I was on sedatives earlier today, and I have no focus, so I'm just going to paste here an email I sent out to some friends an hour or two ago. I can't even focus enough to surf the web, and lord knows that doesn't take much.

You all expressed an interest in being updated on my cochlear implant journey as things progressed - the surgery was scheduled for today, but unfortunately was canceled (to be rescheduled for an as-yet unknown time later this summer). Here's what happened.

Because of the structure of my mouth and throat, I have what the anesthesiologists call "airway management issues". Essentially, my short neck and large tongue make it difficult to intubate me; since you don't breathe on your own when you're anesthetized, intubation is fairly important. Because of his experience last spring when I had ear surgery, the anesthesiologist wanted to try intubating me while awake (which is not nearly as scary as it sounds) because then I could keep breathing, giving him more time to work, and he could call it off if necessary without worrying about making me breathe some other way.

So around 1:30, I was given two drugs, both of which act as sedatives and have anti-anxiety and amnesiac effects (although to be honest, I do remember most of what happened. Which is fine, because it was fairly interesting. I did end up sleeping most of the evening away once I got home around 5, so the sedative aspect worked.). Over the next two hours, the head of anesthesiology at the hospital and four other doctors who are experts at this kind of thing tried to place an endoscope - a fiberoptic cable with a camera - down my throat to guide the breathing tube. Again, it was very interesting to be conscious for this, and not nearly as unpleasant as you might think, although my throat is a bit raw now.

The plan for next time is to put me to sleep like they usually do, since the main problem was that I have a very strong gag reflex. There's a small but not insignificant chance that they won't be able to intubate me anyway, but since I'll be asleep, they'd then be able to do a tracheotomy (they'll have a team standing by to do that). Unfortunately, they need patient consent, and the anesthesiologist said that although I seemed more lucid and aware than most patients on those sedatives, he still wasn't comfortable declaring me competent to make the call. The fact that I couldn't walk out the door to get my wheelchair without first walking into the walls on either side of it probably didn't help ... anyway, if they go that route, I'd move to progressively smaller and smaller trachs over the course of a few weeks or months and it would eventually heal over, so that wouldn't add much to the recovery time.

So we have to reschedule the surgery and that airway procedure, hopefully sometime in the next few weeks.

There's got to be a better way to do this. (If you have any suggestions, feel free to leave a comment. But I suspect it's the usual 'hey, you're doing this oddly, it's gonna be weird' thing, so I'm just going to talk. Or rant. Either way.)

This week is finals (and I really should be studying for my chemistry exam right now, but here I am anyway), and yesterday - Monday - were my physics and math exams. Leaving aside the academics and focusing just on the physical logistics, physics wasn't too bad, but math was nasty.

It's a discrete math class, so we had to do lots of proofs. Which means lots of writing, which means (a) ow that hurts, and more importantly (since (a) can be solved with ibuprofen and hot water), (b) holy crap, I hope my test is legible. I really do. I wonder what the graders do if they get a test that seems okay but is tricky to read?

Last year - my freshman year - I used scribing for one physics exam. It's a pain in the ass, because you're trying to communicate equations in spoken English, and that's just irritating. You really need to write it if you want to communicate quickly. Even with extended time, it's annoying. And there's no real way to know ahead of time how much writing a given exam will take, so whether or not you want a scribe is debatable. Plus, there's the extra pressure of having someone watch you while you take the exam. This is probably irrational, but it makes me feel even more stupid than exams usually do.

Ideally, I'd use LaTeX and just type it, but that takes extra time (which I can get, if I'm requesting accommodations, but in a three hour exam ... yargh), on top of which I'm not solid enough with LaTeX to do an exam without a reference - for symbols, if not for commands!

Tentative plan for next semester: I'm going to request a scribe for my 3 non-humanities classes, and make it clear to the scribe up front that they are a backup. Then I'm going to do everything twice: once (doing my own writing) to actually do the problem, and once (having the scribe write) to get a legible copy. I suspect that will work better than my system last year of trying to do both at the same time, and probably better than this year's system of just hoping it comes out neatly.

Fortunately, of the two exams I have left, one shouldn't require much writing, and the other I can use my laptop for. Thank goodness I only have two more to go, then home for the summer!

While reading Blue's post about the incredibly ignorant decision of the 11th Circuit District Court, I ended up clicking my way to Bullshit on Wheels (via Disability Law), an episode of Penn and Teller's "Bullshit" that critiques the ADA.

The bullshit is incredible. Sam Bagenstos is right when he says, "I've seen lots of folks make libertarian arguments sound appealing, but these guys seem incapable of doing anything other than preaching to the converted." (and I love the neologism 'glibertarian' in that post), but it boggles the mind that this sort of argument still gets made. I got most of the way through the video before I started taking notes, but I want to comment on a few things.

