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User: ChameleonDave

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  1. Re:-gasp- Slashdot, too! on MSN Censors Your IM · · Score: 1

    Yes, but only because your grasp of french seems not to extend to certain areas. "La mouille" (no accent in this case) is a word for vaginal secretions

    Yeah, and there's the verb mouiller too. What's your point? Did you think I was talking about rain, or freshly washed lettuce? I was talking about vaginal secretions. I think you just wanted to say your French was better than someone else's.

    That said, "Mouilleron" is a village in France. Probably the true origin of her surname.

    No doubt, although it doesn't really add anything to the anecdote. Hey, I can use Google too: there's a village called "La Mouille". The guys there must be hunky.

  2. Re:-gasp- Slashdot, too! on MSN Censors Your IM · · Score: 1

    Speaking of the name "Fanny" being used to mean "pussy"... that reminds me of when my girlfriend and I had to organise a visit to a gynaecologist for her. We were looking through the Yellow Pages when we saw a certain Dr Fanny Mouilleron. Well, we couldn't miss the opportunity to go and see the "fanny doctor". It had us cracking up. We didn't have the guts to explain the joke to her, though. ;-)

    Come to think of it, her surname sounds a lot like ''mouillé'', meaning "wet". That's even funnier!

  3. Proportion of various formats in CVs on Does ODF Have a Future? · · Score: 1

    Here's a little anecdote.

    A few months ago I applied for a job and got it, with a CV created as an RTF document in OOo and exported to PDF.

    In the office, I was able to look over the boss's shoulder and see, in Windows Explorer, the folder containing all the CVs that he had received. There were about a hundred, of which I'd say only a small handful were in PDF, about a dozen in RTF and the rest in Word DOC format. It was interesting to see the distribution, and note that it was one of the PDFers (myself) who had got the job. This was in Melbourne, Australia.

    Personally, since the job involved some basic computer skills, I would have stipulated in the advertisement that all CVs must be sent in PDF format, as this would be a simple method of excluding people so dim that they couldn't work out some way of doing so.

  4. Re:You don't need MS Office to create .doc files on Does ODF Have a Future? · · Score: 2, Funny

    "a $500 office suit is outrageous". Well, you may think so, but I like to dress to impress.
  5. Re:Huh? on British Columbia To Charge Recycling Fee · · Score: 1

    The fact that the costs are hidden doesn't mean it's [not] there Straw man.
  6. Re:Huh? on British Columbia To Charge Recycling Fee · · Score: 1

    Conversely, you pay for the 'free' recycling program, w[h]ether (a) you use it, (b) you have any need to use it, or (c) a bunch of other people use it. Which supports what I'm saying: that it's not a transaction. It's a service for society as a whole provided by society as a whole.

    Consequently it's a clear example of a tax burden placed unfairly Your silly right-wing opinion regarding its fairness is rather irrelevant in the discussion about the meaning of the term "free of charge".

    All your sweetness and light Why, thank you.

    Are you a civil service worker or a government bureaucrat? Or just one of their 'useful idiots'? Have you stopped beating your wife?.
  7. Re:Huh? on British Columbia To Charge Recycling Fee · · Score: 1

    The fact that you are still giving examples of hidden costs means you have missed the point I made at great length.

  8. Re:Huh? on British Columbia To Charge Recycling Fee · · Score: 1

    * Fee must be paid to qualify for free recycling.
    Except that it doesn't. You get free recycling regardless of whether (a) you have paid, (b) someone else has paid, or (c) no one paid because the computer was bought elsewhere or bought before the charges came in. It's a clear example of a public service, rather than a service for a fee.
  9. Re:Huh? on British Columbia To Charge Recycling Fee · · Score: 1

    You seem to have missed most of the discussion.

  10. Re:Huh? on British Columbia To Charge Recycling Fee · · Score: 1

    The basic premise of government is to form a collective which is empowered by "people" to run certain affairs on their behalf, right? Indeed. Which makes it not a corporation taking money in strict exchange for products, but instead a very different public body that does public service with one hand, and takes taxes with the other in order to handle inflation. (Remember that the state can print as much money as it likes, so taxation is purely to keep the overall amount of money out there from spiralling upwards.)

    And the manner of providing funding is typically through control of the land/air/sea/etc resources and of late - taxation and more taxation. That means that anything, ANYTHING for which tax moneys and government revenues were applied are paid services. So, if you don't leave any rubbish outside, or if you don't use the streets much, the state lowers your taxes accordingly? No, these are not commercial services for which you are paying. They are offered to all for free (even to foreign visitors in many cases), and the state levies taxes in order for this to be possible.

