It’s been too long.

I plan to bring this blog back in full force soon, but I don’t want to do it in a vacuum.

If you could wave a magic wand and see this blog turn in to anything you like, what would that be?

Would you like to see me host a video show?

Would you like to see more of the old cartoons?

Are there any changes (technical, stylistic, etc) you’d like to see?

Lay it all on me … I’m listening, and I’ll do my best to reply to everyone personally.

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Watch this super-short video and then read on …

Now, you should know that there are a great many full-size hydrogen fuel cell
cars already in existence, but there are "problems."

First, the cars are ridiculously-expensive.

Next, many of the hydrogen-based fuel initiatives right now rely on fossil
fuels as a source for harvesting the hydrogen from water.  (Yeah, I know.)

Finally, there is the issue of distilling the water required for hydrogen
production.  The fuelling station I have requires distilled water. 
Tap water will destroy it.

Are these limitations too difficult to surmount?

I don’t think so …

The cost of the cars, obviously, can be brought down radically with mass
production.

As for where to get the hydrogen, why don’t we create a massive network of
renewable energy generators (solar, wind, hydroelectric, geothermal, etc …),
start mass producing hydrogen, and store it?

If you think about it, we could have solar panels on our roofs that are
constantly generating hydrogen and storing it.  Then your home could run
off a fuel cell, too.

As for the distilled water, well, solar powered water distillation technology
already exists.

So, what’s the hold up?

Why aren’t we aggressively switching over to a new infrastructure
immediately?

I mean – immediately.  Not "maybe in 10 years or so …"

Is it the cost?

Surely we can all re-allocate some of our "defense" budgets to the creation
of an infrastructure that will remove one of the root causes of war?

Ah, that’s just crazy talk.

One day you can have one view of the world, and then the next day have that same
view totally turned on its head by a new discovery.

Take, for example, the burgeoning field of "Epigenetics" …

Epigenetics is the study of how environmentally or behaviorally acquired
traits can be passed on to future generations – without any change in the DNA of
that organism.

Huh?

Yeah …

Anyone paying attention to what’s been happening in biology over the last 150
years just did a double take.

If this sounds to you like "Lamarckism" (the Lamarckism that you learned in High
School was "disproven" by Darwinian/Mendelian genetics) you’re exactly right.

Despite what has been believed as irrefutable biological truth, there is now
a body of evidence that suggests that we didn’t have the full picture.  The
study of Epigenetics shows that changes which occur to you as a result of your
environment and behavior can be passed on to future generations.  We don’t
fully understand "the how" yet, but the evidence of this phenomenon seems quite
clear.

And no, these changes don’t have anything to do with the way you treat your
kids.  They have everything to do with how you treat yourself.

For example, a cancer you get today could have been triggered by your
great grand-mothers exposure to an industrial poison.

The passing of these non-genetic traits has been observed now across multiple
generations of mice.

The implications are huge.

If these findings are right, then everything you do …

… what you eat, your use of recreational chemicals (including alcohol and
tobacco), where you live, your moods, your stress levels …

All of these things can not only affect your health, but any adverse
(or favorable) affects could be passed on to future generations as well.

If you’ve been looking for an excuse to change your lifestyle, I don’t think
you’ll find a better one than that.

Stunning, isn’t it?

Also stunning is the way new discoveries can completely up-end everything we
think we know.  

This unexpected nature of paradigm shifts makes the hubris and arrogance we
seem to revere in our popular media all the
more absurd. 

Here’s one of them …

(The other I’ll share with you in my next post.  This one has to do
with an amazing past – the other with an amazing future.)

His name was Jose Rizal.

Ring any bells?

It didn’t for me …

It turns out he is the national hero of the Philippines and, without
question, one of the most extraordinary men who ever lived.

He mastered 22 languages, was both an M.D. and a PhD, and before his
political execution at the hands of the Philippines’ Spanish oppressors he made
significant contributions as an architect, artist, businessman, cartoonist,
educator, economist, ethnologist, scientific farmer, historian, inventor,
journalist, linguist, musician, mythologist, nationalist, naturalist, novelist,
ophthalmic surgeon, poet, propagandist, psychologist, scientist, sculptor,
sociologist, and theologian.

All this before his wrongful death at 35.

