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This is disgusting! ...

Every few weeks I'll see someone mention/promote some new documentary which promises to solve America's health and/or weight problems. These "documentaries" are all quite similar and follow a simple format:



Step one: Find several fat and unhealthy people who eat the "Standard American Diet".



Step two: Get them to eat a different diet and to exercise.



Step three: Incredibly, they lose weight and improve their overall health!



Step four: Profit. ...

This is list of rules I try to follow when interacting with kids. These are not peer-reviewed child-raising techniques, just little odds and ends I've read, heard, observed, or thought. Some are undoubtedly pseudo-psychology. Some are probably hippie-talk nonsense. Some of them might be helpful, some useless, and maybe some are actually harmful. Maybe they're all meaningless, I don't know. I'm mostly talking out of my ass here, but I think they could be important, so I'm sharing. ...

Surely you've seen this floating around: ...

It's odd. In the past few weeks I've received several strange real-life comments from real-life people. Some worried about all the "socialization" my homschooled daughter could miss. Others said something like "homeschooling is OK as long as you ensure the children are properly socialized". And "I knew this one person who was homeschooled and he was so shy and had no idea how to act in social situations!" ...

I put together an event for our local homeschool group. The general idea is that kids can try their hand at building stuff. I called it "Craft Engineering". The original idea was to build bridges or towers, but because the ages ranged from 3 up to 12, and because I didn't want to prescribe how to build the things, the kids built pretty much what they wanted. Oh, and it wasn't a competition, just a fun time. ...

I like my (women/men) like I like my coffee: ...

I whipped up a quick math game for my daughter. Not very flashy at the moment, but it has chimpanzees. Chimp math ...

Making Halloween decorations with daughter. Thought I'd cover a few more… ...

I spent all evening not watching the debate. I went grocery shopping, read some more of my book, made popcorn, and played a board game with my daughter and her friend. However, merely not watching the debate shouldn't keep me from summarizing it: ...

[Scene opens: a middle-aged coach paces slowly in front of gathered children, shout-talking in General Patton style.]



OK, children! Listen up! I understand that most of you are here not because you want to be, but because your parents or teachers told you you had to be. But regardless, you're here, and we are having a race: a competition. This is where 7-year-old strives against 7-year-old, and abilities are tested. This is where heroes are born. ...

The way many health studies are done makes them not very useful. The way they are reported on is even worse. You see this nearly every day, then you never hear about it again. Ok, you will hear about those studies again on the Dr Oz show because he blows, but generally the study behind the news headline "It's official: Bacon is good for you!" will not hold up for long. That's partially because a lot of these studies depend on self-reported data. ...