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Note: To constitute theft there must be a taking without the owner's consent, and it must be unlawful or felonious; every part of the property stolen must be removed, however slightly, from its former position; and it must be, at least momentarily, in the complete possession of the thief. See Larceny, and the Note under Robbery.

1. \Theft\, n. [OE. thefte, AS. [thorn]i['e]f[eth]e, [thorn][=y]f[eth]e, [thorn]e['o]f[eth]e. See Thief.] 1. (Law) The act of stealing; specifically, the felonious taking and removing of personal property, with an intent to deprive the rightful owner of the same; larceny.
2. 
   
   Note: To constitute theft there must be a taking without the owner's consent, and it must be unlawful or felonious; every part of the property stolen must be removed, however slightly, from its former position; and it must be, at least momentarily, in the complete possession of the thief.

The FCC seems to concentrate on definitions 1 and 2 for obscene, and definition 1 for profane. I'm not sure that Janet Jackson's breast is obscene by definition 2 (``Inciting lustful feelings; lewd.''), so they must be relying on definition 1 there. Offensive I can believe.

Definitions courtesy of Dictionary.reference.com

obscene ( P ) Pronunciation Key (b-sn, b-) adj.

1. Offensive to accepted standards of decency or modesty.
2. Inciting lustful feelings; lewd.
3. Repulsive; disgusting: "The way he writes about the disease that killed her is simply obscene" (Michael Korda).
4. So large in amount as to be objectionable or outrageous: "local merchants in nearby stores get hammered by stratospheric rents and obscene taxes" (Joe Queenan).

profane ( P ) Pronunciation Key (pr-fn, pr-) adj.

1. Marked by contempt or irreverence for what is sacred.
2. Nonreligious in subject matter, form, or use; secular: sacred and profane music.
3. Not admitted into a body of secret knowledge or ritual; uninitiated.
4. Vulgar; coarse.

" maybe if ISP's responded to complaints about dangerous and obsene/illegal/racists websites..."

We could save lives from what...reading? If a web site is illegal, it should be dealt with in an appropriate fashion. Other than that, the rest of your criteria are based on arbitrary opinion. If we censor what you think is "obsene", dangerous, or racist, we'll have to censor all possible interpretations of those criteria. We'll be left with a bland, tasteless world devoid of the things that make life interesting. Without the bad, you'd never know you had it so good.

Free as in beer? Free as in speech? Free as in free, damn it. It's a word and it has a definition. Let's stop abusing it.

I actually went through and finished that game. If they weren't so obsessed with the technology, it would have been brilliant. It had pretty good level design as I recall.

The fact that you had to explicitly control and position your one functioning arm was pretty annoying. If it had been an option that you could use to your advantage rather than a crippling requirement it would have been great. It was also really strange being able to "use" one arm but not the other. I think they made some lame excuse that your other arm was broken or something. That's certainly what it felt like.

The engine was a disaster too... An attempt to create a rendering engine that supports great distances by rendering distant objects to a sprite and using the sprite until you had moved n degrees radially from it. Unfortunately, "distant" meant "about 30 feet away," so you were basically playing DOOM at greater than 30 feet...

Also, it's manoeuvering

as an allowance for amusing alternatives we accept amusing alliteration abuse.

Perhaps you were thinking of this word?

as an allowance for amusing alternatives we accept amusing alliteration abuse.

Perhaps you were thinking of this word?

An examination of some of the shortcomings of a trade agreement between the U.S. and Australia does not effect most people directly.

Agreed. It is rare that such an examination spontaneously generates the majority of Earth's population.

Ha! They've already found an error in the proof! All that he posted was his apology! :-)

For the dude who modded me a troll here's a definition of sarcasm.

I noticed the same thing about newSCO's original company name.

Queue the wacko environmentalists who can't spell "queue".

Cue the wacko spelling trolls who don't know the difference between queue and cue .

Queue the wacko environmentalists who can't spell "queue".

Cue the wacko spelling trolls who don't know the difference between queue and cue .

\Sim"per\, v. i. [imp. & p. p. Simpered; p. pr. & vb. n. Simpering.] [Cf. Norw. semper fine, smart, dial. Dan. semper, simper, affected, coy, prudish, OSw. semper one who affectedly refrains from eating, Sw. sipp finical, prim, LG. sipp.] 1. To smile in a silly, affected, or conceited manner.

AMD is just asking for abuse. See here.

• To share an experience with the Jabber server and offer a note on our workaround.

• It's not really a product, per se... I mean, it's open source and free.

• They're two different things - COUGAAR is a distributed agent architecture, Jabber is a messaging protocol. I'm not sure a comparison is really in order...

Jabber is more than a messaging protocol, though. It's not a single protocol, but a set of protocols. It encompasses presence, discovery (through directory services), gatewaying, routing, conferencing, remote procedure calls, authentication -- additionally, the XMPP protocol is extensible, so there are no limits, really.

Anyway, as you pointed out, your problem was implementation-related, not necessarily architecture-related; so instead of blatantly generalizing about "Jabber ... being too slow", what you really meant is that one particular Jabber implementation was too slow for your needs.

Sorry if I'm being harsh, but I dislike people throwing out careless, vague comments that give a bad name to other people's work.

Unlike when your RPM database gets corrupted or when RedHat inadvertantly puts the wrong information on glibc and everyone upgrades and is left with a machine that you can only reinstall the OS on (the shortest path).

Further you shouldn't assume that redhat is the only distribution, or that I even use red hat. I don't think I even mentioned red hat in the post, come to think of it. Odd...

Something goes wrong enough to where this is a feature?

As opposed to the 1000s of games on the Windows box that all their friends are playing. Could be that you have only the default 5 games installed on the Windows box and they are tired of them and that's why they don't want to use those?

Proof of that which exists today? or are you still living in 1995?

Heh, yeah... those wonderful 'man' pages. When there is documentation, it is completely dry when having simply one example of a very common use would answer 90% of all questions about it. Linux documentation (and even Unix documentation for the most part) is seriously lacking. It's written by engineers for engineers. No examples, just lists of the 200+ command line options for every program with almost no direction of which ones are useful together.

Who cares, neither of them kill babies and eat them raw. I don't idolize either of them, they are just humans like me, not a god, and not worthy of religion.

If you're going to be a grammar nazi, do your research first.

> That would be like "fixing" Windows 95 with Windows ME.

I reckon that's quite appropriate, given that one of the meanings of "to fix" is "to spay or castrate" according to this

Definition of real.

If you look at the above link, you will find many definitions of the word, several of which refer to actual, physical things. There is even one specific to physics which refers to an image formed by light rays in space. Another refers to real as the specific antonym to virtual.

Anyway, you seem to want the original poster to broaden his definition of the word real. He would probably want you to narrow yours. If you are truly puzzled by this, it is probably because you are choosing to be puzzled, not because it is a particularly complex an issue.

whinging is an actual word...

Europe too.

Anthropology tends to be tied to Sociology over here...

As Archaeology is a discipline within Anthropology, Sociology is a specialization of Anthropology. Anthropology is incomplete without the study of cultural context. An accurate simplification would be that as siblings, Archaeology and Sociology study the same things, but at different times. One in the present, the other in the past. One relies on remnants of civilization to learn about its subject via recontruction, the other studies it live. Of course, this is a simplification, and in actuality most of the disciplines within the larger science of Anthropology (the study of man) borrow from one another or overlap.

...whilst Archaeology tends to be associated with History or even Classics, hence the disparaging 'Archaeology is the handmaiden of History' quote often trotted out.

You may be confusing various subsets of Archaeology, with the discipline itself. Sub-fields of Archaeology include Classical and Historical Archeaology. The science remains the same, despite the specialization.

= 9J =

Europe too.

Anthropology tends to be tied to Sociology over here...

As Archaeology is a discipline within Anthropology, Sociology is a specialization of Anthropology. Anthropology is incomplete without the study of cultural context. An accurate simplification would be that as siblings, Archaeology and Sociology study the same things, but at different times. One in the present, the other in the past. One relies on remnants of civilization to learn about its subject via recontruction, the other studies it live. Of course, this is a simplification, and in actuality most of the disciplines within the larger science of Anthropology (the study of man) borrow from one another or overlap.

...whilst Archaeology tends to be associated with History or even Classics, hence the disparaging 'Archaeology is the handmaiden of History' quote often trotted out.

You may be confusing various subsets of Archaeology, with the discipline itself. Sub-fields of Archaeology include Classical and Historical Archeaology. The science remains the same, despite the specialization.

= 9J =

Worst attempt to remember the word acronym ...ever

computer

\Com*put"er\, n. One who computes.

= 9J =

= 9J =

Yes there is. Here's another example, since some people don't like Merriam-Webster's offerings. I would've linked the Oxford English Dictionary, but it's subscription only, by the look of things.

> The GPL does not in any sense state "who writes software can't charge for it".

According to the GNU GPL FAQ:

Does the GPL allow me to require that anyone who receives the software must pay me a fee and/or notify me?

No. In fact, a requirement like that would make the program non-free. If people have to pay when they get a copy of a program, or if they have to notify anyone in particular, then the program is not free. See the definition of free software.

