2006 4
Alan Levy and his Blogtalkradio
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I met Alan Levy in the 80s when I was starting Urban Capital Corporation, my first company and he was my auditor working at Edward Isaacs, an accounting firm. When I started Viatel I convinced Alan to leave his accounting firm and join me. Alan had something very few accountants have and that is that he understood the source and use of the money he was accounting for, he was an entrepreneur hidden inside an accounting degree. Viatel was Alan´s last company and since he cashed out of a significant chunk of Viatel shares Alan has been a serial entrepreneur. I do recommend that you check out Alan´s latest venture, Blogtalkradio. What´s unique about Blogtalkradio is how two old, yet still extremely strong technologies, radio and telephones, are merged with the world of blogs and the internet. Ever dreamt of being a talk show radio host? Now you can.
2006 4
Is there an Internet for Women?
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Yesterday I spent two hours in a very interesting brainstorm at Oxygen Media. What makes Oxygen Media different is that it is a TV Network and Internet Site that is made by women and mainly targets women.
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2006 30
Lebanese Lesbian anti war Demonstrator
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Lebanese Lesbian anti War on Flickr – Photo Sharing!
I just saw this woman demonstrating in Manhattan, near city hall. She and her friends had these signs on their back. Being a man, she made me feel ashamed of my gender. If there´s one horrible thing we as men are responsible for is war. Yes there are some women who go to war but there are very few. War nowadays is mostly young men being led by older men killing mostly innocent civilians, many times women and children.
When I was a teenager I once heard somebody say that wars were a conspiracy by old people to get rid of young people. While I know this vision is simplistic lately I see that wars seem to be a conspiracy of combatants to get rid of civilians on the other side. The Iraqi war has been like that with the United States conducting air bombardments knowing that in many cases civilians and not terrorists will bear the brunt and with terrorists targeting civilians either directly or indirectly. And now the same is true in the Israel/Lebanon war.
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2006 25
Say No to Food
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When I studied in the States, at Columbia University in the 80s, the Reagan Administration had put out a huge campaign called “Say No To Drugs”. As I come to visit America in the 00’s, I can´t think of a better campaign to start than one that simply says “Say No To Food”.
My weight has fluctuated between 76kg and 80 kg over the last 10 years, but when I visit America coming from Spain, and stay for a while (this time for a month), I invariable gain weight.
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2006 21
Silicon Valley
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What I am going to say is obvious. If you love technology the Bay Area, aka Silicon Valley and aka San Francisco and its surrounding areas, is the place to be. But what follows is an illustration of the obvious, namely what I can accomplish when, instead of working out of my office in Madrid, I am here in Silicon Valley. I write this post at 4:09pm and this is what I did since 7:45am this morning including my meetings with Meg Whitman, Chad Hurley and Blake Krikorian.
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The match was sold out. There were 70,000 people at the stadium and there were a billion people watching the match in televisions around the world. My wife and I we were at the stadium. So where many other friends. 999,930,000 people however were not. They watched World Cup final on TVs, and the paradox is that both spectators and TV viewers saw a very similar game until Zidane headbutted Marco Materazzi, an act that was censored at the stadium´s TV monitors.
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Here are my World Cup Saturday Night pictures on Flickr. And here are my World Cup Sunday photos on Flickr. I don´t have time to comment on each photos but here are some random comments.
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2006 8
Bill Gates and The Authoritarian Elements of Philanthropy
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You could either say that Bill Gates is the most generous man in the world (now even more so that he gets others to donate through him), or you could say that he is a man who made his money as a monopolist who now gives his money away as an authoritarian. Personally, I think the truth is somewhere in between.
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2006 30
Argentina Lost!
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Being Argentine I am pretty sad by the fact that even though we were very even against Germany during the game (1-1), we lost by penalties. As I watched Argentina who played so well, lose out in penalties I wondered if penalties are actually a fair way to decide matches. When aiming talent is evenly distributed, penalties seem to favor taller goalies and stronger players, in this case the Germans.
But then to be honest, I know I would not be saying this if Argentina had won. Besides, the Germans also played very well. So congratulations to the winners!
