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Nodes
This nOde
last updated May 19th, 2024 and is permanently morphing...
(first emerged April 1st, 1998)

node
node (nod) noun
1.A knob, knot, protuberance, or swelling.
2.a. Botany. The point on a stem where a leaf
is attached or has been attached; a joint.
3.Physics. A point or region of
virtually
zero amplitude in
a periodic system.
4.Mathematics. The point at which a
continuous curve crosses itself.
5.Computer Science. A terminal in a computer
network.
6.Astronomy. a. Either of two diametrically
opposite points at which the orbit of a planet intersects the
ecliptic. b. Either of two points at which the orbit of a
satellite intersects the orbital plane of a planet.
Node
Node, a junction of some type. In computer
science, on local area
networks, a device that is connected
to the network and is capable of communicating with other
network devices.
In tree structures (used in
database management and
object-oriented programming), a location (set of
information) on the tree that can
have links to one or more nodes below it (child nodes). Some
authors make a distinction between node and element, with an
element being a given data type and a node comprising one or
more elements as well as any supporting data structures (such as
pointers).
node of Ranvier
node of Ranvier (nÖd ùv rän´vyA, rän-vyA´,
räN-) noun
plural nodes of Ranvier
A constriction in the myelin sheath,
occurring at varying intervals along the length of a nerve
fiber.
[After Louis Antoine Ranvier (1835-1922), French histologist.]
Engineers at
Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt,
Md., successfully contacted UoSAT-12 spacecraft through a ground
station in Surrey, England, using
Internet
ping packets. The project, called
Operating Missions as Nodes on the Internet (OMNI), was the
first
time that a
spacecraft ever had its own Internet address and was a fully
RFC-compliant active node on the Internet.
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The best tool for displaying and manipulating systems is the computer, which allows us to display a system and then observe it from any perspective. We can "navigate" the system, moving from one node to another, exploring the contents of each node and the essence of the links between nodes.
~~ John L. Petersen
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In The Postmodern Condition, Jean-Francois Lyotard claims that "the self...is always located at 'nodal points' of specific communications circuits....No one, not even the least privileged among us, is ever entirely powerless over the messages that traverse and position him at the post of sender, addressee, or referent."
- Erik Davis
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Any
network has two
ingredients: nodes and connections. In the grand network we
are now assembling, the size of the nodes is collapsing while
the quantity and quality of the connections are exploding.
These two physical realms, the collapsing microcosm of
silicon and the
exploding telecosm of connections, form the
matrix through which
the new economy of ideas
flows.
-
Kevin Kelly - _New
Rules For The New Economy_
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This sense of secret sharing helps explain
the growing desire to transcode the
real, as when one signal source (Web
traffic, a trumpet, the rate of rainforest loss) is translated
into data that mutates into another form (3D models, machine
rhythms, articulations of a robot arm). What exactly happens in
these events? Are the patterns and affects suggested by
such
processes part of the
world, or simply artifacts of the criteria of translation? This
ancient problem–is the form in the world or the eye?–suspends
itself in the new operations of the transcoding mix, which makes
the phenomena it describes. The nodes around us–the nodes that
we are–are not passive switches, but grow in strength and
insight through their range of materials, the nature and novelty
of their connections and mutual exchanges. Cosmic eros is not
exhausted, and implosion may only be a media-induced
hallucination of an emerging nest of integration.
Erik Davis - _Anchors Aweigh!_
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