Oregon Elementary School Nixes Pay-to-Pee Policy

An elementary school in Lebanon, Ore., has done away with a policy that required kids to pay to potty.

Some parents said teachers at Cascades Elementary School were punishing their children for needing to use the restroom outside of their scheduled bathroom breaks.

Melissa Dalebout told ABC News’ Portland affiliate KATU that her first-grade, daughter, Lily, had an accident at school while trying to hold in her urine.

In Lily’s class, said Dalebout, children had to pay “Super Pro” bucks to use the bathroom outside their scheduled breaks, or they could hold on to their fake money to buy trinkets at the school store, which parents says gives their kids an incentive to hold it in.

“I just feel my children should not be punished for having to use the bathroom, even if they didn’t take advantage of a recess break because they may not have been thinking of it. They’re children,” Dalebout told KATU.

“Super Pro” bucks isn’t the only potty strategy at Cascades Elementary. If kids use the bathroom outside the three designated break times, they could lose two minutes of recess, reported KATU.

Full Article

Posted in Goofy | Comments Off on Oregon Elementary School Nixes Pay-to-Pee Policy

New giant 3D printer can build a house in 24 hours

Scientists claim to have developed a revolutionary new giant 3D concrete printer that can build a 2,500-square-foot house in just 24 hours.
The 3D printer, developed by Professor Behrokh Khoshnevis from the University of Southern California, could be used to build a whole house, layer by layer, in a single day.

The giant robot replaces construction workers with a nozzle on a gantry, which squirts out concrete and can quickly build a home based on a computer pattern, MSN News reported.

It is “basically scaling up 3D printing to the scale of building,” said Khoshnevis.

‘Contour Crafting’ is a layered fabrication technology and has great potential for automating the construction of whole structures as well as sub-components, according to the project website.

Using this process, a single house or a colony of houses, each with possibly a different design, may be automatically constructed in a single run, embedded in each house all the conduits for electrical, plumbing and air-conditioning.

The potential applications of this technology are far reaching including in emergency, low-income, and commercial housing.

Full Article

The interesting stuff start around the 1:45 mark.

Posted in Interesting | Comments Off on New giant 3D printer can build a house in 24 hours

Bag of Randomness

493-1370993107-5

  • I’m not sure if I can remember the last time I had a meatless meal.
  • I thought ‘Modern Family’ lost it but last night’s episode was of their best, the writing was fantastic.
  • I saw my ear/nose/throat doctor yesterday and my allergies and sinuses are hitting me with the ol’ one-two.  At the end of my appointment I asked his thoughts on Vitamin D and he said I should just refer to my primary care physician.  I told her that my primary care physician highly endorses them but I was trying to get different perspectives on the matter, and he once again said I should just refer to my primary care physician.
  • Sometimes admitting defeat and giving in isn’t such a bad idea.
  • The TEA has released all 2013 STAAR tests for download, you can check out the details at the Texas Tribune.
  • The other day I made mention of a new product from Polaroid, yesterday I found out you can actually still buy the film for your old Polaroid cameras.  And in related Polaroid stuff, one person’s hobby and blog is taking photos of celebrities with Polaroids and having them autograph the photo as it develops.  Dang, that’s a cool bit.
  • It turns out some Asians were upset at the last episode of ‘How I Met Your Mother’ accusing them of “yellow facing”, I term I’ve never heard.  I’m usually very sensitive towards the mocking of Asian portrayals, especially the slanting of eyes and over-exaggeration of accents, but I didn’t find anything wrong with the episode whatsoever.  To me it was along the line of Italians having some sort of mafia connection or their love for pasta.
  • Robert Gates was on ‘The Daily Show’ last night.  Stewart is a better interviewer than most people give him credit for, and I do admire a lot of Gates’ character, our country was fortunate to have him serve.
  • Mo Rocca was fantastic on Letterman last night, I had no idea he was such a great interview.
  • I know another girl with that named that stated this happened, though she didn’t provide the details.
  • What Disney Characters Look Like IRL
  • Overheard on a commercial, “God gave me this body, I’m gonna strut it.”
  • I wanted to get WifeGeeding’s impression of ‘Friday Night Tykes’ and she couldn’t even make it through the intro, she can’t stand seeing children treated like that.
  • I think every Cowboys fan is happy to hear that Mike Zimmer finally got a head coaching gig.
  • Wade Phillips is disappointed he hasn’t even gotten an interview as a defensive coordinator.  If you go through his Twitter media he has a few interesting pictures of the new house he’s having built in Houston.
  • Emmitt Smith finally realized it was time to retired after he put his pads on in the visitor’s locker room at Texas Stadium.
  • Sometimes I feel like there are so many great things out there to learn about, in books, in television, and cool projects like learning a new language, coding, or a medium to large range home construction/modeling project.  There are times I can’t wait to get started on them, and others where I feel like there’s so much out there none of them are worth tackling, and sometimes I try only for the energy to fizzle out.
  • Federal agents say Breaking Bad-inspired blue meth is on the rise in New Mexico
  • Reasons not to move to Austin
  • Can you name the 8 actors and actresses that have won an Oscar and a Razzie.
  • Here’s a list of ten things you may not know about Girl Scout cookies, I was most interested in the link for the original recipe you can cook at home, which is pretty simple.
  • What makes Seahawks’ CenturyLink Field the most raucous stadium in the league? – I think it’s amazing that the two loudest NFL stadiums are open air and not domed.  And I had no idea for such a “new” NFL stadium it only has a capacity of around 67,000.  One current QB wrote about the experience.
  • Man Who Collected Every Gatorade Flavor Forced to Throw Them Out by His Mom – When I was a kid Gatorade use to come only in glass bottles.  On one summer day my brother put one in the freezer for a quick chill but forgot about it.  As the Gatorade froze it expanded and broke the bottle and the broken glass fell into the ice-maker.  I’ve always chewed glass and one piece just didn’t quite feel like the others, but it was a little hard to tell as my mouth was a bit numb from all the ice chewing.  For a moment I almost bit really hard on it, but stopped at the last moment, spit it out, and showed my father who wasn’t too happy.  And to beat some of you to the punchline, sometimes I do wish I would have chewed or swallowed the piece.
  • The coach that went from Butler University to the Boston Celtics has them with a 14-26 record and fourth in their division.
Posted in Personal | 1 Comment