Friday 21 December 2012
Monday 15 October 2012
Tuesday 3 July 2012
The answer is yes!
(Image source: BBC)
BY JOSH LANDER
Spain is crowned champion again. The Red Fury beat Italy 4-0 to take home the European Cup.
With the lopsided victory, the Spaniards became the first side to win three straight major tournaments, including the nation’s first World Cup title in 2010.
Some are asking if this team is the best national side ever assembled. ESPN’s Alexi Lalas says, no doubt about it.
“History. Best team ever. Not just the winning, but that’s going to help define it. But ultimately, when people ultimately drill down in it, it’s the way that this team has won. And not just today, but consistently over the years.”
So how have they won? An analyst for Fox Sports says they’re the first team ever to win three back-to-back international tournaments thanks to an unmatched style of football.
“They’ve reinvented it. Again they’ve gone back and put every aspect of the game into one. The athletic side, the attacking side, the passing side of the game. And you don’t have to be 6-foot-5 and weigh 250 pounds. As long as you can control that ball.”
Spain isn’t the only team to dominate their era. A writer for the BBC takes a look back at another legendary squad.
“When the template for the all-time great sides is assembled, Brazil's legendary World Cup-winning side in Mexico in 1970 is invariably used...[But] the greatest? It would have to be a very powerful argument against Spain.”
But not everyone is so impressed with Spain and its strategy for success. In fact, one Yahoo! blogger claims Spain’s style borders on arrogance.
“...they starve the opposition of possession and wait for the opportunity to prise them open with inch-perfect passes. However, prior to the 4-0 hammering of the Azzurri, there were claims that La Furia Roja had come to revere style over substance...”
Next up for Spain is the 2014 World Cup in Brazil. A writer for CNN says if Spain hoists its second straight World Cup trophy, crown ‘em the best ever.
“Favorites for the 2014 World Cup? You bet. And if they successfully defend their world title, you might be celebrating the fact the undisputed greatest team of all time played during your lifetime.”
BY JOSH LANDER
Spain is crowned champion again. The Red Fury beat Italy 4-0 to take home the European Cup.
With the lopsided victory, the Spaniards became the first side to win three straight major tournaments, including the nation’s first World Cup title in 2010.
Some are asking if this team is the best national side ever assembled. ESPN’s Alexi Lalas says, no doubt about it.
“History. Best team ever. Not just the winning, but that’s going to help define it. But ultimately, when people ultimately drill down in it, it’s the way that this team has won. And not just today, but consistently over the years.”
So how have they won? An analyst for Fox Sports says they’re the first team ever to win three back-to-back international tournaments thanks to an unmatched style of football.
“They’ve reinvented it. Again they’ve gone back and put every aspect of the game into one. The athletic side, the attacking side, the passing side of the game. And you don’t have to be 6-foot-5 and weigh 250 pounds. As long as you can control that ball.”
Spain isn’t the only team to dominate their era. A writer for the BBC takes a look back at another legendary squad.
“When the template for the all-time great sides is assembled, Brazil's legendary World Cup-winning side in Mexico in 1970 is invariably used...[But] the greatest? It would have to be a very powerful argument against Spain.”
But not everyone is so impressed with Spain and its strategy for success. In fact, one Yahoo! blogger claims Spain’s style borders on arrogance.
“...they starve the opposition of possession and wait for the opportunity to prise them open with inch-perfect passes. However, prior to the 4-0 hammering of the Azzurri, there were claims that La Furia Roja had come to revere style over substance...”
Next up for Spain is the 2014 World Cup in Brazil. A writer for CNN says if Spain hoists its second straight World Cup trophy, crown ‘em the best ever.
“Favorites for the 2014 World Cup? You bet. And if they successfully defend their world title, you might be celebrating the fact the undisputed greatest team of all time played during your lifetime.”
Thursday 21 June 2012
Monday 18 June 2012
Monday 9 April 2012
Titanic Memorial Cruise sets sail
(Image Source: BBC )
BY KYLIE MCGIVERN
Amid the weekend hype surrounding James Cameron’s 3D release of Titanic, some enthusiasts took their interest a step further -- reliving the fateful ship’s journey on a 12-day cruise.
The cruiseline booked 1,309 passengers, not including crew, from 28 different countries - the same passenger number as the original ship. Numerous Titanic passenger descendants will be on board as well, as the cruise traces Titanic’s original itinerary -- which some critics question.
CNN'S Gena Somra: “Sheila Byron says she knows some people worry the trip marking the tragic anniversary in which more than 1,500 people lost their lives is paramount to tempting fate.”
Byron: “When you can you’re going on a cruise, the first thing people say is, ‘Where?’ And then I go, ‘Oh dear.’”
The BBC's Jon Kay: “There will be people watching this ship leaving Southampton today who this this is disrespectful, that it’s a bit ghoulish, a bit odd. What do you say to them?”
Passenger: “I’m trying to sort of emulate what they wanted to do.”
Miles Morgan, the founder of the company that organized the trip, Titanic Memorial Cruises, defends the cruises’ objective. Here's the Telegraph.
“It’s about the sensitivity and the way the issues is treated. And right from the beginning, it’s the Titanic memorial cruise, it’s not a celebration cruise - it’s a memorial cruise. And I think it’s about the spirit, and the way we treat the subject.”
