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...days gone by have to say about the future we live in today then I recommend Today, Then, a collection of essays written about 100 years ago about now. It's amazing just how off the mark most people are. But there are some great insights: my favorite being one essay that opens saying something like "All mail will be electronic". Not bad for over 100 years ago! I don't recall reading even the slightest hint that number crunching machines would have any significance in anyone's life.

new phenomenon among startups, the 'momentary enterprise'.

Actually, Tom Peters dealt with the concept extensively in his 1993 book, Liberation Management. While it's certainly pre-momentary business technology in some respects, it does a good job addressing the higher-level conceptual issues associated with this business construct. One example referred to was Peter's video publication business that existed for about a month and included experts from numerous fields who came together to create a business exclusively for the production of the video, and then disbanded and went onto other projects.

*scoove*
You know you're getting old when the new things aren't.

You'd probably get better business insights from this, although for comedy the original's a hard act to follow.

Here's a pointer to Amazon, and you can read some excerpts and an interview in the Salon archives.
(No, I'm not Ullman...)

(a software company, OK they do make keyboards)

And.. Mice, Trackball, Fingerprint readers, Wifi cards, Routers (several kinds), Ethernet adapters, Joysticks (many types)...

For a software company they sure make a shitload of hardware!

Yes, like most other technology today, Developer Studio lacks that capital-Q Quality.

Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance.

Even if Visual Studio generated immaculate code, there would still be a problem. As Visual Studio is generating code, it is also erecting walls between that code and the programmer. Visual Studio is implying that this is the only way you can write a modern Windows or web program because there are certain aspects of modern programming that only it knows about. And Visual Studio adds to this impression by including boilerplate code that contains stuff that has never really been adequately discussed in the tutorials or documentation that Microsoft provides.

It becomes imperative to me, as a teacher of Windows Forms programming and Avalon programming, to deliberately go in the opposite direction. I feel I need to demystify what Visual Studio is doing and demonstrate how you can develop these applications by writing your own code, and even, if you want, compiling this code on the command line totally outside of Visual Studio.

In my Windows Forms books, I tell the reader not to choose Windows Application when starting a new Windows Forms project, but to choose the Empty Project option instead. The Empty Project doesn't create anything except a project file. All references and all code has to be explicitly added.

My high school physics teachjer would go on rants all the time about what actually moved down the line, the "hole" or the electrons themselves.

His name was Dr. Troy Soos and worked for Los Alamos for a while. Then he decided to write baseball murder mysteries (apparently that makes more money than being a research scientiest).

Here is a link to his books:
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/1575 664550/qid=1130379198/sr=1-2/ref=sr_1_2/103-264399 1-8895002?v=glance&s=books

Oddly enough he still teaches high school in Central Florida "just for fun".

The Wisdom of Crowds Not a bad read, but I am only half way thru...

Anyhow, the parent post is still correct. There are LOTS of people, with whom you are safe to ask "Is it plugged in?" as your first "tech support" question, and neither one you you will be embarrased, especially after you have to explain what you mean by "plugged in".

Amazon doesn't say either, but interestingly they list the response time as 4ms, not 3. Additionally, the native resolution is only 1280x1024.

2. I can type 'linux text' while booting just about any distro & get a text-based installer (I've done it often for troublesome video cards, or when I was never planning to install XFree86/x.org).

3. Popular doesn't always mean worse - see Apache. Also, while non-Gnome/KDE window managers might be better for you, the same doesn't apply to everyone.

4. The internet sure is a handy place for updates, bugfixes, and all-around information. As for being on a desert island - I can think of a few hundred better things to do than hack on a distro (food, clean water, figuring out a way to get home, etc.)

5. So do most other distros, and there's this wonderful place where you can get up-to-date information, mailing lists, and search engines. Care to guess what it's called?

6. True, however I feel that as long as the programs can find the correct libraries, it doesn't matter where they are on the disk. That's why we have package management nowadays.

