maryw

maryw has adopted no words, looked up 0 words, created 6 lists, listed 796 words, written 862 comments, added 0 tags, and loved 31 words.

Comments by maryw

maryw commented on the word secretary

“Which were you, though?” Keisha asks, toward the end of the story. “His secretary, or his receptionist?”
“Bit of both,” Simone says. “More the latter. Does it matter?”
“Well, probably only from a word-derivation sense,” Keisha says with the hesitance of people who know no one else is nearly as interested in the topic as they are, and the conversation moves on, Simone forgets to ask what she means, but she looks it up later in the quiet of her bedroom, her husband sleeping beside her. She was never Alkaitis’s secretary, she realizes now, when she looks up the word. A secretary is a keeper of secrets.
Emily St. John Mandel, The Glass Hotel(New York: Vintage Books, 2020), p. 268

November 24, 2023
maryw commented on the word unparliamentary smoke

See comment at unparliamentary.

July 3, 2023
maryw commented on the word unparliamentary

“But we are bidden by parliament to burn our own smoke; so I suppose, like good little children, we shall do as we are bid—some time.”
“But I think you told me you had altered your chimneys so as to consume the smoke, did you not?” asked Mr. Hale.
“Mine were altered by my own will, before parliament meddled with the affair. It was an immediate outlay, but it repays me in the saving of coal. I’m not sure whether I should have done it, if I had waited until the act was passed. At any rate, I should have waited to be informed against and fined, and given all the trouble in yielding that I legally could. But all laws which depend for their enforcement upon informers and fines, become inert from the odiousness of the machinery. I doubt if there has been a chimney in Milton informed against for five years past, although some are constantly sending out one-third of their coal in what is called here unparliamentary smoke.”
Elizabeth Gaskell, North and South (1854-55), ch. X

July 3, 2023
maryw commented on the word incest

He fidgeted with his necktie. “You’ll think it’s a funny question: is there much incest?”
“There’s some,” I told him; “that’s why they’ve got a name for it.”
His face flushed.
I said: “I’m not making fun of you. It’s one of the things nobody knows. There’s no way of finding out.”
Dashiell Hammett, The Thin Man (1934)

July 2, 2023
maryw commented on the word anthropomorphobic

anthropomorphism: The assigning of human traits to nonhuman animals. I think many people are anthropomorphoebic, afraid of accepting that animals are similar to us, especially in terms of sentience. I think even more people fear the opposite: taking characteristics that should be restricted to nonhuman animals and assigning them to humans.
Catherine Raven, Fox and I (New York: Spiegel & Grau, 2021), p. 323 (glossary section)
(Author spelled it “anthropomorphoebic” but I’m inserting comment here as well.)

May 21, 2023
maryw commented on the word anthropomorphoebic

anthropomorphism: The assigning of human traits to nonhuman animals. I think many people are anthropomorphoebic, afraid of accepting that animals are similar to us, especially in terms of sentience. I think even more people fear the opposite: taking characteristics that should be restricted to nonhuman animals and assigning them to humans.
Catherine Raven, Fox and I (New York: Spiegel & Grau, 2021), p. 323 (glossary section)

May 21, 2023
maryw commented on the word anthropomorphism

anthropomorphism: The assigning of human traits to nonhuman animals. I think many people are anthropomorphoebic, afraid of accepting that animals are similar to us, especially in terms of sentience. I think even more people fear the opposite: taking characteristics that should be restricted to nonhuman animals and assigning them to humans.
Catherine Raven, Fox and I (New York: Spiegel & Grau, 2021), p. 323 (glossary section)

May 21, 2023
maryw commented on the word Helen

Helen's name has even been used as a tongue-in-cheek unit of measurement: if one Helen is so beautiful that she launches a thousand ships, then a millihelen is the unit of beauty required to launch a single ship. Isaac Asimov claimed to have coined the term.
Natalie Haynes, Pandora's Jar: Women in the Greek Myths (New York: Harper Perennial, 2022 (first pub. in UK in 2020)), p. 59, citing Isaac Asimov, Isaac Asimov Laughs Again (New York: Harper-Collins, 1992), p. 200

November 26, 2022
maryw commented on the word millihelen

Helen's name has even been used as a tongue-in-cheek unit of measurement: if one Helen is so beautiful that she launches a thousand ships, then a millihelen is the unit of beauty required to launch a single ship. Isaac Asimov claimed to have coined the term.
Natalie Haynes, Pandora's Jar: Women in the Greek Myths (New York: Harper Perennial, 2022 (first pub. in UK in 2020)), p. 59, citing Isaac Asimov, Isaac Asimov Laughs Again (New York: Harper-Collins, 1992), p. 200

November 26, 2022
maryw commented on the word thigmotactic

Some years ago, in the course of doing research for an article I was writing, I learned that organisms that actively seek out physical contact are described by scientists as thigmotactic. Our cat is exceedingly thigmotactic.
Kathryn Schulz, Lost & Found: A Memoir (New York: Random House, 2022], p. 221

November 19, 2022
maryw commented on the word preregistration

“Pre-registration” is an increasingly common tactic that scientists use to reduce the amount of freedom they have. (“Pre-registration: When you want less freedom.” Not going to win an election campaign, is it?) Specifically, when scientists pre-register a hypothesis, it means that before the study begins they specify what effects they will look for when they do their data analysis later on. In other words, they can’t just go plunging through their data looking for any old positive correlation and claiming to have predicted it, because they told their peers ahead of time what they would look for.
David Epstein,Here’s Why Coverage of the Cash-Improves-Baby-Brains Study is Misleading, Range Widely (Jan. 31, 2022), https://davidepstein.bulletin.com/here-s-why-coverage-of-the-cash-improves-baby-brains-study-is-misleading

February 4, 2022
maryw commented on the word pre-registration

“Pre-registration” is an increasingly common tactic that scientists use to reduce the amount of freedom they have. (“Pre-registration: When you want less freedom.” Not going to win an election campaign, is it?) Specifically, when scientists pre-register a hypothesis, it means that before the study begins they specify what effects they will look for when they do their data analysis later on. In other words, they can’t just go plunging through their data looking for any old positive correlation and claiming to have predicted it, because they told their peers ahead of time what they would look for.
David Epstein, Here’s Why Coverage of the Cash-Improves-Baby-Brains Study is Misleading, Range Widely (Jan. 31, 2022), https://davidepstein.bulletin.com/here-s-why-coverage-of-the-cash-improves-baby-brains-study-is-misleading

February 4, 2022
maryw commented on the word sort-a-graph

Clerks used a “sort-a-graph” to prepare letters and files for filing, rather than simply a table, as would be common in centralized filing departments with less volume. The sort-a-graph (sold under the brand names Multisort and Savasort) was a belt with pockets or dividers sized to fit a range of cards and papers. Attached to a carriage that moved on ball bearings, it allowed the operator to use one hand to bring the required divider next to the sorting pile and place a document in the divider, all while determining where the next document had to go. At Brooklyn Edison clerks used a two-container, 1,000-division sort-a-graph. One side was alphabetical and the other geographical, with the clerk sitting between the two.
Craig Robertson, The Filing Cabinet: A Vertical History of Information (St. Paul: University of Minnesota Press, 2021), p. 143

July 11, 2021
maryw commented on the word document file

Cabinets designed to store and provide access to unbound paper appeared in offices in the decades immediately prior to the invention of the vertical filing cabinet. These structures were to be used with one of the new filing technologies introduced to manage the growing volume of loose paper, which had increased for a number of reasons . . . . In the last quarter of the nineteenth century, filing developed with the invention of the box file, flat file, and document file. The box file was a cardboard box shaped like a book (although popular, these were rarely stored in cabinets). As the name suggests, the flat file (also known as the board file) stored paper flat on a board. The more ambiguously named document file stored folded papers upright on their long edge.
Craig Robertson, The Filing Cabinet: A Vertical History of Information (Minneapolis: Univ. of Minnesota Press, 2021), pp. 70–71.

June 21, 2021
maryw commented on the word board file

Cabinets designed to store and provide access to unbound paper appeared in offices in the decades immediately prior to the invention of the vertical filing cabinet. These structures were to be used with one of the new filing technologies introduced to manage the growing volume of loose paper, which had increased for a number of reasons . . . . In the last quarter of the nineteenth century, filing developed with the invention of the box file, flat file, and document file. The box file was a cardboard box shaped like a book (although popular, these were rarely stored in cabinets). As the name suggests, the flat file (also known as the board file) stored paper flat on a board. The more ambiguously named document file stored folded papers upright on their long edge.
Craig Robertson, The Filing Cabinet: A Vertical History of Information (Minneapolis: Univ. of Minnesota Press, 2021), pp. 70–71.

June 21, 2021
maryw commented on the word flat file

Cabinets designed to store and provide access to unbound paper appeared in offices in the decades immediately prior to the invention of the vertical filing cabinet. These structures were to be used with one of the new filing technologies introduced to manage the growing volume of loose paper, which had increased for a number of reasons . . . . In the last quarter of the nineteenth century, filing developed with the invention of the box file, flat file, and document file. The box file was a cardboard box shaped like a book (although popular, these were rarely stored in cabinets). As the name suggests, the flat file (also known as the board file) stored paper flat on a board. The more ambiguously named document file stored folded papers upright on their long edge.
Craig Robertson, The Filing Cabinet: A Vertical History of Information (Minneapolis: Univ. of Minnesota Press, 2021), pp. 70–71.

June 21, 2021
maryw commented on the word box file

Cabinets designed to store and provide access to unbound paper appeared in offices in the decades immediately prior to the invention of the vertical filing cabinet. These structures were to be used with one of the new filing technologies introduced to manage the growing volume of loose paper, which had increased for a number of reasons . . . . In the last quarter of the nineteenth century, filing developed with the invention of the box file, flat file, and document file. The box file was a cardboard box shaped like a book (although popular, these were rarely stored in cabinets). As the name suggests, the flat file (also known as the board file) stored paper flat on a board. The more ambiguously named document file stored folded papers upright on their long edge.
Craig Robertson, The Filing Cabinet: A Vertical History of Information (Minneapolis: Univ. of Minnesota Press, 2021), pp. 70–71.

June 21, 2021
maryw commented on the word file

Cabinets designed to store and provide access to unbound paper appeared in offices in the decades immediately prior to the invention of the vertical filing cabinet. These structures were to be used with one of the new filing technologies introduced to manage the growing volume of loose paper, which had increased for a number of reasons . . . . In the last quarter of the nineteenth century, filing developed with the invention of the box file, flat file, and document file. The box file was a cardboard box shaped like a book (although popular, these were rarely stored in cabinets). As the name suggests, the flat file (also known as the board file) stored paper flat on a board. The more ambiguously named document file stored folded papers upright on their long edge.
Craig Robertson, The Filing Cabinet: A Vertical History of Information (Minneapolis: Univ. of Minnesota Press, 2021), pp. 70–71.

June 21, 2021
maryw commented on the word salvific

I came across this on Saturday and it was unfamiliar enough that I looked it up. I was surprised to see it again in a different article in the same magazine. Who else am I going to tell if not the Wordnik community?
Bypass surgery . . . forever alters the world in which you live. Curbs become annoying, stairs insurmountable; running becomes impossible, rest unavoidable; sleep becomes salvific; death becomes visible; life becomes precious.
John Kaag, "Fatal Courage," American Scholar, 90, no. 1 (2021): 16, 17
At the heart of the Christian story is a radical tension between the aspirations of the soul and the gross desires of the body, the salvific inner assent of conviction and the bodily suffering of the human.
T. M. Luhrmann, "God, Can You Hear Me?" American Scholar, 90, no. 1 (2021): 34, 44-45.

December 21, 2020
maryw commented on the word plant factory

Every year, U.S. growers spend $600 million to light greenhouses and plant factories.
. . . .
"The economic feasibility of plant factories is still questionable because it is so expensive to provide electric light to the plants."
"Lighting the Way" (sort item in Progress Report section), Am. Scholar, Autumn 2019, p. 15 (quoting Marc van Iersel)

November 30, 2020
maryw commented on the word making trees

To judge your speed against boats inshore of you, take visual bearings on objects in the background. This is called "making trees." It's done by watching the other boat and the shoreline in the background at the same time. If the two of you seem to be advancing past objects on shore at the same rate, then both boats are going the same speed. The other boat is pulling away from you if objects, like trees, on shore seem to be coming out behind him. If you are "making trees" on the other boat, it will seem like the trees are coming from in front of its bow.
Gary L. Jobson et al., Championship Tactics: How Anyone Can Sail Faster, Smarter, and Win Races (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1990), p. 7

September 2, 2020
maryw commented on the word campaign furniture

Any furniture specifically made to break down or fold for ease of travel can be described as campaign furniture. It was designed to be packed up and carried on the march. It has been used by traveling armies since at least the time of Julius Caesar but it is commonly associated with British Army officers, many of whom had purchased their commissions. With the rise and expansion of the British Empire in the 19th and 20th centuries the demand by the military, administrators and colonists increased. British officers of high social position in the Georgian and Victorian periods (1714–1901) often carried high-quality portable furniture.
The most common item of campaign furniture is the chest of drawers, often referred to as a military chest or campaign chest. Campaign chests' primary wood was often mahogany, teak, or camphor, although cedar, pine and other woods were also used. The dominant type breaks down into two sections, and has removable feet. The brass corners and strapwork offer some protection and typify the distinctive "campaign look".
A similar type of furniture was made for naval service, and even for merchant ships, which allowed furnishings to be used in port or peacetime, but stowed out of harm's way in action, or during rough weather. Naval furniture is often extremely small, reflecting the cramped quarters available on ship. (Some sea-going pieces were also made for frequent travelers, or intended for permanent use after the journey.) Seagoing furniture sometimes has fiddle rails to prevent items from sliding off top surfaces; the fiddles were often themselves removable, with brass mounting sockets for the fiddle pins.
Some items of campaign furniture are instantly recognizable as made to dismantle or fold. Brass caps to the tops of legs, hinges in unusual places, protruding bolts or X-frame legs all give clues to the functionality of the piece. However, some pieces were designed to be up to date and fashionable. In such cases, as much of it looked like domestic furniture, it is harder to see how it dismantles. Ross and Co. of Dublin were innovators of campaign furniture design and much of their work is obviously Victorian in period. It only becomes apparent that their balloon back chairs dismantle when they are turned upside down and two locking bolts can be seen.
Campaign furniture, Wikipedia

