http://xkcd.com/171/

True, which is why you should include that reason in your cover letter. I applied for a job that was specifically looking for an experienced C programmer. I'd had a 2-day C class through my previous employer, but I'd never actually used it for anything. But I wanted that job. I sent them my resume along with a letter explaining why my experience was relevant despite not having used the language. The weekend before the interview I sat down with my copy of K&R and taught myself enough to write a print driver. I took that and code samples in other languages along with me, and was completely honest about my experience level -- and emphasized that languages are fundamentally similar, that I knew others and could learn this one. I got the job.

I'm a fairly intelligent individual and I'd be absolutely sure to take anything they reported about my genetic profile with a grain of salt.

Me, until I see evidence to the contrary I'm going to assume that this test is every bit as accurate as calling Miss Cleo. No more, no less. At least her commercials had to have a "For entertainment purposes only" disclaimer at the bottom. IMHO, unless 23andMe are going to stick that phrase on the boxes I'm all in favor of the FDA requiring that they demonstrate accuracy. (And yes, I wish the FDA did that with herbal supplements and other snake oil. Or at least make manufacturers prove that the contents of the pill match the label on the box.)

Turning over your DNA to Google is just plain stupid. Believing you have some semblance of privacy with them is even more stupid.

But now I have a backup in case I die...

Unless you're going to be dragged into the cinema against your will and clamped into the chair with your eyelids propped up a la Clockwork Orange, no, you're not going to have to put up with it.

Hey, who's up for a Clockwork Orange reboot?

So why don't you ever hear about "crazy dog ladies"?

Cue shift in pedo code words. "Anyone know where I can find a farm stand with underripe melons and bananas?" "Looking for a late model used car, less than 13 years old. Must have tiny headlights." "Need small pizza, smothered in sauce, no sausage."

Tom Lehrer said it best: "When correctly viewed, everything is lewd!"

Well, in this case it's a direct quote from the lead investigator.

"We were literally dumbfounded when we saw it," said lead investigator David Jewitt of the University of California at Los Angeles in a statement.

And while I'm not sure a scientist would say "I'm just so gosh-darn BAFFLED!" I have heard them say, "Beats the hell outta me." I guess "Scientists baffled by new sighting" is a more accurate headline than "Scientists get the hell beaten out of them by new sighting."

I agree that Obamacare is bad economics, and I have the opinion that it was rammed down our throats by a Socialist mob,

That's funny. I have the opinion that Obamacare is bad because it's nowhere near socialist enough. It's trying to take the basically socialistic concept of spreading financial burden over a nationwide population and twist it to fit the mold of the mythical "free market". A single-payer system would have been much better. IMHO. Well, better for everyone except the insurance industry and the lawyers, that is.

At this point I'm so fed up with politicians I think they should all be fired for not focusing on solutions that work for everybody, or at least almost everybody.

At least this we can agree on!

Why does anybody think that a tactic no more sophisticated than sticking your finger and inch away from your little sister's nose and chanting "I'm not touching you!" is going to work? You mom didn't fall for that shit when you were 10 and the courts aren't going to fall for that shit now. There's probably even some language in the NSLs that says that you may not inform others by acts of either commission or omission, just to cover this kind of stuff.

The only reasonably sound suggestion I've heard is that Apple is deliberately baiting the NSA to get this dragged into public view in court. If so, good luck with that. All the NSA has to do is say "But, security!" and it'll get shunted off to the land of sealed records.

I see the test as being full of jargon to which I've not been exposed. I've never heard of a "number sentence" or "part I know / missing part" before, but they way they're used sounds like those phrases have specific meaning. Presumably these terms were taught to the students as part of the curriculum.

I can only speculate that at some point someone said, "Equation? How the hell's a 1st grader going to know what 'equation' means? They're scared of math because of all the unfamiliar terminology. Wee need to make math more accessible by replacing the mathematical jargon with words they understand. Read this equation out loud. 'Three plus four equals seven.' That's not a scary equation, that's a friendly sentence. A... number sentence!" Come on, you know it went down like that in some focus group trying to determine why kids do poorly at math.

