Why didn't anyone find time to go outside and poke around on that wing a bit? A big hole should have been noticeable. Hell, we could have pointed a DOD satellite at it for a look.
Columbia's problem wasn't landing with a hole in its wing, the problem was NASA managers having holes in their heads.
Had they known about the problem, the ISS might have had enough resources to let them hang out awhile. We might have booked an emergency unmanned satellite launcher to send up an escape capsule, or repair materials (or extra oxgyen and food for the shuttle itself or the ISS). I'm not a rocket scientist, and even I can see there were all sorts of options and the only requisite was a non-stupid person in a position of authority at NASA.
I'd bet $10 that when a similar potentially catastrophic problem arises on SS1, they'll fix it, and get drunk the next day telling each other "damn that one was close".
Berman doesn't think, anymore than say a sea slug does. Or a bumblebee. I hope I'm not being mean to our distant cousins who haven't evolved backbones yet.
The real question is, can they possibly be worse than space alquaeda. Hell, they even screwed that up, space alquaeda had their moral doubts and all, what fun is that?
But if anyone can unfuck things up, Stra-Icantspellit can. And Dark Skies wasn't so horrible either, for that matter, even for a Xfiles ripoff. Paramount will never allow it (or try to steal Stra-Icantspellit's ideas, just like they did with B5 (DS9, anyone?).
The existence of Mother Theresa doesn't mean that the catholic church didn't burn witches at the stake, or lauch crusades. Forgive me if I consider them the exceptions that prove the rule.
Wonder if the scriptwriter had ever heard of Ira Levin, or watched the original movie. "How to Avoid Plot Holes" has been out of print for nearly 90 years though.
How could Einstein be what he was, without describing things with words? To say such things, shows how little you know of art, poetry, music, and especially "engineering".
It's not obivous, and you aren't to be blamed (yet) for not seeing it, but you'd think with such fields as architecture or gardening, that there is art in everything. Ever bought some junky piece of electronics (or anything for that matter), where you swear up and down because they made some obvious "design" flaw that even you, the non-engineer could see? That was an engineer without art, without inspiration.
Politicians in general, are so quick to exploit and take advantage of people, and care so little about their plight, that I would be shocked if less than 50% of those in Congress haven't copped a feel of one of their nieces, or tried to give that granddaughter the special lollipop. Maybe not so much today (too much to lose now), but certainly on their way up. They have graduated, so why bugger the little neighbor boy, when you cna cut school lunch programs for the benefit up upper-middle class children whose parents vote correctly?
Fair enough. You have 12 months to excommunicate him, or own up and take the blame. If excommunication is impossible, and untimely death would be an acceptable substitute.
Folks, he may need some help on that one, if you get called in for jury duty, do your best to appear calm and unbiased while appealing to both the defense and prosecution.
Then the laugh is on you, my friend. Voting libertarian is a vote for the Demopublican party. Then again, so is a vote for the Demopublican party, or not voting at all.
Besides, what happens if the Libertarians win? Then we'd be even worse off.
Congress can't overturn a decision by the Supreme Court... So while Orrin Hatch may be a sleazy politician, he's not the Darth Vader who will pervert and destroy the entire copyright system in the US.
Does that mean he publically opposed the trial balloon "proposal" that would allow Congress to overturn a Supreme Court veto? Or is he just going to allow that to sit in committee for a few years, before putting that piece of the diabolical puzzle in place?
Every summer movie preview that I haven't been lucky enough to avoid, seems so chock full of blatant formula, that you'd swear up and down that 1 scriptwriter wrote every single one of them, with his worn copy of "Hollywood Scriptwriting Formula" at his side.
To think that a Carmack-level uberprogrammer is somehow less creative than these worthless tripe peddlers is obscene, to state it publically with the conviction you seem to have is positively blasphemous.
Re:journalists
on
Meet Joe Blog
·
· Score: 2, Insightful
Amateur. The whole point is to come up with a theory that would be borderline plausible if you were just a bit more misinformed, or in a more panicy mode of thought. Back massagers, Flemish Indepence Front? For instance, here would be a suitable drop-in replacement for your outlandish joke of a conspiracy theory.
