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Only the government has the *power* to censor (at least in this society). I just looked up "censor" in the dictionary, and discovered quite a few disparate meanings. But the sense of the word as used in the story blurb (the sense that it is an immoral thing to do) is defined only in terms of government or government power.

You're the one that needs to go learn English.

A dictionary is but one example.

From my experience a lot of North Americans equate the word "liberal" with "communist", or at the very least use it in a purely perjorative sense. Certainly a lot of them could do with looking the word up in the dictionary: http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=liberal/

No entry found for goverment. Did you mean government?

I think the word is "influence". Every action has moral influence - most of it very minor, or beyond the scope of the view of a child (we buy from amazon.com -> it is okay to buy from amazon -> amazon's business practices are, tacitly, acceptable).

Responsibility is: "Something for which one is responsible; a duty, obligation, or burden." So says a dictionary.

Everyone seems to be discussing the influence on children although influence on adults could also be discussed, let us consider children.

If we claim (movies, TV, books, games) are even somewhat responsible we are taking responsibility away from parents and passing some small part of the obligation to actually raise children on to the authors. (The total ammount of responsibility cannot be increased - it can only be partitioned).

Certainly the authors have influence - but that does not make them responsible.

In our society, we take steps to make it easier for parents to know what is in the author's content - historically it was less of a problem as there was just less content available and it was easier to access portions at random (think a novel versus an involved video game). So we pretty much have to have some kind of content guide (at least for child-targeted media). Yet this is a guide not a surrogate - we're responsible for making sure the guide is accurate.

Yet this can so easily be abused: how many films were *almost* rated X before they changed content? Further, we have labels for violence or nudity but we just (in the USA) had a de facto label for gay lifestyle (not sexuality, just the existance of gays). What if every flim/TV show/video game had to disclose if any gay lifestyle was portraied? What about Jewish lifestyle? What about progressive political ideals? What about inaccurate science?

Just the act of rating influences media - thus it is our responsibility to use rating power sensibly. Even this attempt to make parental responsibility a bit easier is, itself, the responsibility of all society to monitor.

Source: Merriam-Webster Dictionary of Law, © 1996 Merriam-Webster, Inc.

Main Entry: responsible Function: adjective 1 a : liable to be called on to answer b : liable to be called to account as the primary cause, motive, or agent c : liable to legal review or in case of fault to penalties 2 : characterized by trustworthiness, integrity, and requisite abilities and resources 3 : able to choose for oneself between right and wrong 4 : marked by or involving accountability

http://dictionary.reference.com/search?r=2&q=accou ntable

Source: Merriam-Webster Dictionary of Law, © 1996 Merriam-Webster, Inc.

Main Entry: accountable
Pronunciation: &-'kaun-t&-b&l
Function: adjective
1 : LIABLE
2 : obliged to accept responsibility

Krusty: "You do understand (in response to your journal entry) that these comments have nothing to do with Blizzard but instead are about your narrow view of enterpise level hardware and the inability for your 3k dollar..."

Me (in earlier post): "This is just an estimate..." & "...even if I was off by 3 times that and the game cost 75 million to run/produce, that would still be well over 100 million in profit"

What part of "estimate" did you not understand?

A metric ton, when written without the word "metric" in front of it, is spelled "tonne".

tonne
n : a unit of weight equivalent to 1000 kilograms [syn: metric ton, MT, {t}]

No dude, that's complement.

"Cheque" is largely a British spelling. I've seldom seen an American bank call it anything other than a "check".

I would guess that Traveller's Cheques are so-called because they are largely used for international purposes, and America is in the minority in our spelling. For example, in French, the word is "cheque" as well. I would guess the other Romance Languages would likely be the same.

"Cheque" is largely a British spelling. I've seldom seen an American bank call it anything other than a "check".

I would guess that Traveller's Cheques are so-called because they are largely used for international purposes, and America is in the minority in our spelling. For example, in French, the word is "cheque" as well. I would guess the other Romance Languages would likely be the same.

To the knob who marked the parent redundant:

Clearly the grandparent did not understand the point. It needed restating, with a link to back up the definition. The great-grandparent post was not clear.

Note the first definition on the word redundant. If the grandparent had understood the great-grandparent, then the parent post would be unnecessary.

I leave the rest as an exercise to the reader.

Maybe the problem is that it's mispelled?

Compliment is to give praise.

Complement (note the e) is to make complete.

How about that? It turns out spelling *is* important.

Maybe the problem is that it's mispelled?

Compliment is to give praise.

Complement (note the e) is to make complete.

How about that? It turns out spelling *is* important.

I had my suspicions... and they're right. Actionable is not the word you're looking for, although it may sound nice to someone, who, say, has been working in the HR department too long. Please, please, don't make slashdot any harder to read than it already is.

