9/11 Tsunami Poster – Insensitivity or Design at its best?

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What do you guys think of this poster that was pretty well documented in the media this past week? Is it insensitive …or a well constructed commentary piece? It should be noted that the poster was not requested by the World Wildlife Fund. It was put together by DDB Brazil and submitted to the WWF but was rejected. While I personally find it could be labeled as being insensitive, I feel that the poster was very well designed around its central core idea to bring awareness of how devastating the Tsunami was.
– FlashAddict

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“The Tsunami killed 100 times more people than 9/11.
The planet is brutally powerful. Respect it. Preserve it. http://www.wwf.org”

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Keith Olbermann had this to say about the poster in his “Worst Persons in the World” segment the other day:

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DDB, WWF reeling from fallout over 9/11 ad

Friday. In their joint apology for this now-infamous 9/11 ad, DDB Brazil and WWF Brazil mentioned their previous collaborations. Here’s a sampling of ads they’ve done together since 2007.

http://adweek.blogs.com/adfreak/2009/09/911-was-nothing-according-to-new-wwf-ad.html

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Take a look at these otherwise insensitive or offensive poster campaigns as well for comparison by Benetton:

John DeVeaux – Portfolio

To download a high-res PDF version of my portfolio, please click the link below (17 MB in size):

http://www.ecuad.ca/~jdeveaux/john_deveaux_portfolio.pdf

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About the Artist

John DeVeaux is a third year Film, Video and Integrated Media student at the Emily Carr University of Art + Design in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.

Classifying himself as a Digital Artist with future aspirations to be an accomplished professional in either the film or video game industry, his work focuses on combining a wide range of media including crowd sourcing, data capture, film/video, installation, storytelling and internet blogging.

Artist Statement

clean   [kleen] -er, -est, adverb,  -er, -est, verb –adjective
1. characterized by a fresh, wholesome quality: the clean smell of pine.
2. free from all writing or marking: a clean sheet of paper.
3. complete; unqualified: a clean break with tradition.
+
sim·ple   [sim-puhl] -pler, -plest, noun –adjective
1. easy to understand, deal with, use, etc.: a simple matter; simple tools.
2. not elaborate or artificial: a simple style.
3. not ornate or luxurious: a simple gown.
+
ef·fec·tive   [i-fek-tiv] –adjective
1. producing the intended or expected result: effective steps toward peace.
2. creating a deep or vivid impression; striking: an effective photograph.
3. able to accomplish a purpose: an efficient secretary.
=
de·sign   [di-zahyn] –verb (used with object)
1. to plan the form and structure of: to design a new bridge.
2. the combination of details or features of a picture, building, etc.: the design on a bracelet.
3. to intend for a definite purpose: a scholarship designed for foreign students.

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World of Warcraft: The Burning Addiction
Research Project – ECUAD Creative Process 2007

For this project, I wanted to focus on what extent people would spend time from their real lives on their virtual ones. I then went to the Alcoholics Anonymous website and took their manifesto of questions that they ask potential addicts (ie: Have you ever missed school or work due to alcohol?) and then remixed the questions to ask my fellow Warcraft players (ie: Have you ever missed school or work due to Warcraft?) and was amazed at how honest their responses were.

Click the link below to download the full project PDF and explore the addictive qualities of video games in greater detail (1 MB in size):

http://www.ecuad.ca/~jdeveaux/addiction/addiction_print.pdf

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World of Warcraft: Haikus
Video Editing and Production – ECUAD Video Art 2009

This Video Art project required us to use found footage and splice it together within the theme of a haiku and I chose to focus again on World of Warcraft. Several different scenes from official game play trailers were used along with my own poem sequences in order to create its own unique storyline set to a haunting yet beautiful soundtrack.

I also received some additional publicity from a major World of Warcraft fan blog and as a result, have now had over 6,000 views on YouTube:

http://www.wowinsider.com/2009/05/12/wow-moviewatch-world-of-warcraft-haikus/

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Medal of Honor: European Assault
Poster Design – ECUAD Design Essentials 2005

With creative control to choose our own subject matter, I decided to create this poster for the soon to be released add-on of the popular Medal of Honor video game using World War II imagery and incorporating pertinent graphics and typeface layouts, with the centerpiece being this iconic image of the D-Day landing.

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Emily Carr Foundation Exhibition
Poster Design – ECUAD Digital Basics 2008

In my Digital Basics course, our instructor challenged us to create our own poster design that would be submitted for that year’s Foundation Exhibition. The design that I chose focused on a clean and precise grid layout, with the typeface echoing this overall theme as well.

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Read Between the Lies
Poster Design – ECUAD Visual Communication 2008

With an overall political theme required for this project for my Visual Communications course, I decided to focus on the ongoing tragedy occurring in Iraq. I wanted my critique to be bold and biting, yet symbolic at the same time by using George W. Bush’s own words being contradicted by documented facts on the ground within the layout of the American flag.

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The Starlight Express
Poster Design – ECUAD Design Essentials 2005

One of the first poster design projects that I worked on in the Design Essentials program at ECUAD and BCIT, I wanted the overall theme to reflect a bygone age in which the Royal Hudson train serviced passengers from Vancouver to Squamish. This was all tied in with the upcoming 2010 Winter Olympics along with using Futura as the typeface.

