4.1 and 4.10 are not the same thing, as the period in a software version is not a decimal point. Do you think US Thanksgiving falls on 0.5 this year (since 11/22 is 0.5)? For that matter, how do you explain version 4.1.1? That's not even number!

If you can comprehend dates that use slashes and not divide them out, or subtract ISO style dates (2012-11-22: US Thanksgiving falls on 1979 this year!), then what is the problem with periods as a separator for versions?

IP addresses and ISBN numbers in books must drive you bug nuts. And I imagine you have problems with entering telephone numbers, since your slavish devotion to "all numbers are math" would cause you to multiply the area code by the exchange minus the subscriber code: (202) 456-1414 goes into your contacts as 95258.

Or are you just being as silly as these examples?

Ooo! Ooo! Now do the same for TiVo! And ChromeOS!

And explain how they can have the resources to be releasing for multiple, radically different versions of Linux, just studiously avoiding the desktop. Which is as insecure as the Windows or OSX desktop when it comes to DRM hacks.

(Note that I'm not calling you or your post out specifically, just commenting that they are actually releasing quite a bit for Linux, just with one very notable gap).

You don't. This is an allegation that he was presenting facts not in evidence in private jury deliberations.

I tend to prefer the Bad Seeds, but Grinderman was great.

Okay, so you'd do things differently. I just hope you're not the one taking off with somebody's lost phone. I doubt most people could jump through your hoops with an associate lying about where their phone is rather than (what is usually the case) just go by the bar where they left it and pick it up.

I certainly might. In which case I'd chuck the phone into the bar's lost and found box and leave. I would not take something that had been found at the bar, that I knew was not mine, and that I knew somebody was really trying to get back, with me to my other job and have somebody lie about where I -- and their phone that I had taken with me -- was.

You would?

Either you are not well educated, or you have an odd gap in your knowledge. If you can name a handful of Hellenistic philosophers, know what Avogadro's number relates to, can calculate the circumference of a half circle, and know why the year 1066 is important, you are reasonably educated for a member of today's society, and certainly should have encountered the long S before, so it is merely a mysterious gap in your background. If not, you are certainly educated enough to communicate via the written word, but you probably shouldn't refer to yourself with the qualifier well educated. If you can do things along the lines of reciting the opening lines of Beowulf in the original Old English, give the real name of Currer Bell and her sisters, and can tell a joke involving two different languages and a comparison of Meiji era zaibatsu to the static nature of Roman praenomina, then you are certainly well educated.

If you look around you and respond simply, "Nobody can do those things", it is a statement on your affiliations, not the level of attainable education. I am not trying to denigrate you in any way, but rather to gently present the possibility that you are overconfident about your level of general knowledge.

Of course these questions are generalized and presume you answer them without doing research. Otherwise you are merely educated in the use of research tools, not actually educated.

Seriously? If it were your normal phone with photos of your family, and the person who found it took off -- with your phone, that you owned, would that be considered reasonable?

Forget everything about it being "unreleased". That is moot as hell. There's no provision of ethics that an object being "really really cool" gives you a different standard when it comes to returning lost property.

With not much enthusiasm, I simply note that two decades ago I couldn't run anywhere near the phenomenal library of free and Free software that I do today. Three decades ago, I was closer to being able to, so there was a very serious period of "you must license your software and only companies can own or alter it". I don't have much enthusiasm because it's a pretty non-notable fact these days. If you're coding something new, you first look for libraries or code that does much of what you need, and then use them for free. That's not surprising to say. Two decades ago, it would be.

So the FSF pretty much won (as did the many many non-FSF coders who contributed). Maybe not in terms of global dominance, but in real terms of "I can use my system and do what I want because I have rights to the software and can alter it at whim". This state of things was not a certain outcome. Now it is simply part of the IT world we take for granted.

JetBrains IDEs allow you to do that... I can't imagine that most don't have context rules for adding blank lines.

I always mean what I say and say what I mean.

Hunh. Growing up on an island, I was taught that seagrass and other such seaweeds were distinct from sargassum and other such algae categorized seaweed. I didn't know the term algae was not related to taxonomy. Still seems off...

Heh. I was looking for an SCA link (as that's where I had run into the info), but could only find an RTF. Then I checked Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laver_(seaweed)

Incidentally, the RTF is here, although it's not a great resource: http://www.florilegium.org/files/PLANTS/seaweed-msg.rtf

Actually, laver is algae, and it's popular in Welsh cooking (well, common; traditional foods are seldom "popular"). Seriously. It's common in traditional dishes around the Irish sea. It's related to nori and several other similar algae foods.

You are absolutely correct. If this were a scientific study, then it would be useless. However, this is an informal discussion, and anecdotes and relating personal stories and positions are part of the point.

Unless... oh, dear Bob... you're not trying to base business decisions on Slashdot discussions, are you?