7. no comment

Books: Slackware LINUX for Dummies (With CD-ROM)

It's a few years old, but a decent book nonetheless.

You and your fancy Pac-Man, friggin Pong was the first out-of-the-door smash hit.

In the book "High Score!: The Illustrated History of Electronic Games", Nolan Bushnell recalls taking the prototype Pong unit to a local bar, the bar called him back the same night and told him it was broken, when the problem was investiaged it turned out that the coinbox was full and was jamming the game.

Pong went on to make millions (1 quarter a pop, in the early 70s yet) way before consoles became successful.

Dang kids n' their Pac-Man revoloution crap!

This will get you started: Eric Meyer on CSS.

This sounds silly to me since desktop power (say a $500 system - discounting monitor and keyboard) is increasing exponentially, doubling every two years compared to the price. The machine I built this spring was twice as powerful than a system I built in 2003 for the same money, but 8 times as powerful as a machine I built just 6 years ago and is about 128 times as powerful as the machine I had when I went to college in 92. And I am only considering pure clock speed, not increases in the efficiency of chips, growth of RAM and disk for the price, etc. While Moore's law concerning silicon chips will start faltering as we approach 2020, I have been nothing but impressed with how desktop performance continues to improve.

These new laser improvements, and things like molecular computing, will help us continue on after the 2020 mark with our current exponential growth.

Sorry to go off, I just got done reading The Sigularity Is Near

Save yourself some money by buying the book here: A Practical Guide to Linux Commands, Editors, and Shell Programming. And if you use the "secret" A9.com discount, you can save an extra 1.57%!

Save yourself some money by buying the book here: A Practical Guide to Linux Commands, Editors, and Shell Programming. And if you use the "secret" A9.com discount, you can save an extra 1.57%!

Fiction. There are *many* resources out there...

And don't forget the actual books that are available too...

• Absolue OpenBSD
• Building Firewalls with OpenBSD and pf
• FreeBSD & OpenBSD Security
• Secure Architectures with OpenBSD

Fiction. There are *many* resources out there...

And don't forget the actual books that are available too...

• Absolue OpenBSD
• Building Firewalls with OpenBSD and pf
• FreeBSD & OpenBSD Security
• Secure Architectures with OpenBSD

Fiction. There are *many* resources out there...

And don't forget the actual books that are available too...

• Absolue OpenBSD
• Building Firewalls with OpenBSD and pf
• FreeBSD & OpenBSD Security
• Secure Architectures with OpenBSD

Fiction. There are *many* resources out there...

And don't forget the actual books that are available too...

• Absolue OpenBSD
• Building Firewalls with OpenBSD and pf
• FreeBSD & OpenBSD Security
• Secure Architectures with OpenBSD

The reviews at Amazon USA seem to suggest that the book only covers getting to Mars, not the actual operation of the Rovers. Is this true? Did it spoil the book for you?

The first sign the Fed's are listening to you is when they give you a nice small bust of lenin for your mantle peice. That's exactly what the British did to the russian ambassador back in the post world-war two era. They gave him a a gift of a small statue and inside it they had mounted a corner cube which is a passive device that enhances the retro-reflection of microwaves beamed at it. (read about it is Peter Wright's (banned in UK) book Spycatcher--wright was the science officer for MI5 and inventor of the technique)

The second sign is when you feel toasty warm and the chair feels cold. In the 70's and 80's the carter and reagan administrations were perpetually complaining that the level of microwave energy measured inside the US embassy exceeded the OSHA limits for exposure. Eventually the US built a new embassy with enhanced shielding. UNfortunately the Soviet's put listening devices into the bricks. The embassy had to be knocked down and rebuilt. Of course, peter wright did exactly the same thing to the Soviet embassy in canada. Each night he snuck into the construction site and pulled wires up the inside of the walls to his microphones in specially made window sills. The soviet's learned about it from a mole in MI5 and had to build a second interior wall so that no rooms were near the windows.

