He was dad (to the best of my knowledge and belief). Policy, however, was that we couldn't allow them to sign for it unless their name was on the birth certificate. Even though I could clearly tell they were related (same address on license, report card/transcript, etc), dad had to be on the birth certificate to sign.

As far as practical applications go, I had zero night driving experience before I got my license, whereas the GDL kids have had at least 2 or at least 10 hours at night.

But, the majority of driver ed time here is spent in the classroom, learning road rules to pass the written test and watching Red Asphalt (which should be a teenage rite of passage, as far as I'm concerned).

I think Michigan's rules for terminating at 18 assume that if you get a license after that age, you're self disciplined to do the practice on your own during the 30 day time restriction before you can take your road test.

Something like that. You went to drivers ed, you got certificate, you brought it in and you would get your paper (replaced 10 of these daily, they don't survive the washer) level 1 license. You go back to drivers ed, get some experience, and about a year or so later you were back in (ugh) to get a hard plastic level 2 license. Then once you were 17 + had level 2 for 6 months, unless parents said otherwise, they'd automatically mail a Level 3, which has no restrictions.

You never don't get a "full" license until you turn 18.

This. In Michigan, I waited until I was 18 just to avoid dealing with graduated driver licensing laws. The bureaucracy alone they create is a PITA.

During my time working at the DMV, kids would often bring their fathers in to sign for approving their next level license. At least twice a day I was sending home angry kids because daddy dearest wasn't on the birth certificate.

IRS said you owed $68,000. Accountant said you were due back $5,000.

Since this is an anecdote about ineffective TurboTax, what did TurboTax say you owed/were due?

I don't buy this.

Title 26, United States Code, Section 6103 states:

(i) Disclosure to Federal officers or employees for administration of Federal laws not relating to tax administration
(1) Disclosure of returns and return information for use in criminal investigations
(A) In general
Except as provided in paragraph (6), any return or return information with respect to any specified taxable period or periods shall, pursuant to and upon the grant of an ex parte order by a Federal district court judge or magistrate judge under subparagraph (B), be open (but only to the extent necessary as provided in such order) to inspection by, or disclosure to, officers and employees of any Federal agency who are personally and directly engaged in—
(i) preparation for any judicial or administrative proceeding pertaining to the enforcement of a specifically designated Federal criminal statute (not involving tax administration) to which the United States or such agency is or may be a party,
(ii) any investigation which may result in such a proceeding, or
(iii) any Federal grand jury proceeding pertaining to enforcement of such a criminal statute to which the United States or such agency is or may be a party,
solely for the use of such officers and employees in such preparation, investigation, or grand jury proceeding.

(4) Use of certain disclosed returns and return information in judicial or administrative proceedings
(A) Returns and taxpayer return information
Except as provided in subparagraph (C), any return or taxpayer return information obtained under paragraph (1) or (7)(C) may be disclosed in any judicial or administrative proceeding pertaining to enforcement of a specifically designated Federal criminal statute or related civil forfeiture (not involving tax administration) to which the United States or a Federal agency is a party—
(i) if the court finds that such return or taxpayer return information is probative of a matter in issue relevant in establishing the commission of a crime or the guilt or liability of a party, or
(ii) to the extent required by order of the court pursuant to section 3500 of title 18, United States Code, or rule 16 of the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure.

The fact that you couldn't get the drive out isn't a security issue, it's an Apple engineering issue.

US centric: The Freedom of Information Act is designed to get information on other subjects. The Privacy Act is what you cite and a far better tool to get information on yourself.

Reddit seems to be fantastic at finding people on the internet given the flimsiest leads to their identity... sure they may get it wrong now and then, but hey... them's the breaks.

Most of the majors have a system for buying game cards in a physical store. If the user prefers convenience, that's on them.

Credit card companies used to do this via one-time virtual card numbers. For the most part, the user found it inconvenient and didn't use it.

Yours for either A. having your credit card information on the network in an unencrypted state, B. transmitting it without making sure the HTTPS lock is present, and/or C. not having adequate deskop security.

It takes more than just an accessible router to get to sensitive information... if an unauthorized party is able to access that information, 9 times out of 10 it'll be a user's fault.

It doesn't particularly matter if they were trying to exploit it or not since they just can't do non-tech major breaking news reporting as good as the big boys.

Take The Verge, for example, who seem to not grasp the simple concept that if you're going to try and live blog, you write from the bottom up to allow for rapid F5'ing. Mashable's content is no better than one going to Twitter and typing "Boston" in the search box.

If you want to exploit something, you need to give them reason to stick around while you fleece them for ad dollars... I clicked off the tech sites and went to CNN and the Wall Street Journal (the latter, to me, had superior coverage).

" It is frustrating to see so many of them still on IE 7, XP, and Office 2003, which hurts Windows and Office sales and holds back innovation."

Are we supposed to feel sorry that Microsoft can't hit their sales targets? Maybe if they stopped "innovating" their UIs and overall UE, they'd find more eager and rapid corporate adoption.

Every time they "innovate" an interface, there's internal documentation that has to be updated, new training modules have to be made, crosswalks need to be made, memo's (which inevitably nobody reads) have to be written saying: "Oh, you know that button Y that you used to be able to find here to do X? Well, now you have to do A, B, and C before you can click Y to do X. Sorry it'll now take you an extra 5 minutes to do your work."

All that costs money and time, and I definitely don't blame businesses for not wanting to upgrade...

If it was a Common Alerting Protocol-enabled system, it was entirely designed to be on the internet.

Do you live in the US? The most pronounced and common speaker noise is caused by GSM phones which are no longer the dominant type in the US. The effect still happens, just... fewer and fewer people have a GSM phone.