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What was your toaster's name? What did its voice sound like? What were its aneurisms like?

I don't think my toaster has ever had an aneurism. Neither, for that matter, has Threepio.

Bonus points for spelling the wrong word right though, especially hereabouts.

> They charge for access to their suppository. $99, actually.

$99 for one suppository? Somebody's gotta do something about these darned medication prices! ;-)

> This is probably an unpopular sentiment, but what
> exactly is good about patriotism?

Patriotism is love of and devotion to your country. Sometimes it can be a good thing because it results in a form of altruism - people putting what is good for their whole country ahead of what is good for themselves.

The problems of course happen when what is good for your country conflicts with what is good for everyone else, or when patriotism is misdirected into making people do things that are not good for their country (which seems to happen most of the time) :)

It would definately make Lucas look like a genius, but like the good doctor, I don't believe that Lucas would be smart enough (or would let his ego deflate enough) to use this terrific plot that has been presented infront of him.
Consider the possibilities: Yoda and the Emperor working together the whole time .... Darth & Obi-Wan setting this whole thing up to bring balance to the force ... how crazy would this be! Lucas would forever be known as a movie genius!

It's kind of laid out, albeit vaguely. Yoda still lives because without Yoda, the force becomes out of balance. Vader and Obi wan are balanced. When Luke shows up, net positive so Obi Wan sacrifices himself. I think the line, "I will grow more powerful than you can ever imagine" means more like, "You are causing the force to collapse upon itself."

The only thing that pisses me off is that it does end up going out of balance anyway. I've always held onto the vague belief that Yoda was kept alive on purpose because by Yoda being alive, Palpatine was stronger. Of course, I think the whole thing is drivel I just want to find some reason to go watch it because it has good eye candy.

That story line definately has possibilities!
Definitely.

Postfix - n. A suffix.

Besides, the symmetry works better, pre- to post-.

=Brian

Today I found this 'selling a bridge' twice, and I can't understand what it means. Is it an idiom?

I use dictionary.com as my main online dictionary, but up to now, I haven't found a good idiom reference online. Any suggestions?

I said:

It makes the most sense to put the engines inside the wheelbase, in the center, and as low as possible, which gives you the lowest center of gravity and polar moment of inertia.

Then you said:

Bit of a dumb comment but polar moment of inertia is not affected by how low or close to the wheels the weight is.

The key word that I typed was wheelbase. Putting the weight inside the wheelbase - the distance from the center of the front wheel to the center of the back wheel - reduces the polar moment of inertia.

For a concrete example, in my 1989 240SX I have a boring 2.4 liter SOHC 12 valve four banger. I mean, it's an okay engine, whatever. But it extends a bit past the front wheels towards the front of the car.

I could put in a 1.8 liter turbo motor which not only had more horsepower, but also weighed less and sits behind the front wheels, AKA, within the wheelbase.

Hence, I reduce my polar moment of inertia by reducing the weight up front and moving the remaining weight further back.

For the record, adjusting the height of the load raises your CG which increases body roll. Putting the weight in the center also increases neutrality, which is to say does it move to the left and the right in the same way? But this is also related to the behavior of the suspension and you can also make the car consistent by having constant camber, usually achieved by having the right kind of suspension. Double wishbone and multilink are the best at maintaining camber, mcpherson is decent, and then we get into crap like torsion bar (can be worked around) and semi trailing arm, and it just goes downhill from there.

Race is not a skin color but an ethnicity.

Here is the usage note from


1.A local geographic or global human population distinguished as a more or less distinct group by genetically transmitted physical characteristics.
2.A group of people united or classified together on the basis of common history, nationality, or geographic distribution: the German race.
3.A genealogical line; a lineage.
4.Humans considered as a group.


So, there are many sides to race, one of them being skin color, another ethnicity. In light of this, I think Jackson fails on both accounts. Aside from the obvious skin color bit, he is so far removed from 99.999% of the U.S. population, it is difficult to imagine that he has anything in common with other African Americans at this point.

"Huh ? at what frequency regimes ?"
"(again, for the visible light regime.)"

regime

A form of government: a fascist regime.
A government in power; administration: suffered under the new regime.
A prevailing social system or pattern.
The period during which a particular administration or system prevails.
A regulated system, as of diet and exercise; a regimen.

