Diagnosis: Autism Rediscovering My Autistic Self

[maimonideznuts]

Possibly unpopular opinion, but there was nothing inherently wrong with leash kids.

[pusheenthenerdcat]

my mum was quite against the idea but i was undiagnosed autistic and ended up electing to have my hand held a large potion of the time (for comfort purposes, lack of situational awareness, and a slight tendency to run into danger when overstimulated) i probably would've enjoyed it because I've had two hands free without accidentally wandering

[fittingoutjane]

When my son was a toddler, he had a tiny backpack with a leash attached. It looked like a dinosaur, it could carry his own snack, which he liked, and it made things much harder for him to wander into traffic.

Parents who use leashes aren't using them 24-7. Most reserve them for situations that are confusing, distracting, crowded and/or dangerous.

Another fun option is to put bells on your kid. When we were camping and he was 1.5, he slept with bells around his ankle so he couldn't get up (and escape the tent alone at 4am) without waking us.

[alexafaie-asd]

My childminder used reins when we were little enough to not fully understand the danger of running off (whilst walking down a pavement next to a busy road). Once we were old enough to fully understand & behave, she had us instead hold onto the double buggy pushchair so we'd be self-reining in a way. A little bit older still & she was fine with us walking next to her without holding onto the pushchair.

My sibling had to have the reins put on (backwards so they couldn't undo them) even when in the pushchair because they'd get bored of the slower moving speed, would undo the pushchair straps and would just run off in the direction we were going. They never ran off/into traffic/danger, it was more just that they'd been walking since 7 months old & knew they could walk/run quicker than the pushchair was going. So the reins went on to stop them going too far.

All of us turned out ok. It was explained to us why they were put on us & it was explained what was needed to not have to wear them (behaving & staying next to the pushchair). So it never felt like a punishment or restriction. Well maybe sibling felt it was a restriction for a little bit, but they learned to be sensible anyway. They proved relatively quickly that they understood not to run into the road so instead they'd run to near the curb (but not too near) and then wait for the rest of us to get there, would hold onto the pushchair to cross, then would run to the next safe to wait spot, rinse & repeat. They never wanted to run off, they just wanted to move quicker lol.

[iraffiruse]

[tim-official]

see every time i see this status i get angry because i’ve played through literally every scenario in rct1 and there is no place where this is a thing. there is never more than one park per map. and in rct2 you can’t make that happen i the scenario editor either. it is not remotely within the game’s functionality to simulate two discrete parks and these games were coded in assembly for christ sake so it’s not like someone modded it in by adding the line “int const TOTAL_NUM_POSSIBLE_PARKS = 2;”. there is no conceivable way this post is anything close to true and even though i know how writing all this out reflects upon me as a person and even though i know exactly how meaningless and trifling of a takedown attempt this is on some random facebook screencap with hundreds of thousands of notes im going to post it anyway because i’m too petty to have any say in the matter

[alexafaie-asd]

I was thinking "that's not possible" myself based on my having played RCT1 and RCT2 so much. Was just thinking maybe it's possible in RCT3 or RCT4 as I've not played those ones (didn't look as good to me). But there were never next door parks. You did have to improve reputation compared to others but you couldn't fire riders off the edge of the maps, so even if they meant it figuratively (not really a next door park, but they were imagining it) it wouldn't work in that way either.

It's possible they were thinking of a different rollercoaster game though. I've seen someone review a rollercoaster mobile/tablet game I've played and them commenting how they're glad to have it on their phone having played it on the computer when they were a kid, but the game they were playing on tablet has never had a pc version. They were thinking it was a different game entirely. But like even Planet Coaster and Parkitect (which in their different ways feel like spiritual successors to RCT) don't have a "can fire guests into another park" mechanic. Even though they could theoretically handle the concept.

[burninglights]

fucking insane to be a person of colour in the uk right now

[burninglights]

When my family first moved to the UK, we faced a similar risk to our wellbeing & safety as many are facing now, albeit for different reasons. in light of everything happening in Ireland & the tensions increasing in Glasgow, and the perennial England, here’s a list of actionable things to do for people who may be targeted & anti racist allies.

MY HOME IS ON THE LIST/LIKELY TO BE TARGETED, WHAT CAN I DO?

* it may bring you peace of mind to have a go-bag ready, just in case. A go-bag is a bag with everything in it that you need to get out a volatile situation quickly. Any bag that can be secured (buttoned or zipped) will do. In your go-bag, you should include;

- identifying documents; passport/driver’s license/asylum card/ILR certificate/British Residency permit card

- Wallet and/or banking books

- A spare charger & cable and/or a power bank

- any shelf-stable medication (tablets, inhalers etc.) if you are on medication that needs to be refrigerated, leave it in the fridge until you have to leave

- Sanitary items; toothbrush, toothpaste, sanitary pads & tampons, deodorant. If you have very young children with you, you may also want to take your nappy bag.

* If you have to leave, a go-bag is a convenient way to ensure you have everything of importance with you.

* If you are being supported by an asylum seekers or refugee charity, or are a member of a gurdwara/temple, mosque, synagogue or church, reach out to your religious leaders. They may be able to provide direct support, or put you in contact with organisations or other congregants who can help. If you are friendly with your neighbours, it may be worth contacting them too.

* IN THE EVENT THAT “PROTESTORS” DO COME TO YOUR HOUSE, CALL 999 IMMEDIATELY, AND FOLLOW ANY INSTRUCTIONS THEY GIVE YOU. MOVE AWAY FROM ANY WINDOWS. DO NOT OPEN YOUR DOOR UNLESS INSTRUCTED TO DO SO BY EMERGENCY SERVICES.

I’M AN INTERNATIONAL STUDENT/CARE WORKER/NHS WORKER, WHAT SHOULD I DO?

* Contact your student welfare office/NHS Trust/agency for advice, support and referral to organisations that may be able to provide assistance

* if you live in or commute through an area that is likely to be targeted, contact your lecturers and your faculty to find out whether remote study is possible; if you work in care or as part of the NHS, find out if it is possible to change shifts.

