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But... did anyone else find it hilarious that this poster confused the word "vulnerability" with "venerability". The latter, I assume, would mean "capable of being venerated", defined by MW Online (http://www.m-w.com/netdict.htm) as " to honor (as an icon or a relic) with a ritual act of devotion".

Considering the quasi-religious fervor on both sides of the issue, this struck me as wonderfully a propos.

According to Merriam-Webster, epicenter is synonymous with center. But I agree, it's kind of a hoaky usage.


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"This e-mail address is intended for personal correspondence. I hereby promise not to forward to you any inspirational messages or jokes-of-the-day. I understand that you reserve the right to amend this contract at any time."

I now need to add a line about movies as attachements.

Of course I had already begun drafting a new version for the holidays that bans animated, singing Christmas trees as attachments. I'll just roll it out early.


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Satire
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The simple answer is that copyright is economic censorship (ie. restricting the free distribution of information for economic reasons)

censor - to examine in order to suppress or delete anything considered objectionable1

For copyright to be economic censorship it would have to be the author or content creator performing the censorship, denying other access to the author's own work.

There seems to be an underlying assumption that all people should have the rights to any work. This is right in line with a 5 year old's code of ethics. Everything that exists is mine.

Authors create works for a many reasons, they may use copyright to ensure that their work is distributed as they intended. freenet itself contains a 6 page long copyright notice specifying what can and can not be done with freenet. Are we to believe that it does not apply and was accidentally included as one of the six files in the installation kit? Perhaps we are free to ignore it?

I can think of dozens of legitimate uses for freenet but it's creators should also honestly address its liabilities. If their goal is to create an tool for illegally distributing copyrighted material then acknowledge that and move on, if not then work to address it.

M-W lists "mutually or reciprocally active" as one definition of "interactive" (and I think it's the common usage of the word). Under this definition, however, books, television and newspapers are not and can not be interactive. Aside from tearing up a paper, burning a book or shooting the television, the action is all one-way. Playing q3a against human players is interactive. Books and television are not.

Here is a link you might find handy. *plonk*

Sorry that is incorrect.

Here is the definition of firewall:

Courtesy of dictionary.com
firewall n.
1.A fireproof wall used as a barrier to prevent the spread of fire.
2.Computer Science. Any of a number of security schemes that prevent unauthorized users from gaining access to a computer network or that monitor transfers of information to and from the network.

Courtesy of Merriam-Webster
Main Entry: fire wall
Function: noun
Date: 1759
1 : a wall constructed to prevent the spread of fire
2 usually firewall /'fIr-"wol/ : a computer or computer software that prevents unauthorized access to private data (as on a company's local area network or intranet) by outside computer users (as of the Internet)

What Icrave.com was talking about would most likely be software. That seems to fit the definition perfectly. What you are looking at is the underlying technology that would enable a firewall to work on a regional basis. That alone would not necessarily fit the definition.

Every increase in technology can be misused. I won't argue that. But I swear Jon, you're becoming a luddite, and I really have to question the need for a luddite on a board that advertises itself as "News for Nerds".

Are you saying that differing viewpoints are not welcome? The topic was about technology patents. Jon just added his opinion to the report to start off the conversation. (for better or worse)

What a horrible little troll. Perhaps you should look up firewall in a dictionary. Jon had used the term correctly thereby making your statement look incredibly uninformed, and eliminating all credibility of the rest of what you said. What baffles me is how you can make a statement as wreckless and idiotic as that, and still have made well recevied posts like this.

So you may be better informed next time:

Courtesy of dictionary.com
firewall&nbspn.
1.A fireproof wall used as a barrier to prevent the spread of fire.
2.Computer Science. Any of a number of security schemes that prevent unauthorized users from gaining access to a computer network or that monitor transfers of information to and from the network.

Courtesy of Merriam-Webster
Main Entry: fire wall
Function: noun
Date: 1759
1 : a wall constructed to prevent the spread of fire
2 usually firewall /'fIr-"wol/ : a computer or computer software that prevents unauthorized access to private data (as on a company's local area network or intranet) by outside computer users (as of the Internet)

What Icrave.com was talking about would most likely be software. That seems to fit the definition perfectly.

