<Ellie>  ”Do I have to read this WHOLE THING???”

<Daddy> “Nope, all you really need is the summary, this is all pretty easy!  However, if you read the whole thing it will make more sense and you will write a better paper.”

SUMMARY - 

“What am i trying to prove? What are three things that prove what I want to prove? How can I show the reader that my proof proves what I want to prove?”

That is all you really need to answer, for yourself.  Answer those questions in your mind, and write the results into your word processor on the computer, and you’ll have a pretty good paper.  If you want a little more guidance, check out the extended version below :
I am writing a paper, how do I start? :

1. First you must answer the question : What am I trying to say? – this will be the subject (in writing it is called a thesis) of your paper, or your hypothesis, just like the scientific method.
You ALWAYS start your paper with explaining what you are trying to say, in this case we might say “Nevada is a nice place to live.” This should be a simple statement that you believe to be true. It should answer the requirements of the assignment as much as possible. If the teacher asks you to write a paper on ice cream being delicious, don’t write your paper about potato chips! Think deeply about the subject, and decide how you can best answer the question. For all of these examples, we will be using the assignment “What is it like to live in Nevada?”

Once you have decided on the subject of your paper, and the statement you’ll make to answer the subject in the best way, you will write it out in a sentence. For your grade level (grades 1-5) the majority of your papers will be answerable in one sentence.

You may think, “Only one sentence? Sure, I can do that, I’ll just write one sentence!” But, it won’t be that easy. Readers are not often foolish, and teachers are almost never foolish, especially when grading papers, so you need to convince your reader that your sentence is true. You’re going to use something called sourced evidence.

2. Next, we figure out : How can I prove that what I am saying is true? – this part of your paper will support your thesis using sources, probably from the Internet or a library.

You will want to think of three main arguments that support your thesis. These can all be fairly broad. In our example of Nevada being a nice place to live, we might go out and read some things on the Internet about Nevada. You can read the Wikipedia page, the Las Vegas Convention Authority, some books about Nevada, or anything you’d like. A big part of writing a paper is knowing what you are talking about. How can you convince anyone that Nevada is a nice place to live unless you know it to be true? If you haven’t done any research on your thesis, do it now. If you have already learned about your thesis, you might come up with some claims like the below :

* Nevada is a nice place to live because there are a lot of things to do.
* Nevada is a nice place to live because it does not cost a lot to live here (the cost of living is low.)
* Nevada is a nice place to live because there are many opportunities to experience natural beauty.

Typically, you will only need three claims. But, this really only results in a few sentences, not enough for a whole paper! This is where your sources will come in!

Find three facts for each of the three claims you’ve made. We’ll use our first fact to show an example of how you might do so.

We want to show that there are a lot of things to do in Nevada. You can start with the Las vegas Strip. This one doesn’t really need a source. You can talk about the things you have experienced, like the Bellagio fountains, and say how much fun they are. You may also want to talk about other things you can do in Las Vegas, but you want to show that the facts you’re citing aren’t just your opinion, but established facts! For this, you’ll need references. For our example here, we’ll use my webpage and after we say “Another great thing to do in Nevada is go to Madame Toussaud’s wax museum!”*1 and put a little number(Just like the one you see there after the quotes.  There are ways to make them look cool in word processors like Open Office, I can show you how.) next to your claim. Then, at the bottom of your paper, you add a bibliography, which tells your reader where they can get the information that you got. In this case, the bibliography entry for this item would look like this :

*1 http://willharris.me/2010/09/fun-stuff-to-do-in-las-vegas/

You would create a reference using *2 for your next claim, if it isn’t just your opinion, and make another line in your bibliography at the end. When you get older, you’ll do this in a more formal way, because there are rules that you need to follow for formatting, but in your grade group, you don’t need to be too formal.

You should write three facts for each of your three claims. So, nine sentences total, in three paragraphs (one for each claim.)

