Joybubbles died... well not so sure

I had no idea who Joybubbles was until I heard about his death last 8th of August, he was 58. As soon as I red about Joybubbles (whose birth name was Joe Engressia, until 1991, when he became Joybubbles) I once again realised how resilient human beings are. Here's some hints about Joybubbles:

He was blind from birth, suffered abuses at school and at home due to the pressure placed on him by his mother

He was a crazy genius, IQ around 170.

Made himself arrested twice in order to get visibility in the phone industry

Had many different jobs (he had a prodigious smell and worked for the Agricultural faculty of Mineapolis to investigate how to control the odor of hog excrement)

Created his own church: Church of Eternal Childhood

He was one of the first hackers, in the 70's enjoyed having free phone calls by whistling the tones, it was the tone-based age (BY WHISTLING!!! do you realise this. He was 5 y.o. when he first disconnected a phone). By then hackers named themselves Phreacks and Joybubbles was the icon. Guess who followed him, Steve Wozniack and Steve Jobs, the Apple guys

Think about it, he was extreme, for sure, but he really lived his live, from begging to the end

World values

World Values Survey

The World Values Survey consists of an organisation formed by sociologists from more than 80 universities world wide. Their tasks constists on studying the values, beliefs, the habits of the different countries, societes and cultures that form the planet. Go to their website, is highly recommende. Among other studies, you can find the Inglehart-Welzel Cutural Map of the World. It is really interesting to see how the different countries and cultures correlate with the variables.

The first interesting conclusion is that there's two variables, that explain the major differences among the different societies. Variable one, Traditional/Secular-rational values, reflects the contrast between societies in which religion is very important and those in which it is not. Variable two, the transition from industrial society to post-industrial societies-which brings a polarization between Survival and Self-expression values.

Very interesting to see where countries such as the US are, close to the traditional religios than to the secular/rational one.

Anyway, this is all based on a survey, so some of you may think potentially there's plenty of mistakes. In any case, I believe is a good exercise and detinitely food for though.

If you come to San Francisco

I'll take you to a secret spot where the Beat generation use to have their parties during the 60's, here's what you get:

If you ever go to the hospital....

... and you have to wait for a long time meanwhile a family member is having surgery, you may appreciate to have somebody right there that can constantly update you on how is his or her status. Actually she even know where you are sitting in the waiting area and she passes by often to update you with news and offer you coffee, tea, candys, etc. and you even have interesting readings about issues that matter when you are facing hard times...




... after the surgery in case you have to stay in the hospital overnight, here are some nice details. You get a whiteboard where the nurses writte down their names, you know who is taking care of you at any moment....

... you can get a nice massage in your room...

... and you have classical music being played in the hall while a person playing harp passing by the different patient corridors...


... and even after a long and hard day at the hospital when you go and pay the parking ticket you can have a nice little wing written on the ticket

... I have always thought that hospitals are places where there are lots of things to do to improve both, the patients, and the family experience.

Here at the Stanford Hospital they been thinking about it !!!

PS. I must say though that coming to the Stanford hospital it is not precisely cheap :S

Metaphysical Bookstore ?!?!?

If you went to Vienna Teng concert in Palo Alto...

1. You probably saw people biking a bus

2. Large and noisy family picnics



3. Some guy that is poorly connected to the world but highly connected to the dvd



3. Poker ???


5. And some cute doggies


... I'm not sure though you'd have been able to enjoy the fantastic music of Vienna

The Accidental Creative

One of my weekly adictions are the Podcasts that Todd Henry posts on The Accidental Creative. Sometimes he interviews very interesting people, sometimes eh simply shares some of his principles. In any case it is always about innovation, always about creative thinking, always great, I encourage you to get also adicted to him.

The Past, Present, and Future of Food

Uno de los librios mas leidos tanto del ano pasado como de este en lo Estados Unidos es The Omnivore's Dilema, escrito por Michael Polan, Professor de periodismo de la Universidad de Berkeley. Es un libro sobre los alimentos y como nos alimentamos, un bombazo de libro, os lo recomiendo.

