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Many would disagree. All the sources I've seen describe a straw man as misrepresenting your opponents position to one that is easier to refute, and then basing your argument upon that misrepresentation.

So for instance, if I said "We have an ethical duty to house asylum seekers" and you said "Nick wants to let anyone into the country without checks or controls, bit this will lead to them stealing out jobs", then that would be a straw man.

There are plenty of online resources describing the Straw Man fallacy: here's a few of them:

http://www-personal.umich.edu/~lilyth/strawman.htm l
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Straw_man
http://www.drury.edu/ess/Logic/Informal/Strawman.h tml

Here you go. It is not a very "pretty" robot but it could have its uses.

It takes a strange confluence of countless events to produce significant technical advances.

James Burke.

How about history? If a teacher could relate historical and cultural past to the way groups of people act now, we might understand rather than hate. We might even move toward solving more difficult problems (sociological, psychological).

Have you ever heard of James Burke?

You'll probably like his approach.

-Paul

Arguably, some writers would have learned to spell in school (if they were so lucky to attend). But what constituted "Standard English" would vary from town to town. Many people never travelled to other towns, so much of English spelling developed in pockets.

Until the rise of mercantilism in the 1500s and 1700s, variations in spelling and grammar were of minor importance. In time, the move from guilds to mercantalism required precision in business dealings, and the language had to be standardized. For example, English speakers dropped "they" as a singular, finding agreement in number more important than gender neutrality.

Much of "standard English" grammar is based on Latin rules of grammar. The reason we avoid splitting infinitives is that you can't split a Latin infinitive -- it's one word!

Well, that about sums up my English degree. :) I knew I'd use it again one day.

This sort of approach starts us down a slipperly slope.

Thank you for pointing out the exact fallacy in your logic. It makes debate so much easier when you opponent strikes themselves down.

Last year at Drury U in Springfield MO I had a Palm Vx ($199) with a Minstrel CDPD modem (off eBay for $40.) With that you have a dedicated IP anywhere in town and actually in the downstairs below the Commons (cafeteria.) We used to post log entries from the Palm during live band performances downstairs, anyhoo, we also had a web server on the Palm and it was pretty pimp.

Here are some photos of the setup:
Pimp Palm Vx with Minstrel Wireless Modem


Shot of the Palm Vx serving web pages through httpd application (wirelessly!)

Quote: "(for the LAST TIME idiots, we don't want to take away your guns, we just want to keep them out of the hands of kids!)"

I am not quite sure what you intended by that statement but the only person looking like an idiot is you. Facts to prove this:

1.) Columbine shooters also had pipe bombs. Huh, last time I checked those are totally illegal.

2.) Columbine shooter had a "sawed off" shotgun on his dresser. Parents saw and did nothing. Huh, last time I checked "sawed off" shotguns were totally illegal. So is a child owning a gun you did not give him/her.

3.) Calling the gun lobby stupid/idiots because there are some wackos is a Hasty Generalization.

4.) Charlton Heston Quote: "When gunmakers are responsible for criminal acts and no-one is responsible for OJ Simpson's acts, something is wrong"

I am not even an NRA member or and active gun "shooter".

This bill isn't doing anything that isn't already in place for minors.

You fail to see the irony in your argument. You argue that it is NOT the video games fault, but then argue that it IS the guns fault. Evil happens in this world EVERYDAY. If all the guns were magically gone tomorrow people would still be killing each other.

I admit that a gun can do far more damage than a knife/club/etc... But can it do more damage then pipe bombs with shapnel in them??? BOMBS are totally illegal but they were still present at the scene. (And are currently being spread around the US. link)

It all comes down to human responsibility. Both you and the congressmen/women miss that.

We have one of the Mimio's in our class and I'm not too impressed by it.

It's fine for just advancing a slide in a presentation, but for clicking it's kinda cumbersome. Best analogy I can think of is the touchpads on laptop, the tap and wait or double tap is too slwo for my tastes.

