I did not watch any TV as a kid. Thus, my mother made me read books from age 6. When I was ten or eleven, I had already read all of Jules Verne and some Kipling & Jack London books (those my mother judged suitable for a 10-year-old anyway). I loved those, and they turned me into a real book-lover. I read a lot of mythology books too at that time (Iliad & Odyssey, that kind of thing).
By the time I was 14, I had read all of the then-available Stephen King (talk about dark stuff) and most of the Dune novels (politics? religion?) I stalled on the God Emperor of Dune and didn't read it entirely until I was 17. All of that in English (not my native language, I started learning English at 13). The Hobbit was my first English book, followed by the LOTR cycle and Dune. After, almost all books I've read from american or English authors were in English. I don't know how old kids are when they start learning a foreign language in your country, but good reading skills are great for learning a new language.
Also some other books from Herbert, the Hellstrom's Hive comes to mind - I read that 20+ years ago, and still remember it. 'Destination: Void' too, and the sequels.
My mom kept me reading when I was a kid (simply no TV allowed during the weekdays), and I used to read 2 or 3 books a week. That lasted until I was 18. Now, I read when I have the time. Still a lot, but nowhere near what I could read when I was 15.
Some that come to mind are : 'The Alien Years' and 'Hawksbill Station' by Robert Silverberg, 'The immortals' by James Gunn, all the Dune novels and the additional work by Brian Herbert, Michael Crichton's Andromeda Strain', Paul Preuss's 'Venus Prime' series.
One that I love but would not recommend to a kid below 15 is Henlein's 'Stranger in a Strange Land'. Definitely great (my favorite Henlein) but weird. I'm not sure I would have liked it as a kid.
Also a favorite : 'Hunters of the Red Moon' by Marion Zimmer Bradley (and the sequel).
As for fantasy, some good suggestions have been made above, and I would also suggest the Inheritance Cycle by Christopher Paolini (only two books out now, the third will be released in September). Addictive, and definitely kid material (although I read that when it was out, about 6 and 4 years ago).
Clancy, Len Deighton and a few others are good thriller writers too.
However [..], the attitude that owning a firearm is a privilege [...] rather than a right, probably contributes significantly to keeping Canada (not to mention Australia, Germany, France, [...]) much lower on the people-killed-by-guns scale.
[A Little Background] I'm from France myself. We have very harsh laws concerning firearms. I own guns for sports. The only other legal way to obtain guns is with a hunting licence (awarded after a test, renewed every year through medical examination. No handguns are allowed for hunting, only rifles). For sports, count on one year and a half of paper-pushing before getting one gun. The law here limits the number of firearms to seven handguns, and 12 firearms altogether for one federeation licensee (no license = no guns). Even people training for the Olympics can't get more (don't even think of mentioning IPSC to a French Shooting Federation official, they hear "man-like target shooting", which it is not). Weapons made before 1875, and which do not use metallic cartidges are not classified and evade these limitations (ever tried a hold-up with a musket?) This means that almost all of the collectible guns made in any European country during the 20th century belong either to museums or to american collectors (who can own more than 7 guns).
Oh, and about Switzerland, it's probably the safest country in the world if you consider gun accidents, for one simple reason : every valid male adult, after his military conscription, is a reserve soldier for the army, and thus keeps the rifle that was issued to him at home (people who evade military conscription, for whatever reason, pay more taxes than those who did). This means there's a gun in almost every home, and children are taught to behave properly around guns at an early age.
[The bottom line] Ever read an article in the press about your own field of expertise, only to find that journalists don't have the slightest idea what they're talking about?
They don't know crap about computers. They don't know more about physics, electronics, or even politics. They know about journalism. They certainly don't know shit about guns.
Laws don't make gun control. Only law-abiding citizens respect laws, and law-abiding citizens are NOT the primary source of gun-related casualties.
In 1998, the UN published a report, in which it was clearly shown that gun control and gun-related casualties are not related (which seems obvious since only legally owned firearms can be controlled by any law).
