SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY: Comets are Like Deep Fried Ice-Cream

Image via Quartz.

"Comets have always fascinated scientists. Centuries ago it was their glowing tails streaking across skies, and now it is the tantalizing possibility that they may have seeded life on Earth.

To firm up these answers, it helps to understand the structure of these weird celestial bodies. In its most recent dispatch from comet 67P, the Philae lander has found that, unlike solid-rock asteroids, the comet is mostly porous—as much as 85% of it is empty.

Murthy Gudipati, a NASA scientist, who has worked on understanding the structure of comets, has the perfect analogy: “A comet is like deep fried ice cream. The crust is made of crystalline ice, while the interior is colder and more porous. The organic [compounds] are like a final layer of chocolate on top.” Read full article in Quartz. E.T.P. 3'

NEWS: US Supreme Court Legalizes Gay Marriage

Photo via The Big Picture.

This past Friday US Supreme Court in a 5-4 ruling established same-sex marriage across all 50 states, ending two decades of litigation and making the United States the 23rd country where same-sex marriage is legal nationwide Here you can have a look at the celebrations across America via Boston Globe's Big Picture. E.T.P. 5'

Illustration via The New York Times.

The evolution of gay marriage, from a few states to a whole nation, a series of interesting infographics via The New York Times. E.T.P. 3'

Quartz makes an interest account of the countries where gay marriage is legal: 23 if you count the UK, where it is legal everywhere except Northern Ireland. "The Dutch parliament legalized gay marriage in the Netherlands back in 2000, but most of the other 19 countries have done so only in the last few years. Ireland in 2015 became the first country to legalize gay marriage through a popular vote." Have a look at the full list in Quartz. E.T.P. 2'

A huge rainbow flag makes its way along Oxford Street

Photograph: Rob Stothard/Getty Images

The streets of London were awash with a rainbow of colour as thousands of people gathered for the annual Pride parade – the day after the US supreme court’s decision on gay marriage.
With the sun shining, revellers dressed up for the occasion – with some in dramatic costumes and even a dog was pictured sporting a multi-coloured coat.
The US flag joined Ireland and Mozambique’s at the front of the march, recognising recent gay rights progress in all three countries. Read Guardian article here E.T.P. 2'

The Procrastinator (Some) Times 26th of April Edition

Hello dear procrastinators, as you know, just yesterday a really strong earthquake hit Nepal, you can follow the ongoing news with the hashtag #NepalQuake and Mashable compiled different organisations that you can contribute with to help them.

We start our News Section with a great article by Anne Marie Weaver in The New York Times about the young men who are flying from England to join ISIS, "Her Majesty's Jihadists". What's the appeal of this call to make them abandon their comfy lives to join a war? What is the UK incapable of offering them? 

In our share of articles about Venezuela, Alejandro Toledo, former president of Perú and author of "The Shared Society", writes in the op-ed pages of the New York Times, an article that is both accurate and simple, and that it is also ambitiously untitled: How to Fix the Mess in Venezuela. A must-read. I more Venezuelan news, Tim Worstall thanks Venezuela's Bolivarian "socialism" style (that everyday looks more like a military dictatorship) for the 200% of inflation as it is almost an impossible achievement to make that will probably become the first chapter of every what not to do when running a country book.


In Science & Technology according to Tim Maughan in BBC Future the worst place on earth is a dystopian lake in Mongolia filled with the world's tech lust. In our Culture & Entertainment section Garrett Gilmore shares how he can't stop thinking in emoji. A really interesting article via VICE. Jessica Fulford-Dobson shows us with her photographic work in Kabul how in Afghanistan, skateboarding has spread to become the number one sport for women, as they are forbidden to ride bicycles. And thanks to Open Culture and Martin Scorsese we discovered filmmaker Hong Sang-Soo, the Woody Allen of Korea.

Culturetas's queen bee, Ariana, shares with us her reflections on feminism, what is and what it should be. She's obviously looking for a fight ;) Finally In Dog We Trust by La Guía del Perro shares with us an interesting article about the bonding human-dog hormone, some DIY for your dog, a German Shepherd left home alone with a GoPro and the absolutely amazing Marnie the dog.