If you write and distribute your GPLed software, it's your obligation to make me able to use and distribute it for free (as in beer).

CHARGETo set or ask (a given amount) as a price.

PRICEThe amount as of money or goods, asked for or given in exchange for something else.

There is no charge when you can't force me to pay you. What you call a charge is in fact a tip or a donation:

TIPA small sum of money given to someone for performing a service; a gratuity.

DONATION The act of giving to a fund or cause.

> The GPL does not in any sense state "who writes software can't charge for it".

According to the GNU GPL FAQ:

Does the GPL allow me to require that anyone who receives the software must pay me a fee and/or notify me?

No. In fact, a requirement like that would make the program non-free. If people have to pay when they get a copy of a program, or if they have to notify anyone in particular, then the program is not free. See the definition of free software.

If you write and distribute your GPLed software, it's your obligation to make me able to use and distribute it for free (as in beer).

CHARGETo set or ask (a given amount) as a price.

PRICEThe amount as of money or goods, asked for or given in exchange for something else.

There is no charge when you can't force me to pay you. What you call a charge is in fact a tip or a donation:

TIPA small sum of money given to someone for performing a service; a gratuity.

DONATION The act of giving to a fund or cause.

> The GPL does not in any sense state "who writes software can't charge for it".

According to the GNU GPL FAQ:

Does the GPL allow me to require that anyone who receives the software must pay me a fee and/or notify me?

No. In fact, a requirement like that would make the program non-free. If people have to pay when they get a copy of a program, or if they have to notify anyone in particular, then the program is not free. See the definition of free software.

If you write and distribute your GPLed software, it's your obligation to make me able to use and distribute it for free (as in beer).

CHARGETo set or ask (a given amount) as a price.

PRICEThe amount as of money or goods, asked for or given in exchange for something else.

There is no charge when you can't force me to pay you. What you call a charge is in fact a tip or a donation:

TIPA small sum of money given to someone for performing a service; a gratuity.

DONATION The act of giving to a fund or cause.

> The GPL does not in any sense state "who writes software can't charge for it".

According to the GNU GPL FAQ:

Does the GPL allow me to require that anyone who receives the software must pay me a fee and/or notify me?

No. In fact, a requirement like that would make the program non-free. If people have to pay when they get a copy of a program, or if they have to notify anyone in particular, then the program is not free. See the definition of free software.

If you write and distribute your GPLed software, it's your obligation to make me able to use and distribute it for free (as in beer).

CHARGETo set or ask (a given amount) as a price.

PRICEThe amount as of money or goods, asked for or given in exchange for something else.

There is no charge when you can't force me to pay you. What you call a charge is in fact a tip or a donation:

TIPA small sum of money given to someone for performing a service; a gratuity.

DONATION The act of giving to a fund or cause.

Seriously though, most countries don't have a very clean record, including China. Being involved in so many conflicts around the world, the US is hardly at the bottom of the barrel despite some incidents. What's really hurt the US is that they've been sanctimonious.

Being a thug and silently suppressing that is in many ways better than being a thug and claiming to be a saint. That's what hit the US full force. Compared to most countries of the world, the US is still a quite civilized one. But I don't think it'll ever regain the position as the "shining beacon of freedom and democracy" it once was.

Kjella

that "noone" is not a word? He uses it repeatedly, so it's clearly not a typo.

Perhaps he and I can meet at Ye Olde Sandwyche Shoppe at noone to discuss this, as well as his interesting discussion of "hybrid source".

I like it how open source is dangerous because we have to have some degree of "trust" that developers aren't adding in other people's IP. Whereas private corporations developing closed source applications, with a financial incentive to steal others' IP and no easy way to get caught will be struck down by God if they do it, so we don't need to depend on "trust".

Nice.

Merriam-Webster Dictionary recognizes both symbols as the pound sign, as does dictionary.com. Oxford even addressed the question and recognized the fact that is it called the "pound sign" in the United States, though it confuses the British. In conclusion, # has many names, one of which is "pound sign" in American English.

How does a programming career jive with family life?

jive: a dance

jibe: to be in accord

This has been a spelling nazi announcement.

How does a programming career jive with family life?

jive: a dance

jibe: to be in accord

This has been a spelling nazi announcement.

Learn how to spell "betrayal" at reference.com.

I'm sorry, but by every definition I can easily find a pedometer is something measures how many steps you have taken. I don't see anything about calculating calories.

The goods were delivered subject to his future agreement to the remaining terms.

Totally wrong... if you can't tell that, I don't know how to help you.

