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Croissants, hands down.My pastry instructor was brutal. Like, Gordon Ramsay with a rancid crab cake brutal. Throw stuff on the ground and stomp on it sort of thing. Really. So when we did croissants, no one produced one that pleased him, but we moved on, because there was no pleasing him. On the first day of class, he had said “If you want to practice these recipes at home, you may take ingredients for personal use, just log them on the inventory sheet.” Every day, I took the ingredients for croissants home and spent the evening rolling and turning and waiting. The next day I’d take my croissants in, and I’d take the abuse. Too brown, or not brown enough. Surface not flakey. Interior gummy. No flavor. One mistake after another, but every single rejection was accompanied by, “Next time, maybe try…”The first breakthrough was the batch where he admitted that they were edible… to a dog. I took home more butter, flour, and yeast. More parchment. Try again. At this point, I would like to make it clear that the croissants I was producing weren’t bad at all. They were better than you buy at any grocery store or coffee shop, and wouldn’t have been out of place in a French bakery in an average American town. Still not good enough. Every night, I’d pass a bag out my car window to the homeless folks who hang out on street corners in Denver because there are only so many croissants one can eat.I did this for 6 weeks. Five tries per week, a total of 18 pounds of butter. I can’t tell you how many times I cried and wanted to give up, but he was a tiny bit less nasty with each try. When he started correcting nuances, I knew I was getting somewhere.And one day, he took the croissant. Flicked the crust to check for flakiness. Tapped and listened. Pulled it apart and smiled at the layers. Held it up to the light, sniffed it, and took a bite. “This,” he said, “This is a croissant. And you’re a baker now. The rest of them are cooks learning to bake because they have to, but you? You cared enough to get it right.” He passed half the croissant to me, and we shared it. After, while we wiped up the crumbs, he said, “Now let’s talk about your eclairs.”EDIT: Answers and clarificationLots of questions, so I figure I’ll have a go at them. First off, I am not baking professionally right now, so I have no photos of my actual croissants. In fact, I haven’t made them in a few years, and I’d probably have to make half a dozen batches before I got the groove back.RECIPE: Many people asked for my recipe, but recipes were never the point here. I can give you the recipe I started with and all the things I learned, and you will still have to make them over and over to attain your perfect croissant. I didn’t just learn how to make a croissant, I learned to understand and troubleshoot croissants. For the actual recipe, I refer you to Kitchenalia, who uses the same source I did (Gisslen’s Professional Baking) and has typed it up beautifully. So go ahead and try it; the good news is, even ‘bad’ croissants are really good, and eating what you learn is no hardship, up to a point. Don’t be afraid to screw up and try again. Eat the evidence.HINTS:· Use unsalted European butter. It has a higher fat content and is cultured for better flavor.· Kitchenalia’s instructions say to spread the butter. I got significantly better results by pounding the chilled butter into shape between parchment with a rolling pin, then laying it out as a shingle.· Bread flour is a must, you need the higher gluten content. I use the wholesale commercial stuff in kitchens, but at home I like King Arthur.· Feel free to go longer between turns, never shorter.· If the center is gummy from being undercooked, reduce your oven temp. If it’s gummy like wonder bread, you’re rolling too thin on your turns.· If your crust shatters, you’re proofing too long. Ditto if your croissant falls during baking.· When deciding how dark to go, I play chicken with burning. I want it as dark and flavorful as I can get without any taste of overdone. This dough has to start out a little wetter. You’ll need to find your own balance.· The kind of milk you use matters. I worked with whole milk.· Kitchenalia has converted the recipe to dry yeast. I really prefer the fresh, and can find in in the refrigerated section near the eggs.MY CHEF: For the sake of the story, I didn’t mention that my pastry instructor was, once I got past his prickliness and proved that I really wanted to bake, a wonderful, kind man. Anecdotes like this, by nature, lack nuance. A culinary school is primarily made up of cooks, chefs, and people who want to be one or the other, and who have to take a baking class to get through it. Bakers are a different breed in the kitchen. Baking is science, not art, at least until you get to the decorating. So this poor man who loved his craft had semester after semester of students who rolled their eyes at his lessons, who threw their notes out at the end of their class. Not everyone wanted to learn, they just wanted to pass. Meanwhile, unbeknownst to us, this particular pastry instructor was undergoing treatment for cancer. He showed up every day, achy, tired, and nauseated from chemo to teach a classroom of students who didn’t care about the thing he loved most passionately. So when a girl brought him croissants she’d made in her free time every day, he knew she understood. He knew she could become a baker, that she wanted it. So he pushed. Oh man, he pushed. I remind you that this industry is not kind to people. We recently lost Tony Bourdain, who wrote Kitchen Confidential, showing the world exactly how ugly it gets in commercial kitchens. A person who is deterred by verbal abuse will not last long, so in the end, his nastiness was ‘cruel to be kind’. There’d be no point in dragging me to competence if I was going to wilt the first time someone called me a worthless cunt. I say “First time” because I can’t tell you how many there have been. Compared to that, what he did was pretty minor. After I proved myself with croissants, he led me more gently through the rest of the curriculum, though he was still a tyrant with and in front of the other students. It became a bit of a joke; he’d put on a show of berating me, and I’d try not to crack up and give away the game.To be absolutely clear: Chef Winter was a friend and a mentor to me until he died in 2014. I told this story at his memorial, and I brought croissants.ECLAIRS: Eclairs are an entirely different beast from croissants, as was my journey. Where a croissant is all about method and technique, éclairs are sort of a love affair with the ingredients. Pâte à choux is pretty easy, and pretty bland, so it’s mostly a way to get pastry cream and chocolate conveniently to your mouth. Don’t get me wrong, done correctly the shell of the éclair elevates it to another level, but even a perfect one can’t save a lackluster filling, and it’s going to get soft unless you serve immediately anyway. The goal is maximum volume and a surface just thick enough to hold the pastry cream in. I made one batch of tolerable pastry cream and used it to troubleshoot the shells, which took about a week. Much easier than croissants, and my relationship with Chef was very different. It took another week and a half to get the pastry cream right; perfectly silky and the right consistency, neither runny nor gelatinous. Flavor is easy to adjust on this one. If it tastes flat, add salt. Too sweet? Reduce sugar. Change vanillas or use almond extract. A bit of lemon zest does amazing things. The chocolate glaze was the final piece. The goal here is firm enough to stay put but not hard, and intense enough to stand up to the sweet pastry cream without being bitter and overwhelming. It also should be mirror-glossy. It succeeds or fails on the chocolate you start with. Of the couvertures available in bulk wholesale, we ended up with El Rey Criollo 63%, but at home I like their Gran Saman 70%. Again, I’m using recipes from Gisslen’s Professional Baking. I recommend it if you really want to elevate your skills. Any edition will do, and you can pick them up pretty cheap.I hope this answers all the questions, because, wow, this apparently touched a lot of people. I do hope my story inspires people to take their own journey, whatever their passion. I also hope it encourages them to lead others when they can.

