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  1. Migrating from scripting to Java, C++ and back? by totierne · · Score: 1 · on Do Scripters Suffer Discrimination?

    I am an experience shell scripter [9 years, experienced as in they are not pretty but they work], I am also an experienced C programmer and more recently a java programmer [5 years]. I have written up some short notes on sed and shell coding [Shell_Boot_Camp] (and examples) .

    Is there an equivalent small reservoir of java programs that do much the same thing, ie a bit of regex, find and pipeing? Whenever I have a small problem to solve that can be scripted I can never be bothered to gear up a java program 'from scratch' so I never build up a small set of java programs to do the job.

    I feel I thrash so much between techniques, I should stick to java where possible, as this is the closest to one size fits all.

    Hey I work in migration so the same goes from moving, or switching back and forth, between different languages, so equivalent hello regexp, find and pipe in shell (csh,bash,ksh),c, perl, msdos batch files, java, python would make a good entry in a migrationdotcom site.
    This is currently a very small hint at what a database migration community site might look at, but is so light on implementation it could go any where, but most likely nowhere ...

  2. Re:Also on Ars Technica by Istealmymusic · · Score: -1, Offtopic · on Sun To Use AMD Mobile Processor In Blade Servers

    Also check out this and this article.

  3. Re:Also on Ars Technica by Istealmymusic · · Score: -1, Offtopic · on Sun To Use AMD Mobile Processor In Blade Servers

    Also check out this and this article.

  4. Re:Also on Ars Technica by Istealmymusic · · Score: -1, Offtopic · on Sun To Use AMD Mobile Processor In Blade Servers

    Also check out this and this article.

  5. Re:I want to upgrade, not go sideways by OneFix · · Score: 1, Informative · on Ogg Vorbis Portables On The Way

    Umh, it's iRiver that makes the RioVolt...They also do firmware upgrades...

    So, they are the one to pester...of course, the iMP-250 is not available from iRiver America (exclusitivity agreements)...

    But, the SlimX series (iMP-350 and iMP-400) are more likely to get Ogg Vorbis support...

    From what I hear the SlimX players are more powerful than previous players...

    So, it's not likely that your 250 will get support...maybe the iMP-150 (which seems to be the only early model still being produced)...of course, you should check out the FAQ first...

  6. Re:Creationists taking biblical text out of contex by nathanh · · Score: 1 · on Evolution Endorsed by Steves
    You have not done much to indicate to me that you really understand what you believe to be true.

    If somebody educated said this, I'd be upset. Fortunately the only people who tell me this are the same people who believe Columbus was alone in his conviction that the Earth was round, that thermodynamics disproves evolution, and that Dr Gould was an uneducated fool who didn't know anything about evolution! The barbs don't sting because the venom is so impotent.

    It is a problem when you hold the writings of anyone in such high regard that you are not willing to analyze them with a critical mind.

    But you are not critical. You are merely ignorant. You have raised silly arguments that show an obvious lack of understanding.

    And it's not that I hold the writings in high regard. I hold the work in high regard. Why? Because scientists have invested a huge amount of effort into critically examining the evidence and the theory. 1000s of scientists have reviewed evolution, spanning 100 years of work, across at least 4 major disciplines of science (paleontology, cosmology, geology, and biology), and there has been NOT A SINGLE piece of evidence to refute the theory! Let's make this point very clear. NOT A SINGLE speck of evidence.

    Oh, I know you don't believe that. You think there is plenty of dispute. You've already used a couple of the bigger chestnuts yourself. What you don't seem to understand is these "disputes" you have are merely ignorance. Claims like "evolution defies thermodynamics" aren't valid points of contention: they merely demonstrate the claimant has no understanding of either evolution or thermodynamics. They are "arguments" that only impress other ignorant people.

    Also keep this in mind. There is NOT A SINGLE published paper on creationism in any respectable scientific journal. NOT A SINGLE ONE. Why is this? Is it because the journals are biassed? It's a conspiracy to hide the truth? Hardly. All scientists would take great delight in tearing down evolution. It's like a badge of honour to be the guy who destroyed a theory. Think of Einstein who managed to falsify a 400 year old theory of physics.

    If you think all the answers have been found then you don't understand the science.

    I don't. Strawman argument.

    I do believe in God though, so I hope you see how impossible it is for me to hold to any theory that undermines this belief.

    And I've made a serious blunder in trying to reason with you. I know from experience this will achieve nothing. You're a creationist. You refuse to accept evidence. You simply deny everything that disagrees with your desired belief: Gould is wrong, science is wrong, scientists are wrong, evidence is wrong. I know you won't bother to read these links just like you didn't read the links before. Not critically. At best you'll load it in a browser, scan for words that support your own beliefs, and ignore the rest. You're such a textbook case of the creationist that it's almost worth taking a photo and using you as a poster-child.

    The only positive benefit I see is that even the creationists, such as yourself, are starting to realise that "creationist" is a label they don't want to be associated with.

  7. Gibson CEO Henry Juszkiewicz by AnalogDiehard · · Score: 1 · on Gibson's Digital Guitar Finally Released
    Read how Gibson CEO Henry Juszkiewicz fscked over Oberheim and Opcode, two very recognized and respected brands in the music industry. Juszkiewicz's manipulation of the law combined with his takeover tactics are well known in the music industry and Gibson's integrity in high technology is questionable. No one who has ever entered into a partnership with Juszkiewicz has profited and every single one of them have been sued by him.

    Stay very far away from this serpent.

  8. Re:Ah the good old days by crimson30 · · Score: 0 · on A 1974 Review of D&D

    It still does take imagination to play a GOOD game.

    ahem...

  9. Re:Faye Wong by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0 · on Music Industry's Future Foretold in China?

    Nope, it's not piracy.

    It's her own (former) record companies who keep reissuing recompilations and greatest hits CDs. There have been more of those released than actual original albums.

    Check out The Complete Faye Wong Discography to figure out what's what.

  10. Re:I just rooted it. by Shade,+The · · Score: 1 · on Nerd Vacation to the Earth Simulator

    Point taken. I stand corrected, well, unless some mathematician manages to prove the total randomness of Pi. It seems to be random; considering the statistical analysis here. But I can't find a proof around at the moment.

    Interestingly here's a Pi Search page I've found, so you can try out this guy's method of compression. And how did we get so off-topic again? :)

  11. More info by termilitor · · Score: 1 · on Building the A380

    Aerospaceweb.org
    Marc Schaeffer's page

  12. Outback Dingo by Keitarou · · Score: 2, Funny · on MicroBSD Is No More

    You must be wondering about the leader of MicroBSD, Outback Dingo, and his life story. So let me pour some light on the subject.
    I had the questionable honor of working with Outback Dingo, and I did it for five years, when we both worked in the now-defunct Calamada Industries. It was horrible at first, but I managed to develop survival techniques that helped me to avoid him and his "work noises".