That's our April edition, hope you enjoy it, and I invite you again to check out Minimaps, small crowd-sourced travel experiences made for and by people that love people. This month we published two new minimaps: Brussels and Zürich. Have a look!

Happy Sunday friends and happy reading.

CULTURE & ENTERTAINMENT: Skateboarding Afgan Girls

Photo Jessica Fulford-Dobson via Quartz.

"In Afghanistan, skateboarding has spread to become the number one sport for women, as they are forbidden to ride bicycles. Soon after arriving and entering the girl’s world, Fulford-Dobson was accepted by the young Afghan skateboarders. She photographed the girls with natural light, helping to expose their personalities through simple portraits. Within the images you can see the girls’ natural confidence, images that capture the subjects both posed and candidly skating through the indoor facility." Read this interesting article by Kate Sierzputowski with brilliant photographs by Jessica Fulford-Dobson in Quartz. E.T.P. 6'

NEWS: Charlie Hebdo After Effect

BuzzFeed News increasingly is starting to produce more and more news stories and long reports, this time they share a very interesting and very alarming piece written by Rosie Gray from Paris: "Encouraging poll numbers, a changing, more youthful image, and a fearful political and economic climate: These are the ingredients the National Front needs for a breakout moment. And it has them. BuzzFeed News’ Rosie Gray reports from Paris." Read the full article France’s Far-Right Party Seizes The Moment — And The Youth, in BuzzFeed News. E.T.P. 7'

In Quartz, Emma Kate Symmons explains why Marine Le Pen’s New York Times op-ed is a knife in the back for France. "Since 17 people were murdered in the Paris terror attacks that started with a massacre of cartoonists, staff, and police at Charlie Hebdo magazine almost two weeks ago, The New York Times has not deemed fit to print even one caricature by the French satirical weekly, citing Muslim sensitivities. But today the Times opened up her august op-ed pages to France’s extreme right Front National (FN) party president, Marine Le Pen, the chief Gallic spokesperson for Islamophobia and racism. We must explain who Le Pen is here because the Times did not include even a phrase qualifying its op-ed contributor as a far right party boss, nor explaining her movement’s long history of Muslim-baiting, incitement to racial hatred, Holocaust denial, and generalized anti-foreigner bile stretching back to the grimmest days of World War II collaborationist Vichy France." Read full article in Quartz. E.T.P. 6'

"This week Japanese Internet users rallied together to mock the Islamic State (a.k.a. ISISor IS) with a Photoshop battle that shows the terrorists in a series of  absurd and contemptuous images. This effort won’t save the hostages, but it could, in at least a small way, help prevent future terrorism.
As many have noted, IS is extremely goodat recruiting (even better than Al Qaeda) . . . The U.S. government has tried counter-propaganda techniques by engaging with IS online, but has failed thus far. Their methods, which include sending anti-IS quotes to journalists and creating poorly produced videos, are dated and lackluster. In a piece for the Guardian, former State Department advisor Shahed Amanullah says that America’s tactics have only made the group stronger: “They turn right around to their followers and say, ‘See? We’re every bit as powerful as we say we are, the US government is proof.’” So, why is Japan’s response so valuable? Because it was effective where America's attempts have failed." Read full article in The Daily Dot. E.T.P. 5'

Le Petit Journal (necessarily) mocked FOX News' coverage of Charlie Hebdo and the allegedly infamous Paris's "No Go Zones". Have a look at the Opération FOX News in Canal+. E.T.P. 6'30''

Finally, if you read Spanish, there is a nice blog post on Charlie Hebdo and freedom of speech, written by Gerardo Vilches titled "But". I don't know him, I just found the article through the usual social networks and thought it was worth a read. Have a look in his blog The Watcher and The Tower. E.T.P. 5'

 

SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY

Photo via Fast Company.

