Well, here's the old and the new.

Aspergers:

Qualitative impairment in social interaction, as manifested by at least two of the following:

(A) marked impairments in the use of multiple nonverbal behaviors such as eye-to-eye gaze, facial expression, body posture, and gestures to regulate social interaction (B) failure to develop peer relationships appropriate to developmental level (C) a lack of spontaneous seeking to share enjoyment, interest or achievements with other people, (e.g.. by a lack of showing, bringing, or pointing out objects of interest to other people) (D) lack of social or emotional reciprocity

(II) Restricted repetitive & stereotyped patterns of behavior, interests and activities, as manifested by at least one of the following

(A) encompassing preoccupation with one or more stereotyped and restricted patterns of interest that is abnormal either in intensity or focus (B) apparently inflexible adherence to specific, nonfunctional routines or rituals (C) stereotyped and repetitive motor mannerisms (e.g. hand or finger flapping or twisting, or complex whole-body movements) (D) persistent preoccupation with parts of objects

(III) The disturbance causes clinically significant impairments in social, occupational, or other important areas of functioning.

(IV) There is no clinically significant general delay in language (E.G. single words used by age 2 years, communicative phrases used by age 3 years)

(V) There is no clinically significant delay in cognitive development or in the development of age-appropriate self help skills, adaptive behavior (other than in social interaction) and curiosity about the environment in childhood.

(VI) Criteria are not met for another specific Pervasive Developmental Disorder or Schizophrenia."

Autism Spectrum Disorder (new)

Must meet criteria A, B, C, and D:

A. Persistent deficits in social communication and social interaction across contexts, not accounted for by general developmental delays, and manifest by all 3 of the following:

1. Deficits in social-emotional reciprocity; ranging from abnormal social approach and failure of normal back and forth conversation through reduced sharing of interests, emotions, and affect and response to total lack of initiation of social interaction. 2. Deficits in nonverbal communicative behaviors used for social interaction; ranging from poorly integrated- verbal and nonverbal communication, through abnormalities in eye contact and body-language, or deficits in understanding and use of nonverbal communication, to total lack of facial expression or gestures. 3. Deficits in developing and maintaining relationships, appropriate to developmental level (beyond those with caregivers); ranging from difficulties adjusting behavior to suit different social contexts through difficulties in sharing imaginative play and in making friends to an apparent absence of interest in people.

B. Restricted, repetitive patterns of behavior, interests, or activities as manifested by at least two of the following:

1. Stereotyped or repetitive speech, motor movements, or use of objects; (such as simple motor stereotypies, echolalia, repetitive use of objects, or idiosyncratic phrases). 2. Excessive adherence to routines, ritualized patterns of verbal or nonverbal behavior, or excessive resistance to change; (such as motoric rituals, insistence on same route or food, repetitive questioning or extreme distress at small changes). 3. Highly restricted, fixated interests that are abnormal in intensity or focus; (such as strong attachment to or preoccupation with unusual objects, excessively circumscribed or perseverative interests). 4. Hyper-or hypo-reactivity to sensory input or unusual interest in sensory aspects of environment; (such as apparent indifference to pain/heat/cold, adverse response to specific sounds or textures, excessive smelling or touching of objects, fascination with lights or spinning objects).

C. Symptoms must be present in early childhood (but may not become fully manifest until social demands exceed limited capacities).

D. Symptoms together limit and impair everyday functioning.

Plenty of people with brain tumors live.

An ex-librarian here - I'd treat it as a special collection and avoid both Dewy and Library of Congress - neither of them tend to be that great for small, narrow collections. I would avoid shelf numbers all together - just do it as: fiction (alphabetical by author), art (alpha by artist) etc. And for non fiction, divide into as many subject areas as you need and then do it by author/editor or year.

As for the cataloguing, I would recommend "Library Thing". It's $25.00 for life - you get an expert level for very little effort. As for the rest of it - I'm inclined to be a little bit alarmed that you are thinking of tagging and lending out what sounds like a valuable (and fragile) collection. I think you'd be better off concentrating on preseving the value by investing in things like acid free non-stick covers and good shelving. If you must lend, then go low-tech (an exercise book with columns like "title" "person who has it" and so on. Or what about cards - I used to love cards). Any type of tagging seriously crashes the value of your books. Apart from that, tagging is what you do when you have large numbers of strangers (i.e. students) who want to carry off your collection. If you are lending to friends then you shouldn't really need that.

Why should women need an excuse? I think it's great that women might one day be able to have children without having to go through pregnancy.

I remember finding a young adult fiction book by Louise Lawrence (Andra) utterely bleak. I have never reread it as an adult, but it had the most down-beat ending. I must dig it out.

Yes, the audience getting the message is the most important thing. Yes, people can get the message despite spelling and grammar. And yes (although you didn't say it) pedantry about grammar is often just snobbery about education, thinly disguised.

But none of the above dissuades me from prefering to a well-written sentence.

Sounds great to me.

Thanks for that link.

To be pedantic, the Hare checklist isn't used to diagnose psychopaths per se given that "psychopathy" isn't a mental illness under the DSM. I'm not sure that the DSM has it right in this instance.

Psychologists would never diagnose just from a "test" - that's the sort of crap that employers do because they want simplicity and psychology is a complex field. A diagnosis from a psychologist often includes tests, but this information is contextualized into a persons broader life. For example, one thing a psychologist would look at it of you turned up at hospital raving that google was spying on you would be how suddenly this belief started, since this type of paranoia could be a sign of anything (drug use or withdrawal, a stroke or brain tumor, a relapse into schitzophrenia, a personality disorder, chronic stress) all of which have a different pattern of onset. Family history, job history, medical records etc are also looked at. Plus they also ask you questions.

While I do agree with the broad point you are making, I think it is the misuse of science outside of the group of people who really understand the science that is the problem here. The fact that science may be misused doesn't make it bad science.Psychology is quite adept at understanding that (a) everyone is capable of "psychopathic" behaviour at times (b) in some situations behaving psychopathically is the expected, normal and sensible way to behave but (c) this doesn't change the fact that some people behave psychopathically with such consistency across situations, and in such inappropraite situations that a diagnosis is appropriate. While culture, learned behaviour and the environment all play a role, current knowledge strongly suggests that some people are "born psychopaths".

Why is there always such a knee-jerk reaction against these studies on Slashdot?

It's interesting that people's tweets reflect their personality. And before you say "well, duh!" to that, the way that people with different psychopathologies use language helps give insights into the part of the brain affected and helps map cognitions. There has been a lot of work on schitzophrenia and language, and I for one find it interesting that some personalitiy types might use more full stops when writing. Who knows, that little piece of information may add with other little bits to help psychologists discover something.

No, but it's about 40-75% of those who are in prison for violent crimes.

True, if by large you mean 2-7%

The majority of people who commit crimes are not psychopathic, but if you are talking about violent crimes, then I would think the number of people with (a) empathy deficits and (b) exploitative attitudes to others then the proportion would skyrocket.

This bit I agree with you.

I didn't take this as a troll - but I do think it's mean spirited.

Brilliant parody! You send up a total nincompoop really well. "I own my own software company". Sheezh!

Overall, I think that the comments being made in reply to your posts proves your general point about sexism being alive and well.