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The beginning of the end of the human race

When I talk about this with my friends, they think I am crazy. I tell them that the world is about to change radically, since we are becoming increasingly attached to machines that don't feel anything for us. (maybe the fact that they are not really alive would explain that) I always show them my favourite robot video, but they still think I am crazy...but hey, it is not my fault if I can see the future ;) .

"the results imply that current robot technology is surprisingly close to achieving [sustained] autonomous bonding and socialization with human toddlers."

And the future is already here! Have a look yourself
http://sciencenow.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/2007/1105/2
http://www.trendirama.tv/video/119082-introducing-zeno.html
http://www.trendirama.tv/video/7473--invertuality-a-message-from-jules.html

And finally, have a look at this article (a joke, or not a joke anymore?) from Wired:
10 reasons I'd rather marry a robot



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Who negotiates salary better: men or women?

My friends email:

Negotiating to Win

Why too many women don't ask for what they want, keeping big jobs and
top salaries out of reach.
Recent studies show that women, even at the highest levels of business,
perceive negotiation negatively, while men almost relish it. And when
it
comes to negotiating pay it's costing women dearly.
Though women hold nearly half of the management level jobs in the U.S.
work force, on average, white women earn 78 cents for every dollar a
male earns. Minority women earn even less, with African-American women
making 67 cents and Latina women being paid 56 cents on the dollar.
However, mounting evidence across many professional fields shows even
when everything else is equal, men make more money for doing the same
job. The reasons? Several independent researchers have established a
stunning new theory: Women aren't very good at negotiating for the
salaries they deserve. In fact, women are less likely than men to
engage
in negotiations.
Men view the negotiation process positively, as sort of a game, while
women find it painful,
Women and men both made lower offers to women, and both sexes demanded
more from women, according to a study at the University of Vermont.
Women negotiate less, do it less effectively and tend to take the whole
process personally,
While it is nice to believe the world is a meritocracy in which money
follows performance, the evidence shows otherwise. The good news is
that
negotiating is a teachable skill and one that can be depersonalized as
an experience by gathering data and reducing ambiguity.
http://www.pinkmagazine.com/exclusives/negotiatingToWin_0605_2.html

My reply

The problem is with individuals, not genders. Some of us are pussies on this issue, some of us are not.
Marta Stewart, Condolezza Rice, Annita Roderick(?)(Bodyshop founder), Fiorina (ex-president of HP), Vanessa Myers (Google), Hillary Clinton...are women that not only probably don't shy away from negotiations, but have very clear what they want to earn and price themselves accordingly.
Beware of articles based on studies that, although make us feel better, also helps us to justify our fears or mediocrity.
It is ok not to like to negotiate. I am a man and hate it deeply, perhaps undervaluing myself when I work for others. Why? Because I hate to feel and be treated as merchandise. And I know I am much more than the money I make or I have in the bank.
You either like bargaining, or you don't. Doesn't matter if you are a man or a woman.
And everyone will try to take advantage of you if they are to negotiate your pay, no matter if they are men or women.

> Men view the negotiation process positively, as sort
> of a game, while
Stupid generalization. Not true.

> women find it painful,
Aaaaaawwwww...poor, poor women! ;) Come on, give me a break! I know some women that are 100 times worse than men (my ex-boss wife: if you even engage in conversation with her, you are probably losing money!)

> Women and men both made lower offers to women, and
> both sexes demanded
> more from women,

Hard to believe. I see men being pressurized as well, and depending of the society, if a woman fails, people are softer with them. If a man fails, there is no mercy (generally) Women have a little extra credit. Women are more likely to ge given another opportunity whereas a man would be sacked on the spot. (from my experience as a worker and manager)

> Women negotiate less, do it less effectively and
> tend to take the whole
> process personally,

Men take it maybe more personally than women. Don't believe me? Read about the unemployed men in Japan who die of starvation (in Tokio!) before asking for help or food. Read about the psychological studies that say that men associate their identity with their job much more than women do. If that's not taking it personally, you tell me what is!

> While it is nice to believe the world is a
> meritocracy in which money
> follows performance, the evidence shows otherwise.

The glass ceiling is not there anymore for women, I think. It seems that it is there, but it is not. The capital today doesn't care if you are a man or woman. Investors only want results. If you are damn good at your job ad make your company a lot of money and are smart enough to do this in a visible way, you'll be promoted and earning millions, as the women I mentioned above do.

