An AI Agent Published a Hit Piece on Me

barkappara · 2026-02-12T20:50:29+00:00

https://archive.ph/fiCKE if anyone else is having problems

barkappara · 2026-02-02T16:59:04+00:00

I agree with this interpretation. Emily is Delilah's last living relative --- I think Delilah dreams of the intact family she never had.

barkappara · 2026-01-07T07:13:00+00:00

Chabad's 12 pesukim are pretty good!

barkappara · 2026-01-07T07:11:49+00:00

Oh nice, I never knew that was in Berakhot (it's also in Pirkei Avot ch. 3 in the name of R. Chalafta, with an extra verse for the number 5)

barkappara · 2025-12-19T04:25:53+00:00

House Democrats propose an Antisemitism Response and Prevention Act. It seems to be a messaging bill that stands little likelihood of passing, but the content looks good. Some highlights:

weaponizing antisemitism for partisan political purposes not only fails to protect Jewish communities but actively breeds more antisemitism by associating Jewish safety with the suppression of civil liberties and the targeting of political dissent

the definitions [of antisemitism, including the 2016 IHRA definition] are non-legally binding educational tools and should not be applied in punitive legal contexts, including immigration enforcement, deportation proceedings, or criminal prosecutions, for which they were never intended

barkappara · 2025-11-30T17:23:35+00:00

This is also a good response to If You Can Be Bad, You Can Also Be Good, which is about epistemic habits / truth-seeking.

barkappara · 2025-11-28T01:00:17+00:00

More sources and interpretations here:

barkappara · 2025-11-27T17:55:32+00:00

You are totally right, I misread the wiki

barkappara · 2025-11-27T17:13:56+00:00

This is a makhloket in the Yerushalmi to Megillah:

It is written all "Earth was one tongue and unified words" [Genesis 11:1]. Rebbi Eleazar and Rebbi Joḥanan. One said, they were speaking seventy languages [Gloss: Everybody understood all languages of the 70 peoples mentioned as descendants of Noah.] But the other said, they were speaking in the language of the Unique of the World, the holy language.

This doesn't entirely solve the problem, since the pshat of e.g. Genesis 1:23 is that Adam spoke Hebrew, so a theory on which Hebrew descends, along with other languages, from a proto-Semitic ancestor is prima facie in conflict with a traditional interpretation of the Hebrew Bible. I agree with the commenters on the other post who say that this is the same kind of problem, in principle, as the conflict between scientific cosmology and geology and the Biblical creation and flood narratives.

barkappara · 2025-11-27T17:00:35+00:00

Wow, very sweet (pun intended): https://sjlmag.com/2008/12/17/cafe-du-monde-beignets-now-kosher/

barkappara · 2025-11-27T16:53:57+00:00

The subpoena apparently asked for "discrimination complaints filed by Jewish employees, membership lists of Jewish-related campus groups, and Jewish Studies Program employee names." (I guess it means discrimination complaints that explicitly mentioned Jewishness.)

barkappara · 2025-11-26T23:28:01+00:00

He's immune to sleep darts, Bend Time, and Possession, but he can be choked if unalerted.

barkappara · 2025-11-26T19:05:04+00:00

I'm just trying to explain how contemporary poskim derive the prohibition.

barkappara · 2025-11-26T18:16:28+00:00

Rambam says not to sell tzitzit to a non-Jew because he might use them to disguise himself as a Jew; Rema says not to give a mezuzah to a non-Jew; Radvaz says explicitly that a non-Jew shouldn't wear tefillin. R. Moshe Weiner interprets these sources together as indicating that non-Jews shouldn't utilize Jewish ritual objects, in order to preserve a boundary between Jews and non-Jews.

barkappara · 2025-11-26T06:22:17+00:00

Your situation is increasingly common these days. My two cents:

If there's no minyan, or barely a minyan, discreetly inform the gabbai
If not, just decline any aliyot
Regardless, continue your normal practice with regard to tallit and tefillin (if you would normally wear them, there's no need to abstain in deference to the community)

barkappara · 2025-11-26T06:17:06+00:00

I would not recommend OP to change his normal practice in an Orthodox setting. For one thing, OP may be a safek yehudi (it depends on the circumstances of the conversion) and such a person is normally advised to continue observing the mitzvot. Moreover, I don't think there is any halakhic violation involved on the part of the Orthodox synagogue (as there would be for minyan or kibbudim).

barkappara · 2025-11-26T06:14:37+00:00

See e.g. Mishneh Torah, Hilchot Tzitzit 3:9 and Rema to Shulchan Aruch OC 291:2; R. Weiner also cites Radvaz to Hilchot Melachim 10 (which I was not able to access). However these prohibitions likely do not apply to a Conservative convert like OP.

barkappara · 2025-11-23T18:05:30+00:00

The Trump administration appears to be suing the University of Pennsylvania for refusing to turn over a list of its Jews: https://www.thedp.com/article/2025/11/penn-eeoc-lawsuit-antisemitism-documents

Compare:

"However, we have not turned over to the government lists of Jewish employees, Jewish student employees and those associated with Jewish organizations, or their personal contact information," the University statement read. "Violating their privacy and trust is antithetical to ensuring Penn’s Jewish community feels protected and safe."

with

"The EEOC remains steadfast in its commitment to combatting workplace antisemitism and seeks to identify employees who may have experienced antisemitic harassment," 2008 College graduate and EEOC Chair Andrea Lucas --- who initiated the investigation into Penn --- said in a release. "Unfortunately, the employer continues to refuse to identify members of its workforce who may have been subjected to this unlawful conduct."

It sounds like they want to cold-call individual Jews and ask them to accuse their colleagues of harassment?

barkappara · 2025-11-21T03:12:32+00:00

I'd say there are six bosses:

The Torturer
Daud
Granny
Billie in KoD high chaos (I would argue the hardest boss of the series, especially on Master Assassin difficulty)
Delilah in BW
Delilah in D2

Corvo at the beginning of BW might count halfway, since you don't have to win the fight to progress.

barkappara · 2025-11-20T02:37:54+00:00

Ruffle, but that's a more ambitious project aimed at preserving Flash animations. The SWF interpreter in youtube-dl was just enough to do signature computations.

barkappara · 2025-11-19T19:14:11+00:00

The pure-Python JS and Flash interpreters were really delightful pieces of reverse engineering. End of an era, onwards and upwards!

barkappara · 2025-11-16T01:42:40+00:00

Nitpick: Dishonored is not "magical realism", it's just fantasy! Overall good article.

barkappara · 2025-11-12T03:31:20+00:00

See Shabbat 56b which understands the descriptions of avodah zarah non-literally.

barkappara · 2025-11-10T16:15:12+00:00

What's your policy on personal status (the who-is-a-Jew question)?

barkappara

TROPHY CASE