When it comes to the official requirements for graduating from a U.S. high school, there's a push for changes.

Long-time Slashdot reader theodp looks at 2014: Making computer science courses 'count' would not require schools to offer computer science or students to study it," Code.org CEO Hadi Partovi emphasized to lawmakers in his 2014 Congressional testimony following the nation's first Hour of Code, an event organized and run by the tech-backed nonprofit. "It would simply allow existing computer science courses to satisfy a requirement that already exists."

But as the nation's 10th annual Hour of Code kicks off on Monday, Code.org has reversed course on that no-required-CS stance. Speaking at last month's 2022 National Summit on Education, Partovi said, "I want to close with one quick request, which is to talk about "the idea of computer science as a high school graduation requirement for every student (PDF slides). Which may sound controversial, but my goal for the end of this decade is to make that possible in all 50 states" (YouTube).

The announcement comes just months after a who's who of the nation's tech leaders — organized as CEOs for CS by Code.org — joined in a PR campaign that publicly pressed 'the Governors of the United States' to sign a Compact To Expand K-12 Computer Science Education.

James Cameron once got himself onto the list for a potential visit to the International Space Station. It's just one of several surprising scientific achievements buried deep inside GQ's massive 7,000-word profile: After James Cameron's Avatar came out in 2009 and made $2.7 billion, the director found the deepest point that exists in all of earth's oceans and, in time, he dove to it. When Cameron reached the bottom of the Mariana Trench, a couple of hundred miles off the southwest coast of Guam, in March 2012, he became the first person in history to descend the 6.8-mile distance solo, and one of only a few people to ever go that deep....

It would be fair to call him the father of the modern action movie, which he helped invent with his debut, The Terminator, and then reinvent with his second, Aliens; it would be accurate to add that he has directed two of the three top-grossing films in history, in Avatar (number one) and Titanic (number three). But he is also a scientist — a camera he helped design served as the model for one that is currently on Mars, attached to the Mars rover — and an adventurer, and not in the dilettante billionaire sense; when Cameron sets out to do something, it gets done. "The man was born with an explorer's instincts and capacity," Daniel Goldin, the former head of NASA, told me....

The original Avatar... required the invention of dozens of new technologies, from the cameras Cameron shot with to the digital effects he used to transform human actors into animated creatures to the language those creatures spoke in the film. For [his upcoming Avatar sequel] The Way of Water, Cameron told me, he and his team started all over again. They needed new cameras that could shoot underwater and a motion-capture system that could collect separate shots from above and below water and integrate them into a unified virtual image; they needed new algorithms, new AI, to translate what Cameron shot into what you see....

Among other things, Cameron said, The Way of Water would be a friendly but pointed rebuke to the comic book blockbusters that now war with Cameron's films at the top of the box office lists: "I was consciously thinking to myself, Okay, all these superheroes, they never have kids. They never really have to deal with the real things that hold you down and give you feet of clay in the real world." Sigourney Weaver, who starred in the first Avatar as a human scientist and returns for The Way of Water as a Na'vi teenager, told me that the parallels between the life of the director and the life of his characters were far from accidental: "Jim loves his family so much, and I feel that love in our film. It's as personal a film as he's ever made."
Another interesting detail from the article: Cameron and his wife became vegetarians over a decade ago, built their own pea-protein facility in Saskatchewan, and though they later sold it Cameron says he "pretty much" loves farming and pea protein as much as movies. And he once suggested re-branding the word vegan as "futurevore," since "We're eating the way people will eat in the future. We're just doing it early."

But in a 29-minute video interview, Cameron also fondly discusses his earlier ground-breaking films, even as GQ's writer notes their new trajectory. "It is a curious fact that Cameron has directed only two feature films in the last 25 years — and perhaps more curious that both are Avatar installments, and perhaps even more curious that the next three films he hopes to direct are also Avatar sequels....

