holiday:new year's day

A Blogger In Pyongyang | NK News – North Korea News

▻http://www.nknews.org/2011/07/a-blogger-in-pyongyang-part-1

In recent months NK News has featured a number of fascinating glimpses into daily life in North Korea, translated from the Russian language blog Show and Tell Pyongyang. In January the blog detailed how citizens in the capital had been preparing for Christmas and New Year in a post that included a number of must-see photos of daily life in frozen Pyongyang.

http://www.nknews.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/bloggersplash.jpg

The site has also touched on some of the capitals’ better known leisure facilities, with posts on its ice-skating rink, bowling alley, and shooting-gallery. Most recently, the blog has seen two interesting posts on the North Korean toy market, featuring pictures of “Juche” lego sets and a number of model cars, trucks and planes (all military, of course). In all of its content, the blog does a fine job in showing to its readers a side of North Korea that few will ever have the opportunity to see – but how?

#corée_du_nord

The Economist explains : How does immigration affect crime ? | The Economist

▻http://www.economist.com/blogs/economist-explains/2013/12/economist-explains-10?fsrc=scn%2Ffb%2Fwl%2Fbl%2Fee%2Fimmigrationcrime

BRITONS are anxiously awaiting the new year and the arrival, many fear, of tens of thousands of Bulgarians and Romanians who will be allowed free access to Britain and other European Union countries from January 1st. Much of that fear is based on the idea that among those coming will be scores of criminals. Nigel Farage, leader of the UK Independence Party, a British political party campaigning for the country’s withdrawal from the EU, says Britain is facing a “Romanian crime wave”. Does immigration push up crime rates?

#migrations #asile #criminalité

Is #Big_Data big hype ? | TechRepublic
►http://www.techrepublic.com/blog/tech-manager/is-big-data-big-hype/7892?tag=nl.e079&s_cid=e079

If you’re feeling a strange tingling sensation in the “what’s old is new” corner of your brain, you might recall the days of Data Warehouses (later Business Warehouses) and Business Intelligence, where large data sets would bring similar promised benefits to IT.

()… While that’s exciting and there are certainly some interesting innovations in this area, it’s certainly not news to anyone who’s spent time in IT that a new year brings bigger, better, and faster technologies. Arguably, the technology is one small portion of the promise of Big Data.

From a larger philosophical perspective, one must wonder if overreliance on historical data is even as relevant as Big Data proponents would imply. Management guru Peter Drucker saw increasingly available IT as a threat to corporate decision making, not due to cost or some perceived evil, but because IT made it so easy for management to focus on the past rather than attempting to determine and react to future trends.

South Korean employers at Kaesong complex indignant over North’s prolonged New Year’s break | YONHAP NEWS

Le cynisme n’a aucune limite : les entreprise sud-coréens qui opèrent à Kaesong, zone franche en Corée du Nord située près de la frontière, se plaignent ouvertement du prolongement des vacances de noël accordés aux ouvriers par les autorités nord-coréennes. C’est « très mauvais » pour leur business disent-ils...

Les entreprises sud-coréennes ont simplement oublié de rappeler quelles étaient les conditions de travail et les niveaux de salaires des dits ouvriers nord-coréens (qui produisent entre autres ls vêtements et sous-vêtements « Cotton Club »

►http://english.yonhapnews.co.kr/news/2013/01/07/0200000000AEN20130107010100315.HTML

South Korean employers at Kaesong complex indignant over North’s prolonged New Year’s break

SEOUL, Jan. 7 (Yonhap) A group of South Korean companies operating at a joint-venture factory park in North Korea has filed a formal complaint that the communist country’s sudden decision to take a longer New Year’s holiday seriously hurt their business, officials said Monday.

Currently, 123 South Korean firms are operating at the joint industrial park in the North’s border city of Kaesong, producing garments and other labor-intensive products. Despite cross-border tension, the park has been running without any restrictions since 2004.

Resolutions for the new year
►http://www.commitstrip.com/en/2013/01/03/resolutions-pour-la-nouvelle-annee

Source: CommitStrip - Blog relating the daily life of web agencies developers - CommitStrip

New law discriminates indigenous languages | Barentsobserver

►http://www.barentsobserver.com/en/society/2013/01/new-law-discriminates-indigenous-languages-03-01

The native children on the tundra in Nenets Autonomus Okrug have no longer any guaranteed education in Nenets languages.

