Word: widget
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...appeals to this businessman-like instinct, Posner's economic argument falters upon this question of personal privacy. Suppose, for example, to make the sort of hypothetical case the author frequently finds fitting, that Mr. X is a master widget-maker who conceals the fact that he is a homosexual. He works for Mr. Y, the owner of a widget factory, who has a distinct aversion to homosexuals. X ends up out of a job, as the process of ferreting out facts about his employees leaves him with the knowledge of X's sexual preferences; and out of luck, because...
...such a flagrant injustice other than a grudging concession that "some presumably modest efforts to achieve a more equal distribution of income and wealth may be economically justifiable." It's not that callousness limits his ambition; only his faith in the decision-making capabilities of the owners of widget factories does it. Everyone is a rational maximizer in Posner's world. Mr. X will be hired by the first widget-maker he sees. He might never have lost his job in the first place...
...looks innocuous enough-a brightly colored plastic widget that could have been designed by Mondrian. It was developed in 1974 by Rubik, then 37, an architecture professor, to give his students greater experience in dealing with three-dimensional objects. It has six sides, each with a different bright color. Each side is divided into three rows, each row into three smaller cubes ("cubies"). Each row can be made to rotate 360° so that one can twiddle the cube from top to bottom or from side to side...
That is only one of the surprises and difficulties facing U.S. companies trying to push through a new Open Door to China trade. Some other challenges: preparing reams of technical material for Chinese bureaucrats who will want to debate every minute specification of a widget; staying reasonably sober through Peking banquets that may include as many as ten bottoms-up toasts drunk in 110-proof mao tais; determining just how big the China market really is in the first place...
Already in place is another new and mighty technological widget: the Tuned Mass Damper (TMD), an 800,000-lb. concrete block capable of moving three feet in four directions, which greatly reduces the lightweight building's sway in a gale. Determined to make the building as energy efficient as any in existence, Citicorp consulted Robert Bell, director of research and development for Consolidated Edison, who also happened to be president of Saint Peter's and chairman of the church building committee. Says Bell today: "Citicorp, in terms of energy conservation, is one of the most...