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February 25, 2005

More Y debauchery

Here are a few more pictures from Cluster Y events last night. There was a mini-blizzard and the B&T stayed away, so Manhattanites had the City to ourselves. The night started at Pipa in the Flatiron Distrcit, where we downed $160 of sangria and caught up on all the gossip, and then proceeded to PM Lounge.


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February 24, 2005

Commies aren't cool

With every popular club in Manhattan putting up Che Guevera posters, I'm torn between turning up wearing this shirt and this shirt. Argh, to hell with it. Let's just wear shirts that everyone can agree on.

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February 22, 2005

Maria comes to Columbia

Maria Bartiromo swung by Columbia after work today. I realized after hearing her speak for 90 minutes that Maria has probably taught me more about the markets, finance, investing, and corporations than anybody else, except maybe her colleagues Tyler Matheson, Ron Insana, David Faber, etc. I started watching Maria shortly after she came to CNBC, roughly in late 1993 when I was 13 and dashed home from middle school to watch the bell close, even though everything was way over my head. (In 2004, living in Europe, I dashed home from work at 10PM to do the same.) My first reaction is that it is really strange to hear in person a voice you've heard almost daily for the past decade.

I've never believed that TV anchors or actresses are as stupid as people (men) say. Maria is among the smartest and, accompanied by her husband, gave a similarly excellent lecture. The talk covered such topics as the current economy, the latest thinking in leadership, the emergence of China as a global buyer, Maria's "big break," and the extent to which Maria controls her editorial content. Beyond this, Maria speculated about possibly coming to Columbia to get an MBA, so I returned the compliment by asking her to come teach a course instead. (It would be 10X oversubscribed.) Maria does have a bit of a tendency to drop names, but if my job were interviewing CEOs and government leaders, I would probably drop names too.

In particular, I asked Maria to tell us how she extracts information from execs who may not want to give it out. In political communications courses, the spinmeisters advise us to go into interviews with three key talking points, from which one uses "bridge phrases" to go from answering the question to talking-up the talking points. Of course, one rarely actually answers confrontational questions but rather expands or narrows it. For example, if a host asks John Kerry what he thinks of good job-creation numbers, Kerry doesn't talk about the good numbers but rather the "bad economy" overall. I've always thought that Maria is particularly good at getting execs off their talking points. Although she asked to go off the record on the specifics, I can pass along a few of Maria's points:

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February 20, 2005

Swaying all night long

Last night was spent at Sway, one of those places in SoHo that has no exterior indication of being a club except a lot of velvet rope and three big bouncers. Bobby outdid himself again by getting bottle service, but this time there was no upchucking on my part. The most amazing part about Sway is the ability to actually conduct a real conversation thanks to the lower-volume beat.

That table looks way too empty...

That's better... get up, get dancing, get the bottle going!

Every so often, a picture appears on this website that may get me or someone else in trouble. This picture reminds me of the one where Homer was caught by Bart dancing with Princess Cashmere at the Frying Dutchman. The picture was subsequently sent all around Springfield and caused quite a scandal. In this case, the guy has a broken leg and couldn't get away from this crazy chick. It's totally not his fault--Sway is a total meat-market.

More on the Cluster Y website.

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February 19, 2005

No wonder companies off-shore to India

If you're up for a bit of masochism this sunny afternoon, try taking last year's entrance exams to the Indian Institute of Technology. You can choose from:

At the end, you'll understand why companies offshore their R&D, engineering, and basic order-taking to India.

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February 18, 2005

The New New York Times?

I paid a visit to the 14th floor of the New York Times today with the Columbia Media Management Association. Media has always been an interesting industry area to me, perhaps since I wrote my first letter to the editor when I was in middle school. (Thank goodness they didn't publish it!) Later, of course, I wrote for the Post-Tribune, and today I read at least five newspapers a day (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and sometimes 6 and 7.)

It was an auspicious day to visit, as the Times this morning announced a $490M all-cash deal to buy about.com, an annoying content website that somehow pops up highly in many google searches, traps users with frames and redirects, and is loaded with so much advertising that it's hard to find the content, if there is any. Alas, I must just be out-of-date, as I still mourn the demise of gopher and the Very Easy Rodent-Oriented Net-wide Index of Computerized Archives.

The Times is the only local newspaper to expand significantly beyond its home market and perhaps the best-recognized newspaper name in the world. Over 90% of most papers' circulation occurs within a one-county radius of the paper's big city, vs. only 50% for the Times. And the Times's 18M unique website users compares to only 700K for the WSJ.

