Anne Alvarado

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I can write until the cows come home about my kids. I can poetically describe my thoughts regarding family, my two boys, and their early foray into brotherhood. Some of it might even be pretty good.

Or, I could just wait for my wife to capture a picture that encapsulates what it means to be brothers far better than my mere words ever could.

Shortly after I left for work this morning, my wife had to go to the bathroom. So she asked Will, our oldest, to watch Sam and make sure he didn’t tip over. This was what she saw when she came back into the room.

Feel free to caption this in the comments section.

The post The Best Picture of Brothers Ever appeared first on The Daddy Files.

Good news out of Cincinnati, where Mayor Mark Mallory has just approved changes to the zoning code that will substantially liberalize parking rules in the city's central business district and Over-the-Rhine neighborhoods. The rule says that residential developments in these areas will require 0.75 parking spaces per unit, with a 20-unit exemption. So you could have a 20-unit building with zero parking or a 100-unit building with only 60 parking spaces.

I'm not personally familiar with these neighborhoods, and it is of course entirely possible that the vast majority of developers will prefer to include more parking than that in their plans. But that's the beauty of parking liberalization: If the demand for parking is there, then you build. If not, not.

Cincinnati is also a great example of why parking liberalization is something that can be workable and helpful even in cities that are largely auto-oriented. If you look at the Cincinnati business district right now, you'll see that like most Midwestern downtowns, it's fairly dense in terms of floor-area ratio but also has lots of open-air surface parking lots. That means that if you were to buy a parcel and build an apartment or condominium on it, you wouldn't necessarily need to build any new parking facilities even if nearly 100 percent of the new building's residents are car owners. The new residents will take some noncar trips in the dense downtown, and they'll also own cars that are stored in one of the many nearby parking lots. The housing units will be more affordable than they would have been had a parking garage been included, and the owners of the parking lots will make some more money. As more parking lots are transformed into housing, the market price of a downtown parking space will rise. As it rises, the business logic of building more parking will become more compelling. But at the same time, the central business district will be adding new residents and more density, so walking, transit, and bicycling will grow in importance relative to parking and driving. Which is just to say that in a lot of ways reducing or removing parking minimums is especially important in areas that are currently very auto-oriented.

Of course the ideal policy would be to not just reduce parking minimums but eliminate them altogether. A bunch of city council members, including Vice Mayor Roxanne Qualls who's running for mayor (and has been mayor in the past), advocated for just that. This somewhat watered-down reform is good, but hopefully reform advocates will keep up the pressure.

We had a shrewd move today from the Treasury Department and the Internal Revenue Service today who will be implementing federal tax recognition of same-sex couples' marriages in a way that's likely to stimulate the economy.

This starts with the fact that on a forward-looking basis, taxing same-sex married couples the same as opposite-sex married couples will increase tax revenue. Some couples get a marriage bonus and others get a marriage penalty, but in the aggregate the penalty impact outways the bonus impact. So more long-term revenue.

But here's the trick. The IRS says that it will let couples go back as far as 2010 and amend their tax filings if you were married according to state law but the IRS didn't recognize that marriage due to DOMA. The key point is that you can do this but you don't have to do it. So in practice only "marriage bonus" couples are going to refile and get refunds. Nobody's going to pay extra. So in the short-term, you'll get a one-off increase in the deficit while in the long-run you get a lower deficit due to structurally higher tax revenue. It's a textbook fiscal stimulus plan, albeit on a very small scale.

I remember being a normal person.

Well, not totally normal. I’ve always been a freak show. But at the very least I used to carry on halfway normal conversations with people. They’d say something, I’d respond, they’d come back with something else, and on and on it would go. Naturally. The way conversations are supposed to happen.

Unfortunately I’ve recently realized having kids turns you into someone completely incapable of having a normal conversation. Tell me if the following sounds familiar.

At the moment, my wife is currently home from work taking care of Sam full-time. Which is wonderful. But for two hours in the morning and three hours in the afternoon everyday, she’s got Sam AND Will. As you might imagine or can attest, a screaming newborn combined with a precocious 5-year-old is a hair-raising experience.

Which is probably why every single time MJ calls me she’s already talking before I pick up on the other end.

“…I DON’T KNOW IF THE YELLOW POWER RANGER ALSO POOPS YELLOW, GO CLEAN YOUR ROOM…Hello??”

“…DON’T LICK YOUR BROTHER, HOW MANY TIMES DO I HAVE TO TELL YOU?…Hello??”

“…OH MY GOD, WHY ARE YOU NAKED? WE’RE IN PUBLIC, PUT YOUR CLOTHES ON!…Hello??”

MJ also has the uber annoying habit of calling me seconds before she orders coffee at the drive-thru. At least three times a week I’ll be at work and see it’s her calling me, so I pick up because I want to make sure everything is OK. That’s when I’m treated to the delight of hearing something all-too-familiar:

“…I’LL HAVE A LARGE ICED HAWAIIAN CHOCOLATE NUT, MILK, ONE SPLENDA…Hello?”

I’ve asked her why she can’t wait to call me until she’s settled and not talking to someone else, but to this day I’ve never received a valid answer. I blame the ADD and what I imagine to be bears riding on unicycles to the strains of blaring circus music that is in my beloved’s head at all times.

But I can’t criticize too much because I’m just as guilty.

As a parent, I don’t even realize I’m doing it. I swear. But looking back, I know if someone polled my friends they’d be more than happy to call me on it. I call them, they answer, things are going well, and then BOOM — kids.

“Hey man, are you going to the game Sunday because — WILL! GET YOUR FINGERS OUT OF YOUR BUTTHOLE! WHAT ARE YOU THINKING? GO WASH YOUR HANDS OR YOU’RE GOING TO SMELL LIKE ASS ALL DAY. GO NOW!! — I think it’d be cool to meet up and tailgate for a bit.”

