twitter

so, it occurred to me after sleeping in different spots/cities all the time, that i'd be nice if there were some mechanism in place for me to update you about my whereabouts in an efficient manner. enter "twitter". to start receiving regular updates on my goings and comings to your mobile phone, send follow+jovo to 40404 in a text message. If you decide you don't want updates on your phone anymore, send leave+username.
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skiing

so, i used to have a policy of no skiing in this country. it often seemed to me like something that rich white people did, but not others. turns out, that is not true in other parts of the world (eg, europe). its probably not true in other parts of this country (eg, many colored people ski on mountains i've never been to). anyway, when i was in utah, everybody was skiing. i felt a little left out, much like i did when all my friends were getting drunk and smoking pot in high school and college. not because i really wanted to partake, but rather, because i was missing out on a bonding experience, which seems to have merit in its own right. as such, i've decided that for next time, i'm going skiing. i needn't feel privilege guilt when it comes to skiing. rather, i think it would be more beneficial to everyone involved if i enjoyed myself, skied with my friends, and recognized and appreciated my privilege. we'll see what happens

matisyahu shabbat tent at langerado 2008

friday night between 6-9PM, at any given time, there were well over 100 people in the tent, and another 50 people standing right outside the tent, because they couldn't fit in! kabbalat shabbat lasted about 1.5 hours just because people were so excited. dancing kept spilling out of the tent and encircling onlookers. i spent most of the time outside the tent telling people as they walked by what was going on. quite often, the response would be something like, "really? ok, i'm going to run in and stay. [to his/her friends] meet me back here in a couple hours."

between 10PM and 4AM is was fairly chill, maybe about 10-20 people in it, mostly just talking. a few guys stayed learning from some judaic books. at about 4AM, it started pooring, so about 50 more people sought shelter in the tent. it was beautiful, as you could hear people yelling, "quick, everybody into the shabbat tent." people who were already in the tent accurately responded, "everybody is welcome, come, stay as long as you want." it seemed as if everybody at the festival (about 50 thousand) knew that the shabbat tent was a safe place where anybody was comfortable. a few people in particular had to say kaddish or yahrtzeit, and were incredibly grateful that the shabbat tent was there for that. other kids told me that they only attended the festival because of the shabbat tent! about 10 kids brought tallis and tefillin, as they knew about the shabbat tent and wanted to daven shacharit sunday morning.

shabbat morning, we had services for a couple hours with over 60 people the entire time, then lunch. at about 2PM, it was so windy, that the entire tent broke and fell down. so, people's lunch moved outside the shabbat tent, and ended at around 3PM. at 5PM, about 30 people came back for mincha, dinner, and maariv. at about 7, another 30 showed up for havdalah. matisyahu played in front of about 25 thousand fans at 8. afterwards, a number of people came back looking for the guys who were teaching the whole time. several of them are planning on going to visit one another to spend shabbat together. many people asked us to have the shabbat tent at the next festival.

all in all, it was pretty awesome. we seemed to have effectively conveyed the idea that everyone was welcome, and this was a safe spiritual place on the festival grounds. many requested our presence at future festivals

cosyne poster

in my poster session, many people came over to tell me how great my spotlight talk was, which was very nice. also, many people who do not work on anything related came over to hear about our work because apparently i presented it as an interesting signal processing problem. all the feedback i got was that it was very nice work, which was really comforting. a number of people asked for the manuscript and/or code which was also nice.

cosyne spotlight talk

so, yesterday i gave a 4 minute presentation before about 500 people. i guess that is the largest number of people i have ever spoken in front of. i presented our work in comparison with the others, clearly demonstrating how much betters ours was :-) upon finishing my "prepared" remarks (which i had literally not prepared at all), i asked the moderator if i had any time left, to which he replied, "10 seconds." so, i turned back to the crowd and said, "thaaaannnnkkkkk yoooooouuuuuuuuu." needless to say, everyone erupted in laughter.....

peace on terror

i'm declaring peace on terror. we could say, "there are a bunch of people in the world that hate us, they hate us so much that they want us to die, they would be willing to kill us, they want to kill us, they would even be willing to sacrifice their lives to harm us. how can we stop this? i know, let's go over to where they are, and kill them! that way, they won't be able to hate us any more, because they'll be dead. problem solved."

i would like to make a different statement. it may start out the same way (although it would probably explain certain elements a little more clearly), but it would drastically different after "how can we stop this?" i might go something like this, "i know, let's go over to where they are, and help them! that way, they won't hate us anymore. instead of spending our money on destroying that which they cherish, let us provide for them. let us teach them how to provide for themselves, such that they will no longer be at the mercy of hunger and poverty."

while the first response may be called "waging a war on terror", the second may be called "waging a peace on terror." somebody must have thought of this before. it seems like it would be pretty easy to get the UN to approve such a waging. further, it seems even some of the more radical dictators would be hard-pressed to forbid other countries from providing aid (they all do already, to my knowledge). so, some practical concerns seem relatively easy to deal with. building love is a pretty easy thing to do: determine the needs of the other, and satisfy those needs, while simultaneously helping the other to satisfy those needs without the help of others. let's do it...

the opposite of war...

the opposite of love is hate. what's the opposite of war? one might be inclined to say peace, but i think that is not correct. rather, peace can be to war as apathy is to hate - the absense of war, not the opposite of it. war is the decision of a nation-state to contribute a huge fraction of its gdp and emotional energy to destroying something. in that sense, foreign aid might be the opposite of war. but again, not really. foreign aid is more like the opposite of minor skirmishes, like when clinton dropped some bombs on iraq. so, i'm still stuck. i think english hasn't yet thought of a word that means the opposite of war. more importantly, it is not clear to me whether any country has even engaged in such an act (which, incidentally, explains the lack of such a word). engaging in this act would entail things like a draft to get people into something like peace corp, where many tens or hundreds of thousands of people from one country flock to another to build things. a good example would be something like what happens after a major natural disaster. instead of just sending money, we send people, goods, money, services. we stay for years helping rebuild their society (as they see fit). people who aren't drafted stay back to help build things to send over there. this could be a multilateral effect, we could form a coalition, etc. as war might be considered a great national expression of fear or hatred, this would be a great national expression of love and compassion. what should we call such a thing?