The grave yard for ships

Logistic is big, logistic travels on wheels, air, but mostly via sea. You can store oil in a ship, cars, TVs, sneackers, food of any kind, etc. A ship can last for many years, some of them thirty, fourty years, but then the structure starts to weaken and it is time to retire the ship. Where do they go after they are done using them? Not in heaven, but in countries where the need for raw material is high. Commercial ships (cargo and leasure) are sent in nations like India or China where hundreds of workers slowly disassamble them to recycle metals like steel, iron, led and copper. Why does this happen? Because eastern Asia is willing to do (once again) the western-world's dirty job.

The work place, a shallow part of the sea side where ships rests there like carcasses, waiting to be disected.

Workers are way below the minimal wage, they work in critical conditions with no safety items like helmets, gloves or boots; they simply take-a-part ships like oil tankers and separate different components.

Workers moving in group a freshly cutted part of a ship

Heavy parts are moved only by groups of men.

No safety equipment, just your tool to go through all day.

Workers pulling a ship?

The break: tea (chai), coffee, cigarettes, tips and mostly rants.

20th century, when life was better

Ten years ago we were experiencing life on a different frequency, it was a period where the 90s showed us how cool we can be. The new synthetic wave got to us pretty fast after a decade of new technologies (see the 80s), but whatever we were going through it wasn't as harsh as these days. The 24/7 world grew bigger and bigger, there is no place for those who sleep. But how do we grow happy with it? How do we preserve the good moments is we barelt have memories of what we had for lunch?

I personally was happier and felt that the world couldn't shift into a worst direction it alrady was, the 90s had war in Kwait and in former Yugoslavia but as globalization was moving so a message of peace from around the world was doing the same. I do remeber the news on tv being more local, more focused on highway chases, internal politics, e-commerce on the rise, but no hero VS foe situation drama.

 

As we shifted into the new millennia we saw that changing date would mean also changing the face of this planet and our way of thinking. Science fiction books were becoming reality as tv was getting dumber, while the economy would adapt to the change into a very different prospective. 9/11 was a kick in the nuts, but turned out that nobody cared about the nearly 3000 victims of the World Trade Center nor the already mauled victims by the US in Middle East, it was about shifting the balance towards a new spot, many people knew that this sorta big conspiracy would take time and organization to take place, lots of it!

During the fall of 2003 I was talking with a real estate agent from Toronto about the great market conditions that led to spread open loans and subprimes. He said that this is just a big bubble waiting to burst, but what is different from any previouse similar case is tha fact that the economy will not hold the weight of the consequences, he continued. "Imagine walking on a glass floor and each person that does so is a good opportunity in the housing market like loans and subs. Now, how many people can walk on this floor before it breaks?" he said. I answered that I didn't know, "Now imagine that underneath the glass pavement there's a two-floor fall, do the math!" he continued. I realized immediately that the burst of the bubble would create the worst consequence in years and my real estate friend aknowledged that finishing by saying that there is nothing that we can do because not only it's too late but we were warned at the very last for a lucrative purpose.  

Advertising and its limits, then it's piracy

Comunication between the manufacturer and the costumer is the key factor to be successfull in the world of business. Throughout the years the message has changed in shapes and travelled in many ways, from the paper to the radio, from television to the internet. People know about the products that are for sale thanks to advertising, commercials that are aired to millions and millions of people around the globe, the message is essential and it must be clear and easy to understand.

This is how it works:

A company  wants to let people know that their products are good and fair priced. The same company asks an advertising agency to help them spread the word via all possible channels (tv, radio, internet, etc.). The advertising agency will create an image along with a theme (song usually) that needs to be catchy and easy to remember, maybe a jingle. 

The advertising agency takes their creation and moves it towards the channels the company wants to promote their product. Tv station, radio station, and websites generates revenues paid from the company that wants to let people know of their product, the bigger the spread of the message the wider the range of future costumer that may buy the promoted product.

In the 20th century advertising turned from essential to stalking. The need to inform people about a certain product is not essential anymore, what is essential is the fad around it, the hype and the "cool" factor that comes with. You can see it for yourself. Check fashion magazines, they are just a big catalogue of printed ads, many of them barely focus on promoting the product essentially; intstead they enfasize on the "side dish" that comes with: body parts exposed, seduction, almost sex, quasi-pornography. Beer commercials with girl in bikini, the relationship between a bottle of beer and a woman is linked by a hidden message that is letting you know that if you buy their beer you can get those girls.

The harshest advertising is the one that targets teenagers and also that period before the teen years. Advertising gone wild is what happens when this type of age-range is at stake. Since it is also an age where the brain can understand and can absorb very well, advertising companies made it clear that wherever teenagers are going so will they. Think about the theaters where masses of young boys and girls pay to see a movie that has an average of 10 minutes of non-stop advertising before the beginning of the flick. Yes, they are paying to see commercials of products that they will eventually buy. It sounds like a scam! Well, it is in a certain way because the very same companies that are complaining about financial losses due to piracy and p2p activities, at the very same time are recovering their profits via advertising on the very same flim.

