From stuart at gathman.org  Mon Oct  9 00:25:17 2006
From: stuart at gathman.org (Stuart D. Gathman)
Date: Mon, 09 Oct 2006 00:25:17 -0400
Subject: [Verba] Oct 4 Meeting Summary
Message-ID: <4529CF2D.5080505@gathman.org>

Taylor described how he retrieved his homework files from a disk he had 
just reformatted and installed a new OS over.  In the process, he also 
found some of Mr. Carey's tests and quizes from when the computer 
belonged to Mr. Carey.  Moral of the story - remove, or at least do a 
secure wipe on hard drives before selling or giving them away a computer.

We learned about the use of '>', '<', and '|' characters in both unix 
shell and Windows command prompt.  Many things on unix can be done by 
gluing together simple commands with the shell.  Taylor used 'dd' and 
'fgrep' to recover his files.  We looked at some of the simple commands: 
'cat', 'grep', 'echo', 'find'.  On Windows they are called (from distant 
memory) 'type', 'find', 'echo', n/a.

We reviewed the bin.py program written by Rebecca and Jilian last year, 
and modified it to output balanced ternary instead.  Sigh - the time is 
shorter than last year.


From stuart at gathman.org  Wed Oct 18 23:09:28 2006
From: stuart at gathman.org (Stuart D. Gathman)
Date: Wed, 18 Oct 2006 23:09:28 -0400 (EDT)
Subject: [Verba] Meeting Summary Oct11 & Oct 18
Message-ID: <Pine.LNX.4.64.0610182224580.28419@fairfax.gathman.org>

 	October 11

Last week, someone asked for a history of computing.  I don't think they 
wanted to go back two centuries, but we did.  We looked briefly at the
Jacquard loom [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacquard_loom], then at 
Charles Babbage application of the cards to calculation.  An emulation
of the Analytical Engine [http://www.fourmilab.ch/babbage/contents.html]
makes clear that Babbage over designed his project.

Scaling back the precision and store would have provided a useful machine that
could solve the pressing problems of the day (errors in navigation tables) at
far less cost.  But Babbage convinced himself that his brilliant creation would
be the first and last ever built - and so had to be large enough for all time.

As a result, it was never built at all - except as historical recreations
today.  Babbage insisted on 50 decimal digit numbers, with 100 digit products
and 1000 (50 digit) numbers in the store.  This was several times larger than
the first electro-mechanical computers - and all had to be powered by steam!
His son built a portion of the engine, and actually used it for some
computations.

In the absence of the Engine to print accurate log and trig tables for
navigation, the American, Nathaniel Bowditch, was a calculating
super hero.  He was able to calculate in his head, and correct the tables. 
He also invented log trig tables and simple tax form like procedures
that made complex navigation computations accessible to sailors who could
only add and subtract.  His tables have been checked by computer, and
were completely accurate.  The historical novel, "Carry on Mr. Bowditch",
provides an entertaining account of his life.

 	October 18

Clearly, we should keep the lectures to email from now on.  The hands
on time in class is too precious.  Please ask any background questions
on this mailing list.  Today, we broke out the micro-economic simulation
written by Rebecca and Jilian last year.  This provided working code
that was enthusiastically hacked by the class.

With everyone working on the same code independently, it is a good time to
learn about CVS and SVN next week.

I've put a copy of our class directory on the web at:

http://gathman.org/verba

Today's changes by individuals are in subdirectories for your class login.

-- 
 	      Stuart D. Gathman <stuart at bmsi.com>
Business Management Systems Inc.  Phone: 703 591-0911 Fax: 703 591-6154
"Confutatis maledictis, flamis acribus addictis" - background song for
a Microsoft sponsored "Where do you want to go from here?" commercial.


From stuart at gathman.org  Fri Oct 27 15:05:26 2006
From: stuart at gathman.org (Stuart D. Gathman)
Date: Fri, 27 Oct 2006 15:05:26 -0400 (EDT)
Subject: [Verba] Oct 25 meeting summary
Message-ID: <Pine.LNX.4.64.0610271417120.12420@fairfax.gathman.org>

The older boys learned the basics of CVS, and checked out the pharoh 
project from a repository - working in parallel with updates and commits.

Stephanie also used CVS to correct some spelling, and practiced using vim 
for program editing (she was sick for the first few meetings). 
Unfortunately, I had an emergency IM from a customer during class 
(invoices wouldn't print after OS upgrade - turns out pstops filter 
broke), so I didn't pay proper attention to the younger boys.

I have installed LiveWires and pygame on our class server.  Next week, I 
will start the younger boys on that track.  Stephanie, you may also find 
this a good way to catch up: <http://www.livewires.org.uk/python/>

If you can, install python and the package on your Windows PC.  Even if 
you can't, look at the PDFs and see how far you can get just in your head. 
That will maximize our brief 3/2 hour on Wednesday.

The plan next week is for the older boys to keep working on their project, 
while I get Stephanie caught up and/or working on her own track, and get 
the younger boys working on the LiveWires course.

Here is a photo of our class at work in the computer lab that springs up
each week:  <http://gathman.org/photo/dscn7258.jpg>

-- 
 	      Stuart D. Gathman <stuart at bmsi.com>
Business Management Systems Inc.  Phone: 703 591-0911 Fax: 703 591-6154
"Confutatis maledictis, flamis acribus addictis" - background song for
a Microsoft sponsored "Where do you want to go from here?" commercial.