Python has a built in LOGO library so I'll add that as another reason Python is a great language to start off with. It's easy to get started with yet powerful enough to write useful programs. I started as a wee lad with Apple's BASIC which is pretty much useless these days but if Python was around back then, I'm sure it would have been on my radar.
SyFy is going the way of MTV. I can't remember the last time I saw actual music being played on MTV. I predict that SyFy will devolve into a channel that offers nothing but reality shows, pro wrestling, and other cheaply produced drek.
I've read a lot of database books in my time, and been around some of the biggest rdbms instances on the net. Here's probably my top three:
1) If you don't know SQL, O'Reilly's _Learning SQL_ is the best intro I've seen. This doesn't sound like what you're looking for, though.
2) If you know SQL reasonably well, but you want to get much better, I can't recommend O'Reilly's Theory In Practice book _The Art of SQL_ highly enough. I don't have it in front of me to remember precisely why I liked it so much, but it's outstanding. If you're going to get one book, get this one.
3) To really get the theory of databases, one of CJ Date's books is good. Someone else recommended _Databases in Depth: Relational Theory for Practitioners_, and I recall that looking pretty good when I skimmed it once. I would also recommend _Foundation for Object / Relational Databases: The Third Manifesto_, which I found to be very educational. You need to be careful with Date, though, because he tends to advocate how things "should work", not how databases actually work, and so you may find him advising you to do things that are actually bad ideas on your database of choice, so balance this off against good books for your specific DB
Also,
4) If you need to build large data warehouses (doesn't sound like you, yet), then Ralph Kimball's _The Data Warehouse Toolkit_ is all you will need to understand the theory. Unfortunately, effective warehousing is especially tied to your database of choice, so you'll want to hit the product manuals even harder here.
5) If you need to do OLAP (also not likely), there's only one generic book that's particularly good at all for the concepts, _OLAP Solutions_ by Erik Thomsen, and even that is not that generic. Unfortunately most OLAP and BI stuff is highly vendor-specific.
Joe Celko's books are also pretty good, in my experience, but I wouldn't buy them before the above.
I've got no problem re-using engines, artwork, characters or anything else in games, as long as the narrative and situations are interesting.
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Alas, most prop planes are turboprops these days, so they have the same problems. The size of plane that has actual piston engines would need 50 flights just to get one jetliner worth of people home.
They also require a different fuel that probably isn't available at the large airports that are prepared for large numbers of passengers milling around.
“I reject the notion by the left of a constitutional separation of church and state,” said David Bradley, a conservative from Beaumont who works in real estate. “I have $1,000 for the charity of your choice if you can find it in the Constitution.”
Oh boy.
He is probably pulling the "amendments aren't part of the constitution" gambit, by which the validity of the Equal Protection clause and the Income Tax is also "refuted." -dB
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I was on Basic from 1986 to 1993, and it was the most meaningful years of my life.
Were, by chance, those also the years you discovered sex?
Two can Live as Cheaply as One for Half as Long. -- Howard Kandel
