Challenging Words The New York Times recently published a list of 50 fancy words that most frequently stump their readership. They are able to measure this data thanks to a nifty in-page lookup mechanism, which you can try here. Try double-clicking the word “epicenter”. Since the NYT didn’t include definitions of these words, I decided to post a job to MediaPiston to produce an article defining and using each word in the list. Voila! Just a few hours later, here it is. The New York Times 50 Fancy Words (defined and used) 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17. 18. 19. 20. 21. 22. 23. 24. 25. 26. 27. 28. 29. 30. 31. 32. 33. 34. 35. 36. 37. 38. 39. 40. 41. 42. 43. 44. 45. 46. 47. 48. 49. 50.
- StumbleUpon WHY DID THE CHICKEN CROSS THE ROAD? Plato: For the greater good. Karl Marx: It was a historical inevitability. Machiavelli: So that its subjects will view it with admiration, as a chicken which has the daring and courage to boldly cross the road, but also with fear, for whom among them has the strength to contend with such a paragon of avian virtue? Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo The sentence's meaning becomes clearer when it's understood that it uses three meanings of the word buffalo: the city of Buffalo, New York, the somewhat uncommon verb "to buffalo" (meaning "to bully or intimidate"), as well as the animal buffalo. When the punctuation and grammar are expanded, the sentence could read as follows: "Buffalo buffalo that Buffalo buffalo buffalo, buffalo Buffalo buffalo." The meaning becomes even clearer when synonyms are used: "Buffalo bison that other Buffalo bison bully, themselves bully Buffalo bison." Sentence construction Bison engaged in a contest of dominance. A comic explaining the concept The sentence is unpunctuated and uses three different readings of the word "buffalo". Marking each "buffalo" with its use as shown above gives: Buffaloa buffalon Buffaloa buffalon buffalov buffalov Buffaloa buffalon. "New York bison New York bison bully, bully New York bison", or:"New York bison whom other New York bison bully, themselves bully New York bison". Usage
Searching for the 3D tipping point I’ve already posited that brand following is a key factor, so how about these others as a starter for 10: Is a monolithic 3D web something that is just not going to happen - as, why would it? 3D serves niche purposes it’s not like text and hyperlinking which is pretty universal. What we will have is what we have now, a set of point applications that just happen to share one characteristic – that they utilize what appears to be a 3D virtual world that can be navigated by various representations of the user. To give a view, rather than posing homework questions for you good readers, I’m going to go for kind of a middle road, no I just re-wrote this - I’m going to say that a 3D standard will emerge. So in a way I’m undercutting my own question in that we may not have a single product but a convergence around standards as we have now with html and different browsers, my assumption being that client standards will advance so this can be so. Comments on Searching for the 3D tipping point :
The Piasa In 1673, French missionary Jacques Marquette was exploring the Mississippi valley when he came upon a strange mural painted on a limestone bluff near what is now Alton, Ill.: While Skirting some rocks, which by Their height and length inspired awe, We saw upon one of them two painted monsters which at first made Us afraid, and upon Which the boldest savages dare not Long rest their eyes. In 1836 local settler John Russell told of a flying monster that lived in the cliffs and attacked nearby Indian villages, and the notion of wings is carried through in the reproduction above.
Intrinsic Grammar Linguistics Babel's children Jan 8th 2004 | LEIPZIG From The Economist print edition Languages may be more different from each other than is currently supposed. IT IS hard to conceive of a language without nouns or verbs. This sort of observation flies in the face of conventional wisdom about what language is. Dr Gil contends, however, that there is a risk of unconscious bias leading to the conclusion that a particular sort of grammar exists in an unfamiliar language. It need not, however, be a modern language. The difficulty is compounded if a linguist is not fluent in the language he is studying. The experiment, though, was not entirely successful: when the boys realised his intention, they began to speak more formally. Dr Boroditsky's experiment is simple. Dr Gil believes that this might be because time is, in English, an integral grammatical concept—every verb must have a tense, be it past, present or future. Demonstrating any sort of causal link would, nevertheless, be hard.
