There is arbitrage and the price does fluctuate but it's still probably the easiest way to send "money" halfway around the globe.

That's mostly true. But there are a few extra things to note. The first is you'd owe the "someone" interest for loaning you the bitcoins. And second is if you bet wrong and the price goes up, you'll have to find some money from somewhere to buy the bitcoins back at the new higher price.

Not that bad. You'd still have the ability to make anonymous addresses but a large company (or even a legit small one) doesn't care that the bank knows that it made a large deposit. They care more that they can convert the bits to dollars safely. That's not a bad thing for anyone.

Therefore it must be false. QED

I wasn't smart enough to write a compiler so I wrote in machine code using a hex editor.

Are you saying your national anthem isn't taught in your schools?

When I went to college the network admin (who also happened to be an instructor for one of my classes) told us the university could save a lot on network costs if it would just set up internal porn server mirrors. Unfortunately the board of regents didn't like that idea.

I do! All I have to do is swipe a piece of plastic or enter some numbers in a web page and I get real things like hamburgers and video games! I don't know why everyone wants dollars but it's to my advantage that they do. If everyone stopped accepting dollars tomorrow I'd be a sad panda.

The great thing about movies and TV is they could just put up a black screen with white letters saying "Three years later..." and continue the story.

That's what I thought too. It doesn't seem like a big deal to get upset about.

World Baseball Classic. That's the real global championship tournament for baseball. The United States isn't the world champion.

That would be awesome. Although the shopping thing could get out of synch if you need to shop from a real person.

Professor, what's another name for pirate treasure?

I had plenty of undergrad courses. But I started programming before all of that. Those courses can help make you a better programmer but they are by no means required for a programming course in middle or high school.

The great part about starting early is it opens a doorway. A student can start with basic knowledge of programming (e.g. flow charts, if-then statements, loops) and a personal goal (e.g. create a game) and be motivated enough to learn enough of the rest on their own (assuming they have a computer and either Internet access or relevant books). Self motivated learning is itself enough to warrant teaching programming at a young age.

"Better to focus on math, which is the hard part of programming."

How about focusing on logic? That's the real key to programming. Well, that and reading instruction manuals.