But commercials in theaters already existed before the internet and file sharing, we were staring at soft-drink and cool running shoes ads over ten years ago. So what does this looks like? It looks like that people may be fed up to pay to watch commercial before a movie that might even be a crappy one. It happened to me when I went to watch The Mist with some friends, almost 10 minutes of ads that were the prequel to a poor and stale film. I felt complaining and wanted my money back, but it was late in the evening and the only person in charge at the theater was the kid who cheked our tickets and sold soda.

In February 2003 a lawsuit against two cinema companies was made because their show times were starting later than claimed. This due to the presence of commercials, "...a breach of contract..." someone stated.Viewers have the right to know when and how much commercial is on the screen, since you are paying the full price of the movie ticket to watch it you should be warned of its presence.

In 2004 the volume of theaters advertising increased to 23%, for the value of $438 millions in the US, according to the Cinema Advertising Council. Advertising for a company is pretty cheap, the general rate is around $30 per screen per week for a 15 seconds commercial which will run once during the pre-feature program. The rate for government and non-profit organizations is $18.00 per screen per week. This for the period of one month, thus even for the small business owner advertising via a theater is affordable.

Piracy comes when a movie (for example) is being recorded with a camera in a theater and copied thousands of times for lucrative purposes when sold on the black market, then there is the p2p which is a sharing process of people that just make a copy without any lucrative final purpose. To the major producing companies the two cases listed above are the same. Unfortunately random cases where private citizens are charged and dragged into trials do happen, they can face thousands of dollars in fines that cannot afford to pay. So why are small individuals paying for the lucrative black market that has been around even before the birth of commercial internet? Simple, because these kinds of citizens are easy to spot and to scare.

Probably these underground networks are born to protest the fact that a simple movie shouldn't be charged with the full price of a ticket where advertising are continously run; and the fact that major motion picture companies ignore this does't mean that it will go away!

more info:

digital lifescapes, by David H. Deans

"Movie Theaters Profit from Food, Drink, Ads"

New York Times

"Advertisers Pour More Money Into the Big Screen"

Commercial Alert

a non profit organization that pushes to keep the advertising world in its dimension.

100km with only 1 litre of diesel!

German automaker Volkswagen recently unveiled their latest prototype that can lead to improve fuel consumptions. The "one-litre-car" was build to test the capabilities of aerodynamics and fuel efficiency, this is why the bullet-shape design is a major advanced feature much like the material used to built the car, carbon fibres and a light 0.33 litre diesel engine that allow you to drive for 100km with just 1 litre of diesel! Imagine the money you save.

It fits only two people and you can pack little with you, but this experiments shows how a simple design can be effective in a situtaion where fuel prices are soaring.  The car's engine turns off when the car is stopped at lights and automatically restarts when the accelerator is pressed. This will avois wasting fuel while waiting at traffic lights or during rush-hours endless queues.

Also mirrors to see traffic have been replaced with small cameras that capture the image from different angles, this allows to achieve a better aerodynamic effects with no side rear-view mirrors creating frictions upon impact with air. The steering-wheel is made of magnesium and weighs only 1 lbs, and to keep weight limited no paint is applies, this will make 'black' the default color. 

Volkswagen is considering selling this car around 2010 in limited units at a tag price of 29,000 Euros, even if it doesn't come cheap it can be the right direction in order to save drastically fuel costs and CO2 emission in the atmosphere. This car is no different than a Smart car, it sits two and you have a small trunk, with the advantage to go further on the read while visiting gas pumps less and less.

Space habitats and colonization

Space is quite utterly big, little we know of its vastity and its dangers apart from what text books tells us to stare and avoid. The habitatat that space offers is harsh: temperatures that go well below -200 degrees Celsius (close to the absolute zero), extreeme heating from nearby stars, and gamma ray burst that will kill any human in seconds. Apart from this unpleasant side, space is a fertile "land" where humanity can build and expand, gathering new resources in order to bring ballance to planet Earth.

Take for example the space race, it gave us the possibility to experiment with long time exposure to zero-gravity of the bones, this allowed us to test the limits of the human body. Then orbital stations provided the essentil data to understand what is needed to people to live in space modules, their mental reaction along with many experiments useful to science.

To propel the human kind into a more serious and sophisticated colonization of our solar system, it is important to understand that new vessels must be built off Earth in order to take advantage of the absence of gravity, which enhance metals giving them better qualities.

 

Imagine these vessels with thousands of people on board traveling to other solar systems while life goes on on a daily basis. In order to colonize space we must push our technologies to the maximum so humanity can benefit from it in peaceful therms. 

Some theories created in the 20th century were probably the best solution for an eventual colonization of space, here a few:

Bernal sphere

In 1929 John Desmond Bernal proposed an artificial habitat for humans where 20,000 to 30,000 people could live in a sphere orbiting on itself producing artifical gravity (Earth's gravity 1g). The original design specified the dimensions of the project with a 16 km diameter, later on Bernal reproposed a much smaller design of just 500m in diameter where people would like at the heigh of the equator, the landspace would me the same of our planet. This was one of the first idea of long-term environment for humans to live in, generations of people would live their normal life while exploring space.

