I was astounded while reading this article from the New York Times, about the revised estimate of the prevalence of Autism, when I came to this passage:
The new estimate is about the same as one from a study published in October, which found a rate of slightly more than 1 in 100 children who received a diagnosis. Yet that study, based on a phone survey of 78,000 households, also found that almost 40 percent of the children who had received an autism spectrum diagnosis grew out of it or no longer had the diagnosis.
(I tried to find more information on the study, but only a summary was available, and there was nothing about children who were no longer diagnosed.)
Understand, I'm not dismissing the results of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention study (which was based on an analysis of medical records of 400,000 children), but I can't help but wonder how valid a conclusion can be reached based on a medical study conducted by phone. More importantly, though, what criteria do you use to determine who "grew out" of the diagnosis? Is that a medical opinion — or a parent's hope? Are parents really having their children re-diagnosed?
28 December 2009
Jump
I'm watching my seven-year-old son, strapped into some sort of safety harness attached to bungee cords, launched into the air at a distance that's easily six or seven times his height (though it must be more). It's a sort of reverse bungee jump. He does this four or five times, landing on a trampoline to be propelled back up again.
I wonder — could I have done that when I was his age? I know I certainly wouldn't want to do it now.
I wonder — could I have done that when I was his age? I know I certainly wouldn't want to do it now.
25 December 2009
22 December 2009
Honest
The great thing about my seven-year-old is that when he says he's not feeling well, and that he doesn't want to go to school, it's because he really doesn't feel well. (I'm enjoying not having to read between the lines, while I still can.)
Of course, later that morning he was feeling much better. (At 11:00 AM he suggested I bring him to school, but by then it was too late.) He'd be his energetic seven-year-old self, but when I'd remind him that he wasn't feeling well, all of that energy would evaporate in an instant — for a few minutes, at least. I know he really did feel poorly this morning, but I think he felt obligated to play that part when called upon for the rest of the day. Somewhere between getting away with something, and intentionally getting away with something.
Of course, later that morning he was feeling much better. (At 11:00 AM he suggested I bring him to school, but by then it was too late.) He'd be his energetic seven-year-old self, but when I'd remind him that he wasn't feeling well, all of that energy would evaporate in an instant — for a few minutes, at least. I know he really did feel poorly this morning, but I think he felt obligated to play that part when called upon for the rest of the day. Somewhere between getting away with something, and intentionally getting away with something.
21 December 2009
Pennies, Dimes and Nickels
I have been thoroughly defeated by this problem from my seven-year-old's math practice homework:
Sharla has 12 coins. She has 70¢. How many pennies, dimes, and nickels does she have?
We worked on this together for five or ten minutes, then I worked on it for five minutes more. I tried all sorts of different combinations — nothing fit! I give up — I'm sending it in with a note for the teacher, in the hope that she'll return the answer.
Sharla has 12 coins. She has 70¢. How many pennies, dimes, and nickels does she have?
We worked on this together for five or ten minutes, then I worked on it for five minutes more. I tried all sorts of different combinations — nothing fit! I give up — I'm sending it in with a note for the teacher, in the hope that she'll return the answer.
18 December 2009
Find
Have you ever wondered what it would be like to be a Private Detective (or a "Licensed Private Investigator," to use the official term)? I have. I enjoy research — following the pieces of a puzzle, putting them together to see where they might lead (and you never know what unexpected surprises might lie under stones not turned).
You can't really hide — not any more. You might be surprised (or, depending on who you are, perhaps embarrassed) at how much information — even photographs! — are available, if you know where (or how) to look, or stumble. You'd have to go out of your way to be "UnGoogleable," but even then, there are still slender threads, waiting to be pulled.
I've been piecing together a puzzle of my own. My questions aren't so easily answered by Google, but that just makes them more interesting.
You can't really hide — not any more. You might be surprised (or, depending on who you are, perhaps embarrassed) at how much information — even photographs! — are available, if you know where (or how) to look, or stumble. You'd have to go out of your way to be "UnGoogleable," but even then, there are still slender threads, waiting to be pulled.
I've been piecing together a puzzle of my own. My questions aren't so easily answered by Google, but that just makes them more interesting.
17 December 2009
Roads Not Taken
This is what I get for not paying attention: I've just discovered, a week before Christmas, that my Christmas-themed book had somehow become all but unavailable through Amazon.com. (You could buy a copy, sure, but you'd have had to pay well over $100 to an individual seller.) I've no idea how long this has been the case, and I've no idea why — even if it wasn't in stock, the book is still very much available from the distributor.(For what it's worth, I've quickly listed the book at cover price, available from me.)