Is it too boring for you to just say frequency range??
Twit.

if women don't like it, they don't have to appear in it.

If women don't like gettin' beat, they don't have to stay married to wife abusers. But they do, the world isn't really that simple. They also might not know how their images are going to be framed.

anyway, what's more demeaning, "this bitch loves my cum", or the actual act of getting threewayed, tell me.

Well, if I got fucked by two chicks, I wouldn't consider myself 'demeaned' at all, why should it be 'demeaning' for a woman to enjoy, and have intresting sex?

it's not just skank. "skank" implies filth, not just sexual accessability.

if women don't like it, they don't have to appear in it.

If women don't like gettin' beat, they don't have to stay married to wife abusers. But they do, the world isn't really that simple. They also might not know how their images are going to be framed.

anyway, what's more demeaning, "this bitch loves my cum", or the actual act of getting threewayed, tell me.

Well, if I got fucked by two chicks, I wouldn't consider myself 'demeaned' at all, why should it be 'demeaning' for a woman to enjoy, and have intresting sex?

it's not just skank. "skank" implies filth, not just sexual accessability.

I used Led Zep as an example of something that would be too good to give up just because it is on a monopoly label.

And my response was that this is a non-sequitur. You can keep your Led Zep, perfectly legally fair-and-square thanks to the second-hand market, and not support the cartel at the same time.

Now that's a SlashDot-ism I've never seen before. Definately.

facetious

Do you check a dictionary when unsure? Why Not?

Now that's a SlashDot-ism I've never seen before. Definately.

facetious

Do you check a dictionary when unsure? Why Not?

What the fuck is a visioneer? You've been hanging around near too many pointy haired bosses. The word you're looking for is VISIONARY.

Definition: Verbal:
3. Expressed in spoken rather than written words; oral: a verbal contract.

And if you're still feeling clueless, find out why Vint Cerf agrees with Al Gore and says what he did say, and meant by what he said, is legitimate. Vint Cerf is one of the view people who can genuinely claim to have "invented" the Internet.

And if you still need whapping with the clue-stick, consider the fact that if what he actually said meant that he was claiming to have invented the internet, surely people would quote it direct rather than constantly, repeatitively, claiming "AL Gore said he invented the internet".

Geez, you'd have thought this stupid, inane, wingnut urban legend would be dead by now. Is this, and Dubya's broken and convoluted speech patterns, indicative of general illiteracy within the right?

Actually, I was thinking of 'croup', which is a nasty little cough kids get from hanging out with other kids.

My thoughts exactly. That name does not leave a terribly pleasant impression with me.

The concept is good though. The lack of a good Exchange/Outlook alternative has been a strike against *nix in many MS-centric offices.

I won't disagree with you since I don't have an MBA in English, but I would like to know why dictionary.com's first definition of the word "bring" in both the Princeton University and American Heritage dictionaries appears to agree with my usage of the word, and, if you wouldn't mind, how I have used it incorrectly, or how I have interpreted the definition incorrectly. This way, in the future, I'll be able to avoid misuse of the word.

Thanks! :-)

And I was thinking of croupier.

The contractors are aiming for functional equivalence to MS Exchange and Outlook 2000."

At long last. KDE will have all the security issues of Exchange and Outlook. We'll see which OS has the most viruses now!!


Moderators: please read this.

Is the plural of UFO not UFO?

Unidentified Flying Object
Unidentified Flying Objects

Perhaps looking here before you talk would be a good idea.

Agreed. Humor in real life conversation is conveyed not only through words, but also through body language, tone, and context. In text, you have none of the first two, and the third can often be impaired.

While we're at it, we should add a flashing "Applause" sign to the writers toolchest!

IOW: We should stop blatantly telling the reader how to feel, and rather improve the writing to convey the emotion. This is of course wrt real writing, rather than droning on /. or IM :-)

Although I'm not 100% on board with a THEM v.s. US mentality. I just want to be left alone by those who want to take my money to do good on me... or my children.

Beh, troll though it may be;

Moot at Dictionary.com

Yes, M-W.com has it as well, but their site is nto so easy to link to.

At least know what the fuck you're talking about.

The phrase is, in fact, "a
moot point", you illiterate retard.