O'Neill cylinder

This structure is a cylinder with a 3km diameter and 20 km in lenght. Artificial gravity is provided with the rotation of the cylinder on its longitudinal axis simulating Earth's gravity of almost 1g, this will give habitats the same condit

ions on our planet, although no motion sickness will be felt, some dropped object can be deflected by a short distance due to a total different gravity system.  Three islands are built along where each of them hosts a different landscape: the first island will have people living, the second one is for agricolture providing food, while the third one is for manufacturing where a lower gravity will grant higher quality materials.

Standford torus

This is a basic idea of space habitat that can host an entire city or more. It is a ring-shaped structure hollow in the inside that spind on itself creating centripetal force, therefore simulating gravity up to 1g which will recreate a condition similar to Earth's force while spinning once a minute. This is necessary to stop decalcification of the bones due to a lack of gravity. The structure is 1.8 km in diameter (as of the original project) and it was designed to host 10.000 people. Other projects can sustain a bigger population with a greater ring dimension.

Generation ship

This type of structure is similar to those listed above. The theory behind this ship is to have thousands of people willing to live their entire life on board this vessel that is constantly travelling towards its destination. Picture a trip to a remote star where it will take 100 years or more years to reach it. This vessel will host generations that will live, work, sleep, eat and die in a self-sustaining environment similar to Earth for the sole purpose of reaching the objective of the mission. This ship will require at least 160 different  individuals in order to maintain genetic diversity along the trip.

Sleeper ship

The sleeper ship is another way of space travel that can help humanity to shorten mission. It can be used along interstellar travels (between stars) where great distances need to be covered. In this case the whole crew will be but to sleep in an hibernation stage where heartbeat and life functions will be slowed to an optimal point in order to save energy on the ship. An automated guidance system will carry the vessel along its path where the crew will be waken upon arrival. 

SENS

Strategies for Engineered Negligible Senescence is a theory that supports the replacement of those human parts that are decaying due to age. This will allow a certain number of astronauts to travel great distances cheating centuries of trip ahead of them. British biogerontologist Aubrey de Gray published his theories in 1999 with the book Mitochondrial Free Radical Theory of Aging.

Embryo space colonization

This type of colonization is theoretically cheaper than any of the designs listed above. This mission will be set towards Earth-like planets where a spaceship will transport frozen early-stage human embryos or the technological or biological means to create human embryos. The whole process will be handled by robots that are programmed to build structures to host the growing embryos and eventually the planning of crops to sustain life with natural foods.

Reset the countdown

I'm starting to feel the US political pressure that streams from every cable of the net, informations, gossip and accusations. This 2008 political campaign is all bout resetting American foreign policy, but more important its behaviour towards an afro-american candidate like Barack Obama.

For all we know we have been living in a world of happy-consuming economy where we all spend our money upon everything we laid eyes on. Unfortunately the comedy is over. I use the word unfortunately for all those who thought that life was a dream written by some cheap Hollywood underpaid writer. But it is not!

US foreign policy is the backbone of international affairs, this means that whoever is the next candidate to win the White House elections, she/he can re-write the future from November 2008.  I do feel that this election is like the war of Stalingrad for the Germans in 1943. It is a crucial point where America can change for good and returns to be the Founding Father's land or the cruel present of corporate never-ending deals in places like Iraq, the educational system having kids growing more ignorant every year,  and everything money can buy or corrupt...

Out of service

August is my favourite month, I always try to work and postpone my holydays because when you live in town there's nobody around you! Traffic is calm, people are less stressed, rush hours on the roads are like driving on sunday mornings, the chaotic life is slowed to a point where you see what people actually looks like, speaks like, etc.

I drive with my window down because air conditioning is like being stapped at your back, it's not so good for your body and it wastes too much gas from your car. I get to work happier because those who drive badly aren't around to bother you, they are probably on vacation with a rented car bothering other people, maybe American tourists. 

I tend not to watch television, the summer programs are bad, so bad that they won't even play re-runs of any kind, rather a new summerish format is proposed in the wake of those who are left behind at home. I stay on the computer watching movies that are rarely on tv, or those shows that are too good to be broadcasted more than once. 

If the day is too hot I drink water as much as I can along with OJ, this helps me keep my energy and get less  dehydrated. Once you loose a lot of water and minerals from the heat of the summer, you start feeling tired half-way the day and you start bitching left and right about anything. If I can find fruit that hold lots of water, like watermelons or cantelopes, I manage to eat them at least once a day as a snack in the afternoon along with water to stay fresh. This method is helpful and keeps the stress away.

At night if some of my friends are  still in town we go out for a couple of drinks, life is calmer and you can enjoy all those places with table outside or patios, a gaze at the star and you think you are in heaven. Starting from 2001 a few outdoor bars have opened around all corners of town, mostly in the outskirt. They are beach-theme bars where fences made out of bamboo surround you and tiki bars serve you with dance music coming from the floor, some of them got real sand on the sides of the paths to make you feel in a tropical paradise. The drinks that they serve are mostly long drinks like Cuba Libre, Mohito, Negroni, Long Beach and such, but prices aren't getting any lower because the inflation of prices among bars,  pubs and clubs is rising constantly with an average of 10% to 15% every year.

August is the month of those who know how to relax and when to holiday. There is a sense of calm and quite that no other time of the year can offer you, probably not even Christmas morning; it is a slice of tranquillity that allows you to work with more concentration and precision, but you cannot forget the heat that is waitng outside for you.

