I've read this screenplay (and think I still have a copy somewhere). It's fantastic and I would have seen that I, Robot in theaters (and then would have bought the DVD). As it stands, I've never seen the movie titled I, Robot despite being a huge Asimov fan. (Just like I haven't seen the movie titled Nightfall that I've heard is only barely based on Asimov's story and is pretty bad.) One of these days, I hope someone will make a good movie from one of Asimov's works.
That's because "I, Robot" wasn't an adaptation of Asimov's work. They had a screenplay from a writer completely unrelated to "I, Robot" and they had the rights to "I, Robot." They renamed the screenplay and tossed some "I, Robot" bits (Three Laws, Susan Calvin, etc) so they could call it an "adaptation" and cash in on Asimov's name.
You don't need an IP-Connected TV. We still have an old standard-definition television in our living room and won't upgrade to an HD set until it dies. However, we also have a Roku box that we use to watch videos from Netflix and Amazon VOD. The cheapest Roku box is $50 so it's not like this will break the bank.
We'll still drive to get videos from time to time. Of course, when we do this, we're headed to our local library where we rent them for free. (Technically not free since we're paying taxes to support the library, but we'd pay those taxes anyway so it's effectively free.) Our library has a surprisingly good selection and if they don't have what you're looking for, you can request it form another branch.
A free market assumes that consumers can make well informed choices between their options. If customers could choose between Widget Company A (who dumps waste products in the river and so sells his products for less) and Widget Company B (who doesn't and whose products are slightly more expensive as a result), they might choose A for the short-term monetary savings or B for the long-term environmental savings.
Of course, in real life, Widget Company A would hide their actions. If A is big and powerful enough, they could also buy off legislators to legalize their waste dumping and launch a bright and shiny PR campaign to make people equate Widget Company A's products with quality and B's with shoddy workmanship. In other words, instead of competing on a fair and level playing field with well informed customers, they would be competing on a field where A had all of the advantages and customers were kept in the dark on purpose.
Capitalism quickly turns into corporate oligarchy if suitable checks aren't put in place. Like many things, it's a good idea in theory, but reality complicates things.
A lot of parents (like my wife and I) are butting in. A lot more probably feel powerless or have bought into the education department's story that this is all improving education.
My mother always joked that she was the only mother in town that had to yell at her kid to stop reading and play outside. Of course, karma being what it is, I find myself trying to tell my oldest son to put his tablet computer down and play outside. I wonder what HIS kids won't want to put down when he tells them to go outside and play.
A system where companies are trying to a) spread the story that our public schools are failing and b) blame teachers for said failure. Then they sell the "solution" to the public schools and make money while looking like really great guys. Having teachers looking at the tests which would show that the schools are failing would lead to people leaking test questions and showing how the whole thing's a sham. Can't have that. It would get in the way of profits.
One one hand, they keep saying how the TSA is integral to foiling terrorist plots. The way the politicians/TSA describe it, you'd imagine that every airport TSA checkpoint stops a heavily armed terrorist with a dozen bombs every day. What heroes, they must be.
On the other hand, they just admitted that nothing life threatening has happened before. Since I'd qualify stopping a terrorist as life threatening - especially when said terrorist welcomes death and only hopes to take as many people as possible with him - this means that "never been anything life-threatening before" = TSA has never stopped a terrorist before.
So which is it TSA? (Yes, I know that we all know the answer. I'd just like to hear them admit that they've never stopped a terrorist.)
Sadly, these businesses see an opportunity to make more money and that overrides all else. Plus, I'm sure they've drunk their own Kool-Aid and fully believe that only THEY can provide these kids with a proper education and teachers at a local level who actually know their kids and create lesson plans on their own can't possibly give a good education. (The "if you're so good, why aren't you rich" argument.)
