Domain: reference.com
Stories and comments across the archive that link to reference.com.
Comments · 9,372
-
Re:Not just for newbies
-
Re:Not just for newbies
-
Re:Google Base joke...Slashdot isn't really slashdot without some base-jokes, overlords, and Natalie Portman sprinkled around.
And don't forget the trolls, GNAA, and spelling errors compliatn with ISO Flaming Standards.
-
Sounds Like Godwin's Law
http://www.reference.com/browse/wiki/Godwin's_law
As an online discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches 1.
See Also: Quirk's Exception
Intentional invocation of this so-called "Nazi Clause" is ineffectual.
Therefore you, Sir, Fail... -
Re:A little more depth please.People that play these love to kill. Even casual users love to play these sorts of games from time to time. And first person shooters, and lets be blunt here, is mostly about murder.
I usually don't respond to blatant trolls, but I can't let this horseshit slide. First, I love to play FPS and 3PS, yet I don't love to kill. I have never killed anything higher up the foodchain than a fish in real life, certainly not a person or even a warm-blooded organism. In fact, I'm repulsed by actual killing and violence in the real world. But perhaps you meant in-game killing. In the games I play (see list below) the killing is secondary to the mission, which is usually survival against hopeless odds or eliminating some threat to society. What I do love about these games is the idea that I have to survive against impossible odds or that humanity's survival depends on me and my actions. It just so happens that heavy weapons are usually involved, but would anyone really want to play a game where you're a scientist trying to find a cure in the lab for a deadly plague?
Second, most FPSs are not mostly about murder. According to the dictionary murder is "the unlawful killing of one human by another, especially with premeditated malice." Shooting demons from hell, enemy soldiers, mercenaries, trigens, clone troopers, Combine soldiers, zombies, monsters, aliens, or robots is not murder. (Obviously some games do involve simulated murder, e.g. GTA, Hitman, etc., but they're not FPSs. Minor quibble.)
I have no doubt that many players do like certain games simply because they're violent, but you should avoid making blanket statements and assumptions about the motivation of players or the content of games, especially when your statements are demonstrably false.
I play:
FEAR
Far Cry
Half-Life 2
Doom 3
AvP 2
Painkiller
Resident Evil *
Darkwatch -
Re:Your sig is a lie
-
Re:Your sig is a lie
-
Argh!!!
-
Argh!!!
-
Re:China?
Emigration is leaving the country you are in to go to another. People emigrate from, say China to the US and become immigrants in the US.
http://dictionary.reference.com/search?r=2&q=emigr ation/ is the word. -
Re:Discrimination
There is no "reverse" racism; it is racist, or it is not.
My point was that it acts in reverse of the kind of racism most often encountered (at least in my experience). People think of "racist remarks" as being those that demean a person because they're ____. "Reverse racism" as I used it above is that I don't say your race sucks, I say mine is soooo wonderful! Let's talk about how wonderful ____ness is on every 3rd tv commercial and take a national holiday! Why do we need a day off work? To celebrate something we had absolutely no control over... what color/orientation/etc we were when we were born! Then, on top of that (as some AC pointed out later in this thread), a white pride rally = racism. Any other _____ pride rally? Oh, that's just pride. That's denying equality... which strangely seems to fit right back into the whole racism thing.
An excellent definition of racism is: (et al)
That's great, but *the* definition of the word "racism" is found here. So while you might be able to claim that I'm just spewing unfounded ideas here, I actually put some thought into this. Perhaps you meant to s/"An excellent"/"My Personal"?
My sig, by the way, comes from seeing hundreds of self-proclaimed "Grammer Nazis" (misspell intentional... that's how they spell it themselves). When you're an asshat to someone concerning their spelling and grammar, it doesn't hurt to at least do it right yourself. -
Re:Digitial Distribution
If you google a bit, it appears that Family Guy costs about 1.1 million per episode. At that rate, I'd prefer if they resurrected Futurama, which cost about 1.5 million per episode, but - at least in my opinion - was significantly better in acting, writing and drawing.
