Most of the comments I've read are in the context of using cheques to pay for retail purchases. Yeah, that's bad.

I don't use cheques to pay for anything, except one item: my rent. Cheques actually solve that problem pretty well.

See, my landlord (essentially just a guy I live with) doesn't have the infrastructure set up for electronic money transfer, nor should he. So I can't pay by debit, and it would strain my withdrawal limit to hand him $425 cash every month. What to do then?

I can just leave a cheque on the fridge, and he can cash it whenever. Debit and credit are suited to retail (cashier and customer are together, money needs to be transferred now) but cheques are well suited to money transfers where both parties aren't at the same place at the same time.

Chromium? A year from now, when I do an apt-get expecting to download a Raptor-style shooter, I'll be downloading a browser instead. Why didn't they pick a name which wasn't already taken?

Wow. I hope my Facebook girlfriend doesn't find out about my MySpace girlfriend.

That video link doesn't work outside of the United States. Do you have another?

I am aware that the statement was preceded by the. None the less, the statement still reads as ambiguous with article or without. One can only draw the correct meaning from the statement if you already know "antimatter" and "positrons" aren't equivalent terms.

As press releases are supposed to be written for audiences who lack a scientific background (and aren't as picky with grammar as either of us) it's still a journalism fail. A better way to write the sentence would have been "Positrons, a type of antimatter..."

I never took particle, so I can't go into the same depth as some of my friends could. But basically, there's this whole zoo of particles most of which you've heard of. Electrons, protons, etc. Most* of these particles have a corresponding antiparticle. The proton has the antiproton. The neutron has the antineutron. And the electron has the positron. If it helps, you can think of it as the "mirror universe" of the particle zoo -- the antiproton is a proton with an evil streak and a goatee.

Matter is made up of protons, neutrons, and electrons, among other things. By the same token, antimatter is made up of antiprotons, antineutrons, and positrons. The statement "Anti-matter, also known as positrons..." is as ridiculous as the statement "Matter, also known as electrons...". It's either a scientific or grammatical error, and I can't figure out which would bother me more.

Anyway, I hope that helps.

* AFAIK, bosons don't have antiparticle equivalents, only fermions do. But unless you're a physicist or really interested in the subject, don't worry about the distinction between bosons and fermions. I won't help you get laid, that's for sure.

You didn't detect the sarcasm in the GP post. I guess your Ultron is broken. (Or, for another hint, you could have read the sig.)

The anti-matter, also known as positrons...

*Sigh*

I guess the PR agent who wrote the story didn't even read the Wikipedia page on antimatter. Either that, or he/she just isn't a good writer -- that statement implies that all positrons are anti-matter and all anti-matter is positrons. Only the first statement is true.

Each duck was imprinted with an email address and, in three languages, the offer of a reward.

"This duck was lost by a Nigerian prince. Email this address to claim your reward."

The best way to fight a derogatory term is to take it back. A group trying to run away from a word with negative connotations is simply running on a treadmill, each new euphemism becoming an insult in a few years. (e.g. Retarded -> Mentally Disabled -> Differently Abled etc.)