Extra Second of Time

Don't we all wish we had just a little more time? This New Year's Eve, we all get an extra second of time. According to Discovery News, the second will come between 6:59:59 and 7:00:00 pm EST, making 2008 the longest year since 1992 given the leap year. The earth is slowing down and timekeepers must adjust the official watches, giving my sister a longer birthday than anyone.

This news reminds me of one of my favorite comics by xkcd called Angular Momentum:

Revolving Doors

One eighth the amount of energy is lost by using rotating doors than conventional doors.

Source: Lance.

Discover the world

Been a while since you checked in with Togo? How about Chile? No worries, Instituto Brasileiro de Geografia e Estatística (IBGE) has your back. Their web program "Países" lays out current(ish) information on population, social indicators, economy, networks and environment all on a handy map. Can it get better? Oh yes, because this application is in English, Portuguese and Spanish. Woot.

Source: http://www.ibge.gov.br/paisesat/

Vitamin C

The human body doesn't produce its own vitamin C.

So take your chewables or eat some limes, you scurvy rouges!

Murder Board

Sounds scarier than it is. The murder board is a group of people questioning a person who is in preparation for an oral examination or a Senate confirmation hearing. The murder board should be as tough if not quite a bit tougher than the committee he is preparing to face.

Larry Tracy explains it pretty well in this article, which also happens to be an excert from his book The Shortcut to Persuasive Presentations.

Source: http://www.theatlantic.com/

Swash!

My biggest regret in packing for school was leaving behind my vampire teeth. My second was neglecting to bring my Compact OED so I could give more detailed descriptions of lovely words like "swash."

After I do well on my Diplomacy midterm tomorrow, I'm going to go swashing down the street.

It is so fun to say:

Swash.      Truly onomatopoetic.

n.  1.
1. A splash of water or other liquid hitting a solid surface.
2. The sound of such a splash.
3. A narrow channel through which tides flow.
4. A bar over which waves wash freely.
5. Swagger or bluster.
6. A swaggering or blustering person.

v.   swashed, swash·ing, swash·es
intr.
1. To strike, move, or wash with a splashing sound.
2. To swagger.

tr.
1. To splash (a liquid).
2. To splash a liquid against.

"swash." The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition. Houghton Mifflin Company, 2004. 10 Nov. 2008. http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/swash>.

Iniquitous

Now when I first saw this word, I thought for sure it was related to ubiquitous, which is a fun Weighty Word. However, I was wrong in this assumption. Where ubiquitous comes from the Latin word ubīqu(e) meaning everywhere, iniquitous come to us from the Latin word inīqu(us) meaning uneven or unfair. So we see they will have vasty different meanings.

iniquitous: adj.   Characterized by iniquity; wicked.
ubiquitous: adj.   Being or seeming to be everywhere at the same time; omnipresent.

I came across this word researching sugar-based biofuels. "[Farmers] have not been paid what they were promised. Payments have been erratic and iniquitous, with some farmers getting full payment at old rates, while others not paid at all." 


"iniquitous." The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition. Houghton Mifflin Company, 2004. 20 Oct. 2008. http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/iniquitous>.

"ubiquitous." The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition. Houghton Mifflin Company, 2004. 20 Oct. 2008. http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/ubiquitous>.

Primogeniture

Primogeniture: Being born first, or in my family's case, this guy:

Term also refers to the law where the first-born son would inherit land.

I have yet to find a word to describe "guy-in-family-best-at-putting-sisters-into-a-headlock," but I'll keep looking.

Comparative advantage

Hypothetical:
1. Tiger Woods has a lawn that needs mowing.
2. Tiger Woods has a teenage neighbor who charges $10/hour to mow lawns.
3. Tiger Woods can mow his law three times as fast as his neighbor.
4. Tiger Woods makes $80 mil a year, or about $913.25/hour in endorsements.
so
5. Although Tiger Woods can mow his own lawn three times as fast as his neighbor, his time would be better spent filming another ad or working on his swing.

Tiger Woods has the absolute advantage in this situation. He is better at mowing, golfing and making money in endorsements. However, if he pays someone else to mow his lawn, he can not only increase his own productivity by filming an ad, but also the productivity of his neighborhood.

And that is why we get our flowers from South America, kids.

Rabbit Killer

Rabbit killer: A slayer of the weak who can look fragile against the strong.

BBC sports used this term to describe Robinho: "His truly great performances came in the two meetings with Chile, a 3-0 win in a group game and a 6-1 rout in the quarter final. Both times Robinho was dazzling. But Chile were not only very poor defensively, they were also falling apart after internal discipline problems."

He's a pretty sweet player, but probably not good enough to warrant all his sulking.

NY Times reports that Jon Stewart is most trusted man in News

The beauty is basically everything about this:

Ale 8-one

As it would happen, bourbon is not only the delicious drink that is created in Kentucky.
 
