Netizen

Wednesday, February 25, 2015

A City In The Amazon

The Ultimate Megacity: 100 Million People

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.

Tuesday, February 17, 2015

Vicky Cristina Barcelona

I just watched this amazing movie: Vicky Cristina Barcelona.

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.

At sea with Javier Bardem

Sailing lifts people out of their normal parameters of understanding; it makes them question their place in the world, because their feet and their brains need time to adjust to their new reality. (Spend enough time at sea and land becomes the alien place.) For some people, the idea is too much to bear, and their sensory systems become overloaded and they throw up their lunch. For other people, the feeling becomes addictive. They learn to love the sensation of being just a little off-balance. It's as though they can find the truth about themselves only when they can't find their feet. ...... "These are the guys you should be writing about," Bardem says, nodding at the doctors. "They should be on the cover of your magazine. They save lives. I only make movies. The world is a funny place. It doesn't make any sense." ...... He looked like Javier Bardem: everything oversized — his eyes, his nose, that enormous head — his black hair swept down over his brow, a thick growth of whiskers on his face. He did not look as though he were dying. He looked tanned, robust, relaxed. Javier Bardem looked built to last, half man, half monument. ....... I'm pretty sure my voice cracked when I said thanks for the most delicious Coke I will ever drink. She had just woken up, and she was fresh out of the shower, her wet hair still slicked back. She wasn't wearing makeup, but her skin was flawless. Her eyes were bright, and her teeth were perfect, and she was wearing a top that revealed her brown shoulders. ......... No wonder Bardem thinks he's dying. His heart must stop a thousand times a day. ......... He apologized many times for his English; he didn't need to. He talked about his reticence for publicity, how he thinks of himself as a working actor, not a celebrity. ........ He talked about his doubts and fears and insecurities, this Oscar-winning actor who had just married Penélope Cruz. He talked about his dream of one day working with Al Pacino — "but I doubt that will ever happen" — and how he would love to play Pablo Escobar and Cortez the Killer. ..... but that he would like to talk about Biutiful. "I think it's a masterpiece," he said, "and it needs help." ...... When Bardem first saw 21 Grams — the Mexican director Alejandro González Iñárritu's debut English-language film — he had the same feeling in his stomach. He stumbled out of the theater. "I remember, I almost got hit by a car walking out after," he says. "I was so moved by it. I wasn't right for a week." So Bardem was eager when he was offered the lead role in Iñárritu's Biutiful. "They are only movies," he says, "but I want to make movies that count for something." The character he plays, a dying man named Uxbal, has scratched out a life on desperate margins, but he is a man who has also maintained an unlikely moral center — like Anton Chigurh, like Bardem himself. "I believe in a man having a code," he says. Bardem is unforgiving when wronged; he believes in doing a job well; he commits entirely, but he does not commit himself often. He is selective, and he will always be careful. "How much money do you need?" he asks. ......... Biutiful is a nearly perfect movie, and Bardem carries nearly every frame of it. It's not an easy movie; it's not entertainment. There are dead children in it, and drugs, and blood filling the toilet bowl. ...... Movies don't save lives, but they can change them. The best of them can make you want to be better than you are. ..... For some reason, I suddenly realize that it has been more than two months since I have seen rain. Where is my head? I can't dream of getting into my car. I wander the streets for an hour or so before I feel as though my feet are my own again. That can happen when people grow old, or get sick, or drink too much. That can happen when they fall in love.

The Actor as Architect of a Role

“I watched my mother act all my life, and yet I wasn’t attracted to acting as such,” he recalled recently. “What attracted me was my mother’s effort, her dedication, the seriousness of the work, the desire to do something. But what that something was didn’t matter to me. It could just as well have been painting or writing or even rugby.” ....... Leading directors regularly offer him juicy parts, and he has worked in widely varied roles with many of the most distinguished names in film ..... “I think the best actors are those who are not only talented, but work harder than anybody else ....... He’s got a deep interior life going on, but he’s so immersed in the thing he does, with such concentration, with so many different buttons he can press, from humor to despair, that he becomes that, and it doesn’t even look like he is acting.” ....... But nothing, according to Mr. Bardem, has ever tested him — physically and mentally — or required greater effort and dedication more than “Biutiful,” a drama ........ said he wrote the part specifically for Mr. Bardem, the first time he had ever cast a role in advance. ...... “Physically Javier possesses an attraction that is tremendously magnetic and kinetic,” Mr. González Iñárritu said. “On the one hand, he has the primitive force of the minotaur, the strength of a bull crossed with a man, along with a face that contains the essence of the Mediterranean, that looks like it could be that of a Caesar on a Roman coin. But he also has the sensibility of a poet, an inner subtlety and emotional baggage, and it is those two sets of qualities that made him so particularly fitting to play this character.” ....... he describes his work as meticulously plotted in advance and in detail. Asked about a pair of especially moving moments in “Biutiful” in which his character, wrestling with mortality, does not speak at all, Mr. Bardem reached for a sheet of paper and proceeded to diagram the stages into which he had divided the two scenes. ........ “A character is like a building,” he explained. “I’ve never studied architecture, but I imagine that first you have to prepare the plans, lay down the base, a solid base that has to do with the character, and from there build it up. Once this is all clear, you can add the details: I want blue walls, I want wood floors, I want him to speak this way or move like that. But first you have to think.” ......... despite the growing acclaim for his body of work, he continues to study with an acting coach ....... Mr. Bardem not only consults with him as he prepares for each role but also attends his classes and workshops, where he is sometimes matched with beginning actors. ........ “Part of the work in preparing for his roles is always at the table, where we analyze the script, each word and each phrase, to try to understand the mind of that other person,” he explained. But Mr. Corazza also has Mr. Bardem do exercises designed to “prepare the canvas for painting” by “identifying and stripping away the habits, clichés and artificial aspects between him and the character, so he has the courage to find a freedom in his character.” ........ In addition to his mother, both of his maternal grandparents also were prominent actors, and one of his uncles, Juan Antonio Bardem, was a distinguished screenwriter and director ...... But Mr. Bardem tried at first to resist being pulled into the family trade. He played rugby as a boy, relentlessly and passionately, which gave him the broken bones to show for it and instilled the sense of teamwork that directors uniformly praise. When it came time to choose a career, however, he initially decided to go to art school, intending to become a painter. ...... To earn money for his studies he did small acting jobs on the side ..... But in his art classes he discovered that while he seemed to have talent, the only thing he wanted to draw was “faces, eyes, expressions and bodies,” not landscapes or abstract works. ...... “to get to the art, one must work very hard.” He added: “Art doesn’t exist just as talent. It exists as effort, work and judgment.”

