Not all of the Conspirators have the (eu)genes to have been computer science prodigies in our teen years. But I have long wanted to learn something about (really, truly) elementary programming, but somehow never gotten around to it. I read this article at the Atlantic on something called Project Euler and wondered if it might be the right thing for a total beginner who makes no claim to intuitively good math skills. Does anyone know about this and think it might be the right thing for someone like me?
(Update: The comments have been very helpful in trying to find the right super elementary, beginner resource, and one thing is clear … Euler is too difficult for my level. I’m sorting through the comments and finding them very useful – thanks.)
And the rest of my genuinely extracurricular projects for the summer are (and if I even get started on most of them, I’ll be very, very impressed with myself, particularly because my work plans are very pressing between now and when classes begin again):
- Rev up my cello again, including my electric cello, after an 18 month hiatus following a shoulder injury – recovering two pieces of music that I had been working on back then, a cello transcription of a Buxtehude gamba sonata and an electric cello version of Santana’s Europa.
- Spend 1 hour a day reading books that are important to my work but not directly related to anything I am writing at this very moment, with particular attention to virtue ethics, moral psychology, and the philosophy of value and valuation.
- Go to God’s Own Country (that’s the Eastern Sierra to the rest of you) and hike and bike.
- Lose 10 pounds.
- Drop my daughter off at Rice University to start her freshman year.