gkamin - the world through my window

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why would he lie like that?

March 12th, 2009 Posted in misc | 1 Comment »

I’m turning into a mac-head. I was always a PC boy, but something started to change when I got my first iPod a few years ago. Then I got more iPods and then a mac-mini (just for boxee at first). When I started working at boxee, which is a very mac-friendly company, I knew that the battle was lost. I got myself a new macbook, and now I’m about to upgrade to the new mac mini.

Since Apple was celebrating 25 years of Macs, TheMarkerTV interviewed Eran Tor, CEO of iDigital, the premium reseller of Apple in Israel (sorry Mac users, this video probably won’t run on your Mac :( damn Castup). The guy was asked about the phenomenon of Israelis buying their Apple products abroad, because the prices in Israel are too high, and he addressed the question with the example of the iPods (the headline for the interview is “why one should buy an iPod in Israel?”). He said that the price difference today is only 3%, which sums up to 47 or 74 NIS.

Mr. Tor probably doesn’t realise that since his video wasn’t shown on traditional TV, but on a website, it is more likely that viewers will actually check to see whether what he says is true.

I took the liberty to pause the video, check the idigital and Apple websites, and simply compare the prices of a few products.

The most basic iPod we can compare is the iPod nano (the new shuffle isn’t here yet).

A first look in both websites will tell you that the most basic nano is sold in idigital for 629 NIS, and in the US it costs 129$ (625 NIS). that sounds great! only 4 NIS difference. But then you take a second look and see that the most basic model in the US is the 8GB one, whereas in Israel they also sell the 4GB one. idigital will sell you the 8GB model for 800 NIS, meaning that the US price is a little less than 80% the Israeli price.

Let’s take a look now at what he refers to as the most expensive model - the iPod touch.

the 8GB model costs 1200 NIS in israel and 229$ (960 NIS) in the US - again, 80%.

the 32GB model costs 2150 NIS in israel and 400$ (1680 NIS) in the US - here, again, we keep the 80% ratio.

In no case the difference sums up to 47 nor 74 NIS.

I understand that he faces lots of constraints most of us, individual consumers, do not. He’s probably obligated by Apple to purchase the merchandise in Europe (meaning he’s paying in euros and not US prices), he has to pay taxes most individuals evade (even though, since the iPod nano costs less than 200$, one doesn’t need to declare it in the airport upon returning to Israel, so it’s even legal).

This guy needs a better media officer, and some much better preparation for media appearances.

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just a cool link to check out

March 9th, 2009 Posted in cool web stuff, photography, food & the good life | No Comments »

It’s been a while, and there’s lots to update. However, this one will be quite a short post to take me back into the food photography world.

Scanwiches is a very cool website @ArielBH has sent me earlier today. @IdanCohen suggested to make a cook book based only of scanned food. An interesting challenge…

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inspiring others

February 17th, 2009 Posted in society economy and what's between | 2 Comments »

An idea I have for a project aiming at letting teenagers realize that they can make a difference, and that they have a way to influence their own lives and impact the lives of others.

I don’t know why all my project ideas come up when I’m so busy, but this one is something I’ve been thinking about for some time now, and I hope to be able to make it happen sometime in the next couple of years.

The idea is to recruit a group of up to 20 teenagers (15-18 y/o) and have them meet interesting people (let’s call those people VIP’s just for the sake of discussion).

The HOW?

the students will put together a list of 10 VIP’s chosen exclusively by them.
each VIP would be from a different industry or domain - politics (municipal or national), business, journalism, sports, art, food, etc.
the participants will be setting the meetings by themselves (this is actually a very important part of the project).
the students will spend a couple of weeks researching and preparing for each meeting, brainstorming objectives, ideas and suggestions.
only 1-2 students would actually attend at each meeting of the series.
after each meeting there would be a debriefing session, in which those who participated in the metting summarize it to their friends, and analyze how it went.

The WHY?

Quite often I’m amazed by how little influence people believe they have on their surroundings. It’s not a coincidence that “the man on the street” translates to hebrew as “the little citizen”. This terminology reflects a conception of a single person’s inability to act in front of the giant forces he’d face if he wanted to make a difference. People tend to forget that when facing a large corporation or a government branch, they actually face people just like them, who are willing to listen (and even implement your ideas if those are solid enough).

When I tell people about our activities during the students’ strike, they are usually surprised by the fact that I simply scheduled meetings with members of the Knesset (Israeli parliament) and managed to participate in committees’ discussions. I never thought this to be a mission: impossible - I just picked up the phone and scheduled the meetings, and this is the feeling of ability I’d like people to have.

