After winning rights to host football championships in 2012, it would be just too perfect if we won also Expo 2012 in Wroclaw. The city would simply rocket. It’s quite hot already. If we won, even I would consider going back to work there.
Today I wanted to check when the decision is due.
According to Wroclaw?s expo site, delegates of the Bureau of International Expositions will vote in December. I?m counting on a nice Christmas gift.
“At your place niggers get beaten as well”. The saying comes from the communist times, I guess, a parody of communists who were trying to present themselves as no worse than Western democracies whenever someone mentioned human rights abuses. Guess that’s natural way to go when you’re in denial.
Half empty glass getting more empty.
Catherine Mayer closing an article in Time about accusations in Alexander Litvinenko case:
Russia’s relations with Europe have become increasingly fractious as it flexes its new clout owing to rising prices for its vast stores of natural resources. It now supplies around a quarter of Europe’s natural gas and a rising proportion of its oil. Human rights, however, are in shorter supply. Earlier this month, German Chancellor Angela Merkel chided Putin for restrictions on opposition rallies during an E.U.-Russia summit. Putin’s response: “What is pure democracy? It is a question of . . . whether you want to see the glass half-full or half-empty.” While Litvinenko’s murder remains unsolved, many fear the levels in that glass will continue to fall.
Definitely everyone wants to see glass half full, here in Moscow. It might get tougher in time, though.
Some time ago I wrote a couple of post about social bookmarking, namely about starting with del.icio.us and later reviewing Blinklist. And now, since I cannot sleep in this Moscow, I took a look at Alexa chart to see how the guys are doing… but what’s this?
Del.icio.us:
Similar story in case of Blinklist and Simpy.
Seems social bookmarking is out of fashion lately. Oh, and it seems Philipp Keller has already written about it. So we are in trough of disillusionment stage now. And I’m not even ashamed of what I wrote on “Peak of inflated expectations”, just still amazed how did I manage to write such a long review of Blinklist. And Simpy review was supposed to be even longer, and I even had a nice pyramid diagram of the bookmarking phenomenon, but I never got to finish the article.
Anyway, Philipp’s identification of hype stage would match my case, too, since I don’t use del.icio.us anymore. Actually I didn’t bother to reinstall the plugin after swapping the laptop. And interacting with web interface is slow and you have to navigate the pages and wait for them too load… makes me rather stick to the messy bookmarks menu in Firefox.
But that gives me some idea about the next hype stage, “slope of enlightenment”. Integrate bookmarking seamlessly into browser (not only tagging, but also browsing and searching) and it will finally work as it should, and I will use it again.
This according to the news from job market in Gazeta Wyborcza. Warsaw, on the other hand, came us unexpected second in salary expectations.
Another article provides some logic for optimism in Krakow. Thousand of jobs apparently wait for the unemployed, who are scarce, because unemployment in Krakow is the lowest in Poland, at merely 5.3%, compared 14.4% for the country.
Medical staff just went on strike, and teachers are planning to do so in the nearest future.
There was a remark on lecture of economic history (by Wojciech Morawski) that I still remember: people do not strike during recession. On the contrary, they strike in time of economic prosperity.
At least according Washington Post article by Warren Brown:
Wroclaw, Poland This capital town of Poland’s southwestern province of Lower Silesia is one of the reasons the troubled nine-year relationship between America’s Chrysler Group and Germany’s Daimler-Benz , known as DaimlerChrysler during the years of merger, eventually fell apart.
It seems an improbable claim to make on a sunny spring weekend with crowds ambling through the picturesque Market Square in the old commercial district of Wroclaw.
My home city was chosen as an example of place with cheap labor, where all sensible car manufactures are migrating, causing demise of American companies like Chrysler. Article quotes unemployment figure of 18% in 2006. That might have changed a bit recently, though.
One of the viewers of a photo competition Grand Press Photo spotted traces of Photoshop being used on one of the photos, which actually won second award in the category of nature photos.
(I woudln’t see it even now that I know it’s there)
Now, how one can doubt in the wisdom of the crowds.
The recent thing is Truemors, a site founded by Guy Kawasaki.
The idea of the site is to allow people to post and vote on rumors, short snippets of content which may or may not have anything to do with truth.
So far it’s filled with spam and auto-promotional stuff.
I don’t find anything special in the idea, but it get some publicity because of its founder. If it gets anywhere, it’s because of this asset, as it was rightly noted on Deep Jive Interests.
This newest idea of a site makes me think.. if I couldn’t have a better idea for a site.
If you read any of these guides to successful blogging, you will notice that rule no 1 is ? post short, post often. If there is no new meat on a regular basis, people will not bother to come.
It?s true to certain extent. For sure, it?s true for blogs I like most ? the more the better since I start reading with them.
But for the rest, there is a borderline. Having 30 unread items after couple of days after I subscribed, it?s just depressing. And usually out of 30, there might be just one interesting article. *unsubscribe*.
