Web Monitor
15:28 UK time, Monday, 24 August 2009
A celebration of the riches of the web.
Web Monitor ponders the emotional well being of Afghan drug lords and asks why Phillies are arguing over pretzels. Share your favourite bits of the internet by sending the link via the letters box to the right of this page.
• On the news website how drug money has influenced Afghan architecture. Tietz reports it's tricky for a millionaire drug lord to spend their money outside the country so instead they build self-sufficient towns for themselves and their workers:
"The pioneering Khan bought a town (land, buildings) in southern Helmand Province and transformed it into a rejuvenating way-station for his drug runners, who could pause after their travails and walk, self-reflectively, along the shores of a big artificial lake.
'Narcotecture' is the term used in Afghanistan to describe what the drug lords build. The Sherpur neighborhood in Kabul has the greatest concentration of narcotecture, but the phenomenon is national. Square blocks are razed, ancient family compounds are razed, and narco-palaces, sometimes several on a single vast lot, go up. The mansions may have twelve bathrooms, four kitchens, and rooftop parking lots. Many are fenced and armored; all are guarded.
Stylistically, narcotecture is incoherent and dizzyingly busy. Residences are composed of clashing globe-spanning elements: Asian pagoda tiers and eaves curving to points, Greek temple columns, mirrored skyscraper glass, medieval-castle balustrades and parapets, Persian pillars and arches, arabesque wrought-iron balcony railings, confectionary plasterwork. Some are straight imitations: a White House is under construction in Sherpur."
• Although Web Monitor wouldn't mind having so much money that we could create our own town - perhaps based on such as Vancouver - there is a nagging feeling: "Yes, but are these zillionaire drug lords happy?" that new research suggests money can buy happiness as long as your cash is spent on holidays and lunch for friends instead of new clothes and flash cars:
"The problem isn't money, it's us. For deep-seated psychological reasons, when it comes to spending money, we tend to value goods over experiences, ourselves over others, things over people. When it comes to happiness, none of these decisions are right: The spending that make us happy, it turns out, is often spending where the money vanishes and leaves something ineffable in its place."
• Ideas blogs are multiplying across the web like yeast in an airing cupboard.
Idea a day gives you an idea a day. No browsing previous ideas is allowed, focusing Web Monitor's mind on motorway safety:
"Place transparent, arched covers over major roads. The soundproof walls would also absorb impact in the event of accidents."
Meanwhile urges: "Don't keep your business idea secret." Web Monitor was getting ready to invest a few pennies on a personal wind farm or other madcap Dragons' Den style ideas but found this blog prefers to link to pretzel factory start-up tales such as those in of the Philadelphia Pretzel wars. Four companies are competing to take over the US's pretzel trade one of the Philly pretzel pioneers being DiZio:
"By the ninth grade he knew he wanted to run a pretzel business, but in college the dream was usurped by more practical plans. After graduation he became a stockbroker. But DiZio couldn't contain his pretzel obsession. He soon traded his suits for an apron, and he and a college pal, Len Lehman -- a psych major who jumped in simply because he thought working for himself would eventually allow him more time to play golf.
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