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If you're ranking the greatest inventions of all-time, Google Maps would certainly not outshine the Copper Still, Yeast, DVR or the Brasserie, but it's not too shabby. For bloggers looking to do a travel article about the toughest rough schedule in school history it's an irreplaceable tool.
Next year's UGA Football Schedule looks like this:
- vs Georgia Southern (Athens)
vs Central Michigan (Athens)
at South Carolina (Columbia)
at Arizona State (Tempe)
vs Alabama (Athens)
vs Tennessee (Athens)
vs Vanderbilt (Athens)
at LSU (Baton Rouge)
at Florida (Jacksonville "Home Team")
at Kentucky (Lexington)
at Auburn (Auburn)
vs Georgia Tech (home)
To quote my brother upon being confronted with these stats, "The earth only has a 24,901 mile circumference at the equator. When you factor in home games and a bowl game, I will travel 1/3 of the distance around the globe for football. That is hardcore. I'm fired up."
The mileage stats are obviously inflated by 3,827 mile swing to the desert that any right minded Georgia-based Dawg fan will be making via plane. The stats also don't include an SEC Championship Appearance (add 140 miles round trip from Athens) or a bowl trip to Miami (add 1,300 miles) or NOLA (add 900 miles). A trip to the SECC and National Title games would bring the total up to 8,806 miles.
The schedule's murderous section includes four consecutive SEC road games in Baton Rouge, Jacksonville, Lexington and Auburn. That's 3,164 miles in 23 days for the four game swing. Or 2,795 miles in 16 days for the LSU to UF to UK swing.
Any complaints about the four consecutive games away from Athens that the SEC stuck us with are appropriate. In a recent article, the AJC said that the ACC and SEC league offices work hard to "avoid putting a team on the road for two consecutive conference games." Apparently, four consecutive games is no biggie, but two is completely out of the question? Huh?
Those distances also don't include side trips a fan might make to places like New Orleans, St. Simons or The Grand Canyon. Mileage is strictly computed from 1 Selig Circle (the Butts-Mehre Building) to the opponent's stadium (which is visible in the maps below).
Check out this interactive map:
View Larger Map
If you play with the map, you can follow the complete travel route of the team. The map works better if you just go the big version here. If you want to adjust the map to change 1 Selig Circle to your home address, that's as simple as clicking on the "edit" buttons to the left of the larger map. But I digress.
If you're interested in shortening the time spent in the car, you could always pull the Dorsey Hill move. From Lewis Grizzard's column following the 1980 Cocktail Party:
God is a BulldogOl' Dorsey would definitely leave Baton Rouge headed straight for Jacksonville. That's a great way to shave 300 miles off your journey!
Jacksonville, Fla. - Dorsey Hill, the world's biggest Bulldog fan, left here Sunday afternoon, bound for Auburn, Ala., where Georgia's undefeated football team next appears.
"I don't think you can get from Jacksonville to Auburn," I had said to him.
"You can change buses in Waycross and Columbus," Dorsey answered.
"You aren't going home first?"
"Home?" He screamed back. "I haven't worked since Texas A&M, and I haven't slept since Clemson. You expect me to go back home when we play Auburn in only six more days?"
Over the coming weeks and months, we'll try and offer some travel suggestions for the Arizona State game. In the meantime, I'll say this...if you're planning on using frequent flyer miles to get out there then:
- A. I hope you're not with Delta or don't mind a layover.
B. Are flying from or through a city other than Atlanta.
There will probably be some grumbling about the travel distance and expense from Dawg fans this season...particularly the ASU trip. My response to that: We haven't left the Southeast since we beat Michigan in Ann Arbor in 1965. The Athletic Department gave us a few years to save up. lol. (Image: Sun Devil Stadium)
In all seriousness, most every hardcore Dawg fan that I know is planning on going to this game. I can't imagine what the demand for tickets will be, but it wouldn't shock me to see us take at least 10,000 to Tempe. I personally know more people who are at least tentatively planning on going to Tempe than Jacksonville.
I'm looking forward to this season with more anticipation than any I can remember. Although, I'm not looking forward to dozens and dozens of articles mentioning the 1965-2008 streak without leaving the South. But you gotta take the good with the bad.
After an '08 trip to Tempe, '09 trip to Stillwater, '10 trip to Boulder and '11 trip to Louisville, we should never have to listen to that again.
See Also:
-- Who Travels and Who Doesn't - The Wizard of Odds
-- MapGameday.com
-- Future and Historical UGA Schedules - Sicemdawgs.com
NOTE: If you're a Phoenix or Tempe based travel agent with expertise in Tempe/Grand Canyon type programs. Give me a shout. I'll interview you and give you a plug. I'd like to recommend sites and destinations for Dawgs coming in early.


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With first base crowded, Hart will see time in outfield
PEORIA, Ariz. -- With Corey Hart and Logan Morrison both coming off knee injuries, the question of how much outfield play each might get figures to loom throughout Spring Training as the Mariners sort out their options.
Both are also capable of playing first base and serving as the designated hitter. But Justin Smoak is also in the mix at first, so there figures to be competition there as well as in the outfield.
"I'm going to be very cautious and bring them along very slowly," manager Lloyd McClendon said Sunday. "Both of these guys are very talented, coming off injuries. Ideally, you'd like to see them get some time in the outfield as well as first base. But their health is going to dictate a lot of that.
"They're both healthy, and I want to keep it that way, so we're going to move real slow in that process. But you'll see them out there this spring. I would say Hart more than Morrison. Morrison will be a little more first base and DH."
McClendon said the playing time issue "will sort itself out," and indicated he'll likely rotate at designated hitter in order to play the best matchups and to keep players fresh. But first base could be interesting with Morrison and Smoak competing for time and Hart also an option.
"One thing I know, the manager doesn't make out the lineup," McClendon said. "If you go out and go 3-for-4 and hit a home run and drive in four runs, somehow your name is in the lineup the next day. Your performance on the field will dictate what the lineup is. I'd be a fool not to put the guys out there that I think will give me the best opportunity to win on a daily basis.
"This is one of the messages I said to my club. This is a result-oriented business. This is not about development at this level, it's about winning games. And we have to win games. You want to be developed, we'll send you back to the Minor Leagues and you can do all the developing you want to do."

subset: commoncrawl


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Windows 8 is an OS struggling to capture the imagination of the masses, and now rumors suggest that Microsoft may alter the way its Start Screen works in Windows 8.1 Update 1.
When Windows 8.1 landed last year it included an option to bypass the Metro interface. But now "sources familiar with Microsoft's plans" have told The Verge that Microsoft is planning to enable that setting by default, rendering the tiled interface an option rather than the norm. Apparently the latest builds of Windows 8.1 Update 1 at Microsoft boot straight to the desktop.
If that's true—and it's still a fairly big if—it would no doubt be motivated by a desire to make the OS more user friendly for those using a gool ol' keyboard and mouse, rather than a touchscreen. That would be reasonable, given that the likes of HP have even started pushing Windows 7 over 8 to solve that exact problem.
Even if this is all correct there's still plenty of time for Microsoft to have a change of heart and maintain the Metro interface at boot. But given the Start button has already been resurrected thanks to popular demand, booting to desktop could just go the same way. [Verge]


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50 iconic images from 50 years of popular culture.
"With my sunglasses on, I'm Jack Nicholson. Without them, I'm fat and 60."
Sunglasses. The great equalizer. Celebrities wear them to blend in, the rest of us wear them to stand out. Either way, nothing else, except possibly the way one dances, tells you so much about who a person thinks they are than their choice of shades.
This November, Reel Art Press will release 50 Shades, a stunning hardback coffee table edition featuring fifty photographs of the last century's most iconic figures in the coolest sunglasses of the age.
Nothing personifies glamour quite so much as these iconic photographs taken from the Getty Images archives. This unique book immortalises fifty of the coolest icons from the worlds of film, music, politics, literature and fashion. They are some of the most glamorous and infamous people in public life from the most stylish decades of modern history. Photographed wearing their own shades, the images speak volumes about how celebrities see themselves and how they want us to see them.
From Jackie O, who kept a large bowl of sunglasses by the front door so that she could throw on a pair whenever she left the house, to Debbie Harry, who wore mirrors so that the corporate executives from her label saw only themselves reflected in her mirrored shades, this beautiful 120-page edition looks at the ways some of the most fascinating figures in popular culture dealt with public scrutiny.
It features some of the most celebrated and admired actors from the twentieth century, including Steve McQueen (whose Persol sunglasses worn in The Thomas Crown Affair sold at auction in LA for $70,000 in 2006) and Marilyn Monroe (who helped create the idea that hiding behind glasses made you seem special).
From Andy Warhol to Brian Jones, Elvis Presley to Yves Saint Laurent, Clint Eastwood to Catherine Deneuve, 50 Shades features stunning photography reproduced to the highest quality and text from leading fashion writer, Lauren Goldstein Crowe.
128pp; Hardback; 50 + b/w photographs.
280 x 235mm / 11 x 9in.