The two cruise ships, departing from Southampton, England, and New York; will stop for a memorial service April 15th, at the exact location where the Titanic sunk.
“The inspiration began about five years ago when a gentleman walked in off the street to one of his (Miles Morgan’s) 12 travel agencies in England and suggested the idea... As of January, when about one-third of the spots on the Azamara Journey were still available, interior staterooms were selling for $4,900. The top cabin, the Club World Owners Suite, cost nearly $15,000.”
So for those of us not at sea, a simple movie ticket might be the cheaper option to commemorate the Titanic’s 100-year anniversary.
Saturday 7 April 2012
Monday 27 February 2012
Education for all, by Shakira
I have just come across this beautiful and sensible speech made by Shakira and, as public education is going through such a hard situation in Spain, I would like to share with you.
More...
Thank you Oxford, and thank you Oxford Union.
It is truly an honor and a privilege to be here today and that you have afforded me this opportunity to speak to you.
I must confess, I am somewhat mystified as to why you are here. I won’t be singing… and there won’t be any hipshaking.
So, how do I, a girl from Barranquilla, Colombia come to occupy the same stage as Newton and Churchill? Lord knows I’m no Mother Teresa, but here I am, nonetheless.
I realize that the one point of view from which I can depart is that of an artist. After all, it is who I am. We artists depend on our imaginations.
When I first learned I was coming, I thought about the past and I imagined the future. From your minds, ideas will sprout that will give new shape to the world. I cannot help but fast-forward to what the world will be like in 50 years. What will be happening? Who will we be? How will we live? What challenges can we overcome?
I have a fantasy about this future that I want to share with you.
Let me put it this way, if civilization were a car, we would have been cruising at 20 miles per hour for millions of years only to hit light speed in the last hundred.
What made us accelerate so quickly recently and how can we continue this pace? There is only one explanation: the democratization of education.
Think about it: just recently a fossil was discovered in Africa, the oldest human fossil at over four million years. Our ancestors may have been slightly smaller than they are now but not significantly so particularly if you compare them to me since I am 5’ 3”….well ok 5’2”).
From then to now, humans learned, slowly but surely, the tools and methods they needed to survive and thrive in what would become modern civilization. We learned how to walk, then run, then dance; we learned to grow our food, to store our food, to share our food; we learned the basics of commerce, and mathematics; we learned to work with tools, and fight with tools, and write with language, and fight with language. We learned how to harness fire, and harness horses, and harness the power of the wind and the sun.
All before we got here.
Over 4 million years.
We know that in the Middle Ages, education was reserved by, and for, a few, a handful of people with access to the precious resources of knowledge -- writing, reading, libraries. The rest of the population, well, they weren’t so lucky; they lived unexamined lives, carting stone and wood from one place to another, unable to participate in intellectual conversation.
No doubt that intellectual elite felt safe and secure in restricting knowledge and information -- believing, as they did, that a little knowledge is a dangerous thing. But what they didn’t appreciate was that hoarding knowledge was far more dangerous.
There was no critical mass of thought that allowed humanity to truly advance, to rescue them from plague, to invent the vaccines that would extend their lives, to devise the sociological models that would allow society to flourish.
These civilizations rose and fell and rose again; but in comparison to the present, the pace of development was incredibly slow… like a river one must stare at, with unbroken concentration to detect the movement of the current.
But what they didn’t anticipate was the Renaissance, the Enlightenment, and later the Industrial Revolution! Suddenly, a middle class emerged, and everywhere people began to engage with each other, sharing their knowledge -- and instead of having a few thousand people thinking for everyone, there were millions of readers, writers, creators, artists, academics, teachers and students, becoming a true collective of shared resources, an ongoing, endless exchange of our most vital resource: information.
But then, a hundred years or so ago, we really picked up the pace. Suddenly, we pushed down hard on the accelerator. Suddenly, we were aboard a space shuttle, speeding through the sky, piercing the boundaries of the earth’s atmosphere, traveling thousands of miles to the moon, staking a flag on its surface, and sharing that breathtaking moment with the rest of the world through a device known as the television. Thank God for Televisions…
How could we moved so quickly?
It shouldn’t be surprising, really. The human race, after all, has only one collective conscience. We exist in a vast ocean, but we are the school of fish that moves in concert, zigzagging from left to right, together, in unison. Education is how we communicate, how we coordinate, how we cooperate.
What we know now that they didn’t know then is that all minds form one common intellect. The more people share knowledge the stronger the knowledge base grows, just as a burning fire grows when stoked by an increasing amount of wood.
We have achieved so much and we owe it to one basic but transformational concept.
The democratization of education
It is the airplane that brought me to England, the medicine that allows grandparents to meet their grandchildren, the philosophy that expands our individual liberties, and the technology that sent us to the moon.
I do not subscribe to the idea that the older days were better days. I strongly believe that the best is yet to come, with universal access to education to feed our collective intelligence, with our commitment to meet and organize in places like this, among students like you – we could be so close to creating a network of intellects, an enormous think tank devoted to sharing the best ideas and inspiring each other to keep learning, keep informing, and keep advancing our world. And finding solutions to our common issues. Wouldn’t that be great?