    Yes, every day he was coming to the office and claiming he got work to do, and then he entered his room, put some George Michael music and started making noises. I don't even want to contemplate on what he was doing there.

    After around 6 hours he would come out, all sweaty and dripping, and say: "Well, I believe I can call it a day". A real outback dog or what?

  13. Re:And this is differnt by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0 · on MicroBSD Is No More

    And this is differnt than when some GNU/Linux user scrubbs a BSD copyright off exactly how?

    You mean like XFRisk 1.1 and 1.2?

  14. Novel uses? Ask Saddam. by MacDork · · Score: 1 · on The Fastest Video Card You Can Buy

    What with him buying up all those PS2's a while back. Unless of course he really was in Santa Claus mode. Of course we know that wasn't the case, we all saw this years South Park xmas special. =)

  15. Re:Fine and Dandy by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0 · on Overture To Buy AltaVista

    no, THIS is a leatherman :)

  16. No, no, 1000 times no! by ronfar · · Score: 2, Insightful · on Why Nerds Are Unpopular
    Ok, it's possible that I'm being trolled here but real world Japan is not the idyllic world it is portrayed as in anime. Here is just one article on it:

    http://www.geocities.com/Tokyo/Towers/9151/educate .html

    Corporal punishment is officially outlawed in Japanese schools. But reasearch does seem to indicate that it goes on quite a lot, and not just by the teachers. Far more deaths (many of them suicides) have come about as a result of student-to-student bullying, called iijime. Iijime is a serious problem in Japan. Just how serious depends alot on who you talk to, but the raw statistics on the number of iijime-related deaths do seem to indicate that it is worthy of attention. of course, iijime is not exactly sanctioned by school authorities, but they do very little to stop it, and arguably a lot to encourage it.
    There have been articles on this in Japanese newspapers, the prime minister even hamfistedly addressed the issue. Everything I've ever read about Japanese schools makes me tend to believe they are real hellholes, worse than American schools. (Well, not the worst of American schools.) There is even a dystopian movie about them called Battle Royale
  17. Re:"Cracker Gains Access to 2.2 PIN NUMBERS" by shepd · · Score: 2, Interesting · on Cracker Gains Access to 2.2 Million Credit Cards

    Too bad that isn't so secure after all. 1 in 150 of those cards can be guessed by simply testing them in ATM terminals.

    So, if it didn't require an ATM terminal... wow. We're talking microseconds here?

    " We found it astonishing that our MCI and AT&T calling cards had the PIN number stored in the magnetic stripe WITH NO ENCRYPTION! "

    Yes, there's a lot of crappy PIN security out there. Best to avoid it.

    Check if your card has crappy PIN security! Next time you swipe it through a POS debit machine at your local small store (which doesn't have a full-time linkup to the bank) enter the wrong PIN. If it tells you it's wrong without dialing out, and your bank is like mine and only supports PIN sizes between 4 and 6 digits, there's less than 1 million combinations to try. That shouldn't take a good computer more than a couple of minutes, and unless the debit machine has a demagnetizer, I don't think it can hurt your card. Of course, a smart person wouldn't take chances and would clone it first. Oh, look, now I can't enter the US. Oh well.

    I think I'm going to buy the used POS debit machine I saw at the local junkshop. Could be piles of fun. I'll charge myself a dollar on it and see what happens...

  18. D'ho! Found it! by Embedded+Geek · · Score: 1 · on League Of Extraordinary Gentlemen Trailer

    Found a footnotes site for volume 1. His name was "Campion Bond." Also, the site indicates there's debate as to whether this is the ancestor of good old James.

  19. CGI not always runtime compiled or interpereted... by aphor · · Score: 0 · on Web Programming by printf()

    If you want to know how CGI can be made real fast, then lookee here: CGI-lib

  20. Footnotes by Embedded+Geek · · Score: 1 · on League Of Extraordinary Gentlemen Trailer
    When I checked Vol 1 of League from the library a few months ago, I came across a website with detailed footnotes on practically every panel. Once you peruse these, it becomes apparent that the comic has layers on layers of meaning and literary references.

    Not sure if this was the actual site I saw, but here's what I found today:

  21. Footnotes by Embedded+Geek · · Score: 1 · on League Of Extraordinary Gentlemen Trailer
    When I checked Vol 1 of League from the library a few months ago, I came across a website with detailed footnotes on practically every panel. Once you peruse these, it becomes apparent that the comic has layers on layers of meaning and literary references.

    Not sure if this was the actual site I saw, but here's what I found today:

  22. Footnotes by Embedded+Geek · · Score: 1 · on League Of Extraordinary Gentlemen Trailer
    When I checked Vol 1 of League from the library a few months ago, I came across a website with detailed footnotes on practically every panel. Once you peruse these, it becomes apparent that the comic has layers on layers of meaning and literary references.

    Not sure if this was the actual site I saw, but here's what I found today:

  23. Footnotes by Embedded+Geek · · Score: 1 · on League Of Extraordinary Gentlemen Trailer
    When I checked Vol 1 of League from the library a few months ago, I came across a website with detailed footnotes on practically every panel. Once you peruse these, it becomes apparent that the comic has layers on layers of meaning and literary references.

    Not sure if this was the actual site I saw, but here's what I found today:

  24. Footnotes by Embedded+Geek · · Score: 1 · on League Of Extraordinary Gentlemen Trailer
    When I checked Vol 1 of League from the library a few months ago, I came across a website with detailed footnotes on practically every panel. Once you peruse these, it becomes apparent that the comic has layers on layers of meaning and literary references.

    Not sure if this was the actual site I saw, but here's what I found today:

  25. Footnotes by Embedded+Geek · · Score: 1 · on League Of Extraordinary Gentlemen Trailer
    When I checked Vol 1 of League from the library a few months ago, I came across a website with detailed footnotes on practically every panel. Once you peruse these, it becomes apparent that the comic has layers on layers of meaning and literary references.

    Not sure if this was the actual site I saw, but here's what I found today:

  26. Footnotes by Embedded+Geek · · Score: 1 · on League Of Extraordinary Gentlemen Trailer
    When I checked Vol 1 of League from the library a few months ago, I came across a website with detailed footnotes on practically every panel. Once you peruse these, it becomes apparent that the comic has layers on layers of meaning and literary references.

    Not sure if this was the actual site I saw, but here's what I found today:

  27. Footnotes by Embedded+Geek · · Score: 1 · on League Of Extraordinary Gentlemen Trailer
    When I checked Vol 1 of League from the library a few months ago, I came across a website with detailed footnotes on practically every panel. Once you peruse these, it becomes apparent that the comic has layers on layers of meaning and literary references.

