H. P. Lovecraft

Howard Phillips "H. P." Lovecraft (August 20, 1890 – March 15, 1937) was an American author of horror, fantasy and science fiction, especially the subgenre known as weird fiction.
Lovecraft's guiding literary principle was what he termed "cosmicism" or "cosmic horror", the idea that life is incomprehensible to human minds and that the universe is fundamentally alien. Those who genuinely reason, like his protagonists, gamble with sanity. As early as the 1940s, Lovecraft had developed a cult following for his Cthulhu Mythos, a series of loosely interconnected fiction featuring a pantheon of humanity-nullifying entities, as well as the Necronomicon, a fictional grimoire of magical rites and forbidden lore. His works were deeply pessimistic and cynical, challenging the values of the Enlightenment, Romanticism and Christian humanism. Lovecraft's protagonists usually achieve the antithesis of traditional gnosis and mysticism by momentarily glimpsing the horror of ultimate reality and the abyss.
Although Lovecraft's readership was limited during his life, his reputation has grown over the decades, and he is now regarded as one of the most influential horror writers of the 20th century. According to Joyce Carol Oates, Lovecraft — as with Edgar Allan Poe in the 19th century — has exerted "an incalculable influence on succeeding generations of writers of horror fiction". Stephen King called Lovecraft "the twentieth century's greatest practitioner of the classic horror tale." King has even made it clear in his semi-autobiographical non-fiction book Danse Macabre that Lovecraft was responsible for his own fascination with horror and the macabre, and was the single largest figure to influence his fiction writing.

Kalevala

The Kalevala (IPA: [ˈkɑlɛvɑlɑ]) is a 19th century work of epic poetry compiled by Elias Lönnrot from Finnish and Karelian oral folklore and mythology.
It is regarded as the national epic of Finland and is one of the most significant works of Finnish literature. The Kalevala played an instrumental role in the development of the Finnish national identity, the intensification of Finland's language strife and the growing sense of nationality that ultimately led to Finland's independence from Russia in 1917.
The first version of The Kalevala (called The Old Kalevala) was published in 1835. The version most commonly known today was first published in 1849 and consists of 22,795 verses, divided into fifty songs (Finnish: runot). The title can be interpreted as "The land of Kaleva".

South Africa under apartheid

Apartheid (Afrikaans pronunciation: [ɐˈpɐrtɦəit], separateness) was a system of legal racial segregation enforced by the National Party government of South Africa between 1948 and 1994, under which the rights of the majority 'non-white' inhabitants of South Africa were curtailed and minority rule by white people was maintained. The government of South Africa also practiced the same discriminatory policies while occupying South West Africa, known after 1966 as Namibia.
Racial segregation in South Africa began in colonial times, however, apartheid as an official policy was introduced following the general election of 1948. New legislation classified inhabitants into racial groups ("black", "white", "coloured", and "Indian"), and residential areas were segregated, sometimes by means of forced removals. From 1958, black people were deprived of their citizenship, legally becoming citizens of one of ten tribally based self-governing homelands called bantustans, four of which became nominally independent states. The government segregated education, medical care, and other public services, and provided black people with services inferior to those of white people.
Apartheid sparked significant internal resistance and violence as well as a long trade embargo against South Africa. Since the 1980s, a series of popular uprisings and protests were met with the banning of opposition and imprisoning of anti-apartheid leaders. As unrest spread and became more violent, state organizations responded with increasing repression and state-sponsored violence.
Reforms to apartheid in the 1980s failed to quell the mounting opposition, and in 1990 President Frederik Willem de Klerk began negotiations to end apartheid, culminating in multi-racial democratic elections in 1994, which were won by the African National Congress under Nelson Mandela. The vestiges of apartheid still shape South African politics and society.

Echivalentul lui Pacala la nemti:)

Till Eulenspiegel (German pronunciation: [tɪl ˈʔɔʏlənˌʃpiːɡəl], Low Saxon: Dyl Ulenspegel [dɪl ˈʔuːlnˌspeɪɡl̩]) was an impudent trickster figure who originated in the Middle Low German folklore and was disseminated in popular printed editions narrating the string of lightly connected episodes that outlined his picaresque career, primarily in Germany, the Low Countries and France. He made his main entrance in English-speaking culture late in the nineteenth century as Owlglass, but was first mentioned in English literature by Ben Jonson in his comedy play The Alchemist.

Matriarchy

Matriarchy (also gynecocracy) refers to a gynecocentric form of society, in which the leading role is taken by the female and especially by the mothers of a community.