Doppler microwave spying is quite old. As is laser vibrometry on windows.

Interested in reading about blowback? There is a book by that title: Blowback: The Costs and Consequences of American Empire.

Notes: Excerpts from the book.

There are many books about blowback. That is one of the better ones. There is so much material that no one book even comes close to covering all of it.

Osama bin Laden said he was motivated to strike back at the U.S. when he watched the U.S. government's bombing of Beirut, Lebanon. I didn't even know the U.S. Navy was involved in war in Beirut until some news story reported bin Laden's complaint.

I'm against all violence. Those Americans who believe in violence, however, must realize that people who are attacked may decide to be violent in return.

Thirty years ago, if the U.S. government had prepared for peace as vigorously as it prepared for war, the wars would not have happened, I think.

Perhaps they're just big Edgar Froese / Tangerine Dream fans.

"NGC891" was a track on his album Aqua .

The heck it doesn't - nothing else drives per capita growth in a positive direction while a population is increasing!

Arnold Kling is author of Learning Economics. From his article at TCS: "Labor productivity is perhaps the most important statistic in the economy. Over time, output per worker is what drives wage rates and the standard of living."

"Technological innovation is what drives productivity growth. Kurzweil argues that the rate of technological innovation is doubling every decade, which to me would imply that the rate of productivity growth will double every decade. If annual productivity growth was 3.5 percent in the decade ending in 2005, then it will be 7 percent in the decade ending in 2015 and 14 percent in the decade ending in 2025. By that time, productivity would be more than 7 times what it is today. Thus, if average income per person is $35,000 today, then it will be over $250,000 per person (in today's purchasing power) in 2025."

They'd all be killing themselves after 200 years, or so. What would a psychology formed in 1000 A.D. - or even 1700 A.D. do in the world of today?

Progress would stagnate too. Read "The Structure of Scientific Revolutions". Also Vonnegut's "Fortitude" and Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow".

Life is about death - or hiding from it. "Living Forever" is an escapist fantasy for those who have not faced the essential question of their existence.

Get the game here here: Black and White 2. And if you use the "secret" A9.com discount, you can save an extra 1.57%!

Get the game here here: Black and White 2. And if you use the "secret" A9.com discount, you can save an extra 1.57%!

I can't even play the damn game at 800x600 without serious choppiness. With fraps I am getting under 20 fps in most cases dipping down to single digits pretty quickly. I think I am just going to sell the damn thing back on Amazon and forget about it till I can afford an x800 for 150 bucks or so in a year.

ACID is no longer being actively maintained, if you want ACID's functionality you should go get BASE! Better yet, go get SGUIL and use Snort as part of a Network Security Monitoring, you'll be glad you did.

Let me be the first to recommend n00bs pick up Snort for Dummies, perhaps the best "for Dummies" book I've read; a perfect primer. "If you want to get your feet wet or you've been tasked with deploying a snort system, this is a good way to start. In the typical, humorous, "for dummies" style, this book walks you through getting, setting up and using Snort and the ACID console. The book also covers how to maintain and tweak the system, once it is up and running. A good effort by the authors." For work or for home, there's really no reason not to learn an enterprise level IDS.

After I posted the comment above, I began thinking that maybe IsraCast is deliberately involved in fraud.

The article referenced in the Slashdot story is, basically, an advertisement for investment. (See the information at the bottom.) That also raises the issue of whether Slashdot editors are taking money for publishing "science" articles that are actually advertisements.

Here is another comment about an article recently carried by Slashdot that seems mostly either public relations or an advertisement for a "charity" to get money: Kindness, or maximizing shareholder value?

There are several problems with the IsraCast article referenced in the Slashdot story:

1) A car is shown in the The Car That Makes Its Own Fuel, but according to the article, no car exists.

