'Poulet Aux Prunes' ('Chicken with plums') : a breathtaking experience

This morning my alarm clock rang insanely early.
9:45 definitely is insanely early. But sometime you have to fight against the withered mummy your body turned into during the night and be brave enough to get up. Eyes open, shower taken, it's now time for the hit.
A long queue is meandering in the hall of the UGC Rouen (yes, there are cinemas outside Paris. And even in Normandy) as I come in. Loads of people are not working today as tomorrow is a day off. But fortunately the 20th century is the Machines' Century so I don't have to queue with that lazy crowd. In the blink of an eye I've got my ticket in my pocket and begin to move toward my destiny : 'Poulets Aux Prunes'.

The film was released on October 26 and was directed by Marjane Satrapi and Vincent Paronnaud, starring Mathieu Amalric, Edouard Baer and Maria de Medeiros. The story is quite simple to tell : a very famous Iranian violonist, Nasser Ali Khan (played by Mathieu Amalric) sees his violin being broken. He then tries to reach the satisfaction with new violins. But soon he'll have to face the situation : he can't play on any other instruments. This is the time he decides he'll let himself die.

The film is not the long waiting of his death as we see him dying very early. It is rather the story of hopes, love, passion, sadness and laughter. So Nasser Ali being dead we can focus on every single particles composing life. The man sometime shows an evident selfishness or even brutality with his wife (Maria de Medeiros) but this feeling always is contrasted with our understanding for his passion for music and his sensitivity to love.

The images are absolutely brillant and mix comedy with reality with cleverness and skill. If you add it to the terrific performance of all the actors you end up with a magical universe where philosophy, love, beauty and regrets live altogether in a natural peace.
Let's not forget Edouard Baer playing Azrael, the Angel of Death visiting Nasser Ali a few days before he takes him. He also is the voice over telling the story.

'Poulet Aux Prunes' is a simple story in a simple world but affecting complicated souls in their quest for the ultimate achievement. It is also the story of a man dying of love. What could be stronger and deeper in our world of surface?

Financial crisis : the Internet as a paired equilibrium

The question we're asking ourselves here is : How does the Interent contribute to the crisis and how could it be a source of a solution? Let's first see why we could say the Internet is responsible and secondly how it's not.

The Internet does carry responsibilities in the fiancial crisis because it contributes to maintain and nourish the debate and the fear. A massive amount information travels on the Web everyday and the reliability is not always  checked (read more about reliability in an other article I posted here).

But does the Internet have to be responsible for the mistakes of the Banks? Does the Internet lend the money to indebted people? Does the Internet grant golden parachutes?

Madonna's dead! I saw it on the Internet!

Truth is the supreme reality and has the ultimate meaning and value of existence, Free Dictionary says. From this definition we easily see how full of power truth is. And one of the Internet's job is to reveal what before was hidden. The Internet turns on the light of truth on our world. What is best way to get information on an organisation we are about to join or about someone we are about to employ? What is best way to know what really happened last week with Gaddafi and the rebels?

But "the power of the Internet, Vince G. Cerf says, is like a two-edged sword. It can also deliver misinformation and uncorroborated opinion with equal ease. The thoughtful and the thoughtless co-exist side by side in the Internet's electronic universe."

So we have to get educated to tell the difference between truth and wrong information. We have to stay aware of the risk taken on the Internet in our quest of truth. Let's have a cross-media habit to get informed. This is the best way to detect the wrong that hides everywhere.

A real blogroll

It's crazy and awfull

You blink like a fool

This blogroll rocks
Steamroll the clocks >>>

If you don't understand what's going on, start here!

Mobility : my brain's the fastest plane

Well, mobility. What's that mobility? Walking down the street, going to school with the metro, flying to Barcelona? Surfing on the Internet with my iPhone anywhere at anytime?No. Let's forget digital, electronic devices and all this crap.

Mobility is the quality or state of being mobile. Physically mobile? Not necessarily. Mobility is also the quality or state of traveling in your mind.

What's the best way to visit Wonderland with no money? Dreams. Luc Besson, the famous french film director said he started thinking of 'Arthur and the Invisibles' and he was a child. Fantasy and tales were his only way to escape his boring everyday life. No computer, no video games. But still thoughts.

Tunisia, Egypt and Libya : the learning of democracy

The Arab Spring and all its events that occured since December 2010 led to a totaly new situation in Tunisia, Egypt and more recently Libya. From now on these three countries and their citizens have the possibility to vote for their President. Tunisia voted last Sunday and seem to have elected moderate Islamists party Ennahdha.

Gaddafi's fall last week also opened the way to democracy. We hear and listen in every single media that these countries will have to do the learning of democracy. And this is what it's all about : democracy is not innate. This is the result of centuries of (r)evolution and fights.

So tyrants being defeated doesn't mean the emergence of democracy. This is the new governments duty to work altogether toward freedom, liberty, equality and justice. In Tunisia, Ben Ali's fall didn't erase terror, exactions and relative liberty to think different. Some former Ben Ali's Ministers are still engaged in the Tunisian political field and won't give up.

