DISQUS

You could probably start a whole series of under-appreciated views that are relative to famous vistas.

Would love to hear his story. "I picked up this American -- I was hoping he would tell me what they say on that CD, but no dice. So, I bought him some lunch and dropped him off. Nice guy."

Your public demands more....

Seems the eBay/PayPal experience may be instructive for Facebook (etc) -- if there is a healthy ecosystem of 3rd parties forming, let them fight it out and see which emerges as most popular. Still, I have to believe that unlike eBay in the earlier days, Facebook is under tremendous pressure to drive revenue growth to justify sky-high valuations, so perhaps they will need to accelerate standardization.

Ugh.

You should start a "Brushes with National Political Unrest" count on your sidebar...

but, getting some link juice is worth it in the early days, no?

I agree with @Mike Bradbury -- give us the goods on how to build traffic ;)

This is a great stuff -- sounds almost like you could build an automated "fraud score" that gives a likelihood someone's RSS numbers are b.s.

That you could see Batman in such a remote place speaks volumes to the penetration of "Hollywood" throughout the globe.

and what do you do about medical care (in the event you need it) when traveling like that?

what's the objective?

Shatner.

This is how it happens - the beginning of your transition from traveler to travel celebrity...

Did you have help for the sydney opera house, or was that just you in front of a tripod?

I have to presume that when you say "the Americas are pissed at their exclusion from the menu" you are being facetious given the menu is that of McDonalds.

Surprised you managed to make a joke out of an invasion and not catch more flack.

Curious if you carry pepper spray or any other self-defense tools? Do you have a separate stash of cash/etc. in case you do get "mugged"?

+1 on brand advertising, though Facebook and other social networks have a problem with being really good for brand promotion because so many models would be seen as intrusive or interruptions. So far the "Pages" experiment on Facebook has done a little bit of good on the brand front, but the results to date have been underwhelming. May be Facebook will need to take advantage of its reach and breadth of data to monetize across the Net by selling selective access to said information (and/or being its own ad network powered by its data).

What's wrong with spending time in a big city? Seems like you can't really take in a major city in a day or two anyway, so being able to be there in time-spans measured in weeks not days makes a lot sense. I've been in San Francisco for over a decade and still haven't seen lots of things ;)

I think you may have found your true calling in cave photography.

Given your international readership this will come as a REAL shock to many.

Eiffel tower is definitely touristy (though, I haven't done it since 1989, so it may very well be even worse today), but very worthwhile -- a great view, and a great experience.

I think this recognition that hand-outs aren't a long-term fix for anything is part of the rise in popularity of "social ventures" in business circles -- companies that aren't charities but try to address under-served markets and aim for the "double bottom line". Of course, the class "teach a man to fish..." line comes to mind.

One thing that always comes to my mind when I hear the "vitamin vs. pain killer" line is that in the literal markets this analogy addresses, the total market for vitamins is at least as big as the total market for pain killers -- and it's growing much faster.

The lesson you didn't mention is that there is a lot of latent demand you could be filling with your wallpaper....