"Chicks may dig geeks, but they are also chicks, and thus not to be trusted. The Y chromosome may be smaller, but it does a very important task in nature: preventing Crazy"
With that attitude, it doesn't surprise me at all that you get psychos for GFs. No sane self-respecting intelligent woman, geek or otherwise, would date somebody that regarded them as naturally "crazy" or otherwise inferior.
"unfortunately said geek needs to make sure he looks clean and well kept"
He also has to be (IMHO) not a sexist jackass that will try to talk down to me or regard me as "crazy" or any of that other bullshit I see on Slashdot all too often.
That works well against a "sprint" animal such as a gazelle, but it would fail against another species that has a long-distance jog as its primary gait.
Horses, for example, are primarily designed to cover dozens of miles within a day at a moderate pace; some breeds have the additional ability to run extremely long distances at high speed. Humans have notably slower racing times for endurance running, despite not having the additional equivalent weight of bearing a rider or heavy gear.
You might want to request that before the program goes to all the work of categorizing that many bookmarks for you, it checks to make sure that they point to places that still exist. Perhaps in that case, if the answer is "no" then it could filter into two secondary categories based on whether the specific page is missing or if the whole site is gone.
Interesting comment for a geek to be making, considering Spiderman is far more "traditionally masculine" than the overwhelming majority of guys that browse Slashdot...
I guess you get to keep on secretly dreaming about Spidey coming out of the closet to declare his interest in you, since he's no more likely to be gay than the many geeks that don't meet stereotypes about straight guys. According to your logic, far less likely, in fact.;-)
"I think it's terrible that there are people taking advantage of younger girls and luring them with money. It's sad to me that someone's willing to give away sex to some guy they meet for a few minutes online."
I notice you only say that it's "sad" that "somebody" (i.e. a female) is willing to have sex with a guy, but you don't apply such judgment to the male as well. I wouldn't say it's sad that either gender is interested in having sex; it's the reasons behind it (poverty, exploitation, power) that are sickening.
There's also a similar condition called hyperhydrosis that some people are seemingly born with or develop at an extremely young age. Like in hyponatraemia, the near-constant sweating can cause both dehydration and unpleasant mineral imbalances. Luckily there are a number of treatments for hyperhydrosis, ranging from surgery down to special OTC anti-persperants like Certain-Dri.
Yes, actually, there's a pretty wide variety of alternatives; ABA is *presented* as the only way to deal with autism, but it's not. (If it were, then my non-ABA-trained autistic butt wouldn't have a bachelor's degree from Berkeley. Note that I am what's known as a "classic" autie that even loses speech/literacy if too stressed, but because I know how to handle my autism, I can often function as if I were just an Asperger's autistic instead.)
I'm a bit too drained at this point to deal with writing a big post -- being autistic, sometimes language just doesn't work right -- but all I'd be doing is restating what others have said. So instead, I'll give you some of my favorite links on the subject.:)
Our Story: Life On The Spectrum
Jypsy wrote about raising her autistic (as in "did not even speak until late in childhood") son Alex, with non-ABA methods, and their amazing success. She's supposed to update soon, as he's now a track & field star mainstreamed in high school with top grades.
Autistic Advocacy
Essays about autism, including many explanations of why ABA is harmful and the preferred alternatives.
Autistics.org Library
Essays on a variety of topics about how autistics are treated. (Autistics.org is a great place for info in general, but the Library is the best for quick learning.)
Autism and Assistive Technology
One autistic discusses using assistive technology so she can live a fuller life rather than waste energy looking non-autistic.
If you're really interested in the topic, AutAdvo has a ton of parents & autistics that love explaining this, and would do a better job than I'm capable of this evening.:)
The big thing is, there's no way to tell if somebody has "limited potential" in the first place; and even if they are limited in that way, I don't think that torturing them is OK. (ABA is best summed up in the phrase "deliberately doing things that wouldn't bother a normal child but deeply frighten or cause pain to an autistic." Being touched or held down when your skin is hypersensitive, having people clap when your hearing is extremely fine-tuned *hurts* -- and ABA's purpose is to extinguish all signs that we experience that pain.)
