Flutterby™! : stuff for forest 2005-10-04 14:29:40.191668+00

stuff for forest

2005-10-04 14:29:40.191668+00 by Dan Lyke 9 comments

Also saved so I can show it to Forest:

Preventing hearing damage while listening to headphones.

And from the "what is it reasonable to expect from a 12 year old" department:

The Fall 2005 Pedal Press from the Marin County Bicycle Coalition lists Gabe Maria, a 12 year old who commutes to school five miles over the Terra Linda - Sleepy Hollow Divide.
The Feldmann family has done 5,284 miles so far this year, with a 10 year old and a 12 year old on their own bikes.
Over at the Hovercontrol.com helicopter flight simulator community, a 13 year old has had the patience and attention span to go through and pass their pilot training program.

That's an amazing article! Two big things I had not thought of: using a personal stereo while performing aerobic exercise causes hearing damage in half the time or half the volume (all those runners with their iPods cranked up over the volume of traffic!), and using foam earplugs with headphones can actually help. Crazy!

I'd like to see some similar info on the effectiveness of "noise-canceling" headphones. I rarely ever use headphones, but when I do it's frequently to drown out the sound of conversations when I'm flying or someplace I can't avoid. When the people talking are trying to drown out the jet engines and I'm trying to drown them out, the volume tends to get up there...

#Comment Re: headphones and 12 yr olds made: 2005-10-06 14:45:50.707819+00 by: Mark A. Hershberger

so, I'm not able to grok the true signifigance of that article concerning headphone types. Is it saying the iPod style of phone is better than the foam-style? That seems to be the indication at the bottom.

Or, reading the part about ear-protection over buds or foam over earplugs, maybe they're just concerned with the volume.

re: 12yr old activity. Since my oldest is 8, I don't have direct experience with 12yr olds, but it looks like you are choosing the accomplishments of those 2 standard deviations out and saying that they're "reasonable".

Which is not to say that many 12yr olds aren't capable, but I don't think most would have the patience to go through, say, a pilot training program. For starters, most wouldn't be interested.

Agreed, Mark. I have two who are now 16 and 18, and while they were certainly capable and interested in cool stuff (and one was suitably motivated, ahem) when they were 12, "reasonable" is not the appropriate adjective to associate with pilot training or cycling across the country (and I have done the latter, so I speak from experience). There's something to be said for not setting the initial bar too high, you know? Now, commuting 5 miles to school by bike, even if it includes a hill-climb, is not unreasonable for a 12-year-old who is fit and experienced, and who does not have too many books to schlep or notably poor weather in which to commute. But even that is a pretty high bar for someone who might be starting from a bar a lot farther down the peg set...

I think that the focus on headphone type is that it's concerned about how well the device blocks background noise. The full cup types block a lot more sound than the foam "sit on top"s, which means that volume is likely to be lower because you're not competing with background noise.

re: 12 year olds. Yeah, it's 2 standard deviations out, but that's where I live. I don't expect him to be able to do those things, but I do expect him to aspire to such things, just as my parents expected me to.

Dan, not even *I* expected *my* kids "to aspire to such things"! Mine are doing fine for themselves (although I still want to strangle one of them half the time), and they're probably 2 stdevs out in their own ways, but your examples are the far, FAR ends of the spectrum. While I might have mentioned such kids to mine in passing, I would never have asked that from them. What I did ask was that they find some things they are passionate about and explore them. Much more important than being expected to over-achieve.

Diane, I don't care what he aspires to, as long as it's something. Right now I'm... well... you read the other place, maybe I'll do my real whining there.

And I never did my long bike ride I wanted to do (only about 1,300 miles, I was planning out a south to north through the Smokies, up along the Blue Ridge and into New England), and have many similar "not yets" in my life. So I can't say to him "I've done these things", but I do want to be able to say to him, next time he suggests that riding the half mile down to the post office "too much work" and all he wants to do is "watch a video" and that I "don't understand what it's like to be a 12 year old" that he can no longer use being 12 years old as an excuse.

#Comment Re: made: 2005-10-07 19:06:56.937738+00 by: Mark A. Hershberger

I camped with my family in the smokies this past summer. A bike trip down there sounds great.

I think I understand the desire for some, any aspiration. I guess I'll just leave it at that.

#Comment Re: made: 2005-10-07 19:10:20.940748+00 by: Mark A. Hershberger

one more note: when we were living in NOLA, Alexis watched an 7-8 yr old boy for a friend. She would take walks with our own children every day, so she took them out.

Within a block and a half(!) the friend's child was complaining that he was tired. His mother didn't expect him to get off the couch or out from in front of the computer much.

Dewayne would hang around the drugstore, steal candy, grift for money various ways on the sidewalk outside, mouth off to old people who looked distainfully at him, disrespect his single Mom who "latchedkeyed" him many days, and generally make a public nuisance of himself.

He was a considerable distance from dumb, answering my question of "what do you want to be when you grow up?" with a quick "A burden on society."

In my few years at that store, several of us took a varying degree of interest in Dewayne and sorta befriended him and at least one of his Mom's boyfriends made some inroads into guiding him in a positive direction.

Time and marriage moved me to KY for 3 years and then back to Chattanooga, so I stopped by the drugstore. Among those I asked about was Dewayne.

I'm reminded of the old maxim attributed around here to the Catholic Church: "Give me a child for seven years and you can do whatever you want with him afterward."

Motivation and aspiration are PERHAPS traits which can be learned later in life, but methinks the road is uphill.....