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... The guy is either suffering from pareidolia or drinking too much vodka.

Can you say: FALSE DICHOTOMY!

Yeah and there are canals and a giant face sculpture on Mars too. The guy is either suffering from pareidolia or drinking too much vodka.

To be honest, I wish the point HAD been made "mute", then we wouldn't have to listen to all the whining.

For crying out loud, it's MOOT

... this whole discussion about taking away the legitimacy of ferrous oxide strikes me as ironic.

Punny! Not much related to chemistry, but still enlightening.

Puns; gotta love 'em.

...the really bad stuff that the evolution of these virii WILL produce at some point.

NOT. VIRII.

You sound like an idiot.

Indeed. The closest Latin word to virii would be viri, which is just the plural for vir, "a man". So I guess the GGP might be right -- "the evolution of these virii^Wmen" *has* produced some really bad stuff.

More pedantically though, assuming virii existed as the plural of some Latin word, the rules state that the singular would be virius -- still not virus, and not a word in any language that I'm aware of.

Going the other way from singular to plural and using basic Latin rules, many people might look at virus and assume you just change the -us to -i to make the plural, but that gives us viri again -- meaning "men" as the plural of "a man". Looking deeper, we find that the actual Latin word virus was uncountable , so it never even had a plural in Latin -- so applying Latin rules for deriving the plural is just silly.

Applying English rules for plural formation to the *countable* *English* word virus gives us the proper plural form viruses.

Cheers,

I'm afraid that Merriam-Webster, Wiktionary, OED, and many, many writers of British English would disagree.

Tsk, tsk: Spanish doesn't have sex, it has gender, which is descended from the Latin cases with some Gallic corruption. I think you'll find that languages with grammatical gender facilities reserved exclusively for sex are more common in the Germanic family, and not generally part of the Romance tree.

But at least now I know what you're talking about. :)

(Ordis?)

Fear not—I have had my phases of Victorian literary affect as well, and even if no other Slashdot user can make sense of your intricate chronicling of thought, I'll gladly jump in. (Although the sentence ending in "struggle to appreciate" was indefensibly bad planning.)

What I've found amongst bioinformaticians is that they generally have the clarity of thought and epistemology that is gifted to natural programmers, but we simply don't generally utilize it. What I've read of (professional) epistemology has always been strikingly compatible with what I already intuitively know—although my father having a philosophy education might have influenced that somewhat.

Like if they were primarily Spanish speaking, but also fluent in English, and they were thinking of the phrase "To be thrown out of a window" in Spanish (I am not even going to bother figuring out what it really is in Spanish, I could Google Translate, but then again, so could you), it would just be easier to use the English word "Defenestrate".

The Spanish word is "defenestrar". I suspect a better example would be something specific to a certain culture, e.g. "vihta" in Finnish.

Like if they were primarily Spanish speaking, but also fluent in English, and they were thinking of the phrase "To be thrown out of a window" in Spanish (I am not even going to bother figuring out what it really is in Spanish, I could Google Translate, but then again, so could you), it would just be easier to use the English word "Defenestrate".

The Spanish word is "defenestrar". I suspect a better example would be something specific to a certain culture, e.g. "vihta" in Finnish.

That is not what droll means. Iiiiiiiiiiiiiiirony!

seriously... how is it not an act of terrorism?

It is NOT terrorism. It is fraud/theft. Here is a reference for you and the rest of congress so you can understand what "terrorism" really is:
http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/terrorism

The name doesn't help. "Man driva" sounds like a gay porn.

Still, a lot better then: Windows, MacOS, BSD (also), Ubuntu, Red Hat and Feodora

It's "wheelbarrow", from "barrow", "a small vehicle used to carry a load and pulled or pushed by hand."

http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/barrow#Noun_2

(Barrel / cask / keg / drum / etc is the large cylindrical container for storing beverages, chemicals or, historically, certain foods)

http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/nature_strip

Australian term, meaning "An area of grass beside a roadway, possibly with a few trees or shrubs, lying in between the footpath part and the roadway proper". Basically: Fools store their beer in their front yard, and complain when people take them for free.

