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Its nice to see Newspeak is still alive an well

Didn't you hear the story about exploiting the goose that lays golden eggs? Here's a refresher.

Let things develop on their own time, or be prepared to help nuture its growth in some fashion.

====---====

• The Alien and Sedition Acts of 1798
• Lincoln and Habeas Corpus 1861-1865
• Espionage and Sedition Acts of 1917

Meteor = bright trail left by a meteoroid as it travels through the atmosphere on its way to becoming a meteorite when/if it lands on the earth.

From The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language: Fourth Edition. 2000:

Exceptions are the possessives of ancient proper names in -es and -is, the possessive Jesus', and such forms as for conscience' sake, for righteousness' sake. But such forms as Achilles' heel, Moses' laws, Isis' temple are commonly replaced by

the heel of Achilles
the laws of Moses
the temple of Isis

Form the possessive singular of nouns with 's.

As the person submitting - and one who made a typo in an earlier submission - both spellings may be used - as in this partial sentence taken from the American Heritage online - okay it's not *the* definitive guide to grammar - "...peoples migrated into the area during the first millenium, displacing the earlier San inhabitants. European colonization began in 1889". I agree - the form you present is much more accepted :~) Point taken -

But while I abhor this typicall British style of referring to a collective noun as a plural, it is generally considered correct. See, e.g. The American Heritage Book of English Usage or any other extensive usage manual.

(which is has to be if you are going to accuse it of monopolistic practices)

Says who? You can have monopolistic practices without being a monopoly. Isn't that what everybody has been saying about Microsoft all these years?

According to Columbia Guide to Standard American English the -istic suffix means:

"in imitation of" or "having some characteristics of,"

There are other sites that simply claim that, "could care less" is a silly mistake, but these do not (in general) discuss the use of both phrases in literary works as the two links I offer do.

Do not assume ignorance when sarcasm will do!

Certainly. See Columbia World of Quotations.

"Legoes"/"legos" are acceptable English forms of the word. We are not speaking Danish, and language evolves and is defined through usage.

See etymological fallacy for more helpful information.

I'm personally waiting for the Old Man Murray version. His strong opinions and insights could lead to the greatest GPROMMMMMMORPG of all time.

Is this kind of like in the 50s when some expert said that nuclear power was going to make electricity free?

Not "free": the exact phrase, from Lewis Strauss, chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission, was:

"Our children will enjoy in their homes electrical energy too cheap to meter."

... which turned out to be overly optimistic.

-kgj

It will almost certainly have an "effect" -- that is, it will affect the market.

Am I the only slashdot reader who rankles at our editors' lack of good English? Ferchrissakes, folks, read Strunk and White -- it's online these days.

Anyway back to the specific point at hand, the question is whether you believe in subconcious recognition, such as psychoacoustic response. If you do, then you should surely believe in a similar effect relating to the human optics system. After all, a great deal of brain matter and nerve tissue is dedicated to visual processing. Given a sufficient range of color, and good lighting (on a monitor, read that as good gamma and temperature adjustment) I think the human brain (but maybe not the optic nerve) can discern differences in shade that will show up any common output device, or likely even the very high-tech models. They need other color for comparison, and you might not realize it consciously, but it might be prickling at the back of your mind, like when you get a feeling that something is just not quite right. (Like when the mix is off on the soda machine.) Of course monitors are only (half or less) as good as the RAMDAC and cable. And, opinions abound on the quality of color available from flat panel displays, though I think with proper head position and good calibration I can't see any reason why you couldn't get very good color from one. Oh yeah, and pretty constant temperature... But they have active color calibration technology for CRTs for specifically these reasons, so I don't see why LCDs should be thought any less of for it. But nonetheless they only support so many colors. I really believe that due to its analog nature the human brain, armed with basically another 2-3cm of brain tissue stretched out into the eye, has sufficient ability to detect differences in familiar patterns of color. After all the brain is a big learning system for recognizing patterns and acting on them, which is probably why practicing things repeatedly is so effective.

