Remember Explorer vs. Nautilus and the rest?

Asimov's "Profession" is one of my favorites. I teach Computer Science at a 4 year university, and my goal is to teach skills that transcend a particular technology/language/API, while at the same time being relevant to current developments. As a student, you are pretty much out of luck, but as an instructor it takes a lot of effort to resolve the tension between timely and timeless content.

It hosed my Win7 machine. YMMV

How long between being awarded the prize and it decaying?

Since a shortage of fresh water is our next big crisis, doesn't that mean that global warming is a good thing?

OpenGL: A Primer by Edward Angel is very readable and a thin little book that is also inexpensive. I use in my class where I teach OpenGL. The Red Book and others are great references, but Angel is the best way to get your feet wet.

For a scientist, FORTRAN is still a valuable skill since there are so many libraries and applications that represent many years worth of development to draw from. Plus it is efficient, etc.

The question here is what is the best way to introduce students as a first exposure to programming. FORTRAN has many quirks so it is debatable whether it is really the best language to learn first. You can write truly horrible code in FORTRAN, but that is true to some extent of all languages, although Python does make it harder.

On balance, if students are taught a modern dialect of FORTRAN and the instructor stresses good programming practices, it remains a good way to introduce students to solving a problem numerically and of getting the job done for people who may not code for a living.

If a few clowns with $500 worth of equipment can essentially deny the military the use of the system, it is not going to be of any use in a conflict when the opposing force has a lot more sophisticated equipment.