September 14, 2012
‘Vast right-wing conspiracy‘ was a theory advanced by then First Lady of the United States Hillary Rodham Clinton in 1998 in defense of her husband, President Bill Clinton, and his administration during the Lewinsky scandal, characterizing the Lewinsky charges as the latest in a long, organized, collaborative series of charges by Clinton’s political enemies. While popularized by Mrs. Clinton in her 1998 interview, the phrase did not originate with her.
In 1991 the ‘Detroit News’ wrote: ‘Thatcher-era Britain produced its own crop of paranoid left-liberal films. … All posited a vast right-wing conspiracy propping up a reactionary government ruthlessly crushing all efforts at opposition under the guise of parliamentary democracy.’ An AP story in 1995 also used the phrase, relating an official’s guess that the Oklahoma City bombing was the work of ‘maybe five malcontents’ and not ‘some kind of vast right-wing conspiracy.’
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September 13, 2012
‘A moron in a hurry‘ is a hypothetical person against whom a claimant’s concern might be judged in an English law civil action for passing off or trademark infringement.
The expression is used to reject a claim that two items could reasonably be confused by a passer-by (i.e. that even a moron in a hurry would notice the difference), on the grounds that the items are so different that the goodwill and brand of the claimant’s item cannot genuinely be affected by the existence of the other.
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September 13, 2012
In cinematography, full frame refers to the use of the full film gate (the rectangular opening in the front of a motion picture camera where the film is exposed to light) at maximum width and height for 35mm film cameras. It is sometimes also referred to as ‘silent aperture’ or ‘full gate.’
It is the original gate size pioneered by William Dickson and Thomas Edison in 1892 and first used in the short film ‘Blacksmithing Scene.’ Full frame is generally used by all 4-perf (four perforations per frame) films, whether silent, standard 35 (Academy ratio width), or Super 35.
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September 12, 2012
Hanna Rosin is an American Journalist. Rosin was born in Israel and grew up in Queens, New York where her father was a taxi driver. She graduated from Stuyvesant High School in 1987. She graduated from Stanford University, and is married to ‘Slate’ editor David Plotz; they live in Washington, D.C. with their three children. She is a co-founder of ‘DoubleX,’ a women’s site connected to ‘Slate.’ She is also a writer for ‘The Atlantic.’ A character portrayed by actress Chloë Sevigny in the movie ‘Shattered Glass’ about Rosin’s colleague at ‘The New Republic,’ Stephen Glass, was loosely based on Rosin. Rosin has written a book based on her 2010 Atlantic story, ‘The End of Men.’
In the past she has specialized in writing about religious-political issues, in particular the influence of evangelical Christians on the 2004 U.S. presidential campaign. She is the author of ‘God’s Harvard: A Christian College on a Mission to Save America,’ published in 2007. Based on a ‘New Yorker’ story, the book follows several young Christians at Patrick Henry College, a new evangelical institution that teaches its students to ‘shape the culture and take back the nation.’ Rosin’s portrayals of the students are part of a larger attempt to chronicle the cultural and political history of the modern Christian right.
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September 11, 2012
Cards Against Humanity is a multiplayer party game currently available as a free download or a published hardcopy. The game is available under a Creative Commons license. Its title references the phrase ‘crimes against humanity,’ reflecting its politically incorrect content.
Cards Against Humanity was created by a group of alumni of Highland Park High School as a party game for a New Year’s Eve celebration. The project was financed through the website Kickstarter. Co-creator Ben Hantoot stated in an interview that the game was developed by ‘8 of us who are the core writer-creators, 5 or 6 additional ‘part time’ developers’ and ‘dozens of friends and acquaintances who have played the game.’
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September 8, 2012
The core concept of the Online Disinhibition Effect refers to a loosening (or complete abandonment) of social restrictions and inhibitions that would otherwise be present in normal face-to-face interaction during interactions with others on the Internet. Because of the loss of inhibition, some users may exhibit benign tendencies; people may become more affectionate, more willing to open up to others, less guarded about their emotions and may speak to others about what they are feeling in an attempt to achieve emotional catharsis.
