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Ah yes, that's why small farmers can't compete. It doesn't have anything to do with economies of scale, no sir.

If economies of scale was all that mattered then large scale farms wouldn't need subsidies.

If they a get employment with a private company good for them. And with government out of medical and health care more jobs with private insurers will be created.

Again, the only way we'd end up with "more jobs" is if the system became less efficient as a result.

So what if private insurers didn't employ as many people as government run insurance, private is as you say more efficient. Employing more people to run insurance is just make work work, and taxpayers will have to pay those salaries. People complain about the expense of health care, employing less people, in insurance, reduces the cost. If you want to make more work then employ more medical people not more insurance people.

it's odd that you're championing a move toward inefficiency.

What's odd is that you first intimated private insurance would be more efficient, the only way we'd end up with "more jobs" is if the system became less efficient as a result, now you're saying the opposite. And no I don't champion inefficiency, I champion competition. and competition increases efficiency.

People already can do that. You know why they don't? Because HSAs are pointless unless you're either (1) healthy enough that you won't get sick before the account is full, or (2) wealthy enough that it doesn't matter.

But do they know that? I didn't find out until earlier this year when someone else posted about health saving accounts. I bet I can go out on the street and ask others if they know about them and many won't. But you are right in one thing, according to the Government Acconting Office, GAO, the average income of those who had HSAs in 2005 was $139,000 whereas the average for those without one was $57,000. But in the same report though it said lower income people are more wiling to gamble with their health. And as far as I'm concerned, you gamble you pay. You don't gamble then try to get out of it when you lose.

See, "bankrupt" means there's no money left to pay their obligations, but that's not going to happen any time soon

First, bankrupt means more than just not having enough money. It also means a person who is completely lacking in a particular desirable quality or attribute moral bankrupt[cy] or DISAPPROVING lacking in a particular quality, Onelook has more. Second I consider it morally bankrupt, see the first two definitions above, for anyone to be forced to work to pay for anyone they did not bring into the world themself, ie you are responsible to take care of all of the children you bring into the world but you have no responsibility to take care of anyone else.

As I don't want to keep going over this with you I'll just say one more thing then I'll end my part. You trust government more than business and I distrust business less than I do government. Government has caused more problems than any business, it has killed more people than any of them as well. And many of the problems business has made government allowed to happen.

Falcon

Skip Condorcet and go for straight Approval Voting.

And how does this Approval Voting work? Yea, or Nay? And what if nobodies gets 50% + 1?

Approval Voting removes the either-or restriction

Yea, it denies some a voice, which is good. NOT!

Effectiveness is monotonic with approval, and sigmoidal

I have no idea what this means. I looked in my dictionaries, I have two in arms reach and didn't see monotonic in either so I looked it up online. Reading the definition I must say I prefer colour over blandness. Not seeing it in my dictionaries as well I also checked sigmoidal online and I have to ask what the intestines has to do with elections? Or "C" or "S" or Sigma.

Falcon

Skip Condorcet and go for straight Approval Voting.

And how does this Approval Voting work? Yea, or Nay? And what if nobodies gets 50% + 1?

Approval Voting removes the either-or restriction

Yea, it denies some a voice, which is good. NOT!

Effectiveness is monotonic with approval, and sigmoidal

I have no idea what this means. I looked in my dictionaries, I have two in arms reach and didn't see monotonic in either so I looked it up online. Reading the definition I must say I prefer colour over blandness. Not seeing it in my dictionaries as well I also checked sigmoidal online and I have to ask what the intestines has to do with elections? Or "C" or "S" or Sigma.

Falcon

'Imply' can mean either entail or suggest. In the statement 'correlation does not imply causation', it's used to mean entail. Correlation suggests causation, but does not entail causation.

Dictionaries are you friends.

That's a pretty pathetic excuse. If they wanted in badly enough they'd have it. I know, I know, the all powerful US hegemony would shut them down, just like in Vietnam and Korea before that.

