Good discussion about American Culture on Slashdot

I was a bit more, um... "direct" than I am normally.  I probably stuck my foot in my mouth a couple times, but...

Last week I wrote quite a bit - almost a good essay's worth - of stuff about the moral culture of the United States.  Given the impending election, I thought I would post a link to the writing/discussion on the Slashdot story "Is Silicon Vally Morally Bankrupt and Toxic?"

The gist of the discussion is that the culture of conflict combined with a culture of consumerist capitalism in America is morally bankrupt.  This culture is one of the reasons getting rid of racism in America is so hard.  Have fun with the read and let me know here what you think!

(By the way, on Slashdot I go by the handle "under_score").

On Graduations and Rites of Passage

Well... grand title, but only a short little entry.

Two significant milestones have been reached in our family: first, our eldest son, Justice, has graduated from Grade 8 and second, our youngest daughter, Ocean, has been weened.

Justice is just about to turn 14.  He likes girls, he's grown a couple inches in the past two months, he has a dark shadow starting on his upper lip, and his voice has deepened.  He went to public school this year, at his own behest instead of homeschooling, in order to make some friends.  This was partially catalyzed by the departure of his best friend Joseph from the house beside us.  He did well in school this year and I am very proud of him... particularly how he handled various challenges in the adjustment from home schooling to public school (including the adjustment of his loving parents).  Congratulations Justice!!!

Ocean is just a smidge under 30 months.  She has nursed the longest of any of our children.  She is cute and definitely enjoying the benefits of being the youngest of four and (at least as far as we plan) our last baby.  Over the past three days Melanie and I have done the final stages of weening her.  Melanie has been progressively reducing the amount of nursing over months... but she was still nursing several times at night and usually needed to nurse in order to fall asleep.  After one very hard night (where she ended up nursing a bit during the night anyway), a less hard night, last night an easy night, and tonight (Jun. 26th) a surprisingly easy night, we have confirmed that she is no longer nursing.

Wow.  It's hard to believe that Melanie and I are coming up to our 15th wedding anniversary in just a couple days!

Milestones!

Something Silly: Spice Bandits and the Secret Spice Foundaries

I'm a big fan of tower defense games and my current obsession is called Spice Bandits. I'm playing it on the iPad, bit it is also available on the iPhone and iPod Touch. One of the things that makes it so addictive is the achievements system which includes three levels: "Battle Medals", "Trip Medals", and "Secret Spice Foundaries".  (By the way, this incorrect spelling is what they use in the game - it should be foundries, not foundaries.)  You can see and work towards the first two levels of achievements - they are described in the game. For example, building 300 missile launchers wins you a gold medal. There are 68 medals to be won in the first two categories. In the third category, the Secret Spice Foundaries, there are only ten achievements... But the game does not give you any clues or hints as to what you need to do to achieve them. Only once you have (most likely accidentally) done something particular does one of the Secret Spice Foundaries unlock... And give you a bunch of Spice which is quite valuable in the game. Here are the Secret Spice Foundaries I have unlocked so far (I will update this list with more as I discover them):
1. Win a sudden death game running all waves before time
2. Complete The Wall Sudden Death using only machine guns
3. Complete Buenos Aires Airport Normal using only level 1 towers
4. Complete Dangerous Valley Normal with a star
5. Complete Desert Freighter sudden death with only one tower
6. Complete Sahara Desert Sudden Death without building machine guns
7. Build Duke Nuke in Berlin Wall Normal
8. Build three Gatling Superguns in Moscow Normal
9. Build 5 freeze towers in Athens Normal
10. Win French Castle Air Attack without building AA towers
Since I'm not going to play this game forever, if anyone out there knows any of the other Secret Spice Foundaries, please let me know in the comments. (And, of course, feel free to read my other blog entries which are about more serious stuff.)
(UPDATE: June. 27th... finally got around to reading the comments... now all the Secret Spice Foundaries are in my list although I haven't done them all yet. - Thanks dear readers!!!)

Collaboration and Visibility

A few days ago my kids were playing MineCraft together. Each of them was in their own room, and they were all playing on a common server. In MineCraft, this means that they share a world and can either build things collaboratively or they can compete. In this case, my daughter Haifa became very upset because my son Justice killed her character (not the end of the world). Anyway, at first I was very angry at Justice. However, after consulting with Melanie, we realized that some of the problem was simply that Justice was not aware of Haifa being upset until it had escalated to crying and shouting!

Solution? A very simple rule: everyone needs to be in the same room together if they are playing together! So, we set them up in my office downstairs where there is enough room.

Now - no problems. Visibility creates empathy which in turn enables better collaboration!