Emily gets off her bed (finally!) March 28, 2007
Posted by a1291762 in : emily , add a commentEmily has gotten off her bed without permission less than 5 times in the 1.5 years she’s had a bed (we teach our kids discipline so the rules are followed). About 6 weeks ago, she started waking up needing to go to the toilet, even in the middle of the night. That’s great (no more wet beds) but with so much obedience to the “don’t get out of bed” rule it’s been hard to get her to understand that she’s allowed to get out of bed to go to the toilet.
It looks like the message has finally sunk in. This morning Emily got off her bed and went to the toilet by herself. Of course she went straight back to bed afterwards.
Would you like topping with your iBook? March 28, 2007
Posted by a1291762 in : computers , add a commentNever eat near a computer.
Bree was eating ice cream and I poured some chocolate topping on it for her. As I went to move away the topping managed to spill out and go all over the keyboard.
I spent the next half an hour taking off the keys and cleaning off the topping. I ended up using wet cotton swabs because they seemed to be good at getting the topping out of all the little nooks and crannies.
Unfortunately I managed to kill the P key. The little scissor-action mechanism has lost 2 little tabs so the keycap doesn’t clip to it properly. The top of the key is ok but the bottom can come off easily.
Good thing we were already planning to get Bree a Macbook :)
From the mouths of babes… March 28, 2007
Posted by a1291762 in : emily , add a commentLast night there was a small, dying cockroach in the bathroom. It caused a bit of a commotion when Emily went to get out of the shower because it was still moving (slowly). I came in with a tissue to pick it up, asked Emily what was wrong and she pointed to the cockroach and said “Spiderman”. She even wiggled the fingers on one of her hands in a spider-like manner.
I have no idea where she got that one from.
Do I have Synesthesia? March 21, 2007
Posted by a1291762 in : Uncategorized , 2commentsI watched a program on SBS about Synesthesia. It was interesting but it also got me thinking. I don’t experience any of the things they showed on the program but I do experience something I would consider similar.
I think some background is in order.
Some time ago I was psychoanalysed. Apparently most people’s minds tend to operate with concrete concepts that map to the real world quite easily. Other people (apparently I’m one of them) tend to operate with more abstract concepts that do not map to the real world. As with most things like this it’s less a binary switch as it is a scale. I can’t seem to find any references to this with Google. I guess I’m not using the correct words to describe it.
Anyway, I’m pretty sure that this does in fact describe me and it also explains the communication issues I have with my dad. He’s very much a concrete thinker and when I say things to him I have to be very sure that I’ve refined my thoughts into concrete ideas or he will mis-interpret what I’m saying. It’s like Chinese whispers. He can’t even pass on a simple messages involving abstract concepts.
One of the things I suspect has come out of this that helps me is my concept maps. In order to communicate with most people I need to map my abstract thoughts to concrete concepts and these mappings can be used to help explain abstract concepts to people that cannot directly appreciate them. I’ve been told on more than one occasion that I have a way of explaining things that makes them clear.
Another thing about my brain, it’s very good at spacial awareness. I was faster operating the Classic Mac OS Finder than I am with the Mac OS X Finder because I had to think less about things. I could search for a file in my mind, racing ahead of my clicks rather than having to wait for my brain to interpret the image on the screen. Even having my files organised into a deep hierarchy did not slow me down. It’s unbelievably frustrating to me that even though Mac OS X has always had “classic Finder mode”, it’s never been possible to prevent the new-style behaviour from showing up at seemingly random times (despite the opposite problem _never_ happening except with rare disk images). I use spotlight more than I thought I would because it’s actually faster than operating the Mac OS X Finder. I don’t take the time to organise things anymore because the system doesn’t leave things where I put them.
To compare this to real life, I tend to have organised chaos. Nobody else may be able to find things but I know exactly where things are. If someone else goes and moves things, I can’t find them. The Classic Mac OS Finder let me have my organised chaos. The Mac OS X Finder insists on “cleaning up” my files (from a spatial point of view).
This extends to navigation. I can play games and not get lost, even on huge maps yet I have friends that can’t handle the smallest levels. In the same way that I can “see” the way to a file, I can “see” the way between two locations. It’s generally a shock when I find that traffic conditions have changed along the way.
