December 12, 2015
Smell-O-Vision was a system that released odor during the projection of a film so that the viewer could ‘smell’ what was happening in the movie. The technique was created by inventor Hans Laube and made its only appearance in the 1960 film ‘Scent of Mystery,’ produced by Mike Todd, Jr., son of film producer Mike Todd. The process injected 30 odors, such as freshly-baked bread, pipe tobacco, and salty ocean air, into a movie theater’s seats when triggered by the film’s soundtrack.
The use of scents in conjunction with film dates back to 1906, before the introduction of sound. In this first instance, a 1958 issue of ‘Film Daily’ claims that Samuel Roxy Rothafel of the Family Theatre in Forest City, Pennsylvania, placed a wad of cotton wool that had been soaked in rose oil in front of an electric fan during a newsreel about the Rose Bowl Game. Arthur Mayer installed an in-theater smell system in Paramount’s Rialto Theater on Broadway in 1933, which he used to deliver odors during a film. However, it would take over an hour to clear the scents from the theater, and some smells would linger for days afterward. Continue reading →
Posted in Art, Humor, Technology |
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December 10, 2015
Prolefeed is a Newspeak term in the novel ‘Nineteen Eighty-Four’ by George Orwell. It was used to describe the deliberately superficial literature, movies and music that were produced by Prolesec, a section of the Ministry of Truth, to keep the ‘proles’ (i.e., proletariat) content and to prevent them from becoming too knowledgeable. The ruling Party believes that too much knowledge could motivate the proles to rebel against them.
The term is used occasionally to describe shallow entertainment in the real world. For example, Theodore Dalrymple wrote in the ‘The Spectator’ that ‘France …. is less dominated by mass distraction (known here as popular culture, but in ‘Nineteen Eighty-Four’ as prolefeed) than Britain is.’ The term has also been applied to fast food, such as that of McDonald’s: ‘Once seen as the all-American corporation, ‘McDonald’s’ is now shorthand for a globalist mass culture that provides cheap, unhealthy food to lower-class people. McDonald’s is, quite literally, prolefeed. Part of this image was a deliberate choice by the corporation.’ Continue reading →
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December 8, 2015
A pastiche [pa-steesh] is a work of visual art, literature, theatre, or music that imitates the style or character of the work of one or more other artists. Unlike parody, pastiche celebrates, rather than mocks, the work it imitates. The word pastiche is a French cognate of the Italian noun ‘pasticcio,’ which is a pâté or pie-filling mixed from diverse ingredients.
Metaphorically, pastiche and pasticcio describe works that are either composed by several authors, or that incorporate stylistic elements of other artists’ work. They are examples of eclecticism in art. Pastiche is sometimes confused with allusion, but a literary allusion may refer to another work, but it does not reiterate it. Moreover, allusion requires the audience to share in the author’s cultural knowledge. Both allusion and pastiche are mechanisms of intertextuality (the shaping of a text’s meaning by another text). Continue reading →
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December 7, 2015
NWA (Niggaz Wit Attitudes) was an American hip hop group from Compton, California. It was one of the earliest and most significant popularizers of the gangsta rap and West Coast hip hop subgenres. Active from 1986 to 1991, the rap group endured controversy owing to their music’s explicit lyrics that many viewed as being disrespectful of women, as well as its glorification of drugs and crime.
The group was subsequently banned from many mainstream American radio stations. In spite of this, the group has sold over 10 million units in the US alone. The group was also known for their deep hatred of the police system, which sparked much controversy over the years. Their debut album ‘Straight Outta Compton’ marked the beginning of the new gangsta rap era as the production and social commentary in their lyrics were revolutionary within the genre. Continue reading →
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December 3, 2015
The term honky-tonk has been applied to various styles of 20th century American music. A honky-tonk a type of bar that provides country music for entertainment to its patrons. Bars of this kind are common in the Southern and Southwestern regions of the US, and many country music legends, such as Loretta Lynn, Merle Haggard, Patsy Cline, and Ernest Tubb began their careers as amateur musicians in honky-tonks.
Honky tonks were rough establishments that served alcoholic beverages to a working class clientele, and sometimes offered dancing, piano players, or small bands. Some were local hubs of underground prostitution. Dance researcher Katrina Hazzard-Gordon writes that the honky-tonk was ‘the first urban manifestation of the ‘jook” (‘juke joints,’ African American roadhouses and bars). Honky tonk originally referred to bawdy variety shows in the West and to the theaters housing them. The distinction between honky tonks, saloons and dancehalls was often blurred, especially in cowtowns, mining districts, military forts, and oilfields. Continue reading →
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December 2, 2015
Garbage in, garbage out (GIGO) in the field of computer science or information and communications technology refers to the fact that computers, since they operate by logical processes, will unquestioningly process unintended, even nonsensical, input data (‘garbage in’) and produce undesired, often nonsensical, output (‘garbage out’). The principle applies to other fields as well.
