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No it is not.

Unfortunately, I have yet to find a dictionary wherein "literally" is described to mean "metaphorically."

There are notes explaining the usage problem of using "literally" as an intensity modifier, but this is not considered correct usage.

Here even explicitly rejects using "literally" as "metaphorically."

Languages need not be regular to be useful, but a minimum degree of rigor is necessary for them to function (and hence exist). Languages exist to facilitate communication, which they can't do [well or maybe even at all] if words also properly mean opposite things. Definitions may be loose, but not that loose, otherwise no one could understand anyone else.

In the end, it's possible, but unlikely. Thus, citation please.

I'm not sure of any that really cover the brain as well as neural nets, but a book with decent neural net coverage, and an excellent overview of machine learning is this one:

http://research.microsoft.com/en-us/um/people/cmbishop/prml/

Depending on how far you wish to study the subject, the next stop is somewhere like the Cambridge university bookstore- I'm not sure if you live in the UK but if you do and are ever near Cambridge it's worth a look- their books can of course be ordered online, but in store they offer catalogs with upcoming books which always worth a peruse through too as it tends to cover books that are really cutting edge on the topics in question.

In fact, I just did a search on their site and found this, I've never read it but it may be exactly what you're looking for:

http://www.cambridge.org/uk/catalogue/catalogue.asp?isbn=9780521421249

A slightly more light hearted, much easier read that helps illustrate some of the quirks in the human mind is the following:

http://www.mindhacks.com/book/

Some of the examples are good as illustrations of how it's easy to feed the brain with certain stimuli that can make it come to the wrong conclusion, one example that comes to mind in that book is the listing of various words related to some topic I think their example was sleeping or something, and then asking someone to recall those words, people will almost always come up with a common word despite that word having never been in the list. I think their example was words related to sleeping like 'pillow', 'tired', 'yawn', 'night' and a bunch more yet they omit 'bed' or something like that, ask someone to do the activity and they will nearly always falsely conclude 'bed' was one of the words- effectively bed is a 'false' attractor in this case. It effectively illustrates that whilst the brain may come up with most of the correct words, it can come up with incorrect but related words too, for some problems this may be acceptable, for others not so.

According to the Merriam-Webster and Cambridge online dictionaries, one may queue or one may "queue up" with equal legitimacy. Your sentence, however, is indefensible absent extreme relaxation of grammatical usage (and by "relaxation", I mean "a drooling state of unconsciousness").

Here's the pdf of the judgement

Technically that is a judgment not a judgement. In legal English, the former is the word to describe a legal ruling - it's also the word used within the document. Don't ask me why.

Is an Android phone a computer?

You can run arbitrary apps on it, so yes it is.

What about your Tivo?

Hard drive/permanent storage device, interprets input data (TV signals, EPG, etc) - I'd say yes, it's a single-purpose computer.

Is banning someone from a computer restraint of trade these days?

I wouldn't say it's a restraint of trade - though depending on how you define computer ("an electronic machine which is used for storing, organizing and finding words, numbers and pictures, for doing calculations and for controlling other machines" according to the CALD) anything from a phone to a cash register (or even an ATM) might qualify.

Even if the ruling was actually specifically about "personal computers", that still potentially includes smartphones, PDAs, etc.

There's a big difference between "a Red Bull can" and "a can of Red Bull". One implies it's just the can, the other implies it's a can of something. Can you guess which is which?

Using your example, consider these two phrases:

1. a gasoline can
2. a can of gasoline

Which implies that it contains gasoline? Yeah, same for the Red Bull. Here's some homework you can take to your English tutor:

http://dictionary.cambridge.org/define.asp?key=54975&dict=CALD (definition: "containing")
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/of (definition 4: "substance or contents")
http://encarta.msn.com/encnet/features/dictionary/DictionaryResults.aspx?lextype=3&search=of (definition 4: "containing a particular substance")
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/of

You get the picture. Maybe if you're in deep redneck country, words have a different meaning. But the majority of the world parses "a can of Red Bull" as it being a can which contains Red Bull. Otherwise, it'd be a Red Bull can, wouldn't it?

Over here in the UK, "the Continent" means (western) Europe - as in "he found driving on the Continent very different to Britain" (source).

