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• Disney looks to Seattle for Internet CTO
  

  Cementing its longtime Seattle presence, Walt Disney Internet Group named local tech veteran A.D. "Bud" Albers its new chief technology officer.

• Happy holidays!
  

  I can't wait to play with our new blog tools but I'm taking a break until next year. Talk to you then, Brier

• Build a company in a weekend
  

  Startup Weekend, a mini-conference where attendees create and start a company in a weekend, is coming to Seattle on Jan. 25-27 for a session at Adobe's Fremont campus.

  Registration is $20, and participants receive shares of the company they start. Startup Weekend, an organization run by Boulder, Colo., entrepreneur Andrew Hyde, gets 5 percent of the company. He's held similar events in 13 other cities since July.

  A group of Seattle tech types has been doing the same thing on a less formal basis.

  Maybe it's time for a battle of the bands thing, or Iron Chef Startup.
  

• Grungy new Web site smells like Seattle spirit
  

  Maybe I'm sentimental, but I really like FadedFlannel.com, a new Web site and online music store paying homage to Seattle's grunge years.

  It's a one-person venture by Rick Lambert, program director at KNDD/The End from 1991 through 1996.

  The site has info on more than 50 Northwest artists, including their CD libraries and track listings, and of course a selection of flannel shirts at "Ye Olde Flannel Shoppe."

  If it takes off, perhaps Lambert could use the proceeds to resurrect The Crocodile Cafe.

• LA Times rips Gates Foundation
  

  It's good that watchdogs are keeping their eye on the Gates Foundation and that thoughtful experts are monitoring the overall benefits of global health philanthropies, but Sunday's LA Times story on the Gates Foundation was awfully sensational.

  It basically says money the foundation is spending battling AIDS in Africa is distorting the continent's already poor healthcare system, drawing resources and luring desparately needed healthcare workers to better-paying jobs funded by grants. It also questions priorities, noting that people are still dying of hunger -- some are so hungry they throw up the AIDS medicine the foundation is funding.

  These are interesting questions and there is great on-the-ground reporting, but the story uses a terrible anecdote of an infant's death to make its point.

  Here's an excerpt from the story, headlined "Unintended victims of Gates Foundation generosity":

  There was no oxygen tube for Mankuebe. She asphyxiated for lack of a second valve. It would have cost $35.

  The hospital, with no staff to move Mankuebe's remains to the morgue, placed her body on a shelf near the delivery room while her father arranged for burial. The tiny corpse was swaddled in a baby blanket. A handwritten death notice was stuck to the blanket with a used hypodermic needle.

  The Gates Foundation, endowed by the personal fortunes of the Microsoft Corp. chairman, his wife and Berkshire Hathaway Inc. Chairman Warren E. Buffett, has given $650 million to the Global Fund. But the oxygen valve fell outside the priorities of the fund's grants to Lesotho.

  Every day, nurses say, one or two babies at the hospital die as Mankuebe did -- bypassed in a place where AIDS overshadows other concerns.

  That's a low blow, because it implies the foundation is responsible because it didn't spend $35 for a valve.

  The lack of a valve in a chronically underfunded African hospital isn't a smoking gun. Maybe I missed something in the story, but it didn't say the valve would have been there if not for the priority placed on AIDS work because of the Gates money. So how does that make Mankuebe an "unintended victim"?

  The story actually says the foundation gave the child a chance to come into the world, because it had earlier saved the child's mother, not to mention all the children saved by its work on malaria and other critical problems.

  It does a good job showing that the AIDS work is stressing Africa's healthcare system, and it's a reminder that the foundation is still young and has issues to sort out, such as the side effects of its giant footprint.

  It's also good for the public to know about the foundation's challenges and outcomes, intended and unintended. With all the money being spent, there's going to be some dirt.

  I'm glad there are newspapers with the resources to do this kind of reporting, but I wish the story had more context.

  Also, if the goal is to pressure the foundation to spend more on basic healthcare delivery in places like Africa, I'm not sure the best route is to suggest Mankuebe died because of bad decisions made in Seattle.

• Bill Gates on "skills you need to succeed"
  

  In a guest column provided to the BBC, the Microsoft chairman shared tips on how to succeed now that technology has turned most everyone into an "information worker."

  Math and science are important, but so are communication skills. Gates also said he also values "a passion for ongoing learning."

  An excerpt:

  A lot of people assume that creating software is purely a solitary activity where you sit in an office with the door closed all day and write lots of code.

  This isn't true at all.

  Software innovation, like almost every other kind of innovation, requires the ability to collaborate and share ideas with other people, and to sit down and talk with customers and get their feedback and understand their needs.

  I also place a high value on having a passion for ongoing learning. When I was pretty young, I picked up the habit of reading lots of books.

  It's great to read widely about a broad range of subjects. Of course today, it's far easier to go online and find information about any topic that interests you.

  The timing's interesting -- the feel-good piece appears the day after Norwegian browser-maker Opera asked the European Commission to open a new front in its antitrust case against Microsoft -- but so far the piece is drawing lots of praise in the comment section.

• Amazon buys J.K. Rowling fairy tales, posting them now
  

  Talk about a big thank you: Amazon.com just spent about $4 million buying one of seven handmade copies of J.K. Rowling's "The Tales of Beedle the Bard" at a London auction.

  Rowling auctioned the book of "wizarding fairy tales" that she mentioned in "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows" to support The Children's Voice, a charitable campaign for institutionalized children.

  Amazon's "incredibly excited" about the deal and has put a prominent link at the center of its homepage, directing visitors to scans of the book.

  Here's Amazon's description of the book -- which it isn't selling:

  "The Tales of Beedle the Bard is extensively illustrated and handwritten by the bard herself -- all 157 pages of it. It's bound in brown Moroccan leather and embellished with five hand-chased hallmarked sterling silver ornaments and mounted moonstones.

  The company's adding reviews and more images right now.

  When it's all scanned, perhaps it'll be put on public display somewhere in Seattle, like the Seattle Art Museum?

• Kal Raman's learning startup stepping out
  

  As it begins its second year of business, Bellevue-based InfiLearn.com is undergoing big changes.

  In the last week or so, the ambitious startup changed its name to GlobalScholar.com and launched a consumer-focused tutoring service. It lets tutors list their services and hosts online tutoring sessions on its platform, in exchange for a commission.

  That's one of three components to the business hatched a year ago by Kal Raman, a former drugstore.com chief executive and Amazon.com senior vice president. The company has grown to about 100 people, roughly half in Bellevue and the rest in Chennai,