People also like to argue it’s an acronym, but do you pronounce NASA the same as you pronounce the first letter of each word of National Aeronautics and Space Administration?

Um, yes?

I’m assuming we’re talking about the two A letters here, since nothing comes to mind about a different pronunciation of N or S in American English.

In American English - at least in my experience - the first sound in aeronautics is exactly the same as in “air,” which is also the same as in “administration.” We don’t generally say it as in “ear-onautocs.”

Also, I’m curious - has anyone ever published a study describing whether or not the difference in pronunciation differs between sectors in the computer science community? Particularly, is there a difference between normal developers and those who write in a Lisp?

Wings evolve from legs though, generally speaking. This means that a four legged dragon with wings would have conceivably evolved from a six legged creature. You can get hand-wings or arm-wings, and we’re not entirely sure but think insect wings may have also evolved from legs or some other kind of similar structure.

But pretty much you can either have wings or legs/arms. You have to trade them in. That’s why the whole angel/demon thing doesn’t work either. The traditional harpies work but they’d be furry and not feathered. I haven’t worked out the wingspan for them but you could probably come up with a reasonable guess. They’d be more bat-people than bird-people, and I suspect that their chest areas would be less generously proportioned than is typically seen in the artwork. I’m not going more into the physics of that one though.

I’m going to have to go with Team Mouse on this one. If your only reaction is to stomp a mouse running past your foot, that’s a bit of a red flag there. The mouse is not presenting a clear and present danger, it is not threatening harm to itself or others, and is actively engaged in de-escalating the situation triggered, through no fault of its own, by its mere presence.

Anon could make Police Captain some day.

Augustus Caesar also was an adopted name. I’m not into deadnaming, but he was born Gaius Octavius.

He died in August.

We definitely need better writers.

This is a pretty terrible article that takes an important issue (financial insecurity in the US) and manages to say absolutely nothing about it.

Half of Americans describe “financial freedom” as being comfortable, but not necessarily rich, and 49.3% say it refers to meeting financial obligations and having some money left over each month. About 54.2% define it as living debt-free, and 46.2% believe it means never having to worry about money.

Okay, so they don’t define “financial insecurity,” but leave the definition up to the people taking the survey? And the definitions themselves are all over the map and don’t have an objective interpretation. “Meeting financial obligations?” That just says that people want to be able to live within their means, but not how they live.

Even the bit about savings accounts is problematic. A lot of people don’t have savings accounts because most people don’t bank that way any more. In our parent’s generation (and I am speaking as someone who is 50) savings accounts were where middle class and below people kept their money because it was an interest bearing account and things like the stock market and bonds were intentionally well out of reach of the average person. I do have a savings account but I really don’t need one and its balance has absolutely no correlation to how much money I have.

The percentage of people living paycheck to paycheck, the amount of savings (in terms of monthly expenses), or having to defer things like medical treatment or car repairs are all more meaningful metrics, IMO. Even net worth inclusive and exclusive of the primary residence would be meaningful.

The fact that you would consider your counterfactual a mirror image is itself problematic.

In the case of the Foundation, it supports exactly what it purports to support. They’re like the EFF and other civil rights organizations. If you consider the EFF left wing, I think that says a bit more about where you stand.

The original article was outrage-bate blog spam, with random Capitalized Words and the prolific use of “scare quotes.” It doesn’t even say anything. No charges of misinformation. No citation of law. Just “They have a Billion Dollars!!” kinds of sentences.

On the other hand, the CEO of a company - particularly a small company - lends his personality to the company. It often makes sense to co-identify them, given that the CEO has an incredible amount of influence.

So if you are saying that libertarian software project : libertarian institutions :: conservative ideas : homophobic legislation, I guess you’re just really endorsing the position of judging the company by the politicians and politics it supports. If you see prop 8 as being as fundamental to the conservative position as internet freedom is to an organization specifically dedicated to preserving internet freedom, all I can say is that I hope more people start to see it that way.