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And Science Fiction is a specialty of Fiction, which is a specialty of Language, which comes from people, who are biological creatures.

See, it all comes around full circle!

Speaking of full circle, when I was a kid, a "physic" was something to help you poop. This may have had something to do with my poor performance in Physics, which I saw as a bunch of shit.

Now, as an old man, I can see the value in physics, both the science and the laxative.

http://dictionary.reference.co...

Replying to pedantic ACs is a waste of time, I know, but I see this mistake made often enough. "Insure" and "ensure" are largely interchangeable: http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/insure.

Pseudo.

Not to be confused with sudo

I see that mistake so often. It should be "star system" because only our star system is called "Solar system" because our star is called Sol.

Funny thing is, often words have multiple meanings:

Solar system
noun
1.the sun together with all the planets and other bodies that revolve around it.
2.a similar system with celestial bodies revolving around a star other than the sun.

http://dictionary.reference.co...

I think that you are mistaking misogyny for something else.

Misogyny: "dislike of, contempt for, or ingrained prejudice against women"

Misogyny: "hatred, dislike, or mistrust of women."

Misogynist: "a person who hates women"

There are female superheroes, so you couldn't be saying that there the statement indicated that there should not be any of those. And Thor was a male god in the mythos, so are you saying that not changing the mythos is hating women? Perhaps you meant that they were speaking in defense of continuity? Or do you instead mean that they are transexualophobes? (what exactly would be the word?)

Either way, my takeaway from your post is that if anyone were to say that George Washington did not have female reproductive organs, they must be a misogynist.

Misogyny: A self-proclaimed feminist disagrees with you.

I think that you are mistaking misogyny for something else.

Misogyny: "dislike of, contempt for, or ingrained prejudice against women"
Misogyny: "hatred, dislike, or mistrust of women."
Misogynist: "a person who hates women"

There are female superheroes, so you couldn't be saying that there the statement indicated that there should not be any of those. And Thor was a male god in the mythos, so are you saying that not changing the mythos is hating women? Perhaps you meant that they were speaking in defense of continuity? Or do you instead mean that they are transexualophobes? (what exactly would be the word?)

Either way, my takeaway from your post is that if anyone were to say that George Washington did not have female reproductive organs, they must be a misogynist.

I believe he thinks Auteurs isn't a word. For what it's worth, I had to look it up.

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

Well, don't you look like a dumbfuck!

"Auteur" is a real word. If you don't believe me, you can learn more about it here: http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/auteur

You should at least ensure that you have a reasonable grasp of English vocabulary before acting like a polesmoking dipshit and making idiotic comments like the one you just made.

Strictly speaking, trove is an adjective.

Strictly speaking, you're wrong. Trove is a noun for "a collection of objects" and short for "treasure-trove". Ref: http://dictionary.reference.co...

It is indeed, although it's probably not a physical activity that would be considered to improve your physical fitness.

This is why "normal" people hate nerds & geeks.

Obviously, 12oz curls are a physical activity, but no one in their right, non-Aspergers minds actually calls it a "physical activity" in the sense used by everyone except pedantic ass-wipes. (No, that is not an ad hominem attack, because I have facts and definitions on my side.

http://www.nhlbi.nih.gov/health/health-topics/topics/phys/ Physical activity is any body movement that works your muscles and requires more energy than resting.

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/sport an athletic activity requiring skill or physical prowess and often of a competitive nature

http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/us/definition/american_english/sport An activity involving physical exertion and skill in which an individual or team competes against another or others

I don't have the exact numbers

Right, because there are no numbers showing what you are hoping can be pulled out of your arse.

Secular does not mean "from age to age" in English:
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/secular

Another source comes close to the meaning you have, but that variant (way down the list) means once in an age (implying rarity, not enduring):
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/secular

Definition of "Moon" Any planetary satellite. http://dictionary.reference.co...

How can computers be so alien to us when we've designed them?

And if we ever achieve AI, it will probably be very different from us ... because it will be based on our best approximations of the mechanisms of the brain, and quite unlikely to match exactly how we actually work.

