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technothrasher commented on Do dyslexia fonts work? (2022)   edutopia.org/article/do-d... · Posted by u/CharlesW
interloxia · 15 hours ago
“Contrary to popular belief, the core problem in dyslexia is not reversing letters (although it can be an indicator),”

I always assumed the visual processing limitations were part of the issue with the reversal/transcription problem. A sort of neurological sequencing disorder swapping out the correct visual sense with a mistake. Xerox style. One that the dyslexic font wouldn't help with.

If that's apparently not dyslexia, or part of their spectrum, what is it if it is a processing disorder that remains into adulthood?

They come across rather dismissively when their own links, as far as I clicked at least, were less firm. I do appreciate that visual aids hawked to parents are not going to help for this issue either. I would like a name for the thing which is so importantly not Dislexia.

technothrasher · 15 hours ago
> If that's apparently not Dislexia

Dislexia is a difficulty learning to read. It is a symptom, not an underlying condition. There are different underlying conditions which lead to different processing issues, which in turn lead to dislexia. So you're almost always going to be wrong when you say "dislexia is..."

technothrasher commented on Apple Maps claims it's 29,905 miles away   mathstodon.xyz/@dpiponi/1... · Posted by u/ColinWright
monerozcash · a day ago
While we're on the subject of maps-related bugs, I was recently borrowing a new Tesla Model Y and took it on a RORO ferry. After the crossing, the car’s GPS was convinced I was still at the port where I had departed from. I restarted it a couple of times, but nothing. I drove off using Waze on my phone instead of the car's navigation. The map on the car kept moving relative to the direction I was driving, so the navigation was showing me driving into the sea and eventually started complaining that it would be impossible to find a charger.

Approximately 5 hours later, just as I was about to arrive, the car finally managed to figure out my correct location.

Exciting trip, not a huge fan of Teslas, but their charger planning is really nice. It was very unpleasant to suddenly lose it.

I just genuinely wonder how such a bug can actually occur, surely you'd update the GPS fix more often than every couple of hours. Hard to imagine the car just suddenly couldn't get a GPS fix for hours either. But if it did somehow totally lose the ability to use GPS, the car must have a pretty good dead reckoning system given how well it was responding to my changes in direction.

On a vaguely related note, driving 3000 kilometers through Europe in an electric car was surprisingly nice. Certainly didn't affect the length of the trip nearly as much as I'd have expected, but it was certainly super annoying to try and figure out the optimal rate of travel on the Autobahn. Charging at Tesla's supercharges was vastly more expensive than I expected, the "fuel" costs weren't much lower than what you could easily reach with a diesel car.

technothrasher · 21 hours ago
I remember cars in the early 2000's doing this. Haven't seen that behavior in years.
technothrasher commented on Want to sway an election? Here’s how much fake online accounts cost   science.org/content/artic... · Posted by u/rbanffy
technothrasher · 2 days ago
> irrefutable evidence like I've seen [...] I hope you can come out of the mind-spell

I kindly suggest that your use of the word "irrefutable" here suggests you may possibly be in a mind-spell of your own.

technothrasher commented on Native ads coming soon to Stack Overflow and Stack Exchange   meta.stackexchange.com/qu... · Posted by u/exploraz
inesranzo · 3 days ago
Ads should not exist at all.

They are psychological, manipulative, influencing tools. It's like an annoying wasp that appears out of nowhere and follows you around.

Nobody asked for this.

When this comes to StackExchange, use a PiHole and protect yourself from this barrage of irrelevant ads.

technothrasher · 3 days ago
> Nobody asked for this.

Well... the advertisers did.

technothrasher commented on If You Quit Social Media, Will You Read More Books?   newyorker.com/news/fault-... · Posted by u/pseudolus
johnisgood · 4 days ago
Pretty much this.

I literally don't out much [out of my house]. I would not, even if I had no MS and had no mobility issues.

I am being here, cozy, writing software. When I am not writing software, I just watch a movie, and then I write software again, and the cycle repeats.

It is bad for your health though, especially mine. We should at the very least do some exercises at home.

technothrasher · 4 days ago
> I just watch a movie [...] We should at the very least do some exercises at home.

I bought a treadmill and do not allow myself to watch TV shows or movies I really enjoy without being on said treadmill. It makes me look forward to the exercise, and it allows me to "double up" the time spent by doing two things at once.

technothrasher commented on EFF launches Age Verification Hub   eff.org/press/releases/ef... · Posted by u/iamnothere
bobajeff · 5 days ago
I wonder what the psychological effect of having little or no privacy would do to people. Are we all going to be paranoid schizophrenics? How would a world of paranoid schizophrenics work? How insane are world events going to be from that point on?
technothrasher · 5 days ago
> Are we all going to be paranoid schizophrenics?

