TechmoloJew

Happy Birthday to Jew

2011-08-22T11:21:00.010-04:00

Yesterday was my 37th (solar) birthday. I figured a post the day after would be less self-serving than on the day. Was I correct? :-)

Anyhow, our friends at AskMoses (btw, AskMoses is a cool site that is basically a live chat with an educated observant Jew--often a Rabbi--that has a great archive of previous Q&As) have a nice Q&A on Judaism's view on birthdays.

A Jewish birthday is a very auspicious day. Our sages tell us that on a person’s birthday his “mazel” is dominant. Your birthday is a day to express gratitude to G-d for bringing you into this world, entrusting you with the mission of illuminating it with the radiance of Torah and Mitzvahs. This day, which is akin to a personal Rosh Hashanah, is the appropriate time to recommit to the mission at hand, resolving that the added maturity and experience gained during the past year will cause the following year to be even more productive and fruitful.

My Jewish (lunar) birthday is September 2nd, so I've still got time to do all that AskMoses is suggesting, but I definitely took some time yesterday to thank G-d for all the blessings in my life, despite the tough year that we've had.

One way I thanked G-d was by enjoying nature...at the East Orange Golf Course in Short Hills, and at New Waterlands Park in South Orange. You see, in addition to it being my birthday weekend, it was also my last weekend as a temporary bachelor so getting in some golf and softball was definitely important.

After my wonderful family, the blessing I am definitely most grateful for is my friendships--some of which have been going strong for almost 25 years. In the last month or so, during which I was ensconced in bachelorhood. I've had the pleasure of spending significant amounts of quality time with my best friends from HS, college and business school, and my best female friend. How lucky am I?!

Vulgarity--It's All Around Us

2011-08-19T09:22:00.002-04:00

Is anyone else alarmed by the increasing usage of vulgar images and language in advertising? I know this sounds like an old (and old man's) refrain, but it seems in the last 3-4 weeks I've seen a whole lot of new stuff out there that's really going for the lowest common denominator. Now, you know I love words, so I can appreciate a clever play on words, even if it's pretty vulgar, but most of these aren't clever or funny.

Here is one that recently caught my eye. There's a new show on NBC called Whitney. The ad I noticed first was on the side of a bus stop on 7th Ave, and it had a picture of the title character--played by Whitney Cummings (above), loosely based on her life-- and a guy in the background (her live-in boyfriend, apparently), with this text, "Whoever invented morning sex didn't think about morning breath." Now, that's neither a new thought, nor is it a particularly clever way of phrasing it. But mostly, it's a pretty vile image, especially for a public bus stop. Now, Ms. Cummings (incidentally, Whitney Cummings is a pretty good porn name) is a fairly attractive woman, I'll give you that, but come on...

A Palm Eulogy

2011-08-18T23:29:00.003-04:00

Palm, which revolutionized the PDA market, was basically laid to rest today. HP bought Palm not long ago and today announced that it was shuttering WebOS, the OS that was the primary spoils of the Palm takeover.

I had a Palm PDA and also a Treo. Frankly, I never really cared for either product. The Palm script never made sense to me. That said, I think Palm did a lot for the adoption of PDA technologies and the convergence of PDAs with cell phones, thus creating the now-ubiquitous smartphone. So...to this, I say, fare thee well, Palm and Palm/WebOS.

What about you? Did you ever have a Palm product?

On Being an Only Child

2011-08-18T10:36:00.007-04:00

It wasn't until about seven years ago that being an only child became a letdown. I was never the kind of kid who really wanted a brother or sister. I usually lived in an area that had lots of kids my age, and many were also children of divorce--a much bigger impact than only-childhood, at the time.

But at some point, as my friends started to pair off, the concept of having a permanent buddy started to sound pretty good. Having someone to call on my (50 mile!) drive home from Somers would have been alright. Another factor was the devaluation of the phone conversation. It seemed that having a long conversation became passe around 2003--interestingly right around when people started getting unlimited cell plans!

So one day, back in about 2004, I said to my wife that I finally understood why having a sibling could be a good thing. Unfortunately, there was nothing I could do about it, obviously, and with most of my closest friends getting married and starting families, I couldn't even come up with good proxies.

Of course, we ended up starting our own family not long after, so the hullabaloo of it all kept us pretty busy, and though there were definitely times that I could have used another ear or shoulder, I hardly noticed through the bleary-eyed exhaustion of twin parenthood.