The underlying principle was noted by the inventor of the first programmable computing device design: ‘On two occasions I have been asked, ‘Pray, Mr. Babbage, if you put into the machine wrong figures, will the right answers come out?’ … I am not able rightly to apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke such a question.’ Continue reading →
Posted in Humor, Language, Technology |
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December 1, 2015
Mechanophilia [muh-kan-uh-fil-ee-uh] is a paraphilia (atypical sexuality) involving a sexual attraction to machines. It is a crime in some nations, such as the UK, with perpetrators placed on a sex-offender registry. Motorcycles in particular are often portrayed as sexualized fetish objects to those who desire them. Designers such as Francis Picabia and Filippo Tommaso Marinetti have been said to have exploited the sexual attraction of automobiles. In 2008, an American named Edward Smith admitted to ‘having sex’ with 1000 cars.
Biologist Edward O. Wilson is quoted describing mechanophilia, the love of machines, as ‘a special case of ‘biophilia,” the instinctive bond between human beings and other living (or lifelike) systems. Conversely, psychologists such as Erich Fromm would see it as a form of necrophilia. Continue reading →
Posted in Health, Sex, Technology |
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November 30, 2015
A dewlap [doo-lap] is a longitudinal flap of skin that hangs beneath the lower jaw or neck of many vertebrates. While the term is usually used in this specific context, it can also be used to include other structures occurring in the same body area with a similar aspect, such as those caused by a double chin or the submandibular vocal sac of a frog. In a more general manner, the term refers to any pendulous mass of skin, such as a fold of loose skin on an elderly person’s neck, or the wattle of a bird, a drooping protuberance hanging from various parts of the head or neck.
Many reptiles have dewlaps, most notably the anole species of lizard, which have large skin dewlaps which they can extend and retract. These dewlaps are usually of a different color from the rest of their body and when enlarged make the lizard seem much larger. They display them when indicating territorial boundaries and to attract females. Lizards usually accompany their dewlap movement with head bobs and other displays. Though much uncertainty resides around the purpose of these displays, the color of the dewlap and the head bobs are thought to be a means of contrasting background noise. Continue reading →
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November 24, 2015
Headis (Header Table Tennis) is a hybrid game that combines table tennis with soccer. Players strike a 7-inch rubber ball with their head. Physically headis is more comparable to badminton than to table tennis, but the rules are closer to table tennis with a few exceptions. Volleys (striking the ball before it hits the player’s own side) are allowed, as well as touching the table with any part of the body. Each game is played to 11 points and up to 2 sets, although a player must be ahead by two points to win each set.
The sport was invented in 2006 by René Wegner, a Saarbrücken sports science student at the time, at the ‘Wesch,’ a swimming pool in Kaiserslautern, Germany. The soccer field was occupied, which was why he and a friend started heading the ball back and forth at the table tennis table. In 2008 headis became part of the sports program at the University of Saarbrücken.
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November 23, 2015
The Summer of the Shark refers to the coverage of shark attacks by American news media in the summer of 2001. The sensationalist coverage of shark attacks began in early July following the Fourth of July weekend shark attack on 8-year-old Jessie Arbogast, and continued almost unabated—despite no evidence for an actual increase in attacks—until the September 11 terrorist attacks shifted the media’s attention away from beaches. The ‘Summer of the Shark’ has since been remembered as an example of tabloid television perpetuating a story with no real merit beyond its ability to draw ratings.
In mid-August, many networks were showing footage captured by helicopters of hundreds of sharks coalescing off the southwest coast of Florida. Beach-goers were warned of the dangers of swimming, despite the fact that the swarm was likely part of an annual shark migration. The repeated broadcasts of the shark group has been criticized as blatant fear mongering, leading to the unwarranted belief of a so-called shark ‘epidemic.’ Continue reading →
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November 20, 2015
Red mercury is a hoax substance of uncertain composition purportedly used in the creation of nuclear bombs, as well as a variety of unrelated weapons systems. It is purported to be mercuric iodide, a poisonous, odorless, tasteless, water-insoluble scarlet-red powder that becomes yellow when heated above 126 °C (258 °F), due to a thermochromatic change in crystalline structure.
However, samples of ‘red mercury’ obtained from arrested would-be terrorists invariably consisted of nothing more than various red dyes or powders of little value, which some suspect was being sold as part of a campaign intended to flush out potential nuclear smugglers. The hoax was first reported in 1979 and was commonly discussed in the media in the 1990s. Prices as high as $1,800,000 per kilogram were reported.
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Posted in Humor, Science, War |
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November 19, 2015
Afghanistanism is a term, first recorded in the US, for the practice of concentrating on problems in distant parts of the world while ignoring controversial local issues. In other contexts, it has referred to ‘hopelessly arcane and irrelevant scholarship,’ ‘fascination with exotic, faraway lands,’ or ‘railing and shaking your fist at an unseen foe who is quite unaware of your existence, much less your fury.’
The first known citation of the expression was a quote by newspaper editor J. Lloyd Jones in 1948: ‘I don’t wish to belabor this subject of Afghanistanism, this business of taking forthright stands on elections in Costa Rica, while the uncollected local garbage reeks beneath the editor’s window.’ Continue reading →
Posted in Politics, War, World |
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