Path + Instagram + Color

Image by jdlasica via FlickrMark Zuckerberg is obviously the man to watch. The guy wants nothing less than to own the decade. I am not sure the decade can be owned by any one person, but I have no doubts he will be one of the people who will.

TechCrunch: Exposed: Facebook’s Secret iPhone Photo Sharing App (Which Looks Amazing): Path meets Instagram meets Color meets (Path’s new side project) With — with a few cool twists. And obviously, it’s built entirely on top of Facebook’s massive social graph.

Behold: Facebook’s Secret Photo Sharing App Facebook, which is by far the largest photo service on the Internet with close to 100 billion photos, to make their own dedicated photo app. ..... Facebook’s focus on mobile photos going forward is very clear. ..... Given their talk of commitment to HTML5, Facebook likely wants to make an app that is as portable as possible. That is, while it may be built first for iOS, it can easily be ported to Android and other platforms with the HTML5 elements in place. ........ Instagram co-founder Kevin Systrom was once approached by Mark Zuckerberg about working at Facebook way back in 2004 ...... Systrom declined the invitation, and now Zuckerberg is a Instagram user ....... the location elements, likes and comments, multi-picture mode, filters, multi-user albums, face-tagging, and more

What's Up With Pictures?

This is Mark Zuckerberg showing Bill Gates tendencies.

Bloomberg On Immigration

Image via WikipediaI am a living martyr to the cause. The immigration laws in this country are so fucked up, it's not even funny. We might as well bring back Jim Crow to take race relations to new Tea Party heights.

Ugh, Immigration (4)

I understand racism. I understand the need to keep people away from your dinner table. But that is not what is going on. The current immigration laws in this country are designed to keep food away from the American tables.

Paul Graham, Brad Feld, Me, BBC

For the past few years I have been flapping my wings on the beach like one of those birds that became victims to some oil spill while lesser tech entrepreneurs have swam into the ocean depths, flown into the sky. How much window shopping can you do? I wear the glorious title of tech consultant.

Independent For Bloomberg

The immigration bureaucracy in this country moves at Third World speeds. They had me disappear the precise day the national primary ended in 2008. They feared I might miss the message. Fuck the machine. We are the machine now. My guy is in the White House. When they released me six months later, they gave me a court date in Chicago. They still feared I might miss the message. A change of venue for something like that is automatic, but they would not grant me that. In June 2009 they gave me a court date for June 2011. That too has been postponed. If they give me a new court date for 2013, I am going to think there is a Tea Party conspiracy going on.

Apple Going After Google's Cloud? Facebook Going After Apple With HTML5

Image via CrunchBaseJust yesterday I was reading this post and found myself shaking my head.

TechCrunch: “It Just Works.”: Apple is now going all-in with their cloud strategy. But they’re not doing it by simply tacking on cloud storage to their existing arsenal of products. They’re attempting to redefine what the “cloud” is..... With iCloud, Apple is transforming the cloud from an almost tangible place that you visit to find your stuff, to a place that only exists in the background. It’s never seen. You never interact with it, your apps do — and you never realize it. It’s magic. ....... Amazon, has essentially turned it into one giant server/hard drive that anyone can use for a fee ...... Apple’s belief is clearly that users will not and should not care how the cloud actually works. ...... You’re working on a document in Pages on your iPad, you move over to Pages on your Mac, and there it is. It even remembers where you were last editing. You download a song to your iPhone, you pick up your iPad, there it is. ....... With iPad/iPhone and now OS X Lion, you don’t save documents anymore. They save automatically — but an easier way to think about it is that they just exist, as is, in realtime on all your devices. ....... Files are something Microsoft worries about. Files in the cloud are something Google and Amazon worry about. Apple’s iCloud is about opening an application and the thing you want to access being there. ...... Chrome OS is perhaps the closest thing to Apple’s iCloud vision. When you boot up a Chromebook and enter your password, everything appears. Again, like magic. ...... this is the point where we may really start to see some truly fundamental differences between Google and Apple after the past few years going head-to-head with feature matching. Apple is going after consumers who have absolutely no idea what the cloud is, and don’t care. ........ Apple has rethought and rewritten their apps — including their desktop apps — from the ground up to be woven with iCloud fabric that a user won’t see. ..... And Apple doesn’t believe that Google can match them even if they wanted to because they don’t have complete control of their ecosystem in the same way that Apple does. ...... Apple is now more clearly than ever betting that will not be web software, but native software backed invisibly by the web.

Steve Jobs is a living legend, and rightly so. At one point I compared him to Mozart, although it was an impulsive move on my part, I would not do it again. But I have some fundamental philosophical differences with the guy. I am not big on native software and that is why I think HTML5 is such good news.

Outsourcing Software Development To India

"Talking to you about software is like talking to the Maoists of Nepal about politics. They have a script they will read out of, and they will keep repeating themselves until either you give up or you give in. There is no conversation."
- An email I sent recently to someone in India

It can be done, it is a good idea, but there is no magic bullet. You have to know what you are getting into. If you attitude is, build me the best travel site in the world, and I have 5,000 dollars, and see you in two months, you are starting on the wrong foot. Your dreams will be dashed.

