As of last night in Buenos Aires, 26th of July, Diego Armando Maradona has decided to leave the Argentine national team. This decision follows Grondona's (the head of the Argentine FA's) refusal to allow Maradona free selection of his coaching staff. This decision comes as a shock to the Argentine public which, for the large part, showed enormous support and felt extremely attached to this national side, even after their early elimination in South Africa
Who will take over the star-studded line up ahead of the 2011 Copa America and the (not so distant) 2014 World Cup in Brazil? Diego Simeone? Carlos Bianchi? Miguel Angel Russo? We will have to wait and see...
Tuesday 27 July 2010
Friday 23 April 2010
Friday 16 April 2010
We Love Piracy - but for how much longer?
Have we come to a point in time where our traditional, trade-off based, economic theories no longer hold ground? Society has generally accepted and largely based itself around these models. To deal with our limited wealth and our limited options we must make choices: we eat chicken instead of beef, we stop buying expensive restaurant dinner in order to go on holiday...All of our decisions implicitly force us to give up the alternative. The "opportunity cost".
The internet has presented a new situation. Information no longer has a price. Piracy has essentially destroyed the market structure of media. Software, music, newspapers, magazines, television, movies...Who pays for these? The wealth of new technology, particularly file-sharing platforms, has diminished the cost of production of the aforementioned goods. Computers programs and movies are spread around the world for basically no price at all. There is no opportunity cost! You are giving up nothing in order to consume these goods, they are free!
But, as the saying says, there is no such thing as a free lunch...On the other side of the stories stand the writers, the musicians, the actors and the enormous industries that support them. People that expect to eat and live off of what they produce. However, a huge portion of what they can potentially make is absorbed by the consumption-vacuum that is the internet.
Piracy is the most unbalanced and unfair economic system. It never reaches equilibrium. Ridiculously disproportionate terms of trade reign. Piracy can not and will not withstand the test of time as a valid economic structure.
How long will we be able to abuse the resources of the web as we do now?
I can't say when or how this free-for-all system will collapse.
All I can say is, download now while you still can!
If you have an apple and I have an apple and we exchange apples then you and I will still each have one apple. But if you have an idea and I have an idea and we exchange these ideas, then each of us will have two ideas.
—George Bernard Shaw
The internet has presented a new situation. Information no longer has a price. Piracy has essentially destroyed the market structure of media. Software, music, newspapers, magazines, television, movies...Who pays for these? The wealth of new technology, particularly file-sharing platforms, has diminished the cost of production of the aforementioned goods. Computers programs and movies are spread around the world for basically no price at all. There is no opportunity cost! You are giving up nothing in order to consume these goods, they are free!
But, as the saying says, there is no such thing as a free lunch...On the other side of the stories stand the writers, the musicians, the actors and the enormous industries that support them. People that expect to eat and live off of what they produce. However, a huge portion of what they can potentially make is absorbed by the consumption-vacuum that is the internet.
Piracy is the most unbalanced and unfair economic system. It never reaches equilibrium. Ridiculously disproportionate terms of trade reign. Piracy can not and will not withstand the test of time as a valid economic structure.
How long will we be able to abuse the resources of the web as we do now?
I can't say when or how this free-for-all system will collapse.
All I can say is, download now while you still can!
If you have an apple and I have an apple and we exchange apples then you and I will still each have one apple. But if you have an idea and I have an idea and we exchange these ideas, then each of us will have two ideas.
—George Bernard Shaw
Thursday 15 April 2010
Big Bang Maradona!
The story goes like this:
After seeing a picture taken of Diego Armando Maradona wearing not one, but two, Hublots, Jean Claude Biver went into overdrive. How had Diego Maradona had purchased two of the company's watches without him finding out?
Immediately after, he began contact with Maradona whose declared love for timepieces inspired Biver to form a partnership with the living legend. The result? A limited edition Big Bang Series watch, the 'Big Bang Maradona'...
Only 250 are being made and all have been sold already! Messi, Kaka and many other high profile footballers have already placed their orders...I want one!
After seeing a picture taken of Diego Armando Maradona wearing not one, but two, Hublots, Jean Claude Biver went into overdrive. How had Diego Maradona had purchased two of the company's watches without him finding out?
Immediately after, he began contact with Maradona whose declared love for timepieces inspired Biver to form a partnership with the living legend. The result? A limited edition Big Bang Series watch, the 'Big Bang Maradona'...
Only 250 are being made and all have been sold already! Messi, Kaka and many other high profile footballers have already placed their orders...I want one!
Wednesday 14 April 2010
Too many options...
I know too much, I have too many options, and there are too many alternative choices and this makes it impossible to decide! Has today's consumption culture turned on us? It is possible to be truly satisfied with your choice knowing that the probability of finding happiness through another decision is huge? How can you be sure that your choice is the right choice? Too many options leave us with too many questions, which fills us with uncertainty...
Monday 8 March 2010
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