I don’t twit in the traditional sense of the term (internet tradition is measured in months not years). I don’t generally tell people what I am doing. Instead I twit what I am thinking about. For year end I will post what Evan Williams, founder of Twitter, appropriately called thought nuggets.

• Ireland shows that to thrive you don’t need to have leading global companies. U just need for them to like u.
• having children is the only miracle we can experience in real life
• will the next web finally be the one in which the interface is human meaning speech, video, sound, and not keyboards and text?
• i am now trilingual, mac, ubuntu, windows, but I rarely use windows anymore
• Why is top blogging equal or better than top print and top video blogging a la youtube so much worse than cable TV?
• the best internet conferences in Europe are DLD, Google Zeitgeist, Le Web 3 and SIME
• facebook: your social CV
• my favorite Nokia apps are shozu. fring and pocketcaster
• Are Putin and Hu Jintao dictators or are they necessary intermediary steps between Stalin, Mao….and democracy?
• There are 3 approaches to immigration: no immigrants like Japan, low skilled immigrants like Spain, most qualified immigrants around the wo …
• FedEx proves that moving things is much more profitable than moving people.
• virtual philanthropy, second life or stardoll can give virtual property away for free to people in poor countries
• Airlines are masters at affinity programs yet they don’t seat people on planes according to affinities.
• There r 3 Arab civil wars going on now in Palestine, Lebanon and Iraq.
• With global warming the amount of cells in the planet will increase.
• Would Sarkozy love an Obama led America as much?
• I was against Sarkozy but I sincerely hopes he brings a sense of urgency to complacent France
• A few months ago the future was in Second Life, now the future is in Facebook, where is the future going to be tomorrow?
• USA tries to stop illegals at the border. Europe on the streets.
• I work better since I abandoned Microsoft for Ubuntu and Mac. But I can’t wait for browser based computing to be ready.
• Coming from Europe, Canada seems like a kinder, more caring, USA.
• in USA “undivided attention” is a thing of the past
• Are social networks about being social or about self promotion.
• Facebooks success is like America’s: immigration.
• San Fran. One of the most beatiful cities in the world. Even the homeless seem to agree.
• Why is it that in Europe most parking is underground and in America is not?
• I am in the wine country. Didn’t know they had such a country. Its just beautiful!
• Calistoga, Healdsburg, areas, add them to the list of places to see…
• When u fly in America, u realize that terrorism won.
• Why if women do not compete with men in sports do they fight agaimst them in war?
• there are over 700 people worth over $5 million thanks to the rise in Google share price
• Skype should offer an open API for chat even if it does not for voice. If not Google Talk will eventually catch up.
• forget about the war on drugs, i want to start the war…on war
• One measure of civilization: lowest police per capita.
• as population grows, there are more people who believe in past lives that there are past lives available for them
• Israel is the home of over one million Palestinian. None of them become terrorists.
• Is it possible to be a very well educated person and not speak English?
• Since Facebook opened apps all the other communities I belong to are going silent.
• It is easier for me to understand why humans die than to understand why they sleep.
• Chile has the best government in Latin America, but the worst music. In Cuba the opposite is true.
• The Bible by proclaiming virginity leaves out the only miracle we do experience in real life: conception.
• Nintendo fanboys are sheep, Sony fanboys are crabs, PC gamers r hermits
• The best two service economies are USA and Japan. One is based on tipping. The other one on duty.
• the iPhone is web 1.0, it s a great spectator phone, but you can’t film, the camera is very poor, it’s amazing to read but poor to write on …
• Pakistan’s ruler likes the West but his people hate it. Iran has a ruler who hates the West, but his people like us. Pakistan has the bomb. …
• Enhanced TV is the TV industry answer to time shifting
• 2006 was the year with most TV sold in USA, most TVs sold over 50 inches
• HBO is the only big TV network without ads, can that last?
• US regulators believe that anyone in finance who is consistently generating alpha is cheating
• Londons recent lead gain over NYC is mostly due to poor US reg moves
• U cannot chat, film, gps on an iPhone.
