Word: useless
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Though speed was the object, the networks did not gauge the possible effects of the early announcements. As it happened, many people in the Pacific time zone--including Corman's constituents--whose polls were still open decided not to vote, feeling their ballot was useless. This did not affect the presidential race, which was decided east of the Mississippi. But in smaller congressional, state, and local races--particularly Corman's--Democratic candidates lost votes when despairing Carter supporters chose not to cast their ballots...
Such protestations, of course, have been historically useless where the general public is concerned. High school teachers drill their students on SAT-type questions for personal glory, and every few seasons a politician campaigns on the promise to raise scores. But at least such misguided faith in scores has not taken in most educators and administrators who have the ultimate responsibility for trying to salvage something from the public education system. Faced with the task of resurrecting collapsed schools and motivating uneducated teachers to function again, educators for the most part have had the sense to grit their teeth...
...rate makes this purpose seem all the more essential. Michael Adelson, 23, who studied psychology at U.C.L.A., has been unable to find a job in his field for a year and a half, and he now wishes he had chosen engineering. He calls his bachelor of arts degree "completely useless...
...making it the first such plant to produce more energy than it consumes. But a larger plant built in 1981 off Kailuakona, on Hawaii, was a $50 million failure: corrosion of the heat-exchange pipes by sea water and fouling by small marine plants and bacteria rendered the system useless in a matter of days. New pipe materials are being tested, and the state, undaunted, has ordered designs for four 10-megawatt OTEC plants...
...witnessers. Indiana Jones, the anthropologist hero of "Raiders of the Lost Ark," is spared the ark's deadly wrath only because he refuses to look at it, hardly the most scientifically curious of approaches. The various technicians who tromp through the haunted house in "Poltergiest" are useless, for all their sophisticated machinery, in the face of the specters who have set up shop there...