Akon's Daddy Has Talent

Mor Thiam is Akon's father. Strong heritage wouldn't you say? Selon Wikipedia on peut le retrouver en Floride, Orlando entre les giraffes et les singes du Animal Kingdom du Walt Disney World Resort. Ça vaut peut-être un retour en enfance?

What Everyone Must Carry Around

Via informationisbeautiful

Amazement: Royal Technology and Canadian Identity

This is old news (currently it's all about Kate being anorexic and pregnant) but when the princely couple was on Canadian territory I couldn't stop ranting about how after coming up with the "How Canadian Are You, eh?" app in January, Citizenship and Immigration Canada launched their second digital tool the "Royal Tour” app for free on itunes. I too asked myself why the Ministry didn’t go straight for the “Tips on How to Reproduce in A Canoe” app, till I realised that the political answer to the Ministry’s first app's title was another of Canada’s idealised traditions: the Royal Family.

I know that the sense of belonging countries provide are not easily defined notions with clear inputs, straightforward mechanisms and direct results. And I have no qualms with the British monarchy particularly: if anything kudos to them for getting the Britons to perpetuate their feudal capitalistic family. Nor do I have qualms with the newly-wedded royal couple enjoying Canada; nor am I arguing that Canadians should deny the importance the British and the Crown played in shaping the country.

My qualms or rather amazement - I'm French originially so all of this royal stuff is amazing - stem more from the degree of pride Canadians and government took with this arrival and visit - as if Canada needed so desperately to be acknowledged by the royal gaze to feel valuable. And not only has the government taken pride in this, it's also done everything to subsidise the tools to encourage its people to believe that the level of this couple’s happiness in the country defines Canadians' worth.

If a star-savy US Weekly or another tabloid sponsored an app to stalk and discuss Kate’s outfits, this would have been another issue all together, but that an elected staff meant to focus on the delicate issue of heritage, collective memory and cultural identity, finds William’s white cowboy hat and the couple’s canoe trips worth a nationhood's attention - that seems ttally wrong or absolutely amazing.

Buck's Back and 60 Fictional Designed Movie Titles by Travis Hopkins

BUCK 65 "Superstars Don't Love" from Travis Hopkins on Vimeo.

How the Financial Crisis is Rooted in Our Belief that Technology Offers a Freeing, Objective and Stable Utopia

This is a great BBC documentary on the philosophy behind the evolution of technology. It touches upon the rise, with Ayn Rand's 1950s writing, of an ideology encouraging self-interest, individual freedom and a decrease in State power that would bring about the happiest and most stable collective. Progressively technology was seen as a mean to achieve this. Through technology we all would have equal power and together create the most stable system.

The trusted objective object (technology) was seen as potentially erasing the risk, the unstablity and the helplessness of the human condition.

This leads into Sillicon Valley's new information technology, Clinton's new economy, the beginning of White House's lethargy, the Asian miracle, short term benefits, Goldman Sachs, the property bubble, nepotism, the attack on the World Trade Center, coorperate fraud and the incredible Alan Greenspan...

I watched Inside Job this weekend and this is wonderfully complimentary.

Facebook Death, Death by Facebook

About a month ago Facebook published a decrease of use in three of its first markets: 6 million Americans, 10 thousand Brits and 1.52 million Canadians commited Facebook Suicide during May 2011. Not much relative to the 700 million monthly Facebook users but still it launched a wave of 'Is this the death of Facebook?' debates - which were interesting since I still haven't understood how Facebook actually makes money.

Since then I've been receiving approximately 3 friend invites from people I do not know (and can’t complain about it to anyone) and if it weren't from a helpful hand I would still be logged on to fb's video chat; as a result I can add at least 2 reasons to why I hate Facebook.

But here's a great list of ten good reasons to:

1. babies
2. here is a picture of what i just ate
3. my mom is on facebook too
4. suggesting i 'like' something that benefits you
5. old cool friends have gone insane
6. getting gifts that are cartoon cows from moo-land
7. tagged in pictures where you look terrible
8. friend suggestions
9. default privacy settings
10. ......

La Main Ouverte

source: http://www.onsitereview.ca/

Monday

Canada Day, Canada Act 1982, Disco 82

Eh, tomorrow's Canada Day!

Because Kate and Will are gracing Ottawa with his balding head and her over-tanned face, I thought it would be nice, just for fun, to go over the year 1982. Not because that's the year Kate and Will's Highnessesses came to life, but rather because that's the year things supposedly changed for Canada:

"The Canada Act 1982 (1982 c. 11) is an Act of Parliament passed by the British Parliament that ended all remaining dependence of Canada on the United Kingdom, by a process known as "patriation."

Remember that? Apparently not... the Canadians and their government's lust for these young feudal capitalists is so as infuriating as it is pathetic that playing Bollywood 'Disco 82' while reading the same wikipedia page makes for a much less frustrating experience. I encourage you to do the same.

