A couple photos
November 29, 2004
We took Owen to the zoo over the weekend. Here we are, watching dolphins.
Here's Owen sleeping on Kiara's shoulder:
International Square Earth Society
November 29, 2004
It is a well-established Biblical fact that the Earth is flat and immobile. Every good Biblical literalist knows the Scriptural passages which demonstrate that the Earth does not move and that its surface is not curved … But far too many lazy Biblical literalists today ignore the plain fact that the Bible also tells us that the flat Earth does not have curved edges.
Wiki spammers
November 29, 2004
Someone just spammed a wiki that I run at work. Luckily the wiki generates an RSS feed, so I caught it almost right away. And luckily it's a wiki, so rolling back to an earlier version is a snap. And luckily it was only one page … this time. It looks like I have to be more aggressive about blocking this sort of thing. I'm kinda surprised it took so long.
Someone at HCL gets it.
November 29, 2004
Two very cool things from the Hennepin County Library:
- A free online classical music listening library. All you need is a Hennepin County Library card — or, I assume, a Minnesota library card that's in Hennepin's system.
- A Birth-to-Six literacy web site, with age-targeted book lists and early literacy guides. I cannot emphasize enough the importance of reading to kids from an early age.
This library system has been doing such cool things on their web site. The first time I saw that I had 24/7 access to a reference librarian, I about wet myself.
Okay, maybe I wasn't that excited, but there's no question that someone there has a vision for how the Web can fit into a library's mission — and can find the funds to support that vision.
They'd Probably Kick My Ass
November 28, 2004
On my walk home from work, I sometimes pass law enforcement students doing training exercises. At least that's what I assume is going on. A group of students may be gathered around an SUV while their instructor explains the finer points of putting out a car fire; or a squad car may be pulling over one of the students on the road. Whenever I see one of these activities, I wonder how they'd react to some crazy guy appearing out of nowhere, screaming and waving his arms, crying "pull me over! I did it! I did it!" or "Run, Fred, run! I've got you covered!" or "Leave him the hell alone, pig! He didn't do anything!" Would they break character? All sorts of scenarios play out in my head. None of them end up being very pleasant for me. So I just continue innocently, grinning like a madman.
Evolution and textbook disclaimers
November 27, 2004
These science textbook disclaimers from my new heroes at Swarthmore say it all.
The religious right's long-term plan to take over school boards is really paying off. I am dismayed — no, outraged — that creationism being raised to the same level as evolution in science classrooms across the country, under the guise of a new name ("intelligent design") and couched in scientific terminology.
Let's review what "theory" means, shall we? From last month's National Geographic (emphasis added):
Continental drift is a theory. The existence, structure, and dynamics of atoms? Atomic theory. Even electricity is a theoretical construct, involving electrons, which are tiny units of charged mass that no one has ever seen. Each of these theories is an explanation that has been confirmed to such a degree, by observation and experiment, that knowledgeable experts accept it as fact. That's what scientists mean when they talk about a theory: not a dreamy and unreliable speculation, but an explanatory statement that fits the evidence. They embrace such an explanation confidently but provisionally … taking it as their best available view of reality, at least until some severely conflicting data or some better explanation might come along
That's just it. Evolution is science's best explanation for how life came to be and continues to be. It is accepted by the overwhelming majority of scientists, except for a fringe, vocal few who are by and large motivated by something other than teaching science.
"Evolution should be taught as a scientific theory that is open to critical scrutiny, not as a theory that can't be questioned". Sounds reasonable, doesn't it? We want our children to engage in a healthy exchange of ideas, to examine evidence and explore possible explanations. I sometimes ask myself, "why not 'teach the controversy'?"
Because there isn't one worth mentioning.
I do not by any means endorse oversimplifying the curriculum or protecting students from uncomfortable controversy. But there simply isn't one here. Scientists have come to a consensus in embracing evolution, and that is what we must teach. Not creationism, from which we have moved on, religious feelings notwithstanding. Make no mistake: intelligent design is creationism advocated in terms more palatable than the Bible-based efforts of days gone by to give the impression of credibility. A sound science curriculum must and does teach critical inquiry. The creationist movement plays upon this notion to inject itself directly into the classroom, bypassing critical scrutiny by the scientific community.
And dammit, it's working.
Blogroll updates
November 22, 2004
Tonight I finally got around to automatically updating the blogroll here with my Bloglines feeds, periodically pulling down the OPML file and rebuilding the list so the most recently updated float to the top. Matt added an RSS feed just in time. :)
I considered using blo.gs to do this, but I want to include sites other than weblogs, and I've been Bloglines as an aggregator for some weeks now. It's not great, but it has some intriguing services. I miss the desktop apps, but I sure don't miss keeping the subscriptions in sync.
Religious voter.
November 08, 2004
On Speaking of Faith recently, guest Cheryl Sanders said something that excited me so much I screamed. It's one of those things that should be obvious but that I don't hear nearly enough:
Just like the love of God obligates us to love our neighbor, the justice of God obligates us to be concerned about justice and involved in the opposition to injustice as we encounter it.
For the last couple weeks, especially after Bush's re-election, I've been wondering how to respond here. Someone found the words.
Quick Links
November 08, 2004
A real hodgepodge.
- It looks like Firefox 1.0 will be released tomorrow.
- Sorting Algorithm Demo. These applets offer visual demonstrations of different sorting algorithms. Is Quicksort really that much faster than a bubble sort? Watch and see.
- Clay Shirky, Group as User: Flaming and the Design of Social Software.
- Richard Rutter calls attention to Flash-free photo-fading, then produces a cross-browser, accessible version.
- Sun's Project Looking Glass seems like cool way to bring 3D to the desktop (and show that just because it's Java doesn't mean it's slow). Now it's an open source project, which on the face of it means very little except that if it dies, it will die on the streets inside of a warm Sun laboratory. A coworker just pointed me to a similar research project within Microsoft a few years back. Interesting potential for bring spatial metaphors to the desktop, nearly as exciting as using Doom as an interface for process management.
- CVS Monitor. Now I just need a Subversion version.
- JDocs, a huge online collection of Java API documentation.
- fValidate, a JavaScript library for forms validation that I'd love to write more about but know I never will.
- Password generator bookmarklet.
- Cornell.edu's redesign blog. How terribly novel, to open up the redesign process like this. I cannot imagine The Powers That Be at work allowing this.
- Douglas Bowman at Web Essentials in Sydney: Pushing Your Limits.
- Philip Greenspun: What's wrong with the standard undergraduate computer science curriculum.
- JavaScript XMLHttpRequest from the JPSPAN wiki. See, too, the essential Using the XML HTTP Request object.
- A Development Infrastructure for PHP, one of a whole set of interesting things from Tony Marston.
- APLAWS+, a government-sponsored (UK) open source content management system built using the Red Hat CMS.
- Information Architecture Research, a "radically incomplete and idiosyncratic list of freely accessible research papers worth review before you plunge into your next information architecture project."
Jefferson - Adams election
November 05, 2004
You think this past election was bad? During the 1800 presidential election, voters on both sides were certain that the existence of the Republic was at stake. Thomas Jefferson supporters were convinced that if John Adams were elected, America would end up a monocracy, slave once again to Great Britain. Adams supporters believed that if Jefferson were elected president, we would have gone the way of the French Revolution and that "the people of this nation will receive the just vengeance of an insulted heaven. We will witness our dwellings in flames, hoary hairs bathed in blood, female chastity violated, and children writhing on the pike and halberd."
Just a Dose of Common Sense
November 05, 2004
I did this once. In high school, a group of us went to an apple orchard and the to someone's home to make pie. Lots of pies. How many apples do we need to make a pie, though? We had a recipe that told us how many pounds of apples to use per pie, but we didn't have a kitchen scale. Science to the rescue! Tony & I went off to a corner to work it out. We have two identical mixing bowls, so we'll just build a makeshift scale, balancing a bowl of water with a bowl of apples. We know the molecular weight of water so can calculate the weight of a given volume… Several calculations later, we — er, that's not right. See, you forgot this. Oh, there you go. We'll need 254 bushels of apples per pie!
Once we'd arrived at this half-assed conclusion, we turned around to face our friends' bemused smiles and several filled pie shells. "Just keep adding apples until it's full," Kiara said, not quite able to hold back gales of laughter.
I swear, that's why I married her.
Happy Birthday, Owen
November 04, 2004
Two years ago today I had a root canal. Because I work too damn much and don't think to take time off when it's appropriate — like when I've just had a root canal — I headed straight for work from the dentist and was at my desk before I noticed the text message on my cell phone: "Baby on the way!"
"Yes, dear," I thought, "you're pregnant." As if I didn't know. It had been a relatively easy pregnancy to date (she was in her 35th week), and Kiara had just started to feel it in a big way: not only was her brain's speech filtering capability disabled so that she'd say any damn thing she thought, but now she was exceedingly uncomfortable. Those of you who have carried babies full term (or who have lived with those who have) are now scoffing at Kiara's so-called "discomfort," but that's beside the point. I'm just saying that I knew very well that my dear heart was with child. She had stayed home that day because her blood pressure was wonky and she needed to remain reclined, a position rarely possible in her teaching job. I smiled at the message, because her excitement is infectious.
Then I noticed the voicemail. Several messages from her, one from her mother. Hm. Odd.
Oh.
Baby on the way.
"I've got to take Kiara to the doctor," I told a coworker, and then raced home. Luckily I had driven that day instead of taking the bus, as the 90-minute bus ride would have been unbearable. When I arrived, Kiara had packed for the hospital and was printing off a birth plan. The baby was arriving five weeks early. We were supposed to talk about birth plans at our childbirth class later that week, so hadn't even discussed them, but Kiara did some quick research on the web and came up with something reasonable. She was incredibly calm about the whole thing. Her water had broken and contractions had started; her midwife told her to come into the hospital that afternoon, once her contractions reached a certain frequency. This happened quite quickly.
We'd been going to Bradley Method natural childbirth classes. One thing that Bradley teaches is how to recognize and react to different stages of labor, to help the mother through. I frantically flipped through our books, reviewing what I was supposed to know, what I should do, then abruptly stopped and closed the books. I knew this stuff, and the way I was reacting certainly wasn't helping Kiara. Except for being five weeks early, this was textbook.
Her contractions progressed steadily, and at a certain point it was clear that it was time to go to the hospital. After we settled in, all I remember is helping Kiara relax. Breathe and relax. Breathe and relax. Until all of a sudden, before anyone expected it, Owen's head crowned, and a minute or two later our son was born. After a small flurry of activity, a nurse held him toward me. "See, Dad? See what it is?" I was puzzled. Yes, I thought, it's a baby. Duh. What are you asking? Oh. A penis. You want me to see that it's a boy. Yeah, okay, he's a boy. How's he doing? How's his mom?
Because he was technically premature, NICU staff were on hand to give him a quick examination. They excitedly concluded that he was a very healthy child. Before long he was handed back to Kiara, and together we held him. Our beautiful baby boy.
That morning, I had a root canal. Then, in an uncharacteristic display of one-upmanship, Kiara had a baby.
He slept for the first month of his life, so we had little trouble getting him into a sleeping pattern to match ours. At the time Kiara joked privately that she was sleeping better than she ever had in her life.
When Owen was a few days old, I was sitting on the shore of Minnehaha Creek, watching a family of ducks swim in the swift current. What a miracle, this universe into which my son was born! I looked forward to nurturing a sense of wonder and awe in Owen, hoped that he should learn to treasure this marvelous world. For a moment, as the water gurgled past, I glimpsed Something More.
A woman stepped near, apologized for disturbing me, and knelt to choose a rock to place on her mother's grave.
That may have been the most poignant moment of my life. I still tear up when I think of it.
Selah.
But what hubris! To think that I should teach a child about wonder and delight. If I have learned anything, it's how much he can teach me.
Now two years old, Owen is a happy, healthy kid, and smart as a whip. He's extremely verbal. We stopped tracking his vocabulary when it topped 500 words and was stringing together coherent sentences. I can carry on actual conversations with him, which just makes my day.
We still co-sleep but are helping him transition to his own bed. He sometimes resists but in the end always succumbs to the notion of sleeping in his bed, "just like Robert" (a friend).
He never says a word to our friend Jim (Robert's dad), but once at home won't stop talking about him. He has imaginary phone conversations with him: "Hello, Jim. Are you sleeping? Are you at work? Play trains? With Robert and Jacob. Okay, bye-bye."
About a month ago, he started preparing and eating imaginary food for himself, Kiara, and me. The menu usually includes hot dogs, broccoli, coffee (just for me), tea, milk, soymilk, juice, water, falafel, cheese, crackers… Hot dogs are a puzzle, since I think he's only ever eaten them once, and they were made of tofu. Which he loves, so maybe it's not so much a surprise.
He really, really likes chocolate milk.
He loves family hugs.
He loves to read.
When our cat is meowing sadly in the car on the way to the vet, Owen consoles him: "That's okay, Niki. Go see vet. Feel better."
We started using sign language with him at an early age, and he's taken to it with gusto. I wish we knew more. We also started speaking French with him quite early, but now he refuses to let me speak it around him. I can't say more than a few words before he protests, "No French, Papa." Then, "No français." Tee hee.
Last fall, he was worried about all the leaves falling to the ground, so we spent our evenings putting them back on trees.
He is enthralled by water. He will spend long stretches of time just staring at a lake or pond, watching the wind ripple across the surface.
Just a few days ago he drew a picture of a face, pointing out the eyes, nose, mouth, eyebrows, glasses, chin… That's the first time that I've ever known him to draw something, rather than just draw.
He tells wonderful stories.
When I ask him what he did today, he always answers, "played cars."
But really, he tells wonderful stories.
He wakes up slowly, like me. He wakes up singing, like his mother.
Happy birthday, Owen. I love you.
