Save The World

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AVOID TO PRINT.

Mingong by PierreH

This evening at 7 p.m. CET, will take place le vernissage of the Shanghai's Mingong exposition by Pierre Henniquant.
Undermined by hard working and destruction of domestic relationships, those rural workers revealed a delicacy in their gestures and glances that give to them a sort of dancers mood.
At the same time those are the same workers that steal work to europeans. But isn't up to them, right? Companies move to China and India their plants just to produce our toys costless and to maximize their profits.
Capitalism is in its blind phase: money for money and no future at all. But that's the world we live in it.
Just look at Dongwu, and at the dignity in his eyes.

Christmastime In The Mountains

Should I play ball with the dogs
Or walk away
Should I play ball with the dogs
Or walk away
Should I take your hand
Walk across the sand

Time is the enemy
Time is the guy
Enemy behind
Enemy lines
We need an enemy
I'm saving all my rage for you
We need an enemy
I'm saving all my rage

It's christmastime in the mountains
Everything is white tonight

Song by Steve Baker et Bryan Rich
On "Hope", by Palace Songs, 1994

The Future, right now!

Just have a look to this amazing touch driven computer screen in action and you'll see how tomorrows's computer will look like.

Thanks to BoingBoing.

I'm Afraid of Americans

Subject: McDonnell Douglas Customer Survey
Date: Tue, 13 Mar 2001 18:51:58 -0800

Sent: Tuesday, March 13, 2001 3:26 PM
Subject: McDONNELL DOUGLAS


This was allegedly posted very briefly on the McDonnell Douglas Website by an
employee there who obviously has a sense of humor. The company, of course, does
not have a sense of humor, and made the web department take it down immediately
(for once, the "IMPORTANT" note at the end is worth a read too.... )

Thank you for purchasing a McDonnell Douglas military aircraft. In order to
protect your new investment, please take a few moments to fill out the warranty
registration card below. Answering the survey questions is not required, but the
information will help us to develop new products that best meet your needs and
desires.

1. [_] Mr.
[_] Mrs.
[_] Ms.
[_] Miss
[_] Lt.
[_] Gen.
[_] Comrade
[_] Classified
[_] Other

First Name: ............................ Initial: ........
Last Name: ..................................
Password: ........................ (max. 8 char)
Code Name:
.................................................................
Latitude-Longitude-Altitude: .....................................

2. Which model of aircraft did you purchase?

[_] F-14 Tomcat
[_] F-15 Eagle
[_] F-16 Falcon
[_] F-117A Stealth
[_] Classified

3. Date of purchase (Year/Month/Day): 20......./....... /......

4. Serial Number: .............................................

5. Please indicate where this product was purchased:

[_] Received as gift / aid package
[_] Catalogue / showroom
[_] Independent arms broker
[_] Mail order
[_] Discount store
[_] Government surplus
[_] Classified

6. Please indicate how you became aware of the McDonnell Douglas product
you have just purchased:

[_] Heard loud noise, looked up
[_] Store display
[_] Espionage
[_] Recommended by friend / relative / ally
[_] Political lobbying by manufacturer
[_] Was attacked by one

7. Please indicate the three (3) factors that most influenced your
decision to purchase this McDonnell Douglas product:

[_] Style / appearance
[_] Speed / maneuverability
[_] Price / value
[_] Comfort / convenience
[_] Kickback / bribe
[_] Recommended by salesperson
[_] McDonnell Douglas reputation
[_] Advanced Weapons Systems
[_] Backroom politics
[_] Negative experience opposing one in combat

8. Please indicate the location(s) where this product will be used:

[_] North America
[_] Iraq
[_] Iraq
[_] Aircraft carrier
[_] Iraq
[_] Europe
[_] Iraq
[_] Middle East (not Iraq)
[_] Iraq
[_] Africa
[_] Iraq
[_] Asia / Far East
[_] Iraq
[_] Misc. Third World countries
[_] Iraq
[_] Classified
[_] Iraq

9. Please indicate the products that you currently own or intend to
purchase in the near future:

[_] Color TV
[_] VCR
[_] ICBM
[_] Killer Satellite
[_] CD Player
[_] Air-to-Air Missiles
[_] Space Shuttle
[_] Home Computer
[_] Nuclear Weapon

10. How would you describe yourself or your organization? (Indicate all
that apply)

[_] Communist / Socialist
[_] Terrorist
[_] Crazed
[_] Neutral
[_] Democratic
[_] Dictatorship
[_] Corrupt
[_] Primitive / Tribal

11. How did you pay for your McDonnell Douglas product?

[_] Deficit spending
[_] Cash
[_] Suitcases of cocaine
[_] Oil revenues
[_] Personal check
[_] Credit card
[_] Ransom money
[_] Traveler's check

12. Your occupation:

[_] Homemaker
[_] Sales / marketing
[_] Revolutionary
[_] Clerical
[_] Mercenary
[_] Tyrant
[_] Middle management
[_] Eccentric billionaire
[_] Defense Minister / General
[_] Retired
[_] Student

13. To help us better understand our customers, please indicate the interests
and activities in which you and your spouse enjoy participating
on a regular basis:

[_] Golf
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[_] Sabotage
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[_] Propaganda / misinformation
[_] Destabilization / overthrow
[_] Default on loans
[_] Gardening
[_] Crafts
[_] Black market / smuggling
[_] Collectibles / collections
[_] Watching sports on TV
[_] Wines
[_] Interrogation / torture
[_] Household pets
[_] Crushing rebellions
[_] Espionage / reconnaissance
[_] Fashion clothing
[_] Border disputes
[_] Mutually Assured Destruction

Thank you for taking the time to fill out this questionnaire. Your answers
will be used in market studies that will help McDonnell Douglas serve you
better in the future - as well as allowing you to receive mailings and
special offers from other companies, governments, extremist groups, and
mysterious consortia. As a bonus for responding to this survey, you will be
registered to win a brand new F-117A in our Desert Thunder Sweepstakes!

