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If you create conditions where someone makes an app for smartphones (open government data), and it only gets used by people with smartphones, this is a net gain for the society

Nonsense. The folk with smartphones are typically those who'd already interact with government. You are doing absolutely nothing to interact with those who are totally disenfranchised. You know - the ones who cannot afford the net, cannot afford a fancy phone?

Merriam Webster defines disenfranchised as: "to deprive of a franchise, of a legal right, or of some privilege or immunity; especially : to deprive of the right to vote"

Last I checked those who could not afford smartphones were not being deprived of their rights, and certainly not the right to vote. In addition smartphones are becoming more and more affordable, some are given away as the free phones with a contract now and many people are replacing landlines with cellphones.

Smartphone apps are a viable way to reach a large audience currently and that audience is only getting larger. Considering that most dumbphones probably aren't capable of the task and the interface is awful even when they are what would you propose then? Keep in mind the pool of developers that are familiar with and have interest in programming for dumbphones is far smaller.

I'm not sure that's what the word means...

M-W to the rescue... seems to be a perfectly cromulent word :-)

from Miriam-Webster online http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/authoritarian - definitions of "authoritarian" (adjective)

1 : of, relating to, or favoring blind submission to authority (had authoritarian parents)
2 : of, relating to, or favoring a concentration of power in a leader or an elite not constitutionally responsible to the people (an authoritarian regime)

These don't sound like defenders of my liberties...

That's not what the dictionary says.

4 a : the process, power, or function of seeing; specifically : the physical sense by which light stimuli received by the eye are interpreted by the brain and constructed into a representation of the position, shape, brightness, and usually color of objects in space b : mental or spiritual perception c : mental view; specifically : judgment

You might have misinterpreted this part:

6 a : a perception of an object by or as if by the eye <never lost sight of the objective>

I wonder, though, by Webster's definition, is my "sight" really sight? My left eye is partly artificial. Is it still an eye?

pedantry can be so confusing sometimes...

See: to perceive by the eye
Know: 1 a (1) : to perceive directly : have direct cognition of (2) : to have understanding of (3) : to recognize the nature of : discern b (1) : to recognize as being the same as something previously known (2) : to be acquainted or familiar with (3) : to have experience of
2 a : to be aware of the truth or factuality of : be convinced or certain of b : to have a practical understanding of

See: to perceive by the eye
Know: 1 a (1) : to perceive directly : have direct cognition of (2) : to have understanding of (3) : to recognize the nature of : discern b (1) : to recognize as being the same as something previously known (2) : to be acquainted or familiar with (3) : to have experience of
2 a : to be aware of the truth or factuality of : be convinced or certain of b : to have a practical understanding of

According to Merriam-Webster, "insight" suggests depth of discernment coupled with understanding sympathy ... which, while laudable, doesn't sound scientific in the slightest.

ID is certainly a science:
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/science

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intelligent_design

I'm afraid it would be hard to define something that better fit the dictionary definition of 'science'.

Furthermore, censorship is usually the domain of the government, not corporations

No, it is not, and I do wish propertarians would cease this abuse of language. To censor is "to examine in order to suppress or delete anything considered objectionable...; also : to suppress or delete as objectionable". It does not matter whether it is the government or a private agency doing the suppression, it is still censorship.

It may be the case that government censorship is more intrusive and threatening to liberty than private censorship, but that does not change the fact that both are members of the same species.

No, it isn't. Look at definition 1B:

an unlawful taking (as by embezzlement or burglary) of property

Nowhere does it mention the "intent to deprive" everyone here keeps talking about.

Just to inject some fact into a fun flamewar:

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/pervert

Unfortunately for your side, I can't see anything definitional that prevents perversion on top of perversion.

Teaching about religion as a historical matter and its social influences is fine. What's important is the avoidance of preaching religion.

Agreed...

Evangelizing in the public schools cannot be allowed.