There's a big difference between what happened with gunboat diplomacy before WWII and what happened after. There wasn't much standing in the way of the US before. However afterwards China and the Soviet Union supported North Korea and Viet Nam. Actually one of Stalin's conditions for supporting the Chinese Communists in their fight against the Kuomintang or KMT and Nationalists was that they in turn support the communists in Korea. As for Viet Nam, notice I didn't spell it "Vietnam" it was originally two words not one, the US entered it when President Eisenhower sent Col Edward Lansdale to arm, support, and train Viet Namese who opposed democracy. France and North and South Viet Nam had reached an agreement, the Geneva Accords, in 1954 for both parts of the country to hold an election on whether the north and south would reunify. Col Lansdale was sent to Viet Nam in 1955 to prevent this vote. And the thing is is at first Ho Chi Min first asked the US's help in expelling the French, but when the US refused to he turned to the Soviets. France then decided to withdraw while Eisenhower decided to send in troops.

Then again the US did the same with China, Mao Tze Tong asked the US's support but the US refused. Though Stalin didn't like the Chinese Communists, he called them Margarine Communists because whereas the Russian brand of communism was about industrial workers, "soviet" means "worker" in English, China's brand was about the peasantry or farm workers., he gave them aid. From the 1800s, with the Opium Wars or as the British called it the Boxer Rebellion, to the 1930s and '40s China was controlled by other nations. Mao wanted to end the foreign domination.

No, not every has geed, has an "excessive desire to acquire or possess more (especially more material wealth) than one needs or deserves" or is greedy, is "ardently or excessively desirous".

the managers may feel that they want to take Yahoo in a certain direction not dictated by microsoft, and that is all well and good, but it sounds less noble when you realize that the money they are using to do that is not theirs. It is the money of the tens of thousands of investors in their company that has allowed them to do this.

However those managers are also investors, ie they also own Yahoo! stock.

No, not every has geed, has an "excessive desire to acquire or possess more (especially more material wealth) than one needs or deserves" or is greedy, is "ardently or excessively desirous".

the managers may feel that they want to take Yahoo in a certain direction not dictated by microsoft, and that is all well and good, but it sounds less noble when you realize that the money they are using to do that is not theirs. It is the money of the tens of thousands of investors in their company that has allowed them to do this.

However those managers are also investors, ie they also own Yahoo! stock.

For the rest, it was just products that are very, very good takes, or great alternatives at existing ideas.

Seeing as how innovative is being or producing something new that hasn't been seen before I can't see how any of these are innovative.

I mentionned XP SP2 because no matter how you look at it (unless its with foggy glasses), it is an excellent OS.

But as I said it wasn't something new, SP2 was bug fix for XP.

And why are you even mentionning Ruby on Rails? Its roots existed, but it was not released until 2 years after .NET's official release

Okay, thanks for correcting me, I didn't know .net came before Ruby, bad RAM, er memory. That, my memory, is something I have to struggle with daily.

it is rare for something to be truly innovative in the software world (thats why software patents are bogus)

Oh, I totally agree about software patents. I'm not sure about patents for hardware, whether it be for computers, cars, or TVs but I oppose software patents.

That monocultures are bad?

That's why when another/.er said in another thread about TFA he or she wanted to see Microsoft gone I said I didn't want to see MS gone but I wanted it to compeat in a free market, and not use bullying tactics. If there's one thing I hate it's monoculture, whether it is in agriculture, hardware, or in software.

The BEST thing that ever happened to MS was Apple actually making a real OS (as opposed to the old joke that was the original MacOS)

I don't know about Mac OS 8 or 9 but I started using Macs at about the same tyme I started using DOS. Even when Win 95 came out I still preferred the Mac but for some reason I bought PCs, one running 95 and the other one running NT4, which is the best Windows version I've owned or used. Since then until last August, almost 10 years later, I stayed with Windows. And I probably would have stayed with Windows except I was tired of Windows constantly crashing and having to reinstall it, having the replace hardware, AND not wanting to deal with Activation or WGA/WPA. That was the final straw that broke the camel's back for me.

