Author: ruthproof

I love this place–

Its not just Seattle, and its not just America:

Something needs to be done, world-wide. We need a revolution on par with double-entry bookkeeping.

This place is getting crazy

The unrest in Iraq is rising. From the BBC:

Corruption. Unemployment. Poor public services. These three are deal-breakers for any human society on Earth.

Kendrick Castillo was murdered in Colorado: he was 18 years old and protecting the lives of others–he’s on the left. The photo on the right is me at 13, and but for the grace of God do I go on.

Kendrick was murdered by firearms.
Something must be done.

1993-APR

My mom thrills us with a new (expensive) personal computer purchase–I am in fifth grade at the time. I learn little more than how to play and install games, but I do pick up DOS for Dummies by Dan Gookin.

1996-MAR

Jim Moran, my seventh-grade English teacher, takes his class to the fresh-built computer lab (newly connected to the internet) introducing me to HTML.

2003-JAN

As a sophomore undergraduate at the University of Michigan I use my allotted web space to host a personal website, written in pure HTML. I also work in the Media Loan department, renting out A/V equipment to faculty, staff and students and repairing equipment when it broke.

2007-JAN

I begin working as a Microcomputer Repair Technician, learning how to repair hardware, solve IT issues and fix network protocols.

2009-SEP

In the second-year of my masters program I learn about Visual Basic for Applications (VBA) during an Excel-based business-analytics course, and am exposed to simple coding.

2011-JAN

I move to Seattle to live with a friend. He is a programmer. I see the difference (large gap, in my mind), between the respect afforded to the humanities, and those in the tech sector–even though I have a masters degree (in Natural Resources). I read Program or be Programmed by Douglas Rushkoff.

2011-NOV

Working for a small non-profit in Detroit, my boss needs a custom function to organize data in an Excel spreadsheet. I try but it’s too daunting for me, so I turn to my brother for help, who writes the VBA code for me.

2012-JUN

Working in rural Lyons, Nebraksa, I use Drupal (PHP-based, though I don’t understand what that means at this time) to manage the online content for a small non-profit. I also take a free online course taught by Stanford’s Nick Parlante, learning the basic fundamentals of digital technologies and computer programming.

Nick is also the creator of CodingBat, a site to practice coding.

2012-OCT

I move to Seattle and take Internet History, Technology and Security through Coursera.

2013-MAR

Working at my first startup, on a colleague’s invitation I read the Pragmatic Programmer by Andrew Hunt and David Thomas, and am glad I do.

2014-MAR

While working at my second tech startup, I see the chief differences in how programmers are treated compared to other employees–one of the lead programmers there recommends Hello World, an introduction to programming, using Python.

I take an online introductory computer science class (CS 110) at North Seattle College–Hello World is amazingly useful (for me, more accessible than the class text); exercises on CodingBat are given as homework.

2015-FEB

I take the Data Scientist’s Toolbox course offered through Coursera. I also purchase (and read) Jon Duckett’s HTML & CSS and JavaScript & jQuery books, which I found enormously helpful (and accessible). I purchase a domain and code my own website in HTML, CSS, JavaScript and jQuery. I complete all the Python coding exercises on CodingBat at this time. I also begin with the coding exercises on Khan Academy at this time.

2015-SEP

I begin classes at Seattle Central College. My knowledge and skills skyrocket–the work done previously (studying on my own) allows me to pass out of several introductory courses, saving money (and time).

I learn PHP, MySQL, Git and, by using computer science courses as my electives, (completing both CS 141 and CS 142), I am exposed to the fundamentals of Java (and Eclipse) as well as higher CS concepts (like recursion and inheritance). I read many helpful books (listed below) and make many websites, databases and applications.

2018-SEP

I finish my program but continue to read more. I begin working at my third startup, where I use Python to process data and write web scrapers to gather and aggregate data.

2019-JAN

I begin taking classes at Better Engineering.