    Kinda reminds me of my cell phone plan - they charge me for service monthly but I'm always invoiced a month ahead.. That means they have my cash in hand for a month before it is applied to the services it was billed as.

    Mobile phone companies are scumbags who try to abuse their powerful position in order to force consumers into a situation similar to taxation, but at the end of the day they are not states but corporations, and you choose to either pay for and use their service, or not pay for and not use their service.

    Oh - I checked http//dictionary.com and the most closely related definitions to this thread, of the word "free":

    That's an American dictionary, and so of no interest to me, especially as all dictionaries have only brief summaries of the meanings of words, rather than the in-depth discussion which is relevant here, but I'll go along with you.

    2. provided without, or not subject to, a charge or payment: free parking; a free sample.
    3. given without consideration of a return or reward: a free offer of legal advice.

    These two are the same. They refer to stuff you get without paying. Note that the examples given involve some sort of strings attached as well as payment somewhere along the line. For example, a free sample of cosmetics is designed to entice the customer to buy a full unit of the product. Free parking is often provided by a local council, and paid for with tax money.

    Since I was arguing that it is normal English usage to describe such things as free of charge as long as there is no immediate exchange, your dictionary definition fully supports what I was saying.

    when was the last time any forward-looking project was undertaken by government without the idea of winning votes? I can't recall any instance of that.

    You seem to be fighting a straw man here. I am saying that it is standard English usage to describe something as free of charge, despite such things as hidden motives, extra money being paid down the line, et cetera.

    You seem to be saying that such factors as ulterior motives and prior payments mean that virtually nothing can be described as free, and that by describing these things as free, I must have somehow missed these factors. By listing factors, you wrongly imply naïveté on my part.

    To sum up, I am using the term "free of charge" correctly (according to both my argument and the dictionary definition provided by you), and you are using it incorrectly, giving it a rather novel sense.

  11. Re:Huh? on British Columbia To Charge Recycling Fee · · Score: 1

    If the government is providing something for "no charge" then they probably already charged you for it through your taxes. Just because you didn't explicitly pay for it that doesn't mean that you got it for free.

    Did you miss the entire discussion? I went into some detail about how not paying for something you receive means you've got it for free.

  12. Re:Huh? on British Columbia To Charge Recycling Fee · · Score: 1, Insightful

    It's called Michael Moore logic. If the government provides it, it's by definition "free".

    No, you right-wing retard, it is called common sense. If the government or anyone else provides it for no charge, it is by definition free. Mentioning that a good or service is free to the person receiving it does not imply that the good or service materialised out of thin air or is not paid for at some other point along the chain.

    If you stop me in the street and ask me for directions, and I help you out without asking for a fee in return, I am giving you a free service. It is irrelevant that you as a consumer or a taxpayer are part of a system that has, for example, provided us with streets to talk about, or which has provided me with healthcare to be able to be there. It is also free even if I decide I will only grant these requests if other people have similarly helped me out.

    If walk into a hospital and am treated without being asked for money, then this is free of charge for me, even though the doctors are paid, and even though I am part of the system that funds all such public benefits.

    Now, if I tell you that I'll give you directions "for free" if you let me sell you the newspaper I'm holding, then I am bundling together two products so tightly that it is dishonest to call either of them "free". This is common (dishonest) practice in marketing, but not what we are talking about here.

    All of this is elementary, and should only need to be explained to people learning English as a foreign language, and needing to know how what "free of charge" means. It is sad that some wankers deliberately abuse language either to sell products or to work against essential services being provided to the people.

  13. Re:You're not getting it. It is the same thing on Dearly Departed — Companies and Products That Didn't Make It · · Score: 1

    Read my posts. I did not claim that.

    Then why say "That is exactly what I had in mind" when I said that the original poster (which was arguably you or fyrewulff) probably didn't have in mind the idea that "sorcerer's stone" is simply American English for "philosopher's stone"? If you don't actually believe that, why are you even responding to me? I am only contradicting brunes69 and fyrewulff, who seem to be making that doubtful claim.

  14. Re:You're not getting it. It is the same thing on Dearly Departed — Companies and Products That Didn't Make It · · Score: 1

    What?? Are you or are you not claiming that Yanks say "sorcerer's" instead of "philosopher's"?

  15. Re:A new low for Slashdot on Wikipedia Infiltrated by Intelligence Agents? · · Score: 1

    This story is demented and broken on so many levels, it is quite difficult to know where to begin, even. Translation: you can't think of anything wrong with this story.

