Teen Spends 11 Days Riding Subway, World Doesn't Care

Sad. There's just no other word to describe this story.

A 13-year old Brooklyn lad with Asperger's syndrome got frightened as a result of a potential school scolding from his mom and, with $10 in his pocket, rode the subway for 11 days before a transit cop recognized his face from a poster and stepped in to help.

No one spoke to him. Asked if he saw any larger meaning in that, he said, "Nobody really cares about the world and about people."

Hug your kids today. Or someone else's kids. No child should feel this way.

Via Gawker

Spelling Bee

Writing in his WaltSense blog, Walt weighs in on the National Spelling Bee, which he watched on the TV box last Friday night because he's recovering from face surgery and taking in super-intelligent children performing feats of genius seemed like the right thing to do.

Aside from stale references to foreign names having way too many vowels in them (yes, we get it...the names are very long), Walt humorously commends the Bee participants for their intellectual prowess while opining that he doubts his own spawn could compete at the same level.

I tell you what? If one of my kids begins the path down this spelling bee road, I would ask for a paternity test. There is no way one of my kids would be into this.

I don’t mind if they are smart. I wasn’t stupid, I was just lazy. I can see my kids being intelligent. But being aggressive towards academics would SHOCK me.

Tough day to be one of Walt's kids, I guess.

The National Spelling Bee , via WaltSense

Sugar on a Stick Learning Platform

Ars Technica has an in-depth look at a new version of the Sugar Learning Platform that can boot from a 1GB USB drive - hence the "stick".

The software environment was originally built for the One Laptop Per Child initiative for the XO laptop. It's a really kid-friendly computing interface pre-loaded with scores of education-related applications.

These drives could be distributed, and then children could plug them into whatever desktop computers were available at their location and enjoy their learning experience without regard to the hardware configuration.

Since the USB drive can save the user's data, the drive (and the learner's activity) would be portable, allowing the child to use it with any computer. What a great concept.

First taste: Sugar on a Stick learning platform

Children vs The Lottery

Nattavudh Powdthavee, a lecturer in the Department of Economics and Related Studies at the University of York (the fightin' Peppermint Patties!) caused a minor revolt among parents upon penning an article that said the concept of children making us happy was a focusing illusion and that data suggested the opposite was true.

Grab your Starbucks and Baby Einstein CDs and take to the streets, people!

E.D. Kain has posted a thoughtful counterpoint to Powdthavee's thesis, opining thusly:

Having children is not like winning the lottery. The happiness we experience from our children is lasting, constant, omnipresent, and far deeper than any material gain. It is also hard, and frustrating, and the most tiring experience of my life, which makes it all that much more meaningful.

I've been parenting for 26 years, so my opinion doesn't come in the form of a double-blind study with control groups, although it does make use of the scientific method.

• Define the question
• Gather information and resources (observe)
• Form hypothesis
• Perform experiment and collect data
• Analyze data
• Interpret data and draw conclusions that serve as a starting point for new hypothesis
• Publish results
  

Q: Does having children make me happy?

• Gather information - I've gathered three kids, two of whom are now adults. For my lab, I'm using the planet Earth. I hope no one else needs a bunsen burner right now.
  
• Hypothesis - my kids make me happy
• Perform experiment - I've gone to concerts, sporting events, dinners, dances, playgrounds, school events, vacations, graduations, funerals, and generally hung out with my kids, and I've gone weeks (sometimes a month or longer) without one or more of them around due to college, work, or personal reasons.
• Analyze data - I have a feeling of peace, calm, love, and happiness when they are around, and there's a marked decrease in each of these emotions that's directly proportional to the amount of time since we've been together.
• Interpret data and form conclusions - information analysis reveals that having children makes me happy, and their proximity directly correlates to the happiness scale originally posited by Ren & Stimpy in their published works, "Happy Happy Joy Joy."
• I've pushed the button and this has now been published. QED.