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"Apostasy" is an ordinary English word (definition); it's useful to point out which is the religion in question in this specific situation.

Try another dictionary.

Well I don't know if it's the legal definition (assuming there is one), but the Cambridge Advanced Learner's Dictionary defines road rage as "anger or violence between drivers, often caused by difficult driving conditions".

Personally I think the defining characteristic is that an interaction takes place - e.g. the other driver is aware of what you're doing or saying, you get into a fight, etc.

For example, although Ben Crowell, the original poster, doesn't mention it, he himself founded The Assayer, a site that lists free books, carries reader reviews, etc.

Since 2001, I've been publishing a number of original mathematics textbooks as ebooks at the Trillia Group, all of which are DRM-free and freely licensed for student's self study. I'd hoped to license the "bits", rather than use dead trees as DRM, and have universities buy perpetual site licenses for $300. That business model hasn't worked; American universities are used to paying nothing for the textbooks they use in the classroom (even the books that the professors and teaching assistants use to teach the course are given to the universities free by the publishers), and for the most part the universities can't comprehend transferring the small cost for a site license for a text from the students to themselves.

Some academic publishers, including Cambridge University Press, allow some of their mathematics authors to distribute texts freely on the web even while the book is published in hard-cover editions. Perhaps this will become more common in the future.

"Organic" foods is by and large just a pseudo-scientific bunk phrase like "moisturizes your skin". That's not to say that I don't approve of some forms of agriculture over others. I'm seriously pondering getting my own chickens, for the fresh eggs and maybe even a few meat birds.

Do you have any scientific evidence to back up your claim? Here's some links to science articles on organic food:

• "Organic foods in relation to nutrition and health key facts"
• "Healthful Compounds In Tomatoes Increase Over Time In Organic Fields".
• Research At Great Lakes Meeting Shows More Vitamin C In Organic Oranges Than Conventional Oranges".
• "Organic Diet Makes Rats Healthier".
• "Organic Farming Has Little, If Any, Effect On Nutritional Content Of Wheat, Study Concludes"
• "Alternative Farming Cleans Up Water"
• "Compost Can Turn Agricultural Soils Into A Carbon Sink, Thus Protecting Against Climate Change"

At the same time, if we're going to feed a growing global population, we're not going to do it by "organic" means.

Some scientific studies on this conclude organic food can't feed the world while others say it can:

• "Organic Farming Can Feed The World, Study Suggests".
• "Organic Farms Produce Same Yields As Conventional Farms"
• "Organic Crops Impressively Productive When Compared With Conventionally Grown Crops".
• "Organic Farming Produces Smaller Crops, Healthier Soils, Swiss Researchers Report In Science".
• "Can sustainable agriculture really feed the world?"
• "Organic agriculture and the global food supply"

Maybe I missed it but I didn't see one key way to feed the world in any of the articles above, cutting out a lot of meat if not moving to a vegetarian diet. Raising animals to eat requires more land to grow the food to feed them than if people didn't eat meat.

Falcon

Definition

disc, US ALSO disk

noun [C]

1. a circular flat object:
   The dog's name was engraved on a little metal disc attached to its collar.
   See also CD; disk.

2. a small piece of cartilage (= a strong elastic body tissue) between the bones in your back
   
3. a musical record or a compact disc
   

(from Cambridge Advanced Learner's Dictionary)

I wonder what the correct spelling for the disk in SSD is?

BTW, FYI, etc.:

verses
versus

BTW, FYI, etc.:

verses
versus

I made a spelling mistake. Your incorrect.

http://www.askoxford.com/results/?view=dict&freesearch=authored&branch=13842570&textsearchtype=exact
http://dictionary.cambridge.org/define.asp?key=4939&dict=CALD
http://www.yourdictionary.com/search?ydQ=authored&x=0&y=0&area=entries
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/authored (especially the bottom part)

Even though your UID starts with 666 you make a lousy devil's advocate.

1. A paper is not physical property so the whitehouse analogy is just plain silly.

2. Just because YOU don't value quality above authority does not imply the same intellectual weakness is prevalent amoungst scientists. It does however hint at the kind of sour grapes often expressed by those who lack the insight and/or work ethic required to perform quality research.

