Diary of an ASD Squirrel. Day 60 Thursday 28/12/23
TL:DR Gaming rules at the moment, in this gap between the years. I will have to put my adult head on next year . Movie fest progresses. Strangely I’m not tierd atm.
So yesterday I had 2 days left to finish the latest NMS Expedition , with a special ‘high prestige’ ship as the ultimate reward.
CDP 🧚♀️ has been dropping hints like ‘Paveway’ bunker killers that some help on our joint session would be more than appreciated so I pulled the first all nighter in a long time, finishing the Expo just as my morning alarm went off at 4am.
We had a great joint session , I’m a little behind due to the Expo so some catching up was in order.
I tried out the ‘Golden Vector’ fighter that I got from the Expo , it’s ok but needs some work to get it up to spec.
A bit of work on the bases , & some general knocking about & the odd bit of mining rounded off a really nice session.
I made lunch - some cheese cracker nibbles & salad, followed by Christmas cake for her & bakewell tart for me!
The Star Trek fest continued with ‘Wrath of Khan’ & ‘Search for Spock’ then a couple of ‘All Creatures Great & Small’ to polish off the night!
Final Thoughts:
The end of the year approaches at a rate of knots. Next year will be a mix of challenges, some of them known, some of them predictable & the rest, as ever, unknown! For now though , it is the calm before the storm, that little gap of time where one can relax & gather strength.
Thanks to all those who are helping me on this journey, in a myriad different ways. I am thankful to each & every one of you ! 🫂 🫶🐿️🖖
Oh noes, the giant corporation might miss out on tens of dollars after charging exorbitant fees! Maybe they shouldn’t leave seats in odd numbers at all then.
Could be easily made 50% space saving by only iffin all odds and return even on else. Maybe one if before to handle overflow to avoid wrong even if over the last if.
<p>Spanking is associated with lower levels of executive functioning, such as inhibitory control and cognitive flexibility, in children, according to a new study that analyzed longitudinal data from more than 12,000 children. The findings, published in <em><a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0145213423004623" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Child Abuse & Neglect</a></em>, suggests that even infrequent spanking can have adverse effects on a child’s cognitive development.</p>
<p>Spanking, a common form of discipline in many households, has long been <a href="https://www.psypost.org/2022/04/can-spanking-a-child-ever-have-beneficial-results-63011" target="_blank" rel="noopener">a subject of debate</a>. Researchers embarked on this study to understand its impact on children’s cognitive development, particularly on executive functions like attention, decision-making, and behavior control.</p>
<p>Previous studies had established <a href="https://www.psypost.org/2021/04/childhood-spanking-is-linked-to-adverse-physical-psychological-and-behavioral-outcomes-in-adolescence-60508" target="_blank" rel="noopener">links between spanking and behavioral issues</a>, but its effect on cognitive skills, especially in early childhood, remained unclear. This study aimed to fill this gap in research, considering the widespread prevalence of spanking and its potential long-term effects on child development.</p>
<p>“As a sociologist, I have always been interested in the sources of inequalities. When I began teaching a course called Sociology of Child Welfare, I started to see how experiencing violence in childhood can impact individuals even in later life and how condoning violence as a form of discipline may contribute to a variety of social issues,” said study author Jeehye Kang, an associate professor at Old Dominion University.</p>
<p>“I also began to see how my experience of violence at home and school in childhood has influenced me, so this topic feels important to me. For this study, I was happy to learn more about the links between spanking and children’s cognitive development, in collaboration with the clinical psychologist Dr. Rodriguez.”</p>
<p>The study analyzed data from <a href="https://nces.ed.gov/ecls/">the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study</a>, which tracked around 18,170 children from kindergarten through elementary school. Focusing on a subset of approximately 12,800 children aged 5-6, researchers examined the impact of spanking on three key areas of executive functioning: inhibitory control, cognitive flexibility, and working memory.</p>
<p>Inhibitory control was assessed through teacher reports using the Children’s Behavior Questionnaire. Cognitive flexibility was measured directly through the Dimensional Change Card Sort task, where children sorted cards by different rules. Working memory was evaluated using the Numbers Reversed subtest of the Woodcock-Johnson III Tests of Cognitive Abilities, which required children to repeat number sequences in reverse order.</p>
<p>The independent variable, spanking, was reported by primary caregivers, predominantly mothers, who indicated how often they spanked their child in the past week. To address potential biases, the researchers used a method called entropy balancing. This statistical technique reweighted the comparison group to align with the spanked group, ensuring that any differences observed were due to spanking and not other factors.</p>
<p>Before matching for biases, children who were spanked showed lower levels of inhibitory control, cognitive flexibility, and working memory. However, after the matching process, the link between spanking and lower working memory disappeared, suggesting that this association in previous studies might have been influenced by other factors.</p>
