Word: uselessness
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...more inventory in its warehouses than the firm thought it would need. With weather affecting its average sales volume up to 15%, Duraflame couldn't afford to miss out on a cold snap. But unseasonably mild weather in one part of the country could mean inventory would sit useless for weeks. At the time, Duraflame executives made short-term decisions based on a daily USA Today weather map plastered to an office wall...
...decommissioning issue, however, has hovered constantly over even the most encouraging signs. How--and why--would the I.R.A. agree to give up its arms? The 1998 Good Friday agreement requires paramilitaries to hand over or render useless their weapons by May. But the mood in the air, and on the graffitied walls of Belfast, suggests that the I.R.A.'s hard men still see the destruction of their arms as a humiliation, not a gesture of peace. And though Sinn Fein leader Gerry Adams has not abandoned the May deadline, the I.R.A. will need to destroy a few weapons before London...
...totally useless. The student body is apathetic. Fly-by-lunches are simultaneously useful and vomitous...
...have to--it can be spent on something else. So I got to thinking about how Harvard might spend my gift, and how Harvard spends the extra money it already has. You only have to think of the Memorial Hall Tower (Motto: "Beauty is Its Own Excuse for Being Useless," or "Less Wasteful than a Platinum Sombrero") to know that Harvard's spending habits are a scary picture...
Case in point: the Harvard Dining Services newsletter, "Tidbits." This newsletter is very well designed and talks about new cooking and preparation techniques being used to improve my food. Nice breakfast reading, but useless: it essentially advertises food I have no choice but to eat. If I was considering offers from Tufts or MIT dining services, then maybe I would want to read about Harvard's new "Quick-Freezing" food preparation technology. But I'm not. If I don't like what they're serving in the Dunster Dining Hall, my only alternative is a six-pound bag of raisins...