Then why do all of those commercials say "Own it on Blu-Ray today!"

Yes, I know that's movies and this thread is about video games, but it's the same general concept.

And, just to extend the programming analogy, if you are high-functioning enough you can learn to emulate many of the social "variables and functions," but your emulator will be slow and resource intensive compared to the "native code" that other people seem to have.

While researching Asperger's (after my son's diagnosis), I read that Aspies tend to think in If-Then scenarios. For my son, this means that using If-Then statements are highly effective if you want him to do something. For example, if you say "Get your shoes on!", he'll continue to watch TV. If you say "If you get your shoes on, then we can go to the store", he'll get his shoes on.

As far as social situations are concerned, however, If-Thens are horrible. Social situations have tons of grey areas and complex rules that If-Thens can't account for. Someone with Asperger's can build up a "social rules dictionary" of If-Then statements, but it is tough to keep it all in your mind and "run" it real-time. ("If this person looks at me like this, then she means that... unless this situation comes up then this other thing.... unless a third thing happens then.....")

Computers (programming in particular) is all about If-Thens. All of the loops and statements and code essentially boils down to "If you get this input, then do this." Thus, working with computers can come naturally to people with Asperger's unlike social situations.

(I believe that I'm an Aspie as well considering my son's diagnosis and how alike my son and I are. I'd get diagnosed but that would cost money we don't have lying around and wouldn't help my son or me - as I've built up coping mechanisms for myself over the years.)

The rocking/spinning is called Stimming - or self-stimulation. It's utilized by those on the spectrum as a coping mechanism for situations (possibly including sensory overload) that they can't handle otherwise.

People with Asperger's aren't antisocial by choice. They don't readily understand the social rules that come naturally to other people. For example, if you ask my son (who was diagnosed with Asperger's) how his day was, you're probably looking for an answer along the lines of "It went pretty well." Instead, you'll get a second-by-second stream-of-consciousness replay of his entire day.

People with Asperger's can learn the social rules, but it takes effort to remember it all. This means that being social can be tiring. Add in the anxiety over getting something wrong and it becomes easier to not be social than it is to be social. All the while, the person with Asperger's WANTS to be social but finds it a tiring/anxiety-ridden affair.

No, people with Asperger's are high functioning Autistics. The good news is that they can usually function in day to day society. The bad news is that they mask their issues well enough that people can tell them they don't have any real problems. For the record, my son has Asperger's and I likely have it as well. (I'm not diagnosed because it would cost money to get the diagnosis and it wouldn't help me or my son at this point.)

Just because a few people take a social problem and joke "I must have Asperger's", don't think that anyone with Asperger's is just trying to pass blame off of themselves.

[DOCTOR WHO] I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. [/DOCTOR WHO]

Years back I worked for a company that was acquired and we were forced to go to Notes (from Outlook IIRC). I found Notes to be a very intelligent piece of software. Unfortunately, it wasn't a friendly kind of intelligence that helped you out. Instead, it seemed to be a malicious sort of intelligence that would make Notes get progressively harder to use the more you tried to be productive.

And just extending your calculations: 6,000 people employed around the clock at $10 per hour (or more people working shifts so you get 6,000 people working every hour for 24 hours a day-7 days a week) is $60,000 per hour or $1,440,000 per day or over $525 million per year.

Total Google revenues for 2012 were $46,039,000,000 so the "Review Uploaded YouTube Videos" department would cost Google 1% of it's revenue every year.

First of all, studies have been done. LOTS of studies. NONE found ANY link between vaccines and autism. Of course, the "vaccines cause autism" crowd either ignore these studies and continue claiming none have been done or change their explanation about how vaccines cause autism and then declare that no studies have checked on this. The latter approach is moving the goal posts and there is no arguing against that. Not that it's a valid argument, but that no matter how often you debunk the argument, they'll change one tiny aspect of it and require you to spend time and money debunking it all over again.

Also, as the parent of an autistic son, I feel personally qualified to say the following (partially quoting Penn and Teller): Even if vaccines caused autism - WHICH THEY DON'T - but even if they did, it would be FAR better to get your child vaccinated and risk autism than avoid autism and face the diseases that vaccines prevent. An autistic child is still a LIVE child. If your child encounters Whooping Cough or Measles, they stand a good chance of DYING. Too many children are dead because Whooping Cough, Measles, and other vaccine-preventable diseases are making comebacks. Vaccines keep kids alive. I'm thankful that vaccines help keep my autistic son alive and I'll argue with anyone who claims that he's "ruined" because he's autistic and that he's better off having died.

Because this isn't just natural selection. If it just affected kids of those who didn't want to vaccinate, it might be "Natural Selection", but it affects people who CAN'T be vaccinated for valid reasons (allergies, immune system issues, or just plain too young).