Job: the eternal incognito

Since late spring 2008 I've gave my resumee to working agencies like Adecco and ManPower to find a damn job that would give me the ability to earn some money. I started in may and I end up working in June for a merchandising company from Turin that was dealing at the time with RedBull products. Nothing was on the horizon so I decided to take the job because I was tired staying home doing absolutely nothing. 

The job consisted in working inside of a supermarket two hours in the morning on Monday, Wednsday, and Friday for a total of six weekly hour at a shitty rate of 7 Euros, placing RedBulls on the shelves of this huge supermarket that was 2o km from my house. The supervisor of the drink section was a cool dude, tall havy built size with a bald head that made him look like Mr Clean, but younger and with a sense of humor, he was making sure that every time I was there the merchandise was ready and close to the my isle. All I had to do was load an empty chart with the cans and line them up nicely according to the pictures that was in the manual my company sent to me few days earlier, it was showing how the different stuff was supposed to be placed in each different cooler/fridge. 

The first problem encountered was that the space mentioned inside the manual wasn't as big as the shelves I had in front of me, it was about half and the display job wasn't gonna get done properly. So I decide to ask to the drinks isle supervisor and he stated "I don't care what the manual says, I decide the space slots not your company!", farewell I said and started to pile the cans much like the rest of the energy drinks.

I realized that the company I had the contract with didn't maintain contacts with supermarkets that often, I got the same opinion from two girl working my same position for two different products. 

After a couple of weeks I called the girl that gave me the job because the security chief at the supermakert wanted me to wear a silly white overall with the supermarket logo on the back, the dude told me the reason was so I wouldn't be confused for someone just hanging there -maybe like a fucking costumer randomly filling the shelves for the love of it?- I thought.

I asked the company why they would insist on that, my contract didn't stated that I had to wear anything beside my clothes and a badge with my pic. Well the conversation over the phone ended up badly with this girl, she insisted that I had to do that without giving any logical explaination, I had to wear the supermaket uniform while not working actually for that supermarket and with costumers ready to ask me every two minutes "Excuse me where do you keep the deodorants?". That would have my two hours shift doubled, and the company woulnd't even pay the extras because they calculated that replacing and filling shelves with cans would just take me two hours or less.

I ended up quitting that shitty job after I tried to explain the girl at my company that 40 Euros a week isn't worth it and they wouldn't even reinbourse me the gasoline as stated in the contract, so I sent them an email with my immediate resignation explaining carefully my decision, they replied to me that they require me to sign one of their officials letter and mail it back to them. The letters arrived after less than three days and surprise... on 'the reason I quit my job' they wrote "Incompatibilities with the workplace"; so I mail them back saying that if they wanted that letter signed they would have to pay me first then change the motivation with the one I gave in my original resignation email. 

After a month or so I receive a letter from them with the two weeks salary and no gas money reinbursement, they wired the money to my bank account, a meere 80 Euros got a cut of 15 Euros by their bank as transfer charges, so I receive 65 euros minus government taxes and another letter in my mail box from the company inviting me to sign the letter, I didn't mail them back nor signed that letter; all I recieves in my pocket was less than 50 Euros (again minus withdraw fee from bank). I dont' care if they are still waiting, they wasted enough of my time, it was nice to wast their!

Summer, heat and thirst

My last post was a few days before summer started, before the longest day of the year, in fact the Sun went to sleep later than any other day. 

Like any other summer you know that mosquitoes and heat will be your best friend for almost three months, but what I find incredible and awkward is the constant presence of days where rains and Sun shine alternate on a very frequent basis. Those are days that you rarely see in your life because of strange weather patterns, or more likely due to global warming, because Earth is now warmer due to the green house effect, we can now expect phenomena where the soil will deliver a more powerful vertical force from the ground up, where thunderstorm cloud type can form more easily and more violently. This adds up when you see towards the end of August the weather forecast of tornado valley in the US, more and harsher storms will hit countries like north America and south Asia.

Desert countries like USA and Africa will see their deserts expanding and their vegetation dyeing from the extreme heat of the atmosphere, while somewhere else more energy from a power station is pumped to cool those houses where air conditioning units are working 24/7; and maybe elderly people are on the brink of death because of dehyadration due to an excess summer temperature.

Ekranoplane, close to sci-fi

Looking back at aviation history you will remember the Wright brother's first aircraft, then the Red Baron, and then todays modern airliners. The design of an aircraft is represented by it's performance, but sometimes man goes behind the conventional creation, there you can see many strange projects that took shape out of the need for better results. Aesthetic claimed only a small percentage of an aircraft, due to production costs and technologies not yet available.
There is one machine that is forgotten and that stands in between transport categories: the Ekranoplane. It is an airplane with wings and tail that never takes off, it works thanks to the ground-effect generated between the plane and water. In fact this machine can only hover on a body of water (lake or sea), and it was widely used by the USSR during the Cold War period. Objects like that used to travel across the Caspian Sea like trains from the station. The revolutionary concept was something new in the aviation reality.






















German designer Luigi Colani conceived a futuristic definition of the ekranoplane (pic below). He designed a prototype with superior aesthetic characteristics, which brought the concept into a different design status.

