Product placement to solve P2P problems?

I guess everybody has heard about Product Placement.

In these modern times, where people are not only skipping the ads with their DVRs and other TiVos but also spending less and less time watching TV and more and more time surfing the Internet and downloading TV shows, music and movies from P2P network, Product Placement might be the best solution for ALL of us!!

When you think of it, it has only advantages if done right:

• The companies advertising are sure that their products will be seen since they will be embedded in the content
• The viewers won't have to fight against ads
• The shows will become free, both in terms of advertisement and digital rights since the more they are viewed and distributed they better!
• P2P users will be able to download everything for free, without breaking any laws

As always, the devil will be in the details, but it might work!
If this prove to be the best way of selling a product in the future, the companies will embrace it and will put their advertising budgets in it rather than in normal advertisement.
They have already done it with the web and AdSense!

But maybe I am just a dreamer :)

Would it bother you if Product Placement would take over, and see featured product everywhere in movies and shows?

Kiva

Kiva lets you connect with and loan money to unique small businesses in the developing world.

By choosing a business on our website and then lending money online to that enterprise, you can "sponsor a business" and help the world's working poor make great strides towards economic independence. Throughout the course of the loan (usually 6-12 months), you can receive monthly email updates that let you know about the progress being made by the small business you've sponsored. These updates include reports on loan repayment progress, photos of new capital equipment, narratives on business growth and standard of living improvements, and more. As loans are repaid, you will get your original loan money back.

Anxiety and social models

Article from Truthout.org, which is actually a translation of a piece from Le Monde.

So there are 4 social models:

• the Continental one, ineffective and equitable (heavy social spending, very limited lay-offs and generous unemployment benefits)
  
• the Mediterranean one, ineffective and inequitable (heavy spending, limited lay-offs, but weak compensation)
  
• the Anglo-Saxon one, effective and inequitable (weak unions, a wide salary range, social protection limited to a minimum)
  
• the Nordic one, effective and equitable (high level of social spending, strong unions, narrow salary range, freedom to fire but strong compensation for unemployed persons)

And the author to conclude:

• Equity has a price. There's no solidarity without social transfers
• Effectiveness is not dependent on the level of taxes
• Ineffective systems cannot endure

Countries have the choice between two effective models, neither of which signifies "the end of the social contract" as political demagogues claim. The reverse is true: immobility will not allow us to defend the benefits already gained and will end up imperiling the single market and the Euro.

In the absence of dynamism in Continental or Mediterranean countries, it is ever-larger layers of the middle class that will fall under the growing pressure of globalization. France and the United States are two different models, but both create the same social anxiety.

Models are important to me because they define the framework in which people will have to operate in order to make the best out of their life. And they don't control the framework (except by cheating or by electing other leaders who would change it).
It is important to give the tools to the people so they can thrive and not end up in a dead end.

The problem with people is that they are afraid of what they don't know or understand. And if a new framework doesn't seem to work, they want to run back to the old one.

Sometimes changes can happen only through major crisis, and this is valid for any non performing model.

Former Head of Abu Ghraib talks

Very interesting interview of the former head of the Abu Ghraib prison!

If you are interested in the details of what happened there, read the transcript or watch the video.

To sum it up, several things are pretty clear:

• Interrogation methods were transferred from Guantanamo
• This was not the result of a few bad apples
• Rumsfeld knew all about it, authorized it and even ordered it
  
• The top leaders of the military and the US administration knew they were breaking the Geneva convention and thought that without breaking it they would never get the value prisoners to give them valuable info
• All this was put in place because it was thought it was crucial to win the war, hence the proper budget allocated to it
• Guantanamo prisoners considered like terrorists will never get out of there, ever. They will never be sentenced either. Just kept there against International Rules!
  

I don't go against the fact the human species is full of people who believe that we still live in the stone age and that force is the only answer, but not admitting doing it in blaming it on the people who received the order to implement it is really going over my limit!!!
Sometimes I wish there was Hell so these people could rot there for eternity.

Russia and its real cost of living

After reading this article, you start to wonder how Russia will ever manage to get rid of its corruption.
What do you do when every officials or men of power are against you, else than a revolution?

Would orange fit Russians? :)

Added Dec, 29th '05: Population Gloom in Russia. Amazing!

Bananas clone themselves to reproduce

Damn, I didn't know about that!
I have been eating cloned bananas all this time :)

Bananas, like their cousins, the tropical staples cassava and taro, have a characteristic that makes them ideal food. They have no seeds. Unfortunately, the same characteristic means that it is fiendishly difficult to breed better bananas. This is an important task, as bananas are threatened by new kinds of pests and diseases. Furthermore, because bananas are clones, whole plantations could be devastated by such an attack.

More info here and here and here (if you have access to the premium content of the site)

Getting too big for what sustains us?

