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According to dictionary.com, the only definition that says "natural consequence of" is from a medical dictionary. The normal English definition is existing in someone or something as a permanent and inseparable element, quality, or attribute. One of the definitions even lists "intrinsic" as a synonym.

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

I've had the "old hag" experience many times, as have many people around the world, throughout history. Does this mean that the old hag really exists? Of course not.

What it means is that you can't use your own experience as proof for other people. If you choose to believe an old hag visited you, you're free to do so, and your belief is no more factually incorrect than believing you weren't visited by an old hag, since neither belief is provable.

I also dream of flying. Often. Lots of people do. Does that mean I'm really flying?

I didn't know we were talking about dreams. When did we start talking about dreams? When I talk about answers to prayers, I'm not talking about dreams.

And I did this where?

Referring to religious beliefs as "made up" is inherently a mocking statement, since you're implying that anyone who believes in God is either stupid or gullible.

What you refer to isn't "evidence".

Sure it is - personal experience is indeed empirical evidence. If you don't believe me I suggest you look up the definition of "empirical".

Allow me to rephrase: supposing members of the jury said that you were guilty, based on "religious evidence" that they had received. Would you accept that, because it was "valid" for them? How could you argue against that?

Quite easily - I would ask them how they can prove that their religious evidence is binding on other people.

You'll note that you're taking my claim and twisting it to include something it does not claim - despite the fact that I've explicitly said it does not include what you want it to include!

More accurately, I have specifically said that religious evidence cannot be binding on anyone other than the direct recipient of that evidence, because it is personal in nature. Therefore, no jury member can legitimately use some religiously derived belief that I am guilty of murder to convict me in a legal setting.

This is why when people talk about evidence for God, they're after evidence, and not your "religious evidence"

And that's exactly my point - those people will never be satisfied, because religion's evidence comes in the form of personal experience, not scientific experimental results. They're wanting religion to provide something that by nature it cannot provide.

Wow. I didn't say anything resembling "nothing bad ever happens to people who pay tithing". That's some freaky word-twisting you're pulling there.

Perhaps you don't understand the word "prosper". Maybe Spock's words will help you understand:

"Live long, and prosper."

See, "live long" and "prosper" are entirely separate concepts. It is not a contradiction to say that a prosperous man died in a plane crash at 27. Likewise, it is not a contradiction to claim that an 97-year-old man never prospered.

Or, if you're not a Star Trek fan, I'm sure the dictionary can help you figure it out.

Your "counter anecdote" is irrelevant, since it doesn't counter my original point :P

I beg to differ. Through evolution, my ancestors will have survived and continue to THRIVE off of high-fructose corn syrup foods.

Unless there is time travel involved in this theory of yours... I think the word you are looking for is "descendants", instead of "anscestors"!

I beg to differ. Through evolution, my ancestors will have survived and continue to THRIVE off of high-fructose corn syrup foods.

Unless there is time travel involved in this theory of yours... I think the word you are looking for is "descendants", instead of "anscestors"!

This whole story is ridiculous tripe. Consider the source: the article comes from Richard Dawkins' web site; hardy an unbiased source on this particular topic. So what we have here is a story from one side of the argument complaining about a course at a university whose topic is APOLOGETICS. When studying apologetics, you learn how to defend a particular position (see definition two at dictionary.com here). What better exercise for learning a skill like that than to go out there and defend a particular position publicly? Certainly ID gets attacked enough by Darwinists (many of them ad hominem or straw man attacks--examples of which can be found in posts above this one) that people shouldn't get too upset when ID proponents start defending their position.

Why assume the students are going out there and randomly "making posts" but not contributing to the discussion? Maybe the professor grades the posts specifically on the quality of the discussion, with the 10 or more posts in a single back-and-forth discussion being worth more than trolling 10 different web sites. Who knows? We don't, and certainly Dawkins doesn't. Either way, it seems that this is a very appropriate exercise when learning something like apologetics. Certainly making blanket judgments and name calling doesn't move this issue forward at all. Nobody's going to be persuaded by a flippant dismissal of their position without giving any reasoning.

