Speaking as a member of that belief system, I was amused.
But the knee-jerk anti-religion ideology (different entirely from thoughtful critique or reasonable skepticism) that is common in these parts does get old. For some reason, conversations about religion tend to make their participants (supporters and critics alike) particularly closed-minded.
JA
Re:Does it matter?
on
SCO Vs. Groklaw
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· Score: 0, Offtopic
GospelHead, thanks for pointing that out. Though, the point stands: too many people invoking the name fail to live up to his message. --JA
Don't confuse religion with weakmindedness. Were religion suddenly to disappear from the United States, the same weak-minded people would vote based on some other perceived authority. Conversely, very bright, moral, and activist people throughout history and today find strength and direction in their theology. At least you can hold religious people accountable for their claimed beliefs, and point out hypocrisy where it exists.
Religion needs reform, as it always does. Our government needs reform, as it always does. We need to fight ignorance and hold our fellow man accountable, maybe more today than always.
The religious beliefs of communities in which I've lived over the last decade lead their membership to aggressive criticism of these government policies, often to the point of open activism. The reason why you don't see religious organizations openly assailing the government secrecy policies in this case is because a) it's outside their area of expertise, and b) they're busy assailing the government policies on torture, ignoring or distorting environmental concerns, and silence on genocide which actually occurring *right now*. Oddly, these are perceived to be higher priorities.
(I'll do us all the favor of not responding to the ID jab, which is blessedly off-topic.)
A second on LibraryThing. Having written some custom bibliographic software for myself before, I'm with Homer Simpson on this one: "Let somebody else do it."
I attended Eastern Nazarene College, which offered a Templeton Foundation sponsored course on Issues in Science and Religion. For those interesting in the topic, I recommend the works of (The Reverend, Sir, Doctor) John Polkinghorne (here's an interview), a respected Quantum Physicist, and Anglican Priest, and a Knight of the Realm. Particularly for the Christians out there, Faith of a Physicist is a fantistic work, as is Reason and Reality. Both books deal with science and religion from a standpoint of respect, and most impressive is Polkinghorne's discussion of faiths other than Christianity, often handled badly by members of the church.
He also has (yet another) book on the Quantum World for laypeople.
A 56 git key? In the face of gigabits of known cleartext and cyphertext? WHATEVER algorithm they choose has got to fall apart (i.e., spout 56 keys like Mount Vesuvius) the moment an experienced cryptographer gets their hands on this, no?
- Holding sheets of paper together - Shorting the solenoid on the doorlocks on my van when I lose the keys (er, careful...)
I'll be damned if I'm going to let some inane animated happy-go-lucky screen widget tell me how to do something in office. Honestly, have you ever tried to actually _use_ a wizard in Office? One of the most dain bramaged elements of the whole thing, IMHO.
Part of the problem is the airy definition of "Knowledge Worker." Most of my waking hours seem to be spent doing something related to gaining or eexchanging knowledge. Which of that is personal time and which is in support of my employer is an area ridden with subjectivity.
I'm a knowledge worker essentially for the government, which asks that I know enough about everything to be one of those government interchangable parts. This means that the border between sitting at work, producing piles of postprocessed tree and sitting at home, intellectually digesting same is very, very blurred.
While I am salaried, we're required by law to report "true hours worked" on our timecards. The auditors take it very seriously if you don't report properly. Hence, the government is very aware that they're getting 70 hours/week out of my paid 37.5 hour position. I get a raise every year for my efforts.
When's someone going to come up with a pointing device that figures out where my eyes are pointing? A pair of specs with clever lasers ought to be able to pull this off relatively easily, right?
My Canon Elan IIe camera can shift between three focus points and a shutter test based on my focus within the viewframe. Why can't my PC do the same?
Slashdot Mirror
Speaking as a member of that belief system, I was amused.