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K, Asthmatic Kitty, Tomlab & Sounds Familyre present Sophisticated Boom Boom at SXSW!
K, Asthmatic Kitty, Tomlab and Sounds Familyre are throwing a South by Southwest party, kicking off at 8PM on Wednesday March 17th at The Beauty Bar in Austin, Texas (617 E 7th St). Four labels, two stages: bring your dancin' shoes and come say "hello"!
Beauty Bar
8PM Mantler (Tomlab)
9PM Ben + Vesper (Sounds Familyre)
10PM Niobe (Tomlab)
11PM Jookabox (Asthmatic Kitty)
12PM Munch Munch (Tomlab)
1AM Jeremy Jay (K Records)
Beauty Bar Backyard
8:15PM L'Orchidee D'Hawai (K Records)
9:15PM Angelo Spencer (K Records)
10:15PM Ortolan (Sounds Familyre)
11:15PM Danielson (Sounds Familyre)
12:15AM Rafter (Asthmatic Kitty)
1:15AM Diamond Rings (Tomlab)
Check out the Mixtape featuring the artists performing at Sophisticated Boom Boom:


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For Immediate Release
Hotel in Odessa Texas, 11 April, 2018: Odessa Texas is a very common place for tourists as it offers many points of interests to explore to the adventure seekers, and as a result a lot of visitors appear in the city every year to spend enjoyable moments with friends and family. But the thrill of travelling comes when you have a place from where you can explore the tourist spots easily and to help travelers with that Super 8 Odessa, an excellent hotel in Odessa Texas, welcomes its visitors to stay and enjoy a great trip by staying in a very convenient location of Odessa.
Super 8 Odessa is a right choice for visitors when they are looking for University of Texas at Permian Basin Hotels or hotels near I-20 JBS Parkway to enjoy convenient sightseeing experience. Super 8 gives a lot of tourist attractions nearby including Presidential Museum, Ector County Coliseum, Heros Water Park, Ratliff Stadium and more. Super 8 is also a great choice when someone is searching for JBS Parkway Odessa hotels for the convenience of their travel.
Apart from the expediency of location, Super 8 hotel in Odessa Texas also specializes in providing a very comfortable stay to the visitors. It offers a lot of amenities and wonderful rooms with comfy bed to make sure that the visitors are having good night sleep after travelling to tourist sites for all day long. Guests can also enjoy free breakfast, free Wi-Fi, laundry facilities, fitness center and in-room amenities like hairdryer, coffee/tea maker, flat screen television and more.
The Super 8 hotel near Midland International Airport is also takes pride for being the first choice for visitors when they are looking for affordable hotels in Odessa. For more information, visit: http://www.dodbusopps.com/180284/23.htm
About Company: Super 8 Odessa is an excellent hotel in Odessa Texas that offers wonderful staying experience to visitors by offering convenient location, great amenities and affordable price for the rooms. The hotel is designed to be a choice for every visitors of Odessa.
Contact Details:
Super 8 Odessa TX
2833 East Interstate 20 Odessa, Texas 79766
Phone: +432-272-4550


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David Pope
Senior Manager, Pre-Sales US Energy
David is an expert with data and analytics and he leads a team that enables customers to gain value from implementing analytics in the Utilities and Oil & Gas industries.
He earned a BS in Industry Engineering and a Computer Programming Certificate from North Carolina State University.
David has over 27 years of business experience working with SAS across R&D, IT, Sales and Marketing in the Americas and Europe. He holds 12 patents for SAS and has published a book entitled: Big Data Analytics with SAS.
He has presented on big data analytics at several conferences including: SAS Global Forum, IBM's Information on Demand, EMC World, CTO Summit Conferences, and the American Institute of Chemical Engineers (AIChE) Spring Meeting.
Speaker engagements
|Best Big Data Analytics Platform for Manufacturers
|Hilton New Orleans Riverside
|American Institute of Chemical Engineers (AIChE)
|Big Data Analytics Platforms: The Key to Enabling the Analytic Enterprise
|Orlando World Center Marriott
|American Institute of Chemical Engineers (AIChE)
|Guest lecturer on Big Data Analytics with SAS for the Masters students
|Texas A&M University
|Texas A&M University


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No room for Sunday riders…
Join the motorcycle revolution
RIDE is for bike lovers who live and breathe motorcycling. Open up the throttle on more than 100 bikes, featuring classic models from the world's greatest manufacturers.
Customise your bike and rider to an unprecedented degree: choose from a huge variety of parts, components and accessories to build a bike that suits your riding style, tweaking everything from performance down to the position of your rider.
Travel around the globe for new challenges and thrills, racing in unique international events on 15 different tracks. Face off against intelligent computer-controlled riders in a variety of single player modes or take on other players from around the world in all-new online multiplayer modes. This is racing. This is freedom. This is RIDE.


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9 Sites to Save You Big on College Textbooks
9 Sites to Save You Big on College Textbooks
It's that time of year again, when college students scramble for textbooks, in the hopes they'll have money left over for food and fun during the school year.
No longer does the campus bookstore have the monopoly on book sales. Students now have the option to buy their books elsewhere, often choosing to purchase used books online, or even rent textbooks from various sites. Some schools are even incorporating e-textbooks into their coursework.
The key is to find the right edition of a textbook at the right price, and that can take some research.
Fortunately, a few websites can help with that. Amazon has just hopped on the rental bandwagon, launching its own textbook rental service. Other sites offer books you can both rent and buy.
The National Association of College Stores estimates students spend $655 per year on course materials, but that figure is down from $667 two years ago. The number of college bookstores that offer textbook rentals has skyrocketed over the past two years. Renting textbooks can save a student 45-66% off the price of a new print textbook, they estimate, though buying a used book can sometimes save you even more.
So, do the research and then do the math. Here are some great sites to get you started.
Will you be renting textbooks this semester, or do you prefer to own your books? What about used books? Let us know if you have any money-saving tips.
Thumbnail image courtesy of gianlucabartoli and beaucroft.


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After dismissing drilling concerns, N.Y. orders analysis
New York officials are studying the relationship between shale drilling and earthquakes, despite past assurances that natural gas production poses no seismic risk.
Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) chief Joe Martens told legislators earlier this week that the state had hired a university geologist to study whether drilling in New York's piece of the Marcellus Shale could trigger quakes.
It is unclear when the expert was hired, but the state's effort on the study seems to have been prompted by comments from New York City officials worried about the possible effect of drilling-related seismic vibrations on the upstate tunnels that deliver water to the city.
There has been little research linking the specific process of hydraulic fracturing to earthquakes; however, scientists have pointed to the injection of fracking wastewater into deep disposal wells as a culprit for man-made tremors.
"Recent rises in the practice of wastewater injection have coincided with a surge of earthquakes in relatively quiet parts of the country over the last four years," geophysicist Geoff Abers wrote in an Albany Times Union op-ed last month (EnergyWire, Jan. 31).
Abers does research at Columbia University's Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory and was part of a team of scientists who said wastewater blasted deep underground in Oklahoma had lubricated faults and triggered an earthquake there.
New York City is also worried about man-made seismicity from fracking itself. The well completion process blasts millions of gallons of chemical-laced water deep underground to access oil and gas. The city hired its own geology consultants in 2011 to identify unknown faults and fractures in the state and to assess the risk of "microseismicity" on water infrastructure that feeds unfiltered water into the city.
City officials outlined findings from their technical consultants, Hager-Richter Geosciences, in a letter to Martens after the state wrote in a draft environmental impact statement that the risk of earthquakes from hydraulic fracturing and related activities was too small to be of concern.
"This may be true with respect to impacts to surface structures like houses," the letter said. "However, the City's infrastructure is located deep underground and therefore closer to the origin of these seismic events."
Martens said in a budget hearing earlier this week that DEC decided to pursue further study of seismic activity related to shale development after hearing New York City's concerns.
Kate Hudson, watershed program director at Riverkeeper, said that although New York City's water supply should not be considered more sacred than water used in any other part of the state, the city does have considerable sway with state officials due to its heavy concentration of Empire State residents and public opinion influencers.
Months in the making?
DEC has not answered questions asking exactly when the review was initiated and when the expert was hired. The state's top industry representative, Karen Moreau, said she was not surprised by the news.
"[I]t makes sense that the DEC address this as they develop the NY regulations and affirm what regulatory agencies across the country already know," she wrote in an email, "that hydraulic fracturing can be done safely and the economic and environmental benefits to states that allow it are tremendous."
The seismic study will likely go a step further than DEC's overview of quakes in its draft environmental impact statement released in 2011. The section acknowledges past instances of induced seismicity -- from a collapsed salt mine, for example -- but does not make any calculation of the level of risk from fracking or wastewater disposal.
The new seismicity study will be included in the state's final environmental impact statement on high-volume hydraulic fracturing, due out next week.
Other states have varied in their approach to drilling-related quakes. California, known for its tectonic shifts, sidestepped the issue in its recently released discussion draft of fracking regulations and does not address seismicity in its action plan for revised underground injection rules.
Texas, meanwhile, is taking a wait-and-see approach, according to reports from the news outlet StateImpact Texas. Oil and gas regulator Barry Smitherman said in December that he was familiar with "allegations" that injection wells were linked to earthquakes but that he was going to wait until research came out from the University of Texas. Forthcoming disposal well rules in Texas are not expected to address seismicity.
Controversial pick
New York's seismicity study is certain to be picked apart by critics of DEC's handling of fracking studies over the past few years. Even the agency's choice for doing the study is controversial.
Geologist Robert Jacobi is a professor at the Buffalo campus of the State University of New York. He ran the short-lived Shale Resources and Society Institute, which was shuttered last year after releasing just one report and getting skewered in the media for failing to disclose industry ties (EnergyWire, Nov. 20, 2012).
Jacobi has a doctorate in geology from Columbia University and has studied the New York region specifically. His research includes papers on fault systems in western New York and seismicity in the basin that underlies much of the state.
But his industry ties have opened him up to severe criticism from environmentalists and others who fear his research will downplay the risk of earthquakes associated with fracking or wastewater disposal. Jacobi has consulted for energy firms, including EQT Corp. and the recently bankrupt Norse Energy Corp.
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My name is Martin Lominy. I'm a trained archaeologist, a career educator, a self-taught craftsman and the founder of Aboriginal Technologies Autochtones, a Quebec based business with an educational mission aimed at providing the general public with a more practical vision of the past and a better understanding of aboriginal cultures of North America through the experimentation of ancient technologies. Since 2005 we have provided artefact replicas, educational workshops, interactive conferences, craft demonstrations and consultation services for a variety of institutions such as schools, colleges, universities, interpretation centers and museums across Canada and beyond. We also enjoy collaborating on various projects ranging from experimental archaeology to movie sets. Rather than summarize too much information or present one of many projects, I'm offering here a photo essay of various subjects and activities we have worked on since last year's post.
Collaboration with PhD student Luc Doyon from the University of Montreal to make and test Aurignacian arrows on an animal target.
Educational kit designed for Quebec schools to supplement the teaching program on Iroquoian society through activities based on experimental archaeology.
Part of a large order of Northwest coast fishing tool replicas for the movie set of Night at the Museum 3.
Stone axe replica from our collection used by archaeology consultants Gaïa for a dwelling reconstruction experiment.
Set of stone tool replicas made for a public dig simulation at Pointe-du-Buisson museum.
Collaboration with survival school Les Primitifs to teach the production techniques of aboriginal fishing technologies.
Set of prehistoric bone tool replicas for interpretation activities in a museum.
Experimenting the production of a prehistoric pitch recipe based on recent discoveries.
Young apprentice collecting raw materials for cordage production. Most of our replicas are made with materials that we harvest ourselves.
Some pottery tools from our collection used in an experimental workshop with university students.
Assisting a class of grade school students in a model project on aboriginal lifestyles.
Most archaeologists get covered in dirt. We mostly get covered in dust.
It seems most of our projects begin like this.
One of our most popular items: crooked knife. Just as we use it in our reproduction process, our customers used it to rediscover old woodworking techniques.
A variety of artefact replicas for a school program on aboriginal culture.
A custom replica of a warclub for a private collector. Many of our clients order pieces that they could not otherwise have in their collection.