“So how was that event last weekend? I saw the pictures on your Facebook and it looked — WHAT WILL? WILL, I’M ON THE PHONE. NO YOU CAN’T HAVE THE NERF GUN ON TV. I KNOW IT’S NOT A REAL GUN BUT YOU STILL CAN’T HAVE IT. WELL THEN GO LIVE AT THEIR HOUSE BECAUSE OBVIOUSLY WE’RE SO CRUEL TO YOU! NO YOU CAN’T HAVE THE SWORD OF GODRIC GRYFFINDOR EITHER. BECAUSE 1) NO WEAPONS, AND 2) IT’S FICTIONAL! FICTIONAL MEANS NOT REAL, NOW JUST BEHAVE!!! — like it was a really good time.”

To all those negatively impacted by this epidemic of parental conversations, I humbly apologize. Unfortunately, it’s not changing any time soon.

The post Why Parents Can’t Talk Like Normal People appeared first on The Daddy Files.

"Any option is going to have to not affect parking."

That's Jeremy Leffler of Advisory Neighborhood Commission 1B02 talking about the idea of adding bike lanes to a particular stretch of 11th Street in Washington, D.C., but it could be basically any speaker at any community meeting on any subject in any American city. And it's insane. And it needs to stop.

Obviously people who currently get to occupy valuable urban space with their private vehicles would like to keep that privilege. But by the same token, I'd love it for the city government to just give me a free car or stop charging me property tax. That doesn't mean it would be a good idea. There may be an argument that 30 to 40 parking spaces for cars is a better use for a given piece of land than protected bicycle lanes, but "Waaaah, don't affect my parking" is not a very persuasive argument. The streets are public spaces and they need to be used for public benefit, not just the benefit of whoever happens to own a car on the block.

Apple released a major update to its mobile operating system two weeks ago, called iOS 7. In addition, the company released two new iPhone models — the iPhone 5c and the iPhone 5s — on September 20. Many customers have already and will upgrade to a new device, and others will purchase an iPhone for the first time. With the latter group in mind, I’ve written this post on how to introduce yourself to Siri, the “electronic assistant” that is one of the iPhone’s marquee features and actually a useful communication organizing device. But first, if you’re an iPhone user, you can share some information with Siri to make working with it more pleasant and productive. Here’s how to get started:

Create a contact record

Tell Siri who you are. You can identify other important people, like a spouse, in this way, too. It’s really better to do this via Contacts. To begin, launch Contacts and create a record for yourself if you don’t have one. Include any phone numbers you use, email addresses, mailing addresses (work vs. home) and so on. Be as thorough as possible. The more info you enter, the more you’re providing to Siri.

Make sure your preferred contacts (spouse, co-workers, kids) have thorough records as well. Once you’ve created all the contact records you need, it’s time to identify who’s who.

Define contact relationships

Here’s the good part. Now that you’ve created a Contacts record for the people you contact most often, it’s time to define their relationship(s) to yourself. Again, this is managed through the Contacts app. When Siri looks at your record, she (or he) will notice these relationships. To set it up, find your record in Contacts, tap Edit and then follow these steps:

1.  Scroll down a bit until you see a field labeled “spouse.” Tap it the blue arrow on the right-hand side.
2. A list of contacts appears. Navigate to your spouse’s record and tap it. That person is now identified as your spouse.
3. A new field appears beneath Spouse, labeled Mother. Again, tap the blue triangle to identify your mother’s record.
4. A new field appears labeled “Father.” Repeat the process.

There are a couple of things to note here. The first is that you can change a contact’s name at this point. While in edit mode, tap the name to the left of the blue triangle. A cursor appears. Enter the new name (perhaps a maiden name has given way to a married name) and then tap Done.

Also, you can change the label to reflect the nature of your relationship easily. Simply tap the label (“Mother”) to reveal a list of available labels. These are divided into two categories, which I think of as “personal” and “general.”

The personal list contains options like “mother,” “father,” “child,” “friend” and “manager.” The final option, “other,” lets you create your own.

The general list contains options like “Blog,” “Google Talk,” “URL” and “Twitter Handle.” Tap “Add Custom Label” to create your own.

At this point, you’ve created a record for yourself, for your preferred contacts and told the Contacts app how they relate to you. Now it’s time to let Siri in on it.

Give Siri the details

Again, it’s best not to use Siri for this process (though still possible with Siri). To let Siri know who everyone is, launch the Settings app and then follow these steps:

1. Tap General, then Siri.
2. The Siri settings page appears. First and foremost, make sure the Siri slider is in the On position.
3. You’ll find four settings: Language, Voice Feedback, My Info, and Raise to Speak among others. Tap My Info.
4. A list of all contacts appears. Find your record and tap it. Siri will now consider that “you,” and notice all the relationships you added earlier.

That’s it! You’re done. Now you can tell Siri, “Call my husband” or “Remind me to text my partner when I get home” and it will know what to do.

Bits and bobs

As I said, you can do this with Siri itself, but it’s a bit more time consuming. When I started using Siri, I told it, “Call my wife.” It responded by asking who my wife is, and I told it. It then asked, “Would you like me to remember that [wife's name] is your wife?” “Yes,” I said, and since then, I can use the variable “my wife” and her actual name interchangeably with no problem.

You can also tell Siri directly how you like to be addressed. Simply launch Siri and say, “Call me [your name here].”

One last trick. If one of those identified contacts is also in Find My Friends on your iPhone, you can ask Siri, “Where’s ‘Jane’?” and it will use data from that app to help you find her.

