Thanks! I've read that site before, but it is not recommended for absolute beginners. I know a bit of programming, but I never had a formal education in Computer Science (I'm an Econ PhD). Is there a more beginner-friendly version of this website?
I had two non-working phone holders for my car. One was a good fit for my phone, but was supposed to stick to the windscreen and didn't stick properly. The other was for an old phone, but it fitted well in the air vents.
Using sugru I was able to join together the parts from each contraption into one which fitted nicely in the air vents but held my new phone.
Adding to that, it is very good for wrapping around the ends of cords like chargers and headphones to stop them fraying (Apple products were very prone to this for a while)
I enjoyed this film, but I can't help thinking it would have been better if it had been shorter (it's well over 2 hours long). The really interesting bits are where he tells the story of Afghanistan from the 1940s onwards. I found this absolutely fascinating, but this probably totals less than half the running time.
The rest is raw footage from the country since 2001. While this is also fascinating (and harrowing and distressing in many places) the overall length is only really going to prevent people from getting to the end and understanding the whole story. Given that Curtis's stated aim is to tell the whole story, without the simplifications that modern news media requires, the length seems to counteract that aim.
There's a lot of slack time, I'll grant that. It's also quite curious how it plays out -- there are many clips shown with little or no explanation. I'm only about an hour into the video myself at the moment, but the example of the Karzai assassination attempt shown comes to mind.
I wondered if it was a deliberate device to make us feel the confusing complexity that can't just be neatly explained by a simple voiceover narrative, which was kinda the point of the show.
That's what I'm getting out of this as well. We're supposed to think about this; its supposed to give us a jolt. Talking about it critically is the desired result, no?
Well, it happens here. It doesn't happen too much "out there" ..
It's definitely supposed to be confusing and illegible as far as I can tell. The program as a whole is about the lack of linear narratives in modern events.
This reminds me of a similar theory put forward by Edward de Bono a while back. He suggested it might be lack of zinc in the diet, caused by eating unleavened bread. He proposed shipping out Marmite to help.
It's not specifically for python, but I have found the exercises at http://programmingpraxis.com to be really good for this kind of thing (and the comments will usually contain some solutions in python).
This still seems more mathematical/text-book like than practical examples, reminds me of https://projecteuler.net/ which is fun to do. Thanks for sharing!
Not for complete beginners to programming though.