It really is interesting to observe how democracy is seen by the citizens of these new free countries. This is the silent after the storm, the sun showing up again. But democracy is not the answer in itself. Democracy is an everyday fight. And if Tunisia, Egypt and Libya want to have justice and liberty they have not to be to impatient but to slowly and surely build a new Nation.

About the Internet Addiction

Internet Addiction by EtiennesCloud

Why The Mentalist is the best series of the galaxy.

The main character, Patrick Jane (played by Simon Baker) is smart, clever and funny. He always look relaxed and confident. He never seems to doubt and never get wrong. He understands where we didn't even have time to start thinking. He takes time to think and remain funny though. Funny on a crime scene, funny talking to a widow, funny playing chess between two worlds-to-save. He transcends us. Here is the reason why we love him and why he definitely carries the serie on his always suited shoulders. But is this it?

Of course Simon Baker's talent isn't the only reason why The Mentalist is a successful series. The construction of the stories plays an important part in it. The general atmosphere takes us in a very not-too-serious world in which the gravity of a situation is always enlighted by an efficient sense of humour. Nevertheless the background of this story remains very dark. Patrick Jane feels guilty as he provoked the psychopath who killed his family. He lives a depressive life and doesn't really manage to run it well. Beside he carries a lot of defects and a latent violence.

Generally speaking the strength of the serie is Jane's will of revenge covered by a smooth plot.

Working in a network environment : what tools for what risks?

It is very common nowadays to work in network. That is to say being in a meeting wearing a pyjama in his living room. How's that even possible? Because of the magic of the Internet and webcams! But why do we rather chose network tools? What are the positive and negative aspects of it? Let's take a closer look with a few examples!

First, where some people might be less stressed than in a face to face situation, we could oppose the technical problems that regularly occured. Bad connections, PowerPoint impossible to be read (by the machine or even by the supposed readers!), Windows 7 crashes, and so on.

So eventhough somes will feel better in front of their laptop and not physically standing in front of hundreds of eyes we have not to forget the thechnical risks taken.

Secondly, even if working in a pyjama is a cosy idea let's keep in mind that network communications are not so instinctive and natural for us. In fact we are used to communicate not only with our words but withe our body. The non-verbal communication plays the main in the delivery of our message. Gestures, look, smile, distances, tone of the voice, and so on. They all are actors of our successfull communication. But they remain in our unconciousness. That is to say we might be missing something when it'll be time to talk with our webcam and mic only.

Finaly, an other example of the risks taken working in a network environment is the misunderstanding. This risk is encrusted in the digital communications. Sometimes the smiley faces rescue us in killing the ambiguity our sentence was carrying. But would you use them in a business meeting? Misunderstanding and misinterpretation are not invincible ennemies. We only have to learn how not to let them the smallest gap in our communication. Being clear, using as precise words as possible in short sentences and impacting and imaged expressions.

You now have the weapons to join the battlefield of the network environment!

Internet as a tool for leadership

The Internet is an inexhaustible source of manipulation. Yes it is.
If someone asked me how would I use the Internet as a tool for leadership, I would give him 3 main ways to do it.

1) Illusion
Let's first give the impression of liberty and democracy to my people. They still can visit whatever websites they want. They still register and log in. They still fill forms with their names, adresses, telephone numbers, e-mail adresses, and so on. They give me all the informations I need to know about them in case I want to find them or threat them or black mail them.

2) Protection
Secondly, I'll reduce the access to the Internet for my people. I'll only keep one national Internet company on which I'll have a total access. I'll do it as the only way to protect them from the great dangers threating us from the outer world. "We are strong but somes think we're not and for this reason they try to make you think whatever lies they want. So this is my duty, as your leader, to protect you and to ensure our stability and our sovereignty."

3) Repression
I'll shut down Twitter and Facebook to make sure my people has no contact with the outer world. I'll justify it as a moral duty. I'll keep one social network to maintain the illusion of democracy. Every single foreign search engine, social network, e-mail programm. will be censured and replaced by a national copy of it.

When you don't have the possibilty to step back and have a clear view on what's going on in your country, you trust the charismatic only leader you have. Cuba, China, North Korea, Iran, and so on.

Brics? What do you mean 'Brics'?

I recently talked about the Brics helping the EU in its financial crisis. Now let's take a closer look on what exactly is Brics, where it comes from and on what lies its legitimacy.

South Africa is now part of the former 'Bric'.

The term was created by journalist Jim O'Neill as an opposition to the G7 developped countries.
These five nations are considered to be the most powerfull developping countries. They are respectively the ninth, sixth, fourth, second and twenty-fifth economical dominant countries on the planet. They represent 40% of the world population and IMF assumed they will bring 61% of the global growth in 2015. Beside, Goldman Sachs even says that the economic potential of the Brics is such that they could become among the most dominant economies by 2050.