We have evolved so far in the course of human history, with so many technological advances in just the past century, how will we evolve in the next ten tears, or twenty years, or fifty years – now that we know that the world has shrunk and has become just one big neighborhood.
You are the architects of change. So tell me, how many things that seem inconceivable today will be obvious tomorrow? How long will man live? How will society be structured? Will we still be organized in couples? In communities? Governed by governments, led by presidents and prime ministers? Will we be able to breathe underwater? Will we eat junk food without gaining weight? I’d like that. Will Nike invent a pair of sneakers that will allow us to fly like Harry Potter?
Like John Locke, I am too impatient to wait. He says it, I sing it: “Why wait for later; I’m not a waiter.” I like to make things happen. (by the way, that ‘s from a song on my new album SHE WOLF in stores now). Anyways…
Nine years ago, as part of the Millennium Development Goals, leaders from around the world made a pledge to transform the world so that every child would have access to a primary school by the year 2015. That is just over five years from now. Sadly, their actions have not met their promises. Sadly, at the current pace of change, we won’t have universal access to education in a hundred years, let alone five. That is unacceptable.
Especially, when the world has the resources to feed itself several times over, then, why are children starving? Latin America, alone has 3 times the necessary abundance to feed it’s own population.
These children can’t wait a hundred more years.
They need us to cure a child with Leukemia or AIDS with a simple pill or a breakthrough vaccine. We need to live in a world in which together, we can find a solution to global warming so we don’t have to worry every single time a storm begins to form on the horizon. We need to find new ways to distribute food so no child goes to bed hungry.
And I know that education is our ticket.
How do I know? Because I’ve seen it.
I was born and raised in a country marked by civil conflict, social strife and inequality. Growing up in the developing world, where education is perceived as a luxury and not as right; where children beg for an education and parents are desperate to provide it; where if one is born poor, one is destined to do die poor.
But the good news, is that there is an exit strategy to break the cycle of poverty in which millions are trapped because of lack of access to education. From the moment I turned 18, I decided to establish my own foundation in Colombia. And since then we have been working on providing high quality education, nutrition for children and occupational training for their parents, building schools that also work as community centers for families that have been displaced by violence that have lost everything they had.
We found the way to keep kids in school and maintain parents involvement in their children’s education. Providing nutritious meals in schools we have decreased the number of dropouts and we have eradicated malnutrition among our students.
So we know that creating comprehensive models of education in areas where the population is vulnerable to extreme poverty and conflict, transforms the minds and the lives of not only children but entire communities. And it works. Believe me, it works.
I’m still a student on all these issues, but I’ve come to learn that there are ways to change this. So no government can say that the challenge of bringing education to every child is an impossible task. Because we know how to enroll all those 75 million kids who don’t have access to any kind of primary education, by:
Abolishing school fee’s
Hiring quality teachers
Providing uniforms and textbooks to children
And providing most importantly food, because no kid can learn on an empty stomach and because we’ve proven that it becomes the best incentive for parents to send their kids to school and reduce child labor.
Now I want to be clear about this, this isn’t about charity. This is about investing in human potential. From an ethical point of view, from a moral point of view, it accomplishes a purpose. But also from an economic point of view, this could bring enormous benefits to all mankind. Universal education is the key to global security and economic growth.
Security
We all want safer nations. And in a world where weak states are often a haven for violent extremists, getting more children into school can dramatically help reduce the risk of instability and lay the groundwork for more stable democratic political systems to emerge. A child who lives in extreme poverty away from school is 10 times more likely to be recruited by a militant group then one who is receiving an education. For instance in Colombia we have kids in our schools who were destined to be a part of the drug trafficking business or recruited by guerrillas, today, as we speak they are going to college and like you, are graduating soon. So yes, education promotes peace and stability worldwide. Isn’t that what we all want?
Economic Growth
On the other hand, education helps catalyze economic growth.
One single year of primary education invested means a 10 to 20% increase in wages in their adult life. For every dollar invested in early childhood development programs, that same child will give back 17. So yeah, education also boosts economic growth.
So I, for one, would definitely like to go faster. I want to go faster because, with so many challenges, faster is better. I want to go faster because faster is more just.
And they need us to do it all tomorrow. I say: let’s do it today.
So I look to you to help us go faster. I look to you to foster -- no, more than that, to become -- the network of collaborative minds that can stimulate the evolution of human understanding. I look to you to press down on that accelerator so that in fifty years, your children will look back and say:
“A long time ago, people could not formulate an efficient form of distribution of food to eliminate starvation and hunger, despite the technological advances of the time and the excess of food. But then they began to incorporate millions and millions of children in the web of knowledge -- because they began to realize that the democratization of education is the engine that propels the world.”
That is how I want the youth of 2060 to see us. That our mission for global peace consisted of sending 30,000 educators to Afghanistan, not 30,000 soldiers. That in 2010, world education became more important than world domination.
Because only education will accelerate our evolution.
Only by investing in our children, by tapping their potential that has remained untapped for too long, can they one day cure our diseases, or bring us to Mars, or secure us peace here on earth.
Because, it bears repeating, we are one world.
One civilization.
One conscience.
One engine.
One destiny.
And so, if I have just one more thought to offer you and to add to our one collective conscience here today, it is this:
Education for all.
