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http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=misspell& r=67

misspell
Pronunciation Key (ms-spl)
tr.v. misspelled, or misspelt (-splt) misspelling, misspells

To spell incorrectly.

What Stallman (and the rest of us) are really up against is a system of state and corporate entitlements usually just called "Pork Barrel" politics in government. The real deal is that it goes on plenty in the corporate world. Insiders are executives with budgetary signing authority and their boards, legislators and public servants with budgetary control. Outsiders are people who hold jobs and low-interest bank accounts, buy shares of mutual funds/corporate bonds and pay taxes.

The system directs all of our effort (power, like in physics class) into the system, which redistributes the effort to meet demands. The kids are watching the cookie jar. What do you think is going to happen? You tell people glass jars are better because whoever wants to can see what's inside, but that cuts off the middlemen who are snitching snacks (for each other, so they don't get caught with their own booty) and can't compete for survival based on merit alone. If the middlemen ban the glass jars should we be surprised?

I'll bite.

The software is the mp3 player (be it Windows Media Player, MusicMatch Jukebox, WinAmp or anything else). The mp3 file itself is nothing but data that the software uses. A mp3 file definately doesn't qualify as a software, and much less as a computer program.
Software is the language a computer understand. In the early days there was no separation of data from processed that made calculations on that data. The separation of that information into "data files" and "executable files" does not mean the data is no longer software.
Software: The instructions executed by a computer, as opposed to the physical device on which they run (the "hardware").
Data is an integral part of those instructions. Without it, all you have is a receipe with no list of ingredients. All files, whether mp3, exe, or txt are "software".

Now, what is your definition of a "computer"? A mp3 file cannot be understood only by a computer. It can be understood by a portable mp3 player, is that a computer too? It can be understood by a car radio system, is that a computer?
Short answer: Yes. Duh. You think a machine has to have a harddrive, a keyboard and a monitor to be called a computer? Wake up.
Computer: A device that computes, especially a programmable electronic machine that performs high-speed mathematical or logical operations or that assembles, stores, correlates, or otherwise processes information.
A portable mp3 player, a car radio system, and the digtal watch on my arm all all computers. They all process digital instructions to perform specific tasks. In the case of the mp3 player and car radio, they take the data from the CD and transform it into sound. And if you think there are no "high-speed mathematical or logical operations" going on to do that, you need to learn a bit more about them.

Plus, when you bought a music CD in your favorite music store, chances are the music on the CD was not in an mp3 format. So, whatever you do with the mp3, it was the making of the mp3 that was not "fair use".
You're right. Chances are it wasn't in an mp3 format. Chances are it was in another digital format that is as much a form of software as an mp3 is.

Now is changing that format to mp3 "fair use"? IMHO, it is (should be) as legal as time shifting a television program. Transferring the information into a format or onto media that is more convenient than the original is not (shouldn't be) a crime. Would this hold up in court? I don't know, but based on the Betamax case I suspect it would as long as the judge wasn't a tool.

I'll bite.

The software is the mp3 player (be it Windows Media Player, MusicMatch Jukebox, WinAmp or anything else). The mp3 file itself is nothing but data that the software uses. A mp3 file definately doesn't qualify as a software, and much less as a computer program.
Software is the language a computer understand. In the early days there was no separation of data from processed that made calculations on that data. The separation of that information into "data files" and "executable files" does not mean the data is no longer software.
Software: The instructions executed by a computer, as opposed to the physical device on which they run (the "hardware").
Data is an integral part of those instructions. Without it, all you have is a receipe with no list of ingredients. All files, whether mp3, exe, or txt are "software".

