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Recursion: See Recursion.

Recursion: See Recursion.

This leads us to the only part of the GPL that I think is in any way legally questionable (IANAL). I'm not sure it is entirely legally clear if the copyright holder is allowed to revoke the GPL licensing terms or not, no matter what is said in the license. (i.e. They could argue that the license is not a binding contract).

From GPLv3: "All rights granted under this License are granted for the term of copyright on the Program, and are irrevocable provided the stated conditions are met. " GPLv2 doesn't have this text, though.

IANAL, but my understanding is that a copyright license is not a contract in the first place, so the example argument you cite just can't work. A copyright license is the permission (hence the word "license") granted by the copyright holder to another party, allowing that party to make copies of the work in question. Granting a copyright license to somebody doesn't create any obligations for either party; it just expands the receiver's privileges.

If the government were to, for example, grant one private individual 100% ownership of all industry, would you call that a capitalist society, then?

Let's see... One online site has 5 different dictionary definitions of "capitalism". Your proposed scenario would easily fit three of the five, because those only stipulate private ownership of the means of production (as opposed to communal or government ownership). Another may or may not be appliciable, depending on how one defines "free market". The final and lengthest makes frequent references to multiple parties, so while it doesn't explicitly forbid one private agent from owning everything it implies captialism requires multiple owners or investors.

CAPTCHA: "either"

"Eclipse" is when the Sun is blocked/hidden/occulted

I think you mean occluded. "occulted" is when you wave a dead chicken at it at midnight.

That usage of "occult" is unusual but not incorrect. Both occult and occlude are derived from the same Latin root. See here: http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/occult Entries 4 and 9-11 cover the usage regarding something being hidden

Fewer and less mean similar but very distinct things. Precision in language really helps people take you more seriously.

Fewer and less mean similar but very distinct things. Precision in language really helps people take you more seriously.

"Eclipse" is when the Sun is blocked/hidden/occulted

I think you mean occluded. "occulted" is when you wave a dead chicken at it at midnight.

No, "occulted" means exactly what the previous poster used it to mean. The root of "occult" mean to hide from view, and while the noun and adjective forms in general use have wandered off to refer to specific things because those things are usually hidden, the verb form remains much closer to the root. (See, e.g., here, or any other decent dictionary.)

Maybe you should look it up, then, because that's exactly what it means.

http://dictionary.reference.com/dic?q=parity&search=search

2. equivalence; correspondence; similarity; analogy.

you're stuck in uber-capitalist mode.

http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=capitalism
capitalism
-noun
an economic system in which investment in and ownership of the means of production, distribution, and exchange of wealth is made and maintained chiefly by private individuals or corporations, esp. as contrasted to cooperatively or state-owned means of wealth.

The discussion about copyright is not about capitalism vs socialism. That argument would involve discussing whether the copyright should be owned privately or by the state. This discussion is more about whether copying data should be governed by property laws at all, or possibly how any rights of a copyright holder are to be weighed against the rights of people who own copying machines (ie: nearly everybody).

In free market capitalism copyright, being a state imposed restriction on supply, would be considered an intervention in the market. Whether it's a good idea or not, it is not inherently capitalistic. Uber-capitalism would involve a complete rejection of copyright. Since I tend to favor capitalism but am not religious about it, I am open to the idea that continuing copyright in some form may be a good idea.

It's a perfectly cromulant word.

I think you're wrong in your premise that calling it an addiction is some kind of excuse or enabler. Using the scientific method to determine if someone does or doesn't have an addiction (or something is or isn't highly addictive) is merely a determination of fact. The interpretation of that fact is where you take argument, and I will agree with that.

Humans are creatures of habit, any activity that we perform can become a psychological addiction, and of course there are physical addictions. Some activities are considered "highly addictive", where many humans are susceptible to forming an addiction to it. Some people also have "addictive personalities" which cause them to be more susceptible to addiction. Notice I am making no interpretation of right/wrong here or saying they are or aren't a victim, just stating facts.

addiction
-noun
the state of being enslaved to a habit or practice or to something that is psychologically or physically habit-forming, as narcotics, to such an extent that its cessation causes severe trauma.

http://dictionary.reference.com/dic?q=addiction&search=search

I am slightly susceptible to addiction because I am highly competitive and I like to escape reality (anything can really be considered an escape from reality, what is reality really? But I digress ;P). My point is that, from my personal experience and seeing and reading of thousands of others with the same symptoms, video games are highly addictive and certain video games (MMORPG's) thrive on addiction and are many times more addictive than others.

It'll be nice to see some more neutral research on this. We can each come to our own conclusions on the opinion aspect of it.

As long as you don't participate in the eucharist (that would be a little rude) you should be welcome regardless of your beliefs.

As I Roman Catholic, I think the term you are looking for is "sacrilegious", not "a little rude". Another helpful hint for the visiting non-religious slashdot crowd would be don't wash anything or dip your comb in the little bowls of water you may find by the doors.:)

I also agree with wiredlogic's main point, most Catholics value the concept of "good works" far too much to insult someone who is actively helping a charitable activity. Unfortunately, there probably are a few that despite both reason and docturine would reject a well-meaning, but non-religious, volunteer. Such is the human condition...

