You know that opening scene in the Simpsons intro where Bart is scribbling a bunch of sentences over and over again? My first clue that programming could be profitable was from an incident like that. I had started to learn BASIC on my dad's Apple II+. Due to some stupid classroom punishment, I had to write some stupid sentence 200 times. I went home and put in 3 lines of BASIC code to automatically generate and print that sentence 200 times. This is what I turned in. My neighbor saw this, and a couple days later, he paid me $5 because he had a similar punishment. I happily accepted the cash and punched in the code. The rest is history.

...I'd like to apply now for a Browncoat scholarship

...but as long as Microsoft Office continues to dominate, Microsoft isn't going anywhere.

I'm guessing this will be yet another airline that Kevin Smith refuses to fly on.

It may be a case of not having found the right kind of music. When I was in undergrad, I found that instrumental music was a lot less distracting than lyrical music. Noise-cancellation headphones have been godsend for me. Some dorms may have designated quiet areas or at least areas that are a little more removed from the action to help facilitate some of the studying. The library is always an option. If not the option, there's gotta be a place on campus, or maybe even off-campus that's a little more quiet. Also remember that college counseling centers are an option to help you get some support and developing some strategies towards managing your ADHD. There may even be a student learning center (i.e., tutoring center) on campus where people might help you develop study skills and strategies for organizing your work so that you can get through it more easily and efficiently.

I'm suspecting that somewhere down the line, this will be used as a breathalyzer to measure alcohol content and thus rid the world of the dreaded drunk dial.

I'm approaching this from an industrial/organizational psychology side. First thing, most IO psychologists will let you know that the common job interview doesn't really tell you anything about the potential employee other than if they have any glaring personality features that might make them difficult to work with, most notably if the applicant does not know enough to try to hide his/her more antisocial quirks. Thus, you're kind of left with what is on the resume/CV.

From a more practical side of interviewing, one of the biggest predictors of fit for the job is to see an actual sample of the applicant's work. Thus, if the applicant can provide a work sample, this might help employers determine whether or not the applicant is qualified for the job. When I was in the early stages of forming my psychologist career, I had to submit samples of my psychological assessments to potential employers so they could see if I was up to snuff. Could employers of computer coders ask applicants to submit samples of code that they've written and/or software that they had played a crucial role in designing? Even better yet, as part of the interview process, present the applicant with a fairly small computer problem that you want them to solve, so that you can see their problem-solving strategy and if they can actually produce the code that might solve said-problem.

This is probably your best option for determining if an applicant is fit or not, degree or no degree.

As someone who was born and had a large part of my education based in Kentucky, I am often embarrassed by the lawmakers from my native state. As I recall there was a congressional debate not too long ago in which one of the candidates had to read from a teleprompter. Even worse, the teleprompter malfunctioned, and the candidate was left clueless. How much more embarrassing can that be? Having said that, not all of Kentucky as backwards as popular media makes it out to be. I spent grades 3 - 8 in the Jefferson County School System. Granted, I was growing up in Louisville, one of the more metropolitan parts of Kentucky. As I recall in middle school, evolution was included in part of our curriculum. I do recall that we at least learned about how the layering of different fossils gives evidence to different forms of life at different stages in history. Maybe I just lived on one of the more civilized areas of the state

I can possibly see Food Network and other food-oriented shows possibly using this feature. Home and Garden channel too? Past that, I see limited appeal. Next thing, they'll come out with Taste-o-Vision. Do we really want people licking their TV screens?

Nowadays, it's pretty commonplace for desktop and laptop computers to be equipped with DVD drives (and DVD burners), meaning people can freely watch DVD movies on practically any modern computer, as well as freely create their own DVD content. It's not nearly as common for Blu-Ray drives (much less Blu-Ray burners) to be included with most computers. It doesn't help that Apple pretty much refuses to include Blu-Ray drives as even an option for their computers. Until this changes, DVD will remain more popular and a more accessible format than Blu-Ray.

...someone decode how he's been able to endure years of Sharon!

I would expect that the most obvious Wi-Fi networks to hop onto are those named "linksys," "netgear," "d-link," etc. If someone knows enough to rename their Wi-Fi network, then theoretically, they should also know how to set up even just a little bit of security. Seriously, even though WEP, WPA, etc. are not perfect, it's a lot better than no security at all.

I'm actually impressed how many of us are brave enough to NOT post a comment to this as Anonymous Coward

...for having an inept principal and the trauma of unnecessary police intervention. If something like that happened to me, I'd probably have a panic attack upon stepping on school grounds.

While I can see the usefulness particularly for people with serious disabilities, I thought one of the original redeeming factors of video games was that it helped build and improve hand-eye coordination. If a perfectly abled person was using this, then that's just plain lazy. At least before, people were at least giving their fingers a workout.