Juno

Where are you getting this 6000 figure from? The only place I can see that number in the Birmingham Mail article you linked to is in relation to the number of children who disappeared from care homes, including one who had run away 96 times (so clearly not even 6000 children, let alone 6000 victims of sex rings). Incidentally, and I'm aware this is only anecdotal, but I work in Birmingham and I can safely say that my colleagues do not live in fear of their children being victims of sex rings - in fact in 11 years working in the city I haven't once heard someone raise this as a concern for their children.

The fact that there have been crimes committed in two cities in the UK hardly indicates the country being on the verge of the breakdown of civil society. As DrP says, every country has evil things happen. If anything, I'd argue that the fact that over 12,000 people a year are being killed in the US as a result of firearms is more an indication of societal breakdown. scherado, have you actually been to the UK? It's really not as scary a place as the US media is apparently making it sound.

So, given that this started with your suggestion that the UK was on the verge of the breakdown of civil society, do you have any evidence of supposed "no go zones" in the UK? Cos, you know, those of us who actually live here are telling you that that's not a problem we have here.

It's quite terrifying when you look at the numbers. US has, broadly speaking, five times the population of the UK. In 2013, there were 33,636 firearms related deaths in the US, and 144 in the UK. Taking out the suicides (not that I'm sure that disregarding those is necessarily the right thing to do but for present purposes it seemed to make sense), that leaves 12,302 in the US and 38 in the UK. (Figures taken from http://www.gunpolicy.org/firearms/region).

Although it does make me wonder whether those very people are sitting on the other side of the pond wondering how we all have such a twisted picture of the gun problem when the large majority of gun owners in the US aren't mass murderers... all a matter of perspective and from their perspective it isn't a problem.

Ah, hang on guys, I've just noticed the double negative in his post - he's saying that there are no "no-go zones" in the US. In which case, it looks like his argument is "if there were places in the US where the police won't go, like you have in the UK, then I'd bloody well want a gun". Which would make more sense if only he wasn't sadly misinformed about the state of things in the UK.

Hang on, so you're saying there are actually places in the US where the police will not actually go? And you think the UK is the country that's in danger of a breakdown in civil society? Can you see how bizarre that sounds from a country that doesn't have guns everywhere?

Agreed - I have been in cities in US in broad daylight where I certainly wouldn't walk around some areas by myself - not an experience I've ever had in London despite living there for a number of years. As DrP says, there aren't many places in the UK I wouldn't happily walk around by myself. That business around "no go zones" was laughable, and something that could only come from people who've never actually spent time in the UK. As is the idea that Sharia is getting any kind of foothold in the UK outside of Muslim communities themselves. It does make me wonder where those attitudes come from, because they're clearly not based in any reality about life in the UK. Is it the US trying to make themselves feel better about the fact that their gun problem is out of control? It does seem to me like things are so far gone in the US (too many people in the gun business, too many millions of guns out there) for them to ever be able to roll back to anything like the way other countries deal with guns.

I have a similar problem, albeit with less interesting wildlife. My two cats are very much outdoors cats, and although most of the time they bring in dead animals (we've had mice, shrews, the occasional bird, one bat, and once they left a dead squirrel outside the back door), sometimes they bring me live mice too. I wouldn't mind if they actually stayed interested but once they've brought the thing to me they seem to think their part in the affair is over, despite the fact that they're far better equipped to catch the thing than I am! I also once found a live sparrow perched on my living room curtain rail, which I assumed was their doing as well. Never a dull moment with cats around...!

It is in the U.K. - I went to high school at 11.

I don't think anyone here can really answer that for you - ASD people are all different from each other just the same as everyone else, and it depends on your personal history with them. What I would say is that if they've asked you for more time, take that at face value and give it time. Which may mean don't approach the discussion again at the moment - but I think only you can make that call based on how much time you have already given them etc.

At the risk of stating the obvious, have you considered or tried simply telling your partner in those terms? I've found that the more straightforward you can be, the better. Part of ASD is very often the inability to read the unsaid parts of communication or read between the lines, and it's often frustrating for them that people don't communicate directly as it's exhausting trying to work out what people actually mean - like trying to communicate in a foreign language that you're only a beginner in. You may find that being as open and direct as possible will make more progress. Of course, keep in mind that they may have just moved on and don't want to try again for any number of reasons - don't take a negative response as necessarily meaning that they don't understand what you're trying to say.

True. Although it's also possible is that what's going on with some of the increase is people like my husband, who grew up in a time when autism was barely on the radar let alone understood, and so it's only now that more information is available more people are rightly getting to the point where they can be diagnosed.

In the UK at least, the ASQ that can be found online is used as an indicative tool by mental health professionals. A score of 32 or over indicates an 80% chance of being diagnosed on a formal diagnosis. But in order to be referred for formal diagnosis you need to be experiencing difficulties in everyday life as a result. I think that actually the merger of autism and Aspergers diagnosis is a US thing - I believe they are still considered to be distinct in the UK.

Incidentally, Simon Baron-Cohen's book Autism and Asperger Syndrome is a very good read for both those with ASD and those with friends/relatives with it.

