The real „FarmVille“

One British farm has done  quite an unusual move: it decided to be owned by 10.000 internet users, who will, just like in a popular on-line game on Facebook, FarmVille, make all the important decisions. 

From May 2011, a large farm near Cambridgeshire in England is in ownership of internet users across the globe, who will vote for every decision, even the smallest one, regarding cows, pigs, sheep and mowing – just like in a mega-popular on-line game on Facebook – FarmVille.

The experiment called "MyFarm" is located on 2,500 acres of Wimpole Estate near Cambridgeshire. Up to 10.000 internet farmers will jointly make decisions which bulls to buy, crop to plant and how often the soil will be irrigated. All they have to do is to pay a one-time fee of £30, and that fee includes even the option to come and visit the farm for themselves. 

“I will put in here whatever the online farmers want to grow”, says Richard Morris, Wimpole's manager. “Farming is always a compromise. There is never a right or a wrong answer. If I choose one thing, my neighbor will be leaning over the fence shaking his head. The online farmers will not be able to choose to grow cannabis or bananas, but undoubtedly there will be some strange decisions, some decisions I would not have made.”

Fiona Reynolds, Director-General of The National Trust, who owns the Wimpole Estate, believes that this whole idea will also have an educational significance. “This is all about reconnecting people to where their food comes from. Our TNS poll showed that only 8% of mothers feel confident talking to their children about where their food comes from. That's really poignant.”

Project’s manager, John Alexander, agrees that FarmVille, a virtual game that, with each month, at least for a few hours, entertains almost 50 million players, was a big inspiration for this venture. “But this is a real farm”, says Alexander, who came up with this idea while working for an advertising agency.

On-line farmers will manage the estate through discussions that will always end with a voting. The winning option will be the one with the most votes. One of the first decisions was, what to grow in the Pond Field. This field covers 21 hectares. Participants, or “bosses”, will receive all necessary information through blogs and video clips. That will be of great importance before any decision because, all major decisions, and even the not-so-important ones, will be delegated to the users of “MyFarm”. In this way, the on-line farmers will not only decide whether to grow a fruit or wheat somewhere, but also and  what kind of wheat. 

“I am making decisions every day”, Richard Morris said. "The first thing I do after getting up is look at the weather out of the window, and that sets the day going”.

Currently, on the Wimpole Estate, there are about 300 lambs. The unusually dry weather for Britain this year has left many fields without enough grass. Because of that, the heard is mostly spending time in the barn. 

Morris also has an idea to develop an application for smartphones, which will allow him to receive instant advices from on-line farmers at any time of day and night.  “For example, if I have wheat in the field, ripe and ready, but rain in the morning means it is damp, do we risk waiting and losing some of the crop, or combining [harvesting] it now and incurring some extra drying costs?”.

Of course, not everyone accepted this idea with equal enthusiasm. And among them are not just farmers. Nicholas Lovell, one of the most famous journalists who write about computer games, says he is not convinced in success of this idea. “There is something in the idea that people like to grow, nurture and beautify things. But Farmville's success is down to the craftsmanship of hooking into basic human psychology: the need to finish things we've started, to return gifts when we're given them and many, many more. A Farmville for which people had to pay £30 to access would have flopped miserably.”

The thing that can comfort Richard Morris is the fact that the Wimpole Estate is located in a rural area, where the signal for mobile phones is rather bad. "I know where I am heading, if things get tough”, Morris was joking.

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The Most Influential Person on the Internet!

When a kid from New York started, what it looked like, a regular site (4chan.org) he didn’t even dreamed that it will become a movement capable to make a hell of a life to anyone.

If someone thought that internet is a paradise with unlimited possibilities for gaining information and creating perfect virtual life, then it was just a matter of time when a confronted hell will arise. That time has come. Hell is born.

In 2003, far away from public eyes, a 15-year old boy from New York created what it looked like, a regular site for posting and commenting photos and comic books, 4chan.org. In just 7 years this site has overgrown in to a movement capable to make life miserable to any individual on this planet who knows how to press Enter.

When Christopher Poole started 4chan he couldn’t of imagine that he will create a community of seven million people who visit this virtual place every month and leave about 700 000 comments daily, nor he was aware of what kind of power he could have by controlling a mass like this. Well, Christopher was still a kid then. But a kid who had control over the most powerful voting machine on the internet. Since the community of 4chan has a lot of really good hackers who are geared with amazing software, they hack in to other Facebook accounts (where they change content however they want) or large system sites, and they always make some pranks. These pranks are usually utterly distasteful, some jokes are really funny but most of the time they create chaos of global magnitudes.

