What learning looks like. (Photo: Flickr)

In the olden days, you went to school simply because you had to. Apparently fear of truancy isn't enough of a motivator to get kids these days to show up, so one school district in New Jersey had to resort to a different tactic: offering students prizes, like iPads, just to convince them to go to school. Officials in Middle Township launched the incentive program last month after the state cut $1.3 million in funding due to high absenteeism rates.

Toni Johnson, a vice principal for a middle school in the Southern New Jersey district, said she researched the Internet to see what other schools were doing to reverse declining attendance rates, and found that expensive prizes work. Could kids these days be anymore terrible and materialistic?

“Who doesn’t like that carrot hung over them knowing there’s a reward for a job well done? Of course, the idea is to make it more intrinsic long-term. But, so far, it seems to have students rallying with one another in terms of getting them to come,” she told radio station New Jersey 101.5.

To be eligible for the prizes, kids who go to school have their name entered into a raffle which is drawn on Fridays. Other prizes include gift cards to stores on the boardwalk, cookie trays, penny boards, or an iPad. Because winning a cookie tray and a $400 Apple device is the same thing.

Regardless, the scheme is working as absentee numbers are on the decline. Think we could convince the Betabeat bosses to give us iPads just for showing up?

A Park Slope no-no. (Photo: Hashgram.com)

Between protecting their kids from preservatives and putting in their hours at the Food Co-op, parents in Park Slope have found a new target to rage against: ALL of the technology. They're complaining that the library in the posh Brooklyn neighborhood has too many gizmos and gadgets thus making it impossible for little Kai to learn about the benefits of farm-to-table restauranteering from a book, rather than an app.

When the library reopened in September following an extensive renovation, it installed a collection of iPads and children-friendly computers intermixed between the 20,000 new books. However, not every parent is pleased with the expensive technological investment, which are more commonly seen in their natural habitat: the back seat of Land Rovers.

Enter concerned area dad John Skaller. He’s limiting the time his 12-year-old and 3-year-old spend on the computers at the library because he wants them to flip the pages of a book rather than tap on a touchscreen.

"It’s not so easy to peruse the stacks because the tables with the computers are right there," Skaller said to DNAInfo.com. "There's not a lot space away from those screens... For the 3-year-old, there's an immense opportunity to discover new things to read, and anything that's pulling her away from that gets in the way of the purpose of the trip to the library."

Stephanie Brueckel, the head librarian, told the website she was aware of the haterade-fueled comments from some parents. But despite removing iPads from common areas due to a rash of thefts and complaints, the computers will remain.

"I think people are actually quite happy we took them off the floor," Brueckel said. "I think this community doesn't really want a lot of technology in [library] programming."

The hot-button issue was raised at recent community board meeting, but the library isn’t going limit the technology, a spokesperson told DNAInfo. The computers are regularly used by lower-income students at a nearby school who rely on the Wifi and devices to complete schoolwork. Susan Moesker, a PTA co-president at neighboring school P.S. 39, said the technology is essential for the kids.

"I guess there might be a pre-supposition that since the library is in Park Slope that people who use it are all from Park Slope, but that's not the case," Moesker she told the website. "Within our school community we have students from all over and from varying income levels. Kids who have no access to computers at home need a place where they can use them."

We're praying for those affected Park Slope parents during this turbulent time.

BuzzFeed also Instagrammed a photo of Mr. Peretti donning said shirt and drinking what appears to be a beer. YOLO, we suppose.

(Photo: Instagram)

New Year, New Guilt On January 2, even as many attempted to turn over various new leaves for 2013, Anil Dash had to go and remind us all that despite our best Code Academy-inspired intentions, barely anyone actually learned to code last year. He tweeted, "So did anybody learn how to program after signing up for New Year's resolution lessons last year?" Judging by the @replies, there are quite a few people no closer to Javascript mastery than they were 12 months ago.

If you're looking for some other promises to break this year, Get Instinct and Greatist will want to teach you how to be healthier and play guitar.

Jammin' The improvisational warhorses of Phish played several shows at Madison Square Garden this week, including New Year's Eve--and it seems several local techies turned out. Among the attendees: Aviary cofounder Michael Galpert, IA Ventures' Ben Siscovick, and GroupMe cofounder Steve Martocci, who found this appropriately psychedelic photo on his camera the next day:

Trippy!

Missing in action was CrowdTap marketing director Ben Kessler, who took to Twitter to lament his absence: "Wish I caught Phish this run but I’m sooo tired. Maybe we’ll get some Hampton shows?" Nothing like being sunburnt and baked.

International Relations When last we checked in with Art.sy, a high-brow Pandora for fine art, the well-capitalized startup was hosting a beachside barbecue at Art Basel attended by Lenny Kravitz and a rompered, dancing Demi Moore. Things took a much darker tone today, however, when the company announced that it had permanently moved its URL from art.sy to artsy.net to avoid potential outages related to the civil war in Syria.

In a press release, Art.sy said, "The move comes following an outage with our art.sy domain, which was down for a period of 36 hours this week due to an issue with DNS servers in Syria." As has been widely reported, the authoritarian Syrian government is behind recurring Internet blackouts in an attempt to suppress activists.