>The attitude that "it doesn't matter if the page is coded properly, as long as it looks right" is akin to thinking that it doesn't matter if you use "there" or "their" when you're writing -- as long as you get your point across.

Which is... true. It doesn't matter, in alot of circumstances. Consider a less obvious example: using the word 'irregardless,' say. Pedantic linguistic purists may complain that we ought use 'regardless,' but both are perfectly comprehensible. Obviously, we can't just say whatever we want and expect to be understood. But since meaning is all we (the non-pedantic) really care about, we have quite a range of expression we can use.

Seems to me the same is true for web design. The standards-mad folks may be better than the complainy sorts who write in to newspaper language columns in that they're at least trying to adapt their standards to fit reality, but while they work at that most people are actually creating content. And since they want people to see it, don't most people create content that does work reasonably well on most browsers? I use Mozilla and I haven't come across more than a handful of sites that are noticeably broken.

Admittedly, I don't know nothing about real web design, and what standards-compliance would do for future development blah blah. But really the web works now, even for those of us who never touch IE. And if we extend your language analogy to deliberate language reforms, not to mention things like Esperanto, we see that just muddling along usually produces a better result than strict pedantic enforced formalism.

http://www.dictionary.com/search?q=grecian


grecian

adj : of or relating to or characteristic of Greece or the Greeks; "Greek mythology"; "a grecian robe" ...


just because it isn't common, doesn't make it incorrect.

The word densest does NOT mean "most dense".

Please go here. ;-)

Your ejaculation about "genocide" shows that you have not grasped the concept of holiness and its inherent intolerance, or, dare I say it, "bigotry." Yes, God is a Bigot with a capital B. Bigotry has become a loaded word and a political epithet, but it is nothing more than intolerance (another loaded and greatly abused word *sigh*), and even a cursory reading of the Bible makes it clear that God is absolutely intolerant of evil. And, of course, God and only God makes the rules about what is evil.

The nations that God commanded Israel to destroy were nations of people who had rebelled against God for many generations. It was chronic, consistent, unrepentant evil and repudiation of God. So God rightly and justly commanded His chosen people to destroy them. Earlier, God had used the Flood to do the same thing. Also, this "genocide" serves as a great illustration of the eternal condemnation that awaits all people who reject God. There is no contradiction here. As individuals, we are not to murder from a personal agenda except for self-defense (this is explicitly biblical). But government is a human institution established and sanctioned by God. If God-fearing leaders justly wage war, there is nothing wrong with it, even if it wipes out a whole nation. I whole-heartedly agree with Deuteronomy 7:3: "make no treaty" with an evil people. That's why the United Nations is completely ineffectual in making progress towards peace. Treaties with liars and cheaters do not work! Peace is not the absence of war, but the absence of evil (i.e., the presence of Christ). Destroying the menacing threats of corrupt nations results in greater peace. Appeasement with evil only helps it to flourish. There's no reason to have guilt when destroying evil. We never celebrate the taking of life, but removing unbridled corruption from the earth is the SOBER DUTY of a moral people. (Moral being defined only by the single living God of the Bible.) This is wholly just and righteous because it is the way of God. It is the reason we destroyed the Taliban, and it is the reason we are going to war with Iraq.

As for your last point, Jesus instructs us to always live as if He were coming back at any moment. This is the proper way to live, regardless of when He actually does return. It is the perfect attitude of a Christian whether it's 35 A.D. or 2035 A.D. or 4000 A.D.

You are ticked that I have a "monopoly" on God. Unlike the capitalist free market system, truth is exclusionary by its nature. It can't help but be monopolistic. If you're not in line with that single, narrow truth, then you believe in a falsehood. (Hold off on the knee-jerk reaction; read on for clarification.) Jesus said,

"Enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it. But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it." (Matthew 7:13-14)

Since God is Truth, and Truth is exclusive, then God is exclusive. Unholy things cannot be in the presence of His holiness. It's not an issue of fairness or hateful condemnation. Trust me, you don't want fairness. The fair and just thing for God to do is to throw us all into Hell. But He exhibits grace that is available to all people.

The only way in which I consider myself "somehow special" is that God showed me grace, which I do not deserve. I am far from holy and have no worth in myself except that which God gave me. I do not claim to be better than anyone else. The more I grow spiritually, the more I can understand why Paul called himself "chief of sinners." Little by little, God opens my eyes to deeper (hidden) levels of sin in my life.