I know slashdot is big on the groupthink, and apple is evil yadda yaddah, but has anyone bothered to look up words and see the different treatment of them?

• fisting, versus fisting
• rim job, not in dictionary.com.
• fucktard, not in dictionary.com.
• cumbucket, not in dictionary.com

Now I'm not saying that words per se are bad things (they're not, although I personally prefer to keep them out of regular usage for impact), but I can see how this dictionary might include many more vulgar words and expressions than a regular dictionary. I can also see how a parent could object to their kids downloading a dictionary with such an extensive ouvre of modern vulgar slang.

Let's say you're a parent, and your 10 year old (yeah you spoiled them a bit by buying them an iPhone, whatever, they did their chores, got good grades and are working it off mowing the lawn) asks you if they can download a dictionary app. Would you not be a little concerned if the dictionary was so heavy on modern swearwords? Would you expect this from a "dictionary app"? Wouldn't you expect that the urban dictionary app have a bit of a warning that it might be really offensive, racist, etc.?

Sure they'll learn all these things in due time, but I don't think innocence is such a horrible thing that needs to be stomped out. Kids should allowed to be kids.

The reason I referred to the issue as "hair-splitting" is because arguing over whether copyright violation is or isn't theft, for the most part, doesn't get one anywhere in the discussion of whether it's a valid action or not - whether or not it should be criminal, for instance. Calling copyright violation "theft" imposes a judgement that it should be considered criminal: but not calling it theft doesn't imply that it shouldn't be considered a crime.

If calling it theft defines the outcome then the argument over whether to call it theft is not hair-splitting. Effectively what you say here is that if you use the word theft, judgement made, case closed, if you don't, it's open to discussion. In order to discuss the issue without a predefined conclusion it is necessary to stop calling it theft.

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/hair+splitting
-noun
1. the making of unnecessarily fine distinctions.

A distinction that defines the outcome of an argument before it takes place is not "unnecessarily fine".

Other characters. Abraham Van Helsing, Robert Neville (I am Legend) - might be cool setting up traps and learning anatomy. Abraham Van Helsing was based on a character archetype known as the Byronic Hero http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Byronic_hero. By definition, Robert Neville might qualify as well http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/byronic+hero?qsrc=2446.

I'm also quite convinced that Captain Jack Sparrow of Pirates of The Caribbean, must have an IQ around 140, or at the very least a remarkably high spatial intelligence.

Encyclopedia Brown and Sherlock Holmes come to mind as well.

Ok, I haven't drunk the cool-aid and bought an iPhone yet. But my understanding is that it has a web browser, which means you can go to dictionary.com and look up words like this This (NSFW)

Dictionary.com says I"m right.

"moâ...nopâ...oâ...ly
ââ/mÉ(TM)ËnÉ'pÉ(TM)li/ Show Spelled Pronunciation [muh-nop-uh-lee] Show IPA
Use monopoly in a Sentence
â"noun, plural -lies.
1. exclusive control of a commodity or service in a particular market, or a control that makes possible the manipulation of prices. Compare duopoly, oligopoly.
2. an exclusive privilege to carry on a business, traffic, or service, granted by a government.
3. the exclusive possession or control of something.
4. something that is the subject of such control, as a commodity or service.
5. a company or group that has such control.
6. the market condition that exists when there is only one seller.
7. (initial capital letter) a board game in which a player attempts to gain a monopoly of real estate by advancing around the board and purchasing property, acquiring capital by collecting rent from other players whose pieces land on that property."

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

Apparently what you're referencing is a misuse of the word in application for which the word does not define the circumstance properly.

Just because a court said something does not necessitate that something to make sense or have perfect wording. Those courts are headed by people, who make errors, and understand things less than 100% correctly.

Jooce

Communism is not about who controls companies. Communism means that the government owns the means of production, takes all profit, and distributes it among everyone. In Communism, no one can own a business or take profit from a company. You can read the definition of Communism. They refer to the government owning all capital property and controlling all economic activity. Even if the government owns all medical companies, controls them completely, and takes all the profit, that still isn't Communism.