So back to Synesthesia…
In general, it is caused by brain centres that are normally separate becoming linked, usually in response to particular stimuli. I suspect that the part of my brain that handles abstract concepts is linked to the part of my brain that handles spacial awareness, which is perhaps linked to my vision. I don’t see things in the way the SBS program described but I can visualise spacial data very clearly. The real kicker for me is that I find myself talking at work about how I can see a problem and the solution. I even find myself using arm gestures to indicate the spatial images I have. When evaluating possible solutions, I can clearly see how they each fit though it’s not something I can easily express in concrete terms.
So I “see” problems, which perhaps lets me “see” the solutions more easily than someone else. It’s exactly the same way you might look at a dozen puzzle pieces and “see” the two that go together. I know some people do puzzles by looking at the picture, making visually indistinct puzzles hard. Some people do it using a form of brute force, placing many pieces that have some matching characteristics together until they get a fit, making puzzles with subtly different edges hard. Me? I “see” the edges I’m trying to match and compare them to the edges of the piece I’m looking at. I can “see” if they’ll fit (subtly different edges aren’t really a problem for me).
Well… that’s quite a rambling piece isn’t it. I’d go back and try to give it a bit more structure but I think I’ve spent long enough on this already.
Lonely Geek March 13, 2007
Posted by a1291762 in : meme , add a commentExcuse the tag soup below. I just copied it from the results page…
| Lonely Geek You scored 57% Nerdiness, 7% Horniness, 24% Romance, and 14% Epicury! |
| You have a great relationship with all your computers. That must be nice for you. Remind me why you are on a dating site again? No real friends? Gee, how surprising. |
 |
My test tracked 4 variables How you compared to other people your age and gender:
|
| Link: The Alphabet Insulting Personality Test written by alpha1971 on OkCupid Free Online Dating, home of the The Dating Persona Test |
Another Qtopia app March 12, 2007
Posted by a1291762 in : programs , add a commentI don’t like the dialog that Qtopia uses to tell you it’s low on power. I had disabled it but then I thought I might try to get some noise/vibration happening since that’s what most phones use. The result is poweralerter.
Kid Update March 9, 2007
Posted by a1291762 in : emily, isaac , add a commentEmily can sort of sing songs now. She doesn’t manage to get all the words in but she’s starting to hold the tune. She’s been singing songs from the Wiggles, Gymborree and today, she’s been singing the happy birthday song (without paying royalties). It’s her birthday tomorrow so we’re having pancakes for breakfast.
Isaac is still being a pain. We’ve put him back on Losec and will probably keep it up now until he stops getting teeth through (since they make his reflux flare up). As a result of waking up in pain so often, he’s started waking up for no particular reason so now we have to retrain him on how to stay quiet and go back to sleep when he wakes up.
When we were looking at the car, Isaac kept pointing to all the cars and saying “car”.
It's a new car! March 9, 2007
Posted by a1291762 in : Uncategorized , add a commentWe bought a new car. Actually, we’ll be picking it up tomorrow. It’s a white Toyota Corolla Hatchback.
I reckon Emily will be devastated because she’s loved having “elly car” around. Bree will be getting the Corolla and I’ll have the Camry so Emily will probably end up going in the Camry more often.
We’ve got two seats for Isaac, we just need to get another one for Emily.
New clothesline, Isaac chews March 4, 2007
Posted by a1291762 in : house, isaac , add a commentWe got a new clothesline quite a while ago but since the one that was here was working the motivation to get it installed was lacking. It didn’t help that finding someone to install a clothesline is hard.
The other day, the old clothesline died. One minute it was drying washing, the next minute the whole top section had broken free and was on the ground.
Bree rung around and eventually found a guy from Ipswich that would install our new one.
It’s from the Hills Hoist Heritage series (ie. the big metal ones, not the green ones) and it’s the biggest size they had. That’s 2 lines more than our old clothesline had. If I remember right, it’s got a 6 meter diameter. Needless to say, it’s absolutely massive! Bree tried filling it up this weekend (we’d been over a week without a clothesline) but despite doing all the sheets, towels and clothes we couldn’t fill it up.
Isaac has got a few molars in the last week so he can finally chew stuff. Hooray!