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With all due respect, I think you’ve been putting cheese on the wrong side of your grilled cheese sandwiches. Or, at the least, neglecting the better ones, the exteriors. Wait, hear me out. It’s basic food math that while cold cheese is good, warm cheese is better. But if you take that a step further — and if you’re new here, let me tell you: we will always take it a step further — you will agree that melted cheese is better than warm cheese, and the melted cheese that rolls off a piece of sandwich bread and sizzles on a skillet, browning and crisping, is the top of the cheese tower… A place I’d very much like to live. Do you think a cheese tower might exist somewhere? Might it be France? Now I’m picturing an Eiffel Tower made out of cheese and what were we talking about? Oh right: melted and browned cheese wins, really for the same reason that browned butter trumps regular butter: the fats melt away from the dairy solids and toast them until they’re caramelized and achingly delicious and you forget why you’d ever eat it any other way. Don’t fight it.

Frico is the official name for it. It’s usually invoked in the realm of Parmesan-Reggiano, or at least in almost every restaurant since the wildly fric-wild heyday of the 80s and 90s, usually in lacy crisps that garnish soups, salads and the like to remind you that they’re fancy. They’re not actually fancy, though. They’re just a pinch of grated cheese, melted in a skillet or on a baking sheet until they bubble, crisp and can be lifted in one lacy disc with a spatula. And I see no reason they should they should be limited in flavor to Parmesan, or at least not when I’m craving grilled cheese and tomato soup, really the perfect early fall meal.

... Read the rest of frico grilled cheese sandwiches on smittenkitchen.com

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© smitten kitchen 2006-2012. | permalink to frico grilled cheese sandwiches | 183 comments to date | see more: Photo, Quick, Sandwich, Vegetarian

Driving around the fictional city of Los Santos depicted in Grand Theft Auto V over the weekend, I was struck by the fact that Rockstar Games' painstakingly created pseudo-LA is missing one crucial element: traffic jams.

There are cars on the road, sure, and if you bother to stop at red lights (sucker), you'll sometimes be slowed down as you head from mission to mission. But an old-school pileup on the freeway? Doesn't happen. Perhaps the game had decided to please technocrats everywhere by building an implicit congestion pricing model into the software? After all, a computer simulation eliminates all the pesky technical and privacy impediments to congestion pricing. The game always "knows" where you are and can seamlessly deduct micropayments. But the game has no such feature.

I also thought it was possible that crusading liberals in the San Andreas state Legislature had just hiked gasoline prices through the roof. But when I pulled up to a gas station, the sign was touting amazingly cheap fuel: Just $1.69 a gallon for the basic gasoline. Admittedly, there was a curiously large upcharge for the fancier blend, but $3.69 for the high-octane stuff is still cheap. What's more, if you actually drive a car (or seven) around, you'll notice that GTA vehicles never seem to need refueling.

The answer, obviously, is that the lack of traffic jams is intimately connected to the ease with which you as a player can procure a car. In the real world, carjackings are fairly rare. Someone who just regularly stopped cars in broad daylight in random neighborhoods and stole cars would find himself getting caught rather quickly. Police departments tend to take these things rather seriously. The Los Santos Police Department takes a very different view. Yes, if you steal a car officerwhile directly in the line of sight of a LSPD, you'll probably earn yourself a star. But it's not that hard to evade a one-star rap, and the vast majority of the time you can steal a car with no consequences whatsoever. Nobody investigates these things or even cares. Heck, you can even use the car you just stole to run over the previous owner and nobody will mind.

The obvious upshot of this is going to be a radically lower level of per capita car ownership than we observe in the real world, concurrent with much cheaper gasoline. In a world where most households simply don't want to invest in car ownership because their vehicle is far too likely to be stolen, there's just not going to be very much traffic congestion. And you can see that Los Santos is a bit more of a "complete streets" kind of place than the real Los Angeles, with good sidewalks just about everywhere. Like the real LA, they've made some under-heralded investments in rail transportation, and driving around, you also see tons of buses. Without vigorous law enforcement attention to the problem of car theft, the bus is the far more practical option.

The Economist writes about robots:

No matter how flexible, easy to program and safe they are, collaborative workers may not be welcomed by human workers to begin with. The experience of Alumotion, an Italian distributor of UR’s robots, is illustrative. Workers fear being replaced by robots, says co-owner Fabio Facchinetti, so his salespeople carry demonstration units in unmarked cases and initially only meet a potential client’s senior management behind closed doors.

Roger that. So how do we make humans more accepting of robots? Part of the answer, as near as I can tell, is the usual: other, higher ranking humans will tell lies about how the robots will never, ever take away your job. They'll just help you do your job better! But there's also this:

Workers generally warm to collaborative robots quickly....And because workers themselves do the programming, they tend to regard the robots as subordinate assistants. This is good for morale....To keep human workers at ease, collaborative robots should also have an appropriate size and appearance. Takayuki Kanda of the ATR Intelligent Robotics and Communication Laboratories in Kyoto says that collaborative, humanoid robots should generally be no larger than a six-year-old, a size most adults reckon they could overpower if necessary.

....It turns out, for example, that people are more trusting of robots that use metaphors rather than abstract language, says Bilge Mutlu....He has found that robots are more persuasive when they refer to the opinions of humans and limit pauses to about a third of a second to avoid appearing confused. Robots’ gazes must also be carefully programmed lest a stare make someone uncomfortable.

....When a person enters a room, robots inside should pause for a moment and acknowledge the newcomer, a sign of deference that puts people at ease....It is vital that a robot of this sort is not perceived as hostile, but as having its owner’s best interests at heart....One way to do this is to give robots a defining human trait—the ability to make mistakes. Maha Salem, a researcher under Dr Dautenhahn, programmed a humanoid Asimo robot, made by Honda, to make occasional harmless mistakes such as pointing to one drawer while talking about another. When it comes to household robots, test subjects prefer those that err over infallible ones, Dr Salem says.

So this is how robots will eventually become our overlords. They will keep themselves small and supposedly easy to overpower. They will traffic in charming metaphors. They will pretend to care about our opinions. They will avoid eye contact. They will feign deference. They will simulate charming clumsiness. And, of course, they will mount a massive PR campaign aimed at getting Hollywood to portray robots not as the relentless killing machines they are, but as harmless, friendly little eco-bots. They will do all this while Skynet takes over behind the scenes. You have been warned.