You're also 100% right in saying it's not at all enabling. It doesn't help the autistic learn what their sensory needs are or how to accommodate them, but takes all of the energy they'd spend actually developing and diverts it to uncomprehending mimicry. The person grows up not knowing why their brain can't always function right, why they're "distracted" easily, why they tire out, why they become upset when others don't, or why they can't voice that upset...they go from being "different" to actually not being able to function much at all.
The long-term effect is, as you said, a person that is very prone to being abused and taken advantage of, plus severe depression... Nobody can live happily being constantly told to hide that they're different because they're unnacceptable the way they are, that their natural responses to serious distress are intrinsically wrong even though they don't hurt anybody.
There are excellent testimonies on the psychological effects of ABA from parents whose autistic children were severely harmed by the practice:
Chances are that the "mild schizophrenia" your uncle had in that case *is* autism -- actual schizophrenia doesn't show up until later in life, and the old name for autism (before they has a clue what it was) is "childhood schizophrenia."
The repetitive teaching method you're speaking of is Applied Behavioral Analysis, and virtually every adult autistic that I have spoken to is against it. Instead of helping the autistic leverage our natural savant skills, ABA just spends years forcing us (in an extremely abusive manner) to do mindless tasks precisely as told on command, like dogs. The drugs jammed into the autie are primarily to keep him/her from showing autistic signs of distress or that they're different.
(I'm telling you this because autism *is* genetic... Don't be shocked if you get another autie in your family -- and speaking as an adult Classic Autistic, if you do have one, please don't torture it with ABA. We develop at our own rate and become much *more* functional members of society by adulthood if that isn't done to us.)
"I grew up and lived in those parts and I know that as nice and hospitable as Ukranians (and Russians for that matter) are, they can also be liars and manipulators (learned from papa lenin himself)."
I've had a Sony Clie NX60 since early 2003, and absolutely love reading e-books on it. Here are some of the reasons I bought it specifically with reading in mind:
* extra-long 320 x 480 screen * metal shell instead of plastic = hard to break * vertical clamshell design protects screen * CF slot (wifi or mem card) *and* memstick slot * very clear 16-bit (64k) color screen * LONG battery life (6+ hours for text on full brightness) * will fully recharge in ~1 hour * integrated keyboard (good for quick searching) * jog dial (scrolling, click for a "page-down") * can use in clamshell or "tablet" mode
I use iSilo to read most of the time; the newer versions allow for high-quality full-color illustrations within the text, full text formatting, and read off the memory stick. I've used it for up to 6 hours in a row on cross-country flights and read 900-page novels on it without any sense of eyestrain or need to recharge. If I manage somehow to run out of stuff to read, I just go online with it (its 802.11b works great, even at tMobile Hotspots) and grab something new off the web or have my laptop set up to send another book the next time I do a wireless hotsync.
As a major bibliophile, clutz (it has now survived being dropped on concrete and having hot tea spilled on it!) and geek, I highly recommend the NX 60. Best part now is, it's been out for over a year, so they're *cheap* if you buy online.:-)
"Like your girlfriend, you have a reading comprehension problem."
I'd love to know how somebody with a 'reading comprehension problem' earned her bachelor's in English with honors from a university regarded worldwide as one of the most academically stringent.
"Your attitude is the real issue."
I would say that the person with an attitude problem is the one making wildly inaccurate assumptions about other human beings without knowing them.
"There's something to be said for people who deserve each other."
Yes: I get a kind-hearted, intelligent boyfriend, and obviously whatever partner you end up having will be a vicious bitch. Assuming you can attract one, which I *seriously* doubt given your attitude -- few people like to date an asshole.
"Sounds very one sided, as though he's one of those wussy guys that take the blame for every problem that happens."
