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
@earth is a 2011 book made by London born (and based) photomontage artist Peter Kennard with Lebanese artist Tarek Salhany. It is a photo-essay told through photomontage with seven chapters exposing the current state of the earth, the conditions of life on it and the need to resist injustice. Apart from the title (which is also in different languages on its back cover) the pocket book contains no words and its story is told in sequences of constructed images. ‘@earth’ combines images created digitally over the past two years by Kennard with Salhany especially for the project, with Kennard’s earlier darkroom based photomontages (spanning over 40 years of work) some of which are part of the Tate Permanent Collection. They have been recontextualised for the book. The authors met whilst Kennard taught Salhany at the Byam Shaw School of Art in London.
‘@earth’ has received recognition from, amongst others, Naomi Klein (author of ‘No Logo’ and ‘The Shock Doctrine’) who has said: ‘This book perfectly captures the brutal asymmetries of our age: heavy weaponry trained on broken people, all-seeing technologies and disappearing identities, perpetually exhaling industry and an asphyxiating planet. If there’s a word that’s worth a thousand pictures, it’s ‘@earth.”
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September 12, 2012
A gang signal is a visual or verbal way gang members identify their affiliation. This can take many forms including slogans, tattoos or hand signs. Many of these, especially slogans and hand signs, have become part of popular culture. ‘Throwing up’ a gang sign (e.g., ‘Stacking,’ ‘walk’) with the hands is one of the most known and obvious forms of ‘claiming.’
It is used in many situations where other identifiers may not be possible or appropriate, and it can also show that a gang member is in the area to ‘do business’ as opposed to just passing through. Usually these signs are made by formation of the fingers on one or both hands to make some sort of symbol or letter. It can also serve to relay more specific information, such as what set they represent within a larger gang or in which activities they are currently taking part.
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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 12, 2012
America is a 2012 studio album by American electronic musician Dan Deacon. The album cover is a photo of Lake Placid. America was recorded using both electronic sounds and live recordings.
An anechoic (echo-free) chamber was built in Baltimore to record the orchestral track ‘Rail.’ Deacon felt that electronic beats were limited by a lack of flaws; he said that he wanted the ‘slight imperfection in timing’ human musicians have.
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September 11, 2012
Stuff White People Like (SWPL) is a blog that takes a satirical aim at the interests of North American ‘left-leaning, city-dwelling, white folk.’ The blog was created in 2008 by a white Canadian, Christian Lander, a Los Angeles copywriter who grew up in Toronto and graduated from McGill University. Lander co-authored the site with his Filipino Canadian friend Myles Valentin, after Valentin teased Lander for watching the HBO television series ‘The Wire.’
Although the blog ‘has spurred an outpouring from those who view it as offensive and racist,’ it is not about the interests of all white people, but rather a stereotype of affluent, environmentally and socially conscious, anti-corporate white North Americans, who typically hold a degree in the liberal arts. Lander claims to be lampooning contemporary versions of bohemian/hipster culture, and jokingly refers to other classes and subcultures of white people as ‘the wrong kind of white people.’ Despite the site’s satirical edge, Lander regards the people he describes with affection and numbers himself among them, describing himself as ‘a self-aware, left-wing person who’s not afraid to recognize the selfishness and contradictions that come on the left.’
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September 11, 2012
The question of whether or not crustaceans can experience pain is unresolved. Because of the ambiguous nature of pain, most people who contend that crustaceans do have this capacity approach the issue using ‘argument by analogy’ – that is, they hold that certain similarities between crustacean and human biology or behaviour warrant an assumption that crustaceans can feel pain.
In vertebrates, endogenous opioids are neurochemicals that moderate pain by interacting with opioid receptors. Opioid peptides (chains of amino acids) and opioid receptors occur naturally in crustaceans, and although ‘at present no certain conclusion can be drawn,’ some have interpreted their presence as an indication that crustaceans may be able to experience pain. Lobsters’ opioids may ‘mediate pain in the same way’ as in vertebrates.
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September 11, 2012
Ad filtering or ad blocking is removing or altering advertising content in a webpage. Advertising can exist in a variety of forms including pictures, animations, embedded audio and video, text, or pop-up windows. Very often it employs autoplay of audio and video.
It is a known problem with most web browsers that restoring sessions often plays multiple embedded ads at once. All browsers offer some solution to the problem, either by targeting technologies (Flash/Shockwave, Window Media files, etc.) that are used to deliver ads, targeting URLs that are the source of ads, or targeting behavior characteristic of ads (such as the use of HTML5 autoplay of both audio and video).
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September 11, 2012
Commercial skipping is an advanced feature in some digital video recorders that makes it possible to automatically skip commercials in recorded programs. This feature has created controversy, with major television networks and movie studios claiming it violates copyright and should be banned. For many years, video recorders manufactured for the Japanese market have been able to skip advertisements automatically, which is done by detecting when foreign language audio overdub tracks provided for many programs go silent, as advertisements were broadcast with a single language only.
The first DVR which had a built-in Commercial skipping feature was ReplayTV with its ‘4000 Series’ and ‘5000 Series’ units. In 2002 five owners of the ReplayTV DVR sued the main television networks and movie studios, asking the federal judge to uphold consumers’ rights to record TV shows and skip commercials claiming that features like commercial skipping help parents protect their kids from excessive consumerism. ReplayTV ended up filing for bankruptcy in 2003 after fighting a copyright infringement suit over the ReplayTV’s ability to skip commercials.
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September 10, 2012
The Korean wave refers to the significant increase in the popularity of South Korean entertainment and culture starting in the 1990s, in Asia, and more recently in other parts of the world. It represents a surge in the international visibility of Korean culture.
The term was coined in mid 1999 by Beijing journalists surprised at the fast growing popularity of Korean entertainment and culture in China. The wave has had considerable impact on the South Korean economy, as well as on the political and cultural influence of South Korea. For example, in 2011 based on international activity the Korean wave added approximately USD$3.8 billion dollars of revenue to the South Korean economy.
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September 10, 2012
Amazon.com has been criticized for collecting sales taxes from customers in only the five states it has a major presence in. Several states have passed or are considering ‘Amazon tax‘ laws designed to compel Amazon to collect local sales and use taxes from customers. The U.S. has no federal sales tax. In most countries where Amazon operates, a sales tax or value added (consumption) tax is uniform throughout the country, and Amazon is obliged to collect it from all customers.
Proponents argue that Amazon has a comparative advantage over brick-and-mortar retailers, and the online company is under increasing legal and political pressure from state governments, traditional retailers and other groups because of its refusal to collect sales tax in 40 of the 45 states with a statewide sales tax. Those 40 states include at least 12 where Amazon has a clear physical presence via distribution centers and wholly owned subsidiaries.
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September 10, 2012
LifeLock Inc., founded in 2005, is an American identity theft protection company based in Arizona. The company charges $10 a month for the LifeLock identity theft protection system intended to detect fraudulent applications for some forms of credit and non-credit related services.
LifeLock’s CEO Todd Davis was the victim of identity theft 13 times during 2007 and 2008, after he publicly posted his Social Security number on billboards and in TV commercials as part of a campaign to promote the company’s identity theft protection services.
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