I fully agree with you, but Anki (with pronunciation) got me 12k German words in 12 months with 40 minutes daily where Goethe couldn't give me a functional understanding of German whilst travelling. Grammar and the functional language comes ter with constant translation or immersion with sites and experiences like the excellent DuoLingo.
I've been a programmer since a very young age, having both parents as teachers I never saw it as noble or a job with any ROI. Spending my first year, after 3 years of industry, I realized it's more rewarding than anything I've done before (it's been 12 years now). Everything related to development can still be done, interaction with industry and I also get to see, 2, 3, 5 years down the line how successful companies spawn from inspired students.
Besides teaching I could also recommend contributing back to open source projects and just getting active in your community.
You had me at 'shockingly dreadful'. I spent the last three months in this environment and can finally say that for the next part of my exercise, I will surely switch to Python's Panda.
Sounds similar but on a lower level (in life) to a game I played in primary school called Jones in the Fast lane. Much fun, maybe you can grab it somewhere for round logic.
Thanks for the tips. I know the german/english (uk) layouts, but want to really give Dvorak a go.
I'll give the gtypist a go. If it's something I can consistently work at I'm pretty happy with doing and committing to this daily. Spent last two weeks learning to use emacs and emacs lisp.
From the recentTranshumanist Reader: "The most frightening apartheid one could imagine is a future world in which extended life is allowed only to a few – the very wealthy, the political elite and their chosen followers, Mafia, military, scientists, sports heroes, movie stars. This is not the transhumanist objective – far from it. It is up to all of us to ensure that this segmented future never happens. We will not best prevent it by denouncing technical advances and trying to blockade them, but in thinking hard, feeling deeply and wisely, debating the issues together, and acting as free men and women".