No; I take the blame when it is my computer that is having issues, it's just that most of the time, it's his. (I have no trouble accomplishing things with other Windows or Linux users...) It sounds more like you're one of those psycho-zealots that can't admit his platform isn't perfect.
"That is to say, you're half the problem and I see you naming zero solutions."
I was stating the problem, not saying what we had done to try to solve it. If I tried to describe what we'd done, it would take another ten pages of commenting.:-p WTF is with your attitude?
"File transfer? FTP is a standard and I don't know a modern system that doesn't support it."
We've been using that; I was referring to trying to get file-transfers running successfully through chat clients.
"Games? Well what the hell systems are you trying to connect together? It's not the Mac's fault if a proprietary Windows developer locks out people on other systems."
I didn't say it's the "fault" of an inanimate object. Chill out. I stated the FACT that his computer can not run any of the online games *we* would like to play together.
"Why does his computer seemingly have to be the one that bends over backwards?"
Merely keeping up with a system 1.5 years older than it is shouldn't be considered "bending over backwards." I've been the one "bending over backwards" in this regard, in fact -- I'm the one that spends hours cheerfully helping him find software for the platform *he* chose, that switches out of the multi-protocol chat program (which works fine with my Linux/Windows friends) back into the lame original chat software because *his* computer has problems dealing with it, that has patiently waited while he retried sending file after file via email because *his* email program wasn't handling MIME in a way that was compatible with the mainstream servers...
"Pick an open standard and run with it,"
Such as?
"or maybe get a Mac yourself and start using iChat AV in 5 minutes."
It's *his* computer that's limited and a PITA, not mine. Mine does everything we think of to try out, and does it extremely well; why the hell would I waste my money buying something that does less than what I have now, and is either extremely limited or a pain to do it with?
"Here you give your troll away. Any Linux app he knew about he could recompile for the Mac, if a fink port didn't already exist. You again fail to mention specifics, too, which almost always means a claim is exaggerated."
No, I am not trolling. I just had no interest in trying to remember the many different apps he's had me help him look for. You can check out his blog at http://sonic.net/mustang/zathras and see for yourself a couple of the apps he's reviewed.
We've also had no luck setting up video chat via the various protocols, finding any online multiplayer RPGs that both our computers can connect to, getting file transfers to function properly...it just seems like every time I turn around, he's telling me his Mac can't do stuff. If I'm not a troll, I'm a frustrated girlfriend in a long-distance relationship with somebody whose computer isn't being terribly friendly about connecting us.:-p
" I'd add a smiley to that but, well, there's nothing funny about getting into a relationship with that kind of person."
My partner is kind, intelligent, funny -- everything that really matters in a relationship. I'd say that if there's "nothing funny" about getting into a relationship with anybody, it would be somebody so obsessive and *shallow* as to reject an extremely good partner because he doesn't compile Linux apps. It certainly sounds like you're reinforcing the stereotype that Mac geeks are a bunch of elitist jerks.
"Any non-tech type comes up to me and asks me what computer to get, I tell them to get a Mac."
In which case they start asking you where to get certain utilities their Windows pals are using, and then you get to explain why they can't run it on the computer you suggested.
(I've been in a relationship with an experienced Mac user for almost two years now. It seems like every time he mentions his Mac, it's in the context of either a standard app misbehaving, spending hours/days finding an acceptable OS X alternative to some mainstream Windows/Linux program that lacks a Mac version, or giving up because there is no alternative to be found. I'm glad I don't have to help him, because I'd be fairly fed up by now....)
Something I haven't noticed anybody else pointing out is that this could make all of the surrounding neighborhoods unsafe.
My city -- in the Bay Area -- is laid out on a fairly traditional grid, so that small residential streets run parallel to the main four-land roads. Whenever the cops are out ticketing speeders there or there's a commute-time wait at the stop signs & signals, drivers use the parallel residential streets like mine as a detour. That means that we often wind up with jackasses doing 40 - 60mph on a street designed for half that -- endangering and periodically hitting people or pets. The noise (between the various micro-dicked guys with booming bass or intentionally-roaring engines) is also incredibly obnoxious.
