"Why We Send Troops to Afghanistan" by Kim Young-Hie

HatTip to Adrian H. Simply an excellent op-ed by South Korean journalist Kim Young-hie, so it gets a full post here...

Why we send troops to Afghanistan
Their eyes will be awakened to an entirely new world and their hearts inspired with a pioneering and enterprising spirit.

JoongAng Daily
February 27, 2010

South-Central Asia’s Silk Road, the crossroads of the continent and the focal point of the world’s oldest trade route, had taken ancient merchants, scholars, culture and soldiers from Asia to the Mediterranean Sea. The path to the south led to India, the one to the east lead to China, and to the north lay central Asia, home to nomadic tribes. In 330 B.C. Alexander the Great of Macedon raced through the region with his cavalry in his conquests in Persia and India. The area was reduced to a state of rubble by deadly Mongolian horseback archers led by Genghis Khan.

The harsh, inhospitable landlocked region borders China, Pakistan, Iran, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan and Tajikistan. A melting pot of diverse races has been hardened by years of invasions and hardship. Into this land we plan to send 350 South Korean military troops in the summer to help rebuild Afghanistan... (full op-ed)

Peace Market 2010: March 10th in NYC

If you're in NYC or will be in NYC on March 10, 2010, I highly encourage you to attend Peace Market 2010. It will be held at the M2 Ultralounge. More from their site:

"Join 1,000 remarkable friends and celebrities as the Peace Market transforms M2 into a market offering tastes, scents, sounds, and art from the Middle East and South Asia. Belly dancing, performances, video art, a Moroccan tea salon, a live auction, a hummus taste-off, the chance to meet inspiring Seeds of Peace graduates, and more will be revealed on this special night.

Seeds of Peace is proud to present Mr. Ozi Amanat and Mrs. Asema Ali Ahmed with the 2010 Young Peacemaker Award for their outstanding philanthropic work supporting youth leadership empowerment programs in South Asia and throughout the world."

News & Links List

"HBO's Young Entrepreneurs are (Adorably) Clueless" Inc.'s The Entrepreneurial Generation

"8 Types of People That Belong on Twitter" Inc.

"Italy Convicts Google Execs on Privacy Invasion Charges, Revisits Dark Ages" Fast Company

"Mall security guard accuses shopper of being a paedophile for photographing his own son" Boing Boing

"What’s a Dress Worth?
The online retailer Gilt Groupe offers a great deal: Buy designer clothes at deep discounts. But is it good or bad for fashion?" New York Magazine

"CBO Report Was Pre-Ordained to Show the Stimulus Succeeded" NRO's the corner

"The Right's Top 25 Journalists" The Daily Beast

"The Left's Top 25 Journalists" The Daily Beast

"'My heart, my choice,' Williams says, defending decision for U.S. heart surgery" The Canadian Press
Don't worry, Danny, Michael Moore would have done the same

"Tiger Woods Announces Return To Sex" The Onion

The Valley Girl Show: G Chahal Interview

Jesse Draper's interview with G Chahal...

The Oatmeal's How to Suck at Facebook

Friggin hilarious. The Oatmeal is a funny dude. Some excerpts, but check out the whole list here.

News & Links List

"Google's Aardvark acquisition: Questions for Buzz?" Gravity7

"Vudu Convinces Walmart to Pay Up: Why an Also-Ran Web Movie Service Sold for More Than $100 Million" WSJ' MediaMemo

"Denny's social-network plan may not be fully cooked" CNET

"Why we don't trust Devil Mountain Software (and neither should you)" ZDNet

"The Most Popular YouTube Videos and the Bloggers Who Embed Them" ReadWriteWeb

"9 quick tips for raising venture capital" VentureBeat

"Reid Hoffman Explains Putting His Angel Days Behind Him" peHUB

"Capitalism's Fundamental Flaw" Forbes, Sramana Mitra

"Transcript: Joseph Stiglitz
Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz discusses where capitalism went wrong and what its future iterations might be like." Forbes

"Wesbury Says Mark to Market was the Problem" (video) Forbes

"TED: Session 1" Young and Brilliant

"TED: All Notes" Young and Brilliant"

"Critical Issues at Davos" McKinsey Quarterly

"President's Envoy to Islamic Conference Admits Having Made Controversial '04 Remarks" ABC News' Political Punch

"A family and a conscience, destroyed by North Korea's cruelty" The Washington Post


"Tiger still playing by his own rules" ESPN's Bill Simmons
Spot on post by Simmons.