September 2, 2020
maryw commented on the word emanata

"emanata - named by cartoonist Mort Walker, the lines, bursts, and squiggles that indicate emotion or heat from the sun"
Ivan Brunetti, Comics: Easy as ABC! (New York: Toon Books, 2019), p. 23

July 28, 2020
maryw commented on the word rangerette

Sexist term for a park ranger (or forest ranger) who is a woman.
I walk over to a park rangerette in a Smokey Bear uniform and ask about the sub. She tells a story about the struggle for the inner power of Crater Lake, a fight over geothermal vents.
Timothy Egan, The Good Rain: Across Time and Terrain in the Pacific Northwest, p. 157 (orig. pub. 1990)
Officially listed as semi-active, it is staffed only when blazes threaten the property of American taxpayers. Forest Service lore holds Abbey himself responsible for the cutback: ". . . fire bursts came and went with hardly a word from the North Rim tower," firefighter Stephen Pyne recalls in his memoir. Wayward as ever Abbey went AWOL from his coop—napping or writing in the tarpaper shack at the foot of the tower, entertaining visitors, or romancing "rangerettes"—proving the North Rim fire lookout to be expendable.
Michael Engelhard, Where the Rain Children Sleep: A Sacred Geography of the Colorado Plateau (2010), p. 219
See also Kilgore College Rangerettes, Wikipedia (college drill team, said to be the first precision dance team int he world).
And:
And here’s Shirley Temple — who might have been the most famous star in Hollywood at the time — dressed in a snazzy cowboy outfit and an eye-catching pair of boots. She had been appointed honorary Chief of the Texas Centennial Exposition Rangerettes (a bevy of attractive Texas women who acted as goodwill ambassadors and made personal appearances all over the country promoting the Dallas exposition).
Paulla Bosse, A Texas Centennial Scrapbook—1936, Flashback: Dallas (April 14, 2019)

July 17, 2020
maryw commented on the word miner's coffee

miner's coffee (boil water, add coffee grounds, wait for the grounds to settle, drink)
Homer Hickam, Carrying Albert Home (New York: HarperCollins, 2015), p. 373 (the protagonists come from a mining town in West Virginia)

July 17, 2020
maryw commented on the word tub hat

A boy with a tub hat shoved on the back of his head pushed through the other men.
Homer Hickam, Carrying Albert Home (New York: HarperCollins, 2015), p. 250
I didn't find a definition anywhere I looked, and didn't find pictures in Google Images. I've heard of a "bucket hat." Same thing?

June 29, 2020
maryw commented on the word sailor cap

See Dixie Cup.

June 29, 2020
maryw commented on the word Dixie Cup

Sailor cap.
In 1886, a "low rolled brim, high-domed item constructed of canvas" is written into regulations.
Since then, it has been affectionately referred to as the "Dixie Cup." In the early days, the brim was worn much lower, as seen here by Sailors aboard the USS Washington.
The "Dixie Cup": A U.S. Navy Tradition, https://www.history.navy.mil/news-and-events/multimedia-gallery/infographics/heritage/the-dixie-cup.html

June 29, 2020
maryw commented on the word burlock

Homer saw a sling being lowered from a steel boom.
"Hold the burlocks steady," the black man ordered Roy-Boy as he grasped the netting of the sling. Together, they eased it down into the boat, where it fell away to reveal a number of wrapped burlap bundles.

Homer Hickam, Carrying Albert Home (New York: HarperCollins, 2015), p. 243
"What else you got for me, Chief?"
"Bags of doubtlessly illicit goods, sir." Vintner held up the bag he was carryng. "I believe they are called burlocks in the arcane terminology of smugglers."
"Open one of them, man! the captain demanded.
Vintner reached in the bag, drew out a bag, and opened it, spreading its contents on the captain's gray metal desk. The dim light inside the wheelhouse did not diminish the sparkling jewels that were displayed.
Homer Hickam, Carrying Albert Home (New York: HarperCollins, 2015), p. 253

June 29, 2020
maryw commented on the word swash

facing the window that overlooked the sound, which Elsie had learned the low-country folk called a swash.
Homer Hickam, Carrying Albert Home (New York: HarperCollins, 2015), p. 219 (setting: South Carolina coast)

June 29, 2020
maryw commented on the word hobnob

Opening the bag, she drew out a biscuit, which was heavier than any biscuit she'd ever held. She tried a bit of it and found it too hard. She had to dip it in her coffee to chew it at all.
Malcolm brazenly looked inside the tent. "Sorry about the hobnob," he said. "But it's all I've got."
"What's a hobnob?"
"Biscuit made out of oats. Took them from a horse bucket I found over yonder."
Elsie put down the hobnob but finished the coffee.
Homer Hickam, Carrying Albert Home (New York: HarperCollins, 2015), p. 79

June 29, 2020
maryw commented on the word shocky

Homer stepped inside to find four unpainted pine boxes stamped tug river mining company. One of them had the lid open and Homer was only a little surprised when e saw the red tubes inside. "Dynamite sticks," he said, "the kind that was used int he mines about a decade ago."
"Will they still work?" Malcolm asked, picking one of the sticks up.
"They may be a little shocky."
"What does that mean?"
"Drop one and it might go off."
Homer Hickam, Carrying Albert Home (New York: HarperCollins, 2015), p. 70

June 29, 2020
maryw commented on the word tone policing

"Tone policing is an important term to understand if you want to have productive conversations about race and if you have done tone policing you have been doing something harmful—whether you mean to or not.
So what is tone policing? Tone policing is when someone (usually the privileged person) in a conversation or situation about oppression shifts the focus of the conversation from the oppression being discussed to the way it is being discussed. Tone policing prioritizes the comfort of the privileged person in the situation over the oppression of the disadvantaged person. This is something that can happen in a conversation, but can also apply to critiques of entire civil rights organizations and movements.
Most damagingly, tone policing places prerequisites on being heard and being helped.
Ijeoma Oluo, So You Want to Want to Talk About Race (Seattle, WA: Seal Press, 2019) (orig. pub. 2018), p. 205

June 29, 2020
maryw commented on the word HODAD

Makary has warned of "Dr. HODAD," the nickname of a medical menace around Harvard hospitals during his student days. An acronym for "Hands of Death and Destruction," HODADs are eminent but dangerous surgeons with excellent bedside manner who attract legions of patients, including prominent people and celebrities. Nurses, residents, and house staff physicians know about them but are afraid to speak up. HODADs create complications, harm patients, lengthen hospital stays, and produce urgent consultations from their colleagues—all of which ironically have a positive effect on the hospital's revenues.
James B. Lieber, Killer Care: How Medical Error Became America's Third Largest Cause of Death, and What Can Be Done About It (New York: OR Books, 2015), ch 3.

May 31, 2020
maryw commented on the word ace

We wondered how being ace and nonbinary were related, if they even were.&sub2;
. . .
2. "Ace" is slang for asexual.
Cal Sparrow, "Lowercase Q," in Micah Rajunov & Scott Duane, eds., Nonbinary: Memoirs of Gender and Identity (New York: Columbia University Press, 2019), p. 145

May 31, 2020
maryw commented on the word nibling

Sincerely,
That kid who was in English class with you in high school,
Your former coworker,
Your cousin,
Your nibling (did you know that's the gender neutral term for niece or nephew??),
. . .
Sinclair Sexsmith, "Coming Out as Your Nibling: What Happened When I Told Everyone I Know That I’m Genderqueer," in Mica Rajunov & Scott Duane eds., Nonbinary: Memoirs of Gender and Identity (New York: Columbia Univ. Press, 2019), p. 111

May 31, 2020
maryw commented on the word enbie

Being nonbinary can feel like being a wisp around the edge of heteronormativity. We are ghosts, Sure, we're being recognized more and more—we're even on TV! But, we're still on the edge; <b>enbies</b>¹ are seen as fringe and outsie the mainstreem. This is a blessing and a curse.
. . .
1. From Tumblr: <b>enbies</b> - NBs - "nonbinaries" or nonbinary people.
Jeffrey Marsh, Life Threats, in Micah Rajunov & Scott Duane, eds., Nonbinary: Memoirs of Gender and Identity (New York: Columbia Univ. Press, 2019), p. 75

May 31, 2020
maryw commented on the word transtrender

Blanket dismissals of nonbinary genders are all too common. Nonbinary gender is deemed a playful fantasy, just another way for teens to get attention—as if it's suddenly cool to transgress gender. Moreover, adolescents are assumed to succumb to peer pressure, so it follow that genderqueer kids are seen as simply molding themselves after their friends. This belief is so common that there is a pejorative label for it: transtrender.
Micah Rajunov & Scott Duane, eds., Introduction, in <i>Nonbinary: Memoirs of Gender and Identity</i> (New York: Columbia University Press, 2019), p. xxiv.

May 31, 2020
maryw commented on the word producorial

Ellenberg emphatically concurs. “Jen’s an experienced and formidable producer. When I was looking for inspiration for my business, I thought of Jen, who co-founded Plan B.” Extrapolating to include both of his A-list partners, Ellenberg beams, “I admire them as artists and as actors, but their producorial career—and has—a huge influence on me. So there’s also just the opportunity to learn from them. That’s the truth.”
Kevin Perry, A New Day Dawns - The Morning Show Celebrates Gender Equality on Screen and Behind the Scenes, Producers Guild of America (March 5, 2020) (quoting executive producer Michael Ellenberg on fellow executive producers Jennifer Anniston and Reese Witherspoon)

When I read “producorial” to myself, it “sounded” awkward, artke because of the “c” (sift, as in “produce,” or hard, as in “production”?), but I figured:
director:directorial::producer:producorial
And if it’s on the website of the Producers Guild of America, it’s probably what they say in the industry, so there you go.

May 27, 2020
maryw commented on the word nosocomial spread

MERS in South Korea became a textbook example of blunders that led to “nosocomial spread,” the term for health-care-acquired infections. When covid-19 arrived, Khan said, “I guess maybe it was raw for them.”
David Quammen, The Warnings, New Yorker (May 11, 2020)

May 17, 2020
maryw commented on the word murder board

Before her briefing debut, Ms. McEnany spent days preparing, participating in murder board sessions with other members of the press and communications staff, and receiving briefings from economic experts and doctors, officials said.
Annie Karni,
‘I Will Never Lie to You,’ McEnany Says in First White House Briefing
, N.Y. Times (May 2, 2020)

May 2, 2020
maryw commented on the word fintech

Fintech is a term of art rather than legal designation, and it describes a confluence of technologies applied in financial markets to facilitate lending, payments, investments, and capital markets operations. Because fintech spans so many diverse areas of finance, summarizing the laws and regulations relevant to it comprises a far different enterprise than, say, writing a nutshell about tort law or even constitutional law. Complicating things further is that for fintech legal doctrines are still in flux, regulations are yet to be written, and indeed, the very question as to what “fintech” as well as “fintech law” are is far from settled. The terms are not defined in any federal statute or rule.
Chris Brummer, Fintech Law in a Nutshell (St. Paul, Minn.: West Academic Publishing, 2020), pp. 45-46

March 4, 2020
maryw commented on the word bioinspiration

MIT News has a tag for bioinspiration. Check out the stories!

February 10, 2020
maryw commented on the word Milwaukee mushroom

See traffic mushroom.

January 23, 2020
maryw commented on the word mushroom

See traffic mushroom.

January 23, 2020
maryw commented on the word traffic mushroom

The Chicago company that introduced the Milwaukee mushroom received the {International Traffic Officers) Association's "Award of Merit" in 1921. . . . it was sold as a superior variation on the silent policeman. To police officials a mushroom was a cast iron object the size and shape of a salad bowl, turned upside down and attached to the pavement. If struck in traffic it would jolt the driver without damaging device or vehicle.
In 1915 a New York transit expert reported the use of a "mushroom-shaped base of iron" on the streets of Detroit, where it served to keep motorists out of "safety zones" (streetcar landings). Four years later a device manufacturer suggested replacing the bulky silent policeman with the low-profile mushroom in the center of intersections, and illuminating it for visibility. In August 1920 Milwaukee's street lighting department introduced the "Milwaukee mushroom type," which was hollow and perforated like a collander, but with larger holes. Inside was an electric light, visible through the holes to motorists. . . .
The traffic mushroom's clear advantages over the silent policeman made it easy to sell. . . . A manufacturer of a variation on the traffic mushroom appealed to city officials facing "the expense of detailing traffic officers," . . . Unlike the silent policeman, however, mushrooms were "indestructible" and "accident-proof."
Peter D. Norton, Fighting Traffic: The Dawn of the Motor Age in the American City (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2008), pp. 61-62
Peter D. Norton, Fighting Traffic: The Dawn of the Motor Age in the American City (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2008), p.

