Grinning Cat's definitions
(from snail mail)
(v.) to send (a letter, card, or package) via physical mail; to mail or post (a tangible object) using a postal service. Bills and junk mail are perhaps the most common items snailed, but people snail personal letters and items as well.
(v.) to send (a letter, card, or package) via physical mail; to mail or post (a tangible object) using a postal service. Bills and junk mail are perhaps the most common items snailed, but people snail personal letters and items as well.
by Grinning Cat December 27, 2010
Get the snailmug. How you might feel when you want to use a word in conversation that you're familiar with in reading and writing, you know perfectly well what it means, but you've never heard it spoken, and have no idea how to pronounce it.
"It doesn't matter how many times you click on Font Color. Changing red text to red again won't make a difference. It's eye-dem-... id-em-..." (thinking, "How the *$%^& do you pronounce 'idempotent'??? Guess that makes me eye-literate.")
by Grinning Cat November 4, 2016
Get the eye-literatemug. (v.) present participle of pence: avoiding a direct answer to a question, as exemplified by Indiana Governor Mike Pence in his interview on "This Week" on March 29, 2015, about the broad "religious freedom" bill he signed.
Examples of pencing:
George Stephanopoulos: "Yes or no: If a florist in Indiana refuses to serve a gay couple at their wedding, is that legal now in Indiana?"
Mike Pence: "George, this is where this debate has gone."
"Is that true or not?"
"George, look, the issue here is that, y'know..."
"Yes or no: should it be legal to discriminate against gays and lesbians?"
"George, you're following the mantra of the last week online, and you're trying to make the issue about something else."
George Stephanopoulos: "Yes or no: If a florist in Indiana refuses to serve a gay couple at their wedding, is that legal now in Indiana?"
Mike Pence: "George, this is where this debate has gone."
"Is that true or not?"
"George, look, the issue here is that, y'know..."
"Yes or no: should it be legal to discriminate against gays and lesbians?"
"George, you're following the mantra of the last week online, and you're trying to make the issue about something else."
by Grinning Cat April 1, 2015
Get the pencingmug. A device that records the choices of voters in an election. It can take several forms:
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1. (Becoming less and less common in the U.S.)
A mechanical device, where the voter flips small levers next to the candidates' names to indicate their choices, then pulls a big lever to record the votes. Very difficult to tamper with.
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2. (Very common in the U.S.)
A direct-recording electronic (DRE) machine. May print vote totals on paper, but there is no way for a voter to verify that his/her votes were accurately recorded.
Unlike mechanical voting machines, DRE machines are EXTREMELY VULNERABLE TO FRAUD. In addition to outright tampering with the records, malware can be used to steal a percentage of votes, reassigning them to the rigged candidate. The purported verification mechanisms -- logs, audit trails, "snapshots" of individual voters' choices -- can be manipulated to leave no evidence, corresponding perfectly to the rigged results.
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3. (The way to use technology for elections we can have confidence in)
An electronic machine that lets the voter make choices (preventing overvotes and highlighting undervotes), then PRINTS AN ACTUAL FILLED-OUT PAPER BALLOT, which the voter can review and either discard (and start over) or cast.
THE PAPER BALLOT IS THE OFFICIAL RECORD OF THE VOTE. (Voters could also choose to fill in a blank ballot by hand.)
Ballots can be quickly counted by optical scanning technology. Importantly, ballots can be RECOUNTED, by hand if necessary.
Counts from the voting machines need not be trusted as anything more than quick estimates or "exit polls". This system makes it difficult to commit the large-scale fraud so easy to do invisibly with paperless DRE machines.
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1. (Becoming less and less common in the U.S.)
A mechanical device, where the voter flips small levers next to the candidates' names to indicate their choices, then pulls a big lever to record the votes. Very difficult to tamper with.
---
2. (Very common in the U.S.)
A direct-recording electronic (DRE) machine. May print vote totals on paper, but there is no way for a voter to verify that his/her votes were accurately recorded.
Unlike mechanical voting machines, DRE machines are EXTREMELY VULNERABLE TO FRAUD. In addition to outright tampering with the records, malware can be used to steal a percentage of votes, reassigning them to the rigged candidate. The purported verification mechanisms -- logs, audit trails, "snapshots" of individual voters' choices -- can be manipulated to leave no evidence, corresponding perfectly to the rigged results.
