Re: Big purple digit

In article <r5mtv35d16lskm2qu0qahmi8969u7co24j@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>,
arthur@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
 (Arthur T.) wrote:

>     Where I used to work, I re****ted someone with a fake ID badge
> to Security.  They said it wasn't fake, it's the new style that's
> being phased in.  They were annoyed at me for re****ting it.
> 
>      I suggested that they should tell people when they made
> changes like that.  Otherwise, people will accept any kind of
> badge.  They never did announce it.

There's an essay in the book Random Walk in Science by R.V. Jones
(second time I've mentioned him in this newsgroup this week) called
Self-frustration.  (It seems to have come from a longer article in
Nature in 1965.)

He writes: "Lord Cherwell, for example, during the War held a pass that
was intended to allow him to enter any Government establishment.  Such
a universal and vital pass could only be issued to persons of extreme
responsibility; most people held p***** which would admit them to only
one specific establishment.  Since there were few persons of comparable
responsibility to Lord Cherwell, there were very few of his kind of
pass; and its appearance was kept confidential, so that it could not
easily be forged.  It followed that very few guards at the entrances to
establishments had ever seen it, and so Lord Cherwell had great
difficulty in persuading them that it was genuine, and to let him in."