The wikipedia entry for p21 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/P21) is somewhat misleading about its relationship with cancer. For a good review, see: http://journals.cambridge.org/action/displayFulltext?type=1&fid=1919868&jid=ERM&volumeId=10&issueId=-1&aid=1919860 Excerpt: "However, p21-null mice were found to be more susceptible to chemically induced tumours of the skin (Ref. 94) and colon (Ref. 95), and following irradiation they displayed increased tumourigenesis and metastases (Ref. 96). In addition, using different mouse strains, others have found that p21-null mice exhibit spontaneous tumour formation in the background of other genetic knockouts, such as Muc22/2 (lacking mucin 2) (Ref. 97) and Apc1638/2 (carrying a mutant allele of the adenomatosis polyposis coli gene) (Ref. 98). Furthermore, subsequent to the initial description of p21-null mice, investigators have found that p21-null mice bred on a 129Sv/ C57BL6 50:50 background did in fact develop spontaneous tumours at an average age of 16 months (Ref. 99). Collectively, these mouse studies demonstrated the importance of p21 in mediating the G1 checkpoint, and its ability to function as a tumour suppressor."

My estate will be taking care of my body in a way that I, and my heirs, feel is appropriate. No embalming or burning or transplants for me, thank you. That shit's for the short-sighted. I hope to eventually become part of a mighty oaken timber holding up a beautiful piece of sustainable architecture, but honestly I will settle for just not becoming a bunch of spoiled meat soaked with refinery toxins. Maintaining productive soil is more valuable to the human race than temporarily extending the life of any one person.

Now, if some living person asks me nicely on my deathbed if they can have one of my organs, I might consider it. If I really, really like that person, if I really think their existence makes the world a fundamentally better place, then maybe. But I'd rather not end up like William Lucas, thanks anyway, so don't put me on any lists.

A religion is a belief in and worship of a god or gods.

A cult is a religion that is considered extreme or strange by many people.

Or in other words, a religion is a cult that has found mainstream acceptance.

A religion is a belief in and worship of a god or gods.

A cult is a religion that is considered extreme or strange by many people.

Or in other words, a religion is a cult that has found mainstream acceptance.

In case anyone thinks he's joking, he's not. "Tons" means lots in the UK. (Though personally, I like "shedloads" or "shitloads" more)

So I've only read the abstract of the paper and they really don't claim that fat is "tasted", just that some people are able to detect it and they link that ability to BMI. Whether they are really tasting or just detecting some other physicochemical effect is still unclear. There are a lot of different senses involved when you put something in your mouth. There is a lot of evidence that suggests that fat is a taste, but so far nobody has presented a receptor for it.

You've lost that particular battle; time to save your energy for something you can still win.

You'd be wrong; you are thinking of an android.

You'd be wrong; you are thinking of an android.

Profit doesn't just mean monetary gain; file sharers also profit from their actions.

That's not actually in line with most of the studies that have come out over the past 10-15 years. Sure, there are a lot of quack methodologies, but following an accepted, mainstream program of counseling for a disorder for which the program is recommended by a mainstream body like the APA, carried out by properly accredited specialists, is generally associated with better-than-control outcomes (and better than informal counseling by a primary-care physician). Here and here are two recent systematic meta-analyses of the results for depression (the best-studied disorder).

Whether counseling is better or worse than drugs is more up in the air, and seems to depend pretty heavily on the demographics, the specific disorder, the type of counseling, the type of drugs, and the time period of which you're looking (and even within all those, there are huge variances among studies). This survey is typical of the generally mixed/inconclusive results such comparisons come up with. (In addition, most disorders are much less well studied than depression, and sample sizes, especially within demographically comparable groups, are much smaller.)

In any case, I'm not aware of much in the way of peer-reviewed research that supports a hardline "pills are effective, and counseling is not" claim.

I'm 35 and was using the word "ginormous" as a kid. Sure enough, it's in the Cambridge Advanced Learner's Dictionary.

Indeed. I believe the word "ginormous" predates the Internet. Al Gore coined the term when describing the idea before it ever got implemented. ;)

I'm 35 and was using the word "ginormous" as a kid. Sure enough, it's in the Cambridge Advanced Learner's Dictionary.

You might be a moron who can't spell :)

Please explain how Windows 7 Home Premium (the only Home version I can find on sale in the UK at least) is crippled compared to either Professional or Ultimate.

Note that "crippled" in normal parlance "describes someone with serious injuries that affect their ability to walk or move" (from the CALD) - in this case, you'd be talking essential features that are missing or broken, seriously affecting the usefulness of the OS.

