Word: useless
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...table onto his stretcher. The films were up. They showed what you would expect; a shin bone smashed to splinters. The formica top of the X-ray table had trauma debris all over it - bits of asphalt, dirt and, of course, blood, with scraps of that useless white roll paper they put on exam tables. I stabilized the leg while she slid him over. The door opened, the cops saw the situation and flooded in. They helped roll him back out - pretty quickly - and I was left alone for a moment in the X-ray room. A metal object glinted...
...tend to be the least troubled by their dissembling and produce the fewest outward clues. Polygraph advocates like to say the technology is 85% to 90% accurate in criminal investigations, but just three years ago the National Research Council of the National Academy of Sciences dismissed the machines as useless. Says University at Buffalo social psychologist Mark Frank: "Even the greatest technology used at gunpoint is worthless...
...between a screen's brightest and darkest colors. A higher ratio is better. "Contrast as a concept is really important," says Poor. "The blacker your blacks, the more punch you have to your colors." But TV makers use differing standards to calculate the numbers, so comparing them is "almost useless," says Poor. So how do you judge contrast? First view the TV from the front, then see how badly the image fades from the side. If all the sets are on the same channel, it's fairly easy to tell which ones have deeper blacks and purer whites...
Marcel Proust wrote "the idea of popular art...if not actually dangerous seemed to me ridiculous." Locked far away from society in his cork-lined room (why cork? Why not? It blocked out useless sound and probably had a strong enough smell to evoke memories abound), Proust wrote and wrote (and wrote and wrote) about the inanities of modern society, the limitations of "the now," the importance of feeling and experiencing. Proust spent a good chunk of his 51 years (and several thousand pages) observing just how frivolous popular culture was. And yet, 93 years after he began his massive...
...patience for people that take religion seriously, much less those that intertwine those personal beliefs with politics. Outwardly, I was frustrated by Growing in Faith’s disciples: They refuse to vote, believing that the fate of the country is predetermined and thus the electoral process is useless. Inwardly, I was relieved they didn’t vote: The country was probably better off without their opinions cast on a ballot. But out of respect, I keep my cynicisms private, even while they showcase theirs on the evening news. As such unabashed displays continue, my own beliefs are cemented...