Ten Commandments

Here is a great little video clip exposing hypocrisy of American religious right.....
http://youtube.com/watch?v=veIU0Jwu54w

Speaking of Airports

I'm writing a trip report on our journeys to Montreal, Halifax, Meteghan, Calgary and Banff over the past month or so, but it has to wait until I can get my Garageband files to work. In the meantime, however, I would like to relate one minor incident that pretty well sums up life with a 2 and a half year old:

We are in Halifax airport. Mary and Tigana have gone off in search of Star Bucks; Kasia and I have settled into one of the three play areas thoughtfully provided by the airport authority in the departure lounge. Kasia climbs to the top of the Fisher-Price treehouse, looks out at the vast crowd awaiting for their various flights to be announced, and cries out at the top of her lungs, "F***, Dad! F***, F*** F***."

Somewhat taken aback to discover Kasia has added the F*** word to her vocabulary, I sweep her into my arms and ask what is the matter.

"F***, Dad, F***!

"Yes, well, um, can you use another word and tell Daddy what is wrong?"

"F***, Dad! Put me down!"

Um, Kasia, I can't see that there is anything wrong, and you keep using that word--"

"F***! Put me down! I want Mommy! F***! Mommy, help! F***!"

It begins to occur to me, that to the crowd of onlookers now starring in our direction, it looks very much like some white-haired guy (clearly too old to be this child's parent) is attempting to carry off a toddler who is swearing and calling for its Mommy, and that this could easily be misconstrued; at a minimum, I am a bad parent who has taught his kid how to swear colourfully and very loudly. I put Kasia down.

She immediately treks back to the Fisher-Price Treehouse and points at its plastic roots. "F***, Daddy, F***!"

I bend over, and detect, molded into the giant plastic roots of the giant plastic tree, a plastic frog.

"Oh, FROG!" You're trying to say, FROG!" I explain to Kasia -- and every passanger within a hundred foot radius --"the word is FROG!"

"That's right Daddy, F***!"


Next time I hit my thumb with the hammer, or otherwise require an expletive, I think I'll yell out "Frooooggggy!"

Drunk Pilots

Okay, this is very funny....in a completely scary kind of way.
http://www.metacafe.com/watch/115499/drunk_airline_pilots/

V for Vendetta Satire

I have to admit that I found this movie trailer pretty funny...

Photoblog

Since getting a camera phone in February, I've taken a few more spontaneous shots than one would have in the old days of having to lug a camera around. One always has one's cell, so one ends up getting more of those Kodak moments... though, admittedly, the quality is closer to the old box cameras than to a typical digital camera....

Anyway, here are a few of better shots I finally got around to downloading....

Tigana in local playground.

Tigana Studying

Kasia and Mom

Numerological Note

From Sara J. Gottlieb on the Wocka-wocka joke list comes word that "tomorrow morning, Wednesday, at two minutes and three seconds after1:00 In the morning, the time and date will be 01:02:03 04/05/06. That won't ever happen again !"

I wonder how one should celebrate this historic moment?

Portia

One of our two dogs, Portia, age 15, died Friday of pancreatic cancer. She can be seen here earlier in the day saying goodbye to Kasia.

About three or four weeks earlier Portia had suddenly started yelping in pain one evening, and I had taken her into the vet after hours. The vet diagnosed a pancreatic attack, gave her painkillers, and sent us home, but had me bring Portia back the next morning for tests. By that afternoon they had found a very large cancer in her pancreas and as tactfully as possible told us that the prognosis was not good. She explained that dogs will routinely conceal health problems from the rest of the pack as long as they are able, so there was really nothing to be done by that point. Nevertheless, we had held out some hope that with pain medication and a controlled diet she might enjoy some quality of life for at least a few months, but it was not to be. It quickly became obvious, particularly at night, that Portia was suffering terribly. With pain medication she would rally for an hour or two each day to bounce around in public something like her old self, but then would tire, curl up in a ball, and spend the rest of the day whimpering. I made the decision to have her put down sooner rather than later, and Mary reluctantly went along.

Telling Tigana was difficult, but at 8 years old this is already a kid who does not want things sugar coated. So Mary explained that we were going to have to help end Portia’s life because she was suffering, and resisted the temptation of saying that things like she was being “put to sleep “or as one of our friends did with a younger child, say that we had sent her to ‘live on the farm’. Tigana was tearful, but brave, and accepted that it was for the best.

