С Днем Победы! Happy Victory Day!

Update (May 9, 2022)

Yesterday (May 8th), the world celebrated Victory in Europe (V-E) Day, marking the end of World War II in Europe. Celebrated somberly, as the war cost the lives of millions, nearly total destruction, and unimaginable human suffering across the continent and beyond. Today (May 9th), Russian Federation will celebrate its Victory Day.

I refuse to believe that two of my grandpas (along with many other relatives) fought and one perished in that war so that in 2022 Russian Federation can wage aggressive, criminal, totally senseless war in Ukraine!

С Днём Победы! (May 9, 2013)

There's really nothing else to say... (May 9, 2013)

I will go home tonight, have a drink, and remember my grandpa Meyer who was killed in action in a Battle of Kursk and my grandpa Andrey who fought all the way to Berlin. I will think of countless lives lost during WWII and reflect on life, family, friends... and maybe have another drink... that's all...

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The Information: A History, a Theory, a Flood

" In the long run, history is the story of information becoming aware of itself. " The Information: A History, a Theory, a Flood by James Gleick - t his was not an easy read for me, I spent more time on this book than on two before and two after (all of comparable volume) combined. And I am not exactly sure why. I guess it could be the style, the vocabulary, the depth and the breadth of the subject matter coverage , or all of these and few other things put together. But I feel like it was well worth the effort. The story flows smoothly from the talking drums of Africa to the world of oral culture; to the invention of scripts and alphabets; to evolution of languages, books, catalogs and dictionaries; to further developments of abstraction, symbolic logic, and mathematics; to the birth of computer science, communications theory , information theory, quantum theory, ... I don't think I can right a review that will do this book just...

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The Heroic Rescue of Bulgaria's Jews

We have just returned from a very nice vacation (more about it in a different post), which I have used, among other things, to finish reading a couple of books - " Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman! (Adventures of a Curious Character) " by none other than Richard P. Feynman himself, and " Beyond Hitler's Grasp: The Heroic Rescue of Bulgaria's Jews " by Michael Bar-Zohar: Both are (IMHO) great books, but in this post I wanted to cover the latter (more on Mr. Feynman after I finish reading " What Do You Care What Other People Think?: further adventures of a curious character "). First of all, I would like to thank my good friend Al for turning me onto the subject and gifting me the book. I thought I knew quite a bit about the history and the fate of European Jewry during the WWII and the " Die Endlösung " . After all, I have read extensively on the subject, both in school and later on; watched many documentary and popular movies...

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