Why it?s bad to be low traffic? After all, that was rss readers were invented for.
(not that frequency of posting on this blog is overwhelming – I?m definitely on the safe side)
Update: hey, post by Torres makes me think I’m not alone in RSS overdose.
During work days, whatever extra thing you manage to do after work seems much.
At the end of weekend, for some reason, you always look back thinking more could have been done.
I’m just doing some digging related to site layouts, and stumbled upon the amusing story of redesign of the local newspaper’s web page. As a result of the operation, the web page became perfectly 2.0: blue on white, lots spacing and sans-serif fonts. And users revolted.
Newspaper is Lawrence Journal-World, online at http://www.ljworld.com/. Unfortunately there is no old layout available for reference.
The comments, on the other hand, are here.
What users didn’t like most?
Most surprising, how many disliked (increased) amount of white space. “It’s like starting at the light bulb”, one commenter wrote. Now that I read it, I see some point in it. White might not be easy on eyes. There must be some research on it, good thing to check in some free time.
Also, white and blue design is found amateurish and boring by some.
Other people find text difficult to read. If the font is really without serifs it is not so surprising.
By the way, as for other findings, I don’t think you can go more Web 2.0 than http://clipmarks.com/.
PS. I must also quote this comment by prairie_girl:
I don’t care for the new design?.I can?t find a thing. Had to do a search just to find the obituaries?.how am I supposed to know if I died or not if I can’t find it? Also can’t find the daily record to see if I was arrested either. The old front page was much better with the column on the left.
Now I feel that I’m missing all the “local media” experience. Must try and find some local media when I’m back in Warsaw.
I got used to having to explain my travelling style preferences, including in particular that for staying in hostels instead of more civilized premises. But this accidental piece by Sarah gives me some background on what people might expect from hostels:
I assumed hostels were full of obnoxious 20-somethings trying to one-up each other with tales of their travels. They?d go out drinking and talking about how great they were until 2 a.m. when they?d come crashing into the dorm room, slamming doors, turning on lights, playing bongo drums and vomiting over the side of the bunk bed.
On the other hand, one of the travellers in the St Pet, namely the historian travelling with a big teddy bear with sun glasses, complained of backpackers being lazy with hostels and going straight to the ones recommended by Lonely Planet even if they overpay a lot. They don’t care to check place around the corner. Not at all in backpacking spirit, he said.
Maybe it’s true that hostels are losing they charm nowadays. Sarah’s disappointing experience would support this observation.
It turned out my fears were completely unfounded. We stayed at three different hostels and each one of them was clean, comfortable and quiet. Our roommates were lovely young women who were all in bed way before midnight. And not a bongo drum in sight!
Can’t wait to give Mexico hostels a try.
My driver is related to owner of the hostel. He is finishing his studies. We talk politics all way. In Russian, which is a bit challenging.
- I took part in the demonstration first of May, you know
- What were you demonstrating for?
- For improving workers rights
- Do you think your rights need improvement?
Then some discussion about state of worker?s rights.
- My institute is one of the most politically active in Russia. Current FSB chief is our graduate.
And he mentions second important guy that I forgot. But not Putin I think.
- And also Dudaev.
- What, Dudaev also graduated your university?
- No, we helped to kill Dudaev.
Russians could not trace Dudaev?s phone, because his conversations were too short. But one guy from the Institute developed an improved algorithm, and they traced him and bombed him.
- The guy then moved to work at FSB. I think he works there still.
- In Poland there are not so many secret services, you know. Of course some exists, but I never knew anyone working for them, like you do
- The services of Poland are very active. Poland is geopolitically very active.
Maybe our foreign policy is underestimated at home. It seems appreciated in the East.
A quick note on an interesting article of John Hagel, comparing Gaussian and Paretian world views.
Gaussian views seeks for “normal” distribution of things in the world around us, while Pareto focuses on power law distribution, with disproportionate influence of a limited number of events/objects (think: earthquakes, accumulation of wealth, etc.)
Gaussian situation is said to occur when there is little interaction between particular observations. Interactions easily create a positive feedback loop, and some objects obtain advantage which is self-reinforcing.
World is getting more networked and interactions are increasing, and Pareto mindset is becoming more important.
Thus, new tools are required to handle this reality. Some sources of them are hinted – earthquake research, complexity science. It would be interesting to define a toolkit immediately applicable in business, though.
I feel like resting after walking couple of days, but I’m so glad I got to see this city. It is so different Russia than one of Moscow. In fact, Piter could easily make it to my list of favorite big cities.
And the hostel experience is so refreshing, as usual. One night partying, second night talking about classical music and watching strange Russian animation movies.
Today Ermitage; same league as Metropolitan Museum of arts to me.
And tomorrow, flyback.
Bartlomiej Owczarek used to be a management consultant in a global company, but at the moment he prefers to explore his own ideas at Goldenberry.
He lives in Warsaw, Poland.
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