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International Campaign to Ban Landmines
Layout Design – ECUAD Design Essentials 2005

This layout design was created to reflect on the tragedy that landmines cause in third world countries by mirroring two family units. Where the Nuclear Family is shown with the requisite two parents and two children, the Landmine Family is shown with obvious limbs missing and the daughter being replaced by a tombstone due to a landmine explosion.

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Tribeca Film Festival
Layout Design – ECUAD Design Essentials 2005

Utilizing still images from the films playing in that year’s festival, a double-sided handbook spread was made highlighting film screenings and appearances in a clean and elegant design.

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Phoenix Rising v1.0
3D Design – ECUAD Design One 2007

These sculptures were created for my Design One class as the project called for us to construct new and unique 3D sculptures by combining a singular object in a repetitive fashion so that the original object would get lost in the sum of the whole of the new piece. Version 1.0 is a freestanding structure and able to balance on the tips of plastic spoons.

Phoenix Rising v2.0
3D Design – ECUAD Design One 2007

Version 2.0 was created as an alternative and two interpretations that I have with this sculpture are that of a Phoenix Rising out of flames (hence the title of the pieces) or of a frame-by-frame rotation of a high board diver tucking in as he falls to the water below.

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OBSCENE
Flipbook – ECUAD Digital and Interactive Arts 2008

Wanting to play on my audience’s moral standards, this flipbook showcased a woman performing an otherwise overtly sexualized activity, yet because I enlarged and hyper pixilated the original video footage, the viewer is not able to immediately ascertain what they are viewing. On initial viewing, they may in fact realize what they are seeing, but due to their personal embarrassment, may not give in to such puerile thoughts.

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HDR Porteau Cove
HDR Photography – ECUAD Digital and Interactive Arts 2009

On a very windy and cold January afternoon, my girlfriend and I drove up to Whistler from Vancouver and stopped briefly at the Provincial Park in Porteau Cove where I wanted to capture the incredible whitecap waves and this beautiful island in the distance. I took my original shot into Photoshop and digitally manipulated it in order to create this much richer and vibrant image.

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Oppositions
Design Exploration – ECUAD Design One 2007

Playing around in Illustrator for one of my Design One projects in 2007, I became transfixed in creating artificial 3D perspective illustrations on a digital 2D plane that draws the viewer in to mesmerize and make them dizzy.

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Compression
Typography Exploration – ECUAD Visual Communication 2008

For this typography exploration, I decided on taking words at their literal meaning and creating abstract illustrations out of the words themselves. Compression being a thematically delicious word to utilize in such a fashion, the word is repeated and imploded without end into itself.

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Poster Girl
Illustrator Project – ECUAD Design Essentials 2005

One of my first major digital illustrations, this image has always been a favorite of mine and its title harkens back to the process of origination by using the Posterize tool in Photoshop to create the initial blueprint and then cleaning it all up within Illustrator.

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ROLEX Submariner
Illustrator Project – ECUAD Design Essentials 2005

Another of my digital illustrations, I spent over 20 hours on this perfecting every detail in order to match the precision of the original watch itself. Created entirely in Illustrator, this illustration could substitute for the original any day.

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Idris Salih Photography
Website Design, Identity, Logo 2005

One of my freelance web design clients back in 2005, I was originally hired to just design and produce his portfolio site, but after seeing the logo and identity that he had been using, I challenged myself to provide him with a new one which would reflect the high contrast and starkness that is representational of his b/w portraiture photography and he loved it.

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John Fortunato Photography
Website Design 2005

Another of my freelance web design clients from a few years back, his work reflected a lot of what my design philosophy entails as well: clean + simple + elegant = design. With that in mind, I decided to use a clean palette with a lot of white space and simple, yet intuitive navigation, in order to allow the photographs to stand out and have greater impact on the viewer.

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World of Warcraft – Haikus

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I made this video for my Video Art class at the Emily Carr University of Art + Design in Vancouver, BC, Canada this spring and it is based on the online video game, World of Warcraft.

The project required us to use found footage and splice it together within the theme of a haiku and I chose to focus on Warcraft, using several different scenes from official gameplay trailers along with my own haiku sequences in order to create its own unique storyline.

Enjoy!
– FlashAddict

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http://www.warcraftmovies.com/movieview.php?id=110645

http://www.wowinsider.com/2009/05/12/wow-moviewatch-world-of-warcraft-haikus/

World of Warcraft – Secrets of Ulduar – Patch 3.1 Trailer

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Tis that time of year again, when the powers that be (aka Blizzard) releases the newest patch for WoW – Ulduar looks pretty sweet and I am looking forward to raiding this new instance after spending the past 5 months running Naxx every single week!
– FlashAddict

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Tim Berners-Lee: The next Web of open, linked data

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So many years after the birth of the World Wide Web, it is quite riveting to hear the father of the Internet talk about the future of things to come. Hypertext data on steroids…
– FlashAddict

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20 years ago, Tim Berners-Lee invented the World Wide Web. For his next project, he’s building a web for open, linked data that could do for numbers what the Web did for words, pictures, video: unlock our data and reframe the way we use it together.

http://www.ted.com

Not just a video game: the obsessive world of gaming and its young stars

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Reading this article really hit home and reminded me of the project I did last year dealing with World of Warcraft and its addictive characteristics:

– FlashAddict

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Ontario boy’s death focused attention on industry

Last Updated: Friday, March 6, 2009 | 6:06 PM ET

As far as his parents were concerned, Brandon Crisp was just playing one of his video games, a time-consuming pastime for the 15-year-old.

