Enough already with kid gloves

USATODAY.com (article)

It seems that many adults today regard the children in their care as fragile hothouse flowers who require protection from even the remote possibility of frustration, disappointment or failure. The new solicitude goes far beyond blacklisting red pens. Many schools now discourage or prohibit competitive games such as tag or dodge ball. The rationale: too many hurt feelings. In May 2002, for example, the principal of Franklin Elementary School in Santa Monica, Calif., sent a newsletter to parents informing them that children could no longer play tag during the lunch recess. As she explained, "In this game, there is a 'victim' or 'It,' which creates a self-esteem issue."

and

Anthony Pellegrini, a professor of early childhood education at the University of Minnesota, has done careful studies on playground dynamics. I asked him what he thought of the national movement against games such as tag and dodge ball: "It is ridiculous. Even squirrels play chase."

This is a bit of a follow up to the red pen story that was discussed a bit back. Really, kids need to learn how to cope with failure, be it doing bad on school work, or getting hit in dodgeball. If we never let our kids fail then when they do in real life they will not have developed the proper response to it. It is stupid to not allow children to play competitive games. In Nicole's class when a competitive game was played the kids preformed better than when they were just learning the material for themselves. I think that a kid that is sheltered from competition will be woefully unprepared for life.

I mean I am still disappointed that the little league never kept track of win and losses in Garden when I played. (While playing soccer in Arizona we had a playoff system and even an All-Star game. I was 7 at the time and loved striving for a goal.)

Giuliani to create new hockey league?

ESPN.com (article)

The Toronto Star reported Wednesday that former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani and leading Canadian diplomat Maurice Strong may join forces to create a new hockey league if the NHL continues its lockout, which wiped out the entire 2004-05 season.
According to a 71-page business plan reviewed by the newspaper and circulated to prospective Wall Street investors, the new league -- tentatively called the International Hockey Association -- would rely on Giuliani's New York consulting company to help raise as much as $5 billion in seed money.

This got a short mention on ESPN today and is quite interesting. I hope there is some hockey played next year, be it NHL, IHA, or WHA. By the way the WHA is not updating their site, which probably means it is dead.

This is my desktop from May. Just incase you were wondering what I have been looking at for the last month. And I know all you have been wondering that...

The only thing of note that I have done today is play disc golf on campus. No really, that is what we are doing here. Actually we are tiring to get Chris' disc out of the very very spiky bushes that they have on campus. It kinda sucked, but I bet it sucked even more for Chris. ^_^

Project BSE points over the last couple days:
Saw Star Wars Ep. III again: +150
Visited a friend more that 50 miles away: +500
Eat at Runza: +50
Eat at Qdoba: +50
Eat at Free State: +100
BSE point total so far: 3450

After coffee we went back to Newgen�s to play AntiGrav. The game uses the EyeToy for the PS2, and it is a good use of a non-standard input system for a console game that is actually fun to play with. I am not good at it, but it is very fun to play. After playing the game for awhile we all left Newgen�s to go drive through a thunderstorm to get home, and that brings us to today.

When dinner was finished we walked over to Signs of Life, which is a book store/ coffeehouse/ art gallery. They had some new paintings there, some of which were good, some of which weren�t that impressive. I like Signs of Life because it just seems like a happy place, where everyone is friendly. Also their coffee is better than most places.

After golf we went to Newgen�s to dry off for a bit, and to play some Mario Cart Double Dash. It is a fun game, and having two players on the cart is a very interesting twist to the game style. After a couple rounds of that we all headed off to Free State Brewery for dinner. I don�t think anything stood out as exceptionally good this time, but by now we have pretty high expectations of Free State, so just average for them is still awesome anywhere else. If you are ever in Lawrence you must stop by this place to eat, it is very good, and relatively cheap.

On the way back to the cars, it stopped raining. We stopped by the skate park that they have by the golf course and tried our hand at extreme discing. The discs did surprisingly well skimming around the park and the half pipe work particularly well. If you ever get rained out of a disc golf game, go look for a skate park, you can make up for your missed fun there.

After lunch at Qdoba, Nicole, Newgen, and I walked up Mass. street for a bit, then when Jenette and Chris arrived into town we went out to a park in Lawrence to play a bit of disc golf. Unfortunately our game got rained out. But it was fun while it lasted.

For lunch on Tuesday we went down to Mass. Street and ate at Qdoba. It is basically Chipotle, but with a couple more things, like queso dip, and a couple of sauces to put on the burritos. Over all it is good, but head to head, Chipotle does the big burrito better, but Qdoba is still needed for some variety every once in a while. If someone said that Manhattan was getting a Qdoba I would look forward to getting it.

Making sushi went pretty well. As always the first roll is bigger than you want, because it takes much less rice to make sushi than you think. This sushi roll ended up being more like a burrito. It still tasted good though. :)

Random pictures from this weekend:

On Monday we went up to Lawrence to visit Newgen. While driving around to get supplies for making sushi we stopped to eat lunch at Runza. It was the first time that I had ate there, and it is not that bad. It looks like a Wendy�s on the inside, and their bierocks are pretty good, as well as their onion rings. It is not high on my places to go eat at, but I�m not opposed to it either.

Bat Bombs Away!

Defense Tech (article)

Want a good story?

The idea behind World War II's Project X-Ray "was that a bomb-like canister filled with bats would be dropped from high altitude over the target area," says Murdoc Online. "The bats would be in a sort of hibernation, but as the bomb fell (slowed by a parachute) they would warm up and awaken."

At the appropriate altitude, the bomb would open and over one thousand bats, each carrying a tiny time-delay napalm incendiary device, would flutter away and roost in various nooks and crannies, many of them in extremely flammable wooden Japanese buildings.

The napalm devices would go off more or less simultaneously, and thousands of little fires would start at the same time. Many of them would grow into large fires, and the ability of the Japanese firefighters to contain them would quickly be overwhelmed...

Seems to me, as outrageous as it sounds, that it could have worked... In fact, one afternoon while demonstrating the napalm devices, several bats woke too early in the lab, flew off, and ended up burning down the brand-new but uninhabited Carlsbad Auxiliary Army Air Base in New Mexico. Really.

Funny, ne?

DataTiles

DataTiles (site)

The DataTiles system integrates the benefits of two major interaction paradigms: graphical and physical user interfaces. Tagged transparent tiles are used as modular construction units. These tiles are augmented by dynamic graphical information when they are placed on a sensor-enhanced flat panel display. They can be used independently or can be combined into more complex configurations, similar to the way language can express complex concepts through a sequence of simple words.

Doesn't sound that impressive? Check out the video on the site, it is very cool. I wonder how far away we are from being able to mass produce this, because it would be very cool to have.

Home

I'm back from Lawrence. The drive home was a pain because of very heavy rain, but we all made it home safely. I will get pictures posted later today, after I get some sleep. I will also work on Project:BSE some.

Sleep for me now though.