"Cameron told me he'd already shot all of a third Avatar, and the first act of a fourth. There is a script for a fifth and an intention to make it, as long as the business of Avatar holds up between now and then. It seems entirely possible — maybe even probable — that Cameron will never make another non-Avatar film again."

Twitch is cracking down on accounts belonging to users under the age of 13 as part of its efforts to protect children on the platform. From a report: In a post on Twitch's safety center, the Amazon-owned company announced that it's improving its methods for detecting and terminating the accounts belonging to young users and is also working on ways to block users who were previously suspended for being under 13. These changes come after a report from Bloomberg revealed rampant child predation on the platform. The report, first published in September, analyzed 1,976 accounts on Twitch with follower lists made up of 70 percent or more users who are kids or young teenagers. According to Bloomberg, a total of 279,016 children were targeted by these alleged predators on Twitch.

In addition to "expanding the signals" it uses to catch and block users under the age of 13, Twitch is going to introduce mandatory phone verification requirements to "potentially vulnerable accounts" before they can start livestreaming. While Twitch doesn't expand on how it will identify these accounts, it says this should help the platform prevent young users who lie about their age from becoming exposed to child predators during livestreams.

Respiratory illnesses are raging this fall, slamming children particularly hard. From a report: Cases of influenza-like illnesses are off to a startlingly strong and early start this season. RSV -- respiratory syncytial (sin-SISH-uhl) virus -- continues to skyrocket. A stew of SARS-CoV-2 variants is still simmering in the background. And the rabble of usual cold-season viruses, such as rhinoviruses and enteroviruses, is also making the rounds. With the surge in infections, children's hospitals around the country have reported being at capacity or overwhelmed, as Ars has reported before.

But another effect of the crush of viruses is a squeeze on the workforce. As The Washington Post first reported Tuesday, the US broke its record last month for people missing work due to childcare problems -- such as having children home sick and childcare facilities or schools shuttered due to staffing shortages and sickness. In October, more than 100,000 employed Americans missed work for childcare-related problems, according to data from the US Bureau of Labor Statistics. That is more missing workers than in any other month in recent records, including the entirety of the COVID-19 pandemic, during which many childcare facilities and schools closed down for extended periods. At the height of pandemic-related shutdowns in 2020, the number of Americans missing work for childcare problems only reached the low 90,000s.

Kevin Conroy, best known for voicing Batman on Warner Bros.' long-running TV show "Batman: The Animated Series," has died after a short battle with cancer. He was 66. Variety reports: "Batman: The Animated Series" originally aired for 85 episodes on Fox Kids from 1992-1995. Conroy's deep, gravelly Batman voice was widely acclaimed by critics and comic book fans, with many regarding the actor as the definitive Caped Crusader. The series also featured Mark Hamill's memorable performance as the Joker.

Conroy was so beloved for his Batman voice role that he continued with the character in various other DC projects, including the "Batman: Arkham" and "Injustice" video games franchises. He also appeared in various DC Universe Animated Original Movies, including "Batman: Gotham Knight" (2008), "Superman/Batman: Public Enemies" (2009), "Justice League: Doom" (2012), "Batman: The Killing Joke" (2016) and "Justice League vs. the Fatal Five" (2019), among other films. The 2019 "Justice League" animated film is Conroy's last credited feature as Batman, and his most recent video game credit as Batman is Warner Bros.' "MultiVersus" from earlier this year.

Google is developing a wearable device for preteens under its Fitbit group as it attempts to capture a growing demographic of younger users who own wearable tech, Insider reported this week, citing three employees familiar with the project. From the report: Internally code-named "Project Eleven," the wearable is designed to help older kids form healthy relationships with their phones and social media, two of the employees said. One of them said the device could include safety features that would let parents contact their children and know their whereabouts. Google's Australia Fitbit team, headed by Anil Sabharwal, a vice president of special projects, is leading work on Project Eleven, according to internal data seen by Insider. One employee said the device was set for launch sometime in 2024, but employees emphasized that the project had a long way to go and plans could change.

