Not a real fan of the options this year, but... (2012/11/05)
Okay, here’s the thing. In general, my intuition is that Republican candidates tend to advocate economic policies which are more likely to work decently than Democractic candidates. And for a long time, that was enough for me to vote for them even when I had to hold my nose on social issues.
[read more...]Autistics Speaking Day: Predictably relatively quiet (2012/11/01)
So, there was some idea floating around that people ought to pick a day and not talk in honor of the communications difficulties faced by “people with autism”. Which, of course, helps cement the stereotype that we generally can’t communicate, and supports the idea that other people ought to speak for us. Which, it turns out, isn’t super popular with a lot of autistics, so some clever folks came up with the idea of Autistics Speaking Day. Of course. A lot of autistic people don’t particularly enjoy talking to strangers, or talking about themselves. Or are a little shy.
[read more...]Polls and predictions (2012/10/30)
The election season is fascinating for math geeks, because it’s full of numbers, and numbers about numbers, and numbers about numbers about numbers.
[read more...]Wow, thanks. It really is wonderful to be understood and appreciated. (2012/10/25)
Okay, this is a year old and all, but I only found it today. Apparently, according to someone who has letters after his name and is thus more important than I am, Teaching empathy to someone with autism/Asperger’s is almost like teaching a pig to sing - it is a waste of time and annoys the pig (at least most of the time).
[read more...]Standing room only... (2012/10/24)
I’ve seen one too many news stories about how it’s bad for us to sit all the time. I now have a standing desk. It’s a little wobbly, so I’ll have to add some supports to it, which means a hardware store trip. Planning to add four corner supports to it. Initial feedback, yes my feet hurt, but I feel otherwise quite a lot better. I’ve always liked to pace when thinking, and this gets me some of the benefits of pacing without the difficulty reaching the keyboard.
[read more...]Logic puzzle time! (2012/10/22)
Okay, so. There are three doors, two hiding goats, one hiding a car. You pick a door. The host now picks another door, revealing a goat. Should you switch? The answer is, of course, that if you switch, there is a one in three chance that you find the unexpected tiger.
Gricean Maxims, and why I have trouble with them... (2012/10/16)
A while back, I commented on Romney’s “Keep America American”. At least one person told me that I had given the impression that I thought that the people who liked this slogan were racists; this confused the heck out of me, because I thought what I said was that racists liked the slogan, and that I believe it was constructed the way it was in order to appeal to them.
[read more...]I guess you're in big trouble, then. (2012/10/16)
Burying cats: Humans are not sane. (2012/10/15)
Jesse’s cat Maya died today. She was 15ish. Our friend Aud had a cat named Penny, who also died today, so we dug them a grave. It turns out this is a lot of work. Our back yard has fairly dense dirt, full of rocks and tree roots, and it is really hard to get dirt out of a deep hole with a shovel. (We now own a shop vac.)
[read more...]Skin in the game (2012/09/29)
The phrase “skin in the game” comes in and out of fashion. I always rather liked it; it’s evocative.
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