Not to mention xkcd on April 1, 2012...

This was a hybrid approach. How would they have done without the face-to-face hour each week to get questions answered that the machines couldn't answer?

True, but humans can download large electronic dictionaries and use a computer to pick, say, 4-8 words at random. Since that XKCD came out, I've used a non-random 35 character string followed by one of my old 8 character gobbledegook passwords as a new 43 character password that I can remember. Takes time to type, but I figure it's the "best of both worlds" for security. Unfortunately, a lot of websites I've tried to do this with have an upper limit on password length that is shorter than this.

Issue 50 was the final issue of Tiny Titans. The creative team moved on to Superman Family Adventures, which is previewed this Saturday with Free Comic Book Day.

The first Saturday in May is Free Comic Book Day. It's a great time to sample a variety of comics and styles for all ages. Expose your son to a wide variety of options and gauge his reactions accordingly when making further buying decisions. This year's collections include multiple Spider-Man titles, the first issue of Superman Family Adventures (which is a STRONG candidate), Atomic Robo (one of the best, and truly "all ages"; think Pixar on the comic book page) and more. Every reader is different, so find out on May 5 and cater to him.

This is also true. However, I can imagine a working model in the future that actually allows for the larger class sizes the taxpayers seem to want to pay for, while mitigating the instructional quality problem by having the region or country's best teachers providing video lectures and then the best of the local teachers supplementing the questions, preferably with a different outlook. The obvious risk is that the local teachers will grow less experienced over the generations, and the interaction between teacher and student will suffer.

I've tried to learn online, and I've tried to learn in a classroom. I've also tried to teach both ways. Nothing beats a teacher who can interact with a student in person. Now, this may transform teachers into the people who answer questions students have after watching the videos, and it can certainly expand the reach of quality courses to low income and low population areas, which is a good thing (because reaching more students is always a good thing) but some elements of our education system survive because they work.

Now, in the long term, coupling this with live teachers and individualized, adaptive education content can really change the world...

Look at the tablet and portable phone technology from any incarnation of Star Trek or other popular sci-fi. The concept has been around for decades. The technological infrastructure to support a device that appeals to the general public didn't exist until very recently. Look at the wireless data speeds and network demands of today's smart phones: there's no practical way to have gotten them on the market sooner.

The local laws in my area (Alberta, Canada) say you must stop and then *remain* at a complete stop for three seconds before proceeding. A delay that long would have been noticeable in spite of this argument. Are California's laws similar?

I'm sure they would handle the two situations differently. The judge is denying the copyright holder from identifying the bill payer, not the police. If law enforcement officials traced a source of child porn to an IP, they'd mostly likely be given the warrant required to determine who the infringing party is. The parents of the child that was photographed wouldn't get that information: the law enforcement officials would. That's a significant and fair distinction in my mind. Granted, I'm not a lawyer, but this is how I would expect a reasonable and level headed court to handle the two situations. If law enforcement officials wanted the IPs rather than the copyright holders, then it may again be different.