It's been 25 years since a small studio in Dallas recast the ancient world through the prism of a real-time strategy game. From a report: Age of Empires has echoed Monk wololos about our homes ever since: Parents believed that their kids were learning history; kids believed that they were gaming surreptitiously. And veteran players know that both were right. Yet Age of Empires did not always receive the love it does today. The rise of the Xbox saw PC gaming take a back seat for Microsoft: Communities like AoE's were left to fend for themselves.

In a very real way, it was the passion of these obsessives that led to Microsoft's renewed attention and the release of the franchise's latest entry, 2021's Age of Empires IV. All the games continue to receive updates or DLCs. Age of Empires games are headed for Xbox and mobile devices, complete with cross-play so console gamers can get their hands on the RTS classic and play with their PC-loving friends. Also, Age of Mythology is finally getting a definitive edition. Age IV is building momentum, too, with an anniversary edition crowning a year of updates designed to woo players who found it a tad stripped back at launch. AoE is now a point of real-time-strategy pride and a shining jewel in Microsoft's roster.

Smartphones "have made it easier than ever to avoid interacting with the people in our immediate environment, writes New York City-based author Joe Keohane.

But is that always good? "Some social scientists believe teaching kids that literally everyone in the world they hadn't met is dangerous may have been actively harmful." For several years, I researched why we don't talk to strangers and what happens when we do for my book, The Power of Strangers: The Benefits of Connecting in a Suspicious World. This effort put me in the company of anthropologists, psychologists, sociologists, political scientists, archeologists, urban designers, activists, philosophers, and theologians, plus hundreds of random strangers I talked to wherever I went. What I learned was this: we miss a lot by being afraid of strangers. Talking to strangers — under the right conditions — is good for us, good for our neighborhoods, our towns and cities, our nations, and our world. Talking to strangers can teach you things, deepen you, make you a better citizen, a better thinker, and a better person.

It's a good way to live. But it's more than that. In a rapidly changing, infinitely complex, furiously polarised world, it's a way to survive....

Talking to strangers can also make us wiser, more worldly, and more empathetic, says Harvard University professor and MacArthur "genius grant" recipient, Danielle Allen. When she was teaching at the University of Chicago, Allen was repeatedly warned by colleagues to stay away from the poorer side of town. She believes that this "fear of strangers was actually eroding a lot of [her peers'] intellectual and social capacities". She declined to stay away, and did some of her most admired work in those neighbourhoods. She has since devoted her career to fostering connections between people and groups that otherwise would not interact. "Real knowledge of what's outside one's garden cures fear," Allen writes, "but only by talking to strangers can we come by such knowledge."

By talking to strangers, you get a glimpse of the mind-boggling complexity of the human species, and the infinite variety of human experiences. It's a cliché, but you get to see the world from the eyes of another, without which wisdom is impossible.... When these interactions go well — and they generally do — the positive perception of the stranger can generalise into better feelings about people. For me — and many of the respected experts and complete strangers I've spoken to — it comes down to a question of data. If I based all my perceptions of humanity on what is available through my phone or laptop, I would have a fantastically negative view of most other people.

The animated series "Star Wars: Tales of the Jedi" premiered this week on Disney+, witih all six 15-minute episodes released on Wednesday.

CNN calls it a slick and well-produced "kind of super-service for the Star Wars faithful, rekindling old flames, and comfortably submerging them in the past." But they also add that animation "has also become a vehicle for greater experimentation, as witnessed in the Star Wars: Visions anime shorts that premiered last year." It's hardly a surprise that this latest addition to the mythology comes courtesy of producer Dave Filoni, who oversaw such series as The Clone Wars and Rebels before throwing his fertile mind for all things Star Wars into The Mandalorian and other live-action fare. Filoni wrote five of the six shorts, which are split between Ahsoka Tano (again voiced by Ashley Eckstein), soon to be featured in her own live-action spinoff; and Count Dooku (played in the movies by Christopher Lee, and voiced by Corey Burton).

