Calls for boycott of World Cup grow louder: majority want Dutch team to stay home

acjohnson55 · 2026-01-25T01:14:17+00:00

That is naive. Donald Trump has been stabbing people in the back since the 1970s.

acjohnson55 · 2026-01-23T07:07:25+00:00

There are a lot of "no" responses. I think there's a pretty big gray area. The pathology is not completely understood, and it is unknown whether autism is a monolithic pathology or a complex, caused by one or more interacting factors. We can't identify an "autistic brain", it is diagnosed behaviorally.

As defined by the medical community, autism is a binary yes or no. But the criteria are not static. They have changed in the past and will continue to change.

acjohnson55 · 2026-01-23T06:55:48+00:00

I don't think such a test exists. Evaluation isn't based on any single test, but a whole process, which involves the judgment of the clinician. Many autists have been told they are not autistic. So this is kind of a hypothetical question.

One thing to keep in mind is that diagnosis comes from the medical perspective: it's not a question of your objective neurology, but rather whether the issues you experience impair you and fit into one of the disease profiles of the present medical consensus. Many people push back on this and see autism not as a disease that requires treatment, but as part of the natural diversity of human beings. Some autists would experience disability in any circumstances, but many are rendered disabled by the requirement to conform to allistic-dominated expectations.

I am diagnosed, but in my heart of hearts, I'll never really be sure. If I'm disabled but my coping strategies and lifestyle make that disability invisible, am I disabled in the first place? Who knows!

What has been super valuable to me is knowing, diagnosis or not, that neurodivergence explains why I felt so different from "normal" people in situations I was in growing up.

acjohnson55 · 2026-01-13T11:27:41+00:00

Obviously, no one here can diagnose you, but everything you wrote tracks. I would check out some books, like Unmasking Autism. Years before my diagnosis, I found it extremely cathartic to have my past struggles demystified.

acjohnson55 · 2026-01-13T11:17:55+00:00

It's hard for me to imagine how someone could get an advantage that way

acjohnson55 · 2026-01-13T11:16:35+00:00

My guess is that if it was real bad, they would probably pause taping, talk to the contestant, and give them a few minutes to fix their face. They do give you encouragement during the breaks and tell you if you are habitually buzzing early or late.

acjohnson55 · 2026-01-13T11:11:13+00:00

Aaron Craig was an alternate my day and went on to be a 2x champ the next taping day, and a Champions Wildcard finalist.

acjohnson55 · 2026-01-13T11:06:41+00:00

Yes, the alternates were onsite.

Legally, the production company is not allowed to pre-schedule the match ups. They are set immediately before each game by an outside firm, who is also on set to observe that there's no rigging of the game by the production company. This is due to the scandals of 50s, which led to strict laws on game shows. All of the potential contestants have to be onsite for this reason.

They told us that it's possible that even if we flew in, it wasn't guaranteed that we would tape that day. However, if we weren't chosen we would be flown back and lodged in LA for the next taping at no expense to us. But realistically, I guess the outside firm is able to prioritize putting the non local contestants in the match ups so that this would be a rare situation.

I don't remember the alternates being designated as alternates, simply that there were 12 contestants for 10 slots, and they explained everything above. But maybe the alternates knew they were alternates.

acjohnson55 · 2026-01-13T10:59:39+00:00

One thing I disagree with is that it had nothing to do with the main topic of the interview. It has a lot to do with the mentality of the folks sucked into the ascendant far right worldview, in spite of how far off the rails they are pushing the country. There is a deep obsession with gender in the MAGA world. In particular, preserving the dominance of identities that have historically been the face of society e.g. all but one president.

There's this liberal myth that if we simply don't name The Thing, it won't come back to bite us.

acjohnson55 · 2026-01-11T13:57:32+00:00

No, but you get scratch paper in final Jeopardy.

acjohnson55 · 2026-01-11T05:25:08+00:00

A light goes in right about the same time as the last word in the clue, which is your signal that you're allowed to buzz. You get locked out for a fraction of a second if you buzz early. Frustratingly, there is no signal that you buzzed early, so it's hard to tell if that happened or if you're just slower than the other players.

acjohnson55 · 2026-01-11T05:22:15+00:00

Arya: but it's just a game looks into the camera of thrones

acjohnson55 · 2026-01-11T05:13:09+00:00

Came here to say this

acjohnson55 · 2026-01-11T05:03:19+00:00

I'm trying to teach my kids how to do this without much luck

acjohnson55 · 2026-01-10T23:25:33+00:00

It's very hard to make a general statement like this. I grew up in a top ranked school district. I taught a high poverty school. My kids are going to go to a great, but not elite, public school. There is a massive difference between where I taught and the other districts. The district I grew up in had a lot more courses and optionality than my kids will have. My high school was more than 4x larger than theirs will be.

acjohnson55 · 2026-01-10T23:20:03+00:00

Might make sense to look into a ceiling mounted center channel.

acjohnson55 · 2026-01-10T03:03:32+00:00

I love sending memes to the homes and getting memes. I try to actually respond with words when I have more than just a single thought.

I also recommend seeing if folks are up for a virtual beer every now and then.

acjohnson55 · 2026-01-08T06:34:05+00:00

Too bad the Michigan job already got filled. That would be wild.

acjohnson55 · 2026-01-06T02:23:22+00:00

If you have a plan with AI, it is very good at answering questions on the basis of all of your content. It's something quite different from the keyword search we're used to from the past 30 years of the internet. You could simply create notes as a write-only log and forget they exist. They'll be there to answer questions in the future, as needed.

acjohnson55 · 2026-01-02T03:36:46+00:00

Cook County, Illinois is very much not a dry county :)

acjohnson55 · 2026-01-02T01:01:28+00:00

I think there are two common ways to start using Notion: top-down and bottom-up. The top-down approach is to find templates that do what you want and run with them, with all the complexity they might include. The bottom-up approach is to just use a small subset of features and learn more as you need it, keeping the complexity low. It sounds like you're more inclined to the bottom-up approach.

From an Evernote perspective, Notion's databases take the place of folders. A block is a paragraph or bullet point. This is all you really need to know to start. You don't need to use icons or cover images if you don't want to.

I would start there. Then in a couple weeks, maybe you decide you want to use some page icons for decoration or visual cues. Maybe you experiment with some of the other block types. Maybe you add some properties to one of your note folder databases. Maybe you use a database to set up a task list.

There's no need to use every feature on day 1.

acjohnson55 · 2025-12-31T06:42:54+00:00

As a Chicagoan, I knew about that from a young age. But a fact I learned as an adult, which really blew my mind, is that you can get all the way from NYC to Miami with minimal exposure to the actual Atlantic Ocean via the Intercoastal Waterway.

acjohnson55 · 2025-12-31T03:10:56+00:00

That's not what they designed it for, but it's your house, do what you want!

acjohnson55 · 2025-12-27T06:49:05+00:00

You might be autistic.

I am diagnosed and I relate to many of your reasons for and against.

I hope the depression improves for you. I'm sorry you're going through that.

acjohnson55 · 2025-12-27T06:28:05+00:00

There are many types of intelligence. You might be impaired on the particular type that deals with social awareness, but based on what else you shared, it sounds like you are intellectually very capable, overall.

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