Arthur Ochs Sulzberger, owner of the New York Times, has secretly been selling shares of the legendary newspaper to unknown persons believed to be associated with the Church of Scientology. Being a privately held company, no one can be sure, but anonymous sources peg the number at a minimum of 17%, and maybe as much as 34% of the company. More disturbing, there are rumors that upon his death, controlling interest would be willed to CoS. Nothing more is known, though speculation is rampant.
Several experts on subliminal psychology have been interviewed, but their answers seem to indicate that whatever strategies might be in play, they likely don't include anything so simple as brainwashing or propaganda. Johansen Henriks, PhD remarked "Even assuming that the rumors are true, and that the NYT will be owned by Church of Scientology at some point in the future, they can't simply start printing subliminal dogma. First, the traditional visual subliminal messagess don't work well on newsprint paper. The image is supposed to be so subtle that it can only be recognized subsconsciously, and yet newsprint isn't consistent enough, it bleeds. More so, while I could easily design an advertisement that boosted candy sales 10-20%, this is a far cry from the fundamental belief changes they'd like to cause."
Mike Raines, retired CIA analyst, has a different opinion of the matter. "As far back as 1982, CoS has been providing fund-raising and PR support for various european terrorist and seperatist movements. 1985 in Northern Ireland, 1987 in Basque, and various factions in Bosnia during the early 90s, they were all over the map. Even now, they're funneling money all over the place, [and] they're too damned clever for us to put a stop to it. Whatever purpose this serves, whomever's agenda, having a controlling stake in a well-respected newspaper like the NYT could easily be used to further those goals. Without the legal bite to crack this thing wide open, things could get ugly very soon."
Re:journalists
on
Meet Joe Blog
·
· Score: 3, Insightful
The very fact that Jayson Blair (and others like him) are found, fired, and publicly condemned for unethical journalism is proof that the industry does not tolerate such practices.
Since I was 8 years old, it's been obvious to me that an "iceberg principle" is at work in all corners of life. What percentage of rapes go unreported? How many reported felonies result in a conviction? If J Blair was caught, how much of this happens that we don't know about?
The scary thing is, the tip of the iceberg is, oh... let's say 10%. And with as many political scandals as there are in any given month, think of how many slipped through! (Assuming that political scandals also obey such a principle).
And no slashdot poster has ever been shown to comprehend simple points.
I simply meant, that an intelligent being with compound eyes might have difficulty with such a task, and I went further, with an intelligent species that was naturally blind. The "recognize itself in a mirror" test isn't useful to determine intelligence, and I would think the point should be obvious.
I meant that as an example actually, not joking. I actually had someone that asked me what it meant, simply because it wasn't abbreviated as they usually see it. Scary, eh?
Is there perhaps some reason you feel the need to attack public displays of intelligence? Do you do this often, or was my post particularly provocative? But most importantly, why are you so quick to participate in an activity that collectively makes the world a dumber place?
Assume for a moment, that this has the effect that you hoped it might, that is, I feel so embarrassed or ashamed that I stop talking, or at least in the way that I used to. That's one less person you might ever have a fun or clever conversation with, one less person that might be able to explain something to you that no one else can. That might be one less person who can teach your children.
Maybe it's just the format here, no face to face contact, that makes it so easy to read arrogance where there is none. Or maybe you are in the habit of discouraging anyone with any smarts at all. Either way, there are too many like you, try to make it one less.
Without sounding arrogant, I'm generally pretty good at figuring out what a person is about, and much more quickly than they could answer. Not that I haven't been wrong. But it's hard to listen,
It's more than that though, their words seem slow. Sounds silly, doesn't it? Then again, so do my own. No decent way to measure it, but I think words easily 10 times as fast as I could ever hope to speak them. All that said, I still need to try. It's just that "all" that I wrote is barely the tip of the iceburg.
Chiroptera is "bat". Depending on whether biologists are feuding or not at the moment, it is an order of mammals that encompasses all bats, or a super order comprising microchiroptera and macrochiroptera. It seems that the large bats may not be all that related to the small bats, but evolved in parallel, justifying another order. Big bats came from some monkey thing, small ones from rats.
