Online Village

My teenage son, Aidan, has been playing games online for more than half his life. He routinely teams up with the same people from all over the world. One guy lives in Singapore. The most remarkable thing about his online activities is that all of the people he interacts with are older than him, some by decades.

I know what your thinking. How do we protect our son from online predators? When he was young, my wife and I had never filled his head with a fear of strangers. In fact as a six year old, he once struck up a conversation in a public park with a heavily tattooed dude with numerous facial piercings. The guy clearly was cautious as he spoke with him out of fear of being accused of something heinous. When he saw that I took notice, he exclaimed,

“He started talking to me first!”

They say babies must learn to fear snakes. The same is true about strangers. Our approach was as long as he was at an age where adult supervision was necessary, we would worry more about the adult supervisors than strangers. Experts say children are far more likely to be molested by a family member or a neighbor than a total unknown. We've always been concerned about the people with physical access to our children, not random people in public. We were cautious of babysitters. Once a first time sitter, the daughter of a friend, asked us what time we were planning on coming back. She wanted to know because her boyfriend and his friend were swinging by to pick up her car which needed some work. As we drove out the driveway, I suddenly turned around. I was uncomfortable with two men I didn’t know having access to my son in our home. We paid her for her time, then never asked her back.

Now, my teenage son routinely games with a 35 year old married dude from Minnesota and a twenty something former Marine from Michigan. A friend of his created an online team called "House Platypus" which includes some kids from his school as well as a young man, Craig, from Missouri, now a high school senior. Aidan and I used to play Halo and Minecraft together all the time. As he got older and more proficient, playing a first person shooter game with someone as lousy as me just wasn't fun for him. Once I was dismayed that Aidan didn't want to play Player Unknown's Battlegrounds (Pubg) with me. His lack of interest bothered me in a way I wasn't prepared to absorb.

A few days later, Aidan asked me if I would play games with him. That never happened before. Later, I learned that he had mentioned our spat to Craig who expressed how lucky he was to have a father who wanted to play online games with him. Another time, when he was having girl troubles, he got advice from his marine buddy. Shortly after returning from boot camp in Sea Cadets last summer, he unexpectedly broke up with his girlfriend, telling her,

"I feel like I'm too young to be involved with someone."

She didn't take it well, being convinced he was interested in another girl. I can tell you that wasn't the case. Aidan swore off girls until after high school. One of his older online buddies told him "not to grow up too fast" which I'm certain resonated with him. That kind of advice comes only from a mature person who's likely a parent themselves. I once asked Aidan what he talked about with these much older guys.

"Tea," he said.

Apparently, one of his online friends is a connoisseur of brewed tea and has advised my son to get off Snapple and Pure Leaf in favor of home brewing. Aidan purchased a Keurig which is set up next to his computer in his room. Now, he openly discusses reducing his sugar intake as well as the health benefits of green tea. It's doubtful that my son would have listened if I offered such advice. 

Aidan and I are similar in many ways. Yesterday, he showed me a frag video, synchronized to a jazz tune, he's making. One transitional scene went on at length, consuming a lot of time without clearly defining the story. He of course regarded it as pure genius. I explained to him what I would've done. We argued back and fourth for a good hour with me giving up at every turn. Finally, he agreed to try my suggestion, but he planned on running it by one his online man friends. His plan was to show the guy both cut scenes and let him pick the best. We worked on the new scene together. Aidan incorporated many advanced cinematographic features like subtle zooming to follow first perspective motion. When done, the final result was clearly superior. Aidan said,

"What I did made your idea work."

I told him, "The reason why we sometimes don't get along is because we're a lot alike, except I got forty years experience on you."

I'm unconcerned as to how he frames my advice. That he acted on my input is enough.

So how did my wife and I protect our son from online jerks? We helped him develop a sense of self worth and pride in his abilities and accomplishments. As a tech savvy kid, he taught himself how to block people on the sites he frequents. In all the many hours he's spent in a virtual world, he's banned only a few people. The hardest thing to do as a parent is to impart life lessons that will help a child survive in a world without them. Too many parents today want to keep their family together so they foster dependence and perpetuate childhood. As an older parent, I know that time is not on my side so I toil steadfastly on my own obsolescence. The day will come for my boy as it did for me when there is no one ahead of him.

