The boy who played with fusion

POPSCI ^ | Posted 02.14.2012 at 12:52 pm | Tom Clynes

[virgil283]

"Propulsion,” the nine-year-old says as he leads his dad through the gates of the U.S. Space and Rocket Center in Huntsville, Alabama. “I just want to see the propulsion stuff.”........This is before Taylor would transform the family’s garage into a mysterious, glow-in-the-dark cache of rocks and metals and liquids with unimaginable powers......But when his parents brought him to a toy store, [for a toy crane] the boy saw it as an act of provocation. “No,” he yelled, stomping his foot. “I want a real one. This is about the time any other father might have put his own foot down. But Kenneth called a friend who owns a construction company, and on Taylor’s birthday a six-ton crane pulled up to the party. The kids sat on the operator’s lap and took turns at the controls, guiding the boom as it swung above the rooftops on Northern Hills Drive.... To the assembled parents, dressed in hard hats, the Wilsons’ parenting style must have appeared curiously indulgent. In a few years, as Taylor began to get into some supremely dangerous stuff, it would seem perilously laissez-faire. But their approach to child rearing is, in fact, uncommonly intentional. “We want to help our children figure out who they are,” Kenneth says, “and then do everything we can to help them nurture that.”...

[G Larry]

Which paragraph of this story isn’t full of “incredibly dangerous”?

[Boiling point]

Wow! That kid has more brains in his little finger than Obama has ever even been in the same room with!

[Lurkina.n.Learnin]

The sawmill I used to work in had a mirror right above the time clock that had big bold letters saying “This is the Person Responsible for Your Safety”. No truer words were ever said.