In response to questions from Betabeat, a representative said all of Art.sy's servers were in the U.S., but added, “We also did not want a domain that could be construed in any way as supporting the Syrian government.” Why not the more logical Artsy.com? The site “was not available,” said the company spokesperson. Whoever is sitting on the domain must be asking a pretty penny, if  investment* from the likes of Wendi Deng, Eric Schmidt, and Jack Dorsey wasn’t enough to tempt them.

Art.sy also announced that it was "simplifying" its name to Artsy. Perhaps startup names with a dot.suffix are going the way of CamelCase as well?

Chapel Check-In It’s not just your high school friends updating their Facebook statuses to “Engaged" lately. Foursquare founder Dennis Crowley proposed on a dark stretch of beach to his longtime girlfriend Chelsa Skees this week. “She said yes!” he tweeted. And check out that rock:

(Photo: Business Insider)

*Disclosure

Not one of the hacked iPads, we guess.

Goatse Security hacker Andrew Auernheimer, age 26, has been found guilty on federal charges related to downloading the data of over 100,000 iPad owners from AT&T's website. Wired reports that the jury that heard Mr. Auernheimer's trial in a New Jersey federal court only took hours to reach a verdict, finding him guilty of identity fraud and conspiring to access a computer without authorization.

Mr. Auernheimer, using the Twitter handle @rabite, tweeted that he knew "there would be a guilty here" and he will appeal.

Mr. Auernheimer and an accomplice, Daniel Spitler, allegedly discovered a hole in AT&T's website that allowed them to find the email addresses and unique identifying codes for SIM cards that identified users' iPads on AT&T's network. Wired reports that's when they started writing code:

Auernheimer and Spitler discovered that the site would leak email addresses to anyone who provided it with a ICC-ID. So the two wrote a script – which they dubbed the “iPad 3G Account Slurper” — to mimic the behavior of numerous iPads contacting the web site in order to harvest the email addresses of iPad users.

The hackers were able to snag identifying information for some pretty famous iPad users, including Diane Sawyer and New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg.

While Mr. Auernheimer and Mr. Spitler reported the security problem to Gawker and appeared to present themselves as concerned citizens, criminal complaints contained transcripts that seemed to indicate they were really trying to promote themselves and make AT&T look bad by leaking the data. At one point they apparently even discussed the legal risks, with Mr. Auernheimer writing to Mr. Spitler that "you absolutely could get sued to fuck."

In 2011, Daniel Spitler pleaded guilty for his part in the hack and was released on bail.

(Screencap: Yahoo)

FYI: Anyone looking for a good Apple deal this holiday season should probably steer clear of Texas gas stations.

Yahoo reports that a woman in Arlington, Texas purchased what she thought was a new iPad at a gas station. The man claimed to be selling the device--which normally retails for $800--for just $200.

Jalonta Freeman thought the deal was "too good to pass up," but after she handed him the cash, he drove off. Then, when she opened the iPad box, it was actually just a tablet-sized mirror with a picture of the Apple logo and the iPad homescreen taped to it.

So... it was a Microsoft Surface, then? (Zing.)

Ms. Freeman isn't the first person to be taken in by a fake iPad ruse. According to a police officer Yahoo spoke to, scams like this always increase around the holidays, so we should be extra vigilant about the kind of electronics we purchase at gas stations.

This is what you look like with a messenger bag. (Photo: Taylor-Lautner.org)

We hate to exacerbate your case of the Mondays, but we have some terrible news: Murses--you know, purses, but for men?--are on the rise, mostly because everyone carries their iPads everywhere. Somehow we don't think this is the world Steve Jobs envisioned for us.

In the good old days, men used to stuff their scant necessities like wallet and keys into deep denim pockets. Now--with the proliferation of tablets, laptops and gadgets--men are turning to "manbags" to store these crucial items. This is a cultural phenomenon unlike any we have seen before, and one we must surely protect our children from.

According to the Daily Mail, 4 in 5 men now carry a "manbag," and they are making dudes effeminate. This is important because while women are expected to carry bags, men are not; iPads are completely subverting cultural norms, thus we should use this quick and dirty study as a telescope through which we can view our epicene future.

Dudes carrying bags around because they like to have their stuff with them is surely a sign of the impending apocalypse. This is the way the world ends, not with a bang but a murse.

Apple iPhone 5. (Photo: twitter.com/DiarioLaPrensa)

The New York Police Department has good reason to be concerned about consumers' Apple products: theft of Apple hardware has risen 40 percent in the last year. Compare that to an overall four percent rise in crime and you have what almost sounds like a crime wave focused on iPods, iPhones and iPads.

Plenty of iThefts occur in the street, but NBC New York reports your beloved cuddle phone is in even more danger on the subway:

The problem is especially severe underground. As a result, the NYPD has been working with the MTA to hide decoy cops on trains and monitoring cameras across the subway system.

According to the NBC affiliate, the high resale value of Apple products makes "anyone holding an iPhone" a potential target.

Until the advent of the iPhone 8 with an embedded industrial laser or hidden switchblade, this may continue to be a problem.