* If it would provide peace of mind, prepare a go-bag as listed above

* Reach out to your the uni society or student’s organisation for international students or students of specific ethnic origin; they may be able to provide you with direction to resources and peer support. If your university has a Marxist or Socialist society, reach out to them for mutual aid with a travel buddy etc., for getting to and from your place of study/work

* If you are a member of a gurdwara/temple, mosque, synagogue or church, reach out to your religious leaders. They may be able to provide direct support, or put you in contact with organisations or other congregants who can help.

* If you are friendly with your neighbours, it may be worth contacting them too for assistance with travel to & from work.

* Report any racism or racialised violence you are subjected to. NHS staff have a right to refuse to treat patients who harass, abuse, threaten or insult them; if a patient is racist to you, where possible, ask another member of staff to take over their care.

PERSONAL SAFETY:

* do not leave your home unless strictly necessary. If it is necessary to leave, don’t do it alone.

* use NextDoor, WhatsApp, social media and word of mouth to avoid commuting through “protestor” road blocks, areas of active conflict etc.,

* When travelling, use Share My Location or Life360, and keep at least two people aware of your expected time of arrival at your destination with instructions to contact the police if you do not let them know you’ve made it safely

* do not directly confront any individuals involved, or allow them to bait you into becoming confrontational

* only record if it is safe. Do not record individuals directly/from up close

* Do not directly intervene. If you see violence occurring, contact emergency services and if safe to do so, record what’s happening.

ALLYSHIP & HOW TO HELP:

* if you have neighbours, friends, coworkers or acquaintances form targeted communities, reach out to them. Ask them what you can do to help them feel safe.

* If you live in an area likely to be targeted, reach out to any vulnerable people you know. If safe and possible, offer to let them shelter with you in the event they need to leave home

* If you see any incitement to violence online screenshot it; it may prove useful in the event of individual “protesters” being prosecuted

* If you see any specific areas being discussed as targets, alert anyone you know at risk in the area

* Reach out to local refugee & asylum seekers’ organisations, to organisations supporting foreign national care & healthcare workers, and to churches, mosques, gurdwaras; they may be looking for short term assistance in helping to provide for vulnerable members of their community

CHARITABLE ORGANISATIONS FOR ASSISTANCE & TO SUPPORT:

* NASC Ireland; refugee & asylum seeker charity

* Doras.org; migrant, stateless persons, refugee and asylum seeker rights advocates

* Jesuit Refugee Service; religious refugee & asylum seekers charity

* Irish Refugee Council; supporting stateless displaced persons & refugees in NI & ROI

* International Student’s House (IE & UK WIDE): provides hardship funding and help to international students

* PathFinder (UK WIDE); supports international students

* Care International (GLOBAL); global carer’s charity

* Choose Love (IE & UK WIDE); charitable organisation supporting refugees and asylum seekers

* Praxis UK (UK WIDE); supporting refugees & asylum seekers

* The Runnymede Trust (IE & UK WIDE); antiracism education charity

* Migrant’s Rights Network (IE & UK WIDE); advocacy and support for migrants and refugees

* ShareTheMeal (GLOBAL); providing meals for refugees and those fleeing conflict globally

* Amnesty (IRELAND, UK & WORLDWIDE); human rights NGO

* UNHCR & UN Refugee Council (GLOBAL); UN refugee bodies supporting those seeking asylum, fleeing conflict & internally/internationally displaced worldwide

[decompose1]

ohhhh shit. target is recalling their up & up baby wipes (fragrance free & fresh cucumber scented) because they're contaminated with Burkholderia cepacia complex and Burkholderia gladioli, multiple people are reporting discoloration & infections. i just got a call about it cuz i had purchased those but i've already gone through them 😅 so no refund for me. but im fine. if you have these they're saying you need to immediately stop using them and bring them back to target for a full refund. this bacteria can cause life threatening infections in children/infants and people with compromises immune systems (ESPECIALLY cystic fibrosis!!) and i know lots of other chronically ill people follow me!!!!

[decompose1]

Hold on i should've been more specific.

First: THIS RECALL IS NOT STATE SPECIFIC. IT IS NATIONWIDE.

here are the specific products and dates:

FDA page on this:

Target Recalls Up & Up Fragrance Free and Fresh Cucumber Scented Baby Wipes Due to Potential Microbial Contamination

Target is voluntarily recalling Up & Up Fragrance Free and Up & Up Fresh Cucumber Scented Baby Wipes following customer complaints of produc

[dr-otter]

If you use baby wipes go check them NOW. A lot of Burkholderia bugs are antibiotic resistant so infections can be really difficult to treat.

[flowercrowncrip]

And it’s always “inclusive” queer spaces that claim to be accessible when they aren’t. It’s like they realise that not being accessible to disabled people is bad, but instead of doing the work to be accessible they just look for ways around having to admit that they aren’t. They’re just prioritising their ability to think of themselves as “radical” or “inclusive” over actually including wheelchair users.

It’s almost always queer spaces that take “ambulatory wheelchair users exist!” to mean that a venue with a step (or even multiple steps) is wheelchair accessible because the wheelchair user can just get up while someone lifts their (small, manual) wheelchair up the step.

Or, even worse (like the “inclusive” salon my friend wanted to go to) they call a space with absolutely no wheelchair access “accessible” because they have fidget toys.

And every time it’s a kick in the teeth

[fittingoutjane]

Describing the physical space, including barriers, is always the right thing to do. If there's a ramp but it's kind of steep, say so. If there's an elevator but it needs a key, say so. People need to stop turning "accessible" into a buzzword and simply explain what they do and don't have. In some cases, it's not possible to be perfectly accessible to everyone! But when folks are honest, disabled people can make their own choices.

During the periods when I've used a wheelchair, a couple times I phoned places, got an honest description, and decided not to go. I have zero grudge against those places.