I am not a biologist, or even a professional Scrabble champion. In fact, I never graduated high school. Still, I can remember the 4 instances I've encountered the word in my life (not counting you repeating it in your post). At age 4, on Nova (PBS). Wasn't in school, so I don't have any idea of the date (was in late autumn though). At age 10, on a plaque at the zoo. At age 12, in school during recess, reading encyclopedia brittanica. I memorized all the living orders of mammals, most of the extinct orders, and quite a few of the birds. At age 15, saturday morning while my brother was watching the batman cartoon (a villain was a "chiroptologist"). At age 16 in biology class, when our teacher thought he would stump us all. I didn't raise my hand, but after a few days of his smug bullshit, I spoke out loud in naming "stirigiformes" as the order that comprises owls. Got accused of cheating for that. For most uncommon words, I can remember where and when I read/heard the word.
Quark, as a fairly specific jargon? The universe is made up of the things. How can you not know what they are? I don't expect it to be used in small talk, but damn.
Dromedary? Hmm. Maybe it isn't as useful, but I still hesitate to consider it "jargon specific to a particular group". Camels for those not in the know, I always forget the other type. Bactrian, I think. Two and one humps, respectively.
Personally, I feel that every single word I know lets me eke out that last bit of detail I might otherwise not be able to express. Then again, most people don't care about details, do they?
No. But now that you mention it, that wouldn't be so much worse than the dysfunctional state things are in now. I'm almost sure the dog and I could communicate much better than me and the girlfriend, especially with someone there to help translate.
No is claiming that Rico has the same capacity for abstract reasoning as even a three year-old child
While I agree that this isn't the claim they're making, I wouldn't be suprised if such a claim did have some merit. If a bratty 3 yr old wants something, they start squalling. A smart dog can be downright sneaky.
A friend had a dog once, that wasn't allowed outside if the neighbor's cat was out. It would see the cat out the window, and start scratching at the door. For several days this went on, with the dog obviously frustrated. Next day, the dog goes to the living room, sees the cat outside, but instead of scratching, walks to the kitchen where the wife is, and acts as if it's ready to pee on the cabinets. The wife yells at the husband "why didn't you let the dog out" as she opens the backdoor. Husband replies "he just wants out to chase the neighbor's cat", and 2 seconds later the dog is out front chasing the cat back and forth with his asshole neighbor ranting and raving. No reason to believe it had to pee at all. That's at least as deceptive as any 3 yr old is capable of being.
Use every day, obviously these count. Might ever use, these should count if they can do so without the word sounding awkward in the context they use it in, best 2 of 3. Words they understand out of dictionary words, only if the word is so esoteric that they will never get a chance to use it naturally, and only then if they could manage to use it as above, when given an opportunity. Words they can intuit a general meaning with accompanying context, not at all. You can't even be sure it was the surrounding words that gave them the hint rather than the gestures the person was using. Hell, it might not be a word, how can they tell?
Without looking it up, laminate: (verb) to prepare a paper or cardboard document (also less commonly work surfaces, countertops, furniture) for protection or aesthetic purposes by coating it with a film (probably plastic of several varieties) bonded either by heat or chemical adhesives. (noun) the plastic film used to coat something in the process of lamination. These two would be pronounced differently in spoken language, and should be discernible in written word by context. Given time and some rest, I could probably manage to specify the materials, tools, and methods used to laminate, the circumstances under which it might be warranted, and the history of lamination itself.
And don't forget, those that speak two languages have roughly double the vocabulary of someone that speaks only one. Had I not grown up in a podunk town in the midwest, I could easily have learned more than the 2.5ish that I'm fluent in now. I'm still interested in such now, and I even have the internet as a tool to that end, but the 30 year old brain has more trouble with it every day. Not to mention there's no one to practice with...