"Tiger Woods's half-apology" The Washington Post, John Feinstein

TEDTalk: Philip K. Howard on Four ways to Fix a Broken Legal System

Simply excellent. More on Philip Howard here.

TEDTalk: Bill Gates on Energy: Innovating to Zero!

At TED2010, Bill Gates unveils his vision for the world's energy future, describing the need for "miracles" to avoid planetary catastrophe and explaining why he's backing a dramatically different type of nuclear reactor. The necessary goal? Zero carbon emissions globally by 2050.

News & Links List

"Google: Android now shipping on 60,000 handsets per day" MobileCrunch

"The HTC Legend Traps Android 2.1 in Unibody Aluminum" Gizmodo

"Yoono brings order to the chaos of social media" CNET

"Is Google Maps Falling Behind Bing?" BNET

"Why can’t Nokia sell phones to Americans?" VentureBeat

"Microsoft Bets on Software Upgrade to Fight IPhone" BusinessWeek

"Top 10 Sources Of Funding For Start-ups" Forbes

"Windows Phone 7 Series: Everything Is Different Now" Gizmodo

"The Most Innovative Companies 2010" Fast Companies

"What ever happened to the dotcom millionaires?" BBC

"Ten GOP Health Ideas for Obama
We don't need to study lawsuit reform for one minute longer." wSJ

"Atlanta Anti-Abortion Billboards Cause Controversy, Say Black Children Are An 'Endangered Species'" The Huffington Post

"The TED v. Sarah Silverman Fight Turns Really Retarded" TechCrunch

"Why Women Don't Make It Up The Ladder" Forbes

"6 Shockingly Evil Things Babies Are Capable Of" Cracked.com

"Lisa Ling: Cast Your Pepsi Refresh Vote for LiNK"

Lisa Ling: Cast Your Pepsi Refresh Vote for LiNK from LiNK Global on Vimeo.

TED Reviews & Links

Unlike TED 2008, I didn't blog actively or daily this year. Some of reasoning was that I was only able to stay for two-thirds of the conference due to our twin girls. The other part of it was because I had work to do during the evenings and couldn't devote the mental energy to effectively reflect upon each day.

Anyway, here are some news and blog reviews of this year's TED:

"Wisdom: Roundup of TED2010, Session 12" TED Blog
Primarily a photo blog.

"David Cameron at TED" BusinessWeek's NEXT blog

"Heroes and Villains at TED" BusinessWeek's NEXT blog

"Thought experiments at TED" BusinessWeek's NEXT blog

"Sergey Brin on Google China at TED" BusinessWeek's NEXT blog

"Introducing TED Fellow: Daniel Zoughbie" BusinessWeek's NEXT blog

"Bill Gates Goes Nuclear" BusinessWeek's NEXT blog

"TED 2010: Halting Blood Vessels Key to New Cancer Treatment; Possibly Obesity" WIRED's Epicenter

"TED 2010: Reality Is Broken. Game Designers Must Fix It" WIRED's Epicenter

"TED 2010: The Price in Human Suffering of Being Open-Minded" WIRED's Epicenter

"TED 2010: Death Star Laser Gun Zaps Mosquitoes Dead" WIRED's Epicenter

"TED 2010: Google Optimistic It Can Remain in China" WIRED's Epicenter

"TED 2010: Wired for the iPad to Launch by Summer" WIRED's Epicenter

"TED 2010: Transformative Transparency" Fresh Influence blog

"TED 2010: Id and Identity Online" Fresh Influence blog

"TED 2010: Innovation NOW" Fresh Influence blog

"Jake Shimabukuro at TED2010" BoingBoing


"TED 2010 in 100 Tweets" Bill Gross

"Highlights from TED 2010, Day One" Brain Pickings

"Highlights from TED 2010: Day Two" Brain Pickings

"TED 2010 Day Three: A New Kind of Middle School and Bill Gates on Energy Miracles" HBR's Anthony Tjan

