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"However deplorable such tactics are, neither the fiducial damage, nor "exposure", nor -- certainly -- "discomfort" compare with violence, especially, the deadly violence, which, really, is required to qualify for a terrorist these days."

"Required to qualify for a terrorist these days" Well you are allowed to have a personal opinion I guess, well maybe not, it depends, it seems I don't have that right in your view. I guess the old euphemism may apply here, you know where opinions are like assholes... Look physical violence is far from the only tool historically used to install terror in an individual or a population. It is not even the preferred method of those in powerful positions as it is inflexible and kind of hard to back out of. Physical violence, like ad hominem attacks in an argument, is usually the last resort of the desperate, ie: the one with the weakest position. This is regardless of who may or may not be the most powerful physical force at the time.

"I have, actually. A team of lawyers and the computer-forensics experts they hired were right here in this room searching through my hard-drives... But not for a second was I afraid for my life or limb. May lawyers be your biggest problem ever."

Really a team of computer-forensics experts were hired to examine your systems and they did so without removing them from your room? Nice bit of luck there you had huh? Good thing they did not want to find something bad enough or some 300 lb brother or bubba might be changing your mind about the possibility of being terrorized due to legal woes, as well as some amusing definitions of discomfort.

"Yawn... There you go, using the term with very specific definition as a general-purpose derogatory word. I'll finish this by calling you a cretin -- purely as another example of same."

Aww how cute of you insinuate that am below your level of intellectual discourse with the implication that you are bored with my arguments. If you feel the need to resort to ad hominem attacks with inferences like this or "as an example of the same" to indirectly call me a cretin, go ahead and do it outright. Trying so hard to sound aloof and smug about it defeats your attempt to sound witty.

If you insist on a current non topical and unbiased definition of terror/terrorism I think a dictionary is a decent place to get a definition, even today. Again I submit:
http://www.m-w.com/dictionary/terror
http://www.m-w.com/dictionary/terrorism

Wabi-Sabi
Matthew

You are willing to debate Merriam Webster now?

"So, it is your understanding, that police law-enforcement and private lawsuits are Acts of Terror? Wow..."

I'll bite on that one, yes quite often some persons and/or agency's ie:"police law-enforcement" AND certain legal whores who allow or act to bring certain types of "private lawsuit" INTENTIONALLY act in ways to instill terror in individuals they know have done nothing morally wrong with the intent of causing a third party fiducial damage, exposure or discomfort. Happens all the time, just because YOU have not been a victim YET does not mean it does not happen. Personally I consider the premeditated, calculated and wanton destruction of the Constitution and thus our liberty an act of terrorism, and so I think will history, at university level analysis, if they survive the next fifty years. Chew on that.

"It behooves every man who values liberty of conscience for himself, to resist invasions of it in the case of others or their case may, by change of circumstances, become his own." Thomas Jefferson

Wabi-Sabi
Matthew

http://www.m-w.com/dictionary/terror

terror
3 entries found.

Main Entry:
        terror Listen to the pronunciation of terror
Pronunciation:
        \ter-r, te-rr\
Function:
        noun
Etymology:
        Middle English, from Anglo-French terrour, from Latin terror, from terrre to frighten; akin to Greek trein to be afraid, flee, tremein to tremble -- more at tremble
Date:
        14th century

1: a state of intense fear2 a: one that inspires fear : scourge b: a frightening aspect c: a cause of anxiety : worry d: an appalling person or thing; especially : brat3: reign of terror4: violent or destructive acts (as bombing) committed by groups in order to intimidate a population or government into granting their demands
synonyms see fear
-- terrorless Listen to the pronunciation of terrorless \-ls\ adjective

The first time I heard the expression twenty years ago, "the exception that proves the rule", I thought it had the hallmarks of group think.

http://www.m-w.com/dictionary/ad+hominem

As for the definition of the word "racist": There are only a tiny handful of peoples who are capable of producing a man who can win a Fields Medal or a Nobel Prize in Physics: Largely they are Caucasians [to include the Ashkenazim & the Lebanese Christians], Pacific Rim Asians, and [only] the very highest castes from the Indian Subcontinent; conversely, the finals of the 100 meter dash at the Olympics will always consist almost entirely of men who are descended from the tribes of West Africa [or at least the finals would consist almost entirely of such men if national quotas didn't unfairly and unnaturally limit and restrict the participants at the Olympics].

No one - not even the most ardent marxist academic - bothers to try to convince himself otherwise anymore.