Yet the core business is losing the battle for subscribership in Manhattan and vicinity. With a weakening core in New York City, The Times is forced into substantially more risky businesses where it is currently a weak follower: Television, International, Search (about.com), Local Papers, etc. While it's swell to deliver content to consumers in whatever platform it is desired, expanding into new platforms also carries substantial risk involved in getting into businesses with only low-moderate cost and customer sharing and entrenched competitors. (These being, e.g., Time Warner, the FT, Google, and Gannett.)

It will be interesting to watch the Times's strategy going forward, as the Times attempts to master both broad content and distribution. Edgar Bronfman, Jr., head of Warner Music, came to campus recently to explain how he believes that content and distribution are inherently in conflict, with content wanting to be as broadly distributed as possible and distribution wanting to be exclusive. If I write something, I want everyone to see it, but if I am distributing writings I need something exclusive to draw viewers. The Times is expanding its distribution substantially while continuing to invest in content at a time when other mainstream media are hacking the newsroom and replacing real journalism with talking-heads and their print equivalent--a noble but risky strategy. I tip my hat to the folks in the Times strategy group if they pull it off.

In other news, the Hollywood Reporter writes that Paris Hilton (blog entry) held a big party at Duvet (pictures) a few days ago. I can't believe I missed it.

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February 17, 2005

If you're from Flanders, you're probably Flemish

Jens Audenaert is a libertarian from Flanders and an all-around nice guy, except that he hasn't yet started a blog on his website. Nor does he list my website on his list of links.

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February 15, 2005

We don't spit; we swallow

At a recent business school Wine Society event, an officer told a wine company exec, "At CBS Wine Society, we don't spit." And nobody did. Tonight, with 12 pourings, almost everyone had to spit.

I've learned some things in business school, most of them not in the classroom. This isn't because I have bad professors (although there are issues here for which I volunteered to take a fair bit of stress), but rather because I only spend 15 hours a week in the classroom and perhaps 40-50 hours a week in social events.

Perhaps the most useful skill has been the ability to actually taste a *bit* of stuff they talk about in wine reviews--tannins, oak, pepper, bouquet, body, acidity, sweetness, chocolate, etc. If one never was taught what is a square, circle, and trapezoid, it's reasonable to think they're all just shapes and they're different. Wine Society has recently organized two events where participants take flights of various wines along with a sales exec from the winemaker. Carefully selected, two to four wines can be paired in a flight to draw out substantial differences in everything from oak vs. steel barrels, filtered vs. unfiltered, big body vs. nuanced bouquet, and even pipi d'chat taste.

Tonight we even got lucky and tasted good bottles vs. two corked bottles, bottles where the cork was loose and let in chlorine to produce 2,4,6-Trichloroanisole. (I googled to find that term.) It was rancid wine, but it was also a familiar taste, as it is present in up to 10% of wines. It was barely swallowable, but I swallowed it just to see how bad the bouquet was.

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February 14, 2005

I'd rather be traveling

It was difficult surviving class today, on account of its being Feb 14. Feb 14 is usually vacation time. Last year was a snowy day in Krakow, Poland's, medieval town square. That Valentine's Day, I took a local train to Auschwitz, a nearly empty train that got stuck. I don't think I have ever been more at peace with myself than on that train, stuck in a snow-covered Polish forest, and totally helpless.

Valentine's Day 2003 was spent in Luang Prabang, Lao Peoples' Democratic Republic, perhaps one of the world's most romantic small towns. A former capital, Luang Prabang was colonized by the French and today is a city of 16,000 and 32 fantastic Buddhist temples. Here is a thumbnail pic of the Mekong River in Luang Prabang; click for a bigger version:

I'd rather be traveling.

UPDATE 2/15: I received word yesterday that a friend is living it up by celebrating Feb 14 in Istanbul. At least someone is traveling right now!

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February 13, 2005

Veracruzin' for a bruzin'

Lady Bessie Braddock once told Winston Churchill, "Winston, you're drunk." Churchill replied, "Bessie, you're ugly. But tomorrow, I shall be sober."