Last year (and this year), as my father's (zt"l) illness progressed, the lack of a sibling partner in the process of planning for and ultimately handling, his passing, was definitely a disappointment. Shouldering the emotional and physical burden on my own made a tough situation even tougher.

In some ways, I still cherish my singleton-ness. But also, I think I've gotten better--and perhaps my friends are more available--at finding proxies. Because we both come from small families, and we're both far from those small families, we often tell our friends that they are "like family." While sometimes that sounds trite, I can say without hesitation that to the best of my knowledge, some of our friends are indeed our family. Another factor at play is the fact that I think I'm more willing to reach out to these friends than before.

Here's a cute twist on the whole issue. Our girls can absolutely understand who's their friend and who's from a friend whom we consider like family. They even coined a term for describing them, "cousin-friend." So to those of you whose kids are cousin-friends, thanks for being there.

My Parents' Song

2011-08-15T08:57:00.005-04:00

Thanks to the genius of Pandora, Danny's Song by Loggins & Messina came on this morning on my walk to the office. To the best of my knowledge, this was my parents' song. It's a beautifully written song.

People smile and tell me I'm the lucky one, and we've just begun,
Think I'm gonna have a son.
He will be like she and me, as free as a dove, conceived in love,
Sun is gonna shine above.

Chorus:
And even though we ain't got money, I'm so in love with ya honey,
And everything will bring a chain of love.
And in the morning when I rise, you bring a tear of joy to my eyes,
And tell me everything is gonna be alright.

Seems as though a month ago I beta chi, never got high,
Oh, I was a sorry guy.
And now a smile, a face, a girl that shares my name,
Now I'm through with the game, this boy will never be the same.

(To chorus:)
Pisces, Virgo rising is a very good sign, strong and kind,
And the little boy is mine.
Now I see a family where there once was none, now we've just begun,
Yeah, we're gonna fly to the sun.

(To chorus:)

Love the girl who holds the world in a paper cup, drink it up,
Love her and she'll bring you luck.
And if you find she helps your mind, buddy, take her home,
Don't you live alone, try to earn what lovers own.

(To chorus:)

A Tough Friday And How I Found Beauty to Help

2011-08-12T09:55:00.008-04:00

I can't put my finger on the exact cause, the final straw, but I've had a tough Friday. I miss my father (zt"l), there's no two ways about it. But that's not new. It's been 9+ months since he passed away. I'm definitely more emotional in general since then, more likely to "need a moment" when something comes up. In addition, the mother (zt"l) of a dear friend, perhaps my closest, passed away recently. That's also upped the ante a bit, I suppose. As my friend has inched out of her emotional cocoon, we've spent more time together, which is a blessing for both of us. But I ache for her, for her mother, and for the world for losing a truly wonderful person. And in turn, that has made me even more sensitive. The world has felt uglier to me, someone who usually can see beauty in some pretty ugly things.

As I walked to work this morning, surrounded by the visual cacophony of Koreatown, with its bazaar of bizarre West African-owned wholesale shops, selling $2 skirts and alien (to me) hair care products, I wanted to scream out, to tell these clueless people how these two great lights of human potential had been snuffed out too soon. I yearned to shake them from their mundane existence. The intense emotional back-and-forth between sadness and anger was exhausting me, and I still had more than 10 blocks to go. My train had been delayed (again!) and I had had too much time alone on the way in--maybe that was a big part of it.

But as I reached a street in the mid 20s, tears still streaming, I caught a glimpse of a store selling hideous baseball hats. I laughed, at first derisively, but then I paused and chuckled as I thought that probably, it was actually the cacophony, emotionally jarring and cognitively dissonant, that was a source of beauty. It occurred to me that perhaps it was precisely the kaleidoscopic nature of our world, simultaneously messy and clean, happy and sad, loud and quiet, particularly noticeable in New York, a city beloved by both people I was mourning, which was thrilling and terrifying all at once and was in fact, the very definition of beauty.

I don't mean to take anything from the great John Keats when I say that I felt a great truth emerge as I continued to stroll south on 5th avenue, a little less weight on my shoulders and with a bit of a bounce in my step.

Beauty is truth, truth beauty,—that is all
Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know

I'm still having a tough Friday but being reminded of the beauty in everyday life, which has helped me focus on the truth and the beauty of my father's life--and that of my dear friend's mother--has helped.

