December 17, 2011
The terms Google bomb and Googlewashing refer to practices, such as creating large numbers of links, that cause a web page to have a high ranking for searches on unrelated or off topic keyword phrases, often for comical or satirical purposes. In contrast, search engine optimization is the practice of improving the search engine listings of web pages for relevant search terms.
Google bombs date back as far as 1999, when a search for ‘more evil than Satan himself’ resulted in the Microsoft homepage as the top result. Some of the most famous Google bombs are also expressions of political opinions (e.g. ‘liar’ leading to Tony Blair or ‘miserable failure’ leading to the White House’s biography of George W. Bush).
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December 17, 2011
Typosquatting (URL hijacking), is a form of cybersquatting, and possibly brandjacking which relies on mistakes such as typographical errors made by Internet users when inputting a website address into a web browser. Should a user accidentally enter an incorrect website address, they may be led to an alternative website owned by a cybersquatter. Once in the typosquatter’s site, the user may also be tricked into thinking that they are in fact in the real site; through the use of copied or similar logos, website layouts or content.
In 2006, controversial evangelist Jerry Falwell failed to get the U.S. Supreme Court to review a decision allowing Christopher Lamparello to use ‘www.fallwell.com.’ Relying on a plausible misspelling of Falwell’s name, Lamparello’s gripe site presents misdirected visitors with scriptural references that counter the fundamentalist preacher’s scathing rebukes against homosexuality. In Lamparello v. Falwell, the high court let stand a 2005 lower court finding that ‘the use of a mark in a domain name for a gripe site criticizing the markholder does not constitute cybersquatting.’
Posted in Money, Politics, Technology |
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December 17, 2011
Mousetrapping is a technique used by websites (usually pornographic) to keep visitors from leaving their website, either by launching an endless series of pop-up ads—known colloquially as a ‘circle jerk’—or by re-launching their website in a window that cannot be closed. Many websites that do this also employ browser hijackers to reset the user’s default homepage. The Federal Trade Commission has brought suits against mousetrappers, charging that the practice is a deceptive and unfair competitive practice.
Typically, mousetrappers register URLs with misspelled names of celebrities (e.g. BrittnaySpears.com) or companies (WallStreetJournel.com). Once the viewer is at the site, a Javascript or a click induced by promises of free samples redirects the viewer to a URL and regular site of the mousetrapper’s client-advertiser, who pays him 10 to 25 cents for capturing and redirecting each potential customer. An FTC press release explaining states: ‘Schemes that capture consumers and hold them at sites against their will while exposing Internet users, including children, to solicitations for gambling, psychics, lotteries, and pornography must be stopped.’
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December 17, 2011
No poo (short for ‘no shampoo’) is a collective term for methods of washing hair without commercial shampoo. Methods for washing hair without shampoo include washing with dissolved baking soda, followed by an acidic rinse such as diluted apple cider vinegar. Also honey and various oils (such as coconut oil) can be used. The notion of non-shampooed hair being unhealthy is reinforced by the greasy feeling of the scalp after a day or two of not shampooing. However, using shampoo every day removes sebum, the oil produced by the scalp. This causes the sebaceous glands to produce oil at a higher rate to compensate for what is lost during shampooing.
A gradual reduction in shampoo use will cause the sebaceous glands to produce at a slower rate, resulting in less oil on the scalp. Shampoo typically contains chemical additives such as sulfates (e.g. sodium lauryl sulfate). These chemicals can irritate the skin of sensitive persons (or of anyone if not promptly rinsed). Some shampoos also include silicone derivatives (e.g. dimethicone), which coats the hair, protecting it and making it more manageable; however, it also prevents moisture from entering the hair, eventually drying it out. Dimethicone is a common ingredient in smoothing serums and detangling conditioners.
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December 17, 2011
A cat café is a theme café whose attraction is cats that can be watched and played with. Patrons pay a cover fee, generally hourly, and thus cat cafés can be seen as a form of supervised indoor pet rental. The world’s first cat café opened in Taiwan in 1998. In Japan, the first cat café opened in Osaka in 2004. The popularity of cat cafés in Japan is attributed to many apartments forbidding pets, and to cats providing relaxing companionship in what may otherwise be a stressful and lonesome urban life; other forms of pet rental are also common in Japan.
There are various cat cafés. Some cat cafés feature specific categories of cat such as black cats, fat cats, rare breed cats, or ex-stray cats. A cat café must obtain a license and comply with the strict requirements and regulations of the Animal Treatment/Protection Law. Japanese cat cafés feature strict rules to ensure cleanliness and animal welfare, in particular seeking to ensure that the cats are not disturbed by excessive and unwanted attention, such as by young children or when sleeping. Many cat cafés also seek to raise awareness of cat welfare issues, such as abandoned and stray cats.
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December 17, 2011
Parachute cord (also paracord or 550 cord) is a lightweight nylon kernmantle rope (consisting of two parts: an inner core, the kern and a protective sheath, the mantle ) originally used in the suspension lines of US parachutes during World War II. Once in the field, paratroopers found this cord useful for many other tasks. It is now used as a general purpose utility cord by both military personnel and civilians.
This versatile cord was even used by astronauts to repair the Hubble Space Telescope. The braided sheath has a high number of interwoven strands for its size, giving it a relatively smooth texture. The all-nylon construction makes paracord fairly elastic; depending on the application this can be either an asset or a liability.
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December 17, 2011
Yoshitomo Nara (b. 1959) is a Japanese artist. He lives and works in Tokyo, and first came to the fore of the art world during Japan’s Pop art movement in the 1990s.
The subject matter of his sculptures and paintings is deceptively simple: most works depict one seemingly innocuous subject (often pastel-hued children and animals drawn with confident, cartoonish lines) with little or no background. His artwork was featured in the album titled ‘Suspended Animation’ by experimental band Fantômas.
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December 17, 2011
Psychotronic is a film genre made up of horror films, spaghetti westerns, low-budget independent features, exploitation films that was coined by author Michael J. Weldon. The genre takes its name from the movie ‘The Psychotronic Man.’
After seeing this movie, Weldon created an extensive list of reviews of obscure quirky films that he felt were underappreciated by the mainstream and then marketed it as the ‘Psychotronic Encyclopedia,’ which has become known as a reference work for film buffs. The book prompted the creation of the Psychotronic Film Society.
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December 17, 2011
Paul Laffoley (b. 1940) is a US artist and architect. As an architect working for Emery Roth & Sons, Laffoley worked for 18 months on design for the World Trade Center Tower II.
As a painter, his work is usually classified as visionary art or outsider art; most of his pieces are painted on large canvases and combine words and imagery to depict a spiritual architecture of explanation, tackling concepts like dimensionality, time travel through hacking relativity, connecting conceptual threads shared by philosophers through the millennia, and theories about the cosmic origins of mankind.
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