Domain: reference.com
Stories and comments across the archive that link to reference.com.
Comments · 9,372
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Re:Um No.
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Re:I Believe ItIt's not so much the environment; most of the people that work with me are very active in talking about their roles and responsibilities (most conversations either directly involve or segway into this).
Wow, you have Segways where you work? Don't fall asleep while riding one! Here is my seque: It's time to go to bed.
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Re:Like that "Hoax device" BS.
See the usage note here.
The construction is a little funny because of the number of negatives... but oughtn't that to be illegal ==> but ought that not to be illegal == Shouldn't that be an illegal thing to do? -
Re:What, no comments?
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"landing" like Harold the sheep?The ESA article says, in part, The reentry capsule for the Foton-M3 spacecraft, which has been in low-Earth orbit for the last 12 days, successfully landed this morning in an uninhabited area 150 km south of the town of Kustanay in Kazakhstan, close to the Russian border, at 09:58 CEST, 13:58 local time. I was under the impression that Russian vehicles do not so much land as plummet . That's why they generally aim for uninhabited portions of Kazakhstan.
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Re:keep it in perspective....
facetious (adj):
- not meant to be taken seriously or literally: a facetious remark.
- amusing; humorous.
- lacking serious intent; concerned with something nonessential, amusing, or frivolous: a facetious person.
Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2006.source: http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/facetious
Side note: Slashcode really needs Unicode (or at least UTF-8) support.
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Re:Terror is winning
http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=hale
http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=hail
If you're going to indulge in political satire, at least learn your fascist salutes please. -
Re:Terror is winning
http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=hale
http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=hail
If you're going to indulge in political satire, at least learn your fascist salutes please. -
Re:Not such a good idea..
GP hopefully meant:
Consistent: 2. Reliable; steady: demonstrated a consistent ability to impress the critics. Meaning that laws should be the same for everybody (applied consistently). -
Re:Populus, not populous
The word they're looking for is populus? A sort of tree?
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Re:Gypped
I'm using "white" here as a racially charged pun:
Dictionary reference:"13. Slang. decent, honorable, or dependable: That's very white of you."
But punny jokes aside: I find the idea that you have the high ground ridiculous. Somebody complains about what somebody else said. You label that censorship, and complain that they shouldn't say that. Isn't the hypocrisy obvious?
This charge of "censorship" is too much. When the government forbids you from saying something that is censorship at its worst. Just expressing an opinion about what somebody else says is not censorship. "you shouldn't say that" vs "you can't say that by law". -
Re:the hilton effect
You want her hanged if you want her executed by hanging. You want her hung if you want her be a hermaphrodite.
Just to out-Nazi you, "hung" is also a correct term for this, just less common. :) -
Re:Uh, no.Note that word "commodity", confusing geeks world wide. It means distinguished only by price. Um, not exactly.
Commodity -noun, plural -ties.
1. an article of trade or commerce, esp. a product as distinguished from a service.
2. something of use, advantage, or value.
3. Stock Exchange. any unprocessed or partially processed good, as grain, fruits, and vegetables, or precious metals. -
Re: "a myriad" eh?
It IS a noun. It is also an adjective. Please check your facts before trying to correct others.
myriad /mrid/ [mir-ee-uhd]
-noun
1. a very great or indefinitely great number of persons or things.
2. ten thousand.
-adjective
3. of an indefinitely great number; innumerable: the myriad stars of a summer night.
4. having innumerable phases, aspects, variations, etc.: the myriad mind of Shakespeare.
5. ten thousand.
Origin: 1545-55; Gk myriad- (s. of myriás) ten thousand; see -ad1
Also interesting:
Usage Note: Throughout most of its history in English myriad was used as a noun, as in a myriad of men. In the 19th century it began to be used in poetry as an adjective, as in myriad men. Both usages in English are acceptable, as in Samuel Taylor Coleridge's "Myriad myriads of lives." This poetic, adjectival use became so well entrenched generally that many people came to consider it as the only correct use. In fact, both uses in English are parallel with those of the original ancient Greek. The Greek word mrias, from which myriad derives, could be used as either a noun or an adjective, but the noun mrias was used in general prose and in mathematics while the adjective mrias was used only in poetry. -
Re:Good For Them
Actually irregardless is a nonstandard word meaning irrespective and regardless.