• Companies r taken private when investors think they will be misunderstood
• The net neutrality fight, to US consumers, is like hearing divorced parents argue, consumers need both, papa and mama
• The fastest growing population segment in OECD countries is those over 65
• A smoker has on the average 3400 dollars of extra medical costs per year in USA
• Health Care systems should be rated along 3 axis: quality, access and cost.
• The secret to how grandparents get along so well with grandchildren is their common enemy
• The members of the Forbes 400 pay less taxes in percentage terms than their receptionists
• USA has a 250bn deficit with China. USA gets goods. China gets paper.
• U want to buy a biz that an idiot can run cause sooner or later one will, pete lynch
• As I listen to Bill Gates present I realize that he is falling out of touch with the times.
• Microsoft Surface, computer on your desk gets in your desk, looked cool
• George Burns got 4 amazing girls for his 95th bday. He saw them and said: sorry babes, I am 95, one of u has to go.
• Warren Buffett’s political views would make him very well liked in Europe. In USA he gets away with them.
• USA and Europe lose a lot by training foreign students and then refusing them work visas.
• The NYC public school system has to deal with students whose parents speak 170 different languages
• In the States education is managed by mayors, not presidents
• Biz is on on dog eat dog world, politics is just the reverse
• Problem: politics has gone global but policies remain local
• Many local problems only have global solutions
• Tony Blair a hero of mine in spite of Iraq. I wish he ran the UN
• Bush argues that if USA leaves Iraq the country will fall into chaos. At this point it is more likely that the opposite is true.
• Americans defeat the weather. In the winter…it’s too hot, in the summer it’s too cold.
• Carlos Slim is the wealthiest man on earth. Mexico’s GDP is 1/17th of that of USA.Slim’s wealth says a lot about poor income distribution! …
• in madrid people are nasty in the upper class suburbs and nice downtown, in NYC the opposite is true
• in America the rich are mostly visible, in Spain they are mostly invisible
• in America many people take their babies out of their homes and drive them around to put them to sleep…
• NY Times says USA has become one of the countries with the most road fatalities rates, it ranks bet Poland and Greece.
• in New Hampshire its legal to drive without your seat belt: live free or die?
• the Youtube/CNN debate made the Time cover true, the clipmakers were the protagonists
• the Americans invent, the Europeans design, the Chinese manufacture
• China is replacing USA as the growth engine of the world. USA is slowed down by military spending and legal waste.
• USA’s real estate market moves in two different waves, one for 99% of the population and the other for 1% of the population
• Many conspiracy theories come out of poor policy choices. People can’t believe that their gov is so incompetent and attribute higher motives …
• I prefer to know what people are thinking than what they r doing
• do first born children have more sleeping problems? if they do it must due to the inexperience of the parents
• women are overcoming 10K years of oppression in 50, not bad
• Americans let teens drive at 16 but get to drink at 21. I think it would be best if teens could learn to drink in moderation and then drive
• When it gets to sex and alcohol the US gov makes teens feel and act like criminals.
• Endowments many times survive their reason to exist
• Freedom is the ability to lead a life without fear
• in Argentina where I grew up being very thin was associated with being poor, in the Hamptons where I am now the opposite is true
• USA should lower the drinking age and raise the driving age
• 40% of bottled water in the States is tap water
• Back in Spain, make a GSM call, quality far superior to US, why r US cell nets so bad?
• Since 1980 the number of imprisoned Americans grew 450%
• How can the Spaniards work so little compared to the Koreans and have the same GDP per person?
• Is Google atmospheric P/E a blessing or a curse for googlers?
• People get much more energy per kg of food than engines running biofuels.
• flying and sailing have much more in common than people think, people who are afraid of flying but not sailing should learn about this
• Laws should follow the principles of inactive email accounts, after certain years of not being used they should be deleted
• Paradox: in Europe the highest holocaust survival rates were among German Jews.
