… something to write home about. » 2008

Thoughts For The Day, 2008-06-30

Chris Hansen | June 30, 2008

the day star! it burnsss us! #
There is something to be said for beating the living shit out of an inanimate object instead of the person you’re really pissed off at. #

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Like Peanut Butter and Chocolate

Chris Hansen | June 27, 2008

The wonderfully surreal and mathematically proficient XKCD comic…

The Discovery Channel commercial, “World Is Awesome” (also known as “Boom de ah dah”)

Mix the two together, shake, blend, pour…

Voila!

http://xkcd.com/442/

Just perfect.

(Super Doctorow!)

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Evidence of Lister

Chris Hansen | June 25, 2008

Today the New York Times released an article describing how the shape of Mars is lopsided and a novel explanation of how it got that way.

Astronomers Explain Mars’s Lopsided Shape

I took one look and realized just how this came to be – Dave Lister was playing pool with planets again!

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I, For One, Welcome Our Robot Overlords

Chris Hansen |

Sometime in February, I grabbed a Roomba off of Woot during a woot-off. I got it partially because we are notoriously bad at vacuuming and with the baby about we need the bits and pieces gone.

And, partially, because it is so freaking cool – a robot! In my house! Vacuuming! Jane, get me off this crazy thing!

Fast forward a couple of months… the baby has been sitting up for quite a while on his own but dislikes ‘tummy time’ and has no inclination to crawl about. That’s fine, it means I don’t have to proof stuff for a bit longer. I set him down, put toys within reach and he is a happy camper.

Then the Roomba comes on. It does its little start up chime and a few seconds later it starts its whirring, backs out from underneath the ancient radio and starts Doing It’s Thing. It works its way around the room and the baby is simply fascinated. It moves. It makes noise. It is cool!

After a while, it works its way over to where the baby is at and gently bumps into him and then turns away. I’m waiting in vain for him to cry, weep, gnash gums but no, he is still simply fascinated.

That’s my boy.

After a couple of days, he is still watching it, rapt, and I watch him lean over and voila! He is on all fours, watching it. The next day, same thing. Nothing else seems to be worth the effort of trying to crawl except for when the Roomba is going. Each day he is a little more brave and tries a little more until he is actually crawling about, always facing the Roomba as it moves. He learned that it is hard to crawl on the hard wood floor so for a couple of days he is stuck crawling on the area rug, but desire is a strong motivator and he learns to sit on the wood, lean over and scoot across the slick surface.

This is the undoing of the Roomba, unfortunately.

Prior to the conquest of the hard wood floor, the Roomba could always retreat under the radio to charge and hide out until the next day at its appointed time. With the invention of scooting, the Roomba is vulnerable in its lair and, even worse, has glowing symbols on its surface that beg to be pressed. Power. Max. Spot.

Clean.

Yes, the boy learned to start the robot at will and now the poor wretched mechanical must dance to the whim and attention span of a highly inquisitive and perpetually happy one year old. Who can now crawl on carpet and hard wood flooring and thinks it is great fun to start the Roomba and then chase it throughout the living room, kitchen and hall until the battery dies and it sits forlornly, a pulsing red power button the only sign of any life left in its carapace.

If the elder boy’s memoir is “Don’t Bite The Dog And Other Things I Never Thought I’d Have To Say” then the younger boy’s might be “Leave The Roomba Alone Already” or perhaps “Stop Teasing The Roomba!”.

Yeah, I’m still working on that title.

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A Piece of Me Goes With Him

Chris Hansen | June 23, 2008

I never had a eight track tape machine; my dad was an audio engineer and I always remember having audio cassettes (as well as reel-to-reel 1/4″ tape machines) around. We had a cassette player in the van as well and on family vacations we’d listen to “Stan Freberg Presents The United States of America”, “National Lampoon’s Greatest Hits”, Abbott and Costello, The Shadow, and other great comedy and radio bits.

photo by Ken Howard via NPR

When I was 10 years old or so, I stumbled across a copy of a George Carlin stand up recorded live in Salt Lake City, sometime around 1974 or so. I listened to the cassettes regularly until they wore out. Later, I found used copies of Carlin’s albums and devoured them as well. I still have my vinyl on the shelf behind my desk.

Comedians such as Carlin, Berman, Freberg, Williams, Pryor shaped my world view as an adolescent and continue to do so.

