Indonesian Digital News Archive

Boston Museum of Science, Boston MA

We've visited this museum several times, and keep discovering pockets that we missed before. This is a large museum with exhibits that will fascinate kids from 1 on up. The youngest visitors will probably spend lots of time in the Discovery Center. Though only a corner of this enormous building, it has two floors of preschool age activities: a vacuum tube, various building materials, a strong blower, a water table, a bee hive, animal costumes, live woodland animals and insects, animal bones, hiding spots... those are the elements I can reel off without even thinking about it. Not comprehensive - so you can get an idea of how much the Discovery Center offers. The exhibits in the rest of the museum are too numerous to count. An electricity show is free with admission and is exciting. I still remember the climax of the show from my childhood, when lightening is created right in front of your eyes. The last time I took my children there, my oldest, at 4, did not have the attention span for the show so we'll try again next time.

Parking is extremely convenient and usually costs us $11. The garage is attached to the museum itself so even in winter weather it works out great. There is a large cafe with tons of food choices and copious seating. We choose to bring our lunch and then supplement with buying a treat there. It's really expensive. The other huge advantage is that by bringing your own food you are skipping the whole line experience. There are often large school groups, and it is always crowded. Once the kids' tummies are full they are ready to go.

If you are a member of the Springfield Science Museum/Springfield Quadrangle, your admission is FREE. And you don't wait in line, just continue on to the turnstiles, show your membership card and you are in the museum. That's it. Through the Association of Science and Technical Museums, the Springfield membership will privilege you to free admission at the Boston Children's Museum, the Ecotarium, the Boston Science Museum, and many more museums in other states. We have been members for several years now- our annual fee would be paid for in visits to the Quadrangle alone, never mind the aforementioned additional places.

Museum of Science

ADC 2 Updates

Since the announcement of Android Developer Challenge 2 in May, Android phones continue to be deployed in countries worldwide. Android phones are currently available in over 20 countries, with more on the way. As I've mentioned earlier, we'll be including real-world users of these phones to help review and score your submissions. It is important to remember that your apps will be reviewed by judges around the world on actual devices; thus, be sure to make it extremely easy for users/judges to access your apps with minimum setup.

Some of you have been asking for clarifications on what we mean by "open only to applications that have not been published". To be specific, applications that are available on Android Market before August 1, 2009 will not be eligible to participate in the contest. Users have already been providing comments for apps that are currently available on Android Market, so it wouldn't make sense for them to "judge" the same apps again in this contest. In addition, apps that include or that are based on open source projects are fully welcomed, as long as the application itself is not on Android Market until August 1, 2009.

If you want to find out more details about ADC 2, you can find everything at the ADC 2 page along with the Terms and Conditions. For the moment, the most important thing to know is that ADC 2 submissions will be due August 31. I can't wait to see what you all come up with this time.

Happy coding -- and good luck!

Peaked Mountain, Monson, MA

What a wonderful hike! There are two parking areas, one at the Miller Forest Tract and one at the Peaked Mountain Tract. The second was our choice for our walk. We picked up a map, unusual for us but serendipitous as there are a lot of well networked trails. They are blazed but also numbered at key intersections, which was great. We first headed to the "Valley View" area, and after taking in a snack and a lovely vista, headed to the "Peaked Mountain" area and climbed around quite a bit taking in the view from many directions. A marker indicated the mountain's highest point, and a mailbox jutted out of the side of a pine tree. A journal inside contained memories left by hikers past. A new volume is needed, so if you take this hike you could bring a notebook with you to leave there.

The fact that this park is borded by a wildlife sanctuary (and endless miles of woods) showed itself in the forms of many frogs, croaking away and leaping among the reeds of a small pond we encountered. A larger pond was visible from the top of the mountain, located in the Miller Forest Tract of land. A magical encounter with a fawn was the highlight of our day. For several minutes my family clustered at the edge of a trail, whispering with excitement and peering into the eyes of this graceful and solemn little guy. None of my photos came out, naturally.

This summit was a long hike for our boys, who are quite hardy. I wouldn't choose it for kids who are starting to get used to hiking. But it wasn't too long- we'll do it again in a minute!

