Nina and Lola,
Whenever I’m away from you and I spend a lot of time writing computer code, I think about the pretty patterns that your names make in binary code. Your names, Nina and Lola, are wonderful in so many ways that I could never describe them all. Here’s one of those ways.
If you use the following Common Lisp expression, you can find the graphical binary representation of your names in binary code.
(defun binary-name (name &optional (zero #\Space) (one #\O))
(map 'string (lambda (c) (case c (#\1 one) (#\0 zero) (t c)))
(format nil "~%~{~b~%~}" (map 'list #'char-code name))))
After defining a function like that, you can call the function with your names, like this, for example:
(binary-name "Nina")
Which returns the following pattern:
O OOO
OO O O
OO OOO
OO O
That pattern represents your name! The letters are in rows. So, ‘N’ is ‘O OOO’ and ‘i’ is ‘OO O O’. Here’s the same pattern with letters in front of each row:
N => O OOO
i => OO O O
n => OO OOO
a => OO O
One interesting thing is that, in your name at least, the capital letters start with ‘O ‘ and the lower-case letters start with ‘OO’.
Lola, here’s the pattern for your name:
O OO
OO OOOO
OO OO
OO O
Here’s the pattern for ‘Daddy’:
O O
OO O
OO O
OO O
OOOO O
Notice how the pattern for ‘Daddy’ is bigger than the patterns for ‘Lola’ and ‘Nina’? That’s just because ‘Daddy’ has more letters.
Here’s the pattern for ‘loves’:
OO OO
OO OOOO
OOO OO
OO O O
OOO OO
Here’s the pattern for ‘&’:
O OO
So, what do you think this means:
O O OO OO
OO O OO OOOO O OOO O OO
OO O OOO OO OO O O OO OOOO
OO O OO O O OO OOO OO OO
OOOO O OOO OO OO O O OO OO O
Happy Valentines to you both! I love you more than anything else in the whole world and I’ll always be there for you.
--Daddy