Christopher Giofreda<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In October, Dr. Konkol invited us to help demonstrate a concept to her EN127 class. Namely, that act of weaving is a mechanical process of recursion that finds an analogy within coding structures. The inspiration was an early analytical engine developed by Charles Babbage, itself inspired by the Jacquard loom. Elena, whose bona fides include a degree in computer science, taught students how to make digital designs that execute basic loops. They learned how to alter color and shape. The students completed the project successfully in about thirty minutes. My coding knowledge is as deep as a puddle, so I demonstrated how weaving and calculation work together in Plato\u2019s Statesman<\/em>. The true statesman is a weaver\/rhetor responsible for getting people of different temperaments to cooperate. We guided the students through a game where they sat for one of Plato\u2019s famous community meals, a staple of his Laws<\/em>. Each student had a secret card with his or her preferences (especially for aristocracy, tyranny, timocracy, and democracy) that both the good and bad statesmen \u2013 represented by Elena and Dr. Konkol tried to weave together for advantage. Students came away with a basic understanding of Plato\u2019s theory of political change (kyklos<\/em>). They built upon their understanding of weaving as a metaphor that they learned earlier in the semester.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Christopher Giofreda In October, Dr. Konkol invited us to help demonstrate a concept to her EN127 class. Namely, that act of weaving is a mechanical process of recursion that finds an analogy within coding structures. The inspiration was an early analytical engine developed by Charles Babbage, itself inspired by the Jacquard loom. Elena, whose bona… Read More »Making and recursion<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11939,"featured_media":555,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"neve_meta_sidebar":"","neve_meta_container":"","neve_meta_enable_content_width":"","neve_meta_content_width":0,"neve_meta_title_alignment":"","neve_meta_author_avatar":"","neve_post_elements_order":"","neve_meta_disable_header":"","neve_meta_disable_footer":"","neve_meta_disable_title":"","_themeisle_gutenberg_block_has_review":false,"footnotes":"","wds_primary_category":12},"categories":[12],"tags":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/sites.wp.odu.edu\/mpark\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/31546\/2025\/01\/pexels-pixabay-159049-scaled-e1737304462532.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.wp.odu.edu\/mpark\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/554"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.wp.odu.edu\/mpark\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.wp.odu.edu\/mpark\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.wp.odu.edu\/mpark\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/11939"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.wp.odu.edu\/mpark\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=554"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/sites.wp.odu.edu\/mpark\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/554\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":621,"href":"https:\/\/sites.wp.odu.edu\/mpark\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/554\/revisions\/621"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.wp.odu.edu\/mpark\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/555"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.wp.odu.edu\/mpark\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=554"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.wp.odu.edu\/mpark\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=554"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.wp.odu.edu\/mpark\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=554"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}