School in... five days??

Just ordered my books for Psych and English. The books I got for Japanese are good for three classes-- the one I took, the one I'm taking, and the one I will be taking in the fall.

I'm feeling better about this semester. English Comp should be a no-brainer, since it's required to graduate. Child Psych will hopefully be less of an ordeal than Summer II's Intro to Psych, if only because I have to go once a week instead of twice. Japanese will be the most tasking, I think. That one requires less regurgitation and more actual thought. I've been peeking ahead so I can start off well.

I spoke with my dad the other day about programming. I've been looking at an assortment of guides on beginner's stuff, but none of it's really going anywhere. They walk me through the Hello World program, make a few other points (this C++ one I'm reading is more thorough, with loops and variables and conditional whatchacall'ems) and then say "Good luck." I don't know what I'm supposed to do with whatever knowledge I've gleaned. I've read that practice is the name of the game, but... what the hell am I supposed to practice, exactly? I can make a crappy calculator in C. I suppose part of the problem is that I'm not focusing. I looked at guides in C, C++, and Python, and my friend Bill said he'd lend me a book on Java if he didn't already give it away.

The whole reason I thought about programming was because I saw a group on Facebook for Haiku OS-- a successor to BeOS, something we'd used when I was a kid. There wasn't a whole lot to it, as I remember, but that's because I was a kid, and all I did on the computer at that time was write and play games (not that it's much different now). I want to get into programming because I want to know how Be worked, how Haiku works, and mostly, so I can contribute to open-source community projects. I fell in love with the idea of community-run development when I read about Linux. About how many man hours Linux took to develop and how much it would have cost a software company. What resonated with me was the fact that things like Linux can thrive purely because enough people care, and the amount of infrastructure and wage slavery to produce the same thing with the same quality is almost infeasible.

The points I am trying together are; "I'm not getting anywhere with programming because I'm looking at too many things", and "I want to aid in the development of open source awesomeness, like HaikuOS." I originally just wanted to learn Python, because it's said to be clear cut and powerful. However, Haiku is being developed in C++, so I'd either need to start there, or learn it concurrently with Python. And I desperately need some good, guided study, not a "Just practice!" pep talk.

POLITICAL IDEOLOGY TALK! I watched a video this morning about how Neo-Nazi's are using the incredible levels of hatred in the radical conservative movement to work their way into mainstream politics. How insane has the world gone when Neo-Nazi's are being taken seriously in America?! The video, a news report by Al Jazeera English, either shows or suggests (point of view, I'd say) that a lot of the fervor being whipped up by people like Tea Party jackoffs and GLENN BECK, MAY HE BURN FOREVER, has a lot to do with racism. The fact that the National Socialist Movement (ie, Neo-Nazi's) have adopted the same rhetoric as mainstream conservatives makes the swelling of "real patriots" somewhat HOLYSHITHORRIFYING. Man, if I ever met that Joe the Plumber douchebag, I'm gonna love seeing the look on his face when I tell him there are some Nazi's who agree with him in his politics. SERIOUSLY, NAZI'S. Nazi's aren't the reason I'm gonna post the video, though. I heard this guy talking about the Tea Party people, and the message of "taking back OUR America," and it was interesting to me because of the kind of America these people want, since it's a totally implicit statement. The video says a primarily Christian America, and, to tie in to the rest of the its message, White, Christian America. I'd say the relationship between white people and the message of a Christian America is spurious, but no one can say authoritatively either way, I suppose.

Sean