The problem is that Pearson and the other big companies are also writing the tests. The first round of testing in New York (testing Common Core before Common Core was implemented) saw 30% of kids pass. This was intentional. Make the tests such that a lot of kids fail now and then change them so that more kids pass later. (But not so much that Pearson et al aren't needed anymore.) Of course, there's no oversight on the tests either. Only Pearson is allowed to see them and grade them. Teachers aren't allowed so much as a glance.
Mind you, I know of 4 teachers in my sons' school who peaked at the test (risking their jobs in the process). They tried answering one question and each got a different answer. These are four teachers with masters degrees who couldn't figure out the answer to an elementary school test. How are the kids supposed to pass? (Short answer: They aren't.)
It's starting in New York already. We had a round of high stakes testing from Pearson which showed about 70% of the kids failing. The governor started calling for the "death penalty" for public schools who don't raise their scores. So if public schools are shut down, how are kids going to be educated? Simple. He'll have his business buddies open charter schools - run by businesses, for profit, but with money from the public school pot and without those pesky requirements that teachers have degrees in education. Of course, charter schools can pick and choose who they accept, so special needs kids will be excluded. If those kids' parents are rich enough, they can send them to a private school. (We actually looked into that for our boys, but it would require spending 30% of our income on their schooling when we're barely making ends meet.) Otherwise, the kids would be stuck in the few public schools left. Public schools which would be even more underfunded (as charter schools drain more and more money from the public school pot).
Make no mistake about it: Replacing public schools with Pearson Education Incorporated is the end game of all of this.
My wife is a teacher by trade, though not in a classroom right now. She worked in a private school - all girl's Catholic middle school - and had plenty of times when parents would storm in with an attitude of "I paid tuition, why is my daughter not being given straight A's." One dad got in my wife's face about why she gave his daughter a bad grade on her essay until my wife made him read the essay and he saw how bad it was. The sad thing isn't that he had the essay right there and never bothered to read it. His first assumption was that "teacher's giving my daughter an unfairly low grade" and not "my daughter didn't earn a high enough grade." A quick read of her essay would have let him know which it was, but he didn't want to even consider that his daughter wasn't writing well so he assumed that my wife was unfairly giving her students low marks.
Once you look at all of the factors - the low pay, the long hours (before school setup, after school grading, summers spent making lessons for next year, etc), the parents who either don't care or try to micromanage, the administrators who butt in every chance they get, the politicians who think they know better than trained teachers just how to teach kids - it becomes quite clear why a lot of very good teachers get burned out and leave the teaching profession.
That's a good one. My favorites, though are Tom Chapin's Not On The Test or Dudley aka Origin's Stop This Madness. I heard both of them perform at a rally in Albany in June attended by tons of parents, teachers, and students who were fed up with the whole situation.
Yes, it is. Pearson looked at our public schools and thought: "Hey, why aren't we getting money from them for testing?" So now they are writing a lot of the tests that teachers are forced (by state education departments) to give the students.
In New York State, our kids were given a series of high stakes tests and only 30% of the kids passed. The 70% failure rate was spun as "well, this is just the benchmark before we implement 'higher standards'." Of course, the goal was always for the kids to fail this first round of tests so later tests will show a higher passing rate and politicians (and the businesses they are funneling money to) can pat themselves on the back about how they've fixed the broken educational system.
Actually, materials like these are generally written by Pearson and other big businesses whom school districts pay a LOT of money to for materials. You would think this would make them responsible for providing good materials but it doesn't because they make sure to have a lot of state education officials bought and paid for. Besides, if they make it seem like kids are stupid, they can sell supplemental materials/courses/etc to the schools and make even more money. Students who do well in school don't make them as much money.
Unfortunately, this is the tip of the iceberg and I've had a front row seat to this as a parent with a child in 1st grade and one in 5th grade in New York State public schools.