3. Finally, at the end of the paper, you’ll quickly recap your thesis, and come up with a conclusion. For your papers at your grade level, you will mostly just say your thesis again, and tell the reader again that it is true, and remind them that you have included lots of sourced facts to prove your point. This will be enough to convince them and give you a good grade.
I would also like to include a reminder about language. You are writing a research paper, not having a conversation with your friends. Don’t use conversational English. You want to write your paper with a very proper and professional tone. You aren’t supposed to be friendly to your reader, like I am being for you in this cheat sheet. You want to leave out slang words, silly phrases, and things like “I bet you didn’t know that!” or other phrases that aren’t important to your point. You want to make sure that every sentence is important and factual. If you need to know how to write, use examples from your sources. Your sources used will almost always be encyclopedias, books and websites at your age, and all of them write in a non-passionate and professional way. It will be hard at first, and it is OK if you don’t get it right, but you should always strive to write like the people on Wikipedia, they do a very good job.

Always remember that your father loves you, and if you ever need help, Daddy is always there to help you with your schoolwork or anything else in life.  You’re the best, I’m really proud of you, and I can’t wait to see your first paper after you’ve read this.  I think if you learn how to write papers the right way, you’ll really have an advantage throughout your whole school career.

In simple Japanese they will often use two character sets called Katakana and Hiragana which are basically analogous to our alphabet, but with vowels, so, there will be characters for “Ha, He, Hu, Hey, Ho OR ka, ke, ku, key, ko…etc (sounds like)” for most consonants with some missions consonants like L and some added combinations like sh, which is why some Japanese people have difficulty with their Ls and it sounds more like R when they’re speaking.

Children write with these, and most simple things like safety instructions are written like that for ease of understanding. Upon further study and growing older people will learn more and more Kanji, and a good part of most testing in school is learning your Kanji. Kanji are the complicated and numerous pictograms you see, and wonder, how can anyone learn a picture for every word? The answer is, its very difficult and takes years of study.

If you use language with no Kanji you may be seen as simple, so people do often use them in casual writing out of habit, or not wanting to appear stupid.

On the computer, the katakana and hiragana will be automatically translated from their romanji (roman languages) phonetics, or even to Kanji, by the PC, and as you “sound out the word” different possibilities will appear on your screen for you to choose from, at least on English language operating systems I’m using.

Interestingly, many Japanese people spend 6+ years in school learning English, so they can read and write quite well, and even understand you if you modify your pronunciation to be more Kata/Hiragana-esque.

For example : instead of Ham Sandwich, you would say hah-moh, san – do – wi – chu. Or, Macdonalds is mah-koo-doh-nah-roo-do (I made the spelling more like it sounds than the proper representations of katakana and hiragana) so you can speak to almost anyone in Japan and while you may not carry on an in depth conversation, as a tourist you can really get your point across without worrying about the language barrier.

“Albums should cost £1, then everyone will buy them”

Of course the industry resists this line of thinking!  The problem is, that recorded music has already become HEAVILY devalued.

Labels absolutely must work this value situation out, and their dragging their heels for decades is only making people value recorded music less.  I think the big problem is that labels realize that almost nothing that they produce besides the logistics and industry contacts actually adds any value in a world of near free distribution over the Internet.  In order to fix the industry, they might have to write themselves out of the majority of their profitability, and release their stranglehold on artists.  Labels of the future will be, likely, only performing a few functions.

1. Financing based on evaluation of talent and marketability.  Currently, they’re fucking horrible at this, but its really hard to be good at it.  Thus far, it has been difficult to predict success, especially for new acts, and the labels have lost so much money at this game that they’re forced to charge you insanely inflated prices for every artist’s work in order to make up for their spectacular failure on this bit of their business model.  The unfortunate thing here is that you can’t possibly guage what people will like without market testing, and even WITH advanced market testing the success of mega acts like U2 is based on such an enormous amount of ever changing factors that I don’t think we’ll ever have an algorithm to predict anything in this way.  It is mostly luck, and the ability to move quickly.  “Good” music as judged by musicians and afficianados is miles apart from what your average soccer mom will like, but soccer moms and other large buying groups have no idea why they like any music, they just do!  There has been some interesting research in this area, but it isn’t enough to base a business off of.
2. Getting the album recorded in a very high quality manner.  They’re damn good at this, but they sure do waste a ton of money here.  Even this function will eventually be unneccessary due to the amazing capabilities of even modestly priced home recording setups.  When computers can effectively simulate high priced mic pre amps, boards, room types, and other minutia of recording, the only thing most artists will be missing is knowledge of recording and the ability to coax the sound they want out of the complex software.  Much home recording software is already there, and with the exception of mastering many artists are ALREADY relying on systems in the low 5 figures in terms of cost.
3. Marketing.  They’re damn good at this, and this will likely never go away.  This is their most important function even now, but it is definitely not where the money gets spent, because the majority of their profit goes to HUGE salaries and artists that never make it but somehow manage to cost hundreds of thousands or even millions to record.

