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Babbage, A Look Back
A reader writes "System Toolbox just started a new computer history section in an effort to get us geeks in touch with our "roots." The current article in the monthly column focuses on Charles Babbage. The editor and author hope to raise awareness of our past so that scenes like this won't continue to take place. A big hill to climb, but worth the effort."
they didn't mention that rod based mechanical computers are likely to return with nano-tech, with carbon chains as the basic rods
http://rareformnewmedia.com/
So, um, I guess I should feel dumb for not knowing who 90% of those people were either?
I mean, I'm not l33t or anything, I'm just someone who knows how to fix computers...and would it help me or affect my everyday life if I knew?
Palaces, barricades, threats, meet promises
And I wouldn't read it for informative purposes (especially the historical sort), but it is a pretty good book.
I found Computer: A History of the Information Machine, by Martin Campbell-Kelly and William Aspray gave a good overview of the history of computing ... not too detailed but gives enough to lead you to know what you want to find out more about ...
Ahh, geek as social success.... good to see that some things never change ;-)
Tom.
Oh arse
I doubt it, he never completed a machine- and the big one, the analytical engine (as opossed to the difference engine) never left the drawing board until a couple of years ago when some guys at the British Science Museum built it.
J-aims
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Yo, whatever happened to peas? Join T( H)GS
The article posted on binaryfreedom is both fascinating and
disturbing but also, I think, misleading, as it suggests that
only the educational misfits are ignorant of computer history.
This is emphatically untrue
I've recently "graduated" from a University in England and I'm
ashamed. I would estimate that 90% of my class are ignorant of
not only computer history but also of trans-Windows computing in
general. Their goal in life seems to be to make as much money as
possible and the computer industry is the vehicle for that
"success".
I wish systemtoolbox all the best in their endeavour but I fear
that the only people who will read these articles will be people
who are interested (and hence already familiar) with this
material already.
Hell, when I was that age, I used to read computer magazines in class, and a girl who sat next to me once asked "why I read those things?" Since she was hot and I was shocked that she was actually speaking to me, I answered the not quite accurate "it tells me how to fix them," to which she replied, "why don't you just take it to the shop?" Likewise, several months ago, I was talking with a younger cousin about the video game industry (where I'm currently working), and we were discussing what makes games good. His entire list of quality games was less than a year old, and when I mentioned Pac Man and the Infocom games, he had only the vaguest clue that such things once existed. Furthermore, his interests were more in how to get rich writing games rather than how a programmer actually writes good AI routines, or an artist animates characters realisticaly.
The point is, there will always be a large element of society, at any age, which is both ignorant and uninterested in the history of anything. Most of these people will remain in the realm of Average Consumer, while the inquisitive will go forth, research the past, and build the future. The danger comes from the past-less few who simply abuse the tools that are available to them, or arguably worse, become the leaders who direct the doers of society, with little grip on why the wheels of progress turn a certain way, and no concern for how they're powered to enable to future. Because when the percieved joy is in reaching the destination, rather than within the journey itself, it tends to be one hell of a bumpy ride that doesn't exactly pave a smooth road for those who follow.
"He used a Captain Crunch whistle to generate a 2600 kilohertz tone to get free phone calls..."
2,600,000 Hz, that's a pretty high pitch!
Looks like a rogue spell checker got at the system toolbox article:
While still a young boy, Baggage was concerned with questions of "how" over those of "why.".
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Reverse outsourcing: it's the future
The quote by Ken Thompson at the bottom of the article referenced in the Slashdot story is from a very interesting speech, Reflections on Trusting Trust.
Here is the quote:
"I have watched kids testifying before Congress. It is clear that they are completely unaware of the seriousness of their acts. There is obviously a cultural gap. The act of breaking into a computer system has to have the same social stigma as breaking into a neighbor's house. It should not matter that the neighbor's door is unlocked. The press must learn that misguided use of a computer is no more amazing than drunk driving of an automobile."
What should be the Response to Violence?
Bush's education improvements were
Someone important in British Literature once said, "If I appear so tall, it is because I stand on the shoulders of Giants." (If you can remember who that was, you've got mad skills).
I always think its important to learn about one's roots, but I don't think its as important as understanding our contemporaries.
Sure, Babbage was revolutionary and laid a big foundation for where we are today. But so did all of the people who laid foundations for him; and the people who laid foundations for those people. Without Faraday computers wouldn't exist. Without Newton computers wouldn't exist. Without Aristotle, etc. etc.