What are the consequences for the humanity when we will run out of oil?
In order to answer that question, we have to fully understand how depend we are!
And boy we are depend on the stuff.
A gallon of petrol contains the energy equivalent of 500 hours (enough to propel a three-ton 4x4 along 10 miles) to push it yourself would take nearly three weeks.
But as Cuba showed after being embargoed (hence very little oil), sustainable farming techniques can make the fall not as hard.
At the end of the article you will find a list of all the things made from oil! Scary!

Will Mankind be foolish enough to fight for the last drop of oil, or wise enough to start now working on new ideas, solutions and techniques which will break our dependency?
Somehow I have the feeling the former will occur...

How to engineer regime change in Iraq?

I start to really like Scott Ritter!
He talks in a very convincing manner and is very careful to refer to the facts, always.
As a former Weapons Inspector in Iraq he saw and understood many things and has a great overview about what happened there since 1990.

Watch (or read) the interview he gave to DemocracyNow yesterday.

After listening to him, and because of the fact that you get the bigger picture since they go back to the facts from 1990 and onwards, you understand much better the why and how of all this mess in Iraq.

If you are somehow interested in what is really going on behind the curtain about this conflict, this is a must watch!

Global warming brings new dreams

Interesting article from the NYT, published for free here.

New possibilities are opening up as the ice is disappearing from the artic region.
New cargo routes, new oil explorations, new way of life above the polar circle.
Nature also has to adapt and some animals have to move to follow their source of food.

Will mankind be clever enough not to spoil this untouched (until now) part of the planet?

FEMA knew what was going on in New Orleans

Some 19 pages of internal FEMA e-mails revealed Thursday show Bahamonde gave regular updates to people in contact with Brown as early as August 28, the day before Katrina hit. They appear to contradict Brown, who has said he was not fully aware of the conditions until days after the storm hit. Bahamonde arrived on Aug. 27 and was the only FEMA official at the scene until August 30. Subsequent e-mails told of an increasingly desperate situation at the New Orleans Superdome, where tens of thousands of evacuees were piled in. Bahamonde spent two nights there with the evacuees. On August 31, he e-mailed Brown saying, "estimates are many will die within hours." He described the situation as "past critical." It was just moments after that email that Michael Brown's press secretary, Sharon Worthy, wrote colleagues to complain that the FEMA director needed more time to eat dinner. Worthy wrote, "Restaurants are getting busy...We now have traffic to encounter to go to and from a location of his choise (sic), followed by wait service from the restaurant staff, eating, etc. Thank you."

More here and here.

Agreement

Exactly my position! :)

Religion should be in church or in the privacy of one's home only.

If you want the same picture but bigger, you'll find them there.

Why Guatemalan Villagers Refuse Military Aid in Mudslide

The death toll in Guatemala has mounted to 2,000 after mudslides buried whole villages caused by the torrential rains of Hurricane Stan. Although desperately in need of aid, villagers in Panabaj are refusing military assistance because of painful memories of a 1990 military massacre.
They suffered horrible repression at the hands of the Guatemalan military, which the United Nations in its Truth Commission Report found guilty of genocide against the indigenous people.

We speak with human rights lawyer Jennifer Harbury about this haunting past, whose Mayan husband was killed by a Guatemalan officer.

Taken the hand in the cookie jar

Go there and watch the video!
REALLY worth it...

They are bullshitting the world, and it is finally coming out on TV!
The polls are at a all time low for Bush.
Better late than never...

What Iraqis Really Think about the Occupation

Interesting article from Truthout.org.

I particularly like the last sentence:
"From its beginning, this war has been one of perception. Perhaps the media elites, whose collaboration with the Pentagon gave public justification during the 2003 invasion, now worry that if they report that a majority of the Iraqis we are supposedly "saving from terrorism" are actually calling for our departure, any remaining support for the war will collapse."

When Bush says that they can't pull the troops out of Iraq because it would be worse, I don't think he says that because it is true, but because it scares the American people and gives him support for continuing the occupation.
I don't say that pulling the troops out would solve everything, but all in all, it might be the best move if you are interested in stopping the bloodshed there.

US-led global recession anyone?

Here is the beginning of this article from Hong-Kong:
"I think it is time that we should take a serious look at the possibility that the US is going to take us down towards a worldwide recession in one or two year's time."

What happens when your main client is a spoiled child which has to borrow money from you so it can buy what it consumes? The money you lent is never repaid and you are out of business because you don't sell anymore...

The Nexus of Politics and Terror

Do you believe in coincidences?
If so, have a look at this video :)
I also have a backup on my server here.
Is the current US administration trying to scare its people with fake terror alerts when they want to take some embarrassing news off the spotlight?
This document from MSNBC has troubling examples...

