More Old School Crap on Babies

A relative of Grace’s was visiting. So we stopped by for a quick hello. But of course, everybody has an opinion on how to raise YOUR child. Having raised three American children whom are all very successful academically, she instructed us to ignore Bryan’s cries at night so that it’d “help him” sleep through the night. Nothing annoys me more than to have old-schoolers, whose child-rearing knowledge is obviously behind the times, to tell us what to do. She casually mentioned that was the method taught in a book by “Dr. Spock”.

So who was this crazy Spock guy to tell parents that allowing babies to cry through the night is good for them?

And sure enough, Dr. Spock turns out to be a rather famous pediatrician in the United States whose books have helped “millions” of parents raising their children. But I guess 30 years ago when Grace’s relative read his book, the trend was to let babies cry. But 30 years later, Dr. Spock knows better.

But yet there are still pediatricians telling parents to let babies cry!! Who the hell are these people getting their information from? And just how dated is that information? And for all you new parents out there — you go see pediatricians for the health of your baby, not to ask their opinion on how to raise them. Early childhood education is something clearly not their domain. Research after research shows that you need to build trust with your baby for the first 6-9 months of the little being’s life.

So don’t let the baby cry. Pick him/her up and find out why s/he is crying already! Babies can’t talk, crying is the only way they communicate their unhappiness.

Between Apple and Jef Raskin

I was reading the wrong section of the required reading from SCAD’s online class; but the reading turned out the be a pretty cool section on how users interface with keys. And then the author (Jef Raskin) mentions something about the rationale for his design of one-button mouse:

My design for an interface based on a one-button mouse was refined and extended in discussions with many coworkers… and many adjustments were made based on observations made during user testing and during subsequent development. Some users do have difficulty both holding down a button and simultaneously moving a graphical input device… In the Macintosh deign, the problem was alleviated by having only one large button on the mouse, with low holding force and good tactile feedback. (p. 209)

So there we have it. A design from the 80s was effectively (and stubbornly) carried out well into 2005. But here’s the fun part: even though the book was published in 2000, Jef Raskin had already conceived many of the ideas in the new mouse that Apple introduced earlier this year.

A better mouse might have two buttons on top… a “Grab” button on the side that is activated by squeezing the mouse… Some mice at present have a wheel on top that is used primarily for scrolling. Better still would be a small trackball in that location. The mouse would control the position of the curser; the trackball could be used, for example, to manipulation objects or to make selections from menus that float with the curser. (p. 209)

Sound familiar? Here’s what Apple says about their mouse:

Meet the mouse that reinvented the wheel. The scroll wheel, that is. At $49, Mighty Mouse features the revolutionary Scroll Ball that lets you move anywhere inside a document, without lifting a finger. And with touch-sensitive technology concealed under the seamless top shell, you get the programability of a four-button mouse in a single-button design. Click, roll, squeeze and scroll. This mouse just aced the maze. ((c) Apple Computer)

Somebody give me $500,000 so that I can take the rest of the ideas in Jef Raskin’s book to market! I promise I won’t put all eggs in one basket.

Another interesting fact is something I learned from the database class last night. Apparently the idea of a “database” was conceived by E.F. Codd at IBM in the 70s. He published a paper that pretty much defined how all relational databases behaved today. But IBM didn’t really think the paper was worth the effort to development upon, so they simply shelved the idea (and there simply wasn’t enough computing power to run such design). So in the 80s, some guy came along and decided to implement the ideas in E.F. Codd’s paper, and Oracle was born. And Oracle’s been kicking IBM’s ass in the database market ever since.

Having good a idea ahead of its time is a bitch.

Goo~ Goo~ Ga~

This morning, at 7AM, was the first time I heard Bryan being able to coo continuously and just kept “talking” away. At one point he was so excited about talking to me that he screamed… also his first.

Bryan is also getting increasingly more and more alert during the day. This translates to less and less time for me to be able to quietly work at home. “San Jose Public Library, will you be my second home?”