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Cheltenham, Australia -- (SBWIRE) -- 02/04/2016 -- In an effort to offer adult painters, interested in painting and coloring with an impressive and unique adult coloring book, Richard Edward Hargreaves has recently launched the Bird Coloring book for Adults volume 2. Published by Ironpower Publishing on the CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform, the bird coloring book is available on Amazon.com, and other online book retailers.
Sharing further information about the coloring book, Hargreaves mentioned," The bird coloring book has been specially crafted for experienced colorists who are extremely fond of coloring and painting and want to take their painting and coloring skills to the next level. The book contains images of different birds including the Emperor of Paradise, allowing you to show your coloring and artistic skills and exhibit your true coloring potential and talent."
It must be noted that the Birds-of-Paradise bird coloring book for adults consists of as many as 110 pages consisting of images of some of the most colorful and wonderful bird species, popularly referred to as birds of paradise. The book encompasses hand drawn and accurate ornithological line drawing illustrations, which have been taken from the Richard Bowdler Sharpe's lithographs on Birds of Paradise.
These nineteenth century lithographs show the birds in some of the most radiant colors and exquisite and fine detail, allowing the painters to develop fine painting and coloring skills. Painters and colorists can paint and color the images of the birds as per their individual requirements and skills. In order to provide colorists and painters with the best of the coloring and painting experience, the line drawings have been printed on one side only of each page of paper. The book consists of as many as fifty line drawings, which means colorists and painters will get plenty of options and hours to indulge in coloring and painting.
The bird book consists of a number of bird images including Bensbach's Bird-of-Paradise, Black-billed Sicklebill, Crested Satinbird, Curl-crested Manucode, Duivenbode's Riflebird, Emperor Bird-of-paradise, Fawn-breasted Bowerbird, Golden-fronted Bowerbird and Great Bowerbird among others.
For more information about the book check out http://www.amazon.com/Birds-Paradise-Coloring-Pages-Adults/dp/1517101573 or visit https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lv_j_f94LG8 today!
About Ironpower Publishing
Ironpower Publishing, an independent Australian publishing company owned by Richard Edward Hargreaves.
Visit http://www.amazon.com/Mr.-Richard-Edward-Hargreaves/e/B00J2XCBEE/
Contact info:
Contact person: Richard Hargreaves
Company: Ironpower Publishing
Address: Ironpower, P.O. Box 118, Southland Centre, Cheltenham, 3192, Victoria, Australia
Telephone: 61 3 9690 0878
Email: firstname.lastname@example.com
Website: http://www.amazon.com/Ironpower-Publishing/e/B019V1YJFU/


