You missed the original post. Even if you somehow (magically) motivate 50% of your workforce to accost every person who tailgates on them, you still won't stop an intruder. It will only take the intruder, on average, two attempts to get in.
Yes. There are a few people at every company who do things like that. If an intruder is trying to get in to your building, and gets stopped by one someone like you, all he has to do is say "oh, must have left my badge in my car." Then he walks to the parking lot and back, and follows the next person through the door.
With all your extra effort and "rude" behavior, you still haven't made your company more secure. You're just peeing in the ocean.
Teaching employees to police each other at the door does NOT help security. It does not work. All the awareness training in the world is wasted money because "politeness" is built in to our culture.
If I'm walking out the door, and someone coming in catches the door after I walk out, am I going to stop, turn around, go back in the building, stop the person on the way to the stairs, force him to follow me back to the badge reader, and wait to make sure his badge is accepted by the reader? No.
It will never happen.
Even if your security awareness training is so successful that 50% of your employees do this, an intruder only has to try twice to get in. You gain nothing.
Employee-enforced physical security is a farce. You will ONLY have real physical security if you have a dedicated security guard who checks every badge and photo-ID for every person entering the building.
I once dated a smoking-hot (female) engineering student. I was totally psyched, because I thought an engineering student would make a much better date the the vapid and witless masses in the communication and humanities majors*.
Well, I learned that knowing calculus and physics doesn't always make you smart. After a few too many drinks one night, she opened up to me. She told me about the "proven scientific evidence" that recently demonstrated that the dinosaurs went extinct in "Noah's flood." I was dumbfounded and had no idea how to respond.
That was the last time I asked her out. Oh well. She was so hot! But even I have standards.
* Don't kill me. Not all of you are dumb. Just the vast majority (including all those I dated).
Well, if my friend is particularly hip, I could buy Linden Dollars in SecondLife, then we could both log in to the game, and we could transfer them in virtual reality... That's the polar opposite of "quaint":-)
I don't usually give my friends cash. If I want to buy them a drink, I just put it on my tab. If I want to give them money, I write them a check (or use my bank's web site to send them a check).
There are some mom-and-pop restaurants that are cash-only or have $10 minimums for credit cards. Those are rare. I avoid them. The only time I carry cash is if I am going to a bar/club with a cover charge.
When I am out-and-about I usually only take a credit card and a driver's license. It's all I need. And it doesn't leave a lump in my pocket.
I use a credit card for all of those things. Your unsubstantiated claim that cash is best for low-value transactions is absurd! I much prefer swiping my card to counting and keeping track of change. It is faster, easier, less prone to error... it beats cash in EVERY way. Why on earth would you prefer to wait for them to open the register and count change when you buy coffee? Nothing is gained. Time is wasted.
Have you ever been to a bar? You don't swipe your card for every drink. You hand them your card when you get your first drink and say "leave it open."
As a kid in the 80s, I learned all sorts of fun non-fact in science class. I learned when I grow up, I will live on a land-fill unless I stop throwing things away and recycle EVERYTHING. I learned that as an adult, I would have to wear sunblock all day long or else I would die of cancer because the ozone would be completely gone. I learned some stupid social darwinism/organism-based model for evolution which was quite wrong in light of selfish-gene theory.
As an adult, I learned that predictions which assume current trends never change are almost always wrong, and should not be taught to children. I also learned that K-12 science teachers don't really know or care enough about science to have a right teaching it.
To be fair, a person who divides his education between multiple subjects will not be as skilled in any particular subject as a person who concentrates on one subject at the expense of others.
And solving cross-disciplinary problems can be called a discipline of its own, and is just as drone-like. There is certainly room in our economy for both highly-specialized workers and cross-disciplinary workers.
I say, keep consuming, guys. I'm living on the cheap and buying American companies so that I can retire in my 30's and live off the profits of you people consuming. If we all invested for the long term and wasted less money, my investments wouldn't be so profitable...
There was a time that it was safe to assume that people at least had built a treehouse or some such and had a clue about basic woodworking techniques. Apparently that time is now past.