But, of course, the modern definition of "racist" does not identify, as the villain, he who notices these differences - we all notice them - but rather the word "racist" has come to apply to anyone who has the temerity [or foolhardiness] to verbalize the observation.

On the other hand, that's not what the word "racist" is supposed to mean: A racist is supposed to be someone who believes that a government should enforce [with the barrel of a gun] an agenda which:

1) Involves seizing the private property of dis-favored races.

2) Involves setting aside educational appointments and business opportunities for favored races.

3) Involves denying taxpayer-subsidized goodies to dis-favored races.

4) Involves the racialization of criminal arrests, prosecutions, and convictions.

5) Involves the seizure of entire continents from dis-favored races.

6) Involves the enslavement of dis-favored races.

7) Involves the slaughter of dis-favored races.

Etc etc etc.

So it's impossible for any classical liberal - one who believes that men should be judged not by the color of their skin, but by rather the content of their character, and who believes that governments, and their gun barrels, really ought not exist in the first place - it is impossible for him to be a "racist" within the bounds of any meaning which that word was intended to connote.

But, again, as I have said over and over in this little conversation of ours: NONE OF THE SEMANTIC DISTINCTIONS ARE OF ANY IMPORTANCE WHATSOEVER.

What is important is the underlying truth of the matter: Barring some unforseen tragedy [your being struck by lightning, etc], YOU WILL LIVE TO EXPERIENCE THE IMMINENT TRAGEDY [& CATASTROPHE] OF DYSGENIC FERTILITY.

In the meantime, perform your very small - yet almost infinitely important - role in making the future a better place for us all [both we who are already born, and those of us who are yet-to-be-born]: Go find the smartest girl yo

Oh what a difference an "e" and an "i" makes. :) Although I had meant to use compliment in it's whole meaning http://www.m-w.com/dictionary/compliment compliment "formal and respectful recognition"

http://www.m-w.com/

I would expect my company to use every legal pressure available to safeguard our trade secrets. Furthermore, it isn't censorship, because it isn't the government. But I like your sarcasm none-the-less.

Main Entry:
censor
Function:
transitive verb
Inflected Form(s):
censored; censoring Listen to the pronunciation of censoring \sen(t)-s-ri, sen(t)s-ri\ Date: 1882
: to examine in order to suppress or delete anything considered objectionable ; also : to suppress or delete as objectionable

Merriam Webster says you are wrong.

Nope, not by MY definition at all . . .

Merriam-Webster's though - http://www.m-w.com/cgi-bin/dictionary?va=propaganda/

Nope.

But I think the term "datum" would fit the bill fine though. It being the singular (latin plural at least, no matter what m-w.com says) for data, and all. Actually I'm sure there are plenty preexisting words that would work just fine, without having to invent moronic neologisms for no reason other to make a "buzz".

Please, the language has seen enough abuse, leave it alone.

Knowledge is knowing that the FooStor hard drives and pieces of shit and you shouldn't use them.

Isn't that data as well? It's certainly an extrapolation of previously recorded data:

out of 500 FooStor hard drives there were 300 failures

While there are many arguments about intelligence, it would seem that knowledge would be properly defined as the accumulation of data. Whether bad data (incorrect knowledge, e.g. witches made of wood like ducks) counts as knowledge is a topic all its own ...

Webster's definition does seem to back you up at least on its face, since although it includes "knowing something with familiarity gained through experience or association" as well as an example of what you have above, "the circumstance or condition of apprehending truth or fact through reasoning," however, it also includes "the range of one's information or understanding" as well as "the sum of what is known : the body of truth, information, and principles acquired by humankind."

So according to some definitions of knowledge data would seem to be an equivalent, but others require the processing (understanding) of data (like in your example). Based on the article though Knols look like data to me...

Merriam-Webster's word of the year would be in their dictionary.

http://www.m-w.com/dictionary/w00t. Odd that.

http://m-w.com/dictionary/devolution
I'll save you the click: "2: retrograde evolution : degeneration"

http://www.m-w.com/dictionary/racism

    1 : a belief that race is the primary determinant of human traits and capacities and that racial differences produce an inherent superiority of a particular race 2 : racial prejudice or discrimination

It appears YOU are the one who doesn't know what racism is, and are trying to create a definition that supports your points while ignoring the real definition.

Webster's and two other dictionaries disagree.

