The Geekorium

That is a pure Twitter-bait title. I have no clue how to make my baby girl sleep except through time and patience. But I needed a hook to get you here, cause I just wanted to tell you about my baby girl.

I don’t normally use this blog for very personal stuff any more, unless it’s tech related or stuff I find on the ’net. But I have in the past and I choose to today. Pray indulge me a little.

Amelynne Grace was born 13 months ago today. My first child. A gorgeously round chubby little thing with light brown hair and her mothers eyes. We get comments all the time about how lovely she is, how much she looks like me. I’m not sure if people are being polite (and really, who would want to look like me), but I see the most beautiful thing in the world when I look at her.

Just-born babies are supposed to be at the peak of cuteness [^evolution], but this one just keeps getting cuter by the day. Maybe parents see it best in their own children because a relaxed and happy playing child is one of the most joyful things you will ever see, and they’re most relaxed around their own parents. If you’ve looked at my Flickr stream, there’s no shortage of pics of her. But they’re a tiny percentage of the actual photos I’ve taken and will not share with all and sundry[^thank]. I keep taking them because each day her smile gets cheekier, her eyes get sparklier, and her wonder at the world more and more obvious.

She walks now. Not a full walk mind you, but a shuffling along the wall or a couch. She’s figured out that dropping to her butt and crawling will get her anywhere she can’t hold on to something. She’s unstoppable.

On the other hand she’s calm and patient and gentle. We were worried going into pregnancy that Mil’s illness would make a super-active baby a nightmare to look after. It was a risk that paid off well for us. Whilst somewhat clingy at times, she plays happily by herself a lot and asserts an independence that has made Mil’s job somewhat easier.

That’s not to say she’s not difficult sometimes though. Despite my title, we’re still struggling to put her to sleep reliably and easily. But even in that she astounds us regularly when she does put herself to sleep easily. You can just tell she wants to do it herself and it’s very gratifying.

She still only has one tooth. The others are almost there, but refuse to come out. But even that has just managed to make her look cuter.

And every day I ask myself how can she get cuter?

And every day she does.

Do you see? Do you see what I mean?

So I just wanted to share that. Wanted to share that I have a baby girl who brings me more joy than I ever thought possible. It’s clichéd, but the honest truth. And to those of you who understand that, I hope for all the best for you and your children. To everyone else, I thank you for sitting through my little gush and promise it won’t be like this around here all the time.

Thank you for reading. Share about your own families in the comments below.

[^evolution]:it’s an evolutionary thing, look it up [^thank]:You can thank me later

{{< youtube 10hw000d10Y >}}

Manbabies - watch more funny videos

Found at ManBabies - scary but hilarious.

People keep saying that Amelynne looks like me. I don’t see it. Do you?

She’s still cute though right?

And one of me for reference:

She looks like this? Poor thing!

I love technology. The thrill of new possibilities. The excitement of learning. There’s nothing that beats it.

Actually, that’s a complete lie. There is something that beats it. Beats it hands down. Without question.

I love my baby girl. The thrill of her potential. The excitement of seeing her learn. By gum it’s the greatest feeling I’ve ever experienced, to watch her discover her world.

Hax0r the interw3bz

I’m totally looking forward to teaching her everything I can about the earth. The people on it, the cultures, the life, the bizarre phenomena we just can’t explain yet. I know she’ll be just as fascinated as I am. And I’m hoping that she turns out to be a geek like her Dad.

I’m not saying that technology can beat long healthy walks, or travelling, or hands on experience. But by golly, it can help fill some of the gaps in my knowledge. When Little asks why the sky is blue, we’re going to google it¹ . When Little wants to know where milk comes from, we’re going to look it up on Wikipedia together. And I’m going to use the technology I have at my fingertips to show her a wider world than I could, just on my meagre wages alone.

But the important part about it is I’m going to be with her.

When I give her the password to her shiny new Gmail account (it’s already set up!) I’m going to be there to hold her hand and teach her about spam. When I give her her own Twitter account, I’ll be there to show her how to block those strange people who just want her to buy things. And when I help her make her own web page (xhtml and css standards compliant) we’re going to explore the pros and cons of publishing an email address on the site, and how we can still communicate with people without exposing ourselves to harm.

I’ve been looking forward to this for over a year now. And by the time it comes to start all this, I’ll be ready. My wife will be ready. We’re going to show her the brave new world where information is at our fingertips, and new ways of communicating are instantaneous and free.

Except that maybe it won’t be. By the time my girl is old enough to read, the Australian Government may have implemented their “cleanfeed” policy. The Minister for Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy, Senator Stephen Conroy has been pushing a plan (that starts trials this month) that will see every internet connection in Australia filtered for “illegal and inappropriate” material. This sounds good on the surface, until you realise that something similar has been tried by the previous government which was in Conroy’s own words “millions of dollars of wasted taxpayer’s money”. The new scheme, which will see the internet filtered by the internet provider, has had $126 million allocated to it already, and one can only presume that when they see how appalling the results are, even more money will be sunk into something that critics have been saying from the outset will never ever work as intended.