The venereal diseases prevention posters made by war propaganda departments have got very little attention from the modern media. It is very interesting to learn how armies deal with gonorrhea and syphilis in 20th century before the invention of antibiotics. That review will help to modern readers to understand better the psychology of Europeans during the Second War War.1.UNITED STATES OF AMERICAThe USA military has always taught new troops the dangers of sexually transmitted diseases. Every soldier at some time in his basic training was forced to sit through what was used to call a "Susie Rotten-crotch" film where a soldier is shown out meeting a local female, only to appear at sick call with gonorrhea or syphilis shortly afterwards. The U.S. Government and its agencies prepared posters during WWII in an attempt to keep servicemen free of VD. The following posters were aimed at specific services and show that they were each considered vulnerable and addressed.Arthur Szyk caricature: Fool the AxisIn the above 1942 warning poster about VD, the three Axis leaders are shown with hypodermic needles, ready to give shots to soldiers with sexually transmitted diseases. The text of the poster is "Fool the Axis – use prophylaxis, prophylaxis prevents venereal disease!" During the war the medical corps had a prophylaxis kit that would sometimes be issued to soldiers going into town.The American artist who created the poster, Russian born Arthur Szyk (1894-1951) attended art school in Paris before enlisting in the Russian Army in 1914. He served for six months and saw front-line action. After World War I he fought as an officer in a Polish guerilla regiment against the Bolsheviks and eventually located in Paris with his new wife. With the outbreak of war in Europe in 1939 he began producing cartoons and eventually moved to New York City. During the war he created numerous covers for Collier's magazine. Hitler put a price tag on Arthur Szyk’s head. The American press called Szyk a "one-man army against fascism." The Times of London declared his art work to "be among the most beautiful...ever produced by the hand of man."A second poster (1943) , shows the same three enemy buffoons discussing the disease marked "VD" with actual microscopic pictures of the microbes. The syphilis spirochete, chancroid gram-negative bacilli, and gonorrhea gram-negative diplococci are all depicted as Tojo says "American soldier could catch it with ease" and Hitler answers, "but prophylaxis prevents disease."During World War II, the leaders of the Axis powers (Hitler, Mussolini, and Hideki Tojo) were depicted by Allies as monsters. The enemy leaders were caricatured as gorillas, skeletons, rats, or whatever the Allied warriors could dream up. This was all part of the process of wartime depersonalization, and the resultant new image of him as vermin good only for killing. Nazis propagandists used exactly the same effective tactics of dehumanisation of the enemy for the killing purpose.She is our Sunshine…After seeing Arthur Szyk’s work this poster seems rather lame, but once again it vilifies Hitler and the Japanese and points out that a lovely bathing beauty, “Miss GI Pickup of ‘44” will infect “you, you, an you” with VD.Here we see that Walt Disney has joined the war against VD. Donald Duck has been drafted and is thinking of having sex with a beautiful woman but finds himself without the safety of a Prophylaxis.Axis AgentsThis poster also uses the theme that it helps the Axis when you are infected with a venereal disease. It implies that it is almost treasonous to have sex with a prostitute because it hurts the war effort.Pages from War Department Pamphlet No. 21-15U.S. Government produced a number of pamphlets, flyers, leaflets and other published literature in an attempt to reduce the rate of VD among the troops. The booklet, War Department Pamphlet No. 21-15, depicts American troops hitting the beaches from a landing craft on some foreign shore and warns that VD might take them out of the picture. One wonders about the effectiveness of this illustration as positive propaganda. Given the choice of attacking a machine gun nest at Normandy or getting a needle in the butt at a comfortable aid station in the United Kingdom, the latter seems somewhat preferable. This 16-page War Department brochure is entitled Sex Hygiene and VD – Venereal Disease was first printed in 1940 under the direction of the Surgeon General of the Army with an introduction by Secretary of War Marshall. It was issued to every new recruit and discusses sexuality in general and attempts to educate the young soldier on all of the emotions and desires he might encounter away from home. It was issued again in 1943 with a slightly changed cover. Some of the introduction is:The Army can protect you from many diseases but you will have to protect yourself from syphilis and gonorrhea. The only sure way is to stay away from women. Don’t forget that any woman who lets you use her, or who consents easily, is not safe.If you wait until you marry, you’re safe and keep your self respect. You also play fair with the girl back home whom you expect to play fair with you. There’s no substitute for moralsShe may look Clean –ButIn this poster we see a mix of Army, Navy and a civilian together. In a way, civilians were part of the war effort because they built the weapons and kept the economy moving. So this poster warns all three of the dangers of having sex with a prostitute. It can hurt the war effort.USA Propaganda posters promoting the use of condoms :U.S. Government WWII Posters for the Military Services. USA propaganda posters promoting the awareness of syphilis and gonorrhea:These posters look funny and very naive to me. It's doubtful that they could avert young men from the idea to have a sex with women because of illness.2. UNITED KINGDOMThe British Army, which had no clear strategy other than the ineffective one of placing sections of Naples out of bounds, reacted to the soaring VD rate by blaming it on the Germans. A circular that arrived in all units by Christmas warned: “From reports that have been received it is apparent that prostitution in occupied Italy and Naples in particular, has reached a pitch greater than has ever been witnessed in Italy before. So much is this so that it has led to a suggestion that the encouragement of prostitution is part of a formulated plan arranged by the pro-Axis elements, primarily to spread venereal disease among Allied troops. The British were defeated by the prostitutes and decided that it must be part of a devious Nazi plot.The British military historian John Costello talks about the problem with prostitutes and venereal disease in Love, Sex and War:Changing Values, 1939-45, William Collins, London, 1985.Prostitutes were made synonymous with venereal disease not just by the Germans, but also by the British and United States army commands, who declared war on the women who had been blamed for the million and a half syphilis and gonorrhea casualties suffered by the Allied armies in World War I. The German armed forces applied the lessons learned twenty years earlier when the Kaiser's army strictly regulated the 'sexual logistics' of the troops and thereby cut its VD casualty rate to half that of the French army by 1918. Corpsmen collected the fees at the medically supervised military brothels behind the front lines, imposing a strict ten-minute time-limit per man during the evening 'rush hour' and providing prophylactic treatments as well as keeping a detailed log of the visitor's rank and regiment so that fines could be levied from those who failed to report contracted venereal infections.VD - Hello boy friend, coming MY way?A colorful 1943 VD poster produced in Great Britain by Reginald Mount depicts a female with the face of a skull in bright pink bonnet. The text is "VD - Hello boy friend, coming MY way? The 'easy' girl friend spreads Syphilis and Gonorrhea, which unless properly treated may result in blindness, insanity, paralysis, premature death. If you have run the risk, get skilled treatment at once. Treatment is free and confidential."In World War I the venereal infection rates of the British army were 7 times higher than the Germans, principally because national prudery prevented the British high command from acknowledging that there