2) A car using the technology does not "make its own fuel", as the article says, but uses heavy cartridges of magnesium or aluminum.

3) The technique of using a hot metal and water to make hydrogen has been known for more than 100 years. It is not new. The problem is the enormous expense of refining the resultant metal oxide, with processes that, at present, pollute heavily.

4) The article says that superheated steam and hydrogen enter the combustion chamber. My understanding is that it is well known that such engines have terrible problems with corrosion.

Here is another advertisement of an "investment opportunity" published by IsraCast: Out Of The Box Thinking Produces Safer Water. Quote: "By taking the UV source out of the water and projecting it into the quartz chamber, Atlantium's engineers are able to supply homogeneous distribution of the UV rays..." My understanding is that the method described is used in water purification installations all over the world. It is not new. Note the request for investment at the bottom.

IsraCast's biggest fraud, of course, is the typical Jewish one of presenting Jews as peace-loving victims. When Israel came into existence in 1948, the land was already occupied by Arabs. These Arabs quite understandably resent being pushed out of their land. (I'm against both Jewish and Arab violence.)

The book, The Arabs by David Lamb discusses the violent takeover of Arab land by Jews, among many other subjects. The book is very well written. The story of the takeover is just the normal one that is recounted in many books.

According to a video interview I saw of Abba Evan, a famous Jewish leader, at the end of World War II the Jews were not welcome in any European or North American country. (David Lamb says the same thing.) The position of the Jews about this is that the dislike is entirely unwarranted. However, widely different cultures have objected to Jewish behavior since at least 3,200 years ago when an Egyptian pharaoh had some problem with them.

Of all the cultures I've studied, the Jewish culture is the least able to examine its own behavior.

Another Jewish fraud is getting American taxpayers to pay for violent, immoral Jewish activities toward Arabs. Most Americans don't know this, but the U.S. government supports the killing of Arabs by supporting a scheme of embezzlement: U.S. weapons makers and other largely secret influences have arranged that Israel be given about $5 billion each year as "foreign aid". (The figure varies somewhat each year, and may not be accurate for this year.) But the money can be used only to buy U.S.-made weapons, like the American-made AH-64 Apache helicopter used to kill this Arab leader:

Well, it's been fun reading this discussion, in a here-we-go-again sort of way. Anyone dares to suggest that software might be easier to use by normal people, and most of you have a hissy fit. But then you guys probably change your underwear using a command line interface.

Regardless of the particular comments Dvorak makes, software could be a hell of a lot easier to use. Unless you all think that just having a WIMP interface is the be-all and end-all of interface and interaction design.

I've just finished reading "The Design of Everyday Things", by Donald A. Norman. I totally recommend it. Funny, wise and thought provoking.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0465067107/103-38 78645-6414220?v=glance&n=283155&n=507846&s=books&v =glance

Amazon seems to have a pretty good catalog of Grinspoon stuff. Sure it's not a download, but once you have the CD you can RIP and encode in any format you like without any DRM. I didn't bother searching for any of the other bands you listed, but I am sure some are available, if not there's always aussie online stores that will gladly ship to the US.

Yeah, it's kinda like when books about cheese aren't made of cheese. I hate that!

for a newbie, it's overly short and the succinctness leaves you scratching your head.

It's good for the experienced programmer but gave me ulcers when trying to learn from it as a brand new programmer. I always thought it was overrated for learning C (yes, I know who the authors are) when I was in college. The same goes for Bjarne Stroustrop's book on C++. These books are much better for someone who already knows the language reasonably well and wants insights to the language, not to learn it from scratch.

My C teacher in college had another book as a side companion that was absolutely wonderful called "Pointers on C" by Kenneth Reek. Easy to read, details not likely to leave you with a million questions, and excercises that make you think about what you need to think about.

