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מה רצה הרב עקיבה יוסף שלזינגר? – הרצאה חשובה ויקרה

כנס קדושת ציון מאה שנה ללב העברי

May 9, 2022

כינוס של אגודת ‘קדושת ציון’ במלאות 100 שנים לפטירתו של רבי עקיבא יוסף שלזינגר.
מדבר הרב יוסף רובין – עורך המחקר על זקנו הגרעיי”ש זצ”ל.
היה שותף במהפכה https://nedar.im/7002014

מאתר יוטיוב, כאן.

The Brand-New USG Propaganda Ministry

Here’s Everything the Media Won’t Tell You About Nina Jankowicz, Biden’s New Minister of Truth
April 29, 2022 (1w ago)

Just when you thought the Globalist American Empire couldn’t get more Orwellian, the Department of Homeland Security is here to make it all worse.

Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas testified Wednesday that the Department of Homeland Security is creating a “Disinformation Governance Board” to combat misinformation ahead of the 2022 midterms. [Fox News]

The timing of the announcement is symbolically fitting, given recent warnings from journalists, NGOs, and prominent Democrat Senators that the prospect of Elon Musk restoring free-speech to Twitter constitutes a “danger our democracy.”  It is only right then that one of our nation’s largest national security bureaucracies should set up a special “governance board” to address the threat of so-called disinformation that emerges when speech isn’t entirely controlled by the Regime and its proxies.

The DHS has not said much about what the “Disinformation Governance Board” will actually do, but Politico’s brief write-up on the announcement offers some clues:

DHS is standing up a new Disinformation Governance Board to coordinate countering misinformation related to homeland security, focused specifically on irregular migration and Russia. Nina Jankowicz will head the board as executive director. She previously was a disinformation fellow at the Wilson Center, advised the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry as part of the Fulbright Public Policy Fellowship and oversaw Russia and Belarus programs at the National Democratic Institute. [Politico]

In case you’re not up-to-date on Government approved euphemisms, “irregular migration” is the new politically correct term for what used to be called “illegal immigration.” We dare the reader to google “irregular migration” and consult what images pop up. Given that the DHS has become a de-facto full service travel agency for illegal aliens pouring over the border, it makes sense that the same agency would want to label any criticism of its policies as dangerous “disinformation.” That “Russia” also falls under the DHS’ new Ministry of Disinformation’s portfolio is arguably even more ridiculous. Didn’t we just learn that the Hunter Biden laptop story, which dozens of media outlets and former intelligence officials demanded to censor as “Russian disinformation,” turned out to be totally true and legitimate?

The specific choice of the Department of Homeland Security to host this new governance board is telling. In 2020, the Trump DHS released a report claiming that “white supremacy” was the single greatest security threat facing America. Mere months ago, the DHS raised the national threat level on the grounds that “misinformation” about Covid-19 or the 2020 election would drive extremist violence.

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From Revolver, here.

I Think the Idea Has Some Merit

I’ll Pay You to Read My Book

[Translations: Japanese]

Nobody reads big factual books anymore. Who has time? With a lot of effort you can get folks to buy big factual books, but they don’t usually read them. They sit on the “to read” shelf once they get home. Or pile up in the inbox on an ebook reader. I know. As an author I know how many of my purchased books are unread. But while it is nice that people buy books, I feel a failure as an author if the bought (or borrowed) books are not read.

A couple of years ago I had an idea for increasing readership of books. I’ll pay you to read my book! I had a clever way to use ebook readers to accomplish this. I mentioned the system to many book lovers and authors, and one of them whom made his living patenting ideas suggest my idea was patentable.

I took some initial steps in that direction, but realized very quickly that getting a patent is just like getting a child – you now have to tend it, protect it, feed it, and develop it. It did not solve anything; it only created new things to solve. I have too many other things to do than babysit or try to peddle a patent, so I am publishing the idea here. It may be that this idea is not patentable at all, or even already patented (I never got that far to look), or maybe it is a lousy idea that can’t be implemented. In any case, here it is.

I think it’s a great idea. I’d like to have this option as a reader, as well as an author and publisher. I hope someone does this.

Pay To Read

A MODEL FOR PAYING READERS TO READ BOOKS

By Kevin Kelly
June 1, 2012

Proposal for a patent: The idea is to pay people to read a book.

Readers would purchase an e-book for a fixed amount, say $5. They would use an e-book reader to read the digital book. The e-book reader would contain software that would track their reading usage – how long it took on average to turn a page; how often they highlighted a passage; how many pages activated at one sitting, etc. Amazon Kindles today already track bookmark usage patterns which they relay back to Amazon on via its wireless Whispernet. Using a database of known reading patterns from verified readers the software would compare a purchaser’s reading behavior to these known reading patterns and establish whether or not a purchaser is really reading the book. If the behavior patterns exceeded the threshold level – say 95% of pages turned at the right speed — then the e-book device would initiate a predetermined payment to the purchaser.

If a reader is given credit for reading the book, then he/she would earn more than they paid for the book. For example, if they paid $5 for the ebook, they would get back $6, thus earning $1 for reading the book. Not only did the book not cost them anything, but they made money reading the book. If they read it.

The Publisher would pay the difference from the potentially greater sales revenue this arrangement would induce. Greater numbers of readers would purchase the book initially in the hope and expectation that they would finish the book and be reimbursed greater than the amount they paid. In their mind, entering into a purchase is an “easy buy” because they calculate “it will cost them nothing.” Or maybe even make them money.

However the likelier outcome is that while many more customers buy the book, fewer actually read it completely. This follows the known pattern that most bought books are not read. So the actual payout for success will likely be less than the actual gain in sales, resulting in a net gain to the Publisher for this deal. So if, for example, the Publisher sold 10 books that were unread for every 1 book that was read, the revenue would be $50-$6 = $44. If this offer increased ordinary sales by for example 40%, there would be a net increase in revenue from $35 to $44 or $9, or 25% additional profit for this model.