John Locke, who I believe was one of yours, once said, “the only fence against the world is a thorough knowledge of it, and the earlier the better.” So yeah, the earlier the better. There is no time to waste. It is you who are in the driver’s seat. It is your foot on the accelerator.
And please, step on it.
Thank you very much. This has been a true honor.
It is truly an honor and a privilege to be here today and that you have afforded me this opportunity to speak to you.
I must confess, I am somewhat mystified as to why you are here. I won’t be singing… and there won’t be any hipshaking.
So, how do I, a girl from Barranquilla, Colombia come to occupy the same stage as Newton and Churchill? Lord knows I’m no Mother Teresa, but here I am, nonetheless.
I realize that the one point of view from which I can depart is that of an artist. After all, it is who I am. We artists depend on our imaginations.
When I first learned I was coming, I thought about the past and I imagined the future. From your minds, ideas will sprout that will give new shape to the world. I cannot help but fast-forward to what the world will be like in 50 years. What will be happening? Who will we be? How will we live? What challenges can we overcome?
I have a fantasy about this future that I want to share with you.
Let me put it this way, if civilization were a car, we would have been cruising at 20 miles per hour for millions of years only to hit light speed in the last hundred.
What made us accelerate so quickly recently and how can we continue this pace? There is only one explanation: the democratization of education.
Think about it: just recently a fossil was discovered in Africa, the oldest human fossil at over four million years. Our ancestors may have been slightly smaller than they are now but not significantly so particularly if you compare them to me since I am 5’ 3”….well ok 5’2”).
From then to now, humans learned, slowly but surely, the tools and methods they needed to survive and thrive in what would become modern civilization. We learned how to walk, then run, then dance; we learned to grow our food, to store our food, to share our food; we learned the basics of commerce, and mathematics; we learned to work with tools, and fight with tools, and write with language, and fight with language. We learned how to harness fire, and harness horses, and harness the power of the wind and the sun.
All before we got here.
Over 4 million years.
We know that in the Middle Ages, education was reserved by, and for, a few, a handful of people with access to the precious resources of knowledge -- writing, reading, libraries. The rest of the population, well, they weren’t so lucky; they lived unexamined lives, carting stone and wood from one place to another, unable to participate in intellectual conversation.
No doubt that intellectual elite felt safe and secure in restricting knowledge and information -- believing, as they did, that a little knowledge is a dangerous thing. But what they didn’t appreciate was that hoarding knowledge was far more dangerous.
There was no critical mass of thought that allowed humanity to truly advance, to rescue them from plague, to invent the vaccines that would extend their lives, to devise the sociological models that would allow society to flourish.
These civilizations rose and fell and rose again; but in comparison to the present, the pace of development was incredibly slow… like a river one must stare at, with unbroken concentration to detect the movement of the current.
But what they didn’t anticipate was the Renaissance, the Enlightenment, and later the Industrial Revolution! Suddenly, a middle class emerged, and everywhere people began to engage with each other, sharing their knowledge -- and instead of having a few thousand people thinking for everyone, there were millions of readers, writers, creators, artists, academics, teachers and students, becoming a true collective of shared resources, an ongoing, endless exchange of our most vital resource: information.
But then, a hundred years or so ago, we really picked up the pace. Suddenly, we pushed down hard on the accelerator. Suddenly, we were aboard a space shuttle, speeding through the sky, piercing the boundaries of the earth’s atmosphere, traveling thousands of miles to the moon, staking a flag on its surface, and sharing that breathtaking moment with the rest of the world through a device known as the television. Thank God for Televisions…
How could we moved so quickly?
It shouldn’t be surprising, really. The human race, after all, has only one collective conscience. We exist in a vast ocean, but we are the school of fish that moves in concert, zigzagging from left to right, together, in unison. Education is how we communicate, how we coordinate, how we cooperate.
What we know now that they didn’t know then is that all minds form one common intellect. The more people share knowledge the stronger the knowledge base grows, just as a burning fire grows when stoked by an increasing amount of wood.
We have achieved so much and we owe it to one basic but transformational concept.
The democratization of education
It is the airplane that brought me to England, the medicine that allows grandparents to meet their grandchildren, the philosophy that expands our individual liberties, and the technology that sent us to the moon.
I do not subscribe to the idea that the older days were better days. I strongly believe that the best is yet to come, with universal access to education to feed our collective intelligence, with our commitment to meet and organize in places like this, among students like you – we could be so close to creating a network of intellects, an enormous think tank devoted to sharing the best ideas and inspiring each other to keep learning, keep informing, and keep advancing our world. And finding solutions to our common issues. Wouldn’t that be great?
We have evolved so far in the course of human history, with so many technological advances in just the past century, how will we evolve in the next ten tears, or twenty years, or fifty years – now that we know that the world has shrunk and has become just one big neighborhood.
You are the architects of change. So tell me, how many things that seem inconceivable today will be obvious tomorrow? How long will man live? How will society be structured? Will we still be organized in couples? In communities? Governed by governments, led by presidents and prime ministers? Will we be able to breathe underwater? Will we eat junk food without gaining weight? I’d like that. Will Nike invent a pair of sneakers that will allow us to fly like Harry Potter?