The "goods" are a program on CD-ROM. They were "delivered" (for example) by a FedEx employee retained by the vendor. Non-agreement to the EULA in no way entitles the vendor to demand return of that CD-ROM.

Since in the absence of agreement, he can't keep the software at all,

Oh yes he can.

I see no reason why one cannot show agreement in private.

Again, if you don't understand 4-letter English words, I probably can't teach you. Of course, I could try explaining that it means "display or allow to be seen" or "indicate, register". The UCC means that people can enter a contract by means other than paper signatures, but only if that action somehow constitutes communication between the parties. That can be ensured if the action is one which the customer would have no right to do without permission from the vendor.

I strongly doubt it means to literally jump up and down and yell out "I agree! I agree!"

Let's conduct some experiments about expressing agreement in private. If you agree to send me $500, please click the "X" button in the upper right corner of this window at any time. Alternatively, if you agree to send me $10,000, please depress the break pedal of your automobile at any time.

Those cases are legally equivalent to each other, and to a software EULA. They all involve someone making a claim that your performance of an action will constitute a formal agreement to arbitrary promisary terms, regardless of your legal right to perform that action without her permission.

But that doesn't work- I have no right to prohibit your closing a web browser, or driving a car, because you either own all related property... or rather, I have no control over your use of that property. Neither does a software publisher have the right to prohibit installing it on a computer, if it has been lawfully purchased. (Remember that the USA's copyright law permits who has been granted a copy permission to make additional copies as needed to "use the product in the most normal way". In countries like the UK without such provisions, EULAs have some justifiable standing)

If copyright holders were allowed to revoke previously published copies, that might constitute the leverage needed to make EULAs valid. But as it stands today, the vendor of a book, music CD, or videogame cannot walk up to a past customer and demand the destruction of media bearing the copyrighted work, even if a reimbursement for the purchase-price is offered. Once you've given a copy, it's out of your control, per "first sale" (unless you got the customer to agree otherwise prior to providing the copy. But that's not the case with EULAs)

No, I don't think it would work at any time

Then you shouldn't like the ProCD ruling either. In that case, the contract was "agreed to" each time the software was executed.

it's an efficiency measure. It's impractical to discuss terms in the store, so they're discussed as soon as you have a real chance to dig into them.

Efficiency and convenience are not part of the law. Nor is the profit of a business model a legal guarrantee.

Legally, all times following the exchange of money and goods are equivalent. There is no difference between demanding the additional contract 30 minutes or 30 years after the transaction is finalized. The vendor surrendered control of the product as soon as he let you take it out of the store.

You earlier repeated the spurious claim that ruling against software EULAs would somehow harm other businesses that rely on contracts whose terms are revealed after money changes hands. Insurance and concert tickets were two examples given... but they have no relationship to providing software on CD-ROM. Both

Before buying any more fast food, check out Fast Food Nation by Eric Schlosser. I'm reading it right now, it has lots of interesting information about the fast food industry that might effect your desire for their food.

Before you ever use the word "effect" again, please check out a dictionary.

Of course there is also reference-dot-com.

Whilst I appreciate that you colonials have a colourful approach to the English language, I can assure you that the word whilst is quite pukka.

Whilst I appreciate that you colonials have a colourful approach to the English language, I can assure you that the word whilst is quite pukka.

Seriously folks - put the Slashdot Moderator (and Meta-Moderators) to good use, and let them have-at-it against The Patent Applications.

They've got many years experience dealing with patent (in the sense of obvious/synonym apparent) Trolls.

So you're saying that

wget -nc -x --html-extension -r --level=5 -k -p

is NOT cryptic? Cryptic generally refers to shorthand style notations and anything that isn't readily identifiable. dictionary.com says "Having hidden meaning; mystifying". I think all of those can apply to that command and the majority of commands that make up linux/unix.

Disclaimer:
No, that example wasn't off the top of my head, I looked up some options to wget. Why wget, b/c I was playing with it the other day.
No, I don't care if there are mistakes in the above example.
No, you're not proving you're smarter by pointing any out.
No, taking my post and turning it into an M$ bash is not acceptable behaviour b/c the above has nothing to do with that particular company.

Hate to break it to you, bub! It's a piece of jargon that's been documented at least since 1994.

Languages change with time. You don't speak old english anymore. Why not?

Anyway, thought you'd get a kick out of this.

burgle: To burglarize.

Not it's not.. irregadless.

It's in the dictionary.

Indictment? Those things aren't findings of fact. Indictments contain all sorts of stories the prosecutor hopes to prove. It's not hard to get things past the Grand Jury, nor should it be.