It's true that his apparently arbitrarily-assigned high bit values are, well, apparently arbitrarily assigned. But, it might also be true that current display technologies truly do not display an adequate range of colors. They can be achieved in artwork by using and mixing colors from nature but even that will be more granular than nature can accomplish, it only has the luxury of being viewed at a more or less fixed distance, and it ends up looking like texture - which it is. We have the problem that we cannot reliably put down arbitrary combinations of colors. We can only reliably and consistently place dots, and by laying them over the top of one another (to varying degrees) create the illusion that we're putting down individual colors. Doubtless you are aware of this. Obviously video displays have the same problem.

Keep in mind that to more accurately represent reality, you need greater precision. 128 bit data types are not unheard of any longer. 64 bit data types are common. (Like, for floating point values.) We keep increasing the precision of these values in order to better approximate reality. We're still not there, which implies either that we're going about it all wrong (quite possible) or that we have a long way to go before we get there - possibly both.

This is completely offtopic, but ever since I learned how to use bring and take properly back in highschool (1988) its really annoying to see people use it inproperly.

It's unclear whether you are saying that the company won't allow cell phones to be used or won't be supplying them. An outright banning cell phone from the workplace is extreme and should be met with a quick move to another company. To be potentially unreachable by family in the case of emergency is not a condition I would tolerate.

Let's assume that's not the case and they just won't be providing you a cell phone. Your job is to keep systems running. If you fail to keep them running you will be seen as not doing your job. Any excuses about the company not providing a cell phone will be seen as petty.

So, I would ask if the company is going to reimburse business calls on your cell phones. If they aren't, you should ask them where notification should be sent and that your cell phone is unacceptable. They may tell you to have notifications sent to your supervisor. If so, do it and get on with life. Don't feel obligated to leave your cell phone on all the time - besides I think it sucks the life force out of you to be reachable all the time. This makes your supervisor responsible for responding to notifications. A few weeks of your supervisor getting the notifications and not being able to reach you during movies, etc. and the policy will probably change.

If they are going to reimburse expenses, leave it as is and make sure you get the expense reports in every month. Do the expense reports on company time and make sure that the time spent that way is clearly noted on any status reports. Once they realize that they're spending $10/month on cell service for you and $50/month for you to itemize the statement and another 10/month to process the expense reports, the may get smart and change the policy.

In short, follow the rules but make them follow the rules as well (i.e. That you won't accept un-reimbursed business expenses.) See this.

1. Morph is not greek, morphos is.

morphe is greek. Morph in this sense comes from metamorphose, which is derived from latin via french.

"Avatar" in the sense of "a representative face/person/attribute of a god," the Sanskrit meaning, is different from the sf sense of "an electronic representation of a person which is not visually mimetic" or however you want to define these

The meaning is the same. The player in the game is metaphorically a god, and thus his representation in the game is an avatar.

Wicked is grammatically correct, although slangy. Wicked is an adverb in some areas, notably New England. See American Heritage Dictionary.

What are the chances that any of these "licensees" will get their money refunded when SCO loses?

Why would they get a refund? Have you looked at the SCO Intellectual Property License for Linux?

If you terminate the license, you don't get a refund. They can terminate your license if you're doing something wrong, but a) SCO terminated IBM's Unix license without proper notification of the breach and b) SCO has described contracts as "what you use against parties you have relationships with."

They're selling a license that covers...

[boldfaced parts emphasized by me] "UNIX-based Code" shall mean any Code or Method that:
(i) in its literal or non-literal expression, structure, format, use, functionality or adaptation
(ii) is based on, developed in, derived from or is similar to (iii) any Code contained in or Method devised or developed in
(iv) UNIX System V or UnixWare(R), or
(v) any modification or derivative work based on or licensed under UNIX System V or UnixWare.

So they're bascially selling a license which purports to cover any code, in anything, that just so happens to behave the same way code in Unix System V or UnixWare behaves, or any product derived from those sources. Pretty broad spectrum, neh?

This is why people have been saying it's a bad idea to buy an SCO "IP license" until they are found to have rights to any "IP" in Linux. Because you're entering into a legally-binding agreement with a company that will audit you to try to intimidate you into "compliance".