Like John Locke, I am too impatient to wait. He says it, I sing it: “Why wait for later; I’m not a waiter.” I like to make things happen. (by the way, that ‘s from a song on my new album SHE WOLF in stores now). Anyways…
Nine years ago, as part of the Millennium Development Goals, leaders from around the world made a pledge to transform the world so that every child would have access to a primary school by the year 2015. That is just over five years from now. Sadly, their actions have not met their promises. Sadly, at the current pace of change, we won’t have universal access to education in a hundred years, let alone five. That is unacceptable.
Especially, when the world has the resources to feed itself several times over, then, why are children starving? Latin America, alone has 3 times the necessary abundance to feed it’s own population.
These children can’t wait a hundred more years.
They need us to cure a child with Leukemia or AIDS with a simple pill or a breakthrough vaccine. We need to live in a world in which together, we can find a solution to global warming so we don’t have to worry every single time a storm begins to form on the horizon. We need to find new ways to distribute food so no child goes to bed hungry.
And I know that education is our ticket.
How do I know? Because I’ve seen it.
I was born and raised in a country marked by civil conflict, social strife and inequality. Growing up in the developing world, where education is perceived as a luxury and not as right; where children beg for an education and parents are desperate to provide it; where if one is born poor, one is destined to do die poor.
But the good news, is that there is an exit strategy to break the cycle of poverty in which millions are trapped because of lack of access to education. From the moment I turned 18, I decided to establish my own foundation in Colombia. And since then we have been working on providing high quality education, nutrition for children and occupational training for their parents, building schools that also work as community centers for families that have been displaced by violence that have lost everything they had.
We found the way to keep kids in school and maintain parents involvement in their children’s education. Providing nutritious meals in schools we have decreased the number of dropouts and we have eradicated malnutrition among our students.
So we know that creating comprehensive models of education in areas where the population is vulnerable to extreme poverty and conflict, transforms the minds and the lives of not only children but entire communities. And it works. Believe me, it works.
I’m still a student on all these issues, but I’ve come to learn that there are ways to change this. So no government can say that the challenge of bringing education to every child is an impossible task. Because we know how to enroll all those 75 million kids who don’t have access to any kind of primary education, by:
Abolishing school fee’s
Hiring quality teachers
Providing uniforms and textbooks to children
And providing most importantly food, because no kid can learn on an empty stomach and because we’ve proven that it becomes the best incentive for parents to send their kids to school and reduce child labor.
Now I want to be clear about this, this isn’t about charity. This is about investing in human potential. From an ethical point of view, from a moral point of view, it accomplishes a purpose. But also from an economic point of view, this could bring enormous benefits to all mankind. Universal education is the key to global security and economic growth.
Security
We all want safer nations. And in a world where weak states are often a haven for violent extremists, getting more children into school can dramatically help reduce the risk of instability and lay the groundwork for more stable democratic political systems to emerge. A child who lives in extreme poverty away from school is 10 times more likely to be recruited by a militant group then one who is receiving an education. For instance in Colombia we have kids in our schools who were destined to be a part of the drug trafficking business or recruited by guerrillas, today, as we speak they are going to college and like you, are graduating soon. So yes, education promotes peace and stability worldwide. Isn’t that what we all want?
Economic Growth
On the other hand, education helps catalyze economic growth.
One single year of primary education invested means a 10 to 20% increase in wages in their adult life. For every dollar invested in early childhood development programs, that same child will give back 17. So yeah, education also boosts economic growth.
So I, for one, would definitely like to go faster. I want to go faster because, with so many challenges, faster is better. I want to go faster because faster is more just.
And they need us to do it all tomorrow. I say: let’s do it today.
So I look to you to help us go faster. I look to you to foster -- no, more than that, to become -- the network of collaborative minds that can stimulate the evolution of human understanding. I look to you to press down on that accelerator so that in fifty years, your children will look back and say:
“A long time ago, people could not formulate an efficient form of distribution of food to eliminate starvation and hunger, despite the technological advances of the time and the excess of food. But then they began to incorporate millions and millions of children in the web of knowledge -- because they began to realize that the democratization of education is the engine that propels the world.”
That is how I want the youth of 2060 to see us. That our mission for global peace consisted of sending 30,000 educators to Afghanistan, not 30,000 soldiers. That in 2010, world education became more important than world domination.
Because only education will accelerate our evolution.
Only by investing in our children, by tapping their potential that has remained untapped for too long, can they one day cure our diseases, or bring us to Mars, or secure us peace here on earth.
Because, it bears repeating, we are one world.
One civilization.
One conscience.
One engine.
One destiny.
And so, if I have just one more thought to offer you and to add to our one collective conscience here today, it is this:
Education for all.
John Locke, who I believe was one of yours, once said, “the only fence against the world is a thorough knowledge of it, and the earlier the better.” So yeah, the earlier the better. There is no time to waste. It is you who are in the driver’s seat. It is your foot on the accelerator.
And please, step on it.
Thank you very much. This has been a true honor.
Tuesday 14 February 2012
Monday 13 February 2012
Whitney Houston dies.
(Image Source: Wikimedia Commons)
BY ALYSSA CARTEE
BY ALYSSA CARTEE
ANCHOR LAUREN ZIMA
One night before music’s biggest night, we lost a legendary voice. Whitney Houston died at 48 years old Saturday, on the eve of the Grammys. She was found in her hotel room in Beverly Hills. CNN reports her biggest accomplishments in music.
