"Video" Posts on ValleyZen

ValleyZen covered the Computer History Museum’s sold-out lecture kicking off the “Exhibit Launch of Charles Babbage’s Difference Engine No.2″ by Dr. Doron Swade, the world’s expert on Charles Babbage and by Dr. Nathan Myhrvold, former CTO, Microsoft, founder of Dynamical Systems and co-founder of Intellectual Ventures. Dr. Swade has a unique perspective, because he successfully undertook an experiment completed in 1991 to determine whether Babbage in the period 1847 to 1849 could have built the Difference Engine No. 2. The experiment required Dr. Swade to use 19^th Century tools…

Set against the backdrop of the warmest weather yet this year, Dr. Larry Brilliant’s talk about our global problems took on even more urgency.

As he spoke about climate change, I thought of the weatherman earlier this morning, “Scorching hot today…Get ready for the triple digits.”

The heat inside the lecture room was appropriate. As Brilliant explained Google.org’s initiative to Develop Renewable Energy Cheaper Than Coal (RE less than C), there was no escape for the audience into air-conditioned complacency. Bodies against bodies…

Dr. Peter Diamandis is the Chairman and CEO of the X PRIZE Foundation, which awarded a $10 million prize for private spaceflight. Today when I met him and heard him speak about the importance of incentivizing risk (see video clip below), I thought of a Zen maxim from Hagakure, Book of the Samurai…

Check out this video conversation with ValleyZen co-bloggers Drue Kataoka and Bill Fenwick. The video takes place outside and inside the Fenwick & West headquarters. In the video Bill and Drue talk about why ZEN and the Valley go together so well. Highlights include:

• Bill on achieving Zen Calm
• Litigation, Zen & Peace
• Zen and the Valley
• About Bill’s old blog
• Bill’s goals for ValleyZen
• The Power of Zen Silence

The ValleyZen video is here or embedded below.
Checkout this ValleyZen Flickr photoset…

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Today ValleyZen was featured on ABC-TV’s View from the Bay.

Watch the View from the Bay segment.

View photos from today’s interview.

The executive producers asked Drue to talk about…

For Barack Obama’s campaign, the Zen surprise came out of the negative space. In the art of Sumi-e, the negative space (the white space between the brush strokes) is as important as the brush strokes themselves. This is what holds the painting together and makes it take shape and meaning. For the Obama campaign, the ebony-inked brush strokes are Obama himself. The negative space is the countless campaign contributors, supporters and activists who have found meaning and identity in his campaign. They are the ones that have created the surprise…

NBC 11’s TechNow! Host Scott Budman knows the value of eliminating clutter on & off the air. Want to get on TV? Be Zen! “I’ve gotten to know some of the CEOS, analysts and individuals who are really going to give the good soundbites. I seek those people out who…”

Scott Budman on:

• Interviewing the Valley’s major players & covering the big tech stories.
• ValleyZen as the “work-life balance” of successful CEOs and journalists.
• Transforming a 90 minute tape into a 1 minute story.
• Inside look at Silicon Valley’s NBC 11 – the first news station to do live on the air “texting” to talent.
• Shooting a hi-tech blog video interview in a traditional TV studio!
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“A microcosm is contained within a tea bowl.”

In Silicon Valley, a microcosm is contained within a Persian rug. This is the story of Pejman Nozad and 323 University Avenue – where a world of influential ideas came out of his Persian rug.

Pejman’s good karma began with a University Avenue Persian rug store–the Medallion Rug Gallery. The business prospered and soon his acumen led him to purchase office space down the street at 165 University Avenue. He rented the space to start-ups in exchange for equity. Google, PayPal and Danger…

Episode 4 of Tim Draper VC Samurai is being released today! From machine guns to music, this episode has it all. Tim Draper and Drue get a nerf machine gun demo from DFJ’s Warren Packard. A shootout in the DFJ offices ensues – Duck! Then, Drue performs a shakuhachi improvisation for Tim in his office. And the grand finale –Tim surprises Drue with a Samurai Flip…

Yesterday we attended the Legal Futures Conference at Stanford University. A fiery debate erupted between Prof. Larry Lessig and Andrew Keen about Professional vs. User-Generated Content (UGC). Lessig believes that UGC is the future and that legal changes should be made to facilitate its growth. Open the floodgates and see if old media can compete! Keen argues that UGC produces massive amounts of low-quality content whose credibility can’t be relied on, and it clutters the public domain. Keen is nostalgic for…