How To Pronounce Beijing

Let's start as we mean to go on shall we. No need for French emulation.

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Special Olympics Update

Jon Stewart punctures the hypocrisy of the U.S. and makes us laugh at the same time.

Sell the sizzle

 

I think it's the Swedish who have an expression for food that isn't  rude and translates as "the food was adequate". Anyway this is the closest Pizza restaurant to me in Beijing.

Film & Music Matter

Age picks up on a piece of film that is ace.

Olympic Cycling

Making my way back home earlier I was caught in a road block and managed to catch some Olympic cycling on the N95 camera. I've encountered some of the teams training around Tiananmen square early in the morning and like this ride-by they are a fearsome experience of pedal power and swooshing noise as they rush by. Nothing like my sedate ambling even on my electric bike.

In this clip they are approaching me and have just emerged from the West heading East out of the fog/pollution on Changan Avenue, with the famous Chairman Mao portrait to their left on the north side of Tiananmen Sqaure which must be quite an inspiring sight for those at the peak of their careers in Beijing this Olympics.

Marie

 

Marie was a good sport on my last night in California and we had a terrific meal on Huntington Beach before I caught my flight back to Beijing. It was however a real insight into what it means for aging populations and I learnt a heap of stuff I should have known about anyway to put into context for my work. I see here today that there's another contribution to playful elderly that is definitely worth a read. Marie is a bit scared of emails but I've opened up the playing field by sending her video mails through Eyejot.

Keanu Hates Paris

Via Rob

Paris Hilton

See more funny videos at Funny or Die

When I read Alex Bogusky talking about Paris Hilton's intelligence in this Fast Company interview I thought it an interesting comment, and now I've seen the video I actually think she comes across as articulate and in control. See for yourself.

Zaproot & T. Boone Pickens

While in the States recently T. Boone Pickens (say it like you're wearing a Stetson) was buying an awful lot of mind share in the media with his plan to shift the U.S. economy off oil. A noble effort  considering he'd made his fortune by sucking the finite resource out of the ground all his life, but better late than never I thought. Zaproot's Jessica Wlliamson presents an alternative case by pressing different buttons. Make your own mind up. 

Via Paul McEnany

Sneak Preview: Beijing Olympics 2008 - The Cube and The Birds Nest

 

  

  

  

 

Pics via Focus China.

I've been twittering for a few days about the lack of foreigners in town and tonight intend to hit a few hot spots to see if it's just around Tiananmen and the Forbidden City where apart from Olympic Officials and Journalists they are definitely thin on the ground. I'm reminded of Baudrillard's simulacra that if enough people see it on televison around the world, then maybe its an international event. Simulacra or othewise.

Geotility & Cerambycidae Lamiinae Aristolobia Horridula

There's a long and funny (with hindsight) story about how this creature managed to become part of my life for about 12 hours but the reason for putting it out there again is Faris has come up with a really nice term for a concept that I've loosely talked about for a while in a slightly different context and I've been using this picture to explain it. Faris calls it Geotility and its the linking of geographical or location based data with pretty much everything else. I'm particularly interested in the information that is accumulated through social media sites although as I've also indicated elsewhere, it's us who should be in control of that information not the social networking sites who should really act as a broker in any transactional exchange model rather than message pusher. More pull than push (Fuzzy logic?)

So the insect CerambycidaeLamiinae Aristolobia Horridula above came into my life unexpectedly a couple of years back in the Tropics and managed to turn it upside down in such a way that really freaked me at the time but the remaining question I had once it had gone away is, what was it? I showed it to a few knowledgeable people who have lived in Thailand for years but no one recognised it and so I was left mystified as to how I could find out apart from emailing it to entomologists and hoping they might know.

It was only later I realised what could be the future of social media and networking when I saw this guy crouched on the ground taking photographs of insects. I didn't actually know what he was up to at first but once I'd asked (he was cataloguing the decline and fall of insect populations on Wimbledon common from climate change) it became clear that he could help me. I might have missed this guy if he'd just been walking by but what occurred to me as a really useful utility for social media is that if I could have a status update on anyone of my social media sites that I was looking for an entomologist and this chap belonged to one, albeit willing to share information as his status too, then it might prove to be a useful connection builder. What if I could exchange my status as a blogger with some traffic to promote his activities in return for some professional help on bug finding?

