I’m extremely surprised that the text-only trials had results as good as they did. It’s been my experience that people can detect something “off” from text alone as readily as they can from audio conversations or in-person interactions.

Regardless of medium – email, instant message, forum post, fiction writing – I have received feedback that my communication style is offputting, robotic, unemotional, pompous, direct (negative connotation), and more. If I try to compensate for lack of emotion by including emojis in emails/messages, I’m told it comes across as inauthentic, performative.

I mean, people generally don’t say “he’s an autistic writer” unless they specifically want to reference the fact that this is an autistic person who writes, whereas they would say “he’s a gifted writer” when they mean that he’s very good at his job as a writer.

I think this is a case of a word being used in two different ways. There is gifted, meaning “good at”, and Gifted, as in the special categorization of giftedness. I think in your example, the former definition is being used.

It’s like stoic (unemotional) versus Stoic (specific philosophy).

I need an “autism mode” for applications that never changes anything.

Also, congratulations on the diagnosis.

I also personally think of “giftedness” mostly as a trait that is identified for the benefit of capitalists to exploit. The program had a heavy emphasis on how to become better than non-gifted persons in the domain of moneymaking, and the majority of the sessions were about becoming an entrepreneur. Very much trying to cultivate Tony Stark wannabes and such. And even if the students don’t become that, you know that capitalists are excited to identify potential workers who have increased productivity that they can pay the same hourly wage and exploit more surplus labour value from.

I don’t think I have ever met a “gifted” person who wasn’t autistic. I also haven’t seen that term used much in recent years, as I’m mostly familiar with it from the early 2000s where it was used to name a special education program in the school system. A program that was (as far as I can tell) 100% attended by students that were level 1 autistic (low support needs).

From my understanding, the term “giftedness” mostly describes a very particular, narrow kind of exceptional ability, mostly in processing speed and fact retention. While this is certainly nice, it doesn’t mean that someone is automatically poised to become a great leader or something, despite what the gifted program may have led us to believe. It is possible to be incredibly good at standardized testing and also to suffer from a lack of ability in other key areas, and I would say that the majority of the students I know from the program embody this.

Ultimately, my advice in general is that you don’t need to tell people unless they have similar experiences and it would be a positive thing to do. I find that neurotypical people tend to misunderstand the reason that we tell them such things, and it can ireverably change their perception of us. I have had people tell me that they think I am trying to brag when I so much as tell them that I am very good at math, so I can’t imagine how they would react if I used the term “gifted”, given its loadedness in the cultural context here. My personal approach is to be open about my ADHD with neurotypicals, because it is well-understood and accepted and doing so earns me some much-needed grace about certain things. But I only discuss autism with other autistics unless it’s online in a space like this which is demonstrably anti-ableist, because doing so with neurotypical people has only ever led to my social isolation once their perception of me changed. And giftedness is like the next step up in level of misunderstoodness. I have only ever discussed it with other “twice-exceptional” individuals, and all of them (us, in fact) have very much disliked the terminology and not identified with it.

IQ discourse and the generalized narrow focus of “intelligence” which sidelines all other kinds of intelligence definitely leads to communities that are focused around the topic becoming very and I understand very much why you are turned away by them.

I wonder if they’re called Delta Force because they’re used for regime change. (∆)

extended chimes at midnight,

Whoever designed that must have enjoyed causing mild suffering.

Anyway, the extra stuff you’re hearing lately is almost certainly because of Lent.

Sadly, this phenomenon persists all year. Many of the bell towers involved aren’t even attached to churches.

I have a memory of staying overnight at a relative’s home as a young child. They had a mechanical clock that would chime every half hour, even in the middle of the night. I could not understand how they slept with this racket. It is genuinely baffling to me that for some people, it’s “just background noise” and they don’t even notice it unless you point it out.

I have severe sensory sensitivities.

They don’t work for me either, so I will be expecting a regular dripfeed of goblin propaganda. Thank you for your service.

Is this real? /genuine

(Feel free to spolier the response to preserve the mystery for others)

If anyone covers their mouth when they sneeze on the bus here, it’s with their hand, which they then use to grab the bar…

Everyone has mentioned beans and rice but I will add a few other things.

Water. While this current crisis may not threaten the water supply, having a safe water source is very important for an emergency kit. A flat of bottled water is sufficient for the 72-hour kit that many governments promote having. In case of disasters with enough warning for preparation time, having water storage methods is also good. For longer-term periods, a way to purify water is important (but much more expensive).

Food storage. Your stored rice will not help you if it is eaten by mice or if it becomes a breeding ground for moths. Large food-safe plastic bins are good for things you have in large volumes like rice and flour. For things you will have in smaller quantities, I recommend mason jars of varying sizes. In general, these will help your food last longer and they also are much easier to dig through in a cupboard than a bunch of half-used plastic and paper sleeves of stuff. You can write on the jars with a permanent marker (label what is in it, and when it was purchased) and wash it off later with alcohol.

Diversify. Just rice and beans will get old quickly. Also stock up on oats, vital wheat gluten, peanut butter, etc, and things that can add flavour. Canned tomato products, spices, salt. And most importantly, learn to cook recipes that you enjoy with these ingredients, preferably ones that require minimal tools to make. Instead of thinking of it as “hoarding” for a disaster, think of it as having a well-stocked pantry.

Someone remembered the Reddit posts about using dryer lint as a firestarter and had a 💡 moment.

Western media: “Hereditary leadership is bad! Khamenei must not be allowed to lead Iran!!”

Also western media: “Look at all these wholesome 💯 protestors supporting the Shah’s son!!!”

Maybe clarify tone before accusing. Automatically assuming the worst intention behind a comment and reacting based on that makes online communities worse places.

Especially given the relative simplicity of the Shahed. It would not be difficult for the US to make copies with the resources they have.

Someone could make a new bot and we could ban the old one from posting

You can often tell which products are actually worth the premium and which have inflated prices for brand reasons. Anything with stitching can have extremely different longevities depending on how much care was put into it, but there is of course a ceiling on how much labour can reasonably be put into one garment (thanks, Marx!) and thus there is a ceiling to what can be considered a reasonable price for a product.

But my favourite example of something that has absolutely no reason to be as expensive as it is is the humble Croc. A name-brand EVA clog sells for $50 — ten times the price of an identical product with no brand recognition shipped direct from the factory in China. Why? There is no skilled labour involved in the creation. There is no difference in the materials. These are machine-injected EVA.