The orange I gave him had, “Orange you glad it’s your birthday?” written on it.  In addition to the scurvy fighting ascorbic acid contained in every orange, it also had a 20 dollar bill inside.  The banknote made its way inside the same way it does in the following magic trick.

When was the last time you had a 20 dollar trick?  My nephew had one last week.

Google and its services will remain online.  This a shame because some institutions would be utterly lost without Gmail and its services.  It is also a shame because this is the one chance for Hotbot, Lycos, and Ask Jeeves to make a comeback.

Across the nation, select parents are avoiding immunizing their children and electing to use a variant of a pox party.  Parents are using a sucker licked by a sick child to introduce the disease to their child.  It should be noted this action is not condoned or recommended as it would likely be detrimental to the child’s health.  Furthermore, it is illegal to mail a biological substance without safe packaging.  If you are curious as to the requirements, here is a 54 page document detailing how to mail a biologic entity.

Before the chicken pox (Varicella) vaccine there was rationale, albeit incredibly weak, to exposing a child to chicken pox.  After all, isn’t that what we do now with a vaccine – expose a person to a disease to build immunity?  Yes and no, but mostly no.  The lollipox may transmit chicken pox, but at an unknown dose.  The child could receive a mild infection or incredibly strong one resulting in dangerous complications.  It could also transmit any other disease the person had when they licked the sucker.  A vaccine has  a measured and specific dose with known ingredients and risks.

Quality assurance aside, chicken pox is egregiously considered a childhood rite of passage.  Although complications are rare, it is still a very serious disease.  Vaccination is required for children to attend Indiana schools if they have not previously contracted the disease.  Immunization is recommended because the risk is low for serious complications (2.2 per 100,000 people). The child and parent may need one day off of school and work to receive the vaccine.  If the student contracted the disease they may be absent and require care for 1 – 2 weeks.  Complications like pneumonia could also result.

While Grey is very intellectual and a proponent for reading, I do wonder why she was selected because it seems pretty obvious there would be calamity.  My presumption is that all the firefighters who would read to children were busy making a booster calendar. 

I'd like to read to kids, but I have a kitten to rescue and January to spice up

That said, the logic is faulty behind not wanting Grey to read to children.  She has had sex, sometimes on camera and sometimes with multiple people, which I would argue most of the staff of the school has done as well.  There are worse people to read to her, like the firefighters above; they’re not wearing their personal protective equipment properly.

Because I am concerned about unintentionally selecting a number or password with meaning I use a random number generator to create a PIN.  I still have a bias; however, because I dismiss numbers like 7777 or 1234 even thought they arise randomly.  The most common numbers are listed below.  Every phone, GPS, and garage keypad I come across will experience me entering these numbers.

• 1234
• 0000
• 2580
• 1111
• 5555
• 5683
• 0852
• 2222
• 1212
• 1998

Also of note, 1990 – 2000 were in the top 50 passwords and 1980 – 1989 were in the top 100.

If you are too lazy to read it to your child, you can always have Samuel L. Jackson read it to them.  The only way to improve this book is to have Morgan Freeman read it. The audio book is available for free from Audible.  It can also be viewed on YouTube.

While I see a very obvious need for skilled labor (robots cannot do everything), I would push the task of teaching how things work.  Rowe mentioned to Congress that as a young boy he spent a day with his family to repair a pipe after a volcanic episode with his toilet.  The repair was not complicated, but how many people have the knowledge of how to repair it?  Granted there are some caveats with DIY.  A task may be too great or too dangerous and truly require a professional.  But for many tasks a simple visit to Wikipedia, HowStuffWorks, or YouTube will explain the principles of a device and how to repair it.