Why am I appalled by something that’s supposed to be about protecting my child? Something that stops Amelynne seeing nudie pictures, or spares her the horror of “goatse²” must be a good thing right?

Wrong. Here’s why:

1. I work in a school. I wrote two months ago that I see too many teachers (and parents) letting technology do their job for them. Years ago it was television, and now it’s the internet that we plonk our kids down in front of, and expect them to learn or be entertained. Then we complain that the device is teaching them the wrong values? How screwed up is that? If you are concerned for your child’s mind, teach them with their hand in yours. Don’t expect an electronic baby sitter to know what values you want passed on. If a filter goes in, how many parents will dust off their hands thinking the “internet problem” has been solved? That is dangerous.

2. I also see the technology fail to many times to be useful. We have mandatory filters in place in every school in South Australia, and I know how often legitimate sites are wrongly categorised, or overzealously filtered. I also see how much “inappropriate” material gets through regardless. The internet is spawning hundreds of new sites every day, and before a filter works, it has to have looked at each of those sites and classified it as safe or not. If you let the technology do it, you end up with false positives (or negatives) that can seem almost random, and if you get a human to do it, it’s subject to their prejudices or frame of mind. I think in a school it’s possibly a necessity to have something like this in place, but in every home? That’s madness.

3. The technology cannot keep up. As well as the millions upon millions of sites that must be blocked, you have the problem of the internet traffic of every user in Australia needing to go through some sort of filtering technology. I see massive slowdowns at work when even half our school use the internet at once. A lot of the slowness can be attributed to the filtering technology. It’s just not at the stage where it can reliably catch “illegal and inappropriate” material without slowing down the connection significantly. In a country that is simultaneously trying to create a national broadband network that improves broadband speeds, it’s inconceivable to put such a serious bottleneck in place.

4. We’ve already seen politicians use the proposed filter to further their personal agendas. Family First wants all pornography blocked, and even reliable old Nick Xenophon has made noise that he might want online gambling blocked. In both cases it might be argued that they are totally right to want these blocked, but how long before a new government or political lobby group decides that their particular bugbear - gay marriage, or abortion, or pre-marital sex - is inappropriate “for the children”, and we no longer see it on our internet? That’s all too possible.

5. It wont stop the damage being done by the real criminals. The majority of illegal activity online is done through “peer to peer” networks - that is, groups of people who bypass the Google and Youtube internet, and go straight for the content they want from other people that have it. It’s the way that people who download movies and music predominantly do it. This sort of traffic isn’t illegal in-and-of itself, and law makers cannot block it outright, any more than you could stop all Australia Post mail for the occasional illegal package that gets sent through it³. So regular folk will be inconvenienced in the ways I’ve mentioned, and criminals will continue to do whatever they want. Once again, Joe Six-Pack⁴ gets the raw end of the deal.

So that’s why I think this is a Bad Thing^TM^. But don’t take my word for it. Some smart people have written why they think its a colossal waste of money. Why it won’t do anything but hurt you and me, and do nothing to stop real criminals. Read their opinions, and make up your own mind. If you explore their sites, you’ll even find the other side of the debate. But keep in mind - no one with a knowledge of the technology has said it’s a good idea.

• Start with No Clean Feed

• Browse around “Somebody Think of the Children”

• Check out what average internet users are saying about it

These sites will also direct you in ways you can help oppose the proposal. I’ll be writing to my local member for a start, and if you’re concerned I recommend you do the same.

I truly hope we can stop this travesty. It’s a disgrace in more ways than one. I want my child to grow up in a world where information is at her fingertips, in a fraction of a second. The “cleanfeed” will make this a memory for us older folk. Don’t let that happen.

Here’s your next dose of Peanut - in case you had been hanging out for it.
We had.

That’s my baby’s face! How cute! Isn’t it gorgeous?

And here’s Peanut from the front. Fortunately we didn’t have to censor the “area” - and don’t ask… It’s a surprise!

Peanut looks completely healthy, and everything is the right size for 20 weeks. We’re so happy - it is a tremendous experience seeing your baby’s face before it’s born. And its brain. That’s weird. And the little heart had four chambers pumping blood back and forth.

The sonographer you get really makes a difference to how much you enjoy the experience. The last one we had was a complete dud, but today’s was brilliant - she really helped us get the most out of our time there, while at the same time being completely professional. Thank you!

Today is the day. Most of you already know, but today I get to write about it.

I’m gonna be a daddy. My wife of five years is pregnant and we couldn’t be happier. Our little Peanut (as we’re calling him¹) is 12 weeks old already and due late July.

Here’s his latest piccy

Little Peanut

I don’t know what it’s gonna be like being a dad, or if I’ll be any good. But when I imagine holding my little child for the first time, I don’t care - I just want it to come right now. I’m so excited².