I found Benjamin Button, the film, obnoxiously boring. But I loved the short story by F Scott Fitzgerald that the movie is (not) based on. I read it today on my new Kindle, a device that is making me read again. Thank you Jeff Bezos. I used to read a lot but since the ’90s the combination of active parenting and the Internet slowed my book reading to a crawl. Yet today, I was taking Friday afternoon off in Menorca, and had the new Kindle at hand. Being a fan of free content I went to ManyBooks.net and found The Curious Life of Benjamin Button, the story as one of the most downloaded books. I went on to download the story because even though I had been terribly disappointed by the movie, I could not believe that the author of The Great Gatsby, had written a character that was as dull as the one portrayed by Brad Pitt. And I was right. The Curious Case of Benjamin Button which I encourage you to download here is funny, original, and if it had been expanded into a well scripted movie it would have had all the elements of excitement that the soporific movie directed by David Fincher does not have. What surprised me the most is how is it that a movie that has nothing, and I mean nothing to do with the story plot, can still be said to be that story turned into a film. Think of the many books you read turned into movies and after you read the story you will see how fundamental the differences in the plot between the two are. In any case I am sorry if you are one of the many who loved the movie. I guess we just don´t need to agree.

As you can see in these 62 different articles gathered by Google News, BT, Fon´s exclusive partner in the UK, won access to all Starbucks locations (more than 650 Starbucks coffeehouses in the UK and Ireland). Unfortunately this does not mean free access to all foneros around the world for wifi at Starbucks UK, but it does mean free access for Foneros who are also BT Broadband customers. And for the rest, we are working on a lower Fonero discount. We will keep you informed. We also wanted UK foneros to know that we are trying to see how we can legally sell the Fonera 2.0 in the UK.

My Spanish blog is more active than my English blog but this does not mean that I don´t praise, criticism and trolls in my English blog as well. Throughout Fon´s short history, unfortunately, critics and trolls have been partly right when they say that Fon has not delivered on its promise to build a global WiFi network. Yes, we do have 360K Fonspots now but other than in Japan which is the only country in the world in which we have succeeded without installing our software inside the wifi router of telecom operators in other countries where we have been very successful, like UK or France we did this together with BT, Neuf in France, Zon in Portugal.

Why were we not able to grow at a rhythm higher than 4000 Foneras a month more solely on the premise of “share a little wifi at home and roam the world for free”? I would say it was a chicken and egg problem. With BT we truly were able to say that you share a little WiFi at home and roam the UK for free as with them we deployed so many fonspots at once that coverage in that promise and delivery were very well linked. Especially because if you are both a BT customer and a Fonero you get to roam for free in BT OpenZone as well, BT´s commercial offer available at airports, train stations, etc. But in other countries, like Spain where we don´t have an operator we exist thanks to the altruism of some (Linuses) and the desire to amortize the cost of a DSL connection (Bills) but coverage is spotty. Same in Germany were we are still the largest WiFi network but that is not enough to speak of having a real presence in which you can predictably find Fon as you can in Japan or UK.

So what we did to make it more attractive for Foneros to buy a Fonera is to make the Fonera itself very appealing. We greatly improve the Fonera 1.0 and the result is the Fonera 2.0 which goes for sale in Europe tomorrow. The Fonera 1.0 is a great router to share WiFi and to make money selling passes to the Fon community. But the Fonera 2.0 does that and much more. Examples? It downloads your torrents without your computer being on (ONLY DOWNLOAD CONTENT WHOSE RIGHTS PLEASE). It downloads files from Rapidshare and Megaupload. It uploads your videos to Youtube without your computer being on. It uploads pictures to Facebook, Picasa, Flickr. It converts your many times useless 3G signal into WiFi so you can use game consoles and other devices that need internet but don´t come with 3G. It connects your printers via WiFi, or your webcam, and there is more coming.

With the Fonera 2.0 we are convinced that our deployment rate will accelerate and with a combination of Foneras and telco routers we will deliver on the coverage.

In this video I compare the Fonera to the Time Capsule of Apple and show that in a sense, the Fonera is to the Time Capsule what the iPhone is to a mobile phone.

What I like about Joshua Cooper Ramo’s book, The Age of The Unthinkable is that it it starts with the premise that complexity in world affairs is here to stay. Maybe it is Joshua’s background in physics that has made him see foreign policy as an area where Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle also applies. That in human affairs also we can never know where things stand that we can only speak in terms of probability. That when we oversimplify, our policies backfire and we end up in the “Age of the Unthinkable” where financial markets, world peace, the environment all blow up in our face. So who are the winners in this era? A minority of unlikely candidates that range from Sergey and Larry at Google to China as a nation, to Hezbollah as an organization. The losers however seem to be mostly in the USA, Europe and elsewhere and are those who stick to simplistic models (i.e. Bush Cheney Middle East approach) and fail to tackle the diversity of inputs that may lead to a certain outcome. A good example of Ramo’s challenge of the status quo is criticism of Joseph Nye´s soft power theory. Soft Power theory says that if the “enemy” likes our culture he will stop being our enemy. As Ramo shows it is possible for terrorists to listen to our music, watch our movies, dress like us and still….want to blow us up. And what makes the book more interesting is that Ramo’s past as the Foreign Editor of Time Magazine made him meet many “despicable” characters such as the head of information of Hezbollah and, surprisingly, learn from them. In a style similar to that of President Obama, he shows us how talking to the enemy and learning from the enemy can be a better strategy than spending trillions trying and failing to destroy it. But before getting carried away here is my advice: Buy the book and come up with your own opinion. It’s worth it.

When I bought my Lexus RX400 in Spain in 2005, I thought that I would pay a high price for a car but both help the environment and save on maintenance and gas. After all, I was getting a hybrid, a car that is both an electric and gasoline car. But after some years of ownership, I have come to the conclusion that hybrids are neither so environmental nor economical. As for gasoline consumption, my Lexus uses 14 liters every 100 km. That is more liters than my other car, an Audi Q7 3.0 TDI albeit a diesel. And in terms of overall economy, whatever you supposedly save on gas you spend on service. Lexus has a super expensive service program because of some parts that must be replaced related to the way the car recharges the car batteries when braking. My calculation is that each km that you do in a Lexus costs 10c in terms of service costs alone.

disappointment
disappointment

It so happened that this Pesach found us at the border with Morocco and Algeria. We were 3 couples traveling, 4 Jews and 2 non Jews, most of us non-believers but lovers of tradition, both of Pesach and Easter. So in such a Muslim environment we became a little concerned about being openly non-Muslim and we decided to come up with the encrypted story of the Haggadah. This video is the result.

It all happened in Morocco where I managed to meet the 4 conditions of a great proposal. It was planned in secrecy (to the point that the 20 friends who came to Morocco to join us in the engagement party thought they were coming for Nina´s birthday which was a month ago). It contained a ring. It was a surprise to the fiancee. And most importantly, the outcome was a yes.

The proposal itself was in a desert camp at the border of Algeria and Morocco. We were first traveling with our friends David and Anna Lena and Gabriel and Mariquel and then joined by 16 other friends in Marrakech where last night we had the engagement dinner party.

Not all went well. When I proposed a walk in the desert at midnight under a full moon I was greeted with a “let´s wait until tomorrow to go for a walk I am too tired.” But other than that glitch the rest went very well and now we are happily engaged and celebrating with friends in Marrakech.

Here are some pictures of the trip and the engagement. Locations are Skoura, Ait Benhaddou, Zagora, Mhamid and somewhere in the desert.