Now, if I can only get him not to drain the hot water tank every time he takes a shower.

The Secret to Good Grades

 

In the mid '80s, I was working towards a college degree in engineering. Back then, institutions were unconcerned if students were under a lot of stress. In fact, they took it upon themselves to burden us with a substantial academic workload in attempts to wash us out. This was before anti-bullying agendas or any focus on self-esteem building. I just finished high school where I was pantsed in gym class for four years by jocks, only to find myself accepted into an educational program designed to actively weed out the weak. It all started when I was a sophomore in high school. A long haired punk who played guitar, poorly, in a rock band, I did just enough school work to get by, then I signed up for physics.

Throughout the summer, the prospects of taking a tough science class unnerved me. I quit music, cut my hair then embarked upon my junior year with the intention of applying myself academically. My efforts paid off. I got a perfect score in physics and later in calculus. Along the way, I developed a system to attain stellar grades which carried me through high school where I ended up graduating sixth overall. Modifying my technique for college, I managed to obtain a 3.79 GPA as an undergrad. Later, I earned a masters in engineering at another institution where my system brought me a 3.9 GPA. In the mid '90s, after a little tweaking, I earned a masters in computer science with a 4.0 GPA. Over my many years of academic toil, I've tutored students in math and science, who after embracing my approach, enjoyed a significant improvement in grades.

Proper Textbook

A good text is written for the student, not the author. It's full of clear, concise explanations with illustrations, sample problems, and answers to the odd numbered problems in the back. The book should be no smaller than six by nine inches. A diminutive book appeals to eggheads because they like to think it's packed with important, cranial information that few understand. The choice of textbook tells you something about the teacher. If they like small books devoid of diagrams and annotated with cumbersome notation, then the teacher sees themselves as an intellectual and will likely make the class unnecessarily difficult. What you want to look for is an instructor who enjoys the subject material as well as teaching. The physical characteristics of the textbook is a measure of the pompousness of the instructor.

Bill Nye,
The Bow Tie Guy

Avoid Bow Ties and Scarfs

If a teacher uses a picture of themselves on the faculty webpage wearing a bow tie or a scarf, don't take their class. Like a small textbook, these accessories are a sign of pretentiousness. Professor Lambeau in Good Will Hunting wore a scarf. Teachers who are more interested in their intellectual status among their peers will likely make their class difficult by delivering obtuse lectures, assign unrelated, burdensome homework, and create unfair exams. If the instructor shows up wearing an ascot, drop the class immediately. When the text is good and the class notes closely follow the book, then it's possible to overcome a crappy teacher if you...

Read the Text

If the book is readable, then read it. When you're assigned a set of problems at the end of the chapter, don't approach the task with the attitude that you want to finish the homework as soon as possible. Digest the literature first, and do so before the lecture. This is perhaps the most valuable technique I proffer and is the least likely to be followed. Most students never crack the binding of their textbooks even after spending hundreds of dollars. By reading the lecture material before class, you have the opportunity to ask sophisticated questions in class. Rather than spending a lot of time trying to track down a professor or graduate student during their office hours, hit them up with important questions in class. You can do this most effectively by reading ahead. Doing so also makes you look like you're super smart by asking hardcore questions on material that everyone including the teacher thinks you just absorbed.

Ask Questions During Office Hours

Along with class participation, always go see the instructor during their office hours, even if you don't need any help. Think up a question, either from the lecture or the homework, that you can ask your teacher during their office hours. This is especially important as an undergrad in a large class. Always ensure that you are not a nameless face in the crowd. Eventually, teachers will know you by your first name. They will remember you because they love to talk about their topics of study and will embrace anyone who asks them about their research. I often solicited help from my professors on problems that weren't assigned as homework. After arriving at the solution, they usually questioned if the problem was in the homework set. I would explain that I was just interested in the problem which always made their faces light up.

Don't Form a Study Group in a Class That's Curved

To get a good grade in a class, you need to do well when everyone else does poorly. I never held a study session when the teacher stated that grades would be curved. Whenever I took a class, I considered myself in direct competition with everyone in the room. The only exception was when I took computer science classes with my wife, Christine. One time, a teacher thought we had an unfair advantage being married so he had the class vote on whether we could be on the same team. Most of the students thought the guy was nuts and approved our academic coupling. I think he was going through a divorce.

