*checks that it is not April 1st*
"World-first NCSC-engineered device secures vulnerable display links"
ncsc.gov.uk/news/world-first-nā¦
SilentGlass, a plug-and-play device, actively blocks any unexpected or malicious HDMI and Display Port connections.National Cyber Security Centre
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Internet Protocol Version 8 (IPv8) is a managed network protocol suite that transforms how networks of every scale -- from home networks to the global internet -- are operated, secured, and monitored.www.ietf.org
reading the abstract:
*slaps the roof of the document*
We can fit so many abuse and control vectors in this mf
2^32 addresses is enough for any single ASN, right?
(I didn't get further than the abstract, too late to read further)
thatās just IPv6 with two extra cylinders so it goes faster šāāļø
wake me when they release an RFC for IPv11ā¦ š
- uses 8 in the header's version field
- "no existing device requires modification"
Why isn't it dated April 1?
my partner works for prpl foundation, so I've heard (bad things) about WiFi 6, and she skipped over 7, but told me that there's rumours of WiFi 8 already.
I didn't realise that there's a whole rat's tail of other midlife crisis sounding stuff attached to it
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People sometimes think of a #kink dynamic only in terms of power exchange. It's more like a trust exchange. One party may choose to trust another to provide safety, tranquility, comfort, etc. That gift of trust is what is infused with power. The offering should be made with an appropriate expression of limits and bounds. The entity to which the offer is made is often, but not always a practitioner of the arts. They etch and line the boundaries, ideally capturing the intent of the supplicant. Once sealed, the ritual begins, and can manifest in many forms.
Within the circle, there is safety, accompanied by an outpouring of vulnerability, droplets of which harbor the essence of the devotee. These are cared for and woven into the ritual. The threads can undo a person altogether as the essence is drawn out into the aether. A mind set free to wander the void, leaving the consciousness intact within its vessel. It's a vulnerable state, and it leaves the beings highly suggestible, sometimes devoid of purpose, and easily put to good use.
The entity in control, the weaver, the witch, the queen of the hive; they have discretion as to what choices to make. As you are allowed to peek out of your enclosure after quite a rest, you see a snippet of such a ritual in action... Continued in the #AltText
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Drone 9382 is pre-bundled with a photography module, and I'd say the editing task ran on these images is pretty nice 
#KatPics #SnaredEnrichment #Rope #Dronification #GasMask #Latex #RopeBondage #AltAfterDark
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I intend to write up an educational piece building off my existing ones to explore the aspects involving de-identification. I feel like it's one of the many things that are not well understood about kink spaces. But ego dissolution as a whole is difficult for some folks to grasp so I'm not sure how well it'll work.
In the meantime I finally broke the seal on posting the backlog of latex+rope pics I've been collecting. I'm looking forward to getting some shoots in with a vacbed and rope sometime in the near to medium future.
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the UK has had some new legislation enacted which improves renters' rights [edit: initially with England; housing is a devolved matter] [edit2: apparently England is lagging behind here] by a lot:
hell yeah.
Most of these sound like EU-wide rules in general (or at least in effect in most EU-countries) but one stood out:
"rental bidding" where you try to give the landlord a higher price than other tenants is made illegal (this was the single biggest WTF moment i had arriving to the UK)
What the fuck is this and who in their right might thought that this was a good idea
@exec rent bidding has started becoming the norm here in Australia ;_;
wanted to ask about UK/EU stuff tho, how many months notice for landlords ending a rolling contract?
here fixed term is standard and we (tenants) preferred it because it at least gave you 12-24 months of stability at same rent rather than them giving 2-month notice to end so they could relist it at a price higher than they could increase your rent by
Order a copy of our magazine Too Long: https://toolong.news/collections/tl007With the new Renters Rights Act coming into effect in just under a months time, ...TLDR News (YouTube)
@RejoinEU this is probably the one good thing they've done. the mis-steps are the norm, doing something right is the exception
(and i think a lot of this bill is based on the bill of their predecessors, too)
Yesterday i had to do something really fucking stupid.
I wanted to try out a new desktop fedi client, but the windows version is only released in the microsoft store. so i go to download it from the MS Store only for it and all the other store exclusive apps i use. to fail to download/update. it kept giving an error, so i google that error and all the results for it are related to the windows firewall not working.
So i check the windows firewall and its related services and theyre all working fine. my next guess its probably something fucky with the microsoft store. so i clear out the cache and it doesnt fix it. i check the microsoft store services and theyre still working, restarting them doesnt help. so i think maybe the store itself is broken so i open power shell and uninstall it. as im going to reinstall the microsoft store it keeps failing saying it cannot find the files, even as i explicitly point to them or try to redownload from microsofts servers. i cant even re-download it from winget because it uses the store as a repo for that. oh and microsoft removed the MSI installer to manualy install the store, you can only get it from the store or windows update. AND WINDOWS UPDATE IS NOW BROKEN TOO!!!
So at this point im thinking i need to do the usual SFC/DISM fixes in powershell, except when it goes to repair things it still cannot find the repositorys. maybe i can try the offline fix method? so i download a W11 25H2 iso, mount it, point DISM to it, and it STILL cannot find it.