---
3. (The way to use technology for elections we can have confidence in)
An electronic machine that lets the voter make choices (preventing overvotes and highlighting undervotes), then PRINTS AN ACTUAL FILLED-OUT PAPER BALLOT, which the voter can review and either discard (and start over) or cast.
THE PAPER BALLOT IS THE OFFICIAL RECORD OF THE VOTE. (Voters could also choose to fill in a blank ballot by hand.)
Ballots can be quickly counted by optical scanning technology. Importantly, ballots can be RECOUNTED, by hand if necessary.
Counts from the voting machines need not be trusted as anything more than quick estimates or "exit polls". This system makes it difficult to commit the large-scale fraud so easy to do invisibly with paperless DRE machines.
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A number of Diebold electronic voting machines have been in the news, first for criminally incompetent software and database design, leaving vote records wide open to undetectable tampering, more recently for vulnerability to "computer virus" style malware that can spread from machine to machine through the data cards used to collect voting data.
Making such electronic voting machines widespread is the perfect way to lay the groundwork for large-scale, invisible voter fraud.
There's plenty of information on this on the Web. A good place to start: the Coalition for Voting Integrity, www.coalitionforvotingintegrity.org .
Making such electronic voting machines widespread is the perfect way to lay the groundwork for large-scale, invisible voter fraud.
There's plenty of information on this on the Web. A good place to start: the Coalition for Voting Integrity, www.coalitionforvotingintegrity.org .
by Grinning Cat April 18, 2008
Get the voting machinemug. The specific quality of the blur in out-of-focus areas of the picture; "the way the lens renders out-of-focus points of light." Small highlights, especially, in the blurry areas of a photo can be rendered dramatically differently by different lenses (or "faux bokeh" photoshopping techniques).
Some examples of different types of bokeh are at en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bokeh
Some examples of different types of bokeh are at en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bokeh
by Grinning Cat March 6, 2010
Get the bokehmug. Getting down on one knee, curling one's wrist to one's chin, and looking up, mimicking the pose of Auguste Rodin's classic sculpture "The Thinker".
(Created by Dave Silverman, reported by Staks Rosch, "Thinkering: The atheist answer to Tebowing", Dec. 30, 2011, examiner.com)
(Created by Dave Silverman, reported by Staks Rosch, "Thinkering: The atheist answer to Tebowing", Dec. 30, 2011, examiner.com)
In response to the fundamentalist craze of Tebowing, American Atheists President Dave Silverman has come up with an atheist version called "Thinkering."
Someone commented that the pose looked too similar to Tebowing, to which Silverman responded: "That's the point. The difference is we don't bow our heads in blind submission, rather we consider and conclude for ourselves."
Someone commented that the pose looked too similar to Tebowing, to which Silverman responded: "That's the point. The difference is we don't bow our heads in blind submission, rather we consider and conclude for ourselves."
by Grinning Cat March 10, 2012
Get the Thinkeringmug. (v.) to avoid answering a question, as exemplified by Indiana Governor Mike Pence in his interview on "This Week" on March 29, 2015, about the broad "religious freedom" bill he signed.
Examples of pencing:
George Stephanopoulos: "Yes or no: If a florist in Indiana refuses to serve a gay couple at their wedding, is that legal now in Indiana?"
Mike Pence: "George, this is where this debate has gone."
"Is that true or not?"
"George, look, the issue here is that, y'know..."
"Yes or no: should it be legal to discriminate against gays and lesbians?"
"George, you're following the mantra of the last week online, and you're trying to make the issue about something else."
George Stephanopoulos: "Yes or no: If a florist in Indiana refuses to serve a gay couple at their wedding, is that legal now in Indiana?"
Mike Pence: "George, this is where this debate has gone."
"Is that true or not?"
"George, look, the issue here is that, y'know..."
"Yes or no: should it be legal to discriminate against gays and lesbians?"
"George, you're following the mantra of the last week online, and you're trying to make the issue about something else."
by Grinning Cat April 1, 2015
Get the pencemug.