Plausible
I let my son watch Mythbusters with me from time to time, when I think there's something he'll find interesting — say, two trucks crashing into one another at full-speed (what seven-year-old wouldn't want to see that?), or a holiday-themed Rube Goldberg contraption.
I try to emphasize the science involved (or at least, the scientific method, something he's been learning in school this year), but mostly I like showing him people building stuff, trying, failing, trying again and then (hopefully) succeeding — and having lots of fun with science. And Kari Byron is a girl who builds stuff (and occasionally blows it up) — not so much a role model (not for a seven-year-old boy), but a good example. (Why is it that Mythbusters seems like the only series left on The Discovery Channel these days that isn't completely overwhelmed by testosterone?)
Later, I've promised to show him the remote-controlled bus. (Yeah, it crashes, but he'll like that.)
I try to emphasize the science involved (or at least, the scientific method, something he's been learning in school this year), but mostly I like showing him people building stuff, trying, failing, trying again and then (hopefully) succeeding — and having lots of fun with science. And Kari Byron is a girl who builds stuff (and occasionally blows it up) — not so much a role model (not for a seven-year-old boy), but a good example. (Why is it that Mythbusters seems like the only series left on The Discovery Channel these days that isn't completely overwhelmed by testosterone?)
Later, I've promised to show him the remote-controlled bus. (Yeah, it crashes, but he'll like that.)
16 December 2009
13 December 2009
Audience
I suppose you can't really complain that you're being "stalked" when you write in a public forum, like a blog — surely that's a risk you must accept.
An old girlfriend (depending on who you ask — see below)* with whom I had a rather melodramatic falling out still reads this from time to time. Or tries to, at least. I have her IP address blocked, but I don't put all that much effort into it, and it's easy to spot when she goes out of her way to find a way around. I'm ambivalent about this — mildly irritated, I suppose (she really should have no cause for curiosity about my life), yet flattered at the interest (even if it has occasionally been expressed in obsessive bursts of activity on the stats).
* I never considered her to be a girlfriend, but I found out after-the-fact that she considered herself to be one — at least, when it became convenient to do so.
She has written to a blog, as well (several in fact — this one is best if you start from the beginning, at the bottom), and it was with some interest last year that I followed the ongoing drama of someone who was apparently stalking her through her blog. (Not that one, though, this was a different blog.) I watched as the comments posted went from familiar — this was obviously someone she knew — to amusingly odd to creepy, then threatening. (I've never understood why she didn't just turn on Comment Moderation.) Wait, who am I kidding? I have no right to ambivalence! I was watching this spectacle with consuming interest, amused that she had once again managed to entangle herself where she ought not to have, as had become her custom when we were still close. ("Walking the border of propriety" was how she phrased it.) Her blog had never been so interesting!
(Any idea of "propriety" had long disappeared by the time our friendship dissolved, but that's a story for another time.)
I tend to avoid too many specific details about my personal life when I write here, not because of her (or whomever else may be reading), but because I jealously guard my privacy and anonymity. I've avoided using my son's name 'till now, for example. (I'll probably continue to avoid doing so.) In fact, I don't use anyone's name — I can't even be bothered to make up fake names.
I've thought about not thinking about it, and I might just stop blocking the site altogether. I don't feel threatened, not really, but part of me is hesitant to surrender that small bit of selectivity over my audience.
An old girlfriend (depending on who you ask — see below)* with whom I had a rather melodramatic falling out still reads this from time to time. Or tries to, at least. I have her IP address blocked, but I don't put all that much effort into it, and it's easy to spot when she goes out of her way to find a way around. I'm ambivalent about this — mildly irritated, I suppose (she really should have no cause for curiosity about my life), yet flattered at the interest (even if it has occasionally been expressed in obsessive bursts of activity on the stats).
* I never considered her to be a girlfriend, but I found out after-the-fact that she considered herself to be one — at least, when it became convenient to do so.
She has written to a blog, as well (several in fact — this one is best if you start from the beginning, at the bottom), and it was with some interest last year that I followed the ongoing drama of someone who was apparently stalking her through her blog. (Not that one, though, this was a different blog.) I watched as the comments posted went from familiar — this was obviously someone she knew — to amusingly odd to creepy, then threatening. (I've never understood why she didn't just turn on Comment Moderation.) Wait, who am I kidding? I have no right to ambivalence! I was watching this spectacle with consuming interest, amused that she had once again managed to entangle herself where she ought not to have, as had become her custom when we were still close. ("Walking the border of propriety" was how she phrased it.) Her blog had never been so interesting!
