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1. A phrase expressing the aims or nature of an enterprise, organization, or candidate; a motto.
Source: The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

Google Code of Conduct
Our informal corporate motto is "Don't be evil."

If Sony hands me a video game system and claims it can throw down 84 Million Polygons per Second doesn't mean it will.

Not that it makes it right, but gross exaggerations aren't limited to just Atari.

Sony: Polygon counts. Sega: the "Blast Processing" Nintendo: Revolutionary? Microsoft: Basically, anything they say.

What's important isn't the marketing hype. It's definitely the fun factor of the games. Some may call it a crappy ass camera, but everyone and their mom has a camera phone these days.

From http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=fact
      2.
                  a. Something demonstrated to exist or known to have existed: Genetic engineering is now a fact. That Chaucer was a real person is an undisputed fact.
                  b. A real occurrence; an event: had to prove the facts of the case.
                  c. Something believed to be true or real: a document laced with mistaken facts.

Emphasis mine. There are other nuances of the definition which suggest that a factual statement does not have to be true.

Do please check the definition before you say anything is "by definition".

"The fact that Nintendo has tried to revive it is pathetic."

No, the fact that is pathetic is that you think Nintendogs could possibly be an attempt by Nintendo to revive Tamagotchi. The only resemblance it has to Tamagotchi at all is that the player takes care of a virtual pet. The game itself is extremely innovative, but with comments like you're making you don't seem the type to actually know about something before shooting your mouth off, so I doubt you'd know innovation if it hit you in the head. Your comments are uninformed and insipid - get a life and stop polluting the net with your feeble attempts at commentary.

Another pathetic fact is that for some reason Nintendogs is not considered a game because it doesn't adhere to the established formulae. That is a very narrow view to have. It begs the question, how do we define what a "game" is? Well if you believe what's printed here http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=game you might get the idea that "game" has a pretty broad definition.

Nintendogs is not only a game, it's a good game. The industry needs a lot more innovation like this if it's going to survive the deluge of cookie-cutter crap churned out by the likes of EA and Sony.

Take a course in biology and you'll learn that high-frequency noises are indeed related to loss of hearing.

The cochlea (inner ear) uses tiny "hair cells" to "catch" sounds (vibrations) and transform them into a signal that the auditory nerve can get to the brain. Different lengths of hair cells catch different wavelength of sound. Higher frequency noises (shorter wavelength) are caught by the shorter hair cells.
Those cells being shorter (thus smaller), they are somehow more fragile than their longer counterparts, so they are the first ones to die with age / hearing of loud noises.
Loss of hearing happens usually with the higher-frequency noises first, because of the reason stated above. This is the reason why old people have a hard time understanding what women say (higher-pitched voice) while being able to hear men much better (lower-pitched voice, higher chance that hair-cells for that frequency are still alive).

High-frequency noises will always be the firsts to go when going partially deaf. They all go eventually though. Higher wave amplitude (volume) will make that happen sooner. Canceling out low and mid frequency noises will keep some hair cells from being hurt, but if the high-frequency sounds still go through, short hair cells still get hurt.

Linky
Linky
Linky

define(recall)
; "A request by the manufacturer of a product that has been identified as defective to return it, as for necessary repairs or adjustments."

Why wouldn't they be free of charge?

in keeping with common what practices?

No, but they do preach to the choir. ;)

        Usage Note: The pronunciation (nookyoolar), which is generally considered incorrect, is an example of how a familiar phonological pattern can influence an unfamiliar one. The usual pronunciation of the final two syllables of this word is (-klee-ar), but this sequence of sounds is rare in English. Much more common is the similar sequence (-kyoolar), which occurs in words like particular, circular, spectacular, and in many scientific words like molecular, ocular, and vascular.

I'm curious how they defined "sedition". Here's the dictionary definition:

sedition

n : an illegal action inciting resistance to lawful authority and tending to cause the disruption or overthrow of the government.

So... did they say that the government were of an "inferior" race and therefore should be overthrown?

I'm not sure about other English speaking parts of the world, but Australians still refer to "grog" as a general term for alcoholic drinks.

Interestingly, dictionary.com quotes its origins as such

"After Old Grog, nickname of Edward Vernon (1684-1757), British admiral who ordered that diluted rum be served to his sailors, from grogram(from his habit of wearing a grogram cloak)."

