ZEEEEEEEEEEEEROY!

@Daemon: D'OH! Hit the "M" instead of the "N."

Thanks for the name of the singer.

Here's Matt's outtakes, which are freaking hilarious:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tT8jA_pps3o

The songs are "Praam" and the "Dance Outtakes Song." (The second song is actually "Dancing Outtakes Song," but iTunes lists it as "Dance Outtakes Song," and if you don't give it the wrong title, you get no song.)

I cried, too. I just lost a much-loved cat, and I really, REALLY needed to laugh and cry.

New for 2009, the Motorola Butthole Surfer.

Annoyingly enough, parents still have to fight bead-sorting and other menial skills being taught to their kids. Nothing like a soul-killing job for a marginalized population.

As someone in an ongoing process to direct my (autistic) son to a career in his interests (photography, animation, etc, and more than being a janitor at Pixar), I find this heartening all around.

@Liz: at least in our part of Texas, a distinction is still made between mental retardation (MR) and autism of the PDD-NOS variety. (PDD-NOS="autistic, but we dunno exactly how." A completely useless diagnosis except for giving the parents a good fight over school placement. We call it, "PDD? NO Shit.")

*in Ben Stein voice, channeling at-least-one-per-post Photoshop Disasters commenturd* "I could do that it's not a real disaster try for a real disaster dumbasses look at the shadows."

Magic, save us from your followers.
As a mother of an autistic kid who has fought ridiculous shit numerous times (none of it abuse accusations, thank goodness), I'd be surprised if these parents hadn't gone through the same.
This, for me, would be the last gdamn straw, and I would have a rich kid.

I believe most (not ALL, don't want to hear YOUR "to be fair" story) schools fail autistic kids and their families miserably.

I love that investigator, though. The two school investigators I've met with (yes, two) have been very cool. They've got no time for admin grudge shit and trivia. Bless 'em.

My daughter used to fold them from Starburst candy wrappers. Flapping wings and all.

If it weren't for the fact that these lights are so charming, I would be screaming about Corelle stoneware. Garbage.

Oh, man this makes me to happy!

Takuan, thank you for posting "Kanpai!" That is so beautiful.

Almost time to put rocks in our shoes.

Oh, PETA, is there no animal-related statement too trivial for you?

To me,this just looks like bored dimwits making messes.

A few of those need unicorn chasers. Blorp.

I love "decrapitated." It warms the cockles of my neologism-loving heart.

I loved that. Thanks for posting it!

Forget the shape, the SHIPPING is more than the covers. Bleah.

@ #6: GOD FORBID. A legit app means a Nintendo cart, likely hobbled and $20.-$40. dollars. I'd gladly pay for it, but I don't want to pay Nintendo for it!

@ #7: WORD. Undo really is counterproductive. I am recommending Colors to everyone I know for that reason. I want them to learn to stop fiddling their work to death. Photoshop is a great tool, but it can also be a huge time-waster and a roadblock to learning.

I mentioned Colors in John Brownlee's homebrew post of May 22. Do go see how I gush in the comments!

http://gadgets.boingboing.net/2008/05/22/get-started-in-the-d.html

The description of it as a mini-Cintiq is accurate in that it is a pleasure to draw on-screen, and it's wonderful to have a carry-along digital sketchbook.

Crap, I can't remember where this turned up in links, but someone suggested a regular Wacom stylus will work. It most certainly will (I tried it last week), BUT they're too fecking expensive to carry around and possibly lose. I recommend the branded Nintendo DS styluses with the fat barrels and retractable tips.
Like these: http://tinyurl.com/5otly8 (Amazon link.)
The included DS stylus is hell on the hands.

Forgot to mention one can download layback files of paintings created in Colors! for study.

The sci-fi art I referred to is the work of Sparth:

http://colors.brombra.net/author.php?page=1&id=342

Be amazed.

If you're running DS homebrew, you also must have Colors http://www.collectingsmiles.com/colors/
It's a great little painting program.

No layers, no undo, some might complain. I think this is brilliant in that it teaches, in its own way, what painting is about: it is additive. Mistake? Paint over it or into it.

What it does have it concentrating its various controls under one hand (and for righties or lefties), an infinite range of program based "pressure" as well as the actual pressure sensitivity of the DS itself, size and opacity, an eyedropper, and a color picker. Some really stunning work, including amazing sci-fi paintings, have been done with it.

http://colors.brombra.net/

No replacement for Photoshop (and why does anything have to be?), but a great field solution.

@Poops: That's pitocin.

Coming to an airport near you. And stores where salespeople work on commission. Car dealerships.

Limitless.

The link didn't work for me. Alternate link:

http://www.break.com/index/bestbuy-dance-off.html

Go to YouTube and put in "Best Buy Dance." Apparently, this sort of thing is amusingly common.

Texas accents vary wildly from region to region, and the one she used doesn't convince me. It is very vaguely East Texas.

I'm going to listen and judge how well this works without visuals.

My score is crap! Awesome!

FAIL has become the new WIN!

Hey, Rob, send it to me! I'll be glad to review it!^_-

I'm going to go grab Scarlett Johanssen's breast, so I can speak at TED!

