via The Steampunk Tribune by RF on 12/30/10
Friday, December 31, 2010
Steampunk in the Christian Science Monitor
Dr. Jim Taylor: Generation Tech: Where are the Parents?
via Technology on HuffingtonPost.com by Dr. Jim Taylor on 12/30/10
The march of technology is inevitable and inexorable. We can't stop it or even slow it down and we definitely can't reverse it (nor should we want to). As I have noted in a previous post, one of my concerns is that this progress is so rapid that we don't have time to determine or even consider the implications of each technological advancement on our individual and collective lives before it is released and entrenched in our personal lifestyles and the zeitgeist of our culture.
I will admit that, as someone who has serious concerns about the influence of technology on us since the introduction of the Internet, I may be more Chicken Little than Paul Revere. There's no doubt that calls of "The sky is falling" have been heard throughout the history of technological advancement, for example, with the introduction of the printing press, the internal combustion engine, and the television. In all these cases, most would agree that each of these "game changers" have been boons to humanity. Plus, we are adaptable creatures who have demonstrated the ability adjust to all sorts of changes with which we have been confronted.
And it's easy to make doom-and-gloom predictions that may or may not come true. But we can look at what is happening now and draw some conclusions from what we see before our very eyes.
This introduction leads me to a very unsettling and, at times, bizarre article I read in the New York Times recently. The focus of the article is on what it's like growing up in this digital age. It discusses research that is showing the staggering amount of time that young people devote to the new technology and social media, and how this is impacting young people, for good and for bad. But I'm not going to talk about the scientific side of this phenomenon. My concern and fascination lies in the individual stories that the article told about young people, their lives, families, and schools.
Out of respect for the privacy of the students I discuss, I'm not naming names, though, incredibly, these young people and their parents allowed them to be identified in the Times article.
A school in the heart of Silicon Valley moved the start of the day an hour later to accommodate students who are staying up later, ostensibly because they spend so much time connected at the expense of their schoolwork and their health.
A high school senior with a passion for filmmaking whose time and energy devoted to technology seems so obviously counterproductive to both his present life and his future goals. For instance, he regularly neglects his schoolwork to work on his video projects. He plays video games ten hours a week and updates his Facebook page in the wee hours of the morning. The results of this absorption in technology include poor grades and concerns about his getting into the college of his choice to pursue his love of filmmaking.
This next example is nothing less than mindboggling. A 14-year-old girl sends up to 27,000 text messages a month. No, that was not a typo; three zeroes to the right of 27. I did the math and it seems inconceivable. Assuming this girl is awake 18 hours a day (meaning that she's not getting enough sleep), she is sending 1,500 texts an hour or 25 texts a minute or about one every two seconds. This girl indicated that she usually carries on multiple text conservations at once (that is obviously the only way this math could work out). How does she have time to do anything else, such as eat, bathe, study, or actually talk to other people? Boy, I hope her family has an unlimited texting plan!
Another boy plays video games six hours a day during the week and even more on weekends. Let's do some more math. Assuming this boy is in school eight hours a day (including transportation and transitions) and sleeps eight hours at night, that leaves two hours each day to study, eat, participate in extracurricular activities, and interact with actual human beings.
So what, or should I say who, is missing from these stories? If you said parents, you hit the nail right on the head. Where, for the love of all things sacred, are the parents? Largely in absentia apparently despite the obvious harm that their children's obsession with technology is inflicting on their lives.
Based on the Times article, parents seem to fall into several categories. First, there are the parents both of whom work full-time and simply aren't around to monitor and limit their children's use of technology. Not surprisingly, research shows that these parents tend to be of lower income and their children's use of technology, contrary to the expectations of those who believed a computer in their homes would be beneficial, actually hurts them academically.
Other parents just seem to be in denial. One father stated that if children aren't up on technology, they're going to fall behind, even while his son's grades have slipped and the boy admits that he hasn't exercised in several years.
Still others are veritable Luddites who seem incapable of or unwilling to understand, much less control, the cyberworld that their children inhabit.