“She went on to become the most awarded female artist of all time according to the Guinness Book of World Records. She won 6 Grammy’s, 2 Emmy’s , 16 Billboard Music Awards and 23 American Music Awards.”
Fellow musicians took to Twitter to express their heartbreak at the lost legend.
Mariah Carey said: “She will never be forgotten as one of the greatest voices to ever grace the earth.”
Alicia Keys: “ … I miss you beautiful Whitney, the whole world misses you!!”
And Queen of Soul Arthea Franklin tweeted: “I just can’t talk about it now. It’s so stunning and unbelievable. ...”
And People reports Houston’s ex, Bobby Brown, is grief-stricken. He continued with a scheduled performance with his band New Edition in Mississippi after hearing the news, but shed tears on stage.
And it was the relationship with Brown that often put the singer front and center in the tabloids. CBS explains.
“...her life was spinning out of control. Her 15-year marriage to R&B star Bobby Brown was tumultuous sometimes violent. There were rumors then admissions of heavy drug use.”
But MSNBC spoke with the reporter who broke the news of Houston’s death. She says they heard different stories about how the singer’s health had been.
“You know earlier in the week we heard conflicting reports. We heard from one source she was at a party and she looked terrific and people were really worried about her. … And they said she looked good and sounded good.”
The cause of death is unknown until an autopsy can be performed, but TMZ is speculating.
“We told you yesterday ... the night before Whitney died, she had been drinking a lot. Xanax mixed with alcohol can cause severe sedation, which could cause someone to fall asleep in a bathtub.”
And what about the Grammys? The awards show will honor the singer with a tribute from Jennifer Hudson and Chaka Khan. The Huffington Post has news from the Grammys producer.
“He said it's too fresh to do more at this time, but they had to note the Grammy-winner's amazing accomplishments.”
Although the star had her troubles, a columnist for The New York Times points out she was still something special.
“Whitney Houston died a cautionary tale, but all cautionary tales were heroes once.”
And in spite of her personal demons, Houston will always be remembered for her voice.
Wednesday 8 February 2012
From “Great Expectations” to “Oliver Twist”, one
of the best known authors of English literature was celebrated Tuesday -- 200
years after his birth. BBC was at his childhood home in Portsmouth
“Today the street outside was crowded with well-wishers at the first in a series of celebrations which traced his career.”
A career that included the novel “A Christmas Carol” with its timeless characters Ebenezer Scrooge and Tiny Tim. Britain’s Telegraph saw Prince Charles lay a wreath Tuesday at Dickens’ grave in Westminster Abbey, while actor Ralph Fiennes read from his novel “Bleak House”.
“I want’s to tell him that I’m as poor as him now and have come there to be laid along with him. By and by Joe, bye and bye.”
But while Dickens the writer is still highly regarded, ABC Australia found that not everyone holds Dickens the man in such esteem -- the outlet spoke with a Dickens expert from theNew South Wales
“Today the street outside was crowded with well-wishers at the first in a series of celebrations which traced his career.”
A career that included the novel “A Christmas Carol” with its timeless characters Ebenezer Scrooge and Tiny Tim. Britain’s Telegraph saw Prince Charles lay a wreath Tuesday at Dickens’ grave in Westminster Abbey, while actor Ralph Fiennes read from his novel “Bleak House”.
“I want’s to tell him that I’m as poor as him now and have come there to be laid along with him. By and by Joe, bye and bye.”
But while Dickens the writer is still highly regarded, ABC Australia found that not everyone holds Dickens the man in such esteem -- the outlet spoke with a Dickens expert from the
“He was really quite appalling the way he
treated his wife. I think he did have a lot of hang ups and problems but
I don’t think that that really matters when we look at the books.
The Guardian celebrated the birthday by hypothetically asking
Dickens how he would cope in the modern world.
“Film producers will be calling on your mobile
phone – but you will be wary, because you have always had to protect yourself
from suppliants and admirers. Could you give up your famous quill pen and ink
to toy with a computer? I guess you could.”
And there was good news for Dickens fans in London
“After a two month refurbishment the Charles
Dickens museum in London
But even if you're not an avid reader Dickens
can still be enjoyed. IMDb credit the
author with inspiring 326 feature length titles.
More...
Thursday 19 January 2012
Against the Anti Counterfeiting Trade Agreement
ACTA. Anti Counterfeiting Trade Agreement.
The name is misleading. The original idea of ACTA is to internationally protect intellectual property. It’s supposed to help prevent product & trademark counterfeiting like fake copies of expensive goods – misusing trademarks, like using a well known car brand on tampons, for example making "General Motors" tampons.
It will safeguard research investments and development of products, e.g. medical patents or pharmaceutical products. It’s also supposed to support artists and journalists and allow them to produce higher quality work , and internationally harmonize Copyright laws. Sounds great! Doesn’t it?
But there’s a twist.
The Oxford English Dictionary defines a counterfeit as: “a fraudulent imitation of something else”. But when a file is copied on the internet it is exactly the same as the original, not an imitation. And it is not stolen since the original is not removed. The information is simply being shared free of charge. So counterfeiting has nothing to do with it.
Let us explain.
