I'm going to second the "teach some history" sentiment. My first computers class was taught in the traditional "teacher reading one chapter ahead of the students" way, and it nearly turned me off of programming right there. Luckily, the next teacher that I had had been programming for a long, long time, and so had first-hand experience with the "guts" of programming, and he tried to pass this perspective on to us. Maybe it's just me, but learning the ins and outs of the computer's hardware made programming seem so much more interesting; suddenly, I understood why we couldn't just store infinitely huge numbers in an int (after all, humans can, so why can't computers?)
I actually really enjoyed reading it. I think that in large part, this was because of the incredibly fortuitous timing. I'd just finished re-reading "Oedipus Rex," and both stories have the same sort of "epic tragedy" feel to them. To be sure, this is not the kind of book that I'd view as "light reading" in any sense, but it's enjoyable nonetheless.
Of course, I'm also a really big fan of Tolkien's writing style; all of his stories seem vast and alive in a way that very few other books do, in my opinion.
Although I think that this is a step in the right direction, there are a few parts that make me uneasy. Chief among these is the idea of "Virtually all sharing on the internet and wireless devices [being] tracked." I really can't think of any way that this is going to work without being a major privacy issue.
Despite this, the fact that it's even being considered is a little bit worrying. That, added to the seeming flurry of other such bills into Parliament, is starting to really worry me.
If I recall correctly from the biography by Brain Herbert, his father didn't intend for the series to go beyond the first three books, and it was only at the behest of his editor that he did.
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I'm going to second the "teach some history" sentiment. My first computers class was taught in the traditional "teacher reading one chapter ahead of the students" way, and it nearly turned me off of programming right there. Luckily, the next teacher that I had had been programming for a long, long time, and so had first-hand experience with the "guts" of programming, and he tried to pass this perspective on to us. Maybe it's just me, but learning the ins and outs of the computer's hardware made programming seem so much more interesting; suddenly, I understood why we couldn't just store infinitely huge numbers in an int (after all, humans can, so why can't computers?)
I actually really enjoyed reading it. I think that in large part, this was because of the incredibly fortuitous timing. I'd just finished re-reading "Oedipus Rex," and both stories have the same sort of "epic tragedy" feel to them. To be sure, this is not the kind of book that I'd view as "light reading" in any sense, but it's enjoyable nonetheless. Of course, I'm also a really big fan of Tolkien's writing style; all of his stories seem vast and alive in a way that very few other books do, in my opinion.
Although I think that this is a step in the right direction, there are a few parts that make me uneasy. Chief among these is the idea of "Virtually all sharing on the internet and wireless devices [being] tracked." I really can't think of any way that this is going to work without being a major privacy issue.
Seconded. That, and the music from Zelda: Ocarina of Time, are the only soundtracks that I listen to. Fantastic stuff.
Despite this, the fact that it's even being considered is a little bit worrying. That, added to the seeming flurry of other such bills into Parliament, is starting to really worry me.
If I recall correctly from the biography by Brain Herbert, his father didn't intend for the series to go beyond the first three books, and it was only at the behest of his editor that he did.