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I See You Have Been Modded Down, it must have been because you used the word "niggardly". It is a perfectly legitimate word, and I'll be damned if those niggabyte moderators ruin it for us all!

The commentary tacked on to many articles is so pithy that I just skip over anything after the italics.

Are you sure that pithy means what you think it does?

Or am I just missing a little very dry irony?

A taint is the space between your nut sack and asshole.

No, the area between frontal private parts and the anus is the "choad".

An "accoun-taint" is one who "taints" (alters deceptively) the books. See "taint" and the poster child.

The correct word for what this is is cracking - see also safe cracking - this is a separate, correct (though arguably informal) usage of the dictionary word (pick any of 6 of the Houghton Mifflin definition, which arguably all apply), and IMHO the Jargon File is arguably wrong for not including it as an alternative definition, as it is technical, commonly confused and defined in mainstream dictionaries.

This is not to be confused with cracking as in 'black-hat' (i.e., bad guy/outlaw) computer 'defacement' or 'trespass' (which is more commonly termed 'hacking', except by those hackers who fit one of the other - often contradictory and much more benign - definitions of 'hacker' and do not like being associated with the black-hats), or the act of breaking into someone else's computers, although both are now illegal and both do refer to the intentional violation of a security protocol. (Neither should be confused with script kiddies, who are a different species altogether, though sometimes they grow up eventually.)

Yes, it's confusing. This is English - it is confusing if you start worrying about how it works and what words actually mean - get used to it.

Oh, and cracking, even for moral purposes, is definitely 'black-hat'. Consider the origin of the term - classic Westerns. Convention dictates that for easy identification (presumably!) the sheriffs wear white hats, the outlaws wear black hats. This is true even if the law is the villain and the outlaw is the hero of a particular Western. Law => security protocol, Officers => those creating/supporting the protocol, Outlaw => someone seeking to violate the protocol.

Thus a cracker, who violates the protocols for fun (and sometimes profit), would very probably wear a black hat (unless he/she's been deputized as a corporate sellout ;)).
</rant>

No offense meant, but do you mean "strait" as in "Strict, rigid, or righteous" or is this an unintentional misspelling of "straight"? I'm assuming you did not mean any of the other definitions of the word.

I'm asking because the the former is an archaic use of the word "strait", which could be totally appropriate in this case.

I agree that the role of the super-unbeatable Terminator character requires mostly poker-faced acting. These are single-minded brutes, after all.

I'm of the opinion that if you need a professional to do something, it's best not to second guess their judgment with an automation. If the technology is really so perfect, then you shouldn't need a person at all.

... we call it "Turquoise"

I know this is slashdot, where grammar and spelling are somewhat, shall we say, arbitrary, but damnit dont use nouns as verbs!

Hooptie

Bantered? The remains and the tide exchanged mildly teasing remarks? The tide spoke to the remains in a playful or teasing way? They engaged in Good-humored, playful conversation?

Hello, CNN - I think the word is 'battered'.

When that copyright violator takes those pictures and walks out of the store, he does not remove anything from that shop. The shopkeeper is out the potential sale, but that is not the illegal part. The illegal part is making copies of the magazine that he does not own. Even if he took the pictures, then also bought the magazine, he would still be breaking the law, as a copyright violator.

Copyright law is not based on the morality of a situation. it is based on the economics of the situation. Copyright law is not based on natural law, like laws against thievery are. As has been mentioned before, copyright law was designed to provide an incentive to content producers by giving them a temporary monopoly over the content they produce.

Therefore, when a person makes copies of work that is under copyright, they are breaking the law by working around a government created monopoly. They are also (very likely) committing an immoral act, of not compensating an individual for work that they are benefitting from. They will not be prosecuted for the immoral act, just the illegal one.

\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.

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.

As you can see, theft deprives the owner of the property of their property. It states that it is a requirement for classification as theft. I'm not trying to argue that it's okay to make copies of a magazine like that, just that it is plainly not theft, simply being a copyright violation. You claim that theft is more of a moral term, but I think it's simply an emotionally charged way for copyable content producers to get people upset about copyright violations. "Copyright Violator" just doesn't have the ring to it that "Thief" does.

Actually Nazi is an abbreviation of a longer word,

Ever heard of a contraction?

Academician is valid English.

You are misunderstanding the situation, I think. Were I to say, "In the natural world, we find some phenomena P; ergo we should live our lives with the assumption that P is good, because P occurs in the natural world", I would be following the line of logic referred to as the Naturalistic Fallacy. In short, the NF is deriving what ought to be from what is, as you point out.

