Word of the Day!

[rinselberg]

uark


PRONUNCIATION: kwôrk, kwärk

NOUN: Any of a group of six elementary particles having electric charges of a magnitude one-third or two-thirds that of the electron, regarded as constituents of all hadrons ...

ETYMOLOGY: From "Three quarks for Muster Mark!", a line in Finnegans Wake by James Joyce.

WORD HISTORY: "Three quarks for Muster Mark!/Sure he hasn't got much of a bark/And sure any he has it's all beside the mark." This passage from James Joyce's Finnegans Wake, part of a scurrilous thirteen-line poem directed against King Mark, the cuckolded husband in the Tristan legend, has left its mark on modern physics. The poem and the accompanying prose are packed with names of birds and words suggestive of birds, and the poem is a squawk against the king that suggests the cawing of a crow. The [modern] word "quark" comes from the standard English verb quark, meaning "to caw or croak", and also from the dialectal verb quawk, meaning "to caw or screech like a bird".

It's easy to see why Joyce chose the word, but why should it have become the name for a group of hypothetical subatomic particles proposed as the fundamental units of matter?


The Standard Model of quantum physics: What the universe is made of. Credit: sciencemaster.com.

Murray Gell-Mann, the physicist who proposed this name for these particles, said in a private letter of June 27, 1978, to the editor of the Oxford English Dictionary that he had been influenced by Joyce's words: "The allusion to three quarks seemed perfect." (Originally there were only three subatomic quarks.) Gell-Mann, however, wanted to pronounce the word with (ô) not (ä), as Joyce seemed to indicate by rhyming words in the vicinity such as "Mark". Gell-Mann got around that "by supposing that one ingredient of the line 'Three quarks for Muster Mark' was a cry of 'Three quarts for Mister Mark ... ' heard in H.C. Earwicker's pub," a plausible suggestion, given the complex punning in Joyce's novel.


First "fingerprint" of the elusive top quark. This is a computer enhancement of the original image from the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory in Illinois. Credit: particlephysics.ac.uk.

It seems appropriate that this perplexing and humorous novel [Finnegans Wake] should have supplied the term for [subatomic] particles that come in six quantum "flavors"and three quantum "colors".


Graphics: http://www.julen.net/cfp/alphabet/digital/

Dictionary reference: The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition. Copyright © 2000 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Published by the Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.


How to deal with those "problem" spectacle and contact lens patients?
Rinselberg's equation: OphthalmicOptics + ArtificialIntelligence = VirtualOptician™

[rinselberg]

ADJECTIVE: Of or relating to the sense of touch; tactile.

ETYMOLOGY: Greek haptikos or haptesthai - to grasp or touch.

USAGE: ImmersiveTouch™ is the next generation of augmented virtual reality technology, being the first system that integrates a haptic device, with a head and hand tracking system, and a high-resolution and high-pixel-density stereoscopic display.



Its ergonomic design provides a comfortable working volume in the space of a standard desktop. The haptic device is collocated with the 3D graphics, giving the user a more realistic and natural means to manipulate and modify 3D data in real time. The high-performance, multi-sensorial computer interface allows easy development of medical, dental, engineering or scientific virtual reality simulation and training applications that appeal to many stimuli: audio, visual, tactile and kinesthetic.



A half-silvered mirror is used to recreate an augmented VRE (Virtual Reality Environment) that integrates the user’s hands and the virtual 3D models in a common working volume. Since the user’s hands are behind the translucent mirror, they don’t occlude the virtual image, preserving the stereo illusion, and allowing the user to see his/her hands while interacting with the virtual objects.


Dictionary reference: The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition. Copyright © 2000 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Published by the Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.

Tech credits:
http://www.evl.uic.edu/core.php?mod=4&type=3&indi=270
http://www.immersivetouch.com/specifications.php

Poster art, courtesy of Linotype.com: Umbra™ Medium.


The UAE (United Arab Emirates) was the country at the center of the recent US port terminals controversy. Why are they known as America's "Top Gun" in the Middle East? RinselNews™ has the answers ...

[rinselberg]

prejudice



SYLLABICATION: prej·u·dice

NOUN: 1a. An adverse judgment or opinion formed beforehand or without knowledge or examination of the facts. b. A preconceived preference or idea. 2. The act or state of holding unreasonable preconceived judgments or convictions. See synonyms at predilection. 3. Irrational suspicion or hatred of a particular group, race, or religion. 4. Detriment or injury caused to a person by the preconceived, unfavorable conviction of another or others.

TRANSITIVE VERB: Inflected forms: prej·u·diced, prej·u·dic·ing, prej·u·dic·es
1. To cause (someone) to judge prematurely and irrationally. See synonyms at bias. 2. To affect injuriously or detrimentally by a judgment or an act.

ETYMOLOGY: Middle English, from Old French, from Latin praeidicium : prae-, pre- + idicium, judgment (from idex, idic-), judge.

rinselberg on USAGE:

It's not the common usages of the word that interest me, but its more colorful appearance in the fictional and movie tagline "terminate with extreme prejudice ... ".

The Wikipedia traces that phrase all the way back to 1973, in the novel Don't Embarrass The Bureau by Bernard Connors, where it was used as an idiom for "assassinate".

