random bits

[cellio]

Guess-the-anonymous-poster update: One outstanding guess (paging aliza250), one where I had to be told (eclectic_1), all others identified. That was fun.

The stereotype is that smart people (including anyone whose job title implies serious analytical skills) don't get picked for juries, but I'm beginning to wonder. I've been called three times and picked twice, and our engineering director is currently away from work because he's on a jury. Do they just sometimes miss in the screening, or are the lawyers not really screening for this sort of thing after all?

A Texas judge has ordered that a person convicted of animal cruetly must post pictures of the animals she starved in her jail cell. Good for the judge! This is similar to the local story some months back of the hit-and-run driver who is required to carry a photo of the person he killed in his wallet during his probation. Such orders do no harm (it's hardly "cruel and unusual") and serve to put a human (or animal, in the one case) face on the damage done by these people. More, please. (And remember, we're talking about people convicted of criminal charges; I am not advocating haunting those who accidentally cause harm and don't try to hide it with such sentences.)

Do spammers really think that people still open messages with the subject line "URGENT"? Or that most of us think we even might know a sender named Brittany? Ah well; it doesn't fool the filters.

At my most recent physical my doctor called for a routine test that kicks in for women at age 40. (Am I being sufficiently delicate?) No surprises there; the surprise came when I called to schedule and the person said "oh, and no caffeine for two days before". After I moved from incoherent blubbering to actual words, I explained that this posed a difficulty and she relented. It turned out to be advice, not medical necessity. Don't scare me like that!

Comments

Re: Tests? We don't need no steenking tests!

[cellio]

One good thing I can say for Mensa: it was a real boost to me when I was an ostracized-for-being-too-smart 15-year-old in a small town. It gave me my first opportunity to hang out with people who would treat me decently. Mind, sometime during college I drifted away, but for those few years I was really glad there was a group I could spend time with, elitist or no. (And how elitist can something that accepts 1 in 50 really be anyway? If that's their goal, they're not doing a good job.)

We'd had mandatory IQ testing in junior high school, so I used that test to enter.

Re: Tests? We don't need no steenking tests!

[caryabend.livejournal.com]

I was put in the "gifted" program after IQ testing, But I don't remember if that was in 2nd, 3rd or 4th grade. I do remember entering something called the "IEP Program" that began around the same time, but I can't recall exactly when, or what it stands for.

Thankfully, I wasn't ostracized (much). The funky demographics of my suburban Philly town generated a number of bright kids. I used to think it was the water because it seemed so normal to me that so many kids were "gifted" or in Honors or AP classes.

I didn't realize how sheltered my life was before I went to college and learned how unusual my town really was. Over 80% of those over 25 had an undergraduate degree, and over 50% had a masters or other post-undergrad degree, and a whopping 30% had an MD, JD, or PhD!

This makes some serious differences in a town of 15,000 or so (when I graduated) with only one school for each grade grouping (K-2, 3-4, 5-8, 9-12 when I started and K-3, 4-8, 9-12 now). Since so many people had advanced degrees, they generally had well-paying jobs. This translates into a higher tax base and, because, they could afford more expensive houses, more property tax revenue. This, in turn, translates directly into better funded schools. Good schools and expensive houses gain the attention of other people with lots of education and bigger paychecks, and tends to cause attrition among those who have trouble paying the taxes, so the cycle continues until some other factor gets large enough to intervene.

Side Note: To find the current school info, I went to the School District's Website and poked around. I found that the K-3 chess team(!) is this year's State Champion! (Go Little Lions! :)) Even though there have been some big changes since I graduated, some things appear to still be the same.