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I have 2 questions:
- does the paddlewheel keep the steamer afloat (generating lift)?
- Is there room for a card table on a fanwing? My, that is a fiiiine power to lift ratio Mister Maverick... ;)

On topic... you have *got* to see this video of another unusual flight concept, the rotopter. Would you go in any vehicle that moves like that????

Also, the cycloprop actually *is* a plane working on the same principal.

I don't want to blow any bubble here, but this involves optical interferometry - which require control devices capable of tracking and correcting mechanical systems at the optical wavelenght scale. Check here for more details (there are many other technical references, have a look on Google).

Amateurs will do radio interferometry way before optical. But hey! Amateurs now have access to CCDs... Maybe it is not THAT far off.

This is not a sig.

It's funny how we are all different in our ways of doing the same activity.
Personnally i don't care if anyone is cheating to seem better. To me I just face someone better than me and it's part of the game. Wether it's one of those talented 13 years old kids or one of those untalented script users don't make a difference. More challenge, more fun.
On the other hand, there's just no way i'm going to a server with lag. That's my limit.

As to the foul langage, they can cancel xbox live here in France. There is just about everyone who use foul langage. So gamers!
Picture yourself the french soldiers of the "holy graal" arguing with the redmond official about getting kicked for
farting in the admin's general direction"
Anyway nobody will buy it here, it's too expensive, so that settle the matter.

I heard a rumor that Fossil was going to introduce a LED Display watch at some point in the near future... PDA-schmee-dee-ay! I want retro geek!

Yes. They got a lot of flak over that, prompting them to change the policy... I don't know the exact policy now, but according to my cousin in the marines, it's somewhere between "don't ask don't tell" and "just don't hit on the other soldiers".

Well, this tells a different story. However, you appear to have a point: according to this story the military is of two minds on the matter, in practice if not in policy. However, the point remains that you can get your life ruined when your privacy is violated, even if you aren't doing anything that you (?) or I would consider wrong. Here's another example , although I wish I could find a link to the original story.

This is getting offtopic, but it is interesting nonetheless. Going back to the issue of privacy I think it boils down to very simple point: my life is my business. That may not always be true in practice, but then that is where legal protection is needed.

By the way, there is a blurb in AvWeek about the original topic:

The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency's idea for a Total Information Awareness (TIA) system is stirring up a hornet's nest. It is one of 15 projects at Darpa's "information awareness office" aimed at using information technology to prevent and preempt terrorist attacks. The gist of TIA is to use signal processing similar to that used in anti-submarine warfare to ferret out the signature of terrorist transactions in cyberspace. But critics have huge concerns about civil liberties and privacy if the government starts mining all sorts of databases for information on civilian transactions. It doesn't help that the Darpa office is run by Vice Adm. (ret.) John Poindexter of Iran-Contra fame. Robert Popp, Poindexter's deputy, acknowledges that privacy will be a challenge. But at a forum at nearby George Mason University last week, Air Force Lt. Gen. Michael V. Hayden, director of the National Security Agency, which is responsible for all Defense Dept. sigint, said he doesn't understand how TIA would work or if it is feasible.

Good point! An upside to cloning.

The errant Weyoun may have been #6. Was it Weyoun-7 whose neck Worf casually snapped for making a smartass remark -- giving dour Dumar a rare joke opening? Maybe it was Weyoun-7 who kept getting on the Founder's nerves so much she threatened to have him executed? I wonder whether he really was a limited edition. Weyoun made the Breen seem "warm" by contrast.

Weyoun was like the little dogs in "A Fish Called Wanda."

In its own way DS9 had the best (dark) sense of humor. And some of the fans, too -- one evidently thought Weyoun attractive. Ewwwww. I think/hope Vortas were way beyond mating.

yeah i too was annoyed about the basilisk being a snake in the movie. however it is true that historically basilisks were viewed as serpents. my girlfriend tells me it was a snake in the books too, so i guess the blame should be put on rowling (unless you are going by the mythology which i suppose is what was going on there) as lots of kids are going to grow up thinking they are snakes. btw, not all snakes can sense body heat. in fact it is just pit vipers, and some pythons and boas... as to your point about the cat's eyes i'm not quite sure what your point is. for a cat to see in the dark as well as in the light the cat has to look directly on its subject. if you are saying that the mirror effect of the tapetum in its eye would prevent any harm from being done even if it did look the snake in the eye i think that is wrong as well, afterall we are talking about magic. if the curse, spell, charm whatever says that looking in the eye of whatever is going to do something then that is what it is going to do...

Mr. Lucas has specified many times that the storylines in the deritative books, comics, cartoons and all other spin-offs are 'non-canonical'. The only plotline which matters is that of the movies. Which means all those bad Timothy Zahn books will not be determining the plotlines of episodes 7-10 if a third trilogy were to be made.

I guess George wanted the merch money from a million tie-ins, knowing people will gobble it up.

From the Star Wars Literature Compendium:

"According to the premiere issue of the Star Wars Insider, the only works "canonized" have been the movies and their respective screenplays, novelizations, and radio drama adaptations."

Iopha

Here's some online comics that might be worth checking out:

Sluggy - Students, aliens, ghosts, psychotic rabbits, evil kittens. One of the oldest and niftiest comics online.
User Friendly - Linux, geeks. You get the idea.
Megatokyo - An online manga following Piro and Largo whilst stranded in Tokyo.
Schlock Mercenary - Not too good art, but usually a very good and suitably sci-fi-ish plot.
Clan of the Cats - A modern-day witch cursed to change into a panther. Good artwork.
RPG World - Great art. A parody of almost any role playing game (the console variety) you'd care to play.
Ghost Cat - It's a cat! It's a ghost! It's ghost cat!
Elf Life - Elves, fairies, barbarians, time travel, romance, comedy, and very well drawn as well.
Exploitation Now! - An anime-ish comic with good art and an interesting, if sporadic, plot.
Real Life - It's real life. Except it's not. Reasonably funny.
Penny Arcade - The mother of all gaming comics. Very funny :)
Sephen - A relative newcomer, but wow! Great pencil-work!
8-bit Theater - The grandpappy of all sprite comics. I think. It's funny anyway. Go read :)
Demonology 101 - Fantastic art, fantastic plot! If only it came out more often! Ah well, the world isn't perfect.

Oh, and I can't really get away without mentioning my brother's sprite comic, Pixelated!. It really isn't bad. No, really! :)

In the article, this process is called a speed-up by the AFL-CIO, because it is more physically grueling for blue collar workers. For white collar workers, it is more mentally straining, as the people from this article say.

As the article said, for the companies things are good right now and getting better. But basically they are shafting workers who if things were in equilibrium would have those people back doing the workloads they had to pickup, or would be getting paid more. Neither is happening.

A lot of the posts here show a lot of economic ignorance. This works against all IT workers. IT wages dropped for the first time in a decade a few months ago, yet many people talk about how they're happy this is happening. This would only make sense if they're not doing IT but are an owner, or perhaps in upper management.

Microsoft, Intel, IBM, and so forth give millions a year to the ITAA to spin IT economic news in their manner as well as lobbying Congress. In terms of associations for IT people who figure out what's in our interest, most of the organizations are nascent - the Programmers Guild, CESO, Washtech etc. (not IEEE-USA which is a disaster). Our wages are being hurt due to not enough people discussing how financial matters affect our profession with each other, and so forth. This can be done in the aforementioned organizations, on mailing lists and on usenet. I have a web site that discusses some of this.

They can, though, if they see you on the cover of a magazine, or on the label of your CD, or on Jay Leno late at night, or in your new movie...

Much as we all love to hate MTV (and I do!), I think there's a larger culture-of-celebrity thing going on here. Being, as Zoolander would say, "unbelievably good looking," is just part of the celebrity package these days - playing a role in journalism, fiction and nonfiction writing, and politics.