> Well. If it's so easy to stretch a model, why the "honests" scientists haven't be able to show us a model that correctly simulate past observations, and yet doesn't come to the same conclusions ?
They may be making similar assumptions in some aspect of their model that are invalid. These guys don't work in vacuums. See this link http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J._Harlan_Bretz .
I'm guessing this is mostly unintentional, and may be best described by groupthink http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=groupthin k .
2: What scientist(s) have the time or resources to do this sort of thing without funding from the federal government?
There is also the problem, which you seem to have ignored, that *nobody* has an accurate model for that time scale.
I wish I could find the link to the graph that demonstrated how each model predicted correctly the 1st decade, but each took a path that was off of each other (never mind reality, which they can't use) by as much as 6 degrees by 2100.

>Now if you don't care, just say it, we'll both gain time. Enjoy the nice weather while it's here, just make sure your children don't get too accustomed to it.
Of course I care, but I think that these scientists are out on a limb with their predictions.
I don't think driving my car is the best way to get around and I avoid it if possible.
I try to consume as little as possible, and I think other could and should get by with less.
But even If carbon emissions are as bad as the IPCC says they are, I don't think there is a chance that we can appreciably cut them.

>As for your book suggestion, it seems very interesting and I very well could read it, so I thank you for it.
>But I fail to see the connection with this discussion, except that by bringing Ice Age into it you make a really good job at giving the impression you didn't read the link.
Don't see how, but I read more in depth the second time and it was interesting. Thanks for the argument. It's also been interesting.

"Heterogenius should not cause problems."

Heterogeneous = "Consisting of dissimilar elements or parts; not homogeneous." (dictionary.com)

Heterogenius = Me.

8-)

As for immortality, we currently have two options: children and accomplishments. As most people's accomplishments are not recorded in the history books, it leaves children as our best bet to immortality.

The problem is that I don't count any of those two alternatives as immortality. If immortality is possible it's through medicine and technology.

Anyway, we're discussing definitions now, both my original message and this one were only an opinion :)

loose
lose

loose
lose

To sum up: the word does not mean what you think it does. Arrogance only meets the definition of elitism when the feeling of superiority is paired with a sense of increased entitlement, and that definition does not accurately describe this community."

To sum it up, the word means exactly what I think it does. Believe it or not you are not bearing a torch and enlightening the ignorant here.

Ok. I will concede that I may be incorrect. It happens from time to time. In this instance, I used the dictionary as my reputable source. So, what exactly do you have to back up your view? It evidently wasn't the dictionary.

Is a lie a lie when you don't know it's a lie?

That's the same situation here. If the poster really wasn't duping then he would have linked to the original article (or at least mentioned it). He thought he was bringing us something new which is what a dupe is. Not all the dupes are troll-like (intentionally posting something you already know has been posted). Most of them like this poster just didn't know. Innocence doesn't mitigate the crime of duplication.

So you say that for anyone to have a discussion of evolution they must use your conventions of naming?

Just don't expect to persuade anybody to see your point of view if you refuse to base your conversation on a common usage of specific scientific terms. If you refuse to actually crack open a dictionary and get up to speed on what the word "theory" means (hey, click here for a definition - it's free!), then the first job you'll face is to get people who do use a functional, consistent vocabulary to abandon it and use a new, made-up definition that suits your agenda.

You will learn more about evolution in the Bible than any PH.D. granting institution can teach you

Huh. Well, that's just not even slightly true on the face of it, so you're going to have to work on that from another angle.

How do you explain miricles?

Well, I don't know. Perhaps you mean "miracles." Luckily, though, I don't need to explain them, since they don't actually happen. On the other hand, there's the more common daily usage of that term, which equates roughly to "amazingly lucky" or "rare" or "long odds," etc. As in "It's a miracle that I won the lottery. Of course, it's simple probability, really."

How do you explain the works of Mother Theresa?

Well, she got up each morning and did things for people. And she was persuasive enough to get people to give her money so she could do more of it the next day. Are you saying that she did magic? That when she scrambled eggs for poor people, there were more plates served than could be accounted for by the eggs she bought? You don't need any magical thinking or mysticism to explain the day to day behavior of someone who decided that the only way to find meaning in her personal life was to be a servant. That was her call, and she worked the celebrity status she earned to raise more cash to do more of it. Miracle? No.

How do you explain it when modern medicine says a person will die, that there is nothing else that can be done, but a priest comes and the person wakes up?

A mistake. A prediction based on incomplete information. How do you explain it when a million people pray for Mother Theresa not to die, and she dies anyway? How do you explain it when someone survives a bus crash that kills a bunch of other people, and they say that Jesus was looking out for them? Did Jesus hate the other people on the bus? How do you explain it when churches get struck by lightning and burn down? How do you explain it when innocent little children are born into an agony of birth defects? Is God trying to teach those kids a lesson? Nice guy! For someone who is All Powerful and Loves His Children, he sure has a cruel sense of humor!