"TED 2010: Day 3" MIT Sloan Management Review

"TED 2010: Day 4 and Wrapup" MIT Sloan Management Review

"Kevin Bales at TED: We Can End Slavery" Tonic

"Notes From TED: Can Simplicity and Innovation Overcome Complexity and Cynicism?" The Huffington Post

"Bill Gates: We need global 'energy miracles'" CNN

"Ten big ideas from TED" CNN

TED Prize Winner: Jamie Oliver

I thought Jamie Oliver's wish was a good step forward for America. His talk with informative and inspiring. Jamie Oliver’s Wish:

“I wish for your help to create a strong, sustainable movement to educate every child about food, inspire families to cook again and empower people everywhere to fight obesity.”

More about the plan and needs are here.

CNN's coverage
"Food crusader to reveal secret wish" (video)

"Jamie Oliver: 'Eat your chips,' just not every day" (video)

Mainstream Users Confused ReadWriteWeb with Facebook

HatTip To Sam N. This is pretty funny. Thousands of people came to the tech blog, ReadWriteWeb, thinking it was a new Facebook interface:

"The phenomenon came about as mainstream audiences were directed to our story via Google search for 'Facebook login'. While RWW's regular tech readers found the mistake amusing, it perhaps speaks to the fact that there are huge variables in user interaction."

"Facebook Wants to Be Your One True Login" ReadWriteWeb

"We're Still Not Facebook: Lessons from Late Adopters" ReadWriteWeb

Pics from TED 2010

Notes From TED2010: Intellectual Honesty, Sam Harris, Peter Singer and Determinism

I wanted my first post from TED to cover my reflection from day one, but I have to rift on Sam Harris' talk this morning. It was unimpressive (again) and I question why some consider him such a strong intellectual.

I was amused by his jabs at "delusional religious" frameworks and thinking without referencing examples outside of religion. Harris correctly scorns religious and cultural thinking that leads a father to think about killing his daughter that was raped to escape his shame and dishonor.

What Harris and others don't do is take rational frameworks from the left and inject intellectual honesty into these discussions. Obviously, Harris is not a fan of Christianity and religion, but having tunnel vision is not a good thing.

Since Harris referenced chimps and degrees of consciousness between animals, a good starting point is the intellectual framework of Peter Singer, Princeton bioethicist and a founding father of the animal rights movement. What I respect about Singer is that he is logically sound. He takes his intellectual framework to the nth degree that is transparent and honest.

Singer doesn't make a distinction between humans and animals, and believes if you do than you are a speciest (animal racist). If there is minimal self-awareness and ability to feel pain, then an animal is on par with humans. I assume this sounds rational to many animal activists, but what does this really mean and where does lead you?

Singer leads you there. He is in favor of infanticide, especially if the child is disabled, and maintains that drug testing and clinical trials should be done on disabled people over healthy animals. I don't even want to discuss the issue of bestiality, but you can talk to him. The logic is sound within his framework but horrifying to me and I hope to most of you.

He has argued the more severely disabled a human is that they lose their personhood status.  So "higher" animals would have greater rights that disabled humans. Think about this. Think about how many talented people would not have been alive in Peter Singer's world...

Jim Abbott, professional baseball player
Christy Brown, author of My Left Foot
Itzhak Perlman, world class violinist
Judy Heumann, former Assistant Secretary of Education
Stephen Hawking, physicist

And so many others. If you take animal rights to an intellectual honest endpoint, do you still favor it above human exceptionalism?

Switching gears and examining the beliefs of the last person cited, Stephen Hawking, is another example of taking a framework to an intellectually honest degree. Hawking is one of our intellectual giants and a determinist. It's a world without God and where causality rules. What does this world look like?