Quoting from Wikipedia :

[Subsequently], the term has been used [again] in the same context, particularly in the 1979 [Coppola screen epic] "Apocalypse Now", in which Martin Sheen's character [Willard] is ordered to terminate the insane Colonel Kurtz (Marlon Brando) with "extreme prejudice."

The extraction extreme prejudice is popularly thought to have originated in military circles, [meaning] a "take no prisoners" or "show no mercy" attitude by military forces. However, The U.S. military denies using the term or supporting any [such] actions as depicted in any of the literature. Extreme prejudice has since become a jocular term meaning to take any action to extremes, such as to "borrow with extreme prejudice" - meaning to steal.

Reporting on the singular event of the past week from Iraq, MSNBC used a shortened form of the idiom with this:



That photo was replaced with a larger and more gruesome one of the dead Zarqawi, under the column heading "TERMINATED".

The New York Post issued this ...



... which drew the ire of one blogger on CBS News.

For literary pretense, however, if not for sheer obscurity, it would be hard to top media giant rinselberg™, which remarked on the Zarqawi killing by recycling one of the taglines from Francis Ford Coppola's 1979 Vietnam-themed screen blockbuster Apocalypse Now :


This unnamed CIA officer commented on the joint US/Iraqi attack on the safe house where terrorist mastermind Abu Musab al-Zarqawi was killed. CLICK ON THE PHOTO FOR AUDIO CONTENT.

The actor in the photo is Jerry Ziesmer, who only had a cameo acting role in the film: That one memorable phrase might have been his only line. (He was actually the First Assistant Director.)

More sound bites from Apocalyspe Now can be heard online at http://www.phattie.net/apocalypse.htm.

Dictionary reference: The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition. Copyright © 2000 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Published by the Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.


Only you can prevent CPU fires

[rinselberg]

Just in time for Major League Baseball's All-Star Game ...

Sabermetrics is the analysis of baseball through objective evidence, especially baseball statistics. The term is derived from the acronym SABR, which stands for the Society for American Baseball Research. It was coined by Bill James, who has been its most enthusiastic (and by far its most famous) proponent.

From David Grabiner's Sabermetric Manifesto:

Bill James defined sabermetrics as "the search for objective knowledge about baseball." Thus, sabermetrics attempts to answer objective questions about baseball, such as "which player on the Red Sox contributed the most to the team's offense?" or "How many home runs will Ken Griffey, Jr. hit next year?" It cannot deal with the subjective judgments which are also important to the game, such as "Who is your favorite player?" or "That was a great game."

Sabermetricians call into question traditional measures of baseball skill. For instance, batting average is considered to be a statistic of limited usefulness because it turns out to be a poor predictor of a team's ability to score runs. Typical sabermetric reasoning would say that runs win ballgames, and so a good measure of a player's worth is his ability to help his team score more runs than the opposing team. Accordingly, sabermetric measures - such as Bill James's Runs Created and Win Shares or Pete Palmer's Total Player Rating - are usually phrased in terms of either runs or team wins; a player might be described as being worth 54 runs more than an average player at the same position over the course of a full season, for example.

Sabermetrics is concerned both with determining the value of a player in a season gone by, and with trying to predict the value of a player in the future based on his past performances. These are not the same thing. For example, a player with a high batting average one year may have been very valuable to his team, but batting average is known to be a volatile stat and relying on it to remain high in future years is often not a good principle. A sabermetrician might argue that a high walk rate is a better indication that a player will retain his value in the future.

While this area of study is still in development, it has yielded many interesting insights into the game of baseball, and in the area of performance measurement generally.

Some sabermetric measurements have entered mainstream baseball usage, especially OPS (on-base plus slugging) and, to a lesser extent, WHIP (walks plus hits per inning pitched). (Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sabermetrics.)

Bill James, the "dean" of the sabermetricians, used the methodology to select his greatest ever starting nine: The best nine-man starting roster that a manager could ever hope to field, if he could select players from any time in baseball history, going back to day one. Some of his selections would probably be surprising to many modern fans of the game. (See "Bill James All-Stars" at http://science.discovery.com/converg.../baseball.html.)

Tufts University, in Boston, even offers sabermetrics in the form of a university extension course, called "Sabermetrics 101".



What keeps some Tufts students up late at night - a graphic from "Sabermetrics 101".

The Tufts syllabus includes some impressively titled statistical analyses, such as "The Green Monster Effect: A Run Saved or a Run Earned?" - a reference to the unique and famous left field wall at Boston's Fenway Park - and "Weather Impact on Pitchers", "Phenotypes of Superscrubs" and "The Effect of Moneyball on Inefficiencies in the Free Agent Market". (Source: http://sabermetrics.hnrc.tufts.edu/.)

Sabermetrics raises many questions about traditional baseball strategies.

Does the exact ordering of the hitters in a batting lineup matter very much? Is it ever logical to try to steal a base? Is it ever advantageous for the batter to try to move a runner on first base over to second with a sacrifice bunt? The advent of the "closer" - the relief specialist who comes in from the bullpen to pitch the last inning of a game when his team is ahead, but only by a few runs, so that the game is still in doubt: Does that make any sense, statistically?

Some of the particular innovations of sabermetrics are in the domains of "park effects", which considers the differences in play between ballparks, and fielding stats, which historically have not been compiled as systematically as pitching, batting and base-stealing stats.

Before the advent of sabermetrics, there was Stephen Jay Gould.

