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Monday, May 26, 2008 

The 27th Young Designers’ Exhibition 2008, recognized by the International Council of Societies of Industrial Design (ICSID) as the largest show of student creations, recently ended Sunday May 18. It was held at the Taipei World Trade Center. Improvements and expansions were seen with 107 academical and industrial units. Different design competitions participated and showcased their products and also received awards.

It’s no doubt that companies related to design and cultural industries want to discover creative talents from academical units in this exhibition. However, most companies still try to showcase different conceptional and applicative products in order to promote Taiwan’s designs into the world market. A typical example is Fora Series, a photo-voltaic product series by the Tsann Kuen Trans-nation Group.

Before entering into their careers, students participated in this show and showcased varied styles that differ from the usual industrial businesspeople. To get more opportunities and in order to interact with the design and cultural industries, students also participated in vast competitions and tried to get the top places. Some students also tried to design conceptional products in conjunction with industrial designs, especially in some design competitions.

In summary, not only did the 2008 YODEX, have companies which can discover talents and showcase achievements of industrial design in the exhibition, but students can make their stages to showcase excellences from their creations in several competitions related to YODEX.

Roland MDX-540 design machine, often used in industrial design.Image: Rico Shen.

“EasTea / WesTea”, Gold Award winner from “2008 Wow Taiwan Design Award”.Image: Rico Shen.

“Rely On” the chair, designed by National Cheng-kung University, won the Gold Award in the product design of “2008 the 8th-annual Young Designers’ Competition”.Image: Rico Shen.

“Play”, a conceptional motorcycle by Suzuki.Image: Rico Shen.

Fora “Catch”, an energy-saving product applied with photovoltaic.Image: Rico Shen.

Not only “The 2011 IDA Congress”, the TDC also set up a conceptional sculpture to promote “The 2009 Taipei Cow Parade”.Image: Rico Shen.

Kun-shan University of Technology won “2008 the 8th-annual YODEX Interior Design Competition” with main theme “Beyond Reality”.Image: Rico Shen.

Chang-jung University participated in this exhibition with “Bamboo” theme.Image: Rico Shen.

Wednesday, October 17, 2007 

American preservationists breathed a sigh of relief in August as the Farnsworth House, a Ludwig Mies van der Rohe designed house widely considered a masterpiece of modern architecture, was spared by flooding along the Fox River in Plano.

Storms deluged much of the Midwest, causing rivers throughout the region to overflow their banks. At the Fox River in Plano flood waters spilled over four acres of the 58-acre Farnsworth House site. Waters continued to rise through August 24, until they were just 18 inches from the front door.

According to the reporting of the Chicago Tribune preservationists developed a disaster management plan on the spot. Staff used boats to access the house and once inside raised the vulnerable furnishings to higher levels atop crates.

Flooding along the Fox River in 1996 caused a large plate glass window in the steel and glass home to break, resulting in $250,000 damage and preservationists feared a repeat of that incident.

“We really lucked out and can look at this as a drill,” Barbara Campagna, architect for National National Trust for Historic Preservation, told Preservation Online.

The Farnsworth House was completed in 1951 and designed by internationally famous architect Ludwig Mies van der Rohe for Chicago doctor Edith Farnsworth. The house is a National Historic Landmark and a nationally significant example of modern architecture. As one of the most famous examples of such architecture, the Farnsworth House was unprecedented at the time of its completion.

Surely this should just be deleted? –08:30, 11 January 2011 (UTC)

Wednesday, October 3, 2007 

Vivien Goldman recalls with a laugh the day in 1984 when she saw her death, but the laugh fades as she becomes lost in the memory. She was in Nigeria staying in Fela Kuti’s home; she had just arrived hours before and found people sleeping everywhere like house cats when Muhammadu Buhari’s army showed up to haul everyone to jail. Kuti was an opponent of the government who was in jail, and they came to arrest his coterie of supporters. They grabbed Goldman and were about to throw her in a truck until Pascal Imbert, Kuti’s manager, yelled out, “Leave her alone. She just arrived from Paris! She’s my wife! She knows nothing! “

Goldman stops for a moment and then smiles plainly. “They thought I was just some stupid woman…. That time sexism worked in my favor.”

Vivien Goldman has become a living, teaching testimony of the golden era of punk and reggae. She is an adjunct professor at New York University who has taught courses on the music scene she was thrust in the middle of as a young public relations representative for Island Records. She writes a column for the BBC called “Ask the Punk Professor” where she extols the wisdom she gained as a confidant of Bob Marley; as the person who first put Flava Flav in video; as Chrissie Hynde’s former roommate; as the woman who worked with the The Clash, Sex Pistols, The Slits and The Raincoats.

As Wikinews reporter David Shankbone found out, Goldman is one of those individuals that when you sit in her presence you realize she simply can not tell you everything she knows or has seen, either to protect the living or to respect the dead.

DS: The first biography of Bob Marley, Soul Rebel, Natural Mystic, was written by you based upon your personal experiences with him, and you have recently written a book about Marley called The Book of Exodus. How difficult is it to continue to mine his life? Is it difficult to come up with new angles?

DS: You were there with Marley through that time when he really caught on; was it obvious to you then that there was something amazing and unique happening?

DS: Warhol’s Factory photographer, Billy Name, once told me he knew that what was going on was amazing, but he never thought Warhol would become the entire fabric of the art world as he is now.

