Observe this

I was listening to an interview with Neil deGrasse Tyson (Director of the Hayden Planetarium, it was a SETI podcast) on the way home from work. In it he describes kids as little scientists constantly doing experiments. An example he gives is seeing his daughter pour some milk onto the table, watching it intently as it pools and moves off the table and onto the floor. He let her go as she seemed genuinely interested in what she was observing. He then had to clean up before his wife could see. Pretty cool, if you ask me.

I'd like to think I'm a little like that, although I honestly don't think I'd go with the milk thing, at least not inside. There is something great about watching them in R&D mode, be it pure ("what does this thing do?") or applied ("If I can open this door, I'm pretty sure there's food to be had"). As long as there are no limbs in immediate danger of being detached, or imminent irreparable damage to property, it makes sense to let 'em go. A little. Sometimes. Hypocrisy much?

Actually, Isaac was having fun experimenting with the shower hose attachment in the bath tonight. He'd have great fun waving it around, but then drop it in his lap, with the water jet coming upwards. The water pressure wasn't particularly high, so it didn't reach his face until he pulled it out of the water straight up for another play. He'd then drop it while he blinked and shook his head to recover. I think this exact situation is what the phrase "rinse, repeat" was invented for. He did this half a dozen times before deciding that just waving it around the bath walls was a much better idea after all. He could've gone either way on the cry/laugh choice a couple of times, I think, but something kept him going back for more. Maybe it was the fact that it was self inflicted, or just the potential for discovery.

I just realised this was almost my first post without an image. This is mostly because I've been slack about posting stuff and am doing some fixing retrospectively. While on this topic, I'm currently posting some drafts and editing a few things, so anything between the August 18th and this post may well change, or new posts may appear without warning) Rather than leave it image-free, I decided I'd find an older, or at least pre-blog image. Here's one of my favourite pictures of Isaac. It's from about 9 months ago, when he was not almost 6 months old.



For those of you still reading, Neil De Grass Tyson is a great speaker. This podcast wasn't a great example though. The SETI podcast is interesting, but the advertisements really get up my nose. They're just interstitials, but there seems to be too many of them by far, or maybe it's just the American accents. Anyway, this interview on the Point Of Inquiry podcast is much better. The POI podcast is also one of my favourites.