And once you demand good looks, it's hard to get a really large helping of that "talent" thing in the same package... and so much easier to go to an external songwriting team. So that's what they do.

Not that I disagree with your point about the interchangeable sex-widgets. It's just that that's sort of an added benefit.

-renard

Hi; I've been reading your material a lot recently, and have found it to be very enjoyable. In honour of your trolling efforts, I have made a gift for you to enjoy and/or share with others.

Your fan,

-Spooge

I can't believe I made a post about Troy Maclure and I didn't link to here.

He was also (among many others) the voice of Troy McClure, who you may remember from such films as "I Was a Teenage Pr0n Junkie," "Goat.se.cx Boogie," and "Karma Whores in 3D."

Troy: Can I play the piano anymore?
Dr Zaius: Of course you can!
Troy: Well I couldn't before!
*plays piano*

mame.dk, never heard of them.

However I have heard of the MAME burners, The Tombstone Project, and Rom-Mania!.

Not only can you obtain MAME ROMS, but you can get all the ROMS for all your old systems. I was able to ressurect my Intellivision, Commodore 64, Amiga 1000, MS-PacMan Machine, and Nintendo 64 on my PC.

I thought about putting together a project to contact all the ROM license holders and see how much they would want for the copyrights. We (the collective we) would then all contribute to a fund that would be used to buy the licenses and place them into the Public Domain. I personally contacted a few license holders and the response was quite negative.

It seems that the large corporations which own the licenses and copyrights don't want us emulating old games, but instead want us to go buy NEW game systems. They aren't the most nostalgic bunch and I am glad that all these old treasures have been preserved through emulators.

Fast Forwarding, you can play MAME on XBOX now :) Imagine every arcade console game ever made burned onto a single DVD. This would be the killer XBOX app! Bill has got the money to make it happen. It could be his gift to the world, but we will never see it.

Actually, this is one of the few cases wherein if you don't trust the gub'mint (setter of standards for rad-leakage) or the corporates (laptop manufacturer), you can just as easily verify for yourself.

Alpha: If you're not convinced from the laws of physics that alphas will be stopped by the casing of your laptop, build a cloud chamber with some dry ice and alcohol, and sit your laptop on top of it. Observe the lack of straight fat traces emanating from your laptop.

Beta: Ditto. You can also build a detector for charged particles out of gold leaf and leave it next to your laptop for a few hours, or you can just eyeball your cloud chamber for longer traces with occasional kinks as electrons are deflected in the medium.

Gamma: OK, your cloud chamber won't work as well here, so drop $300 for a pocket geiger counter from a place like Edmund Scientific. (It slices, it dices, it's something no kid who grew up during the Cold War should be without! :-)

Cloud chambers are easy to build, and fun to watch. Get an old radium-dial watch or clock, place a blue LED next to it, and you've got yourself a "nuclear lava lamp".

Case modders alert! You could replace the top flat part of a PC with it and the cool air from the base of the chamber would ooze down into your case, providing a little bit of extra cooling. along with one hell of a l33t case mod - permanently mount your rad-source in the middle of the chamber, mask off and paint a "radioactive" symbol in the plexiglass cover, with a small source directly beneath the center of the rad-symbol, and illuminate it with a one of those traffic-light/borg-cube-green LEDs, and bring a few blocks of dry ice to the LAN party! W00T!

OK, back on topic. The bottom line is that measuring the amount of ionizing radiation leacking from a nuke-powered laptop is trivial, and if you compare the (lack of) radiation coming from your laptop from the (big pile of) background radiation coming from the bricks in your house, the glaze on your grandma's dishes, and the potassium in that bundle of bananas, or just from living in the Rockies, you just might learn something about risk assessment - something about which those in the knee-jerk anti-nuclear movement would prefer to keep you in the dark.

Yes. That must be it. That whole legal wrangle about ownership and the tortured path to the screen (http://www.geocities.com/Hollywood/Studio/7206/sp ider.html") was just a front. Marvel wanted to screw Lee, so they waited. And waited. And waited. And went through a bankruptcy that may have been averted if they'd had, say, a blockbuster movie starring one of their characters. Then, instead of waiting a few more years, they said "the hell with it, he'll die before it gets to court" and made it. It's just SOP in Hollywood.

>However, you might look into apple seeds.

They are high in what is being called Vitamin B17, or Laetril. Quite controversial in its application; and depending on who you believe, it either cures cancer or kills you. It is also found in Apricot seeds, and Linseed (flax).

The FDA never seems to like anything that can't be patented and make their business friends lots of money...so it's best to study the heck out of this yourself.

A good site

Here's the short answer:

What Does Vitamin B-17 Do?

Dr. Krebs discovered the Vitamin B-17 compound reacts to the enzyme beta-glucosidase, primarily located in huge quantities at the site of cancerous tumours. In this reaction, two potent poisons are manufactured by beta-glucosidase at the cancer cell site; hydrogen cyanide and benzaldehyde. Therefore, Vitamin B-17's toxic reaction destroys the cancer cell.

What Happens To The Excess Vitamin B-17 Not Consumed In The Killing Of Malignant Cancer Cells?

Dr. Krebs found that healthy cells contain an enzyme called rhodanese, that acts as a control agent. Rhodanese is common throughout the body yet not at cancerous locations. If Vitamin B-17 comes into contact with healthy cells, rhodanese detoxifies the cyanide and oxidizes the benzaldehyde, and accurately targets Vitamin B-17 at cancerous locations and not at healthy tissue. Any excess by-products produced by the reaction are expelled in normal fashion through the urine.

• Check out this link [quackwatch.org] for some more info.

• I'm not saying it didn't work for you, but there appears to be heaps of evidence for why you might be a little concerned about regular use.

• Apparently the US FDA "has concluded that the risk of using silver products exceeds any unsubstantiated benefit." [nih.gov]

• And for my own favorite test, just like chiropractric, colloidal silver users make some wide, sweeping, and exagerated claims [colloidal-silver.com] for what silver "can cure". I mean crap, that's a huge list of things it will cure or alleviate. You just have to wonder when you see that many claims of a miracle medicine/tonic.

"With that said, past few years been using colloidal silver on external wounds/infections, works quite well. I was skeptical at first until I tried it. Still using it when needed. Much better than any store bought/prescription antibio cream I ever tried."

I agree completely. Colloidal silver is the answer to bacteria and virus infections, but the pharmaceutical industry is doing everything in its power to stop people from using it, since people would not need their expensive antibiotics anymore. They got the FDA to ban web sites that offer it for sale, and to present phony information on the dangers of protein compounds, which have nothing to do with colloidal silver.

I got an attack of shingles last year - my doctor told me I had sprained a muscle and to take some asparin. This only made it worse. I went to a different hospital several days later, and the incoming nurse spotted the symptoms immediately. I didn't wait to see the doctor, but went straight home and brewed up a batch.

For more information, please see my report on "Shingles and Colloidal Silver" at
http://www.geocities.com/mrmonett/shingles/0shin.h tm

The usual disclaimers apply. I am not a doctor, this is not medical advice, if you have problems go see your doctor, etc...

Best Regards,
Mike Monett

Well, this isn't off-topic, but it's not an answer to this fantasy either. Basically I want to take this opportunity to insert a shameless plug for one of my favorite local bands in Seattle.

The Dandelion Method has some pretty good stuff. You should check them out.

Yeah. like anybody's going to see this link. I doubt I'll get modded up... Oh well, it's worth a try. Anything to help out my friends in their worthy attempt at making it on the non-RIAA music scene.

See MEME INTERVIEW

Or WARD REVIEW

Ok that's in french so maybe WARD INTERVIEW would be better? (Scroll down for English)

Or hey just visit our site

Feel free to browse and if you have ideas for how we *could* place our music on the web cheaply and easily then please please let us know!! All help credited and appreciated!

