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<title>Jach&apos;s Recent Posts</title>
<description>The 30 most recent posts on Jach&apos;s blog.</description>
<link>http://www.thejach.com/</link>
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<title>Response to: The Perils of Java Schools</title>
<description><![CDATA[I read this good article here: http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/ThePerilsofJavaSchools.html It is a very good rant, you should read it! While you don't need to read it to make sense of my response, it is still a response/thoughts about. Anyway, here is my response I initially wrote as an email to a former high school CS teacher.]]></description>
<link>http://www.thejach.com/view/2010/07/response_to_the_perils_of_java_schools</link>
<guid>http://www.thejach.com/view/2010/07/response_to_the_perils_of_java_schools</guid>
<pubDate>Sat, 24 Jul 2010 01:16:40 -0700</pubDate>
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<title>How to turn an agnostic</title>
<description><![CDATA[This is a tongue-in-cheek mini-tutorial for how one might go about converting an agnostic to some theistic religion. It may work on some atheists. It may not work on anyone. I probably won't ever try this since it probably falls under my category of abuse.]]></description>
<link>http://www.thejach.com/view/2010/07/how_to_turn_an_agnostic</link>
<guid>http://www.thejach.com/view/2010/07/how_to_turn_an_agnostic</guid>
<pubDate>Thu, 22 Jul 2010 05:56:41 -0700</pubDate>
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<title>Thinking In Groups</title>
<description><![CDATA[This is perhaps my least favorite form of religious thinking, simply because it afflicts many an Atheist as well. It's a useful heuristic of classification built into our brains, but nevertheless I also consider it a very harmful bias simply because of all the baggage it carries. Allow me.]]></description>
<link>http://www.thejach.com/view/2010/07/thinking_in_groups</link>
<guid>http://www.thejach.com/view/2010/07/thinking_in_groups</guid>
<pubDate>Thu, 22 Jul 2010 05:24:13 -0700</pubDate>
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<title>Power Levels</title>
<description><![CDATA[I realized a few days ago that it's been a bit over a year since I started writing on this blog. Wow, time flies a lot quicker now that I'm older. I still remember the summer after Kindergarten, not because of anything I did, but just because it felt oh so long. And every year after that, time has consistently seemed to go faster than the last.]]></description>
<link>http://www.thejach.com/view/2010/07/power_levels</link>
<guid>http://www.thejach.com/view/2010/07/power_levels</guid>
<pubDate>Fri, 16 Jul 2010 00:24:27 -0700</pubDate>
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<title>Teaching Programming</title>
<description><![CDATA[I've thought a lot about methods of teaching, specifically programming. While I don't immediately see myself writing a book or becoming a teacher, I nevertheless see those as two highish possibilities simply because I think about that sort of stuff a lot.]]></description>
<link>http://www.thejach.com/view/2010/07/teaching_programming</link>
<guid>http://www.thejach.com/view/2010/07/teaching_programming</guid>
<pubDate>Sat, 10 Jul 2010 00:18:04 -0700</pubDate>
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<title>Just-in-time Learning</title>
<description><![CDATA[One of my favorite ways of learning is just-in-time learning. That is, you learn something when you need it. Splines are cool and all, but you don't really need to learn them until you're doing something with cubic interpolation. (Like path definitions in video games.)]]></description>
<link>http://www.thejach.com/view/2010/07/just-in-time_learning</link>
<guid>http://www.thejach.com/view/2010/07/just-in-time_learning</guid>
<pubDate>Tue, 06 Jul 2010 03:45:11 -0700</pubDate>
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<title>Flex XMLList Set Intersections, Unions, Differences</title>
<description><![CDATA[Here's some code I wrote recently I felt like sharing with the world, just because. Consider it public domain, no warranties, guarantees, etc. Don't know how it will work with XML with children. (Actually it works as expected. These functions and some array-versions I implemented have been quite useful.)]]></description>