Beyond a glimpse of a baby Ahsoka (just in time for holiday gift-giving, kids), in an episode that illustrates her home planet and its warrior streak, the episodes leap around in time. That includes additional insights into Dooku and his abandonment of the Jedi order to embrace the dark side and Darth Sidious (Ian McDiarmid). The anthology format creates the opportunity to drop in at different inflection points scattered across the "Star Wars" timeline.
"Fans will likely be particularly intrigued by some of the gradations surrounding Ahsoka, her relationship to Anakin Skywalker and the aftermath of the Clone Wars," the article teases...

The Lego Group announced this week that it will discontinue its Mindstorms-branded products at the end of 2022. From a report: In an official statement, the company said it will redirect its internal Mindstorms team into "different areas of the business" and that its Mindstorms Robot Inventor App digital platforms will remain live until the end of 2024. Lego Mindstorms debuted on September 1, 1998, as a breakthrough educational tool -- originally developed at MIT -- that allowed kids and adults alike to craft robotic systems using standard Lego parts and a computerized control brick.

The set gained a key part of its appeal by allowing owners to program the control brick easily on a personal computer using a drag-and-drop visual programming language, making sophisticated robots possible with a relatively simple set of parts. Over the years, hobbyists and researchers took the Mindstorms series in unexpected new directions while Lego itself iterated the product line with increasingly sophisticated offerings.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Bloomberg: Surging US tuition costs have more American parents sending their children to college in Europe as they look to save money on higher education. What once was a niche opportunity for wealthy families looking to add some flair to their kids' resumes is now becoming increasingly common as tuition and fees climb in the US, stretching budgets that are already getting hit by inflation and rising housing costs. In France, the number of American students surged 50% in the 2021-22 school year compared to the previous year; there was a 16% gain in the Netherlands, while the UK saw a 28% surge in applicants this year compared to 2020. Google searches for "College in Europe" hit a three-year high in August and have remained elevated as college application season ramps up.

Living abroad comes with its own expenses and hassles, but parents have many reasons for sending their kids to school overseas. Some mention the less stressful application process, access to different cultures and the ability to travel. But money is perhaps the biggest factor. The average cost for college tuition has more doubled in the past two decades, hitting $35,551 in 2022, according to the Education Data Initiative. Top schools, including in the Ivy League, charge far more. While President Joe Biden's loan forgiveness program will offer graduates some reprieve, crippling student debt is fueling a backlash against the prices of higher education. Tuition for international students in Europe, meanwhile, is free at most German universities, costs $2,778 a year in France and as much as 15,000 euros in the Netherlands. In the UK, an undergraduate will pay about $40,516 a year to study English at Oxford, while the University of St Andrews runs more than 26,000 pounds. But students in Europe typically get their degrees in three years, not four. "Besides the less stressful application process, Americans' chances abroad are also a lot better," adds Bloomberg. "While top US schools like Harvard and Stanford have acceptance rates in the low single digits, about 14% of students get into Oxford and 41% get into the University of Saint Andrews, two of the most popular options for Americans."

Kids who play video games have better memory and better control over their motor skills than kids who don't, according to a new study looking at adolescent brain function. From a report: Video games might not be responsible for those differences -- the study can't say what the causes are -- but the findings add to a bigger body of work showing gamers have better performance on some tests of brain function. That lends support to efforts to develop games that can treat cognitive problems. "This study adds to our growing understanding of the associations between playing video games and brain development," said Nora Volkow, director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse, in a statement.

The study used data from the Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development (ABCD) study, which launched in 2018 and is tracking brain development in thousands of children in the United States as they grow into adulthood. Participants periodically go through a battery of assessments, including brain imaging, cognitive tasks, mental health screenings, physical health exams, and other tests. To study video games and cognition, the research team on this new study pulled from the first set of assessments in the ABCD study. It included data on 2,217 children who were nine and 10 years old. The ABCD study asked participants how many hours of video games they played on a typical weekday or weekend day. The research team divided the group into video gamers (kids who played at least 21 hours per week) and non-video gamers (kids who played no video games per week). Kids who only played occasionally weren't included in the study. Then, the research team looked at the kids' performance on tests that measure attention, impulse control, and memory.

