Day by Day

There are a few different wordings that I’ve come across for what the golden rule is. Some come from religious backgrounds while others are more secular. None really have different meanings from any others. The one that I seem to think of when asked about the golden rule is this: Treat your neighbors as you’d want to be treated. This encompasses a ton of meaning, but over all it simply ways that if you treat those around you bad you shouldn’t be surprised when all they return the favor with is bad treatment.
I might as well spend at least a small amount of time delving into the other interpretations of meaning. I’ll say up front that they don’t differ much, and that they really are individual interpretations. I truth they differ entirely based on location and religious belief. So, for example, the more old-english/ religious (in my mind) interpretation is “do unto others as you want done unto you”. This taps into the realm of certain religious language I won’t mention in a school assignment. But it does layer into the understanding that the physical acts of how you treat someone aren’t the limits of the golden rule but rather anything you do to anyone around you is applicable to any interpretation of the golden rule.
Furthermore the very existence of the golden rule shows us that not all rules are based on societies separately or as pairs, but that there is a solid single rule that all those others need to follow. You can liken it to the way the United States government is set up. The Founding Fathers wrote a Constitution that all of the people follow. All laws need to follow the base requirements that it lays out. In a way the golden rule does this, it is itself the central rule under which all of our separate rules follow.
However, it is quite important to keep in mind that every individual has their own opinion of what the golden rule is and so each of us individually will be building our own way of interpreting a rule as abstractly defined as the golden rule. None of these interpretations are wrong, they all will contain the same basic message, but each will have that individual’s leaning and separate opinion as well.

One of the things that comes to me right now in answer of this question is a few years back when I started to “play” with the lego mindstorms kits. I know that this specific thing may seem a bit un-educational for being part of a required school task, but seeing as it ties into my senior project the relevance can’t be questioned. It was really the second (maybe even first?) of two major exposures I had to computer programming before diving into Apple’s SDKs that eventually have formed the baseline to my senior project.
The initial method of programming in those kits was with software that minimized the entire process of writing code down to a preset number of “code blocks” that you needed to stick within the boundaries of. But it provided a solid starting point for understanding quite completely the basic methodology of modern programming’s components. Things like loops and ifs as well as the idea behind variables for temporary data storage. I’ll admit that I rarely think of it as where I started in terms of computer programming within Cocoa and Cocoa Touch, but in a way it is the start, and that is just simple fact.
The other solid starting point for me with computer programming was equally not-real-programming. This was in beginning to understand how to write solidly complex Applescripts on my Mac. This further solidified some of the basic ideals, and certainly locked down the grasp of basic functions within the higher-level automation for Mac OS X. It represents a “scripting language” where what I write all of Tenseg’s Mac and iPhone applications in is a “programming language”, but between these two ways of getting my feet wet I formed the basic understanding I later grew into a fairly useful skill set.
The firs compilation of real Cocoa code I was exposed to was Eric’s original Fact Triangles source code (which just weeks ago I made obsolete in releasing v1.3 on the Tenseg website as a part of my senior project). But the first code I really wrote comes in the form of a secondary language for the lego mindstorms kits, NQC (or Not-Quite C). Even here I was primarily just copying whole functions and files of code from other sources (versus now where it’s just lines of code from other sources), but once I was able to see in that old code the same basic elements and potential indentations as with my PF Touch source code, I understood just how solid all these things led up to my current understanding of modern computer programming.
All of these were the start of the tendrils that are now wrapped within my major contributions to the work Eric and I have both been doing under Tenseg. Overall it has only been a very short number of years since I first dipped my toes in this hobby/possible career, but as my senior project’s application deliverables stand witness to, I have a good start for my lifetime of this being at least a hobby, maybe to become my career after college.

This question, like a few of the others, has two solid components to answer. It also is very much a question with no wrong answers, but rather answers that stem from personal experience and opinion. This reflection will be of primarily personal independence versus societal/country independence. I’ll first explain where the advantages lie, and from there use those answers to explain where some of the disadvantages lie. At the end I’ll end up explaining the likely obvious conclusion to these reflections wrapping them together as one solid whole reflection and thought.
For the most part the advantages are pretty clear: No one is in direct control of your life most of the time, you get to make decisions regarding that life with no overpowering influence, what exists as yours is yours alone (this is a topic I may talk further on later), and you get the chance to create your own family. But there are also some lesser thought of advantages, plus the deeper understandings of the clear ones. One of those lesser thought of ones is in regard to the fact that independence grants you the freedom that each of us at some level yearn for. Freedom has its own advantages and disadvantages, as well as being able to be considered required ahead of independence. But in truth the two are interconnected and at the same level. When it comes to the deeper understandings of clear advantages I really can’t explain because those are really what each person needs to come to on their own.
Lots of the disadvantages are equally clear. Likewise they are very connected as other side of the coins that are the advantages. Each advantage either has a disadvantage as a partner or is a disadvantage when looked at in a different light. Exploring the deeper understandings of any of the listed and unlisted advantages will bring you to a disadvantage. You being in total control of your life and decisions can very easily backfire and render your existence hard. Having your own family is so much work that for the most part it may be looked at as a disadvantage depending on what job you have. Freedom in itself has a bunch of disadvantages that I won’t dig into here.
To conclude this I mainly need to say that regardless of what of this you agree with the true answers depend a lot on the current situation you’re in. I hint to that when I mention the family-to-job idea, but it also will depend on almost any other thing that happens to you. Also, these are still purely my own ideas on this topic, so obviously take them as truth with a large grain of salt.