And, really:

noun
1.
a resident born in or belonging to another country who has not acquired citizenship by naturalization (distinguished from citizen ).
2.
a foreigner.
3.
a person who has been estranged or excluded.
4.
a creature from outer space; extraterrestrial.
adjective
5.
residing under a government or in a country other than that of one's birth without having or obtaining the status of citizenship there.
6.
belonging or relating to aliens: alien property.
7.
unlike one's own; strange; not belonging to one: alien speech.
8.
adverse; hostile; opposed (usually followed by to or from ): ideas alien to modern thinking.
9.
extraterrestrial.

Number 7 is about spot on.

Educate the women. Their role in [...] educing the birthrate [...] is enormous.

I completely agree.

Theres strong evidence to indicate that your mind works with and has a sizable bit of quantum state information ... your soul in effect.

Just because you don't believe in a God doesn't mean you don't have a soul, according to the modern dictionary definition anyway.

http://dictionary.reference.co...

affect: to act on; produce an effect or change
effect: to produce as an effect; bring about; accomplish; make happen

If you had bothered to read the definitions you referenced before posting the links, you would have realized that as defined, the first is a verb; the second, a noun.

If you'd bothered to read the links the AC posted (or, y'know, cracked open a dictionary sometime), you'd know that you're actually wrong. To be more specific:

effect
verb (used with object)
to produce as an effect; bring about; accomplish; make happen

It would appear that reading really is fundamental.

affect: to act on; produce an effect or change
effect: to produce as an effect; bring about; accomplish; make happen
References:
http://dictionary.reference.co...
http://dictionary.reference.co...

affect: to act on; produce an effect or change
effect: to produce as an effect; bring about; accomplish; make happen
References:
http://dictionary.reference.co...
http://dictionary.reference.co...

I prefer to use education. Such as how words can have more than one meaning. Its a feature of english that certainly complicates it, and does it make it harder for people to understand or use correctly. Ignorance can be cured, however. Education is key.

It isn't that the word "theory" means something different to him than the general population, its that he knows that the word "theory" has more than one meaning and one must select the correct meaning from context. He supplied some of this information in his post and emphasized the word "scientific" to help educate you that this is a clue that the general meaning for the word was not appropriate. This was apparently too subtle, however.

You might try reading a dictionary sometime. If you do, you will notice that many words have multiple meanings. Using a particular online resource (for convenience), we find five definitions listed for "theory" -- and they are all even related (something that is not always the case). http://dictionary.reference.co...

You really don't get it at all. It is the sheer mitigated arrogance of the US government...

How exactly is the US government's arrogance being mitigated? Based on the context, I'm guessing you meant 'unmitigated'.

And we wonder why folks outside the US think we're all morons. Sigh!

Words are defined by how they are used. So far in this thread we have ultranova, preaction, and linuxrocks123 agreeing that capital punishment can accurately be called murder, and we have LordLimecat disputing that usage of the word. Dictionaries sometimes take a while to catch up, but, looking at http://dictionary.reference.co... definition #5, it appears that this is clearly a correct usage of the word if you are asserting that capital punishment is inhuman or barbaric, which is exactly the way "murder" has been used in this thread. If you want to argue that capital punishment isn't murder because it is neither inhuman nor barbaric, you can do that, but you'll have to do better than "it's not murder because I say it's not" to convince many people.

A professional is someone who gets paid to do his job and/or who does it as a career, not someone who necessarily does it well or morally. See "professional gambler" or "professional hit man".

a person who is expert at his or her work: You can tell by her comments that this editor is a real professional.

• abbreviation
• acronym

They're not the same thing.

• abbreviation
• acronym

They're not the same thing.

Than

Then

I advise you learn the basic rules of English before attempting to discuss political matters.

Than

Then

I advise you learn the basic rules of English before attempting to discuss political matters.

Not only does it not matter, the dictionaries already say you are wrong.

http://dictionary.reference.co...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

http://dictionary.reference.co...

http://www.thefreedictionary.c...

You were saying?

insanity
[in-san-i-tee]
noun, plural insanities.
1. the condition of being insane; a derangement of the mind. Synonyms: dementia, lunacy, madness, craziness, mania, aberration.
2. Law. such unsoundness of mind as frees one from legal responsibility, as for committing a crime, or as signals one's lack of legal capacity, as for entering into a contractual agreement.
3. Psychiatry. (formerly) psychosis.
4. a. extreme foolishness; folly; senselessness; foolhardiness: Trying to drive through that traffic would be pure insanity.
b. a foolish or senseless action, policy, statement, etc.: We've heard decades of insanities in our political discourse.

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

First implies an order.

