Black Dog Blog

Archive for the ‘aspie’ Category

In today's "won't you walk into my parlour" news…

Cat Party to recruit mice, Nazi party to admit Jews, Roma, disabled people, and: BNP to consider non-white members.

Vatican to host Galileo exhibit. Sounds fabtastic. I'd like to see it.

Nice try, kid, but no cigar. Of course, he will have learned much from this preliminary attempt.

Israel taking a leaf out of the Bush administration's books. I'll be interested to see if Obama takes action on this kind of thing. America's about the only country to whom they're remotely likely to listen, and at least the "We Take the Book of Revelation Literally, Roll On Battle of Megiddo" loon squad are no longer in power.

Seal pups: look cute, but don't approach or you could cause them to starve.

Beautiful microscopy photos of blood cells and nerves.

Adults with autism 'cast adrift' in England

This, er, wow. So what are Auschwitz's five favourite singers and which Heroes character would Auschwitz be? Now we can find out. Er.

RIVAL CHILD OVERACHIEVER! It is so cute pathetic that at age 27 I still feel threatened by this kind of brat… oh man… issues. ;D

These poor kids, on the other hand, are lucky if they can learn at all.

Finally, I have to post this for you lot for the name alone. North Korea's Hotel of DOOM.

(Not to be confused with Latveria's Doctor of Doom or Disneyland's Tower of Terror, of course.)

• #PSA: A4 paper goes in the A4 tray. The A3 tray is for A3 paper. Next week's masterclass: the difference between can & bottle recycle bins. #
• I haz a Graze box, a day late thanks to postal strike, and it looks nummy! An easy way to my heart is to bring seaweed peanuts to my desk.<3 #
• How anyone can conceive of a 'heaven' without animals is utterly beyond me. It'd be…like living without parts of your body. #howenglishami #
• RT @programmingns Absolutely Beautiful Pictures of Weimaraners – http://tinyurl.com/ybxm2a2 #weimaraners #dogs // See also: William Wegman #
• #Bugbears Software that messes with what I've placed on the clipboard. No. You don't decide that once I've pasted it, I don't need it. No. #
• Graze postal strike boxes are great because they're long-life, but it's no good – need fresh fruit. Off to get apple from vending machines. #
• The desk of @metaltax is stacked with enticingly book-shaped parcels. #
• Reread the Deadpool issue where Blind Al explains The Box and "how you build a prison". I loved where they went with Al and I miss Weasel. #

Twitterfiction, aka why do ideas always come in 3½s?

• #vss We're listening to The Buzzcocks, feet up. She pokes me. "Ever not fallen in love with someone you should have fallen in love with?" #
• #vss His heart and soul were on that departing starship. He watched the ion trail disperse and fade. Well, at least new souls came cheap. #
• #vss I spotted the three bounty hunters before I reached my front door, and calculated where the fourth must be before I opened it. #

I tweeted a documentary for fun, since all the cool kids seem to do it.

• Listening to http://bit.ly/b00mwms8 – Adults with Autism. Very good on sensory differences. #autism #aspie #sensoryfail #
• "Autistic traits may run through the population"? Um no, autistic traits are totally inhuman and come from space DUH. http://bit.ly/b00mwms8 #
• "Autism may be partly a manifestation of an extremely male brain" (re: hormones in utero) http://bit.ly/b00mwms8 Oh stop flattering me. #
• "Autism is very highly heritable" http://bit.ly/b00mwms8 Ah, so you've met my dad. #
• [after adult diagnosis] "I have to look back at everything… Like I might have been colourblind and not known it." http://bit.ly/b00mwms8 #
• Now covering sexuality. Gross. (OK, I'm a textbook aspie.) "I couldn't handle the enormity of intimacy & closeness." http://bit.ly/b00mwms8 #
• "Lot of people with Asperger syndrome try so hard to be part of the human race… often seen as not human, no souls, no feelings." As me. ;) #
• The moral of the story seems to be that we have "potential" that employers ought to "harness". http://bit.ly/b00mwms8 #
• Getting a job – a quiet, sedentary office one – has been very good for me psychologically. I've learned so much about looking human. #autism #

As I've posted elsewhere:

People often seem to think I'm horribly nervous, either because of some postulated eccentricity in my expression and mien or because I have a tremor in my hands. I'm sure I could exploit this more, but it generally just annoys me when people mistake "deep in eager thought" for "depressed"/"dear frightened lambikin"/[whatever it is real people think], bug out and put on kid gloves.

