I am taking a break from my normal programming fare with this message about WordPress supporting the 1 for all movement. I think that we do take familiar things like the First Amendment for granted and that most people do not understand the US Constitution as well as they should. If you have not read the US Constitution lately, head on over to USConstitution.net and read up. It may a bit dry in parts, but it is the founding document of our nation and deserves a good read.
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances. Born and raised on the Texas Gulf Coast, I’ve spent the past few months trying to wrap my head around the Deepwater Horizon explosion and subsequent massive oil spill that is no … Read More
via WordPress.com News
Is there any indication we shouldn’t be depressed? Are you living on the same planet that I am? Do you ever think that depression might be the reasonable human response to the crap we’re going through as a species, meant to propel us into the next evolutionary step or, at least, into taking some different course of action, so that we might survive? Do you ever think that maybe it’s the happy people that are really screwed up in the head?
-Marc Maron
Check out Maron’s original routine on having a manic depressive father. It’s actually really funny.
When I was seven years old, I joined the “junior” group of the Boy Scouts, the Cub Scouts. When I was eleven, I moved up to the Boy Scouts and after seven years of procrastination and hard work, I earned Eagle Scout.
For those who are not aware, Eagle Scout is not an easy accomplishment. It takes determination and hard work. I felt it was worth it. The ony drawback was, I had to omit certain personal views which would have disqualified me from even being in the Boy Scouts. I was and still am an atheist.
One of the central tenets of BSA’s charter is that a boy must believe in the guiding hand of a higher power in order to acheive a normal, balanced sense of morality. This is a misguided viewpoint and one that keeps well-behaved, intelligent boys and their families from participating in an organization which has been a huge part of American culture for a century.
The tragedy of all this is it is not necessary. Bigotry rarely is. Instead of teaching kids a rigid set of morals based on religion, let them develop their own sense of right and wrong through the world around them and by example. Kids learn by example, anyway, so it should be simple.
Teaching kids how to survive and get by in the outdoors is great and that should always be a part of the scouting experience.
Service to the community is also a must.
Learning about the natural world through experience and observation should be given more ground, rather than faith.
Instead of an opening and closing prayer at meetings, have everyone introduce themselves if the troop is big, have them demonstrate some skill that they learned in Boy Scouts, anything (but prayer). I fully acknowledge that this is a reflection of my own personal values, but a child is no more a Christian than he is a member of the IBEW.
The BSA has a real chance to change their ways and become a youth organization of the 21st century. I doubt that they will any time soon, but a guy can dream.
When I see the state of the world, I am filled with mixed feelings: optimism and despair, hope and fear. It is my opinion that most people are well-adjusted and sympathetic human beings who just want to be left alone as they go about their day. However, there are others, a vocal minority who tend to destabilize things on local or global scales.
I see two possibilities. We can die out as a species because nature selects us for extinction. The other possibility is that we drive ourselves into extinction by means like war, genocide, weapons of mass destruction, and the like.
Humanity can have such a rich and long future, but only if we make the right decisions now. The first thing that we have to get over is the notion that the world’s problems are permanent. With enough discipline, anything is possible.
Really, this whole situation could go either way. We could destroy ourselves or not. I much prefer the latter option.
It seems like most people in my position, those who are just a few short months from graduating from college, are looking for a real, full-time job. However, if their experience is anything like mine, they find themselves feeling unprepared and under-qualified. I plan on getting into some type of development. Ideally, I would like to work for University Information Technology Services at IUPUI. Like most employers in this area, however, they require a year or two of experience. This leaves me with a Catch 22 to contend with.
Internships offer a great opportunity for students or recent graduates to get real-world experience. I apologize if that sounded like a line from a brochure, but it’s true. Earlier this year, I did a four-month internship at Mobi and I learned a crazy amount of stuff in that time. Many of these internships are paid internships and they may or may not provide enough income to live on your own. In this sense, an internship can provide the best of both worlds from a regular job and school. You are essentially being paid to learn and gain real-world experience beyond what any class can ever provide. Internships are a pretty good deal for students.
