans' group.) I knew intellectually that Judaism (and hence, Jewish culture) approaches charity differently from the world at large (or at least its US instantiation), but it's been a while since the difference has been that obvious. In the Jewish world (at least the parts I've seen), the cause is the important thing. In fact, the word usually translated as "charity" -- "tzedakah" -- doesn't really mean that; it's closer to "justice". I actually haven't even looked to see what the prize is for the Hillel raffle ticket I bought. In the broader culture, though, you have to sell the prize; it's assumed, I guess, that people won't just buy a ticket to support a good cause and you have to make it worth their while. Which partially explains the deluge of mailing labels, calendars, stuffed animals, umbrellas, and such that appear in my mailbox (and serve as anti-motivators).

I particularly like this take on the rainbow meme, shamelessly stolen from xiphias:

My God says "Justice, justice shall you pursue", wants people to work toward a fair and equitable world, and believes in love, honor, and respect. Sorry about yours.

car foo

When evaluating a car model's maintenance record, I would like to be able to distinguish between "things that tend to break after X miles" and "things that tend to break after Y years". I don't drive a lot; my 15-year-old car has about 78,000 miles on it. So I don't necessarily care all that much if a part that ought to last 100,000 miles dies after 80,000 on a certain model, but I do care if a part that ought to last four years dies after two. I wonder if there's any hope of sorting that out on, for example, the Focus. (Of course, maybe I'll fall in love with the Echo on Tuesday and this will be a non-issue.)

Thanks to schulman for this link, which looks like it will be well worth reading. The car-buying world has changed a lot since the last time I did this, and I don't know how the game is currently played. This should help.

Noted in passing: three of the four sales people I've spoken with ended the conversation with the same words: "I hope we can earn your business". By the third time I was starting to wonder if they were all quoting from the same manual or something.

Pittsburgh: interfaith thingy Sunday

That interfaith discussion/presentation that I was talking about last week is this Sunday at 3pm at the Pittsburgh Interfaith Center, formerly known as St. Agnes Church, at 3333 Fifth Avenue. That's just before Craft if you're headed inbound (which is the only way you can legally go unless you're driving a bus). It's open to the public but poorly publicized; please feel free to show up if you're interested. The topic is prayer -- why we pray, what we pray for, what results we expect, and so on. (I suggested they include "to whom we pray", because not everyone is a monotheist with the same notion of God, but I don't know if they're taking that suggestion.)