Jessica Dimmok - The Ninth Floor

In 2004, anywhere from 20 to 30 young addicts lived on the ninth floor of an elegant narrow building overlooking Fifth Avenue in Manhattan. The squatters had turned the sprawling apartment into a dark, desperate and chaotic place.

People hustled, scored, shot and smoked wherever they could. Friends conned each other for their next hit. They slept on piles of clothes on the floor. The power was shut off; the bathroom unusable; the kitchen filled with garbage. Anything of value was sold off.

For nearly three years, Jessica Dimmock followed this crew documenting what happened to them after eviction, how they fought to get clean, sank deeper into addiction, went to jail, started families and struggled to survive.

The story of Dionn and Rachel was so… romantically deranged… and beautiful. You’ve gotta see it through the end of the movie.

Matt and Melissa Eich - Love in first person

One year ago Matt Eich, 20, and Melissa Turk, 19, were typical college students. Then, everything started changing. Matt won the prestigious College Photographer of the Year contest, Melissa found out she was pregnant, they got married and moved from Ohio to Portland, OR, for Matt’s summer internship.

In Love in the First Person, Matt and Melissa, with help from their friends, document their life together as they share their thoughts and fears on the sudden changes in their future. They come to realize that, as Matt says, “Nothing good comes without some sort of struggle,” and that beginning a life together is as much about faith as it is about commitment.

“Nothing good comes without some sort of struggle.” and remember that “true love only comes along once in your life”.

Via mediastorm, one of those URLs you keep in your bookmarks.

Quality is really good and you can write stuff on the back of them too. Now I’ve seen that MOO.com offer businesscards too. I’m really really tempted to try them… but I think I’m gonna wait till I have at least a dozen of good pics to print on them.

I took these shots as soon as I opened the package. As useless as they may seem, you can’t really explain their charm and appeal until you hold two or three in your hands.

PhotoOfTheDay
The first one is about Jamie Livingston. He was a New York-based photographer, film-maker and circus performer who from March 31, 1979 through to the day of his death on October 25, 1997 took a Polaroid photograph every day. Livingston’s Polaroid a Day charted his experiences with cancer, and his subsequent engagement and marriage. His photographs in and out of hospital continued up until the day of his death.

Days with my father
An always beautiful, sometimes sad, sometimes uplifting site documenting the daily life of Philip’s 98 year-old father who copes with his lack of short-memory. 20 minutes after Philip’s mother funeral, his dad started to ask him where his mother was. After some time Philip figured out that he couldn’t keep telling him that she was gone. “It was killing both of us to re-live her death constantly”.

Love Diary
This is touching in so many ways. Just like the other links here. To tell it with the words of Madi Ju “I met Patrick online in July 2006, then we met in Macau for the first time. he moved from Taipei to Guangzhou, we travelled to Tibet and Nepal, then we moved to Xiamen, a small city by the sea. Our relationship ended after 2 years in Beijing. This is our photo story about our love and passion. Now it’s all the memories.”

Needless to say that now I have a craving for it! I also love the instrumental version of Marilyn Manson’s “If I was your vampire”. He’s good at soundtracks.

Did you know that the average toilet wastes three gallons of water per flush?

Peeoutside.org was founded in 2007 in Atlanta, Georgia, in response to the state’s worst drought in history. Our goal is to promote a simple way to ease water consumption. With a population of 5,138,223, Atlanta could save over 15 million gallons of water per day – simply by peeing outside.

You first laugh at it. Then you start thinking…

WASHINGTON—Officials from the Institute for Somehow Managing to Hold It All Together warned that, despite their best efforts, everything appears to be falling completely apart and “getting way out of hand,” according to a strongly worded report characterized by panic, frustration, and numerous typographical errors that was released to the American public Monday.

“The country today faces a number of pressing issues, including potential economic collapse, the continued threat of global warming, and the decaying national infrastructure,” ISMHIAT chairman Kenneth Branowicz said during a press conference to announce the study’s findings. “And we just can’t keep it together anymore.”

“Furthermore, we just found out that my fucking hot water is being turned off,” Branowicz added.

ISMHIAT, Quarterly Status Summaries

The report outlines a number of disturbing trends, such as a steadily weakening dollar, skyrocketing national debt, the car still being in the shop after three whole weeks, a polarized electorate that remains divided across ideological lines, and the fact that the wife is staying at her sister’s and for all they know may not ever be coming back.

“In summary, we have no choice but to accept that managing these complex and varied crises may be untenable at this time,” the report concludes. “We’re in way over our heads here, people. Oh God. God. What are we going to do?”

