Godwin's Law and Plazmid's Addendum

So here's a little bit of net.culture for you all, mostly because it gets
misused all the time. Some of you may have heard of Godwin's Law, or in full
"Godwin's Rule of Nazi Analogies." The rule states, rather simply, that as
an online discussion grows longer, the probability that someone will make a
comparison to Hitler or the Nazis approaches one. The Rule is a cautionary
one to discourage people from making inappropriate or hyperbolic (I'm not
sure that's right; what's the adjectival form of 'hyperbole'?) comparisons,
lest the appropriate ones lose their impact.

The rule was allegedly established in 1990 and has been corrupted over
time. When I was first introduced to it, the form was, "when a comparison
to Hitler or the Nazis occure in an online discussion, the conversation is
over." Often times Godwin's Law is
conflated with the reducio ad Hitlerum logical fallacy (which is the
fallacy you get when you argue something like Hitler was a painter, so all
painters are wrong/evil/Nazis/etc). It is notable that Godwin's Law doesn't
imply that all such comparissons are fallacious, only that the likelihood of
one becomes certain as the discussion goes on. Even a valid comparisson to
Nazis satisfies Godwin's Law.

I bring this up mostly because of a reference in the comments of a Slashdot
article on the upcoming Iron Sky move
(Nazis... in SPACE!) and the subsequent assertion of Plazmid's
Addendum: As the popularity of Godwin's Law increases, the chances of
its misapplication approaches one.

This is what lack of sleep/caffiene does to me.

My boss just came by to discuss my recent projects, and he said something
regarding "the results of your analysis." Which I heard as "the results of
uninalysis." One of the benefits of always being a bit giggly is that no
one notices when these sorts of things grab me.

Trojan found in p2p networks

So there's a Trojan that's
shown up on p2p networks posing as mp3s and mpeg movies which, when run
(played) downloads a PLAY_MP3.exe file that serves ads to the infected
comoputer. Now, if that's ALL it does then it's a pretty tame trojan, but
being on p2p this thing's probably really getting around. On the one
hand, it was only a matter of time before p2p networks got infected with
this sort of thing, and in a way I'm honestly surprised they weren't
infested with viruses years ago. On the other hand, a dark, cynical corner
of my soul wouldn't be surprised to find the RIAA behind this...