Rest in Peace, George.

(photo by Ken Howard via NPR)

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Not Likely, I Hope

Chris Hansen | June 22, 2008

While driving back from exchanging one color of rather heavy brick for a slightly different color of rather heavy brick this afternoon, the radio was tuned to KUER, the University of Utah public radio station. “Wait, Wait, Don’t Tell Me” was on and as it finished up, the final bit was to have the panelists make up the first line of a George Bush (our current president) memoir. I don’t remember what the panelists first line would be, but I instantly knew what my first line would be:

Practicing my Jedi mind powers, I ordered Cheney to go get me some Taco Bell and thought, “Tacos rule!”

So, now that I’ve ‘fessed up, what do you think the first line of Dubya’s memoir would be? Leave it in the comments!

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Who Won?

Chris Hansen | June 19, 2008

So there is a story and a bunch of idiotic comments about said story. Normal for the internet - everyone is an expert so long as they don’t have to actually do anything.

No, the best part is the very last comment - but don’t spoil it by scrolling straight to it. It is truly wonderful when considered with the pontificating pundits above it.

UPDATE June 21, 2008, 11:22 PM: There are lots of comments since I posted this; the comment I found so funny was this one.

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Focus on the Problem

Chris Hansen |

Earlier today I read an article blaming technology for the decline in our youth and I found myself disagreeing. Technology may make it easier to not learn these things but critical thinking and reasoning is no longer part of the grade school curriculum and only marginally taught at a collegiate level.

If you look at the school curriculum from a century ago, the emphasis was different. Students learned to analyze and evaluate after reading or experimenting. It seems that the curriculum in most high schools today is more learning by rote and then regurgitating back so that students learn the answers to the questions and then just fill in the blank. Having observed directly and indirectly, teachers now instruct students with a curriculum designed to pass the test at the end of the year so the school can get its funding. There isn’t time or money to teach critical thought and reasoning - that is left to the parents and if the parents aren’t competent either then it just doesn’t get taught.

(Sue - this isn’t a criticism of schools; it is a no win situation in many cases and I feel that teachers and educators continually get the short end of the stick)

Technology can be a distraction but it is no more of a distraction to education than a host of other topics. The primer I have from around the turn of the century doesn’t cover anything about the technologies of the day but dwells more on mathematics, biology, history, language, literature, and physical sciences. It seems that technology of that era is a tool, a means to an end, not and end point.

As a long term software developer, manager, and writer, I’ve interviewed dozens of people for a variety of roles in our company. I’ve found that the most important skill is imagination followed by critical thinking. Software language and rules can be learned fairly easy but teaching someone to think is nearly impossible without lots of time and effort that I just don’t have.

Technology as a toy is just that, a toy, and shouldn’t interfere or have bearing on education. Technology as a means to an end in education should reinforce and support the content, not be the content unless the course work is about technology, such as a computer class.

In high school, I took a computer software class. It was fun, it was interesting and I didn’t take much away from it besides a familiarity with computers. At the time, I learned more at home with a copy of CP/M Basic and our dual floppy monochrome (green) Eagle CP/M computer that my dad used for his business. The best computer class I ever took was the first one I had at Utah State University. The first half of the course we didn’t touch a keyboard - it was all about algorithms and logic and it was the only class that concentrated on what you were doing with the tool rather than concentrating on the tool itself.

The Fortran, Pascal, Cobol, and VMS I learned taught me little bits but that algorithm class set the foundation for everyone of them and everything else since.

(I’ve wandered a bit from my original thesis - feel free to bring me to task for it as I’m not inclined at the moment to edit. )

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No Oil Here

Chris Hansen | June 12, 2008

For the second time in less than a year, I’ve assumed the position and let someone with a grinding instrument inside my mouth to render a cracked tooth into a stub, suitable for capping.

Last time, the tooth cracked in such a way that every little bit of pressure caused the tooth to open up and send cascading waves of sensation (read as ‘pain’) that wouldn’t go away for several minutes. Yes, it required a root canal.

This time, it is a tooth that has bothered me for years but we couldn’t find the crack until it got a little worse and I could point EXACTLY to it and, sure enough, there it was, a little tiny thing hiding under an old filling. No root canal this time and it was mostly pleasant thanks to my noise-blocking ear buds and play list.

Still, no more of this for a while, okay? Deal?