The first step were the high stakes tests that our kids had to take last year. Tests which showed only 30% of New York State kids passing. This helped reinforce the message that politicians have been spouting that our public school system is broken and needs to be fixed. (Where "be fixed" means by them and by big businesses like Pearson.) Of course, nobody was allowed to see these tests so we could see if they were developmentally appropriate or if they were scored right. Pearson made the tests, graded them, and then they were destroyed. They don't help the teachers improve lessons (unlike normal tests which can show that Johnny is weak in some areas and might need extra help) and they just stress out the kids.
These tests, by the way, are tied to the teachers' jobs. A teacher whose kids do poorly (like, say, one with special education students) can find themselves out of a job. So teachers have a strong incentive to make sure their kids do well on the tests. Any time teaching ANYTHING not on the test is time wasted. So whole subjects get nixed in favor of test preparation. MONTHS are spent taking practice tests (bought from Pearson) and rehearsing items that might come up on the tests. Our kids are getting very good at answering A, B, C, or D, but not much else.
The next step, in New York State at least, is that EngageNY was forced into the classrooms. Remember every good teacher you ever had. What did those teachers do? They probably made learning fun, right? Make it interesting in their own unique way. Don't you with every teacher was that good? Well, too bad. EngageNY is a series of scripts that tells teachers what to say and when and even HOW to say it. It dictates how long each section of each lesson should take and how students should respond. Teachers are NOT to go off script no matter what... even if they themselves don't understand just what the script is trying to tell them to teach.
Call me crazy, but making every teacher teach the same lesson in the same manner to every kid doesn't seem like it will help children. Last I checked, every child is different. Some may learn well one way but not another way. It's a teacher's job to find the best way to reach his/her students and teach them the material. The whole point of Common Core is to make kids ready for college, but by the time they get to college, they're going to look upon school and learning as a boring activity and won't want to proceed.
So why Common Core? Because some big businesses looked at education and said "that's an untapped market." Why have these public schools when the businesses can turn a profit off kids? Why have teachers write lesson plans when a business can make a profit selling lesson plans?
In fact, Pearson and other businesses have more to gain if kids fail. They can sell books to help the kids, lessons to make the teachers "teach better", sessions for administrators on how to better push more Pearson products into schools. If the kid passes, all those potential sales go away.
This isn't even getting into the mess that is InBloom - putting tons of confidential student information online without the consent of parents. I'm sure the security will be totally uncrackable, right? I mean kids social security numbers, dates of birth, medical conditions, home addresses, etc. all online. Totally safe.
Parents are beginning to understand just what is happening and they're fighting back. In New York State, Commissioner John King cancelled a series of forums on Common Core when he said "special interest groups" co-opted the forums. Video of the forum got out, though and it turned out that those "special interest groups" were upset parents. When backlash over the cancelled forums got too big, he reinstated them - making them at the exact time that school let out to keep parents and teach
Why are businesses allowed to donate vast sums of money?
Because the people who set the rules are politicians. Politicians who get vast sums of money from businesses and don't want to see those vast sums go away. So they might make some token rules to make it seem like they're getting rid of the vast sums, but they won't REALLY get rid of the vast sums.
It's the same reason why the "politician pushes a lobbying firms agenda->retires->gets a cushy job in said lobbying firm->lobbies his former "co-workers" (other politicians) for said lobbying form" cycle won't be broken either. What politician would vote against getting a cushy job in exchange for having to do less work while in Congress? (Less work being "just shut your brain off and push this bill using these talking points.")
What I took away from the Yahoo comment was how it was worded vs the Snowden revelation. "We have not given access to our data centers to the NSA or to any other government agency." However, the Snowden leak said that the cables to the data centers were tapped. The NSA wouldn't need access to the physical servers if they could just grab a copy of all data heading into and out of the data center. Now, this could have been done without Yahoo knowing or it could have been done with their help (but without giving access to the data center to allow for plausible deniability should the story get out).
Is it possible that the planet formed further out, is falling in, and we just were lucky enough to have caught it before it falls in? (Of course, given distances and the speed of light, it's probably already fallen in.)
I'll be dressing up as the Doctor.... Ok, I'm already dressed as the Doctor even though I'm at work.