• Can fully veiled women be candidate in an election?
• The next big thing in tattoing is to tattoo objects
• Books are tools for communication and as such they are becoming outdated
• Why do so many people believe supermarket food poisons them?
• Ten percent of Protestants, 21 percent of Roman Catholics, and 52 percent of Jews do NOT believe in God.
• there are 1,4 billion Mulsims and 14 million Jews in the world
• there are over 6bn people on the planet, around 1 bn consider themselves non religious
• Religious theories are shortcuts towards explanations
• Europe and USA diverge on death penalty, guns, religion in politics, environment, military spending, egalitarianism, beaurocracy, transport
• When credit markets get shaky LDCs credit tanks first even when they run surpluses. Hard for them to believe in markets.
• When people tell me that we all had previous lives somehow I can’t work out the demographics
• Virginity: the rare occasion in which beginners are praised.
• People who are afraid of chemicals don’t seem to realize that all that we see and eat are chemicals.
• Americans can’t remember, Europeans can’t forget, Asians can’t forgive
• Digital photography. You can always do prints…you never do.
• I have a hard time with the notion that our TV signals will be around the universe once our planet is gone.
• The Southern hemisphere is mostly water, less able to eliminate carbon emitted in the North.
• There are more bacteria in your body than years in the universe.
• Antartica is technically a desert
• Learning requires focus, focus requires that we ignore most else, so learning requires ignorance?
• Judged by numbers, the animals who we hate, rats, have been doing better than the ones we like,cats.
• I spent hours thinking about a plausible theory of why humans like music and dance so much, could not come up with anything reasonable…
• When non US people buy dollars US citizens get richer. If those buyers shift to euros….
• Birth rates collapse when people children as a financial burden rather than life insurance. Is that why they were having them?
• weeks are an irrational division of time
• University is the place where professors teach u what they were never able to do
• Species need lucky mutants to evolve, does human knowledge need thinking mutants to expand?
• Anyone who is anybody spends time on the internet. If I was looking for Osama Bin Laden I would look for him online.
• USA is the only country able to export famous people, why?
• Growing old in America: Dawson’s Creek, Friends, Sex and the City, Desperate Housewives and Weeds.
• humans process food much more efficiently than cars, another reason to oppose biofuels
• global warming is bad except in the fact that it increases the amount of living cells in the planet
• Addiction treatments like AA rely on 0 tolerance for addictive substance. This is not possible with addiction to food.
• Does children happiness correlate better with parents being together or with time spent with parents?

I don’t twit in the traditional sense of the term (internet tradition is measured in months not years). I don’t generally tell people what I am doing. Instead I twit what I am thinking about. For year end I will post what Evan Williams, founder of Twitter, appropriately called thought nuggets.

• laptops still need to be lighter, faster, less hot and with daylong batteries
• the problem with psychology is one of marketing, nobody likes to be called a mental patient, how about changing titles to “life trainers”
• Immigrants make 8% of the population of USA but the companies they built account for 25% of US mkt cap
• The Spaniards disagree on staying Spanish. The French want to be French, but they disagree on the regime they want.
• How can the French have both, the largest supermarket chains in the world and the petit marche au coin?
• Most countries have cultural centers in Paris. USA does not need one. Its culture rules is pulled, not pushed.
• Height is one of the most overrated virtues
• using windows is like smoking, people know its bad for them, but they still do it cause they are addicted
• digesting the time warner news, tremendous coverage in the States
• Waking up to the cries of my baby son I enjoy the congratulatory messages
• Truth is a moving target
• Google rank should be language based
• sugar and milk, if u stir well you end up with dulce de leche, if you don’t with curd milk
• I don’t care about what most people do. I do care about what a few people think.
• As u roam the world: what does your footprint look like?
• Does the instinct to kill have anything to do with eliminating competitors?
• My iPod is designed by Americans, buit by Asians and populated by Africans
• In Hollywood movies bad guys were first German, then Russians, then Arabs, lately….Americans
• Guns don’t kill people. People kill people. But people with guns kill more people.