Read:

• 1993 – DOS for Dummies by Dan Gookin
• 2011 – Program or be Programmed by Douglas Rushkoff
• 2013 – Pragmatic Programmer by Andrew Hunt and David Thomas
• 2014 – Hello World by Warren Sande and Carter Sande
• 2015 – HTML & CSS by Jon Duckett
• 2015 – JavaScript & jQuery by Jon Duckett
• 2015 – HTML5 for Web Designers by Jeremy Keith & Rachel Andrew
• 2015 – CSS3 for Web Designers by Dan Cederholm
• 2015 – Design Is a Job by Mike Monteiro
• 2016 – Web ReDesign 2.0: Workflow that Works by Emily Cotler
• 2016 – Head First Java by Kathy Sierra and Bert Bates
• 2016 – Building Java Programs by Stuart Reges and Marty Stepp
• 2017 – The Clean Coder by Robert C Martin
• 2017 – Elements of Scrum by Chris Sims and Hillary Louise Johnson
• 2017 – UNIX for Dummies by John R. Levine  and Margaret Levine Young
• 2018 – Webbots, Spiders, and Screen Scrapers by Michael Schrenk

To Read:

• Head First Design Patterns by Eric Freeman, Bert Bates, Kathy Sierra, Elisabeth Robson
• The Linux Command Line, 2nd Edition: by William E. Shotts Jr.
• UML Distilled by Martin Fowler
• C Programming Language, 2nd Ed by Brian Kernighan and Dennis M Ritchie
• Hacker’s Delight by Henry S. Warren
• Cracking the Coding Interview by Gayle Laakmann McDowell
• Are You Smart Enough to Work at Google? by William Poundstone

Free Online Classes:

• CS 101 – Stanford
• Internet History, Technology and Security  – Michigan
• The Data Scientist’s Toolbox – Johns Hopkins

Free Online Resources:

• CodingBat – Python, Java
• Khan Academy – JavaScript, MySQL
• Practice-It – Java
• Codeacademy  – Multiple
• Hackerrank – Multiple
• LeetCode – Multiple

I don’t know about you, but I absolutely adore where I live; heavenly delights.

Its nice to know there’s options though:

The Seven Best Towns in Washington for LGBT(Q+) Families

1. Vancouver
2. Olympia
3. Bellingham
4. Vashon Island
5. Seattle
6. Spokane
7. Tacoma

My dad was born on this date. He taught me to work hard, dream, and gargle with salt and hot water–

Thanks for everything, dad.

Fellow Countrymen:

At this second appearing to take the oath of the presidential office, there is less occasion for an extended address than there was at the first. Then a statement, somewhat in detail, of a course to be pursued, seemed fitting and proper. Now, at the expiration of four years, during which public declarations have been constantly called forth on every point and phase of the great contest which still absorbs the attention, and engrosses the energies of the nation, little that is new could be presented. The progress of our arms, upon which all else chiefly depends, is as well known to the public as to myself; and it is, I trust, reasonably satisfactory and encouraging to all. With high hope for the future, no prediction in regard to it is ventured.

On the occasion corresponding to this four years ago, all thoughts were anxiously directed to an impending civil-war. All dreaded it — all sought to avert it. While the inaugural address was being delivered from this place, devoted altogether to saving the Union without war, insurgent agents were in the city seeking to destroy it without war — seeking to dissolve the Union, and divide effects, by negotiation. Both parties deprecated war; but one of them would make war rather than let the nation survive; and the other would accept war rather than let it perish. And the war came.

One eighth of the whole population were colored slaves, not distributed generally over the Union, but localized in the Southern part of it. These slaves constituted a peculiar and powerful interest. All knew that this interest was, somehow, the cause of the war. To strengthen, perpetuate, and extend this interest was the object for which the insurgents would rend the Union, even by war; while the Government claimed no right to do more than to restrict the territorial enlargement of it. Neither party expected for the war, the magnitude, or the duration, which it has already attained. Neither anticipated that the cause of the conflict might cease with, or even before, the conflict itself should cease. Each looked for an easier triumph, and a result less fundamental and astounding. Both read the same Bible, and pray to the same God; and each invokes His aid against the other. It may seem strange that any men should dare to ask a just God’s assistance in wringing their bread from the sweat of other men’s faces; but let us judge not that we be not judged. The prayers of both could not be answered; that of neither has been answered fully. The Almighty has His own purposes. “Woe unto the world because of offenses! for it must needs be that offenses come; but woe to that man by whom the offense cometh!” If we shall suppose that American Slavery is one of those offenses which, in the providence of God, must needs come, but which, having continued through His appointed time, He now wills to remove, and that He gives to both North and South, this terrible war, as the woe due to those by whom the offense came, shall we discern therein any departure from those divine attributes which the believers in a Living God always ascribe to Him? Fondly do we hope — fervently do we pray — that this mighty scourge of war may speedily pass away. Yet, if God wills that it continue, until all the wealth piled by the bond-man’s two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil shall be sunk, and until every drop of blood drawn with the lash, shall be paid by another drawn with the sword, as was said three thousand years ago, so still it must be said “the judgments of the Lord, are true and righteous altogether.”