That 60,000 word vocabulary is pretty shallow. For upwards of 90% of those "graduating high-schoolers", I'm willing to bet that those 45,000 of those words are:
A) never used in written communication B) never used in a way that reflects the subtlety of meaning that the synonym conveys C) never used in a way other than repeating some popular catch phrase/meme/cliche that is making the rounds D) used in spoken communication less than twice a year for any single word, and that only for a small fraction of the disputed 45,000 words
More so, in the USA having the most minimal vocabulary possible without becoming mute is considered a virtue. High school is about learning to conform, and that means using only the words that you hear others using. Knowing a word, and making a guess on its meaning on a multiple choice test seems to me a poor substitute for actually knowing how to use the same word in an appropriate way and doing so.
Even those who perform beyond the pessimistic levels I've described, tend to do so only for job specific jargon. A randomly selected medical doctor will almost certainly know what the ileum or calcaneus is, but ask them if there is any difference between "elegant" or "eloquent", and their odds aren't nearly so good. (perhaps not the best example, but it's been a hard day). Hell, I've had to dumb down my own vocabulary for so long, that it certainly feels stunted irreversibly. I have to live around people that have no use (or perhaps can't be bothered to care) for words like quark, dromedary, chiroptera, circumlocute, etcetera. I should give better examples than this, and my 5th grade self could probably kick my ass at such a game.
No idea about the dog. But apes clearly do have this ability, and the example that springs to mind is Koko. Her pet kitten didn't have a tail, and she named it "Ball" because to her, it looked like one.
Assuming that you don't have a favorite written language, I would suspect more than a few of these animals could read. The apes at least, could easily learn some symbolic language, and perhaps learn to "write" it. Think the foreign travel glyphs that are on signage and stuff (handicap accessible, the fork/spoon sign for food, etc). I would even imagine that they could learn as much grammar in such a language, as they do with ASL.
Parrots? Hmm. Probably. At least as much as they learn to communicate (as opposed to speak, which is just repeating words).
As for it convincing those that are still skeptics, though, I don't believe it would work so well. What's the difference? The sign languages that are preferred for these experiments are largely visual rather than auditory anyway, does it matter so much if the symbol is in ink instead of fingers?
Slashdot Mirror
Why didn't anyone find time to go outside and poke around on that wing a bit? A big hole should have been noticeable. Hell, we could have pointed a DOD satellite at it for a look.
Columbia's problem wasn't landing with a hole in its wing, the problem was NASA managers having holes in their heads.
Had they known about the problem, the ISS might have had enough resources to let them hang out awhile. We might have booked an emergency unmanned satellite launcher to send up an escape capsule, or repair materials (or extra oxgyen and food for the shuttle itself or the ISS). I'm not a rocket scientist, and even I can see there were all sorts of options and the only requisite was a non-stupid person in a position of authority at NASA.
I'd bet $10 that when a similar potentially catastrophic problem arises on SS1, they'll fix it, and get drunk the next day telling each other "damn that one was close".
Berman doesn't think, anymore than say a sea slug does. Or a bumblebee. I hope I'm not being mean to our distant cousins who haven't evolved backbones yet.
The real question is, can they possibly be worse than space alquaeda. Hell, they even screwed that up, space alquaeda had their moral doubts and all, what fun is that?
But if anyone can unfuck things up, Stra-Icantspellit can. And Dark Skies wasn't so horrible either, for that matter, even for a Xfiles ripoff. Paramount will never allow it (or try to steal Stra-Icantspellit's ideas, just like they did with B5 (DS9, anyone?).
The existence of Mother Theresa doesn't mean that the catholic church didn't burn witches at the stake, or lauch crusades. Forgive me if I consider them the exceptions that prove the rule.
Wonder if the scriptwriter had ever heard of Ira Levin, or watched the original movie. "How to Avoid Plot Holes" has been out of print for nearly 90 years though.
...
Yes.
How could Einstein be what he was, without describing things with words? To say such things, shows how little you know of art, poetry, music, and especially "engineering".
It's not obivous, and you aren't to be blamed (yet) for not seeing it, but you'd think with such fields as architecture or gardening, that there is art in everything. Ever bought some junky piece of electronics (or anything for that matter), where you swear up and down because they made some obvious "design" flaw that even you, the non-engineer could see? That was an engineer without art, without inspiration.
