SFPC: Day 26 - Radical Computer Science, Third Class

Ramsey’s class, Day 3. We took a meta-level view of computing. Also, volunteering at Radical Networks and the Internet Yami Ichi this weekend. Gonna be a fun, busy couple of days!

Fellow students after class:

Today's Class

I enjoy Ramsey’s class. He brings an honest enthusiasm to his teaching and subject material. It’s infectious. Doesn’t matter what mood I’m in, his class is just good.

We talked about:

• “What does it mean for a computer to unlock mathematical abstractions. Like, physically.”
• Meta concepts in computing. The Lambda Calculus contains “pure” logic, but any programming language has a semantics that’s arbitrary.
• “Sometimes [when you’re coding], it feels like you’re driving a car… that’s driving a car… that’s driving a car…and the last car is driving somewhere into infinity.”
• Lady Ada Lovelace
• Logic gates with the help of the Falstad circuit simulator.
• “What you see when you see a silicon chip - you’re remixing a bunch of NAND gates, basically.”
• The Julia programming language.

This Weekend

Volunteering at Radical Networks tonight and tomorrow. I may not make it until 4pm or so. The talks will be over by then but there are parties from 6p-9p. I will ever-so-humbly offer my efforts in the hopes of being useful.

Didn’t take a lot of pictures today. Will probably be taking some tonight. Will definitely be taking a lot on Saturday for RadNetz and Sunday for the Yami Ichi.

Will post accordingly.

For Lunch:

Ramens with chicken and egg. Ruby says I need to eat things beside ramen and chicken(for nutrition), but that’s just not true. Ramen has all the food groups: noodles, broth, meat, egg.

For Dinner:

? I don’t remember.

Here’s a link to audio for Ramsey’s today

Ramsey’s Infinite Whiteboard for today’s class