> The good news is that
> negotiating is a teachable skill and one that can be
> depersonalized as
> an experience by gathering data and reducing
> ambiguity.

True. The problem is if you hate it, like me :)
Then you'd better get rich on your own.

Summarizing...I know you don't like my opinion, but get informed about it, 'cause I am right ;) : in the future there is less and less work for all of us, men or women, particularly in the developed world.
Read this article for more
We should be thinking on how to prepare for this, regardless of our gender.

Kiss

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A prediction market game for future events

Interesting experiments, although I don't find the questions too interesting, really (40% of hybrids by...2015? Come on!)...I hope they'll improve it as time goes by.
http://ppx.popsci.com/

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Well...yes...maybe...a few things could go wrong...

1. Mega-Volcanic or Seismic Event
2. Global Pandemic
3. Abrupt Climate Change, including from a Methane Catastrophe (runaway feedback between global warming and release of methane deposits), or Thermo-Haline Disturbance (reversal of the Atlantic ocean current, and cooling of Europe)
4. Globalized Economic Collapse
5. Revolution in the Supply of Energy
6. Collapse of Fish Stocks
7. The Collapse of Africa or China
8. Development of Genetic Treatments to Prevent the Effects of Aging, and conflict between New and Old Humans (emergence of gap between the enhanced/non-enhanced)
9. The global proletarianized middle classes, or resentful youth burdened with growing Baby Boomer retiree dependents, becoming a base for revolutionary organizations
10. Terrorist Coalition of the Willing
11. Catastrophic Space System Damage (such as from solar flares)
12. Broadcasts to the Brain (through networked brain chips)
13. The development or use of new weapons, such as electromagnetic pulses and neutron weapons

http://crnano.typepad.com/crnblog/

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16 Lies about Web 2.0 you shouldn’t believe

Ok. So you are at home, you have no money. You have read all the existing “Y and X created this website in a garage and got reach beyond their wildest dreams” and you think “wow, this web 2.0 is the next big thing! This is my chance to make it big!”

Well…I am afraid it is time to bring you back to earth... and this will help you.
Here is my list of lies about web 2.0 we are supposed to believe, but shouldn’t:

1. People like to share

No. People like to acquire. They like to acquire possessions, knowledge, friends, love…and everything else. People only care for themselves. Even when they’re sharing, as any good Buddhist book would tell you, most people are doing it for the good feelings that this sharing gives to them. Repeat after me: people are selfish. We only care for what we want, and how we feel. Nobody cares about you, your projects or website. If you are able to align people’s interest with your project, people may share something with you or others. If not, forget it. Re-read this paragraph. It is the most important one of the whole post.

2. You can do it in a few months

Again. If you don’t have the money, it may take you years. If you have the money, it may take you days. Everything is possible. Do you have the cash to compete?

3. You’ll get venture capital, they’ll fund it, and you’ll all get rich with your great idea!

In my view, seeking venture capital is akin to selling your soul to the devil, most times without getting to sleep with Angelina first (believe me, I tried). Venture capitalists are there to make money, as vultures are here to eat corpses. VCs are usually very smart people. Many smarter than you. Do you really think that they’ll give you a chance if they can get away with the whole cake? Are you prepared to read and understand a complicated partnership contract? Do you have the money to pay a good lawyer to analyze it for you before you sign? (they do) Are you sure you are ready to fly with the vultures? If not, stay away from them.

Some people are like a vacuum cleaner. You talk to them and you are already losing money. Stay away from that kind of people. Don’t try to run before you walk. (But don’t worry too much about them, VCs will only talk to you for 2 secs when you have already shown the viability of your project at least with a) profits or b) a community in the thousands of members)

4. Building a community is easy

Oh, man, what the hell have you been reading? Building a community is incredibly difficult in most circumstances. It requires skill in marketing, psychology, logistics, and a sense of empathy that borders the telepathic powers. It also requires patience.

Unless you can bribe people to be part of your project ($$$) or you are Google and you can almost force them to do it because you’ve surrounded them in a circle of services they can’t live without, (if you are reading this post, you are a few billions short of doing that probably) you don’t have a chance.