For example, Person A decides they won't vaccinate because they think it's all a plot by Big Pharma. Their kids wind up carriers for measles. They cough on their hands and touch a supermarket shopping cart*. An hour later, you put your 4 month old baby in the shopping cart to go into the store. Congratulations! Your baby has been exposed to measles and there's nothing you could have done to stop it. Your baby might now die thanks to Person A - someone who you've never seen in your life.

* In case you say "well, I'd take precautions against shopping cart contamination", this could just as easily be a box on a shelf or something else that you or your baby would touch.

vaccines are one of the greatest triumphs of mankind

And, unfortunately, this means they become a victim of their own success. People today (and I include myself in this) don't remember when polio or measles or smallpox ran rampant. They don't remember the fear of catching one of these or how serious it is. I've read enough accounts so that I understand intellectually, but I'll never know in a "living it day to day" way. Something for which I'm extremely thankful.

Sadly, some people, in ignorance, assume that these diseases were "basically like colds." You get the measles, stay home for a few days until the bumps disappear and you're good to go. They ignore all of the death or life-long disabilities these diseases brought with them. Next, they buy into the "vaccines are so risky" crowd's talk (vaccines have "toxins" in them. [scary voice]TOOOOOXXXXIIIINNNNNNSSSS!!!!!!{/scary voice]) and mentally increase the risk of the vaccines.

The end result is that these people decide not to vaccinate because they see the vaccines as more dangerous than the diseases when the reality is the exact opposite. In such a big way, mind you, that saying "the exact opposite" still feels like an understatement. And when large groups of these people make these faulty risk assessments, they increase the risk of not only them and their children, but of people who can't be vaccinated for valid reasons (too young, immune system issues, allergies, etc.).

I guarantee you that almost none of these anti-vax folks would be complaining about the MMR if measles was as rampant today as it was before the vaccine was introduced. The ones that would still be complaining would be shouted down by the crowds flocking to get the MMR.

I couldn't help but think that Tumblr could be recreated with a free copy of WordPress MultiSite and some plugin/theme work. If Yahoo took that path, the investment would have been a LOT less than $1.1 billion. Of course, they wouldn't have gotten the "eyeballs" already on Tumblr but, like you said, those Tumblr users might not stay Tumblr users and definitely can't be counted on suddenly becoming Yahoo users. Buying a currently hot (in terms of user usage but not in terms of profitability) company in the hopes that this will make your long-declining company hot never works. It just results in the "hot" company cooling down quickly. Kind of like how pouring one cup of boiling water on an iceberg cools the boiling water more than it melts the iceberg.

And even if we assume the best case scenario: Tumblr becomes "super profitable" and makes $100 million every year, it'll take 11 years just to pay off the $1.1 billion that Yahoo spent on it. 11 years is forever in the tech industry. Why, 11 years ago Yahoo! was a viable search engine just barely behind Google in market share!

Many other people have chimed in about how it isn't just insurance matters make it important to keep medical issues private. Here's an issue that's close to my heart: Asperger's/Autism. My son was diagnosed with Asperger's last year and, while I haven't been formally diagnosed (mainly because that would require spending money we don't have and wouldn't help my son or me), it's pretty clear I'm an Aspie too.

Now, towards the end of last year, there was that horrible shooting in Newtown. One of the first things that the press did was seize on one statement from the gunman's brother about how he thought the gunman had Asperger's. It was completely irrelevant to why he shot those people, but the media put them together because it made for a nice scare story. "Is that person with Asperger's next to you going to kill you? Tune in at 11 to find out!"

Needless to say, some panic erupted. People formed "kill Asperger's" groups on Facebook. One teen, known to have Asperger's, was assaulted in a store because he had his hands in his pockets. (He was using something that helps him stay calm in social situations. He didn't show any signs of having a weapon but they beat him up nonetheless.) Thankfully, the Asperger's/Autism community reacted quickly to get the message out that Asperger's had NOTHING to do with the shooting. Still, some people still think that the Newtown shooter did what he did because he was on the Autism Spectrum. Similar acts of violence/prejudice have happened in the past (the 80's and AIDS) and will likely happen in the future.

Now, my wife and I are pretty open about our son having Asperger's, but I don't want that to be public information. I don't want someone to go to MedicalMaps.Google.Com, search for "Asperger's" and get a map with markers - one of which is my son and where he lives. This should be up to my wife, my son, and I who we disclose it to. Not some big company who sees my son's (and my) medical information as a pathway to profit.

My wife got interested in Doctor Who after me and is catching up. We just watched Waters of Mars (re-watched for me). For the non-Whovians here, the Doctor finds himself at the first Mars colony in the near future where an infestation is spreading. Something in the water supply is turning people into water-spewing alien creatures. Even one drop of their water hitting you is enough to cause the change. The source of this was water from Mars that was isolated in a glacier for quite a long time.

So you'll excuse me if I don't feel just a little afraid. I hope they're properly containing this water. Then again, to quote the Doctor, "Water is patient. Water just waits. Wears down the cliff tops, the mountains. The whole of the world. Water always wins."