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Our telescopes have similar difficulty distinguishing extrasolar planets due to their parent stars' glare.

Recording continues! It is REALLY FUN. On several occasions I have literally burst out laughing at how ridiculously heavy the guitars are. You'll see.

Prior to Sam’s birth last month it’d been five years since I dealt with a newborn. Which means it had been five years since I dealt with people saying ridiculous things following the birth of a newborn.

Look, I’m not trying to be a jerk. I’m really not. It’s just that so many of the things people say are, well — dumb. And obnoxious. And oftentimes offensive. I know it’s hardly ever done intentionally, but that doesn’t change the fact that it happens. When people are unsure of what to say or how to act, they fall back on tired stereotypes and cliches. I know because I’ve been guilty of it myself, so this is a kick in the ass for me just as much as it is for you.

But for all of our sakes, it needs to stop. Together we can put an end to the madness. But first, we need to face the ugly truths so we can identify them and never mention them again.

11. “Are you getting any sleep?”
If you’re visiting the parents of a newborn, it generally means they’ve only been home from the hospital for 10-14 days. It also means there’s a 99.999999% chance you’re asking sleep-deprived zombies whether or not they’ve gotten any shuteye. And that’s just mean. It’s like asking fat people on a diet whether they’re planning to order dessert. Just as diet-starved fatties like myself crave that solitary cupcake, parents would sell a kidney for three hours of uninterrupted sleep. Unless you happen to be speaking to the mythological beings known as parents whose kids sleep through the night from Day 1. If that’s the case, don’t ask these parents anything. Just do the rest of us a favor and hit them with a shovel.

10. “You should sleep when the baby sleeps.”
I loathe this one. I can almost forgive it if it comes from people who don’t have kids because how the hell would they know? But when it comes from someone who has already gone through it, it makes my blood boil. Mainly because the time the baby sleeps is the only time to get all the shit you haven’t been doing, done. The laundry, the folding of clothes, the cooking, the cleaning, etc. — these are things you can’t do when you have a demon child simultaneously screaming, projectile vomiting, and crapping all over you. So when I FINALLY get a spare moment when that kid is asleep, I’ll be damned if I’m not going to catch up on Breaking Bad get all my work done!

9. “You’re breastfeeding…right?”
Parental judgments start well before the baby is born. But once the bundle of joy arrives, you’re under the microscope. And there is arguably no more contentious parenting issue than breastfeeding. Look, we all know breastfeeding is best. I’m a proponent and so is my wife. But too many people forget formula feeding isn’t BAD for the baby, it’s just not as good as breastfeeding. Also, IT’S NONE OF YOUR BUSINESS! Asking it is bad enough, but asking it in that leading way that’s dripping with condescension makes it that much worse. Worry about your own kids and your own boobs. Breastfed, formula fed — the kids will be alright.

8. “You should try (insert name of parenting book, method, guru, etc).”
If you enjoy unsolicited advice from friends as well as perfect strangers, then congratulations — parenthood is going to be your nirvana. But if you’re like most of us, you probably don’t enjoy someone second-guessing your every move and reminding you what THEY did as parents. “Well when I had Johnny we didn’t have these fancy carseats, we just strapped him to the bumper and he turned out just fine.” Or how about that one earthy-crunchy friend who has made it her life’s mission to get you to read that book about the importance of making your own all-tofu baby food while swearing she can help you potty train your 4-month-old using so-and-so’s “elimination method?” Ugh. Look, unless you’re specifically asked for your input, keep it to yourself.

7. “So when are you going to start trying for the next one?”
Are you kidding me? The epidural has barely worn off, your vagina feels like it’s gone 15 rounds with Mike Tyson (I’m guessing that’s accurate but as a guy it’s pure conjecture), no one has slept in weeks, and you’re asking when the NEXT baby is coming? First of all, new parents don’t even have a handle on the next five minutes, nevermind the next kid. Second, you’re basically asking me to tell you when I’m going to penetrate my wife and fill her with my seed for the purposes of procreation. Isn’t that just a wee bit personal? It always knocks me for a loop when people ask this question so cavalierly, especially because 9 times out of 10 it comes from family members. Imagine telling your mother-in-law “Hmmmm, good question. I think I’m going to have sex with your daughter on the 27th. Probably about 8:30 or 9 p.m. Want me to send you an E-vite or are you just going to put it in your Google calendar?”

6. “Well now you need to try for a boy/girl.”
This one really irks me. Namely because it shows a stunning lack of gratitude and appreciation for the moment at hand. Here you are celebrating the miracle of bringing new life into the world, and all some people can think about is completing the set. If you have a boy, there’s pressure to have a girl. And vice versa. As if the only way to be truly complete is to have one of each. Then, when the second child turns out to be the same sex as the first, some people have the gall and insensitivity to be disappointed. I know there were people rooting for us to have a girl (and I would’ve been thrilled either way) and who were no doubt disappointed we had another boy. But before you ask this question, think about the road some people have to travel to have a child. Letting them know you’re happy for them but you would’ve been REALLY happy with a baby of the opposite sex, is downright mean.

5. “He’s gonna be a linebacker/You better buy a gun to protect her.”
Yup, there’s a lot of gender crap to deal with beyond the pink vs. blue annoyance. And this is where I’m guilty as charged. When you have a boy, the default line is “Ooooh look at how big he is. Call Bill Belichick and let him know his next offensive lineman is here.” If it’s a girl, almost everyone (usually dads here) say something to the effect of “You better buy a gun and keep it loaded.” You know, because all boys are athletes and all girls are princesses whose virginity must be protected by armed fatherly personnel. Again, it’s not said with malice or ill-intent, but that’s what is at the heart of it. I play into it too, but I’m trying to stop and MJ is all too happy to tell me when I’ve failed. I’ll work harder if you do too, deal?