According to psychologist John Suler, this particular occurrence is called benign disinhibition. With respect to bad behavior, users on the Internet can frequently do or say as they wish without fear of any kind of meaningful reprisal. In most Internet forums, the worst kind of punishment one can receive for bad behavior is usually being banned from a particular site. In practice, however, this serves little use; the person involved can usually circumvent the ban by simply registering another username and continuing the same behavior as before. Suler calls this toxic disinhibition.
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September 8, 2012
Paul Bacon (b. 1923), is an American book and album cover designer and jazz musician. He is known for introducing the ‘Big Book Look’ in book jacket design, and has designed about 6,500 jackets and more than 200 jazz record covers. His first big hit came in 1956 with ‘Compulsion,’ a novel by Meyer Levin.
This cover also marked the inception of the ‘Big Book Look’ that Bacon became known for. This look features a large, bold title, a prominent author’s name, and a small conceptual image. Instances of this ‘look’ include ‘Catch-22’ by Joseph Heller, ‘Visions of Cody’ by Jack Kerouac, and ‘Bullet Park’ by John Cheever, along with countless others.
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September 5, 2012
A General Theory of Love is a 2000 book about the science of human emotions and biological psychiatry written by Thomas Lewis, Fari Amini, and Richard Lannon, psychiatry professors at the University of California, San Francisco. It has since been reissued twice, with new editions appearing in 2001 and 2007. The book examines the phenomenon of love and human connection from a combined scientific and cultural perspective.
It attempts to reconcile the language and insights of humanistic inquiry and cultural wisdom (literature, song, poetry, painting, sculpture, dance, and philosophy) with the more recent findings of social science, neuroscience, and evolutionary biology. However, the book has been criticized for its ‘convoluted and opaque’ prose style, as well as its extensive reliance on the model of the triune brain (reptilian, pre-mammalian, and mammalian) as defined by Paul D. MacLean, a model that has been variously categorized as obsolete, imprecise, or unnecessary.
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September 4, 2012
Lexical-gustatory [lek-si-kuhl guhs-tuh-tawr-ee sin-uhs-thee-zhuh] synesthesia [sin-uhs-thee-zhuh] is one of the rarer forms of synesthesia (a mixing of the senses), in which spoken or written words evoke vivid sensations of taste, sometimes including temperature and texture (e.g., for lexical-gustatory synesthete JIW, ‘jail’ tastes of cold, hard bacon).
This form of synesthesia was first documented in 1907 in both Italy and the United States, but has only recently become the topic of scientific investigation.
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September 4, 2012
Ideasthesia is a neurological or cognitive phenomenon in which activation of a particular concept triggers a sensory-like experience. Specifically it is when activations of concepts (inducers) evoke perception-like experiences (concurrents). The name comes from Greek, meaning sensing concepts or sensing ideas.
The main reason for introducing the notion of ideaesthesia was the empirical evidence indicating that the related term synesthesia (i.e. union of senses) suggests incorrect explanation of a set of phenomena traditionally covered by this heading.
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September 4, 2012
Grapheme-color [graf-eem] synesthesia [sin-uhs-thee-zhuh] is a form of synesthesia (mixing of sensations) in which an individual’s perception of numbers and letters is associated with the experience of colors. Like all forms of synesthesia, grapheme-color synesthesia is involuntary, consistent, and memorable. It is one of the most common forms of synesthesia, and because of the extensive knowledge of the visual system, one of the most studied. While it is extremely unlikely that any two synesthetes will report the same colors for all letters and numbers, studies of large numbers of synesthetes find that there are some commonalities across letters (e.g., ‘A’ is likely to be red).
Early studies argued that the condition was not due to associative learning, such as from playing with colored refrigerator magnets. However, one recent study has documented a case of synesthesia in which synesthetic associations could be traced back to colored refrigerator magnets. Despite the existence of this individual case, the majority of synesthetic associations do not seem to be driven by learning of this sort. Rather, it seems that more frequent letters are paired with more frequent colors, and some meaning-based rules, such as ‘b’ being blue, drive most synesthetic associations.
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September 3, 2012
Ask Me Anything refers to when a user of an internet forum invites questions from other users.
Usually it is designated by the abbreviation AMA.
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