• If u make Ducatis, should u feel remorse for all the people who die riding them?
• If speeding is dealt with fines so should illegal downloads.
• Is evolution about species or about DNA itself building a diversified survival portfolio?
• Can u be both very smart and very poor in America?
• Are keyboards so bad to give us a chance to think about what we write?
• Sorry twitter but I am still not telling u what I am doing right now.
• Can u do a newspaper for the chinese that is in english?
• considering how islamic Saudi Arabia already is it is remarkable that the people who fight that regime are those who want it more so
• Its unfortunate Koreans, Chinese and Japanese dislike each other when there’s so much they can do jointly.
• I am a green, but i am in favor of prudent use of Nuclear Energy and GM food
• While the world changes aircraft dont
• School is a poor model for real life
• If u think of air as a fluid flying becomes sailing
• is the richest country the one with the richest people or the one with the richest poor people?
• politics is a winner takes all game, that’s why politicians trash each other even more than competing businesses
• I allow my kids to bring their boyfriends/girlfriends to sleepover at home after a one year relationship, in USA I could be sued I was told
• In Spain the law works so slowly that people are forced to get along
• in the 70s maoist terrorists killed in Europe, now they are simply outdated, hope the same happens to islamic terrorists in a decade
• music is a collection of sounds that somehow make sense
• Israelis are realizing that the Lebanon invasion made Hezbollah more powerful
• babies show that falling asleep must be a very scary experience for the uninitiated
• Is having children a humanitarian act?
• I have loved hip hop since RunDMC in the 80s. Almost nobody else I know does.
• sarko and sego’s debate looks like a matrimonial dispute
• a single engine turboprop that i used to own fell in the Mediterranean yesterday
• craig’s list is like the bad looking guy who gets all the cute girls
• Nazis killed 3 times as many Russians as they killed Jews. Why are there so many Russian Neonazis?
• The toughest job that immigrants are doing in Europe is having and raising children.
• gtalk is not a download anymore, that makes it so much easier to use!
• we hear about gold diggers, we hear less about beauty diggers
• Why are women more religious than men?
• Men make most rules but women tend to follow them better
• www.fotolog.com one pix per day diet leads to more page views than flickr all u can eat
• why can’t France get the heart of sego with the brains of sarko?
• everyone in Europe likes the welfare state, but the French are addicted to it
• the 35 hour French assumes that work is punishment, i favor freedom for all, workaholics and workphobics to work as they negotiate
• European garage designers are in cohoots with body shop owners
• my father used to argue that the 7 day week in which we all work 5 days and rest 2 does not make sense, he proposed shifts and a 6 day week
• at least on twitter I am a follower of Barack Obama
• beaurocrats exist thanks to unnecesary laws and regulations
• on the earth we move until we run out of energy, in space we move until we encounter energy
• Wish Turkey was the role model in the Muslim World as far as separation of mosque and state
• Curse: to only be happy til u find someone else who is happier
• In Europe people rarely talk to strangers and ask them where they r from.
• In the last decades capitalism clearly won. But democracy?
• we have the social router, the fonera, should we launch the fatera a social scale for collaborative weight loss?
• the Chinese r only one political party away from American style democracy
• God’s probably an Atheist cause he does not believe in a superior being who created him
• Good funk doesn’t die, it’s remixed.
• the American election will be a gender, race and generational contest
• Blair and Bush made the same mistake in Iraq, but for different reasons.
• Best measure of national food success is that which foreigners like the most.
• In Spain it’s blind people who sell lottery tickets. A lesson on trust.
• Many people I know are migrating to Mac or Ubuntu. I have yet to find one person who loves Vista.
• USA alternates left and right in decades, Reagan, Clinton, Bush and now?
• Are Netlog and Meetic the two largest communities in Europe?
• sms is the technology that has been pronounced dead most often, and Americans are just discovering it…
• In Spain birth rates collapsed in the 90s, the country had to import 8% of it population in the last 7 years
• Spain has the most proislamic press that I have seen in Europe.
