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the fact is you can learn a lot more from testing animals than people.

The book http://www.amazon.com/Happy-Accidents-Serendipity-Medical-Breakthroughs/dp/1559708190/ref=cm_cr-mr-title documents that most if not almost all important drugs were not discovered through animal testing. In way too many cases the discovery comes from observing effects of some substances on humans and noticing interesting effects leading later to drugs that work. So whetever one learns from animal testing is not translated into useful drugs.

On the other hand friends working in molecular biology tells me that in their field of the reserch human cell culture models is the only way to go. Mouse is just too different and its biology masks way too many effects.

DNA USA is a readable journey through various DNA techniques and ancestry studies by the British geneticist Bryan Sykes. It covers many of the arguments discussed in this thread. Sykes has written several other books like this, which update the state of the art about every three years or so.

An interesting argument from Sykes is that after 400 years, some ancestors are edited out of your heritage. You can only have 50K contributors to the 25K pairs of genes you carry. And after 16 generators, some the ancestors no longer give you any genes. 400 years is 16 generations. To worry about a billion ancestors back 30 generations is not that important.

I haven't read the book, but read a review in the paper over the weekend.

"Turing's Cathedral", which, despite the name, is about the group led by Von Neumann
http://www.amazon.com/Turings-Cathedral-Origins-Digital-Universe/dp/0375422773

Read the book, dickhead

http://www.amazon.com/Profiles-Future-Arthur-C-Clarke/dp/0575402776/

We got this one and are pretty happy with it:
http://www.amazon.com/My-First-Lab-Duo-Scope-Microscope/dp/B000NOU54O

It's not stereo, but is well-made and inexpensive. Definitely a cut above a mere toy. My kids don't use it often, but we've had it a couple years and they still pull it out occasionally when they have something to look at. I would say 7yo is old enough to start operating this kind of microscope too rather than just viewing (isn't he really going to want to do that anyway?), so something inexpensive like this makes a lot of sense.

Second that. "Child friendly" in this case means "cheap enough that if he breaks it it won't be a big deal." I had a cheap plastic "kids" microscope when I was a kid from Fischer price or something like that. It was less useful than a magnifying glass. I used it as a toy gun mostly. That didn't deter me from it: I'm a cell biologist today, but I would have loved a real microscope.

This dissecting microscope looks pretty cool.

I woudn't rule out compound scopes though. If he's interested in paramecia and bacteria, microbes, he's interested in plenty of things that are going to be visible with a compound microscope. A drop of pond water, you can generally see more with the compound scope than you can with the dissecting scope.

Also, somewhat unrelated, show him this virtual microscope and Nikon small world galleries.

Actually you'll probably think its a stupid idea, but I'm seriously thinking about one of the E350 boards like this one or there is this cool site i tripped over ages ago i've been shopping at called Starmicro that sells CPUs REAL cheap and i have a nice little socket AM2 board I got from a customer who had me upgrade hers only to find her CPU was the problem. I'm torn between using that board and one of the higher rated Athlon singles or saying fuck it and using the Pentium D board I also have in the closet since they sell Pentium Ds there for like $12 with $3 to ship so for $15 and a couple of cheap RAM sticks I'd have a nice dual core i could keep or sell.

Looking at the prices I'd probably skip the E350 as you can get a nice Mini-ITX kit with an E350 already in it for like $100 so no point on using one of those when I can just get the kit, but in any case it is such a pretty box I just can't stand the thought of throwing it away. hell its pretty enough that with a decent PCIe card on the board i could see someone using it as an HTPC simply because its pretty enough to have sitting in a living room. And I agree the fold out thing IS cool as hell, in fact the reason i picked it up off the girl on Freecycle (besides the fact she was also giving away a damned nice monitor I could use at the time) was because i wanted to play with PPC and loved the case design.

Sadly the damned thing just won't play nice with my PS/2 KVM, no matter what kind of adapter i use and I'm not giving up my KVM, its like new and has audio ports so i can control 4 systems with audio all of my single LCD so in the closet it sits. I did drag it downstairs to the shop where I had some spare monitors and played with it for a while, even with that being a G3 the Panther OSX installed on it was quite peppy, its just a shame I don't really have a use for it and even with a cheap price on it its never sold as is, so i figure next time i have a break she'll be the case for my next project PC.

Here is a link to it on Amazon (Soul of a New Machine, paperback) (and no I do not make a penny for the link, put it for informational purposes...though the cover of my copy (in storage so can not provide it) was very different than the one listed here. If memory serves, it was white primarily with some blue and silver, (found an image, I was close, enjoy) but I am guessing, it was back in the late 1980s or early 1990s when I read it. Actually an enjoyable read.