Merriam adds new words every year to drum up new sales, it's an advertising gimmick. Most dictionaries are descriptivist, meaning they add whatever the fuck for whatever reason. They list how words are USED, not just what they mean.

...

The 'languages evolve/change' bit is an excuse for the ignorant or by marketeers and MBAs to justify their buzzwords.

Indeed. There ought to be a book that is used to describe how people use words, and not merely what they originally meant. One that describes their style of speaking or writing as dependent upon choice of words, their phraseology, wording, usage, or language.

I'm thinking of putting together such a book, based on those precepts, but I can't think of something good to call it. Maybe something related to the above terms?

(Disclaimer: If the parent was being sarcastic I apologize for misrepresenting then with the quote. I can't tell.)

Before I get off your lawn, let me leave you with these links. I've heard tell that languages, being intrinsically conventional, are allowed to develop new meanings for words, and sometimes even entirely new words. Of course, maybe languages weren't like that, in your day, so I can understand your anger-at-what-is-different/fear-of-the-unknown.

I tried to make a ridiculous argument and you showed its ridiculousness. Now, I'll nuke the discussion with the modern definition of decimate

verb (used with object), -mated, -mating. 1. to destroy a great number or proportion of: The population was decimated by a plague.
2. to select by lot and kill every tenth person of.
3. Obsolete. to take a tenth of or from.

Notice how the one we're talking about is not even the main definition of the word anymore, and applying the definition to the music industry falls under (3), which is even obsolete.

Happy to help:
Chav (or Ned here in Scotland) is a term for working class ne'erdowells.
A Dole Bludger is a term I've not come across before, but apparently it's an Aussie term for people who claim unemployment benefit and never look for a job.

Not according to these:

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

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

http://www.askoxford.com/concise_oed/venereal

If it is, it must be a very obscure reference. I doubt you'd be able to use it and convey the meaning you claimed.

For all of those CDs still in the shrink wrap, purchased by someone and resold, which clearly have not been *used* anymore than the CDs you buy *new* at Walmart.

Point well taken, but I think the guy was just railing in general (and in a very minor way) against the creep of such weasel-words as "pre-owned" into our lexicon. It's not a grammar nazi thing -- in fact, this isn't an issue of grammar at all, it's one of diction. The term "pre-owned" was invented by marketroids and used car salesmen to take the stigma off of the merchandise that the word "used" confers.

That the term "pre-owned" can be interpreted as being a broad superset of "used" is a happy coincidence, but I should note that the dictionary definition of used includes the meaning of "not new" and "previously owned," so there's nothing incorrect about using "used" to mean "not new." Just in case you doubt me:

previously used or owned; secondhand: a used car [from Random House]

And also...

Not new; secondhand: a used car [from American Heritage]

(I love how they use the same example phrase in both citations.) So there's nothing tortured or incorrect going on here, and the GP was not wrong in his usage. If anything, you're torturing and distorting the word "used" by narrowing its meaning unnecessarily.

For all of those CDs still in the shrink wrap, purchased by someone and resold, which clearly have not been *used* anymore than the CDs you buy *new* at Walmart.

Point well taken, but I think the guy was just railing in general (and in a very minor way) against the creep of such weasel-words as "pre-owned" into our lexicon. It's not a grammar nazi thing -- in fact, this isn't an issue of grammar at all, it's one of diction. The term "pre-owned" was invented by marketroids and used car salesmen to take the stigma off of the merchandise that the word "used" confers.

That the term "pre-owned" can be interpreted as being a broad superset of "used" is a happy coincidence, but I should note that the dictionary definition of used includes the meaning of "not new" and "previously owned," so there's nothing incorrect about using "used" to mean "not new." Just in case you doubt me:

previously used or owned; secondhand: a used car [from Random House]

And also...