3. Allowing anyone with an internet connection to read quality research first hand will do far more for education than the 'charity' of special interest groups.

4. Havard is big enough that it does not have to give it's copyright to anyone in order to be taken seriously. Cambridge - "[N]ot just a leading British publisher, it is the oldest printer and publisher in the world and one of the largest academic publishers globally".

And that's while using the popular meaning of "hacker", rather than the correct one.

Comeon people, The usage of this word is very important for kids like me who wants to follow the right path of computation. I made a search in cambridge dictionary . it is too bad. they too have a problem with this. What can we do abt it? But since we all here in slashdot know what it means this need not be a big subject matter. Thank you all for the reply.

Just for starters, when nutritionists talk about calories, they're not really talking about calories like a physicist would. They're really talking about "food calories," which I believe are equivalent to kilocalories. This may be a minor point, but it serves to illustrate that if you think nutrition science maps directly onto physics, you are wrong.

There is no difference in calories...we call them calories because if your cereal said it had 100 kilocalories per bowl people wouldn't know what that means. This is fitting since it is the Thanksgiving season in the US... http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=1133564, and as evident by that story, it maps perfectly to physics. The thing is this, ever think how many C-C bonds or C-H or C-N bonds are in your 6oz of corn flakes? Sufficient to say, not enough to be counted by "calories" and certainly 100,000 calorie breakfast would turn some heads. Lets not even mention that measuring in calories is like measuring in drams, or a pound...the world has long since moved on to the joule, for energy, in science anyway.

Nutritionist, in the ICU for example, use the Harris-Benedict equations for determining caloric needs for patients in various stages of hurt.

Second, and more importantly, any good college chemistry instructor will tell you that the body does not "release energy" from the chemical bonds in food

Again, not to pick here, but that good college professor would be 100% incorrect. Your body, thankfully does release energy from chemical bonds, particularly oxidative phosphorylation. This, aside from generating a bulk of our ATP (energy) allows us to maintain a 37.3C body temperature within a wide range of environmental conditions.

In short...to simplify, digestion isa complex process, not all food is equal, but not in the way you think (Carbohydrate 4 kcal/gram,Protein:4 kcal/gram,Fat 9 kcal/gram, Alcohol 7 kcal/gram) and you can measure the "calories" in a food as if you had a gas gauge, for all intents and purposes. I mean this in the general sense of "if I continue to the level of activity, but halve my food intake, you will lose weight. Will it all be fat? No, if you ran and consumed and extra 3500kcal, would you lose exactly 1 pound? Not exactly, but enough to get close.

1. http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/ency/article/002457.htm
2. http://journals.cambridge.org/download.php?file=%2FPNS%2FPNS31_02%2FS0029665172000412a.pdf&code=a16c418636d75bd92cf84720c13bb8d5
3. http://www.adajournal.org/article/PIIS000282239800100X/abstract

Bacterial infection of lunar landing sites is a serious concern. Here, read this.

Here's an excerpt:

Except that your long post goes on about an entity that currently does not exist. The free industrialized world nations that you know today are representative republics. Democracy is where everyone votes and power and law are decided based on the outcome directly. A republic is where everyone votes but the power and law are implemented by representatives.

Excuse me but a "republic" is "any form of government other than a monarchy", that includes democracies as well as dictatorships.

Second, you mis-used the world "condone". It means "to overlook". And I am certainly NOT doing that.

Indeed, and I was about to say much the same myself. See, for example, the Cambridge Advanced Learner's Dictionary definition here.

Try getting out of your own area then. It will broaden your horizons.

Y'all is prominent in Oklahoma,Missouri,California,Maryland, Virginia, Texas, Louisiana(all states that I have lived in). In my travels, most of the south and southwest in the USA will let you experience the whole y'all extravaganza.

It's to the point that when I here something other than y'all, I take notice. South central Pennsylvania was the worst with you'uns instead of y'all for me.(as I type this I notice that Firefox's spell-checker does not flag y'all, but with you'uns I get the RED UNDERLINE!!! Oh No!..the dreaded Red Underline!)