Yeah, everyone can cry fowl over Netscape being destroyed by Microsoft

DUCK!

If you paid attention, they showed Ford using a towel in many of the appropriate ways, they just didn't call attention to it, which, to me, wasted a great opportunity.

You think it is a wasted opportunity to be subtle? (I had to link to a UK dictionary because I could not find the word in any US one)

This is exactly the sort of film that lends itself to having in-jokes for the rabid fans who can recite the radio series verbatim and have the book entries tatooed on their bodies. Unfortunately, those same fans are the ones who complain bitterly at any deviation from the original version despite the fact that this is not unprecedented.

It all comes down to the appropriate use of the media. In the radio show, someone has to say "look at that towel"; the book can just describe the towel and the film can just show the towel. The beauty of Hitchhiker's Guide is that all of the different versions compliment each other. To get the best from any one version of it, you should watch/hear/read the other versions.

The real missed opportunity was not to have made hundreds of book entries for the DVD version as interactive extras that pop up during the film. They could have optionally doubled the length of the film with extra book bits - thus retaining the pace of the film while making the fans happy. Most of the time, the book entries are an aside. That's a perfect use of the branching video of the DVD format.

You leverage a boulder with a lever, but you don't leverage a lever with a boulder.

Actually I lever the boulder with a lever. Where I come from, "leverage" is a noun, to which the corresponding verb is "lever" :-)

You're the perfect person to ask then: a french teacher once told me that bilingual people develop memory problems in old age sooner than others. I'm not sure if he specifically mentioned Alzheimer's or not. Have you heard of this, and do you know of anything to back it up or refute it?

I have good news and bad news for you.

The good news is that, when it comes to Alzheimer's, being bilingual appears to be beneficial. A researcher by the name of Ellen Bialystok has looked into this question; in a recently published paper, she and her coauthors concluded that among people who have regularly used two languages for most of their lives, the onset of dementia is delayed by an average of four years. (By "dementia", I'm referring to severe age-related declines in mental functions, of which Alzheimer's Disease is the most common form. The Bialystok et al. paper specifically states that their conclusions hold true for Alzheimer's as well.) Note that they don't make any claims about whether this conclusion applies to people who learned to speak multiple languages as children but only use one in later life, or people who learned a second language as an adult and use multiple languages daily: those populations might benefit from a similar delay, but they weren't tested for this paper.

On the memory front, I don't know about age of onset, but bilinguals behave differently than monolinguals on memory tasks throughout their lives. Here, there's both (more) good news and bad news. (I'm going to be cribbing some of this from another one of Bialystok's papers, which, as with the paper referenced below, you'll probably need to access at a university to read more than the summary.) Someone who grows up multilingual, while having the obvious advantage of being able to speak multiple languages, tends to be less proficient in each of those languages than monolinguals - that's one of the consequences of splitting your speaking and listening time between several languages. As a result, bilinguals tend to have smaller vocabularies (within each language) and perform worse on word retrieval tasks than monolinguals throughout their lives. So, bilinguals are worse than monolinguals at memory tasks that rely on verbal recall (e.g., "Memorize this list of words and then, in a little while, I'll ask you to tell me what they were.")

At the same time, there's some evidence that being bilingual actually helps you on other kinds of cognitive tasks. Bilinguals perform better at some tasks that place big demands on short-term memory, and, more controversially, on some tasks that require what we call "conflict resolution", situations where you have to choose between two or more possible responses (the Stroop effect is the most famous example). They're better at conflict resolution tasks, so the theory goes, because they've spent their whole lives choosing between multiple competing representations (one per language) for each word. The result of these advantages is that bilinguals tend to be better than monolinguals at nonverbal memory tasks (for instance, recalling an ordered sequence of blocks).

As for how these findings are affected by aging, I think that the relative deficits and advantages present in young adults should carry over into later life. For example, another researcher, Tamar Gollan, showed that bilinguals' naming deficits persist with age. If that's true, then while I don't know about age of onset, I would expect older bilinguals to have worse verbal memory, and better non-verbal memory, than their monolingual counterparts.

You're the perfect person to ask then: a french teacher once told me that bilingual people develop memory problems in old age sooner than others. I'm not sure if he specifically mentioned Alzheimer's or not. Have you heard of this, and do you know of anything to back it up or refute it?