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On raising a son on the autism spectrum, progressive politics, pop culture, and coffee addiction.
Monday, March 20, 2006
Dr. Strangetalk or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Echolalia
It started the summer before Bud turned three, on a family trip to a Sesame Street-themed amusement park in Pennsylvania. Bud was in Early Intervention but had not yet gotten a diagnosis. We knew he had a speech delay, but beyond that we just thought he was a little quirky in a high-maintenance kind of way. In retrospect I recognize that much of the language he did have then was echolalic (singing songs word for word, falling down and saying "areyouokay?"), but I didn't really see it at the time.
The issue came into much clearer focus at the theme park, though. It was the first time I remember Bud having the "I love this, make it stop! I hate this, I want more!" reaction that I have come to know as one of the hallmarks of dysregulation for him. Bud was simultaneously enchanted and overwhelmed in an overactive, unfocused sort of way. And throughout our time at the park, our mostly nonverbal boy kept repeating the same thing over and over: "Duh-No! Ahssiswih dunna. Deedeedee! DUWAH!" I couldn't understand what he was saying, but there was something about the cadence of his speech that triggered recognition in the recesses of my mind.
On the same trip, our hotel television was one that powered on to a hotel "preview" channel with a cartoon cowboy who welcomed us and told us what to expect during our stay. Bud was fascinated with this cowboy, and after a couple of days in the hotel he started mimicking the character's speech. My immediate reaction was one of panic, and the word flashed in my brain: ECHOLALIA. I began to pay more attention to the other phrase that I kept hearing from Bud throughout the trip: "Duh-No! Ahssiswih dunna. Deedeedee! DUWAH!" and kept running it through the filters in my mind - what did it mean?
I remember the moment that I figured it out. I was strapping him into his car seat, and he was clutching several of his Sesame Street figures (one of his quirks was the tendency to carry small characters with him wherever he went.) I started saying the script along with him, paying close attention to the tone, the inflection and the emphasis he put on each syllable, and it hit me: Baby Bear, from the beloved Elmo's World video - "Behold! Artist with crayon! trill of music Drawing!"
I was fascinated and horrified.
From that point on, I began to tune in more intentionally to the cadence of the sounds he made and I came to recognize that he was repeating scripts from favorite videos frequently. As his speech grew less garbled, it became even more obvious. At first the scripts did not seem to serve a purpose beyond their play value and their self-soothing qualities. But he was talking and scripting more and more and more.
That's when I first encountered that crossroads feeling. What should I do? If I try to make him stop scripting will he just stop talking altogether? Will he feel like I'm telling him that he is not good enough? But if I just let him keep scripting will it drive him further and further into a fantasy world, and further and further away from the real one? I'm sure I must have read things. I'm sure I must have talked to people - his EI specialist, his doctor... someone! - but I have no recollection of any advice that I got about it.
I just remember thinking that the most important thing - the thing that would keep him in this world, that would make him prefer the real world to the fantasy world - was connection to other people. You can connect without language, I reasoned, but language without connection is useless. And so, the content of his speech became a secondary concern. My primary goal, instead, was to use his speech to connect with him - however and whenever I could.
So I learned the scripts, and climbed into his fantasy world with him. I tried to engage him in dual-scripting - you say one line, I'll say the other - to approximate the reciprocal flow and give-and-take of conversation. I worked with him to develop scripts of our own - private jokes that we shared with each other. And whenever I could, I looked for the moments when he was well regulated and I tossed a little chaos into the creation, hoping to provide just enough dissonance to move him forward a bit, to expand the possibilities of language, to help him consider that there could be more to talking than scripting alone.
Bud continued to script, but as time passed I noticed a clear evolution in his scripting. It became less random. He began to assess his surroundings and select the script he had that best fit the circumstance. So if he wanted to play ball, he would approach us with ball in hand and say "Quick, Dipsy. Help Laa Laa catch the ball."
After more time passed, he began to modify his scripts. The sentence structure would remain intact, but he would swap out the pertinent details, so that "Quick, Dipsy. Help Laa Laa catch the ball" would become "Quick, Daddy. Help Mama catch the ball." As his talent to modify scripts became more sophisticated, it allowed him to interact and be understood by people outside our home. His speech patterns still sounded stilted and awkward to "outsiders," but they could finally understand the basic gist of what he was trying to say - and it seemed that this new milestone became a real turning point for him.
Bud's confidence seemed bolstered by his ability to be understood, and allowed him to start taking risks with language and start putting words together on his own. Using creative, spontaneous language was much more difficult for Bud and took a great deal more time than it did for him to assess a situation, mentally thumb through hours of memorized scripts to find the most relevant script to the given situation, and modify the script by swapping out a few details. As a result his creative speech was much slower and less polished than his modified scripts. But, in time, "Quick, Daddy. Help Mama catch the ball" became "Daddy ball?". And slowly, slowly, two-word and three-word phrases became sentences, and sentences became conversations, and personal pronouns began to match, and the rules of grammar began to emerge.
It was in the midst of this transformation that I attended a workshop led by SLP Barry Prizant, and during one of the breaks I told him about Bud's increasingly complex modification of movie scripts. Dr. Prizant told me that Bud was using "mitigated echolalia," and that it was an excellent prognostic indicator for future language development.
"I'll bet you'll start seeing spontaneous language soon," he said.
"We already are, " I said.
Dr. Prizant smiled and said, "And I think you'll probably see a lot more." He pointed me in the direction of some great articles on echolalia. One of them was Finding the Words by Marge Blanc in the May-June 2005 issue of Autism/Aspergers Digest Magazine. The article talked about "gestalt language acquisition," or exhibiting delayed echolalia with whole sentences repeated verbatim. I read the article with fascination: it seemed that she was writing about Bud.
And there in the sidebar was a quick overview titled The Stages of Gestalt Language Acquisition. It could have been titled The Stages of Bud's Use of Language. It read:
Stage 1: Communicative use of language gestalts (learned and spoken in their entirety) - "Let's get out of here!", "Want some more?"
"Quick, Dipsy. Help Laa Laa catch the ball!"
Stage 2: Mitigation into chunks (a) and recombining (b) - (a) "Let's get + out of here!", "Want + some more?"; (b) "Let's get some more!", "Want out of here?"
(a) "Quick + Daddy. Help Mama + catch the ball!"
(b) "Daddy catch the ball!"
Stage 3: Isolation of single words and morphemes, and beginning generation of original two-word phrases - "Get...more!", "Want...out?"
"Daddy ball?"
Stage 4: Generation of more complex sentences - "I got more.", "I wanna go out?"
"I playing ball with you, Daddy!"
Bud still does a lot of scripting, especially when he's dysregulated or when he is focused on pretend play. But he also uses a lot of spontaneous language, with increasing frequency, in a greater variety of situations, and with a greater number of people. He is really beginning to understand this confusing morass we call "language."
And so the movie quotes, the sound bites, the long streams of monologue and dialogue he recites verbatim - they are no longer the enemy. I am no longer standing at a high-stakes crossroad. Bud has chosen his path and I've joined him on it. Our traveling companions may include Blue and Joe, Snook and Bob, Jack and Mary, Zack and Weezie, Zoboomafoo, the Teletubbies, and the entire cast of Sesame Street, but we travel secure in the knowledge that we are moving forward, together, toward a very promising future.
40 comments:
- Alana said...
The way you describe Bud reminds me almost exactly of my first client Jamie. He did exactly what Bud did in that progression. He's 15 now and you and Bud should meet him...he's doing wonderfully (his current favorite hobby is geocaching with his mom and dad). Your family and his have a lot in common...
- March 20, 2006 11:17 PM
- kristina said...
Our therapists (speech and ABA) have always counseled us that echolalia is a good thing---a stage on the way to, as you note, spontaneous language. Charlie's echolalia has grown in the past year. We too have always attended to the "cadence"--I call it the melody-of his phrasings, in which consonants are the last to come through but vowel sounds, rhythm, pause, and meter, are all.
With Charlie, echolalia means "he can talk in full sentences who cares if he's repeating!' and also "he can talk!". Period.
Having been reading your blog since around the time of that burgeoning of Bud's "own" speech, I'm quite thrilled to have been able to bear such witness!
(And look for Lance Strate's article on Echo and Narcissus---he teaches Communication at Fordham.)
- March 21, 2006 12:22 AM
- Christine said...
I'm glad you DID write the post that you wish you could have read way back when -- because I seem to find myself at that very same crossroads. I so love to hear Oliver speak but so much of it is echolalic that it scares me. I do exactly what you describe though: I enter into his world hoping to draw him out a bit. I hope I see the same progression with him that you did with Bud.
- March 21, 2006 9:02 AM
- not my blg said...
Alexander has used immediate echolalia a lot during the past 7 months. About 2 months ago he started scripting a little bit. Now (age 3 on 2/25/06), he is starting to script a little bit more. Last night we were playing with some pink silly string. The silly string began to pile up on the floor and Alexander walked around it while saying "Watch out Tinkie Winkie there is tubby custard". The silly string did look like tubby custard and I told my wife that this is actually a good milestone. Glad you could confirm it because I'm often envious of Bud's language.
- March 21, 2006 2:48 PM
- Jannalou said...
I think someone needs to do a study on what, exactly, the fascination is with Teletubbies. The 11yo boy I hang out with twice a month is going through a phase of them right now. It's been a couple of months. He sings the theme song, he tells me what each of them has, etc. etc. When we're at the mall, he self-talks about them. Which I don't mind for myself, but other kids laugh at him and I want to shake them. Not that he seems to notice, really.
- March 22, 2006 11:07 AM
hi! i'm so glad i'm back and able to catch up on everything in bud's world! i love this post. you show such trust in bud and in yourself and it comes back to you with his obvious leaps and sure progress in all areas. it's very inspiring.
- March 22, 2006 11:23 AM
- Wendy said...
I'm so glad you wrote this post. It gives so much hope to parents of echolalic children. C doesn't really echo what we say to him but he doesn't talk much, other than labeling objects. He has started using simple 2 or 3 word sentences in the last week or two and we're thrilled with his progress. I love when you post the wonderful things that come out of Bud's mouth. Like I've said before, he sounds like a really neat little guy.
- March 22, 2006 4:13 PM
- Estee Klar-Wolfond said...
Thanks for writing this post. I spoke with an SLP about Prizant and echolalia and it's a good thing it isn't viewed as a hopeless thing anymore.
I haven't read the stages yet so I find this interesting. I haven't found an SLP to work with Adam fo a while now and am looking for someone who really understands this process. Thanks for writing it out.
- March 22, 2006 5:08 PM
- Phil Schwarz said...
This is sooo familiar... My son Jeremy (15 now, and quite verbal) acquired speech at ages 4-6 through something like what Bud progressed through, and what Prizant calls mitigated echolalia. But we had a better term for it: *recombinant* echolalia :-).
A Miller analogy, in honor of Temple Grandin:
I think that the characteristically autistic pattern of speech acquisition (and comprehension!) that you have described, is to non-autistic speech acquisition and comprehension, as bovine stomachs are to carnivorous or omnivorous ones. It takes more steps and more time, and the job gets done differently, but the end result is still the ability to communicate effectively.
-- Phil
- March 23, 2006 11:37 PM
first off, that is one of THE greatest titles I've ever read!
Having said that, I'll say that you provide Hope For The Future-- we're still not-so-patiently waiting for echolalia to set in for our 3.5 y.o.. He's got a FEW sounds and phonemes, but not much. Love the writing.
- April 09, 2006 9:57 AM
Not sure if this is the right place to ask so forgive me if I am out of line...my 3 year old son is in EI for a speech delay. He will be starting EI school in the fall. During his evaluation to get into EI school it was noted he was echolalic, but after doing all of the reading I could find he really doesn't seem to fit what I have read about echolalic. When asked a yes or no question, "do you want milk" his answer will be Milk. NOT yes or no. Did you have fun today? His answer Fun or had fun today. But if you ask him do you want to take a nap he will say NO. IF its past his bedtime and he is tired and I say do you want to go to bed he will say yes, go to bed. So with seemingly concrete things he answers yes and no.
If you give him a choice he will almost always say the last choice. Do you want chicken or a hamburger. His response is Hamburger, so I will then ask the question again this time saying do you want a hamburger or chicken and he will usually reply with the origional answer which in this case was hamburger.
He has a very good vocabulary, is speaking in sentences. Does not quote movies or books or have any type of script. He loves being read to and if prompted can tell the story (books that have a sentence or less on a page) Is this echolalia? I am trying to get answers from his Speech pathologist but not getting anywhere. Not sure if she just doesn't want to answer for fear of telling me something she is not supposed to tell me, or just doesn't know. She makes a big deal when I ask about the echolalia but only spends a small portion of her session working on it. She is constantly going back to things he has mastered like colors and numbers, and I can tell he is bored with that. Any help, comments, suggestions, anything???
- July 28, 2006 11:06 PM
My granddaughter is 10. She doesn't talk but using sign language. She will sign the same thing over again and again even if you answer her.Example" Where is Daddy? We sign "At Work" She will continue to sign the same question 4 or 5 more times before going to something else. Could this be a form of echolalia?
Thank you
Shelia in NC
- February 26, 2007 8:52 PM
You wrote a post that I needed to hear. I keep going back to it to reread and I can see my son on the same path. It is nice to see where we are headed and that there is hope that it will grow. I linked you from my blog a few days ago, but decided I should let you know that you affected somebody's life in a postive way. Thank you very much!
btw...my son is just beginning to modify the scripts in some situations, in case you were curious where we are at.
- March 04, 2007 2:24 AM
I'm a student who's still five or ten years away from having kids. Reading your posts, I find myself hoping that my children are as fun, challenging, and all-out inspiring as Bud seems to be.
Thank you for your writing.
- May 22, 2007 9:38 AM
Wow. I wish I'd found this when you wrote it, but even now it's a big help. My daughter has followed the first part of the progression you've described, and I hope she'll be able to continue as your son has.
What kristina chew said. She started with humming tunes or singing songs with incomprehensible lyrics; then the words became more comprehensible, with the tune and then the vowel sounds preceding the consonants. (Does Charlie have perfect pitch? I think my daughter might, or perhaps just a very good ear. You should have heard my children singing the ABC song together: she, note-perfect, but mixing up some of the 'ee' letters; he, proudly enunciating each letter, loudly off-key.)
Thanks for writing this. My online background is LiveJournal, and I don't really know the Blogger or Google blogging communities.
- June 12, 2007 6:28 PM
- Purl Scout said...
you have just described my child and his slowly developing speech better than i ever could articulate. he just turned three, is obsessed with teletubbies, is finally speaking but mostly through echolaia and through midified scripts of his favorite films and shows and books, too. he hasn't been evaluated for any sort of autism yet, but has many characteristics of autistic spectum disorders. we have been in early intervention for speecha nd for feeding issues and sensory integration dysfunction, but haven't had anyone really look into my growing concerns yet. your blog has been very enlightening in helping me connect some dots. thnank you to you and to bud.
