They build fences, don't they?

This news piece about how the Greek government secretly has been working on a plan to build a wall on Greece's shared border with Turkey, to keep immigrants out of the EU, made me think of this little thought-provoking book about the history of barbed wire.

iPhone Shooter

Award winning director Park Chan-wook («Old Boy», «Thirst») is debuting his iPhone 4 shot feature «Paranmanjang» in Korean cinemas later this month. Is this the first time a feature film shot on an iPhone is shown in regular cinemas? An interesting development following on from a lot of stills done on iPhones by pro-photographers and also the work of these journalists embedded with US troops in Afghanistan, which they are posting via Facebook.

Future Sounds

When reading about David Cameron's plans for Britain to invest in tourism, pharmaceuticals, and so-called green industries, my initial reaction is: Isn't that what all developed countries are investing in or say they want to be investing in? Makes one wonder, is it possible for all countries to develop the exact same industries and somehow get away with it? I mean, sounds a bit like we'd end up with the old concept of everybody cutting each other's hair.

Gay-Friendly Office Party Music

Read this lukewarm review of the third Scissor Sisters some while back in the printed version of Die Welt, and have wanted to post this but didn't look it up online until now. The headline brilliantly sums up the Sisters' tepid pop: «Musik fürs schwule Betriebsfest». Or in English: «Music for the gay office party». As I was writing this however, it struck me that given the Sisters' adoring mainly non-gay fanbase (at least in the UK and Europe), a rather more fitting headline that neatly encapsules their sound would have been: «Music for the Gay-Friendly Office Party». Which just about sums up that the band reached its pinnacle early in their career, with a brilliant cover of Pink Floyd's «Comfortably Numb».

Sexx Laws (German Style)

The type of newspaper headline you would only get in Germany: «Niedergang der Sexualwissenschaft: Verhaltensmanagement statt Triebschicksal». If you insist on reading the whole piece, here you go bubbas.

inequality & income & the bleeding obvious

Check the graphs in this op-ed piece from the Washington Post. Especially the one about productivity and median income, and isn't it easy to spot that the writer is missing one very obvious point in why productivity goes up without income increasing accordingly: It's the technology, stupid!

And technology is just one of many, many factors that very obviously explain why income is not going to rise for the majority of people in the west in future years. Now, let's try and find ONE politician brave enough to admit this to the electorate...

Western Stars: The Facebook stock bonanza and the sudden implosion of the North American Way

Why oh why am I left with this strange desire to see an oversigning of Facebook stock akin to the theatre play Springtime for Hitler in Mel Brooks' classic The Producers? The cynicism of Goldman Sachs certainly leaves nothing to be desired compared to the producers who give title to the film. And then imagine this oversigning of stock to be followed by an implosion in the interest for social media, especially when people find out they need to work for a living again after the years of plenty in the West.

The oversigning of Facebook stocks quickly leading to a collapse of western finance.The irony of something as trivial as Facebook leading to this sudden loss of prestige and economic wealth surely wouldn't be lost on anyone. Extremely suitably and delightfully ironic it would be too that such a banality should see an end to our way of life.

And if so were to happen, I recommend that Time magazine name Mark Zuckerberg as Man of the Year once more. By public demand! That is, if Time magazine still were to exist after said implosion of fortune. Probably won't happen. But oh what a spectacle it would be. It would make the Facebook share deal look like the modern-financial-crunchy version of rearranging deckchairs on the Titanic. At least Hollywood could probably make a great movie out of it. But please, don't let Oliver Stone anywhere near it. We most certainly do not need a Wall Street 3!

Disneyland After Dark

Only surprise is that this hasn't happened sooner, but finally Disney Inc is set to destroy China from the inside in the shape of a theme park in Shanghai. In other words no point in worrying about any future challenges from the far east. The Chinese will be disneyfied and westernized long before they constitute any threat to the so-called Western way of life. Crazy like us!

Facebook is gay?

Facebook's gay, claims one of the readers responding to this anti-Facebook rant. The article neatly sums up why FB is such a waste of time. As for the claim that this particular social media is gay, I would argue the opposite. I would also argue that FB isn't particularly «social». But there you go! We're all entitled to our opinion. Personally I prefer the Onion's take on football (or soccer, as Americans like to call it) coming out as gay & which I wrote about before. Who wouldn't want football to be gay rather than something as dull as Facebook?

Rise of the Machines

Machines are taking over more and more financial transactions. Meaning that the cut-throat world of finance is now being measured more and more by the nano-second. Interesting also to read the reader comments. Including one guy who asks if America will become the first genuine communist society on earth. Something which reminds me of a piece I read about communism in modern America, where they talked to a commie who suggested that Sarah Palin was the most socialist of the mainstream political candidates. Sorry, I meant to write lamestream. But of course!

Being Boring

Like listening to paint dry, was only one of many subjects discussed at this conference of boredom in London. Sounds like just the right thing to pop up in our day and age.