It's one of the few C books I encountered that really dealt with pointers, all the others books including K&R simply skimmed over it, which is a joke when you consider that pointers and their various forms are probably the largest source of bugs/security problems on code level itself:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/customer-reviews/ 0673999866/104-9332919-7759146?_encoding=UTF8

It's expensive but worth it if you really want to get into C programming. Half.com might have it cheaper.

You asked how to cool your laptop. There are any number of laptop stands with fans built in. The ones I've seen run off of USB power. I just bought my wife one from Fry's which was $25. Amazon has one here. Just do a simple search for "latop stand fan" or something.

If your brand new PC overheats and causes problems, maybe you should be returning it or getting some warranty service performed.

Clarke may have written the definitive sci-fi book on space elevators, but Brad Edwards has written the "definitive" non-fiction book on space elevators based on his initial engineering study of the topic.

I place definitive in quotes because, as he notes, the technologies Edwards discusses are continuing to make advances since the book was published.

Both Fountians of Paradise and The Space Elevator: A Revolutionary Earth-to-Space Transportation System are on my nightstand at the moment. I highly recommend both to anyone interested in the space elevator concept.

Clarke may have written the definitive sci-fi book on space elevators, but Brad Edwards has written the "definitive" non-fiction book on space elevators based on his initial engineering study of the topic.

I place definitive in quotes because, as he notes, the technologies Edwards discusses are continuing to make advances since the book was published.

Both Fountians of Paradise and The Space Elevator: A Revolutionary Earth-to-Space Transportation System are on my nightstand at the moment. I highly recommend both to anyone interested in the space elevator concept.

try this

Squeak: Learn programming with robots

Or at least, read the reader comments on amazon. Squeak is a Smalltalk implementation, which if you don't know, is a complete proramming & graphics environment designed to be easy enough for kids to learn. Check it out. And if it isn't interesting to you, then my advice is in the absence of any other specific direction, find a great book that appeals to you first, and let that decide for you what specific topic/language/environment you first learn. One of the greatest things about Smalltalk is that you can open up, inspect and change anything, including the entire environment, even as it is running.

Others have reported success with The Little Schemer. There is a Scheme language implementation in javascript (google JScheme) which lets you write Scheme programs right in your browser.

try this

Squeak: Learn programming with robots

Or at least, read the reader comments on amazon. Squeak is a Smalltalk implementation, which if you don't know, is a complete proramming & graphics environment designed to be easy enough for kids to learn. Check it out. And if it isn't interesting to you, then my advice is in the absence of any other specific direction, find a great book that appeals to you first, and let that decide for you what specific topic/language/environment you first learn. One of the greatest things about Smalltalk is that you can open up, inspect and change anything, including the entire environment, even as it is running.

Others have reported success with The Little Schemer. There is a Scheme language implementation in javascript (google JScheme) which lets you write Scheme programs right in your browser.

The poster didn't claim otherwise.

Read the post again: the poster most certainly did claim only dorks like escapism, at the very least by implication. "Dorks" read fantasy books to escape because they're immature, whereas normal adults read "mainstream literature" which concerns itself with reality (too much for a RPG fan's comfort, of course).

He also pointed out that almost invariably these people are looking to be more important than they actually are, or ever will be.

It's not just "these" people, it's everyone. Or, perhaps you have an alternate explanation for why celebrity tabloids and TV shows are so popular? Because people are deeply curious on an intellectual level about Demi Moore and Aston Kutcher's wedding? Or, perhaps because they wish they were rich and famous as well, and want to live vicariously through the descriptions? I'm not sure, I don't go for celebrity gossip all that much myself.

Reading about a spy getting shot at by the bad guys is one thing, actually getting shot at yourself is quite another....

And, similarly, reading about a knight wearing heavy armor and getting stabbed by his opponent is one thing, but actually getting stabbed at yourself is quite another. Listen, I've ridden horses before, and I have no desire to use them as my primary form of transportation even though that's about all they ride in fantasy books.

