UReddit student. (Photo: Free Code Source)

Here's a genius idea to fix our faltering education system: obliterate it and replace everything with the University of Reddit. The earnest site, which has been around since 2010, offers free courses taught by fellow Reddit users. Yeah, you read that right.

There are dozens of classes listed on the site that are pretty much exactly what you'd think would be taught by Reddit users, like computer programming and lessons in StarCraft. The classes are divided into sections, like Art, Music, and Fun and Games--the latter of which is surprisingly not an hour long video tutorial on how not to get caught fapping in your parent’s basement.

So, what else can you learn while simultaneously rubbing your neckbeard? We created the perfect schedule (all times ET):

9:00 AM: Learn How to Draw Human Eyes in Pencils: This is an exhaustively researched, four-part class on how to doodle two eye balls.

11:00 AM:  Journey into Information Theory: The Language of Coins: Sadly not about Bitcoins but rather the "epic journey will take us from smoke signals to internet compression and the modern day search for extraterrestrial intelligence." Fine.

1:00 PM: How Not to Be a Twit on Twitter: This is pre-req for aspiring social media and community managers.

3:00 PM: Wetshaving 101 - Learning the Art of Shaving Properly: This is one of those classes where you have to spend money (the "professor" says $20) but facial or leg hair is required!

5:00 PM 45 Minute Full Body Stretch and Strengthening Routine: Haha, OK.

(h/t @ckolderup)

r/toolrocket (Photo: Tumblr)

Reddit, the social "news" website with a fetish for identifying backpack straps, is now available for Google Glass. The app is aptly titled “Reddit Timeline” and is now available to Glassholes who crave sexism delivered straight to their eyeballs.

The current version shows the top 25 posts from Reddit's homepage, supports GIFs, and has the ability to up or down vote threads, presumably by sensing your tears. You can also reply to comments using your voice and share posts to #socialmedia. Google released Glass' API to developers a few weeks ago as the face computer readies for public consumption.

You know who is going to be pumped by this? White dudes!

(Photo: Imgur)

Looks like the tech industry is still poaching from Wall Street, and the WSJ is ON IT! [Wall Street Journal]

Facebook's first quarter results are in, and it looks like the company's mobile ad revenue is finally increasing. [New York Times]

The father-son duo of NYC-based VC firm Lerer Ventures is launching a website in conjunction with Mayors Against Illegal Guns called StoptheNRA.com. [TechCrunch]

Now that the neckbeard lobby is growing in influence, can Hollywood A-listers master the Reddit AMA without having another Rampart situation on their hands? [LA Times]

Now New York Senator Chuck Schumer is going after patent trolls. Perhaps he's jealous of all Mayor Bloomberg's startup cred? [TechCrunch]

"Hey guys, we can make TV too!" - AOL [Adweek]

(Screencap: Kickstarter)

Whether you really related to it as a tween or couldn't get over the fact that you find Zach Braff annoying as hell, Garden State, the 2004 indie about feeling lost and listless in your 20s, is one of those films from the early aughts that is hard to forget (for better or worse). Its writer and director, Scrubs star and Reddit fav Zach Braff, hasn't made another film since then, primarily, he claims, due to financing issues.

Now, Mr. Braff has taken to Kickstarter to ask for your money so he can make a followup film to Garden State. It's also about a lost and listeless guy, but this one's in his 30s, so it's different. Plus, he has kids, so like, separate life stages and everything. "It's not a sequel in story, but a continuation of the tone," Mr. Braff clarifies on his Kickstarter page.

White guy angst memorialized in a film proposed by a popular Redditor, who was also smart enough to include a cosplay plot element? Throw in a cameo from Sheldon from The Big Bang Theory and the money should flow right in.