Dr. Gould, who died somewhat prematurely and not all that long ago, was a giant in the field of paleontology: An internationally celebrated author and long-time Harvard professor and scientist who contributed as much or more to the modern or Neo-Darwinist theory of evolution as any other scholar - by anyone's standards, as much a part of Neo-Darwinism's "starting nine" as Charles Darwin himself.

Gould was also an avid baseball fan and wrote at some length on the application of modern methods of statistical analysis to the game of Major League Baseball.




See why computing with those tedious, old-fashioned bits (binary digits) is becoming so 20th century . . . http://www.optiboard.com/forums/showthread.php?t=17515

[rinselberg]

yroball





Video: Daisuke Matsuzaka throws a gyroball

MSNBC video clip "Dice-K"



The gyroball is the name given to a breaking pitch [purportedly] used by baseball players in Japan.

The pitch was developed by two Japanese researchers ... who used computer simulations to create a new style of delivery intended to reduce stress on the pitcher's body. At the point of release, instead of having the pitcher's arm move inwards towards the body (the usual method in the United States), the pitcher rotates his arm so that it moves away from his body, towards third base [in the case of a right-handed pitcher]. This [innovative motion] creates a bullet-like spin on the ball, like a perfectly thrown football. When thrown by a right-hander, the pitch moves sharply down and away or "outside" from right-handed batters and "inside" or in towards left-handed batters.

In baseball, most pitches are thrown either with backspin, like a fastball, or with a forward spinning motion or topspin, like a curveball or slider. Batters use the [pitcher's arm speed and whatever they can see of the spin on an incoming baseball], highlighted by the stitching of its seams, to judge the speed of a pitch. The gyroball is thrown with the same arm speed as a fastball but [actually travels] much slower. Since it has that bullet-like spinning motion, which is neither backspin or topspin, on occasion (perhaps when the seams are hidden from the view of the batter) it is said to [deceive even] the most capable batters [into swinging] either wildly ahead of or behind the baseball.

The gyroball has been simulated in Baseball Mogul 2007, a computer game. In Baseball Mogul 2007, the trajectory of the ball looks [like] a fastball or changeup, with a late lateral break away from right-handed batters (when thrown by right-handed pitchers) ...

The gyroball is often confused with a completely different Japanese pitch called the shuuto, due to an error in a well-known article [under the title of The Ghost Pitch] by baseball writer Will Carroll ... Although Carroll later corrected himself, this confusion still persists.

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia


Was all of that clear enough? Maybe not. Try this:

A gyroball is a breaking pitch thrown at about the same speed as a two-seam fastball (faster than a slider, but slower than a four-seam fastball). The pitch starts out looking like a straight change or hanging curve before making a sharp break directly away from the batter (when thrown by a right-handed pitcher to a right-handed batter).

Some scouts have used the term "pure slider" to refer to the gyroball because the late lateral break contains little or no vertical movement. The movement is somewhat similar to a slider (away from right-handed batters). But because players are [generally] unfamiliar with this pitch, it has so far proven harder to hit than a typical slider. Without the horizontal break typical of a slider, perhaps a comparison to Mariano Rivera's cut fastball is more appropriate.

Although American coaches tend to agree that there is a continuum from 'fastball' to 'cut fastball' to 'slider' (and then on to 'slurve' and 'curve'), there is no consensus as to whether the gyroball has a place on this continuum. Unlike the linear mechanics practiced by American pitchers (building momentum from the legs up through the torso and into the pitching arm and hand), the gyroball is delivered with a circular motion that puts the pitching hand "inside" the ball upon release. Although hard to describe, many scouts agree that the gyroball constitutes a new method of delivering the ball. At this point it's difficult to [predict whether] this [little known] pitch and its [innovative] mechanics will grow in popularity, or fall out of favor due to excessive arm strain or some other weakness.

Sports Mogul Inc. - Glossary of Pitches


As of this writing, the only professional pitcher credited with throwing the gyroball is Daisuke Matsuzaka of Japan's Seibu Lions. Matsuzaka throws his fastball in the low nineties. According to reports, his gyroball is thrown only a couple of miles per hour slower. Odds are good that Daisuke Matsuzaka, Japan's reputed gyroball specialist, will be playing here (in the United States) for one of the Major League Baseball teams in 2007.


Long before there was baseball, Isaac Newton wrote a text in 1671 on the curved trajectory that is imparted to a baseball (i.e., a baseball-like object or baseball precursor) when thrown with a spin.



In 1852, the German physicist Gustav Magnus elaborated on Newton's groundwork, performing experiments that led to the term "Magnus Effect" - an artifice used by baseball players around the world - and with the increasing emergence of college educated athletes on Major League Baseball rosters, it may be that many of them would be thinking to themselves "ah, the Magnus Effect" - if they were able to silently analyze their every pitch or throw of the ball.

Credit: Boundary Layers and Life in Velocity Gradients


Stills, graphics support and video clip:
http://www.rotoauthority.com/2005/08...ep_2006_f.html
http://www.logolalia.com/abcdefghijk...es/002239.html
http://www.juventudrebelde.cu/seccio...html/japon.htm
http://seti.alien.de/index_german.htm
http://www.gifworks.com/index.php
http://www.imageshack.us/


More than just a search for little green men

[rinselberg]

vicariance



"Vicariance" is a noun. It's a term used by biologists and paleontolgists and is defined as: The separation or division of a group of organisms by a geographic barrier, such as a mountain or a body of water, resulting in differentiation of the original group into new varieties or species.

