plica (PLY-kuh) noun, plural plicae (PLI-see, -kee)
1. A fold, especially of skin.
2. Hair in dirty, matted form.
[From Medieval Latin, fold, from Latin plicare, to fold.]
Tag Archives: nifty trivia
word of the day!
ogee (oh-JEE, OH-jee) noun
1. A curve resembling the shape of an elongated S.
2. An arch formed with such curves.
[From Middle English ogeus, from Old French ogive.]
gadabout GAD-uh-bout, noun:
Someone who roams about in search of amusement or social activity.
Gadabout is formed from the verb gad, “to rove or go about without purpose or restlessly” (from Middle English gadden, “to hurry”) + about.
(I’m playing the gadabout to put off any serious writing or working out. Going walkies at about 8, though.)
In other News, I’m looking nito an apartment! One looks very possible, they like Kitties, and it’s roomy. 🙂
Halloween story seed.
According to Scandinavian lore, the ghost of a dead infant was called an utburd, which meant *child carried outside*. The utburd was vengeance incarnate, and also a symbol of an old tradition: letting newly-born children die of exposure when it wasn’t practical to feed them. The illustrative tale associated with this ghost (real quick) is: a fisherman and his wife must live a sickly child outside to die because of all the mouths they already have to feed. Later, it enters through their keyhole, then crawls up on the woman while she sleeps and tears out her eyes.
Other traits of the utburd; generally invisible, but can take the shapes of animals such as owls, or black dogs. It can also grow to the size of a cow or turn into a curl of wispy smoke. It could make sounds like boulders dropping. It also continued to take victims long after it exacted its revenge on the parents that killed it. Its main method of attack was to chase down lonely travelers, and then press an invisible weight down on the victim’s chest, crushing him/her
Sakes… Teach me to read Norse Eddas at 2 in the morning. I’m going to have nightmares now for sure.
Hey!
Just happened upon a true gem. It’s by Tony Bennett. For the Ladies. And theres a volume 2 out.
Tony sings songs that were written for women. Some are sweet. But his take on “Black and Blue” really got to me. It’s about a black woman who resents her lighter skinned peers for passing. The song is a classic, but most times I’ve heard it a couple verses were left out (Like in “This Land is Your Land”). The fact that it’s Tony Bennett singing makes it jarring in an unexpected way.
Bailey
“Reds, browns and yellows are can get fellows but I’m stuck here alone and dark as the night. I’ve got no man to love but I have sorrows enough.
Whatever did I do to end up so black and blue.”
no, not sea monkeys.
COPENHAGEN (Reuters) – Danish scientists have found a completely new kind of animal down a cold well in Greenland and are keeping a colony of them in a fridge, the Arctic magazine Polarfronten reported on the Internet.
The 0.1 millimeter long freshwater organism does not fit into any one of the previously known animal families — making it only the fourth such creature to be discovered on the planet in the past 100 years, Polarfronten said Thursday.
Studies of the animal named “Limnognathia maerski” show that it shares some characteristics with certain seawater life-forms.
Scientists from Copenhagen University and Aarhus University in Denmark have established a new phylum — or family — for the tiny animal, whose most remarkable feature is a set of very complicated jaws.
It has now got its own branch, Micrognathozoa, on the tree of the world’s known animals, which are divided into slightly more than 30 families, Polarfronten said.
Limnognathia maerski, which reproduces through parthenogenesis, uses its jaws to scrape the bacteria and algae it feeds on from underwater moss growing in icy wells which freeze over during the long Arctic winter.
The animal was found in samples taken in 1994 from a well in Isunngua on Disco island in northwestern Greenland. A colony of the tiny creatures, all females, are currently living in a refrigerator at Copenhagen University.
Greenland, the world’s largest island, is part of Denmark.
found on attrition.org
http://www.attrition.org/attrition/
“We’ve heard that a million monkeys at a million keyboards could produce the Complete Works of Shakespeare; now, thanks to the Internet, we know this is not true.” –Robert Wilensky, University of California
scotto reveals a source!
http://www.word-detective.com/
is a great place to find where words come from, and is a wonderful way to waste time browsing, even if you don’t have a particular word in mind.
duck echo- from straight dope.
Dear Cecil:
Recently I read the useless fact that the quack of a duck will not echo. (1) Is this true? (I currently do not have access to either a duck or a canyon, or I would find out myself.) (2) Why not? (Assuming it is true.) (3) Are there other noises that will not echo? (4) Again, why not? –G. J. Thelin, Fresno, Dear California
Dear G.:
This is another example of faxlore–myths and factoids kept in circulation by people who obviously will believe anything. If you’re ever organizing a poker game, you definitely want to invite these guys.
