"Josephus, in particular, is an interesting source of information. He documents Jesus as a real person, and relates the story of the Resurrection."
You wrote, in part;
"No he doesn't. All but the most extremist nutters now know that Josephus's mention of Jesus was added far later by somebody else. Your failure to know something so major just demonstrates you ignorance of the subject."
Actually, most of the objective sources I've read tend to state that modern scholars agree that Josphus wrote "something" about Jesus, but that "something" is either corrupted or misinterpreted. A quick scan of Wikipedia offers credible scholars who acknowledge that Josephus wrote about Jesus.
Writing about someone who didn't exist doesn't sound like Josephus' usual method. So are you arguing that Jesus didn't actually exist, or that He wasn't who He said He was? The latter we can debate. The former is beyond dispute, and unnecessary.
But I'm falling into a trap here. You consistently and vociferously claim that my arguments are specious and without either merit or evidence. Yet as far as I can recall, you've made accusations without much, if any, evidence or reference.
Do we want to start a 'mine's bigger than yours' contest on the available evidence?
Me, not really. There were and are many who have a vested interest in refuting Jesus' claims, you for instance. You reject my defense as 'taking things very blindly'. I would say the same thing about your arguments. Eventually, it comes down to things unseen.
I suspect you tend to reject things unseen. And we're back to the same argument at the beginning - Do you know of any scientists that have 'seen' an atom? I don't refute the overwhelming evidence that they exist, don't get me wrong. But when we try to get to seeing things even more elemental than atoms, we are usually relying on theory and observations that tend to prove or disprove theories. We don't have the ability to 'see' any sort of quark. We just agree, mostly, that they do exist, given the evidence and the presumptions that make sense and are consistent with the evidence.
Our argument goes nowhere, since we have both mead up our minds.
I just realized, perhaps the most offensive component of your arguments is your obscenity. It's purposeful, so I suspect you choose your language to better express your emotion. But you're tying to make a factual argument, so the interjection of obsecenity continually distracts me.
But, rather than argue every single point, since you yourself let your arguments hinge on any number of points, I'm going to quibble over one - Herod's killing of infants, and the census.
Josephus recorded a Jewish revolt from a census around 6 BCE, and is accurately dated by astronomical events. This included the province of 'Judaea', within which is Bethlehem. While there are some problems with exact dates, much history points to Herod having a lot of problems at this time. One synopsis I lifted out a web page:
"So, since it has been proved that Augustus had taken censuses in other vassal kingdoms, and since Herod had come into the emperor's disfavor, and since Herod was having troubles in his own realm with his sons, it is more than probable that Augustus would have wanted to conduct his own census, assessing Herod's kingdom, while Herod was still alive. And this is exactly what Luke recorded"
Plenty of Biblical antagonists refute the census with their own 'evidence', usually assumptions that can no more be held as definitive than the claims they dispute. The historical record of the era leaves plenty of room for reasonable interpretation of the events, allowing for the census.
Josephus, in particular, is an interesting source of information. He documents Jesus as a real person, and relates the story of the Resurrection. And Josephus was a Jew. His story of Jesus would have to be written with a degree of scepticism, since even then the Jews largely denied the Christ.
The general accusation that the New Testament is flawed, that the authors never knew or heard Jesus, and that it has been edited and mistranslated is a common one, and deserves a reply;
Several members and leaders of churches in the 2nd and 3rd century make allusions to passages from the New Testament. Among others, three hundred and thirty allusions have been documented from Justin Martyr; 1,819 from Irenaeus; 2,406 from Clement of Alexandria; 7,258 from Tertullian; 1,378 from Hippolytus and 17,922 from Origen.
There are thousands of source documents of the Bible, both Old and New Testaments. How many relatively 'original' sources of Homer's Oddysey are known?
Many other ancient documents are considered authentic, where they were transcribed thousands of years after their original authors lived. Most of the New Testament is available to us from less than 300 years after Christ's ministry, and much of it form those who knew eyewitnesses to Jesus' life.
I don't take the Bible blindly on faith. I've read the criticisms. Both sides make sweeping assumptions. You of course will consider me naive or ignorant. I consider you reluctant, or more accurately obstinate, but it's easy for me to see your point of view. I disagree, but I'm not so threatened by your opinions as you are by mine I guess.
ps- Lest you think Christians are running America, I'll let you in on a secret.
"I'm not imagining it. You're calling me, and the people I worship with, liars."
What I'm not imagining is that you're calling me a liar. You misunderstood me. In fact, I'm suspecting you're so hung up on denouncing my statements, that you're really not reading my posts any more.
"Of course I'm not going to take some random persons word that far and away the single most momentous event in the history of the world happened. I should just blindly take it on faith, right?"
Well, don't take my word for it. I recommended a book I found credible. Have a look. And at some other sources. I'm assuming, however, that you have already decided the matter for yourself, and won't. I understand that better than you know.
"Not really. Hell, look at Shrub's lies about Iraq. He's done far more for and with those lies than wandering around the desert telling stories you made up."
What? I'm lost on that one.
"On top of that, the disciples you're talking about were characters in a fairy tale and the "Paul" who did all the preaching wasn't a disciple of Jesus, never met him in the flesh and didn't even think he'd been to earth yet. If you can't even keep your fantasy story straight, why would you expect anybody to act like you have credibility."
Well, if you don't want to accept the Bible as authoritative, then there is little about Christianity to discuss with you. But sticking to the Old Testament for a moment, this has been fairly accurately preserved for a long time. Wait. You really don't care.
"You said that god magically healed people. That is a lie, lying is a sin therefore you're a hypocrite."
Actually, I said, and say again, that I not only know personally people who have witnessed God healing people, I've witnessed it myself. You can call me a liar, fine. I'm not. And if I genuinely belive in Christ, I know full well that lying about that in particular will get me a cold reception in heaven. So you not only accuse me of lying and hypocrisy, but of an inconsistency that borders on lunacy. Just so I get it straight.
"When did he say that? Did you hear him? If not where did you hear about it? how many levels removed is the story you heard? If you're talking about the gospels, then who wrote them? Given that the answer to that is "nobody has a clue", I have far more credibility than the author since you know who I am at least by psuedonym. Provide one single scrap of evidence that there ever was such a man as Jesus let alone a god. Explain why the early Christians who obviously knew a hell of a lot more about it than you do didn't believe he was divine?"
Well, the Pauline Epistles are generally accepted to have been written by Paul, the one who persecuted the early Church, and was converted by an angelic confrontation. He lived at the same time as Jesus did, and was well aware of the stories. The Synoptic Gospels are generally thought to have been written before 100 A.D. which leaves little time for the Apostles to contribute, but some people did live to that age back then.
Bearing in mind that I pay special attention to quotations from Jesus. The other stuff, indeed, always merits careful study.
And I'm preparing an argument you won't accept. How dumb is that? There is a substantial amount of good evidence that the New Testament is trustworthy, but there are many who make it a point to demand absolute proof, which is difficult if not impossible.
To use a method you believe in, the evidence is well within the margins of uncertainty. Unless you are devoted to disproving the Bible, in which case it really is easy to make a facile or complex case against the Bible. Other historians and scholars from the time do not offer anything that contradicts most events, and even some Roman historians corroborate some events. But this discusssion is fruitless.
