Not-quite Spontaneous Generation

So now there's a machine that can Make Water from thin air. Quite literally.

Another view of educational problems.

Here's a surprise, from the end of This Article about how problems in school might not be attitude or neurologically based, but rather caused by vision problems:

And here's a big one- these kids are often misdiagnosed with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder because they can't focus more than five minutes on reading.

I'm near-sighted and I remember the huge difference in the way I saw the world when I first got glasses. My vision's pretty bad but even at that it wasn't found out until a sight and hearing test we were given in 5th or 6th grade. It's not hard to imagine that a more-subtle vision impairment, like this kid's blurred vision, could cause problems without being detected as such. And in a climate where ADHD is the fashionable diagnosis to make...

Of course, not *all*, or even I think a great percentage, of ADHD cases can be vision related in truth, but even if it's a small percentage it means we're drugging kids unnecessarily, and that's a bad thing. That's really what irks me about the whole ADHD thing is that it's over- and mis-diagnosed, and it seems that the main solution (even when paired with other, behavior-oriented treatments) is to prescribe medication. And I think that's a Bad Thing, with capital letters.

Discursive thoughts on ADHD.

So my biggest issue with ADHD is really with how it's treated. Across the board it seems to me that the solution applied is drugs. Even when behavioral therapy, something I'm a lot more comfortable with, is used, drugs are often applied as well. I don't trust drugs in general. I'm especially wary of drugs that alter the way a person's brain function. The way their mind functions.

( But that's the problem, isn't it? )

Interpersonal Communication

So, This Article about cyber-interaction versus actual-interaction says a lot that I've generally considered to be common sense. Maybe I'm not part of the Tech-Gen? That seems absurd, though.

Two lines in particular sum up some really pertinent points: Our generation needs to get over this fear of confrontation and rejection," he says. The focus, he and others say, needs to be on quality communication, in all formats.

Flies and Vinegar is all I'm saying.

After reading a second overly-snarky, only-mildly-amusing gamer review by Lore Sjoberg (the first being that one about WoW), I've decided he just has too much vinegar to be worth listening to at all.

Curiouser and curiouser.

I'm not exactly sure what this Story is, but wow! Does anyone here know anything about Gizmondo? I've never heard of them.

Just because I'm a Diablo2 Assassin doesn't mean I'm a chick.

Wow. This means that far fewer (or alternatively many, many more) of the characters in those online realms are gender-benders than I originally thought.