• The best diet is to eat whatever u normally eat, but less. I don’t believe in eating weird stuff.
• In England high school ends at 16, college goes from 16 to 18 and university starts at 18.
• USA’s fights illegal immigration at the border, Europe in the streets.
• It would be arrogant of us to believe that only on earth there’s life
• sometimes my body seems to have a mind of its own
• Europe is 46% of Google’s profits. Where is Europe’s Google?
• Eric Schmidt says Google has the LAX theory of corporate culture…if u r stuck at LAX for 6hrs with the candidate…
• Why is it that most oil in the world is own by non democrats? Coincidence or does oil allow rulers disregard the views of others?
• the second tear most successful web communities like bebo, netlog, fotolog or twitter have a real hard time making more than $500K per month
• www.jamba.de spends 70 million euros in TV advertising, and it’s profitable
• ad based companies reach a ceiling that is only pierced when they get into the virtual property business a la facebook gifts
• the bubble test: when only vcs and not crowds fall in love with your idea
• Countries don’t attack countries in which they have invested a lot of money, unless they are about to lose it….
• twitter without IM is not fun as I twit from my blackberry using jabber, fix this please!!
• Most of the people who speak Spanish are poor.
• Best cities to visit: NYC, Tokyo, Berlin, BA, Barcelona, Rome, Paris, San Fran.
• the different between a first wife and a second wife is that with the first u lost all arguments, with the second…most
• Berlin is by far the most interesting city in Germany
• Israel was built on the premise that Jews needed a safe home. Now the least safe place for Jews is Israel.
• The best incentive that we could offer Russia to reform is membership in the EU
• Why do ethnic groups who frequently murder each other stop doing so the moment they immigrate to USA?
• Yasmina Khadra says that the 2 choices of islamic youth r to emigrate or become terrorist.
• Paradox: The place in which Palestinian’s live best is Israel. The place in which they are worse off is Lebanon.
• skype is better than google talk but google talk keeps showing up everywhere, on twitter, blackberry, gmail…
• The most educated countries are those with the lowest police to crime ratios.
• The richest countries are those with the richest poor people.
• To what extent are new generations taller because of widespread availability of C Sections?
• genetics is getting to the point in which while we cannot know our genetic future knowing our genome we can now do a genetic “horoscope”
• Argentina has a huge trade surplus with China because China is the first industrialized country that does not subsidize its own food
• Is China the rising tide that lifts all boats?
• Only robots and communities yield extraordinary profits.

Why is it that none of my friends gamble and yet so many people do? Probably because my friends are intelligent people who have long discovered that betting in casinos is an idiotic activity that, given enough tim,e will lead to the dwindling of your savings. And yet there seem to be millions (if not billions) of people interested in gambling and, as a result, yesterday Aristocrat Technologies, represented in Europe by Nicholas Khin, announced that 25 million of these simple minded people are expected to go every year to lose money at a 2000 hectares 32 casino gambling paradise that his company, the second largest gambling group in the world, will build in Aragon, Spain.

This park is expected to be Europe´s Las Vegas, the second largest gambling destination in the world. It will have the same idiotic architecture as Las Vegas, similar historic themes with the Egyptian being a perennial favorite. Among the curiosities one of the theme parks there, Spyland, is centered around the theme of spying, another mostly useless activity that costs the world billions of dollars and few have been able to prove its worth (e.g. with all the spying resources of the United States, Bush Sr did not know that Saddam Hussein was going to invade Kuwait until he did it). Another one will be the typical gigantic water park so the kids can splash while dad loses his savings.

On one side, my libertarian instincts tell me that investments like this should be allowed since they make the economy grow, generate tens of thousands of jobs and if people want to be miserable so be it, but, on the other my environmental and overall ethical views make me feel that flying 25 million people throwing tons of gases in the atmosphere so they can lose their hard earned savings is just wrong.