Sunday, May 31, 2009
Climate Schmy-mate
wtf SNOW????? In May??? See the weather in the previous post last week and compare. And if you think I'm making this up, see the screenshot from Sheryl's iPhone, with the weather report. It's not actually below zero Celsius, but yes...it's snowing. It's stuff like this that remind me why it's more correctly called Climate Change, and not just Global Warming.
I don't think it's good, either way. Sheryl is worried too. Look at this mess...
The girls, however, remain practical and unflappable. "We'll fix it, mom!"
"With what shall you fix it, dear children, dear children? With what shall you fix it, dear children? With WHAT?"
"With a bucket, dear mummy, dear mummy. With a bucket, dear mummy, dear mummy. BUH-KET!"
"But there's a hole in the bucket, dear Fionna, dear Fionna. There's a hole in the bucket, dear Fionna. A HOLE."
Trout Lake starts getting icebergs and I'm moving.
I don't think it's good, either way. Sheryl is worried too. Look at this mess...
The girls, however, remain practical and unflappable. "We'll fix it, mom!"
"With what shall you fix it, dear children, dear children? With what shall you fix it, dear children? With WHAT?"
"With a bucket, dear mummy, dear mummy. With a bucket, dear mummy, dear mummy. BUH-KET!"
"But there's a hole in the bucket, dear Fionna, dear Fionna. There's a hole in the bucket, dear Fionna. A HOLE."
Trout Lake starts getting icebergs and I'm moving.
Thursday, May 28, 2009
Peak Oil Parenting
I think I've got the parenting during Peak Oil thing worked out. Kids + sugar = cold fusion.
Three R's my eye! I'm sending the kids out into the yard while I go inside and turning on the clothes dryer while surfing the net for some high-tech disposable camping gear.
Seriously, though...the book on my night table over the last couple of days has me impressed. The nice thing about it, as opposed to the standard doomer canon on Peak Oil, is that it actually deals with the issue on multiple levels including the psychological and historical barriers to sustainable change, and a much more practical and attainable approach to personal change.
--
“Problems cannot be solved by the same level of thinking that created them.”
-Albert Einstein
Three R's my eye! I'm sending the kids out into the yard while I go inside and turning on the clothes dryer while surfing the net for some high-tech disposable camping gear.
Seriously, though...the book on my night table over the last couple of days has me impressed. The nice thing about it, as opposed to the standard doomer canon on Peak Oil, is that it actually deals with the issue on multiple levels including the psychological and historical barriers to sustainable change, and a much more practical and attainable approach to personal change.
--
“Problems cannot be solved by the same level of thinking that created them.”
-Albert Einstein
Saturday, May 23, 2009
All kids look the same when they are swinging...
Friday, May 15, 2009
Parenting 2.0 is sooooo last year.
The future is coming...really fast. And my girls are tapping their feet in frustration that I didn't download the beta version yet.
The iPhone 3.0 revision is coming out some time soon. Which is good because I just can't imagine trying to raise children without the LATEST in wireless gadgetry. I'm being facetious, of course; we shoo them outdoors whenever possible. The girls just spent 2 hours outside sharing and playing with a single fist-size rock, carrying it everywhere, giving it a name, throwing it about like a ball...two HOURS! ONE ROCK!
...but MAN do they love our iPhones. The darn things have become pretty much a necessity within our work lives, and so I guess the girls just see us with them all the time. They are so nimble now, with the touchscreen interface, that they find the trackpads on our laptops usable but annoying and traditional computer mice are even more frustrating than that. More evidence that they are waiting for the UI to catch up to their skills: our archaic WinBox CRT is covered with fingerprints from all the time's they've tried to click and drag with their fingers on the screen. I caught Abby the other day trying to manipulate the fish in the fishtank using a similar strategy.
One game that Fionna's enjoyed lately is World of Goo, a physics-based game which she first tried on my MacBook. Again, the UI was totally getting in her way with this one; she would point to structures she was trying to make, had already envisioned the results, and the trackpad was just not allowing her to accomplish it. The Wii interface was easier for her. But you get the impression that as soon as multitouch screens larger than our phones are widely available, she'll basically solve the game in a few sessions and then move on to object-oriented programming.
Oh wait. This just in: Abby's already started to talk to the computer.
...and Fionna is using the computer to speak for her. Look out Stephen Hawking!
The iPhone 3.0 revision is coming out some time soon. Which is good because I just can't imagine trying to raise children without the LATEST in wireless gadgetry. I'm being facetious, of course; we shoo them outdoors whenever possible. The girls just spent 2 hours outside sharing and playing with a single fist-size rock, carrying it everywhere, giving it a name, throwing it about like a ball...two HOURS! ONE ROCK!
...but MAN do they love our iPhones. The darn things have become pretty much a necessity within our work lives, and so I guess the girls just see us with them all the time. They are so nimble now, with the touchscreen interface, that they find the trackpads on our laptops usable but annoying and traditional computer mice are even more frustrating than that. More evidence that they are waiting for the UI to catch up to their skills: our archaic WinBox CRT is covered with fingerprints from all the time's they've tried to click and drag with their fingers on the screen. I caught Abby the other day trying to manipulate the fish in the fishtank using a similar strategy.
One game that Fionna's enjoyed lately is World of Goo, a physics-based game which she first tried on my MacBook. Again, the UI was totally getting in her way with this one; she would point to structures she was trying to make, had already envisioned the results, and the trackpad was just not allowing her to accomplish it. The Wii interface was easier for her. But you get the impression that as soon as multitouch screens larger than our phones are widely available, she'll basically solve the game in a few sessions and then move on to object-oriented programming.
Oh wait. This just in: Abby's already started to talk to the computer.
...and Fionna is using the computer to speak for her. Look out Stephen Hawking!
Labels: parenting iphone
