English: Citizens for Clean Energy Logo (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Clean Energy is the missing link to the world getting rid of poverty. China has showed the way. And now India is on a war path to double digit growth rates. That is bigger news than China getting there because, well, India is the largest democracy, and democracy is supposed to be the superior political system. Think of it, the problem in India has been not enough democracy. Corruption and democracy don't go hand in hand.
The political roadmap is clear. The economic roadmap is clear. The policy roadmap is clear. But you can't have India and Africa eat up the blue sky like China did. And neither are going to wait. They will pollute their way out of poverty if they have to. So the scientists of the world really have their work cut out for them. I don't care where they are. America, China, India. Does not matter. Clean energy has to happen.
The thing about clean energy is, not only will it give economic growth without pollution, it will give economic growth itself. In their rush to clean energy that makes economic sense, all countries from America to India to China will add a percentage point or two to their growth rates. So bring it on, scientists.
English: ESAF Microfinance Geographical Coverage in India (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
I don't think of microfinance as charity. I think of it as big business, like a hundred billion dollar business. How many companies in the world are past $100 billion in market value? Exactly.
China grew at double digit rates for close to three decades, no recession, nothing. That is magical. Well, America could not do that because, when you are America, you grow by inventing the industries of tomorrow. And that is hard to do. But when you are China in 1980, you are not having to do that. You grow at double digit rates because all you are having to do is catch-up. And India is about to realize that. I hope Africa is next after India. As in, Africa also starts growing at double digit rates by 2020. Political leadership is key.
People who avail of microfinance are like China in 1980. Only these are individuals and families, not countries. They can do well as business entities. Investing in them is smart.
I am super interested in this sector. Entrepreneurs are my favorite people. I'd like to service a ton of them. Entrepreneurs at the low end stand to transform this world like few others.
Done right this is about getting the Aam Aadmi (the common "man") in the rich countries to contribute a few hundred to a few thousand dollars as investments and touching lives a few hundred dollars at a time at the other end.
A for profit company is not a bad idea. A for profit company with strong social boundaries. The goal has to be to keep the interest rate as low as possible. But the for profit part is it has to have the efficiency of a well run corporation.
Would it be possible to build cities in the Amazon forest without disturbing the flora and fauna? Cities that are the bedrock of the biotech industry that is 100% dependent on the Amazon. These cities might be the best guards of the forest. They will keep the Amazon going strong.
The cities will probably rely a lot on the Amazon for its transportation needs. Water transportation would be key.
You would not be allowed to clear the forest. Which means no ground floors. You sink in pillars and raise them up, and your floor is up there. There can't be roads. Which means your way out of the city is through the river. The exit is to the river. No noisy airports allowed. But hydro dams should provide plenty of clean electricity.
There would be a lot of glass walls. Perhaps all external walls would be glass walls. There would be so much to see. Why would you deprive yourself!
I guess you could go tall with the buildings: more things to see! And if you go tall enough, you might even be allowed a helipad or two. The choppers would have a minimum height they would not be allowed to descend below. There would be drones flying around to bring in real time video feeds of parts of the forest you might want to see.
There would be forest floor see-cubicles. You go down there, and you look around, and you see. It is all glass in all directions down there.
What would a walk in the park mean in such a city?
I guess you could be allowed electric drones that would fly you around in the canopies. Cars for the forest city. No noise, no exhaust.
If you build the city tall enough, taller than the tallest trees, you could then erect a much bigger city up there.
So if the tall trees are 200 feet, and one story is 10 feet, after 20 stories, you could then build big buildings. But the ground is probably soft, it might not sustain too tall buildings.
These cities would be sustainable hugely because biotech is big money. And these cities would in turn sustain the forest itself.
You would go from city to city in speed boats in the Amazon river.
This guy is one of the best actors out there. I'd put him right up there with Al Pacino, maybe. He is awesome.
Of course, first I saw him in No Country For Old Men. He was scary, downright. And I am a guy who has thought of horror movies as makeup melodramas since when I was young.
Then I saw him in Biutiful. He has done it so right I thought maybe he grew up in Mexico. How can you get the Third World thing so perfect if you did not grow up there?
And I just learn he is married to Penelope Cruz. When did that happen?
Three very different movies. Such superb performances.
I had no idea Woody Allen was still making movies. He should not stop.