    Here we have an excellent Wikipedia administrator By your insane criteria, yes. You have a record of supporting liars and bigots at a high level on Wikipedia.

    Slashdot, you have been trolled. I'll take that as an admission.
  16. Re:You're not getting it. It is the same thing on Dearly Departed — Companies and Products That Didn't Make It · · Score: 1

    You're claiming that Americans call the philosopher's stone "the sorcerer's stone", despite the latter being a weird neologism. If true, this would be ignorance of the correct name on the part of Americans.

    I don't actually believe you anyway. I believe that educated Americans call it "the philosopher's stone", and that ignorant ones have no knowledge of it by any name.

  17. Re:You're not getting it. It is the same thing on Dearly Departed — Companies and Products That Didn't Make It · · Score: 1

    Wow. He must have been psychic to guess that from what you wrote.

    Back in the real world, the ancient alchemists' concept is called the "philosopher's stone", lapis philosophorum. I don't actually believe that many Americans are so ignorant of this as to use a neologism for it as you claim; but, if they were, it would show that the book actually did need dumbing down so that they could understand it.

  18. Re:You're not getting it. It is the same thing on Dearly Departed — Companies and Products That Didn't Make It · · Score: 2, Interesting

    What the OP is referring to is that the Sorcerer's Stone and the Philosopher's Stone are different names for the same thing, neither of which have anything to do with Harry Potter.

    Now that's a novel argument! I doubt very much that the OP had it in mind.

    Your Google link just shows that websites use the term. An awful lot of them are about Harry Potter, even though you excluded the word "Potter". Many thousands of them don't actually have the two words next to each other. Others are about various magical rocks. A small number curiously use the term to refer to the alchemists' goal. These mostly seem to be references to a book by some fool called Dennis William Hauck. As far as I can see, none of them are historical references to the ancestor of chemistry, but are instead the ramblings of idiots who actually dabble in "alchemy" today on the Internet, in much the same way as will find "druids", "witches" and "Wiccans". I would not expect these black-fingernailed, black-haired, pasty-faced, pierced-tongued adolescents to get the name right.

  19. Re:quick summary on Dearly Departed — Companies and Products That Didn't Make It · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Yes. Which is why I hate it when people think the name was "dumbed down" or whatever. It's just a cultural difference; different names for the same thing. If it had been kept as the original name people wouldn't have gotten the reference.

    That's such a weak defence. Yes, it's a cultural difference: culture v lack of culture, or broad culture v dumb pop culture. If a book called Elementary Astrophysics is renamed New-fangled book-learnin' all 'bout star-gazin', 101 for a given market, you have to ask whether the intended audience is a bit backward, and not make excuses about "cultural differences". This is on a par.

    The only sensible defence is to say that ordinary Americans are quite sophisticated, but the publishers and film studios make patronising decisions for them, due to pre-conceived ideas. I'll listen to that, because it's plausible and I want to believe it.

  20. Re:Genetics IS a form of memory. on Computer Program Learns Baby Talk in Any Language · · Score: 2, Insightful

    PurpleBob accused you of the wrong fallacy. It was not ad hominem but straw man. The AC said that "Languages are not part of our DNA". Note the plural on "languages", which makes it clear that individual systems of encoding (e.g. English, French, Hindi) were the topic, rather than language as a capability, otherwise known as "speech". Your rhetorical question unfairly accused him of not understanding that humans have innate linguistic ability.

    The problem stems from the fact that your mention of children's "genes" (inherited from their parents) picking up on their parents' phonemes made it sound as though you thought that phonemes were inheritable. You almost certainly don't believe anything so silly, and merely worded the sentence a tad clumsily.

  21. Re:It's not exactly mysterious. on Mitochondria and the Prevention of Death · · Score: 1

    LOL! [...] inane proselytizing and shove it up their collective asses. [...]

    Sorry, I don't respond to pure trolling.

    "Justify kills"? "Justify kills"????

    Yes, the 1000 people murdered in Afecks's analogy. Do try to keep up.

  22. Re:It's not exactly mysterious. on Mitochondria and the Prevention of Death · · Score: 1

    No dumbfuck.

    Yes, vulgarian.

    You don't "contribute" to someones death when you run them over with a fucking combine harvester.

    Yes, you obviously do. Although since the contribution is 100% it would be far more natural English to say simply that you've "caused" someone's death. Also, we were not talking about killing with farming equipment, but about financially contributing to the likelihood of this happening. You need to re-read the definitions of the words in question and then apologise to me.