[alexafaie-asd]

I love the National Trust for how it handles accessibility information for the places it rents out for holiday stays. Not everywhere is going to be wheelchair accessible because they are mostly old buildings (like one is a tower used as a reservoir in the 1860s which has just a spiral stairs up the middle which you have to open doors into the rooms over so like super unsuitable). BUT their accessibility info is the best I have seen anywhere offer. They tell you distance between beds and walls and door widths etc, they tell you heights of all the furniture and any steps or half steps (including description of how many stairs & for uneven stairs, the order of the heights!). They show photos of any stairs and corridors as well as the rooms and they even describe where on lamps you will find the switches to turn them on!

The filters on the website for searching for properties has a whole section of accessibility options to select depending on need. So you can pick to look for only properties with level access to the front door, and door width, plus for the bathroom section search for grab rails for each area you might need one, height adjustable sinks, and shower chairs! There's options in the kitchen section to show you properties with height adjustable hobs (stove tops) and kitchen sinks!

I just do not know of anywhere else here that makes so many accessibility information things available up front without having to call. Like I just picked one property at random and it's accessibility info pdf is 9 pages long and there is still info on calling or emailing them if you need any more info.

As I said, the properties are mostly old so no guarantee that there will be anywhere fully wheelchair suitable in the place you'd want to stay but they at least make the info available about what kind(s) of accessibility they mean up front so then you can know for sure. But I still think that it is an example that I wish other places would follow because if somewhere like that can be bothered, hotel chains where the rooms are pretty identical from location to location have no excuse not to be providing that kind of detail. Most places just say they have accessible rooms (and how many) and nothing about what they mean by that. Like do they just mean the doors are wide enough or do they mean they've thought to add shower chairs and grab bars and things like that? Having to phone them or email them to find out information that could just be made available on the website upfront is frankly ridiculous in this day and age.

[synnthamonsugar]

The pilot -> astronaut pipeline makes complete sense but is also funny to me. There's a secret second sky and if you get good enough at doing sky you can do space.

[catwouthats]

Unfortunately I don’t think it’s the same with the sea…

I have a friend really good at sea. But I don’t think he’s allowed to go to under sea/level 2 sea just because he’s super good at level 1 sea.

Just because he prevented a ship wreck, doesn’t mean he unlocked level 2 sea… sad days for me as a sea enjoyer.

[fittingoutjane]

It can, though. Where do you think they get the people to work on submarines?

[alexafaie-asd]

Well in my grandpa's case it was that he was colourblind so wasn't allowed to be a pilot (though could fly the plane in an emergency as he had all the lessons) so was instead the aircraft engineer who along with his crew emptied the contents of their water landing plane's engine onto a HMS battleship they had incorrectly identified as an enemy ship.

So sometimes you can go from level 1 sky to level 2 sea if you just fuck up enough.

(His punishment was some months on a submarine and out of all the war stories he had, that wasn't an experience he wanted to ever think about let alone talk about in detail).

For another picture of the guy, his mother had asked him to check in with his brother if he ever got the chance to do so and so when he heard his brother was dealing with malaria, he got his higher up's permission to scuttle the aircraft (a rescue aircraft!) so that he could hitchhike from India to visit his brother who was stationed near Alexandria in Egypt (because for some reason he thought that was close enough and he'd promised his mother!). You know, just in the middle of a fucking world war. As you do. But when he got there his brother's unit had moved out. So he dejectedly made his way back to where his unit was based only to find his brother sat on the porch of his bunk house. The higher ups had heard his brother's unit was moving so given he was sick & not going to be in action himself for a bit, flew him there. In the middle of a fucking world war!

It would be pretty unbelievable if we didn't have copies of the military records proving it.

[yurimom]

MY FRIEND IS FINDING OUT THAT HES COLORBLIND AND WE’RE ALL HELPING HIM THROUGH IT LMAOOOOOO

[yurimom]

[yurimom]

UPDATE WE HAVE TWO COLORBLIND BITCHEZ IN THE SERVER

[yurimom]

what the fuck is going on

[alwaysabeautifullife]

On the last one Deuteranomaly and Protanomaly are identical though

[azzandra]

What I’m getting from this is that there are a lot more colorblind people in the world than even colorblind people know.

[sheepolypse]

Share to save [shame] a friend

[waywardmorgann-deactivated20240]

WAIT! DEUTERANOMALY AND PROTANOMALY IS THE SAME! IT’S THE FUCKING SAME! WHAT ARE YOU GUYS TALKING ABOUT?????

[audliminal]

The deuteranomaly and protanomaly ones are very similar but they are different. The purple section ranges out a little farther to the right in the protanomaly one. Not seeing the difference between might not indicate color blindness but rather difficulty with color differentiation.

[sanctuaryforalluniverses]

The green is also slightly more vivid in the protanomaly strip than it is in the deuteranomaly one.

[ninahufflepuff]

@skeletal-spire-man-aka-overfit

um

these are not the same

[skeletal-spire-man]

They’re… They’re identical…

What’s… What’s the difference-?

[i-put-the-hyper-in-hyperfixated]

welp. one of the moots has tritanomaly colour blindness!

[officially-bbc-news]

I’m not colourblind, but like, on the last one, deuteranomaly and protanomaly are identical to eachother- so are protanopia and deuteranopia-

[naviofortido]

They aren’t different?

[sofakingcurious]

I feel like I should add this

https://www.keithcirkel.co.uk/whats-my-jnd/?r=AOkgKP__79w8

[kindred-spirit-93]

DMFJKLEKDFJKLDKJDFKLDSKAL

[navigatorwrongway]

uwu

[alexafaie-asd]

I give up. It's really hard getting it to recognise where on the screen I'm tapping with my stylus. It feels almost random where it registers the tap (sometimes it's to the left, sometimes to the right of where I tapped). Might have a go again later on my laptop with my mouse instead. See if I can do any better when more of my answers are exactly on target.

My eyesight is shit (has never been possible to correct to 20:20), but I can do colours! It's the one thing I can see clearly.

[photomatt]

Tumblr Advisor Board

I think it could be cool to put together a board of the top Tumblristas in the world, that could see previews of what's coming up and advise on strategic direction. Who should be on it?

