Reads

reading a book, magazine, newspaper, other physical document, or online post
Read Harvard Law Prof’s One Weird Trick! Sues NYT For ‘Clickbait Defamation’ by Jamie Lynn Crofts (Wonkette)

Imagineering new laws must be why they pay him the big bucks.

I’d be lying if I said I hoped Lawrence Lessig wins this lawsuit.

Fact is, I hope he loses, if for no other reason than I’m sick and tired of powerful guys like this go on and on about free speech (TM), and then get all butthurt when someone exercises their right to same by saying mean things about them.

Or when they go on and on about free association, (as they necessarily do when advocating on behalf of the Firist Ammendment), only to then get all buthurt when others choose not to associate with them after they defend the indefenseable.

People like Lawrence Lessig are more than welcome to defend pedophiles, taking money from same, ETC. But those defenses aren’t free of social consequences, and that’s what they’re suffering here, social consequences.

And if you don’t like the social consequences, maybe don’t defend pedophiles or taking money from same.

Read In the public domain, but encumbered by David Weinberger

So I don’t want to be ungrateful for this enormous gift to the world. But one more step – say, an open API that enables batch download – and the world can benefit even more from these museum’s awesome generosity.

Read Why I quit Twitter — and you should, too by John Podhoretz (New York Post)

There’s a reason Twitter has ­defined this decade’s communications. It’s the most interactive ­medium the world has ever known, and it’s great fun.
But Twitter has an oversoul now, and the oversoul is poisonous. It ­rewards bad rhetorical behavior, it privileges outrage of any sort over reason of all sorts, and it encourages us to misunderstand each other. It’s the devil on our shoulder.
Or, at least, it was the devil on mine.

Read Capt. Beverley Bass: American aviation heroine (The Points Guy)

Beverley Bass was the first woman captain for American Airlines.
On Monday, Bev received the Hero Award at the 2019 TPG Awards in recognition of her leadership for women in commercial aviation. Among other career highlights, Bev, the first female captain for American Airlines, is best known for safely diverting a planeload of passengers to Gander, Newfoundland, on Sept. 11 — which later became the basis for Broadway musical Come from Away.

Read Yes, We Needed Another Modern Orthodox Prayer Book: A Review of the RCA Siddur by Yosef Lindell (The Lehrhaus)

If anyone had asked me a year ago whether the Modern Orthodox community in the United States needed a new siddur, I would have said no.

This article gives a pretty detailed review of the new Rabinical Council of America Siddur, which is something I hope to add to my bookshelf if it ever becomes available in an accessible format.

I have the Artscroll weekday Siddur on my phone as an app, and while I love how the app displays additions smartly, I find the translation to be too slavishly literal to the Hebrew, (it goes so far as to follow Hebrew grammar in translation, which results in unreadable English), even despite the terms on which the Artscroll siddurim are translated: specifically that Hebrew is a holy language and that since Hebrew is not understood by a lot of people they should be able to pray in another language with the translation reflecting as much of the Hebrew syntax as possible.

Another problem I’ve found, (and I’m not sure if this is a VoiceOver problem or a problem with the app itself), is that if your operating system language is in English, even if you have Hebrew braille tables installed, the app will not display Hebrew text properly, which means that I have to keep the app in English and scroll past the mangled Hebrew text where it appears.

I haven’t tried switching my VoiceOver language to Hebrew yet to see if it corrects the problem.

But to get back to the RCA siddur, I’d like to read the commentary and essays that come as part of the package.

There was talk during the early years of the siddur’s preparation of an online resource which contained the commentary and essays, but as far as I know it’s never come to fruition. I’ll echo this author in stating that it would be a areally good idea.