Maybe he thinks profanity provides an unfair advantage to his broadcast-company constituents?

This shows it even better:

Dictionary def. of North America

This map clearly shows the continents

This one clearly shows what is North America.

All three of them have Costa Rica well within the confines of North America. Some people do not realize that "Central America" is a sub-region of North America just as Scandinavia is a sub-region of Europe. Apparently, you are included.

From the dictionary definition of Central America: "A region of southern North America extending from the southern border of Mexico to the northern border of Colombia".

...Merkin.

Um...I know what a merkin is. Has this also become a derogatory term for Americans, or is this a misspelling of something else?

So..you internal with the right to be able to travel with out some sort of 'internal passport' but you agree with having to produce some sort of 'internal passport' to drive?

How exactly is your statement logical?

I don't buy your reasoning that to get a license is a test of 'worthiness.' Why the hell are blind 80 yr olds with diabetes allowed to drive then?

I believe what you are doing is called rationalization.

n 1: a man who is a stupid incompetent fool [syn: fathead, goof, goofball, bozo, jackass, goose, cuckoo, zany]

"Assertation" is a word used instead of "assertion" by someone who finds they've got a spare syllable lying around and nowhere to put it.

Why cut corners? I'd have gone for asseverations.

Idiot.

It is true! I searched, and couldn't find anything!

With good reason, since the concept of eminent domain is not actually part of the constitution.

That's funny, I could have sworn that an amendment to the Constitution addressed the taking of private property for public use:

Article [V.]

No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a Grand Jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the Militia, when in actual service in time of War or public danger; nor shall any person be subject for the same offence to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation. (Emphasis mine.)

You might actually try reading the Constitution and some of the laws you like to talk about. Seriously, you might learn something. Now, what were you saying?

Congrats to you and the mod who decided you were insightful to not understand the concept of an analogy.

Either your professor's wrong or you misheard him/her.

According to this definition on dictionary.com, monopoly is "Exclusive control by one group of the means of producing or selling a commodity or service."

Not as long as they have no problem with their complete and utter lack of accountability of any type, and the vicious, one-sided partisan nature designed solely to incite vitriol in their groupthink audiences.

Sulphur trioxide?

so if you say microsoft is a standard (ok, its used by a lot of ppl, but a standard is by definition something from an upper committee like iso or rfc or din, not a single firm itself)

I've got terrible news for most Slashdotters, that isn't the definition of a standard. The fact that many Microsoft products, such as Exchange, are used by more people and organizations than any other available product makes those Microsoft products the de facto standard. This will naturally come as a shock but, that doesn't change the fact that Microsoft Exchange is the de facto standard in GroupWare applications.

You can brand me a heretic and mod me down but that won't change the facts or the standard.

so if you say microsoft is a standard (ok, its used by a lot of ppl, but a standard is by definition something from an upper committee like iso or rfc or din, not a single firm itself)

I've got terrible news for most Slashdotters, that isn't the definition of a standard. The fact that many Microsoft products, such as Exchange, are used by more people and organizations than any other available product makes those Microsoft products the de facto standard. This will naturally come as a shock but, that doesn't change the fact that Microsoft Exchange is the de facto standard in GroupWare applications.

You can brand me a heretic and mod me down but that won't change the facts or the standard.

so if you say microsoft is a standard (ok, its used by a lot of ppl, but a standard is by definition something from an upper committee like iso or rfc or din, not a single firm itself)

I've got terrible news for most Slashdotters, that isn't the definition of a standard. The fact that many Microsoft products, such as Exchange, are used by more people and organizations than any other available product makes those Microsoft products the de facto standard. This will naturally come as a shock but, that doesn't change the fact that Microsoft Exchange is the de facto standard in GroupWare applications.

You can brand me a heretic and mod me down but that won't change the facts or the standard.

so if you say microsoft is a standard (ok, its used by a lot of ppl, but a standard is by definition something from an upper committee like iso or rfc or din, not a single firm itself)

I've got terrible news for most Slashdotters, that isn't the definition of a standard. The fact that many Microsoft products, such as Exchange, are used by more people and organizations than any other available product makes those Microsoft products the de facto standard. This will naturally come as a shock but, that doesn't change the fact that Microsoft Exchange is the de facto standard in GroupWare applications.

You can brand me a heretic and mod me down but that won't change the facts or the standard.

so if you say microsoft is a standard (ok, its used by a lot of ppl, but a standard is by definition something from an upper committee like iso or rfc or din, not a single firm itself)

I've got terrible news for most Slashdotters, that isn't the definition of a standard. The fact that many Microsoft products, such as Exchange, are used by more people and organizations than any other available product makes those Microsoft products the de facto standard. This will naturally come as a shock but, that doesn't change the fact that Microsoft Exchange is the de facto standard in GroupWare applications.