Harpy

In Greek mythology, a harpy ("snatcher", from Latin: harpeia, originating in Greek: ἅρπυια, harpūia) was one of the winged spirits best known for constantly stealing all food from Phineas. The literal meaning of the word seems to be "that which snatches" as it comes from the ancient Greek word harpazein (ἁρπάζειν), which means "to snatch".
A harpy was the mother by the West Wind Zephyros of the horses of Achilles. In this context Jane Ellen Harrison adduced the notion in Virgil's Georgics (iii.274) that mares became gravid by the wind alone, marvelous to say.
Hesiod calls them two "lovely-haired" creatures, perhaps euphemistically. Harpies as ugly winged bird-women, e.g. in Aeschylus' The Eumenides (line 50) are a late development, due to a confusion with the Sirens. Roman and Byzantine writers detailed their ugliness.

Geryon

In Greek mythology, Geryon (Ancient Greek: Γηρυόνης; gen.: Γηρυόνος), son of Chrysaor and Callirrhoe and grandson of Medusa, was a fearsome giant who dwelt on the island Erytheia of the mythic Hesperides in the far west of the Mediterranean. A more literal-minded later generation of Greeks associated the region with Tartessos in southern Iberia.
Geryon was often described as a monster with human faces. According to Hesiod Geryon had one body and three heads, whereas the tradition followed by Aeschylus gave him three bodies. A lost description by Stesichoros said that he has six hands and six feet and is winged; there are some mid-sixth century Chalcidian vases portraying Geryon as winged. Some accounts state that he had six legs as well while others state that the three bodies were joined to one pair of legs. Apart from these weird features, his appearance was that of a warrior. He owned a two-headed hound named Orthrus, which was the brother of Cerberus, and a herd of magnificent red cattle that were guarded by Orthrus, and a herder Eurytion, son of Erytheia.

Thimble concept translates real-world input into real-time Braille

From the great tomorrowland of concept videos comes yet another potentially life-changing product: a thimble (looks more like a one-finger glove to us) that takes ambient input and relays it in via an electro-tactile grid to the wearer's finger in Braille. It gets text input from an embedded camera, like in the picture above, or pulls RSS feeds, books, or presumably any other text via a Bluetooth-paired smartphone. We are, of course, addicted to the flow of info our mobile devices feed us throughout the day, and this little guy seems like the perfect tool to bring that flow more easily to the visually impaired. Now, venture capitalists, work your magic -- we'll be expecting to see this thing on shelves just in time for holidays season 2012. Video after the jump.

Thimble - There's a Thing for That from two times three on Vimeo.

Internet, Networking, Wireless LVX System launches visible light communication

Ever wonder what happened to LEDs as a WiFi alternative? Well, wonder no more, because visible light communication is here -- in the municipal offices of St. Cloud Minnesota, at least. Starting tomorrow, LVX System, a Minnesota start-up, is installing the first of a series of LED fixtures that will use flashing lights to connect office workers to the internet, while saving big on the electric bill. The fixtures also function as regular overhead lights, using 36 watts of energy where 100 watts were once necessary. The setup consists of clusters of LEDs that switch on and off thousands of times per second at intervals undetectable to the human eye. The flashes emit binary code data -- off equals zero and on equals one -- that is received by special patented modems. Lights on these modems then transmit data back to the fixtures, and voila, you've got internet. According to LVX, light-powered networks are far less crowded and far more secure than their predecessors. Unfortunately, LVX's current incarnation transmits data at about 3Mbps -- a mere pittance compared to standard WiFi or Ethernet. Then again, 3Mbps is certainly fast enough for a city employee to perform really important tasks like keeping track of their favorite gadget blog, so we'll take it.

Finnish profanity

Many Finns frequently use profanity in everyday speech even though their culture is considered more high context. While not all Finns swear, frequent swearing is a mark of youth culture. However, it is commonly considered impolite to swear excessively in public and official occasions and particularly in front of children in all regions of the world.

The words often have old origins and some have Pagan roots that after Christian influence were turned from names of deities and spirits to profanity and used as such. Nowadays few Finns know of the origins and intended original use of the words. Finnish swearwords can be used as adjectives or adverbs with proper conjugation.

The people in the neighbouring countries to Finland often consider Finnish swear words harsher than their own, and even use heavily mis-pronounced versions of them, most notably perkele. Native Finns tend to consider the harshness exaggerated, while others use it to their advantage.

There is a book made by Jari Tammi named Suuri kirosanakirja ("The great dictionary of profanities"), which is literally a list of Finnish swear words. The book is published by WSOY, and the first edition was published in 1993.

Additionally, virtually any word can be used in place of profanity by for example preceding it with voi (an interjection meaning "oh!", for example voi paska "oh shit!") or adding vieköön (third person singular imperative of the verb viedä "to take", for example hiisi vieköön "may the goblin take it"). These were more prominent in older Finnish, e.g. raato "dead body" or peto "predator". There are also other similar non-offensive constructs like taivahan talikynttilät ("tallow candles of heaven"). There is also an inventory of non-offensive curse words.