"Public officials in Washington for years have sparred along partisan lines over whether social media platforms take down too much or too little hate speech and misinformation," reports the Washington Post's politics/tech newsletter, The Technology 202.

"A council launching this week aims to sidestep those disputes by proposing reforms that tackle issues of bipartisan concern, including children's safety and national security." The newly minted Council for Responsible Social Media, set up by the nonpartisan nonprofit Issue One, features a wide-ranging and influential lineup of former U.S. lawmakers and federal officials, advocates, scholars, industry leaders and whistleblowers... "This is not a think tank. This is an action tank," former Democratic House majority leader Dick Gephardt told The Technology 202. "We want to see results...."

"The core goal of the commission is to really show that there are bipartisan paths forward ... that involve having companies have to actually talk about what is their role in society," Facebook whistleblower Frances Haugen said in an interview. Haugen said the council can move the debate around social media accountability forward by focusing on areas of "common ground," like concerns around algorithmic amplification, transparency and platform design choices. Haugen said proposals the council might explore include giving users, particularly children, the option to "reset algorithms" so they do not keep wandering down the same risky "rabbit holes." By focusing on systemic issues, she said, the group might be able to help build support for ideas that sidestep thorny speech debates. The council may also rally around legislation that already has bipartisan support, such as recent Senate bills on kids' online safety and platform transparency, Haugen said....

The council is also poised to shine a brighter spotlight on how U.S. companies may be playing into the hands of foreign adversaries — scrutiny that has largely focused on TikTok, owned by Beijing-based tech giant ByteDance.... Haugen said one concept the group may explore is requiring "consistent reporting" by companies about how much they are investing to counter foreign influence operations.
The Platform Accountability and Transparency Act (introduced in 2021) "would require social media firms to comply with researcher data requests for external audits," reports the Guardian. "Under the proposed law, failure to do so could result in loss of legal protections for content hosted on their platform."

"There are a number of large opportunities today that were not on the table a year ago in terms of moving forward in a bipartisan way," Haugen told the Guardian. "They just need a push over the finish line."

Amazon's Glow is no more. The tech giant has discontinued the children's device, which included an 8-inch display and a projector that could display games on a mat, Bloomberg reported Tuesday. ArsTechnica: You can't buy the Glow on Amazon's website anymore. According to Bloomberg, the device was on sale for $150 (down from $300) on Tuesday before it became listed as unavailable later that day. The publication cited slow sales as a reason for the product's demise. It also noted the device's focus on remote connectivity as pandemic-related restrictions eased. Amazon announced Glow on September 28, 2021, before launching invite-only availability, followed by general availability in March. "We... continually evaluate the progress and potential of our products to deliver customer value, and we regularly make adjustments based on those assessments," Kristy Schmidt, an Amazon spokesperson, told Bloomberg. "We will be sharing updates and guidance with Glow customers soon." The Glow allowed children to video chat, draw, and play games with family members remotely via the 8-inch display. It also projected onto a 19-inch mat that children could interact with. One obvious downside was the requirement of an Amazon Kids+ subscription for playing games and accessing other content, like books and art. The service is $5 per month. Glow came from Amazon's Grand Challenge lab, which makes experimental products.

AmiMoJo shares a report from the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC): Thousands of people were left without power after a food delivery drone crashed into powerlines yesterday in what has been described as a "first" by Energex. Energex spokesman Danny Donald told ABC Radio Brisbane people in Browns Plains, south of Brisbane, and the immediate surrounds lost power yesterday after a drone carrying food hit the network about 2pm. Energex restored power for about 2,000 customers within 45 minutes, while 300 customers in the immediate vicinity of that drone were without power for three hours. "The meal was still hot inside the drone's delivery box when the crew got there," Mr Donald said. "While this is a different circumstance, it's no different to the previous generation flying kites," Mr Donald added. "Fifteen years ago, we asked people to be careful if they were giving their children kites for Christmas and where they were flying them. Now we're asking parents to be very careful with where their kids fly their drones."