Now, what is your definition of a "computer"? A mp3 file cannot be understood only by a computer. It can be understood by a portable mp3 player, is that a computer too? It can be understood by a car radio system, is that a computer?
Short answer: Yes. Duh. You think a machine has to have a harddrive, a keyboard and a monitor to be called a computer? Wake up.
Computer: A device that computes, especially a programmable electronic machine that performs high-speed mathematical or logical operations or that assembles, stores, correlates, or otherwise processes information.
A portable mp3 player, a car radio system, and the digtal watch on my arm all all computers. They all process digital instructions to perform specific tasks. In the case of the mp3 player and car radio, they take the data from the CD and transform it into sound. And if you think there are no "high-speed mathematical or logical operations" going on to do that, you need to learn a bit more about them.

Plus, when you bought a music CD in your favorite music store, chances are the music on the CD was not in an mp3 format. So, whatever you do with the mp3, it was the making of the mp3 that was not "fair use".
You're right. Chances are it wasn't in an mp3 format. Chances are it was in another digital format that is as much a form of software as an mp3 is.

Now is changing that format to mp3 "fair use"? IMHO, it is (should be) as legal as time shifting a television program. Transferring the information into a format or onto media that is more convenient than the original is not (shouldn't be) a crime. Would this hold up in court? I don't know, but based on the Betamax case I suspect it would as long as the judge wasn't a tool.

Um, that was, like, a quip. Humor-imparied individual.

Blackmail is defined as: 1. Extortion of money or something else of value from a person by the threat of exposing a criminal act or discreditable information.

While Extortion is: 1. The act of extorting; the act or practice of wresting anything from a person by force, by threats, or by any undue exercise of power; undue exaction; overcharge.

Now since these guys weren't threatening to reveal something about the company this is garden variety extortion and not blackmail.

Blackmail is defined as: 1. Extortion of money or something else of value from a person by the threat of exposing a criminal act or discreditable information.

While Extortion is: 1. The act of extorting; the act or practice of wresting anything from a person by force, by threats, or by any undue exercise of power; undue exaction; overcharge.

Now since these guys weren't threatening to reveal something about the company this is garden variety extortion and not blackmail.

Please, show me where that meaning of 'irate' is defined. I've even done half the work for you: look here. Where is it, eh? Besides in your imagination, I mean.
BTW, if you're going to defend yourself, don't try and pass yourself off as a random AC. It just makes you look like even more of a dick.

Whouldn't ya know, a unipod is almost monopod, except you can't hold a camera steady with a monopod. Or so says reference.com.

Whouldn't ya know, a unipod is almost monopod, except you can't hold a camera steady with a monopod. Or so says reference.com.

Sure, we have the theory of evolution, but that is still a theory after all.

Please stop confusing the different definitions of the term theory. Specifically theory in theory of evolution means:

A set of statements or principles devised to explain a group of facts or phenomena, especially one that has been repeatedly tested or is widely accepted and can be used to make predictions about natural phenomena,

An assumption based on limited information or knowledge; a conjecture.

It's spelled "rendez-vous".

No it isn't. It comes from the French rendez vous, but a hyphen is not involved.

>Correct me if I'm wrong, but doesn't piracy involve ships and weapons?

Okay. I'll correct you then.

Piracy:

"The unauthorized use or reproduction of copyrighted or patented material: software piracy."

>You fully well realize that these "backups" are "backups" of games they DIDN'T pay money for, why are you pretending any different?

Uhhh, he didn't say that.

>Ah, yes, now I remember, on Slashdot sarcasm isn't, right?

On the internet, if you plan to be sarcastic, I can't see your face. Use an emoticon if you want to be sarcastic. Here, I'll try one on for size: ;^D

And, on this point, *my* friends have backup copies, using their rights as ensrined in Canadian Copyright Law. Notice my lack of emoticon. Notice that means... they're legal backup copies.

I really couldn't care less if you believe me or not. (Pedants: read me first)

I'm not going to argue over the meaning of the word "proper", but according to this, I guess both are correct.
Sorry for going off-topic like that.

one orientated dead ahead

Orientated? Are you sure? http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=orientate d

> The man just said it is not an accident if you contribute directly to it

And he was factually incorrect. It is a term that describes the entire incident, the term itself does not infer nor assign who the victim is or the level of blame for the person who caused "the accident".

