December 2010
30 posts
Porsche Spyder 1955 550
The Porsche 550 was a sports car produced by Porsche from 1953-1956. Inspired by the Porsche 356 which was created by Ferry Porsche, and some spyder prototypes built and raced by Walter Glöckler starting in 1951, the factory decided to build a car designed for use in auto racing. The model Porsche 550 Spyder was introduced at the 1953 Paris Auto Show. The 550 was very low to the ground, in order...
Moral Hazard
Moral hazard occurs when a party insulated from risk behaves differently than it would behave if it were fully exposed to the risk. Moral hazard arises because an individual or institution does not take the full consequences and responsibilities of its actions, and therefore has a tendency to act less carefully than it otherwise would, leaving another party to hold some responsibility for the...
M.F.K. Fisher
Mary Frances Kennedy Fisher (1908 - 1992) was a prolific and well-respected author. She wrote more than 20 books during her lifetime. Two volumes of her journals and correspondence came out shortly before her death in 1992. Her first book, Serve it Forth, was published in 1937. Most of her books deal with food, considering it from many aspects: preparation, natural history, culture, and...
Candide: Or Optimism
Candide, ou l’Optimisme is a French satire written in 1759 by Voltaire, a philosopher of the Age of Enlightenment. The novella has been widely translated, with English versions titled Candide: or, All for the Best (1759); Candide: or, The Optimist (1762); and Candide: or, Optimism (1947).[5] It begins with a young man, Candide, who is living a sheltered life in an Edenic paradise and being...
Deutsches Museum
The Deutsches Museum (German Museum) in Munich, Germany, is the world’s largest museum of technology and science, with approximately 1.5 million visitors per year and about 28,000 exhibited objects from 50 fields of science and technology. The museum was founded on June 28, 1903, at a meeting of the Association of German Engineers (VDI) as an initiative of Oskar von Miller. The full name of...
Edith Piaf
Edith Piaf (1915 - 1963) is almost universally regarded as France’s greatest popular singer. Still revered as an icon decades after her death, “the Sparrow” served as a touchstone for virtually every chansonnier, male or female, who followed her. Her greatest strength wasn’t so much her technique, or the purity of her voice, but the raw, passionate power of her singing....
Asperger Syndrome
Asperger syndrome or Asperger’s syndrome is an autism spectrum disorder that is characterized by significant difficulties in social interaction, along with restricted and repetitive patterns of behavior and interests. It differs from other autism spectrum disorders by its relative preservation of linguistic and cognitive development. Although not required for diagnosis, physical clumsiness...
A Bigger Splash
A Bigger Splash by David Hockney (1967) A California poolside. A low modern dwelling with wall-sized glass panels. Palm trees. A sweltering cloudless sky. An unoccupied chair. And suddenly… Yes, you could make a human story of it, and rather a neat one. Here’s an uninhabited view, where the only sign of life is the sign that someone has, this very instant, disappeared - for the splash...
James Thurber
James Thurber (1894 - 1961) was an American author, cartoonist and celebrated wit. Thurber was best known for his contributions (both cartoons and short stories) to The New Yorker magazine. Thurber worked hard in the 1920s, both in the U.S. and in France, to establish himself as a professional writer. However, unique among major American literary figures, he became equally well known for his...
Silbermann Organs
Gottfried Silbermann (1683 - 1753) was an influential German constructor of keyboard instruments. He built harpsichords, clavichords, organs, and fortepianos; his modern reputation rests mainly on the latter two. The organs that Silbermann and his brother Andreas Silbermann built show a clear and distinctive style, both in architecture and in their music qualities. Silbermann never deviated from...
Mont Blanc
Mont Blanc or Monte Bianco (French and Italian, respectively, meaning “White Mountain”) is the highest mountain in the Alps, Western Europe and the European Union. It rises 4,810.45 m (15,782 ft) above sea level and is ranked 11th in the world in topographic prominence. It is also sometimes known as “La Dame Blanche” (French for “The White Lady”). The...
Sir Norman Foster
Norman Robert Foster, Baron Foster of Thames Bank, OM (born 1935) is a British architect whose company maintains an international design practice. He is Britain’s most prolific builder of landmark office buildings. In 2009 Foster was awarded the Prince of Asturias Award in the Arts category. In 1967 Foster and Wendy Cheesman founded Foster Associates, which later became Foster and...
Metropolis
The biggest-budgeted movie ever produced at Germany’s UFA, Fritz Lang’s gargantuan Metropolis consumed resources that would have yielded upwards of 20 conventional features, more than half the studio’s entire annual production budget. And if it didn’t make a profit at the time — indeed, it nearly bankrupted the studio — the film added an indelible array of...
Corfu
Corfu is a Greek island in the Ionian Sea. It is the second largest of the Ionian Islands. Its north-eastern coastline lies off the coast of Sarandë, Albania, from which it is separated by straits varying in breadth from 3 to 23 km (2 to 15 mi), including one near ancient Butrint, while the south-east side of the island lies off the coast of Thesprotia, Greece. The island is part of the Corfu...
Takashi Murakami
Takashi Murakami is a prolific contemporary Japanese artist who works in both fine arts media, such as painting, as well as digital and commercial media. He blurs the boundaries between high and low art. He appropriates popular themes from mass media and pop culture, then turns them into thirty-foot sculptures, “Superflat” paintings, or marketable commercial goods such as figurines or...