2010 30
Tweetphorisms
Published by MartinVarsavsky.net in General with No Comments
I’ve been looking back at some of my tweets lately and I’ve compiled a list of tweetphorisms, which are a cross between tweets and aphorisms.
– A good thing about Twitter is that if somebody wants to trash you they only have 140 characters to do so.
– In Europe tipping gets you nowhere, in USA not tipping gets you nowhere.
– One thing I love about my American friends is that they are less jugdemental, more willing to take risks.
– Great leadership is the ability to make followers thrive.
– Creative destruction is much hyped, but non destructive creation is better.
– They should not allow world cup teams to have foreign coaches.
– TV still exists because of simplicity, bandwidth and simultaneity.
– Religion is on its wait out in Europe, hence football.
– Marriages take work. Grass is not greener on the other side. It’s greener where it’s watered.
– Monopolies are like children in an airplane, you complain about them until you have one.
– College must have been traumatic. I graduated in the 80s and still dream I’m not prepared for my Chemistry exam.
– Remember when Twitter was about people saying something? Now it’s all links.
– The value of a secret derives from the relevance of those whom we want to keep uninformed.
– You become 21, turn 30, push 40 and reach 50.
– Contradiction: Americans consume most oil in the world and yet they blame their President for the drilling accident.
– Math is the hardest subject to work hard at.
– Microsoft was easier to hate :).
– Studying photography made me come to terms with cloudy days.
– I am for being tolerant with the intolerant, but it’s hard when the response is death threats.
– Europe needs to eliminate national armies and have just one European Army.
– Some people are afraid of the unknown. I tend to be more afraid of what I know.
– Netflix tells me what I will like, Vuze delivers it.
– Twitter should take pity on those who Tweet in German and give them a few extra characters 🙂
– The French should teach the Italians how to make desserts and in exchange learn how to make coffee.
– The only power left who still disguises economic ambition as ideology is USA. Russia and China gave up.
– The iPad is most useful in situations in which laptops are frowned upon.
– Downturns are great moments to gain market share.
– There’s an inverse relation between how cool you look watching a movie in an iPad and how dorky walking around listening to music.
– It’s not the role of companies to regulate if people date at work or not.
– Parents teach kids to be patient. In the process, they are learning to be patient themselves.
– The paradox of the music industry is that it’s being destroyed out of love for music.
– Most people in power in Europe would rather see Greece sink than the Euro rise again.
– What distinguishes people is not how much shit they have to deal with, but how they deal with it.
– You raise a child until one day you realize…you raised a person.
– 80% of good paternity is showing up. Quality time is a cop out for absent parents.
– Twitter, all the news that’s fit to tweet.
– The iPad is an ideal toilet companion
– When people really want something they have a hard time comprehending it may not be possible
– Restaurant owners believe that there is an inverse relationship between their elegance and your understanding of the menu.
– Link shorteners should use one letter to show whats in them.
– In USA, kids are especially told not to talk to strangers. But as adults they love to 🙂
– Jet lag is a good way of understanding the difference between being tired and wanting to sleep.
– Exams are so traumatic that people keep having nightmares that they show up unprepared decades later
– There are 2 kinds of people who rarely take vacations: those who can’t afford them and those who have a hard time dealing with themselves.
– Android will be very popular because Google does not make a living out of selling hardware.
– If you had a habit of talking to yourself, Twitter is perfect for you.
– It’s great when the person you love… is your wife 🙂
– Smartphones are amazing. But they are not that smart when all you want to do is make a phone call.
– The problem bailing out Greece is that the euro was too strong before the crisis.A weaker euro combined with cheaper oil helps EU.
– When two people in Twitter want to engage they leave. DMs are not enough. Unlimited DMs or DM chat would be better.
– Hillary Clinton may become for all Israelis what Sharon was to Gaza settlers.
– Design is not great when it clashes with use. Example? iPhones that fall out of pockets.
– Something tells me that it was not “the keyboard cat” what Chad had in mind when starting Youtube.
– Electricity consumption’s been down 5% in Europe since the crisis. Recessions are good for the environment.
– One of the weaknesses of Twitter is that it’s such a pain to always click on links.