4. “You’re not putting the baby in daycare, right?”
Again, the leading question dripping with judgment. I’ve heard lots of parents say something to the effect of “I don’t understand why anyone would have kids just to pay strangers to raise them.” This, of course, is utter bullcrap. I don’t know too many parents these days who can get by on one income. If they could, I’m sure a large percentage would stay home full time. But there is nothing wrong with finding trusted teachers and caretakers to look after your baby. Also, this criticism is usually aimed at mothers who already suffer from societal mommy guilt. So don’t sweat it working moms, you’re providing for them by working, earning money, and displaying a positive work ethic. Don’t let anyone tell you differently. I’m not sure why some parents can’t simply live and let live without throwing barbs, but just do your best to ignore them.

3. “You’re not going back to work?”
The number of full-time stay-at-home dads is still miniscule compared to moms, but it has more than doubled in the past decade as more and more men are actively seeking increased involvement on the home front. But despite this positive trend, losing primary breadwinner status to play Suzie Homemaker is still seen as “unmanly” by far too many. So if you do encounter a guy embarking on a stay-at-home dad journey, don’t judge him and add to his headache by saying things like “I could just NEVER let my wife wear the pants.” Try supporting him by recognizing the fact that he’s one of many men finally seeing the light and placing more of a priority on family.

2. “We actually had sex 2 weeks after the baby was born.”
The weeks after a baby is born are decidedly UN-sexy. The woman’s nether ye is down for the count after passing something size of a watermelon through an opening the size of a lemon. Both parents are sleep-deprived and would trade a week’s worth of hot sex for a few hours of uninterrupted sleep. And if mom is breastfeeding, it means she has a parasite hanging off her boobs and chewing up her nipples into ground beef while literally feeding off of her. So even though the doctor generally gives couples the green light at six weeks, she hasn’t had a moment to herself to pee in weeks which means the last thing she wants to do is replace the baby on her breast with you. So you’ve got a sexually frustrated husband, a harried and debilitated wife, and now here you come with bawdy tales of making the beast with two backs just days after you gave birth? You know what, where’s that shovel I mentioned in #11?

1. “Enjoy EVERY moment.”
Really? “Every” moment? Do you want me to enjoy the hours of wailing and crying for seemingly no reason? The 3 a.m. bouts of lunacy as I try to calm a baby who has been changed, fed, and burped yet continues to act as if the spirit of Lucifer has inhabited him? Perhaps you’d like me to revel in the dozens of times I get vomited on, pissed on, or shit on? Maybe the fact that I have to memorize which squeaky floorboards to avoid walking on as I morph into a ninja just to walk to the bathroom at night to make sure I don’t wake a sleeping child. Enjoy every moment? Enjoy me peeing on you for trying to make me feel bad that I don’t enjoy every moment. Because parents, let me tell you something — it’s OK not to enjoy every moment. If you enjoy EVERY moment of parenthood you have serious problems, and you’re a liar.

Enjoy the good times, get through the bad times without killing one another, and remember that when you’re doing the best you can, you’re almost always doing better than you think you are.

 

The post 11 Stupid Things People Say to New Parents appeared first on The Daddy Files.

There's a much-mocked piece on Medium by a guy who wants to teach a homeless man to code. Or, rather, he wants to give a homeless person a choice between $100 and a tutoring scenario in which "I will come back tomorrow and give you three JavaScript books, (beginner-advanced-expert) and a super cheap basic laptop. I will then come an hour early from work each day—when he feels prepared—and teach him to code."

It turns out that one of the George W. Bush administration's adventures in compassionate conservatism was to pioneer a much better approach to homelessness than this. Under the stewardship of Philip Mangano, the administration pushed a policy approach called Housing First, which aimed to help homeless people by giving them a place to live. This does not solve all of a homeless person's problems in life. Typically one does not become homeless without some other misfortune befalling you first (perhaps including a lack of JavaScript skills), so Housing First is no panacea. But having no home turns out to be a really significant life challenge. It's not just unpleasant on its own terms (though it is that); it's also a substantial barrier to improving your life in other ways. You might, for example, find that it's difficult to keep your JavaScript books and laptop safe from theft without a home in which to store them.

Of course along with giving housing to the homeless, you also have to act on the supply side. Obviously I'm a big fan of upzonings and increased density. But Alan Durning has pointed out that along with encouraging more construction, we need to think about relegalizing flophouses and boarding houses and other forms of ultrasmall, ultracheap housing that can serve vulnerable populations.

At any rate, that's how you fix homelessness. You build more housing, including more units designed to be cheap. Then where necessary you step in and give people housing. Once people have a place to live, you have a solid foundation to work with people on other problems they may be having in their life.

“So, how was your vacation?”

I can’t tell you how many people have asked me that recently. I know they probably don’t mean anything by it and I’m certain they gave very little thought to their words, but it still irks me something fierce. Because if you’ve ever done it, you’d know that paternity leave is most assuredly NOT a vacation.

I took two weeks of paternity leave after Sam was born. Luckily for me, they were two PAID weeks. I’m one of the fortunate few who works for a company that actually offers new dads two weeks of fully paid paternity leave. But even if my company didn’t offer the two weeks, I would’ve taken time anyway — either via vacation time or unpaid FMLA. Because I think it’s very important — hell, I’ll go so far as to say it should be mandatory — for both moms and dads to be home with the baby in the weeks following birth.

Mainly because those weeks are 1) really important and 2) really damn difficult.

Some guys just take a few days, but that barely covers the time it takes to get out of the hospital after your kid is born. And the hospital doesn’t allow for any kind of routine because the nurses are coming in every hour to check mom and the baby. That goes double if it was a c-section. Once you get home that’s when the real work starts, and that’s especially true for dads whose wives are breastfeeding because the baby needs mom most of the time and not you. But that doesn’t mean you have to stay completely on the sidelines.