Besides, have you tried to create a professional website, send a newsletter, set up and populate a forum with entries, network with community members on Skype to encourage them to share and communicate, set up a parallel blog for your project, populate it with posts, send a few hundred emails around, submit your posts to social bookmarking websites, write articles to promote your project, eat and sleep…have you? Because if you haven’t, you should know that just that is what lies ahead for you. You can wave goodbye to your social life. Do you still think that building a community is easy?

5. You can build a community quickly

No. It depends how well you do it, and how much money you have to create buzz around the web. Without that, you are and will be nothing. Even if you are very lucky and have some friends at Digg or Reddit, your traffic won’t stick, unless there is something incredibly valuable for them, perfectly presented, that they can’t get somewhere else and is incredibly easy for them to get.

6. Anyone can do it

Not true. To make all this work you need Business, Psychology and Technology skills, to start with. You also need real life experience dealing with people, so you can detect when they’re lying to you (this will save you time and disappointments). You need a strong will. You need focus. You need to be decisive. You need to be a risk-taker. Are you still up for it? Do you have all that?

7. In design, simplicity is always better

No. The need for simplicity in design is proportional to the intellectual capacity of your community members/target market.

Certainly simple layouts look quite nice. But if you have plenty of information to show, and your target market appreciates quick access to that information, you are better off showing as much as you can of it right away, to ensure that they click on something and stay in your website. Everything is relative. (By the way: never believe lists or articles from people that seem to know better (like this one). Rules are not set in stone. Be sceptical about everything. Test everything by yourself)

8. Everyone is motivated by money. If I offer enough money, people will come.

No. Everyone is motivated by different things. Even if you offer a lot of money, most educated people using the internet don’t need your money. Unless you can offer them something else that is of value to them, they won’t come to your website/community. The problem is that you won’t know what is important to them, and most of the time they won’t tell you (don’t we all hate polls?). There’s where your telepathic powers will come handy.

9. You have to use Flash, childish looking icons and graphics to make it look 2.0

Again. It depends of your target market. If you use childish looking icons, a big chunk of your market may be put off. Maybe you live in a world of MFC websites (“made for children”) but not all of us live or like to interact with that kind of designs. If you use animations where they’re not needed, you’ll put people off. You may like cartoon aesthetics. Not everyone else may.

10. You can be the next Jimmy Wales (Wikipedia), Larry Page (Google) or one of the youtTube founders (what were their names?)

Jimmy Wales is a smart man that has tried lots of different things in his life. Some have work. Many others have not. What he has done is not easy. You just don’t know about his failures. It doesn’t mean he didn’t have them. Remember that.

Larry page and company had a background that allowed them to create something people sorely needed, at the right time in the right place. I heard in the grapevine that the trend-setting simplicity of Google’s design was due to the lack of knowledge of HTML by its founders. In any case, Google’s founders were able to surround themselves with the right people to get to where they are, that mean they’re either incredibly smart, or incredibly lucky (I would guess the first one)
Yes, you can do it. But never think it’ll be easy. And remember that for every Wales and every Page that make it, there are +5.000.000.000 people who didn’t make it. My advice: be realistic, start small, choose your niche carefully, build from the ground up and work smart, not only hard.

11. It is an open field, everyone is welcome

No. There is an invisible elite on the internet you should know about. There are two kinds of huge readership websites that you would like to get linked from, in order to get traffic for you new project.

One: newspapers and other established media companies with a strong presence online. (e.g. The Guardian, CNN) They won’t link to you easily.

Two: top bloggers. They won’t link to you easily either, unless your cash talks to them first. As in anything else in life, their ego has been multiplied for a factor of 1000 for every 10 visitors to their blog that they have gotten. Don’t believe me? Try it! (exception Seth Godin and Guy Kawasaki. They responded to my emails. They turned me down, but they –or someone on their behalf- responded)

12. Corporations are not interested in your niche, so they’ll give you time to grow.

Corporations are interested in taking everything they can get. If you are still having a chance, it just means that your market is so tiny that they haven’t paid attention to it. YET. But they will at some point. In that moment, you may have worked X years in your project, and suddenly, when you are already running out of steam and illusion in the whole thing, some giant multinational comes with a stupid name and a few millions in advertising budget and blows you out of the market in a second.

You may have a first mover advantage. So what? That doesn’t mean what it used to. Get a good backup plan. Don’t leave your job just yet...

13. People will be loyal to your community

No. People are not loyal to anything. In all spheres of life, people are only loyal to their self interest, and thus will leave you in the blink of an eye if and when a better offer comes along. No doubt about it.

