If you haven’t seen them yet, here’s a link to Alvin Alexander’s free Scala 3 and Functional Programming video courses. The functional programming course shown in this image was just released today, September, 8, 2024.
Scala, Java, Unix, MacOS tutorials (page 1)
If you’re interested in mindfulness and meditation, this scene from “Star Wars: Rogue One” demonstrates mantra meditation at its best: Belief, total commitment and single-mindedness, and practice in action.
A few related quotes:
“You must concentrate upon and consecrate yourself wholly to each day, as though a fire were raging in your hair.”
~ Zen Master Taisen Deshimaru
“When you do something, burn yourself up completely, like a good bonfire, leaving no trace of yourself.”
~ Zen Master Shunryu Suzuki
Until a few years ago I didn’t know that some (many?) people feel stress almost all the time, and I had friends in Colorado who use this mantra technique as a way to calm down when they feel stress.
Dear Fellow Christian Voter,
In the 2024 Presidential Election we face more lies and misinformation than ever before — especially those of you who live in swing states. Personally, I love my country, and as a result, I am writing a series of articles where all I ask you is to trust The Bible and Jesus Christ:
- Trust The Bible, Jesus, and yourself
- Quotes from Jesus about lying, and people who lie
- The Ten Commandments and the 2024 Presidential Election
In this time of lies and A.I.-generated propaganda, I hope will ignore all of that misinformation and just trust those sources: The Bible, and Jesus Christ. Thank you.
Dear Fellow Christian Voters,
I have no idea what’s true anymore, but it is being reported in many places, such as this NPR article, that the Russian government and “Russian operatives” continue to try to influence American elections. I don’t know about you, but that makes my stomach upset, at the very least.
Therefore, I am writing a series of articles where I ask you to ignore all the propaganda and just look at what The Bible and Jesus have said, and use only that and your common sense in voting in 2024. Here are my current articles:
- Trust The Bible, Jesus, and yourself
- Quotes from Jesus about lying, and people who lie
- The Ten Commandments and the 2024 Presidential Election
This is especially true in swing states, because people who live in those states will be targeted even more than other states.
I’m glad to report that my book, Learn Functional Programming The Fast Way, is five-star rated on Gumroad.com. And as I write this sentence on September 6, 2024, it’s also FREE!
“If we do not practice mindfulness while carrying a bucket of water, it is a waste of time to seclude ourselves in a monastery.” ~ Thich Nhat Hanh
In a previous post I wrote that True Christian Voters should trust the Bible, Jesus, and themselves, and today I want to get into a topic that has made me so upset that I’ve started writing about these things: That we — Christian voters — need to start voting for people who REALLY tell the truth, and SHOULD NOT vote for people who blatantly lie.
If you can’t tell from that paragraph, I’m sick and tired of politicians and television shows trying to co-opt Jesus’s message for their gain. I hope you agree that this needs to stop.
What Jesus said about telling the truth
To begin with, let’s look at what Jesus said about telling the truth, and how we should not lie.
Dear Fellow Christian Voters,
As what I call a True Christian Voter, it REALLY upsets me when politicians and so-called “news” networks distort Jesus’s messages for their own political gain. It obviously drives me crazy, because here I am writing this.
To help un-distort those false words, I’m asking you as a True Christian to base your 2024 votes on the FACTS. Don’t vote based on what politicians SAY, but on WHAT THEY DO.
Put another way, don’t let politicians and pollsters tell you how to vote: Vote based on your own knowledge and faith in the words of Jesus and The Bible.
Dear Fellow Christian Voters,
The 2024 voting season is upon us in the United States, and many politicians and news networks will try to make you believe they support Christian values.
Frankly, I’m fed up with all of them trying to use and distort Jesus’s message, and I’m here to ask you to ignore their WORDS and pay attention to their ACTIONS. As a Christian, just ask yourself:
Do the ACTIONS of this person really represent Christian values?
Scala 3 FAQ: What are opaque types in Scala?
Discussion
I previously wrote a little about Opaque Types in Scala 3, and today, as I’m working on a new video about opaque types, I thought I’d add some more information about them.
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.