Or, how about this notion: it's all made up! It's a semi-comforting myth that's caught on with a lot of people for a variety of cultural reasons, and preys upon the intellectual cowardice that's built into most of us (mostly, the denial of death that we all hang onto, at least most of the time, because it would be hard to function day-to-day if we really stopped to think about how pointless the whole thing might seem, what with the fact that we're all going to die). Priests are just people in a uniform that shows they've made a career out of perpetuating the myth. It's actually pretty embarasssing - a lot of them are smart, and good communicators. They've just bought into the fantasy because it makes people temporarily feel good, and they've lost the will to make meaning in their lives, deferring instead to a canned religious product that's easier to serve up and sell.

So Japan isn't sovereign either, then?

Japan is occupied(4) by the US? Funny - I thought that the current US presence in Japan was agreed upon by a mutually negotiated treaty with the elected Japanese government in the 1960s, well after occupation, and played no part in the day to day operation of, and local policing of, the country.

Silly me.

i prefer the firefox keyword, so it's just:

CTRL+T (new tab) or CTRL+L (location bar)
dict tout
ENTER

and it brings me to:
http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=tout

Because I'm not innumerate?

Why is this a troll?

He is saying that "Because I am not unfamiliar with mathematical concepts and methods?" Thats a reasonable saying in the context of being familiar with gambling (btw the game with the highest chance of winning is craps if you ever studied that)

http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=innumerat e

2 entries found for innumerate.
innumerate Audio pronunciation of "innumerate" ( P ) Pronunciation Key (-nmr-t, -ny-)
adj.
        Unfamiliar with mathematical concepts and methods.
n.
        A person who is unfamiliar with mathematical concepts and methods.

It's a magma intrusion. If it solidifies, it forms a pluton.

It's a magma intrusion. If it solidifies, it forms a pluton.

Looks more like you're the one who doesn't know what it means.

inconceivable (adj.)
1. Impossible to comprehend or grasp fully: inconceivable folly; an inconceivable disaster.
2. So unlikely or surprising as to have been thought impossible; unbelievable: an inconceivable victory against all odds.

The word "whit" means "a tiny amount of something."

Pray tell, what would "to whit" mean?

Unfortunately, there's a certain caliber of person which simply blindly believes whatever they were raised on, and chooses to look down on anyone which says otherwise.

Few people's arrogant and erroneous attempts at snide rebuttal develop googlefight results as stilted as 90k versus 2mil.

How ironic[1] - you don't know what the word means, and it describes you.

So, One all. Oh, except I'm still ahead, because I can read the letters "ing" at the end of "resembling" and you can't.

Nice try, but you've yet to even make it to the halfwit mark

[1] At least in the Alannis Morissette sense. So don't even start about that, gaylord.

adverse
  adj.
Acting or serving to oppose; antagonistic: adverse criticism.
Contrary to one's interests or welfare; harmful or unfavorable: adverse circumstances.
Moving in an opposite or opposing direction: adverse currents.
Archaic. Placed opposite.

What would happen if I took all the interesting comments off Slashdot, the ones that are opinionated enough to be motivational without being inflammatory, and compiled them on my own website? Or better yet, printed a book, a technology toilet reader?

One thing I know is that it is totally doable. One step beyond comprehension, editing is the process of reading for other people. Editing is fun because most of it is deletion. All you need is a few gems and you have a product. The second thing I know is that with a dozen stories a day averaging 300 comments each, it would take all day, every day to keep up with the flow.

The final thing, is that unlike the garbage-strewn service offered by Slob Malda, mine would offer intelligent commentary by thoughtful people. Since my service would have *gasp* actual content, I could actually charge money for it. You're not the first person to point out that IPO=AFK, but with most of the country trying to get rich and famous playing Texas Hold'em, there's probably a lot of people who could use a refresher course on betting money.

Normally I wouldn't mention this, but as it's in the first sentence... in this context you'd definitely mean deprecated, not depreciated. The meanings of the two words are quite different.

Normally I wouldn't mention this, but as it's in the first sentence... in this context you'd definitely mean deprecated, not depreciated. The meanings of the two words are quite different.

I think the word has been redefined over the years into something that no longer has any definition.

Refuge is defined http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=refuge as:
      1. Protection or shelter, as from danger or hardship.
      2. A place providing protection or shelter.
      3. A source of help, relief, or comfort in times of trouble. See Synonyms at shelter.

So I guess we'll just call them "People taking Refuge" ?