Most of my costume includes pieces that I either bought (red suspenders) or already owned. However, the bow tie and fez I hand sewed myself. (Not high tech, I know. If I call it "old school" does that make it sound cool?)
After I get off work, I'll be taking my kids trick or treating and then it's back to the everyday tasks of making and serving dinner, getting the kids to do their homework, and getting the kids in bed. Of course, I'll keep my Doctor outfit on (including the bow tie and fez because they're cool) to greet any trick or treaters (who will no doubt have no clue as to who I am).
No, all the terrorist plots that never were are thanks to my Anti-Terrorist Rock. It protects against terrorists within a 1,000 mile radius with a 90% accuracy rate. I got it when my Anti-Tiger rock so effectively protected me against tiger attacks (in New York). Sadly, I lost my Anti-Government-Overreach-Of-Power rock. I really could have used that one.
Recently, I was driving an some college kids pulled up next to me. At every stop light we encountered, the driver would pull out his phone and start scrolling through it. His focus was 100% on his phone and not the road. When the light changed, he would put his phone away and drive on. (His passenger did the same thing, but I'm not sure if he put his phone away when the vehicle started.)
Now, I know a lot of people think it's ok to text/browse the web/etc at a stop light, but it really isn't. If your car is on and in drive (or reverse), your focus should be on the road. Any Facebook updates, text messages, or the like can wait. If something's coming through that you think is actually vitally important, here's a simple solution: Find a spot to pull over and do so. Either at a rest stop, a parking lot, or a residential side street. The main point is to find a spot where you can safely stop your car, put it into Park (to avoid any potential car movement before you are ready) and THEN read the updates and/or reply. If doing this would take you too long, then obviously the message isn't that important and it can wait.
Trust me, I know the lure a smartphone can have when you're sitting at a red light, but are we such an ADD society that we can't stand being "unoccupied" for a minute or two until the light turns green?
Slashdot Mirror
I've read this screenplay (and think I still have a copy somewhere). It's fantastic and I would have seen that I, Robot in theaters (and then would have bought the DVD). As it stands, I've never seen the movie titled I, Robot despite being a huge Asimov fan. (Just like I haven't seen the movie titled Nightfall that I've heard is only barely based on Asimov's story and is pretty bad.) One of these days, I hope someone will make a good movie from one of Asimov's works.
That's because "I, Robot" wasn't an adaptation of Asimov's work. They had a screenplay from a writer completely unrelated to "I, Robot" and they had the rights to "I, Robot." They renamed the screenplay and tossed some "I, Robot" bits (Three Laws, Susan Calvin, etc) so they could call it an "adaptation" and cash in on Asimov's name.
You don't need an IP-Connected TV. We still have an old standard-definition television in our living room and won't upgrade to an HD set until it dies. However, we also have a Roku box that we use to watch videos from Netflix and Amazon VOD. The cheapest Roku box is $50 so it's not like this will break the bank.
We'll still drive to get videos from time to time. Of course, when we do this, we're headed to our local library where we rent them for free. (Technically not free since we're paying taxes to support the library, but we'd pay those taxes anyway so it's effectively free.) Our library has a surprisingly good selection and if they don't have what you're looking for, you can request it form another branch.
A free market assumes that consumers can make well informed choices between their options. If customers could choose between Widget Company A (who dumps waste products in the river and so sells his products for less) and Widget Company B (who doesn't and whose products are slightly more expensive as a result), they might choose A for the short-term monetary savings or B for the long-term environmental savings.
Of course, in real life, Widget Company A would hide their actions. If A is big and powerful enough, they could also buy off legislators to legalize their waste dumping and launch a bright and shiny PR campaign to make people equate Widget Company A's products with quality and B's with shoddy workmanship. In other words, instead of competing on a fair and level playing field with well informed customers, they would be competing on a field where A had all of the advantages and customers were kept in the dark on purpose.
