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Question: What is the difference between demure and demur?
Answer: Demure means “reserved or modest.” Demur means to “delay” or “take exception to.”
- You may have noticed that Google invested $3.9 million in Sergey Brin’s wife’s startup. Here was my comment on John Battelle’s blog:
(I know—Wolfowitz’s.)
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How much does open-heart surgery cost?
Answer: A coronary bypass surgery costs somewhere in the range of $60,000. Source.
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Can bullets fired into the air (during, say, a New Year’s celebration) fall back down and kill someone?
Answer: Theoretically, but it’s exceedingly rare.
Mythbusters actually devoted an entire episode to this topic. Here is how Wikipedia summarizes:
In the case of a bullet fired at a precisely vertical angle (something extremely difficult for a human being to duplicate), the bullet would tumble, lose its spin, and fall at a much slower speed due to terminal velocity and is therefore rendered less than lethal on impact. However, if a bullet is fired upward at a non-vertical angle (a far more probable possibility), it will maintain its spin and will reach a high enough speed to be lethal on impact. Because of this potentiality, firing a gun into the air is illegal in most states, and even in the states that it is legal, it is not recommended by the police. Also the MythBusters were able to identify two people who had been injured by falling bullets, one of them fatally injured.
For a more thorough discussion, see this Metafilter thread.
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Via MGoBlog via the Onion. Headline: Ohio State Uses T-Shirt Blaster To Pass Out Diplomas. Classic.
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I just have learned that a plural form of aquarium is aquaria. Stop the presses.
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By the way, I’ve also just learned that unproportional isn’t a word. It’s disproportional. Carry on.