Per the Merriam-Webster online dictionary at http://m-w.com/dictionary/any [m-w.com]:

        1: one or some indiscriminately of whatever kind: a: one or another taken at random b: every --used to indicate one selected without restriction
        2: one, some, or all indiscriminately of whatever quantity: a: one or more --used to indicate an undetermined number or amount b: all --used to indicate a maximum or whole c: a or some without reference to quantity or extent

Consequently, "any version of Windows runs on this system" could reasonably be spoken to mean "one or more one of the possible versions of Windows runs on this system" or "all of the possible versions of Windows run on this system."

1: one or some indiscriminately of whatever kind: a: one or another taken at random b: every --used to indicate one selected without restriction
2: one, some, or all indiscriminately of whatever quantity: a: one or more --used to indicate an undetermined number or amount b: all --used to indicate a maximum or whole c: a or some without reference to quantity or extent

Spoken like a true Republican. The major source of ignorance on this topic is the hard vacuum between your ears. See, we haven't had the 'dirty bomb' attack yet, but when we do you'll be the first person screaming for the government to do something to protect you.

Like all current Republicans, you conflate (for the vocabulary impaired such as yourself: http://www.m-w.com/dictionary/conflate) right wing propaganda with serious policy issues. In this case, the critical issue is how can this technology be misused? If a terrorist organization obtains one of these units, how much damage can they cause? Suppose that they were able to explode one of these next to the Pentagon or the New York Stock Exchange or outside the Capitol? Are you volunteering to be a part of the clean up crew? Want to go to visit Chernobyl and roll around in the dirt?

This is why part of the new round of power reactors are being given extraordinary immunity from the economic consequences of disaster. Given the past history of industrial processes by US companies, this deserves a lot more debate: Exxon Valdez, Bhopal, and more recently British Petroleum in Texas http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Texas_City_Refinery_(BP).

Personally, I think that 21st century energy is going to be multi-modal: solar, geothermal, wind, biomass and nuclear. They all have their place. We desperately need to get away from fossil fuels for many environmental reasons, not limited to global warming. What I don't want is a bunch of morons like you pretending that the nuclear option is risk free. We need it, but we have to be very careful about how it is used. Your ignorant attitude is a waste of time.

Nope. I lie down. I lay you down. Lie (in this particular use) always refers to the subject; lay typically refers to an an object. See definition 2 lay vs. definition 1 lie.

I blame the old nursery rhyme for all the confusion on this matter - "Now I lay me down to sleep". While technically correct in its usage of lay (not in its usage of me, should be myself), it is a rather unwieldy usage. Much cleaner to say "Now I lie down to sleep", but the scansion is off. Of course, it doesn't help that lay is the past tense of this usage of lie; lied is the past tense of the "telling untruths" use of lie. "You lay down to sleep" IS correct, it just means you did it in the past. Freaking English! I don't know how non-native speaker EVER figure it out.

Nope. I lie down. I lay you down. Lie (in this particular use) always refers to the subject; lay typically refers to an an object. See definition 2 lay vs. definition 1 lie.

I blame the old nursery rhyme for all the confusion on this matter - "Now I lay me down to sleep". While technically correct in its usage of lay (not in its usage of me, should be myself), it is a rather unwieldy usage. Much cleaner to say "Now I lie down to sleep", but the scansion is off. Of course, it doesn't help that lay is the past tense of this usage of lie; lied is the past tense of the "telling untruths" use of lie. "You lay down to sleep" IS correct, it just means you did it in the past. Freaking English! I don't know how non-native speaker EVER figure it out.

The U.S. is NOT a democracy (we're a republic, damnit, get your facts right)

Seeing as how a republic is "a government having a chief of state who is not a monarchy" a democracy can very well be a republic.

See this. I'll repost it here, too:
"To cry Wolf! To give a false alarm. The allusion is to the well-known fable of the shepherd lad who used to cry Wolf! merely to make fun of the neighbours, but when at last the wolf came no one would believe him.
So, in essence, it means "to be alarmist", as "later warnings may fall on deaf ears".

M-W defines it as "to give alarm unnecessarily".

There's a large difference between the name being possible to find by going to the right places, and having it plastered all over the place. What is the purpose? The only purpose I can see of posting their identity is that people hope that "someone" is going to do something with that information.

Have you ever heard of ostracism?

The U.S. is NOT a democracy (we're a republic, damnit, get your facts right)

Seeing as how a republic is "a government having a chief of state who is not a monarchy" a democracy can very well be a republic.