Main Entry: stolid
Pronunciation: 'stä-l&d
Function: adjective
Etymology: Latin stolidus dull, stupid
Date: circa 1600
: having or expressing little or no sensibility : UNEMOTIONAL
synonym see IMPASSIVE
- stolidity /stä-'li-d&-tE, st&-/ noun

The only reason I post this is that I didn't know what phlegmatic and when I looked it up, I realized that I though 'stolid' meant something else.

Learn something new every day...

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How can you own a "noun combining form"? It's in the dictionary.

Main Entry: -plex
Function: noun combining form
Etymology: partly from Latin -plex (as in duplex);
partly from complex
1 : a figure of a given power <googolplex>
2 : a building divided into an often specified number of spaces (as apartments or movie theaters) <fourplex> <multiplex>

I'm sick and tired of people mis-spelling this word. so stop it, everybody! a dictionary

Just in case you slept through high school English class also.

Patents such as yours are the first step in vitiating the web, in raising the barriers to entry not just for your competitors,...

When referring to CDs, you're right, disc is correct. But Disk also means a thin circular object and is the more common spelling outside of recorded media. In fact, Webster's just lists "Disc" as a variant of "Disk".

I have read several posts that claim that this software is not censorship.

Main Entry: censor
Function: transitive verb Date: 1882
: to examine in order to suppress or delete anything considered objectionable >

That definition, obtained from www.m-w.com seems to describe the purpose of the SurfWatch software pretty well. If it is illegal for the Government to censor, and if the Public Library falls under the category of said Government, it is illegal for the software to be installed. I don't really understand the debate.

He thinks that all open source advocates are mindless followers of a cult whose idea is that everything should be open source and free.

Talk about a complete lack of research-- these guys just made up something that sounded good. According to Kirk McKusick, current copyright holder of the BSD Daemon, the term 'daemon' comes directly from the mythological creatures of the same name responsible for taking care of mundane tasks.

For more detail, see Webster's dictionary, in this case we are looking at variant 2, "an attendant power or spirit". Whether daemons are evil as in "demon" variant 1 depends on whether they are working or not. Some days sendmail definately qualifies as the latter.

Main Entry: opinion
Pronunciation: &-'pin-y&n
Function: noun
Etymology: Middle English, from Middle French, from Latin opinion-, opinio, from opinari
Date: 14th century
1 a : a view, judgment, or appraisal formed in the mind about a particular matter b : APPROVAL, ESTEEM
2 a : belief stronger than impression and less strong than positive knowledge b : a generally held view
3 a : a formal expression of judgment or advice by an expert b : the formal expression (as by a judge, court, or referee) of the legal reasons and principles upon which a legal decision is based

A view, a judgement, an appraisal, a belief ... less strong than positive knowledge. None of these imply any possibility of a correct opinion.

His opinion is the opinion of slashdot

Last I heard, /. was a news/discussion site, incapable of forming an opinion. Getting right down to it, /. is a bunch of perl code on several linux servers running Apache. On a more basic level, /. is nothing more than silicon, metal, plastic, ones and zeros. Machines don't have opinions (please, no ST:TNG references).

And, BTW, I for one don't think he should necessarily go away. I may not agree with him very often, but that is the whole point of opinions!

Eric

"Yo". Good Christ, can't a man smoke a quiet rock of crack without being bugged by these journalists in their skin-tight stonewashed denim and ponytails, trying to come over hip like Nas and dirty like Snoop?

The WWWebster dates "yo" back to the 15th century, as an interjection "used especially to call attention, to indicate attentiveness, or to express affirmation."

Maybe I'm just picking a nit here, but I don't see mp3.com as broadcasting the information. Merriam-Webster defines broadcasting as this:

Main Entry: broadcast
Function: verb
Inflected Form(s): broadcast also broadcasted; broadcasting
Date: 1813
transitive senses
1 : to scatter or sow (as seed) broadcast
2 : to make widely known
3 : to transmit or make public by means of radio or television

I think the relevant item is "3 : to transmit or make public by means of radio or television". mp3.com is not making the data public. It is a private exchange of information between me and mp3.com.

I have another problem with the lawsuit. As an example, say you and I each own a copy of a CD. If I have a nice tape deck but you only have a cheap tape-playing walkman (remember those) but you want to go jogging and listen to the CD, can't I legally make you a copy to play on your walkman since you own the CD too?

Isn't mp3.com just converting the CD I paid for into a more usable format that meets my particular desires? This is assuming that mp3.com actually bought all 45,000 CDs that they ripped to mp3.