Usage:

During the Jurassic period (200 to 150 million years ago), the great supercontinent of Pangaea, driven by plate tectonics, began to fragment and separate along plate boundaries, creating distinct land masses that drifted further and further apart until they formed the configuration of continents and oceans that we know today.


The supercontinent of Pangaea

At the start of the Jurassic, an extreme monsoon climate prevailed across most of Pangaea, characterized by hot, desert conditions almost year round. The only seasonal change was an annual but brief deluge of rain in incredible proportions that has been called a "mega monsoon". Dinosuars, at the beginning of their evolution, were constrained by the harsh climate, and were restricted to a relatively small number of species, generally small, and not very different from one species to another.

As the supercontinent continued to break apart and become divided by seas, resulting in more coastal areas, marine air currents sweeping inland brought about a change to a milder climate: Warm and wet all year round over much of the land. Plant life became superabundant. Plant eating dinosaurs evolved into much larger forms, and the evolution of carnivorous dinosaurs, driven by both opportunity and need, followed suit with a trend towards giantism in speciation.

As the continents continued to drift further apart and new mountain ranges appeared, dinosaur populations became divided and quarantined by a growing number of impassable barriers. Migration routes were curtailed or eliminated altogether by the new geography. This resulted in one of the greatest episodes of vicariance in the history of life.

The coupling of these two evolutionary trends - of giantism, together with vicariance - gave rise to an evolutionary explosion of dinosaur speciation during the middle and late Jurassic period, which is when the iconic dinosaurs and flying reptiles familiar to our popular culture began to emerge.









The middle and late Jurassic. From top to bottom: Stegosaurus, Apatosaurus, Allosaurus and Pterodactylus. Click on the images to enlarge.


The computer generated image of Pangaea was created by Paul E. Olsen, Storke Memorial Professor of Geological Sciences at the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory of Columbia University since 1984. The image was lifted from the website of Auburn University. The dinosaur art is from critters.pixel-shack.com. The science is courtesy of the "Jurassic" segment from The Science Channel. Image hosting courtesy of ImageShack. Dictionary reference: The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition. Copyright © 2000 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Published by the Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.

[rinselberg]

veridical



"Veridical" is an adjective, defined as truthful or veracious, as in veridical testimony. Also: Coinciding with future events or apparently unknowable present realities as in (a) veridical dream or veridical hallucination. Veridical is more or less interchangeable with evidential and empirical.


Usage:

OptiBoard member rinselberg has just updated the veridical paradox known as the "Monty Hall problem" under the post title Three Card Rinsel.



Image hosting courtesy of ImageShack. Dictionary reference: The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition. Copyright © 2000 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Published by the Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.

[rinselberg]

subtext

The implicit meaning or theme of a literary text; an underlying theme in a piece of writing or speech; the underlying personality of a dramatic character as implied or indicated by a script or text and interpreted by an actor in performance.


Usage:

The Most Wanted Iraqis playing card images in Three Card Rinsel - a post that was created on the foundation of an ostensibly simple card game - could be interpreted as a political subtext - or just as plausibly, as having the format of a political subtext, but without being bound to any practical meaning or objective - something along the lines of a small jazz improvisation in the language of words instead of musical notes: An example of putting form above function.

Or to look at it another way: The playing card images could be interpreted as a literary subtext about the possibility of subtexts within the format of an Internet post.



Credit: The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition. Copyright © 2000 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Published by the Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.

[rinselberg]

Superluminal

Adjective for a physical process or event that either appears (or more speculatively, is confirmed by experiment) to move faster than the speed of light - or one that is literally instantaneous.


Usage:

See ... Quantum Mechanics: "Spooky Action At A Distance"



Science and Technology news stories on rinselberg^TM

Visit an asteroid before an asteroid visits you ...
Evolutionary anthropologists pay tribute to Mr. Potato Head
"Landmark" experiment with light delves into mysteries of quantum physics
Rocket science you can drink
How would you like to refract THESE eyes?
Jurassic Post
In search of lost time: Update on the Antikythera machine
Gone In Sixty Seconds

[Grubendol]

lib·er·al (lbr-l, lbrl)adj.1. a. Not limited to or by established, traditional, orthodox, or authoritarian attitudes, views, or dogmas; free from bigotry.
b. Favoring proposals for reform, open to new ideas for progress, and tolerant of the ideas and behavior of others; broad-minded.
c. Of, relating to, or characteristic of liberalism.
d. Liberal Of, designating, or characteristic of a political party founded on or associated with principles of social and political liberalism, especially in Great Britain, Canada, and the United States.

2. a. Tending to give freely; generous: a liberal benefactor.
b. Generous in amount; ample: a liberal serving of potatoes.

3. Not strict or literal; loose or approximate: a liberal translation.
4. Of, relating to, or based on the traditional arts and sciences of a college or university curriculum: a liberal education.
5. a. Archaic Permissible or appropriate for a person of free birth; befitting a lady or gentleman.
b. Obsolete Morally unrestrained; licentious.

[rinselberg]

Gitmo-ize

To reorient or reorganize a prison or interrogation center using the example of Camp X-Ray at the U.S. Marine base at Guantanamo, Cuba.