Sorry, but it just seems odd to me that people in 3rd world countries were called refugees when the tsunami hit on Boxing Day this past year. http://www.usatoday.com/news/health/2005-02-06-tsu nami-maternal_x.htm

No one seemed to care about the use of the term then. Oh wait, they were in poverty! It's ok to call them that then. Spare me.

the dictionary says it has to do with adding slack to a rope

probably a nautical term, but not having to do with sealant or decks

http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=payed
http://www.m-w.com/cgi-bin/dictionary?book=Diction ary&va=payed&x=0&y=0

I am not trying to be over critical, but they are not refugees. Everyone refers to them as such, so let me offer a dictionary defenition. refugee - One who flees in search of refuge, as in times of war, political oppression, or religious persecution. http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=refugees Wikipedia ref: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Refugees

really? I could have sworn that refugee was derived from refuge. refugee meaning someone that's seeking or taking refuge.

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

You're thinking of caca.

Kaka means something else.

You're thinking of caca.

Kaka means something else.

a 155,000 barrel per day facility

Meanwhile, Ghawar field churns out 5 million barrels a day. It is sizable, but is still a pilot (adj) facility (one designed to demonstrate a new technology - in this case, economic production from tar sands). How many bitumen facilities are there out there? Not many, certainly not of this size.

I like coal gassification, although unless you have a vehicle that can run on carbon monoxide, it's not going to help you in your car. ;) It allows for more efficient coal power plants.

Now that one of their decisions will effect soccer moms...

It's my only real grammar peeve...that needs to read Now that one of their decisions will affect soccer moms...

effect - 1. Something brought about by a cause or agent; a result.
affect - 1. To have an influence on or effect a change in.

Now that one of their decisions will effect soccer moms...

It's my only real grammar peeve...that needs to read Now that one of their decisions will affect soccer moms...

effect - 1. Something brought about by a cause or agent; a result.
affect - 1. To have an influence on or effect a change in.

That's interesting, considering that Google's name also comes from something relating to the number 100: googol, meaning a number that is represented by one with one hundred zeros.

Why would you tell me to pick another word?

The name's been used for this since 2000. Even the whois for the domain name reports it was registered July 3rd of that year.

Put "akamai geocaching" into Google. There's nothing about geographically-based content delivery, there, at least not on the front page. Put "geocaching" into the search engine at akamai.com: nothing there, either. And to answer your follow-up post, try "bind geocaching" and "squid geocaching," also. Guess what Webster's says?

If I sound slightly annoyed, it's because I expected someone to do a little more thinking and research before telling me that hundreds of thousands of people are misusing the term. You're a little early for Troll Tuesday.

1. has no legal right to make such restrictions
   
2. provided false and misleading statements about the enforacablity of the post-sale restrictions
   
3. has no valid contract with the customer under California law
   
4. is engaging in false advertising because Lexmark can not guarentee consumers will pay less for a Prebate cartidge and that the Lexmark implies difference in cost between a Prebate cartridge and a regular cartridge is the cost of the physical cartridge.
   

1. As the patent holder on the cartridges, Lexmark has the legal right to make such restrictions
   
2. Because of they have the right to make the restrictions, they can enforce them
   
3. Because the customer can read the terms of the Prebate agreement and purchase a non-Prebate cartridge, the contract is valid.
   
4. ACRA failed to provide evidence of false advertising or that any claims as to the costs and benifits were made.
   
5. Lexmark has the right, under patent law, to enforce the Prebate using the lock-out chips, and that ACRA had failed to show evidence that the chips exceed the patent grant.
   
6. "In sum, ACRA has failed to raise a triable issue of fact as to whether Lexmark's restriction on the use of its patented cartridge is valid and, in turn, whether the lock-out chip is a proper mechanism to ensure compliance with the restriction. We affirm the district court's decision on this issue as well."
   

• Only the Prebate cartridges cary the restrictions in question, and said restricions are in exchange for a lower price.
  
• No one is being forced to buy Prebate cartridges. There are other cartidges available from Lexmark that cost more, but do not cary any restrictions.
  
• The customer is not prevented from destroying the cartridge or just tossing it out with the trash.
  
• If the customer does toss the cartridge into someone else's recycle bin, they are violating the contract. But, by providing the remanufacturing service, the remanufacturing companies are "inducing" people to break the contract.
  
• Part of this decision will only effect items under current patent.
  
• The contract part only upholds current contact law, because one is not forced to use the Prebate cartidges and the restrictions are printed on the side of the box.
  
• When one purchases a Prebate cartidge, one gets a reduced price for agreeing to recycle the cartidge through Lexmark. If one uses some other service, then one is breaking the agreement. (check out the definition of fraud)
  

Post Humously? You mean humorously? Or something else? http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=humous

I'll try not to be too confrontational in my response.