Up here in Canada, where each and every ballot is hand counted, sometimes twice, we still often need to withold east coast results until the west coast's polls have closed.

According to wiki Canada's population is just over 33 million. The USA's population is 10 tymes that. If it were possible to have all votes counted by hand like that town in New Hampshire, which had less than 100 voters, that would be okay. However look at the hand counts in Palm Beach County. Republicans took it all the way to the US Supreme Court to stop the hand counting.

as I'm concerned, it should be flat-out illegal for any sort of 'results' to be advertised before the final, approved counts are in.

While I believe the official tallies should be held until all polling stations are closed, to bar the press from reporting exit poll results would be an abridgment of free speech.

Algeria isn't in the middle east

Ah, I see this tyme you added two words you didn't use the first tyme, "middle east". The first tyme you said " Democracy and Islam don't mix."

Egypt pretends to be a democracy

Egypt's leaders are elected in democratic elections. The elections may not be clean but they do have them. And sense they elect their government Egypt is a democracy.

anyone who speaks out for democracy (which also means speaking out against religious law) tends to come up with a bad case of dead.

Quick, someone better tell Iranian Shirin Ebadi, winner of the Nobel Peace Prize, she'd better keep her mouth shut. While some moderates keep quiet others don't, and not all that speak out end up dead because they spoke out. But I kind of expect you, after saying Algeria isn't in the Middle East, that she doesn't count either because she Persian not Arab.

Now what the US, Bush specifically, should do is to stop all the belligerence, breast beating, and rhetoric and instead assist people improve their lives. If even a fraction of the millions if not billions of dollars Bush gave Pakistan to prop up Musharraf had been used instead to open secular schools those schools could have been used to reduce the number of potential terrorists being trained by the madras schools. Helping the poor or underclass will also strengthen the voices of the moderates. Oh when Musharraf cracked down on demonstrators in November or December, I find it bewildering he cracked down on pro democracy protesters not on religious people who want Islamic law, Sharia, to be the law of the land. And there wasn't a peep from Bush.

If you have a fixed number of miles driven, and you mandate a minimum of x mpg, this will result of an average of X>x mpg. This will burn the same amount of fuel as you would if you mandate a fleet average of X mpg.

No, it won't. Say my "fleet" consists of two cars - one a gas-guzzler that gets 10 MPG. The other is a small, unpopular car that gets 40 MPG. So, my "fleet average" is 25 MPG. But if the gas guzzler outsells the small car by a ratio of 100 to 1M

Ah, I see the issue. By my understanding "fleet average" is defined in terms of number of cars sold, not number of types of cars. In your example, this would make the fleet average (1*40+100*10)/101 = 10.2970297 MPG, not 25 MPG. By your definition, it is indeed almost entirely ineffective.

It took a bit to find anywhere actually defining the term but there is this: "(2) Fleet average fuel economy is - (A) the total number of passenger automobiles leased for at least 60 consecutive days or bought by executive agencies in a fiscal year (except automobiles designed for combat-related missions, law enforcement work, or emergency rescue work); divided by (B) the sum of the fractions obtained by dividing the number of automobiles of each model leased or bought by the fuel economy of that model." (Source) and a comment here runs some numbers using my definition.

Someone should go add the term to Wiktionary, 'cause it's not defined anywhere else. :-)

What harmful side effects are you talking about?

Loss of freedom to buy gas guzzlers, is one. So long as they're willing to pay for it (IE, pay extra in order to subsudise the cost of more efficient vehicles), I think we should let them.

I'm not sure why mandating better fuel consumption will necessarily change the price of cars. Or are you talking about something else?

With our new agreed upon(?) definition, you do, though, right?

Suppose the Guzzlebug gets 20MPG and costs $20 000. Foomobile gets 30MPG and costs $10 000. Barbug gets 40MPG and costs $15 000. I'm cheap, so I decide to go for the Foomobile instead of the Barbug. But then Mr. Burns says 'I want a Guzzlebug, but we have to average 30MPG or better, so I guess I'll have to go with a lousy Foomobile. But wait! I'll pay you $5 000 if you'll buy a Barbug instead of a Foomobile.' Obviously, Mr. Burns is happy with the trade or he wouldn't make it, and I'm happy (or at least neutral) with it or I won't take it. Result: our combined happiness (surplus) has increased, without lowering the average MPG.