Pretty much - except that your nature strip, unlike your front yard, is not your property - it belongs to the local council (for all intensive purposes) though you maintain it. It's where you put your garbage, and thing you don't want (like old furniture) for public collection.

Though people will sometimes complain if things on the nature strip are taken by the public (like out of their rented rubbish skip) the complaint has no legal standing (much like the bullshit legal sounding jargon people append to their emails - modern day hexes).

http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/nature_strip

Australian term, meaning "An area of grass beside a roadway, possibly with a few trees or shrubs, lying in between the footpath part and the roadway proper". Basically: Fools store their beer in their front yard, and complain when people take them for free.

That would be the monkeys spanking, correct?

Disclaimer: IANAL either, but I'm a bit knowledgeable on the topic.

There were two major supreme court cases regarding the Second Amendment in the last few years.

The first was District of Columbia v. Heller. The second was McDonald v. Chicago. What do these mean?

As far as the Supreme Court is concerned, the right of an individual to keep and bear arms on their own property (home, land, etc.) is recognized and cannot ever be taken away. This means things like Chicago, San Francisco, and DC's gun ban laws are/were unconstitutional.

We have unfortunately not yet addressed concealed carry or open carry on a nationwide level. I really hope that it happens soon. I live in New Jersey which is almost as bad as California when it comes to gun laws. I've known people who were shot, raped, etc. and completely incapable of defending themselves because of our shitty laws.

Again, IANAL, but "bear" arms presumably means, you know, to actually carry them. (That is, in fact, the definition of the transitive.) Although the SCOTUS has yet to decide on this issue, it's pretty clear cut to me that we ought to be able to carry guns basically anywhere per the constitution.

Before anyone talks about the potential ruination of society, keep in mind that there are more than a few countries in the world where this very thing happens and their society hasn't fallen apart because everybody is armed. Handing someone a gun doesn't instantly make them an idiot.

Adapted from Wiktionary:

corvée, corvee

From French corvée, from Late Latin corvada, corrogata, from Latin corrogare (to entreat together).

Noun

1. unpaid labor (especially on roads) due to a feudal lord
2. labor, especially on roads, in lieu of taxes

Corvée could also be compulsory military service. Some have already argued that this is effectively what is happening in the US.

(And what's up with Slashdot's CSS for the main page? All ordered and unordered lists are missing their numbers and bullets, but just on the main page -- they show up properly when I look at my posting history on my user page.)

And BTW
http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/no_one

I Quote

English
[edit] Alternative forms

        no-one; noÃne (obsolete)

"Data" is plural in Latin, but in common English usage, "data" has become a mass noun. One says not "two data" but "two points of data". If you insist on inflecting the verb to match the Latin plural, do you plan to say "datôrum" for "of the data" and "datîs" for "from the data" or "to the data"? Or do you use "data" to mean gifts? Of course not; that'd be the etymological fallacy.

No, they used Java because they are idiots

but as stated in the previous reply they at least managed to offload a lot of important stuff to other layers.

Unions are too localized, unrecognized by the world community, and are often met with military actions. Most are considered government bodies (communist party). It would be more difficult to have an international government body recognizing unions than to have the WTO insist members implement a minimum wage to become, or continue to be, members. Sure there would be a huge disparity between nations; but, it is a start. It would also point out how long "first world" counties need to suffer before "third world" countries will stop consuming industrial jobs.

You can't be much older than the geezer that coined the phrase intertubes. :P

Proper noun
Intertubes pl
        (chiefly Internet slang, humorous) The Internet.

"Yaw" doesn't sound like you're trying to write out /ja/, but this word. (And if Slashdot actually supported the thirteen-year-old technology that is UTF-8, I could just paste the IPA.)

Perhaps you should try looking in this dictionary.

> Argumentum ad planetum

It should to be planetam you insensitive clod!

This word just so happens to be the singular form of "garbage" in Swedish.

How nice of you to assume that where a word comes from is what it currently means.

You're way off base there, dude. http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/patent#Pronunciation makes it fairly clear. One is a US pronunciation, the other is UK. Anybody using either pronunciation is potentially equally well-informed. You're reading way too much into a situation based on your own (or others') idle supposition (or did you really question everybody that you heard saying "pay-tent" and establish clearly that they had taken the pronunciation from a misreading of the word....?)