Specialization is what makes modern economies work. It's called progress--it's a good thing.
"However with church attendance on the decline and only 7% of Christians in the UK attending church, the figure seems remarkably high."
So I'm going to say that based on your stat and this one, a significant (majority?) of people in the UK are culturally christian, but not epistemologically christian...
I thought the UK was full of science-respecting atheists. I suppose this could be true, but they certainly aren't science-understanding atheists, based on this article.
Sorry for not looking up the specific bible verse about the covenant while at work. Here are the details you wanted to know about: Genesis 17:7
"7 I will establish my covenant as an _everlasting covenant_ between me and you and your descendants after you for the generations to come, to be your God and the God of your descendants after you."
Everlasting != temporary.
I hope you don't find that laughable.
The question of whether I am convinced of the existence of the supernatural is not an issue. I was raised christian, but the more I learned about my faith, the more contradictions and absurdities I found in it. I do happen to know an awful lot about it, though. And I have brought my questions up with many clergy and scholars. They never have answers to most of them. I guess I was hoping random_internet_guy might know, but it seems you have about as much familiarity with the bible as I had right before I started to give up on it.
So it sounds like we both agree: we don't know why god commanded some (seemingly pointless to us at least) things in leviticus. You suspect he had good reasons.
Unfortunately, those commandments are part of an everlasting covenant, so as a christian, you are still held by them...
Leviticus commandments imply that god cares about what kind of clothes we wear. The "New Covenant" implies that god does not care about what kind of clothes we wear.
Either god changed his mind or we have a contradiction (meaning the bible is provable factually incorrect).
Why would a god change its mind? You seem to say "for the survival of Israel." I don't think the type of clothes has anything to do with the survival of Israel, so that can't be the reason.
Your other reason given seems to be that god wanted people to have impossible-to-live-by commandments so that jesus could forgive them for breaking those commandments. That is clearly not a rational act, so it could not be the reasoning of a rational god.
Also, if I recall, the Bible specifically says that those laws are NOT meant to be temporary... something about a covenant lasting forever... so I think you have the facts wrong on that bit.
So I still have no idea (and I would sincerely like to know) why god's opinion changed about these commandments. Either it is something rational that nobody knows about, or god is irrational, or we have a contradiction so god does not exist.
Oh. So when EVERY CHRISTIAN CHURCH teaches the "10 commandments" (which differ between churches), they are wasting their time because they don't matter?
And people think it is reasonable for a god to make large numbers of odd demands, then all of a sudden change his entire philosophy and say none of them matter? Or is the christian god believed to be whimsical and unreasonable?
You need to get yourself a dictionary. Atheism is not a doctrine on how to treat your fellow man. Whether an atheist kills or not is about as important as whether a pants-wearer kills someone. If I kill a person while wearing pants, would you say that pantsism is the reason for the murders?
So when the Bible recounts the life of Jesus, I am not supposed to take it literally. Check. The Bible is now meaningless.
Or do you mean that drgonzo59 gets to decide which parts are historical fact to be taken literally, and which parts are not facts (despite being written as if they are)?
What could be more arrogant than for you to say that your interpretation is the "right" one, and these people are all wrong? Are you the pope of American protestantism, now?
Google Apps for My Domain is pretty close to being a "web-based desktop." combine this with the fact that they purchased Jot.
Because all of the heavy processing and data storage is done on the Google end of that desktop, there is nothing that is stopping them from releasing a $250, all-solid-state appliance which consists of linux/X/firefox. But that's not going to find any buyers until a large number of people are comfortable trusting all of their data to Google, and its perpetual "beta" applications. Which won't be any time soon.
If a product manufacturer is not confident enough with a product to call it anything but beta, you shouldn't trust that product.
Slashdot Mirror
You missed the original post. Even if you somehow (magically) motivate 50% of your workforce to accost every person who tailgates on them, you still won't stop an intruder. It will only take the intruder, on average, two attempts to get in.