Oh and feel free to buy a nice t-shirt.. they keep us releasing... ;-)

Check out my basement. I wish...

Spliced it? A blatant hardware mod like that is begging to be detected. These days we have off the shelf solutions.

Probably not illegal, only grounds for termination. (Won't stop hyperactive prosecutors from going after you if your ex-boss complains enough, though. This is America, after all)

Regarding why creation "science" is not science see the The General Anti-Creationism FAQ and perhaps also this page by a guy named Lenny Flank. Those two sites summarize my arguments quite succinctly.

As for moon landing conspiracies, check out the page at Bad Astronomy which talks about it.

It has come to my attention that the entire Linux community is a hotbed of so called 'alternative sexuality,' which includes anything from hedonistic orgies to homosexuality to pedophilia.

What better way of demonstrating this than by looking at the hidden messages contained within the names of some of Linux's most outspoken advocates:

• Linus Torvalds is an anagram of slit anus or VD 'L,' clearly referring to himself by the first initial.
• Richard M. Stallman, spokespervert for the Gaysex's Not Unusual 'movement' is an anagram of mans cram thrill ad.
• Alan Cox is barely an anagram of anal cox which is just so filthy and unchristian it unnerves me.

I'm sure that Eric S. Raymond, composer of the satanic homosexual propaganda diatribe The Cathedral and the Bizarre, is probably an anagram of something queer, but we don't need to look that far as we know he's always shoving a gun up some poor little boy's rectum. Update: Eric S. Raymond is actually an anagram for secondary rim and cord in my arse. It just goes to show you that he is indeed queer.

Update the Second: It is also documented that Evil Sicko Gaymond is responsible for a nauseating piece of code called Fetchmail, which is obviously sinister sodomite slang for 'Felch Male' -- a disgusting practise. For those not in the know, 'felching' is the act performed by two perverts wherein one sucks their own post-coital ejaculate out of the other's rectum. In fact, it appears that the dirty Linux faggots set out to undermine the good Republican institution of e-mail, turning it into 'e-male.'

As far as Richard 'Master' Stallman goes, that filthy fudge-packer was actually quoted on leftist commie propaganda site Salon.com as saying the following: 'I've been resistant to the pressure to conform in any circumstance,' he says. 'It's about being able to question conventional wisdom,' he asserts. 'I believe in love, but not monogamy,' he says plainly.

And this isn't a made up troll bullshit either! He actually stated this tripe, which makes it obvious that he is trying to politely say that he's a flaming homo slut!

Speaking about 'flaming,' who better to point out as a filthy chutney ferret than Slashdot's very own self-confessed pederast Jon Katz. Although an obvious deviant anagram cannot be found from his name, he has already confessed, nay boasted of the homosexual perversion of corrupting the innocence of young children. To quote from the article linked:

'I've got a rare kidney disease,' I told her. 'I have to go to the bathroom a lot. You can come with me if you want, but it takes a while. Is that okay with you? Do you want a note from my doctor?'

Is this why you were touching your penis in the cinema, Jon? And letting the other boys touch it too?

We should also point out that Jon Katz refers to himself as 'Slashdot's resident Gasbag.' Is there any more doubt? For those fortunate few who aren't aware of the list of homosexual terminology found inside the Linux 'Sauce Code,' a 'Gasbag' is a pervert who gains sexual gratification from having a thin straw inserted into his urethra (or to use the common parlance, 'piss-pipe'), then his homosexual lover blows firmly down the straw to inflate his scrotum. This is, of course, when he's not busy violating the dignity and copyright of posters to Slashdot by gathering together their postings and publishing them en masse to further his twisted and manipulative journalistic agenda.

Sick, disgusting antichristian perverts, the lot of them.

In addition, many of the Linux distributions (a 'distribution' is the most common way to spread the faggots' wares) are run by faggot groups. The Slackware distro is named after the 'Slack-wear' fags wear to allow easy access to the anus for sexual purposes. Furthermore, Slackware is a close anagram of claw arse, a reference to the homosexual practise of anal fisting. The Mandrake product is run by a group of French faggot satanists, and is named after the faggot nickname for the vibrator. It was also chosen because it is an anagram for dark amen and ram naked, which is what they do.

Another 'distro,' (abbrieviated as such because it sounds a bit like 'Disco,' which is where homosexuals preyed on young boys in the 1970s), is Debian, an anagram of in a bed, which could be considered innocent enough (after all, a bed is both where we sleep and pray), until we realise what other names Debian uses to describe their foul wares. 'Woody' is obvious enough, being a term for the erect male penis, glistening with pre-cum. But far sicker is the phrase 'Frozen Potato' that they use. This filthy term, again found in the secret homosexual 'Sauce Code,' refers to the solo homosexual practice of defecating into a clear polythene bag, shaping the turd into a crude approximation of the male phallus, then leaving it in the freezer overnight until it becomes solid. The practitioner then proceeds to push the frozen 'potato' up his own rectum, squeezing it in and out until his tight young balls erupt in a screaming orgasm.

And Red Hat is secret homo slang for the tip of a penis that is soaked in blood from a freshly violated underage ringpiece.

The fags have even invented special tools to aid their faggotry! For example, the 'supermount' tool was devised to allow deeper penetration, which is good for fags because it gives more pressure on the prostate gland. 'Automount' is used, on the other hand, because Linux users are all fat and gay, and need to mount each other automatically.

The depths of their depravity can be seen in their use of 'mount points.' These are, plainly speaking, the different points of penetration. The main one is obviously /anus, but there are others. Militant fags even say 'there is no /opt mount point' because for these dirty perverts faggotry is not optional but a way of life.

More evidence is in the fact that Linux users say how much they love `man`, even going so far as to say that all new Linux users (who are in fact just innocent heterosexuals indoctrinated by the gay propaganda) should try out `man`. In no other system do users boast of their frequent recourse to a man.

Other areas of the system also show Linux's inherit gayness. For example, people are often told of the 'FAQ,' but how many innocent heterosexual Windows users know what this actually means. The answer is shocking: Faggot Anal Quest: the voyage of discovery for newly converted fags!

Even the title 'Slashdot' originally referred to a homosexual practice. Slashdot of course refers to the popular gay practice of blood-letting. The Slashbots, of course are those super-zealous homosexuals who take this perversion to its extreme by ripping open their anuses, as seen on the site most popular with Slashdot users, the depraved work of Satan, http://www.eff.org/.

The editors of Slashdot also have homosexual names: 'Hemos' is obvious in itself, being one vowel away from 'Homos.' But even more sickening is 'Commander Taco' which sounds a bit like 'Commode in Taco,' filthy gay slang for a pair of spreadeagled buttocks that are caked with excrement. (The best form of lubrication, they insist.) Sometimes, these 'Taco Commodes' have special 'Salsa Sauce' (blood from a ruptured rectum) and 'Cheese' (rancid flakes of penis discharge) toppings. And to make it even worse, Slashdot runs on Apache!

The Apache server, whose use among fags is as prevalent as AIDS, is named after homosexual activity -- as everyone knows, popular faggot band, the Village People, featured an Apache Indian, and it is for him that this gay program is named.

And that's not forgetting the use of patches in the Linux fag world -- patches are used to make the anus accessible for repeated anal sex even after its rupture by a session of fisting.

To summarise: Linux is gay. 'Slash -- Dot' is the graphical description of the space between a young boy's scrotum and anus. And BeOS is for hermaphrodites and disabled 'stumpers.'

