November 19, 2011
Hacktivism (a portmanteau of hack and activism) is the use of computers and computer networks as a means of protest to promote political ends. The term was first coined in 1998 by a member of the Cult of the Dead Cow hacker collective. If hacking as ‘illegally breaking into computers’ is assumed, then hacktivism could be defined as ‘the nonviolent use of illegal or legally ambiguous digital tools in pursuit of political ends.’ These tools include web site defacements, redirects, denial-of-service (DoS) attacks, information theft, web site parodies, virtual sit-ins, typosquatting, and virtual sabotage.
If hacking as ‘clever computer usage/programming’ is assumed, then hacktivism could be understood as the writing of code to promote political ideology: promoting expressive politics, free speech, human rights, and information ethics through software development. Acts of hacktivism are carried out in the belief that proper use of code will be able to produce similar results to those produced by regular activism or civil disobedience.
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November 19, 2011
Patriot hacking is a term for computer hacking or system cracking in which citizens or supporters of a country, traditionally industrialized Western countries but increasingly developing countries, attempts to perpetrate attacks on, or block attacks by, perceived enemies of the state. Recent media attention has focused on efforts related to terrorists and their own attempts to conduct an online or electronic intifada – cyberterrorism.
Patriot hacking is illegal in countries such as the United States yet is on the rise elsewhere. ‘”The FBI said that recent experience showed that an increase in international tension was mirrored in the online world with a rise in cyber activity such as web defacements and denial of service attacks,’ according to the BBC. At the onset of the War in Iraq in 2003, the FBI was concerned about the increase in hack attacks as the intensity of the conflict grew. Since then, it has been becoming increasingly popular in the North America, Western Europe and Israel, the countries which have the greatest threat to Islamic terrorism and its aforementioned digital version.
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November 19, 2011
A lip dub is a type of music video that combines lip synching and audio dubbing. It is made by filming individuals or a group of people lip synching while listening to a song or any recorded audio then dubbing over it in post editing with the original audio of the song. There is often some form of mobile audio device used such as an MP3 player. Often they look like simple music videos, although many involve a lot of preparation and production. Lip dubs can be done in a single unedited shot that often travels through different rooms and situations within a building. They have become popular with the advent of mass participatory video content sites like YouTube.
Jake Lodwick, the co-founder of video sharing website Vimeo, coined the term in 2006, in a video entitled ‘Lip Dubbing: Endless Dream.’ In the video’s description, he wrote, ‘I walked around with a song playing in my headphones, and recorded myself singing. When I got home I opened it in iMovie and added an MP3 of the actual song, and synchronized it with my video. Is there a name for this? If not, I suggest ‘lip dubbing’.’ Lodwick also directed the ‘Flagpole Sitta’ ‘office lip dub’ in 2007.
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November 18, 2011
‘The Man‘ is a slang phrase that may refer to the government or to some other authority in a position of power. In addition to this derogatory connotation, it may also serve as a term of respect and praise. The phrase ‘the Man is keeping me down’ is commonly used to describe oppression. The phrase ‘stick it to the Man’ encourages resistance to authority, and essentially means ‘fight back’ or ‘resist,’ either openly or via sabotage.
The term ‘the Man’ in the American sense dates back to the late 19th Century. In the Southern U.S. states, the phrase came to be applied to any man or any group in a position of authority, or to authority in the abstract. From about the 1950s the phrase was also an underworld code word for police, the warden of a prison or other law enforcement or penal authorities. Continue reading →
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November 18, 2011
Polybius is a supposed arcade game featured in an Internet urban legend. According to the story, the Tempest-style game was released to the public in 1981, and drove its players insane, causing them to suffer from intense stress, horrific nightmares, and even suicidal tendencies. A short time after its release, it supposedly disappeared without a trace. Not much evidence for the existence of such a game has ever been discovered. Polybius gets its name from the Greek historian who’s works are are relevant to modern cryptography.
According to the story, an unheard-of new arcade game appeared in several suburbs of Portland, Oregon in 1981, something of a rarity at the time. The game, ‘Polybius,’ proved to be incredibly popular, to the point of addiction, and lines formed around the machines, often resulting in fighting over who played next. This was followed by clusters of visits from men in black. Rather than the usual marketing data collected by company visitors to arcade machines, they collected some unknown data, allegedly testing responses to the psychoactive machines. The players themselves suffered from a series of unpleasant side-effects, including amnesia, insomnia, nightmares, night terrors, and even suicide in some versions of the legend.
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November 18, 2011
A fictional currency is some form of defined or alluded currency in works of fiction. The names of such units of currency are sometimes based on extant or historic currencies (e.g. ‘Altairian dollars’ or ‘Earth yen’) while others, such as ‘Kalganids’ in Asimov’s ‘Foundation’ series, may be wholly invented. A particularly common type, especially in science fiction, is electronically managed ‘credits.’ In some works of fiction, exchange media other than money are used. These are not currency as such, but rather nonstandard media of exchange used to avoid the difficulties of ensuring ‘double coincidence of wants’ in a barter system.