January 23, 2020
maryw commented on the word silent policeman

In 1904 New York City, at (William Phelps) Eno's suggestion, installed posts at the centers of some intersections to help drivers "understand the necessity of passing around the central point." . . . By then (World War I) the most visible reminder of traffic regulation in American cities of all sizes was the intersection center-point marker, usually marked "keep to the right," so that motorists turning left would go around it. These markers went by numerous names, but the most common was "silent policeman."
Peter D. Norton, Fighting Traffic: The Dawn of the Motor Age in the American City (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2008), p.54

January 23, 2020
maryw commented on the word traffic congestion

"Traffic" and "traffic congestion" were not even distinct categories of thought in city administration until about 1915, when motor vehicles made them so. . . . "Traffic" was simply not yet a topic of city administration. Articles about "traffic congestion" before 1915 were more likely to be about crowding on streetcars or inadequate harbor facilities than about the crowding of streets with vehicles and pedestrians. Around 1915, however, the term "trafic congestion" was transformed. Thenceforward it nearly always meant the crowding of streets with motor vehicles.
Peter D. Norton, Fighting Traffic: The Dawn of the Motor Age in the American City (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2008), p. 49

January 23, 2020
maryw commented on the word speeding

Above all, the early critics of the automobile blamed its speed. Not until the mid 1920s was the inherent danger of speed widely questioned. In 1925 The Outlook, a popular magazine of news commentary, reported of traffic accidents that "the chief danger, it is now generally conceded, is not speeding, but bad and careless driving by immature or reckless drivers." Today the distinction is not obvious. Speeding is "bad" or "careless" driving, indulged in by the "immature or reckless." Yet our definition of speeding has changed. Fifty or 60 miles per hour may be prudent driving, or even so slow as to disrupt the flow of traffic. We do not call this speeding; for us, speeding is unusual. Before the mid 1920s, however, speeding was what an automobile was made to do. When we speak today of a "speeding bullet,," we mean a bullet merely doing what it was made to do. In the first quarter of the twentieth century, this sense of "speeding" applied to automobiles as well. The car distinguished itself from streetcars, horse-drawn vehicles, bicycles, and pedestrians by going faster—by "speeding." It was inherently a speeding machine. The car's capacity to speed was its chief advantage over other modes.
Peter D. Norton, Fighting Traffic: The Dawn of the Motor Age in the American City (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2008), p. 31

January 22, 2020
maryw commented on the word speeding

Above all, the early critics of the automobile blamed its speed. Not until the mid 1920s was the inherent danger of speed widely questioned. In 1925 The Outlook, a popular magazine of news commentary, reported of traffic accidents that "the chief danger, it is now generally conceded, is not speeding, but bad and careless driving by immature or reckless drivers." Today the distinction is not obvious. Speeding is "bad" or "careless" driving, indulged in by the "immature or reckless." Yet our definition of speeding has changed. Fifty or 60 miles per hour may be prudent driving, or even so slow as to disrupt the flow of traffic. We do not call this speeding; for us, speedingspeeding is unusual. Before the mid 1920s, however, speeding was what an automobile was made to do. When we speak today of a "speeding bullet,," we mean a bullet merely doing what it was made to do. In the first quarter of the twntieth century, this sense of "speeding" applied to automobiles as well. The car distinguished itself from streetcars, horse-drawn vehicles, bicycles, and pedestrians by going faster—by "speeding." It was inherently a speeding machine. The car's capacity to speed was its chief advantage over other modes.
Id., p. 31.
Peter D. Norton, Fighting Traffic: The Dawn of the Motor Age in the American City (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2008), p.

January 22, 2020
maryw commented on the word pleasure car

Early perceptions of the passenger automobile are reflected in a popular name for it: "pleasure car." When auto interests perceived the modifier 'pleasure' as a limitation, they worked to remove it.
Peter D. Norton, Fighting Traffic: The Dawn of the Motor Age in the American City (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2008), p. 12
If pedestrians were to accept some responsibility for their own safety, they would sometimes have to yield to motorists. This infringement of pedestrians' traditional street rights would have to be justified. Motordom had to show that the automobile had rights to the street too. To make this claim, motordom first had to show that the automobile, far from being a needless imposition upon more important street uses, was in fact a necessity. Passenger automobiles were no longer "pleasure cars." . . .
. . . In 1922 a Washington auto dealer recognized that the "pleasure car" idea has "somewhat impeded the progress of the automotive industry." "The automobile," he maintained, "has become an essential rather than a luxury."
Id., pp. 219-20.

January 22, 2020
maryw commented on the word cornerman

As improvised police traffic duties grew routine, some police became "traffic cops" or "cornermen."
Peter D. Norton, Fighting Traffic: The Dawn of the Motor Age in the American City (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2008), p. 3
All police departments sought to limit their dependence on costly, overburdened and exposed traffic police ("cornermen"). Traffic regulation innovators worked to find ways to limit the need for traffic police. To one engineer, the expense of the cornerman was "perhaps the most important consideration" behind the search for alternatives.
Id., p. 56

January 22, 2020
maryw commented on the word motordom

Automotive interest groups discovered their destiny in the 1920s. Lacking self-awareness in 1920, they joined with chambers of commerce and local safety councils to fight accidents and congestion on the terms of Safety First and efficiency. In 1923 and 1924, looming threats to the automobile's future in the city shocked them into self-discovery. Finding their identity, they named themselves "motordom." For the first time they saw their enemy: prevailing constructions of the problems of safety and congestion.
Peter D. Norton, Fighting Traffic: The Dawn of the Motor Age in the American City (Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press), p. 173
Indeed, auto clubs, dealers, and manufacturers were hardly one social group before 1924, when, at the Hoover traffic conference, they met, organized, and developed a common strategy. They themselves recognized this development as a turning point by christening themselves "motordom." Organizational success required a coherence rhetorical stance, which motordom developed in the mid 1920s.
Id. at 258

December 31, 2019
maryw commented on the word robe-sniffer

I'm not a robe-sniffer. I don't hang around judicial locker rooms sniffing for a few tidbits of judicial gossip or special insight. I rarely follow Supreme Court decisions, looking for subtle shifts in the Court's reasoning. I find most of that reasoning just judicial statesmanship, about as interesting and revealing as a presidential stump speech. Further, there are hundreds (perhaps thousands) of law professors much smarter than I who will mine most of the recoverable ore from these opinions. When I do doctrinal scholarship, I'm usually interested in lower court opinions and decisions from earlier centuries.
James Lindgren, Reforming the American Law Review, 47 Stan. L. Rev. 1123, 1124 (1995)

December 26, 2019
maryw commented on the word turtle boil

People walking down the beach, seeing the yellow caution tape and the trench watched over by do-gooders in bright Turtle Patrol T-shirts, wandered over to ask questions, and the crowd grew. At night, they’d sit with infrared flashlights, intently staring down, watching for the slightest movement, with their cameras at the ready.
“It’s actually called a boil,” Kathy told me. “That’s because when the eggs hatch, and the babies claw their way to the surface, the sand churns.”
...
The boys weren’t terribly interested in the turtle boil taking place in back of the house, but I thought they might change their minds if they saw the baby loggerheads. The eggs were the size of Ping-Pong balls, and were supposed to hatch on Monday.
David Sedaris, “Father Time,” New Yorker (Dec. 31, 2018)

December 22, 2019
maryw commented on the word boil

People walking down the beach, seeing the yellow caution tape and the trench watched over by do-gooders in bright Turtle Patrol T-shirts, wandered over to ask questions, and the crowd grew. At night, they’d sit with infrared flashlights, intently staring down, watching for the slightest movement, with their cameras at the ready.
“It’s actually called a boil,” Kathy told me. “That’s because when the eggs hatch, and the babies claw their way to the surface, the sand churns.”
...
The boys weren’t terribly interested in the turtle boil taking place in back of the house, but I thought they might change their minds if they saw the baby loggerheads. The eggs were the size of Ping-Pong balls, and were supposed to hatch on Monday.
David Sedaris, “”Father Time,” New Yorker (Dec. 31, 2018)

December 22, 2019
maryw commented on the word yellow boy

Acid mine drainage contains Fe^3+. When it enters a river with higher pH, it precipitates out as an ugly slime called “yellow boy.”
Larry Gonick & Craig Criddle, The Cartoon Guide to Chemistry (New York: Collins Reference, 2005), p. 173

July 23, 2019
maryw commented on the word stalkerware

“He knew where I was at all times, who I was talking to on email, text messages, social media—all of it. He could see everything. I had no privacy,” says Anna (not her real name).
Anna’s experience is not an isolated one: it’s a daily reality for thousands of people, most of them women.
That’s because, usually without their knowledge, their partners have installed stalkerware on their devices—apps that let someone spy on your smartphone activity.
Charlotte Jee, How "Stalkerware" Apps Are Letting Abusive Partners Spy on Their Victims, MIT Tech. Rev. (July 10, 2019)

July 22, 2019
MaryW commented on the word ironworker

He turned to me and waved toward the ironworker in the shop. "Go make clips to fit those purlins."
Tara Westover, Educated (New York: Random House, 2018), p. 139
Ironworker is a class of machines that can shear, notch, and punch holes in steel plate. The name is now used to refer to the whole class of machines (made by at least a dozen brands, such as Scotchman, Piranha, GEKA, Edwards, Pedinghaus, Precise Power etc.). If there ever was a brand name, it has now become a genericized trademark. Ironworkers generate force using mechanical advantage or hydraulic systems.
Wikipedia, Ironworker (machine)

April 23, 2019
MaryW commented on the word purlin

There was an unusually hot day that spring, and Luke and I spent it hauling purlins—the iron beams that run horizontally along the length of a roof.
Tara Westover, Educated (New York: Random House, 2018), p. 135

April 23, 2019
MaryW commented on the word man lift

See manlift.

April 23, 2019
MaryW commented on the word manlift

Shawn said . . . that if they wanted to land real contracts, they needed to spend real money on real equipment—specifically, a new welder and a man lift with a basket.
"We can't keep using a forklift and an old cheese pallet," Shawn said. "It looks like shit, and it's dangerous besides."
Tara Westover, Educated (New York: Random House, 2018), p. 122
Manlift. A device consisting of a power-driven endless belt moving in one direction only, and provided with steps or platforms and handholds attached to it for the transportation of personnel from floor to floor.
Occupational Safety and Health Administration, 29 C.F.R. 1910.68(a)(5)
(4) "Belt manlift" means a power driven endless belt provided with steps or platforms and a hand hold for the transportation of personnel from floor to floor.
(27) "One-man capacity manlift" means a single passenger, hand-powered counterweighted device, or electric-powered device, that travels vertically in guides and serves two or more landings.
Revised Code of Washington 70.87.101
"Aerial manlift equipment" - Equipment such as extended towers, boom-mounted cages or baskets, and truck-mounted ladders, that is primarily designed to place personnel and equipment aloft to work on elevated structures and equipment.
Washington Administrative Code 296-45-035

April 23, 2019
MaryW commented on the word ruched

"There wasn't a part of her that wasn't powdered or lacquered, corseted, draped, and ruched." Amy Bloom, White Houses (New York: Penguin Random House, 2018), p. 160

April 23, 2019
MaryW commented on the word vog

Hawaiians are familiar with the thick haze they call vog, or volcanic smog. When trade winds blow from the northeast, the vog often wraps around the Big Island from Kilauea and settles over the more densely populated western coast. When winds are variable or blow from the south, vog can spread all the way up the Hawaiian isalnd chain to Oahu . . . and beyond.
Near the active vents, vog is made mostly of sulphur dioxide droplets. Over time and at greater distances, those droplets react with sunlight and chemicals in the air to become more complex sulphur compounds, including sulphuric acid.
Alexandra Witze & Jeff Kanipe, Island on Fire: The Extraordinary Story of a Forgotten Volcano That Changed the World (New York: Island Books, 2015), ch. 8, p. 173

February 18, 2019
MaryW commented on the word dilute

Applied to volcanic flows:
flows that are relatively dilte — that is not carrying so much debris — can rush up steep slopes, or change direction quickly.
Alexandra Witze & Jeff Kanipe, Island on Fire: The Extraordinary Story of a Forgotten Volcano That Changed the World (New York: Island Books, 2015), ch. 8, p. 168

February 18, 2019
MaryW commented on the word cold-stupid

The main core storage (at the National Ice Core Laboratory in Denver) is at a bone-chilling -38 degrees Celsius — the kind of temperature that renders people what Hargreaves (the curator) calls 'cold-stupid'. Reflexes slow down, talking seems difficult and thinking just as arduous.
Alexandra Witze & Jeff Kanipe, Island on Fire: The Extraordinary Story of a Forgotten Volcano That Changed the World (New York: Island Books, 2015), ch. 6, p. 136

February 18, 2019
MaryW commented on the word atmospheric extinction

Also telling was how the haze dimmed the light of the stars, a phenomenon astronomers call atmospheric extinction. Barring light pollution, stars can normally be observed in almost every part of the sky, and so they make excellent indicators of a fog's density. Under normal circumstances, the faintest start that can be seen with the unaided eye is rates as a magnitude 6. Brighter stars range between mgnitudes 5 and 1, with 1 being the brightest.
Alexandra Witze & Jeff Kanipe, Island on Fire: The Extraordinary Story of a Forgotten Volcano That Changed the World (New York: Island Books, 2015), ch. 5, p. 110

February 18, 2019
MaryW commented on the word plinian

When Vesuvius exploded, (Pliny the Elder) apparently couldn't believe his luck at having an opportunity to witness such a momentous eruption. He climbed to the highest point he could find and watched the ash cloud develop. Later his nephew (Pliny the Younger) recalled how they saw the plume grow into a shape 'like an umbrella pine, for it rose to a great height on a sort of trunk and then split off into branches, I imagine because it was thrust upwards by the first blast and then left unsupported as the pressure subsided.' This classic, umbrella-like shape forms when a volanic ash plume hits winds going sideways in the upper atmosphere and spreads out. We now use the adjective 'plinian' for this type of ash cloud, after the man who first described it.
Alexandra Witze & Jeff Kanipe, Island on Fire: The Extraordinary Story of a Forgotten Volcano That Changed the World (New York: Island Books, 2015), ch. 3, p. 72, Kindle loc 824

February 18, 2019
MaryW commented on the word supervolcano

By the time the hotspot reached what is now Yellowstone, it let loose its wrath in three colossal eruptions. All three spread ash and debris—enough ash to fill the Grand Canyon—over nearly the entire western half o fht eUnited States, and left behind colossal craters known as calderas, formed as magma beneath the ground drained out. The most recent eruption happened around 640,000 years ago and was about 2,500 times the size of the 19880 eruption of Mount St. Helens. The oldest of the three Yellowstone blowouts happened 2.1 million years ago and was 6,000 times bigger than Mount St. Helens.
That makes Yellowstone the quintessential example of a 'supervolcano', a word that has little technical merit but that is helpful for thinking about the relative scale of eruptions. BBC producers coined the term in 2000, to describe planet-altering eruptions that disgorge an immense volume of ash and other rock fragments—as a general rule, the volume of material that settles onto the ground is about two to three times the volue of the magma that fuelled the eruption.
Alexandra Witze & Jeff Kanipe, Island on Fire: The Extraordinary Story of a Forgotten Volcano That Changed the World (New York: Island Books, 2015), ch. 3, p. 63, Kindle loc 705

February 18, 2019
MaryW commented on the word paint pot

Tourists flock to Yellowstone for the views . . . . Equally astounding is the park's vast array of geothermal features. 'Paint pots' of burbling mud spray red, white and other vibrant tints across a geological artist's palette.
Alexandra Witze & Jeff Kanipe, Island on Fire: The Extraordinary Story of a Forgotten Volcano That Changed the World (New York: Island Books, 2015), ch. 3, p. 61, Kindle loc 685

February 18, 2019
MaryW commented on the word fissure system

Grímsvötn is but a single volcano, but it's the hub of a so-called fissure system, a network of long narrow cracks along which magma can rise to the surface.
Alexandra Witze & Jeff Kanipe, Island on Fire: The Extraordinary Story of a Forgotten Volcano That Changed the World (New York: Island Books, 2015), ch. 2, p. 59, Kindle loc 666

February 18, 2019
MaryW commented on the word sand plain

The equivalent of several thousand megawatts of continuous power create a meltwater lake atop the volcano, beneath the overlying ice. When enough water accumulates in the lake,the pressure forces an opening in the ice cap and the water pours out, draining most of the lake in a matter of days. . . . the floods can be immensely powerful, leaving behind 'sand plains' that stretch for kilometre after kilometre all the way to the coast.
Alexandra Witze & Jeff Kanipe, Island on Fire: The Extraordinary Story of a Forgotten Volcano That Changed the World (New York: Island Books, 2015), ch. 2, p. 59, Kindle loc 662

February 18, 2019
MaryW commented on the word seastead

From the Seasteading Institute's FAQs:
What does seasteading mean?
The term comes from homesteading, which means making a home for oneself in new, uninhabited places. It generally has associations with self-sufficiency and a frontier lifestyle. Seasteading is reminiscent of that idea, but at sea.
. . .
What do you call a seastead?
We generally refer to a seastead as a community living at sea and largely responsible for setting its own rules and culture. They will likely come in all shapes and sizes. Early seasteads are expected to be near land and have less autonomy.