was any problem at all until 1915, when the Canadian and New Zealand prime ministers forced the chiefs of staff to issue free contraceptives to the troops.Venereal DiseasesThis British WWI poster is interesting because at the time they list only two forms of venereal disease. Now there are about a half dozen known to exist. Notice they do not list antibiotics. They were unknown at the time. In November 1918, bottles of potassium permanganate lotion and tubes of calomel cream were given to soldiers stationed overseas to use for self-disinfection. Still, the British had 150,000 admissions to the hospital for VD in France during the war. Many of the patients had self-inflicted VD. That is, they chose to catch it hoping it would keep them out of the front lines. In later wars, troops would sometimes shoot themselves in the foot to become hors de combat.3. THE SOVIET UNIONSoviet Union did not have venereal diseases such as syphilis or gonorrhea before the outbreak of the WW2. The moral standards of Soviet citizens were exceptionally high, Russians were very healthy before the WW2, they had lived according to the religious principles and state laws. Prostitution was prohibited and criminalized in USSR, it was absolutely no brothels, not even one. Germans changed it, they opened brothels and legalised prostitution. The WW2 was a total disaster for USSR, the whole country got sick of the war had never been recovered since then.Inhabitants of the Russian city of Kursk have never had any syphilis before the war but during the German occupation hundreds of local women were infected with syphilis by German soldiers. Women didn't get any treatment but were imprisoned and killed as a punishment.(Ehrenburg I.G., ““The New order” in Kursk”)“Fritzs are professional rapists, fornicators with solid experience, hereditary baboons. They have polluted the whole of Europe.” - wrote Soviet journalist Ilya Ehrenburg in 1943Red Army soldiers had no syphilis neither gonorrhea utill they advanced to liberate occupied USSR that was 4 years under the Nazi yok. When they moved to the Central Europe especially to Germany the situation got worse. In Romania Soviet soldiers were very surprised to meet local girls that demanded money for sex. This phenomenon was very alien to the Russian mind, obviously Russian soldiers refused to pay and consequently had a big trouble (fight, police complaints) from Romanian prostitutes and their husbands that were pimps. In Germany Soviet soldiers met another foreign style, German women freely offered sex for pleasure however later was discovered that many of those women had honorea and syphilis.. A lot of Soviet soldiers got it that was really trouble for Soviet authorities.USSR. The leaflet #1857The leaflets prepared by the Soviet Union for Germany were occasionally sexual in nature, insulting, usually long winded, and sometimes contained a safe conduct pass. Soviet leaflet #1857 contains all of these attributes. This Russian leaflet is aimed to destroy the morale of the German soldier by informing him that while he is at the front Hitler replaces them by foreigners who are taking their jobs, their land and their women. The leaflet is entitled Auslaender nehmen Deinen Platz ein! "Foreigners are taking your place." The first paragraph mentions the various nationalities that have been sent to Germany to work on the farms and in the factories; French, Italians, Slovaks, Dutch, and more. Two pictures are depicted on the front, a soldier holding his rifle at the top of the leaflet with the caption "While he squats in the bunker," and a female in the arms of another man at the bottom with the text, "his wife amuses herself with a foreigner." There is a photograph of her husband in uniform on the wall behind them. This was a common image on many Russian leaflets. The back is all text. Two letters are depicted from lonely German wives to their husbands at the front. The letters are designed to intensify the feeling of uneasiness among the German soldiers. One says that the foreigner plows his field now that he is away at the front. It says that foreigners sleep in the beds of German women, and many of them are the wives of soldiers. The second letter says that Berlin is now so international that the German language is hardly ever spoken or written. On the reverse, the leaflet tells in no uncertain terms, "Yes soldier, you should know: there are women who like to get involved with foreigners. You should also know: People who are gathered from all parts of the world will infect German women with venereal diseases of every kind. Family life will break up…should you, soldier, ever come home, you might be received by your wife with a black curly-headed Italian half-breed in her arms, and it will be your joy to raise this illegitimate child…" The leaflet offers hope. After the appeal "German soldier! Must this be? No! Your place is at home…Don’t take the war any longer! Your family is waiting for you!" The message encourages the German soldier to leave the war. Hitler is blamed for everything. He has forced the German people into the war and taken everything that makes life worthwhile. The leaflet ends with "No longer take part in the war! Your family waits for you!" There is a passierschein safe conduct pass in German and Russian at the bottom of the leaflet.4. NAZI GERMANYBy 1942, the Wehrmacht was running over 500 “Wehrmachtsbordellen,” and the setting-up, running, and supply of these establishments was the responsibility of the Area Commander (Ortskommanturen). Disease control was the responsibility of the area medical officer, and the girls would be checked twice a week by local doctors. There were “special rules” for Officer's facilities, for which a hotel character was to be maintained. Every Army brothel was required to have a prophylactic station (Sanierstube). They were to be marked with a small blue light marked with the Red Cross.German WWII Soldier’s Certificate to Visit a ProstituteThis certificate was issued to WWII German soldiers who wished to have sex with a prostitute in a brothel. They turned in their identification tag and received this certificate. They would write the name of the prostitute at the lower right and upon leaving the brothel turned in the certificate to a medic and had their identification tag returned and received treatment if it was deemed necessary. The text is:Entry to the brothel is permitted only with this ID card!Name of the sanitation roomContinuous numberDateAfter leaving the brothel you are ordered to visit the sanitation room at once for protective treatment. Your identification tag will be returned only after successful sanitation.Name of the prostitute:____________________Other forms of these passes might contain the following instructions: a Certificate of subsequent prophylactic treatment; Number and unit on dog tag; Field-post number of recipient; The above received prophylactic treatment at ____ hours under a control number of prophylactic station no. ____ and is thus certified by: Rank, name; and This document is to be kept for 3 months and is to be presented in the event of sickness.Brothel rules obliged visitors to disinfect female genitals after sexual acts. According to testimonies of soldiers they didn't really like that procedure . Here are two testimonies of German soldiers:Obergrenadier Martin Eichenseer of Stabs Kompanie, G.R. 916:"The first time I went I was a lad of 17-½ and still somewhat of a virgin, I never had intercourse but had done other things with the local girls. With my pockets filled with the 'regulation equipment', I went to the brothel in St. Laurent. I was very nervous and did not know what to expect. When my turn came I went into a room with a very good-looking girl about my age from Slovakia. She had dark hair and big breasts. Sex with her was great even though I didn't know what she was saying. We weren't supposed to pay them in the Army brothels but I gave her some money anyway. The worst part was when she spread her legs and I had to spray her with the can of disinfectant. Only then would she sign my card. You had to bring back the empty can with the pass. If you didn't spray or bring it back you got two weeks extra labor and guard for punishment.The next time I went I was excited at seeing this Slovak girl again but to my disgust I got this German woman who was in her