Ale-8-One is a "soft drink" (which I think is a Kentucky word for "pop") that is found in distinctive green bottles. I'm always on the search for a good ginger ale, and I think Kentucky has produced a winner:

"Still a closely guarded family secret, the Ale-8-One formula was developed by G.L. Wainscott in the 1920’s after experimentation with ginger-blended recipes he acquired during extensive travels in Northern Europe. He sponsored one of America’s first “name the product” contests, and “A Late One” was the winning entry. The drink’s logo, Ale-8-One, was adopted as a pun of its description as the latest thing in soft drinks." Source www.ale-8-one.com

There is also 37 mg of caffeine in each bottle, which is slightly more than Coke. Oh, and it mixes really well with whiskey (finally the perfect way to get rid of all that Templeton Rye I have stored up).

The typemachine

The first person to write a book on a typewriter was Mark Twain, though he insisted on calling it a typemachine. The book was Life on the Mississippi.

Straight Bourbon Whiskey

When one moves to Kentucky, one finds herself surrounded by whiskey makers. Today we visited Buffalo Trace distillery in Frankfort, KY. We learned many things.   For a whiskey to be  considered a bourbon it must start out with at least 51% corn in the mash, age in a new American white oak charred barrel,   cannot be less than 80 proof and can't be cut with anything but water. The other elements for Buffalo Trace whiskeys are rye, barley and Kentucky limestone filtered water. They have a ton of products including Blanton's reserve bourbon and Rain Vodka (try it). We were able to sample Rain (seven times filtered), Buffalo Trace (9 year old small batch), and Eagle Rare Single Barrel (10 year old, 90 proof.)

Next stop was the Woodford Reserve distillery, where they only have one product, but it's good. Woodford Reserve bourbon is 72% corn and with an extra bit of rye for an extra kick. We missed the last tour, but there was a nice lady who answered all my random questions. There are two huge yellow brick buildings that stand empty because they are a much smaller operation than they were right after the Prohibition ended. I think she referred to them as raccoon condos.

Old stuff doesn't play nice

Never transfer all your files from one computer to another.
The new one won't like it.

Sex

Sex is the third most searched word on online search engines, after "and" and "the." So next time you're searching for "the meaning of life," remember, you're only one word away from the answer.

Wait... no...

This shouldn't be all that surprising if you can believe that by 2006 20% of all websites were dedicated to porn, a percentage that only continues to climb.

Source: The Penguin State of the World Atlas, seventh edition

United we're salad, divided just veggies

E Pluribus Unum, "One from Many," was taken from a recipe for salad in the early poem titled "Moretum" by Virgil.

"Moretum literally means garden herbs. From Virgil’s minor poems, this is a tribute “to common things and plebian associations. The lines are laudatory of early habits and rustic poverty. They close with a description of the ingredients and mode of preparation of a salad composed of garlic, parsley, rue, and onions, seasoned with cheese, salt, coriander, and vinegar, and finally sprinkled with oil." Bartleby.com

The Continental Congress apparently argued for a month about the motto for the recently declared country of the United Colonies of North America. This might be a surprising way to spend a month while your country is at war, but it's the little things, people. During the formation of the European Union one of the most heated arguments was picking a passport color.

Mmm... Tasty Country

It's like Baader-Meinhoff all over again!

The Baader-Meinhof Phenomenon occurs when a person, after having learned some (usually obscure) fact, 

word, phrase, or other item for the first time, encounters that item again, perhaps several times, shortly after having learned it.

 

My friend Adam from the "Zeugma" entry recently experienced an example of Baader-Meinhoff phenomenon reading this page. "I had just learned "mondegreen" the previous week. And I had also just learned about the phenonenon, so I'm happy to share it with you. Here's a link. You'll love this if you weren't aware."

 

He was right.  I do love it. Many thanks. 

Zeugma

I keep forgetting this wonderful word exists. I first saw it through Word Of the Day on Yourdictionary.com, but I found it again in Edward Gorey's Amphigorey Again.

Zeugma is a figure of speech describing the joining of two or more parts of a sentence with a single common verb or noun. For example, when my friend Adam said, "I want to crack a beer open or over Pony's head," he was using a zeugma to express himself. And knowing Pony, he probably deserved it.

More examples:

you held your breath and the door for me.

Alanis Morissette, Head over Feet

"... and covered themselves with dust and glory." - Mark Twain, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer

"You can leave in a taxi. If you can't get a taxi, you can leave in a huff. If that's too soon, you can leave in a minute and a huff." - Groucho Marx, from Duck Soup

New words to dictionary

This tidbit I forwarded on to my brother-in-law who is attempting to mainstream a word or two of his own:

"The ants are my friends/They're blowin' in the wind." New Yorker magazine's blog The Book Bench celebrated the fact that "Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary has finally found space for the word 'mondegreen,' which it defines as 'a word or phrase that results from a mishearing of something said or sung.'"