    The fact you are arguing over definitions shows how pathetic you really are. Do you think if you can somehow convince yourself that you have better grammatical skills, that makes you "right"?

    You're the one going on about it. I just made a brief correction and returned to the main point. I understood that if I spent too much time berating you for your foolish error I would be indulging in a logically fallacious argument.

    You're trying to convince me that killing 1 animal is somehow morally ok since you aren't killing a thousand animals. For that silly charge to stand up, you'll have to quote me saying that killing one animal is OK. You'll only find me saying that is preferable to killing a thousand. The same applies to humans.

    This has nothing to do with changing the position of meat eaters and how they are judged. I've already explained I'm not making any claims about being an omnivore. I'm not saying it's better

    No, it would be difficult to say that. But as I noted; by not noting your position in that analogy, you made it look like you were an impartial observer with zero kills. This made the analogy misleading.

    We are talking about vegetarians and it's a fact that vegetarians cause the deaths of many animals.

    And they tread on daisies, and they don't give 100% of their money to the poor, etc, etc. Apart from one over-concise slogan which is not even used by all vegetarians, you have made no argument for saying that vegetarians think it is necessary or possible to live doing zero harm to the universe.

    You are murder[er]s plain and simple.

    Nope, we are people who (in one particular way) try minimise the harm we do. We are in the same boat as people who insulate their homes properly, avoid dropping litter in the street, pick up their dogs' poo, give to charity, or hold doors open after them when someone else is right behind.

    Again, I don't need to justify it because I don't think it's morally wrong.

    That's circular. To justify something is to say that on balance it is not unethical.

    You're the one that claims killing animals is murder

    Again, you'll have to quote me saying that.

    yet you still cause the deaths of animals on a daily basis. Which makes us worse?

    Every single individual inevitably causes or contributes to all manner of harm. Those that do a greater amount of harm recklessly are "worse" than those who do a lesser amount of harm accidentally.

  23. Re:It's not exactly mysterious. on Mitochondria and the Prevention of Death · · Score: 1

    Which is exactly what's happening. He wrote a snarky paragraph to own a troll, and you're treating it like a thesis.

    Translation: he wrote something badly thought out, and I replied with something well thought out.

    That reflects well on me, not badly.

  24. Re:It's not exactly mysterious. on Mitochondria and the Prevention of Death · · Score: 1

    Who said I needed to justify it? You? I made the argument that the fact that we're talking about food is no reason to require less justification for the behaviour.

    Who in the world am I "impacting" when I eat an animal? You've completely lost me on this.

    I'll leave the impact on humans and other animals as a research exercise for you.

    It's perfectly clear from this discussion that you hold the life of what I call "food" as nearly as important as a human being's.

    Only if you don't read my contributions.

    You think it's just obvious that we should leave as little "mark" on the ecology as possible.

    Yes, I suppose so. But I am more concerned with suffering.

    I think it's just as obvious that all this "stuff" was put here for our explicit use as raw materials for any manner of things, not even just food.

    That would tend to mark you as a religious nut. I don't know why you're admitting this.

    In a overly broad stroke...

    It is indeed overly broad and totally irrelevant. The may be a statistical correlation between concern for non-human animals and other progressive positions, but no direct link that you can make a serious general argument about.

  25. Re:Trust me... on Mitochondria and the Prevention of Death · · Score: 0

    Trust me, the man hunting a few game birds and deer will do less harm to the environment over the course of 80 years than Al Gore making one private jet trip to criticize us all for not doing enough on global warming.

    No, I will not and should not trust you. You have to make an actual argument for that. And it will be difficult, because while the hunter does direct and obvious harm to his prey, Al Gore (who is largely irrelevant here, but I'll reply to humour you) actually does good in terms of PR which by far outweighs the obvious harm done by his transport.

    It's very easy to criticize when you came from an upper middle class family, and now work mainly to pay your iphone bill and then tell people how like to live simply. No doubt, but totally irrelevant both logically (it is argumentum ad hominem) and factually (I personally am not upper middle class, and the majority of the world's vegetarians are in India, a third-world country).

    It's posturing, So say you without evidence or argument.

    sort of like how a sizable chunk of college freshman girls pretend their a lesbian for about 3 months to prove they're really rebels and to somehow prove to their parents that they're rebels (all the while living off their largess). And that's a largely irrelevant comparison. I too could compare you with a number of comically absurd groups with which you have no real similarity.