    Not sure if this was the actual site I saw, but here's what I found today:

  28. Footnotes by Embedded+Geek · · Score: 1 · on League Of Extraordinary Gentlemen Trailer
    When I checked Vol 1 of League from the library a few months ago, I came across a website with detailed footnotes on practically every panel. Once you peruse these, it becomes apparent that the comic has layers on layers of meaning and literary references.

    Not sure if this was the actual site I saw, but here's what I found today:

  29. Footnotes by Embedded+Geek · · Score: 1 · on League Of Extraordinary Gentlemen Trailer
    When I checked Vol 1 of League from the library a few months ago, I came across a website with detailed footnotes on practically every panel. Once you peruse these, it becomes apparent that the comic has layers on layers of meaning and literary references.

    Not sure if this was the actual site I saw, but here's what I found today:

  30. Footnotes by Embedded+Geek · · Score: 1 · on League Of Extraordinary Gentlemen Trailer
    When I checked Vol 1 of League from the library a few months ago, I came across a website with detailed footnotes on practically every panel. Once you peruse these, it becomes apparent that the comic has layers on layers of meaning and literary references.

    Not sure if this was the actual site I saw, but here's what I found today:

  31. Footnotes by Embedded+Geek · · Score: 1 · on League Of Extraordinary Gentlemen Trailer
    When I checked Vol 1 of League from the library a few months ago, I came across a website with detailed footnotes on practically every panel. Once you peruse these, it becomes apparent that the comic has layers on layers of meaning and literary references.

    Not sure if this was the actual site I saw, but here's what I found today:

  32. Re:Computer virii - THAT WORD does NOT EXIST by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Offtopic · on Computers Will Be Built By Living Cells
    What's the Plural of `Virus'? What's the Plural of `Virus'? The plural of virus is neither viri nor virii, nor even vira nor virora. It is quite simply viruses, irrespective of context. Here's why.

    Sections in this document:

    English Inflections First off, the OED [oed.com] gives nothing but viruses for the plural. Here's its abbreviated entry:

    Etymology: a. L. virus slimy liquid, poison, offensive odour or taste. Hence also Fr., Sp., Pg. virus.

    1 Venom, such as is emitted by a poisonous animal. Also fig.

    2 Path. a A morbid principle or poisonous substance produced in the body as the result of some disease, esp. one capable of being introduced into other persons or animals by inoculations or otherwise and of developing the same disease in them. Now superseded by the next sense.

    b Pl. viruses. An infectious organism that is usu. submicroscopic, can multiply only inside certain living host cells (in many cases causing disease) and is now understood to be a non-cellular structure lacking any intrinsic metabolism and usually comprising a DNA or RNA core inside a protein coat (see also quot. 1977). [ Formerly referred to as filterable viruses, their first distinguishing characteristic being the ability to pass through filters that retained bacteria. ]

    Other sources that support viruses include Birchfield (n Fowler :-) in Modern English Usage [train4publishing.co.uk] (3rd Edition), and also the Cambridge Encyclopedia of the English Language [train4publishing.co.uk]. Classical Inflections While one would hope that the authoritative sources cited above would suffice, some writers prefer to maintain the classical inflections on some English words, particularly in technical writing. For example, conflicting indexes/indices and minimums/minima are both easily found, depending on the intended audience and use. In that case, what's the classical plural of virus?

    The simple answer is that there wasn't one. The longer answer follows.

    Writers who, searching for a fancy plural to virus, incorrectly write *viri are doubtless blindly applying an overreaching -us => -i rule. This mis-inflects many words. For example, status and hiatus only change the length of the final vowel; genus goes to genera; corpus goes to corpora. Others are even worse if this rule is mis-applied, like syllabus, caucus, octopus, mandamus, and rebus.

    Anyway, Latin already had a word viri, but it was the nominative plural not of virus (slime, poison, or venom), but of vir (man), which as it turns out is also a 2nd declension noun. I do not believe that writers of English who write viri are intentionally speaking of men. And although there actually is a viri form for virus, it's the genitive singular[1] [slashdot.org], not the nominative plural. And we certainly don't grab for genitive singulars for the plurals when we've started out with a nominative. Such hanky panky would certainly get you talked about, and probably your hand slapped as well.

    This apparently invariant use of virus as a genitive singular may also imply that it's 4th declension, as some scholars [slashdot.org] believe.

    Those confused souls who write *virii are tacitly positing the existence of the non-word *virius, and declining it as though it were like filius. It's true that l/r are both linguals that sometimes get interchanged, and that f/v are just a change in voicing[2] [slashdot.org], but that's just reaching. *Virii is still completely silly, so don't do that; otherwise, everyone will know you're just a blathering script kiddie.

    The crucial problem here is that, classically speaking, there appears to be no recorded use of virus in the plural. It was a 2nd declension noun ending in -us, which is rather common, but it was also a neuter, which is rather rare. I could only come up with three such 2nd declension neuters: virus [tufts.edu] (some poison), pelagus [tufts.edu] (the sea, usually poetically), and vulgus [tufts.edu] (the crowd). None appear to admit plurals. Perhaps this is because they are mass nouns, not count nouns. [3] [slashdot.org]

    One citation below wonders whether these -us 2nd declension neuters might have inflected -us => -ora, the way the 3rd declension's neuter plurals for tempus and corpus do. There's really not any support for that notion--that I could find at least. If so, that would end up producing *virora. Most other citations think that these plurals just never happened at all, or that if they did, they didn't jump declensions. Perhaps they were invariant as they oddly are for the vocative and accusative cases. In any event, *virora does not fit comfortably in the mouth of an English speaker, which is a good reason to avoid it.[4] [slashdot.org]

    Another theory holds that virus, if it was a 2nd declension neuter, must go to *vira in the plural as do its -um neuter brethren in the 2nd declension. However, that assumes that it works like a -um form, not as a -us form does. And it really seems to do neither. If it were a -us form (again, as a 2nd declension nominative), then its vocative would have to be *vire; but it's really only virus. You also expect an accusative form *viros, but that too is missing; it's still just virus in the accusative. And if it were a -um form, then its vocative would have to be *virum. But it's not--here again, it's only virus. (Vocative examples of virus are not particularly common. Apparently the Romans seldom addressed their slime in a personal fashion. :-)