Contrary to the notion where you get some kind of security in buying a license to use someone's IP, SCO's license gives you the exact opposite; no warranty, no indemnity (but Mr. McBride, what about all the times you claimed Linux users were at risk because of lack of warranty indemnification? And they explicitly state that there's no protection if you happen to infringe on someone else's intellectual property rights by using this license... like, say, the Linux kernel developers whose GPL-licesned code would be infringed?) and the right for SCO to audit you any time they want and make you cough up money if you "pirate" Linux by putting it on another machine -- oh, and the licenses are not transferrable between machines, either.

Sucker. Anyone who buys an SCO IP license has, in my opinion, no right to cry later when it turns out they bought a pig in a poke.

Jay (=

I've read some bad writing in my day, but this tops 'em all. And I have to agree with the parent post here -- trying to sound intelligent usually nosedives into complete and utter nonsense.

Maybe we should work on the Art of Writing first.

"Should have is sometimes incorrectly written should of by writers who have mistaken the source of the spoken contraction should've."

Start by explaining why every intelligence agency in the world though Saddam had WMDs.

That's a line repeated by a lot of pro-Bush editorialists in the past months. It's partly false, and partly an oversimplification.

You see, there's WMD, and then there's WMD. Experts on WMD actually call it CBN (Chemical, Biological, and Nuclear), and they understand that chemical weapons score a distant third in potential for mass suffering. Historical research has shown they barely surpass conventional explosives in lethality (often falling short of TNT's destructiveness). Saddam might've had a little, but not enough to worry about.

The falsehood Bush can be accused of is not "Iraq has WMD", but "Iraqi WMD will threaten US citizens within a year".

Since the US funded Iraqi chemical weapons in the 80s, there was a reasonable expectation some of that capability had survived. But those weapons couldn't consitute a threat to the US, as Bush claimed. Since there was no threat, and no reason to believe there was a threat, the claim of "pre-emption" is false.

Of course, there were plenty of good reasons to remove Saddam Hussein. Above all, it was agreed that getting rid of him would improve life in Iraq and security in it's neighbors. But just prior to being elected, Bush swore that US soldiers would be used only for straightforward military conflicts, never for "nation building" jobs (which is where our troops are dying today). Ironically, Bush had painted his disdain for policing other countries as the strongest position distinguishing him from Al Gore on foreign policy topics.

By reversing on a campaign pledge, he has betrayed everyone who voted for him. (Runs in the family!). Gore told the hard truth about tough jobs the Armed Forces would face, honesty that prehaps contributed to his loss.

including three long range rocket programs (which are useless without WMD warheads),

Conventional warheads on long-range missiles have proven themselves to be quite useful over the past 60 years.

an active ricin program, botulin reference strains hidden in a home refrigerator at the orders of the Iraqi secret police, laboratories in secret police safe houses.

Why would we add in things you just made up from thin air? If any item on that list was real, these accusations against Bush just wouldn't be happening.

I would argue that nobody in the world, including those in Iraq, knew that Saddam had only a few WMD's,

I knew that. I informed the Pentagon, and posted on Slashdot too. We knew that Iraq had, at worst, a handful of low-effectiveness chemical weapons, and nothing biological or nuclear.

John Kerry lied about US policy and atrocities in the Vietnam War.

To deny that US military conduct in the Vietnam "Police Action" was atrocious suggests either deep ignorance or total misanthropy.

I think Benjamin Franklin put it best in 1755.

"Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety."

BENJAMIN FRANKLIN, Pennsylvania Assembly: Reply to the Governor, November 11, 1755.--The Papers of Benjamin Franklin, ed. Leonard W. Labaree, vol. 6, p. 242 (1963).

Bartleby

Pardon me, but that's bullshit. Blame America says we're uniquely evil simply because we're uniquely powerful. What other country has significant numbers of armed forces around the world? What other country spends anywhere NEAR as much as the US does? What other country effectively controls the worlds oil supply (either economically or militarily)? What other country has more nukes than the rest of the world combined (and then claims that other countries don't have the right to pursue nuclear technology)? The US is the ONLY remianing superpower.

And I hope you remember what they say about power and corruption...

