“Ai’s cell phone rumbled and he answered the call. He smiled. Mary Boone, the gallery owner, was on the line. It was late at night in New York, but she wanted to tell him how his show was going. On the floor of her Chelsea space on West 24th Street, she had Ai’s hand-painted porcelain sunflower seeds, three million of them, which had been crafted by ceramic artisans in the pottery town of Jingdezhen. (The show is open until February 4th.) They are part of an ocean of seeds, one hundred million in all, that he originally unveiled in a 2010 installation at the Tate Modern in London. At the Tate, they formed a vast gray swamp, filling the cavernous Turbine Hall, but in New York, after two eventful years, they have taken on a different meaning. They are arranged in a rectangle with severe, angled corners. In the Times, Roberta Smith wrote that the “unruly ocean has been downsized to something more like a reflecting pool. It also suggests a kind of memorial plinth, a monument to the palpable absence of Mr. Ai.”
As is often the case for Ai Weiwei, his work and his life have become hard to differentiate. The seeds have found their way into the tax case. “When the seeds began to show, people started to ask: Can we have some? I responded very casually, ‘Whoever wants some, just give me an address and I’ll send them to you.’ We received about a thousand requests. And, since then, it has become a kind of movement. We’ve sent out several hundred thousand. This is amazing. They call it the ‘Sunflower Seeds Party.’ The party can be read as a party or a Party. And young people love it. They say, ‘The girl at school I loved for so long, and I could never really speak to her, I made an earring out of a seed and gave it to her.’ Another one said, he gave it to his parents. One said the seed will be the first gift to my unborn kid. And someone else said, by the year two-thousand-and-something, the seeds will have life coming out of them. They call them seeds of freedom. It’s very interesting that people need something to carry their fantasy.”
Online, the seeds became a proxy for Ai himself. “They talk about seeds and it moved like a wave. They couldn’t talk about me and they couldn’t talk about the government, but when they talked about seeds, nobody could do anything about it, because they aren’t talking about anything—just sunflower seeds!””
This TorStar report (with video) of what Mathew Ho and Asad Muhammad achieved is really cool, “Toronto teens send Lego man on a balloon odyssey 24 kilometres high“. Excellent report and interview by Kate Allen at TorStar. (photo credit: TorStar and Lego man pix by Mathew Ho and Asad Muhammad)
Equipment used: One Go Pro HD video camera (main camera for Lego Man footage), two Canon cameras (programmed to take a photo every 20 seconds), one Sony (GPS enabled mobile phone?).
“I will go anywhere in the world to open new markets for American products. And I will not stand by when our competitors don’t play by the rules. We’ve brought trade cases against China at nearly twice the rate as the last administration – and it’s made a difference. Over a thousand Americans are working today because we stopped a surge in Chinese tires. But we need to do more. It’s not right when another country lets our movies, music, and software be pirated. It’s not fair when foreign manufacturers have a leg up on ours only because they’re heavily subsidized.
Tonight, I’m announcing the creation of a Trade Enforcement Unit that will be charged with investigating unfair trade practices in countries like China. There will be more inspections to prevent counterfeit or unsafe goods from crossing our borders. And this Congress should make sure that no foreign company has an advantage over American manufacturing when it comes to accessing finance or new markets like Russia.”
Reemployment system
“Jackie Bray is a single mom from North Carolina who was laid off from her job as a mechanic. Then Siemens opened a gas turbine factory in Charlotte, and formed a partnership with Central Piedmont Community College. The company helped the college design courses in laser and robotics training. It paid Jackie’s tuition, then hired her to help operate their plant. Read the rest of this entry »
“In one of the film’s numerous scenes of defiance, Ai describes his motivation for his art and his statements. “If you don’t publicize it, it’s like it never happened,” he said.”
“Q: Do you ever examine yourself to say, why is that you are so fearless compared to other people? Ai WeiWei Answer: I was so fearful, that’s not fearless. I am more fearful than other people, may be, then I act more brave because I know the danger is really there. If you don’t act, the dangers become stronger.” – Ai WeiWeiin PBS Frontline video “Who is afraid of Ai Weiwei?” (time code: ~17:25)
L’Amour Fou is a greatly enjoyable film, a film that I learn not only about the man but also about the partnership, the art collection, and the magic & things that makes the man he was!
Even if the current incarnations of SOPA and PIPA laws are stopped, this will just be one of the many battles in a long war. The industries and lobbyists will keep on pushing. It is up to us to ensure future incarnations of SOPA and PIPA are not overreaching thus doing more harm than good.
