I was always under the impression that television was ultimately doom for a married couple, especially if they had kids or were ever planning on having sex again. One couple takes on that debate in a recent article from MSN TV News.

According to authors Adam Berliant and Martha Brockenbrough, Battlestar Galactica--the new one, not the old one we watched as kids--is the Reese's Peanutbutter Cup of programming. That's a tall order! The concept is really that BG is the one program both genders can agree upon. There's something for everyone, whether it's cyborgs or sex.

As far as I'm concerned, the more time I spend in front of the boob toob the less time I spend doing anything with my husband, including getting along. We don't really watch a lot of television because we're rarely together (he's in school), I'm busy writing, and we have a baby we're trying to not let watch TV until he's two.

That said, everyone we've ever met, it seems, raves about Battlestar Gallactica. We recently had a party populated with a rather diverse crew who all agreed we must immediately put the other seasons of BG on our Netflix cue. So be it. But I don't think it's going to save our marriage (not that it needs saving). In fact, had we gotten involved in what I hear is a rather intricate web of characters and stories, we might not be expecting in October! Perhaps we'll actually get to watch them when we're on maternity leave (and paternity leave).

In my day, there was BASIC -- the Beginner's All-purpose Symbolic Instruction Code, a purportedly easy-to-learn, general purpose programming language. When microcomputers started to become available, it was often included as a way to let new owners -- and their kids -- do something with the computer. Then there was LOGO with its "turtle graphics". Designed for kids, it was meant to teach the basics of programming and was heavily used in schools, thanks in large part to the version distributed by Apple Computer.

While both of those languages are still in use, there's a new kid on the block in the educational programming world. It's called Scratch and was designed at the MIT's Media Lab. One of it's developers, Professor Mitchel Resnick, was also responsible for the Lego Mindstorms robotics toolkit. Speaking of Legos, this new language works much like building with the little bricks. "Kids make programs by snapping blocks together," said Professor Resnick, whose position is in part supported by the toy company.

Each block contains a single command such as "move" or "change colour" which can then be stacked together to create the program. Blocks can only be stacked in ways that make sense, programmatically. Kids "don't have to worry about the obscure punctuation and syntax common in most programming languages," according to Resnick.

Scratch is available for free for Mac OS X and Windows and a Linux version is coming soon. Kids can also share their work on the Scratch website. This looks like a fun introduction to programming, especially in today's graphics-rich world.