So "number sentence", "the part I know", and "the missing part" become simple substitutions for "equation", "addend / subtrahend / minuend", and "sum / difference". The trouble is that despite being "common words that the kids already know", in combination their meanings are every bit as precise and jargonistic as the actual mathematical terms. Worse, since they are familiar words those of us who've never been exposed to this particular dialect of jargon think we should know what they mean and are frustrated because they don't actually seem to mean what they say. Like Lisa Simpson on seeing a sign for the "Yahoo Serious Festival": "I recognize all three of those words but that statement doesn't make any sense."

So, problem 1 would make a lot more sense if we knew that the kids had been taught using the example of pouring pancake batter from a measuring cup. Problem 3 makes sense if you consider "cubes" in the physical sense of six-sided blocks, such as we seen in problems 2 or 12. Problems 6, 7, and 8 are more meaningful if you know that the "circles in a divided box" symbology is specifically taught as a way to visualize the problem.

I'm not saying that this is a good way to teach. I think it's well-meant but ultimately misguided. But look at the test again in that light and see if it doesn't make more sense. (Although nothing can explain why problem 12 talks about a "subtraction sentence" even though it has no actual subtraction anywhere in sight.)

And that standard is UTC. For everybody, everywhere. Problem. Solved.

My only argument is that *if* the security measures are actually effective they need to be applied to everyone. Perhaps they could give the elderly assistance removing their shoes, putting them back on, or whatever. But if removing one's shoes is important enough to require it of most people, it's important enough to not make a known gaping security hole by allowing a class of people to skip it.

I don't claim there's any benefit at all in removing one's shoes. Quite the opposite, I think that allowing the elderly to avoid it is an admission by the TSA that it's a pointless exercise. Ditto everything that's skipped by the Pre-Check line. They ought to just give up all the nonsense.

I'm all for baiting the TSA. Most of their security measures are just plain ridiculous. I swear that after the shoe bomber got them to make us take off our shoes, the underwear bomber was sent in to see if they'd strip search us. (And they responded with backscatter scanners. Discuss.)

But, applying the same security measures to everyone -- old, young, crippled, whatever -- is not among their failings. That's the only part of what they do that makes sense. Once you declare a "safe" class of passengers who get waved through the searches, you're tempting The Bad Guys to enlist members of that class. Do 90 year old guys get a pass? I'm sure The Bad Guys can find some disgruntled nonagenarian to stuff some C4 down his pants or carry the dreaded 3.1 ounces of liquid explosive. The only way security searches work is if they're applied to everyone.

Of course, the TSA can't even get that right. They introduced their Pre-Check program which reduces the checks to pre-9/11 levels for pre-approved travelers. So how hard would it be to recruit some guy who qualifies for the Pre-Check lane to be the bomb mule?

Psssst! Hey Bad Guys! Want to cripple air travel in the US? Just bomb a couple airport security checkpoints. Lots of people, tightly packed together, all standing in a nice line, and no chance of being discovered early. Hit a couple of those and we'll shit ourselves trying to figure out how to strip-search passengers without causing big, vulnerable holding areas. It's a pretty damned obvious target. The fact that it hasn't happened in the past 12 years is the best evidence that there really isn't a legion of Bad Guys out there just waiting for the chance to attack. They've had the chance. We've gift-wrapped it for them. Now let's just admit that the bogeyman is mostly in our imaginations.

FAKE! Come on, this thing is obviously 'shopped like crazy. The shadow on the rings is much to crisp compared to the shadow on the planet. Plus the ring shadow is entirely opaque. To make it realistic they should have given it some transparency so you could see the rings faintly behind it. Also, there's color banding in the "planet", and some weird hexagonal artifact that looks like this thing was originally rendered as a 3D model with bad tessellation. Go back to drawing Tippy to get into art school, you pathetic hack.