    So what we have here is something of a mixed or invariant declension. Trying to find a plural for something that didn't take a plural (possibly because it was not a count but a mass noun), or at least, one for which no plural is classically attested, is a fruitless endeavour. Best to stick with English and use viruses. Journey Into the Fourth Declension Some scholars, includining Gavin Betts, believe that virus pertained not to the second declension, but to the fourth one. Here is an example or two that support[5] [slashdot.org] Betts and dispute the 2nd declension theory. The first is classical, from Ammianus [geocities.com]:

    qui ut coluber copia virus exuberans natorum
    That seems to be using virus as a genitive, which contradicts the assertion that it's 2nd declension, which would have lead to viri, and supports the 4th declension position. This was brought to my attention by Andreas Waschbuesch [mailto], who went on to write:
    Just another note: You must not forget that Ammian's native tongue was Greek, not Latin - so it's (very hypothetical!) possible he understood virus as a so called accusativus respectus and copia as adverbial expression. (A more common phenomenon in Greek.) exuberare was combined that way with lucrum and there was a tendency to use non-transitive verbs in a (active) transitive way - like anhelare or spumare in late antiquity's Latin as well. (The pseudo-Ciceronian Rhetorica ad Herennium's fourth book is an outstanding exception with its usage of anhelans et spumans in the passage about the denarratio and the following example IF one dates it to 80 a.Chr.n. ...) But - to make a conclusion - it's not classical at all to use the form viri(i), because there isn't any genitive-singular- or nominative-plural-form (*) viri found in the whole Latin literature up to the first century p.Chr.n. as far as PHI-CD-Rom can tell :-)
    This recent letter [slashdot.org] also supports the fourth declension point of view. Of course, even if virus really turns out to have been in the fourth declension, we'll still have vulgus, pelagus, and cetus as irregular -us neuters in the second declension. Let's blame it all on the Greeks. References

    Here's what other sources have to say about this matter:

    alt.usage.english FAQ [ccp14.ac.uk] Not all Latin words ending in -us had plurals in -i. Apparatus, cantus, coitus, hiatus, impetus, Jesus, nexus, plexus, prospectus, and status were 4th declension in Latin, and had plurals in -us with a long `u'. Corpus, genus, and opus were 3rd declension, with plurals corpora, genera, and opera. Virus is not attested in the plural in Latin, and is of a rare form (2nd declension neuter in -us) that makes it debatable what the Latin plural would have been; the only plural in English is viruses. Omnibus and rebus were not nominative nouns in Latin. Ignoramus was not a noun in Latin.

    [...] classical plurals [...] [ilhawaii.net] What is the plural of virus? This neuter in Latin lacked a plural; it would presumably [disputable -tchrist ] have been virora like corpora, the plural of neuter corpus. (Like corpora, virora would be stressed on its initial syllable. As indicated earlier, *corpi would be as outlandish--as far beyond the pale--as *rhinoceri and *octopi.)

    Latin had several declensions containing neuter, feminine, and masculine words ending in -us; the plurals are different in each one. Incidentally, the singular of mores (pronounced `moh-rehs') is mos, with the same change of `s' to `r' between vowels heard in corpus : corpora and in genus : genera.

    Allen and Greenough [tufts.edu] The authors at the cited reference point out the follwoing:

    Many Greek nouns retain their original gender: as, arctus (F.), the Polar Bear; methodus (F.), method.

    a. The following in -us are Neuter; their accusative (as with all neuters) is the same as the nominative: pelagus, sea; virus, poison; vulgus (rarely M.), the crowd. They are not found in the plural, except pelagus, which has a rare nominative and accusative plural pelage.

    NOTE.--The nominative plural neuter cete, sea monsters, occurs; the nominative singular cetus occurs in Vitruvius.

    Whether this leading would lead to ?vire, however, is unclear, since virus does not appear to be of Greek extraction.

    Latin inflections [erols.com] And for those who just can't get enough, try this. It is a bunch of inflection tables, more complete than I've seen elsewhere. For a good time, figure out the nominative plural of venus is. Hint: it's not veni. ASM News Apparently this question is `in the air'. The following is from the June 1999 issue of ASM News by the American Society for Microbiology, sent it by Jim Sandoz.

    /* Begin Excerpt */

    Numerous Latin words have been taken over into the modern scientific vocabulary, most without difficulty. The Latin word virus, however, presents a minor but interesting problem, if one wishes to express a phrase such as Index of Viruses in its Latin form. By analogy with other nouns, one would expect the normal Latin equivalent to be Index Virorum. The difficulty stems from the fact that the Latin noun virus is defective, i.e. does not have a full set of case--forms, singular and plural. The Roman grammarian Priscian (fl. 500 A.D.) states that some claim the word is indeclinable (i.e., has only one form for all the cases in the singular); others, apparently more accurately, that it is declined in the singular according to the second declension neuter and cite two passages from the poet Lucretius in substantiation. All of the ancient grammarians are in agreement, however, that the word is used in the singular only, which indeed appears to be true, for no plural forms are attested in extant Latin works.

    In antiquity the word virus had not yet acquired, of course, its current scientific meaning; rather it denoted something like toxicity, venom, a poisonous, deleterious, or unpleasant agent or principle, or poison in the abstract or general sense. (The first meaning given for this word, a slimy liquid, slime, in the most widely used Latin-English dictionaries is inaccurate; the error has been corrected in the more recent Oxford Latin Dictionary.) Nouns denoting entities that are countable pluralize (book, books); nouns denoting noncountable entities do not (except under special circumstances) pluralize (air, mood, valor). The term virus in antiquity appears to have belonged to the latter category, hence the nonexistence of plural forms.

    When the word was taken over into modern languages and acquired its current scientific meaning, it changed categories and denoted a countable entity. The modern languages which have adopted the word each pluralize it in their own fashion (e.g., Eng. viruses, Germ. Viren; French and Italian do not distinguish in form between singular and plural, virus). But what to do in neo-Latin, which normally is subject to the rules and constraints of classical Latin?

    W. T. Steam in his manual on botanical Latin (Botanical Latin, Newton Abbey, 2nd ed., 1973) gives what would be the normal plural forms of such a second declension neuter noun: nominative vira, genitive virorum, without, however, indicating his authority for those forms. It may be observed that in Latin as in other languages when the plural of noncountable nouns does occur, it generally denotes various kinds of the entity (e.g., wine, honey, oil). Steam may have applied this principle to virus in order to meet the requirements of modern scientific terminology. If Latin had continued to be the common international language of scholars and scientists at the time that viruses were first identified, it appears likely that it would have generated the forms adduced by Steam.

    Robert J. Smutny

    /* End Excerpt */

    ASM News Update The following letter recently appeared in ASM News, from Ton E. van den Bogaard. (Formatting added.)

    On the Presence of a Plural of the Latin Noun "Virus"

    With interest I read the contribution `On the Absence of a Plural of the Latin Noun ``Virus''' in the June 1999 ASM News, p. 388, by Robert J. Smutny. However, according to my Latin grammar, one of the very few books of my gymnasium (high school) days that is still up to date, the plural of the noun virus in Latin is, like the plural nowadays used for virus in Romance languages (e.g., Italian and French), also virus. The Latin noun virus does not belong to the second declension group but, like the noun fructus, meaning fruit or piece of fruit, belongs to a group of Latin words that is declined according to the fourth declension. Hence, two pieces of fruit is in Latin duo fructus and two viruses would be duo virus. According to the fourth declension the plural genitive of virus in Latin is viruum and therefore an Index of Viruses is in Latin an Index Viruum. Virorum is the plural genitive of the Latin noun vir (second declension) meaning man or husband. Consequently an Index Virorum would indicate a list of husbands or men.

