Blog Entries
Why aren’t my kids hyper after binging on sugar?
2012 Oct 1, 8:23“A particularly troublesome finding was that for some children, if they were told that sugar would make them hyper, then they actually would become hyper after thinking that they had eaten sugar.”
Do Cute Kids Like Radiohead? - “Paranoid Android” -...
2012 Apr 27, 7:05Do Cute Kids Like Radiohead? - “Paranoid Android” - You Review #09 (by noisey)
“I don’t think he’s got any friends”. Harsh.
A Dad’s Plea To Developers Of iPad Apps For Children (smashingmagazine.com)
2012 Mar 12, 7:02Set of issues run into by children using iPad apps. Should be generally appropriate though:
“Designing apps for children is extremely hard. Not only is quality, age-appropriate content hard to create, but designing the flow and interaction of these apps is made more difficult because designers must refrain from implementing advanced gestures, which would only confuse and frustrate kids (and, by extension, their parents). Yet all apps can and should adhere to certain basics. Hopefully, the four guidelines discussed here can become fixtures of all children’s apps.”
NOVA | The Pluto Files | Hate Mail from Third Graders (non-Flash) | PBS
2010 Apr 15, 2:52Scans of some of a few instances of hate mail Neil deGrasse Tyson received from elementary school students after demoting Pluto to non-planet status.
Childrens' Hospital: Watch Full Episodes on TheWB.com. Starring Hot Tub Time Machine's Rob Corddry
2010 Apr 5, 10:41A satirical hospital drama TV show starring tons of humorous people like Rob Corddry, David Wain, Jason Sudeikis and many many more people who you will recognize but not necessarily know their name.Are Violent Video Games Adequately Preparing Children For The Apocalypse? | The Onion - America's Finest News Source
2009 Jul 10, 7:31"72% of kids said they know how to find items to barter at weapon shops and how to use medicine packs to heal zombie bites"Our soon-to-be outdated beliefs
2009 May 22, 6:55"So many of our grandparents were racist, and some of our parents are homophobes. Which of our own closely held beliefs will our own children and grandchildren by appalled by?" I thought about this too but didn't come up with as good answers.Netflix Watch Instantly Recommendations
2009 May 3, 9:17
Netflix lets you watch a subset of their movies online via their website and a subset of those movies are available to watch on the Xbox 360's Netflix app. so its not always easy to find movies to watch on Xbox 360. Yet, I regularly see my Xbox friends using the Netflix app and its a shame they didn't make an easy way to share movie recommendations with your friends. Instead we must share movie recommendations the old fashioned way. Here's the movies I've found and enjoyed on my 360.
- Weeds
- You don't have to be a stoner to enjoy this humorous and dramatic satire featuring a widow trying to raise her children and deal pot in suburbia.
- Avatar The Last Airbender
- An American animated series that's an amalgamation of various Asian art, history, religion, etc. that maintains a great story line.
- Paprika
- If you enjoyed Paranoia Agent you'll enjoy this movie in the same animation style and by the same director and writer, Satoshi Kon. Its like a feature length version of a Paranoia Agent episode in which a dream machine lets outsiders view one's dreams but eventually leads to blurring the dreams and reality.
- Grindhouse Planet Terror
- I didn't see either of the Grindhouse movies when they first came out, but of the two, Planet Terror is the more humorous and exciting gore filled parody.
- Outsourced
- A refreshing romantic comedy that still has a few of the over played tropes but is easy to enjoy despite that.
- The King of Kong
- A hilarious documentary on the struggle between the reigning champ hot-sauce salesman and the underdog Washington state high school science teacher to obtain the Donkey Kong world record high score. After watching, checkout this interview with the creators of the movie and the villain.
- Primer
- I've mentioned Primer before, but I put it on here again because its really good and you still haven't seen it, have you?
Washington State Senate Honors Penny Arcade
2009 Mar 6, 1:21"BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED, That the Washington State Senate honor Jerry Holkins and Mike Krahulik for their hard work and dedication to improving the lives of hospitalized children worldwide through their creation and continued work with Child's Play Charity"Marienplatz and the Deutsches Museum
2008 Dec 19, 12:18
On Monday in Germany we went to Marienplatz and wandered around
the Christmas Market, some of the stores, had drinks in a little pub, visited the Toy Museum, and checked out an impressive looking church. We accidentally drew in some other tourists as we stood
gaping at the Glockenspiel tower waiting for the little show to begin at the wrong hour. That night Megan and Oliver came by our hotel and took us out to a traditional Bavarian restaurant and
brewery that had been brewing beer there for hundreds of years. It was fun although we may have kept Megan and Oliver out too late on a weeknight.
