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:zz: Childhood infls. on ZZ?



(Hey, WELCOME BACK PETER!)
Well,

Quoth Peter Barus:
>I've often thought that this (this characteristic of zigzag, I mean) must
>have something to do with some event in Ted's early childhood, but since I
>have known him, I can't think of anything I've heard about that would
>qualify. But something surely threw him a curve early on. Ted was a ...

I was deeply impressed by the game of "Qubic"
 when I was 10 or 11.  (It's still available.)
 Tic-tac-toe in 3D, 4x4x4.  Quite simple really,
 and no special advantage to the center.

Also by Heinlein's "And he Built a Crooked House"
 when I was 14 (a guy accidently builds a 4D house
 and gets lost there-- I think).

And I have been deeply annoyed by all the
 exception-ridden junk I have to memorize in
 the computer world.  ZZ is an attempt to build
 a completely principled world without exceptions--
 but Spatial, rather than based on string management
 and hierarchy (like today's computer languages).

ChrzT
I take this as a license to reminisce more
 on such matters whenever the fit overcomes me...


At 04:05 PM 9/24/98 -0400, you wrote:
>Tim,
>
>>> i have had several looks at zz, and sadly i remain baffled... <<
>
>Welcome to the cutting edge... I used to day "bleeding edge" but that kind
>of caught on, and lost its flavor. But the thing about the front of the
>wave of innovation is that nobody knows anything. In fact, the trick is
>probably to maintain this blissful state...
>
>The thing that I find most brain-twisting about zigzag is the extra
>dimension of dimensions. That is, I do hierarchic data management
>applications, and that's more than most people can get their heads around,
>but this one doesn't seem to need the old tree-branch, river-delta, leaf
>and insect wing, genealogical, snowflake, fractal kind of thinking at all.
>It's almost as if organization itself has been stripped down to its bare
>essentials, an appealing concept to me. But then, I dislike most
>organizations within about ten minutes of their inception. About the time
>they get really organized, I'm working feverishly against them.
>
>I've often thought that this (this characteristic of zigzag, I mean) must
>have something to do with some event in Ted's early childhood, but since I
>have known him, I can't think of anything I've heard about that would
>qualify. But something surely threw him a curve early on. Ted was a pretty
>good banjo player, in the fifties. I haven't heard him play since; Maybe
>that has something to do with it. And that in itself was an event in my own
>childhood that might bear examination. I don't know that I can be said to
>have recovered from it myself, now that I think about it...
>
>Banjo players have very peculiar minds (I know, I'm one too, having been
>infected back then). They often graduate to other strange instruments.
>Like, the "pedal steel". It's that odd string stuck on the side of it you
>know; defies any logic such as might occur to one with an ordinary guitar
>or harp. It's a Thumb String. The thumb, you see, is also kind of an
>afterthought. I think if we had sent one of these things into space instead
>of that stupid plaque with the drawings of naked people on it, we might
>stand a chance of getting somebody out there to bother to speak to us, but
>as it is... oh, well.
>
>I think of zigzag as being a sort of rebellion against the kind of logic
>that takes opposable thumbs into account at the beginning. Really, if we
>had been born without them, a great many things would be much simpler, but
>this thing screws up the consistency of a logic every time if we aren't
>very careful. Windows, for instance, there's a real opposable thumb gizmo
>if I ever saw one...
>
>Pete
>
>
____________________________________________________
Theodor Holm Nelson, Visiting Professor of Environmental Information
 Keio University, Shonan Fujisawa Campus, Fujisawa, Japan
 Home Fax from USA: 011-81-466-46-7368  (If in Japan, 0466-46-7368)
Professorial home page http://www.sfc.keio.ac.jp/~ted/ 
_____________________________________________________
Permanent: Project Xanadu, 3020 Bridgeway #295, Sausalito CA 94965
 Tel. 415/ 331-4422, fax 415/332-0136  
http://www.xanadu.net
PERMANENT E-MAIL: ted@xxxxxxxxxx
_____________________________________________________
Quotation of the day, 98.09.25:
"Love is the marshmallow on top of the blood-and-guts sundae we call life."
 TN 98.07