July 7, 2012
‘Superman: Red Son‘ is a comic book mini-series published by DC Comics that was released under their Elseworlds imprint in 2003. Author Mark Millar created the comic with the premise ‘what if Superman had been raised in the Soviet Union?’ The story mixes alternate versions of DC super-heroes with alternate-reality versions of real political figures such as Joseph Stalin and John F. Kennedy. The series spans approximately 1953-2001, save for a futuristic epilogue.
In ‘Red Son,’ Superman’s rocket ship lands on a Ukrainian collective farm rather than in Kansas, an implied reason being a small time difference (a handful of hours) from the original timeline, meaning Earth’s rotation placed the Ukraine in the ship’s path instead of Kansas. Instead of fighting for ‘…truth, justice, and the American Way,’ Superman is described in Soviet radio broadcasts ‘…as the Champion of the common worker who fights a never-ending battle for Stalin, socialism, and the international expansion of the Warsaw Pact.’ His ‘secret identity’ (i.e. the name his adoptive parents gave him) is a state secret. Continue reading →
Posted in Art, Politics, World |
4 Comments »
July 7, 2012
Prediction markets are speculative markets created for the purpose of making predictions; the current market prices can then be interpreted as predictions of the probability of the event or the expected value of the parameter. For example, a prediction market security might reward a dollar if a particular candidate is elected, such that an individual who thinks the candidate had a 70% chance of being elected should be willing to pay up to 70 cents for such a security.
People who buy low and sell high are rewarded for improving the market prediction, while those who buy high and sell low are punished for degrading the market prediction. Evidence so far suggests that prediction markets are at least as accurate as other institutions predicting the same events with a similar pool of participants. Continue reading →
Posted in Games, Money, Politics |
Leave a Comment »
July 6, 2012
‘Predictably Irrational: The Hidden Forces That Shape Our Decisions’ is a 2008 book by behavioral economist Dan Ariely, in which he challenges readers’ assumptions about making decisions based on rational thought.
Ariely explains, ‘My goal, by the end of this book, is to help you fundamentally rethink what makes you and the people around you tick. I hope to lead you there by presenting a wide range of scientific experiments, findings, and anecdotes that are in many cases quite amusing. Once you see how systematic certain mistakes are–how we repeat them again and again–I think you will begin to learn how to avoid some of them.’
Continue reading →
Posted in Health, Language, Money |
Leave a Comment »
July 5, 2012
‘Conductive ink‘ is an ink that conducts electricity. These materials may be classed as fired high solids systems or PTF (polymer thick film) systems that allow circuits to be drawn or printed on a variety of substrate materials such as polyester or paper.
These types of materials usually contain conductive materials such as powdered or flaked silver and carbon like materials. Conductive inks can be a more economical way to lay down a modern conductive traces when compared to traditional industrial standards such as etching copper from copper plated substrates to form the same conductive traces on relevant substrates, as printing is a purely additive process producing little to no waste streams which then have to be recovered or treated. Continue reading →
Posted in Money, Technology |
Leave a Comment »
July 5, 2012
Labeling theory holds that deviance is not inherent to an act, but instead focuses on the tendency of majorities to negatively label minorities or those seen as deviant from standard cultural norms. It was developed by sociologists during the 1960s; Howard Saul Becker’s book ‘Outsiders’ was particularly influential. The theory is concerned with how the self-identity and behavior of individuals may be determined or influenced by the terms used to describe or classify them.
It is associated with the concepts of self-fulfilling prophecy and stereotyping. Unwanted descriptors or categorizations – including terms related to deviance, disability, or diagnosis of a mental disorder – may be rejected on the basis that they are merely ‘labels,’ often with attempts to adopt a more constructive language in its place. A stigma is defined as a powerfully negative label that changes a person’s self-concept and social identity.
Continue reading →
Posted in Health, Language, Politics |
Leave a Comment »
July 5, 2012
American Pop is a 1981 American animated musical drama film produced and directed by Ralph Bakshi. The film tells the story of four generations of a Russian Jewish immigrant family of musicians whose careers parallel the history of American popular music. The majority of the film’s animation was completed through rotoscoping, a process in which live actors are filmed and the subsequent footage is used for animators to draw over.
However, the film also uses a variety of other mixed media including water colors, computer graphics, live-action shots, and archival footage. Michael Barrier, an animation historian, described ‘American Pop’ as one of two films that demonstrated ‘that Bakshi was utterly lacking in the artistic self-discipline that might have permitted him to outgrow his limitations.’ Continue reading →
Posted in Art |
Leave a Comment »
July 4, 2012
The Show With No Name was a long-running and highly popular Public-access television cable TV show in Austin, Texas, hosted by Charlie Sotelo and the mysterious ‘Cinco.’ Each show featured clips of TV, film and music ephemera along with commentary by the hosts and calls from a predictably unruly Public-access television audience.
