Archive for September, 2006

The new context conference

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Today I’m attending “The New Context Conference” a conference organized by Joi Ito and Digital Garage. If you’re outside of Japan you might not have heard about the conference, but it appears to be very well publicised here in Japan.

Jun Muari is speaking in a hall attended by about 300 people. He’s talking about the future of the internet, the current infrastructure of the internet and its current health.

The conference is also well attended by other interent luminaries, David Isenberg and Lawrence Lessig are two name that I know off the top of my head.

September 27th, 2006

I made a mistake. I didn’t arrive in Japan on Tuesday. I just landed today, Wednesday. I haven’t had a chance to get used to the time, but I’d love to get together again with all my friends. I’m going out on Friday (perhaps to Ageha?) and of course Saturday. If you want to join us, you know how to reach me.

Going to Japan, Mets are back.

I arrive in Japan Tuesday, September 26th for the final judgement in my case agaisn’t Soumushou. I’ll be in Tokyo, Osaka and Seoul, Korea where I’ll give a speech on VoIP security.

Mets are in the playoffs. I’ve always been a Mets fan. I grew up in Brooklyn. So I had no real allegiance to either the Mets or the Yankee’s. When I was playing little league the stars of my day were Mookie Wilson and Darryl Strawberry. I was a big fan of Jose Conseco too, but Jose played for Oakland. So as far as local talent went I wanted to be a Met.

I played baseball on the street where I lived. The church wall had a box spray painted on it. We used the box as our official strike zone and umpire. Bases were placed strategically in a diamond, first and third were in the middle of the street and second was on the opposite sidewalk. Pitcher stood in the middle of the street.

Whenever ever someone came up to bat we would scream out our names, “I’m Darryl Strawberry!” I would say, “I’m David Cone” the pitcher would shout back. No matter that we were actually on the same team. Despite the bases we only had one goal, home run. A home run meant hitting it over the parking garage. That meant not hitting it too far to the left or too far to the right, where we might break a window. Straight up and over. If we made it, the person who hit the ball, in his glory would have to claim the garage and retrieve it. Well worth it for the bragging rights.

I barely know the Mets lineup now, but when you grow up dreaming of becoming a Met it stays on your mind forever.

A year ago I was in Models, a sporting good store in NYC. They had an “authentic” remake of Darryl Strawberry’s jersey. Suddenly all my childhood memories came rushing back. I could be Darryl Strawberry. The home runs, the calm under fire…the price. Turns out they wanted $300 for the jersey. I’ve waited this long, I can wait a few more years I thought to myself.

Royalist Coup in Thailand?

This past weekend I was trying to get some work done in my local conglomerate owned cafe when I noticed a woman with a bracelet that said “long live the king.” Turns out she was from Thailand. I had no idea there was such a large royalist movement in Thailand. I was even more shocked when she said “we may have a civil war.” Huh? In Thailand? Obviously this women was nuts.

Or so I thought…today in the NY Times there is a story of an attempted coup while Thailand’s Prime Minister is here in NYC. Google has more news on the breaking story coup in Thailand.

Episode 1: On Entrepreneurship [video]


This is my first attempt to video blog about entrepreneurship. I need to be a bit more focused in what I talk about. I hope some of the resources in addition to the video will be helpful. The point I want to make is; information is critical. Seek it everywhere.

  • The links with a “*” next to it were mentioned in the video blog.
    • Techcrunch & Crunchnotes; a mostly unbiased source of information though too US focused.
    • Ehub; well meaning, but I can’t help to imagine 80% of the sites are doomed to failure
    • The Alarm Clock; who is getting funded and by whom
    • Om Malik; tech reporter turned entrepreneur. very opinionated. usually on point, sometimes not so much.
    • * Marketing Sherpa; great source for information and proven techniques from companies you know
    • * Seo Book; the blog and sales site of aaron wall
    • * Seo Blackhat; another aaron wall site explaining the more dubious techniques of seo blackhat’s.
    • Clickz; one of the oldest online marketing sites
    • * Seth Godin; buy all of his books and read his blog. and download idea virus.
    • Feld Thoughts; the blog of vc tom feld who invest in a lot of web2.0 type companies
    • Jeff Clavier; a angel investor / vc with a long history in the software industry
    • Creating Passionate Users; a must read for any entrepreneur
    • Signal vs Noise; the blog of a small group of entrepreneurs / software developers to managed to ‘get it right’
    • Mashable; another resource for new (mostly web2.0) tech companies are up to
      magazines;

    • * Inc; well worth the $9 subscribtion
    • * Business Week; just do it. great source for understanding the economy
    • * Wall Street Journal; very expensive subscription, but if you can afford it and are willing to read it online, try the online version.