frontline: the merchants of cool | PBSFRONTLINE journeys into the world of the marketers of popular culture to teenagers. They spend their days sifting through reams of market research data. They conduct endless surveys and focus groups. They comb the streets, the schools, and the malls, hot on the trail of the 'next big thing' that will snare the attention of their prey-a market segment worth an estimated $300 billion a year. They are the merchants of cool: the creators and sellers of popular culture, who have made teens the hottest consumer demographic in America. But are these marketers merely reflecting a growing coarseness in teen culture, or have they helped create it? Are they simply reflecting teen desires or have they begun to manufacture those desires in a bid to secure this lucrative market? And have they gone too far in their attempts to reach the hearts-and wallets-of America's youth?
Israel's settlement setback | Seth Freedman | Comment is free | guardian.co.uk [via claudio]
Seth Freedman: Obama's anti-settlement stance is giving the Israeli right a taste of its own medicine – and its howls of protest ring hollow
Head of eHealth Ontario to receive $317K after being removed amid scandal [via claudio]
Some See China’s Buying Spree on Commodities as Short-Lived - NYTimes.com
Shipping and commodity executives are questioning China’s motives as it piles up extra quantities of products.
Cancer: The cost of being smarter than chimps?
Are the cognitively superior brains of humans, in part, responsible for our higher rates of cancer? That's a question that has nagged at John McDonald, chair of Georgia Tech's School of Biology and chief research scientist at the Ovarian Cancer Institute, for a while. Now, after an initial study, it ...
Biochar: turning waste into wealth
As all gardeners know, manure helps the flowers grow. But that manure also gives off greenhouse gases, contributing to global climate change.
Typhoons trigger earthquakes on Taiwan: scientists
Surprised scientists say that typhoons which hit Taiwan unleash long, slow earthquakes, a phenomenon that may save the island from devastating temblors.
How 18th Century Technology Could Down an Airliner | Autopia | Wired.com
While the mystery of what caused Air France Flight 447 to vanish into the Atlantic Ocean is far from solved, preliminary reports suggest equipment first
BBC NEWS | Americas | Shooting at US Holocaust museum
An elderly man said to be a white supremacist shoots dead a guard at Washington's Holocaust museum before being wounded.
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Gittes,
ReplyDeleteI proctored a Statics exam this afternoon which has thrown me off schedule.
You have good links, as usual,on your blog.
Have you seen the film, "The Big Lebowski"?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Big_Lebowski
"The Dude is mostly inspired by Jeff Dowd, a man the Coen brothers met while they were trying to find distribution for the feature film Blood Simple.[4] Dowd had been a member of the Seattle Seven, liked to drink White Russians, and was known as "The Dude."[10] The Dude was also partly based on a friend of the Coen brothers, Pete Exline, a Vietnam War veteran who reportedly lived in a dump of an apartment and was proud of a little rug that "tied the room together."[11] Exline knew Barry Sonnenfeld from New York University and Sonnenfeld introduced Exline to the Coen brothers while they were trying to raise money for Blood Simple.[12] Exline became friends with the Coens and, in 1989, told them all kinds of stories from his own life, including ones about his friend Lew Abernathy (one of the inspirations for Walter), a fellow Vietnam vet who later became a private investigator and helped him track down and confront a high school kid who stole his car.[13] As in the film, Exline's car was impounded by the Los Angeles Police Department and Abernathy found an 8th grader's homework under the passenger seat."
As well,
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seattle_Liberation_Front
claudio
Gittes,
ReplyDeletePlease check your email ASAP.
"Legals 1322"
claudio