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Intelligence: A Brief History June 28, 2005
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Unfortunately, it wasn't. This "brief history" was more on the brief side than the history side. It was so brief, in fact, that it only really got to deal in generalities instead of specifics. I think I can still benefit from more information. On the plus side, though, the book was written in a very approachable fashion, especially for someone like myself who's already familiar with the topic. It also gave me a few good references for more information, which I'll put in my wish list.
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The grisly conclusion.
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Guys, this is how it starts:
GERALYN: Sammy's getting so big...
ME: Yeah. Well, she can't stay a baby forever.
GERALYN: We need another baby.
ME: What? Woah, woah, woah! Let's not get ahead of ourselves.
GERALYN: Well, don't you think so?
ME: Look, if you just wait another 14 years you can have a grandchild. How about that?
GERALYN: Shut up, Jamie.
In other news, there's not much other news. Sam continues to climb and build her vocabulary, which now includes "Grande lowfat vanilla late". She really is getting bigger more quickly, though. She's a little person now instead of the blob of a baby she used to be.
Earlier today we went to the San Diego Fair for some reason, I'm still not sure why, but Sam ended up enjoying it. We didn't get a fried twinkie like last year, but this time around I went for the ginormous roasted turkey leg. Now, I have to say that the ginormous turkey leg isn't all it's cut out to be. You look at it and think "Oh, man, I'd look like King Loui the XIII eating that thing" and that's cool, because glutonous royalty is all the rage these days. But while you do feel like a big fat French guy eating it, it's not that good. It's overcooked, drenched in messy sauce, and you realize that turkeys must be comprised entirely of fat and gristle. Wait, what was I talking about?
At any rate, pictures!
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Sam's Story next week will most likely be delayed a few days, as we're going to be traveling to St. Louis to visit family. I should have lots of pictures to show and news to tell, though, once it does go up.
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Not even the Jesusmobile is safe from the 50 Foot Baby!
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The flowers Ger got me for Father's Day. Nice, masculine colors, eh?
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Pullman's world is an interesting mix of magic, mad science, and theology that sharpens one of the hooks used by good fantasy: world building. Pullman skillfully reveals things about his world --daemons, talking and armor-clad bears, witches, zepelins, and spirits-- at just the right pace to keep you interested. It's pretty imaginative and the non-standard setting puts new twists on even old concepts.
So on one level this book was about adventure and fun, but about two thirds of the way through the first book things snapped into place and I realized that it also has deeper meanings on other levels. Meanings that deal with religion (specifically organized religion), sin, childhood, and what it is to be human. It's pretty interesting stuff, moreso because one of the main characters is trying to kill God.
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Sam loves to sit on boxes. Go figure.
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This is Sam, showing you her mean face. Don't mess with her, got it?
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I've been some research, and I've come up with some disturbing suspicions about Sam. I think she's a zombie.
The other day I was sitting on the floor playing with her when she suddenly turned to me, spread her arms, and stumbled towards me and into my arms. I was delighted, thinking I was getting an enthusiastic hug until I felt her little teeth actually bite into my shoulder. I mean, all the signs are there. Stumbling gait with arms held parallel to the floor? Check. Propensity for biting people? Check. Vacant gaze? Check. Repetitive moaning and piercing shrieks? Check and check. She's a zombie, man. A zombie. Still, I think we should be all right as long as she doesn't bite any of us. Much.
As I think I mentioned last week, our undead baby's newest trick is climbing. She's crazy for the climbing now, and will entertain herself for huge chunks of time getting up on and off of the couch. Here's a typical session, step-by-step:
 Step 1: Struggling to climb, 1-3 minutes. |
 Step 2: Success and rest, 3-4 seconds. |
 Step 3: Jump off and repeat, 2 seconds. |
In addition, she's taken to bringing things up on the couch with her just so she can throw them off. Good times.
More pictures!
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I especially like this one and this one where Sam is looking through one of the absolutely awesome scrapbooks that Geralyn has created. It's funny to see the differences between the Sam in the picture and the Sam in the pictures of pictures.
