Billy-quizboy, I am not a smoking expert (or, in spite of the name, doctor) but I do have a strong professional background in behavior. In general, positive reinforcement works the best, so think of some things the kids can do that would reward the parents for not smoking. Maybe they can do more chores, spend more…

Also, in general, positive reinforcement is the most effective system. Reinforcement has been proven to work better than punishment. If you are going to use punishment, studies show that it works best when paired with a reinforcement system. This is one of those neat times where what is ethical because it is humane is…

I am a Board Certified Behavior Analyst and I have a small technical point about one thing in your article. Sorry if this is too long, my point is in the last paragraph if you wish to skip to it. You reference the $150 deposit and forfeiture as negative reinforcement. A reinforcer is anything that occurs after a…

Technically correct... It’s a Futurama reference.

“Whoa, the policy response to global warming/climate change is NOT political? There is One True Fact in how we should deal with it?”

While the McDonald’s can’t prove it happened, I feel like this McDonald’s is just asking for an influx of people buying food from them for people who are homeless... Now that I think about it, this could be a brilliant marketing strategy...

The three words don’t make sense, two of them mean large and 1 means 20 which is the only one which isn’t large. If they asked you if you wave a large If I go to Starbucks one or twice a Year I’m probably not going to remember which large is small and which large is medium.I have messed up my order once trying to use…

For some reason this is where my mind goes...

The subtle websiteism of low expectations...

Yeah, language use and engaging in proper arguments/discussions are two pet peeves of mine and both seem to have come up this week... It’s odd. Most other weeks I feel like I’m fairly non-controversial...

Ok, did you read my post? I acknowledged that some people, especially in the mid-atlantic areas, mistakenly call Italian ice and custard gelati. An area chain did it, it spread to other local carts. It doesn’t make it the correct version of the word. So, saying that you know Italians in Philly who call that gelati…

All the definitions I have found say that it is just the ice cream... I have found some references to the custard with Italian ice being a mid-atlantic thing, some more isolated regional things, but that just seems because someone misappropriated an Italian word. I posted links above. Here are some more. http://www.oxf…

Haha, fair enough. I probably should take a minute to proofread my posts before going back to work. I won’t, but I should.

It was my experience in the 90’s that drivers were younger, but anecdotal evidence doesn’t mean much. My brief google searches came up with nothing (except a link to the imdb page for the 1989 movie “Loverboy” somehow)... But either way, people who have a lot of job options tend not to pick pizza delivery...

I understand your point. But if I told you to go fuck off, and then told you that in this post “fuck off” means “have a nice day” that makes me an asshole who doesn’t understand how language works. Likewise with Rita’s. Adequately defining your terms doesn’t mean that you don’t have to have any standards when you pick…

Maybe they are responding to the many people who get it wrong because of Rita’s/other local places deciding that they could change the meaning of the word and adjusted due to customer’s expectations. While I would agree that two wrongs don’t make a right, and cheeseburger would be a more accurate label, the difference…

1) They’re not wrong. Ice cream is both a countable and uncountable noun depending on the form of the ice cream etc. Think about water. You wouldn’t call your water company and tell them that they’re wrong and it should be “waters company” because the water that they provide isn’t countable. But if you buy 2 waters…

Gelati is the plural of gelato. So no, not really.

Ok, thanks.

Agreed, but to me the justification came with the change in the order on top of her other stuff. If it’s busy, and you had to wait in a line, you’ve had time to solidify your order. She got to the front, asked a bunch of questions, placed an order, and then interrupted someone else after her turn was done to change…