(Any idea of "propriety" had long disappeared by the time our friendship dissolved, but that's a story for another time.)
I tend to avoid too many specific details about my personal life when I write here, not because of her (or whomever else may be reading), but because I jealously guard my privacy and anonymity. I've avoided using my son's name 'till now, for example. (I'll probably continue to avoid doing so.) In fact, I don't use anyone's name — I can't even be bothered to make up fake names.
I've thought about not thinking about it, and I might just stop blocking the site altogether. I don't feel threatened, not really, but part of me is hesitant to surrender that small bit of selectivity over my audience.
Sketches: Six Cult Films
Slowly, inexorably, this book became a disproportionately irritating and time-consuming project, and I'm relieved to be finished with it. That said, though, the cover turned out better than I might have expected.
Work on the book dragged on for months and months (and months), so I had plenty of time for thought as to how I might approach the cover. I had only poor quality cover art (see my earlier post), so I needed to keep that reasonably small, and let the cover be defined largely by type, rather than those images. The number "6" seemed like it might be an interesting element to build the design around.
But after a page of design sketches, pragmatism began to set in ― along with concern that I could end up putting a great deal of time and effort into a design concept that would probably never be accepted by the Author. That, and I realized that I had somehow forgotten that the full title of the book was not Six Cult Films, but Six Cult Films From The Sixties.
So off I went off on a tangent that I hoped might be more straightforward, more simple.
This eventually became the finished design, seen below. I was concerned that breaking up the title might make it more difficult to follow — or, to be honest, easier for the Author to object to — or inadvertently change the emphasis (if the second half of the title were at the top of the cover, for example). All the elements just seemed to fit best this way.
You know, I was really expecting much more resistance to this cover design than it received. (If only the rest of the book had been that easy.)
Work on the book dragged on for months and months (and months), so I had plenty of time for thought as to how I might approach the cover. I had only poor quality cover art (see my earlier post), so I needed to keep that reasonably small, and let the cover be defined largely by type, rather than those images. The number "6" seemed like it might be an interesting element to build the design around.
But after a page of design sketches, pragmatism began to set in ― along with concern that I could end up putting a great deal of time and effort into a design concept that would probably never be accepted by the Author. That, and I realized that I had somehow forgotten that the full title of the book was not Six Cult Films, but Six Cult Films From The Sixties.So off I went off on a tangent that I hoped might be more straightforward, more simple.
This eventually became the finished design, seen below. I was concerned that breaking up the title might make it more difficult to follow — or, to be honest, easier for the Author to object to — or inadvertently change the emphasis (if the second half of the title were at the top of the cover, for example). All the elements just seemed to fit best this way.
You know, I was really expecting much more resistance to this cover design than it received. (If only the rest of the book had been that easy.)
Susan Slept Here
I was watching Susan Slept Here this afternoon while working, mostly out of curiosity — I've seen so much of Dick Powell at Warner Bros. in the 1930s, mostly in musicals, and this was his last film as an actor (by choice). He's quite likeable here, but bland, which is more or less as I remember him from his early films (when he wasn't singing). He might have had a long career as a "nice guy" — he reminds me of Fred MacMurray, but without quite so much character.
Like Fred MacMurray, I think Powell's most memorable late-career roles were the occasions where he was cast against type, such as Murder, My Sweet. (He reportedly wanted to play the lead in Double Indemnity.) Watching him defy expectations in a film like that, you can't help but wonder how he might have fared in more (for lack of a better word) nuanced dramatic roles. But I'm not sure he had it in him.
The most pleasant surprise was that Susan Slept Here was directed by Frank Tashlin. There's a wonderful sort of heightened reality in Tashlin's films, with character actors that walk off with most every scene (though much less so here than at the height of his career a few years later). Perhaps that's what made Dick Powell seem so bland in comparison.
Like Fred MacMurray, I think Powell's most memorable late-career roles were the occasions where he was cast against type, such as Murder, My Sweet. (He reportedly wanted to play the lead in Double Indemnity.) Watching him defy expectations in a film like that, you can't help but wonder how he might have fared in more (for lack of a better word) nuanced dramatic roles. But I'm not sure he had it in him.
