Web Monitor
14:15 UK time, Thursday, 25 June 2009
A celebration of the riches of the web.
There's a big revolution happening in fashion and it's not about the colours blue or green, but all will be revealed in today's Web Monitor. Recommend your favourite links by sending us a comment.
• Fashion writer on an online revolution in fashion on the eve of the full figured fashion week in New York. The Fatosphere - the online community in support of fat acceptance - has spawned the fatshionista, what Espinosa says is an oft-overlooked group of plus-sized women who want high-end fashion, epitomised in the . Beth Ditto, as the obvious figure head of this movement is cashing in by releasing a clothing range for Evans clothes shop. In the meantime, blog and keep the movement going.
• Green is the new blue, . An optical illusion is doing the rounds of the blogs which appears to be a green, blue and pink spiral but turns out to be an optical illusion, making green seem blue. It sets out to prove that the perception of colour is created by comparing it with surrounding colours. Phil Plait from Bad Astronomy concludes:
"You cannot trust what you see even with your own eyes. So the next time someone swears they saw Jesus, or a UFO, or a ghost, show them this picture. What you see in life is absolutely and provably not what you get."
• that fake antiquities on Ebay have saved the antiques industry. More than 10 years on from Ebay's launch, he says his greatest fear that the internet auction site would democratize antiquities trafficking and lead to widespread looting couldn't be further from the truth:
"We feared that an unorganized but massive looting campaign was about to begin, with everything from potsherds to pieces of the Great Wall on the auction block for a few dollars. But a very curious thing has happened. It appears that electronic buying and selling has actually hurt the antiquities trade.
How is it possible? The short answer is that many of the primary "producers" of the objects have shifted from looting sites to faking antiquities."
• Prolific the affair of South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford to the depreciation of the dollar saying it's not worthy of attention:
"The rest of the world is about to kick this country right where it counts when it decides to go off the dollar as the reserve currency, and you want to spend five minutes over the fact that Sanford was cheating on his wife? Don't take the bait. Move on."
• Protests in Australia about a spate of attacks against Indians have prompted how racist their own country is. A look at experiences of black people in India includes two British cheerleaders who were excluded from an event because they were black. Debarshi Dasgupta asks where the prejudice comes from:
"Of course, the Indian prejudice against the 'shyam varna' is as old as Hindu mythology itself. 'When Krishna literally means dark,' says Mumbai-based mythology expert Devdutt Pattanaik, 'why is he always portrayed in blue rather than in natural black?' Comics and TV serials routinely depict evil (the demons) as dark and good (the gods) as fair."
• It turns out the wheel has been reinvented and patented, . The first patent involving a wheel was in 1791, which was a design for a horizontal, hollow water wheel to create hydropower for mills. An over-balanced wheel is also the earliest and most common design for a perpetual motion device - something that, if successful would continue creating more energy than it used forever. However, the US patent office refuses to assess claims for perpetual motion devices unless inventors can produce working models.
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