Take Any Advantage

I was always on the lookout for opportunities up to but excluding cheating. Back before the internet, the best source for a topic of study was Schaum's outlines. Often lazy teachers would pick test questions straight out of Schaum's. Once a friend told me that a teacher announced there were three bonus questions on his math exam, one for undergrads, another for masters, and a third for the PhD, which was him. My friend recognized that all of them came right out of a Schaum's outline. Since it was an open book test, he penned his answers directly from the manual. Once, I ran out of time on a math exam so I chicken scratched a load of gibberish on the last problem then wrote "x = 1" and circled it. Turned out that was the answer. The grad student, whipping through the tests as he corrected, gave me full credit. Today, lazy teachers sometimes copy homework problems directly from the internet. Once you find the source, you can often discover the solution as well.

Always Be Respectful

I taught masters level computer science classes in the '90s. I was always amazed at how rude students were to teachers when they felt they were marked erroneously. Once after my father had unexpectedly passed away, a student approached me holding his test aloft. He said,

"I'm sorry your father died, but why did you mark this off?"

When you're trying to get something out of a teacher, being an ass hat even when you're sure you're right is often counterproductive. Whenever I thought something I did was incorrectly graded, I always asked the teacher to help me understand where I went wrong. Often they discovered their mistake and corrected it themselves. You never know. You might just be wrong so don't be a dickhead when confronting your teacher.

Rate Your Teachers

If you do have a bad experience with a shithead instructor, then go to Rate My Teachers and warn others. I've written extensive reviews of crap teachers which sometimes led to no one signing up for their class the following semester. Having to absorb that zero students want to listen to them is an intellectual slap in the brain bag for an egghead. You should also pen positive words of encouragement concerning good teachers as well. In my early days in academia, there wasn't any websites that afforded an anonymous summary of teacher's performances. Today, there are many review sites that help you get the word out. Writing a review of your teacher won't specifically get you a better grade unless students en masse elect to report their experiences. I just included it because I'm surprised how few students bother to pen their sentiments about an instructor. I know writing is a challenge for many, but you should always take the opportunity to rail about a poor academic experience.


Jack "Hire Smart People" Welch

Some of my suggestions are up to you like reading the text before the lecture or securing face time by asking a baited question. Others are out of your control like a teacher's attitude or choice of textbook. The only option for the latter is to avoid their class altogether.

One last bit of advice. Ignore people that say,

"Grades don't matter."

Your academic performance is a measure of how much effort you are willing to put into a task. I've never worked for a company that didn't seek high academic achievement in applicants. You don't want to work for people who don't hire smart people. So next time you sign up for a class, follow these simple rules, and you too will be a stellar student.

Down with People

International
Symbol of Ill Will

Of all the things scientists warn us about like global warming, nuclear Armageddon, an asteroid striking the earth, or tainted lettuce there's one that doesn't worry me at all. A new report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention indicates that the average birthrate in the United States is once again too low to maintain the population. In 2017, we cranked out 1765.5 humans per 1000 women which is 16% below the 2100 threshold. In 2017, 3.85 million babies were born. The last time the country experienced so few births was in 1987. Worst yet, that was the same year Bon Jovi came out with Living on a Prayer.

Admittedly, I didn't initially grasp why we needed 2100 babies for every 1000 women to stabilize the population. I thought it would be 2 to 1 since each pregnancy was counted against the two people required to make it happen. Even though medical advancements made it possible for a single female or a same sex couple to give birth, it still really requires one woman and one man. So the extra 100 births, necessary to balance the population, takes into account that not all of the 2100 babies will contribute to the next generation themselves. Some will perish up front. In 2016, the infant morality rate was the low figure of 5.9 deaths per 1000 births. Others will elect not to have children at all or be incapable of conceiving. The rest won't make it to the child bearing years due to drugs, legalized marijuana, cigarettes and parkour. So why does the prospect of the population imploding not bother me? Because I hate people. That's why. Not everyone, mind you. Just some, like those who want to borrow my tools. As the saying goes,

Neither a borrower nor a lender be
for loan oft loses both itself and friend.