The advantage is not entirely the intern’s. The company providing the internship can have someone to perform tasks that do not require a high level of expertise, allowing them to delegate more experience employees to more challenging tasks. At the end of the internship, they will also have a person on their hands who will probably be in the workforce for the next forty years and will be well-trained in recent technologies and will be familiar with the company’s policies and customs. Internships are a pretty good deal for employers.
I am looking around for a second internship before I move into the regular workforce to build up my skills a little more. If you are about the graduate, start looking for internships in your career area. You will not regret it.
Resources:
Positions at UITS
List of Job Boards from the IU School of Informatics at IUPUI
I went to the 2009 APBA PRO Nationals in Depue, Illinois. It was a spectacular event. Here are the photos I took.
It has been a while since I last blogged and I figured I should put something up. I wrote a C program for training purposes for my last job. It’s just a simple command-line calculator. Enjoy!
// c_training.c
// Written by Patrick Proctor
// on February 16, 2009
// patproct@iupui.edu
//
// Last modified: March 2, 2009
//
// This file demonstrates a small portion
// of my mad programming SKILLZ.
#include <stdio.h>
#include "c_training.h"
int main () {
int menuChoice;
mainMenu ();
printf( "Menu choice: " );
scanf( "%d", &menuChoice );
if ( ( menuChoice < 1 || menuChoice > 6 ) && menuChoice != 42 ){
printf("Program has exited.\n");
} // eliminates any selection that is not 1-5
if ( menuChoice == 1 ) {
add();
}
if ( menuChoice == 2 ) {
subtract();
}
if ( menuChoice == 3 ) {
multiply();
}
if ( menuChoice == 4 ) {
divide();
}
if ( menuChoice == 5 ) {
modulus();
}
if ( menuChoice == 6 ) {
about();
}
if ( menuChoice == 42 ) {
blownMind();
}
return 0;
}
int mainMenu () {
printf( "| Calculator |\n" );
printf( "|======================|\n" );
printf( "| 1. Add |\n" );
printf( "| 2. Subtract |\n" );
printf( "| 3. Multiply |\n" );
printf( "| 4. Divide |\n" );
printf( "| 5. Modulus |\n" );
printf( "|----------------------|\n" );
printf( "| 6. About |\n" );
printf( "| 7. Exit |\n" );
printf( "|======================|\n" );
return 0;
}
int add () {
float alpha;
float beta;
float gamma;
printf( "Enter two numbers to add, separated\n by a space: " );
scanf( "%f %f", &alpha, &beta );
gamma = alpha + beta;
printf( "Sum of %f and %f is %f.\n", alpha, beta, gamma);
return 0;
}
int subtract () {
float alpha;
float beta;
float gamma;
printf( "Enter two numbers to subtract, separated\n by a space: ");
scanf( "%f %f", &alpha, &beta );
gamma = alpha - beta;
printf( "Difference of %f and %f is %f.\n", alpha, beta, gamma );
return 0;
}
int multiply () {
float alpha;
float beta;
float gamma;
printf( "Enter two numbers to multiply, separated\n by a space: " );
scanf( "%f %f", &alpha, &beta );
gamma = alpha * beta;
printf( "Product of %f and %f is %f.\n", alpha, beta, gamma );
return 0;
}
int divide () {
float alpha;
float beta;
float gamma;
printf( "Enter two numbers to divide, separated\n by a space: " );
scanf( "%f %f", &alpha, &beta );
gamma = alpha / beta;
printf( "Quotient of %f and %f is %f.\n", alpha, beta, gamma );
return 0;
}
int modulus () {
int alpha;
int beta;
int gamma;
printf( "Enter two integers to find a modulus, separated\n by a space: " );
scanf( "%d %d", &alpha, &beta );
gamma = alpha % beta;
printf( "Modulus of %d and %d is %d.\n", alpha, beta, gamma );
return 0;
}
int about() {
printf( "|=============================================|\n" );
printf( "| About |\n" );
printf( "|=============================================|\n" );
printf( "| This program was written by Patrick Proctor |\n" );
printf( "| out of boredom on Monday, February 16, 2009 |\n" );
printf( "| in NU342. Enjoy! |\n" );
printf( "| |\n" );
printf( "|---------------------------------------------|\n" );
printf( "| |\n" );
printf( "| patrick42h@gmail.com |\n" );
printf( "| http://patrick42h.wordpress.com/ |\n" );
printf( "|=============================================|\n\n" );
return 0;
}
This is my obligatory holiday-related post. What crazy, pointless point will I try to defend this year? Brace yourself… Santa Claus is a criminal. Here’s why.
