September 14, 2010
For the Love of God is a sculpture by English artist Damien Hirst produced in 2007. It consists of a platinum cast of a human skull encrusted with 8,601 flawless diamonds, which weigh over 1,106.18 carats in total, including a pear-shaped pink diamond located in the forehead. Costing £14 million to produce, the work went on display at the White Cube gallery in London in an exhibition called ‘Beyond Belief’ with an asking price of £50 million. The work’s title was supposedly inspired by Hirst’s mother, who once asked, ‘For the love of God, what are you going to do next?’
Hirst said that the work was sold on August, 30 2007, for £50 million, to an anonymous consortium. Christina Ruiz, editor of The Art Newspaper, claims that Hirst had failed to find a buyer and had been trying to offload the skull for £38 million. Immediately after these allegations were made, Hirst claimed he had sold it for the full asking price, in cash, leaving no paper trail. The consortium that bought the piece included Hirst himself. Art critic David Lee commented, ‘Everyone in the art world knows Hirst hasn’t sold the skull. It’s clearly just an elaborate ruse to drum up publicity and rewrite the book value of all his other work.’
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September 14, 2010
In psychology, the term jamais vu (from the French, meaning ‘never seen’) is used to describe any familiar situation which is not recognized by the observer. Often described as the opposite of déjà vu, jamais vu involves a sense of eeriness and the observer’s impression of seeing the situation for the first time, despite rationally knowing that he or she has been in the situation before. It is linked to the linguistic concept of semantic satiation (a cognitive phenomenon in which repetition causes a word or phrase to temporarily lose meaning for the listener).
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September 14, 2010
The Settlers of Catan is a board game designed by Klaus Teuber. It was first published in 1995 in Germany, where board games enjoy especially great popularity. It has sold over 15 million games and been translated into thirty languages from the original German. The players in the game represent settlers establishing colonies on the fictional island of Catan. Players build settlements, cities, and roads to connect them as they develop the island.
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September 14, 2010
Italo disco is a broad term, encompassing much of the dance music output in Europe during the 1980s. It is one of the world’s first forms of completely electronic dance music and evolved during the late 1970s and early 1980s in Italy, Germany, the Netherlands and other parts of Europe. Italo disco music has a distinct, futuristic and spacey sound, which was created using synthesizers, drum machines and vocoders. The term ‘Italo disco’ was marketed only in Europe in the early 1980s by the German record label ZYX Music. Prior to 1983, the music was simply considered dance or disco music from Europe.
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September 14, 2010
Silly Bandz are a brand of silicone rubber bands formed into shapes including animals, objects, and letters. They are distributed by BCP Imports and are normally worn as bracelets. The original shaped silicone rubber bands were created in 2002 by a Japanese design team who wanted to introduce a more environmentally-sustainable rubber band as an office product.
Robert Croak, owner of Toledo, Ohio-based BCP Imports (known for distributing the Livestrong wristbands), encountered the bands on a business trip and decided to re-purpose them as a toy by making them larger and thicker, and marketing them as a kids’ fashion accessory. The first Silly Bandz sets were sold online in November 2008, and by April of 2010 they were most popular toys sold on Amazon.com.
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September 14, 2010
The Great Pacific Garbage Patch refers to marine litter trapped in gyre (a system of rotating ocean currents) in the central North Pacific Ocean. The patch extends over an indeterminate area, with estimates ranging very widely depending on the degree of plastic concentration used to define the affected area.
The Patch is characterized by exceptionally high concentrations of plastics, chemical sludge, and other debris. Despite its size and density, it is not visible from satellite photography; it consists primarily of suspended particulates in the upper water column.
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