I just read the most interesting thread on Reddit. A mom is getting ready to bury a treasure chest for her now 1 year-old, to dig up in three years as a fun activity. She wants to know what kind of goodies she should bury.

love this idea. I remember burying small boxes of treasure when I was a kid (our attempt at a time capsule), and then digging them back up four or five months later. It was always a lot of fun, but being kids, we never had overly interesting stuff to bury.

Several commenter’s had great ideas. internettoad suggested an extensive list of good items for a kid:

• eye patch
• toy compass
• hand held telescope
• bandanna
• stuffed parrot to ride on his shoulder
• envelope with cash & map to some local adventure, if you're near the ocean, certainly a sailboat ride
• some seeds to grow a flower or plant to hide (fix) the burial spot, and this will keep his fun going
• constellation map, or those glow in the dark stickers to put on the ceiling of his room
• some old dvd's of Sinbad the Sailer
• a love note of how much he means to you, written in a foreign language, that he will only discover the true meaning when he is old enough and curious enough to pursue it and get it translated. Make him wait until he's old to figure it out.
• a list of virtues to live by
• a kid's Bible (if you're Christian)
• the Pledge of Allegiance (if you're a US American), he'll learn it before he get's to kindergarten!
• a savings account where he can stash all the $1 coins you pour in the chest. He'll want to dress all pirate on his trip to the bank of course!

pattymcfatty recommended playing the game forward, with a club for the next chest to be found in several years time. “Put a key in it that will open a treasure chest he will dig up when he is 6ish.”

leftnut had my favorite suggestion

Bury it under a cryptic marker. Maybe an "X" made of garden stones or something. That way he'll grow up having seen the marker and taken it for granted, only for it to be revealed that there was treasure buried there the whole time! You can even include it in a map or set of clues that he finds later. Plus it'll help make sure you can find it.

I thought about what I would hide and came up with the following list.

• Lego set
• "gold" coins → $1 or fake coins
• eye patch
• pirate hat
• magnifying glass
• model dinosaur bones
• A jar of coins (hundreds of pennies)
• kaleidoscope
• glass gems

As for a container, a military ammo box would work great. The waterproof seal would help keep the contents fresh, they are relatively easy to purchase (~$15), and are roughed by design. Unfortunately, it does not look like a pirate chest. It might be a good idea to paint the outside of the container to look like an old chest or map.

To lead the kid to the treasure, one should make a “old style” map. One with browned paper, burnt edges, that was stored in a hidden place (such as in the attic or in a crawl space).

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During the past several weeks, I have accumulated a short list of rather interesting stories/ videos. Links that I both do not want to lose, but also want to share with others. Why not post to a social networking site, like my favorite Reddit? Simple, these links have already graced the pages of those sites. So, here they are, in no particular order.

Wealth distribution in the United States

Bottom 90% of the population, holds roughly 12.2% of the investment assets (2007).

Is college worth it?

George Town research paper aggregates income data for people based on their level of education, and type of education. The summary page provides links to the detailed data for each field discussed.

Whiteboard animation on motivation

What motivates people to work harder at work? The common perception is pay a person more money, then they will work harder for you. This is true of mostly physical tasks, but it breaks down when cognitive abilities are utilized. The research shows you should pay someone just enough money, so they do not have to worry about money, and then incentivize them with other forms of reward. Such as recognition, autonomy, or difficult problems to work on. All of this is summarized with an amazing whiteboard animation. Well worth watching.

Parking ticket on an asteroid

A staked claim to an asteroid, and then mailed NASA a parking ticket for landing a craft on that asteroid. NASA refused to pay the ticket.

Science is fun ............ And more fun!

Gravity probe B was the smoothest object ever created by humans to date. Its purpose was to detect distortions (eddy currents) in the space-time field around the Earth, caused by the Earth’s spin, as predicted by Einstein’s theory of relativity.

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My coworkers have been beating on the movie, Shakes the Clown, for the past two months. Any time any one mentions something painful or movies in general, this movie comes up and they all agree that this is one of the worst movies ever made. So, I thought that I’d give it a try.

Luckily, Netflix had the movie available for streaming, so I didn’t have to wait long once I decided to watch it.

I’ve seen my share of bad movies over the years. In college, I was vice-present of the short lived (one semester) Bad Movie Club. We specialized in finding the worst of the worst, terrible, most painful movies in existence; and then watching them.  Shakes the clown, is NOT a bad movie.

The plot is a little weak. It follows Shakes, a clown, for a couple days.  The audience is introduced to his alcoholic life, we get to see his social connections breaking down and the troubles he has been having. The climax of the movie comes when he gets framed for a crime and he tries to turn his life around.  Story wise, everything flows nicely and the dialog is not over the top, with such great one liners as: “That was a lucky shot of whiskey”.

The visuals for the movie were really spectacular.  There was a dramatic contrast between the brightly colored clowns and the dull/ dusty background of the bar and their apartments.  I was very pleased with the wide variety of clowns pictured, old washed up loners, cross-dressing men, rough and tough rodeo clowns, and the standard neat colorful clowns we see at the circus.

Movie Grade: 3 Stars

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