FEEDBACK

What worries me is how much you know about what gay people do. I'm scared I actually read this whole thing. I think this post is a good example of the negative effects of Internet usage on people. This person obviously has no social life anymore and had to result to writing something as stupid as this. And actually take the time to do it too. Although... I think it was satire.. blah.. it's early. -- Anonymous Coward, Slashdot

Well, the only reason I know all about this is because I had the misfortune to read the Linux 'Sauce code' once. Although publicised as the computer code needed to get Linux up and running on a computer (and haven't you always been worried about the phrase 'Monolithic Kernel'?), this foul document is actually a detailed and graphic description of every conceivable degrading perversion known to the human race, as well as a few of the major animal species. It has shocked and disturbed me, to the point of needing to shock and disturb the common man to warn them of the impending homo-calypse which threatens to engulf our planet.

You must work for the government. Trying to post the most obscene stuff in hopes that slashdot won't be able to continue or something, due to legal woes. If i ever see your ugly face, i'm going to stick my fireplace poker up your ass, after it's nice and hot, to weld shut that nasty gaping hole of yours. -- Anonymous Coward, Slashdot

Doesn't it give you a hard-on to imagine your thick strong poker ramming it's way up my most sacred of sphincters? You're beyond help, my friend, as the only thing you can imagine is the foul penetrative violation of another man. Are you sure you're not Eric Raymond? The government, being populated by limp-wristed liberals, could never stem the sickening tide of homosexual child molesting Linux advocacy. Hell, they've given NAMBLA free reign for years!

you really should post this logged in. i wish i could remember jebus's password, cuz i'd give it to you. -- mighty jebus, Slashdot

Thank you for your kind words of support. However, this document shall only ever be posted anonymously. This is because the 'Open Sauce' movement is a sham, proposing homoerotic cults of hero worshipping in the name of freedom. I speak for the common man. For any man who prefers the warm, enveloping velvet folds of a woman's vagina to the tight puckered ringpiece of a child. These men, being common, decent folk, don't have a say in the political hypocrisy that is Slashdot culture. I am the unknown liberator.

ROLF LAMO i hate linux FAGGOTS -- Anonymous Coward, Slashdot

We shouldn't hate them, we should pity them for the misguided fools they are... Fanatical Linux zeal-outs need to be herded into camps for re-education and subsequent rehabilitation into normal heterosexual society. This re-education shall be achieved by forcing them to watch repeats of Baywatch until the very mention of Pamela Anderson causes them to fill their pants with healthy heterosexual jism.

Actually, that's not at all how scrotal inflation works. I understand it involves injecting sterile saline solution into the scrotum. I've never tried this, but you can read how to do it safely in case you're interested. (Before you moderate this down, ask yourself honestly -- who are the real crazies -- people who do scrotal inflation, or people who pay $1000+ for a game console?) -- double_h, Slashdot

Well, it just goes to show that even the holy Linux 'sauce code' is riddled with bugs that need fixing. (The irony of Jon Katz not even being able to inflate his scrotum correctly has not been lost on me.) The Linux pervert elite already acknowledge this, with their queer slogan: 'Given enough arms, all rectums are shallow.' And anyway, the PS2 sucks major cock and isn't worth the money. Intellivision forever!

dude did u used to post on msnbc's nt bulletin board now that u are doing anti-gay posts u also need to start in with anti-black stuff too c u in church -- Anonymous Coward, Slashdot

For one thing, whilst Linux is a cavalcade of queer propaganda masquerading as the future of computing, NT is used by people who think nothing better of encasing their genitals in quick setting plaster then going to see a really dirty porno film, enjoying the restriction enforced onto them. Remember, a wasted arousal is a sin in the eyes of the Catholic church. Clearly, the only god-fearing Christian operating system in existence is CP/M -- The Christian Program Monitor. All computer users should immediately ask their local pastor to install this fine OS onto their systems. It is the only route to salvation.

Secondly, this message is for every man. Computers know no colour. Not only that, but one of the finest websites in the world is maintained by a Black Man . Now fuck off you racist donkey felcher.

And don't forget that slashdot was written in Perl, which is just too close to 'Pearl Necklace' for comfort.... oh wait; that's something all you heterosexuals do.... I can't help but wonder how much faster the trolls could do First-Posts on this site if it were redone in PHP... I could hand-type dynamic HTML pages faster than Perl can do them. -- phee, Slashdot

Although there is nothing unholy about the fine heterosexual act of ejaculating between a woman's breasts, squirting one's load up towards her neck and chin area, it should be noted that Perl (standing for Pansies Entering Rectums Locally) is also close to 'Pearl Monocle,' 'Pearl Nosering,' and the ubiquitous 'Pearl Enema.'

One scary thing about Perl is that it contains hidden homosexual messages. Take the following code: LWP::Simple -- It looks innocuous enough, doesn't it? But look at the line closely: There are two colons next to each other! As Larry 'Balls to the' Wall would openly admit in the Perl Documentation, Perl was designed from the ground up to indoctrinate it's programmers into performing unnatural sexual acts -- having two colons so closely together is clearly a reference to the perverse sickening act of 'colon kissing,' whereby two homosexual queers spread their buttocks wide, pressing their filthy torn sphincters together. They then share small round objects like marbles or golfballs by passing them from one rectum to another using muscle contraction alone. This is also referred to in programming 'circles' as 'Parameter Passing.'

And PHP stands for Perverted Homosexual Penetration. Didn't you know?

Thank you for your valuable input on this. I am sure you will be never forgotten. BTW: Did I mention that this could be useful in terraforming Mars? Mars rulaa. -- Eimernase, Slashdot

Well, I don't know about terraforming Mars, but I do know that homosexual Linux Advocates have been probing Uranus for years.

That's inspiring. Keep up the good work, AC. May God in his wisdom grant you the strength to bring the plain honest truth to this community, and make it pure again. Yours, Cerberus. -- Anonymous Coward, Slashdot

*sniff* That brings a tear to my eye. Thank you once more for your kind support. I have taken faith in the knowledge that I am doing the Good Lord's work, but it is encouraging to know that I am helping out the common man here.

However, I should be cautious about revealing your name 'Cerberus' on such a filthy den of depravity as Slashdot. It is a well known fact that the 'Kerberos' documentation from Microsoft is a detailed manual describing, in intimate, exacting detail, how to sexually penetrate a variety of unwilling canine animals; be they domesticated, wild, or mythical. Slashdot posters have taken great pleasure in illegally spreading this documentation far and wide, treating it as an 'extension' to the Linux 'Sauce Code,' for the sake of 'interoperability.' (The slang term they use for nonconsensual intercourse -- their favourite kind.)

In fact, sick twisted Linux deviants are known to have LAN parties, (Love of Anal Naughtiness, needless to say.), wherein they entice a stray dog, known as the 'Samba Mount,' into their homes. Up to four of these filth-sodden blasphemers against nature take turns to plunge their erect, throbbing, uncircumcised members, conkers-deep, into the rectum, mouth, and other fleshy orifices of the poor animal. Eventually, the 'Samba Mount' collapses due to 'overload,' and needs to be 'rebooted.' (i.e., kicked out into the street, and left to fend for itself.) Many Linux users boast about their 'uptime' in such situations.

Inspiring stuff! If only all trolls were this quality! -- Anonymous Coward, Slashdot

If only indeed. You can help our brave cause by moderating this message up as often as possible. I recommend '+1, Underrated,' as that will protect your precious Karma in Metamoderation. Only then can we break through the glass ceiling of Homosexual Slashdot Culture. Is it any wonder that the new version of Slashcode has been christened 'Bender'???

If we can get just one of these postings up to at least '+1,' then it will be archived forever! Others will learn of our struggle, and join with us in our battle for freedom!

It's pathetic you've spent so much time writing this. -- Anonymous Coward, Slashdot

I am compelled to document the foulness and carnal depravity that is Linux, in order that we may prepare ourselves for the great holy war that is to follow. It is my solemn duty to peel back the foreskin of ignorance and apply the wire brush of enlightenment.

