Joshua has memorized Tommy Lehrer's Song "The Elements" (who hasn't?) and will be performing it for his science class.

So if you think YOUR kid is more geeky than MY kid, I'd like to see your evidence. (I should warn you that he can also quote much of The Holy Grail and can distinguish the different USS Enterprises by their silhouettes.  Cara ( Read more... )

What elements are needed for an effective apology after intentional misconduct? Does the apologizer need to admit to the wrongdoing, and concede that it was intentional? Or is it sufficient to say that you are sorry? If you claim that intentional wrongdoing was accidental, does that invalidate the apology ( Read more... )

A couple of weeks ago, Don Clewin provided Joshua with some broken machines. One was a cuisinart (what were you thinking?) and the other was a wireless router. As per my usual method, I will quote the ensuing conversation ( Read more... )

Oddly enough, this is NOT the first time that a friend of mine has become an international internet celebrity. But last time, the overall effect was very different. And I think that the difference is the rise of Social Media. I have, in the past, been skeptical about whether Social Media truly represents a Kuhnian paradigm shift -- I may have to ( Read more... )

A cute girl sent me a very nice flower bouquet yesterday. My wife was quite understanding about it.

Joshua is 12 years old now, so I've started having... you know.... discussions... with him about... you know. Rather than having one big, knock-down drag-out "Talk", we're doing it in short bursts. Like this one ( Read more... )

Well, duh! Of course the Giants won the first couple of games ( Read more... )

At physical therapy today, I decided to randomly ask people whether they could recite the first amendment to the Constitution of the United States.  I wasn't expecting anyone to be able to (I couldn't do it word-for-word myself), so we moved on to multiple choice.  For each of the following selections, I asked people whether it was part of the ( Read more... )

Leah's beloved pet gecko died last week.  She was distraught, but she recalled that we had promised to get her a snake when she was 10 years old if she did well with the gecko (you can see where this is going).  So, on Sunday, we went to the Mars Reptile Expo.  The Expo was fun for everyone in the family.  I had never been so close to a chameleon ( Read more... )

I was in Houston all week for a conference.  But the news media will not be swayed, and no delay is acceptable!  So I missed the opportunity to be involved in this:

http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/10282/1093831-51.stm

and this:

http://kdka.com/video/?id=76557@kdka.dayport.com

And it wasn't even all that great a conference.....