Livia Iacolare

Finally I moved to Milan and I’ve been hired by Current TV to work on the upcoming Italian edition (I’ll manage the Online department with other people). I have a lot of thoughts in my head, a hundred of new things to do and learn, a city to discover and a fantastic job to which I’m going to dedicate my energies. What else to say? Let’s get started.

Flickr introduced support for videos and many of its users are going nuts. They claim the ancestral spirit of Flickr has been violated, since it was meant to be a site for photographers only. I heard some people deleted their Flickr accounts just because of videos. Are you kidding me?

I’ve asked some of my friends on Flickr (most of them are professional photographers) whether they would move to another service because of the new features. They all answered that they don’t give a damn about videos because Flickr is the best site around for photos and pros are all on it. And guess what, I believe they are right.

Moreover, I think videos could be very useful to photographers; they might use them to explain certain things about their photos, interview a model, show how they built up a set.

If you don’t like videos on Flickr simply don’t do them and stop the fuss.

Some days ago I bumped into a video showing a Thailandian elephant that can paint. It was truly something amazing to watch and I was so impressed that I shared it with my friends. The other day, though, I decided to investigate and see whether it was possible to find out how elephants could be taught how to paint.

I searched on YouTube and I found this horrible video about elephant training (read “torture”) in Thailand. I should warn you not to watch it if you are sensitive people, but I believe it’s a duty to check it out.

From the description of the video:

The traditional way in Thailand to train elephants is to break their spirit completely and totally so that they are mortally afraid of humans. The way this is done is with the “phaajaan.”

Baby elephants are captured, put into a pen that does not allow them to move side to side, forward, or sit, and then for 3-7 days everyone in the village takes turns breaking the animal using sticks with nails at the end, ropes and hot irons.

I also posted it on Current and if you want it to air on TV make sure you register to the site and vote for it. I believe we must do whatever we can to raise consciousness about this disgusting crime.

I guess only The L Word fans can understand. Simply fantastic.

Possibly one of the best commercials I’ve ever seen.