Your claim that "sci-fi isn't about sci-fi" is a nonsensical statement. Perhaps you meant to say "science fiction isn't about science", which is a popular quote but I doubt Asimov said it, because it would be the direct opposite of his actual opinion.

If it seems nonsensical to you, re-read it. Sci-fi isn't about Sci-fi any more than writing is about writing. If you forget that, you lose the essence of good writing.

I don't remember exactly where he said that. It might have been in the intro to I, Robot, or somewhere else. Honestly, I've read too much of his stuff to know exactly where any one quote came from.

Nightfall, arguably one of Asimov's best short stories / novels, could easily have been set in a fantasy world,

Funny that you should say that. Asimov always responded harshly to people who claimed that Nightfall was his best story. He didn't rank it even in his top three.

That's why it's arguable. For a while in his life he did rank it as his third. The last question, BTW, was rather superficial, and he didn't rank it as #1 until later in his life... probably when he was facing his own mortality.

I'm sorry. You had me flabbergasted when you praised Battlestar Galactica, but I burst out laughing when you compared Rama to that B-grade schlock The Cube.

In case you haven't noticed, Rama was b-grade schlock too. The point wasn't that it was the same quality, but the same story.

If you can't see the value in the new Battlestar Galactica, I can't really help you. It's a good series. It's well written, the characters have depth, there are multiple layers of conflicting emotions, the cinematography uses techniques hardly ever applied to television or sci-fi, and the progression is hardly ever cliched. The only thing bad that can be said about it is that the writers obviously know every trick in the book to make a story gripping, but they use the techniques of their craft well enough that very few people will ever see them as techniques. If you can't enjoy Battlestar Galactica, I'm curious as to what you can have enjoyed on television in the past 20 years.

If you want to be one of those purists that argue the difference between Sci-Fi and Science Fiction and Science Fiction / Fantasy and SFF, go right ahead. Honestly, the whole debate is as stupid as arguing that "Nude Descending a Staircase" isn't great art because it doesn't fit the mid 16-th century definition of a representational painting. If you want to say that great stories set in a science fiction setting aren't actually sci-fi unless they exploit the setting in a way that couldn't be done in any other setting, fine. That's as silly as saying that Dangerous Liasons wasn't a historical piece because it didn't intimately involve the setting in a way that wouldn't be possible in any other setting. But it is your opinion, and I've found that people who hold that opinion do so like a priest holds his religion.

Me, I'd rather have good writing, good stories, and good, if you'll pardon the abused term, art (and / or entertainment) wherever it may occur. Whether that means the setting is intimate with the human drama, or the setting is secondary to the human drama unfolding in front of it, I could really care less.

Don't get me wrong: I enjoy what you would consider "sci-fi": I own about 250 of Asimov's books, and have a host of Heinlen, Clarke, Stephenson (eww), Card, and many, many others. But I'm not a snob about whether they were writing a Childhood's End or an On The Shore.

How is "whingeing" actually pronounced? Is it like "winging" but sounds like wine-ging? "Whining" is what I always see this as.

But, tut-tut, mate, no need to make up pet words. It tends to isolate you as being insecure with your language. Yo.


Dictionary entry for "whinge", including a pronunciation guide.

To convert "whinge" to "whinging", simply say "whinge" then "ing". It's a perfectly cromulent word. Admittedly the OP kept in an extraneous "e".

But aside from spelling ("its wrath" not "it's rath" :-)), I agree that the US system of government is horribly flawed in a few ways. Especially this Supreme Court judges appointed-for-life shit. That's just wrong.

The worst bit is, as you say, when a party has (over a period of time) managed to eliminate all the checks and balances. There are rather a lot of sham-democracy one-party states around the world. It'd be rather depressing (to put it mildly) to see the US fall too far in that direction.

Real competition is a critical element in the capitalist marketplace - I think it's much more important in the political marketplace. It's a pity that the US have such a fucked-up voting system (ie. not that other voting systems are flawless, but the US system is really bad).

....I just wrote a screed ranting on about the stranger parts of the weird and bizarre US "system", but it was getting even further off topic, so I've cut it. :)

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

" A misspelling of 'referrer' which somehow made it into the HTTP standard. A given web page's referer (sic) is the URL of whatever web page contains the link that the user followed to the current page. Most browsers pass this information as part of a request."

dictionary.com libel definition

1. Admitting of comparison with another or others: "The satellite revolution is comparable to Gutenberg's invention of movable type" (Irvin Molotsky).
2. Similar or equivalent: pianists of comparable ability.