Astro also comes from Greek. The difference is "astro-" means "star", while "cosmo-" means "space/universe". Since the earliest astronauts didn't go to other stars (come to think of it, neither have any others since), the word "cosmonaut" would probably have been a better choice; in addition, we wouldn't have this silly policy that gives two people two different names for the same job based on the nationality of said person (unless the Russians had decided they wanted to use a different word from that the USians were using).

I thought that corundum was the mineral form of Al2O3 and as such contains impurities which colour it as in the case of sapphire or ruby? I thought the pure form was alumunia although it has been at least 10 years since I did chemistry at college so I could quite easily be wrong.

This goes back to the origins of the English language in both Latin and Germanic roots. Quarter comes from German,...

From the German, eh? Nope, and I'm not the only one who thinks otherwise

Thanks for writing your comment in Courier without using paragraph breaks. The paragraph is only the unit of composition.

Why did you bother to use periods?

And he messed up the plurals again. It's source code now, but it "were public"...

The writer's use of "were" is correct here. It is the past subjunctive form of "to be", used mostly in "if" clauses and to express hypotheticals.

See The American Heritage(r) Book of English Usage for details.

Freedom requires worry. The only people who don't worry are slaves - they trust that Massah will keep a roof over their heads and their tummies full of them tasty chitlins.

I suppose this is the point at which I usually remark that "employee" is a polite euphemism for "slave," but I thought instead that I might recall a certain very old freedom that does offer some respite from worry [although it's a rather abstract freedom, certainly from the point of view of the average /.er]:

Therefore I say unto you, Take no thought for your life, what ye shall eat, or what ye shall drink; nor yet for your body, what ye shall put on. Is not the life more than meat, and the body than raiment?

Behold the fowls of the air: for they sow not, neither do they reap, nor gather into barns; yet your heavenly Father feedeth them. Are ye not much better than they?

What does "cogitoergosum" mean?

Cogito ergo sum:

http://lysy2.archives.nd.edu/cgi-bin/words.exe?cog ito+ergo+sum [nd.edu]

I AM in doubt as to the propriety of making my first meditations in the place above mentioned matter of discourse; for these are so metaphysical, and so uncommon, as not, perhaps, to be acceptable to every one. And yet, that it may be determined whether the foundations that I have laid are sufficiently secure, I find myself in a measure constrained to advert to them. I had long before remarked that, in (relation to) practice, it is sometimes necessary to adopt, as if above doubt, opinions which we discern to be highly uncertain, as has been already said; but as I then desired to give my attention solely to the search after truth, I thought that a procedure exactly the opposite was called for, and that I ought to reject as absolutely false all opinions in regard to which I could suppose the least ground for doubt, in order to ascertain whether after that there remained aught in my belief that was wholly indubitable. Accordingly, seeing that our senses sometimes deceive us, I was willing to suppose that there existed nothing really such as they presented to us; and because some men err in reasoning, and fall into paralogisms, even on the simplest matters of Geometry, I, convinced that I was as open to error as any other, rejected as false all the reasonings I had hitherto taken for demonstrations; and finally, when I considered that the very same thoughts (presentations) which we experience when awake may also be experienced when we are asleep, while there is at that time not one of them true, I supposed that all the objects (presentations) that had ever entered into my mind when awake, had in them no more truth than the illusions of my dreams. But immediately upon this I observed that, whilst I thus wished to think that all was false, it was absolutely necessary that I, who thus thought, should be somewhat; and as I observed that this truth, I think, hence I am, was so certain and of such evidence, that no ground of doubt, however extravagant, could be alleged by the Sceptics capable of shaking it, I concluded that I might, without scruple, accept it as the first principle of the Philosophy of which I was in search.

http://www.bartleby.com/34/1/4.html [bartleby.com]