What Democracy needs to survive

Here is a good speech from Al Gore (dated October 5th, 2005) which sums up pretty well my point of view about what Democracy really is and need.
This is why my blog is called "Truth is priceless" and why I have a page on my website called "Information is power".
Only Knowledge can allow the People to stand between Power and Wealth.
If you remove the knowledge from the People, the wealthy will become more powerful and the powerful wealthier, at the expense (because there is only so much wealth!) of the rest of the population. And this is EXACTLY was is happening now in the USA. I do hope that it is not as bad yet in Europe, even if we could do better too.
People are clearly more interested in entertainment than seeking the Truth about what they are told, but I still believe that having better info and proper debates about the issues at stake would allow them to choose with their eyes open. Then if they choose wrong, at least they knew what was at stake.

As an illustration of this matter, have a look at this video of Jon Stewart being the guest of one of the Crossfire show. He is really good at using humor and irony to send the same message!

God told me to invade

This BBC press release informs us about Bush telling Abbas in June 2003 "I'm driven with a mission from God. God would tell me, "George, go and fight those terrorists in Afghanistan." And I did, and then God would tell me, "George, go and end the tyranny in Iraq …" And I did. And now, again, I feel God's words coming to me, "Go get the Palestinians their state and get the Israelis their security, and get peace in the Middle East." And by God I'm gonna do it."

Was it really his words? The White House is already denying.
Or was he just being religious to talk to Abbas?

Beware Australia!

This is good fun! :)

Have a look at this funny video!

When racism shows its ugly face

This article from The Independent (full transcript here) is simply scary, at least for those living the in the USA.
And this is not joke because I saw the interview on DemocracyNow.org of one journalist who was there, in the crowd which got pushed back.

Local police chief has admitted that he ordered his officers to block a bridge over the Mississippi river and force escaping evacuees back into the chaos and danger of New Orleans. Witnesses said the officers fired their guns above the heads of the terrified people to drive them back and "protect" their own suburbs.
Gretna (that's the name of the place) is a predominantly white suburban town of around 18,000 inhabitants. In the aftermath of Katrina, three quarters of the inhabitants still had electricity and running water. But, Chief Lawson told UPI news agency: "There was no food, water or shelter in Gretna City. We did not have the wherewithal to deal with these people. If we had opened the bridge our city would have looked like New Orleans does now - looted, burned and pillaged."

Another similar story from CNN.

Europe's social policies

This article discusses the different social systems in Europe.
The European system, contrary to the American one, redistributes more wealth and contribute to a more even society in terms of living standards and social protection.
It is interesting to see the different philosophies of the EU countries concerning welfare.
I actually start to believe that the Nordic system is not the worse compromise.

Wealth Inequality and the risks it brings

I have a bad feeling about poor getting poorer and rich getting richer...
Just before the French revolution, Louis XIV's aide told him "Sir, the people are hungry", and Louis replied "Then they have to eat!".
When you are there as a society, when you are so disconnected, you have a problem.

In the USA, too many people have to work 2 jobs to be able to survive! And poverty is rising as a percentage of the population!


Here is a little piece of the article:
In the late 1700s, issues of fairness and equality were topics of great debate—
equality under the law, equality of opportunity, etc. Considered by the framers of the Constitution to be one of the most important aspects of a democratic system, the word “equality” is featured prominently throughout the document. In the 200+ years since, most industrialized nations have succeeded in decreasing the gap between rich and poor.

However, since the late 1970s wealth inequality, while stabilizing or increasing slightly in other industrialized nations, has increased sharply and dramatically in the United States. While it is no secret that such a trend is taking place, it is rare to see a TV news program announce that the top 1% of the U.S. population now owns about a third of the wealth in the country. Discussion of this trend takes place, for the most part, behind closed doors.

During the short boom of the late 1990s, conservative analysts asserted that, yes, the gap between rich and poor was growing, but that incomes for the poor were still increasing over previous levels. Today most economists, regardless of their political persuasion, agree that the data over the last 25 to 30 years is unequivocal. The top 5% is capturing an increasingly greater portion of the pie while the bottom 95% is clearly losing ground, and the highly touted American middle class is fast disappearing.

Email from Iraq

Here is the blog of a former soldier who served in Iraq. He got an email form a soldier serving there now. Check this out if you want to have a better picture of what is happening there now.

Do the US generals still believe they can win this?

Great Powerpoint presentation!

I don't think I have ever seen such a great PPT presentation! So different!

It is about geek stuff but the way it is done could inspire anybody :)

Six more months of gasoline pain in the US?

Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman said consumers can expect to see at least six months of high gasoline and heating fuel prices until energy production recovers from hurricane damage.

Experts warn that there will be a sticker shock for heating bills this winter, with prices rising by about a third for those using heating oil and by two-thirds for the majority of Americans who use natural gas to heat their homes.

Do you think Americans are going to get it this time? Or will they still believe they can carry on wasting energy in a world where energy resources are finite?