"Fast-forward to 2018. That year, according to the U.S. Department of Commerce, the country will have 1.2 million unfilled jobs in the disciplines of science, technology, engineering, and math, known by that increasingly inescapable acronym STEM.
Look at those positions now and the lack of women—a group who make up more than half of the workforce—isn't a problem just for women. The whole economy feels it. And without question, changing gender stereotypes and breaking down what scientists and engineers should look like is a long overdue transformation. The good news is, it's all happening." Read about the 9 giant leaps women made in science and technology this year in Fast Company. E.T.P. 6'

Photo via Quartz.

Google is heading for the exits in Russia and others are likely to follow. "After president Vladimir Putin called the internet a “CIA project,” this was probably just a matter of time: Google confirmed late Thursday (Dec. 11) that it’s getting its engineers out of Russia. According to tech site The Information, which first reported the news (paywall), its 50 mostly Moscow-based engineers will have the option to leave the company or relocate to other countries. Google will, however, keep marketing and sales teams in Russia, and it’s not shutting down its services; on the contrary, company sources have told both Western and Russian media that it plans to up its investment in Russia next year." Read full article in Quartz. E.T.P. 3'

DESIGN, BUSINESS & INNOVATION

This section's Estimated Time of Procrastination is: 3' 

Illustration via Quartz.

According to a new paper from NBER, the high points of the careers of both great inventors and Nobel-Prize winning scientists, and they found that the late 30s were the sweet spot for strokes of genius; while innovators have been peaking slightly later in life as the 20th century has progressed, in part because today’s scientists have more to learn than their predecessors. Read full article in Quartz. E.T.P. 3'

SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY

Photo via Gizmodo.

Andrew Liszewski writes in Gizmodo: The first videos we saw of DARPA's advanced ATLAS robot it was just an infant, learning to walk and balance on its own. During the DARPA Robotics Challenge the humanoid robot handled itself like a capable child. And now almost a year later the folks at MIT are happy to announce that ATLAS has finally reached the level of a lazy, shiftless teenager. Read full article in Gizmodo. E.T.P. 3' And learn about DARPA's plans and future challenges in this article of Humanoïdes (in French). E.T.P 8'

GIF by Zoe Burnett via Rhizome.

Not precisely a very recent article, but these past days I came across the review that Megan Heuer wrote of Jonathan Crary's book: 24/7: Late Capitalism and the End of Sleep. Megan analyzes the book really well highlighting Crary's most interesting arguments (as some other of his claims sound like something a crazy man with a megaphone would shout in a public square, and I personally think that is not necessary "capitalism" but "industrialism", but well, that's the subject of a different book, ain't it?). Anyway, here's an extract of Megan's article: "Offering a genealogical account of the reformatting of time from the beginning of the Industrial Revolution to the present, 24/7 is relentlessly negative: sleep is the last unleveraged form of human activity and it is violently threatened by a world in which the divisions between night and day, between rest and work, are disappearing due to mutations in the experience of time produced by unceasing digital networks, new metrics for productivity, and ever-expanding forms of control and surveillance . . . As he elaborates the specific textures (or lack thereof) of this new temporality, signaled with the shorthand 24/7, Crary ties the disruption of sleep to an emerging and intensifying set of demands around our productivity as workers." Read full article in Rhizome, and please (I've been reading a lot about this: sleep at least 7 hours every night). E.T.P. 7'

The Procrastinator (some) Times Sunday 6th of July

EDITORIAL

Morning friends! In our news section we have the story of the people of Kiribati who are the first to prepare to be “climate refugees”. Some estimate that the number of people displaced by the effects of global warming will reach 700 million by 2050. Also in News, your weekly dose of Venezuela, this time featuring the ongoing coverage of Al Jazeera, and an article in El País on how Google helped prove the government is lying. In Science a set of surprising experiments has revived old skepticism about quantum mechanics. In Culture & Entertainment, Aaron Rose's Coney Island photographs via The New Yorker, and The Paris Review claims to be loving procrastination... and peacocks.  In Dog We Trust tell us about the Black Dog Syndrome and some hard working dogs with incredible jobs. Finally in Our Weekly Procrastination we talked about Radical Geometry, the new exhibition at the Royal Academy of Arts.

Happy Sunday and happy reading!

NEWS
 

Photo via Quartz.