Cogito ergo sum:

http://lysy2.archives.nd.edu/cgi-bin/words.exe?cog ito+ergo+sum

I AM in doubt as to the propriety of making my first meditations in the place above mentioned matter of discourse; for these are so metaphysical, and so uncommon, as not, perhaps, to be acceptable to every one. And yet, that it may be determined whether the foundations that I have laid are sufficiently secure, I find myself in a measure constrained to advert to them. I had long before remarked that, in (relation to) practice, it is sometimes necessary to adopt, as if above doubt, opinions which we discern to be highly uncertain, as has been already said; but as I then desired to give my attention solely to the search after truth, I thought that a procedure exactly the opposite was called for, and that I ought to reject as absolutely false all opinions in regard to which I could suppose the least ground for doubt, in order to ascertain whether after that there remained aught in my belief that was wholly indubitable. Accordingly, seeing that our senses sometimes deceive us, I was willing to suppose that there existed nothing really such as they presented to us; and because some men err in reasoning, and fall into paralogisms, even on the simplest matters of Geometry, I, convinced that I was as open to error as any other, rejected as false all the reasonings I had hitherto taken for demonstrations; and finally, when I considered that the very same thoughts (presentations) which we experience when awake may also be experienced when we are asleep, while there is at that time not one of them true, I supposed that all the objects (presentations) that had ever entered into my mind when awake, had in them no more truth than the illusions of my dreams. But immediately upon this I observed that, whilst I thus wished to think that all was false, it was absolutely necessary that I, who thus thought, should be somewhat; and as I observed that this truth, I think, hence I am, was so certain and of such evidence, that no ground of doubt, however extravagant, could be alleged by the Sceptics capable of shaking it, I concluded that I might, without scruple, accept it as the first principle of the Philosophy of which I was in search.

http://www.bartleby.com/34/1/4.html

pipe - transitive verb [...] 1b. To convey as if by pipes, especially to transmit by wire or cable: piped music into the store.

reference

Actually, it's "Gates's."

Does that company now have access to the email even though there is no written contract nor technology use policy?

me look left
me look right

me still sees no lawyers.

This is an ethical or moral or legal question (depending on your particular viewpoint).

Slashdot, to the extent it's not a troll-fest and crap-flooder's convention, is a technical forum.

That said, this techie's understanding of the relevant law is that an employee's email, as any other work-product, belongs to the company that paid for the email account and paid the employee for the time the employee spent producing the email.

On the other hand, at one time and place -- Feudal Europe -- "employers" thought they also had the right of droit du seigneur too, so we shouldn't fall into the trap of believing that something is right just because it's legal.

Perhaps by asserting that privacy trumps payment you'll be striking a blow for freedom that will be remembered, centuries from now, as the beginning of our liberation from employers who today claim that they can lock employees in warehouses, denying them medical attention or can strip search workers accused of theft.

Apple does not make ANY money on ITunes

...most strenuously, my good sir or madam.

As the law demands, I did make an error, but in punctuation, not grammar. Granted, the legitimacy of "the reason is because" is disputed, but only by capitulationist descriptivists. :-)

Here's a brief note on this construction.

Not to belittle your argument, but this is often misquoted. Perhaps you meant . . .

They that can give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty or safety.

Sorry about not making those links nice and friendly clicky-clicky style. They link to a couple references on the "I could care less" construction.

• Bartleby's
• A second opinion

I'm the same person who replied to you earlier.

After a copious amount of further searching, I came upon this, which is probablty what was referred to. There's one thread in soc.culture.british that mentions it. Anyway, here it is.
The Motor Bus
What is this that roareth thus?
Can it be a Motor Bus?
Yes, the smell and hideous hum
Indicat Motorem Bum!
Implet in the Corn and High
Terror me Motoris Bi:
Bo Motori clamitabo
Ne Motore caeder a Bo --
Dative be or Ablative
So thou only let us live:
Whither shall thy victims flee?
Spare us, spare us, Motor Be!
Thus I sang: and still anigh
Came in hordes Motores Bi,
Et complebat omne forum
Copia Motorum Borum.
How shall wretches live like us
Cincti Bis Motoribus?
Domine, defende nos
Contra hos Motores Bos!

I think it's pretty shitty qua poem.

Actually, further research indicates "It's by A. D. Godley, a Latin professor at Oxford many decades ago" and "teaches 3d-declension masculine and 2d-declension neuter Latin declensions in all six cases and in both singular and plural").

