New Flickr Pictures

I've finally decided to stitch my panoramas and go through the pictures I took during my stay in Romania. You can check them out on Flickr here. If you would like the full-sized version of any of the pictures on my Flickr, send me an e-mail at yonathan@lifeofyon.tk (I hope it works, if I don't get back to you in a day or two, leave details in the comments).
Let me know what you think!

-Yonathan

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I'm Back (again)

Incoming rant:

After 6 days of travelling all over the country, I'm finally back home. Sadly, I have to say I'm extremely dissappointed - not because of the trip itself, but of some of the people in my group. How can you go home with newly acquired values if the people in your group are so dumb and respectless that they make each other laugh and play music at a military cemetry? Those people died so that you could live, and you laugh at their graves? EVERY SINGLE TIME that we were having some meaningful conversation, they screw it up, EVERY SINGLE TIME. I'm happy to be back home.

I hope they NEVER start a conversation with me.

The only thing positive about the trip - the views:



Makhtesh Katan



-Yonathan

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Going away (again)

Good evening, guys.

First of all, I'm going on a week-long school trip tonight at 1AM so I just wanted to inform you that as I won't have an Internet connection I won't be able to post during that period.

A little info about the trip itself (taken from the program's site):

 The Masa Yisraeli - The Spirit of Israel Experience Program

The Journey starts with a 2-days hike in nature, including sleeping out-doors, walking alone for part of the hike, cooking together, and carrying out group-missions. It then continues with a day in a community throughout Israel where the students are getting to know the community, and volunteering in different sites in the place. On the next days the students are visiting Tanach sites, learning about the rise of the state of Israel, and finish the Journey with a touching, enthusiastic Shabbat in Jerusalem, including visiting the Western Wall and taking part in a traditional Shabbat.

It's supposed to be all Zionist and stuff but nobody cares about that because it will just be fun (hopefully).

 Secondly, I was thinking about writing about a different topic every week, so tell me what you think and write any suggestions in the comments - I'll check 'em when I get back.

-Yonathan

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Jewish Dubstep

So apparently someone made a dubstep remix of "Hava Nagila" - a traditional Hebrew song. I have to admit that after I stopped laughing about it (Which took a while) and listened to it - I  decided that it's pretty damn good. 

Without further ado I present to you:

Losh - Hava Nagila (Dubstep remix)

(WUBWUB WOOB WOOB WUB WUB HAVA NAGILA)

EDIT: This is even better (Trance):

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Gilad Shalit

Yesterday morning, Gilad Shalit, an Israeli soldier who had been kept captive for almost five and a half years (after being abducted in 2006 by Hamas (Wikipedia) militants), was brought back home. He was brought back as part of a prisoner exhchange in which 1,027 Palestinian prisoners were returned to the Palestinian territories and the Gaza Strip. I think probably most of you if not all know about his return since it was covered internationally by many new agencies. That's why I'm not going to be talking about his release, but about his capture.

On the 25th of June, 2006, at around 5 o'clock in the morning began the bombardment of the Karem pass, an area on the border between Israel and the Gaza Strip. Not long before that, a squad of four militants got 100 meters deep into Israeli territory by using a tunnel that started in Gaza. As the IDF gathered intel on terrorist organizations' intentions to attack in Israeli territory using a tunnel they set up a decoy APC (Armored Personnel Carrier). After splitting up into 3 sub-squads, one attacked the APC, one attacked a lookout post and wounded 3 IDF soldier and one attacked a Merkava tank which was assigned to protect the border. During the attack on the tank, AT missiles were fired at it, causing a fire to burst inside the tank. Two of the tank's crew members got out of the tank and got shot and killed, the driver got stuck inside the tank and suffered injury and the fourth crew member - Gilad Shalit - was taken by the squad. The squad then proceeded to throw grenades into the tank and took Shalit with them to the other side of the fence (The border) at 5:21AM, just minutes after the start of the attack. During this entire event, unmanned lookout posts were taken out by RPGs, in order to make it difficult to understand what was going on.

The first picture of Gilad Shalit in Israel

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Flickr

Hey guys, I'm back!

I just wanted to let you know I got a Flickr set up with some of the pictures I've taken, check it out (Widget on the sidebar) and let me know what you think!

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I'm back!

Hey guys, I've been gone for a while, but I'm coming back!
I'll start blogging again in a few days since I'm going abroad .


Take care.

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Jewish Holiday - Lag BaOmer

Ok so first of all I would like to apologize for not posting anything in the past few weeks. This is because it's the exam season and I basically spend most of my days studying for tests.

Now, Lag BaOmer.

Lag BaOmer (Pronounced Lug Buh-om-er) means the 33rd of the Omer in Hebrew- Lag (ל"ג) means 33 as every letter in the Hebrew alphabet has a numerical equivalent (This is called Gematria). Strangely enough, the origin of this holiday is not known for sure but it is thought that it is the day Rabbi Akiva and his 24 thousand student died from a plague (Yay!).

To be honest, I don't care about the source. I care about what you do on Lag BaOmer which is burning shit. And as everybody knows, burning stuff is fun (except if it's your house- that's not fun). Basically everyone makes a bonfire and just have fun untill from like 8 in the evening to 7 in the morning.

Bedtime story: A bunch of dumbass kids who had been throwing firecrackers into the fire all evening decided to throw one at the trees. The trees got really mad (Like for real) and lit themselves on fire in order to punish the kids. This caused the dumbass children to run away in fear. One of the trees was probably magical or something because his fire destroyed him and started burning other trees. As the trees were burning there was like a column of ash which later spread around the air and got into my hair. 

Eventually the magical fire got boring and we called the firefighters who afterwards fought the magical angry tree fire.