"The things you believe are delusional. The majority of your faith was invented far after the supposed events in question an
"And yet not one single one of these things has one single mention from any credible source."
I'm not imagining it. You're calling me, and the people I worship with, liars.
I'm not going to put up names here until they say ok. And they might.
But more to the point, you won't accept anything I post. You'll want both the reporter in person, and those healed, to give you first-person reports.
And I can accept that. I don't blame you. I was the same way for 47 years.
For me, the people I know are credible. I understand, you don't know them. Consider something else, though. Many of the Apostles, Paul in particular, preached the word of Christ to their deaths. that's a long ways to go for a lie, isn't it?
What lie would you tell to your death? Heck, what truth would you tell to your death?
Finally, how do you call me a hypocrite? What have I written that proves that? I believe, and have professed to, that Christ is who He says He is. That's all.
If you think I'm trolling, you are mistaken. Perhaps the most frustrating thing about expressing a faith in God is that many who wish to deny His existence also wish to deny me my belief. I'm not trying to deny you your faith and/or belief in the Scientific Method - I share it. Perhaps you are trolling. Or do you reject the possibility that there is both God and Science, and both are real? If so, you are somewhat limited in your views. Both can and do exist, and both are genuine. And not mutually exclusive.
Then you go and rely on the LAWS of physics. Oh darn.
If the Big Bang theory of the creation of the Universe is correct, tell me, what was before the Big Bang? At one time, many physicists accepted that this was regime where the laws of physics, as we know them, ceased to apply. So much for the LAWS of physics. For them to exist, there must be a time where they did not. This makes a mess out of Big Bang, for those who still cling to it must believe that the laws and rules that compel it did not exist when it happened. And that's ok with me.
And I'm making a poor argument here. I'm not that good at it. Perhaps someone ense with a better knowledge of physics would chime in and offer some reasonable way out of this dilemma.
But lastly, you called me out - have I seen God act? Yes, I have. I've seen people ask for His presence, and receive it, knocking them to the ground. Sometimes leaving them so weak they cannot stand by themselves. I've felt it in such a small way myself, I know that my faith needs to grow much more. Or perhaps He is not willing to indulge me and touch my body. (That's more likely, for I'm asking for a sign. I should just believe.)
I also accept the reports of the many our church has sent to Brazil, and my previous church to Mexico, where the deaf hear, the blind see, the crippled walk. I've heard the reports from people I know well, corroborated by others. Sooner or later, I have to either believe they make this stuff up and expose themselves to ridicule and embarassment, or they report the truth.
I wonder how many scientists, having seen something unexplainable in the course of their work, have stopped and thought 'that's just not right...'. I wonder how many abandoned that particular project, expecting failure. Sooner or later, Christians (and believers of other faiths, I hope) have to rationally work out a basis for continuing their faith, something other than a blind following for no other reason than they 'believe'. At some point, if I could not make sense of myh faith, I would have given it up. I'm not at all hopeful that I will change your mind in this forum, with these words. and I'm even less hopeful that you will understand that I believe for a reason, and that you should accept that I'm not a crackpot. But I'm fairly certain that you reject my statements as lunacy. You're welcome to your belief in that. You're still wrong about that one thing.
Oh, for what it's worth, you might consider picking up a copy of Lee Strobel's book, 'The Case for Christ'. At the least, you should have a factual basis for either accepting that He lived, or that He did not. Give it a try.
I'm assuming, from your response, that you have absolute, or at least substantial faith, in the Scientific Method. Fair enough.
So what is faith? Mere belief? It's only a word.
While we can clearly demonstrate the effect of gravity, and therefore its existence, we cannot, so far as I know, quantify it very well. What it is composed of, how it exerts the force it does, etc. At one time, atoms were well understood, but there sure was a time when quarks, muons, and string theory were both unknown and unanticipated.
So if the observation of gravity's effect is enough to assume and have faith in its existence (and it is, I do believe), then why is it not enough for those who believe they have seen God's effect to have faith in Him?
Or to put it simpler, use the same standard. Faith in God or faith in gravity, it's faith.
And for those who havce no clue about gravity, most bumble through life just fine having blind faith indeed that dropping a glass of milk on the floor will make a mess. They have faith that gravity will indeed compel the glass to fall until it is stopped, messily, by the floor. At least on Earth.
And indeed, you write, "model of the atom describes our experimental data to within an acceptable margin". Are you trying to tell me that the Scientific Method, in this case, is good enough because it is within an acceptable margin?
I propose that the existence of God is provable within an 'acceptable margin'. It is for me. I take it on faith that atoms exist, having never seen a good enough picture of one. I've seen God act. More than I can say for an atom.
And lest you be confused, I accept and believe in the Scientific Method. Imbeciles refute the obvious.
Just so you know, the 'best', most 'correct' way to look at it is to say 'God did it, he doesn't need to explain it to you'.
On the one hand, leaving it at 'God's will' is indeed a 'clever rhetorical device', as a lecturer one told me. On the other hand, if God is indeed who He says he is, then it is in fact the right answer, and not just a 'clever rhetorical device'.
You just have to have faith. Somehow, we believed in atoms, and were positive that electrons/protons/neutrons were the fundamental building blocks of matter and our Universe. Then we found out there were other smaller and less certain things. What happens when we find out it's turtles all the way down?
Is it coincidence that the captcha I'm filling in to post this is the word 'unseen'?
darn, but God has a sense of humor. We're more like Him than we dare believe.
Ditto. Pretty soon, we'll be posting about how applications are expected to be more like video games, with rewards, immersive environments, more and more eye candy that doesn't actually get anything done, but 'enhances the experience'... And how business is expected to make the work environment more like video games, blah blah blah.
I'm old skool. Gimme a command-line interface to update my server's spam rules anytime, rather than click 7 times. Simple is as simple does.
Somehow, when I was younger, I learned to use the library card catalog. I survived my city's conversion from another system to Dewey, a non-trivial event. This was before video games, and before personal computers. I submit that today's students should learn to work with Dewey, and use the card catalog, and deal with it.
ps- Most libraries have some electronic card catalog system. What exactly whould be more relevant to a video game-paying student? Phaser sounds when the search completes? Makes sense. Noise up the library, baby, not like any work is getting done there, huh?
Um, when did the crackers *lose* control of the Pentagon?
I was under the impression that they had it built for their purposes, have occupied it and used it for those purposes without significant interruption since construction, and with few exceptions can be considered to be in control there. Allowing for a rather broad definition of 'control'.
ps- I'm a cracker. I know whereof I speak.
pps- A really good cracker is a Chicken In A Biskit. All else is deficient. Triscuits are an acceptable substitute, and Tam Tams during certain feasts and celebrations. Tell no one about Pringles, for the supply is dangerously low. And don't get me started about Peeps. If Peeps had infested the Pentagon, the world would be a better place.
After the several comments about how vulnerable an SR-72 would be to particle beam or laser weapons (and is there a difference?), a LEO bird would seem to be a sitting duck comparatively.