Humongous

Bryan’s poop is getting ridiculously humongous. Sometimes when we open up the diaper, we can’t tell where his butt ends and the poop begins.

In addition to the humongous poops, the little fella has also been pooping two to three times a day on a regular basis. What could possibly be in the formula that makes so much poop? Marvels of the human body…

Yesterday was the first day of class with this famous infant/toddler instructor in the Bay Area. She was impressive. Remember the “Cry Baby” entry I did? Well, she touched on the scientific aspect of that topic in the class. It had something to do with the inhibitory and excitatory synapses and neurons. The basic idea is, when an infant is deprived of his emotions or needs (i.e. nobody attends to his cries), the inhibitory neurons get used a lot more often and thus form stronger connections for synapses. Over time, this translates into a person who’s going to be incapable of “regulating” his own emotions and is much more likely to be depressed, stressed with less self-confidence.

With all the research and knowledge we have today (30+ years of continuous longitudinal research), I am surprised there are still people who choose to believe that attending to crying babies is a form of spoiling them.

All Caught Up

The past 48 hours was crazy. Seriously, how do people do it?

When I signed up for the online class at SCAD, the class was already a week into session. Unlike UC Santa Cruz’s online program where one week’s worth of material can be somewhat easily caught up, SCAD does give out a lot of stuff to practice, read, provide feedback and join a very active discussion forum. I’d forgotten how much homework SCAD has….

There was a deadline on Friday night for a project. So I stayed up all night on Thursday trying to catch up on all the readings and discussions that went on a week prior to my joining. And what the f*ck…. how could they have said so much in just one week? There were literally almost 100 messages to go through, digest and reply to. I figure after all the reading is done, I’d spend Friday to complete the project… What a mistake….

I went to bed at 5AM (technically I was going to go at 4AM, but Bryan woke up and demanded milk), and woke up at 11AM. And then Grace broke the bad news that the fridge was empty and we needed to go grocery shopping. SHIT! I am doomed.

So off she went to get grocery while I was at home trying desperately to get Bryan to sleep, even if for just 20 minutes. But NO~~ From 12PM till almost 3:30PM, Bryan wanted me to either play with him or to rock him to sleep in my arms (he wouldn’t have it any other way). Thank god to the new BabyBjörn we just got the DAY before, he was able to sleep for about 30 minutes before Grace finally got home.

Holy cow… I definitely don’t recommend working on attention-intensive or mission-critical projects at home alone when there are young infants around at the same time. It’s impossible to get anything done when s/he’s awake. I am glad it’s over now though… This quarter is going to be an uphill battle with a database class and another reading- and lab-intensive Unix Admin class to come.

On a related note, BabyBjörn is a godsend. It should be a required item on every baby registry. It gave me back whole 30 minutes I would not otherwise have.

Trixie Update — A Site for Geeky Dads

When I called Brian in Austria yesterday, Birgit was home instead. So we started chatting about the latest baby news and life in general (around the baby, of course). She mentioned a very cool “daddy” site for the geek in all of us daddies — Trixie Update.

I blame Birgit for not telling me about the site sooner. The site is full of data this dad collected of his daughter on almost everything imaginable — patterns on diaper changes, nap times… etc. It’s a fairly complete data on his daughter. The articles are articulate and funny and his images of Trixie are also very very nice.

Even though I know Murdza might find the site cool (as did I), I just don’t see he’s dorky enough to maintain a site like that.

There’s one very cool feature he has on his site I must mention openly: The author has a feature on the photos of his daughter that takes you back to exactly one year ago of the same date. You can really see how Trixie’s grown when looking at the photos in succession like that. Here’s an example. Simply click on the “One Year Ago Today” link on the upper right hand corner of the page. Awesome!

Speaking of “phone calls” over long distance, Skype is your friend.

