From Istanbul To Sand Hill Road

Entrepreneur Shot During Beta Testing

It's true.  Look at the picture.

You know you are a true entreprenuer when you are willing to take a bullet for your product.  The man in the photo, a bullet proof vest maker, is.  This is a great photo.  If I had a higher quality copy, I'd give it to every entrepreneur I've worked with.

Bonus question:  Which silicon valley restaurant used to display this picture prominently?  For some reason they moved it a few years ago.  Luckily a friend had taken the photo for me. 

Thanks Linus, thanks Anna.

Update:  Click on the image for a larger view of the photo

A Sumerian Named Ludingirra

I started a book so interesting that I had to write about it before I finished it.  My father gave it to me, and it's written by Muazzez Ilmiye Cig, a 93 year archeologist (seen in the picture) who's spent her entire life studying the Sumerians.  In the preface of the book, she mentions that some 40-50 years ago archeologists find a broken Sumerian tablet with the following written on it:

"The life story of Ludingirra - Tablet 20"

The promise of finding the diary of somebody who lived in 4000 BC took the world of archeology by storm, and after decades of relentless research, they found all 23 tablets describing Ludingirra's life.  The book I am reading is the translation of these 23 tablets.

It's the diary of somebody who lived 6000 years ago.  I have never read anything like it.  How was his life?  Were his concerns similar to ours today?  What did they do most of the time?  I think this is fascinating.  I haven't finished the book yet, but I'll quickly translate for you the first and last sentences of Tablet 1.  I bet none of you have ever read the personal account of somebody who lived so so long ago.  Here it goes

"WHY AM I WRITING THESE STORIES

I am a Sumerian teacher, poet and author.  Since I am 75 years old, I quit teaching long time ago; but I think I'll be a poet and author until I die.

I started writing my life story for the future generations.  Our nation, our language, our traditions, our social life, our art is getting forgotten....

...Our civilization perhaps will influence people living 1000s of years from now.  They will put new foundations on the ones we started. Oh! I hope they can remember us and thank us for the culture we're leaving behind.

Ludingirra's life  Tablet 1"

This is very interesting and powerful stuff.  I am barely into Tablet 3, and already I can see some big similarities and differences to our lives today.  I tried to find an English version of the book on Google but had no luck.  If somebody can find it, please let us know.  Rarely do you get a chance to take such deep, penetrating yet personal look into a life that passed six thousand years ago.

Fastest Way to Send a Terabyte Overnight?

Jonathan Schwartz, on his blog writes that the fastest way to send a Petabyte of data across the world is not via your broadband link, but by boat.  This is one of my favorite IT calculations because a lot of people are surprised by the result (a litmus test for of sorts).  A petabyte is so big that even with a 100Mbps line it would take a few years to send it.

I like the Terabyte version of the same calculation that I heard from Jim Gray.  What's the fastest way to send a Terabyte of data overnight?  With a 100Mbps line, it's takes 22 hours.  So the fastest way is by Fedex.  That's why I heard that Google, in some cases, ships an entire data center to certain parts of the world where bandwidths are not even 100Mbps.  That's the fastest way they can update their index.

YouTube Blocked in Turkey

My thoughts on this matter are well articulated in Cem's recent post: 

"Following a fight between Turkish and Greek internet users posting insulting videos and comments, and a wave of reporting on this by the Turkish media, YouTube is now apparently blocked by Turkish ISPs through a court order.  While I find the entire back-and-forth by the nationalists in both countries in poor taste, I am shocked and disturbed by the decision of the courts."

The court decision does no good to anybody.  The law that caused it is in progress to be changed.  And it will be.