The trick is that there are a lot of perspectives that are "evangelized" in public schools. "Global warming" (or is it global cooling now?), "Obama is The One", "United Nations above all else", "White Man (especially Christopher Columbus) is Teh Evil"... There are a lot of things taught as "fact" without sufficient cause, but they are the politically-correct way of thinking today.

Remember... Evangelism is defined as "militant or crusading zeal" (second definition). Most of the points I listed in the last paragraph are approached that way. Lessons in school need to be more objective.

Depending on what definition of "particle" you go with, it can be.

You're right, according to Merriam-Webster using "majority" to mean "the most" is somehow obsolete.

You damn kids, with your changing meanings! Seriously though...how does the definition of majority get obsolete? It's not like it's a freakin' MiniDisk player...

I apologize for the ambiguous wording. I was leaning more towards definition 3.

Also, you seem to overlook the large charity efforts encouraged by religions. Sure, you should feel compelled to give to charity regardless of whether you believe it gives you brownie points towards some afterlife, but churches and the like make it easier to organize effort (people would be reluctant to do service projects on their own). Of course you might decide since there are a few corrupt priests out there, no religion-backed charity is ever a good thing. As much as I think we could do without religion, I wouldn't go so far as to say nothing good comes of it.

You are right. Whether they realize it or not, the "progressives" in the US tend more towards fascism than socialism i.e. they don't want to nationalize private property they simply want the state to control it.

Pointing out a fact isn't racist, kid.

Pointing out a behaviour difference, by race, is.

Wrong again. Political correctness run amok. I weep for our future. Racism: definition. Racism is (among other things), believing that the race is responsible for the behavior. Correlation is not causation. I was pointing out a correlation. You will note that I mentioned ethnicity as another aspect (from what I've seen, it tends to be even more important).

It's demanding that something be done about it that might slip into racism. Besides, how do you know I'm not talking about my own race?

I think you mistake "racism" with "hating other races".

My mistake was falling for your accusatory tone and getting defensive. Shows how institutionalized this crap has become.

If you took the time to learn about other cultures,

You didn't speak of culture, you spoke of race. Had you replaced race by culture, I'd have agreed with you.

Sure I did. That's what "ethnicity" implies. Of course, hyper-sensitive language sanitizers like you seem to have mastered the art of selective text comprehension. I will admit though that I didn't think it through well enough and that since actual genetic differences (which is, as I now understand it, the only meaning of race) obviously aren't relevant in this matter, any correlations aren't really all that significant either. There should exist at least the possibility of causation before a correlation should be emphasized. Ethnicity would have fully covered the matter and, not unimportantly, saved me from this foolishness.

Sadly, while a perceived mistake (even on /.) is usually called out as such and I usually (I hope) concede and correct it, in this case, you read through a wall of text, saw the word 'racial' and puked a crude little accusation in quite a trollish manner. Excellent job.

If I hadn't stated the non-white disclaimer, there would have been a dozen trolls like this.

Because many people mistake racism with "white people's prejudices against black people".

Well, at least you don't make obvious mistake. There's hope yet (though not too much).

It is hardly doublespeak to use the word "gaming" to refer to the practice of gambling. Indeed, the first definition of the word "gaming" in every dictionary I check refers specifically to gambling.

http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/gaming

1. (gambling) The business of offering games of chance for money.

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/gaming

Main Entry: gaming
Function: noun
Date: 1501
1 : the practice of gambling

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/gaming

gaming [gey-ming] Show IPA
–noun
1.
gambling.

http://wordnetweb.princeton.edu/perl/webwn?s=gaming

Noun

S: (n) gambling, gaming, play (the act of playing for stakes in the hope of winning (including the payment of a price for a chance to win a prize)) "his gambling cost him a fortune"; "there was heavy play at the blackjack table"

http://www.merriam-webster.com/netdict/gradually

I don't know if that was unintentionally stupid or intentionally funny.