Politicians in general, are so quick to exploit and take advantage of people, and care so little about their plight, that I would be shocked if less than 50% of those in Congress haven't copped a feel of one of their nieces, or tried to give that granddaughter the special lollipop. Maybe not so much today (too much to lose now), but certainly on their way up. They have graduated, so why bugger the little neighbor boy, when you cna cut school lunch programs for the benefit up upper-middle class children whose parents vote correctly?
Fair enough. You have 12 months to excommunicate him, or own up and take the blame. If excommunication is impossible, and untimely death would be an acceptable substitute.
Folks, he may need some help on that one, if you get called in for jury duty, do your best to appear calm and unbiased while appealing to both the defense and prosecution.
13 years of voting age, and I'm still waiting.
Then the laugh is on you, my friend. Voting libertarian is a vote for the Demopublican party. Then again, so is a vote for the Demopublican party, or not voting at all.
Besides, what happens if the Libertarians win? Then we'd be even worse off.
Congress can't overturn a decision by the Supreme Court ...
So while Orrin Hatch may be a sleazy politician, he's not the Darth Vader who will pervert and destroy the entire copyright system in the US.
Does that mean he publically opposed the trial balloon "proposal" that would allow Congress to overturn a Supreme Court veto? Or is he just going to allow that to sit in committee for a few years, before putting that piece of the diabolical puzzle in place?
Every summer movie preview that I haven't been lucky enough to avoid, seems so chock full of blatant formula, that you'd swear up and down that 1 scriptwriter wrote every single one of them, with his worn copy of "Hollywood Scriptwriting Formula" at his side.
To think that a Carmack-level uberprogrammer is somehow less creative than these worthless tripe peddlers is obscene, to state it publically with the conviction you seem to have is positively blasphemous.
Amateur. The whole point is to come up with a theory that would be borderline plausible if you were just a bit more misinformed, or in a more panicy mode of thought. Back massagers, Flemish Indepence Front? For instance, here would be a suitable drop-in replacement for your outlandish joke of a conspiracy theory.
Arthur Ochs Sulzberger, owner of the New York Times, has secretly been selling shares of the legendary newspaper to unknown persons believed to be associated with the Church of Scientology. Being a privately held company, no one can be sure, but anonymous sources peg the number at a minimum of 17%, and maybe as much as 34% of the company. More disturbing, there are rumors that upon his death, controlling interest would be willed to CoS. Nothing more is known, though speculation is rampant.
Several experts on subliminal psychology have been interviewed, but their answers seem to indicate that whatever strategies might be in play, they likely don't include anything so simple as brainwashing or propaganda. Johansen Henriks, PhD remarked "Even assuming that the rumors are true, and that the NYT will be owned by Church of Scientology at some point in the future, they can't simply start printing subliminal dogma. First, the traditional visual subliminal messagess don't work well on newsprint paper. The image is supposed to be so subtle that it can only be recognized subsconsciously, and yet newsprint isn't consistent enough, it bleeds. More so, while I could easily design an advertisement that boosted candy sales 10-20%, this is a far cry from the fundamental belief changes they'd like to cause."
Mike Raines, retired CIA analyst, has a different opinion of the matter. "As far back as 1982, CoS has been providing fund-raising and PR support for various european terrorist and seperatist movements. 1985 in Northern Ireland, 1987 in Basque, and various factions in Bosnia during the early 90s, they were all over the map. Even now, they're funneling money all over the place, [and] they're too damned clever for us to put a stop to it. Whatever purpose this serves, whomever's agenda, having a controlling stake in a well-respected newspaper like the NYT could easily be used to further those goals. Without the legal bite to crack this thing wide open, things could get ugly very soon."
The very fact that Jayson Blair (and others like him) are found, fired, and publicly condemned for unethical journalism is proof that the industry does not tolerate such practices.
Since I was 8 years old, it's been obvious to me that an "iceberg principle" is at work in all corners of life. What percentage of rapes go unreported? How many reported felonies result in a conviction? If J Blair was caught, how much of this happens that we don't know about?
