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A republic is simply a form of state that has a president as its head instead of a monarch. Nothing more, nothing less.

The dictionary disagrees with you. Notably: "A political order in which the supreme power lies in a body of citizens who are entitled to vote for officers and representatives responsible to them." Also known as a "representative democracy".

Athens is the only "true" democracy in history. However, even they were prejudiced. You had to be a white male landowner to have a vote - kind of like when this country got started.

No, Anonymous illiterate Coward, it's English. The Greek word, as you yourself quote, was "mimma". The French word was "même", meaning "same". Richard Dawkins, the evolutionary biologist at Oxford (where they also publish a dictionary), introduced the term as an info parallel to "gene", in his landmark _The Selfish Gene_. But then, your rudimentary grammar is consistent with a mind that doesn't even absorb the other, more accurate, etymologies on the page where you found your inadequate one, because it's not at the top of the page.

Now that I've schooled you, take another lesson: don't reproduce. You're in over your head, and drowned in the meme pool, Anonymous unfit Coward.

No wonder "meme" is an English word

no its greek actually

[Shortening (modeled on gene), of mimeme from Greek mimma, something imitated, from mimeisthai, to imitate. See mimesis.]

even the American dictionary gets that right, i guess your schooling didnt though, not suprising though.

Microsoft can intimidate the EU into passing kleptocrat IP laws, but Apple can't keep the NL from doubling the price of their most popular product, handing the take to the record companies already on iTMS life support? How many divisions has Microsoft got?

It's like "forte", you can say it "fortay" or "fort", both are right, dictionaries list them in different orders. Pronounciation alternates are just that, alternates, not orders of correctness.

While I agree with you that this is nonsense and should be thrown out of court, I think the cat naming convention has gone beyond code names (which are by definition, supposed to be more on the "under the radar" side). When you begin to market something with a particular name, it becomes, well, it's name (no "code" about it).

Regardless, Tiger Direct are being a BHR (butt head retailer).

Trama is one thing. But preparedness is another. Knowing what the numbers are ahead of time. Programming them into your speed dial. Etc.

Anyways stupid is a broader word than you give it credit: "4. Dazed, stunned, or stupefied." (http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=stupid)

And don't commit a generalization fallacy. I agree there are times when the simplist solution is ideal and nice, but that isn't a conclusive arguement for imposing a requirement that a particular implementation must be available.

all-be-it

You probably mean albeit.

- An anonymous spelling corrector.

...incidence of spam/virii in the Windows world...

The plural of virus is viruses.

Writing "virri" doesn't make you look clever, educated people will laugh at you.

He also gets props for spelling Digitisation correctly.

Yeah, I looked at it funny, because it is misspelled.

I'm laughing very hard.

I'm a Gentoo fan, who's also laughing. Isn't notorious generally a bad thing? What's notorious about its speed? Is it famous for being slow?

A simple perusal of the site will show that you do not have to register. They're just asking & you can still get the code if you don't register.

No tinfoil hat needed

Before you do that, do your homework. CMYK is not "basically the negative of RGB".

Why don't you do your homework, like understanding the word 'basically'? RGB is additive, where increases in color value lead you to white, whereas CMY(k) is subtractive, e.g. increases in color value lead to black. They are, essentially, opposites. If you look at a color cube, Cyan opposes Red, Magenta opposes Green, and Yellow opposes Blue.

And by the way, the Key in CMYK was actually invented to save the more expensive color inks.

That's one reason for the K channel in CMYK. The important reason, in regards to printing, is because mixing the C, M, and Y inks usually doesn't yield a 'true' black.

J.

J.

So not only does Microsoft push it's ways around the software industry, it also has to start affecting the very fundamentals of our society.

My guff is the name "Metro"

metro

n : electric underground railway

How about they create their own name for their format that doesn't have to rely on complicating the English dictionary even further.

Since when was an underground train and a bunch of documents the same thing? Windows had some sort of metaphysical relationship, you had little windows. Windows of space, windows of opportunity, windows with things in them. Apple Computers has an Apple (representative of fruit) so that you at least can relate to the word.

I could be preaching to a deaf audience, but I truly believe that linking so many things to single words just starts erroding our language basics. I truly think we could do a far better job of respecting our naming conventions in the real world and actually create naming conventions in the virtual world.

Let me use the Portable Document Format for example. It's called Portable Document Format. Good for that. That's what it is. Very long name, but it makes sense and it is not contradicting the diction rules. "PDF" is fast 3 letters to punch in on the keyboard. Sounds Peedee Eff.

Peedee Eff doesn't exist in English. It's not even English restricted. French sounds "Pay Day Eff". Sure the derivatives do come from the English title "Portable Document Format" but those derivatives ("PDF" spoken) do not intentionally override the language base.

Final line is: Don't let corporations define what your world is. Let your world define what corporations are.

I see you casually glossed over the fact that the statement was prefaced with "iCon", which is itself a play on Apple products AND suggestive of Steve Jobs pulling a con.

