February 10, 2012
Reality distortion field (RDF) is a term coined by Bud Tribble (who still works at Apple) at Apple Computer in 1981, to describe company co-founder Steve Jobs’ charisma and its effects on the developers working on the Mac project. Tribble claimed that the term came from ‘Star Trek.’ Later the term has also been used to refer to perceptions of his keynote speeches (or ‘Stevenotes’) by observers and devoted users of Apple computers and products.
The RDF was said by Andy Hertzfeld (member of the original Apple team) to be Steve Jobs’ ability to convince himself and others to believe almost anything with a mix of charm, charisma, bravado, hyperbole, marketing, appeasement, and persistence. RDF was said to distort an audience’s sense of proportion and scales of difficulties and made them believe that the task at hand was possible. While RDF has been criticized as anti-reality, those close to Jobs have also illustrated numerous instances in which creating the sense that the seemingly impossible was possible led to the impossible being accomplished. Similarly, the optimism which Jobs sowed in those around him contributed to the loyalty of his colleagues and fans.
Posted in Humor, Money, Technology |
1 Comment »
February 10, 2012
Stippling [stip-uhl-ing] is the creation of a pattern simulating varying degrees of solidity or shading by using small dots. Such a pattern may occur in nature and these effects are frequently emulated by artists. In a drawing or painting, the dots are made of pigment of a single color, applied with a pen or brush; the denser the dots, the darker the apparent shade—or lighter, if the pigment is lighter than the surface. This is similar to—but distinct from—pointillism, which uses dots of different colors to simulate blended colors.
In printmaking, dots may be carved out of a surface to which ink will be applied, to produce either a greater or lesser density of ink depending on the printing technique. Stippling may also be used in engraving or sculpting an object even when there is no ink or paint involved, either to change the texture of the object, or to produce the appearance of light or dark shading depending on the reflective properties of the surface; for instance, stipple engraving on glass produces areas that appear brighter than the surrounding glass.
read more »
Posted in Art, Technology |
1 Comment »
February 9, 2012
Divisionism [dih-vizh-uh-niz-uhm] (also called Chromoluminarism) was the characteristic style in Neo-Impressionist painting defined by the separation of colors into individual dots or patches which interacted optically. By requiring the viewer to combine the colors optically instead of physically mixing pigments, divisionists believed they were achieving the maximum luminosity scientifically possible.
Georges Seurat founded the style around 1884 as chromoluminarism, drawing from his understanding of the scientific theories of Michel Eugène Chevreul, Ogden Rood and Charles Blanc, among others. Divisionism developed along with another style, pointillism, which is defined specifically by the use of dots of paint and does not necessarily focus on the separation of colors.
Posted in Art |
1 Comment »
February 9, 2012
Dan Reisinger (b. 1934) is an Israeli designer of graphics, exhibitions, and stage sets. He was born in Serbia, into a family of painters and decorators active in Austria-Hungary and the Balkans. Most family members died in the Holocaust, including his father. He immigrated to Israel in 1949. Reisinger initially lived in a transit camp and then worked as a house painter. In 1950 at age 16, he was accepted as a student—its youngest at the time—at the Bezalel Academy of Art and Design in Jerusalem.
He graduated in 1954 and was inducted into the Israeli military for mandatory service. He was the art director for the Air Force’s books and other publications. While there, he attended a class on postage-stamp design taught by Abram Games, who became his mentor and friend. Subsequently, he traveled, studied, and worked in Europe: from 1957 in Brussels and then onto London where, 1964–66, studied stage and three-dimensional design at the Central School of Art and Design (today the Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design), designed posters for Britain’s Royal Mail. Then in 1966, he returned permanently to Israel and established a studio.
Posted in Art, World |
Leave a Comment »
February 9, 2012
Ben Frost is an Australian visual artist who places common iconic images from advertising, entertainment, and politics into juxtapositions that are often confrontational and controversial. The collaborative exhibition ‘Colossus’ with Roderick Bunter in 2000 at the Institute of Modern Art in Brisbane featured a 12m x 2.4m mural by the artists, called ‘Where Do You Want To Go Today?’
Containing controversial imagery, including masturbating cartoon characters among a pastiche of advertising icons, the work was a statement on society’s continuing loss of innocence. In the final week of the exhibition, a disgruntled viewer entered the gallery and slashed one of the paintings with a knife.’ In 2005 he started the online art store and blog portal ‘Stupid Krap,’ which continues to support and represent a number of notable Australian emerging artists.
Posted in Art, Money |
Leave a Comment »
February 9, 2012
An illegal number is a number that represents information which is illegal to possess, utter or propagate. Any information that can be represented in binary format is representable as a number, and therefore if the information itself is illegal in some way, the pure number itself may be illegal. An illegal number may represent some type of classified information or trade secret, legal to possess only by certain authorized persons. An AACS encryption key that came to prominence in 2007 is an example of a number claimed to be a secret, and whose publication or inappropriate possession is claimed to be illegal in the United States. It allegedly assists in the decryption of any Blu-ray Disc.
As a protest of the DeCSS case, many people created ‘steganographic’ (hidden) versions of the illegal information. Dave Touretzky of Carnegie Mellon University created a ‘Gallery of DeCSS descramblers.’ In the AACS encryption key controversy, a ‘free speech flag’ was created. The illegal number was so short that a simple flag could be created by using the numbers as red-green-blue colors. The argument is that if short numbers can be made illegal, then anything based on those numbers also becomes illegal, like simple patterns of colors, etc.
