One of us! one of us!

I love the Fincher-directed video for “Judith” by A Perfect Circle.

Other favourite music videos:

• Aphex Twin - Come to Daddy
• Smashing Pumkpins - Stand Inside Your Love
• Tool - Parabol / Parabola

Yeah when it’s explained to me I realise “of course, that makes so much sense”.

And then I forget again, so I’m all Keanu-Reeves-whoa-face next time I think about it.

I’d watch that movie!

Your comment spawned a delightful train of thought where I imagined all the other fish trying, and failing, to successfully fuck before these two fish stumbled on how to do it.

It helps me to remember that mitochondrial Eve isn’t a fixed individual, as well.

Mitochondrial Eve is just the most recent common female ancestor. So her mom would also be a common female ancestor, but not the most recent one.

To be fair, the concept of mitochondrial Eve still trips me out.

There are a lot of reasons, but I think this article does a good job of listing the main criticisms: https://www.themarysue.com/the-autism-speaks-controversy-explained/

But in a nutshell:

• They frame autism as a disease that needs curing
• None of their board members are autistic
• They spread fear and misinformation about autism
• As a charity, embarrassingly little of their money goes to actually doing anything for autistic people

Let’s not forget the survivorship bias at play here. I don’t want to take this somewhere morbid, but the older people you know survived to make it to be old. There were people from their generation with undiagnosed issues that did not.

It’d be real nice if we could celebrate the fact that this is good news on an “uplifting news” community rather than devolving into whataboutism.

I’d second this suggestion, I’ve used borg with rsync.net for the past 4 years and it’s been great.

I’m really sorry, I had colitis and it was awful. I really hope you find some relief from it.

Fast forward 400 years and a new religion gets started when someone unearths the metal blog tablets.

Gary Oldman is younger than Gary Numan.

Oh wow I never realised I was missing tornado facts from my life but I am genuinely loving learning about this.

I’ve had a lot of good experiences with ear plugs. I’ve used musician’s earplugs to help reduce noise without blocking it out entirely, and while I don’t have personal experience with Loop earplugs I’ve heard a lot of positive things about them.

Regarding seeming “rude” by wearing earplugs: I completely understand the concern here. All I can really offer is that you’re doing something to look after and care for yourself: if other people have a problem with it then its a “them” problem, not a “you” one. This is just a personal method I use to help me get over the worry: I think of myself as a child, and consider how validating it would feel to see an adult wearing hearing protection/whatever else to make them feel comfortable, and how it would help child-me feel more empowered about my own comfort and needs. So I do it for child-me, and if that also gives anyone else a boost or helps them not to feel so awkward then that’s just a win for everyone.

Well I don’t know if it helps, but the way I think of that is that if I didn’t stick to the times, I’d be letting me down.

Yeah, I understand that. I haven’t found an easy solution to that.

With hobbies, the thing I’ve found most useful is to set a structure of making that time for myself to do the thing I enjoy. Even if it’s just an hour or two, one evening a week. That way I’ve mentally created the space where I can say “that time is for me, to do my hobby”. Sticking with it, even if I think “I’d rather be with my favourite person at this time” helps add some balance (plus it’s a defence against that feeling of neglecting myself when I’m hyperfocused on someone else).

I do this, and can relate with how nerve-wracking it is. I’m afraid I haven’t hit on any techniques to stop it entirely, but for me I found things like mindfulness practices help with some of the runaway or obssessive thinking. Also, finding hobbies or activities I can do by myself has helped me feel less like I’m only happy when I’m with/talking to my “favourite person”.