Yes. There are a few people at every company who do things like that. If an intruder is trying to get in to your building, and gets stopped by one someone like you, all he has to do is say "oh, must have left my badge in my car." Then he walks to the parking lot and back, and follows the next person through the door.
With all your extra effort and "rude" behavior, you still haven't made your company more secure. You're just peeing in the ocean.
Teaching employees to police each other at the door does NOT help security. It does not work. All the awareness training in the world is wasted money because "politeness" is built in to our culture.
If I'm walking out the door, and someone coming in catches the door after I walk out, am I going to stop, turn around, go back in the building, stop the person on the way to the stairs, force him to follow me back to the badge reader, and wait to make sure his badge is accepted by the reader? No.
It will never happen.
Even if your security awareness training is so successful that 50% of your employees do this, an intruder only has to try twice to get in. You gain nothing.
Employee-enforced physical security is a farce. You will ONLY have real physical security if you have a dedicated security guard who checks every badge and photo-ID for every person entering the building.
pretty much what happened. there was also the "we don't need NASA. god would protect us from a meteor strike" bit.
I once dated a smoking-hot (female) engineering student. I was totally psyched, because I thought an engineering student would make a much better date the the vapid and witless masses in the communication and humanities majors*.
Well, I learned that knowing calculus and physics doesn't always make you smart. After a few too many drinks one night, she opened up to me. She told me about the "proven scientific evidence" that recently demonstrated that the dinosaurs went extinct in "Noah's flood." I was dumbfounded and had no idea how to respond.
That was the last time I asked her out. Oh well. She was so hot! But even I have standards.
* Don't kill me. Not all of you are dumb. Just the vast majority (including all those I dated).
Well, if my friend is particularly hip, I could buy Linden Dollars in SecondLife, then we could both log in to the game, and we could transfer them in virtual reality... That's the polar opposite of "quaint" :-)
I don't usually give my friends cash. If I want to buy them a drink, I just put it on my tab. If I want to give them money, I write them a check (or use my bank's web site to send them a check).
There are some mom-and-pop restaurants that are cash-only or have $10 minimums for credit cards. Those are rare. I avoid them. The only time I carry cash is if I am going to a bar/club with a cover charge.
When I am out-and-about I usually only take a credit card and a driver's license. It's all I need. And it doesn't leave a lump in my pocket.
I use a credit card for all of those things. Your unsubstantiated claim that cash is best for low-value transactions is absurd! I much prefer swiping my card to counting and keeping track of change. It is faster, easier, less prone to error... it beats cash in EVERY way. Why on earth would you prefer to wait for them to open the register and count change when you buy coffee? Nothing is gained. Time is wasted.
Have you ever been to a bar? You don't swipe your card for every drink. You hand them your card when you get your first drink and say "leave it open."
Touche.
Preview panes are sandboxed in new versions of Outlook. I am not aware of ANY virus that can execute in the Outlook 2003 preview pane.
The author of that list is being dogmatic, not smart.
As a kid in the 80s, I learned all sorts of fun non-fact in science class. I learned when I grow up, I will live on a land-fill unless I stop throwing things away and recycle EVERYTHING. I learned that as an adult, I would have to wear sunblock all day long or else I would die of cancer because the ozone would be completely gone. I learned some stupid social darwinism/organism-based model for evolution which was quite wrong in light of selfish-gene theory.
As an adult, I learned that predictions which assume current trends never change are almost always wrong, and should not be taught to children. I also learned that K-12 science teachers don't really know or care enough about science to have a right teaching it.
An army without supplies is worthless.
You want to know how the OSX team works?
1) copy a mature open-source operating system
2) hire actual UI engineers to design and implement a sane UI
3) profit!
To be fair, a person who divides his education between multiple subjects will not be as skilled in any particular subject as a person who concentrates on one subject at the expense of others.
And solving cross-disciplinary problems can be called a discipline of its own, and is just as drone-like. There is certainly room in our economy for both highly-specialized workers and cross-disciplinary workers.
