Monday, November 30, 2009

Populares

Populares ("favoring the people", singular popularis) were aristocratic leaders in the late Roman Republic who relied on the people's assemblies and tribunate to acquire political power. They are regarded in modern scholarship as in opposition to the optimates, who are identified with the conservative interests of a senatorial elite. The populares themselves, however, were also of senatorial rank and might be patricians or noble plebeians.

Sunday, November 29, 2009

Tribune

Tribune (from the Latin: tribunus; Byzantine Greek form τριβούνος) was a title shared by 10 elected officials in the Roman Republic. Tribunes had the power to convene the Plebeian Council and to act as its president, which also gave them the exclusive right to propose legislation before it. Also, the tribune could summon the Senate and lay proposals before it. The tribune's power, however, was only in effect while he was within Rome. His ability to veto did not affect provincial governors, and his right to sacrosanctity and to help only extended to a mile outside the walls of Rome. In about 450 BC the number of tribunes was raised to ten.

Saturday, November 28, 2009

Superinsulation


Superinsulation is an approach to building design, construction, and retrofitting. A superinsulated house is intended to be heated predominantly by intrinsic heat sources (waste heat generated by appliances and the body heat of the occupants) with very small amounts of backup heat. This has been demonstrated to work in very cold climates but requires close attention to construction details in addition to the insulation.

Friday, November 27, 2009

refrigerant

A refrigerant is a compound used in a heat cycle that undergoes a phase change from a gas to a liquid and back. The two main uses of refrigerants are refrigerators/freezers and air conditioners (cf. coolant). Since it was discovered in the 1980s that the most widely used refrigerants were major causes of ozone depletion, a worldwide phaseout of ozone-depleting refrigerants has been undertaken. These are being replaced with "ozone-friendly" refrigerants.

Thursday, November 26, 2009

Mysophobia


Mysophobia is a term used to describe a pathological fear of contact with dirt, to avoid contamination and germs. Someone who has such a fear is often referred to as a mysophobe. The term was introduced by Dr. William Alexander Hammond in 1879 when describing a case of obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) exhibited in repeatedly washing one's hands.

Wednesday, November 25, 2009

Patwa

Jamaican Patois, known locally as Patois (Patwa) or simply Jamaican, is an EnglishAfrican creole language spoken primarily in Jamaica and the Jamaican diaspora. It is not to be confused with Jamaican English nor with the Rastafarian use of English. The language developed in the 17th century, when slaves from West and Central Africa were exposed to, learned and nativized the vernacular and dialectal forms of English spoken by their masters: British English and Hiberno English.

Tuesday, November 24, 2009

Tender



A tender or coal-car is a special rail vehicle hauled by a steam locomotive containing the locomotive's fuel (wood, coal, or oil) and water. Steam locomotives consume large quantities of water compared to the quantity of fuel, so tenders are necessary to keep the locomotive running over long distances. A locomotive that pulls a tender is called a tender locomotive. Locomotives that do not have tenders and carry all their fuel and water on board the locomotive itself are called tank engines.

A brake tender is a heavy variant used primarily to provide greater braking efficiency.

Monday, November 23, 2009

karela


Momordica charantia is a tropical and subtropical vine of the family Cucurbitaceae, widely grown for edible fruit, which is among the most bitter of all vegetables. English names for the plant and its fruit include bitter melon or bitter gourd (translated from Chinese: 苦瓜; pinyin: kǔguā), and karela from the Indian name of the vegetable.

The herbaceous, tendril-bearing vine grows to 5 m. It bears simple, alternate leaves 4-12 cm across, with 3-7 deeply separated lobes. Each plant bears separate yellow male and female flowers.

Sunday, November 22, 2009

Extrusion

Extrusion is a process used to create objects of a fixed cross-sectional profile. A material is pushed or drawn through a die of the desired cross-section. The two main advantages of this process over other manufacturing processes is its ability to create very complex cross-sections and work materials that are brittle, because the material only encounters compressive and shear stresses. It also forms finished parts with an excellent surface finish.

