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  27. <title>I can&apos;t prove I&apos;m me just yet. &lt;https://y.st./en/weblog/2017/05-May/31.xhtml&gt;</title>
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  65. <header>
  66. <h1>I can&apos;t prove I&apos;m me just yet.</h1>
  67. <p>Day 00816: Wednesday, 2017 May 31</p>
  68. </header>
  69. <section id="general">
  70. <h2>General news</h2>
  71. <p>
  72. I took a short recess from my studies and headed to the bank.
  73. I imagine this as sounding formal, like a recess from a court of law, but it brobably sounds more silly, like a recess from elementary school.
  74. Oh well.
  75. Anyway, Banner Bank sent me an offer that if I opened an account with them and used my debit card three times, they&apos;d give me $75 <abbr title="United States Dollars">USD</abbr>.
  76. I don&apos;t know if my job&apos;s going to last, so an extra $75 <abbr title="United States Dollars">USD</abbr> would be appreciated.
  77. Now that I have all my updated identification documentation, opening up accounts like this is feasible.
  78. I&apos;ll just buy a can of vegetables on three different occasions or something.
  79. The person at the bank wasn&apos;t able to open the account for me though.
  80. Apparently, the temporary <abbr title="identification">ID</abbr> given at the <abbr title="Department of Motor Vehicles">DMV</abbr> isn&apos;t legally valid.
  81. Until my more-permanent card arrives in the mail, my account remains in limbo, entered locally, but not submitted to the main system.
  82. They gave me their email address and asked me to let them know before I came in with my <abbr title="identification">ID</abbr>, giving them a chance to get my paperwork ready.
  83. </p>
  84. <p>
  85. My <a href="/a/canary.txt">canary</a> still sings the tune of freedom and transparency.
  86. </p>
  87. </section>
  88. <section id="dreams">
  89. <h2>Dream journal</h2>
  90. <p>
  91. I dreamed I was starting a new term at University of the People.
  92. One of my courses was on love, sex, and relationships.
  93. Our first discussion assignment asked what we look for in a partner.
  94. I was writing up my initial post to explain my situation, and how I don&apos;t seek a partner at all.
  95. I think if this had happened in the real world though, I would continue my post with an explanation of characteristics I&apos;d want in a partner if I did have one, such as a lack of sexuality, a strong sense of environmentalism, geekiness, and a desire to use free software.
  96. </p>
  97. </section>
  98. <section id="university">
  99. <h2>University life</h2>
  100. <p>
  101. Today was a day of catching up on reading and discussion assignments, as well as grading last week&apos;s assignment submissions.
  102. The reading material for <span title="Programming 1">CS 1102</span> was as follows:
  103. </p>
  104. <ul>
  105. <li>
  106. <a href="https://cs.nyu.edu./~yap/classes/visual/03s/lect/l7/">JAVA SWING GUI TUTORIAL</a>
  107. </li>
  108. <li>
  109. <a href="https://docs.oracle.com./javase/8/docs/api/">Java Platform SE 8</a>
  110. </li>
  111. <li>
  112. <a href="https://docs.oracle.com./javase/tutorial/2d/basic2d/">Lesson: Getting Started with Graphics (The Java™ Tutorials &gt; 2D Graphics)</a>
  113. </li>
  114. <li>
  115. <a href="https://docs.oracle.com./javase/tutorial/uiswing/">Trail: Creating a GUI With JFC/Swing (The Java™ Tutorials)</a>
  116. </li>
  117. <li>
  118. <a href="https://docs.oracle.com./javase/tutorial/uiswing/components/button.html">How to Use Buttons, Check Boxes, and Radio Buttons (The Java™ Tutorials &gt; Creating a GUI With JFC/Swing &gt; Using Swing Components)</a>
  119. </li>
  120. <li>
  121. <a href="https://docs.oracle.com./javase/tutorial/uiswing/components/panel.html">How to Use Panels (The Java™ Tutorials &gt; Creating a GUI With JFC/Swing &gt; Using Swing Components)</a>
  122. </li>
  123. <li>
  124. <a href="https://docs.oracle.com./javase/tutorial/uiswing/components/text.html">Using Text Components (The Java™ Tutorials &gt; Creating a GUI With JFC/Swing &gt; Using Swing Components)</a>
