Green Poker Anyone?
Filed under: A New Reality, Technology
Founded by a small group of Israelis, Playtech is a multi-million gambling tech company that provides an engine for online casinos (if you like gambling online for real money). My sister, for one, can sit on Facebook for hours and play slots for points while she is chatting to her friends. But other people believe they can make real money online by gambling.
Based out of Israel, Estonia, and the UK, and more, for legal reasons Playtech does not operate in the United States: there are US laws that prohibit some kinds of online casinos –– like poker, a Playtech specialty.
This could change now that American legal eagles are deliberating on whether or not to allow online poker to be regulated in the United States, once again. Gambling addicts can certainly get their fix at Las Vegas, or in online casinos that offer blackjack, slots and any other favorite gambling game –– except poker.
In a New York Times article this week, it was reported that American legislators may once again allow for an online poker industry run by a few and which was shut down over Ponzi-scheme suspicions. But just like cigarettes, booze and gasoline, imagine all the taxation possibilities that gambling could bring in? Read more
Poland and getting away from technology
A student on a class trip to Poland
I wrote in an earlier post about how human beings aren’t built to truly multitask – an action we increasingly rely on to parse all the data coming at us from the web or our mobile devices. New research is trying to figure out not only what happens psychologically when we try to do two things at once, but whether our brain neurology is being re-mapped by our incessant use of technology.
You don’t have to go much further than our teenage daughter Merav, who just came back from a school trip to Poland this week, to gain critical insight. Merav voluntarily disconnected herself from the Internet for a week. Did this make a difference to her experience? I’ll get back to that in a moment.
First, I want to look at research being done by New York Times technology journalist Matt Richtel who participated earlier this year in a similar journey to the technology wasteland – a backpacking trip undertaken by a group of scientists where gadgets were banned and their itinerary took them far out of the range of cell phones.
Would these highly connected researchers act – no, think – differently in such a situation, he asks?
The scientists were split, according to Richtel in an interview with Terry Gross on NPR’s Fresh Air program, with some feeling that “the constant stream of data was making it increasingly difficult to focus and concentrate” and others saying “the benefits of having constant access to information far outweighed any consequences.”
But all of the scientists noticed that they began to feel more relaxed and more engaged in the world. They slept a little better; waited a bit longer before answering a question. “You don’t feel in (such) a rush to do anything, your sense of urgency fades,” Richtel says.
But only after three days – that was the amount of time for the disconnect effect to kick in. This might explain why we feel more relaxed after a three-day weekend as opposed to a “normal” two-day break from work.
Why is this the case? A laboratory study had rats learning new tasks. When the rats were given time away from the task to process it, the action moved into memory and real long-term learning took place. Without that down time, the rats were more prone to forget what they’d just done.
We can extrapolate that, Richtel says, to our contemporary lives, where we rarely give ourselves a break. If we’re waiting in line for cheese at the SuperSol supermarket and there are three people ahead, what do we do? We pull out our smart phone and check email, browse the Internet or play a game. Even people without smart phones may listen to music on an iPod (I know I’m guilty of that).
What we need to do, Richtel claims, is simply “be,” to not fill every moment with something electronic, to let the learning consolidate in our brains. To have “down time.”
Which brings me back to Merav. Our daughter’s experience in Poland, visiting lost Jewish communities and crying at the concentration camps, was intense – “difficult but meaningful” is how she described it upon her return home. Was her level of engagement different than her peers, many of whom were texting away at the dinner table?
While the research suggests yes, it would be presumptuous for me to make such a claim. But it’s undeniable that our use of technology profoundly affects us. I, for one, am looking forward to the Jewish holidays this year – Rosh Hashana and Shabbat coincide in such a way that those who observe the High Holy Days according to a more strict interpretation of Jewish law will have a full three days of enforced technology deprivation.
I wonder how I’ll feel on the other side?
Nostalgia Sunday – Yashar Yashar
Filed under: A New Reality, General, History and Culture, Immigrant Moments, Israeliness, Life, Nostalgia Sunday, Pop Culture, Technology, Travel
We are traveling this week, in the company of a GPS navigator named Koby. That is to say, our Global Positioning System has a selection of audio interfaces, each language interface has a name and gender identity (you can select a male or female voice), and the male Hebrew-language interface is called Koby.
Koby is a great asset for many reasons, first and foremost because he brings us to through unknown territories to our destination. (Well, he is a computer and that is his primary directive). But his absolutely genius feature is that if he makes a mistake — and he does err — we can get mad at him instead of at one another. So Koby saves relationships. Plus, it is so fun, for once, to yell back at that Israeli man-on-the-street who thinks he knows everything!
Think back… 20, 30, 40 and 50 years ago… or to last week, when you asked the man-on-the-street — let’s call him Yossi — for directions. “Okay, go to the right. Go to the right and then go to the left. Then go all the time straight, yashar, yashar, all the time in front of you. Go to the end. And okay, you will see it.”
This happens more often than not. Because the phrase “I don’t know” is anathema to Yossi and therefore directions you will get, right or wrong. Follow them and within some hours you should find yourself on the border of Lebanon, Syria or Egypt. They are, in fact, all the time in front of you.
At a certain point though, if you stay here long enough, this national tic, yashar, yashar, becomes familiar and then, weirdly, almost beloved. You start to wait for it and you’re disappointed when it doesn’t come. Thankfully, there is another version, in which Yossi ends his litany with “Then you ask someone where to go after there.” And indeed, that is true. You can always ask another Yossi and start playing the game over again.
