A history of the driving test

Motorists were obliged to take a driving test from June 1 1935. 

However the test was suspended for the duration of the 1939-45 war before being reintroduced on November 1 1946.

It was suspended again during the Suez crisis when learners were briefly allowed to drive unaccompanied.

Up until 1975 learner drivers had to demonstrate their ability to use hand signals.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/motoring/news/8762972/A-history-of-the-driving-test.html

 

Yeah!!! Facebook More Important than Toilets that Flush, Say British

Sure, Americans may cumulatively spend 53 billion minutes per month on Facebook, but at least users in the U.S. understand that social media is less important than the ability to, for example, flush away human waste...unlike Facebook addicts in the United Kingdom.
A study, carried out by the London Science Museum, has discovered that more Britons would prefer to live without a flushing toilet than abandon Facebook. Also on the list of things that people in the United Kingdom are more willing to give up than Facebook: fresh vegetables, fresh fruit and the chance to shower.

Read more: http://techland.time.com/2011/09/14/facebook-better-than-flushing-toilets-say-british/#ixzz1XxdeKu00

Windows 8 soll Tablets erobern

Microsoft macht Ernst: Das nächste Windows wird anders aussehen, anders funktionieren als seine Vorgänger. Der Konzern setzt ganz auf Touchscreens, verspricht trotzdem totale Kompatibilität, viele neue Geräte - und ein großzügiges Geschenk an Entwickler.

http://www.spiegel.de/netzwelt/gadgets/0,1518,786005,00.html#ref=rss 

Das On-Leid

Mit der Verbreitung von Smartphones wird die Informationsflut allgegenwärtig – und der Mangel an Aufmerksamkeit zur Epidemie. Wie viel online macht krank?

 http://mobil.zeit.de/zeit-wissen/2011/05/Online-Sucht

The Christmas Shopping Season Now Starts … in September?

It doesn’t seem to matter that September is closer to Christmas in July than actual Christmas, or that back-to-school shopping has barely ended, or that Halloween and Thanksgiving shopping have barely begun. With retailers’ quest to continually expand the winter holiday shopping season, you’re bound to see stockings, ornaments, and outdoor Santa displays any day now—if they’re not there already—on the shelves of stores such as Costco, Kmart, J.C. Penney, Sears, Lowes, and Walmart.

Read more: http://moneyland.time.com/2011/09/13/the-christmas-shopping-season-now-starts-%e2%80%a6-in-september/#ixzz1Xris3EwG

Downgrading the American Dream

The American Dream has been downgraded, too.
Writer James Truslow Adams coined the phrase American Dream and defined it in grand terms in 1931, when he called it “that dream of a land in which life should be better and richer and fuller for everyone, with opportunity for each according to ability or achievement.”

Read more: http://moneyland.time.com/2011/09/13/downgrading-the-american-dream/#ixzz1XrfaOV5P

The Interrupted Reading: The Kids with George W. Bush on 9/11

There has rarely been a starker juxtaposition of evil and innocence than the moment President George W. Bush received the news about 9/11 while reading The Pet Goat with second-graders in Sarasota, Fla.
Seven-year-olds can't understand what Islamic terrorism is all about. But they know when an adult's face is telling them something is wrong — and none of the students sitting in Sandra Kay Daniels' class at Emma E. Booker Elementary School that morning can forget the devastating change in Bush's expression when White House chief of staff Andrew Card whispered the terrible news of the al-Qaeda attack. Lazaro Dubrocq's heart started racing because he assumed they were all in trouble — with no less than the Commander in Chief — but he wasn't sure why. "In a heartbeat, he leaned back and he looked flabbergasted, shocked, horrified," recalls Dubrocq, now 17. "I was baffled. I mean, did we read something wrong? Was he mad or disappointed in us?"
Read more: http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,2069582,00.html#ixzz1Xlws6b1E