I continue to find the Windows 7 ads to be stupid. Microsoft bragging about something they should have had in NT4.

My idea was an extension of the function keys to include a 'FU' key. However, now that I think about it Windows 7 is just one big "F U" key.

There are many species without a Y chromosome. Guppies (the aquarium fish) for example. The diff between female and male guppies is X X vs. X null.

Humans are headed in this direction, slowly, because the human Y chromosome is non-recombinant and does not repair itself when errors or mutations occur. Whether that means males are defective or just more efficient is still up for debate.

Of course, it always helps to get a receipt for L hours of labor valued at $K per hour.

I know a lot of geeks who are in the habit of tithing to their church and/or other charitable organizations. Given that these geeks each earn upwards of US$50K they're each recirculating upwards of US$5K.

To be clear... to 'tithe' means that you contribute 10% of your pre-tax, pre-deductions gross to whatever feeds you spiritually. To say that one 'tithes' 5% is a misnomer because the term 'tithe' indicates 10% by definition.

Of course not! I speak American... or, at least that's how I spell.

I'd be shouting Boycott the BBC! except then I'd have only the PBS News Hour for anything resembling news I can use..

Except in the Roman legal system in which he was tried before Pilate. I've seen facsimile copies of the documentation. While the Romans are frequently cast as the bad guys in this story they were obsessive records keepers.

Whether you buy into the Christian system or not, the man around whom the story is built did exist.

The records of his appearance before Pilate exist. Records of his appearance before Chiafas are a bit sketchier (if they exist at all) as a result of later events.

The point is that the shepherds would not be "watching their flocks by night" in winter. That particular line indicates spring - when lambs are being born.

Pooh flies like... a little black rain cloud.

Actually, he has it right. Our modern, western notion of a calendar is marred by the fact that the Romans had no concept of zero until the conquest of Spain and the ensuing interaction with the moorish people who lived there. Thus, we start counting dates with 1, not zero. Therefore, the '60's is the decade beginning immediately after the end of year xx60 but a person "in their 60's" has completed 59 years of life and not 10 more.

In our Christian era calendars you do not find a year zero. To our modern, mathematically educated minds that would have been the year before Jesus of Nazareth was 12 months old.

Of course, our calendars, while allegedly based on the birth date of this man Jesus, are flawed by many other issues. Among these are:

1) We don't actually have agreement about the precise year of Jesus' birth.
2) The 25-December customary date is a fabrication. Jesus was most likely born in the spring based on accounts of what was happening at the time.
3) Our calendar system has been changed a few times over the past two millennia.

Is an asteroid the opposite/absence of a steroid?

All I know is I found this nifty chain and when I pull on it I hear a loud noise.

I hope this isn't getting you worked up because I'm having fun pulling on this chain.

Absolutely.

Given the verb: to be, to run, to go, to accept, etc. a 'split infinitive' is an instance in which a word or phrase (usually adverbial in nature) comes between the marker 'to' and the bare verb form ('accept' in this case).

Your usage was equivalent to: "to [something] accept."

You have split the infinitive ('to accept') with the adverb ('generally').

While this is more a style error than an all out grammatical error it is reasonably simple to avoid.

The split infinitive has been creeping into popular usage and acceptance since the early 19th century (c.e.).

Yes, "practice" is a noun. However, "Accepted" is the past tense form of a verb and for the "generally" modifier to be applied correctly it must follow the verb.

The grammar wanker has spoken.

All true. However, it was the original Noah Webster to whom I referred.

In Star Trek terminology... "to boldly go..."

You've placed the verb modifier before the verb.

A more structurally pure format might have been... "One practice which is accepted generally is to ..."

And, yes, I AM a pretentious wanker.