And, I think that brings up the primary weakness of the thesis that fantasy fans and RPGers want fantasy to be reality: why would we want to live in a world without electricity? The original question was that coders seem to be into roleplaying; so why would people interested in coding want to give up computers? I may be an RPG fan and designer, but I'm quite happy with modern conveniences and luxuries, thank you very much.

I can't see how anyone could think otherwise, especially if you've been exposed to a plethora of RPG fans.

Could it be that you have too insignificant of a sample size, or you took a sample in a location where the group was self-selected (such as a gaming conference)? I suspect that as a game developer, I've met a lot more RPG fans than you have. Most of them are fairly decent people that are well-grounded in reality. If you're considering the behavior of people at a gaming conference as "normal", consider that as the same as looking at the fanatics at a sports event that are painted up (often shirtless) with crazy hats and that shout at the top of their lungs. Yes, the crazy-crazies (not a technical term) are out there, but judging the entire population based on these people is invalid.

[...]in inability or unwillingness to interact with others in an appropriate fashion

According to what definition? You do realize that the people have to be at least marginally social in order to meet up for the first time, right? I posted elsewhere in this thread about The Introvert Advantage , which is a wonderful book about introversion that I recommend people read. Introversion is not about hating people or just being socially inept, it's about what your brain chemistry wants and rewards you for. Introverts are often described as what you've written above because extroversion is seen as "normal". Introverts tend to internalize things more which means they tend to be more thoughtful and contemplative, which are great attributes for RPGing. Small surprise that they tend to be attracted to them. However, extroverting can be learned by introverts, but it's like learning to write with your off-hand: you can even get pretty good at it, but it still doesn't feel "normal" and it can be very tiring. I'd recommend you educate yourself a bit more before trying to play psychologist.

My thoughts,

Please, what ever you do, don't just do it. All that leads to is opportunities to get your thought/logicp processes wrong, time and time again.

As a Computer Engineering student at UT Arlington, the best way I could have prepared myself for learning how to program was to learn logic, specifically: Discreet Structures. This will not only help you with high level language structures, like loops, but it is essential to understanding binary logic: the foundation of computer operations, it is also helpful in understanding and doing calculus, which you will have to take if you pursue an engineering degree.

For example, if you do not understand that the opposite of the color black is not the color white, then you will have trouble with binary logic and the structures and sets built there on.

It's ok to acustom yourself to programming languages. But, my point is that you understand the logic behind any computer language you learn.

If you want to use a book to learn a language, a good and challenging series can be found under the Dietel & Dietel authors.

If you want to tackle object oriented programming, go for learning Ruby; it's free, simple, powerful, and open source (not that the later is too critical unless you want to change the back end of it: requires much programming understanding).

Hope this helps.

P.S. The binary opposite of the color 'black' is 'not black'. The binary opposite of 'white' is 'not white'. The binary opposite of 'on' is 'not on', which is often defined as 'off'. Perhaps by the time you get into college, either the one you choose already teaches logic early on in the program or they will have when you get there.

I started 'programming' as a kid, in the form of DOS batch files and some BASIC, just to do funny things (like make people think that they were reformatting their harddrive by replacing an .exe file with a file that put info on the screen that looked like a drive reformat... silly, I know, but I was like 8!).

If you have any *nix available at home (and if you're a tinkerer and you want to get into programming, you should be able to get your hands on at least one computer set up this way, if only for geek cred.. if you just run windows, try Cygwin!), a really good way to start would be learning shell programming. This is both immediately useful to you as a user, as well as being a great introduction into programming concepts like variable scoping and loop structures. It also lends itself to coming up with something useful to program, which is helpful when you're learning programming. Most shell syntax/commands (depending on the shell) are similar to (or are actually) the C language, which would give you a solid foundation. There's also plenty of resources at the library and on the net for free, or you could pick up a book (I have this one) to serve as a reference.