Telling Kasia was a different matter, since we were not sure how much a two year old could understand. We were still debating the best approach when Tigana took the matter out of our hands. As Tigana and I picked Kasia up from Daycare, the following dialog was exchanged in the back seat:
Tigana: “You know Portia was sick?”
Kasia: “Portia sick?”
Tigana: “Very sick.”
Kasia: “Portia very sick?”
Tigana: “So they decided to kill her”
Kasia: “They killed Portia?”
Tigana: “She was sick, so they had to kill her.”
Kasia: “They killed Portia?!”
Tigana: “She was sick, so they killed her.”

Did I mention that Kasia currently has a bad cold and that she has just learned to say “sick” when she feels unwell and wants medicine? That she had in fact been saying “I sick” all that day because she wanted to stay home rather than go to daycare, but that we had taken her in anyway in order to deal with Portia?

Naturally, when I arrived home with Kasia, the first thing Mary asks her (in a depressed about Portia tone, at that) is, “How are you, Kasia? Are you still feeling sick?”

Kasia: “No.” *Cough* *Cough* “Not sick!”

Black humour notwithstanding, losing Portia has been hard, particularly on Mary. I find that many of our ingrained daily routines remind us of Portia’s absence. For example, Portia had the distinctly odd habit of eating anything metal (no vet was ever able to explain or address this obsession) so we had gotten into the habit of removing anything with metal from doggie reach. How often in a day we would bend down to retrieve a paper clip or pin or baby clothes with snaps or etc only became obvious to us now that we catch ourselves in mid motion and suddenly realize it is no longer necessary….

Since Pooka (our other canine) is a year older than Portia, and getting slower and grumpier every day, we are also having to face that he too has been hiding his decline from the rest of us. He is nearly completely blind, and increasingly deaf. But neither Mary nor I can deal with the thought of anything happening to him. Portia was our dog -- but Pooka is an old soul and, well, a pooka and no mere dog. Pooka has this profound wisdom about him, in contrast to Portia who as clearly just a dog, and not a particularly bright one. (During our Wake for Portia, Tigana remembered her by imitating a dog walking repeatedly into walls, which is a sadly accurate portrayal.) Pooka clearly understood that Portia was dying, and took to bringing her treats in her last days, though she had never been a good companion for him. He must be relieved not to have her constantly attempting to assert dominance over him in every action, but he is also equally clearly missing her.

Hoax Web Page Reaches 121

My hoax web page has moved up in the international (American) ratings to 121 out of over 300,000 entries for "Grammar check"; it is holding steady in fourth place for pages from Canada.

Hoax Web Page Update

Well, the hoax web page experiments proceeds apace! As of today, the hoax page is the 5th web site out of 9300 listed under "grammar check" if one clicks on the "pages from Canada button"; it comes in at about 160 out of 313,000 sites if one includes the whole Google www. Not bad for a one-page piece of nonsense.

Hoax Web Page

Well, after letting it sit for awhile (Reading Week, specifically, since the class this is for did not meet) I have checked today to see how my hoax web page is fairing in Google. I was pleased to see that it was listed by Google (Google seems to find any page I post within about 10 days, which is fairly impressive!) and that it has started on the charts at 219 out of 988 pages for "Grammar Check" with the "pages in Canada" button checked (It did not make it into the top 900 of the 310000 web pages without the "pages from Canada" button.) I assume that its relatively high opening is based at least partly on (a) my using meta tags to correctly identify the content to the search engine; and (b) the fact that it is a current page. Now, the class exercise will be to see if we can get it to climb in the ratings by creating multiple links to it. I will have all my students start a blog (or use their current blog if they have one) to comment on the page and link to it, thus convincing Google that my page is getting references. Of course the point is to demonstrate to the class (a) how easy it is to post a page and have it show up, no matter how rubbishy the contents; (b) how search engine optimization strategies can help improve one's rankings; and (c) illustrate some of the lesser black hat tricks to move it up.

So, anyone reading this, if you could be so good as to add a link in your blog to http://people.uleth.ca/~runte/research/surveyresults.htm and either email me or comment using the comment function to tell me that you have done so, I will track how many links lead to how big a rise in the hoax page ranking.