<link>http://www.thejach.com/view/2010/06/flex_xmllist_set_intersections_unions_differences</link>
<guid>http://www.thejach.com/view/2010/06/flex_xmllist_set_intersections_unions_differences</guid>
<pubDate>Wed, 30 Jun 2010 13:05:51 -0700</pubDate>
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<title>The Perfect Ones</title>
<description><![CDATA[This is a short story I wrote for a class assignment in 11th grade (I think it was to write a Canterbury Tale) that a friend recently dug up to remind me about. She says she likes it, so I'm posting it here unedited. I think it's okayish. I may go back to this world and do a Part Two. Note that while I still share a significant number of the underlying views presented here, my 11th grade self (only a few years ago too!) is almost a completely different person to me now.]]></description>
<link>http://www.thejach.com/view/2010/06/the_perfect_ones</link>
<guid>http://www.thejach.com/view/2010/06/the_perfect_ones</guid>
<pubDate>Wed, 30 Jun 2010 02:15:08 -0700</pubDate>
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<title>Eminem's New Album Rules</title>
<description><![CDATA[Just throwing that out there. Recovery wins.]]></description>
<link>http://www.thejach.com/view/2010/06/eminems_new_album_rules</link>
<guid>http://www.thejach.com/view/2010/06/eminems_new_album_rules</guid>
<pubDate>Sat, 26 Jun 2010 20:53:24 -0700</pubDate>
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<title>Enjoy it!</title>
<description><![CDATA[Why all the focus on &quot;live life in the moment, 'cause tomorrow you may die!&quot;? Or &quot;Enjoy it while it lasts!&quot;? Why not simply live life, sometimes in the moment, and why not simply enjoy it? Why should something have to end in order for you to appreciate it more?]]></description>
<link>http://www.thejach.com/view/2010/06/enjoy_it</link>
<guid>http://www.thejach.com/view/2010/06/enjoy_it</guid>
<pubDate>Wed, 23 Jun 2010 00:48:44 -0700</pubDate>
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<title>Role Playing Is Like Chess</title>
<description><![CDATA[I started doing online role playing roughly 6 or 7 years ago, though for the past 2 years at least I've been on an RP hiatus. I just lost interest, and I lost contacts with people. My primary source of RP has always been Furcadia (before you ask, no I don't consider myself a furry and don't think yiffing really constitutes RP), in addition to the once-in-a-blue-moon forum RP or quick session in an IM window.]]></description>
<link>http://www.thejach.com/view/2010/06/role_playing_is_like_chess</link>
<guid>http://www.thejach.com/view/2010/06/role_playing_is_like_chess</guid>
<pubDate>Sun, 20 Jun 2010 04:04:40 -0700</pubDate>
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<title>Why I Sometimes Really Dislike Java</title>
<description><![CDATA[I don't hate Java, but the formalities really annoy me sometimes. And I wrote this code, so I don't hate it at all. (Well, the XML design wasn't mine, and it will be refactored.) Anyway, this is why. Mainly just the first line.]]></description>
<link>http://www.thejach.com/view/2010/06/why_i_sometimes_really_dislike_java</link>
<guid>http://www.thejach.com/view/2010/06/why_i_sometimes_really_dislike_java</guid>
<pubDate>Tue, 15 Jun 2010 21:09:46 -0700</pubDate>
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<title>Is Environmentalism a Religion?</title>
<description><![CDATA[I heard an interesting argument in this vein today, and I want to explore it. So first of all, let us be rational about this, and determine what it is we mean by religion. That is, picking two concepts such as Environmentalism and Christianity, what criteria can we select to promote either of these two concepts to &quot;religion-hood&quot;?]]></description>
<link>http://www.thejach.com/view/2010/06/is_environmentalism_a_religion</link>
<guid>http://www.thejach.com/view/2010/06/is_environmentalism_a_religion</guid>
<pubDate>Mon, 07 Jun 2010 13:36:53 -0700</pubDate>
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<title>Pain-Free Meat</title>
