Iraqi refugees in Syria will receive UN food vouchers through text messages on mobile phones, the World Food Programme said Tuesday.

In a test project targeting 1,000 Iraqi refugee families, the United Nations agency will send a 22-dollar (15-euro) voucher every two months by SMS to each family, who will be provided with a special SIM card.

The beneficiary can then exchange the electronic voucher for rice, wheat flour, lentils, chickpeas, oil, canned fish, cheese and eggs at selected shops.

Addressing concerns about mobile phone ownership among the refugee population, WFP spokeswoman Emilia Casella said all the 130,000 Iraqi refugees currently receiving food aid from the agency in Syria have mobile phones… (((magic devices enabling entire families to survive on 22 dollars every two months, apparently.)))

There could be a guest book “Your Side of the Story”, where people tell their tales of break-up, and everyone just gets together to talk about break-ups, the photos, etc.

I’m not sure who would come, but it sounds like a decent idea!

Idea #2 – Open Mic Divorce Event. Just do an open mic of people’s breakups (as an “opening” to display photos)

Google Dashboard has been launched, which allows users to have a greater transparancy to the information that google has about them. Although this is a big step in the right direction as google (between the many apps it has) collects a lot of personal data, the Foundation of Tax and Consumer Rights says until Google allows users to remain anonymous, then there isn’t really a control over the data, and merely allows users to be within sight but not within reach of their data. They believe Google should add ways to delete information off their servers as well as the ability to remain anonymous. Also, the only data that is visible to users is information explicitly shared with google, not information google collects in general (such as search history).

I think this is a step in the right direction, but we really do need to see a bigger step towards controlling the data that we have. The internet is a big place, and people should own the data that have.

This article from the New York Times speaks about grief and depression after a loved one has passed. Normally, “time heals all wounds”, but for 15% of the population affected by someone close to them dying, they suffer from what Dr. Katherine Shear calls “The Loop of Suffering”. There is debate whether or not this should be put into the DSV-V (due out in 2012) because some think it should be treated as multiple disorders (PTSD, Depression, etc.), and others think its a whole other game. Complicated grief is something that creates a huge debilitating void in a person that does not allow them to function in society because they are preoccupied with yearning over the loss.

Dr. Shear has worked with people in this condition. The article talks about one woman who could not go on after her son’s death, and Dr. Shear used a combination of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (normally used for PTSD patients) to recall the death in detail and speak verbally about it, and eventually the patient got her life back on track.

To equate this to our class, I would say that the “Loop of Suffering” is something we want (why is it we always want the disgusting and horrific parts of this metaphor we use?) because we want people to keep it in their minds, the images, the thoughts of the meme. Now, this can be a bad thing for them. I know many times I have “suffered” with the Rick Roll song in my head (but that goes back to “is my meme worth putting out there?). Interesting article, and I think the DSM-V needs to see some expansion on this disorder as I know people who suffered from grieving way longer than 6 months, but probably not as severe as Dr Shear’s patients either.

Facebook : Nothing has really changed here, I am happy to see that my fans are increasing at a pretty rapid rate (well rapid for me)
Twitter : I followed about 8 more people, got some follow backs. It’s becoming hard to get followers that are not just return followers, so my next goal is to seek ways to fulfill this
The Actual Project : Uploaded a new photoshoot I did : HERE

NEXT : I just added Google Analytics to my page because feedburner was becoming useless for giving me any statistical analysis. Hopefully this will allow me to see what is going on from here on out as far as page views are concerned

I am setting up another photoshoot for next week. I want to do a Halloween edition as well, so I hope I can squeeze that in before Halloween (or at least upload it for Nov. 1st). I think now that there are two photoshoots up there people might start taking the project serious (serious as in, that it is actually an ongoing thing).

Cracked.com did an open call for people to photoshop what life would be like without the internet (after the riots stopped). Overall, they take internet trends and make them manual (birds flying around with messages, people in a long line for porn). It’s important to analyze how our memes are constructed and how they work out of the online context (as we are spreading virally through the internet). It’s a hilarious, yet interesting inspection of our online culture. It also brings many of the thought processes behind variable media to the surface on how does something exist outside of it’s medium, and it’s an interesting question to ask ourselves.

(pictures on link)

The Explanation

As I don’t really feel it is believable enough to string people along (as I really do want to tackle some of the more severe issues surrounding divorce – I figure I start of gently, funny, then get serious, and then back and forth), so my stance on the project is that the stories are real, and the photos are re-enactments. This is not really true, but I feel like it is air-tight. Like I said, i’m not going to advertise this being the case, but if it it all goes down, then I want to make sure it doesn’t destroy the project.

The Progress

The Photos

In an ideal world, I would have a photoshoot done before every Wednesday, but I have to depend on others for this project to be a success, and have been talking to a bunch of my friends who seem interested and are rather busy, BUT I have a scheduled photoshoot for this Saturday, so a a new post will be up this Sunday, then I have a confirmed zombie girl for a “She Broke my Heart, Then She Ate It”, shoot for Halloween Day, so I will have 2 more posts up on the site.

Facebook

I sent out this message to all of my 14 facebook fans just to let them know I appreciate their support, give them a little info about what is to come, and see if they can get me more fans, and to follow the Twitter!

I just wanted to thank everyone so far for being a fan of my page, i know it’s an interesting concept, but I think it’s an important one to explore. Just wanted to update you all with some news. I will have two more shoots up by Halloween, including a special Halloween feature for DPhoto, so be on the lookout for that.

Remember if you have tales of breakup you can go to “Your Side of the Story” and have an open discussion about why things went sour.

Hope everyone is doing well, try to get other people over here and follow me on Twitter

http://www.twitter.com/divorcephoto

THANKS

Twitter

* I added a profile, as it seemed when Mark talked with us, some apps out there really spider and look at that information :

* Added myself to WeFollow under Divorce, Photography, Relationships,

* Followed 10 more various people

* Followed 10 people with #divorce tags and 5 with #photography, it seems like people who are broken up / divorced seem more interested in this project, which makes sense, but for some reason I thought photographers would be my patient zeros. Now following 33 people, I don’t want to follow like 100 right away because if i am following 100 people and only 30 are following me, I think it makes me look desperate, so I am trying to keep a relatively even ratio until I establish more legitimacy.

*NOTE : weirdest Twitter account I came across : FullCustodyDad

“Bio Super Cool Christian Father who loves his kids & owns a business to help good fathers with custody matters!”

The Numbers

divrocephotosstats-1021 (updated stats)

Website

Made some changes in the description to give more wiggle room on my “explanation” (but not give away the reality), and also to just mention that this project isn’t about cheering on divorce, but rather exploring a taboo project. That is what the project is for me, so to some degree I don’t want to scare away people because I look like someone who thinks divorce is the solution to a problem.

FRUSTRATION : So I started @replying some people, but it shows up through ping.fm to facebook, and there doesn’t seem to be a way to disable it, I obviously don’t want @’s in Facebook.

Apple has now opened up their “Upgrade to Full Version” programming to free applications (that have full versions for download) instead of exiting the store and then downloading it that way. I think as far as “contagious” is concerned, when people download free apps (which they do a lot of), they want to just play a free game, and if it takes a lot of effort to get the full version (if its only an “alright” game) they probably won’t, but if it’s right there in the app, and they can play the full version in a matter of a minute or so, they will. This is important, in the same way that you need to make content visible and accessible on a site so that people don’t have to click too many links to get to what they want, the easier access we have to materials, the more buyin people are willing to give.

Divorce Photo Stats [click to open spreadsheet]