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I wasn't laughing at them. I was laughing at calling it a "sport" - I laugh the same way at golfers who call their game a 'sport'(Tiger Woods makes more taking a dump than all video sportsman combined). At least the golfers have to walk - a little.

The dictionary says, among other things, that a "sport" is a: 3. diversion; recreation; pleasant pastime..

Golf and video games both easily fit into that definition.

It's pretty funny that you're insulting golf, though. I'm guessing that you haven't golfed much, or, if you have played at all, you haven't tried to actually compete -- you'll find that playing golf well takes a fair amount of physical coordination and fitness. Similarly, the best video game players need both physical coordination and quick reflexes. That's not the same as the pure muscle strength that many sports require, but they're still far from purely mental activities.

Actually, I think you're not taking the parent's post literally enough. Mathematics *does* model things that "don't make sense". Think about that word, "sense", for a moment-- it has a clear etymological connection to "sensation", the "perception or awareness of stimuli through the senses". I believe that language actually shapes our understanding of the things that we try to describe (this is a typical characteristic of analytic philosophy). Since we perceive the world through our senses, I find it unsurprising that language is filled with otherwise strange constructions like "it makes sense", "that feels right", "I see what you are talking about".

Now the interesting thing about mathematics is that it allows us to describe things which simply don't make sense. Tell me, when you try to visualize hyperbolic geometry, what does it look like? We have no real-world analogue for this, and we can't actually visualize this in anything but a non-trivial way. Do you think that fundamental particles, in all their weirdness, make sense? I would argue that there are actually logically-consistent things that we cannot visualize or otherwise sense. Thus, I don't think that our understanding of the universe should have any dependence on whether or not it "makes sense" to us. As long as we can describe the universe in a logically-consistent way, we can-- algorithmically- use the rules we have worked out to explain how it functions. Whether we can hold these mathematical creations in our minds is unimportant.

Of course, that assumes that logical consistency indeed accurately represents the universe. But that's a whole new can of worms. That's a prison that we are perhaps locked into by our own nature, and it reminds me of the whole "humans have puny brains" meme that sci-fi authors love to throw at us.

I think you mean "faze", unless you're worried about the price tag synchronizing you with a waveform.

(Sorry--you just happened to overflow my patience counter for this mistake.)

1. craptastic
2. Crap
3. Comcast

So you went on a business trip is what you're saying. Vacation is defined as leaving work behind.

The local cell networks were subsumed by traffic early in the day

I do not think it means what you think it means.

subsume
1. to consider or include (an idea, term, proposition, etc.) as part of a more comprehensive one.
2. to bring (a case, instance, etc.) under a rule.
3. to take up into a more inclusive classification.

From Dictionary.com

People need to learn the meaning of sarcasm.

You might want to use a different term than 'homophobic'. That implies someone is afraid of gay people, which I'd guess is not the broadest case.

Heavy sigh. No.

First, the ending "-phobia" also means "intolerance or aversion for" something.

Second, fear of their own repressed homosexual feelings is very often at the root of the intolerance these people exhibit. Really, only people whose heterosexuality is hanging by a thread can possibly argue that fully accepting gays is going to be a threat, will somehow "turn" people gay.

These folks are all expressing intolerance and aversion, and many are fearful. "Homophobia" is exactly a precise and correct word.

Freedom of speech and thought has a negative side, and there's nothing wrong with it.

Sure, they have a legal right to be assholes, to fear and hate and wallow in their own ignorance, and I'll stand up for that right. They can choose not to invite gay folks to the cotillion - and gays can choose not to invite them to the drag show.

But neither group has a right to make discriminatory and unconstitutional laws.