Last night was a night of firsts: first time to a party with UN people (hopefully they don't see what I say on here about the UN), first time to pay $15+ to get into a club, first time to join in the downing of a bottle of Hennessy V.S in the VIP room, and first time to puke out the window of a moving cab on the Upper East Side. There, I said it: it's no longer news for the student newspaper. And as Winston Churchill said, now I'm sober. And my love of cognac is shattered. (Winston never lost his love of the straight-up martini.)

Despite having VIP space reserved, we still had to wait in line. Damn NYC clubs.

Bobby sponsored the party on account of his 30th birthday, and therefore got to down as much of the bottle as he wants.

The women show off some new cards or something... blah.

This is Itamar, George W. Bush, Deborah, and me dancing on the balcony. Come to think of it, Itamar and Deborah need nicknames...

Good turnout among the ladies. Actually, it's interesting that there's not an American in this picture, with nationalities including Australia, Hong Kong, Italy, India, Indonesia, and Israel.

Since John doesn't like my blog, maybe he will like seeing this picture of him and his fiance. (I have much worse, John... be careful)

UPDATE 2/14: I have decided that I like cognac again.

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February 12, 2005

Schlorff launches a blog

Daniel Aabye Rodriguez Schlorff, longtime friend, loyal Green Partyist, bassist, and unitarian (at last check), has launched a new blog to discuss the confluence of politics and theology. Dan and I might actually agree on the growing scandal involving UN peacekeepers raping and prostituting African women. Speaks Schlorff:

Should the Green Party ignore fact that U.N. Peacekeepers pose a global security threat, as indicated in Kofi Annan’s February report?

I'm not sure that peacekeepers are a global security threat--actually quite the opposite. The problem with UN peacekeepers is the same as the problem with the broader UN: fecklessness. UN peacekeepers watched like Nero when Screbrenica was massacred and they haven't even been present in Rwanda or Darfur--perhaps because Kofi Annan was busy embezzling oil-for-food money, or at least turning a blind eye while Kojo did. Yet, as Powerline points out, Kofi Annan still feels the need to lecture Americans on the UN's moral superiority, and American liberals so often seem genuinely disturbed by Annan's windy hectoring. Yet from the UN, it's 'do as I say, not as I do.' Here is an example from Reuters):

NEW YORK -- UN peacekeepers have been banned from all sex with the local population in Congo because of widespread, continuing abuse of women and girls.

In the past year the UN investigated 150 allegations against 50 soldiers of sexual exploitation of women and girls.

Children as young as 12 or 13 were bribed with eggs, milk or a few dollars in exchange for sex, UN reports said.

...

The rules would apply only to Congo, the largest of the 16 UN peacekeeping missions around the world, UN spokesman Ari Gaitanis said.

UN regulations for soldiers usually forbid sex with anyone under 18 and forced prostitution. But often officials found there was a fine line between forced and willing sex.

I don't think that there's a single American schoolteacher, priest, camp counselor, sports coach, or anyone else who could successfully argue that having sex with teenage girls is morally excusable because there is a "fine line." Only in the UN and in American liberalism are such moral issues considered "fine lines."

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February 11, 2005

American postal workers are illiterate, too


Kuensel, the state newspaper of Bhutan (map), is a particularly enjoyable read because of its frequent articles about daily life in Himalayan mountain villages accessible only by foot. I stumbled across this article about an illiterate mailman recently. Here are highlights:

He makes the trip between the general post office in Thimphu and the community mail office in Lingzhi dungkhag once a month, and some times more.... It takes him eight days of trekking, both ways, over narrow rock-strewn mountain trails – slushy and tricky in summer and slippery and hostile in winter.

One winter, on his way back to Lingzhi, he was caught up in a blizzard. He thought the blizzard would wane in a couple of days and camped in a small roadside cave. But it went on for almost nine days. And he was carrying food to last for only four days. He had to cut down to a meal in two days. “A few more days of the blizzard and I would have died of cold and hunger,” he says.

...

Added to these are the other potential dangers of the wild. He often comes across fresh tiger paw-prints although he has never met one until now. “But bears plenty,” he says with a deadpan nonchalance. “Brown, black, big and small – all kinds.”

...

“Of course the other good thing is I get paid handsomely,” he says and adds, with noticeable pride, that he receives Nu 5,200 [$120] a month. A princely amount compared to the Nu 217 [$5] he got when he reluctantly took the job in January 1976.

... “An illiterate man like me couldn’t have asked for a better life,” the father of five says. Besides the salary his heard of 50 yaks also brings his family a substantial income through chhugo (hardened cheese) and butter.