Personally, I think it's an encoding issue.

I feel a little sorry for real people, faced with someone who claims one thing but seems to be feeling the opposite. Hollywood and soaps teach us that when this happens, it's what the individual says that's incorrect. In other words, the individual is lying, putting on a brave front (this is lying for positive reasons and seen as misguided instead of bad) or in denial. The crucial point, always taken for granted, is that the others have interpreted the individual's body language and expression correctly in order to make their diagnosis. When that's not true – when they can no longer rely on their instincts – then the problem starts.

When'll they introduce 8-bit Unencoded Translation of Feelings for wetware? </geek joke>

Because, well, yes, I think it's an encoding issue – a matter of broadcasting mixed or incorrect signals. However, thinking more, I think a common cause of anxiety among real people may also be to do with withdrawal: not withdrawal symptoms, but the act of withdrawing (either physically or 'mentally', so to speak – retreating into one's own head).

In humans and other familiar social animals, moving away from others or losing interest in their surroundings is a bad sign; an indication that something's wrong. (All right, then, a 'symptom'. Ha.)

If you're wondering, I have concluded the previous from the following observations: these are signs that humans report in their pets that mean the pet is probably ill or in pain, and they are also signs that seem to upset humans when seen in another person – for example, me. I think I've also seen other animals (again, other social animals) respond to similar signs in a similar way, either getting upset (hisses or shifting feet) or trying to investigate or comfort (wag wag, plonk chin on lap).

But, that's in real people. For the autistic and aspie contingent, withdrawal is not necessarily a sign of stress. It's a natural state. I live in my head most of the time. It isn't that I retreat here; I come outside to talk to real people, and then I come back inside to rest. It may be because I'm stressed, or it may be because I want a breather. (I've learned to self-regulate to avoid getting badly stressed.)

Similarly, my natural state with regard to proximity to humans is a comfortable distance away. A comfortable distance is three or so body lengths, so I come outside my comfort zone to hang around nearish to you. Be happy! I choose to do it. I could always be housebound instead, or wear a hard-shell EVA suit. Imagine sitting behind me in the cinema THEN.

If you're wondering, my referral to people not far along the autistic spectrum (so-called 'neurotypical' folks) as "real people" is done in the spirit of dark, unsettling humour. My use of the word "human" is merely literal; human, as opposed to another animal.

As for withdrawing emotionally, perhaps that depends on the individual. I give a lot of my surface feelings away, the vast majority of it liable to misinterpretation because of the corrupted signals I broadcast. I don't think anyone can fathom my thought processes, but that's not a big problem, because that's one of the things I like to talk about and compare with real people. When there's no time for mutually assured comprehension, though, or bad communication gets in the way of important work on a deadline, then it can become a problem.

In which case, the only advice I can give you is: believe what I say, not what I emote. Because, unlike most real people who claim they always speak their minds, I do speak my mind. Oh boy, do I.

(At any rate, I believe people should be allowed to experience the consequences of their choices wherever practical. Whether you refuse morphine or another piece of carrot cake, I'll take you at your word.)

I think a good Holistic Grail for a high-functioning aspie would be to be seen as "that socially awkward, technically proficient one who is uncomfortably honest", and not 'disabled'.

Removing my cap
the passing of the cortège
sham solemnity

(Not based on an actual event, but could be.)

edit: Also, as I remarked to SongdogMI on Twitter,

Algorithm 5
cryptographically digests
into sixteen bytes

I have been jumped upon by a Staffie on the tram. The Staffie should not, strictly speaking, have been on the tram in the first place, but I wasn't complaining. Any contact with dogs fairly sets me up for the day. I miss them a lot. Besides, he is a friendly Staffie and my trousers are now patched with dog slime. Good Dog. Annoying owners, though.