Furthermore making the poor SOB who is the cause of this "accident" 100,000 times more remorseful does absolutely nothing in terms of making any of us any less likely to cause "an accident" like that.

Making ALL OF US feel like shit, would. Making ALL OF US realize that we need to be more careful, would. Making ALL OF US introduce more numerous checks and balances to prevent accidents, would.

The Japanese have a huge "cult of guilt" and ritual suicide... and almost everyone knows that it doesn't do damn fuck all in terms of making their society work any better. In fact it makes their society worse, because no-one else typically learns from other people's mistakes.

The only thing that making that guy feel 100,000 times worse about "the accident" would do is make some assholes feel all warm and fuzzy and invulnerable, because hey, *they'd* never end up in his shoes, he *deserves* to feel 100,000 times worse than he does now. So let's all shame *him* some more. That'll solve everything.

Retards.

p.s. "ultimate" doesn't mean "best", it really means "final", "last", "eventual". (Though it is kind of drifting towards "supreme".)

The source is your eventual and final destination when you don't find the answer anywhere else. Or maybe the code's author will be, if you can get an answer from them. But if they've forgotten then you're back to the source.

The correct spelling of the word is "aeon", not "eon". http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=aeon

See here

The word is "Usability"

The spelling is so bad on Slashdot people actually start believing the wrong spellings!

sigh

They are in fact british. What they aren't is english.

And while most of Ireland isn't currently part of Great britain, it is still historically one of the British isles.

They are in fact british. What they aren't is english.

And while most of Ireland isn't currently part of Great britain, it is still historically one of the British isles.

In the days of yore, whatever yore means...

link \Ex*tor"tion\, n. [F. extorsion.] 1. The act of extorting; the act or practice of wresting anything from a person by force, by threats, or by any undue exercise of power; undue exaction; overcharge. hmmmm.............. And wikipedia: link "...Extortion is distinguished from robbery. In robbery, the offender steals goods from the victim whilst threatening him with force. In extortion, the victim willingly turns the goods over to avoid a threatened violence or other harm. ..." hmmmm...........

A 'maroon', eh? Like http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=maroon? Or were you thinking maybe of http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=moron?

A 'maroon', eh? Like http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=maroon? Or were you thinking maybe of http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=moron?

"I never got this argument. It always seemed like sour grapes to me. What's so generic about "Microsoft Windows XP" or "Microsoft Office 2003?""

There's nothing wrong with those names - it's the use of the words windows or office OUTSIDE the phrase incorporating the Microsoft name.

MS still seem to be setting themselves up for it - go here and check out all the use of the proper noun 'Office' without any off the 'Microsoft' or version qualifiers! That's where the issue has, does and will continue to lie.

"I never got this argument. It always seemed like sour grapes to me. What's so generic about "Microsoft Windows XP" or "Microsoft Office 2003?""

There's nothing wrong with those names - it's the use of the words windows or office OUTSIDE the phrase incorporating the Microsoft name.

MS still seem to be setting themselves up for it - go here and check out all the use of the proper noun 'Office' without any off the 'Microsoft' or version qualifiers! That's where the issue has, does and will continue to lie.

English is so rich a language, in fact, that we naturally learn it as a meta-language instead of directly as a language. This is how we are able to decode the meaning of slang phrases that we've never heard before...these phrases strike a chord with us because they evoke imagery that is indirectly or obliquely referred to by phrasology with which we're already intimate. Even when expressing ourselves to audiences of unsurpassed erudition, we ought always sedulously eschew unmitigated hyperverbosity, obfuscatory redundancy, and munificent prolixity.

Sure, you may have understood the last half of that increasingly dense paragraph, but it took a lot of work on your part didn't it? So what are we after: communication or correct but unnatural verbiage? You must remember that language evolves...though I will concede that it does not evolve as well if we do not participate in it.