<p>“We found no association between spanking and children’s working memory, another critical component of executive functioning,” Kang explained. “The null finding was at odds with previous research. However, we used a large, nationally representative sample, rigorous matching design, and highly controlled modeling, all of which strengthened causal inferences to these relationships. Thus, this inconsistency could stem from the rigorous matching process applied in our study relative to prior research.”</p><div class="addrop-wrap" data-id="64749"><p style="text-align: center;">
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<p>Notably, however, the adverse effects of spanking on inhibitory control and cognitive flexibility persisted even after matching. This indicates that spanking, even when infrequent, can negatively impact these cognitive skills essential for learning and behavior regulation. Surprisingly, the study found no moderation effects based on child gender, race/ethnicity of the primary caregiver, or the level of parental warmth. This suggests that the negative impacts of spanking are consistent across different demographics and family contexts.</p>
<p>“It may have been less known that spanking can impact children’s cognitive development,” Kang told PsyPost. “We found that exposure to spanking at age 5 was negatively related to children’s ability to deliberately regulate action (called inhibitory control) and adaptively shift between tasks (called cognitive flexibility) at age 6, irrespective of child gender, race, and parental warmth.”</p>
<p>“In particular, the association persisted even with infrequent spanking for inhibitory control. Given that children’s executive functioning is essential to socio-emotional and academic school readiness, which in turn relates to future income, health, and criminal conviction, this study provides public implications.”</p>
<p>While the study provides valuable insights, it has its limitations. One significant concern is the potential influence of unobserved factors, like community violence exposure, that were not included in the analysis. These factors could have a bearing on both the likelihood of a child being spanked and their cognitive development.</p>
<p>Looking ahead, researchers suggest exploring the severity, chronicity, and methods of spanking to understand its varied effects on children’s cognitive development. They also recommend using direct assessments for inhibitory control and incorporating data from both parents to gain a more comprehensive understanding.</p>
<p>In her previous work, Kang found that <a href="https://www.psypost.org/2023/01/longitudinal-study-of-kindergarteners-suggests-spanking-is-harmful-for-childrens-social-competence-67034" target="_blank" rel="noopener">children who were spanked</a> tended to have higher externalizing behavior, lower self-control, and lower interpersonal skills compared to children who had never been spanked. The findings indicated that even infrequent spanking negatively impacted children’s social development. She <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0885200622000400" target="_blank" rel="noopener">has also found</a> that spanking is associated with lower reading and math scores.</p>
<p>“The significant links between spanking and both inhibitory control and cognitive flexibility were consistent with previous research about the effects of child maltreatment,” Kang told PsyPost. “Although spanking is a milder stressor compared to child maltreatment, it still appears to impair impulse restraint and prepotent responses in children. The public should be aware of the neurobiological, social, emotional, and cognitive harm associated with spanking. Parents should be assisted with effective positive parenting strategies, so they do not resort to spanking.”</p>
<p>The study, “<a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chiabu.2023.106474">Spanking and executive functioning in US children: A longitudinal analysis on a matched sample</a>“, was authored by Jeehye Kang and Christina M. Rodriguez.</p>
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MOSCOW, Dec 27 (Reuters) - Russia and India have made tangible progress in talks on plans to jointly produce military equipment, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said on Wednesday, after talks with his Indian counterpart Subrahmanyam Jaishankar in Moscow.
First there are the basics of linguistics since the British and India have a bit of shared history but that has certainly helped India to integrate itself into the western business environment. There are now huge numbers of western countries leveraging outsourcing for business resources and if India keeps distancing itself from the West, those integrations will start to look more like liabilities to western businesses. Next, I can’t imagine that the business opportunities with Russia can rival North American plus the EU so it seems odd to align with Russia when it could jeopardize a very beneficial relationship for India. Finally, due to immigration, there are large populations from India across the entire western hemisphere, I would think that would drive solidarity with the west. I know little about India so maybe those points are not accurate but those are my interpretations.
Toyota-owned automaker halts Japan production after admitting it tampered with safety tests for 30 years | CNN Business::Daihatsu, the Japanese automaker owned by Toyota, has halted production after admitting it falsified data in safety tests for its vehicles for 30 years.