Brandon Crisp ran away on Thanksgiving after an argument with his parents about his obsession with playing video games. (Canadian Press)

Little did they know the Barrie, Ont., teen was making his way to the top tier of the gaming world, where all that time in front of the gaming console might start to pay off with big wins and recognition in an alternate online gaming universe.

When Steve and Angelika Crisp confiscated his console on Thanksgiving Monday, Oct. 13, 2008, the teen threatened to run away from home — and did. His body was found three weeks later in a forest, with the cause of death determined to have been a blow to the chest likely caused by falling from a tree.

CBC-TV’s Fifth Estate took a closer look at the case in a documentary titled Top Gun which airs Friday at 9 p.m. ET.

Though Crisp’s disappearance began as a simple missing child case, it grew into something larger, prompting parents and officials to turn their eye on a world they barely knew — the quickly growing video gaming circuit — and its allure for young and impressionable teens.

The video gaming world, with graphics so sophisticated they make the settings seem real and lucrative prizes that rival some professional sports, is enticing to children, many of them younger than the ages recommended in game ratings.

The Crisps admit they had no idea how important video games had become to their son and said they would never have bought the console as a Christmas gift if they’d known where it might lead.

“He was the kind of kid that would want to be the best at everything or anything that he did,” said Steve Crisp.

Brandon had put that passion into hockey years earlier but stopped playing at 12, frustrated about getting benched because of his small size.

He found a new niche in the so-called first-person shooter genre of video games, in which the player experiences the game through the eyes of a fighter on a mission. Brandon became obsessed, playing the Xbox video game Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare on a television in his bedroom every chance he got.

“We’d wake up in the middle of the night sometimes and find him playing games at two or three in the morning,” said his father. “I would go into his room and literally rip the cords out of the wall sometimes just because he just wouldn’t listen. He wouldn’t get off.”

Reaching for the top

It was Nick, a friend Brandon met on a school bus in the first week of Grade 9 in 2007, who introduced the teen to playing Call of Duty online, opening up a whole new world.

A growing industry
The popularity of video games continues to climb in both the U.S. and Canada. In Canada, the video gaming market — including software, hardware and accessories — raked in $2.1 billion in 2008, a 33 per cent increase from the previous year. American retailers, meanwhile, saw $21.33 billion in sales in 2008, a 19-per-cent increase from $18 billion in 2007. The top-selling video games around the world in 2008 were: Mario Kart Wii, 8.94 million units. Wii Fit, 8.31 million units. Grand Theft Auto IV, 7.29 million units. Super Smash Bros: Brawl, 6.32 million units. Call of Duty: World at War, 5.89 million units.
(Source: NPD Group)

The friends formed a team, or clan, on Gamebattles.com — one of the fastest-growing online gaming sites — that allowed them to go on video game missions together, work their way up player rankings and win prizes. Owned by Major League Gaming, the site boasts 2.5 million registered users.

Soon, the members of the group were battling insurgents together in a virtual landscape stretching from the Middle East to Russia.

“We all kind of got good,” said Nick, but it was Brandon who proved the natural leader.

As Brandon became more and more immersed in the world, his parents were trying to limit his playing time. They even tried to cancel his online gaming subscription, but Xbox refused because the account was prepaid.

Then, three days before Thanksgiving, his parents discovered Brandon had skipped school to play the game. The Crisps took the Xbox away and hid it in their bedroom.

But Brandon found it, plugged the console back in and started playing again.

“Son, this time, it’s just not coming back,” Steve recalls saying. Brandon reacted by threatening to run away from home.

The two called what they thought was a bluff.

“I said, ‘Brandon, you’re not going to leave over a game. That’s ridiculous’,” said Angelika. Then she advised him to take a warm coat if he was going to leave.

He sped off with his coat and a knapsack on a mountain bicycle he hadn’t ridden in three years. A week later, that bicycle was found abandoned in a ditch by the side of a road in Shanty Bay, a few kilometres from his home.

Hunters found Brandon’s body several weeks later on Nov. 5 in a farmer’s field in the area north of Barrie.

Parents feel like hostages: expert

Brandon Crisp’s casket is carried out of St. Mary’s Church in Barrie, Ont., on Nov. 14, 2008. (Steven D’Souza/CBC)

During the three-week-long search, many comments were made about the type of kid Brandon was, but his friend Nick says it could’ve happened to anyone.

“It wasn’t Brandon’s fault. There’s a lot of people that get sucked into that game,” said Nick. “I could have been in the same situation as Brandon or any of my friends could have.”