Not sure about the illiterate statement you made....kinda hard to tell with the spelling mistakes. :-)

Just bcause I kan reed doesn't meen I kan speelll or tipe. :-)

most: -adjective, superl. of much or many with more as compar. 1. in the greatest quantity, amount, measure, degree, or number: to win the most votes. 2. in the majority of instances: Most operations are successful. 3. greatest, as in size or extent: the most talent. http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/most Blizzard does not make 'most' mmos. Most mmo clients are glorified chat programs. They preform minimal calculations, such as collision detection, but very rarely anything more. The final decision almost always lies with the server, especially in the case of things like players being in range and the actually damage they do to each other. You can even see this in wow. When you run towards someone your client will mark an action as in range, but using the action will return an out of range error. This is because the server waits to synch you and your opponent before allowing the action to proceed, even though the client is telling it otherwise. The primary reason that wow has warden is to detect programs snooping wow's memory space. Wow's major vulnerability is that collision detection is done almost entirely client side. In the case of predicting other player's actions (ie, the point of TFA) you couldn't gain an advantage by hacking the neural network. The player would actually still have to be a valid target(in range, hostile, flagged, etc) according to the server for you to do anything to them

Please don't loose your stipid emails about your wish to enlarge your teensy little pecker on the world!

I beg of you, please think of the children!

instable /nstebl/
-adjective
not stable; unstable.

Actually....

Dipstick!

Correct spelling is: "Viruses"

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

Hmmm... I never realized barratry included "the offense of frequently exciting and stirring up lawsuits and quarrels." I knew this definition for it: "fraud by a master or crew at the expense of the owners of the ship or its cargo."

Come to think of it... isn't the third definition what is going on now with the low UID bids for the anniversary of slashdot?

3. the purchase or sale of ecclesiastical preferments or of offices of state.

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

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/republic You are quoting definition 3 for republic, I am quoting definition 1. As previously pointed out a representative Democracy can be defined as what the US actually has...or if by this definition.. http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/democracy Definition one can be set to mean representative democracy (elected officials) or direct democracy (everyone vote on everything). So before you go calling some an internet troll, look it up yourself. Your definition of republic is one of many, my definition of democracy is one of many, so I admit I was a little wrong and should have said we have representative democracy, which are at times called republics. You on the other hand were also wrong and brought about calling myself and others internet trolls. So I will openly admit that I could have been more precise, but in the circles I travel, the words are commonly, and correctly, used as I listed. You on the other hand were also wrong and right and resulted to name calling. I think we know who the true internet troll is.

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/republic You are quoting definition 3 for republic, I am quoting definition 1. As previously pointed out a representative Democracy can be defined as what the US actually has...or if by this definition.. http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/democracy Definition one can be set to mean representative democracy (elected officials) or direct democracy (everyone vote on everything). So before you go calling some an internet troll, look it up yourself. Your definition of republic is one of many, my definition of democracy is one of many, so I admit I was a little wrong and should have said we have representative democracy, which are at times called republics. You on the other hand were also wrong and brought about calling myself and others internet trolls. So I will openly admit that I could have been more precise, but in the circles I travel, the words are commonly, and correctly, used as I listed. You on the other hand were also wrong and right and resulted to name calling. I think we know who the true internet troll is.

The best part is your use of revenant. Had to look it up: One who returns after death (as a ghost) or after a long absence. Other sources say animated corpse.

Kind of like our guarantees of freedoms, any more: Ghosts, or zombies at best, but possibly resurrected in toto at some future date.

According to half a dozen dictionaries, "wedded" is already an acceptable past tense for "wed", and is already in use.

Or maybe you don't.

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/steal
"2. to appropriate (ideas, credit, words, etc.) without right or acknowledgment."

WTF is virii ?

viri http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/viri
virii http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/virii

http://www.reference.com/browse/wiki/Plural_of_virus

dude, we don't need brakes, we need wings

WTF is virii ?

viri http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/viri
virii http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/virii

http://www.reference.com/browse/wiki/Plural_of_virus

dude, we don't need brakes, we need wings

WTF is virii ?

viri http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/viri
virii http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/virii

http://www.reference.com/browse/wiki/Plural_of_virus

dude, we don't need brakes, we need wings

No no no no... no software is needed atm.
Judging by the number of viri / virii posts in this discussion, education is more needed.

viri http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/viri
virii http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/virii
--
/. - 95% IT-professionals, 1% of them capable of properly immunizing the windows...