Good shabbos.

Recovering from a Long Weekend

2011-07-06T10:16:00.002-04:00

This 4th of July weekend proved it. A long weekend is more tiring than the weeks leading up to and following said long weekend....at least if you have Energizer Bunnies for children.

Maybe we should institute some kind of rule that allows parents an extra half day after a long weekend. I would have been much more productive yesterday if I could have slept in until 11 and started working around noon.

Is Idiocracy closer than we feared?

2011-07-01T09:12:00.004-04:00

Mike Judge's science farction movie, Idiocracy, described a future America run by people who were just plain dumb. It was caused by the systematic genetic dumbing caused by the lower, less educated classes reproducing like rabbits, and the upper, more educated classes always finding excuses to put off having a child. The first ten minutes breaks down this scenario in a funny but sad way. As my father always said, science fiction is just the present slightly exaggerated.

Today, the New York Times has a blog on how my generation is at the root of this issue. The opening sentence shares a frightening statistic, "Nearly half (43 percent) of college-educated Generation X women — those currently between the ages of 33 and 46 — are childless." This phenomenon is often apparent on House Hunters, the default programming on our television these days, it seems. Very often, the featured family on House Hunters is a couple in their 30s or 40s, sans children, looking for a vacation home or an upgrade. They're a dual-income family, clearly well educated, and completely fixated on double sinks and granite. The closest reference to a family is the repeated playful jokes about maybe needing a nursery, "someday." Here's one such example. Maybe they met too late in life to have kids, you say? Sure, I understand that. Mr. Right, etc. But while I'm a believe in fate and G-d's will, I think we need to pick our heads up from our laptops every once in awhile to notice when they are trying to tell us something.

It may sound absurd but I'm always so happy when they highlight a family with kids doing the house hunting.

Meetings about Meetings

2011-06-30T17:20:00.002-04:00

My company is at an interesting stage in its growth. It's really exciting. But we do tend to have lots of meetings about meetings. That is, we sit around and talk about the things we'll need to do via another meeting that is or will be scheduled in the near future.

This is clearly not the best scenario and at times is downright laughable. But...what's a better way? Status meetings are a way of life in corporate America, especially in an Agile world. Or are they?

Here We Go Again...

2011-06-30T15:51:00.003-04:00

I'm trying to start blogging again. We've started an initiative at work to build a corporate blog, about which I am very excited, but I realized that I needed to drink some Kool-Aid and get back to blogging.

Here's a question: what did people do in the elevator before smartphones? It seems to be completely Pavlovian...the elevator doors close, and people flip open their smartphones. I was in the elevator with our CEO yesterday and we both did this at the same time. Clearly this means I'm upper management material, but what else does it say about our society that it's so commonplace?

Back on the Chain Gang

2008-12-22T15:38:00.001-05:00

I haven't posted much in the past year--or at all, really--but now that I have a new job, I figured I'd try to get this going again.

Macrobioticality

2007-10-24T16:47:00.001-04:00

I met my friend Sara at lunch today at a macrobiotic place in Union Square. I like macrobiotic food because there are usually no limitations for me (and other semi-kosher eaters) on the menu. However, I always get a kick out of the circular explanations of what macrobiotics really is. This place was classic in that respect. The description was actually presented in a circular format! The food was good though and despite the plethora of spelling errors, I'd go back.

The MIAgic Kingdom

2007-10-22T11:11:00.000-04:00

The Palm Beach Post reports that Miami International Airport has hired Walt Disney to train employees:

In an effort to improve customer service, Miami International Airport has
hired the Walt Disney Co. to train airport employees. A national survey
of customer satisfaction this year ranked Miami 14th among the
country's 18 busiest airports.

Which prompts the very important question: WHAT WERE THE OTHER FOUR?!

Massad State of Affairs at Columbia

2007-10-18T13:11:00.000-04:00

According to this sharp article by The New Republic's James Kirchick, Columbia professor Joseph Massad goes along with Ahmadinejad's, "We don't have [homosexuals] in our country ... We do not have this phenomenon."

Clinton to Speak at Brandeis

2007-10-17T14:47:00.000-04:00

That's Bill, if you're curious. According to The Justice via JTA, Bill will be speaking in honor of a new fellowship named for the late Eli Segal, a Brandeis graduate and former Clinton adviser who died in February.

It's on December 3rd. Get in line, snitches!