WhatsApp phone. (Photo: Nokia/BBC)

Twitter is reportedly working two-step authentication. Hopefully that means we don't have to write "Look who got hacked!" stories anymore. [Wired]

Apple's profits dipped 18 percent but were buoyed by the strong sales of iPads and iPhones. The company said its next big announcement will come sometime this fall. [CNet]

Move over Facebook Home, there's a WhatsApp phone...sort of. Nokia implemented a "hard button" on its new phone for direct access to the app of the moment. [TechCrunch]

Reddit screwed up last week as it conducted a witch hunt to search for the suspected Boston bombers. However, there is a proper way to crowd-source a manhunt if Reddit looks at a 2000 NASA experiment called Clickworkers. [New Yorker]

The writers of Mad Men are pitching a show about the early days of the U.S. space program as seen through the eyes of journalists. Don Draper would even look hot in an astronaut suit, so we're on board. [Wired]

Shapeways, a 3D printing marketplace, received a $30M investment from Andreessen Horowitz and Chris Dixon. [Launch.co]

Nope, not the guy. (Photo: Reddit)

In the aftermath of the Boston Marathon bombing, many Redditors stepped forward to help in the only way they knew how: Gathering up scraps of information from across the Internet and sitting in front of their computer screens sorting through the pile.

Unfortunately, the wisdom of the crowd turned up little beside the suggestion that a missing Brown student might be involved, an accusation that went viral. He wasn't, and now Reddit feels really, really bad.

General manager Erik Martin has posted an actual public apology for Reddit's part in the rumors. (Not the site's usual m.o., to say the least.) While "the vast majority" of Redditors' responses were positive, he said, some of the activity "fueled online witch hunts and dangerous speculation which spiraled into very negative consequences for innocent parties."

And so: "We want to take this opportunity to apologize publicly for the pain they have had to endure."

The apology then takes an interesting turn, though, as Mr. Martin reiterates the no-personal-information rule that caused so much drama during last fall's Predditors controversy:

"'Let’s find out who this is' events frequently result in witch hunts, often incorrectly identifying innocent suspects and disrupting or ruining their lives. We hoped that the crowdsourced search for new information would not spark exactly this type of witch hunt. We were wrong. The search for the bombers bore less resemblance to the types of vindictive internet witch hunts our no-personal-information rule was originally written for, but the outcome was no different."

"We hope that Boston will also be where reddit learns to be sensitive of its own power," he concluded. Meanwhile, /r/findbostonbombers is no longer accessible. A message on the landing page says that both suspects have been found, and offers a redirect back to the Reddit homepage.

Can a decentralized horde really develop a super ego, or at least a little poise? Guess we'll find out--and let's hope no one's reputation gets ruined in the meantime.

Photo: Lostnmissing.org

As police searched the Boston area early this morning for the suspects in Monday's bombing, online rumors began to suggest that one of the perpetrators was missing Brown University student Sunil Tripathi, who disappeared on March 16.

Now Reddit users (among the first to speculate about a connection) are trying to right the wrong as best as they can, setting up a page to gather information on Mr. Tripathi's last known whereabouts.

Reddit members began connecting Mr. Tripathi to Monday’s bombings on Thursday, after users noted some similarities in the photos of the "White-Hat" suspect released by the FBI. A .gif was even made that morphed a photo of Mr. Tripathi into the photo of the suspect as a means to prove Mr. Tripathi's guilt.

But when Reddit and Twitter users heard Mr. Tripathi's name mentioned on a police scanner (in error), the rumor took on a life of its own. Mr. Tripathi’s name was soon trending on Twitter and was tweeted by multiple reporters and news outlets. Hours later though, the FBI determined that the "White Hat" suspect was in fact 19-year-old Dzhokhar A. Tsarnaev, and not Mr. Tripathi.

Soon after it became clear the speculation was incorrect, the moderator of the “FindBostonBombers” subreddit apologized.

I'd like to extend the deepest apologies to the family of Sunil Tripathi for any part we may have had in relaying what has turned out to be faulty information. We cannot begin to know what you're going through and for that we are truly sorry. Several users, twitter users, and other sources had heard him identified as the suspect and believed it to be confirmed. We were mistaken.

This event shows exactly why the no personal information until confirmation rule is in place. Out of respect for Tripathi and his family, I ask that users here please remove any and all links about him. Thank you.

Reactions to the new search effort, proposed by user AndyAndrophile, were mixed, with users debating the risk of another witch hunt starting during the search. "Because reddit did such a bang up job finding the guys responsible for the bombing right," said user devilrobotjesus, while user iFlick argued that "If there's one thing Reddit does well, it's disseminate information."