No no no no... no software is needed atm.
Judging by the number of viri / virii posts in this discussion, education is more needed.

viri http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/viri
virii http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/virii
--
/. - 95% IT-professionals, 1% of them capable of properly immunizing the windows...

One thing they got was the minimum payments on your credit card is doubled so if someone might be having trouble making payments they now will certainly be delinquent and that will get the interest rate jacked up to 30%.

There's a word for that, it is called usury.

Usury (or at least, grandly unethical behavior or one kind or another) is surprising in its scope nowadays. Sound banking principles have gone right out the window, and groups like the RIAA are springing up in every industry. What is wrong with this country anyways? Where did we go wrong? The answer to that is complex (anything involving hundreds of millions of people is complex) but a lot of it can be traced back to Congress, and our inability to keep those corrupt little bloodsuckers in check. Oh, they're not all bad, but it doesn't take all of them to screw things up for the rest of us.

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

in: (...)

Go fuck yourself, asshole.

> How can a physical entity exist inside a non-physical entity?

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/in
in: (...)

2. (used to indicate inclusion within something abstract or immaterial): in politics; in the autumn.

> lacking any evidence of violations of known physical laws in the brain, it's scientifically useless.

This is a tautology. Introducing concepts that are beyond what can be scientifically experienced is useless from a scientific POV, like e.g. the concept of color is useless from the point of view of counting from one to ten.

If i get it right, our view of the world currently stops at quantum physics with potential states of particles that become actual for reasons that are mathematically modeled but can't be mathematically determined. If I say that there's the invisible pink unicorn that determines all the states according to his mood I'm scientifically useless, but currently science can't prove me wrong either.

So instead of the funny reactions I see to GP post, from the scientific point of view a better reply is "whatever".

> Still, with all the niggling little problems,

Fuck you, you fucking racist twit. Any "point" you were trying to make is now lost, thanks to this unnecessary redneck 'jab'.

Racist twit? Let's look at the dictionary.com entry for "niggling". Not one entry states that it derives from the word you apparently think it does. And if you go to the Online Etymology Dictionary, it states the word most likely derives from a Norwegian root with no relation to the word you were thinking of.

I would cite things about myself to further prove I'm not a racist, but the basic fact is... I don't have to. You flew off the handle just because an unflattering word begins with "nigg" and you automatically made the assumption it was related to a racial epithet beginning with the same letters. Your assumption was wrong and you couldn't be bothered to check your facts before resorting to abusive name calling.

- Greg

on hand

Actually, I was more going for, "childishly foolish; immature or trivial".

http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=approximatively

How's that for strategery?

Now, as to your claims that Nintendo doesn't know how to make an MMO? That's a rather moot point. Just because they haven't done something doesn't mean they can't. Nintendo has a long history of inventing or reinventing genres. If they wanted to, they certainly have the people and the power to make something amazing. If not, they know who to talk to, and could get the ball rolling mighty quick.

It's okay to be a fanboy, it really is. But you needent be a dick about it. Work on you dictionary.com skills and look up words before you start trolling. Try words like communicate, opinion, and theory. That last one is a good one. See, it means that if I say "probably..." that I'm making a conjecture as to why Nintendo is acting in a way that I do not understand. Combine that with 'opinion'. See what I'm getting at? Constructive criticism is usually welcome around here. And if you can say, "The reason Nintendo hasn't done an MMO is explained in this interview [insert link].." Then I'm more then happy to receive your comment.

Now, as to your claims that Nintendo doesn't know how to make an MMO? That's a rather moot point. Just because they haven't done something doesn't mean they can't. Nintendo has a long history of inventing or reinventing genres. If they wanted to, they certainly have the people and the power to make something amazing. If not, they know who to talk to, and could get the ball rolling mighty quick.