Also no company will pay anyone or any software development house enough money to check for every possible error, it would not be considered smart business and/or cost effective. Not saying I agree or disagree with that, just stating as a fact based on my experience working both in larger Fortune 100 software development and Small Office Home Office (SOHO) software development.

If you can get paid for it, do it, else that is what a maintenance contract (as many others have pointed out) should be for.

If he wants the literal comic book version, I'd start here: http://www.amazon.com/s/?ie=UTF8&keywords=the+manga+guide+to&tag=googhydr-20&index=stripbooks&hvadid=5776752567&hvpos=1t1&hvexid=&hvnetw=g&hvrand=13913853472143733238&hvpone=&hvptwo=&hvqmt=e&ref=pd_sl_59fmehhy56_e

There are also plenty of good free/open source text books out there. For example, this guy's stuff is pretty good, and quite readable: http://lightandmatter.com/

...if you know you couldn't fail?

I've been doing computer-related stuff for 47 years. I've rotated between hardware, software, sales, and just about anything in between. The bigest kick I get is making something work. Tech work worked for me for a long time because I was continuously getting called on to make things work. The longer I've been in the field, the more complicated the problems and, until about 6 years ago, the more I got paid to solve them.

My income has dropped 80% in the last 8 years. Part of it was due to an illness I contracted, but most of it was due to the economic situation. I have a small advantage over most techs, but the truth is that any fairly competent tech with a couple of year's experience could do 80% of what I do, and those techs are selling their services for $35/hr instead of the $110/hr I usually charged my corporate customers. It makes sense; It is usually cheaper to hire the cheaper fella and only call me in if he screws it up. That's OK with me, too, because I love being the hero. But it is getting harder and harder to make a living this way.

I'm 64 now, and I'm not ready to retire. (I spent all my money on wine, women and song, and I wasted the rest.) If my business doen't pick up by October I think I will see if can get into an Electrician's apprentice program. There is always a need for electricians, it is solid work, and lots of the low-voltage work in security, home automation, solar electric, etc. is fascinating. Plus, you don't have to re-train yourself every 4 years to keep up with your field. Cause and effect are pretty clear (most complex systems have failure built into the design) and the requirements analysis is pretty straight forward.

Another question might be, "What would you do with your life if you had so much money that you never had to work for a living again?" My hobby is robotics and I do some serious stuff. If I could make a living doing that I would probably be as happy as if I had good sense.

I would suggest reading, "The E-Myth" by Michael Gerber before making a decision. http://www.amazon.com/The-E-Myth-Revisited-Small-Businesses/dp/0887307280/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1339362079&sr=1-1&keywords=e-myth

Even if you are not interested in having your own business, the first three chapters on figuring out how you want to live your life are very useful.

Good luck.

This may help... http://www.amazon.com/Reading-Comprehension-Success-Minutes-Builders/dp/1576856763/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1339357690&sr=8-1

As your post points out, it's obvious that "the Cloud" is a valuable skill. That term means many things, but although I've been hearing the same things for the last 5 years I've only had the chance to mess with running virtual machines on the public cloud for the past couple months. Why? Time didn't permit me the luxury of exploring it myself, and only recently has my employer decided to it's a priority and paid me to work on it. My bet is that a lot of technology professionals feel that way. I know this sounds cliché, but getting laid off may be the best thing that ever happened for your career. Take the skills you know and add on some pretty deep exploration of cloud technologies. Up to you, but since you mentioned Java you might start with Amazon's Elastic Beanstalk (deploy .war files on Tomcat running in the cloud), which has a 1-year free tier: http://aws.amazon.com/elasticbeanstalk/#pricing

If you want to be really hip, we've used JRuby to deploy Rails applications to beanstalk, there's a "Hello World" tutorial from Amazon here: http://aws.typepad.com/aws/2011/02/rack-and-the-beanstalk.html

I'm sure there are other free or low cost options out there as well. Even unemployed, your time is very valuable so use it to your advantage.

