While I did start with BASIC at age 7, my first foray into computer programming was with Livecode.
LiveCode (Formerly Revolution) is a spinoff of Apple's HyperCard that fares incredibly well in commercial and educational markets. www.runrev.com has the details. I used to teach 5th graders programming with it, and it's so simple yet so powerful that we'd build networked starship simulation software for a local space education center (www.spacecamputah.org). It's an incredible platform to build on, and it has all the types of control structures and interactivity you'd hope for (Except objects, kind-of: I would teach OOP on a limited basis, since your GUI elements behave like objects; but there are no real logic-only objects in LiveCode).
I've been volunteering my professional skills at a local non-profit education institution for the last 6 years, and they always have something for me to do. Between programming a website to writing some kioskware, there is always something they can use. Find one that you're interested in and schedule a meeting with the program director or their technology director, tell them you'd like to volunteer, and they'll put you to work.
I've compiled and posted a video of this in action and mixed in a bit of NetCat, thus providing an interactive shell for convenience. Check it out at http://fieryferret.com/ard_hack/
Anybody heard of actually suiting punishments to crimes? Technically stealing/downloading/borrowing/pseudonym-du-jour-ing a CD is illegal. Alright, so the recording industry is out somewhere between $10 and $20 US. You'd want to magnify that a touch to make it a suitable punishment (otherwise people would steal and, if they were caught, they'd be basically paying the law for the CD). A factor of 150 thousand? That almost borders on being a joke in poor taste. If it weren't for the fact that the RIAA goes to some pretty absurd and questionably legal means most of the time, I just might laugh.
I use Wikipedia all the time, even when writing cited research papers. Although anyone can edit a page, I can jump straight to referring links at the bottom and read information from "trustworthy" sources. Besides, by reading a Wikipedia entry (even if it potentially contains misinformation) I'm able to prepare for writing by learning more about my topic at hand. In this way I get the best of both worlds: I have worthy references for my paper and a wealth of information to bank on when writing.
DRM Exists solely to protect the property of the Artist, not to alienate the user. It's sad that we have to live with DRM due to the piracy that is rampant across the internet, but piracy will still continue even if restrictions are imposed upon users with DRM. It's not a deterrent to the pirate, it's an annoyance to the user.
Has anyone thought of turning the internet into something similar to an Open Source project? The Open Source communitiy is amazing and has resulted in the best software out there. What if the internet was maintained using a similar structure? That way the internet community would become just that: a community, rather than a resource that is controlled by people in suits.
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While I did start with BASIC at age 7, my first foray into computer programming was with Livecode. LiveCode (Formerly Revolution) is a spinoff of Apple's HyperCard that fares incredibly well in commercial and educational markets. www.runrev.com has the details. I used to teach 5th graders programming with it, and it's so simple yet so powerful that we'd build networked starship simulation software for a local space education center (www.spacecamputah.org). It's an incredible platform to build on, and it has all the types of control structures and interactivity you'd hope for (Except objects, kind-of: I would teach OOP on a limited basis, since your GUI elements behave like objects; but there are no real logic-only objects in LiveCode).
I've been volunteering my professional skills at a local non-profit education institution for the last 6 years, and they always have something for me to do. Between programming a website to writing some kioskware, there is always something they can use. Find one that you're interested in and schedule a meeting with the program director or their technology director, tell them you'd like to volunteer, and they'll put you to work.
Could you elaborate on this patch? I've tried it with no effect, including logging out, switching the type of this key, etc.
I've compiled and posted a video of this in action and mixed in a bit of NetCat, thus providing an interactive shell for convenience. Check it out at http://fieryferret.com/ard_hack/
Anybody heard of actually suiting punishments to crimes? Technically stealing/downloading/borrowing/pseudonym-du-jour-ing a CD is illegal. Alright, so the recording industry is out somewhere between $10 and $20 US. You'd want to magnify that a touch to make it a suitable punishment (otherwise people would steal and, if they were caught, they'd be basically paying the law for the CD). A factor of 150 thousand? That almost borders on being a joke in poor taste. If it weren't for the fact that the RIAA goes to some pretty absurd and questionably legal means most of the time, I just might laugh.
I use Wikipedia all the time, even when writing cited research papers. Although anyone can edit a page, I can jump straight to referring links at the bottom and read information from "trustworthy" sources. Besides, by reading a Wikipedia entry (even if it potentially contains misinformation) I'm able to prepare for writing by learning more about my topic at hand. In this way I get the best of both worlds: I have worthy references for my paper and a wealth of information to bank on when writing.
DRM Exists solely to protect the property of the Artist, not to alienate the user. It's sad that we have to live with DRM due to the piracy that is rampant across the internet, but piracy will still continue even if restrictions are imposed upon users with DRM. It's not a deterrent to the pirate, it's an annoyance to the user.
This is good, but this is better.
Has anyone thought of turning the internet into something similar to an Open Source project? The Open Source communitiy is amazing and has resulted in the best software out there. What if the internet was maintained using a similar structure? That way the internet community would become just that: a community, rather than a resource that is controlled by people in suits.