La cadena de supermercados de alimentacion de mayor crecimiento del pais es Wholefoods. Wholefoods se posiciona como ecologico, orgnaico, sostenible, comercio justo, etc. y la verdad es que a pesar de que son caros, son realmente un ejemplo de grandes productos, gran empresa y asi y todo, una organizacion justa y con conciencia.


A pesar de esto, en su libro, The Omnivore's Dilema, Polan criticaba fuertemente a Wholefoods. Esto provoco una reaccion por parte del CEO de Wholefoods, John Mackey, un tejanoe de Austin, uno de esos emprendedores que tienen poco de CEO y mucho de visionario. Mackay invito a Polan a reunirse con el y desde entonces empezaron una constructiva conversacion a traves de emails y blogs. todo esto ha llevado a Wholefoods, que ya de por si era la cadena de alimentacion mas ecologica y con conciencia del pais, ha replantearse parte de su estrategia e iniciar iniciativas muy interesante.

Estos dos interesantisimos personajes, despues del intercambio de emails y blogs, ofrecieron una interesante charla en la universidad de Berkeley. Es un documento largo, pero vale muchisimo la pena, toda una declaracion de intenciones de hacia donde va la industria alimentaria y en especial el papel que puede jugar en nuestra sociedad un actor tant importante como la distribucion. Clicar en el logo y lo encontrareis:

If you drink bottled water think maybe you'd like to reconsider...

Tap water in developed countries IS GOOD. In some places, such as Barcelona and New York it tastes horrible, but is still perfectly healthy. In San Francisco for instance the water comes straight from Yosemite national park and it's so good that they do not even have to filter it. So except if you are from New York or Barcelona, DRINK TAP WATER!!!

Fiji Water is after Evian, the second best selling upscale water in the United States. It is real Fijian water bottled in the Fiji Islands and shipped to the US. For each liter of Fiji water, The total amount of water used to produce and deliver one bottle of imported water is 6.74kg. And the amount of GHGs (Green House Gases) released amount to 250g, or 0.25kg, or 0.00025 tons (imagine, they have to ship the bottles from China to Fiji and then the water bottles from Fiji to US). On top of that , access to drinking water in Fiji is around 43%. So please, DRINK TAP WATER !!!!!!!!!

Pepsico and Coca Cole have their respective water brands Aquafina and Dasani. Both belong to the Purified type of water. This means municipal water, also known as tap water that is bottled. They do some chemical treatment that they then sell as purification. It sounds as if they where blessing the water. Well, what they are really doing is simply unifying taste among. This means, there are Aquafina bottling plants all over the US, and Europe, using the municipal waters of different cities. If they did nothing all this perfectly healthy waters would taste different because they come from different cities, so no brand consistency. That's why they have to purify the water, to make Aquafina or Dasani taste the same no matter where you are. So please DRINK TAP WATER !!!!!!!!

Por si cuando marca Ronaldhino tepilla amb els pixats al ventre

No se si se aprecia bien, pero lo que esta encima del retrete es una television en la que estan dando un partido de beisbol. Ahora entiendo lo del sueño del hombre americano

Again: politicos en internet

Despues del episodio que os conte hace unos dias de la prohibicion del uso de internet por parte de los politicos en periodos electorales en Japon he aqui un par de ejemplos mas de como internet esta afectando a la politica.

Taiwan

En el parlamento de Taiwan los politicos suelen terminar a mamporros. Pues bien, parece que en Taiwan la politica es extremadamente emocional. Cuando el candidato del partido Kuomintang (en plan simple el partico pro un acercamiento a China), un tal Ma Ying-jeou va a los pueblos y bebe un vaso de algo, come en un plato, o se suena los mocos, por poner tres ejemplos, automaticamente subastan en eBay todo lo que ha tocado. Os imaginais en Espana una subasta en eBay del "flequillo "de Anasagasti"

USA

Mientras en USA los de Google han inaugurado un canal en Youtube al servicio de las eleccions presidenciales 2008.

Los candidatos cualgan videos, los internautas cuelgan preguntas, comentarios, etc. Problema, pues que nos es libre. Cada video que un internauta cuelga referido a un candidato debe ser aprobado previamente por el equipo de campana del candidato en cuestion.

Aqui tenemos uno del Partido Republicano dando la vara con un video de un minuto que no interesa absolutamente a nadie. (como debe ser, por algo es politico:))

Browsers

Por alguna razon que se me escapa, mi navegador Firefox desde hace una semana funciona cuando le da la real gana. Dada mi actual internetdependencia he decidido serle infiel y como paso del Explorer y creo que el Safari es para snobs, he estado probando buscadores. Lo mejorcito para mi:
Flock - muy bueno si teneis blogs, te permite postear texto, imagenes, etc. en cualquiera de tus blogs de una manera rapida y sencilla. Es un Firefox pero muy pensado para la web 2.0, o sea expresarte y compartir con los amiguetesOpera - muy bueno si teneis poco tiempo y quereis ir al rapido, senzillo, muy rapido y con funciones tipo marcacion rapida muy interesantes

De todas maneras espero que por algun vinculo desconodico con el mundo virtual mi Firefox vuelva a funcionar en el corto plazo, es sin duda el mejor.

Comercio cultural o cultura comercial

En francia han prohibido el FREE SHIPING en internet. Es decir, cuando comprais un libor en Amazon muchas veces se ofrece el envio gratis del libro adquirido. Pues bien esto ha sido prohibido en Francia para proteger a las pequenas librerias. En el trasfondo del asunto hay una ley promovida por el ex ministro socialista Jack Lang en la que se define el comercio cultural y lo diferencia del comercio de la cultura. No esta nada mal la idea, nada mal

iPolitics: Polos opuestos

En el Polo Norte

En los USA el ultimo debate entre los aspirantes a candidato a la presidencia del pais por parte de los democratas ha sido organizado conjuntamente por CNN y Youtube. Los internautas postearon sus preguntas en Youtube y durante el debate en CNN fueron planteadas a los candidatos. Youtube no anade mucho valor al debate, puesto que CNN seleccionaba las preguntas, pero bueno algo es algo. Ademas de este debate, youtube esta lleno de videos de los candidatos marcando claramente el hecho de que internet esta plenamente integrado en la vida politica norteamericana. De la misma manera por cierto en youtube, los internautas han colgado todos los videos de los canditatos en situaciones politica y presidencialmente poco correctas. Ejemplo, estas imagenes del republicano Giuliani disfrazado de mujer, que ya ves tu, pero en este pais eso es como pecado capital:



En el Polo Sur

En las recientes eleccions parlamentarias en Japon el uso de internet por parte de los partidos, email incluydo ha sido PROHIBIDO. Aunque parezca surrealista asi es, el medio mas democratico que tenemos es excluido del ejercicio mas democratico, unas elecciones. La razon, pues aparentemente en Japon estan prohibidos la distribucion de panfletos de propaganda durante la campana y internet se considera una variante de esto y por lo tanto ha sido prohibido. Lo curioso del caso es que he escuchado a estudiantes de ciencias politicas de una universidad de Tokio y estaban de acuerdo. Segun ellos internet no es "oficial" y es "poco serio". Soy yo o tot plegat me parece un poco surrealista.

Belleza industrial y conciencia de impacto

Acabo de venir del cine donde he visto el documental "Manufactured Landscapes", basado en el trabajo del fotografo Edward Burtynsky de como la accion del hombre a creado paisajes. Sin mas, no os lo perdais, me ha parecido terriblemente bello.

Para los que os apetezca, aqui teneis una charla que dio el fotografo en el omnipresente TED