I like the awesome bar's tagging and title search capability, but I think that it should be separated from the typed urls. My gripe is that tagged results aren't grouped together. All this and more should arrive eventually: Bug 395161 - Make it possible to restrict the url bar autocomplete results to bookmarks/history entries and match only url/title/tags and Bug 424557 - Allow AwesomeBar to default search only urls (or history/titles/bookmarks/tags), f'rinstance.
...what if I said something like "Abortion kills fetuses and embryos." While this statement is true, it sets the tone of the discussion in a way that ignores the other issues involved....
Even more insidious, I think, is the non-falsifiable stated as fact in the service of an emotional appeal. Like f'rinstance, "Abortion kills persons" is true iff "fetuses and embryos are persons", on which question reasonable people may differ. But "persons" or "people" or "pre-born babies" are so much warmer and fuzzier than fetuses and embryos. Ick. Cold and inhuman sounding. Reminds me of salamanders and nematodes, for heavens sake.
Speaking for yourself, I hope. My experience has been different.
Unless you mean that being on the spectrum isn't something that's overcome, any more than, say, being left-handed is. You learn to live as a lefty in a righty world. 'Course handedness is mostly a matter of physical obstacles to your preferred anatomical orientation. On the spectrum, it's your mind--your consciousness--that's wrong. That's different. That makes acting normal so hard, makes it seem like everyone else on the planet knows things, takes things for granted, that just aren't available to you. Are you paranoid if everybody you know seems to be in on secrets that you can't share?
So yeah, don't work to overcome it, work to deal effectively with what can amount to major, permanent culture shock. NTs probably aren't going away any time soon.
I have worked with autistic kids before; my first girlfriend and my college roommate both specialized in autism and working with such people was/is their profession.
As what--a lunchroom attendant? Your first girlfriend and your roommate, for all I know, are as useless as so many others in the developmental disability field are said to be. Someone must be doing all that mis-diagnosing, over-medicating, misbehavior-excusing and whatever else, after all. Right?
It seems to me that some of the self-described autistic people on Slashdot are so high-functioning that describing their state as autism essentially takes the meaning from the word.
Maybe if you're not too clear on what the word means in the first place. Autism is a continuum. Profoundly affected "real" auties at one end, "normal"-seeming High Functioning Autistics (HFAs) and Asperger Syndrome people (aspies) at the other end, and all the variations in between. Social functioning difficulties are only part of the "autistic experience", and there's a wide range of symptoms and severities.
Serial insensitivity to other people's emotional state and a predilection for consistancy are symptoms of autism, but possession of symptoms is not sufficient for diagnosis.
Actually, possession of symptoms *is* what is sufficient for diagnosis. The DSM IV criteria for a diagnosis of autism is nothing but a list of symptoms. Score enough of the symptoms in the right categories, rule out a few things like schizophrenia, and congrats--you're autistic! What'd you think they used to diagnose--a blood test?
Aspies can simulate normal social behavior, some undetectably, but that means constantly working to adapt to and deal with the NT (neurotypical) world. My guess is most aspies have to work several times as hard, just to achieve social ineptitude, as you have to, to achieve your... um... "current level of functioning". It can take continuous, exhausting effort just to go through everyday life. Ya'll NTs frequently aren't worth the work it takes to associate with you.
Diagnosis doesn't change that, doesn't provide a free pass, doesn't remove the necessity of dealing with the bloviating, fat-headed members of the NT majority who know that they are the measure of all things, who know that everyone else has the same wiring and modes of mental functioning as they, who know that everyone else is capable of "just dealing with life" as easily as they, who know which of us is really on the spectrum--not just malingering, who function more or less as blunt objects in the intellectual life of our society.
So anyway, thanks for your lecture on "How Reality Is, According to Me", though it is, "plainly, a load of crap". You've gotten fairly good at simulating an authoritive manner when you don't know much. Maybe someday I'll get that good, if I try really hard. I hear anybody can do anything, with practice. After all, "It would simply be too embarassing to fail at something that people we discount as morons do everyday with ease".
The real benefit of diagnosis, I think, is finding out that we're not just lazy, stupid, undisciplined, procrastinating, cowardly, cold-hearted, retarded, crazy, obstinant, or possessed of other character flaws, weaknesses or inabilities that make us less worthy human beings. If the NTs had to live in an autistic majority, do you think they could do as well?
I particularly like the latin motto on the pound coin, "NEMO ME IMPUNE LACESSIT", translates to "no-one provokes me with impunity". That is just so Scottish.