Your use of the quote marks on the word 'word' suggests that you do not think that it is a word.
Try again:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Y'all Obligatory wiki link
http://dictionary.cambridge.org/define.asp?dict=A&key=yall*1+0 Cambridge's onlin dictionary
http://www.yourdictionary.com/y-all Random link from Google search for online dictionaries
http://www.m-w.com/dictionary/y'all And last but not least, Merriam-Webster's online dictionary.

So like it or not, y'all need to get over the fact that the USA is a big country with diverse cultures and dialects...just like any other big country.

Take a trip up north from Virginia...oh, say about 4-5 states right along the same Atlantic coast and be amazed.
Y'all will see a bunch of stuff, you'uns will get to try a lot of different cuisine, youse guys will experience different cultures, and you all will maybe learn something...maybe even some tolerance for those not just like you guys.

Seems I wasn't wrong after all. Cambridge points out that people is the plural of person, so you must use the plural form of the cerb: "People live much longer than they used to". There's another example here with the sentence "People like to be made to feel important.", and AskOxford also confirms that. So I have better english skills than I thought :)

Seems I wasn't wrong after all. Cambridge points out that people is the plural of person, so you must use the plural form of the cerb: "People live much longer than they used to". There's another example here with the sentence "People like to be made to feel important.", and AskOxford also confirms that. So I have better english skills than I thought :)

Ok, this is completely offtopic but I can't let you get away with saying "trapezing through" without saying something. Unlike some mistaken idioms (say like "reign in" instead of "rein in") trapezing through makes no sense. The true idiom is "traipsing through" where traipsing is "to walk from one place to another, often feeling tired or bored". This is almost the opposite of how you'd act on a trapeze. I'm sure your comment was intelligent and insightful otherwise, but I stopped reading when I hit "trapezing".

I think this is the word you're looking for.

"Bypass", v: to avoid something by going around it.

I think the word you're looking for is "surpass" (to do or be better than).

(Definitions taken from the Cambridge Advanced Learner's Dictionary.)

This is quite wrong. Firstly, there is a large body of SF that does satisfy literary standards. Gene Wolfe and Ursula Le Guin leap to my mind. See here for a page of links to SF collections, and review and critical journals. Or read The Cambridge Companion to Science Fiction.

when on reads a passage there is but on interpretation, and if one does not interpret the passage as such, and bubble in the correct answer, you do not graduate.

This is also quite wrong. Ironically, it's often true of most plot-driven SF, but the "Literature" you are speaking of is valued exactly because it says many, sometimes contradictory, things at once. There are many ways to interpret a Shakespeare play, for instance, and no one can say one is "valid" and another is not. If you can make a case for your position, you WILL graduate.

Merriam Webster lists hieroglyphic as both an adjective and a noun. So does dictionary.com.
Though http://dictionary.cambridge.org/ doesn't find it in the American English dictionary.

Nowhere in the dictionary does it mention the word deprive for the definition of steal.

http://dictionary.cambridge.org/define.asp?key=778 09&dict=CALD


steal (TAKE AWAY) Show phonetics
verb [I or T] stole, stolen
1 to take something without the permission or knowledge of the owner and keep it:



They took something that did not belong to them.

If the best you can do postulate a something as absurd as that Cambridge Press are intentionally misleading people and including incorrect definitions in their dictionaries, then you're obviously in over your head.

I don't have to postulate it. They advertise it. They specifically say they publish simplified definitions to ease the students' time learning the material. This is the purpose of a Learner's Dictionary. To help people who aren't familiar with the nuances of the language learn gain a rough working knowledge of the language.

Even the Cambridge Dictionary of American English returns the same definition.

Not surprising, since it too is a learner's dictionary. http://www.cambridge.org/us/esl/cdae/ See where it says "English as a Second Language" at the top?

http://dictionary.cambridge.org/define.asp?key=376 81&dict=CALD

homicide Show phonetics
noun [C or U] US FORMAL OR LEGAL
(an act of) murder:
He was convicted of homicide.
The number of homicides in the city has risen sharply.

homicidal Show phonetics
adjective
likely to murder:
a homicidal maniac

Unfortunately, your position is that you need to both practice your spelling, and find a better dictionary. I'm sure most people can agree that the Cambridge dictionary is infinitely more authoritative as dictionary of the Engish language than both the "American Heritage" and that cesspool of words they call Merriam Webster.

