September 2010
43 posts
Cat Flap
thingsiwikipedia:
“The invention of the cat flap is attributed to Isaac Newton.”
Quite a pedigree, that.
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Vergangenheitsbewältigung →
Vergangenheitsbewältigung is a composite German word that describes processes of dealing with the past, which is perhaps best rendered in English as “struggle to come to terms with the past”.
Immortality Drive →
The Immortality Drive is a small memory device which was taken to the International Space Station in a Soyuz spacecraft on October 12, 2008. The Immortality Drive contains digitized DNA sequences of a select group of humans, such as physicist Stephen Hawking, comedian Stephen Colbert, Playboy Playmate Jo Garcia, game designer Richard Garriot, Pro Wrestler Matt Morgan, and athlete Lance Armstrong.
...
Saudade →
Saudade (singular) or saudades (plural) is a Portuguese and Galician word for a feeling of nostalgic longing for something or someone that one was fond of and which is lost. It often carries a fatalist tone and a repressed knowledge that the object of longing might really never return. Saudade has been described as a “vague and constant desire for something that does not and probably cannot...
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Salvador Dalí - personality →
When interviewed by Mike Wallace on his 60 Minutestelevision show, Dalí kept referring to himself in the third person, and told the startled Mr. Wallace matter-of-factly that “Dalí is immortal and will not die.”
During another television appearance, on The Tonight Show, Dalí carried with him a leather rhinoceros and refused to sit upon anything else.
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List of British words not widely used in the... →
Pauli effect →
The Pauli effect is a term referring to the apparently mysterious anecdotal failure of technical equipment in the presence of certain people.
Bloody Mary →
Bloody Mary is a ghost or witch featured in Western folklore. She is said to appear in a mirror when her name is called three times (or sometimes more, depending upon the version of the story), often as part of a game at slumber parties. Other very similar tales use different names for the character including Mary Worth, Mary Worthington, and Hell Mary among others.
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Groom kidnapping →
Groom kidnapping is a phenomenon common in parts of Bihar, and eastern Uttar Pradesh states in India, wherein eligible bachelors are abducted by the bride’s family and later forcefully married, to avoid heavy dowry costs. Considering the traditional regard for the marriage sacrament, most such marriages are not annulled. Additionally, the groom may suffer criminal charges under Indian dowry...
Batman (unit) →
The batman was a unit of mass used in the Ottoman Empire and Central Asia. It has also been recorded as a unit of area in Uyghur-speaking regions of Central Asia.
The batman was used in Central Asia up until at least the 18th century. In Khiva in 1740, there were said to be two batmans: the “great batman” of 18 Russian pounds (approx. 7.4 kg) and the “lesser batman” of 9¼ Russian pounds...
technical difficulties
our whole queue disappeared today, so if you’ve submitted anything that hasn’t been posted, it’s gone. resubmit, or just don’t be offended when it’s not posted.
a few of the disappeared posts are appearing on the rss feed but not anywhere on tumblr. so if you read via rss - sorry. and if they are magically all dumped on tumblr at the same time at some point - also...
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Eunoia →
Eunoia is the shortest English word containing all five main vowel graphemes.
It comes from the Greek word εὔνοια, meaning “well mind” or “beautiful thinking.”
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Big Nose George →
Big Nose George Parrott, also known as George Manuse and George Warden, was a cattle rustler in the Wild West in the late 19th century. He is known for being made into a pair of shoes after his death.
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2007 Brooklyn Tornadoes →
Posting because one JUST HAPPENED:
At 529 PM EDT… National Weather Service Doppler radar continued to indicate a tornado. This tornado was located near Park Slope… or near Verrazano-Narrows bridge… moving east at 30 mph.
Saw it out my window! Anyone else in Brooklyn right now?
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The Truman Show delusion →
The Truman Show delusion is a controversial type of persecutory/grandiose delusion in which patients believe their lives are reality television shows. The term was coined in 2008 by brothers Joel and Ian Gold, who are both psychiatrists, after the 1998 film The Truman Show.
There have been over 40 recorded instances of people suffering from the Truman Show Delusion in the U.S., the U.K. and...
Mean World Syndrome →
Mean World Syndrome is a debatable phenomenon where the violence-related content of mass media convinces viewers that the world is more dangerous than it actually is, and prompts a desire for more protection than is warranted by any actual threat.
People who watch a large amount of television tend to think of the world as an intimidating and unforgiving place. Individuals who watch television...
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In vino veritas →
In vino veritas is a Latin phrase that translates, “in wine [there is the] truth”.
Similar phrases exist across cultures and languages. In Chinese, there is the saying, “酒後吐真言” (“After wine blurts truthful speech”). The Babylonian Talmud (תלמוד בבלי) contains the passage: “נכנס יין יצא סוד”, i.e., “In came wine, out went a secret”.