With malice toward none; with charity for all; with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in; to bind up the nation’s wounds; to care for him who shall have borne the battle, and for his widow, and his orphan — to do all which may achieve and cherish a just, and a lasting peace, among ourselves, and with all nations.

—Saturday, March 4, 1865

Where Did It Go?
by Ruth Prudence

—

“Where did it go?” Raven asked.

They were lying on their back in an expanse of rolling hills, alone but for the two of them. Marcia and Raven were staring up at the night sky filled with bright, starry objects. Raven had been paying attention to a particular one.

“Where did it go?” she repeated, her voice devoid of stress or pleading, only curiosity.

“Where did what go?” Marcia replied, tentatively, her eyes also glued to the heavens up above her.

“I was watching a star, at least–what I think was a star–and all of a sudden its light disappeared.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah.”

Marcia considered this. “Was it one of the main ones? Anything essential to a constellation or anything?”

“How should I know,” Raven began, “I don’t know all the constellations. But the one I was looking was there, and now its not. What do you think happened?”

Marcia let the question linger in the air. She didn’t have a response–and didn’t how she would reply. She waited, but Raven seemed particularly persistent about an answer. Marcia tried changing tacts.

“Can you show me where you were looking? Point out where it is–er, where it was?” she quickly collected herself, aware of Raven’s wrath, but the younger one wasn’t having any of it.

“Just say you don’t know” exasperated Raven, not irate but the words pouring out of her with disdain. “Don’t act like you were interested in what it was, or where.” she stopped, aware she had crossed a line.

Marcia’s gaze moved back towards her own small field of sky. She stared at the multitude of dancing lights and shapes in front of her face and found herself crying. The two women continued to lay on the hill, looking up at the sky, in silence.

Since 2006, I’ve been keeping track of the films that I’ve seen:

SELECT date(Date) as ‘Viewed’, Title, CASE
WHEN Opinion = 5 THEN “I loved it!”
WHEN Opinion = 4 THEN “I really liked it!”
WHEN Opinion = 3 THEN “I liked it!”
WHEN Opinion = 2 THEN “It was okay!”
WHEN Opinion = 1 THEN “I didn’t like it.”
ELSE “No Opinion”
END as ‘Opinion’,
Released as ‘Year’
FROM films
ORDER BY Number DESC;

Check out the films seen!

I love being a web developer! Today’s project involved a bit of PHP, MySQL, JSON and WordPress–and Stack Overflow, of course 🙂

The Situation: I wanted to make a random quote appear on my WordPress site.

The Task: To make the random quote appear, I had to reconsider something similar I had developed for another web site. I needed to reformulate the process (because WordPress is different than the solution before).

The Action: To save time, I decided that I didn’t need to reinvent the wheel: first I looked for WordPress plugins that could display information from tables. I downloaded and installed a few to try them out, and ultimately found a WordPress plugin from SriniG called “Quotes Collection” that allowed random quotations to be displayed as JSON objects. However, this led to other issues as my information wasn’t organized in a recognizable format.

I had to learn whether MySQL tables could be exported to JSON objects, and luckily, a website had everything I needed (it was literally called “How to Convert Data from MySQL to JSON using PHP“). So I built a simple web interface with HTML and PHP to execute the functions and, once I got that working, I specified the type of information I wanted to process.

The Quotes Collection WordPress plugin needed the data organized in a certain way, so I had to experiment with SQL statements to output the data correctly (for example, in my storage solution, I had an author’s first name and last name listed as separate items, whereas the WordPress plugin needed just a single entry for “Author’s Name”).

Finally, I outputted the necessary information in a format that worked, and voila–the Quotes Collection is filled!

The Result:

Success! (Thanks SCC)

It took twenty years, and thousands of hours, but I finally passed Algebra II:

Two A-minuses from Professor S I’ll take–next stop, Calculus!!

Watching the Winter Olympics reminds me of my Aunt T, who loved figure skating so much she pursued it as an adult hobby (I remember going to her ice shows a couple of times as a kid growing up in Michigan). When we would watch the Olympics (winter only, for the figure skating), it would be at my grandma’s house, my Aunt raptly watching the television in the corner, and it had to be quiet during the performances: normally jovial and beneficent Auntie T would erupt into a furor if people spoke during figure skating, and it was a respect I happily obliged.