DS: But Marley has become a fabric of sorts…

DS: How do you define punk?

DS: What is the commodified version of punk selling?

DS: That aesthetic is everywhere, as though if one spikes his hair he is punk.

DS: Your philosophy is that punk is not just musical, but also an aesthetic. That it can imbibe anything; that it stands for change and for changing a system. Let me give you a few names, and you to tell me how you think they are or are not punk. Britney Spears.

DS: Dick Cheney.

DS: Kanye West.

DS: Osama bin Laden.

DS: Is the definition of punk relative, then? He’s a Madrasah punk but not a Manhattan punk?

DS: Pete Doherty.

DS: If punk is about change, then why the maudlin sentimentality over the closing of CBGB’s, which at times turned into demonizing a homeless shelter?

DS: I felt it was what it was at a certain moment, but it wasn’t that anymore. They were charging eight dollars for a beer. That’s not very punk, and that wasn’t attracting the punk crowds. It was like people who move to the Bowery because they think it’s so edgy but it’s really a boulevard of glittering condos.

DS: Where do you think New York’s culture is going? There are so few places on Earth with such a large concentration of creatives who meet and influence each other, but the city is becoming less affordable and cleansed of any grit. Is there a place for punk in the Manhattan of the future?

DS: You’re friends with Flava Flav, right?

DS: At the time he wasn’t known?

DS: Do you think apathy is a problem today?

DS: What about G. G. Allin? He used to defecate on the stage to make a point.

DS: Well, he’s dead. Do you think people are afraid to speak out today?

DS: Is violence for the cause of social change punk?

DS: Sandra Bernhard once did an homage to what she called the Big-Tittied Bitches of Rock n’ Roll: Heart, Joan Jett, Stevie Nicks. She mourned that there were no big-tittied bitches left. Who are the big-tittied bitches of Rock n’ Roll today?

DS: Do you have moments of extreme self-doubt where you wonder if anything you do matters to anyone?

DS: You have worked for two corporations that are seen by many as the least punk in their respective communities, the BBC and NYU. How does one remain punk in such environments?

DS: Have you ever been in a situation where you feared for your life, where you thought, this may be the way I go?

DS: What happened to him in the secret jail?

DS: In Jamaica there was so much violence during the civil war.

Tuesday, March 6, 2007 

Richemont and Polo Ralph Lauren decided to join their skills and rich experience in order to form a joint venture, the name of which is Polo Ralph Lauren Watch and Jewelry Company, S.A.R.L. The representatives of the global luxury business decided to unite their efforts in order to develop luxury timepieces and fine jewelry items.

After the new products are manufactured, they will be distributed through Ralph Lauren boutiques and independent retailers of jewelery items and luxury timepieces. The first jointly developed products are to appear in the fall of the following year.

Richemont and Polo Ralph Lauren will equally share 50 percent of the new joint venture. The partners hope for long-term cooperation. The union will be a completely new experience for both Richemont, which has never cooperated with a luxury fashion designer before, and Polo Ralph Lauren, which, until the present day, has not maintained any links with the precious jewelry and luxury watch businesses.

Ralph Lauren, holding the post of Polo Ralph Lauren’s Chairman and Chief Executive Officer , believes that the company’s experience in the area of designing and marketing luxury lifestyle products will blend with Richemont’s experience on a global scale.

Johann Rupert, owning the position of Richemont’s Executive Chairman counts on Ralph Lauren’s reputation and image based upon distinctive taste, style and attention to detail. He hopes that the newly formed joint venture will benefit from these factors, as well Richemont’s expertise in the area of jewelry and watches.

Sunday, August 31, 2008 

The government of Italy has agreed to pay Libya US$5 billion as compensation for its occupation of the country from 1911 to 1943. The agreement was reached between the Italian Prime Minister, Silvio Berlusconi, and Baghdadi Mahmudi, Berlusconi’s Libyan counterpart.

“It is a material and emotional recognition of the mistakes that our country has done to yours during the colonial era,” said Berlusconi after arriving in Libya. “This agreement opens the path to further cooperation.”

“The accord will provide for $200 million a year over the next 25 years through investments in infrastructure projects in Libya,” Berlusconi continued. “It is my duty, as a head of government, to express to you in the name of the Italian people our regret and apologies for the deep wounds that we have caused you.”

In return for providing compensation, Italy has asked that Libya attempts to reduce the number of immigrants illegally moving from Libya to Italy.

As a result of the deal, the Libyan government has named August 30 “Libyan-Italian Friendship Day”.

The deal has also made some people ask if the United Kingdom should provide compensation to Nigeria for it’s colonisation of the country.

Dr. Eyimofe Atake from the Senior Advocate of Nigeria commented on this issue: “To be able to answer that question, one needs to know exactly why compensation was paid and the circumstances in which compensation was paid. One needs to know the fact of the case between the Italians and the Libyans and how the issue for the payment of compensation arose. No two cases are necessarily similar, so in the absence of the facts and circumstances that led to the payment of compensation, it will be totally speculative to say if Nigeria could ask for compensation or be paid compensation by Britain.”

“In any event, under international law, Britain and Italy are separate and distinct states. They are sovereign states. Consequently, the British government is not bound by the acts of the Italian government. The decision of the Italian government is personal to them based on their peculiar circumstance and facts, which have nothing to do with the British government and the Nigerian government,” Atake continued.