Lula (Brazil), Medvedev (Russia), Hu Jintao (China) and Pratibha Patil (India)
in Yekaterinburg for their first summit in 2009.

Even if the Brics are not seen to organize themselves into an economic bloc or a political organisation such as the European Union, they still remain economical and political partner, all members of an alliance. The first summit of what was then 'Bric' held on 16th June 2009 in Yekaterinburg (see picture above). Since they met every year, in Brasilia in 2010 and Sanya in 2011.

The Brics to rescue the European Union

The Brics (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) might help us in finding solutions to the dept issues EU is facing. Their Finance Ministers met in Washington a few weeks ago. This meeting showed their worries to see developed countries going down to an other recession.

It really is interesting to see how power and role played can be twisted in an financial crisis. It is now these developing countries that will decide if they maintain us alive or not. Things have changed. The civilized white occident man is now trying to face this reality with dignity. But no one is blind enough not to see the vessel sinking.

Are you cyber addicted?

First of all let's see what we mean by 'cyber addiction'. The term covers a variety of impulse-control problems including the following addictions : cybersex, cyber-relationship, net compulsion, information overload and computer addiction.

Let's talk about cybersex addiction! According to Helpguide website the term refers to the compulsive use of Internet pronography, adult chat rooms, or adult fantasy role-play sites impacting negatively on real-life intimate relationships. Well... I'm starting to feel a bit concerned now... Akward. More seriously, cybersex seems to be the inescapable cyber illness of the 21st century. The main issue tends to be the constant flows of datas, communications, shares, etc. The Internet never sleeps. Something somewhere is always waiting for you. I mean that the Internet gives a potentially freeway for addiction.

We now can do pretty much everything on the Internet. Except procreating or giving birth. But shopping, listening to music, sending wedding wishes, finding lost friends, watching films, booking our holidays, selling my rubbish christmas present,... We can even have friends and nobody enjoys our company in the real world. Because the Internet offers the anonimity in one hand, and a 360° escort in the other hand, addiction is never so far away...

We Feed The World

Check out this recording about the documentary 'We feed the world'.
I deeply encourage you to watch it. It's free and it's now... on YouTube!

World hunger : those who never give up

I very recently talked about hunger in the world, depicting this tragical phenomena with terrible figures. I ended up by saying the amount of people suffering from malnutrion or hunger is not getting any lower. But we just can't give up trying to help them. This is why Action Against Hunger work every hour of every day to get these people better living conditions. The NGO estimates its action to 500,000 people who received their lifesaving support in the Horn of Africa in 2011. Beside 215 tons of food was delivered to 12,500 Somalians in August 2011 and 10,000 malnourished children in Kenya were treated by ACF International.

On the other hand, websites such as Schools Fight Hunger sums up ways to foundraise to fight hunger. Fighting hunger is not just some people's work, but all world citizens' concern. And this kind of website show it well by making foundraise as easy as shopping in the supermarket. It maybe even wants to make it like a habbit you might take.

How to get fat and download for free

We all remember about the old prehistoric Peer 2 Peer such as Napster, then e-Mule or Kazaa. It was free, quick and secure. You could download a song in a few minutes or even a few seconds for the most available ones. You could even dowload films. The only thing is you sometimes had not to be to demanding as the quality wasn't always there. This system of "The sky is the limit, go on, download whatever you want" found a decline with new legal rules on the Internet. So now you can be easily found and punished for illegal downloading.

This is the time some brands choose to break into the downloading market. There was indeed a gap to fill. Buy my product and get a song to download for free. How simple and quick is that? Here is a good example with Pepsi.

This ad lies on two main themes : the 'prosecution' of the downloading kids (who look like angels in the ad!) and the new freedom Pepsi gives them. Get a Pepsi and recover your freedom. What else?

Do we actually know something about hunger in the world?

The thing is we don't know where does hunger live. 'In Africa' you'd hear if you ask the question to the first persons you see around you.
We don't know either how many people are suffering from hunger. 'Millions... because they are millions in these third-world countries'...
And finally we have no clue at all what is hunger. 'When it's already 3pm and you haven't eaten yet'. Thanks.

'Pulizer Prize' winning photo taken by Kevin Carter in 1994 during the Sudan famine. 

What is hunger?
First of all, hunger is designated as the want or scarcity of food in a country, according to the Oxford English Dictionnary. We also talk about malnutrition as the technical term for hunger. That is to say a lack of some or all nutritional elements necessary for human health.
With these definitions we clearly see that hunger doesn't necessarily mean dying from it but also suffering months and years from not eating enough or good enough.

How many suffers from it in the world and where do they live? 

As the graphic shows 925 million of people suffer from hunger worldwide and most of them live in Asia and the Pacific (578 million). This is the most recent estimate released in October 2010.

Out of 7 billion human being of eart, this 1 in 7 people that are hungry in the world. And the amount is not going down.