There is satisfaction for both parties in either outcome. If the purchaser buys the book, but does not read it in full, he/she paid the acceptable price, and still owns the book. The Publisher keeps the full amount. If the purchaser finishes reading the book, they still have the book, but also earned money doing so. The publisher loses only a small amount on the sale, which can be offset from greater sales to others.

The payout ratio can be adjusted depending on the price of the ebook, or the category of content. This mechanism requires no new hardware than what exists today, and better hardware in the future – such as eye tracking technology — will only make it more practical to evaluate whether someone has read a book. This can be accomplished primarily in software. Of course, it should be an opt in choice, and engaged with a purchaser’s permission only.

From The Technium, here.

Are Torah/Science Contradictions Possible?

Why the Bible Is Immune To Scientific Criticism

by Shlomo Moshe Scheinman

One of the fundamental beliefs of Judaism is that G-d does not have a body. According to Rambam (Maimonides) one who denies this belief has no portion in the World to Come (Hilchot Teshuva, chapter 3). Raavad agrees with Rambam that G-d has no body, but comments (to Hilchot Teshuva 3:7) that in his opinion, people who wrongly interpret Scripture and therefore believe that G-d has a body, will not lose their portion in the World to Come over this error.

Sometimes the Bible Prefers to Present the Subjective Outlook of Man Rather Than the Absolute Objective Reality

Rabbi Yisrael Meir Kagan, known popularly as the Chafetz Chaim (in Sefer Mitzvot Hakatzar, Mitzvah 2:} sums up the Jewish view about G-d in the following way.

“It is a positive precept to attribute to the G-d, may he be blessed, an absolute state of being one; to believe with complete faith that he is one without any partner…

One must believe with complete faith that he is simple with the utmost state of being one and an absolute unity and has no body, nor will the factors that affect  the body affect him, nor will occurrences of the body occur to him, and there is no second to him and outside of him, there is no L-rd; and we are obligated to believe this principle of faith at all times and at all moments and the commandment is a requirement both for males and females”.

Given this strong Jewish belief that G-d has no body and factors that affect the body do not affect him, nor do occurrences of the body occur to him, it is surprising that many verses of the Bible if interpreted literally imply otherwise.

Maharal of Prague, in his book, Tifferet Yisrael chapter 33, solves this difficulty in such a way that will also begin to remove our “Scientific Problems” with the Torah (the first 5 books of the Bible). Regarding the verse, “And G-d descended on Mount Sinai” (Shmot/Exodus 19:20), and similar verses he explains, that this is talking from the perspective of a person, for thus was G-d subjectively perceived through man’s perspective as though he was descending from Heaven upon the Mountain. And therefore since since man thus perceived him, even though by objective reality, this was not indeed true, scripture will ascribe G-d as descending on the mountain. In other words Maharal is saying that although G-d did not really move from one position to another, Scripture ascribed movement to G-d at Sinai because that’s how things looked from a man’s perspective, who was experiencing the revelation.

Maharal in the same chapter of Tifferet Yisrael provides other examples, where G-d is described not by his true objective essence in the Bible, but rather by the way man perceives him. He brings what the Talmud (Sotah 48a) comments on  the Biblical verse where the Psalmist asks of G-d, “Awake, why do you sleep?” (Tehillim/Psalms 44:24). The Talmud poses a rhetorical question, “and is there sleep before the Holy One Blessed be He? Rather in the hour that Israel is not doing the will of the Omnipresent it appears to be as if, there is sleep associated with him (lit. before him). Behold it is called sleep, from the perspective of those experiencing G-d’s involvement (or seemingly lack of involvement) with the world at that period of time.

Other examples brought by Maharal are from the Midrash (Yalkut Yitro 286): “Rabbi Chiya Bar Ami said, according to each activity and each word did he appear to them. On the Red (or Reed) Sea, he appeared as a warrior engaged in battle and at Sinai, as a scribe who is teaching Torah and in the days of Shlomo (Solomon) according to their actions, his appearance was like Levanon (the name of a high quality forest area), excellent as Cedar Trees; while he appeared to them in the days of Daniel as an old man that was teaching Torah”. Behold it has become clarified to you that G-d, may he be blessed, is present (subjectively) in accordance to those that receive him and therefore when those present are due to obtain some great loss, such as what took place in the generation of the flood, it was stated, “and it grieved him at his heart” (Bereshit/Genesis 6:6). Or in the opposite way, when those that are present obtain perfection, G-d appears to them as happy, as it is stated, “Let G-d rejoice in his works” (Tehillim/Psalms 104:31).

Not just when describing G-d, does the Bible often prefer to present a subjective human view of events instead of the objective reality. The Talmud (Tamid 29a) specifically points to 2 Biblical verses that portray an exaggerated, subjective human view of reality, rather than an objective view. Namely, Dvarim/Deuteronomy 1:28, which states: “the cities are great and fortified up to heaven” and Melachim/Kings 1:40 which states: “so that the earth was split with the sound of them”.  And for those that need a more explicit source of my explanation for the Talmud see Rashi’s commentary to  Melachim/Kings 1:40 where he makes a similar claim to the one I raised above.

Similarly, when G-d started the Biblical flood in Breishit/Genesis 7:11, “the windows of heaven were opened”. Ibn Ezra, notes this term was also used by a man, who was skeptical of the prophet’s prediction of the complete end of a situation of starvation within the next day in II Melachim/Kings 7:2 and Ibn Ezra understood that both verses are not describing objective reality, but rather the subjective terminology that people use to describe the event.

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From 60 Ribo, here.