Wandering through Asia
My friend Amy just recently arrived from an incredible trip through Asia. If you are curious, check out Amy's blog:
"My travels in Southern Laos were indeed more successful in terms of being able to get out and see things than my time in the capital. I took an overnight bus with beds down to Pakse. This sounds like a really nice way to travel but as we found our beds, the only other westerner on the bus and I realized that these twin size mattresses were for two people, not one. We asked to be put together but there were no changes allowed so we spent the evening sleeping with strangers. This is not a recommended bus experience but we arrived in one piece at our destination and I suppose that's all you need." (from one of many 'interesting' posts in Wanderlust)
I am reminded of this by Nicholas Kristof's column from today's New York Times, with some tips that Amy might have found interesting (not that she needs tips) if it had come out 5 months ago:
"1. Carry a “decoy wallet,” so that if you are robbed by bandits with large guns, you have something to hand over. I keep $40 in my decoy wallet, along with an old library card and frequent-flier card. (But don’t begrudge the wallet: when my travel buddy was pickpocketed in Peru, we tried to jump the pickpocket, who turned out to be backed by an entire gang … )" (from Cum Laude in Evading Bandits)
Maldives looking for new land
A while back I wrote a post saying that it was "Official: The Maldives is the most beautiful place on earth." So you know I have a warm spot for it (or is it _them?).
_An article ran in the New York Times Magazine recently, saying:
"[…]Last November, when Nasheed proposed moving all 300,000 Maldivians to safer territory, he named India, Sri Lanka and Australia as possible destinations and described a plan that would use tourism revenues from the present to establish a sovereign wealth fund with which he could buy a new country — or at least part of one — in the future. “We can do nothing to stop climate change on our own, and so we have to buy land elsewhere,” Nasheed said in November.[…]" (from "A new home for my country")
Wow.
Comedian in chief
You've heard about (or maybe you haven't) President Obama's turn as a comedian at the White House Correspondents' Association Dinner. I was looking for, and I found the full video of his remarks.
In fact, pretty funny. (Who writes for him?)
Government Efficiency
Check this post Government Efficiency from Dilbert.com Blog:
A confusopoly is a situation in which companies pretend to compete on price, service, and features but in fact they are just trying to confuse customers so no one can do comparison shopping. (from: Government Efficiency)
Nice new term: Confusopoly
Manny being Manny
Check this post Thank you Jason Bay from 38 Pitches:
"… Yet somehow we’re hearing these same people talk about being struck momentarily stupid when West African bullfrog semen is found in their blood. “What? How’d that get there????”
Their routines, from reps to nutrition are as mapped out as scouting reports. They eat a certain way, train a certain way, and they play a certain way. There is no ‘black hole’ or ‘hidden formula’ happening in these instances.
So you get up at 5am? You eat at 6am? Thirty minutes of cardio, upper body, lower on alternate days, whirlpool for x minutes, maintain x calories of protein and carb intake? You do all that, and at some point you let someone stick a needle in your ass, or throw a ‘protein shake’ or rub a ‘crème’ on you, and for that 30 seconds to 5 minutes you have absolutely no thought, care or concern about the product? A step recognized as vital to strength gain, or recovery, a step to setup the acceleration of your recovery or magnification of gains from your hours of work and you just go dumb? (from:Thank you Jason Bay)
I agree with Curt Schilling on this. Come on. A guy like Manny has an army of doctors, nutricionists, trainers, lawyers and others around him making sure that it all goes like clockwork. And now somehow it's like "I didn't know what was in that stuff"? Come on.
Help your favorite Massachusetts historic site win a grant
The National Trust of Historic Preservation and American Express are giving away $100,000.00 to a Massachusetts historic site. All you have to do is to exercise your left mouse finger to increase the chances of your site.
Click here to register and cast your vote. It's all free and takes (by my watch) 24 seconds.
By the way, I would appreciate it if you cast your vote for the Crane Estate.
Technorati Tags: preservation, crane estate, massachusetts
A touching piece by Curt Schilling
This is from his blog:
"When our third child was diagnosed with Aspergers Syndrome almost two years ago all I can say is that my heart was aching. A child that I had raised to that point like his siblings, I couldn’t understand how he could be so different.
I was in the doctors office when I heard the words ” On the spectrum of Autism” Aspergers." (from 38 Pitches)
Twice as many people vote for Idol than watch it?
This does not compute:
"As the final five contestants on “American Idol” competed for a chance at the top prize on Tuesday, Fox once again took first place in the night’s ratings.
According to Nielsen’s estimates, 22.5 million viewers tuned in to the reality show during the 8 p.m. hour, easily more than any other program on Tuesday" (from New York Times)
According to our pal Ryan Seacrest, over 45 million votes were cast for this week's vote-off. Can anyone explain the discrepancy? First of all I really doubt that the majority of viewers vote at all. My guess would be that at most one in 4 vote. Which would imply that each one voted an average of 7+ times. Where's the fish?Technorati Tags: american idol, seacrest, fox, tv
“What’s next in tech” event in Boston in June
If you live in the Boston area and somehow connected to technology professions you should be interested in this meeting being put on in June:
What's Next In Tech - Where will the next waves of growth will come from?
Date: Thursday, June 25th
Time: 6:00 PM - 8:30 PM (ET)
Where: Boston University, School of Management, 595 Commonwealth Ave, Boston, 02215
Price: $40
(If you are a student interested in attending this event and would like financial assistance, scholarships are available through www.stayinma.com.)
Take a look at the program, Scott Kirsner of the Boston Globe has lined up an impressive slate of speakers, both successful entrepreneurs as well as folks from the VC community. There will be discussion about mobile software, videogames, robotics, social media, cleantech, cloud computing, all potential major growth areas for us in New England.
I've been very deeply involved lately in what you might broadly call government transparency. Specifically my work is in next generation voting (as in democracy) technology. With what's going on in the economy, and what seems to be the commitment from the current president, I suspect that too will be a growth area. Yes, a lot of the work going on now is non-profit/foundation driven but I say it's a growth business , just like enterprise software was a few years ago. I hope there's discussion of that too at this cool event.
If you are a Boston area entrepreneur, techie, student with a big idea, or all of the above , you should definitelycome to this event.
Back from Barcamp Boston
This weekend I had a chance to attend BarCamp Boston (4). As usual it was fun and interesting and I had a chance to hang out and talk with a bunch of interesting people.
If you don't know how a Bar Camp works, it is of the genre of "Unconferences" and one of the keys is that it has no program, ahead of time.
Kind of a leap of faith, you know? Anyway, the image to the left (and click on it to see the enlargement) shows how at the end of the meeting the program is fully visible, and actually quite interesting! Click on it to see a big englargement.
Also for the first time, I got up the nerve to do a session on Voting
Technology, my current focus area.
And here is a closeup of my brilliant bit of marketing for my session. The checkmarks are how other attendees indicate their interest in a topic, which is how it ends up on the board. I think I had about 10-15 people participate. It was cool.