- Berlin has long been a city steeped in division. Having
a wall dividing one’s city into a communist western half and a capitalist
eastern side can have that effect. No wall is dividing Germany’s capital these
days, but it is a city divided nonetheless. At the center is something large,
tacky…..and pink. The new Barbie Dreamhouse Experience opened this week and while it might be
the city’s most visible new tourist attraction, it is also causing a major
rift. No sooner than it opened, the site was picketed Thursday by women’s
groups protesting the “cliché of the female role in society.” Located mere
minutes from Berlin’s fashionable Alexanderplatz shopping district, the display
features a water fountain in the shape of a huge pink high-heeled shoe and
plenty of other Barbie paraphernalia. Toy stores around Berlin were already
rife with Barbie merchandise adorned with the slogan “Pink Rocks,” but the new
Barbie wonderland seemed to push the subject over the top for organizers of a
campaign called “Pinkstinks” that objects to “marketing strategies that
allocate a limited gender role to young girls.” Because the new attraction is an
interactive experience mostly for young
customers, one that organizers describe as a “seemingly endless walk-in closet,”
haters believe it’s perpetuating the same ugly stereotypes of physical beauty
that Barbie has been all about for years. The attraction greets visitors with a
large painting of Barbie smiling next to her love interest, Ken, before leading
them on a tour of a fake home that includes a bedroom and a stylish bathroom
where a pink dolphin pops out of the toilet bowl. Visitors can also bake
virtual cupcakes in Barbie's kitchen and listen to "Barbie talk" at
touchscreen monitors. The life-size replica of Barbie's fictional Malibu home
is a life-size nighrmare for the Pinkstinks people. While the protest was small
– about a dozen activists – one of them was a man in a pink dress and a wig and
a sign around his neck that said "Do you like me now?" and another
was a woman with bare breasts holding a burning cross with "life in
plastic is not fantastic" written on her body. Those tend to be compelling
sights in a crowd of any size. “This dream world suggests that women can’t be
anything less than beautiful and slim,” said Franziska Sedlak from protest
group Occupy Barbie Dreamhouse. “And life is not about being beautiful all the
time.” Said like an ugly and bitter woman…….
- Mozilla is no fan of mixed messages. The maker of the popular
Firefox Internet browser is moving to lock down mixed-content Web sites for Firefox
in an update Friday to Firefox 23 Aurora. Mixed-content sites feature a blend
of content secured with HTTPS and other content from standard HTTP sources.
HTTPS content is more secure, while HTTP can lead to eavesdroppers and
man-in-the-middle attacks. This is an issue because mixed active content
describes things like scripts because they can actively change how you interact
with the site, while mixed passive content, such as images, just sits there in
most cases. Firefox 23 Aurora, the pre-beta version of the browser for Windows,
Mac, and Linux, will block default mixed active content by default. With a
mixed-content blocker, users would be able to disable it on a per-site basis and
load potentially dangerous content. Enabling or disabling it would be as simple
as clicking on a shield that appears on the left side of the location bar.
Along with its security upgrades, the new browser also will introduce nine new
Web developer tools, including a network monitor, a remote style editor for
helping test the Web on mobile devices, an Options panel for turning tools on
or off, a Variables View for all tools and a Browser Console to replace the Error Console……
- It’s a move that screams Kanye West….and not in a positive
way. Arguably the most arrogent and self-absorbed d-bag in music (or any other
industry), there really was no more fitting way for the man who once christened
himself as “the voice of this generation” to premiere the music video for his
new single than by projecting the video on buildings across the world. West debuted
the video for “New Slave” by screening a short clip on the sides of buildings in
10 cities including Sydney, London, Paris, Berlin and numerous locations in
North America. Earlier in the day, West tweeted out a message to his fans to
let them know that he was broadcasting the "new song and visuals" in
cities across the world on Friday night. A link on his weebsite also provided a
map showing where each screening would take place. West introduced the song to
the world last week when he performed it as part of his set at the Roseland
Ballroom at a party thrown by TV network Adult Swim. It was also included in a
recent Hudson Mohawke DJ set and following Friday’s (sort of) world premiere,
West also performed the track during his appearance last night on “Saturday
Night Live.” All of this comes on the heels of a cryptic recent tweet that read:
"June Eighteen." Fans began speculating that June 18 might be the
release date for his new album, the follow-up to 2010's “My Beautiful Dark
Twisted Fantasy.” When the new album does drop, it will reportedly feature
guest spots from Odd Future ,Skrillex, MC Chief Keef, John Legend and Daft Punk…….