– If you oppose to animal testing in medicine you favor human testing in medicine, or no progress in medicine.
– As it becomes widely used Twitter needs to raise the character limit to 200.
– USA should not have China finance its wars, it should have China fight them.
– Friendship is about people you know, dating is about people you don’t know, Facebook is evolving from friendship to dating.
– USA has the richest people in the world. Europe has the “richest” poor people in the world.
– English is the most widely spoken language. That also makes it the language that is most frequently spoken poorly.
– Twitter, or a life worth sharing.
– Europeans want equality, Americans equal opportunity, Asians don’t seem too keen on either.
– Cable, telephone, mobile, Internet, newspapers, magazines, games and music industries did indeed converge in the end.
– Google is about linking to other sites. Twitter is about linking to other sites. Facebook instead warns you about the Internet.
– Models are hired to appeal to women. They are women who women like. Most men like actresses more than models.
– Scientists in USA are admirable because all scientists are, but also because average folks in this country mistrust science.
– The problem with Twitter is that all watch what everyone else is doing and as a result…nobody does anything.
– First we had phone, SMS, email, then Skype, Gtalk, Facebook, Twitter, Buzz. I need new tech to start replacing old tech!!
– You can tell when somebody uses a Kindle because they stop counting pages and say: “I have 7% left to read”.
– The best argument against nuclear energy is that it’s used as an excuse by Iran and others for making nuclear weapons.
– Memories are the leftovers of experience
– We can use randomized controlled trials not just to test medicines but for social problems too.
– San Francisco can be seen as “at the edge of the tech world” or “the edge of the planet” 🙂
– Sometimes it is best to leave a book unfinished and imagine the rest.
– Haiti’s problems did not start with the earthquake, but they came to light with it.
– Religion exists because the truth is unbearable.
– America excels at the extremes. Europe focuses on raising the average.
– Most successful products are self evident.
– Blackberries are for work, iPhones for fun, Androids are somewhere in the middle.
– Anyone who tries to make a tablet without something like the iTunes Store will have a hard time competing against Apple.
– Twitter used to be a community of people who shared info, now it’s more and more a one to many broadcasting platform.
– After Law School you are a lawyer. After Med School you are a Dr. But after Business School you are not an entrepreneur.
– Facebook is meaningless unless you know the people whose crap you read about.
– Writers block is passé, now it’s Twitter block.
– Emotion can be great motivation for writing, but it can backfire when you are trying to make a point.
– USA and Europe design, China makes.
– Terrorists attack USA partly because it is easily spooked.
– Uruguay is a country with no news to report. No news is good news.
– Safety with little police presence is a sign of civilization.
– Countries around here are either free and poor (St. Lucia) or colonies (Martinique) and rich. So much for freedom 🙁
– Twitter: gossip never had it so good.
– The crying baby, the snoring man, two dreaded characters on night flights.
– Even though China is the biggest polluter in the world it still has the right to sell carbon credits to much cleaner Japan.
– Airline punctuality figures should include airport immigration expected delays.
– Some of the brightest people I know can’t spell.
– Most large exporters of energy are LDCs (less democratic countries)
– Spending a lot of time on Twitter makes you more informed but less knowledgeable.
– Twitter + links = Facebook – search
– Obama’s Nobel Prize speech should have been about racial reconciliation, not about justifying military action.
– Climate change may be disastrous. But we have a global sanitation, education, malnutrition and disasters now, first things first!
– Speed limits should relate to traffic. No traffic, higher speed limits.
– Twitter is like Facebook in fast motion.
– Twitter: speed dating of the intellect.
– Facebook is very expensive to run but has a business model. Twitter is very cheap to run but has not found one yet.
– Zapatero does not speak English, lives in the old media world and out of ignorance managed to turn the blogosphere against him.
– Apple is the only company that managed to go on with desktops.
– The success of Spotify in Spain shows that even in a country in which downloading is legal there’s a business model for music.
– Europe sees immigrants as people to train. Americans also see them as people to learn from. Guess where they prefer to go?
– In Spain some under 20s are on Facebook, none on Twitter, and all on Tuenti.
– I still can’t understand how the country of the 35 hour work week came up with the word entrepreneur.