The most pleasant surprise was that Susan Slept Here was directed by Frank Tashlin. There's a wonderful sort of heightened reality in Tashlin's films, with character actors that walk off with most every scene (though much less so here than at the height of his career a few years later). Perhaps that's what made Dick Powell seem so bland in comparison.
07 December 2009
Sketches: Kyle's Inventions
This year, I've decided to give my seven-year-old a gift every bit as appropriate as the iPod Touch was to a six-year-old — his very own logo!
Don't you give me that look...
One of the first things I did after my company logo was finished was to order a mug with it — more than one, now that I think of it — which now sits proudly on the shelf next to my desk, holding my set of fine-tipped Sharpie Markers. I think it was all of $15. (I also spent $200 on a very small number of embroidered baseball caps, but those were better times.) So I thought it would be fun to design a logo for my son (for a fictitious business), and get him some stuff — a mug, a magnet, a cap, perhaps even a sweatshirt. I think it will be a nice surprise.
There's a long and fabled tradition in design of concepts being sketched out on cocktail napkins — this one was on the back of a receipt from the grocery store.
My son is preoccupied with machines, and the making of his own machines, and I knew the idea of "gears" would appeal to him. (I thought about trying to make a "K" out of the teeth of a gear, but that wasn't going to work.) And he says he wants to be an inventor when he grows up.
I ended up going in a slightly unexpected direction with the type, because I had trouble finding the perfectly circular "e" that I wanted to use. (In the end, I think I redrew the "e" from this typeface to make it work the way I wanted.) But it worked out better than I had expected, and I think it provides a sort of classic "mechanical" look that fits well with the gears.
(Originally, it was just going to be "Kyle Inventions," but I thought it would make more sense to a seven-year-old as "Kyle's Inventions.")
I set up the various products late last night, and I'll order them soon. (I only hope my seven-year-old is a less harsh critic than some of the people I've done work for through the years.)
Don't you give me that look...
One of the first things I did after my company logo was finished was to order a mug with it — more than one, now that I think of it — which now sits proudly on the shelf next to my desk, holding my set of fine-tipped Sharpie Markers. I think it was all of $15. (I also spent $200 on a very small number of embroidered baseball caps, but those were better times.) So I thought it would be fun to design a logo for my son (for a fictitious business), and get him some stuff — a mug, a magnet, a cap, perhaps even a sweatshirt. I think it will be a nice surprise.
There's a long and fabled tradition in design of concepts being sketched out on cocktail napkins — this one was on the back of a receipt from the grocery store.
My son is preoccupied with machines, and the making of his own machines, and I knew the idea of "gears" would appeal to him. (I thought about trying to make a "K" out of the teeth of a gear, but that wasn't going to work.) And he says he wants to be an inventor when he grows up.
I ended up going in a slightly unexpected direction with the type, because I had trouble finding the perfectly circular "e" that I wanted to use. (In the end, I think I redrew the "e" from this typeface to make it work the way I wanted.) But it worked out better than I had expected, and I think it provides a sort of classic "mechanical" look that fits well with the gears.(Originally, it was just going to be "Kyle Inventions," but I thought it would make more sense to a seven-year-old as "Kyle's Inventions.")
I set up the various products late last night, and I'll order them soon. (I only hope my seven-year-old is a less harsh critic than some of the people I've done work for through the years.)
06 December 2009
Johnny Mercer
I've been watching a documentary on Johnny Mercer this afternoon, while working. (It will air again this month.) I'm embarassed to admit that I had no idea he was a part of so many of my favorite songs.
Same-Sex Marriage
I'm fascinated with this issue of same-sex marriage, and I'm curious as to why there doesn't seem to be more support for the issue when brought before the public. Some will say that this is because opponents have been better at mobilizing against, or that there's greater support among young voters, and they don't tend to vote in great numbers — I don't know how much truth there is to either. I suspect public opinion may be more divided on this issue than the legislative and judicial progress of the past several years would indicate.
I'll admit, though, I approach this subject from a very distinct point of view — I think of marriage as little more than a ceremonial custom, and in that, I wonder why this is such an important issue, for either side.
I found it interesting, though, that the day after the New York State Senate voted down a same-sex marriage bill, none of the Senators who voted against the bill were willing to go on record with comments about their decision.
I'll admit, though, I approach this subject from a very distinct point of view — I think of marriage as little more than a ceremonial custom, and in that, I wonder why this is such an important issue, for either side.
I found it interesting, though, that the day after the New York State Senate voted down a same-sex marriage bill, none of the Senators who voted against the bill were willing to go on record with comments about their decision.