Wednesday, November 26, 2008
He's here!
Well, I can't get my photos to upload, and Susan did a great job of describing the welcome, so I'll refer you to Susan's blog for a description of how fun it was to meet Dirk at the airport! Welcome home!
Monday, November 24, 2008
Thursday, November 20, 2008
No new roads?
We live close to a couple of upcoming massive transportation construction projects. We've got a railroad line, and a big arterial road scheduled to go in. Then I saw this news article that says Utah is putting the brakes on many road construction projects because of declining tax revenues. The article didn't say anything about Utah County's Frontrunner line.
The Mountain View Corridor is on hold. That's the west side freeway that was coming down around Bangerter to connect to I-15 at Lehi along 2100 North. Here's a map. The full list of delayed projects is at UDOT's website, and then click on the link for "projects on hold."
The Mountain View Corridor is on hold. That's the west side freeway that was coming down around Bangerter to connect to I-15 at Lehi along 2100 North. Here's a map. The full list of delayed projects is at UDOT's website, and then click on the link for "projects on hold."
Wednesday, November 12, 2008
New skills - Ben jumps!
Look at my boy get both feet off the floor!
Kris, doesn't he look like Jace in this picture?
Kris, doesn't he look like Jace in this picture?
Monday, November 10, 2008
Burnout
You know what I noticed? There's no one else on the planet who posts every single day. I am blog-exhausted. Ack. I'm going to be normal now. I'll see you a couple times a week.
Thursday, November 06, 2008
Ben in the Bookshelf
Ben likes this little Ben-size spot. In the video clip, you can hear that Ben has an Eliza Doolittle tendency to add an extra "h" to "open".
Wednesday, November 05, 2008
Happy Anniversary!
We got married three years ago today! You know that life insurance commercial that says "life comes at you fast"? I feel like that. Three years, two kids, and one deployment. Yep, life came at us fast.
It's been a wonderful three years. I love my husband. He's a loving, accepting man who takes good care of us (even long distance) and is just wonderful to be with (even long distance). You were worth the wait, sweetheart! I'm looking forward to the rest of forever!
It's been a wonderful three years. I love my husband. He's a loving, accepting man who takes good care of us (even long distance) and is just wonderful to be with (even long distance). You were worth the wait, sweetheart! I'm looking forward to the rest of forever!
Monday, November 03, 2008
Sunday, November 02, 2008
Book Review: Everything Bad is Good For You
After reading Everything Bad Is Good For You by Steven Johnson, I am no longer ashamed that I loved every episode of Average Joe. (That was the reality dating show where they found a beauty queen who said personality was more important than looks and gave her 20 average-looking guys to choose from.) However, I am ashamed that I do not have the brainpower to follow Survivor. Sigh. Perhaps Ben and Simon will be smart enough.
Johnson's argument is that it takes more brainpower to enjoy current pop culture than it did to enjoy pop culture twenty or thirty years ago. He takes on the assumption that pop culture is dumbing down, and turns it on its head.
Before he gets going, he separates out the morality of current pop culture from the complexity of pop culture. This book doesn't address the increased violence, sex and profanity in entertainment.
TV is getting smarter. Really. All you have to do is watch a show from the Golden Age of television (the 60s), or from the stupidity nadir of television (the 70s), and compare it to today's shows. Today's plots have so many interlocking relationships and plot lines that missing an episode requires a visit to one of the many fan sites to find out what happened because the producers don't design shows to fit in one episode. They design shows that take entire seasons to unravel.
While a viewer could sit down in front of Starsky and Hutch, watch just one episode, and be able to follow the plot, anyone who tries to watch just one episode of ER or Lost is going to spend the entire episode wondering what's happening. Older tv shows kept the viewer interested with the mystery of how the show will end. Current tv shows keep the viewer interested with the mystery of what the heck is going on right now. TV shows are a puzzle, not just braindead entertainment.
Speaking of puzzles, the ultimate pop culture puzzles are computer games. Johnson says that saying computer games teach good hand-eye coordination is like saying reading Charles Dickens teaches good spelling. That minor skill is so incidental to what you're actually learning that it's laughable to even count it as a benefit. Today's complex computer games, as opposed to PacMan, require a player to solve an unending series of puzzles. Far from being instant gratification, they often involve a player in frustrating problems without giving the player all the rules, and require the player to figure out the rules in order to solve the problems. That's high-level thinking.