But the knee-jerk anti-religion ideology (different entirely from thoughtful critique or reasonable skepticism) that is common in these parts does get old. For some reason, conversations about religion tend to make their participants (supporters and critics alike) particularly closed-minded.
JA
GospelHead, thanks for pointing that out. Though, the point stands: too many people invoking the name fail to live up to his message. --JA
Don't confuse religion with weakmindedness. Were religion suddenly to disappear from the United States, the same weak-minded people would vote based on some other perceived authority. Conversely, very bright, moral, and activist people throughout history and today find strength and direction in their theology. At least you can hold religious people accountable for their claimed beliefs, and point out hypocrisy where it exists.
Religion needs reform, as it always does. Our government needs reform, as it always does. We need to fight ignorance and hold our fellow man accountable, maybe more today than always.
The religious beliefs of communities in which I've lived over the last decade lead their membership to aggressive criticism of these government policies, often to the point of open activism. The reason why you don't see religious organizations openly assailing the government secrecy policies in this case is because a) it's outside their area of expertise, and b) they're busy assailing the government policies on torture, ignoring or distorting environmental concerns, and silence on genocide which actually occurring *right now*. Oddly, these are perceived to be higher priorities.
(I'll do us all the favor of not responding to the ID jab, which is blessedly off-topic.)
A second on LibraryThing. Having written some custom bibliographic software for myself before, I'm with Homer Simpson on this one: "Let somebody else do it."
JA
I attended Eastern Nazarene College, which offered a Templeton Foundation sponsored course on Issues in Science and Religion. For those interesting in the topic, I recommend the works of (The Reverend, Sir, Doctor) John Polkinghorne (here's an interview), a respected Quantum Physicist, and Anglican Priest, and a Knight of the Realm. Particularly for the Christians out there, Faith of a Physicist is a fantistic work, as is Reason and Reality. Both books deal with science and religion from a standpoint of respect, and most impressive is Polkinghorne's discussion of faiths other than Christianity, often handled badly by members of the church.
He also has (yet another) book on the Quantum World for laypeople.
Last but not least, I must mention the definitive work on the topic, John Hedley Brooke's S cience and Religion: Some Historical Perspectives a scholarly text with some serious historical meat.
JA (ps... forgot to plug Worlds Apart: The Unholy War between Religion and Science, written by Dr. Karl Giberson. He'd kill me if I didn't mention his book here. )
---
A 56 git key? In the face of gigabits of known cleartext and cyphertext? WHATEVER algorithm they choose has got to fall apart (i.e., spout 56 keys like Mount Vesuvius) the moment an experienced cryptographer gets their hands on this, no?
JA
Paperclips are for two things:
- Holding sheets of paper together
- Shorting the solenoid on the doorlocks on my van when I lose the keys (er, careful...)
I'll be damned if I'm going to let some inane animated happy-go-lucky screen widget tell me how to do something in office. Honestly, have you ever tried to actually _use_ a wizard in Office? One of the most dain bramaged elements of the whole thing, IMHO.
Part of the problem is the airy definition of "Knowledge Worker." Most of my waking hours seem to be spent doing something related to gaining or eexchanging knowledge. Which of that is personal time and which is in support of my employer is an area ridden with subjectivity.
I'm a knowledge worker essentially for the government, which asks that I know enough about everything to be one of those government interchangable parts. This means that the border between sitting at work, producing piles of postprocessed tree and sitting at home, intellectually digesting same is very, very blurred.
While I am salaried, we're required by law to report "true hours worked" on our timecards. The auditors take it very seriously if you don't report properly. Hence, the government is very aware that they're getting 70 hours/week out of my paid 37.5 hour position. I get a raise every year for my efforts.
When's someone going to come up with a pointing device that figures out where my eyes are pointing? A pair of specs with clever lasers ought to be able to pull this off relatively easily, right?
My Canon Elan IIe camera can shift between three focus points and a shutter test based on my focus within the viewframe. Why can't my PC do the same?
JA