The Boston Globe is profiling the people and the world of bus route 19 in Boston. If Johnny and George Huynh's isn't the most significant story you read today, I'll be very surprised.

What happened when a school board member with a bachelor of science and two masters degrees takes the same standardized math and reading tests 10th Florida students do? For Rick Roach, the results were not encouraging.

The math section had 60 questions. I knew the answers to none of them, but managed to guess ten out of the 60 correctly. On the reading test, I got 62% . In our system, that’s a ‘D,’ and would get me a mandatory assignment to a double block of reading instruction.

The two articles provide a fascinating look at the ways these standardized tests are missing the mark.

Update (December 22nd, 2011): While teaching to the test, and not measuring the right things are certainly a problem, I'm not sure it's so clear-cut here. The Post put up some sample questions. My results?

The Seattle Mariners are a mid-market team, but they've managed some degree of success over the past decade and a half. This success was due in no small part to their international scouting, which has been superior to that of most other teams. It appears the Mariners will be losing that advantage under the new collective bargaining agreement signed last month.

Under the new rules, in 2012, all teams will have the same amount of money ($2.9 million) to use for bonuses to entice players to sign with them. After that, the amount will vary based on how well the team has performed recently. The better they do, the less money they'll have.

…in future years, a team’s total international budget will be determined based on their Major League win-loss record. If the organization begins to win at the Major League level, they’ll have even less to spend on international talent going forward.

In other words, baseball finally has some parity when it comes to player compensation. The problem is, it's not where it really counts: total payroll.

I haven't seen any of the Twilight movies, nor read any of the books. Nevertheless, I feel confident in dismissing them all as awful crap. Apparently, the latest movie is so bad that Time compiled a list of brutal reviews.

thankfully, you don't need to see the movie because artist Randeep Katari has seen it for you, and sketched a summary. This initial image, showing Randeep purchasing his ticket, should give you some idea what you're getting in to.

He hasn't even made it into the theater yet.

This site aims for a bit more longevity than the lifespan of the average Internet meme. Nevertheless, sometimes a meme just kills it. Such is the case for the Unimpressed Astronaut, inspired by comedian Brian Regan.

Pleated Jeans has compiled a great collection.

Actually, that headline doesn't cover this whole story. The original item from last month detailed the Air Force dumping troops' cremated ashes in a Virginia landfill. The current story indicates they dumped more than originally acknowledged, and don't plan to determine to whom this happened.

“It would require a massive effort and time to recall records and research individually,” Jo Ann Rooney, the Pentagon’s acting undersecretary for personnel, wrote in a Nov. 22 letter to Rep. Rush D. Holt (D-N.J.).

“What the hell?” Holt said in a phone interview. “We spent millions, tens of millions, to find any trace of soldiers killed, and they’re concerned about a ‘massive’ effort to go back and pull out the files and find out how many soldiers were disrespected this way?” He added: “They just don’t want to ask questions or look very hard.”

Bravo to my former Representative (and the only literal rocket scientist in Congress) Rush Holt. "What the hell?" is exactly the right response. It would "require a massive effort"? Then the Pentagon better undertake a massive goddamned effort. This is truly shameful.

Recently, the New York Times had an article detailing the annoyance some folks have felt when overhearing people using Siri, the iPhone 4S's digital assistant, in public.

“It sounded ridiculous,” said Mr. Klein, 28, who works in social media marketing.

Emphasis on Mr. Klein's undoubtedly annoying career is mine. Snark aside though, technology doesn't make people rude – people are just rude. Do we really need to rewrite etiquette here? It all comes down to being considerate of others. If you are, you won't be loud. You'll turn off the clicks, bleeps, and boops on your phone. And you won't get choked by frustrated commuters.

This is the new logo for StumbleUpon, a service which helps you discover new content on the Web.

StumbleUpon's New Logo

This is the sage advice provided by design blog Brand New.

I like to urge designers to always ask themselves: “Does this logo look like a penis?” The answer has to be a resounding “No”. If there is just a slight hesitation, then it probably does look like a penis.

A helpful tip for remembering this advice is ABC – Always Be Checking-if-your-design-looks-like-a-penis.