Saturday, November 21, 2009

Aniridia


Aniridia is a rare congenital condition characterized by the underdevelopment of the eye's iris. This usually occurs in both eyes. It is associated with poor development of the retina at the back of the eye preventing normal vision development. Aniridia does not cause lack of vision.

Friday, November 20, 2009

myriahedron

A myriahedron is a polyhedron with a very large number of faces (technically 10000).

Thursday, November 19, 2009

plethysmograph

A plethysmograph is an instrument for measuring changes in volume within an organ or whole body (usually resulting from fluctuations in the amount of blood or air it contains).

Wednesday, November 18, 2009

Outrigger


An outrigger is a part of a boat's rigging which is rigid and extends beyond the side or gunwale of a boat.

In an outrigger canoe or bangka and in sailboats such as the proa, an outrigger is a thin, long, solid, hull used to stabilise an inherently unstable main hull. The outrigger is positioned rigidly and parallel to the main hull so that the main hull is less likely to capsize. If only one outrigger is used on a vessel, its weight reduces the tendency to capsize in one direction and its buoyancy reduces the tendency in the other direction.

Tuesday, November 17, 2009

badunkadunk

The posterior of the female anatomy when concerning the homosapien species. In which the diameter of the said posterior is not to exceed 50 inches but not to go below 40 inches. Equally as important the owner of the badunkadunk must possess a waist line no larger than 2/3 the diameter of the badunkadunk.

Monday, November 16, 2009

plotz

plotz: to collapse or faint, as from surprise, excitement, or exhaustion.

Saturday, November 14, 2009

Friday, November 13, 2009

Infarction

In medicine, an infarction results in the death of a macroscopic area of tissue in an organ due to loss of adequate blood supply. This dead tissue is then known as necrotic. The supplying arteries may be blocked by an obstruction (e.g. a blood clot or fatty cholesterol deposit), may be mechanically compressed, or ruptured by trauma.

Thursday, November 12, 2009

Capsize

Capsize: "The common definition for capsized refers to when a boat or ship is tipped over until disabled."

Wednesday, November 11, 2009

Agastya


Agastya (अगस्त्य in devanagari, pronounced /ə gəs tyə/) was a Vedic sage or rishi. Agastya and his clan are also credited[who?] to have "authored" many mantras of the Rig Veda, the earliest and most revered Hindu scripture, in the sense of first having the mantras revealed in his mind by the Supreme Brahman. Agastya is also the author of Agastya Samhita[ref: Dharma Bharathi]. In some reckonings, Agastya is the greatest of the Seven Sages or Saptarshis. The word is also written as Agasti. A-ga means a mountain, Asti, thrower. Also a name of Lord Shiva. Agastya the Rishi, was born of both Gods, Mitra and Varuna, from Urvashi. Agastya is also the Indian astronomical name of the star of Canopus, is said to be the 'cleanser of waters', since its rising coincides with the calming of the waters of the Indian Ocean. Another reference is in the Mahabharata in Sauptikaparva as the teacher of Guru Drona, who gave Drona, the greatest of weapons, Brahmastra (used by both Arjuna and Ashwatthama at the end of the war).

Tuesday, November 10, 2009

Phagocyte

Phagocytes (from the Greek words phagein, meaning 'to eat or devour', and kutos, meaning 'hollow vessel') are cells that are found in the blood, bone marrow and other tissues of vertebrates. Phagocytes ingest pathogenic and infectious agents in the body. Like all cells involved in the immune system, they originate in the bone marrow. Phagocytes derive from a group of stem cells in the bone marrow called myeloid progenitor cells. Phagocytes are the basis of defense in the innate immune system; these cells ingest pathogens and often take part in antigen presentation. The types of phagocytes include neutrophils, macrophages, and monocytes. Dendritic cells also participate in phagocytosis and presentation of antigens to other cells that are important in the immune response.

