What Don't You Understand That You'd Like To?

This post originally appeared on the Software Carpentry website.

What don't you understand about computers and computing that you'd like to? I'm not talking about big stuff, like "How does it all work, anyway?" or, "How do I write a game that's as addictive as BubbleSpinner?" What don't you understand about smaller-scale stuff, like handwriting recognition or how Excel knows which cells to update when you change a number or how your machine decides that it's time to update Java and what it does next. Please let me know, or if you're feeling shy, point your friends at this page and have them ask for you—we have to use something as motivating examples for this course, and if we can explain something interesting while teaching you fundamental computing concepts, so much the better.