Javier Bardem interview

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!’

Globe-Trotting and Soul-Searching

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.

Spanish inquisition: why Javier Bardem was haunted by his new film

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.

Monday, February 16, 2015

The Valley, Or Not, To Be

Silicon Valley is still the best place for your startup

Every city now seems to have a silicon something or other – whether it be London’s Silicon 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?

Goodbye Silicon Valley: why tech startups are flocking to megacities

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.

The Vivek Wadhwa I Know Is A Feminist

DAVOS/SWITZERLAND, 28JAN11 - Sheryl Sandberg, Chief Operating Officer, Facebook, USA; Young Global Leader are captured during the session 'Handling Hyper-connectivity' at the Annual Meeting 2011 of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, January 28, 2011. Copyright by World Economic Forum swiss-image.ch/Photo by Jolanda Flubacher (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I am not even aware of the full conversation, but I caught a snippet first on his Facebook page, then on Twitter. Strange things are known to happen in social media. You don't have to be female to be feminist. And for me the term is like saying someone is a civil rights activist. Sheryl Sandberg is a feminist, in my book. And Vivek getting called the opposite --- well, it is fun! Really. I am like, really? He is a rare man who makes intelligent, well thought out, numbers supported cases for why women should get more in tech. Few men cheer women, fewer still make strong, well thought out cases. Vivek is in the rare category. That is the truth. But don't let truth get in your way. Enjoy Twitter! It is the experience.

@ElissaBeth having seen backlash @wadhwa has received, I'm not sure it is worth it for men to stand up for women's rights. I hope I'm wrong.
— Sahil M. Bansal (@SMB06) February 15, 2015

Looks like the spat even got colorful!

.@ncweaver And are you helping women by spreading such slander? When professors meet students, is there a threat to the student?
— Vivek Wadhwa (@wadhwa) February 15, 2015

My response to the podcast that unfairly attacked me

Vivek Wadhwa is not just another dude who writes articles. He is the smartest dude in Silicon Valley. Yes, I did say that. He talks in terms of the trillion dollar industries of tomorrow, in ways only a free thinker can. Top tech CEOs in the Valley can not afford to. They need their horse cart blinders to keep their focus on the narrow stretch that is their company.

The funny thing is, he is not only on the cutting edges of innovation, he is also on the cutting edges of gender in tech. Take his name out and circulate his articles on the topic and compare them to writings on the same topic by top rated feminists. His are more effective. He is outdoing wo-men on gender! That is no small feat.

But a little color on Twitter never hurt.

This is a dude that I want sitting on my company's Board at the earliest possible opportunity. For the record.

The Tragedy of Losing Vivek Wadhwa as an Ally

The Unimaginative Motherfuckers Of The Old Economy

They say there is this cultural divide between California and New York City. All of Silicon Valley money comes from NYC. But California has the cultural advantage.

I have been aware of this. But I am staying put. Because, well, this is hometown. Also because the app I am working on -- this city is going to be the number one city for it. It will take your interactions with the city to a whole new plane.

And it is okay for the old economy to be in the backdrop. It is more than okay, it is actually very necessary. The apartment of AirBnb is old economy. Uber's cab is old economy. And they are just scratching the surface. The next wave of innovation in software is industry level. Which means we need people who can reimagine entire industries. Coders can be provided to them.

But when I say the unimaginative motherfuckers of the old economy, I am referring to this other type. Not only do they not get cutting edge innovation, they do not get the fundamentals of a tech startup, they actively act hostile given the opportunity. And there are a ton of those, plenty with Indian/brown faces, just to be fair. But it is equal opportunity, truly so. Like this guy on Wall Street who, believe it or not, wanted to do a tech startup, who would call VC money "funny money." Good luck with that. Or this dude who had a job where success was doubling the money every five years. Point be noted, money doubles on its own every seven years. All you have to do is not mess it up, just stay out of the way. Don't tinker. And he deals with big sums! I guess two years faster is still a margin, but then don't start commentaring on tech startups, in the negative, spilling one ignorance after another.

Very few people will do the tech startup thing. By definition. So it is not like you need 100% participation. And there is an affirmation you seek among other startup types. There is that ecosystem. It is a small island in a sea of the old economy, and that is the way it should be.

You do want to stay close to your average users. You do want to meet regular people.

But the unimaginative motherfuckers are a whole different thing. They lack it. They don't know it. And they will meddle if they can. Heck, they might even start a company!

Race, Gender And Tech Entrepreneurship