damnfunkitsch diary

This is the occasional diary of the life and adventures of a design engineer living and working in S.America.

[damnfunkitsch]

Andy Murray and his new logo...

“Simple and striking, with heraldic cues that echo his dominance on the court.”

Not words to depict a backhand winner or a match-point ace but, remarkably, a description of Andy Murray’s new logo.

What?

It is a logo that imagines Skrillex meeting the entire Waffen SS division in a gay bondage nightclub and going all disco.

[damnfunkitsch]

Mark discovers books

“very intellectually fulfilling … in a deeper way than most media today”

Next, Mark discovers electric toasters.

[damnfunkitsch]

JeSuisCharlie

“If liberty means anything at all, it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear.” George Orwell

[damnfunkitsch]

Good man gone.

Alan Henning was a white, British man from Manchester. He grew up in Christian and secular society. He was a normal guy on the surface - yet he was a hero and an angel. Though he would never admit to this.

He delivered aid to sick children in Syria in a convoy. It changed his life. 4 times he went to Syria. 3 times he returned safely. Then he was kidnapped on Boxing Day 2013.

Yesterday, he was beheaded by the Islamic State.

Alan Henning was more of an Islamic leader than every man and woman who follows that sick organisation of poisoned minds currently destroying Iraq.

May Alan rest in Peace, and watch gleefully while the followers of Islamic State burn in hell for eternity.

For they will.

[damnfunkitsch]

Sláinte

Scotland has shown all of us in the UK the way - re-engage in politics and wake up the feckless political classes in Westminster and the EU that we did’t really vote for - because less than half of the electorate actually voted for these clowns! The other half of the population did nothing - absolutely zilch. And that is the problem.

If you want change and want to stop the apathy, the UKIP scare mongerers and all the negativity - you get off your arse, peel yourself away from the TV, the PDA and your Waitrose meal for one - get energized, talk and debate it - and vote for the possibility of change…

The Scots have made their choice, and hopefully the UK will now understand what it has got, what it has to change and also what is the envy of the world.

I have never seen such a piece of democratic choice like this in my lifetime - and it makes me happy to call myself British and once again humble at the memory of the people who gave their lives for the freedom to make these choices - that sometimes we take all too easily for granted.

Cheers

[damnfunkitsch]

A letter to the young

Dear Kids,

Minecraft becomes Minesoft, George Lucas sells his soul, Pixar caves in to Disney, the web becomes three speed and non neutral, the cities and rivers are polluted, your favourite food is GMO...oh and the Miley Cyrus self-wedgy has now been monetised, brand protected and made into a social studies GCSE, that your parents will now have to pay extra tuition for.

Apologies.

Best Regards

The Grown Ups.

[damnfunkitsch]

Well, there now is a reason for the global economy going to crap.

Picture this. A nice summers evening in San Francisco. The famous Golden Gate Bridge.

A traffic jam. Nothing unusual there.

The USA.

One of the centres of car manufacturing...but less than 1/3 of the cars shown in this picture are built in the USA...

The global economy - cheap and cheerful, and putting workers on unemployment benefit all over the world.

Oh, and there are two deer on the bridge as well.

Nature 1 

Globalisation 0

[damnfunkitsch]

We won't get fooled again....Oh yes we will.

Facebook makes me smile and grimace in equal amounts.

It is important for the marketing of my new company. But it is also unimportant for the marketing of my new company. The time preparing the marketing for Facebook could be spent by doing other things….but…

I have nothing against Mark Zuckerberg, the founder and CEO of Facebook. In fact I admire both him and his wife's philanthropic endeavor of donating millions of dollars to charity to fix schools in California and New Jersey in the U.S. This is such a noble thing for a couple to do even when they are already millionaires.

Hats off. Or should I say 'like'?

However, you should realize that Mark is by heart a 100% certified hacker himself all the way back in his Harvard days, and I have never had the desire to hand over my personal data to a hacker so he can employ a team of even smarter hackers to sell them to advertisers.

Just because Facebook obtains your personal information and social network profile doesn't mean they can use that data and take advantage of all that valuable private information. Right?

Wrong. Just locking up your profile and set everything to private is not enough to shield yourself from personal data being mined by Facebook.

"It’s really important that people understand that there are computational techniques that will reveal all kinds of information about you that you’re not aware that you’re sharing." - Jennifer Golbeck, computer scientist.

Go to the TED talk. http://ideas.ted.com/2014/07/01/do-you-know-what-youre-revealing-online-much-more-than-you-think/

We are sharing much more online than you think.

So don't.

Or do. 

We still have free choice. And the freedom of privacy.

For now. If you believe that Zuckerberg is just a smart pimply kid who got lucky, and has no political friends in very high places - then rest easy in your ignorance.

Because I hazard a guess that Mark and his friends are sleeping very soundly indeed.

[damnfunkitsch]

high times for the artistic divers

Some players at the World Cup 2014 are falling over faster than a trainee transvestite on high heels for the first time.

So why don't they just ditch the boots and go for the ultimate fashion accessory?

[damnfunkitsch]

turn the other cheek or look up and stay proud?

A brilliant image encapsulating WC2014.

The joy of a child waiting for the big day. 

The armed police waiting for him to riot.

I bet on the kid to win hearts and minds.

[damnfunkitsch]

she kept on running

Diane Leather. World record breaker. 60 years ago today.

