My university chose to teach a pure functional lisp-like language without for loops as they very first programming course in the computer science program lol. Everyone who “already knew” how to program in Python/Java/JS/etc hated it (including me at the time) because it knocked us from the peak of the Dunning-Kruger curve into the valley of despair like everyone else.

Took me years to understand the method to the madness and appreciate learning it.

I need something I can easily instruct them on how to install, and has good cross-platform support so that a basic programming lesson will work on whatever OS the attendees are running. Remember they are non-technical so may need more guidance on installation, so it should be something that is easy to explain.

Honestly, as much as I personally despise it as a language and as much as you probably shouldn’t use it for large applications, JavaScript.

If ease of setup and platform compatibility are your absolute top priorities, nothing beats it. Every mainstream OS runs JavaScript, and it’s already pre-installed in the form of a web browser. On any desktop system (and even mobile systems with some effort) you can use any text editor to write an HTML file with inline JavaScript and run it by just clicking it.

Python, the next best option IMO, still requires knowledge of how to use the command line, and on Windows, requires installation that is slightly more involved than installing a regular program (adding it to your PATH, etc). Python for beginners are also limited mostly to console apps, and making a GUI is much more difficult especially for new programmers. Again, you’d first have to teach them what a console even is and how it’s actually still used by developers and is not a relic of the DOS days (something I’ve noticed non technical people tend to assume, they think GUIs made consoles obsolete). JS on the other hand is literally made to create GUIs on the web, meaning they will be able to create the kinds of software they’re already used to interacting with, which is both easier for them to wrap their minds around and also more enticing. Someone with no technical experience might wrongly assume that a text only interface is like “training wheels” and what they’re learning doesn’t apply to “real” software.

More importantly, they will be able to show off what they built to their friends, without needing them to install anything or send source code or executables which can get blocked by social media filters. Services like Netlify will host your static pages for free, making sharing their work as simple as posting a link. Having a GUI is even more important in this regard, so they don’t have to walk their friends through how to use a console app when they barely understand it themselves.

JS in the browser also has the benefit of being in a sandbox, meaning they can’t easily interact with other parts of their computer like files or system configurations. This may seem like a disadvantage but for someone just learning what programming is, it’s reassuring that they can’t accidentally kill their OS or delete their files.

However, keep in mind that JS is pretty infamous for teaching bad habits that will have to be un-learned when switching to other programming languages (and so does Python TBH, though to a much lesser extent). It really depends on what kind of developers you want them to be by the end of this. For people just looking to casually make some interesting software they can show off to their friends, JS is probably the easiest way to do it. If this is meant to be the start of a path toward becoming actual professional developers, Yogthos’s suggestion of Clojure or Scheme is probably better because those languages will teach much more rigorous programming and software design practices from day one.

I’m not a parent either so take this with a grain of salt, but these seem to be the most common complaints I’ve read from people with siblings.

Don’t blindly accept “he did it/she did it” when one of them messes up. It shows them that, for one, their siblings are fall-persons that can be framed to avoid punishment, and potentially, that one of them is presumed the troublemaker if you’re more inclined to blame them in the absense of evidence.

Also don’t punish both for something unless you have proof they both did it. That’s how you make them resent each other.

Give each of them autonomy from their siblings and allow them to do their own things by themselves. Don’t force them to let their sibling tag along when they clearly don’t want to, they deserve time to be their own person. Again, this fuels resentment as opposed to making them friends with each other, because forcing siblings to do everything together makes them think they’re only half a person in your eyes.

Encourage sharing, but don’t force them to share everything they own, especially if they’re the ones that worked hard to obtain it. Obviously sharing is important and anything you buy for any of your kids should ideally be shared equally, but don’t be the parent who watches their oldest kid save up for something they really want and the instant their younger siblings want it, pry it away from them in a misguided attempt to show the importance of sharing. Again, it makes them feel like half a person. Foster an environment where they feel comfortable sharing their stuff, and they’ll do it by themselves. Forcing them to share only makes them see sharing as a burden and not a virtue. And when they do share and the younger sibling breaks it, don’t dismiss it as “they don’t know any better.” Teach the younger sibling to respect other people’s stuff that’s being shared with them and to take responsibility and apologize when they break it.

