The metaphor doesn’t work that way. Either they spend extra time searching out the definition or give up on understanding what you were trying to get across (giving up the value of the information you were trying to impart). Either way, the other person is the one paying the cost when you use obscure words…

Yeah, but your audience can’t necessarily afford to buy them.

See my reply to WhiskeySnob above for my answer to this, from my perspective as a working astrophysicist.

There are quite a few reasons:

The problem with the GMT observatory is that it’s in the southern hemisphere, so there’s a large amount of the northern sky it simply can’t see. TMT could, however, see that sky. This not only adds more data, but also allows useful research to be done through looking at regions that overlap with other surveys (which…

Not that different from the histories of most cultures. As of the 1880s, the US itself was only a couple decades past the point where it actively practiced slavery (and still at least eight decades away from treating African Americans as anything approaching equal citizens). If the tables were turned and somehow…

Why use a $5 word that only a fraction of the audience will know when a few 10 cent words that almost everyone knows will get the job done?

There are a few free options for VPNs (with speed limits, usually), but for paid ones, it’ll generally run you around $5-10 per month.

That episode far predates the Cameron accusation becoming public, so unless the writers had some inside knowledge, it’s just a coincidence.

Over here in the UK, we found out last year that the Prime Minister might have had sex with a dead pig’s head, and I remember people remarking that even if this were true, the fact that it was plausible was worrisome (Not about what it said about David Cameron, though, since this would be a huge anomaly for him, but…

There was a little romance in Graces f, but it wasn’t quite as good as in, say, Abyss or Symphonia. Xillia and Xillia 2 had one key romance (mostly in Xillia, with an extra scene or to for it in 2). Zestiria had basically none. Berseria... maybe a player of the JP version can tell you about that.

When I first heard about the Mole Rat, I wondered why the developers would spend time and effort putting something in the game that only a small fraction of players would ever see.* Now I know.

I imagine after it had taken five years, some higher up said, “Okay, it’s releasing in 2016 or it’s not releasing at all,” hence why it feels rushed despite the long development time.

Fighting for justice is a Sisyphean task. We push a boulder up a hill, just waiting for it to fall back down on us when the other side gains momentum. I’m glad to see that the Obama administration is trying to get it as high as possible before it falls. At least this way it’ll be up high, and things will be better,…

From what I heard (listening to an expert talking about them on BBC Radio 2), they cause your ears to overproduce wax, but usually not to a dangerous level. If you do have issues with earwax (or really, any issues in the outer ear), it’s probably best to avoid them.

RPG Maker (in its various versions) is designed for JRPGs. It can do WRPGs, tactical RPGs, and visual novels with the right know-how and effort, but action RPGs are a bit of a stretch for it. Not impossible, mind you, but it just isn’t designed to allow for the collision detection needed for good action combat.…

How dare you insult one particular writer who I kind of like! I, a person who has never commented here before, will certainly never comment here again*!

So wait... Americans are hoping Germans will save them from a populist leader who wants to scapegoat minorities and eject them from the country?

If Tom fucking Arnold somehow derails the Trump train when everyone else has failed, then everything we thought we knew about reality will have to be reevaluated.

If Santa was born at the geographic north pole, then it lies in international waters and his citizenship would depend on that of his parents. So, we’d have to go back to his parents, which the modern myth doesn’t talk about at all. We could look at Saint Nicholas, but as soon as we do, we realize that he wasn’t born…