So, labels might have to resign themselves to being bankers and marketing experts.  So what if the few useful things they can provide aren’t as profitable as selling IP for much more than it is worth?  Why should the consumer have to pay so much to support executive salaries and a rate of failure so obscene that if you transplanted it to manufacturing the shareholders would burn the plant down?  Low value on music is the reality of the current market, and its not going to change until we see another big change in technology like P2P.

Businesses must accept reality to be successful.  If your only business model is protectionism, you are bound to fail eventually.  Unfortunately for the record biz, they don’t have a lot to offer besides being entrenched.

Long version with more info :

Boxee Box – this is THE one to get, if you can wait until November.  They’re available for preorder from Amazon now and definitely worth the money by a HUGE margin since not only will it play your media off your hard drive, but you can get almost anything off the Internet as well.  All those internet channels like revision 3, you tube, Netflix, Pandora, last.fm, and lots more are all available and are very easy to find and use via a really nice remote control.  $199 for the same software I run at home after trying almost everything available it’s the one I like the best.  I’ll be buying one for every TV in the house that doesn’t already have a PC hooked up to it.

http://www.boxee.tv/box

Logitech is also partnered with Google TV for something similar, but they’re only just announcing it tomorrow.  I’m not sure what the release date will be, but the hardware itself is going to be amazing from what I’ve seen.  Unknown price, but more info will be available tomorrow.

http://www.logitech.com/en-us/1005/7099?WT.ac=ps|7159|hp

You can buy an apple TV for $99, but you have to mess with it to make it work with your own (non apple) media, so I wouldn’t recommend this one unless you want to root it and install Boxee for a less than optimal Boxee experience or you’ve bought all your media through iTunes and plan to do that until you die.

http://store.apple.com/us/browse/home/shop_ipod/family/apple_tv?mco=MTkxNTgwMjU

If you can’t wait the western digital box is about $120 and plays almost everything.  I don’t have personal experience with this unit, but people online like it.  This one has a slight disadvantage since it doesn’t play Internet content, which I think will be more and more valuable over the next year or two especially with the launch of Google’s TV product.  You can get it here

http://www.amazon.com/Western-Digital-Media-Player-WDBABX0000NBK-NESN/dp/B003MVZ60I/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1286317111&sr=8-1

You can also stream media from your PC to a PS3 or Xbox 360 if you’ve already got a gaming console.  Look into PS3 Media Server for the PS3 or Tversity for the 360.  They both work great!