What it won't teach you very well is object-oriented approaches to programming. An easy (and cheap!) way to get more information on this sort of thing is to look for free books on the internet. There's a lot of hotness to be found in The Pragmatic Programmer's Guide to programming in Ruby; the text is all online and covers both 'the good way' as well as serving as a language reference. Everything you need to get started with Ruby (and then some) are free, too! Then again, most of the necessary tools for any language are easily available and typically free, but might take some hunting.

A lot of people have probably suggested Java and all its cross-platform goodness. Personally, I think it would be much better to start with a language with less of an entry hurdle - it can be difficult for a total newbie to do all the 'extra stuff' like linking to libraries and all the class structure right out of the gate. All that stuff makes Java more powerful (and cumbersome), but much harder to just dive into than scripting or Ruby.

If you have good math foundations you can try: Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs - 2nd Edition. Which will teach you a lot of sound principles. Otherwise you can try: How to Design Programs: An Introduction to Programming and Computing. Which is also a good book for learning principles of programming but it's intended for a more general audience. Or you can try both. They are both worth owning.

If you have good math foundations you can try: Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs - 2nd Edition. Which will teach you a lot of sound principles. Otherwise you can try: How to Design Programs: An Introduction to Programming and Computing. Which is also a good book for learning principles of programming but it's intended for a more general audience. Or you can try both. They are both worth owning.

...just start programing.

The answer to that depends on what you hope to learn. Programming is a big topic and there are a lot of ways to approach it.

Probably most Slashdotters will answer this question with something practical and job-oriented. "Get a copy of Kernighan and Ritchie, C is a language everybody should know." "Download Perl." "Download the Java SDK." "Use the VBA engine in Word to write macros." Etc. All worth doing if you're looking for a career as a programmer. But I sense that this guy is motivated more by intellectual curiousity than by career development. (As he should be — the developer job market is a tad oversupplied.) He's used computers most of his life, but has an unsatisified curiousity about how the suckers work.

One good way to satisfy that curiousity would be with the very basics: machine language and assembly language. These are not useful skills for most programmers, who only need to know the high-level abstractions of the systems they work with. (Some people would disagree with me on that.) But for satisfying your curiousity about just what computers do, it's a nice exercise.

Or instead of going very low level, you can go very high level, and learn some basic computer science while you're at it. That the route if you read the classic Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs and work its Scheme programming exercises.

Then again, learning programming on your own is not for everybody. If somebody has managed to be around computers for a long time, but has never go around to learning programming, he probably is the sort of person who needs some initial handholding. Community colleges often have good classes.

If you want to learn how computers work from the bottom up and really see how your operating system interacts with hardware, you should check out "Computer Systems: A Programmer's Perspective". It assumes some understanding of *nix and C, so you need to get familiar with them before or while you read CS:APP. You can't learn "programming" without learning a programming language, and although something like BASIC might be easiest, I suggest starting with C or assembler because they will give you a more complete understanding of how computers actually function. You seem to be someone who wants thorough knowledge, not just marketable skills. Once you comprehend the structure of code at a low level, you should tackle more useful techniques and algorithms. Donald Knuth's books are a must. At this point you should have a strong enough foundation to delve into more specific aspects of systems level programming, or move on to high level programming and look into learning a language that's more suited for application development like Java.

If you want to learn how computers work from the bottom up and really see how your operating system interacts with hardware, you should check out "Computer Systems: A Programmer's Perspective". It assumes some understanding of *nix and C, so you need to get familiar with them before or while you read CS:APP. You can't learn "programming" without learning a programming language, and although something like BASIC might be easiest, I suggest starting with C or assembler because they will give you a more complete understanding of how computers actually function. You seem to be someone who wants thorough knowledge, not just marketable skills. Once you comprehend the structure of code at a low level, you should tackle more useful techniques and algorithms. Donald Knuth's books are a must. At this point you should have a strong enough foundation to delve into more specific aspects of systems level programming, or move on to high level programming and look into learning a language that's more suited for application development like Java.