Xah's A Word A Day — the making of belles-lettres

2004-01-01

proprioception

... “But,” I've been told, “they do communicate through the environment. Each is aware of the other's actions via vision, proprioception, etc. That's communication.” Is it? True, all communications occur when one agent acts on the environment and the other senses the results of that action...

article on robotic intelligence, “Coordination without communication”, by Stan Franklin, Univ of Memphis, ~2003

2004-01-02

harrow

Collects the fantastic body of work generated by the premiere fetish artist of the Sinful Sixties! Using a seductive superhero-type rendering style that captured the nuances of anatomy and restraint detail, Bishop dominated his rivals by illustrating contemporary women in imaginative poses, kinky outfits, and original bondage devices like no other in the era! A solid half-inch thick, each oversized 8-1/2 x 11'' edition showcases almost 200 pages of harrowing female domination, bare-assed punishment, and exquisite SM tortures.

See also: Robert Bishop (artist)↗

2004-01-03

groundswell

Many of the texts have been retranslated and re-published in recent years as paperbacks, making them accessible to the ordinary reader; without the groundswell of interest that this has provoked, I do not think this page would ever been attempted.

text from a acknowledgement page on Greek mythology. http://www.calliope.free-online.co.uk/methods.htm wayback machine ↗

2004-01-04

lithotomy

lithotomy position

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lithotomy_position

2004-01-05

inculcate

Hopkins demonstrated his sincerity and investigative incompetence on the public television program Nova (“Alien Abductions,” first shown on February 27, 1996). The camera followed Hopkins through session after session with a very agitated, highly emotional “patient”. Then Nova followed Hopkins to Florida where he cheerfully helped a visibly unstable mother inculcate in her children the belief that they had been abducted by aliens.

http://www.skepdic.com/aliens.html

2004-01-06

rag-tag

Banks has joined thousands of others in a rag-tag Linux army dedicated to the destruction of SCO (nasdaq: SCOX - news - people ), the Lindon, Utah, company that last March sued IBM (nyse: IBM - news - people ), claiming IBM put code from Unix, for which SCO holds some copyrights, into Linux, which is distributed for free.

Software: Revenge Of The Nerds, Daniel Lyons, 12.16.03http://www.forbes.com/2003/12/16/cx_dl_1216linux.html

2004-01-07

amalgamate

The schism was healed in the years following 1813, when the competing Grand Lodges were amalgamated, by virtue of a delicately worded compromise which left English Masonry clearly not Christian, returned the modes of recognition to their pre-1753 form, kept Freemasonry per se as consisting of three degrees only, but which was ambiguously worded so as to allow the Moderns to think of the Antient Royal Arch degree as an optional higher degree, while still allowing the Antients to view it as the completion of the third degree...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freemasonry

2004-01-07

tailspin

In the late nineteenth century, anarchism constituted the primary leftist competitor to Marxist state socialism. But a series of bombings and assassinations by anarchists - culminating in the murder of William McKinley by the anarchist Leon Czolgosz - sufficed to discredit the movement and send it into a tailspin from which it is only now, a century later, emerging.

Crispin Sartwell↗, humanity professor, online essay. http://www.crispinsartwell.com/anarchism.htm

2004-01-08

immanent

In law, natural law is the doctrine that just laws are immanent in nature (that can be claimed as discovered but not created by such things as a bill of rights) and/or that they can emerge by natural process of resolving conflicts (as embodied by common law).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/natural_law

2004-01-08

retinue

Fortuna had a retinue that included Copia among her blessings.

http://en2.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fortuna

2004-01-09

bellwether

Among some tech sector bellwethers seeing early interest, Cisco Systems (CSCO: news, chart, profile) inched 3 cents lower to $24.14, Intel (INTC: news, chart, profile) was unchanged at $30.90 and Oracle (ORCL: news, chart, profile) stepped 7 cents lower to $13.26.

