The HTTP Archive – a fledgling effort to record the performance of sites across the interwebs – has merged with the Internet Archive, whose Wayback Machine has long kept a similar record of internet content. Google's Steve Souders – who founded the HTTP Archive and will continue to run it – announced the merger this morning at the O'Reilly Velocity conference in Santa Clara, California. The ultimate goal of the project is to improve the overall performance of the web by exposing its bottlenecks. "I've had the idea of doing this for the past four or five years, where I saw that a large number of websites – even the most popular ones – weren't tracking very critical statistics about performance, like size of JavaScript or the number of script requests," Souders said. "I thought [the project] had a lot of synergy with what the Internet Archive was doing. They were kind of two sides of the same coin. The Internet Archive – the Wayback Machine – is tracking the content of the web, whereas the HTTP Archive is tracking how that content is built and served." Essentially, the HTTP Archive is now a sub-project of the Internet Archive, a not-for-profit based in San Francisco.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/06/15/http_archive_teams_with_new_relic/

Chinese artist Liu Bolin disappears inside his works. Mr. Liu, a master of camouflage, has his clothes, shoes, face and hands painted to match the settings behind him so that he all but vanishes against the backdrops of his photographs. The faint outlines of Mr. Liu can be spotted along the Great Wall of China, a dusty piece of construction equipment, a Chinese temple, a pile of logs and a red velvet seat, among other places. These days, it's getting tougher for Mr. Liu to hide. Last month, he was the fourth most searched among contemporary and modern artists on the site Artnet, beating Damien Hirst and Jeff Koons. (The American photographer Sally Mann came in first.) Now, Mr. Liu will draw attention in New York, where he's creating portraits at sites that include a magazine rack, a Kenny Scharf graffiti mural on Houston Street and a spot at ground zero. A solo exhibition of Mr. Liu's work, featuring his hidden portraits from Beijing and Italy, will open June 29 at the New York gallery Eli Klein Fine Art. The photos may strike some as a high-culture version of "Where's Waldo?" But the image of a concealed artist may hold more meaning for others, especially amid the art-world outcry over the Chinese government's detention of artist-activist Ai Weiwei. See more plus picture at: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702304319804576389843181731996.html

Feedback to A.Word.A.Day
From: Chris Stowe Subject: Claque Def:
A group of people hired to applaud at a performance. North Korea brought one of these to the last World Cup to cheer for their team.
From: Curtis L. Brown Subject: claque
The word claque evokes fond memories. As a high-school student between the two world wars I used to be a member of the claque at Vienna's Staatsoper and Volksoper. It was the only way my weekly allowance stretched to hear famous singers like Jussi Björling or Beniamino Gigli. The Staatsopen had two sets of claques, one on the ground floor, and a cheaper one in the fourth gallery.
From: Manfred Kroger Subject: claque
A claque must then be very close in meaning to a group of shills. The former represent admiring/applauding followers, the latter pretend to purchase something in order to sway bystanders into participating. It's a thin line of separation, and the ultimate goal in both cases is financial gain. Related to these two concepts is the marketing ploy or "invention" thought up by Smirnoff or Smirnov of vodka fame in Russia who paid men to loudly complain to liquor sellers behind the counter they would only return if there were available a certain brand of drink they loudly named for all to hear.
From: John A. Laswick Subject: claque
By chance, The New York Times has an article on noise building at sport events: At sporting events across the nation, and in the N.B.A. in particular, noise has become a part of the show — rarely more so than in Dallas, where the Mavericks face the Miami Heat in Game 4 of the N.B.A. finals Tuesday night. It is hard to tell if the Mavericks’ favorite machine during these playoffs is Dirk Nowitzki, their star player, or their sound system. The Mavericks’ equipment involves more than simply pumping up decibels to levels that some experts fear could contribute to long-term hearing loss. Rather, with fans spoiled by earbud fidelity and 5.1-channel home theater systems, owners like the Mavericks’ Mark Cuban have turned hosting a game into producing an event — with “assisted resonance” and “crowd enhancement,” buzzwords for insiders and euphemisms for others. Sixty mammoth speakers hanging above the court thunder music and clamorous sound effects louder than a jumbo jet engine. More speakers encircling the seating bowl replicate a roaring herd of horses in perfectly timed surround sound. After tip-off of the recent playoff game against Oklahoma City in the Western Conference finals, microphones in the backboard amplified rim clangs, sneaker squeaks and the occasional player profanity, while devices dangling above the crowd — in the rare instances when the public-address system was not active — could redirect courtside crowd sounds into the distant upper mezzanine. http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/07/sports/basketball/stoking-fans-excitement-arenas-pump-up-the-volume.html?_r=1&hp=&pagewanted=all