I have good news and bad news for you.

The good news is that, when it comes to Alzheimer's, being bilingual appears to be beneficial. A researcher by the name of Ellen Bialystok has looked into this question; in a recently published paper, she and her coauthors concluded that among people who have regularly used two languages for most of their lives, the onset of dementia is delayed by an average of four years. (By "dementia", I'm referring to severe age-related declines in mental functions, of which Alzheimer's Disease is the most common form. The Bialystok et al. paper specifically states that their conclusions hold true for Alzheimer's as well.) Note that they don't make any claims about whether this conclusion applies to people who learned to speak multiple languages as children but only use one in later life, or people who learned a second language as an adult and use multiple languages daily: those populations might benefit from a similar delay, but they weren't tested for this paper.

On the memory front, I don't know about age of onset, but bilinguals behave differently than monolinguals on memory tasks throughout their lives. Here, there's both (more) good news and bad news. (I'm going to be cribbing some of this from another one of Bialystok's papers, which, as with the paper referenced below, you'll probably need to access at a university to read more than the summary.) Someone who grows up multilingual, while having the obvious advantage of being able to speak multiple languages, tends to be less proficient in each of those languages than monolinguals - that's one of the consequences of splitting your speaking and listening time between several languages. As a result, bilinguals tend to have smaller vocabularies (within each language) and perform worse on word retrieval tasks than monolinguals throughout their lives. So, bilinguals are worse than monolinguals at memory tasks that rely on verbal recall (e.g., "Memorize this list of words and then, in a little while, I'll ask you to tell me what they were.")

At the same time, there's some evidence that being bilingual actually helps you on other kinds of cognitive tasks. Bilinguals perform better at some tasks that place big demands on short-term memory, and, more controversially, on some tasks that require what we call "conflict resolution", situations where you have to choose between two or more possible responses (the Stroop effect is the most famous example). They're better at conflict resolution tasks, so the theory goes, because they've spent their whole lives choosing between multiple competing representations (one per language) for each word. The result of these advantages is that bilinguals tend to be better than monolinguals at nonverbal memory tasks (for instance, recalling an ordered sequence of blocks).

As for how these findings are affected by aging, I think that the relative deficits and advantages present in young adults should carry over into later life. For example, another researcher, Tamar Gollan, showed that bilinguals' naming deficits persist with age. If that's true, then while I don't know about age of onset, I would expect older bilinguals to have worse verbal memory, and better non-verbal memory, than their monolingual counterparts.

We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America. ...

The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States; but all Duties, Imposts and Excises shall be uniform throughout the United States;

welfare: physical and mental health and happiness

Or from your own source: welfare n. 1. health, happiness, or prosperity; well-being.

I'm not American, but it seems your constitution demands your Federal government look after the healthcare of its people.

scores, a great many: Scores of people were at the dance. scores a lot of things or people: http://dictionary.cambridge.org/define_b.asp?key=70484&dict=CALD

A very coherent and insightful reply. Thank you.

The original paper re: galactic plane crossing is available at http://journals.cambridge.org/action/displayAbstract?fromPage=online&aid=1851772 but it costs US$20.

Being close to the galactic plane now may or may not be a significant threat if the density wave theory were also correct. It may be that they need to coincide for there to be enough matter density to initiate an event.

Something I don't believe any of the references considered was that the sun and it's family constitute a minor arm of their own, a residual component of the galaxy they originated in before it collided with the Milky Way. It carries its own density of gasses which can be compressed and might be goaded into activity by any of the mechanisms mentioned as well as others such as happening upon a nearby chance supernova.

Another point not mentioned is whether our local stellar family is orbiting as regular as they plotted in TFA. I find it hard to believe that we don't have a significant orbital eccentricity. That'd definitely throw a wrench into the various relevant calculations.

Sieve of Eratosthenes is a good example because it has been solved but the discussion of the flaws in older solutions are quite subtle. http://www.haskell.org/pipermail/haskell-cafe/2007-February/022666.html

The "flawed" version was written by David Turner over 30 years ago. At that time, his version was meant to illustrate the expressiveness of pure functional languages, not to achieve speed.

The discussion you reference was as much about what algorithm is "the genuine sieve of Eratosthenes" as about speed. You can read all about it in O'Neil's paper that came out of that discussion, "The Genuine Sieve of Eratosthenes".