This deal will be pre-made when car manufacturers realise they need to lower the average MPG of cars sold, not just their average MPG of cars for sale.

(Of course, it's possible Mr. Burns drives more than I do, but generally I'd expect more efficient cars to be favoured by people who drive a lot. Or maybe they're favoured by people who are mileage conscious and walk/bike/bus as much as possible.)

Actually "neo" does not mean that. Neo means new or modern ie "neoconservative" means new conservative. Neo is good for neologisms or new words.

Actually "neo" does not mean that. Neo means new or modern ie "neoconservative" means new conservative. Neo is good for neologisms or new words.

Merriam Webster mw1.merriam-webster.com/dictionary says that variant of hack dates from the 1600s and comes from the British word `hackney', or taxi driver.

OneLook Dictionary Search, as a quick reference, lists 8 definitions of hack as a noun, 8 as a verb, and 1 as a surname. A surname? Depending on a person's disposition I imagine someone with a last name of "Hack" could have a lot of fun, or a lot of grief. Looking at all the results; there's catagories for Art, Computing, Medicine, and seven other catagories; I'm kind of surprized there's so many. I haven't clicked on all the links but I'm thinking they probably share the same basic meanings.

Merriam Webster mw1.merriam-webster.com/dictionary says that variant of hack dates from the 1600s and comes from the British word `hackney', or taxi driver.

OneLook Dictionary Search, as a quick reference, lists 8 definitions of hack as a noun, 8 as a verb, and 1 as a surname. A surname? Depending on a person's disposition I imagine someone with a last name of "Hack" could have a lot of fun, or a lot of grief. Looking at all the results; there's catagories for Art, Computing, Medicine, and seven other catagories; I'm kind of surprized there's so many. I haven't clicked on all the links but I'm thinking they probably share the same basic meanings.

Or better yet, type it into http://www.acronymfinder.com/ or http://www.onelook.com/

I would hope that Ubuntu will be going DVD one of these days soon, because it would allow them to unify the various flavors of distribution.

Well, it's not from Canonical (so I guess you could say that it's not canonical), but:

http://www.thelinuxstore.ca/index.php?main_page=pr oduct_info&products_id=1282

Ubuntu, Kubuntu, Xubuntu and Edubuntu, all on one DVD.

I don't need to defend this position extensively, it is a done deal in the atheist community. I'm just letting you, and others who are similarly confused, know what the actual situation is. You can check it out -- actually do some research -- and learn something, or you can continue on in ignorance. Your call.

The wiki article has been closed because it is filled with misinformation? How about some dictionary definitions then:

• Merriam-Webster:atheist; one who believes that there is no deity.
• Cambridge International Dictionary of English: atheist; someone who believes that God or gods do not exist. Compare agnostic: someone who does not know, or believes that it is impossible to know, whether a god exists: Although he was raised a Catholic, he was an agnostic for most of his adult life.
• American Heritage: atheist; One who disbelieves or denies the existence of God or gods.

That was but three definitions I provided that use the root or stem "believe" in the definition of "atheist", here's a list of definitions from 16 other dictionaries. Now where's your research? No, you don't need to provide it, but if you want to correct or convince me I am wrong then I need to see it.

Though I do find it listed as a "valid Scrabble word", I can't find it in any real English dictionaries. Even Onelook which indexes dozens of dictionaries. Closest is

vrouw (plural vrouws) or vrou (plural vrous)

South Africa woman or wife: a woman or a wife, especially one who is Afrikaner [Late 18th century. Via Afrikaans

elude is, in fact, not only a real word, but appropriately used in that sentence.

Whereas allude certainly isn't.

And elude isn't really appropriate either. What eludes the buyers isn't the acronyms, it's the meanings of the acronyms.

Don't try to outsnark me, you're doomed to fail.