The next day we went to the Deutsches Museum the largest science and technology museum in the world. And indeed it is very large, six floors
on a large grounds. I needed to better pace myself: I spent too much energy being interested in the engineering sections with steam engines, mining, aerospace etc. I was completely worn out by the
time we got to physics, chemistry, etc. etc. and we didn't even look in the natural sciences section. Anyway, its very large. That night we ate with Jon at an Italian restaurant. During the meal
two period dressed children came in and began singing then tried to shake down their captive audience in the restaurant asking for money. The man at the table next to us asked one of the children
what charity the money was going towards, the child said they kept the money, and the man said never mind then and sent the child away.
Language Log - Congress plans bailout for grammar epidemic
2008 Oct 23, 2:18I had no idea lingual prescriptivists vs descriptivists were split in a partisan manner: '... The Secretary [of the Department of Education] released a report that includes dire warnings of impending doom...The cause of this immanent catastrophe is, of course, those pesky linguists, the libertarian destroyers of good usage who claim that, well, anything goes. According to the report, "the language problem has now reached the crisis level and we are now experiencing a severe epidemic of bad grammar that will affect the very fiber of our nation." The Secretary added, "an alarming number of children are suffering from the bad advice given by those socialist, left-wing, atheistic linguists and we just gotta do something about it."'GoogleUnique Names
2008 Jul 18, 1:50On GoogleUnique names for children. "Oh, and I have a GoogleCommon name. I share my name with so many other people that we have our own Kevin Kelly disambiguation website." To avoid race conditions be sure to use your NIC's ID in the child's name.Warm Weekend
2008 Apr 14, 10:22
It was warm and lovely out this past Saturday and Sarah I and went to a
new place for lunch, then to Kelsey Creek Park, and then out for Jane's birthday. We ate at Cafe
Pirouette which serves crepes and is done up with French decorations reminding me of my parent's house. We got in for just the end of lunch and saw the second to last customers, a gaggle of
older ladies leaving. I felt a little out of place with my "Longhorn [heart] RSS" t-shirt on. The food was good and in larger portions that I expected.
After that we went to Kelsey Creek Park and Farm. The park is hidden at the end of a quiet neighborhood, starts out with some tables and children's jungle gym
equipment, then there's a farm which includes a petting zoo, followed by many little trails going off into the forrest. There weren't too many animals out and the ones we did see didn't seem to
expect or want the sun and warm weather. We followed one of the trails for a bit and turned back before getting sun burned. You can see
my weekend photos mapped out on Live Maps.
That night we went out with some friends for Jane's birthday. Eric was just back from the RSA conference and we met Jane and Eric and others at Palace Kitchen in Seattle located immediately adjascent to the monorail's route. The weather was still good so they left the large windows open through twilight and every so often you'd see the monorail pass by.
Wired 14.04: The Culture War
2008 Apr 8, 1:52"The Culture War: How new media keeps corrupting our children." Article snippets condemning novels in 1700s, the Waltz 1800s, Movies, Telephone, etc etc. for corrupting the youthXYZZYnews Issue #11 A Conversation With Cosmoserve's Judith Pintar
2008 Feb 25, 1:18An interview with Judith Pintar famed I.F. game writer. FTA: "While I was writing CosmoServe, I worked as a children's theatre director, and for the ten years before that I was a actress, storyteller and concert musician." She worked with my third gradeFamily's winner becomes a loser and loser a winner - smh.com.au
2007 Jun 13, 1:44Is this real? How could parents hate their children so much as to name them Winner and Loser?Zoo Trip
2007 Jun 7, 4:35
A few weekends ago Sarah and I visited the Woodland Park Zoo (Finding its website I'm amazed that its domain is 'zoo.org'. Somebody in Seattle was
quick on the domain registration.) I liked the zoo except for all the children. Human children... As visitors to the zoo... What did you think I meant? The kids are everywhere! Shouldn't they be
inside playing video games or something?
There was a gorilla that was wrapped in a dirty blanket. It looked like a homeless person and very sad. I'm reminded of the episode of the Simpsons in which the octuplets work at the zoo and the scene in which while Homer is breaking out the children a gorilla tries to get him to take her child too. Looking for a
clip of this to post here I can only find clips from the Simpsons in German for some reason. Like this one.
Two thirds or so of the way through my camera started running low on power. We were forced to choose which animals were camera worthy. Is it too common? Is it cute enough? Etc. Sarah
took a very nice shot of some hippos under these conditions. Unfortunately I couldn't get a good angle and view of the Elephants. But they were cool and had an interesting habitat (that's zoo for
large-ish cage.)Hole-in-the-Wall Experiment
2007 Apr 12, 2:29Social experminet to see what happens when a computer is made publicly available to poor children with no previous knowledge of computers or the English language.
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