What a happy ending. After that, I wanted to find the dumbass kids so I could teach them a lesson by lighting their nuts on fire but as I said before, the trees scared them away.

Here is a series of pictures for your enjoyment:

Sexy Flames.

More Flames.

These people were later found dead.

That's it for now. As I'm running out of blog ideas so tell me whatever you're interested in.
Take care.

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Healthy again, traumatized.

Well I'm healthy again, not as good as I was before but I'm getting there!

I had a pre-SAT in computers and I got 93 and I'm happy considering the fact I looked like a zombie on the day of the test. On another matter-Pro Tip: When hurrying to the bathroom do not pull down zipper at full force as certain areas may get cut, bleed and prevent you from walking straight for several days.

Tell me what you want me to write about,

Yono.

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I hate being sick

It's been awhile!
I've been sick for the past few days because this guy who I study with passed it on to me D:

So until now I've been using like 2 packets of Kleenex every day, my nose is as red as a tomato and I'm stuck in front of the tv. I hate being sick as I usually get sick only like once a year and when I do, it hits hard.

Anyways, when I get better I'll start blogging again.
Take care, Yono.
 

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Thank you, followers

I just wanted to thank you guys for getting me to 101 followers, considering the fact I started less than a week ago! Feels nice :P

Take care,

Yono.

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Holocaust and Heroism Remembrance Day

In Israel, today we're "celebrating" Holocaust And Heroism Remembrance Day.

It is to remember the six million Jews who died in the hands of the German Nazis and their accessoiries (As it is said in each of the ceremonies). On the day, at 10:00AM, there's a country-wide 1-minute long alarm during which everyone stands in complete silence, remembering those who died.

This is, understandibly, extremely depressing as it is featured everywhere. At schools, on TV, the radio, etc. At schools it's especially horrifying as holocaust survivors talk about themselves during those years.

This is not really an informational post, I just wanted to note this so people think about it as I find it to be very important and as the amount of holocaust survivors is dwindling, people should remember it. This day falls every year on 27th of Nissan (Jewish calendar), unless it's a Saturday (Holy day) in which case it is postponed by a day.

Here's a link to the site of the organization responsible for archiving hundreds of thousands of items from the holocaust and interviwing thousands of Holocaust survivor, saving their stories forever.

I know this post has the structure of a short story written by a 5 year-old, so excuse me for that.

I'll go be depressed now, good day.

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Iron Dome (Kippat Barzel)

Iron Dome or Kippat Barzel-(IPA-/kipat barzel/ כיפת ברזל)  in Hebrew, is a mobile anti-air system used to intercept rockets and artillery fire. It was publicly anounced that it was being developed at around 2008 (Although research begun in 2005) by RAFAEL, Armament Developement Authority.

Picture of a unit:

  

Now, this thing is incredibly awesome. It has a computer system and it is networked.

Now how does it work?

A unit has lots of sensors and is connected to a military network which tracks rockets being launched (Mainly from the Gaza Strip), it then calculates its trajectory and depending on the location of theapproximate point of impact, it decided whether to intercept it or not. This is important as every rocket costs between 35K-40K USD and every unit costs 50M USD so you don't want to spend the tax-payers' money on it if it's not something absolutely necessary.

Most of Southern Israel is just desert and agriculture. Southern Israel is referred to as the Negev which basically is "South" in biblical language.

In the Negev there are some big cities and lots of small settlements (legal ones ;P).

Anyway, back to Kippat Barzel. This things shoots rockets down, costs shitloads of money and most importantly saves lives.

PS. When we learned about this at school it was hilarious as everyone had recently watched the Simpson's movie and we thought they were talking about a big metal dome.

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Quick Snack

Ingredients:

1.Cottage Cheese.

2.One or two tomatoes.

You're also going to need a spoon, a bowl and a knife.

I made this and ate it before I took pictures, so no pictures. Trust me, it's tasty.

1. Open cottage cheese and put in bowl.

2. Cut tomato(es) into small pieces (1cm^3).

3. Put tomatoes in bowl with cottage cheese.

4. Use spoon to mix.

5. Eat.

6. Burp.

If it tastes like feces you probably did something wrong, like using an onion or something instead of the tomato(es).

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My Hobby - Papercrafting

Today (First real blog post!), I will write about a hobby of mine - Papercrafting.

What's papercrafting?

Papercraft is basicly a different name for paper models.

From Wikipedia-"Card modeling is making scale models from sheets of cardstock on which the parts were printed, usually in full color. These pieces would be cut out, folded, scored and glued together."

I love papercraft because of it's variety in models, difficulties and types. I spent a lot of time on papercraft forums looking for things I like and want to make. Out of all types of papercraft I absolutely love the ones with moving parts in them (especially gears and other engineer-y things) such as the Gear Cube, the Gear Heart, The Pendulum Clock. Currently I am working on The Gear Cube (replica) by Billybob884 (or is it 844?) on DeviantArt. An other thing I like about it, which is actually kind of silly, is the patience it takes to papercraft many of the models available, on the gear cube I've already spent around 12 hours and it will take a few more to complete it.

How I stumbled upon papercrafting

I've always loved making things out of paper, ever since I was around 9 or 10 I experimented with origami.

At the age of around 11, I found Canon's papercrafting site and I was amazed. Never before had I seen anything like it, and I immediately became crazy about papercraft.

And I've been papercrafting ever since :)

Any other papercrafters out there? Share some models with me if you like :)

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Starting a blog!

Never had a blog, never thought I'd have one, but here I am!

I'm going to be talking about school, new videogames, computers in general and additionally complaining about my life. Hopefully I'll keep up with it and this will one day be a bit more popular ;)

See you in my next post!

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