But yes, there are subtle issues in the speed of sieve algorithms. And yes, this is a good example. Compare O'Neil's work to the imperative papers she references. You can see how much easier it is to achieve the same results in a functional setting than in an imperative one.

IAAG (I am a geneticist)

  It isn't a very popular idea, especially among anthropologists, but what the gp says is fundementally true (not the Africans being stupider than Japanese part).

There is a large body of work out there which deals with the subject and come to the same conclusion, that Ashkenazi jews perform better than the general population on verbal reason and maths based tests. This intelligence is the result of natural selection for occupations which were portable i.e when they were kicked out of whatever country didn't like them at the time (spain, england, germany, russia etc...), they could take their livelihoods with them.

For example (with a little bit of searching you can find a lot more):
1

2

3

the polluting companies have a profit motive to move where greenpeace can't touch them, like China. Or Africa.

Except that as China's standards of living have improved they have become aware of, and want to do something about, pollution. The same would happen in Africa. In general populations of people are first concerned about survival, which is how China used to be. But once their lives have improved so that they no longer have to worry about where their next meal comes from they start thinking about the environment. Quite simply environmental movements in China are becoming visible.

Falcon

... and here we have just a single anecdote about how the system did not work in one instance. If we are playing the anecdote game, I'm sure I can find a similar example where non-computerized health records lead to bad care. Of course, while the anecdote game is very effective at playing at human emotional response (we tend to assign more weight to a story that we can associate with a single person versus aggregate statistics), it's useless as an actual policy question.

Since every complicated system has failures, even the critical ones like hospitals and air traffic control, the important policy question is not whether it works in all instances, it's whether it produces overall better care than the system it's replacing and whether that improvement is worth the difference in price. If the new system actually reduces costs, then it's a good idea so long as it doesn't degrade care (since, ultimately, reduced cost means either more health care or more dollars to satisfy other wants).

I'm not going to comment on the data myself, since you should read the studies for yourself and draw your own conclusions.

http://journals.cambridge.org/action/displayAbstract;jsessionid=7C274D08947B0625B3B540BEF2E70367.tomcat1?fromPage=online&aid=416400
http://content.nejm.org/cgi/content/abstract/348/22/2218
(PDF)
http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?tool=pmcentrez&artid=1421388

PS. Of course there's no panacea for our medical problem. The question is whether EHR are better than the system we've got, not whether they represent the best possible system. The perfect is not the enemy of the good.

PPS. I have a sneaking suspicion, reading my post (yeah, some /.ers actually read their own posts before hitting submit :-P) that I will be accused of not having the proper sympathy for the guy in TFA. That's not true. I have sympathy for him as an individual, but I'm not going to let that sympathy for him cloud my judgment on the merits of a system.

For example, suppose there was a highway by you that had no center divider, just a grassy median. Suppose also, for the sake of argument, that installing a jersey barrier (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jersey_barrier will lower the injury/fatality rate in accidents by a statistically significant amount by preventing out-of-control cars from going into oncoming traffic. Now, hypothetically, someone could be in an accident where the jersey barrier caused him serious injury or death (say, by flipping his car even though they are designed to minimize that chance) where the old system would have been just fine (say, because there was no oncoming traffic at the time of the accident). Does someone that still says we have jersey barriers not have sympathy for that guy? No. His death is regrettable but because we can't make a perfect road, we have to settle for the best road we can make.

The problem is that you can point to someone that's injured (and provoke an emotional response related to his regrettable accident) but the only thing the jersey barrier proponent can do is point to the statistics that say there are fewer serious injuries since they've been installed. There's no emotional resonance to the thousands of people that travel without incident each day because they don't make a good story. "Man drives to work safely" isn't news, but because it happens much more often that "Man killed in car wreck", it's actually much more important in the grand scheme of things.

We aren't privy to all the stories where EHR made things smoother, cheaper or helped prevent calamity. Largely, these will be small victories, unsung

Now another thing that research has shown is that if you spread out your calories across 5 meals in a day you will burn more calories and store less than when eating the same number of calories in 3 or less meals in a day. This technique is used by many to help them lose weight to great effect.

