zompist bboard

So that you know, Neek, the link in the topic opener is not only dead but appears to potentially lead to spyware/viruses. (The link in your sig is valid.)

The encyclopedia article I was reading said "...but they may have enjoyed their servitude, given the most common means of mattress construction in 15c. France." I couldn't figure out what this meant. The horsemen were going to be used as mattresses? Maybe the horsemen were going to be set to work m...

Southern third latitudinally, central third longitudinally of the contiguous USA A1: Bedroom A2: Laundry room A3: Kitchen A4: Living room A5: Dining room A6: Den or lounge A7: Foyer or entryway (I'm inclined to say entryway. A foyer is an actual room, not just an alcove.) A8: Master bedroom A9: Mast...

However, magic requires an intelligent entity to wield, and Cuzeian mythology suggests a purpose— to create a barrier between the hemispheres to prevent war from spreading across the equator. So it could be assumed that quirky methods will be prevented only if they have military potential. Ferrying...

If the effects of the Zone are proportional to intelligence then why don't plants thrive there? They are intellectually inferior to bugs and whatnot who are themselves unaffected, so they should be doing fine. If I had to hazard a speculative guess, I'd say it's probably because whoever cast the ma...

1. What technology would be needed to pass through it reliably? Steamships (keeping as many people as possible belowdecks until the crossing is complete)? Aircraft? Space travel? A bunch of hit dice, a high fortitude save modifier, some equipment straight out of Sandstorm , and plenty of high rolls?...

Yes, the more fancy word we used was "to billet." Really? I find it somehow funny to imagine someone saying "Oh pardon me, I'm billeting an exchange student" on the phone and the other person wondering what the hell that means. If it were me on the other end of the line, I might have misheard it as...

We know (or at least are pretty sure) that liquid water can't exist on Venus because of its proximity to the sun. But has that always been the case? The solar luminosity of the Sun has increased over its lifetime, perhaps when L was lower H2O could exist on the surface without evaporating. AFAIK th...

One of my earlier versions of Terpish had the word xisle (pronounced with a voiced uvular implosive stop as the first consonant) that meant "the loss of motivation to restart a project that occurs after having invested a great deal of time in that project only for an accident to ruin the whole thin...

I have to have words for at least the following types of tree: oak, elm, maple, birch, and willow. Also, I tend to give "upper arm" a separate word (either just separate from "arm", or distinguished from "lower arm" and potentially having a word that means both combined). There seems to also be a te...

One should also remember that walls take up space, especially the thicker ones designed to bear weight or keep out the elements. I think, according to a very quick Google search, exterior walls are typically about 6 inches in width, or at least can be estimated to be that, which means you'll need t...

The only time I seriously use the word <bourgeois> in conversation, though, is when I am talking about the French Revolution.

I do not talk about the French Revolution much.

1. Where were you born? Texas, USA 2. What is your native language? English 3. What other languages besides English and your native language do you know? Some German, French, and Japanese. Nowhere near fluent in any of those. 4. How old are you? 23 5. How old were you when you first began to study E...

You can have staircases which have minuscule landings. If each staircase is 2 feet wide, then with a tiny landing you could stack two together and they could steeply climb up the entire building and only take up 4 feet in width. Only two feet wide? I didn't know stairs could get that narrow. I've s...

Schwarzenegger had child with staffer, report says

So there's a genetic or infant disease called "staffer" now?

Bill O'Reilly and Jon Stewart Debate Common Controversy

So is the debate between O'Reilly and Stewart a common controversy, or is the thing they were debating a common controversy?

/buɹʒwɑ/, CURE vowel for the first syllable.

The verb "to steal" seems to be increasingly used to request permission to take, have, get or even use something where I live. So it's not unusual to hear "Can I steal a chip?" ( Can I have a chip? ), "Can I steal your fries?" ( Can I take some of your fries? ), "Can I steal a pen for a sec?" ( Cou...

Soap wrote:When in reality it gets 6 hits.

Soon to be 7, if Google indexes these threads.

This is sort of falling into the fallacy that if it isn't "productive"/monetizable/popular, it's "meaningless" and a "waste of time". This is untrue and is a symptom of the fact that in the corporate world , this is generally the case. Time is only money at work; free time is not money. There doesn'...

Even better: Anyone here that has experienced sleep paralysis? It's happened to me before, at least three times that I can remember. The way I deal with it nowadays is to try to "wriggle my way out of it" - try to move fingers and toes first, then move up to hands and feet, then legs and arms. If I...

I think in English, when measurements are used as substantives, they take the singular, as if there's a hidden "The amount of...", i.e. (The amount of) 10 dollars is more than (the amount of) 5 dollars. (The distance of) 50 inches is longer than (the distance of) four feet. (The weight of) two kilog...

There's no Miley Cyrus in Mebhara (nor is there Kanye West), a fact which if the Mebharans knew about it they would surely be grateful for.

(But I highly, highly doubt you'd enjoy Mebhara at all.)

Last night was particularly peculiar and fitful, sleep-wise, for me. I clearly went to sleep at some point, because it was 4 1/2 hours from the time I went to bed and the (first) time I got out of bed, and it didn't feel at all like 4 1/2 hours. But it seemed like half the time I was sort of in a se...

"Archaic but comprehensible" in English is KJV/Shakespeare Early Modern English.

The effectiveness of curriculum which teaches basic phonetics over unit chapters versus that which teaches basic phonetics as a prerequisite to grammatical study. Possibly also designing a curriculum for teaching French and Spanish phonetics at the secondary level. Ehh.... are French and Spanish re...