However, I am making no claims about the natural world and deriving moral value from it. My claim is that life is a zero sum game: you are born, you die. The universe expands, it contracts. That's it -- there is no moral value being assigned whatsoever.

As any programmer can tell you, assigning a value of zero is still assigning a value. You are saying that because of certain facts about the natural the world, people shouldn't get worked up about spam. You're taking an is, with which I agree, and asserting an ought, with which I don't. You're welcome to call that whatever you like; I'd call the naturalistic fallacy, but please call it bacon (either Sir Francis or hickory-smoked) if it suits you.

Either way, perhaps you can drop the waffle about the universe, and just say that you don't think human life has any value. Then I can say, "well I do, and so do most voters and lawmakers" and we can move on.

I think your interpretation is that an absence of moral valuation is tantamount to assigning moral value. I disagree. It's a line of reasoning on par with saying, "atheism is a belief!"

Atheism, defined as disbelief in or denial of existence of God or gods is indeed a belief, by which I mean a unproved assertion about the nature of reality. So yes, it's the same line of argument. Unless, of course, you have some proof of the nonexistence of God, in which case you should really write a book about it.

Condescending comments about Google aside, the responsibility of backing one's facts up is left to the person making use of them.

Communication is a two-way street. These studies are well known to people who study the issue; I was hinting that maybe you should do a little more research before holding forth, or at least before demanding that I do the work for you. Since you couldn't quite manage, I did indeed back the facts up.

Looking at the ones that you provided, my argument is not swayed: bandwidth is a questionable cost, generally set at what the market can bear rather than the actual cost of delivery.

Uh, all costs are set by what the market can bear. That's how capitalism works. Bandwidth might be a questionable cost to somebody who doesn't pay a bandwidth bill. But for those of us who do, it's a real cost.

"Wasted time" is a convinient shock value technique, but it's also questionable. *You* decided to use email; your time was not stolen from you.

Given that I started using email before spammers started spamming, it seems pretty weird to say that I chose to be spammed.

But I guess your rule would apply to telephone solicitations, too. Would that make you opposed to the do-not-call registry currently being implemented?

And heck, running with your theory, it seems that kidnapping shouldn't be a crime, either. Or harrassment. After all, it's only time and bother, and with sufficient effort people can choose to isolate themselves from those risks.

The "projections" of doom and gloom from a company [...] are suspect at best; I am not at all convinced that spam is going to "overwhelm email".

Spam is circa 50% of email, and growing rapidly. Brightmail has made no projections that I am aware of, but they don't have to; there's no reason to expect that the trend will change on its own.

if you want to use the medium, you have to expect that there is some noise to the signal.

There are two things wrong with this. One is the comparison with analog communication, where the signal/noise stuff comes from. It's

See the correct spelling Here.

If they had started their lawsuit 10 years ago or so, they might have made a difference. Now, it's already in the dictionary and common English language, much like xerox. Xerox had their own lawsuit and lost. This will be similar.

If they had started their lawsuit 10 years ago or so, they might have made a difference. Now, it's already in the dictionary and common English language, much like xerox. Xerox had their own lawsuit and lost. This will be similar.

Hasn't SPAM been put into the Dictionary?
Yes, it has been added

This morning my local paper, the Austin American Statesman, printed a small article about this as well. According to that article, Hormel doesn't mind the use of the word "spam" as a slang term, so long as pictures of their product aren't used with it. They're sueing companies that use their trademarked name "Spam" in their own names or in the names of their products. Unfortunately for them, they should have started fighting that battle years and years ago when the slang usage of "spam" first began to spread. Seems too late to do anything about it now. Spam as slang for "junk email" is now firmly entrenched in our culture. It's a dictionary word now.

Just like P2P users pay via the ads in those programs?

Except your logic is astoundingly flawed. Slashdot owns the content on their page, or attributes it otherwise. Other websites own their content.

No thats sharing content thats under copyright, stealing content is hacking into the site, copying it and then deleting the data from their harddrive.

Let's follow some logic here:
Steal: To take (the property of another) without right or permission.
Property:
1. Something owned; a possession.
2. A piece of real estate: has a swimming pool on the property.
3. Something tangible or intangible to which its owner has legal title: properties such as copyrights and trademarks.
4. Possessions considered as a group.

What you do with it is irrelevant, if you delete it or not the person who posted it still stole it.

Get your facts straight, if you are an English major you should at least know the difference between copyright infringement and stealing.

Oops, proved wrong again. I'm surprised you have any dignity left.

