Humor will not be tolerated!! -Portia

Random wrote:I do a vlog now. Vlogs are cool.

The word "vlog," on the other hand... (Something about a "v" and an "l" together like that doesn't seem to work well in English. Though maybe that's just me.)

The word "anorak" is of Inuit origin, which is rare for an English word. (Other English words of Inuit origin include "igloo" and "kayak.") I love how English adopts words from such a wide range of other languages. James Nicoll described it amusingly : The problem with...

anorak - waterproof, hooded, pull-over jacket without a front opening, and sometimes drawstrings at the waist and cuffs (similar to a parka)

Source: this story on a notorious group of hackers that got sentenced recently. (An incriminating note was found in an anorak that belonged to one of them.)

I haven't been hijacked, but I have /kinda/ stolen a 'nym. Ardilla Feroz had been around for a while before I bothered to check Google translate, and The Amazing Squirrel Boy hails from the depths of the archives. It's kinda embarrassing when you realize that you /almost/ stole a 'nym, when you thi...

^^^^^ That's probably what I would do. Does this mean go up 5 posts and that's the one you're talking about? Or that you're "upvoting" the one just above you a bunch of times? (I've seen people do this before and never been sure what they mean, unless they give some context or quote the i...

Yeah, I'd recommend doing it now just to be safe. Also, like Whistler pointed out, certain services will migrate your data over to theirs for you if you do it before Reader shuts down. I'm using Feedly and liking it pretty well so far (despite some odd bugs). Note, though, that as far as I know they...

Squirrel wrote:Is it that the question is more than a week old?

Exactly. They decided a while back (shortly after the switch to 5.0, I think) that it wasn't very topical to show less-recent comments on the front page, so they only show up if the question is less than a week old.

Katya wrote:I'm there (katya0133), but I don't put pictures up (mainly because I don't own a camera).

Not even a cell phone with a camera?

For what it's worth, Board Question #27764, Board Question #27840, and Board Question #55044 talk a little more about the court cases that BYU fought about this.

Thanks! Yeah, it was kind of rough, but it turns out that even after screwing things up you can still turn them around!

Are you at all interested in an iPod Touch? If all you want is to play back podcasts and music it would be overkill, but they're pretty versatile, so if you'd like being able to quick check a website (within WiFi range), play games, or use any of the plethora of apps, you might want to consider one....

ponding - the unwanted pooling of water (I had no idea this could be a verb!) Source: a "special weather statement" from the National Weather Service, which contained the following: "... HEAVY SHOWERS CAUSING SOME PONDING OF WATER ON ROADWAYS..." (Side note: I wonder when, or if,...

Question about Sanderson's books and the women in them . These were good, interesting responses. I'm reading the Mistborn trilogy currently and have actually been wondering this very same question. I don't know, I liked Vin a lot more in the first book than in the second, I already feel like she is...

Haha, I'm glad you liked it. I have to admit that I also had the same thought as you...but I guess the scenario isn't impossible.

If you're explicitly calling out a word in typed text (like, say, the word carpet), do you put it in italics, like I just did? Or would you say that the word should be in double quotes, or single quotes, or something else? That's what the examples in the poll are trying to show, too.

Katya wrote:In other news, please enjoy this picture of a Ukrainian coin with a Voronoi diagram:

Nice!

Please tell me you've read Edward Tufte. I've perused one of this books, but I haven't really read/studied him. (I know, I should hang my head in shame. :) ) The thing is, I haven't really gotten around to studying visualization yet; it's just on my list of topics I'd like to learn more about. (And...

This is why you don't give out passwords before marriage. (Or at least, why I didn't.)

Also, the hovertext in this one.

Laser Jock, that tree map is wonderful. And incredibly distracting. Thanks, I'm glad you liked it. :) It's definitely up there for answers I've spent the most time on...but it was a lot of fun, too. (Visualization is a fascinating field to me, although not one I could see myself pursuing a career i...

For what it's worth, past Board questions have dealt with what's on the ninth floor of the Widtsoe, and indicate that things like HIV and Ebola are (or have been) housed there. Rumors also say things like anthrax , but that's stated as just a rumor, unlike the other two questions I found about it. (...