The other fun thing I've done this week is set up Sam's first e-mail account. Google is giving out free accounts to beta test their Gmail service, which I'm sure will be around for a while. Given this I decided to reserve Samantha a logical, free e-mail address so that she could use it when she's old enough (which should be in a few weeks, given what I've seen of kids these days). At any rate, she now has samantha.madigan "at" gmail.com set up for her, and Geralyn and I have even already sent her her first two pieces of e-mail. Below is what I wrote to her:
My daughter is going to think I'm either totally cool or a total dork. Possibly both.Hi Sammy,
It's June 14th, 2005 and you're receiving your very first e-mail! However, you're only 16 months old right now and you don't speak English, much less read it, so it'll be a while before you can understand this. And by then monkeys may have risen up to enslave the human race and put us to work in their banana mines. And I for one welcome our new simian overlords.
Regardless, I went ahead and created this gmail account for you so that you could have one with a logical e-mail address. Because by the time you're old enough to set one up for yourself the closest you'd probably be able to get would be s4m_300196@gmail.com or somesuch. It may be a moot point anyway, as in the future we'll probably just jam plugs into our nural shunts and access the Internet directly from our brains. But you have to admit, it was a nice thought. Come visit your father in the old folk's home and say "thanks," unless you have my brain preserved in a jar then just tap the side of the glass and sprinkle in some food flakes.
I'm going to ask your mother, your grandparents, and your aunt to send you e-mails as well, probably once a year or so. I'll make sure to send you one every few months, though most of what I've got to say for you is chronicled on http://www.jmadigan.net. Still, it's nice to get letters.
Whatever you've done by the time you read this, I'm sure I'll be proud of you and love you just as much as I do now. More, even.
See you in the banana mines,
-Dad
At any rate, if you're a Sam fan and want to send her an e-mail, feel free to do so by sending it to samantha.madigan "at" gmail.com. Replace the "at" with @ --I'm just being sneaky to try and fool the spammers.
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Happy Father's Day to me, my dad, and Ger's dad. And to every other dad on the planet, I suppose. In celebration, here's a picture of my teaching Sammy how to brush her teeth.
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There's a shopping center somewhat near where we live that has a bronze statue of a pig that Sam absolutely loves for some reason. I've named him Napoleon --bonus cool points to anyone who names that reference.
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One of the first things that struck me about Hemingway's writing is how expertly he follows the rule of "show, don't tell." Over reliance on exposition and explanation are hallmarks of amature writers like myself who can't find any better way of getting their characterization across. Instead of having a narrator blurt out that Santiago is "extremely proud, highly determined, and an expert fisherman," Hemingway shows the reader how all of these things are true through action and dialog. The result, at least here, is that Santiago is an extremely deep and nuanced character --a person, even-- by the end of the story. It's very well done.
Beyond that, I get the impression that there's a LOT going on under the surface in even this short of a novella. One of the things that stuck out to me, though, is the almost existential philosophy inherent in Santiago's struggle. One of the main tenents of Existentialism is along the lines of "Look, you're gonna die, but it's how you deal with that inevitability that matters." You get the idea that the old man in this book adheres to this adage by the way he just keeps struggling against nature, even though he knows the fight is lost and the outcome inevitable. Lesser men would have just cut the fish loose and sailed home. But in the end, even though he's ruined, Santiago gains a chance at immortality of a sort through his protoge.
Good stuff. I've got another four Hemingway novels already in the queue.
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She should really watch where she's going.
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Sam seems to be enjoying her new mobility. If you set her down she take off like a shot and just keeps going until she hits something.
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In the park.
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Ger and I finally got to go see Revenge of the Sith last night (movies are quite a bit more expensive when you have to hire a baby sitter). It's been discussed to death all over the 'net by this point, so I won't say much. Except that the Separatists are about the dumbest, most gullable bunch of bug-eyed aliens I've ever seen led blindly to their death. I'm paraphrasing from memory, but a few lines to prove my point go like this:
Now, call me jaded, but I don't think "volcanic" and "safe" are two words that belong together unless also accompanied by "get away from." But wait, it gets better:General Grevious: I'm relocating you to Mustufar. It's a volcanic planet. You will be safe there.
Separatists: Okiedokie!
I mean, c'mon. That's dumb, even by "villains get their comeupance" standards. Can't be subtle, can we Mr. Lucas? Oh, wait, sorry. I forgot a spoiler warning. Here:Darth Sidious: I'm sending my new apprentice to Mustufar. He will ...TAKE CARE OF YOU. BWUHA-HA-HA-HA-HA!
Separatists: Okiedokie!
SPOILERS!
Okay.