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Re:donnybrook?
From http://dictionary.reference.com/wordoftheday/archive/2001/05/29.html
donnybrook \DON-ee-brook\, noun:
1. A brawl; a free-for-all.
2. A heated quarrel or dispute. -
Gartner, eh?
So the gartner said that? Interesting. What did the poolman and the postman have to say about it?
:p -
Re:I have a question for the question...
So sometimes the cops do recover stolen cars, just as a counterexample to your post.
happenstance -
Re:Electrocute or Electroshock
I would recommend rather than going by what you think a word "sounds like", you go by what it means .
electrocute
-verb (used with object), -cuted, -cuting.
1. to kill by electricity.
2. to execute (a criminal) by electricity, as in an electric chair.
If you are looking for a non-trademarked word, just say "shocked." -
Entrapment?
If you don't think that invading someone's privacy is wrong, or entrapping people into squeezing money out of them is wrong, there is something wrong with you.
I'm sorry, while I'd even agree with the privacy slant, and I don't really have much love for the RIAA... excuse me? Entrapment?
Let's have look at dictionary.reference.com, shall we. The only definitions that fit in a legal context, seem to be the likes of "the luring by a law-enforcement agent of a person into committing a crime" (Random House Unabridged Dictionary) and "To lure into performing a previously or otherwise uncontemplated illegal act. (The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)
Also note the following note from Merriam-Webster's Dictionary of Law: "Entrapment is available as a defense only when an agent of the state or federal government has provided the encouragement or inducement. This defense is sometimes allowed in administrative proceedings (as for the revocation of a license to practice medicine) as well as criminal proceedings. In order to establish entrapment, the defendant has the burden of proving either that he or she would not have committed the crime but for the undue persuasion or fraud of the government agent, or that the encouragement was such that it created a risk that persons not inclined to commit the crime would commit it, depending on the jurisdiction. When entrapment is pleaded, evidence (as character evidence) regarding the defendant that might otherwise have been excluded is allowed to be admitted."
I.e., pay attention: Entrapment is when some government agent (e.g., an undercover cop) persuades you to do something illegal that you wouldn't have even considered otherwise. Just getting caught when doing something on your own is _not_ entrapment, much as it seems to be a popular mis-conception on Slashdot.
E.g., if you're some random Joe minding your own business and some undercover cop comes and coaxes you and promises you big bucks if you'll grow hemp for him in your basement, that's entrapment. It can be argued that you wouldn't have considered doing it on your own. Maybe you're just gullible, not a crook. On the other hand, if you're selling dope anyway and an undercover cop comes and buys some hemp from you, that's not entrapment.
E.g., I seem to vaguely remember a terrorism-related case where it was argued that the cop had pretty much manufactured the whole cell. He wasn't (supposedly) recruited into a cell, he recruited a bunch of disgruntled muslim immigrants and persuaded them that it's Allah's will to blow shit up and punish the infidels, and promised them money, weapons and fake papers. It may show that they were not morally above that, given the right persuasion and incentive, but they weren't doing it until that cop coaxed them.
On the other hand, had the cell existed and planned that shit on its own, then an undercover cop infiltrating it would _not_ count as entrapment.
E.g., to further illustrate the delimitation, IIRC there was this case of a woman trying to hire a hitman to kill some neighbours. The undercover cop posing as a hardened hitman, precisely to avoid any possibility of entrapment, actually tried to talk her _out_ of it, and asked several times if she's completely sure she wants to go ahead with it. Just being an undercover agent may be a lie, but it's not entrapment. It would be entrapment if he went and convinced a neighbour how much easier things would be if she killed everyone she doesn't like.
So pray tell, how did the RIAA entrap these poor people? Did some undercover RIAA agent go to their house, befriend them, and beg them to share some songs online? Or what?
In most cases the RIAA didn't even know who the fuck was at that IP address until the ISP told them. They even got some awfully bad info in some cases, resulting in some PR screw-ups of epic -
Re:As a member of "GenX" let me say ...
