Perhaps we should consider changing the university system so that when someone goes in, they choose a "focus" and a "study". The "focus" is the normal degree, something that has fairly direct application to jobs, like Mechanical Engineer, and guides their "technical" classes. The "study" is something that interests them, like your Medieval French Lit, and guides their non-technical classes.

Unlike a Major and a Minor, this system wouldn't require more classes for the Minor/"study", and the ratio would be 60/40 between them.

Welcome to April Fools Day. I regret to inform you that not all attempts at humor are successful, and even those that are never succeed at humoring every single individual. From your low-digit ID I assume you've been around a while; that Slashdot does something on April Fools should not be a surprise to you, so you should know to either avoid Slashdot (since no real news will be posted today) or just deal with the jokes they put in place.

Okay, I admit it, this one made me laugh (mainly because I expected a different direction when reading the headline.)

I mean what's the chance he's going to be productive those two weeks anyway?

This is actually a great way to test how an employee's absence will change things. Ask him (or her) to spend a day or two cleaning up their own stuff both physical and digital, then being "on call" the remaining time, checking his corporate e-mail once or twice a day. Have the remaining employees go ahead and start dividing up his work and see where things come to a screeching halt, and sending him questions via e-mail. This way, he's still on payroll if they realize that they need his help, and you can slowly remove his account's access to see if any process somehow got tied to it. Once he's formally gone, it will be a lot harder (and likely more expensive) to get his help.

Seems like a win-win-win to me. Sure, you can have him write up how-tos and manuals for stuff he thinks others will need to do that he once did, but trial by fire would be much better at identifying gaps while you still have a proverbial fire department sitting right outside.

As a youngin' in the early-mid 90s, we would watch these slide shows *BEEP*
These had corresponding audio tapes, that would tell to change the slide with a *BEEP*
Can't remember what topics, and they were always boring as *BEEP*
Only useful for taking a quick nap or being amused when the teacher didn't change the slide *BEEP*
Just changing to video over slides doesn't fix the underlying lack of interactivity or entertainment to keep the students stimulated. *BEEP BEEP*

Of course, terrorists are well known as the most law abiding citizens on the planet.

To play devil's advocate: By outlawing encryption, the amount of "law-abiding citizens" that use it will drop precipitously. Then, when the NSA intercepts an encrypted signal, it becomes far more likely that both ends are $BOOGEYMAN, and their resources won't be spread as thin. Even if both ends are decidedly not $BOOGEYMAN, they are either foreigners, citizens with little regard for the law, or a combination of the two, and so need to go on one of the myriad of watchlists anyway.

So even though outlawing encryption won't end encryption, it will make the NSA/FBI/Europol/etc.'s job of getting leads much easier.

That's my loose take on it. (Raised Lutheran, pastor's kid, but now lazy atheist.) Paul, formerly Saul, who directed much of the early Catholic Church co-opted Jesus (or the story of Jesus) for his own means. There's a lot said in books ostensibly written by him or sourced through him that are a bit counter to Jesus's largely "peace and love" rhetoric. All from a man who started out as a persecutor of disciples of Jesus.

I think that Saul figured out that it was easier to control the budding religion by spearheading it, rather than spearing heads. So he had his "vision", used a local believer (was he said to be a prophet? Can't remember) as a patsy, was "cured" of his blindness, and turned to "following" the teachings of Jesus Christ and leading others in the same. Worked out very well for him, I'd say.

That's all assuming at least some of the Bible is factual, though.

I have a history of depression, and there's a common survey that medical offices use to get a rough feel for a person's depression and/or anxiety level. In fact, it is so common that in the four states I have filled out the survey, I'm pretty sure that every single one was a generational photocopy of the same document. In many cases it has a slight "right" lean and offset that is recognizable; in others there's a "blur" along the left side, as though it was copied with a stack of papers on top of it or from a book.

The same thing happened in the military with "official" forms that were readily (and sloppily) photocopied.

Not that a letterhead should be what makes something legitimate, but when I'm paying a few hundred for a 15 minute visitation it would be nice if the photocopies looked decent...

Because the American citizenry apparently has no limit with incompetence, seeing as how often it's elected into office.

I don't know enough about Canada to say for sure, and I don't know how familiar you are with American states, but would you say that Quebec is Canada's reverse-Texas?

Standby mode can be convenient because (I think) all of the consoles will download updates/newly purchased games while in standby (maybe a slightly elevated level).

But, if you are truly concerned with power usage from consoles (and other devices) on standby, here's my advice: Get an outlet adapter that has a remote. These can be had for super cheap shortly after Christmas, as they're mainly used for switching external or Christmas tree lights on/off at will. I have one between the outlet and my entertainment center's surge protector, so my TV, media center, and consoles are all 100% off while I'm not using it. I don't know how much power the switch draws, but I reckon it's far less than even one of the consoles on standby.

Perhaps part of the issue is that auditors (appear to) only ever look for negatives. If they had to look for positives as well, and apply weights to the two sides, it would work out better for everyone.

Male engineers and programmers are often stereotyped as "nerds" before someone even meets with them, and high school (with Hollywood backing) has taught everyone that "nerds" are super-easy to push around. Thus, if someone has an agenda, they'll go after whom they see as the softest target first, which is why there seems to be such a big blowup about gender inequality in tech-related fields vs any other field (but I get most of my news from /., so I could be biased.)

Any actual outcome is immaterial so long as it can be painted in a light positive to those trying to push an agenda.

You don't think the guy would be capable of doing the same thing if a clueless flight attendant was there while pilot is taking a leak ?

Well, the "clueless" flight attendant would be less clueless after the nose-dive started. Then they'd know to unlock the door for the pilot. I guess the co-pilot could have subdued him/her first. But, unless the co-pilot was a ninja, there would have been a struggle of some sort, which would have alerted front-row passengers, who would have alerted the pilot. (Or the pilot would be alerted himself, if the head was right outside the cabin.) The flight attendant may also have been able to fling open the door, so that even if s/he was overwhelmed other passengers could go in and try to wrest control while awaiting the pilot.

But, even if the co-pilot was a secret ninja, having a second person in there would have immensely lowered the possibility of his success. The attendant could have been an unwitting distraction to him until they passed over the mountains or the pilot came back; the guy might have done this as sheer end-of-the-world depression and having another physical human could have dissuaded him; maybe the attendant's idle banter while waiting could have made the co-pilot tip his hand, at least putting the attendant on guard.

Perhaps incorporate emergency biometric scanner or something like that on the door that can override the "unlock" option ?

(I assume you mean lock and not unlock.) Yes, because let's use technology to completely defeat the purpose of the technology put in place already. Then someone trying to hijack the plane can wait for a pilot to come out, grab him, and use his thumb/eye/whatever to get in even after the copilot flips the switch to "locked". You could use a remote system from the control tower to override the lock, but good luck keeping it completely uncrackable (or just having someone storm the tower and threaten the air control).

I'm a big computer guy and think we'll get some incredible tech in the future, but there will still be many times when human presence is still miles beyond any tech, even after the AI singularity.

I used to be the same way, but then I started getting mice with buttons on the left side that my thumb could use and the concern alleviated completely. Now I have one of those buttons assigned to "middle click" and it works better because my index finger can stay on M1 at hair trigger.