I’m really worried about the state of the US despite being a white male who was I’ll coast right through it. I’ll also accept “I don’t” and “very poorly” as answers
It’s been billions of years before I existed, and potentially trillions of years afterwards. I’m incredibly lucky to be aware and thinking, so why should I complain about stuff happening after my spark of awareness has faded?
This is exactly how I do it. In the long run, none of this shit matters, and nothing will be remembered. The planet has rebooted several times in its history, what are the odds that this particular sentient being would be here to witness it? Enjoy the ride while it lasts, make sure any survivors of the collapse remember who the guilty parties are.
When all the bad information from the news begins to bombard me, I think back to March 2020, when the pandemic hit full swing. That might seem odd to some because many would argue that was the spark that set of the series of events that got us here. However what I see now, years later, with a bit of perspective, it was an amazing time. For the first time in human civilization almost our entire species focused in on one task and overall succeed. An existential threat to our entire way of life emerged, most people got on board and we avoided the absolute worst.
We’re not meant to process all the bad things that happen in the world every day. Our primate brains are meant for small communities, not international events. Perhaps the pandemic isn’t OPs thing or yours to think about, but I’ll bet that almost everyone has some memory that gives them hope. Think about it, hold into it. A hopeful thing happened once, it’ll happen again.
The snark it is strong, I can’t hold it in today. I have to say, yeah, and the world economy, particularly the U.S. housing market, was incredible in 2006. Okay, that out of the way, for perspective:
The standard of living for most of the world has declined in the past couple of years, and the trend seems likely to continue.
We don’t have enough water in the U.S. Some of that subsidy that makes food artificially cheap is in the form of fossil water from rapidly-depleting aquifers, or surface waters that are facing long-term decline, like the Colorado River. The populous western United States was settled during a relative wet period, which is drying out. It only seems abundant now because we’re not conserving it for the future.
The odds of dying to violence seem poised to increase dramatically in the very near future, what with conflicts emerging around the world threatening to turn into regional wars, the prospect of climate migration and contention over resources (especially water) increasing conflicts, and the real prospect of the collapse of democratic government in the U.S. As for disease, the infectious disease experts tell us that the prospects for another global pandemic in the coming years are good.
The means exist to visit any place on Earth in a matter of hours, true, but they are not equally available to all people.
Civil rights are under active attack and in steep decline.
The year in which the number of books published exceeded the number than a human could possibly read occurred centuries ago. The abundance of entertainment options is really a non-sequitur to quality of life.
All in all, I agree that we have had it pretty good for the past 70 years, and we should not forget that. But let’s also not breezily dismiss the looming disasters we face, because if the world were a Titanic metaphor, we’ve just hit the iceberg. The buffet is still laid out, the band is still playing, the lights are on, and the champagne is still bubbling, but it’d be ridiculous to dismiss fellow passengers’ anxiety.
Diary of an ASD Squirrel. Day 59 Wednesday 27/12/23
TL:DR Gaming, food, booze, nibbles & reflections on relationships. Oh & this time next week the festive season will be over for another 5 minutes (if the retailers have anything to do with it !) 😆
A really nice day today , some gaming this morning followed by a lovely lunch & then slobbing out in front of the TV with naughty nibbles & booze while watching Bridget Jones & then the beginning of a Star Trek fest !
I’m going to wander off on a tangent tonight & reflect on a close friends toot about someone special who has perhaps put their foot in it?
Understanding another’s motives can be crucial as can understanding their limitations!
I have met many folks , both ND & NT on here & they all have strengths & weaknesses , abilities & ‘disabilities’ . I am ND & I know certain things escape me, I know that sometimes I fail to see that a logical conclusion to me is not obvious to others, this leads me to take actions to help the common good without consulting with others who maybe affected. This is both something I need to understand & try & address, but equally I would hope that, if someone knew I was ND & knew about the triad of impairments they would understand that it was not a slight, but perhaps something that I maybe need help with.
The Triad of Impairment is a major pointer in the diagnosis of ASD. If one has evidence of impairment in each of the triad’s areas then there is a decent chance they are somewhere on the autistic spectrum .
The 3 areas of impairment are:
Social Communication, Social Intelligence & Social Imagination
Or can a person communicate effectively , understand social interactions effectively & be capable of empathy by imagining the feelings of others.
The above example has me failing miserably at the last hurdle.