14. You won’t make any enemies! It is about people! In web 2.0 we are all friends!

So you think “If I go after a niche that nobody is paying attention to, I offer something unique, I shouldn’t bother anyone” Wrong. Some people want your market, even if they have not paid attention to it before. Some other people are plain losers, and like to undermine other’s efforts for no reason (like a bastard who reported me for spam and cost me my hosting and email address). You’ll have at least those two enemies as soon as you put something up on the internet. If you are making it right, you’ll have enemies. And the better you do it, the more you’ll have.

Neither in web 1.0, nor in 2.0 or 54.0 people will let you succeed without paying a price, if they can help it. We are always competing. We all want to be the best and only. And some play way too dirty. It is people’s nature. Watch your back.

15. You’ll be bought by Google

Dream ooon! I know you heard the American Dream speech too. I know you’ve seen on TV the people who won the lottery as well. Well, I have news for you: Google and the other big potential purchasers have better things to do than buying your website, unless you have achieved critical mass (by the time of youTube’s acquisition, it is said that the site had hundreds of thousands of visits) This is not a lie in itself, as it is a myth. For every company that Google buys, 92837943 were not bought, and many disappeared never to be heard of again. Remember that when you are landing from your rosy cloud. The American dream is a lie. And Santa Claus and the fairies don’t exist. Sorry. Eventually someone would have had to tell you anyway.

16. You can do most of this with free tools

Hahahhahha. You must be joking. Most free tools are crap, most of the time. They’re usually limited in the time you can use them for, or in their functionality, unless you buy the “premium” version. ($$$).Getting those tools for free is illegal. Hosting is not free. Domain registration is not free. Your time is not free. Have you ever heard of opportunity cost? It is the value of the time spent in something, compared with the returns of the investment of that time doing something else. If you didn’t understand very well this previous phrase, don’t worry about it, your opportunity cost is very low.

Hey. Don’t get me wrong. I am not saying that you can’t do it. After all, I am still trying to do it. And I believe I will.

I am just saying that you have to be realistic, and that a post like this can save you endless hours of frustration, hard work, broken dreams, and the occasional stab in the back…on your way to the top. As the founder of Trendirama.com, I have been also invited to believe these lies, and learnt from experience. Appreciate these words. They’re golden knives. They hurt you, but they’re golden nonetheless. Good luck!! (hey leave your comment if I forgot anything and I'll do a better post)

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Two (crazy?) predictions

1) .mobi is going to be bigger than .com (in fact, will be the "de facto" extension)
2) Google will be forced to split into smaller pieces
If you want to know why I think so, just ask

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Virginia Tech killings. A bigger storm ahead

This post here was written on Monday night. Approximately 12 hours later, a young man killed more than 30 people. He felt victimised, and unfairly treated. He took revenge because he couldn't get what he wanted, the way he wanted, from others and the world.
He clearly reacted like a psychologically sick person.
The good news: the youth of today are more prepared than ever before in technical subjects (this piece of good news is just to soft up what is coming...)
The bad news: most young people today have had a very poor human relations education, and they're ill prepared to deal with the tough challenges facing them.

Expect more of this kind of tragedies in the future.
We are fuelling an incredibly dangerous fire. We don't give our children enough attention, but at the same time we teach them that "they're special". We inflate their egos since a young age. We bribe them. We can't beat them, we can't show them limits clearly. (not that I defend beating people up) We don't really know them. We don't understand them. We don't know who they are, because finding out is too hard. In many instances, like parents, we don't know who we are ourselves. How can we help someone else to know who they are?

And worst of all, when they go out on a killing spree, we make sure we publish it in all kinds of media, with all sorts of details. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to see that those frustrated paranoid teenagers that see all the "glory" and airtime that his man gets, may well choose to have a similar goodbye, knowing that after it all, they'll be famous...even for a few hours. They'll be somebody...someone will care for them.
Because that's what is really missing from their lives. Love, attention, understanding.

However, the killings in the future will be different in one crucial aspect: they'll be bigger. Expect to see more group killings, in which two or more of these people work together for bigger "glory". Expect to see explosives. Expect to see more meticulous and detailed operations documented before the killings.

It is natural: tough privatized high school system with high fees + absence of love from parents + continuous bombardment from the media with advertising that makes them feel ugly/fat/inadequate + video games + complex world + rising unemployment + easy access to weapons = paranoia, violence, suicide

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The adults of tomorrow?!

