"Agnostic is just a word created by the religious..."

"agnostic" is a word created by T.H. Huxley to describe his position that he was quite certain he didn't know the answers to questions concerning existence, while others seemed quite certain they did. He described agnosticism as a principle and not a creed or belief. He applied it to everything, not just the matter of the existence of God.

"This principle may be stated in various ways, but they all amount to this: that it is wrong for a man to say he is certain of the objective truth of a proposition unless he can produce evidence which logically justifies that certainty."

I'm 58, and already my kids won't come into my office. My wife comes in occasionally, but she's in her fifties too, so she doesn't notice so much. We shouldn't pretend about this. Why do you think senior managers are given their own offices with windows?

So what are the options? Working remotely for sure. And having some embarrassing pics or info on your employer is pretty useful if you want to be known as someone who is too important to be fired. Knowing how to make stuff work and fix stuff tends to help. A sprinkling of craplang such as agile, scrum, burndown charts, etc, sometimes helps.

"It's out of control, Captain," said the chief engineer. "The parameters are going to blow if we don't do something soon."

The Crank continued to sit quietly, surveying the panicked faces in front of him. The tears from a young secretary in the corner, the one who had only joined the group to bring hope to millions of elderly people, confirmed his view that this was no place for the sentimental. Slowly, peoples' eyes started to look his way. What were they hoping for? Some magic fix? Some weird incantation that he would type into a terminal and that would take everything back to that stable comfort of two hours ago?

Eventually he got to his feet and looked around the walls of the room that were stacked high with electronic systems. "Any ideas?" asked the Captain.

"Nothing that I think you will like," replied the Crank.

To be continued..

I'm not sure it's right to equate religion and superstition. Religion implies belief in various supernatural behaviors. Superstition is often much more simple and generally harmless. For example, those of us who wear our wifes' underwear while writing regular expressions only do so because it worked before. If it stops working, we will think again, and consider whether we were wrong in the first place, or whether the failure was due to a recent change in color or material of the said garments.

I used to get ads featuring young ladies in skimpy underwear. Move on a few years, and now I get ads for 'mature' dating sites. These ads are extremely depressing. So much so that I suspect it's a euthanasian plot intended to make me top myself. It may succeed. And now you're suggesting I could fix things by changing my e-mail address. That may be even more depressing. Fuck it!!!!

That number keeps cropping up. I'm pretty sure all those studies didn't refer to 'accelerating' climate change.

...people are smart enough to look at a graph of temperatures over the last 100 years and see that things aren't that clear. And however many statistical methods are applied to that same data, perhaps people conclude that a lot still isn't known. Perhaps people's psychologies view taking 'significant' action against carbon emissions in a similar way to taking 'significant' action against Syria. In other words, we doubt whether the 'experts' know what the hell they are talking about.

"Fresh fruits & veggies, whole grains, no smoking or chewing tobacco, eating meat sparingly"

Me: Will that make me live longer?
Doc: Perhaps not, but it'll sure feel like it.

I trimmed your quote, but I think the bit I left is telling. I don't trust them, but I'm I'm not sure who's allowing me this freedom/delusion. Please enlighten me.

There's usually a question about unladen swallows too.

So how come my Japanese father-in-law shouts the equivalent of 'f**king emoji' in Japanese (along with other rants about 'f**king kids', 'f**king politicians', and 'my f**king driveway' - he doesn't have a lawn).

Your description beats anything I could have said. Sorry, Slashdot! I'm worried why I even come here any more.

The population of Iceland is about 320,000. Yet it seems to get a fair amount of attention. Preston in Lancashire never gets told to fuck off for having some weird loitering laws. Countries threaten war with Iceland when it changes its fishing policy.

I imagine your weather is shittier than ours (here in Scotland). Do you while away the dark months planning the overthrow of the world? We just moan a lot. You seem to be a great country. (I may be prejudiced. I was brought up on the BBC program, Noggin The Nog)

On the other hand, as Scotland considers voting for independence, the actions of RBS show us that we can lie, cheat and steal with the best of them. That should give us confidence that we can succeed as an advanced independent country. By the way, I don't recall RBS really having the reputation you ascribe to it. I think the Bank Of Scotland (BOS, part of HBOS, now part of Lloyds) always had the better reputation for prudent business. Either way, both managed to screw up their reputations.

And there are often wedding guests that can act as witnesses.