I go for a middle-of-the-road approach. I expect that people should know the common, everyday words because these words lend themselves to actually enhancing your clarity of thought. It's true--you actually become smarter in immeasurable ways by knowing the difference between "their" and "there", "loose" and "lose", "your" and "you're". People who misuse these kinds of words send a valuable message to their readers: I'm an idiot, I can't handle the simplest aspects of my native tongue (foreigners are forgiven their trespasses in this regard), don't pay attention to what I say but instead feel sad for me. I'm more forgiving with things like "octopuses" vs "octopi" (both are valid), "viruses" and "virii" (only the former--not all words ending in "-us" are created equal), mainly because these people are cute and they amuse me in their quest to impress us with their creative applications of Latin etymology.

Less amusing to me is when dictionaries disagree. It turns out that Merriam-Webster has decided that "noo-kyuh-ler" is valid...though they note that it is a pronunciation (pronOunciation? ha! homework for you) "disapproved of by many", it still made it in as a secondary (and yes, this was M-W's policy at least as far back as 1997, long before Bush Jr.). Dictionary.com notes the usage without elevating it to the status of the proper. Many people don't realize this, but these linguistic decisions are taken by an annual meeting of professors and language experts at Oxford University. Occasionally the results of these meetings can be very surprising--the last one of these meetings was about six weeks ago, and they removed a word (due to underuse) which I had always considered untouchable: "gullible". So give the on-line dictionaries a chance to catch up, but searches for this word will go unresolved in few months' time.

sev

Sorry to be nitpicky - but that's paranoia, not cynicism. Of course they're related. Not that I think you should have too much of either (some is healthy I suppose).

Sorry to be nitpicky - but that's paranoia, not cynicism. Of course they're related. Not that I think you should have too much of either (some is healthy I suppose).

No? What about Hollywood? American music? Japanese video games? Western styles of clothing? Ethnic foods?

That would be exporting , not outsourcing . You and the mods need to get thee to a dictionary.

No? What about Hollywood? American music? Japanese video games? Western styles of clothing? Ethnic foods?

That would be exporting , not outsourcing . You and the mods need to get thee to a dictionary.

What do you call the people who drive trains? :P

I still call em Engineers but officialy they are "Railwayman" (Railwaymens?)

I wonder how Steve manages to manage two companies, when his life is filled with his vendettas against anyone who ever pissed him off.

This is what is commonly referred to as POWER.

that's why these guys are called mathletes

Nice and simple... now answer the question, is maths a sport?

Chess:
A board game for two players, each beginning with 16 pieces of six kinds that are moved according to individual rules, with the objective of checkmating the opposing king.

Math:
The study of the measurement, properties, and relationships of quantities and sets, using numbers and symbols.

Sport:
An activity involving physical exertion and skill that is governed by a set of rules or customs and often undertaken competitively.

Math:
The study of the measurement, properties, and relationships of quantities and sets, using numbers and symbols.

Sport:
An activity involving physical exertion and skill that is governed by a set of rules or customs and often undertaken competitively.

from dictionary.com

athlete PPronunciation Key(thlt) n. A person possessing the natural or acquired traits, such as strength, agility, and endurance, that are necessary for physical exercise or sports, especially those performed in competitive contexts.

Most foreign aid is done because it is in the best domestic interest of the US. Example: We'll pay for a school in the Middle East so that students don't go to a madrasa (so they don't become terrorists).

Anti-Zionism is a strange one - since Zionism, historically, arose as a response to anti-Semitism. This is such a confused, muddied term, I'd stay away from it entirely, since it tries to collapse complicated political issues into a jingoistic phrase. Lots of people, Jews included and Israelis included, don't support parts of current Israeli government policy, ongoing occupation and so on. The word "anti-Zionist" could mean almost anything, and even Wikipedia seems befuddled by this issue since the page on it is currently locked as a result of editorial disputes.

Anti-Judaism is a pretty awkward sounding word, as is "Anti-Islam". I'd stick to "anti-Jewish bias", "anti-Muslim bias" or "anti-Arab bias" if you're worried about being misunderstood. But the hubbub against anti-Semitism needs to stop now - you can't expect people to change the meaning of words to accomodate your political agenda, and if you go around flapping your arms when people use perfectly clear dictionary English words, you're going to end up marginalizing yourself and your viewpoint.