Discussing his beliefs, he stated his fear for the long-term survival of our species, “My only fear is this. The terror that stalks my mind is that we have arrived on the scene because of evolution. Because of naturalistic selection, and natural selection assumes natural rejection, which means we have arrived here because of our aggression. And my hope is that somehow we can keep from eating each other up for another 100 years. At that point science would have devised a scheme to take all of us into different planets of the universe and no one atrocity would destroy all of us at the same time.”

Seriously? Our survival rests on the hope that we can progress enough to blast off into space and escape the earth? This is not the world of my beliefs.

Google TechTalk Tomorrow! The First International University in the Heart of North Korea

Christine organized a TechTalk at Google on very short notice. She usually needs a month or more, but I guess the administrators didn't know this. Here are a couple articles on this new university and the information below:

"The capitalist who loves North Korea
After making it as an entrepreneur in America, James Kim is fulfilling his dream of opening an university in North Korea that will offer, of all things, an MBA." Fortune

"Letter from North Korea --Ray of Hope?" The Huffington Post, Ben Rosen


Tech Talk: Pyongyang University of Science & Technology (PUST) -- First International University in the Heart of North Korea
Time: Thursday, February 11, 2010 12-1pm PST, lunch following
Location: Kiev Conference Room, b40
VC Dial In: 3-253-5512

Abstract:
The opening of Pyongyang University of Science & Technology (PUST) was once thought to be an impossible dream. However, the first phase of the campus is now finished and ready to accept students in April 2010. Dr. David Kim, who serves as the Vice President of PUST, will be joining us to raise awareness about this first international university in North Korea (where the teaching language will be English), discuss recruitment of international faculty and explore fund-raising opportunities. Dr. Kim will share his experience in North Korea and also China as well. We'll leave enough time for Q&A from the audience. VC dial in is also available. Lunch following, please email if you're interested in joining!

Please see their website for more info on how to get involved: http://www.pust.kr/


About Dr. David H. Kim:
Dr. David Kim is the Vice President of Pyongyang University of Science & Technology in Pyongyang, DPRK, and the Vice President of Yanbian University of Science & Technology (YUST) in Yanji, Jilin Province, China. He also teaches business management courses in the Department of Management Information Systems in the YUST Business School.

Prior to joining YUST, Dr. Kim worked as a Principal Project Manager at Pacific Gas & Electric Co. in San Francisco. He also worked for Engineering and Construction companies including Bechtel Power Corp. in San Francisco. He has more than 30 years of broad based experience in the areas of Project Management, Engineering, and Construction.

Dr. Kim received his Ph.D. in Philosophy from San Francisco Christian University, CA. He holds an MBA in General Management from Golden Gate University in San Francisco, CA and an MS in Mechanical Engineering from the University of California at Berkeley, CA. He received BS in Mechanical Engineering from Seoul National University in Seoul, South Korea. He is a PMI certified Project Management Professional and a registered Professional Engineer in Mechanical Engineering.

@TED2010 This Week

In Long Beach for TED2010 this week, so I'm pretty excited. Very thankful to Christine for letting me go since the twins are getting to be a handful. I'll be there for two-thirds of the conference and coming back early on Friday.

Some good coverage of this year's TED before the conference starts...

"TED's Influence and Digital Reach Keep Expanding
While many conferences strive to cover niches, Chris Anderson's long-running think fest known as TED thrives on willful eclecticism" BusinessWeek

"TED 2010 Conference Makes for Strange Bedfellows" WIRED


If anyone from TED's staff is reading, I've been trying to change my profile photo for over a year now. The photo upload doesn't work nor changing the primary photo. Help!

FRED: Tonight at TCHO in SF!

Our friend Deborah is co-hosting FRED in San Francisco tonight! More from their site:

You’ve heard of TED. Meet his brother, FRED (Frivolity Revelry Eating Drinking). He’s slightly less ambitious but always the life of the party.