Does scrutinizing Aristotle (or Babbage for that matter) propel our computer knowledge farther than if we spent more time studying Kevin Mitnick or Bill Gates [even those who despise him must agree he changed the computing world, for better or worse is not the question]. Does knowing about the history of the punch card help us as much as understanding the status of quantum computing?
The whole premise of computer science is to abstract layers upon layers so the guy who takes over can do more without having to understand fully the layers below him. Knowing about those layers is good, but do you need to know about how capacitors charge in order to write a solid C code?
Where does one draw the line between useful information and cool things to talk about at a party?
can't sleep. clowns will eat me.
What I find most disturbing is not that these kids don't know everything about computer history but that they also don't seem to care... I must admit that I didn't know all the people mentioned in the story on binary but I looked up the bios if those people...
This is happening all around us and not only in computer history, how many kids care about history at all??? How many kids know stuff about the first world war, Newton and the old philosophers like Aristoteles ???
I must say this does worry me...
Fighting for peace is like fucking for virginity
Fuck 'im up, Tim! His views are invalid! -Pirate Corp$
This rather doofy rationale has been expounded before. The counterargument, of course, is that if kids tinker with locks it's one thing... when they tinker with the locks on other peoples' buildings and go walking around inside, it's another entirely.
You don't get to "tinker" with other people's stuff. How anyone could think one should be granted that right because one is "curious", I'll never understand.
In the sciencemuseum in Londen they built Difference engine no.2. See Babbage at the science museum
I've seen it suggested that it wasn't until the 1950's or so that "computer" referred to a machine. Whether the machines in question were IBM punch machines or the UNIVAC, I don't recall. Since my copy of "History of Modern Computing" hasn't been returned yet, that's where this comment ends.
-Paul Komarek
Absolutely. "Math" ith a Roman Catholic thervith.
For some reason he didn't publish his results. Some believe that he was told not to by the British government, so that they could use his discovery during the Crimean war. Babbage's work on this subject was discovered in his notebooks after his death.
Every bloody emperor has his hand up history's skirt [Peter Hammill/VdGG]
For some nice hacker (i.e. cracker and phreaker) history, I'd suggest Approaching Zero by Brian Clough and Paul Mungo.
My advice is to make the effort and go to H2K2 and get a real sample. I think you will find like I did when I spoke at H2K, that the majority are well informed about our history.
Like any culture, our culture needs to be taught! Only so many can have had first hand experience and there are less of us each day. Yet, each day, there are more just coming into interest who need to be taught. If you find such a teacherless group of people interested in computers, you should take it upon yourself to teach who we are.
Show people the first computer you ever programmed. Show them the games you played and wrote. Show them how to say "Hello World!" directly with a Turing Machine or in Java and everything between.
Tell them about Norbert Wiener and Marie Ampere. Warren McCulloch, J.C.R. Licklider, John von Neumann and Vannevar Bush. Alan Turing, Claude Shannon and David Levy (yes Ken Thompson too and Belle). Scott Adams(all three) and Stanislaw Lem. Joeseph Weizenbaum and Eliza, Alaxander Bain and Donald Hebb. Nolan Bushnell, Ted Dabney and Larry Bryan. Alan Kay and Steve Russell. David Gottieb, Joel Hochberg and Al Arcorn. Thomas Hobbes and Levithan. Charles Darwin, Erasmus Darwin and Thomas Huxley. Aristotle and Lucretius. Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, Charles Babbage and Blaise Pascal. B. F. Skinner and Wilhelm Wundt. Robert Tinney and Peter Max. J. Presper Eckert and John Mauchly. John McCarthy and Marvin Minsky. Doug Lenat, Push Singh and myself.
We will always need more teachers who know how to both show and to tell!
I interview a lot of co-op students for job placements in the company that I work for now, and for large company in the past. Sometimes, I get some really cocky student who comes in with a smug attitude that he knows it all.
Sure enough, he can answer the technical questions flawlessly just as if he had read it from a textbook. He could show ingenuity for coming up with solutions on the fly as well... And usually when they get that look in their eye: "I know you want to hire me - make me a REALLY good offer, and I might consider working for you." I then ask the killer question:
"Who is Charles Babbage?"
The blank look on their face is priceless. It's a simple curveball. I've received answers ranging from: "I'm not sure - wasn't he featured in PC Magazine last month?" to "Oh - he's the founder of IBM." and "I... I... Don't know..."
I then answer the question with a short history lesson. They of course often recall it - yes, but didn't think that it was important.
I'm amazed at how much computing history has been forgotten from introductory courses in High School. There was an incredible amount of effort and ingenuity required to get us to the place we are today: information available within seconds, toys to entertain, tools to teach and make life easier (mine is easier now because of them), communication barriers broken down, etc... It's caused other problems too, but man - what doesn't. I'll take the benefits over the problems any day.
Hanging up in my office is a picture of Charles Babbage, and one of Ada.
"Who is Grace Hopper?" is my backup question.
Hehehehe...
I donate all spillover Karma to the charity of my choice... Ada was still a babe despite what people may say...
As far as decent writing skills, CS students weren't great. Biol students were appalling. I know, I read their lab reports - it was a struggle.
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from a rigged demo
--Andy Finkel (J. Klass?)
seeing as there have been many posts claiming ignorance of who some of those people are (congrats for being mature enough to admit it) I have to say I'm damn proud that I know who all of thema re and I've only been using computers since i was 14. (which by /. standards is still considered a newbie in some circles. oh I'm 24 now.
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I'm dubious about the idea that knowing the history of computer science helps you be a better programmer. I've known several excellent programmers whose knowledge of computer science was limited to the tools of their trade and the underlying theory. My own knowledge of the history of my profession hasn't made learning OOP any easier.
One should have a broader interest in the world than simply making a living but there are many places to go beside the history of computer science. One could argue that, given limited time, one should look outside one's profession rather than inside it for a broader perspective.
Having said that, some of life's lesson can seem more acute when seen in the context of familiar problems. For instance, this example from Babbage's life:
Babbage's private income perhaps deprived him of the drive that would have whipped his work into shape. Every time he came up against a problem with the design of his various engines, his impulse was to turn away and start again. Instead of breaking through the pain barrier, he finished his 80-year life with a lot of drawings and not a prototype in sight.
Many of us who've found a comfortable life in programming struggle with that problem every day.
That sums up my feelings exactly. I too "just fix" them when they break...Well to be fair I'm doing more and more sysadmining but I'm still not above changing the toner cartridge for the secretaries. Nonetheless, I'm awed by people like Turing, Zuse and Hopper. You're +5 insightful in my book.
p://directory.google.com/Top/Computers/History/Pio neers/
I've had enough abrasive sigs. Kittens are cute and fuzzy.
Or at least, they aren't beyond redemption. The infamous Captain Crunch seems to have turned his life around and is now a productive member of society.
But evil is not the issue. The law punishes people for what they do, not who they are. Just as they should not be punished for being evil, they should not be spared punishment because they are fundamentally decent.
Many of us have more sympathy for hackers than other types of juvenile delinquents because we recognize some of the same impulses in ourselves. To the extent we advocate mercy for hackers we are also asking for mercy for ourselves. We probably shouldn't let ourselves off the hook so easily either.
Perhaps if somebody was to produce a book, entitled "Zen and the Art of Computer Programming", that might help
What about organic computers ?? [As an alternative to "mechanical rod" based nanocomputers]
I remember reading long ago about organic molecules being able to "switch" between two polarized states under the influence if an outer electronic field. This was supposed to be a future for nano registries...
It's a matter of size.
Electrons are big, light, fuzzy things, and the electric field goes out a long way. When you want to make circuitry REALLY small you don't want to use that for anything but holding your pieces together, because your gates and wiring would have to be very large to avoid crosstalk.
But atoms are effectively smaller than electrons. The nuclei are MUCH smaller, and they suck their electrons down, making most of the fields cancel out at after a very short distance. And they're heavier, so they don't shake around and flit around as much.
You can send a bit, or several bits, by sliding or rotating a rod as you can by shoving electrons into and out of a wire (even a single-molecule wire), and the signal stays IN the rod except where you WANT it to "come out". At atomic scales moving a rod is nearly as fast as moving an electron (and comparable to moving a hole), so speed isn't a problem.
As for amplification there's not much that can beat an "interposer". That's a piece of matter that gets between a two moving parts and transfers a shove from the one supplying motion "power" to the one carrying a signal away as motion. Expend a little power to put the interposer into position and it will transfer shoves (with no further input) until you pull it away again.
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
Whilst personally I'm aware of Babbage's, Ada Bryon and Grace Hoopers contributions. I would regard knowledge of who they are as relatively unimportant.
I agree the best answer to this is 'I don't know'. People that understand the limits of their knowledge are much better than 'know-alls'.
Of course, that was way back in the 60's, er 1960's. I actually got to work with a computer in 1973 (HP2000 timesharing monstrosity running basic connected to dialup teletypes -- we got a DECwriter the next year, whee, 300 bps!) and experienced punched cards when I started my Comp. Sc. Degree program in 1979 -- we had DECwriters there too, and a few CRT terminals (at the end of current loop lines at, you guessed it, 300 bps), but course work had to be done via punched cards, submitted to the "express" window. You only had to wait 15-30 minutes for your job to get turned around.
I remember those days quite well. Today, I sometimes interview recent grads for software design jobs. One standard problem I pose is "Write a routine, in any programming language of your choice (I've probably seen it), that sorts an array of things according to some ordering scheme. I don't care about efficiency, but I expect the following: (a) that it is correct, (b) that you can explain the complexity of the algorithm in "O(n)" notation." Of course I expect a bubble sort of integers. One smartass did a Shell sort and got it right. But over 90% of the candidates fail this basic test. That's sad.
The scary part is that peer reviewers think this is being "too hard" on a candidate. Or worse, I remember one kid who added "servlets" to an FTP server -- basically he provided an API for command plug-ins that executed server-side and could provide massaged data back to the client. So, for example, you could do back-end SQL queries via FTP. Obviously an excercise in program extensibility. Trouble is, he didn't even get an offer -- a coworker insisted that he must have been "bullshitting" because "everyone knows that servlets are a Java thing and not an FTP thing". My protests got voted down. So, technical ignorance has permeated even the supposed technical interview -- on the part of the interviewers! Shortly after losing that battle, I left the employ of that company.
I remember building memory boards for an old SWTPC computer (none of us geek kids could afford to buy them assembled). I remember lamenting when the IBM PC booted into ROM Basic and displayed "Ready" -- who's gonna know how the computer gets to that point? that was what, almost 20 years ago?
There is hope. I often see young (say, under 20 years old) posters here who do have a clue. I envy that they have far better tools than I did as a kid, but note that these same "better tools" make it no big deal to be a script kiddie techno-vandal. Compare the history of mass computing to the history of the car. Anyone can drive a car today. Few know how to fix one or what makes it run, But, even with the ease of "turn the key, push on the gas, and remember to steer" driving, some still hack their cars. I take that as a sign that hacking doesn't die -- the computer hacker was a rare breed in the 1970s and still is despite the fact that there are a lot of 'leet wannabees around without a clue.
My advice to the young hacker is to seek out other hackers, young and old (say 40 and up), and avoid the wannabees. Of course, this implies a willingness and responsibility on the part of us "old guys" to mentor -- sure, you don't need a fast sort, or balanced tree structure, when you've got a 1 Ghz processor, but imagine how much faster and scalable your code will be if you use one. In my day, RAM was fast, and disk was S L O W, so you carefully designed your algorithms to minimize disk access. These days, you want stuff to stay locked in processor cache 'cause RAM is slow, by comparison. Look at other "hobies", like HAM radio, and see how "the torch gets passed on" there. We should strive for similar effect.
You could've hired me.
If one had a device that emitted an elctromagnetic wave of the same periodicy, one could refer to that wave as a radio wave. It's about one MegaHertz above the high end of the (US)AM broadcast band.
I see even classic Slashdot is now pretty much unusable on dial up anymore.
I bet everyone here has actually had real experience with a mechanical compuer (of sorts). While not a 'computer' in the mathematical description, it's pretty close: It's the automobile automatic transmission. They are probably the most complex mechanical device that people contact every day, except for the very newest computer regulated ones.
It actually does computational tasks in a strict sense -- it takes input, does "intelligent" operations on it based on data and outputs it, except in this case it's motion not math. It uses a series of planetary gears, pumps and pulleys to the extent that it make my brain hur thinking about it.
Don't believe that they are so amazing? See for yourself. They even have a cool video showing you how the whole package works.
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Hilary Rosen's speech was about her love of money and her desire to roll around naked in a pile of money.
My background is a BS at the University of Wyoming, and more recently a MS at the University of Colorado.
I'm proud to say that all CS majors at UW had to take a senior level programming languages course, which taught some history of computing in addition to the concepts of programming languages. For example, we talked about Babbage and Lovelace, Grace Hopper, Wirth, etc, in addition to Pascal, Prolog, Ada, C, LISP, etc. I don't know if the undergraduate program at CU also covers the history, but I hope it does.
I also remember students complaining that they never got to do any Windows programming at UW. Now I'm glad I didn't. (There were a few topics classes that used VB for GUI stuff, but they were few and far between). For the most part all programming was done on unix boxes. Or, for introductory courses, on PCs using the Borland compilers. Almost all of the graduate courses at CU were unix based, or tended to be platform independent, but all the CS labs are unix or linux.
As a graduate student, I met very few people who had the "I want to program to make me rich" attitude, but that's not suprising at the graduate level. There weren't too many of those in my undergrad CS classes either... but that may have been a bit before the big software boom.
Right before I got my BS, I ended up doing workstudy in the computer labs, and running severl lab sessions for the intro courses. I saw a lot of wannabes drop out after they found out that programming wasn't the "easy" path to riches they thought it would be.
Maybe these differences are produced by beign from a different part of the country. Or maybe they are just an artifact of getting my undergrad degree a few years before you did. Either way, I'm glad I got the broad, trans-windows experience I did. And I hope that the academic community returns to a quality education that isn't just about churning out windows apps for a quick buck.
Americans fund the bombing of Britain. FACT.
Will Bush's war against terrorism include the countless numbers of Americans who give money to the IRA to buy guns and bombs with?
How many people in New York have contributed to bombs which have killed people in London?
How many will go on funding the IRA to make more bombs to kill more people?
Americans support terrorism by funding the IRA. FACT.
"Information wants to be paid"
I'm sorry I didn't express myself as clearly as I should have... I personally think the punishment we dole out for many crimes these days has become horribly disproportionate. Under most circumstances, I would agree with you that throwing kids in jail for breaking into computer systems is a bit extreme. After all, as you said, they're kids.
But the reason I would try to refrain from jailing them has nothing to do with curiosity as a justification for criminal activity, as I don't see that as a reasonable defense. More than a few have put forth that very notion, though, and it was that notion to which I was responding.
Again, my apologies.
http://www.sciencemuseum.org.uk/collections/exh
Insanity is the last line of defence for the master diplomat. But you have to lay the groundwork early.
As I understand it, Babbage absolutely despised street musicians. He tried to enact legislation banning them in London. Many knew of his efforts and would 'crank it up' when he passed by, adding to his torment.
I wrote a report for a Philosophy of Mathematics class in college that may be relevant for this discussion. Babbage is commonly thought of as more of an engineer than a scientist. And his efforts were largely directed to building a mechanical device that exceeded the manufacturing capabilities of the day. As well, the immediate precursors to the Analytic Engine -- the Jacquard Loom and the Difference Engine -- were specialized for narrow, practical purposes.
However, if you examine his writings, you'll realize that he had lofty mathematical goals for the analytic engine. Specifically, he understood it to be an exercise in defining what moderns might call 'effective computability'. There's a striking similarity in his pursuit of this goal and the same explorations by Hilbert, Turing, Church, etc., in the twentieth cetury. At least that's what I argued in my paper.
I recommend his notebooks and the few existing biographies to those with a taste for the history of science and the biography of scientists.
PS: One other conclusion that I drew from my research was that the role of Ada Lovelace in developing the abstract principles of computer science has been highly overstated. She was probably mathematically adept. But she also lead an outrageous (for the time) life. The illegitimate, unmarried, and independently wealthy daughter of a Romantic poet. I suspect Mr. Babbage (Sir Charles?) entertained and amused her, both in his glum disposition and willingness to engage her intellectually. And we owe her a death for her record of and commentary on his actions. But I seriously doubt she originated the grand ideas commonly attributed to her.
The Difference Engine number two was ahead of its time, indeed. In a head to head polynomial calculation test with a Windows-based Canon BJ Notebook BN22 (with built-in ink-jet printer), the mechanical Difference Engine initially beat the pants off the laptop, but was then overtaken. Not bad for a technology that was concieved around 160 years before its competitor.
From this account, we find the following description from a witness:
"...With the windows overhead slugging the Canon, the additional time taken for 31-digit extended precision arithmetic, and the printer buffer soaking up results before making them visible to the race referees, the Babbage engine produced nine 31-digit results before the Canon bubble jet printer blasted off the starting blocks. It then spewed out the first 50 results in little more than the time for the Babbage machine to produce one more result. The hare finally overtook the tortoise."
Wow! Not bad for a version 2.0 product. Consider the advancements it would have made had Babbage been successful all those years before.
It would be better to claim he is "ignorant", rather than "stupid" - the word "stupid" implies something fundamentally wrong with his mind, while the word "ignorant" is more of "lack of knowledge", rather than of intelligence.
You are right to claim that he should look into and be curious about these people - they are a part of what has led him to where he is today.
Reason is the Path to God - Anon
It hurts all of mankind.
Does it hurt you to be unaware of who first thought of writing numbers as digits? The genius who came up with reliable procedures for adding them? The spectacular genius who generalized expression of fractions by numbers?
You know, I sit here in my office - knowing that outside my window, thousands of miles away, people are dying: Some by war, some by famine, some by sheer ignorance. Furthermore, I know that in some cases, these deaths and sufferings are occuring because of the ignorance and lack of understanding of others...
We humans should know at least where these things came from, if not specific identities. For example, I know that the first two things you mentioned, "Numbers as Digits" and "Adding Digits" most likely came from the Middle East, and that our word for Algebra comes from "the Arabic al-jabr". As for the last one, it pains me not to know where it came from, I am certain I could find it with a bit of googling, but I wouldn't doubt it came from the same region as well. Much of the math you speak of actually goes further back, but it is to the Middle East we must look to for our number system and for the number zero (0). These contributions are nothing short of amazing.
In a similar fashion, I tend to wonder how many people in the Middle East are aware of various contributions of Western society's great thinkers, scientists, philosophers, teachers, mathematicians, and medical doctors? How many of them are aware of things they might use every day, without which their standard of living would surely be lower than what it is today (I am thinking of things like automobiles and electricity, basic medicine, and engineering).
These things should bring us together - to cause us all, on every corner of the planet to think "We are human, we have made these things!". We should rightly be humbled by greater men than ourselves, and should strive to be like them or better. We should be proud that we, as humans, have explored our solar system and beyond! That we have stepped foot on another world, beyond our mere Earth.
I think of the photos of the Earth-rise captured by cameras that man invented, hand carried to another world in machines and suits built by man to keep him alive in a world utterly inhospitable to himself, daring it to take his life so that he could step down, and take one picture...
A picture - a world so fragile - and small - holding, as far as we know (though we, as men, dream - yes, we dream - of more...), all the life in the universe...
You know, as I just wrote this, I cried - I know I can't do anything about what is going on in this world - and I know that none of you can, either - not directly. I know that there are people that just don't care. I guess this is why I cried - because despite all of that mankind has achieved - from everything small to everything great - there are still individuals who exist who seem to be unable to look past their own petty self-interests and dream of the possibilities...
Maybe I am just a romantic optimist...
Reason is the Path to God - Anon
There's one at a mall near me run by a super-cool guy named Larry. I've shopped there for maybe 15 years.
I've always found it cool that, at the entrance to the store they have a plaque with Babbage's picture and brief bio on it.
GTRacer
- Anybody remember typing in "SmarTerm" for the Atari 130XE? (From magazine bought at Babbage's)
Defending IP by destroying access to it? That makes sense, RIAA/MPAA. Go to the corner until you can play nice!
We have a title problem here. The script hackers and the serious developers both call themselves "programmers". But that's just a title problem, no more.
Go to the Game Developer's Conference. Or just read Game Developer magazine. Some very, very smart people are busily cracking tough problems in physical simulation and AI. Those people have broader knowledge than the hackers of 20 years ago.
One big difference today is that today's good programmers know a lot more about business than the programmers of 20 years ago. That's a big plus. Game programmers also tend to know something about art, music, entertainment, and how to deal with Hollywood.
Not really a misconception, as I have always considered India to be a part of the Middle East (not sure what it really is - Near East?). As far as whether knowing this makes me a better coder - maybe, maybe not - but it does make me a better human being, with slightly more knowledge about the world. Thank you.
Regarding Latin - it is something I wish I had time to learn, actually - I think it would help in certain situations.
What I was trying to get at is that by forgetting and not realizing that we are humans on a world, who actually share experience and culture - we tend to become separate, and we tend to be more base, and think in an "Us vs Them" fashion - "I am better than you" or "My country is better than yours" - instead of realizing that by continuing to work together, we could achieve extremely great things...
Reason is the Path to God - Anon