I don't think lightening is what you meant. Unless you're talking about a uterus in the clouds. Perhaps you meant lightning?

Not being pedantic here (ok, maybe a little), but

As a verb affect means "to act on" or "to move" (His words affected the crowd so deeply that many wept); affect means "to pretend" or "to assume" (new students affecting a nonchalance they didn't feel). The verb effect means "to bring about, accomplish": Her administration effected radical changes. The noun effect means "result, consequence": the serious effects of the oil spill. The noun affect pronounced with the stress on the first syllable, is a technical term in psychology and psychiatry. Affect is not used as a noun.

from Dictionary.com

I guess you meant "effect", since there is a causation-consequence relation.

The defamation part is in publishing information that might harm the person's character. Nothing there about truth.Really? How about http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/defamation

"the act of defaming; false or unjustified injury of the good reputation of another"

Or

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

"2 a: a written or oral defamatory statement or representation that conveys an unjustly unfavorable impression"

(Emphasis added for the benefit of the hard of understanding)

No, "tolerate" does not include respect in its definition at all. The closest it gets is to allow or permit.

tolerate
1. to allow the existence, presence, practice, or act of without prohibition or hindrance; permit.
2. to endure without repugnance; put up with: I can tolerate laziness, but not incompetence.
3. Medicine/Medical. to endure or resist the action of (a drug, poison, etc.).
4. Obsolete. to experience, undergo, or sustain, as pain or hardship.

Perhaps you have an unusual dictionary.

Grammar Nazi Fail
http://dictionary.reference.com/cite.html?qh=tweet&ia=luna

People who bitch about improper editing should know the difference between "drivel" and "dribble".

People who bitch about improper editing should know the difference between "drivel" and "dribble".

Wow, so no one is aloud to use the number 2 definition in a dictionary ? Sorry but that's BS. Lets check out another word hmm how about healthy: http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/healthy Only meaning number one is correct ?

This game says Motherload.

But Dictionary.com agrees with you.

Anonymous consists largely of users from multiple internet sites such as...

How can any member of Anonymous be "from" a site like fark? Do they issue Anonymous press pass credentials or something?

This gets the whole idea of Anonymous wrong. Anonymous isn't "from" anywhere. The moment you start thinking you know something about Anonymous, the moment you start trying to put Anonymous into a box, you're no longer talking about Anonymous...you're talking onymous.

Do you mean I should have used emigrant instead?

"Emigrant" and "immigrant" are used like this:

He immigrated to the US.
He emigrated from the UK.

I'm not sure what you're suggesting. Are you suggesting that if you enter a country illegally, you are not an immigrant? Because dictionaries disagree.

Massacre has no implication that people were not fighting back.

Are you sure about that? To me it looks like Massacre denotes the promiscuous slaughter of many who can not make resistance, or much resistance. It doesn't require that they not be fighting back, but it does require that they be completely overwhelmed. The problem with this idea is that guns make it possible for one person to kill a whole bunch of people. Things often don't play out the way you'd expect. A massacre in this context would be firebombing a whole city to kill just the armed people, because any resistance would be totally useless. But even if you can't win, if you can put a serious death toll into the enemy, at least you've spent your life in some meaningful way... well, by some systems of measurement. I don't personally agree; when your side can't possibly win it doesn't make sense to draw things out. If you're dead, your contribution to your society ends. If you're alive you can at least subvert some attempts to poison your culture and live to maybe fight someday when it might help.

Portal - n. Origin: 1300-1350

1. a door, gate, or entrance, esp. one of imposing appearance, as to a palace.
2. an iron or steel bent for bracing a framed structure, having curved braces between the vertical members and a horizontal member at the top.
3. an entrance to a tunnel or mine.
4. Computers. a Web site that functions as an entry point to the Internet, as by providing useful content and linking to various sites and features on the World Wide Web.

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

To him the raid had no justification and was groundless. Where's the lie?

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

Actually it is perfectly acceptable to refer to the United States as America: http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=america

Hamilton and Polhemus built a computer code based on the equations

The use of the word "code" in that manner is slightly unusual but is actually quite in line with the accepted meanings of the word code.

bigger then 48 inches

You mean "than", not "then."

bigger then 48 inches

You mean "than", not "then."

You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.
Loose
Lose

You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.
Loose
Lose

Lars T.: Fort Knox has some theoretical security flaws. OMFG! Fort Knox is insecure! Quick, somebody close it down and patch it!

Again... take your own advice. Your paraphrase was no more a paraphrase than Lars T's was. Oh wait... maybe they both fell under this word of the day.

Here is your word of the day. Learn what it means, take a few years to learn ho to do it properly, and then maybe we can have an intelligent discussion, but I won't be holding my breath or anything.

The SD industry has previously used Microsoft's FAT filesystem due to it's uniquity.

While uniquity may be a word (see http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/uniquity) I think you may have meant ubiquity (b and n are next to each other on the keyboard). It's slightly humorous in your version though.