But technically, wouldn't breakfast be the first meal of the day? So ... he shouldn't be fed after midnight?

Are 'playing by the rules' and 'gaming the system' mutually exclusive? I never thought so.

They aren't.

To use the rules and procedures meant to protect a system in order to instead manipulate the system for a desired outcome.

Why people think it means to break the rules is beyond me - there was already a perfectly good expression for that (would it be "breaking the rules"? - Ed).

Seems the RDF is still alive and kicking.

Otherwise, they don't meet KPI and teams lose their bonuses.

It's boni.

BZZT! I'm sorry. That answer is incorrect.

The GP had it right, and X gets the square.

After a few minutes of reading your Web site, I was struck by a sense that something was subtly not right. Then I realized You Capitalize The First Letter Of nearly Every Word Of Every Sentence Like It Is A Headline In A Newspaper (it's like an obsessive-compulsive variant of upstyle). It's significant because it's deliberate, more labor-intensive than typing in ALL CAPS, and it's painful to read. Perhaps you are poking fun at the pauses in the delivery of Kirk's lines by making every word seem like a new sentence. Perhaps if someone with more time on their hands than I were to string together every fifth non-capitalized first letter and reverse them they spell out some secret manifesto about getting a life. Perhaps it is an attempt to inflict mental anguish upon those obnoxious diehard fans who have hung on your every word for years. Please tell us, what is with this bizarre writing style? I'm honestly afraid to buy your new book for fear that it will be written the same way.

Not really, it depends how strict you want to be. If you're going strictly, then yes, you are correct. However, in the more broad sense it does mean translating word by word without particular knowledge or awareness of the impact that words have on each other via context.
http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/transliterate
(transitive) To represent letters or words in the characters of another alphabet, script, or in semantic equivalent words of another language.

Analogue is the 'correct' spelling to describe something not digital for example.

Analog means "an object, concept or situation which in some way resembles a different situation".

What on earth are you talking about? I'm not British, but I'm pretty sure there's only one spelling, "analogue", and they mean the same thing. If something isn't digital, it's analog(ue), and that means "an object, concept or situation which in some way resembles a different situation". There's no difference. What did you think analog (in terms of electronics) means? It means the same thing it does for anything else, one thing resembling another. In electronics, it's generally done with voltage (though it can also be done with other things like current, frequency, etc.); the voltage level corresponds linearly to some other thing, such as sound frequency, some object being measured, etc.

Besides, if the word sounds exactly the same, then it should be spelled exactly the same too. It's pretty stupid to have two words that sound exactly the same, mean nearly the same thing, and are spelled differently, as you would only be able to tell the difference in written form. We get around that with some of our more famous examples of different words sounding the same, like "lose" and "loose" (although these actually are pronounced differently if you're not lazy) or "two", "too", and "to" because in these examples, the words have totally different meanings, and sometimes even different parts of speech, so it's pretty easy to tell them apart by context. With "armor" and "armour" this wouldn't be the case.

Finally, I think you're wrong about armour/armor anyway. This says they're the same, and "armour" is the chiefly British spelling:
http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/armor#English
Same goes for analog:
http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/analog

Analogue is the 'correct' spelling to describe something not digital for example.

Analog means "an object, concept or situation which in some way resembles a different situation".

What on earth are you talking about? I'm not British, but I'm pretty sure there's only one spelling, "analogue", and they mean the same thing. If something isn't digital, it's analog(ue), and that means "an object, concept or situation which in some way resembles a different situation". There's no difference. What did you think analog (in terms of electronics) means? It means the same thing it does for anything else, one thing resembling another. In electronics, it's generally done with voltage (though it can also be done with other things like current, frequency, etc.); the voltage level corresponds linearly to some other thing, such as sound frequency, some object being measured, etc.