February 14, 2019
MaryW commented on the word tourist eruption

'The story of Eyjafjallajökull began uneventfully with what Icelanders call a 'tourist' eruption, one that's scenic but not very dangerous.
Alexandra Witze & Jeff Kanipe, Island on Fire: The Extraordinary Story of a Forgotten Volcano That Changed the World (New York: Island Books, 2015), ch. 2, Kindle loc 622
Eyjafjallajökull finally roared to life on 20 March. Fire fountains exploded out of a rocky ridge just east of the mountain's ice-covered summit. It was one of the prettiest eruptions in years. During the day, the dusky light of a northern spring noon highlighted the spectacular orange bursts, while at night the cool green glow of the northern lights shimmered overhead. . . .
Icelanders call this sort of event a 'tourist eruption', and enterprising operators quickly started running daily trips from Reykjavík.
Id., ch. 9, Kindle loc 2245

February 10, 2019
MaryW commented on the word mantle plume

In a mantle plume, a jet of volcanic heat fuels a constant, massive outpouring of lava on the seafloor. Scientists think that a few dozen mantle plumes dot the planet, of which the Hawaiian Islands are the most famous example.
Alexandra Witze & Jeff Kanipe, Island on Fire: The Extraordinary Story of a Forgotten Volcano That Changed the World (New York: Island Books, 2015), ch. 2, Kindle loc 509

February 10, 2019
MaryW commented on the word geopoetry

Harry Hess of Princeton revived Wegener's ideas. . . . In 1962 he published what he called an 'essay in geopoetry', written two years earlier. It proposed that heat churning through the Earth's mantle might be responsible for the movement of the plates.
Alexandra Witze & Jeff Kanipe, Island on Fire: The Extraordinary Story of a Forgotten Volcano That Changed the World (New York: Island Books, 2015), ch. 2, Kindle loc 454

February 10, 2019
MaryW commented on the word Pele's hair

Cinders fell from the sky on the 14th. They were, Jón (Steingrímsson) wrote, 'blue-black and shiny, as long and thick around as a seal's hair'. This was the first description of what volcanologists today refer to as Pele's hair—thin strands of volcanic glass formed by molten particles ejected in a lava fountain and stretched into fibres as they are carried through the air. Just half a millimetre across, they may be as long as two metres. The unusual fallout covered the ground across the region, and the winds worked some of the hairs into long hollow coils.
Alexandra Witze & Jeff Kanipe, Island on Fire: The Extraordinary Story of a Forgotten Volcano That Changed the World (New York: Island Books, 2015), ch. 1, Kindle loc 357

February 10, 2019
MaryW commented on the word pig-nut

pignut

February 10, 2019
MaryW commented on the word doit

small coin:
"There ain't a thing left here," said Merry, still feeling round among the bones, "not a copper doit nor a baccy box."
Robert Louis Stevenson, Treasure Island (1883), ch. 31

February 10, 2019
MaryW commented on the word holus bolus

adv. all at once Merriam-Webster
"I'll take it on my shoulders, holus bolus, blame and shame, my boy; but stay here, I cannot let you."
Robert Louis Stevenson, Treasure Island (1883), ch. 30

February 10, 2019
MaryW commented on the word kelson

"the whole blessed boat, from cross-trees to kelson."
Robert Louis Stevenson, Treasure Island (1883), ch. 28

February 10, 2019
MaryW commented on the word gall

to irritate or cause pain
I went below and did what I could for my wound; it pained me a good deal and still bled freely, but it was neither deep nor dangerous, nor did it greatly gall me when I used my arm.
Robert Louis Stevenson, Treasure Island (1883), ch. 27

February 10, 2019
MaryW commented on the word cat's-paw

In the sense of ripples on the water:
"Now," said Hands,"look there; there's a pet bit for to beach a ship in. Fine flat sand, never a cat's paw, trees all around of it, and flowers a-blowing like a garding (garden) on that old ship."
Robert Louis Stevenson, Treasure Island (1883), ch. 26

February 10, 2019
MaryW commented on the word gully

knife:
One cut with my sea-gully and the HISPANIOLA would go humming down the tide.
Robert Louis Stevenson, Treasure Island (1883), ch. 23

February 10, 2019
MaryW commented on the word gallipot

the little gallipot of a boat that we were in was gravely overloaded.
Robert Louis Stevenson, Treasure Island (1883), ch. 17

February 10, 2019
MaryW commented on the word warp

Nautical sense:
We had a dreary morning's work before us, for there was no sign of any wind, and the boats had to be got out and manned and the ship warped three or four miles round the corner of the island and up the narrow passage to the haven behind Skeleton Island.
Robert Louis Stevenson, Treasure Island (1883), ch. 13

February 10, 2019
MaryW commented on the word gentleman of fortune

"Here it is about gentlemen of fortune. They lives rough, and they risk swinging,, but they eat and drink like fighting-cocks, and when a cruise is done, why, it's hundreds of pounds instead of hundreds of farthings in their pockets. . . .
"a finer figurehead for a gentleman of fortune I never clapped my eyes on."
By this time I had begun to understand the meaning of their terms. By a "gentleman of fortune" they plainly meant neither more nor less than a common pirate . . . .
Robert Louis Stevenson, Treasure Island (1883), ch. 11

February 10, 2019
MaryW commented on the word bumboat

"how long are we a-going to stand off and on like a blessed bumboat?"
Robert Louis Stevenson, Treasure Island (1883), ch. 11

February 10, 2019
MaryW commented on the word deadlight

In Treasure Island (Robert Louis Stevenson, 1883), the pirates use "deadlights" to mean "eyes."
"The same broadside I lost my leg, old Pew lost his deadlights." -- ch. 11
"I saw him dead with these here deadlights." -- ch. 31

February 10, 2019
MaryW commented on the word parrot

"Now treasure is ticklish work; I don't like treasure voyages on any account, and I don't like them above all, when they are secret and when (begging your pardon, Mr. Trelawney) the secret has been told to the parrot."
"Silver's parrot?" asked the squire.
"It's a way of speaking," said the captain. "Blabbed, I mean."
Robert Louis Stevenson, Treasure Island (1883), ch. 9

February 10, 2019
MaryW commented on the word poll

"hair" meaning:
the doctor, as if to hear the better, had taken off his powdered wig and sat there looking very strange indeed with his own close-cropped black poll.
Robert Louis Stevenson, Treasure Island (1883), ch. 6

February 10, 2019
MaryW commented on the word state of smash

I went back with him to the Admiral Benbow, and you cannot imagine a house in such a state of smash; the very clock had been thrown down by these fellows in their furious hunt after my mother and myself; and though nothing had actually been taken away except the captain's money-bag and a little silver from the till, I could see at once that we were ruined.
Robert Louis Stevenson, Treasure Island (1883), ch. 5

February 10, 2019
MaryW commented on the word smash

I went back with him to the Admiral Benbow, and you cannot imagine a house in such a state of smash; the very clock had been thrown down by these fellows in their furious hunt after my mother and myself; and though nothing had actually been taken away except the captain's money-bag and a little silver from the till, I could see at once that we were ruined.
Robert Louis Stevenson, Treasure Island (1883), ch. 5

February 10, 2019
MaryW commented on the word teetotum

Merry tumbled head foremost into the excavation; the man with the bandage spun round like a teetotum and fell all his length upon his side, where he lay dead, but still twitching; and the other three turned and ran for it with all their might.
Robert Louis Stevenson, Treasure Island (1883), ch. 33

February 10, 2019
MaryW commented on the word hotep

}”Don’t assume that everyone knows what a hotep is,” he told a student who had written about an encounter at a barbershop with an exemplar of the type, a man whose Afrocentrism was mixed with regressive sanctimony. “Hoteps are pro-black but anti-progress,” James explained to the class. “They’re stunningly sexist. Your favorite rapper is probably a hotep. He also might be gay.”
Jia Tolentino,The Book of Spirits, New Yorker (Jan. 28, 2019) (quoting Marlon James)

February 8, 2019
MaryW commented on the word aquamation

In Australia, one company recently started selling a greener alternative. Aquamation Industries claims to offer a unique, cheaper, more carbon-neutral method of body disposal. Aquamation employs a process called alkaline hydrolysis, in which a body is placed in a stainless-steel vat containing a 200°F (93°C) potassium-hydroxide-and-water solution for four hours until all that remains is the skeleton. The bones, which are soft at that point, are then crushed and presented to the deceased's family. The residual liquid contains no DNA, and the procedure uses only 5% to 10% of the energy that cremation uses, says John Humphries, a former funeral-home director who is now the chief executive of Aquamation Industries, which launched its services in August. According to Humphries, Aquamation accelerates the processes that occur in nature.
Marina Kamenev, Aquamation: A Greener Alternative to Cremation?, Time (September. 28, 2010)

February 7, 2019
MaryW commented on the word lyra

The other night, Feeley hosted one of her last lessons on the trapeze rigging in her apartment. Her student was Violet Oliphant O’Neill, an artist who paints large-scale backdrops for photographers. Feeley sat inside the steel hoop, called a lyra, in a black onesie with a skeleton design.
Gabriel Packard, Little Big Top, New Yorker (Jan. 28, 2019)

February 4, 2019
MaryW commented on the word scary Mary

"Yeah. So that was a bit spinny!" she tells me with classic understatement. Be clear. When Sandra says that something was "a bit spinny" or "freaky" or "eerie," or "a bit of a rocky road" or "scary Mary," what she means is that a pit cracked open beneath her feet, dropping her straight into the liquid center of the earth."
Sarah Krasnostein, The Trauma Cleaner: One Woman's Extraordinary Life in the Business of Death, Decay, and Disaster (New York: St. Martin's Press, 2017), ch. 15
(The speaker is Australian.)

January 28, 2019
MaryW commented on the word rocky road

"Yeah. So that was a bit spinny!" she tells me with classic understatement. Be clear. When Sandra says that something was "a bit spinny" or "freaky" or "eerie," or "a bit of a rocky road" or "scary Mary," what she means is that a pit cracked open beneath her feet, dropping her straight into the liquid center of the earth."
Sarah Krasnostein, The Trauma Cleaner: One Woman's Extraordinary Life in the Business of Death, Decay, and Disaster (New York: St. Martin's Press, 2017), ch. 15
(The speaker is Australian.)

January 28, 2019
MaryW commented on the word spinny

"Yeah. So that was a bit spinny!" she tells me with classic understatement. Be clear. When Sandra says that something was "a bit spinny" or "freaky" or "eerie," or "a bit of a rocky road" or "scary Mary," what she means is that a pit cracked open beneath her feet, dropping her straight into the liquid center of the earth."
Sarah Krasnostein, The Trauma Cleaner: One Woman's Extraordinary Life in the Business of Death, Decay, and Disaster (New York: St. Martin's Press, 2017), ch. 15
(The speaker is Australian.)

January 28, 2019
MaryW commented on the word scrutineer

After the polls close, she stays up drinking scotch with the television turned up, trying to stay away from the phone while the votes are being counted. An early tip from the scrutineers has her in the lead, but the official call comes in at midnight. She has lost the seat by a small margin.
Sarah Krasnostein, The Trauma Cleaner: One Woman's Extraordinary Life in the Business of Death, Decay, and Disaster (New York: St. Martin's Press, 2017), ch. 15
(The events take place in Australia. I've never heard this term in the US.)

January 28, 2019
MaryW commented on the word shit-carter

"They still had the shit-carters in those days, because you didn't have sewerage," Sandra adds. "That's where the old saying comes from: as flat as a shit-carter's hat."
"I think ours used to carry it on his shoulder, Marilyn muses.
Sarah Krasnostein, The Trauma Cleaner: One Woman's Extraordinary Life in the Business of Death, Decay, and Disaster (New York: St. Martin's Press, 2017), ch. 14

January 28, 2019
MaryW commented on the word deliquesce

Marilyn vigorously motions to the cleaner to hand over a plastic bag full of deliquescing apples and oranges extracted from the bathroom.
Sarah Krasnostein, The Trauma Cleaner: One Woman's Extraordinary Life in the Business of Death, Decay, and Disaster (New York: St. Martin's Press, 2017), ch. 14

January 28, 2019
MaryW commented on the word trauma cleaner

Most people will never turn their minds to the notion of trauma cleaning, but once they realize that it exists—that it obviously has to—they will probably be surprised to learn that the police do not do trauma cleanup. Neither do firefighters or ambulances or other emergency services. This is why Sandra's trauma work is varied and includes crime scenes, floods, and fires. In addition, government housing and mental health agencies, real estate agents, community organizations, executors of deceased estates, and private individuals all call on Sandra to deal with unattended deaths, suicides, or cases of long-term property neglect where homes have, in her words, "fallen into disrepute" due to the occupier's mental illness, aging, or physical disability.
Sarah Krasnostein, The Trauma Cleaner: One Woman's Extraordinary Life in the Business of Death, Decay, and Disaster (New York: St. Martin's Press, 2017), ch. 1
On the surface, trauma cleaning as a career may have a darkly attractive quirkiness, but the reality is that it is dirty, disturbing, backbreaking physical labor of transcendentally exhausting proportions.
Id., ch. 8.

