Nice Vietnamese woman cutting my hair: "Yes, we have to cut more off as we get older to make the gray go away."
Month: March 2014
State of Me
I am tired. I am stressed. I am covered in cat hair.
28 hours with a Pebble Smartwatch
I decided I wanted to be on the forefront of the Smartwatch revolution. For all practical purposes, I’m late. I now own a Pebble Smartwatch
My first 28 hours were a delight.
It fits nicely. And naturally tells the date and time.
I can pay for my coffee by scanning that bar code (under the birds).
And the watch gives me directions without my eyes leaving the road.
These are the early days of smartwatches. Essentially we are seeing the proof of concept and the vetting of the potential for these devices. And the potential is huge!
March 20 – International Day of Happiness
For you sadsacks out there, today is International Day of Happiness. Perk up! Let’s spread some joy.
"Happiness may have different meanings for different people. But we can all agree that it means working to end conflict, poverty and other unfortunate conditions in which so many of our fellow human beings live."
Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon
Message for the International Day of Happiness, 20 March 2014
Starting the Day
Most people begin the day with a cheery, "Good morning!" I prefer, "Dammit cat!"
Cringeworthy moment
Cringeworthy moment: Hearing your small child say, "I like your youtube video where you blah blah blah and blah blah and my favorite, chutney!" Do you remember when only adults were on the Internet? My videos do!
Public Education Is Not Free
To anyone who has ever said, "public education is free," I just wrote a $178 check so my son can take two exams.
Is there a gender bias at the elementary school level?
I believe the perceived gender bias has less to do with maturity and more to do with active vs passive teaching. Boys tend to be active learners. As long as we continue to push this “test to learn” approach to education and rely upon worksheets, boys will have difficulty at the elementary level. Please do not get me wrong. Rocky Hill Elementary is a quality school. I have been an active parent there for 14 years and given numerous volunteer hours. I support our school.
Our society has an issue with men right now. It is unfortunate and wrong but sensationalism and fear has made it difficult for men to work with children. The harmful results can be seen in the faculty at Rocky Hill Elementary: http://rockyhilles.knoxschools.org/modules/tt/staffList/staffListSimplified.phtml
One regular ed male teacher to 32 fremale teachers. The ratio changes to 3m:38f if we include special areas. Jordan Haney is an exceptional teacher and highly sought after by the students. I can’t help but wonder how having more male teachers in the earlier grades would improve the boy students’ engagement to education. And ultimately we are not talking about maturity or bias but student engagement. An engaged student is a learning student. I recently saw someone’s story about being told their child should be on Ritalin. Their response to the teacher? “Have you tried being more interesting.” It’s a good point.
Ancient Chinese philosopher Confucius once said, “Tell me and I’ll forget; show me and I may remember; and involve me and I’ll understand.”
“Active vs Passive learning” http://www.units.miamioh.edu/celt/events/docs/CFLING/active%20vs%20passive.pdf
“the student/chaperone ratio is so high” If the school would return to inviting parent chaperons on the trip, this would be less of a problem.
“A study on gender disparities in elementary-school performance found that boys received lower grades than girls, even when their test scores were equal to or higher than the girls’” Read more: Do Teachers Really Discriminate Against Boys? | TIME.com http://ideas.time.com/2013/02/06/do-teachers-really-discriminate-against-boys/
(same study as above…different article with more info)
“New research from the University of Georgia and Columbia University published in the current issue of Journal of Human Resources suggests that it’s because of their classroom behavior, which may lead teachers to assign girls higher grades than their male counterparts.” Read more at: http://phys.org/news/2013-01-girls-school.html
Seeking advice on using US phones in Europe
To my European friends and my more traveled friends, my son heads off to London (7 days) and Paris (2 days) this weekend. My next quandary is cell phone. My plan currently allows my son unlimited texting and sending of pictures over SMS internationally. However, it does not include data or voice. What I learned today was that if he received a phone call (and doesn’t even answer it), he incurs international roaming charges.
So, do I:
- make him leave his phone at home?
- let him take his phone but remove the sim card so he is forced to use wifi?
- Have him jump into an EE store and buy a 30 day prepaid phone? I presume the tour group isn’t going to stop to waste an hour in an EE store letting everyone buy prepaid phones. — does the airport have these in vending machines?
- Beg a friend or relative to drop a prepaid phone by his hotel?
Are there other options?
1st person to post a Liam Neeson meme gets 10 points.
Rule 79
Order has been restored. Rule 79 is once again respected in the McCaughan household.
Date night
This looks like a party!
Rule 79
My family has broken rule 79 which clearly states, "Never run out of toilet paper!"
"Kids, gather by the spray nozzle in the kitchen. And someone bring a step ladder. Dad is going to teach your how to use a bidet."
NASA Forgets How To Talk To ICE/ISEE-3 Spacecraft
Reading this makes me sad. It is terribly indicative of the problems surrounding my industry that I discuss almost daily…documentation, knowledge management, dependencies upon legacy systems.
Here we have history passing us by. Good scientific equipment that could be repurposed and all we can do is wave.
“Can we tell the spacecraft to turn back on its thrusters and science instruments after decades of silence and perform the intricate ballet needed to send it back to where it can again monitor the Sun? Unfortunately the answer to that question appears to be no. ‘The transmitters of the Deep Space Network, the hardware to send signals out to the fleet of NASA spacecraft in deep space, no longer includes the equipment needed to talk to ISEE-3. These old-fashioned transmitters were removed in 1999.’ ”
http://science.slashdot.org/story/14/03/04/024207/nasa-forgets-how-to-talk-to-iceisee-3-spacecraft
Robert De Niro is inside my head
