An episode of The Simpsons called “The Computer Wore Menace Shoes” sums up the turn-of-the-century internet quite well. Homer builds a website, dubbed “Mr. X's Web Page” and populates it with animated GIFs of Jesus dancing, screaming mouths, and flying toasters.

Newly-released oil industry documents push back the start date of the world’s most successful disinformation campaign to the 1960s, if not earlier.

An episode of The Simpsons called “The Computer Wore Menace Shoes” sums up the turn-of-the-century internet quite well. Homer builds a website, dubbed “Mr. X's Web Page” and populates it with animated GIFs of Jesus dancing, screaming mouths, and flying toasters.

They're not GIFs, they're not cinemagraphs, they're... something we don't have a word for yet.

The pairs of images in this "Similarities" set are similar visually in one way or another. They are presented without judgement as to the motives of their creators. The viewers of the pieces can form their own opinion(s) about what they see.

Some are "accidents": The creator of the similar piece had no knowledge of the original. Examples would be the 1982 Rafal Olbinski / New Pornographers posters and the Idea magazine cover / Okkervil River poster.

Some are "re-contextualized": Obscure imagery from long forgotten sources was used from vintage printed ephemera like 1940s and ’50s Popular Mechanics ads, matchbook covers, stamps, comic books, cook books, etc. giving them new life in a new form. An example would be the Czechoslovakian Matchbox Label and the Vibe Killers poster.

The widespread fascination with the Mad Men series is far more than just simple nostalgia. It is about how we feel about ourselves and our society today. In Mad Men we watch a group of people who live in a prosperous society that offers happiness and order like never before in history and yet are full of anxiety and unease. They feel there is something more, something beyond. And they feel stuck. I think we are fascinated because we have a lurking feeling that we are living in a very similar time. A time that, despite all the great forces of history whirling around in the world outside, somehow feels stuck. And above all has no real vision of the future. And as we watch the group of characters from 50 years ago, we get reassurance because we know that they are on the edge of a vast change that will transform their world and lead them out of their stifling technocratic order and back into the giant onrush of history.

Six experts discuss the merits of framing climate change, the language that troubles them, and the inherent bias of any chosen word.

In a report to be released the first week in June — though a summary was accidentally leaked by email to the press late last month — the firm has compiled the results of extensive polling and focus-group sessions conducted over the last several years. Those studies, according to EcoAmerica, indicate that words like “global warming,” “cap and trade,” and “carbon dioxide” turn people off. The firm advises that environmental and government leaders begin talking about “our deteriorating atmosphere” and a “pollution reduction refund,” ditching greenhouse gas-speak in favor of phrases like “moving away from the dirty fuels of the past.”