• Put gowalla on your phone and do the slots-a-fun trip there, 14 spots that represent both the touristy and local stuff. Lots of bars, restaurants, and attractions.  My favorite place on there is probably the Double Down Saloon, but it can get pretty funky sometimes.
• Bellagio has a fine arts gallery, and the Venetian does too.  Get some culture, usually for less than $20 per ticket.
• Stop by a bar or convenience store and pick up a City Life, Seven, or other local magazine for free, this will have all of the current and special events listed.  Food festivals, concerts, art shows, and more will all be listed there for the current week and the near future.
• Go see one of the naughty hypnotists, they’re all kind of bad but very funny, especially if you can get one of your friends or loved ones on stage.
• Go have drinks in a real Rainforest in the Mirage.
• Madame Toussaud’s wax museum offers a myriad of opportunities to lick or otherwise defile a celebrity that can easily pass as an actual event if you apply some basic blur in Photoshop.
• There are some great outdoor public shows on the Strip.  The volcano in front of Mirage is really great, and seeing the mini Eiffel Tower in front of the Paris are pretty cool.  There is also a huge black pyramid with a light beam that can be seen from SPACE called the Luxor.  Amazing!
• The Tournament of Kings is a bit of campy fun in the Excalibur, comes with free dinner, and you’ll be hoarse from yelling when you’re done if you get into the spirit.  There is also a greatly funny dragon battle that happens in the Excalibur’s moat, magic motion rides, and a carnival style midway downstairs.
• Wake up early (or stay up late) and watch the sun rise in the desert.  The colors are so vivid and varied, and you rarely see such intensity in the sky anywhere else in the world.
• In the Forum Shops in Caesar’s Palace there is an ever changing sky on the ceiling and a cool animatronic show starring many old gods and kings!
• Did you come with your significant other?  Renew your marriage with Elvis, or take a limo to the drive through chapel.
• Our newest addition, City Center, is a BILLION dollar collection of properties on the strip that has the most beautiful architecture and design in Las Vegas.  The first time I went there, I was stunned by the art collection scattered throughout.  The Skybar here is gorgeous.
• At the Luxor, there is an exhibition called “Bodies” that has real dead Chinese people, with no skin.  It is fascinating, humbling, and beautiful.  One of the best $11 I’ve ever spent.
• The Rio Hotel and Casino has Mardi Gras celebrations all day complete with blimps flying across the casino floor filled with beautiful people throwing down bead necklaces…they also have some amazing flair bartenders that can do more tricks than Tom Cruise in Cocktail.
• Two of the winners of Gordon Ramsey’s Hell’s Kitchen are in Vegas, and though they’re off strip, the food isn’t bad and its actually inexpensive.
• Take a gondola ride at the Venetian. If you aren’t bringing a date with you, then ask one on the spot if they want to go with you, its a great ice breaker, is public so its not TOO creepy, and its long enough so that you can work your charm.
• If you’ve got money, rent a Lambo or Ferrari for a day, it costs about $1500.
• Sports books can be really fun if you like sports. Make a small bet on an underdog, get into a screaming match with fans of the opposing teams, and watch the whole thing on huge ass screens while drinking free beers and sitting in comfy leather seats.
• Go see a local cover band in a casino lounge, they’re usually really good musicians, and you’re quite likely to get some attention from locals looking to party with some fun new out of towners.
• Head about an hour North out of town to Mesquite Nevada and get packages for Golf and Spa DAYS for as low as $100.
• The Las Vegas Motor Speedway has some really fun racing classes where you can drive at 180 MPH, take a ride with a pro driver, or simply watch some amazing racing.
• If you like poker, hit some poker rooms and see if you can spot Scotty Nguyen or Daniel Negreanu. I’ve seen a bunch of pros playing here.  The Wynn, Bellagio, and Binions have amazing poker rooms.
• If you don’t know how to play some of the casino games, take one of the free classes available in almost any casino.
• Get drunk and play some war. Its basically a kids game with decent odds and you don’t even have to be good at it, its pure luck and tons of fun when you’re too wasted to do anything else.
• Drive out to Area 51, a secret air base that some say has crashed alien technology in it.  See if you can spot a UFO, and commune with all the weirdos who stand out on the edge of the base every day.
• Check out the classic cars collection at the Imperial Palace and while you’re there stop and get some of the best Asian food in the city.
• Chinatown in Vegas, Vietnamese Pho…that is all.
• Strip clubs…WOW there are a lot of them here.  Spearmint Rhino has a great reputation, and the Olympic Garden has men on the second floor!
• The Hard Rock Cafe has a great collection of rock and roll memorabilia, and some of the best looking cocktail waitresses in town.
• Get a helicopter tour of the Grand Canyon or visit Redrock loop and have a hike or take a long ride on a rented motorcycle or bicycle.
• Rent a jet-ski or a boat and check out Lake Mead.  Don’t just go to the lake on foot, as its pretty dirty near the city.  You’ve got to do some traveling before you reach a nice clean outdoors experience.
