2023.12.08
I love slippery socks, and the little scoopy slides you can do. Melissa on the other hand hates the idea of risking a fall and even prefers those ones with rubber traction
What's your view?
A. Yay! Slippery Socks! Wheeeeee!
B. Boo! Lets get without risking breaking our necks...
2022.12.08
And no wonder, for even Satan disguises himself as an angel of light. So it is no surprise if his servants also disguise themselves as servants of righteousness. Their end will correspond to their deeds.Seems like a useful bible verse to have around.
The difference between what you want and what you need is what you can carry on a horse.
2021.12.08
2020.12.08
2019.12.08
2018.12.08
2017.12.08
Some random thoughts:
- I was surprised that kids seem to prefer mice to touchpads
- especially in this particular class (4th grade) I was aware of how noisy and attention seeking some of the kids were, and saying things mostly just to look smart or similar - probably more aware because I'm pretty sure I was like that as a kid. And it was mostly just boys, which might be problematic.
- I was happy to see the enthusiasm for checking out books. (the lessons were in the library, serving as a computer lab of sorts)
- "The Paper Bag Princess" seems like it would be a bad story to read to folks living near the wildfires right now.
- Kids are more enthused by Pokemon / Digimon type stuff as a programming lesson theme than Wonder Woman or Star Wars (even though "Code Monsters" seemed buggier and more arbitrary than the other stuff)
- Most of these programming exercises focus on breaking tasks into step by step instructions - which is admittedly a critical part of programming - but I wish more were about ... like, making stuff? I.e. drawing on some kind of canvas vs programming a robot-ish thing. I'm not sure if it's inherently a more complex thing to teach (I guess "Logo" is the mix of those two) A "Star Wars" Hour of Code thing came closest, where rather than telling R2D2 what steps to take you learned event-driven programming and made a game of sorts, setting up a program that then let you drive R2D2 via the cursor keys.
2016.12.08
advent day 8
2015.12.08
advent day 8
http://toyland.gizmodo.com/a-music-box-is-secretly-an-engineering-marvel-1746834514 here's why I keep giving music boxes to Cora
School of Honk fundraiser - look for me around 2:49. I need to look less casual sometimes!
The Power of Books! Man, I remember reading the most random stuff from my folks shelves. Of course later I was especially interested in anything that hinted like it could be prurient content...
Also, I love this portrait of the tired King:
But life is not invented for happiness, I do believe. It is made for something else.
2014.12.08
2013.12.08
advent day 8
2012.12.08
advent day 8
GTA:Vice City is out for IOS. Big open world games with missions, guns, and helicopters make me happy.
from this Star Trek: The Animated Series episode
2011.12.08
Everything you can imagine is real.
Oldest and Fatherless: The Terrible Secret of Tom Bombadil -- might he be the most dangerous Dark Lord of Middle Earth? (Personally I don't think that's how Tolkien rolls, but hey.)
(Oh the Tom Bombadil thing is the same guy who came up with that brilliant R2D2 and Chewbacca as the movers and shakers of the Rebellion.)
2010.12.08
2009.12.08
Working at Ambers, I get hopeful she's returned when I hear the garage door opener, then I remember- no garage, must be the furnace. Sigh! (The weird thing is I don't think I've lived in a place with a garage since high school.)
http://www.zefrank.com/zesblog/archives/2009/12/brief_history_o.html - good simplification of the history of us in Afghanistan.
Just voted in the MA senator special primary. Guess it's good there's not been many "(acting) Senator Kirk" headlines, giggles for me aside.
2008.12.08
I so threw myself at that game last week. Sometimes I wish I could selectively apply that kind of single-minded dedication and grind-ability for other things in my life.
I suppose in videogames, there's a certain kind of spoon-feeding that goes on. They're generally pretty good at putting new challenges just at the edge of your abilities, sometimes switching that with something that's pretty actually easy, so you feel nothing but egoboost.
Just like how in school it was the teacher's responsibility to ensure a project or test was feasible, a good game designer keeps the player engaged with tweaking the difficulty and reward structure.
Life in general lacks that kind of ego safety net, and I miss it.
Link of the Moment
This Old House presents Home Inspection Nightmares. I think what scares me most are the situations I wouldn't know enough to avoid myself.
Quote of the Moment
Not every story has explosions and car chases. That's why they have nudity and espionage.Lately my backlog has been filling with more of these Quote of the Day service quotes...
Thinking about EB's idea that we sexually imprint in our early romances; is that where we get our "types" or is that mixing cause & effect?
masukomi You know, how a lot of people have their "types", that the people they date/are attracted to seem to fall in a set of categories.
I browse Drudge Report first, figuring if I can handle the current news at its most lurid and sensationalistically negative, I'll be ok
We went for an Indian lunch Buffet, they had some Bollywood going - possibly just clips - all singing and dancing and bright colors. Great!
Man it's cold. It's like Antarctica cold. Superman at the Fortress of Solitude couldn't take this kind of cold. --not Biloxi Blues, Boston
2007.12.08
Open Photo Gallery
So I finished up my class on Photographic Composition. The last assignment was "Thanksgiving" in general, here are the two photos I decided to show:Self-portrait at Alewife. I think this reflects the weariness of travel (even if it is me at the end of a work week.)
Table shot from Thanksgiving with our cousins. I just like the macabre juxtaposition of a cartoon turkey (proudly labled Kirk) gazing on a plate of his massacred and delicious real-life cousin.
One of the other students in the class thought that I should have put up this image instead:
That's one thing I learned from the class: it's hard to judge your own work. I like the regular composition of it, but was worried it was a bit too "snapshotish"
That Sunday we went to a brunch they had at the Museum of Science. We caught the electricity show:
It is kind of funny how the twin Tesla towers look like a butt. "Remember kids it's all thanks to SCIENCE! Plus, watch out for lightning."
Finally, here is an animation of my mom:
The class was useful, especially in teaching me how to read shots. It also taught me that I approach photography different than most of the students there. They approach photography as more of a traditional studio art, often making careful arrangements at home and sometimes really getting into the lens type and focal length and all that jazz. My photography is a little closer to photojournalism, trying to document the interesting stuff I come across in life in as compelling a shot as possible.
2006.12.08
Quote of the Moment
Books have the same enemies as people: fire, humidity, animals, weather, and their own content.
Video of the Moment
--A Hamster in a live action version of the old C=64 game Monty on the Run... I wasn't too familiar with it, but I have respect for the guy who wrote the music... Rob Hubbard. (I especially like his theme to Skate or Die... I should download one of those SID players...)
2005.12.08
Quote of the Moment
The invention of the teenager was a mistake. Once you identify a period of life in which people get to stay out late but don't have to pay taxes, naturally no one wants to live any other way.Ain't it the truth? Man. I know some people look back on their college days, but to me, high school was an even better blend of some amount of freedom with a near total lack of responsibility. Classes were pre-determined and relatively easy, band provided lots of dates...(one time, at band camp, etc.)
Astute Linguistic Analysis of the Moment
And by the way, I love this new "Talk to Chuck" slogan. It's refreshing to see a little informality from a financial services firm. But more important: so percussive! "Charles Schwab" comprises two of the mushiest syllables you'll ever hear, with those soft, retreating l's and b's and ch's. It was time to add some sticky consonants, and a pair of k's does the trick. Nike, Coke, Starbucks, Kinko's ... never underestimate the palate-exploding power of k-centric marketing.K-I-R-K...YEAH BABY!
2004.12.08
(I think I might have first read this idea in Mark Kingwell's In Pursuit of Happiness: Better Living from Plato to Prozac)
Here's a question that came up last night, at the meeting of my UU church "covenant group" -- if you could take a pill or have some kind of procedure that was guaranteed to make you happy but also made you dumb, would you do it? I think that most people want to be happy, but it's almost like they want to be the "right kind" of happy, that there's a sort of meta-unhappiness that we have to deal with now that even if we believed our future self would be too happy to give a dang about makes the whole deal unacceptable. Or maybe people are concerned about how it would affect their families and loved ones, or that they might not be productive, and that makes them meta-unhappy now.
Of course, I've heard of a cynical survey result that a lot of people, especially women, would decline a pill that made them smarter but made their butts bigger.
Let me know what you think. What's more important, smarts or happiness, or do you reject the proposition and think the two are inseperable for you. (Which I think is a bit optimistic.) (Wait, I haven't asked this before, have I? Couldn't find it in the archive.)
2003.12.08
'Course I'm probably just gonna diddle it away, like I did most of this weekend. Well, I got some stuff done, pulled a loveblender edition together, a few miscelaneous online tasks...I guess it's ok being a little more self-indulgent in terms of wasting time because of what I went through this weekend, but still I feel a little guilty.
Link of the Season
Merry Kitschmas! 12 of the very tackiest religious-themed stuff on the market. "Bobble Head Virgin Mary" is my personal favorite.
Quote of the Moment
I prefer to think that God is not dead, just drunk
Image and Link of the Moment
--Pike eats Trout, from this page of the best photos of the past year. |
2002.12.08
Ranjit rocks so hard. If it was for certain obvious issues of gender, other relationships, and geography, I'd totally have his baby. For a Christmas gift, he unearthed some old Pixeltime stuff... including my old pixeltime userpage (javascript popup), with all 105 images I made on it. Yay! It turns out my old pixeltime tribute page had only grabbed about 1/3 of the total... I was pretty creative on that site. (The top image was for the "Your Job" gallery...I guess it was before the "Mucko" shootings in Wakefield. I like the fat guy that I drew though.) I had forgotten that the self-portrait I use at the top of kisrael was designed for use as a pixeltime image.
Ranjit also sent me news of an update to the moonmilk wallpaper gallery. The one of his dog, "Tikko in August", is pretty amazing.
Funny of the Moment
Doctor: I'm afraid I have some bad news for you. Your condition is definitely fatal.
Patient: Oh, no! Well, how long do I have left?
Doctor: 10
Patient: Ten what? Months? Weeks? Ten what?
Doctor: 9
Ad Quote of the Moment
Many of you feel bad for this [discarded] lamp. That is because you're crazy.Though anyone who enjoyed Tom Robbins' Still Life With Woodpecker might disagree with the sentiment! Or maybe people practicing Shinto? NY Times Sunday Magazine recently had an article on Ikea in their "Design" issue, talking about the idea of disposable, DIY furniture. I wonder why there are no Ikea stores around here?
2001.12.08
Link of the Moment
This flash video isn't quite as amusing as it thinks it is, but months after I saw it I still think of it from time to time. It's the Mario Twins! ("Good god they looks so god damn like the same person. I would say to them you want ice cream cone, both of them say yes.") It's animation to go with 2 guys (with a drummer and sometimes a bass) singing the themes and sound effects from the game, it's amusingly homebrew sounding, and has a big "oh yeah...I remember that part!" factor for anyone who grew up playing Super Mario Brothers on the NES.
Quote of the Moment
Sturgeon's Law: "Ninety percent of everything is crap."(Dennett quoted this the other night, in response to Peterman's question, I think it addresses people who would apply meme theory to everything.)