- August 02, 2007 2:20 PM
It's incredible to read this. I was thinking that my son (age 3.5 yrs) was the only one who started talking in whole scripts from cartoons. This started at age 2.5yrs. It was fascinating and very strange all at the same time.
I did exactly the same thing you did - I crawled into his world, took him by the hand, and tried to lead him out to join the rest of us. I started to join in on the scripts. He loved it. I then started altering the scripts. He loved that too. It developed new scripts and more variety in his speech.
His scripting has progressed to take out the cartoon characters and include his family members. He's also scripting less and less, usually only when he's stressed or bored. He's interacting with people more and more and talking a lot with plenty of spontaneous, original conversation. I've even heard him tell his 11 year old cousin his bedroom was "neat" and "way cool!"
I wish I had read your post a year ago. It would have given me the hope I desperately needed then. The future is not scary anymore.
- September 23, 2007 10:57 AM
- PotPourri said...
I have been panicking the past few days because I learned that most likely, my son is starting this, in his communication. Now I understand it is just one of the stepping stones to normal communication for Autistic children, and if I work with him, we come out on the other side with normal language communication. I will most likely reread this blog weekly for the next few years to remind myself that we are progressing, and not just memorizing and repeating.
I'm forever grateful to you for your analogy and guidance!
- February 26, 2008 6:20 AM
Thank you. After a hard communication day with my 4 year old I found great comfort in this post which confirms my gut feeling around his echolalia. He has the Thomas obsession and is pretty fond of Teletubbies too. My ds can even crack a joke now and then!
Love to you,
- April 09, 2008 9:49 PM
I wonder what these kids' scripts would sound like if instead of watching Teletubbies and Sesame Street videos they watched Quentin Tarantino movies?
I'll bet it would be interesting.
-Mr. Black
- October 26, 2008 4:51 PM
This comment is a long time coming, as this post has given me much comfort over the past year or so. My daughter, Lola, learned to speak in much the same way. The single words were no problem, so early on there was no echolalia. But sentences... until recently just about every sentence she used was echolalic, albeit VERY appropriate. She is now starting to get some truly natural, spontaneous sentences thrown in there, but the bulk is still copied.
Lola pulls from a whole repertoire of animated movies, Noggin shows, and at home catch phrases. I figure it is my responsibility to memorize her movies so I can know what she's trying to say to me! :) She is especially drawn to the emotional scenes, and scripts them when she is very upset. (When I am very upset with her and am giving her a big timeout, she shouts lines from Lilo and Stitch - the part when Lilo and her sister are hollering at each other? It just about breaks my heart...)
Her school, of course, thinks she watches too much t.v. and would talk more normally if we turned it off. I disagree, and think that the t.v. scripts help her make sense of complicated social structures, and give her a natural way to practice language. (The only stilted, unnatural sentences she has are the ones that were drilled into her by her speech teacher.) She has that Gestalt language learning, and for that reason I never wanted to stress ABA drills that force her to learn language in pieces.
- February 14, 2009 11:44 AM
- abby said...
This was a great and inspiring post. We're dealing with the same thing right now with our 3.3 year old former micropreemie who was just diagnosed as on the spectrum. I was out surfing the net looking for something like your post and I am so glad to have found it.
Hallie, like Bud and a lot of the other kids referred to in the comments, spoke very late (first words, with a lot of help, only around age 2) and most of her language consisted of labeling until recently. But over the past six to eight months, we've been hearing more sentences, but many of these are scripted or echolalic and she often repeats the last thing she has seen on TV/that is said to her. Still, like Bud, she is modifying this language and using it pretty appropriately when in communication situations. And, interestingly, she only echos that which she understands (if she is watching a show that she doesn't quite get, that is narratively too sophisticated for her to follow, she won't echo as much). I have a love/hate relationship with the TV too: she does watch way too much of it and it seems to be part of her stimming, but on the other hand, she uses it as a safe space to acquire/test out language that she later exports to more social situations.
Anyway, thanks for the inspiring post and for giving us hope!
- November 05, 2009 9:51 AM
To Bud, I say keep up the good work! To Bud's Mom, thanks for sharing what we found to be a very similar experience with our 6 year old's echolaia.
- March 13, 2010 1:37 PM
- Crystal said...
Thank you! I am 21 years old. I started trying to tell people of my struggles at 8 or 9 years old. Now, just recently, the quacks…err…doctors…have finally caught on. There's still many things that I have trouble "finding the words" for and I just want to thank you because you just "gave" me the tool to explain to others how it is that I think (or don't think sometimes) and why I struggle, still, to talk.
Thank you thank you thank you!
-Crystal D.
(who wonders if she might be allowed to post a copy of this blog article, with credit given, on her own blog as an example?)
- May 29, 2010 2:03 PM
- Unknown said...
Yeah! What Crystal said..... And I have not yet been diagnosed with ASD... commonality?
- May 30, 2010 4:11 AM
This is an awesome blog!! My son displayed the exact same echoalia. He quoted thomas movies. He is 5 now but when he was 4 one of the first breakthroughs was when his dad was saying something to him and he kept walking saying "but thomas wasn't listening to James". I was blown away!! Ever since, he has been putting the echoalia into context. As you said, into his own sentances. He still uses the scripted speech during pretend play but his communication with his words is becoming more of his own and not from thomas movies. What an amazing transformation. From what I read during his "all scripted" phase said that echoalia or "scripted speech" was a good thing and a great sign. I also used his speech to communicate with him and still do. It seems to help him make connections with his words. I happened to stumble across this blog searching for a different area in autism but I am so thankful I did. Thank you for this blog. I think we all go through the fear of the scripted speech lasting until they grow up but as I read, it's a good thing. Much better than no speech. Thanks again.
- April 09, 2011 12:46 AM
What an important, beautiful post! Thank you so much for sharing this, it meant a lot to me to read it, and has helped me better understand my son's current language stage. Thank you many times over :)
- June 29, 2011 8:45 PM
- Audrey said...
I am so happy to have discovered your blog. My daughter, Kira, who is now 4 1/2 years old, was diagnosed this past February with high-functioning autism. We, or rather I, knew from infancy that something was different about her. Reading about Bud, specifically his journey to successful language and communication, I feel I could have written much of it about Kira. I have never come across such a detailed account that so closely resembles her situation. When I first realized that she was using echolalia with her Nick Jr. shows, I was in awe, happy that she was speaking anything besides gibberish, and even a little sad, because it further strengthened my belief that she was autistic, rather than just dealing with a speech delay. She spoke her first word at the age of 21 months, "up". It had meaning for her and us, and we took it as a positive sign that she would be jabbering non-stop soon. But it didn't happen in the way we expected. 99% of her language took on the form of echolalia, with just a small spattering of single, meaningful words, like "up". I decided to encourage her in her efforts, and I was just happy that she was speaking. So I started buying her the TY Beanie Babies for all of the shows that she recited, which were most of them. She has quite a collection now, and I love watching her play out scenes with them. She rarely allows us to interact with her though, in fact getting rather agitated when we try to sing along with one of her shows, or recite anything with her. I recall the first time she exhibited echolalia that wasn't related to one of her shows. She'd brought me a Walmart ad from the Sunday paper, and I distinctly heard her say, "Walmart. Save Money. Live Better." I was floored. For just a moment, I thought she had read it to me (at the age of 3, no less). I quickly recovered from my shock and realized that she simply recognized the logo and remembered the commercial she'd seen for it on television. I think I cried a little that day. I don't even know if it was happiness, that she was so astute to recall something so trivial, or sadness again, that she wasn't "normal". I definitely felt silly for having thought that she had actually read something at that age, with such a limited vocabulary already. I always hated myself for feeling that way about her. I knew it was made worse that my friends and family all thought she was a mildly high-strung, though typical child, but all I felt in my heart was something amiss. I spent her first year in a blur, suffering from severe sleep deprivation and PPD, mostly due to her mysteriously intense and unsubstantiated tantrums. I often lament that I'm not one of those mothers who has such wonderfully fond and loving memories of their child's first year. Now, with my second daughter, I see even more clearly what was lacking in Kira's first years: physical expression of love/emotion. I always assumed that she just wasn't an overtly affectionate child, and well, she still isn't, and may never be. My second child showers me with hugs and kisses and shows such sweetness that it often hurts me that I feel so much love for her. I know that my autistic daughter loves me as well, that she just can't display her affection in the same manner. Those times that I feel such strong affection for my youngest, often overshadow my affection for Kira, and scares me into thinking that something is wrong with me, that I might truly love one child more than another, against my will even. I don't mean to feel that way, but there it is. Even if I know it's not true, it just feels that way sometimes. My heart swells with love and breaks with sorrow with each display of affection she showers upon me. I feel like my own emotions are ripping me apart sometimes. I don't know how I got off on a tangent there, but I won't erase it, because it feels good to get it out there. .
- July 06, 2011 10:56 PM
- Audrey said...
And because I couldn't fit it all into my last, long, rambling comment, I'll add this here. Thank you, Bud's Mom, for having the kindness, patience, and luck of time to share your wonderful stories about Bud. I'm sure it makes others feel less alone in our tribulations, as I know that's how it makes me feel. It is so very nice to discover someone else with stories that you can relate to, even if it does break my heart that there are so many of us.
- July 06, 2011 11:18 PM
- Jennifer said...
I am the same "Jennifer Z" that posted a comment back in 2006. This post has been a comfort and a roadmap to me. I recommend it on a regular basis, and after directing yet another parent here, I decided to update. My son did, indeed, follow this path. He is now able to use language well enough that the scripts are mostly invisible to people who don't know him. It is amazing. Thank you so much.
- September 14, 2011 10:30 PM
So nice to know I'm not the only one with a son who's language consists mostly of scripting and echolalia. He's like a little tape recorder. He also is able to use purposeful speech like "drink" "go outside" etc. We have to encourage him to use "I want" often, but he is catching on and says "want drink" "I want drink" after positive reminding. Still has trouble with "what is your name?" However, if I say "my name is mommy....your name is....." He will respond with "Aidan." It's a slow process of improving, but I keep telling myself at least he can speak!
His therapist tells me he will eventually lose this over time. Thank you for posting about your son! It's nice to know I'm not alone on this journey.
- January 16, 2012 12:08 PM
- Nicole said...
My son did the same thing. One I remember clearly was that he would say "Seat belts everyone!!!" when he wanted to go somewhere in the car LOL. He still recites movies word for word frequently but he also will speak some too now. His "bridge" between the two was to take words from 2-3 different movies & combine them into one sentence. It was his way of playing with the way words went together I think.
- February 03, 2012 2:28 AM
Thank you for this amazing blog. It's only now that I realize that I taught my daughter to use echolalia. She had only a few words at 20 months of age. Now that I look back on it, that's how she learned to talk. I would watch tv with her, and as we played I would apply bits of songs or sentences from her shows. "Throw the ball, throw the ball, everybody get ready, gonna throw that ball!" I even made up little songs for each transition. "Let's go get in the big red car, the big red car, the big red car!"
She is almost 3 now, and is doing wonderfully. She gets her point across very clearly, even if it is occasionally echolalic. It makes me wonder now, how her social skills would be had I not taught her this very important step in language development.
- March 03, 2012 4:06 PM
This one is SOO good! I really wish to thank you, when my daughter was mostly echoing I found nothing on the subject except your wonderful text. I also keep a blog, but in Swedish (so likely you won't have much use of what I write). But I have linked to this post, hope that other Swedish parents will find it! Thanks again!!! Hugs!!
- December 09, 2012 5:24 PM
- heath said...
And this is why I love blogs! My husband can't understand how I can care to read about other people's lives - he finds it alternately voyeuristic and uninteresting. But to me it's community. I don't know one person in my real life who knows what it feels like to have your child yell "Shrekanona!" at you during a temper tantrum, but here you, and all your commenters, are. Why "Shrek and Fiona"? Who knows why, but I knew he was telling me something was wrong! This was at two years old, and now, at 10, he can't get enough of science and nature shows, economics, and Minecraft. He's funny and sweet, understands and uses irony, and is the light of my life. And meeting all grade level expectations at school. Hurrah! Thanks for blogging.
- September 20, 2013 11:05 AM
- Henry Louis Gomez said...
So, 8 or so years down the line, how's Bud doing? My son George is seven. He's always been verbal and he's always scripted. His development is much like what Bud's sounded like according to your post. Does Bud still script? Is he aware that he does it? Does he control it in certain environments?
- March 10, 2015 4:50 PM
- Usethebrains Godgiveyou said...
I loved this almost 9 years ago, linked to it on a blog because I thought it was among one of the most amazing things I'd ever seen regarding autism...but I'm not the only one. Morton Ann Gernsbacher brought it up in an "Annual Review of Linguistics", Linguistics being a Speech and Language Journal, Dr. Gernsbacher being both a scientist and a parent. We can do more...we can build more bridges AS YOU DID to change the narrative, so science can no longer dehumanize our children. Understanding versus fear mongering.
- June 19, 2016 8:08 AM
- Ms. Norris said...
Ten years later you are still helping people with this article. I feel a little bittersweet referring people to it, because when I read this it was so exactly like my son, that's when I really knew he was autistic. We were only diagnosed last month. Now I'm getting my 18 month old evaluated. Just wanted to say thank you for this window into your experience.
- July 15, 2016 12:28 PM
I'm 60 yrs old and just diagnosed ASD (in Australia). I only just realised I've been echoing and scripting all my life. I have an advanced degree and I am expected to write papers in history. I noticed that others construct sentences organically, assembling and arranging words. I have to hear them in my head first, to sound out and sub-vocalise what I want to write. And I would much rather just do bullet points or quotes, I'd like to talk like a computer. "Put it in your own words" they always said. But my mind only has shapes and sounds. If I write something it has to have a shape, or be based on a series of images.
Most conversations I rehearse in advance. Or just restate other's words back at them slightly altered, if I'm just trying to sound encouraging and friendly, which takes great effort! "Great day!" "Yes it is a great day". Over here the standard greeting is "How are you?" Very difficult to deal with, they don't want a list of points!
- August 23, 2016 11:31 PM
plZ tell how bud is doing now...
- January 13, 2017 4:45 AM


