Jazz? On my NES? It's more likely than you think!
Autism Network International, recent history, ableism, self-advocacy, community-building
A friend of mine posted a link to a history of the Autism Network International, a group formed by a number of autistic people who had met through autism-parent-focused conferences and wanted to make a space for themselves and each other, and I am really appreciating the story.
The author recounts a number of struggles experienced by the group, notably including some attempts to undermine and sabotage it by leaders of the preexisting NT-led autism-focused organizations (a phenomenon which has occurred on the occasion of the self-organization of many marginalized groups) and the group being forced to adapt due to a toxic autistic person causing trouble ... but the parts that stand out to me are the successes.
- The people with social struggles finding communities where they are normalized and accepted.
- The solidarity between autistic people, NT friends, and 'cousins' - a delightful name originated by one of the group for people whose neurodivergences bear striking similarities to autism as opposed to neurotypicality.
- The way that the development of this network into a community demonstrates the empathy and social skills that autistic people are often claimed to lack.
http://www.autreat.com/History_of_ANI.html is the link for people who might be interested.
privilege and epistemology thoughts (first person plural, ageism discourse-adjacent; 260 words)
The way structural bigotry works in society, there are several things that happen in concert to everyone:
- We are denied knowledge about the experiences of people who society marginalizes,
- We are taught lies about the marginalized that support the violence (overt or covert) that society enacts on them, and
- We are taught that an appropriate and proportional response to someone trying to educate you is discomfort, distress, harassment, verbal abuse, gaslighting, or quite a lot of other very nasty defense mechanisms.
Those of us in marginalized groups will often be able or forced to see through the lies and learn the suppressed truths that affect ourselves, but that's not a guarantee and it doesn't cover everything. Ultimately, it's down to us to manage our discomfort, seek out education, learn, understand, and teach.
And people have been doing that since before we were born, and will have to do it for probably as long as any of us will live. And people have been and will end up refusing to do it likewise.
It's not just us the marginalized getting clued in, it's us the privileged as well. It's not just us the privileged who need luck or active effort to be clued in, it's us the marginalized as well. Because "marginalized" and "privileged" aren't traits taken at character creation that give a set of bonuses and penalties to ability checks - they are shorthand descriptions of phenomena that operate through comprehensible mechanisms. And comprehension is a tool we can use to counter them.
@velexiraptor i feel like so much of being trans is "rejection of the constructs that bind us while also feeling an intense, confusing urge to participate in them in ways that feel affirming at the same time"
@Siphonay
🍉 watermelon
🍎 airmelon
🥔 earthmelon
🌶️ firemelon
"Nobody talks about the real reason to use Tabs over Spaces"
https://www.reddit.com/r/javascript/comments/c8drjo/nobody_talks_about_the_real_reason_to_use_tabs/
This is a pretty compelling reason. Esp. if you are writing open source code.
It's not perfect and it's not as good as I'd like it to be, BUT. I'm excited to be have actually made a thing again after literally so many years.......! #lsdj
Mostly harmless pet peeve du jour: Date formats.
2007-09-08 – Hooray, this is sortable and unambiguous!
11/10/2011 – Was that a Tuesday or a Thursday?
30 OCT 29 – At least there's time to ask....
10.4.12 – Wait, let me guess—
080907 – oh no
Bonus peeve:
22:15 – Waaaah, I don't understand "military time"!
10:15 – Waaaah, I showed up twelve hours late!
Stories in which power and prestige are connected to your bloodline feed a toxic narrative that gives us destructive social constructs like royalty, racism, and eugenics.
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RT @IGN@twitter.com
Daisy Ridley has confirmed that Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker will address Rey's parentage. http://bit.ly/323Z0Al
https://twitter.com/IGN/status/1146373590897627136
I finished my (first!) #Bitsy game!
As the title suggests, this takes place in a memory of a library. I hope people like it!
It's been estimated that today's #Cloudflare outage is effecting about 10% of all websites world-wide.
If a lot of your online world is down right now, your word and research topic for the day is #decentralization
I 💖 @orrery
I 🕹️ retrogaming
I 🔊 chiptunes
I 🦄 ponies
I ☁️ cannabis
I � Unicode
and yes to 🤖 but #nobot
avatar art by Dana Simpson (danasimpson.com)