If someone comes to me with beef about something I wrote, then it's up to me to defend my position.
This is the stance that I take, but I'm quite aware it could backfire. A number of interested parties outside of friends and family (law enforcement, future employers, future lenders or insurance companies) do look at your profile. These people will often not give you a chance to explain your position.
I'm perfectly okay with everyone knowing everything about me (unless they're going to use it for something illegal), I just don't want people to misinterpret things. But, without a lengthly explanation which addresses everyone's relevant (and unexpressed) concerns, there's no way to explain that photo of you in drag dancing on a table with a red cup in your hand.
I don't like censoring things, but I don't trust people to be reasonable in their expectations even more.
This is absolutely correct. If I want to continue running an old version of software (whatever it may be), then I should not have to go out of my way to make it so. I'm fine with Firefox deciding to be naggy -- by default. But I should be able to turn it off. If by default it wants to harass me, that's fine. Just as long as there's a documented option in about:config. That should make all the people who want to auto-update everyone be happy, and those who don't want to updated against their will to remain (virtually) unaffected. Firefox has been good about listing configuration options instead of just deciding on policies I don't like, I hope they continue to be.
Anyway, auto-updating is risky to begin with - there may be worse bugs later (and downgrading is usually harder than upgrading), and users can lose features. Users should always have the option of opting out of losing features. Not to mention that the auto-updater may have a security bug in it.
Yes. I wholeheartedly agree. I started programming on my graphics calculator to do basic physics and math problems. This is what really got me interested in programming. It was a great way to learn, as with the maths you have to be quite exacting in your calculations, and you know when you're wrong. Additionally, the BASIC on the TI-8* line of calculators is quite simple, and he probably has one already. The portability has its benefits as well.
After the calculator...
I've found that the most motivating factor for learning things, especially programming languages and how to program is finding a good project. It doesn't have to be big, just something with a goal. Early on, it's nice to have something that doesn't require too much architectural stuff, as it's easy to get bogged down in the planning, and not actually get anything done. This makes it difficult to do programming on the computer, as most things which you want to do will require a graphical interface (for which C# is quite helpful, as the designer is excellent - if you're willing to use windows). But if you want some simple utilities like text or image conversion scripts, they can be a good place to start (e.g. copying new pictures from his camera, downsizing them, and uploading them to facebook, for instance). Learning things, especially computer tasks, is much easier, and much more productive when there is an end goal (especially if it's within sight).
Kurt Vonnegut is always a classic, I'm surprised he hasn't been mentioned here yet. Black comedy and science fiction. I remember reading some of his short-stories as a kid and really liking them. They never got me to pick up the novels though. Slaugherhouse-Five and Breakfast of Champions are good and are referenced a lot in later literature.
I actually got stuck in a sample class using these, and I'm not a big fan. What happens is the teacher will ask some multiple-choice question, then he has to stop talking for several minutes while he switches to the clicker server program. The whole class strains and points and tries to get the sensors in the room to pick up their answer. There isn't any indication if it was *your* clicker which was picked up by the sensor though, so everyone just keeps clicking. They have to constantly check the screen to make sure that their number was picked up - which doesn't always happen. Maybe it's just because they're new, but the teachers I had tried to avoid using the clickers for points. I'm sure the teachers got some decent feedback - knowing what people understood and didn't. Then again, they were in my physics classes, so it was easy to formulate questions and get responses in a "short" amount of time. I certainly appreciated that over homework questions. It did help once or twice to let me know I misunderstood something, but overall, they were very frustrating, and grew to be one of my pet peeves.
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It's the ones you don't know about that pick the locks.
If someone comes to me with beef about something I wrote, then it's up to me to defend my position.
This is the stance that I take, but I'm quite aware it could backfire. A number of interested parties outside of friends and family (law enforcement, future employers, future lenders or insurance companies) do look at your profile. These people will often not give you a chance to explain your position.
I'm perfectly okay with everyone knowing everything about me (unless they're going to use it for something illegal), I just don't want people to misinterpret things. But, without a lengthly explanation which addresses everyone's relevant (and unexpressed) concerns, there's no way to explain that photo of you in drag dancing on a table with a red cup in your hand.
I don't like censoring things, but I don't trust people to be reasonable in their expectations even more.
This is absolutely correct. If I want to continue running an old version of software (whatever it may be), then I should not have to go out of my way to make it so. I'm fine with Firefox deciding to be naggy -- by default. But I should be able to turn it off. If by default it wants to harass me, that's fine. Just as long as there's a documented option in about:config. That should make all the people who want to auto-update everyone be happy, and those who don't want to updated against their will to remain (virtually) unaffected. Firefox has been good about listing configuration options instead of just deciding on policies I don't like, I hope they continue to be.
Anyway, auto-updating is risky to begin with - there may be worse bugs later (and downgrading is usually harder than upgrading), and users can lose features. Users should always have the option of opting out of losing features. Not to mention that the auto-updater may have a security bug in it.
Yes. I wholeheartedly agree. I started programming on my graphics calculator to do basic physics and math problems. This is what really got me interested in programming. It was a great way to learn, as with the maths you have to be quite exacting in your calculations, and you know when you're wrong. Additionally, the BASIC on the TI-8* line of calculators is quite simple, and he probably has one already. The portability has its benefits as well.
After the calculator...
I've found that the most motivating factor for learning things, especially programming languages and how to program is finding a good project. It doesn't have to be big, just something with a goal. Early on, it's nice to have something that doesn't require too much architectural stuff, as it's easy to get bogged down in the planning, and not actually get anything done. This makes it difficult to do programming on the computer, as most things which you want to do will require a graphical interface (for which C# is quite helpful, as the designer is excellent - if you're willing to use windows). But if you want some simple utilities like text or image conversion scripts, they can be a good place to start (e.g. copying new pictures from his camera, downsizing them, and uploading them to facebook, for instance). Learning things, especially computer tasks, is much easier, and much more productive when there is an end goal (especially if it's within sight).
Kurt Vonnegut is always a classic, I'm surprised he hasn't been mentioned here yet. Black comedy and science fiction. I remember reading some of his short-stories as a kid and really liking them. They never got me to pick up the novels though. Slaugherhouse-Five and Breakfast of Champions are good and are referenced a lot in later literature.
I actually got stuck in a sample class using these, and I'm not a big fan. What happens is the teacher will ask some multiple-choice question, then he has to stop talking for several minutes while he switches to the clicker server program. The whole class strains and points and tries to get the sensors in the room to pick up their answer. There isn't any indication if it was *your* clicker which was picked up by the sensor though, so everyone just keeps clicking. They have to constantly check the screen to make sure that their number was picked up - which doesn't always happen.
Maybe it's just because they're new, but the teachers I had tried to avoid using the clickers for points. I'm sure the teachers got some decent feedback - knowing what people understood and didn't. Then again, they were in my physics classes, so it was easy to formulate questions and get responses in a "short" amount of time. I certainly appreciated that over homework questions. It did help once or twice to let me know I misunderstood something, but overall, they were very frustrating, and grew to be one of my pet peeves.