Google "many worlds theory". Just because a word is given a certain meaning at one point in time doesn't mean that that meaning still stands as we increase our understanding of the (possible) nature of reality.

We don't have a word for "the whole of space that we could theoretically physically visit if we could just travel for enough time, without ever having to leave the four-dimensional space that we commonly consider to be 'reality'" other than "universe". Also, see definition 2 of "universe" in the Cambridge Advanced Learner's Dictionary.

How can a hole in the ground be 'massive'?

It would be very interesting to read a really rigorous neurological study of some of the Russian induced-hypothermia patients however.

n. The right to sell a company's products in a particular area using the company's name

From Cambridge Advanced Learner's Dictionary.

Office is not a franchise, it is a product, like any other piece of software. Please stop using words you don't understand, it lowers the tone of the entire site and leads to otherwise utterly redundant posts like this one.

You can only measure the changes with Habibullo Abdussamatov's patented
Space Solar Limbograph

I am not making this up.

I assume you're trying to make a pun, but I don't think dismemberment means what you think it does. While the definition doesn't call for it, the word certainly has (for me at least) connotations of a gruesome death.

It's effectively a 1700% markup.

Mark-up is defined as the cost added to something before it is sold on. Unless those shows are costing the cable company "about $0.0014" per viewer to show, then the mark-up is unlikely to be 1700%.

If the question of income inequality interests you, I suggest you read

Economic Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy
by Daron Acemoglu and James A. Robinson

The authors analyze historical data to reveal factors that lead societies into democracy or dictatorship. Income inequality is one of the factors.

From the book's summary at http://www.cambridge.org/catalogue/catalogue.asp?i sbn=9780521855266:

"Democracy consolidates when elites do not have strong incentives to overthrow it. These processes depend on the strength of civil society, the structure of political institutions, the nature of political and economic crises, the level of economic inequality, the structure of the economy, and the form and extent of globalization."

I just don't put Usability "patterns" in the same category as the GoF patterns

That's because you don't know what a pattern is. Note that nothing in that definition, that a pattern is "a particular way in which something is done" in any way references computing.

A pattern is a way of doing something, a common solution to a common problem. That even applies to knitting patterns - the problem is that you have wool and no jumper, you follow the pattern, you have a jumper. Nothing about the GoF book makes them C++-specific - in fact, most patterns are entirely language-agnostic. To claim that AJAX isn't "complicated enough" to deserve patterns is to fall foul of language snobbery.

Besides, who needs a book to learn AJAX?

People who don't yet know programming (or XML, etc) and want a single reference to learn from? I've known some truly great designers who wanted to get into client-side scripting, etc, but who had so far had little or no exposure to programming. Believe it or not, some people manage to make a good living doing useful work without ever touching a compiler or interpreter...

Some later historians, such as Howard Zinn, cite the Philippine-American War as an example of American imperialism.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philippine-American_W ar/
During the war 4,324 American soldiers died, only 1,000-1,500 of which were due to actual combat; the remainder died of disease. 2,818 were wounded. ... Philippine military deaths are estimated at 20,000 with 16,000 actually counted, while civilian deaths numbered between 250,000 and 1,000,000 Filipinos.
http://www.historyguy.com/PhilipineAmericanwar.htm l/
http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1132/is _4_51/ai_56640457/

----------------
Russia? Central Asia? Pardon Moi, but the remainders of Russian Hegemony are not asian, they are central european see,
http://www.cambridge.org/catalogue/catalogue.asp?i sbn=0521864038/

-------------

Catholic nations are hardly "christian" for the Protestant US.