That brings us to reality shows. Know what he says reality shows are? They're not documentaries, and they're certainly not reality. Reality TV shows based on strategy (like Survivor, not Fear Factor) are structured like computer games. There's a highly artificial environment. The players don't know all the rules at the outset but learn them as they go. Players have to make frequent decisions with both short-term and long-term goals in mind. And you can get killed (voted off) no matter how well you think you're doing.
The dating reality shows are like high school social networks. Ick. I didn't like high school, and much of the reason for that was because I couldn't read social network cues. I didn't know who liked who, or why, and what I was supposed to do about it. But thriving in a complex social network like high school is actually a real-life skill because work environments and families are also complex social networks. A person's emotional IQ is as important for success and happiness as a strictly cognitive IQ.
Johnson does briefly address several counter-arguments. The most important one is the social interaction question. It is all too easy to spend time developing cognitive skills and ignore emotional skills that are necessary when you turn the screen off. As with everything else, pop culture should be enjoyed in moderation. He also talked about why, if we are getting smarter, kids test lower in school.
But the book did give a whole new way to look at what tv and computer games are really doing to our minds. And I didn't even get to his thoughts about the Internet. It's pretty obvious the Internet demands more thinking from us, though, so that section was the least revolutionary for me.
The book is highly readable. This is the same author who wrote The Ghost Map. It was a fast and interesting read.
Johnson's argument is that it takes more brainpower to enjoy current pop culture than it did to enjoy pop culture twenty or thirty years ago. He takes on the assumption that pop culture is dumbing down, and turns it on its head.
Before he gets going, he separates out the morality of current pop culture from the complexity of pop culture. This book doesn't address the increased violence, sex and profanity in entertainment.
TV is getting smarter. Really. All you have to do is watch a show from the Golden Age of television (the 60s), or from the stupidity nadir of television (the 70s), and compare it to today's shows. Today's plots have so many interlocking relationships and plot lines that missing an episode requires a visit to one of the many fan sites to find out what happened because the producers don't design shows to fit in one episode. They design shows that take entire seasons to unravel.
While a viewer could sit down in front of Starsky and Hutch, watch just one episode, and be able to follow the plot, anyone who tries to watch just one episode of ER or Lost is going to spend the entire episode wondering what's happening. Older tv shows kept the viewer interested with the mystery of how the show will end. Current tv shows keep the viewer interested with the mystery of what the heck is going on right now. TV shows are a puzzle, not just braindead entertainment.
Speaking of puzzles, the ultimate pop culture puzzles are computer games. Johnson says that saying computer games teach good hand-eye coordination is like saying reading Charles Dickens teaches good spelling. That minor skill is so incidental to what you're actually learning that it's laughable to even count it as a benefit. Today's complex computer games, as opposed to PacMan, require a player to solve an unending series of puzzles. Far from being instant gratification, they often involve a player in frustrating problems without giving the player all the rules, and require the player to figure out the rules in order to solve the problems. That's high-level thinking.
That brings us to reality shows. Know what he says reality shows are? They're not documentaries, and they're certainly not reality. Reality TV shows based on strategy (like Survivor, not Fear Factor) are structured like computer games. There's a highly artificial environment. The players don't know all the rules at the outset but learn them as they go. Players have to make frequent decisions with both short-term and long-term goals in mind. And you can get killed (voted off) no matter how well you think you're doing.
The dating reality shows are like high school social networks. Ick. I didn't like high school, and much of the reason for that was because I couldn't read social network cues. I didn't know who liked who, or why, and what I was supposed to do about it. But thriving in a complex social network like high school is actually a real-life skill because work environments and families are also complex social networks. A person's emotional IQ is as important for success and happiness as a strictly cognitive IQ.
Johnson does briefly address several counter-arguments. The most important one is the social interaction question. It is all too easy to spend time developing cognitive skills and ignore emotional skills that are necessary when you turn the screen off. As with everything else, pop culture should be enjoyed in moderation. He also talked about why, if we are getting smarter, kids test lower in school.
But the book did give a whole new way to look at what tv and computer games are really doing to our minds. And I didn't even get to his thoughts about the Internet. It's pretty obvious the Internet demands more thinking from us, though, so that section was the least revolutionary for me.
The book is highly readable. This is the same author who wrote The Ghost Map. It was a fast and interesting read.
Saturday, November 01, 2008
I made cute things!
Now that Halloween is over, let me be the first to brag about my stunningly adorable Christmas decorations! I made our Christmas stockings!
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