"Nope, only a one second difference as I have to pick which OS I want to load."

The word "boot" doesn't mean what you think it does. The system hasn't booted when it starts loading the OS, or when Windows prematurely paints your wallpaper background well before it can respond in order to exude the illusion of having completed booting.

"If you want me to make a video of it, I will. I love proving people dead wrong, especially when it's obvious bullshit. Both OSes aren't running so just how is it wasting CPU cycles? It's a selection menu, if a selection causes your boot time to be TEN TIMES LONGER then YOU FUCKED UP."

Here is your word of the day. You should get one.

"I'll be more than happy to do a quick factory restore after I backup. I'll whip out my DXG HD camera and I'll record Vista's boot time before a dual boot, and after a dual-boot."

Holy shit you must be about to feel very stupid. Nobody said anything like that. The comparison is Linux boot time to Windows boot time, which you can only accurately measure on a dual boot system since it is the only scenario where the hardware is identical. You might find this website is more your speed. Seriously.

Applied science? You must mean engineering. If we say that a scientist attempts to discover the rules by which the natural world operates via observation and reason, then applied science isn't science, because its aim is not to understand the natural world.

You can personally define it any way you like. To take that to the absurd for illustrative purposes, you could exclude any science that doesn't deal with understanding chocolate cakes. It just probably won't agree with the accepted definition that the rest of the world uses.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Applied_science
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/applied%20science

Applying a snobbish elitist and non-standard definition isn't very constructive. Pun intended.

Pure science isn't the only kind of science. The knowledge gained about practical application also requires use of the scientific method and codifies knowledge in a useful and practical way that takes into account subtleties that pure methods cannot. A classical example in celestial mechanics is perturbation theory. The N-body problem isn't one that's easily solved for the general case. There's no easy formula. However there are methods for refining the orbit of a planet or minor body based on successive estimations.

There is no engineering without science.

regulation of the free market caused this mess (housing bubble, subprime lending).

That's not really true. The Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act of 1999 had a lot to do with it, and it did so by making the market freer. In essence, it repealed portions of the original Glass-Steagall Act of 1933, which was put in place to limit some of the banking practices that contributed to the Great Depression. At least, that's how I understand it ... anyone who knows better feel free to correct me.

Truth is, a totally free market doesn't work, at least, it doesn't work unless you happen to be at top of the corporate food chain. In a previous century they called that laissez faire, and it didn't work. Look, like it or not we need the institution of government and the corporations that provide goods and services require regulation. The people that run them have demonstrated unequivocally that they cannot be trusted with our lives or livelihoods without some form of governmental controls in place.

We just have to make sure that that regulation works for all of us.

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

I think you mean shudder, not shutter.

I think you mean shudder, not shutter.

Wow, people paint with that shit?

" ... the very few times in your life that you'll have to do it ..."

It still counts as time wasted if you have to call up Geek Squad because you couldn't fix it yourself! ROTFLMAO

If you are going to seriously try to tell me that it isn't a pervasively well known fact that Windows degrades over time, becoming more and more virus ridden and slower and slower in proportion to the time it has been connected to the internet, then I can't take you seriously. Of course, if you openly acknowledge the fact and still can't think of an OS like the one I described then I can't take you seriously either.

Come to think of it, there is now no situation in which I could take you seriously :-)

Here is your word of the day.

"I think you might need to splash out on something a bit faster."

I did. I splashed on something quite a bit faster, that is actually stable and secure. It is calledLinux ;-)

I really don't understand where you are coming from here. 2+2=4 is not science. It's math. Arithmetic to be be precise. You contradict yourself.

Science:

sci-ence
-noun

1. a branch of knowledge or study dealing with a body of facts or truths systematically arranged and showing the operation of general laws: the mathematical sciences.

Your emotional, ad hominem response shows that the debate about theology and science are anything but non-sequitur.

I have no idea what you just said there, but judging by the rest of your comment, I'm willing to bet it wasn't much.

In the context of the U.S., its Founding Fathers were very reluctant to label as treason anything that could be used by a tyrant to strike down on legitimate internal opposition. Therefore, they were left with only two very specific acts that would be considered treason

As has been said many times before and even by yourself in the quote above, the Constitution, including Section 3, was written to restrict the government. It holds no definition over the people what treason is. Treason is defined in a dictionary for us.

This popular counter reply on /. of Section 3 regurgitation each time it's suggested the people act in a quick and decisive manner against this treason by the government is ridiculous. What purpose is there for it? There are no suggested alternatives or otherwise, only "nope, you can't do that. that's not treason. check out the Constitution!". At this point, I've chalked it up as trolling.

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

As you can see, it was right the first time.

The writer thinks that it means something which it does not:

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

The dictionary does, however, define "dick around" as "to spend time idly; fool around."

dickering

To bargain; barter.

n. The act or process of bargaining.

How about use the simple his/he's test that Dictionary.com suggest?
http://dictionary1.classic.reference.com/help/faq/language/d62.html
Then you'll be able to find out for yourself