But since we do have to reach our destination eventually, we love Koby, although he and his ilk are replacing Yossi and his yashar, yashar as the national directional fallback. Mourn not for Yossi, however, whom I envision as your typical gadget-happy Israeli man. He already has GPS installed in his car, his jeep and his running shoe. He’s no freier*.
I should point out that whoever did the recording for Koby is a very practiced radio-TV announcer with perfect pronunciation. But, in a way, I wish the manufacturers had given us a third option: Yossi man-on-the-street. Then we could really go to town. If it were to be truly realistic, however, Yossi would cuss us out with better, juicer phrases — as in this advertisement for the MIRS GPS, where the driver gets a big surprise when he misses a turn. Truly a slice of Israeli life: high technology combined with Jewish guilt.
And another one, just for fun, because it’s sort of in English:
*Usually translated as “sucker”, “patsy” or “loser” the word deserves a column all on its own, so more on “freier” another day. Let’s just say, in short, that it’s everything an Israeli doesn’t want to be.
Foto Friday – A little Italy in TLV
Filed under: Art, Food, Foto Friday, General, History and Culture, Israeliness, Life, Picture of the Week, Pop Culture, Profiles, Travel
There is a lopsided love affair between Israelis and all things Italian. Italians think of Israel as the Holy Land. Israelis think Italy is what Israel could be were it not for the matzav — the word used to describe the roiling, boiling political-diplomatic-religio-ethno-social situation that is our constant reality. Without the matzav, your average Israeli believes, we too could focus on a life filled with beautiful objects, high-quality design, and of course, great food and wine.
Your average Israeli is, as usual, deluding and flattering himself all at once. If anything, Italy’s history is proof that a well-developed sense of aesthetics is possible to sustain, even in times of great conflict. And there’s no reason to think that, even if peace broke out tomorrow, your average Israeli would suddenly put those ass-crack jeans away and don an linen Armani suit in its stead.
Plus, despite the matzav, Israel has fine-tuned its palate over the past 20 years, with award-winning wines, gourmet coffees, excellent cheeses (especially the goat variety), and restaurants that rank four and five stars in leading international guides.
For five years now, restaurant RoniMotti has been serving up freshly made pasta and other Italian delights to the yuppie crowd working feverishly ’round the clock at Tel Aviv’s Ramat Hahayal high-tech park. Owners Roni Belfer and Motti Sofer recenty celebrated the anniversary with a series of photos celebrating their dedicated staff. The pictures are nice way to give a big public “Thank you” to their workers…
as well as pay homage to the persons, places and things that inspire them, like the mother who taught Motti how to cook…
the fresh food ingredients that are Roni’s passion…
and of course, la bella Italia itself…
…as they carve out their own little slice of Italian heaven in North Tel Aviv.
RoniMotti also recently launched an online magazine, Villagio, profiling everything from the Slow Food movement to Frank Sinatra. Hey, if it’s Italian, we Israelis love it! Salute e buon appetito!
Great deals or hidden scam?
The courts have ruled that the service is legal, but it still leaves a muddled taste in my mouth. I’m talking about Free.co.il, a popular Israeli auction site that works more like the Lotto than eBay.
You can’t help but be drawn in by Free.co.il’s home page which promises a Sony Playstation for NIS 99, a MacBook Air for NIS 299, and even a brand new Mazda 3 for a steal at only NIS 899. Who wouldn’t want to play with deals like these?
At first, it would be hard to distinguish Free.co.il from a traditional eBay-style auction site: you place your bids on items for sale and the highest bidder within the auction’s time frame wins. Unlike eBay, though, you have to pay for your bids. The cost of each bid varies; for the MacBook, it’s NIS 20 (about $5). It’s higher for bigger ticket items.
So, let’s say you bid 20 times to win that MacBook. You’ll pay NIS 20 x 20 or NIS 400 ($105). Then you pay the price of the unit (NIS 299 or $80), plus shipping of NIS 75 ($20) written in tiny letters on a separate page you have to click to see). Your total cost: NIS 774 ($206). That’s still way less than the retail price of NIS 8,899 ($2,400) at Apple’s Tel Aviv outlet, but it’s not the NIS 299 that was initially advertised.
And what if you don’t win? Then you lose the NIS 400 entirely. That’s how Free.co.il can offer such low prices.
Still, if you place your bids right (and there is a whole section on “bidding strategies” on the site), and you’re willing to stick with it and spend hours aggressively placing last minute bets, you will win eventually (hopefully for an item you actually want). So, even if you wind up spending NIS 2,000 bidding on several items before winning one that’s valued at NIS 10,000, you’re still getting the product at an 80% discount.
There’s one other trick Free.co.il has up its digital sleeve. If two people bid the same amount, both bids are canceled. That means that the highest “unique” bid wins. You can see who’s placing what bids, their initials and even where they live, but not the amount they’re spending. So you never really know if your bid is being burned or not.
Free.co.il is entirely in Hebrew, but there’s a thriving market of overseas competitors. Is this a good business? Investors seem to think so. One of Free.co.il’s rivals, Swoopo, has raised an astonishing $14 million.
It’s certainly compelling – who wouldn’t want an iPhone at a tenth of the retail price – though I don’t think I’d have the stomach for it (I usually chicken out and click the “Buy it Now” button on eBay). And it peeves me that Free.co.il buries those hefty shipping fees in hard-to-find small print – it makes me wonder what else are they hiding.
But if you’re willing to play by the rules, and you enjoy the thrill of the game, Free.co.il could the 21st century version of “The Price is Right.” All we need now is our own Israeli version of Bob Barker.
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