The fact that Spain’s most eagerly followed couple chose to have a discreet ceremony with only family present (the bride wore Galliano) is hardly surprising. What is remarkable is that they managed to keep it a secret from the world’s press. ...... are not only worshipped fiercely in their native country – both were the first two Spaniards to be nominated for, and later win, Academy Awards – they are also fast becoming two of the most respected actors in Hollywood, with a glamour that threatens to dim even Brad and Angelina’s. ....... the couple are clearly planning to maintain their dignified silence about their private lives ......... 'Being famous in your own country is fun at first because you’re 20 years old and everyone is giving you all this attention,’ he explains, recalling the clamour that followed Jamón, 'but after a couple of months, I said: “This is bad, there is nothing good in this”, and I still think the same. ...... When Al Pacino saw the film he called up director Julian Schnabel to get Bardem’s number. In the middle of the night, he left a message on Bardem’s answerphone in Madrid, saying that he wanted to tell him straightaway how much he loved the movie. Bardem, who is fond of saying that 'I don’t believe in God; I believe in Al Pacino’, was astonished. 'I keep that tape with me,’ he says. 'It’s one of the most beautiful gifts I have ever received. I don’t care whether it’s a lie or not, whether he was just being nice.’ ......... Fresh from his success as the Coen brothers’ horribly convincing coin-flipping murderer, Roberts had doubts about the casting of Bardem in a romantic role. But she says these were dispelled when she met him on set 'and the image of that killer went straight out of my head. He’s so sweet and funny.’ ...... 'Really, I don’t see this heart-throb thing at all,’ he counters, rubbing at his stubble and sounding every bit the archetypal heart-throb. 'I don’t get it and that’s why I work so hard to try and make people believe it, like in Vicky Cristina Barcelona, with Scarlett [Johansson], Pen [Cruz] and Rebecca [Hall], where I was like: “Who in the world is going to believe that they are killing each other for me, man?”’ ....... With his warm brown eyes and smile, though, he exudes huge charisma and charm; whether he believes it or not, Eat Pray Love will only increase his allure with the opposite sex. ....... His No Country co-star Josh Brolin said: 'The first four or five days on set, Javier was creepily quiet. He’d made a choice to stay as white as he could, out of the sun. He wanted to isolate.’ ....... 'I thought the Brando of our time would have no interest in Glee but Javier was obsessed. He really wants to play a rock 'n’ roll star,’ Murphy says. ..... In one memorable scene she helps Cruz give birth on a bus, cutting the umbilical cord with her teeth. ..... Since I began in 1989 I’ve always taken a lot of time from one movie to another, some times a few months, sometimes 18 months, because I knew from the beginning that this is not a sprint, it’s a marathon. ...... He’s firm in his refusal to discuss his new bride, or his old flames, and yet he’s generous elsewhere. He is still delighting in his country’s win at the World Cup and expresses genuine solace at England’s miserable elimination. ......... 'I’ve always said that playing rugby in Spain is like being a bullfighter in Japan,’ he laughs. 'No one does it. But I loved rugby – but you have to quit if you want to work as an actor. I did Jamón, jamón and it was a great success and from then on playing – the other teams were always going: “He is the guy from Jamón, jamón, let’s beat him up.”’ ....... 'With No Country, I was the only foreigner on the set. You don’t feel like you want to kill someone. But you feel disconnected. The Coen brothers were treating me nicely. But beyond that I felt: what the hell am I doing there? And that actually connected me directly with the character. But if I gave that to Chigurh or Chigurh to me, I don’t know. But it does show that you should always listen to your mother!’
a movie that takes seriously (or for that matter has fun with) a woman’s autonomy, her creativity, her desire for something other than a mate. ...... post-divorce globe-trotting ..... the essential tension between Liz’s longing for independence and her desire to be loved ....... television is, at the moment, a braver and more radical medium than the movies.