Here are a few devices pico projectors (60" - 120" max size) many already connect to iPhones

http://www.amazon.com/Optoma-EP-PK-101-Pico-Pocket-Projector/dp/B001L4L7AQ

how about a digital pen.
http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Delectronics&field-keywords=digital+pen+writer

I actually have one which has a small base unit which clips to a sheet of paper and tracks the pens position. i imagine it wouldn't be that hard to build it into the side of a phone clip it to the paper and start working maybe. Merging these two types of technology could work, the swipe keyboard were you trace from the letters you want to make the words or there was a system on ubuntu which traced letters moving the most likely letters to be closer to the horizontal path you moved the mouse.

or maybe
http://www.thinkgeek.com/gadgets/cellphone/e722/

a projected full size keyboard (bluetooth)

See the technology is almost there and if built in to a phone you could have your desktop in your pocket. Admittedly the size might be closer to the early cell phones of the 90's

you might be able to slide on a small projection system on to a phone so your phone can be light and easy to carry with this one small peripheral for i/o

If I can think of these things presumably there are engineers already working on prototype phones with good i/o

Here are a few devices pico projectors (60" - 120" max size) many already connect to iPhones

http://www.amazon.com/Optoma-EP-PK-101-Pico-Pocket-Projector/dp/B001L4L7AQ

how about a digital pen.
http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Delectronics&field-keywords=digital+pen+writer

I actually have one which has a small base unit which clips to a sheet of paper and tracks the pens position. i imagine it wouldn't be that hard to build it into the side of a phone clip it to the paper and start working maybe. Merging these two types of technology could work, the swipe keyboard were you trace from the letters you want to make the words or there was a system on ubuntu which traced letters moving the most likely letters to be closer to the horizontal path you moved the mouse.

or maybe
http://www.thinkgeek.com/gadgets/cellphone/e722/

a projected full size keyboard (bluetooth)

See the technology is almost there and if built in to a phone you could have your desktop in your pocket. Admittedly the size might be closer to the early cell phones of the 90's

you might be able to slide on a small projection system on to a phone so your phone can be light and easy to carry with this one small peripheral for i/o

If I can think of these things presumably there are engineers already working on prototype phones with good i/o

USB versus physical scope is a toss-up. You'll get better image clarity with a physical scope unless you're using a really good USB camera - the less expensive ones tend to be web-cam class.

On the other hand a USB scope makes it easier involve friends in the experience since they can all see what's going on at once, plus with halfway decent software they can easily capture photographs and video. Good digital zoom can actually draw out a surprising amount of detail provided a bicubic or better filter is used (so software based, not whatever crap might be built into the camera). It also eliminates the learning curve on keeping eyelashes out of the way and reduces image jitter due to muscle-induced vibrations in both the eye and hand. Software is key in this case though - there's some really bad microscope software out there.

There's also the option of a physical scope with a projector hood, common with child-oriented microscopes - they tend to be dim, but you get a (small) "on screen" image without pixels, so a magnifying glass can be used to observe finer detail, and a normal camera can be used for photos/video. http://www.amazon.com/Kids-Authority-Childrens-Microscope-Projector/dp/B005J5D576

Obviously any screen-based 'scope will lack stereoscopic display, which as others have pointed out will also add significant expense. For the same expense you could add much greater magnification, which if they're interested in microbial life may be better investment, 1-2000x is great for observing populations, but barely enough to see the most obvious individual details. Personally I have to agree with the sentiment expressed by several others - kids' interests are often passing things so unless you're hemorrhaging money get them a decent starter 'scope, then if they're still interested by Christmas you can get them a truly good one and they'll be better able to appreciate just how awesome it is. As a general policy that will let let you fund their exploration of a lot more fields of interest, while simultaneously allowing you to provide them with much better equipment for the interests that end up truly captivating them.

Also, as a tangential point, for low-level magnification a high-power magnifying glass large enough to have a fair-sized region where both eyes can see the target is a great stereoscopic magnifier - it's worth drawing children's attention to the fact since it's not immediately obvious and can require a bit of conscious alignment for maximum effect (close one eye then the other to get your target in the "average center") .

Asus 24 inch 1080p monitor at Amazon: $189 http://www.amazon.com/Asus-VW246H-24-Inch-Integrated-Speakers/dp/B001LYWBOM

24 inch 1080p TV at Amazon: $189 http://www.amazon.com/Toshiba-24SL410U-24-Inch-1080p-LED-LCD/dp/B004MFBH7O/ref=sr_1_1?s=electronics&ie=UTF8&qid=1339279542&sr=1-1

Unless you are looking for a dual use device, the monitor will end up serving you better in my experience because all the price goes to making it work well as a computer monitor. the TV is meant to work well as a TV.

