Scala, Java, Unix, MacOS tutorials (page 1)

November 3, 2020

Dear diary,

I got pretty sick this afternoon. That’s always been one thing about this body, if you push it, it will push back. Some of it may be mast cell related, some of it may be kidney related (some of my kidney numbers are not good currently).

Ended up sleeping from noon until 5pm. I have the heat turned up now, drinking warm fluids, and wearing a heavy shirt. When I laid down earlier I started having chest pain, so I took some Benadryl and that eventually went away, but then I slept.

In case these two examples disappear from the ZIO JDBC repository, I have made a copy of them here.

(I say that because earlier this week (late October, 2024) I was told the the ZIO JDBC library is no longer maintained, and then I was also told that they just found a new maintainer.)

That being said, here are the ZIO-JDBC examples. This first one is called Basic.scala:

About half an hour ago I was a passenger in a car in Poland. I was debating with the driver about what to do, because we had already checked out of our hotel, but we were running late, and we had planned on getting to another country. Because we were so late and things were unfamiliar, I was saying that we should go back to the hotel. I think we were in Krakow and talking about where to go next, but maybe going to Krakow was part of the plan.

In front of us there was a car, and then another vehicle that looked like a dump truck. Suddenly the truck exploded. It was a huge explosion that obliterated the truck. Inside the car, my ears were ringing.

Here’s a brief Scala ZIO HTTP “Hello, world” example from that repository, followed by a description of the code and “key points” to know about the example:

import zio.*
import zio.http.*

object HelloWorld extends ZIOAppDefault:

    // responds with plain text
    val homeRoute =
        Method.GET / Root -> handler(Response.text("Hello, World!"))

    // responds with JSON
    val jsonRoute =
        Method.GET / "json" -> handler(Response.json("""{"greetings": "Hello World!"}"""))

    // create HTTP route
    val app = Routes(homeRoute, jsonRoute)

    // run it like any simple app
    override val run = Server.serve(app)
                             .provide(Server.default)

October 26, 2019, in a meditative state:

As I return from the blackness of meditation, I see a very old man with long white hair and long white beard sitting in front of me. He’s wearing a full-body length white garment that I would call a dress if a woman was wearing it. (The garment has another name that I don’t know.)

He’s seated in a full-lotus position, with his eyes closed. I admire his posture, with one foot on each thigh, one hand resting on the other in a mudra in his lap, his shoulders back, and his chin tucked.

Not knowing what to do of whether he even speaks English, I whisper, “Hello.”

His eyes open gently, and he looks at me with a small, pleasant smile. “Welcome,” he replies.

In 2024, assuming that you’re using (a) a modern macOS version and (b) a modern Java version, and (c) you want to bundle a Java/JAR file as a Mac/macOS application, then (d) you’ll want to use the Java jpackage command to bundle your Java/Scala/Kotlin/JVM application into something that works like a native application. Here’s a quick example that works with the following assumptions:

Mindfulness/meditation FAQ: What are the reasons, purposes, or motivations to practice mindfulness and meditation?

The motivations to meditate

I just took a little time to share some old notes from my meditation practice about “The purpose of mindfulness.” (This is also stated in other ways, like “Why bother being mindful?”, or, “What are the motivations for practicing mindfulness and meditation?”)

In the following sections I describe the purposes and motivations for practicing both mindfulness and meditation.

Before getting into my notes, I don’t know how many people know Ram Dass or have read his writings, but I updated the first motivation here based on his work, because if you really get into mindfulness and meditation, what he states is the end goal.