Paranoid, maybe. Schizophrenics? No. Firstly, "paranoid schizophrenia" is an outdated diagnosis. Paranoia is a common symptom of schizophrenia, but schizophrenics exhibiting paranoia are not considered to have separate mental illness from those who are not. Secondly, schizophrenia is not caused simply by psychological stress, and is associated with a large cluster of positive and negative symptoms, with paranoia being only one of them.

technothrasher commented on The Lost Machine Automats and Self-Service Cafeterias of NYC (2023)   untappedcities.com/automa... · Posted by u/walterbell
JKCalhoun · 6 days ago
The automat is something of a strange echo from my childhood.

When I was maybe 5 or so, my mom took my sister and I to Chicago from Kansas City. That train ride in and of itself is something of time capsule in my memory. My sister remembered the glowing handrails (radium?). I remember the lounge car where passengers sipped cocktails and watched the lights at night rush past outside. The women dressing, in my fuzzy recollection, like extras in The Thin Man.

Chicago was where I got to buy a pie, or some kind of dessert, from an automat. What a magical thing to give a kid some coins and just tell them to go grab what they like…

There are a number of things from my childhood that I came to find later were just gone. (Or obscure now to the point they are essentially gone.) Imagine my delight when the film Dark City featured an automat.

I was surprised in Tokyo to find something of a hybrid. Those places where you place your order, pay through something like a vending machine at the entrance of the place. The order goes back to the kitchen and, after you've sat down and waited a short time, your order is up.

Struck me as an efficient way to not have to have someone running a cash register, seating you, taking your order.

Also, there's a documentary called "The Automat" [1] that I tracked down just recently—have not yet watched. (Looks like it's streaming on Amazon, FWIW.)

[1] https://www.imdb.com/title/tt4554690/

technothrasher · 6 days ago
> My sister remembered the glowing handrails (radium?)

That reminded me of the "glowy tape" my brother and I used to play with when we were kids. It had come from my grandparents' estate, and we had no idea what it was for, but it was fun. My father thought it was from WWII, as he had vague memories of it being used to mark the corners of furniture during 'lights out' air raid drills. I now assume it was radium, and am not overly happy with my childhood self playing with it.

technothrasher commented on Dollar-stores overcharge customers while promising low prices   theguardian.com/us-news/2... · Posted by u/bookofjoe
jefftk · 7 days ago
> Red Baron frozen pizzas, listed on the shelf at $5, rang up at $7.65. Bounty paper towels, shelf price $10.99, rang up at $15.50.

This very rarely happens in MA, because when it does the store has to give you the item for $10 off, including if that makes it free. And they have to post a sign at the register explaining the law, which means when you're invoking it all you need to do is point at the sign.

https://www.mass.gov/info-details/consumer-pricing-accuracy-...

technothrasher · 7 days ago
Note that this law is only for certain products. We would have people at the liquor store I used to own point out mislabeling occasionally and claim we owed them the $10 difference from this law. While we tried to work with customers when we made a pricing error, not only does the accuracy law not apply to alcoholic beverages, but it would often be illegal for us to offer the customer the mistaken price. Alcohol retailers in MA are not legally allowed to sell their products for less than they purchased them.
technothrasher commented on How the Disappearance of Flight 19 Fueled the Legend of the Bermuda Triangle   smithsonianmag.com/histor... · Posted by u/pseudolus
ofalkaed · 8 days ago
>The myth is comforting because it moves agency from fallible humans and flawed organizations to an impersonal "mysterious region" of the map.

I think the myth is comforting simply because it was fun to believe and a lot more interesting than the banal truth. I don't think many actually believed it, other than children who mostly grow out of it by the time they learn that Santa is not real. Folklore, ghost stories, urban legends, etc, are fun and a part of who/what we (humans) are.

technothrasher · 8 days ago
Back when I was a kid and paid any attention to the Bermuda Triangle myth (do kids still pay attention to it? I have no idea), we didn't have any idea about the details of Flight 19. It just got mushed into a vague "planes drop out of the sky". Because, I think, we didn't actually care about explaining anything. It was just fun to believe in spooky things, as you say.
technothrasher commented on Covid-19 mRNA Vaccination and 4-Year All-Cause Mortality   jamanetwork.com/journals/... · Posted by u/bpierre
technothrasher · 10 days ago
> would you behave any different than a skeptic?

It is unclear what you mean by "skeptic"? Are you speaking of rational skepticism, or reactionary denial?

u/technothrasher

KarmaCake day5833March 25, 2016View Original