– The worst weather is when it’s almost freezing but instead of snowing…it rains. Just shy of profitability.
– If a country has social mobility and recession many can be better off even in bad times. But Europe is screwed at this level.
– If anything Obama is proving that it is much harder to be a good President than a bad one.
– The crisis does have something positive: it is a boom for entrepreneurship.
– Whenever I don’t get a reference I think it must be Star Trek, Star Wars or Lord of the Rings.
– Here we are squeezing our thoughts on Twitter because somebody a decade ago decided to limit SMS to 140 characters.
– Nations who won’t negotiate with terrorists shouldn’t pay pirates off
– People who don’t like photos of themselves: those who like themselves too little and those who like themselves too much.
– Twitter used to be microblogging. Now blogging is an extended tweet.
– Murdoch should not forego Google, if anything he should do the RSS thing and give them the headlines.
– The genius of the iPhone can be perceived during the brief time when you finish a charge and the battery runs out.
– Nobody ever made more money than Chaplin portaying misery.
– Spain has holidays that relate to each city. Next Monday, for example, is a holiday only in Madrid. All holidays should be national.
– Software upgrades offer significant risks in exchange for minor improvements.
– Whoever forces people to write http:// before a web site name should be spanked (Tom says shot).
– Big TV displays are begging for wireless connectivity to your laptop.
– The better I do the less I have to tweet about.
– Successful companies turn out to have many “cofounders”.
– Twitter gives you a unrealistic feeling of being famous.
– At the end of life few are sorry they did not spend more time at the office.
– The only really white people on the planet are the British 🙂
– There is so much to learn when you know very little!
– Canada, USA, Japan, Australia, other wealthy nations should allow free movement of labor as EU does already.
– Europe is about class struggle. USA about generational struggle.
– Overheard on Twitter: To want to prove that God exists with a Bible is like wanting to prove that Batman exists with a comic.
– Facebook should allow you to gift pictures.
– Spanish is the second most spoken language in the world after Chinese and slightly ahead of English
– Book authors will be like musicians. Books will be free on the net but authors will make money from public speaking.
– Never underestimate the power of a good story
– I never liked a TV series so much not to wait to watch it when I wanted to.
– Nobel Institute has just awarded itself the Obama Prize
– If you follow people in different continents, Twitter gives you a real sense for time zones. When I wake up California goes silent.
– If you know what you want to listen to go for Spotify, if you want to discover music use Last.fm.
– I have a dear friend who is not on Facebook. He is the last one standing.
– We should read what the Taliban says before more die in Afghanistan on both sides.
– Occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan is a waste of our military resources and goes against what we tell the world we stand for.
– If you can’t tell a story extremely well, you can’t raise money for a start up.
– It takes a while for US Presidents to realize that the only real power they have is abroad.
– One country one vote is not a way to run the world. If you are a citizen of a large country you are underepresented.
– Managing online communities around a product is tough
– Apple’s software is amazing because it competes with Windows and Linux. Apple’s hardware is poor because it does not compete with anybody.
– The problem with tech after tax salaries in Italy is that social charges are so high that even if entrepreneurs spend more, coders get less.
– Choosing ice cream flavors you realize how different people are.
– Smartphones are like friends, one night I hang out with the Nokia, another with the iPhone, tonight is Android, but my real buddy is still the Blakcberry.
– Everyone I know believes in Twitter as a multibillion dollar business. I only believe in Twitter as a centimillion dollar business.
– Unemployment is sad but paradoxically good for the environment and for start ups.
– Obama’s mistake with health care is that he chose an issue that his young voters don’t care so much about and his opponents do.
– The best moments in life often can’t be shared on Twitter
– Being an entrepreneur in Spain is like being a snowboarder in Jamaica.
– The Clinton Global Initiative is not about making it. It’s about what to do once you have made it… or about giving it away intelligently.
– So many people have left Hotmail for Gmail that when I see a Hotmail email I know its obsolete.
– Overpromising may make sense if those who overpromise end up producing more than they would have if they hadn’t overpromised.
– Indeed, why is English a must for so many simple jobs but not for President?
