Word: vivid
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...Inside the Jihad: My Life With Al Qaeda, A Spy's Story, the Moroccan-born author (who uses Nasiri as a pseudonym) says he spent nearly seven years leading a dangerous double life as an informer for European intelligence services on the activities of his brothers-in-jihad, including vivid detail of combat and explosives training in Afghan camps, and his clandestine work within al-Qaeda's European cells. His anecdotes are compelling; his insight into the motives and commitment of extremists chilling; his resentment palpable at being discarded by Western spy agencies once they decided his value was spent...
...redistribution of risk and fatalities. For the sake of argument, offers Adams, imagine how it might affect the behavior of drivers if a sharp stake were mounted in the middle of the steering wheel? Or if the bumper were packed with explosives. Perverse, yes, but it certainly provides a vivid example of how a perception of risk could modify behavior...
...chance in ten million. "Both sound small," says Graham, "but one is ten-thousand-fold more likely." Understanding those numbers, rather than taking what Sunstein calls a "risk-of-the-month" approach, will save lives. "Right now we've got a lot of concern about vivid events," Sunstein says. "We'd do much better with a more disciplined approach...
...York and Paris. His description of the difference between getting a taxi in each city is wonderfully observant and witty. Parisians, apparently, line up civilly at designated taxi lines on each block, while New Yorkers battle it out in a free-for-all. Gopnik’s vivid account of the way New Yorkers step in front of each other in the search for a cab, slyly avoiding eye contact, is spot...
...basement radiators, there is no difference between what a vigilant, if bored, audience member might distinguish as a decidedly attractive male student and an esteemed female Professor of Aesthetics (the attractiveness of the former self-evident, the exalted status of the latter self-assumed), whereas there is considerable and vivid promise extended by the protrusion of a soft sail, a furred white triangle—what that same observer would with private amusement (and a mental note to repeat at the first available social occasion) remark as the dog-eared appearance of a dog’s ear?...