October 19, 2015
The Third Man factor refers to the reported situations where an unseen presence such as a ‘spirit’ provides comfort or support during traumatic experiences. Polar explorer Sir Ernest Shackleton in his book ‘South,’ described his belief that an incorporeal being joined him and two others during the final leg of their journey. Shackleton wrote, ‘during that long and racking march of thirty-six hours over the unnamed mountains and glaciers of South Georgia, it seemed to me often that we were four, not three.’ His admission resulted in other survivors of extreme hardship coming forward and sharing similar experiences.
In recent years well-known adventurers like climber Reinhold Messner and polar explorers Peter Hillary and Ann Bancroft have reported the experience. One study of cases involving adventurers reported that the largest group involved climbers, followed by solo sailors and shipwreck survivors. Some journalists have related this to the concept of a ‘guardian angel’ or ‘imaginary friend.’ Scientific explanations consider this a coping mechanism. Modern psychologists have used the ‘third man factor’ to treat victims of trauma. The ‘cultivated inner character’ lends imagined support and comfort.
Posted in Philosophy |
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October 17, 2015
Unstructured Data refers to information that is not organized in a predefined manner. Properly formated computerized data is stored in a database (making it easily retrievable) and labeled with metadata (‘data about data,’ e.g., author, subject, size). Unstructured information has missing or conflicting metadata and may lack contextual clues that make it difficult to understand using traditional programs.
Techniques such as data mining, Natural Language Processing (NLP), and ‘noisy-text’ analytics provide different methods to find patterns in, or otherwise interpret, this information. NLP is a field in Artificial Intelligence, related to linguistics that attempts to program computers to understand human languages. There is considerable commercial interest in the field because of its application to news-gathering, text categorization, voice-activation, archiving, and large-scale content-analysis. Continue reading →
Posted in Language, Technology |
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October 16, 2015
Scam baiting is a form of Internet vigilantism, where the vigilante poses as a potential victim to the scammer in order to waste their time and resources, gather information that will be of use to authorities, and publicly expose the scammer. It is primarily used to thwart advance-fee fraud scams (e.g. ‘Nigerian Prince’ scams) and can be done out of a sense of civic duty (activism) by documenting scammers tools and methods, warning potential victims, or taking down fake websites.
A bait is very simply initiated, by answering a scam email, from a throwaway email account, i.e. one that is only used for baiting and untraceable back to the actual owner. The baiter then pretends to be receptive to the financial hook that the scammer is using, but requires increasingly ridiculous forms of security from the scammer before turning over funds. Scam baiters typically use jest in their attacks. However, some scam baiters have been accused of abject mockery, racism, and homophobia, and even scamming themselves.
Posted in Money, Politics, Technology |
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October 15, 2015
Tommy John surgery (TJS), known in medical practice as ulnar collateral ligament (UCL) reconstruction, is a surgical graft procedure in which a ligament in the elbow is replaced with a tendon from elsewhere in the body (ligaments and tendons are connective tissue; the former connects bones to each other and latter connects muscles to bone). The procedure is common among collegiate and professional athletes in several sports, particularly baseball pitchers.
The procedure was first performed in 1974 by orthopedic surgeon Dr. Frank Jobe, then a Los Angeles Dodgers team physician who served as a special advisor to the team until his death in 2014. It is named after the first baseball player to undergo the surgery, major league pitcher Tommy John, whose record of 288 career victories ranks seventh all time among left-handed pitchers. Continue reading →
Posted in Games, Health, Money |
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October 14, 2015
Ghetto fabulous refers to a fashion stereotype alluding to individuals living in an affluent materialistic style while not actually wealthy. It is part of a larger cultural trend of the 1990s where black, urban fashion was becoming a hot commodity through the rise of ‘hardcore’ rap. Because of the circumstances of many inner city families, poverty and consumerism became the focal point of artistic expression. With the rise of malls in the 1980s, this could be seen in the larger cultural context as well.
‘Excessive consumerism and an obsession with bling are certainly not confined to any particular demographic. We are a nation of excess and instant gratification. It has become the American way.’ For inner city youth, the ghetto fabulous life was about trying to outrun their socio-economic situations. For centuries, fashion has represented socio-economic status, so lower classes will buy outside their means in order to try and fit into an image of the upper classes. Continue reading →
Posted in Language, Money, Politics |
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October 13, 2015
Neurotheology [noor-oh-thee-ol-uh-jee], also known as ‘spiritual neuroscience’ or ‘neuroscience of religion,’ attempts to explain religious experience and behavior scientifically. It is the study of correlations of neural phenomena with subjective experiences of spirituality and hypotheses to explain these phenomena.
Researchers in the field attempt to explain the neurological basis for religious experiences, such as: spiritual awe, the feeling of oneness with the universe, ecstatic trances, sudden enlightenment, and other spiritually motivated altered states of consciousness. English writer and philosopher Aldous Huxley used the term ‘neurotheology’ for the first time in the utopian novel ‘Island.’ Continue reading →
Posted in Philosophy, Science |
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October 12, 2015
Hamilton is a 2015 musical written and performed by Lin-Manuel Miranda, inspired by the biography ‘Alexander Hamilton,’ by Ron Chernow. ‘The New Yorker’ said the show was ‘Rooted in hip-hop, but also encompassing R&B, jazz, pop, Tin Pan Alley, and the choral strains of contemporary Broadway, the show is an achievement of historical and cultural reimagining.’