    Moreover, because the noun virus belongs to the fourth declension group the study of viruses should have been called virulogy and people practicing that science virulogists. My former professor in virology at veterinary school consequently called himself a virulogist and he lectured virulogy. I am afraid that these words have become extinct since he died.

    It is important to realize that Latin and Greek derived expressions in biomedical English have been coined by scientists for convenience and not by scholars based on classical grammar. The old Romans might have said to these scientists modulating their language: ``Ut desint vires, tamen est laudanda voluntas,'' which means freely translated: ``Despite your lack of knowledge, still appreciated.''

    Ton E. van den Bogaard
    University Maastricht, the Netherlands

    Other Latin Resources One textbook I'd like to recommend Gavin Betts's Teach Yourself Latin, which you can look up on Amazon [amazon.com] if you'd like. No, I don't believe in kickbacks.

    Here are some Web resources: The Perseus Project [tufts.edu] Read Caesar, Catullus, Cicero, Hirtius, Horace, Livy, Ovid, Plautus, Servius, and Vergil, plus quite a bit of other useful material. For example, you can look up virus [tufts.edu] for a definition and forms, or find its citations [tufts.edu] in literature. Here's one by Vergil [tufts.edu].

    Latin Textbook: Wheelock's Latin (HTML) [cuhk.edu.hk] Wonderful on-line course notes designed as a study aid for those without formal grammar/linguistics training. Note that `the entire zip archive' he advertises isn't really complete, and so I used these commands to pull in and view the whole thing locally: % cd /tmp % wget -r -l2 http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/Wheelock-Lat in/ % netscape /tmp/humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/Wheelock-Latin /index.html

    The Classics Page [patriot.net] Innumerable links, including some to on-line interactive exercises and to various dictionaries.

    Transcriptio Nuntiorum Hebdomadalis [www.yle.fi] Read your daily news--in Latin! Also contains sound files for the radio version whence it was transcribed. I'm sure glad that we now write FAQ instead of interrogata usitatissima. :-)

    De Meditatione [rr.com] Various Latin snippets and sound clips. Footnotes [1] One examble of an invariant genitive form of virus is attested in Ammianus [geocities.com], which reads: qui ut coluber copia virus exuberans natorum. See the original for details. [2] Well, in English; in Latin it probably wasn't, as their `v' was likely more akin to the intervocalic `v' in today's Spanish, a sound with no equivalent in English but which is often perceived as a `w'. To be even more technical, an English `v' is a voiced labial-dental fricative. An intervocalic Spanish `v' (or `b') such as in aves, is a voiced bilabial fricative, usually represented in IPA as a lower-case Greek beta. [3] Some budding Romance philologist should go research a possible connection between the neuter conceptual nouns versus the gendered discrete ones in asturianu [asturies.org], the only extant Romance tongue with anything aproximating neuter nouns [asturies.org] (I'm not counting the nominalized adjectives of Spanish such as lo difcil, since these aren't really nouns the way the so-called nomes de xneru neutru (de materia) are in asturianu.) a [4] The word virora actually appears to exist, but as some sort of South American tree. [5] Yes, I hated this sentence, too. It takes the singular verb "is" because the singular "an example" is the closer of the two elements in the disjunction, but likewise, "support" should be in the plural because the closer thing to it is now "two", which is obviously nonsingular. I think only a rewrite would be tolerable. Silly rules.

    Sections in this document:

    O tempora, o mores! Senatus haec intellegit. consul videt; hic tamen vivit. Vivit? immo vero etiam in senatum venit, fit publici consilii particeps, notat et designat oculis ad caedem unum quemque nostrum.

    Cicero [utexas.edu], Oratio in Catilinam Prima [utexas.edu], 2


    piss@fuck.com [mailto]

  33. Re:Computer virii - THAT WORD does NOT EXIST by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Offtopic · on Computers Will Be Built By Living Cells
    What's the Plural of `Virus'? What's the Plural of `Virus'? The plural of virus is neither viri nor virii, nor even vira nor virora. It is quite simply viruses, irrespective of context. Here's why.

    Sections in this document:

    English Inflections First off, the OED [oed.com] gives nothing but viruses for the plural. Here's its abbreviated entry:

    Etymology: a. L. virus slimy liquid, poison, offensive odour or taste. Hence also Fr., Sp., Pg. virus.

    1 Venom, such as is emitted by a poisonous animal. Also fig.

    2 Path. a A morbid principle or poisonous substance produced in the body as the result of some disease, esp. one capable of being introduced into other persons or animals by inoculations or otherwise and of developing the same disease in them. Now superseded by the next sense.

    b Pl. viruses. An infectious organism that is usu. submicroscopic, can multiply only inside certain living host cells (in many cases causing disease) and is now understood to be a non-cellular structure lacking any intrinsic metabolism and usually comprising a DNA or RNA core inside a protein coat (see also quot. 1977). [ Formerly referred to as filterable viruses, their first distinguishing characteristic being the ability to pass through filters that retained bacteria. ]

    Other sources that support viruses include Birchfield (n Fowler :-) in Modern English Usage [train4publishing.co.uk] (3rd Edition), and also the Cambridge Encyclopedia of the English Language [train4publishing.co.uk]. Classical Inflections While one would hope that the authoritative sources cited above would suffice, some writers prefer to maintain the classical inflections on some English words, particularly in technical writing. For example, conflicting indexes/indices and minimums/minima are both easily found, depending on the intended audience and use. In that case, what's the classical plural of virus?

    The simple answer is that there wasn't one. The longer answer follows.

    Writers who, searching for a fancy plural to virus, incorrectly write *viri are doubtless blindly applying an overreaching -us => -i rule. This mis-inflects many words. For example, status and hiatus only change the length of the final vowel; genus goes to genera; corpus goes to corpora. Others are even worse if this rule is mis-applied, like syllabus, caucus, octopus, mandamus, and rebus.

    Anyway, Latin already had a word viri, but it was the nominative plural not of virus (slime, poison, or venom), but of vir (man), which as it turns out is also a 2nd declension noun. I do not believe that writers of English who write viri are intentionally speaking of men. And although there actually is a viri form for virus, it's the genitive singular[1] [slashdot.org], not the nominative plural. And we certainly don't grab for genitive singulars for the plurals when we've started out with a nominative. Such hanky panky would certainly get you talked about, and probably your hand slapped as well.