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/butte

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/neologism

"2 : a meaningless word coined by a psychotic"

Pet peeve: Written agreements are verbal, too. Unwritten agreements can be either oral (what the parent meant to refer to) or tacit. Only tacit agreements are nonverbal.

Oral agreements are very much enforceable as a general rule in common law countries, such as England, the United States, Canada, and Australia. The question is whether a specific oral agreement is enforceable, and that depends on a variety of factors in all those places. What makes oral agreements worth less (note the space) than written agreements is not that they are oral but rather the difficulty of proving exactly which words are part of the agreement.

For that reason, when it comes to copyright to work that you are doing and started before you were hired, you really do want a written contract that spells out exactly who owns the copyright to which things. Of course, the submitter didn't mention how much work he had actually done before he was hired to finish it, and that's going to be a major concern. If you made a couple of UML diagrams and created a MySQL database with a few tables but didn't write any application logic, it's going to be hard to claim copyright to the code you wrote for the project. If it was all done other than a user-friendly interface and they hired you to make the UI, then it's a different situation altogether.

Pet peeve: Written agreements are verbal, too. Unwritten agreements can be either oral (what the parent meant to refer to) or tacit. Only tacit agreements are nonverbal.

Oral agreements are very much enforceable as a general rule in common law countries, such as England, the United States, Canada, and Australia. The question is whether a specific oral agreement is enforceable, and that depends on a variety of factors in all those places. What makes oral agreements worth less (note the space) than written agreements is not that they are oral but rather the difficulty of proving exactly which words are part of the agreement.

For that reason, when it comes to copyright to work that you are doing and started before you were hired, you really do want a written contract that spells out exactly who owns the copyright to which things. Of course, the submitter didn't mention how much work he had actually done before he was hired to finish it, and that's going to be a major concern. If you made a couple of UML diagrams and created a MySQL database with a few tables but didn't write any application logic, it's going to be hard to claim copyright to the code you wrote for the project. If it was all done other than a user-friendly interface and they hired you to make the UI, then it's a different situation altogether.

Pet peeve: Written agreements are verbal, too. Unwritten agreements can be either oral (what the parent meant to refer to) or tacit. Only tacit agreements are nonverbal.

Oral agreements are very much enforceable as a general rule in common law countries, such as England, the United States, Canada, and Australia. The question is whether a specific oral agreement is enforceable, and that depends on a variety of factors in all those places. What makes oral agreements worth less (note the space) than written agreements is not that they are oral but rather the difficulty of proving exactly which words are part of the agreement.

For that reason, when it comes to copyright to work that you are doing and started before you were hired, you really do want a written contract that spells out exactly who owns the copyright to which things. Of course, the submitter didn't mention how much work he had actually done before he was hired to finish it, and that's going to be a major concern. If you made a couple of UML diagrams and created a MySQL database with a few tables but didn't write any application logic, it's going to be hard to claim copyright to the code you wrote for the project. If it was all done other than a user-friendly interface and they hired you to make the UI, then it's a different situation altogether.

> no Flash support
We are still fracking talking about this? Please.

It's spelled F-U-C-K.

Actually, "jigawatt" is the correct pronunciation.

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/gigawatt

This is offtopic, but did you see that baby/mom/matrix on the Webster top-ten words from mom? Our babies are from teh MATRIX!!!

http://www.merriam-webster.com/top-ten-lists/matrix-and-more/matrix.html

Somebody, edit this for the I Can Haz Cheezburger group .. I am suppose to be working or something.

Nope, it's a law:

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/law (definition #1 even!)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law

Please people, stop making yourselves look foolish claiming Moore's Law isn't a law. This comes up every time!

You can tune a piano, but you can't tuna fish.

(but seriously, though, there's a tuna pear: http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/tuna )

Even humans mishear speech.

"'Scuse me while I kiss this guy"

It's called a mondegreen. Another famous one is "the girl with colitis goes by" instead of "the girl with kaleidoscope eyes" from Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds by the Beetles.

There are a ton more of them out there, such as "there's a bathroom on the right" instead of "there's a bad moon on the rise" from Bad Moon Rising by Creedence Clearwater Revival.

Speech is definitely a tricky thing that even people may not have mastered!

No dude. Just word hell today. IN THE CLOUD!!!111

Main Entry: 1 slaughter
Pronunciation: \sl-tr\
Function: noun
Etymology: Middle English, of Scandinavian origin; akin to Old Norse sltra to slaughter; akin to Old English sleaht slaughter, slan to slay -- more at SLAY Date: 14th century
1 : the act of killing; specifically : the butchering of livestock for market

Though I suppose your "I don't think that word means what you think it means" could still be technically correct. You could think it means anything at all, like "giraffe" or "fun." But regardless of what you think, it's clear you don't know - and most importantly, refuse to accept - what it means.

It's deplorable you find slaughtering innocents "an easy choice."

I concur.. http://www.merriam-webster.com/netdict/attire

anyone over there using attyre?

A lobbyist cannot block an appointment. A lobbyist is someone that beseaches an appointed or elected official on behalf of someone else, usually a special interest group or corporation. Look it up.

Decimate us, huh? Thank goodness! You see, Decimate literally means "to reduce by ten percent", or "to kill one of every ten". If an alien asteroid attack on Earth is only going to kill one in ten, I'll take my chances. Had you said we'd be annihilated, which means "to destroy completely", then I'd be scared.

Dictionary Definition Main Entry: decimate Pronunciation: \de-s-mt\ Function: transitive verb Inflected Form(s): decimated; decimating Etymology: Latin decimatus, past participle of decimare, from decimus tenth, from decem ten Date: 1660 1 : to select by lot and kill every tenth man of 2 : to exact a tax of 10 percent from 3 a : to reduce drastically especially in number b : to cause great destruction or harm to You are correct and pedantic. The use of decimate that he chose was correct.

Decimate us, huh? Thank goodness! You see, Decimate literally means "to reduce by ten percent", or "to kill one of every ten".

Not necessarily. Merriam-Webster, for example, gives as its third definition:

3 a : to reduce drastically especially in number "cholera decimated the population" b : to cause great destruction or harm to "firebombs decimated the city" "an industry decimated by recession"

The meaning of words may change over time. It's a natural process. This particular semantic shift is already decades old, if not older. To rely synchronically on a fixed meaning of scientific terminology in a technical discussion is useful for ensuring communication. However, reproaching others for using a word in what has long been generally recommended as a valid usage, basing your argument only on its Latin etymology, just makes you look like a spiteful jerk.

how would they map the SSID to you?

C-o-l-l-a-t-i-n-g. 1a, 1b, 3b

Do you have a citation for the verb form? (Notwithstanding the AC's response, which appears to assume that you did not mean the infinitive form 'to trial' but rather a prepositional phrase.) I ask, because Merriam-Webster lacks any mention of it at the entry for trial. I'm not a grammar Nazi, as you suggest, but a stickler for being correct, which includes the ability to learn in those cases when I am not. Point me to a credible etymology so that I can learn.

As to talking technicalities, we are, indeed. Most of the people here actually enjoy a lesson in human language for the same reason that they enjoy dissecting the rules that govern other systems. It's just another area of hacking. Give them a lesson, as you appear to have superior knowledge to one of the most-respected modern dictionaries.

I wasn't sure myself, so I decided to check it out:
  - According to the Meriam Webster Dyke is the British spelling of Dike: http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/dyke .
  - The Oxford Dictionary agrees: http://www.askoxford.com/concise_oed/dyke_1?view=uk , though the same spelling can also mean lesbian: http://www.askoxford.com/concise_oed/dyke_2?view=uk

So, depending where you are either spelling will do.