An entire island nation is preparing to evacuate to Fiji before they sink into the Pacific: "This has to be the weirdest business deal of the week: The Church of England just sold a chunk of forest-covered land on the Fijian island Vanau Levu for $8.8 million to the government of the Pacific island nation of Kiribati. For the moment, Kiribati plans to use its 20-square-kilometer (7.7-square-mile) plot for agriculture and fish farming. But the investment is really a fallback for its 103,000 residents—a place to live if they must leave their home island." I don't know what shock me the most, reading about the first climate refugees or about the prevention capabilities of the Kiribati people. I know for a fact that some countries wouldn't start planning anything until they are in full Atlantis mode. Read full article in Quartz. E.T.P. 4' 

 

Screenshot from AlJazeera's Website.

In Venezuela's news, Al Jazeera has been covering the ongoing unrest in the country. Fault Lines Venezuela Divided premiered one week ago, and the latest entry in their blog is from June 27, there you can see what happened when they tried to filmed one of the many food lines that Venezuelans have to make daily to buy food. Have a look here. E.T.P. 3'

When the Venezuelan government finally decided to present evidences of one of its conspiration accusations (deliriums), these turned out to be (as expected) false. They are accusing 3 leaders of the opposition of plotting the president's murder and presented some emails as evidence. Pedro Burelli, one of the accused, asked Google to investigate if the emails were authentic and Google confirmed that they are fakes, "there is no proof that those emails ever existed". The Venezuelan government is caught once again lying, and once again they will pretend that nothing is happening or blame the CIA, Starbucks, the World Cup, a lizard or Mercury retrograde. Read full article (in Spanish) in El País. E.T.P. 6'

The Procrastinator (some) Times Sunday 29th of June Edition

EDITORIAL

Morning friends! I have been reading a lot of interesting stuff, mostly related to festivals and counterculture, but not that many articles, so this is another concise edition. This is the moment where I remind all of you friends and ocasional visitors, that if you want to collaborate with us in any section, please do it!

The whole edition is about all things not Luis Suárez, enough is enough. In Science and Technology, The Atlantic published an interesting article based on a recent research that shows that animals are more or less motivated to engage in these sickness behaviors, depending on their social context, meaning that you can feel too sick to go to work... but not to go out. I knew it. Also, employees in the search of meaning appear via Quartz in our Design, Business & Innovation section. Glastonbury, of course, and the best 10 films of 2014 so far according to Dazed Magazine,in our Culture & Entertainment section. Finally In Dog We Trust by La Guía del Perro introduce us to the lovely Canelo, the cutest pitbull I've ever seen.

Happy Sunday and happy reading!


NEWS

Illustration via Quartz.

This is very #SickSadWorld of Iraq: "As an insurgency threatens to drag Iraq back into sectarian civil war, plans are still underway to build a vast new $1-billion parliamentary complex in Baghdad. The well-known London-based, Iraqi-born architect Zaha Hadid has been tapped to design a 2.7-million-square-foot building on the 49-acre site, even though her proposal—which remains secret—came in third in the international architecture competition." Read full article in Quartz. E.T.P. 3'  

Photo via Mashable.

A Venezuelan classic: "A massive blackout left more than half of Venezuela without electricity on Friday afternoon, according to news reports. The blackout affected as many as 13 Venezuelan states, leaving around 60% of the country without electricity." I could add here that is outrageous specially in the country with the largest oil reserves blah blah blah... but you already know that, and I'm tired of these things not being extraordinary or even news. Anyway, read full article in Mashable. E.T.P. 2'

DESIGN, BUSINESS & INNOVATION

Photo: Reuters/Jim Young via Quartz.

