First, you’ve got to download JRuby (I got it from the jruby codehaus repository) and uncompress it into your choice of location. I grabbed the 1.1.2 binary tarball.

Next, you need to make sure you have a compatible Java runtime environment (JRE) or Java development kit (JDK) installed. If you don’t have one already, you can get these from the Sun Java site. You’ll notice the ‘Popular Downloads’ menu on the right has what you need. I already had this installed for my NetBeans installation.

Now comes the fun part. Make a note of the path to the JRE or JDK directory, as well as the path to your JRuby directory. I chose to install these as follows:

• JDK: D:\programs\Java\jdk1.6.0_06
• JRuby: D:\jruby-1.1.2

We’re nearly there! Next, just follow along:

1. Right click on “My Computer” and select ‘Properties’.
2. Choose the ‘Advanced’ tab at the top.
3. Click on the ‘Environment Variables’ button near the bottom.
4. Click the ‘New’ button under the ‘User variables’ section.
5. For ‘Variable name’, put JAVA_HOME and for Variable value, put the path to your java install directory. Click the ‘OK’ button.
6. Again, click on the ‘Environment Variables’ button near the bottom.
7. For Variable name, put JRUBY_HOME and for Environment variable, put the path to your JRuby install directory. Click the ‘OK’ button.
8. Select your PATH variable and click on the ‘Edit’ button.
9. If the ‘Variable value’ field is empty, put your JRuby install directory’s path followed by \bin (mine: D:\jruby-1.1.2\bin)
10. If the ‘Variable value’ field is not empty, put a semi-colon followed by your JRuby install directory’s path followed by \bin (mine: D:\jruby-1.1.2\bin)
11. Click on the ‘OK’ button then click on the ‘OK’ button then click on the ‘OK’ button to get out of all this mess.

Finally, open a command prompt, type ‘jruby -v’ and hit return!

I tried to be as verbose and explicit as I thought possibly necessary in these directions. If I missed something or messed something up, please post to let me know and I will change or add to it right away.

Given (-n % x) or (n % -x), the RHS (right hand side) of the modulus operation must be multiplied by the negative integer closest to 0 that will get it past the number on the LHS (left hand side). Then, the result is the difference between this number and the LHS. e.g.:

-7 % 3   # result is 2
# climbing (positive) from -9 (3 * -3) to -7

7 % -3   # result is -2
# dropping (negative) from 9 (-3 * -3) to 7

Of course, when the polarity is the same on both sides, such as (n % x) or (-n % -x), you just multiply the RHS times the positive integer that gets you the closest to the RHS without going past it then the result is the difference between the remainder and the LHS. e.g.:

7 % 3    # result is 1
# climbing (positive) from 6 (3 * 2) to 7

-7 % -3  # result is -1
# dropping (negative) from -6 (-3 * 2) to -7

It might help to note that in Ruby, the RHS always dictates the polarity of the result.

What I find quite humorous is that the Mensa site’s ‘forgotten password’ page appears to be located within the calendar section of the site as an event. Mensa membership is supposedly based upon processing power and not memory, so why make a calendar event out of a member’s lack of memory? :-P

Happy Albert ‘Cerebronaut’ Hawking Brain Fart Day!!!

class Dog
  def initialize(name)
    @name = name.capitalize
    @what = self.class.to_s.downcase
    puts "Hi! I'm #{@name}, your new #{@what}!"
  end

  def teach(new_trick)
    @tricks = Array.new unless @tricks
    @tricks += [new_trick]
    puts "#{@name} now knows how to #{new_trick}!"
  end

  def show_tricks
    list_of_tricks = [@tricks[0]]
    1.upto(@tricks.length-1) do |modify|
      list_of_tricks += [" and #{@tricks[modify]}"]
    end
    @name + ' knows how to ' + list_of_tricks.to_s
  end

  def bark
  end

  def eat
  end

  def chase_cat
  end

  def to_s
    @name + " (your #{@what})"
  end

  def capable_of?(capability)
    self.respond_to?(capability) ?
    puts("I can #{capability} or my name's not #{@name}!") :
    @tricks.include?(capability) ?
    puts("I have recently been taught to #{capability}!") :
    puts("This is something I have not heard of before... \
    #{capability} you said?")
  end

  def method_missing(method, *more_arguments)
    "#{@name} cocks it's head to the side as if to say \n\t\
    \"I don't understand what #{method} means.\""
  end
end

# a few examples of usage:
rex = Dog.new 'rex'
max = Dog.new 'Max'
rex.teach 'jump through hoops'
ObjectSpace.each_object(Dog) {|dog| dog.teach('chase cars') }
puts rex.show_tricks
rex.capable_of? 'bark'
rex.capable_of? 'chase cars'
rex.capable_of? 'fetch'
puts "#{max} is feeling a bit left out..."

Sadly, I had misinterpreted the challenge guidelines. The instructor wanted the learned tricks to be methods and not properties. Anyhoot, this post is just so I can see what the highlighter will do on my blog. :-P

I’ve been seeing the popularity of Ruby, decidedly due to the Rails framework, skyrocket in the past few years. It seems that lately, you can hardly go to a web design or web development centric site without seeing a bright red gem or a red locomotive on the home page.

I read somewhere that Ruby is entirely Oo, which really piqued my interest. I’ve been wanting to get my noodle wrapped around OOP for years while dealing with PHP and javascript; not to mention (though I am) my very short lived foray into the seemingly mind-numbing world of C++ that I embarked upon.

Once I realized that Ruby might hold the key to my eternal salvation, I decided not to take my usual tack when trying to learn a programming or scripting language. That process would be best described as: buy a few $50 tomes, crack them open enough to get a feel for the writers’ personalities and then let them sit on my bookshelf while knowing that I am free at any time to pick them up and soak it all in.

If a musician crafts a song and decides to share it with the world through album sales, and the first person to buy a copy makes it available to the rest of the world for free, that is piracy. If another person cruising the internet finds the song and grabs a copy without having first purchased it, that is piracy. If a third party knowingly and willingly makes arrangements for this transaction to be made, that is also piracy. It doesn’t matter that the captain of the pirate ship didn’t board the other vessel, rape any women or even see the loot or know what it was; the captain is a pirate. Of course, you can throw Photoshop or Office or whatever “created for profit” blob of 1s and 0s you want to in place of the song and the idea is just as valid.

I have to give an example of the inherent mentality of even the guys that run The Pirate Bay. Peter Sunde, one of the four main pirates running the site, said this:

Nobody is crying that people who used to go around selling ice to people do not have a job anymore because of the fridge…

zomgwtfbbq?!?! Do you think there is the possibility that just maybe it’s because nobody is stealing ice? People are making it themselves with a tool that was made for that purpose. Nobody is saying you can’t use the computer to make your own movies, music, software, etc. Nobody will go around crying about the people you put out of business by making your own property.

I do understand there should be limits to what can be considered property. Inevitable progressions of data manipulation processes should not be patentable. This includes, but is not limited to, turning 1 into 0 by subtracting 1 from itself. It may seem absurd to even consider patenting this process, but sillier patents have been approved.

It’s not that I never join the ranks of the eye patch wearing online horde, I’m just tired of constantly hearing people use ‘freedom of data’ or ‘freedom of information’ as a mantra for the rationalization of theft. I do realize that laws governing property are never going to be ‘right’. I also believe real estate should not be property, but that is a discussion for another time. In fact, the only thing that any laws can actually do is try to impinge upon people’s freedom and sometimes succeed for good or bad. In many cases, laws are used for horrific travesties of justice; in most cases, they are a necessary evil put into place to actually protect freedom.

Don’t get me wrong, I am a true anarchist at heart even if not always in actions, as the flip side of that coin is death; absolute peace is only possible, though not assured, in death. It’s late. I’m tired. Too many tangents roaming in out of he fog… you get my drift. respect:good::piracy:bad (and I still think piracy is the wrong word to be used for this type of theft)

The correlation between atmospheric CO₂ and temperatures are somewhat (slight understatement?) disheartening. Through natural processes, the CO₂ in the atmosphere has gone up in the past to the same approximate levels as we are seeing now, with the atmospheric temperatures following suit. However, this time it is our polluting of the atmosphere (primarily due to our dependence on fossil fuels) and deforestation of the land that is causing this escalation of atmospheric CO₂. While the amount of fossil fuel being used by the population will have to fall in the near future, we don’t seem to have that much time before the projected increase in our atmospheric CO₂ causes the temperatures to rise to levels never seen before in the history of life on Earth.

Oddly, and somewhat confusingly to the layman (me), this will actually cause another ice age (along with other weather related catastrophes). This is due to the way that the oceanic currents keep the temperatures moderated in the gaseous atmosphere. It is proven that temperatures rising in the past (at the end of the last ice age) caused the glacial ice on the north american continent to melt and rush into the North Atlantic. The desalinization caused the temperature regulating oceanic currents to change, which, in turn, caused a continuation of the ice age.

I know the Mesoamerican people’s calendar ends on December 21^st 2012 on the Winter Solstice. Maybe this destruction of the atmosphere, and thus our ability to survive in it, is the reason. I have heard other theories as to why their calendar ends at this time (alien contact, comet impact, etc.), but this seems to be a highly plausible explanation. Of course, ‘explanation’ doesn’t really work here, as there is so much that is currently unexplainable about future predictions by ourselves and our predecessors. I suppose only time will tell. While your waiting for this time to pass, I highly suggest that you go see ‘An Inconvenient Truth’ at a theater near you as soon as you get a chance. It just might change the way you live.

First, the show mentions the physical impossibility of the transporter due to the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle. Simply put, this principle states: in the Quantum Mechanical world, a particle’s position and momentum cannot be precisely measured. This would seem to throw a bit of a wrench in the works if you subscribe to the particle theory of matter. I will go with that assumption in this post, as it is the most widely believed opinion that particles do indeed exist. Maybe I’ll write another post at a later date with my own theories on this, but it’s a bit too deep to dwell upon right now and I’m trying to keep tangential thoughts from taking over right now. If you know me well, you realize this is not always an easy thing for me to do… hehe.

Back to the topic at hand: while ‘Star Trek: The Next Generation’ took care of this seemingly insurmountable glitch in the current consensus of accepted logic with a mysterious little electronic component for the transporter called a Heisenberg compensator, an electronic device will intrinsically have macroscopic perception (as opposed to Quantum), which negates it’s ability to compensate for chaotic improbability. This stretch of possibilities did not deter from the Sci-Fi entertainment value of the show it aired in (episode 228 – Realm of Fear), but is one of the few technologies within the collection of Star Trek series which can be proved absolutely impossible with any degree of certainty.

With the impossibility of electronically breaking down and reassembling a human from one destination to another, I will try to introduce two more theoretically plausible ways to accomplish this task. In the first, the memory banks and DNA sequence would be sent as electronic impulses rather than breaking down and sending the entirety of the human. This would introduce a few new complications, but nothing I would consider insurmountable.

While it focuses more on mysticism and politics than any ‘real’ problem, several possible ‘complications’ could involve the duplication of the individual. The ‘departing’ individual would not actually depart. A duplicate individual, possibly minus physical defects born of their environment, would be produced. The removal of known harmful disease and viral organisms from incoming individuals was taken care of by the transporter biofilter in ‘ST: Next Gen’ (episode 133 – Unnatural Selection). This duplicate individual would have the same memory of life experiences previous to the transfer as the original along with the same physical cabilities. While the DNA could potentially be purposefully manipulated during transit to ‘improve’ the individual (removing defects such as amputation, obesity, etc, ad infinitum), that is a plot for another story… hehe. In effect, this would essentially be the same person; but, from the point of departure/arrival, their paths would diverge. One question is, where does the new individual’s soul come from? Alright, you must have known that was coming. I couldn’t help myself. Another potential problem based on duplication, which would easily be worked out with enough capital (as it is political), would be the legal identity of the new individual.

With this technology available, what’s to stop someone from creating a vast army of perfect soldiers for illicit purposes? I believe this topic has been covered enough in pop Sci-Fi, so I’ll leave it alone for now. I may bring it up again once the clone wars are instigated. You’ve been warned.

Of course, one potential problem pertains to certain organisms residing in the human body outside of our own DNA code that are required for some normal functions. Endosymbiant bacteria genomes were even found within the embryonic cell genomes of several different species of fruit fly by Michael B. Eisen, a UC Berkeley professor of molecular and cell biology and a faculty scientist at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. In fact, humans have more bacterial cells within their bodies than they do human cells. The beneficial symbiotic organisms within the human body, while still not all accounted for, could be theoretically reintroduced at the destination.

Another form of instantaneous transportation, which has no foreseeable (by me) complications when used in this (instantaneous) manner, would be a very ‘simple’ cryogenically suspended trip through a calculable space/time anomaly. The individual would enter the cryo/transpo unit, which would then suspend them cryogenically and either physically travel to the nearest worm hole or black hole or, hopefully with some semblance of control, temporarily form it’s own on the spot for utilization.

The trip to the anomaly would have to be accounted for, as would the trip to the ultimate destination, but this could (theoretically) get an individual to any destination instantaneously. The problems, as I see them without much thought invested, exist in the unforeseeable (of course), the use of this method to travel back in time, and in traffic regulation to/from the anomaly to prevent collisions. What happens if you set the device to bring you back to the same time/location from whence you departed? BOOM! hehe…

Of course, as the Mayans believed that ‘modern’ civilization will cease to exist in 2012, this all may have to wait another 15 to 30 millennia to come to fruition. Haven’t even one of the three info packets left by the Atlanteans been discovered and studied yet? It’s getting late and this may be enough mental masturbation for one day. I really need to get myself into a polyphasic sleep cycle so this (pushing myself past my nap time) won’t happen any more. Hibernation time. G’nite!

I’ve even gone as far as learning about half of the katakana already. They are much easier once you learn the hiragana. I’ve also stumbled upon some really nice sites for learning elementary kanji. I’m now hoping to be familiar enough with the entire kana to start reading Japanese texts later today. I may not know what I’m reading, but at least I’ll be on my way to building my vocabulary… hehe.

This is an extremely stimulating mental workout. YOU should try it! Seriously though, if you only know one language, you should start now down the road to communication.