What sort of LEO satellite would be more agile than an SR-71? And I'm assuming an SR-72 would be an improvement - always a questionable assumption dealing with the military. The Skunk Works will probably get it right.
ps - Sign me up to fly this puppy.
pps - This is forseeable. The X-Prize contestants have demonstrated several ways to accomplish this mission, all simplified by removing the need to carry tourists and crew. Way to go! Basic research is rarely this cheap for a spy plane!
I've relocated to Arizona, and am not interested in admin work right now unless it pays stupid $. But the resources are there. Just overprice your work by 200% and still lose money on the job. It's a lot to do. Or do it gratis for the reference.
I've done a lot of work with schools, and mostly in NetWare systems. While I saved them a bunch of $$$ over using Windows, not much is cheaper than free...
And I looked at the LTSP back in 2003 thought it was so not ready. Two systems asked me if it was something they should consider, and I told they yes, but 1)let it mature a little technically, and 2)find an advocate in the system, even *just* a teacher, who would drive the project. I knew this would cut my consulting fees dramatically, but I thought then it was inevitable.
Unfortunately, this was in Maine, and the MLTI (Apple iBooks for 7th and 8th grades) pretty much slammed the door shut on open source. Apple declared 'other' software completely unacceptable, though we got several NetWare systems talking to the Apple systems quite nicely, thank you very much. Microsoft, of course, straddled the fence. Linux systems were actively fought against by the Apple engineers, being the only true threat to their business.
I'm hoping that the LTSP catches hold. It has tremendous potential for schools, and frankly for most any application where there is a limited number of applications necessary. And maybe more than that...
As a former resident of Maine, I know the Bath Iron Works fairly well, and have family members that still work there. The Yard has a deserved reputation for delivering boats ahead of schedule and under budget, and better-built than either requested or expected. Even the Harley Burke class (Aegis) which they had to share some design work with Ingalls on, much to their detriment and consternation. It was a matter of pride at the Yard to survive the inevitable updates, changes, and interference by the Navy and other yards, and launch better and better boats. The Burkes, in particular, took long enough to build that most of the electronics went through a full generation of development. BIW developed innovative methods and used CAD (for the first time in Navy shipbuilding, believe it or not) to adapt to changes and do more with less. The newest program required them to participate in a design-off with Ingalls (and Newport News I think), and led to a 'joint' design. My former brother in law, a navy liason engineer, literally cried talking about how many compromises were endured working with other yards, and how much more money it would cost, the fights over overruns, and the shoddy engineering other yards were imposing on the process. His best quote: 'They intend to fix it in the water'. Second best quote: 'We just don't build boats in Bath with problems. We expect our boats to SERVE our sailors!'
In Bath, at least, delivering the best value and best boat is still a matter of pride to the entire operation.
And yes, I don't doubt there is waste. To bring this back on topic, I can imagine the idea that a $1400 Pringles can solution is pretty wasteful. Just consider this - put one of your Pringles cans on a styrofoam float in a fountain, and see if it still works in a breeze. With boats pitching and rolling, I'd spec a DS solution, something Breezecom used to make. I've gotten 15km out of them, and easily 5km with just Yagi antennae. For this application,an LNA for the receivers would solve it, but marine duty is harsh. Everything corrodes. Expect a working life of 6 months for connectors, and 2 years max for the black boxes. And expect the antenna to get snapped off 3-4 times a year, either striking the boat when launching/recovering, or accidentally when the boarded ship somehow gaffs it instead of reaching the sailor. "Woops, was that important?".
Actually, I was running Apache/Perl/PHP/Tomcat on NetWare 5.0. The database threw me until I stole an Advantage engine (dBaseIII). But even before that, in 4.11, I was using BorderManager to enhance my home cable modem experience before you could buy a home firewall for less than $250. And when I moved to a place where cable hadn't brought Internet, I set up PPP and autodialed a 56k connection. Letting BorderManager kill Doubleclick and other ads was fun.
Novell got quite a reputation for *not* being an 'Internet company', even though it had directories, working DNS, and other 'Internet' features before Microsoft could ship them. Oh, and the true fun of connecting Mac clients since about NW 3.1. Other stuff like iFolder got lost in the shuffle. Even NetMail gets ignored. myrealbox.com has been delivering email as a test bed for Novell for a long time. The GroupWise web client wasn't as sad as OWA. GroupWise itself is kinda nice.
Heck, I can even mount a 2GB volume on NW2.15c. NT was pus up to SP4.
Novell lost when Microsoft gave developers a consistent programming model on the client and the server. No one wanted to learn the Novell way, even though the apps I did support on NetWare were largely stable and delivered five nines day in and day out.
And NetWare is so misunderstood that my first MCSE partner pointed out that his home 2000 server had been up for 350 days, and not many NetWare servers made that claim. Yah. Most of mine were over 450 days up, and some could only manage 999 days. Before the counter overflowed. And those were production servers, not the home box that did little or nothing.
The only things potentially more reliable than those old NetWare 3x servers were AS/400s. Now there's a technology that is *obso1337*. My brother has written a web-based support system for a world-wide sales force that works in industrial plants, onboard ships, and in hostile environments with bullets flying overhead and underneath. Connects via IP, SMS, GPRS. Adapts to a cell phone, PDA, laptop, or the borrowed Windows NT workstation the salesperson happens to be near. It's all on some IBM e-Series machine, mostly written in RPG with the necessary Websphere stuff. RPG of course being dead.
And he uses NO Java. Doesn't consider it very good. He renders all his pages with PHP.
ps- I use Notes all day at work. Oh, it's imperfect. But Exchange cannot replace the database and app features of Notes, no matter. You would need SQL Server and today some genuine.NET expertise. Anyone keep score of how many Fortune 500 companies use Notes as their messaging platform? And how many changed to Exchange at what ongoing cost?
One man's obsolescense is another's jus' working.... Whew. What a rant.
Many CA standards are just more restrictive than other states', and so the CA standard becomes the de facto national standard. Fire retardant clothing might be an example, if I recall. Emissions of various products as well, though for autos the cost is so high that there are CA-only versions and the 'rest of the nation'.
But if CA did a good job here, I doubt many states would try to re-invent this.
In Maine, we had a mix of optical scan and punch ballot systems, and plenty of small towns used pencil and counted hand. Not a lot of trouble, except for the poor blighter that lost something like 26-0. Yeah, he didn't even vote for himself. Oh, and the ties. By Maine law, ties for state office are settled by coin toss. Yup. I dunno about federal seats. We had a few over the years.
Now I live in Arizona. We have this pathological aversion to even asking if voters are CITIZENS... Prop 200 makes you give at least minimal indentification, like a drivers license, or some utility bills and such. You don't even need to speak English. Of course, my Democrat friends claim there is just no voter fraud occurring, this is waste of time, insult to legal voters, bla bla bla. My Republican friends claim illegals, fraud, nobody knows, bla bla bla. Me? I got a license, even my sealed birth certificate. I just have to deal with them changing my poll location every election...
ps- Electronic voting is wrong. Don't do it. Even a paper receipt is a waste of time. Just mark your ballot, scan it, save them for a bit, and recount where ya need to. electronic voting is an invitation, no, an imperative for fraud. It will happen. Just say no. And either party will do it, if for no other reason than "the other side is ALREADY doing it!!!".