Gary Direnfeld, a social worker in Dundas, Ont., known for his advice on the lifestyle television show Newlywed, Nearly Dead?, said his practice has seen a rise in the number of parents seeking help for their children’s gaming addictions.

“The parents are at their wit’s end,” said Direnfeld. “They’re pulling out their hair. They don’t know what to do. They get held hostage by the backlash from their teenager when the teenager says, ‘You can’t do that to me.’ They’re scared.”

While video games aren’t the same as drugs, Direnfeld says they can produce a similar effect: a sense of euphoria and power plus an adrenaline rush that proves addictive.

Peer pressure prevents breaks

Daniel Folmer, 24, of Texas was eight years old when he started playing first-person shooter games and became addicted.

“I felt physically compelled to play,” he said. “And every time I couldn’t play, I was angry; I was upset.”

Folmer remembers how he felt chills each time the game loaded up and revelled in killing hundreds of virtual people with his sniper rifle. He later quit cold turkey and now gives lectures about helping people get over their gaming addictions.

Folmer said the problem with online gaming was not only the violence but the intensity and sense of responsibility players feel to the team members with whom they spend hours on the console.

“If I wasn’t playing enough, my team would get upset,” said Folmer. “Then I would say to my mom, ‘I have to play, I have to play’.”

Peer pressure is built into the games, said family therapist Gary Direnfeld, with friends relying on each other to advance up the rankings ladder.

“Forget getting killed. If I get called to dinner, if I want to go do my homework, I’m letting down my team,” said Direnfeld. “Somebody else may die. And if they die, they’re out of the game.”

Top of the gaming world

Six months before Brandon ran away, he and his friends had signed up the clan for the Gamebattles Call of Duty ladder and were quickly caught up in the competition. But they, too, experienced the frustration when some failed to pull their weight.

Several months later, Brandon split with his friends and began focusing more time on his game.

According to his friends, he had reached the highest level of the so-called prestige mode in Call of Duty.

“That takes a lot of skill and a lot of dedication and hard work,” Folmer said when told of Brandon’s achievement by the Fifth Estate. “And I mean, that’s like … he’s an all-star.”

The Crisps learned after Brandon’s death that the Thanksgiving weekend when he ran away was key to their son finally closing in on the top ranks of his Call of Duty competition ladder. He had skipped school for a match and had others scheduled. Then his parents took away the console, causing him to lose his hard-fought ranking in a hobby he hoped to turn into a profession.

In fact, video gaming, referred to by some as an e-sport, can translate into a profitable career. Major League Gaming, which owns Gamebattles.com, has turned what once was an inside pastime into a televised spectator sport, with tournaments featuring $100,000 prizes and professional teams with their own coaches and sponsors.

The four players with Canada’s top professional video gaming team, Amp Energy Pro Team, consider themselves athletes and are fully dedicated to the career. They won’t disclose their earnings, but some professionals in the field are making hundreds of thousands of dollars a year.

Only now do his parents fully comprehend what video games had come to mean to Brandon.

“It would be devastating for someone to be disconnected,” acknowledged his mother, Angelika.

“It’s cult-like, and you can understand why he’d run down for dinner, run back up to his room and get back on the game and play in the middle of the night and be so mad when I’d rip the thing out of the wall unexpectedly when he’s in the middle of a game or a tournament,” said Steve.

No more violent than cartoons: MLG

But Brandon’s father says the gaming industry needs to be subject to more stringent regulations and shouldn’t allow children to compete for money.

“It needs to be way more regulated than it is” said Crisp. “Kids are out there competing for money that are 13, 14, 10. It shouldn’t be allowed.”

Brandon’s game of choice, Call of Duty, is rated M for mature, meaning its suitable for ages 17 and older. In Ontario, Manitoba, Nova Scotia and New Brunswick, it’s illegal to sell M-rated games to those under 17. Saskatchewan and Alberta are in the process of introducing similar regulations.

The Entertainment Software Rating Board, a self-regulated body established by the industry, allots the ratings.

“When the industry itself says that kids under 17 shouldn’t be playing this game, then … a parent can be pretty sure that it’s not appropriate for a 10-, 11-, 12-, 13-year-old kid to be playing,” said David Walsh, a child psychologist who pushed for the ratings system.

Major League Gaming CEO Matthew Bromberg says the average age of Gamebattles players is 18, which means many are younger. “It’s no more violent than a cartoon on Saturday morning,” he says.

“We don’t manufacture the game. We’re not raising the kids. What we’re doing is creating the sport that millions of kids are really interested in.”

Walsh said the gaming industry has sent a “double message” to children by “encouraging young kids to get involved with games that aren’t rated for them.”

Danielle Labossiere-Parr, executive director of the industry group Entertainment Software Association of Canada, points out it is often parents purchasing the games for their children.

She said ratings are clearly stamped on the front of game packages and parents need to educate themselves on their purchases.

“The way that we are conveying the ratings information is effective,” said Labossiere-Parr. But ultimately, you know, we can’t control what goes into every home.”

