Jay McGavren’s Journal

17,993 files, most of them .jpg and .avi…

SVN repo: 36.8 GB
.git directory: 30.1 GB (Git wins)
SVN working copy: 47 GB
Git working copy: 23.5 GB (Git wins a LOT.)

Learned about Alice last night; it’s Carnegie-Mellon’s 3D cousin to MIT’s Scratch development environment. Alice is aimed at older students, and a bit more flexible.

I showed off the built-in library of objects to Diana, and the moment she saw the ocean-themed section, to my surprise, she all but elbowed me away from the keyboard. (She’s not a developer, but she is a fish nut.) Thirty minutes later, and with only occasional guidance from me, she had a school of fish robotically spinning, rolling, and moving about an ocean floor.

Drag-and-drop is definitely a good way for novices to get started programming. It’s all too easy for a beginner to give up when all they get is a blank screen due to a well-hidden typo. Mistake-resistant constructs you can scramble around and get instant feedback on keep a student moving forward.

MIT made a “development environment” for kids called Scratch. I finally got around to installing it this afternoon, and collaborated with Lenny on a couple projects:

Whale
The Feeding Frenzy

They export as Java applets; just press Space to activate them once the page loads.

Lenny saw a multi-exposure photo on Flickr and thought it was pretty cool, so I gave him a quick demonstration of how to duplicate the effect in Photoshop:

Warning: Partial spoilers of Hancock plot within!

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Iz Izzy!

Enter the Nate

Jeremy Loves Mexican Juices

I absolutely love, love, adore Stendeck’s “Frozen Sun” because of its eardrum-crushing, distorted drums and wailing sirens in the background, but I figured Lenny would hate it for the same reasons. I mean, he’s barely graduated from nursery rhyme CDs.

So I had Frozen Sun on in the car, but turned way, way lower than I’d like to because Lenny was in the back seat. Suddenly I hear him beatboxing to it (a habit he picked up from me). When it faded to synth pads at the bridge, he stopped, and I asked him:

“So, do you want this on CD?”

“Nah, no thanks.”

“Oh. OK.”

Disappointed, I drove on in silence, until the percussion kicked back in on the song, and Lenny exclaimed,

“OK, yeah, I do want this song.”

I gave a huge grin. “You just didn’t like the part without any drums, huh?”

“Yeah.”

I set up MTV Music Generator 3 on the old XBox for him the other day, and he gleefully set about randomly filling the score with nothing but bass loops, which when played simultaneously double their volume: “duhduhDUHduhDUHduhduhDUH”… Well, whatever, he’s having fun. Finally got him to add some percussion, and maybe we’ll do a more structured tutorial when he’s ready.

Should I be getting him violin lessons or something? Maybe, and I will if he asks for them, but I couldn’t do that with as much enthusiasm. Besides, exposing your kids to the things you love is the greatest reward of being a parent (and gods know I need some rewards).

Diana’s taking some Benadryl in to Lenny’s school - he’s breaking out in a rash. Evidently he’s inherited his grandmother’s allergy to… sunlight. The last time this happened was after the Ren Faire, and yesterday was Water Day at school. He was outdoors at midday for a prolonged period for both events.

I’d say no way this was the case, if his grandmother didn’t have it as well… Hopefully we’ll be disproven over time.

Introducing my niece Isabella (as photographed by my Dad).

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