Philosophers as far back as Plato have warned against democracies and "majority rule"

Plato's teacher Socrates opposed democracy as well. That's why he was put on trial, today it would be called "Contributing to the delinquency of a minor" or "inciting to riot". Confucius also opposed anything like democracy, actually if you were to read Confucius's "Analects" and Plato's "The Republic" they say similar things.

Actually, if you look irony up in a few online dictionaries, you'll find that "unexpected outcome of events" is now an accepted meaning.

It's still a disputed meaning, to be sure, but then I remember hearing "ain't is not a word!" growing up. I never hear that at all anymore. Now it's informal. I imagine most contractions were at one point.

English is not a dead language.

You are completely wrong.

If what you say is true then why is there a whole group of law that concerns copyright infringement? Why not simply use the theft laws already on the books?

Theft is taking a physical object.

Copyright infringement is copying something that you are not allowed to copy. Look I'm not going to debate this because it isn't my opinion. It's fact.

*Whoosh!*

Look into this.

Can you post your carbon footprint in kilograms instead of that mysterious unit?

Tonne == metric ton. It is the only English meaning of the word. Check Google define: if you still find something mysterious about it.

These buildings are ugly now and they were just built. I can only imagine how future generations will look at this Gehry turds on the urban landscape.

Whatever, I'm going to just warm up some Jiffy Pop and enjoy the demolition of these eyesores. I can't wait to find out if the Millenium Park Concert Center has popcorn inside.

P.S. this is not meant to be a troll. I really am this apoplectic whenever I see a city, or instution paying for work that I consider hideous.

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

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

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

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

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

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

http://www.m-w.com/dictionary/giga

What needs protecting is the ability of people to enjoy those rights

Okay. I don't see the point in distinguishing between my rights and my ability to enjoy my rights. I fail to see how you can deprive me of my life while leaving my right to life intact, but if you see a distinction, so be it.

You said: If it were not so, the will and testament of a dead person, for instance, would amount to nothing, you'd be free to harvest any corpses you can lay your hands on for transplants, then in reference to this statement expounded

First example pertains the right to property, second to habeas corpus.

Wow. Just, wow. FYI, habeas corpus has NOTHING to do with corpses.

I never heard of basic human rights including the right to be willfuly ignorant and advocate murder.

I'll limit myself to this one comment on the irony of you accusing me of ignorance, but I will say that I never advocated murder. Guess what? Not everyone that disagrees with you is pure evil. Try reading my posts w/o that implicit assumption and I suspect you will come away with a significantly different interpretation.

Additionally, my sarcasm concerning your advocacy of rights was in response to your desire for my rights to be violated w/ a rubber hose. I guess observance of rights is only for people you like, huh?

p.s. I'm still giggling over habeas corpus concerning the rights of corpses :)

1: of, relating to, or suggestive of a wild beast 2 b: having escaped from domestication and become wild

(emphasis added)

You are, in fact, wrong, see http://www.m-w.com/cgi-bin/dictionary?book=Dictionary&va=COMPRISE.

Starting with 9/11 the Bush administration has made one push after another to grab more and more power for the President:

1. Locking up suspects without filing charges or bringing them to trial
2. Warrantless wiretaps
3. FISA searches have increased by several orders of magnitude
4. Claiming state secrets when congress tries to investigate his wrongdoing
5. Taking declassified documents from the Nixon era and making them classified again
6. Pulling public documents out of libraries
7. Ordering government employees to get approval from political appointees before publishing publicly-funded research
8. Torturing suspects
9. Pushing for legislation that would require ISPs to log all activity from all users
10. Barring people from taking so much as a bottle of water on an airplane
11. Setting up no-fly lists
12. Building up a list of more than 700,000 suspected terrorists. It is illegal for employers, banks, etc. to let these people have their own money without first getting permission from the Treasury Department.
13. Creating and enforcing "free speech zones" which hide protesters out of site of government officials
14. Secret prisons
15. Firing prosecutors for declining to file charges against the President's political opponents.
16. Refusing to comply with congressional inquiries claiming executive privilege.

Seriously, every week we see another story about new powers the Bush administration is claiming to possess and abusing with impunity. You need to pay attention to what's going on. Bush is by far the most authoritarian President in my lifetime and perhaps the most authoritarian in U.S. history.

Incidentally, the term has been used both ways, and has etymologically distinct roots, so millionfold meaning 'a million times' is valid.
I can't link directly to it, at the sixth entry (-fold) at Miriam Webster's.

  Now I'm looking at all this from a humorous point of view, so please don't take this wrong, but just because something is listed in a dictionary does not make it correct. They simply cite common (mis)usage of words.