It's okay to be a fanboy, it really is. But you needent be a dick about it. Work on you dictionary.com skills and look up words before you start trolling. Try words like communicate, opinion, and theory. That last one is a good one. See, it means that if I say "probably..." that I'm making a conjecture as to why Nintendo is acting in a way that I do not understand. Combine that with 'opinion'. See what I'm getting at? Constructive criticism is usually welcome around here. And if you can say, "The reason Nintendo hasn't done an MMO is explained in this interview [insert link].." Then I'm more then happy to receive your comment.

Now, as to your claims that Nintendo doesn't know how to make an MMO? That's a rather moot point. Just because they haven't done something doesn't mean they can't. Nintendo has a long history of inventing or reinventing genres. If they wanted to, they certainly have the people and the power to make something amazing. If not, they know who to talk to, and could get the ball rolling mighty quick.

It's okay to be a fanboy, it really is. But you needent be a dick about it. Work on you dictionary.com skills and look up words before you start trolling. Try words like communicate, opinion, and theory. That last one is a good one. See, it means that if I say "probably..." that I'm making a conjecture as to why Nintendo is acting in a way that I do not understand. Combine that with 'opinion'. See what I'm getting at? Constructive criticism is usually welcome around here. And if you can say, "The reason Nintendo hasn't done an MMO is explained in this interview [insert link].." Then I'm more then happy to receive your comment.

Because he can use a dictionary.

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

5. a person regarded as, or claiming to be, an inspired teacher or leader.
6. a person who foretells or predicts what is to come: a weather prophet; prophets of doom.
7. a spokesperson of some doctrine, cause, or movement.

All 3 of those apply. Of the remaining 4, 1 refers to a specific person, and the other 3 are indeed religious. Maybe I just don't go to church enough, but when someone says 'prophet' I think 'someone who predicts the future accurately' first and 'religious' a distant second.

Of course, context helps a hell of a lot, too.

Virii is the /. editors best guess at viruses:
http://dictionary.reference.com/help/faq/language/g63.html

Please stop the incorrect usage!

One doesn't write "ten year birthday." One should not write "ten year anniversary" either.

Like birthdays, anniversaries come once per year. The word anniversary comes from the Latin word for year.

So it's Slashdot's tenth anniversary.

"for the sheer vituousness of it."

The WHAT?

Maybe your mother reads dictionaries. Here are a couple online ones.

http://www.answers.com/topic/unthaw

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

That's just how English is. On a related note, if you "bone a chicken", is it the opposite if you "debone a chicken"? Another pair of opposite-sounding synonyms is "ravel" and "unravel".
How many more are out there?

I pronounce the "t" in "tsunami", though probably not as hard as the Japanese do.

[t] and [s] are articulated at the same point. The Japanese "t" in this instance is non-aspirated, non-ejective, non-retroflex, non blah blah blah. It's is a light articulation of on the alveolar ridge, to produce what is called an "affricative". The Japanese do not pronounce this "t" very hard, and if you were to pronounce the "t" any lighter, it would be an "s". I did oral mentoring for awhile for a Japanese class, the students were unable to recognize if they were saying "ts" or "s" in spontaneous speech. PURPOSEFULLY paying attention to their speech, they could articulate it appropriately.

However, you may be different and actually articulate the "t" rather than just omitting it in spontaneous speech like the vast majority Americans do. However, my position is that the majority of Americans say "soo-nah-mee", not "tsoo-na-mee". Not to mention every Japanese word that ends in "-e" is massively mutilated by American phonology, and takes it from an "-eh" to an "-ee". So you have "sah-kee" (not "sah-keh") and "keh-ree-oh-kee" (not "kah-rah-oh-keh"... I'll give them a pass for misarticulating the "r", they've likely never been exposed to that sound before, but all the vowels are there.)

The compound verb form can have problems with tense and singularization.
For example, "He backups the system twice a day.", "They kissed and makeupped.", "They were setupping the conference room for the meeting.", etc.
Ick, ick, ick.
Non-compound words don't have this problem ("jumped", "jumping")...

