Revelry Reverie

Growing up happy

I can’t imagine any parent is any different, but I like to believe my little angels are growing up happy. Observe: These are not rare smiles – they are almost always smiling. They are teething just at the moment, so they’re crankier than is normal, but even now they smile and giggle a lot every…

May 25, 2012
Heisenberg uncertainty principle for babies

The Heisenberg uncertainty principle for babies states that you can either take a picture of your baby doing something cute now, or see what cute thing the baby is going to do next, but not both. I suppose if we’re going to be technical and correct, the principle would have to apply only to physical…

May 22, 2012
Numbers you push

I use the number pad on my keyboard to type numbers a lot of the time (when I’m not using the laptop, in which case I never enable it). I’ve also been on a lot of conference calls lately. I know – I’m extraordinarily lucky, but this is not intended to make you insanely jealous,…

May 18, 2012
Don’t tell me what I can’t do

Edited to add: I’m not a programmer or coder. I know a little coding, but don’t think of myself as a fully-professional coder/programmer. I work with HTML (not yet HTML5), CSS and PHP daily. Take a moment to read this: http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/2012/05/please-dont-learn-to-code.html. The author, Jeff Atwood, makes some excellent points: determine what your problem is; solve…

May 16, 2012
Why your windows fog up

You know how when you get into the car with wet hair, after a short while your driver-side window will be fogged up, and the fog will be creeping across the windscreen and into the back window? The effect is quite dramatic if you have a lot of hair and if it is chilly out.…

May 14, 2012
A goose, a fox and a bag of grain

So this is a logic problem which you are all probably pretty well acquainted with, considering it’s been around since the dark ages. It goes like this (or some variation thereof): a farmer has a goose, a fox and a bag of grain that he has to transport across the river. The boat that he…

May 9, 2012
Marginalia and Ephemera

I just read a post on the I Love Typography site about shrinking margins. It made me think about marginalia and ephemera. Marginalia is the stuff that’s written in margins of text. Ephemera is basically the same, but it doesn’t have to be written into books – it can be notes on cocktail napkins or…

May 7, 2012
Something is better than something else

It’s pretty easy to complain. It’s easy because it’s lazy. We (you, me; people) complain because being the victim is exciting. Particularly if nothing bad actually happened. Like, we were up late last night and – oh god – we’re sooo tired today. I’m going to interrupt myself to posit an exception to this entire…

May 4, 2012
Objects in mirror are closer than they appear

Most North Americans are familiar with the warning “Objects in mirror are closer than they appear.” If you’ve ever wondered why objects in your car mirror are closer than they appear, or why the passenger side mirror carries this warning but not the driver’s side – wonder no more! The thrilling answer is here! I…

May 1, 2012
My little guy

Henry took his first major spill today. He tumbled out of my mom’s arms (from a pretty low height) and bruised his face. He was having a helluva morning. I took him to the doctor to make sure he was ok. He seemed fine, just upset. He kept stroking his fingers under his eye and…

April 30, 2012