All making the lights go red is likely to do is teach drivers to route around them, so instead of people doing 40 on a road designed for 35, they wind up doing 50 (to "make up for lost time") on a street meant for 25. Makes life nicer for people on the main avenue, but it's dangerous and annoying for the rest of us.
You are correct that animals (even humans) have abstract thoughts without language.:-)
I am what is known as a "classic" autistic; my kind typically has a very high IQ, but doesn't think in words at all -- we most commonly think in sounds or images. All are capable of a significant degree of abstraction, but, like modern art or music, remain difficult to express in word-based language.
People lacking verbal ability certainly can think, though they typically don't think *in* language. The majority of autistics (like myself) don't think in words, but rather in pictures, sounds, or textures. Having that kind of thought is extremely useful for some applications, and we do have an inborn communications system compatible with other autistics, but working with words is as much of a "translation" situation for us as a foreign language might be for you.
It is known that autistic people *don't* think in language, regardless of whether we had a three-year delay in aquiring it or a thirteen-year one. Some think in tones, others in concrete or abstract three-dimensional imagery; in any event, all have to "translate" into textual-type language, and our speech/writing has a few (well-documented) odd traits as a result.
"Ever notice how feminists just really aren't torn up about any of that, even though most of it is deeply sexist?"
By many standards (not all) I would consider myself a feminist. (I'm actually an "equalist" but most people don't grasp that there's any leeway between traditional and feminist views.) Anyway, *I'm* annoyed by the sexist rationale behind not drafting females; perhaps they should be assigned to posts reflecting physical ability, but that should apply to both genders and they shouldn't be auto-exempt.
Then again, even though I'm personally a very aggressive person, I'm also against forcing *either* gender to participate in killing anything, so it's somewhat of a moot point.
Humanity already has a fairly well-known subgroup of people with brains that have more active neuronal structure, greater capacity for memory, a drastic reduction in age-related decline in cognitive/memorizations kills, and heightened sensory reactions. (Which is all wonderful to have, speaking firsthand.)
The response from the community has not been to embrace us. It has been to force us into painful "treatments" from a young age that train us to "act normal" -- to hide all signs that we're different, including strong natural interests in learning and pain at stimuli that doesn't bother sensory-average humans. There are huge organizations decrying how horrible it is that we exist at all, that actively claim it'd be better if we died of cancer, because we don't act just like "normal" people.
It strikes me as bizarrely hypocritical for one wing of science to be fighting to find a way to prevent/cure my kind, while another is attempting to learn how to intentionally create us. We're already here, we tend to reproduce reliably within families, we just need to be accepted rather than terrorized into hiding our abilities.
Better yet, teach him about Asperger Syndrome and that it's not *wrong* in the first place.
It's a huge difference from the mainstream neurology, but it's not something "wrong" with us, any more than homosexuality, left-handedness, or similar major *differences* are. Teaching him that he's broken will only further damage his self-esteem, which will be seriously messed up by the bullies as it is. Showing him how AS can be a huge source of talents and skills that others don't have, otoh, can make a positive difference.
If people are bigoted jerks, then he needs to be shown how to find more accepting friends.
(Spoken as somebody with Kanners Autism that, because I was raised to focus on my positive traits, just graduated from a top university and has a great relationship with an Asperger's Autistic. That's because I *wasn't* raised to waste energy trying to fake neurotypicality in the belief that it's "wrong" to be autistic.)
It isn't "similar" in nature to autism, it IS a form of autism -- the experts agree at this point on that. Autistics that have gained speech, autistics that are nonverbal but can write, and Aspergers autistics are all in close communication online these days, and it's impossible to distinguish between us. There's more variation in type between individuals in the same "category" than there is between the different forms.
I completely agree that it's possibly what the student in question has, though -- that's what immediately came to my mind as well.