I think I eye people's dogs in a way that confuses the owners. They jerk the dog away or step off the pavement as if thinking I'm afraid of it, when in fact I'm conducting a leisurely exchange of looks with the dog oblivious to its walking assistant. Guess I should smile too, or say something to the owner. I'm not all that good at smiling to order, though; people occasionally seem to interpret them as angry grimaces or nervousness. And I'm worried people might realisesomehow think I want to kidnap their dog. Honestly, relax, we don't have room at home!

Walking among real people reminds me of being a GCSE French student in France, where attempts to speak the language can be met a little rudely and you occasionally get the feeling they'd rather you didn't bother trying. Yaknow, at least in Germany I was generally spoken to politely and slowly, as if they were pleased I'd made the effort.

Therefore, I present to you Hellmutt's Eurospecies Law:

Humans are from France; dogs are from Germany.

Bill Bailey last night was awesome. Highly recommended. I particularly like his musical skits.

We ate at the Eighth Day before the show. I've been in there several times to buy stuff, but never gone to their restaurant. It's a simple and cheerful canteen-style affair, and they get mega points from me for… their toilets! It's something as simple as putting "Unisex" instead of "Disabled" on the third door, but it made me feel so welcome.

Possibly playing Arkham Horror round at someone's house tonight if we can work out how to get there. Hastur la vista, baby!

(edit: I've been #followfridayed on Twitter. Give me a moment to pick up my jaw off the floor.)

Certain brain areas could be linked to sociability, or so a study suggests.

I don't see how a study on just 41 people could possibly be valuable.

Go ahead, speculate that autistics' brains are underdeveloped, that's fiiiiiiiine. Just don't impugn our taste for chocolate, please.

edit: Good dog.

I spent a short while at the Backstage/Manchester FSF Ubuntu launch party, although I wasn't feeling very Jaunty and had to leave because of all the humans. Anyhow, I did manage to chat to a couple of people, including one metalhead (I spotted a rolled-up Sonata Arctica shirt he had tied around his waist – saaad!) who said he's played Bloodstock.

I'm pretty sure his band is these guys; I'm bad with band names, but remembered it was '04 he said he'd played so was able to look it up. (I'm bad with names too, but I think from the band photos it was Rick I met… yup, Twitter confirms it. I love the internet.)

So, anyway, fun as it was enthusing about Ayreon and Jørn Lande's voice (bastard, I'm still so jealous), somethng even better happened after the party, and it involved two drunken blondes.

Not like that.

I was meandering homewards as I do, alternately mulling over the Rick Cook I'd been reading on the tram and toying with my own magic system, when I saw two young ladies ahead, on the pavement, coming towards me. The pavements are narrow around my village; I checked behind me for cars and then shifted onto the road to let the girls pass, as I do.

As we passed, one, who had been squinting at me (as far as I noticed, given my habit of only ever looking at people peripherally), nudged the other and bellowed to her "Is that a man or a woman? Hey, is that a man or a woman?"

It's all right, I thought to myself, good job I've already passed them, she won't see the stupid grin on my face.

Behind me I heard the blonde turn back and once more shout "Is it a man or a woman?", aimed at me this time. I don't tend to talk to people who shout at me in the street, so I kept walking and grinning.

See, I can occasionally pass for my real gender.

I rather enjoyed that encounter, interactive as it wasn't, and it's quite set my mood up for the evening. It's a bit hard to explain this psychological boost to people who don't have to engage in subterfuge in order to be mistaken for what they really are, but trust me, it felt nice.

Oh, and I'm still going to install Linux Mint Real Soon Now. Help if I had a system that was not in bits enough to run it.

