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!