Often when I lend a tool, I get it back in an inoperable condition. One guy I've known for thirty years borrowed my chimney sweep only to return it with a kink in the carbon fiber rod. He never said anything when he dropped it off. Cost me $65 to fix. I should've just hired a chimney sweep for him, which would've been way cheaper. Another borrowed my truck to pick up some mulch then returned it with a dent in the tailgate. He insisted that it was like that when he got it. There was also no gas in the tank, and the cargo bed was full of coffee cups and tobacco spit. I'm sure it wasn't like that when he picked my truck up because when I started it up and drove down my driveway, I ran out of gas. These people certainly can go.

The other day at a traffic signal, a young woman with a Florida plate travelled too far into the intersection before she realized she couldn't make it through. I left her a full car length as I noticed she started to reverse. I watched her slowly inch her way out of the intersection until she was right on my front bumper. I tapped the horn as she approached. She flung her door open, ran to the side of my car then screamed in the open window,

"Get off my bumper, asshole!"

I was on her bumper only because she was backing up into mine. Unlike Florida, my home state doesn't have a stand-your-ground law. If she did this in the Sunshine State, someone would likely cap her for such an aggressive move. She can go for sure.

I had a neighbor once who purchased a drum kit for his son. He set it up in an unheated shed positioned close to my house. Spring brought on the songs of birds, flowers and warm breezes accentuated by the incessant beat of a poorly played drum set. No one wants to listen to a drum solo outside of a concert, devoid of mind altering substances. I recall a teenage friend of mine, a percussionist himself, playing drum solos by Peter Criss of the rock band, Kiss, on his stereo. My dorky friends and I, all lousy musicians, sat around while he played a record of Criss, dressed up in his kitty outfit, endlessly beating away at the skins as I stared blankly at a poster of Farrah Faucet. Thirty years later it was my neighbor's turn. This kid and his drums as well as Peter Criss can all go.

Another neighborhood kid got a dirt bike which he endlessly rode around on a track he constructed in his parent's front yard. It included a mud hole jump and a set of moguls. Eventually, when his parents weren't home, the kid started racing down the street on his motorbike with his friend on the back. I stopped him then told the dude to push it home. He explained that he was "just trying to blow out the carburetor" which "was all gunked up." Later his father knocked on my door. I expected him to apologize for his son's behavior instead he started screaming at me to leave his son alone. I tried to explain that his dope protégé was operating an unregistered vehicle on the road with his douchebag friend in tow, neither of which was wearing a helmet. Needless to say, he ignored my sound advice which would likely keep his kid from attending the next session of Jesus unplugged. He informed me that pushing the bike home caused his son to have "a serious asthma attack," resulting in a hospital visit which he wanted me to pay for. My neighbor, his son and his friend as well as that dirt bike can all go.

One time, my best friend was splitting off some of his land for sale. The entire neighborhood mobilized to stop him even though he wasn't applying for a variance or any special considerations. He was simply selling off some of the property he bought, insured and paid taxes on. After surveying my friend learned that several of his neighbors who wrote letters to the town expressing their concerns were encroaching on his land. One penned,

"If this land division is allowed to go through, the neighborhood will likely get more people which my wife and I certain don't want."

I have an idea. Why don't we get rid of all these peeps who want to use other's land without actually paying for it. That will certainly lighten up the neighborhood.

If the population decreases, the roads will be less congested leading to lower levels of greenhouse gasses. There will be fewer people burdening the government with entitlements as well as less crime, substance abuse and illegal immigration. The lines at grocery stores and amusement parks will be shorter too. I once tried to kill a guy with kindness. It worked quite well, but it would've been much easier if that dude simply never was.

People are just one of many things in which less is more.

Fake Science?

Tom Brady

Last week, Ace Davis, a fourth grader from Lexington, Kentucky won his school’s science fair with a project entitled, “Is Tom Brady a Cheater?” His father, Christopher Davis, posted his achievement on Facebook and social media did the rest by launching Davis' project into viral land. Now, the news media is reporting that a ten year old from the Bluegrass State proved that Tom Brady intentionally ordered the deflation of game balls to his teams advantage. Headlines read,

"Science proves Tom Brady is a cheater," LA Times

"Tom Brady a cheater? 10-year old Ace Davis' science fair project proves Super Bowl quarterback cheated in deflategate scandal," CBS News

"10-year old proves Tom Brady is a cheater, wins science fair," New York Post

Davis’ hypotheses on his three panel project display reads,

“Through various testing measures of weights (psi - pounds per square inch) of footballs, we should find that the underinflated footballs create a competitive advantage in a game.”

