It's usually easier to do a global replace of "period space space" with "period space" than it is to learn new typing techniques, FWIW. I've done copyediting for folk who learned on typewriters and I'd rather they not confuse their fingers.

... did John Oliver just drop an F-bomb on Sesame Street?

How about swords never breaking if they're made right? K.J. Parker, who has done some sword smithing, has swords break on a regular basis, because no matter how awesome your forging technique is, metal stress is a real thing.

We had a car that died at just over 140,000 miles. Mind you, it was extraordinary in that most of its make and model had topped out at 90,000 miles, so its horrible smoky death was still much later than one might have supposed. (This was also the car that we took in to get the brake pads replaced and they told us it…

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I should have known I was in for trouble when the introduction talked about making the original book "interesting." These sorts of things only work if you have respect for the original material.

A general note about the efficacy of vaccines: Some vaccines are highly effective, such as the measles vaccine. A childhood dose plus a booster at puberty will confer immunity in excess of 99%. Funny thing is that I actually know somebody whose blood titre shows that she is *not* immune to measles, despite repeated…

That looks like an AWESOME playhouse.

100% immunization does not mean 100% protection. Vaccines have a variable rate of success, all the way from measles at more than 99% (though I do know someone who does not produce the antibodies despite repeated vaccinations) down to pertussis (sub-80%). Vaccines work by stimulating the immune system to create…

I find that there are some posts on Facebook that I just have to hide for my sanity. The "CDC whistleblower" story was one of them.

I have an autistic kid and an autistic husband. You know what? THEY'RE AWESOME. I can't believe people who think I'd rather they died than get vaccines. (Aside from the fact that vaccines don't cause autism and never have.)

In layman's terms, each vaccine has a variable success rate. The measles shot, for example, has a 99% success rate for two shots—but I happen to know someone whose immune system simply doesn't react to it, and she is not immune to measles despite having several MMRs in the last ten years. And the pertussis vaccine is…

My husband reminded me that he went youthful briefly when he got the new regenerations and spent some time off-camera, which is presumably when he made this call.

I like to describe autism like this: We all have filters in our brains that tell us what is important. When you're on the spectrum, those filters are broken to some degree, which means instead of getting, for example, the voice of a person you're having a conversation with, you get every noise in the vicinity at a…

Note that Asperger's is not the equivalent of "high functioning autism"; it's one *variety* of high-functioning autism, and the one most people are familiar with. People get surprised about several high-functioning autistic people I know because they don't "present" like Asperger's; in fact, one of them has learned…

I work for a photography studio. You know how prints are "so very expensive"? Guess what... they're not. When you make prints at your local drugstore or Costco or whatever, you're assuming the costs of equipment, time, training, and everything. The printers at our studio cost on the order of a house... in California.…

I see that this can be used as a high-protein replacement for soy, which is good for folks who have soy allergies. Personally, I'd try it—I'm currently on a high-protein diet for reasons of gestational diabetes, and given that somebody else would be handling all the icky parts, I could live with the concept of eating…

"Very interesting that depression and suicide isn't always connected."

My father died of lung cancer, a death I wouldn't wish on anyone. He quit smoking about a dozen years before he died (and he never smoked around the rest of us), but the decades of smoking before that got him in the end.

This is one reason why I dislike the War on Drugs, especially the seizure of property if a crime is suspected and "no-knock" raids on houses that might have drugs... particularly when they get the wrong address. Getting rid of the WoD wouldn't stop racism, but defunding police militarization sounds like a better idea…