    This apparently invariant use of virus as a genitive singular may also imply that it's 4th declension, as some scholars [slashdot.org] believe.

    Those confused souls who write *virii are tacitly positing the existence of the non-word *virius, and declining it as though it were like filius. It's true that l/r are both linguals that sometimes get interchanged, and that f/v are just a change in voicing[2] [slashdot.org], but that's just reaching. *Virii is still completely silly, so don't do that; otherwise, everyone will know you're just a blathering script kiddie.

    The crucial problem here is that, classically speaking, there appears to be no recorded use of virus in the plural. It was a 2nd declension noun ending in -us, which is rather common, but it was also a neuter, which is rather rare. I could only come up with three such 2nd declension neuters: virus [tufts.edu] (some poison), pelagus [tufts.edu] (the sea, usually poetically), and vulgus [tufts.edu] (the crowd). None appear to admit plurals. Perhaps this is because they are mass nouns, not count nouns. [3] [slashdot.org]

    One citation below wonders whether these -us 2nd declension neuters might have inflected -us => -ora, the way the 3rd declension's neuter plurals for tempus and corpus do. There's really not any support for that notion--that I could find at least. If so, that would end up producing *virora. Most other citations think that these plurals just never happened at all, or that if they did, they didn't jump declensions. Perhaps they were invariant as they oddly are for the vocative and accusative cases. In any event, *virora does not fit comfortably in the mouth of an English speaker, which is a good reason to avoid it.[4] [slashdot.org]

    Another theory holds that virus, if it was a 2nd declension neuter, must go to *vira in the plural as do its -um neuter brethren in the 2nd declension. However, that assumes that it works like a -um form, not as a -us form does. And it really seems to do neither. If it were a -us form (again, as a 2nd declension nominative), then its vocative would have to be *vire; but it's really only virus. You also expect an accusative form *viros, but that too is missing; it's still just virus in the accusative. And if it were a -um form, then its vocative would have to be *virum. But it's not--here again, it's only virus. (Vocative examples of virus are not particularly common. Apparently the Romans seldom addressed their slime in a personal fashion. :-)

    So what we have here is something of a mixed or invariant declension. Trying to find a plural for something that didn't take a plural (possibly because it was not a count but a mass noun), or at least, one for which no plural is classically attested, is a fruitless endeavour. Best to stick with English and use viruses. Journey Into the Fourth Declension Some scholars, includining Gavin Betts, believe that virus pertained not to the second declension, but to the fourth one. Here is an example or two that support[5] [slashdot.org] Betts and dispute the 2nd declension theory. The first is classical, from Ammianus [geocities.com]:

    qui ut coluber copia virus exuberans natorum
    That seems to be using virus as a genitive, which contradicts the assertion that it's 2nd declension, which would have lead to viri, and supports the 4th declension position. This was brought to my attention by Andreas Waschbuesch [mailto], who went on to write:
    Just another note: You must not forget that Ammian's native tongue was Greek, not Latin - so it's (very hypothetical!) possible he understood virus as a so called accusativus respectus and copia as adverbial expression. (A more common phenomenon in Greek.) exuberare was combined that way with lucrum and there was a tendency to use non-transitive verbs in a (active) transitive way - like anhelare or spumare in late antiquity's Latin as well. (The pseudo-Ciceronian Rhetorica ad Herennium's fourth book is an outstanding exception with its usage of anhelans et spumans in the passage about the denarratio and the following example IF one dates it to 80 a.Chr.n. ...) But - to make a conclusion - it's not classical at all to use the form viri(i), because there isn't any genitive-singular- or nominative-plural-form (*) viri found in the whole Latin literature up to the first century p.Chr.n. as far as PHI-CD-Rom can tell :-)
    This recent letter [slashdot.org] also supports the fourth declension point of view. Of course, even if virus really turns out to have been in the fourth declension, we'll still have vulgus, pelagus, and cetus as irregular -us neuters in the second declension. Let's blame it all on the Greeks. References

    Here's what other sources have to say about this matter:

    alt.usage.english FAQ [ccp14.ac.uk] Not all Latin words ending in -us had plurals in -i. Apparatus, cantus, coitus, hiatus, impetus, Jesus, nexus, plexus, prospectus, and status were 4th declension in Latin, and had plurals in -us with a long `u'. Corpus, genus, and opus were 3rd declension, with plurals corpora, genera, and opera. Virus is not attested in the plural in Latin, and is of a rare form (2nd declension neuter in -us) that makes it debatable what the Latin plural would have been; the only plural in English is viruses. Omnibus and rebus were not nominative nouns in Latin. Ignoramus was not a noun in Latin.

    [...] classical plurals [...] [ilhawaii.net] What is the plural of virus? This neuter in Latin lacked a plural; it would presumably [disputable -tchrist ] have been virora like corpora, the plural of neuter corpus. (Like corpora, virora would be stressed on its initial syllable. As indicated earlier, *corpi would be as outlandish--as far beyond the pale--as *rhinoceri and *octopi.)

    Latin had several declensions containing neuter, feminine, and masculine words ending in -us; the plurals are different in each one. Incidentally, the singular of mores (pronounced `moh-rehs') is mos, with the same change of `s' to `r' between vowels heard in corpus : corpora and in genus : genera.

    Allen and Greenough [tufts.edu] The authors at the cited reference point out the follwoing:

    Many Greek nouns retain their original gender: as, arctus (F.), the Polar Bear; methodus (F.), method.

    a. The following in -us are Neuter; their accusative (as with all neuters) is the same as the nominative: pelagus, sea; virus, poison; vulgus (rarely M.), the crowd. They are not found in the plural, except pelagus, which has a rare nominative and accusative plural pelage.

    NOTE.--The nominative plural neuter cete, sea monsters, occurs; the nominative singular cetus occurs in Vitruvius.

    Whether this leading would lead to ?vire, however, is unclear, since virus does not appear to be of Greek extraction.

    Latin inflections [erols.com] And for those who just can't get enough, try this. It is a bunch of inflection tables, more complete than I've seen elsewhere. For a good time, figure out the nominative plural of venus is. Hint: it's not veni. ASM News Apparently this question is `in the air'. The following is from the June 1999 issue of ASM News by the American Society for Microbiology, sent it by Jim Sandoz.

    /* Begin Excerpt */

    Numerous Latin words have been taken over into the modern scientific vocabulary, most without difficulty. The Latin word virus, however, presents a minor but interesting problem, if one wishes to express a phrase such as Index of Viruses in its Latin form. By analogy with other nouns, one would expect the normal Latin equivalent to be Index Virorum. The difficulty stems from the fact that the Latin noun virus is defective, i.e. does not have a full set of case--forms, singular and plural. The Roman grammarian Priscian (fl. 500 A.D.) states that some claim the word is indeclinable (i.e., has only one form for all the cases in the singular); others, apparently more accurately, that it is declined in the singular according to the second declension neuter and cite two passages from the poet Lucretius in substantiation. All of the ancient grammarians are in agreement, however, that the word is used in the singular only, which indeed appears to be true, for no plural forms are attested in extant Latin works.