Sarah Palin, the first female vice-presidential nominee, knows this really well. 4chan’s have hacked her private e-mail and the media were buzzing about that for months. Even the internet taikun’s from Google, Twitter and YouTube know them well. 4chan’s have enriched their content with pornographic materials and left trails that led to some of their adversaries, which were considered guilty in the beginning.

Similar to this, the members of 4chan have pulled out Rick Astley from naphthalene, a British singer whose last big hit was in the 80s. They made a prank in which more than 66 million internet users were tricked into watching his video "Never Gonna Give You Up" by posting it under the name of other popular video titles. That made Rick the most listened guy on the internet and eventually brought him an MTV award. This practice is now known as Rickrolling.

Following the same principle, last year they engaged them self in the famous Time magazine voting for the most influential person of the year 2008. This time they secured the first place for Christopher Poole, but under the name Moot. That was because in the time of voting, no one on earth didn’t know who was behind 4chan, except that his nickname was Moot. Moot became the most influential person in this internet poll, but the site editorial put him later at the top of the list of the most influential persons that now one knows about.

The last victim of 4chan was the latest MTV star Justin Bieber. First they arranged that every visit to some of his songs redirects you to some porn. Bieber had, among other things, offered to his fans to choose over the internet in which country should he additionally arranged a concert during his World Tour. 4chan arranged it to be North Korea, instead of Israel. Now this teenage star has to at least try to organize a visit to this dictatorship country.

Christopher Poole came out of anonymity last year, when one reporter discovered his identity. It turned out that no one close to him didn’t know that young and shy Chris is running one of the most powerful sites. That includes his mother. She discovered it when that reporter called their house for the first time. Poole is 22 today and he didn’t earn a single dollar from his site. Some have already started to call him the biggest internet fool because he created a site in the rank of Google and Facebook, but lives in debts, because he was paying his site hosting with his mothers credit card and made a debt bigger than 20 000 dollars.

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Numbers for healthier life!

Scientists have come across magical figures for long and healthy life. Besides recommendations regarding weekly consummation of alcohol and sugar, this new list also recommends and a number of required orgasms, along with restricting your daily use of Facebook to one hour max.







You probably know how much fat content has your milk you buy everyday, how many kilometers you can run on a gym treadmill and how many calories your going to kill that way, and you maybe know even your body mass index. But, right now there are some new and interesting numbers which are key to your physical and emotional health. This here is one of wining number combination's  for your healthy life.

• 5 drinks

Right now there is an on-going debate about healthy effects of alcohol (moderate use is potentially very good for your heart) versus negative effects (other researches have shown that alcohol can increase the risk of breast cancer and other tumors), so the right number of drinks depends mainly from your personal health, history and risk factors. However, according to the latest researches, it is recommended to limit your alcohol consummation to 5 drinks per week, if you are a woman, while men can drink a few drinks more.

• 1 orgasm

One happy ending of a day can actually be ideal. The most important is not to allow your self long periods without orgasm. The experts say that in principle many orgasms are required and that sometimes masturbation is a great way to experience them. Orgasm is letting you free from anxiety and stress and your heart is having the most benefit from it.

• 3 hours of yoga

For people who have mild but chronicle back pains the magical number is three and that’s exactly how many hours per week you should commit to yoga practicing. One study has determined that patients with chronicle mild pain in their back who have practice iyengar yoga for 90 minutes per week for six months, the pain reduced and so did depression. They could physically do a lot more than the patients who went and used conventional treatments.

• 500 calories less

If you reduce your daily input of calories by 500 – you will lose 0,5kg per week. That maybe sounds a lot, but it isn’t. Reducing your daily quantity of calories by 500 in combination with physical activity will set you free of 3.500 calories per week and that is equal to one kilogram of fat that you will remove from your hips. Also, even a minimal reduction of your body weight can do a miracle for your health because with that you are reducing your chances of suffering from heart diseases.

• 8 scoops of sugar

Statistics say that we eat about 97kg of sugar per year, and that is about 30 scoops per day. The most of it comes from food in which we add sugar (not counting fruit or milk because it contains sugar by it self). Sugar has its place in healthy diet but if it is over present he is not healthy anymore. It is recommended that daily quantities are limited to 32 grams or 8 scoops (which is around 2000 calories).