The clips were usually video snippets that captured a crazy moment of ephemeral history, such as Ed McMahon drunk on ‘The Tonight Show,’ an early live TV appearance by Frank Zappa playing the bicycle and other found instruments, or the famously disastrous Andy Kaufman appearance on ‘Fridays’ (ABC’s weekly late-night live comedy show). Often they were obscure cult favorites only circulated underground, such as ‘Heavy Metal Parking Lot,’ the profane bloopers of an actor in a Winnebago sales video, or Corey Haim’s ‘Me, Myself, and I.’ Many other clips simply presented a zeitgeist gone by: a trailer for an Akira Kurosawa or Sam Peckinpah film, a Bill Hicks comedy set, or Bob Dylan appearing on the Johnny Cash show.
Continue reading →
Posted in Art, Humor |
Leave a Comment »
July 4, 2012
The Found Footage Festival is a live comedy event and screening featuring unusual and humorous clips from VHS videotapes gathered from thrift stores, garage sales, warehouses, estate sales, and dumpsters throughout the United States. Founded in 2004, the Festival originated in Wisconsin and Minnesota by Joe Pickett, Nick Prueher and Geoff Haas, childhood friends from Wisconsin. While still in high school, Pickett and Prueher began collecting videos from garage sales, training videos from odd jobs, and copies of tapes from a video production house. The friends would then play selections from this collection for entertainment at parties.
In 2004, Pickett and Prueher quit their day jobs to focus on production of their first feature documentary, ‘Dirty Country.’ They started the touring ‘Found Footage Festival’ show to fund the production of the documentary. In addition to its regular touring schedule, the Festival has appeared at the HBO ‘US Comedy Arts Festival,’ ‘Just For Laughs’ (the Montreal comedy festival), the ‘New York Comedy Festival,’ the Impakt Festival in the Netherlands, and the ‘Central Standard Film Festival’ in Minneapolis. The Festival is currently based out of New York City. Continue reading →
Posted in Art, Humor, Money |
Leave a Comment »
July 3, 2012
‘Four Arguments for the Elimination of Television‘ is a 1978 book written by liberal activist Jerry Mander which argues that there are a number of problems with the medium of television. Mander argues that many of the problems with television are inherent in the medium and technology itself, and thus cannot be reformed. Mander spent 15 years in the advertising business, including five as president and partner of Freeman, Mander & Gossage, San Francisco, a nationally-known advertising agency.
‘Four Arguments for the Elimination of Television’ argues that the technology of television is not a neutral or benign instrument or tool. The author argues that in varied technologies and institutions such as militaries, automobiles, nuclear power plants, mass production, and advertising, the basic form of the institution and the technology determines its interaction with the world, the way it will be used, the kind of people who use it, and to what ends. Continue reading →
Posted in Language, Politics, Technology |
2 Comments »
July 3, 2012
‘The medium is the message‘ is a phrase coined by Marshall McLuhan meaning that the form of a medium embeds itself in the message, creating a symbiotic relationship by which the medium influences how the message is perceived. The phrase was introduced in his most widely known book, ‘Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man,’ published in 1964.
McLuhan proposes that a medium itself, not the content it carries, should be the focus of study. He said that a medium affects the society in which it plays a role not only by the content delivered over the medium, but also by the characteristics of the medium itself. McLuhan frequently punned on the word ‘message’ changing it to ‘mass age,’ ‘mess age,’ and ‘massage’; a later book, ‘The Medium is the Massage’ was originally to be titled ‘The Medium is the Message,’ but McLuhan preferred the new title which is said to have been a printing error. Continue reading →
Posted in Language, Politics, Technology |
1 Comment »
July 3, 2012
The Basement Tapes is a 1975 studio album by Bob Dylan and The Band. The songs featuring Dylan’s vocals were recorded in 1967, eight years before the album’s release, at houses in and around Woodstock, NY, where Dylan and the Band lived. Although most of the Dylan songs had appeared on bootleg records, ‘The Basement Tapes’ marked their first official release.
When Columbia Records prepared the album, eight songs recorded solely by the Band were added to sixteen songs taped by Dylan and the Band. Subsequently, the format of the 1975 album has led critics to question the omission of some of Dylan’s best-known 1967 compositions and the inclusion of material by the Band that was not recorded in Woodstock. Continue reading →
Posted in Art, Money |
Leave a Comment »
July 3, 2012
Linda Perhacs is an American psychedelic folk singer, who released her only album ‘Parallelograms’ in 1970 to scant notice or sales. The album was rediscovered by record enthusiasts and grew in popularity with the rise of the New Weird America movement (a subgenre of psychedelic and indie music) and the Internet. Her songs have been featured in soundtracks to many films, most recently and notably in Daft Punk’s ‘Electroma.’
Perhacs also sang backing vocals on ‘Freely’ from Devendra Banhart’s ‘Smokey Rolls Down Thunder Canyon’ and features in Prefuse 73’s track ‘Rain Edit (Interlude)’ from the album ‘Surrounded by Silence.’ Encouraged by the newfound attention to her work, she has reportedly recorded two new albums with Ben Watt (British producer and half of Everything but the Girl) as of 2007.
Posted in Art |
Leave a Comment »
The Daily Omnivore 