We’d all love to be TED. We like giving back. We often ponder ways to fix the world. We’d certainly attend TED2010 if it was a little more accessible.

FRED’s got you covered. Join a group of festive folks with great intentions at FRED’s inaugural event: “The Power of Chocolate to Change the Future,” brought to you by PR & Company and Tajima Creative.

Conveniently hosted at the home of SF superstar chocolate maker, TCHO, and just in time for Valentine’s Day, FRED will feature a 17-minute FRED Talk, plus tours of TCHO’s factory and plenty of frivolity, revelry, eating (chocolate sampling) and drinking (chocolate-friendly red wine).

You can also pick up a sweet Valentine’s Day gift – the chocolate Martha Stewart Living called “the hands-down star in our blind taste test” – at a special FRED discount, courtesy of TCHO.


EVENT DETAILS
Tuesday, February 9th
6pm to 8pm (program starts at 7)
TCHO (Pier 17, SF)
Directions (plenty of street parking and lots nearby)

Tickets: $9.99 PURCHASE TICKETS HERE


Party proceeds will benefit three Haiti relief efforts: Doctors Without Borders, Partners in Health, and Mercy & Sharing.

Special thanks to our FREDastic supporters:

Michael James Wines
Outta My Kitchen Catering
Studio of Good Living Catering
Robert Strong, The Comedy Magician
TCHO (Watch TCHO on KQED)
Thomas Fogarty Winery
Trinchero Family Estates


(I can't attend since I'm leaving for TED soon)

News & Links List

"First month Nexus One sales slow, says analytics group" Total Telecom
Interesting number here is that Motorola's Droid sold 525,000 units during its first month versus Apple's iPhone first month of 600,000 units.

"Silicon Valley: You and Some of Your VC's have a Gender Problem" TechCrunch

"Cisco's Big Bet on New Songdo: Creating Cities From Scratch" Fast Company
Wrote about Songdo before here.

"Obama: 'She insisted she's going to be buried in an Obama t-shirt'" Washington Examiner

"Gerard Alexander: Why are liberals so condescending?" The Washington Post

"Down With the People: Blame the childish, ignorant American public—not politicians—for our political and economic crisis." Slate, Jacob Weisberg

"TEDx Talk: Peter Eigen on How to expose the corrupt"


"Higher Calling" ESPN's Outside the Lines on Tony Dungy

"On Human Exceptionalism" by Wesley J. Smith
Excerpted from his "A Rat Is a Pig Is a Dog Is a Boy: The Human Cost of the Animal Rights Movement"

"Hungry for New Content, Google Tries to Grow Its Own in Africa"

Not the most positive piece by the NYTimes, but pretty cool since it covered my wife's lead on this contest "to encourage students in Tanzania and Kenya to create articles for the Swahili version of Wikipedia."

I remember Christine brainstorming about this idea, so it was great to see it come to fruition.

"Hungry for New Content, Google Tries to Grow Its Own in Africa" NYTimes, Noam Cohen

New Google Ad with Tiger Woods

HatTip to Dave L. Very funny...

Help LiNK Win $250K from Pepsi!

Vote for Liberty in North Korea (LiNK) in the Pepsi Refresh Project, so they can win $250K that will help them:

* Provide job training, and career counseling for refugees.
* Provide medical and psychological services for North Korean refugees.
* Provide food for North Korean refugees once resettled in the U.S.
* Facilitate language acquisition and cultural orientation for refugees.
* Provide housing for North Korean refugees once resettled in the U.S.

"Kanye throws fit after being seated in business class"

Ah, Kanye, you're embarrassing our hometown of Chicago...