I say, keep consuming, guys. I'm living on the cheap and buying American companies so that I can retire in my 30's and live off the profits of you people consuming. If we all invested for the long term and wasted less money, my investments wouldn't be so profitable...
Specialization is what makes modern economies work. It's called progress--it's a good thing.
From the BBC:
"However with church attendance on the decline and only 7% of Christians in the UK attending church, the figure seems remarkably high."
So I'm going to say that based on your stat and this one, a significant (majority?) of people in the UK are culturally christian, but not epistemologically christian...
I thought the UK was full of science-respecting atheists. I suppose this could be true, but they certainly aren't science-understanding atheists, based on this article.
Sorry for not looking up the specific bible verse about the covenant while at work. Here are the details you wanted to know about: Genesis 17:7
"7 I will establish my covenant as an _everlasting covenant_ between me and you and your descendants after you for the generations to come, to be your God and the God of your descendants after you."
Everlasting != temporary.
I hope you don't find that laughable.
The question of whether I am convinced of the existence of the supernatural is not an issue. I was raised christian, but the more I learned about my faith, the more contradictions and absurdities I found in it. I do happen to know an awful lot about it, though. And I have brought my questions up with many clergy and scholars. They never have answers to most of them. I guess I was hoping random_internet_guy might know, but it seems you have about as much familiarity with the bible as I had right before I started to give up on it.
So it sounds like we both agree: we don't know why god commanded some (seemingly pointless to us at least) things in leviticus. You suspect he had good reasons.
Unfortunately, those commandments are part of an everlasting covenant, so as a christian, you are still held by them...
Leviticus commandments imply that god cares about what kind of clothes we wear.
The "New Covenant" implies that god does not care about what kind of clothes we wear.
Either god changed his mind or we have a contradiction (meaning the bible is provable factually incorrect).
Why would a god change its mind? You seem to say "for the survival of Israel." I don't think the type of clothes has anything to do with the survival of Israel, so that can't be the reason.
Your other reason given seems to be that god wanted people to have impossible-to-live-by commandments so that jesus could forgive them for breaking those commandments. That is clearly not a rational act, so it could not be the reasoning of a rational god.
Also, if I recall, the Bible specifically says that those laws are NOT meant to be temporary... something about a covenant lasting forever... so I think you have the facts wrong on that bit.
So I still have no idea (and I would sincerely like to know) why god's opinion changed about these commandments. Either it is something rational that nobody knows about, or god is irrational, or we have a contradiction so god does not exist.
Oh. So when EVERY CHRISTIAN CHURCH teaches the "10 commandments" (which differ between churches), they are wasting their time because they don't matter?
And people think it is reasonable for a god to make large numbers of odd demands, then all of a sudden change his entire philosophy and say none of them matter? Or is the christian god believed to be whimsical and unreasonable?
You need to get yourself a dictionary. Atheism is not a doctrine on how to treat your fellow man. Whether an atheist kills or not is about as important as whether a pants-wearer kills someone. If I kill a person while wearing pants, would you say that pantsism is the reason for the murders?
So when the Bible recounts the life of Jesus, I am not supposed to take it literally. Check. The Bible is now meaningless.
Or do you mean that drgonzo59 gets to decide which parts are historical fact to be taken literally, and which parts are not facts (despite being written as if they are)?
What could be more arrogant than for you to say that your interpretation is the "right" one, and these people are all wrong? Are you the pope of American protestantism, now?
Google Apps for My Domain is pretty close to being a "web-based desktop." combine this with the fact that they purchased Jot.
Because all of the heavy processing and data storage is done on the Google end of that desktop, there is nothing that is stopping them from releasing a $250, all-solid-state appliance which consists of linux/X/firefox. But that's not going to find any buyers until a large number of people are comfortable trusting all of their data to Google, and its perpetual "beta" applications. Which won't be any time soon.
If a product manufacturer is not confident enough with a product to call it anything but beta, you shouldn't trust that product.
Python? Everybody knows Ruby is the One True high-level language! And Perl is for godless heathens!
(you don't like redundant debates but you brought that up?)