So in my previous post, I mentioned that there was a discrepancy between Wikipedia and an article about the writer formerly known as Abby. I wanted to take a minute and talk about how Wikipedia is now the voice of news ... or rather, the voice of the people, reporting the news.

When I was in school, we weren't able to use online sources, unless you could properly cite an accredited source, and corroborate the story with 2 or 3 other sources. Most of the time, we'd stop at another "proper" source and site that instead. These days, kids are siting Wikipedia as news. I bet a lot of kids have never seen an Encyclopedia Britannica, let alone lugged one around!

And when was the last time you saw an atlas? Remember how he's holding up the world? He'd be so disappointed that no one even remembers him!

In other news (and because I thought it would be inappropriate in the last post), HAPPY NEW YEAR EVERYONE!

A bit of sad news: Pauline Friedman Phillips, better known as Abigail Van Buren (as in, Dear Abby), died on Wednesday (according to Wikipedia ... according to the following article, however, it was on Thursday) at the age of 94.

13 of Dear Abby's best zingers

I was reading this article, and did a little checking on her. Did you know that she had a twin sister (Ester Lederer) who is 17 minutes older than her? And more astonishing is that her sister was also employed as a writer, giving advice under a pen name (Ann Landers). Funny how these things work, huh?

Happy November, everyone!

These kids in Ethiopia learned to read from a tablet. Does that mean the future of education will lie in technology and not teachers? If we then get rid of teachers (an act that arguably has it's plus side - many schools are already in low supply of teachers; now these schools will have less costs in supplies, employees, etc.), how long until schools are fully automated? Will children even be required to go to school to learn? In which case, will babysitting services be the next industry in high demand?