Kiddos

Some other friends of mine have started a social website focused towards parents with kids in Copenhagen. Great work, great design. You'll probably never get a more enthusiastic web socialite than a proud parent - so I am sure that the site will get loads of content and commentary within no time.

I hope they have learned from other socially based guides - and put a time frame on added reviews, so they don't exist forever and prevent "progress of content", if one might call it that. I remember other examples (the Danish national 'Smiley' food vendor rating comes to mind) where those suffering poor reviews are doubly punished, either because the data just sits there forever regardless of real-life improvements, or because the rating criteria hinge on obeying a rigorous rule system. The 'Smiley' may be unhappy - but as a consumer you can never be sure if that's because there were rats in the kitchen, or because the owner had merely forgotten to jot down sanitary actions for a particular day.

I guess that is a philosophy of 'transcience' in some way - acknowledging that environmental data are always essentially outdated and doing your best to respect that when building stuff.

On another note, the little Thor had his old, relocated friend, Matthias, over for a visit today. Once best buddies in kindergarten, they only see each other rarely now. It was a true joy to see the kids' faces when they met up. 20 seconds later they were playing along like old days. Which mainly meant shouting, crying, and clawing at each other's throats.

The sentimentality of child situations like that lies so much in the heads of us adults, it is hard to fathom. The little guys don't give a shit...they just get on with life. Any parent that decides not to do something (relocate, travel, divorce, whatever) because of 'the children' does not really understand children at all. True, they experience sadness and regret momentarily...but unlike whining adults they don't have any existential terror yet. They adapt to life without that eternal doubt that a 'wasted' or 'potential' other course of life brings with it.