The Paradoxes of Motion
In the paradox of Achilles and the Tortoise, Achilles is in a footrace with the tortoise. Achilles allows the tortoise a head start of 100 metres. If we suppose that each racer starts running at some constant speed (one very fast and one very slow), then after some finite time, Achilles will have run 100 metres, bringing him to the tortoise's starting point. During this time, the tortoise has run a much shorter distance, say, 10 metres. It will then take Achilles some further time to run that distance, by which time the tortoise will have advanced farther; and then more time still to reach this third point, while the tortoise moves ahead. Thus, whenever Achilles reaches somewhere the tortoise has been, he still has farther to go. Therefore, because there are an infinite number of points Achilles must reach where the tortoise has already been, he can never overtake the tortoise. In a race, the quickest runner can never overtake the slowest, since the pursuer must first reach the point whence the pursued started, so that the slower must always hold a lead. Aristotle, Physics VI:9, 239b15
The dichotomy paradox Homer wants to catch a stationary bus. Before he can get there, he must get halfway there. Before he can get halfway there, he must get a quarter of the way there. Before traveling a quarter, he must travel one-eighth; before an eighth, one-sixteenth; and so on. That which is in locomotion must arrive at the half-way stage before it arrives at the goal. Aristotle, Physics VI:9, 239b10
The arrow paradox In the arrow paradox (also known as the fletcher's paradox), Zeno states that for motion to occur, an object must change the position which it occupies. He gives an example of an arrow in flight. He states that in any one (durationless) instant of time, the arrow is neither moving to where it is, nor to where it is not. It cannot move to where it is not, because no time elapses for it to move there; it cannot move to where it is, because it is already there. In other words, at every instant of time there is no motion occurring. f everything is motionless at every instant, and time is entirely composed of instants, then motion is impossible. If everything when it occupies an equal space is at rest, and if that which is in locomotion is always occupying such a space at any moment, the flying arrow is therefore motionless. Aristotle, Physics VI:9, 239b5 For three other paradoxes as given by Aristotle, see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zeno's_paradoxes

Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region (or Paris Region, French: Région parisienne). The city of Paris, within its administrative limits largely unchanged since 1860, has an estimated population of 2,193,031 (January 2007), but the Paris metropolitan area has a population of 11,836,970 (January 2007), and is one of the most populated metropolitan areas in Europe. An important settlement for more than two millennia, Paris is today one of the world's leading business and cultural centres, and its influences in politics, education, entertainment, media, fashion, science, and the arts all contribute to its status as one of the world's major global cities. Paris hosts the headquarters of many international organizations such as UNESCO, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), the International Chamber of Commerce (ICC) and the informal Paris Club. According to 2008 estimates, the Paris agglomeration is along with London, Europe's biggest city economy and the sixth largest in the world. The Paris Region hosts 37 of the Fortune Global 500 companies in several business districts, notably La Défense, the largest dedicated business district in Europe. According to the latest survey from Economist Intelligence Unit in 2010, Paris is the world's most expensive city in which to live. With about 42 million tourists per year, Paris is the most visited city in the world. The city and its region contain 3,800 historical monuments and four UNESCO World Heritage Sites The earliest archaeological signs of permanent settlements in the Paris area date from around 4200 BC. The Parisii, a sub-tribe of the Celtic Senones, inhabited the area near the river Seine from around 250 BC. The Romans conquered the Paris basin in 52 BC, with a permanent settlement by the end of the same century on the Left Bank Sainte Geneviève Hill and the Île de la Cité. The Gallo-Roman town was originally called Lutetia, but later Gallicised to Lutèce. It expanded greatly over the following centuries, becoming a prosperous city with a forum, palaces, baths, temples, theatres, and an amphitheatre. The collapse of the Roman empire and the 5th-century Germanic invasions sent the city into a period of decline. By 400 AD, Lutèce, largely abandoned by its inhabitants, was little more than a garrison town entrenched into a hastily fortified central island. The city reclaimed its original appellation of "Paris" towards the end of the Roman occupation. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paris

FRANCE RECAP On May 29, six of us flew to Paris to see the sights, and enjoy good food and wine. By coincidence, four other friends had planned a trip to Europe, so they met us in Paris for part of the time. On June 2, we took a high-speed train to Beziers in the Languedoc, where we were picked up and driven to Domaine La Veronique, owned by Peter and Sally Shaw. Peter and Sally bought a ruined structure with no roof, and spent 4 1/2 years making it into a three-bedroom bed and breakfast. We were their first customers. We had three excellent meals a day in the reclaimed building on a one-acre site with fruit and nut trees surrounded by vineyards. On a clear day, you can see the Pyrenees. Our hosts provided transportation to Roman ruins, the Oppidum of Ensérune. In the 6th century BC, the indigenous tribes of southern Gaul had gathered together in large communities on high ground, called ‘oppida’ (hill forts). These trading townships formed the first urban framework of the region. Dating from Pre-Roman times, the Oppidum of Ensérune (Hérault) offers one of the most spectacular views over the plain and the Canal du Midi, and over the impressive ‘Etang de Montady’, a lagoon drained in the 13th century into a network of canals converging on a central well. http://en.sunfrance.com/discover/cultural_heritage/roman_antiquity/the_oppidum_of_enserune We explored the medieval town of Pezenas where we were surprised and delighted to hear a Dixieland band playing, visited a goat cheese farm and an olive oil factory. We also had a wine tasting with Juliet Bruce Jones, MW http://languedocwinetales.blogspot.com/ who told us that Languedoc-Roussillon is the world’s largest wine-producing region. to be continued