Words

My suggestions for new words go here. So far I have only a small number of them.

EUPHEMOID

The root of this word is euphemism, ("the substitution of a frank expression that might offend or otherwise suggest something unpleasant to the audience, for a mild, inoffensive, relatively uncontroversial phrase.") with the suffix -oid, "indicating likeness, resemblance, or similarity."

A euphemoid has the appearance of a euphemism, but is not necessarily a euphemism. A euphemism is a polite way of saying something less polite. For example, one might say "I'm going to powder my nose" when excusing oneself to use the restroom (and restroom is a euphemism for toilet). In this example, a euphemoid would be if somebody excused herself to powder her nose, you would follow her to the restroom, and then find her actually applying powder to her nose. That would be an example of a euphemoid. Another one, though less likely, is if you went into a door marked "restroom", only to find people taking naps on cots. So far, my new word has limited applicability; but we're working on expanding the example base to make euphemoid into a more versatile household word.

E, MER

The english language lacks gender-neutral pronouns. well, not really. We have he and she, and we also have it, but some people seem to think it only applies to lifeless inanimate objects. Nobody knows why this is so, but the belief that it cannot be used for a living human is so deeply ingrained in our culture, it can't be changed. Sure, it's fine for 80% of all english speakers to forget how to spell you're, but the word IT absolutely cannot be used correctly in gender-neutral situations in reference to humans. Maybe it's not PC enough or something. God forbid you call somebody an "it", or you refer to a potential she as a he! No no no, you have to fill up an entire page with a lengthy "he/she". It may be a lot, but at least you're letting the forward slash get a little literary action.

Anyway, assuming i explained that part sufficiently, we can get on with the words. Since one's gender is the first impression you get from somebody upon meeting, it's the first part of the word that is different. For example, with he and she, the difference is the H and SH at the beginning, but the E at the end remains the same. Therefore, the gender neutral he/she word is E.

Why E? why not? We already have two other one letter words, A and I, and two that sound like one letter words, O and U. E is the only one not used. another one letter word can't hurt. E is at the end of he and she, so it's already there. Who cares? Just use e as the gender-neutral pronoun. Come on, do it and get it over with. Your shortened sentences will thank you. It's not like we don't pronounce the H sound in he, because we do pronounce it. This is America, that's how we talk, we say the letter H. He and e will be easily distinguishable. Do you want to make a contraction with is, such as he's or she's? How about e's? You can do it with ease.

What about him and her? As I did in e, I take off the beginning of a word, and use the ending. But wait, him and her end differently. That's fine, I use the ending of both together, and formed mer. That's right, mer is the new gender-neutral pronoun replacing the cumbersome him/her. Want to make it possessive? just add an s at the end, for mers.

You might as well get used to these words now, because they're here to stay. Start using them today. What will your friend think? E will love it! E and mer will go right into mer vocabulary. And find a way to use euphemoid too, that one can have some very interesting applications.

The Blivet

For centuries, Mankind has marveled at the world's most impossible shape, the blivet, a shape unique among all the shapes from around the world. It's more strange than the Greek rectangle, inspires more puzzlement than the Persian semi-circle, and more confusing than the famous three-pronged poiuyt of Rhodesia. Many have tried to construct a blivet. Millions of research dollars were spent, and countless lives lost, but all have failed where none have succeeded. The blivet defies reality, obfuscates comprehension, and spits in the face of reason. Some would say it's plain un-American. Some say it's a waste of time to try to build one of any size, and even a few would go as far as to say that the world-wide obsession with vain attempts at reckoning it is a pox on the community, and a destructive force that ravages the mind. Even a syphilitic pustulence upon logic itself.

The Blivet

But this madness shall be no more! For today, I unravel the secret of the blivet for all the world to see! No more shall this blight on physics damage the mind of mankind! No more will children have to ask why so many lives are lost to the research of geometry! No more will it be impossible to convert two square rods into three cylindrical tubes! Today, I will reveal the solution to mankind's most confusing question!

The following demonstration is not for the faint of heart. If you have a weak stomach, are pregnant or planning to be pregnant, are prone to dizziness, if you have heart problems, or if you are a child or a woman, you might not want to view the mind-boggling episode that follows. Also, do not scroll down if you are on any MAOIs, or if you have sleep apnea, asthma, depression, liver or kidney problems, or if you have eaten in the last half hour. The following demonstration may cause drowsiness, drymouth, nausea, trouble with urination, and sexual side effects.