Even though Davis is a ten year old fourth grader, I would expect the winner of a science fair to know that pressure is not a measure of weight. Perhaps the judges should have picked up on this error, but then again, this is Kentucky, the state that has the Creation Museum. Davis continued with a problem statement,

“The National Football League alleges that Tom Brady ordered the deliberate deflation of footballs to gain an advantage in the 2015 championship game versus the Indianapolis Colts.”

That's not quite how it went. The Wells Report, commissioned by the NFL, concluded that it was “more probable than not” that New England Patriots equipment personnel intentionally violated the rules. The report also contended that Brady was "generally aware" of their actions. There was no actual direct evidence that Brady was involved nor requested the modification of air pressure in game balls. While the Wells Report offered no scientific basis for underinflated footballs, many of the technical aspects in the findings have been supported by the likes of Bill Nye and refuted by MIT Professor John Leonard.

What is certain is that the NFL performed a pregame check on all the balls provided by each team. At a news conference a referee, Bill Vinovich, said,

"We test them. It's 12.5 to 13.5. We put 13 in every ball..."

It's safe to assume that during the halftime of the AFC championship game when balls were discovered deflated on both sides, they were pumped up again. The Wells Report speculates that after taking custody of the properly inflated footballs, New England Patriots personnel probably released some air. The report does not prove that doing so gave the Patriots a competitive advantage, leading to their 45-7 win over the Colts. This last bit was the subject of Ace Davis' winning project.

A blind study by the Mythbusters tested whether there's an advantage to catching or throwing an underinflated football. Using a throwing machine to maintain consistency while tossing footballs inflated to various pressures, the researchers showed that underinflation offered no benefits when catching or throwing. Davis, his mother and sister threw footballs inflated to various pressures. Since Davis admitted that he “hates Tom Brady,” I would gather that his research wasn’t conducted in a blind fashion, that is, the throwers likely knew which footballs were underinflated.

Scads of scientists, engineers and nerds have all weighed in on the Ideal Gas Law, the relationship of pressure and temperature of gases in a fixed volume, as well as the warming rates of footballs in duffel bags to prove or disprove cheating. I tend to focus on a more rudimentary question,

How common is it that footballs lose air during normal game play?

Over the course of the 2015 AFC championship contest, footballs on both sides were found to be deflated pregame or at halftime. During the 2016 season, the New York Giants took possession of two Pittsburg Steeler balls. Subsequent testing on the sidelines revealed that both were underinflated. This occurred after the NFL instituted new rules which require each team to bring 24 balls to the Official's Locker Room for inspection two hours and fifteen minutes prior to kickoff.

When asked what he would say to Brady if he had the chance to meet him, Davis responded,

“Give me some of your money. You don't deserve it."

After posting his son’s win on social media in which he declared “Hater Level: 100,” Christopher Davis told a reporter that his son is "not a big fan of school." Ace Davis and his project are on their way to the district level science fair where I'm sure he'll perform well; after all, Kentucky isn't exactly known as a bastion of scientific enlightenment. In fact, senators from the Bluegrass State once objected to questions involving evolution on standard tests in biology. Kentucky is one of those states that was let into the Union just to connect up the coasts. It's a region of the country in which the toothbrush is appropriately named. Criminals know that Kentucky is a good place to commit crimes because everyone has the same DNA.

I usually pass on articles concerning science and technology written by the mainstream media since journalist are mostly former college potheads who can turn a phrase but can't carry a one. Like the science fair judges, the media apparently overlooked Ace Davis' overt distain for Brady which likely led to procedural partiality. His parents also seem to celebrate their son's "hater level." All this judgmental assertions and personal persecution got me thinking about the Gospel of John when a crowd gathered to stone a woman accused of adultery. Jesus said,

"He that is without sin among you, let him cast the first stone."

If that happened today, someone in the crowd would snatch up a rock then exclaim,

"I'm free of sin! Let's kill that ho!"

Then he would drill the rock into the woman's skull. Half the people would join in while others filmed. It would all be uploaded to YouTube by the morning.