What are you interested in? How in depth are you willing to study? I'm basically in the same boat and recently out of the blue developed a passion for math. I found there are plenty of free books available online. Right now I'm studying combinatorics, but every so often I take a couple of Khan Academy classes on trig. You might also want to check out Project Euler that offers the chance to combine math and programming.

I just checked out Project Euler - awesome, thank you!

F5 timestamp in Notepad.

Interesting. Do you keep a separate log for each activity, or add a note with what activity you're working on? Also, any easy way to make that work if your default program for .txt files is not Notepad?

Not only that, but this plus Learn Python the Hard Way (http://learnpythonthehardway.org/static/LearnPythonTheHardWa...) makes it a lot of fun as well.

This is why I am continually entranced by numbers.

How refreshing!!

As an editor, I must say that it warms my heart to know that someone out there actually proofreads his comments. Bravo!

Also, thanks for the C Pitfalls link. It will prove quite useful in my current project. The original article isn't too bad, either.

Agreed. Still, as the parent of a 15-yr-old boy, I have firsthand experience with teachers behaving incredibly cruelly and unprofessionally. In these instances, combined with the normal pressures of high school, it is no wonder that a student on the receiving end of that behavior would choose such a drastic path.

My dad taught me two things as a teenager:

- Don't be an arsehole and you will have friends

- You can retake exams but you can't retake life so chose life over exams.

High school doesn't need to be hard. So much pressure is put on kids to perform or they will suffer for the rest of their life. It's pathetic.

Pressure to perform is not the biggest problem. Peer pressure is much worse. This child committed suicide after her classmates voted for her suspension.

I've just started showing my nine-year-old son how to do simple printing and math in Python (basically Chapters 2 and 3 in LPTHW), and he is pretty stoked about it. This will be a great addition.

Not to overburden the discussion regarding the last chapter, but I have to agree with the very last line: "You can code. They cannot. That is pretty damn cool."

I live in the Central Florida/Space Coast area, and there is a palpable fear that soon all these aerospace jobs will be gone with nothing to fall back on in a crappy economy. This speech was meant to be encouraging to a broad constituency of a state Obama and the Democrats need for future elections.

As far as science goes, the better-faster-cheaper ethos NASA had with the Mars Rovers should be revived. Robots are a terrific way to get actual science done. That said, the lessons learned from building and working on the ISS would be a good starting point for creating a vehicle to take people to Mars - a place we can eventually make habitable (http://www.users.globalnet.co.uk/~mfogg/zubrin.htm).

> I live in the Central Florida/Space Coast area, and there is a palpable fear that soon all these aerospace jobs will be gone

Those aren't jobs - they're welfare checks, taken from working Americans in return for very very very little of value.

I hope that the folks on the Space Coast are right. They can all go get real jobs (even if it's at Target), and the free market space industry can deliver for several orders of magnitude less.

I would much rather hand a "welfare" check to an aerospace engineer than an average Joe.

Also, if the free market space industry does pan out in our lifetimes, I think they would love to have these aerospace guys working for them even if they have such "little of value."

You know, I'm as hopeful about free market space flight as anyone, but as of now, there categorically isn't a free market space industry.

So you want faster-better-cheaper using COTS technologies but also want to keep the 1000s of pork-barrel in my state Nasa jobs ?

I don't see where tgerhard claimed that was a desirable outcome. I only see tgerhard reporting on the opinion others have from a position of knowledge.

I live in Michigan, half my family works for car companies one way or another, and I was and am still against the auto bailouts. Locally healthy for me, perhaps, but in my opinion still bad policy for the country. (My point not being that I want to debate that point, but that location does not have to dictate opinion.)

Sorry, wasn't meant personally - but you get the point. Q; How many states DON'T have a Nasa facility?

After 50+ years of pork barrel? I would bet on "none".

I'd have to echo the XHTML/CSS suggestion. Becoming proficient in just those two allow you to make robust, accessible sites, limited only by your creativity (and perhaps your client's requests). It might help also to study HTML5. After these, devote some time to JavaScript.

With these you'll have a nice little front-end development toolkit.

I am fortunate enough to have an employer and a manager who allow me to work from home. This used to be an infrequent option but became a necessity when I lost access to a car. (The office is a 45-minute drive away.) Even with having to get three children ready for school, helping with homework, preparing dinner and doing other household chores, I have never been more productive.

I start my day early and sometimes end it fairly late, but as earlier noted, with balance and discipline it can be extremely rewarding for both you and your employer.