Day 1 - Forgetting
Although it’s our second class, it’s still Day 1. And not even for psychological reasons either — when programing, the first number in a series count is zero, because zero is itself a value. We’ll probably talk more about that at some point. I do like talking about number bases, but I’m not sure it translates very well. (Ha! Translates, get it? Ooh, zinger!)
Speaking of the value of nothingness, I just had several chuncks of today’s lecture unceremoniously vanish. For those of you who want to keep track of things like this, I believe it happened when I pressed the letter L on the keyboard. Let me know if that rings any bells.
Not that today’s lecture had been headed in a particularly linear direction (which, as I mentioned in class #0, will be an ongoing issue for us). But watching even that shifty tangle of threads poof away was a as visceral an exercise in the technologies of forgetting that I’ve had since the floppy disc misadventures of the late 80’s. That was back when floppy discs were still in fact “floppy” and the sturdiness of one’s Pee-Chee was all that stood between your ASCII art and the void…
But I digress.
For those of you who have successfully emailed me your blog address: your Handle shall be forthwith entered into the hallowed rolls of the Class Website. Kudos!
For those of you who are still stepping gingerly around the edges of the blog pool, be ye not afraid. Talk to me after class and we’ll get everything squared away.
If you’re reading this before class, wondering what to expect (my goodness, that would be ambitious of you) — it’s looking to be a jaunty romp down one particular 3000 year path of mnemotechnics, with pauses for reflection in ancient Greece, the Middle Ages, the Renaissance, and the Cold War. And for some reason, most of the little stories I want to tell involve murder, martyrdom, or suicide…
I guess that’s poetry for ya. What can you do.
Things will, of necessity, be more specific after class, so you should check back then for your value-added. See you then.