The dress (viral phenomenon)

The dress, also known as Dressgate and associated with the hashtags #thedress, #whiteandgold, and #blackandblue, is a viral photo and meme which became popular on 26 February 2015. The viral phenomenon revealed differences in human colour perception which have been the subject of serious ongoing scientific investigation in neuroscience and vision science, with a number of papers published in peer-reviewed science journals.

The meme originated from a washed-out photograph of a dress posted on the social networking service Tumblr, and a dispute over whether the dress pictured was blue and black, or white and gold. In the first week after the surfacing of the image alone, more than 10 million tweets mentioned the dress. Although the actual colour of the dress was confirmed to be blue and black, the image prompted discussions surrounding the matter across various platforms, with users discussing their opinions on the colour and why they perceived the dress as being a certain colour, while some dismissed the issue as trivial.

Dress (PJ Harvey song)

"Dress" is the debut single by English singer-songwriter PJ Harvey from her debut album Dry. Released in 1991, two promotional music videos were also recorded.

Background and history

"Dress" was recorded at Yeovil's Icehouse as part of the Dry sessions. The song, like the album, generated an overwhelmingly strong critical response, though the song failed to chart. John Peel described the song as 'admirable, if not always enjoyable' after playing it for the first time on his radio show.

Lyrics tell the story of a woman who's trying to impress a certain man with a dress ("Must be a way that I can dress to please him"). She finds the dress pretty uncomfortable ("It's hard to walk in the dress, it's not easy/I'm spilling over like a heavy loaded fruit tree"), but she's hoping it will help her to ("Close up my eyes/Dreamy dreamy music make it be alright").

At the end of the song the man doesn't appreciate the dress ("You purdy thang, my man says,/But I bought you beautiful dresses.") and she falls on the floor, causes big embarrassment on her. ("I'm falling flat and my arms are empty/Clear the way better get it out of this room")

.africa

.Africa is the proposed Internet generic Top-Level Domain (gTLD) for the African and Pan African communities and users wherever they may reside. The .africa gTLD serves as a regional domain for individuals and entities based in and out of Africa.

Status

The .Africa gTLD has not yet been delegated to any organization as registry operator. The .Africa application that was submitted by DotConnectAfrica Trust is now the subject of an unresolved disagreement with ICANN (DCA Trust vs ICANN) following an Independent Review Panel (IRP) Process that was invoked by DCA Trust under ICANN’s accountability mechanism in October 2013. The IRP was administrated by the International Center for Dispute Resolution (ICDR) of the American Arbitration Association (AAA) New York, US.

DCA Trust had passed all the new gTLD applicant evaluation criteria, but before the Initial Evaluation (IE) result was issued, a Governmental Advisory Committee GAC Objection Advice that had been issued in Beijing in April 2013 was later accepted by the ICANN Board in early June 2013 which caused the ICANN Board to instruct ICANN staff that DCA Trust’s .Africa new gTLD application will not be approved. This had caused the non-completion of the evaluation of DCA Trust’s application; which then led DCA Trust to challenge the ICANN Board decision through a series of accountability mechanism.

Africa (Petrarch)

Africa is an epic poem in Latin hexameters by the 14th century Italian poet Petrarch (Francesco Petrarca). It tells the story of the Second Punic War, in which the Carthaginian general Hannibal invaded Italy, but Roman forces were eventually victorious after an invasion of north Africa led by Publius Cornelius Scipio Africanus, the epic poem's hero.

Background

Africa and De viris illustribus were partially inspired by Petrarch's visit to Rome in 1337. According to Bergin and Wilson (p. ix). It seems very likely that the inspirational vision of the Eternal City must have been the immediate spur to the design of the Africa and probably De viris illustribus as well. After returning from his grand tour, the first sections of Africa were written in the valley of Vaucluse. Petrarch recalls

The fact that he abandoned it early on is not entirely correct since it was far along when he received two invitations (from Rome and from Paris) in September 1340 each asking him to accept the crown as poet laureate. A preliminary form of the poem was completed in time for the laurel coronation April 8, 1341 (Easter Sunday).

Africa (Perpetuum Jazzile album)

Africa is 2009 Perpetuum Jazzile album. By large most successful song from the album is a capella version of Toto's "Africa", the performance video of which has received more than 15 million YouTube views since its publishing in May 2009 until September 2013.

Track listing

References