January 28, 2019
MaryW commented on the word trauma cleaning

Most people will never turn their minds to the notion of trauma cleaning, but once they realize that it exists—that it obviously has to—they will probably be surprised to learn that the police do not do trauma cleanup. Neither do firefighters or ambulances or other emergency services. This is why Sandra's trauma work is varied and includes crime scenes, floods, and fires. In addition, government housing and mental health agencies, real estate agents, community organizations, executors of deceased estates, and private individuals all call on Sandra to deal with unattended deaths, suicides, or cases of long-term property neglect where homes have, in her words, "fallen into disrepute" due to the occupier's mental illness, aging, or physical disability.
Sarah Krasnostein, The Trauma Cleaner: One Woman's Extraordinary Life in the Business of Death, Decay, and Disaster (New York: St. Martin's Press, 2017), ch. 1
On the surface, trauma cleaning as a career may have a darkly attractive quirkiness, but the reality is that it is dirty, disturbing, backbreaking physical labor of transcendentally exhausting proportions.
Id., ch. 8.

January 28, 2019
MaryW commented on the word fog computing

Both cloud computing and fog computing provide storage, applications, and data to end-users. However, fog computing has a closer proximity to end-users and bigger geographical distribution.23
Cloud Computing – the practice of using a network of remote servers hosted on the Internet to store, manage, and process data, rather than a local server or a personal computer.24 Cloud Computing can be a heavyweight and dense form of computing power.citation needed
Fog computing – a term created by Cisco that refers to extending cloud computing to the edge of an enterprise's network. Also known as Edge Computing or fogging, fog computing facilitates the operation of compute, storage, and networking services between end devices and cloud computing data centers. While edge computing is typically referred to the location where services are instantiated, fog computing implies distribution of the communication, computation, and storage resources and services on or close to devices and systems in the control of end-users.25 26 Fog computing is a medium weight and intermediate level of computing power27. Rather than a substitute, fog computing often serves as a complement to cloud computing.28
Mist computing – a lightweight and rudimentarycitation needed form of computing power that resides directly within the network fabric at the extreme edge of the network fabric using microcomputers and microcontrollers to feed into Fog Computing nodes and potentially onward towards the Cloud Computing platforms.29
National Institute of Standards and Technology in March, 2018 released a definition of the Fog computing adopting much of Cisco's commercial terminology as NIST Special Publication 500-325, Fog Computing Conceptual Model that defines Fog computing as an horizontal, physical or virtual resource paradigm that resides between smart end-devices and traditional cloud computing or data center. This paradigm supports vertically-isolated, latency-sensitive applications by providing ubiquitous, scalable, layered, federated, and distributed computing, storage, and network connectivity. Thus Fog Computing is most distinguished by distance from the Edge. Fog Computing is physically and functionally intermediate between Edge nodes and centralized Clouds. Much of the terminology is not defined including key architectural terms like "smart" and the distinction between Fog Computing from Edge Computing does not have generally agreed acceptance.
Fog Computing, Wikipedia (visited Jan. 11, 2019
Fog computing is a term for an alternative to cloud computing that puts some kinds of transactions and resources at the edge of a network, rather than establishing channels for cloud storage and utilization. Proponents of fog computing argue that it can reduce the need for bandwidth by not sending every bit of information over cloud channels, and instead aggregating it at certain access points, such as routers. This allows for a more strategic compilation of data that may not be needed in cloud storage right away, if at all. By using this kind of distributed strategy, project managers can lower costs and improve efficiencies.
Fox Computing, Technopedia (visited Jan. 11, 2019)

January 12, 2019
MaryW commented on the word femtocell

Femtocell, Wikipedia
Femtocell, Technopedia

January 12, 2019
MaryW commented on the word MOB

Thanks to minimum railing heights of one meter (39 inches) and other structural barriers, CLIA Cruise Lines International Association) insists that man-overboard incidents (known in the industry as MOBs) are only “a result of an intentional or reckless act” and there are “no known cases of someone acting responsibly who has accidentally fallen over the railing of a cruise ship.”
Rosie Spinks, People Fall off Cruise Ships with Alarming Regularity. Can Anything Be Done to Stop It?, Quartz (Dec. 17, 2018)

December 18, 2018
MaryW commented on the word ghosting

A number of contacts said that they had been "ghosted," a situation in which a worker stops coming to work without notice and then is impossible to contact.
Federal Reserve Board Beige Book - Dec. 5, 2018
National data on economic “ghosting” is lacking. The term, which usually applies to dating, first surfaced in 2016 on Dictionary.com. But companies across the country say silent exits are on the rise.
. . .
Some employees are simply young and restless, said James Cooper, former manager of the Old Faithful Inn at Yellowstone Park, where he said people ghosted regularly.
A few of his staffers were college students who lived in park dormitories for the summer.
“My favorite,” he said, “was a kid who left a note on the floor in his dorm room that said ‘sorry bros, had to ghost.’ ”
Danielle Paqquette, Workers Are Ghosting Their Employers Like Bad Dates, Wash. Post (Dec. 12, 2018)

December 18, 2018
MaryW commented on the word ghosted

A number of contacts said that they had been "ghosted," a situation in which a worker stops coming to work without notice and then is impossible to contact.
Federal Reserve Board Beige Book - Dec. 5, 2018
National data on economic “ghosting” is lacking. The term, which usually applies to dating, first surfaced in 2016 on Dictionary.com. But companies across the country say silent exits are on the rise.
. . .
Some employees are simply young and restless, said James Cooper, former manager of the Old Faithful Inn at Yellowstone Park, where he said people ghosted regularly.
A few of his staffers were college students who lived in park dormitories for the summer.
“My favorite,” he said, “was a kid who left a note on the floor in his dorm room that said ‘sorry bros, had to ghost.’ ”
Danielle Paqquette, Workers Are Ghosting Their Employers Like Bad Dates, Wash. Post (Dec. 12, 2018)

December 17, 2018
MaryW commented on the word ghost

A number of contacts said that they had been "ghosted," a situation in which a worker stops coming to work without notice and then is impossible to contact.
Federal Reserve Board Beige Book - Dec. 5, 2018
National data on economic “ghosting” is lacking. The term, which usually applies to dating, first surfaced in 2016 on Dictionary.com. But companies across the country say silent exits are on the rise.
. . .
Some employees are simply young and restless, said James Cooper, former manager of the Old Faithful Inn at Yellowstone Park, where he said people ghosted regularly.
A few of his staffers were college students who lived in park dormitories for the summer.
“My favorite,” he said, “was a kid who left a note on the floor in his dorm room that said ‘sorry bros, had to ghost.’ ”
Danielle Paqquette, Workers Are Ghosting Their Employers Like Bad Dates, Wash. Post (Dec. 12, 2018)

December 17, 2018
MaryW commented on the word murderabilia

The underworld of true crime enthusiasts is a dark and creepy place. Foot scrapings, broken TVs, pubic hair and even penis tracings - it's all for sale, as long as it's connected to a crime or a notorious killer.
. . .
Although Mullins is just a collector, the industry built up around selling this so-called murderabilia is booming, aided in part by the ease of internet sales . . ..
Keri Blakinger, A Look at the Weirdest and Creepiest Murderabilia, Houston Chronicle (July 10, 2017)

December 14, 2018
MaryW commented on the word cannabiculture

cannabis + agriculture
Ryan B. Stoa, Marijuana Appellations: The Case for Cannabicultural Designations of Origin, 11 Harv. L. & Pol'y Rev. 513-539 (2017)

December 14, 2018
MaryW commented on the word cannibicultural

cannabis + agricultural
Ryan B. Stoa, Marijuana Appellations: The Case for Cannabicultural Designations of Origin, 11 Harv. L. & Pol'y Rev. 513-539 (2017)

December 14, 2018
MaryW commented on the word white tears

Talking about race is hard. It often involves hurt feelings and misunderstandings. And the words and phrases we use can either push those conversations forward or bring them to a standstill. One such term: white tears.
The phrase has been used to gently tease white people who get upset at things they think threaten their white privilege. It's been used to poke fun at white people who think that talking about race makes you a racist. Or that Barack Obama's presidency marked the end of America. Or that it's a crime against humanity when a formerly white character is portrayed, or rumored to be portrayed, by a person of color.
Leah Donnella, When the 'White Tears' Just Keep Coming, Morning Edition (NPR) (Nov. 28, 2018)

November 29, 2018
MaryW commented on the word citizen science

Scientific research that involves nonscientists contributing to research processes – also known as ‘citizen science’ – supports participants’ learning, engages the public in science, contributes to community scientific literacy, and can serve as a valuable tool to facilitate larger scale research, says a new report from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. If one of the goals of a citizen science project is to advance learning, designers should plan for it by defining intended learning outcomes and using evidence-based strategies to reach those outcomes.
New Report Says ‘Citizen Science’ Can Support Both Science Learning and Research Goals; Inequities in Education, Opportunities, and Resources Must be Addressed to Meet Participants’ Learning Demands, National Academies of Science, Engineering, Medicine press release (Nov. 1, 2018)

November 15, 2018
MaryW commented on the word E-Carceration

Many of the current reform efforts contain the seeds of the next generation of racial and social control, a system of “e-carceration” that may prove more dangerous and more difficult to challenge than the one we hope to leave behind.
Michelle Alexander, The Newest Jim Crow, N.Y. Times (Nov. 8, 2018)
E-Carceration is the use of technology to deprive people of their liberty. Electronic monitors combined with house arrest represent the most obvious and likely the most punitive form of E-Carceration. Typically the state, usually via the criminal legal system, enforces E-Carceration. But corporations are also getting into the act by charging fees for repressive regimes of parole and probation which often include monitors. If we don’t resist, E-Carceration may be the successor to mass incarceration as we exchange prison cells for being confined in our own homes and communities.
What Is E-Carceration?, Challenging E-Carceration: The Voice of the Monitored (2017)

November 14, 2018
MaryW commented on the word e-carceration

Many of the current reform efforts contain the seeds of the next generation of racial and social control, a system of “e-carceration” that may prove more dangerous and more difficult to challenge than the one we hope to leave behind.
Michelle Alexander, The Newest Jim Crow, N.Y. Times (Nov. 8, 2018)
E-Carceration is the use of technology to deprive people of their liberty. Electronic monitors combined with house arrest represent the most obvious and likely the most punitive form of E-Carceration. Typically the state, usually via the criminal legal system, enforces E-Carceration. But corporations are also getting into the act by charging fees for repressive regimes of parole and probation which often include monitors. If we don’t resist, E-Carceration may be the successor to mass incarceration as we exchange prison cells for being confined in our own homes and communities.
What Is E-Carceration?, Challenging E-Carceration: The Voice of the Monitored (2017)

November 14, 2018
MaryW commented on the word wildland-urban interface

Well, we shouldn't overlook one important factor, which is many more human beings are moving into the woods.
There are now 100 million Americans who live in what is known as the wildland-urban interface, or the WUI, as researchers call it.
The science behind California’s surging wildfires, PBS NewsHour, Niv. 13, 2018

November 14, 2018
MaryW commented on the word wildland urban interface

Well, we shouldn't overlook one important factor, which is many more human beings are moving into the woods.
There are now 100 million Americans who live in what is known as the wildland-urban interface, or the WUI, as researchers call it.
The science behind California’s surging wildfires, PBS NewsHour, Niv. 13, 2018

November 14, 2018
MaryW commented on the word factoryless goods production

This paper evaluates the U.S. Census Bureau’s most recent data collection efforts to classify business entities that engage in an extreme form of production fragmentation called “factoryless” goods production. “Factoryless” goods-producing entities outsource physical transformation activities while retaining ownership of the intellectual property and control of sales to customers. Responses to a special inquiry on the incidence of purchases of contract manufacturing services in combination with data on production inputs and outputs, intellectual property, and international trade is used to identify and document characteristics of “factoryless” firms in the U.S. economy.
Fariha Kamal,
A Portrait of U.S. Factoryless Goods Producers
, NBER Working Paper No. 25193 (Oct. 2018)

November 7, 2018
MaryW commented on the word factoryless

This paper evaluates the U.S. Census Bureau’s most recent data collection efforts to classify business entities that engage in an extreme form of production fragmentation called “factoryless” goods production. “Factoryless” goods-producing entities outsource physical transformation activities while retaining ownership of the intellectual property and control of sales to customers. Responses to a special inquiry on the incidence of purchases of contract manufacturing services in combination with data on production inputs and outputs, intellectual property, and international trade is used to identify and document characteristics of “factoryless” firms in the U.S. economy.
Fariha Kamal, A Portrait of U.S. Factoryless Goods Producers, NBER Working Paper No. 25193 (Oct. 2018)

November 7, 2018
MaryW commented on the word gypstack

Phosphogypsum stacks, also known as gypstacks, are mountains of waste left over from fertilizer production. Some of that waste is radon and uranium.
The EPA says that it's too radioactive to be buried, so it's piled in these stacks. There are 25 of these things in Florida, and they're some of the highest points in the state.
Laura Newberry, Battle over phosphate mining roils small Fla. town, PBS Newshour (Oct. 31, 2018)

November 1, 2018
MaryW commented on the word Phosphogypsum stack

Phosphogypsum stacks, also known as gypstacks, are mountains of waste left over from fertilizer production. Some of that waste is radon and uranium.
The EPA says that it's too radioactive to be buried, so it's piled in these stacks. There are 25 of these things in Florida, and they're some of the highest points in the state.
Laura Newberry, Battle over phosphate mining roils small Fla. town, PBS Newshour (Oct. 31, 2018)

November 1, 2018
MaryW commented on the word meteotsunami

Seiches and meteotsunamis. What's the difference?
Seiches and meteotsunamis are often grouped together, but they are two different events. Winds and atmospheric pressure can contribute to the formation of both seiches and meteotsunamis; however, winds are typically more important to a seiche motion, while pressure often plays a substantial role in meteotsunami formation. Sometimes a seiche and a meteotsunami can even occur at the same time. Seiches are standing waves with longer periods of water-level oscillations (typically exceeding periods of three or more hours), whereas meteotsunamis are progressive waves limited to the tsunami frequency band of wave periods (two minutes to two hours). Seiches are usually limited to partially or fully enclosed basins, such as Lake Erie. Meteotsunamis can occur in such basins but are also prevalent on the open coast. A single meteotsunami can travel long distances and influence a very large range of the coastline.
What Is a Seiche?, NOAA
Meteotsunamis are large waves that scientists are just beginning to better understand. Unlike tsunamis triggered by seismic activity, meteotsunamis are driven by air-pressure disturbances often associated with fast-moving weather events, such as severe thunderstorms, squalls, and other storm fronts. The storm generates a wave that moves towards the shore, and is amplified by a shallow continental shelf and inlet, bay, or other coastal feature.
Meteotsunamis have been observed to reach heights of 6 feet or more. They occur in many places around the world, including the Great Lakes, Gulf of Mexico, Atlantic Coast, and the Mediterranean and Adriatic Seas.
What Is a Meteotsunami?, NOAA

October 30, 2018
MaryW commented on the word seiche

What Is a Seiche?, NOAA
Seiches and meteotsunamis. What's the difference?
Seiches and meteotsunamis are often grouped together, but they are two different events. Winds and atmospheric pressure can contribute to the formation of both seiches and meteotsunamis; however, winds are typically more important to a seiche motion, while pressure often plays a substantial role in meteotsunami formation. Sometimes a seiche and a meteotsunami can even occur at the same time. Seiches are standing waves with longer periods of water-level oscillations (typically exceeding periods of three or more hours), whereas meteotsunamis are progressive waves limited to the tsunami frequency band of wave periods (two minutes to two hours). Seiches are usually limited to partially or fully enclosed basins, such as Lake Erie. Meteotsunamis can occur in such basins but are also prevalent on the open coast. A single meteotsunami can travel long distances and influence a very large range of the coastline.
Id.

