Turtles all the way down

There’s an old saying that if you have one clock you know what time it is but if you have more than one clock you don’t. Or something like that.

We have about a dozen clocks in our house, not counting computers and cell phones. About half of these automatically correct themselves to the right time and the other half do not.

There are at least two ways to keep clocks synchronized to the actual time with a high degree of accuracy. The first is to listen to the radio transmissions from Boulder, Colorado. Many consumer devices, including alarm clocks and wall clocks now do this. The other is to have a Wifi or wired connection to the Internet and use a public NTP server to do the same.

I’d like to see this technology take to the next level. Why not put it into ovens, microwaves, DVD players, and toys? If time synchronization becomes ubiquitous, we’ll always know what time it is. Further, why can’t car radios listen to the transmissions from Boulder or from the GPS system? The clock in my car is always drifting slow.

Any device that displays or uses a clock should include this function. The technology is cheap and very simple.

When my older son was three or four, we began a bedtime ritual of The Plus Game. I would lie in bed with him, with lights off, and ask him a real-world addition problem, such as, “If you have two cookies and someone gives you three more, how many will you have?”

He picked up on the underlying math quite rapidly. Over the course of several months, I gave him harder problems and taught him a few techniques with which to solve them. All of the math was conceptual and he did it in his head. We never used paper, and still don’t.

The Plus Game led to The Minus Game and The Times Game. We’ve recently added The Division Game and have had a quick look at perfect squares and square roots (though I’m having a hard time coming up with unique yet simple real-world applications of the latter).

From time to time, we’d have forays into other topics, such as history, how someone becomes a scientist, and how I met his mom. One evening, he asked me where the first people came from. I decided to see how far he could stretch.

I told him that our bodies are made from millions of tiny cells, each too small to see without a microscope. Within each cell is a set of rules called genetic code. The code tells the cells and our bodies what to do and how to behave. A child gets half of his code from his mom and the other half from his dad. This is why kids might look like their moms and dads.

I went on to describe that his and his brother’s genetic codes were very similar, because they have the same parents, but not the same. Further, the more closely related you are with someone, the closer your code is to theirs.

He seemed to follow all of this, so I tested him, “Who’s code is closer to yours, your brother’s or your cousins?”

“My brother’s.”

“Then who code is closer to yours, your cousin’s or K’s?” (K is my son’s friend who lives near us.)

“My cousin’s.”

Now for the big step, “All people and animals have very similar code but the degree of similarity of any two individuals’ codes is based on how closely we are related.” I went on to describe how small changes in genetic code occurring from time to time over very long periods of time explains how human beings grew from animals.

An example I used a large group of monkeys that lived together on an island separated by a mountain range. When food got scarce one year, some of the monkeys crossed the mountains because they were hungry, and settled in an area that was environmentally different. Over tens of thousands of years, the two different groups of monkeys stayed apart and adapted to their different environments. Their genetic codes changed to the point that the monkeys were not only two different groups, but they were also two different types of monkeys.

For the most part, I think he got it. He asked a few reasonable questions and soon fell asleep.

Like most kids, mine are sometimes afraid of the dark. One recent evening, I tried something new with my seven year old.

As I was lying with him in bed, getting ready to kiss him good night and leave, he told me that he wanted someone to stay with him because he didn’t like being alone in the dark.

I told him that there are two parts to his brain. The first part is himself and the second part thinks it is still an animal. Millions of years ago when people didn’t live in houses, being scared of the dark helped them survive. If they couldn’t see what was around them, they could get hurt by an animal or other human. Today, people are much safer, but the animal parts of our brains are still worried and get scared of the dark. He can teach his animal to calm down, because he knows that he is safe. Our house is in a safe neighborhood, the doors and windows are locked, and mom and dad are just down the hall. Nothing could hurt him.

My son is a surprisingly rational little kid. Explaining to him how our conscious and subconscious minds are wired seems to give him the tools to manage his fear.

I’m often surprised by the difference between my two sons.

My seven year old is calm, quiet, and introspective. My four year old is excitable, talkative and social.

My seven year old usually listens to his parents and does what he is asked without too much coaxing. My four year old ignores, procrastinates, and requires help staying on task.

My seven year old is empathic, seems to understand his impact on other people’s feelings, and uses this understanding to when making decisions. My four year old has exhibited the capacity to comprehend other people’s feelings, but he frequently fails to do so, or chooses not to.

Our reactions to their respective behaviors are different. With both we use positive and negative reinforcement (carrot and stick). With my seven year old, we use a big carrot and a small stick. With my four year old, we do the opposite.

On the other hand, my four year old is assertive and will stand up for himself. When he’s convinced that he’s right, he will not hear otherwise. My seven year old will let himself get pushed around to some degree before he fights back.

While my four year old is very mercurial, crying one moment, laughing the next, he can “go deep” when he’s interested in something, focusing for an hour or more at a time, to the exclusion of anything else.

Despite their differences, the boys get along quite well. Fighting is fairly rare in our house. Their personalities will suit them well for various roles in society, but their respective roles are likely to be quite different.

I’ve never been big on smartphones as I tended to look at them as expensive phones that act like under-powered PCs. But they have gotten cheaper, faster and better of late. Missing my Helio Ocean, I took the plunge.

I narrowed it down to a Blackberry, HTC Mogul, and the Treo 755p. I opted for the latter as it had all of the features I needed, especially Goodlink, which is the only way I can have mobile access to my work email.