Slashdot Mirror
"Chicks may dig geeks, but they are also chicks, and thus not to be trusted. The Y chromosome may be smaller, but it does a very important task in nature: preventing Crazy"
With that attitude, it doesn't surprise me at all that you get psychos for GFs. No sane self-respecting intelligent woman, geek or otherwise, would date somebody that regarded them as naturally "crazy" or otherwise inferior.
Female geek here, engaged to a male geek. :)
"unfortunately said geek needs to make sure he looks clean and well kept"
He also has to be (IMHO) not a sexist jackass that will try to talk down to me or regard me as "crazy" or any of that other bullshit I see on Slashdot all too often.
That works well against a "sprint" animal such as a gazelle, but it would fail against another species that has a long-distance jog as its primary gait.
Horses, for example, are primarily designed to cover dozens of miles within a day at a moderate pace; some breeds have the additional ability to run extremely long distances at high speed. Humans have notably slower racing times for endurance running, despite not having the additional equivalent weight of bearing a rider or heavy gear.
You might want to request that before the program goes to all the work of categorizing that many bookmarks for you, it checks to make sure that they point to places that still exist. Perhaps in that case, if the answer is "no" then it could filter into two secondary categories based on whether the specific page is missing or if the whole site is gone.
Interesting comment for a geek to be making, considering Spiderman is far more "traditionally masculine" than the overwhelming majority of guys that browse Slashdot...
;-)
I guess you get to keep on secretly dreaming about Spidey coming out of the closet to declare his interest in you, since he's no more likely to be gay than the many geeks that don't meet stereotypes about straight guys. According to your logic, far less likely, in fact.
"I think it's terrible that there are people taking advantage of younger girls and luring them with money. It's sad to me that someone's willing to give away sex to some guy they meet for a few minutes online."
I notice you only say that it's "sad" that "somebody" (i.e. a female) is willing to have sex with a guy, but you don't apply such judgment to the male as well. I wouldn't say it's sad that either gender is interested in having sex; it's the reasons behind it (poverty, exploitation, power) that are sickening.
There's also a similar condition called hyperhydrosis that some people are seemingly born with or develop at an extremely young age. Like in hyponatraemia, the near-constant sweating can cause both dehydration and unpleasant mineral imbalances. Luckily there are a number of treatments for hyperhydrosis, ranging from surgery down to special OTC anti-persperants like Certain-Dri.
Yes, actually, there's a pretty wide variety of alternatives; ABA is *presented* as the only way to deal with autism, but it's not. (If it were, then my non-ABA-trained autistic butt wouldn't have a bachelor's degree from Berkeley. Note that I am what's known as a "classic" autie that even loses speech/literacy if too stressed, but because I know how to handle my autism, I can often function as if I were just an Asperger's autistic instead.)
:)
:)
I'm a bit too drained at this point to deal with writing a big post -- being autistic, sometimes language just doesn't work right -- but all I'd be doing is restating what others have said. So instead, I'll give you some of my favorite links on the subject.
Our Story: Life On The Spectrum Jypsy wrote about raising her autistic (as in "did not even speak until late in childhood") son Alex, with non-ABA methods, and their amazing success. She's supposed to update soon, as he's now a track & field star mainstreamed in high school with top grades.
Autistic Advocacy Essays about autism, including many explanations of why ABA is harmful and the preferred alternatives.
Autistics.org Library Essays on a variety of topics about how autistics are treated. (Autistics.org is a great place for info in general, but the Library is the best for quick learning.)
Autism and Assistive Technology One autistic discusses using assistive technology so she can live a fuller life rather than waste energy looking non-autistic.
If you're really interested in the topic, AutAdvo has a ton of parents & autistics that love explaining this, and would do a better job than I'm capable of this evening.
The big thing is, there's no way to tell if somebody has "limited potential" in the first place; and even if they are limited in that way, I don't think that torturing them is OK. (ABA is best summed up in the phrase "deliberately doing things that wouldn't bother a normal child but deeply frighten or cause pain to an autistic." Being touched or held down when your skin is hypersensitive, having people clap when your hearing is extremely fine-tuned *hurts* -- and ABA's purpose is to extinguish all signs that we experience that pain.)