I want the participants to decide for themselves who would be the best person to approach in each domain that interests them (not necessarily the VIP itself - maybe an assistant or someone operating “behind the scenes”).

I want the students to experience setting the meeting by themselves, so they could see that even a 16 y/o can schedule a meeting with a VIP and that they can use their own networks to get to those VIP’s. This way they could also cope with their own failure in case they don’t manage to actualize a meeting).

I’d like them to get the feeling of a work meeting scenario, in which they are being heard and considered equals, and not a meeting in a context of a VIP lecturing to a bunch of kids about his/her work (hence the limit on the number of participants in the meeting).

This project actually needs no budget. It doesn’t even really require a “grown-up” to babysit on the kids. After all, we’re talking about making them feel able, right?

My former employer and dear friend Eran Bar-Tal once told me about a meeting he had with the mayor as a young teenager, and that he remembers this as a very strong and meaningful childhood experience. I believe that besides teaching the students about how the way each of the arenas the VIP’s come from actually works in reality, and aside from having the students understand the importance of preparing for a meeting, I believe such a project can have a truly empowering effect on the participants.

Any suggestions for improving this very basic and unripe concept are more than welcome.

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elections, all over again…

February 10th, 2009 Posted in Personal, society economy and what's between | No Comments »

No one to vote for again. What can we do to change this?

As if time has frozen for 3 years, and we’re back at the same spot (only with a few more dead people on both sides of the borders with lebanon and gaza).

2 years ago I wrote this post about not having even a single party representing the combination of “political” left (regarding the peaceful solution of the Israeli-Palestinean conflict) and an “economic” right in the israeli political map.

As part of their 2009 elections’ coverage, ynet, together with the Israel Democracy Institute and vrije universiteit amsterdam, have published a “voting compass”, asking you a few questions regarding the 4 issues in the focus of the israeli political discourse - the conflict in the region, the economy, religion and the state, and the environmental issue - and then telling you which political party is closest to your beliefs.

The image shown here demonstrates the dispersion of the parties regarding the two most prominent issues - the conflict and the economy. As you can see, there’s an empty quadrant here, representing the exact problem I face each time I go to vote. Although this compass shows that Shtrasler is right in his analysis in today’s Haaretz daily (is he reading my blog? :), positioning Kadima as the closest to this agenda, I can’t get myself to cast my vote and put Tzahi HaNegbi, Shaul Mofaz, Ruchama Avraham and the others in the Knesset.

Even more interesting is the fact that more and more people start calling to change the entire political system - you have Gidon Doron (whom I’ve worked for as a TA at the Tel Aviv University, now head of “HaIsraelim” party) and Dan Ben-David calling for a professional government, or Gen. Prof. Yitzhak Ben-Israel (ex-Kadima MK) talking about blocking mediocracy’s way into the Knesset, and Yoel Marcus mentioning the need for less parties to increase the government’s ability to… errr… govern.

I tend to agree with Marcus. I do believe that fewer parties can contribute to a much needed more stable political system. However, it will be interesting to examine the effect such a move will have on that missing quadrant, since less parties means a compromise on an accurate representation of specific sets of beliefs.

Maybe my buddy John.ros is right in that we need to sink much deeper, so people realize we need to call for extreme measures and change things drastically. I just hope that by the time we hit bottom, we don’t lose all the hope that’s left.

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no good rock music recorded recently?

February 4th, 2009 Posted in misc | 2 Comments »

Still into music issues (the benefits of working for a media related company…).
This week, GuitarWorld Magazine has published a list of the 50 Greatest Guitar Solos in history.

The sad thing about this list is that when you compare it to the first 50 tracks in the list of 100 Solos, which that same magazine published just over 10 years ago, you see that the only change is that Flood by Pantera, which was #19 is now #15, and has just swapped places with Highway Star by Deep Purple.

The whole idea behind this kind of lists is quite questionable - rating songs, and ranking them, as if there’s any meaning to Stairway to Heaven having a “better” guitar solo than All Along the Watchtower - but it’s not the ranking itself that bothers me right now, but the fact that the GuitarWorld editors couldn’t think of a single guitar solo from the last 10 years that could fit in this list.

Can you?

