Someone types the word “dresses” and hits enter. Bedding? Area rugs? You could imagine a dozen contenders for each of these searches. But in the last several months, one name turned up, with uncanny regularity, in the No. 1 spot for each and every term. J.C. Penney bested millions of sites—and not just in searches for dresses, bedding and area rugs. For months, it was consistently at or near the top in searches for “skinny jeans,” “home decor,” “comforter sets,” “furniture” and dozens of other words and phrases, from the blandly generic (“tablecloths”) to the strangely specific (“grommet top curtains”). This striking performance lasted for months, most crucially through the holiday season, when there is a huge spike in online shopping. J. C. Penney even beat out the sites of manufacturers in searches for the products of those manufacturers. The New York Times asked an expert in online search, Doug Pierce of Blue Fountain Media in New York, to study this question, as well as Penney’s astoundingly strong search-term performance in recent months. What he found suggests that the digital age’s most mundane act, the Google search, often represents layer upon layer of intrigue. And the intrigue starts in the sprawling, subterranean world of “black hat” optimization, the dark art of raising the profile of a Web site with methods that Google considers tantamount to cheating. Despite the cowboy outlaw connotations, black-hat services are not illegal, but trafficking in them risks the wrath of Google . The company draws a pretty thick line between techniques it considers deceptive and “white hat” approaches, which are offered by hundreds of consulting firms and are legitimate ways to increase a site’s visibility. http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/13/business/13search.html?_r=2&pagewanted=all

The yellow hues in some of Vincent van Gogh's paintings have mysteriously turned to brown—and now a team of European scientists has figured out why. Using sophisticated X-ray machines, they discovered the chemical reaction to blame—one never before observed in paint. Ironically, Van Gogh's decision to use a lighter shade of yellow paint mixed with white is responsible for the unintended darkening, according to a study published online February 14 in the journal Analytical Chemistry. In a number of Van Gogh's paintings, the yellow has dulled to coffee brown—and in about 10 cases, the discoloration is serious, said Koen Janssens, an analytical chemist at Antwerp University in Belgium who co-wrote the study. The root of the problem is the lead-chromate paint he used. It was called chrome yellow, and it was part of a generation of paints that were then far brighter and more vibrant than the existing yellow ochre or orpiment shades. http://articles.latimes.com/2011/feb/14/science/la-sci-van-gogh-paint-20110215

The February 15 showing of Watson, the computer, versus humans on Jeopardy had two surprises that may have been programmed. Watson bet odd amounts on the Daily Double instead of even amounts. For humorous effect? Watson named a U.S. city as Toronto. Was the mistake on purpose to relieve tension after its runaway victory?

What's in a name -- Flogton? Flogton is "notgolf" spelled backward. Because this new game isn't golf, it seemed to be a good name to start with, but it doesn't have to stick. I play golf. Why would I want to play Flogton? Maybe you're going out with friends of different levels, or family of different ages and abilities, and want to play a game that's fun for all of them. Maybe you haven't played in a few months and just need a round to loosen up and have some fun. Maybe you've been playing too often with the same serious group and need an alternative. Maybe you're getting older, or have had an injury, and need a solution to your ever decreasing distance. And maybe you've noticed business is down at your favorite course and this might attract some new players. Project Flogton game instructions definitely don't follow the rules of golf -- isn't this cheating? It's not golf, it's not cheating, it's a different game with different formats. Eventually players might have two handicaps, a USGA-generated index and a Flogton-generated index. Project Flogton advocates the development of more nonconforming stuff -- won't that promote cheating in golf? It could actually prevent cheating, by clearly branding and marking the equipment used for Flogton to differentiate it from the equipment used for golf. What's the USGA stance on Flogton -- will I get in trouble if I play? Project Flogton hasn't asked for USGA approval. The USGA might actually like Project Flogton, because Flogton players may migrate to the USGA's game as they become more serious about their games.
http://www.flogton.com/for_players.html

Search the full text of every article ever published by ACM and bibliographic citations from major publishers in computing. Access is open to the public as well as ACM members. http://portal.acm.org/ ACM, formerly Association for Computing Machinery, is the first society in computing. The new version of its Digital Library (DL) is the first major overhaul of its store of computing literature in almost 10 years.

