Some have you may have noticed that my blog has a new look. Others may have noticed that the Israeli polyamory forum that I’m hosting has crashed, losing all information. Both of these events have to do with my (paid) hosting account at bluehost.com.

It all started when I wanted to upgrade my ancient wordpress install (with some custom modifications) to a more modern and standard install. So, I backed up my blog and database and proceeded to install the new version. This required a few iterations, each requiring to delete the old instance of the blog.

My major mistake was during one of those installations, I have misclicked and deleted the wrong site — the active poly forum. The delete action did create a backup, but since the database was exported using the wrong encoding, all Hebrew data (including the entire forum) was lost.

I immediately called my hosting provider, but they did not have backups of my account. I never set up a backup script for my hosting account, so the entire contents were lost.

I did reinstall a new forum and the blog. I am now working on a backup solution for my account.

The new blog has several nifty features: On the right sidebar you may find my current exact location. Also, the subscription system should work better and replies could be verified by OpenID.

Today is Election day in Israel, and I’m voting for the extreme left wing party Hadash. Why? Because I think war is wrong. Period.

Why is war wrong you ask? Well, killing or hurting innocent people is obviously wrong. People should be considered innocent until proven guilty in court. At war, people are killed and hurt just because they belong to some nation or group, or believe in a different set of beliefs than the attacker.

It seems to me that there are for major causes of conflict in the national level: Religion, Nationalism, Greed, and Vendictiveness.

Let’s start with Religion. The same system that allows people to wholeheartedly believe fairy tales with no shred of truth gives those people justification to do the most horrible things to others. However I believe that people are basically good and would not follow a religion to extremism without other circumstances.

The second point I would like to mention is Nationalism. That is, a feeling, that your nation is better or more important simply because you happen to have citizenship there. It seems silly to me to be proud of, say, Israeli athletes or other achievements. Most of those people share little of my belief system, and I feel much closer to people of other nations who do. I also do not agree with my elected officials, just like most Americans were no proud to be represented by George W Bush.

The third point is Greed. Very rarely do the spoils of war cover the human and even financial cost of the war, even to the “winning” side. There are no winners in war. That said, people who have nothing to lose are much more likely to be aggressive and try to get ahead by force. Therefore, the solution to war prevention is not arms or security, but financial support and fair trade. A person with a good financial situation does not become a terrorist!

The final point is vindictiveness. This is what causes the vicious cycle of war. A well-known experiment asked participants to try and match the pain levels caused by another participant. The results: Although the other participant accurately matched the former’s actions, the participants kept escalating their responses due to perceived escalation from the other side. That is why we should break this cycle and stop responding with force. That is the only way to finally achieve peace.

To conclude, I would like you to listen to the lyrics of Imagine by John Lennon:

Today, Jan 14, 2009, I have become an Uncle. Yes, my older brother is now a father of twin girls, and all is well. I have not yet seen the babies, but once I get photos, I’ll post them here.

The growth of the family is a good reason to celebrate, and in our case, it means a family union in Israel scheduled for February. My brother is coming from Germany and I’m coming from the US for a first meeting the newly-extended family.

For those of you who care, my dates in Israel will be Feb 9 to 16 — one week. During those days I plan to vote. Although I’m not yet sure what party I’ll vote for. The options I’m considering “Meretz” and “Hadash“, both left-wing parties. Hadash is the only left-wing party that opposed the war in Gaza, but Meretz stands a chance of actually taking part in a central-left government.

Those of you who live in Israel and have the right to vote, don’t forget to vote for peace because war isn’t good for anyone.

I made a new girl (space) friend this week, and together we have founded the awesome peoples’ league (Bay area chapter). She and her fiancé are into boardgaming in addition to using free operating systems. They also watch many similar TV shows and enjoy hanging out and playing the same games I do (and in a good level).

As part of my ongoing commitment to resurrect this blog, I’ll tell you all that I’m happy. It’s amazing how happy a friend could make you when you need one!

In other news, I am in the process of writing an NSF grant proposal, which basically means write something about your research and beg for money.

One of the great things about being a postdoc is that you have students who do all the work, so I will have at least two papers submitted to IJCAI (probably more), and all of them in collaboration with different authors, both here and in Israel.

BTW, If you like my blog, please comment so I’ll be encouraged to write more!

It’s my birthday today. I’m 28, and at work. One year older and not much to show for it. Maybe I’ll start updating my blog, but for now that’s all.

