You know it's not democracy when you smell something funny

Somehow it was clear that external influences were being used to wrap the whole thing as fast as possible. Yet, the fact that internet is a valuable tool was proved again, when officials channels are not giving us facts, but fiction. When the case of Pirate Bay came out we stood upon the beginning of understanding who is who and which is which.

For ages the media outlet painted a dark and sinister image of the underground internet to push the masses towards the hate. It all goes down to following the everlasting thought "I don't know it, therefore I must despise it!". There is more to it than what you might think.

It's all happening in Sweden where the biggest torrent server Pirate Bay was under attack from the Swedish authorities to shut down operations, under the false accusation that they were facilitating the worldwide industry of movie/game piracy.

What merged was an intricate game of cat ad mouse where foreign pressures were applied directly by the US, from the RIAA ( Record Industry Association of America). Someone was upset that a bunch of kids from Europe were upsetting the cash flow in Hollywood. It also looks like that the interests of few people are far more important than geo-political issues happening on this planet, and before you can say the word "Lawsuit" a search warrant was issued against the operating location of the Pirate Bay. The rest is well known, but now we are seeing the aftermath piece by piece all over the internet.

Browsing Reddit I found this interesting article about how the US forced Sweden to crackdown on the Pirate Bay and on file sharing. It is upsetting that two countries so far away and culturally apart are magically summoned by the attention of piracy that is only allegedly hurting a very small minority in USA. What is also disturbing is that if Sweden denied cooperation it would have faced trading sanction directly by the US.

There a feeling of being at gun point jumps into my mind: if Sweden does not do what America wants, shit will hit the fan. There's democracy taking place where the movie and the recording industry is desperately trying all it can to grant survivability for the next five years, maybe.

What followed after is a huge chunk of information given from many blogs, torrent and technology website over how really the situation is unfolding. But the impoverished RIAA would suffer the synergy of the internet users when the events of the Wikileaks and the secret cables followed suit after the Pirate Bay shut down and became a political party. What remained is a trail of news and facts that put together are becoming a clear mosaic that represents the private and shady deals that American corporations are orchestrating on a global scale. It's clear that whenever there is the will and the power anything can be done in no-time, and this highlight the arrogant behavior of US politicians whenever their shady interests are touched. 

I wish USA cold be that quick in eradicating real-life threats like starvation and famine, things that matter more than a few less dollars that the RIAA doesn't get. But it also shows a failed American foreign diplomacy that acts only upon the needs of the few in an aggressive way that casts shadow over the creation of a fair bill over net neutrality.

INDIE!

It has the meaning of some sort of underground musical trend that you heard somewhere, but you weren't sure what it's made of. Indie is the underground, it's the label of the creation that comes from outside the mainstream.
Some will say it's the underdog and it sounds like it because someone managed to become big.
When I started playing Minecraft I thought I was getting into another easy-catch game that would fill the empty hours for a week or two. I way wrong and on top of that I was amazed by the success that Machinarium had last year.

Machinarium presents its original art

The majority of these indie games are based one principle which is to have a product that works and it's fun. Creators are game-veterans that treasured the big-developer mistake and spawned something with an amazing game play. Graphics are, off course, not the top-notch quality because of limited materials and budget. What you have in your hands is a truly amazing creation that has the possibility to influence the rest of the player-base.

Minecraft met Hollywood

There's a whole new galaxy of games that are packed wit more content and more fun than your latest action game. The price tag comes simple because you won't spend a fortune for these games. Many indie developers create functional products that are awarded for their creativity because they don't go through a marketing screening that can influence the final product.

Indie is also those who create mods to perfect games that are already an establishment. Take for  instance Half Life 2 with its mod community that crafted many original products like the Minerva, a successful modifications still played today.

Happy holidays from...

The socialization process

It took just about a decade, the first decade of this millennium, to change the way socialization is done. Why did it take only ten years? That's the time that people developed a deeper relationship with their computer and internet, a morbid way of becoming transparent to to stranger with anonymousness and estranged with those who were closer to us. 

Socializing was easier because there wasn't other way and people alway felt the importance of letting other know of they felt through their thoughts and voices. It is a very overrated communication method and because of that it's becoming every day a weaker tool. There is a sort of difficulty in approaching others and engaging in conversation, especially in those countries that are proud to be included in the western world.