California will adopt a broad new approach to protecting children online after Gov. Gavin Newsom signed a bill on Thursday that could transform how many social networks, games and other services treat minors. From a report: Despite opposition from the tech industry, the State Legislature unanimously approved the bill at the end of August. It is the first state statute in the nation requiring online services likely to be used by youngsters to install wide-ranging safeguards for users under 18. Among other things, the measure will require sites and apps to curb the risks that certain popular features -- like allowing strangers to message one another -- may pose to younger users. It will also require online services to turn on the highest privacy settings by default for children. "We're taking aggressive action in California to protect the health and well-being of our kids," Governor Newsom said in a statement that heralded the new law as âoebipartisan landmark legislation" aimed at protecting the well-being, data and privacy of children. Called the California Age-Appropriate Design Code Act, the new legislation compels online services to take a proactive approach to safety -- by designing their products and features from the outset with the "best interests" of young users in mind.

America's child poverty rate plunged in 2021, hitting a record low and accelerating a decadelong decline. That's the main message from Census Bureau data released yesterday, Axios' Felix Salmon writes. From the report: Millions of children aren't growing up in poverty today, thanks in very large part to government poverty-reduction programs. The most recent decline can be linked directly to the increase in the child tax credit that was implemented in July 2021 but then expired at the end of that year -- which means that next year's number is likely to see a rare increase.

A reduction in child poverty goes hand in hand with a reduction in the number of poor parents -- specifically mothers. The number of women heads of households in poverty declined to 4.95 million in 2021 from 7.8 million in 2020, per the census supplemental poverty measure, on top of the 3.4 million children who were taken out of poverty. The report is a "kids story but it's also a women's story," said Kate Gallagher Robbins, a senior fellow at the National Partnership for Women and Families.

Amazon unveiled enhanced versions of its Kindle and Kindle Kids e-readers on Tuesday, the first time the tech giant has upgraded its flagship e-reader in nearly three years. From a report: The upgraded Kindle will now include a battery life of up to six weeks, USB-C charging and 16GB of storage. The Kindle Kids version will also come with a one-year subscription to Amazon Kids+. The Kindle will cost $99.99, up from the previous price of $89.99. The Kindle Kids model will cost $119.99, up from $109.99.

Long-time Slashdot reader theodp writes: A new study on the Impact of Programming on Primary Mathematics Learning (abstract only, full article $24.95 on ScienceDirect) is generating some buzz on Twitter amongst K-12 CS educator types. It concluded that:

1. Programming did not benefit mathematics learning compared to traditional activities
2. There's a negative though small effect of programming on mathematics learning
3. Mindful "high-road transfer" from programming to mathematics is not self-evident
4. Visual programming languages might distract students from mathematics activities

From the Abstract: "The aim of this study is to investigate whether a programming activity might serve as a learning vehicle for mathematics acquisition in grades four and five.... Classes were randomly assigned to the programming (with Scratch) and control conditions. Multilevel analyses indicate negative effects (effect size range 0.16 to 0.21) of the programming condition for the three mathematical notions.

"A potential explanation of these results is the difficulties in the transfer of learning from programming to mathematics."

The findings of the new study come 4+ years after preliminary results were released from the $1.5M 2015-2019 NSF-funded study Time4CS, a "partnership between Broward County Public Schools (FL), researchers at the University of Chicago, and [tech-bankrolled] Code.org," which explored whether learning CS using Code.org's CS Fundamentals curriculum may be linked to improved learning in math at the grade 3-5 level. Time4CS researchers concluded that the "quasi-experimental" study showed that "No significant differences in Florida State Assessment mathematics scores resulted between treatment and comparison groups."