Personally, I recognized this claim immediately for what it was–quackery. Preliminary inquiries confirmed this. Sure, there’s such a thing as destructive interference, in which colliding waveforms cancel each other out. But how this would cause 100 percent attenuation of an echo 100 percent of the time in uncontrolled conditions was beyond even me.
But never mind my opinion. What we need here is science. Knowing the only way to settle the question for good was an experiment, I assigned Jane to assemble the apparatus and conduct a test. Here is her report:
I spoke with several friends about the duck’s quack question, even called the Michigan State University animal science department. No one could confirm or deny the claim, and no one at MSU seemed eager to stage a formal experiment, the wimps. I mentioned my dilemma to a visiting friend, and he said his wife, Shareen, had an in with the director of Mott Hashbarger Children’s Farm and School in Flint. She had, on occasion, borrowed farm animals for events, and she was willing to get a duck and bring it down. After a quick phone call to the farm director, who gave his blessing, she obtained a duck and put it in a pet carrier.
But where to find a good echo? I live in mid-Michigan, after all. I called Glenn Brown, a sound engineer who has done work across the country. As luck would have it, Glenn remembered one place where, as a kid, he would go to produce great echoes. It’s at the back of East Lansing High School–a sort of courtyard between two classroom wings, about 30 feet wide and 170 feet long. The hard surface of the buildings and perhaps a low hill opposite are highly conducive to reflecting sound.
So, with friends, duck, and camera in tow, we drove to ELHS. In the courtyard without the duck we easily produced some impressive echoes. Next we got the bird and sat down in the middle of the courtyard. We thought he would produce a big quack and the experiment would be over. No such luck. He just wouldn’t quack. Probably he was nervous. Who wouldn’t be? He was a sitting duck.
The three of us certainly quacked, though, such that we thought we might want to change the name of the experiment from ‘does a duck’s quack echo’ to ‘how to make three humans quack like a duck.’ We tried to be inconspicuous, since school was in session and students could see us. However, a duck and three quacking humans is not the sort of scene that fades readily into the woodwork. The duck quacked in the cage, which was useless for our purposes, but when we took him out he was mute.
Finally Shareen had an inspiration. She held the duck by his body so that he could flap his wings, and ran up and down the length of the courtyard hoping to replicate the experience of flying. So much for being discreet. Incredibly enough, this wacky stratagem worked. The duck loved it and quacked like crazy for a minute. Yes, the quacks echoed. This was heard by the three of us and by an unidentified East Lansing High School teacher who came out to make sure we weren’t engaging in duck torture. I was able to record the event but didn’t get a good sound recording of the echo itself. But I do have a dandy clip of Shareen running up and down with the duck. I call it my ‘duck tape.’
I wanted to reward my friends somehow, and offered to buy them lunch. They asked for roast duck. They’re such comedians. They settled for soup and quackers.
That Jane. What can I tell you? She quacks me up.
reading the paper….
…online of course. In news of the odd I find-
(Reuters) Officials at Cape Canaveral finally learned the origin of the plastic bags of urine found recently in a launch-pad complex; a worker was too lazy to use the rest room, which was an elevator ride away. Police called to an apartment where a man had been dead for a week were held at bay for two hours by the man’s 18 cats, aggressively guarding the body.
Um. I don’t have much to add on this one.
fun with Latin.
“Catapultam habeo. Nisi pecuniam omnem mihi dabis ad capul tuum saxum immane mittam.”
(I have a catapult. Give me all the money or I will fling an enormous rock at your head.)
Some of you youngsters may not understand this…
Each year the staff at Beloit College in Wisconsin puts Together a list to try to give the faculty a sense of the mindset of that year’s incoming freshmen.
Here is this year’s list:
The people who are starting college this fall across the Nation were born in 1982.
They have no meaningful recollection of the Reagan Era and probably did not know he had ever been shot.
They were prepubescent when the Persian Gulf War was waged.
Black Monday 1987 is as significant to them as the Great Depression.
There has been only one Pope.
They were 11 when the Soviet Union broke apart and do not Remember the Cold War.
They have never feared a nuclear war.
They are too young to remember the space shuttle blowing up.
Tiananmen Square means nothing to them.
Their lifetime has always included AIDS.
Bottle caps have always been screw off and plastic.
Atari predates them, as do vinyl albums. The statement “you sound like a broken record” means nothing to them. They have never owned a record
player.
They have likely never played Pac Man and have probably never Heard of Ping-Pong.
They may have never heard of an 8 track.
The Compact Disc was introduced when they were 1 year old.
As far as they know, stamps have always cost about 33 cents.
They have always had an answering machine.