Here is a good academic study from the British Journal of Nutrition that refutes this point:
http://journals.cambridge.org/action/displayAbstract?fromPage=online&aid=879792

Meal frequency and energy balance
Several epidemiological studies have observed an inverse relationship between people's habitual frequency of eating and body weight, leading to the suggestion that a 'nibbling' meal pattern may help in the avoidance of obesity. A review of all pertinent studies shows that, although many fail to find any significant relationship, the relationship is consistently inverse in those that do observe a relationship. However, this finding is highly vulnerable to the probable confounding effects of post hoc changes in dietary patterns as a consequence of weight gain and to dietary under-reporting which undoubtedly invalidates some of the studies. We conclude that the epidemiological evidence is at best very weak, and almost certainly represents an artefact. A detailed review of the possible mechanistic explanations for a metabolic advantage of nibbling meal patterns failed to reveal significant benefits in respect of energy expenditure. Although some short-term studies suggest that the thermic effect of feeding is higher when an isoenergetic test load is divided into multiple small meals, other studies refute this, and most are neutral. More importantly, studies using whole-body calorimetry and doubly-labelled water to assess total 24h energy expenditure find no difference between nibbling and gorging. Finally, with the exception of a single study, there is no evidence that weight loss on hypoenergetic regimens is altered by meal frequency. We conclude that any effects of meal pattern on the regulation of body weight are likely to be mediated through effects on the food intake side of the energy balance equation. [emphasis added]

It is nice to be able to say that that's all eugenics means but it isn't accurate.

No. It is accurate. I am working with the accepted definitions from various online dictionaries. I cannot find a single one that does not have the limitation of selective breeding.

And the parents that use this clinic are selecting which fertilized eggs will be used. No government is dictating which eggs they can and can not use.

• MSN Encarta: "selective breeding as proposed human improvement: the proposed improvement of the human species by encouraging or permitting reproduction of only those people with genetic characteristics judged desirable. It has been regarded with disfavor since the Nazi period."
• Merriam-Webster: "a science that deals with the improvement (as by control of human mating) of hereditary qualities of a race or breed"
• Cambridge: "the study of methods of improving humans by allowing only carefully chosen people to reproduce"
• Websters: "the movement devoted to improving the human species through the control of hereditary factors in mating"

Only the first one says parents may not be self selecting, though it does say eugenics is looked on unfavorably since the NAZIs.

Falcon

I would encourage you (and the mods presumably) to look this up in a reputable English dictionary

From Merriam-Webster:

Recent criticism of the use of myriad as a noun, both in the plural form myriads and in the phrase a myriad of, seems to reflect a mistaken belief that the word was originally and is still properly only an adjective. As the entries here show, however, the noun is in fact the older form, dating to the 16th century. The noun myriad has appeared in the works of such writers as Milton (plural myriads) and Thoreau (a myriad of), and it continues to occur frequently in reputable English. There is no reason to avoid it.

Some more: Cambridge

Oxford

dictionary.reference.com says:

Usage Note: Throughout most of its history in English myriad was used as a noun, as in a myriad of men. In the 19th century it began to be used in poetry as an adjective, as in myriad men. Both usages in English are acceptable, as in Samuel Taylor Coleridge's "Myriad myriads of lives." This poetic, adjectival use became so well entrenched generally that many people came to consider it as the only correct use. In fact, both uses in English are parallel with those of the original ancient Greek. The Greek word mÅrias, from which myriad derives, could be used as either a noun or an adjective, but the noun mÅrias was used in general prose and in mathematics while the adjective mÅrias was used only in poetry.

For adults, maybe, but at an earlier age autism isn't necessarily hard-wired:
http://blog.qsac.com/2008/01/neuro-behavioral-model-autism-brain.html?
http://journals.cambridge.org/action/displayAbstract?aid=1928680

Since intervening very early in child development seems to be helpful, why couldn't we one day find a way to regenerate/rewire those pathways?

We've been vaccinating people against disease for what? Forty years?

The Jenner smallpox vaccine was over 200 years ago. So we've been vaccinating people for a long time. The basic idea is a win. But...

I doubt vaccinations will be laughed at in a hundred years, because they have a proven track record.

Vaccination itself, no. But I hope that the idea of putting thimerisol (a mercury compound) into vaccines will be laughed out of practice, indeed I think this is already occurring.

We may - or may not - find that other additives currently used in vaccines ought to go.

We may - or may not - find that a different scheduling is easier on the immune system and causes fewer complications. (We usually don't catch three or four major diseases at once, after all.)

