Here's an undated ad from "Sugar Information, Inc" (our old friends), warning mothers that if they include their kids in their sugar-free, dieting lifestyles, they will be depriving the poor kiddlees of vital sugar and exposing them to "exhaustion." Obviously, this was before the cancer scares and other stuff about artificial sweeteners, because surely that's the major reason to keep your kids away from artificial sweeteners. I love the fact that they recommend sugar for dieters, too: "gives you the va-va-voom you need for all those exercises!"
Mozilla's new Webmaker project is a global initiative to "move people from using the Web to making the Web." They're running a series of events, including an upcoming Summer Code Party with interactive and recorded sessions on making stuff (I'll be doing one of these). That's just one piece; Seth Rosenblatt has more on CNet:
Mozilla gains some heightened visibility from the campaign by encouraging people who participate to use authoring tools that it has created, such as Popcorn and Hackasaurus, to do everything from site template tweaks to full-on app building. While the initiative stands to raise the visibility and importance of coding among the general public from a well-known non-profit already established in the field, it also comes just as the company plans to begin unveiling massive challenges to nearly every major player on the Web today with its Boot to Gecko phones, Persona login system, and Mozilla Marketplace for Web apps.
Mozilla also announced today the winners of a contest it held called Firefox Flicks, a crowd-sourced filmmaking contest that asked participants to "tell the story of
Firefox." Six films were chosen as finalists and shown at Cannes this past weekend out of 400 submissions.
Celeste Kidd from the University of Rochester writes in with news of a new study on PLoS One, which attempts to quantify the amount of stimulus that is optimal for amusing and engaging babies:
This video discusses the results of eye-tracking study we recently did at the University of Rochester that explains how babies organize their search for information in the complex world (and thus make their learning process much more efficient). The findings suggest infants look away from experiences that are either overly simple (and thus contain no new information from which to learn), or overly complex (and thus too overwhelming to learn from efficiently).
Infants in the study reliably preferred scenes that contained just the right amount of information--that is, those that were a little bit, but not too, surprising. We dubbed this attention pattern the "Goldilocks effect". These findings could have broad implications for human learning at all ages, and we hope the research will facilitate the development of more effective educational policies and diagnostic tools for attention-related
disabilities (such as ADHD and autism).
Also important, especially for parents and teachers, is the fact that this study demonstrates that the same response--namely, disinterest or boredom---may result from two different, entirely opposite mechanisms. Children are likely to become disinterested if the learning material is either too simple, because the material is either already known or may be picked up and understood quickly; however, they'll also show that same response of disinterest if the material is overly complex, likely because such material is just too overwhelming.
Scott Matthews shared a photograph with me, and I'm sharing it with all of you, with his permission. His daughter Sasha
handed him this note yesterday. Sasha is a pretty special girl, in no small part because she's already been on Boing Boing once before.
What, indeed, does it really mean?
Cecil Castellucci -- indie-rock star, young adult author, and all round cool-ass polymath -- has joined forces with illustrator Nate Powell (Swallow Me Whole) to produce The Year of the Beasts, an extraordinary hybrid of young adult novel and graphic novel. Beasts is the story of Tessa and her younger sister Lulu, townie girls in a place where holidaymakers come for the summer, and the year they discovered boys. The carnival comes to town every June, and Tessa and Lulu go, and it is young Lulu, not Tessa, who finds herself kissing Charlie, the boy that Tessa has had a crush on forever. The summer yawns before them, as the sisters and their friends navigate the stormy, irrational seas of romance and hormones and coming of age, in a prose narrative that lays its characters' hearts raw and bare in that way that Castellucci is so good at.
Interleaved with these prose chapters are chapters from an allegorical graphical story, a comic about a girl who has become an avatar of Medusa and must attend high-school, despite the fact that when the scarf covering her snake-hair slips, she turns her schoolmates to stone, just as she has done to her parents. These comic-book chapters are a mystery to be solved by the riddle, which comes together in the final chapter.
Year of the Beasts is one of those stories whose earlier chapters are a kind of greased slide that makes the reader hurtle faster and faster toward an unseen landing, hinting at different possibilities until the climax is revealed in a thunderbolt, and it is at once inevitable, unforeseen, and terrible.
This weekend, I took my daughter to the Kapow! comics fair in Islington, London, and happened on the Upside Comics booth. Upside is a charitable trust that promotes literacy using comics. They run comics-creation workshops for kids, produce pro-literacy comics, and bibliographies of great kids' comics. They're looking for donations of comics and graphic novels, as well as cash, time and expertise.