As for the Crisps, who only now understand a world their son spent most of his time inhabiting, they wish they’d taken control a lot sooner.

“Like other parents, we’ve taken the easy way out too many times, and this is what it results in,” said Steve. “I’m not saying we’re bad parents. I think we do what a lot of other parents do.”

http://www.cbc.ca/canada/story/2009/03/03/f-video-gaming.html

Mad World – which version do you like best?

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One of my all-time favorite sons, Mad World, originally by Tears for Fears has been redone countless times and in each new interpretation, artists have brought their own passion and truth to what is in my opinion a very haunting and provocative song. I was amazed to find that the song has been used to the extent that is has been – see below and enjoy!
– FlashAddict

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– fan made Machinima trailer that covers the entire song – was inspired after watching the original trailer above

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All around me are familiar faces
Worn out places, worn out faces
Bright and early for their daily races
Going nowhere, going nowhere
Their tears are filling up their glasses
No expression, no expression
Hide my head I want to drown my sorrow
No tomorrow, no tomorrow
And I find it kind of funny
I find it kind of sad
The dreams in which I’m dying
Are the best I’ve ever had
I find it hard to tell you
I find it hard to take
When people run in circles
It’s a very, very
Mad World
Mad world
Children waiting for the day they feel good
Happy Birthday, Happy Birthday
And I feel the way that every child should
Sit and listen, sit and listen
Went to school and I was very nervous
No one knew me, no one knew me
Hello teacher tell me what’s my lesson
Look right through me, look right through me
And I find it kind of funny
I find it kind of sad
The dreams in which I’m dying
Are the best I’ve ever had
I find it hard to tell you
I find it hard to take
When people run in circles
It’s a very, very
Mad World
Mad World
Enlarging your world
Mad World.

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Background

“Mad World” began life as the intended b-side for Tears for Fears’ second single “Pale Shelter (You Don’t Give Me Love)”. The band decided, however, that it may be something people would like to hear on the radio and held back its release, instead waiting to issue the song as a single in its own right after re-recording it with Chris Hughes.

That came when I lived above a pizza restaurant in Bath and I could look out onto the centre of the city. Not that Bath is very mad – I should have called it “Bourgeois World”!

—Roland Orzabal

“Mad World” was the first single off the finished album. The intention was to gain attention from it and we’d hopefully build up a little following. We had no idea that it would become a hit. Nor did the record company.

—Curt Smith

Meanings

Lyrically the song is pretty loose. It throws together a lot of different images to paint a picture without saying anything specific about the world.

—Roland Orzabal

It’s very much a voyeur’s song. It’s looking out at a mad world from the eyes of a teenager.

—Curt Smith

“Mad World” is a song by the British band Tears for Fears. Written by Roland Orzabal and sung by bassist Curt Smith, it was the band’s third single release and first chart hit, reaching #3 on the UK Singles Chart in November 1982. Both “Mad World” and its b-side, “Ideas As Opiates”, would turn up on the band’s debut LP The Hurting the following year. The song would eventually become Tears for Fears’ first international success, reaching the Top 40 in several countries between 1982 and 1983.

Two decades later, the song made a popular resurgence when it was covered by composers Michael Andrews and Gary Jules for the soundtrack to the movie Donnie Darko. This version reached no.1 in the UK in December 2003.

Michael Andrews and Gary Jules version

“Mad World” would achieve a second round of success beginning almost twenty years later, after it was covered by Michael Andrews and Gary Jules for the film Donnie Darko (2001). While the Tears for Fears version featured various synthesizers and percussion, the Andrews/Jules version was stripped down. Instead of a full musical backing, it used only a set of piano chords, a cello, and modest use of a vocoder on the chorus. Their version was originally released on CD in 2002 on the film’s soundtrack, but an increasing cult following spawned by the movie’s DVD release finally prompted Jules and Andrews to issue the song as a proper single. The release was a runaway success in late 2003, becoming the Number One single over the Christmas holiday in the UK, a feat Tears for Fears themselves never accomplished. The music video has been very popular on Youtube, garnerning over 11 million views as of 2009.

Popular culture

In late 2006, a condensed version of the Andrews/Jules cover of “Mad World” was featured in the award-winning commercial for the video game Gears of War. The advertisement has been credited with helping propel the song to #1 on the iTunes sales chart. In addition to its usage in numerous advertisements and fan-made YouTube videos, the Andrews/Jules cover has also become a popular choice for background music in television dramas, having appeared in the following series:

Cold Case CSI Emmerdale ER Jericho Judging Amy

Las Vegas Line of Fire Medical Investigation Nip/Tuck Silent Witness Smallville

Station X Tatort The Cleaner The L Word Third Watch Without a Trace

In 2006, the song appeared on Broadway as the closing number in Butley starring Nathan Lane.