As one of the lead Fair Copyright for Canada Calgary organizers who has written articles, sent in personal submissions for parliamentary copyright committees, and organized protests since December 2007, I try to do my part to help shape Fair Copyright laws in Canada. Given that experience, I know the anti-SOPA and anti-PIPA has to be the beginning and we should be prepared to keep up the effort for sometime to come.
“You know and I know that we can’t tell you what to print or what not to. We hope you people in the press will act responsibly, but when you don’t, there ain’t a hell lot anybody can do about it. But we can’t have people going around leaking stuff for their own reasons. It ain’t legal. And worse than that, by God, it ain’t right.“
P.S. Right after I finished watching Absence of Malice, I started writing a long post to recommend the film to the HK newspaper Apple Daily founder Jimmy Lai Chee Ying (黎智英), the paper’s editorial team and reporters because I consider Apple Daily‘s moral compass as mostly broken. Apple Daily reporters will write almost anything, put almost anything in cartoons (including a a sequences of cartoons depicting a young girl falling to her death), filming almost anything to sell newspapers.
“Although the bills have been amended since their introduction, they are still deeply problematic. Among other serious problems in the current draft of the bills, the requirement exists for US-based sites to actively police links to purported infringing sites. These kinds of self-policing activities are non-sustainable for large, global sites – including ones like Wikipedia. The legislative language is ambiguous and overly broad, even though it touches on protected speech. Congress says it’s trying to protect the rights of copyright owners, but the “cure” that SOPA and PIPA represent is worse than the disease.“
“Though most time zone adjusted numbers aren’t yet available, the 2012 Golden Globes look likely to retain much of its audience from last year’s show. Sunday’s Globes were broadcast live across the country, with a 8:00 p.m. encore in the Pacific Time Zone, so current stats on total viewers and adults 18-49 are subject to likely revision and are expected to go up.”
* Post-show comments: Check out, very good show reviews from
“The trouble with the Golden Globes telecast this year was simple — it was egregiously boring. The Oscars and Emmys can’t get here fast enough to erase this three-hour dud.
Does Gervais deserve some of the blame? Well, in so much that he led a lot of people to believe he was going to be a very naughty boy, then yes. Otherwise, he was funny enough. He did his bit. And let’s remember that the host at the Globes is often absent for vast stretches of time — last year’s running internet joke was that the Globes had fired Gervais mid-show and he’d never return. But it was just how the show has evolved. The host is, essentially, a minimal presence. No, the Globes were boring all on their own.“
“Ah, but there’s something clever afoot when you think about Gervais’ underwhelming performance. Think about it. Think still more. And now consider this: Ricky Gervais just Punk’d the Globes. He exacted revenge for the Hollywood Foreign Press Association making such a stink last year and taking the moral high ground, lambasting him for being cruel and petty, a bitter outcast comic among real actors and stars. It could be that Gervais’ skin really is that thick and he didn’t suffer their angry arrows. Or it could be that when the Globes realized it really did need Gervais because controversy breeds ratings and ratings keep you viable, that Gervais plotted his revenge. And Sunday night he took it. He wasn’t merciless. He wasn’t outraged. Hell, he didn’t even seem very involved or even committed. It’s as if he said, “You hired me last year knowing what you’d get, then you fired me when you got it. Well, this year you get what you truly wanted. And you definitely get what you deserve.“ Cheeky, that. Oh, you clever, clever bastard. Well played, Ricky Gervais. You got the Globes but good.“
Now, I wonder/guess/speculate, based on this video of “Corning Gorilla Glass2 demo at CES 2012“, if Galaxy Nexus’ “fortified glass” is the type they used in the demo which has a load bearing capacity of 72 pounds?
Note: In the demo, the damage and scratch resistant Gorilla Glass1 has a load bearing capacity of ~125 pounds and Gorilla Glass2 is 20% thinner and offer the same damage resistance as Gorilla Glass1 with load bearing capacity of ~125 pounds.
Am I right? Can someone help me prove that I am right or wrong? I will be happy to be wrong if I can know the spec or more precise info of the Galaxy Nexus’ “fortified glass”.
Yes, the video is cute but I feel sorry for the lion at the same time. Of course, we shouldn’t forget one of the purpose of zoo is to encourage love of nature and curiosity. And in the case of Sofia, she is one brave and curious kid!
The insightful Prof. Ronald Coase turned 101 years old few days ago on Dec 29, 2011. The following is the 2011 edition of the yearly Coase Lecture delivered by Prof. Thomas Miles.
P.S. I’ve finished watching the video now. I think I need a much more detail review of the referenced research papers (which I don’t have time to do) before I can decide if I have missed noticing any potential source of problems/mistakes.
Posted by kempton 
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