Why have you never heard of him?

Is it because the world is so big or that the voices singing the praises of
lesser men in the western media are so loud?

Or maybe something else entirely …

Here is a monument erected in the cell where Rizal spent his final hours. 

The footsteps you see here mark the long walk he took to his place of
execution.  He was paraded through the streets and executed publicly so as
to provide an example for anyone else who dared stand up for human rights.

The footsteps are still there and you can walk in them today.

I didn’t. 

It was much easier to take a car.

How did that come about?

Well, I was invited to headline a massive seminar called the "World Internet
Summit" and brain dump some of my new thoughts about ecommerce.

So, here I am …  (Giving a pretty edgy and experimental two-part
presentation …)

Anyway, I was really fired up to tuck away one of these crabs after hearing
so much about them.

One of the other speakers, my buddy Stephen Pierce, talks about them like
they are deep fried Mars bars on ice cream.  His eyes glaze over … His
tongue wags …  It’s hilarious.

So, I went out there last night with an assorted collection of rabble rousers
from the event and was the only guy at the table ordering this dish.

10 minutes after it came out, I was elbow deep in chili sauce trying
pathetically to pull the crab meat out of this monstrosity.

My wife was wiping my face … Rolling up my sleeves …

I can do a lotta things.  Handle a crab gracefully with my bare hands
ain’t one of ‘em.

I was really disappointed.

I’m not sure what I expected, but that wasn’t it.

At the end, I pushed the plate away, wiped my hands (with about 10 napkins
and two wet-naps), chucked the last napkin down and announced, "Well that
sucked."

Everyone laughed.

And somehow in this minor disappointment I lost touch with how ridiculously
lucky I am.

In the moment I was a spoiled little punk who didn’t get his toys.

How easy it is to forget that not long ago I was a young kid who spent many
days struggling to find his next meal.  Who went hungry on many occasions.  
Who ate in soup kitchens on others.

Let me tell you this …  Chances are you’ve never had to go hungry. 
Knowing what I know about those who read this blog, it’s statistically likely
you’ve never "gone hungry" your whole life.  Sure, you may have missed a
meal here and there, but have you ever not known where your next meal would come
from?

I’m here to tell you it sucks.

Sucks worse than most anything you can imagine.

It certainly sucks a lot worse than the disappointment my sense of
entitlement gave me about Chili Crabs.

Anyone who hasn’t gone hungry has no idea why I say that eradicating poverty
and providing for basic human needs is one of the keys to world peace.

See, what you may not understand is something I feel deep in my bones. 
Hunger leads to desperation.  And desperate people do desperate things.

It’s easy for us to sit back watching our flat screens, sucking down our
burgers, shakes, and fries, and judge the pictures of poverty we see on TV.

"Why don’t these idiots just help themselves? (sluuurrrp)"

It’s not that simple.

Many people are in regions where their governments, or the influences of
foreign governments, are making it difficult to get food to them.

In other cases, people just don’t know any better.

When I was very young there were times when I shoplifted for food.

I’m not particularly proud of that.

But I didn’t see any other options at the time.

Did that make me a bad person?  No, it made me hungry.

To head off a few questions …

1.  No, I have no financial interest in this company
whatsoever.  I heard about them through a local news
program and decided to investigate for myself. 

2.  Yes, I know this experiment was not ideal, but it’s the
best I could do on short notice.  We’ll be doing it again in the near
future under more controlled conditions (at an ASTM certified lab in the U.S.).

Bloggers are getting more power …  Smaller players can get a bigger
reach for a lower cost … 

But none of this is new, really.  It’s been going on for a few years
now.  How come mass media still owns the game?

Here’s my theory:

1.  Direct Access to an Easy Medium

All you have to do is flip on the TV switch or pick up that magazine on your
table.  It’s right there.  It’s easy.

2.  Less Choice

There are far fewer channels to choose from than websites to surf
(understatement of the millennium).

3.  More Clout

Let’s be real.  Millions of people know me online, but my fame still
hasn’t gotten me the respect of, say, a Donny Deustch.  This is why the
average grass roots blogger is going to have a helluva time achieving the
success of a Michelle Malkin.  Love her or hate her, she gets air time on
Fox News all the time.  Same thing with authors – if you don’t have the
clout and reach a high profile at the New Yorker will give you, you’re not going
to be able to compete with a Malcolm Gladwell – no matter how good your book is.