Since January 1, 2009, Jonathan Mann has written an original song every day and shared it online. Starting as an unemployed 26-year-old, Mann remembers in an online video that "I made my living entering video contests — I'd submit to 12 of them in 12 days, win one or two, and that was my income for the month."

But Mann released that video after song #4,000, reflecting that "A bunch of videos went viral. I released eight albums. In 2016 I got the Guinness World Record for most consecutive days writing a song. And I've carved out this living delivering keynotes at conferences all over the world — as well as watching all the other talks then getting up at the end to sing a song that recaps everything."

And now 13 years, 8 months, and 9 days after he first began, "I have officially written 5000 songs in 5000 days," Mann announced Friday on Twitter — sharing a special 5,000th song including singing appearances from 112 of his listeners. Mann still shares his videos free online — but for four years, Mann has also been auctioning the songs as NFTs living on the Ethereum blockchain. (By Friday night someone had bid 5 ETH -- about $1,700 -- for song #5,000. And the NFTs also confer membership status for the decentralized autonomous organization, SongADAO).

Mann also writes songs on commission on a "pay-what-you-feel" basis, and has even written songs for companies like SquareSpace and OKCupid. ("Most businesses pay between $2000 and $5000 for a song and a video.") Once Steve Jobs even opened Apple's press conference about its iPhone antennas dropping phone calls by playing one of Mann's satirical songs.

"I saw that on YouTube this morning, and couldn't help but want to share it," Steve Jobs said, according to this 2017 summation of Mann's other wacky career highlights: On day #202, he won a $500 American Express gift card in a jingle contest held by Microsoft for the launch of their Bing search engine. When TechCrunch quipped that Bing had succeeded "in finding the worst jingle ever," Mann responded with a second song — setting TechCrunch's article to music (along with a speculative interior monologue which Mann acknowledges is "completely made up.")

Mann later admitted that his jingle was the worst song he'd recorded that July. ("I wrote it in 10 minutes ...") And his worst song that October was a related song that he'd written when "I received an email from Microsoft of a video showing middle-school kids in Pennsylvania singing and dancing to my Bing song."

"I was horrified. Don't get me wrong, the kids were adorable, but Bing? What had I created!?"

But he was honored when the kids told him they'd enjoyed dancing to his song, and when they asked for one about their own school, Mann obliged.

When Steve Wozniak turned 60, Mann was ready with a musical tribute — Song #588, "That's Just Woz...."

And in January of 2011, as the world learned Jobs had taken an indefinite medical leave of absence, Mann released song #753: Get Better, Steve Jobs...

Mann's duet with Siri earned over 1,609,675 views....

On Day #810 Mann convinced his girlfriend Ivory to sing the other half of a duet called "Vegan Myths Debunked." They'd apparently been dating for a year before he started his song-a-day project. But after four more years, on Day #1,435, Mann and his girlfriend Ivory decided to break up — and released a music video about it....

And in 2014, on day 1,951, Mann's wife gave birth to his son Jupiter....

Day #2000, in June of 2014, Mann answered questions from Reddit users, answering every question with a song....

At a speaking engagement, he offered his own perspective on time: "100 days went by, a year went by, a thousand days went by. At a certain point, it just becomes a part of my life. And so that's how I stand before you now having written 2,082 songs in as many days."

As the audience applauds, he segues into his larger message, "I'm happiest when I'm making."
The article closes by quoting the song Mann wrote on Day #2001 — for a video which included part of every one of the 1,999 previous videos, in a spectacular montage called "2000 Songs in 2000 Days...."

"And I will sing until I'm all out of breath. And the color of the sun is a dark, dark red. And the governments will fall. And we'll sing until it hurts. And we'll ring forever through the universe."

The video ends with a personal message from Mann himself.

"Make something every day," it urges in big letters.

"Just start. I believe in you."