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The U.S. biomedical science system "is on an unsustainable path" and needs major reform, four prominent researchers write in an opinion piece published today by the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Researchers should "confront the dangers at hand," the authors write, and "rethink" how academic research is funded, staffed, and organized, according to Science Careers (published by AAAS, which also publishes ScienceInsider).
The four authors are Bruce Alberts, former president of the National Academy of Sciences and former editor-in-chief of Science; Marc Kirschner, founding chair of the Department of Systems Biology at Harvard Medical School; Shirley Tilghman, former president of Princeton University; and Harold Varmus, Nobel laureate and current director of the National Cancer Institute (NCI). Among other issues, they suggest that the system may be producing too many new researchers and forcing them to compete for a stagnating pool of funding.
It's not the first time research leaders have raised such alarms. In 2012, Tilghman co-chaired an advisory panel to the National Institutes of Health, NCI's parent and the nation's major biomedical research funder, that suggested a glut of trainees and a dearth of academic positions were creating a dysfunctional biomedical research system.


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Previously, I wrote that, by embracing Bayesian statistics, the artificial intelligence community has embarked on yet another great red herring chase. I claimed that Bayesian statistics will prove to be just as wasteful of time, brain and money as the symbolic AI craze of the last century. In this article, I explain why the Bayesian mindset is injurious to progress in our understanding of intelligence. I do not argue that the Bayesian approach is bad in and of itself but that, when it comes to explaining the brain's ability to handle uncertainty, there is a competing model that is orders of magnitude better.
The Last Great Barrier to Fully Understanding Intelligence
Scientists are a conservative and taciturn lot. They will live with a myth or obvious falsehood for decades and even centuries because the humiliation and other hardships that come from rejecting the lie are too painful for them to bear. The Bayesian brain is just such a myth. The problem is that it is now so firmly entrenched in the AI community that accommodating a different perspective would be suicidal to many careers. I will argue that the Bayesian mindset is the last great barrier to progress in AI because it cripples our understanding of the most important aspect of intelligence: perception. I believe that having a correct understanding of perception will unleash a flood of insights that will quickly lead to a full understanding of intelligence, artificial or otherwise.
Two Competing Models of Perception
Below is the essence of the two competing models of perception.
- The Bayesian model assumes that events in the world are inherently uncertain and that the job of an intelligent system is to discover the probabilities.
- The Rebel Science model, by contrast, assumes that events in the world are perfectly consistent and that the job of an intelligent system is to discover this perfection.
See Also:
The Second Great AI Red Herring Chase


