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Agloe, New York
Agloe is a fictional hamlet in Colchester, Delaware County, New York, United States, that became an actual landmark after mapmakers made up the community as a phantom settlement, an example of a fictitious entry similar to a trap street. Agloe was put onto the map in order to catch plagiarism, as it appears only on the original cartographers' map and has a population of one. Soon, using fictional "copyright traps" became a typical strategy in mapmaker design to thwart plagiarism. Agloe was known as a "paper town" because of this. Agloe is also known for appearing in the American romantic mystery novel ''Paper Towns'' by John Green and its film adaptation. History In the 1930s, General Drafting founder Otto G. Lindberg and an assistant, Ernest Alpers, assigned an anagram of their initials to a dirt-road intersection in the Catskill Mountains: NY 206 and Morton Hill Road, north of Roscoe, New York. The town was designed as a "copyright trap" to enable the publishers to det ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Copyright Trap
Fictitious or fake entries are deliberately incorrect entries in reference works such as dictionaries, encyclopedias (including Wikipedia), maps, and directories. There are more specific terms for particular kinds of fictitious entry, such as Mountweazel, trap street, paper town, phantom settlement, and nihilartikel. Fictitious entries are added by the editors as a copyright trap to reveal subsequent plagiarism or copyright infringement. Terminology The neologism ''Mountweazel'' was coined by ''The New Yorker'' writer Henry Alford in an article that mentioned a fictitious biographical entry intentionally placed as a copyright trap in the 1975 '' New Columbia Encyclopedia''.Henry Alford"Not a Word" ''The New Yorker'' August 29, 2005 (accessed August 29, 2013). The entry described fountain designer turned photographer, Lillian Virginia Mountweazel, who died in an explosion while on assignment for ''Combustibles'' magazine. Allegedly, she is widely known for her photo-essays of ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Catskill Mountains
The Catskill Mountains, also known as the Catskills, are a physiographic province of the larger Appalachian Mountains, located in southeastern New York. As a cultural and geographic region, the Catskills are generally defined as those areas close to or within the borders of the Catskill Park, a forest preserve protected from many forms of development under New York state law. Geologically, the Catskills are a mature dissected plateau, a flat region subsequently uplifted and eroded into sharp relief by watercourses. The Catskills form the northeastern end of the Allegheny Plateau (also known as the Appalachian Plateau). The Catskills were named by early Dutch settlers. They are well known in American society as the setting for films and works of art, including many 19th-century Hudson River School paintings, as well as for being a favored destination for vacationers from New York City in the mid-20th century. The region's many large resorts gave many young stand-up come ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Fictitious Entry
Fictitious or fake entries are deliberately incorrect entries in reference works such as dictionaries, encyclopedias (including Wikipedia), maps, and directories. There are more specific terms for particular kinds of fictitious entry, such as Mountweazel, trap street, paper town, phantom settlement, and nihilartikel. Fictitious entries are added by the editors as a copyright trap to reveal subsequent plagiarism or copyright infringement. Terminology The neologism ''Mountweazel'' was coined by ''The New Yorker'' writer Henry Alford in an article that mentioned a fictitious biographical entry intentionally placed as a copyright trap in the 1975 '' New Columbia Encyclopedia''.Henry Alford"Not a Word" ''The New Yorker'' August 29, 2005 (accessed August 29, 2013). The entry described fountain designer turned photographer, Lillian Virginia Mountweazel, who died in an explosion while on assignment for ''Combustibles'' magazine. Allegedly, she is widely known for her photo-essays of ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Peng Shepherd
Peng Shepherd is an American author. Her first novel, ''The Book of M'', was released in 2018, followed by ''The Future Library'' in 2021 and ''The Cartographers'' in 2022. She is a National Endowment for the Arts Fellow. Early life and education Peng Shepherd was born and raised in Phoenix, Arizona, a daughter of Lin Sue Cooney, a retired Channel 12 anchor. Peng earned a Bachelor of Arts in Chinese Language and Literature from Arizona State University in 2006. Peng then completed an M.A. in International Studies and Diplomacy, and Chinese Language at the SOAS University of London in 2008. From New York University, she received her M.F.A. in Creative Writing in 2014, where she was a Stein Fellow and a Veterans Fellow, in 2013 and 2014, respectively. Literary career Her debut novel ''The Book of M'', a dystopian fantasy, was published by Harper Collins in 2018, and received mainly favorable reviews. Per The Hollywood Reporter, ''The Book of M'' was optioned for screen adaptatio ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Cartographers
''The'' () is a grammatical article in English, denoting persons or things already mentioned, under discussion, implied or otherwise presumed familiar to listeners, readers, or speakers. It is the definite article in English. ''The'' is the most frequently used word in the English language; studies and analyses of texts have found it to account for seven percent of all printed English-language words. It is derived from gendered articles in Old English which combined in Middle English and now has a single form used with pronouns of any gender. The word can be used with both singular and plural nouns, and with a noun that starts with any letter. This is different from many other languages, which have different forms of the definite article for different genders or numbers. Pronunciation In most dialects, "the" is pronounced as (with the voiced dental fricative followed by a schwa) when followed by a consonant sound, and as (homophone of pronoun ''thee'') when followed by a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Geographic Names Information System