• See the Hoover Dam.  Its HUGE, and some people who worked on the thing are encased in the concrete still.
• Go to one of the daytime pool parties like Rehab, more 10s(male AND female) than you will likely see anywhere else in Vegas, and they’re barely wearing anything!
• Catch a 3d movie at Town Square, 100 foot screens with unbelievable sound and video quality AND the seats are as comfortable as easy chairs!
• Visit some of the world class restaurants. Zagat has all the info you’ll need to choose, but if its named after a painter  like Picasso its world class.  Don’t ever waste your time with room service, its horrible food and CRAZY expensive.  You can eat at the best restaurants in the world nearly every night, so do your homework and hit the best restaurant in 5 or 10 properties while you’re here.  Lotus of Siam was proclaimed the best Thai restaurant in the USA by Zagat, and its not even on the strip.  Picasso, Renoir, Craftsteak, Shibuya, and more…Vegas dining is on par with our greatest cities.
• Go clubbing at least once. Its Vegas, you must.  Pure is lots of fun, and if you’re gay there are some great gay clubs on Paradise Road.
• If you’re from the East Coast, you can drive to LA in about four hours, and get some of the best Sushi you’ve had in your life and still have time during your day trip to see Hollywood.
• Circus circus has trapeze shows every 45 minutes, AND they have a giant concrete gorilla in front that is great for posing in front of with strangers.
• If you like beer, check out a local place called the Crown and Anchor. Its close to the strip and has an amazing selection of stuff on tap that you can’t get anywhere else.
• Get a room with a sick view, and have a party in it, this works even better if you have a balcony. The suites in Venetian’s sister property The Palazzo are over 1K per night but are awesome. Do this post clubbing and bring a bachelor/bachelorette party with you.  If you need something cheaper, go downtown and get something at the Golden Nugget.  The rooms can go as low as $100 a night for a suite!
• Winter is nice during the day, but a little chilly at night.  Summer gets cool enough at night, but the spring and fall are beautiful all day and night.  Rooms will be significantly cheaper on non-holiday weeks, but there will be fewer people around and partying, so its a trade off.
• Go check out the white tigers, huge aquariums, sharks, dolphins, etc. that are all over the town.
• Many of the best MMA (Mixed Martial Arts) camps in the world are based in Vegas.  Pre-arrange and you might be able to sit in on a training session with some of the best fighters in the world.
• See the light show in the Fremont Street Experience. For bonus points do a shot for every bum you see downtown.
• Ride the rollercoaster on top of the Stratosphere and eat at the “Top of the World” restaurant, the view is incredible.
• Spend at least a few hours walking the strip. Its really fun when you’ve got a buzz on and you can just walk into a casino when you get tired.
• If you like shopping there are great malls in Planet Hollywood, Bellagio, Fashion Show Mall, Belz Factory Outlet, Ceaser’s Forum Shopps and more.
• Get the Saturday Sterling buffet at Bally’s for brunch. Its perfect for hangovers.
• The Palms has a club called Ghostbar that has a 360 degree panoramic view of Vegas from 550 feet in the air.  Dance on a glass/see through floor in the clouds.
• The Hard Rock Hotel and the Palms both have themed suites with amenities like basketball courts and bowling lanes.  Every hotel has an amazing suite for the right price, but these two properties do something really special.
• The offstrip property Silverton has a really great aquarium and is one of the best things for small kids in Vegas.
• VIDEO GAMES!!  If you like video games, spend some time in Gameworks where you can play classic games from the 70s, or brand new games…all for hourly rates.  Also check out the Pinball Hall of Fame, the largest collection of classic pinball machines in the world.  It is literally a warehouse filled with Pinball and its a blast and also super cheap.
• Of course, you’ve got to do some gambling. Blackjack is awesome fun and you can “learn” how to play well enough to win in a few days of study pre-trip. Craps is hands down the most “fun” game since you’ll have the whole table cheering if someone is hot. Slots can be fun if you’re betting big (pool your funds) and having everyone take turns on like a $5 machine. Sitting there and playing your own machine is boring as hell, don’t do it.
• Check out the concert listings before you come…there may be a good show at the Joint in the Hard Rock or the House of Blues in the Mandalay Bay.
• If you’re going to go clubbing get on their mailing list before you go, they often give out free VIP passes, free entry, etc.
• Always be sure to tip the valet and bell boys well. They will hook you up for your whole trip for a few 20 dollar tips. Once you’ve got that good tipper reputation, the whole staff will bend to any desire you’ve got. Use these employees to get hookups for clubs, etc.
• The best shows in Vegas are : Any Cirque Du Soleil show besides Ka, the Blue Man Group, Sin City Comedy, Penn and Teller, and Terry Fator.
• Also, definitely check out the gardens and the fountains at the Bellagio, they’re really beautiful and can get you some great pics to show your family when you get home.
• There is an indoor skydiving place near the Las Vegas Convention Center that is CRAZY fun and makes for some hilarious videos. Don’t go when you’re drunk.