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Editor's Note: The following report is excerpted from Joseph Farah's G2 Bulletin, the premium online newsletter published by the founder of WND. Subscriptions are $99 a year or, for monthly trials, just $9.95 per month for credit card users, and provide instant access for the complete reports.
WASHINGTON – Russia's major oil company, LukOil, wants to get involved in Lebanon's drilling in the Mediterranean Sea, according to Joseph Farah's G2 Bulletin.
The problem is that Lebanon has a dispute with neighboring Israel over rights to the reserve that could erupt into a military confrontation, possibly putting the Russians in the middle.
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"We are interested in the Lebanese shelf and are in talks," according to LukOil Chief Executive Vagit Alekperov.
Israel and Lebanon are awaiting a decision from the United Nations over their respective versions of a maritime economic border proposal that would affect the development of tens of billions of dollars of offshore oil and natural gas reserves.
TRENDING: 'Perfect storm' for suicide as death toll surges past COVID
The issue has been brewing at various levels of severity for at least two years.
Israel already has begun work on two major natural gas fields off of its coast, and there is the potential for more. The known resources are the Tamar and Leviathan natural gas fields in Israeli waters, estimated to contain some 24 trillion cubic meters of natural gas.
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A Texas-based company, Noble Energy, found the Leviathan field some 80 miles off the Israeli port of Haifa. It's said to be the world's largest deep-water gas discovery in more than a decade.
The fields are operated by Noble Energy and the Israeli Delek Energy companies.
But Lebanon claims that the Leviathan field extends north into Lebanese waters. In addition, Lebanon has discovered potential natural gas reserves in its own waters. The Lebanese government also has accused Israel of allowing energy companies to explore in those areas due to the lack of any maritime border pact.
The Israelis also found two additional natural gas fields some 45 miles off the city of Hadera.
The natural gas reserves could help Israel establish virtual energy independence for many years to come.
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The U.S., meanwhile, has backed Lebanon in its maritime border dispute. Upon submitting the document to the U.N., the Lebanese also submitted its version to the U.S.
The U.S. then conducted an expert review and reportedly endorsed the Lebanese document. Sources say that a U.S. diplomat, Frederic Hof, who was responsible for Syria and Lebanon under special U.S. envoy to the Middle East George Mitchell, then began to shuttle between Beirut and Jerusalem to work out differences that could cause a major dispute.
From the U.S. standpoint, it also has an interest, since U.S. companies are involved in searching for oil and gas for Israel, Lebanon and Cyprus.
Keep in touch with the most important breaking news stories about critical developments around the globe with Joseph Farah's G2 Bulletin, the premium, online intelligence news source edited and published by the founder of WND.
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text: quantumstate 78 Posted December 22, 2011 Report Share Posted December 22, 2011 I was thinking of working on this, it should be fairly straightforward to do what I suggest here and will bring the attack code up to a decent level of functionality (similar to AoK). Here is what I propose.AccuracyStationary targetsThis will have an entry in the entity xml for ranged attacks. The value will be in the range 0 to 1 and will mean the probability of hitting an infantry unit at maxRange.When a missile is fired it will be placed according to a (2d) normal distribution (approximately). The normal distribution will be scaled linearly according to distance, so a missile fired half the distance has the same chance of hitting as a missile fired at a a target twice as wide (4x surface area). This makes aiming at nearby targets a lot more accurate. Examples:With a maxRange of 100 and an accuracy of 0.5, the probabilities are (range:probability) 100: 50%, 75: 70%, 50: 93%, 25: 100%, 0: 100%. With a maxRange of 100 and an accuracy of 0.25, the probabilities are (range:probability) 100: 25%, 75: 40%, 50: 67%, 25: 87%, 0: 100%. With a maxRange of 100 and an accuracy of 0.0625, the probabilities are (range:probability) 100: 6.3%, 75: 8.4%, 50: 23%, 25: 64%, 0: 100%.First, by mistake I calculated the results for a 1d normal distribution, here they are for comparison. With a maxRange of 100 and an accuracy of 0.5, the probabilities are (range:probability) 100: 50%, 75: 63%, 50: 82%, 25: 93%, 0: 100%. With a maxRange of 100 and an accuracy of 0.25, the probabilities are (range:probability) 100: 25%, 75: 29%, 50: 48%, 25: 80%, 0: 100%.The 2d results should be fairly realistic, but for the game I think 1d would actually be better because it has a less extreme curve. Archers will automatically attack at maxRange and won't walk any closer automatically (at least currently) so having too much advantage for being closer encourages lots of micro.Of course in dense formations if the arrow might well hit a nearby unit and will cause damage to that unit, this will make spread formations useful. Larger units such as cavalry will be easier to hit if they are stationary.Moving targetsThis is something that I am less sure about how to do properly so consider this a less strong proposal. Units should by default aim at where a unit is going to move to, using its movement vector. On its own this would lead to moving targets being hit with the same chance as still units though which is undesirable. There should be an accuracy decrease according to unit speed, I suggest having accuracy depend on the square of speed, with walking speed cavalry halving the hit probability and everything else worked out from there. This kind of thing is easily adjustable though so we could test and see what feels good. Again if you have a tight group then stray arrows will be likely to hit other units.Splash DamageI propose this xml structure for splash damage: <Attack> <Melee> <Hack>7.0</Hack> <Pierce>17.0</Pierce> <Splash> <Type>Trample</Type> <Dist>5</Dist> <Crush>4.0</Hack> <FriendlyFire>No</FriendlyFire> </Splash> </Melee> </Attack>This would work by giving splash damage to units within Dist in addition to the conventional attack, so the conventional attack would have to be decreased to compensate since the primary target would receive both conventional and splash damage.I would recommend 3 types of splash damage, with this scheme only one would be possible per attack type (this restriction could be lifted if necessary but it would probably make the xml more messy).CircularThis would damage all units in a circle of radius Dist around the location of the attack hitting (the unit being hit for melee or where the missile landed for ranged). It would have a quadratic damage falloff so units at range Dist (from the location of the hit) would receive 0 damage, units at range Dist/2 would receive 0.75x damage, units at range 0 would receive full damage. e.g. the rock throwing siege.LinearThis would damage all units in a line aligned with the attack. So for a missile it would damage all units within dist of where the missile hit in the direction away from where the missile was fired from. It seems to be hard to put into words but is a simple idea so I drew a picture. The green blob is your bolt thrower, red are enemy soldiers, blue is the line along which damage is received so three red soldiers get hit. I would suggest quadratic damage falloff again.TrampleThis is identical to circular but the damage is calculated centered around the attacking unit rather than the position where the attack hit. Quote Link to post Share on other sites


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Early Output
Fridge are Sam Jeffers, Kieran Hebden (aka Four Tet) and Adem Ilhan. Childhood friends who have released 3 albums for other labels, and have now joined Domino Europe with their fantastic slice of head-rawk 'Happiness'. Meanwhile, alongside the group, its workaholic members were cooking up other projects.
Kieran Hebden's work as Four Tet first appeared on Output before he moved to Domino for the acclaimed Pause, Rounds and Everything Ecstatic.
Adem Ilhan's songwriting also found a home with Domino with 2004's Homesongs and 2006's space-inspired Love and Other Planets way ahead of the current folk curve.
Sam Jeffers has forged a successful web design practice while studying at LSE and Harvard.
You'll also like Kieran Hebden and Steve Reid.


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Last week and this week are open season for first calendar quarter earnings predictions, and the numbers continue to roll in. The latest data comes from The Channel Checkers, which surveyed 15 Apple Stores in order to determine which products are selling well this spring. For most of the stores surveyed, the MacBook Pro was the top seller, suggesting that Apple's price points are holding up.
This latest survey doesn't try to offer sales figures as many other companies have been doing, but it does indirectly give us some information about what Apple's revenues, gross margin, and average Mac selling price may be. As further coverage by AppleInsider notes, some of the stores surveyed that didn't report the MacBook Pro as the top seller may have been offering discounts on other models, which makes the MacBook Pro look like even more of a winner. (It should be noted, too, that the 17" MacBook Pro was just shipped, so that could also be a major reason why people were buying over the last couple of weeks.) Even though certain models may be doing well, though, most stores are reporting lower sales volume, so it's not all sunshine and kittens just yet.
The gist of this survey may help reassure Apple analysts and investors a little bit. It shows that Apple apparently doesn't need to discount its products for them to sell, as evidenced by the fact that only two of the 15 stores surveyed were offering discounts. Sales of MacBook Pros may also pump up things like average selling prices and Apple's gross margin, which analysts also keep an eye on.


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Retrospection 2.2
Retrospection is a software program designed to help diagnose problems with other software programs.
Retrospection is a software program which constantly records what has visually occurred on your computer. When an error occurs Retrospection makes it easy to play back and review what has occurred.
The review feature is useful for reading the error messages that you most likely skipped by and did not read. Retrospection has shown to be a useful support tool for diagnosing what sequence of events took place to cause a problem.
Retrospection also has a feature to export your captured history as a movie. This feature can be used to send a recorded movie to another individual. Watching a movie is much easier then trying to explain what exactly happened.
Retrospection was designed with the following users in mind: Technical support engineers assisting other users track down difficult problems Software Quality Assurance Test Engineers to aid the testing of other software programs Network administrators wishing to track what steps were taken to setup and maintain servers Home users Tired to trying to figure out what your kids did to the computer?
Q: Is Retrospection designed to make high quality movies of screen activity (e.g. used to create movies for training or marketing purposes)? A: No. In order to create higher quality movies many frames per second must be captured. This high level of captures is resource intensive and unrealistic to accept if the capture process was to run continually. Retrospection has been designed to run continuously without adversely the impact of your computers performance.