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As I've been saying for a few weeks, Sam's verbal skills are steadily improving. But while she's constantly surprising me how well she understands (e.g., yesterday she understood and followed the two-step command of "Go get the ball and take it to mommy in the kitchen"), her actual spoken vocabulary is still pretty limited. And most of it isn't actually words, but animal sounds and political polemics.
Still, I imagine some of the Sam fans out there (hi, Mom!) may be curious as to what Sam's voice sounds like. I think she may sound different by the time she's twenty-five, but in this update I bring you the first of what will hopefully be a recurring bit: "Sam Says." Just click on the links below and you should hopefully hear what I'm talking about. Or you may have to download the file and then play it, depending on how your browser is set up.
The cat says...The turkey says...The cow says...The sheep says...Daddy...Mommy...I made the clips by taking some footage of Sam with our cam corder and then just ripping the audio tracks out and converting them to .mp3 files. Next installment: The seal, the duck, and some unintelligible gibberish that we don't know what the heck it means.
Developmentally, Sam has hit two minor milestones besides imitating a turkey. First, she's figured out that she can climb (or attempt to climb) up onto chairs, sofas, and other precarious places. This was cute at first, especially when her rump was dangling off the side of a chair, but we've quickly realized that from a safety perspective this is about as good as "learned to load a shotgun with rock salt." It probably won't be lethal, but there will be much stinging in the near future. The second development is that Sam has learned to kick a ball. In fact, she's quite an accomplished dribbler in more ways than one. We're signing her up for the varsity team tomorrow.
Picture time.
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As you can see, we went to the park again this weekend. One other feature of Sam's personality that seems to be crusting over is that she's fairly independent and fearless. As soon as we set her down, she's off like a shot. We had fun and Sam got some great exercise, but I think we jogged after her over a three square mile area that day. Independence and fearlessness are both healthy qualities in a good old-fashioned American, but I just hope she doesn't invade any of the other children.
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None of this is to say, however, that it isn't a good read. In fact, I was totally engrossed through the whole thing, thanks in no small part to how approachable the text was, even for such an outlandish topic. I can't really explain why I was so interested in hearing, for example, about how best to hole up in your house to survive an undead siege (tip: take all your supplies to the top floor then demolish the stairs --zombies can't climb). But I was. I've never read anything so absurd and rational at the same time.
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There's a good old-fashioned candy (and ice cream and fruit smoothie) store near where we live and across from the park where we often take Sam to play. When we set Sam down there the other day she made a bee line for the colorful bulk candy displays.
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What are they looking at?
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The purple mark on Sam's face is from walking, full speed, into a chair. With great speed comes great clumsiness.
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Then both girls went to apply for jobs as register monkeys at Abercrombie & Fitch, an almost overbearingly trendy and preppy clothing store. I think you can probably see where this is going.
The A&F manager practically stumbled over himself trying to hire Ms. Preppy, despite the fact that the girl said she had no previous retailing experience and no references. I think she may have even said she was mildly retarded and was always being blamed for stealing stuff. Ms. Goth, on the other hand, was treated like a pariah by the (presumably) same A&F manager, despite the fact that this girl said she had worked two retail jobs before and had great references. The girls then repeated the experiment at Hot Topic, a much sluttier vendor of midriffs and miniskirts. The results were reversed, though not quite as drastic.
Of course, this is all utterly unscientific. It's two girls doing clumsy manipulations on an ill-defined variable and running only two uncontrolled trials. So you aren't going to see their stunt in the next issue of Journal of Applied Psychology (much to their dispair, I'm sure). Thing is, it doesn't need to be scientific. There's already plenty of scientific research showing that you're more likely to get interviewed or hired the taller you are, the thinner you are, and the more professionally dressed you are. Same for the "like me" effect that makes an interviewer like an interviewee the more similar they are in appearance. So saying that looks really do matter shouldn't really elicit much more than a resounding "Duh!" from the audience.
But while that may be true, it's still incredibly easy (and a lot safer) to instead focus on a handful of simple measures to find the occasional diamond in the goth, even for low-level jobs like this. Previous work experience is a no-brainer, and I'd like to slap the A&F manager for completely overlooking this. I don't put any stock in references (research shows there's hardly any variance and they have almost no predictive validity), but a few simple interview questions could screen out obvious misfits. If you want to do even better you could add biodata. Even better, cognitive ability and personality tests could be used.
Sure, the retail managers in this story may think that people who look like Ms. Preppy work out better than Ms. Goth, just because that's the way it is, and they may even have some examples to back this up. But that's a clumsy hiring practice --measure what you need to measure and nothing else. It's so easy to do so much better.
