Wait, what? People in their mid-30s are dissatisfied with their lives? People in their mid-20s are having a hard time reconciling what they thought they'd become with what they have to do to survive? People in their 50s wonder what to do with themselves now that their children have left home and they actually have to redefine themselves as people and not "mom" or "dad"?

Who knew?

Listen to some Jackson Browne and watch the Big Chill and get a handle on it. You're not special because you are having a hard time feeling comfortable in your own skin; most of us feel that way most of the time.

What's up with the new Salon advertisements for the dating agency, with the little live videos of women flashing cleavage? Sometimes there's three different women dancing around my screen pushing their boobs practically in Glenn Greenwald's cartoon face.

It's not dignified. And a bit off-message.

It's targeted advertising; somewhere, at some time, a cookie was set on your computer that is telling the ad server to return those specific ads. Different users are going to see different ads depending on what the ad server sees on that cookie.

Hey Broadsheet, what's up with the new personals ads? We've had ads to find a Muslim mate, an Asian mate, a rich sugardaddy mate, and now we've got dating service commercial video of a hottie shaking her boobs at you.

I admit, I don't find much wrong with videos of hotties shaking their boobs at me, but all of this seems a bit incongruous with Broadsheet's feminist perspective. What's up?

Salon is not serving the ads; they are contracting with an ad server company that displays ads targeted to each user, based on cookies stored on your machine from your browsing history.

I'm seeing ads for Barack Obama, financial services, and healthcare IT companies. Maybe their logic is faulty.

I don't know what the laws are in Kansas, but in Massachusetts a pregnant 10-year-old would be considered a victim of rape, just like a 6-year-old with an STD. Doctors are required to report suspected child abuse (like rape) to law enforcement. Maybe that's what they're looking for?

Subpoenaed medical records have identifying information redacted (blacked out). These records won't have any names, addresses, phone numbers, or any other identifying information. If they're investigating unreported child abuse, the records will have the gender and age.

So... without a patient name how would they ever know if rapes have been reported? Don't you think they'd have to match a medical record to police report?

And all new Toyotas, it seems, is that all the gauges are in the middle of the dash instead of above and behind the steering wheel, which means the driver's eyes are now drawn *away* from the road when doing things like eyeballing the spedometer. I drove a Prius once and a Matrix a few times (thanks to Zipcar!) and found the gauge placement incredibly inconvenient and slightly dangerous since I kept having to turn my head to look at them instead of just being able to flick my eyes down to them for a split second then back up to the road.

Don't get me started on the multi-level control panel *touchscreen* on the Prius. Yeah, that's not a dangerous distraction or anything...

But back to the topic, I'm down with the Jetson's "b-b-b-b-b!" noise suggested by someone else just below!

I have a 2006 Prius and the gauges are behind the steering wheel, like on every other car.

"Like on every other car?" Smug much?

Center-mounted gauge placement started with the Echo, and has now infected the Yaris, the Matrix, the Scion (which I LOVED and nearly bought, except for the gauge placement which made me insane), and the Prius -- three of which models I drove, and since I wasn't on mushrooms at the time I can say with some assurance that I didn't hallucinate the center control placement. Maybe they moved it on the Prius for the '06 model.

What you said was that the Prius, "like every other car", had gauges placed behind the steering wheel. Toyota places their gauges above the center column on at least four of their models. So I guess it's "every other car" minus the four you've never seen.

1. "Smug"? Did you mean "Unobservant"? How does placement of gauges denote extreme self-satisfation?

Smug in the presumption that "if I haven't seen it, it doesn't exist and you are delusional".

Kitchengirl's report about gauge placement in the single Prius she drove would have a lot more evidentiary value if she said what model year it was.

I don't fucking know, man, I got it from Zipcar. They don't list the model year. Go investigate it yourself. The center of the dash had this ridiculous touch-screen panel with all the gauges on it. It was horrible. Ditto with the Scion xA which was the awesomest car in the universe EXCEPT FOR THE CENTER MOUNTED GAUGES. Too bad, I would have bought one, too. Sorry, Toyota! The Echo is also a crappy car, but for a variety of other reasons in addition to the gauge placement. The Yaris also has a center-mounted cluster.

ADDENDUM: The 2002 model has a center-mounted gauge cluster. Google is your friend. Learn it, know it, live it.

You can't just claim something and then attack those who present conflicting evidence for failing to do your research.

What conflicting evidence would that be? The claim that "all other cars" have left-mounted gauge clusters, despite the fact that the person who wrote that has (demonstrably) never driven a Yaris, Echo, or Scion?

On topic, I think blind people should be irradiated to make the glow, so that we all avoid them whether we drive old Datsuns with no mufflers or flying carpets.