My friend was concerned that a long distance relationship could prove challenging if I have understood what they have said correctly.
To this I would suggest that even in a relationship where the parties are geographically close it is difficult to dedicate as much time to another as one might wish.
Mrs Squirrel came very close to not being Mrs Squirrel many years ago when I was in Storage Management. My job was demanding & I often worked weekends & overnight. I was also on-call so if I had the ‘duty’ then there was no guarantee that even if we went to bed together she would wake up with me beside her. This caused friction & she felt abandoned.
What I had to make her realise at the time was that I missed her as much as she missed me & that professions that make such demands on one a balance is often hard to achieve & maintain. ( I can;t have been too bad given we are still married 20 odd years later😆 )
Also if you fall for someone who is passionate about work or a hobby & especially if they are ND , with all the complications that brings, then the path to a successful relationship is tricky & difficult to map out. However I firmly believe that ND folk make true, loyal friends ( & closer) & that it takes a massive amount to break such a bond!
Final Thoughts:
A good day filled with good company, food, booze, games & movies - 9/10 😊
Any romantic relationship can be a rollercoaster ride but I believe that ND + ND/NT relationships can be even more challanging because the ND element/s in the relationship are both failing to understand all the basic rules of play whilst simultaneously creating their own unique rules that others may struggle to adapt to.
I think distance relationships are covered under a song title that springs to mind “Love will find a way”!
The New Year is creeping towards us!
Thanks to all those who are helping me on this journey, in a myriad different ways. I am thankful to each & every one of you ! 🫂 🫶🐿️🖖
The Russia-Ukraine war is highlighting the issues with over engineered Western weapons in sustained conflict. If you don’t dominate the opponent logistically, they’re impractical.
Thats an odd take considering a relatively small number of western weapons in the hands of talented Ukrainian defenders are holding back the entire stockpile of Soviet weapons designed to conquer Europe. If anything its highlighting the “over engineering” for survivability is allowing the much smaller Ukrainian army to win against the alternative of simple Soviet designs en mass.
I will point how however that the USA isn’t using F-35 exclusively, but also F-15EX which is much cheaper. They compliment each other well for their suited goals.
I’ve had a couple touchscreen portables that run Linux. I virtually NEVER use the touchscreen on the traditional notebook style portables, which are an Asus Zenbook from the mid-2010s and a Dell Latitude 7390 from 2017 or so. Both run Debian/XFCE. The desktop environment isn’t really designed for touch interaction, and the screens have pretty low resolution and terrible multitouch support. It works.for the odd button press, or to advance slides during presentations. It’s just not a great experience. Plus, both of those screens smudge like the Devil, and just collect fingerprints & dust.
The third portable is a Lenovo Carbon X1 slate, one of the generations from late 2019. It has a Wacom 3000x3000 touch display built in, and a multifunctional stylus. I run Mint Debian Edition with Cinnamon on that one. Its on Mint 18 or 19, so take the next bit as how it was a couple years ago: the touchscreen experience in Cinnamon is functional but a little.clunky. Touch interaction is responsive, accurate and smooth. Writing with the stylus takes some getting used to, but taking handwritten notes and diagrams in Xjournal or an app called Write was okay. I never got the hang of calling up the on-screen keyboard in fewer than a couple.of taps, but once it was up it worked fine. Its terrible for coding or commandline interactions because the special character layouts were more iThing-like.than Android but it did work, even if slowly.
One thing I did struggle with was screen rotation. I had to download and tweak a script that called some xrdb or xrandr commands when the orientation changed. Kludgy, but it did work and it got the job done.
I imagine newer versins of Cinnamon have improved on all this in the last few years. In fact, I was going to make a project this week of reinstalling that system on the latest LMDE to see if I couldn’t make better use of it now that we’re back in the office a few days a week. I was getting the hang of the digital notepad, and now I kind of miss it.
(Why reinstall? Dumb decisions on my.part when sizing the slices I used for boot and root. Gotta blow it all away to make it right.)
In a YouTube video, a voice in English announces that China has researched and developed its own ultra-thin 1-nanometer chip – a staggering claim given that the chip isn’t expected in commercial devices for another decade....
This is all explained in the post we’re commenting on. The standard “kilo” prefix, from the metric system, predates modern computing and even the definition of a byte: 1700s vs 1900s. It seems very odd to argue that the older definition is the one trying to retcon.