  125. </li>
  126. <li>
  127. <a href="https://docs.oracle.com./javase/tutorial/uiswing/components/textfield.html">How to Use Text Fields (The Java™ Tutorials &gt; Creating a GUI With JFC/Swing &gt; Using Swing Components)</a>
  128. </li>
  129. <li>
  130. <a href="https://docs.oracle.com./javase/tutorial/uiswing/events/api.html">Listener API Table (The Java™ Tutorials &gt; Creating a GUI With JFC/Swing &gt; Writing Event Listeners)</a>
  131. </li>
  132. <li>
  133. <a href="https://docs.oracle.com./javase/tutorial/uiswing/layout/layoutlist.html">How to Use Various Layout Managers (The Java™ Tutorials &gt; Creating a GUI With JFC/Swing &gt; Laying Out Components Within a Container)</a>
  134. </li>
  135. <li>
  136. <a href="http://math.hws.edu./javanotes/c6/">Javanotes 7.0, Chapter 6 -- Introduction to GUI Programming</a>
  137. </li>
  138. <li>
  139. <a href="https://pirlwww.lpl.arizona.edu./resources/guide/software/Java_tutorial/uiswing/layout/using.html">Using Layout Managers</a>
  140. </li>
  141. <li>
  142. <a href="http://web.mit.edu./6.005/www/sp14/psets/ps4/java-6-tutorial/components.html">A Visual Guide to Swing Components (from: The Java™ Tutorials &gt; Graphical User Interfaces &gt; Swing Features)</a>
  143. </li>
  144. <li>
  145. <a href="https://wpollock.com./Java/EventChart.htm">Java AWT Event and Listener Reference Chart</a>
  146. </li>
  147. <li>
  148. <a href="https://www.youtube.com./watch?v=EXRi7zZj1pc">CS1102 Introduction to Programming 1(Java) Unit 7 Lecture 4 - YouTube</a>
  149. </li>
  150. <li>
  151. <a href="https://www.youtube.com./watch?v=Tu44tGhsoHw">CS1102 Unit 7 Introduction to Programming (Java) Lecture 1 - YouTube</a>
  152. </li>
  153. <li>
  154. <a href="https://www.youtube.com./watch?v=rF2wkFpLF4w">CS1102 Unit 7 Introduction to Programming (Java) Lecture 3 - YouTube</a>
  155. </li>
  156. <li>
  157. <a href="https://www.youtube.com./watch?v=zWA48tQZDj4">CS1102 Introduction to Programming 1 (Java) Unit 7 Lecture 2 - YouTube</a>
  158. </li>
  159. <li>
  160. <a href="https://www3.ntu.edu.sg./home/ehchua/programming/java/J4a_GUI.html">GUI Programming - Java Programming Tutorial</a>
  161. </li>
  162. <li>
  163. <a href="https://zetcode.com/gfx/java2d/">Java 2D tutorial - Java Graphics programming</a>
  164. </li>
  165. </ul>
  166. <p>
  167. My discussion posts for today were as follows:
  168. </p>
  169. <blocquote>
  170. <p>
  171. It sucks not to get credit for what you do, but that&apos;s by far not the worst fate possible.
  172. </p>
  173. <p>
  174. It&apos;s amazing that slaves could buy their freedom at all.
  175. It&apos;s quite counter-intuitive.
  176. As a slave, it seems like you&apos;d have no rights.
  177. That means you theoretically couldn&apos;t trade (buying and selling are a form of trade).
  178. Also, without a right to ownership, how could you have the money to buy yourself?
  179. Buying yourself out of slavery wasn&apos;t easy, otherwise every slave would do it, but for some, it was a way out of a harsh life.
  180. </p>
  181. </blocquote>
  182. <blockquote>
  183. <p>
  184. The taxation on slaves yielded money for the government, which could be said to help the economy.
  185. However, private, already-rich citizens making even more money with slaves helped deteriorate the economy, not stimulate it.
  186. It lead to widening of the income gap, leaving a wealthy minority well off, but leaving the poor majority in shambles, struggling to put food on the table.
  187. Slave work also isn&apos;t more gainful than free work, it&apos;s just that all the gain is given to a single party, the master, and not split between two or more, the employer and employee.
  188. I can&apos;t say for sure about Roman slavery, but in other parts of the world where slaves were kept, it was even found that slave labour was not only <strong>*less*</strong> gainful overall, but also yielded <strong>*less*</strong> profit for masters than free work.
  189. Put simply, slaves had little incentive to work at maximum capacity, and actually worked on perfecting the art of getting <strong>*out*</strong> of doing work.
