Gone to the Dogs

CRITTER COLLEGE: Tuesday evening, we headed to Seattle Center for a special event. On the schedule was a lecture entitled "Pet College 101: From Stray to Stay." (The subtitle on the PowerPoint slide above is a little wrong, BTW.)

We decided to make the most out of the event by splashing around in the International Fountain at Seattle Center, and enjoying a picnic dinner in the shadow of the Space Needle.

About 6:20, we headed to Pacific Science Center's PACCAR theater for the lecture. But first, we stopped in the theater lobby to visit the kitten cuddle corral!

Once inside the theater, we took front row seats and enjoyed the presentation. I've have the kids tell you a bit about it. 

CJ is up first. ...  

On 17 July 2018, I went to Seattle Center's Pacific Science Center to see a presentation from the Seattle Human Society about training pets (in particular dogs) to be fit for adoption by humans. The presentation started at about 7 P.M, and was two hours long.
Before the presentation formally started, there was an open-roofed cage (I think there's a word for that) with three kittens in it. If I recall correctly, they were six weeks old, and their names were Asparagus, Cauliflower, and Snow pea.

During the presentation, a Weimaraner-hound mix named Kaia was often brought out. Kaia was one and a half years old, and was actually put up for adoption the following day at 11 A.M. Kaia was used to demonstrate how to teach a dog a trick (for example: Getting Kaia to spin in a circle by bringing a treat around her in a circle). Kaia seemed kind of spazzed-out at the attention.

Disa Emerson, the presenter, told us about five different kinds of reacting to a dog's (mis)behavior: Positive Reinforcement (rewarding desired behavior with something the dog likes), Negative Reinforcement (rewarding desired behavior by removing something the dog doesn't like), Positive Punishment (punishing undesired behavior with something the dog doesn't like), Negative Punishment (punishing undesired behavior by removing something the dog likes), and Extinction (refusing to pay attention or visibly react to a dog's undesired behavior).

And here's Annabelle's take on the lecture. ... 

“Pet College: From Stray to Stay” is part of a series of “Member Meet and Greets” at Pacific Science Center. The presenters talked about how they train animals at the Seattle Humane Society. To help with the demonstration, they brought a Weimaraner mix named Kaia to perform some tricks.

One of the first points that was made was that when training an animal, you shouldn’t think about what you don’t want them to do, but rather what you do want them to do. For example, if you want a dog to stop barking at people when they enter, have them grab a pillow and hold it instead. Another method, called counter conditioning, is to associate something they don’t like with something they do (usually food or treats). When a person or thing they don’t like appears, give them a treat as soon as it occurs. The animal will learn that this thing is now immediately followed by food, which makes it a good thing.

It’s always preferable to reward an animal for good behavior than to punish it for bad behavior. If your dog barks at passing cars, only reward it when it is quiet and calm. If you get angry, it may just think you are alerted to the car as well and it’s doing a good job. If you ignore the behavior (known as “extinction training”), something called an “Extinction Burst” may happen where the behavior gets worse before it gets better. An example is if a puppy whines to get out of its cage when it doesn’t need to, if you ignore it the whining will continue to get louder and more annoying before stopping completely.

In conclusion, they showed that animals think very simply and it’s easy to train them if you know what you’re doing. The hardest part is being consistent with rewards and punishments. Even just minutes of training can completely affect a dog’s reaction and state of mind. If you want to learn more and support the Humane Society, you can visit their website at www.seattlehumane.org.

MAKER: This weekend, I was busy with home improvement projects, but I wanted the kids to do something other than sit staring at a screen, so I asked Annabelle to go find our Makey Makey, and make something. 

Less than a hour later, CJ was test driving the guitar she had built out of cardboard and quarters!

Pretty darn cool! (And yes, we know that "S" is not one of the notes of a standard guitar string. She was following the instructions to a T. Or should it be to an S?

ORIGIN-ALLY: Tuesday afternoon we watched a replay of a webcast that happened this morning before CJ and Annabelle saw fit to rise. It was footage of Blue Origin's latest crew capsule test flight. 

Their capsule, New Shepard, is a beauty. Its windows are huge compared to other crew capsules we've seen. The test involved an emergency escape feature the capsule has. During the test, the altitude reached was nearly 390,000 feet, or 119 kilometers. Its top speed on ascent was 2,236 mph.