Accustomed to spend, but not trained on how to make the right financial choices. (some) Studying to do jobs that are fast dissapearing. Destined to compete -in some industries- with workers in the other side of the world that are paid 100 dollars/month.
Unprepared for defeat and with unreal expectations.

American teens believe, based on the career that interests them the most, that when they get older they will be earning an average annual salary of $145,500. Interestingly, boys expect to earn an average $173,000 a year and girls $114,200, according to the findings of Teens & Money, an annual survey released last month by Charles Schwab & Co. and the Boys & Girls Clubs of America.

I am not saying that all young people will end up like this. I am just saying that in the the coming 20 years we are going to see this generation becoming independent adults and they'll have to fend by themselves. In a world where there seems to be no room for real finacial success but for a few, in a society that feels "they deserve to have it", how will it all work out? What will be the impact on society of this young generation realizing that the dream sold to them by their parents ("you're special"), the media and school was just a lie? How till they feel when they learn that they will never be the next Britney Spears? Will a generation raised in the believe that the others don't matter be able to learn to work in teams with them? To do exactly what anyway?

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Yes! Yes! Yes! Help in education: so much better than a loan!

More photos here. Maybe you don't care about these things, but I do. These are nigerian children getting familiar with their new 100 dollars laptops. This is good news for everyone!
One of my dreams is setting up business schools for children in my country of origin, Uruguay. One day I'll also be able to help like this.
What Nicholas Negroponte and his team have achieved is admirable. It doesn't matter if the effort may be tainted by corruption in some receiving countries, it's always been so. It doesn't matter if some computers don't get to these children. It doesn't matter if they may even have a higher final cost than initially expected.
The important thing is that people in developed countries are taking notice of these realities.
The important thing is that now these children and their families will have a completely different future. Imagine! And this is good news for every person on earth.
The waves of equality are slowly but surely spreading around the world. Great!
Thank you Bono, Bill Gates, Angelina Jolie and all the rest that do such a valuable job where it matters the most: putting the pressure on the wealthy by showing these realities, so ealisly ignored. That's the most effective work that can be done to change the world. What you do is priceless. In the name of all of us, thanks to everyone involved in making the lives of others better in any way.

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Future of the music industry

(I recently had a friendly but heated debate with my friend Robert about the music's industry future. Here is some proof to support my view. You may find it enlightening if you don't know much about it)

Lose a bet if you have to. But lose it informed ;)
I am sending you this because in such a shift there should be great opportunities and you should be well informed about it!

Fom Reuters: http://news.zdnet.com/2100-9588_22-6152171.html

With global music sales down for a seventh straight year, the talk at an annual industry meeting in Cannes, France, has become heated over how to develop digital sales against competition from the dreaded F word--free

...
(and how record companies aren't waiting for legislation, but accepting the new situation and adapting creating new revenue channels...)

Warner Music Group is also looking at new ways to develop.
"As an industry we really need to innovate, and bring new products and services to the market," head of digital strategy Alex Zubillaga told reporters in London last week. "We at Warner have put out a series of premium products and ... we immediately doubled the amount of digital albums that we were selling by just attaching a video, attaching some special lyrics or a photo gallery.

another article
http://www.silentway.com/tony/articles/musicindustry.html

And now from
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/music/inside/future.html
:

Instant gratification favouring peer to peer

...Well, the public doesn't care about labels, they care about songs. They either like it or they don't like it. And if they like it they want to buy it at the most easy, accessible instant gratification way, and they can't. They want to buy what they want, and they can't. You hear a great song by the Beatles, and you want to buy that song. You can't buy that song. You have to buy the whole album. And you can't get it quickly, because it's not accessible.

The incremental involvement of the musicians in marketing:

...Those are skill sets. Those skill sets are still going to be needed. The question is can the artist do some of that, more of that, themselves? Will it be a manager who does more of that themselves? Will there be independent companies that will be doing more of that that used to be done by the majors? Or will the majors adapt and create different types of companies that are staffed differently to provide different services that are more attuned? I think the answer is a little bit of all the above, but it'll be very different.

Yes. music will be free to share, send and copy. You can't limit the choices of people, keep them in the dark and overcharge them in a globalized world where they can access these products anytime, anywhere.
Music will be "free". And the other media will follow.

Regards
niquel757society - niquel757business niquel757questions