June 3 – National Repeat Day

Posted on June 3, 2015


Most of the websites that mention this day are pretty cutesy with the write-ups...with lots of repetition like this:

It's National Repeat Day!
It's National Repeat Day!

And the suggested “celebrations” seem sort of...umm...un-fun. Like I read this suggestion: when you put your socks on, this morning, take them off and then put them on again.

Really? That's how we want to use National Repeat Day? To make more work for ourselves with no added benefit?

How about this, instead:

The power of repetition

Author Robert Collier once said: 


In the classic movie Groundhog Day, Bill Murray learns that it isn't enough just to repeat a day...you have to try doing different things while repeating the day. You have to learn from what works – and what doesn't work.


When writing computer programs, you soon learn the power of repetition, or rather recursion. 
Recursion is when a computer routine calls upon
itself. It's like a picture of a guy painting a picture
of that same guy painting a picture of that same
guy painting a picture...











You can explore recursion yourself by taking a recursive
self portrait where two mirrors face one another!


When investigating fractals, again, there is amazing power of repetition. One way to start an investigation of fractals is to investigate a stalk of broccoli. Tear it down to smaller and smaller pieces – and each piece looks a lot like the whole!  You can also doodle fractals like Vi Hart

Someone made a video about making a video about how Vi Hart makes a video! A recursive video!

Repetition through recursion in computer graphics can turn a simple line of code that tells the computer to draw a circle into something utterly magnificent:




Also on this date:












































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