[caption id=“attachment_6182” align=“aligncenter” width=“500”] Best Selling Jeryk - weird Amazon Typo[/caption]

Especially because I would expect this to just be automated. Someone at Amazon decides to put jerky on sale, it should auto-generate the email title. It should NOT be written by a human that could end up with a weird typo like this!

[caption id=“attachment_6241” align=“aligncenter” width=“683”] Scarlett’s Natural Curls[/caption]

I don’t think any father ever sets out to spoil his daughters. After all, not only does that lead to a mal-adjusted human, it makes her more likely to make bad decisions. But when she’s capable of looking this cute (at least to me, but all parents get like +100 cuteness points on their own kids over strangers’ kids), it’s so hard to be cross with her for long. In fact, I don’t know if this theory has ever been discredited, but some scientists think that kids look cute exactly for this reason - so we don’t lose our cool with them as much as otherwise would - at least until their brains have developed to the point where they can be liable for their actions.

Happy 10 years of the software that allowed me to free myself of the shackles of other corporations and take blogging into my own hands.  I started this blog almost around the same time as Wordpress (WP was only 1.5 years old) Here’s to another ten years! And, here’s my version of what Dougal suggested:

When I first started using Wordpress in 2005:

• I was in my 20s
• I was in college
• I was running the blog on Fedora Core
• I was engaged
• I was using Facebook heavily as it was still highly focused on college students
• I’d never been to any country outside the USA other than Canada
• President George W Bush was in his second term
• The USA was at war with Iraq and Afghanistan

Now, when Wordpress turns 10 in 2013:

You may have noticed the images overlapping with the right-sidebar. That’s because I tend to write my posts ahead of time and I was expecting to have Wordpress 3.6 and the new, wider theme by now. But I’ll keep going things this way because while it might be a bit uglier now, it’ll look nicer in a few weeks when the new theme is finally out.

Additionally, I’m making some changes in my screenshots page to make use of galleries. Hope you find the new method a bit more organized-looking.

[caption id=“attachment_6232” align=“aligncenter” width=“683”] The Capitol[/caption]

I keep hearing that the gun bill was killed in the Houses of Congress despite 90% of Americans wanting it to pass. Now, we know that polls can be rigged based on how the questions are asked. But, if we take as a starting point that this poll is accurate, what does that mean about our representative democracy system? There are basically two types of democracy - representative and direct. In a direct democracy we’d all vote on all the issues. In the representative democracy that we have, we vote on issues by proxy. We believe that Democrats or Republicans will vote a certain way on certain issues and we know where our candidates agree and disagree with their parties. So we elect them and expect them to vote as we would vote. So what does it mean when 90% of us want something and we still don’t get it? Is the system working correctly? Are we effectively saying they know better than us even though they were elected by us to serve as our proxy? And if it’s broken do we have any recourse short of the reprehensible idea of revolution?

[caption id=“attachment_6229” align=“aligncenter” width=“683”] Tony Hangs On[/caption]

This photo is a great example of the magic moments you can capture when you’re not focused on getting kids to say “cheese”. Just hang back and go to the most telephoto you can and you’ll capture some magical moments.

At Home: A Short History of Private Life by Bill Bryson

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Although I enjoyed Bill Bryson’s other book A Short History of Nearly Everything, I actually didn’t know that when I picked this book up. I had heard the other book as an audio book so I didn’t remember the author’s name. Also, it was nearly 10 years ago. My interest in Bryson’s book came from the media blitz he did to promote it - including NPR’s Fresh Air and, if I’m not mistaken, The Colbert Report. I put it on my TO READ list here on GoodReads and waited for a chance to read the book. That chance came when I flew to Florida for a family visit. However, now that I know it was written by him, it explains the style of the book.

[caption id=“attachment_6217” align=“aligncenter” width=“496”] German Kids using inflationary money as blocks in 1923 - Bitcoin is supposed to be immune to this[/caption]

Boing Boing pointed me to a few Bitcoin articles and then there was another one on Ars on 6 May. I’d be pretty surprised if you haven’t heard about Bitcoin; it’s been all over the news because of the crazy bubble the Bitcoin exchange rate was having recently. But, just in case, Bitcoin is a currency that exists entirely electronically. This is true of nearly all currencies nowadays (none of them are backed by anything but faith in the countries that issue them). The supply of Bitcoins is only increasing to a certain amount and then no more, preventing inflation. It’s main benefit is supposed to be that it’s completely anonymous. So is cash, but you can’t use cash online.

When I wrote my second fatherhood post, the one about Disney Princesses, I speculated that perhaps the problem most people had with the Disney Princesses was not the movies, but how the company marketed to kids. Since Scarlett is only one, my only exposure to the princesses has been through my own childhood and adulthood love of Disney movies. This Boing Boing post about the princess from Brave, Merida, proves the point - it’s the marketing that gets under everyone’s skin. Here’s the change from the movie version on the left to the marketing version on the right:

In response to the fact that most of the spam comments on my site are on older articles and given that historically no one has commented on posts older than a couple years anyway, I’m enabling Wordpress’ auto-close on comments for posts older than 2 years.