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Handwriting and gait are unique to each person, but seem difficult to naturally and consistently fake (hiding one's true biometric) if one did not want his/her identity revealed. They also seem difficult to use as authentication tools for our electronics in their current forms.

Internal timers as authentication seem like they could easily be integrated into our electronics, they don't have to be remembered like a password or pattern, and they can easily and consistently be faked (by counting to a different number for example). What other behavioral biometrics might share these properties?

I've written a short description of how I came up with the idea. You may find it interesting:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12551965

My mother will be traveling there this June for three weeks. This will probably be her last vacation, and I really hope she loves it. She's always wanted to visit Ireland and the UK as much of her family's heritage originates there. When visiting foreign countries, she really enjoys spending most of her time observing the culture outside of tourist hot spots.

More details: She plans to visit London, Wales (I don't know which city), Nottingham, Edinburgh, and Stonehenge or another henge. She'll be in Ireland for about a week, but isn't sure where to go outside of Dublin yet. She'll be traveling with three of her sisters and a friend. They plan to rent a car. She doesn't drink alcohol. She prefers BnBs to hotels, and I've shown her how to use Airbnb if they don't find a vacant BnB where they plan to sleep.

I would greatly appreciate if anyone from or familiar with these countries could offer any tips, suggestions, or warnings.

I intend to eventually formally learn CS algorithms and data structures. So far, I haven't run into a situation where not knowing them has catastrophically hindered the viability of my code. I understand that I don't know what I don't know. [1] I often see comments along the lines of, "I learned algorithms and data structures while getting my CS degree, but rarely (or never) used them in practice. Without reviewing them, I wouldn't likely pass a technical interview that heavily relies on whiteboarding and CS theory."

Is this most often the case, or is it just the case that is most often verbally expressed? For each professional programmer who doesn't know or rarely uses CS theory in practice, is there one or more that uses it regularly? I understand there will be specific positions that rely on CS theory more often, but my questions are meant to cover the general range of professional programmers.

I prioritize the list of topics I wish to learn or improve as there's too many to learn them all within a given time period. I often push algorithms and data structures down the list below topics I immediately need to know to complete parts of projects following best practices as well as I'm aware. The strongest case I can see for learning or memorizing algorithms and data structures before I encounter a situation that requires I implement them in practice is in order to do well in a technical interview. I wonder if I'm really restricting my ability to code better because my thoughts on this are misguided. Should I at least skim through resources on CS theory so that I can better recognize situations where I should utilize it?

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning–Kruger_effect

As jl mentioned in her talk recently at the FFC, she is a good judge of character with the ability to easily see beyond a facade. I understand that many (possibly most) metrics necessary to make an accurate character judgement within a short time period can only be measured in a face-to-face meeting/interview. I want to learn ways to most accurately judge one's character before meeting that person.

While most do not share jl's ability, many of you have hired and/or worked alongside people long enough to accurately judge their characters via their thoughts and actions over time. Have you or anyone you know of looked back at the original resume, CV, application, profile, etc. and found any correlation between style/content of the text and character traits of the person it represents?

Second, have you ever been surprised by how different someone's character was than what you'd first imagined after reading their resume or other text-based profile? Which character traits did you most often judge accurately and which did you most often misjudge?

Answers to any of these questions are greatly appreciated.