IT Insights Blog — Employment

Some readers of the IT Insights Blog may recall being young (or at least younger) and watching the old Inspector Gadget cartoon series. At the start of each episode, the ever-intrepid Gadget would receive his instructions from Chief Quimby in the form of a note programmed — Can you program a piece of paper? Maybe we should just say booby-trapped? — to "self-destruct" after he read it.

A refrain one often hears in educational circles is that U.S. universities and colleges are the “envy of the world.” Based upon the number of foreign students attending each year, there does appear to be some validity to that claim. These institutions are certainly doing something right.

We here at the TestOut Continuing Education news desk and blog factory consider ourselves to be relatively plugged in when it comes to both the IT industry and the wider world beyond that. We try to write about current events and real-world challenges. It's probably more interesting for you to read about those things, and it keeps us both on our toes and with one ear to the ground.

It's Friday, there's mild chaos in a suddenly turbulent stock market, and a gigantic snowstorm is bearing down on the East Coast (from roughly Maryland to Maine) of the United States. Is everybody ready for the weekend? A favorite weekend pastime is going to the movies, which many people do to escape the sometimes persistent troubles and weighty responsibilities of reality.

Among his many other admirable qualities, former President Abraham Lincoln of "these United States" is often admired for his well documented sense of humor and fondness for jokes. There's a popular, probably apocryphal story that connects Lincoln and his keen wit to the five-dollar bill long before his face became permanently affixed to that particular mainstay of U.S. currency.