-
Re:"flammable"Not sure if this was meant to be a joke or not, but I'll bite...
1. Easily ignited and capable of burning rapidly; flammable.
2. Quickly or easily aroused to strong emotion; excitable.
1. Easily ignited and capable of burning rapidly; inflammable.
-
Re:"flammable"Not sure if this was meant to be a joke or not, but I'll bite...
1. Easily ignited and capable of burning rapidly; flammable.
2. Quickly or easily aroused to strong emotion; excitable.
1. Easily ignited and capable of burning rapidly; inflammable.
-
Re:"flammable"
flammable Audio pronunciation of "flammable" ( P ) Pronunciation Key (flm-bl)
adj.
Easily ignited and capable of burning rapidly; inflammable.
http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=flammable -
Re:"flammable"
-
pedantry hole
Beg:
2) To ask earnestly for or of
so "begs the question" literally means, "asks earnestly for or of the question"
which is a bit convoluted, but perfectly valid way of stating, "raises the question."
It so happens that "begging the question" is ALSO a logical fallacy with a meaning separate from the literal meaning of the phrase. I frankly fail to understand how the literal meaning of a phrase could ever be considered to be an incorrect usage. Uncommon perhaps, but certainly not incorrect. The irony (and I'm using that word in a common, but literally incorrect sense) is that "raises the question" is by far the more common meaning attached to the phrase, "begs the question."
If you don't have anything nice to say, at least don't say something irrelevant for the purpose of being mean. -
Re:Oil is Fungible
For those like me & Dilbert: http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=fungible
-
Re:While good - why not unlimited I-Tunes pass
here "subscription" has its tru meaning
Dictionary.com definition
I assume, of course, that the true meaning that you refer to is that part of the perscription that gives directions to the pharmacist? Or perhaps the agreement to purchase stocks? Yes, the word does, in fact, have more than one meaning. For example, many fine arts organizations offer subscriptions to their performances. While technically the word rent would also apply there, you'll find far more people who would say "I got my wife a subscription to this season's Operas at the Foo Peformance Hall" than "I got my wife a rental of this season's Operas at the Foo Performance Hall."
Per part b of definition one, you'll see that online services are increasingly using the term subscription to describe granting of access for a period of time to electronic services. In some cases such as LiveJournal or our very own Slashdot, the subscription grants special rights and priviledges, in others, such as Salon, a subscrtion or temporary pass is needed to read the content. It is also used in terms of cellular subscriptions.
in that you pay for something in advance (at discount) and receive the product periodically when it is actually published.
Not exactly. Subscriptions, the type used to aquire magazines, do not require payment in advance nor are they necessarily at a discount. If you're going to complain that you feel other people are misusing a word, it helps to be more precise yourself.
this is not to be confused with BS "subscription" services which take away what you already have when you stop paying.
So, I sense that you have a dislike for "subscription" music services. Rather than laying out logical reasons for that or presenting a good argument why the dictionary is wrong, you simply churn out a bunch of vitriol, which of course, because you're supporting Apple and against any form of DRM, is a great way to get modded up.
You are quite correct that Apple/Daily show is not a (new) Napster/Rhapsody style plan. What you gloss over is what the grandparent poster aludes to and other people have more clearly stated, is that there is most likely a limit to how many shows Apple can reasonably offer on a ala cart basis before users determine that they're better off with a cable/minidish subscription (ah, that word again) and a TiVo (etc) and transfering saved files to their computer/phone/whatever manually. This leads to the supposition that Apple might at some point begin offering a cable-like experience where users can view on-demand but not indefinitely licensed media. It may or may not be correct, but it is something to consider, and something your post failed to address.
