Posts by Lucy Stewart

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  • Southerly: Confessions of a Social Retard,

    Or do home-schooled kids emerge into the adult world with robust, undamaged egos, and are then able to handle snarky, game-playing adults easily?

    Depends on both the kids and parents. I know some who did, some who spectacularly didn't.

    I think what bothers me about home-schooling as a concept is: in the real world, you will have to interact with people your parents haven't pre-approved of. And it's very easy for home-schooling parents to ensure their children *only* interact with people they have pre-approved of. I've seen home-schooled kids of whom this was true and home-schooled kids of whom it wasn't, and the ones of whom it was true? It was creepy.

    Wellington • Since Nov 2006 • 2105 posts Report

  • Southerly: Confessions of a Social Retard,

    Just incidentally, unlike some elephant species, mammoths never seem to have had a pygmy variant.... (snort!)

    They seem to have here and here.

    Wellington • Since Nov 2006 • 2105 posts Report

  • Southerly: Confessions of a Social Retard,

    But the important one would surely be children, rather than adults. In adults it's a relatively easy diagnosis compared to pre-verbal children. And considering the massively amplified dividends of early intervention, that's where it would pay off the most.

    Yeah, that's pretty much what I was thinking. But it's not like it wouldn't be helpful to extend it to women, too.

    Wellington • Since Nov 2006 • 2105 posts Report

  • Hard News: Local Heroes?,

    The trouble is party members are more or less emasculated, and I would suggest the membership (and indeed, the general population) is much more economically to the Keynsian left than both our main political parties.

    Insomuch as I have metaphorical masculinity, it's still here. But thanks for the concern, dude.

    And where exactly did the "$50bn welfare bill" figure come from, since the media don't seem to be telling us the whole story?

    As I understand it (and I may well be wrong, more informed people feel free to correct me), the figure was arrived at by adding up what it would cost if everyone currently on a benefit stayed on a benefit for the rest of their lives and everyone who subsequently received a benefit did the same.

    If so, it's another sterling example of National's very special approach to cost-benefit calculations.

    Edit: as everyone above says.

    Wellington • Since Nov 2006 • 2105 posts Report

  • Southerly: Confessions of a Social Retard,

    A few people on here will be interested in this. Posted in case you haven't already seen it.

    Autism can be diagnosed with a brain scan

    Interesting, but extremely preliminary, given the numbers involved and the fact that they only looked at adult men.

    Wellington • Since Nov 2006 • 2105 posts Report

  • Hard News: Local Heroes?,

    If you want proof Labour is currently a party colonised by an out-of-touch middle class liberal elite drawn largely from the top 20% of the income spectrum, who are more concerned with whether or not Chris Carter is being discriminated against because he is teh gay than the almost total public anger at his disgraceful abuse of public money and even more outrageous sense of entitlement

    Or, gosh, here's a thought: talk to some actual Labour party members, because I haven't actually talked to one to date who agrees with any of the above.

    I'm also curious: if Labour is the party of the top 20% of income earners, who the hell are National the party of?

    Wellington • Since Nov 2006 • 2105 posts Report

  • Hard News: The Snappers,

    That's quite tragic, which ever way you look at it. You would think that surviving one crash would give you some sort of credit in the probability stakes, if not statistically, then at least prodigiously*.

    Probability is a bitch.

    Wellington • Since Nov 2006 • 2105 posts Report

  • Hard News: The Snappers,

    A Twitter contact pointed me at this stunning collection of colour photos from American daily life in the 1940s.

    I love these collections that some media organisations such as Denver Post and Boston Globe are putting out there.

    That was incredible. Photos from the 40s in colour always give me a chill, because I'm so used to seeing black-and-white images.

    What strikes me is how obviously unused all the subjects are to being photographed - you're lucky if they're looking at the camera, let alone smiling - and how so few of them are named.

    Wellington • Since Nov 2006 • 2105 posts Report

  • Southerly: Confessions of a Social Retard,

    I simply have no interest in 'playing the game'. Needless to say, cab rides and visits to the barber are usually a fairly agonising experience.

    It's really helpful to cultivate a bunch of stock observations. And to perfect the "mmmhmmm" noise.

    I an curious to figure out if there is a co-relation to peoples AQ score and their use of headphones/iPod etc, it's something I find really hard to do, I feel the need to be able to know what is going on around me. Paranoia perhaps.

    I'd suspect use would associate with score, if anything - really good noise-cancelling headphones are near-necessity if every little noise registers on your conscious mind. But I don't think it would be necessarily a strong association.

    Wellington • Since Nov 2006 • 2105 posts Report

  • Southerly: Confessions of a Social Retard,

    Just a thought to whack out there: The autistic tendency can often result in mastery of any game for which there are rules. If the game you decide to play, for whatever reason, happens to be a social one, then you could actually be a master of social situations, and yet still well on the spectrum. It's a very complex disorder, so complex that calling it a disorder is only measurable by what effect it's had on your life.

    I know two people, one of whom has been diagnosed with Asperger's and one who hasn't, but who has autistic relatives and scores highly on the AQ test. Both have made a study of social interaction to the point that if you didn't know them well and you ran into them in the right social situation, you'd assume they were neurotypical extroverts. The exact opposite is true, but they both seem to have learned early on in life that there are rules to social interaction and manipulating them correctly makes your life significantly easier. They can also run into big trouble when faced with unusual situations which lie outside the rules/patterns they've got working - but generally, you'd never know.

    The hitch is, of course, that first you have to care enough about social ineraction to want to play the game.

    Wellington • Since Nov 2006 • 2105 posts Report

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