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Small Basic

Microsoft just released another .NET language: Small Basic, designed to get MS back into the business of teaching programming.
I have to laugh at parts of the release document. For example, the claim that programming languages started simple and easy to learn, and that the high-level concepts of modern languages discourage people from learning to code. [...]

in which i am barely coherent

I definately hate my HCI class. And Microsoft .NET.
Constructing a broad menu tree no longer noticably slows down the speed at which the menu is displayed! It may have, many, many years ago, but at this point computers are stupidly fast!! Putting multiple menus in a single dialog box is always a better idea than [...]

usually people reserve this kind of shameless begging for necessities

Alright, at this point I pronounce my computer dead. I’ve done everything I could, including going to some expense to produce a Windows 2000 Professional, SP3 disc. I formatted the C drive, installed the Windows OS.
And it just made my problems worse. Before, some (fairly crucial) drivers were broken. Now, I’m lucky if I can [...]

where the real world meets idealism

I want to use Linux. I like the concept of open source software; I’ve hacked with Linux a bit myself; it’s a good idea. But I use windows.
The funny thing is that I was always sort of assuming that it was simple laziness keeping me on my platform. However, the more I look into it, [...]

ignorance of the military

One thing really irritates me: ignorance. A friend of mine recently told me:
“The thing that I really don’t like about the military is that so much is based on your age.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Isn’t it that once you’re in active duty, if someone’s older than you, they have more authority?”

Do people really think that [...]