As with any great open-source project, you need someone asking this question, so I'll do it. When the hell is version 2.0 going to be ready?!?! -- Anonymous Coward, Slashdot

I could make an arrogant, childish comment along the lines of 'Every time someone asks for 2.0, I won't release it for another 24 hours,' but the truth of the matter is that I'm quite nervous of releasing a 'number two,' as I can guarantee some filthy shit-slurping Linux pervert would want to suck it straight out of my anus before I've even had chance to wipe.

I desperately want to suck your monolithic kernel, you sexy hunk, you. -- Anonymous Coward, Slashdot

I sincerely hope you're Natalie Portman.

Dude, nothing on slashdot larger than 3 paragraphs is worth reading. Try to distill the message, whatever it was, and maybe I'll read it. As it is, I have to much open source software to write to waste even 10 seconds of precious time. 10 seconds is all its gonna take M$ to whoop Linux's ass. Vigilence is the price of Free (as in libre -- from the fine, frou frou French language) Software. Hack on fellow geeks, and remember: Friday is Bouillabaisse day except for heathens who do not believe that Jesus died for their sins. Those godless, oil drench, bearded sexist clowns can pull grits from their pantaloons (another fine, fine French word) and eat that. Anyway, try to keep your message focused and concise. For concision is the soul of derision. Way. -- Anonymous Coward, Slashdot

What the fuck?

I've read your gay conspiracy post version 1.3.0 and I must say I'm impressed. In particular, I appreciate how you have managed to squeeze in a healthy dose of the latent homosexuality you gay-bashing homos tend to be full of. Thank you again. -- Anonymous Coward, Slashdot

Well bugger me!

ooooh honey. how insecure are you!!! wann a little massage from deare bruci. love you -- Anonymous Coward, Slashdot

Fuck right off!

IMPORTANT: This message needs to be heard (Not HURD, which is an acronym for 'Huge Unclean Rectal Dilator') across the whole community, so it has been released into the Public Domain. You know, that licence that we all had before those homoerotic crypto-fascists came out with the GPL (Gay Penetration License) that is no more than an excuse to see who's got the biggest feces-encrusted cock. I would have put this up on Freshmeat, but that name is known to be a euphemism for the tight rump of a young boy.

Come to think of it, the whole concept of 'Source Control' unnerves me, because it sounds a bit like 'Sauce Control,' which is a description of the homosexual practice of holding the base of the cock shaft tightly upon the point of ejaculation, thus causing a build up of semenal fluid that is only released upon entry into an incision made into the base of the receiver's scrotum. And 'Open Sauce' is the act of ejaculating into another mans face or perhaps a biscuit to be shared later. Obviously, 'Closed Sauce' is the only Christian thing to do, as evidenced by the fact that it is what Cathedrals are all about.

Contributors: (although not to the eternal game of 'soggy biscuit' that open 'sauce' development has become) Anonymous Coward, Anonymous Coward, phee, Anonymous Coward, mighty jebus, Anonymous Coward, Anonymous Coward, double_h, Anonymous Coward, Eimernase, Anonymous Coward, Anonymous Coward, Anonymous Coward, Anonymous Coward, Anonymous Coward, Anonymous Coward, Anonymous Coward, Anonymous Coward. Further contributions are welcome.

Current changes: This version sent to FreeWIPO by 'Bring BackATV' as plain text. Reformatted everything, added all links back in (that we could match from the previous version), many new ones (Slashbot bait links). Even more spelling fixed. Who wrote this thing, CmdrTaco himself?

Previous changes: Yet more changes added. Spelling fixed. Feedback added. Explanation of 'distro' system. 'Mount Point' syntax described. More filth regarding `man` and Slashdot. Yet more fucking spelling fixed. 'Fetchmail' uncovered further. More Slashbot baiting. Apache exposed. Distribution licence at foot of document.

ANUX -- A full Linux distribution... Up your ass!

It has come to my attention that the entire Linux community is a hotbed of so called 'alternative sexuality,' which includes anything from hedonistic orgies to homosexuality to pedophilia.

What better way of demonstrating this than by looking at the hidden messages contained within the names of some of Linux's most outspoken advocates:

• Linus Torvalds is an anagram of slit anus or VD 'L,' clearly referring to himself by the first initial.
• Richard M. Stallman, spokespervert for the Gaysex's Not Unusual 'movement' is an anagram of mans cram thrill ad.
• Alan Cox is barely an anagram of anal cox which is just so filthy and unchristian it unnerves me.

I'm sure that Eric S. Raymond, composer of the satanic homosexual propaganda diatribe The Cathedral and the Bizarre, is probably an anagram of something queer, but we don't need to look that far as we know he's always shoving a gun up some poor little boy's rectum. Update: Eric S. Raymond is actually an anagram for secondary rim and cord in my arse. It just goes to show you that he is indeed queer.

Update the Second: It is also documented that Evil Sicko Gaymond is responsible for a nauseating piece of code called Fetchmail, which is obviously sinister sodomite slang for 'Felch Male' -- a disgusting practise. For those not in the know, 'felching' is the act performed by two perverts wherein one sucks their own post-coital ejaculate out of the other's rectum. In fact, it appears that the dirty Linux faggots set out to undermine the good Republican institution of e-mail, turning it into 'e-male.'

As far as Richard 'Master' Stallman goes, that filthy fudge-packer was actually quoted on leftist commie propaganda site Salon.com as saying the following: 'I've been resistant to the pressure to conform in any circumstance,' he says. 'It's about being able to question conventional wisdom,' he asserts. 'I believe in love, but not monogamy,' he says plainly.

And this isn't a made up troll bullshit either! He actually stated this tripe, which makes it obvious that he is trying to politely say that he's a flaming homo slut!

Speaking about 'flaming,' who better to point out as a filthy chutney ferret than Slashdot's very own self-confessed pederast Jon Katz. Although an obvious deviant anagram cannot be found from his name, he has already confessed, nay boasted of the homosexual perversion of corrupting the innocence of young children. To quote from the article linked:

'I've got a rare kidney disease,' I told her. 'I have to go to the bathroom a lot. You can come with me if you want, but it takes a while. Is that okay with you? Do you want a note from my doctor?'

Is this why you were touching your penis in the cinema, Jon? And letting the other boys touch it too?

We should also point out that Jon Katz refers to himself as 'Slashdot's resident Gasbag.' Is there any more doubt? For those fortunate few who aren't aware of the list of homosexual terminology found inside the Linux 'Sauce Code,' a 'Gasbag' is a pervert who gains sexual gratification from having a thin straw inserted into his urethra (or to use the common parlance, 'piss-pipe'), then his homosexual lover blows firmly down the straw to inflate his scrotum. This is, of course, when he's not busy violating the dignity and copyright of posters to Slashdot by gathering together their postings and publishing them en masse to further his twisted and manipulative journalistic agenda.

Sick, disgusting antichristian perverts, the lot of them.

In addition, many of the Linux distributions (a 'distribution' is the most common way to spread the faggots' wares) are run by faggot groups. The Slackware distro is named after the 'Slack-wear' fags wear to allow easy access to the anus for sexual purposes. Furthermore, Slackware is a close anagram of claw arse, a reference to the homosexual practise of anal fisting. The Mandrake product is run by a group of French faggot satanists, and is named after the faggot nickname for the vibrator. It was also chosen because it is an anagram for dark amen and ram naked, which is what they do.