Today I underwent oral surgery under general anesthesia. The procedure was the removal of my two lower wisdom teeth which were impacted. This procedure is uncommon in the US for people my age (27). Usually people get their teeth removed in their teens even if there aren’t any complications.

The clinic I have chosen was within short walking distance from my home and I arrived there in less than half an hour:

Before the procedure, I had to pay the bill. Due to my insurance I had to pay only a 20% co-pay, and that amounted to “only” $238, which I paid and proceeded to read the book I brought with me.

Later, I was called in, hooked to an IV and got some oral shots.  The procedure itself went smoothly, and in a split-second (from my point of view) I was in recovery.

Due to the anesthesia, I could not walk back home. The clinic strongly recommends having someone drive you home and look after you. I could not find anyone who was willing and able to do that for me, so I had to stay for a few more hours in the clinic for recovery and then took a taxi home.

At home, I took some pain meds and antibiotics, as the doctor ordered and contacted my friends and family onine. Now I can’t talk, and have trouble drinking. Hopefully this will pass in the next few hours so I could have dinner tonight.

… But what an eventful week it was! For those of you that don’t know, last week I have flown back from Israel, and this week I’m flying to a conference in Portugal.

Some people (ahem, ahem) have commented on the lack of personal perspective in this blog, and it being just a dry collection of facts. Hopefully this post will be an improvement in that regard.

I know I haven’t posted in a while. This is a result of a combination of two seemingly contradicting things: there was nothing to write about, and I was too busy. Well, now, from my first class seat on NW272 SFO-MEM, I can tell you all the news.

BREAKING NEWS: I was just notified by a flight attendant that I have left my passport in SFO. This is very bad since my next flight is international. I will check with the staff at Memphis about how to get it back.

Until we land, I’ll tell you about our planned German family reunion. It seems that 4 out of my 5 immediate family members will be at Saabrücken with me the coming weekend touring around and playing boardgames.

I’m now really worried about the passport issue and hope I could board the SFO-AMS flight without it and also pass the passport control at AMS, since my I-94 has already been affixed to my boarding pass.

Yesterday, was my birthday, and my friend Jesse and I went over to “the city” known as San Francisco. At start, I drove and she navigated (with the aid of my friend Miss GPS). We went to see city hall and the opera house, then to Japantown and ate an American lunch. The next stop on our journey was Coit Tower (nothing to do with the radio station KOIT).

Here we switched places, with Jesse driving and me navigating, and didn’t get much out of the car. We saw the palace of fine arts, and the golden gate bridge. The route took us by the Pacific shore, though we couldn’t see anything due to heavy fog. At this point we decided to head back home. We ate dinner at a nice pie restaurant and back to Jesse’s house where we saw the movie Garden State.

Pictures from the Tour

November 18th is my birthday, which is tomorrow. My plans for my birthday is to go with my friend to San Francisco and act like tourists. Specifically, we plan to take the 49 mile scenic drive all around the city. If you want to greet me, comment here, or use the info in the about page.

Yesterday was my first full day here. In the morning I went to eat breakfast at McDonald’s, guided by my trusted navigation system. The first McD I went to was closed, so I went to another one which was open.

After breakfast I returned to the motel, and figured out I somehow managed to lose my room key. In any case, I decided to go on line and plan the rest of my day. It was still early to go to the International Center at Stanford, so I decided to go to see a new car for sale. I called the person I’ve been in touch with at the dealership and set an appointment for an hour later. The price he quoted at the dealership was too high for my parent’s taste, so I did not yet buy the car.

From the dealership I made my way to Stanford, ate lunch, and went on to get my temporary ATM card and visit the Int’l center for an orientation. Then, I drove to the CS faculty and met with the administrator there. I signed lots of forms to be on payroll and got signed up for an orientation meeting today. Then, I went to see Yoav — the professor I’ll be working with. Even though he was not expecting me, he took the time to give me a short tour of the faculty and have his assistant assign me an office and give me a key. Now I have an address where I can get mail! The address is:

Alon Altman
Gates Computer Science
353 Serra Mall, room 258
Stanford, CA 94305
USA

After arranging all that, I went back to the hotel room and on line. I had a chat with my friend whom I met in Hawaii and met up with her for dinner. I really enjoyed it.

Overall, I feel good and even though getting settled is hard, I think I’m doing pretty well. Today will be another day at Stanford and I hope to start looking for places to stay tomorrow.