Asus 24 inch 1080p monitor at Amazon: $189 http://www.amazon.com/Asus-VW246H-24-Inch-Integrated-Speakers/dp/B001LYWBOM

24 inch 1080p TV at Amazon: $189 http://www.amazon.com/Toshiba-24SL410U-24-Inch-1080p-LED-LCD/dp/B004MFBH7O/ref=sr_1_1?s=electronics&ie=UTF8&qid=1339279542&sr=1-1

Unless you are looking for a dual use device, the monitor will end up serving you better in my experience because all the price goes to making it work well as a computer monitor. the TV is meant to work well as a TV.

Yeah the entire scientific world is a "crackpot" community with "zero credibility", because they are telling you something about the consensus science that you would prefer wasn't true.

The single, united scientific voice on this topic:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_opinion_on_climate_change

is really a secret conspiracy with the power to compel allegiance from the world's scientists. The whole thing is just hoax on the part of liberals and big government to take away your freedoms

http://www.amazon.com/The-Greatest-Hoax-Conspiracy-Threatens/dp/1936488493

And furthermore, there's nothing wrong with you.

E.g. Why do gays have such bad taste in music?

Because they play only Madonna at the meetings. It's indoctrination. I'm an ex-gay; I would know.

You see, two weeks after a young gay guy comes out, he gets a welcome package in the mail. It includes some educational material*, "necessaries"**, a copy of the gay agenda, and an invitation to the next monthly meeting. If he doesn't go, his gay license is taken away (so nobody will have sex with him; well, girls might, but who cares?). They all end up at the meetings eventually. It's like a Nazi dance party--glitter and leather everywhere. Anyway, at those parties all they play is Madonna. The leaders say it "encourages unity". The truth is, Madonna bought the gay industry years ago for cheap, before she became 90% plastic. She supports her career now almost exclusively with young gay guys who don't know any better. It's tragic really; I mean why would gay guys pick a female artist when there's so many hot guys to choose from nowadays with their YouTube videos and amazing pecs and delicious arms and... I mean, there are better artists than Madonna.

Anyway, I got out of that senseless life and am living clean. No gay for me, thanks; I like girls now. I tore up my license last week. My roommate tried to stop me, but in his tears all I saw was the glittery taint of corporate greed. I let him kiss me one last time, just a little--we can't all be perfect!--but I'm done. I like girls now. Oh, I said that already.

But yeah, that's why gays have such bad taste in music. So now you know.

      * Includes: several pamphlets on jargon, at basic (top, bottom), intermediate (39, chibi), and advanced (chicken-of-the-sea, curry queen) levels; HIV/AIDS and other STD prevention information; a list of common hookup methods (Grindr, Manhunt, Craig's List local m4m section); a book on developing a lisp; several quick-start fashion and decorating guides; and of course Dr. Niederwieser's magnum opus, Bend Over!: The Complete Guide to Anal Sex for Men! .

      ** Includes: condoms, lube, poppers, a dildo, your gay license, tickets to a Lady Gaga concert near you, a gym membership, and new jeans that make your ass look great.

You must be a young'un to not have mentioned Mr. Wizard!

Now, "GET OFF OF MY LAWN!!!"

In my company we used a Python book, "Learn Python the Hard Way." Gave out assignments of 1-2 chapters a week, and had them return the typed in program. It's simple enough that anyone can figure it out, and have a basic understanding of functions, programming logic, etc.

A good book for learning C is The Absolute Beginner's Guide to C. It explains things simply enough that anyone can understand C. You can do it the same way, maybe have a contest and give out prizes to the first people who are able to reach certain goals.

Robert Bruce Thompson, former writer of computer manuals, has spent the last five years or so broadening his horizons. He has a Home Astronomy book which is quite good (I have a copy) and has written a series of Home Lab books for Biology, Chemistry, and he has one coming out soon on Forensic Chemistry.

http://www.ttgnet.com/journal/

http://www.amazon.com/Illustrated-Guide-Home-Biology-Experiments/dp/1449396593/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1339121015&sr=8-1

http://www.amazon.com/Illustrated-Guide-Home-Chemistry-Experiments/dp/0596514921/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&qid=1339121015&sr=8-4

http://www.amazon.com/Illustrated-Guide-Astronomical-Wonders-Observer/dp/0596526857/ref=sr_1_7?ie=UTF8&qid=1339121015&sr=8-7

Robert Bruce Thompson, former writer of computer manuals, has spent the last five years or so broadening his horizons. He has a Home Astronomy book which is quite good (I have a copy) and has written a series of Home Lab books for Biology, Chemistry, and he has one coming out soon on Forensic Chemistry.