I want to pick up a point that DrKrettin makes, that people with Aspergers should seek partners who also have Aspergers. I don't think this has to be the case at all. My husband and I have been together for 17 years and we have only found out this year that he is likely on the autism spectrum (he scores over 40 on the ASQ) and is now awaiting formal diagnosis (a two year waiting list where we are). We have always worked well as a couple and are each other's best friends, but I've always been conscious that he has very few other friends - he typically doesn't like socialising and finds it hard work talking to people he doesn't know very well. What I think he has needed is someone who is patient and non-confrontational, and doesn't make demands. We've never been the sort of couple that tells each other what to do (it breaks my heart to hear people saying their other half "won't let them" do something) and I think it's always helped that I don't force him into social situations he doesn't want to be in etc. I won't say it's not sometimes a lonely time, particularly when he's not feeling communicative, but I certainly wouldn't have done things any differently, and I'm fairly certain he feels the same.

Security guard?

I took a Mensa test once and it scored me at 145. This was my second attempt, my first attempt being scuppered by me turning up on the wrong day, which I consider to be a nice illustration of IQ not being correlated with general competence... I think as much as anything IQ is an indicator of how well one performs in a pressured examination situation. I'm also appalling at chess, despite knowing the rules well. Likewise with RTS games or any other game that requires me to be able to deal with more than one "piece" at a time - I have very little ability to be able to analyse the overall picture. I also blame that for my total failures at Monopoly, although I think in truth that is down to it being REALLY BORING.

Have you ever come across someone that can type at 100wpm on a cell phone? I certainly can't type anywhere near as fast on a phone as I can on a keyboard.

I do wonder how long it would take to retrain oneself on a new layout like that - there may or may not be ergonomic advantages to the current layout, but my fingers sure are used to knowing exactly where the keys are. I suspect my 100wpm would go downhill for a good while.

I use the Caps Lock...

Well, a patent attorney might be willing to have an initial discussion with you, if they think that it may lead to paid work for them (i.e. you might choose them to work on the drafting of the patent). You'd have to contact patent attorneys and ask if they offer free initial consultations. She probably thought it was a bit strange that you were trying to keep something secret, at the same time as trying to get it published! If you were going to patent something, you wouldn't be submitting it for publication. However, I think you also need to remember that people aren't always going to be honest with you, particularly if they see a business opportunity in your idea and would like to use it themselves! So you need to make sure you're protecting your interests - if you're planning to go into business with an invention, you won't get anywhere if you don't protect your own business properly because you think it'll make someone else feel sad. That really depends on the country you're applying in. In the UK, around 20-25% of applications result in a patent being granted. In the US, where it's notoriously easier to obtain a patent, it's more like 50%. I looked up the figures for Turkey on the Turkish Intellectual Property Office website and it appears to be around 30% for domestic applications. Now, bear in mind that a lot of those applications will have been prepared by professional patent attorneys, and so will be more likely to be granted. That means that if you prepare the documents yourself, your likelihood of a successful application will probably be quite a bit lower than the overall percentage.

Some things to think about:- You need to bear in mind why you want to apply for a patent. What a patent does is prevent anyone else from doing something which falls within the scope of the patent. So, if you have a patent for a particular type of door handle, you can prevent other people from producing a door handle of the same type. It's a method of protecting an innovation, which effectively gives you a period of exclusivity in the market for that innovation. So question 1 is: why do you want a patent? How will it benefit you? You need to think about that to decide whether it is worth spending the money on the patent. Next thing to consider is that a patent only protects you in the country in which the patent is granted. So, if you have a Turkish patent, you can only prevent other people from using the invention in Turkey. Turkey is part of the European Patent Convention, which means that you can make an application for European patent protection through the Turkish patent office, but in order to do so there are translation requirements, which is more expense (often the majority of the costs of obtaining European patent protection is translation costs). On the question of NDAs, I would (as a lawyer) always advise someone to have an NDA in place before they discuss an invention that they are considering patenting, even if it's someone they knew well in person (never mind someone they have only met on the internet!). You run the risk of either a) that person patenting the idea ahead of you or b) that person publishing the idea somewhere and therefore preventing you from being able to publish it (patent offices will search for prior publications, because your invention must not have been made available to the public before you file your patent application). Even the NDA doesn't protect you absolutely - the person could still publish the idea, and once it's out there you won't be able to file a patent, so the NDA would just let you sue them for any losses as a result (difficult to ascertain / prove what those losses would be in this kind of situation). As someone else has said, patents are complicated, and you have to get it right first time, so I would definitely suggest you talk to a patent attorney or lawyer before you go down that route.

Thank you, that's what I was aiming for! Unfortunately, it requires blue89's cooperation, and he seems to be busy convincing himself that we are all either a) wrong or b) lying to him. Blue89, do you think we are mistaken, or do you think we are lying? Perhaps if we understand why you don't believe our assessment of your level of English, we can better help you to understand the problem. As Strange says, your English is nowhere near being good enough for publication - it is almost impossible to understand at times (e.g. the quote I posted above about the Chief Editor).

A suggestion, blue89 - how about you take something that you've posted here, put the original Turkish into Google Translate, and give us the Google Translate version? We can then tell you whether your own translation or Google Translate makes more sense. That way you will know whether you should use Google Translate to check your own translations. It's just a suggestion, but I'm sure you'd like to be able to communicate with us more effectively and I think this would help you. I'd like to suggest as a candidate for Google Translate, the following from earlier in this thread:- I think I've been able to make sense of everything else you've posted in this thread eventually (although as other posters have noted, it takes a while to understand what you're trying to say, because your English is not that good), but I can't make head nor tail of the above quote apart from the part in brackets. Of course, in order for the above to help you, you're going to have to recognise that your English isn't as good as you think. Regardless of your TOEFL scores, a number of native English speakers are telling you that we can't understand what you're saying. You'll never get better at English if you don't take that feedback seriously.