October 30, 2018
MaryW commented on the word patent box

A "patent box" is a term for the application of a lower corporate tax rate to the income derived from the ownership of patents. This tax subsidy instrument has been introduced in a number of countries since 2000.
Fabian Gaessler et al., Should There Be Lower Taxes on Patent Income?, NBER Working Paper No. 24843 (July 2018)

October 24, 2018
MaryW commented on the word circle

Holacracy is a comprehensively designed internal management system that has received significant attention for its adoption at Zappos, Medium, and other tech companies. Holacracy replaces the internal firm hierarchy with a governance process that looks, in many ways, like a constitutional democracy. However, holacracy has a nomenclature all its own. CEOs hand over their power to a system of governance “circles”--teams that are assigned specific management responsibilities. These teams have the power to design and refine corporate policy within their jurisdictions. There is no overarching hierarchy to make ultimate decisions or overrule teams; instead, there is generally one ultimate governance circle--representing the entire organization--that has the final authority. The circles manage the assignment of roles to workers and oversee their performance. Ultimately, holacracy is a combination of democratic republic, Quaker meetinghouse, and tech-speak: the system is structured to encourage participation by all employees in governance through a carefully designed set of roles and opportunities.
Matthew T. Bodie, Holacracy and the Law, 42 Del. J. Corp. L. 621-22 (2018) (footnotes omitted)

October 22, 2018
MaryW commented on the word governance circle

Holacracy is a comprehensively designed internal management system that has received significant attention for its adoption at Zappos, Medium, and other tech companies. Holacracy replaces the internal firm hierarchy with a governance process that looks, in many ways, like a constitutional democracy. However, holacracy has a nomenclature all its own. CEOs hand over their power to a system of governance “circles”--teams that are assigned specific management responsibilities. These teams have the power to design and refine corporate policy within their jurisdictions. There is no overarching hierarchy to make ultimate decisions or overrule teams; instead, there is generally one ultimate governance circle--representing the entire organization--that has the final authority. The circles manage the assignment of roles to workers and oversee their performance. Ultimately, holacracy is a combination of democratic republic, Quaker meetinghouse, and tech-speak: the system is structured to encourage participation by all employees in governance through a carefully designed set of roles and opportunities.
Matthew T. Bodie, Holacracy and the Law, 42 Del. J. Corp. L. 621-22 (2018) (footnotes omitted)

October 22, 2018
MaryW commented on the word holacracy

Holacracy is a comprehensively designed internal management system that has received significant attention for its adoption at Zappos, Medium, and other tech companies. Holacracy replaces the internal firm hierarchy with a governance process that looks, in many ways, like a constitutional democracy. However, holacracy has a nomenclature all its own. CEOs hand over their power to a system of governance “circles”--teams that are assigned specific management responsibilities. These teams have the power to design and refine corporate policy within their jurisdictions. There is no overarching hierarchy to make ultimate decisions or overrule teams; instead, there is generally one ultimate governance circle--representing the entire organization--that has the final authority. The circles manage the assignment of roles to workers and oversee their performance. Ultimately, holacracy is a combination of democratic republic, Quaker meetinghouse, and tech-speak: the system is structured to encourage participation by all employees in governance through a carefully designed set of roles and opportunities.
Matthew T. Bodie, Holacracy and the Law, 42 Del. J. Corp. L. 621-22 (2018) (footnotes omitted)

October 22, 2018
MaryW commented on the word sniff test

The increasing demand for rigor in empirical economics has led to the growing use of auxiliary tests (balance, specification, over-identification, placebo, etc.) supporting the credibility of a paper's main results. We dub these "sniff tests" because standards for passing are subjective and rejection is bad news for the author. Sniff tests offer a new window into publication bias since authors prefer them to be insignificant, the reverse of standard statistical tests.
Christopher Snyder & Ran Zhuo, Values and Implications for Publication Bias (Sept. 2018) (abstract)

October 5, 2018
MaryW commented on the word no-poach provision

No-poach provisions appear in lengthy franchise agreements that owners of fast-food franchises sign with corporate headquarters. Consequently, employees are generally unaware the provisions even exist. In effect, the provisions prohibit employees from moving among restaurants of the same corporate chain ― for example, prohibiting one Little Caesars employee from accepting employment from another Little Caesars franchise location for higher pay.
Because employees cannot move to another location within their corporate brand, their current location has less incentive to give them raises.
Press Release, AG Ferguson Secures End ot No-Poach Provisions at Eight More Restaurant Chains Nationwide (Sept. 13, 2018)

October 5, 2018
MaryW commented on the word no-poach

No-poach provisions appear in lengthy franchise agreements that owners of fast-food franchises sign with corporate headquarters. Consequently, employees are generally unaware the provisions even exist. In effect, the provisions prohibit employees from moving among restaurants of the same corporate chain ― for example, prohibiting one Little Caesars employee from accepting employment from another Little Caesars franchise location for higher pay.
Because employees cannot move to another location within their corporate brand, their current location has less incentive to give them raises.
Press Release, AG Ferguson Secures End ot No-Poach Provisions at Eight More Restaurant Chains Nationwide (Sept. 13, 2018)

October 5, 2018
MaryW commented on the word chopmeat

The second week, Winer let him cut meat from bones and cut up scrap meat and grind it into hamburger, which was called chopmeat in the neighborhood.
Betty Smith, Maggie-Now (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1958), pp. 382-83. (The setting is Brooklyn shortly after World War I.)

September 11, 2018
MaryW commented on the word toot

Denny was making soup greens. He walked along the bins, taking a wrinkled carrot, an outside stalk leaf of celery, pinched with wilt at the top, a tomato with a soft spot and a sprig of parsley. He put these in a twist of paper called a toot. When he had enough toots filled, he wrote a sign on a paper bag: Sale on Soup Greens. Only 5¢.
Betty Smith, Maggie-Now (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1958), p. 381 (The setting is Brooklyn, a few years after World War I.)

September 11, 2018
MaryW commented on the word yeomanette

Before the war, women' had worked as factory hands, store clerks, waitresses, telephone operators, typists, cashiers, housemaids and so forth . . .
Now, most all jobs were open to them. They worked as trolley-car conductors, operated elevators, drew beer, worked milk delivery routes, replaced men in the post offices, wor cute uniforms and worked down at the Brooklyn Navy Yard and were called yeomanettes. Men stopped giving them their seats in the subways.
Betty Smith, Maggie-Now (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1958), p. 256 ("The war" is World War I.)

September 11, 2018
MaryW commented on the word shape

It was always a warm, sunny day with a sweet-smelling wind around the next corner. When Maggie-Now went to the baker's for the morning buns, there was usually a customer there who confided to the bakery woman: "I'm going to the cemetery in my shape today." That meant it was warm enough to go without a coat.
Maggie-Now and her mother went to the cemetery in their shapes.
Betty Smith, Maggie-Now (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1958), p. 107 (The setting is Brooklyn, before World War I.)

September 11, 2018
MaryW commented on the word poly-reader

There isn't even an agreed upon term for multi-book readers. There are bibliophiles — lovers of books. There are bibliotaphs — hoarders of books, with the intent of keeping the books out of the hands of others. There's even a word for people who like to read in bed — librocubicularist. But no succinct way of summing up the act of reading more than one book at at time.
But that doesn't mean the internet hasn't tried to come up with a term on their own. I've seen "parallel readers" (recently suggested in a Quora forum). "Polynarritivus," from a Bookstr article last year. And "poly-reader," from a 2010 NPR piece.
Maddy Foley, How to Read More Than One Book at a Time, According to Reddit Users Who Do It, Bustle (Sept. 6, 2018)

September 11, 2018
MaryW commented on the word polynarritivus

There isn't even an agreed upon term for multi-book readers. There are bibliophiles — lovers of books. There are bibliotaphs — hoarders of books, with the intent of keeping the books out of the hands of others. There's even a word for people who like to read in bed — librocubicularist. But no succinct way of summing up the act of reading more than one book at at time.
But that doesn't mean the internet hasn't tried to come up with a term on their own. I've seen "parallel readers" (recently suggested in a Quora forum). "Polynarritivus," from a Bookstr article last year. And "poly-reader," from a 2010 NPR piece.
Maddy Foley, How to Read More Than One Book at a Time, According to Reddit Users Who Do It, Bustle (Sept. 6, 2018)

September 11, 2018
MaryW commented on the word parallel reader

There isn't even an agreed upon term for multi-book readers. There are bibliophiles — lovers of books. There are bibliotaphs — hoarders of books, with the intent of keeping the books out of the hands of others. There's even a word for people who like to read in bed — librocubicularist. But no succinct way of summing up the act of reading more than one book at at time.
But that doesn't mean the internet hasn't tried to come up with a term on their own. I've seen "parallel readers" (recently suggested in a Quora forum). "Polynarritivus," from a Bookstr article last year. And "poly-reader," from a 2010 NPR piece.
Maddy Foley, How to Read More Than One Book at a Time, According to Reddit Users Who Do It, Bustle (Sept. 6, 2018)

September 11, 2018
MaryW commented on the word librocubicularist

There isn't even an agreed upon term for multi-book readers. There are bibliophiles — lovers of books. There are bibliotaphs — hoarders of books, with the intent of keeping the books out of the hands of others. There's even a word for people who like to read in bed — librocubicularist. But no succinct way of summing up the act of reading more than one book at at time.
But that doesn't mean the internet hasn't tried to come up with a term on their own. I've seen "parallel readers" (recently suggested in a Quora forum). "Polynarritivus," from a Bookstr article last year. And "poly-reader," from a 2010 NPR piece.
Maddy Foley, How to Read More Than One Book at a Time, According to Reddit Users Who Do It, Bustle (Sept. 6, 2018)

September 11, 2018
MaryW commented on the word bibliotaph

There isn't even an agreed upon term for multi-book readers. There are bibliophiles — lovers of books. There are bibliotaphs — hoarders of books, with the intent of keeping the books out of the hands of others. There's even a word for people who like to read in bed — librocubicularist. But no succinct way of summing up the act of reading more than one book at at time.
But that doesn't mean the internet hasn't tried to come up with a term on their own. I've seen "parallel readers" (recently suggested in a Quora forum). "Polynarritivus," from a Bookstr article last year. And "poly-reader," from a 2010 NPR piece.
Maddy Foley, How to Read More Than One Book at a Time, According to Reddit Users Who Do It, Bustle (Sept. 6, 2018)

September 11, 2018
MaryW commented on the word bibliophile

There isn't even an agreed upon term for multi-book readers. There are bibliophiles — lovers of books. There are bibliotaphs — hoarders of books, with the intent of keeping the books out of the hands of others. There's even a word for people who like to read in bed — librocubicularist. But no succinct way of summing up the act of reading more than one book at at time.
But that doesn't mean the internet hasn't tried to come up with a term on their own. I've seen "parallel readers" (recently suggested in a Quora forum). "Polynarritivus," from a Bookstr article last year. And "poly-reader," from a 2010 NPR piece.
Maddy Foley, How to Read More Than One Book at a Time, According to Reddit Users Who Do It, Bustle (Sept. 6, 2018)

September 11, 2018
MaryW commented on the word jaywalker

During this era, the word "jay" meant something like "rube" or "hick" — a person from the sticks, who didn't know how to behave in a city. So pro-auto groups promoted use of the word "jay walker" as someone who didn't know how to walk in a city, threatening public safety.
At first, the term was seen as offensive, even shocking. Pedestrians fired back, calling dangerous driving "jay driving."
Joseph Stromberg, The Forgotten History of How Automakers Invented the Crime of “Jaywalking” Vox (Nov. 4, 2015)
See Peter Jensen Brown, Jaywalkers and Jayhawkers - a Pedestrian History and Etymology of "Jaywalking", Early Sports and Pop Culture History Blog (Nov. 24, 2014)

August 27, 2018
MaryW commented on the word jaywalk

During this era, the word "jay" meant something like "rube" or "hick" — a person from the sticks, who didn't know how to behave in a city. So pro-auto groups promoted use of the word "jay walker" as someone who didn't know how to walk in a city, threatening public safety.
At first, the term was seen as offensive, even shocking. Pedestrians fired back, calling dangerous driving "jay driving."
Joseph Stromberg, The Forgotten History of How Automakers Invented the Crime of “Jaywalking” Vox (Nov. 4, 2015)
See Peter Jensen Brown, Jaywalkers and Jayhawkers - a Pedestrian History and Etymology of "Jaywalking", Early Sports and Pop Culture History Blog (Nov. 24, 2014)

August 27, 2018
MaryW commented on the word jay

During this era, the word "jay" meant something like "rube" or "hick" — a person from the sticks, who didn't know how to behave in a city. So pro-auto groups promoted use of the word "jay walker" as someone who didn't know how to walk in a city, threatening public safety.
At first, the term was seen as offensive, even shocking. Pedestrians fired back, calling dangerous driving "jay driving."
Joseph Stromberg, The Forgotten History of How Automakers Invented the Crime of “Jaywalking” Vox (Nov. 4, 2015)
See Peter Jensen Brown, Jaywalkers and Jayhawkers - a Pedestrian History and Etymology of "Jaywalking", Early Sports and Pop Culture History Blog (Nov. 24, 2014)