You have been warned.














































Ok, so here we go. First, make this shape out of play-doh.



Next, insert it into a play-doh extruding device.



And... that's about it. There's your real-life blivet in physical form, right before your eyes. Yup. Enjoy your blivet!

The Ring

About ten or more years ago, I was helping my friends demolish the interior of a building that they were being evicted from. While smashing away at the things, I came upon a rock with a small glint of some metal exposed from within. What, I queried to myself, the F was this piece of metal doing in a rock? (which was most likely an artificially formed sedimentary rock, nothing special like igneous rock. THAT would be an interesting place to find something.) To answer my question, I wielded "the negotiator" (a 50 lb. crowbar) upon the rock, smashing it apart, wherein I discovered this ring.



Upon discovering my new treasure, I instantly knew it was now mine. It fits on my finger, I'm the one who found it, and it says "Allah", which sounds like my initials, ALA.

I do not yet know what magical powers it contains, I really should bring it to a magician and ask. But I don't trust most magicians, they do "disappearing tricks" to steal my things. I did manage to decipher the symbols on the sides though.

This mysteriously cubic symbol most likely represents a Christmas present. Christmas presents are hidden inside square boxes, and effort must be used to open the box and find the treasure inside. This parallels my smashing of the rock in obtaining this ring. The symbol underneath is shaped like a man, and is most likely Allah's partner, as he is holding up the wrapped Christmas holiday gift.


This building is none other than the home of our great nation's president, the White House. At the time I uncovered the ring, as well as this time right now, I was in the US. However, something puzzles me about the man symbol. It looks exactly identical to the man on the other side. Perhaps they are replicas of each other, or share similarities. Similarities has the same root as assimilation; therefore, they must be assimilated. They are made of metal, so the only logical conclusion is that they are borg. Therefore, the cubic symbol on the first side must also represent the Borg Cube.

This concludes this.

Fibonacci Spiral In Human Settlement Patterns

O hai, it's me again.


I was looking at the Fibonacci spiral, and noticed that it can sort of be found in land masses.

The Tibetan plateau if very Fibonacci-like. This was the first one I noticed.



The coast along the Gulf of Mexico uses the spiral, from New Orleans to the end of Mexico, and then up through the middle of the Great Lakes.



This may look like I'm just looking for coincidences by applying the fibonacci spiral to various maps, rather than finding actual information. That kind of is what I did. This was a project for school, and I didn't want to be like everybody else and write about bees and rabbits multiplying. So naturally, I looked at maps and found them everywhere.









Here you can see that the entire continent of Africa is one giant Fibonacci spiral.





















But then I noticed something even more interesting. It's easy to find spirals in land masses, but will it work with population distribution?

I took population density maps off the internet without permission, overlaid a Fibonacci spiral over them, in most cases starting at the capital, and I found that human settlements also follow a pattern.

I tried Africa again, and found that the majority of highly populated spots fall on or close to where the spiral predicts. Africa doesn't have a capital, because it is not a country. So I started in Nigeria, the most populous African country. It's almost the same spiral used to show the shape of the land mass. This actually makes practical sense, because people love living near the coast, so it's not as impressive as one would think.










Texas is the best example, the others start to look more randomly placed.
Beginning from Austin, the capital, the spiral goes through all the major cities; San Antonio, Houston, it gets close to Ft Worth and Dallas. It passes between Lubbock and Midland; they are not very large places, but they are cities in an area where there's almost nothing else. I was in west Texas, there's really nothing there at all.

Seriously, driving through west Texas is as boring as west Nebraska. In Nebraska, just look out the window once, now you know what the entire state looks like.







This is an old Russian map, the darker parts are the most populated. This spirals out from a place called Samara, it didn't work with Moscow.















In Iran, many major cities are right on the line. Some are not, but people need cities all over the place. We can't expect this to be perfect, I'm only looking for patterns here.

















A map of France shows that heavily populated areas follow a mostly spiral shape, with the three densest spots outside of france all along the edges.


















Connecticut gets two spirals, because with a land mass this large, it is culturally almost like two different states. The large spiral begins in New Britain. It goes through all the major cities, and along the small cities in the rural and strange eastern part of the state along the population centers there.

Fairfield county, which is considered part of the New York Suburbs, has a separate spiral, which passes through the county's four major cities.