Just like P2P users pay via the ads in those programs?

Except your logic is astoundingly flawed. Slashdot owns the content on their page, or attributes it otherwise. Other websites own their content.

No thats sharing content thats under copyright, stealing content is hacking into the site, copying it and then deleting the data from their harddrive.

Let's follow some logic here:
Steal: To take (the property of another) without right or permission.
Property:
1. Something owned; a possession.
2. A piece of real estate: has a swimming pool on the property.
3. Something tangible or intangible to which its owner has legal title: properties such as copyrights and trademarks.
4. Possessions considered as a group.

What you do with it is irrelevant, if you delete it or not the person who posted it still stole it.

Get your facts straight, if you are an English major you should at least know the difference between copyright infringement and stealing.

Oops, proved wrong again. I'm surprised you have any dignity left.

apparently you could use one of these so that you can recognize this and possibly be able to determine this more correctly. Then, one day, you might even enjoy some of this!

apparently you could use one of these so that you can recognize this and possibly be able to determine this more correctly. Then, one day, you might even enjoy some of this!

apparently you could use one of these so that you can recognize this and possibly be able to determine this more correctly. Then, one day, you might even enjoy some of this!

apparently you could use one of these so that you can recognize this and possibly be able to determine this more correctly. Then, one day, you might even enjoy some of this!

Netscape 7.1 features many improvements over 7.02 including even better CSS support, spam filters, find-as-you-type, automatic image resizing, more customization via about:config, Web development tools, Palm synchronization and more.

Just what I needed! Develop my website which doesn't exist or sync a palmtop which I don't have! Could someone hand me a dictionary and point out what the word "bloat" means?

>Reverse engineering is nothing more than the common theft of intelectual property.

Please show me how, when I draw a schematic diagram of my motherboard ABiT's intellectual property has been removed from their presence, never to be replaced, and has entered mine. Show me how they will no longer be able to manufacture this motherboard if I made duplicates, as they would no longer have the design for it. Show me how nVidia's design documents would be magically transported into my home if I should reverse engineer their nForce2 chipset.

Theft (in the sense you are using the word) cannot ocurr without a loss:

theft

\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.

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.

Source: Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary, © 1996, 1998 MICRA, Inc.

Next time, use the word steal. Then at least you can suggest reverse engineering that intellectual property was like "stealing a kiss" (which is never a bad thing, so if you were to rebut me as such, I'd leave it at that).

Either that, or get off the soap box and use the words people in a real court have to use: Violation of the right of the plaintiff to enjoy monopoly status on a copyrighted design or patent.

Duke Nukem Forever is a common error of English usage. According to Dictionary.com, the correct nomeclature answers the question: what game, how long until release?

Thus, Duke Nukem, Forever

uh, hello, he specifically singled out a one race (indian). If he had said nothing about indian developers then I wouldn't have had a problem with it

I say again...so what? Why is that racist? I'd say that most of the tech jobs lost overseas went to India. It sounds like the guy lost his job to outsourcing to an Indian firm. He was stating facts then. I'd appreciate it if you would look up the definition for "racist" (hyperlinked for your convenience) and then get back to me on how that post fits the definiton. Thanks.

Ah, so I don't live in America so screw me? "I'm all for everything being fair for everyone in the world, but only if they live in America?" Is that what you're saying? WTF??

Nationalism rules! W00t! Given a choice between keeping a job in the US and sending it out of the US...hmmm...I vote for keeping it in the US.

Hey, why not post using your nick next time, eh?

Those victimized by Statin and his ilk suffered under the yolk of oppression imposed by a militarisitic police state.

The pie that Bill Gates caught with his face had egg in the recipe. Does that count as "the yolk of oppression"? (-:

For the linguisticly-impaired: yolk == yellow part of egg, yoke == load-bearing collar, joke == above paragraph, yokel == naive local ("a rustic; bumpkin").

Those victimized by Statin and his ilk suffered under the yolk of oppression imposed by a militarisitic police state.

The pie that Bill Gates caught with his face had egg in the recipe. Does that count as "the yolk of oppression"? (-:

For the linguisticly-impaired: yolk == yellow part of egg, yoke == load-bearing collar, joke == above paragraph, yokel == naive local ("a rustic; bumpkin").

Those victimized by Statin and his ilk suffered under the yolk of oppression imposed by a militarisitic police state.

The pie that Bill Gates caught with his face had egg in the recipe. Does that count as "the yolk of oppression"? (-:

For the linguisticly-impaired: yolk == yellow part of egg, yoke == load-bearing collar, joke == above paragraph, yokel == naive local ("a rustic; bumpkin").

