Everything is Interesting
Lookism is a term used to refer to the positive stereotypes, prejudice, and preferential treatment given to physically attractive people, or more generally to people whose appearance matches cultural preferences.
The pejorative term ‘body fascism’ is also used as a synonym and educator and activist Warren Farrell has proposed the term ‘genetic celebrity’ to describe adoration of the attractive.
‘You Only Move Twice‘ is the second episode of The Simpsons’ eighth season. It first aired in 1996. The original concept for the episode came from a story idea by Greg Daniels involving Homer getting a new job for an employee-friendly, Silicon Valley type, modern boss (Hank Scorpio voiced by Albert Brooks) who would stand in contrast with Mr. Burns, an authoritarian, 19th century style boss.
Homer’s new boss, despite being friendly and personable, would be a supervillain in the mold of Ernst Stavro Blofeld of the James Bond novels and films. This element was meant to be in the background and Homer would be oblivious to it. Continue reading
Patent monetization refers to the generation of revenue or the attempt to generate revenue by a person or company by selling or licensing the patents it owns.
The so-called patent trolls—which is a pejorative term—attempt to generate revenue by buying and enforcing patents against one or more alleged infringers in a manner considered by the target or observers as unduly aggressive or opportunistic, often with no intention to further develop, manufacture or market the patented invention. Other persons or companies, which are not regarded as patent trolls, also try to make money from patents on inventions they develop, manufacture or market.
Nathan Myhrvold (b. 1959), formerly Chief Technology Officer at Microsoft, is co-founder and 40% owner of Intellectual Ventures, a patent portfolio holding company.
Myhrvold, usually with coinventors, holds 17 U.S. patents assigned to Microsoft and has applied for more than 500 patents. In addition, Myhrvold and coinventors hold 115 U.S. patents assigned mostly to The Invention Science Fund I, LLC. Continue reading
Intellectual Ventures is a private company notable for being one of the top-five owners of U.S. patents, as of 2011. Its business model has a focus on buying patents and aggregating them into a large patent portfolio and licensing this ‘IV’ portfolio to companies.
Publicly, it states that a major goal is to assist small inventors against corporations. In practice, the vast majority of IV’s revenue comes from buying patents, aggregating them into a large portfolio and licensing this portfolio to other companies or filing lawsuits for infringement of patents, a controversial practice known as patent trolling. Continue reading
Chris Bathgate is a self-taught metal sculptor working and residing in Baltimore. He has spent the last several years learning how to build and use a variety of metalworking tools. In addition to exploring the finer intricacies of both manual and computer-assisted machining, he also has applied electroplating and heat coloring techniques to his intricate and precise sculptures.
Bathgate’s sculptures are as much about the processes he uses as they are about his imagination. He is represented by Gallery Imperato, located in Baltimore, and a member of Viridian Artists Inc, an artist cooperative in the Chelsea District of New York City.
Hyperloop is a hypothetical mode of high-speed transportation proposed by inventor and SpaceX founder Elon Musk. Musk has envisioned the system as a ‘fifth mode’ of transportation, an alternative to boats, planes, automobiles and trains. The system would, in theory, be able to travel from downtown Los Angeles to downtown San Francisco in under 30 minutes (at more than 685 mph).
In 2013, Musk said that the hyperloop would be like a ‘cross between a Concorde and a railgun and an air hockey table,’ but no further details have been released. Musk is quoted as saying, ‘I think we could actually make it self-powering if you put solar panels on it, you generate more power than you would consume in the system. There’s a way to store the power so it would run 24/7 without using batteries. Yes, this is possible, absolutely.’
De-Stalinization refers to the process of eliminating the cult of personality, Stalinist political system and the Gulag labor-camp system created by Soviet leader Joseph Stalin. Stalin was succeeded by a collective leadership after his death in 1953. The central Soviet strongmen at the time were Lavrentiy Beria, head of the Ministry of the Interior; Nikita Khrushchev, First Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU); and Georgi Malenkov, Premier of the Soviet Union.
Contemporary historians regard the process of de-Stalinization as a significant turning point in the history of modern Russia. References to Stalin were embedded in the lyrics of the National Anthem of the Soviet Union, after which the Stalin-centric and World War II-era references were excised where an instrumental version was used.
Kintsugi (‘golden joinery’) or Kintsukuroi (golden repair) is the Japanese art of fixing broken pottery with a lacquer resin sprinkled with powdered gold. Kintsugi may have originated when shogun Ashikaga Yoshimasa sent a damaged Chinese tea bowl back to China for repairs in the late 15th century.
When it was returned repaired with ugly metal staples, it may have prompted Japanese craftsmen to look for a more aesthetic means of repair. Collectors became so enamored of the new art that some were accused of deliberately smashing valuable pottery so it could be repaired with the gold seams of kintsugi. Kintsugi became closely associated with the ceramic utensils used for Japanese tea ceremony.
Stetson Kennedy (1916 – 2011) was an American author and human rights activist. One of the pioneer folklore collectors during the first half of the 20th century, he is remembered for having infiltrated the Ku Klux Klan in the 1940s, exposing its secrets to authorities and the outside world.
His actions led to the 1947 revocation by the state of Georgia of the Klan’s national corporate charter. Kennedy wrote or co-wrote ten books.
In 1946, human rights activist Stetson Kennedy infiltrated the KKK. Concerned that the organization had links to police forces, Kennedy decided to use his findings to strike at the Klan in a different way. He contacted the producers of the ‘Superman’ radio show and proposed a story where the superhero battles the Klan. Looking for new villains, the producers eagerly agreed.
To that end, he provided information—including secret codewords and details of Klan rituals—to the writers. The result was a series of episodes, ‘Clan of the Fiery Cross,’ in which Superman took on the Klan. Kennedy intended to strip away the Klan’s mystique. The trivialization of the Klan’s rituals and codewords was perceived to have had a negative impact on Klan recruiting and membership. Reportedly, Klan leaders denounced the show and called for a boycott of Kellogg’s products. However, the story arc earned spectacular ratings, and the food company stood by its support of the show.
In the UFO conspiracy theory, disclosure is the revelation of suppressed evidence of extraterrestrial life by the United States government or other world governments. In 1993, ufologist Steven M. Greer founded the ‘Disclosure Project’ to promote the concept of disclosure.
In 2001, Greer held a press conference at the National Press Club in D.C that featured ’20 retired Air Force, Federal Aviation Administration and intelligence officers’ who demanded that Congress begin hearings on ‘secret U.S. involvement with UFOs and extraterrestrials’ and was described by an attending BBC reporter as ‘the strangest ever news conference hosted by Washington’s August National Press Club.’ Such arguments were met with by derision by skeptics and spokespeople for the U. S. Air Force who maintain that there is no convincing evidence for the speculation that UFOs are alien spacecraft. Continue reading
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