In fact, given all that, the funniest part of this story is the "insta-poll" the reporting website was running:
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So, after illustrating the dumb generalizations made by retail managers about skin-deep (heck, not even that; clothes deep) features, which dumb generalization would YOU make, dear reader? Heh.
At any rate, I deal with this kind of "I just KNOW a good employee when I see one" fallacy all the time in the professional world, and it's alarming to see that it has seeped into our shopping malls. Won't someone think of the children!
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Doesn't this kind of look like a holdup gone bad?
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The book takes 36 of the best designs on the sites and uses them as examples in brief and to-the-point chapters designed to illustrate (literally) important lessons in web design and CSS coding. We very rarely use the word "beautiful" and mean it any more. People are "hot" and babies are "cute." Special effects are "cool" and artwork may garner a "neat" at most. This book, though, is indisputably beautiful. The whole thing is in full, gorgeous color, and the pages are oversized enough so that the authors don't have to compromise when using screenshots to make their points.
As an inspirational tool, the book is superlative. I'm so full of ideas now! My only complaint is that many of the chapters are too short and shallow, relying as they do on only one example. I'd much rather have seen, for example, a chapter on typography and font selection that made a constellation of related points using examples from half a dozen or more designs instead of just one. I also would have appreciated more "nuts and bolts" chapters that discussed some of the clever uses of CSS that the designs so obviously engage in. But where it fails as a technical manual on CSS how-tos, The Zen of CSS Design more than makes up for in beauty and its ability to energize and inspire its readers.
As for me, I'm ready to tackle those other two websites I've been meaning to create, and I'm already sketching out ideas for a total redesign of jmadigan.net.
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The really, really cool thing about watching a kid grow up is seeing her do things or figuring things out for the first time. There's the huge, hulking milestones like first steps or first homemade shiv, but for my money (and I did pay for her, so she's mine) the best new things are the little ones that catch you by surprise. Earlier this week I was sitting on the floor playing with Sam as I usually do after coming home from work. She suddenly got up, toddled across the room, and brought over Cotton the Cat, a stuffed cat given to her by friends David and Michelle. She then stumbled over to the kitchen table, grabbed her sippy cup full of milk, and marched back over to me and the stuffed cat. At this point I was thinking "WTF?" but was willing to let the whole thing play out. I soon burst out laughing, however, when Sam sat down and started pretending to give Cotton a drink.
This was huge in my book! It is, to the best of my knowledge, the first time Sam had ever pretended anything. She went on, in fact, pretending to feed Little Leap the frog and that weird giraffe/moose thing that we can't figure out what it is. HUGE! First words and first solid poops are great, and maybe it's the psychologist in me, but learning to use your imagination ranks pretty high, too.
Sam and I got to spend some quality time together this afternoon to celebrate such accomplishments, too. Geralyn was hosting a Close to My Heart scrapbooking party and needed Sam and I to make ourselves scarce for a few hours. So the two of us did what any two girls would do: we went shopping. Let me just say that I have a newfound respect for Geralyn after running around town with Sam in tow for five hours. That kind of thing isn't as simple as you might think.
Our first stop was the mall, where I made my first rookie mistake. I've never understood why Geralyn insists on dragging her huge diaper bag around with her everywhere she goes with Sam. I always figured that unless you KNOW you're going to need it, it can safely be left in the minivan. And so I did. But I was just passing the Orange Julius when Sam started squirming and squealing like an annoyed pig, which even I recognized as a sign that she needed changing. And while there were plenty of public rest rooms with changing tables, the diapering supplies were in row 7G outside. I quickly finished up my shopping and headed for the parking lot, trying to make peace with an irritated Samantha who kept shooting me looks as if to say "Hey, bonehead, I'm swimming in my own filth. Are you new here?"
Upon reaching the minivan I decided that I had no desire to retrieve the diaper bag and then go all the way back into the mall to hunt down a changing table, so I did the only sensible thing: I popped the minivan's hatchback, folded the back seats flat into the floor, and proceeded to strip Sam down and change her right there in front of God, creation, and any patrons of the Westfield Shopping Center that may happen to walk by.
