Del.icio.us-linkit 16.05.2009 – 17.05.2009

  • Jos haluat säästää, maksa käteisellä – se sattuu enemmän (Frontal Cortex) – There's some suggestive evidence that the brain makes simple consumer decisions by comparing our desire for the item (as represented by areas in the dopamine reward pathway, such as the nucleus accumbens) with the pain that comes from having to pay for the item. The problem with credit cards is that they abstract the payment: Instead of taking cash out of our wallet, we just swipe this thin plastic card. As George Loewenstein, a neuroeconomist at Carnegie-Mellon says, "The nature of credit cards ensures that your brain is anaesthetized against the pain of payment." Spending money doesn't feel bad, so you spend more money.
  • Pontiacin halpismuskeliautojen synty, uho & tuho (NY Times) – The GTO’s birth can be traced to the musings of Bill Collins, a member of Pontiac’s advanced engineering group in the 1960s, at one of the informal Saturday morning get-togethers organized by John Z. DeLorean, Pontiac’s larger-than-life chief engineer. Mr. Collins pointed out that the husky V-8 from a Bonneville or Grand Prix would fit into the same space occupied by the Tempest’s tame engine. It was a head-slapping moment for engineers in search of performance.
  • Shoot! An Appalachian gunsmith’s robot army (New Yorker) – You can fire an AA-12—which shoots five shotgun shells per second—with one and hold a mug of coffee in the other without spilling it. Made almost entirely of aircraft-grade stainless steel, the gun can fire thousands of rounds without cleaning. Baber spent a dozen years, and upward of a million and a half dollars of his own money, perfecting the gun. He believes that the AA-12 is the most deadly close-range weapon ever created.
  • Best Visual Illusion of the Year Contest – w a u
  • Top 10 Greasemonkey User Scripts, 2009 Edition (Lifehacker) – ainakin 1, 5, 8 ja 10 näyttää mulle sopivilta

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Word 270: Fealty

It shows no loyalty to its writers, yet expects full fealty in return.

fealty (n) : 1. Fidelity to one’s lord; the feudal obligation by which the tenant or vassal was bound to be faithful to his lord; the special oath by which this obligation was assumed; fidelity to a superior power, or to a government; loyality. 2. Fidelity; constancy; faithfulness, as of a friend to a friend, or of a wife to her husband – source: My Short Career at The New Yorker

Del.icio.us-linkit 13.05.2009 – 14.05.2009

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Word 269: Deracination

My deracination was kindly abetted by various friends at college.

deracination (n) 1: to move something from its natural environment [syn: displacement] 2: the act of pulling up or out; uprooting; cutting off from existence [syn: extirpation, excision] – source: Alison Bechdel: Fun Home – A Family Tragicomic (p. 145)

Del.icio.us-linkit 12.05.2009 – 13.05.2009

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Word 268: Crepuscular

Yet my father did possess a certain radiance –– perhaps due to his habit of excessive, even idolatrous, sunbathing –– and so his death had and inevitably dimming, crepuscular effect.

crepuscular (adj) : like twilight; dim – source: Alison Bechdel: Fun Home – A Family Tragicomic (p. 124)

Word 267: Lissome

But the pose he strikes is not mincing or silly at all. He’s lissome, elegant.

lissome (adj) : gracefully slender; moving and bending with ease [syn: lissom, lithe, lithesome, slender, supple, svelte, sylphlike] – source: Alison Bechdel: Fun Home – A Family Tragicomic (p. 120)