If you’re one of those people that spend most of their day in front of a computer, you should make an extra effort to exercise regularly. It’s not just for staying in shape and being healthy, exercising increases your productivity as well. If I’m feeling depressed and lonely, it means I need to exercise. If I’m too excited and can’t concentrate, it means I need to exercise. Know yourself, and how your body works …

Birkaç hafta önce izlemiştim bu video‘yu, Türkiye’de internet alanında girişimcilik ne durumda diye merak ediyordum. Silikon Vadisi’nden döndüğüm için her şeye yabancı gözüyle, eleştirel olarak baktığımdan olsa gerek birden aklıma geliverdi, oysa ilk izlediğimde beni bu kadar rahatsız etmemişti:

itiraf.com gibi sitelerin kurucusu Ersan Özer’e soruyorlar, “İnternet üzerinden yatırım yapmak isteyen fikir sahiplerine nasıl bir yol izlemelerini tavsiye ediyorsunuz?” diye.

Kendisinin cevabı ise içler acısı: “Buna esinlenme mi denir, çalma çırpma mı denir bilmiyorum ama…” diyerekten başlıyor, sonra devam ediyor: “Zaten Amerika’da olağanüstü bir fikir veritabanı oluşmuş durumda… O fikri alsınlar, Türkiye’ye uyarlasınlar. Yeni fikir falan aramasınlar özetle, yurtdışından baksınlar, hangi fikir kafalarına yatıyorsa…. Yurtdışından fikri alsınlar, buraya uyarlasınlar.”

Imagine what you could do if we had establish standards on certain products regarding barcodes. Mobile devices are becoming ubiquitous, and they are not just phones any more, they have computing capabilities and internet connection. This opens a plethora of opportunities to make our lives easier.

Case 1: What if product barcodes were easily recognizable by our phones, then when we’re in a store, we would just scan the barcode, and our phone would search within 5 miles of distance using location based services and find us stores that offer the same product for a cheaper price.

I attended CloudCamp at San Francisco, it was an “unconference” about cloud computing. It was so exciting to be there among 300 developers, enterpreneurs and businessman. Being in Silicon Valley is one of the best parts of my U.S. experience, you can feel the innovation that is going on when you see all these passionate people talking about new technologies.The event was organized by a bunch of people, and they did it in less than 3 weeks. Sponsor money was used to provide food and cover other small expenses such as printing posters, name tags and t-shirts.

1 year later:

 “Remember remember the fifth of November
 Gunpowder, treason and plot.
 I see no reason why gunpowder, treason
 Should ever be forgot”

Here is an amusing letter:

Herbert A. Millington
Chair - Search Committee
412A Clarkson Hall, Whitson University
College Hill, MA 34109

Dear Professor Millington,
Thank you for your letter of March 16. After careful consideration, I regret to inform you that I am unable to accept your refusal to offer me an assistant professor position in your department. This year I have been particularly fortunate in receiving an unusually large number of rejection letters. With such a varied and promising field of candidates, it is impossible for me to accept all refusals. Despite Whitson’s outstanding qualifications and previous experience in rejecting applicants, I find that your rejection does not meet my needs at this time. Therefore, I will assume the position of assistant professor in your department this August. I look forward to seeing you then.

In a recent report, Turkey stands out among 30 OECD countries as the country with the most expensive broadband price per megabit/sec with $81.13. And Turkey is not one of the high income countries either.

Do you want to join an exclusive/beta site that requires invitations? Try InviteShare, a hub where people share their invites to many popular sites like pownce, joost, moola, 8apps, spock etc. They have an abundant number of invites, I was able to receive my invitations to all of these popular sites within a few minutes. I’m glad that someone took the initiative to start such a website to connect people with invitations to those who do not. I think the defining theme of Internet is becoming collaboration.

I would like to share a non-governmental organization in Turkey, which has been a source of inspiration for me. LHSV was founded by doctors, to provide free health services to the underprivileged. The interesting part is how they do it:

Since 11 years, LHSV collects waste paper, soda cans, plastic bags and used printer cartridges. [We] collect approximately 100 tons of waste and waste paper per month. The revenue of this activity is used in financing our medical services.

I’m glad that I have finished reading the comprehensive book on globalism, called The World Is Flat by Thomas Friedman, a foreign affairs columnist at the New York Times.

In the first part of the book, Friedman describes the sudden changes around the world caused by globalism, and tells that the world has gone flat without him noticing. Furthermore, he explains the way businesses operate in this new world, which he calls flat. The book is enriched by many examples of outsourcing, offshoring, supply-chaining, insourcing etc. from companies that operate on a global scale. He describes his visits to various companies around the world, and shares the views of executive officers of such companies.