Favolaschia è un genere di fungo molto strano, infestante, originario dei tropici. Ma la globalizzazione l'ha portato anche nei nostri boschi! Questo sito non parla di funghi, ma favolaschia mi sembrava un nome significativo e evocativo di qualcosa di simile a quello che qui viene raccontato...

13 luglio 2007

News di oggi

US: a willy censored in a children illustrated book (Co)
Negli Stati Uniti, la Boyd Mills Press si è rifiutata di pubblicare un libro per bambini dell’illustratrice tedesca Rotraut Susanne Berner. Il motivo scatenante è un pisello, quello che si presuppone penda tra le gambe dei maschietti di tutto il mondo e di tutte le età; in particolare, il pisello di una statuina ritratta in una vignetta ambientata in un museo. La casa editrice si è giustificata sostenendo che negli Usa esistono lobby fondamentaliste in grado di impedire la vendita del libro e la sua diffusione nelle biblioteche. È il caso di dirlo: stica!

My So-Called Second Life (Co)
For the past few days I’ve been logging on to a virtual world called Meteora, which was launched earlier this year by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Adminis tration (NOAA) in Second Life, the richly-limned online community of some six million participants that my 24-year-old colleague calls “SimCity on crack.” In Meteora, you (or rather, your “avatar”) can visit and learn about environments that few of us will ever experience—like the upper layers of the stratosphere, where the National Weather Service collects meteorological data; or the depths of the ocean floor where NOAA’s submarines study aquatic life.

Oil reaches the beaches of Ibiza following cargo ship sinking (Co)
Oil is coming out from the Don Pedro, a boat that crashed last Tuesday a few nautical miles off the coasts of Ibiza. The situation seems to be under control, but the memory goes to the Prestige disaster of some years ago, off the coasts of Galicia.
http://www.typicallyspanish.com/news/publish/article_11459.shtml

Seeing Yellow: call your printer's manufacturer and ask why they spy on you
When you print on a color laser printer, it's likely that you are also printing a pattern of invisible yellow dots. These marks exist to allow the printer companies and governments to track and identify you -- presumably as a way to combat money counterfeiting

Cardboard Chinese food
If you're in Beijing and eat steamed buns that taste like cardboard, they just may be cardboard

Building made from water walls
MIT researchers are designing a "Digital Water Pavillion" for next year's Expo Zaragoza in Spain. The walls of the structure are sheets of water sprayed from suspended pipes

Sidewalk stencil choose-your-own-adventure
Some stencil artists created a Choose-Your-Own-Adventure game using spraypainted sidewalk stencils: players start from one of two jumping off points and walk aroudn the neighborhood, making choices and following directions. It's a love story, and if players do it right, then end up meeting

Great bathroom singer? TV wants you (K)
NEW DELHI (Reuters) - An Indian television channel is looking out for good singers in the one place that has escaped the prying eyes of reality TV -- the bathroom.

Some immigrants denied marriage licenses (K)
A federal law that requires people to supply their
Social Security number when applying for a marriage
license has forced thousands of couples around the
country, particularly illegal immigrants, to put their
wedding plans on hold.

Some Americans have no time for vacation (K)
Many Americans seem to eschew traditional vacations -
a trend that has some experts worried that workers are
not getting away from their jobs to relax and
recharge, both physically and mentally.

Mexico genocide trial suspended (K)
Human rights groups say as many as 300 student
activists were killed when troops opened fire on them
in Mexico City's Tlatelolco Plaza on 2 October, just
days before the city hosted the Olympic Games.

No Sex Please, We're Organizing
A nation of pack rats tries to get it together.

Sesso: i teenager stanno mettendo la testa a posto (C)
Secondo l'ultimo report del governo americano le prime esperienze sessuali da parte dei giovanissimi si stanno leggermente spostando in avanti e soprattutto gli adolescenti stanno iniziando a utilizzare il preservativo.

Package Pilgrims Destroying the Himalayas
SRINAGAR, India -- Hundreds of thousands of Hindu pilgrims flocking to holy sites in the Himalayas are fouling fragile mountain ecosystems with rubbish, human waste, air pollution and the deforestation that comes with development.

ENVIRONMENT SOUTH-EAST ASIA: Big Bucks Behind Forest Blaze, Haze
The annual phenomenon that is oddly called the ‘haze’ is back and beginning to blanket parts of Malaysia, Singapore and Brunei in thick, acrid smoke from the forest fires in Indonesia, mainly from the Kalimantan and Sumatra islands.