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Golden Age of Porn →
The Golden Age of Porn or porno chic refers to a brief modern period in the history of pornography, approximately from the late-sixties to the early-to-mid-1980s. The period is idealized as a time in history where difficult to treat or untreatable STDs had not achieved wide public notice. This freedom was ostensibly reflected in the pornography industry, with adult movies and adult magazines...
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List of tallest buildings by U.S. state →
New York: Empire State Building, 102 floors
Chicago: Willis Tower, 110 floors
Vermont: Decker Towers, 11 floors
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List of animals by number of neurons →
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“It is estimated that bees fly 150,000 miles, roughly six times around the earth,...”
– Beeswax - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia (via zachrose)
Holmes and Rahe stress scale →
The Holmes and Rahe stress scale is a list of 43 stressful life events that can contribute to illness. A positive correlation of was found between these life events and study subjects’ illnesses.
To measure stress according to the Holmes and Rahe Stress Scale, the number of “Life Change Units” that apply to events in the past year of an individual’s life are added and the...
“Crystallization is a concept, developed in 1822 by the French writer Stendhal,...”
– Crystallization (love) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia (via palmsies)
Bradley effect →
The Bradley effect is a theory proposed to explain observed discrepancies between voter opinion polls and election outcomes in some US government elections where a white candidate and a non-white candidate run against each other.
The theory proposes that some voters tend to tell pollsters that they are undecided or likely to vote for a black candidate, and yet, on election day, vote for the white...
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List of commercial failures in video gaming →
As a hit-driven business, the great majority of the video games industry’s software releases have been commercial failures. In the early 21st century, rules of thumb noted by industry commentators estimated that 10% of published games generated 90% of revenue. The rate of commercial failure has been estimated at 95% by the International Game Developers Association.
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Heights of Presidents of the United States and... →
Various folk wisdoms about U.S. presidential politics put forward the view that the taller of the two major-party candidates always wins or almost always wins since the advent of the televised presidential debate, since 1900, and so on.
Cicisbeo →
In 18th- and 19th-century Italy, the cicisbeo or Cavalier Servente, was the professed gallant and lover of a married woman, who attended her at public entertainments, to church and other occasions and had privileged access to his mistress.
submitted by exempli-gratia
Hunkerin' →
Hunkerin’ (Hunkering) is where a person sits on the balls of their feet. It is common worldwide, but briefly became an American fad in the late 1950s. Time reported that the craze started at the University of Arkansas when a shortage of chairs at a fraternity house led students to imitate their Ozark forefathers, who hunkered regularly.
The fad spread first to Missouri, Mississippi and...
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Phonebooth stuffing →
Phonebooth stuffing was a fad that began during the 1950s in Durban, South Africa and spread to Britain, Canada and the United States by the spring of 1959. It involved a number of people consecutively entering a phonebooth, until the point where the phonebooth would accommodate no more, or there were no more individuals available.
At some colleges as many as 25 students managed to cram some of...
Peter Principle →
The Peter Principle is the principle that “in a hierarchy every employee tends to rise to their level of incompetence”.
It holds that in a hierarchy, members are promoted so long as they work competently. Sooner or later they are promoted to a position at which they are no longer competent (their “level of incompetence”), and there they remain, being unable to earn further promotions.
Peter’s...
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Progesterex →
Progesterex is a fictitious date rape drug. It is part of a hoax that began to circulate in 1999 via e-mail on the internet. No actual drug by this name or even with these properties exists, and no such incident has ever been documented or confirmed.
submitted by exempli-gratia
List of nicknames used by George W. Bush →
Former American president George W. Bush is widely known to use nicknames to refer to journalists, fellow politicians, and members of his White House staff.
Dino (short for Dinosaur) - Jean Chrétien, Prime Minister of Canada
Tree Man - Unnamed forest service official
Light Bulb - National Energy Policy Development Group Executive Director Andrew D. Lundquist
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“A study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences claims...”
– Personal name: Dolphin names for each other
Hypercorrection →
In linguistics, hypercorrection is defined as usage of some rule of pronunciation or grammatical prescription that many users of a language consider incorrect, but that the speaker or writer uses through misunderstanding of these rules, often combined with a desire to seem formal or educated.
The noun octopus is often made plural in English as octopi, originally from the mistaken belief that...
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Penis captivus →
Penis captivus describes an event that occurs in rare instances during heterosexual intercourse when the muscles in the vagina clamp down on the penis much more firmly than usual (a form of vaginismus), making it impossible for the penis to withdraw from the vagina.
submitted by exempli-gratia
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Abilene paradox →
The Abilene paradox is a paradox in which a group of people collectively decide on a course of action that is counter to the preferences of any of the individuals in the group. It involves a common breakdown of group communication in which each member mistakenly believes that their own preferences are counter to the group’s and, therefore, does not raise objections. A common phrase relating...