late thirties, although I wouldn't mind her now, ha ha. She was big-breasted but flabby and had "a lot of wear on her tires" if you know what I mean. I just couldn't do it. She finally told me to close my eyes and she performed oral sex on me. It wasn't too bad as I thought of the other girl. She signed my pass and I left. On the way back I realized I still has a full can. In order not to get in trouble I sprayed it empty in the woods. I would have gone again but the war got in the way."Obergefreiter Josef Brass, Nr. 1 Kompanie, Pionier Bn. 352:"In Russia we didn't get to go to any but in France they were quite plentiful. The women were about average in appearance but certainly knew how to please a man. But as young and virile as we were then it didn't take much. Many of the younger men, 17-19 years old, didn't go because they were embarrassed by the things they were required to do, such as disinfecting the woman's genitals. I always felt that the army procedures were a bit too much but then again no-one I know of ever got a disease from an Army brothel. And if you did they knew which girl gave it to you and who ever else she had sex with and everyone could get cured. Some of us did go to the local civilian ones, the girls were prettier and acted like they enjoyed it. However if you got V.D. from one of them it was bad luck. You got cured then sent East to serve in a Penal Battalion for two weeks to three months. Being a "500" (slang for military prisoners) was no easy life and chances were slim you would make it back. In any event the Army tried to give us the best it could under the circumstances.5. ITALYThe Italian campaign more than any other in World War II confronted the British and American military commanders with their impotence when it came to coping with endemic prostitution. A foretaste of the problem was given by British medical officers in Sicily, who were treating 40 thousand VD cases a month, 20 times more than the number treated in England. As one report advised, “prostitution is almost universal among all but the highest class of Sicilian women.”Government-regulated brothels also existed in all of the large towns. Control had broken down, although General Patton wasted no time trying to restore it by putting US Army medical teams into Palermo's six large houses of prostitution. This did not endear him to General Montgomery, his arch rival, whose pride as well as his Puritanism was offended when it was announced that the brothels were open for business again – under US Army management. The invasion of Italy proper magnified the scale of the problem. But it was the capture of Naples in October 1943 that pitched the American and British commands into a two-year battle with an army of prostitutes – a battle Allied chaplains and doctors of both armies would later concede they lost.6. THE PROPHYLAXIS KIT AND INSTRUCTIONSThe Prophylactic Kit:Instructions:During the war, medics are generally supplied with prophylactic kits in bulk. These can be used to treat soldiers, or are often just given to the men to take with them on leave. The kits can contain different items, but during WWII soldiers were often issued an “Individual Chemical Prophylactic Packet” designed to allow him to perform prophylactic treatment on himself if he feared he might have had sex with an infected woman. The individual packet contained a tube containing 5 grams of ointment (30% calomel + 15% sulfathiazole), a direction sheet explaining how to apply the ointment, a soap impregnated cloth and cleansing tissue. Sometimes the men were issued condoms (usually 3 to a pack) and sometimes they were given sulfa or other pills to carry “just in case.”It must be told that syphilis is horrible ancient contagious disease; it starts from the little painless pimple and in the last stage it brings the body to the full disfiguration, tumors, blindness and paralysis. The untreated person slowly but surely, during few years, painfully get rotten alive. If I would be the WW2 propagandist I would scare guys with these real pictures of patients with the last stage of syphilis:The Italians called it ‘the French disease’ and the French called it ‘the Neapolitan disease’. The Russians knew it as ‘the Polish disease’ and the Poles called it the ‘German disease’. To the people of Flanders and North Africa it was ‘the Spanish disease’, while to the Spanish it was known as ‘las bubas’. The British called it ‘the pox’, but you will know it as syphilis. Syphilis - Wikipedia7. OTHER POSTERSVenereal disease (VD) was epidemic in the early twentieth century; estimates were that 1/10 people would contract syphilis at some point in their lives and even more would get gonorrhea. In spite of these startling facts, VD remained a taboo topic because of the stigma associated with these diseases.However, in the 1930s, popular attitudes about venereal disease changed dramatically in the United States. Syphilis and gonorrhea became topics that people commonly encountered in their everyday life—in all types of media, at work and school, and in a multitude of public spaces.1.MercuryBefore antibiotics were introduced in 1943. VD were treated with mercury and sulfa. If you got strep throat or some other infection you took the sulfa and were warned to wash it down with a lot of ginger ale. The antibiotics like penicillin came in with WWII and were a great boon to mankind in general. In the bad old days one of the treatments was mercury, and that is a poison itself. After hundreds of years of suffering, the introduction of penicillin in the 1940s meant that infections such as syphilis, gonorrhoea and chlamydia could finally be cured. But today, with less than half of young people regularly practising safe sex, syphilis is on the rise once more. In 2017 there were 7,137 cases reported in England, a 20 per cent increase from 2016, and a shocking 148 per cent increase from 2008. Before you decide to risk it, spare a thought for our ancestors and the horrors of syphilis they had to endure – and always wrap it up.The poster was produced for the Ministry of Health promoting the first national campaign about venereal diseases. It was aimed at warning service men against the health risks of promiscuous sexual behavior. Women at the time were finding themselves in contrasting situations of sometimes-unprecedented liberty and discipline, often combined with sexual ignorance. Having to stay faithful while the men were away fighting, in charge of the household for the first time, freed from the presence of a male in their family household for perhaps the first time. There was limited information available to them on bodily functions, sex or birth control.2.Almost all of the artwork we see warns the soldiers to stay away from loose women. Here, that poster warns women to stay away from these “over-sexed, over-paid, and over-here” horny American GIs landing in Great Britain in 1944 in preparation for D-Day.3.A Sorry Ending to a FurloughIn 1946 as the war ended and hundreds of thousands of troops were still overseas, the military tried again to keep them safe from disease. An artist by the name of Ferree painted a poster that depicted a sad GI sitting on his cot. The text is, "VD- a sorry ending to a Furlough. Prophylaxis prevents venereal disease!"4.You Kept Fit and Defeated the HunThe colorful poster depicts a smiling “doughboy” with an American eagle on his shoulder standing on the helmets of defeated Germans. The text is:You kept fit and defeated the Hun.Now set a high standard.A clean America!Stamp out venereal diseases.5.We’ve fought in the open—bubonic plague, yellow fever, tuberculosis. Now Venereal DiseaseH. Dewitt Welsh crea. ted this WWI poster and it was published by the H. C. Miner Lithograph Company of New York. A semi-dressed female figure, representing Venereal Disease, is shown pouring blood from a wine glass. Chained to her left wrist is a vulture, standing on a skull. Beneath her are three macabre figures representing6.Soldier, the country counts on youVD was also a problem among the French. In 1916, Theophile-Alexandre Steinlen printed a poster for French soldiers fighting in WWI. The title was "Soldat, La Patrie Compte Sur Toi." The poster depicted a woman and man embracing, followed by the physically debilitated soldier on his hospital bed. A skull and crossed bones appear at the bottom of the poster. Due