The binary usage in software was/is common, but it’s definitely more recent, and causes a lot of confusion because it doesn’t match the older and bigger standard. Computers are very good at numbers, they never should have tried the hijack the existing prefix, especially when it was already defined by existing International standards. One might be able to argue that the US hadn’t really adopted the metric system at the point of development, but the usage of 1000 to define the kilo is clearly older than the usage of 1024 to define the kilobyte. The main new (last 100 years) thing here is 1024 bytes is a kibibyte.
Errrm, could they please leave some memory to other processes? KDE already takes about 1.5GB of VRAM on my RX7600 8GB just running a desktop (dual head 4k + 1440p displays). Yes, things can get swapped out to main memory, but that becomes choppy. I’d rather run single buffered, get the odd screen tear, and have the VRAM back for real work.
THIS. Good parents are rare. I have one friend that has somehow raised 3 amazing kids. Don’t get me wrong, they occasionally act up, but on the whole I spend more time admiring how smart and thoughtful they are for 9, 13 and 15 year olds.
I used to hate kids. I gradually got over it in the course of 40 odd years. I still hate parents and can’t control their kids, but I don’t blame the children.
• “Under the Cloak of War”. The flashbacks in this episode are set during the Federation-Klingon War seen during DIS season one, and a large part of that conflict was the new Klingon cloaking devices that T’Kuvma, and then Kol installed on their various ships. Get it? Yeah, you get it....
I guess the times turned. I remember that before 2010 “we” fans cared a lot about inter-series continuity and had an absolut blast in favrious discussion groups if these where honoured.
Seems like “we” have turned to be the odd balls and people seem to care a lot less these days…
I guess the times turned. I remember that before 2010 “we” fans cared a lot about inter-series continuity and had an absolut blast in favrious discussion groups if these where honoured.
Seems like “we” have turned to be the odd balls and people seem to care a lot less these days…
How the fuck is this my problem, ticketmaster?! (ibb.co)
Apparently they won’t sell you seats if you leave a single seat next to your order. Fuck this shitty monopoly
4 billion if statements (andreasjhkarlsson.github.io)
Russia, India closer to joint military equipment production - minister (www.reuters.com)
MOSCOW, Dec 27 (Reuters) - Russia and India have made tangible progress in talks on plans to jointly produce military equipment, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said on Wednesday, after talks with his Indian counterpart Subrahmanyam Jaishankar in Moscow.
Toyota-owned automaker halts Japan production after admitting it tampered with safety tests for 30 years | CNN Business (edition.cnn.com)
Toyota-owned automaker halts Japan production after admitting it tampered with safety tests for 30 years | CNN Business::Daihatsu, the Japanese automaker owned by Toyota, has halted production after admitting it falsified data in safety tests for its vehicles for 30 years.
How do you guys cope with the fact that the world isn't getting any better?
I’m really worried about the state of the US despite being a white male who was I’ll coast right through it. I’ll also accept “I don’t” and “very poorly” as answers
Berlin says EU should prepare for war by end of decade (www.euractiv.com)
Covid: It's That Bad (www.okdoomer.io)
Ukraine gets ready to deploy US-made 'game-changing' weapon against Russia (m.timesofindia.com)
What's your experience with a touchscreen laptop on your distro?
Hello everyone!...
China uses AI to generate propaganda on YouTube, report finds (www.rfa.org)
In a YouTube video, a voice in English announces that China has researched and developed its own ultra-thin 1-nanometer chip – a staggering claim given that the chip isn’t expected in commercial devices for another decade....
Seems like world deleted the Threads discussion post
And that they will federate with them ? (Can’t seem to find it anymore at least)...
Why a kilobyte is 1000 and not 1024 bytes (zeta.one)
I often find myself explaining the same things in real life and online, so I recently started writing technical blog posts....
KDE KWin Merge Request For Triple Buffering (invent.kde.org)
Phoronix: www.phoronix.com/…/KDE-KWin-Triple-Buffering-MR...
How do I stop hating children?
Almost all my life I’ve absolutely despised children. Pretty much from the moment I stopped being a child I’ve hated being around children....
4202 g (lemmy.world)
Younger Americans are friendlier to China (www.economist.com)
Canon Connections: Strange New Worlds 2x08 - "Under the Cloak of War"
• “Under the Cloak of War”. The flashbacks in this episode are set during the Federation-Klingon War seen during DIS season one, and a large part of that conflict was the new Klingon cloaking devices that T’Kuvma, and then Kol installed on their various ships. Get it? Yeah, you get it....