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old hand
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but it does have a name!My dear WW, this has been a Word of the Day: I believe it's albedo. This also has an oceanographic/earth science meaning - which might be a YART - let me know if you wanna hear it anyway. 
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Carpal Tunnel
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And if you eat a lot of molasses cookies, you'll get a bagasse.
r a cassoulet. The sharp refreshing orange flesh , the aromatic zest and the ... of two of the oranges, avoiding any pith, then peel them with a sharp knife ... http://www.bbc.co.uk/food/foodinfocus/pf_recipes_oranges.shtml More Results From: www.bbc.co.uk
I used to own a pith helmet, but I never pithed in it.
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Dear Bean,
I just looked up albedo on OneLook--thanks for that word! Curiously, Bartleby listed a definition for the citrus fruit inner skin, but MW did not. Go figure. Wonder whether that skin inside a bean shell has a name--bet it does. You know: When you shell a peanut, the peanut has that brown paperlike skin. But I'm talking about the metallic inner lining of the shell it. You being Bean, you might know! (Really...just kidding. Chances of anyone knowing what that lining inside a peanut shell are next to nil.)
Bean regards, Wordwonderer
And the other definition--the one to which you refer--is pretty meaningless to me. Anything you'd like to provide here: terrific!
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I have a challenge for all of you; Find a single word that describes Chaucer's scholar:
or centuries, educators have cited Chaucer’s description of his scholar as the ultimate motto of our profession: “Gladly would he learn and gladly teach.” Unfortunately, the emphasis has been selective, underscoring, for the most part, “gladly teach” as indicative of what educators most value.
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An easy way to think of albedo is that it's something like "how reflective the earth (or what's covering it) is". So the polar ice caps have high albedo, as could be seen in the "nighttime view of earth" pic a while back. So do clouds. Something like a coniferous forest would probably have low albedo.
Taking this one step further, you can actually define it as a number between 0 and 1, which describes how much light is reflected back. Here's another good defnintion from one of my clearer books: "Not all the energy impinging on the earth is absorbed. A fraction is reflected or scattered...the number is called the albedo of the earth and has a value of approximately 0.3." (That is, 30% of energy from the sun is reflected away from Earth on average.) (There are maps in this book, too, showing how it varies over different parts of earth.)
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veteran
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You explained albedo very well, Bean. I've got it. The inside of that peanut shell, which is kind of a metallic white, has a higher albedo than the inside of a green bean shell, which is dark green at maturity. Right? I've got it, right?
Bean regards, WW
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And if you eat a lot of molasses cookies, you'll get a bagasse. 
I used to own a pith helmet, but I never pithed in it 
Hey Bill, who writes your material? One-liners like these could carry me and you all the way to $>Vegas<$. I'll be your manager. We'll change your name to...uh... William Dangerfield. We'll get rich! PS: Say Bill, please help me along with this one. What is the word for when a Senior is having a moment when he is sharp-as-a-tack?
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Bean, the same word albedo applies to any astronomical body that shines by reflected light (rather than by light of its own generation, as a star).
As I recall, for many years after the planet Pluto was discovered it was thought to be substantially larger than our current estimates. The prior estimate was based on noting its apparent brightness in the sky, and calculating how big it would have to be to shine that amount of light to us at such a distance. However, it was later found that Pluto shines with that brightness because, although much smaller, it has an unusually high albedo.
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I bet faldage, Mav and-- an other photographers know more about albedo then they might think.. (and Steve Pinker, in How the mind works covers this.)
albedo is reflectivity of light, and as bean said, measured.. but think of driving down a highway, on a sunny, sunny day.. the black top (macadam, tar, what ever) can reflect so much light, its hard to see the white lines painted on the road..
Now think of driving in a norther city in the middle of winter.. there might be lots of snow, but most of it is soot and dirt covered (not a fresh snow, but 2 day to 2 week old snow) it hardly reflects any light at all.
Still, we all know, white reflects light and black absorbs it! Our moon, is about the same color black as a tar road. our beautiful silver moon is black! but it has a high albedo-- (no atmosphere, direct sun light) and reflects back a high percent of light!
that is why photographers use light meters.. they don't trust their eyes!
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