Those victimized by Statin and his ilk suffered under the yolk of oppression imposed by a militarisitic police state.

The pie that Bill Gates caught with his face had egg in the recipe. Does that count as "the yolk of oppression"? (-:

For the linguisticly-impaired: yolk == yellow part of egg, yoke == load-bearing collar, joke == above paragraph, yokel == naive local ("a rustic; bumpkin").

Call me a misantroph...

No, we won't, because the word you're looking for is misanthrope .

I'm using definition 1a of irony.

Usage Note: The word forte, coming from French fort, should properly be pronounced with one syllable, like the English word fort. Common usage, however, prefers the two-syllable pronunciation, (fôrt), which has been influenced possibly by the music term forte borrowed from Italian. In a recent survey a strong majority of the Usage Panel, 74 percent, preferred the two-syllable pronunciation. The result is a delicate situation; speakers who are aware of the origin of the word may wish to continue to pronounce it as one syllable but at an increasing risk of puzzling their listeners.

The definition given here (as somebody else pointed out) is pretty fine: click.

Orientate is not a word? Tell that to dictionary.reference.com then. While you're at it, tell The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary and WordNet ® 1.6, all of which are quoted as saying that you're incorrect...

According to Dictionary.com it could be defined as "Poignantly contrary to what was expected or intended". The fact that he quit to prevent the very injury he sustained, could make this situation ironic. If he had quit for other reasons, then yes it would just be a coincidence.

Are you really so brainwashed you can't see all the inconsistencies in your post? Christ, you're not drinking the kool-aid, you're fucking injecting it. Try to shrug off the cultspeak.

Regulation free, not law free. A free market can be law free as well though. Free market == market free of coercion.

Laws ARE regulations, you douchebag. That's the whole point. You want to set up this artificial dichotomy between laws and regulations, and there isn't one. What you call regulations are just the laws that you don't agree with.

And I want to get this "free of coercion" garbage out of the way up front. Coercion isn't just "men with guns". People can be coerced by threats, intimidation, and other means -- including the threat of losing one's job. When the boss tells a poor single mom in a rural town that she must fuck him or be fired -- that, too, is a form of coercion. The cult may have impacted your ability to see this. Hopefully there's still enough humanity in you to break through their mindtraps.

Nonsense. Demand creates a market.

Demand does no such thing. Demand is NECESSARY for a market, but it doesn't CREATE that market. Just because you want a thing doesn't mean that a structure magically exists where you can be assured that you can exchange something of your own to get it. That structure has to be created. Anything else is mere custom.

Indeed you can: reputation. You don't enter into any agreements without setting forth guidelines governing the exchange and what each party considers a fair trade. If one stiffs the other, they'll soon find others unwilling to deal with the untrustworthy party. Contract law is simply more formal, explicit and economical.

Wow. What a Pollyanna you are. Contract law doesn't exist because it's "more formal, explicit, and economical". It exists, because without it, there is no way to ensure that mutually beneficial transactions take place. Without law, the rich can exploit the poor indefinitely.

Ask your local stockbroker if he thinks "reputation" is enough to build a stock market on.

Government, as defined by libertarians, is the only agency of legitimate coercion. If anyone else pursues coercive action, then it is by definition illegitimate and subject to persecution.

First of all, you mean prosecution, not persecution. I know they sound kind of alike.

Second, yeah, pretty much everyone agrees that government is the only agency of legitimate coercion. Not just the kool-aid crowd.

In the libertarian society with a government, this would not really be the case. If you are selling "food", it is implicit that you are selling something edible (hello? definition of food!).

You spend a lot of time in your posts berating people for not knowing as much as your haughty self about libertarianism, but you don't seem to understand it yourself.

Bah.

I have to run.

Maybe later I'll finish this.

How ironic that this is definition is actually valid and in the dictionary.

Check the Websters Unabridged Dictionary definition here.

Go figure.

It's suing not "sueing".

Well don't we all wish we could abdicate [dictionary.com] the death penalty. Now if you were advocating [dictionary.com] the death penality I'd have issues.

Sorry. I just couldn't resist being a grammer snob. This is gonna cost me some karma...

Well don't we all wish we could abdicate [dictionary.com] the death penalty. Now if you were advocating [dictionary.com] the death penality I'd have issues.

Sorry. I just couldn't resist being a grammer snob. This is gonna cost me some karma...