The title of this article written by Jeremy Eden and Terri Long in Quartz is "The talent that your company needs may already be on the payroll", but I honestly prefer the accurate caption of the photo as a title: Meaning. Employees want meaning. "In that classic of management science, The Wizard of Oz, Dorothy gives the secret to finding a talented team of people who have intellect, passion, and courage when she says: “if I ever go looking for my heart’s desire again, I won’t look any further than my own backyard.”Read full article in Quartz. E.T.P. 6'

The Procrastinator (some) Times Sunday 22th June Edition

EDITORIAL

Morning friends! This is going to be a super concise edition as this past week I was very busy with my graduation (: Hope you like it. Articles about Argentina and Venezuela in our News section. In Science & Technology, Pluto debate continue as it has been discovered that the planet(?) have several moons in regular orbit around it, and also one interesting article about the UK dream of a robot heaven. In Design, Business & Innovation, Ryan Bradley tries to understand Facebook lost generation of teens via Fast Company. In Culture & Entertainment, articles about video games and scholarships and watching TV on the gym. Come to think about it, this is a very geek edition. Finally, In Dog We Trust is great as usual and share with us how many words dogs actually understand.

Happy Sunday, happy reading and happy summer/winter solstice!

NEWS

Photo via Quartz.

"If Argentina goes deep in the 2014 World Cup in Brazil, their legions of international haters may have something to make them feel better: Imminent default on the country’s debt.

That’s because the US Supreme Court today declined to overturn a lower court ruling won by NML, an American hedge fund subsidiary of Elliott Capital Management, that would force Argentina to pay up on billions of dollars in bonds it issued before it defaulted on them in 2001." Read full article via Quartz. E.T.P. 

Caracas, Venezuela. Photo: The Procrastinator (some) Times.

"A new ranking of the world’s most expensive cities for expats knocked the usual candidates — New York, Tokyo and London — off of the list. The true epicenters of sticker shock were Venezuela, Angola and South Sudan." Of course. Read full article in TIME. E.T.P. 2'

SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY

Photo via Wired.

Peter Rubin writes a very interesting piece in Wired sharing the inside story of Oculus Rift and how virtual reality became simply: reality. It is a long read, but it is really worth it. This is how it starts: "As he flew from Orange County to Seattle in September 2013, Brendan Iribe, the CEO of Oculus, couldn’t envision what the next six months would bring. The rhapsodic crowds at the Consumer Electronics Show. The around-the-block lines at South by Southwest. Most of all, the $2 billion purchase by Facebook. That fall Oculus was still just an ambitious startup chasing virtual reality, a dream that had foiled countless entrepreneurs and technologists for two decades. Oculus’ flagship product, the Rift, was widely seen as the most promising VR device in years, enveloping users in an all-encompassing simulacrum that felt like something out of Snow Crash or Star Trek. But it faced the same problem that had bedeviled would-be pioneers like eMagin, Vuzix, even Nintendo: It made people want to throw up." Read full story in Wired. E.T.P. 27'

And in the same subject, Samsung is now building an Oculus Rift competitor. Read about it in Mashable. E.T.P. 7'

Photo via L'Observateur.

Detox Overdose. The word is everywhere. Liquid diets, magic creams that help you expel toxins and take control of your body. But is it just a marketing strategy? Why is the word detox suddenly so popular, and more importantly, does it work? Read full article (in French) in Le nouvel Observateur. E.T.P. 7'

Europe will let its citizens edit Google search results for their names. "Google and other search engines routinely field takedown requests to remove material from results that violates copyright, defamation, and other laws. But a ruling  by the European Union’s highest court will now require them to consider takedown requests for material that is merely embarrassing or inconvenient, rather than illegal. " Read full article in Quartz. E.T.P. 4'

DESIGN, BUSINESS & INNOVATION

Image via Quartz.

The homepage is dead, and the social web has won—even at the New York Times. Zachary M. Seward in Quartz writes about how social media and mobile technology made push media replace pull media. "Traffic to the New York Times homepage fell by half in the last two years, according to the newspaper’s internal review of its digital strategy. That’s not necessarily a reflection of any problems at the Times but the reality of how news is now distributed on the internet. Homepage traffic is declining at most news sites as readers increasingly find links to news articles from social media, email, and other sources". Read full article, that includes a link to The New York Times leaked strategy report via BuzzFeed, in Quartz. E.T.P. 3'

Photo via Dezeen.