Authors have to take care when naming fictional currencies because of the associations between currency names and countries; recognizable names for currencies of the future may be used to imply how history has progressed, but would appear out of place in an entirely alien civilization. Historical fiction may need research. Writers need not explain the exact value of their fictional currencies or provide an exchange rate to modern money; they may rely on the intuitive grasp of their readers, for instance that one currency unit is probably of little value, but that millions of units will be worth a lot.
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November 18, 2011
The term collaborative consumption is used to describe an economic model based on sharing, swapping, bartering, trading or renting access to products as opposed to ownership. Technology and peer communities are enabling these old market behaviors to be reinvented in ways and on a scale never possible before.
From enormous marketplaces such as eBay and Craigslist, to emerging sectors such as social lending (Zopa), peer-to-peer travel (CouchSurfing, Airbnb) and car sharing (Zipcar or peer-to-peer RelayRides), Collaborative Consumption is disrupting outdated modes of business and reinventing not just what people consume but how they consume it.
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November 17, 2011
The Zazous were a subculture in France during World War II. They were young people expressing their individuality by wearing big or garish clothing (similar to the zoot suit fashion in America a few years before) and dancing wildly to swing jazz and bebop. Men wore large striped lumber jackets, while women wore short skirts, striped stockings and heavy shoes, and often carried umbrellas.
During the German occupation of France, the Vichy regime, in collaboration with the Nazis, and fascist itself in policies and outlook, had an ultra-conservative morality and started to use a whole range of laws against a youth that was restless and disenchanted. These young people expressed their resistance and nonconformity through aggressive dance competitions, sometimes against soldiers from the occupying forces.
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November 17, 2011
Pocho [poh-choh] is a term used by native-born Mexicans to describe Chicanos who are perceived to have forgotten or rejected their Mexican heritage to some degree. Typically, pochos speak English and lack fluency in Spanish.
Among some pochos, the term has been embraced to express pride in having both a Mexican and an American heritage asserting their place in the diverse American culture. The word derives from the Spanish word ‘pocho,’ used to describe fruit that has become rotten or discolored. Continue reading →
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November 17, 2011
Pachucos [puh-choo-koh] are Chicano youths who developed their own subculture during the 1930s and 1940s in the Southwestern United States. They wore distinctive clothing (such as zoot suits) and spoke their own dialect of Mexican Spanish, called Caló or Pachuco. Due to their double marginalization stemming from their youth and ethnicity, there has always been a close association and cultural cross-pollination between the Pachuco subculture and gang subculture.
The Pachuco style originated in El Paso, Texas, and Ciudad Juárez, Mexico, and moved westward, following the line of migration of Mexican railroad workers (‘traqueros’) into Los Angeles, where it developed further. The word ‘pachuco’ originated, probably early in the 20th century, in a Mexican Spanish slang term for a resident of the cities of El Paso and Juárez. Even today, El Paso and Juárez are the ‘El Chuco’ or ‘El Pasiente’ by some.
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November 17, 2011
The Zoot Suit Riots were a series of riots in 1943 during World War II that erupted in Los Angeles between white sailors and Marines stationed throughout the city and Latino youths, who were recognizable by the zoot suits they favored. While Mexican Americans and military servicemen were the main parties in the riots, African American and Filipino/Filipino American youth were also involved.
The Zoot Suit Riots were in part the effect of the infamous Sleepy Lagoon murder which involved the death of a young Latino man in a barrio near Los Angeles. The incident triggered similar attacks against Latinos in Beaumont, Chicago, San Diego, Detroit, Evansville, Philadelphia, and New York. Continue reading →
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November 17, 2011
A zoot suit is a suit with high-waisted, wide-legged, tight-cuffed, pegged trousers, and a long coat with wide lapels and wide padded shoulders. This style of clothing was popularized by African, Mexican, and Italian Americans during the late 1930s and the 1940s. It started during the Jazz Age in Harlem and slowly spread throughout other ethnic-neighborhoods across America. Malcolm X was known to have loved zoot suits in his early days as Detroit Red, a Harlem drug dealer, racketeer, and pimp. In Britain the bright-colored suits with velvet lapels worn by Teddy Boys (young men wearing clothes inspired by dandies) bore a slight resemblance to zoot suits in the length of the jacket. Often zoot suiters wear a felt hat with a long feather and pointy, French-style shoes. A young Malcolm X described the zoot suit as: ‘a killer-diller coat with a drape shape, reet pleats and shoulders padded like a lunatic’s cell.’ Zoot suits usually featured a watch chain dangling from the belt to the knee or below, then back to a side pocket.
The amount of material and tailoring required made them luxury items, so much so that the U.S. War Production Board said that they wasted materials that should be devoted to the World War II war effort. This extravagance, which many considered unpatriotic in wartime, was a factor in the Zoot Suit Riots, a series of riots in 1943 that erupted in Los Angeles between white sailors and Marines stationed throughout the city and Latino youths, who were recognizable by the zoot suits they favored. Wearing the oversized suit was a declaration of freedom and self-determination, even rebelliousness. The word zoot probably comes from a reduplication of suit. The creation and naming of the zoot suit have been variously attributed to Harold C. Fox, a Chicago clothier and big-band trumpeter; Louis Lettes, a Memphis tailor; and Nathan (Toddy) Elkus, a Detroit retailer. Zoot suits were initially called drapes.
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