Zach Paine

Psychology Today: Trashing Teens:

Imagine what it would feel like—or think back to what it felt like—when your body and mind are telling you you’re an adult while the adults around you keep insisting you’re a child. This infantilization makes many young people angry or depressed, with their distress carrying over into their families and contributing to our high divorce rate. It’s hard to keep a marriage together when there is constant conflict with teens.

Epstein goes on to argue that the infantilization of young adults is not only harmful, but that the whole notion of “adolescence” is a societal construct:

Many cultures do not even have a term for adolescence. But we not only created this stage of life: We declared it inevitable. In 1904, American psychologist G. Stanley Hall said it was programmed by evolution. He was wrong.

I think this is the primary reason I was so frustrated as an “adolescent”.

(Via kottke.)

If we had to pick a “typical Republican voter,” he or she would be an upper-income resident of a poor state, and the “typical Democratic voter” would conversely be a lower-income resident of a rich state. But these are more subtle concepts, not directly readable off the red-blue map—and, in any case, we would argue that given the diversity among supporters of either party, choosing typical members is misleading.

Bubba Isn’t Who You Think

stevenf is laying down the law when it comes to social networks.

I have to admit, I don’t really get social networks. I can barely make myself go on Facebook, let alone MySpace (or, as I like to call it, the internet circa 1998).

I feel like such an old curmudgeon.

Babies have lots of cute parts. Umbilical cords are not in that set.

Here’s the boy and me, a couple days ago. The past week has been pretty much the most crazy week of my life, and I hope to post a longer entry about it at some point, but for now, I’ll just say that I’m incredibly happy to meet Alex, and incredibly freaked out.

I think it’s pretty good.  The hair is spot-on, in particular.  Simpsonize yourself.

I’ve decided that it was time to start writing again.

Why?

I guess it’s partly because I haven’t done it for a while, and partly because of some big Life Event type stuff that’s coming up. Namely, Allison and I are having a baby (tomorrow most likely!).

So What…

Which is not to say that this site is going to be all baby, all the time. I imagine that I’ll continue writing about technology, the web, and my experiences at CMU.

Who cares?

I don’t know. Blogging for a small to non-existent audience is tricky. On the one hand, I could imagine writing purely for my own edification, but I think that would pretty much guarantee and audience of one. So, I’ll try share some interesting thoughts, and yes, baby pictures as well.

So, maybe you care.