44th American President Barack Obama Oath and Speech

In this historic moment which I believe is bringing a breeze of hope among all of us, I just want to report the videos of the oath and inaugural speech of the 44th United States President Barack H. Obama.

Burger Kings’ Whopper Sacrifice has been Sacrificed

So says the smart Burger Kings' Facebook app page and web site home.
After more than 82,000 users sacrificed over 233,000 of their friends, Facebook decided to disable the application.
As far as I know, Facebook managers didn't like the way the sacrifice was notified to the friend list of the performer while keeping the victim unaware. As a matter of fact, according to Facebook's privacy policy, when you remove a friend from your list the latter's not warned by the system of your choice, neither this is made public to all your friends. With Sacrifice App though this was a private process no more as it implied somewhat of boosting your disregard from that particular person you sacrificed over a Whopper. Burger Kings didn't show to be angry at FB and made a joke of its own "defeat".

The goal was clear, the procedure simple: sacrifice 10 of your Facebook friends and get a coupon for a free Angry Whopper. Done.

Whopper Sacrifice is a great example of a cleverly designed marketing tactics. It was not just capable to exploit (surf) the success of a killing social network like Facebook, but basically used gluttony as a lever! This marketing tactics' sin driven!

On a more social science -mostly semiotics- aspect this marketing app, let's call it experiment for the occasion, is interesting because it shows how ephemeral many so-called online friendships are. The irony behind the word "Sacrifice" is devilishly cynic, especially when put beside the items burger on one side and friends at the other, both encompassed by sacrifice, a ritual gesture which spiritually bonds the performer and the victim. It's like a little demon whisper into your hear that you know you have friends who are not worth a good 37 cents of beef (one tenth of a Whopper) so you better sacrifice them in exchange of the amount of meat.

I imagine marketers at Burger Kings says something like "hey, just get all those guys and gurls who have hundreds of friends the right chance to sweep through their list and remove all the crap-friends they don't even remember why the did add at the first time". I call it cynical marketing and flipping engineering to online trends and offline people habits. Brilliant.

Pictures are copyright of Burger Kings Inc.

Cross-country skiing on Milan ring-road

Last week it snowed a lot in Northern Italy, something about 30cm.

Despite all the annoyance the snow caused to people who drive work, it was also nice and funny to have all that snow around.

Someone found a brilliant way to enjoy this season gift by cross-country skiing on a stretch of Milan ring-road.

This is the new exit to S. Giulia towards Rogoredo which isn't open to traffic yet. This is why after several days the road is still all covered by snow, which has been carefully treated by enthusiast to make it a perfect ski run!

Jump the Shark

Jump the Shark is, beyond its literal meaning, a jargon used by critics and fans of tv series mainly. The term is used to describe a point in the series were the plot goes to unexpected yet absurd story lines. This is usually the consequence of the attempt to revive a series or simply give it a boost of audience by trying some spectacular trick of plot. The irony of this concept is that by doing so these shows mostly fall into the ridiculous, they jump the shark, lose their original appeal and popularity. Jump the Shark can be somewhat seen as the verge of a series appeal (lifetime?) curve, the point from which the product begins its decline.

The expression refers to a scene of a 1970 Happy Days episode where Fonzie, in swimsuit and water ski jumps over the pin of a shark.

Here below you can see the (in)famous scene.



Jumptheshark.com is a web site dedicated to discuss that very special moment when the tv series we love just.. jump the shark. Here you can browse lots of tv series and read what viewers say about the series' jump. You can debate and state your own opinion. It's nice just to take a random series and read the fun of it, what the author did to amaze the audience and what the viewers think of it. Some series -just a few of them- are awarded as never jumped.
So take a peek at Jumptheshark.com and see when your favourite series

Soothing Expectations

Is it somewhat soothing? What'd ya say?

Image by XKCD

The Bionic Body Shop

IEEE Spectrum has a funny and interesting interactive article about bioengineering.
The article is about the so-called medical devices which by helping people to fix some medical problems (or enhancing performances) are paving the way to the merge of humans and robots, currently in progress.
Part of the charm of this writing is the way it makes the reader interact to acquire information. The interaction area is organised picturing a web shop. It basically shows a human body in the fashion of a hi-tech 3D model and, by clicking on one of the tagged body parts, you can zoom in, view the detail, read a description and see the price. You can nicely choose to put the implant in your cart or continue to shopping (and then chosing other body parts).
Check it out and have fun!

Happy New Year!

Happy new year from my snowy hometown!

January 01 2009 - Vaprio D'adda (MI), Northern Italy - Lat 45°34'43"32 N - Long 09°31'32"88 E