Other versions

In addition to the Andrews/Jules version, “Mad World” has been recorded over the years by the following artists:

• French artist Nicola Sirkis, frontman of the new wave band Indochine, on his solo album Dans La Lune… (1992).
• American industrial rock band Kill Switch…Klick, on the Cleopatra Records compilation New Wave Goes To Hell (1998).
• American alternative rock band Finch, on their EP Rolling Stone Acoustic Session (2002).
• British singer-songwriter Alex Parks, on her debut album, Introduction (2003).
• American industrial act Brainclaw, downloadable on their website (2004).
• American metalcore band Evergreen Terrace, on their album Writer’s Block (2004).
• German punk rock band Die Toten Hosen, on their live DVD Rock am Ring 2004 (2004).
• Australian art rock band The Red Paintings, on their EP Walls (2005). This cover features an acoustic cello and guitar arrangement. While they modified the lyrics from the original version, in live performances they are known to enunciate words in different fashion giving it an altogether unique sound.
• German DJ Jan Wayne, on his single Mad World (2005).
• American singer-songwriter Sara Hickman, on her double album Motherlode (2006).
• Canadian rock bassist Ken Tizzard, on his album Quiet Storey House… An Introduction (2006).
• German a cappella group Wise Guys, on their album Radio (2006).
• American dark cabaret duo The Dresden Dolls, on their live DVD Live at the Roundhouse (2007). The performance features Trash McSweeney of Australian art rock band The Red Paintings.
• Canadian folk-singer Tara MacLean, on her EP Signs of Life (2007).
• German vocal band Gregorian, on their album Masters of Chant Chapter VI (2007).
• Vietnamese-Canadian singer Kristine Sa recorded a cover of the song.
• Israeli actress and model Melanie Peres recorded a cover of the song, as the theme song of Reshef Levy‘s film, “Lost Islands“.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mad_world

The Captain’s Wife’s Lament / Code Monkey / Just As Long As Me / Podsafe Christmas Song

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These World of Warcraft Machinima movies made me laugh and smile – definitely worth watching and will make you giggle and feel good inside!
– FlashAddict

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– From YouTube –

Jonathan Coulton is a singer/songwriter who releases his songs via the Creative Commons license, which enables projects such as this video. Through his “Thing A Week” podcast, Jonathan has put out a clever, creative song like this one every week for a year.

Mike Spiff Booth is a Program Manager at Adobe who thought this great song deserved a video.

Please visit http://www.spiffworld.com for more information about my videos, including info about how I make them.

http://www.spiffworld.com

http://www.jonathancoulton.com/

Road to riches ends for 20 million Chinese poor

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If you thought that the economy was bad here, look at what is happening in China…imagine 2/3 of the population of Canada suddenly unemployed?
– FlashAddict

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By Tomas Etzler and Jaime FlorCruz
CNN

JING SHI, China (CNN) — Tang Hui and his family prospered as migrant workers during China’s economic boom, earning $10,000 a year: enough to build a house, send a cousin to school and pay for his grandmother’s medical bills.

Tang Hui lost his manufacturing job in October just days after getting married.

But those good days are over. The family’s cash earnings have evaporated, snatched away by a manufacturing crash cascading across China caused by falling global demand for its goods.

The nine people in the Tang family are facing an income of zero; their best hope to survive is to grow rice and raise pigs at home in the Sichuan Mountains.

“Farming is really hard. It needs a lot of hard labor,” says 22-year-old Tang Hui, who lost his manufacturing job four months ago. “None of the young people want to farm nowadays. The income is extremely low.” See photos of the hard-scrabble life of Tang Hui »

A Chinese proverb says: “Going on the road to Sichuan is as hard as going to heaven.” Isolated and mountainous, Sichuan is China’s third most populous province; 60 percent of its 87 million residents are poor and live in the countryside, authorities say.

It became the nation’s biggest source of the 130 million farmers who migrated into Chinese cities, especially in the south, to provide cheap labor for factories that churned out products, mainly for export to the United States. The province was also rocked last May by a massive earthquake that killed tens of thousands of people.

Five years ago, Tang Hui left for southern Guangdong province to work in a factory producing handbags and backpacks. He had to drop out of high school because his family was so poor.

There, he earned enough to stash away savings for his wedding. But last October, just days after he got married, his factory abruptly closed down. It was receiving no more orders from its American clients. Watch Tang Hui walk muddy roads to get home »

“I hope the government can help us during this crisis,” he says. “I hope it won’t be like this for too long. Now, there is not even enough money to celebrate the holidays.”

At least he was able to spend the most important Chinese holiday of the year, the Spring Festival, at home in Qingbadong village.

The road uphill to the village was muddy and slippery. The winter rice fields were brown; the slopes were covered in winter fog. “In two, three months,” Tang Hui says, “everything will be green and blooming.”

And the festive mood — the first time in six years the whole family celebrated the holiday together — was short-lived.

Reality is never far away. Many of the villagers are unemployed. The Tang’s next-door neighbors, a married couple, lost their jobs in a Guangdong shoe factory after working there for 16 years.

“A few months without jobs would be disastrous for us,” Tang Hui frets.

Before they ventured out as migrants, the Tangs lived in a wooden shack. Now, they live in a two-story brick house, with 10 rooms, concrete floors, an open fire pit for cooking. Still, it has no running water and one outdoor latrine.  See where Sichuan province is located »

In the past months, about 70,000 factories nationwide have closed. Beijing official Chen Xiwen estimates about 20 million migrant workers have lost jobs. Tens of thousands of villages in the countryside depend on migrant workers’ income.