Most have never seen a TV set with only 13 channels, nor have they seen a black-and-white TV.
They have always had cable.
There has always been VCRs, but they have no idea what BETA is.
They cannot fathom not having a remote control.
They were born the year that Walkman were introduced by Sony.
Roller-skating has always meant inline for them.
Jay Leno has always been on the Tonight Show.
They have no idea when or why Jordache jeans were cool.
Popcorn has always been cooked in the microwave.
They have never seen Larry Byrd play.
They never took a swim and thought about Jaws.
The Vietnam War is as ancient history to them as WWI, WWII and the Civil War.
They have no idea that Americans were ever held hostage in Iran.
They can’t imagine what hard contact lenses are.
They don’t know who Mork was or where he was from.
They never heard: Where’s the beef?, I’d walked a mile for a Camel, or de plane, de plane.
They do not care who shot J.R. and have no idea who J.R. is.
The Titanic was found? They thought we always knew where it was.
Michael Jackson has always been white.
Kansas, Chicago, Boston, America, and Alabama are places, not groups.
McDonalds never came in Styrofoam containers.
There has always been MTV.
They don’t have a clue how to use a typewriter.
mmm! tasty!
I especially like #209. Very few vegetarians on the list. #207 is delish too.
squids!
WASHINGTON (AP) – A 7-foot sea creature with hooks on its arms, flashing blue-green lights and a donut-shaped brain may sound like a fish story; but it’s real, and the Smithsonian has it on display. It’s Taningia danae, a deep-sea squid that’s part of a new exhibit at the National Museum of Natural History. “In Search of Giant Squids,” opens Saturday, introducing visitors to proof that, in the words of researcher Mike Vecchione: “Weird things actually exist.” Vecchione is part of the museum’s “squid squad,” a team of scientists that studies the eight-armed, two-tentacled mollusks and maintains a collection of 100,000 preserved squids and related sea creatures. “In terms of its biology, the squid is far more interesting than any myth you can dream up,” said Clyde F. E. Roper, curator of the exhibit. Taningia alone may prove the point. Living in the lightless depths of the ocean, more than 3,000 feet below the surface, Taningia can flash its lights like a pair of blue-green strobes mounted at the tips of two of its arms. The scientists refer to it as the world’s largest flasher – a trick apparently used to warn off predators. Who would eat an animal 7 feet long, weighing 135 pounds? Whales, said Roper. “Whales eat pretty much what they want,” and studies of their stomach contents disclose that they often want squids. Other sea animals eat smaller squids, as do people, though the exhibition tactfully refrains from any mention of fried calamari. It’s unlikely a person would tackle another squid on display at the museum. Architeuthis dux is 9 feet long and weighs 440 pounds. And she’s a midget compared to others of her species, who can grow to 59 feet and weigh nearly a ton. The squids on display, though not alive, are carefully preserved and lifelike, giving viewers a close look at the animal’s size and structure. Nearby displays show their insides and a picture of Taningia shows it underwater with lights flashing when a button is pressed. Squids are hard to keep alive in captivity, Roper explained. And even in the sea they live only a few years, with one reproductive cycle at the end of their life. They are often confused with octopi; and while they are related, squids have two extra tentacles, often much longer than the other eight arms, that can be used as feeding arms to reach out and grasp prey. Squids use jet-like propulsion to swim, ejecting water through a funnel that can be aimed to allow them to move suddenly in one direction or another. They have been clocked at 45 miles per hour. Squids are also famed for their propensity to blow clouds of black ink into the water to confuse predators. But Vecchione says there’s at least one weird variation on the theme – a deep water squid that squirts ink that is luminous. Bacteria that live in the squid glow, and the animal ejects them in its ink, leaving a glowing cloud in the water as it escapes. Black ink wouldn’t work in the deepest water, since there’s no light there and everything is black anyway, Vecchione explains.
7 deadly sins
Hm. Well, in evaluating my personal flaws… I’d say sloth (on the physical side) is the real winner for me, although I do dip into the Anger and Lust jars on occasion.
How aobut you folks? which of the big seven are you most guilty of?
Pride is excessive belief in one’s own abilities, that interferes with the individual’s recognition of the grace of God. It has been called the sin from which all others arise. Pride is also known as Vanity.
Envy is the desire for others’ traits, status, abilities, or situation.
Gluttony is an inordinate desire to consume more than that which one requires.
Lust is an inordinate craving for the pleasures of the body.
Anger is manifested in the individual who spurns love and opts instead for fury. It is also known as Wrath.
Covetousness is the desire for material wealth or gain, ignoring the realm of the spiritual. It is also called Greed.
Sloth is the avoidance of physical or spiritual work.