I like yaks; they're nice enough animals. But their cheese is something else. Yak cheese, called "rock cheese" by westerners, is harder than a Jawbreaker candy with almost no taste, just a hint of dairy. One puts a 2"-long chunk in his mouth, sucks and bites for the next hour, and when his guide isn't looking, removes the rest from his mouth.

(Photo from Kuensel.)

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February 10, 2005

Transatlantic Zeppelin wins an award

Columbia's student newspaper is a forum for, among other things, trading insults. For example, this comment:

John O'B, you're such an easy target, you don't want to go there. 'Nuff said.

Then there was a comment by John that gave my young blog (started in this format in only mid-December) its first award. These guys apparently haven't seen a belt they didn't hit below, so here goes:

Worst website of the week award: This one goes to Adrian J, for his horrible site, www.innogize.com. You're delusional if you think anyone seriously cares about your opinion on fashion design. Do us all a favour and keep it to yourself.

Hey, nobody forced you to read it, yet somehow this website gets 500-1000 unique visitors every day, or 200,000 unique visitors a year. Maybe it's because I just have a laughably stupid opinion on the fashion industry. Anyone care to talk about fertilizers? (I didn't think so.)

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February 09, 2005

And you think I've been a lot of places?

If so, you've not met this guy.

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Who are Democrats for?

Every so often, I'm really impressed with a letter in the Post-Tribune. Here is an excerpt of a letter written by a 38 year old black man from Gary:

Things are not always what they appear. Just like how blacks overwhelmingly support Democrats, and this is all you have to show us?

I have lived most of my life believing [the] lie that Democrats are for the poor and Republicans are for the rich. The reality is, Democrats are for black leaders and, in the end, you don’t get anything out of the deal.

He doesn't say whom Republicans are for, but I'll take what I can get.

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February 06, 2005

An old article on the Sarajevo Olympics

The Onion has a good article from 1984:

SERBS, MUSLIMS INSPIRED BY COMPETITIVE SPIRIT OF SARAJEVO OLYMPICS

SARAJEVO - Across Yugoslavia, Serbs, Muslims, and Croats alike are drawing inspiration from the competetive spirit exhibited at the 1984 Winter Olympics in Sarajevo.

"To see people of vastly different ethnic background struggling against each other for total victory has been an eye-opening experience for me and my people," said Serbian community leader Slobodan Milosevic.

The Olympic athletes' determination to best each other in competition has roused the spirits of Yugoslavians of all ages and ethnicities. Many local children looking forward to the Summer Olympics in Los Angeles in a few months have already begun throwing makeshift shotputs and javelins at each other.

sarajevoolympics.jpg

Above: The reconstructed Sarajevo ice-skating rink, viewed from the auxilary soccer field that became a graveyard during the Serbs' seige of Sarajevo in 1993-1995.

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Why you should be here now

If you're not here watching the superbowl, you're missing out. we've already placed a bid for $20 on the Lincoln Fry. Unfortunately we were rapidly out-bidded, with the current bid at $275,100.

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February 05, 2005

More pictures from Columbia

Alessandro provides these stunningly beautiful pictures...

Here are Miller Lite and Allesandro with me at the Lunar New Year Happy Hour on campus. The business school hosts a free happy hour every Thursday, during which several hundred students consume $7K of beer and wine. (The administration swears that tuition doesn't cover our beer.) This week there was also sake, although I admit I don't much like the taste.

Here I am with Akshay and Brother Singh. Akshay sports a $150 Emporio Armani shirt and $1 gold hat, while Brother Singh is decked out in a shirt and turban of unknown value. In a scandalous act, Brother Singh was later seen attending a basketball game sans turban.

"Passing the hat" in Cluster Y resulted in Bobby obtaining the hat, although one wonders how he balances it so.

For full versions and a few other pics, click here.

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February 04, 2005

"I swear I'm not named after that city in Iowa."

Ames Brown, resident Yalie, small business owner, and (apparently) pimp extraordinaire, provides some pictures from recent columbia events. By the way, why does Miller Time seem to show up in every picture?

Susie, Ames, Revvie, George W. Bush, Faye-Z, and The $3 Enforcer warm-up at the bar. (hmm... I guess it's not yet Miller Time)

ames1sm.jpg

Sushi dinner at some place better than Saigon Grill (which is actually pretty good).

Is it the purple velvet pants, Ames?