The scary thing is, the tip of the iceberg is, oh... let's say 10%. And with as many political scandals as there are in any given month, think of how many slipped through! (Assuming that political scandals also obey such a principle).
And no slashdot poster has ever been shown to comprehend simple points.
I simply meant, that an intelligent being with compound eyes might have difficulty with such a task, and I went further, with an intelligent species that was naturally blind. The "recognize itself in a mirror" test isn't useful to determine intelligence, and I would think the point should be obvious.
I meant that as an example actually, not joking. I actually had someone that asked me what it meant, simply because it wasn't abbreviated as they usually see it. Scary, eh?
Is there perhaps some reason you feel the need to attack public displays of intelligence? Do you do this often, or was my post particularly provocative? But most importantly, why are you so quick to participate in an activity that collectively makes the world a dumber place?
Assume for a moment, that this has the effect that you hoped it might, that is, I feel so embarrassed or ashamed that I stop talking, or at least in the way that I used to. That's one less person you might ever have a fun or clever conversation with, one less person that might be able to explain something to you that no one else can. That might be one less person who can teach your children.
Maybe it's just the format here, no face to face contact, that makes it so easy to read arrogance where there is none. Or maybe you are in the habit of discouraging anyone with any smarts at all. Either way, there are too many like you, try to make it one less.
Without sounding arrogant, I'm generally pretty good at figuring out what a person is about, and much more quickly than they could answer. Not that I haven't been wrong. But it's hard to listen,
It's more than that though, their words seem slow. Sounds silly, doesn't it? Then again, so do my own. No decent way to measure it, but I think words easily 10 times as fast as I could ever hope to speak them. All that said, I still need to try. It's just that "all" that I wrote is barely the tip of the iceburg.
Chiroptera is "bat". Depending on whether biologists are feuding or not at the moment, it is an order of mammals that encompasses all bats, or a super order comprising microchiroptera and macrochiroptera. It seems that the large bats may not be all that related to the small bats, but evolved in parallel, justifying another order. Big bats came from some monkey thing, small ones from rats.
I am not a biologist, or even a professional Scrabble champion. In fact, I never graduated high school. Still, I can remember the 4 instances I've encountered the word in my life (not counting you repeating it in your post). At age 4, on Nova (PBS). Wasn't in school, so I don't have any idea of the date (was in late autumn though). At age 10, on a plaque at the zoo. At age 12, in school during recess, reading encyclopedia brittanica. I memorized all the living orders of mammals, most of the extinct orders, and quite a few of the birds. At age 15, saturday morning while my brother was watching the batman cartoon (a villain was a "chiroptologist"). At age 16 in biology class, when our teacher thought he would stump us all. I didn't raise my hand, but after a few days of his smug bullshit, I spoke out loud in naming "stirigiformes" as the order that comprises owls. Got accused of cheating for that. For most uncommon words, I can remember where and when I read/heard the word.
Quark, as a fairly specific jargon? The universe is made up of the things. How can you not know what they are? I don't expect it to be used in small talk, but damn.
Dromedary? Hmm. Maybe it isn't as useful, but I still hesitate to consider it "jargon specific to a particular group". Camels for those not in the know, I always forget the other type. Bactrian, I think. Two and one humps, respectively.
Personally, I feel that every single word I know lets me eke out that last bit of detail I might otherwise not be able to express. Then again, most people don't care about details, do they?
No. But now that you mention it, that wouldn't be so much worse than the dysfunctional state things are in now. I'm almost sure the dog and I could communicate much better than me and the girlfriend, especially with someone there to help translate.
No is claiming that Rico has the same capacity for abstract reasoning as even a three year-old child
While I agree that this isn't the claim they're making, I wouldn't be suprised if such a claim did have some merit. If a bratty 3 yr old wants something, they start squalling. A smart dog can be downright sneaky.
