Culture of Improvisation Buoys, Bogs Down Israelis

[oldhat]

TEL AVIV (Reuters) - When color television sets first reached Israel 25 years ago, the government feared massive demand would send the country's high inflation rate out of control. What was to be done? Improvise.

Officials applied a device to transmitters to drain broadcasts of color, hoping that would deter a buying frenzy. But an enterprising engineer outwitted the authorities by inventing and selling a TV accessory that restored the color.

And so Israel's black-and-white era ended with another flourish of the culture of improvisation that has been both a boon and bust in the life of the Jewish state.

Israelis call it "haltura," slang for a cross between make-do ingenuity, shoddy amateurism and moonlighting, with a dash of disdain for the letter of the law thrown in.

http://tinyurl.com/2adzc

w00t! Big ups to my fellow Jewish hackers and culture jammers...