(The hoax page also shows up in Alltheweb, KillerInfo, Answers.com, Kartoo, but none of the others so far... And perhaps significantly, it doesn't show up in Google Scholar.)

brrreeeport

Yeah, well. Just wanted to jump on that bandwagon.

The brrreeeport search engine test (in which lesser known bloggers use the invented word brrreeeport to have their blogs turn up in search engines in response to "the supposed Blog Club, where A-list bloggers only link to each other and thereby keeping lesser-known bloggers out of the loop of recognition" (Jason Miller)) is not unlike some of the informal google search tests I have been running on my blog. The "Corn pops and Pickles" heading used to bring one immediately to my blog, but no longer -- instead it takes you to Naked Bootleg unless you click on the "include excluded entries" button. I suspect that the lack of activity in my blog of late has decreased its search engine ranking to the point where it has simply fallen off the charts.

I haven't been posting much lately because this is my busy season in my day job... which is ironic because I am running two courses using blogs, and it would be nice if students could watch me role model the behaviors I am trying for...but my teaching/research/service load this semester is just too hectic, though things should settle down more in March, when my student teachers go out to their practicums, for which I have no responsibility this term.

I did, however, get up a fake webpage yesterday in the cyberculture course to illustrate (1) how anyone can post anything on the web of whatever degree of accuracy and (2) to see if we could move it up in the search engine listings by utilizing various search enging optimization tricks. So if you would like to play along, feel free to link to the page, since every link raises the sites rankings in google, etc. The site is fake Grammar page.

Incidentally, my favorite hoax site is the Dihyrogen Monoxide Research Division

Future Shock

Two stories in New Scientiest on hyperdrive...
Take a leap into hyperspace
* 05 January 2006 * From New Scientist Print Edition
* Haiko Lietz
http://www.newscientist.com/channel/fundamentals/mg18925331.200


An extraordinary "hyperspace" engine that could make interstellar space travel a reality by flying into other dimensions is being investigated by the United States government.
http://www.sci-tech-today.com/story.xhtml?story_id=01300000BBU2
Thanks to Mark Shainblum for pointing these out to me.

Object Lesson

Mary and I discovered Kasia attempting to climb over the babygate that protects her from the stairs last night. Kasia had pushed a box up to the gate, and was using it to provide the height necessary to scale the gate, though it was unclear to us how she expected to get down the other side, which is not only a steep staircase, but tiled. We bought our home from a master builder who had used it to demo his tile technique, so there are 3600 square feet of tile in our house, which is great right up to the moment you drop your first glass on it and watch it turn to dust. Tile appears to be an even more unforgiving surface than straight cement, which we had not taken into account when choosing to move here when Kasia was born: baby safe it isn't.

So the thought of Kasia falling down our staircase is one to fill our hearts with dread, because it would be way worse than just falling down carpeted or even normal wood or linoleum stairs.

Mary, realizing that we had to convey the danger to Kasia in a way she could understand, decided on an object lesson. She took an egg out of the fridge, carried it to the top of the stairs, and explained to Kasia the similarities between the egg and Kasia's noggin. Satisfied that Kasia got the analogy, Mary proceeded to toss the egg over the babygate and we watched as it went "splat" on the stairs. "Do you understand now?" Mary asked. Kasia nodded gravely.

Then Kasia solemnly proceeded to the fridge to get another egg so that she might participate in the apparently very serious, albeit mysterious, 'Egg over the Stairs' ceremony. Which was not exactly where we were going with this....

Kasia is a much more cautious child than Tigana ever was, but far more tenacious, so is sometimes harder to dissuade from dangerous course of action than was Tigana. This same demo worked successfully with Tigana at that age -- she totally got that if you fell from the stairs you died. Of course, in Tigana's case we found her hanging off the banister over the atrium (of our previous house) two days later, and when I asked had she not understood the danger, she somewhat cavalierly explained that even if she fell, she had two more lives to go. Shocked at this reply, I inquired what gave her that idea, and she explained how on the videogames at Daycare you always had three lives, more if you did well.... "So if I die, I'll just start over as a baby again, right?" Fortunately, Mary pointed out that althougth that may well be true, there was no guarantee that she would be coming back as our baby... that she only got one shot at being 'Tigana' and next time round she would be someone else's kid, probably in another part of the world.... Tigana has been more respectful of heights ever since...

