TINRH (TOTF is not Ruby Hangman)

[markus]

As I mentioned at the meeting last month, I've been doing Ruby Hangmans
at pdxrb for five years (and never found a plural form I like). It's
been an amazing amount of fun, and we managed to milk more laughs out of
it than even I expected. Plus, I hope, an occasional spark of insight
and maybe a few Ah Ha! moments. At last, alas, I fear the well has
finally run dry.

And now for something completely different...

This month I'll be trying an experiment with a format I'm calling
"Thinking Outside The Framework[1]." If it works, or can be warped,
wedged and whittled into something that works, it can be our replacement
opening shenanigan format. If it doesn't...well, we can try something
else.

The first topic in the new format, riffing off of Sam's presentation
last month, is visualization. Specifically, I'm going to try to get you
to picture triangles in ways you probably never have before; to count
them (ever wonder how many triangles there are?) use them as coordinates
(what would it be like to live in a world (or rather, a topological
manifold) where you specified a location by drawing a triangle rather
than giving a lat/lon pair?) and somehow or another wind it back to a
place where, if you look carefully, you can see the relevance of all
this to working with software.

We'll also be playing with coloured sticks, working in small groups,
shouting things across the room, trying to represent higher dimensional
spaces on a 2d white wall, and so forth. There may even be a very brief
sing-along interlude[2].

I hope to see you all there[3],

-- Markus

[1] Runner up titles for the format include "Frame Tagging", "Mental
Skeet Shooting", and "Introductory WTF Juggling"

[2] Specifically:

Particle man, particle man
Doing the things a particle can
What's he like? It's not important
Particle man

Is he a dot, or is he a speck?
When he's underwater does he get wet?
Or does the water get him instead?
Nobody knows, Particle man

Triangle man, Triangle man
Triangle man hates particle man
They have a fight, Triangle wins
Triangle man

[3] For those of you who can't make it, and usually rely on these teaser
e-mails to play at home, I'm sad to say that I've got no good idea how
to capture these as text yet. :(

But I am thinking on it.