Peer review functions as a giant, loosely woven net.
The firm's billing and payments service functions as "a giant calculator plug-in" that other Web services can customize to calculate pricing however they want.
An experimental bike path that also functions as a giant solar cell has far exceeded expectations in the six months it's been in use -- and that has scientists eyeing roadways as possible sources of solar energy to power street lights, traffic systems, and electric cars.
But it has never been established whether the rain forest here is in fact functioning as a giant sink that "sequesters," or traps and absorbs, carbon.
"I'll do everything for Brooklyn, except go on this ride," he said, donning a cream-colored apron (without bothering to tie the strings) that functioned as a giant name tag.
A large wicker trunk from Pier I ($200) held all the toys that used to clutter the floor, and the ottoman, now functioning as a giant coffee table, had been slip-covered in a durable deep rust textured cotton remnant ($25, plus $50 for the seamstress).
On one level, The Martian may be functioning as a giant advertisement for Nasa, but the close collaboration between the space agency and Ridley Scott's film-making team has resulted in the director remaining blasé about the dramatic announcement of evidence of flowing water on Mars.
Similar to Lynne Cherry's recent Your Dot post here on Dot Earth, it lays out the reasons why recent pieces by McKibben, Muller, and Hansen, combined with the immense visibility of where those pieces appeared, are unintentionally functioning as a giant climate change disempowerment machine.
The wall functions less as a giant page than as an active plane that the best paintstick-on-linen pieces push into and skew.
But this lively mix of bar-goers and Wall Streeters and harried parents was percolating on Vernon Boulevard, in Long Island City, Queens, a highway-bordered neighborhood that until recently seemed to function largely as a giant parking lot.
Imagine the US map as a giant board game.
