Author: LegoDoug

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3-Year-Old Geek Goddess Sees Future in Competitive Halo

Just a week ago, I’d written about how the Xbox controller, with its two thumbsticks, numerous buttons, and two triggers, was overwhelming for NaNi, who is now 3.25 years of age, even though she’d had no trouble mastering a computer mouse by age 2.5, just like her brothers.

Last night David, Isaac, Naomi and I were playing Halo 2. Despite the fact that Halo was the first video game name NaNi ever learned, she normally will ask to play, then get frustrated and leave after a minute or two, because she’ll have her character looking at the sky or the ground, and not be able to get oriented correctly.

Well, that all changed officially as of yesterday. She’d been playing David’s birthday gift, “Superman Returns,” on the Xbox. Being able to fly around Metropolis gave her the space and freedom of movement to really figure out how to work the thumbsticks. I also discovered she knows the four “lettered” buttons by name, and is learning what each does in the games she plays.

So, last night we were armed with rocket launchers, and I was tracking Isaac, when NaNi blew me away! A moment later she took out Isaac. The icing on the cake was her “vengeful” exclamation to Isaac afterward: “Isaac, don’t say my Barbie toothpaste is stupid! That’s not nice!”

Then she did her victory dance (her own adaptation of the “gnome” dance from Blizzard’s World of WarCraft). It was sweet!

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And the Queen of Sarcasm Is …

Nichelle, of course!

Sunday morning I was teasing Nichelle, because she didn’t cook me an omelette like she does during the week. I said, “If you loved me, you would have gotten up early to make me an omelette.”

Her response: “I love you Monday through Friday; I have the weekends off.”

my pimped pic!

And, for those of you who are tempted to point out that I could demonstrate my love for Nichelle by getting up early enough to make her an omelette, I wish to point out that serving Nichelle any omelette prepared by me would not be considered an act of love.

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The Future of Computer Interfaces

(Thanks to Kevin Ilsen for pointing me to the video.)

This is absolutely amazing. With a few simple gestures, this is way beyond the “ancient” computer interfaces we use today, and is nearly exactly like what was seen in Minority Report, which is an excellent film despite Tom Cruz’s presence.

I was thinking about this recently. We complain about the mouse, but the mouse is incredibly intutive to use. All our children were computer-mouse-capable by age 2.5. Watching Naomi is interesting, though. She can use the computer mouse without difficulty. She’s learned to do pretty well with the keyboard, also, good enough to play World of WarCraft.

The Xbox controller, however, still befuddles her. She’ll try to play Halo 2, but end up with her character stuck up against a wall. We discovered yesterday, however, that she did much better with the “Superman: Returns” game, which offers more freedom of movement, and didn’t require her to stay alive by fighting.

Back to computer interfaces. One of the things that hasn’t “arrived” yet, despite the fact that our current computers are more-than-capable, is voice activated software. It just hasn’t caught on, which surprises me. Is is simply too complicated for most users? Is it merely too annoying for most offices?

Thoughts?

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Local Software Developer Achieves World Fame

Technically, we’re not supposed to BLOG about [the company for which I work], because it’s a public company, and [blah blah blah], but I think I can get away with this much, as I snagged a very brief spot in the video described below (which, if nothing else, has convinced me more than ever of my need to lose weight—something which is already in progress):

Over the past year [message redacted] has placed great effort in building a strong and expansive strategic relationship with Microsoft. We have continued to leverage and expand our use of Microsoft technologies as our two organizations come closer together to deliver greater value and powerful solutions to our mutual customers. Here is a three-minute video … for you to share with your customers/prospects. This video features executives from Microsoft, [message redacted], and a mutual customer and discusses the business value of this partnership and the powerful benefits it offers to [message redacted] and our customers.

One of my co-workers just stopped by and noted that our tarantula, Susan, is visible in the video. She’s in the blue-lidded, plastic box on the table that’s behind Bernard Farrell and me. Cool!

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Elementary School Children and Civil Liberty

Last week in the Junior Church class Nichelle and I teach, we began a lesson on the life of Josiah, who was the king of Judah. Josiah became king when he was eight years old, and was one of the better kings of that period.

To introduce the topic, I used two discussion topics, to get the kids thinking about the idea of the power and responsibility of running a kingdom.

The first question was, “What would you do if you were given a billion dollars?” The answers were interesting. Only about half were completely selfish. One of the younger girls said she would buy a new bicycle, so I went on to try to illustrate just how large a sum a billion dollars is.

The next question, meant to elaborate on the first, was, “What would you do if you were the absolute dictator of a country like the United States? What kind of laws might you enact?” The answers to this one were more interesting.

Top of the list for most of the kids was outlawing smoking and outlawing drinking alcohol. After that, most of the suggestions included personal security, such as “putting cameras everywhere,” allowing children to become police officers, creating anti-terrorist robots, or police robots that would be everywhere “to prevent people from stealing.”

To them there was no concept of civil liberty or Libertarianism, it was just, “If it’s wrong, we’ll get rid of it.”

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An Engaging Christmas

Well, I promised you Christmas news, and this year there’s plenty. I’ll start with the big ones.

We had two engagements in the family announced at Christmastime.

My brother Paul John surprised his now-fiancée Crystal Hughes, who expected a digital camera, with an engagement ring. When they phoned us on Christmas day, I explained that a digital camera would at least have been useful, but Crystal seems very happy with the deal, and we all share in her excitement, although it would seem to be one of the signs of the Apocalypse.


A rare photo of Hell on the day my brother became engaged.

When my sister Joyce arrived to visit us this Christmas, we learned that my Mom had become engaged to long-time neighbor and friend George Fortini. Mom turned 80 in September. Let me explain a bit.