David shows off his teeth as if he just had his braces removed. Or maybe he wants to suck some blood.

More pictures on Ames's website.

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February 03, 2005

A fish by any other anchor would smell as foul

Since I know nothing about Hollywood aside from turning up for the Cannes Film Festival last year, I now have a daily subscription to Hollywood Reporter, who notes today that Bob Schieffer will replace Dan Rather on the CBS Evening News while CBS execs "decide on an evening-news format that would bring CBS News out of third place."

While the format is important (and desperately needs to be overhauled), Rathergate did long-term damage to CBS's attempt to be taken seriously as a news source. The question isn't how to jack-up the ratings, but whether or not there should even be network news, whether it should be at 18h30 when nobody is home, and whether network news should attempt to keep its false veneer of "impartiality."

Continues Hollywood Reporter: "Of all things, CBS is worried about the label ‘liberal bias.’ There’s never been a hint of that against him, and with the Texas accent, he’s very easy on the (ears of the) red states.”

It's amazing how little CBS understands of why it is accused of liberal bias--it has little to do with a down-home accent. CBS exhibited a pattern of shoddy reporting in Rathergate and a culture that completely ignored journalistic standards. A fish rots from the head, but replacing the head doesn't make the fish any less rotten.

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How could you miss Bill Gates?

The CEO of Red Hat came to Columbia today and had a short video that reminded me of the good ole' days of roughly 1998 to April 14, 2001. (That day being the day I interviewed with a now-defunct dot.com that closed down four months later.) Among the video's features? This mug shot of Bill G. Unfortunately it flashed by so fast that I think most people in the audience missed it...

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February 02, 2005

State of the Union watching

Rumor has it that the Columbia College Republicans have rented a large hall for tomorrow's State of the Union speech, whereas the College Democrats have reserved a 5-person study room in an out-of-the-way building. So far, they have yet to take me up on my generous offer to provide free sour grape juice.

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February 01, 2005

To the world's lazy webmasters

Every so often an unintentioned blogger or someone else decides to deep-link into my website, which means using my photos and my bandwith on their website with no attribution or no notice to me. What's really fun about this is that I can replace the "deep-linked" picture with a picture of my choosing and it shows up on their website. In fact, often my choice of photos isn't want the bandwith thief intended to show on their website. So if your website seems defaced because you stole my pictures and bandwith, you know why. If you want to use a photo I took, just ask first.

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Why Americans don't elect Massachusetts liberals

Analyses of media coverage of the Iraqi election have shown that Arab news outlets were much more favorable and optimistic about the election than European news outlets. Consider this al-jazeera article, which sounds more like it was written by Reuters (maybe it was). But still, it's remarkable that Al-Jazeera puts this story front-and-center and relegates the conspiracy theories to the bottom side of its homepage.

Leave it to America's Democrats to throw cold water on the hopes not just of Iraqis, but apparently a broader swath of Arabs.

"It is hard to say that something is legitimate when whole portions of the country can't vote and doesn't vote," Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., Ex-Presidential candidate, said on NBC's "Meet The Press."

Whole portions? As opposed to partial portions? Just what is a portion? Typical Kerry double-speak--either its a portion or it's a whole, but not both. Geez, you'd think the guy would learn.

In a statement, Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, D-Mass, said Bush "must look beyond the election" and start withdrawing the American troops from Iraq.

"The best way to demonstrate to the Iraqi people that we have no long-term designs on their country is for the administration to withdraw some troops now" and negotiate further withdrawals, Kennedy added.

If Democrats want any hope of turing red to blue, they need to support America abroad rather than provide ammunition to those who oppose us, our troops, and our democracy. Democrats complain that they aren't perceived as patriotic, but do either Kerry or Kennedy seem even a bit patriotic in Al-Jazeera?

UPDATE 2/2: Wow, that was short-lived. Al-jazeera is back to its old slime-ball reporting, declaring the elections "illegitimate." Of course the losers will declare the elections illegitimate, just like John Kerry said of Ohio.

Update 2/3: I neglected to put Hillary's intelligent and credible statement on Transatlantic Zeppelin. Hillary's move to the center has been a breath of fresh air... too bad Hillary showed her true colors when she tried to communize health care:

We have to salute the courage and bravery of those who are risking their lives to vote and those brave Iraqi and American soldiers fighting to protect their right to vote. They are facing terrorists who have declared war on democracy itself and made voting a life-and-death process.

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