One, I see the names of the outfits acquired... KPMG, Deloitte, et al. Remember those gangs? Back when the Fortune 500 were hiring the Big Eight firms to audit the books, then hiring their investment arm to manage the IPO, and finally hiring their consulting arm to help them manage IT? And then it went from leveraged IPOs to cooked books to make the IPO irresistable, to bloated IT that would somehow glue it all together. Then came 1998, and then 2001. Crash. And the idea that having your auditors and your bankers from the same firm wasn't sound oversight. harrr.... So IBM/GS snarfed all these loser consulting firms and basically went down the same path? Gotta love it.
Two, it makes you wish for another Fat Lou, doesn't it? He knew crap when he saw it. Saved IBM. Suppose there's someone out there that can do it again?
I work with extremely sensitive data constantly, most of which, if mishandled or disclosed, would ruin any number of Fortune 50 companies. It doesn't occur to me to do so. I love my job, and besides it's wrong, and I didn't need to be told it is wrong. But I was told so. All the same, I could do it.
And no judge would accpet my argument:
"But your Honor, they didn't PREVENT me from doing it!!!"
I've had several school systems as clients. Ultimately, I told each of them that it would be likely that determined students would find ways around security. I encouraged each system to develop and apply an acceptable use policy for all computer use, not just Internet access, and to take it seriously - be prepared to exercise it and punish students.
In one system we had to ban a student from all computer use, for repeatedly altering grades. I only found out how they were doing it when I had to work late. Their guidance counselor took pity on them, seeing as they were a promising candidate for an excellent college and wanted to major in CS. So the counselor let them use their staff PC after the day was done. All I wanted to do was shut down the server for maintenance, and I had to get the janitor to open the office door and log off the one last user. We scared the heck oput of the student.
The student was charged with trespass. The counselor was dismissed at the end of the school year. I had to explain how they could get their work done without a computer. They both actually broke into the school building a week later and tried to erase all the records of the incidents.
The backups worked. Nice try.
At some point, it's not as simple as 'kids will be kids'. Even without staff aid, students should be learning that 'no' means 'NO!'. Next thing I hear, the prevailing opinion on/. will be that students shooting up the school shouldn't be held responsible, if the school 'let them' bring a gun in.
Teaching responsibility might as well begin in grade school. We need it to be taught sooner.
Maine was having trouble paying claims before the new system was running. One of my clients in 2004 was struggling to get paid when they implemented a 'new' claims system, which the CIO article either ignored or wasn't part of the reporter's viewpoint. It was supposed to be a portal to the old Honeywell system, and it flamed out.
But even more interesting, I see nothing lately about the case management system in Maine for DHS now HHS. I've moved to Phoenix. Did they every actually implement that? Or was that just another flameout? Last I heard, they spent >$10M and basically gave up and started over. While the old system was failing outright.
Kaiser sure isn't the only medical outfit that has blown a system. My hospital client in about 1998 implemented an ER case management/records system, just as HIPAA was getting going. The goal was to eliminate handwritten and illegible notes. The result? Well, the system gave the ER docs a system where they could t-y-p-e the notes in. Sweet. Best part? the original goal wasn't actually to eliminate illegible notes, but to eliminate unreadable and nonsensical notes, making the records standardized by using standard, boilerplate notes to describe patients in standard, agreed-upon language. Woops, the system let docs input free-form text as an enhancement to the standard text. Yup, docs just blew through the boilerplate and typed in whatever they used to scribble. Same drivel. Oh, and the vendor underestimated the storage space by 80%. We kept expanding the array until we ran out of slots. I left the project, and the incoming crew inherited a mess. No word, but the rumor was they threw it all out. Of course.
Where I'm at now, we're enjoying a classic J2EE development nightmare. No good requirements, bad code, long development cycle, fundamental components missing/broken, desperate push by management to get something 'out the door', no matter how bad it is. As a breath of fresh air, the 'legacy' team has an opportunity to update the old PC-based app at breakneck speed to sort of compete with this new and dysfunctional system. And my money is on the old guys. How fitting that my secret word to enter this post is 'disaster'....harrr...
Stock brokers, mortgage brokers, emergency services personnel, and others who are always in a time crunch value speed and efficiency. These workers benefit from mutliple monitors.
Programmers should, also, but for reasons previously mentioned the *real* cost of inefficiency is nil. For a stock broker, the cost of inefficiency is lost profits, or worse. Mortgage brokers live and die by deadlines, rate changes, and beating the other guy to the punch. It may or may not be honorable, but that's the business.
Contractors, of course, are just widgets. Let them struggle with whatever is available.
Google Maps is slick. I get traffic, directions and maps for locations, and not too slow. Just not intuitive enough.
SMS to googl (46645) and I get pretty good results. Especially for business phone numbers and the address to Fry's Electronics...
www.google.com is tolerable. Usually about 15 seconds to render the results.
And BerryBlogs is the cat's ass. It just plain works, RSS means never having to wait 7 minutes (yes, SEVEN minutes) for an Infoworld page to render to the point that it tells you it can't render...
But slicker yet is MIDPSSH. SSH'ing into server to run rules du jour, yum update, or just to run spam learning scripts from my BlackBerry - priceless. Especially behind the firewall. It's dog slow, but faster than skipping out to a WiFi spot, and a lot faster than waiting until I get home...
Now, I have a WAP deck on my web server just to give me some shortcuts for obvious things. And WAP is about as dumb as a blade of grass. If you can wangle CSS, you can code WAP in your sleep. Get a WAP emulator for your PC to test.
I'd like lighter-weight pages for a lot of stuff, and to have them sense my browser type and give it to me hard and fast, but I'm not hopeful. Many sites want to give me Flash. Which ain't on MY 7105T, and I don't care if it ever is.
And last but not least, some sites are using Sqweezer. Very nice, and Wired, I thank you!
Well, other than being obtuse, Novell has survived Microsoft, sort of, before.
I'm not so pessimistic about them surviving this as well.
And I still think Novell is the Rodney Dangerfield of the IT landscape. Remember when they were chastised for not getting the Internet? I'm reading that article, taking a break from learning CSS and Java on my Apache/PHP/mySQL server - NetWare 5.1. And letting BorderManager proxy my Internet, enhancing my experience by filtering out banners and other ads, and being my thoroughly competent firewall to my cable connection. When I moved past the cable, I reconfigured it to dial-on-demand into my lame dialup provider. And it needed to be rebooted every year or so unless I made major changes.
Down from the soap box for a moment, Novell might extract some value out of this relationship with Microsoft, and come out of it just fine. Thing is, Microsoft rarely does well picking on companies anywhere near their own size. And Novell is smaller, but not so small it can't get off the porch and run with the big dog.
There's that SCO/Unixware thing too. Novell could yet get more cash from Microsoft. That's a victory of sorts.
Ok, I'm a Novell cheerleader. I don't work for them, and right now don't even run any Novell software. But I made lot of money off of their stuff for a long time, and I'd do it again.
Slashdot Mirror
I wrote, in part;
"Josephus, in particular, is an interesting source of information. He documents Jesus as a real person, and relates the story of the Resurrection."
You wrote, in part;
"No he doesn't. All but the most extremist nutters now know that Josephus's mention of Jesus was added far later by somebody else. Your failure to know something so major just demonstrates you ignorance of the subject."