China analysts say the spike in unemployment has caught China off guard. “The central government is now telling local governments to provide help and job training, re-employment,” says Wenran Jiang, a political science professor and China expert at Canada’s University of Alberta.

Vice Minister of Commerce Jiang Zengwei says China is offering “a one-off subsidy of 100-150 yuan ($15 to $22) to 74 million low-income people … for temporary relief.” Still, it will take some time before such measures make a difference.  Watch few job hopes for Beijing grads »

Some analysts have suggested that a “rural revolution” is imminent amid the economic turmoil. However, Wenran Jiang says such talk is premature. But he also says the central government must do more in the coming months.

“Many migrant workers have lived a very hard and simple life,” he says. “They have some savings for a rainy day like this, so in the short-term they may be able to cope — but if eight or 12 months later things continue to deteriorate, it could turn volatile.”

Most farmers like the Tangs do not get social security. So villagers who lost factory jobs have few choices except go back to farming. But it is not easy.

Farming feeds people but brings little cash. Millions of the jobless are second-generation migrant workers, young people who grew up in cities.

“It would be very hard,” says Tang Hui. “I have never farmed. I don’t know how to do it.”

To cope, China is creating training programs in the countryside. One of the pilot centers is in Chongqing municipality. Some 30,000 workers have so far taken classes in farming, farming machinery repairs, tailoring and other vocational skills. The trainees got a one-time incentive of about $45.

But the Tangs have never heard about such programs. When asked about the central government’s plan to invest billions of dollars in countryside infrastructure as a part of a huge stimulus package, they expressed anger.

“The central government has good ideas and intentions, but the local officials often ignore them. The road in our village was built by the local government but we had to pay for it. Every family had to pay $100 or more. We get nothing from the government,” says Hui’s father, Tang Zhong Min.

In the evening, the family huddles around an open wood stove. The stove and a small portable electric heater are the only sources of warmth during the cold winter nights. A flickering fluorescent lightbulb barely lights the room.

Tang Hui’s wife, Li Xiaochun, is 21 years old. She used to cut leather in a textile factory, and will soon head back to Guangdong with her husband to search for work.

“I think to be at home is better. I didn’t get used to living outside. I didn’t get used to Guangdong. It is better at home,” she says.

Tang Hui then interrupts. “Of course, I also like it at home, but it is better in other places. Coming home is only good during the Spring Festival,” he says.

Despite the uncertainty, they remain optimistic.

“We are young. There must be some factories still open out there. We should be OK to go out and do something,” Li Xiaochun says.

But Tang Hui’s mother is not so convinced. “Of course I am worried. How can they live without jobs, with no money so far away from home?” asks 46-year-old Hu Xiaoju. “But I will definitely go, too.”

For the Tangs and millions of others in China, the road to Guangdong and employment may prove even more difficult then the proverbial road to Sichuan.

http://www.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/asiapcf/02/20/china.economy.family/index.html

Corrupted Blood brought about the end of the World…of Warcraft

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I never realized the extent of how far this affected players around the world – Here is how things spread like wildfire in the game and why doctors and scientists used it as a model for studying how real-life diseases can spread in a major urban environment – BBC News even covered it…see below!
– FlashAddict

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Corrupted Blood was a virtual plague that infected characters in the computer game World of Warcraft, spreading rapidly from character to character. Its resemblance to real-life disease epidemics drew international attention.

Corrupted Blood Plague taking place in Ironforge

The “epidemic” began on September 13, 2005 when Blizzard Entertainment, the developer of World of Warcraft, introduced a new instance dungeon called Zul’Gurub into the game as part of patch 1.7. Inside was a boss named Hakkar the Soulflayer, alluded to as the “blood god”. Players who fought Hakkar were affected by his debuff (a spell which has a negative effect over a fixed period of time). The debuff, in this case, was Corrupted Blood, a spell that caused 263–337 points of damage (compared to the average health of 2500–5000 for a character of the highest level, and with those at the mid-levels having about 1500) every two seconds to the afflicted character. The affliction was passed on to any characters standing too close to an infected character. While the curse would kill most lower-level characters in a matter of seconds, higher-level characters could keep themselves alive (via healing spells, having high stamina, or other means) long enough to spread the disease around the immense landscape inside the game. Death caused by the debuff did not cause any durability penalty, unlike most other causes of death in the game. The disease would eventually go away as time passed or when the infected character died.

The only way that a player was able to bring the disease outside of Zul’Gurub was by allowing a pet to get the debuff, dismissing the pet in less than five seconds, then summoning it in a populated area. (When dismissed, the pet retains the debuff and the timer of the debuff is paused.) This debuff transmission technique was first seen with the “living bomb” debuff from Baron Geddon in Molten Core. The plague was spread by players’ pets that contracted the disease and also by malicious players known as “griefers”, who found ways to bring the digital virus into heavily inhabited areas.

After a few days, Corrupted Blood had become World of Warcraft‘s version of the Black Death, rendering entire cities uninhabitable and causing players to avoid large clusters of others, and in many cases, causing players to avoid major cities altogether.