August 27, 2018
MaryW commented on the word jaywalking

During this era, the word "jay" meant something like "rube" or "hick" — a person from the sticks, who didn't know how to behave in a city. So pro-auto groups promoted use of the word "jay walker" as someone who didn't know how to walk in a city, threatening public safety.
At first, the term was seen as offensive, even shocking. Pedestrians fired back, calling dangerous driving "jay driving."
Joseph Stromberg, The Forgotten History of How Automakers Invented the Crime of “Jaywalking” Vox (Nov. 4, 2015)
See Peter Jensen Brown, Jaywalkers and Jayhawkers - a Pedestrian History and Etymology of "Jaywalking", Early Sports and Pop Culture History Blog (Nov. 24, 2014)

August 27, 2018
MaryW commented on the word patient-centered

Of the forty-one times that the phrase patient-centered appears in the Affordable Care Act, most occur in the law’s establishment of the Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute. The institute will be a new, independent organization for comparative effectiveness research. Donald Berwick, now Administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, has defined patient-centered as
“the experience (to the extent the informed, individual patient desires it) of transparency, individualization, recognition, respect, dignity, and choice in all matters, without exception, related to one’s person, circumstances, and relationships in health care.”
Tony Coelho, A Patient Advocate’s Perspective on Patient-Centered Comparative Effectiveness Research, Health Affairs, vol. 29, p. 1886 (2010).
Cites DM Berwick, What "Patient-Centered" Should Mean: Confessions of an Extremist, Health Affairs, vol. 28, no. 4, w560 (2009)

August 24, 2018
MaryW commented on the word Systemically Important Financial Institution

The same basic technique can tell us a lot about how banks—and other bank-like creatures or SIFIs,2 to use the industry lingo—should fail.
note 2: Systemically Important Financial Institutions.
Stephen J. Lubben, A Functional Analysis of SIFI Insolvency, 96 Tex. L. Rev. 1377 (2018)

August 17, 2018
MaryW commented on the word SIFIs

The same basic technique can tell us a lot about how banks—and other bank-like creatures or SIFIs,2 to use the industry lingo—should fail.
note 2: Systemically Important Financial Institutions.
Stephen J. Lubben, A Functional Analysis of SIFI Insolvency, 96 Tex. L. Rev. 1377 (2018)

August 17, 2018
MaryW commented on the word SIFI

The same basic technique can tell us a lot about how banks—and other bank-like creatures or SIFIs,2 to use the industry lingo—should fail.
note 2: Systemically Important Financial Institutions.
Stephen J. Lubben, A Functional Analysis of SIFI Insolvency, 96 Tex. L. Rev. 1377 (2018)

August 17, 2018
MaryW commented on the word misogynoir

We, Moya Bailey and Trudy aka @thetrudz, had significant roles in the creation and proliferation of the term misogynoir. Misogynoir describes the anti-Black racist misogyny that Black women experience. Despite coining the term in 2008 and writing about the term online since 2010, we experience to varying degrees, our contributions being erased, or writing not cited, or our words plagiarized by people who find the word compelling. . . . This is not to say that every time the word is used our names need to be mentioned, but it does matter that our intellectual interventions are understood in proper context.
Moya Bailey, On Misogynoir: Citation, Erasure, and Plagiarism, Moya Bailey (blog) (March 13, 2018) (links to article in Feminist Media Studies, vol. 18, no. 4, pp. 762-68 (pub. online March 13, 2018)).

August 16, 2018
MaryW commented on the word thalam

Our social feeds have been on fire with a mind-bending, gasp-worthy video posted by percuss.io earlier this week — below — made by the accomplished Indian percussionist B.C. Manjunath. He's a master of konnakol -- the Carnatic, or South Indian, art of speaking percussive syllables in rapid-fire, intricate patterns to convey a larger thalam, or rhythmic cycle.
Anastasia Tsioulcas, Let This Percussionist Blow Your Mind With The Fibonacci Sequence, NPR (Aug. 10, 2018)

August 15, 2018
MaryW commented on the word Carnatic

Our social feeds have been on fire with a mind-bending, gasp-worthy video posted by percuss.io earlier this week — below — made by the accomplished Indian percussionist B.C. Manjunath. He's a master of konnakol -- the Carnatic, or South Indian, art of speaking percussive syllables in rapid-fire, intricate patterns to convey a larger thalam, or rhythmic cycle.
Anastasia Tsioulcas, Let This Percussionist Blow Your Mind With The Fibonacci Sequence, NPR (Aug. 10, 2018)

August 15, 2018
MaryW commented on the word konnakol

Our social feeds have been on fire with a mind-bending, gasp-worthy video posted by percuss.io earlier this week — below — made by the accomplished Indian percussionist B.C. Manjunath. He's a master of konnakol -- the Carnatic, or South Indian, art of speaking percussive syllables in rapid-fire, intricate patterns to convey a larger thalam, or rhythmic cycle.
Anastasia Tsioulcas, Let This Percussionist Blow Your Mind With The Fibonacci Sequence, NPR (Aug. 10, 2018)

August 15, 2018
MaryW commented on the word larboard

Why do ships use "port" and "starboard" instead of "left" and "right?", NOAA

August 15, 2018
MaryW commented on the word starboard

Why do ships use "port" and "starboard" instead of "left" and "right?", NOAA

August 15, 2018
MaryW commented on the word port

Why do ships use "port" and "starboard" instead of "left" and "right?", NOAA

August 15, 2018
MaryW commented on the word Frankenbite

"Just please don't Frankenbite me," Liz said, and Anne looked at her blankly. "Isn't that what it's called?" Liz said. "When you take one word I said here and one word there and put them together into a sentence that you use as a voiceover?"
"I've never heard that term." Anne was still smiling. . . .
Bullshit, Liz thought. Bullshit you've never heard it.
Curtis Sittenfeld, Eligible (New York: Random House, 2016), p. 437

August 9, 2018
MaryW commented on the word aedicule

In the reception room, Darcy had gestured at the doorway, which was framed by columns and a peaked roof, and said to Liz, "All that trim is known as an aedicule—that's a good word for a writer, huh?"
Curtis Sittenfeld, Eligible (New York: Random House, 2016), p. 323)

August 9, 2018
MaryW commented on the word tempora mutantur

Tempora mutantur is a Latin adage meaning "times change." It dates to 16th century Germany. Source: Wikipedia

August 9, 2018
MaryW commented on the word lobster trap

in order for a disclosure regulation to serve as a device that aids issuers in making a credible commitment to complete and continuous disclosure into the future, it must have a characteristic "lobster trap" structure: easy to enter voluntarily; hard to exit.
Edward Rock, Securities Regulation as Lobster Trap: A Credible Commitment Theory of Mandatory Disclosure, 23 Cardozo L. Rev. 675, 692 (2002)

August 1, 2018
MaryW commented on the word nonrivalrously

See non rivalrously.

July 20, 2018
MaryW commented on the word non-rivalrously

See non rivalrously.

July 20, 2018
MaryW commented on the word non rivalrously

while copyright, patent, trademark and unfair competition are conventionally conjoined—perhaps to give the field more heft—is the combination coherent? After all, few lawyers' practices encompass all of these.
Nonetheless, these subjects share certain characteristics. Because all these legal regimes cover intangibles that can be enjoyed "non rivalrously"—that is, without depriving other consumers of equal benefit—they require justification.
Jane C. Ginsburg & Rochelle Cooper Dreyfuss, "Introduction and Overview," in Intellectual Property Stories (New York: Foundation Press, 2006), p. 1

July 20, 2018
MaryW commented on the word cockpit parent

Perhaps you’ve heard the term “helicopter parenting” as a way to describe the way today’s 20-somethings (Gen Y) were hovered over in childhood by their parents. As a life coach to 20-somethings and consultant to corporations with Gen Y employees, I’ve seen the effects of an even more intrusive child-rearing style that I have coined as “cockpit parenting.” Cockpit parents did more than hover. They sat right in the pilot’s seat of their child’s life, charting the course and navigating all of the twists and turns. And they often remain there well into their child’s adulthood. . . .
. . .
Cockpit parents tend to pull all kinds of maneuvers like this. Things like writing their child’s résumé, calling in favors to their friends to get their child an internship or job, or even making-up corporations where their child has “worked.” And let’s not forget my personal favorite: listing themselves as references. These parents think they are helping, but they are not. There is a line between supporting your children and enabling them. And if cockpit parents continue to sit in the pilot’s seat of their child’s life, then the adult child continues to remain dependent on mom and dad for advice, money and answers to questions they should be answering for themselves.
Christine Hassler, Cockpit Parents: How They're Flying 20-Somethings into the Ground, Huffpost Blog (March 18, 2011)

June 3, 2018
MaryW commented on the word cockpit parenting

Perhaps you’ve heard the term “helicopter parenting” as a way to describe the way today’s 20-somethings (Gen Y) were hovered over in childhood by their parents. As a life coach to 20-somethings and consultant to corporations with Gen Y employees, I’ve seen the effects of an even more intrusive child-rearing style that I have coined as “cockpit parenting.” Cockpit parents did more than hover. They sat right in the pilot’s seat of their child’s life, charting the course and navigating all of the twists and turns. And they often remain there well into their child’s adulthood. . . .
. . .
Cockpit parents tend to pull all kinds of maneuvers like this. Things like writing their child’s résumé, calling in favors to their friends to get their child an internship or job, or even making-up corporations where their child has “worked.” And let’s not forget my personal favorite: listing themselves as references. These parents think they are helping, but they are not. There is a line between supporting your children and enabling them. And if cockpit parents continue to sit in the pilot’s seat of their child’s life, then the adult child continues to remain dependent on mom and dad for advice, money and answers to questions they should be answering for themselves.
Christine Hassler, Cockpit Parents: How They're Flying 20-Somethings into the Ground, Huffpost Blog (March 18, 2011)

June 3, 2018
MaryW commented on the word sexbot

a "sex robot" is any artificial entity that is used for sexual purposes (i.e., for sexual stimulation and release) that meets the following three conditions:
Humanoid form, i.e., it is intended to represent (and is taken to represent) a human or human-like being in its appearance.
Human-like movement/behavior, i.e., it is intended to represent (and is taken to represent) a human or humanlike being in its behaviors and movements.
Some degree of artificial intelligence, i.e., it is capable of interpreting and responding to information in its environment. This may be minimal (e.g., simple preprogrammed behavioral responses) or more sophisticated (e.g., human-equivalent intelligence).
John Danaher, "Should We Be Thinking About Robot Sex?", in John Danaher & Neil McArthur, eds., Robot Sex: Social and Ethical Implications (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2017), pp. 4-5
Danaher and other contributors to the book seem to use sex robot interchangeably with sexbot.

June 3, 2018
MaryW commented on the word sex robot

a "sex robot" is any artificial entity that is used for sexual purposes (i.e., for sexual stimulation and release) that meets the following three conditions:
Humanoid form, i.e., it is intended to represent (and is taken to represent) a human or human-like being in its appearance.
Human-like movement/behavior, i.e., it is intended to represent (and is taken to represent) a human or humanlike being in its behaviors and movements.
Some degree of artificial intelligence, i.e., it is capable of interpreting and responding to information in its environment. This may be minimal (e.g., simple preprogrammed behavioral responses) or more sophisticated (e.g., human-equivalent intelligence).
John Danaher, "Should We Be Thinking About Robot Sex?", in John Danaher & Neil McArthur, eds., Robot Sex: Social and Ethical Implications (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2017), pp. 4-5
Danaher and other contributors to the book seem to use sex robot interchangeably with sexbot.

June 3, 2018
MaryW commented on the word procreationism

there are thos who see the purpose of sex as necessarily procreative. According to procreationism (as it is sometimes called), any sexual activity that is inherently non-procreative, as sex with a robot must be, violates this natural purpose of sex, and is therefore immoral. . . . Such people do not generally insist that each individual sex act must be intended to produce children. Rather, they argue that acceptable sex acts must belong to the class of acts that could potentially be reproductive.
Neil McArthur, "The Case for Sexbots" in John Danaher & Neil McArthur, eds., Robot Sex: Social and Ethical Implications (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2017), p. 35

June 3, 2018
MaryW commented on the word haptic technology

With the emergence of virtual reality technologies . . . and haptic technologies (i.e., technologies that replicate and transmit touchlike sensations via a network), it is possible to have immersive sexual experiences in virtual reality.
John Danaher, "Should We Be Thinking About Robot Sex?", in John Danaher & Neil McArthur, eds., Robot Sex: Social and Ethical Implications (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2017), p. 5

June 3, 2018
MaryW commented on the word haptic

With the emergence of virtual reality technologies . . . and haptic technologies (i.e., technologies that replicate and transmit touchlike sensations via a network), it is possible to have immersive sexual experiences in virtual reality.
John Danaher, "Should We Be Thinking About Robot Sex?", in John Danaher & Neil McArthur, eds., Robot Sex: Social and Ethical Implications (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2017), p. 5

June 3, 2018
MaryW commented on the word teledildonics

Since the early part of the twentieth century there have been further developments in the technology of sex, from artificial vaginas to lifelike silicone dolls to teledildonics.
John Danaher, "Should We Be Thinking About Robot Sex?", in John Danaher & Neil McArthur, eds., Robot Sex: Social and Ethical Implications (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2017), pp. 3-4

June 3, 2018
MaryW commented on the word theranostic nanomedicine

Theranostics takes advantage of novel nanotechnology platforms by incorporating therapy, imaging diagnostics, and cell targeting into one system with multifunctional capabilities. Theranostic nanomedicine exploits the multifunctional capabilities of nanoscale devices and the molecular knowledge of the human body to diagnose, treat, and possibly, prevent diseases.
Fabrice Jotterand & Archie A. Alexander, Managing the “Known Unknowns”: Theranostic Cancer Nanomedicine and Informed Consent, in Sarah J. Hurst, ed., Biomedical Nanotechnology: Methods and Protocols (New York: Humana Press, 2011), p. 414