Forms: Gitmo-ized; Gitmo-izing.

Etymology: "Gitmo" (short for Guantanamo) + verb suffix "ize".


History:



"Wish you were here." Camp X-Ray.

"Gitmo-ize" first surfaced publicly in a claim by Brig. Gen. Janis Karpinski, who was nominally in charge of the military police brigade at the U.S. administered Abu Ghraib prison and interrogation center in Iraq. Karpinski has said that when she met with Maj. Gen. Geoffrey Miller during his initial visit to Abu Ghraib in September 2003, he told her he was going to "Gitmo-ize" ...

"It's Miller time." Maj. Gen. Geoffrey D. Miller at Abu Ghraib prison on May 17, 2004.

But according to the transcript of an Aug. 21, 2004 interview ... Miller claims that Karpinski is mistaken ... During the interview conducted by attorneys representing some of the soldiers prosecuted for abuse at Abu Ghraib, Miller said, "As far as I know, I never used the word Gitmo-ize - ever."

http://www.salon.com/news/feature/20...major_general/


Some credit the idea that it was Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld ...



... who first coined the term, or at least launched it towards its eventual public circulation. According to this story (another "urban legend" ..?), Rumsfeld scribbled the injunction "Gitmo-ize" on a memorandum from Maj. Gen. Geoffrey Miller, who was about to visit Iraq in 2003 with a plan for setting up Abu Ghraib - a plan that was fortified by some 200 pages of interrogation guidelines and operating procedures that Miller had implemented at Camp X-Ray.


Rummy wanted more positive results from the interrogations of Iraqi detainees.


Usage:

Senator Barack Obama, currently a candidate in the 2008 presidential election, bears the telltale middle name of "Hussein". He is known to have attended an Islamic madrasa or school with a Wahhabist orientation at the primary level, where he honed his skills, even at that tender age, in conspiracy, assassination and IEDs. He has disguised his fidelity to Islam by declaring himself a member of the United Church of Christ. Therefore, DOJ should look into the possibility of Gitmo-izing Obama (by covert means, if necessary) and confining him at Camp X-Ray until he "talks" ...



About to be "X-Rayed" ..?


Source: OptiBoard; "The Wild Wild West ..."


Latest news stories on rinselberg^TM ... "Eight Men Out" ... Talk Like a Pirate Day ... St. Patrick's Day: Bet you didn't know THIS ... Red Sox fans have eyes on "Dice-K" ... "Real Men of Genius" ... "Landmark" experiment with light

[gemstone]

Can't vote for him. His ears are too big.

[Grubendol]

Can't vote for him. His ears are too big.

i know I always choose presidential choices based on ear size. that's why i didn't vote for Perot or GeeDubya

[rinselberg]

kludge



sometimes spelled "kluge"


NOUN:

Slang 1. A system, especially a computer system, that is constituted of poorly matched elements or of elements originally intended for other applications. 2. A clumsy or inelegant solution to a problem.


ETYMOLOGY:

Ironic use of earlier kluge, meaing smart or clever; German kluge; Middle High German kluc; Middle Low German klok.


OTHER FORMS: kludge - VERB; kludgy - ADJECTIVE


USAGE:

Newsweek
April 9, 2007

Let others rhapsodize about the elegant design and astounding complexity of the human brain—the most complicated, most sophisticated entity in the known universe, as they say. David Linden, a professor of neuroscience at Johns Hopkins University, doesn't see it that way. To him, the brain is a "cobbled-together mess." Impressive in function, sure. But in its design the brain is "quirky, inefficient and bizarre ... a weird agglomeration of ad hoc solutions that have accumulated throughout millions of years of evolutionary history," he argues in his new book, "The Accidental Mind," from Harvard University Press.

More than another salvo in the battle over whether biological structures are the products of supernatural design or biological evolution (though Linden has no doubt it's the latter), research on our brain's primitive foundation is cracking such puzzles as why we cannot tickle ourselves, why we are driven to spin narratives even in our dreams and why reptilian traits persist in our gray matter ...

What David Linden is describing (above) is very much a kludge; i.e. the "cobbled-together mess", arrived at through some billion or so years of Darwinian evolution, that serves as our brain.


"In Our Messy, Reptilian Brains" - two page report from Newsweek Online:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/17888475/site/newsweek/




The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition.

[RGC_man]

EKE.

An old English word meaning "also". Essential to know if you are reading Chaucer. Apparently the word "nickname" was originally an "eke-name" (also-name).

[RGC_man]

The gyroball is the name given to a breaking pitch [purportedly] used by baseball players in Japan.

Pah, that's for cissies. Try being on the receiving end of one of these as they bounce up towards your head from the ground a couple of yards away.
http://www.channel4.com/sport/cricket/analyst/bowling/

[rinselberg]

sardonic


Adjective: Characterized by bitter or scornful derision; mocking; cynical; sneering: a sardonic grin.

Adverb: sardonically; Noun: sardonicism. Synonyms: biting, mordant, contemptuous.

Origin: 1630–40; alter. of earlier sardonian (influenced by F sardonique) < L sardoni(us) (< Gk sardónios of Sardinia) + -an; alluding to a Sardinian plant which when eaten was supposed to produce convulsive laughter ending in death.