Capitalism quickly turns into corporate oligarchy if suitable checks aren't put in place. Like many things, it's a good idea in theory, but reality complicates things.
A lot of parents (like my wife and I) are butting in. A lot more probably feel powerless or have bought into the education department's story that this is all improving education.
My mother always joked that she was the only mother in town that had to yell at her kid to stop reading and play outside. Of course, karma being what it is, I find myself trying to tell my oldest son to put his tablet computer down and play outside. I wonder what HIS kids won't want to put down when he tells them to go outside and play.
A system where companies are trying to a) spread the story that our public schools are failing and b) blame teachers for said failure. Then they sell the "solution" to the public schools and make money while looking like really great guys. Having teachers looking at the tests which would show that the schools are failing would lead to people leaking test questions and showing how the whole thing's a sham. Can't have that. It would get in the way of profits.
One one hand, they keep saying how the TSA is integral to foiling terrorist plots. The way the politicians/TSA describe it, you'd imagine that every airport TSA checkpoint stops a heavily armed terrorist with a dozen bombs every day. What heroes, they must be.
On the other hand, they just admitted that nothing life threatening has happened before. Since I'd qualify stopping a terrorist as life threatening - especially when said terrorist welcomes death and only hopes to take as many people as possible with him - this means that "never been anything life-threatening before" = TSA has never stopped a terrorist before.
So which is it TSA? (Yes, I know that we all know the answer. I'd just like to hear them admit that they've never stopped a terrorist.)
Sadly, these businesses see an opportunity to make more money and that overrides all else. Plus, I'm sure they've drunk their own Kool-Aid and fully believe that only THEY can provide these kids with a proper education and teachers at a local level who actually know their kids and create lesson plans on their own can't possibly give a good education. (The "if you're so good, why aren't you rich" argument.)
The problem is that Pearson and the other big companies are also writing the tests. The first round of testing in New York (testing Common Core before Common Core was implemented) saw 30% of kids pass. This was intentional. Make the tests such that a lot of kids fail now and then change them so that more kids pass later. (But not so much that Pearson et al aren't needed anymore.) Of course, there's no oversight on the tests either. Only Pearson is allowed to see them and grade them. Teachers aren't allowed so much as a glance.
Mind you, I know of 4 teachers in my sons' school who peaked at the test (risking their jobs in the process). They tried answering one question and each got a different answer. These are four teachers with masters degrees who couldn't figure out the answer to an elementary school test. How are the kids supposed to pass? (Short answer: They aren't.)
It's starting in New York already. We had a round of high stakes testing from Pearson which showed about 70% of the kids failing. The governor started calling for the "death penalty" for public schools who don't raise their scores. So if public schools are shut down, how are kids going to be educated? Simple. He'll have his business buddies open charter schools - run by businesses, for profit, but with money from the public school pot and without those pesky requirements that teachers have degrees in education. Of course, charter schools can pick and choose who they accept, so special needs kids will be excluded. If those kids' parents are rich enough, they can send them to a private school. (We actually looked into that for our boys, but it would require spending 30% of our income on their schooling when we're barely making ends meet.) Otherwise, the kids would be stuck in the few public schools left. Public schools which would be even more underfunded (as charter schools drain more and more money from the public school pot).
Make no mistake about it: Replacing public schools with Pearson Education Incorporated is the end game of all of this.
My wife is a teacher by trade, though not in a classroom right now. She worked in a private school - all girl's Catholic middle school - and had plenty of times when parents would storm in with an attitude of "I paid tuition, why is my daughter not being given straight A's." One dad got in my wife's face about why she gave his daughter a bad grade on her essay until my wife made him read the essay and he saw how bad it was. The sad thing isn't that he had the essay right there and never bothered to read it. His first assumption was that "teacher's giving my daughter an unfairly low grade" and not "my daughter didn't earn a high enough grade." A quick read of her essay would have let him know which it was, but he didn't want to even consider that his daughter wasn't writing well so he assumed that my wife was unfairly giving her students low marks.