4.  Better Talent

This doesn’t mean that the creative minds on mass media are any better than
the unknown creative minds slugging it out on the net.  It means that the
marketers, production managers, and PR guys are plain better.  Not because
they are smarter or because they have more talent, but because they have been
doing it for longer and the medium isn’t as volatile.

For a long time you’re going to see this be the case.  There have been
some interesting "web TV shows," but I still haven’t seen anything even remotely
as cool, slick, or well-thought-out as say The Sopranos or The Apprentice.

What if you come armed with an unusual world-changing truth?  Well, even
if you have the truth on your side and mass media is selling a lie – they will
outgun you, outmaneuver you, and out-think you just about every time.

But maybe that will change?

Here’s a guy who is trying to give Hollywood a run for it’s money. 
Think "The Apprentice Meets
the Internet Marketing World."

Joel Comm intends for this to be the first major internet-based reality TV
show that significantly flips up the paradigm.

I really want for this to work.  Not just because I am the
headlining featured expert who will give the candidates their first challenge,
but because I’m all for anything that gives decentralization a nudge.

In a sense, decentralization is what American Democracy is supposed to be all
about.  Don’t give anyone too much power, so they don’t screw things up too
badly or favor one group over another.

Unfortunately, democracy doesn’t really work that way (debatable point) – but
decentralization of media power might just help to put things back in balance.

In order to protect his identity, I can only reveal that he is a university
student living in the city of Tehran.

During our conversations it became clear that those of us in the west tend to
have some common deep misconceptions about the Iranian people and what life is
like in Iran.

I am sure that bits of this letter will be singled out and used for the
political purposes of those on the left and the right alike.

His motivation for writing this letter, and mine for printing it, is not
political – but human.

The facts he states in this letter, though many of which will likely run
contrary to our preconceived notions, can very easily be verified if you care to
take the time to do so.

I’ve already said too much – as his letter stands quite well on it’s own – in
it’s unedited glory …

Here are a few potential definitions …

I have to admit – Melbourne is one cool city – and Melbourne may set the
standard of coolness against which all cities are measured (leaving out San
Francisco and New York to be fair), but the actual definition is #2 above.

The building mentioned in yesterday’s post is, in fact, Melbourne’s
CH2.

My cousin is one of the city’s town planners and I have it on his authority
that it is the most sustainable office building in the world.

Whether this is true, or how such things are actually measured, I have no
idea.

As far as I know, there is no Billboard Top Ten of sustainable office
buildings, but this building sure has some clever technology that opened my eyes
to the potential ways to solve the world’s energy problems.

Visit the above site for a more in depth treatment, but here are just a few
of the interesting features I was told about while getting a private tour …

From the photovoltaic cells and the solar hot water panels on the roof to the
recycled timber modern art reception desk on the ground floor – the "coolth" of
this building is a super-frosty -1,000 degrees Melbourne.

And the people who work in this building should consider themselves blessed. 
The climate is absolutely perfect all year round.  The use of natural light
and shade makes it feel like you’re walking into a science fiction film about a
world that got it right.

What more could you ask for?

When this building will start paying the city back serious dividends in just
10 years, why are less sustainable office buildings even being made?

Or so one of the staff who works in this building tells me.

• It has 18% of the water footprint per person of a normal office
  building.
• It uses only 13% of the gas and 15% of the electricity.
• It does not have an electronic or gas based air conditioning system, but
  the building maintains a comfortable temperature all year round (in one of
  this country’s coldest cities).  How?  (more tomorrow)
• The up front cost of this building was significantly higher than
  standard office buildings, but it will pay for itself after the first 10
  years of operation – and then continue to save the city millions upon
  millions over time.

Where is it?

I won’t reveal that until tomorrow. 

Any guesses?

Here’s a hint …

I’m going to speak at
an event in Singapore at the end of May.  I don’t normally "do" events
about Internet Marketing anymore, but this will be the biggest such event ever -
with over 5,000 in attendance.

I met the organizers of this event just a few blocks away from this building
at their last event.

Tomorrow I’ll reveal the building, and tell you about some of its amazingly
clever features.