No, I was not referring to living according to a strict moral religious system. That's called religiousness. Religiousness is the legality; holiness is the relationship. If you're violating the legality all the time and not caring [say, beating your wife], you're not going to have a relationship [good marriage], but religiousness [never touching your wife in anger] doesn't provide holiness.

I would argue that what you call religiousness can be translated as doing what you are told, and what you call holiness is what I would call living morally. Morality is not necessarily religious in nature, though it can be.

In other words, you do not need god to live in a way that is not harmful to others. All you need do is have standards which value others, and (try to) live by them. Porn doesn't hurt anyone, studies have consistently failed to find a link between porn and any kind of deviant or violent behavior. Some men watch porn and end up cheating on their wives, some people watch porn and end up having sex with their wives. The difference is the person. I guess it's reasonable to say that some people shouldn't watch porn, but not to say that porn itself is bad, just like some people shouldn't have guns, but not all guns are bad. Or, to take it a step further, some people shouldn't be allowed behind the wheel of a car. Hell, you can be dangerous as hell with a baseball bat but basoburo (well, watching it) is the Great American Pasttime, right?

What I'm saying is that the solution that worked for you (if you had a pornography "problem" - I can only imagine what that might be, and I doubt I want to know - then bully for you for kicking the habit) is not necessarily going to work for anyone else. Religion may have helped you, but it's not the answer for everyone, and your suggestion that it's the end-all be-all is just as ridiculous as the statements you decry.

I also tend to think that everything is related; our problems are organic, not to be solved with a simple political panacaea, which is why Christianity pushes holiness.

What is holiness precisely? I assume you mean something like "Living according to a strict or highly moral religious or spiritual system; saintly: a holy person." In this case, specifically, living either by the ten commandments, the bible, or both. Based on your quoting the bible, I'm going to (tentatively) operate on your assumption that you mean the bible (the ten commandments simply beng an item thereof, yes?)

I think it's important to keep in mind that someone can have the best of intentions and still make things worse for other people. I'm not debating that living as the bible suggests would make the world a more peaceful place, but there will always be those who do not live it, so it won't lead us to equality. Especially when any man can lie and many who claim to live by the word are not very successful, as you put it; I would go so far as to say that plenty of them don't actually even try. There are con artists everywhere.

Religion, in any case, is another nonfunctional panacea. No one has the answer because life is more complicated than you can sum up in a single sentence, or even a book. Or a movement. Ask two ministers to interpret the same passage of the bible and you will get different answers. Does that mean the bible does not have both possible interpretations, and that we cannot learn both things from it? Certainly not. But it does mean that there is no easy answer.

I could get into long discussions about each of the things you cite as being the root problems with our society - the complaint against pornography was what tipped me off to your being a troll, by the way - but only keep in mind that your suggestion that one live by that set of rules is no sillier than, say, suggesting that all men can live peaceably and happily under one set of laws.

I also tend to think that everything is related; our problems are organic, not to be solved with a simple political panacaea, which is why Christianity pushes holiness.

What is holiness precisely? I assume you mean something like "Living according to a strict or highly moral religious or spiritual system; saintly: a holy person." In this case, specifically, living either by the ten commandments, the bible, or both. Based on your quoting the bible, I'm going to (tentatively) operate on your assumption that you mean the bible (the ten commandments simply beng an item thereof, yes?)

I think it's important to keep in mind that someone can have the best of intentions and still make things worse for other people. I'm not debating that living as the bible suggests would make the world a more peaceful place, but there will always be those who do not live it, so it won't lead us to equality. Especially when any man can lie and many who claim to live by the word are not very successful, as you put it; I would go so far as to say that plenty of them don't actually even try. There are con artists everywhere.

Religion, in any case, is another nonfunctional panacea. No one has the answer because life is more complicated than you can sum up in a single sentence, or even a book. Or a movement. Ask two ministers to interpret the same passage of the bible and you will get different answers. Does that mean the bible does not have both possible interpretations, and that we cannot learn both things from it? Certainly not. But it does mean that there is no easy answer.

I could get into long discussions about each of the things you cite as being the root problems with our society - the complaint against pornography was what tipped me off to your being a troll, by the way - but only keep in mind that your suggestion that one live by that set of rules is no sillier than, say, suggesting that all men can live peaceably and happily under one set of laws.

Yes they are, it's the name of the digit that's opposable.

sentient...Note that none of the definitions have anything remotely to do with being able to "anticipate a user's every need."

Somebody seriously needs to rethink the terminology here.

"Particulating?" Another perfectly cromulent word, is it?