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Seriously though, we live in a democracy

Err, maybe you should have looked up democracy too:

1 a : government by the people; especially : rule of the majority b : a government in which the supreme power is vested in the people and exercised by them directly or indirectly through a system of representation usually involving periodically held free elections
2 : a political unit that has a democratic government
3 capitalized : the principles and policies of the Democratic party in the U.S.
4 : the common people especially when constituting the source of political authority
5 : the absence of hereditary or arbitrary class distinctions or privileges

The RIAA doesn't call it "theft." They call it "stealing."

Try this one on for size(it's from www.m-w.com):

Main Entry: 1 steal
Pronunciation: 'stE(&)l
Function: verb
Inflected Form(s): stole /'stOl/; stolen /'stO-l&n/; stealing
Etymology: Middle English stelen, from Old English stelan; akin to Old High German stelan to steal
Date: before 12th century
intransitive senses
1 : to take the property of another wrongfully and especially as an habitual or regular practice ...

transitive senses
1 a : to take or appropriate without right or leave and with intent to keep or make use of wrongfully [stole a car] b : to take away by force or unjust means [they've stolen our liberty] c : to take surreptitiously or without permission [steal a kiss] d : to appropriate to oneself or beyond one's proper share : make oneself the focus of [steal the show] ...

synonyms STEAL, PILFER, FILCH, PURLOIN mean to take from another without right or without detection. STEAL may apply to any surreptitious taking of something and differs from the other terms by commonly applying to intangibles as well as material things [steal jewels] [stole a look at the gifts] . PILFER implies stealing repeatedly in small amounts [pilfered from his employer]. FILCH adds a suggestion of snatching quickly and surreptitiously [filched an apple from the tray]. PURLOIN stresses removing or carrying off for one's own use or purposes [printed a purloined document].

Emphasis added in the last section. That sums it up quite well. Now take your lame-ass argument and get lost. We don't need people like you giving the RIAA more ammo by standing up and making an ass out of all of us.

The recording industry is not going to sue the tens of thousands of Americans who engage in these practices. But it hopes to make an example of a few users to add teeth to the infringement warnings that file-swapping services send to their customers--and to pressure those services to pressure their customers to stop copying files.

hmm isnt that extortion? m-w

Seriously though, we live in a democracy

Err, actually, we live in a republic:

1 a (1) : a government having a chief of state who is not a monarch and who in modern times is usually a president (2) : a political unit (as a nation) having such a form of government b (1) : a government in which supreme power resides in a body of citizens entitled to vote and is exercised by elected officers and representatives responsible to them and governing according to law (2) : a political unit (as a nation) having such a form of government c : a usually specified republican government of a political unit (the French Fourth Republic)
2 : a body of persons freely engaged in a specified activity (the republic of letters)
3 : a constituent political and territorial unit of the former nations of Czechoslovakia, the U.S.S.R., or Yugoslavia

(I hope I didn't violate Merriam-Webster's copyright there...)

Sorry, "tebibyte" is not a word.

I suppose if you think that science is a religion, you could argue your points. However, the definition of religion I get in Meriam-Webster implies faith, which my Sunday school teacher always defined as belief without proof.

Now the idea of science as religion is not new. In fact, there is a nice bit about it in Contact by Carl Sagan, in which the religious guy tells the atheist that she believes in science and does a cool experiment with a Foucault pendulum.

The difference between science and religion is then not that they believe but what they believe. Everyone believes in something. That's what humans do. Science just attempts to get proof, while most religions (I would say all, but I don't know all religions) are characterised by the lack of proof.

Main Entry: 1 dupe
Pronunciation: 'düp also 'dyüp
Function: noun
Etymology: French, from Middle French duppe, probably alteration of huppe hoopoe
Date: 1681
: one that is easily deceived or cheated : FOOL

That's "petard", retard.

3 : something established by authority, custom, or general consent as a model or example : CRITERION

4 : something set up and established by authority as a rule for the measure of quantity, weight, extent, value, or quality

You are saying that MP3 is "the standard" format because most people use it. You are using definition #3.

But when technical people say that a format or a technology is "a standard" they are using definition #4: a recognized organization such as ISO, IEEE, ITU, etc. determines the required specifications that the involved elements must follow in order to comply with the standard and therefore maintain compatibility. Following this definition, the MPEG-2 and MPEG-4 formats as well as their audio layers (MP3 and AAC) are "standards" since they are carefully defined by experts designated by ISO and ITU. Some companies love "embracing and extending" standards thus braking them.