Actually, most of the objective sources I've read tend to state that modern scholars agree that Josphus wrote "something" about Jesus, but that "something" is either corrupted or misinterpreted. A quick scan of Wikipedia offers credible scholars who acknowledge that Josephus wrote about Jesus.
Writing about someone who didn't exist doesn't sound like Josephus' usual method. So are you arguing that Jesus didn't actually exist, or that He wasn't who He said He was? The latter we can debate. The former is beyond dispute, and unnecessary.
But I'm falling into a trap here. You consistently and vociferously claim that my arguments are specious and without either merit or evidence. Yet as far as I can recall, you've made accusations without much, if any, evidence or reference.
Do we want to start a 'mine's bigger than yours' contest on the available evidence?
Me, not really. There were and are many who have a vested interest in refuting Jesus' claims, you for instance. You reject my defense as 'taking things very blindly'. I would say the same thing about your arguments. Eventually, it comes down to things unseen.
I suspect you tend to reject things unseen. And we're back to the same argument at the beginning - Do you know of any scientists that have 'seen' an atom? I don't refute the overwhelming evidence that they exist, don't get me wrong. But when we try to get to seeing things even more elemental than atoms, we are usually relying on theory and observations that tend to prove or disprove theories. We don't have the ability to 'see' any sort of quark. We just agree, mostly, that they do exist, given the evidence and the presumptions that make sense and are consistent with the evidence.
Our argument goes nowhere, since we have both mead up our minds.
I just realized, perhaps the most offensive component of your arguments is your obscenity. It's purposeful, so I suspect you choose your language to better express your emotion. But you're tying to make a factual argument, so the interjection of obsecenity continually distracts me.
But, rather than argue every single point, since you yourself let your arguments hinge on any number of points, I'm going to quibble over one - Herod's killing of infants, and the census.
Josephus recorded a Jewish revolt from a census around 6 BCE, and is accurately dated by astronomical events. This included the province of 'Judaea', within which is Bethlehem. While there are some problems with exact dates, much history points to Herod having a lot of problems at this time. One synopsis I lifted out a web page:
"So, since it has been proved that Augustus had taken censuses in other vassal kingdoms, and since Herod had come into the emperor's disfavor, and since Herod was having troubles in his own realm with his sons, it is more than probable that Augustus would have wanted to conduct his own census, assessing Herod's kingdom, while Herod was still alive. And this is exactly what Luke recorded"
Plenty of Biblical antagonists refute the census with their own 'evidence', usually assumptions that can no more be held as definitive than the claims they dispute. The historical record of the era leaves plenty of room for reasonable interpretation of the events, allowing for the census.
Josephus, in particular, is an interesting source of information. He documents Jesus as a real person, and relates the story of the Resurrection. And Josephus was a Jew. His story of Jesus would have to be written with a degree of scepticism, since even then the Jews largely denied the Christ.
The general accusation that the New Testament is flawed, that the authors never knew or heard Jesus, and that it has been edited and mistranslated is a common one, and deserves a reply;
Several members and leaders of churches in the 2nd and 3rd century make allusions to passages from the New Testament. Among others, three hundred and thirty allusions have been documented from Justin Martyr; 1,819 from Irenaeus; 2,406 from Clement of Alexandria; 7,258 from Tertullian; 1,378 from Hippolytus and 17,922 from Origen.
There are thousands of source documents of the Bible, both Old and New Testaments. How many relatively 'original' sources of Homer's Oddysey are known?
Many other ancient documents are considered authentic, where they were transcribed thousands of years after their original authors lived. Most of the New Testament is available to us from less than 300 years after Christ's ministry, and much of it form those who knew eyewitnesses to Jesus' life.
I don't take the Bible blindly on faith. I've read the criticisms. Both sides make sweeping assumptions. You of course will consider me naive or ignorant. I consider you reluctant, or more accurately obstinate, but it's easy for me to see your point of view. I disagree, but I'm not so threatened by your opinions as you are by mine I guess.
ps- Lest you think Christians are running America, I'll let you in on a secret.
They aren't.
Ah. I feel better already.
"I'm not imagining it. You're calling me, and the people I worship with, liars."
What I'm not imagining is that you're calling me a liar. You misunderstood me. In fact, I'm suspecting you're so hung up on denouncing my statements, that you're really not reading my posts any more.
"Of course I'm not going to take some random persons word that far and away the single most momentous event in the history of the world happened.
I should just blindly take it on faith, right?"
Well, don't take my word for it. I recommended a book I found credible. Have a look. And at some other sources. I'm assuming, however, that you have already decided the matter for yourself, and won't. I understand that better than you know.
"Not really. Hell, look at Shrub's lies about Iraq. He's done far more for and with those lies than wandering around the desert telling stories you made up."
What? I'm lost on that one.
"On top of that, the disciples you're talking about were characters in a fairy tale and the "Paul" who did all the preaching wasn't a disciple of Jesus, never met him in the flesh and didn't even think he'd been to earth yet. If you can't even keep your fantasy story straight, why would you expect anybody to act like you have credibility."
Well, if you don't want to accept the Bible as authoritative, then there is little about Christianity to discuss with you. But sticking to the Old Testament for a moment, this has been fairly accurately preserved for a long time. Wait. You really don't care.
"You said that god magically healed people. That is a lie, lying is a sin therefore you're a hypocrite."
Actually, I said, and say again, that I not only know personally people who have witnessed God healing people, I've witnessed it myself. You can call me a liar, fine. I'm not. And if I genuinely belive in Christ, I know full well that lying about that in particular will get me a cold reception in heaven. So you not only accuse me of lying and hypocrisy, but of an inconsistency that borders on lunacy. Just so I get it straight.
"When did he say that? Did you hear him? If not where did you hear about it? how many levels removed is the story you heard? If you're talking about the gospels, then who wrote them? Given that the answer to that is "nobody has a clue", I have far more credibility than the author since you know who I am at least by psuedonym. Provide one single scrap of evidence that there ever was such a man as Jesus let alone a god.
Explain why the early Christians who obviously knew a hell of a lot more about it than you do didn't believe he was divine?"
Well, the Pauline Epistles are generally accepted to have been written by Paul, the one who persecuted the early Church, and was converted by an angelic confrontation. He lived at the same time as Jesus did, and was well aware of the stories. The Synoptic Gospels are generally thought to have been written before 100 A.D. which leaves little time for the Apostles to contribute, but some people did live to that age back then.
Bearing in mind that I pay special attention to quotations from Jesus. The other stuff, indeed, always merits careful study.
And I'm preparing an argument you won't accept. How dumb is that? There is a substantial amount of good evidence that the New Testament is trustworthy, but there are many who make it a point to demand absolute proof, which is difficult if not impossible.
To use a method you believe in, the evidence is well within the margins of uncertainty. Unless you are devoted to disproving the Bible, in which case it really is easy to make a facile or complex case against the Bible. Other historians and scholars from the time do not offer anything that contradicts most events, and even some Roman historians corroborate some events. But this discusssion is fruitless.
"The things you believe are delusional. The majority of your faith was invented far after the supposed events in question an
"And yet not one single one of these things has one single mention from any credible source."