how sometimes 'fiction takes place in your reality, and it’s bigger than you, stronger than you, and even if you are aware of it, it happens’. ....... 'sitting down and putting death itself in a chair and talking to it’. ..... acting royalty, having known each other since working together on one of Spain’s most successful films, Jamón Jamón, in 1992, and then reunited on celluloid nearly 20 years later in Woody Allen’s Vicky Cristina Barcelona. ..... Because they are a national obsession in Spain, both have remained intensely private about their lives together, and it is made clear before our interview that Bardem will not speak about their relationship. ....... his physical presence, so intense on screen, is much more understated in real life. He has that rare quality, that only a few really great actors do, of appearing almost disappointingly anonymous when you meet them, until with a certain gesture, or perhaps a laugh, their star voltage is made unsettlingly apparent. ......... Bardem is an easy person to be with, relaxed and personable. His English is fluent, although strongly accented, and his voice is startlingly deep (so much so that listening to the recording of the interview later, it sounds wavery, the pitch almost too low for the machine to pick up). He is immediately curious ('why is everyone wearing these red flowers on their jackets?’) but one cigarette is enough and he soon hurries me inside. 'I’m Spanish, I’m freezing!’ ...... Uxbal is an extremely hard part to play, a complex, multi-layered character who is on screen in almost every scene of the film. When Bardem first read the script he rang Iñárritu and said, 'I don’t know if I’m going to survive because what you are proposing is not a movie, it’s a life experience.’ ...... Bardem brings a dignity and restraint to Uxbal, who longs only for his children to be provided for, all the while terrified that they won’t remember him. ...... Before filming started at the end of 2008 Bardem spent a month doing research, which included meeting immigrants and 'visiting these forgotten, invisible places of Barcelona, where you can sit down and listen to people’s stories, which they are anxious to tell. I went to one broken old building where there are living 50, 60 people, and some of them were really suspicious, edgy, but little by little they got into the conversation and we all ended up having dinner.’ ...... You’re there to help portray that situation as an actor, you’re not a politician.’ ...... The guy’s very, very smart and he’s down to earth and he works super-hard. He’s a great listener, and he’s got an incredible sense of humour. He’s a sponge, he can assimilate any kind of thing. He can take whatever information you give him and turn it into something else.’ He stops to consider for a moment, then laughs. 'He can probably weave straw into gold.’ ........ Because I played rugby for so long, I really clicked very well in the team of a movie set.’ ....... 'I was the only foreign guy on the whole set, and being in deep Texas is a hard place for a Spaniard to be. But I felt I was looking for that isolation also, as a way to understand my character. And even though I was with the Coen brothers, who are great guys, and Josh Brolin, who is a funny and amazing man, I couldn’t really connect with them.’ ....... 'I am here because some people placed their trust in me.’ ..... It was on the set of Vicky Cristina Barcelona that Bardem and Cruz were rumoured to have fallen in love.
Every city now seems to have a silicon something or other – whether it be London’sSilicon Roundabout, Berlin’s Silicon Allee or the Silicon Slopes of Salt Lake City....... My own experience with Zendesk, however, leaves me convinced that, at present at least, the original Silicon Valley remains the best place for budding tech startups looking to take their business to the next level. ..... there are deeply rooted cultural issues. Take Denmark’s famous law of Jante – an aversion to seeking or celebrating individual success ..... European startups raised more than $2.8bn in the last quarter of 2014 and are just as likely as their American counterparts to reach the hallowed ground of the Initial Public Offering (IPO). ..... Venture capital invested in US tech reached $8.67bn in 2013 compared with just $1.44bn in Europe. ..... There is still a perception of Europe as being overly bureaucratic, a perception that Europe sometimes reinforces. Take the EU’s tech-hub in San Francisco, catchily named the European Institute of Innovation and Technology Information and Communication Technology Labs (EIT ICT labs to friends). ..... Another thing holding Europe back is the persistent idea that failure is something to be ashamed of. This flies in the face of Silicon Valley’s fail fast, fail often mantra. Speaking from experience, failure has been a necessary and useful step on the road to success. For Americans, failure is a rite of passage. ...... Take SongKick – a great live music startup based in London. London is the world’s biggest live music hub, so why would they want to move?
tech businesses now need the energy, talent and diversity of the world’s megacities to thrive ...... Not a week goes by in the world of tech without someone heralding the globe’s next Silicon Valley – from New York City to Norwich, London to Lagos, the list goes on....... But the real story here is not the next Valley, it’s the death of the tech cluster as we know it...... started with the founders; a concentration of white, middle-class, socially awkward geeks, inseparable from their Macbooks. ....... If you have ever tried to visit the likes of Apple or Google in the heart of Silicon Valley you will know it is not an easy place to get to.... Back in its heyday, the Valley’s isolation from the rest of the status-quo of banks, big business and city life allowed it to thrive, think bigger and build world-changing companies. ...... In the new wave of tech centres no other city has raced ahead of the pack with this trend like New York. ...... In the Far East many look to Hong Kong which draws upon decades of experience as a world financial capital. It also boasts unbeatable access to China, the world’s biggest market. ....... This new generation of tech companies outside the Valley are less fixated with first-world problems like taking a selfie that looks like it has been taken with a vintage camera. These companies are disrupting centuries-old systems put in place by the establishment........ The key here is existing industries. ...... 6.5% of the world’s billion-dollar exits between 2005–12 were companies from Sweden. Again the majority of these success stories draw upon the city’s existing strengths in music, the arts and gaming. ....... Despite being on the doorstep of the Valley, San Francisco has fast become a magnet for tech talent drawn to the big city. The shift away from the Valley has become so strong that the likes of Google and Yahoo based over 30 miles away operate shuttle buses to move employees back and forth to their campuses each day. ...... Isolated clusters cannot fight the tide of talent flocking towards the bright lights of cities. San Francisco’s expensive and unpopular commuter buses are perhaps the best sign of the times, while pundits obsess over the next Silicon Valley, the world’s megacities are marching ahead.