Another 'distro,' (abbrieviated as such because it sounds a bit like 'Disco,' which is where homosexuals preyed on young boys in the 1970s), is Debian, an anagram of in a bed, which could be considered innocent enough (after all, a bed is both where we sleep and pray), until we realise what other names Debian uses to describe their foul wares. 'Woody' is obvious enough, being a term for the erect male penis, glistening with pre-cum. But far sicker is the phrase 'Frozen Potato' that they use. This filthy term, again found in the secret homosexual 'Sauce Code,' refers to the solo homosexual practice of defecating into a clear polythene bag, shaping the turd into a crude approximation of the male phallus, then leaving it in the freezer overnight until it becomes solid. The practitioner then proceeds to push the frozen 'potato' up his own rectum, squeezing it in and out until his tight young balls erupt in a screaming orgasm.

And Red Hat is secret homo slang for the tip of a penis that is soaked in blood from a freshly violated underage ringpiece.

The fags have even invented special tools to aid their faggotry! For example, the 'supermount' tool was devised to allow deeper penetration, which is good for fags because it gives more pressure on the prostate gland. 'Automount' is used, on the other hand, because Linux users are all fat and gay, and need to mount each other automatically.

The depths of their depravity can be seen in their use of 'mount points.' These are, plainly speaking, the different points of penetration. The main one is obviously /anus, but there are others. Militant fags even say 'there is no /opt mount point' because for these dirty perverts faggotry is not optional but a way of life.

More evidence is in the fact that Linux users say how much they love `man`, even going so far as to say that all new Linux users (who are in fact just innocent heterosexuals indoctrinated by the gay propaganda) should try out `man`. In no other system do users boast of their frequent recourse to a man.

Other areas of the system also show Linux's inherit gayness. For example, people are often told of the 'FAQ,' but how many innocent heterosexual Windows users know what this actually means. The answer is shocking: Faggot Anal Quest: the voyage of discovery for newly converted fags!

Even the title 'Slashdot' originally referred to a homosexual practice. Slashdot of course refers to the popular gay practice of blood-letting. The Slashbots, of course are those super-zealous homosexuals who take this perversion to its extreme by ripping open their anuses, as seen on the site most popular with Slashdot users, the depraved work of Satan, http://www.eff.org/.

The editors of Slashdot also have homosexual names: 'Hemos' is obvious in itself, being one vowel away from 'Homos.' But even more sickening is 'Commander Taco' which sounds a bit like 'Commode in Taco,' filthy gay slang for a pair of spreadeagled buttocks that are caked with excrement. (The best form of lubrication, they insist.) Sometimes, these 'Taco Commodes' have special 'Salsa Sauce' (blood from a ruptured rectum) and 'Cheese' (rancid flakes of penis discharge) toppings. And to make it even worse, Slashdot runs on Apache!

The Apache server, whose use among fags is as prevalent as AIDS, is named after homosexual activity -- as everyone knows, popular faggot band, the Village People, featured an Apache Indian, and it is for him that this gay program is named.

And that's not forgetting the use of patches in the Linux fag world -- patches are used to make the anus accessible for repeated anal sex even after its rupture by a session of fisting.

To summarise: Linux is gay. 'Slash -- Dot' is the graphical description of the space between a young boy's scrotum and anus. And BeOS is for hermaphrodites and disabled 'stumpers.'

FEEDBACK

What worries me is how much you know about what gay people do. I'm scared I actually read this whole thing. I think this post is a good example of the negative effects of Internet usage on people. This person obviously has no social life anymore and had to result to writing something as stupid as this. And actually take the time to do it too. Although... I think it was satire.. blah.. it's early. -- Anonymous Coward, Slashdot

Well, the only reason I know all about this is because I had the misfortune to read the Linux 'Sauce code' once. Although publicised as the computer code needed to get Linux up and running on a computer (and haven't you always been worried about the phrase 'Monolithic Kernel'?), this foul document is actually a detailed and graphic description of every conceivable degrading perversion known to the human race, as well as a few of the major animal species. It has shocked and disturbed me, to the point of needing to shock and disturb the common man to warn them of the impending homo-calypse which threatens to engulf our planet.

You must work for the government. Trying to post the most obscene stuff in hopes that slashdot won't be able to continue or something, due to legal woes. If i ever see your ugly face, i'm going to stick my fireplace poker up your ass, after it's nice and hot, to weld shut that nasty gaping hole of yours. -- Anonymous Coward, Slashdot

Doesn't it give you a hard-on to imagine your thick strong poker ramming it's way up my most sacred of sphincters? You're beyond help, my friend, as the only thing you can imagine is the foul penetrative violation of another man. Are you sure you're not Eric Raymond? The government, being populated by limp-wristed liberals, could never stem the sickening tide of homosexual child molesting Linux advocacy. Hell, they've given NAMBLA free reign for years!

you really should post this logged in. i wish i could remember jebus's password, cuz i'd give it to you. -- mighty jebus, Slashdot

Thank you for your kind words of support. However, this document shall only ever be posted anonymously. This is because the 'Open Sauce' movement is a sham, proposing homoerotic cults of hero worshipping in the name of freedom. I speak for the common man. For any man who prefers the warm, enveloping velvet folds of a woman's vagina to the tight puckered ringpiece of a child. These men, being common, decent folk, don't have a say in the political hypocrisy that is Slashdot culture. I am the unknown liberator.

ROLF LAMO i hate linux FAGGOTS -- Anonymous Coward, Slashdot

We shouldn't hate them, we should pity them for the misguided fools they are... Fanatical Linux zeal-outs need to be herded into camps for re-education and subsequent rehabilitation into normal heterosexual society. This re-education shall be achieved by forcing them to watch repeats of Baywatch until the very mention of Pamela Anderson causes them to fill their pants with healthy heterosexual jism.

Actually, that's not at all how scrotal inflation works. I understand it involves injecting sterile saline solution into the scrotum. I've never tried this, but you can read how to do it safely in case you're interested. (Before you moderate this down, ask yourself honestly -- who are the real crazies -- people who do scrotal inflation, or people who pay $1000+ for a game console?) -- double_h, Slashdot

Well, it just goes to show that even the holy Linux 'sauce code' is riddled with bugs that need fixing. (The irony of Jon Katz not even being able to inflate his scrotum correctly has not been lost on me.) The Linux pervert elite already acknowledge this, with their queer slogan: 'Given enough arms, all rectums are shallow.' And anyway, the PS2 sucks major cock and isn't worth the money. Intellivision forever!

dude did u used to post on msnbc's nt bulletin board now that u are doing anti-gay posts u also need to start in with anti-black stuff too c u in church -- Anonymous Coward, Slashdot

For one thing, whilst Linux is a cavalcade of queer propaganda masquerading as the future of computing, NT is used by people who think nothing better of encasing their genitals in quick setting plaster then going to see a really dirty porno film, enjoying the restriction enforced onto them. Remember, a wasted arousal is a sin in the eyes of the Catholic church. Clearly, the only god-fearing Christian operating system in existence is CP/M -- The Christian Program Monitor. All computer users should immediately ask their local pastor to install this fine OS onto their systems. It is the only route to salvation.

Secondly, this message is for every man. Computers know no colour. Not only that, but one of the finest websites in the world is maintained by a Black Man . Now fuck off you racist donkey felcher.

And don't forget that slashdot was written in Perl, which is just too close to 'Pearl Necklace' for comfort.... oh wait; that's something all you heterosexuals do.... I can't help but wonder how much faster the trolls could do First-Posts on this site if it were redone in PHP... I could hand-type dynamic HTML pages faster than Perl can do them. -- phee, Slashdot

Although there is nothing unholy about the fine heterosexual act of ejaculating between a woman's breasts, squirting one's load up towards her neck and chin area, it should be noted that Perl (standing for Pansies Entering Rectums Locally) is also close to 'Pearl Monocle,' 'Pearl Nosering,' and the ubiquitous 'Pearl Enema.'