Language shifts happen - changing them because you disagree with them is very difficult to do, because you have to convince millions of people to change their usage - witness the hacker/cracker language confusion on Slashdot. If you took a basic college linguistics class you would understand that this is how language works, and we just have to deal with it.

As for this snide comment:


Not all Arabs are Muslims, but given your previous slip up, we'll just let this one slide.


I'll just assume you aren't a native English speaker (since you describe yourself as an Arab, this may or may not be an accurate assumption). If you parsed my sentence properly, you'd realize I never said that all Arabs are Muslim, nor that all Muslims are Arab (obviously). I had a friend in college who was a Coptic Christian from Egypt, in fact. However, most Arab countries are overwhelmingly Muslim, and the undeniable fact that I was referring to is that fear and hatred of Muslim extremism has resulted in much anti-Arab ethnic bias that never really existed before, at least not on a large scale, in the US. Jews, on the other hand, have been victims of bias in Europe since the middle ages (again, thus the linguistic shift in the meaning of "anti-Semitism").

The English word maven comes from the yiddish, where it means, more or less, "a definitive expert".

#1 - Well, I have a number of friends...
I believe he was being sarcastic.

#2 - ...designed for people who haven't learned to move their fingers independently.
Have you ever seen a USB mouse? Granted, the single button on the trackpad is stupid, but if you're doing any mouse-intensive work you're not going to use a trackpad anyway.

Ironically, when they mention the laws as if they are true, they actually point out that they had never read the aforementioned tales.

Is this really "ironic"? If someone were to say to me that they believed the laws were real, I'd expect that they haven't read the stories.

It's smacking of an absolute fact, because it higher income is correlated to education and intellegence. Note that correlation does not mean equal to, nor did the original poster intend for it to mean that. It's just means there is a link between the two. (also remember correlation != causation). Try taking a statistics class, or at least understand the terms being used. Or at least learned to comprehend what was written, not what you think was written.

Just like there is a correlation between smoking cigarettes and lung cancer and emphysema. Plenty of people have smoked and never develeoped problems; but overall, if you smoke cigarettes, there is a much higher chance that you will develop lung cancer. Thus, the correlation between the two.

• So you're saying they spell it wrong the first time ... then they correct themselves and spell it right the second time? Wrong
• THAN right. Either you goofed, or I missed the sarcasm.

If everybody broke into a network would it still be unlawful.

Yes, it would. To quote the oft-cliched parental question, "If everyone else was jumping off a cliff would you?" Morality, and by corollation, law and justice are not relative. That is to say, the law doesn't change because some people don't obey it. The underlying moral principle of "respect other people's property" still applies. So it'd be easier to argue for changing the speed limit because it's not founded on the same fundamental moral principles as laws such as trespassing (Alan Donagan, "The Theory of Morality").

Obviously you know nothing about good investigative journalism. It would seem the only journalism worth a dman is when the writer feel sthe issue is worth risking his liberty.

I think you could say that these two acted with a disregard for the liberty of others in their pursuit. If they had seriously caused damaged, it would've affected thousands of other people, not just themselves. I don't think that kind of disregard can be justified as investigative journalism.

I hope the two students in question counter sue the university for lapse protection of their student records.

Reminds me of when a professor of mine explained the term "hutzpah" to me...
A man was arrested and charged with murdering his two parents. There were several witnesses to the grisly crime and no doubt as to who was to blame. When he stood before the judge he claimed he shouldn't be tried because of mitigating circumstances. "What circumstances are those?" the judge asked. The man replied, "I'm emotionally traumatized from just having become an orphan."
That is hutzpah, and those two would be exhibiting quite a bit to sue the university.

No, this is ludacris.
The idea that you'll pay a price directly reflective of the cost of goods is ludicrous.