http://www.ttgnet.com/journal/

http://www.amazon.com/Illustrated-Guide-Home-Biology-Experiments/dp/1449396593/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1339121015&sr=8-1

http://www.amazon.com/Illustrated-Guide-Home-Chemistry-Experiments/dp/0596514921/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&qid=1339121015&sr=8-4

http://www.amazon.com/Illustrated-Guide-Astronomical-Wonders-Observer/dp/0596526857/ref=sr_1_7?ie=UTF8&qid=1339121015&sr=8-7

Robert Bruce Thompson, former writer of computer manuals, has spent the last five years or so broadening his horizons. He has a Home Astronomy book which is quite good (I have a copy) and has written a series of Home Lab books for Biology, Chemistry, and he has one coming out soon on Forensic Chemistry.

http://www.ttgnet.com/journal/

http://www.amazon.com/Illustrated-Guide-Home-Biology-Experiments/dp/1449396593/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1339121015&sr=8-1

http://www.amazon.com/Illustrated-Guide-Home-Chemistry-Experiments/dp/0596514921/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&qid=1339121015&sr=8-4

http://www.amazon.com/Illustrated-Guide-Astronomical-Wonders-Observer/dp/0596526857/ref=sr_1_7?ie=UTF8&qid=1339121015&sr=8-7

I think religious reasons are a fine reason to homeschool. I'd rather they deal with those personal matters at home, instead of demanding the public schoolteachers waste time acknowledging or debating their particular flavor of pseudo-science. And for the path those kids are likely to end up on, which might be theology or music or church administration, it's a perfectly adequate education.

No, a religious homeschooling is not setting those kids up for careers teaching biology or any of the sciences, but with a belief structure like that at home, those kids probably weren't going to end up contributing to the field anyway.

One of my best friends, a devout Christian (elder in his church, etc) who has devout Christian parents, was homeschooled. He did his PhD at MIT and a post-doc at another fairly prestigious university. He's currently a professor at a decent state university whose name you would recognize if I told you. He and I are in the same general area and I'm familiar with his publication record, so I will add that, IMO, the job is way below his weight class. His wife (homeschooled; graduated #1 in her law school) wanted to live in a particular part of the country, so that's where he found a job. One of his siblings has a BS in computer science and another a BS in chemical engineering. The third has an MA in music education and is a public school choir director, so I guess you got one out of four right, there.

I have another Christian friend who was homeschooled. He's 29 years old. As you suggested, he is quite gifted musically, has a masters in theology, and works part time at his church. Of course, he earned that degree while simultaneously working on a PhD in engineering at the University of Texas at Austin, which he fairly recently finished. He is also heavily involved in local 3rd party politics (so much so that he told me the other day that he was offered a position by the party at the state level. He turned it down to work at a local start-up company). His wife doesn't have her fingers in quite as many pies, but she was also homeschooled (they met as kids) and is about to complete an MS in cognitive science.

These are admittedly all "anecdotal evidence." I honestly don't know whether having religious parents and being homeschooled makes a child more or less likely than average to excel in the sciences. (Although it can safely be said that having religious parents tends to result in better outcomes on a wide variety of other measures. See, for example, this book.) But here's the thing: I am willing to bet that you don't know, either, and that you're talking out of your ass. Put down the Richard Dawkins and try to meet some scientifically-literate Christians, maybe at a church in a university town, or something.

It's because of this book that I remember pretty much everything I learned in high school chemistry:

http://www.amazon.com/Chemical-Demonstrations-Handbook-Teachers-Chemistry/dp/0299088901

Start with the "Oxidation of Luminol" -- how to make your own glow-in-the-dark chemiluminescent solution.

(All 3 volumes are good -- some of the experiments are dangerous -- use due caution)

(Seeing Prof. Shakhashiri in action is also pretty cool: http://scifun.chem.wisc.edu/

Check out his Experiments You can Do at Home"

)

When most or all your products range from 30% to 100% higher than Amazon, consumers with the slightest clue aren't going to set foot in your store except perhaps to look

Random search for a 2TB hdd: on amazon shows a WD green msrp $179 selling for about $120. Then searching Best Buy for same goes for the same price.

Quit pulling numbers out of your arse. BB usually isn't the SAME, this is actually a little unexpected to exactly match it, but they're usually within +30% at the worst

Funny, we just hired two COBOL programmers at $80K each to maintain some legacy mainframe systems.