You're also 100% right in saying it's not at all enabling. It doesn't help the autistic learn what their sensory needs are or how to accommodate them, but takes all of the energy they'd spend actually developing and diverts it to uncomprehending mimicry. The person grows up not knowing why their brain can't always function right, why they're "distracted" easily, why they tire out, why they become upset when others don't, or why they can't voice that upset...they go from being "different" to actually not being able to function much at all.
The long-term effect is, as you said, a person that is very prone to being abused and taken advantage of, plus severe depression... Nobody can live happily being constantly told to hide that they're different because they're unnacceptable the way they are, that their natural responses to serious distress are intrinsically wrong even though they don't hurt anybody.
There are excellent testimonies on the psychological effects of ABA from parents whose autistic children were severely harmed by the practice:
http://users.1st.net/cibra/testimonyindex.htm
Chances are that the "mild schizophrenia" your uncle had in that case *is* autism -- actual schizophrenia doesn't show up until later in life, and the old name for autism (before they has a clue what it was) is "childhood schizophrenia."
The repetitive teaching method you're speaking of is Applied Behavioral Analysis, and virtually every adult autistic that I have spoken to is against it. Instead of helping the autistic leverage our natural savant skills, ABA just spends years forcing us (in an extremely abusive manner) to do mindless tasks precisely as told on command, like dogs. The drugs jammed into the autie are primarily to keep him/her from showing autistic signs of distress or that they're different.
(I'm telling you this because autism *is* genetic... Don't be shocked if you get another autie in your family -- and speaking as an adult Classic Autistic, if you do have one, please don't torture it with ABA. We develop at our own rate and become much *more* functional members of society by adulthood if that isn't done to us.)
"I grew up and lived in those parts and I know that as nice and hospitable as Ukranians (and Russians for that matter) are, they can also be liars and manipulators (learned from papa lenin himself)."
That's true of any nationality, unfortunately.
I've had a Sony Clie NX60 since early 2003, and absolutely love reading e-books on it. Here are some of the reasons I bought it specifically with reading in mind:
:-)
* extra-long 320 x 480 screen
* metal shell instead of plastic = hard to break
* vertical clamshell design protects screen
* CF slot (wifi or mem card) *and* memstick slot
* very clear 16-bit (64k) color screen
* LONG battery life (6+ hours for text on full brightness)
* will fully recharge in ~1 hour
* integrated keyboard (good for quick searching)
* jog dial (scrolling, click for a "page-down")
* can use in clamshell or "tablet" mode
I use iSilo to read most of the time; the newer versions allow for high-quality full-color illustrations within the text, full text formatting, and read off the memory stick. I've used it for up to 6 hours in a row on cross-country flights and read 900-page novels on it without any sense of eyestrain or need to recharge. If I manage somehow to run out of stuff to read, I just go online with it (its 802.11b works great, even at tMobile Hotspots) and grab something new off the web or have my laptop set up to send another book the next time I do a wireless hotsync.
As a major bibliophile, clutz (it has now survived being dropped on concrete and having hot tea spilled on it!) and geek, I highly recommend the NX 60. Best part now is, it's been out for over a year, so they're *cheap* if you buy online.
"Like your girlfriend, you have a reading comprehension problem."
I'd love to know how somebody with a 'reading comprehension problem' earned her bachelor's in English with honors from a university regarded worldwide as one of the most academically stringent.
"Your attitude is the real issue."
I would say that the person with an attitude problem is the one making wildly inaccurate assumptions about other human beings without knowing them.
"There's something to be said for people who deserve each other."
Yes: I get a kind-hearted, intelligent boyfriend, and obviously whatever partner you end up having will be a vicious bitch. Assuming you can attract one, which I *seriously* doubt given your attitude -- few people like to date an asshole.
"Sounds very one sided, as though he's one of those wussy guys that take the blame for every problem that happens."
