Another suggestion from the family. Today from my mom. Beauteous. She suggested this word after hearing a fellow holiday shopper use it. It reminded my mom of her college days when she and her friend would use the word in casual conversation.

Beauteous is just a fanciful word for, you guessed it, beautiful. It seems to be used especially in poetry. Oddly though I couldn’t find any poems that used it to rhyme. It seems like a word that a poet would create to make a rhyming verse work.

I found the coolest site this week and it inspired todays word. The word is Origami and the site is PaperCDCase.com. I know I found the site on one of the popular blog sites but I can’t recall which one- sorry.

Back to the word- origami. It is a Japanese word that literally mean to fold paper. The more accurate definition is the art of paper folding. Just folding paper isn’t origami. Folding it to resemble something beautiful is origami.

For a skilled origami artist I doubt PaperCDCase.com counts, but I think it should. PaperCDCase.com lets you create a CD case out of standard 8/12 x 11 inch or A4 paper. On their site you enter the name of the album, the artist and the track names. Then you click Create CD Case. You get a pdf file you can print out with all the CD info on it and instruction for folding it into simple, effective & free CD case.

It is a very cool site put up by MESH, Michigan Engineering Software and Hardware. “A student group that works on software and hardware projects.”

Today’s word was suggested by my dad. Since yesterday’s word came from my sister, you might have guessed I am getting to spend more time with my family as the holidays approach.

The word is kowtow. It is a verb that means to bow down to or submit to. For example, if you keep doing whatever your sister asks she won’t respect you. You must stop kowtowing.

The term kowtow actually comes from the Chinese custom bowing to your knees and touching your forehead to the ground.

Today’s word, decimate, was suggested by my sister. She is concerned it is too often misused; that people use decimated to describe something that is completely or significantly destroyed. She believes it should only be used to mean something that is reduced by 10%.

Unfortunately for my sister she is only half right. The etymology certainly supports her interpretation. Deci means tenth like deciliter (1/10 of a liter). And decimate does mean to reduce by 10%. In fact decimate originally meant to kill every tenth person. The Roman’s used decimation to punish mutinous legions of their army. But today it can mean to reduce by 10% or more broadly to significantly reduce in size or to damage a significant portion.

Sorry Kell. I looked it up in several sources and they all included the broader definition.

Yahoo! Another request. This one is from Shaners of TheResistanceArmy.com. I hope I do it justice.
Shane suggested the term “zero-sum game.” Now since I haven’t done a quote for awhile I decided to combine zero-sum game with a movie quote.

Bud Fox: How much is enough?

Gordon Gekko: It’s not a question of enough, pal. It’s a zero sum game, somebody wins, somebody loses. Money itself isn’t lost or made, it’s simply transferred from one perception to another.

Watching this movie, Wall Street, was the first time I learned about zero-sum games. I don’t think I appreciated the term till I took a game theory class in college.

Essentialy a zero sum game is just as Mr. Gekko describes it. A game or situation with a winner and a loser such that if you add the winner’s take to the loser’s loss you end up with zero. Most games are zero sum- the wins cancel out the losses.

Now not all games or situations are zero -sum. There are also non-zero-sum games and situations. A classic game theory non-zero-sum game is the prisoner’s dilemma. A game in which the sum of the outcomes can range from negative to positive depending on how the players “play.”

Imagine two partners are accused of a crime. If they both deny committing the crime neither will go to prison. If they both testify against the other they will each spend 5 years in prison. In the third scenario, the one that makes the game interesting, one testifies, one denies. In this case one partner goes to prison for a long time and the other for less time or not at all.

Obviously the best game play is for the partners to work together and not testify. But they will be tempted to testify to protect themselves from a lengthy prison term.

A less sinister example can be found on the playground. One kid has a basketball and the other a soccer ball. The kid with the basketball wants to play soccer and the kid with the soccer ball wants to play basketball. They decide to trade balls. In this game both kids win. They both get something they want and give up something they didn’t want.

I think life is better played as a positive-sum game.

Play the Prisoner’s dilemma and test your strategies