And the final category is what I call capitulating parents, who actually enable their children's unhealthy relationship with technology. For example, the parents of the young filmmaker I discuss above bought him a state-of-the-art, $2,000 computer so he can pursue his dream. These parents are also rationalizers as the boy's mother tried to convince herself that it was the right decision by saying that her son was really making an effort to do his homework. In fact, his grades did initially improve, mostly because he was taking a lighter course load and avoiding advanced classes, but then declined again because he was neglecting his schoolwork because, you guessed it, he was spending time on his spanking new computer instead of studying.
Several of the students highlighted in the article recognized that their use of technology is out of hand, they don't have the ability to control themselves, and actually wish their parents would step in and set limits. Yet, their parents still don't take action.
So who's responsible here? I can't blame the kids because they lack the maturity to make good decisions and they're just living in the world into which they were born.
So who's left? The parents, of course, who have abdicated their essential role as, well, parents, in other words, establishing expectations, setting limits, and administering consequences, all for the health and well being of their children. That's the job of parents, plain and simple. I'm just amazed that so many parents, who obviously love their children, are well intentioned, and want what's best for them, aren't up to the task when it comes to technology.
Tea party group: Homeland Security ‘a liberal hate group’ v @rawstory
via Raw Story by Eric W. Dolan on 12/30/10
The United States Department of Homeland Security is one of the top five liberal hate groups of 2010, according to Tea Party Nation founder Judson Phillips. Phillips said the federal department, which was created in response to the September 11 attacks by former President George W. Bush, is a "bad joke." "DHS will not enforce [...]Christian Science? Just the facts, ma’am
This is the state of discussion in the world...
New Year resolution: Watch more meteor showers
via Boing Boing by Maggie Koerth-Baker on 12/30/10
Mark your calendars now to make sure you see the best meteor showers of 2011.
This lovely time-elapsed photo, taken during the August 2010 Perseid meteor shower, only shows one actual meteor. If you start in the middle of the photo, and work your way to the right, the meteor is just above the second-largest tree, clearly moving at a different angle than all the star tracks. Though the photo doesn't show it, the actual Perseid was pretty impressive, according to photographer Darren Kirby:
Despite a winning forecast the afternoon was quite overcast, and I was afraid viewing it may be a bust. However, at about 8:00pm the skies cleared, so [friends] and I took a drive up to Sunset Main Road near the Coquihalla Connector summit to check it out. We were there from about midnight til about 2:00am, and we did see an incredible show. Apparently it wasn't as good as some years, but I was still very impressed. The meteors were shooting off every few seconds or so at times. One was so big it lit up the sky like lightning, and left a tracer than remained in the sky for a good minute.
Via Asteroid Watch
Image used via CC license.
Making maple syrup in a hotter world
via Boing Boing by Maggie Koerth-Baker on 12/30/10
It's hard to take big-picture global temperature increases and bring them down to a personal level—partly because of that confusion between weather and climate, and partly because scientists simply have a better understanding what is very likely to happen in an averaged-out global system, than they have of how changes in that global system are likely to affect your backyard.
I like the way Climate Wisconsin is trying to bridge that gap. First, they use interactive visuals to show the local symptoms of climate change, like rising average temperatures and fewer days of ice cover of Wisconsin lakes. Then, they connect those symptoms to Wisconsin life. If these trends continue, what impact will they have on things like fishing, forestry, farming and, yes, the making of maple syrup.
It's a hard line to walk. The family featured in this video has recently experienced some of the worst years for making maple syrup in four generations. But, because weather isn't climate, next year could be better for them, even as the climate, overall, continues to warm. At the same time, though, climate change is likely to have long-term impacts on where and how well sugar maples can grow—and when, and for how long, their sap runs in spring.
I think this video and the related essay do a better-than-average job of making that distinction. This family won't be out of business next year. But, over time, climate change is very likely to make this work harder for them. The harder it gets, Wisconsin traditions associated with maple syrup making will become less common—and the 5-million-dollar syrup industry will bring less money to the state.
Also, I just finished re-reading Little House in the Big Woods, and it's fun to see how the process of maple syrup production has, and hasn't, changed since Grandpa Ingalls threw a sugaring-off party at his Wisconsin cabin in the late 1860s. Check out the taps they hammer into the maples. They look just like the Little House illustrations, but instead of draining into wooden buckets, the sap now flows into plastic bags.
Thanks to agroman for Submitterating!
Thursday, December 30, 2010
Forking Etiquette v Dave Barry Blog
via Dilbert.com Blog on 12/30/10
My wife and I were eating lunch during our holiday vacation, and she asked me, in a suspiciously casual tone of voice, if I were aware of the proper etiquette for using a fork. I responded with a blank stare, which was my way of saying that her yammering was distracting me from shoveling a respectable percentage of the resort's entire buffet from my plate into my maw. Undaunted, Shelly went on to demonstrate her point, holding a knife in her right hand, and a fork in her left hand with the tines pointed inexplicably downward. Her index finger was on the back of each utensil, and she explained that you should continue holding the knife even while you're not sawing on a dead animal.Against all odds, Shelly's words penetrated the fog of my feeding frenzy. As her explanation sunk in, I started to go into traumatic etiquette shock. That's the feeling you get when you realize that for several decades people have watched you eat and probably compared you unfavorably to a stoned raccoon on garbage day.The world started moving in slow motion as I looked around the dining room to verify this stunning revelation. Sure enough, every adult diner was using the method Shelly described. How could I have gone my entire life without noticing? I was shocked and ashamed.I quickly tried to imitate the proper forking method. That turned out to be problematic because I'm a vegetarian. I didn't have anything on my plate that needed cutting, and the upside down fork method was a disaster for eating rice. I could only balance a few grains at a time on the back of my fork, and half of those ended up on my lap, where I have been told a napkin should have been.I knew there was something missing in Shelly's explanation of proper fork use, but she wasn't giving me any more clues. The other diners all seemed to be eating meat; they were no help. I briefly considered a catapult solution, which would have involved pushing some rice onto the back of the fork, glancing furtively around the room to make sure no one was looking, and launching the payload toward my face. That probably sounds stupid to you, but keep in mind that I had already bought into the notion of using a fork upside down. I couldn't rule out anything.I was determined to fork properly from this moment on, and not add to a lifetime of humiliation. It took me an hour to finish my rice, averaging three grains per fork. The buffet had soup, but I couldn't imagine how long it would take to consume it with my spoon turned upside down, or backwards, or using just the edge; Shelly hadn't covered spoon etiquette, so I was mostly guessing.By the end of the meal I was still wondering if this whole episode had been an elaborate practical joke, with everyone else in on it. I pulled out my iPhone and Googled "fork etiquette." A dried branch of a lady with an upper class accent appeared on video demonstrating the technique Shelly had described. My mortification was complete.In my defense, I grew up in a small town, in a farming environment. We valued efficiency over ritual. Inefficiency was synonymous with stupidity. If there had been a way to eat faster by somehow involving your ass cheeks, that's how I would have learned to do it. If someone sneezed where I grew up, there was no reason to say "God Bless you," because either God was already handling it or he didn't exist. God didn't need a middle man to handle a simple sneezing transaction. Anyway, back to my story, I was horrified and humiliated by my lack of forking knowledge. I started to panic, wondering what other rules of etiquette had somehow escaped my notice. Was I supposed to open doors using nothing but my elbows? Should I dial my phone with a single knuckle? Should I salute anyone wearing a hat and ask, "How's the war going, Captain?" My point is that there's no way to deduce etiquette from logic.Recently I did more research and discovered that Shelly's forking technique is called the Continental method. It's the method used in Europe as well as anywhere else that the British have killed the locals. I also learned that you're allowed to turn your fork right-side-up for scooping anything can't be stabbed. Fair enough. Best of all, there is an American forking method too, and that is what I had always used. That involves holding the fork in your right hand, like a pen, with the tines pointing up. But I have been informed that cutting food with the edge of my fork is bad form, no matter how efficient it is. Bah! I reject that tyranny.Last night at a local restaurant I observed a boy, about ten years old, at a nearby table who took the principle of dining efficiency to such a high level that I wept tears of admiration. The restaurant provided a fork and spoon rolled up in a paper napkin. They expect you to break the paper seal and free the utensils from the napkin. But the boy realized he could use the entire sealed unit as a fork-spoon with a napkin surround. He would grab the entire bundle, stab some food with the fork and wipe his mouth on the wrapped bundle. I don't use the "genius" label too often, but I think it applies in this case, even though he was just kidding around. I believe I witnessed the invention of the napkinforkspoon. And someday, God willing, when efficiency replaces etiquette, we will all be using it.
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