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Recently everyone is writing about their experience with the switch from Windows to Linux. While a lot of these reports focus strongly on the technical difficulties, the "language barrier" of the operating system and the short-comings of one side compared to the other, I’d like to focus more on the personal aspect and the general impression the average user may experience when switching.

My reason for switching wasn’t much different than that of other people. I was fed up with Windows to the point where I didn’t even want to dual boot my system anymore. In the past I had played with Mandrake and I played with Knoppix a bit to get a feel for things. I dropped the whole Linux spiel when I saw that the configuration wasn’t as fool proof as I had come to know from Windows XP.

The problem here was, though, that the Windows XP installation process isn’t fool proof. After you’re done with it, the expected functions work and you can surf, play, burn and whatnot. However, there are a multitude of dangerous, unattended holes in a fresh Windows installation that the average user will never think of or stumble upon immediately. In case something breaks, just reinstall everything. Let’s just hope you have a back-up for all your data. Read the rest of this entry »

For those not yet familiar with the concept of social bookmarking, please visit this site and read up on the topic. One of the many social bookmarking sites is reddit.com and throughout its history, until today, it is pestered and abused by a steadily growing mob of vandals. Using reddit as the example here, I would briefly like to point out, by the most simple means, why sites such as Digg or reddit will not survive its own popularity if not monitored or controlled more rigorously in some way. Read the rest of this entry »

For those who may not know, yet - I live in Israel. To be more precise, I live in Tel Aviv. This country is crazy about martial arts. You may think that this should be expected given the political situation that Israel has existed in since its creation about half a century ago. Nevertheless, the martial arts craze in this country has hardly anything to do with the constant state of war that people live with.

The Israeli people are culture crazy. They go absolutely bonkers over every little bit of new culture introduced to them and they embrace it until they have gorged themselves on its fruits to the point of multicultural obesity. While the average Israeli, regardless of left wing or right wing orientation, has strong national pride, people here need a constant infusion of foreign culture into their lives. It reminds them that there is a life worth living while all around them Islamist radicals want to slit their throats and nuke Israel off the face of the earth.

As a result of this, Israeli culture is built on several layers. The basis for it all is the Zionist movement. Built on top of this is a thick layer of Americanized lifestyle. Coating this far western ideology is a thin sprinkle of European idolizing and infrastructure. To spice it all up you add some middle eastern temperament and east European crime. The flavor of this concoction is a dreamy western flavor with some bitter lemon and pepperoni.

Israelis will stop at nothing in order to experience other cultures. When a young man or woman finishes his or her compulsory army service, it is not uncommon for them to go backpacking through India or Brazil for the next 3 years. The cities here are filled with restaurants from all over the world and the night-life, aside from the regular clubs, is filled with multicultural events and performances.

One major part of cultural education happens to be martial arts. No better way exists to learn more about far eastern culture and etiquette than the way of joining a martial arts class of some sort. Israel has a surprisingly respectable amount of native, high ranking Sifus, Senseis and Mestres. Very often they have spent years in China, Brazil or Japan to drive their knowledge of the martial arts to perfection.

Israel is a very small country. Very small. Smaller than that, even. You can drive from south to north in one day. You’ll make it from east to west in a fraction of that time (If you aren’t killed by Palestinian snipers). Comparing the size of this country and the relative size of its cities to the amount of martial arts Dojos, you’d be amazed by the amount of choices. Capoeira galore. More Karate styles than you can wish for. Krav Maga as Israel’s very own martial art creation and many many more.

And now, ladies and gentlemen, to the reason why this article is seemingly leading nowhere, yet seems to be placed in the Rants category.

I CAN’T FIND A SINGLE DAMN WING TSUNG CLASS IN THIS DAMN COUNTRY!!!

I can’t even find a Ving Chung class, either. Nothing. What the hell?

With all the respect to the Southern Praying Mantis Kung Fu presence in Israel, thats just not enough for me. We even have a Bujinkan Budo Taijitsu Dojo in Tel Aviv.

Why, oh why don’t we have an officially endorsed WT presence, here?

To all the WT Sifus out there: Please, one of you move to Israel.

Thank you.

As promised, the new approach this blog is adopting, focuses around Graphic Novels and their characters. This also includes the history of comic books and their portrayed content over time. Here is the first part of a 13 part series that deals with the appearance of super hero characters and the subsequent development of the comic book genre.

[video]http://youtube.com/watch?v=-SDUiTD26kg&mode=related&search=[/video]

To view the rest of the series, simply visit this YouTube user’s profile. Ruff15 has the entire series uploaded there.

Quite recently I stumbled over an article by Wil Wheaton which inspired me to comment on the topic. After placing my commentary on his website, I have decided to repost it here. I recommend reading his article first, though.

My answer to his article was as follows:

Ever since the beginning of BBSs, MU* environments and mailing lists, the same disruptive development of users has had a presence on the web. This is no new phenomenon nor is it easy to control. I would even go as far as to say that it is quite unrealistic to think that one day there will be any kind of solution to this issue.

At first every new community only attracts the truly interested, the righteous, the experts and sincere. Once they helped you jump-start the site, popularizing the content and spreading the word, the stage is opened for the rest of the web’s population. At this point the transition begins - a transition from a controlled environment of committed participants to a widespread web playground for everyone including the “middle schooler hordes”.

Before you know it the value of the submitted commentary plummets to a level where the search for valuable commentary becomes a struggle of seeping through the illiterate bile of vandals.

At this point websites have always had the choice of action. They could either leave things as they were and keep their environment uncontrolled or they could impose rules and implement censoring and control systems. The former would keep the site popular, ensure increasing traffic and secure revenue made off of the high traffic. The latter would decrease popularity and only retain the most loyal and committed individuals with a sincere interest in the site. While the site would still be popular and serve its correct purpose, it can not be denied that traffic would decrease. Web 2.0 is all about ease of access and little effort. Imposing strict rules, rigorous monitoring, tedious validation mechanisms and countless user agreements and employing a workforce of people that will enforce all these things is not very attractive.

Companies of the likes of YouTube/Google can afford this. However, their very efforts on that front isn’t earning them much love, either.

In the end community driven sites such as Digg will always be the playground of choice for the average web hooligan. Whoever has been around in 1996 when MU* environments really picked up, can attest that this kind of development and the subsequent lack of problem solving is entirely normal.

Some day Digg will die - only to be replaced by the next best thing. Rinse repeat.