I've Found the Museum!

[kayshapero]

OK, anyway I've found a house that looks sort of like the museum in the book will here, though there are going to be a few differences - that turret in front will have a third story with an outside railing and there'll be an access ramp up the side and stuff like that, but that's about what it'll look like. It's the Ecung-Ibbetson House at 1190 W. Adams in Los Angeles. It's a Historic Monument so it'll still look like it does in the picture I should imagine; I'll go out there sometime soon and take a look at it (and pictures), soon as Vicky returns my camera. (hint, hint, hint)

In other news, the Pacific Jewish Center in Venice wants to put Vicky's school in my back yard. No, really! :) They want to string an eruv around an area stretching from south of us to the I10 which is a block or so north of Santa Monica College, and inland several miles. The Coastal Commission may put the kibosh on the whole thing, though - to have a continuous band you have to string whatever you use up high enough to avoid blocking people, which means either you block views if it's visible, or if it's not (fishing line) then birds may run into it. The coastline which it would have to run along is a nesting area for rare birds, and of course people walking on the beach want an unobstructed view of the ocean. Discussions continue...

Comments

[kengr]

It's terribly geeky of me, but after reading the article and hitting the bit about the one sect being concerned about breaks in the eruv, it occured to me that there are ways with modern tech to set it up so that if it is broken, it'd be detected.

With both wire & fiber optics, you can attach a bit of equipmebt that'll not only tell you the line is broken, but *where*.

Expensive, but might be worth it to folks.

[kayshapero]

Given that they're using monofiliment fishing line, fiber optics would seem to be the way to go. I suspect actually testing it would count as "work" and they'd have to do the monitoring on days other than the Sabbath, but that doesn't sound like much of a problem. Right now, of course, whether they can string it at all is still in question, given the problems with the beach. Someone more knowledgable about this than I may wish to explain to me why they can't just put the thing at ground level there along the path. :)

[kengr]

Well, depends on how orthodox you are. The monitoring (though expensive) is no more "work" than lights on a timer are. It's just that timers are cheap and TDRs are very expensive (though a simple circuit to just say "intact/not intact" is likely comparable to the timer in price)

As I recall, some sects allow timers some don't. (Yes, I've been exposed to Sabbath logic-chopping before :-)

Still, I have to wonder if a "self checking eruv" would have a market. :-)

[kayshapero]

Could be. As a Christian married to a Jew, I occasionally find myself being asked questions by one about how the other handle something or other. The answer in both cases of course being "depends". Even when you've got it in writing, 2,000 years (for the Christians) and however long it's been (5,000 years or so?) for the Jews is time enough to produce a most amazing variety of opinions...

[kengr]

People tend to do that. Especially with religion.

Even at 1300 years for Islam there are a lot of variations. And that's *in spite* of Mohammed having the excellent idea of stating that the Koran was to always be in Arabic (which removes a lot of the ambiguities that christianity messes with due to translation errors).

People in general have way too much of a desire to find loopholes (for example the reasoning in one part of medieval France(?) that declared a particular shorebird to be a fish, making it something that could be eaten durinmg Lent), or a desire to find a justification in the holy writinghs for prejudices.

[kayshapero]

And that's *in spite* of Mohammed having the excellent idea of stating that the Koran was to always be in Arabic (which removes a lot of the ambiguities that christianity messes with due to translation errors).

Alas, even time and the normal evolution of languages ultimately introduces the same sort of trouble. But he had the right idea - I suspect he had some of the problems the other peoples of the Book were having in his day in mind.

That's pretty amusing, given that Lent isn't even biblical, though it is intended to commemorate biblical occurances. Not that that sort of thinking was confined to medieval France; certain Buddhist Japanese used to refer to deer or the like as "Mountain Whale" for similar reasons.