Don’t turn the older sibling into a full time babysitter for the younger ones. Occasionally having them babysit is fine, but if you’re, for example, denying your teenager their social life by making them watch their siblings every single weekend while you go out with your friends, they’re not going to like you or their siblings. You’re the parent who should be making sacrifices for your kids, that’s your responsibility and not something you should be imposing on your oldest kids.

Don’t say things like “this is the good one” or “this is the rowdy one” to your friends within your kids’ earshot, even in jest. Kids will internalize remarks like that from their parents and you will very likely manifest it just by saying it. Also don’t twist one sibling’s achievement into “why can’t you be like that” for everyone else. The kid who achieved something will feel like nothing they do will get them your attention and their other siblings will resent the person they’re being compared to.

They need all that RAM because their models are bloated pieces of shit.

Companies tend to change names to try and get away from their history. Like how Philip Morris became Altria.

Don’t let them. There’s no such thing as deadnaming a company because it was never alive in the first place. If their old name carries the baggage of how horrible they really are, keep using it and don’t let them forget.

All Teslas are falling apart, the older ones are just accelerating like their pedals got wedged.

German firms

As in the German bourgeoisie.

Make no mistake, German “firms” are not and never will be China’s “friends.” They’re not even Germany’s friends. This is just a further extension of the West’s outsourcing of labour to China, a decidedly one sided relationship where any benefit to China is a happy accident at best and a terrible side effect at worst in the eyes of German businesspeople.

What’s the appeal of Bazzite over regular Fedora immutable version? I’ve personally never had an issue running Steam on Fedora, then again I wouldn’t consider myself a “gamer,” certainly not my biggest requirement as far as computing is concerned.

.world users complaining about .ml on a .ml community

Run my own server at home to store my files.

“We don’t sing for genociders” based

THC for some reason even though everyone else says it helps them sleep.

Thank you for the in depth explanation of hard drive noises! I have everything I care about backed up and will keep listening for changes. Hopefully it’s just an OS thing.

was not a medical condition and just a word

It is just a word. It means to delay or the opposite of “advance” and is still used like that in industries like aviation and terms like fire removedant.

But when you use it to call someone stupid, that’s when you’re using it in the context of ablism and as a slur.

Similar to the term for a female dog, which is still used in veterinary medicine and research to mean an actual dog that is female. Though like the R word, the context as a slur is gradually discouraging its use even as its original meaning because people don’t want to risk having it misunderstood.

Piece of shit. Simple and to the point. Shit’s pretty gross and it’s universal human instinct to avoid it. Maybe even shithead if you want a single word.

Asshole. Gender neutral and not tied to ethnicity since we all have one. Maybe even going further and calling someone an asshole related condition like prolapsed rectum or hemorrhoid, things that can happen to anyone, are pretty painful and definitely to be avoided, but AFAIK were never conditions that were heavily marginalized or shamed.

Clown or fool. Clowns/fools are types of characters people played historically (and still do?), IMO it doesn’t imply anything about a person’s actual intelligence or mental state, only their actions. You’re not born a clown or fool, but you can definitely act like one. Also lends itself to a snarky 🤡 emoji I’ve seen some people here use instead of typing out an insult.

Though there could be additional context or history to any of these terms I’m not aware of that push them into one of the -ist categories, IDK I’m not a linguist.

Just a reminder, you can’t prove they’re not still conscious somewhere in their mind. Brain “dead” is a misnomer because having dead, rotting tissue in your skull will kill you pretty quickly anyway. You would at the very least have to remove the brain and IDK if you can still keep the body alive then.

Keeping them alive normally honestly sounds like torture if there’s anything resembling a consciousness still in there, this is just slavery.

That time Janeway and Paris hit Warp 10 in Star Trek.

Such a cool concept ruined by such a stupid episode.

Also Trip doesn’t die.

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Yeah the malware is called Windows 11

Weird. Didn’t notice because Cloudflare blocks my real user traffic because I have the audacity to use a VPN and Firefox with privacy extensions that block like maybe two of their arsenal of fingerprinting tools.