Not new; secondhand: a used car [from American Heritage]

(I love how they use the same example phrase in both citations.) So there's nothing tortured or incorrect going on here, and the GP was not wrong in his usage. If anything, you're torturing the word "used" by narrowing its meaning unnecessarily.

Source code, XML data files, patches, changelogs...

That's actually Strings, not text...
Emacs was a text editor, it's now just an editor.


Of course, one prefers running Emacs on their iMac.

Source code, XML data files, patches, changelogs...

That's actually Strings, not text...
Emacs was a text editor, it's now just an editor.


Of course, one prefers running Emacs on their iMac.

> It's clear you don't know what you're talking about because this is true in the US as well.

Only two US states allow prisoners to vote.

Do you even understand the meaning of the word "prisoner"? http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/prisoner

In practice China strips a lot of prisoners of their political rights (in theory they only get stripped of political rights if they committed certain types of crime - which was what I was trying to say).

Quote: "In Shanghai's Qingpu Prison, 723 prisoners out of 2,700 have the right to vote and all of them voted yesterday."

That's pretty crappy compared to many other countries.

But the USA with only 2 states out of 50 has some way to go too. Maybe the US should give Puerto Ricans better voting rights while they're at it.

Here's another dictionary link you might want to check out

I hate to be pedantic, but the idea of "navel derring-do" is rather amusing in a no-doubt perverse manner. Hopefully his aim was not so sorely lacking that he was invading someone's navel. ;)

A pragmatist will say XYZ is impossible until an idealist proves him/her wrong, and after that the pragmatist starts taking advantage of the progress done by the idealist.

I hate to be the one that breaks it to you, but the word "pragmatist" doesn't mean anything like what you think it does. In fact, to one who does know what it means, what you wrote is little more than gibberish.

I'm aware of the formal definition of pragmatism.
You're simply being pedantic.

People who claim being guided by pragmatic logic simply take a shorter/easier route, and that because they believe the path for a pure solution - even if worthy itself - is not worth the effort compared to a half-assed and more viable alternative. - If you reduce life to numbers, why do you care about anything at all in the first place?

That kind of limiting attitude is what I'm talking about.

I hate to be the one that breaks it to you, but the word "pragmatist" doesn't mean anything like what you think it does. In fact, to one who does know what it means, what you wrote is little more than gibberish.

.. I won't lose a blink of sleep over them using Apple products. This guy had to have physical access to the iPhone to crack it, and even then the iPhone did not start sending its data out over the Internet along with a virus payload that formed a massive botnet that crippled Internet bandwidth.

That is because they are completely different cases with completely different mechanisms to prevent them. You're talking about the ability to load a spambot or something on a mobile device. The encryption is there to ensure your address book is safe, your calendar is safe, any photos and other data are safe. Not to ensure the device does not run arbitrary code. The problem with the data encryption being crackable within an arbitrary length of time is a large issue, as it is meant to be protection regardless of where the device lies, in hands or not.

My understanding is that the encryption in the 3GS is not meant to prevent a user with physical access to the device from accessing the data

That is exactly the purpose of encryption.

enÂcrypt (Än-krÄpt) tr.v. enÂcryptÂed, enÂcryptÂing, enÂcrypts

1. To put into code or cipher.
2. Computer Science To alter (a file, for example) using a secret code so as to be unintelligible to unauthorized parties.
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/encryption

So yes, it is a major issue, as it circumvents what the encryption is meant to accomplish.

Words have meanings.

Indeed they do, and I direct your eyeballs to definition 1b.

Or, heck, this.

http://www.askoxford.com/concise_oed/atheism?view=uk
the belief that God does not exist. :

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/atheism
1. the doctrine or belief that there is no God.
2. disbelief in the existence of a supreme being or beings.

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/atheism
2 a: a disbelief in the existence of deity b: the doctrine that there is no deity

And since you asked the personal question: I self-identified as atheist for decades until I had this debate and lost, discovering that atheism required a belief that an unevidenced god was also impossible.

I don't believe there is a god. I believe there is no evidence for one, and the flying-spaghetti monster is just as likely as there to be any god at all. I will be shocked if one exists.

