July 8, 2011
A gurn or chuck is a distorted facial expression, and a verb to describe the action. A typical gurn might involve projecting the lower jaw as far forward and up as possible, and covering the upper lip with the lower lip. Another common form of gurning is the ‘duck face’ which is characterized by outwardly splayed lips. Gurn has also been defined as ‘to snarl as a dog; to look savage; to distort the countenance.’ The derivation may originally be Scottish, related to ‘grin.’ In Northern Ireland, the verb ‘to gurn’ means ‘to cry,’ and crying is often referred to as ‘gurnin’.’
Gurning contests are a rural English tradition. By far the most notable is that held annually at the Egremont Crab Fair, which dates back to 1267 when King Henry III granted the fair a Royal Charter. The competitions are held regularly in some villages, with contestants traditionally framing their faces through a horse collar — known as ‘gurnin’ through a braffin’.’ The World Gurning Championship takes place annually at the same crab fair in Egremont, Cumbria. Those with the greatest gurn capabilities are often those with no teeth, as this provides greater room to move the jaw further up. In some cases, the elderly or otherwise toothless can be capable of spectacular gurns covering the entire nose.
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July 7, 2011
A skeleton watch is a mechanical watch (although occasionally quartz), in which all of the moving parts are visible through either the front of the watch, the back of the watch or a small cut outlining the dial.
Many watchmakers have skeleton watches, but Rolex has rarely made them (apart from the 1930s and early 1940s) and never made tourbillon skeletons. For this reason, one should exercise caution when buying a skeleton watch marked as a Rolex as it is likely a counterfeit.
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July 7, 2011
Audemars [awe-de-marr] Piguet [pee-gay] (AP) is a manufacturer of prestige Swiss watches which compete with Patek Philippe and Vacheron Constantin. The roots of the company date back to 1874, when the 23-year-old Jules-Louis Audemars met Edward-Auguste Piguet, then only 21, at Vallée de Joux, in western Switzerland, which is considered to be the cradle of prestige watch-making. Thus Audemars started producing component parts for movements and Piguet got the job of a repasseur, whose job it was to make the final regulation of the timepiece.
In 1875 they founded a firm later known as Audemars, Piguet et Cie, and since 1882, members of the Audemars and Piguet families have always been on the board of directors. Between 1894 and 1899 the company produced about 1,200 timepieces, including some very complex watches. When Audemars and Piguet died, in 1918 and 1919 respectively, the company was already quite famous. As the success of the company’s business was rising its customers became Tiffany & Co, Cartier and Bulgari, who rebranded and sold Audemars Piguet watches under their own house names. Today these watches are only identifiable as Audemars Piguet products by their serial numbers. Continue reading →
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July 7, 2011
Club 33 is a private club located in the heart of the New Orleans Square section of Disneyland. Officially maintained as a secret feature of the theme park, the entrance of the club is located next to the Blue Bayou Restaurant at ’33 Royal Street’ with the entrance recognizable by an ornate address plate with the number 33 engraved on it. Club 33 members and their guests have exclusive access to the club’s restaurant, and the premises are not open to the public at large. It is the only location within Disneyland to offer alcoholic beverages.
Members get free access to both Disney parks whenever they are open, plus early park admission several days each week. In addition, members are provided with valet parking to the overall Disney resort and access to Lilly Belle, the presidential caboose car on the Disneyland Railroad. Continue reading →
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July 6, 2011
The EcoSphere is sealed blown-glass miniature aquarium produced by Ecosphere Associates, Inc., of Tucson, Arizona, United States. Spherical or ovoid, the aquaria range from roughly baseball-size to soccer-ball-size. They are sold worldwide as scientific novelties and decorative objects. The spheres are populated by tiny red-pink shrimp, which swim energetically around the aquarium, eat the brown bacterial and algal scum on the glass, consume the filamentous green algae which sometimes forms a globular pillow in the water, and perch on a fragment of coral.
Each EcoSphere is a materially closed ecological systems which is self-sustaining over a period of years. At room temperature, and with only low inputs of light, the algae produce oxygen which supports the shrimp and bacteria. Bacteria break down the shrimps’ wastes. The breakdown products provide nutrients to the algae and bacteria upon which the shrimp feed. The manufacturer states that shrimp live in the EcoSphere for an average of 2 to 3 years, and are known to live over 10 years.
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July 5, 2011
Granny Takes a Trip was a boutique opened in 1966 in Chelsea, London. The shop remained open until the mid-70s and has been called the ‘first psychedelic boutique in the ‘Swinging London’ in the 1960s.” It was also the name of a Purple Gang song of the 1960s named after the store and banned by the BBC.