Let me get this out of the way first, previously you had said Tureky wasn't in Europe, however using Onelook dictionary search for "Turkey" I checked the first three entries of it with a capital "T" and basically they all said Turkey was the Southeast of Europe and the Southwest of Asia.

Turkey is of interest to Europe, of course, however theres a difference between trading, talking and cooperating and giving Turkey control over our continent

Does admitting Turkey into the EU really give it control of Europe or just a say? I thought the EU was supposed to a union of equals.

Where did you get your data on Muslims in Scandinavia anyway? I live here and the truth is less than 3% of the population are immigrants from Muslim countries.

From Wiki:
Some 275,000 Swedes are today members of various free churches (where congregation attendance is much higher), and, in addition, immigration has meant that there are now some 92,000 Roman Catholics and 100,000 Eastern Orthodox Christians living in Sweden [14]. Also of significance are the 500,000 Muslims in Sweden.[15].

That page says the estimated population of Sweden in July 2006 was under 10,000,000. If it were 10M then muslims would be 5% of the population, and though nowhere near a majority I'd still say half a million is a sizable population. The Wiki page for Denmark says Muslims make up 4% of the population.

France does not allow the census to include information on religion so nobody really knows. I believe about two million Turks live in Germany.

Yea I know that about France but France has a number of North or Western Africans living there, from places like Algeria and Senegal. Actually the professor I had for French was Senegalese. And while I wouldn't say they all are I'd think many are Muslims. In Germany, Wiki says there's about 3 million Muslims, predominately from Turkey.

Just like all of the European territory Turkey has - it was taken by force.

I'm glad you brought up Turkey's militant pass again. Yes, Turkey has invaded and conquered other countries, especially under the Ottoman Empire, but the other European countries have done the same. In one sense after the Crusades Turkey was "justified", tit for tat. Actually it's only been recently, meaning the past few centuries, that the European nations have formed. Take Spain, Spain is the creation, unification, of many different tribes on the Iberian Penisula. For instance the Basque who are the oldest known ethnic group to live in Iberia, northern Spain and southern France are allowed thier own nation. Then there's the Catalan, inhabitants of Catalonia, and Andorra, Castile, Valencia, and so on. And like the Basque ETA some members of these other ethnic groups are also fighting for independence.

The Kurds have been cheated by Turkey for a long time, Ataturk the Founder promised full independence.

It's not just the Turks who've cheated the Kurds. Britian and the US both promised the Kurds their own homeland, Kurdistan, for their help in WWI, but when Ataturk signed a deal with Iran and Syria to fight against any Kurdistan they didn't do anything to hold up their promise or his.

The Vatican is not a member of the EU. They simply wanted European values to be included in the future Constitution. Its not much to ask.

I compleatly disagree with this, religious values shouldn't be envolved with politics! Since the Enlightenment started in Europe I'd think Europeans would understand this better than Americans, those in the US. As Thomas Jefferson said, religion is a private matter and that's exactly where it should stay, in private. Paraphrasing of course. I wonder how the Vatican would feel if the Celtic Druids were to demand their values be incl

Moron, not Moran...

http://www.onelook.com/?w=moron&ls=a

And safe power systems are viable, but not cheap.

The problem with most of a capitalist society is it
thinks cheap first.

http://onelook.com/?w=sport&ls=a

Look through those definitions. Almost all of the ones that discuss the "sport" that we are talking about (as opposed to a kind of person, or a summer cottage in Maine) emphasize physical excertion. Of course, you can find other defintions that would (maybe) include video games, but many of those are rather vauge (one states that sport == recreation -- maybe recreational sex should be an olympic event?)

Apparently only some parts of ny brain work at any given time. I even googled "flaut flaunt" and found references to "flaut" as scoffing at or disdaining, thus re-inforcing my temporary mental abberation.

Try flouting.

See http://onelook.com/?w=flout

Is 'representative democracy' another term for hegemony? If so, I agree, although if not I ask you to ask yourself how many referenda you have been aware of in the USA over recent years. I ask because in a democracy, the people vote for the laws but in a hegemony the people vote for the people who vote for the laws.