Note: Techweb does not allow direct links, so you will need to reload the URL to view the page.

I appreciate your suggestion about reading the article.

You say that he's "attacking the mindset...that Google is the best tool for every job." Like I said in my post, I think he's starting by assuming that this mindset exists. It's a bit of a strawman argument, since almost by definition, there is no tool that's right for every job. I'd also like to point out that you seem unaware that "blame" and "criticize" are subtly different concepts; I don't think he blames Google, I think that he set it up to be something it isn't, and then shows that it isn't that thing. I'm trying to indicate that setting up a weak argument and beating it down isn't really all that hard.

I appreciate your suggestion about reading the article.

You say that he's "attacking the mindset...that Google is the best tool for every job." Like I said in my post, I think he's starting by assuming that this mindset exists. It's a bit of a strawman argument, since almost by definition, there is no tool that's right for every job. I'd also like to point out that you seem unaware that "blame" and "criticize" are subtly different concepts; I don't think he blames Google, I think that he set it up to be something it isn't, and then shows that it isn't that thing. I'm trying to indicate that setting up a weak argument and beating it down isn't really all that hard.

You'd be surprised at how big numbers can be and still have names. (For what it's worth, I prefer the American names over the British ones, and I'm Australian.)

Hrmm.. dictionary.com and m-w.com don't have it. But there's something for interjectional... Dunno...

Somebody realized that "digital software" is a tautology.

Actually, it's "je ne sais quoi".

Actually, the root is writ (see 2b), and '-ed' form is irregular.

Yes, that was a joke.

Well, we do now, don't we? And that was his point, I'm pretty sure. But you're probably too obtuse to have understood.

And you're welcome for the link.

Bye, now!

Wonderland is that magical place that really doesn't exist ...
wonder:
[...]
3 a: rapt attention or astonishment at something awesomely mysterious or new to one's experience (emphasis by me)
[...]

Wonderland is the place were this happes - and it can be very real.

Why do people use "she" instead of the proper "he" when referring to others of unkown gender? Just because the administrator could be female, the proper pronoun to use is still "he". It isn't any more politically correct to use "she" instead of "he". If you really want to be PC and not use appropriate words, use "he/she" or "s/he".

Looking at the definition of "he":

2 -- used in a generic sense or when the sex of the person is unspecified

Oh, and at least they didn't use "Matrix Dot". *g*

Theft is removing property, so that every part of the property is removed from it's former position. Steal is to take without right or leave the property of another.

Did you find those in a dictionary, or just make them up for your own convenience?

Theft:
1 a : the act of stealing

Dictionary Nazi says,

http://www.m-w.com/cgi-bin/dictionary?book=Diction ary&va=commodification
One entry found for commodify.

Main Entry: commodify
Pronunciation: k&-'mä-d&-"fI
Function: transitive verb
Inflected Form(s): -fied; -fying
Date: 1982
: to turn (as an intrinsic value or a work of art) into a commodity
- commodification /-"mä-d&-f&-'kA-sh&n/ noun

Umm, where does the word machine fit into your photon defintion. A machine does something. This definition is the one that I'm thinking when I hear perpetual motion machine - "an assemblage of parts that transmit forces, motion, and energy one to another in a predetermined manner"

A photon (or any matter) just moving through space falls short of the traditional machine definition.

You're obviously confused over the meaning of the word communism. If we were "whiny little communists" we wouldn't have money and neither would the other guy. In fact, the state would have everything and would distribute goods to people as they needed them. Reality is that there has never been a communist government, rather they were all Marxist governments with no intention of ever progressing into communism. The unattainable goal of a "communistic society" was just a carrot used to make totalitarian rule more palatable to those they were oppressing. Marx and Engles were social idiots who probably drank way too much absinthe while in Paris to even realize that their crappy papers were based on anything but reality. Back to the subject ...

Under capitalism, the goal of the state is to promote open competition. You can reconcile this with anti-trust law since it's goal is to restore open competition. However, patent law prevents open competition. It creates state controlled monopolies whose sole purpose is to prevent free market competition. State granted monopolies are a facet of fascism, not capitalism. I don't see how you can call yourself a free market capitalist but still believe in patents.