I wish I can watch decent movies

It looks like since we got into the year 2000 you cannot hope to see a decent movie coming out. Last time I was happy to pay for the ticket and a bag of pop corns was when I went to see Ronin with Robert De Niro in 1998. Since then it got downhill. I saw movies with high budget but bad actors flashing my TV screen, with popish previews that can make you salivate. Not me.

It got to a point where the studios started making movies because they somehow were under the inertia of production and quality was an option. You can read on your local paper the listing of the theater playing the latest pop movie, tailored to target the specific age group.

You went to see Iron Man and you got slightly disappointed because, like me, you know the hero and you read the comic book enough to understand who Tony Stark really is. And if you think like me, you probably started to hate all comic-book-movie titles since the first X man movie came out.

But beside the Marvel universe, the film industry took a turn for the worst since we switched into the new millennium. The pop fever managed to infect the silver screen and to produce bad titles for sometimes. The crowd got stupider and childish, and the movie houses kept producing titles that even chickens could understand.

I can say that the 90's where a sandbox decade for corporate producers to see how the public was responding to their titles, and it turned out as the 10-year-long marketing campaign that developed the new generation of crap watcher.

But it got to a point where the spirit of good movies kept coming back, reminding people of their sins committed upon the quality screens. Take for example the 80's and its movies. Now Rocky, Rambo, Die Hard, and Indiana Jones made their comeback with good accolade. Why? Because the rest was shit! Simple as that.

Good movies like Frantic or Black Rain are now a distant memory of an era of the movies, that was dedicated to tell a story in quality, rather than in quantity. And you can see how all the production houses changed their vision. They are now devoted to commercialize anything that is a seller, doesn't matter what it is, rather for how long. Look at Disney and how it changes drastically. From Micky Mouse to Hannah Montana, wtf!?

There is no good movie around, lately. Nothing that can be really called a landmark in the film industries. A few decent flick here and there, but no movie that can be really awarded with a serious prize.

Pollution is key to the Olympic games

One of the first Olympic game took place in Beijing, China, with the marathon that involved various athletes from around the globe. Here some of the pictures of the unhealthy environment the runners had to go through.
The race took place in a hot, humid, and polluted environment, which is the state that China is in right now. Some athletes are concerned of the status of the air that can have a significant impact upon their health, and the result of the competition.


Here a motorcycle from one of the race officials shoots pollution from its engine into the athletes face, how healthy!

















The gray sky that covered the location of the competition is pollution, not fog or bad weather.
















Another shot of the Chinese capital main stadium, where the marathon took place.















One of the athlete from south Korea.















Other participants victim of the poor environment conditions.
















The eye of the military police is upon every aspect of Chinese life.

Our phone companies are spies!

Since we all live under the umbrella of biometrics and mug shots from the airport to some major urban sites, it is common courtesy to come down to Earth and remember ourself that the government is not the big eye over our shoulders. The San Francisco Chronicle published two years ago an article featuring a court case that involved AT&T, where a privacy-right lawsuit was the center of attention. Electronic surveillance of phone records and email was recorded and given to the NSA, in order to spy upon the costumers for alleged safety reasons.
The endless wires that are continuously tapped contains informations that is valuable to market research, so picture a company like AT&T that has great deal of informations on you: what you like, what you don't, your food preferences, rants, secrets, and all those discussions that are handled by more than one organization.
Now we have government institutions that can have any reason to create a case against you using you very own words. Probably you are discussing about a video game that involves shooting, explosions, or more violence, and in no time uncle Sam is putting his shoe on your face.
God only knows what policies are used by those nations that handles sensible and private informations. In the US the Bush administration has made clear that privacy will be compromised upon their discretion, which means whenever they want, how much they want, to whoever they want. Single or multiple targets is irrelevant as long as a database is built by the NSA, CIA, and other intelligence offices all over the globe.
If the US government is collecting all these informations, are there any chances that the data will be kept safe from unwanted purposes, like commercial ones? Probably no, since the Bush administration is way too close to corporation that are ager to lay their paws on those personal records, which are worth millions of dollars.

Don't feed me on board!

Flying is costing more, to the airlines, than a few years ago. To be more precise, it is costing more since September 11th 2001. Ticket prices have actually gone down with the years, but it has become more challenging for airlines to maintain their services and operating expenses, with the oil crisis that is cutting heads left and right, what is there to save more?

You buy a ticket over the internet or in the usual travel agency, you will probably fly an average of three hours, and one or two meals will be served on board. It has always been a nice thing the airlines incorporated in their service, but since the cost of living has gone up, people are trying to save a buck here and there wherever they can, especially when dealing with travel.
A lunch or dinner on an aircraft cost the air carrier a significant amount of money, it is an outer catering business that craft every meal for every passenger, with the usual choice of meat or fish, add to that alcoholic beverages like scotch, whiskey, beer, wine, and the usual juices, pop, and water. Food consumption on planes happens, so the frequent the aircraft travels, the more refreshment must be restocked .

One of the north American airlines that started to chance its food policy is Air Canada, for short routes the passengers are able to pay for their munchies and drink if they are hungry. Sandwiches and other snacks are available for a not so convenient price; but it is a smart way to generate cash in such desperate times.

