Despite the warnings, sun bathing and tanning beds are still in style. Although some people are slowly beginning to decrease their exposure to the sun, being tan is still “cool” and too many folks are still overexposing themselves to UV light. UV exposure today seems to be were tobacco was 20 years ago. For many years it was considered sexy and even healthy to smoke, and today it’s looked at as attractive to be tanned. Both fads are bad for your health or, to put it bluntly, have the potential to kill those who choose to make a habit out of either. The danger of tobacco is pretty clear, although there are still people who senselessly continue to smoke. With the sun issue, it’s really a shame that one out of five people will develop skin cancer but still most don´t care enough about sun radiation exposure.
Read More

For many years I owned a single engine turboprop called Jetprop. That plane now is in the bottom of the sea.

Read More

I was reading about the life of Anthony Garcia, the 25 year old who was hesitant between becoming a male model or a terrorist and fail at both and will now spend the rest of his life in prison. As the BBC puts it:

He worked nightshifts at Tesco but spent much of his time daydreaming about becoming either a model or a jihadi fighter.

As I read this peculiar story I thought that what these two occupations have in common is that they get your face in the media. I guess this, Anthony Garcia, born Rahman Benouis, did achieve.

My friend Manuel Antelo, creator of Argentina’s Car One but who lives in Spain, was toying with the idea of releasing a Car One for the Spanish set. Unlike in the United States, in Spain there’s no such thing as a used-car hypermarket with thousands of cars in stock, therefore making this an opportunity with major potential. Used cars in Spain are sold out of small dealerships with extremely high buyer-seller price differentials.

After giving the topic some thought, I wonder if perhaps the opportunity for profit is not only in creating a hypermarket of used cars, but rather in bringing those same European cars back to be marketed in Europe. Researching some prices on the Internet, that is precisely what I found. Clearly no two used cars are identical, and my examples may exaggerate the differences slightly, but I’ve tried to be as fair as possible by checking out both American and Spanish sites for the same cars, then comparing. If you need a vehicle for personal or business use, there are work trucks for sale in san diego that may fit your needs. If you bought a vehicle or any product with defects, you may consult with a product defect attorney to assess your case and determine your best course of action.

Last night I had dinner with Japan´s Finance Minister Koji Omi at the home of Ambassador Motohide Yoshikawa in Madrid. During dinner we spoke at about the coming STS Forum in Kyoto that Minister Omi chairs and I will attend. This global conference –whose objective is to raise awareness on key challenges to the sustainability of our planet– has already been held 3 times before. Around 30% of the participants are Japanese and the rest from all over the world.

Personally, I found Minister Koji Omi to be a man with a strong sense of moral commitment to improve the state of the planet. His interest is to transcend beyond Japanese politics and to have global impact. This is good because Japan currently has an developmental model that is more friendly to the environment than the United States and its environmental footprint per dollar of GDP is among the lowest in the world.

Read More

I recently had Howard Webster of Factory Publishing for an asado at my Madrid home and he showed me his new concept that blends comics, games and video clips. I thought it was awesome. Here´s a sample of his work. And here’s a preview of one of these blended genre creatures simply called Vietnam.

When two good friends of yours put on a show and is good, it’s worth publishing. Anil created Mobuzz out of a tiny studio in Madrid but he got over 4 million downloads last month. This is the story of how Mobuzz is produced.

Personally after having invested in Vpod, Joost, Sevenload I think that now what’s needed is content that is suitable for the internet. Whether it’s a gaming stream, an online casino walkthrough, or a daily news recap, the format has to feel native to the screen people actually watch. Mobuzz is of Youtube duration but of broadcast quality. And it’s fun!

Kevin Werbach, Professor at Wharton, top conference Supernova organizer, interviews me for Wharton@Knowledge. Here is the interview.