"We need to give them real role models. Comic book superheroes are bad models, because they have super powers."

I find the use of superheroes as examples of poor role models to be facile.

I wonder what recent superhero comic books Professor Zimbardo has read. Comic book superheroes (in general) aren't bad role models because they have super powers. They're bad role models because they're usually written as rotten people.

I consider someone who has $6,000. to attend a conference sponsored by BMW a person with super powers. $6,000. is a lot of money, and a used BMW can cost $15,000. to almost %50,000. (Never mind that sponsorship by a status vehicle is ethically troubling.)
Does this mean TED speakers are bad role models?

Plenty of people have superpowers: fame, influence, money. In the end, it's not the powers that define the person, it's what they do with them.

Mercury poisoning is a boogeyman.

I suggest to one and all, but especially the inexperienced experts here, that they read the blog of Autism Diva:
http://autismdiva.blogspot.com/

Her writing is extremely well-researched, and she exposes Cure Autism Now, Defeat Autism Now and the delightful Indigo-Mom-Turned-Google PhD Jenny McCarthy.
She also parses out the numbers of "mercury poisoning" research, and demonstrates that it comes up lacking, to say the least.

I also have to wonder how many people tossing out the conventional wisdom about autism actually have a near relative (like a child or parent), or a good friend with autism.
Knowing someone with autism is emphatically not the same as being related or a good friend of same.
I can tell you this because I have lived with auties my whole life.

I'm glad to see, along with the ignorant and fearful remarks already made, some thoughtful and accurate ones.

There is no autism epidemic, any more than there is a cure. There is a difference is diagnostic criteria, which would undoubtedly include vanity diagnoses for parents keen on having a child they can feel saintly about.
People do not grow out of autism, they learn how to cope within the framework of a world that is mostly not like them.
I'm the mother of an autistic son. We went through a very long stage of being told and taught that every behavior of his that I found charming was a marker of terrible tragedy and needed to be eliminated.
Until I stopped buying into that way of thinking, we were in hell, because I spent all my time trying to squash those behaviors, and he spent a lot of time being confused and hurt.
My son is no more a tragedy than a dog is a tragic failure at being a wolf. He's a different human, not a defective one.

I think Baggs has a lot to teach everyone. Not just most of the worlds, but in helping auties gain a sense of self and self-acceptance.

"Little person/people" is the term persons of short stature prefer.

http://www.lpaonline.org/mc/page.do

One of the great things about this is that you start to laugh as soon as you see the movie title.

All I can think is "bukkake face."

Is it just me, or does anyone else feel like there's a puzzle/code/joke in PoesyEFNTD's name?

I worked out that the Fibonacci Sequence can be plotted on a spiral that looks like a nautilus shell. (And Nautilus is also Nemo's ship in Verne's 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea.)
Anyone else?

(I'd feel like a right fool posting this, but I have a sense of Cory's fondness for games.)

Oh yeah:
Nautilus=WIN

From one proud parent of two giant geeks (9.75 and 9.25) to the proud parents of their first, CONGRATULATIONS.

(Psst! NOW we know what slows Cory down! We'll have two days to catch up. A thousand of us will have to post every twelve seconds for 48 hours. HURRY!)

Damn, you people are harsh. Let's see some of your lifestyle and fashion choices.

My pleasure, Cory!

@Cory:
I've had two kids and written and drawn three graphic novels, a drawing instruction book, and drawn the art for a fourth graphic novel.

I can tell you with authority that with the pace of Little Brother's writing, you have a fair approximation of what it's like to push out a kid. No stitches needed with the book pushing, though.

Not usually.

Thanks for posting that, Mark. It was FANTASTIC!

Edison was a treacherous motherfucker.

Read "Cities of Light" for the account of his electric chair. Horrible man.

This story really needs a unicorn chaser.
I'm under no illusions about the moral vacuums in media, but I am still capable of being unpleasantly surprised by how much people, well...suck.

Oh my god, that site is HILARIOUSLY bad! I actually had to check to see if it was for real. I wonder if it's the same now as it was when it was first put up? Cheapsy animated gif, background image, giant button graphics.

The whole set of company after company nested like a matryoshka doll and with no real provenance makes me wonder who did whom a favor when the California law was changed to stop jailing citizens for parking tickets but privatized justice.
It also makes me wonder which, if any, lawmakers benefited from privatizing fines.
Because, honestly, it seems like a very bad idea to put so much power into the hands of a company with no accountability.

I really wonder how some people can sleep at night.

I was wondering if someone that lived in California would mention their NoDueProcessMasterReamTheDriverTron.
That started at least nine-ten years ago. Imagine my surprise when I found I couldn't contest a ticket in Alameda (after successfully contesting one only a few years before). Instead, I had to simply pay the fine, period. Through a collection agency. That had an office in the Alameda courthouse.

Fucked. Up. One of MANY reasons I left CA for the supposedly backward state of Texas.

I want to be Martha Stewart. That bitch has everything.

Edisonade? Bah! Edison was a shithead.

Teslian!