One scary thing about Perl is that it contains hidden homosexual messages. Take the following code: LWP::Simple -- It looks innocuous enough, doesn't it? But look at the line closely: There are two colons next to each other! As Larry 'Balls to the' Wall would openly admit in the Perl Documentation, Perl was designed from the ground up to indoctrinate it's programmers into performing unnatural sexual acts -- having two colons so closely together is clearly a reference to the perverse sickening act of 'colon kissing,' whereby two homosexual queers spread their buttocks wide, pressing their filthy torn sphincters together. They then share small round objects like marbles or golfballs by passing them from one rectum to another using muscle contraction alone. This is also referred to in programming 'circles' as 'Parameter Passing.'

And PHP stands for Perverted Homosexual Penetration. Didn't you know?

Thank you for your valuable input on this. I am sure you will be never forgotten. BTW: Did I mention that this could be useful in terraforming Mars? Mars rulaa. -- Eimernase, Slashdot

Well, I don't know about terraforming Mars, but I do know that homosexual Linux Advocates have been probing Uranus for years.

That's inspiring. Keep up the good work, AC. May God in his wisdom grant you the strength to bring the plain honest truth to this community, and make it pure again. Yours, Cerberus. -- Anonymous Coward, Slashdot

*sniff* That brings a tear to my eye. Thank you once more for your kind support. I have taken faith in the knowledge that I am doing the Good Lord's work, but it is encouraging to know that I am helping out the common man here.

However, I should be cautious about revealing your name 'Cerberus' on such a filthy den of depravity as Slashdot. It is a well known fact that the 'Kerberos' documentation from Microsoft is a detailed manual describing, in intimate, exacting detail, how to sexually penetrate a variety of unwilling canine animals; be they domesticated, wild, or mythical. Slashdot posters have taken great pleasure in illegally spreading this documentation far and wide, treating it as an 'extension' to the Linux 'Sauce Code,' for the sake of 'interoperability.' (The slang term they use for nonconsensual intercourse -- their favourite kind.)

In fact, sick twisted Linux deviants are known to have LAN parties, (Love of Anal Naughtiness, needless to say.), wherein they entice a stray dog, known as the 'Samba Mount,' into their homes. Up to four of these filth-sodden blasphemers against nature take turns to plunge their erect, throbbing, uncircumcised members, conkers-deep, into the rectum, mouth, and other fleshy orifices of the poor animal. Eventually, the 'Samba Mount' collapses due to 'overload,' and needs to be 'rebooted.' (i.e., kicked out into the street, and left to fend for itself.) Many Linux users boast about their 'uptime' in such situations.

Inspiring stuff! If only all trolls were this quality! -- Anonymous Coward, Slashdot

If only indeed. You can help our brave cause by moderating this message up as often as possible. I recommend '+1, Underrated,' as that will protect your precious Karma in Metamoderation. Only then can we break through the glass ceiling of Homosexual Slashdot Culture. Is it any wonder that the new version of Slashcode has been christened 'Bender'???

If we can get just one of these postings up to at least '+1,' then it will be archived forever! Others will learn of our struggle, and join with us in our battle for freedom!

It's pathetic you've spent so much time writing this. -- Anonymous Coward, Slashdot

I am compelled to document the foulness and carnal depravity that is Linux, in order that we may prepare ourselves for the great holy war that is to follow. It is my solemn duty to peel back the foreskin of ignorance and apply the wire brush of enlightenment.

As with any great open-source project, you need someone asking this question, so I'll do it. When the hell is version 2.0 going to be ready?!?! -- Anonymous Coward, Slashdot

I could make an arrogant, childish comment along the lines of 'Every time someone asks for 2.0, I won't release it for another 24 hours,' but the truth of the matter is that I'm quite nervous of releasing a 'number two,' as I can guarantee some filthy shit-slurping Linux pervert would want to suck it straight out of my anus before I've even had chance to wipe.

I desperately want to suck your monolithic kernel, you sexy hunk, you. -- Anonymous Coward, Slashdot

I sincerely hope you're Natalie Portman.

Dude, nothing on slashdot larger than 3 paragraphs is worth reading. Try to distill the message, whatever it was, and maybe I'll read it. As it is, I have to much open source software to write to waste even 10 seconds of precious time. 10 seconds is all its gonna take M$ to whoop Linux's ass. Vigilence is the price of Free (as in libre -- from the fine, frou frou French language) Software. Hack on fellow geeks, and remember: Friday is Bouillabaisse day except for heathens who do not believe that Jesus died for their sins. Those godless, oil drench, bearded sexist clowns can pull grits from their pantaloons (another fine, fine French word) and eat that. Anyway, try to keep your message focused and concise. For concision is the soul of derision. Way. -- Anonymous Coward, Slashdot

What the fuck?

I've read your gay conspiracy post version 1.3.0 and I must say I'm impressed. In particular, I appreciate how you have managed to squeeze in a healthy dose of the latent homosexuality you gay-bashing homos tend to be full of. Thank you again. -- Anonymous Coward, Slashdot

Well bugger me!

ooooh honey. how insecure are you!!! wann a little massage from deare bruci. love you -- Anonymous Coward, Slashdot

Fuck right off!

IMPORTANT: This message needs to be heard (Not HURD, which is an acronym for 'Huge Unclean Rectal Dilator') across the whole community, so it has been released into the Public Domain. You know, that licence that we all had before those homoerotic crypto-fascists came out with the GPL (Gay Penetration License) that is no more than an excuse to see who's got the biggest feces-encrusted cock. I would have put this up on Freshmeat, but that name is known to be a euphemism for the tight rump of a young boy.

Come to think of it, the whole concept of 'Source Control' unnerves me, because it sounds a bit like 'Sauce Control,' which is a description of the homosexual practice of holding the base of the cock shaft tightly upon the point of ejaculation, thus causing a build up of semenal fluid that is only released upon entry into an incision made into the base of the receiver's scrotum. And 'Open Sauce' is the act of ejaculating into another mans face or perhaps a biscuit to be shared later. Obviously, 'Closed Sauce' is the only Christian thing to do, as evidenced by the fact that it is what Cathedrals are all about.

Contributors: (although not to the eternal game of 'soggy biscuit' that open 'sauce' development has become) Anonymous Coward, Anonymous Coward, phee, Anonymous Coward, mighty jebus, Anonymous Coward, Anonymous Coward, double_h, Anonymous Coward, Eimernase, Anonymous Coward, Anonymous Coward, Anonymous Coward, Anonymous Coward, Anonymous Coward, Anonymous Coward, Anonymous Coward, Anonymous Coward. Further contributions are welcome.

Current changes: This version sent to FreeWIPO by 'Bring BackATV' as plain text. Reformatted everything, added all links back in (that we could match from the previous version), many new ones (Slashbot bait links). Even more spelling fixed. Who wrote this thing, CmdrTaco himself?

Previous changes: Yet more changes added. Spelling fixed. Feedback added. Explanation of 'distro' system. 'Mount Point' syntax described. More filth regarding `man` and Slashdot. Yet more fucking spelling fixed. 'Fetchmail' uncovered further. More Slashbot baiting. Apache exposed. Distribution licence at foot of document.

ANUX -- A full Linux distribution... Up your ass!

Though the author points out crufts only in software, these are prevalent in other places too, including interfaces to portable devices. I have a similar document on portable device interfaces here.

It comes out of designing without taking into account user actions and reactions. This subject is un-fashionably called "Industrial Design", but is becoming fashionable again....

FYI, WB will be releasing a set of Matrix anime in 2003, and it will be called Animatrix.

To consider these movies to be animé is to be both ignorant and illogical. These show are much more related to hong-kong action movies than to japanese cartoons.

Check out the Matrix / Ghost in the Shell Comparison. It's quite clear that the Wachowski brothers were influenced by anime.

The Matrix follows very much in the style of action anime. And it's not just the fight scenes. The way the characters move when they are in the Matrix is quite distinct from real life. It's all very purposeful, direct, and aesthetic. In other words, very much like how anime characters move.