Yeah, and verbal abuse is just sound waves. They don't hurt people! Child porn and is just light reflected from a surface! It doesn't hurt people! Racist graffiti is just paint on a wall! etc, etc.

Exactly correct on all counts. A photograph of rape doesn't hurt the raped person; the rapist already did that. Graffiti hurts the property owner regardless of semantic content. Verbal abuse unsupported by physical restraints can be ignored or escaped rather trivially.

Of course people don't have a right, Deity-granted or otherwise, to expect other people to read the 'any old guff' they spout. But they do get to spout it.

You can say anything you like, but there's no guarantee of an audience.

That word, 'deconstructionalist.' I do not think it means what you think it means: see 'deconstruction' for more.

Taking responsibility for your own reaction to words is the very opposite of deconstructionism, called by reputable philosophers "...a false and horrible view, ripe with the seeds of tyranny."

gomi

Personally, I don't buy CD's much anymore. Haven't bought a CD in.. oh.. 2 years? 3? I'm not sure.. I've been playing with MP3's since it was brand new, and I switched wholly to it nearly instantly...

Is it really worth the $15 you pay for the CD to get that little booklet?

According to Webster's Online, a word is "something that is said". 'Virii' is most certainly said, and is therefore a word. Deal with it.

Don't try to outsmart yourself with Latin. The correct plural is "viruses".

Thanks for correcting that. It's a huge pet peeve of mind when people put on intellectual airs and they're really stupid and/or lazy. A quick trip to Merriam Webster's online dictionary would help a lot of people in this joint.

From the Slashdot blurb:

The VMU is the Dreamcast's memory-card-come-mini-gameboy gadget.

Disregarding the error in representing "Game Boy" as two capitalized words, the word "come" isn't used here. The word "cum" (stop giggling) is used to connect two nouns.

Strangely enough, Webster's doesn't even display that "other" meaning when you search for "cum".

no. Automatable is. (see Websters)

Professional. n. characterized by or conforming to the technical or ethical standards of a profession (2) : exhibiting a courteous, conscientious, and generally businesslike manner in the workplace (Merriam-Webster dictionary)

How can a corporation, to whom those qualities are alien, even begin to certify them ?

What next ? Microsoft Certified Linux Guru ?

Main Entry: 1gender
Pronunciation: 'jen-d&r
Function: noun
Etymology: Middle English gendre, from Middle French genre, gendre, from Latin gener-, genus birth, race, kind, gender -- more at KIN Date: 14th century
1 a : a subclass within a grammatical class (as noun, pronoun, adjective, or verb) of a language that is partly arbitrary but also partly based on distinguishable characteristics (as shape, social rank, manner of existence, or sex) and that determines agreement with and selection of other words or grammatical forms b : membership of a word or a grammatical form in such a subclass c : an inflectional form showing membership in such a subclass
2 a : SEX b : the behavioral, cultural, or psychological traits typically associated with one sex

Merriam Webster Online

Vermifax

Whilst.

Both plurals are used, viruses is more common, but in scientific circles virii is used.

Furthermore, your Japanese seems as odd as your English. "Watakushi" doesn't mean "I" in the Japanese I learned. It's "watashi", and the plural is "watashitachi" - Watashi no namae wa "RFC959" desu; watashitachi wa kohii nominagara - unless you speak some dialect unlike the Tokyo Japanese I learned.

redacted is a word, and can be adequately used in that context.

A sextant, on the other hand, is useful for making astronomical observations of the sort used in navigation. If you ever try using a sextant, however, you will realize that it isn't much good without a nautical almanac or similar table of celestial positions. Back in the old days (indeed, prior to the invention of the sextant itself) one produced these using an astrolabe, which was a combination observing device and mechanical calculator. Apart from enabling one to produce accurate tables for navigation, it also allowed observations an calculations accurate enough to show that the planets couldn't possibly be in circular orbits about the earth, thus paving the way for the Copernican revolution and earning it its spot among my personal top 10 list of the best gadgets of all time.

-r

A "gadget" is defined by The Merriam Webster WWW Dictionary as...

an often small mechanical or electronic device with a practical use but often thought of as a novelty

You want a device that is super useful, almost too useful to be called a "gadget"? Try a Dremel! Is it a screwdriver? Is it a drill? Is it a saw? Heck no! Its all of the above! For small jobs, the only thing you can't do with a Dremel is hammer!

