mbf tod@y

This Makes Me Totally Sick

"The world’s second seven-star hotel is set to open in Milan later this year. The Town House Galleria, run by the Italian Town House Group, will be located above a Prada store in Galleria Vittoria Emanuele, a 19th-century shopping arcade that houses everything from boutiques to a McDonald’s restaurant. The owners won't say what will make this hotel extra luxurious. But it seems that nannies, butlers and drivers will be on hand to coddle guests staying in one of the 24 suites, and several luxury brands are expected to link their names to the project. A hotel's star-rating is often decided by its own marketing department, as there is no international standard. The sail-shaped Burj Al-Arab in Dubai lays claims to being “the world's first seven-star hotel”, though this is a title that it bestowed upon itself". (from The Economist)

Isn't it funny the the "world's second seven stars hotel" will be located right in front of a McDonalds? That's globalization, for you.

On vegetarianism

"People decide to be vegetarian for the same reasons now as 2,000 years ago – it is good for their health and they don’t like the idea of killing animals. In Europe, at least, religious considerations and the debate over whether or not animals have souls play a smaller part in that decision than they used to; health concerns, on the other hand, have been forced to the fore by modern intensive farming methods and our reluctance to partake at second hand of the cocktail of chemicals – antibiotics, growth hormones, etc – that goes into meat production. The most potent arguments, however, and this is where Stuart is at his most compelling, are ecological and economic. It has long been known that a vegetable diet sustains many more people per acre than meat, yet great swathes of irreplaceable rainforest are being destroyed every year to make way for grazing and for the cultivation of soya beans, ‘the bulk of which are used to feed animals which end up on the plates of the affluent West and, increasingly, China’. Even the most resolute of meat-eaters must surely agree that something has to change." (Julia Keay, Literary Review)

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The World Map of Happiness

According to Adrian White, Analytic Social Psychologist, University of Leicester, Denmark is the happiest place on Earth. The US is the 23rd. Russia is the 167th. Italy is the 50th (via MetaFilter)

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Zombie Renaissance

"More recently Ms. Mcdonald has delved into the so-called “zombie renaissance” that some say has been sweeping the nation since around the 2004 remake of George A. Romero’s film “Dawn of the Dead” (1978), the second in his classic zombie series. Her subway performance was filmed with a hidden camera by her boyfriend and sometime collaborator, Beckley Roberts, the scruffy fellow with the messenger bag. Called “Horror Make-Up,” it will make its debut on Sept. 8 at Art Moving Projects, a gallery in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. " (Carol Kino, The New York Times)

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Also, check this out (Zombie loop) and this (zombie portraits)

Interferenze 2006

INTERFERENZE 2006 >>>NATURALIS ELECTRONICA

San Martino Valle Caudina (Avellino) - dal 3 al 5 agosto 2006

Con l'edizione 2006, Interferenze, festival internazionale di suoni, arti visive e nuovi media, si immerge completamente nella zona montuosa del Partenio/Valle Caudina, che ospiterà le performance live, le installazioni, le proiezioni, i seminari ed il campeggio, gli artisti ed il pubblico, nella piena fusione dell'avanguardia artistica internazionale con gli splendidi scenari montani dell'entroterra campano. Interferenze si fonde quindi con il territorio. Le arti elettroniche e multimediali sono il motore dell'evento. Attorno ad esse si aggregano performance ed installazioni, eventi, workshop, conferenze. Interferenze conferma, con questa IV edizione, la propria anima duplice in bilico tra provocazione digitale e richiamo della tradizione: arti digitali e arte della terra, le avanguardie sonore ed i valori del territorio. Interferenze abbatte i confini tra il mondo tecnologico, urbanizzato, inorganico ed il mondo rurale, arcaico, organico. Ma non insegue una provocazione gratuita. Al contrario, il connubio tra pixel e clorofilla, tra silicio e cellula, rappresenta di per sé uno stimolo aggiuntivo, fonte di fascino ed interesse per il fruitore, finalmente libero dalla necessità di dover scegliere tra restare in città pur di non perdere il contatto con il futuro che si modella ogni giorno nelle avanguardie legate ai nuovi media, oppure camminare per i sentieri montani, rinunciando a seguire le forme più innovative del progresso umano (grazie Valentina)

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Carlo Zanni strikes back!

Carlo Zanni is launching a new project that will be premiered in a show in partnership with the Locarno International Film Festival. It a short movie transformed by an Internet data flux and re-edited server-side when web statistics  (Google Analytics) are available:  the public can watch a new movie every day. The movie will be visible starting August 3rd here.

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The Games That Never Were

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"Futuristic Electric Toy"

"Mizuguchi has focused on the universal language of music in part because he wants his games to be appealing on a global basis. He believes that the audiences for the PSP and the Nintendo DS are totally different.  “The DS is a futuristic electric toy,” he said. “The PSP is an attractive Walkman.” (Dean Takahashi)

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The "Average" Italian, according to Grillo

"Average Italians become angry, really angry if their money is touched,
Average Italians are good in public and racist in private,
Average Italians wash their bottoms but do not have a purifier,
Average Italians have every right and no duty,
Average Italians double park and if you protest they get cross,
Average Italians are mafia inside,
Average Italians always have a friend who will do them a favour,
Average Italians always owe someone else a favour,
Average Italians choose other average Italians as their representatives,
Average Italians cause a heavy stomach and diarrhoea,
Average Italians consider public property to be private and this is why stealing from the public is not a crime,
Average Italians are an absolute majority in our country," (Beppe Grillo)

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Run, Run For Your Life!

"Authors  give parents what they need to know to save their kids from addiction to video games--before and after exposure. One out of five kids becomes addicted to computer and video games, which are becoming increasingly more violent and are linked to violent and self-destructive behavior. The video industry continues to raise its revenue projections (expected to reach $33 billion by 2008) with the creation of newer, more advanced, and more addictive games, putting more children at risk. Spurred on by the patterns of addiction they saw developing in their own son, Olivia and Kurt Bruner arm other parents with hard facts about addiction and share personal stories of video game addicts to help parents identify the warning signs in their own children."

This is coming out in September. I cannot wait. And by the way, check out the Videogame Trouble website. It's about "giving kids another life". I love it! And don't forget to sign up for the workshop.

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