"Data collected via Google Glass could soon be used to deliver advertising tailored to the wearer's taste, mood, and location, according to Tony Gaitatzis, a leading figure in the wearable technology sector. "The potential is incredible and hyper-targeted to the point where it is no longer advertising," said Gaitatzis, who is chief technology officer at PND, a company developing wearable technology that monitors the human brain. PND is developing PND Wearable - a "personal neuro device" that gathers information on the wearer's moods, emotions and health. This data could be used by advertisers to target wearers of Google Glass head-mounted computers." Read full Ross Bryant interview to Tony Gaitatzis in Dezeen. E.T.P. 14'

La vie en Instagram. Another type of glasses for those who truly believe everything looks better in Instagram, well now with Tens Tinded Sunglasses, they can look at life through an Instagram-like filter and probably, look better and have more fun (?). Read full article in Fubiz. E.T.P. 3'

DESIGN, BUSINESS & INNOVATION

Photo via AdWeek.

"What do Bob Dylan, Ellen DeGeneres, Stephen Colbert, the Muppets, U2 and the cast of the '90s sitcom Full House have in common? They all starred in Super Bowl commercials this year, and none of them came anywhere close to the top of the list when it came to sharing of the ads online". Read this interesting article by Tim Nudd in AdWeek. E.T.P. 6'

Photo via Quartz.

"China already has the world’s longest high-speed rail network. And the country aims to more than double the amount of high-speed railway by 2015. Officials want to build everything from an undersea railway tunnel from the Chinese shore to Taiwan—twice the length of the Channel Tunnel between France and Britain. In that context, it almost seems feasible that China would be considering a recently discussed project—13,000 km of high-speed railway that crosses from China to Russia and North America that includes a 200-km tunnel under the Bering strait. A railway expert at the Chinese Academy of Engineering told the Beijing Times that officials are having discussions about the project." Read Lily Kuo's full article in Quartz. E.T.P. 4'

Photo via AdWeek.

"It's such a great, simple idea: Young Brazilians want to learn English. Elderly Americans living in retirement homes just want someone to talk to. Why not connect them?

FCB Brazil did just that with its "Speaking Exchange" project for CNA language schools. As seen in the touching case study below, the young Brazilians and older Americans connect via Web chats, and they not only begin to share a language—they develop relationships that enrich both sides culturally and emotionally." Read full article and watch the project's video in AdWeek. E.T.P. 7'

DESIGN, BUSINESS & INNOVATION

Photo via Quartz.

What China burned for Day of the Dead says a lot about shopping trends among the living. Lily Kuo writes a very interesting piece in Quartz, and this is how it starts: "Paper replicas of internet routers, passports, subway passes and iPhones were among some of the gifts offered in China to departed loved ones during this weekend’s celebration of Qingming Jie, a day to honor one’s deceased relatives. As younger Chinese play a larger role in the annual holiday known in English as Tomb Sweeping Day, it’s become an occasion to look at what Chinese shoppers are thinking about most." Read full article in Quartz. E.T.P. 4' 

Photo via Wired.

It's the end of Facebook... as we know it. So, it's not totally great news, but something is something. "Facebook, the company that makes billions from connecting people to each other, is about to make it harder to have a conversation. In the coming weeks, Facebook’s mobile app will be losing its chat feature, a move that will no doubt annoy many regular users. But the gutting likely won’t end there. According to many Facebook watchers, the end of chat is just the first cut in what could eventually lead to the end of Facebook as a single, unified app altogether." Read full article in Wired. E.T.P. 8' 

 

Photo via Wired.

And talking about the end of the world as we know it, Condoleezza Rice is joining the board of Dropbox. "Unsurprisingly" -writes Marcus Wohlsen in Wired- "some people aren’t too happy about the move. Over on Hacker News, a leading barometer for what’s on the minds of tech geeks, the day’s most popular link connects to DropDropbox, a new site calling on users to boycott the company unless it removes Rice. The campaign’s apparently anonymous creators are calling for her removal in part because of her support for the Bush administration’s warrantless wiretapping program, including claims that Rice herself authorized eavesdropping on UN Security Council members. “Why on earth would we want someone like her involved with Dropbox, an organization we are trusting with our most important business and personal data?” the site asks." Read full article in Wired. E.T.P. 6'

The Procrastinator (some) Times Sunday 9th of March Edition

EDITORIAL

In this editorial I want to share with you how hard is keep covering an ongoing crisis. I know. It's logical, but I have never tried to do it before. I manage to keep following Venezuela mainly because is my country and I understand what is happening. With Ukraine, it's a lot harder. I'll keep posting the links that I find more interesting and explicative. Hope someone finds it useful. And I also hope this Cold War finishes soon, this time for good. (Have a look at Jean Jullien's Cold War II illustration).