First can also imply pre-emption. A nuclear first strike, for example, is intended to knock out the other guy's arsenal so that there is no counter, no second attack.

First can mean "before some other thing, event, etc.: If you're going, phone first." Or "[b]efore or above all others in time, order, rank, or importance: arrived first; forgot to light the oven first.". Or "[b]efore anything else; firstly. Clean the sink first, before you even think of starting to cook..

"Han shot first" is quite grammatically correct.

How shall we regulate the militia if they are armed and we are not?

You should sight this: cite.

" just about every SSL-encrypted internet communication over the last two years has been compromised."

No, it really hasn't.

It's accurate to say that just about every Open-SSL encrypted session for servers that were using NEW versions of OpenSSL (not all those ones out there still stuck on 0.9.8(whatever) that never had the bug) were potentially vulnerable to attack.

That's bad, but it's a universe away from "every SSL session is compromized!!!" because that's not really true.

They were vulnerable to attack, that is to say, the security was compromised. He didn't say they were hacked, stolen, eavesdropped, or surreptitiously recorded.

compromise: to expose or make vulnerable to danger, suspicion, scandal, etc.; jeopardize: a military oversight that compromised the nation's defenses.

I've noticed that a lot of TV sci-fi confuses "compromise" with "breach"; as in hull, shields, defenses, etc.

Regulations are exactly what is used to prevent competition. Local governments create monopolies through what are called franchise agreements. Unfortunately most people get confused about that and blame unregulated markets. (others don't even know what a free market is!)

No, Mr. Abrams, the investigation hasn't indicted anything. It indicated that somebody might have taken control of the drone away from you. I don't know if that's actually the word you used or if whoever wrote the story is to blame, but in either case, the Slashdot editors would have caught this if they were actually doing their job of editing the submissions. Why they haven't been replaced by people who know the difference between using a spelling checker and doing proper proof reading to catch misused words is something that only the PHBs at Dice can answer.

At first I laughed, but then remembered that astronomers used to make their own telescopes.
___

telescopy

— n 1. a procedure in which a probe is inserted into your telescope

— n 2. the branch of astronomy concerned with the use and design of telescopes
----------

Really that quote is a very good assessment. It's perfect. The definition of telescopy, OTOH, is a bit specious. Telescotects and telescopists are more like optometrists than astronomers.

The NiceUsageGuy sez:

A polygamist may me married to multiple men or women (or both). One who is polyandrous is married to multiple MEN. One who is married to multiple women is engaging in POLYGYNY. (the gender of the referred-to 'ONE' does not seem relevant)

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/polygyny
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/polyandry
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/polygamy

By the way, "Nice" didn't always mean what it does today
http://etymonline.com/index.php?term=nice

- NiceUsageGuy

The NiceUsageGuy sez:

A polygamist may me married to multiple men or women (or both). One who is polyandrous is married to multiple MEN. One who is married to multiple women is engaging in POLYGYNY. (the gender of the referred-to 'ONE' does not seem relevant)

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/polygyny
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/polyandry
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/polygamy

By the way, "Nice" didn't always mean what it does today
http://etymonline.com/index.php?term=nice

- NiceUsageGuy

The NiceUsageGuy sez:

A polygamist may me married to multiple men or women (or both). One who is polyandrous is married to multiple MEN. One who is married to multiple women is engaging in POLYGYNY. (the gender of the referred-to 'ONE' does not seem relevant)

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/polygyny
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/polyandry
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/polygamy

By the way, "Nice" didn't always mean what it does today
http://etymonline.com/index.php?term=nice

- NiceUsageGuy

when they're feeling especially sociopathic

In addition to both getting the definition of "consumer" and characterizing Rubio's use of the term incorrectly (see TubeStake's discussion of this), we also have the misuse of the term, "sociopathic". What's going on is that economists are merely creating a useful label for a role in certain sorts of trades. This is called "abstraction". It's a far handier label than say, "Bob" because it describes the role and applies even when the consumer isn't named "Bob".

Let's look at the actual definition of sociopath:

a person with a psychopathic personality whose behavior is antisocial, often criminal, and who lacks a sense of moral responsibility or social conscience.

I don't see any of that applying merely because one uses a word which you don't like.

contemporarily
contemporary
[kuhn-tem-puh-rer-ee]
adjective
1. existing, occurring, or living at the same time; belonging to the same time

http://dictionary.reference.co...

