@vzn, sorry I haven't responded in a while; lots of things have come up. I have a bit of a question for you. See, my b-day is in a bit and my mom is asking me what I want. And of course my response will be books, many books. I'm wondering if there are any good books with computer science and algorithms and complexity theory and such things that I could ask for. I know you mentioned douglas hofstadter; if there are any specific books there that would be good as well. Thanks!

@heather hi ppl come/ go in cyberspace all the time, nice of you to remember me, still remember you :)

yes there are zillions of excellent books on cs... let me try to think of some you might like... its very broad... if you list some you already have on math/ science that you like, it would help...

ah this is an old favorite of mine & has some fairly advanced stuff but in bite-size ways

amazon.com/New-Turing-Omnibus-Sixty-Six-Excursions/dp/…

this is fairly new on one of my fave problems by a top authority who also has his own blog

amazon.com/Golden-Ticket-NP-Search-Impossible/dp/0691156492

& happy btd to you! :)

@vzn, thank you! let's see, math and science books I like...well, my dad has the feynmann lectures on physics and I sure enjoy those. I got my hands on a copy of Nielsen and Chuang's Quantum Computing and Quantum Information, and that book is fabulous, although I'm not currently too far into it. I also enjoyed The Search For Schrodinger's Cat by John Gribbin, and I have the Cartoon Guide to Physics and the Cartoon Guide to Calculus, by Larry Gronick, both of which are awesome.