Corn Pops and Pickles

…is what Tigana had for breakfast again this morning (though not, I hasten to add, in the same bowl). This demonstrates two phenomenon of interest to me as father and researcher: First, that the Venn diagram of “Foods Tigana is willing to eat” and “Foods Tigana’s parents are willing to feed her” have almost no remaining overlap. Indeed, I’m not even sure ‘Corn Pops” makes Mom’s list. When one adds the circle of “Foods readily available for breakfast when we are already running 10 minutes late”, we’re pretty much down to our title items….

The second phenomenon I’m interest in here is tracking how long it takes Google to add entries from my blog to its search results. Currently, “Corn Pops and Pickles” is a phrase for which there are zero search results, so it’s a pretty easy test… Feel free to add the phrase to your own blog so we can track whether Google indexes blogger blogs faster than say Moveable Type blogs. So far I’ve found that Google is able to find my blog entries in about 10 days, but I wanted to do an actual test case before starting my cybercourse next term so I could talk about the phenomenon and its implications….

Sibling Rivalry

Kasia has, as many toddlers are wont to do, gotten into the habit of taking a doll to bed with her at night.

Now when I say ‘a doll’ I actually mean that she takes two to bed with her – currently a plastic baby almost as tall as her and a soft cuddly one-eared bunny rabbit. She would, for preference, take three or four or forty teddies to bed with her, but my wife and I have drawn the line at two. (Besides the obvious problems of overcrowding, any additional dolls would quickly find themselves incorporated into an escape ladder, and I’d be coming back to an empty crib.) The word ‘doll’ is also something of a misnomer, because she has on an equal number of occasions chosen to go to sleep cuddling one of her beloved books, her raincoat, or whatever other object happened to be the focus of her attention immediately prior to bedtime (though we again drew the line at the wire trash can from our home office she had been pushing around the house one evening).

Her typical nightly routine, after bath, fresh diaper, PJs and nursing, is to lay down in the crib for about 10 seconds, then sit up again so that she can put her dolls to sleep. She will carefully cover the baby with a blanket, then pat its back while saying “night night”. Once she has ‘settled’ the first doll, she turns her attention to the second, similarly covering it with the blanket, stroking its back, and then, if all is well, laying down herself to receive the same treatment from Dad. Unfortunately, it is as likely that in covering the second doll with the blanket, that she will have uncovered the first, causing her to turn back to that ‘baby’ with a scolding for its having gotten out from under the covers. She will then restart the routine to ‘resettle’ the first baby, only to find that the second has ‘gotten out of bed’ while she was again attending to the first. And so on, for as long as my patience will stand it.

I generally intervene after the second or third iteration, to settle a blanket across all three of my charges, and get them all settled at once. Kasia usually goes along, provided that the blankets are just so, and everyone is exactly in the proper places, etc. For the most part, the routine is harmless, touching, and only notably peculiar when that evening’s objects are books or raincoats, rather than dolls.

This week’s favorites have been, as I mentioned, a largish baby doll and a soft bunny. Sunday night, having satisfactorily settled both her dolls, Kasia lay down to sleep, but banged her head into the protruding arm of the large plastic baby. Sitting up in bed, Kasia indignantly denounced her bedmate for poking her in the eye. “Baby not nice! Mean baby!” Being in something of a hurry to get Kasia to go to sleep, I simply laid her down in the crib again, though this time somewhat removed from the doll on that side. Kasia obligingly curled up to go to sleep, but reached out to cuddle her doll, which -- unfortunately -- again resulted in Kasia getting a poke in the eye. Before I could react, Kasia had struck out at her erstwhile sibling, and knocked the protruding arm away. Which -- being in fact a large inanimate object -- slowly, majestically, but inevitably swung back to strike Kasia another blow on the head. There followed a frenzied three-way brawl as the two combatants quickly ended up standing on, and so falling off, the poor rabbit.

A less sleep-deprived father might have been able to intervene more quickly to end the havoc, but I confess I was too taken aback, and well, choking back the laughter, to be much use. Kasia, of course, failed to see the humour in the situation, and was very put out that I did not take her side, but made both her and the doll promise to stop fighting. Carefully tucking the offending arm in under the doll, I eventually restored order and got everyone to sleep.