Overall, I am impressed. While PalmOS isn’t much different now than when I had a Palm V in 1999, the applications are much better. I love being about to sync my contacts with my desktop, and to have an address book that allows me to enter more than just 12 characters and a phone number. This is almost worth the cost of entry itself. I’ll never go back to a phone that doesn’t have the address book sync / backup feature.

Furthermore, with Goodlink, I can sync said contacts, along with email, my calendar, and to do list with my firm’s Exchange server. Very nice.

I’ve also set up a couple of personal POP3 email accounts. Aside from a quirk where the phone doesn’t always delete emails on the server when you tell it to, this feature works well. All major IM portals are supported as well, and it allows simultaneous access to each. Loading IM contacts is noticeably slower than it was on the Helio Ocean, perhaps because there is no server component streamlining the over-the-air data.

Google maps is mandatory these days. While the phone has no GPS which is a major bummer, the app is still quite useful and supposedly an upgrade will use cell tower coordinates to simulate GPS. The camera is 2 megapixels, which is just about standard now, and the phone plays MP3s, which is also expected and standard.

One major complaint. The battery life, frankly, sucks. I can get two days out of a charge if I barely use the phone. If I make voice calls or leave Goodlink enabled, I can barely get one day. This is after turning down the screen brightness, and deactivating Bluetooth and infrared. Supposedly a third-party extended life battery doubles the stand battery’s capacity, but at $70, this is a pretty serious accessory.

Speaking of data, the EVDO access is fast, and the phone’s web browser is excellent. No complaints in that respect. I haven’t tried using the phone as a PC modem yet, however.

I’ll give the 755p a weak thumbs up. It does everything I want and need out of a phone. With a better battery it would have been a home run.

Update 12/30/07: A couple of quirks worth mentioning. First, the POP email client has an option that allows you to delete messages on the server. It doesn’t work most of the time and I’m trying to figure out why. Also, the OS gets sluggish when its doing a large data transfer. Nothing terrible however.

I read Bob Woodward’s The Brethren a few years back. It was the first mainstream book to describe how the US Supreme Court works, and focused on the justices’ personalities and decisions in the early to mid seventies time frame. Jefferey Toobin might have intended for his new book, The Nine to be The Brethren’s successor, but he falls a bit short.

A large portion of The Nine is about the Bush vs. Gore 2000 presidential election controversy and the recent change in court personnel in 2005. While Woodward presents facts, Toobin tends to focus more on hype and spin. It is abundantly clear that Toobin thinks the current court is too conservative and he reminds the reader of his opinion far too frequently (while I happen to agree with him, bias is bias). On the bright side, the profiles of each justice are informative and make for a good read.

The Nine gets a solid B. With more analysis and discussion of the court’s mechanics, it could have been an easy A-.

From the McClatchy Washington Bureau:

The compelling argument for door levers is a practical one: When you’re struggling with too many bags or with arthritis, the lever’s easy-release mechanism sparks a little gratitude. Heck, an elbow works when your hands are full. Knobs, on the other hand, provoke no emotion other than frustration.

One very impractical thing with levers…they don’t mix well with small children. You can much more easily childproof traditional knobs than levers. I spent a whole afternoon swapping out levers for knobs when we bought our house. My oldest son was almost two at the time and we didn’t want to find him wandering in the street or getting into places he shouldn’t.

As promised, here is my Torts outline. I originally wrote an outline for Torts in a Word doc, then cut and pasted it into Powerpoint, as I find the latter to be a good substitute for flash cards. I continued to revise and edit the Powerpoint, and left the Word version as is, errors and all. So this time I will only post my Powerpoint outline. Enjoy and as always, use at your own risk.

torts-study-guide-v8.ppt

As an aside, in the future I plan on outlining in Powerpoint to begin with, for the reasons mentioned above.

It usually starts late in the day on Christmas. This year I’m feeling it the day after.

The kids got what they wanted this year. They are happy. I got my wife some nice stuff. I think she’s happy. I got a few things. I’m happy, but I would be happy even if I got nothing.

We decorated two trees, the house, put up lights in the yard. We mailed cards, made and shared cookies, and bought and sent presents to the many siblings and cousins. And of course we shopped for each other. Despite heavy use of Amazon.com, that still takes effort. (Let me qualify - I am using the royal “we” here as my wife did most of the heavy lifting.)

I’m beginning to view the run up to Christmas each year with more and more trepidation. It takes a great deal of time to do all of the above. But such activities seem to be expected, at least in some quarters. And that turns into a degree of pressure to do all of this stuff and to do it better than last year.

Is it necessary?

I’d like nothing more than for the holidays to be relaxing…a break from the routine of daily life, and an opportunity to spend time with family and friends. My goal requires no presents, trees, cards, or decorations. Just time.

I’m not advocating a “back to basics” approach, nor am I knocking all of the great people who’ve put time, effort, money, and thought into making my Christmas a little bit nicer. I really appreciate that more than I can express. However, I’m looking for a simpler, slower pace to life, with fewer expectations and requirements, and more time to just be.

I’ll put that on my Christmas list for 2008.

I can’t remember what I got on my seventh birthday but I bet I could have if it had been laser tag.

Last night we took my son and 10 of his friends (a bunch of VERY LOUD first graders) to a local laser tag place. It was a total blast. Laser tag has come a long way since the last time I played, which was close to 20 years ago. The place ran it like a typical kids birthday party, with pizza, cake, opening presents, video games and of course, laser tag. We could have happily spent the whole two hours just in the arena. Even my four year old managed to find his way around in the dark and even scored a few points.

Quoting the birthday boy, “It was the best day of my life!”