I met a workmate today whom I've only ever emailed and phoned, based as he is in London. He randomly brought me a box of Celebrations. Therefore I randomly spread this around, with the result that I, my colleagues and very probably my brothers thank him most kindly.

I gave blood this evening. They looked askance at me afterwards because I'm so tired-looking and kept me for a while for observation. When I didn't keel over (although one other patient looked alarmed and said I was going pale!¹) they let me meander on home, which is only a short walk in any case.

(I felt like saying "You shoulda seen me this morning. And all day at work. And all week, in fact." I've been looking pretty dazed for a long time, however much sleep I get, and we're talking up to 9hrs a night which is more than enough for anyone healthy.)

I have a Penguin biscuit. Seeing as I p-p-p-paid in blood for it, I am going to keep and consume it. If I can stabilise my weight, anyway; alarmingly, last weekend I gained like a kilo and a half for NO GORRAM REASON, SRSLY, I'd REMEMBER if I'd eaten anything fun, JEEZ could we randomly LOSE weight instead ya think?!

So, tomorrow is a bank holiday, then it's the weekend and then I have a week booked off work. Which is good. I owe some things, including an art exchange picture and replies to some emails, and want to finish off that little Suitov-Mistake story shortly. Also, need a haircut. When it gets to this length it curls up cutely at the ends, which, while obviously extremely manly, is not quite the effect I desire.

Next Tuesday: GeekUp or Magers? What a hectic social calendar. Stay tuned as my divided loyalties yawn, stretch and then serenely do whichever it was they were intending to do all along.

¹ I responded with an interested "Really?", checked my pulse (well, tried to find one and couldn't, which is usual) and then pinched my fingertips to check their flush reaction and temperature. "Hmm, they are somewhat cold." This coming from someone who had previously been slouching with a head cupped in one hand, elbow resting on the table, drooping eyelids and generally appearing semi-conscious, may have been a socially inappropriate response. It's possible I was supposed to have been alarmed instead or go and lie down or ask someone to loosen my stays or something. Probably just as well I didn't whip out a Von Luschan chart and ask him to quantify "pale". Oh well, they're shot of me for another four months.

An autistic lad is rescued by Spider-Man.

And now more idiots trying to make the world fit into their little boxes, to the detriment of all…

Despite the stupid stories you may have heard about windmills slicing birds up, the RSPB is in no doubt: we need more wind farms, and we need them soon.

Actually we need them twenty years ago, but hi, media outlets, welcome to the 08 Is Too Late bandwagon anyway.

Now that was miserable. So here's some happy power metal: Iron Fire – Bridges Will Burn

Bolt was good. It is about a puppy! In fact, it's pretty much a puppy Truman Show, which is pretty much a winner.

I was a bit uneasy about how the animals emoted, though. They didn't use their ears at all; it was rather confusing. For example, when the cat had her back to the dog, telling him to get lost, her ears should have been tightly back and her tail doing some conflicted lashing, and his ears at least somewhat flattened and tail down. No doubt it was the same all the way through the film, but that was the scene that actually broke the WSD for me. Kind of disturbing, like someone smiling and grinning while telling you they're horribly depressed, you know? I need cartoon expressions to be right, because they're a stepping stone to real ones.

I'll not get onto the lazy bit of characterisation that always makes cat = female and dog = male. ;) We dogs may be simpler and dumber, but girls have the right to be simple and dumb too, if they want.

They've added an 'oscillate' (fade up and down rhythmically, basically) option at SimplyNoise.com since I visited last. Very cool!

I like the pink noise setting on oscillate mode, and the brown even more. The pink is halfway between radio hiss and ocean, whereas the brown is mostly rainstorm, and a lot 'softer' on my ears than white noise. Unsurprising. I have a tendency to hate treble and cleave unto bass as one from a womb with a cardiac abutment untimely ripp'd. Bass nice.

The difference between brown and white noise, from what I gather from Wikipedia, is that with brown noise there is progressively less volume (amplitude) towards the higher end of the frequency range, whereas white noise has constant volume across all frequencies. Pink is halfway between them, its name explainable by the fact that brown noise is also called red noise. (Or Brownian noise, after the guy who discovered Brownian motion.)

