I am 32 and have been coding for 20 years, mostly as a hobby but a short stint working in an IT apps department, and some coding for other work related things. It was 20 years ago when I was around 12 years old I got the itch to want to code. My father (who is a P. Eng) bought a computer in the mid 80's (it was a Compaq Deskpro 8086) when almost nobody had one. I started using it from a very early age, mostly for games, etc.

I started to notice my father would spend many hours working on something so I started asking him what he was doing. Being the type to turn everything into a teaching moment, he would explain that he was programming in Pascal. I thought it was cool that he could create programs, but didn't think much about it until a few years later when he bought a new PC. I saw him coding in QuickBasic 4.5 where he could program with graphics and compile to an EXE. I started asking more and more questions until he started to let me try it out. Soon I was hooked and learned all the basics and advanced stuff of QB, eventually moved on the Visual Basic, some assembly, and eventually into more modern stuff. Now I code in C#, C, C++, Javascript, PHP, and others and love it.

The point being, all those years ago my father inspired me and got me interested in coding at such a pivotal age. I have taken those skills and interests and applied them to many areas of my life even though I do not code for a career. The whole idea of Code.Org is to inspire and get kids interested in it. It fosters higher levels of thinking, feeling of accomplishments, and give them a purpose in life instead of just consuming things like games and mindless entertainment.

I think it's just great what they are doing, and having Gates and Zuckerburg as spokesman is also great!

...and a huge amount of bloat as a company that only produces ONE product! About 5-6 years ago I used to spend many weekends (dating my future wife) in Waterloo, Ontario, where the BlackBerry/RIM's headquarters are located. I was always amazed at just how many buildings were scattered around the city just dedicated to RIM. It always seemed excessive to me!

Fast-forward to today. I was driving to work in Mississauga, Ontario (about an hour east of Waterloo) and decided to take a different route for the first time. To my surprise I saw two huge BlackBerry building that looked like they were no more than a few years old. I can only imagine this is the tip of the iceberg as to the properties, corporate jets, and huge amounts of staff they still have and are in desperate need of shedding as they are burning through cash like crazy and have almost nothing to show for it.

If Mike Lazaridis were to come back that would be the kiss of death for them - the nail in the coffin. Let's remember who was on the board (along with Ballsillie) during the times that allowed the company to a) grow massively b) fail to innovate and c) put all their eggs in one basket. Then when times got tough, both of them chickened out, sold shares and took the money and ran. Mike Lazaridis might be smart engineer who is good at technology and ceasing opportunities but is likely a lousy businessman and innovator.

BB doesn't need better hardware or better technology - they need a better leader who innovates, inspires and can see into the future much like Jobs, Page/Brin, etc. I am afraid it's far too late to save the company as they are at least one generation behind everything and have an abysmal market share. They may be good at doing email but that is very easy technology to implement/copy in other devices. Honestly the best thing that could happen to them at this point would be if somebody like Google or Micro$oft bought them for their patents and IP.

It is very sad what has happened to them and all the employees who have lost or are loosing their jobs but their downfall is almost entirely their own fault due to their arrogance, failure to innovate and lack of product diversification.

Because there is absolutely nothing wrong or messed up with the Ontario Government!!!

At first I thought I somehow angered facebook and caused my session to get corrupted! Each time I visited a few different news sites after a few seconds It would be redirected to the error page. I ended up having to clear my cache to prevent the annoying redirect. I find facebook is good as a time waster but I find it scary how many sites have access to my logins and can track and control content.