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Showing posts from June, 2015

Buddha Chill

Photographs copyright ©2015 Alexander Chow-Stuart.  Our Buddha chillin' out in the evening sunlight.  Please follow me on Twitter @alexanderchow.  And please  subscribe to this blog via email by clicking here.

Funded! Global Edition San Francisco

Hans Tung of GGV Capital (right) talking with Bill Reichert of Garage Technology Ventures.  P hotograph  Copyright  ©  2015 A lexander Chow-Stuart. I attended Funded! Global Edition  in San Francisco on Wednesday, a tech-focused conference about venture capital, an event organized by Silicon Valley Entrepreneurs with the sponsorship of ShengJing (Peakview Capital in the US) and F50. An often fascinating glimpse into the thought processes of fund managers, the general conclusions from the panels were of the vital importance of passion, persistence and resilience, of course, with Hans Tung, Managing Partner of GGV Capital (and one of the most entertaining of the participants) stressing the importance of the DNA of a founder and how that relates to both the product and the market. Among the people I met who most interested me were:  Karen Katz , panelist and founder of Playlist Media, which she said is currently in "stealth mode."  Corey Breier, who was represe

Lenovo's Amazing Gift to Hudson at getgeeked San Francisco

Hudson with Amanda Heater from Lenovo, who presented him with his Lenovo Yoga Tablet 2 Pro.  Hudson and I attended getgeeked San Francisco last Thursday, and at the end of the event, Jeff Witt and Amanda Heater of Lenovo put Hudson over the moon with the gift of a Lenovo Yoga Tablet 2 Pro , a beautiful 13.3" 32 GB tablet that comes complete with stereo JBL speakers and an incredible integrated pico projector. getgeeked is a tech convention that gives people the chance to see some of the latest products in development, as well as new tech releases from major brands, and to interact with CEOs, developers and tech enthusiasts, while trying out the goodies, hands-on. There are brief presentations and Q&As, as well as raffles and giveaways for those who share their experience on Twitter and Instagram. Hudson and I each came within a single digit of winning three of the raffles, but what was truly remarkable was that Hudson was given the Lenovo tablet after the panels a

Lana Del Rey - Chelsea Hotel No.2, Black Beauty and random thoughts

For anyone who has any doubts about Lana Del Rey's hauntingly broad range of talents, here are two songs and videos that capture the beauty of her voice and presence at its most vulnerable and simply moving. Chelsea Hotel #2 is a Leonard Cohen song that Lana Del Rey sings even more beautifully than Cohen (and I love Cohen), bringing to it the strange kind of frailty that Lou Reed brought to songs like Perfect Day (both Cohen and Reed videos are below.) The second Del Rey song is Black Beauty, from her album Ultraviolence , made all the more beautiful here by the "fanmade" music video by Peter Tatsis, which features vintage footage of female dancers (along with footage of Del Rey herself, from other videos) which in its own way is as haunting as Lana Del Rey's tender song and voice. Lana Del Rey's music now strikes me as comparable in a sense to early Bowie: enormously varied, hugely accomplished and at the same time the beginning of a long wonderful