I’m here in Austin at SXSW Interactive, one of the best tech conferences out there, IMHO.

I flew down yesterday from Seattle. I met five people in the terminal, a few faces who I knew but people I never officially met.About 90 percent of the people on the flight were SXSW attendees. Everyone either knew each other, was a FOAF, or had worked at the same company at some point. It was honestly an amazing trip filled with great conversations and buzz. In fact, the flight attendant asked me if we all worked for the same company (can the Internet be considered a company?

Last night I had dinner with a bunch of my former Razorfish colleagues and it was great to see everyone. I met some new folks from Filter and Cole + Weber as well. Hope to run into some old friends today and meet some more new people as well.

Here’s my schedule today. I’ll be live blogging these sessions.

2:00: The UX of Mobile

3:30: Understanding Content, The Stuff We Design For

5:00: Time + Social + Location, What’s Next in Mobile Experiences

Oh and schwag bag pictures follow…

Here’s chef Peter Gordon in Britain’s The Independent; “Our love affair with home-grown ingredients is killing innovation in our restaurants.”

He’s speaking mainly from a British perspective and, though he doesn’t make the distinction, he seems to be arguing only with the fundamentalists among the “eat local” movement. But it’s a good read.

Whether or not there is a “growing tide of culinary xenophobia” in Britain (or, for that matter, in the United States), and whether or not there is “a secret gastronomic club to which so many chefs aspire,” (membership in which might be jeopardized by using “foreign” ingredients), it’s surely the case that choices are limited when the rules of local eating are applied.

Whether or not that’s a good thing—for health, for the environment, for the palate, for local economies—depends mostly upon the particular ingredient in question. But again, only fundamentalists rule out all nonlocal ingredients. The trouble is that, in food politics as in religion, fundamentalism is often more powerful than it deserves to be.

Why are some governments more effective than others at attracting nontraditional foreign direct investment? Thunderbird’s Roy C. Nelson, Ph.D. (pictured), a global studies professor with expertise in Latin America, argues that …

… nontraditional foreign direct investment, which requires more advanced skills and training from a country’s workers, can help improve a country’s development prospects and diversify its economy. Examples of this include investment in software development centers, biotechnology or global services.

Learn more about what Dr. Nelson has to say on this subject here.

Follow Nelson on Twitter here.

Citing a single unidentified source “close to the process,” the New York Post reported today that activist investor Nelson Peltz is considering making a competing bid for CKE Restaurants, the owner of Carl’s Jr. and Hardee’s.

A couple of weeks ago, the private equity firm Thomas H. Lee Partners agreed to buy CKE for $928 million, including debt. Competing bidders have until April 6 to make offers. But Pacific Coast Business Times notes that any offer “would have to be a sweet one to make up for a big breakup fee if the deal with THL is called off.”

“According to documents filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission,” the newspaper reported, “CKE is on the hook for a $15.5 million termination fee to THL and up to $5 million of the Boston firm’s costs if it doesn’t complete the deal with THL.” Trian Fund Management, through which Peltz operates, controls the Wendy’s/Arby’s Group.

The Post’s mystery source said something odd: “It might be offensive to some of Wendy’s customers to combine the brands.” The context for this statement was Carl’s Jr., which the Post described as CKE’s “edgier brand aimed at single guys between 18 and 25.” I’m trying to imagine a Wendy’s customer becoming offended because the chain’s owner also owns a company whose previous owner tended to run obnoxious advertisements. I don’t see that happening, at least not to a degree that it would become a problem for Peltz.

Trian owns nearly 4 percent of CKE. The Post, quoting the same source, says “several” private equity firms are considering making offers. 

Raymond Sokolov will no longer write restaurant reviews for the Wall Street Journal, as he had been doing as a freelancer since 2006. He told Pete Wells of The New York Times’ Diner’s Journal that his editors told him it will no longer run restaurant reviews and that they wanted him to write about “food trends” instead.

Not so, says the Journal. “We are not abandoning restaurant reviews and are still committed broadly to food coverage,” a spokeswoman told Wells. That’s probably true, given that, as Wells notes, the Journal “is about to begin a new section focused on New York, and has interviewed other restaurant critics in connection with that project.”

Sokolov told Wells that he and the Journal “certainly parted amicably.” Perhaps, but they also parted telling two very different stories about what happened, and what the Journal plans to do with its coverage of restaurants and “food trends.”