Hegemony isn't a form of government. Representative democracy is where the people's power is invested in representatives which they elect. Our federal government works like this, but the states differ. Some states have lots of ballot initiatives, and some have none at all unless they're county or municipal.

Another way to look at this is the people voting for their dictators - those who will rule them for the rulers' own good.

It isn't anything like voting for dictators; dictators either put themselves in power or arrived there by happy accident of birth, and the election is meaningless (e.g., "yes or no" on the only candidate, the dictator). The people have no power to invest anywhere, either directly or through a representative. The election is merely an opinion poll, and the dictator will continue to serve themself regardless of the outcome.

We select senators and house reps at the federal level, most officials at the state, county, and municipal levels, and direct our states in presidential elections. With the exception of officials who get practically embedded due to party politics, we can toss most of these just as easily as we select them. In addition, although some occasionally get other notions, their offices exist in the service of their constituencies and there are penalties up to and including prison for using that office to serve themself.

most nouns ending in o

Sorry, no dictionaries indexed in the selected category contain the word typoes.

Show me a dictionary or other authoritative source that lists "typoes" as the correct plural form of "typo".

Thanks.

http://www.bartleby.com/61/91/T0449100.html
The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language: Fourth Edition. 2000.
typo
SYLLABICATION: typo
PRONUNCIATION: tp
NOUN: Inflected forms: pl. typos
Informal A typographical error.

Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary
typo
One entry found for typo.
Main Entry: typo
Pronunciation: 'tI-(")pO
Function: noun
Inflected Form(s): plural typos

Collective sigh...

George Reeves remains the manliest Superman ever.

Does Hollywood not care that "Superman" is supposed to be "super", i.e., more-than, a "man"?

You don't androgynize Superman. You don't play the surprise card when it comes to his power. You put out there a man who looks like a man and represents exactly what he is: the strongest, fastest, least-vulnerable humanoid on the planet.

If I wanted irony in my superhero, I'd make a movie about Underdog, or Yoda.

This is just a waste of the symbolism to turn a profit on the name-recognition factor.

That's really so nice of you to point out my error. Have you considered posting on "Colon: News for Grammar, Spelling and Punctuation Nerds"?

No, I have not. Typically I mangle the crap out of the english language on a daily basis with my incredibly poor typoing skills. However, "speach" looked close enough to a real word that I took the time to make sure it wasnt an alternate spelling or something else I didn't know.

Or maybe instead of your friendly spelling advice, you could give me advice on the best spell check for my web browser?

Spelling hints when you're unsure:
http://www.onelook.com/
Google the word alone (and see if it asks you "did you mean?") or with a "define" parameter, e.g.:
googling the word "speach" alone
Searching for the definition with "define:speach"

Remember, make fun of a man's spelling and you feel superior for day, but teach man to spell and you can feel superior for a lifetime.

Actually, it came from curiosity out of wondering if we americans had mangled the shit out of yet another british spelling of a word. I mean, all those dropped "u"s (humour, armour, etc.)... just WHERE do they GO? Are they in a big pile in heaven next to all the lost socks and sunglasses?

As for feeling superior; I'm currently seven grand in the hole, jobless, and living in my "sister"s spare bedroom. I don't feel superior to anyone right now.

However, I'm still a giant smartass.

Care to provide a specific definition for me? This link might help:

    http://www.onelook.com/?w=niche&ls=a

Hint: even Windows has a "niche", and is thus a "niche OS".

Where does it fit? Under what? This isn't regulating the value of money, of foreign Coin, or fix the Standard of Weights and Measures. Nor does it "provide for the Punishment".

You suggest that this will be used to track political speech. Pray tell, what kind of political speech requires the use of a color laser printer?

Where do you draw the line then, all printer? How about books, pamphets, radio and tv, the internet? Where? They can all including colour laser printers, be used for political speech. To deny one of them is to abridge speech:

abridge
verb: reduce in scope while retaining essential elements

In fact, the definition of liberty is one of the most frequently debated elements of the U.S. Constitution. I find the Preamble to be a little more insightful as to the intended meaning, myself. It reads "secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity." I read this as the G-d given (what other meaning does Blessing have?) 'right' to avoid oppresive restriction.