You're obviously confused over the meaning of the word communism. If we were "whiny little communists" we wouldn't have money and neither would the other guy. In fact, the state would have everything and would distribute goods to people as they needed them. Reality is that there has never been a communist government, rather they were all Marxist governments with no intention of ever progressing into communism. The unattainable goal of a "communistic society" was just a carrot used to make totalitarian rule more palatable to those they were oppressing. Marx and Engles were social idiots who probably drank way too much absinthe while in Paris to even realize that their crappy papers were based on anything but reality. Back to the subject ...

Under capitalism, the goal of the state is to promote open competition. You can reconcile this with anti-trust law since it's goal is to restore open competition. However, patent law prevents open competition. It creates state controlled monopolies whose sole purpose is to prevent free market competition. State granted monopolies are a facet of fascism, not capitalism. I don't see how you can call yourself a free market capitalist but still believe in patents.

You're obviously confused over the meaning of the word communism. If we were "whiny little communists" we wouldn't have money and neither would the other guy. In fact, the state would have everything and would distribute goods to people as they needed them. Reality is that there has never been a communist government, rather they were all Marxist governments with no intention of ever progressing into communism. The unattainable goal of a "communistic society" was just a carrot used to make totalitarian rule more palatable to those they were oppressing. Marx and Engles were social idiots who probably drank way too much absinthe while in Paris to even realize that their crappy papers were based on anything but reality. Back to the subject ...

Under capitalism, the goal of the state is to promote open competition. You can reconcile this with anti-trust law since it's goal is to restore open competition. However, patent law prevents open competition. It creates state controlled monopolies whose sole purpose is to prevent free market competition. State granted monopolies are a facet of fascism, not capitalism. I don't see how you can call yourself a free market capitalist but still believe in patents.

You're obviously confused over the meaning of the word communism. If we were "whiny little communists" we wouldn't have money and neither would the other guy. In fact, the state would have everything and would distribute goods to people as they needed them. Reality is that there has never been a communist government, rather they were all Marxist governments with no intention of ever progressing into communism. The unattainable goal of a "communistic society" was just a carrot used to make totalitarian rule more palatable to those they were oppressing. Marx and Engles were social idiots who probably drank way too much absinthe while in Paris to even realize that their crappy papers were based on anything but reality. Back to the subject ...

Under capitalism, the goal of the state is to promote open competition. You can reconcile this with anti-trust law since it's goal is to restore open competition. However, patent law prevents open competition. It creates state controlled monopolies whose sole purpose is to prevent free market competition. State granted monopolies are a facet of fascism, not capitalism. I don't see how you can call yourself a free market capitalist but still believe in patents.

It is available in Merriam-Webster. Essentially, it means "boastful."

Dumbass. Show some respect to our President, OK? He's the elected leader of the United States of America, and it's people like you who make me lose faith in the ability of this nation to continue to prosper.

1) What the US calls a shrimp, Australians call a prawn.


Um, no. Shrimp and prawns are two totally different things in the US, and throughout the world actually. However, in the US we do use both terms because some of us know the difference - talk to someone in New Orleans.

Or just check out Merriam-Webster. They say a prawn is "any of numerous widely distributed edible decapod crustaceans (as of the genera Pandalus and Peneus) that resemble shrimps and have large compressed abdomens" but a shrimp is "any of numerous mostly small and marine decapod crustaceans (suborders Dendrobranchiata and Pleocyemata) having a slender elongated body, a compressed abdomen, and a long spiny rostrum." They are in the same family, but prawns are much larger than shrimp.

If you are an Aussie, you could always go here, which is the InfoZone at Museum Victoria. Apparently someone down under knows the difference! Here's an excerpt:

"Shrimp or Prawn?
There is often confusion regarding the difference between a shrimp and a prawn. Physically they look very similar but there is one sure way to tell them apart. In shrimps or carideans the side plate of the second segment of the abdomen overlaps the segments in front and behind. Prawns, most of which belong to the family Penaeidae of the group Dendrobranchiata, have all the abdominal side plates overlapping tile-like from the front. A more fundamental difference but one impossible to appreciate in a single specimen is that female prawns do not brood eggs but shed them into the currents where they develop independently. It would therefore make sense to call all member s of the Penaeidae "prawns" and members of the Caridean "shrimps" and this is what most Australians do. King prawns and banana prawns are names understood in this continent for penaeids sold frozen at the markets. The tiny shrimps bought in cans or froz en are imported carideans. Confusion arises when we hear Americans refer to prawns as "shrimp"."