We may - or may not - find that some of the vaccines for minor diseases aren't worth the hassle. (For example, for a generally healthy person like me, without a lot of exposure and in a normal flu season, I don't think that the risk of complications from a flu shot is worth the benefit of being immunized against a strain that might not even be current. And it turns out it may not be useful in the elderly after all. Instead I'm watching my vitamin D.)

Something tells me you don't do anything involving graphics and these details don't concern you, as you can't spell matte correctly.

"matt" is the UK spelling.

http://dictionary.cambridge.org/define.asp?key=49278&dict=CALD

Actually, you assume too much. I have moved unsourced material to the talk page, therefore it isn't actually removed entirely. If the material can be sourced, then people are free to put it back with the source - nothing should stop them. However, consider this: the definition of "trivia" is:

• matters or things that are very unimportant, inconsequential, or nonessential; trifles; trivialities.
• unimportant matters : trivial facts or details
• petty and unimportant things or details
• unimportant details or information
• a collection of insignificant or obscure items, details, or information

As you can see, I don't think the material that I am referring to actually relates to anything you talk about - clearly you don't think the material is unimportant, inconsequential, insignificant, obscure or petty! Therefore, I get annoyed when people feel that the information is not important, but should be in Wikipedia.

I should note that if information about a topic was cited from an external, reliable source, then I wouldn't have a problem with the material.

Actually, you assume too much. I have moved unsourced material to the talk page, therefore it isn't actually removed entirely. If the material can be sourced, then people are free to put it back with the source - nothing should stop them. However, consider this: the definition of "trivia" is:

• matters or things that are very unimportant, inconsequential, or nonessential; trifles; trivialities.
• unimportant matters : trivial facts or details
• petty and unimportant things or details
• unimportant details or information

As you can see, I don't think the material that I am referring to actually relates to anything you talk about - clearly you don't think the material is unimportant, inconsequential, insignificant, obscure or petty! Therefore, I get annoyed when people feel that the information is not important, but should be in Wikipedia.

I should note that if information about a topic was cited from an external, reliable source, then I wouldn't have a problem with the material.

Ah yes, that's why small farmers can't compete. It doesn't have anything to do with economies of scale, no sir.

If economies of scale was all that mattered then large scale farms wouldn't need subsidies.

If they a get employment with a private company good for them. And with government out of medical and health care more jobs with private insurers will be created.

Again, the only way we'd end up with "more jobs" is if the system became less efficient as a result.

So what if private insurers didn't employ as many people as government run insurance, private is as you say more efficient. Employing more people to run insurance is just make work work, and taxpayers will have to pay those salaries. People complain about the expense of health care, employing less people, in insurance, reduces the cost. If you want to make more work then employ more medical people not more insurance people.

it's odd that you're championing a move toward inefficiency.

What's odd is that you first intimated private insurance would be more efficient, the only way we'd end up with "more jobs" is if the system became less efficient as a result, now you're saying the opposite. And no I don't champion inefficiency, I champion competition. and competition increases efficiency.

People already can do that. You know why they don't? Because HSAs are pointless unless you're either (1) healthy enough that you won't get sick before the account is full, or (2) wealthy enough that it doesn't matter.

But do they know that? I didn't find out until earlier this year when someone else posted about health saving accounts. I bet I can go out on the street and ask others if they know about them and many won't. But you are right in one thing, according to the Government Acconting Office, GAO, the average income of those who had HSAs in 2005 was $139,000 whereas the average for those without one was $57,000. But in the same report though it said lower income people are more wiling to gamble with their health. And as far as I'm concerned, you gamble you pay. You don't gamble then try to get out of it when you lose.

See, "bankrupt" means there's no money left to pay their obligations, but that's not going to happen any time soon

First, bankrupt means more than just not having enough money. It also means a person who is completely lacking in a particular desirable quality or attribute moral bankrupt[cy] or DISAPPROVING lacking in a particular quality, Onelook has more. Second I consider it morally bankrupt, see the first two definitions above, for anyone to be forced to work to pay for anyone they did not bring into the world themself, ie you are responsible to take care of all of the children you bring into the world but you have no responsibility to take care of anyone else.

As I don't want to keep going over this with you I'll just say one more thing then I'll end my part. You trust government more than business and I distrust business less than I do government. Government has caused more problems than any business, it has killed more people than any of them as well. And many of the problems business has made government allowed to happen.

Falcon

Man..I hope not, I LOVE sushi.

