And your thoughts on whether one must use the original stick pin or is it ok and not actually “defacing” the symbol to use a safer pin design? That’s the “arbitrary” bit I was making fun of.

I like the idea of a white “peace” poppy. I assume used as a quiet but visible way to protest, eg, any support of the a Israeli government’s genocide of Palestinian people.

We use Customer Information to provide our Services as directed by our Customers. Depending on the Service this may include:

This means you need the policy from the school itself so you know what’s actually been agreed to that is applicable to your kid’s data.

Communicating with you about Services that may be of interest to you.

Meaning they can sell your data to any who will pay for it.

In the event of a corporate transaction. In the event of a corporate divestiture, merger, consolidation, acquisition, reorganization, sale or other disposition of all or any portion of our business or assets, we may share Customer Information with acquirers and other relevant participants in the transaction.

Meaning they can pull a 23andMe; if they go bankrupt or whatever, they can sell your data and the buyers can do whatever they want with it.

I’d be defaulting to not allowing my kid’s name to be entered into the program, with a steep uphill challenge to convince me with a very robust contract-specific privacy plan. A single, generic pass than any kid might be using at any given time, I’m still fine with that but no individual-assigned tags that get associated with my kid.

Cite religious beliefs and not wanting your kid forced to carry the Mark of the Beast. Rattle off some Bible verses from Revelations, complain about persecution of Christians, and you’ll be set.

Or, you know, give actual reality-based reasons and hope for sensible school administrators. At the very least, I would expect them to share a privacy policy explaining what this third-party has access to and what they can do with the data.

Personally, a single “bathroom pass” NFC card that a teacher hands out to any student in their class that needs a bathroom visit wouldn’t cause me much security consternation; that any student could be carrying the pass at any given time is enough anonymztion for my concerns. I’d be more concerned about germs; a group pass is going to get nasty.

I try to have one athletic/health, one artistic, and one academic thing going. Some things I get bored with and replace pretty quickly, some last a really long time.

Gym with weights is boring? Cool, tried it, not for you, go find some other physical thing to try. Give it a go, keep at it or try yet another new thing.

I sometimes say my hobby is trying hobbies. I go into group classes and clubs with that mindset. It helped me to stop feeling like a newbie loser not as proficient as the people around me, because I’m literally there to be new. People know me for that character trait. And someday soon I will be new at another thing, and another, and another.

And I don’t wait to do new things with friends. It’s a 1000-year event, getting schedules to align across several busy adults.

Never clicked for me. Glad he’s out there as one more progressive voice who isn’t a total dry loser, but not my personal cup of tea.

Satire like that really isn’t my jam, but out of the easily accessible ones, I’m more likely to catch a Colbert or Oliver clip.

Won’t watch it. I am not the target audience for jokes about banging as many women as he can and barely skirting the edges of pedophilia. I’m so glad there are a greater variety of comedians these days.

I have so many pregnant coworkers this summer; hot chocolate and caffeine-free tea are now standard items in my office. Quite a few non-pregnant coworkers are taking them too, so happy to be able to meet more preferences. I don’t care one whit about people who don’t drink coffee for whatever reason.

Starbucks wouldn’t have hot chocolate on their menu if it didn’t get ordered. You’re overthinking it. Anyone who would judge you for it is a weirdo.

Are Americans the only non-EU nationals that have to go through EES biometrics when traveling into EU/Schengen zone? I’m pretty sure that’s not the case.

Now, I wouldn’t be surprised if many Americans don’t know we’ve been doing this to non-US nationals visiting the US for years via our US-VISIT program.

The Left Hand of Darkness and other Le Guin stories. Good timing on when I started expending my scifi reading in her direction; I was in high school, meeting more people outside my little conservative family and church bubble, trying to form new conceptual models for the much bigger world that I was previously insulated from.