D is for digital

What Hacker News says

1. schoenMay 2022
   Three good books that try to introduce computer science to non-specialists from various angles:

   * The Pattern on the Stone: The Simple Ideas That Make Computers Work by Danny Hillis

   * D is for Digital: What a Well-Informed Person Should Know About Computers and Communications by Brian W. Kernighan (I think his Understanding the Digital World is probably a retitled newer edition of this book?)

   * Code: The Hidden Language of Computer Hardware and Software by Charles Petzold

   All three of these authors have had interesting and prominent careers in computing. None of these books are exactly on-point in terms of directly addressing careers, but all of them should help you understand more of the substance of what your daughter is working on and the context for other discussions you encounter.

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2. hackermailmanMar 2019
   Every prison mailroom is different, I usually just ignore what the bop or state website claims and phone the prison mailroom directly to ask. In general, all books must come from a store/publisher, and have an invoice. I use Books A Million for prison deliveries because they always include an invoice and Amazon often doesn't.

   Anybody wondering some good books for prison are the Little Schemer series of books, since they can be done with pencil & paper. The Schemer's Guide is another pencil & paper boook if you can find it. Kernighan also has a good book for this but it contains a chapter on cryptography which some prisons may not allow but I haven't had any problems yet "Understanding the Digital World: What You Need to Know about Computers, the Internet, Privacy, and Security" or get the older paperback version "D is for Digital". They give an intro to programming. Code by Charles Petzold, a really good intro book, may not get in either just because of the title.

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3. hackermailmanDec 2017
   Yes the massive fees of Jpay/iCare and all the other schemes like Union Supply Direct. I've always assumed no cheaper alternatives because you'd need to lobby some senator massive money to get your service allowed inside a state's prison system.

   One thing I do is send prisoners things they can trade instead of Jpay account load fees, for example in a women's prison any magazine subscription that includes a lot of perfume samples they are worth their weight in gold inside the walls for trading. Good math books as well, such as Sheldon Axler's Pre-Calc book because it includes fully worked out answers instead of just magic answers, but unfortunately I can only find hardcover and some prisons still don't allow hardcover. You also have to use certain book companies, like Books A Million since they include invoices and you can be sure they are new books instead of Amazon where I've been screwed many times sending to inmates where even if it says 'fulfilled by Amazon' it ends up being a 3rd party vendor.

   Best things you can have in jail is a radio to pick up local stations, something to trade with such as coffee, and letters from the outside on mail call because everybody waits for mail call. They have Jpay mp3 players now in some states which are of course ridiculously expensive.

   If you know somebody in jail doing hard time, a good idea is learn something with them. Send them math books, do the books with them and trade letters. It's motivation because often I'd lapse behind and find out the friend I was writing had already slayed the next chapter and I didn't even start. My next Saturday morning was spent catching up. Math education has a half life of hundreds of years, perfect for prisoners.

   I found vet books on animal care a great idea for prisoners who need a job upon release. Lot's of kennel companies will hire ex cons to start at the bottom cleaning kennels and administering meds, and they can take vet tech exams from there to move up. I sent Saunder's guides since most vet tech exams use these. Another good book is Kernighan's book 'D is for Digital' (renamed in recent editions), it's an excellent book to teach inmates how technology works when they've been in for a long time.

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4. evbacherJan 2017
   D is for Digital: What a well-informed person should know about computers and communications, by Brian Kernighan.
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5. hackermailmanOct 2016
   The Schemer's Guide was designed for paper and pen https://www.amazon.com/Schemers-Guide-Iain-Ferguson/dp/09628...

   D is for Digital is a good survey and has some Javascript programming info, Amazon has the second version draft already http://kernighan.com/

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6. gshubert17Dec 2015
   I have a master's in computer science, worked in industry for a couple of decades, have been teaching high school computing for the past decade, and think of myself as a "real" computer science teacher.

   At the high school level, I think it is better to teach computing as a broad-based life skill, not as a prerequisite to the AP exam, college major, or programming specialization.

   Most students of history in high school won't be historians; most students of literature won't write great novels or screenplays; and so on. I think computing is like math and science generally, in this way.

   I use Kernighan's "D is for Digital" book in some of my classes. He wrote it for an introductory college course for non-majors, and it works for high school students too.

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