Dictionary.com Unabridged (v 1.1). Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2006.


That etymology (origin) was rather sketchy, so let's look further:

1638, from Fr. sardonique (16c.), from L. sardonius (but as if from L. sardonicus) in Sardonius risus, from Gk. sardonios (gelos) "of bitter or scornful (laughter)," altered from Homeric sardanios (of uncertain origin) by influence of Sardonios "Sardinian," because the Greeks believed that eating a certain plant they called sardonion (lit. "plant from Sardinia," see Sardinia) caused facial convulsions resembling those of sardonic laughter, usually followed by death ...

Source: Online Etymology Dictionary

And from Wikipedia:

The phrase sardonic grin is derived from the grimace or contorted facial expression said to be characteristic of victims that were poisoned by a certain plant found in Sardinia which contains strychnine-like alkaloids. It's said that families would use this readily available poison to dispatch their infirm and elderly when they decided that they could no longer afford to keep looking after them.

What was this plant? One source suggests that it was Strychnos nux-vomica, but after some cursory research, I'm not able to place that species anywhere in the Mediterranean and not specifically on the island of Sardinia. I think that the plant could well have been Datura stramonium or "Jimson weed", which is cited in the medical literature as both hallucinogenic and toxic, and also, widely distributed and easily accessible. I'm prompted by this ...

Homer's "moly" identified as Galanthus nivalis L.: physiologic antidote to stramonium poisoning.

The antidotal properties of certain naturally occurring medicinal plants against central nervous system intoxication appear to have been empirically established in ancient times. Homer, in his epic poem, the Odyssey, described a plant, "moly," used by Odysseus as an antidote against Circe's poisonous drugs. Centrally acting anticholinergic agents are thought to have been used by Circe to induce amnesia and a delusional state in Odysseus' crew. We present evidence to support the hypothesis that "moly" might have been the "snowdrop" plant, Galanthus nivalis, which contains galanthamine, a centrally acting anticholinesterase. Thus the description of "moly" as an antidote in Homer's Odyssey may represent the oldest recorded use of an anticholinesterase to reverse central anticholinergic intoxication.

Source: NCBI PubMed; NLM/NIH


As for usage, anyone could have offered "sardonic grin", but I found a more topical and interesting example on another online forum ...


Putting aside the constant, over-the-top vulgarity, bathroom "humor", miscogeny, and racial and sexual innuendo that was their nightly staple, the show had its redeeming moments, when Bernard McGuirk's edgy and sardonic treatment of current events took center stage; for example:


Pray for peace, oh Imus in the morn'.

Lord hear our prayer.

That the Arabs and Israelis, b'Jesus, stop kickin' each other's as*,
If only because it raises the price of our gas ...



Attired in dark, wrap-style sunglasses and "Catholic" headgear constructed from a cardboard FedEx box, and affecting a thick Irish accent, producer and cast member Bernard McGuirk appeared from week to week as the hilarious, foul-mouthed "Cardinal Egan" on the Imus in the Morning radio show, which was also simulcast on MSNBC in their 03:00 to 06:00 AM weeknight TV slot.


Then he added (parenthetically) that it wasn't literally "Arabs and Israelis", but two mildly derisive epithets that were perfectly acceptable (and comic) for a program in that time slot. "I didn't want to repeat the epithets that were used. Because we're not in that same time slot ...". This was followed by a quote from MSNBC's Tim Russert:

I love when Bernard McGuirk puts that FedEx box on and mocks the cardinal ...

I found about ten online videos of "Cardinal Egan" by searching at http://www.youtube.com with keywords "Imus", "Bernard McGuirk" or "McGuirk" and "Cardinal". If you're not averse to coarseness and vulgarity in the service of exceptionally good humor ...

[rinselberg]

The RAF's Nimrod MRA4 is the latest version of the world's only jet-powered maritime patrol aircraft. Select ("click") the photo to enlarge it.


Nimrod
Biblical: A mighty hunter and king of Shinar who was a grandson of Ham and a great-grandson of Noah.

nimrod
1. A hunter. 2. [Informal] A person regarded as silly, foolish, or stupid.

Etymology
The traditional usage (hunter) is derived from the Biblical "Nimrod". The derivative meaning (person regarded as silly ...) is thought to have originated from the phrase “poor little Nimrod,” used by the cartoon character Bugs Bunny to mock the hapless would-be hunter, Elmer Fudd.

The American Heritage&#174; Dictionary of the English Language: Fourth Edition. 2000.




OptiBoard's panel of experts tries thinking "outside of the box" about the threat of international terrorism. Join the discussion at It's a start and Wrong route to stop terrorism?

[chip anderson]

There is another Nimrod, perhaps not as old as the Bibical Nimrod but much older than Bugs Bunny. When I was about 6 my parents gave me a book called "The White Stag". I might even still have the book, but I do remember that Nimrod was a hunter in Norse mythology and was the father of twin sons. One of which I think was named Atilla. In any event they pursed a white stag, don't remember what happened next other than they split up and one of them founded Hungary.

Chip:cheers:

[rinselberg]

... Eurostyle™ Roman. Credit: Linotype.


"To glomarize" or a "glomarization" is terminology that refers to any statement or disposition (usually by a government department or agency) that "neither confirms or denies" the existence of requested or relevant documents or records.

http://www.everything2.com/index.pl?node_id=1341145

Whether it's "glomarize" or "Glomarize" seems to be at the discretion of the user. There is no entry for this word in my usual dictionary reference, which is the American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition.