But I can't prove a negative, and I would be believing without evidence (appealing to ignorance) to Believe there wasn't one rather than simply not believe there was.

Why? Inflammable means easily set on fire, not fireproof. "Flammable" is a neologism created by people who clearly made the same wrong (but reasonable) assumption that you just did.

game
noun, adjective, gamer, gamest, verb, gamed, gaming.
-noun
1. an amusement or pastime: children's games.

An amusement or pastime? A simulator game qualifies.

We're speaking English here. Come on and join the big parade, so you too can participate in our discussion. On second thought, please also discover paragraph breaks first.

unreplaceable

adjective
impossible to replace; "irreplaceable antiques" [syn: irreplaceable] [ant: replaceable]

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

Btw.. http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/fellow. #1 usage is masculine. You're saying I'm not considering the context. Bull. You are not considering context. All the other definitions do not match the context. Really now, do you believe a dude ranch vacationer applied there in the GP? A person reared in the city? Come on. If you did, you are a superficial thinker. You're also ignoring the dominant slang usage, which is masculine. Lastly, only a zombie with the reasoning skills comparable to a syntax parser would ignore common sense and conclude "dude" was gender neutral in the GP's usage.

They imply that this environment causes this behaviour, which might be true. Just like living under a Power-line, Cell phone tower, and beside a nuclear power plant, MIGHT cause some cancerous effects.

However, that doesn't make it CONTAGIOUS.

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

How cute.. you conveniently left out the other male oriented usages knowing fully they were more commonly used, lower numbered, and more numerous.

American Heritage

dude n.

1. Informal. An Easterner or city person who vacations on a ranch in the West.

2. Informal. A man who is very fancy or sharp in dress and demeanor.

3. Slang. 1. A man; a fellow. 2. dudes Persons of either sex.

Oh yes.. don't forget Random House. Listed before the American Heritage passage.

Random House.

dude -noun

1. a man excessively concerned with his clothes, grooming, and manners.

2. Slang. fellow; chap.

3. a person reared in a large city.

4. Western U.S. an urban Easterner who vacations on a ranch.

And then there's the etymology.

dude

1883, "fastidious man," New York City slang of unknown origin. The vogue word of 1883, originally used in ref. to the devotees of the "aesthetic" craze, later applied to city slickers, especially Easterners vacationing in the West (dude ranch first recorded 1921). Surfer slang application to any male is first recorded c.1970. Female form dudine (1883) has precedence over dudess (1885).

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

" as well as crippling battery life." is not the same as "a slightly excessive battery drain."

A little to quick to post something?

Main Entry: cripple
Part of Speech: verb
Definition: hinder action, progress
Synonyms: bring to standstill, cramp, damage, destroy, halt, hamstring, impair, put out of action, ruin, spoil, stifle, vitiate

So, you're saying that extra battery drain doesn't impair battery life?

>> "don't you think the designers of such a system would have considered that possibility and made damn sure to design it so that "frying people" can't possibly happen?"

Don't you think it is equally possible that somewhere along the implementation of this system, some bean-counter may have decided to cut costs in certain parts or procedures which, in isolation, seem unimportant and inconsequential, but which may have unintended and unknown repercussions in the system?

People die all the time as a result of the incompetence and negligence of others; people die also as a result of unforeseen consequences of a manufactured product, designed in good faith to function properly. Such is life.

>> "You're assuming the system safeguards would be implemented in software -- that would be an insanely poor design."

Perhaps that would be an insanely poor design, as you say, but it seems to be the currently preferred--and certainly prevailing--technique of cybernetics: build the entire control system in software, sometimes even with off-the-shelf components. This is mostly due to cost considerations: it is definitely cheaper and faster to implement in software than to custom design the hardware to perform the tasks; even though, as you say, this may not be the best design.

This new technology may not fry people as some fear, but its large-scale and long-term effects and risks may not be properly understood. A bit of scepticism and perhaps even apprehension at its wholesale acceptance and premature implementation is therefore warranted.