It makes a certain amount of sense for video files, in that they are larger than audio files, and also "consumed" less often. Most people aren't going to watch a Daily Show episode dozens of times like they would a music track, but the ability to pull out a random episode from a month ago to show a friend would be desirable. The recent study that showed that iTunes users tend to purchase fewer and fewer songs after an initial flurry of purchases shows that the concept may be worth Apple considering for music as well - a steady monthly fee of $10 may work out to be better for Apple in the long run than $1/track in a pattern that may drop off rapidly.
I'm glad you're happy with your choice not to use a subscription model music service. However, millions of us are quite happy with them, and choose to use them because they offer a comparative advantage that meets our needs better than an ala carte system. If you or anyone else are curious, I can lay those out yet again. That's the great thing about having a choice - we can both be happy. In the mean time, please brush up on your argument skills before railing about the terrible companies that "take away what [I] aready have when [I] stop paying," when that misrepresents the nature of the service and how they treat me. -
Re:Resolving your delemma
-
Re:Resolving your delemma
-
Re:Resolving your delemma
-
"Scientific constituencies"
n. pl. constituencies
- The body of voters or the residents of a district represented by an elected legislator or official.
- The district so represented.
- A group of supporters or patrons.
- A group served by an organization or institution; a clientele: The magazine changed its format to appeal to a broader constituency.
ie. the voters and/or lobbyists. Add 'scientific' in there, and he's most likely talking about groups like the American Geophysical Union and the American Astronomical Society
ps. There's a thing called a dictionary for when you find words that you don't understand.
-
Re:Numbers And Pictures
Please look here.
-
GRAMMAR NAZI'D!!!
-
GRAMMAR NAZI'D!!!
-
Re:Hate to sound like a luddite but...
-
Re:Cour de cassation?
It's also an English term: http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=cassatio
n -
weee! being pedantic is fun!
Actually, it's the art of paper folding, not the folded paper itself.
Oh, hold on... that's what it is in Japanese, but Dictionary.com also accepts your way, so I guess in English, it's all good.
http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=origami -
Re:This is what I want as an american.
-
Re:This is what I want as an american.
-
Re:Good
-
Re:Insightfull my assApple does not have a monopoly:
Exclusive control by one group of the means of producing or selling a commodity or service.
In order for Apple to have a monopoly, they would have to be the sole source for music on the internets, or the sole source of mp3 players, which they are not. The fact that Apple is the only company using Fairplay doesn't make them a monopolist because it is not restraint of trade; other companies are free to enter the market with their own digital music, DRM standards and music players and market them. Apple is not restraining their trade in any way.
What Apple is doing is offering an integrated system which the vast majority of legal digital music consumers find to be the best. There is nothing wrong with this: it is successful capitalism. The charges against Apple are as if Pepsi said to Coke, "hey, you're killing us with your sales so we are entitled to your recipe to make things fair!" If other music suppliers wish to beat Apple, they should market better products.
I hereby nominate "monopoly" as the most misunderstood and most abused word on Slashdot.
-
ScuttleMonkey - It's"how search engines and original content are effecting the quality of the web."
I'm sorry for doing this, but the word you're looking for is 'affecting', not 'effecting'.
'Affect' is a verb, as in "search engines affect the quality of information on the web".
'Effect' is a noun, as in cause-and-effect: "the effect that search engines have on the quality of information on the web is
...".Actually, I'm not sorry. They're two different words with two different meanings. What I meant is that I don't mean you any personal insult.
-
ScuttleMonkey - It's"how search engines and original content are effecting the quality of the web."
I'm sorry for doing this, but the word you're looking for is 'affecting', not 'effecting'.
'Affect' is a verb, as in "search engines affect the quality of information on the web".
'Effect' is a noun, as in cause-and-effect: "the effect that search engines have on the quality of information on the web is
...".Actually, I'm not sorry. They're two different words with two different meanings. What I meant is that I don't mean you any personal insult.
-
Re:Uh
"These are all theory, which is not the colloquial meaning (like "guess"), but the scientific definition which is more like; we're 99.9% sure, we just need to tweak the last 0.1%."