If you’re native, did I miss anything?  If you used this list, leave me a comment!  It’d make my day to know it helped someone plan a great time in my beloved hometown.

http://blog.joa-ebert.com/2010/08/19/introducing-jitb/

Mara almost died on day one, and nearly took my beloved wife with her. We were lucky that they were in the hospital at the time, and they both came out of it OK after a very serious trip to the OR. The first time I saw my second girl, she lifted her head up in response to my voice and did a bad ass push up. I remember being amazed and thinking “This one is going to be a champion.”

As time went on, she was pretty normal, but after the first few months she didn’t seem to be growing much, and doctors mirrored our concern at her slow and steady decline down the normalcy chart. At her last visit, she was so small that she was a good candidate for an early intervention program run by the state. Something is wrong, for sure, and without knowing what is wrong we have no idea what to do. It is a scary time for my family.

She is a happy girl, she knows about 100 signs (we’ve taught her American Sign Language), she laughs, she plays, and she says some words even though she says them poorly. She seems pretty normal, but her language development is a little late and she is very small. She’s so tiny that people in public often ask us how our 6 month old is walking so well at her age. Its hard to tell them she’s 19 months.

My wife spoke with the doctors in the early intervention program and they asked her a lot of questions. She told me about the interview and we both felt a little worried. I tried to show a lot of hope about the situation, and I really wanted to get home and give my beautiful little baby a big, big hug.

When I got home, I said hello to Heather and Ellie, and Mara ate a little and I left her to the snack that she was in the middle of smearing all over her head. I went into my room and sat down to read and decompress after work. Soon after, she wandered into the room, yelled “Dada!” in her sweet tiny voice, and I asked her to come join me in reading the latest Wired magazine on the bed. We spent a few minutes pointing at the pictures and naming them. She knows so many signs, its actually pretty strange that she isn’t speaking yet. As we were having fun, I thought maybe the time I spend with her every day trying to get her to verbalize just hasn’t been enough, so I thought I’d try some more. I asked her to say “car.” She signed car like a boss. I asked her to use her mouth to say car.

She looked at me for a moment and she must have seen the desire in my face, because she scrunched her little nose at me, opened her mouth as if she were going to force the sounds out by magic, and belted out a pirate like “darrr.”

It has been a long time since I felt that kind of pride and affection in my heart. I grabbed her and told her she did great and she beamed with satisfaction that her Daddy was proud. I knew at that moment that even if I had to sacrifice everything I had, I’d help her be as good as any other kid, and that I’d do everything I could to support her and it wouldn’t be a burden at all. I always wondered how my friends dealt with their children’s medical issues, but now I think I know. You don’t deal with it, it isn’t sad or scary, you just summon up everything you have for them and they reward you completely with the things they do, even when they’re only small victories.

The issue, I think, with Wolfram’s work is that the people who would ask the kinds of questions Wolfram’s site can answer already had the technology to answer those questions, and the people who might use the technology to answer innovative questions don’t know HOW to ask wolfram, and by the time they figure out how to ask, they’ve already got enough knowledge to answer it themselves using other tools and information.

The majority of this functionality has been available in Mathematica (also from Wolfram) for decades, in fact I remember demo-ing it years ago, installing it, and staring at the screen thinking “Wouldn’t that be cool if I knew what to ask this software to do?”  It is interesting that some of that functionality is now available for free on the web, but the technology itself is one of those things (like an Internet browser on your cell phone) that sounds a lot more useful than it ends up being.

The computing functionality is interesting, but from my experience, most of these values have already been computed and are available on Google anyways.  I hope that people can think of better things to ask of Wolfram in time, but thus far I haven’t seen a wealth of “new” information spilling out of the site or its users since its original launch. 

TL;DR – Average people have no clue how to use this site, and anyone who does already has more powerful methods than this website.