to prevailing taboos, no mention of syphilis or gonorrhea is made, but the words on the tombstone make a connection between morality and patriotism. The message reads:Soldier, the country counts on you - keep healthy. Resist the temptation of the street where a sickness as dangerous as the war awaits you… It carries its victims to decay and death, without honor, without happiness. . .7.Disease is disguised - Don't gamble with VD!This poster was produced in 1946 when the U.S. military was trying to enforce a policy of non-fraternization in the occupation zones between the USA troops and European women. It depicts a dark and ominous female hiding behind the mask of a healthy beautiful woman. The text is "DISEASE IS DISGUISED - DON'T GAMBLE WITH VD!" The poster was designed by Forsyth.8.Loaded?I like this poster because the girls are attractive and almost coy; not “trampy” at all. And, a Colt 1911 .45 automatic pistol is shown at the top. Notice that the pistol is cocked and ready for firing.9.Going home? Don't be delayed by VDThis 1946 poster shows a U.S. soldier at the end of the war waiting to return home. A map of Europe is in background. He is held in place by a rope that spells "VD" and is around his body. The text is, "GOING HOME? DON'T BE DELAYED BY VD." The artist is Schiffers. In every recent war American troops overseas are tested for disease before they are returned home. Any soldier found to have VD would be held until such time as a doctor pronounced him cured. He would be allowed to board ship at that time.10.AlmostIn one of the most attractive and poignant 1946 posters an American soldier (probably airborne by his bloused boots) stands at the dock and watches a troopship taking his buddies home to the U.S.A. He is held back by a ghostly hand marked "V D." The text is "ALMOST!" The artist is Schiffers. It was not an easy task to tell a man who had not been home for several years that he was "red-lined." There were several cases of doctors or medics being threatened, and it was one case where a G.I. pulled a knife on a First Sergeant after being told that he was held over in Southeast Asia.The entire concept of producing posters and leaflets of the subject of sexually transmitted diseases had to be approached with great care. Before the WW1 such things were not even discussed by proper gentlemen and ladies. In times of warfare when men are away on distant shores under stress, and women find themselves home alone perhaps for the first time, the subject must be broached. We have seen that some of the posters ask the men in uniform to use precautions as a form of patriotism so that they can continue to fight for their nation. Others imply that catching such a disease is almost treason in a time of war.8. BLACK VENEREAL DISEASE CAMPAIGNSThe black leaflets pretend to be helpful and offer hints on medical care, but are written in such a way as to demoralize the front line soldier worrying about his wife or girlfriend back home.Venereal disease has been mentioned in several PSYOP campaigns. It sometimes appears in white propaganda as a way to keep an Army healthy and moving forward. It is more valuable as black propaganda where it is used in several ways. Sometimes, one combatant tries to convince an occupied people that their invaders consider their women immoral and infected. At other times, one combatant will try to convince and enemy that their ally looks down upon their women. This was especially true in the Philippines during WWII where the Japanese implied on several occasions that the Americans saw the Filipino women as whores to be used and discarded. In other cases one combatant will try to destroy the morale of the enemy armed force while they fight at the front by stating that their wives and girlfriends are having illicit sex and being infected at home. Japanese black propaganda leaflet dropped during their advance in the Philippines alleges to be from the United States Army and warns American soldiers that Filipino women were uncleanThe German dropped a similar black leaflet on Allied troops in English language on the Western Front during WWII.British black propaganda 4-page booklet coded H.359The British produced several black leaflets in German language that mentioned VD. One coded H.336 and entitled Merkblatt - Deutsche Nachrichtenhelferin! The leaflet implied that citizens other than German are infected, and also hints that the wife or sweetheart of the soldier might have a "dalliance" while he is away. This certainly did not help the morale of the German soldier or the citizen of a foreign country either allied to Germany or sending workers into the Reich. A second (the image) British black propaganda 4-page booklet coded H.359 and entitled Deutsches madel! Vorsicht…(German Girl! Caution…) attacks the foreign worker (who sometimes volunteered to work in Germany to help the war effort) as a diseased individual.9. THE WHISPERS CAMPAIGNBesides leaflets, in an attempt to raise the morale of occupied Europe and lower the morale of the German military, civilians and their allies, the secret British Underground Committee produced well over 8,000 rumors, (they called them “Sibs” from the Latin sibalare – to hiss). Researcher Lee Richards mentions the whisper campaign and many of these rumors in his book Whispers of War, 2010. In regard to British propaganda rumors about sexual activity within the Third Reich and its occupied territories he lists dozens of moral-destroying rumors:4 July 1941 – German officers know the address of all the prostitutes in Amsterdam that have VD. They use them to get medical leave. It is called “krank durch Freude,” (Illness through joy).19 September 1941 – The girls in the Brest brothels have infected so many U-Boat crews with VD that it is now called “Malady V.”5 May 1942 – Of 50 Spanish workers who just returned from Germany, 37 have venereal disease.February 1943 - All women factory workers in Germany are to have a weekly VD inspection, carried out by medical students.11 June 1943 – The Germans have reduced the punishment for U-Boat crew members catching VD from a court martial to three days confinement.4 August 1944 – In order to slow the spread of VD in the German Army, boys under 16 have been forbidden to enter brothels.10. “THE ISLAND OF THE BLACK SYPH”Some WWII troops believed that there was a secret island off the coast of Greenland where horribly burnt and disfigured American soldiers were sent so as not to destroy the morale of their families in USA . Later during the Korean War, some soldiers were told of an island off the coast of South Korea where men with incurable venereal diseases were sent to die. The same rumours about secret islands existed during the Vietnam War. This rumor, or a reasonable facsimile, seems to have been circulating for at least 60 years.One of the most interesting rumors having to do with venereal disease was that of the mysterious island where service members with the dreaded and incurable "black syph" were sent to spend their last days in exile. Everyone knew someone who had a friend who had heard from a buddy that there was this deadly incurable, antibiotics resistant strain of syphilis. They whispered that rather than send a soldier home with this disease which would demoralize his family and the American public if the truth be known, the infected individual would be sent to this secret island where he would spend his last days in pain and dementia until he died.Private Bill Lupton of the 27th Infantry Regiment “Wolfhounds” talks about his personal introduction to the island in a narration entitled “February 1966” :You men need to use some common sense in dealing with these boom boom girls.Not only are they treacherous but they carry venereal disease,” There is another pause. “Now I know all of you men want to go back to your families safe and sound, and nobody wants to end up on the South Seas Island where they keep men who have venereal disease that will not respond to penicillin.They are not allowed to go back to the States until their syphilis is cured.”An Army veteran who was in Vietnam in 1968 heard the story a bit differently. It was gonorrhea, not syphilis:I heard stories about the Black Clap in 1968, and if you got it you were sent to an island off the coast till you died or a cure was found.A former cavalry man said:“I heard the story of the secret island in 1966 when I was stationed in South Korea. I heard the same story in 1968 when I was in Vietnam. They told us in glorious detail also about the “bullheaded clap.” This is where your dick swelled up and the medics took an “umbrella needle” and ran it up your crank and opened it and then ripped the puss and stuff out of your dick when they withdrew the “expanded umbrella needle.” I only heard that story in South Korea.”“I will tell you why some of the MIA’s didn’t come back from Vietnam, because the venereal disease they had was so terribly, terribly addictive and it could spread so fast we couldn’t let them come back. And those of you in Vietnam know that.”Most likely, the "black syph" story was invented and promoted by the U.S. military to terrify their young troops, lessen the fraternization with local women, and ultimately lower the rate of VD among the men.Sources:Venereal Disease Visual History ArchiveVenereal Disease PropagandaMiscman.comWehrmacht Brothels / der Erste Zug