No, that is not the scientific definition of a theory. In fact, it's not even close.
Start here:
http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=theory -
Re:pr0n
-
Re:I think he does.
If that was a certainty, there would have been enough evidence to convict them already. I hate spam as much as the next guy, but entrapment stinks. You can turn anyone into a criminal if you offer the right price.
Doubtful. While most people may not be against "tagging" a building with a streak of paint if paid a million dollars, there are lots of crimes that are taken down this way that regular people wouldn't think of doing. Go to a person on the street and tell them you'll pay them a million dollars if they spam 500,000 people. Most would give you an odd glare and walk away. Tell someone else you'll pay them three million to whack a guy. (Don't do this, you'll likely be arrested.)
Entrapment means that the police coerced a regular citizen, who had no previous contemplation of the act, into doing something they wouldn't otherwise think of doing.
If the informant pressured these guys, then that would be entrapment. If they hadn't done it before, and hadn't expressed interest in doing it before, that could be entrapment. I haven't RTFA, but if they needed to buy the PC equipment to do the spamming, it does sound like this could be entrapment, unless they just wanted to replace their old systems to do the spamming this time around.
(Definition of entrapment) -
Re:"denote"
indicate, 3: To suggest or demonstrate the necessity, expedience, or advisability of: The symptoms indicate immediate surgery.
Why are you trying so hard to be an asshole? -
Re:pr0n
-
Re:Government motives
Actually, typo is short for typographical error. As such it is pluralized according to the rules of the uncontracted expression hence typos.
Did that sound good? It's complete bs, however dictionary.com does give a plural of typos. See http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=typo. -
Re:I never understood gaming...
Where, exactly, did he "pass judgement," or insinuate that he's somehow "better" than either of you?
All I saw was him stating that he, personally, never had the desire to sit and play video games, and that he'd rather write them.
The only person(s) I see acting "high and mighty" here are the two people who responded to him.
Why are you so defensive and sensitive about your hobby that you feel persecuted or personally attacked by his comments? A little insecure?
He actually constributed more to the conversation than either of you. His post had something to do with the discussion, where yours were nothing but meaningless, petty attacks and vitriol. -
Re:I thought bundling with the OS was bad?I condem the bundling of this Mindawn preview program on the basis that it is proprietary software. Mandriva users should be very upset that thier distro would attempt to ask them to give up thier freedom.
So you condemn a choice made by the maintainer to include this software solely on your preferences? Are you saying that they should not have the freedom to do so? How does that choice impinge on the freedom of users to remove the software? Wouldn't not including it remove that freedom to remove software they don't like? What's next? Remove the window managers?
The only person I see here talking about removing freedom of choice is you purely for ideological reasons. If you don't like the software, remove it. Not everyone subscribes your your world view of GNU/Freedom. I support real freedom for thinking human beings.
http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=freedom
http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=freedom
This GNU/Freedom is a bastardization of the word as it imposes restrictions on use and further restricts the freedom of anyone who would wish contribute to it. I define use as not just the end user but to use the software as a dynamically linked library in my software. It is viral.
-
Re:I thought bundling with the OS was bad?I condem the bundling of this Mindawn preview program on the basis that it is proprietary software. Mandriva users should be very upset that thier distro would attempt to ask them to give up thier freedom.
So you condemn a choice made by the maintainer to include this software solely on your preferences? Are you saying that they should not have the freedom to do so? How does that choice impinge on the freedom of users to remove the software? Wouldn't not including it remove that freedom to remove software they don't like? What's next? Remove the window managers?
The only person I see here talking about removing freedom of choice is you purely for ideological reasons. If you don't like the software, remove it. Not everyone subscribes your your world view of GNU/Freedom. I support real freedom for thinking human beings.
http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=freedom
http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=freedom
This GNU/Freedom is a bastardization of the word as it imposes restrictions on use and further restricts the freedom of anyone who would wish contribute to it. I define use as not just the end user but to use the software as a dynamically linked library in my software. It is viral.