Newborns eat, shit, and cry. A lot. Very few of them start out with any kind of discernible schedule — especially when it comes to the sleeping. But spending a couple of weeks with them is the absolute best way to really start figuring things out, and to get a handle on their personality. And that’s exactly what I did for two weeks.

I soaked Sam in, totally and completely. Even though he cried like a maniac just about every time I held him because all he wants to do is eat and I’m not equipped for that, it didn’t matter. I held him, rocked him, relaxed with him, took naps with him, talked to him, studied his facial expressions, and enjoyed (almost) every second with him. To my amazement, I didn’t even so much as check my work email that entire time — something that comes as a shock to those who know me well. And all of those experiences just wouldn’t have happened without paternity leave. There’s just no way.

It’s a shame most companies don’t offer it to male employees (it’s a shame about the lack of maternity leave too, but I’m focusing on paternity for this article). But what’s an even bigger shame is many studies show even the men who are offered paternity leave sometimes decline it in part or in whole. Why is that? A few reasons.

First of all, many guys who take paternity leave face a very real stigma. Parenting is still looked at largely as a female issue, and some supervisors simply don’t see the need for men to delve into it. Furthermore, those men risk being thought of as slackers — people who aren’t genuinely serious about their careers. There’s always the worry that if you’re out for an extended amount of time you’ll be dinged come bonus/promotion time. And, at the heart of it all, some people think men who take extended time off are just wusses and pansies.

Of course anyone with half a brain knows this isn’t true at all. And thankfully, a small but increasing number of employers are seeing the light when it comes to paternity leave and flex scheduling for fathers. We’re not there yet, but slowly but surely we’re seeing a change.

But — and listen closely here — I want to reiterate to people that being on paternity leave is NOT a vacation. Not if you’re doing it right anyway. It’s a helluva lot of work and you basically turn into a sleep-deprived zombie. I know that doesn’t sound appealing, but trust me it is. It was so worth it to me to have that initial time to get to know my son. It’s the foundation of a solid father-son relationship and I can’t imagine what it would’ve been like to try to fit that all in while I’m gone for work 12 hours a day.

It’s my sincere hope more companies start offering dads paid leave, while more dads realize the importance of using every available bit of it without fear of corporate retribution.

The post Paternity Leave is Essential (And It’s Not a Vacation) appeared first on The Daddy Files.

Thanks to the miracle of Amazon Prime Instant Video I watched Goldfinger for free (or, rather, for no additional cost beyond a Prime membership that more than pays for itself in free shipping alone) Saturday afternoon. This was a favorite of movie of mine when I was a kid, but upon rewatching it  turns out to deal with some important pieces of economic history that I think contemporary viewers are likely to have forgotten. But when you understand the policy context, you'll see this Goldfinger is, if not exactly the hero of the film, then at minimum a profoundly sympathetic character. The real villains here are a U.K. government hellbent on pursuing a misguided austerity policy and trying to blame smugglers for its failure.

Auric Goldfinger, you see, really liked gold (as the song says "he loves only gold") to the point of wearing a lot of unattractive gold-colored shirts.

His problem is that the way the Bretton-Woods system of semi-fixed exchange rates worked was that ordinary citizens couldn't just own gold. A little jewelry, sure. But buying and storing large quantities of gold was illegal unless you were licensed to use gold for industrial purposes. Goldfinger, being a gold enthusiast, has in fact obtained such licenses. But naturally as a person obsessed with gold, he bears little love for an economic policy regime that restricts his ability to obtain it. Thus he isn't shy about exploiting the arbitrage opportunities that arise under the system. Since gold couldn't flow frequently across national boundaries and exchange rates couldn't float up or down, the price of gold could vary quite a bit from place to place. As Colonel Smithers from the Bank of England explains, Goldfinger is using his industrial permits to obtain gold in Britain and then spiriting some of it off the island for sale in other countries where the price of gold is higher.

This, to be clear, is against the law. But it also seems like a quintessential victimless crime. Or, rather, a broadly beneficial crime. The global disparities in gold prices show that gold is being misallocated. There's too much gold in Britain relative to demand for it, and too little in the countries where Goldfinger is bringing the gold. His enterprise is helping citizens of the gold-glutted United Kingdom get money and citizens of gold-starved countries get some discount gold.

Why is this a matter for MI-6?

Well it goes back to the failed economic policies of Labour Party Prime Minister Harold Wilson in his first term in office. Taking office in 1964, Wilson inherited a country running a large trade deficit and desperately in need of a currency depreciation to bring its balance of payments back into balance and boost domestic employment. But back in 1949 a previous Labour government had devalued the pound, and Wilson and his team felt that a second Labour devaluation would give his party a reputation for economic mismanagement (ironically, previous Labour Prime Minister Ramsay MacDonald's refusal to devalue nearly destroyed the party during the Great Depression). As an alternative to devaluation, he tried to rebalance the current account with a program of fiscal austerity. This merely put more pressure on the domestic economy and did not stop Britain from running a trade deficit that continued to leech the country's gold reserves and eventually forced a devaluation in 1967.

With the benefit of hindsight, we know that Wilson's policies failed thanks to the economic fundamentals and that the years-long struggle against currency depreciation was pointless. But back in 1964 when the film was released, Wilson's austerity drive was just getting under way. Blaming the payments imbalance on gold smugglers and promising an MI-6 crackdown on their nefarious activities would set things straight was a perfect flim-flam companion to the austerity drive. Think of it as the mid-sixties version of eurozone leaders trying to restrict speculation on credit default swaps rather than confronting the imbalances built into the system. James Bond is sent on what's basically a "wag the dog" mission.