In France, gun homicides went up 50% after the death penalty was banned (1981), and it took 20 years to bring them back to the level of 1980 (around 200 a year). Gun-related deaths never amounted to more than 0,6% of all deaths. Among these, legally-owned firearms accounted for 0,01 to 0,04% of the casualties.
You might want to compare this with legally-owned cars used in murders / alcohol-induced accidents.
I wouldn't even think of using a gun for my protection, or only as a very last resort. Shooting a burglar inside my own house would get me right into jail. on the other hand, you'd have to have a really lousy lawyer to get more than unvolontary homicide if you killed someone with your car.... Go figure.
Computers let you make more mistakes faster than any other invention in human history, with the possible exception of handguns and tequila. [Mitch Radcliffe]
It's been up much longer than that. Actually, a colleague told me about this site sometime last year. I don't recall exactly when that was, but since he resigned in April 2001, it was before that. It's actually quite fast if you're in Europe (it's a French site).
The GUI was obviously redone recently, and although it looks more bloated than before, it's actually faster.
Might even be the previous issue for you US readers (got it in the mail yesterday, though).
---
Real computer scientists only write specs for languages that might run on future hardware. Nobody trusts them to write specs for anything homo sapiens will ever be able to fit on a single planet.
[In case anyone cares, this first post, although in French, was obviously translated from English in the first place (and automated translation still has a long way to go...)]
BTW, regarding the first reply to this mesages, this would-be tax won't be used for any government funding (retirement plans, etc.) but instead will be completely repaid to *private* firms, self proclaimed artist protectors, the biggest of which is the SACEM in France (our equivalent of the RIAA). I seem to remember that there was a survey last year (last century?) that more or less came down to the fact that piracy made it easier to sample music and therefore HELPED sell records to people who otherwise would not even have known they were interested to buy them. But we keep earing the usual bullshit (like this morning on the radio : piracy made the majors lose 1.3billion Euros in Europe last year, wonder where the figures come from).
The problem is that if you have perfectly legitimate needs for long-term archiving of large quantities of data (archiving a web site, digital camera pictures, etc.), you will still have to pay as if you were a criminal, and the government (which means OUR money) will be used to collect this tax for PRIVATE firms. Go figure.
And the worst part : who will decide how to share this tax between the record industry, the movie distributors, and the game industry??
My guess : SACEM : 80%, the film business 20%, and the rest will go to the game producers.....
I completely agree with that opinion. Actually, as I work for the French postal services ("La Poste"), there is one detail that seems to be overlooked here : postmen (and everybody working for the postal services actually) have to swear an oath not to read the mail they process (I'm into Business-to-Business EDI, and I had to swear this oath myself, although I never see any private form or mail). This legal involvement means the postal services offer the best protection for any private or commercial documents transmitted (no talk about crypto here). This must be true for the USPS too. Try to find a private company with the same legal ties. By the way, postal services have existed and transmitted mail for centuries for some. Why should they suddenly be obsolete with the advent of e-mail? They too can carry crypto-enabled server-centric e-mail and the extended services that go with it (proof of delivery, archival, etc.), and they do, using Tumbleweed software. Now, the very thing that makes them better suited than any private firm is their status, their obligation of service, their oath, and their experience. Let's picture this a few years from now : If you want to trust a private firm to carry all your personal e-mail (including medical records, paychecks, credit card bills, invoices, etc.), don't forget to unselect all the 'I want to receive amazing offers from XXXXX' checkboxes, and pray that this firm will not grow too much, for it might well turn into a new Microsoft...
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I did not watch any TV as a kid. Thus, my mother made me read books from age 6.
When I was ten or eleven, I had already read all of Jules Verne and some Kipling & Jack London books (those my mother judged suitable for a 10-year-old anyway). I loved those, and they turned me into a real book-lover.
