October 10, 2010
In economics and finance, arbitrage [ahr-bi-trahzh] is the practice of taking advantage of a price difference between two or more markets. For example if you can buy one euro for one dollar, you immediately profit if the current exchange rate values euros above dollars. An arbitrage in simple terms, is the possibility of a risk-free profit at zero cost.
In principle and in academic use, an arbitrage is risk-free; in practice, there are always risks in arbitrage, some minor (such as fluctuation of prices decreasing profit margins), some major (such as devaluation of a currency or derivative). People who engage in arbitrage are called arbitrageurs — such as a bank or brokerage firm. The term is mainly applied to trading in financial instruments, such as bonds, stocks, derivatives, commodities and currencies.
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October 10, 2010
Lomography is the commercial trademark of Lomographische AG, an Austria photography company. The name is inspired by the former state-run optics manufacturer LOMO PLC of Saint Petersburg, Russia. LOMO created and produced the 35 mm LOMO LC-A Compact Automat camera — which became the centerpiece of Lomography’s marketing and sales activities. This camera was loosely based upon the Cosina CX-1 and introduced in the early 1980s.
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October 1, 2010
The Scratchophone is a portable scratch instrument, featuring a turntable, a special tonearm, scratch mixer, and a pair of speakers, a battery, and a harness. They are hand-made in Quebec, Canada and feature a direct drive Numark turntable, a 2-channel Vestax mixer, and a Stanton cartdidge needle. It sells for $2,179.99.
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September 30, 2010
Uniqlo is a Japanese casual wear designer, manufacturer and retailer. Uniqlo is Japan’s leading clothing retail chain in terms of both sales and profits. The company also operates in China, Hong Kong, South Korea, the United Kingdom, France, the United States, Singapore, Taiwan, and Russia. Originally a division of Fast Retailing Co., Ltd., on November 1, 2005, Uniqlo Co., Ltd. was born of corporate restructuring, and now exists as a 100% consolidated subsidiary of Fast Retailing, which is listed on the first section of the Tokyo Stock Exchange.
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September 27, 2010
Dark pools of liquidity are financial trading venues or crossing networks similar to exchanges but that provide liquidity that is not displayed on order books. This is useful for traders who wish to move large numbers of shares without revealing themselves to the open market. Dark liquidity pools offer institutional investors many of the efficiencies associated with trading on the exchanges’ public limit order books but without showing their actions to others. Dark liquidity pools avoid this risk because neither the price nor the identity of the trading company is displayed.
Dark pools are recorded to the national consolidated tape. However, they are recorded as over-the-counter transactions. Therefore detailed information about the volumes and types of transactions is left to the crossing network to report to clients if they desire and are contractually obligated. Dark pools allow funds to line up and move large blocks of equities without tipping their hands as to what they are up to. Modern trading platforms and the lack of human interaction have reduced the time scale on market movements. This increased responsiveness of the price of an equity to market pressures has made it more difficult to move large blocks of stock without affecting the price.
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September 24, 2010
Minecraft is a ‘sandbox game’ where players mine and build in a randomly generated 3D world. Hostile monsters roam the environment at night, forcing players to build fortifications. Mining uncovers ores in the ground, which can be crafted into useful items such as chests, minecarts and tracks, and buckets. There are also plants and animals, which can be farmed and hunted for other resources. The game features a free classic mode where players have unlimited resources, and is available as an alpha release for €9.95. As of September 23rd 2010, it has surpassed 760,000 registered users and 208,000 purchases.
It is currently in development by Markus Persson, aka ‘Notch.’ The gameplay is inspired by Dwarf Fortress, RollerCoaster Tycoon, Dungeon Keeper, and especially Infiniminer. Players must devise methods of building functional and navigable structures that can withstand the nightly assault from various monsters. The player’s short reach and short jumping ability forces players to plan structures carefully, lest they trap themselves or fall to their death during construction. More advanced players can create complex traps and mechanisms using the game physics as well as primitive electrical circuits and logic gates.
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September 21, 2010
CrossFit is a strength and conditioning brand. CrossFit combines weightlifting, sprinting, and gymnastics. Athletes run, row, jump rope, climb rope and carry odd objects. CrossFit is used in nearly 1,700 gyms worldwide and by many fire departments, law enforcement agencies and military organizations including the Canadian Forces, and the Royal Danish Life Guards. The program even names workout moves to honor deceased troops, like a grueling forward-and-backward sprint combo dubbed ‘Griff’ for U.S. Air Force Staff Sgt. Travis L. Griffin. Its mascot is ‘Pukey the Clown.’
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September 21, 2010
The Ben-Day Dots printing process, named after illustrator and printer Benjamin Day, is similar to Pointillism. Depending on the effect, color and optical illusion needed, small colored dots are closely-spaced, widely-spaced or overlapping. Magenta dots, for example, are widely-spaced to create pink. 1950s and 1960s pulp comic books used Ben-Day dots in the four process colors (cyan, magenta, yellow and black) to inexpensively create shading and secondary colors such as green, purple, orange and flesh tones.
Ben-Day dots differ from halftone dots in that the Ben-Day dots are always of equal size and distribution in a specific area. To apply the dots to a drawing the artist would purchase transparent overlay sheets from a stationery supplier. The sheets were available in a wide variety of dot size and distribution, which gave the artist a range of tones to use in the work. The overlay material was cut in the shapes of the tonal areas desired—i.e. shadow or background or surface treatment and rubbed onto the specific areas of the drawing with a burnisher. When photographically reproduced as a line cut for letterpress printing, the areas of Ben-Day overlay provided tonal shading to the printing plate.
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September 20, 2010
A Munny doll is a designer toy from the American company Kidrobot. It is a blank figure the owner can decorate using pens, pencils, markers, paint, and other supplies. A Munny doll is made out of vinyl and has movable joints. The first doll was white, and has since been available in other colors such as black, pink, blue, and phosphorescent green. The figure is housed in a box which includes 4 random accessories such as a carrot or a hat.
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September 20, 2010
Fabric is a nightclub in London by Keith Reilly and Cameron Leslie that opened on 29 October 1999. Fabric has three separate rooms (two of which feature stages for live acts) with independent sound systems. A feature of the club is its vibrating floor in Room One: known as a ‘bodysonic’ dancefloor, sections of the floors are attached to 400 bass transducers emitting bass frequencies of the music being played.
The musical genres played there vary. FabricLive is a Friday-night ‘soundclash,’ (music competition) including tempos from hip hop to breakbeat to drum and bass to electro. Fabric’s Saturday nights showcase house and techno. The club has been releasing monthly compilation albums mixed by popular DJs since November 2001. There are two series that alternate months, entitled fabric and FabricLive.
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September 17, 2010
Mars Blackmon was a fictional character from the 1986 film ‘She’s Gotta Have It.’ He is also the alter-ego of filmmaker Spike Lee. In the film, he was a ‘Brooklyn-loving,’ die-hard New York Knicks fan. During the late 1980s and early 1990s, Blackmon became the primary pitchman in Nike commercials for Air Jordans, the basketball shoes worn by Michael Jordan. In these commercials, Mars Blackmon popularized the phrases ‘Is it the Shoes? Is it the Shoes? Is it the Shoes? … Money, it’s gotta be the shoes.’
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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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