The controversial law on education, signed by President Vladimir Putin on New Year’s Eve, states that classes in non-Russian languages cannot be conducted to the detriment teaching in Russian language.

#russie #peuples-autochtones #discrimination #droits-humains

Artworks That Shine in New York Museums - NYTimes.com

La lumière dans l’art [enngénéral] ...

►http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/04/arts/design/artworks-that-shine-in-new-york-museums.html?nl=todaysheadlines&emc=edit_th

With New Year’s hoopla behind us, we begin to turn a corner on the season of long nights and short days. But there’s still a good stretch of darkness ahead, and New York City museums have their lights on bright.

Illumination has been a subject and condition of art since prehistoric painters at the Lascaux caves positioned their images to catch the rays of the sun at winter solstice. Great classical cultures across the globe spun visions of the universe around the presence of solar and lunar deities. To designers of stained-glass church windows in medieval Europe light was divine benevolence in sensible form. To the Muslim creators of lusterware in the Arab world radiance as a decorative property helped bind together the widely dispersed faithful.

Painted dawns and sunsets carried spiritual, political and personal messages for Romantic landscape artists in America and Europe. Light was scientific data to the French Impressionists, the raw material of an optical sublime. In our own era, when art has no center or has centers everywhere, light as a medium has atomized into countless forms and meanings, from fluorescent tubes and video screens to glittering magpie-eye scraps and painted rainbows.

#art #cartographie #design #lumière #contraste

I am the New Year…
I stretch before you three hundred and sixty-five days long.
I will present each day, in its turn, a new leaf
In the book of life, for you to place upon it, your imprint.
I am the New Year…
White and pure...for you to fill
With…love, hope, endeavor, patience and trust in God.
I am the New Year,
I am coming—But once past, I can never be recalled,
You choose—and choose well.
What I am depends on you.

~ Rabbi Gerald Wolpe, z"l

City and County Officials Call for a New Year’s Eve without Gunfire – Supervisor Mark Ridley-Thomas, Second Supervisorial District, Public Safety Page
►http://ridley-thomas.lacounty.gov/publicsafety/nye-gunfire

With the tragedy in Newtown heavy in the air, Supervisor Mark Ridley-Thomas joined law enforcement officials, city and other county leaders to urge New Year’s revelers to celebrate responsibly and forego one of the most season’s most dangerous and deadly rituals: shooting a firearm into the air at the stroke of midnight.

#nra #armes #Californie

Sony Trinitron Timeline Shows Why It Will Live Forever In Our Hearts
►http://gizmodo.com/363191/sony-trinitron-timeline-shows-why-it-will-live-forever-in-our-hearts

http://img.gawkerassets.com/img/17m7kyhqjcm7ljpg/original.jpg

For other Gizmodo timelines, check:
• Requiem: the Analog Cellphone Timeline
• LEGO Brick Timeline: 50 Years of Building Frenzy and Curiosities
• 100 Years of Tech in the Times Square New Year’s Ball

#histoire #technologie

USDA Prepares to Green-Light Gnarliest GMO Soy Yet | Mother Jones
►http://www.motherjones.com/tom-philpott/2012/07/usda-prepares-ground-dows-herbicide-sucking-crops

In early July, on the sleepy Friday after Independence Day, the USDA quietly signaled its intention to green-light a new genetically engineered soybean seed from Dow AgroSciences. The product is designed to produce soy plants that withstand 2,4-D, a highly toxic herbicide (and, famously, the less toxic component in the notorious Vietnam War-era defoliant Agent Orange).

Readers may remember that during an even-sleepier period—the week between Christmas and the New Year—the USDA made a similar move on Dow’s 2,4-D-ready corn.

#OGM #agrochimie #soja #agrobusiness

Alors, voici comment ça se passe : tu es libanais, Israël décide que tu es « membre du Hezbollah », et expédie ton nom à toutes les douanes de la planète. Et là, tu te retrouves en taule en… Thaïlande.

AFP : Thailand arrests suspect after US terror warning
►http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5gcg48l2nyqStpzQeS8vabQiAtNbw?docId=CNG.4cb92f4302b4842503142f12e4e0b7d

BANGKOK — Thai authorities said Friday they had detained a Lebanese man with suspected links to the Hezbollah militant group, after the United States warned of a terrorist threat against tourists in the kingdom.

[…]

A Thai senior intelligence officer who did not want to be named told AFP that the kingdom had been informed before the New Year by Israel of a possible threat.