While noncommittal on whether Napster should be held liable for infringing on the copyrights of the major record labels, several Internet industry coalitions and trade groups, representing companies such as America Online, Yahoo and Intel, are taking issue with a federal judge's ruling last month in the bellwether case.

online news

Texas is significant because, along with New York and California, Texas is a bellwether state

2004-01-09

propitiate

Fortuna was propitiated by mothers. Traditionally her cult was introduced to Rome by Servius Tullius.

from wikipedia on the Goddess Fortuna http://en2.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fortuna

2004-01-10

pukka

You can even prove that you can build a pukka universal computer out of these smaller configurations, and a self-reproducer, though I don't think anyone's had the patience to do it.

http://cscs.umich.edu/~crshalizi/notebooks/cellular-automata.html on cellular automata

Note: Universal cellular-automata has been discovered. See Rule 110 cellular automaton↗

2004-01-11

pan-handlers

Q. How can you tell if the Buddhist priests begging on the street corner are real or not?

A1. Very few Buddhist sects practice begging nowadays and the great majority of priests you see begging on the street are actually just pan-handlers. If you really want to know if they are legitimate priests or not, you can ask to see their begging licence, which they always carry. In addition, if the priest is wearing running shoes, doesn't have any temple insignia on his robes, or if his robes look cheap, he is probably not the real thing.

A2. Pinch them. (Or more politely, ask them to pinch you.)—Answer kindly submitted by Jonathon Byro

online article on Japan, 2003-01, http://www3.tky.3web.ne.jp/~edjacob/saq.html

2004-01-12

pigeon-toed

Q. Why do so many Japanese women walk pigeon-toed? Does this have anything to do with Japan's low birth-rate? ;-)

A. Walking pigeon-toed is considered feminine in Japan, and is an affectation rather than a physical characteristic. Some people have suggested that it is because their legs are deformed from sitting in seiza (on your shins with your legs folded under you) but this is simply untrue. The real answer is that it is a holdover from the days when people still wore kimono. If you walk normally while wearing one, the kimono tends to comes open so for modesty people began walking pigeon-toed. Even though people no longer wear kimono, a shuffling walk with one's feet turned inward is still considered modest, feminine, and even cute.—Thanks to Emily Wood for helping with this answer.

online article on Japan, 2003-01, http://www3.tky.3web.ne.jp/~edjacob/saq.html

2004-01-16

preppy

Let's say a race begins with four parties vying for power—Jocks, Preppies, Hipsters, and Geeks. Early polls show them getting, respectively, 35, 30, 20, and 15 percent of the vote.

Two Political Parties? Why Not 50?↗by Tamim Ansary (MSN Encarta Column)

2004-01-17

shakedown

Boies Joins SCO Shakedown.

forbes.com news↗, Lisa DiCarlo, 20031118.

American Heritage Dictionary 1992: In 1969 a majority of the members of the American Heritage Dictionary Usage Panel felt that the noun shakedown in the sense 'extortion' and the related phrasal verb shake down were acceptable in writing, though both are now labeled slang. It would seem that certain usages take a while to attain respectability because of the company they keep. Shake and the verb phrase shake out of already meant 'to steal' in Middle English. This usage of shake is still found in the 19th and 20th centuries. Both shake and shake out of in the sense 'to steal' are clearly related to shake down, which is first recorded in 1872, shake down being glossed 'to extort money from individuals.' This is a slang usage, probably occurring, as had the verb shake, largely in contexts having to do with criminal or corrupt behavior. As our Panel realized, the verb and the later noun shakedown (first recorded in 1902 in the United States) have now moved from the lingo of criminals, loan sharks, and politicians into wider currency.

2004-01-18

couture

While Mr. Taubman was serving his nine-and-a-half-month prison stay, Mrs. Taubman flew to London to a ball in honor of a favorite Parisian jewelry designer, dressed in couture and several of the jeweler's pieces. When friends asked about the propriety of all this, they said, she explained, “I'm not going to dance.”

2003 The New York Times? online article on wifes of accused rich