Peaked Mountain

Eric Carle Museum, Amherst, MA

On the grounds of Hampshire college sits this unusual building with it's enormous windows and gnarled apple trees studding the lawn.
There are several areas inside to explore. The staff and volunteers at the museum are very friendly and knowledgeable.
In the art room, children are invited to do a project. They can also choose to color on a papered table. If they are not interested in, or too young for, the project, they can play with a variety of toys in an attractive play area.
In the library, board books, toys and puzzles are available for play. Thousands more picture books line the shelves.

The gallery has some great exhibits, but we usually skip it. It is best seen with a 1:1 child-parent ratio.
The cafeteria is a large sunny room equipped with high chairs. There is no longer any food served there, but there are several vending machines with drinks, snacks, and lunchy items from Atkins Farms. I'm sure the food is good, but it's also quite expensive.
The movie theatre is well appointed. We have seen a couple of shows there.
The gift shop looks lovely, but I've been telling my children for years that it is off-limits to children. I've never really looked around.
The outdoor space is beautiful and we always spend time out there when the weather is nice.
The restrooms are immaculate, cute, and each has a child size potty. Best restrooms ever.
Parking is copious, but there is no shade in the lot.

Eric Carle Museum

Strawberry Picking

Here's a short list:

J.M. Pasiecnik Farms, 207 River Road, Whately

Koran's Farm and Gift Stand, 160 East Hill Road, Monson

Lakeside Strawberries, River Road at Warner Road, Hadley

Nourse Farms, 41 River Road, Whately

Sapowski Farms, 436 East State St. (Route 202), Granby

Teddy Smiarowski Farm, 487 Main St., Hatfield

Val's Berry Farm, 81 Parker St., East Longmeadow

Meadowbrook Farm, 185 Meadowbrook Road, East Longmeadow

Dickinson Farms, Rt. 202, Granby

Recent Article

West End Creamery, Sutton, MA

Just down the road from Purgatory Chasm, a visit to this creamery/entertainment center was a nice ending to our day.

We ate ice cream on the deck overlooking a beautiful lazy river, varied fields, a mini golf course that looked really nice from a distance.

I didn't see the "Farmyard" or the mini golf because I didn't want to open that can of worms when we were worn out from hiking. We steered clear. The barn houses various farm animals. According to another patron there it's not exactly a petting zoo, but you can visit with cows, horses, sheep, etc.

Before becoming an entertainment center/ice cream shop, this establishment was the milk purveyor for the area. My father grew up nearby, and remembers the half pint bottles of West End Creamery milk that he drank during snack time at school. Somehow it lent our ice cream an "authentic" taste - we learned that authenticity is creamy and delicious, and sometimes comes in a cute little mini cone.

West End Creamery

Purgatory Chasm

Purgatory Chasm (my post)

Quabbin Hike, Belchertown, MA

After checking to see whether the viewing tower had reopened (it has not), we headed down one of the trails that snakes down the hillside.

In the aftermath of severe weather, we found massive trees downed, jagged trunks and limbs, dripping sap from a severed pine, and twig litter all over the path.

The trail had no spectacular view, save for the top of the hill. It wound through beautiful old forest, was lined with soft mosses, and offered glimpses of that gorgeous pink Quabbin rock. We ended up at a road and decided to turn around, as two juice boxes would barely get us through the climb back up.

Quabbin Reservoir (DCR site)

Quabbin Fishing Area (my post)

Quabbin Viewing Tower (my post)

Winsor Dam (my post)

Purgatory Chasm, Sutton, MA

Our first visit here was a great success. We hiked the short but challenging chasm, then circled back on a one mile loop. The trails were well-blazed. The "hike" through the chasm involves mostly climbing, some precarious. The kids needed help in one or two places. The only injury to our party, a severely skinned knee, happened on the sidewalk my oldest was hurtling down, so eager to show me that he had just safely descended a slab of rock two stories high. The second part of our walk was a more traditional hike through woodland with really cool, huge rocks scattered about.

The parking area was clean and new, as was the pavillion where we ate our sandwiches. The trails were very well blazed. The visitor center looked very kid friendly and hosts a lot of programs.

If the natural wonder of the place were not enough, they've built a fantastic playground in a clearing surrounded by incredibly tall pine trees. Swingset, climbing structure, climbing rocks, even a spinning, climbing thingy. The playground was so well situated it seemed to have grown there.

Picnic spots dot the playground area and the areas near the parking lots. The spots have barbecues and picnic tables. The restrooms were clean.

We'll definitely go back to explore some of the overlooks and special features.

There is an ice cream place down the road, if you're into that sort of thing!