_____________

US Imperial power? See http://www.libsci.sc.edu/bob/class/clis734/webguid es/milbase.htm/
U.S. European Command, in Stuttgart-Vaihingen, Germany, is responsible for 13 million square miles in 89 countries and territories. This area of responsibility begins at the North Cape of Norway and extends through the Baltic and Mediterranean Seas, through most of Europe and parts of the Middle East, to the Cape of Good Hope in South Africa. The Command's mission is to support and advance US interests and policies throughout the region and to provide combat ready land, maritime, and air forces to Allied Command Europe or to US Unified Commands.

Point out another country holding military bases covering 13 mega-miles in Europe, alone. You can't and there isn't any other country with the US power as demonstrated by our basing. Iraq has a base under construction that is larger than the Vatican - because we want control over Oil.... nothing else.

Sadam Hussein has less than 30 days to live - my question: does "W" have a fetish in the killing of people? Think back to the execution of Carla Fay Tucker - where "W" mocked her plea for mercy.

I think "W" is one sick puppy. Tell me you don't agree.

a person who has very strong opinions about something, and tries to make other people have them too

I don't need to defend this position extensively, it is a done deal in the atheist community. I'm just letting you, and others who are similarly confused, know what the actual situation is. You can check it out -- actually do some research -- and learn something, or you can continue on in ignorance. Your call.

The wiki article has been closed because it is filled with misinformation? How about some dictionary definitions then:

• Merriam-Webster:atheist; one who believes that there is no deity.
• Cambridge International Dictionary of English: atheist; someone who believes that God or gods do not exist. Compare agnostic: someone who does not know, or believes that it is impossible to know, whether a god exists: Although he was raised a Catholic, he was an agnostic for most of his adult life.
• American Heritage: atheist; One who disbelieves or denies the existence of God or gods.

That was but three definitions I provided that use the root or stem "believe" in the definition of "atheist", here's a list of definitions from 16 other dictionaries. Now where's your research? No, you don't need to provide it, but if you want to correct or convince me I am wrong then I need to see it.

I don't need to defend this position extensively, it is a done deal in the atheist community. I'm just letting you, and others who are similarly confused, know what the actual situation is. You can check it out -- actually do some research -- and learn something, or you can continue on in ignorance. Your call.

The wiki article has been closed because it is filled with misinformation? How about some dictionary definitions then:

• Merriam-Webster:atheist; one who believes that there is no deity.
• Cambridge International Dictionary of English: atheist; someone who believes that God or gods do not exist. Compare agnostic: someone who does not know, or believes that it is impossible to know, whether a god exists: Although he was raised a Catholic, he was an agnostic for most of his adult life.
• American Heritage: atheist; One who disbelieves or denies the existence of God or gods.

That was but three definitions I provided that use the root or stem "believe" in the definition of "atheist", here's a list of definitions from 16 other dictionaries. Now where's your research? No, you don't need to provide it, but if you want to correct or convince me I am wrong then I need to see it.

As they note, further work is needed to figure out if this is indeed a biological gender difference, or a cultural practice difference.

Parenthetical can be used as a noun or an adjective.

Not in English. Here are two references.

Our pedantry is probably pointless when we don't speak the same language.

Inflation
There's a book, too.

the type that is inflated and goes inside another tire (what do you call that?)

Here in the UK, we'd call it an inner tube

Yes, but there are more definitions: Google.com, Answers.com, Wiktionary. Particularly "Any one of various liquids for drinking, usually excluding water"/"A liquid to be consumed, usually excluding water; a drink".

especially as it's a UK school and felony isn't a word over here

What publication reference are you reading, and what edition? Or have you been caught in a lie again, BWJones, you ostentatious shitgobbler?

I think perhaps that "expectation" doesn't mean what you think it means. "Expect" is simply a stronger form of "hope" - you "hope" for something when you'd like it, but you're not convinced it'll happen. You "expect" something when you're pretty certain it'll happen or know that it will.

Neither hoping for something nor expecting it means that the thing is in any way obliged to happen. That is, in this case, the 19 year old can *expect* the girl to put out after the things he's done, but she is in no way *obliged* to do so.

Change "expectation" in your post for "obligation" and you're spot on.

So, calm down, deep breaths, he didn't mean what you thought he meant :) (Unless he is similarly mistaken about what the word means, in which case go ahead, rip him a new one)