The L-Space Web: Death and What Comes Next - StumbleUpon The L-Space Web Copyright © Terry Pratchett 2002 When Death met the philosopher, the philosopher said, rather excitedly: "At this point, you realise, I'm both dead and not dead." There was a sigh from Death. "You see," said the philosopher, while Death, motionless, watched the sands of his life drain through the hourglass, "everything is made of tiny particles, which have the strange property of being in many places at one time. YES, BUT NOT INDEFINITELY, said Death, EVERYTHING IS TRANSIENT. "Well, then, if we agreed that there are an infinite number of universes, then the problem is solved! "What? Death nodded at the bed. "No, because there are a million versions of me, too, And...here is the good bit ...in some of them I am not about to pass away! Death tapped the handle of his scythe as he considered this. "Well, I'm not exactly dying, correct? There was a sigh from Death. "No answer, eh?" THIS IS A CONUNDRUM CERTAINLY, said Death. "What?" "Yes. "Certainly not!" ARE THERE CHOICES?
L'esprit de l'escalier L'esprit de l'escalier or l'esprit d'escalier ("staircase wit") is a French term used in English that describes the predicament of thinking of the perfect retort too late. Origin[edit] This name for the phenomenon comes from French encyclopedist and philosopher Denis Diderot's description of such a situation in his Paradoxe sur le comédien.[1] During a dinner at the home of statesman Jacques Necker, a remark was made to Diderot which left him speechless at the time, because, he explains, "l’homme sensible, comme moi, tout entier à ce qu’on lui objecte, perd la tête et ne se retrouve qu’au bas de l’escalier" ("a sensitive man, such as myself, overwhelmed by the argument levelled against him, becomes confused and can only think clearly again [when he reaches] the bottom of the stairs"). In this case, “the bottom of the stairs” refers to the architecture of the kind of hôtel particulier or mansion to which Diderot had been invited. Similar English terms[edit] In other languages[edit]
XM : エクストリーム・ミーティング Reversible flow (when I show this in class, minds are blown) 12Google + 33StumbleUpon Interesting video showing Laminar Flow and demonstrating fluid flowing in layers. Very cool! Filmed at the University of New Mexico – Physics Department.
That that is is that that is not is not is that it it is That that is is that that is not is not is that it it is is an English word sequence demonstrating lexical ambiguity. It is used as an example illustrating the importance of proper punctuation.[1] The sequence can be understood as either of two sequences, each with four discrete sentences, by adding punctuation: That that is, is. That that is not, is not. Is that it? That that is is that that is. This relates a simple philosophical proverb in the style of Parmenides that all that is, is, and that anything that does not exist does not. A similar sequence, consisting of only one sentence and no punctuation, is: That that that is that that is not is not that that is that that is is not true is not true. Which can be made clearer by the use of synonyms and punctuation: The idea, that the statement "what is that, which does not exist, is not that, what is that, which exists" is false, is incorrect. There is a slightly longer construct following a similar pattern: That that is is. See also[edit]
List of fallacies A fallacy is incorrect argument in logic and rhetoric resulting in a lack of validity, or more generally, a lack of soundness. Fallacies are either formal fallacies or informal fallacies. Formal fallacies[edit] Main article: Formal fallacy Appeal to probability – is a statement that takes something for granted because it would probably be the case (or might be the case).[2][3]Argument from fallacy – assumes that if an argument for some conclusion is fallacious, then the conclusion is false.Base rate fallacy – making a probability judgment based on conditional probabilities, without taking into account the effect of prior probabilities.[5]Conjunction fallacy – assumption that an outcome simultaneously satisfying multiple conditions is more probable than an outcome satisfying a single one of them.[6]Masked man fallacy (illicit substitution of identicals) – the substitution of identical designators in a true statement can lead to a false one. Propositional fallacies[edit]