- New York City is not a place people often go when seeking
space and privacy. Manhattan is über-crowded and with people virtually stacked
on top of one another to maximize valuable real estate, looking for some quiet
time to yourself in an isolated place is a pipe dream most of the time.
However, being able to expect a reasonable amount of privacy in the confines of
your own apartment building shouldn’t be too much to ask. Residents of one Tribeca
apartment building are learning otherwise after the revelation that a
photographer who lives across the street has been taking their picture through
his window. Photographer Arne Svenson has been secretly shooting his neighbors
for months from the second floor of 125 Watts street and his photos are now on
sale at a Chelsea gallery. The exhibition is called “The Neighbors” and Svenson
has evaded potential legal issues by taking shots that do not show the faces of
his subjects. But faces or not, residents of the building are livid over the
idea that their privacy has been violated and their personal lives have been
documented and displayed without their permission. Building manager Travis Kidd
claimed that most of those in Svenson’s exhibition learned that they had been
photographer only after the images of themselves, their families and their pets
appeared online. “Its unfortunate really the tenants found out online,” Kidd
said. “He really should have gotten permission before he used them.” Good art
is often provocative, invasive and offensive, but this situation takes the idea
to new lengths. All of the photos were taken through the large picture windows
of the apartment building. They depict subjects doing everyday tasks such as
cleaning, tucking their children into bed and cooking in their kitchen. The
photos are on sale for thousands of dollars and their subjects are powerless to
do anything about it. Svenson is getting exactly what he wants from the
exhibition, namely a lot of publicity and a few sales of his overpriced art………
- Aaaand soccer strikes again. A sport marked by riots in
the stands, riots outside the stadium, lit road flares thrown onto the field
and ridiculous goal celebrations never ceases to amaze/disappoint when it comes
to its players and fans acting like world-class morons. That phenomenon reared
its ugly head – quite literally – on Friday when a pig's head was placed in the
locker of Stoke City striker Kenwyne Jones. The incident came a mere two days
before the club's final Premier League match of the season at Southampton and
led to a furious Jones stomping around Stoke's Clayton Wood training ground.
The club has promised to launch an internal investigation to find the
responsible party. "The club takes seriously reports of an incident at our
training ground this afternoon," the club said in a statement. "A
full internal investigation will be carried out, and those responsible for any
unacceptable behavior will be dealt with in accordance with the club's
disciplinary procedures." Not all of Stoke’s players seemed as furious as Jones,
possibly on account of the pig’s head not being left in their locker. Midfielder
Brek Shea tweeted a picture of himself with the pig's head with the words "locker room banter gone wild."
Somewhere in the midst of the chaos that followed the dicovery of the pig’s
head, someone smashed the windshield of midfielder Glenn Whelan’s care,
but when a Twitter follower suggested that Jones was responsible, he didn’t
take kindly to the suggestion. "For your info I didn't do that get ur info
correct,” Jones tweeted. His girlfriend also fired off an angry tweet about the
incident and suggested it was especially inappropriate because the person
responsible likely did not know Jones’ religious beliefs and could have been
even more offensive than intended. The prank could have been one of Jones
teammates, given that a few days prior he was involved in a stunt that left
striker Michael Owen’s car covered in eggs and flour at the hands of his
teammates. Then again, eggs and flour aren’t exactly a severed pig’s head in a
locker………
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