• 1000 IU of vitamin D

Although there exist no formal consensus about exact quantity of vitamin D that is required, a lot of experts recommend about 1000 IU (international units) daily. Lack of vitamin D is common for adults and children and it is associated with many health issues, from increased blood pressure and sugar disease to depression. Recent researches indicate that low level of vitamin D is causing double risk from stroke and death. Vitamin D is present in provisions such as salmon, canned tuna fish, yolk and milk. You can introduce vitamin D and with exposure to sun but its less dangerous if you input it through food.

• 6 painkillers

60 million Americans are everyday swallowing non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs), like Ibuprofen. But up to 30% of them will be suffering from gastrointestinal ulceration, and even have symptoms like dyspepsia or nausea and vomiting, because this drugs are irritating gastrointestinal tract. Healthy women that are using medications for spasm and pains shouldn’t take more than two pills of Ibuprofen three times a day. If your pain is extreme and or doesn’t go away within 10 days, you should talk to your doctor.  After examination he will dismiss some serious problem or give you the green light for increasing your doses.

• 3 sushi's

Fish is an excellent source of proteins and omega-3 fat acids, but people who eat fish every day are risking to introduce to much mercury in their organism. Pregnant women or women who are planning to get pregnant are recommended not to introduce more than 40 calories of fish like salmon per week. If they it tuna fish then the limit is 20 calories per week. Risk of poisoning with mercury is even greater threat for pregnant women, kids, older persons and ones with weak immunity. That’s why they should skip raw and partly cooked fish, and they shouldn’t even think about oysters.

• 1 hour on-line

Facebook or Twitter networking can be fun and it could even help you in your business. But to waste more than 1 hour daily on social networks can be a sign that you should dedicate more of your attention to real needs of life. How to progress (not just survive) in a time of personal and global turnovers? Although social networking researching is still rare, 1 hour daily is widely accepted among experts as a sufficient time during which your presence on the network will not have negative effects on your off-line relationships or your job.

• 1 weight measuring

Women are advised not to step on a scale more than once a day and it is advisable even less. For many women, weight measuring more than once a day can be contra productive, not to mention that it is madness. If you notice some extra few grams, it will make you a person who is preoccupied with food or your body. If you are in this faze, it will be smarter to hide your scale in a closet for some time.

• 3 sweeteners

In sweeteners or products with low level of calories, enjoy mostly women, but diabetics also, who now have a wider specter of food choice. Nevertheless, safety issues are worrying many people. Based on most evidence, this stuff is safe but nevertheless we should be cautious and moderate. This means that we should not take more than a few sweetener pills per day with our coffee, plus to eat yogurt with zero percent fat and drink diet soda drink. 3 sweeteners per day are enough and we should not take more than that.

• 6 hours of sleep

Almost third of us losses sleep because of finance worries, according to one research. Lack of sleep is causing an increased level of hormone grelin, which is increasing are desire for food, and reduced level of leptin, which represses appetite. Most adults need seven to eight hours of sleep. If you face problems with your sleep, first check your diet habits and physical activity before sleep (besides avoiding caffeine and alcohol, 3 hours before sleep you should rest good). If you still have problems, talk to your doctor.  

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Internet – The Silk Ribbon Of Democracy!

Governments world-wide are starting more and more to use internet and state of the art technologies in order to control life of individuals. The fear of electronic totalitarianism is justified with possibilities created by this new digital era.

Justin Bieber is just 16 years old and he probably never heard of George Orwell. Big Brother is just an interesting reality-show for him where he can see nervous breakdowns of real people, live, where he can see spontaneous throw-ups after produced parties and where he can watch a few sex-scenes without trained professionals. Justin Bieber is absolutely not interested in the fact that the most visited sites like Facebook and YouTube are just one of the traps of digital era which all kinds of establishments are using to gain access to every little detail of ordinary people lives and gain total control of everyday functioning of society. No, he is not bored with that. Why? Well, Justin Bieber is currently the most famous star in America.