And believe me, MILITARY health care sucks worse than civilian health care. Ask any vet.
If vets are involved, I'll choose to believe you... -
Re:Fast?
The creation of plural forms by tongue-in-cheek stretching of English plural 'rules' is popular among hackers, sometimes as a way of marking a term as community jargon. See boxen and mouses for the most visible examples. Other examples, whether widely used or not, are easily recognized and deciphered, and it is well understood that these irregular (or hyper-regular) plurals are not errors but examples of geek humor.
http://www.reference.com/browse/wiki/Plural_of_virus -
Re:Distinction w/o a difference.
Oh my god, you're right!
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Re:Distinction w/o a difference.
So negative, in fact, that the word has been removed from dictionaries and other reference works.
I hope you were joking at the expense of gullible people, but just in case:
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/Gullibility
http://www.m-w.com/dictionary/gullible
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gullibility
I know that using wikipedia as an example of a reference work is shaky for some people, but you get the idea... -
Re:And doxology ruins the whole thread
doxology: a hymn or form of words containing an ascription of praise to God
Perhaps you meant:
d'enouement: The solution of a mystery; issue; outcome.
Because if we're not about st00p3d jokes, we're about pedantry. ;) -
Re:And doxology ruins the whole thread
doxology: a hymn or form of words containing an ascription of praise to God
Perhaps you meant:
d'enouement: The solution of a mystery; issue; outcome.
Because if we're not about st00p3d jokes, we're about pedantry. ;) -
Re:Perq, not perk
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Re:Perq, not perk
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Re:CPUs..
Redundant - adj. - 1. characterized by verbosity or unnecessary repetition in expressing ideas; prolix: a redundant style.
Maybe this had something to do with it... If you have a problem with the moderation system when it actually works, I can't wait to see you in a heated discussion (something like vi vs. emacs). -
Those definitions were out of a dictionaryAre you really so functionally illiterate that you're unable to use a dictionary? If so, clicky: dictionary.reference.com. Note the usage note cited from the American Heritage Dictionary:
Fact has a long history of usage in the sense "allegation of fact," as in "This tract was distributed to thousands of American teachers, but the facts and the reasoning are wrong" (Albert Shanker). This practice has led to the introduction of the phrases true facts and real facts, as in The true facts of the case may never be known. These usages may occasion qualms among critics who insist that facts can only be true, but the usages are often useful for emphasis.
I also highly recommend taking a trip down to your local library and asking to see the Oxford English Dictionary. If you do, you can see the etymology of various senses of the word. You'll discover that the sense of the word ``Something that is alleged to be, or conceivably might be, a 'fact''' goes back at least to the early eighteenth century.
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Re:Not necessarily
>> a world where we're exposed to more information in a day than many people
>> experienced in a lifetime thousands of years ago.
> Not really more, just different. For example prehistoric hunters tracking down their wooly mammoth would be
No, really, it's more information. I'm not trying to start an argument or anything, but it's pretty indisputable. A large part of intelligence hinges on dealing with information that's more than just sensation. A shark, like the prehistoric hunters you mention, has a phenomenal sensory system, but you wouldn't say it's as intelligent as a human.
Here's the first definition of intelligence from the American Heritage Dictionary: (a) The capacity to acquire and apply knowledge. (See more at http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/intelligence) Like most skills, practice makes perfect; the more you deal with novel information and situations, the better you get at it. The burgeoning complexity of our lives is arguably a cause for greater _average_ intelligence --and evidence that it must have increased from 10,000 years ago.
Here's some interesting reading on the subject of how much information we swim in:
http://www.netlibrary.com/ebook_info.asp?product_id=20851
We have evolved and continue to evolve. I think we're certainly much smarter than Neanderthals, wouldn't you agree? We've got better cranial hardware. Will future humans be more intelligent on average? Or dumber and more technologically dependent than at present? I'll reserve judgment on that. -
I've got your word of the day
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Re:Why all the hate for Intel?
A fact is a statement that can (theoretically) be objectively evaluated as true or false. "AMD chips have stability problems."
Wrong. Those are called "statements", or "propositions", or in a specific context, "sentences". Facts are statements that evaluate to true.
