By Daria Radota Rasmussen
"Rather be dead than cool" (Kurt Cobain)
Trends, hypes and crazes are still alive but "there are just too many styles around, and they keep mutating too fast to assume that kind of dominance." writes Brian Eno in his essey The Death of Uncool
That's a good news. The notion of uncool is maybe not entirely dead but it importance is diminished as we get exposed and acustomed to different cultures. We mix and blend creating our versions of cool that are far away from the worn out skater or street type as the ultimative expression of coolness.
Those "stylistic tropics" have a big impact on communication, on the stories we tell and how we tell them. We should reconsider searching for cool behaviors and styles to use them in the communication, but focus on how we change and adapt the cultural context, integrate various cultures to create an experience people can relate too.
by Daria Radota Rasmussen
The changing workplace: culture, demographics, technology.
Lots of interesting global stats about the evolving workforce. We have the huge opportunity of breaking the silos in terms of hierarchy, disciplines, cultures...will we manage to set us free and improve the work quality both as an experience for stuff and as an work outcome?
Letting silos go isn't easy but we can see at Vizeum that integrating insights, online and offline work and impacts our work radically. It makes it more exciting and better!
"If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far go, go with others"
No matter what where you fall on climate change issues, it's an undeniable truth that polar bears are not surviving the loss of their sea ice habitat. A fact I'm reminded of each time I see this ill-conceived image - so far, one billboard plus these London Underground platform posters.
To the creative/s who came up with this marketing campaign - great job. These are the best global warming propaganda posters I've seen yet.
The 39 Beirut39 authors
The meeting of these 39 authors is the result of a widespread call to readers, publishers, literary agents and authors all over the Arab speaking world to put forward their own candidates. The event is also a perfect occasion to read and debate over contemporary narrative in the Arab world. More...
The ‘39 authors under 39’ were chosen by a jury of four well-known and respected Arab writers, academics and journalists: Abdo Wazen, Saif al-Rahbi, Alawiya Sobh and Dr Gaber Asfour.
Hay Festival announced the 39 selected authors at Frankfurt Book Fair on 16 October 2009. More information at: www.beirut39.com
Nice composition of 39 most interesting writers of Arab heritage under 39 years of age.
Our massively complex society relies on the ability to plant crops knowing that they will grow, and build cities and infrastructure in places that won't be flooded by incoming tides or washed away by torrential rains.
Without these certainties, Homo sapiens would still be living in caves. When they fail even briefly – during Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans, say, or in Cumbria just last month – we know the consequences. What if these certainties failed more, or even most, of the time? We are more vulnerable than we think.
Back when I started this blog I had in mind to write a post explaining why I called it "Lost Threads". I never did get round to writing it, but suffice to say it's named after the superb but ultra-grim 80s BBC film, Threads. That film is all about how our fragile modern society is ripped apart by nuclear war and the resulting fallout.
There's a sequence at the start of that film where the narrator is talking about fragility with an image of a spider weaving a web. The many connections that weave our society together make it strong, but they also make it vulnerable.
That vulnerability is what this article is about, and it's brought out nicely in the quote above. It's what climate change as a whole is about, as well. And peak oil. And the multitude of other shocks that are waiting in the wings for our oil-based society.
As a species we've had tremendous good fortune - you might call it blessing - but we're really bad at seeing how good we've got it, and we've managed to paint ourselves into a very tight corner. Let's hope we've got the collective foresight to step out in time...
You just might be a social networking addict if..
Even if none of the above are true, you are a social networking addict anyway - that's the only way you would have gotten notified about this post :)
xmel 8 грудня в приміщенні телерадіокомпанії "Поділля-центр" відбудеться галла концерт учасникі.. http://bit.ly/6P0bd4
culture
Women are exploited
So these women in these movies, they are there to get men to spend money on DVDs or websites subscriptions. The whole industry functions on the need most men have to be stimulated by sight. The money comes from these men and goes into the pockets of the people who make and act in the movies. It's like vampires complaining that they are being exploited by all that blood that living human beings have.
“Perverse” and “unnatural”
In what sense? As long as there have been orifices people have wanted to stick things in them. It's an instinct. If a penis can fit in it somebody is going to try to get one in. People have genitals. This is natural. Healthy genitals, when handled properly provide pleasure. People hook up for casual sex all the time. Right now there is somebody near you getting laid and they are probably doing it with somebody whose last name they will forget within a week. There are also people with cameras filming stuff. Neither one of these things is odd. Even when you take the position that casual sex is wrong or bad, it's hardly new or rare.
Causes crimes against women
Supposedly men look at women as “sex-objects” because of porn. They dehumanized and thus are open to being used. The problem is that even in places where there is relatively little pornography women are dehumanized. The same crimes that are committed against them ostensibly as a result of the pervasiveness of pornography have always, and will always, be committed against them until they all become genetically engineered cyborgs with vaginas molded from surgical steel.
Harms relationships
Only relationships that were teetering on the brink anyway. Who seriously gets threatened by somebody on a screen? I'll tell you who, women (and, occasionally, men) who are looking to make you the scapegoat for their unhappiness and insecurity, that's who. Porn comes with a social stigma, even among its most ardent consumers. You say your husband watches porn in certain company and he will be tainted for life and you, poor, frail female, will get to look like the victim of a disgusting pervert.
Desensitizes
You get desensitized to the nudity of somebody you see naked every day. Thee are lots of women who appear in porn. Until you get tired of each one of them you won't be desensitized to them. You can lose the sense of shock you had as you were getting your cherry busted to the first anal sex scene, yes, but is shock really why you watch porn? If it is then maybe you are addicted to an adrenaline rush rather than actual erotic depictions. I could be wrong but I don't think sex is supposed to be “shocking”.