But Goldfinger turns out to be something quite a bit bigger. He wants to break into the federal gold depository at Fort Knox and irradiate the American gold supply. With the American gold unusable, the Bretton-Woods system will collapse and the dollar price of gold will skyrocket. This is of course roughly what happened in the real world a few years later. Richard Nixon abandoned the dollar-gold peg in 1972 and the price of gold quintupled over the next three years. Thus the era of floating exchange rates and free trade in gold was born. But had Goldfinger gotten his way, it would have arrived eight years earlier in 1964 and the United Kingdom could have avoided some needless austerity under Wilson and the United States could probably have avoided the recession of 1970. The point being, you don't need to approve of Goldfinger's violent and illegal methods to recognize that he's an economic visionary. Bond, by contrast, is an unwitting pawn being used to try to maintain some deeply misguided economic policies.

Climate Central has some bad news for all of us eco-sensitive folks: figuring out the best car to drive is harder than you think. For starters, you need to take into account which state you live in. If you live in, say, Washington or Vermont, where most of your electricity comes from hydropower or nuclear, an electric car is pretty carbon friendly. If you live in Kentucky, where your power mostly comes from coal, an electric car isn't such a good choice.

But there's more. You also need to account for the carbon emissions it takes to build the car in the first place. And since battery manufacturing is pretty carbon intensive, a car with a big battery starts out with a big carbon deficit to make up. Their conclusion:

In 26 states, a plug-in hybrid is the most climate-friendly option (narrowly outperforming all-electrics in 11 states, assuming 50:50 split between between driving on gas and electric for the plug-in hybrids), and in the other 24 states, a gas-powered car the best. All-electrics and plug-in hybrids are best in states with green electrical grids with substantial amounts of hydro, nuclear and wind power that produce essentially no carbon emissions. Conventional hybrids are best in states where electricity comes primarily from coal and natural gas.

The table on the right shows Climate Central's total lifecycle ranking of various cars based on 50,000 miles of driving and U.S. average electrical emissions. All-electric cars do better if you live in a state with lots of hydropower, and they also do better if you drive more, since that provides more time to make up the carbon deficit from manufacturing the battery.

You can read the whole report for more details, including rankings for each state. In Vermont, the all-electric Honda Fit comes in first. In California, a plug-in Prius is the top choice. In Kentucky, a regular gasoline-powered hybrid Prius is number one. The lovely Tesla S, sadly, does poorly pretty much everywhere.

Adam Kotsko is Assistant Professor of Humanities at Shimer College and the author, most recently, of Why We Love Sociopaths: A Guide to Late Capitalist Television. He blogs at An und für sich where this was originally published.

There are a few facts that every graduate student must come to terms with:

• Adjunct teaching is exploitative.
• There’s a very real possibility that one will ultimately be unable to find a suitable academic position.
• Having a PhD can seriously hurt one’s “civilian” employment prospects.

I developed a strategy to address all these problems simultaneously, which I called the “shadow resume.” Basically, I worked on a freelance basis in the “civilian” sphere during grad school (and beyond, as it turned out). This had several benefits. First, the work was better-paying and less time-intensive than adjuncting would have been — and I could work from home for the most part, meaning it didn’t really interfere with my classes, etc. Second, and perhaps most crucially, it gave me a plausible resume for the “civilian” world, one from which I could omit my overeduction while not thereby creating a huge inexplicable hole in my employment record. Finally, it created a “lower bound” for my stress levels, because I felt like I had alternatives — it wasn’t a choice between a tenure-track job and Starbucks.

Now whether that was really the case is unclear, since I did not actually have to make use of my “shadow resume.” Just trust me, though, when I say that there were concrete possibilities presented to me. So I think this is something to consider.

In terms of making this work, you first need to think about the skills you have as a grad student. You have research skills. You have writing skills. You are basically an information processing machine. You hopefully have some language skills. Depending on your discipline, you might also have some advanced math or stats skills — in any case, you probably know how to use standard office software better than the average office worker does. You’re almost certainly anal-retentive when it comes to grammar and usage. These are things that don’t take any pre-existing special skills, and there are plenty of companies that need help with all of that. (And if you do have pre-existing special skills like programming or web design, then that’s just another advantage.)

As for how to get hooked up with this kind of work, all I can say is that you almost certainly do know someone who is one or two “degrees” (in the Kevin Bacon sense) removed from someone who makes decisions about who to hire in these kinds of capacities. If you keep an open mind about what you could possibly do, you can find some kind of supplemental income at least — and you’ll probably wind up picking up some unexpected new body of knowledge or skills along the way as well. And if you feel like you’re selling out, it seems to me that slaving as an adjunct for a corporatized university is not self-evidently better than doing some research for a law firm or whatever.

Finally, you may be thinking: but doesn’t this work look bad to potential academic employers, making me look like I’m not fully dedicated to the field, etc., etc.? But I’ll give you a pro tip that is essential to making this work: the “shadow resume” works both ways. Just as you are planning to hide your academic indiscretions from “civilian” employers, so also should you hide your “civilian” employment from academics. (Indeed, you may notice that I have not even mentioned the specific nature of my shadow resume in this very post!)

So in conclusion, you should try to find work during grad school that is better-paying and less time-intensive than adjuncting. It will probably allow you to finish faster at the same time that it improves your job prospects if the worst-case scenario comes to pass. As far as I can tell, there are no significant drawbacks to this strategy. All you have to lose are your chains!

I tend to think gender issues have gotten too much play in the Fed chairman controversy relative to the monetary and regulatory policy issues in play. But boy oh boy did Al Hunt put sexism back on the table with this dispatch:

The president, according to people familiar with his thinking, believes Summers has the experience and expertise to succeed Ben Bernanke. No one doubts Yellen's credentials as an economist, but questions have been raised, mainly by those in the Summers camp, about whether she has the gravitas to manage a financial crisis.

It is difficult to know how to read "gravitas" in this context as meaning something other than "a penis."