The Geographic Names Information System (GNIS) is a database of name and locative information about more than two million physical and cultural features throughout the United States and its territories, Antarctica, and the associated states of the Marshall Islands, Federated States of Micronesia, and Palau. It is a type of gazetteer. It was developed by the United States Geological Survey (USGS) in cooperation with the United States Board on Geographic Names (BGN) to promote the standardization of feature names. Data were collected in two phases. Although a third phase was considered, which would have handled name changes where local usages differed from maps, it was never begun. The database is part of a system that includes topographic map names and bibliographic references. The names of books and historic maps that confirm the feature or place name are cited. Variant names, alternatives to official federal names for a feature, are also recorded. Each feature receives ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
United States Geological Survey
The United States Geological Survey (USGS), formerly simply known as the Geological Survey, is a scientific agency of the United States government. The scientists of the USGS study the landscape of the United States, its natural resources, and the natural hazards that threaten it. The organization's work spans the disciplines of biology, geography, geology, and hydrology. The USGS is a fact-finding research organization with no regulatory responsibility. The agency was founded on March 3, 1879. The USGS is a bureau of the United States Department of the Interior; it is that department's sole scientific agency. The USGS employs approximately 8,670 people and is headquartered in Reston, Virginia. The USGS also has major offices near Lakewood, Colorado, at the Denver Federal Center, and Menlo Park, California. The current motto of the USGS, in use since August 1997, is "science for a changing world". The agency's previous slogan, adopted on the occasion of its hundredt ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Google Maps
Google Maps is a web mapping platform and consumer application offered by Google. It offers satellite imagery, aerial photography, street maps, 360° interactive panoramic views of streets ( Street View), real-time traffic conditions, and route planning for traveling by foot, car, bike, air (in beta) and public transportation. , Google Maps was being used by over 1 billion people every month around the world. Google Maps began as a C++ desktop program developed by brothers Lars and Jens Rasmussen at Where 2 Technologies. In October 2004, the company was acquired by Google, which converted it into a web application. After additional acquisitions of a geospatial data visualization company and a real-time traffic analyzer, Google Maps was launched in February 2005. The service's front end utilizes JavaScript, XML, and Ajax. Google Maps offers an API that allows maps to be embedded on third-party websites, and offers a locator for businesses and other organizations in numero ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Copyright Infringement
Copyright infringement (at times referred to as piracy) is the use of works protected by copyright without permission for a usage where such permission is required, thereby infringing certain exclusive rights granted to the copyright holder, such as the right to reproduce, distribute, display or perform the protected work, or to make derivative works. The copyright holder is typically the work's creator, or a publisher or other business to whom copyright has been assigned. Copyright holders routinely invoke legal and technological measures to prevent and penalize copyright infringement. Copyright infringement disputes are usually resolved through direct negotiation, a notice and take down process, or litigation in civil court. Egregious or large-scale commercial infringement, especially when it involves counterfeiting, is sometimes prosecuted via the criminal justice system. Shifting public expectations, advances in digital technology and the increasing reach of the Internet ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Rand McNally
Rand McNally is an American technology and publishing company that provides mapping, software and hardware for consumer electronics, commercial transportation and education markets. The company is headquartered in Chicago, with a distribution center in Richmond, Kentucky. History Early history In 1856, William H. Rand opened a printing shop in Chicago and two years later hired a newly arrived Irish immigrant, Andrew McNally, to work in his shop. The shop did big business with the forerunner of the ''Chicago Tribune'', and in 1859 Rand and McNally were hired to run the ''Tribune''s entire printing operation. In 1868, the two men, along with Rand's nephew George Amos Poole, established Rand McNally & Co. and bought the Tribune's printing business. The company initially focused on printing tickets and timetables for Chicago's booming railroad industry, and the following year supplemented that business by publishing complete railroad guides. In 1870, the company expanded in ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Esso
Esso () is a trading name for ExxonMobil. Originally, the name was primarily used by its predecessor Standard Oil of New Jersey after the breakup of the original Standard Oil company in 1911. The company adopted the name "Esso" (the phonetic pronunciation of Standard Oil's initials, 'S' and 'O'),Don't ignore history by Robert Sobel on Barro's, 7 Dec 1998 to which the other Standard Oil companies would later object. Standard Oil of New Jersey started marketing its products under the Esso brand in 1926. In 1972, the name Esso was largely replaced in the U.S. by the Exxon brand after the Standard Oil of New Jersey bought Humble Oil, while the Esso name remained widely used elsewhere. In most of the world, the Esso brand and the [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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