“Intellectual property” is never really defined within ACTA. It could mean trademarks, or it could mean any idea or information which later could be copyrighted, restricted and criminalized. This will have a tremendous effect on the internet as we know it.
The actual ACTA text covers a huge range of topics, and is very complex and hard to grasp. So we will explain what happens on the internet in a hypothetical real world analogy.
Imagine paying for a cookery course. During this course you learn how to cook some really tasty fried chicken. Then you return home and teach the recipe to your wife. But here’s the catch: according to ACTA, you are now both criminals, since you shared that information for free when only YOU had paid to learn it.
The ACTA regulations are clear – when you’re suspected of sharing copyrighted information, depending on the country you live in, then your access to any kind of courses will be blocked, you will be fined or send directly to prison.
But surely no-one would find out that you shared the knowledge of the secret fried chicken in private at home? And you’re right, under current law no-one would. But ACTA deals with this through excessive surveillance. All your communication will be monitored, and not only yours. Your family, your friends, they 'll all be observed, just in case. But you don’t need privacy, civil rights or liberties, because you have nothing to hide, do you?
Now that you know the principle, let’s see how it will be applied on the internet when ACTA comes into effect.
You can imagine your internet connection like a conveyor belt running in two directions. Along the conveyor belt, packets of data are coming in and going out of your computer. Under ACTA, ISPs – the companies you pay for access to the internet – will be forced to open up and inspect every single data package you send or receive to look for copyrighted information. Send or receive copyrighted info several times and you could be disconnected from the internet or face criminal charges. That means if you send an mp3 to your friend through an instant messenger, upload a video of a party which played copyrighted music, or quote a copyrighted newspaper article in an email… You’re gone. That’s it. As if that wasn’t enough, the information about the news article you sent via email will be sent to the publisher, and based on their claims you could be fined or sent to prison.
ISPs will also be required to constantly check that no copyrighted material or links to copyrighted material are found anywhere on their servers. This will be fatal for sites that hold any kind of user-generated content, like music, pictures or video. How could Youtube or Twitter work under a law like that? So the internet as we know it is on the brink of destruction.
But at least you’d think that the money from all these lawsuits would benefit creative people. But musicians, writers, movie makers, journalists, software developers and researchers also lose, because they are now held by the same rules. Protected ideas now can’t be reused, refined or developed any further. Even parts of sentences could be protected and made restricted by copyright. The whole agreement only benefits a small part of the industry, the so-called “content mafia” – media publishing companies like the RIAA and the MPAA, who have long tried to solve the “internet problem” that threatens their obsolete business model. ACTA is the result of their lobbying within the governments that participate in the negotiations.
Latest leaks indicate that techniques that bypass the planned content filter and blocking infrastructure will also be illegal.
And the worst thing? It's all done in secret. If you are European, it’s even done by people who haven't even been elected by the public. You've already seen where this is heading on YouTube. Videos are unavailable in certain geographical areas.
This obsessive copy-protection is also a great tool for information suppression. Once all the internet filters and blocking techniques are in place, virtually all information tagged as copyright could be suppressed. Maybe your critical blog or twitter account, or the video you made about rigged elections and environmental catastrophes, or even the pictures of your kittens. Ok, maybe not your kittens. Not unless you painted a Coca-Cola logo onto their fur.
This all sounds unbelievable for everyone who’s had even a small glimpse of how the net works, but remember, those who work on the Agreement might not have any clue what the internet is about. And once the treaty is signed, their rules will have to be implemented. The consequences we have to deal with are:
• internet censorship
• restricted freedom of speech
• loss of Net Neutrality due to the restriction of the use of certain protocols
• total surveillance of all your online activities
• loss of freedoms and restriction of civil rights
• punishment (like losing your internet access)
And we will gain:
nothing
The time to act for the internet is now. Google ACTA. Load your tweets and Photoshops, let it be known that no-one messes with the Internet, and take it to the streets.
Stop the Kraken.
The name is misleading. The original idea of ACTA is to internationally protect intellectual property. It’s supposed to help prevent product & trademark counterfeiting like fake copies of expensive goods – misusing trademarks, like using a well known car brand on tampons, for example making "General Motors" tampons.
It will safeguard research investments and development of products, e.g. medical patents or pharmaceutical products. It’s also supposed to support artists and journalists and allow them to produce higher quality work , and internationally harmonize Copyright laws. Sounds great! Doesn’t it?
But there’s a twist.
The Oxford English Dictionary defines a counterfeit as: “a fraudulent imitation of something else”. But when a file is copied on the internet it is exactly the same as the original, not an imitation. And it is not stolen since the original is not removed. The information is simply being shared free of charge. So counterfeiting has nothing to do with it.
Let us explain.
“Intellectual property” is never really defined within ACTA. It could mean trademarks, or it could mean any idea or information which later could be copyrighted, restricted and criminalized. This will have a tremendous effect on the internet as we know it.
The actual ACTA text covers a huge range of topics, and is very complex and hard to grasp. So we will explain what happens on the internet in a hypothetical real world analogy.
Imagine paying for a cookery course. During this course you learn how to cook some really tasty fried chicken. Then you return home and teach the recipe to your wife. But here’s the catch: according to ACTA, you are now both criminals, since you shared that information for free when only YOU had paid to learn it.