Posted in Money, Politics, Technology |
1 Comment »
February 9, 2012
Prior art in most systems of patent law constitutes all information that has been made available to the public in any form before a given date that might be relevant to a patent’s claims of originality. If an invention has been described in prior art, a patent on that invention is not valid. Information kept secret, for instance, as a trade secret, is not usually prior art, provided that employees and others with access to the information are under a non-disclosure obligation. With such an obligation, the information will typically not be regarded as prior art. Therefore, a patent may be granted on an invention, although someone else already knew of the invention. A person who used an invention in secret may in some jurisdictions be able to claim ‘prior user rights’ and thereby gain the right to continue using the invention.
Prior art generally does not include unpublished work or mere conversations (though according to the European Patent Convention, oral disclosures also form prior art). It is disputed whether traditional knowledge (e.g., of medical properties of a certain plant) constitutes prior art. Patents disclose to society how an invention is practiced, in return for the right (during a limited term) to exclude others from manufacturing, selling, offering for sale or using the patented invention without the patentee’s licence. Patent offices deal with prior art searches in the context of the patent granting procedure. To assess the validity of a patent application, patent offices explore the prior art that was disclosed before the invention occurred (in the United States) or before the filing date (in the rest of the world).
Posted in Art, Money, Politics |
Leave a Comment »
February 9, 2012
Malcolm McLaren (1946 – 2010) was an English performer, impresario, self-publicist and manager of the Sex Pistols and the New York Dolls. As a solo artist, McLaren had an innovative career that helped introduce hip hop to the United Kingdom.
About his contribution to music, McLaren has said about himself: ‘I have been called many things: a charlatan, a con man, or, most flatteringly, the culprit responsible for turning British popular culture into nothing more than a cheap marketing gimmick. This is my chance to prove that these accusations are true.’
read more »
Posted in Art, Money, World |
Leave a Comment »
February 9, 2012
‘Home Taping Is Killing Music‘ was the slogan of a 1980s anti-copyright infringement campaign by the British Phonographic Industry (BPI), a British music industry trade group. With the rise in cassette recorder popularity, the BPI feared that people being able to record music from the radio onto cassettes would cause a decline in record sales. The logo, consisting of a Jolly Roger formed from the silhouette of a Compact Cassette, also included the words ‘And It’s Illegal.’ Similar rhetoric has continued; in 1982 Jack Valenti famously compared the VCR and its anticipated effect on the movie industry to the Boston Strangler, and in 2005 Mitch Bainwol of the RIAA claimed that CD burning is hurting music sales.
The slogan was often parodied, one example being the addendum ‘and it’s about time too!,’ used by Dutch anarcho-punk band The Ex. Another example was the early 1980s counter-slogan ‘Home Taping is Skill in Music,’ referring to early mixtapes, a precursor to sampling and remixes. In 1981 the Dead Kennedys printed ‘Home taping is killing record industry profits! We left this side blank so you can help’ on one side of their EP ‘In God We Trust, Inc.’ An early ‘proponent’ of home taping was Malcolm McLaren who was at the time managing the British band Bow Wow Wow. In 1980 the band released their single ‘C30, C60, C90 Go’ on a cassette that featured a blank other side that the buyer could record their own music on. The band’s record label, EMI, dropped the group shortly afterwards because the single allegedly promoted home taping.
Posted in Money, Politics, Technology |
Leave a Comment »
February 9, 2012
Don’t Copy That Floppy was an anti-copyright infringement campaign run by the Software Publishers Association (SPA) beginning in 1992.
The video for the campaign, starring M. E. Hart as ‘MC Double Def DP,’ was filmed at Cardozo High School in Washington, D.C. The commercial’s mention of the game ‘Tetris’ is ironic given the original version was copied and smuggled out of the Soviet Union then commercialized without any legal rights or payment to its creators (or to the Soviet Union, which had the copyrights of what its scientist produced).
Posted in Money, Politics, Technology |
Leave a Comment »
February 9, 2012
A squircle [skwer-kul] is a mathematical shape with properties between those of a square and those of a circle. It is a special case of superellipse. The word ‘squircle’ is a portmanteau of the words ‘square’ and ‘circle.’ A shape similar to a squircle, called a rounded square, may be generated by arranging four quarters of a circle and connecting their loose ends with straight lines. Although constructing a rounded square may be conceptually and physically simpler, the squircle has the simpler equation and can be generalized much more easily. One consequence of this is that the squircle and other superellipses can be scaled up or down quite easily. This is useful where, for example, one wishes to create nested squircles.
Squircles are useful in optics. If light is passed through a two-dimensional square aperture, the central spot in the diffraction pattern can be closely modeled by a squircle (also called a supercircle). If a rectangular aperture is used, the spot can be approximated by a superellipse. Squircles have also been used to construct dinner plates. A squircular plate has a larger area (and can thus hold more food) than a circular one with the same radius, but still occupies the same amount of space in a rectangular or square cupboard. The same is true of a square plate, but there are various problems (such as wiping up sauce) associated with the corners of square plates.
Posted in Science, Technology |
1 Comment »
February 9, 2012
In geometry, a superegg is a solid of revolution obtained by rotating an elongated super-ellipse with exponent greater than 2 around its longest axis. It is a special case of super-ellipsoid. Unlike an elongated ellipsoid, an elongated superegg can stand upright on a flat surface, or on top of another superegg.
This is due to its curvature being zero at the tips. The shape was popularized by Danish poet and scientist Piet Hein (1905–1996). Supereggs of various materials were sold as novelties or ‘executive toys’ in the 1960s. A 1-ton superegg made of steel and aluminum was placed outside Kelvin Hall in Glasgow in 1971, on occasion of a lecture by Piet Hein.
Posted in Art, Science |
Leave a Comment »
The Daily Omnivore 