By nature of being saved by grace, I am indeed part of an exclusive group of people. (defs. 1-2 without qualifications; defs. 3-5 with qualifications; def. 7 invalid) However, it is by no means an exclusionary group of people. The church I attend (like most others where the Spirit is not quenched) welcomes all people. We love all people. If you are anywhere near Greenville, SC, I'd be happy to invite you to my church. Send me an e-mail. We have contemporary music in the late service. I really want you have a chance to see the "hatred" in our church. :-)

The notion that there is no Hell is a lie straight from Hell. Just go here and search for all the references to eternal life and eternal judgment/punishment/death. The acceptance of Christ does cleanse all sin once and for all. I just don't know where to begin in trying to correct you on this. These themes run throughout the entire Bible. I don't see how you miss it.

You accused me of having hatred in my world view. I don't say that someone is going to hell because they don't believe what I believe. It's not about me! I have no inherent authority to say what is true or not. All authority descends from the Father. The writers of the Bible were "carried along by the Holy Spirit" to write God's truth. I'm just reading the words on the pages and "literally" interpreting them in the proper linguistic, cultural, and literary form contexts with great deliberation, reverence, and care. I do not sacrifice core Christian doctrines because they disagree with my politics or personal "logical" reasoning of fairness. Paul wrote that God's "foolishness" is wiser than man's "wisdom." I have not imposed my will on the Bible. My values and moral framework have been greatly changed as a result of studying the Bible.

It is arrogant to say that the eternal punishment that the Lord Jesus Christ spoke of is hateful just because it turns [fallen, corrupted] man's sense of fairness on its head. No man is capable of giving increase to God's store of logic. It is arrogant to think that you can.

Kiwi, I feel exactly the same way you do. A narrow way of salvation and a broad avenue of damnation does seem hateful at first. It's hard to reconcile it with our feelings about fairness. I think that's because we have no idea how abhorrent our sin is to God. If we had even an inkling of a clue how outrageous and repulsive even our "smallest" sins appear in the eyes of God, I think we would all willingly jump into the lake of fire because of our overwhelming burden of shame. Many people never come to terms with the reality of God's punishment, but it is better to ultimately die with the hard truth than to live with a comforting lie.

Condemnation is not wrong or unfair. In the beginning, God created a perfect world for us, and He lived openly among us. But we rejected His commands and we hid from Him (Genesis 3). Our sin is the veil that separates us from Him, and we continue to hide from Him because of our sinful disposition.

Sin cannot be in the presence of holiness. It's like oil and water; they do not mix! Righteousness and wickedness have nothing in common; light cannot have fellowship with darkness, thus saith the Bible. It's not a matter of fairness. That's just the way it is. It's not hateful on God's part or mine. People end up in Hell because they've broken down the door trying to get in.

Be careful not to believe something just because it appears to be good. "Satan himself masquerades as an angel of light. It is not surprising, then, if his servants masquerade as servants of righteousness. Their end will be what their actions deserve." (2 Corinthians 11:14-15) That last statement sounds awfully sinister, doesn't it? Wonder what he means by "their end"?

inflammable

see for yourself

I would say rather that it has evolved for a select group of people. It has remained for the rest of us what it was (see links below).

http://www.dictionary.com/search?q=SciFi
http://www.m-w.com/cgi-bin/dictionary?va=sci-fi (sorry only the hyphenated version here)

I understand that there are movements in every "group" to create an "insider" understanding of things that validates "expertise" via confusing or misused language(see l33t, but I would suggest that this is not serving the interests of better communication, but rather impeding it instead.

I'm not really sure what this is "saying" about myself, but then I'm not really that curious about it either. 80)

Devotion to the interests or culture of one's nation.

The belief that nations will benefit from acting independently rather than collectively, emphasizing national rather than international goals.

Aspirations for national independence in a country under foreign domination

Feel free to check the link for any references to beliefs in inferiority. The definition you gave of racism is accurate enough, though. Doesn't it bother you that you're the only one who saw the sin committed against humanity the grand-grand-grand-etc.-parent poster made with that phrase? Is it possible that just maybe you're overreacting? This is such a ridiculous argument.

Devotion to the interests or culture of one's nation.