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The Adobe® Acrobat® 8.1.2 Professional, Standard, and 3D update addresses several known issues in Acrobat 8 Professional and Standard software. Adobe recommends that all Acrobat 8 Professional or Standard users apply this update.
Improvements in the 8.1.2 update include the following:
Closes some potential security vulnerabilities
Addresses several PDF forms-related issues
Addresses several accessibility issues
Provides additional stability
For more information about issues addressed in this update, see the technical document describing the Acrobat 8.1.2 update in the Support Knowledgebase.
This update can be applied to version 8.1.1 of Adobe Acrobat Professional, Standard, or 3D.
This multilingual update can be applied to Brazilian Portuguese, Chinese Simplified, Chinese Traditional, Danish, Dutch, English, Finnish, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Norwegian, Spanish, and Swedish versions of Acrobat 8 Professional, Standard, or 3D.
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Video card with pixel shader support and DirectX 8.1 required for video hardware acceleration (recommended for optimal performance)
Internet or phone connection required for product activation
This update requires that Acrobat 8.1.1 is installed on your system. To determine which version of Acrobat you have currently installed, choose Help > About Acrobat. The version number appears in the upper left corner below the Acrobat logo.
Users with version 8.0 should apply the 8.1 and 8.1.1 updates before proceeding with this update to version 8.1.2.
If you have version 8.1.1 installed, download and install the incremental patch.
After downloading the MSP update file, double-click the file to begin the update process.
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Rights Contact Login For More Details
More About This Title Handbook of Child and Adolescent Drug and Substance Abuse: Pharmacological, Developmental, and Clinical Considerations
- English
- Selected by Choice as a 2013 Outstanding Academic Title
- English
Ann Marie Pagliaro is Codirector of the Substance Abusology and Clinical Pharmacology Research Group. Her specialty area of research is theory development and evaluation in regard to increasing the understanding of why people use various substances of abuse.
The Pagliaros have published over 300 professional scientific articles, consulted extensively with numerous governmental organizations, and have published sixteen books, including Pagliaros' Comprehensive Guide to Drugs and Substances of Abuse, Second Edition.
- English
Chapter 1 The Nature and Extent of Substance Abuse.
Chapter 2 Explaining Substance Use: A Review of Prevalent Theories.
Section II Developmental Considerations.
Chapter 3 Prenatal Exposure to Substances of Abuse.
Chapter 4 Exposure and Use of Substances of Abuse During Infancy and Childhood.
Chapter 5 Adolescent Substance Use.
Section III Social Considerations.
Chapter 6 Effects of Substance Use on Learning and Memory.
Chapter 7 Substance-Related Accidents and Violence: Children and Adolescents as Victims.
Chapter 8 Substance-Related Violence: Children and Adolescents as Perpetrators.
Chapter 9 Substance Use, and HIV Infection and AIDS.
Section lV Clinical Considerations.
Chapter 10 Identifying and Diagnosing Substance Use Disorders: Tools and Analysis.
Chapter 11 Dual Diagnoses: Substance Use and Co-Occurring Diagnosis.
Chapter 12 Preventing and Treating Substance Use Disorders: Promoting Successful Outcomes.
- English


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You can change the device language and unit system from the settings under General »Device settings.
You can change these settings at any time. Suunto EON Steel refreshes immediately to reflect the changes.
Under the unit settings, you have the option of selecting metric or Imperial as a global setting, meaning the affect all measurements. Alternative, you can choose Advanced which allows you to set the unit system for specific measurements. For example, you could use metric for depth, and Imperial for tank pressure.


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When people think of computer games, what they usually think of are the popular first-person shooters like Call of Duty or others of its ilk. Action games are the big sellers in the market, mostly because of their simple, straightforward controls and easy-to-understand backstories. The Android OS may not exactly be the ideal gaming platform, but it does have its share of these games. Here's a look at ten of the best action games available for Android devices, sure to get players' hearts pounding and adrenaline pulsing
1) Grand Theft Auto III
The game that brought open-world gaming into the mainstream and launched Rockstar Games into the stratosphere, Grand Theft Auto III on Android is a treat. The 10th Anniversary edition delivers all the punch of the original, while updating it all for modern sensibilities. None of that low-polygon count stuff going on here – updated graphics, both of character and vehicle models have been included. It even has HD quality resolution. Combine that with a great storyline and open-ended interaction with the denizens of Liberty City and the result is game that will tempt you to punch out people on the street and jack their cars whenever you're late for a meeting.
2) Age of Zombies
Zombies are the monster du jour. Name any gaming platform and it's sure to have a zombie game or two. However, most of these are depressing survival fests that go for the horror side of the genre. Well, Age of Zombies is definitely not one of those games. Playing as Barry Steakfries, players step into a time-travelling commando's shoes and kill zombies all across the space-time continuum in a laugh-out-loud storyline. Shooting zombies has never been so fun – shooting zombie dinosaurs being a hundred times fun than normal. Main downsides for this game are that it's short and has trouble running on the Samsung Galaxy. Halfbrick has definitely delivered the goods with this follow-up to Monster Dash and Fruit Ninja.
3) Sleepy Jack
The first impression that Sleepy Jack delivers is that the graphics are awesome. A tube shooter, the game propels its players into a tube and gives them a demented roller-coaster ride either aiming to shoot at things or to fulfill the level's objectives. As explorers of Jack's psychedelic 3D dreamscape, it can bea bit overwhelming at first. But the simple controls and frenetic gameplay help a lot in delivering a dreamlike experience. Forty levels and additional updates also prevent Sleepy Jack from getting really old – maintaining its replay value.
4) Grabatron
Alien invaders have been a setpiece enemy of video games for years now. How about switching that formula around? In Grabatron, players are in control of an UFO as it abducts things, people, and animals all over the landscape. Armed not with death rays but a single retractable claw, this will constitute quite a challenge. The claw can be used to pick up objects and toss them around as improvised weapons – weapons that will be needed because those dastardly humans will be out there with their guns and tanks. Packed with over 30 missions of alien-abducting fun, Grabatron is a definite treat for any gamer.
5) Windup Knight
Running games are a pretty new genre. Essentially, players control a continually running character hoping to avoid their doom. There's no going back, just going forward. Robot Invader's Windup Knight is currently the pinnacle of running games. Ordinarily players only have a single button to think about in running games, but with jump, slash, roll, and other moves, this game takes the running game to the next level. Add to that fifty levels of challenging gameplay and challenges, this game is definitely something to waste your time on.
Platformers have been part of video games for a long time now, ever since the seminal Super Mario Bros. The simple gameplay mechanics are easy to understand and give a large variation. Currently one of the best platformers on the Android OS is INC. Developed by Orange Pixel, the game has an awesome retro-feel; pixel style graphics, authentic sound and challenging levels make this game a work of art. Very easy to get into, INC is an addictive pleasure for any fan of the genre.
7) Meteor Blitz
Meteor Blitz is definitely one of the must-have games on the platform. Why is it this update to the venerable Asteroids a needed addition to any gamer's collection? Mostly because this game delivers the complete package: smooth visuals, challenging gameplay, responsive controls and online play. The game's replay value definitely also adds to these attributes – along with the very cheap price. The game is intense and players will find themselves sweating as the meteors keep coming. For pulse-pounding entertainment, that's pretty hard to beat.
8) Sonic CD
Sega's posterboy, Sonic the Hedgehog may have lost a lot of his star power since his heyday in the '90s, but don't count him out yet. The fastest hedgehog ever has come to Android and he brings with him the solid gameplay of his earlier outings. Sonic CD was one of the best of blue-furred hero's adventures and now player's can relive the experience. Updated for the Android, it still has that early '90s patina to its graphics but the fun shines through. Definitely a keeper for any fan of Sonic.
9) Minecraft
Minecraft, the indie phenomenon, comes to Android. Once shackled to desktop PCs, the sandbox construction game seems to have been translated to a portable edition by the folks over at Mojang. For anyone who is a fan of the construction/adventure gameplay that Minecraft champions, this is a way to bring the fun with them while they're on the go. Optimized for tablets and phones, this version of the game is in its alpha stages – which means it will be a bit buggy. But for anyone who's followed Minecraft on the PC, this is not a new experience. A new adventure indeed for anyone who loves this game.
10) Shadowgun
A very beautiful looking game, the third-person shooter Shadowgun delivers Gears of War style gameplay and graphics to the Android platform. Matching visuals usually found on consoles, this game is gorgeous. But it isn't just another pretty face – there's a pretty solid action game underneath all that flash. Smart enemy AI also gives players a challenge that won't just roll over and die. This is a definite step-up from the current crop and an original franchise for the Android platform itself. Hopefully, we'll see more games like this soon.


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Health roundup: FDA OKs egg, virus-free flu vaccine
Your Thursday morning health roundup:
New flu vaccine: The Food and Drug Administration has approved a new type of flu vaccine that doesn't rely on growing whole flu viruses in chicken eggs, making it faster to produce than traditional vaccines and more acceptable for people with egg allergies. Flublok is made by injecting flu genes into an insect virus and growing it in caterpillar cells. Another egg-free vaccine Flucelvax was approved by FDA in November. Both are for adults. (NBC News)
Skin cancer apps: Using a smart phone app to decide if a mole is a melanoma? You definitely want to follow up with a doctor: Instant melanoma-detecting apps missed cancers that would be obvious to a dermatologist about 30 percent of the time, a study shows. (NPR)
POM not-so-wonderful: The Federal Trade Commission has upheld a judge's finding that the makers of POM Wonderful pomegranate juice made false health claims in dozens of ads -- saying the juice could treat everything from heart disease to erectile dysfunction. The company is standing by the ads. (Los Angeles Times)
Today's talker: Call it the chicken-soup index. Seamless.com, an online food ordering site serving 10 major U.S. markets, tells ABC News it has seen a 35% percent spike in chicken noodle soup orders compared to this time last year, due to the flu outbreak. "Because so many people are sick and staying inside, we've seen an increase in orders," said Steven T. Young, director of marketing. "Orange juice sales are up 19 percent and Gatorade is up 10 percent."