Upside Comics use comics and graphic novels to promote literacy for children and young people. We support reading, creative writing, design and illustration.
Upside Comics is a small charity with support from the Big Lottery. The organisation was started by people working in schools and youth charities who love comics. We believe that literacy is the key to childrens' future success and happiness.
In National Geographic, a rare moment of marine nomadism, as a sea nomad child called Enal hitches a ride by holding onto the tail of his friend, a tawny nurse shark. The picture is by James Morgan, submitted to the National Geographic Traveler Photo Contest (Top prize: Photo expedition for two to the Galapagos with a National Geographic photographer).
Enal, a young sea nomad, rides on the tail of a tawny nurse shark, in Sulawesi, Indonesia. Marine nomadism has almost completely disappeared in South East Asia as a result of severe marine degradation. I believe children such as Enal have stories that could prove pivotal in contemporary marine conservation.
Simonhac sez, "Today I armed my kids with unrolled paperclips and asked them to pop the two-week-old helium balloons that have been kicking around our house at ground level since my daughter's birthday. I was not aware that my 8 year old daughter had given the balloons personalities and was really not happy with my plans for them. She was so upset she couldn't talk, but marched into the room and gave me this note. Bad Dad!"
Redditor Surprisemailbox posted this image of a note left by a seven year old for her parents, regarding security policies at home: "If you put a pasword on that I will make your life a nitmare."
The day Poesy leaves me a comparable note, I will have validation that all my parenting was not in vain. (Of course, that's assuming she doesn't just shoulder-surf the password and leave me in a fool's paradise.)
Hedge funds in America have backed several dental practices, and Medicaid and parents allege that this has led to a rash of "dental abuse" of poor children, who are seen by dentists at school, without parental consent, for invasive and painful (and expensive) procedures performed by dentists. Critics say the dentists have to meet quotas in order to attain the valuations set by the private equity funds who call the shots. A North Carolina bill aimed at fighting this practice is being fought by three funds (Leonard Green, Court Square Capital Partners, and Levine Leichtman Capital Partners) who've raised $1.1 million to kill it.
Sydney P. Freedberg writes in Bloomberg:
Isaac Gagnon stepped off the school bus sobbing last October and opened his mouth to show his mother where it hurt.
She saw steel crowns on two of the 4-year-old’s back teeth. A dentist’s statement in his backpack showed he had received two pulpotomies, or baby root canals, along with the crowns and 10 X-rays -- all while he was at school. Isaac, who suffers from seizures from a brain injury in infancy, didn’t need the work, according to his mother, Stacey Gagnon...
In August 2010, Green’s lawyer appeared before the Arizona dental board to answer a complaint that ReachOut did unnecessary drilling on a Phoenix student’s teeth -- even after the student’s mother told the company she was seeing a family dentist and didn’t need any work...
There were two children with the same name at the school, and the work was done on the wrong Sabrina Martinez, Green’s lawyer, Jeff Tonner, told the dental board. Although the board agreed that work was done on the wrong child, it dismissed the case, noting Davila had complained about “the business entity,” not a dentist...
In San Diego, Tina Richardson’s third grader, Alexander Henry, came home in March with four baby teeth missing after a school session with a ReachOut-affiliated dentist that was so painful he “waved his arms frantically,” “pushed everyone off him” and “bled so badly that they had to send him to the nurse’s office,” according to her complaint with the state dental board. Among other things, Richardson said the consent process wasn’t valid.
Richardson said Alexander had seen a dentist nine days earlier who didn’t recommend any teeth pulling. Although she signed a consent form in September covering many procedures including extractions, she said she didn’t sign another one that came in November seeking permission to take out three teeth. No one from ReachOut called to discuss the proposed procedures, she said.
Click here to play episode. Apps for Kids is Boing Boing's podcast about cool smartphone apps for kids and parents. My co-host is my 9-year-old daughter, Jane Frauenfelder.
In this week's episode we talk about Junk Jack, a sandbox game that's a lot like a 2D version of Minecraft. It's $2.99 in the iTunes Store.
Don't forget to be part of our "Listener Email" segment. If you would like to have us read your favorite game or gadget recommendation on the air, or if you have a question you'd like us to answer on the show, email us at appsforkids@boingboing.net. Include your age, and the city, state, and country you live in.