[madseance]

I am going to get this out of my system upfront so that I can explain everything that's wrong with this idea in a clearheaded way: This is a bad idea, it feels incredibly gross, and it reinforces my impression that you do not understand this website at all. It is indescribably frustrating and infuriating. It makes me want to vomit, and that's even before I get to "Tumblrista".

Now then.

A key takeaway from the massive amount of almost universally negative feedback to the reblog change should have been: Tumblr users do not, as a rule, care about clout. We do not want quantified "credit" for how good our addition to a post is, and we don't want influencers who are anointed as more important than everyone else because they are popular. That's not what we do here; it's never been what we do here. If we wanted that, we could get it from ANY other social media. The fact that we're here instead makes it pretty clear that clout is not important to us, and in fact is actively repulsive to us. Anointing particular Tumblr users as "top Tumblristas" and putting them on an "advisory board" that gets special access to new features and the opportunity to give feedback on them would constitute the exact type of hierarchy we despise.

Furthermore: When a corporate entity proposes an "advisory board of power users", what they're actually doing is trying to pre-empt wider user pushback against executive decisions, by creating the illusion of user buy-in while using social pressure to enforce decisions that have already been made. The actual reasoning behind selecting "top" users is because they are popular, which suggests they have influence over other users. The idea is, rather than convincing the community as a whole, you convince a smaller subset of influential people, and then they convince everyone else. Again, this depends on a kind of hierarchy and clout-based "influencer" system that we don't have and don't want.

As for the "top users" board themselves: By choosing someone and telling them "you're a Top User and you get to be on the special committee and have special privileges," you are giving them something (supposedly) desirable: social status, (the appearance of) influence and power, etc. And you can take it away. That means now you have power over them. If they don't want to lose their special status, they will avoid displeasing you. Which means they are less likely to give you significant pushback, and they are more willing to pressure others to go along with what you want to do. That makes them incredibly useful to corporate, but completely undermines their supposed role as a voice for the community. We see this already with influencers on every other platform, who become de facto spokespeople for corporations and brands and stop meaningfully criticizing them out of fear of losing the access that is critical to their status.

I'm not saying all this because I think it's news to the CEO of a tech company. I think you know all of that perfectly well already. I'm saying it because I think you assume we don't know it, and because some people might not. But I have played this game before and I know how it goes. It never benefits the community. It is always a way to control the community.

You do not need an advisory board to get feedback about site changes. The community is demonstrably perfectly able and willing to speak for themselves individually. If you really want to know what everyone thinks, you have to ask everyone, not a handpicked group of influencers who are under pressure to play along.

[stroebe2]

[queeranarchism]

Oury Jalloh was burned alive in a German police cell while his hands and feet were cuffed to a bed. the cops claimed he had set himself on fire but offered no evidence. No one was convicted. It took 2 more violent deaths in the same police building (Hans-Jürgen Rose, died from internal injuries from blunt force impacts, Mario Bichtemann died from a skull fracture), before one cop had to pay a fine. No cop faced real consequences.

15-year-old Jerryson Noor was shot and killed by police in the Netherlands after being accused of trying to steal a bicycle. We was running from police and clearly posed no threat.

[telavivdelhi2]

Independent forensic tests and later expert analysis commissioned by Jalloh’s family suggest it would have been very difficult for someone bound to ignite the mattress on their own and that fire accelerants such as petrol may have been involved.

A 2019 autopsy commissioned by the family also found fractures (broken rib, broken nose, skull base fracture) indicative of serious injuries before the fire — a point the courts did not allow as decisive evidence. (DW)

[anarchistmemedistro]

Between 2020 and 2022, thirteen EU countries reported a total of 488 deaths occurring in custody or during police operations. Despite international calls for transparent reporting on such fatalities, most European countries still do not meet UN standards for investigating these deaths, leaving persistent gaps in accountability and oversight. Inconsistencies and inadequacies in data availability further underscore the challenges in maintaining adequate transparency in law enforcement practices.

Deaths in custody and police operations - 2024 - European Data Journalism Network - EDJNet

Deaths in custody and police operations Between 2020 and 2022, thirteen EU countries reported a total of 488 deaths occurring in cus

[craymor1]

ACAB

[alexafaie-asd]

My uncle was in the British Air Force and after leaving went and became a prison guard (prison guards here aren't cops or don't have to have been, not sure how it works elsewhere). Anyway he ended up leaving that with a case of ptsd from the kind of shit he witnessed happening there. Went and ran a tiny village post office instead.

He'd never talk about the exact details but he wasn't even at a very high security place (so not somewhere with the "worst" offending prisoners) but did talk briefly about the violence there & how the guards were expected to behave (by the other guards).

So yeah, came away from the military just fine, but a couple of years in a prison as a guard fucked him up. Just like with cops, the ones who don't want free reign to be violent can't stomach the job for long and you're left with those who can.

[weirdchristmas]

The separation of his fashion choices from any known sport is truly something to behold.

[alexafaie-asd]

I know this was meant as a joke, but it's actually incredibly close to what used to be worn when basketball was first invented (back in 1891) when team uniforms were not yet standard.

Example here:

That's why he's holding a ball that looks not to dissimilar from an early association football (soccer) ball. As that's what was used originally.

[alexafaie-asd]

Aaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhh!

The border of my maybe Valentine's cross stitch project is meant to be 93 stitches wide. I was working on a little diagonal section of black outline which extends from one edge of the border up towards the rest of the work I've already done. And I'm like WAIT! I've done the correct number of stitches, why is it still one away?

So I count everything again and notice that the very first bit I did last year is one square over from where it should be. And everything I've done since has worked off that initial placement.

Insert mild moderate quite a lot of panic here.

So in a panic I count the empty section on the right (which is on another page of the pattern) I get 30 before the border on the right side. I count the pattern. It is also 30. Huh?

So I count the border width.

94 stitches wide.

Phew! Crisis averted!

I can just make the border one stitch wider to fill the gap on the left & match on the right, top & bottom when I'm done & it'll be fine.

