Word: flips
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Dates: during 2000-2000
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...Today, the 3,141 counties in the United States use six different methods to record and tally votes: 40 percent use optical scan devices (think of No. 2 pencils and the SATs); 18 percent use punch cards (think Palm Beach and Votomatics); 15 percent use '50s-era lever machines (flip the switches and pull the lever); 12 percent use paper ballots (drop them in a box or mail them in); 9 percent use electronic touch-screens; 2 percent use Data Vote, which is punch-card voting without the Votomatics...
...doomed to be haunted by legitimacy doubts for the next four years. The race was so close that it was within the margin of error of any vote-counting method, leading Agassiz Professor of Zoology Stephen Jay Gould to suggest that the election should be decided by a simple flip of a coin...
...ultimately, addiction is a physical disease of the brain caused by exposure to drugs. It starts, many neuroscientists believe, when alcohol, cocaine, amphetamines or other drugs boost the activity of a brain chemical called dopamine, which generates the sensation of pleasure. Flip the pleasure switch often enough, and nerve cells in many parts of the brain--especially in a tiny region known as the nucleus accumbens--become accustomed to the rush. When the switch is left in the off position too long, nerve cells feel deprived, a sensation the addict experiences as a nearly irresistible craving...
...stage at the Orpheum, the musical mix tended to flip between head-bobbing, butt-shaking funk and loose soundscape jamming. The crowd, a mix of dreadlocked Berkelee students and buttoned-down middle-aged jazz fans, divided along the expected lines on whether to get up and shake it or keep to their seats and just enjoy the atmosphere during the first set. Once the second set dropped, though, it was clear that anyone not willing to get up off of that thing was going to be stuck looking at someone else's, and most everyone took to their feet...
Rodriguez lent me the thing, which is roughly the size of a paperback novel. It has a short, ugly black antenna that screws on. For power, you can plug it into the wall or use a battery pack. It's simple to operate: you flip a switch, and the appliance does its thing, obliterating cellular transmissions in an area comparable to a medium-size movie theater. That's in cities; out in the country, where the distance between cells is greater, the device can take out one whole floor of a building...