If by "my world" you mean "an acceptable use of the word 'conspiracy'", then yes, in "my world" this is a conspiracy. Take, for example, this definition of "conspiracy":

An agreement to perform together an illegal, wrongful, or subversive act.

Anticipating your next reply, here's another definition for "subvert":

To undermine the character, morals, or allegiance of; corrupt.

I guess you don't see giving special preference to IIS sites as "corrupting" search results. Similarly, I guess airing special news broadcasts by individuals who support your political agenda shouldn't be considered "corrupt" either.

Suit yourself.

If by "my world" you mean "an acceptable use of the word 'conspiracy'", then yes, in "my world" this is a conspiracy. Take, for example, this definition of "conspiracy":

An agreement to perform together an illegal, wrongful, or subversive act.

Anticipating your next reply, here's another definition for "subvert":

To undermine the character, morals, or allegiance of; corrupt.

I guess you don't see giving special preference to IIS sites as "corrupting" search results. Similarly, I guess airing special news broadcasts by individuals who support your political agenda shouldn't be considered "corrupt" either.

Suit yourself.

To expand on this comment: http://science.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=147252 &cid=12338367

http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=caucasian Caucasian ( P ) Pronunciation Key (kô-kzhn, -kzhn) adj. Anthropology. Of or being a major human racial classification traditionally distinguished by physical characteristics such as very light to brown skin pigmentation and straight to wavy or curly hair, and including peoples indigenous to Europe, northern Africa, western Asia, and India. No longer in scientific use. See Usage Note at race1.

Wow! It seems that not only whites are Caucasian, but Egyptians and other North Africans, Arabs, and Indians are too! Gee, isn't it funny how some words actually have specific meanings!

I'd like you to meet someone.

Sorry, but Doit is indeed a Dutch coin.

Are you using 'desiderata' correctly?

Webster's says it is the plural of desideratum, meaning "Something considered necessary or highly desirable."

eutrophication

Arlo Rose worked at Apple during the Copland years. No doubt, Konfabulator was "inspired" by research worked on inside Apple while he was employed there. You should get a hint from the name of the product which is a misspelling of the word Confabulator http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=Confabula tor or this http://www.confabulator.com/.

The ideals for Journalled HFS+ (appearing in Panther) and Spotlight largely are coming from Dominic Giampaulo (authored BFS) who on the Spotlight team at Apple.

No they should not. They are not real persons, and by definitions have no interests except profits.

Do you know what "by definition" means? On slashdot it seems to mean "really" or "obviously". In reality it means "because the definition says so". I'll help you: here's the definition of "corporation".

A corp is just a legal construct - minimally just a few papers in a drawer somewhere. They can be put to whatever purpose their owners like. Microsoft is perfectly free to support gay rights legislation if that's what shareholders want.

there's limits

"there're" or "there are".

(I wouldn't have bothered with such a trivial case had you had a less contemptible sig. BTW, the word "nazi" isn't capitalized unless it means a member of the National Socialist Party.)

...and spelling.
loose
lose

...and spelling.
loose
lose

We have English mustard!

Yeah, and guess where that word comes from?

RAM is a commodity, much like LCD displays, CPU's, and GPU's.

By itself, it isn't very useful, but when combined with other systems (desktops, laptops, PDA's, mobile phones, handheld consoles), it becomes a very useful item.

As with all commodities, the price will always go up whenever demand exceeds supply. And the suppliers will always try to achieve this; either by sophisticated marketing to boost demand (eg. the diamond market, the power generators warning of a shortage of electricity) or by matching reducing supply to match demand (OPEC, the RAM market).

Hey, while you're right, there's no need to be an ass about it.

Some people genuinely believe that the plural of virus is viri. While they're wrong, at least it's a mistake with a decent basis. It turns out that a bunch of words in English are derived from Latin words, and plenty of these words do follow the convention of -us postfix for singular and -i for plural.

Seesh, I myself made that mistake for a while, after years of having these endings tables drilled into my head.

Not according to this.

assuming i'm not biting anything: http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=posthumou s

I'm more curious about why he thinks killer penguins would be in a Nativity scene.

• The systematic propagation of a doctrine or cause or of information reflecting the views and interests of those advocating such a doctrine or cause.
• Material disseminated by the advocates or opponents of a doctrine or cause: wartime propaganda.
• Propaganda (Roman Catholic Church). A division of the Roman Curia that has authority in the matter of preaching the gospel, of establishing the Church in non-Christian countries, and of administering Church missions in territories where there is no properly organized hierarchy
• 
  There is a big difference between what a PR firm does for a "cause" such as "Cover the Uninsured Week and what Leni Riefenstahl did for the Nazis.

polititions

Dear Christ, save us now.

Some interesting suggestions from thesaurus.reference.com:
dwarf
Tom Thumb
pygmy
gremlin.
Try one of those.

It would help if you were to quote a correct definition of Guilt by Association.

And in case one refutation of your BS isn't enough, here's another.

Nice try, though.

