I never knew

Je trouve ça un peu “gimmicky” et j’aime vraiment pas la typo de la couverture mais il y a plusieurs personnes très intéressantes qui y ont écrit des chapitres donc je vais probablement quand même acheter Pourquoi bloguer. Note aux auteurs; c’est un peut têteux de linker direct au site ecommerce au lieu de nous envoyer au site du livre, ça me tente d’en savoir plus avant de commencer à remplir un formulaire de commande. Quand même, félicitations à tous!

First time I went to Paris years ago it was somewhat exceptional to others around me. Not super exceptional but not everyone had been and europe trips were somewhat rare and far in between. The passing of time, the changing of circle of friends and the changing of salaries has changed that quite a bit. In the last few and upcoming weeks (If I go back to the beginning of the year, I can add 4 more people):

• Philippe, Nico and Christian all went to France and (I think) spent some time in Paris. Those 3 were born there though so that’s less a trend thing.

















• Caro was there a few weeks ago.

















• Seb and Valérie were just there.

















• Suze is going a few days before we are.

















• Dan comes back 4 day before we leave.

















• Laurent is there at the same time.

















• Hugh arrives the day we leave.

















• Carl is going in October.

















• [Update] MC and Chris are going in November

• Luce is going in December.

  Extending a bit, Tara is in Rotterdam the day before we arrive and Julie and Boris are in London at the same time we’re on the old continent.

  So yes, I said “we”, no I’m not using the royal one, I’m going to europe with the CYW (Certain Young Woman). Flying in to Paris, train to Antwerp, then Rotterdam and back to Paris for 6 days. If you have activities to recommend, places to visit, etc., feel free to comment.

The Guardian has a short article on the urbanisation of the world population, nothing I haven’t heard before but they also have an attached PDF of the Urban World with some surprising numbers. It shows countries by percentage of population living in cities and the population of the largest cities:

• Except for the UK (90) and Belgium (97!), all European countries have lower percentages than the US (81) and Canada (80).

















• Brazil and Argentina are even higher (85 and 90).

















• What’s more, those last four are also higher than Japan!! (66).

















• Seoul is at 23.2 million.

















• NY (21.8) is almost as big as Mexico (22.1), I didn’t realize it had gotten that close.

• India has two over 20 million cities, Mumbai and Delhi.

  (via Brand Spanking New)

So the iPhone has been completely unlocked and can seemingly be used on any compatible network. Of course here it still would mean Rogers and no good data plan and for me having to cancel my Fido account so still no go.

I hope all of you putting up super detailed profiles and “statusing” every second of your life on FaceBook aren’t surprised to hear about the new ad system they are launching that uses your profile and network to target ads at you? Really?

According to a Wall Street Journal report, the new system will “let marketers target users with ads based on the massive amounts of information people reveal on the site about themselves” with future development that is aiming to (in true Orwellian style…or should that Minority Report style) “predict what products and services users might be interested in even before they have specifically mentioned an area.”—Facebook Will Use Profiles To Target Ads, Predict Future

There are only two (mildly) surprising things about this; 1. They are announcing that they are doing it (to draw advertisers I’m sure). 2. They seemingly aren’t doing it already.

There’s a video that did the rounds a couple of months back which raised the issue but I’m not going to link it because I think it goes way too deep in Oswald Conspiracy Territory. However, I’ll mention the issue again; you should be aware and maybe do a bit of research on the terms of use for FB, they own the rights to everything you put in there, not exclusively, you keep your rights, but they now share them with you. Think about that next time you put up private pics that you feel safe with because “only your friends” can see them. Oh and the blog posts you feed to your profile and were so proud of and thought might make your blog the new Techcrunch or Engadget or Talking Points? You don’t own that exclusively anymore either.

Wow, Britney really can’t get a break can she? When it’s not marying K-Fed it’s her perfume partner, Elizabeth Arden completely ripping off a great project. Mondonation has been around for a couple of years so they are definitely being shamelessly copied here. As YGG mentions, might be a good idea to drop a line to ole’ Liz about that crapass stealing.

This would certainly fit in very well with Darren’s stacies currency, Adaptive Path wanted to answer the call for better designed diabetes devices and decided to have a team spend 9 weeks on their own dime and came up with an interesting direction for a diabetes management device. That’s the initial post with the concept video, you can also go through the category archive to read more about it.

My initial thought was that “yeah, it’s nice but can it be made” but they view it as more of a starting point for a discussion, a push in a more usable direction and presented like that, it’s a well executed and worthy effort.