La Magia de Mickey Mouse

Here’s a cute one:

Sometime in the early eighties me and my brothers owned a collection of Disney books, including a magic book called “La Magia de Mickey Mouse”. I read it many times even though I did not understand all the tricks.

This collection of books was passed on to my younger cousin Rosy in the late eighties. I’m not sure where it went from there but eventually they ended up in Miami with my two nieces, Joelle and Liat.

Since I’m the cool uncle, the one who has taken the classic “coin out of the ear” sleigh of hand to the next level – among other breath-taking and mesmerizing tricks – it was me that Joelle thought of when she found and read the book.

It was recently given to me by the two excited little girls:

La Magia de Mickey Mouse
La Magia de Mickey Mouse

I’m now supposed to read it and do the tricks to them. At least now I think I understand all the tricks on the book. Little do they know that I had already owned and read that book long before they were born. I don’t think I’m going to be the one telling them this. Maybe they’ll stumble upon this post years into the future and everything will be ruined.

The book itself is actually in surprisingly good condition, maybe that’s the real magic trick.

Momentum

I attended the Momentum dinner a week ago. Hosted by Ken Herman, columnist for the Austin-American Statesman and with featured speaker Dan Senor, co-author of Start-up Nation: The History of Israel’s Economic Miracle. Oh, and kosher BBQ by Kogan.

Mr. Senor’s talk was not about the book. It was about the recent developments in the Middle East – the toppling of the Tunisian and Egyptian governments, the uprisings in Syria, Yemen, Lybia etc.

Ken Herman at Momentum

This guy knows what he’s talking about and it was an extremely interesting and engaging talk. If you attended, feel free to share your thoughts in the comments.

Dan Senor at Momentum

Live soccer on Apple TV

I don’t know you, but to me this is a Big Deal™:

Veetle, a peer-to-peer video technology uses a proprietary plug-in in order to see their streams, usually at exceptionally high quality. On the iPhone, iPod touch and iPad, browser plug-ins are not available. Thankfully, Veetle provides some of the videos using HTML5 and Apple’s HTTP streaming which in English means “live high-quality streaming video on your favorite toy’s browser”. The quality is top-notch.

Live soccer on Apple TV, courtesy of Veetle, iPad, and AirPlay

At some point recently, they enabled AirPlay on the streams in their website; or maybe it’s an iOS 4.3.1 thing, but it didn’t work last time I tried it. This means I can finally send live video from my iPhone/iPad to my Apple TV. Since the TV in my room is hooked up only to an Apple TV, this is great. And the quality is very, very good.

Bonus tip: Exit Safari to use another app or open another tab while the video is playing on the Apple TV. Playback will stop, but you can double click on your Home button in order to bring up the multitasking tab, swipe to the playback controls, and resume your video in the background!

CIM 75th Anniversary

A large celebration for my Alma Mater’s 75th anniversary was held on Saturday night. I went to Colegio Israelita de Monterrey – the only Jewish school in Monterrey, Mexico. I studied there from kindergarden to ninth grade in a very small class (I doubt the whole school ever reached 120 students at any time throughout its existence).

The event was streamed over a live internet webcast and ex-students around the world got together to watch it. All five of us ex-students in Austin got together at my house.

Here’s one video they showed at the event. See if you can spot me…

Colegio Israelita de Monterrey 75 Años from Jorge Moreno on Vimeo.

Reconsidering the Goldstone report

Richard Goldstone wrote an op-ed on the Washington Post called Reconsidering the Goldstone Resport on Israel and War Crimes. On it, there is no news: Israel is investing considerable resources investigating 400 or so allegations of misconduct from the report, while Hamas has done nothing of the sort – unsurprising since it was always clear that Hamas targeted civilians purposefully.

The sad part is that this editorial will not even get a fraction of the press that the original report received., but at least it’s being mentioned, even on Al-Jazeera. A lot of damage was done to Israel’s image because of the conclusions reached in the report and this retraction will not undo that. But you owe it to yourself to read the article on the Washington Post.

No ugly people were harmed making this blog.