Incredibly, both the booster and the capsule made spot-on landings back at Blue Origin’s West Texas test site. 

The webcast (embedded below) was about an hour long. The launch took place about the 30 minute mark. However, the whole webcast is worth watching, as there's lots of great info about New Shepard.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NRDhdHRyyjc

New Shepard Crew Capsule, July 18, 2018, during descent on Mission 9. - Source - Blue Origin

Connecting

WIRED: Monday morning we had double fun. We got to hang out with my cousin who was up from Albuquerque, and we got to take a (return, in our case) tour of Connections Museum Seattle, a one-of-a-kind collection of all things telephone-related.

The museum is usually only open for a few hours each Sunday, but Monday happened to be a special opening as part of their 30 year anniversary celebration.

Per their website, the museum reports they feature "working Panel and Crossbar electromechanical central-office switches. We also have working Step-by-Step and Crossbar PBX equipment as well as antique telephones, switchboards, outside plant displays (poles, cables, splicing equipment, and tools) and a reference library."

It really is a sight to behold!

 So. Many. Wires. And switches. And circuits. 

 I wanted to push them and flip them and plug them, but I resisted the urge. :) 

 We had some very knowledgeable docents lead us on a two-hour tour.

One interesting spot was this old map of microwave radio routes. What's interesting is microwave signal transmission is actually coming back into favor because it's a tiny bit faster than fiber optics cables.

 I love looking at the various parts and papers sitting around the space.

Below is a bona fide ticker tape machine. The used papers were what rained down on New York parades.

Annabelle volunteered to give an old pay phone a go. By the way, it's worth noting that this is a *working* museum. Most of what we saw is still operational.

 I fancied this cute little Japanese pay phone.

 And I ADORE this fancy pay phone, complete with shell surround!

This Snoopy phone is a blast from the past. I always wanted one, but they were soooo spendy! The only person I knew who had one back in the day was a neighbor whose dad worked for the phone company.

This phone made me take notice! Why? ... Check out its plug. Though it wasn't wireless, it clearly was a portable phone you could carry from room to room.

And lookie (below) what we have all throughout our house. Those four-prong outlets that would have worked for just such a futuristic phone back in the day! 

LAUNCH ALERT: We received notice from Blue Origin (a Kent, WA based aerospace company with Jeff Bezos behind it) about a test flight they're conducting tomorrow.  Specifically. ... 

New Shepard will fly for the ninth time tomorrow, July 18, 2018. We’ll be doing a high altitude escape motor test – pushing the rocket to its limits.   Current launch target is 9:00 am CT / 14:00 UTC, you can monitor twitter for launch updates. The live webcast will be available on BlueOrigin.com and begins at T-20 minutes prior to launch.

We also have payloads on board, click here to learn more about the Mission 9 manifest.

Excited to see you all on launch day.
- Gradatim Ferociter!

Photo credit: Blue Origin - New Shepard on the launch pad the morning of Mission 8, April 29, 2018.

I kind of love that some of the payload on board this flight will be items from Blue Origin's “Fly My Stuff” program. The stuff is payloads from Blue Origin employees. Talk about an employee incentive program!

Rearview Mirror

CAMPED OUT: Time to play catch up on some scenes from camp, where Christian and the kids were last week. 

One of the most entertaining and memorable parts of camp is always 'biscuit' riding, also known as being towed behind the Party Barge while riding inflatables. 

 https://youtu.be/Fu7U97T-BKc

You can see from the smiles they had big fun!

 There was also time to lounge on the unicorn and other inflatables. 

 And back on land, a jigsaw puzzle was one way to pass some time.

Here's how CJ explains the excursion. 

It is an annual tradition on my father's side of the family to visit the Baker Bay Campgrounds in Lane County, Oregon for about one week in July. The Baker Bay Campgrounds are run by the Lane County government, and cost $24 a day to rent a campsite out, according to my father.

At Baker Bay, you don't have internet access or smartphone service most of the time. This, for better and worse, means being cut-off from the outside world. However, at the end of each day, my father was able to call my mother using his work phone. The highlight of the trip was going "biscuiting" (riding on inflatable intertubes in the water, while being pulled by a boat) in Dorena, which often resulted in crashing in the water.

Lastly, visits to Baker Bay mean eating all sorts of junk that's perceived a bit differently at home. This included a healthy diet of Doritos and Goldfish.

What's not to love about that?