"Corn and High are two streets in Oxford", and that's, I think, a clear reason for it's being called "the Oxford" poem.

HEY. The beginning of this poem is actually a familiar quotation (But from "The Columbia World of Quotations" not Bartlett's).

QUOTATION: What is this that roareth thus?
Can it be a Motor Bus?
Yes, the smell and hideous hum
Indicat Motorem Bum ...
Domine, defende nos Contra hos Motores Bos!

ATTRIBUTION: Alfred Godley (1856-1925), British scholar. letter, Jan. 10, 1914. "The Motor Bus," Reliquae, vol. 1 (1926).

Gallows humor, n.: Humorous treatment of a grave or dire situation.

Hope that helps.

Umm, American steel is of good quality, it's the price that is the problem.... Other countries can pay their labor less

I'm French. You know, the country of over-paid, whining, striking, snail-eating people. Not exactly a sweatshop nation.

My father, my grandfathers (both of them) and many of my ancestors work or worked in the steel industry in the North-East of France.

This industry was as old as the industrial revolution. Up to the early 80s, steel and coal were virtually synonymous to "industry" as a whole. They were a defining component of the working class in France and Germany. It is no accident if the first instance of a European structure (before the EEC and the EU) was a community based on agreements about coal and steel.

But in the 80s, something awful happened: we realized that our steeal and coal industries were simply not viable any more. Our coal was awfully expensive to extract, and costed several times the price of better quality coal that could be litteraly scrapped off the ground in south america. Our massive, overproductive steel industry was bloated and hampered with prohibitive costs.

The jewels of our industry, our national prides, had turned into dinosaurs.

The result was quite litteraly an onslaught. Hundreds of thousands of jobs disappeared in a matter of years. Whole regions were devastated and fell into massive poverty.

No we have virtually no coal industry, and our (much sleeker) steel industry is essentially based on value-added, quality steels (my father was lucky and young enough to escape the slaughter and was relocated in the south by his company, which is now the Fos-sur-Mer branch of the Arcelor group).

When it comes to steel, the difference between the US and other countries is not necessarily about wages; it is about the painful reforms that other countries carried out, while the US didn't !

A final thing about tariff: there's nothing inherently wrong with them, even for us europeans. We can't sell anything to the US, but the expensive, over-priced US steel cannot be selled anywhere else in the world. Besides, US steel-based
products are more expensive than ours, which is good for us. I don't understand why the EU decided to go after the US after all in that case. I suppose that the enormous size of the US market made it more important than other considerations. Would such a thing happen in, say, Canada, I don't think the outcome would be the same.

Thomas Miconi

you are a fucking moron if you can't read the sarcasm in this post.

Have you heard of Asperger syndrome, which negatively affects the ability to recognize sarcasm? Do you claim that all persons with Asperger syndrome have elementary school intellect?

I held high hopes that folks would use file sharing as a way to get around organizations like the RIAA and use it to find artists they liked and would end up supporting them.

Or become artists themselves, except for one thing: How can they know whether the songs they have written are in fact original and not subconsciously copied from another song (see Bright Tunes Music v. Harrisongs Music)?

Some online dictionaries have audio pronunciations, for example, infrared. Merriam-Webster also has them. Quite useful.

Perhaps the reason the idiot phrase "star that exploded" was included was because the word "asteroid" derives from the greek for "starlike" and the editor knows more about languages than astronomy. A shame.

The Glorious Revolution was nothing to do with the shortening of Charles I - it was the replacement of James II by William III and Mary II.

Don't pretend to be stupid. You know what they mean, you just don't like it.

I sincerely doubt either of us has the qualifications to offer ourselves as an authority on the subject.

In my entire 45 years of life the only people I've heard omit "and" are Americans. This isn't street slang, or some neologism, it's what I was taught in primary school. Not having any grade one texts to hand, I did however find this:

Kenneth G. Wilson (1923- ). The Columbia Guide to Standard American English. 1993.
Numbers of more than one digit can be turned into more than one verbalization: twenty-five, two five; one hundred sixty-seven, one sixty-seven, one six seven; two thousand three hundred [and] five, twenty-three hundred [and] five, etc.