What does work well for us is a nice LCD display for the presenter to use in conjuction with the projected image and a wireless mouse.

Finally, we had to get new marker boards which were very expensive (the regular dry erase boards glare pretty badly.) The new one's do the trick with little glare but they were at least a couple grand.

Here's hoping soon I won't have to leave my dorm and go to those darn classrooms, today is the start of spring break for us anyway though :-)

I'm in college in MO (3rd year there) and work for a local Catholic School maintaining their computers. There are lot's of computer problems to deal with, but I really look forward to going to work because of the people.

People really make or break a job (and life), in my little pursuit of happiness my family, girlfriend, friends and co-workers all make life a joy. Without them things wouldn't be nearly so bright. Working with good people can turn a bad job into a fun experience, and not-so-good people can turn a great job into something you dread.

The next time your bummed at work, be thankful and please appreciate the good folks and try to help the other folks see the bright side of things. I have to say the absolute best part of my job is helping kids, they are so amazing! I was showing a class the inside of a PC and answering their questions, before long we were talking about supercomputers and Deep Blue. Next I had a sweet little kid ask me, "are there brother-boards in computers?" after I had told them about the motherboard. I am astounded by people and the potential we all have.

We are all very fortunate to be alive in this amazing world, let's try to appreciate it and do our best to keep it wonderful for our future generations.

What's your story?

Post Hoc Ergo Proptor Hoc, anyone?

Here is a discusion of how to actually use the phrase correctly so you won't make a fool of yourself in public again in this way.

Hey, I'm just doing my job, but you're welcome anyway!

The Nizkor Project"The Straw Man fallacy is committed when a person simply ignores a person's actual position and substitutes a distorted, exaggerated or misrepresented version of that position..... This sort of "reasoning" is fallacious because attacking a distorted version of a position simply does not constitute an attack on the position itself. One might as well expect an attack on a poor drawing of a person to hurt the person."

Stephen's Guide"The author attacks an argument which is different from, and usually weaker than, the opposition's best argument. "

and finally, A Prof's Website"Straw Man occurs when an opponent takes the original argument of his/her adversary and then offers a close imitation, or straw man, version of the original argument; "knocks down" the straw man version of the argument (because the straw man, as its name implies, is a much easier target to hit, undermine, etc.) -- and thereby gives the appearance of having successfully countered/overcome/answered the original argument."

How I do love strawmen, but I'm off to find the wizard, the wonderful wizard of OZ, a wonderful wiz, if ever there iz, the wonderful wizard of Oz.

But you can't argue that DeCSS is not used in significant part for piracy. That's simply not true. The defendants' suggestion that is true is more than a little disingenuous.

Well, it's painfully obvious that the MPAA never proved it was used for piracy, period. They proved it can be used for piracy, but did not, with its near limitless resources, prove it ever was. In the absence of proof, Kaplan is groping for anything to cling to, and so he's willing to commit a logical fallacy known as Post hoc, propter hoc ("after the fact, therefore because of the fact"). Look at it again:

And although the Court does not accept the list, which is hearsay, as proof of the truth of the matters asserted therein, it does note that advertisements for decrypted versions of copyrighted movies first appeared on the Internet in substantial numbers in late 1999, following the posting of DeCSS.

What he's straining for here is very much a logical error. Just because DeCSS came out and afterwards more DVDs piracy websites went up does not mean they were using DeCSS. And why is it any less hearsay that these sites 'advertise' decrypted DVDs. Bringing one of these website operators into court and getting them to testify under oath that they used DeCSS would have at least provided some evidence directly linking DeCSS and piracy, instead of hearsay.

I nominate the geeks with no name.

Reasonable enough, however the examples you chose are all from much more than a 1000 years ago.

Also, if you are going to talk about the 'guy who invented math', there is actually a candidate for this who we know the name of...

Thales of Io.

If I had to give the name of the ubergeek of all time, it would be him. The first physicist and the first mathematician. The FOUNDER of the systematic study of nature. Histories of western philosophy and thought usually start with this one man.