We hope that Mr. Tripathi will soon be found safe and sound. If you have any information on Mr. Tripathi's whereabouts you can call the Providence Police Department at 401-641-8691, the FBI, or 911.

"This week, WTF?" -- sources

Reddit's had a bumpy week. In the wake of the Boston Marathon bombing, the site's amateur sleuths attempted to crowdsource a suspect, which landed an innocent high-school runner on the front page of the New York Post.

Now, on top of everything else, the site is under attack.

A banner at the top of the Reddit front page announces: "Site availability is being impacted by a malicious DDoS attack. Please stay tuned."

It sounds like the attack has been going on for some time, too: Reddit's status Twitter first reported the attack at 5:25 a.m. The most recent update comes from a half an hour ago: "We've mitigated part of the DDoS at this time. However, certain site functions are disabled." We've reached out to Reddit for more information and will update if we hear anything.

It's not clear who's attacking the site. And in the absence of reliable information, why not speculate wildly?

Tinfoil Hat:Would the government DDOS reddit in order to control the message?

— Jerry Gamblin (@JGamblin) April 19, 2013

No doubt conspiracy theories are already breeding in conspiracy-theory-themed subreddits.

(Update, 4:44 p.m.) Looks like everything's back to normal. On Reddit, anyway.

Guilty! (Photo: Reddit)

Just in case Reddit's sense of self-importance wasn't inflated enough, the online community has taken to playing FBI dress-up, creating a subreddit called /r/findbostonbombers that’s “dedicated to helping find the bomber(s)” behind Monday’s tragedy. Since it started late last night, the subreddit has already become a repository for out-there conspiracy theories and Imgur-hosted “photo dumps” that scrupulously analyze every "clue" bored Redditors can find. (Look, this guy's going through a bag!)

The FBI did ask Marathon attendees to send in any footage they might have of the event to help investigators track down the bomber, but somehow we don't think creating a subreddit to accuse innocent people of terrorism was exactly what they had in mind. While their impulse to help is admirable, the "evidence" Redditors have uncovered so far really only adds to the confusion and misinformation spreading in the wake of the tragedy--not to mention all of the horrifying racism cropping up in the subreddit.

Plus, these aren't exactly expert FBI agents. One user has already dissected how bombs function, concluding that the remote-controlled bombs are "chilling stuff." Several others have taken to zooming in on the brand of the black backpack (and where it was placed) that they believe possibly contained the bomb.

However, Reddit can't seem to come to a consensus about who the bomber is, as several of the posts implicate different people who happen to be in close proximity to the explosion. It's almost like it was a crowded public event.

There's always room for more Internet horseshit, we suppose.

(Photo: Kleiner Perkins)

Kleiner Perkins partner Ellen Pao, who made headlines last year for suing the company in a widely publicized gender discrimination suit, is gainfully employed once more. After reportedly being fired from KPCB in October 2012, she has now taken a gig at community site Reddit, where she'll be "helping us build strategic partnerships that benefit the community."

Reddit announced the hiring in a blog post published to its site by CEO Yishan Wong. In the post, Mr. Wong states that Ms. Pao has been a "formal and informal advisor to reddit for more than a year." Reddit's general manager Erik Martin said that though Ms. Pao was an advisor, she did not formally invest in Reddit through Kleiner Perkins.

When last we heard from Ms. Pao, she wrote on the question and answer site Quora that she had been fired from KPCB:

“I have been terminated from my job at KPCB. On Monday afternoon, senior management told me to clean out my office, leave, and not come back.

Thank you, Quora community, for your support.”

It's interesting to note that Ms. Pao, who is embroiled in a gender discrimination suit, has opted to work for a community whose relationship to women is rather hostile, but Mr. Martin said Ms. Pao's current legal matters had no bearing either way on the company's decision to hire her. "Ellen is extremely qualified," he told Betabeat.

For its part, Reddit's small team employs a fair amount of women, including Jena Donlin, its senior manager of business operations, and community manager Alex Angel. Mr. Martin said that nine out of 25 of the staff are women.