...and friendica.com, which is easy to install and works quite well.

Exactly. Make a distribution that boots directly into Scratch or [[insert name of your favorite programming language IDE here]].

His short story "Dumb Waiter" is an excellent object lesson in "computers do what you tell them to do." Also, "Big Joe and the Nth Generation" hits that theme as well. Both stories are rather sexist (strong, heroic male protagonist; weak female character for him to play off against). But then again, that was pretty much the norm in the early 1950s.

I agree that training is absolutely essential. However, I'm not sure I buy your analogy entirely. Although it can be used to kill, the main purpose of a car is to transport people/things from point A to point B. Although it can be used to kill, the main purpose of alcohol is to make people feel good. The main purpose of a gun is to maim or kill. I am perfectly willing to concede that this may be a distinction without a difference.

I'm wondering how this compares to The Hacker's Diet, which I found to be quite good.

If you end your campaign (quit), you can no longer raise funds. If you suspend the campaign, you can continue to bring in money to lower any debts your campaign might have. For more details, see this: http://www.theatlanticwire.com/politics/2012/04/why-santorum-merely-suspended-his-campaign/50982/

The Trinidad and Tobago Computer Society Open Source Software for Windows CD (and DVD) seems to have a larger selection than the VALO offering.

http://flatworldknowledge.com/ has an interesting model. You can read the book online for free, and you pay extra for the dead-tree version and extra student material. Their books are CC/BY/NC/SA, and they have, as their site puts it, "an easy-to-use editing platform called MIYO (Make It Your Own)" to customize a book. Full disclosure: I'm using one of their books in a course that I teach.

...and we still have one or two labs on XP. This is actually a good thing, as some of our students have really old machines, and we need at least some XP machines to test web sites, etc. to make sure they display properly with older browsers (Internet Explorer 7, to be specific).

http://ttcsweb.org/osswin-cd/index.htm

I was hoping that HP would open source WebOS, but I don't think there's much chance of that happening if Amazon takes it over. Too bad. Of course, I can't really fault HP for trying to make money from Palm / WebOS if they can.

I have done this one: put two different colored books in the center of a table, one on top of the other (say, a blue book on top of a green book). Then tell the students that you are a robot that can follow only these instructions: 1. Move forward one step 2. Turn clockwise (90 degreees; demonstrate) 3. Turn counterclockwise (90 degrees; demonstrate) 4. Pick up a book 5. Put down a book The robot can hold only one book at a time. Tell the robot how to switch the books so that the green book ends up on top of the blue book, and the books still have to be in the center of the table. Either have the students work in teams and come up with a list of instructions and then follow them, or -- more fun -- have them give you instructions on the fly and act them out.

Yes, there are differences, but are they statistically significant? If the people who did this study are a "Psychometric Consulting Company," the very least I would have expected to see in the PDF was the result of an Analysis of Variance.