Pita Express Downtown

2007-10-17T14:08:00.000-04:00

My new work friend Dan and I sauntered up Broadway today to try Pita Express, a kosher middle eastern place near J&R.
The good: Pita was fresh, food was hot, zchug was very strong and flavorful, placed was full, friendly and lively
The bad: Like nearly all kosher middle eastern places, the service was poor. We waited a long time for our food and then were the recipients of numerous dirty or frustrated looks from the waitress.

Anyhow, for kosher keepers downtown, it's a good option and I'll definitely be back...hopefully they will have better service next time, but I guess that's why kosher places get away with it...people like me go back in spite of it!

News.com on 70s PCs

2007-10-12T14:17:00.000-04:00

Here's a phun photo essay of 70s PCs. Seeing the Apple II and Atari 800 brought a little tear to my eye. Here's my favorite example of 70s era PC glamaliciousness, the Vector 1:

In 1976, Vector Graphic designed and sold static RAM and other expansion cards for S-100 computers. The company was run by two women--Lore Harp (founder and chair) and Carole Ely. Bob Harp, Lore's husband, was the design engineer. Eventually they released an entire computer based on their technology--this
Vector 1.
Credit: Steven Stengel, Oldcomputers.net

Not quite eleventy billion, but close

2007-10-12T14:12:00.000-04:00

Oracle is putting up some nice dough for BEA: CNET article on the $6.7B offer

BEA on the block even moreso

2007-10-11T10:26:00.000-04:00

A big part of my jobs at IBM usually involved tracking BEA. I've always felt they were an acquisition target, but it seems that possibility may be increasing. According to this CNET article, Carl Icahn's influence may be a key factor in the potential sale of the second-best portal and application server provider.

I have long felt HP, once it realizes that systems management is not enough, would look to expand its software infrastructure portfolio with a BEA buy but Oracle and its A&A mentality might have a say. What do you think?

Tie, no jacket

2007-10-10T22:01:00.000-04:00

With the new show, "Chuck" a seeming hit and Best Buy's integration of and thus spreading of the GeekSquad brand, geek chic is definitely hitting a fever pitch. Yes, I'm talking about wearing a button down shirt with a tie, without a jacket. Riding the train in this AM--and new phenomenon as many of you know--I noticed more than a few folks sporting this look. My hunch is that most were in IT.

Unified Messaging

2007-10-10T16:55:00.000-04:00

I'm shocked my new company--with its mostly virtual and traveling workforce--doesn't offer UM. That is, I have a voice mailbox and an associated number (but no desk/phone) that does not alert me if I get a new message! I could be at a client site and I have to dial in to check my VM. It's unconscionable to me. We have it at home. Do you have UM at home? Work?

Give me a rug, I'm oriented

2007-10-10T16:45:00.001-04:00

Phew. Three days of orientation in the books. I'm pooped, but mostly because I've developed a little cold--well, I finally caught it is better put--and haven't slept well. Today was consulting-specific and located in my new office building so it was much more informative than the past two HR/IT-focused days.

New glasses...finally!

2007-10-09T22:02:00.001-04:00

After one major failed start and about 30 visits to opticians in the past year or so, I have finally got my new frames on my face...right now!

I'm really enjoying them so far. What do you think?

Thanks to our neighbor--and fellow MJC member--Cindy for her help!

Day 2 is in the books and I'm back online

2007-10-09T21:58:00.000-04:00

Finally got a laptop again. It's an HP, which is fine, I guess. Widescreen is nice, but the imbalanced keyboard is an oddity. The trackpad is also not centered. Weird.

Other notes on the orientation so far:

Partnership America is just as red-tape heavy as Corporate America
Wearing real shoes is as tiring as I feared
Wearing grown-up clothes is still fun
The WTC area is still borderline dreadful

Yankee/Seinfeld/Jewish Programming Note

2007-09-25T20:59:00.000-04:00

Tomorrow at 11PM, Larry David will be on centerStage on YES Network. Set those DVRs!

Mixed Emotions

2007-09-25T20:57:00.001-04:00

Well, it's finally here. Tomorrow is my last day at Big Blue. I'm sad to leave as my experiences at IBM have almost always been great--except for bonus day just about every year. :-)

I've never left one job for another so that's a new experience for me, plus it's not as if I'm leaving for a competitor or a very similar job. I'm not sure how to feel, aside from gratitude to the people I've learned so much from and sadness for the inevitable lost friendships.

