What evolution?

isabilities come in many forms (or shapes) and as far as I’m aware I have nothing that counts as a disability or even allergy (like many other people, there are limits to how much lactose I can tolerate and this is apparently hereditary, it’s rather benign).

To Rianne and I it seems like more people born in recent years (if not decades) there are some mental and/or physical impairment. We don’t attribute that to pollution (air, water, food/diet); some blame late pregnancies (a century ago women chose to bear children at a much younger age). Apparently this is a common sentiment and people I speak to can’t help but notice the same. There are also studies about it.

If you look for a high-profile study on growth in that regard (children with impairment), then you will find many despite the political incorrectness. About the general trend: “In this study, we investigated the evolving epidemiology of six developmental disabilities (epilepsy, hearing loss, intellectual disability, vision loss, autism spectrum disorder [ASD], and attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder [ADHD]) among children and adolescents aged 0–19?years from 1990 to 2021, focusing on prevalence and burden. The average annual percentage change (AAPC) was calculated, and trends were disaggregated by age, sex, and the socio-demographic Index (SDI).”

A more recent study looked at “Childhood mental, behavioral, and developmental disorders (MBDD)” and found: “From 2016 through 2021, MBDD prevalence among children aged 3 to 17 years increased from 25.3% to 27.7%; increases were specific to anxiety, depression, learning disability, developmental delay, and speech or language disorder. Unmet health care needs increased annually by an average of approximately 5% among children with MBDDs. Each year from 2016 to 2021, approximately 60% of children with MBDDs received mental or developmental services in the past 12 months. Each year, a higher percentage of parents of children with MBDDs compared with children without MBDDs reported poor mental health (14.7% MBDD, 5.7% no MBDD) and economic stress (21.6% MBDD, 11.5% no MBDD).”

The EPO treats children with special needs as a high priority as we assume many EPO workers have children that are “imperfect”.

Manchester’s week ahead is moderately OK

t starts as another rainy day today, but later today we’ll have some sun and we’ll probably start working on the fish. Today in the early morning I counted all the loaches, which is hard because they typically hide. Perhaps some time soon we’ll get more pets. That depends on several factors.

Tomorrow the Champions League starts for Manchester City and I plan to cover the EPO affairs (Munich, Germany).

This month won’t be particularly eventful, but there are two anniversaries on the way: ours and GNU’s.

It’s a good time to start planning.

Manchester sort of feels like “post-summer” though I still somehow managed to sunbathe a bit yesterday (maybe last time for this year). The prices of homes over here aren’t insane; that’s a relief.

London, on the other hand, is crazy.

Yesterday I had an interesting face-to-face discussion with a lady that I know in Manchester. She ranted about how awful London became and that during street events (like carnivals) the city does not provide portable toilets. Instead, people are expected to shell out 2 pounds for some private place, even just to urinate. Some people make a fortune out of this.

We’ve glad we live in Manchester.

Not that Mancunians run the country (in Westminster) we hope that gravity of power can be shifted to the north. We have a lot to offer.

Because winter is coming and they need more heat (and T.L.C.)

managed to find some amazing bargains this morning. Equipment that typically costs about 100 pounds was sold to me for just 2 pounds. I took it home. Next we need to wash it and prepare it for the pets.

Maybe I’ll take some photos after it’s all done.

Manchester City deserves it

‘m not surprised. Arsenal did not easily win at home.

Arsenal has beaten Chelsea (video), Chelsea had some good chances, but Manchester City remains on top for now.

Big test next week in the derby but first (Tuesday) a hard game in UEFA Champions League.

A week after the derby we’ll go near Old Trafford a few times. It’s our anniversary.

Hard to find

oday we had a lot of spare time, so we watched some movies, including White Apache (1987), which relates to others (Bianco Apache). It’s actually a gory (but censored, a lot of stuff blurred out of view) movie with a sad ending. Lola Forner (from Spain) and Sebastian Harrison (from Italy) star in it and it seems like their career went downhill years if not decades later.

They didn’t make it into famous lists and the movie is relatively obscure by now.

Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) does nothing

f you are a regulator and you say regulation is not possible (e.g. lack of resources, fear of challenge from the regulated entity), then you do not belong in the “regulation” “business”.

This ongoing series about the UK’s so-called ‘regulator’ of solicitors should lead to action and we hope that it already sounds the alarm. We are some of many who complain this month.

In the UK, solicitors are above the law.

High-profile publisher

n some sense, today was a special day.

It’s about science, not football.

I did not watch this London match, I only followed the score, hoping both teams would lose points (more so Arsenal).

While keeping an eye on the score I noticed having been cited in a major publication. As it turns out, an old article of mine has just been cited in ACM (Association for Computing Machinery) and it’s about Gemini Protocol where my writings became more prominent in recent years: