Please do... mark the parent as flamebait or possibly simply a troll. I haven't a clue what "Laguna Beach" is -- presumably a TV show since you claim to watch it. But to generalize that all (or even most of ) the kids in a very large state
are pejorativeA, pejorativeB and pejorativeC based on... what, a TV show. Well, that's just stupid in itself.
It's one of the wealthiest, most beautiful beachside communities in the world and MTV has unlimited access to the tight-knit power clique of eight rich, beautiful teenagers that live there.
Yup, that's fer sure a representative sample of the kids in all of California. Gawd.
My father broke his arm playing tag with myself and my three siblings -- skidded around a curve and landed badly. Not at school, but also not an impossible thing to happen. Sheesh, accidents happen but is it really realistic to ban all activities that might result in an injury?
Those needles for stiches might look like scary fishhooks, but they don't necessarily use them on eyebrows anymore. Six years
ago, my then 3 year-old son was "spinning" in his pre-school... right into a bookcase. Split open his eyebrow.
When I picked him up to take him to the doctor I had visions of just that scenario: a big fishhook needle near his eye.
Luckily they now, ah, superglue the kids back together. Which is good because he really didn't want anything to
do with prodding/poking by a doctor and it took 3 nurses and myself to hold him down while the doctor glued him. I can't
imagine how we would have accomplished it if it had to be real stitches.
Oh, the smug superiority that comes through in the parent message. Ugh. What a jerk. I love the juxtaposition of the bragging about their own children and the sorry shape of their "friends". And this line:
I'm not sure you're entitled to a normal life when you've got a kid that needs attention...
And obviously all children are alike since the overriding prescription of the parent message seems to be: Doing X worked
well for us, therefore everyone should X also [even though we recognize, in a backhanded fashion, that all children
aren't alike].
Yes, the old "It was easy enough for me, too bad you got a bad roll of the dice... but that doesn't mean that you shouldn't
suffer continually for it." Sorry, but as a parent of an ADHD child who's been a neverending non-stop ball of energy
since birth, ah, sometimes you just have to grasp any lifeline you can get. If some TV calms him down for a while letting
the parents take a break in order to recharge rather than dropping from exhaustion, well, I -- having experienced that life --
can't criticize them too harshly. I notice you didn't mention your having offered to take their child off their hands for a few hours a week. You know walk in their shoes and all that. And it would give them a break as well. No, much more productive to "pull no punches" giving them advice and lay a guilt trip on them by thrusting this preliminary and controvertial report in their faces. As if they didn't have enough trouble.
TV did not make my son ADHD. Yes, he probably watches more TV then many of his peers, but it is also obvious that
he's been different from birth. And while sometimes he does "zone" out while watching, he's also just as
likely to be bouncing off the walls (well, actually the couch and chairs) or assembling legos with new and wonderful creations.
Gawd, I hate the smug, oh, so superior attitude of some people.
One other thing that never seems to get discussed in these biometrics debates is the issue concerning what comes out of the devices. The scanner (fingerprint,iris,whatever..) has to output something, a hash of the analog input. Now if that isn't also crypo'ed in a secure manner (and I suspect that in many cases it isn't) then someone grabbing the output from the device can turn around an mimic the device and assume identities at will. This would be the biometric equivalent of what we've seen with ATMs (false fronts capturing data and using it later). As devices become more ubiquitous this will become more serious unless manufactures take security seriously... but they won't if history is any indication.
Oh, yes, and the distance from Fermilab to Soudan is 735 km. Converting to miles, rounding and then converting back to km is presumably how the value given in the story came about... but really... quoting it as 724km (450 miles) is just silly.
I haven't seen mentioned any of the news reports point out the, ah, irony [no pun intended, well, okay, yes it was] of the "coal to Newcastle" aspect of transporting 5.4 kilotons of steel into an iron mine. I just like to point that out..
Search for links in the news. Though I hate Fox News in general, I have to say they have the best title for their copy: Physicists Lose Some Neutrinos, Gain Some Information.
Boy, was it great to see our result presented on Thursday. Though I'm a little disappointed that the story here didn't link to, say, our press release or even to the
Fermilab or
MINOS experiment home pages.
I joined the experiment in 1995 soon after the collaboration came together and
created the proposal. In that time I've written simulation ("Monte Carlo"), reconstruction and framework code for the experiment. It's been a pretty exciting 10 years. The push to get everything together this last month has been exhausting. But after presenting the results on Thursday do we physicists take a well deserved break and party like 1999? Well, noooo. We spend Friday,
Saturday and Sunday IN MEETINGS! Today (Saturday) we were there from 8:30am to 7:00pm discussing how further to proceed. We've got
50% more data "in the can" that we didn't yet present (cross checks to perform, fits to perform). Plus plans for more data taking after the accelerator comes up again in June. Plus other physics results we're still trying to extract. Plus more improved simulations to do in order to yield improved limits. Such is the life of a physicist.
I once heard (and often repeat) that "programming is the art of debugging an empty file". The file starts out empty, and obviously doesn't work thus it needs a series of corrections (debugging) until the point where it does do what one wants.
As much as I like Junkyard Wars, I dislike Battlebots, Robotica, etc.
In Junkyard Wars the two teams build are generally competing on equal terms -- same amount of time, same resources (junkyard). We get to see them make decisions (good, bad and the ugly). There are little side bits about the theory behind some of those decisions, with commentary about what a wrong choice can mean. And the point of the competition isn't simply destructions and mayhem. I find that geeky fun. Simply crashing
bots together with various whackers and mashers just doesn't have the same appeal.
I let my four year old watch Junkyard Wars. Actually it's his favorite show! We have a bunch
on tape (they had a marathon the day after Thanksgiving) and they hold up to repeat viewing.
He's probably seen each episode six to ten times.
But there is no way
is he allowed the death-and-destruction bot shows.
From what I've seen of them, I fail to see where
kids are:
encouraged to learn mechanics, engineering, coding, and other tech skills that will benifit them later in life in professional or technical careers.
Well, other than in a very second hand fashion.
Junkyard Wars on the other hand shows the teams
in action using such skills on camera.
I'm not all that encouraged by the description of the new show, but I guess I'll reserve judgement
for now.
I just hate it when people spew that tired old Heinlein canard about armed society == polite society. I liked much of his writing (science fiction); but as deep philosopher he left much to be desired. This catchy little sound bite is as trite as so many other anti-gun-regulation catch phrases (outlaws.., guns don't kill..).
Consider:
From page 7 of the Adelaide "Advertiser" newspaper, 01-Jul-1991, (and probably lots of other newspapers throughout the world), in the world news section:
"Grenades Fly In Chicken Row ---------------------------- PESHAWAR, Pakistan: A dispute over a chicken escalated into a pitched battle in which four people were killed, after two Pakistani tribal families tried to settle the row with rocket launchers and hand grenades. The clash occurred after the bird flew to a nearby house whose owner laid claim to it."
Since just about every household has a knife, thus everyone could be considered armed. The next step up is guns. And rocket launchers and hand granades are a step futher. Thus, logically these two households should have been quite polite. No?
Every complex problem has a simple, elegant, incorrect solution... and this armed society blather is just one example.
Slashdot Mirror
Google yields: http://www.tv.com/laguna-beach/show/29836/summary. html
Yup, that's fer sure a representative sample of the kids in all of California. Gawd.Those needles for stiches might look like scary fishhooks, but they don't necessarily use them on eyebrows anymore. Six years ago, my then 3 year-old son was "spinning" in his pre-school ... right into a bookcase. Split open his eyebrow.
When I picked him up to take him to the doctor I had visions of just that scenario: a big fishhook needle near his eye.
Luckily they now, ah, superglue the kids back together. Which is good because he really didn't want anything to
do with prodding/poking by a doctor and it took 3 nurses and myself to hold him down while the doctor glued him. I can't
imagine how we would have accomplished it if it had to be real stitches.
Yes, the old "It was easy enough for me, too bad you got a bad roll of the dice... but that doesn't mean that you shouldn't suffer continually for it." Sorry, but as a parent of an ADHD child who's been a neverending non-stop ball of energy since birth, ah, sometimes you just have to grasp any lifeline you can get. If some TV calms him down for a while letting the parents take a break in order to recharge rather than dropping from exhaustion, well, I -- having experienced that life -- can't criticize them too harshly. I notice you didn't mention your having offered to take their child off their hands for a few hours a week. You know walk in their shoes and all that. And it would give them a break as well. No, much more productive to "pull no punches" giving them advice and lay a guilt trip on them by thrusting this preliminary and controvertial report in their faces. As if they didn't have enough trouble.
TV did not make my son ADHD. Yes, he probably watches more TV then many of his peers, but it is also obvious that he's been different from birth. And while sometimes he does "zone" out while watching, he's also just as likely to be bouncing off the walls (well, actually the couch and chairs) or assembling legos with new and wonderful creations.
Gawd, I hate the smug, oh, so superior attitude of some people.
One other thing that never seems to get discussed in these biometrics debates is the issue concerning what comes out of the devices. The scanner (fingerprint,iris,whatever..) has to output something, a hash of the analog input. Now if that isn't also crypo'ed in a secure manner (and I suspect that in many cases it isn't) then someone grabbing the output from the device can turn around an mimic the device and assume identities at will. This would be the biometric equivalent of what we've seen with ATMs (false fronts capturing data and using it later). As devices become more ubiquitous this will become more serious unless manufactures take security seriously ... but they won't if history is any indication.
I haven't seen mentioned any of the news reports point out the, ah, irony [no pun intended, well, okay, yes it was] of the "coal to Newcastle" aspect of transporting 5.4 kilotons of steel into an iron mine. I just like to point that out..
Search for links in the news. Though I hate Fox News in general, I have to say they have the best title for their copy: Physicists Lose Some Neutrinos, Gain Some Information.
I joined the experiment in 1995 soon after the collaboration came together and created the proposal. In that time I've written simulation ("Monte Carlo"), reconstruction and framework code for the experiment. It's been a pretty exciting 10 years. The push to get everything together this last month has been exhausting. But after presenting the results on Thursday do we physicists take a well deserved break and party like 1999? Well, noooo. We spend Friday, Saturday and Sunday IN MEETINGS! Today (Saturday) we were there from 8:30am to 7:00pm discussing how further to proceed. We've got 50% more data "in the can" that we didn't yet present (cross checks to perform, fits to perform). Plus plans for more data taking after the accelerator comes up again in June. Plus other physics results we're still trying to extract. Plus more improved simulations to do in order to yield improved limits. Such is the life of a physicist.
I once heard (and often repeat) that "programming is the art of debugging an empty file". The file starts out empty, and obviously doesn't work thus it needs a series of corrections (debugging) until the point where it does do what one wants.
I let my four year old watch Junkyard Wars. Actually it's his favorite show! We have a bunch on tape (they had a marathon the day after Thanksgiving) and they hold up to repeat viewing. He's probably seen each episode six to ten times.
But there is no way is he allowed the death-and-destruction bot shows. From what I've seen of them, I fail to see where kids are:
Well, other than in a very second hand fashion. Junkyard Wars on the other hand shows the teams in action using such skills on camera.I'm not all that encouraged by the description of the new show, but I guess I'll reserve judgement for now.
Consider:
Since just about every household has a knife, thus everyone could be considered armed. The next step up is guns. And rocket launchers and hand granades are a step futher. Thus, logically these two households should have been quite polite. No?
Every complex problem has a simple, elegant, incorrect solution ... and this armed society blather is just one example.