Sunday, April 28, 2013

Extended Family - 28th of April 2013

Hey kiddo,

Your math-nephew, math-niece, math-auntie, and a friend have visited for two days.  It was fun and good, but quite tiring.  You had a great time, but were a bit of a spoilsport when Isaac (twice your age) was better at anything than you.  There is room for growth there.  We may have to re-zero our discipline around living well with others.

Mommy and Daddy had a date.  You were babysit by two very godly young women.  I hope that when you get bigger you are godly.  You should be god-honoring, and now it is easy, but years down the road is harder.  The road isn't easy.  It hurts sometimes, and breaks and bends us.  It would destroy us if not for grace.  If not for grace.

I gotta go to bed - I am toasted toasted.  I am so tired and sore.  I hope to be able to work well tomorrow.

-mathdad

Saturday, April 20, 2013

20 April 2013

Hello Mathgirl,

You might be preferred to be called light-girl, the superhero you made up who flies and makes light come from her hands.  Is there a Spiderman hero like her?  You have been watching the cartoon Peter Parker for some time.

So Slashdot asked a question near and dear to my heart.  How to teach visual programming to kiddos.  You are a kiddo.  (link to earlier post on Robots, Software and Hope)  Here is the slashdot link.  (link)  The really valuable part is the comments, not the question itself.

List of candidate languages:

Back to cleaning house.  Clutter, junks.  We are going to be interviewed for fostering.  Gotta go.  Talk more later.

-mathdad


April 18th

Happy Thursday,

You have another cold.  You were coughing all night.  So was your little sis.  Nobody slept well.

-mathdad


Monday, April 8, 2013

the 8th of April, 2013

Good morning, kiddo.  Happy Monday.

I think I'm being funny when I tell others "Happy Monday, if such a creature exists" because most folks consider Monday to be sad.  When I wish them a good day I am trying to lift/lighten/elevate.

Your mathmommy went camping with the micro-mathbaby this weekend.  We had a daddy-daughter weekend which means that you got a lot (lot lot) of playing in and I didn't get much studying in.  Trying to figure out how to float and not sink.  I want to be staged in case the fall is as tough as it is trending to be.

Mom is angry at the clutter in our house.  We have a process based problem - too much stuff comes in, not enough goes out.  Eventually we run out of places.  I think we need large-scale decluttering, like 20%-50% of "stuff" gone.  I love you but do you really need 20 pairs of shoes at 4 years old?  The most pairs I have had in my adult life is 5.  You have more toys now than I had summed over my entire childhood.  Your math-grandmommy loves to send you boxes of stuff.  Her place was a bit of a clutter-box and I think I know why.  Not sure how to be respectful and still draw a healthy boundary there.

I love you kiddo.

You are working on learning respect.  You don't know it so well, but how can you know it if it is not modeled and trained into you.  I think that when you understand that language then you can interact with men, and understand the interactions of men with each other more effectively.

One of our friends was telling me how she became the world-expert in her field and the new management is urinating on that.  They are not being evil, just dumb guys, but it is really piercing her heart.  I want you to be a world-expert in something.  I do not want new dumb guys to be able to urinate on it, and I do not want your heart to be hurt by them.  Feminists are not made or born, they have daughters.  I want you to be a world-class success.  If you can work hard and be disciplined then you can be world-class great.  Stay far far away from drugs - they will rob you of futures too wonderful to imagine.  They will rob you of a full heart.  They trade today for empty and dangerous tomorrows.  Don't take those roads.

I love you kiddo, and I gotta go.
-mathdad

Thursday, April 4, 2013

From Russia with love?

Hey there kiddo.

I was looking at traffic and recently there were 6 pageviews from Russia.  I'm hoping some mom-and-pop are finding my graphs and letters to you valuable.  I am also hoping it is not the Russian mafia trying to find someone to identity thieve or otherwise be nefarious toward.

Had a fun chat with a friend via im yesterday
him: sends me freaky video on YouTube
me: that was freaky
him: labels are a principal component analysis performed without verifying that the eigenvectors span the space -mathdad
me: Muahahaaa
him: that was freaky
me: I suddenly feel recursive
him: As long as you're thread safe and re-entrant, you'll be fine
him: Muahahahaaa

Had to share.

You had bad dreams and woke up crying a lot of the night.  We think that either you are dreaming about the economic future of the US, or you are in need of physical affection as part of the bedtime procedure.  Currently we are acting as if you need more cuddling and affection before bed because it tends to have higher mitigative powers.