The only other modern tool that could be considered as useful would be the duct tape! Where would mankind be without duct tape?! :-)

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License? who cares, do what I do: don't read it, and click the "accept" the software button. Contracts are only binding when both sides share an understanding of the terms. If they wish for me to understand the terms, they should construct a simple system for quizzing me. The way it works now, they seem to me to be urging that I accept the software without reading the license. And, now that I've discovered that lawyers are coming to slashdot and quoting people, I want to play too. Please quote me: defendant accepted software without understanding or agreeing to license terms. I would put in the eminently quotable little smiley, except I'm dead serious.

Hey, is there some legal distinction between the word "licence" and the word "license"? Because, there is no such distinction in ordinary American English.

From Websters:
fiery:
1: consisting of fire
2: hot like a fire
3: of the color of fire
4: full of or exuding emotion or spirit

I think your Physics is better than your English :-)

Etymology: Czech, from robota compulsory labor; akin to Old High German arabeit trouble, Latin orbus orphaned -- more at ORPHAN Date: 1923

"Integrity" is such a nice word, innit? It gives you the warm fuzzy feeling that there's somehow something pure and holy there that's being kept sacrasanct, out of the dirty hands of the teeming masses. Sun Microsystems, noble defenders of the "integrity" of Java2, stalwart bastions of truth and light against the unwashed heathens that would taint their singular manifest vision.

Merriam-Webster defines integrity as, among other things, "an unimpaired condition : soundness." So, Sun is protecting Java2 from the "impairment" of the standards process. Standards are somehow "unsound." Sun is saying that Java2 becoming a standard will somehow innately taint, corrupt, or poison the platform.

Merriam-Webster also defines integrity as "firm adherence to a code of especially moral or artistic values : incorruptibility." Aha. So Sun keeping Java outside of the standards process is an issue of morals? "It's a moral decision, Doc, and I'll stand by it." Sun-as-priesthood, handing down proclamations on morailty to the ignorant masses who are too immoral and corrupt to See The Java Vision(tm) themselves.

Finally, M-W defines integrity as "the quality or state of being complete or undivided : completeness." Here's the cruz of the matter: control. The One True Java, Sun's Java. The Java Above Which There Is No Other. I-AM-Brand Java. Thou Shalt Not Worship Other Java's Besides Sun's. Sun fears the fork, more than anything.


None of these observations is earth-shattering news, but it's interesting (to me, at least), to look at how Sun has doctored and spun this story with the use of that single word, "integrity."

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It can be (validly) argued that moderating a post down due to objectionable is supressing it.

Just a thought.

i dont display scores, and my threshhold is -1. post accordingly.

• Prevent copying to the largest extent possible (prevent C from ever entering the loop between A (the DVD produced) and B (the player program)). This is not really encrytion, but designing a closed box. Security through obscurity... literally. (look it up with provided link)
• Makes sure that if you do copy it, you can't use it. This is something like encryption, but it's called "watermarking", and has different purposes, techniques, and ways of defeating it. (In general, ways to strip the watermarking exist, but degrade the signal to one extent or another.) This is entirely unhandled by "proven" encryption like RSA et al. New theory on how to uniquely watermark these items without degrading them so far as to be useless, yet making them secure enough that it is not trivial to strip the watermark, is a difficult problem that may or may not even be solvable.
• Also, they may want to be able to track you, even if you get through all that.

Yeah, a bit of a stretch, but according to
this

Prone:
Synonyms LIABLE 2, exposed, obnoxious, open, sensitive, subject, susceptible

I guess that last one would apply in this case...
Anyway, I just finished reading this on the Disney News web site (read the last sentence) and I guess I got a little giddy.

It's all about conversions, to 'keep it simple, stupid'. Naturally, what matters to people that actually pay for their energy is rates that are easily convertible to dollars. It's the engineering types who insist on measuring Volts and Amperes that require you to use Watts somewhere in the billing calculation. I suppose the power company could do the same thing as the water supply company: the water meter measures cubic meters, which is stated on the bill in kilolitres, and use a conversion to get hundreds of cubic feet. This is commensurable[?] with the billing rate ($ per cubic foot).

It's French all right, but not pronounced that way.