It would be far more convenient if you could have the choice to buy your meal on your ticket, and to bring along a sandwich or two. Since you are forbidden to carry liquids, airlines can focus on providing beverages as an option.

We got used to expect a meal every time we fly, but recent security restrictions got us to believe that we are not allowed to carry anything with us other than the courtesy newspaper offered by the friendly hostesses.
Aircarriers shouldn't keep avoiding the passengers needs, they are essential and necessary to make an airline successful, rather than just fuel efficient.

All down the drain!

Very quickly and without any surprise, the recession is here. You know it, I know it! Everybody knew it was gonna hit soon rather than later, but we kept piling up debts, and bank kept giving bottomless credits. Too many people that states that this happened without any warning. Wake up!

It wasn't about who or what, but when. Since 2003 we saw how the mortgage bubble soared in north America, having many people buying new homes when the interest rates were low, and affordable. Many investors and economy experts said that when the bubble was going to pop, an avalanche of shit would hit us all. Everybody acknowledge that, few understood. There is not even time to take evasive action because the recession is here, and like I said before "Ignoring it, won't make it go away!".

Sad, true and suffocating. Markets are going nuts, tradings are lawless almost since their principle are now out-of-sync with the economy books. If there was ever a law, or principle where to follow the finance and the rules of the trading, it is now drifting into a death-match situation. The business model that the United States is using, is damaging furthermore the state of the global economy.

When you use your vehicle to do your grocery, no only you paid your gas at the pump more, but you will surely find how simple products are now costing more than they use to be. Bread, cereals, and all the grain products, along with poultry and meat have all had their prices gone for the worst. How far can we survive the increasing cost of life without adapting our salaries?

Why is this happening? Because the people who made the laws of the economy decided that importing a product from another country, as far as south-east Asia, is more exploitable and lucrative than having it delivered from a local distributer or manufactured. This is old and a backlash of the US-globalization style, that is an illusion of a decent business model.

It is sad that there is little that we can do, we look more and more like hostages in the hands of an unstable person that is willing to do anything to save himself, doesn't matter the cost, if it takes lives or the repression of other countries; it will eventually happen. Time to rethink how we want to live now, and how we want to build the future.

Smarties tv ad

Usually tv ads are enough on the tube, and there's no need to chase them beyond it unless you are like me and go after the soundtrack. Few weeks ago a new Smarties commercial appears on television featuring a series of duets made with a piano, violin or a guitar. It is a simple commercial that doesn't show its products until the last few seconds. It has been a while since an ad like this one made me think positively about the advertising world, especially on television.



The last time an ad was worth watching it was when American Express put out a series of celebrities shorts, featuring Robert De Niro and Kate Winslet. After that only empty and stupid messages were displayed under my eyes.
Yes the Smarties commercial is fun. Probably the only one time I would associate the word "fun" with food, because people shouldn't play with stuff to eat, or consider eating an hobby to take when bored. Food is serious matter, that's why I despise the Doritos ad where the word "fun" is the main theme. Have fun while eating! How do you have fun munching a synthetized potato chip? Oh look I'm having fun with a sourcream chip, because it's fun to play! Pew pew pew, the triangular shaped chip reminds me of the Imperial battleship in Star Wars, pew pew pew lazers!!!

The bad image we created

I'm very impressed by the fact that media, and its surrogates, is still not filtered by those bad contents that are making their way in everybody homes. Fact is, that the majority of the recipients are ignorant and like to be fed by whatever is given to them, the passive concept is the easiest and quickest to absorb, with little or no stress. Reality-shows are painting a false image of what the real world is, far harsh and dramatic than the TV packages it. Not everything end in a good way, and the bad guys can win. The drama level of fake stories, fake loves, fake relationships that are portrayed has damaged and traumatized the young audience that are watching the tube, believing it is a beacon of wisdom.

Parents are lost in a labyrinth of questions without an answer, and problems waiting to solve them self. Todays kids are growing on their own, wild and without a purpose or goal to reach because no inspiration has been given to them. What happened to dedication in reaching a common objective that is not auto-destructive? As a society we are failing in all fields. We don't have a common sense of respect, authority, safety, we dance on the brink of harmful without questioning if it is right or wrong.

Media control is a sort of virtual democracy where we are allowed to spend and create more debit in order to increase profits for those corporations who dictate our lifestyle. Go to a grocery store and walk into the dairy section, for example, and count how many brands are on the same products. You will be surprised how you actually have a very small choice between three or four companies; and one of them is always Kraft (owned by Phillip Morris).

Your kids are probably watching right now Mtv, their favorite singer/band video just finished to play when suddenly the commercial break pops in bombarding their eyes with junk-food pitches, soda gallons to swallow, cellphones to buy, and all that translates into having your kids becoming obese, having diabetes before they can reach the age of 18, and at the same time stay connected with friend while consuming minutes talking about how cool the music video was on Mtv.

Society became more alienated to itself in the last 100 years, than in the whole human existence. We are becoming synthetic , cheap, fast, branded and ready to be sold to whatever the media and corporations wants us to consume. As an imploding star that is dyeing, humanity is fading in a fatal collapse upon itself.

Reality vs Fiction, the recession is here vs what's recession?