Of course it will add a ton of stitches I hadn't accounted for, but at least it's not the entire fuck up I thought it might be!

Just needed to vent because I can't talk to my partner about it as it's a surprise for them & I am currently too full of emotion.

[alexafaie-asd]

My back very suddenly hurts (bad hurt, had to take a break from the game I'm playing) a few hours after eating dinner whilst my stomach is doing it's usual "oh you ate salmon again after not having it for a while" rumbly thing is does.

And I'm there thinking of a post @joydemorra shared at some point which mentioned something about allergy response sometimes causing back pain (due to inflammation). Or at least I think I'm remembering it but I could be wrong.

Anyway I'm now wondering if this means I maybe need to not have salmon any more. I've always had the rumbly tummy after eating it even when little but it never progressed past that.

And I come from a family of people who seem to like to ignore their allergies until their body shuts the fuck up about it (my Uncle on my Mum's side was allergic to fish and seafood and it made his face and neck swell up & turn red whenever he ate it but he liked it too much so just kept eating it and eventually he stopped having any allergy response to it at all).

But I'm trying to maybe not cause myself more issues than I currently have. So like I took an antihistamine about it so we'll see if that helps.

[gingersnapsvhs]

did your parents *"pre-screen" the media you interacted with when you were a kid/before legal adult age where you are?

yes, always AND they did parental guidance talks about it

yes, always but there was no parental guidance involved

sometimes, with parental guidance talks

sometimes, no parental guidance talks

not usually, but occasionally (WITH parental guidance)

not usually, but occasionally (WITHOUT parental guidance)

they never pre-screened but there were other rules (elaborate?)

my parents fully didn't give a shit about what media i engaged with

see results

Voting ended onDec 16, 2025

*by "pre-screening", i typically mean any sort of behavior that exists on a spectrum of "actually watching/playing/reading the thing before you played it" to "doing any sort of research on it before letting you watch it".

feel free to share your experiences in the tags or replies or whatever!

[13faeinapenguinsuit]

My parents were about as media literate as a rock, s o, no.

[alexafaie-asd]

It varied by age and type of content.

Like she wouldn't let me watch 18 rated films or 15 rated films in general when I was very little, but let me watch Die Hard which at the time was rated an 18 (got lowered to 15 in 2008) and I saw Rocky Horror Picture Show when I was 4 which at the time was a 15 if on vhs or 12 in the cinema (not sure why they differed but they did).

She didn't want me watching anything with too graphic/gratuitous violence or swearing. But was ok with Die Hard which we watched whenever it was on at christmas. And it's hardly free of violence or swearing. 🤣

So like she cared, but not that much. If we went into Blockbuster to rent a video tape then I could pick whatever I wanted from the U and PG categories and could watch them alone. Anything 12 and above would have to be stuff she was ok with watching too. Once I was a teen she didn't really care unless it was going to the cinema where the cinema has to follow the law and not let people under the ages quoted in to the film. If the film was on tv then it was fair game.

[catchymemes]

[prof-grace-aspen]

This is the best description I’ve heard for this method, I always thought it was bullshit because I never heard a description that actually explained how to do this other than “tap your head 20 times”.

I have anxiety-induced hissing, which sounds/feels different from sound-induced tinnitus (which I have also experience). Sound-based tinnitus actually sounds like you’re “hearing” something in your ears, whilst the hissing I have feels like it’s “inside my head”, if that makes sense. But this technique still helps!!

[mieaouy]

Here’s a visual I found because I couldn’t understand the instructions well

[sushinfood]

My ringing just went away for the first time in years. What is this blissful quiet.

[roseverdict]

wait wait i gotta try this, i don’t think i’ve had Actual Silence since i was like 5

[roseverdict]

HOW THE FUCK

[alex51324]

Reblogging to save a life, and also because, even if you don’t have tinnitus, this is totally worth trying if you like new sensory experiences.  

[alexafaie-asd]

Reblogging so I don't lose it again. I had liked it but tumblr did it's stupid thing with randomly getting rid of likes & I couldn't find it again.

[transhuman-priestess]

This website sometimes seems to think that leftism is when you can buy cheap things, and the cheaper they are, the more leftist it is. I really don't know how to explain the world to people like that.

[transhuman-priestess]

I made a post a few weeks back about how electronics should be big, expensive, and repairable. A lot of people responded that they agreed with big and repairable, but it should be cheap too.

Here's the problem with that, cheap and well-constructed are mutually exclusive. They simply are. As long as you have an economy where people are paid for work, even with a robust safety net or even universal income, all costs eventually boil down to labor.

Yes, there's raw materials and such, but those are then converted into usable materials using, can anyone give me the answer? That's right, labor.

Simply put, money is a physical representation of labor. This isn't a controversial stance, this is extremely basic baby's first Marxism. Like, you say you go here, but you don't seem to understand this.

The reason things like LCD panels and disposable LED lights and hard disks are so cheap is because their production has been opitmized to produce the most of a specific item in the least amount of time. An electron tube for a radio takes a skilled technician an hour or so to make and costs you $30. Transistors can be made by the thousands on a fully automated production line in the same time and cost you less than a buck each.

If you want a laptop computer that you can service, repair, and upgrade, you have to engineer it to be serviceable, repairable, and upgradeable. That means someone has to be paid to do that. You have to use more materials in order to make it large enough that you can access the servicable parts, which means you have to pay for more materials. You have to provide quality control for all the various extra connections that make servicability possible, someone has to be paid for that. You have to be willing to reject products that make it to final assembly and do not check out for quality control, which is incredibly expensive.

So no, you can't just make things "Big, Cheap, and Repairable." Being cheap and well-made are completely orthogonal to each other.

[transhuman-priestess]

#if everyone is being compensated fairly#nearly everything 'big' in your life should cost you a lot of money (buying it from someone who made it or at the end of the supply chain)#or a lot of time (making it yourself from scratch or base materials)#and it should last a LONG time and receive maintenance and repair over its lifetime#furniture clothes technology tools curtains quilts toys instruments#etc

[fittingoutjane]

I mean, some armchair leftists don't understand the basic economies of making things, but at the same time, over the past couple decades, we've seen products that were already affordable be deliberately modified to make them easier to break and harder to fix. From clothing to electronics, this does happen.