If you're an app developer and would like to have Jane and me try one of your apps for possible review, email a redeem code to appsforkids@boingboing.net.
Upcoming Appearances • April 2 at Skeptics in the Pub, Boston, Mass.— 7:00 pm at Tommy Doyle's in Harvard Square. Please RSVP. •April 4 at MIT: "Shedding Light, Online", a discussion about how blogging and a dynamic audience helped shape my book, Before the Lights Go Out—4:00 pm in Maseeh Hall. Please RSVP. • April 6 at Carnegie Mellon University: More details to come
• April 9-13 at University of Colorado, Boulder: 64th Annual Conference on World Affairs • April 10 at Colorado State University, Fort Collins: "Putting the Fun Back in Infrastructure"—3:30 pm in the Rocky Mountain Innosphere. • April 19 at The Bakken Museum in Minneapolis: Book Launch Party! Come enjoy snacks, a presentation by me, and some fun with the Bakken's Leyden jar.
• April 21 at Science Museum of Minnesota, St. Paul: Earth Day Tweetup event with Will Steger and Sean Otto—events run 10:00 am to 2:00 pm.
• May 2 at University of California, Berkeley: "Putting the Fun Back in Infrastructure"—6:00 pm, location TBA.
• May 3 at the American Institute of Architects, San Francisco Chapter—Lunchtime lecture, time and location TBA.
• May 3 at Barnes and Noble, El Cerrito, Cali.—7:00 pm.
• May 30 in New York City—Panel on local and DIY energy with the New America Foundation
• June 22-25 in Aspen, Colorado: Aspen Environment Forum • July 5-8 at CONvergence in Minneapolis, Minn.—exact times and dates TBA
The New York Times has a fascinating (and, FYI, kind of disturbing) story about young kids who exhibit psychological symptoms similar to what you see in adult psychopaths. It's a complex subject because, while everybody involved agrees these kids could use some kind of intervention, nobody knows exactly what that intervention should be and definitely don't want to stick the kids with a terrifying label that will follow them for their whole lives. More importantly, what we do know is that half of these kids will grow into normal adults—though we don't know exactly why.
It's an awkward situation where the science hasn't yet caught up to the personal need. In a perfect world, you might not want to mess around too much with this until we can learn more. But on the other hand, you're left with families that clearly need help now—like the family profiled in the story that must navigate how to deal with a nine-year-old who oscillates between violent tantrums and creepy, logical chill.
When I first met Michael, he seemed shy but remarkably well behaved. While his brother Allan ran through the house with a plastic bag held overhead like a parachute, Michael entered the room aloofly, then curled up on the living room sofa, hiding his face in the cushions. “Can you come say hello?” Anne asked him. He glanced at me, then sprang cheerfully to his feet. “Sure!” he said, running to hug her. Reprimanded for bouncing a ball in the kitchen, he rolled his eyes like any 9-year-old, then docilely went outside. A few minutes later, he was back in the house, capering antically in front of Jake, who was bobbing up and down on his sit-and-ride scooter. When the scooter tipped over, Michael gasped theatrically and ran to his brother’s side. “Jake, are you O.K.?” he asked, wide-eyed with concern. Earnestly ruffling his youngest brother’s hair, he flashed me a winning smile.
If the display of brotherly affection felt forced, it was difficult to see it as fundamentally disturbed. Gradually, though, Michael’s behavior began to morph. While queuing up a Pokémon video on the family’s computer upstairs, Michael turned to me and remarked crisply, “As you can see, I don’t really like Allan.” When I asked if that was really true, he said: “Yes. It’s true,” then added tonelessly, “I hate him.”
Glancing down a second later, he noticed my digital tape recorder on the table. “Did you record that?” he asked. I said that I had. He stared at me briefly before turning back to the video. When a sudden noise from the other room caused me to glance away, Michael seized the opportunity to grab the recorder and press the erase button. (Waschbusch later noted that such a calculated reprisal was unusual in a 9-year-old, who would normally go for the recorder immediately or simply whine and sulk.)
Cecil Castellucci -- indie-rock star, young adult author, and all round cool-ass polymath -- has joined forces with illustrator Nate Powell (
Upside Comics use comics and graphic novels to promote literacy for children and young people. We support reading, creative writing, design and illustration.
, my book about the future of energy in the United States, will be published April 10th.