That's Tolkien Ring.

Hey buddy, here in the U.S. we spell "Tolkien" as "Token", just like you spell color all funny and we correct that too.

It's actually also part of a secret effort in the U.S. to remove any "i" before "e" that we find, to make the use of that rule even more generally wrong than it is already.

No, obviously your confusing

bona fide
Etymology: Latin, literally, in good faith Date: 1632

1 : made in good faith without fraud or deceit
2 : made with earnest intent : sincere
3 : neither specious nor counterfeit : genuine

with

bonified
The act of being boned and then feeling satisfied.

Dude, yesterday I totally boned miley cyrus, it was awesome.

Really?

Yeahhh, it was great.

Did she like it?

Well I knew she did when she said, " Omg, baby you left me bonified.

Spelling: that's "bona fide", not "bonifide".

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/bona+fide

No disagreement on your main point.

Somebody needs a rudimentary vocabulary course.

Maim:
1 : to commit the felony of mayhem upon
2 : to mutilate, disfigure, or wound seriously.

Explain how "implanting a microchip" constitutes "maiming"? Does it cause pain? probably. Could it have negative effects? Certainly. Does it result in long term loss of a limb or limbs or other severe disfigurement? Not so much.

Having a limb blown off by a roadside bomb = maiming. Being run down by a drunk driver and losing a limb, or being permanently disfigured as a result = maiming. Having a rice-grain sized microchip embedded under your skin = painful, uncomfortable, but not maiming.

Let's get some perspective. I know everybody loves to protest unfair drug laws, but implanting a microchip is not equivalent to maiming any more than slapping someone is equivalent to first degree murder.

Main Entry: loser
Pronunciation: \lü-zr\
Function: noun
Date: 1548

1 : a person or thing that loses especially consistently
2 : a person who is incompetent or unable to succeed; also : something doomed to fail or disappoint

It can't #1 because Apple wouldn't let an employee who loses prototype consistently handle the latest and greatest Jesus phone.

It also couldn't be #2 because he managed to become Apple's #2 most well known employee overnight. Even if Apple fires him, he'll have thousands of job interviews lined up (though most will end with "We're not actually hiring, I just wanted to shake the hand that touched the iPhone 4G").

You were looking for "reelection" http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/reelection
The submitter seems to have trouble with his vowels: It should be "loose" and "loosing".
One really wishes the editors could at least afford to implement a spell checker. Shouldn't be too hard to set up ispell really.

Damn it, kids...

But when you get caught that is when the sponsors start pulling you and you end up loosing millions of revenue.

Wrong, wrong, wrong. You start out loosing millions of revenue by cheating in the first place. You then LOSE the revinue you have loosed when you get caught.

If English is your second language, please don't try to learn it from the illiterates on the internet or you may wind up saying the opposite of what you mean.

Also, I do not regard this as censorship and wish people would quit abusing that term to the point that it has no meaning.

From Webster: "censor : to examine in order to suppress or delete anything considered objectionable <censor the news>; also : to suppress or delete as objectionable <censor out indecent passages>"

It's censorship.

I think YOU need to learn that Wikipedia is fallible, and that you should learn to not tell other people to learn from it.

AND I QUOTE:
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/bait%20switch

"2- : the ploy of offering a person something desirable to gain favor (as political support) then thwarting expectations with something less desirable"

The Webster definition could probably be worded better but it's pretty clear WilyCoder has it right. This is a case of Sony offering something desirable, then thwarting that expectation.

While it's common to describe this as a price switch, it can easily apply to a feature switch.

According to the Merriam-Webster and Cambridge online dictionaries, one may queue or one may "queue up" with equal legitimacy. Your sentence, however, is indefensible absent extreme relaxation of grammatical usage (and by "relaxation", I mean "a drooling state of unconsciousness").

And Apple is ripping benefits for first capitalizing on that.

I don't think that word means what you think it means. "You rip what you sew?"