This reminds me of a guy I knew in ~1994, who was griping that all his experience was in COBOL, and after getting laid off from making $75k/year, he couldn't find another job. At the time, I was in college, and so I wasn't really familiar with the idea of keeping your skills updated...

When cloud technology can permit hard core data entry, say for insurance records or the like, then I'll worry. But until then, throughput is more important than an app being able to run from wherever in the cloud. Besides, in my line of business. We don't run apps. We run programs that process millions of secure transactions. We have data entry clerks that key documents and data that can't be captured electronically.

You would probably say that we have our own private cloud. I would say that we have our own methods to allow secure access to our internal systems. By the way, I would predict that there will be COBOL programmers still programming even after cloud computing has been replaced with the next marketing hyped phrase.

So I don't know that I would recommend cloud for you; there are reasons to use it, and reasons not to use it. As the technology and ops experience matures, it will be easier to adopt - basically like any tech. But for almost everyone, there are real benefits. Both capex and opex; and some people are using cloud in a way that their capex savings is ~0 (or negative) but their opex savings is huge. (See: Netflix running their entire infrastructure with 3 admins) Program ~= App. I file my expenses through an Oracle app, that runs in a cloud, that automatically fetches corporate card transactions from Visa, and lets me roll them into an expense report.

I'm one of the authors of Securing the Virtual Environment, and my co-author is a QSA, and one of the points of writing the book was to talk about the fact that cloud *can* be secure and can be compliant. (Although in the case of a public cloud, obviously compliance requires underlying compliance by your provider, as well as your own processes) Of course, there are a bunch of risks, too - but there are, for example, cloud services that have passed HIPAA and FISMA audits.

In short, cloud is more than just a buzzword; it's an evolution in the technology that powers IT. I'd say it's more evolution than revolution, but it is more than a buzzword.

That's blunt, but more often than not it is the truth. For the good of society, I don't like home school, because of its effect on universal education, but it is a response to a problem that nobody seem willing to correct. For Chemistry: http://www.amazon.com/Illustrated-Guide-Home-Chemistry-Experiments/dp/0596514921/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1339100841&sr=1-1

Do you have evidence for "people got tired of music videos", or is that just a guess?

It wasn't that people got tired of them, it was that ratings for non-videos shows got higher ratings than videos.

This is the book I remember reading about MTV, that covered the issue. http://www.amazon.com/Mtv-Making-Revolution-Tom-McGrath/dp/1561387037

One of my favorite books and highly recommended:

How to Lie with Maps
http://www.amazon.com/How-Lie-Maps-2nd-Edition/dp/0226534219

Have a read of The Happiness Hypothesis. It's a good summary of recent advances in thinking on happiness, and well worth a read to see if there are avenues of thought you've not tried yet. Not claiming it's some miracle cure, but very though-provoking and well-written. For me, many years of anxiety and depression were massively helped by a 16-session course of CBT which I got into via a study into managing adult ADD. Good luck with your problems, they really, really do suck, and mental health is IMO the next big stigma society will face.

"Copying information is theft when MPAA says it is, but copying information is not theft when the NZ Feds, acting on FBI's behalf, who themselves were acting on MPAA's behalf, say it isn't!"

The U.S. government is VERY corrupt. The gap between rich and everyone else is getting bigger very rapidly. The rich and big corporations can break any law, it seems.

For one of many, many examples, read the book Fiasco: The Inside Story of a Wall Street Trader, published in 1999, long before the 2008 financial theft. Even in 1999, traders called their theft "ripping the customer's face off".

As everybody knows, electric fields are the wake of the speedboats driven by the little tiny martians that live in copper wire, as they speed toward the cute lady martians who live on the anode of the battery.

This is the much better Bradbury collection. I have both, and the one you linked to omits some classics, in favor of his more recent work.

Also, I was just researching Ray the other day, spurred by thoughts of his story of being compelled to "LIVE FOREVER!" at a carnival... I found this picture, which makes me laugh a little. You can almost see the thought balloons:

Ray: "Why yes, it IS an honor to have your picture taken with me.
Laura: "I thought this award was for CHRISTIAN authors..."
George: "First man on Mars, hell of a guy!"

Bought this 20 years ago, and it helped immensely (though it's only the beginning of understanding; every martian/venusian is different) :
http://www.amazon.com/Men-Mars-Women-Venus-Understanding/dp/0060574216

I'll have my $500 dollars and the cursed Teach Yourself Vrml 2 in 21 Days book in hand waiting to fulfill a young kid's dream! I don't think you'll disappoint Mr. Carmack!