The ACTA regulations are clear – when you’re suspected of sharing copyrighted information, depending on the country you live in, then your access to any kind of courses will be blocked, you will be fined or send directly to prison.
But surely no-one would find out that you shared the knowledge of the secret fried chicken in private at home? And you’re right, under current law no-one would. But ACTA deals with this through excessive surveillance. All your communication will be monitored, and not only yours. Your family, your friends, they 'll all be observed, just in case. But you don’t need privacy, civil rights or liberties, because you have nothing to hide, do you?
Now that you know the principle, let’s see how it will be applied on the internet when ACTA comes into effect.
You can imagine your internet connection like a conveyor belt running in two directions. Along the conveyor belt, packets of data are coming in and going out of your computer. Under ACTA, ISPs – the companies you pay for access to the internet – will be forced to open up and inspect every single data package you send or receive to look for copyrighted information. Send or receive copyrighted info several times and you could be disconnected from the internet or face criminal charges. That means if you send an mp3 to your friend through an instant messenger, upload a video of a party which played copyrighted music, or quote a copyrighted newspaper article in an email… You’re gone. That’s it. As if that wasn’t enough, the information about the news article you sent via email will be sent to the publisher, and based on their claims you could be fined or sent to prison.
ISPs will also be required to constantly check that no copyrighted material or links to copyrighted material are found anywhere on their servers. This will be fatal for sites that hold any kind of user-generated content, like music, pictures or video. How could Youtube or Twitter work under a law like that? So the internet as we know it is on the brink of destruction.
But at least you’d think that the money from all these lawsuits would benefit creative people. But musicians, writers, movie makers, journalists, software developers and researchers also lose, because they are now held by the same rules. Protected ideas now can’t be reused, refined or developed any further. Even parts of sentences could be protected and made restricted by copyright. The whole agreement only benefits a small part of the industry, the so-called “content mafia” – media publishing companies like the RIAA and the MPAA, who have long tried to solve the “internet problem” that threatens their obsolete business model. ACTA is the result of their lobbying within the governments that participate in the negotiations.
Latest leaks indicate that techniques that bypass the planned content filter and blocking infrastructure will also be illegal.
And the worst thing? It's all done in secret. If you are European, it’s even done by people who haven't even been elected by the public. You've already seen where this is heading on YouTube. Videos are unavailable in certain geographical areas.
This obsessive copy-protection is also a great tool for information suppression. Once all the internet filters and blocking techniques are in place, virtually all information tagged as copyright could be suppressed. Maybe your critical blog or twitter account, or the video you made about rigged elections and environmental catastrophes, or even the pictures of your kittens. Ok, maybe not your kittens. Not unless you painted a Coca-Cola logo onto their fur.
This all sounds unbelievable for everyone who’s had even a small glimpse of how the net works, but remember, those who work on the Agreement might not have any clue what the internet is about. And once the treaty is signed, their rules will have to be implemented. The consequences we have to deal with are:
• internet censorship
• restricted freedom of speech
• loss of Net Neutrality due to the restriction of the use of certain protocols
• total surveillance of all your online activities
• loss of freedoms and restriction of civil rights
• punishment (like losing your internet access)
And we will gain:
nothing
The time to act for the internet is now. Google ACTA. Load your tweets and Photoshops, let it be known that no-one messes with the Internet, and take it to the streets.
Stop the Kraken.
Monday 16 January 2012
At least three people are dead and 70 are missing after a luxury cruise ship carrying 4,000-plus passengers struck a sandbar off the coast of Italy. Why the Costa Concordia ran aground is still unknown. Here’s CNN.
“They had just finished eating dinner on their cruise, the first night of the cruise, and the ship -- the electricity -- went off. And they describe what they felt as a shudder
as this ship ran -- literally ran aground on the sandbar, which cause a huge gaping hole in the hull of the ship.”
as this ship ran -- literally ran aground on the sandbar, which cause a huge gaping hole in the hull of the ship.”
With the ship’s damaged hull quickly taking on water, attempts to escape the cruise liner were delayed 45 minutes as the crew tried to lower lifeboats. MSNBC says the scene was pure chaos.
“Some passengers said it felt like being on the Titanic. The ship listed sharply to the right. Lifeboats started falling on passengers. Some jumped into the ice-cold sea. The shore was 200 yards away... too far for some of them.”
129 Americans were on board the ship, and all made it to shore safely. Still, the ship’s passenger records show as many as 70 people still missing as of Saturday evening in Italy. A travel columnist for the BBC says it’s unbelievable this sort of disaster could play out for such a large, modern cruise ship.
“I’ve been speaking to a lot of people within the cruise industry this morning, of course, and they are just astonished that this should happen to a 21st Century ship at a time when, clearly, everything is designed with safety in mind.”
The incident is raising concerns about the size of modern cruise liners. A representative of the Nautilus International shipping staff union told the UK’s Daily Mail:
“Many ships are now effectively small towns at sea, and the sheer number of people onboard raises serious questions about evacuation... the sheer size and scale of such ships presents massive challenges for emergency services, evacuation, rescue, and salvage - and we should not have to wait for a major disaster until these concerns are addressed.”
NBC reports the ship was at least four nautical miles off-course when it capsized. Rescue teams are continuing their search for the missing by both air and sea.
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