From Mirriam-Webster:

Main Entry: 1cache
Pronunciation: 'kash
Function: noun
Etymology: French, from cacher to press, hide, from (assumed) Vulgar Latin coacticare to press together, from Latin coactare to compel, frequentative of cogere to compel -- more at COGENT
Date: 1797
1 a : a hiding place especially for concealing and preserving provisions or implements b : a secure place of storage
2 : something hidden or stored in a cache
3 : a computer memory with very short access time used for storage of frequently used instructions or data -- called also cache memory

I've heart one engineer refer to a gigahert. As in "We downmodulated the signal from 30 gigahertz to one gigahert." With a hard g of course. I prefer a hard g since a soft g reminds me of "gigilo" (which I pronounce as giga-low with a soft g). I pronounce silicon both ways with a preference for silikhan. I pronounce GIF the Compuserve (and peanut butter) way.

Fortunately, Webster's says that both a hard and soft g are ok for giga-and that silikahn and silikin are both ok for silicon.

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I've heart one engineer refer to a gigahert. As in "We downmodulated the signal from 30 gigahertz to one gigahert." With a hard g of course. I prefer a hard g since a soft g reminds me of "gigilo" (which I pronounce as giga-low with a soft g). I pronounce silicon both ways with a preference for silikhan. I pronounce GIF the Compuserve (and peanut butter) way.

Fortunately, Webster's says that both a hard and soft g are ok for giga-and that silikahn and silikin are both ok for silicon.

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any "proof" I have is logical not concrete, but since this is /. it should suffice. We're sticking to theory and definitions, so I'll try to back up my simple 4 (thanks, mods)

from www.m-w.com

socialsim: 1 : any of various economic and political theories advocating collective or governmental ownership and administration of the means of production and distribution of goods also b : a system or condition of society in which the means of production are owned and controlled by the state

communism: 1 a : a theory advocating elimination of private property b : a system in which goods are owned in common and are available to all as needed

Even from these it's very easy to see that the situation in Sweden is based on socialism (gov't control) vs communism (everything is owned by everyone). So your counter example is flawed.

Communism is Marx's ideal society (you should know this considering your nick) with socialism as a type of half-way point. Ideal societies rarely work in real life (I just said rarely cause it might have happened somewhere). Luckily we have a strange situation resulting from a feature of software (i.e. basically infinite supply) that makes it suited perfectly to the type of entirely altruistic ideals (and therefore socially unworkable) of communism. "From each according to his ability, to each according to his need." Thanks to the collected hackers of the world who contributed their ability, I am fully able to service my need, so I give thanks to the collected hackers of the world who contibuted their ability.

Your dicitionary is wrong then. Check out Merriam Webster, if you don't believe me.

How the hell do you pronounce Z, by the way?

• a body of persons of common and especially professional interests scattered through a larger society <the academic (try substituting slashdot here Signall 11) community>

Main Entry: giga-
Pronunciation: 'ji-g&, 'gi-

So either pronounciation is correct. But yeah, you're right that it's 1.21 gigawatts, just pronounced the original way. Although the pronounciation as 'ji-ga' is outdated by my Webster's Unabridged Dictionary...

YOU EEEDIOT! The word is "hoard", not "horde"! Try using a dictionary sometime (like Merriam-Webster's).

Main Entry: horde
Pronunciation: 'hOrd, 'hord
Function: noun
Etymology: Middle French, G, & Polish; Middle French & German, from Polish horda, from Ukrainian dialect gorda, alteration of Ukrainian orda, from Old Russian, from Turkic orda, ordu khan's residence
Date: 1555
1 a : a political subdivision of central Asian nomads b : a people or tribe of nomadic life
2 : a teeming crowd or throng : SWARM
synonym see CROWD

Main Entry: 2hoard
Date: before 12th century
transitive senses
1 : to lay up a hoard of
2 : to keep (as one's thoughts) to oneself
intransitive senses : to lay up a hoard
- hoarder noun

So much information, so little wisdom...

my only reply to this is that things are changing not changed.

Linux drivers will start coming in hardware boxers, for the simple reason that that last time I went to Best Buy I was *specifically* looking for a box that had the word Linux on it. And so was the guy standing behind me. A Demand is growing, a Supply will follow.

Oh and it's not all about hav[ing] their minds expanded with limitless amounts of wisdom , it's about never having to remember what guy was in what movie or how to spell what word, and a hundred other details.