You can brand me a heretic and mod me down but that won't change the facts or the standard.

Dupe of a dupe

That sounds like tripe to me..

Doh!

That said, it's still redundant. Copying by itself would have done, as pirating is a subset of copying.

In fact, the main problem the UN has is that it's not accountable to anyone.

I followed you until that one, last sentence.

The accountability issue is frequently cited by UN critics as The Final Argument that settles the debate once and for all. However, it does not stand up to scrutiny. Why?

1. Because, short of having a world government with a world army, it is impossible to have accountability in the formal sense in a world-spanning organization. This because there is no legitimate force that could enforce such accountability.

2. Because accountable is not the only thing, nor even necessarily the main thing, we need the UN to be. I would for instance prefer a useful UN to an accountable UN any day (defining useful as 'making an important contribution to world peace and prosperity').

3. Because accountability is an elusive term, and it is a matter opinion whether one calls the UN accountable or not. One definition of accountability is 'responsibility to someone or for something'. The UN relies on the countries of the world for its material resources, and it relies on its reputation for legitimacy. Thus, if the UN behaves outside the wishes of its constituent countries, it risks loosing budgets, peace-keeping forces and legitimacy. It is thus constantly being held accountable. No, it is not democratic in terms of procedures, proportional representation etc. It is, however, hard to see how it could be (except by becoming the World State, as previously mentioned).

I am in no way arguing that the UN is flawless, that it needs no reform, or anything like that. My argument is solely that the accountability argument is flawed and shallow.

Ad impossibilia nemo tenetur.
Does it work with common law ? In this case a decent lawyer who knows the word "brocard" should be able to defend any ISP.

http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=degauss
http://www.datalinksales.com/degaussers/hard_drive _degaussers.htm

Dan East

The way that 'cromulent' is now in the dictionary kind of ruins that joke :(

Want a primer on the issue of the pledge of allegiance? Read The U.S. Pledge of Allegiance. The "under God" phrase. Note that "Under God" was not added to the pledge until 1954. If you don't believe that phrase endorses Christianity, you don't understand the way the language works. If you don't understand what is wrong with endorsing an individual religion in the national pledge, which schoolchildren have often been forced to recite even in California, then you fail to understand what Thomas Jefferson, himself a religious man, had a firm grasp on. I don't fault you for not being as smart as Jefferson but probably you should read Jefferson's Letter to the Danbury Baptists. The following is the meat of the letter:

Believing with you that religion is a matter which lies solely between Man & his God, that he owes account to none other for his faith or his worship, that the legitimate powers of government reach actions only, & not opinions, I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should "make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof," thus building a wall of separation between Church & State.

This makes it pretty clear what was intended - keep government entirely out of everyone's religious affairs, because if you meddle just a little bit you screw everything up. The government covers actions, so you can believe whatever you want but you still can't, for example, perform human sacrifice because it's illegal to kill people even if they want to die. It recognizes that the human mind is somewhat fragile, and so is the conscience.

My mother and father were both raised Catholic. Both recovered; my mother is now either atheist or agnostic (I'm not sure which) and my father is Lutheran. My mother gave me the option to go to church if I wanted to, and I went to a Christian day care because it was inexpensive. Thus I learned the usual children's bible stories. However, I never developed a belief in God and as it was a day care and not a nursery school no one ever tried to force religion on me. In sixth grade I informed my teacher that I intended not to say the pledge due to its religious content and was informed that I would be saying the pledge. Is that at all appropriate? First of all, it really doesn't accomplish anything to say a pledge, and it means even less when you are forced to do it. However, it is nothing less than the shoving of religion down young throats. If there is no Law that respects an establishment of religion, then you simply cannot be forcing people to perform this public worship.

I would have liked to see it written "any establishment of religion" because then we could take the tax-exempt status away from the religions. Why should they get a break? Because they supposedly help people? Religions are a means of control, you can have spirituality without ever visiting a building with stained glass windows.

Anyway aside from snarkiness, it is clear (and the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals agrees) that the phrase "under God" promotes a specific group of religions, essentially those religions attached to the specific meaning of the word "heathen": "One who adheres to the religion of a people or nation that does not acknowledge the God of Judaism, Christianity, or Islam."

If you want to smack Newdow around over trying to amend the problem of an unconstitutional change to our pledge of allegiance that occurred in the fifties, then you'll find a whole lot of other people standing in your way.

"What are these aliens you speak of, are they a different species from a different planet? And you say they are somehow illegal, too? Oh, you mean non-Americans that don't have the legal right to be in the US. Nice, real nice name for them."

Yeah, the English dictionary thinks it's a good name for them, too.

Dumbass troll.