[alexafaie-asd]

Here's a simple diagram to help explain:

You can pick two. Never three.

[redstonedust]

i dont agree with people using AI/chatgpt in school but i gotta admit its very hard for me to phrase why i dont agree with it without turning into your grandpa who goes "well *i* suffered through my grad thesis with none of these newfangled AI helpers so *you* should suffer too-"

[redstonedust]

like i see a lot of posts saying "dont use chatGPT just ruin your sleep schedule staying up til 5am on the day before your assignment is due so you can write 10k words of unfiltered caffeine fueled bullshit" and im like. well when you put it like that i kinda understand why so many people turned to chatGPT actually,,, like i wish they didnt. but,

[redstonedust]

what im saying is maybe the real enemy is the education system. but chatGPT is at least one of those grueling minibosses that we wish hadnt been put in the game.

[prof-grace-aspen]

What you can tell them is that Chat GPT lies and makes up sources that don’t exist. It’s not searching up fresh information, it’s guessing what the right sequence of words look like that works as a response to the prompt. So it can’t find them modern research, it can only pretend to know what a source might look like.

I tell my students that quite frankly, it’ll waste their time. They’ll still be up all hours of the night at the last minute fixing all the mistakes it made… OR, instead, they could have written it using the slow and relaxed schedule with multiple mini checkpoints I set up at the start of the semester.

[maddie-2022]

The last sentence raises a good point: scrambling to write a paper last-minute at 2 AM in a haze of caffeine-soaked self-loathing isn't the *intended* experience, it's the result of students' bad time management. Which is expected, most people aren't going to know how to budget their time at 19, but, importantly, that's a secret lesson that college teaches: how to manage your time, breaking up a big project into manageable chunks.

I only had the all-nighter experience once or twice before I learned better. And that's part of what college is for.

[prof-grace-aspen]

Exactly. And I’m teaching that from a place of deeply personal failure lol. I SUCK at time management so, so bad. So I set up multiple due dates throughout the semester for this assignment. Their idea is due in week 8, then their sources, then their outline, then the first draft, until finally the full paper is due the last week of class. And the assignments are set up so you can’t turn in a later step without turning in the prior seps.

Do students still procrastinate? Yeah, some do. But a lot of them don’t, and I consider that a success. Plus all of my assignments are due Saturday, so even if they DO stay up all night finishing it… they have a day to sleep it off. Or finish it the next morning (I don’t tell them this, but I do give them a 24 hour grace period).

[fittingoutjane]

I'm honestly not sure what "time management" means to neurotypicals. For me, it had nothing to do with the ability to schedule or plan ahead, I simply COULD NOT do writing assignments until immediately before the deadline. It wasn't a choice. When I tried to start it in a timely fashion, I'd sit there all evening staring at a blank screen.

That's because I was Jane, 19, and never learned how to write.

My parents never cut me a break, my teachers never cut me a break. They had high expectations, but I never got enough scaffolding, or (importantly) enough USEFUL scaffolding to actually figure out how to string a sentence together without having a full-on emotional meltdown first.

So yeah, I would have found it damned tempting. I doubt I would have done it, I was far too proud of never cheating, but it I get it.

[alexafaie-asd]

I honestly don't know how I'd cope with the multiple assignment points of ideas, then sources, then outline, then first draft, then final version suggested above.

Like technically we were expected to do drafts and then a final version at university, but I never could figure out how to do that.

Either I can't write anything at all because I can't focus worth shit. Or I write the whole thing beginning to end in one sitting. There has never in all my years been an in between.

I can't even conceptualise what it would even look like.

If I don't write down the ideas as I have them in a full block of finished text then the ideas are gone. If I try to stop to summarise or just "bullet point" the ideas, that takes me as least twice as long to do as I find summarising really challenging. I never know which bits are the most important bits because *everything* feels important to me. I used to get told off at school when I was supposed to do bullet points but each point was a full sentence or even a short paragraph. "Just make it shorter/more concise" was the "advice" I would be given. No one ever thought to explain how to learn to be concise.

I did absolutely terrible in any piece of coursework because I did not understand how to work on it in sections over the time between being given it and the due date. Up until the night or a few days before it would still feel like the deadline was months away. I could only ever work under a tight deadline. My best piece of coursework was the one for Chemistry A Level which was completed in class after doing the experiment as examined coursework. And even that wasn't great because the in class sections were split by a day or two. So everything I got done immediately after the experiment was great. Trying to do it in the second section? So much harder. I had tried asking to stay over lunch the first day so I could just finish it in one go but the teacher said no.

I did great in all my exams though. I love exams, they're actually fun. Yeah, maybe I'm weird, but exams you just turn up to and answer the questions. Easy peasy. You don't even need to do anything to prepare other than going to the lessons and listening to the teacher/copying off the board and then at then two years later take an exam on it and get 90% plus. (Never figured out how to revise nor what the point of it even was.) I even managed to get a B on my maths GCSE which was the highest grade you could get for intermediate tier even though my coursework was putting me at a fail or a D if being generous. And that's with having to fight against my dyscalculia. Give me sums and stuff to work on at home and I can't do them. Shove me in an exam where I have an hour to do as much as possible and suddenly I can do it.

But yeah, GCSEs didn't teach me time management for essays. A Levels in 6th form (equivalent of college) didn't teach me time management for essays. And doing a BA at university also didn't teach me time management for essays nor for my dissertation (I got a 2:1 for my BA so didn't do badly).

That's not to say I can't write decent quality essays and stuff. I just can't break them up like all the guidelines under the sun tell you to. I will write the entire thing and then go back and split it up into introduction, main body/results, conclusion etc. The very last thing I do is add the sources for the quotes (and I'd go look up the pages to make sure I quoted correctly, but 9 times out of 10 I was able to remember the sections word for word. The one time would be when there was a date/number written like 4 instead of four to remember).