Quick definitions (blessing)

1. noun: the act of praying for divine protection
2. noun: the formal act of giving approval (Example: "He gave the project his blessing")
3. noun: a desirable state (Example: "Enjoy the blessings of peace")
4. noun: a ceremonial prayer invoking divine protection
5. noun: a short prayer of thanks before a meal
6. name: A surname (rare: 1 in 50000 families; popularity rank in the U.S.: #5838)

Of the six definitions of "blessings" above six aren't religious in nature, so to your question, the use of the word doesn't necessarily need to invoke religion or "God". Myself, I prefer in the form "Brightest Blessings".

Well, yes, you are right. For example (my pet peeve), many articles on the Soviet Union are factually wrong, because they are written by Americans based on what they were told about their enemy by their government. Now for the same reason I wouldn't trust Hitlerugend kids to write articles about United States I don't think it works for Wikipedia... However, you simply don't have enough people to fix this and there are enough motivated anti-Soviet Americans, who would annoy other contributors with constant reverts.... Anyway, even though Wikipedia is not reliable, it's quite good at providing brief, but comprehensive information about complex issues. Often it has more information than Britannica or any other online encyclopedia and that alone can make Wikipedia worth using. Consider "artificial intelligence". What better way I have of finding basic introduction to all aspects of this topic? This Wikipedia article can use a lot of work, but it's already better than anything else.

I hope you are joking around just for laughs. You are not really attempting to tell me that you are under the honest impression that "high school" is one word, right?

Compare this: highschool

To this: high school

Catching the drift? Perhaps you would be more "at home" having Google tell you right from wrong (considering Slashdot is a Google fanboy site):

Google: highschool - ~3,840,000 results

Google: high school - ~247,000,000 results

I hope you are joking around just for laughs. You are not really attempting to tell me that you are under the honest impression that "high school" is one word, right?

Compare this: highschool

To this: high school

Catching the drift? Perhaps you would be more "at home" having Google tell you right from wrong (considering Slashdot is a Google fanboy site):

Google: highschool - ~3,840,000 results

Google: high school - ~247,000,000 results

A plethora of examples can be found here

I'm sorry, but religion doesn't cover atheists:

http://www.onelook.com/?w=religion&ls=a:
Quick definitions (Religion)

# noun: a strong belief in a supernatural power or powers that control human destiny
# noun: institution to express belief in a divine power

http://dictionary.reference.com/search?r=66&q=reli gion:
      1.
                  a. Belief in and reverence for a supernatural power or powers regarded as creator and governor of the universe.
                  b. A personal or institutionalized system grounded in such belief and worship.
      2. The life or condition of a person in a religious order.
      3. A set of beliefs, values, and practices based on the teachings of a spiritual leader.
      4. A cause, principle, or activity pursued with zeal or conscientious devotion.

And no, atheism is not defined as being actively pursued with zeal or conscientious devotion. Some atheists may be that way, but not all, and it is not necessary to be a hardcore anti-theist to be an athiest; atheism is merely a lack of belief in a deity(s).

Atheists do not practice religion.

"Corrupted PC's Find New Home in the Dumpster."
Do you see anything wrong with that? Corrupted is a verb, corrupt is an adjective.

Quick definitions (corrupted) http://www.onelook.com/?w=corrupted&ls=a (How do I make /. show "corrupted" instead of the link's location?)

# adjective: ruined in character or quality
# adjective: containing errors or alterations

Quick definitions (corrupt) http://www.onelook.com/?w=corrupt&ls=a

# verb: corrupt morally or by intemperance or sensuality (Example: "Socrates was accused of corrupting young men")
# verb: alter from the original
# verb: make illegal payments to in exchange for favors or influence
# verb: place under suspicion or cast doubt upon
# adjective: containing errors or alterations (Example: "A corrupt text")
# adjective: lacking in integrity (Example: "Humanity they knew to be corrupt...from the day of Adam's creation")
# adjective: touched by rot or decay (Example: "`corrupt' is archaic")
# adjective: not straight; dishonest or immoral or evasive

You are wrong; not the author.