Once you look at all of the factors - the low pay, the long hours (before school setup, after school grading, summers spent making lessons for next year, etc), the parents who either don't care or try to micromanage, the administrators who butt in every chance they get, the politicians who think they know better than trained teachers just how to teach kids - it becomes quite clear why a lot of very good teachers get burned out and leave the teaching profession.
That's a good one. My favorites, though are Tom Chapin's Not On The Test or Dudley aka Origin's Stop This Madness. I heard both of them perform at a rally in Albany in June attended by tons of parents, teachers, and students who were fed up with the whole situation.
Yes, it is. Pearson looked at our public schools and thought: "Hey, why aren't we getting money from them for testing?" So now they are writing a lot of the tests that teachers are forced (by state education departments) to give the students.
In New York State, our kids were given a series of high stakes tests and only 30% of the kids passed. The 70% failure rate was spun as "well, this is just the benchmark before we implement 'higher standards'." Of course, the goal was always for the kids to fail this first round of tests so later tests will show a higher passing rate and politicians (and the businesses they are funneling money to) can pat themselves on the back about how they've fixed the broken educational system.
Actually, materials like these are generally written by Pearson and other big businesses whom school districts pay a LOT of money to for materials. You would think this would make them responsible for providing good materials but it doesn't because they make sure to have a lot of state education officials bought and paid for. Besides, if they make it seem like kids are stupid, they can sell supplemental materials/courses/etc to the schools and make even more money. Students who do well in school don't make them as much money.
Unfortunately, this is the tip of the iceberg and I've had a front row seat to this as a parent with a child in 1st grade and one in 5th grade in New York State public schools.
The first step were the high stakes tests that our kids had to take last year. Tests which showed only 30% of New York State kids passing. This helped reinforce the message that politicians have been spouting that our public school system is broken and needs to be fixed. (Where "be fixed" means by them and by big businesses like Pearson.) Of course, nobody was allowed to see these tests so we could see if they were developmentally appropriate or if they were scored right. Pearson made the tests, graded them, and then they were destroyed. They don't help the teachers improve lessons (unlike normal tests which can show that Johnny is weak in some areas and might need extra help) and they just stress out the kids.
These tests, by the way, are tied to the teachers' jobs. A teacher whose kids do poorly (like, say, one with special education students) can find themselves out of a job. So teachers have a strong incentive to make sure their kids do well on the tests. Any time teaching ANYTHING not on the test is time wasted. So whole subjects get nixed in favor of test preparation. MONTHS are spent taking practice tests (bought from Pearson) and rehearsing items that might come up on the tests. Our kids are getting very good at answering A, B, C, or D, but not much else.
The next step, in New York State at least, is that EngageNY was forced into the classrooms. Remember every good teacher you ever had. What did those teachers do? They probably made learning fun, right? Make it interesting in their own unique way. Don't you with every teacher was that good? Well, too bad. EngageNY is a series of scripts that tells teachers what to say and when and even HOW to say it. It dictates how long each section of each lesson should take and how students should respond. Teachers are NOT to go off script no matter what... even if they themselves don't understand just what the script is trying to tell them to teach.
Call me crazy, but making every teacher teach the same lesson in the same manner to every kid doesn't seem like it will help children. Last I checked, every child is different. Some may learn well one way but not another way. It's a teacher's job to find the best way to reach his/her students and teach them the material. The whole point of Common Core is to make kids ready for college, but by the time they get to college, they're going to look upon school and learning as a boring activity and won't want to proceed.
So why Common Core? Because some big businesses looked at education and said "that's an untapped market." Why have these public schools when the businesses can turn a profit off kids? Why have teachers write lesson plans when a business can make a profit selling lesson plans?
In fact, Pearson and other businesses have more to gain if kids fail. They can sell books to help the kids, lessons to make the teachers "teach better", sessions for administrators on how to better push more Pearson products into schools. If the kid passes, all those potential sales go away.