In late November of 2017, “a US Navy plane crashed into the ocean southeast of Okinawa..marking at least the sixth apparent accident involving a Navy asset in East Asian waters [that] year.” (CNN) This came after a Navy and Civilian panel recommended “sweeping changes” in a comprehensive review of the Japan-based US 7th Fleet, which patrol East Asian waters.

The US Navy found, after deadly collisions damaged two of its warships just months apart in 2017, “both of these accidents were preventable” or, in one word: “avoidable”. (NPR)

In late 2017, a Russian rocket “violently dismantled 19 satellites,” (Register) although the Russian media blamed “human error”. (Moscow Times)

In early 2018 the State of Hawaii “mistakenly” released an Emergency Alert:

Emergency officials later announced that “the message had been sent in error.” (Guardian)

Whatever is truly going on, hacking–or electronic espionage–will play an even greater role in the tactical moves of world powers, and China and Russia already have significant advantages.

Before President Obama left office, the United States maintained “nearly 800 military bases in more than 70 countries and territories abroad“, contrasted with the 30 foreign bases owned by Britain, France and Russia combined (Politico, 2015).

Britain and France were able to successfully navigate away from worldwide empire management to more sustainable, smaller-scale sovereignties and the United States can start its transition by switching its strength towards its State Department. For example, in the image above, which currently demonstrates the US’ proliferation of bases globally, what if all of those military bases were converted into humanitarian efforts? Educational exchange opportunities? The chance for real change–and improvement–to occur? Military forces in the names of “stabilization” or “control” are so short-term they are more reflex than strategy–body over mind.

Seek out a positive future–unite the world and move on!

According to the United States’ Bureau of Labor Statistics the largest occupations add up to 29.7 million jobs, out of around 126 million jobs in the US today (according to Statista). How many of these jobs are under threat from automation?

When looking at the breakdown of jobs distributed across the US the threat from technology becomes even starker: how many of these industries face challenges and human job losses from automation?

That’s 34.5%, or over a third of US jobs potentially lost with automation–and the news gets ever worse: according to the BBC, 800 million jobs will be lost worldwide by 2030.

We can brace ourselves, but that requires listening and agreement. Godspeed to us All.

Shore feels safe, at least safer than the waves–but while a ship is safest in its harbor, that’s not what ships are for.

A recent PBS Newshour piece highlighted proposed changes in Sweden that would modify religious services to include feminine versions of God in their liturgies: for example, instead of the “Our Father” the prayer would become “Our Mother.” (The full piece is here)

One voiced dissent came from a pastor who said

Being part of a tradition means that you come from somewhere. You have a history, and that forms you and makes you what you are. And if you lose contact with your roots, you run the risk of losing your own identity. –Pastor Michael Lowegren

This fear is not to be taken lightly–if an organism feels threatened it will act, either defensively or aggressively, and neither attitude is attractive in a civilized setting. So the pastor’s fear–and the fear that he’s spreading–is that to lose one’s roots means losing one’s identity. What the pastor is not saying is how identities are fluid, amorphous fairy-tales; that no matter how stone-like they appear, change and growth are possible.

If our identity is precious to us, we have already lost–it means we are attached to a view of ourselves, a view of the world, or a view of others that we are hesitant to change, out of fear of “losing our identity.”

But only by losing sight of our own shores do we gain the possibility of discovering new ones.

Safe Travels, Sailors

New Desk

Better get working!

I saw many movies in 2017

117!

When I narrowed that down to films I “really liked” or “loved”:

54 films met those criteria

When I narrowed that down to films released in 2017

21 films were returned

I would recommend any of the following films released in 2017:

(Yes I saw Get Out — twice)

When I took Algebra II as a freshmen in high school, I got Ds and had to repeat it over summer school. When I took pre-Calculus as a junior in high school, I got Fs and got dejected.

After years of studying math independently I became a math tutor, and when I started at Seattle Central College their placement test confirmed that, while I had mastered elementary math, my upper-level skills were severely lacking.

At Seattle Central, my focus has been on completing my Associate’s degree in Web Development. In addition I’ve taken extra courses to expand my employ-ability, like Computer Science II and College Algebra (the latter being similar to my endeavors in high school). I’ve had a mental block to learning this material, stemming from my issues in high school and beyond, but through the diligence and patience of professor S I was able to surmount my own personal obstacles and self-sabotaging behaviors to achieve an A- this term:

Next stop: Trigonometry!!