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the puppet folk revival

January 22nd, 2009 Posted in reviews | 3 Comments »

Last night I went to see The Puppet Folk Revival (better known as Red Band) at the Barby club in tlv. A friend called and suggested that we join him. Since I had such a shitty day, I decided to end it with some good rock and blues music.

The show was actually good, and Micha Duman Ari acting as Red, Junior and some other characters has a really amazing voice, but that’s not what I’m here to write about.

The show was announced to begin on 22:00hs. I’m used to rock concerts starting later than announced. That’s part of the “ceremony”. But when a band starts playing 90 minutes late on a weekday, it really drives me crazy (no problem with someone of Shalom Chanoch’s caliber doing it on a weekend concert announced to 1a.m to begin with).

After a 12 hours’ work day, I got to the place just to find out that although it was announced as a sitting show, they had only a few tables, and the place was quite full, so I had to keep standing for an hour and a half, watch ppl (who got a table) eat, and in general be very uncomfortable.

It seems that it wasn’t only me, so no one can blame it on my being tired, hungry and hot. People were heading to the exit when the show started.

And then, to top it all, after about 6 songs, the band members decided they needed a 15 minutes’ beer break. 4 songs after the break was over we were in the car, heading home (actually for some sandwiches @ Olive and then home), and skipping the rest of the show.

I do want to state that the Barby staff did a pretty good job in preventing people from smoking, which was quite refreshing.

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top gear

January 8th, 2009 Posted in cool web stuff, reviews | No Comments »

Here at Boxee we’ve got Alex and Erez, two Jeremy Clarkson fans. I’m not so much into cars myself. I mean, I do appreciate old cars, but mostly for their design. I’m not that interested in the technical stuff, although Erez’s explanation about the DSG (Volkswagen’s Dual Clutch Gearbox) the other day was pretty interesting. Heck, I even sold my own car, and I’m quite happy about it.

However, since we’re all into media in our wonderful little company, we do get a chance to watch quite a lot of movies and tv shows in the office, and I did get a chance to see a few episodes of Top Gear recently.

Now, I don’t usually recommend shows about things that don’t really interest me. However, there is one VERY good reason to watch at least a few episodes: the production!

Everything in this show is so well done. It seems they have excellent directors and even better editors, but on top of all that, they have an amazing camera crew.

Let me recommend the Polar Challenge episode, or the amazing episode with Clarkson racing with a Ford Fiesta against a Corvette in a shopping mall and then taking the same Fiesta to a British Marines’ beach assault. You won’t regret it.

G.

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memórias de áfrica

December 30th, 2008 Posted in photography, food & the good life | No Comments »

A couple of months ago, after publishing my Botswana and Mozambique trip pictures on my flickr stream, I received an email from Suzy from Difference Music, asking me for permission to use a couple of my mozambique pix for a new book about mozambican music they were producing. Since I kinda fell in love with their music during our 59 hours ride to Inhambane, but I couldn’t get any of the CD’s I liked (mainly because I didn’t see a single music store in the rural areas we visited), I asked her for a copy of the book in return.

This morning I went to the post office to pick up a package from Portugal, and I really had no idea what it was. To my surprise, I found the book with those 2 images, and 4 CD’s of music from Angola, Cabo Verde, Guiné-Bissau, Mozambique and Sao Tome e Principe.

So, if you happen to feel like buying the book and CD’s, you can do it right here. It’s a joint production by Difference Music and Farol Musica, and the full name is Memórias de África -As grandes músicas dos anos 60, 70 e 80. Angola, Cabo Verde, Guiné-Bissau, Moçambique e São Tomé e Príncipe (short and catchy, eh?).

Want to see what it’s all about? Check this short video out, and see if you can spot my pix when the pages fold :)

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jeremy’s circle

December 28th, 2008 Posted in Personal, photography, food & the good life, tlv | 3 Comments »

Last Friday I recruited some fellows from Click Art and we went to shoot the first activity of Jeremy’s Circle, a community all about fun. Here’s a paragraph from their website that better explains what they do:

Cancer hits the entire family hard, and there are no existing programs today in Israel to provide support to the young members of families living with cancer or coping with a cancer loss. We would like to show the children that they are not alone, and to help them have fun with other kids like them.

I really recommend checking out their website, and giving these amazing people a hand if you can.

We brought 3 great makeup artists (who did a wonderful job painting the kids’ faces as batmen, tigers, princesses and whatever the kids wanted to be) and set up a small studio, where we photographed the kids with the makeup on. I believe the kids had a great time, and I’m already looking forward to the next activity with them.

Happy holidays,

G.

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