Word: dullness
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...York City. The barren landscape, spotted with ware-houses and train tracks, is disrupted by a bridge cutting diagonally across the picture. Unlike Stella's work, this painting leaves an impression that is neither dynamic nor determined. The muted colors created by applying watercolor over graphite reinforce the dull emptiness of the industrial scenery...
...hardly the author's fault. It was much easier to write about life under Brezhnev without worrying about becoming dated, since virtually nothing ever changed under the dull, hairy Soviet leader. Writing The Russians was akin to painting with a skyscraper as a subject. Speed was not essential; the skyscraper wasn't going anywhere...
...other photographic works were not as interesting as Butterick's. Richard Robbins' "Five Pieces from Paris Series 1990," for example, was dull and trite. All the images were slightly blurred, presumably to add a certain softness or ambiguity to the works. They did not. And the abrupt frames which lopped off heads and feet created a jarring view of the scene. These frames were unoriginally employed--ever since Toulouse-Lautrec, the arbitrary, non-classical frame has been employed to make audience members re-evaluate their perspective, but here that re-evaluation seemed pointless. To say the least, the frames have...
Advanced materials are just now starting to show up in commercial products. Examples: ceramic scissors that never rust or get dull, plastic lumber that is water-resistant and does not swell or warp like wood, and "metal" windows that keep excessive light and heat out of a house in summer and trap them inside during winter. In the U.S. the aerospace industry, including the military, is the biggest consumer of engineered materials, accounting for more than two-thirds of all use. The substances, used in door panels and floors, account for about 14% of a typical airplane's weight...
...such minor glitches have done nothing to dull the enthusiasm for developing even more exotic materials. By combining particles of chlorophyll with molecules of a soft plastic, researchers at M.I.T. have made a rubbery gel that shrinks and swells in response to an electric charge. The substance could conceivably be used to make artificial muscles. A superhard ceramic is being developed to make engines that do not need oil or a radiator, and get 100 miles to a gallon of gas. Scientists are also working on a "smart" ceramic that can respond to stress. Simply put, the material is laced...