Hertz abbreviated Hz, is a unit of frequency. One Hz means one cycle per second. Hz is named after the German physicist Heinrich Hertz who made considerable contributions to electromagnetism. In computers, the CPU (central processing unit) and other components such as RAM are measured in Hz or MHz (Megahertz) and now GHz (Gigahertz). One KHz equals 1,000 (one thousand) Hz, while 1,000,000 (one million) Hz equals one MHz, and 1,000,000,000 (one billion) Hz equals one GHz. See explanatory table at: http://www.computer-hardware-explained.com/hertz.html

Outside of Cincinnati's borders, goetta (pronounced get-uh) is practically unknown. But locals throughout Southwest Ohio consume literally millions of pounds of the stuff per year. There is even an annual Goettafest. Found in butcher shops and on restaurant menus citywide, the breakfast meat is Cincy's other culinary oddity. Introduced by German immigrants, the Scrapple-like substance is made by simmering various pork (and sometimes beef) parts with steel-cut oats, onions and spices. See other unique foods of Ohio at: http://www.insiderohio.com/features/uniquefoods.aspx

Allen Durough lives in Bessemer, Ala., a town 15 miles southwest of Birmingham, where he has found a century-old cache of architectural printing plates. They are engraved with the designs of Wallace A. Rayfield, believed to be America's second formally trained African American architect. Rayfield designed hundreds of structures throughout the South prior to the Great Depression, among them theaters, schools, residences for prominent black professionals, one of the country's first black-owned banks, and many, many churches. His buildings were backdrops for the civil rights movement of the 1960s; a few became synonymous with the struggle. But Rayfield died destitute during the Second World War, and his contributions to the growth of Birmingham and other cities were largely forgotten. In 1993, Allen R. Durough was cleaning out a derelict barn on his property when he noticed a heap of dusty metal boxes in the back corner. The first time Durough tried to get to the boxes, he crashed through a rotted floorboard. Only by prying boards off a back wall was he able to reach the mysterious cache. Inside he found thick wood blocks with metal faces into which were etched drawings of churches and schools and business advertisements bearing the inscription "W. A. Rayfield & Co., Architects." Unaware of their significance, he tossed the blocks into the yard, intending to take them to the county dump. But something about the delicate etchings piqued his curiosity. "I called what seemed like everybody in town, but nobody had heard of Rayfield," says Durough. "Then I phoned the folks at the Birmingham Historical Society, and the woman literally screamed on the phone, she was so excited." For years, she had searched for information about the name she had seen carved into the cornerstones of so many Birmingham buildings. Durough realized he had stumbled upon a historical treasure trove. Born in Macon, Ga., around 1873, Wallace Rayfield, son of a railroad porter, was a preternaturally gifted draftsman. He graduated from Howard University in Washington, D.C., and received architecture degrees from both Pratt Polytechnic Institute and Columbia University in New York, where he was recruited by Booker T. Washington, director of Tuskegee Normal and Industrial Institute in Alabama. As an instructor of mechanical and architectural drawing at Tuskegee, Rayfield worked alongside Robert Taylor, the first black architect to graduate from MIT. Rayfield oversaw the expansion of the school's mechanical drawing department from a cramped room with boards nailed atop saw-horses to a large, well-lit space with 47 drafting tables. Rayfield also made his first foray into printing with Industrial Drawing Book, a textbook meant to bring a degree of professionalism to the young school. He designed more than 400 buildings for clients in at least 20 states, including Illinois, Texas, and Maryland. More than 130 of his structures were built in Birmingham alone. http://www.preservationnation.org/magazine/2011/january-february/rediscovering-mr-rayfield.html

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From: Marilyn Waggoner Subject: tetchy - origin uncerain? My father's family always used this word in place of "touchy" so I am somewhat perplexed that the origin is not the same as the word "touchy". I always thought they were merely "hickifying" the more recognizable English word. Am I wrong? Many readers wrote about the origins of this word. Some guessed it was from a southern US variant of the word touchy. Others figured it may have come from the Yorkshire dialect of English (northern England). It's one of those words we are not 100% sure about, but indications are that the word touchy is a variant of tetchy (not the other way) under influence from the word touch. The OED lists the earliest recorded use for tetchy from 1597, while touchy is from 1605. -Anu Garg
From: Ranadurjay Talukdar Subject: dyspeptic Interestingly, Pepsi was originally marketed as a drink to cure dyspepsia, hence the name "Pepsi".
From: Jason Kornelis Subject: dyspepsia The online text-based RPG "Kingdom of Loathing", which treats wit and wordplay as the basic building blocks of the English language, includes "Dyspepsi-Cola" as a usable item.

Terriers have won Best in Show 45 times in the 103 years that the Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show has doled out the big prize—including last year's winner, Sadie, a Scottish Terrier. Much of the group's dominance at Westminster owes to terriers' early success against a much shallower pool of competitors. A Smooth Fox Terrier, Ch. Warren Remedy, won each of the first three Best in Show prizes, and terriers won Best in Show 21 times in the first 28 years the prize was awarded. Much has changed since then. Terriers have won just 28% of the time in the past quarter-century, tied with the sporting group at seven wins apiece. The split of the herding group from the working group in 1983 deepened the field. So, too, has an influx of new AKC-recognized breeds. Many of the new breeds introduced at Westminster in recent years have been hulking working dogs and various sheepdogs, usually hailing from Europe. See a table depicting Best of Show winners by type at: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703843004576138691540831636.html A Scottish deerhound named Hickory won Best in Show February 15.