Let's face it, north America is bottled into an economical suffering that was announced five years ago when the mortgages bubble was soaring high like a kite, especially in Canada. Now the markets seem puzzled over what is going on, and why did it happened. The US dollar is weak as the economy rose up only 0.6% so far, and it seems there is no way out even if tax cuts and empty promises are thrown out of the White House on a weekly basis. Wars abroad are costing billions of dollars, not only to the United States, but to the rest of the world too.

Globalization, tailored to make wealthy the rich country only, it's now biting back with huge problems that have no resolution, and banks are struggling to keep up as the national American debt is going up and the no warranties are made to bay back, thus no credit is available to the average population to purchase houses, cars and make investments. Money is disappearing, burnt by the greedy markets that continues to pursue relentless profits over anything that can be milked, it is a take no prisoners policy.

There are rules in this economy, or so they want us to think, but who makes the rules, and who enforce them? Nobody has a clue how the economy really works. Why should they? The more chaotic it is, the more hard is to understand, and keeping everybody confused serves as a way for the markets and who controls them to do whatever the want.

Yes the US is in a recession, according to Merrill Lynch. The USA are having major job losses and their currency is weaker and weaker every day. Everybody acknowledges it, but president George W. Bush, who is more worried to do public relation to his country than face the fact that US economy is sinking and is harming the rest of the world. Inflation has gone up in Europe and so in north America, the end of cheap food, oil, and supply is over; but we fail to recognize it, and pretend that everything is fine. Ignoring the global financial crisis won't make it go away!

As the world turns another page...

... nothing will probably happen. Tuesday February 19th 2008, Fidel Castro declared he won't accept another turn in the presidency over Cuba, with a letter written to the communist party newspaper. This means that his reign over the Caribbean island is over, exiled Cubans were celebrating in Miami, and in the Cuban district in the major cities. US president George W. Bush made a short speech, while visiting Rwanda, stating that the White House will help Cuba to recover, and that he accepted Castro's resignation. But many are skeptic over what will really change after Fidel`s 49 years presidency, the longest in the world. Raul Castro, the brother, is more likely to step up and replace the presidential position, while Cubans oped for a radical change that would let them out of the everlasting embargo, that is strangling the country since Castro rose to power in 1959 . If Cuba has its sanctions lifted, this will mean that a new more modern revolution will change the island, opening the boundaries to international affairs and relationships, and maybe update itself from a half-century of missed opportunities. Off course we will probably see a total change of Cuba from how we know it now. The old cars, the colorful decorated buildings, and the hand made cigars are risking to become extinct, replaced by major corporate chains of fast-food and foreign brands; like an habitat being polluted by the outer environment. But what will happen to the health care that is the envy of the world, or to the globalizatino-free society that has been living with their own products for many year? Is the ending of the Castro era a real positive factor, or we failed to understand that the only communist thing in Cuba is just the adjective that the world has been used to describe a corporate-free country?

This planet, this destiny

Koyaanisqatsi
A movie that summarizes the planet we live in

The green status

It is hard to indoctrinate people to the clean and safe concept of gas-free cars, hard as quitting smoking or do charity. We grew too comfortable in pulling up at the gas station and fill the tank with oil coming from another country in the world, we never though of the real impact the our life had done outside our boundaries.

We were lured by the oil companies that no other energy source could power our cars, odd enough the electric car has an old history that was hidden in favor of fossil fuels. In 1914 in the US one of th first electric car prototype spawned in Detroit right after other electric-powered veichles like trains and streetcars that were widely used for the public interest, and for commercial purposes. Unfortunately the pollution-free concept died in early 20th century by the hands of oil companies and major car manufacturer like General Motors. The huge deal that those companies made in that period pushed the construction of major highway across the US, like the famous Route 66 that in 1926 was built, stretching from the state of Illinois to the state of California.

Along that other business like restaurants, service stations and gas stations saw their fortunes soaring. Corporation like McDonald's, Exxon and GM were spread along this major highway creating a status of business familiarity-status for the American people who were traveling from one coast to another, so they could recognize their neighbor fast-food restaurant with the ones across Route 66.

Now we are slowly understanding that we contributed to a major disaster on this planet by continuously using our cars in the wrong ways, and we ignored new technologies that could have helped us clearing the environment from pollution. Pollution-free cars are not a reliable option since the planet felt for the second time in history the possibility of a ending supply of oil.

As Asian automakers like Honda, Toyota and Nissan made the first step towards the commercialization of hybrid and electric veichle, they set the bar for the next generation of cars, vans and trucks; while the American car industry lags behind bleeding millions of dollars each day due to the lack of innovation that they present. North America is struggling to find a solution to improve the fuel efficiency of their vehicles.

Ford has the worst fuel efficiency in the wester hemisphere, GM is not far behind, but the problem is lies in the roots of understanding what impact has a car and who makes it. US car producer still implemented old technology in car engines all the way throughout the 90's, like the old camshaft system that many cars dropped when the carburettor disappeared form can engines.