Who is Santa Claus? He is a mythical figure ingrained in modern popular culture. He has been around for years. In fact, the notion of a man who gives presents to children on Christmas Eve goes back hundreds of years. So what could be wrong with this? The simple fact is, that while this is an innocuous story told to children year after year, if someone in real life we caught doing what Santa does, he would be in jail in short order.
Santa Claus is an eccentric old man who happens to own a sweatshop at the North Pole. That is so Connery-era James Bond. He basically flies all over the world and breaks into every house on Earth and gives presents to the kids. That’s right, there’s an old guy breaking into your house in the middle of the night and he’s got something for your kid. So what charges would Santa be brought up on?
- B&E – The first obvious charge would be breaking and entering. According to most versions of the myth, Santa enters the house through the chimney. Personally, I think it would be easier to break into a house through a door or unlocked window. On the other hand, we are talking about a man who dresses in bright red and lives at the north pole.
- Immigration violations – I am not a legal expert, so I cannot list any specific regulations. However, he does technically reside in international water, which is where the north pole is located. Other versions of the myth claim that Santa’s residence is in Canada or one of the Scandinavian nations. Either way, he does violate the airspace and borders of 195 nations in one night every year. That, I am almost certain,is against American immigration law. I am sure that other nations on Earth would take issue with him doing this.
- Labor law – This is more of an ethical area than a legal area. According to most modern interpretations of the Santa Claus myth, he has a factory at the north pole where his elves manufacture toys for Santa to distribute to the children. However, no mention is made of Santa ever compensating them for their labor. This would seem to indicate that Santa uses the elves as slave labor, clearly violating UN policy as well as the moral scruples of the developed world. This does not make Santa look good in the eyes of human- or elf-rights activists.
Santa is a criminal he must be stopped. Parents all over the world continue to tell children of the jolly, kind man who gives them presents every year. However, it seems as though the children never hear about the real man behind the beard, the criminal. Santa should be feared and reviled by children. However, it is difficult to convince children of an ugly truth like this when it is so much more satisfying to believe that Santa Claus is nothing more than a kind, magical man who only spreads joy across the world. Yet year after year, kids are taught to idolize a man who violates the airspace of 195 nations, breaks into millions of homes, and uses slave labor to produce toys. It needs to end here. I call on all parents to stop teaching children about Santa. At the very least, they should expose him for what he really is, a criminal.
Merry Christmas.
Attention please, ladies and gentlemen. I need help. You see, during the warmer months of the year, I race my own outboard hydroplane. It’s a lot of fun and is a hobby I have enjoyed since I started racing in 2001 at the tender age of 13. I have had my boat (pictured) for seven years and it is time to repaint.
This is where my challenge comes in. I cannot decide which color(s) I should paint my boat. I have been wracking my brain and considering all kinds of options. Our racing team colors are black and yellow. Silver can be a little hard to spot at a distance. Lots of people are doing blue and green. I kinda like the current color scheme on my boat as it is now, but it’s probably time for a change.
So, my challenge to you is to submit your color choice/scheme suggestion in the comments to this blog post. The winner doesn’t really get anything, other than my thanks for helping out. So, will you help me make up my mind?
42h (me)
WordPress gang signs? WTF!?
Patrick Proctor was here 