The boutique was the brainchild of two young Londoners, Nigel Waymouth and Sheila Cohen, who were looking for an outlet for Cohen’s ever-increasing collection of antique clothes. By the spring of 1966 the shop had achieved worldwide renown. They paved the way for many of the designer boutiques that followed, such as Mr. Freedom, Alkasura, Let It Rock, and later the more ambitious enterprises of Malcolm McLaren and Vivienne Westwood and Paul Smith.
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July 5, 2011
Korean tacos are a fusion dish popular in California, often as street food, consisting of a Korean-style filling, typically bulgogi (marinated barbecued beef), placed on top of small traditional Mexican corn tortillas. Korean burritos are a similarly themed dish, using larger flour tortillas as a wrap.
Although nearly any savory dish can and has been used as filling for a taco, burrito, or sandwich wrap, and other restaurants have occasionally served dishes they called Korean tacos, the present popularity of the dish is generally traced to the use of Twitter by the proprietors of the Kogi Korean BBQ, a food truck in Los Angeles, to announce their schedule and itinerary.
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July 5, 2011
Polara Golf is brand for a line of golf balls that correct hooks and slices, based on the physics of their design. The new design, released August 2010, utilizes state-of-the-art aerodynamics and a principle axis of inertia. The ball has shallow truncated dimples around its equator and has deep spherical and small spherical dimples on each of the ball’s poles. Officially sanctioned balls are designed to be as symmetrical as possible.
This symmetry is the result of a dispute that stemmed from the original Polara, that had six rows of normal dimples on its equator but very shallow dimples elsewhere. This asymmetrical design helped the ball self-adjust its spin-axis during the flight. The United States Golf Association refused to sanction it for tournament play and, in 1981, changed the rules to ban aerodynamic asymmetrical balls.
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July 5, 2011
The Maschinenmensch [muh-sheen-en-mench] (German: ‘machine-human’) from ‘Metropolis,’ is a gynoid played by German actress Brigitte Helm in both her robotic and human incarnations. The haunting blank face and pronounced female curves have been the subject of disgust and fascination alike. The Maschinenmensch has many names given her through the years : Parody, Ultima, Machina, Futura, and Robotrix. The Maschinenmensch’s back story is detailed in Thea von Harbou’s original 1927 novel. It is described as a very delicate, but faceless, transparent figure made of crystal flesh with silver bones and its eyes filled with an expression of calm madness. Futura is perfectly obedient and the ideal agent-provocateur, able to become any woman and tempt men to their doom.
The memorable transformation scene was an early miracle of special effects, using a series of matte cutouts of the robot’s silhouette and a number of circular neon lights. All effects were filmed directly into the camera rather than edited separately. As a result the film had to be rewound and exposed many tens of times over to include the plates showing the heart and circulatory systems as well as cuts between the robot form and Maria showing her gradual transformation. The Maschinenmensch is an archetypal example of the Frankenstein complex, where artificial creations turn against their creator and go on a rampage. Artificial beings with a malevolent nature were a popular theme at the time. Original designs by Ralph McQuarrie for C-3PO in Star Wars were largely based on the Maschinenmensch, albeit in a male version. The design was later refined, but retains clear Art Deco influences.
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July 5, 2011
Christopher Mercer (b. 1985), more commonly known as Rusko, is an English dubstep record producer and DJ. He made his production debut in 2006 on Dub Police with the song ‘SNES Dub.’
Steering away from the darker side of Dubstep, Rusko brought an upbeat sound to the scene that appealed to many outside the community. Rusko’s extremely successful hit ‘Cockney Thug’ has appeared on various DJ sets and mixes.
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July 5, 2011
Anonymous is an Internet meme that originated in 2003 on the imageboard 4chan, representing the concept of many online community users simultaneously existing as an anarchic, digitized global hive mind. It is also generally considered to be a blanket term for members of certain Internet subcultures, a way to refer to the actions of people in an environment where their actual identities are not known.
In its early form, the concept has been adopted by a decentralized online community acting anonymously in a coordinated manner, usually toward a loosely self-agreed goal, and primarily focused on entertainment. Beginning with 2008, the Anonymous collective has become increasingly associated with collaborative, international hacktivism, undertaking protests and other actions, often with the goal of promoting internet freedom and freedom of speech. Actions credited to ‘Anonymous’ are undertaken by unidentified individuals who apply the Anonymous label to themselves as attribution. Continue reading →
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July 5, 2011
Lulz Security, commonly abbreviated as LulzSec, was a computer hacker group that claimed responsibility for several high profile attacks, including the compromise of user accounts from Sony Pictures in 2011. The group has been described as a ‘cyber terrorism group’ by the Arizona Department of Public Safety after their systems were compromised and information leaked.
It has gained attention due to its high profile targets and the sarcastic messages it has posted in the aftermath of its attacks. LulzSec released a statement claiming to to disband on June 26, 2011. The ’50 days of lulz’ statement, which they claimed to be their final release, confirming that LulzSec consisted of six members, and that their website is to be taken down.
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