[…]

“We already have one suspect in custody for interrogation at a government building in Bangkok. He is a Hezbollah from Lebanon,” he said.

[…]

“Israel was suspicious that these two men might be terrorists, so they gave information, including their names, to our police before the New Year,” the senior intelligence officer said.
The suspect has denied involvement with any terrorist activities, he added.

“These two men entered Thailand a while ago but did not conduct any terrorist activity. I wonder why Israel was suspicious about them.”

Lancaster Unity : ’Anonymous’ declares ’Blitzkrieg’ on neo-Nazis
►http://lancasteruaf.blogspot.com/2012/01/anonymous-declares-blitzkrieg-on-neo.html

“Anonymous” hackers have declared “Blitzkrieg” on neo-Nazis for the New Year, disabling a number of their websites and publishing lists of extreme-right supporters.

A “Nazi-Leaks” portal has appeared on the internet listing hundreds of names of people subscribed to various shops selling far-right clothing, as well as writers for the Junge Freiheit newspaper which carries contributions from far-right commentators. The hackers say they have managed to close down 15 websites associated with the neo-Nazi National Democratic Party (NPD), the Frankfurter Rundschau reported on Monday. They have reportedly called their campaign “Operation Blitzkrieg”.

The paper said that the German version of the neo-Nazi internet platform “Altermedia” was at times offline. A Twitter message addressed to those trying to get into the site wished “all Nazis and in particular Altermedia a good start to the New Year.”

Orwell Was An Optimist: Happy New Year - Falkvinge on Infopolicy
►http://falkvinge.net/2012/01/03/orwell-was-an-optimist-happy-new-year

When Orwell painted his dystopic future (which is out of copyright in Australia), perhaps this paragraph summarizes the dystopian society most of all:

The telescreen received and transmitted simultaneously. Any sound that Winston made, above the level of a very low whisper, would be picked up by it, moreover, so long as he remained within the field of vision which the metal plaque commanded, he could be seen as well as heard.

...

In the book 1984, the government is able to watch three things. What we say out loud, who we meet in our homes, and what we do in our own home. They are only able to observe this as it happens; if they missed it, you are safe, but there was no way to tell if they missed it.

Today, we have arrived at a point where the Western “free” governments can monitor:

What you say at home, and more importantly, what you think of
What news articles you read, for how long, and in what order
Your dating preferences
Your future travel plans..

Call for New Year’s Eve noise demos outside of prisons, jails, and detention centers worldwide « Guerrilla News

Noise demos outside of prisons in some countries are a continuing tradition. A way of expressing solidarity for people imprisoned during the New Year, remembering those held captive by the state. A noise demo breaks the isolation and alienation of the cells our enemies create, but it does not have to stop at that.Prison has a long history within capital, being one of the most archaic forms of prolonged torture and punishment. It has been used to kill some slowly and torture those unwanted – delinquents to the reigning order – who have no need of fitting within the predetermined mold of society.

Prison is used not only as an institution, but a whole apparatus, constructed externally from outside of the prison walls. Which our enemies by way of defining our everyday life as a prison, manifest themselves in many places, with banks that finance prison development (like Wells Fargo, Bank of America, BNP Paribas, Bank of the West, and Barclays), companies that are contracted for the development of prisons (like Bergelectric Corporation, SASCO Electric, Engineered Control Systems, MacDonald Miller Facility SLTNS and Kane MFG Corp.), investors in prison development (like Barclays Intl. and Merrlin Lynch) to the police and guards who hide behind their badges and the power of the state.

►https://guerrillanews.wordpress.com/2011/12/02/call-for-noise-demos-outside-of-prisons-jails-and-detention

After initial success, magazine purchases on Apple #iPad decline - AppleInsider
►http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/10/12/29/after_initial_success_magazine_purchases_on_apple_ipad_decline.html

Sales of some major digital magazines on Apple’s iPad have seen a sharp decline since their debut earlier this year, showing that many customers are not coming back for more.

Le plus drôle :

“Publishers are hopeful their December and January numbers will bump back up after more consumers get their hands on digital devices during the holidays,” author John Koblin wrote. “Call it an early New Year’s wish.”

Voilà, c’est mauvais, et le seul moyen de relancer les ventes, c’est d’amener de nouveaux pigeons pour « essayer ». Comme le CD-Rom : une fois que tout le monde s’est fait pigeonner à acheter un exemplaire « pour voir » ce que ça donne, plus personne n’en achète.