About the time that I took off the dirty diaper and exposed my daughter's naked hoo-ha to the world, I glanced over my shoulder. I had to do a double take, but sure enough --there was now a guy in a Buick idling just a few feet up from me, his right-hand blinker signaling that he wanted my spot. My eyebrows did that thing and I used Sam's clean diaper to give him the "go on, I'm going to be a few minutes" wave while her legs flailed about underneath me, but he just gave a little shrug from behind the steering wheel and kept waiting, his blinker blinking. I looked at him, he looked at me, and Sam just looked up at the roof of the minivan.
I returned to my work, though, and a few minutes later I backed out so Mr. I'll-Wait-For-Anything-To-Avoid-Walking-Another-twenty-Feet could get his spot. I still had quite some time to burn, but I felt it was Sam's turn to pick the place and we headed to Toys-R-Us. Here's a tip, confused dads: if you ever need to kill an hour and a half with a toddler, take them to a ginormous toy store, set them down, and just kick back. It's like taking them to an amusement park without the lines or some smacktard dressed up as Shrek. And if they ask you to buy anything, just point and laugh until they get the message.
Sam doesn't speak English, though, so she just toddled from aisle to aisle, yanking things down from shelves and leaving a stream of clutter in her wake. I just followed behind her, reshelving things and enjoying the whole "watch her become infatuated wiht a new toy for three minutes before growing bored with it" thing, but for free this time. And remember how I mentioned last week how we've been letting her watch Sesame Street? Well, apparently she's been paying attention, as she was repeatedly attracted to all things Elmo and I suddenly understood how they can run that show without paid commercials. Sam was particularly attracted to Potty Time Elmo, which had everyone's favorite Muppet sitting on the can with his underwear around his ankles and having, judging by the look on his face, an incredibly satisfying bowel movement.
I didn't buy that particular gem, but we did leave with a corn popper, because every kid should have one, and a little bag of plastic boats for the bathtub, because she's been displaying such interest in the boats from one of her picture books.
Okay, how about some pictures?
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I love the pictures of Sam in the back yard. Ger and I planted some flowers earlier this week, and Sam insisted on helping. She was good at digging, but seemed to have difficulty knowing when to stop digging, to the point of taking the spade and brutally stabbing already planted flowers. Still, if she has to be known for a brown thumb, I'd rather it be because she proactively murdered the plants before they even had a chance. Maybe she was pretending again.
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This week we planted some flowers in the back yard. Once we gave her the idea, she absolutely loved digging in the dirt with the spade. So much so that she kept trying to dig up the freshly planted flowers.
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I wonder what she's thinking?
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It's kind of old news given that the Indianapolis 500 is over, but I saw an interesting story on Defective Yeti about Danica Patrick, a female racer who ended up finishing up fourth. Or specifically, it's about the comments of another racer, Robby Gordon, who refused to participate because them dainty chicks have an unfair advantage. Scribbled the quote monkey:
Wait, what? I agree that weighing less gives you an advantage, but so does, you know, being a good racecar driver. Since when did we decide that having greater ability in a sport gives someone an "unfair" advantage? You want ban anyone over 6 feet tall from the NBA? Standardizing the equipment athletes use (e.g., no corked baseball bats or weight requirements for race cars) makes sense, because it places the emphasis where it's more interesting and dramatic: on the athlete's ability. Including their weight, height, reach, speed, constitution, et cetera.Robby Gordon accused Danica Patrick of having an unfair advantage in the Indianapolis 500 and said Saturday he will not compete in the race again unless the field is equalized.
Gordon ... contends that Patrick is at an advantage over the rest of the competitors because she only weighs 100 pounds. Because all the cars weigh the same, Patrick's is lighter on the race track.
"The lighter the car, the faster it goes," Gordon said. "Do the math. Put her in the car at her weight, then put me or Tony Stewart in the car at 200 pounds and our car is at least 100 pounds heavier. I won't race against her until the IRL does something to take that advantage away."
What's interesting is that women and some racial groups (such as Asians and Hispanics) are usually at a disadvantage for physical abilities because they are on average smaller and physically weaker than those big, white males. But here it's working to Patrick's advantage and some guy is calling foul and crying into his Budweiser. I don't know about athletics, but the law is pretty clear on this kind of thing in employment: If the phsysical ability (or just about any ability) is related to the job and predicts performance better than chance alone, then it's fair (or at least legal) to hire people based on it. It's just letting people who are the most suited to the job win.
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Even at the tender age of 16 months, Sam loves shoes. If we leave ours sitting out in reach, she'll pick them up, carry them around, and maybe even try them on.
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