Largely unrecognized now because of the rampant sexism of the time. So whilst Roger Bannister was given hero status for breaking the 4 minute mile - Diane was largely forgotten.

Hero.

[damnfunkitsch]

Ninja Mama's

In 2014, photographer Tyler Hicks won a Pulitzer Prize for taking this photograph of a woman protecting her kids during the 2013 terrorist attack on the Westgate Mall in Kenya. More than 65 people were killed, but the mother and her two children stayed alive, laying still for five hours. 

Music was playing in the mall's speakers, so mama kept her kids calm by singing to them throughout the attack.

22-year-old Mindy Tran put her twin daughters in a stationary car, when all of a sudden it started rolling backward. Tran used herself as a human speed bump in order to slow the car down so it wouldn't roll into traffic. 

She got a broken leg and dislocated shoulder and hip, but her twins were safe and sound.

[damnfunkitsch]

cakes, mastercards and a 100% legend

Pelé:

Regarding a question about the latest worker to die at a World Cup construction site: "That's normal, the stuff of life. These things happen. What worries me is the airports not being finished. I've been travelling a lot, and it's chaos."

Meanwhile fellow Fifa ambassador and ex-Brazil striker/cake lover Ronaldo, agrees a deal to rent his Rio apartment to Sepp for the six weeks of the World Cup, for a reported £404,000.

Carlos Alberto, Legendary Captain of Brasil:

"Brasil has lost a great opportunity to show what the people of Brasil can do. This World Cup has not lifted the people in any way."

So who's your hero?

[damnfunkitsch]

Why always me?

Well I guess that Silvio's going to make bunga bingo parties now...

http://gu.com/p/3zead/tw via guardian

[damnfunkitsch]

hidden stories…connected by that sinking feeling

Fifty years ago today, Brasil succumbed to a military coup. The military deposed the President, and tanks rolled down the streets pretending to keep law and order with shiny hats and guns. 1000's were tortured, and over 500 murders were committed for the sake of 'order and progress'. And yet 50 years later, Brazil's truth commission does not have the power to seek prosecutions. And the amnesty law, passed in 1979, remains in place, meaning that military officials accused of torture will never face trial.

Cut to a brave journalist standing naked outside the National government protesting against attitudes to rape in Brasil. In a survey, 65% of people actually believe that women who are attacked actually 'deserve it'. 

Cut to my bloody washing up sink in my kitchen. It collapsed. Why? Becuase even though there is a perfectly strong metal mechanical fixing point i.e. the edge, and therefore most of the world mount the sink from the top - we in Brasil like to do it from the bottom, and fix it with glue…Cue a few years later, happily washing up, and then POW! The entire sink and pipe system collapses. 

The crazy thing is that people here think that is perfectly normal…

And there is the connection. If we can't even mount a sink in the most obvious manner, and do it like it should be done - i.e. correctly. Then we will not not change attitudes to the more important things - because we approach every problem - ass about face.

[damnfunkitsch]

Refuse-nik

Rubbish collectors are on strike in Rio de Janeiro this week - campaigning for fairer wages and living conditions. And all of this during Carnaval. Yes, Rio is a mess. And it smells. Rather bad.

This raises an interesting question.

What is more important? Your nose or your human dignity?

It seems that many well off Brazilians care more about the former than the latter.

After seeing this paycheck of a Brazilian Bin men - is it any wonder they are on strike?

They earn less than a unemployed single mother on benefits in the UK.

[damnfunkitsch]

Shaking your ass ain't gonna solve it queridas….

In the 19th century, Victor Hugo refused to shake hands with Pedro II, the emperor of Brazil, because he was the ruler of a country living comfortably with slavery.

- We are the seventh in the value of our GDP. We are at 88th place in education.

- We are the world’s 8th worse country in terms of income concentration, better only than Guatemala, Swaziland, the Central African Republic, Sierra Leone, Botswana, Lesotho and Namibia.

- We are the world’s seventh economy, but according to Transparency International, due to corruption we are in 69th place in the order of countries with ethics in politics.

- We are the seventh power in production, but, when we examine our production profile, we become aware that for decades we have exported nearly the same type of goods and we continue importing the modern products of science and technology. We are one of the greatest producers of automobiles; yet we have one of the largest populations of flanelinhas, young male school dropouts who are paid by drivers to watch their cars parked in the streets.

- The majority of the world’s illiterate adults live in only ten countries. Brazil is one of them, with 14 million, with the added aggravation that, in Brazil, which has a national flag inscribed with the words “Ordem e Progresso,” they cannot even recognize their own flag. From 1889 to today, we have reached the seventh position in the world in the economy, but we now have almost three times more illiterate adult Brazilians than we had in that year, besides our 30 to 40 million functional illiterates.

- We are the seventh economy and we do not have a single Nobel Prize.

- The 10% richest Brazilians receive educational investments nearly 20 times greater than the 10% poorest.

- Some 22% of our population lives without running water and more than half without sewerage connections. According to the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics (IBGE), 43% of Brazilian homes, 25 million, are not considered adequate for habitation; they do not have the combination of running water, sanitary drainage and garbage collection.

- We have over 90% medicalized C- section birth, and in some hospitals this is as high as 100%.

We are commemorating our position in the economy, yet we are forgetting our shame in the social sector.

So when you samba this weekend and smile at the travelling foreigners, and show them how much order and progress our country has - just think about whether you are dancing for reasons of happiness or nihilism.