Friday Links!

* The Department of Education is surprisingly frank about how impossible it is to turn Obama’s gibberish on education into a usable ratings system.��And here is the tentative list of stats colleges must now juke.

*��Serial��missed its chance to show how unfair the criminal justice system really is. What Serial really taught us.

* Aaron Bady interviews Sofia Samatar on steampunk, Afrofuturism, science fiction, and more.��The latest in his Post45 series.

*��Marquette says it hasn’t suspended professor John McAdams.

* The best list like this I’ve seen:��5 Reasons To Study The Humanities.

* Uber is a terrible idea.

Uber claims Done wasn’t even the driver who was supposed to pick the woman up, and points out that he passed a background check before he started driving for them.

So did the L.A. driver charged with kidnapping and rape, the San Francisco driver charged with��hitting a passenger in the head with a hammer, and another San Francisco driver accused of assault who turned out to have prior felony convictions and was on parole for a previous battery charge.

* But in statehouses across the country, Uber has fought against legislation requiring background checks as strong as those demanded of traditional taxis. Other ride-sharing companies like Lyft and Sidecar, Uber���s chief rivals, have also pushed against the laws, but supporters of stronger background checks say Uber has been by far the most aggressive.

*��The Winning Images From National Geographic‘s 2014 Photo Contest.

* The very last Colbert.��RIP.��Today marks the exact moment this��stops being a relevant reference for students, so expect to see it fade from classrooms around 2027.

* And I too wish my snowman were alive.