Tuesday, April 6, 2004

Study, Rest, Eat a Good Breakfast

A hard shot of seventh grade homework tonight: test on the Middle Ages tomorrow along with a two-page chronology of the most significant developments in computer technology from the abacus to artificial intelligence.  Quite an undertaking for one evening, but it follows weeks of in-school preparation.  So the pattern goes.  Ph. worked on the laptop drumming up information via a few links suggested by his teacher for the computer assignment while I wrestled a one-page study guide into readable shape for the test.  Sufficiently torturous though there were no mentions of such inhumanity in his notes and textbook.  

So I've been freshening up on everything from feudal social hierarchies and the failed crusades (which opened trade routes to the East) to the MITS Atrios 8800, Bill Gates III and integrated circuits as the "Third Generation" of computer technology.  Just when it was at its most agonizing--the combination of assignments, that is--we laced up our tennies and went for a jog.  First one in months for me, but overdue in the nasty-tense fallout from such an explosion between prehistory and posthistory, between medievalism and technocracy on such short notice. Run.  Artificial intelligence is the fifth (and present) generation of computer technology.  Senechals presided, with bailiffs, over the judicial order of the manors in medieval Europe.  Daniel Bricklin dubbed Visicalc; we are all so many vassals to Microsoft, jousting with PowerPoint, crusading for open source.  See?  How can I explain this?

You'll notice I'm toying with a few jobs in the right column.  Thinking about fleshing out my list of links, adding on the ones I aggregate, and others I read and admire from time to time.  Most bloggers appreciate being linked, right?  I want to redraw the "Divisions," dissect moth into more descriptive parts.  Or not...no hurry.  I also copied several of the recent button-makers (such as feministe) and put one together for EWM, just for the heck of it--during one of our study breaks this evening. Perfectly ornamental.

Succumbed to another violent arm-tug to cover a pair of classes first thing in the morning.  Everyone's taking vacations but me, turns out.  But I don't mind.  It gives me something to blog about. Plus, Ph'll need a good breakfast if he has any chance at discriminating between the chivalric code and vacuum tubes.

Posted by Derek Mueller at April 6, 2004 9:59 PM to Unspecified