Gotta Love Facebook

It may be especially true for Facebook, but it’s also very true for the internet at a whole. Anything you post online can probably be seen by anyone with internet access, anywhere in the world.


When posting things about someone on Facebook, make sure that they are not your friend, or they will be able to see it as well. Even if the person was not your friend, one of your friends may show them so keeping secrets is nearly impossible on the interwebs. This is another item from Oddee, although I will not post the direct link due to other content advertised on that particular page.

Failed Warnings

I know that warnings have become necessary in our lawsuit-happy culture, but they still go overboard when trying to warn people about potential dangers.

Click image for larger

I’m pretty sure that Parker here is not old enough to drive and so it really should not matter how much this canine fellow drinks. Click here for oddee.com where I found this image. Be warned that not everything on the linked site is guaranteed to be family friendly.

I win!

The Stranger, the more hippy of the ‘news’papers in Seattle wrote an article criticizing the current state superintendant for not being able to answer 3 questions they gave her from the WASL* (Washington Assessment of Student Learning) test. These particular questions are logic problems used to evaluate students’ reasoning processes. Students are instructed to “Write to help explain your best thinking using words, numbers, or pictures” when answering these questions. I believe partial credit is given to those who do not correctly answer them but show how they got their answers. The three questions given to her are as follows:

Tom, Dick and Harry work in a bank. One is the manager, one is the cashier and one is the teller. The teller, who was an only child, earns the least. Harry, who married Tom's sister, earns more than the manager. What position does each person fill?

Penny works in the Package Palace. It is Penny’s job to stamp the sides of packages that are not touching the floor and not touching another package. Today there are 25 packages on the floor. Penny put the packages into 5 stacks, and the sides of the stacks touch. How many sides of packages must penny stamp.

The local recycling plant has just bought a new metal compactor that produces a smaller cube of scrap iron than does the older machine. Somebody noticed, however, that the combined volumes of one cube from each compactor was numerically the same as the combined lengths of all their edges. What are the dimensions of the cubes, if you consider only integral solutions?

The superintendant, Terry Bergeson, only attempted the first two questions and got both of them wrong. I tried and got all three right, therefore I’m now accepting write in votes for the position as the new State School Superintendant.

*The WASL test was put together by a panel of teachers and representatives from the largest employers in Washington to evaluate the basic knowledge and reasoning abilities of Washington high school students. Those who pass the test show that they meet a satisfactory level of reasoning ability required to be hired by these companies. Sadly, few students pass every section of this test on their first attempt, and most teachers (including the superintendant) fail as well.