Me, too.

I think we're safe since sushi is actually the rice and that is cooked and vinegared. The fish, or sashimi, is easier to digest than milk, but less digestible than soya bean. PDF

You'll like this: http://www.cambridge.org/us/catalogue/catalogue.asp?isbn=0132611406 OOC.

It is very late here but it seems to be automatically linking my URLs here tonight? Anyhow... No. You are using the medical and media played definition. Therapists who work with the victims and the law define it very differently. Cambridge Dictionaries Online - Cambridge University Press: http://dictionary.cambridge.org/define.asp?key=57031&dict=CALD

That's how the LAW defines it, a pedophile is legally someone having sex or wanting to have sex with children. (Note: It isn't and and that's a rather generic definition.) But, yeah... Here is where I agree and where some of my problems are. The courts have decided that "child" is less than 18 for the definition of pornographic material (and there are some "artistic content" convictions out there so it is even worse) and that is absurd. I know people who are well within the legal age category that are even good looking enough but I still wouldn't have sex with them because they've failed to grow up. I know other people who are under the age of 18 but are physically fully developed and are far more mature than their peers and many so-called adults. I'd have a meat slinging contest with 'em (or even have a relationship with them) but I don't - the reason for not doing so is because society has said I can't and I don't want to accept that penalty. Sexual offenses committed against unwilling people should be prosecuted to the Nth degree. Sexual activity or possession of images not created in a harmful manner between consenting people who are capable of making the choice to consent should never be a crime. If you are 18 and your girlfriend is 17 but born just a few days behind you why is it illegal for you to have sex prior to that specific day and then have to wait a couple of days before it is legal again? That makes no sense to me. (I didn't start to think of these things until I became the parent of a victim, saw what the perpetrator went through which wasn't enough in my opinion, and then spent a long time actually learning how these things got pushed through the court system.) It makes NO sense and so long as there are people who have an agenda to push instead of an understanding we have no chance at saving our internet. I, for one, don't welcome our new ISP overlords. I like newsgroups and use them often when I have the time. Hell, I own a hosting company, I know there are alternatives. NO. I like it. NO. The laws don't work. NO. A kneejerk reaction to appease stupid people who don't actually understand the law is not going to help. Helping would start by showing people the true definition of the word before the medical doctors (no, not the psychiatric community) decided to try to fix things and the media pundits have chosen that definition while still knowing that the legal system relies did (probably doesn't know) rely on the real definition but the real meaning doesn't drum up enough votes or commercial views.

The American Legal System (the country and legislative body where this takes place) relies not on the medical definition of the term but on the dictionary - usually the Oxford or Cambridge. See, then, here:

Cambridge Dictionaries Online - Cambridge University Press: http://dictionary.cambridge.org/define.asp?key=57031&dict=CALD

I am sideways on the bed typing with an external keyboard and really tired so you'll have to cut and paste. Pedophile does NOT mean they like girls without hair. It means that they like children. Children are defined as those in their "minority" which is those younger than 18. This has had some rather disastrous results. If you don't believe me you can try getting some pictures together or naked 15 year olds doing nothing more than standing there looking pretty and you can attempt to call it art. The probability of your being convicted approaches one when you convinced your lawyer to try to explain to the judge that a pedophile means she doesn't have pubic hair.

My point is that, if we want to save the internet, we have to first educate people about their media brainwashing and misrepresented terms. This doesn't have an only technological solution. If we get them to understand that there are some artistic images out there, that there are no reasonable ways to define the word "child" in use in the legal system today, and get them to toss out some rather absurd magic number like 18 then, well, we can get somewhere. Until that happens we can kiss things like USENET goodbye.

Yes, yes it does. Be more careful looking up words. The courts use this as the definition: Cambridge Dictionaries Online - Cambridge University Press: http://dictionary.cambridge.org/define.asp?key=57031&dict=CALD

It is late so you'll need to cut and paste. MEDICAL doctors use puberty as a cut off line but psychologists use the real meaning and it means "child." Child hasn't anything to do with puberty but rather to do with the abstract number we have chosen to give it as a society.

No, that is how the MEDICAL community NOW defines it. The law AND the therapist who use it use a different view. (Getting late so you can cut and paste.)

Cambridge Dictionaries Online - Cambridge University Press: http://dictionary.cambridge.org/define.asp?key=57031&dict=CALD