Espresso Book Machine

For years I've been saying that you can get practically anything from a vending machine: food, hot drinks, cold drinks, toys, DVDs and iPods. Now it is possible to get a book printed for you on the spot by the Espresso Book Machine, invention of the On Demand Books company.

First installed on June 21 2007 at the New York Public Library’s Science, Industry, and Business Library, the machine prints paperback books from PDF files in about seven minutes. It won the Time 2007 Best Invention of the Year and can be found in more libraries and bookshops every month.

A Date NOT to go on

If someone says they want to lapidate you, do not think they want to date you on their lap. In fact, you should probably run away as they are thinking about stoning you to death.

Lapidate (verb)
Pronunciation: ['læp-ê-deyt]
Definition: To stone, to throw stones at, to stone to death.

Etymology: Today's word comes from Latin lapidare "to throw stones," derived from lapis, lapidis "stone," a relative of Greek lepas "crag, rock." The word "lapis" itself occurs in the name of the translucent, blue, semiprecious stone, "lapis lazuli." A dilapidated house might have originally been run down from loss of stones, for the word comes from Latin dilapidare "to throw away, squander" from dis- "away" + lapidare "throw stones." It is interesting that with metathesis of the [l] and [a], we get alpis "high mountain" in Latin, which many believe was borrowed from Celtic. No certain evidence for a link between these two words, however, has been found.
-Yourdictionary.com

on Civilization

Civilization exists by geological consent, subject to change without notice.


Civilization is the order and freedom is promoting cultural activity.

-Will Durant 

666 miles

It is 666 miles from Des Moines to Lexington.

But I don't believe in omens.

Umbriphilous

Umbriphilous (adj.) Fond of the shade.
 "Although this is a botanical word, used to describe things arboreal, I choose to use it to describe myself."

Shea, Ammon. Reading the OED: One Man, One Year, 21,730 Pages

I found a book that may lead to many many new words.

$2 Bills

If you are at the right bank, it is always a possibility to get large amounts of money in $2 bills.

This is a great idea to do this if you owe someone money. Or lots of people $20-60 dollars each. 

My coworkers love me.

Black Ale?

Having a cold one today I realized that I didn't know the difference between the various dark beers. My drinking companion was quaffing some New Belgium 1554 which is a Black Ale. Being more familiar with Irish beers, I figured that dark brews were stouts.

Not so: there are porters, stouts, dark wheat beers and probably a bunch more. I am having difficulty finding a definition for Black Ale, however. My trusty Wikipedia let me down on that specific search, but did yield "Schwarzbier" as a German Black Beer. Surely our Belgium friends have a similar drink, even if the recipe was lost for centuries until rediscovered in 1997.

Know anything about black ale? I would love to know. 

Sage

Sage goes well with sweet potatoes.

More from Wikipedia:
As a herb, sage is considered to have a slight peppery flavor. In Western cooking, it is used for flavoring fatty meats (especially as a marinade), cheeses (Sage Derby),and some drinks. In the UK and Flanders, sage is used with onion for poultry or pork stuffing and also in sauces. In French cuisine, sage is used for cooking white meatand in vegetable soups. Germans often use it in sausage dishes, and sage forms the dominant flavoring in the English Lincolnshire sausage. Sage is also common in Italian cooking. Sage is sautéd in olive oil and butter until crisp, then plain or stuffed pasta is added (burro e salvia). In the Balkans and the Middle East, it is used when roasting mutton.

But yeah, sweet potatoes. Awesome.

Language Hints

Children's books are an excellent way to learn languages.

Jorge Curioso Monta una Bicicleta!

Port Wine

Port wine is named for the seaport city of Porto in Portugal.

Refridgerators

If you leave a fridge plugged in after it stops cooling anything, it will get pretty damn hot.
If a fridge is broken, unplug it.
Your repairman will thank you.

Someone had a no-hitter

What I didn't know was that a no-hitter ≠ a perfect game.

Hierophant

I was discussing my desire to have more intellectual conversations at work with a friend today and he offered me this word:

Hierophant:

1. An ancient Greek priest who interpreted sacred mysteries, especially the priest of the Eleusinian mysteries.
2. An interpreter of sacred mysteries or arcane knowledge.
3. One who explains or makes a commentary.

hierophant. Dictionary.com. The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition. Houghton Mifflin Company, 2004. http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/hierophant (accessed: May 18, 2008)

Thank you for not talking about the weather.

I learn, therefore I am

I've concluded that a day without learning anything is a day I have merely existed. A better title for this blog would be "What I Learned Today," but Latin is much more fun.

Aut disce aut discede - Either learn or leave, and folks, I'm not going anywhere.