Case in point: The aforementioned website listing for the word http://www.m-w.com/dictionary/theory/ "theory" indicates it is a synonym for hypothesis, which is absolutely, deadly wrong. The layman misuse of scientific/mathematical terms is pretty frustrating. The meanings of the terms conjecture, hypothesis, and theory are are very distinct and do not overlap, there is no ambiguity here whatsoever.

  One of my favorite quotes from Babylon 5 is "If you can not say what you mean, you can never mean what you say". I try my best, but often do not succeed.

ron

Just to be clear on something, I never used the word millionfold in my submission. That was kdawson editing my post for his own glory.

Incidentally, the term has been used both ways, and has etymologically distinct roots, so millionfold meaning 'a million times' is valid.
I can't link directly to it, at the sixth entry (-fold) at Miriam Webster's.

Nonetheless, it wasn't my word. Neither was the claim that the comet is 'starlike in binoculars.'

As a non-native speaker, I thought I just learnt a new word...

But it wasn't ...
http://m-w.com/dictionary/Relise

Main Entry:

Pronunciation:
        \hak\
Function:
        verb
Etymology:
        Middle English hakken, from Old English -haccian; akin to Old High German hacchn to hack, Old English hc hook
Date:
        13th century

transitive verb
1 a: to cut or sever with repeated irregular or unskillful blows
b: to cut or shape by or as if by crude or ruthless strokes
c: annoy, vex --often used with off
2: to clear or make by or as if by cutting away vegetation
3 a: to manage successfully
b: tolerate

intransitive verb
1 a: to make chopping strokes or blows ; also : to make cuts as if by chopping
b: to play inexpert golf
2: to cough in a short dry manner
3: loaf --usually used with around
4 a: to write computer programs for enjoyment
b: to gain access to a computer illegally

However, will users follow microsoft's versions, or the free forked versions? That's the interesting question that only time will tell.

I was going for definition 4a.
http://www.m-w.com/dictionary/normal ;-)

More seriously, I was really emphasizing the contrast vs the proposition in the first half of my post.

http://m-w.com/dictionary/memorizable

How did you get the idea that 'up' is an adverb and not a preposition?

In sentences such as "Look up!", the function of the word is to modify the verb, and that it has no object. Even in the sentence "Look up her street address.", (where some grammarians say the two words "look up" form a two-word "phrasal verb", and some people would actually combine them as "lookup") "up" isn't a preposition like it is in "Drive up her street.", where "street" (as modified by "her") is the object of the preposition "up".

Dear AC:

The /. editors don't write the titles or summaries. The submitter, Elektroschock in this case, did.

Which part do you consider sensationalized? The title "Thunderbird in Crisis?" I'm sorry, but the two lead developers no longer playing a role in how the project is led, with no indication of who is going to lead the project from now on is a crisis.

The only other part that isn't fact (or reasonable conclusions drawn from facts) is "What happened to Mozilla? Is it a case of pauperization through donations?" This is a legitimate concern. Mozilla Foundation founded Mozilla Corporation as a money making operation, with Google as its main client. Mozilla Corp. then kicked out Thunderbird to focus on the development of Firefox.

Merriam Webster has the following as part of the definition of pauper: "a person destitute of means except such as are derived from charity." I'm assuming this is what the poster meant.

Sincerely,
vgpowerlord

He's not attacking anyone, he's just asking a question. He only asked why kdawson hasn't been fired, he didn't say kdawson should be fired. Maybe the answer is, "Because kdawson is doing an incredible job."

Recent criticism of the use of myriad as a noun, both in the plural form myriads and in the phrase a myriad of, seems to reflect a mistaken belief that the word was originally and is still properly only an adjective. As the entries here show, however, the noun is in fact the older form, dating to the 16th century. The noun myriad has appeared in the works of such writers as Milton (plural myriads) and Thoreau (a myriad of), and it continues to occur frequently in reputable English. There is no reason to avoid it.

You're wrong: http://www.m-w.com/dictionary/myriad

From the Mirriam-Webster dictionary: Recent criticism of the use of myriad as a noun, both in the plural form myriads and in the phrase a myriad of, seems to reflect a mistaken belief that the word was originally and is still properly only an adjective. As the entries here show, however, the noun is in fact the older form, dating to the 16th century. The noun myriad has appeared in the works of such writers as Milton (plural myriads) and Thoreau (a myriad of), and it continues to occur frequently in reputable English. There is no reason to avoid it.