What are the best websites a programmer should visit?Similar to What are the best websites that a geek must visit?AnswerRequestFollow5k79 ANSWERS​Ashish Gaur215.5k Views • Upvoted by Tapasweni Pathak,Developer @SAP Labs, Involved with open sources, Feminist., Jessica Su, CS PhD student at StanfordHere is a list of websites that I have bookmarked which may help you :Programming Practice and Contesthttp://www.codechef.com/Sphere Online Judge (SPOJ)Programming PraxisProject EulerTopCoder, Inc. | Home of the world's largest development communityTopCoder, Inc. | Home of the world's largest development communityCodeforcesHackerEarth - Programming challenges and Developer jobsThe Python ChallengeHackerRankLeetCodeTutorialsGeeksforGeeksCode SchoolBit Twiddling HacksCS 97SI: Introduction to Competitive Programming ContestsCSE Blog - quant, math, cse puzzles: EasyPuzzlesMe, Myself and MathematicsRunhe Tian Coding Practice | Technical interview questions from Apple, Google, Facebook, Amazon and MicrosoftHack This Site!Good-Tutorials - Newest TutorialsSocial InteractionHome - QuoraStack OverflowInterview Questions | CareerCupGitHub · Build software better, together.Geeklist - A place for geeks to share what they've done, who they did it with and connect with great companieshttp://www.reddit.com/r/programm...Must ReadTeach Yourself Programming in Ten Years10 Puzzle Websites to Sharpen Your Programming Skills--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------EDITRunhe Tian Coding Practice | Technical interview questions from Apple, Google, Facebook, Amazon and MicrosoftLeetCodeGeeklist - A place for geeks to share what they've done, who they did it with and connect with great companieshttp://www.reddit.com/r/programm...Hack This Site!(for Hackers)Good-Tutorials - Newest Tutorials--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------EDIT 2 (found this great app few months ago)Coding Calendar - Android Apps on Google Play - notifies you about various programming contests happening on sites like hackerrank, hackerearth, topcoder etc.Updated Nov 29 • View UpvotesUpvote3.5kDownvoteComments26+​Ashish Padalkar, forever learner104.4k Views • Ashish is a Most Viewed Writer inLearning to Program.Here are the links which I collected during my 4 years of undergraduate in CSE.If you have any suggestions do let me know in comments.When you get stuck :Stack Overflow : subscribe to their weekly newsletter and any other topic which you find interestingNews:Hacker News : subscribe to their mailing list and get the top news directly to your inbox.Ars Technica : posts unique quality articlesACM TechNewsLobstersTechCrunch : another good website for tech newsThe Verge : Tech Gadget related news.GSMArena.com : news related to latest mobile phones and android.Coding practice for beginnersReddit.com/r/dailyprogrammer : interesting programming challenges where you can learn from looking at other's code , even if you are not able to solve code you can look at how others solved.Programming by Doing : very good site for those who want to start with absolute basicsCodeAbbey - a place where everyone can master programming : Best place to begin with problems that start at the easiest and gradually increase difficulty with each problem.Programming Tasks : large collection of small programskaran/Projects-Solutions Sollutions to most of the problems in the link aboveSmall Programming ChallengesFor those who want to start a small project but cant find the ideasmartyr2s-mega-project-ideas-list/ : contains about 125 project ideas from beginner to intermediate level.karan/Projects : a large colection of small projects for beginners withWrong "big projects" for beginnersHow to choose where to startGeneral Coding adviceThings I Wish Someone Had Told Me When I Was Learning How to Code — Free Code CampLessons From A Lifetime Of Being A ProgrammerPrinciples of Good ProgrammingWhat every computer science major should knowHow to become a programmer, or the art of Googling wellCode Review Best PracticesDieter Rams : 10 Principles of Good Product Design10-ways-to-be-a-better-developerCoding StyleCS 106B Coding Style Guide : must see for those who create spaghettiGoogle C++ Style GuideWhat are some bad coding habits you would recommend a beginner avoid getting into?Good C programming habits. • /r/C_ProgrammingHow to Report Bugs EffectivelyDebugging FaqsStuff you need to Code Better!Interview PreparationGeeksforGeeks | A computer science portal for geeks : also subscribe to their feeds to get links to their new articles.A site for technical interview questions, brain teasers, puzzles, quizzles (whatever the heck those are) and other things that make you think!Problems | LeetCode OJ : Coding practice for interviewsProgrammer And Software Interview Questions AnswersReddit.com/me/m/puzzles : Logic PuzzlesA Collection of Quant Riddles With AnswersAptitude Questions and Answers : Quant and aptitude preparaionInterview Archives - Java HonkTop 10 Algorithms for Coding InterviewBig-O Algorithm Complexity Cheat SheetUnix / Linux Cheat SheetHow to interviewHow to Ace an Algorithms InterviewDelightful Puzzlesvisualising data structures and algorithms through animationHere's How to Prepare for Tech Interviews • /r/cscareerquestionsGuide to Tech InterviewsWhy You Make Less Money • /r/cscareerquestionsIIT Delhi Placement Experiencewhat_are_your_goto_questions_for_the_do_you_have/Here's a pretty big list of programming interview questions I compiled while studying for big 4 interviews. I think you guys will find it useful! • /r/cscareerquestionsInterviewing At Jane StreetHow to prepare for an interview - 1The 25 most difficult HR questionsHow to Answer the Toughest 40 Job Interview Questions | ICS Job PortalJob Interview Questions and Best AnswersHow to Answer "Tell Me a Little About Yourself" | The Art of ManlinessJob Interview: How to Ace a Job Interview | The Art of ManlinessGive your résumé a face liftBIG O MisconceptionsBitwise tricksCore Java Interview questions - Interview question on each topicJava Interview Questions and AnswersBig collection of interview preparation links • /r/cscareerquestionsUnsolicited_advice_for_job_seekers_and_employersfive-essential-phone-screen-questions - steveyegge2CS9: Problem-Solving for the CS Technical InterviewMission-peace/interview problems : A large collection of coding interview problemsSQL Joins explained using venn diagram10 Frequently asked SQL Query Interview QuestionsGet Ready to Learn SQL: 8. Database Normalization Explained in Simple English - Essential SQLBlogs of Developers :Coding Horror : one the best coding blogJoel on SoftwareStephen Haunts { Coding in the Trenches }Programming in the 21st CenturyClean Coder Blog : blog of auther of book "Clean Code"Programming Blog : programming blog of Yegor Bugayenko10K-LOChttp://stevehanov.ca/blog/Geek LandLate DeveloperIT Enthusiastblog.might.netCSE Blog - quant, math, computer science puzzlesMy Tech InterviewsHackerEarth BlogAlgo-GeeksCoderGears Blog Insights from the CoderGears Teamblog.might.netRunhe Tian Coding PracticePaul Graham EssaysDan Dreams of CodingAntonio081014's Algorithms CodesMath ∩ ProgrammingTakipi Blog : mainly focuses on Java and JVM languagesCoding Geek - A blog about IT, programming and JavaWatch others codeLiveCoding.tv - screencast of people building application , websites , games ect.What should a programmer