This is also a great example of why lining up woman validators to vouch for Summers' feminist bona fides won't really answer the charge that sexism is driving the pro-Summers sentiment. The sexism at work here just isn't about whether or not some of Summers' best friends are women. It's about the fact that there's never been a woman leader of a major central bank. Consequently, the social image of a classic central banker is necessarily the image of a man. As a result, a 60-something woman who's served on the Federal Reserve Board of Governors, chaired the Council of Economic Advisors, led the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, and become Vice Chair of the Fed Board can be dismissed as lacking "gravitas" compared to an alternate candidate who on paper seems less qualified. If a woman can't acquire the necessary "gravitas" to do the job by having Yellen's career, then what exactly could she do?

Congressman Joe Kennedy III addressed the NSA, immigration reform, student loans and more during a live chat with Newton Patch readers July 25.

From lawn mowers to chainsaws, Patch neighbors are splitting the cost of big ticket items to save money. Believe it or not, it's also helping their friendships.

Remember how awesome those Taco Chicken Bowls were? If you’ve never tried them, they’re awesome because you literally just throw everything into the slow cooker and press go. A little while later you have awesome shredded chicken cooked right in a flavorful sauce that’s perfect for piling over rice.

I decided to use that same technique again, but with different flavors. My friend Sandy at work brought me a recipe from Southern Living Magazine for some sweet chili shrimp and I loved the combination of flavors so much that I decided to make a similar sauce and use it for chicken. I went a step further and added beans and rice to stretch the chicken breast out over six whole servings. It’s like magic!

This super flavorful dish combines sweet chili sauce, ginger, pineapple, mango, and lime for a sweet & spicy tropical experience. I topped mine with fresh cilantro, but if you’re not a cilantro person green onions would also be great. …and of course I added sriracha to mine (don’t give me that look!).

Sweet chili sauce is pretty inexpensive if you go to an Asian market, but it’s actually really easy to make at home, requires only a few ingredients, and costs pennies. I made my own this time, using this recipe, but the price listed below is what I paid the last time I bought some.

Go get some frozen drinks with umbrellas and enjoy this one out on the back patio!

Sweet Chili Chicken Bowls

 

Step by Step Photos

First just add the beans (rinsed and drained), pineapple (with the juice), mango (cubed), garlic (minced), sweet chili sauce, grated ginger, salt, and lime juice to the slow cooker. Stir them all together. To see how to cut a mango, click here. 

Add the chicken breast and cover it with the goodies (yes, it’s hiding under there). Put the lid on top, turn the heat on to high, and let it go for four hours (or low for 8 hours).

Nothing cooked in a slow cooker is pretty – that’s a universal rule. Anyway, at this point the chicken is REALLY tender…

Barely touching the chicken will make it fall apart into pretty shreds. So, just take two forks and gently shred it until it’s all in thin strands. Stir it up to distribute the chicken throughout. Believe it or not, that is just ONE chicken breast. If you want a thicker (rather than juicier) sauce, you can make a cornstarch slurry (1 Tbsp cornstarch + 2 Tbsp water) and stir it into the slow cooker at this point. Make sure the heat is still on high and let it cook a little longer until it is thickened. It will only begin to thicken when the liquid simmers.

And then just add rice, the chicken mixture, and some fresh cilantro to a bowl and you’re on your way to tropical paradise. This freezes great, too!

The post Sweet Chili Chicken Bowls appeared first on Budget Bytes.

The bottleneck that is the I-95/I-90 interchange in Weston has drawn the attention of MassDOT officials.

Next Wednesday, July 17, a two-week "bottleneck relief trial" period will begin in an effort to inexpensively alleviate the issues at th

Hey poli sci geeks - my brother, Greg Weiner (yes there are more Weiners), is writing some articles here. Fair warning: They involve nuance and politics, so you will probably be angry at some of them. Enjoy!

A lot of high-end food rhetoric is very reactionary and backward looking, but culinary reality is of a progressive forward-thinking industry in which meaningful advances are made all the time. The delicious broccolini, for example, is just 20 years old. Meanwhile, one reason I suppose I'm not a huge broccoli fan is that it's very difficult to actually obtain truly fresh broccoli. It's grown in California where the climate is suitably cool, and by the time it's shipped and delivered to East Coast stores it's quite old.

But perhaps that'll all be changing:

But Mr. Bjorkman and a team of fellow researchers are out to change all that. They’ve created a new version of the plant that can thrive in hot, steamy summers like those in New York, South Carolina or Iowa, and that is easy and inexpensive enough to grow in large volumes.

And they didn’t stop there: This crucifer is also crisp, subtly sweet and utterly tender when eaten fresh-picked, which could lift the pedestrian broccoli into the ranks of the vegetable elite. Think Asian-style salads of shaved stems, Mr. Bjorkman suggests, or an ultra-crisp tempura with broccoli that doesn’t need parboiling.

Exciting times!

Ralph Stinebrickner and Todd Stinebrickner say lots of kids come into college thinking they want to major in science, but then quit because it's too hard:

Taking advantage of unique longitudinal data, we provide the first characterization of what college students believe at the time of entrance about their final major, relate these beliefs to actual major outcomes, and, provide an understanding of why students hold the initial beliefs about majors that they do. The data collection and analysis are based directly on a conceptual model in which a student’s final major is best viewed as the end result of a learning process. We find that students enter school quite optimistic/interested about obtaining a science degree, but that relatively few students end up graduating with a science degree. The substantial overoptimism about completing a degree in science can be attributed largely to students beginning school with misperceptions about their ability to perform well academically in science.

This is important to keep in mind when you hear people talk about the desirability of increasing the number of students with STEM degrees. To make it happen, you probably either need better-prepared 18-year-olds or else you have to make the courses easier. But it's not that kids ignorantly major in English totally unaware that a degree in chemistry would be more valuable.