Web-O-Rama: week 2
Apparently everyone enjoyed our first Web-o-rama so here's the second edition. Like for the first one, a selection of articles, videos, stories, tweets that got our attention this week. I have changed the soundtrack and will probably will do that every week. It won't be related with the content of the web-o-rama (unless I'm inspired by something), just some nice quiet tunes to listen while you read all the content we suggest in the round-up.
You are more than welcome to send me any links you'd like us to read and possibly feature here. I have a big list of RSS feeds but I'm willing to add more if you have interesting things to suggest!
Let's get started with this new selection featuring a controversy in the travel community, food from the Middle-Earth, speedos, magical apps and Ecuadorian parades.
Q1: Who Owns Your Internet Noise?
by Pam Mandel, Nerd's Eye View
Let's start with the controversy of the week and this post that has sparked a wild debate in the Twitter travel community yesterday. Let's quickly sum up the situation to explain why this post is important. Every Thursday night, hundreds of travelers answer a serie of 10 questions using the hashtag #TNI. Most of the time, it's a really cool event that I joined in several times and enjoyed having fun with other travel twitter addicts. Sometimes it sucked because the questions where too obviously related to the sponsor of the night and felt just like a marketing survey (for The Bahamas for instance).
What this post reveals is that a selection of the tweets were compiled in a book to be sold on the Zip Set Go website, the entity behind #TNI. This raises a valid question from Pam: "Who owns the stuff I write on Twitter?". I highly suggest you read this post and all comments, to really understand what's the deal. Because digital rights are a big deal. And although I'm a big supporter of the open-source cause, I don't think it's ok that people use content from the community to make money. Even if it's only 140 chars...
See Lord of the Rings Food Porn From Alamo Drafthouse’s Epic Feast
by Lewis Wallace, Wired
I will read any article that has Lord Of The Rings in it's title, that's a fact. It's one of my favourite book ever because it's more than a saga with Elves killings Orcs. It's an amazing travel story, an initiatory journey of thousands adventures in a highly detailed universe.
This article about food from Lord Of The Rings features amazing pictures of an epic feast that has taken place during the annual screening of the trilogy in Austin, TX. But more than that, I really enjoyed that the article has an actual recipe of a dish that you can see in the movie. I'm now considerding organizing a screening with my friends and have it for dinner. Unfortunately, I'm a terrible cook so I will need to find someone to prepare it for me.
{Un}Glamorous Paris: La Piscine
by Anne Ditmeyer, Prêt A Voyager
{Un}Glamorous Paris is a regular column on the blog Prêt à Voyager and is -especially for us Parisians- an interesting and funny point of view on our culture and habits! I especially enjoyed this week article about the swimming pools in Paris. France is the only country I know where speedos and swim caps are required. But that never shocked me until I started traveling since I was forced to this terrible rule from childhood. And to be honest I think that's a big trauma for my entire generation. I never set foot in a pool after high school and I can't think of any of my friends who goes. I can assure you that I enjoy water, pools and thermal baths. I loved the Széchenyi bath in Budapest and can't wait to be in Berlin to go to the Arena, a floating pool on the river. But in Paris, no thanks!
by Quest Visual, Quest Visual
"Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic" - Arthur C. Clarke.
After seeing the video (below) from Visual Quest introducing their Iphone app Word Lens, this quote immediately came to my mind. I know quite a lot about computer sciences, that's what I studied for 5 years in Uni and spend even more time coding, hacking, reading and learning by myself. But sometimes you don't need to understand how it works and simply be amazed by what other people can do. Just like magic.
Parades are for suckers, unless you want to change the world
by Ayngelina, Bacon Is Magic
At first, I only checked the pictures and found them very funny. I didn't know about this Three Kings Day celebration in Ecuador and had a good laugh at the costumes from the parade. I liked that they were very creative and connected to the recent events like the Chilean miners.
Then I read the text and understood what the title of the post was about. I wasn't aware of the environmental disaster that happened there. Apparently for years Chevron has been dumping toxic wastewater and oil in the Rainforest. You can find more information in this article and in the ChevronToxico campaign.
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That's it for this week! See you next Friday for more news from the interwebs.
Alex