I'm not imagining it. You're calling me, and the people I worship with, liars.
I'm not going to put up names here until they say ok. And they might.
But more to the point, you won't accept anything I post. You'll want both the reporter in person, and those healed, to give you first-person reports.
And I can accept that. I don't blame you. I was the same way for 47 years.
For me, the people I know are credible. I understand, you don't know them. Consider something else, though. Many of the Apostles, Paul in particular, preached the word of Christ to their deaths. that's a long ways to go for a lie, isn't it?
What lie would you tell to your death? Heck, what truth would you tell to your death?
Finally, how do you call me a hypocrite? What have I written that proves that? I believe, and have professed to, that Christ is who He says He is. That's all.
Why are you so threatened, to attack me so?
If you think I'm trolling, you are mistaken. Perhaps the most frustrating thing about expressing a faith in God is that many who wish to deny His existence also wish to deny me my belief. I'm not trying to deny you your faith and/or belief in the Scientific Method - I share it. Perhaps you are trolling. Or do you reject the possibility that there is both God and Science, and both are real? If so, you are somewhat limited in your views. Both can and do exist, and both are genuine. And not mutually exclusive.
Then you go and rely on the LAWS of physics. Oh darn.
If the Big Bang theory of the creation of the Universe is correct, tell me, what was before the Big Bang? At one time, many physicists accepted that this was regime where the laws of physics, as we know them, ceased to apply. So much for the LAWS of physics. For them to exist, there must be a time where they did not. This makes a mess out of Big Bang, for those who still cling to it must believe that the laws and rules that compel it did not exist when it happened. And that's ok with me.
And I'm making a poor argument here. I'm not that good at it. Perhaps someone ense with a better knowledge of physics would chime in and offer some reasonable way out of this dilemma.
But lastly, you called me out - have I seen God act? Yes, I have. I've seen people ask for His presence, and receive it, knocking them to the ground. Sometimes leaving them so weak they cannot stand by themselves. I've felt it in such a small way myself, I know that my faith needs to grow much more. Or perhaps He is not willing to indulge me and touch my body. (That's more likely, for I'm asking for a sign. I should just believe.)
I also accept the reports of the many our church has sent to Brazil, and my previous church to Mexico, where the deaf hear, the blind see, the crippled walk. I've heard the reports from people I know well, corroborated by others. Sooner or later, I have to either believe they make this stuff up and expose themselves to ridicule and embarassment, or they report the truth.
I wonder how many scientists, having seen something unexplainable in the course of their work, have stopped and thought 'that's just not right...'. I wonder how many abandoned that particular project, expecting failure. Sooner or later, Christians (and believers of other faiths, I hope) have to rationally work out a basis for continuing their faith, something other than a blind following for no other reason than they 'believe'. At some point, if I could not make sense of myh faith, I would have given it up. I'm not at all hopeful that I will change your mind in this forum, with these words. and I'm even less hopeful that you will understand that I believe for a reason, and that you should accept that I'm not a crackpot. But I'm fairly certain that you reject my statements as lunacy. You're welcome to your belief in that. You're still wrong about that one thing.
Oh, for what it's worth, you might consider picking up a copy of Lee Strobel's book, 'The Case for Christ'. At the least, you should have a factual basis for either accepting that He lived, or that He did not. Give it a try.
-rick
I'm assuming, from your response, that you have absolute, or at least substantial faith, in the Scientific Method. Fair enough.
So what is faith? Mere belief? It's only a word.
While we can clearly demonstrate the effect of gravity, and therefore its existence, we cannot, so far as I know, quantify it very well. What it is composed of, how it exerts the force it does, etc. At one time, atoms were well understood, but there sure was a time when quarks, muons, and string theory were both unknown and unanticipated.
So if the observation of gravity's effect is enough to assume and have faith in its existence (and it is, I do believe), then why is it not enough for those who believe they have seen God's effect to have faith in Him?
Or to put it simpler, use the same standard. Faith in God or faith in gravity, it's faith.
And for those who havce no clue about gravity, most bumble through life just fine having blind faith indeed that dropping a glass of milk on the floor will make a mess. They have faith that gravity will indeed compel the glass to fall until it is stopped, messily, by the floor. At least on Earth.
And indeed, you write, "model of the atom describes our experimental data to within an acceptable margin". Are you trying to tell me that the Scientific Method, in this case, is good enough because it is within an acceptable margin?
I propose that the existence of God is provable within an 'acceptable margin'. It is for me. I take it on faith that atoms exist, having never seen a good enough picture of one. I've seen God act. More than I can say for an atom.
And lest you be confused, I accept and believe in the Scientific Method. Imbeciles refute the obvious.
Just so you know, the 'best', most 'correct' way to look at it is to say 'God did it, he doesn't need to explain it to you'.
On the one hand, leaving it at 'God's will' is indeed a 'clever rhetorical device', as a lecturer one told me. On the other hand, if God is indeed who He says he is, then it is in fact the right answer, and not just a 'clever rhetorical device'.
You just have to have faith. Somehow, we believed in atoms, and were positive that electrons/protons/neutrons were the fundamental building blocks of matter and our Universe. Then we found out there were other smaller and less certain things. What happens when we find out it's turtles all the way down?
Is it coincidence that the captcha I'm filling in to post this is the word 'unseen'?
darn, but God has a sense of humor. We're more like Him than we dare believe.
I'd like to have a window.
Ditto. Pretty soon, we'll be posting about how applications are expected to be more like video games, with rewards, immersive environments, more and more eye candy that doesn't actually get anything done, but 'enhances the experience'... And how business is expected to make the work environment more like video games, blah blah blah.
I'm old skool. Gimme a command-line interface to update my server's spam rules anytime, rather than click 7 times. Simple is as simple does.
Somehow, when I was younger, I learned to use the library card catalog. I survived my city's conversion from another system to Dewey, a non-trivial event. This was before video games, and before personal computers. I submit that today's students should learn to work with Dewey, and use the card catalog, and deal with it.
ps- Most libraries have some electronic card catalog system. What exactly whould be more relevant to a video game-paying student? Phaser sounds when the search completes? Makes sense. Noise up the library, baby, not like any work is getting done there, huh?
What? WHAT?
Oh wait. nevermind.
Um, when did the crackers *lose* control of the Pentagon?
I was under the impression that they had it built for their purposes, have occupied it and used it for those purposes without significant interruption since construction, and with few exceptions can be considered to be in control there. Allowing for a rather broad definition of 'control'.
ps- I'm a cracker. I know whereof I speak.
pps- A really good cracker is a Chicken In A Biskit. All else is deficient. Triscuits are an acceptable substitute, and Tam Tams during certain feasts and celebrations. Tell no one about Pringles, for the supply is dangerously low. And don't get me started about Peeps. If Peeps had infested the Pentagon, the world would be a better place.
After the several comments about how vulnerable an SR-72 would be to particle beam or laser weapons (and is there a difference?), a LEO bird would seem to be a sitting duck comparatively.
What sort of LEO satellite would be more agile than an SR-71? And I'm assuming an SR-72 would be an improvement - always a questionable assumption dealing with the military. The Skunk Works will probably get it right.
ps - Sign me up to fly this puppy.
pps - This is forseeable. The X-Prize contestants have demonstrated several ways to accomplish this mission, all simplified by removing the need to carry tourists and crew. Way to go! Basic research is rarely this cheap for a spy plane!