"Corrupted PC's Find New Home in the Dumpster."
Do you see anything wrong with that? Corrupted is a verb, corrupt is an adjective.

Quick definitions (corrupted) http://www.onelook.com/?w=corrupted&ls=a (How do I make /. show "corrupted" instead of the link's location?)

# adjective: ruined in character or quality
# adjective: containing errors or alterations

Quick definitions (corrupt) http://www.onelook.com/?w=corrupt&ls=a

# verb: corrupt morally or by intemperance or sensuality (Example: "Socrates was accused of corrupting young men")
# verb: alter from the original
# verb: make illegal payments to in exchange for favors or influence
# verb: place under suspicion or cast doubt upon
# adjective: containing errors or alterations (Example: "A corrupt text")
# adjective: lacking in integrity (Example: "Humanity they knew to be corrupt...from the day of Adam's creation")
# adjective: touched by rot or decay (Example: "`corrupt' is archaic")
# adjective: not straight; dishonest or immoral or evasive

You are wrong; not the author.

Thanks. define: amen in google found these two which are a little closer to what I thought - a Hebrew word meaning truly, it is true. As a concluding word of prayers, it expressed assent to and acceptance of God's will. www.archmil.org/ourfaith/glossary.asp Means "Yes, this is true!" or "Let it be so!" www.followtherabbi.com/Brix As a Catholic, we say this word as we receive communion. I was told that this was an affirmation that you believe in the solemnity of what you are receiving.

The link to Wiki I got from Define: amen which has links to dozens of online dictionaries.

Remediated isn't even a word!

It isn't? Better go tell the folks at m-w.com, dictionary.com , princeton, Webster (who included the word remediate in his 1828 dictionary)...

• noun: a grammatical category in inflected languages governing the agreement between nouns and pronouns and adjectives; in some languages it is quite arbitrary but in Indo-European languages it is usually based on sex or animateness
• noun: the properties that distinguish organisms on the basis of their reproductive roles

  http://www.onelook.com/?w=gender&ls=a

Explanation

'grok' is a perfectly good word (albeit a fictional martian one by origin). But it's in several dictionaries and has it's own wikipedia entry.

Google combines the mature function of definitions (basically what Onelook does and does better) and the prototype answering function (which doesn't work all that well yet).

I suggest you check out Brain Boost, a real answering system that uses AI to change your question into multiple search engine queries, contacts multiples search engines, processes the results, downloads the most relevant pages, uses AI to analyze their relevance, extracts the answers from the most relevant and presents them on a neat results page with links to get additional information, read the source or rate the quality of answers. It's really amazing and it works for all questions with the whole web, not just with a few encyclopedias or definition lists like Google apparently does.

1. who was president of the usa in 1996? - the correct answer is in result 4, not very nice
2. what is the slashdot effect? - several precise definitions
3. what is google? - a lot of answers that give in depth overview of all aspects of what Google really is. Actually, to my taste there was a little too much information.
4. who is jane fonda? - all the information you need, probably not structured very well

Ummm... English has it too: logorhhea.

the OED, which believes more in money than in the free flow of information

Go here:

www.onelook.com

All the dictionaries that matter*.

* - except the OED, which believes more in money than in the free flow of information

Google's "define:" is okay for a quick definition, but One Look is the best meta-dictionary site: "6,189,689 words in 993 dictionaries indexed".

Indeed, it is extremely funny that you think a corporation is likely to be more ethical than a human being. While we all know that human beings can be greedy, violent, lying immoral bastards, somehow, when incorporated, these humans produce a wonderful, white and fluffy creature known as American corporation that would never do anything bad. Do you also believe that all elected officials receive two wings and a halo with their mandate as well?

Well, I don't really know what to say to you. I guess it's too late to consult a dictionary...