        -dZ.

That your sample is skewed towards mediocrity?

Any balanced sample of the population would be skewed towards mediocrity, that's kind of what mediocre means.

(sorry for being prissy and didactic but I can honestly say you started it)

look here:

http://dictionary.reference.com/dic?q=mediocre

1. of only ordinary or moderate quality; neither good nor bad; barely adequate.
2. rather poor or inferior.

Also look here:

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

  "of moderate or low quality, value, ability, or performance : ordinary, so-so "

    Despite the etymology involving the root "med", the generally accepted usage of the word "mediocre" in fact tends towards "inferior" rather than "mean" or "average".

Except most soft drinks don't use sugar in the US, they use high-fructose corn syrup

Er...fructose is a sugar.

I know what you meant, but diluted != deluded

I know what you meant, but diluted != deluded

Interplanetary is defined as, "existing or occurring between planets" or "being or occurring between the planets or between a planet and the sun."

How is is a setup between a space station and a planet interplanetary?

You mean waist.

Waste to intake ratio might actually be be another way to chart it. We'd have to do it, to find out. ;)

Because a corporation is not a person.

For the sake of argument, let us ignore the legal fiction that a corporation is a person. The proprietary information that the corporation holds still belongs to the corporation. And the corporation still belongs to the shareholders. If making the proprietary information public could hurt the corporation, then making the proprietary information public could also hurt the shareholders.

Why is it wrong for the shareholders (via lawyers working for the corporation that they collectively own) to protect themselves from loss? They're not even trying to withhold the information from the defendants; they're just trying to keep the defendants from tossing the information out into the public.

Shenanigan: a mischievous or deceitful trick, practice, etc.

RIAA companies asking the court to prevent defendants from making public properietary information: neither a a mischievous nor deceitful trick, practice, etc.

Oh please. And when I was a Boy Scout Patrol Leader, that made the other scouts my Subjects who'd sacrificed their self-determinacy to me. That you had to specifically pluck a word from the dictionary with the connotation you want just proves how vacuous the argument is. The President isn't a King, that's why he can't just order the people around. There are different types of leader than just sovereigns.

Why? It's from Hamlet (from the "To be or not to be" soliloquy -- the same place where we get the phrase "shuffled off this mortal coil" and a couple other phrases). Actually, the original is "there's the rub"; "therein lies" is just a less abrupt way of putting it. "Rub" in this context means "obstacle" (definition #14).

But that's sexist to assume it's a him.

It's not sexist, it's proper English: 'he' is the singular indefinite pronoun, 'she' is the singular pronoun of personification. ('he' and 'she' are _also_ the masculine and feminine personal pronouns, but that's not how they're being used here)

http://www.infynity.spodzone.com/rants/pc.shtml
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/Her (see "Usage note:")

Go away, Your Oversensitiveness. (But +1 for the "they tighted the other 27%" comment )

I say including Atheism because it is still based on faith. To accept without proof that there is no god is the same as to have faith that there is no god. Because faith is "belief that is not based on proof."

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

Several of these come down on the side of "intent to deprive", most are ambiguous, and some support the taking of things you don't have the right to, eg. Merriam-Webster's Dictionary of Law says "a criminal taking of the property or services of another without consent".

I think intuitively both work and any native speaker could prefer either. I'm a native speaker and taking without consent is how I would have defined it if you just asked me directly.

The problem is that historically, there has rarely been a difference. Nevertheless, we've long had the verbal concepts like "stealing my idea" or "stealing my thunder" that only work with the "no consent" interpretation (or with the deprivation of potential gain from your idea or your "thunder" or whatnot, which still applies).

The thing is, something like "stealing my idea" was never considered to actually be theft under the law because you couldn't own an idea. Then when copyright and patent law came around, you were granted a monopoly on the distribution and/or use of an idea, with certain limitations. Those laws defined the violation of these rights as crimes, none of which is referred to as "theft". So theft is not the applicable term here. Copyright infringement is the proper term.