route66

Maybe I'm misrepresenting Graham's remark concerning averageness of languages, but I the 'average' attribute was not assigned to the capabilities of the individual programmer. The point was (among others) that languages with a good "market position" attracts all kind of programmers, from challenged to geek. On the other side you have languages who attract more geeks because the i-have-to-pay-my-mortgage-which-language-should-i-learn group is underrepresented. Which makes for a good filter if you want to hire people. Just like "participating in open source projects" can be a discriminating factor.

The last point could be argued about, but I don't recall language bashing in said essay.

Sigh ... these kind of threads are expanding my TBR-list into financial oblivion.

On topic: Paradigms of Artificial Intelligence Programming by Norvig was a cover-to-cover session for me. It does not try to teach programming but to think about the structure of a solution.

> Not really a programming book though. I agree with that, but it made me program. Inspiring overview over the field.

Maybe a misunderstanding, but the law in question (WAA) does not mention male or female employees but deals only with the right of changing th eweekly work hours for everyone. It is probably exercised most often after child birth, other than that, I would think that "women have the right" is wrong as a statement.

http://www.springerlink.com/content/n7143830149p6861/fulltex... worked for me ...

[edit] that is, without paywall...

> Private ownership is not the cause of all of the political wars over water. It is their solution.

Is as untrue as it can be. Currently water conflicts emerge around the situation that there where no (or only a traditional) market exists, a market for multinationals is created forcibly . IMF and World Bank connect loan conditions directly to water exploitation rights in developing countries. This looks very much like interventionism to me: creating a "market" and installing it's major players at the same time. I can't see the "invisible hand" here ...

I'm not so sure about that: lots of water around means that your drinking water has a high risk of becoming polluted with industrial sewage (as now did happen in Hungary) or salty water in areas close to the sea. Abundance of water != drinking water.

Keeping bees. Playing viol (that baroque instrument) and guitar. But I like to "follow my nose", so the answer might be different next year (did someone mention metal casting in this thread? hmmm...)

Using one document as a stick to beat the uninformed seems somewhat silly to me. The variation of the infection rate is large. Look for yourself in the document. According to USAID in some regions it amounts to 50%. I think this is the point the OP wanted to make. USAID do not agree fully with UNAIDS figures, especially in the north. (see f.i. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/04... for some critique on statistical methods. Beware, it's from 2006).

Then again, the knowledge that there are people out there still dying on a large scale from this disease makes me feel informed ... but very silly when it comes to fights about the figures.

Looks like a more or less complete setup of a Moog Modular Synth ...

No limits. Before I switched to software development I paid my bills as a Jazz guitar -player and -teacher. Observation: the "too old" only applies indirectly when you're "grown up" schedule is already very full with everyday activities. Even then I watched people with no time to spare but with lots of enthusiasm and determination making progress. Some physical learning gets slower with age, but the speed of learning is not important at all IMO/E.

I line up with others here in recommending private lessons, at least for the beginning. Getting quick feedback in what you are doing is essential, especially for the motoric part.

I picked up viola da gamba with 39 and might have lacked some physical abilities to do the bowing well from the beginning but thanks to my teachers I got smoothly over these problems.

Another thing: start playing with others early. It's like chatting away in a new language. You learn best/have the most fun when you have to make sentences and express yourself.

Get yourself an axe and enjoy!

To develop terminology and understanding of the physical/mathematical problems you could look into the books of Jean Meeus. "Astronomical Algorithms" contains, ...well, exactly that: small recipes to solve problems in positional astronomy or calculate ephemerides. Check Willman Bell publishers for the english version of his books.

I liked "Celestial Mechanics" by Laurence Taff, but it's calculus-heavy which is nice if you're interested in the mathematical background and want to see some practical calculation examples.

Somewhere in the middle between these books is "Astronomical Methods and Calculations" by Acker and Jaschek. The exercises and solutions in this book come very close to the example you give.

Apologies for not putting links to the books but just google for author/title. Or check your local library.