The play begins with Aaron Burr and others giving a summary of Alexander Hamilton’s early life and poses the question: How can a penniless immigrant from the Caribbean, abandoned by his father at age ten, who watched his mother die when he was 12 and his town destroyed by a hurricane at age 17, use the power of his writing and idealism to become a man who shaped a nation?
Posted in Art, Politics |
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October 10, 2015
The Koosh ball is a toy ball made of rubber filaments (strings) attached to a soft rubber core. It was developed in 1986 by Scott Stillinger to be easy for his 5-year-old daughter and 8-year-old son to hold and throw, and was named after the sound it made when it landed. The following year, he started OddzOn Products Inc. with his brother-in-law, Mark Button, who had previously been a marketing manager for Mattel. The Koosh ball was one of 1988’s hot Christmas toys.
The company later expanded their product line to include keyrings, baseball sets, yo-yos, and currently, foam disc guns. The number of Koosh balls sold is estimated to be in the millions. The ball consists of about 2,000 natural rubber filaments, and has been released in a variety of color combinations. Koosh balls are often used with tennis exercises to help children develop motor skills. They are currently manufactured by Hasbro.
Posted in Games |
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October 9, 2015
An alternative newspaper is a type of newspaper that eschews comprehensive coverage of general news in favor of stylized reporting, opinionated reviews and columns, investigations into edgy topics, and magazine-style feature stories highlighting local people and culture.
Its news coverage is more locally focused and their target audiences younger than those of daily newspapers. Typically, alternative newspapers are published in tabloid format and printed on newsprint. Most metropolitan areas of the United States and Canada are home to at least one alternative paper. Continue reading →
Posted in Art, Language, World |
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October 8, 2015
Massimo [ma-see-moh] Vignelli [veen-yell-ee] (1931 – 2014) was an Italian graphic and industrial designer who worked in a number of areas including product packaging, housewares, furniture, public signage, and showrooms. He was the co-founder of Vignelli Associates, with his wife, Lella. His ethos was, ‘If you can design one thing, you can design everything,’ and this was reflected in the broad range of his work. Vignelli worked firmly within the Modernist tradition, and focused on simplicity through the use of basic geometric forms in all his work.
His educational background was in architecture, which he studied at the Politecnico di Milano and later at the Università di Architettura, Venice. From 1957 to 1960, he visited America on a fellowship, and returned to New York in 1966 to start the New York branch of a new company, Unimark International, which quickly became, in scope and personnel, one of the largest design firms in the world. Continue reading →
Posted in Art, Money, World |
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October 5, 2015
In law, a ‘reasonable person‘ is a composite of a relevant community’s judgment as to how a typical member of said community should behave in situations that might pose a threat of harm (through action or inaction) to the public. It is an emergent concept of common law (judicial precedent), with no accepted technical definition. As a legal fiction (a fact assumed by courts for purposes of expediency), the ‘reasonable person’ is not an average person or a typical person, leading to great difficulties in applying the concept in some criminal cases, especially in regards to the partial defence of provocation.
Legal humorist A. P. Herbert called the reasonable person an ‘excellent but odious character’: ‘He is an ideal, a standard, the embodiment of all those qualities which we demand of the good citizen … [he] invariably looks where he is going, … is careful to examine the immediate foreground before he executes a leap or bound; … neither stargazes nor is lost in meditation when approaching trapdoors or the margins of a dock; … never mounts a moving [bus] and does not alight from any car while the train is in motion, … uses nothing except in moderation, and even flogs his child in meditating only on the golden mean.’ Continue reading →
Posted in Language, Politics |
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October 4, 2015
Sukkah [sook-uh] City was a 2010 architectural design competition and work of installation art planned in New York City’s Union Square Park. A sukkah is the name given to a structure described in Torah (Jewish Bible). The Children of Israel were instructed to annually commemorate their Exodus from Egypt by dwelling for seven days every autumn in temporary structures reminiscent of those in which they lived during their 40 years of wandering in the desert before settling in the Land of Israel. Many Jews continue this practice to this day, and Sukkah City aims to re-imagine the sukkah in contemporary design.
A committee of art critics and architects selected 12 winners from a field of over 600 entries. The twelve winning sukkot were constructed at Brooklyn’s Gowanus Studio Space, and driven by truck to Union Square Park for display on September 19 and 20 from dawn to dusk. The design chosen as ‘the people’s choice,’ entitled ‘Fractured Bubble’ by Long Island City architects Henry Grosman and Babak Bryan, stood for the requisite seven days of the Jewish holiday of Sukkot. The competition was the brainchild of journalists Joshua Foer and Roger Bennett. It was sponsored by Reboot, an organization that aims to catalyze innovation in Jewish culture, rituals, and traditions. Continue reading →
Posted in Philosophy, Technology |
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