My high school only offered one computer science class, and it was at the AP level. That being said, it was an exceptional introduction to programming in an object-oriented language. Day 1, our teacher listed poor reasons a student should stay in the class. Among his reasons he listed: "I'm really good at video games.", "I can type really fast.", "I know how to do HTML and have a Geocities page.", and "My parents said I can get rich by coding.".

A bunch of people transferred out of the class after that, but I think the 15 or so of us who stayed all got 5s on the exam.

Isn't it ironically cool to have an AOL email address yet? I thought it was the new hipster trend.

Wait, wait, wait. The whole point of publication is to open up your results so that other scientists can poke holes in it and the science can be redone and improved upon. Isn't it kind of a bogus statement say something like "this paper shouldn't have been published"? And with outrage, no less. Could the science really have been that bad and still be approved for publication to begin with? It must have been subject to at least a bit of peer review prior to its release. How come no one was outraged about the guy who reinvented integration (http://science.slashdot.org/story/10/12/06/0416250/Medical-Researcher-Rediscovers-Integration)?!

Whoa, whoa, whoa... Let's just calm this the hell down for a second.

Vespas rock! :)

As far as the belief stuff... No, that doesn't work for the individual, but that's not what the majority of the 'Tinkerbell' people are talking about. They're talking about the national/global economy where fear is allowed to drive supply, demand, and the general flow of money. If those things take a hit because of fear (doesn't matter if it's rational or not), then the economy will suffer and we have created a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Exactly! Spending habits, at large, are easily manipulated by what gets broadcast by the media. It's true that certain markets did fail on their own due to risky practices (and that did hurt a lot of people), but these ongoing financial troubles are more the result of otherwise financially healthy people panicing and pulling all of their cash out of circulation to prepapre for the forcasted doom and gloom.

While the GP's post hints at a bit of conspiracy theory-- in terms of the media simply playing this situation so that it can later reveal how Obama miraculously fixed everything-- I do think that enough people do "believe" in Obama that any efforts on his part to resolve the situation will lead to significant increases in consumer confidence.

Funny that you mention Willy Wonka... I just bought a new Mac laptop, and there was a golden ticket inside!

I'm not really sure how you got modded insightful by avoiding the question (how to configure a Windows PC for older people), but then again I'm not exactly sure while I'll be modded flamebait for simply saying the following:

I recently gave my parents two little netbooks with Windows XP installed. I set myself up with a password protected admin account, and then gave them vanilla XP "limited user" accounts. Asked them what resolution they liked the best. Made sure they had desktop icons for their most frequently used apps and websites. Explained to them that they should probably call me up and ask if any download sites they happen to visit are reputable, and to be weary of what their friends send them in emails. I set them up with GMail accounts and configured the spam filtering for them, and then had little cards made up that they could give to their friends with the address on it. I install updates, patches, and whatever they seem to think they need/want whenever I happen to come by for a visit (every couple of months).

That being said, it's been about a year or so now and neither one of them has done anything to damage or slow down their computers. They use their computers daily to check emails, chat on Skype, instant message, listen to music, etc, etc. My dad even does some bookkeeping on his. My mom plays Sodoku and subscribes to the icanhazcheeseburger feed. Most of the time I can help walk them through "complicated" things like adding contacts to their address book with a short phone call. No fuss, no muss.

I don't really understand why people seem to have such a hard time with Windows.

"Programming Pearls" by Jon Bentley has long been one of my favorites. The first two chapters or so are especially interesting because every other page hits you with an "AHA!" solution to some seemingly complex problem.

"Computer Ethics: A Cautionary Tale" by Forester and Morrison is pretty interesting, also; though, it's not really technical at all, just thoughtful.

I wrote a script for a commercial where the three characters (PC, Mac, Linux) meet a few months ago on my blog (http://egyptiankarim.com/blog/?p=76/), but it's really more of an Apple commercial that plays up the whole *nix core of Mac OS (an Apple pitch to *nix users, that is).

[From that Orbit gum commercial]

What the French, toast?!?!