Here's a graph of brown noise and a graph of pink noise (you can see the pink falls off more gradually); the corresponding graph for white noise would be flat.

That suggests you can't really have 'true' white noise, because it'd have to have the same power at ALL frequencies, which'd take an infinite amount of energy (except for absolute silence, I suppose?). The same goes for pink noise, because the power keeps decreasing but never quite reaches zero however high you go in frequency. However, it is possible to make pink or white noise across a limited range of frequencies, which, I presume, is what I'm listening to. My ears only have a limited range of frequencies*, so that's fine.

*20Hz–20kHz is the typical range of human hearing (optimal/for youngsters).

Am I — blast it all, I'm trying to educate again. TELL ME WHEN I START DOING THAT.

Nice to be back at work.

Sad, I know! But when I'm off for extended periods I always seem to do nothing but sleep and don't get much creative work done. I need the routine.

Sometimes I think you're actually a 'Help' programme built into all BBC computers.

I mean that in a good way.

– a colleague in London who has never met me

This is not the first time someone has asked if I'm a virtual construct. Seriously. Welcome to my world Mister Anderson.

I think I've got Weft's face (in profile) pretty much cracked now, thanks to help from my parent. I'll plaster it up later tonight and invite feedback.

It's ridiculous how much easier it is to represent people visually if one a visual thinker and able to look at the things. Neither of those describes me, which is basically why I am not an artist.

Whereas if I write "his head is oddly shaped, rising shallowly backwards from a sloped forehead, while his face, wide in bone structure but very lean, tapers forwards at the front; his eyes are disconcertingly huge, he looks perpetually worried and he is by no means beautiful" you have to take my word for it, if you showed me a picture of someone like that, I wouldn't know where to begin describing him.

I live in words and concepts. A picture means nothing to me until it's decoded. I or someone else (and others are better at it than I am) must describe to me what's in it, or it remains a very vague swoosh of colour that slips out of my head.

Let's see… for example, have you seen the Armada Portrait? Think of it. Do you get a mental image of what it looks like? I have a very vague wisp of colour, consisting of a creamy wodge and red hair and a white ball, and a mental description that's more easily put into text than any other format: "squareish painting of a woman [Elizabeth I of England] in a large puffy dress covered with bows, a lace collar standing out around her neck, with red, styled hair. Her right hand is resting on a globe [representing conquering the world], and in two windows either side of her in the background are ships [representing the Armada her dragon smashed]. The colour is bad, as though the painting aged badly." Evidently I've forgotten the mermaid figurehead and the fan in her hand.

On reflection, this could be why I spend so much effort writing image alt text. I use it!

Incidentally, the Armada Portrait is best enjoyed while listening to Ayreon's Dragon on the Sea.

Sunday. Do washing ready for work, rip up eggboxes, take out recycling, find soulmate…

I bought season one of Dexter on DVD because I'd heard unbelievably positive things about it, and never got round to watching it on television.

I watched an episode last night, and… well, as a result, today has been an archive binge to finish the second of four discs (six fifty-minute episodes total). Tangentially, this being a Region 2 set, the subtitles are in British English, which is sooo goooood.

I now have a crush on the main character in a way that only narcissists will truly understand.

Basically, it's very good, and funny, and overall yes. Also, serial killer mating dances are freaking hawt! Almost as hawt as mage mating dances, even.

P.S. Hawt in an asexual way, as should be obvious. ;)

My weekend was spent:

• Making music (fun)
• Taking cat to a Sunday surgery on account of a sudden rush of blood to the urine (cystitis; he's had it before. Not fun, but interesting)
• De-virusing computers and memory sticks (Slen is the prime suspect for this. Not fun, but I don't mind doing things like this with computers)

From the music, I learned that I am awesome, and the three of us (Slen, me and our mother, who helped with the later stages of the lyrics) are capable of unbelievable heights of awesomeness. (Perhaps mostly me and my mother on the lyrics; it might have been a quicker process if I wasn't determinedly trying to keep Slen's attention on it so he'd have a chance to contribute. Noodling his guitar and canoodling someone else were both vying for his attention.)