Examples: "You are obviously literate" is a statement, but is clearly false. It is not a fact. "You seem unable to use a dictionary" is a fact.
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/fact
1. something that actually exists; reality; truth: Your fears have no basis in fact.
2. something known to exist or to have happened: Space travel is now a fact.
3. a truth known by actual experience or observation; something known to be true: Scientists gather facts about plant growth. -
Re:Gotta love the Slashdot fear mongering
It permits you to voice an opinion agreeing with somebody else - but in YOUR OWN WORDS. It is protection from government censorship of your OWN words, not license to copy somebody else's words for your own purposes.
Every word you used in your post is a PUBLIC DOMAIN word, usable by anybody. And look what you just did! You literally used words you didn't create, you didn't invent, "for your own purposes". You are copying someone else's words (as those words were logically created by human beings that are not YOU). And that is the strict pertinent epistemological point, superceding legal shenanigans, ALL claims of patent and copyright are using and building upon public domain technology and art. That's it's "public domain" is immaterial to your argument against COPYING. NOBODY does not copy someone else some way numerous times daily, no matter what Stalinesque Statutes forged by fools pretend, all creative claims and littered throughout with ripped off, copied ideas, from music with public domain lyrics, books with public domain words, software with public domain code, etc.
You don't need to a license to talk, PERIOD. You don't need a license to mimic someone on the street for word, or movement for movement. That's what mimes do; prohibiting mimes would indeed be prohibiting free speech. You don't need permission, you don't need Permits. That some special interests have polluted, corrupted, and bought laws is nevertheless being ignored on a mass scale that puts the original 18th century Boston Tea Party to shame.2. Why should fair use be a consumer right?
1.) Why should copyright be a law?
The IP advocates arguments for copyright and patent have been philosophically, epistemologically, and economically destroyed. They just ignore the points which crush their arguments. It's no surprise that their tactic is to retreat to a "it's the Law, nah, nah, nah tactic", as they've been crushed on the moral and philosophical high ground.For that matter, who actually uses fair use? Well, in order to use fair use, you have to be a creative artist of some sort, or a publisher, or a performer.
And leave it to legal psychos like you to resort to government definitions and qualifications for "artist", "publisher", "performer", so you can license those you agree with and kick to the curb those you disagree with. Sorry, but every post ever made on the internet can be and likely is a combination of art, publishing, and performance.
Downloading songs onto a computer has nothing to do with fair use, unless you then use a sound clip for another work that you are creating or distributing.
And downloading songs onto public airwaves through radio broadcast has something to do with fair use? And so indeed downloading full songs to sample clips is legitimate fair use. Recording public air waves radio broadcasts is legitimate fair use. It's too bad if the RIAA babies can't any longer get consumers to voluntarily trade money for stuff that has been freely downloaded by their very selves for decades.
The only people who need fair use in the first place are people who are reproducing sections of work for their own work, and by definition, this puts them into the ranks of the creative artists, distributors, or performers themselves.
Who made you Czar? ANYBODY, ANYTIME can be creative artists, distributors, or performers in their personal hobby time. Seriously, WTF do you think you are to declare anything about others "needs"!
So, no, fair use should not be a consumer right. Consumers do have rights, but if you are going to give a consumer a right, it has to be something that is relevant to them.
Rights are INALIENABLE, not "given" dummy.
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/inalienable
inalienable
not alienable; not transferable to another or capable of being repudiated: inalien -
Re:Let me get this straight
Stupider? Are you one of those people?
You disagree with my phrasing? -
Re:Biggest myths of all have been around for ages.
If you're gonna make fun of someone's vocabulary, you should keep a dictionary nearby.
Actually, it's entirely possible your post is just one big joke, since you totally mischaracterized both religious people and atheists. I doubt it, somehow, it just seems pointless as a joke since it wasn't funny. -
Re:Lookin' good thunderbird
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Re:Lookin' good thunderbird
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Re:OpenISO.orgISO has created over 16500 standards, and publishes ~1250 new ones each year. Yes, that means several new ones each day. Those include food safety, environmental protection, oil and gas, ship and automobile building, basically everything.
