A still from the Yahoo Hack Day in Taiwan

Let me be the first to say before people all over the internet oh and ah and make a big deal from nothing. STFU! K thanks bye.

So what happened is, Yahoo had an event in Taiwan, an open hack day. The point of these open hack days are to give developers a chance to show Yahoo their mad skillz and have a chance at winning a cool prize. When I travel, I go by the when in Rome philosophy. So when Yahoo is in Taiwan, they did what is socially and culturally acceptable. Big freakin’ deal. Now the western world wants to hold Yahoo accountable for what? Doing something fun that is accepted in said country? Uhm okay… They want to blame this type of event for the lack of female web geeks. Uhm okay… maybe most women just do not care about code or web development. I care enough to code this post, I love the internet and I like to know how to do things on the web, but I have no desire to fully code products, and my general disinterest is not because of some dancing girls.

So here is my meager reaction to the “shocking” hack day in Taiwan. How about all who are offended get over themselves and find out if any of the people who were actually there were offended. I highly doubt that.

So in case you didn’t know I am pregnant, somewhere around 30 weeks this week, still to be determined. I have been having some medical and doctor issues and that is one of the reasons blogging here has been a bit sporatic to say the least. I will enlighten you if you care to read further with some of the issues I am experiencing with this pregnancy.

Goodbye chocolate cake, I hope we meet again.

As anyone who has ever been pregnant knows, some of the cravings hit you so hard you cannot function until you have the food, or drink you are jonesing after. For me this becomes a bit of a problem as I was diagnosed with Gestational Diabetes. I take 4 rounds of insulin a day in the stomach and check my blood sugar with a glucometer 5 times a day. By now I am so tired of poking myself I wouldn’t risk a piece of cake for fear of more needles! I count total carbs for each meal and snacks. It’s not so bad really. I am losing weight in all my other parts so I may stay on this diet after the baby comes.

More to come a bit later, we do have a name for the little fellow that I will reveal with his first baby pictures sometime soon. Marco is a life saver without him I wouldn’t have survived this round, he works full time, keeps us fed, and clothed and the house clean. There are times I would wash his feet if getting to the floor wasn’t a problem. A fellow book blogger BookinIt who lives in the same area as me was very helpful in finding me a doc who at 30 weeks will give me a second opinion on some issues I am having. Thank you for being proactive and helping a newbie to the area out. More blogging to come soon here.

So click here to head on over and see the awesomeoness that is Myspace 2.0 and the new Bookalicio.us page there. Oh and add me as a friend I like friends!

Independence gone too far?

I have a four year old and I now live in London with a massive metro system. I ride the metro almost daily and I see that yes most of the time it is safe. Is it safe enough for a nine year old to ride alone? Probably not. My reason for this is as in any city there is good and bad parts of town, I admit I agree with the author of the previous blog linked above that chances are your child is not going to meet a homicidal pedophile on the way home. I think chances are more likely that your child may appear to have money and is an easy target for robbers.

People today do not allow their children to have independance, but too much is just as bad as not enough. My daughter knows which tube stops we frequent and even when to stand, where the escalator is, doesn't mean even when she is nine I will let her ride alone. Nine is just too young even when your child seems to be responsible enough to handle the task.

Extreme Measures

I think nine is old enough to walk a short distance home with friends. I think nine is old enough to have a savings/checking account to balance and understand where his allowance is going and how to budget. That is a skill needed later in life, maybe stop your child early from going into debt. Maybe I am not sure nine is even old enough to ride your bike to a small store and buy your favorite candy, or to Blockbuster to rent the latest video game.

I think nine is too young for mature video games, most parents allow children to play the most violent and bloody games thinking, ok it's just a game. Your child's brain and how he percieves the world is still developing. You can see how obsessed a child can become over a movie character such as Captain Jack Sparrow. So why let them play with violence.

I see what this mother was trying to accomplish by giving her child some freedom he has been asking for. Allowing him to feel independant in a society that smothers their children and never uses any dicipline. Which is the very reason children are so hard to handle now. Our generation has learned to coddle to their children's every need and I feel that is what the author of the article did. This was more about the child asking repeatedly for this, and her eventually giving in. Most parents now eventually give in. I don't know about you but my daughter always asks to help cut the vegetables for dinner, she asks daily and I say no daily because I am not prepared to give her the sharp knife and see whether she gets her finger cut off. Get tough, letting a nine year old ride the subway wasn't a test of independance, it was a show of ok I am tired of him asking let's just give in.