Etymology: The reference is to the Project Jennifer episode, wherein the CIA, in cooperation with Howard Hughes, deployed a massive, purpose-built, one-of-a-kind of salvage vessel Hughes Glomar Explorer in an effort to raise parts of a sunken Soviet submarine, K-129, to be analyzed for their intelligence value by U.S. military experts.



"G" is for Glomar. Glomar is a contraction of Global Marine.


In 1975, after the secret operation was publicized, in a story broken by the Los Angeles Times, journalist Harriet Ann Phillipi submitted a request under the Freedom of Information Act for any government records regarding CIA actions intended to silence media outlets on the topic of Glomar Explorer. The CIA denied this request under the first exemption of the FOIA and issued the now-famous statement that it "could neither confirm nor deny the existence" of such records. It was the first use by the CIA of that now famous coinage.



"We can neither confirm nor deny ..." The first time the CIA used this now famous coinage was in 1975, during the legal and journalistic bruhaha attending the public revelation of the Glomar Explorer's secret mission.


Sometimes rendered as the "Glomar response" or a "Glomar denial", this terminology has become commonplace and serves as a kind of shorthand or to underline a point when discussing cases or problems involving classified or restricted documents and access issues.


Usage:

"If a patient asks for a Crizal certificate, or an invoice that confirms that their lenses are genuine Transitions or 1.67 or anything like that, don't glomarize - take the extra time to find the document or invoice that will help make their experience here a complete success from their point of view. A happy customer is a habitual customer ..."

That's a stretch! But here are some real, documented usages ...

In seeking to keep its role in the [Afghanistan/Gitmo] detainee-abuse scandal from public view, the CIA has invoked the so-called "Glomar response," named for the Glomar Explorer, the deep-sea mining ship built by a Hughes-owned company for the CIA. The operation was exposed in 1975, leading to a Freedom of Information Act suit that established the precedent.

Steven Aftergood, the director of the Project on Government Secrecy at the Federation of American Scientists who has extensive experience in Freedom of Information Act cases, said the use of the Glomar response is relatively rare and is particularly questionable in the context of records of detainee abuse. A more typical use, he suggested, would be a request for information about a secret technology or installation.

"The Glomar response has its place in FOIA litigation, but it doesn't follow that every time it's invoked, it is legitimate," he said ...

Lewis said the ACLU is certain to challenge the CIA's use of the Glomar case to shield the alleged documents. She singled out the legal memos about the torture convention as particularly egregious.

The memos "look like particularly inappropriate uses of the Glomar response because they are basically legal analyses of laws against torture and the use of certain harsher interrogation techniques, which on its face does not look like it would compromise national security," Lewis said.

"They're just using [Glomar] to withhold these documents and to protect themselves. And it's very hard for anyone on the outside to pierce that veil. They just said, 'We can't confirm or deny it exists.' "

More glomars there than you can shake a stick at; from the Boston Globe, 2004: CIA resists request for abuse data.

Kimball asked if there were any exemptions for recordkeeping for the CIA. Langbart said that to his knowledge there weren't. Nancy Smith said "Except that all agencies can glomarize," i.e., they can fail to confirm or deny the existence of records. But Langbart pointed out that this does not exempt the CIA from having to follow provisions of laws and regulations relating to the disposition of records. He said that the word "glomarize" came from the Glomar Explorer ...

That was from the minutes of a meeting held at the U.S. Department of State in 1996. The Department of Justice has a section regarding FOIA under the title Privacy "Glomarization", in which the term "glomarize" (etc.) is used 13 different times; this from 1986.





Hughes Glomar Explorer. The most famous ship in the history of modern international espionage. For the rest of the story, see "The Mine That Never Was" ...

[chip anderson]

Sunch: noun new word for late lunch supper combination.
Synonyms: Lupper lunner Dunch

Source: Chip's wierd mind.:hammer:

[k12311997]

Sunch: noun new word for late lunch supper combination.
Synonyms: Lupper lunner Dunch

Source: Chip's wierd mind.:hammer:

This brings up a discussion my dad and I have frequently. Lunch= mid day meal. Dinner = evening meal. Supper is where we differ he uses it as a synonym for Lunch I say Supper is the same as Dinner. Now usually I'm not that picky food is food whatever you call the meal, but this has occasioned one or the other of us attempting to meet at the right place at the wrong time.

[chip anderson]

Actually I read up on this and Dinner is a formal sit down meal at either noon or evening, supper is just an evening meal whether a sandwich individually or a group at a table.

Chip

[HarryChiling]

Lab Porn - the optical catalogs we read through when the office is slow drooling over the various tools we would like in the office.

(laughed my but off when I saw this on the optiglaze forum)

[rinselberg]

nichevo

In 2006, an article castigating the Bush administration in general, and in particular over the Iraq war, appeared on the BushFlash website under the title Nichevo, American Style. It provides an excellent definition and usage of "nichevo":

"Nichevo" is one of those foreign [Russian] terms that doesn't exactly translate into English. It can be approximated by saying that "it doesn't matter" or "it can't be helped." Words, however, are mere shadows of [historical] concepts, thoughts, and experiences...