:-p WTF is with your attitude?
No; I take the blame when it is my computer that is having issues, it's just that most of the time, it's his. (I have no trouble accomplishing things with other Windows or Linux users...) It sounds more like you're one of those psycho-zealots that can't admit his platform isn't perfect.
"That is to say, you're half the problem and I see you naming zero solutions."
I was stating the problem, not saying what we had done to try to solve it. If I tried to describe what we'd done, it would take another ten pages of commenting.
"File transfer? FTP is a standard and I don't know a modern system that doesn't support it."
We've been using that; I was referring to trying to get file-transfers running successfully through chat clients.
"Games? Well what the hell systems are you trying to connect together? It's not the Mac's fault if a proprietary Windows developer locks out people on other systems."
I didn't say it's the "fault" of an inanimate object. Chill out. I stated the FACT that his computer can not run any of the online games *we* would like to play together.
"Why does his computer seemingly have to be the one that bends over backwards?"
Merely keeping up with a system 1.5 years older than it is shouldn't be considered "bending over backwards." I've been the one "bending over backwards" in this regard, in fact -- I'm the one that spends hours cheerfully helping him find software for the platform *he* chose, that switches out of the multi-protocol chat program (which works fine with my Linux/Windows friends) back into the lame original chat software because *his* computer has problems dealing with it, that has patiently waited while he retried sending file after file via email because *his* email program wasn't handling MIME in a way that was compatible with the mainstream servers...
"Pick an open standard and run with it,"
Such as?
"or maybe get a Mac yourself and start using iChat AV in 5 minutes."
It's *his* computer that's limited and a PITA, not mine. Mine does everything we think of to try out, and does it extremely well; why the hell would I waste my money buying something that does less than what I have now, and is either extremely limited or a pain to do it with?
"Here you give your troll away. Any Linux app he knew about he could recompile for the Mac, if a fink port didn't already exist. You again fail to mention specifics, too, which almost always means a claim is exaggerated."
:-p
No, I am not trolling. I just had no interest in trying to remember the many different apps he's had me help him look for. You can check out his blog at http://sonic.net/mustang/zathras and see for yourself a couple of the apps he's reviewed.
We've also had no luck setting up video chat via the various protocols, finding any online multiplayer RPGs that both our computers can connect to, getting file transfers to function properly...it just seems like every time I turn around, he's telling me his Mac can't do stuff. If I'm not a troll, I'm a frustrated girlfriend in a long-distance relationship with somebody whose computer isn't being terribly friendly about connecting us.
" I'd add a smiley to that but, well, there's nothing funny about getting into a relationship with that kind of person."
My partner is kind, intelligent, funny -- everything that really matters in a relationship. I'd say that if there's "nothing funny" about getting into a relationship with anybody, it would be somebody so obsessive and *shallow* as to reject an extremely good partner because he doesn't compile Linux apps. It certainly sounds like you're reinforcing the stereotype that Mac geeks are a bunch of elitist jerks.
"Any non-tech type comes up to me and asks me what computer to get, I tell them to get a Mac."
In which case they start asking you where to get certain utilities their Windows pals are using, and then you get to explain why they can't run it on the computer you suggested.
(I've been in a relationship with an experienced Mac user for almost two years now. It seems like every time he mentions his Mac, it's in the context of either a standard app misbehaving, spending hours/days finding an acceptable OS X alternative to some mainstream Windows/Linux program that lacks a Mac version, or giving up because there is no alternative to be found. I'm glad I don't have to help him, because I'd be fairly fed up by now....)
Something I haven't noticed anybody else pointing out is that this could make all of the surrounding neighborhoods unsafe.
My city -- in the Bay Area -- is laid out on a fairly traditional grid, so that small residential streets run parallel to the main four-land roads. Whenever the cops are out ticketing speeders there or there's a commute-time wait at the stop signs & signals, drivers use the parallel residential streets like mine as a detour. That means that we often wind up with jackasses doing 40 - 60mph on a street designed for half that -- endangering and periodically hitting people or pets. The noise (between the various micro-dicked guys with booming bass or intentionally-roaring engines) is also incredibly obnoxious.