In our Culture & Entertainment section we have cool articles from some of our favorite writes from The Atlantic and The New Yorker, about selfies in Crimea and HBO's True Detective. In Photoautomat, the second post about war photographer Tim Hetherington. In Science, news about the orgasm machine, of course. In Design & Business an RSA article about the Power of Create. And finally In Dog We Trust introduce us to the lovely Fred the pug.

Happy Sunday and happy reading.


PS: Sorry for the broken links early today, it's all been fixed now.


NEWS

Photo via Quartz.

The Venezuelan situation keeps unfolding towards I don't know exactly where. The government won't stop insulting and repressing the opposition, and reinforcing fallacies that then people and international media keep replicating. The economic war; there is no other economic war than the one they are leading against their own country (watch Rafael Ramírez admit not to have had a plan for oil income, ever).

Nor Panamá neither Jared Leto words are prove that the US is leading a slow coup d'etat. If the US was the enemy I guess that as energetically as we broke diplomatic links with Panamá we would have stop selling them oil. But we haven't, and we won't. They don't have proves, they never show any prove to back up their statements.

The opposition is not a small group, and the great majority are not rich, posh, right-wing people; right now a university professor in Venezuela earns around US$ 180,00/month according to the black market rate (the one that sets the prices of every consumer good). That's Venezuelan "middle class". The use of black and white terms is a great way to fill with simplifications, prejudgements and distortions, a very complex situation, and they know it. They sell themselves, as a socialist-left-wing-Robin-Hood utopia, when all they are is just good old (and dramatically inefficient) Latin American populist government with a strong like for totalitarianism and an insane personality cult. Absolutely corrupted by their absolute power.

People often talk about about how the rate of extreme poverty decrease in Venezuela, but actually they only managed to take some people out of extreme poverty by giving them some spare money coming from our oil incomes. Not opportunities or education. Just cheap, bad quality, houses, washing machines and TVs, propaganda and slogans. The greatest gift from the government to "the people" is dependence. They strangled the economy, make private industries go bankrupt by not letting them change dollars, so more people keep depending on the government, and their "generosity". A couple of weeks ago the Minister of Education said that it was not in the interest of the government to take people out of poverty to make them become opposition.

I believe in socialism, Norwegian style. I subscribe the words of that Colombian major who said that a prosperous country was not one where "the poor have cars, but where the rich use public transportation". Public services for all, food for all, medicines for all, and respect. Respect for our lives, our opinions and our dreams. That is all we ask for. Being the country with the biggest reserves of oil of the world shouldn't be our curse, should be our blessing! We could be so great!

But we are not. And that is a fact. Philip K. Dick has a great phrase about reality, he says that "reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn’t go away.” And you can have the ideology you prefer, the world is big enough, I don't mind, but the reality is that in Venezuela there is no food, no medicines, no freedom, no peace, no happy socialism. In Venezuela there is death, there is fear, there is armed paramilitary, there is violence of all sorts, and there is torture (even if the Human Rights Ombudswoman wants to twist the universal definition). And whether you stop believing or not, is not going away.

That is why one of the most relevant news from this week is not necessarily about the ongoing protests, but about one of our major crisis: being one of the most dangerous country on earth. Roberto Ferdman in Quartz writes: There have already been almost 3000 murders in Venezuela since the start of the year. "In the first two months of 2014 (link in Spanish) 2,841 people were murdered, a more than 10% jump from the same period last year, when 2,576 murders were registered. Homicides have grown almost systematically of late in Venezuela. Last year nearly 25,000 people were murdered, or almost 70 people per day. Murders are up 89% since 2010, and almost 500% since 1997, before Hugo Chavez became president (in 1999)."