The institute, a nonpartisan Washington think tank formed in 1933 by President Franklin D. Roosevelt as part of his Depression-era For God’s Sake, Somebody Do Something Initiative, has issued similarly dramatic warnings in the past. In 1953, ISMHIAT released the now-historic findings on how they had talked and talked until they were blue in the face but they’d had it with these damn teenagers today. And historians still cite its famous 1968 report, a rambling, semi-coherent study titled “The Hell If We Know,” recommending the immediate nationwide throwing up of hands.

This latest warning, however, could be the most alarming and desperate to date.

“Among the new challenges America faces is a deteriorating public education system, a vast healthcare crisis, new and frightening bioethics quandaries related to the privatization of human genetics, and, of course, the whole fossil fuels thing,” the 5,000-page study, which was due in November 2007, notes. “While much has been done to alleviate immediate effects, the situation has become OH FOR CHRIST’S SAKE—I just spilled coffee all over my pants—wait, don’t type that—damn it, we’re out of paper towels AGAIN—Gwen, don’t put any of that last part in the report—why are you still typing?”

Some have criticized the report as being alarmist and exaggerated, urging that the nation should just cool out for a minute until the situation can resolve itself.

“While they have certainly generated plenty of attention, these findings represent an unnecessary overreaction, and should be met with restraint and calm,” said James H. Walloch of the California Center for Not Worrying About Stuff So Much. “It is my opinion, as an expert in this field, that it’s probably not that big a deal.”

Walloch’s agency is not the only one coming down hard on ISMHIAT. Others have accused the institute of shortsightedness and even gross negligence for failing to keep on top of such issues.

“The current state of world affairs is completely unacceptable,” said Dr. Hyram Klemper, codirector of the Sitting Around and Expecting Others to Take Care of Everything Foundation, which has historically had a contentious relationship with ISMHIAT. “We rely on the institute to keep things together, yet, evidently, this bloated bureaucracy is incapable of fulfilling its mandate from the American people. Now I’ve had to cancel my Hawaiian golf vacation to return to Washington and address this issue.”

Dr. Thomas Dyers, of the National Blame Allocation Council, echoed Klemper’s statements, stating that if the ISMHIAT cannot handle its responsibilities, its duties should be turned over to another organization, such as the Federal Fall Guy Bureau, under the supervision of Ed Haversham, the national Scapegoat Czar.

The Onion - America’s Finest News Source

Along with Radiohead, they released their recent albums over the internet and they are using a massive amount of web2.0 tools to promote themselves and reach the audience. Some of the tools they use are Flickr, Facebook, Last.fm, MySpace, YouTube, iCal, iLike, and more recently, Google Earth and Google Calendar.

This web 2.0 tools usage, along with their creative music and viral marketing / alternate reality games (the Year Zero game) techniques, is making them one of the most “3.0″ band ever.

I guess every band (and business) out there should hire this new, emerging figure: the 2.0 marketing expert. Someone with deep knowledge of the available tools and their capabilities. Someone who is able to create mashups and keep contact with fans (customers).

The band (corporate) blog is not enough nowadays. We need to create real connections and involvement.

I have to fix a couple of bugs here and there, and there’s still a lot to do with the pages.

And yeah, the about link does not work anymore. Sorry, I’ll make a new about page soon. Unfortunately this theme won’t be available for download unless I find a way to fix the hardcoded stuff I put inside it (like the silly about text in the header).

Oh and by the way I definitely removed adevrtisements. You won’t see them on flipthedolphin.com anymore.

The second one (24th of May) will be a MicroCamp: participants are limited to 50 and it will be held in Milan too. Main topic will be the microblogging experience.

It will be interesting to see what comes out of those event. I’m interested in the business point of view (how suchs tools are used, the business model, and so on…). Also there will be an interesting technical point of view too (integration, development, features…).

I’ll be documenting both events with my camera (on flickr), on twitter and maybe on my blogs. Stay tuned.

So today I found these two interesting blog posts, one on Dumb Little Man and the other on ZenHabits.

With today’s divorce rate climbing faster than you can swallow a slice of wedding cake, it seems that we need a lot more than just a bit of love to make our relationships go the long haul.

There are 6 ways to improve your relationship and 7 Deadly Sins of a Relationship.

Let me sum them up here with the 6 hints…

• Give exactly what you want to get
• Remember your partner is not a band-aid
• Being in a relationship never made anyone blind
• Say what you mean, mean what you say
• Always assume your partner’s intentions are good
• Remember the virtues of friendship

…and with the deadly sins (which are now 8)

• Resentment
• Jealousy
• Unrealistic expectations
• Not making time
• Lack of communication
• Not showing gratitude
• Lack of affection
• Bonus sin: Stubbornness

Enjoy your relationship. Have fun. Life is good (no… really!)