This isn't even getting into the mess that is InBloom - putting tons of confidential student information online without the consent of parents. I'm sure the security will be totally uncrackable, right? I mean kids social security numbers, dates of birth, medical conditions, home addresses, etc. all online. Totally safe.
Parents are beginning to understand just what is happening and they're fighting back. In New York State, Commissioner John King cancelled a series of forums on Common Core when he said "special interest groups" co-opted the forums. Video of the forum got out, though and it turned out that those "special interest groups" were upset parents. When backlash over the cancelled forums got too big, he reinstated them - making them at the exact time that school let out to keep parents and teach
Why are businesses allowed to donate vast sums of money?
Because the people who set the rules are politicians. Politicians who get vast sums of money from businesses and don't want to see those vast sums go away. So they might make some token rules to make it seem like they're getting rid of the vast sums, but they won't REALLY get rid of the vast sums.
It's the same reason why the "politician pushes a lobbying firms agenda->retires->gets a cushy job in said lobbying firm->lobbies his former "co-workers" (other politicians) for said lobbying form" cycle won't be broken either. What politician would vote against getting a cushy job in exchange for having to do less work while in Congress? (Less work being "just shut your brain off and push this bill using these talking points.")
What I took away from the Yahoo comment was how it was worded vs the Snowden revelation. "We have not given access to our data centers to the NSA or to any other government agency." However, the Snowden leak said that the cables to the data centers were tapped. The NSA wouldn't need access to the physical servers if they could just grab a copy of all data heading into and out of the data center. Now, this could have been done without Yahoo knowing or it could have been done with their help (but without giving access to the data center to allow for plausible deniability should the story get out).
Is it possible that the planet formed further out, is falling in, and we just were lucky enough to have caught it before it falls in? (Of course, given distances and the speed of light, it's probably already fallen in.)
I'll be dressing up as the Doctor.... Ok, I'm already dressed as the Doctor even though I'm at work.
Most of my costume includes pieces that I either bought (red suspenders) or already owned. However, the bow tie and fez I hand sewed myself. (Not high tech, I know. If I call it "old school" does that make it sound cool?)
After I get off work, I'll be taking my kids trick or treating and then it's back to the everyday tasks of making and serving dinner, getting the kids to do their homework, and getting the kids in bed. Of course, I'll keep my Doctor outfit on (including the bow tie and fez because they're cool) to greet any trick or treaters (who will no doubt have no clue as to who I am).
At this point, Nixon's head on a giant killer robot body might be a good choice. "Cyborg Nixon: Because he doesn't seem so evil by comparison."
No, all the terrorist plots that never were are thanks to my Anti-Terrorist Rock. It protects against terrorists within a 1,000 mile radius with a 90% accuracy rate. I got it when my Anti-Tiger rock so effectively protected me against tiger attacks (in New York). Sadly, I lost my Anti-Government-Overreach-Of-Power rock. I really could have used that one.
Recently, I was driving an some college kids pulled up next to me. At every stop light we encountered, the driver would pull out his phone and start scrolling through it. His focus was 100% on his phone and not the road. When the light changed, he would put his phone away and drive on. (His passenger did the same thing, but I'm not sure if he put his phone away when the vehicle started.)
Now, I know a lot of people think it's ok to text/browse the web/etc at a stop light, but it really isn't. If your car is on and in drive (or reverse), your focus should be on the road. Any Facebook updates, text messages, or the like can wait. If something's coming through that you think is actually vitally important, here's a simple solution: Find a spot to pull over and do so. Either at a rest stop, a parking lot, or a residential side street. The main point is to find a spot where you can safely stop your car, put it into Park (to avoid any potential car movement before you are ready) and THEN read the updates and/or reply. If doing this would take you too long, then obviously the message isn't that important and it can wait.
Trust me, I know the lure a smartphone can have when you're sitting at a red light, but are we such an ADD society that we can't stand being "unoccupied" for a minute or two until the light turns green?