Purgatory Chasm

Introducing Android 1.5 NDK, Release 1

Many of you have been asking for the ability to call into native code from your Android applications. I'm glad to announce that developers can now download the Android Native Development Kit from the Android developer site.

As you know, Android applications run in the Dalvik virtual machine. The NDK allows developers to implement parts of these applications using native-code languages such as C and C++. This can provide benefits to certain kinds of applications.

The NDK provides:

a set of tools and build files used to generate native code libraries from C and C++ sources
a way to embed the corresponding native libraries into application packages files (.apks) that can be deployed on Android devices
a set of native system headers and libraries that will be supported in all future releases of the Android platform, starting from Android 1.5 documentation, samples and tutorials

This release of the NDK supports the ARMv5TE machine instruction set and provides stable headers for:

libc, the standard C library
libm, the standard math library
the JNI interface
libz, the common ZLib compression library
liblog, used to send logcat messages to the kernel

Keep in mind that using the NDK will not be relevant for all Android applications. As a developer, you will need to balance its benefits against its drawbacks, which are numerous! Your application will be more complicated, have reduced compatibility, have no access to framework APIs, and be harder to debug. That said, some applications that have self-contained, CPU-intensive operations that don't allocate much memory may still benefit from increased performance and the ability to reuse existing code. Some examples are signal processing, intensive physics simulations, and some kinds of data processing.

For any questions on the NDK, please join the Android NDK forum.

Have fun.

Natural Treasure Hunt

My sons needed some encouragement to get outside yesterday morning as the day was gray. My oldest is obsessed with TV, so I told him to collect these items before he could watch any. During the process he forgot about watching TV and became totally engaged in the activity. While I started the list, he soon asked to make the pictures himself (none of my kids read yet). I was impressed at the textures that he put into the bark, and at his suggestion to add mushrooms to the collection items. I liked that this activity incorporates number recognition, following a list, using pictorial "reading" skills, and of course, nature.

The boys found their magnifying glasses and spied all around the yard. They found quite a few items not on the list, most of them alive. I had a long conversation with one about where to find twigs (underneath the pine trees), the difference between evergreen trees and deciduous trees; he ran to every tree in the yard and asked about it - we talked about broad flat leaves vs. small fine needles in clusters. After the collection period, they enjoyed taking everything out of the wagon and comparing the list to the items. As it turns out they had forgotten a few of them and eagerly searched out those last couple of objects.

I have used this activity in the past as a way to get the kids out in the wintertime, when it's really cold and they need something short - in those cases you can just pick 3 or 4 things to get such as a dried up leaf, 2 pine cones, and 3 snowballs, and maybe one of those mittens that you left outside yesterday! In the autumn I've asked them how many different colors of leaves they can find. This has been an interesting excercise in the spectrum (one brother calls it yellow, another insists that it is brown - discuss!).

Usually my children need no incentive to go hiking, but if they were reluctant, introducing a list like this might sweeten the deal.

McCray's Farm and Creamery, South Hadley, MA

McCray's has improved it's petting zoo since my last visit, but still straddles the fence between ramshackle charm and dilapidated mess. My previous visit there was so unpleasant that it kept me away for several years. The animals had been groomed fairly recently and looked somewhat healthier than last time, but the smell was still overpowering (in relation to other farms and petting zoos). The beginning of the petting zoo path is well maintained, but the further you go, the grosser it becomes. The duck pond was adorned with lots of trash, as well as the adorable baby duck pictured above. They've removed the dirty but fun "castle" that used to be there. The pig was nowhere to be seen, but his sty was still the stinkiest pen. One of the best parts of the outdoor area is an old tractor planted in the ground for kids to ride. My boys spent more time on that tractor than anywhere else. So, McCray's is a mixed bag.

The store/restaurant is very clean and very cute, with murals painted all around. Cones of animal feed are 3/$1. Most of the patrons that we saw had brought their own bags of stale bread or vegetables, which the animals were eager to gobble.

The restrooms can be accessed from outside and were clean.

The real reason to visit McCray's is for the hayrides in the fall. They have a super scary one for adults, which I have been on and it really was scary! (Well, disclaimer: I can't even tolerate previews for horror movies). They have a more tame version for kids. The lines are often long but these are great rides. Next time I visit here, it'll be for that reason. In a couple years probably, when my kids are ready.

McCray's website.