– Computers changed photography from the portrayal of who we are to the portrayal of who we want to be.
– Once you lie your way to the Presidency, other lies come easy.
– Location services should realize in which direction you are moving and give you recommendations ahead of you!
– In Spain people think that calling a person negro or black is derogatory but calling him negrito or little black is not.
– For Ubuntu to be popular it must find an easier to install unlisted programs than terminal.
– USA is so good at promoting cross ethnic/cultural understanding at home, and so bad at doing it overseas.
– Death is the test of evolution. We are programmed to die. Even if we conquered all disease we would only increase life expectancy by 12 years.
– The origin of antisemitism may be lack of reciprocity: what Jews believe in Christians/Muslims also believe in, but not the other way around.
– Conservatives in Spain want to ban access to social networks without parents consent. Good economic policies come from social retards.
– USA has more road deaths than no speed limit Germany
– Kids have this unusual ability to teach us what they don’t have: patience.
– Europe is just the best continent to live in.
– The French are among the most productive people in the world. Tariq says it’s because they can’t wait to leave asap for the aperitive 🙂
2010 26
Ace of Base at the Menorca TechTalk 2010
Published by MartinVarsavsky.net in General with No Comments
At the Menorca TechTalk this year we had some remarkable guests such as Hiroshi Mikitani, from the remarkably successful Rakuten of Japan, who explained to us why he is on a shopping spree in USA and Europe (recently acquired Buy.com and PriceMinister), and Arthur Sulzberger CEO of the New York Times – my favorite newspaper and news source in the world – who was particularly fun and insightful to be with. As a music fan (I named one of the companies I started Jazztel), my favorite guest was Ulf Ekberg from Ace of Base. In this video, you get to hear some excerpts of Ace of Base’s new album. It is only a few seconds for obvious reasons (copyright). But you can get a sense of how great the new songs are. Very Ace of Base, and yet, very new.
Here’s a video in which the participants at the Menorca TechTalk debate how to name the new Ace of Base hit:
And here are some pictures of the Menorca TechTalk that Nina Varsavsky, my wife, and I took:
And here are some pictures that some great friends who love photography took: Rodrigo Sepulveda, Demian Bellumio and others. Thank you for the great pictures!
I have flown jets with WiFi before. Lufthansa used to have a great WiFi service that Boeing managed, but with poor timing, they disconnected the service just as WiFi became popular. But in the U.S., WiFi on airplanes is back. I am now on a Delta flight JFK – Miami and find myself blogging at 30,000 ft. I love it. But for my friends in old media, WiFi on planes may become the straw that broke the camel’s back. Airplanes, precisely because they had no connection, were the last place where print publications thrived. Indeed, just today, before boarding, and not knowing that there was WiFi on the plane, I spent $45 dollars including over $7 just for the Economist. But with WiFi at $10 per flight, I will just not buy magazines and papers anymore. Nor will millions of people. Print is heavy, bad for the planet, and with tablets becoming commonplace few will continue to consume it.
2010 25
The New York Forum is off to a Good Start
Published by MartinVarsavsky.net in Fon with No Comments
Richard Attias and Lance Knobel had very little time to put together The New York Forum, so it is more to their credit that they managed to attract some impressive participants. It is not easy to get Carlos Slim, Rupert Murdoch, Mayor Bloomberg and some other globally influential people to yet another conference, but with a little help from some influential friends such as Arthur Sulzberger, publisher of the New York Times, Richard and Lance managed to pull it off.
As a participant, I found the Forum had just the right duration – it was basically a very active 24 hours for a first gathering. In the future, I can imagine it lasting a bit longer. As for the time of the year, well, it’s not really the best season to be in NYC, but I guess this guarantees that people stay in, because it was extremely hot outside. It was the same formula as Davos, but in reverse: they keep participants inside Congress Center because it’s way too cold.
Highlights? Rupert Murdoch having the cojones to say that America needs oil and “we did not buy Alaska to save the moose.” As opposite as this view is from mine, I have to confess that I found it funny. As to what I would do to improve The New York Forum, I’d maybe balance the views. While Murdoch complained that Obama was way left of center, I would say that if the center is Fox News, so am I, and that there are a lot of people in New York City and even around the world who would like to see somebody like Hillary Clinton join in and debate the right of center tone of the conference. I leave you with a video I filmed of the event. I’m in at some point telling the story of Fon.
