August 16, 2010
Bele Chere is an annual music and arts street festival held in downtown Asheville, North Carolina. The festival has been held annually on the last weekend in July since the late 1970s. It is the largest free festival in the Southeastern United States, attracting over 350,000 people. Displayed art covers a variety of media types including painting, photography, pottery and jewelry. A variety of music genres are represented at the festival, including Country, Blues, Folk, Mountain, Rock and Jazz .
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August 16, 2010
Scarification [skar-uh-fi-key-shuhn], sometimes called cicatrization, involves scratching, etching, burning, or superficially cutting designs, pictures, or words into the skin as a permanent body modification.
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August 16, 2010
Gossamer is an animated cartoon character in the Warner Bros. Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies series of cartoons. The character is a hairy, orange monster. His rectangular body is perched on two giant tennis shoes, and his heart-shaped face is composed of only two oval eyes and a wide mouth, with two hulking arms. The monster’s main trait, however, is bright uncombed red hair.
In fact, a gag in the 1980 short Duck Dodgers and the Return of the 24½th Century lampoons this by revealing that Gossamer is, in fact, composed entirely of hair. He was originally voiced by Mel Blanc and has been voiced by Joe Alaskey and Jim Cummings. The word ‘Gossamer’ refers to things light, delicate, or insubstantial. The name is meant to be ironic, since the character is large, menacing, and destructive.
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August 16, 2010
Svalbard Global Seed Vault is a secure seedbank located on the Norwegian island of Spitsbergen in the remote Arctic Svalbard archipelago, about 1,300 kilometres from the North Pole. The facility preserves a wide variety of plant seeds in an underground cavern. The seed vault will provide insurance against the loss of seeds in genebanks, as well as a refuge for seeds in the case of large scale regional or global crises. The seed vault is managed under terms spelled out in a tripartite agreement between the Norwegian government, the Global Crop Diversity Trust (GCDT) and the Nordic Genetic Resource Center.
Construction of the seed vault, which cost approximately $9 million, was funded entirely by the Government of Norway. Storage of seeds in the vault is free of charge. Operational costs are paid by Norway and the Global Crop Diversity Trust. The primary funding of the Trust came from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, United Kingdom, Norway, Australia, Switzerland, and Sweden, though funding has been received from a wide variety of sources including four developing countries: Brazil, Colombia, Ethiopia, and India.
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August 16, 2010
Mamihlapinatapai is a word from the Yaghan language of Tierra del Fuego, listed in The Guinness Book of World Records as the ‘most succinct word,’ and is considered one of the hardest words to translate. It describes ‘a look shared by two people with each wishing that the other will initiate something that they both desire but which neither one wants to start.’
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August 16, 2010
Baidu is a Chinese search engine established in 2000 by co-founders, Robin Li and Eric Xu. Both of the co-founders are Chinese nationals who have studied and worked overseas before returning to China. Baidu.com Inc. is registered in the Cayman Islands. In April 2010, Baidu ranked 7th overall in Alexa’s internet rankings.
In December 2007, Baidu became the first Chinese company to be included in the NASDAQ-100 index. Baidu proactively censors its content in line with government regulations. The name Baidu, whose literal meaning is ‘hundreds of times,’ is taken from the last line of Xin Qiji’s classical poem ‘Green Jade Table in The Lantern Festival.’
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August 16, 2010
Yandex is a Russian IT company which operates the largest search engine in Russia (with 64% market share, ranked eighth-largest in the world) and develops a number of Internet-based services and products. Yandex was launched in 1997 and began earning a profit in 2002. Its name stands for ‘Yet Another iNDEXer.’
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August 16, 2010
A chipper is an occasional drug user who does not use drugs with the regularity or frequency typical of addicts. It is used particularly to refer to opiate users and tobacco smokers. Above a certain threshold they develop regular cravings and become addicted. The term dates at least to the 1970s, where it is used in reference to opiate use and was used notably in reference to tobacco by psychologist Saul Shiffman and journalist Malcolm Gladwell.
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August 12, 2010
Fan death is a putative phenomenon, generally accepted only in South Korea, in which an electric fan left running overnight in a closed room can cause the death of those inside. Fans sold in Korea are equipped with a timer switch that turns them off after a set number of minutes, which users are frequently urged to set when going to sleep with a fan on.
The genesis of this misconception is unclear. Some have speculated that the South Korean government created the idea of fan death as propaganda in order to curb the energy consumption of Korean households. This theory is based on the fact that reports of fan death first appeared in the 1970s. This coincided with the 1970s energy crisis, which led to a short supply and high prices of oil; it also coincided with the rule of President Park Chung-hee, who listed attaining a self-reliant economy and modernization as his top goals, as announced in his Five Year Economic development Plan.
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August 12, 2010
Umami [oo-mah-mee], also referred to as savoriness, has been proposed as one of the basic tastes sensed by specialized receptor cells present on the human and animal tongue. Umami is a loanword from Japanese meaning ‘good flavor’ or ‘good taste.’ In English, however, ‘brothy,’ ‘meaty,’ or savory’ have been proposed as alternative translations. Inasmuch as it describes the flavor common to savory products such as meat, cheese, and mushrooms, umami is similar to French gastronome Brillat-Savarin’s concept of osmazome, an early attempt to describe the main flavoring component of meat as extracted in the process of making stock.
The umami taste is due to the detection of the carboxylate anion of glutamic acid, a naturally occurring amino acid common in meat, cheese, broth, stock, and other protein-heavy foods. Salts of glutamic acid, known as glutamates, easily ionize to give the same carboxylate form and therefore the same taste. For this reason, they are used as flavor enhancers. The most commonly used of these is monosodium glutamate (MSG).
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August 12, 2010
Anaglyph [an-uh-glif] images are used to provide a stereoscopic 3D effect, when viewed with 2 color glasses (usually red and cyan). Video games, theatrical films, and other media can be shown in the anaglyph 3D process. Practical images, for science or design, where depth perception is useful, include the presentation of full scale and microscopic stereographic images.
Examples from NASA include Mars Rover imaging, and 3D images of the sun. Other applications include geological illustrations by the USGS. A recent application is for stereo imaging of the heart using 3D ultra-sound with plastic red/cyan glasses. Anaglyph images are much easier to view than stereograms, but don’t render colors as accurately. Recently, cross-view prismatic glasses with adjustable masking have appeared, that offer a wider image on the new HD video and computer monitors.
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August 12, 2010
Anti-climb paint (also known as Anti Vandal Paint) is a class of paint which is a thick glutinous coating that is applied with a stiff brush, trowel or by hand using a protective glove. In appearance it is similar to smooth gloss paint when applied but it remains slippery indefinitely so preventing any intruder from gaining a foothold. It is used to prevent climbing on objects such as lampposts, walls and fences. It owes its effectiveness to the fact that it is based on a non-drying oil and keeps the surface greasy and slippery. As an additional advantage, it leaves its mark on the person touching it and hence makes it possible for intruders to be identified.
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The Daily Omnivore 