Due to the curse’s peculiar behavior—it was never meant to leave Zul’Gurub—the ability to infect pets and NPCs was a side effect unconsidered by the developers. The intended behavior involves the final boss fight with Hakkar. Every so often, Hakkar will cast this debuff on a random player, effectively forcing players to be spread apart, or in the case of melee classes, to move away from Hakkar before spreading it to the other melee classes. Blizzard Entertainment tried several times to fix the problem, including imposing a quarantine on certain places. This “plague” was eventually “cured” by restarting the servers, and changing the mechanics of the Hakkar encounter to eliminate the spreading of the effect from character to character. Hakkar still has an ability called Corrupted Blood, but it now takes the form of a red bolt launched at a random player fighting the boss. The player and those nearby take damage, and receive a heavy damage over time, but the effect no longer spreads further.

Due to the large scale outbreak of the “plague” (some servers had half of their characters infected), it drew wide attention from the media.

In March 2007, Ran D Balicer, an epidemiologist physician at the Ben-Gurion University in Israel, published an article in the Journal Epidemiology describing the similarities between this outbreak and the recent SARS and avian influenza outbreaks. Dr Balicer suggested role-playing games could serve as an advanced platform for modeling the dissemination of infectious diseases. In a follow-up article in the journal Science, the game Second Life was suggested as another possible platform for these studies.

In August 2007, Nina Fefferman, a Tufts University assistant research professor of public health and family medicine, called for research on this incident, citing the resemblances with biological plagues. Some scientists want to study how people would react to environmental pathogens, by using the virtual counterpart as a point of reference. Subsequently she co-authored a paper in the journal “Lancet Infectious Diseases” discussing the epidemiological and disease modeling implications of the outbreak, along with Eric Lofgren, a University of North Carolina graduate student.

In addition, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention requested statistics on this event for research on epidemics, but it is unknown if they followed through with their request after learning that it was just caused by a bug.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corrupted_blood

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Deadly plague hits Warcraft world

By Mark Ward Technology Correspondent, BBC News website

Players get the chance to be heroes in World of Warcraft

A deadly virtual plague has broken out in the online game World of Warcraft.

Although limited to only a few of the game’s servers the numbers of characters that have fallen victim is thought to be in the thousands.

Originally it was thought that the deadly digital disease was the result of a programming bug in a location only recently added to the Warcraft game.

However, it now appears that players kicked off the plague and then kept it spreading after the first outbreak.

Since its launch in November 2004, World of Warcraft (Wow) has become the most widely played massively multiplayer online (MMO) game in the world.

Its creator, Blizzard, claims that now more than four million people are regular players.

Last rites

Wow is an online game that gives players the chance to adventure in the fantasy world of Azeroth that is populated by the usual mixture of humans, elves, orcs and other fantastic beasts.

As players explore the world, the characters they control become more powerful as they complete quests, kill monsters and find magical items and artefacts that boost abilities.

The Warcraft world is a familiar fantasy setting

To give these powerful characters more of a challenge, Blizzard regularly introduces new places to explore in the online world.

In the last week, it added the Zul’Gurub dungeon which gave players a chance to confront and kill the fearsome Hakkar – the god of Blood.

In his death throes Hakkar hits foes with a “corrupted blood” infection that can instantly kill weaker characters.

The infection was only supposed to affect those in the immediate vicinity of Hakkar’s corpse but some players found a way to transfer it to other areas of the game by infecting an in-game virtual pet with it.

This pet was then unleashed in the orc capital city of Ogrimmar and proved hugely effective as the Corrupted Blood plague spread from player to player.

Although computer controlled characters did not contract the plague, they are said to have acted as “carriers” and infected player-controlled characters they encountered.

Body count

The first server, or “realm” as Blizzard calls them, affected by the plague was Archimonde; but it is known to have spread to at least two others.

The spread of the disease could have been limited by the fact that Hakkar is difficult to kill, so some realms may not yet have got round to killing him and unleashing his parting shot.

In World of Warcraft players can be orcs, humans or other fantastic creatures

The digital disease instantly killed lower level characters and did not take much longer to kill even powerful characters.

Many online discussion sites were buzzing with reports from the disaster zones with some describing seeing “hundreds” of bodies lying in the virtual streets of the online towns and cities.

“The debate amongst players now is if it really was intentional although due to the effects of the problem it seems unlikely,” Paul Younger, an editor on the unofficial worldofwar.net site, told the BBC News website.

“It’s giving players something to talk about and could possibly be considered the first proper ‘world event'”, he said.

Luckily the death of a character in World of Warcraft is not final so all those killed were soon resurrected.

Blizzard tried to control the plague by staging rolling re-starts of all the servers supporting the Warcraft realms and applying quick fixes.

However, there are reports that this has not solved all the problems and that isolated pockets of plague are breaking out again.

The “Corrupted Blood” plague is not the first virtual disease to break out in game worlds. In May 2000 many players of The Sims were outraged when their game characters died because of an infection contracted from a dirty virtual guinea pig.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/4272418.stm