<description><![CDATA[I recently read of the idea of using our advanced technology to remove the capacity for our farm animals to feel pain. I've thought about whether that would be a good way to go, and I'm kind of on the fence. I see logic in both sides of the argument, and if actually faced with making the final decision I assign slightly higher chance to go down the path of no-pain meat but not completely like it.]]></description>
<link>http://www.thejach.com/view/2010/06/pain-free_meat</link>
<guid>http://www.thejach.com/view/2010/06/pain-free_meat</guid>
<pubDate>Sat, 05 Jun 2010 14:53:35 -0700</pubDate>
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<title>Idiocy, and Why is disabling allowed?</title>
<description><![CDATA[So besides being more practical to allow disabling a violent defector (but not killing them!), why else might it be good, and why should we not kill anyway?]]></description>
<link>http://www.thejach.com/view/2010/05/idiocy_and_why_is_disabling_allowed</link>
<guid>http://www.thejach.com/view/2010/05/idiocy_and_why_is_disabling_allowed</guid>
<pubDate>Thu, 27 May 2010 07:41:11 -0700</pubDate>
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<title>Research Paper: The Need For Friendly Artificial General Intelligence</title>
<description><![CDATA[This paper is best read as a PDF, which you can download here. I have included a copy-paste of the text here for your benefit, however. This was my final paper project for my Sociology class. (Side note: research papers are easier than full blown essays since you're just researching what other people have said rather than trying to develop your own techniques!)]]></description>
<link>http://www.thejach.com/view/2010/05/research_paper_the_need_for_friendly_artificial_general_intelligence</link>
<guid>http://www.thejach.com/view/2010/05/research_paper_the_need_for_friendly_artificial_general_intelligence</guid>
<pubDate>Mon, 17 May 2010 07:05:22 -0700</pubDate>
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<title>Sociology Memo: Is it Ethically Permissible to Clone Human Cells?</title>
<description><![CDATA[The No Author, Van Gend, presents an interesting flavor of arguing that initially begins by insulting the benefits of cloning, calling it a waste of hope. Well, yeah, if you have 8 years of no stem cell research (in the US) and in general no time to test these things, there are going to be problems. I will agree with him that cloning is rather a misplaced technology, but only because I see nanotechnology as far more powerful than stem cells, and that's where our money should be going instead.]]></description>
<link>http://www.thejach.com/view/2010/05/sociology_memo_is_it_ethically_permissible_to_clone_human_cells</link>
<guid>http://www.thejach.com/view/2010/05/sociology_memo_is_it_ethically_permissible_to_clone_human_cells</guid>
<pubDate>Mon, 17 May 2010 06:35:15 -0700</pubDate>
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<title>Sociology Memo: Should the World's Libraries Be Digitized?</title>
<description><![CDATA[When people start arguing against the right to read, I get pretty suspicious where their motives are. Keith presents some very odd arguments to start out with before he goes into the old copyright-violating argument. Copyright violation is really the only one that should be taken seriously, as the ones preceding aren't very good. First of all, if I go and buy a book, I do not thereafter need the author or publisher's permission to make a copy of it for personal use, or to write in my copy, or to lend it to my friend, or to even donate it to a library where others will be able to check it out and read it for free. The sticky water is when I try to sell the copy, but the existence of used book stores and resells on Amazon make it fairly clear that this is not an issue either.]]></description>
<link>http://www.thejach.com/view/2010/05/sociology_memo_should_the_worlds_libraries_be_digitized</link>
<guid>http://www.thejach.com/view/2010/05/sociology_memo_should_the_worlds_libraries_be_digitized</guid>
<pubDate>Mon, 17 May 2010 06:29:39 -0700</pubDate>
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<title>Sociology memo: Is Information Technology a Threat to Privacy?</title>