  190. </p>
  191. </blockquote>
  192. <blockquote>
  193. <p>
  194. Like you said, the slave trade decimated the income of poor, free citizens.
  195. The rich slave-holders made a killing, but everyone else, slave or free, had hard times.
  196. The government tried to fix the problem by instituting things such as the corn dole, but that wasn&apos;t enough.
  197. The reason for this was that the lack of income for the poor wasn&apos;t the problem; it was a <strong>*symptom*</strong>.
  198. The real problem was the imbalanced economy.
  199. Much of this imbalance was created by the use of slave labour.
  200. </p>
  201. </blockquote>
  202. <p>
  203. Last term, I thought I had more time to complete the course-evaluation survey.
  204. I missed my opportunity to complain about the course platform (which the university calls &quot;Moodle&quot;) frequently locking up on me.
  205. This term, I didn&apos;t make that mistake.
  206. I filled out the survey for each course, which was a series of scale-of-zero-to-four-style questions, then left this note in the text-submission box at the end:
  207. </p>
  208. <blockquote>
  209. <p>
  210. The course was great, but the Moodle platform has issues.
  211. Over the past few terms, I&apos;ve been dealing with the fact that the website frequently locks up on me.
  212. The only way I&apos;ve been able to get the website to stop locking up is to disable JavaScript in my Web browser, which makes other websites quit working.
  213. I&apos;m seriously considering installing a browser extension to block JavaScript only on the University of the People website.
  214. This is a serious problem, and has caused me to have to retype many things I&apos;ve typed into the website.
  215. I&apos;ve talked to support, but they don&apos;t seem to take the problem seriously.
  216. From what I&apos;ve gathered, Moodle is making inappropriate and unnecessary AJAX requests.
  217. This results in the website locking up before the AJAX request begins, then unlocking when the request completes.
  218. Static pages should not be using AJAX at all, and making these periodic requests is causing problems.
  219. Making an AJAX request when a user clicks on a button is one thing.
  220. However, making an AJAX request every several seconds while the user is typing is just ridiculous and counterproductive.
  221. </p>
  222. </blockquote>
  223. <p>
  224. If the problem persists, I&apos;ll leave a similar note next term.
  225. In the <span title="Programming 1">CS 1102</span> survey, I marked that the professor had not stimulated intellectual enthusiasm.
  226. When I went into <span title="Greek and Roman Civilization">HIST 1421</span>, I don&apos;t recall being excited.
  227. It&apos;s a history course, and I&apos;m not that enthusiastic about history.
  228. However, I enjoyed the course, and I feel like I became more enthusiastic about it as the course progressed.
  229. I went into <span title="Programming 1">CS 1102</span> enthusiastic, but instead of making me even more excited, I feel like the professor drained the spirit of learning right out of me.
  230. I didn&apos;t mention this in the text area, but by asking me to stay my writing hand, the professor asked me to curb my enthusiasm.
  231. The professor actually docked me points for adding too much detail.
  232. I work myself up through writing.
  233. I deepen my understanding through writing.
  234. I explore new thoughts through writing.
  235. When I write about what I&apos;m doing, I make new realisations I otherwise wouldn&apos;t.
  236. It allows me to think through things a again, and my thoughts branch out to several places at once.
  237. New possibilities are actualised, and even without additional reading material, I learn so much more than I otherwise would.
  238. I hope <span title="Programming 2">CS 1103</span> has the same shared, reoccurring learning journal assignment as <span title="Programming Fundamentals">CS 1101</span> and <span title="Programming 1">CS 1102</span>, but I hope the professor is more encouraging to documentation of experiences and learning.
  239. If that learning journal assignment presents itself once more, I&apos;ll make a point of including two things in my first entry.
  240. First, I&apos;ll make it clear that I learn better when I write.
  241. Second, I&apos;ll make it clear that while one professor was fine with my detailed entries, another was not.
  242. If the professor wants me to, I&apos;ll curb my enthusiasm once more.
  243. </p>
  244. </section>
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  247. Copyright © 2017 Alex Yst;
  248. You may modify and/or redistribute this document under the terms of the <a rel="license" href="/license/gpl-3.0-standalone.xhtml"><abbr title="GNU&apos;s Not Unix">GNU</abbr> <abbr title="General Public License version Three or later">GPLv3+</abbr></a>.
  249. If for some reason you would prefer to modify and/or distribute this document under other free copyleft terms, please ask me via email.
  250. My address is in the source comments near the top of this document.
  251. This license also applies to embedded content such as images.
  252. For more information on that, see <a href="/en/a/licensing.xhtml">licensing</a>.
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