notable non-monotonic condonation

• Exponential Age (history n.): the modern age. Refers to this under-reported phenomenon:
  
  Coined by Ada Palmer.


• syndromic surveillance (tech/medicine n.): predictive diagnosis; pre-appointment warning. Oversight of populations using health data before diagnosis to signal a sufficient probability of a case or outbreak


• feedback weaponization (internet): spamming the "Report Abuse" function (for instance) in order to disrupt a community.


• shadow biosphere (speculative biology n.): an extensive unseen system of life on earth, based on non-carbon or non-nucleic acids. The thought is that almost all microbe probing is done by reference to standard biochemistry, and that there could thus be a lot of biological activity going undetected.


• orthoprax (religious adj.): of correct conduct. (orthodoxy emphasizes correct belief).


• bleisure (corporatese n.): business leisure. Free time stolen between conference sessions, meetings, . Probably quite significant (for first-world professionals). This year mine has been larger than my official allotted "annual leave".


• jobbymoon (spurious neologistic n.): holiday taken at the end of one job, before the next. High-status unemployment. See also bizcation.


• autowale (Indian n.): Uber for rickshaws.


• apparitor (Lt. n. ): Roman notary / bailiff / herald. Also used for Puritan vigilantes?


• Private Direct Investment (): helping out a chap you met at your club.


• walk-off (US labor n.): a strike? wildcat strike? Maybe just the type where you start at your workplace and dramatically leave


• pseudo-event (academic n.): a mostly-staged PR stunt. A press release, a photo op, a controversial choice of wardrobe. The ontological equivalent to "bullshit", which is epistemic or performative.


• fee tail (arch. legal n.): land ownership with restrictions ("entailments") about whom it may be willed to. e.g. First-born son only.


• autofiction (lit. n.): more or less fictionalised autobiography (i.e. names changed, dialogue sharpened, edges smoothed or added). Big nowadays - Knausgaard, Ferrante, St Aubyn. See also Faction.


• single employment (constipated legal n.): Impossible to tell what this means: the people promoting it are unable to write or maybe to think. Seems to be about dissolving the distinction between permanent and contract work. I get a vaguely sinister feeling off it.


• inferential silence (applied epistemology n.): when someone makes a claim about something so far out, it doesn't even provoke objections. See also narcissism of small differences. Coined by Kaj Sotala, sadly.


• on spec (biz adj.): speculatively; without being commissioned.


• condonation (legal n.): the overturning of a complaint by nothing that the accuser previously formally forgave it. In Shari'a the family of a murder victim can choose not to press charges.


• non-monotonic logic (n.): logic without monotonic consequence: can handle defeasible inferences, enabling us to retract a conclusion based on new evidence. (monotonicity: "learning a new piece of knowledge cannot reduce the set of what is known").


• hybrid warfare (IR n.): weird war. Conventional and irregular troops plus propaganda plus diplomacy. "To secure and stabilize the indigenous population, the intervening forces must immediately rebuild or restore security, essential services, local government, self-defense forces and essential elements of the economy." See also Gerasimov doctrine.


• Research Triangle (US local n.): posh area in North Carolina.


• Phenology (biology n.): the study of periodic biological cycles and how these are influenced by seasonality and trend in climate...


• soulbonder (internet n.): person who believes they are a fictional character. See also otherkin, tulpaforcer.


• tachypsychia (parapsychology n.): mooted state of bullet-time senses


• Kobe slider (idiot n.): a ridiculously expensive tiny burger


• soda jerk (1930 US n.): the operator of a soda fountain.


• rainmaker (US lawyer n.): someone employed for their contacts/clients or prestige. Superstitious in that you bring them in to bring more rain.


• pelting (arch adj.): paltry. As in Shakespeare, "pelting-farm" which looks like something else.


• Hershey highway (US pej. n.): rectum; see also (very pej.) fudge packer.


• jumpserver (IT n.): See also bastion.


• the Fourteen Words (internet n.): a particular neo-Nazi litany. If you say something questionable on the internet people may count the number of words you used to say it.


• imperial Preference (): proposed system of free trade agreements between the dominions and colonies of the British Empire.


• back of his lap (eC20th US n.): euphemism for ass.


• Letters of Authority (law n.): document of the Personal Representative of something; grants legal power to act on behalf of the probate. Careful charities don't allow fundraising without one.


• bonus-malus (insurance but also everything n.): of a situation in which reward is variable and can reverse sign. Intriguing: includes situations where a contractor ends up paying the principal.


• DNF (internet n.): Did Not Finish. DNF 25% = quit a quarter through. I find it repugnant - a brag about one's own dismissiveness and short attention span - but I can't deny the rationality of being an inconstant reader.


• excimer (engineering n.) : max-electron, excited dimer. As produced by the first really useful laser, the excimer laser, often wrongly called an 'excimer'.


• Progressive medicine (pop science n.): Ambivalent; it uses words like "ecological" and "integrative", strong markers of irrational ancestor-worship. But also evidence, preventative. So a land grab? See also Lifestyle Medicine


• mixing time analysis ():


• scutwork (arch. n.): tedious meniality


• scut (old pej. n.): ass; whore. Sometimes gendered, sometimes not.


• Ithkuil (internet n.): An oddly successful conlang, picked up by Eurasian mystics.


• constructor theory of life (biophysics n.): purely counterfactual account of physics and now biology. ("what physical transformations, or tasks, are possible versus which are impossible, and why").