So, unfortunately, it would seem that even though Museum Victoria knows the difference, most Aussies don't, and incorrectly believe that Americans don't know what they are talking about. Even the last sentence from the InfoZone expresses this belief. This is most distressful for Americans to hear, because we are under the constant barrage of comments from Old Europe, and apparently also Australia, about how sophisticated they are, and how ignorant Americans are. I won't go on record to say that it's really the other way around, but comments like this, from a goverment source even, makes one wonder.

Just checked http://www.m-w.com and confirmed that Architecting is not, in fact, a real word. For that matter neither is "chunking". Unfortunately, neither is "hork" or "hoark" (as in "That rat-bastard just horked my last twinkie!"). Fortunately, "hosed" is acceptable.

Unfortunately according to http://www.m-w.com "twinkie" is also not a word. I'm gonna go out on a limb and guess that rat-bastard isn't either.

http://www.m-w.com/cgi-bin/dictionary?va=spam

"unsolicited usually commercial E-mail sent to a large number of addresses"

Isn't this going to get thrown out pretty fast, since it's a commonly used word, not related to the original product? (unlike Band-aid and Kleenex)

I guess you haven't watched the English language over the last 30 years. We still use the same dictionaries.

buracracy = bureaucracy
millionars= millionaires
space craft = spacecraft
practicle = practical

truly a painful thing to watch the english language devolve online.

As if the universe had something bad to eat the night before, we get a moon named PUCK circling Uranus.

I suspect that the 'funny' mods are not so much laughing with you as at you. Puck, like many of Uranus's satellites, is named after a Shakespearean character. Specifically, Puck is a character from A Midsummer Night's Dream.

So Puck rhymes with f*ck. Though its etymological root would have been pronounced "as if the universe had [had] something bad to eat the night before."

So if I come up with an algorithm to turn lead into gold, I wouldn't be able to get a patent on it with your system?

So if I come up with an algorithm to turn lead into gold, I wouldn't be able to get a patent on it with your system?

3 a (1) : incongruity between the actual result of a sequence of events and the normal or expected result

2: incongruity between what might be expected and what actually occurs: "the irony of Ireland's copying the nation she most hated"

irregardless is now in most dictionaries

Along with the admonition to Use regardless instead.

Anyway, this is semantics, not grammar.

Conversational irony = saying the opposite of what you mean. Sarcasm = a biting or caustic remark. Sarcasm is usually ironic.

I would also like to point out that irony is one of the more mispronounced words in the English language.
http://www.m-w.com/cgi-bin/audio.pl?irony01.wav=ir ony for those who want to learn more.

How ironic that this is definition is actually valid and in the dictionary.

Check the Websters Unabridged Dictionary definition here.

Go figure.

Actually, it isn't.

The REAL Merriam-Webster dictionary site is here.

Here is the meriam webster definition:

1 : an act or the commission of an act that is forbidden or the omission of a duty that is commanded by a public law and that makes the offender liable to punishment by that law; especially : a gross violation of law

2 : a grave offense especially against morality

3 : criminal activity <efforts to fight crime>

4 : something reprehensible, foolish, or disgraceful <it's a crime to waste good food>

Notice the or the omission of a duty line.

Look it up here, at the Merriam-Webster online dictionary. From their definition:

Irregardless originated in dialectal American speech in the early 20th century. Its fairly widespread use in speech called it to the attention of usage commentators as early as 1927. The most frequently repeated remark about it is that "there is no such word." There is such a word, however. It is still used primarily in speech, although it can be found from time to time in edited prose. Its reputation has not risen over the years, and it is still a long way from general acceptance. Use regardless instead.

Translation -- it's not particularly well respected, but it is a word, at least in American speech, and has been since around 1912.

Maybe we need to find P2P services which share dictionaries instead of MP3s.

Sure, I use it and you use it. When my mother uses it, I will accept that it's popular. Until then, it's popular only in a very narrow sense, e.g. "Originating among the people".

No, it's quite definitely popular in the sense of
frequently encountered or widely accepted. And as the earlier poster said, since there's as yet no application of the Linux kernel that doesn't also involve use of the GNU tools, the GNU tools are, at a minimum as popular as the Linux kernel.

TheFrood

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