    In antiquity the word virus had not yet acquired, of course, its current scientific meaning; rather it denoted something like toxicity, venom, a poisonous, deleterious, or unpleasant agent or principle, or poison in the abstract or general sense. (The first meaning given for this word, a slimy liquid, slime, in the most widely used Latin-English dictionaries is inaccurate; the error has been corrected in the more recent Oxford Latin Dictionary.) Nouns denoting entities that are countable pluralize (book, books); nouns denoting noncountable entities do not (except under special circumstances) pluralize (air, mood, valor). The term virus in antiquity appears to have belonged to the latter category, hence the nonexistence of plural forms.

    When the word was taken over into modern languages and acquired its current scientific meaning, it changed categories and denoted a countable entity. The modern languages which have adopted the word each pluralize it in their own fashion (e.g., Eng. viruses, Germ. Viren; French and Italian do not distinguish in form between singular and plural, virus). But what to do in neo-Latin, which normally is subject to the rules and constraints of classical Latin?

    W. T. Steam in his manual on botanical Latin (Botanical Latin, Newton Abbey, 2nd ed., 1973) gives what would be the normal plural forms of such a second declension neuter noun: nominative vira, genitive virorum, without, however, indicating his authority for those forms. It may be observed that in Latin as in other languages when the plural of noncountable nouns does occur, it generally denotes various kinds of the entity (e.g., wine, honey, oil). Steam may have applied this principle to virus in order to meet the requirements of modern scientific terminology. If Latin had continued to be the common international language of scholars and scientists at the time that viruses were first identified, it appears likely that it would have generated the forms adduced by Steam.

    Robert J. Smutny

    /* End Excerpt */

    ASM News Update The following letter recently appeared in ASM News, from Ton E. van den Bogaard. (Formatting added.)

    On the Presence of a Plural of the Latin Noun "Virus"

    With interest I read the contribution `On the Absence of a Plural of the Latin Noun ``Virus''' in the June 1999 ASM News, p. 388, by Robert J. Smutny. However, according to my Latin grammar, one of the very few books of my gymnasium (high school) days that is still up to date, the plural of the noun virus in Latin is, like the plural nowadays used for virus in Romance languages (e.g., Italian and French), also virus. The Latin noun virus does not belong to the second declension group but, like the noun fructus, meaning fruit or piece of fruit, belongs to a group of Latin words that is declined according to the fourth declension. Hence, two pieces of fruit is in Latin duo fructus and two viruses would be duo virus. According to the fourth declension the plural genitive of virus in Latin is viruum and therefore an Index of Viruses is in Latin an Index Viruum. Virorum is the plural genitive of the Latin noun vir (second declension) meaning man or husband. Consequently an Index Virorum would indicate a list of husbands or men.

    Moreover, because the noun virus belongs to the fourth declension group the study of viruses should have been called virulogy and people practicing that science virulogists. My former professor in virology at veterinary school consequently called himself a virulogist and he lectured virulogy. I am afraid that these words have become extinct since he died.

    It is important to realize that Latin and Greek derived expressions in biomedical English have been coined by scientists for convenience and not by scholars based on classical grammar. The old Romans might have said to these scientists modulating their language: ``Ut desint vires, tamen est laudanda voluntas,'' which means freely translated: ``Despite your lack of knowledge, still appreciated.''

    Ton E. van den Bogaard
    University Maastricht, the Netherlands

    Other Latin Resources One textbook I'd like to recommend Gavin Betts's Teach Yourself Latin, which you can look up on Amazon [amazon.com] if you'd like. No, I don't believe in kickbacks.

    Here are some Web resources: The Perseus Project [tufts.edu] Read Caesar, Catullus, Cicero, Hirtius, Horace, Livy, Ovid, Plautus, Servius, and Vergil, plus quite a bit of other useful material. For example, you can look up virus [tufts.edu] for a definition and forms, or find its citations [tufts.edu] in literature. Here's one by Vergil [tufts.edu].

    Latin Textbook: Wheelock's Latin (HTML) [cuhk.edu.hk] Wonderful on-line course notes designed as a study aid for those without formal grammar/linguistics training. Note that `the entire zip archive' he advertises isn't really complete, and so I used these commands to pull in and view the whole thing locally: % cd /tmp % wget -r -l2 http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/Wheelock-Lat in/ % netscape /tmp/humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/Wheelock-Latin /index.html

    The Classics Page [patriot.net] Innumerable links, including some to on-line interactive exercises and to various dictionaries.

    Transcriptio Nuntiorum Hebdomadalis [www.yle.fi] Read your daily news--in Latin! Also contains sound files for the radio version whence it was transcribed. I'm sure glad that we now write FAQ instead of interrogata usitatissima. :-)

    De Meditatione [rr.com] Various Latin snippets and sound clips. Footnotes [1] One examble of an invariant genitive form of virus is attested in Ammianus [geocities.com], which reads: qui ut coluber copia virus exuberans natorum. See the original for details. [2] Well, in English; in Latin it probably wasn't, as their `v' was likely more akin to the intervocalic `v' in today's Spanish, a sound with no equivalent in English but which is often perceived as a `w'. To be even more technical, an English `v' is a voiced labial-dental fricative. An intervocalic Spanish `v' (or `b') such as in aves, is a voiced bilabial fricative, usually represented in IPA as a lower-case Greek beta. [3] Some budding Romance philologist should go research a possible connection between the neuter conceptual nouns versus the gendered discrete ones in asturianu [asturies.org], the only extant Romance tongue with anything aproximating neuter nouns [asturies.org] (I'm not counting the nominalized adjectives of Spanish such as lo difcil, since these aren't really nouns the way the so-called nomes de xneru neutru (de materia) are in asturianu.) a [4] The word virora actually appears to exist, but as some sort of South American tree. [5] Yes, I hated this sentence, too. It takes the singular verb "is" because the singular "an example" is the closer of the two elements in the disjunction, but likewise, "support" should be in the plural because the closer thing to it is now "two", which is obviously nonsingular. I think only a rewrite would be tolerable. Silly rules.

    Sections in this document:

    O tempora, o mores! Senatus haec intellegit. consul videt; hic tamen vivit. Vivit? immo vero etiam in senatum venit, fit publici consilii particeps, notat et designat oculis ad caedem unum quemque nostrum.

    Cicero [utexas.edu], Oratio in Catilinam Prima [utexas.edu], 2


    piss@fuck.com [mailto]

  34. Not jets, rockets. [many links] by leonbrooks · · Score: 1 · on Highlift Systems' Space Elevator In The News Again
    Germany created and flew the first jet fighters.

