Friday, March 28, 2008

Ashlar

Ashlar is dressed stone work of any type of stone. Ashlar blocks are large rectangular blocks of masonry sculpted to have square edges and even faces. The blocks are generally 13 to 15 inches in height. When smaller than 11 inches, they are usually called "small ashlar".

Ashlar blocks are used in the construction of many old buildings as an alternative to brick. Generally the external face is smooth or polished, occasionally it can be decorated by small grooves achieved by the application of a metal comb, this is usually only used on a softer stone ashlar block. This decoration is known as mason's drag.

Thursday, March 27, 2008

Autostereogram


An autostereogram is a single-image stereogram (SIS), designed to trick the human brain into perceiving a three-dimensional (3D) scene in a two-dimensional image. In order to perceive 3D shapes in these autostereograms, the brain must overcome the normally automatic coordination between focusing and convergence.

Wednesday, March 26, 2008

Chiptune

A chiptune, or chip music, is music written in sound formats where all the sounds are synthesized in realtime by a computer or video game console sound chip, instead of using sample-based synthesis. The "golden age" of chiptunes was the mid 1980s to early 1990s, when such sound chips were the most common method for creating music on computers.

Mundialization

The act for a city or a local authority to declare itself a "world citizen" city, by voting a charter stating its awareness of global problems and its sense of shared responsibility.

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Tuesday, March 25, 2008

Agemochi

Agemochi (揚げ餅?) is a popular Japanese snack food made from fried mochi, sticky rice. The dry mochi is broken into small pieces, about 1cm cubed, and deep fried. The pieces then puff up. It is usually eaten lightly salted, but there are also various flavoured versions, such as shichimi agemochi, agemochi covered with shichimi seasoning. Agemochi can be purchased anywhere in Japan and is also a common home-made snack.

Monday, March 24, 2008

Pabulum

1. A substance that gives nourishment; food.
2. Insipid intellectual nourishment

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Dominionism

Dominionism describes, in several distinct ways, a tendency among some conservative politically-active Christians to seek influence or control over secular civil government through political action — aiming either at a nation governed by Christians or a nation governed by a conservative Christian understanding of biblical law.

Gauleiter

A Gauleiter was the party leader of a regional branch of the NSDAP (more commonly known as the Nazi Party) or the head of a Gau or of a Reichsgau. The German word Leiter means leader, whilst Gau was an old word for a region of the Reich, once ruled by a Frankish Gaugraf; it translates most closely to the English shire. Gau was one of the many archaic words from medieval German history that the Nazis revived for their own purposes.

Mealy-mouthed

Unwilling to state facts or opinions simply and directly.

Mealy-mouthed may come from a saying such as German Mehl im Maule behalten, “to carry meal in the mouth, that is, not to be direct in speech,” which occurs in Luther's writings. In English we find the terms mealmouth (1546) and meal-mouthed (1576) recorded around the same time that we find mealymouthed (around 1572). Mealy-mouthed is the only form that survived to describe this trait described by Luther, which not only survives but flourishes in our time.

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Harridan

A woman regarded as scolding and vicious.

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Sunday, March 23, 2008

Carnabetian

a reference to Carnaby Street, the fashion centre of Swinging London in the 1960s.

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Interchangeability

In telecommunication, an interchangeability is a condition which exists when two or more items possess such functional and physical characteristics as to be equivalent in performance and durability, and are capable of being exchanged one for the other without alteration of the items themselves, or of adjoining items, except for adjustment, and without selection for fit and performance.

Vertiginous

1. Affected with vertigo; giddy; dizzy.
2. Causing or tending to cause dizziness.
3. Turning round; whirling; revolving.
4. Inclined to change quickly or frequently; inconstant.

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Thursday, March 20, 2008

Wednesday, March 19, 2008

Protologism

A protologism is a neologism that has not caught on yet.

Copyleft


Copyleft is a play on the word copyright and describes the practice of using copyright law to remove restrictions on distributing copies and modified versions of a work for others and requiring that the same freedoms be preserved in modified versions.

Tuesday, March 18, 2008

Latticework

Latticework is an ornamental, lattice framework consisting of a criss-crossed pattern of strips of building material, usually wood or metal, but it can made be of any material.

Andiron

An andiron (older form anderne; med. Lat. andena, anderia) is a horizontal iron bar, or bars, upon which logs are laid for burning in an open fireplace.

Thursday, March 6, 2008

Transculturation

Transculturation reflects the natural tendency of people to resolve conflicts over time, rather than exacerbating them. In the modern context, both conflicts and resolutions are amplified by communication and transportation technology —the ancient tendency of cultures drifting or remaining apart has been replaced by stronger forces for bringing societies together. Where tranculturation impacts ethnicity and ethnic issues the term "ethnoconvergence" is sometimes used.

In one general sense, transculturation covers war, ethnic conflict, racism, multiculturalism, cross-culturalism, interracial marriage, and any other of a number of contexts that deal with more than one culture. In the other general sense, tranculturation is one aspect of global phenomena and human events.

Wednesday, March 5, 2008

Cartodating

The process of using changes in map details (e.g. borders) over time to approximate when the map was made.

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Tuesday, March 4, 2008

Mesopelagic

The mesopelagic is a pelagic zone extending from 200 m down to around 1000 m below sea level in the open ocean.

lordosis

  Lordosis is historically defined as an abnormal inward curvature of the lumbar spine.