CG Wonders

One of the reasons I didn’t go into the CG/visual effects industry was because of its intense and long work hours. And quite frankly, I was already getting more into systems administration stuff than actually creating 3D models or texture maps. But sometimes I do wish I was still in the creative industry, especially after sites like this sprouts all over the place. The forums showcase some of the greatest CG works I have ever seen.

But I still don’t miss setting up or skinning a skeleton. And I don’t miss having to redo work for every other new version of Maya (backward incompatibility).

Equal Opportunity Bathrooms for Babies

There’s been a lot of improvements in the U.S. to make things easier for people with physical disabilities. I wonder if that qualifies infants since they, too, can’t really help themselves to do a lot of things we adults take for granted.

The simplest example I can think of is utilities in the bathroom. We have taken Bryan out a few times, and when it came to changing diapers, there’s been NO diaper changing stations in all of the places we have taken Bryan to so far. These places include two popular restaurants and a four star expensive hotel. What’s wrong with the facility owners? Don’t they have kids?

Thanks to a new proposal in San Francisco, things may soon change. The new law, if passed, would require new buildings over a certain size (or renovations that go over a certain budget) to install baby diaper changing stations. The ironic thing about that is, the proposal only came after the city supervisor had trouble finding places equipped with such utility for his own kids.

Don’t you just love it when laws are made to accommodate certain policy maker’s own experience in life? Fortunately sometimes these policies actually benefit the general public at large.

Paypal Phishing

This week I must have received 6+ emails from crooks who pretend to be Paypal via those Paypal-official-looking emails which direct me to a fake Paypal site. The objective, of course, is to get me to provide my user name, password and other juicy information such as credit card numbers. I think I prefer the numerous “business offers” I’ve been getting from military generals in Nigeria and/or Congo (VERY attractive business deals, I must say).

Seriously, I think crooks like that should be put in jail for so long that even their mothers forget they exist. They are in the same league as spammers and people who sell your telephone numbers to tele-marketers.

Speaking of tele-marketers, Grace has been complaining about the number of tele-marketing calls we have been receiving. So I registered our number at the National Do Not Call Registry (U.S. only). The neat thing about the registry is that once it takes effect, for every call you receive from tele-marketers, you get to take down their information and report them. And you get to tell them that you are on the registry (and they’ll remove your name from their call list immediately). Each “Do Not Call” number they call, they get hit with a stiff fine from the FCC (or whatever).

I love laws that punish jerk merchants for making our lives less enjoyable.

Classes and More Classes

I was one class shy of getting my Master of Fine Arts degree when I left SCAD to join a startup in 2000. That’s a decision I would later at least partially regret, mostly because my mom has nagged me just about every other time we speak. This year I decided to get the degree over with once and for all.

As my luck would have it, it turned out I’d been orphaned in my own major. Because of the rapid changes in the computer arts industry, SCAD had to specialize Computer Art into four distinctive majors (Animation, Visual Effects, Interactive Design and Game Development, Broadcast Design and Motion Graphics). Based on my industry experience, they decided I belonged to Interactive Design and Game Development. A professor painstakingly correlated all the relevant courses from way back when to the standards today and found that I still need to take one class in addition to thesis… The class turned out to be “Human-Centered Interactive Design”.

Perfect! I’ve always wanted to sharpen up my user interface design skills. And besides, good UI design is a cross discipline skill — everything we use and operate today has some kind of user interface design element in it.

The best part about this is that the class is also available online, something SCAD has been talking about doing for years but finally got it going. I logged on to the elearning system (run by Blackboard) and was horrified… because I’d miss one week worth of work already…

On top of the catch up work I have to do from SCAD, I also need to attend to the two classes I already registered at UC Santa Cruz (database class and unix administration class), both of which are pretty heavy on reading and labs. Add to all this, Bryan has been a handful… This is going to be a tough quarter to get through.

Speaking of UI design, the professor made three books as required reading, which later I found out are bibles among UI design books: