2006 25
How Can I Be a Non Religious Jew?
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Most people believe that being Jewish is believing in Judaism: a religion. But this is not always the case. I am a Jew and I am non religious and there are many of us. So if I don´t believe in religion how can I be Jewish? I think the explanation lies unfortunately in that it is not only Jews who define Judaism, in my case, and in the case of many other Jews, Judaism was not only defined by sharing a common culture and history with other Jews but by the attacks of anti semites. In the case of Argentine Jews as myself there were three waves of attacks: the nazis, the Argentine military neo nazis and Hezbollah that greatly defined our identity.
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2006 22
If Judaism Is Not Only a Religion, What Is It?
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I just wrote this article in Spanish in which I try to explain to a non Jewish Spanish audience what makes me a Jew. I apologize to my English readers that my Spanish blog has many more articles. It does because Spanish is my native language and it is easier for me to write in Spanish.
2006 15
Gspace, Turn your Gmail Into Your Storage, App Server
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Continuing on the concept of gmail becoming the new P2P, thanks to a reader in my Spanish blog, I came accross Gspace. Gspace is a hack on gmail that basically using a firefox extension transforms your gmail account into a Box.net or an MP3tunes or an Orb or an eyeOS.
As the founder of Einsteinet –who had a similar concept in 2000 which unfortunately we could not execute well– I am extremely interested in projects that combine both storage and serving apps from the net. Gspace is VERY clever.
2006 15
Google and Youtube
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I read so many articles about the purchase of Google and Youtube and yet I felt I had to add my brief analysis. To me, the purchase of Youtube by Google is rational and simple. Largest advertising company in the world buys largest TV network in the world. Makes a lot of sense. And the price if anything is low.
Now there is one element that both Google and Youtube are missing and that is the Apple gadget know how. Apple is the only company so far that has dominated the three key fields needed for a huge success in media: download, web site and gagdet. Should Apple be brought in to make a Youtube/Google integration in the next iPods, which should, of course (like the Zune) have WiFi?
2006 14
Is Gmail the new P2P?
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I was just having lunch with my son Tom, who is 12, and I told him that I was going to send him an e mail and he replied that his gmail account was full. Full? I told him that he´s probably one of the only people who have so much e mail that gmail gets full and he replied that he and his friends all had the same problem. Why? Because they use gmail as the new P2P. They send each other songs and compressed movie files over gmail.
In any case, I hope I am more successful about the condom talk next year as I was with this year with my explanation on music and movie commercial licensing policies. If my school gets a book and we all read it, he said, why shouldn´t one of us buy a CD and we all enjoy it?
2006 12
La Mala Rodriguez and Los Pibes Chorros
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Yes, I love them both. La Mala Rodriguez from Spain and Los Pibes Chorros from Argentina. See if you can get hold of their music. Hardly politically correct, but extremely original, global and yet local. Many people in Argentina give me a hard time because I like Cumbia Villera. But I do.
2006 12
A Cheaper Way to Make a Phone Call
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When I invented call back in 1991 I was looking for a cheaper way to make an international phone call. US had liberalized, the rest of the world had not, and I started Viatel (originally Via USA) and came up with the concept of exporting US dial tone to the rest of the world. In 1999, when Viatel was worth around $1.2bn, I sold my shares in the company, which by then had evolved into being a budding internet carrier and went on to start Jazztel and Ya.com in Spain, where I had moved from the States in the 90s.
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2006 8
Moneytrackin
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Two developers at Fon, the brothers Victor and Abert Martin, came up with Moneytrackin in their spare time (yes there is a little spare time at Fon). The basic idea behind Moneytrackin is very simple, friends who spend money can account for it on the web. This can apply to such activities as group travel, party organizing, the beginnings of a business or any project that requires a simple system of joint accounting. They already have 10K people using the site. It´s a simple, cool idea that may very well take off.
2006 3
Jesus and God in Family Guy
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I was thinking about the Danish Cartoon incident and I remembered Family Guy. a cartoon that I saw with my 12 year old son the other day. Watching that even this agnostic Jew was shocked. Is this what kids watch on TV now? Where did Roadrunner go? What´s clear to me is that Western societies have tremendous tolerance on how they treat their own religious figures and it is that principle that clashes with the much less tolerant vews prevailing in Muslim societies when humour is at stake.
2006 2
Demo on the New Nokias with GPS
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