know :Programmer Competency Matrix : article for knowing what our level as a programmer is.Open source coding:GitHub.com Build software better, together : Place to showcase your project and collaborate with others. (Must know Git in order to use it effectively )Competitive programmingHackerRankCodeforcestopcoderHackerEarth - Programming challenges and Developer jobsCodeChefPKU ACM ICPC Practive problemsArchived Problems - Project EulerGoogle Code Jam Practice and Learn : past contest problems for practiceSphere Online Judge (SPOJ)YouTube Channels:Computerphile : Must watch for every CS studentComputerHistory : for those who like to know how we reached where we are.GoogleTechTalks : videos on trending topics and cool stuff happening in the tech industry.Placement Grid : Interview and campus placement experienceGoogle Developers :Facebook DevelopersO'Reilly : interviews and talks of world's best technical writers.Java : talks related to javaJavaOne : Java ConfrenceCppCon : C++ ConfrenceMeeting C++ YT Kanalseite : Talks on C++ThinMatrix : blogs and turorials developer making a 3d game in java using openglyegor256Scott Meyers: Past Talksthoughtbot : talks on various topicsNOKIA Wroclaw Technology Center: Nokia code dive confrenceHowToBecomeTV : contains good interviews of developers and people related to tech industry.ITCuties , CodeBabes For those who think CS lacks glamour :PTutorials :TutorialspointW3Schools Online Web TutorialsOpen Data Structures : Excellent resource for learning about DS and algos , provides code in various languages C++ , java , pseudocodeData Structures and Algorithms by John Morris : another good source with code and its analysisCMSI 281: Data Structures : light weight introduction to DSHow to Program in C++ : Good resource for revising C++ topics and STLTopCoder TutorialsA Hacker's Guide to Git : for those wanting to learn git with a solid foundationGit from the inside outLearn UNIX in 10 minutesThe Bash Guide : very good guide for learning the Bash ShellLinux Tutorial - good resource for learning linuxUNIX Tutorial - IntroductionLinux Tutorial for BeginnersLearning the shell.Dynamic programming - PrismoSkills- very good resource if want to learn how to solve DP problems.Deep C : very good presenation on C languageC programming language Frequently Asked QuestionsOS Course Notes : Chapter wise course notes according to Galvin's bookSQL (Structured Query Language) in one page : SQL.SU : a very good SQL cheat sheetIntroduction to C ProgrammingMySQL EssentialsBest Of - Gustavo Duarte : contains articles on various topicsCollecting all the cheat sheets cheat sheets for lots of programming languagesThe Descent to C for those moving to C from some higher programming language like java or python.VimTutor+ : learn VIM from browser itselfHackerEarth Tutorials : Good resource for DS and Algos tutorialComputer BooksIT eBooks - Free Download - Big Library: website for downloading ebooks without any advertisement and instant downloads.github.com/vhf/free-programming-books : More than 500 free ebooks on almost any language you can think ofComputer Science Books Online - about 150 computer free ebooksBest books for GATE CSEVideo TutorialsTushar Roy Algorithm and Data structure tutorial by a Indian Youtuber.Derek Banas : good quality tutorialsthenewboston : good but with too much talk as compared to actual contentmycodeschool : Data structures and algorithms tuorialsCodeGeekCodingMadeEasy : C++ tutorialsXDA-University - Helping You Learn Android DevelopmentDevTips : web dev tutorialsJavascript Planet : java script and web development tutorialscodedamn : front end web dev tutorialsDesign and Analysis of AlgorithmsVim Tutorial Videos - Flarfnoogins : good video tutorial for learning vimCS1: Higher Computing - Richard Buckland UNSW a very good introductory CS courseOnline Compiler and Sharing Code snippets:Ideone.comPastebin.comMOOCs for learning something newNPTEL Vidoes COMP_SCI_ENGGCoursera.orgedXUdacityUCBerkeleyMIT OCW Electrical Engineering and Computer ScienceCS50prakhar1989/awesome-CS-courses - List containing large amount of CS coursesSites related to your preffered programming language ( For me Java )Java Revisited : good for learning about Java Language and interview preparation.The Java™ Tutorials : The best tutorials for Java.Java Corner at Artima.comJava Visualizer : helps visualize references , values of variables ectJava Lecture NotesLearning Java : a free online textbook for learning javaFree Online Chapters of Inside the Java Virtual Machine by Bill VennersUnderstanding JVM InternalsHow Garbage Collection WorksWelcome to JavaWorld.comThe Java Memory ModelNetbeans Keyboard ShortcutsKeyboard shortcuts to enhance your productivity when working in Netbeans.XyzWs Java FAQs : large collection of java interview questionsSeminar , research writing , talks ectAdvice on Research and WritingSeminar and reportsPHD MS ArticlesPractical Tips for Talking at Usergroups and ConferencesGiving presentation on software project to non-programmersEverything in one place:reddit.com/me/m/cs_student_subs : a multisubreddit of all subreddits of topics related to computer science and programming.DocumentariesMachine that Changed the World - a very good documentary about history of computersPart 1: Giant BrainsPart 2: Inventing the FuturePart 3: The Paperback ComputerPart 4: The Thinking MachinePart 5: The World at Your FingertipsTriumph of the Nerds PlaylistProject Code Rush - The Beginnings of Netscape / Mozilla DocumentaryThe Code: Story of Linux documentaryRevolution OS Linux DocumentaryBreaking the Code: Biography of Alan TuringMechanical Computer (All Parts) a very good video from 1950s explaining how mechanical computers used to work without all the modern day electronics.Download: The True Story of the Internet Playlist of discovery channel documentary on browser wars , dot com bubble and more.When you get bored from CS related stuff :r/ProgrammerHumorVsauce : The best youtube channelTEDCrashCourse : small courses on various subjectsNational GeographicBarcroft TVColdFusionSmarterEveryDaySciShowBig ThinkEvery Frame a PaintingTestTube NewsReddit the front page of the internetUpdated Thu • View UpvotesUpvote4.3kDownvoteComments52+​Abhimanyu Mongandh Ambalath,Masters in CS at IIT Kanpur20.6k ViewsMost of the answers here are extremely skewed towards "preparing for coding test/software companies/learning to code", there is a definite "development/hacking" aspect of programming that is missed in this list.My links areAggregators/Discussion places.Hacker News (YCombinator News)Stack OverflowNews for nerds, stuff that matters(Slashdot)Twitter - May seem totally out of place, but most of the good stuff I have learned is by following the projects I work on Twitter.BlogsEssays by Paul GrahamJoel on SoftwareSvbtle - The current high quality blog, network, which has lot of good programmers.For a list of Languages : Resources mapping do take a look at Best Learning Material a wiki byNational Institute of Technology Calicut CSE Association.Updated Mar 22, 2013 • View UpvotesUpvote115DownvoteComment​Lucas Ou-Yang, Web engineer, distance runner62.7k Viewshttp://norvig.com/By Google's director of research! There are lots of code snippets, articles, and essays.Here are my favorites:Python 21 line industry strength spell checker:How to Write a Spelling CorrectorFamous keynote at Berkeley's CS commencement:http://norvig.com/speech.htmlTeach yourself programming in 10 years!:http://norvig.com/21-days.htmlHis daughter's Java Applet Game:http://norvig.com/Pugdom/index.htmlUpdated Oct 26, 2014 • View UpvotesUpvote250DownvoteComment1​Vamsi Deepak Ampolu, Constant Ponderer,Occasional Panderer,Neophyte Programmer ,Grandiloquent Word...7.2k ViewsI am not an expert(probably will never be one),I am an everyday beginner,I have learnt that many of the problems that I face have already been solved in either of these three placesStack OverflowHere I can read quick solutions to problems or post my own questions(you would not believe how often I ask) and recieve knowledge from the wise ones. Stackoverflow chat is awesome,I love hanging out in the Javascript chatroom and watching people respond to questions. It also gives me an insight on what are considered good questions and what are considered bad.YouTubeSometimes,I just watch random stuff about programming to understand