That said, even if the Chechen, Iraqis and Afghan wars had been contemporary, it still wouldn't change the fact that today's Russian armed forces are completely different from what they were in the '90s, as well as the russian economy. It's like comparing america just before and after the 1929 crisis.

+1 for peaking my curiosity.

Grammar Nazi here:
While peaking does seem like a logical word here, piquing (usage 2, to be specific) would be a more appropriate choice.

OK, if she stands still long enough for someone to carve or sculpt a likeness then I gotta think she's kinda into it...
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/graven

i think HR might be more miffed about some of the definitions here:

http://dictionary.reference.co...

gimp3 [gimp] Show IPA Slang.
noun
1. a limp.
2. Usually Disparaging and Offensive. a term used to refer to a person who limps or is lame.

Maybe but I'm not sure anyone other than the gotse dude could use an iphone to clear his bowels

I was not referring to electronics.

But bitcoin is money.

No, it isn't.

I dunno about that. Seeing as how companies are accepting it as a means of payment (Overstock, Tiger Direct, Tesla dealerships, etc), it pretty strongly represents the definition of money/currency: http://dictionary.reference.co...

That didn't happen - the tesla was paid for with dollars by Bitpay (who received bitcoins), Overstock uses Coinbase to get their money in dollars and the Tiger Direct website is down as of writing. IOW, none of the retailers took any bitcoins from shoppers, they take dollars from exchanges. None of the shoppers paid any retailer any bitcoins, rather they paid bitcoins to an exchange. For "retailer accepts bitcoin" I expect them to actually take the purchasers bitcoins and convert the btc to dollars, not ask for it to be converted before purchase

Regardless of whether the retailer actually accepted bitcoins or not (they don't), retailers also accept part payment in coupons, or store vouchers, etc. None of which are money or currency.

For me, the most basic definition of money is "representative item of value used in the exchange of goods and services", which bitcoin certainly meets.

The most accurate definition of money is "common item of barter", which btc also isn't.

But bitcoin is money.

No, it isn't.

I dunno about that. Seeing as how companies are accepting it as a means of payment (Overstock, Tiger Direct, Tesla dealerships, etc), it pretty strongly represents the definition of money/currency: http://dictionary.reference.co...

For me, the most basic definition of money is "representative item of value used in the exchange of goods and services", which bitcoin certainly meets.

Very well put.

This whole thread has been illustrative of the confusion over terminology. I even provided a definition so people wouldn't make the mistake of conflating "a science" with "the physical sciences." Here's one of the definitions of science: "knowledge, as of facts or principles; knowledge gained by systematic study." This is clearly the meaning to which I was referring.

Most troubling (and what I was trying to address) is the adamant assertion that there is "no reason" to believe in a god and religion is thus irrational. The reason (for Christians) is Jesus Christ, who was here on earth, performed miracles (not least of which rising from the dead), and founded a church. You may not believe the accounts of his life and works, but for those who do (and like me incorporate other supporting evidence into their acceptance of them), the facts of his life and the principles he taught are the axioms from which we derive our beliefs. One can contest the axioms, one can try to give evidence against their validity, but claims that there is "no reason" are just ignorant.

I think Aquinas' Summa Theologica is just one example of applying rational thought to the axioms of belief. I think those who equate religion with superstition (spaghetti monster, faeries) or consider fundamentalist creationists the norm for religion would do well to study the history of science and philosophy in religion.

I wasn't trolling; I was however complaining about what seems to be a shortcoming in the wisdom of the slashdot commentariat, who are by and large intelligent people as far as I can tell. If anything, it would be flamebait, but I didn't mean it as that either. I knew it would be unpopular (the appropriate mod for that is -1 overrated, with no other mods ;)

deploy
verb (used without object)
4. to come into a position ready for use: the plane can't land unless the landing gear deploys.

What governmental model does a corporation represent?

Well, I would say it's mostly equivalent to Oligarchy or Feudalism.

Corporations seldom act like communists states because it's the people at the top who get the big money and the perks with little concern for the rest (which is how *all* states end up I guess), though if you mean the Tyranny bit, then maybe.

Essentially rule by the wealthy and powerful over everyone else is what I've seen in most companies.

And, like most despots, usually the people at the top eventually believe their own story, and lose touch with what everyone else is doing -- and then you get your cult of personality.