As I work more with ZIO 2, I also find myself thinking a lot about the ZIO 2 mental model, by which I partially mean “a way of thinking about your code” and also “ZIO 2 best practices.”
Here are my initial notes. Also, I hope that most of this code is mine, but several snippets are from other sources that I don’t remember, including the official ZIO 2 docs.
After my first-ever bought with diverticulitis, I wanted to make notes about what happened over the last five days.
Monday, April 7, 2015
On April 7, 2015, I woke up at 3:30am with pain and discomfort in my lower-left abdomen. I knew something was wrong, but I didn’t know what it was. It felt like a golf ball was lodged in there, and several hours later it was still there.
While many people know the famous Ram Dass book, Be Here Now — which is currently the #1 All-Time Best-Selling book in Spiritualism on Amazon — I’d argue that it’s not necessarily his best book.
For example, I have met a few people in my travels who were struggling to read and understand it it because of all the art and 1960s “hippie style” stuff — which I personally like — and it was at that time I realized that while Be Here Now is his most famous book, it may not be his best book. (The problem with the “hippie stuff” is that it’s also distracting.)
Ram Dass’s best books
IMHO, I think the following books are his best, where I believe best will also depend on (a) a person’s experience with his writings and teachings, and also (b) their own progress on the spiritual path. And in this case, I think it’s also about book’s that are more straight to the point.
When I first started meditating in the 1990s, I often had a hard time getting into the proper meditative state when I sat down on the meditation cushion. My “monkey mind” would be jumping all over the place, and it would take me a long time to get it to settle down. Many times I couldn’t even get it to settle down before my 30-minute timer went off.
Because of that, and because I really wanted to become better at meditating, I began experimenting with different ways to get into the meditative state faster.
As a result, this page is a summary of the best ways I know to help you get into a good meditation state when you take time to sit on the meditation cushion (or wherever else you sit). If you’re interested in getting into a deep state fast, these are the “best practices” I know, especially when you’re short on time.
As a brief note today, I’ve been reading the Bhagavad Gita (translated by Jack Hawley) lately, and he shares this good line that relates to desire, attachment, and even addiction:
“Realizing the truth of your True Self
is your principal weapon for eradicating desire.”
My short interpretation of that is that our True Self is not our physical body, but something else that you might call awareness, consciousness, the subtle body, the soul, or the Atma — depending on your background — AND, it is possible through yoga, mindfulness, and meditation practice to get in touch with (feel/experience) your True Self. And then, once you realize who “you” really are, your attachments to the physical world will go away.
I used to have a friend who was an addict, and I know she was always looking for anything that would help, so I hope this quote can be helpful for others.
Update: As a followup to my original post, in the book, I Am That, Nisargadatta Maharaj basically says the same thing (many times) as the quote I shared above.
In 2024 I watched the very emotional Elton John “Tiny Dancer” music video, and afterwards I wanted to do some research on how the music video was created, the story behind it, and what its meaning is. To that end, here’s a summary of what I found out about the “Tiny Dancer” music video.
The story and meaning of the Tiny Dancer song
The short story behind the Tiny Dancer song goes like this:
The song, “Empty Garden (Hey Hey Johnny),” by Elton John and Bernie Taupin is one of my favorite “sad” songs, and a great tribute to John Lennon, who was one of my “peaceful” inspirations when I was growing up. In the song, I think there are at least two interpretations of the lyrics, “It's funny how one insect can damage so much grain,” and I’d like to share those here.
I recently watched the movie, The Ten Commandments, and when I saw Sephora, I thought, “She looks familiar.”
It turns out she’s played by Yvonne De Carlo. She’s the actress who’s portrayed on my Learn Scala 3 book cover, which is based on the 1950 movie, Buccaneer’s Girl, which she starred in. (Until this, I thought I only knew her as Lily Munster on The Munsters.)
And if you like the movie The Ten Commandments, I also wrote this blog post about The Ten Commandments and the 2024 Presidential Election.
“It was the 3rd of September...”
When I think of the song Papa Was A Rolling Stone, I think of the line, “And when he died, all he left us was a loan...”
(I never knew if the lyrics were supposed to be “alone” or “a loan,” but “a loan” is more accurate in the case of my father and family.)