    True, and the first rocket fighter, the Messerschmitt Me-263 `Komet' and later the Bachem Be349 `Natter'.

    Unfortunately for them, the war was almost over already.

    That wasn't the problem. The problem was that Hitler was a gonzo and first prevaricated, then ordered that they be built for bombing - which they were mediocre at, rather than air defense - which they were good at. Mind you, some of the big Yank prop planes could still catch them and shoot them down with a diving start.

    Commercial jets are descended from those planes.

    No, commercial jets were quite different in design from the start. The British Meteor jet fighters did look quite similar to the 262. However, many of our modern rockets are descended in one way or another from the V2.

    The really innovative German 'planes were the Blohm und Voss models. My personal favourites are the asymmetrical 237 and mid-engined mid-propped 192, although other models like the 111 and 170 have their own special shock value too. (-:

  35. "Life, Liberty, and Property" is John Locke 1690 by VValdo · · Score: 1 · on Science Editors Urge Nondisclosure Of Bioterror Info

    No, it was a restatement of the rights of "life, liberty and property" as described by philosopher John Locke in Two Treatises on Government in 1690.

    See here.

    W

  36. Re:Cost by jericho4.0 · · Score: 1 · on Highlift Systems' Space Elevator In The News Again
    Seeing as it now costs us a 400 - 500 million U.S. to get a lousy 20,000 lb payload into low earth orbit, not many.

    see the shuttle faq for that info.

    Arthur C. Clark said 'The space elevator will be built 50 years after everyone stops laughing."

  37. Re:Not quite by VValdo · · Score: 1 · on Science Editors Urge Nondisclosure Of Bioterror Info

    There was an analysis written regarding the phrase "Life, Liberty and Persuit of Happiness" and it essential boiled down to this. Those words were chosen very specificaly and placed in the order that they were specificaly.

    If I recall correctly, these words were actually a modification to philosopher John Locke's writings on human rights.

    W

    "No man's life, liberty, or property are safe while the legislature is in session." - Mark Twain

  38. alternative keyboard by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0 · on Keyboard Layouts for the 21st Century?

    I created an alternative keyboard idea back in April of 2001.
    I haven't had much success but maybe my idea can give others some inspiration
    Since then, I had an idea for an improved layout, but I haven't done much with it...
    http://www.geocities.com/e2e2e2e2e/


    mirror:
    http://members.fortunecity.com/2e2e2e2e/

    Steven Shultz
    Bellingham, WA

  39. Good way to weed out the extremely shallow by stackdump · · Score: 1 · on Some Geek Guides for Dating

    I have a tatoo in binary I find it is an excellent way to judge how any girl will react to any other aspect of myself as a geek. Mostly it repels the incredibly shallow. BTW this is not the primary reason for the tattoo I just thought it looked cool. (it says "ork" what my friends call me instead of "york" ->my last name.)

  40. Rule number 1 in engineering your love life... by amarodeeps · · Score: 1 · on Some Geek Guides for Dating

    (this in reference to the "Engineer Your Love Life" piece)

    Never, ever, ever, ever compare your prospective mate to a "suitable commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) product" in front of him/her.

  41. Masse Solar? Needs Centrifugal storage. by MickLinux · · Score: 1 · on Solar Panels As Building Clothing

    First, it looks to me like the company isn't so much selling solar panels, as it is selling entire solar panel manufacturing systems.

    Seems to me that something like RPM's centrifugal power storage units would be ideal to go along with this. That way, you could load up a building's walls and roof with these things, and produce enough to last through the night.

    Then sell it as unit solution: Get the whole package, and have power whenever you need it.

    But I'll bet these little factories will be extremely expensive.

  42. Home DDR is bigger than that. by bileduct · · Score: 1 · on Sega Merges With Pachinko Company Sammy

    The difference here is that DDR isn't your "typical" peripheral game. It's an obsession. None of the peripherals you mention above had the soft of following that DDR does. You don't see the Power Glove in Sketchers commercials on MTV.

    You can buy cheap DDR pads from the mall, but there's a whole industry of much better pads, really great pads, and custom, homemade pads. Cottage industries like this don't crop up without the following to support them.

    It's not unusual for people without room in their house to drag a TV out to their garage to play. There's DDR clubs at colleges. DDR's been used in high schools as an alternate gym class activity.

    DDR is a Whole Thing.

  43. This neatly covers those two in one article... by pla · · Score: 2, Interesting · on House and Senate Reject E-mail Surveillance
    Read This.

    I'll quote the first paragraph:

    On November 1 Green Party USA activist Nancy Oden was prevented from boarding a plane to Chicago at the Bangor, Maine International Airport and temporarily detained on orders of military personnel stationed at the airport. Below is an account of what happened by Nancy Oden herself.

    Does that answer your specific questions?
  44. First RTS? - Herzog Zwei by LionKimbro · · Score: 1 · on Command and Conquer Generals Released

    Herzog Zwei is the earliest RTS that I know of.

  45. Evolution of a programmer by aoteoroa · · Score: 1 · on What is Your Best Tech Joke?

    evolution of a programmer

  46. I pesonally like the music in Dune :-) by Jugalator · · Score: 1 · on Sci-fi Channel's Children of Dune

    Check out Dune - Spice Opera. The links aren't working right now, but it seems the webmaster is working on it. You're guided to another site while s/he sort things out, but that one was very slow for me. Anyway, you might get the Spice Opera CD from Kazaa or something too.

    I don't think it's something you can get from a store, or even order that easily. :-/

  47. Re:I'm not sure.. by Proudrooster · · Score: 1 · on Cashless Society

    You are correct!

    The "All your cash are belong to us." rule still applies.

    About 1 week post release you could buy info on EBAY telling you how to scam the system.

  48. Ain't ya forgettin' summink? by leonbrooks · · Score: 2, Informative · on Open Watcom 1.0 Released

    Did you Google?

    Let your fingers do the walking...

  49. Performance comparisons by golrien · · Score: 5, Interesting · on Open Watcom 1.0 Released

    I was going to ask if there were any performance comparisons around showing how Watcom performed, but then I realised that anyone with half a brain ran something through Google before Slashdot.

    Win32 compilers (not including Watcom - and with good reason, it's a bitch to set up on Win32)

    as linked from the djgpp FAQ, some info on DOS compilers.

    So, hooray! A lesson in using Google before Slashdot mixed with some blatant karma-whoring.

    PS. this is good too.

  50. Re:Boring by damiam · · Score: 1 · on Humans Hold Off the Machines... For Now
    Four draws out of six games?

    That's not unusual. The Kasparov-Karpov world championship match in 1984 ended 41 out of 48 games in draws. There are chess rulesets that make draws impossible, but then it's not really chess.