Gian Pablo Villamil

Gian Pablo Villamil

Solving new problems in video, electronics and strategy

Gian Pablo Villamil RSS Feed
 
 
 
 

Archive for September, 2008

This week in finance: I Go Chop Your Dollar

“I go chop your dollar, I go take your money disappear…”

A popular hit in Nigeria, by Osofia, about the 419 scams which make up a significant part of the economy there. The US is not far behind.

YouTube Preview Image

I Go Chop Your Dollar

I don suffer no be small
Upon say I get sense
Poverty no good at all, no
Na im make I join this business
419 no be thief, its just a game
Everybody dey play am
if anybody fall mugu, ha! my brother I go chop am

Chorus

National Airport na me get am
National Stadium na me build am
President na my sister brother
You be the mugu, I be the master
Oyinbo I go chop your dollar, I go take your money dissapear
419 is just a game, you are the loser I am the winner
The refinery na me get am,
The contract, na you I go give am
But you go pay me small money make I bring am
you be the mugu, I be the master… na me be the master ooo!!!!

When Oyinbo play wayo, them go say na new style
When country man do im own, them go de shout bring am, kill am, die!
Oyinbo people greedy, I say them greedy
I don see them tire thats why when them fall enter my trap o!
I dey show them fire

September 22nd, 2008 | Category: Commentary, Economics | Leave a comment

My take on the Internet, ca. 1994

Here’s something I found recently: from my work notebook in 1994, a page where I was explaining to a consultant colleague what the Internet was:

Lots of interesting things here:

  • Correctly identified Cisco as a key player
  • Mosaic is the browser (Netscape, Internet Explorer, Firefox, Mozilla didn’t exist yet)
  • Comparative diagrams of the Internet/WWW compared to the interactive television stuff being promoted by Time Warner and such – the key difference being the fragmented span of control (Internet) vs. integrated span of control (interactive TV).
  • Discussion questions:
    • Who makes money where?
    • Who controls the architecture?
    • Who controls the customer?
    • Who invests the greatest amount?
    • If the Internet were a telco, how would it compare? (Probably the 5th or 6th largest in world – in 1994)
  • Included links to existing back-end systems

September 21st, 2008 | Category: Commentary, Internet, Technology | Leave a comment

History of the Internet business in New York

Fred Wilson at the Web 2.0 name checks ITP, at 4:27. In fact, not only does he mention ITP, he attributes a lot of the interesting aspects of the ‘net business in NY to ITP.

Please enable Javascript and Flash to view this Blip.tv video.

September 21st, 2008 | Category: ITP, New York, Technology | Leave a comment

Obama’s tax cuts

Very interesting chart from the Chartjunk blog showing the impact of Barack Obama’s tax plan, compared to McCain’s. It’s based on the same data as the Washington Post chart, but scaled to more accurately reflect the impact on real numbers of tax payers. Make sure to read the article to understand how the chart was drawn.

I’ve never seen a fundamental ideological difference laid out so clearly in numbers. Add to this the impact of the health care plans (skewed to help average and low-income earners in Obama’s, skewed towards high-income earners in McCains), and you can see two very very different futures for America.

For what it’s worth, I strongly support the Obama plan. A fair distribution of income prevents concentration of political power in the hands of the very rich, and leads to a healthier civil society.

Obama tax cuts benefit most Americans

Obama tax cuts benefit most Americans

September 18th, 2008 | Category: Commentary, Economics, Politics | Comments (1)

When hardware becomes software (Another blast from the past)

Another piece from 1999, this time discussing how electronic devices are increasingly defined by the software they run, not by their hardware capabilities. I wrote this before the iPod was released, and am pleased by how events have proved my thesis – today’s mobile phones and iPods (esp. iPod touch) are very much the kind of device I envisioned. Sonique, my software of choice back then, has disappeared: however, many of its features have appeared in other programs.

Now, pull the lever on the Wayback machine and be transported to London, in the summer of 1999…

I’m writing this in the garden, listening to music on my laptop. How the music got there and how it’s played back is the story of MP3, which has been well described elsewhere. What has struck me is how the player software is actually easier to use and more capable than any portable device I’ve used, and in fact better than my CD player at home. The reasons for this are part of a longer-term trend for more and more hardware functionality to become translated into software, and in fact become a service. This poses enormous challenges, not just for the music industry, but also for manufacturers of any product whose functionality can be expressed in sofware.

More »

September 17th, 2008 | Category: Commentary, Technology | Leave a comment

« Older Entries