There are places where you go and many eyes will lay upon you scrutinizing how you look and how you fit in the context. Others won't even come near you, afraid they'll be judged by others for approaching someone that is not one-of-their-kind. Many will in-fact alienate you because if your different lifestyle that does not match their, with all the stereotypes included.

A lack of physical contact is what's happening lately, also on the job, where the connections are made with quick emails avoiding any possible contact and relationship. Communicating is a hard job for those who like to express them self and those who don't are enjoying their reclusive status-quo believing they are the social elite.

There are now groups of people who are small numbers of friends that become smaller and smaller each year, chipping away those who don't fit the picture anymore. It is a self collapsing social structure. The lack of morality among the people who compose these groups is an interesting example of how the future generations will develop: farther away from culture and reality.

It's the bubble people live in that when popped it will destroy their fictional reality and throw them onto the real world. There  we can see the survival of the fittest, the aftermath of living in a world post bubble.

But I remember the bars and pubs I went across Europe and their noticeable difference in crowd. From Spain to Lithuania I saw how people interact with others and in other languages. Many countries are subject to their own past that reflects upon their today's society. In Ireland you would start talking with a stranger in a pub while drinking a Jameson or a Guinness, in Lithuania you would meet only beautiful girls that are really curious abuot your life and are very sociable.

Maybe there are countries that are not touched by the internet bliss and still enjoy meeting for a coffee and chat without mentioning even once Facebook or without even knowing what's Twitter.

The lamb in the wolf's den

A conspiracy is when you find clean and renewable energy and oil companies want to sink you. It's just that easy to be declared public enemy n1. This is pretty much what happened to Julian Assange after releasing information that many powerful people did not want.

You can become the new Bin Laden in less you can say Wikileaks. I guess the terms in which logic is used to become such wanted person are now as volatile as a skyzophrenia. But this is how reality is now becoming an option and this is how fast it's happening.

In a recent news a group of scientists invented the first water-free washing machine to be put on the market for sale. Guess what? Big home-appliances names started offering big money to shut down the project and to buy the patent. Looks like a forced merging with little or no synergy but from those who came out with good deeds. These scientists are risking to be left in the shadow for inventing something rivolutionary.

Imagine the amount of water we will be saving along with the water bill at the end of the month. Think that there won't need any piping where you put this washing machine.

To be honest I believe that the home appliance industry is a bit of a jerk when acting in such a terrible way. They proposed large sums to buy this idea so they can lock it far away where the eye can see, rather than purchasing  or leasing the drawings to switch from an obsolete design towards a much more efficient one. This tells you how screwed up corporations are. They do not listen to people, but to market researches. Yes, a market research is far more credible than the reality spoken from those who buy their products.

It is a world-wide symptom of illness from the industry world and from the market place considering not to change direction when it's needed. The symptom turns to be a sickness and it has the face of a virtual cartel over the intellectual design of a washing machine. 

The corporate hive mind is thinking for us, it's deciding for us and it's acting upon our not-so-best interests.

Now this is just an example of how reality can be deceived and warped. The problem subsists when it's the entire world industries that collectively acts together like a drug cartel that s ready to strike anyone who dares to change the status-quo.

How sad and real this is. Greed is becoming top priority on a scale that we never thought it could exists among people. 

You can blame it on TV and the rest of the media, but in the end you very well know that we are not doing anything about it because our species is not adapting correctly through this change. It feels as if we are sitting in the car arguing who should sit shotgun while the driver is sleeping drunk at the wheel. Time is running out, but hope springs eternal. 

Not a girl, but a skeleton

She is the winner, Ann Ward, of the 2010 tv show America's Next Top Model, a program about under-weight girls who struggle under the constant watch of the cameras to win a contest and to be forgotten a few years later. It is the trend of a nation [USA] that idolizes not the real beauty, but the one that can be faked. You have the image of a girl that shows her bones  in a photo shoot that wants to be sexy, but it's just creepy.

The haunted face and her cold eyes are the status of the modelling world where true beauty is to be on the brink of anorexia.

But nobody cares because the drama pivoting around the temporary existence of a bunch of girls fighting each other is priceless: ratings go up, fake-beauty is created, fashion is idolized, profits. You then realize, for a moment, that the fashion world is nothing but a very thin facade that covers everything that needs to be covered. The second picture of Ann shows her true identity with very little make up on. It's a still-frame from her casting video that shows how she's just a normal girl, nothing super, no perfect smile, no perfect eyebrows, no perfect eyes.