what I already know better and expand my horizons about stuff that I should know but dont.Github Build software better, togetherThe home of the world's greatest open source projects,imagine some of the brightest people in the world working for improving the community, imagine a platform that provides you with easy access to resources provided by the community.Sometimes ( I wish I had this intuition more often) ,I know that I need to know and understand that it is pointless to do anything with a better understanding of what Im trying to do , then I use these:reSRC ·I loved it when it was a list on github,this is my go to place when I need to learn more about a new technology,I always start here.I have found amazing books here.Before I found this resource,Become a Programmer, Motherfucker was my go to resource.Then there are websites like Learn by Doing - Code School , Tuts+ and various developer blogs that I stalk to learn more about stuff.Sometimes I also raid Leanpub Publish Early, Publish Often ,Chimera The new learning environment from O’Reilly and ofcourse there are the free resources and tutorials from all around the web holding my hand as I take baby steps in a new direction.Then there are the tools that I use when I am programming to prototype stuff,to share code in a non-destructive way:JSFiddle Create a new fiddleCodePenJS BinBefore I started using grunt,I would visit JSHint, a JavaScript Code Quality Tool regularly.And I just discovered Runnable Discover Everything through CodeWhen you need to write regular expressions(Perl style Im told as used by Java),I go to one of these two placesrubular a Ruby regular expression editorAlthough rubular says clearly that it is for ruby and I do not speak Ruby,it has a simple uncluttered UI that makes writing regular expressions seem relaxing.Once I have tested my regular expression at rubular,I go to Regex Planet Online Regular Expression (Regex) Testing and Cookbook for: Go, Haskell, Java, JavaScript, .Net, Perl, PHP, Python, Ruby, Tcl & XRegExp which can generate a valid Java string(a true pain in the ass) from the regular expression and allows me to test my expression with many inputs.I have a tendancy to learn only when I am doing stuff so I cut online classes for exploring the new and shiny,so I do not find MOOCs as useful as I should.I also find that I am not very good at code challenges and stuff because as I mentioned above,my attention gets distracted easily and I'd rather read a tutorial or something along those lines.(Im terrible on coding exams,sigh)I totally forgot to add ifttt Put the internet to work for you. I get updates from Hacker News and programming • /r/programmingthat I care about as emails , the wallpaper on my phone is set to Astronomy Picture of the Day , I log my phone calls and messages among many other things using this.Update:I have a few new heroes to add to my gallery:DevDocsDevDocs allows you to select and access documentation of a group of languages / frameworks / libraries that you use in your workflow from the same place. If set up correctly,this could cut down any time spent looking up documentation on various sites . It is currently helping me grok mongoose.js .DevDocs is available offline now(you have to select the documentation you want to view offline).Tuts+ Free Code TutorialsI have always read articles and series of blog posts on this websites but I have recently started their free course on the Sublime Text code editor. Although the instructor uses Mac(I have never touched a Mac,believe me) , what I did not know about this amazing editor blew me away.They have a nice passportjs tutorial hereAuthenticating Node.js Applications With Passport - Tuts+ Code TutorialScotch Web DevelopmentThis website has interesting tutorials on Node.js which are helping me improve my understanding of Express 4.x .I have no plans to use vim(stuck on Windows for now) but this website has to be mentionedVIM Adventures - Learn VIM while playing a game .I have not used this website a lot but Mashape - Free API Management Platform & Marketplace seems like an interesting place to be.I also found zeal , an offline API documentation browser which has a Sublime Text plugin recently.I will add a couple of Chrome Plugins that are very helpful:Markdown HereThis plugin renders markdown that you type in a text area, say an email composed with markdown in Gmail into beautifully formatted content. I love markdown and this along with sublime evernote makes me enjoy composing emails and taking notes.OctotreeThis plugin takes the directory structure of any Github repo and renders it in a tree structure which makes it easy to access a file at any level in the repo easily.Video Speed ControllerWorks as advertised, comes with sweet keyboard shortcuts. Try it, you will fall in love with it.WhatFontFantastic tool to detect the fonts on a webpage.And a couple of web applications:hastebinAn open source alternative to pastebin, comes with solarized dark as the theme. I use it as an alternative to Evernote because it loads up quick and avoids confusing me with an unnecessarily large number of options when I just want to start writing.On the downside, if you don't save your note and accidentally hit Backspace, your note is gone. Also, remember to grab the link. I hear there is a haste-server which can talk to online cloud storage solutions.RawGitWhen I want to try a new JS library or a plugin which is not on cdnjs without having to download,install or add it to a build process, I just use this to serve the file. An option has been added for using this in production as well.Cloud 9 IDE Your development environment, in the cloudWhen my PC crashed, I turned to this wonderful tool to act as my development environment and I was really impressed by how well it handled itself, it provides you with personalized Docker based workspaces to create your apps.MediumThe modern day blogging platform from some of the guys who built Twitter, the writing on this app is of the highest quality and I feel privileged that some of the wonderful programmers, designers, authors, artists and entrepreneurs are sharing their thoughts and ideas with us. WARNING: prepare to be addicted to productivity porn.Fontastic Create your Icon Font in secondsWhen it comes to design, I am absolutely clueless. I often rely on icon fonts such as Font Awesome, Glyphicons among others to magically give me the icons that I need.(and they do). However, I have noticed that I only need a few icons from each icon font but tend to include the whole font.Then I discovered Fontastic, this tool works with commercial and open source icon fonts as well as svg icons that you may want to upload.https://survivejs.com/An amazing book which helps one pick up the tools of the React ecosystem, does a very good job of introducing new concepts and always stays upto date with the changes in the ecosystem.GitterInteract with the devs of open source projects using this app. Provides a much better UX than IRC, supports markdown(YAY!!!!), ask away or just sit back and watch open source teams at work.Also, StackEdit - In-browser markdown editor ,Dillinger, the Last Markdown Editor ever. are interesting, Pandoc - About pandoc is kicking my butt. Some of you might find Overleaf: Real-time Collaborative Writing and Publishing Tools with Integrated PDF Preview interesting.Updated Feb 14 • View UpvotesUpvote28DownvoteComments3+​Soham Mehta, InterviewKickstart.com. Prev: Director of Engineering @ Box. Worked @ MSFT, eBay4k ViewsOur website: Coding Interview Bootcamp isn't the most beautiful, but as a programmer, it could dramatically change your career trajectory for the better.Idea is this: Tech moves very fast. Every few years, money keeps shifting. Initially, it was in Semiconductors. Then it moved to Web. Now it's in Mobile. Tomorrow it will be in IoT or some such.When you're a career programmer, and you want to remain relevant, you need to remaininterview ready. And unfortunately, interviewing curriculum has drifted away from what we do every day at work. (Many reasons for that; topic for a separate blog post).As a result, every programmer needs to separately and explicitly prepare for technical interviews. Especially for good companies of the time. That's where we can help. We run a bootcamp laser-focused on technical interview preparation. Ask us how we do it.Written Jan 5 •