<description><![CDATA[Taylor talks about lives at stake. Well, the price of freedom is a couple planes in a couple buildings with a few thousand dead, not a decade of foreign occupation, thousands of our own soldiers dead, hundreds of thousands of innocent Arabs dead or displaced, an economy in the shambles, and invasion of privacy for Americans. When a country fights for such things as freedom, there are risks it has to take. It seems like the relevant Benjamin Franklin quote always comes up during these conversations: ``Any society that would give up a little liberty to gain a little security will deserve neither and lose both.'' Airplanes are safer after 9/11 not because of any security increases at airports (such measures are a joke and trivial for any thinking person to get around (which shows you the stupidity of the enemy if they can't get around it (though I suspect the problem is more in the difficult of motivating people to kill themselves, which is not easy and a promise of virgins has little to nothing to do with it))), but because passengers now know to resist terrorists. The recent ''underwear bomber'' was stupid for being obvious, but passengers also resisted him and he was stopped.]]></description>
<link>http://www.thejach.com/view/2010/05/sociology_memo_is_information_technology_a_threat_to_privacy</link>
<guid>http://www.thejach.com/view/2010/05/sociology_memo_is_information_technology_a_threat_to_privacy</guid>
<pubDate>Mon, 17 May 2010 06:21:15 -0700</pubDate>
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<title>Sociology memo: Intelligent Machines</title>
<description><![CDATA[It's a sad thing that people don't seem to be able to see science fiction happening in real life. Horgan starts with the ``I'm 54'', as if that makes a difference on his opinion of this matter, but does reveal his likely generational bias. He even uses the rhetoric claim that ``they're all men'', which is a falsehood as an absolute statement. There are in fact women, even if he's never seen one.]]></description>
<link>http://www.thejach.com/view/2010/05/sociology_memo_intelligent_machines</link>
<guid>http://www.thejach.com/view/2010/05/sociology_memo_intelligent_machines</guid>
<pubDate>Mon, 17 May 2010 06:11:58 -0700</pubDate>
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<title>Sociology Memo: Genetically Modified Food</title>
<description><![CDATA[I don't really understand the mindset involved in opposing genetically modified food. What's the alternative? Look to our past, look to the middle ages. Entire crops can be wiped out by a fluke of disease or pests or even weather. Countless man-hours are spent toiling in the fields using inferior tools, foods available are limited by season, and the foods people do get to eat are nutritionally lacking. Hardcore Vegans couldn't even survive!]]></description>
<link>http://www.thejach.com/view/2010/04/sociology_memo_genetically_modified_food</link>
<guid>http://www.thejach.com/view/2010/04/sociology_memo_genetically_modified_food</guid>
<pubDate>Thu, 29 Apr 2010 20:50:23 -0700</pubDate>
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<title>Sociology Memo: Nanotechnology</title>
<description><![CDATA[When talking about nanotechnology, one generally means the special case of molecular nanotechnology with nanobots manipulating the structure of atoms around them, possibly even self-replicating. I think Balbus et al. in the reading avoid this and talk about technology that simply happens to be at the nanoscale, such as nanotubes, which we've already had for quite some time, and it makes their calls for regulation and market diversification seem silly. And really, we're already approaching full-blown molecular nanotechnology: last year it was shown we could build robots that manipulate individual molecules. (source) Since then further advances have been made, including manipulating individual atoms in certain environments.]]></description>
<link>http://www.thejach.com/view/2010/04/sociology_memo_nanotechnology</link>
<guid>http://www.thejach.com/view/2010/04/sociology_memo_nanotechnology</guid>
<pubDate>Thu, 29 Apr 2010 20:40:33 -0700</pubDate>