Judges should only judge the law in question with respect to the US Constitution (or state constitution, for state laws) and NOTHING ELSE -

For my education, can you provide specific cases where judges made decisions based on foreign laws?

What about judges who refer to the non-constitutional sources, such as the Christian Bible, for the definition of marriage, when the word itself has many different historical meanings? I doubt you would call them 'activist judges'.

What if the answer cannot be found in the constitution?

When this country was young, many judges looked at the laws and conventions in other countries. Why? Because many of these other countries have similar legal systems & a similar moral context, and a similar decision made in another country may also work here.

Here is the link.
http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=per%20se

Per Se.

Is that what you give the cashier as proof that you really wanted to buy a stick of gum?

heh

You seem to have an aversion to the thesaurus and gave only a definition of one of the words. A synonym is when two words have the same or very similar meanings in a particular context.

So now let's make full use of the dictonary, (Assumption).

Definitions 3,4 & 6 are the ones that apply to our little debate.

d3. The act of taking for granted: assumption of a false theory.

d4. Something taken for granted or accepted as true without proof; a supposition: a valid assumption.

d6. Logic. A minor premise. ( look up premise for yourself ).

Now looking at your definitions for "faith" we find all but one of the definitions seem to line up with what I have been saying and are also synonyms for one or more of your definitions of "faith", except for one...

The body of dogma of a religion: the Muslim faith.

As I and other posters have pointed out you are talking about dogma not faith.

So back to the start, Physics and indeed all of science is based on faith. Scientists do thier best to state this using specific assumptions eg: Newton's theory of Gravity has an explict assumption that time is constant, Einstien challenged that assumption. The collection of all these assumptions is sometimes called Scientific dogma. Religion assumes there is a God and then goes on to assume things like "God wants us to punish/cure homosexuals", this collection is called Religious dogma.

I think the philosophical difference that you are trying to express, (and the reason that science "works"), is that, Religion does not question it's own assumptions, it exits to preserve them. Science is based on questioning it's own assumptions, it exits to erradicate them. The vast majority of humanity have thier foot firmly planted in both camps.

Some contempory material on this topic: If you get the chance read Carl Sagan's "Contact" (or watch the excellent movie version). Also another (non-fiction) book by Sagan is worth a flick through, "Demon haunted world". Other opinions are numerous and varied, most of the Scientific icons I can name have had something to say about faith and science. Some of the more recent ones are, (turns to bookshelf), S.J.Gould, R.Dawkins, Penrose, Hawking, Einstien, Godel, Martin Gardner, Tim "the toolman" Allen...."I'm not really here"...wtf..., oh yeah, life is a journey type of thing, not a bad philosophy actually.

"quandary" means a state of perplexity, obviously that which the author was in when he posted the article.

quandary

numbers go:

primary
secondary
terirary
QUATERNARY
quinary
etc...

If you're trying to be a smartarse by using long/uncommon words. at least make sure you're using the right ones.

I would have thought this was a made-up word but dictionary.com says otherwise. I'll have to remember to use this when I'm writing my next Star Trek: Voyager erotic fan fic!

Not to be a nit picker but no one lives through electrocution.
Meaning of electrocution.

Gronk

Why not invest in a dictionary you fscking idiot.

We are all agreed that 1 million = 1x10^6.

In the world (Britain, France, and Germany) where 1 billion = 1 million million (1x10^12), then 1 trillion = 1 million billion (1x10^18) or another way 1 trillion = 1 million million million (tri-million), or million cubed, to the power of three, as in tri.

In the parts of the wolrd (US & Canada) where 1 billion = 1000 million (1x10^9), then 1 trillion = 1 million million (1x10^12) so 1 trillion = 1000 billion.

As it is an American lab, it will be 1x10^12.
Personally, i feel the Americans just like their numbers sounding bigger.

Sorry to be a pedant:
"everything it's marked wrong was correct,"

I cut and paste your grammatically incorrect post into Word (2002 version) and it immediately highlights your incorrect use of "it's". If you had used Word you probably wouldn't have made this mistake.

Too bad the word "it's" as used is correct, since it also stands as a contraction for the phrase "it has." The only issue I see here is possible tense confusion between "it has" and "was," although in certain instances that would be considered correct, if not very graceful.

That is why I went from being an involved host, to being the guy who is seen as a dis-interested developer. The moment you show interest, there will be a bunch of people (about 5% as far as I can tell) who feel that it is their god-given right to demand that everything works exactly the way they want it to. And instead of just going away, they do things like organize a boycott, and post hundreds of messages in the bulletin board complaining about the perceived problems.

5% organise a boycott of a free product and this bothers you. I fail to believe that your product is "free". Just so you know, television is not free just because you don't have to pay to have it beamed into your home.

Your "application" didn't live up to however you were hyping it and people decided to boycott so you couldn't get the ad revenue. It was all about the ad revenue, huh? Yeah, that sucks when sponsors pull their ads because you pissed off the audience. If your product truly was "free" it wouldn't make a difference if people boycotted it or not.

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