"Kanye throws fit after being seated in business class"

"Hitler responds to the iPad"

News & Links List

"Sun’s Chief Executive Tweets His Resignation" NYTimes

"Cuban: Print Must Vanquish Digital 'Vampires'
He particularly called out Google as a Web giant that reaps rewards from the labors of others" AdWeek

"Why Have So Many Internet People Lost Touch With Reality?" Mark Cuban

"The young prefer Facebook to blogging, Twitter" USAToday

"US venture capitalists investing globally" BusinessWeek

"Arrests in Korea May Cast Cloud Over Hynix Stake Sale" WSJ

"Nine Easily Avoidable Selling Mistakes" BNET

"Countdown begins for end of Keith Olbermann's 'Countdown'?" LA Times

"Jon Stewart Tells Bill O'Reilly: You're The 'Voice Of Sanity' At Fox News (VIDEO)" The Huffington Post



"On Human Exceptionalism" by Wesley J. Smith, J.D.
Excerpted from his A Rat Is a Pig Is a Dog Is a Boy: The Human Cost of the Animal Rights Movement (Encounter, 2010)

"Changing the Rules: The Middle Class at Risk" InsideWork

Runaway Toyotas: Massive recall, Suspended Sales

Pretty cool. My cousin, Joey, was the producer that first identified the huge problem in Toyota's accelerators across the country back in November 2009. Now there is a massive recall:

"Recall Shakes Toyota Owners Confidence" Fox News

And U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood didn't help and only added confusion, "LaHood’s ‘On the Fly’ Toyota Statements Accelerate Confusion" BusinessWeek

ABC News has special "Runaway Toyotas" section on their website which you should check out here. Anyway, Joey has been a senior producer for investigative news shows at Dateline and now ABC News, which includes 20/20. He's been nominated for a few Emmys, but maybe he can win with this one :)

"Are Toyota's Accelerators Out of Control?" (video)

News & Links List

"5 Social Capitalists Who Will Change the World in 2010" Fast Company

"Tebow's Super Bowl ad isn't intolerant; its critics are" The Washington Post, Sally Jenkins

"Technology's Language Barrier
It's unacceptable and costly for Asia's vast population to get lost in translation." Forbes

"What’s Your CQ (and Why Should You Care)?: Cultural Intelligence in Global Commerce" InsideWork

"Nexus One gets a software update, enables multitouch (updated with video!)" Engadget

"European startups scramble to emulate the Groupon explosion" TechCrunch Europe

"Introducing the B-List: The 77 stupidest managerial moves and worst business blunders of 2009." BNET

"Robocalypse Alert: Defense Contract Awarded to Scary BigDog" Fast Company

"California Flailin'
America's largest state is broken and looking for fixes in the wrong places." Forbes

"Parody Of Leadership
Obama's alarmingly inept high-level political appointees." Forbes

"Can Bashing the Banks Help Obama?" TIME

"Former Scientology Marketing Staffer Speaks Out After Leaving 'Cult'" BNET

"UN climate panel shamed by bogus rainforest claim" TIMES Online

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
Special Comment - Keith Olbermann's Name-Calling
www.thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor Health Care Crisis

News & Links List

"Google’s ‘Don’t Be Evil’ Mantra is ‘Bullshit,’ Adobe Is Lazy: Apple’s Steve Jobs" WIRED

"The Apple iPad: starting at $499" Engadget

"iPad v. A Rock" TechCrunch

"Why App Stores Are Not the Business Model for the 21st Century" Fast Company

"Google Chrome steals usage share from IE/Firefox, Win 7 breaks 10%" ZDNet

"Elevation invests in Yelp, up to $100 million" CNET

"High Tech Should Follow Google ... Right out of China" BNET

"Modern Media Succeeds, and Fails, on the Newspaper Model" BNET

"Tech changes and the entrepreneur: How to keep up" VentureBeat

"Three Myths About Starting Your Own Business" Forbes

"How 17 Stars Got Their Big Breaks" Forbes

"Man Buried in Haiti Rubble Uses iPhone to Treat Wounds, Survive" WIRED

"UFC champ Brock Lesnar slams Canadian health care but ready to fight this summer" The Canadian Press

"Cindy McCain comes out -- against Prop. 8" San Francisco Chronicle

"Pushing a Dangerous Anti-Human Exceptionalism, Undignified Bioethics" Center for Bioethics & Culture

"Change We Can Believe In
It's time for the president to stop legislating and start leading." Newsweek, Fareed Zakaria