First, the usual invisible-hand-free-market-economics argument is a lousy one, and I'm amazed that it's still being made, given that, y'know, if market incentives were enough to cause real change, people wouldn't have pushed for the ADA (and related legislation) and its enforcement so hard. Just because they found a disabled person to speak to those points doesn't make them legit. And while the "my disability is worse than your disability" point tends to be a cheap shot, I would suggest that arguing against curb cuts and lift buses is not so compelling when it comes from a reasonably strong and fit crutch user whose major disability is that he has one leg and is missing some fingers.

Second, the "ADA hurts disabled people because it invites litigation that creates resentment" argument is an old and tired saw. "The Case Against the ADA" explains pretty clearly why, and I won't repeat that here (google the title if you want a synopsis), but I will point out that a lot of those feelings are created by this sort of negative publicity.

Third, the sequence where Penn shows excerpts from the ADA and the implementation guidelines, and complains that they're dense, obscure, and confusing, is just ridiculous. That's how the law is written; that's what building codes look like. To suggest anything else doesn't do anything but suggest that you don't have a decent argument to make.

Fourth, the fact that there are more people who have accessible parking placards than need them is not a reason to not have accessible parking. I would suggest that maybe doctors should stop handing them out to people with minor injuries, or that maybe a shorter-term placard wouldn't be a bad idea ... but quite frankly, I don't think it's a huge issue compared with the benefit of having accessible parking. (Which, Penn, is not about "convenience", dammit.) Even if it were, why throw the baby out with the bath water?

Fifth, if you're going to try to find problems with the ADA, please try to figure out why it was written as it was, rather than assuming that things that don't make sense at first glance are simply nonsensical. Things like Braille ATMs, or lever doorknobs.

Sixth, and I know this has been said before, but if you work for a group that is cited or interviewed (in this case, the Cato Institute), it's generally considered unethical not to disclose that relationship.

Seventh, lawsuit abuse is a problem, though it's not specific to the ADA (I'm looking at you, SCO, and you, RIAA), but it's not a reason, in and of itself, to throw out a law, and frivolous litigation can get a lawyer disbarred (I believe).

Eighth ... post hoc ergo propter hoc? You know better than that. And for that matter, "people are afraid to hire the handicapped these days. That wasn't true before the ADA was signed into law" is flat-out wrong.

Ninth, the guy was talking about the lack of wheelchair accessible taxis, and Penn starts off on a rant about how in many large cities, all the buses are accessible. Which is a change in topic, and doesn't actually address the issue of whether or not drivers will stop for you, be willing to put out the ramp, and so on. (Penn also ignores the fact that those buses are accessible *because of* the ADA.)

Anyway, the basic argument seems to be that people are basically compassionate, and compassion can't be legislated. While that may be true, it doesn't explain why I can't get into my university's newly-built multi-million dollar cognitive science research building without help for the lack of a few simple choices that would have cost very little - if anything at all. Nor does it explain why changes made by the local subway system in the name of accessibility have actually worsened the situation for many of us.

This started out as a pretty awesome weekend (minus the fact that final exams start next week), so I'm going to stop now and try to forget about these guys' ignorance and bigotry - if only until the next battle starts.

Hillary Franklin posted a blog about what Cued Speech is. Highly recommended, whether you're already familiar with cued speech or not. I'd also recommend this 10-minute documentary on Youtube about cued speech, most particularly because it has some interviews that are cued (it's also subtitled, signed, and voiced, so regardless of your communication style, there you go).

I'm hoping to get in some regular CS practice when I'm home this summer (two more weeks, whee!). I probably won't have (m)any opportunities to practice my receptive skills, but at least I can try to get my productive abilities to a point where I'm comfortable cueing, rather than falling back on signing. I read lips well enough that I can probably get by in a cueing environment without a huge amount of trouble, and that should give me the exposure I need to get better at the receptive end. As it stands now, I tend to switch to ASL with some people, and speech with others - interesting conversations, but not very productive from a pedagogical point of view.

Dammit, I gotta stop drinking caffeine in the evening.

I just got the strangest email, and I have no idea why it was sent. I'm pasting it below, with no edits or modifications - everything is copied and pasted directly from the original. WTF?

Hello,
I wish to let you know that i have been paid by a client to assasinate you at convenience,and i have signed a contract of $650,000 yesterday for this.I have never met you before,but they gave me the full description of your
identity and contact,together with your photograph which my boys have used to trace you.

The reason why they want you Dead is not disclosed to me as i was not allowed to know,but you are now not better that the dead ok.

My BOYS are now contantly watching you,they are following you-home,office,everywhere.....,you go and they are waiting for my instruction to terminate you.And they will strike at convenience.