Only 9% of the crimes in Venezuela are prosecuted and punished. But in the past month there has been around a 1300 students arrested. There is an image going around in social media that says that if we make a minute of silence for every Venezuelan killed last year we would have to be silent for 17 days.

This is not ideology. These are facts and they don't go away.


Other articles:

New York Times: Fear spreads that Venezuela is approaching bloody face-off. (Added 13 March)

The Washington Post: Student that lives with parents rises as leader in Venezuela's protests. (Added 13 March)

VICE NEWS: Venezuela Rising. Dispatch 6. (Added 12 March)

New York Times (cartoon): Protests in Venezuela. (Added 12 March)

BBC: Three die in clashes in central Venezuela, while rival protests take place in Caracas to mark 1 month of unrest. (Added 12 March)

The Economist: A test of political maturity. Excellent article that summarizes Venezuela's current situation and the test it poses to the region. (Added 10 March)

VICE NEWS: Venezuela Rising. Dispatch 5. (Added 10 March)

AFP: Venezuelans queue long hours at markets to buy "whatever they have".

BBC: Venezuela opposition holds anti-Maduro rally in Caracas.

Business Insider: Here's What Outsiders Get Completely Wrong About The Crisis In Venezuela.

Time: 3 Reasons Venezuelans protesters won't win. 

Mashable: Venezuela's March 8th Demonstrations.

Hootsuite: Who to follow on Twitter for crisis news.



En español:

El País: El régimen venezolano esctrecha el cerco sobre Internet. (Agregado 14 de marzo).

EL País: Los intelectuales y el principio de realidad. (Agregado 10 Marzo)

Radar de los barrios: ¿Protesta en los barrios? ¡Claro que sí!. (Agregado 10 Marzo)

El Nacional: El costo de la protesta popular. "Si protestan, los matamos."  (Agregado 10 Marzo)

El Universal: Salverio Vivas: La oposición del barrio es más madura que la del este.

El País: La principal ciudad de los Andes venezolanos se rebela contra Maduro.



En français:

Le Nouvel Observateur / AFP: Nouvelle manifestation mercredi à Caracas pour marquer un mois de mobilisation. (Added 12 March)



Videos:

YouTube: Armed "colectivos" shooting inside a building 7M in Los Ruices. (Added 10M)

YouTube: Young man kidnapped by the Sebin (political police) in Caracas I. (Added 10M)

YouTube: Young man kidnapped by the Sebin (political police) in Caracas II. (Added 10M)


Past posts about Venezuela's crisis in the blog: 16th of February and 23rd of February and 2nd of March.

DESIGN, BUSINESS & INNOVATION

 Illustration by Edel Rodriguez via Wired.

Have you ever heard about the Darknet? A network of secretive websites that can’t be viewed on the “regular” Internet. Mostly used for illicit purposes from drugs, arms sales or pedophilia. Darknet sites are hosted on regular servers, but to access them you need special software, usually something that encrypts all users’ traffic and allows them relative anonymity. Read all about it in this article by Clive Thompson in Wired. E.T.P.: 3'45''

Photo: The Procrastinator (some) Times.

Earlier this week Leo Miriani wrote in Quartz: Forget Big Data: the future is Small Data, and Facebook just bought it. Onavo, an Israeli start-up, whose flagship product is a data compressor. When you browse a web page or use an app on your phone, Onavo routes the traffic through its servers, where it compresses and optimizes the data before sending it on to the phone. Call it “small data.” The result is you see exactly the same web page but less data comes out of your plan. Sounds good, right? Well, Facebook thought so too. Read full article here. E.T.P.: 1'20''

Photo: Reuters via The Atlantic.


Interesting article in The Atlantic: Netflix was supposed to kill cable, so why is it beggining to join cable? "Netflix is in serious talks with Comcast and other pay-TV providers to hop onto the cable bundle as a stand-alone channel. Add it to the list of tech companies—Apple, Google, Microsoft, Intel—who have internally debated trying to "disrupt" the cable TV business, but have wound up working with the cable companies (e.g.: Apple, Xbox) or simply built their own cable equivalent (Google Fiber TV)." Read full article here.