/**
 * file: karbytes_29_may_2024.txt
 * type: plain-text
 * date: 29_MAY_2024
 * author: karbytes
 * license: PUBLIC_DOMAIN
 */

The image at the following Uniform Resource Locator depicts a hand-drawn flowchart whose sole components are three nodes which are arranged as a unidirectional linear sequence such that the first node is a parallelogram inscribed with the word “INPUT”, the second node is a rectangle inscribed with the word “PROCESSING”, and the third node is a parallelogram inscribed with the word “OUTPUT” (and there is an arrow drawn between the first and second nodes which points exclusively from the first node to the second node and there is an arrow drawn between the second and third nodes which points exclusively from the second node to the third node):

https://raw.githubusercontent.com/karlinarayberinger/KARLINA_OBJECT_extension_pack_15/main/input_processing_output_flowchart_29may2024.jpg

The aforementioned image of the simple three-step flowchart is karbytes’ attempt to visually recreate the same flowchart which karbytes remembers seeing drawn on the whiteboard of the community college classroom of karbytes’ first computer science class in the year 2009 on the first day of that class’s encompassing semester.

Back then, karbytes barely heard the term “computer science” and did not even know it was a standard academic field most colleges offered majors in. At that time, karbytes was considering a variety of different subjects to major in such as biology, chemistry, and English, but what karbytes was most passionately studying independently (i.e. outside the context of formal schooling) was analytical philosophy (with an emphasis on metaphysics and the elusive boundary (and boundary traversal) between nounena and phenomena).

At that time, karbytes was reading “Darwin’s Dangerous Idea: Evolution and the Meanings of Life” (which was published in 1995 and written by Daniel Dennet) and “The Selfish Gene” (which was published in 1976 by Richard Dawkins). Reading those (and other) books about naturalistic phenomena and consciousness primed karbytes’ mind to be especially interested in computer science because karbytes’ newfound philosophical identity (as a “new atheist (or agnostic)”) espoused the axiomatic premise that all of nature is fundamentally computational and that literally all observable phenomena such as rocks becoming progressively smoother and rounder as a result of those rocks being exposed to a constant stream of sandy river water can be precisely described in quantitative and therefore map-able (and somewhat predictable) terms.

When karbytes saw that “basics of computation” flowchart on the first day of karbytes’ first computer science class, karbytes had an “epiphany” that computer science is the formal and quantitative study (and manipulation of) thoughts. Unlike mere English prose (which is little more than linear sequences of alphanumeric characters arranged in a manner which is primarily intended for humans to comprehend), the source code which comprises a computer program is used to transform the energy inside of the electronic circuits of a digital computer into orderly or useful information or physical actions. In other words, writing, testing, and revising the source code file(s) of a computer program (which is a foundational discipline within computer science) is literally a means for creating thought processes which flow in logically meaningful ways (and in ways which physically manipulate objects in the universe which encompasses the respective computational hardware). karbytes thinks such a feat is magical and infinitely intriguing. Hence, karbytes does not ever expect to grow bored of studying computer science (and the physics and metaphysics which underly it) because all three of those subjects allow for limitlessly many unique arrangements of discrete objects (which means limitlessly many universes can be computationally simulated).

What karbytes tentatively aspires to work on during the remainder of the year 2024 is building, testing, refining, and publishing small, self-contained computer science software applications which each focus on some abstract concept in pure mathematics or in computation. Anticipated examples include a command-line C++ application for timing and comparing the runtime performance of various sorting algorithms (with variable integer array size of integers to sort) and a JavaScript client-side single web page application which graphically illustrates how to approximate the area of a curved space using Reimann sums which attempt to compute such an area using some natural number of rectangular partitions of that curved area such that the total number of such rectangular partitions approaches infinity. karbytes also intends to spend the remainder of this year pursuing other interests in addition to software development such as arts, athletics, chores, and travels.