-
Re:Fake issues and real issues.*puts on grammer natzi badge* defintion:
No entry found for protention.
that is not a word! -
Re:Old rule.
(depending on ordinance)
The correct word would be "ordnance." ;)
The word ordinance means something completely different. The two are not interchangeable. -
Re:Old rule.
(depending on ordinance)
The correct word would be "ordnance." ;)
The word ordinance means something completely different. The two are not interchangeable. -
Re:Griffin was the right choice.
A chemical that has to be recovered is *not* a catalyst. This is basic chemistry terminology that we're talking about here. A catalyst can be briefly consumed in a reaction if it is immediately recreated, but a side recovery process makes it a reactant, not a catalyst. Otherwise, hydrogen would be a catalyst in hydrogen fuel cells (it's consumed when you combine it with oxygen, but it is recovered in a separate process through electrolysis or thermolysis). So, unless you want to argue that hydrogen is a fuel cell catalyst...
has to be to minimize imports
If you spend 20B$ to produce a 30,000kg/yr lunar aluminum production plant, with maintenance costs of 1B$/yr, you will never, ever repay it even ignoring the costs of getting your materials off the moon. That aluminum would only cost you 600m$ to ship from Earth. The capital costs savings of 20B$ invested would pay for the cost of shipping the raw materials with their interest alone, let alone with their value (and the fact that your interest would be compounding while you wait for the plant to come online), just ignoring the fact that your maintenance costs far outpace the value of your production even when it coms online.
Don't think these numbers are realistic? 30k kg of aluminum is 80kg/day. Aluminum refining consumes 15.4kWh/kg presently on Earth; a lunar refinery is going to be anything but efficient (since it needs to be light and operate in an unfriendly environment, and will be quite small scale), but lets be nice and say that it's only reduced to 20kWh/kg. That means 1600kWh/day = 66kW power needed. That's about the power that all of Mir produced on average. Factor in power for mining equipment, the operation of the casting house, the construction equipment, and the life support of the added workers, and I'd expect it to be somewhere around 100kW to run the smelting operation. That's put the total lunar base energy consumption still within the range of the next-gen space based nuclear reactors that NASA wants to build (100-300kW usually - for example, JIMO). So, that's a realistic production output level to produce the bulk parts.
Think the price is wrong? An aluminum mining, smelting, and casting operation on the moon is at *least* as complicated as ISS, which is estimated to cost 100B$ by the time all is said and done. It would be at least a competitor in terms of complexity to the rest of the lunar base project, which is also an estimated 100B$ project. Even if you assume that it's half the complexity of those, you still get far more than my overly kind 20B$ figure.
Notice how I mentioned earlier that I was ignoring the fact that the 20B$ (ha!) could be invested in the meantime while we wait for the plant to come online. What sort of ROI are we expecting? Well, the money wouldn't be an upfront lump sum; instead, there would be some of it spent each year during design and construction over perhaps a 20 year run. So, lets say 1B$/yr at 5% interest (low for a long term market investment). Continuously compounded, it's almost 35B$ before the base starts - a 75% increase in value. The annual interest is now worth 1.75B$, compared to your $600m of product (-400m$ when you count lunar maintenance costs)
Do you see why I am insistant that such a notion is completely uneconomical, just ignoring the cost of transporting the produced parts off the moon?
Space elevator
Ok, now we're into dreamland. L1 is 56k km from the moon; L2 is 67k km from the moon. This compares to the already monstrous 36k km to reach GEO. Then you have to go past that to counterbalance; with a tonne counterbalance, ~80k and ~120k km respectively. You only gain low tensile strength (and thus mass) requirements. If you go by Edwards' Earth-cable numbers (which assume a cheap cable already, shorter in length, low mainten -
Re:Parents spelling
-
Re:Parents spelling