So I'm in my basement, vertically under mom's office, separated by a wall from the living room stereo, which is playing pirate music on the CD player (a local band). Amy and the girls are in the kitchen doing tie-die. My wife is in the hospital, with an expected discharge date of the day after tomorrow. I ferry people to and fro quite often (we just came from there). Yesterday the girls and I went to Lloyd Center (Nixon as VP: "America's answer to communism"), to view 'Over the Hedge', which I promptly reviewed in my blog. http://mybizmo.blogspot.com/2006/05/over-hedge-movie-review.html Last night, we projected 'March of the Penguins' (en version) using my small footprint projector, against the living room wall (the one above my head). I'd seen it before, but watched most of it again (it's a good story). I'm using Edubuntu on Derek's refurbished Compaq Deskpro, using a Buffalo game port to convert between ethernet and 801.11g. I have two access points in my house, although the second one is easily portable, as it takes IP over AC (any AC socket I plug the thing into is transformed into a wireless station). I speak of home architecture with a reason: 'The Sims' has kids in the mood to think like sociologist engineers, which adults always consider vaguely threatening at best (given the connotations of "social engineering" -- but what is "legislation" if not that?). Rather than fight giving them responsibilities, I want them to have really good tools and plenty of access to global data, so that their engineering might rock (vs. suck). That's a motivation for pushing OO into 8th grade: algebra alone just ain't good enough any more. By they time they reach college, teachers will assume already built-in Pythonic abilities, or something similar. This project, I take it, is consistent with the philosophy behind CP4E. What better way to make OO prevalent than to phase dot notation into algebra class? I think my Algebra City colleagues will approve. When I introduce OO in 8th grade, it's in terms of home blueprints (class definitions) sourcing home instances (actual boxes, the occasionial off-beat dome, scattered about town). You might instance the same blueprint in Hillsboro or Gresham I tell 'em (referencing locales they've likely heard of -- no Devonshire around here). I think using the home as a paradigm class is propitious, as there's lots of implied complexity, especially once HVAC and AC/DC become a focus (lots of APIs). You have the media room, the pantry, the scullery -- the whole pattern language of places. The Sims gives us visuals. OO gives us implementations. Another good thing about houses is they're in the middle in some way. They're child nodes in neighborhood systems, rural or urban, in some globalized humanity, plus they're parents to microbes, dust mites, all sorts of stuff zooming in. We're in that sweet spot between two alienating sizes: the too big and the too small for humans to feel comfortable in, other than indirectly, through instrumentation, libraries and so on. Humans like a scenario Universe, a world of storytelling, of soaps, of myth and history, of fact and fiction. Which is where movies like 'Over the Hedge' come in (or 'Toy Story' or 'Shrek'). They're works in the humanities, part of the main stream. We like to leave the more infra and ultra to the specialists, to the engineers. Also about houses: there's that excellent book wherein families have accepted an invitation to disgorge the contents of their homes for a photographer's compilation. -- a coffee table book showing houses + contents from around the world. I'd like to project these pictures in my Pythonic mathematics classes (seeking permission). In sum, although I'm aware that adults dislike being captured and modeled inside simulations sometimes, consider it patronizing to be "planned for", to have their environments changed around them, I think we all recognize that nature rearranges the scenery all the time (personal note: my dad was an urban, regional and education system planner). We adapt as a species, and what that feels like internally is some "government at work" (or some other cyberia (steering committee)). And we don't always feel good about all the changes (even if it tastes good, it might not be good for us) -- and we should by all means attend to these sensations, these intuitions. Like, don't ignore your own internal guidance system. On the contrary, that's what your democracy depends on. As an adaptable species, we're really *meant* to think hard about our choices. We really *do* have to work, even if we make it be playful. It's really not a free ride. Lots of very traditional theology could attach at this point I realize, but I'm just operating within my philosophy here, taking advantage of my 12 degrees of freedom. Our planet never just "settles down" -- hence the classic next program after "hello world" in many cases: "I'd like it to stop now, I'd like to get off." Or as Martin Heidegger might have put it: "how did it get to be runtime already?" Kirby