Funny, German doesn't have any problem with this: "auszeichnen" -> "ausgezeichnet", "mitteilen" -> "mitgeteilt", "überfahren" -> "übergefahrt". The answer to your examples are "backsup", "madeup" and "settingup". You're composing the words how you presume that they should be dealt with "there's a no space between them, so the ending goes at the end!" No, wrong. The verbial stems go on the verbial element, not to any additional forms that occur.

... and not all compound words have this problem with the verb form ("blindfolded", "forecasting", "upgrades"), but those that do should not have a compound verb form.

Not always.
For example, "upgrade", "bypass".

Ok, this is where things get tricky... because now you have to start distinguishing how the words are actually treated, not just "do they contain a verbial word, and a prepositional word?" The reason why, is these words are no longer considered separable. They have been taken into the English language as individual units, and not as individual parts. They are the same as "include", "assimilate", "impersonate" and "expel". Just instead we can actually recognize the roots, rather than them being relatively unknown, the examples being composed of: "in - clude", "ad - similate", "in - personate" and "ex - pell".

Your use of "blindfold" and "forecast" are particularly inappropriate, as we do not use a preposition "fore-" anymore, as all words that use that root word are now inseparable. While "blindfold" is not a verb with a prepositional inclusion, which is what I am limiting my argument to. (By nature of compound verbs like "blindfold", they are placed as a single "lexeme" in our dictionaries, not as individual parts that contribute to the whole of the meaning. It's just a little harder to notice when the words actually relate to the words used... unlike "butterfly".)

Except th

You're hotly contesting something that doesn't exist. "Many" implies at least a substantial minority.

many: "3. a large or considerable number of persons or things"

This is not consistent with an interpretation of "a substantial minority". Educational gaps like this are one of the reasons that some of us are not convinced about the wonders of the US educational system.

Specifically: comfortable: [k??.f?(?).t?.b?l] ? [k??f.t?.b?l] (If you don't know IPA,

Unfortunately, as you can see, Slashdot turns many IPA symbols into question marks, so I can't really see what you were trying to show me.
However, dictionary.com's pronunciation, which uses ordinary letters, is "kuhmf-tuh-buhl" and "kuhm-fer-tuh-buhl", the second being similar to the way that I pronounce it, with no "ter" in there anywhere.
The American Heritage Dictionary entry, further down the page, shows the pronunciations (again, screwed up by Slashdot) "km'fr-t-bl", "kmf't-bl", and "kmf'tr-", the first being most similar to the way that I pronounce it, and the third being most similar to the way that you claim that most Americans pronounce it.

I can cry and scream all I want that the only valid pronunciation of "tsunami" involves actually articulating the "t", although I doubt that you do, because English's phonetics disallow a word from starting with "ts", so people pronounce it as if the "t" were silent.

I pronounce the "t" in "tsunami", though probably not as hard as the Japanese do.

And "psych-" comes from a Greek work starting with the character "Psi", which isn't pronounced the same as "sigh", but rather it actually articulates the "p",

Yeah, well, I do pronounce "ps" as "s" when it begins a word ("psych-", "pseudo-", etc.).

That's because you presume that everyone should speak your Ideolect

No, I don't; I just find it annoying.
Similarly, I find Rap and Hip-hop annoying, but that doesn't mean that I "presume" that everyone should listen to rock, jazz, and new-age; it just means that I find Rap and Hip-hop annoying.
Note, again, that dictionary.com shows that the correct pronunciation of jewelry is not "joo-ler-ee".
(And so forth.)
Now, does this mean that people who say "jew-ler-ee" should be beaten with a stick until they pronounce it correctly?
Probably not.
But it does mean that they are not pronouncing it correctly, at least, not yet.
(It's true that it may, at some point, be considered correct, but it isn't yet.)

I speak something that I call English, you speak something that you call English, and we both just simply hope that we'd be able to understand each other.