It's also the motto of the Montresors in Poe's "The Cask of Amontillado".
If you keep having to explain to people what the FSF and GNU are on about, then there might be something wrong with the [people], not necessarily the [message].
There's a lot of new and/or not-too-bright people out there, and more coming along all the time.
The three most important things in public relations?
If you don't like netnews, why not start your own? It's gotta be much easier now than it was back in the days of trying to locate people in other states to hook you in to netnews, and there's nothing at all that says that any given news server has to hook in to any other given news server. You could start fresh...
Time to start the push to get the HappyNet 4 release out the door. Developers welcome.
Slashdot Mirror
all built on the back of other people and companies
What isn't?
Even more insidious, I think, is the non-falsifiable stated as fact in the service of an emotional appeal. Like f'rinstance, "Abortion kills persons" is true iff "fetuses and embryos are persons", on which question reasonable people may differ. But "persons" or "people" or "pre-born babies" are so much warmer and fuzzier than fetuses and embryos. Ick. Cold and inhuman sounding. Reminds me of salamanders and nematodes, for heavens sake.
I was hoping this would be an example of begging the question, but I'm afraid it only rises to the level of many questions.
Unless you mean that being on the spectrum isn't something that's overcome, any more than, say, being left-handed is. You learn to live as a lefty in a righty world. 'Course handedness is mostly a matter of physical obstacles to your preferred anatomical orientation. On the spectrum, it's your mind--your consciousness--that's wrong. That's different. That makes acting normal so hard, makes it seem like everyone else on the planet knows things, takes things for granted, that just aren't available to you. Are you paranoid if everybody you know seems to be in on secrets that you can't share?
So yeah, don't work to overcome it, work to deal effectively with what can amount to major, permanent culture shock. NTs probably aren't going away any time soon.
As what--a lunchroom attendant? Your first girlfriend and your roommate, for all I know, are as useless as so many others in the developmental disability field are said to be. Someone must be doing all that mis-diagnosing, over-medicating, misbehavior-excusing and whatever else, after all. Right?
Maybe if you're not too clear on what the word means in the first place. Autism is a continuum. Profoundly affected "real" auties at one end, "normal"-seeming High Functioning Autistics (HFAs) and Asperger Syndrome people (aspies) at the other end, and all the variations in between. Social functioning difficulties are only part of the "autistic experience", and there's a wide range of symptoms and severities.
Actually, possession of symptoms *is* what is sufficient for diagnosis. The DSM IV criteria for a diagnosis of autism is nothing but a list of symptoms. Score enough of the symptoms in the right categories, rule out a few things like schizophrenia, and congrats--you're autistic! What'd you think they used to diagnose--a blood test?
Aspies can simulate normal social behavior, some undetectably, but that means constantly working to adapt to and deal with the NT (neurotypical) world. My guess is most aspies have to work several times as hard, just to achieve social ineptitude, as you have to, to achieve your ... um ... "current level of functioning". It can take continuous, exhausting effort just to go through everyday life. Ya'll NTs frequently aren't worth the work it takes to associate with you.
Diagnosis doesn't change that, doesn't provide a free pass, doesn't remove the necessity of dealing with the bloviating, fat-headed members of the NT majority who know that they are the measure of all things, who know that everyone else has the same wiring and modes of mental functioning as they, who know that everyone else is capable of "just dealing with life" as easily as they, who know which of us is really on the spectrum--not just malingering, who function more or less as blunt objects in the intellectual life of our society.
So anyway, thanks for your lecture on "How Reality Is, According to Me", though it is, "plainly, a load of crap". You've gotten fairly good at simulating an authoritive manner when you don't know much. Maybe someday I'll get that good, if I try really hard. I hear anybody can do anything, with practice. After all, "It would simply be too embarassing to fail at something that people we discount as morons do everyday with ease".
The real benefit of diagnosis, I think, is finding out that we're not just lazy, stupid, undisciplined, procrastinating, cowardly, cold-hearted, retarded, crazy, obstinant, or possessed of other character flaws, weaknesses or inabilities that make us less worthy human beings. If the NTs had to live in an autistic majority, do you think they could do as well?
OK, done ranting.
It's also the motto of the Montresors in Poe's "The Cask of Amontillado".
Useless information a speciality.
My derivative work:
If you keep having to explain to people what the FSF and GNU are on about, then there might be something wrong with the [people], not necessarily the [message].
There's a lot of new and/or not-too-bright people out there, and more coming along all the time.
The three most important things in public relations?
Ouroboros wins again.