Indeed, I too cut my teeth on Ray Bradbury's works for fantasy and science fiction. Recently I discovered an edition of 100 of his collected short stories (chosen by the man himself) that appeared to include most if not all of my favorites. For anyone looking to discover/rediscover, this is an inexpensive and fairly comprehensive route to take. These stories are written for a younger mind but are still enjoyable to me.

I picked up a large collection of his a few months ago, that may even be the same one. Think I'll crack it open tonight since I've recently finished my current book.

He was a true master, I remember being blown away by "The Martian Chronicles" as a young teen. Even the TV show, "The Ray Bradbury Theater", had its moments.

There's this thing as well: http://www.amazon.com/SurfShelf-Treadmill-Desk-Laptop-Holder/dp/B001M04RBK/ref=pd_rhf_cr_p_img_2 a little shelf you can attach to your treadmill. I'm giving it a go, since the hack we tried on our at-home (used gym) treadmill- a piece of MDF across the handles- worked ok, but if I sped up too much, the MDF started to move around, risking disaster. Vibrations and a laptop shooting out into a wall at 6-10 MPH seems like a bad idea, but keeping my ipad handy to do email, etc. while also doing couch to 5 K seems like a better idea.

While the lockpicking hobby might've scared the FBI just in itself, more problematic to them was that he had used it in a "stole the atom bomb secrets" prank. He really did break into the safe that had the atom bomb secrets! But he didn't leak them. But: not everyone was sure of that.

Here's the story from an interview (from p. 51 in this book):

Interviewer: Is it true that you broke the Los Alamos security code and opened a safe containing top-secret documents? Then left behind a note that said "Guess Who?"

Feynman: When I was at Los Alamos one of my hobbies was to try to open safes and locks, a sort of locksmith-type hobby. Practicing opening locks, I at one point opened the lock of the safe that contained all the secrets of the atom bomb, and the whole business behind them. There were nine filing cabinets containing all the documents at Los Alamos. I opened three of them to check if they all had the same combination. I left notes in them to tell the guy that he shouldn't have locks with all the combinations the same, and stuff like that. And that I'd taken the documents out. And there were certain jokes in my notes. I was standing in the office there playing with the safes in the full light of day. The guy who was running the office was a friend of mine. And he was very upset when he found the safes had been opened. They probably changed the combinations after that.

Fortunately, FBI agents apparently were more reasonable even during the Cold War than they are in the War on Terrorism, because he'd probably be in jail for that prank today.

And "R is for Rocket" I read 40-some years ago. They were collections of Bradbury short stories.

Indeed, I too cut my teeth on Ray Bradbury's works for fantasy and science fiction. Recently I discovered an edition of 100 of his collected short stories (chosen by the man himself) that appeared to include most if not all of my favorites. For anyone looking to discover/rediscover, this is an inexpensive and fairly comprehensive route to take. These stories are written for a younger mind but are still enjoyable to me.

It might have been because I had not dealt with death on a profound level yet but his short story "Kaleidoscope" from The Illustrated Man was permanently etched upon my mind. Now Bradbury is a shooting star providing wishes and dreams to the young minds who read his works. Personally I feel that hundreds of years from now, Bradbury will join the ranks of Hans Christian Anderson, Road Dahl, etc and his works will be seen as mandatory classics for readers. Like all modern writing, some of these stories aren't the most original in their nature but they are perfect to capture a mind and set someone on a course for endless reading. It's a sad day to see such a wonderful mind pass but I will do my part to immortalize him through recommendations.

I've had this for a couple of months and it has significantly changed my health for the better.

http://www.amazon.com/LifeSpan-Fitness-TR1200-DT-Treadmill-Desk/dp/B006M2PJV0

I have this setup next to my recliner. I use a splitter and dual monitor stands for both stations, so all I have to do is grab my wireless keyboard and trackball and move from one to the other.

I found fine control of a mouse while using the treadmill to be very challenging. I would definitely recommend using a trackball.