The belief that nations will benefit from acting independently rather than collectively, emphasizing national rather than international goals.

Aspirations for national independence in a country under foreign domination

Feel free to check the link for any references to beliefs in inferiority. The definition you gave of racism is accurate enough, though. Doesn't it bother you that you're the only one who saw the sin committed against humanity the grand-grand-grand-etc.-parent poster made with that phrase? Is it possible that just maybe you're overreacting? This is such a ridiculous argument.

Er, what about dermatoglyphics? Geez, get your facts straight. :P

No, it's deprecating. Depreciating is something else entirely, although it's easy to misread one as the other since in the context of a deprecated API the meaning is close enough to get the point across.

No, it's deprecating. Depreciating is something else entirely, although it's easy to misread one as the other since in the context of a deprecated API the meaning is close enough to get the point across.

"You tark about people having a cute donkey (ass)."

"you might tark propre!"

No such word as tark.
No such word as propre.

What the fuck, are you some monkey who got ahold of a computer?

Yeah yeah, england was once almost overtaken by the Normans' language, but it takes a true fag to be proud of that fact.

"You tark about people having a cute donkey (ass)."

"you might tark propre!"

No such word as tark.
No such word as propre.

What the fuck, are you some monkey who got ahold of a computer?

Yeah yeah, england was once almost overtaken by the Normans' language, but it takes a true fag to be proud of that fact.

definately

It is my most hated of misspellings.

sic

And turn down that obnoxious rock-n-roll "music", too. Why back in the good old days we only had toggle switches and punch cards, not these new fangled keyboards with all their confusing buttons. Why can't people write in raw binary like any self respecting technocrat should?

Sheesh, all you people whining about the 2s and 4s and urs sound like a bunch of old grandmas. It took me maybe half an extra brain cell to work through the "hep" styling of the article. Perhaps "If it's too loud, you're too old" should now become "If it's too l337, you're too old."
At least the article intentionally butchered "standard" English. Unlike two of the worst misuses I'm seeing pop up all over the Net:
there vs. their
then vs. than

And turn down that obnoxious rock-n-roll "music", too. Why back in the good old days we only had toggle switches and punch cards, not these new fangled keyboards with all their confusing buttons. Why can't people write in raw binary like any self respecting technocrat should?

Sheesh, all you people whining about the 2s and 4s and urs sound like a bunch of old grandmas. It took me maybe half an extra brain cell to work through the "hep" styling of the article. Perhaps "If it's too loud, you're too old" should now become "If it's too l337, you're too old."
At least the article intentionally butchered "standard" English. Unlike two of the worst misuses I'm seeing pop up all over the Net:
there vs. their
then vs. than

And turn down that obnoxious rock-n-roll "music", too. Why back in the good old days we only had toggle switches and punch cards, not these new fangled keyboards with all their confusing buttons. Why can't people write in raw binary like any self respecting technocrat should?

Sheesh, all you people whining about the 2s and 4s and urs sound like a bunch of old grandmas. It took me maybe half an extra brain cell to work through the "hep" styling of the article. Perhaps "If it's too loud, you're too old" should now become "If it's too l337, you're too old."
At least the article intentionally butchered "standard" English. Unlike two of the worst misuses I'm seeing pop up all over the Net:
there vs. their
then vs. than

And turn down that obnoxious rock-n-roll "music", too. Why back in the good old days we only had toggle switches and punch cards, not these new fangled keyboards with all their confusing buttons. Why can't people write in raw binary like any self respecting technocrat should?

Sheesh, all you people whining about the 2s and 4s and urs sound like a bunch of old grandmas. It took me maybe half an extra brain cell to work through the "hep" styling of the article. Perhaps "If it's too loud, you're too old" should now become "If it's too l337, you're too old."
At least the article intentionally butchered "standard" English. Unlike two of the worst misuses I'm seeing pop up all over the Net:
there vs. their
then vs. than

Ok, I'm going to be a nit-picking English-Nazi. It drives me nuts when people use the word travesty as a pseudo-intellectual sounding substitute for tragedy.

Please, learn the proper English plural of the word 'virus.'

There's no need to be making up words in hopes of sounding smarter. You only end up looking silly.

maligned

What the hell is "virii"? Is it a real word? I don't think so. Could you please define?

If you are attempting to make virus plural, please try again.