I read a lot of mythology books too at that time (Iliad & Odyssey, that kind of thing).
By the time I was 14, I had read all of the then-available Stephen King (talk about dark stuff) and most of the Dune novels (politics? religion?) I stalled on the God Emperor of Dune and didn't read it entirely until I was 17.
All of that in English (not my native language, I started learning English at 13).
The Hobbit was my first English book, followed by the LOTR cycle and Dune.
After, almost all books I've read from american or English authors were in English. I don't know how old kids are when they start learning a foreign language in your country, but good reading skills are great for learning a new language.
Also some other books from Herbert, the Hellstrom's Hive comes to mind - I read that 20+ years ago, and still remember it.
'Destination: Void' too, and the sequels.
My mom kept me reading when I was a kid (simply no TV allowed during the weekdays), and I used to read 2 or 3 books a week.
That lasted until I was 18. Now, I read when I have the time. Still a lot, but nowhere near what I could read when I was 15.
Some that come to mind are :
'The Alien Years' and 'Hawksbill Station' by Robert Silverberg,
'The immortals' by James Gunn,
all the Dune novels and the additional work by Brian Herbert,
Michael Crichton's Andromeda Strain',
Paul Preuss's 'Venus Prime' series.
One that I love but would not recommend to a kid below 15 is Henlein's 'Stranger in a Strange Land'.
Definitely great (my favorite Henlein) but weird. I'm not sure I would have liked it as a kid.
Also a favorite : 'Hunters of the Red Moon' by Marion Zimmer Bradley (and the sequel).
As for fantasy, some good suggestions have been made above, and I would also suggest the Inheritance Cycle by Christopher Paolini (only two books out now, the third will be released in September). Addictive, and definitely kid material (although I read that when it was out, about 6 and 4 years ago).
Clancy, Len Deighton and a few others are good thriller writers too.
I guess CmdrTaco was so stunned by Whitespace that he started rewriting his automatic dupe-removal routine with it!
Must be busy looking for a WhiteSpace debugger by now, time to sneak another dupe!
However [..], the attitude that owning a firearm is a privilege [...] rather than a right, probably contributes significantly to keeping Canada (not to mention Australia, Germany, France, [...]) much lower on the people-killed-by-guns scale.
[A Little Background]
I'm from France myself. We have very harsh laws concerning firearms. I own guns for sports. The only other legal way to obtain guns is with a hunting licence (awarded after a test, renewed every year through medical examination. No handguns are allowed for hunting, only rifles). For sports, count on one year and a half of paper-pushing before getting one gun.
The law here limits the number of firearms to seven handguns, and 12 firearms altogether for one federeation licensee (no license = no guns). Even people training for the Olympics can't get more (don't even think of mentioning IPSC to a French Shooting Federation official, they hear "man-like target shooting", which it is not).
Weapons made before 1875, and which do not use metallic cartidges are not classified and evade these limitations (ever tried a hold-up with a musket?)
This means that almost all of the collectible guns made in any European country during the 20th century belong either to museums or to american collectors (who can own more than 7 guns).
Oh, and about Switzerland, it's probably the safest country in the world if you consider gun accidents, for one simple reason : every valid male adult, after his military conscription, is a reserve soldier for the army, and thus keeps the rifle that was issued to him at home (people who evade military conscription, for whatever reason, pay more taxes than those who did). This means there's a gun in almost every home, and children are taught to behave properly around guns at an early age.
[The bottom line]
Ever read an article in the press about your own field of expertise, only to find that journalists don't have the slightest idea what they're talking about?
They don't know crap about computers. They don't know more about physics, electronics, or even politics. They know about journalism. They certainly don't know shit about guns.
Laws don't make gun control. Only law-abiding citizens respect laws, and law-abiding citizens are NOT the primary source of gun-related casualties.
In 1998, the UN published a report, in which it was clearly shown that gun control and gun-related casualties are not related (which seems obvious since only legally owned firearms can be controlled by any law).
