Interesting definition: "an interpretation of what is not human or personal in terms of human or personal characteristics". Does this apply, however, when describing a physiological state that an animal happens to share with humans? Is describing a cat's experience of hunger as "hunger" an anthropomorphism? What about emotions, such as fear, contentment, anger? I don't think anyone will deny that most mammals, at least, experience these emotions. Why not mirth? Given recent discoveries in animal cognition, maybe the definition of anthropomorphism needs to be revised.

If she just wanted attention she would come in to be petted; she's certainly not shy in that regard. This is a deliberate ploy to get me to repeatedly stand there holding the door open like an idiot. When she tires of the game, that's when she comes into the room. I have a child, and it's not the same behavior at all. I'm not overly given to anthropomorphism, as I've been around veterinarians and vet techs most of my life. Still, it appears to me to be my cat playing a prank on me.

I would say that my cat's schtick of frantically crying and scratching at the door to be let in and then casually sauntering away when I open it would qualify. She usually does this at least three times before consenting to enter, and seems quite amused by the whole thing.

Maybe if we contained the helium from the nighttime sun in some sort of container, like a huge plastic bag, and used an abundant substance like sand as a weight, we could just drag it down to the surface of the Earth.

The objectional word list is hilarious if you imagine it being read by Porky Pig.

Because Google makes a distinction between the car being driven autonomously, which is the scenario which you describe, and manually driving the car, in which the car is driven just like any other Prius. Until more facts come in, what is the point of this scare-mongering conspiracy theory? What is YOUR agenda?

I've heard them referred to by both names. The Fox Venice Theater in Venice, California had one, but the staff didn't know what it was. They thought it was for smokers. I explained to them that at the time, people smoked absolutely everywhere, including theaters; they didn't need a separate room. (When I was a kid I slammed my hand in a car door, and the doctor that examined me was smoking while he did it. Of course, this was a small Texas town that still had one of those insanely dangerous fluoroscopes in the shoe store.)

Let me amend that. Look up '"crying booth" theater'.

About "shouting fire in a crowded theater": back in the day people really would, and did, stampede to get out of a theater if someone yelled "fire!" The reason is that at the time movies were on nitrate stock, which burned fast and hot, and if a fire broke out in the projection booth and you were anywhere near it you were literally toast. One theater I worked at had automatic steel shutters designed to slam shut over the projection windows if a fire was detected, so that the audience had a chance of getting out in time. It was assumed that the projectionist was never going to make it out alive anyway. Theaters used to have all sorts of odd things you don't see anymore. Look up "crying booths" sometime.

voila!

It's been sent.

May I trouble you for an invite? uglyMood(gmail). Thanks!

So those of us who aren't Christians and are being beat over the head with it 24/7 while watching any possibility of social progress get flushed down the toilet by religious zealots are finally allowed some perspective? Amen to that, Brother.

Having reread your post, I see that you are indeed talking about the media degrading, and that with a lossless file format the degradation would be less noticeable. However, the way it is written gives the impression that a lossy format means your file is simply rotting away like a head of lettuce, while the lossless one is immune to the ravages of time. Both file formats suffer the same amount of damage due to media degradation, but the point I believe you were trying to make is that a lossless format is more forgiving of the errors.

I do not think that word means what you think it means. Degradation would occur upon re-encoding to a lossy format, not when the MP3 "sits on your hard drive." If that's what is happening, then you've got a disk drive that's deteriorating. The problem, dear Brutus, lies not in our files, but in our substrates.