Here's my setup, I love it: Image on treadmill product page

Why not? It worked for me with The Fortran Coloring Book http://www.amazon.com/FORTRAN-Coloring-Book-Roger-Kaufman/dp/0262610264

I have purchased two copies; Dover has a LOT of good stuff, Science, Math, Art, Philosophy and more! Also (for math and physics) try looking at Roger Penrose's "The Road to Reality" http://www.amazon.com/The-Road-Reality-Complete-Universe/dp/067945443; I was amazed at how much I DID understand! Additionally do consider Ash and Gross "Fearless Symmetry" http://www.amazon.com/Fearless-Symmetry-Exposing-Patterns-Numbers/dp/0691124922

This is rather away from your query but it may be of interest to some slashdotters: for obscure -often "old fashioned"- hands on 'Maker' tech try Lindsay Technical Publications http://www.lindsaybks.com/

I have purchased two copies; Dover has a LOT of good stuff, Science, Math, Art, Philosophy and more! Also (for math and physics) try looking at Roger Penrose's "The Road to Reality" http://www.amazon.com/The-Road-Reality-Complete-Universe/dp/067945443; I was amazed at how much I DID understand! Additionally do consider Ash and Gross "Fearless Symmetry" http://www.amazon.com/Fearless-Symmetry-Exposing-Patterns-Numbers/dp/0691124922

This is rather away from your query but it may be of interest to some slashdotters: for obscure -often "old fashioned"- hands on 'Maker' tech try Lindsay Technical Publications http://www.lindsaybks.com/

I'm an Australian author with two novels, seven short stories and a couple of other things under my belt (sequel's out, woot woot http://www.amazon.com/dp/B0080XLF2Q/). As a natural born citizen and rights holder, I'm sure that the people at this conference would love to hear my voice as a representative of local grown IP, especially one distributed digitally and therefore quite prone to copyright infringement. I look forward to being able to give my piece -- that, in summary, the best way to combat copyright infringement is to:

- Produce a better product than pirated copies (so DRM/FBI warning/copyright warning free)
- Which is easy to obtain (Amazon's 1-click buy process)
- With sufficient safety nets (7 day no questions asked return policy)
- Cheaply (my novels are $5, shorts $0.99)
- In a timely fashion all over the world (Australians are used to waiting 3-6 months for TV shows they can bittorrent the day they're broadcasted in the US)
- And with sufficient protection for derivatives and fan-works (a Creative Commons, CC-BY-SA-NC licenced universe bible is due out as soon as I apply the last of the polish and hit submit).
- Without alienating people who do pirate it anyway (some people, even if it's cheap, readily available, DRM free, timely, safe and reasonably free-as-in-freedom, will not pay and attempting to coerce those people into being customers is not only pointless but detrimental since it makes you look like an arse and writers trade based on their reputation)

I eagerly await my invitation to this discussion which I'm confident will not be dominated by direct representatives of Hollywood insisting we DRM the universe and filter all aspects of the Internet, all in the name of protecting foreign interests to the detriment of domestically produced IP.

It exists! It's called AntiPatterns

If anyone could recommend something comparable for Calculus, I'd love to hear it.

Well, I'm not sure there's anything quite "comparable" to the Feynman lectures, but if you're looking to go back and really learn calculus thoroughly, I'd highly recommend Tom Apostol's Calculus.

http://www.amazon.com/Calculus-Vol-One-Variable-Introduction-Algebra/dp/0471000051

http://www.amazon.com/Calculus-Vol-Multi-Variable-Applications-Differential/dp/0471000078

(These are known to some mathematicians affectionately as "Tommy 1" and "Tommy 2.")

Apostol taught the 2-year calculus sequence at CalTech in the 1960s, so he was going after the same audience at a similar time to Feynman -- it's comparable in that way. It is really a textbook, rather than a series of lectures, but the coverage is quite thorough and methodical, and if you do a large selection of the problems, I guarantee that you will understand a lot more about how calculus works than with most more modern textbooks. It's a little dense if you're new to calculus, but I think it makes a great book to go back and relearn the material properly after you have a basic understanding.

If anyone could recommend something comparable for Calculus, I'd love to hear it.

Well, I'm not sure there's anything quite "comparable" to the Feynman lectures, but if you're looking to go back and really learn calculus thoroughly, I'd highly recommend Tom Apostol's Calculus.

http://www.amazon.com/Calculus-Vol-One-Variable-Introduction-Algebra/dp/0471000051

http://www.amazon.com/Calculus-Vol-Multi-Variable-Applications-Differential/dp/0471000078

(These are known to some mathematicians affectionately as "Tommy 1" and "Tommy 2.")

Apostol taught the 2-year calculus sequence at CalTech in the 1960s, so he was going after the same audience at a similar time to Feynman -- it's comparable in that way. It is really a textbook, rather than a series of lectures, but the coverage is quite thorough and methodical, and if you do a large selection of the problems, I guarantee that you will understand a lot more about how calculus works than with most more modern textbooks. It's a little dense if you're new to calculus, but I think it makes a great book to go back and relearn the material properly after you have a basic understanding.