It makes me wonder what the value of having so many standards is. Isn't a standard supposed to be a single authoritative source / guideline on how to do something? If you have 500 competing standards or an organization whose sole purpose is to churn out standards then that dilutes the standards that come out of the organization, doesn't it?
Perhaps a simple example would be the Imperial measurement system versus the Metric system. If we had one global standard (Metric most likely) wouldn't that make life a lot easier for international joint ventures of engineering and such?
Dictionary.com says:
standard /stændrd/
-noun
1. something considered by an authority or by general consent as a basis of comparison; an approved model. -
Re:more on Belgian religious intolerance
Well according to http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=cult
"1. a particular system of religious worship, esp. with reference to its rites and ceremonies.
2. an instance of great veneration of a person, ideal, or thing, esp. as manifested by a body of admirers: the physical fitness cult.
3. the object of such devotion.
4. a group or sect bound together by veneration of the same thing, person, ideal, etc.
5. Sociology. a group having a sacred ideology and a set of rites centering around their sacred symbols.
6. a religion or sect considered to be false, unorthodox, or extremist, with members often living outside of conventional society under the direction of a charismatic leader.
7. the members of such a religion or sect.
8. any system for treating human sickness that originated by a person usually claiming to have sole insight into the nature of disease, and that employs methods regarded as unorthodox or unscientific."
I'd say all of those organizations (Quakers included), plus all other religions are cults. It's just an order of magnitude. -
Re:It's a good question ...
:s/Propitiatory/Proprietary/g Looks like propitiatory might work in that context. -
Re:powerpointWell powerpoint is the only thing usefull, my teachers ever used.
- Review this information about use of commas as punctuation
- Consult a dictionary for the correct spelling of 'useful'
- See you tomorrow!
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Re:Revolt!The american people couldn't revolt their way out of a paper bag.
But we are revolting. Amiright?
... Just not in the right sense of the word.
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Re:AND vs OR?
Given that the wording is "alternatively", which isn't explicit but does seem to imply, it would seem that in this case dual-licensed means OR. OR means recipient chooses, and if the GPL is chosen one of the things that is permissible is to remove the BSDL.
I don't think it's "not explicit" -- I think the definition of "alternate" and "alternatively" is pretty explicit. The words "limited to one of", "precludes any other" and "mutually exclusive" occur in these definitions -- that's pretty clear that the word means OR and not AND, isn't it? -
Re:Livejournal?
Main Entry: blog
Part of Speech: n
Definition: an online diary; a personal chronological log of thoughts published on a Web page; also called Weblog, Web log
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/blog
So uh...what do you mean where does one draw the line between two synonymous words? -
Putative?
You keep using that word. I don't think that word means what you think it means.
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Re:Clarifying copyrights
Not true, AFAIK. First is copyright infringement, second one would be breach of contract.
And without the contract, you're infringing copyrights by distributing the material.
By the way, I never got an EULA with any CD/DVD I own.
Here's the EFF's take: http://www.eff.org/deeplinks/archives/004145.php
Notice that none of the various legal uses of the CD include DISTRIBUTING the content. That's why it's called a "COPY - RIGHT". (copyright) Licenses give you rights to material you otherwise do not own or have rights to.
By the way, bootleg automatically implies breaking the law ("illicitly sold")
According to Dictionary.com, something, as a recording, made, reproduced, or sold illegally or without authorization (emphasis mine)
Fair Use still applies if I download an MP3 of a song I already have in a CD I bought, right?
Good question. But if the answer is yes, then you wouldn't be "bootlegging" it, thus the point is made either way. -
Re:Uh...right.
Agglutinative: http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/agglutinat
i ve
Morphemes: http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/morphemes
I think he is complaining that there are so many words that are actually complete sentences or parts of sentences. -
Re:Uh...right.
Agglutinative: http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/agglutinat
i ve
Morphemes: http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/morphemes
I think he is complaining that there are so many words that are actually complete sentences or parts of sentences. -
Hey, gamers!
Strafe does not mean the same thing as sidestep. We at Wikipedia would appreciate any insight you can offer as to the origins of your illiteracy.