Hello World! Or more specifically, Hello Occam\u2019s Typewriter bloggers and readers!
\nActually, \u201cHello World!\u201d sends shivers down my spine; after a hiatus of 20 years since learning Fortran and Pascal in university, my 8 year old son coaxed me back to learn programming with him\u2014a terribly user-unfriendly language called \u201cC\u201d (at least for novices like myself), and every exercise began with the ritual \u201cHello World\u201d being used.<\/p>\n
Well, I was advised to delete the \u201cHello World!\u201d post: (Welcome to Occam\u2019s Typewriter<\/a>. This is your first post. I suggest you delete it else you\u2019ll look a bit of a prat.) As I do not want to appear like a \u201cprat\u201d on my first blog on \u201cNO COMMENT<\/a>\u201d, I deleted this post. I do want to take this opportunity to express my gratitude for the wonderful welcome and great interactions that I\u2019ve been having these past few weeks as a beginner-blogger\u2014I am really enjoying this, and feel quite \u201cat home\u201d. This is at once a thought provoking and entertaining site, and I\u2019m honored to have an opportunity to make my own modest contributions now on \u201cNO COMMENT<\/a>\u201d.<\/p>\n Just a brief note about how I arrived here at OT. Several months ago in the course of self-publishing my first novel, I summoned up the courage to e-mail Jenny and ask a few questions related to my novel and to the Lablit<\/a> site. Why \u201ccourage\u201d, you might ask? Well, by now some of you may be familiar with a few of my recent posts, but we are all only \u201cvirtually acquainted\u201d (except for Jenny, a fellow cell biologist who I had the pleasure of meeting at ASCB<\/a> in Philadelphia last month). In person, I am not an especially social person (I can imagine my wife\u2019s laughter as she reads this understatement!). Actually, I did not expect a famous author like Jenny to even reply. Well, fortunately for me, she did\u2014within minutes!<\/p>\n At that point in time I had<\/em> heard of Twitter and Facebook, but had not a clue what they were. People were constantly referring to the \u2018social media\u2019, and I could see those little icons\u2014but what did they have to do with me?<\/p>\n Slowly I became involved in some of the forums on Lablit.com<\/a>, and when it was suggested that I begin to Tweet, I tried. At first, I was not impressed. After a day, I was being followed by a local hair salon, what looked to be an escort service, and a dog breeder. I couldn\u2019t understand what people were writing. I commented once at a Lablit<\/a> forum that 98% of the Tweets I read seemed silly. I was advised that I was following the wrong people\u2014turns out that this was good advise. I am now a convert.<\/p>\n So I first learned of OT\u2019s existence through Twitter, not really understanding what exactly was going on\u2014until Jenny explained the situation to me in Philly. When I first logged onto OT, it was love at first site. And here I am! Thank you, World!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Hello World! Or more specifically, Hello Occam\u2019s Typewriter bloggers and readers! Actually, \u201cHello World!\u201d sends shivers down my spine; after a hiatus of 20 years since learning Fortran and Pascal in university, my 8 year old son coaxed me back … Continue reading
\nThanks, Richard, for the sound advise!<\/p>\n