Greenpeace Toys with the Innocence of Childhood

After the publicized success of Ken's breakup with Barbie earlier this month - the revelation her packaging contributes to tropical deforestation annihilating all the lust left in Ken's heart, - Greenpeace has again used the joyful innocence associated to childhood to better reveal environmental horrors. If their use of Barbie was entirely their initiative, their campaign 'Dark Side' is based on Volkswagen's latest ad for their new Passat. In the Greenpeace campaign the young endearing Dark Vador trying to animate everyday objects gets swapped for a young yet evil Dark Vador backed by a float of polluting earth killers that must fight an adorable group with young Leila, young Luke, young Droids, young R2- D2, young C-3PO, young Chewbacca and more...

Pretty cute and pretty successful at attacking a brand with a four start branding history (Volkswagen) and a toy every girl under the age of 60 has played with (Barbie):

The Heavy Materiality of All Things Virtual

Coding Secret Wars vs. Experiencing Public Security

After last's post theme that gay rights is all too often a guy's club, I think it is only appropriate to post on two very dude topics - war and coding (see below). Who knew anything about Stuxnet? Who knew anything about this compared to the ratio of those who know the security measures in airports? I'm about to take a plane right now, and as I will be getting my water bottle scanned, I'm going be reminded the great risk my country is at and the great security measures my country is putting in place to save me from this danger. But really a part from pissing me off, forcing me to buy an expensive water bottle and convincing me Western society is going mad, clearly this type of visible security is worth peanuts...

Hh: It's Guy Pride Month

The Idea Behind Virtual Search Engines

eCatophile

I've recently noticed and become quite self-conscious by the amount of cat-related stories I've posted. I like to think this is a coincidence, but evidence suggests otherwise making me some kind of a cat lover - a human-type which I don't particulalry identify to. This morning however, while exploring the fantastic worlds of eharmony, réseau contact, OkCupid and the other virtual decendants of the personal classified ad sections of news papers I was able to relativise the situation. Thank you eHarmony:

Stella and Heineken: The New Beer Drinkers

Stella Artois has long tradition of advertising itself as the la bière pour les hommes à femmes. In their past ads women and Stella Artois bottles are interchangeable because both are light and straight out of the 60s, and the male characters are handsome Frenchmen with perfect-fitting suits and ravishing taste. Their latest ad keeps to their manicured nostalgia but changes the narration making the girl the one who switches the boy for the Stella.

Heineken seems to be wanting to go somewhere somewhat similar by presenting an ad with a lovely couple, a touch of humor, choreographed eye movement and 60s beats that calls anything but "beer is exclusively for men who like sports, bawling and junk food."

Girls, not feeling those sugary Smirnoff Ice delicacies any more, well both Stella and Heinken are thinking of you:

Jane, the Newest Necklace

I just finished a new necklace. It was named Jane, after the women who commissioned it. For more of these noisy attention seekers click here: http://chloeroubert.com/bijoux

The Wonders of Human Associations and The Benefits of Digital Stalking

The Funniest Use of Personal Digital Branding: Harper's Adorable Kitten

The realisation that in less than two weeks more than the equivalent of two thirds of his nation's population had seen the video 'mom cat hugs baby kitten (having a nightmare)' must have sparked somekind of fabulous lightbulb within the Canadian Prime Minister's personal branding team; something like adorable kittens do well at making things go viral and our client (Harper), although viral, is anything but adorable so let's try to use that 'insight' and make Harper adorable.

A few days later they came up with a facebook status and an album - "We have a new family member, a grey tabby, what do you think he should be named? Nous avons un nouveau membre de la famille. comment devrions-nous l'appeler?"

Interested in helping Harper? Go to Harper's personal facebook page before midnight or else Stanley will be the attributed winner. Not interested in helping the Harpers baptize their new grey tabby or contribute to the 505 messages left by the kitten's friends? Then at least go check out Stephen Harper's profile picture and discover what a Harper family picnic looks like:

http://www.facebook.com/pmharper

Moving On But Where Are We Going?

There's a great ambiguity in this documentary which makes one unsure if Welles is making fun of those 'unprepared' for the future individuals or actually seriously serious about a future he describes as filled with contestant instant decision-making, en-temporary prepackaged knowledge, stressful technology, impermanent lifestyles, transient societies, disposable friendships and future shocked individuals.

In any case its relieving in some sense that before Google, facebook friends and Wikipedia people were already freaking out about change, in particular Oxford chemistry professors.

HistoryPin: Giving Google Street View a Human Soul and Sense of Humour?

Consumer Data?

Your Phone Is Hungry

After the Hipster Dickhead...

It starts off like a car ad, but actually it's another youth sub-category appropriating a derogatory term to ironically stigmatize itself.  And like the dickhead hipster, it's sort of funny: