I wonder if this technique might have been known in other cultures of the same age. If, say, Babylonian buildings of equivalent age and orientation show the same offsets from true north, that might suggest that the technique was widespread.
It's a pity that the Romans didn't start building monumental architecture until considerably later, else we might have a larger sample of buildings to measure. As it is, Egypt and Babylon are about the only two countries in that region building things to last at that point. Does anyone know if there are Chinese/far-east buildings of similar antiquity?
I'm going to have to show this article to my teachers -- recently took Archeoastronomy, and currently taking Intro to Egyptian Heiroglyphs. Which I have a test in in the morning. Must . . . sleep . . .
Selanit
Where you start them out depends largely on what sort of things they want to end up programming. What do they want to make their computers do?
If they want to make really cool web pages for themselves, probably they should begin with Perl or PHP. If they want to make games they can give their friends, a visual development environment like Visual Basic (but not NECESSARILY VB!) would be better.
I have only recently begun learning this sort of thing myself, using PHP, and it REALLY helps if you have a specific goal in mind. Saying "I want to learn to program," is great, but doesn't give you much incentive to actually do so. Saying "I want to program a web-based POP3 client for myself so I can cast off the chains of Hotmail" lends you a necessary focus.
I said I wanted to learn programming years ago; but I never actually did it until I had a definite program in mind. Trust me, it *really* helps.:-)
Slashdot Mirror
I wonder if this technique might have been known in other cultures of the same age. If, say, Babylonian buildings of equivalent age and orientation show the same offsets from true north, that might suggest that the technique was widespread. It's a pity that the Romans didn't start building monumental architecture until considerably later, else we might have a larger sample of buildings to measure. As it is, Egypt and Babylon are about the only two countries in that region building things to last at that point. Does anyone know if there are Chinese/far-east buildings of similar antiquity? I'm going to have to show this article to my teachers -- recently took Archeoastronomy, and currently taking Intro to Egyptian Heiroglyphs. Which I have a test in in the morning. Must . . . sleep . . . Selanit
Where you start them out depends largely on what sort of things they want to end up programming. What do they want to make their computers do?
:-)
If they want to make really cool web pages for themselves, probably they should begin with Perl or PHP. If they want to make games they can give their friends, a visual development environment like Visual Basic (but not NECESSARILY VB!) would be better.
I have only recently begun learning this sort of thing myself, using PHP, and it REALLY helps if you have a specific goal in mind. Saying "I want to learn to program," is great, but doesn't give you much incentive to actually do so. Saying "I want to program a web-based POP3 client for myself so I can cast off the chains of Hotmail" lends you a necessary focus.
I said I wanted to learn programming years ago; but I never actually did it until I had a definite program in mind. Trust me, it *really* helps.
Selanit