Follow Slashdot blog updates by subscribing to our blog RSS feed

 



Forgot your password?
typodupeerror
×

Comment Re:Everyone's on the spectrum (Score 1) 109

Workers On Autism Spectrum...

Everyone is on the autism spectrum. That's why they call it a spectrum.

Alternative post: No thanks, I'll wait for the Autism Amiga.

They call it a spectrum because autistic people vary quite a lot from each other - not because "everyone is on the spectrum". Not everyone is tall, even though everyone has a height. Not everyone is smart, even though everyone has an IQ. Not everyone is autistic, even though everyone can get an AQ ("autism spectrum quotient") test score greater than zero.

Comment Re:Facebook indistinguishable from a scam (Score 1) 116

I can't tell Facebook vs a scam... both ask for personal information, promise a fantastic experience that is never delivered, and sell my personal information for a profit...
I can see why people struggle to differentiate the two.

Any commercially greedy social medium is indistinguishable from malware.

Comment Re:I solved the mystery (Score 2) 276

Actually, there is strong evidence that the Native Americans discovered America.

No. Their ancestors did. The Asian people who first discovered North America were not, by definition, native to America - they were native Asians. Their descendants were native Americans, but by then, North America had already been discovered.

Comment Re:Science is not about trust (Score 1) 460

Science is about reproducible results. Publish the details of your experiment, so I can perform your experiment (and variations on it) myself. Your claim is strengthened if I get the same results you do.

The only person who could reasonably reproduce an experiment would be another scientist within the same area of science. A random member of the public lacks knowledge, time, and equipement to reproduce any scientific experiment - and most of all any person, scientist or otherwise, lacks the time to reproduce all the experiments they would need to do in order to avoid trust.

Trust is at the core of science - you trust journals and reputable scientists not to lie, because you cannot afford universal scepticism.

Comment Re:Experience with long distance hiking (Score 1) 89

Early human life must have been gritty when things weren't bountiful.

With twelve hours of darkness per day (on average), and needing only eight hours sleep, they had a LOT of time in the dark while awake. Especially in winter. I reckon they must have had a lot of snuggling up time on their hands.

Comment Re:News for nerds (Score 1) 165

While the IS stuff is rather a hot news item, I do not agree that slashdot is really the place for it. One of the reasons I look at Slashdot is to get a nice newsfeed without 5 items per day about wild muslims.

Damn! There goes my new article about about "Emacs or Vi? Which do wild Muslims prefer?"

Comment Re:Too Bad (Score 2) 106

While I do not fall on the recorded Autism spectrum. The way they make Sheldon would be very insulting to people with these problems.

While having Asperger's can bring some problems it can also bring strengths and pleasures (e.g. Aspie "special interests" can be great fun, almost like being in love, but with a topic rather than a person). I wouldn't refer to Asperger's simplistically as a "problem". It is a condition with problems and advantages - and also some differences that are just plain neutral.

Referring to the autism spectrum as unqualified "problems" is part of the problem. Asperger's isn't a defect, it is a difference with positives and negatives.

PS: quite a few people on the spectrum think Sheldon is great. At least we get a vaguely recognisable Aspie character who has some strengths (genius, can be very generous with money) and obvious weaknesses (not all of which are core Aspie weaknesses - e.g. his narcissism is more Sheldon than Aspie).

Slashdot Top Deals

Living on Earth may be expensive, but it includes an annual free trip around the Sun.

Working...