While there is a slight hint of counter-americanism in the article, I did not see any particular attack on google. It seems to me the article was simply warning that they need to get off their butts if they dont want the only publically available resources to be from english speaking perspective.

Google translated article (see:irony)

Go read a dictionary, asshole.

http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=xenophobi c
http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=racist

Go read a dictionary, asshole.

http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=xenophobi c
http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=racist

The post wasn't referring to individually acquired knowledge, it was in reference to the proliferation of said knowledge. Here, let me help you. Thanks for playing, assclown!

Unvincible? I can't let this go.

Un - usually means opposite of
vincible - meaning capable of being defeated

What you meant was invincible. Dont they teach grade school english anymore? Or have the general masses finally started posting on /.?

The usage note on the prefix 'un' from dictonary.com is particulary of interest here: Usage Note: The negative prefix un- attaches chiefly to adjectives (unable, unclean, unequal, unripe, unsafe) and participles used as adjectives (unfeeling, unflinching, unfinished, unsaid), and less frequently to nouns (unbelief, unconcern, unrest). Sometimes the noun form of an adjective with the un- prefix has the prefix in-, as in inability, inequality, injustice, and instability. A few stems appear with both prefixes with distinctions of meaning. Inhuman means "brutal, monstrous," while unhuman means "not of human form, superhuman."When used with adjectives, un- often has a sense distinct from that of non-. Non- picks out the set of things that are not in the category denoted by the stem to which it is attached, whereas un- picks out properties unlike those of the typical examples of the category. Thus nonmilitary personnel are those who are not members of the military, whereas someone who is unmilitary is unlike a typical soldier in dress, habits, or attitudes.

All this ranting and I'm afraid to post as other than AC. Perhaps I missed the joke?? Just go ahead and mod me as a Troll, my AC karma can hack it!

Unvincible? I can't let this go.

Un - usually means opposite of
vincible - meaning capable of being defeated

What you meant was invincible. Dont they teach grade school english anymore? Or have the general masses finally started posting on /.?

The usage note on the prefix 'un' from dictonary.com is particulary of interest here: Usage Note: The negative prefix un- attaches chiefly to adjectives (unable, unclean, unequal, unripe, unsafe) and participles used as adjectives (unfeeling, unflinching, unfinished, unsaid), and less frequently to nouns (unbelief, unconcern, unrest). Sometimes the noun form of an adjective with the un- prefix has the prefix in-, as in inability, inequality, injustice, and instability. A few stems appear with both prefixes with distinctions of meaning. Inhuman means "brutal, monstrous," while unhuman means "not of human form, superhuman."When used with adjectives, un- often has a sense distinct from that of non-. Non- picks out the set of things that are not in the category denoted by the stem to which it is attached, whereas un- picks out properties unlike those of the typical examples of the category. Thus nonmilitary personnel are those who are not members of the military, whereas someone who is unmilitary is unlike a typical soldier in dress, habits, or attitudes.

All this ranting and I'm afraid to post as other than AC. Perhaps I missed the joke?? Just go ahead and mod me as a Troll, my AC karma can hack it!

Unvincible? I can't let this go.

Un - usually means opposite of
vincible - meaning capable of being defeated

What you meant was invincible. Dont they teach grade school english anymore? Or have the general masses finally started posting on /.?

The usage note on the prefix 'un' from dictonary.com is particulary of interest here: Usage Note: The negative prefix un- attaches chiefly to adjectives (unable, unclean, unequal, unripe, unsafe) and participles used as adjectives (unfeeling, unflinching, unfinished, unsaid), and less frequently to nouns (unbelief, unconcern, unrest). Sometimes the noun form of an adjective with the un- prefix has the prefix in-, as in inability, inequality, injustice, and instability. A few stems appear with both prefixes with distinctions of meaning. Inhuman means "brutal, monstrous," while unhuman means "not of human form, superhuman."When used with adjectives, un- often has a sense distinct from that of non-. Non- picks out the set of things that are not in the category denoted by the stem to which it is attached, whereas un- picks out properties unlike those of the typical examples of the category. Thus nonmilitary personnel are those who are not members of the military, whereas someone who is unmilitary is unlike a typical soldier in dress, habits, or attitudes.

All this ranting and I'm afraid to post as other than AC. Perhaps I missed the joke?? Just go ahead and mod me as a Troll, my AC karma can hack it!

True...that is ONE definition of "gadget." However, accordning to Dictionary.com, the primary definition is "A small specialized mechanical or electronic device; a contrivance." Synonyms listed are "applicance, contraption, contrivance, convenience, gizmo, gismo, widget."

Now, while I don't agree with all of the synonyms, I think the definition is fairly accurate, especially when you add "contrivance" which, by the way, is "something contrived, as a mechanical device or a clever plan."