THIS IS MY MESSAGE-

LISTEN VERY WELL !!!!,the Police cannot do much to help you out in this right now because you are being watched,any such attempt is very risky cause you will push us to terminate your life without option. Your calls
are not safe also.In fact you are traced.
I have no business with you but at least i have cleared the way as a pro-,but you may have one chance to live again if you can contact me not latter that 24 hours after this mssage.

GOODLUCK!!!

Ok, he's not just a bad debater. He's just a crackpot - in the essay we're reading, he continually cites Thomas Szasz, who co-founded the Citizen's Commission on Human Rights, generally regarded as the anti-psychiatry wing of Scientology. How did this guy get published again?

I'm writing a paper tonight for my psych class on the prompt "Is addiction a choice?" Sadly, by "write a paper", I mean I'm reading two essays in a book we were provided with and then writing <3 pages of response. It's a bit pathetic ... half our grade depends on three essays written this way. Not much for critical thought.

What's irritating, though, is the quality of the essays we're provided with. In theory, these were published papers written by well-known psychological researchers. Yet they tend to make really basic errors - ad hominem attacks, argument by analogy, dismissing the opposition's arguments without citing any evidence. The essay by Schaler I'm reading right now is arguing that the disease model of addiction is flawed. (NB: I'm not taking a position on that - poor arguments annoy me whether I agree with the conclusion or not.) Now, that's certainly an argument that could be made on rational grounds, but Schaler is taking the position that addiction is not a disease by arguing that diseases have certain characteristics that diseases don't. I'll quote a few of the more annoying statements from the section arguing that it's not a physical disease (he covers mental disease later - never mind that that is a somewhat blurry line).

"Sometimes a routine physical examination reveals signs of disease when no symptoms are reported ... the disease is said to be 'asymptomatic'." He goes on to argue that addiction could never be diagnosed without symptoms, sort of missing the idea that we have diagnostic tools today that we didn't have in the past, and will continue to increase our diagnostic tools. We knew that there were physical risk factors for, say, heart disease, even before we could test for the genetic markers for high cholesterol. He also misses the idea that some diseases are asymptomatic until environmental factors come into play.

"True, such conditions as migraine and epilepsy are diagnosed primarily on the basis of symptoms. But, in general, it is not standard medical practice to diagnose diseases on the basis of symptoms alone." Yes, but there are exceptions, as Schaler just indicated ... what is it that keeps addiction from potentially being one of them?

"We continually hear that addiction is a disease just like diabetes ... [but] the analogy cannot be turned around. It would be awkward to tell a person with diabetes that his condition was 'just like addiction' and inaccurate too: when a person with diabetes is deprived of insulin he will suffer and in severe cases may even die. When a heavy drinker or drug user is deprived of alcohol or other drugs his physical health most often improves." I think this parallel is invalid to begin with, as it suggests that treatments for different diseases are somehow comparable. If you're going to make it, though, wouldn't it make more sense to compare addiction to an allergy, or celiac disease, or Crohn's/IBD, or some kinds of migraines (ooh, he did before!)? For many of those, removing the environmental trigger can reduce symptoms to a manageable level, or even eliminate them entirely.

For that matter, Schaler seems to switch between definitions as it suits him - is 'addiction' the effects of a given drug on the body (cirrhosis of the liver)? Is it susceptibility to dependence? Is it the behavior associated with obtaining and administering drugs?

Gah. I guess the takeaway from this rant here is "don't make comparisons to stuff you don't understand, because it makes you look like a jackass".

This week's topic was probability. From the lecture notes: "The Halting Problem is the canonical undecided problem in computation theory that was first introduced by Alan Turing in his seminal 1936 paper. The problem is to determine whether a Turing machine halts on a given ... blah, blah, blah. But what's much more important, it is the name of the MIT EECS department's famed C-league hockey team."

I'm gonna miss Professor Meyer next year. This is almost as good as the time he told us that his best student ever did his most important work while stoned. (Which was different than the lecture where the TA told us "you guys come up with the weirdest fucking ans- oh, never mind, I'm on crack". I see a sequel in the works: There's Something About Mathematicians, perhaps.)

The Roommate has been under a lot of stress lately, including a (mostly) unexpected breakup. I think he's handling it well, viz:

Roommate: I could really use a nice round of sporting clays right now.
Me: [Looks at him, amused]
Roommate: Maybe I should explain.
Me: No, no, I get it. Blowing shit up always makes me feel better, too, I just tend to do it online.

On May 9th (next Wednesday), MIT will be hosting a conference called: H2.0: New Minds, New Bodies, New Identities. Michael Chorost and Oliver Sacks will be speaking! (And of course, which day have I taken off several times this semester to go do cool shit like this? Yup, Wednesday. Lab day in physics, gah.)