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<title>Sociology Memo: Network Neutrality</title>
<description><![CDATA[Another memo, the question here was something along the lines of should the FCC enforce network neutrality.]]></description>
<link>http://www.thejach.com/view/2010/04/sociology_memo_network_neutrality</link>
<guid>http://www.thejach.com/view/2010/04/sociology_memo_network_neutrality</guid>
<pubDate>Thu, 29 Apr 2010 20:27:18 -0700</pubDate>
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<title>Sociology Memo: Intelligent Design vs. Evolution in Schools</title>
<description><![CDATA[This is a memo I wrote for class a few months back, going to be posting a bunch now. The question here was &quot;Should Intelligent Design be taught in public schools?&quot;]]></description>
<link>http://www.thejach.com/view/2010/04/sociology_memo_intelligent_design_vs_evolution_in_schools</link>
<guid>http://www.thejach.com/view/2010/04/sociology_memo_intelligent_design_vs_evolution_in_schools</guid>
<pubDate>Thu, 29 Apr 2010 20:22:01 -0700</pubDate>
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<title>Tao Te Ching Reflections, 26 through 46</title>
<description><![CDATA[26]]></description>
<link>http://www.thejach.com/view/2010/04/tao_te_ching_reflections_26_through_46</link>
<guid>http://www.thejach.com/view/2010/04/tao_te_ching_reflections_26_through_46</guid>
<pubDate>Wed, 28 Apr 2010 17:53:34 -0700</pubDate>
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<title>Getters (Accessors) and Setters (Mutators) Are Evil</title>
<description><![CDATA[They are a plague upon Object Oriented Programming everywhere! They are concepts from a less civilized age.]]></description>
<link>http://www.thejach.com/view/2010/04/getters_accessors_and_setters_mutators_are_evil</link>
<guid>http://www.thejach.com/view/2010/04/getters_accessors_and_setters_mutators_are_evil</guid>
<pubDate>Wed, 28 Apr 2010 15:40:00 -0700</pubDate>
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<title>Humanity's Progress, Niceness</title>
<description><![CDATA[Humans are social creatures, and being social creatures it makes sense that we have innate altruistic desires. (See The Moral Animal for an awesome introduction to Evolutionary Psychology.) It further makes sense that in order to have significant progress as a species, most of the members also need to progress.]]></description>
<link>http://www.thejach.com/view/2010/04/humanitys_progress_niceness</link>
<guid>http://www.thejach.com/view/2010/04/humanitys_progress_niceness</guid>
<pubDate>Sun, 25 Apr 2010 05:20:03 -0700</pubDate>
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<title>A brief foray into determinism</title>
<description><![CDATA[A deterministic system is one where some piece of information determines another. This is most commonly the case in Math and input-less programming:]]></description>
<link>http://www.thejach.com/view/2010/04/a_brief_foray_into_determinism</link>
<guid>http://www.thejach.com/view/2010/04/a_brief_foray_into_determinism</guid>
<pubDate>Fri, 16 Apr 2010 21:33:02 -0700</pubDate>
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<title>Dumb Hack: cycle desktop background in gnome</title>
<description><![CDATA[Cool little feature I wanted but didn't immediately find a solution to (it took a little googling), my Linux desktop background wallpaper now changes and cycles over random images in a specified directory. I also made a few-lines Python script to replicate the functionality of the show desktop button in Gnome's gnome-panel.]]></description>
<link>http://www.thejach.com/view/2010/04/dumb_hack_cycle_desktop_background_in_gnome</link>
<guid>http://www.thejach.com/view/2010/04/dumb_hack_cycle_desktop_background_in_gnome</guid>
<pubDate>Thu, 15 Apr 2010 22:09:00 -0700</pubDate>
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<title>Some problems with C and C++</title>
<description><![CDATA[First off, let me list the two things I love about both C and C++.]]></description>
<link>http://www.thejach.com/view/2010/04/some_problems_with_c_and_c</link>
<guid>http://www.thejach.com/view/2010/04/some_problems_with_c_and_c</guid>
<pubDate>Tue, 06 Apr 2010 15:05:45 -0700</pubDate>
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