Well, I’m answering this question a few months too late. The reason simply being that as a piece of being accepted at Saint John’s University I’ve already gotten two letters of recommendation. Nonetheless I thought that providing a short reflection on this, then providing some of the themes covered in the real letters would be a nice thing to lock away in this senior journaling.
Overall those who’d write a letter of recommendation would say how on-task and diligent I am about schoolwork. They would give explanation to some of the potential downsides an institution may find when reviewing my application. They would also make absolutely sure to state what work they find extraordinary of mine and what trait they enjoy most of mine. All of this would be stated as simply as it could be with a note to contact them if more details are requested.
I have no intention of giving away who I asked to write me letters of recommendation for my college applications, but I do intend to say where my quick assumptions met reality and what else got stated that may have surprised me. Both letters effectively started by explaining who the people who wrote them are and that they were pleased that I’d asked them to write letters of recommendations for me. Both mentioned me being on-task and diligent in their own ways. Finally, both were absolutely sure to mention what they thought about the work I’ve been up to for my senior project and other independent work.
I know that this was written months after it should have been to be entirely proper and unbiased. But it at least lets my views on this topic be visible nonetheless and I did stay far away from the exact letters, leaving just the core points still visible in this post.

A few months back (on September 11, 2009) I first talked a bit about this topic. In that reflection I knew I’d orbit back around to this topic, and so now I have. As the question this will answer indicates, there are two solid answers, one for the individual, and one for the society they reside as a part of. These answers do interconnect, but I’ll be stating my reflections back-to-back, and then might get to explaining some of the actual interconnections that I see existing here.
Work is the term used for two federal things we humans do regularly. One definition has to do with the energy we expend on tasks. As I write this now, or when I walk home from school, those are both a form of work. But the definition of work that is valid for this reflection is that which is where we get something in return. In the case of a job, we’re getting money in return that we then use to keep ourselves and our lifestyles afloat. However, just as much as a job is work, so is school. What we get in return during high school and beyond are credits towards our graduation. It is this second definition that I expand on for individuals and society here.
The purpose of work for individuals is at first glance to get whatever it is we’ve been prescribed in return. I hinted at the two most common of these above. With this purpose we keep ourselves alive and healthy as well as able to enjoy what we enjoy on our down time. The less obvious purpose of work for individuals is to feel like we have a reason to keep struggling at life. If we weren’t working on something to get something in return we’d probably be dealing with a pandemic of suicides in this society. But thankfully between “pay” and “meaning” there is purpose enough in our society to keep individuals turning the gears of society itself in the form of working.
That decently leads me into the purpose of work for society. But before I get there I should point out that all society is made of is the millions of individuals that group together on common ground to live together. Work for society has two definitions as well. The first is the one tied into the work of us individuals, that is the work we do to keep the society as a whole afloat and in place. Our work truly is the gears of the society in which we work and with it we’re feeding society. This work simply leads to the existence of culture and industry alongside one another to build a framework that supports the work. The second form of work for society is the work society itself does in the form of the nature around us and the work individuals need to do in the form of activism to keep the glue that ties our individual work together in place.
At this point it seems like I’ve already touched on the interconnections between the two answers of this question. I’ll leave it up to those that read this to expand from there, but will conclude in saying that these are the central purposes, but the true extent of the purposes changes all the time dependent on the current situations.

Mass media has been one of the most influential forces behind what the public knows across history. At the start of the press/newspapers there wasn’t that much that could be considered mass media as there is today. But given that for the average citizen this mass media is their primary source, and a source they trust, of news they are looking for it manages to shape the beliefs of these citizens. So, even if the press is telling lies about one thing or another you will find that the average citizen believes those lies as the truth.
I’ll admit to thankfully growing up around parents who have, even if subconsciously, taught my brother and I to be quite skeptical of what we read in the newspaper or hear on the radio/television. Therefore I don’t take any news article for what I’d like to call its “face value”. Instead, I will compare one article to another, and do this up against my own past knowledge of the relevant events, so that in the end I will find the truth of the story instead of just one person’s point of view on it.
But sadly I’m just one individual, even my entire extended family (not just my immediate family) is a very small portion of those who are immersed in the mass media. Most people will believe what they read/hear, and as a result rumors or lies become truth and we end up in a position of seeing multiple realities that aren’t real existing alongside the truth and reality of the day. These odd realities then drive certain individuals into action that could lead to potentially disastrous outcomes.
In direct answer to this question I would say that the mass media is quite important in history as well as the present because of its influence on the public. This influence hasn’t always been and isn’t always now a positive one in the long run, but it’s nonetheless an influence that is noticeable.
I happen to be taking a constitutional law course in high school at the moment, we have just finished talking about the freedom of press. So, I do recognize quite powerfully the importance of a free press, and the positive repercussions that has created in our government. But what most citizens don’t realize is that as a result they need to be constantly on the lookout for what isn’t the truth. They trust their mass media instead of scrutinizing every article they read for the parts of truth in it. For mass media to gain a solidly positive influence on the present and future we as citizens need to uniformly be critical instead of most of us trusting what we read/hear like ants following their queen.

The question of what are my earliest memories has two tangents onto which answering can go down. One is attempting to look at nothing but this page and figure out what my earliest memory would be. This is a much more complex, but more fun and pure method of answering. The other is a heavy use of technology, and would be digging into both the earliest photos in my iPhoto library and printed photo albums to find what my earliest memory triggered by those photos is. This is similar to finding a memory based on stories my parents have told me. I’ll do a mix of both here for you.
I was born in Beverly, MA, and grew up in Boston before moving here to the Twin Cities, so some of my earliest memories are within Boston’s transit system. See, until legos and through them, computer programming, took their solid hold on my hobbies I was really into trains. So I’m told that sometimes the only thing my parents could do to calm me down was take me to the edge of the Orange Line’s tracks a few blocks from our Jamaica Plain house. Even separate of that I have a memory of one time when we stayed on a train we knew wasn’t going to stop at our station just because of how much I enjoyed riding the trains.
Other photo-aided memories are of the dining room-turned playroom we had in our house in JP. The primary photos I still have are electronic and are I think from one of my early birthdays. I remember how messy the room got and the black wire-like shelves (that are now in my room here in the Twin Cities) that held those toys. Just now with that as the basis of thought I remember how there were two paths in our front yard going between the front walk and the driveway. One was wood chips (the one I think I preferred) and the other just dirt. I can remember how sometimes when taking baths I would imagine the house was one of the Apollo rockets.
By far these are just the start, I could go on at length off of the base I’ve laid out before you. I can be sure that all of my early memories fall when I still lived in Boston, but all of them if I wrote them here would end up seeming somewhat random. Our pasts builds the path for our futures, so it’s quite good that I can remember all this. I genuinely enjoy that I could recall all this, but for time’s sake will stop here.

It has been too long that I haven’t posted a senior journal to my blog. Some were because I didn’t want the reflections out in the open, but more just because I was too lazy to post them here. In the extended body of this post I have my page-long thoughts on this senior journal topic. Hopefully from here on out all my future senior journals will get posted here even before they’re technically turned in. Enjoy, Alex. Read the rest of this entry »

The first published iPhone OS application from Tenseg just went live on the App Store, SubCalc. This is really cool! The first application with my name in as one of the developers on the App Store. Please go and check it out. Enjoy, Alexander Celeste, Tenseg Developer.

There are only a few categories of students that can succeed at Avalon. I know I’ve mentioned this somewhere here already, but I look at Avalon’s student body as a wide range of students. On one end are those that are individual enough to almost need the unique learning environment Avalon provides, and then I feel like there are only enough students as could be counted by hand that end up at Avalon because no other school would take them.
Now, that low end doesn’t succeed. Anyone between the low and high ends has a good chance of succeeding at Avalon. Then those students, like me, who almost need the learning environment Avalon provides to succeed well will always succeed at Avalon. We can take the existing project process, and then expand it to our own levels with little things here and there improved upon.
Overall we Avalonians are quite unique. In pretty much every other high school you’d find certain solid categories. But at Avalon all you find are certain students sticking together based on one common characteristic, but that are otherwise entirely unique. I also believe that it becomes clear pretty fast which students won’t be able to succeed, and so they don’t necessarily succeed. It just depends, but usually per year by winter break most of the students at the school have a decent chance of success.