China's Green Dam picks out roast pork, Garfield and Johnny Depp while down under, a CEO goes naked in the name of advertising. Heel, boy, heel.
Excuse me, there's too much flesh showing here
Johnny Depp, Paris Hilton, roast pork and Garfield appear to have more in common than we think.
The four images showed up in the Chinese government Internet-filter as bad for your moral health.
China’s Green Dam is the new government-mandated Internet filter intended to block pornographic and violent images and a trial of the programme online suggests its filters may be of limited use to worried parents, says a report from Reuters.
“When the software is installed and an image scanner activated, it blocks even harmless images of a film poster for cartoon cat Garfield, roast pork and film star Johnny Depp’s face.
“With the image filter off, even though searches with words like “nude” are blocked, a hunt for adult websites throws up links to pornography sites,” says the report.
Experts are guessing that the filter probably uses colour and form recognition to zoom in on potential expanses of naked flesh.
Garfield, as you know, loves being in the nude, as do Paris and Johnny. Roast pork meanwhile is best eaten au naturel.
The Naked CEO
Courtesy of Air New Zealand
Air New Zealand’s new inflight safety video (above) and advertisement would probably not pass the Green Dam filter in China.
It shows staff members clad in nothing but body paint and the three-minute, 28-second clip and a similar advertisement launched six weeks ago takes aim at competing airlines who hide extras in their air fares.
“At Air New Zealand, our fares have nothing to hide,” the new slogan says. “Which is why the price you pay includes everything – upfront.”
The “talent” in the videos includes the airline’s chief executive Rob Fyfe who we are told is quite a hunk. It’s not as nude as it appears though – amid the uniforms of paint, seatbelts, luggage and lifevests are positioned in appropriate places.
The video clip is accompanied by a cheerful soundtrack of “Under My Skin” by New Zealand singer, Gin Wigmore.
Need to fire someone? It’s the recession. Need to shut down an entire division? It’s the recession. Need to cut salaries and take away bonuses? It’s the recession.
Yes, the recession has become the best excuse to do anything and everything you’ve always wanted to do but never dared to because now, you don’t have to explain why you are doing what you do.
For children though, the best excuse not to do their homework was “the dog ate it”, but now one teenager has come up with a new one, “the dog ate my passport”.
His family’s one-year-old golden retriever, Sunshine, chewed a corner of the document, obscuring some numbers, and the Wisconsin teenager, who was due to go on a class trip to Peru, was not allowed on the flight.
Even though officials at Chicago’s O’Hare airport said the chewed document was fine, authorities in Miami barked “no” at him and stopped him from boarding the flight.
