A Mind Blowing Party

Last night I showed up at the party I thought Rachel Sklar had thrown for Fred Wilson's birthday. Ends up it was Rachel Sklar's birthday. Wait, I am confused. Fred Wilson raises money to get more young women into math and science instead of celebrating his birthday. I told you, he is a feminist! And this party was tied into that. So I can't be too off. Maybe the two share birthdays.

Going Backwards: FoodSpotting, FourSquare, Twitter, Facebook

Fractals: Apple, Windows 95, Netscape, Google, Facebook, Twitter
Twitter, FourSquare: Mobile Web Thingies
FoodSpotting Is The Next FourSquare
Fractals And FoodSpotting
Fractals: Mandelbrot

What do I mean by going backwards?

Microsoft started out as a software only company. Actually that was the genius of Bill Gates, otherwise his cofounder Paul Allen wanted to do both software and hardware. Microsoft could not have moved as fast if it had also done hardware. Smart. But. Down the line Microsoft has gone into hardware. The company fell comfortable enough that it felt compelled to get into hardware as well.

You Don't Need Billions To Take Care Of Your Family

Image via CrunchBaseThis news is heart warming to me. Now I wish a 200 billion dollar valuation upon Facebook. Zuck just warmed up my heart. If you think how minuscule the UN's budget is, this effort by the two mega billionaires Gates and Buffett stands out. And, believe me, money is the smaller part of the message, big as it is. The bigger part of the message is the gesture itself. This sends a loud message to the people in dire need, the people who are working to help them, and people who need to help them but are not. Poverty is truly an artificial thing. It can be made to go away. It doesn't take much. And it all starts with caring. Once you decide you care, things start to happen.

Chrome OS Taking Too Long To Show Up

Engadget: Google Chrome OS gets detailed, first laptops from Acer and Samsung coming mid-2011: it's ready to go almost right away .... Google says the limiting factor is actually how fast the user can move their hand ..... OS also supports multiple accounts with a guest account that runs in Incognito mode, and all user data is encrypted by default ..... the OS will be automatically updated every few weeks -- the goal is for it to get faster over time, not slower. ...... apps on the Chrome Web Store have to be built for HTML5 offline to work ..... Google Cloud Print, which allows you to print on your home printer from anywhere ..... new Verizon 3G plans for offline access -- you'll get 100MB of free data per month for two years ...... Intel-based machines from Acer and Samsung in mid-2011 -- and "thousands of Googlers" are using Chrome OS devices as their primary machines. ..... a modern riff on the "thin client" idea from the 90s -- an idea that Eric Schmidt himself pioneered while at Sun ..... "our instincts were right 20 years ago, but we didn't have the tools or technology."

Like a CIA guy says in The Bourne Ultimatum.

"How long?"

"An hour, Sir."

"That's too long!"

Microfinance: A Zero Trillion Dollar Industry

Eminem: Recovery

Assange: An Information Bin Laden? I Think Not

Image by New Media Days via FlickrFor the past week word was he was hiding in a cave in Great Britain. Now looks like he has been caught. If he had a lawyer he was in touch with on British soil, I mean. It was only a matter of time.

The only time I got alarmed was when he yesterday threatened to let go the thermonuclear weapon. He was going to give people the encryption key so they could see everything he had managed to get. I was not worried about more private talk important people might have had. There were information sources in countries with shady regimes. If they knew who you were, you likely disappeared, and not voluntarily like Assange did.