I would be interested to see if I could magically write something the way you're "supposed to" if I eventually manage to get medicated for what I very much suspect to be ADHD. I wonder if having enough dopamine all the time would allow me to do stuff like that in a more neurotypical manner or not. I also wonder if it would help with my time blindness or not. Its quite frustrating to experience life as a long series of NOW and anything in the future is FUTURE so then when it's the day of whatever event was in the FUTURE, that day is suddenly NOW so it can't possibly be the even because the event is in the FUTURE and we haven't got there yet. We're still in NOW time. Everything happens suddenly to me.

[rose-in-a-fisted-glove]

So, while you're probably done with your program now, maybe you will continue schooling in the future or other people have the same thoughts.

While a lot of this is neurochemical, a lot of it is also skills and techniques that people either promptly forgot before they could impliment (ADHD does that!) or weren't taught in the first place (I'm given to understand this is common for kids that didn't struggle until HS or later)

Let's break down what we can do!

Sources. If you read it and it added to your understanding of the topic, that's a source. All you have to do is keep a log of what you read as you read it.

Outlines. They aren't for everyone,q but, it sounds like you maybe are bogging yourself down deep in the details and aren't thinking broad enough. For an outline, you want topics, not details. For my discipline, an outline might look something like this,

- Overview of country (assume alien new to Earth)

- Introduction of ethnic groups

-- group 1

-- group 2

-- group 3

- History of ethnic group interactions pre-colonization

-- group 1 × group 2

-- group 1 × group 3

-- group 2 × group 3

- History of ethnic group interactions vis a vis Empire

-- empire × group 1

-- empire × group 2

-- empire × group 3

And so on.

For writing in chunks, its easier if you have an outline because then you have a subtopic for the day, but if you're not an outline sort of person, you chunk the time not the paper. You set the same block of time aside each day (up to 7 days a week) as "essay writing time" and if you have an essay due but not finished, that's essay writing time. Sometimes you might write 3 sentences during essay writing time and that's okay. They even out accross the days at the end. The trick to this one is habit/routine building, something very important for those of us with uncooperative executives.

For actually starting from that blank page, even something like "stupid paper for stupid class is stupid for making me write about [thing], thing is so stupid/obvious/simple/complicated" gets you going. Just make real sure you delete out the start if you go this route!

For drafts, I'm afraid I have some bad news. Which is that what you consider the paper in your reblog is only the first draft.

You then take that first draft (preferably the next day) and read it to make sure everything flows properly in the right order and to make sure you have not left in any unexplained leaps of logic (we have ADHD, it happens). This is when you move paragraphs around, add missing information, and make sure the structure itself of the paper is as solid as it could be.

You then take that second draft (preferably the next day) and then remove dead transitions that go nowhere and add in any needed new transitions. You can also take this time to review your opening and discussion/conclusion to make sure you've not gone off topic during either your paper or your conclusions/intro (if you have, go back to the second draft and rewrite the relevant parts again).

Then (preferably the next day) you take your third draft and do a close read for grammar and small mistakes that may have been missed in previous reads.

And now, on the 4th draft, you have your finished-finished paper.

I hope these tips and tricks are helpful!

[alexafaie-asd]

I mean when I was able to write something I always got good marks and was congratulated on how well written the work was. My best marks at school were from times when I was just writing the entire essay (not papers, as I wasn't doing entries for journals) on the train on the way to school. I might have tried to work the night or days before and just nothing came out. But being given that hour on the train to work within and bam! Out came a fully written essay. And they always scored well.

I do tend to find it incredibly easy to do detailed work. Bigger picture stuff is harder for me. Likely the autism. But yeah, if I look at a room, I will notice all the little details first and then the bigger ones after so my brain very much constructs a picture from the finest details outwards and only then do I have the complete picture. Which I think is why I could only ever write everything first and then after that split it into broader sections. If I tried to write just a single section, I'd be drawing blanks and wasting a ton of time and effort just sat there twiddling my thumbs. It's not for lack of trying to do that. I did try and just found that I got zero work done that way.

That was for school and sixth form when the way work was structured was different. Everything then was handwritten so there was no way I was going to hand write the same thing but to the left a bit over and over to have different draft versions. And for the subjects I was taking quoting things was done verbatim not paraphrased and for source it would just be who said the thing as opposed to having a references section. We had a book with the sources in provided for us and due to how it was structured we didn't need to quote page numbers or anything like that. So there was no going looking for sources to use and having to report back.

For university the essays were all typed and so I tended to just edit as I went. I'd write until I couldn't think of anything else to write and then I'd read it back and change anything that needed altering. I'm pretty good at proofreading and spotting mistakes. I had other students come to me for help proofreading their work because they knew I could spot stuff quite easily. And for mistakes I did commonly make (like typing "withe" instead of "with the" as I was typing quickly trying to catch up with my thoughts) I had my word processor set up to automatically replace the errors as I typed them. I also had commonly used long words/phrases entered using an abbreviation that was quick to type but wouldn't be confused with any other word (so wouldn't accidentally add it). So I did a lot of pre-emptive set up to minimise the need to go back after.

I highly doubt that I would go back to university again now. I did my BA in Archaeological Practice (no majors/minors here, we do a set subject and only that subject) and enjoyed it enough, but would not willingly put myself through the unenjoyable bits again. I did try to do a Masters but did not get on with the way that worked at all. I thrive with clear structure and the Masters format is much too wishy washy airy fairy for me to do well. And it was pretty much all essay based, then with a final dissertation. So really really not for me. I enjoyed what I did get to learn whilst trying to do it, but I much preferred just reading the information than having to write anything. If I could go along and just learn the info then I'd go, but I'm no longer willing to put myself through torment for no benefit to myself. I can read and learn stuff in my own time.

