Autism 101

One of the most insightful articles I've read on autism. It provides a glimmer of hope for parents with autistic children whose children may be part of the 10% that grows out of autism.

I didn't realize the spectrum of autism can be as prohibitively functioning as down syndrome individuals. Due to my experience with my down syndrome brother, I had assumed most of the low-cognitively-functioning individuals had down syndrome.

Last section in the long article:
“When you get too focused on ‘getting to perfect,’ you can really hurt your child. A typical kid fights back against that kind of pressure, but a kid with autism might not.
...
despite 20 years of effort to teach him so.
The idea that Matthew won’t recover no longer pains Jackie. “At some point,” she told me, “I realized he was never going to be normal. He’s his own normal. And I realized Matthew’s autism wasn’t the enemy; it’s what he is. I had to make peace with that. If Matthew was still unhappy, I’d still be fighting. But he’s happy. Frankly, he’s happier than a lot of typically developing kids his age. And we get a lot of joy from him. He’s very cuddly. He gives us endless kisses. I consider all that a victory.”


"The Kids Who Beat Autism"
By Ruth Padawer, New York Times

Sergey Brin's insights on how to improve our current patent law system

Walt Mossberg and Kara Swisher from All Things D always ask great questions.
Nice interview with Sergey brin
Especially ideas on patent law

I.e if someone invents a similar ethnology just 2 weeks after another person submitted the idea, that person/company that first submits the patent should not get to have rights to this patent for a full 19 years, as is by law right now.

Project Tango scheduled to berth onto the ISS on Wednesday, July 16, 6:39 am EDT

Orbital's Cygnus spacecraft holding supplies, food, including Project Tango, launched into orbit today! (Mission info on today's launch: Orbital)

A 1 min video showing how Project Tango will work with the NASA robot spheres:


The Cygnus spacecraft is loaded onto the payload of the Antares rocket. The Antares is the vehicle that launches the Cygnus to space. (source: NASA's Press Kit for Orb2)

This image shows the rocket components that will be separated during the launch to finally release the Cygnus into orbit:

Here's a great 2 min highlights video of the first Antares launch. Today was the 2nd of 8 resupply mission NASA has commissioned from Orbital. (sourc: IFLS). I love the many closeups of the rocket launching! Watching the launch, the most momentous moments for me were the MECO stage (main engine cut off), stage one separation, and the Fairing Separation.

Reading for the visually impaired

IFLS shared this research project from MIT:

I taught English to the visually impaired for many years. So my first 5 second impression on the usability:

• the user will need to figure out how tall the line height is for this particular book
• how does the user know where the text start on the page
• Text flowing around photos may be tricky too.

But perhaps the user can adapt easily. It would be great to see the usability studies.

Great stuff! Thanks MIT's Patti Maes for sponsoring this project!

Improved Disposable Lid for Cups

Great simple design by Viora improving the little moments of our lives.

The sipping hole opens into a valley instead at the top.

Picture sources: Gizmodo

I'd love to make some 3d models and test the liquid behavior!
Great kinds of projects to come across and would love to partake in.
Unfortunately, I'm a bubble tea sort of person, so these kinds of lids are not used.
Ultimately all a lot of consumer waste :-(

Chimes for Autism. Tyler's Story

Learning about the different facets of humanity is what is so exciting for me in the user experience field.

To get the selection of notes in a chime, it is apparently chosen from a song as shown in these Woodstock Chimes.

As a consumer who can only imagine having 1 wind chime at 1 house, I only considered the superficial experience of whether I liked the combination of notes in a chime and whether it produced notes in the rounder sound quality that I preferred.

It's an inspiration to see Tyler's passion from chimes -- to go so deep to researching and appreciating the mechanism of an object.
It reminds me to stay curious and appreciate all in the world around us.