A friend had a dog once, that wasn't allowed outside if the neighbor's cat was out. It would see the cat out the window, and start scratching at the door. For several days this went on, with the dog obviously frustrated. Next day, the dog goes to the living room, sees the cat outside, but instead of scratching, walks to the kitchen where the wife is, and acts as if it's ready to pee on the cabinets. The wife yells at the husband "why didn't you let the dog out" as she opens the backdoor. Husband replies "he just wants out to chase the neighbor's cat", and 2 seconds later the dog is out front chasing the cat back and forth with his asshole neighbor ranting and raving. No reason to believe it had to pee at all. That's at least as deceptive as any 3 yr old is capable of being.
My opinion:
Use every day, obviously these count.
Might ever use, these should count if they can do so without the word sounding awkward in the context they use it in, best 2 of 3.
Words they understand out of dictionary words, only if the word is so esoteric that they will never get a chance to use it naturally, and only then if they could manage to use it as above, when given an opportunity.
Words they can intuit a general meaning with accompanying context, not at all. You can't even be sure it was the surrounding words that gave them the hint rather than the gestures the person was using. Hell, it might not be a word, how can they tell?
Without looking it up, laminate: (verb) to prepare a paper or cardboard document (also less commonly work surfaces, countertops, furniture) for protection or aesthetic purposes by coating it with a film (probably plastic of several varieties) bonded either by heat or chemical adhesives. (noun) the plastic film used to coat something in the process of lamination. These two would be pronounced differently in spoken language, and should be discernible in written word by context. Given time and some rest, I could probably manage to specify the materials, tools, and methods used to laminate, the circumstances under which it might be warranted, and the history of lamination itself.
And don't forget, those that speak two languages have roughly double the vocabulary of someone that speaks only one. Had I not grown up in a podunk town in the midwest, I could easily have learned more than the 2.5ish that I'm fluent in now. I'm still interested in such now, and I even have the internet as a tool to that end, but the 30 year old brain has more trouble with it every day. Not to mention there's no one to practice with...
That 60,000 word vocabulary is pretty shallow. For upwards of 90% of those "graduating high-schoolers", I'm willing to bet that those 45,000 of those words are:
A) never used in written communication
B) never used in a way that reflects the subtlety of meaning that the synonym conveys
C) never used in a way other than repeating some popular catch phrase/meme/cliche that is making the rounds
D) used in spoken communication less than twice a year for any single word, and that only for a small fraction of the disputed 45,000 words
More so, in the USA having the most minimal vocabulary possible without becoming mute is considered a virtue. High school is about learning to conform, and that means using only the words that you hear others using. Knowing a word, and making a guess on its meaning on a multiple choice test seems to me a poor substitute for actually knowing how to use the same word in an appropriate way and doing so.
Even those who perform beyond the pessimistic levels I've described, tend to do so only for job specific jargon. A randomly selected medical doctor will almost certainly know what the ileum or calcaneus is, but ask them if there is any difference between "elegant" or "eloquent", and their odds aren't nearly so good. (perhaps not the best example, but it's been a hard day). Hell, I've had to dumb down my own vocabulary for so long, that it certainly feels stunted irreversibly. I have to live around people that have no use (or perhaps can't be bothered to care) for words like quark, dromedary, chiroptera, circumlocute, etcetera. I should give better examples than this, and my 5th grade self could probably kick my ass at such a game.
No idea about the dog. But apes clearly do have this ability, and the example that springs to mind is Koko. Her pet kitten didn't have a tail, and she named it "Ball" because to her, it looked like one.
Assuming that you don't have a favorite written language, I would suspect more than a few of these animals could read. The apes at least, could easily learn some symbolic language, and perhaps learn to "write" it. Think the foreign travel glyphs that are on signage and stuff (handicap accessible, the fork/spoon sign for food, etc). I would even imagine that they could learn as much grammar in such a language, as they do with ASL.
Parrots? Hmm. Probably. At least as much as they learn to communicate (as opposed to speak, which is just repeating words).
As for it convincing those that are still skeptics, though, I don't believe it would work so well. What's the difference? The sign languages that are preferred for these experiments are largely visual rather than auditory anyway, does it matter so much if the symbol is in ink instead of fingers?