I recently went on a "bunker crawl" through San Francisco with my good friend Billy Coye.  We started with WWII-era fortifications but branched out to the Sutro Baths and a Nike missile site in the Marin headlands.  On this tour, I tried two new things I'd never done before: HDR, and historical overlay.  Yes, there will be pics.  :-)

Over Rosh Hashanah, I saw a girl get her cellphone stolen.  It was a fancy new iPhone and I asked the police if they could track its GPS, like in the movies, and they said no - unless it had one of those anti-theft apps.  That made me realize I need one of those apps.  And so do you.

Yesterday was Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish new year.  (Today might be also; depends on how you keep track.)  Yelena & I decided not to go to services this year.  I know, surprising, right?  This from the guy who wears a kippah, keeps kosher, and blesses God three times a day?  Allow me to explain.

Palestine deserves statehood.

Now, before the wolves descend, let me make a couple things clear:

1. I am a Zionist in the traditional sense: I believe in the right of the modern State of Israel to exist, and to defend itself.  But even if you set aside the theoretical considerations, you've got a state that's been there for 60 years, with 6 million people living there.  Short of ethnic cleansing, there's no way to get rid of them now.

A new feature on Koplowicz.com: a "follow me" block.  It lists the 8 other places on the internet where I have a presence.  Below that is the "subscribe" box, where you can get updates from this site via email (thanks to Google).  Finally, there are the "sexy bookmarks" icons at the bottom of each post, with handy links to share it on Facebook, Twitter, or your other favorite social thingy.

This is all in preparation of bigger things to come.  Stay tuned.

Every time I look at the American flag, I feel torn.  The flag, like every other, is a symbol.  The American flag in particular represents some wonderful things.  Most of the greatest events in the last 200 years were thanks to America, events such as the rise of modern democracy.  But America also has some stains on her history, things like slavery (after most of the rest of the civilized world had abandoned the practice), internment camps for Japanese Americans, and ethnic warfare against Native Americans.

You know how I'm a fan of technology, especially my smartphone, so it's not surprising that I've found ways to use it to help me entertain Nathan.  Here are my four favorite resources.

The standard caveat applies: anything screen-based is to be taken in small doses.  I let him online less than once a day, and only for limited periods of time.  Then we read a good old fashioned book, play with Duplo, or build a train set.  A real, physical train set using Brio tracks.

We've got new photos of Nathan!

Wild Animal Park from a couple months ago:

What's new?  Oh my goodness, so many things I don't have time to talk about.  But I absolutely have to share this.  I spent all day trying to figure it out.  Congratulations, net wanderer, you get to benefit from my wisdom.

The task: Create a video gallery in Drupal.  The client wants multiple videos attached to a single node, with thumbnails.  When you click on a thumbnail, the video opens in a larger box on the same page.  The videos will either come from youtube or vimeo.

What you'll need:

You may have heard about this awesome computer game called Minecraft.  It's actually been out for a while now, but I've held off on blogging about it, for one very good reason.  I can explain why this game is awesome, I can link to a review that explains why this game is awesome, but the best writers say "show, don't tell," so I had to wait until I could really show you what makes this game so awesome.