Thursday, January 27, 2000

My schedule is filling up with interesting things to do. At lunch I sat down at the only empty seat of a group of Australians that included the CEO of Telstra, the Australian telephone company, I am told. We talked about his broadband strategy, they're already an ISP (the largest in Australia?) and are deciding how much further they should go. I was speaking right after lunch, so I had to rush off, but I'm going to look for him again.

I attended a session on the size of the universe. Even though the presenters were famous astrophysicists, they spoke in newbie terms. I was a math major, and felt my rusty old math muscles get exercised. It was in this session that jetlag finally caught up with me. I was trying to figure out what time it was back home, and fell asleep while doing that simple task. I woke myself up by reminding myself how exciting this place is.

***Esther siting!!

As I write this Esther Dyson is chatting across the room with some people I don't know. I just snapped a picture. Hopefully she'll come over and have something interesting to say.

She did! I got pictures. I asked her what she wants to say to my readers. She asks "Dave, why aren't you wearing jeans?"

It gets better. At Saturday's gala she wants me to wear jeans so she can. Her rationale? The rules say you have to dress formally or show up in national dress. Oh. she says the national dress of the Internet is jeans. I get it! I told her I would think it over. (I want to get invited back.)

The pictures will come later, I have to rush off, and we can't find the card for the Nikon camera. It just appears to have walked off.

Press release: Davos Newbies get help from Manila.

Olga Vetrova from WorldLink, the magazine of the World Economic Forum, is helping me today with this website.

I'm uploading pictures I took this morning, starting with a lovely street scene in Davos.

I just got invited to dinner with the Prime Minister of Turkey. Interesting! And then a guy from Jordan walked up and asked me to blow off the Turkish PM and have dinner with the King of Jordan. Too bad, I can't do either because I'm dining with William Safire of the NY Times.

They thought it would never happen, but here's a picture of me, wearing a suit.

A closeup of Lance Knobel, editor of DavosNewbies. Like me and most people here, he's wearing a suit.

In Switzerland, the word "schmuck" means something different from what it means in the US.

In Switzerland, everyone talks like Andre Radke, the man behind SpicyNoodles.Com.