2010 11
My video review of the Dell Streak
Published by MartinVarsavsky.net in Internet & Technology with No Comments
My first impressions using a Dell Streak are very positive. As I use Mac, this is the first Dell product I use. At 5 inches it’s big but still fits in your pocket. Dell has adapted Android to the larger dimensions and the whole experience is more comfortable. Forget about the m in your URL, you can browse normally. The 5 MP camera is great for videos an pictures, it comes with edit software. Compared to the Asian versions of Android the Dell Streak feels like one of those comfortable American hotel rooms, where everything, from the bed onwards is bigger and easier. Using the Dell Streak you feel grateful for the roominess of the whole experience. On the negative it uses an unusual charging cable and the power button is too close to the camera button, you have to train not to try to take a picture and turn off the phone. By the time it comes out it will probably have Froyo which is faster. It is the biggest smartphone in the market, but it is thin and light, much smaller than an iPad as you will see in the video.
I apologize for my voice in the video btw. I have a cold.
2010 10
I am looking for an assistant
Published by MartinVarsavsky.net in General with No Comments
I tweeted that I needed an assistant and I am getting many emails from candidates who do not qualify for the job. This is mostly because of their poor English. So before I go to sleep here’s a quick description of what I need in an assistant.
Matias Bergmann my assistant of many years is moving on. I am looking for a replacement. Matias is helping me in the selection process.
In the past I have either had either experienced assistants or inexperienced ones who were on to their first jobs but showed tremendous promise. The salary ranges from say 1000 euros a month for a student to 3000 a month for an experienced candidate. The candidate needs to be at least bilingual Spanish and English with emphasis on English. The short description for the candidate could be “a well organized techie with good writing, analytical skills and a willingness to learn”. The job goes from the most boring (travel arrangements, logistics) to more exciting tasks such as communications strategy, event organizing, recruiting and investment screening/analysis. It may also include some travel. Please send your CV and a sample of your writing skill or any work that may be online or send over email to martinvars@me.com. Position is in Madrid. Please do not apply if you don’t live in Madrid or can legally move to Madrid.
2010 2
Does Israel have the right to exist as a country?
Published by MartinVarsavsky.net in Middle East with No Comments
I wrote an article in my Spanish blog in which I condemned the actions of the government of Israel. In that article, I argued that instead of boarding the ships, the Israeli forces should have waited until it approached its destination, and then, if anything, leave the boat rudderless, unable to operate, but not kill anyone.
I also argued that Israel, especially in Spain, is constantly being attacked by the press, but that the EU and the US, who frequently violate human rights, are not. Spaniards are strongly anti Israel, and fail to see that Spain was part of the Iraqi invasion and the Afghanistan invasion, and that these two invasions have so far caused over half a million civilian deaths, and have hardly brought any progress to the citizens of those nations who keep dying. The Palestinian/Israeli conflict has had around 5000 deaths on both sides during the same period. One death is one too many, but I was just trying to say that Spain collaborates in wars that have resulted in 100 times as many deaths. I also commented that many of the tactics of the allied forces in Afghanistan and Iraq, including the use of missiles to kill families of suspected terrorists, including children and grandchildren, are completely inhumane methods of dealing with terrorism. It cannot be an accepted principle that placing bombs is terrorism and illegal while air bombardments with potential civilian targets is not. The allied forces engaged in torture and significant human rights violations, and Spain, among others, was an accomplice in this, and one can’t have a double standard, or be so harsh on Israel when it commits abuses, and not also be harsh on Spain. But the Spanish press remains lenient toward the allied forces and extremely critical of Israel.
Now, much to my surprise, many of the commentators on my Spanish blogs not only argued against the tactics of the Netanyahu government, which I also opposed, but argued against the mere existence of the State of Israel which they see as an illegal country that should be “returned to the Palestinians”. I was shocked by this in the sense that I believe, like many, in the two state solution along the lines of the Oslo Accord.
So in order to get some objective measure, I have decided to ask the same question in my English blog.