May 24, 2018
MaryW commented on the word theranostic

Theranostics takes advantage of novel nanotechnology platforms by incorporating therapy, imaging diagnostics, and cell targeting into one system with multifunctional capabilities. Theranostic nanomedicine exploits the multifunctional capabilities of nanoscale devices and the molecular knowledge of the human body to diagnose, treat, and possibly, prevent diseases.
Fabrice Jotterand & Archie A. Alexander, Managing the “Known Unknowns”: Theranostic Cancer Nanomedicine and Informed Consent, in Sarah J. Hurst, ed., Biomedical Nanotechnology: Methods and Protocols (New York: Humana Press, 2011), p. 414

May 24, 2018
MaryW commented on the word theranostics

Theranostics takes advantage of novel nanotechnology platforms by incorporating therapy, imaging diagnostics, and cell targeting into one system with multifunctional capabilities. Theranostic nanomedicine exploits the multifunctional capabilities of nanoscale devices and the molecular knowledge of the human body to diagnose, treat, and possibly, prevent diseases.
Fabrice Jotterand & Archie A. Alexander, Managing the “Known Unknowns”: Theranostic Cancer Nanomedicine and Informed Consent, in Sarah J. Hurst, ed., Biomedical Nanotechnology: Methods and Protocols (New York: Humana Press, 2011), p. 414

May 24, 2018
MaryW commented on the word lichenification

Lichenification is when your skin becomes thick and leathery as a result of constant scratching. When you continually scratch an area of skin for a prolonged period of time, your skin cells begin to grow. This leads to a thickening of the skin and an exaggeration of normal skin markings — such as cracks, wrinkles, or scales — which gives your skin a leathery or bark-like appearance.
Healthline

May 18, 2018
MaryW commented on the word black hole

“Hole” seems like a terrible name for something that is actually very dense and solid. “Black mass” would be a better name if it didn’t sound like a satanic ritual.
Jorge Cham & Daniel Whiteson, We Have No Idea: A Guide to the Unknown Universe (Riverhead Books: New York, 2017), p. 197 n. 82

May 7, 2018
MaryW commented on the word inflation

Does a nearly instantaneous twenty-five order of magnitude faster-than-light expansion of the fabric of space-time sound totally ridiculous and made up? If so, you’re probably not a crazy physicist.
In fact, this is the solution physicists have come up with to explain why the universe is bigger than it should be and why it is at an even temperature. They call is (drumroll) “inflation.” Okay, not the more awe inspiring of names. But the crazy thing is that it’s probably true.
Jorge Cham & Daniel Whiteson, We Have No Idea: A Guide to the Unknown Universe (Riverhead Books: New York, 2017), p. 240

May 7, 2018
MaryW commented on the word tardigrade

Google the word “tardigrade” and prepare to be shocked.
Jorge Cham & Daniel Whiteson, We Have No Idea: A Guide to the Unknown Universe (Riverhead Books: New York, 2017), p. 321 n. 126

May 7, 2018
MaryW commented on the word tardigrade

See Thomas Boothby, Meet the Tardigrade, the Toughest Animal on Earth, TED-Ed.

May 7, 2018
MaryW commented on the word cosmic ray

The name “cosmic ray“ might be a little unnecessarily intriguing: it simply means a particle from space. Stars and other objects are constantly shooting out photons, protons, neutrinos, and even some heavy ions.
Jorge Cham & Daniel Whiteson, We Have No Idea: A Guide to the Unknown Universe (Riverhead Books: New York, 2017), p. 186

May 6, 2018
MaryW commented on the word locality

By “locality,” we mean the idea that the number of things that can affect you is limited by the number of things that are close to you.
Jorge Cham & Daniel Whiteson, We Have No Idea: A Guide to the Unknown Universe (Riverhead Books: New York, 2017), p. 175

May 6, 2018
MaryW commented on the word mortality gap

In 1932, Benjamin Malzberg, a New York epidemiologist, published a study showing that people with mental illness died, on average, 14 to 18 years earlier than otherwise similar people in the general population.1 This mortality gap persists today and may even have widened: a 2006 U.S. study suggested that it ranged from 13 to 30 years.2 Indeed, the gap persists worldwide,3 mostly owing to medical conditions, such as cancer and cardiovascular disease, rather than “unnatural” causes, such as accidents and suicide.
Lisa Rosenbaum, M.D., Closing the Mortality Gap, New Eng. J. Med., Oct. 20, 2016

May 2, 2018
MaryW commented on the word glutamate ototoxicity

"It turns out that if you dislike the music, it is more damaging to hearing.
"These data have been around since the early '70s. We're not too sure of all the reasons, but we do know that when you're disliking something, you have a higher stress level. And believe it or not, the biochemistry of the ear changes, and it makes you slightly more susceptible to hearing loss. It's called glutamate ototoxicity."audiologist Marshall Chasin, interviewed by Peter O'Dowd, For Musicians, Hearing Loss Is 'More Common Than One Would Think,' Audiologist Says Here & Now (Apr. 30, 2018)

April 30, 2018
MaryW commented on the word bibliometrics

The citation network tells us how ideas are related; visual representations tell us how ideas are communicated. Figures from related groups, authors, and fields share a ‘DNA’ that can reveal how information is conveyed.
We adopt the term viziometrics to describe this line of research to convey the shared goals with bibliometrics and scientometrics. As with bibliometrics, viziometrics uses citations to measure impact, but focuses on relating impact to the patterns of figure use. We analyze theses patterns within the papers (specifically, the distribution of various figure types) in order to understand how they may be used to more effectively communicate ideas. We have two overarching goals . . . First, we seek to build new tools and services based on the visual information in the literature to help researchers find results more efficiently. . . . Second, can the patterns of figure use inform new best practices for scientific communication, especially outside of the authors’ own discipline?
Po-Shen Lee, Jevin D. West & Bill Howe, Viziometrics: Analyzing Visual Information in the Scientific Literature, IEEE Transactions in Big Data, Vol. 4, No. 1 (March 1, 2018)

April 24, 2018
MaryW commented on the word scientometrics

The citation network tells us how ideas are related; visual representations tell us how ideas are communicated. Figures from related groups, authors, and fields share a ‘DNA’ that can reveal how information is conveyed.
We adopt the term viziometrics to describe this line of research to convey the shared goals with bibliometrics and scientometrics. As with bibliometrics, viziometrics uses citations to measure impact, but focuses on relating impact to the patterns of figure use. We analyze theses patterns within the papers (specifically, the distribution of various figure types) in order to understand how they may be used to more effectively communicate ideas. We have two overarching goals . . . First, we seek to build new tools and services based on the visual information in the literature to help researchers find results more efficiently. . . . Second, can the patterns of figure use inform new best practices for scientific communication, especially outside of the authors’ own discipline?
Po-Shen Lee, Jevin D. West & Bill Howe, Viziometrics: Analyzing Visual Information in the Scientific Literature, IEEE Transactions in Big Data, Vol. 4, No. 1 (March 1, 2018)

April 24, 2018
MaryW commented on the word viziometrics

The citation network tells us how ideas are related; visual representations tell us how ideas are communicated. Figures from related groups, authors, and fields share a ‘DNA’ that can reveal how information is conveyed.
We adopt the term viziometrics to describe this line of research to convey the shared goals with bibliometrics and scientometrics. As with bibliometrics, viziometrics uses citations to measure impact, but focuses on relating impact to the patterns of figure use. We analyze theses patterns within the papers (specifically, the distribution of various figure types) in order to understand how they may be used to more effectively communicate ideas. We have two overarching goals . . . First, we seek to build new tools and services based on the visual information in the literature to help researchers find results more efficiently. . . . Second, can the patterns of figure use inform new best practices for scientific communication, especially outside of the authors’ own discipline?
Po-Shen Lee, Jevin D. West & Bill Howe, Viziometrics: Analyzing Visual Information in the Scientific Literature, IEEE Transactions in Big Data, Vol. 4, No. 1 (March 1, 2018)

April 24, 2018
MaryW commented on the word cliometrics

While at the University of Washington, in Seattle, where he taught for 33 years, Professor North helped found a branch of inquiry called cliometrics, named for the muse of history, Clio, after he and others had concluded that traditional market-oriented economics faltered in measuring some aspects of economic performance quantitatively.
Robert D. Hershey Jr., Douglass C. North, Maverick Economist and Nobel Laureate, Dies at 95, N.Y. Times (Nov. 24, 2015)

April 23, 2018
MaryW commented on the word re-home

A deplorable practice has emerged in the world of adoption. Adoptive families are now using the Internet to give their unwanted adopted children over to complete strangers, some of whom are traffickers, pedophiles, child pornographers, or worse. This practice is known as private re-homing. Through the use of online message boards and a simple notarized power of attorney document, adoptive parents are circumventing the adoption system-including its home study and background check requirements for prospective parents-and placing children in great danger.
S. Megan Testerman, Note, A World Wide Web of Unwanted Children: The Practice, the Problem, and the Solution to Private Re-Homing, 67 Fla. L. Rev. 2103 (2015) (abstract)

April 19, 2018
MaryW commented on the word re-homing

A deplorable practice has emerged in the world of adoption. Adoptive families are now using the Internet to give their unwanted adopted children over to complete strangers, some of whom are traffickers, pedophiles, child pornographers, or worse. This practice is known as private re-homing. Through the use of online message boards and a simple notarized power of attorney document, adoptive parents are circumventing the adoption system-including its home study and background check requirements for prospective parents-and placing children in great danger.
S. Megan Testerman, Note, A World Wide Web of Unwanted Children: The Practice, the Problem, and the Solution to Private Re-Homing, 67 Fla. L. Rev. 2103 (2015) (abstract)

April 19, 2018
MaryW commented on the word private re-homing

A deplorable practice has emerged in the world of adoption. Adoptive families are now using the Internet to give their unwanted adopted children over to complete strangers, some of whom are traffickers, pedophiles, child pornographers, or worse. This practice is known as private re-homing. Through the use of online message boards and a simple notarized power of attorney document, adoptive parents are circumventing the adoption system-including its home study and background check requirements for prospective parents-and placing children in great danger.
S. Megan Testerman, Note, A World Wide Web of Unwanted Children: The Practice, the Problem, and the Solution to Private Re-Homing, 67 Fla. L. Rev. 2103 (2015) (abstract)

April 19, 2018
MaryW commented on the word long tail

Distributions with long tails are called leptokurtic; distributions with short tails are called platykurtic. Normal distributions have zero kurtosis.
David M. Lane et al., Introduction to Statistics (I don't see the date), p. 669

April 7, 2018
MaryW commented on the word kurtosis

Distributions with long tails are called leptokurtic; distributions with short tails are called platykurtic. Normal distributions have zero kurtosis.
David M. Lane et al., Introduction to Statistics (I don't see the date), p. 669

April 7, 2018
MaryW commented on the word platykurtic

Distributions with long tails are called leptokurtic; distributions with short tails are called platykurtic. Normal distributions have zero kurtosis.
David M. Lane et al., Introduction to Statistics (I don't see the date), p. 669

April 7, 2018
MaryW commented on the word leptokurtic

Distributions with long tails are called leptokurtic; distributions with short tails are called platykurtic. Normal distributions have zero kurtosis.
David M. Lane et al., Introduction to Statistics (I don't see the date), p. 669

April 7, 2018
MaryW commented on the word henotheism

And while there were plenty of henotheist pagans (that is, people who worshiped one god while not denying the validity of others), Christianity went far beyond henotheism’s hesitant claim upon ultimate truth. It was an exclusivist faith that foreclosed — was designed to foreclose — devotion to all other deities.
Tom Bissell, Why Did Christianity Prevail?, N.Y. Times Book Review, Feb. 18, 2018 (print title: When Pagans Became Christians)

February 18, 2018
MaryW commented on the word henotheist

And while there were plenty of henotheist pagans (that is, people who worshiped one god while not denying the validity of others), Christianity went far beyond henotheism’s hesitant claim upon ultimate truth. It was an exclusivist faith that foreclosed — was designed to foreclose — devotion to all other deities.
Tom Bissell, Why Did Christianity Prevail?, N.Y. Times Book Review, Feb. 18, 2018 (print title: When Pagans Became Christians)

February 18, 2018
MaryW commented on the word afrofuturism

Afrofuturism is a cultural aesthetic, philosophy of science, and philosophy of history that combines elements of science fiction, historical fiction, fantasy, Afrocentrism, and magic realism with non-Western cosmologies in order to critique not only the present-day dilemmas of black people, but also to revise, interrogate, and re-examine the historical events of the past. First coined by Mark Dery in 1993, and explored in the late 1990s through conversations led by scholar Alondra Nelson,1 Afrofuturism addresses themes and concerns of the African diaspora through a technoculture and science fiction lens, encompassing a range of media and artists with a shared interest in envisioning black futures that stem from Afrodiasporic experiences.2 Seminal Afrofuturistic works include the novels of Samuel R. Delany and Octavia Butler; the canvases of Jean-Michel Basquiat and Angelbert Metoyer, and the photography of Renée Cox; the explicitly extraterrestrial mythoi of Parliament-Funkadelic, the Jonzun Crew, Warp 9, Deltron 3030, and Sun Ra; and the Marvel Comics superhero Black Panther.
Wikipedia (visited Feb. 16, 2018)

February 16, 2018
MaryW commented on the word déjà vu

See vuja de.

February 5, 2018

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ruzuzu commented on the user MaryW

Your citations are inspiring. I’ve been lazy about using the blockquote HTML tag—but no more! Thank you for your precision and dedication.

November 23, 2018
bilby commented on the user MaryW

You have an unclosed italic bracket on sung-through which borks the formatting of everything that comes after it on the Community page and on your own comments feed.

May 23, 2016
bilby commented on the user MaryW

j/k, no probs about the glitchygloops. Everyone who's been here a while has borked something or another.

April 5, 2016
bilby commented on the user MaryW

Should have got a good phone.

April 5, 2016
ruzuzu commented on the user MaryW

I hear you about editing from a phone--but don't give up, MaryW! I enjoy your citations.

April 4, 2016
MaryW commented on the user MaryW

bilby, you must have been right on it. I edited out the extraneous stuff within a minute or so.
I've learned my lesson: don't try to do much here with my iPhone: it's too hard to proofread and edit.

April 4, 2016
bilby commented on the user MaryW

Please take care not to unncessarily include site menus in copy-pasted comments.

April 4, 2016
bilby commented on the user MaryW

In many cases "See citation on word" is also a good option.

February 29, 2016
bilby commented on the user MaryW

You have an unclosed italic HTML bracket on elytron.

December 27, 2015