Random Tabs (rnd)

I forgot which number we are on, and I don't want to go look as I'm only writing this as I take a brake from staring at code which is going much better than it has the last couple months.

First off I want to say Welcome Back to all the Parent Hacks readers who are dropping in.  I hope you enjoy the three part on our costumes!  Feel free to dig around, some parenting bits and other projects lurk on some of the napkins around here, sorry it's such a mess - even the site is constantly under construction :)

Now on to the tabs.  Hit the jump to see what I've got bogging down the ram on my poor abused laptop now.


Lets jump right in to a new touch sensitive material for potential use in robotics.  Not a lot to say, I just thought it was very cool.  I can totally see this being used for grip feedback on an artificial arm, can't you?  I love seeing biological aspects in engineering.  Just a bit more crossover guys and I'm ready to join you (I hope!)

With the biggest sugar rush of the year already trickling to a start - have you ever thought about how come kids can eat that crap and you find it WAY TOO SWEET (if you don't you should, my gads, American candy is like hyper-saturated sugar)?  Science to the answer!  or something.  Apparently, as you age your sweet tolerance dies down.  On the good news, it means being an adult makes you less likely to get the sugar shakes and that horrible stomachache that follows over indulging on the bulging pillow of mass produced confections (safety checked of course!)

Now some candy all geeks can enjoy (or at least classic geeks who grew up on stories of Middle Earth).  For the first time ever Tolkien's own artwork for the Hobbit is published in a special 75th Anniversary collection.  You can bet it's on my wish list :)  You can gourge on selected images here.  (While there is an Amazon page, there is not currently available for order or preorder.

If pictures books are really your thing and you mastered finding Waldo in your youth (or not so youthful youth), or you just really love Doctor Who, well either way you need to go check this out.

More of a Harry Potter fan?  Have you been waiting with anticipation for when you could update your entire hodgepodge of DVDs for a nice new shiny box set of Blu-ray disks, and like us you still don't even own a Blu-ray player?  Well you better act fast, because apparently Warner Brother's is going to pull a Disney and take away our favorite wizard movie and clear Harry's face from the shelves. 

One more I want, before we get back to the kiddos who really get to rock it up this weekend.  I think most geeks can agree that there is just something magical when you see a Delorean, even if it doesn't vanish when it hits 88mph.  Well, Deloreans are getting a huge step closer to a Mr. Fusion add on as they go electric next year!  A girl could so handle commuting if it was in one of these babies!  (thanks to Orcrist for the link, I'd lost my Delorean tab even if it was a different source).

Now on to the little people.  I know it's short notice now, but a new list of why you really should make your child's Halloween costume (and yours too while you are at it!) instead of just buying one off the rack.  The one I surprisingly never thought of, geek detector - wow it's so obvious!  Here's to hoping all our potential new friends aren't off at some harvest party, instead.

And there is absolutely no reason why your costume (or you daughter's costume) has to make you look like a slut either.  Lets get some creativity back into our costumes.  And realize just how stupid we look when we try to "sexify" them (not overweight people, just stupid looking costumes!). 

Ever really wondered what's happening in private schools?  Do you obsess over all the different teaching strategies out there like I do?  Well I hope you can enjoy this article about Waldorf schools and why they don't allow their students to use technology including TVs - in school and at home!  Until they are in junior high and even then it is discouraged.  If you don't read it please at least think about this quote:

Aurad Kamkar, 11, said he recently went to visit cousins and found himself sitting around with five of them playing with their gadgets, not paying attention to him or each other. He started waving his arms at them: “I said: ‘Hello guys, I’m here.’ ”

 Don't want to listen to a kid like Aurad?  How about the AAP (on PBS Newshour) and Wired Dad Jonathan Liu? Does the fact that 1/3 of kids under 2 have a TV in their bedroom, pointed at their bed, on while they are trying to sleep make you sick?  It does me.  We've known since I was a kid that TV is stimulating and the opposite of a sleep aid.  It's been studied to death that the flickering light messes with REM sleep.  (by the way those figures increase in the 5-8 category).  Both voices are not ignorant that media is a massive part of our society, and I myself have argued that having your child see you interacting on a computer, reading, writing and so forth can be extremely helpful to their valuation of how important reading is, however, there is a common tone here in that there needs to be limits, and parent-child interaction needs to stop being the victim of our media driven society.  We have TiVo, we have Hulu, we still sorta have Netflix (not me, but as a society - I just have Hulu) we can put off our shows and put our kids first and have the both of best worlds, and I think we should!  Sure my kids like to watch TV, but they also like to play board games, do worksheets (seriously, it's sick how much they love those stupid pages), play with the dollhouse we scored at a garage sale this summer, dress up and dance for us.  (One of my tabs is the 5 ballet positions - so they could play ballet class, even though they've never been to a real one.)  Most importantly they interact with each other and they interact with what needs to happen as a family.  It's not perfect, but it sure could be a lot worse - and if I had to summarize what these guys were saying, I definitely think it would be an, "Open your eyes!  Don't let it get worse, make some things better." kind of statement.

After all school is hardly going to teach you or your child all the most important lessons anyway, so you may want to make sure you've master the course over at Cracked U.

Then you can hopefully apply some of that new smarts to making sure you aren't letting your eyes mess with your head.  BTW this isn't just a whole foods that does this, LOTS of stores of guilty of this sort of thing, simply because it works.  This is an area of research with better funding than cancer people (no citation)!  

Now that you've got some brains going, you may want to make sure you aren't missing the obvious, :) 

And that you fully understand your history.  Not that I've read it yet, but who knows, I've had the tab open for a month.

Wow, things are looking much cleaner in my browsers now (yes I use more than one).  Now that we are all enlightened and enriched I guess we should give our food a make-over as well.  (warning not for the weak of stomach or the short of time)

Happy Halloween!!!