I've relocated to Arizona, and am not interested in admin work right now unless it pays stupid $. But the resources are there. Just overprice your work by 200% and still lose money on the job. It's a lot to do. Or do it gratis for the reference.
I've done a lot of work with schools, and mostly in NetWare systems. While I saved them a bunch of $$$ over using Windows, not much is cheaper than free...
And I looked at the LTSP back in 2003 thought it was so not ready. Two systems asked me if it was something they should consider, and I told they yes, but 1)let it mature a little technically, and 2)find an advocate in the system, even *just* a teacher, who would drive the project. I knew this would cut my consulting fees dramatically, but I thought then it was inevitable.
Unfortunately, this was in Maine, and the MLTI (Apple iBooks for 7th and 8th grades) pretty much slammed the door shut on open source. Apple declared 'other' software completely unacceptable, though we got several NetWare systems talking to the Apple systems quite nicely, thank you very much. Microsoft, of course, straddled the fence. Linux systems were actively fought against by the Apple engineers, being the only true threat to their business.
I'm hoping that the LTSP catches hold. It has tremendous potential for schools, and frankly for most any application where there is a limited number of applications necessary. And maybe more than that...
As a former resident of Maine, I know the Bath Iron Works fairly well, and have family members that still work there. The Yard has a deserved reputation for delivering boats ahead of schedule and under budget, and better-built than either requested or expected. Even the Harley Burke class (Aegis) which they had to share some design work with Ingalls on, much to their detriment and consternation. It was a matter of pride at the Yard to survive the inevitable updates, changes, and interference by the Navy and other yards, and launch better and better boats. The Burkes, in particular, took long enough to build that most of the electronics went through a full generation of development. BIW developed innovative methods and used CAD (for the first time in Navy shipbuilding, believe it or not) to adapt to changes and do more with less. The newest program required them to participate in a design-off with Ingalls (and Newport News I think), and led to a 'joint' design. My former brother in law, a navy liason engineer, literally cried talking about how many compromises were endured working with other yards, and how much more money it would cost, the fights over overruns, and the shoddy engineering other yards were imposing on the process. His best quote: 'They intend to fix it in the water'. Second best quote: 'We just don't build boats in Bath with problems. We expect our boats to SERVE our sailors!'
In Bath, at least, delivering the best value and best boat is still a matter of pride to the entire operation.
And yes, I don't doubt there is waste. To bring this back on topic, I can imagine the idea that a $1400 Pringles can solution is pretty wasteful. Just consider this - put one of your Pringles cans on a styrofoam float in a fountain, and see if it still works in a breeze. With boats pitching and rolling, I'd spec a DS solution, something Breezecom used to make. I've gotten 15km out of them, and easily 5km with just Yagi antennae. For this application,an LNA for the receivers would solve it, but marine duty is harsh. Everything corrodes. Expect a working life of 6 months for connectors, and 2 years max for the black boxes. And expect the antenna to get snapped off 3-4 times a year, either striking the boat when launching/recovering, or accidentally when the boarded ship somehow gaffs it instead of reaching the sailor. "Woops, was that important?".
rick
Actually, I was running Apache/Perl/PHP/Tomcat on NetWare 5.0. The database threw me until I stole an Advantage engine (dBaseIII). But even before that, in 4.11, I was using BorderManager to enhance my home cable modem experience before you could buy a home firewall for less than $250. And when I moved to a place where cable hadn't brought Internet, I set up PPP and autodialed a 56k connection. Letting BorderManager kill Doubleclick and other ads was fun.
.NET expertise. Anyone keep score of how many Fortune 500 companies use Notes as their messaging platform? And how many changed to Exchange at what ongoing cost?
Novell got quite a reputation for *not* being an 'Internet company', even though it had directories, working DNS, and other 'Internet' features before Microsoft could ship them. Oh, and the true fun of connecting Mac clients since about NW 3.1. Other stuff like iFolder got lost in the shuffle. Even NetMail gets ignored. myrealbox.com has been delivering email as a test bed for Novell for a long time. The GroupWise web client wasn't as sad as OWA. GroupWise itself is kinda nice.
Heck, I can even mount a 2GB volume on NW2.15c. NT was pus up to SP4.
Novell lost when Microsoft gave developers a consistent programming model on the client and the server. No one wanted to learn the Novell way, even though the apps I did support on NetWare were largely stable and delivered five nines day in and day out.
And NetWare is so misunderstood that my first MCSE partner pointed out that his home 2000 server had been up for 350 days, and not many NetWare servers made that claim. Yah. Most of mine were over 450 days up, and some could only manage 999 days. Before the counter overflowed. And those were production servers, not the home box that did little or nothing.
The only things potentially more reliable than those old NetWare 3x servers were AS/400s. Now there's a technology that is *obso1337*. My brother has written a web-based support system for a world-wide sales force that works in industrial plants, onboard ships, and in hostile environments with bullets flying overhead and underneath. Connects via IP, SMS, GPRS. Adapts to a cell phone, PDA, laptop, or the borrowed Windows NT workstation the salesperson happens to be near. It's all on some IBM e-Series machine, mostly written in RPG with the necessary Websphere stuff. RPG of course being dead.
And he uses NO Java. Doesn't consider it very good. He renders all his pages with PHP.
ps- I use Notes all day at work. Oh, it's imperfect. But Exchange cannot replace the database and app features of Notes, no matter. You would need SQL Server and today some genuine
One man's obsolescense is another's jus' working.... Whew. What a rant.
I miss NetWare, God help me.
Many CA standards are just more restrictive than other states', and so the CA standard becomes the de facto national standard. Fire retardant clothing might be an example, if I recall. Emissions of various products as well, though for autos the cost is so high that there are CA-only versions and the 'rest of the nation'.
But if CA did a good job here, I doubt many states would try to re-invent this.
In Maine, we had a mix of optical scan and punch ballot systems, and plenty of small towns used pencil and counted hand. Not a lot of trouble, except for the poor blighter that lost something like 26-0. Yeah, he didn't even vote for himself. Oh, and the ties. By Maine law, ties for state office are settled by coin toss. Yup. I dunno about federal seats. We had a few over the years.
Now I live in Arizona. We have this pathological aversion to even asking if voters are CITIZENS... Prop 200 makes you give at least minimal indentification, like a drivers license, or some utility bills and such. You don't even need to speak English. Of course, my Democrat friends claim there is just no voter fraud occurring, this is waste of time, insult to legal voters, bla bla bla. My Republican friends claim illegals, fraud, nobody knows, bla bla bla. Me? I got a license, even my sealed birth certificate. I just have to deal with them changing my poll location every election...
ps- Electronic voting is wrong. Don't do it. Even a paper receipt is a waste of time. Just mark your ballot, scan it, save them for a bit, and recount where ya need to. electronic voting is an invitation, no, an imperative for fraud. It will happen. Just say no. And either party will do it, if for no other reason than "the other side is ALREADY doing it!!!".
A pox on both their houses.
