Now, remember this is not an American view, it’s the view of an Australian, and a european-based one at that, but think about it – just by getting elected Obama completely changed the direction of the world’s sole superpower. From our perspective (the world, not America’s) the last 8 years has seen the US turn from a force of good in the world into one of, well, not evil, but certainly not good. It was a country that was using and endorsing torture. It was a country that was supporting imprisonment without right to a trial. It was a country that had invaded a country under false pretenses and re-ignited the cold war with Russia. It was a country that was attempting to “lead” not through leadership, but fear.

All of that has now changed. America is once again the most admired country in the world. Instead of picking fights, the world’s sole superpower is now working to prevent fights.

How could you contribute more to world peace than that?

It’s uncomfortable to stand up in front of strangers.
It’s uncomfortable to propose an idea that might fail.
It’s uncomfortable to challenge the status quo.
It’s uncomfortable to resist the urge to settle.

When you identify the discomfort, you’ve found the place where a leader is needed.

If you’re not uncomfortable in your work as a leader, it’s almost certain you’re not reaching your potential as a leader.

If you’re in business, or participate in community groups of any sort and haven’t read marketing guru Seth Godin’s book Tribes yet – do it now. It’s a brilliant book offering insights into the realities of marketing today. It’s not about selling products or services – it’s about building and leading communities, building and leading tribes. My favourite book of 2009.

We aim to collect and curate all objective data; implement every known model, method, and algorithm; and make it possible to compute whatever can be computed about anything.

For example, I asked WolframAlpha “how far from Stockholm to Moscow?” Instead of providing me with a list of pages where I might get the answer, I was given the distance in kilometres, the approximate flight time, a map, plus some other potentially useful information like the current time in both cities and their populations.

I’m about to have lunch, so I asked WA – how many calories in a pancake? This time I was given the average calories, some other energy measurements, and an interesting graph of where pancakes like in a distribution ranking of different food and the caloric content.

It’s going to take a while to learn when’s the best time to use WA over google, but I think this is going to be a great tool!

This photo was taken back on January 20, 2009 – the day of Barack Obama’s inauguration as the 44th President of the United States of America. I only encountered recently on the front page of the White House Correspondents’ Association website and simply had to repost it. How beautiful it is! A healthy young couple in the prime of their lives, enjoying a day that can be barely believed – and being so obviously, and publicly, in love. Fantastic.

One Swedish company – Spotify - has been ready for these developments for a while, and yesterday I finally signed up with them myself. Why I took so long I don’t know – my broadband provider, Bredbandsbolaget, provides free access! So what does Spotify do? Well, they don’t sell you songs for download like iTunes or provide links to “torrents” like The Pirate Bay does. Instead they take advantage of the superb broadband infrastructure available in Sweden (I have 100mb fibre connection) to stream music on demand, all backed with agreements with record labels and bands. There are thousands and thousands of tracks available, you can listen to a whole album, or select individual tracks, or even select the genres you like and let Spotify create a playlist for you.

So far I’m impressed. The range available is extraordinary, the quality is fantastic, and the software is fairly easy and straightforward. What’s more – it’s all 100% legal! Spotify is still in beta and requires an invite if you want to join the free offer and aren’t using a current partner like Bredbandsbolaget. I have 10 invites to use, so anyone who wants to give it a try – drop me a note! All it needs is 256k connection and Mac or Windows.

Superb job Spotify – well done!

The Tesla Roadster Electric Car

Finally it looks like one battery technology barrier may have been broken down by a team at MIT, and a surprisingly simple breakthrough it is. It had been assumed that the speed lithium ions could move through a lithium battery was greatly limited by some impenetrable factor. It seems that assumption was wrong. The researchers studied more closely how the ions were moving through the material and discovered it was essentially a design flaw that was causing the problem. Imagine you had 3 lanes heading into a tunnel that had only one lane. When engineers design roads, they take these kind of bottlenecks into account and actively set things up so vehicular traffic can merge using a “zipper principle”. Now imagine we didn’t do that, and just suddenly ended two of the lanes with no real way for vehicles to get into the lane that went through the tunnel.

It seems that’s essentially what is happening right now in the battery in your phone or computer, or for that matter, hybrid car. The MIT researchers have discovered a relatively simple and cost effective way to build lithium ion batteries so that they “guide” the ions into these tunnels. The result? Dramatic increases in speed and efficiency. Batteries will be able to be charged in minutes instead of hours. They’ll also be able to discharge faster, providing the kind of bursts of power needed in electric motor vehicles like the Tesla, and since manufacturer’s will no longer have to provide “extra” battery to cover up the inefficiencies, they’ll be smaller and lighter too.

The best news? The new manufacturing process is relatively easy to implement, and scientists believe the new batteries will be on the market in two to three years.

Most of the time I’m a very light sleeper, it doesn’t take much to wake me up and then I can struggle to fall back asleep quickly. Long plane flights (for example from Australia to Sweden and back!) are simply exercises in sleep deprivation.

I’ve tried various ear plugs over the years but always found them either ineffective or uncomfortable (meaning I still couldn’t sleep!) or both. I nearly always sleep on my side, and regular ear plugs just aren’t designed for it. This has been no small problem. I have 2 cats that like to reenact Chariots of Fire in the middle of the night, a toddler who grinds his teeth when he’s not babbling about whatever he dreams about, and a fiancee that (occasionally) snores … working nights and sleeping days when nobody was at home virtually became the only way to get a decent sleep!

Then, a few weeks ago I found these! They’re a small ball of silicon rubber. You place them over (not in) your ear canal and then mold them until you get a nice fit. Done properly you get a little vacuum suction and then they’re just brilliant. My life has changed! I’m waking up feeling so much more refreshed. They don’t completely block noise, but they dull it such that it doesn’t wake me.

Life is good