We are talking here about the latest teenage musical hero of the generation of people that isn’t yet qualified for acquiring a driving license, and a star that sold almost one million CDs in one month. With achieving this, he occupied the position of now adults Britney Spears and Justin Timberlake, or, decades before him, Michael Jackson and little actress Shirley Temple. But, he doesn’t have anything in common with them. Today, Bieber is the main idol of digital era and in difference with his famous predecessors, his parents didn’t had to bang on producers door and he didn’t had to appear in some kids commercial. He himself created his fame and exclusively over the internet. Three years ago he was just performing some songs, recording himself doing it and posting those videos on YouTube. Over time he became quite popular, he increased his communication with the fans and pretty soon he became interesting to the producers who invited him to make an album. More than a year ago he recorded his first album “My World” and really soon he had more than 50 million viewers on YouTube, not to say that he became the most commented gay on Twitter. His second album, which he published recently, is called “My World 2.0”. This sounds like the newer version of some computer program. Well, why not call it like that? Justin Bieber is an internet project.

This modern digitalization of life, which is spreading globally the fear of establishing a total system of control, on the other hand is offering a possibility to an ordinary person, to feel and live something he never could before. That was the case of Bieber, a regular kid from Ontario. He used this to become a world-wide known star. Just ten years ago he would have been just another failed music talent because he didn’t have a rich parent behind him.

Little Justin Bieber is the first one who realized this 21th century dream. But, on the other hand, he is also part of a new internet generation that doesn’t have some basic common knowledge’s. When he was asked about Germany, he said: “I don’t know what that word means. We don’t use it in America.” Obviously, he doesn’t care much for the fact that his every stupid statement is public and everyone has an access to it. He is taught that if he shows some interest for the word “Germany”, he could always type it on Google and check what that word means. He also isn’t interested with the fact that Pentagon could monitor everything he, or somebody else, is doing 24/7. Well, does he even know what Pentagon is?

The modern society is definitely in the middle of “electronic dictatorship” and “digital democracy”. While the youth have in their hands a possibility for breakthrough that their parent couldn’t dream of, that same internet, which is controlled by global centers of power, is monitoring every second of our lives and that contradicts with the elemental right of people, with privacy.  On this right, modern western civilization is based.

A recent research in UK, cradle of modern democracy, stated that their citizens are being monitored with more than 4 million cameras, this means that on average level there is one camera per 14 citizens, and that every visit to some internet site is just another way of getting information about some individual. Having in mind this research we could ask are self if we are living in a time where we must accept a concept of privacy that implies that privacy doesn’t exist.

In the last few years, western countries are working on a quiet suppression of civil privacy rights, and all this is a part of a fight against global terrorism. After the terrorist attack on New York, on September 11, 2001, Big Apple is slowly changing her name to Red Pepper because of many cameras that are monitoring the streets. Now, even internet is under heavy control. One of the last moves of British laburistic government was initiative for a law which controls internet flows to the measure that even ministers would have the right to block certain web pages. The British media called this a “silky loop of democracy” and some individuals are pointing out that internet as we know it now, is doomed to death. The totalistic countries are facing with less and less critics about their internet censorship, and west is dealing with ideas of using those methods in their own counties. In America, for example, two senators have suggested to Congress to allow president Obama right to call state of emergency and to shut down every internet network if it is in the interest of national security. Its like David Wood, a British expert on IT security, would say, we live in a society in which countries are hermetically sealing any access to data that are under their control, while in the same time, they want to find out as much as possible about their citizens.

To summarize, a modern individual is currently torn between the fact that we live in a world where making profile on Facebook is much more important than the country he lives in, dangers that the global terrorism is bringing, or to make love in his front yard without the fear it will be posted on the internet.

Despite the efforts of establishment and the centers of power to control the flows of internet, many theories which emerged in the last few years are saying that internet is the right path to complete democracy. Why? Because it allows a regular individual to engage himself much more directly in to the political life. Some extreme theories are predicting that one day, when complete digitalization occurs and everyone has a computer always by his side, everyone will be able to participate in decision-making, like in the village assemblies in the distant past.

Besides this utopia which is predicted by IT enthusiasts, the significance of further internet development is something we should all be encouraging. That is stating Mary Wolf, a former NBC producer and now a director of a computer center in one of Washington ghettos. For the last 15 years she is educating children in the neighborhood where no one has a college degree and where most kids are living without one or both parents, mostly on the edge of survival.

“I came to this place which is known about crime and I managed to build a computer center where kids could come after school instead of going out on the streets. They come here because they are able to see here, over the internet, that there is something else outside their gloom everyday life. Thanks to this I lived to watch how one of my students is receiving a college degree, nine years after his first visit to my center. He graduated  IT.” – she said.

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