First of all, we called Mom and chided her: “What?! You didn’t tell the whole family yet? The next time you get engaged you’d better call all of us!” Mom explained that she was working on it, but she didn’t want to eclipse Paul and Crystal’s news. (Mom was one of the few people who knew about that before Christmas.)

Dad went home to be with the Lord at Christmastime three years ago, after almost 60 years of marriage to my Mom. The same week, Ellen, the wife of their close friend and next-door-neighbor, George passed away. (Oft have we teased Mom about that “coincidence” in timing.)

George and Mom started hanging out together more and more. Mom was very concerned about what the rest of us thought about that, despite our constant assurances that we were very happy for them both. I did tease her, “You know, Mom, you can’t marry him because he’s not a believer.” I also gave Mom a lecture on the dangers of dating in a Postmodernist society. Behavioral standards have changed a bit since 1945, the last time Mom was “on the market.” She assured me I had nothing to worry about.

Not long after that, George trusted Christ as Savior. Mom, perhaps underestimating the power of the saving grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, declared, “George is saved, but he will never abandon his Catholicism.” A few weeks later George was regularly attending services at Heritage Baptist Church with my Mom.

On the Thursday before Christmas, George proposed marriage to my Mom, and she accepted. She was so giddy (I wish you could have heard the excitement in her voice), that she forgot about a weekly appointment for one of the “old ladies” for whom Mom drives.


Yes, my Mom is indeed of sound mind.

Mom and George have not yet set a wedding date, as they are working out legal and “estate” details. Maybe they’ll do a double wedding, although Paul John has been talking about a Hillbilly wedding ceremony …

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Merry Christmas!

Lots of Christmas news today, but I’ll save it for later. Here are a couple of photos, one an outtake from our family photo shoot, another showing how Geek boy Isaac dresses for school this season.

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My Insane Wife

So, what were Nichelle and I doing (at her insistence) last night, outside in the freezing cold, at midnight?

Hanging Christmas lights, of course. Doesn’t everyone do them at midnight?

I must reiterate, though, it is great to have her feeling so well again!

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Educational Update

Isaac and David both earned highest honors for their first quarter. That means they get a $1/week raise in their allowances, which will now compensate for the $1/week they contribute toward our World of WarCraft subscription. David has become very proficient in handwriting, which is always difficult for a lefty; there’s a huge improvement over last year. Congratulations to them both, the weasels!

Last night I took the second of two “midterms”—our single major exams—for my Boston University graduate courses. I got a stinking “B” on my first exam, in “Object-Oriented Analysis and Design.” I think I did better on the Software Engineering exam yesterday.

Both classes have projects due within a couple of weeks. The Software Engineering course is a group project with three of my co-workers, and we’re building, using Ruby on Rails, a Web-based calendar that is idea for families and small organizations. This is a program I’ve always wanted to put together, and it will be fun finishing it up. So far we’ve learned that Rails is amazing in putting together the data connectivity and display pieces virtually automatically.

In OOAD, I am having a blast designing a simulator of a Star Trek transporter, including replicating the Enterpise D transporter control panel. For this I’m uisng Adobe’s Flex Builder 2, at the suggestion of co-worker RaviShekhar Gopalan, to create my application programmatically for Flash. Although far from finished (I should be “mostly done” by Monday), I’ve published my incomplete-but-working project to http://transporter.wilcoxfamily.net/ . There are some fun hidden features (and I’ll be adding several more), although the simulation/demonstration code isn’t in there yet. I fell victim a bit to a common programmer’s overconfidence: “If I know one object-oriented language, then I can learn another one in minutes!” I’ve figured out just about everything I need to do in Flex (I have one more technical problem to solve, and it’s a small one), but I’m my no means a master yet. You can also take a peek at the PowerPoint presentation I gave to the class for that project. (Can you spot the big omission from my Domain Diagram? It’s a real forehead-slapper!)

(It’s been determined that I will get real credit for the courses I am taking, but that I cannot get my Certificate in Software Engineering, because I don’t have a baccalaureate. I will investigate, after the next two courses are done in the spring, what it would take to convert these credits into undergraduate credits and fill in the missing pieces to get a B.S. in computer science.)

John (we still hear from him occasionally) has been telling people for a while that he is enrolled in a GED review course at Massasoit, but if he is, he’s taking on days it isn’t offered, at times of the day it isn’t offered, with an instructor who isn’t teaching it, using a textbook that isn’t part of the course, and getting a ride from people who claim they aren’t giving him a ride to the class.

And NaNi continues to learn letter recognition and writing from Nichelle, although the impending holidays have cut down on the teaching schedule a bit. Naomi can spot capital As anywhere, and writes them perfectly, except for tending to draw them upside-down.

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Meal Dumpling: An Old New England Thanksgiving Treat

Thanksgiving with the Wilcox family always brings a traditional New England recipe to the table. It’s absolutely delicious, especially with some turkey gravy, but can also make an excellent breakfast (with some sugar) or a delightful addition to those turkey-and-stuffing sandwiches.

Meal Dumpling

  • white corn meal (you can use white grits if you can’t get white corn meal); amount varies slightly—see the cooking instructions
  • 3 cups water
  • 1 cup milk
  • 1 teaspoon salt

Bring the water, milk, and salt almost to a boil in the top of a double-boiler. (Did you know that the Spanish word for a double-boiler is a baña Maria. What a fascinating glimpse into the culture!)

Under very low heat, pour in the corn meal until it thickens. Don’t get it too thick. My sister claims it should be “slightly thicker than Cream of Wheat.”

Leave the mixture steaming for 3 hours.

Let set out to dry for 1/2 hour.

Amaze your family or become the most popular guest at your next Thanksgiving or Christmas dinner!