Besides, if the word sounds exactly the same, then it should be spelled exactly the same too. It's pretty stupid to have two words that sound exactly the same, mean nearly the same thing, and are spelled differently, as you would only be able to tell the difference in written form. We get around that with some of our more famous examples of different words sounding the same, like "lose" and "loose" (although these actually are pronounced differently if you're not lazy) or "two", "too", and "to" because in these examples, the words have totally different meanings, and sometimes even different parts of speech, so it's pretty easy to tell them apart by context. With "armor" and "armour" this wouldn't be the case.

Finally, I think you're wrong about armour/armor anyway. This says they're the same, and "armour" is the chiefly British spelling:
http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/armor#English
Same goes for analog:
http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/analog

http://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/all-intents-and-purposes.html

http://public.wsu.edu/~brians/errors/intensive.html

and of course, Wikipedia:

http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/for_all_intents_and_purposes

In the spirit of fair play, I did due diligence of searching for opposing opinions that would support your view, but came up empty handed.

::Digitac

I hate to spoil the fun, but...

I looked up tardulent. No one seems to know what it means. Typo?

Try starting here and adding suffixes à la "fraudulent".

Ahh. As in pertaining to or resulting from the actions of a f?cktard.

I looked up tardulent. No one seems to know what it means. Typo?

Try starting here and adding suffixes à la "fraudulent".

transrational: Beyond the rational; believed without logic or evidence.

Based on your arguments in the dozens of posts above, I would have to agree that this definition is apt.

OK, so it's "nuclear".

But is there any real reason it should be?

Check out the etymology for nucleus:

1704, "kernel of a nut," 1708, "head of a comet," from L. nucleus "kernel," from nucula "little nut," dim. of nux (gen. nucis) "nut,"

Now compare to "nucule"

Etymology
From Latin nucula ("little nut")
Noun
nucule (plural nucules)
A nutlet; a small nut.

Since nucleus and nucule are both from nucula, how is nucular pedantically wrong? In fact, pedants being wont to go to "original" pronunciations and "back to the Latin", nucular should actually sound better than nuclear.

Nucular is actually more faithful to the Latin than nuclear.

Nucular power. Sic.

Would the so-called "american pizza" makers do the decent thing and change the name from "pizza" to something else, in order not to confuse the public with the real thing?

Anything will do, really. Changing just one vowel would be enough. Here are a few suggestions for alternative names, all much more fitting than "pizza" to what people eat in "american pizza" restaurants:
pAzza
pEzza
pOzza
pUzza

Would the so-called "american pizza" makers do the decent thing and change the name from "pizza" to something else, in order not to confuse the public with the real thing?

Anything will do, really. Changing just one vowel would be enough. Here are a few suggestions for alternative names, all much more fitting than "pizza" to what people eat in "american pizza" restaurants:
pAzza
pEzza
pOzza
pUzza

Would the so-called "american pizza" makers do the decent thing and change the name from "pizza" to something else, in order not to confuse the public with the real thing?

Anything will do, really. Changing just one vowel would be enough. Here are a few suggestions for alternative names, all much more fitting than "pizza" to what people eat in "american pizza" restaurants:
pAzza
pEzza
pOzza
pUzza

Would the so-called "american pizza" makers do the decent thing and change the name from "pizza" to something else, in order not to confuse the public with the real thing?

Anything will do, really. Changing just one vowel would be enough. Here are a few suggestions for alternative names, all much more fitting than "pizza" to what people eat in "american pizza" restaurants:
pAzza
pEzza
pOzza
pUzza

Well apparently, the general consensus seems to be that it's a Jewish anti-non-Jewish word.

Noun
shegetz (plural shkotzim or shegetzes (rare)) (Judaism, offensive) A gentile, a non-Jewish male.

Observe that "superiour" is an obsolete spelling of "superior", not a typo. Observe, from her "ridiculous profile", that she also spells favorite "favourite". Observe that this is typical British English.

Observe that you could have instead made a big deal over the run-on sentence or the actual typo, "impotant".

Correction-of-your-correction: fracking.

Liberal still means that outside the the of the USA.

Exactly. When I found out that the term "liberal" is nowerdays meant as an insult in AE (not sur about BE), I was wondering what the Statue of Liberty (Hint: both stem from liber ) would have to say about that.