All making the lights go red is likely to do is teach drivers to route around them, so instead of people doing 40 on a road designed for 35, they wind up doing 50 (to "make up for lost time") on a street meant for 25. Makes life nicer for people on the main avenue, but it's dangerous and annoying for the rest of us.
You are correct that animals (even humans) have abstract thoughts without language. :-)
I am what is known as a "classic" autistic; my kind typically has a very high IQ, but doesn't think in words at all -- we most commonly think in sounds or images. All are capable of a significant degree of abstraction, but, like modern art or music, remain difficult to express in word-based language.
People lacking verbal ability certainly can think, though they typically don't think *in* language. The majority of autistics (like myself) don't think in words, but rather in pictures, sounds, or textures. Having that kind of thought is extremely useful for some applications, and we do have an inborn communications system compatible with other autistics, but working with words is as much of a "translation" situation for us as a foreign language might be for you.
It is known that autistic people *don't* think in language, regardless of whether we had a three-year delay in aquiring it or a thirteen-year one. Some think in tones, others in concrete or abstract three-dimensional imagery; in any event, all have to "translate" into textual-type language, and our speech/writing has a few (well-documented) odd traits as a result.
"Ever notice how feminists just really aren't torn up about any of that, even though most of it is deeply sexist?"
By many standards (not all) I would consider myself a feminist. (I'm actually an "equalist" but most people don't grasp that there's any leeway between traditional and feminist views.) Anyway, *I'm* annoyed by the sexist rationale behind not drafting females; perhaps they should be assigned to posts reflecting physical ability, but that should apply to both genders and they shouldn't be auto-exempt.
Then again, even though I'm personally a very aggressive person, I'm also against forcing *either* gender to participate in killing anything, so it's somewhat of a moot point.
This strikes me as a bit bizarre.
Humanity already has a fairly well-known subgroup of people with brains that have more active neuronal structure, greater capacity for memory, a drastic reduction in age-related decline in cognitive/memorizations kills, and heightened sensory reactions. (Which is all wonderful to have, speaking firsthand.)
The response from the community has not been to embrace us. It has been to force us into painful "treatments" from a young age that train us to "act normal" -- to hide all signs that we're different, including strong natural interests in learning and pain at stimuli that doesn't bother sensory-average humans. There are huge organizations decrying how horrible it is that we exist at all, that actively claim it'd be better if we died of cancer, because we don't act just like "normal" people.
It strikes me as bizarrely hypocritical for one wing of science to be fighting to find a way to prevent/cure my kind, while another is attempting to learn how to intentionally create us. We're already here, we tend to reproduce reliably within families, we just need to be accepted rather than terrorized into hiding our abilities.
Better yet, teach him about Asperger Syndrome and that it's not *wrong* in the first place.
It's a huge difference from the mainstream neurology, but it's not something "wrong" with us, any more than homosexuality, left-handedness, or similar major *differences* are. Teaching him that he's broken will only further damage his self-esteem, which will be seriously messed up by the bullies as it is. Showing him how AS can be a huge source of talents and skills that others don't have, otoh, can make a positive difference.
If people are bigoted jerks, then he needs to be shown how to find more accepting friends.
(Spoken as somebody with Kanners Autism that, because I was raised to focus on my positive traits, just graduated from a top university and has a great relationship with an Asperger's Autistic. That's because I *wasn't* raised to waste energy trying to fake neurotypicality in the belief that it's "wrong" to be autistic.)
It isn't "similar" in nature to autism, it IS a form of autism -- the experts agree at this point on that. Autistics that have gained speech, autistics that are nonverbal but can write, and Aspergers autistics are all in close communication online these days, and it's impossible to distinguish between us. There's more variation in type between individuals in the same "category" than there is between the different forms.
I completely agree that it's possibly what the student in question has, though -- that's what immediately came to my mind as well.