Comments or suggestions about our fighter planes? Please write to:

McDONNELL DOUGLAS CORPORATION Marketing Department
Military, Aerospace Division


IMPORTANT: This email is intended for the use of the individual addressee(s)
named above and may contain information that is confidential privileged or
unsuitable for overly sensitive persons with low self-esteem, no sense of humor
or irrational religious beliefs. If you are not the intended recipient, any
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Unless the word absquatulation has been used in its correct context somewhere
other than in this warning, it does not have any legal or no grammatical use and
may be ignored. No animals were harmed in the transmission of this email,
although the kelpie next door is living on borrowed time, let me tell you.
Those of you with an overwhelming fear of the unknown will be gratified to learn
that there is no hidden message revealed by reading this backwards, so just
ignore that Alert Notice from Microsoft.

However, by pouring a complete circle of salt around yourself and your computer
you can ensure that no harm befalls you and your pets. If you have received this
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warm oven for 40 minutes.

Just a shot

Here's the photo blog of Jérome Roussin.
He takes and puts on line one new photo each day. A personal point of view of his city and his friends and his life too.
Enjoy.

Have a look here !

Shangai Mingongs

China. Cheaper products, ancients traditions, newest technologies, one billion people and a huge country.
China scares us, but not enough to avoid our manifacturers to close their plants here in Europe and to open brand new ones in China to exploit them at half the price.
But why everything is so cheap and unexpensive?
Thanks to an independant photographer, Pierre Henniquant, finally we can discover how the magnificent towers that shine in Shanghai's skyline are built and at which price.
Thousand of men come from rural areas to work in the city centre dazzled by the hope of a better life and a job.
As you can see on the photograph's site here reality is a little bit different. They're piled up in small and unhealthy houses. There's no health care or insurances and they're obviously not well paid (but better than in the countryside from where they come from). Thanks to photographers we can understand how chinese products can be so affordable and think about a minute before purchase them.
For those who live in Paris an exposition will take place from the 1st of February 2007 to the 3rd of March 2007 @
Galerie-Librairie Impressions
98 rue Quincampoix, 75003 Paris
Directions here
T: 01 42 76 01 04
impressions98@wanadoo.fr
Opening hours: Wednesday from 6p.m. to 9 p.m. and Saturday from 2 p.m. to 8 p.m.

Photo courtesy of Pierre Henniquant. All rights reserved.

Hanged Information: Saddam Hussein's last show.

Saddam Hussein was killed at the very end of 2006 and his death was captured on a cell phone and immediately shared on the internet. As we can see, the diffusion of this kind of videos takes now only days (and in some cases hours) to pop up in Google results and to smash the Youtube hit and Technorati’s tag lists.

Almost a million of viewers assisted to the death of the farmer Iraqi dictator. More than that, searched the Internet looking for the video that someone put online. But do those people care about who was hanged? Do those people want really witness the death of an evil icon of our times because they feel it was the right punishment for his crimes or they just watched the video because it's something that everybody’s talking about?

This video is the news and this video ends the news. Once you’ve seen (and shared) the video, that’s all about you want to know about Saddam and the far and mostly unknown Iraqi stuff. Institutional media try to balance this trend, writing on how’s death penalty must be abolished and how Saddam’s death would help the stabilization of the middle-east area. But institutional media are not in the best position to do that: we all remember about the never ending 50 sec sequence about Twin Towers plane crash or the few frames showing the destructive wave of south Asian Tsunami. Repetition without moderation is the easiest way to deprive a fact of its meaning and TV information channels as well as generalist channels had massively used repetition as a tool to keep attention of people on high levels. But this has contributed to get the people rid of this kind of unidirectional communication. That's way Internet is today so important. Because let the people do whatever they want with information. But Internet wide freedom has some dark sides: the day after the video of Saddam Hussein's death was put online, someone edited a hip-hop remixed version of it. Video is so considered just as rough material to use to create something new, and if this is normally something good, because it gives to the users the opportunity to do whatever they want with contents, is very dangerous too. Not everyone will be able to select and understand the real meaning of rough informations, and the importance that they may have and the death of someone (even a dictator) will be just another funny video that teenagers will share without giving any importance to it.

Speaker for the dead

I've just started to read this book that is the second book of the Ender's cicle.
The Others are still out there, but sometimes they're closest than we can imagine. Must we kill them all or learn to live in peace with them? Tolerance is not always the good solution, as tolerance don't really let understand what the Others really are. We tolerate their traditions, but must we accept and understand them? Obviously this is a too hard question for a simple post at 11 am.
I'll tell you once I've read it all.

Beautiful

Here an amaizing pure-white Hanabi lamp. Thanks to a special metal alloy when you switch on the lamp, the heat of the light bulb makes the metal remembers of its shape offering you a real blooming light flower. (source http://www.designbeans.com/)
Hanabi is a Japanese word which means “fireworks” or “flower & fire” in literal translation.
In the following photo here's what a night forest of Hanabi lamp looks like.

You can find more information and more products on the designer site:
http://www.nendo.jp/

English and Italian version if you do not speak japanese.