Where I think Geotility gets really interesting though are the day to day needs of for example people like students at school. I can envisage a situation whereby a student who is poor at maths may well benefit from seeking advice from a maths student who is weaker at literature, a subject the first student is stronger at. Wouldn't it be great to put those people together in places where time is traditionally wasted like train stations, parks, bus stops or any one of the places that we travel through and are now able to broadcast our location along with needs and wants?

There are thousands of examples I can think of that would particularly be useful for those who would prefer to borrow items than buy wasteful and damaging products to the environment and climate. I'm thinking about John Grant's power drill library that he talks about in his book The Green Marketing Manifesto (a book every planner should read) . Anyway hats off to to Faris for giving it a terrific name. I think it will be a massive concept. Particularly when oil hits 200 bucks a barrel.

Which it will.

Old School

I've had to chuck away the Wilkinson Sword Quattro I bought because after a week or so's stubble it clogs up. Anyway I spotted this in Walmart earlier and thought a back to basics might be interesting to investigate.

The Toyota Winglet

Because we built our cities around cars instead of people.

Follow Your Instinct

Just follow it. The ad is in your hands (don't forget to click in the Youtube video to direct the narrative - It's a new format)

Via Digicynic

Dengue Fever

I read about these guys a while back and loved the description of Pschedelic Khmer surf rock. Cambodia is quite special to me as most of my close Thai friends are Khmer in ethnic origin living close to the border and speak Khmer around me. It's also quite timely  after the border dispute over what is obviously a Khmer temple (the architecture speaks for itself) with Thailand bullying Cambodia and flexing its nationalistic muscles (when involving weaker neighbours) over the disputed territory.

Anyway I  was just awoken from a jet lag catch up sleep to the track 'Seeing Hands' and was catapulted back into some amazing nights in Phnom Penh and road trips to Angor Wat in Siem Reap. Khmer Culture is still such a mystery in many ways but here's a bit of recombinant music culture from Dengue Fever on Myspace that stretches from the surfing coast of Los Angeles to the Heart of Darkness. Click on the track called Singing Hands.

It's so good to hear that this music is also connecting in Cambodia with a generation that haven't heard this genre since the late sixites as both the music and the people  were all obliterated in the genocide and insanity of Pol Pot's ultra communist agrarian revolution with the Khmer Rouge. I feel I need to stop off in Phnom Penh sooner than I realised on long delayed trip I need to make to Vietnam. It's on the way I guess. Read about Dengue Fever over here if the music grabs you.

Tenuous link picture of me struggling with a surf board last week ;)

Dave Trott's Blog

Dave Trott was, is and always will be an advertising legend. His Blog is spilling  grade A advertising experience onto internet screens around the world for free and not only that, unlike when I was getting into the advertising business, you can engage in dialogue with him if your comments are in shape. 

If you're not sucking on his RSS feed yet, you should be. It's not too late either to go through the archives without sacrificing a whole weekend. It's worth it.

Everything You Need To Know About YouTube

Via Katie Chatfield

Widgets

I know some of my bloggy friends don't like widgets and it's possible that we all went a bit crazy on them this year diminishing their value a little, but I'm convinced of their utility and more importantly I like the conceptual blurring between either this space and that space (or your space and my place) when using them. Here's a great example of why Widgets are good.

The Quran

It was my planning mentor at HHCL who first turned me onto the Koran (as we spelled it then) and Islam, and watching the following video reminds me of a discussion I had in Starbucks the other day with a guy carrying Richard Dawkin's book The God Delusion. I asked him how he was finding it, and pointed out one flaw is the absence of separation between God and Religion (I dislike the latter).

In any case I put him onto my favourite rebuttal of the Dawkins book and he was very grateful for that link. I've just had a chance to watch this, and it's top quality content. I've no idea why YouTube viral clips get only 10 seconds to work with me and yet I'll lose an afternoon in this stuff. This came by way of Smashing Telly which has disrupted any number of lovely days I should have spent in the sun. Time to get down to the beach and squeeze a few hours out if possible.