One, I see the names of the outfits acquired... KPMG, Deloitte, et al. Remember those gangs? Back when the Fortune 500 were hiring the Big Eight firms to audit the books, then hiring their investment arm to manage the IPO, and finally hiring their consulting arm to help them manage IT? And then it went from leveraged IPOs to cooked books to make the IPO irresistable, to bloated IT that would somehow glue it all together. Then came 1998, and then 2001. Crash. And the idea that having your auditors and your bankers from the same firm wasn't sound oversight. harrr.... So IBM/GS snarfed all these loser consulting firms and basically went down the same path? Gotta love it.
Two, it makes you wish for another Fat Lou, doesn't it? He knew crap when he saw it. Saved IBM. Suppose there's someone out there that can do it again?
Nope, it's not the 'Little General' http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ross_Perot...
I work with extremely sensitive data constantly, most of which, if mishandled or disclosed, would ruin any number of Fortune 50 companies. It doesn't occur to me to do so. I love my job, and besides it's wrong, and I didn't need to be told it is wrong. But I was told so. All the same, I could do it.
/. will be that students shooting up the school shouldn't be held responsible, if the school 'let them' bring a gun in.
And no judge would accpet my argument:
"But your Honor, they didn't PREVENT me from doing it!!!"
I've had several school systems as clients. Ultimately, I told each of them that it would be likely that determined students would find ways around security. I encouraged each system to develop and apply an acceptable use policy for all computer use, not just Internet access, and to take it seriously - be prepared to exercise it and punish students.
In one system we had to ban a student from all computer use, for repeatedly altering grades. I only found out how they were doing it when I had to work late. Their guidance counselor took pity on them, seeing as they were a promising candidate for an excellent college and wanted to major in CS. So the counselor let them use their staff PC after the day was done. All I wanted to do was shut down the server for maintenance, and I had to get the janitor to open the office door and log off the one last user. We scared the heck oput of the student.
The student was charged with trespass. The counselor was dismissed at the end of the school year. I had to explain how they could get their work done without a computer. They both actually broke into the school building a week later and tried to erase all the records of the incidents.
The backups worked. Nice try.
At some point, it's not as simple as 'kids will be kids'. Even without staff aid, students should be learning that 'no' means 'NO!'. Next thing I hear, the prevailing opinion on
Teaching responsibility might as well begin in grade school. We need it to be taught sooner.
-rick
Their next article on backups and recovery will be damned good...
And their next review of the backup software they use won't be written by the vendor's PR flack...
Maine was having trouble paying claims before the new system was running. One of my clients in 2004 was struggling to get paid when they implemented a 'new' claims system, which the CIO article either ignored or wasn't part of the reporter's viewpoint. It was supposed to be a portal to the old Honeywell system, and it flamed out.
But even more interesting, I see nothing lately about the case management system in Maine for DHS now HHS. I've moved to Phoenix. Did they every actually implement that? Or was that just another flameout? Last I heard, they spent >$10M and basically gave up and started over. While the old system was failing outright.
Kaiser sure isn't the only medical outfit that has blown a system. My hospital client in about 1998 implemented an ER case management/records system, just as HIPAA was getting going. The goal was to eliminate handwritten and illegible notes. The result? Well, the system gave the ER docs a system where they could t-y-p-e the notes in. Sweet. Best part? the original goal wasn't actually to eliminate illegible notes, but to eliminate unreadable and nonsensical notes, making the records standardized by using standard, boilerplate notes to describe patients in standard, agreed-upon language. Woops, the system let docs input free-form text as an enhancement to the standard text. Yup, docs just blew through the boilerplate and typed in whatever they used to scribble. Same drivel. Oh, and the vendor underestimated the storage space by 80%. We kept expanding the array until we ran out of slots. I left the project, and the incoming crew inherited a mess. No word, but the rumor was they threw it all out. Of course.
Where I'm at now, we're enjoying a classic J2EE development nightmare. No good requirements, bad code, long development cycle, fundamental components missing/broken, desperate push by management to get something 'out the door', no matter how bad it is. As a breath of fresh air, the 'legacy' team has an opportunity to update the old PC-based app at breakneck speed to sort of compete with this new and dysfunctional system. And my money is on the old guys.
How fitting that my secret word to enter this post is 'disaster'....harrr...
-rick
particularly where time is the limiting factor.
Stock brokers, mortgage brokers, emergency services personnel, and others who are always in a time crunch value speed and efficiency. These workers benefit from mutliple monitors.
Programmers should, also, but for reasons previously mentioned the *real* cost of inefficiency is nil. For a stock broker, the cost of inefficiency is lost profits, or worse. Mortgage brokers live and die by deadlines, rate changes, and beating the other guy to the punch. It may or may not be honorable, but that's the business.
Contractors, of course, are just widgets. Let them struggle with whatever is available.
ps- I'm a contractor.
...is spotty.
Google Maps is slick. I get traffic, directions and maps for locations, and not too slow. Just not intuitive enough.
SMS to googl (46645) and I get pretty good results. Especially for business phone numbers and the address to Fry's Electronics...
www.google.com is tolerable. Usually about 15 seconds to render the results.
And BerryBlogs is the cat's ass. It just plain works, RSS means never having to wait 7 minutes (yes, SEVEN minutes) for an Infoworld page to render to the point that it tells you it can't render...
But slicker yet is MIDPSSH. SSH'ing into server to run rules du jour, yum update, or just to run spam learning scripts from my BlackBerry - priceless. Especially behind the firewall. It's dog slow, but faster than skipping out to a WiFi spot, and a lot faster than waiting until I get home...
Now, I have a WAP deck on my web server just to give me some shortcuts for obvious things. And WAP is about as dumb as a blade of grass. If you can wangle CSS, you can code WAP in your sleep. Get a WAP emulator for your PC to test.
I'd like lighter-weight pages for a lot of stuff, and to have them sense my browser type and give it to me hard and fast, but I'm not hopeful. Many sites want to give me Flash. Which ain't on MY 7105T, and I don't care if it ever is.
And last but not least, some sites are using Sqweezer. Very nice, and Wired, I thank you!
-rick
Well, other than being obtuse, Novell has survived Microsoft, sort of, before.
I'm not so pessimistic about them surviving this as well.
And I still think Novell is the Rodney Dangerfield of the IT landscape. Remember when they were chastised for not getting the Internet? I'm reading that article, taking a break from learning CSS and Java on my Apache/PHP/mySQL server - NetWare 5.1. And letting BorderManager proxy my Internet, enhancing my experience by filtering out banners and other ads, and being my thoroughly competent firewall to my cable connection. When I moved past the cable, I reconfigured it to dial-on-demand into my lame dialup provider. And it needed to be rebooted every year or so unless I made major changes.
Down from the soap box for a moment, Novell might extract some value out of this relationship with Microsoft, and come out of it just fine. Thing is, Microsoft rarely does well picking on companies anywhere near their own size. And Novell is smaller, but not so small it can't get off the porch and run with the big dog.
There's that SCO/Unixware thing too. Novell could yet get more cash from Microsoft. That's a victory of sorts.
Ok, I'm a Novell cheerleader. I don't work for them, and right now don't even run any Novell software. But I made lot of money off of their stuff for a long time, and I'd do it again.
-rick
We oughta have a +6 for items just like this one.. Darn.
So nice.