I suspect one of the reasons why this happens in anime is that it's easier to animate characters if they don't make all the uneccessary movements that real people make. It also looks cooler. Action anime characters tend to look like they're posing all the time. Every cell of animation is drawn to deliver the most aesthetic appeal. You will find that Matrix characters are similar in this respect. Some examples are Trinity's "Doge this!" scene, and the Morpheus (and gang) "We're in" picking-up-the-phone scene. In the latter, the characters in the background don't even move, just like in an anime.

A dual 1GHz G4 OS X system vs the $300 cheaper dual Athlon 1800+ MP WinXP box, which normally comes with a gig of RAM, but they ripped out half of it so both systems would have the same. Who wins anyway? The MP by about 70% every test.

[533MHz 512MB G4 OS X] / [633MHz 128MB $399 Compaq Celeron WinXP] times: startup 102s/41s...login 19s/6s...launch IE 10s/3s...scrolling a PDF 50s/33s...shutdown 36s/19s.

"Truth is, the G4 is little more than a G3 with a slightly better math section and an internal graphics coprocessor (AltiVec)."

Don't forget this, too.

I wonder when they're coming out with the new Vic-20?

Be careful what you wish for... The CommodoreOne is already in development. Individual Computers (makers of the Catweasel, featured on /. a few days ago) has signed on to sell the board when it goes into production.

I still can't believe /. didn't accept the story about this when I submitted it. I mean, it's a new C=64 being developed by one cute Electrical Engineer (see bottom of page)

Meanwhile I use NTLM aps to bypass MS ISA Server with Mozilla, Gozilla, Teleport, wget ...

Actually there's this story & link from the Ottawa business Journal. Dunno if it is anything like Not Nortel or not, but it may be a start for them...

Here is a mirror. Post any other mirrors you might have, in reply, please.

Try this site for more information. ;-) I hope it's useful. :)

I've been using a Python NTLM proxy at my work for the past month and it's great. I point whatever is being blocked by M$'s server software at the local proxy and it does the work for me.

http://www.geocities.com/rozmanov/ntlm/

It's GPLed and works as advertised. Once I figure out how to make it run as a service, it'll be perfect.

-Russ

This is odd to me. Since Mozilla hit 1.0, I've been creating pages for Mozilla first, then checking them in IE and they always come out right. This is partly because IE makes lots of assumptions to cover up bad code (such as not closing tags). While that might seem nice, it really is a band-aid solution that only makes the application unnecessarily large and encourages bad practices.

Mozilla doesn't invent its own standards - why don't you look at the HTML code generated by MS Word if you want to see invented standards! Look at IE's "page transitions," which seem to exist only to alert you that the web "designer" found a "really cool feature" in FrontPage.

Lastly, Java was intended to be "write once, run anywhere." JavaScript was originally a Netscape extension in the browser wars which MS picked up on, and has now become ECMAScript.

And frankly, your url (http://www.geocities.com/scotthallexpress/Bio.htm l) doesn't lend you a whole lot of credibility in terms of web design knowledge. Anybody who has a Geocities Wrestling fansite (created with Yahoo pagebuilder no less) is going to have a tough time finding an audience to talk to about proper web design.

A concert at the end of the Universe? Wouldn't Disaster Area be a more appropriate act?

You can use a nifty Python proxy for NTLM. I used it for six months and it worked great.

There's an NTLM authorization proxy server, written in Python, available at

http://www.geocities.com/rozmanov/ntlm

It works pretty well for me at my company. It's written in Python 1.5.2, but I was able to make a couple changes to get it to run under 2.2. Using it under OS X right now.

Kofi's speech at Harvard delves further into this subject.

Here's where you can find further case studies to suggest that there is something to this report.

Here's a development effort that is porting further game titles as well.

Sections in this document:

• English Inflections
• Classical Inflections and References
• Journey Into the Fourth Declension (new)
• Other Latin Resources
• ASM News
• ASM News Update (new)
• Footnotes

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. ]

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], 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 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], 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 (some poison), pelagus (the sea, usually poetically), and vulgus (the crowd). None appear to admit plurals. Perhaps this is because they are mass nouns, not count nouns. [3]

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]

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] Betts and dispute the 2nd declension theory. The first is classical, from Ammianus:

qui ut coluber copia virus exuberans natorum

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 :-)

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

alt.usage.english FAQ 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 [...] 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 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.

Latin inflections 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

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

Here are some Web resources: The Perseus Project 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 for a definition and forms, or find its citations in literature. Here's one by Vergil.

Latin Textbook: Wheelock's Latin (HTML) 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 Innumerable links, including some to on-line interactive exercises and to various dictionaries.

Transcriptio Nuntiorum Hebdomadalis 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 Various Latin snippets and sound clips. Footnotes [1] One examble of an invariant genitive form of virus is attested in Ammianus, 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 , the only extant Romance tongue with anything aproximating neuter nouns (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:

• English Inflections
• Classical Inflections and References
• Other Latin Resources
• ASM News
• Footnotes

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, Oratio in Catilinam Prima, 2

piss@fuck.com Last update: Wed Nov 17 09:20:10 MST 1969

Sections in this document:

• English Inflections
• Classical Inflections and References
• Journey Into the Fourth Declension (new)
• Other Latin Resources
• ASM News
• ASM News Update (new)
• Footnotes

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. ]

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], 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 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], 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 (some poison), pelagus (the sea, usually poetically), and vulgus (the crowd). None appear to admit plurals. Perhaps this is because they are mass nouns, not count nouns. [3]

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]

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] Betts and dispute the 2nd declension theory. The first is classical, from Ammianus:

qui ut coluber copia virus exuberans natorum

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 :-)

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

alt.usage.english FAQ 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 [...] 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 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.

Latin inflections 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

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

Here are some Web resources: The Perseus Project 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 for a definition and forms, or find its citations in literature. Here's one by Vergil.

Latin Textbook: Wheelock's Latin (HTML) 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 Innumerable links, including some to on-line interactive exercises and to various dictionaries.

Transcriptio Nuntiorum Hebdomadalis 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 Various Latin snippets and sound clips. Footnotes [1] One examble of an invariant genitive form of virus is attested in Ammianus, 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 , the only extant Romance tongue with anything aproximating neuter nouns (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:

• English Inflections
• Classical Inflections and References
• Other Latin Resources
• ASM News
• Footnotes

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, Oratio in Catilinam Prima, 2

piss@fuck.com Last update: Wed Nov 17 09:20:10 MST 1969

I'd be surprised if anyone can genuinely claim to have invented the subroutine. I bet it was independently invented by many different people, probably even before the invention of modern computers. Turing had subroutine-type ideas when he worked on the ACE. I'd guess Babbage and Lovelace also had related ideas. This page claims they were invented by Grace Hopper.

Mulder and Scully first encountered the black cancer in a moon rock!

And of course, what would slashdot be without the... Obligatory Python Link

Tablizer has some strong views on programming languages, which can generally be summed up as something like "databases are a programming language; all other languages are inferior to databases" [1]. For more details, feel free to try and twist your brain around his article on Table Oriented Programming.

His intellectual hostility towards anything except his own ideas (and object oriented programming in particular) is fairly well known, and been discussed to death on /. before. In short, this is a fellow who has ver likely never really bothered to try to understand design patterns, nor any other OOP concept, beyond the point of mastering whatever jargon he needs to start arguing his pet theory that databases are a superior programming language.

"But the fact that some geniuses were laughed at does not imply that all who are laughed at are geniuses. They laughed at Columbus, they laughed at Fulton, they laughed at the Wright Brothers. But they also laughed at Bozo the Clown."

[1] For the record, this is my own summary of his position, not his own words.