One of my college professor's parents were from Scotland, and his wife was from the American Deep South.
He took his wife back Scotland for a visit.
His wife and relatives couldn't understand each other, despite that fact that they both were speaking English; their accents were too different.
American English and British English are diverging in many ways, in pronunciation ("issue", "clerk"), spelling ("color" vs "colour"), and even vocabulary ("truck" vs "lorry", "naught" vs "zero").
There are also probably many ways in which they are converging, although I can't think of any off the top of my head ("billion" meaning "thousand million" instead of "thousand thousand million"?).
(I sometimes say "lift" instead of "elevator", but that may be due more to the influence of Star Trek than shows on BBC America.)

These are homophones.

Actually, I pronounce "they're" differently than "there" and "their".

These words are pretty much pronounced differently (from some people) but since [?] (from effect) and [a] (from affect) are both very close together, that many people "elide" them together to one vowel.

I think that it is more likely that most of the people who misuse "affect" and "effect" do so because they don't really know the difference between the two.

If you make the noun "Jump" from the verb "[to] jump", then why isn't the verb form fo

Specifically: comfortable: [k??.f?(?).t?.b?l] ? [k??f.t?.b?l] (If you don't know IPA,

Unfortunately, as you can see, Slashdot turns many IPA symbols into question marks, so I can't really see what you were trying to show me.
However, dictionary.com's pronunciation, which uses ordinary letters, is "kuhmf-tuh-buhl" and "kuhm-fer-tuh-buhl", the second being similar to the way that I pronounce it, with no "ter" in there anywhere.
The American Heritage Dictionary entry, further down the page, shows the pronunciations (again, screwed up by Slashdot) "km'fr-t-bl", "kmf't-bl", and "kmf'tr-", the first being most similar to the way that I pronounce it, and the third being most similar to the way that you claim that most Americans pronounce it.

I can cry and scream all I want that the only valid pronunciation of "tsunami" involves actually articulating the "t", although I doubt that you do, because English's phonetics disallow a word from starting with "ts", so people pronounce it as if the "t" were silent.

I pronounce the "t" in "tsunami", though probably not as hard as the Japanese do.

And "psych-" comes from a Greek work starting with the character "Psi", which isn't pronounced the same as "sigh", but rather it actually articulates the "p",

Yeah, well, I do pronounce "ps" as "s" when it begins a word ("psych-", "pseudo-", etc.).

That's because you presume that everyone should speak your Ideolect

No, I don't; I just find it annoying.
Similarly, I find Rap and Hip-hop annoying, but that doesn't mean that I "presume" that everyone should listen to rock, jazz, and new-age; it just means that I find Rap and Hip-hop annoying.
Note, again, that dictionary.com shows that the correct pronunciation of jewelry is not "joo-ler-ee".
(And so forth.)
Now, does this mean that people who say "jew-ler-ee" should be beaten with a stick until they pronounce it correctly?
Probably not.
But it does mean that they are not pronouncing it correctly, at least, not yet.
(It's true that it may, at some point, be considered correct, but it isn't yet.)

I speak something that I call English, you speak something that you call English, and we both just simply hope that we'd be able to understand each other.

One of my college professor's parents were from Scotland, and his wife was from the American Deep South.
He took his wife back Scotland for a visit.
His wife and relatives couldn't understand each other, despite that fact that they both were speaking English; their accents were too different.
American English and British English are diverging in many ways, in pronunciation ("issue", "clerk"), spelling ("color" vs "colour"), and even vocabulary ("truck" vs "lorry", "naught" vs "zero").
There are also probably many ways in which they are converging, although I can't think of any off the top of my head ("billion" meaning "thousand million" instead of "thousand thousand million"?).
(I sometimes say "lift" instead of "elevator", but that may be due more to the influence of Star Trek than shows on BBC America.)

These are homophones.

Actually, I pronounce "they're" differently than "there" and "their".

These words are pretty much pronounced differently (from some people) but since [?] (from effect) and [a] (from affect) are both very close together, that many people "elide" them together to one vowel.

I think that it is more likely that most of the people who misuse "affect" and "effect" do so because they don't really know the difference between the two.

If you make the noun "Jump" from the verb "[to] jump", then why isn't the verb form fo

Simply put, Aspiring is a verb