Monday, November 9, 2009

Crimp

The American term shanghaied refers to the practice of conscripting men as sailors by coercive techniques such as trickery, intimidation, or violence. Those engaged in this form of kidnapping were known as crimps.

Sunday, November 8, 2009

droplift

"droplifting" is a term coined by Richard Holland of Turntable Trainwreck to describe a unique form of record distribution - the reverse of shoplifting. It involves dropping a disc of your music in the racks of a record store without knowledge of the store's owner or staff. This is a tactic which has been used by Richard to promote releases from his previous project (The Institute for Sonic Ponderance), and we suspect it is something that many different independent musicians have tried at some point to get their work out to the public.

Saturday, November 7, 2009

Hacktivismo

Hacktivismo is an offshoot of CULT OF THE DEAD COW (cDc), whose beliefs include access to information as a basic human right. It was founded in 1999.

The group's beliefs are described fully in The Hacktivismo Declaration, which seeks to apply the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights to the Internet. Oxblood Ruffin, the director of Hacktivismo, has argued forcefully against definitions of hacktivism that include web defacements or denial-of-service attacks. Hacktivismo has also authored its own software license agreement, the Hacktivismo Enhanced-Source Software License Agreement (HESSLA). The HESSLA is an open source license that prohibits use or modification that would violate human rights or introduce features that spy on the user. (This prohibition illustrates the difference between open source licenses and free software licenses.)

Impeller

An impeller is a rotor inside a tube or conduit to increase the pressure and flow of a fluid.

Friday, November 6, 2009

Auger


An auger is a device for moving material or liquid (see Archimedes' screw) by means of a rotating helical flighting. The material is moved along the axis of rotation. For some uses the helical 'flighting' is enclosed in a tube, for other uses the flighting is not encased. An integral part of a drill, the auger of the drill bit uses this mechanism to remove shavings from the hole being drilled.

Thursday, November 5, 2009

aethrioscope

aethrioscope: A device for measuring temperature variations due to different atmospheric conditions, such as cloud or clear skies.

Wednesday, November 4, 2009

Abmahnung

Abmahnung (a written warning in German) is the formal request by one person to another person to forthwith stop a certain behaviour.

If this formal request is made by an attorney, then it is a cease-and-desist letter (but not a cease-and-desist order, which is called einstweilige Verfügung in German law). It is used much more between private parties than a consent decree is in the United States, since German law permits attorneys to file suit to bring an end to an observed wrong done to a third party, whereas in the United States, parties must have standing to sue (i.e. only the wronged party can sue).

Thought shower

Thought shower: A method of problem solving in which members of a group contribute ideas spontaneously. Coined in the early 2000s, supposedly as a politically correct version of brainstorm, which could be offensive to people with cerebral disorders.

Tuesday, November 3, 2009

Sprog


sprog:
once disparaging term for a child, now often used affectionately. (Chiefly British)

Monday, November 2, 2009

Neoproterozoic

The Neoproterozoic Era is the unit of geologic time from 1,000 to 542 +/- 0.3 million years ago. The terminal Era of the formal Proterozoic Eon (or the informal "Precambrian"), it is further subdivided into the Tonian, Cryogenian, and Ediacaran Periods. The most severe glaciation known in the geologic record occurred during the Cryogenian, when ice sheets reached the equator and formed a possible "Snowball Earth"; and the earliest fossils of multicellular life are found in the Ediacaran, including the earliest animals.

Sunday, November 1, 2009

bağlama


The bağlama is a stringed musical instrument shared by various cultures in the Eastern Mediterranean, Near East, and Central Asia. It is sometimes referred to as the saz (from the Persian language ساز‎, meaning a kit or set). According to The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, "the terms 'bağlama' and 'saz' are used somewhat interchangeably in Turkey."

lordosis

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