Car making in the the US is behind the rest of the world by at least five years, but trucks, SUVs and pick-up trucks are still driven by people who do not really need them. How is necessary that a V-10 two-tons truck is driven on a daily basis to work or for groceries when only one person is on board, and now picture that my the millions! The western car market is already in trouble, it is imploding under it's own weight of having more than one brand of car under one single manufacturer, poor reliability, and high costs upon the environment and their owners.

We will see after 2010 how Asian cars will be undisputed leaders in the international markets, with less and less dependency from from oil, and more on electricity and hydrogen.

At the 2008 Detroit Auto Show we saw how the dilemma of hi-performance car and fuel-efficiency is affecting the purchases, as new buyers wants now both since they are now more aware of the ecological situation. Even Ferrari updated their fleet by developing a sport car, the F430 convertible (left pic), capable of running on up to 85% on ethanol. It is another step towards the global acceptance of a green status, that will defeat the ugly image of 'size-brand-matter' that we carry on us like a dead weight.

Further into the future

Things are changing in the technology world, things are becoming like in the sci-fi movie. It is now the time to push the throttle of the new technologies because we are behind other countries. Steve Jobs announces the new products and features of the Mac world, a constant and functional techno-world made of efficiency and practicality. The new MacBook Air becomes the new standard for computer laptops, with the thickness of a finger and the performances of a super computer. Yes, the future is here. This is only one of the gadgets that Apple delivered recently to impress the digital world; it is an innovation that must be considered a milestone. The ITUNES universe is moving big towards the movie industry, Apple is now making movies available for rent through it's web system, and for just 2,99 $ you can watch your favorite flicks with a click of your mouse. Now the real mobile-technology is available, no more uncomfortable bags, because you can carry your media/work in your hand, and use it at any time you want, no restriction applied. Apple just pokes his face into the real future, the others are still watching and discussing whether it is doable or not. Yes, it is! Wake up Microsoft, you can't continue to develop products that are only esthetically good, efficiency is required in this new era! Reliable software are required, it is the key to success, because the world has realized that the blue screen cannot happen any longer, and business are ready to jump towards more reliable sources of ideas. We finally woke up, it is time to embrace the change, and it is going to be the best effort so far!

The new media shape

Since the Dove for real beauty campaign swept the media channels with a total different image of women, it seems that other major corporate labels capt the message and are on board with the same ticket. Canadian advertising went through a major change since it stepped into the new millennium with the introduction of fresh average-Joe faces in tv adds and paper advertising. People like you and me that on a daily basis do nothing different than be the average-Joe, bald men overweight adjusting his squeaky garage door with a can of lube, or the everyday dad that with a full moon runs in the wild with the wolves, and more recently the Slim Fast tv ad where man are OK to use it.



The world changes and so the advertising dimension, it would be foolish to pretend that with the increasing obesity in the US, the well fitted models on tv could represent the average family with no bellies, jelly arms and double chins. But this sympathizing method to tell the viewers "It's ok to be fat, we understand!", has the double purpose of making the public both comfortable with their weight problems, and at the same time implies a major change in strategy and target from the advertising companies.

Playing with our feelings? Yes, and again! It is not the first time that the media takes personal feelings in consideration for the purpose of exploitation, to reach to the inner and most sensible part of the person who is watching the ad. Take for instance the pharmaceutical industry who bombards you with pictures of happy families, and with their cure to keep that image safe forever as long as you buy their products. The ad below shows Dr. Robert Jarvik, the inventor of the artificial heart, who last year was feature in an on-going campaign about Lipitor, a drug made by Pfizer for lowering the cholesterol in your body; and off course with it's side-effects controversial. It seems that so far no charity-compassion has been made by the advertising media over the real issue of health, like hyper caloric food intake, fast-food galore and bad or healthy diets; but a continuous bombardment of quick remedies over how to beat the fat just buying the X product, for an exaggerate amount of money, that will make you hang on the thin hope of becoming thin with no exercise.

The comfort hand of fake caring switched shape surviving changes and hostilities, just like Charles Darwin said "It is not the strongest species that survive, nor the smartest, but the one that adapts better to change.", and so media giants tossed a further step into faster adapting strategies for better sales in a continuous changing reality.

Convection

Because I want to see how you get there!

The end of cheap food

The majority of the people walking on this planet has been indoctrinated to see reality one channel at the time, without the chance to cross examine the fast peaced informations that enter our homes every day. How many people can match the word "Oil" with "Food"? Not many, unless you are either in the media business or in the financial one.

The Economist has an interesting article about how the cost of food has multiplied in the last years, driving oil consumption and prices on the peak. The common relation that had prices soaring lies in the habits that people around this planet have, the increasing consumption of food is driving costs upward, towards an incredible situation of speculations.

Ethanol produced from farms is facing a demand crisis, wheat prices spiking, and a mad cycle where oil is needed to power the distribution of food, and food necessary to oil production. In all this confusion third and second world country farmers and consumers, just like you, are in the middle of this trading storm, which is turning food at higher price levels.

Since when the right of nourishment is being put on a financial scale? The plunge for a food crisis in weak countries in south America, Africa and Asia, is taking place under strict international rules that give little or no freedom to decide who or where to sell the food produced by farmers.

But then we have countries, members of the European Union, that overproduce milk and are not allowed to export it or to sell it to other countries. Another absurdity where politics are dictated by corporate powers, and the results are disastrous.