Blackberry, Treo or Other?

2007-09-25T20:55:00.000-04:00

Coincidentally, I'm coming on two years with my current phone at the same time that I'm starting my new job. I'm thinking the timing is perfect to finally dip my toes into the Blackberry waters. I am waiting to hear what the policies, etc. are, but I'm leaning towards the Blackberry World 8800ish. Anyone have that? How about a comparable Treo?

How was your fast?

2007-09-23T08:46:00.000-04:00

Mine wasn't bad at all. In the last 3-4 years, I've really gotten a good handle on how to make it through unscathed. I find Tisha B'av to be harder because it's longer and in the summer, but these tips help there too:

Begin heavy water consumption the day before erev YK
Consume slightly more sodium than usual on day before erev YK
Light lunch on erev YK
Limit salt intake on erev YK but not entirely
Chew parsely after you're done eating erev YK dinner
Force glass of water down after erev YK dinner
Gargle very well with Listerine after erev YK dinner

Hope you find this helpful next time around. A zissen yur!

I Love Samantha Brown

2007-09-19T21:57:00.000-04:00

Well, maybe love is a strong word but she sure is adorable. For those of you who don't know who this charmer is, check her out on The Travel Channel website. She's witty and cute and gets to do cool things in cool places. What more could one want from a TV fantasy crush?!

The Business Uniform

2007-09-18T14:26:00.000-04:00

I guess it's my prep schooling, but I've always been partial to the light blue shirt, tan or gray slacks and blazer look. I just came from an IBM event where Steve Mills, the master of this look, was once again decked out in this combo. My question is this: does he have like 10 or 15 blazers or just 1?

Relatedly, what should my new wardrobe consist of? Now that I'm switching jobs to one where my clothes are more important--how could they not be?!--I'm thinking I need to clear out some of my old stuff and really work on my basics.

Social Bookmarking

2007-09-18T10:39:00.001-04:00

Caught this cool clip from my friend Jeremy Epstein's blog and I wanted to share: Social Bookmarking rocks

iPod Video?

2007-09-18T10:07:00.000-04:00

Do you have an iPod with video? Do you enjoy watching videos on a 1.5" screen?

I was riding the NJT back home yesterday evening on a SRO train. There was a guy standing in front of me watching The Office on his iPod. I loved the theory of video on an iPod from the day it was announced, but I watched for about 45 seconds and it became apparent to me that it was not that great in practice. I'd like to hear some feedback from any folks out there who watch video on their iPod regularly.

Lev Leviev in NYT Mag

2007-09-18T09:50:00.000-04:00

Sunday's NYT Mag had a profile of Bukharan-Israeli billionaire Lev Leviev, who is among the biggest Jewish philanthropists in the world. It was an interesting piece in general, highlighting some of Leviev's quirks and vague contradictions and also shedding light on his upbringing and business acumen.

One aspect of the piece that struck me as odd was its treatment of the Chabad movement. As some of you who know me know, I am a big fan of Chabad, so I would be remiss to admit that it's hard for me to be unbiased, but I will try.

First of all, the author (or editor?) likely mischaracterized Rabbi Eliezer Shach's (zt"l) feelings about Chabad. While I am not familiar with the exact quote, I find it highly unlikely that a Chabad critic like Shach would call it the sect closest to Judaism...Christianity perhaps, but not Judaism--note that this is not my feeling but my understanding of the misnagdic Shach's thoughts.

My bigger issue with Chafetz's piece was the following:

Most of the 300 rabbis are Chabadniks, adherents of the Brooklyn-based Hasidic group Chabad — fundamentalist, missionizing, worldly and centered on the personality and teachings of the late Menachem Mendel Schneerson, the Lubavitcher rebbe. Chabad is anti-abortion, regards homosexuality as a sexual perversion and generally finds itself aligned with other fundamentalist religious groups on American domestic issues.

It seems to me that the writer--knowing the typical NYT Mag reader is left-leaning--is trying to unfairly paint Chabad. Yes, Chabad may be officially anti-abortion--like nearly all of traditional Judaism--but in the US at least, it almost completely avoids politicizing the issue. Furthermore, regarding homosexuality, Chabad, again like all of traditional Judaism, regards male homosexual acts as abominations, but the choice of the word, "perversion," creates an unfair bias in the reader's mind, in my opinion. Chabad is generally considered to be the most moderate of all haredi and hasidic groups, especially in the US and Leviev's association with them is tainted by the choices of words and phrases to describe Chabad.