Russian serfs endured generations of virtual slavery [under the Czars] with resignation: Nichevo.

World War One and a Russian civil war [Reds vs. Whites] killed millions and razed the country down to its foundations. The people just sucked it up and kept on going: Nichevo.

Stalin forcibly collectivized agriculture and starved millions. Those that survived to plow the fields that now held the graves of their families tried to endure the unendurable: Nichevo.

From 1941 to 1945, more than 20 million Russians died in a war even more terrible than the wars that forged the Communist revolution, and those left standing [on the political left - or not] were also left with only one thing to say: "Nichevo."

The Communist era came to an end in 1991, revealing a nation rife with corruption, newly-minted capitalist oligarchs and organized crime, and the Russian people were once again compelled to mutter "Nichevo" and try to accept the unacceptable.

Research confirms that "nichevo" was known to English speakers around the world long before 2006; during World War Two, for example, when Nazi propagandists found a use for it. Their intended audience was anyone at sea in the Atlantic or stationed in the United Kingdom or North Africa (esp. Allied soldiers and civilians) with a short wave radio. Radio programs were scripted with renditions of popular jazz tunes by "Charlie And His Orchestra". Any English speaking listener, working the frequency dial of a short wave radio, might inadvertently stumble onto an instrumental preamble that was unmistakably "swing". If they were well versed with the jazz standards of the day, the melody would be familiar and they might recognize a song by name - such as "The St. Louis Blues" or "Makin' Whoopee", to cite two known examples. But if they were still listening closely when the vocalist joined in, they could be in for a shock, because the standard English lyrics were sometimes reworked into sardonic Nazi propaganda set to music.



In this memorable recording, which you can actually audition by selecting ("click") the audio icon (just above), the venerable jazz arrangement "Bei Mir Bist Du Schoen" is combined with song lyrics that ridicule one of the Nazi arch-enemies: Communists. "Nichevo" sums it all up from the Nazi point of view. This selection is from the cream of the crop of Nazi radio propaganda: There's no outright vulgarity or overt racism; no unmistakably racial or ethnic slander. So I offer it carefully and with due deliberation.

A more complete perspective on the odd relationship between jazz and the Third Reich is provided by three recent articles that are available on line: Hitler's Jazz Band, Swinging for Goebbels and Swing Time for Hitler.

"Nichevo" took center stage in a 1943 report in Time Magazine on wartime conditions in Russia under the title Nichevo, Tovarish:

For generations large-familied Russians have repeated a proverb: "V tesnote, da Ne V Obide", i.e. crowding is no discomfort. Veronika, a Moscow glovemaker, remembered it as she got up from her narrow bed, stumbled over her sleeping daughters and lit a fire in the little iron pechka in the center of the tiny room. It was below freezing in the room, water had to be left dripping to keep the pipes from freezing and on this, the first day of 1943, Veronika Popova, Russia's "Jane Smith", dressed quickly, repeating to herself a newer Russian proverb: "Nichevo, Tovarish" ... "Everything's fine, Comrade."

Veronika lit her improvised lamp—a cup of kerosene with a twisted thread for a wick—and made breakfast: water-thin gruel, black bread and brick tea brewed on the pechka. When it was ready she woke 16-year-old Grusha, fed her and, with an endearing Nichevo, sent her off to work in a war plant. Eight-year-old Fanya tied her ragged valenkis on her feet and went off to school. "Nichevo, Mama, I am not very hungry," she said.

There was no letter from her husband, but Nichevo, he had everything he needed at the front ...

In 1950 there was an encore appearance in Time Magazine in a report that was titled The Nichevo Line:

As if trying to prove Dean Acheson's wishful point that the Russians might become good boys some day ... the Russians were being relatively mellow at U.N.'s General Assembly. Andrei Vishinsky opposed the U.S. plan for widening the powers of the Assembly, but he was less vitriolic than usual. Jacob Malik, the Relentless Rudolph of last month's Security Council sessions, softened to the point of telling one reporter to remember the Russian word "nichevo". "It means," explained Malik, "don't worry, things will turn out all right ..."

As a respite from tackling the world's great social, political and economic issues, "nichevo" has enjoyed an occasional holiday for more recreational pursuits; for example, Tigran Vartanovich Petrosian, who won the World Championship of Chess in 1963, was famous for his "Nichevo Attack", which was a chess strategy so subtle that opponents seldom realized that they were losing until it suddenly became apparent that they were about to be checkmated in a few moves - and by then, there was no escape.


Fischer vs. Petrosian, 1970. It's apparent from Petrosian's pained expression that it wasn't a good day for his patented "Nichevo Attack". Fischer won. Credit: ChessBase News.


"Nichevo" has not been just a landlubber. At least as recently as 1995, the ferryboat Nichevo II (1962) was in service between Bayfield, WI and Madeline Island on Lake Superior, at the very north end of Wisconsin. It was a successor to an earlier ferryboat Nichevo (1929) which plied the same routes.


Credit: Madeline Island Ferry Line.


Is there a niche for "nichevo" in the optical dispensary? Perhaps there's an OptiBoarder ready to give it a try. What could you say the next time a not-so-favorite customer asks for the "Acme" brand anti-reflective lens coating Certificate of Authority or if going from a 1.67 up to a 1.74 index will shave an additional 0.1 millimeter from the edge thickness of the lens ..?

Nichevo.