Sexy Beach Dancers Flash Mob In Israel

(Via Yael Morowati)

Ugh, Immigration (4)

Ugh, Immigration (3)

Robin Hood: My German Nickname
Immigration Court Date: June 6, 2011: Prepared Statement
Questions Prepared By My Lawyer For Immigration Court Date Tomorrow

Tim Berners-Lee: The Internet Is Not A Country

Internet Society Event

Tim Berners-Lee was the first key speaker. I raised my hand to ask a question. I had asked the exact same question to Vint Serf who I had spotted half an hour before the event began. Vint said he was George Washington, Tim might be the Thomas Jefferson, and then went on to offer small tidbits about some of the other Founding Fathers. Vint was in a jolly mood.

I asked my question and Tim's mood went foul. What was the question?

"I think of the Internet as literally the new country. This is the Internet Century. America is Europe. The Internet is America. My question is which of you - Tim, Vint - is Thomas Jefferson?"

The Internet is not a country, Tim said. If you do something fraudulent, you end up in a jail, a real jail, he said.

That cracked me up. I laughed. He knows not who he talks to, I thought.

Internet Society Event

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Internet Week: Final Day: June 13

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Robin Hood: My German Nickname

A German newspaper called me Robin Hood On The Internet when I was in the thick of my democracy work for Nepal early in 2006. First it was a newspaper article. Apparently that drew some interest. I got an email saying a whole bunch of radio stations in Germany wanted a piece of me. So I showed up at their studio near Grand Central and did the interview. I don't have a copy. But I got told there would be voice over in German, totally understandable.

"Robin Hood Im Internet"

Around the same time I overslept through a BBC talk program where I was supposed to call in. I felt bad.

BBC Calls

When I got called Robin Hood in 2006, I was simply amused. Wow, of all things you would call me that? But now I think I could use that nickname as I gear up to do microfinance work.

If it were not for the fucked up immigration laws in this country, I'd already be on my way.

Paul Graham, Brad Feld, Me, BBC

The Mourning Period

The mourning period in many cultures lasts about a year.

What is the mourning period for Jews 11 months or 12 months?
Answer:The total period is 12 months.

Mourning - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Wearing black clothes is one practice followed in many countries ..... anniversary of the passing of .... Hinduism ..... Death is not seen as the final "end", but is seen as a turning point in the seemingly endless journey of the indestructible "atman" or soul through innumerable bodies of animals and people. Hence, Hinduism prohibits excessive mourning or lamentation upon death, as this can hinder the passage of the departed soul towards its journey ahead: "As mourners will not help the dead in this world, therefore (the relatives) should not weep, but perform the obsequies to the best of their power." ...... begins immediately after the cremation of the body and ends on the morning of the thirteenth day. Traditionally the body is cremated within 24 hours after death; however, cremations are not held after sunset or before sunrise. Immediately after the death, an oil lamp is lit near the deceased, and this lamp is kept burning for three days. Hinduism associates death with ritual impurity for the immediate blood family of the deceased, hence during these mourning days, the immediate blood family must not perform any religious ceremonies (except funerals), must not visit temples or other sacred places, must not serve the sages (holy men), must not give alms, must not read or recite from the sacred scriptures, nor can they attend social functions such as marriages, parties, etc. The family of the deceased is not expected to serve any visiting guests food or drink. It is customary that the visiting guests do not eat or drink in the house where the death has occurred. The family in mourning are required to bathe twice a day, eat a single simple vegetarian meal, and try to cope with their loss..... On the morning of the thirteenth day, a Shraddha ceremony is performed. ..... Islam .... Loved ones and relatives are to observe a three-day mourning period ..... Buddhism ..... For the deceased it marks the moment when the transition begins to a new mode of existence within the round of rebirths. When death occurs all the karmic forces that the dead person accumulated during the course of his or her lifetime become activated and set about determining the next rebirth. For the living,
Image via Wikipediadeath is a powerful reminder of the Buddha's teaching on impermanence; it also provides an opportunity to assist the deceased person as he or she fares on to the new existence.

Joi Ito Goes To MIT Media Lab

My friend in Kathmandu Ashutosh Tiwari, Harvard graduate, CEO of the Nepali Times in Kathmandu, founder of Entrepreneurs For Nepal, among other hats, had a Facebook update this morning that caught my attention.

Joi Ito had just been appointed Director of the MIT Media Lab, and that was considered unusual, because the guy apparently had dropped out of not one but two colleges, Tufts, and the University of Chicago.

I left a comment. Joi Ito? The name sounds vaguely familiar. Then I went over to the Wikipedia article on him.

Pick Up That Bag

Barackface

Barack Obama said to Charlie Rose in 2007: "Only a few years back people were throwing keys at me in the parking lot."

So I am at this event Wednesday afternoon. And I don't even drink wine.

A Few More Events?

When it was time to get started, and people started to sit down, I saw an empty spot and took the seat. A little later one woman, then another came to get their bags. I was too busy tweeting away to give much attention. But my first thought was, oh no, did I just take someone else's seat?

"Was this your seat? You can have it," I said each time. And went right back to tweeting when the response was, "No, that's okay."