Puke: The Final Frontier

2006-09-28T16:49:00.000-04:00

Well, it happened, finally. One of my daughters puked on me last night. Now I know I am a bit squeamish, but I thought I handled myself well. My wife gave me a hard time for wanting to clean everything ASAP, though. :-)

Do you go to message boards?

2006-09-27T16:18:00.000-04:00

I had a conversation with a friend on Monday and she confided that she'd never been to a community site (message board, chat room, etc.). I'm not talking illicit stuff here, but the kind of thing you might find at Maplewood Online's forum, for example. I was shocked, as I've been an avid message boarder since 1996 or so, and I've worked in businesses where that was the bread-and-butter. Am I the weirdo or is she? OK, OK, I know I am a weirdo, but I mean specifically with regard to this topic.

New techmology from our non-friends in Redmond

2006-09-27T16:13:00.000-04:00

Well, MS finally released Wallop, and it looks pretty cool. I'm still waiting on my invite, hopefully coming from my friend Jeremy, but from what I've seen and what my friend Alantells me, it looks like a nice next-gen hybrid of Flickr and some other cool social networking stuff. I don't think it's groundbreaking, but it looks awfully polished, in a good way.

http://www.wallop.com

Flooring update

2006-09-27T16:11:00.000-04:00

By the grace of Hashem, it looks like we won't need to replace any of the hardwood floors, just refinish them. However, it's still going to cost an arm and a leg and maybe a finger on the other arm too. Maybe techmology isn't all it's cracked up to be. The floor guy gets to inhale polyurethane AND make money?! Wow.

Chicken or loose change? You decide.

2006-09-26T14:04:00.000-04:00

It's that time of year again. Kaporos is afoot and we're faced with the age-old (well, maybe just a hundred or so years old) dilemma of whether to use a chicken or the spare change we find around the house.

For those of you unfamiliar, as part of the 10 days of repentance between (and including) Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, Jews are to engage in a pretty curious ritual. It's called kaporos, or in my family, "zoys challie foosie."

Here's a pic, it tells way more than a thousand words: Chicken head face!

So, anyone out there use a chicken--other than barseff?

Dealing with contractors, 21st century style

2006-09-26T13:52:00.001-04:00

So we just bought an old house in the suburbs, and we're refinishing the floors. The previous owners had the brilliant idea of carpeting the whole house, which is verboeten in our Yuppie milieu.
So the floor guy--Is there a fancier term for him? Hardwood Re-engineerer perhaps? Floor pie baker?--says that the wood under the carpet doesn't look so good at first glance. Great, I'm thinking, and I'll have to shlep back out here today again to see each spot that looks like it's in need of replacement. While that dreadful thought was still lingering in my head, he says, "when I find a bad spot, I'll take a digital pic and e-mail it to you for your thoughts." Now granted, this is not a state of the art concept, but we're talking about a contractor here. They may be one of the last bastions of ludditic (ludditudinal?) behavior in the professional world. I was pleased as fruit punch. Needless to say, though, I hope not to get an e-mail from him today!

Introduction to my blog: Irreverence on technology, Judaism and a bunch of other carp (maybe whitefish, too).

2006-09-26T13:52:00.000-04:00

So, I've finally dipped my toes into the cool blue waters of blogdom.

I realized that I spent too much time on message boards, perfecting my answers, but there's no sense of permanence, and of course the best reason to post is to impress your Internet friends, right? Well, I figured that now I can post and get some props...and they won't go away when the post leaves the first page of the board!

I plan on posting mostly about technology and its impact on our personal and business lives, which are closer than ever before. I also hope to touch on Jewish stuff as well, plus sports, travel, cooking Hungary, New York, Miami...

Now what happens?

Using techmology to ask for forgiveness

2006-09-26T13:50:00.000-04:00

An old friend asked a similar question back in the late 90s, when e-mail was not yet ubiquitous. Now that e-mail is just one of many techmological methods to communicate, I'd like to revisit it.

The basic idea is, "how legitimate is asking forgiveness of your friends before Yom Kippur via e-mail, IM, text message?" Is there a hierarchy of acceptability? E-mail without a reply yes, text message with a reply yes, but IM without a reply no? How do you do it?