[redstonedust]

i dont agree with people using AI/chatgpt in school but i gotta admit its very hard for me to phrase why i dont agree with it without turning into your grandpa who goes "well *i* suffered through my grad thesis with none of these newfangled AI helpers so *you* should suffer too-"

[redstonedust]

like i see a lot of posts saying "dont use chatGPT just ruin your sleep schedule staying up til 5am on the day before your assignment is due so you can write 10k words of unfiltered caffeine fueled bullshit" and im like. well when you put it like that i kinda understand why so many people turned to chatGPT actually,,, like i wish they didnt. but,

[redstonedust]

what im saying is maybe the real enemy is the education system. but chatGPT is at least one of those grueling minibosses that we wish hadnt been put in the game.

[prof-grace-aspen]

What you can tell them is that Chat GPT lies and makes up sources that don’t exist. It’s not searching up fresh information, it’s guessing what the right sequence of words look like that works as a response to the prompt. So it can’t find them modern research, it can only pretend to know what a source might look like.

I tell my students that quite frankly, it’ll waste their time. They’ll still be up all hours of the night at the last minute fixing all the mistakes it made… OR, instead, they could have written it using the slow and relaxed schedule with multiple mini checkpoints I set up at the start of the semester.

[maddie-2022]

The last sentence raises a good point: scrambling to write a paper last-minute at 2 AM in a haze of caffeine-soaked self-loathing isn't the *intended* experience, it's the result of students' bad time management. Which is expected, most people aren't going to know how to budget their time at 19, but, importantly, that's a secret lesson that college teaches: how to manage your time, breaking up a big project into manageable chunks.

I only had the all-nighter experience once or twice before I learned better. And that's part of what college is for.

[prof-grace-aspen]

Exactly. And I’m teaching that from a place of deeply personal failure lol. I SUCK at time management so, so bad. So I set up multiple due dates throughout the semester for this assignment. Their idea is due in week 8, then their sources, then their outline, then the first draft, until finally the full paper is due the last week of class. And the assignments are set up so you can’t turn in a later step without turning in the prior seps.

Do students still procrastinate? Yeah, some do. But a lot of them don’t, and I consider that a success. Plus all of my assignments are due Saturday, so even if they DO stay up all night finishing it… they have a day to sleep it off. Or finish it the next morning (I don’t tell them this, but I do give them a 24 hour grace period).

[fittingoutjane]

I'm honestly not sure what "time management" means to neurotypicals. For me, it had nothing to do with the ability to schedule or plan ahead, I simply COULD NOT do writing assignments until immediately before the deadline. It wasn't a choice. When I tried to start it in a timely fashion, I'd sit there all evening staring at a blank screen.

That's because I was Jane, 19, and never learned how to write.

My parents never cut me a break, my teachers never cut me a break. They had high expectations, but I never got enough scaffolding, or (importantly) enough USEFUL scaffolding to actually figure out how to string a sentence together without having a full-on emotional meltdown first.

So yeah, I would have found it damned tempting. I doubt I would have done it, I was far too proud of never cheating, but it I get it.

[alexafaie-asd]

I honestly don't know how I'd cope with the multiple assignment points of ideas, then sources, then outline, then first draft, then final version suggested above.

Like technically we were expected to do drafts and then a final version at university, but I never could figure out how to do that.

Either I can't write anything at all because I can't focus worth shit. Or I write the whole thing beginning to end in one sitting. There has never in all my years been an in between.

I can't even conceptualise what it would even look like.

If I don't write down the ideas as I have them in a full block of finished text then the ideas are gone. If I try to stop to summarise or just "bullet point" the ideas, that takes me as least twice as long to do as I find summarising really challenging. I never know which bits are the most important bits because *everything* feels important to me. I used to get told off at school when I was supposed to do bullet points but each point was a full sentence or even a short paragraph. "Just make it shorter/more concise" was the "advice" I would be given. No one ever thought to explain how to learn to be concise.

I did absolutely terrible in any piece of coursework because I did not understand how to work on it in sections over the time between being given it and the due date. Up until the night or a few days before it would still feel like the deadline was months away. I could only ever work under a tight deadline. My best piece of coursework was the one for Chemistry A Level which was completed in class after doing the experiment as examined coursework. And even that wasn't great because the in class sections were split by a day or two. So everything I got done immediately after the experiment was great. Trying to do it in the second section? So much harder. I had tried asking to stay over lunch the first day so I could just finish it in one go but the teacher said no.

I did great in all my exams though. I love exams, they're actually fun. Yeah, maybe I'm weird, but exams you just turn up to and answer the questions. Easy peasy. You don't even need to do anything to prepare other than going to the lessons and listening to the teacher/copying off the board and then at then two years later take an exam on it and get 90% plus. (Never figured out how to revise nor what the point of it even was.) I even managed to get a B on my maths GCSE which was the highest grade you could get for intermediate tier even though my coursework was putting me at a fail or a D if being generous. And that's with having to fight against my dyscalculia. Give me sums and stuff to work on at home and I can't do them. Shove me in an exam where I have an hour to do as much as possible and suddenly I can do it.

But yeah, GCSEs didn't teach me time management for essays. A Levels in 6th form (equivalent of college) didn't teach me time management for essays. And doing a BA at university also didn't teach me time management for essays nor for my dissertation (I got a 2:1 for my BA so didn't do badly).

That's not to say I can't write decent quality essays and stuff. I just can't break them up like all the guidelines under the sun tell you to. I will write the entire thing and then go back and split it up into introduction, main body/results, conclusion etc. The very last thing I do is add the sources for the quotes (and I'd go look up the pages to make sure I quoted correctly, but 9 times out of 10 I was able to remember the sections word for word. The one time would be when there was a date/number written like 4 instead of four to remember).

I would be interested to see if I could magically write something the way you're "supposed to" if I eventually manage to get medicated for what I very much suspect to be ADHD. I wonder if having enough dopamine all the time would allow me to do stuff like that in a more neurotypical manner or not. I also wonder if it would help with my time blindness or not. Its quite frustrating to experience life as a long series of NOW and anything in the future is FUTURE so then when it's the day of whatever event was in the FUTURE, that day is suddenly NOW so it can't possibly be the even because the event is in the FUTURE and we haven't got there yet. We're still in NOW time. Everything happens suddenly to me.