In France, gun homicides went up 50% after the death penalty was banned (1981), and it took 20 years to bring them back to the level of 1980 (around 200 a year). Gun-related deaths never amounted to more than 0,6% of all deaths.
Among these, legally-owned firearms accounted for 0,01 to 0,04% of the casualties.
You might want to compare this with legally-owned cars used in murders / alcohol-induced accidents.
I wouldn't even think of using a gun for my protection, or only as a very last resort. Shooting a burglar inside my own house would get me right into jail.
on the other hand, you'd have to have a really lousy lawyer to get more than unvolontary homicide if you killed someone with your car....
Go figure.
Computers let you make more mistakes faster than any other invention in human history, with the possible exception of handguns and tequila.
[Mitch Radcliffe]
It's been up much longer than that.
Actually, a colleague told me about this site sometime last year. I don't recall exactly when that was, but since he resigned in April 2001, it was before that.
It's actually quite fast if you're in Europe (it's a French site).
The GUI was obviously redone recently, and although it looks more bloated than before, it's actually faster.
Might even be the previous issue for you US readers (got it in the mail yesterday, though).
---
Real computer scientists only write specs for languages that might run on future hardware. Nobody trusts them to write specs for anything homo sapiens will ever be able to fit on a single planet.
[In case anyone cares, this first post, although in French, was obviously translated from English in the first place (and automated translation still has a long way to go...)]
BTW, regarding the first reply to this mesages, this would-be tax won't be used for any government funding (retirement plans, etc.) but instead will be completely repaid to *private* firms, self proclaimed artist protectors, the biggest of which is the SACEM in France (our equivalent of the RIAA). I seem to remember that there was a survey last year (last century?) that more or less came down to the fact that piracy made it easier to sample music and therefore HELPED sell records to people who otherwise would not even have known they were interested to buy them. But we keep earing the usual bullshit (like this morning on the radio : piracy made the majors lose 1.3billion Euros in Europe last year, wonder where the figures come from).
The problem is that if you have perfectly legitimate needs for long-term archiving of large quantities of data (archiving a web site, digital camera pictures, etc.), you will still have to pay as if you were a criminal, and the government (which means OUR money) will be used to collect this tax for PRIVATE firms. Go figure.
And the worst part : who will decide how to share this tax between the record industry, the movie distributors, and the game industry??
My guess : SACEM : 80%, the film business 20%, and the rest will go to the game producers.....
For those who wish to help get rid of this tax :
http://www.vachealait.com
I completely agree with that opinion. Actually, as I work for the French postal services ("La Poste"), there is one detail that seems to be overlooked here : postmen (and everybody working for the postal services actually) have to swear an oath not to read the mail they process (I'm into Business-to-Business EDI, and I had to swear this oath myself, although I never see any private form or mail). This legal involvement means the postal services offer the best protection for any private or commercial documents transmitted (no talk about crypto here). This must be true for the USPS too. Try to find a private company with the same legal ties. By the way, postal services have existed and transmitted mail for centuries for some. Why should they suddenly be obsolete with the advent of e-mail? They too can carry crypto-enabled server-centric e-mail and the extended services that go with it (proof of delivery, archival, etc.), and they do, using Tumbleweed software. Now, the very thing that makes them better suited than any private firm is their status, their obligation of service, their oath, and their experience. Let's picture this a few years from now : If you want to trust a private firm to carry all your personal e-mail (including medical records, paychecks, credit card bills, invoices, etc.), don't forget to unselect all the 'I want to receive amazing offers from XXXXX' checkboxes, and pray that this firm will not grow too much, for it might well turn into a new Microsoft...
[BTW, all american readers are invited to search for 'Clinton' on any search engine you may think of. Get a hint ??].
I used to think most people on /. had to be at least litterate, and thus would prove to be intelligent.
Is there a higher than usual proportion of internet-enabled morons in your country ??
This really looks like like an AOL forum from the 'good' old times.