From the vet palaver, we learned of a place that has reasonable prices and a Sunday surgery, and found out a few more interesting things about cat innards from the vet, who made the time to chat to my mother in some detail. (Probably because there weren't any other patients there; that and she's good at getting medicos to talk to her in a non-patronising way, which I can't make them do, even though I'm intelligent and interested too.)

I also put a pill in the cat and held him for ritual emasculation (claw-clipping and eye drops for his cohnjuhntuhvituhs). And fed the neighbouring cats.

From the virus kerfuffle, I learned that ClamAV does not find the particular autorun.inf virus we had. On the advice of some pages I googled up (having identified the virus by myself from behaviour and a little investigation), I installed Avast!, which is spelled with an exclamation mark, and which found and removed the thing.

Avast! demands an internet connection to download its libraries, which means my mother's laptop (which is never connected to the internet as a matter of practice, but was infected by Slen's memory stick) is a little stuck — ClamAV Portable, as I mentioned, not being able to deal with this virus. I asked her to take the laptop into work and have their technicians look at it, because in any case they should be made aware of the threat, but I don't know if she'll do as I advise. Meanwhile, any USB drive connected to it is of course immediately reinfected.

Happy Australia Day and Invasion Day to those who mark one or both.

A programme called Terry Pratchett: Living with Alzheimer's is coming to BBC Two "soon"! At last, I've got some use out of the annoying TV on the wall that's turned on all the time with the sound down. (It seems his face is the same as his voice, in that I always recognise the man if I catch him out of the corner of my eye/ear, for example on a television trailer. Weird. Even my immediate relatives can't boast that level of recognisability to me.)

I keep watching Demons even though it's crap and Glenister's accent is beyond self-parody. There's one character called "Mina Harker", which annoys me almost as much as if someone were to make a character called "Irene Adler". (Which they have. Not long ago, I saw some kiddies' series to do with Sherlock Holmes and the Irregulars, and there was a murderous jewel thief character who was meant to be Adler. NO. JUST NO.)

There are some things that are guaranteed to be rubbish if done by pretty much anyone, and portrayals of supposed Mina Harkers most assuredly qualify. Don't mention That Film based on That Comic Book, either…

Oh, there has been one good thing about Demons: at the beginning of the series, the Monster of the Week was a demon named Gladiolus Thripp, which is quite possibly one of the best names ever. He was killed off in the first episode. BOO.

Oh, and I saw on Amazon that All Cats Have Asperger's Syndrome, while All Dogs Have ADHD. What is this popery! My brother gets a better genetic deal than me in EVERYTHING! (I'll have you know I'm an alpha dog, morally if nothing else. I think too much about food and too little about sex to be a tomcat.)

Current music: Power Quest, Into The Light, of which there are no words to describe the wonderful uplifting cheesiness.

Large graphic in this entry…. if it's working. If there's a broken image, that's rather annoying.

Read the rest of this entry »

Autism test 'could hit maths skills'

The prospect of a prenatal test for autism, allowing couples to choose whether to have a baby with the condition, is coming closer. And with it also comes the possibility of a prenatal drug treatment being developed.

But in this week's Scrubbing Up, leading autism expert Professor Simon Baron-Cohen warns caution is needed to ensure associated talents, like numerical abilities, are not lost if the test or a "cure" become available.

The old disability-and-abortion debate. Would I prefer never to have been born? No, obviously not. Would I prefer a hypothetical me who didn't exist yet to have been terminated and a different hypothetical me without an ASD to have been conceived? I'm completely neutral to the idea.

However, this whole thing fails to take into account that fools, you need us. You need us to talk to your computers for you. You need us more than ever. The Midwich Cuckoos are already inheriting, bitches, and there's nothing you can do, so start chugging back the thiomersal now.