Now at this point im kinda livid. this windows 11 install has survived 6 years of updates, across 3 different machines, and even the jump up from windows 10. I have kept this frankenwindows install running for so long i get a sick perverse pleasure from keeping it alive. I really do not want to have to nuke this drive. so i go for broke and do an in-place reset of 25H2. AND IT STILL DIDNT FIX IT.
But the in place reset did do something! after that i was able to use powershell to reinstall and reset the store. and when i finally open the store im greeted with "WinAppRuntime.Main.1.8 Updated Today"
So you're telling me that the runtime environment necessary for the microsoft store and related apps to update and function, updates through the store? and if it breaks it cant update itself to unbreak? is there not a way to manually install this? well apparently not that i can fucking find. you need to do an inplace windows reset because apparently nothing short of that will fix how badly it fubars the repositorys and app database.
This is why nobody fucking loves you Microslop.
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this has made me nostalgic for the XP to 7 era, back when you could do surgery on windows without it freaking out
XP in particular feels... I don't know how to describe it. I guess it's just primitive? Like an old car.
I am not suggesting Linux
But I do suggest a Linux-like way to get the original task done.
Is the client open source? You can probably build it for Windows yourself and forget about the store
Tons of people inside microsoft had been complaining how bad windows update was for years when I started working there... 10 years ago. The team I was on actually broke windows update over the weekend once because we pushed too many internal OS images into their pipeline, after they explicitly told us we could do that without causing a problem, which also took out the entire windows store, which included all of xbox!
When I went back 5 years ago they had to patch the Windows Store just to support Halo Infinite having two possible executables, and there was also a bug where every time you installed the game the icon would get 1 pixel smaller. We had multiple issues with the Halo Infinite install on the windows store. Everyone hated it (and we didn't have any issues with Steam). The entire windows ecosystem is a catastrophe, microsoft employees don't even like it, and eventually the inertia the company thinks it can ride on forever will run out, very abruptly.
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For years I've been hearing that "One day AI will be smarter than humans and we'll all be doomed."
"Nonsense," I said. "AI is very stupid, and not getting noticeably smarter." And I was right.
But I didn't think about the fact that there were two ways that prophecy could be fulfilled.
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Today, someone on the Fediverse told me, āYour free speech is not important to me.ā
Ironicābecause my free speech bothered them enough to send me a message about it.
But I donāt say things because theyāre important to you. I say things because theyāre important to me.
So important that I pay for the privilege of owning and managing atomicpoet.org. Which means my free speech doesnāt depend on the whims of someone elseāor whatever their mood is at the moment. Itās based upon my own personal integrity.
My personal integrity says, āSpeak the truth even when others are bothered by itāāwhich they are.
Specifically, the truth is that Trumpism is a religious cult. Itās a cultātalking about that shouldnāt be isolated to a #uspol hashtag because itās actually #worldpol.
And this isnāt merely politics anymore. Itās religion. Trump comparing himself to Jesus Christ is beyond political propagandaāitās religious proselytism in a literal sense.
Everyone should know this. I make no apologies for saying it in the most public way possible.
Thereās just something poetic about white colonizers who believe they should dominate online spaces they donāt control because theyāre simply used to getting what they want.
Sometimes you donāt get what you want, though.
Oh well.
atomicpoet.org/notice/B5G1Rsqxā¦
Is it just me, or do the bulk of āno Trumpā complainers on the Fediverse happen to be white dudes from Australiaāliving literally on the other side of the world from the USA? It just seems pretty ...atomicpoet.org
fucking hilarious that i remembered @soatok 's blog had quite a nice theme so i was wondering which it was
but i couldn't remember their name... so i looked up "furry security writeups" on ddg and first result was their blog omfg lmfao
This TDOV I am very grateful to have trans friends. I have never met a trans person who was unhappy about transition and achieving their chosen gender identity.
I am also continuing to question my own gender. A lot of the things associated with masculinity make me deeply uncomfortable.
Transgender day of Visibility.
Reminder that I am a Transgender Woman.
Visibility Achieved.
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I....... think I've actually finished updating my Pride Vexillum for 2026.
Holy shit, that's a project DONE (for now).
Now to wait until June so I can share it during Pride Month. š
Good job that I never have and never will use Mastodon then.
Mastodon is the kind of place where if I made a shitpost like:You can tell the difference between leaded and lead-free solder by tasting it
So many of you would get mad as hell and probably report me and even consider making a fediblock post, but you wouldnāt do the sensible thing and quote tweet it because youāre too cowardly to have that kind of callout culture
(Feel free to quote tweet this!)
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That someone used JavaScript for something doesn't mean it's useful for that.
I mean...isn't that obvious?
hopefully it's not the usual ill-conceived Java stuff.
SWIDT
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Figures that meta(Facebook) are behind a lot of the age verification stuff going aroind. They have a functionally complete set of products. Facebook, Intagram, what's app, all have been basically feature complete for a decade at this point. They've not added new user facing features in a while, at least not obvious enough that I remember them.
If you can't compete on features you've got to compete by making it harder for the opposition. Adding something to support a new regulation is trivial for them. But a dozen slightly different rules in different parts of the world make it really really hard to bring up a new Facebook competitor.
With the amount of regulations and paperwork from osa (which I've long said was designed to prevent an English Facebook competitor) it would be a wild amount of work for a new social media company that wants to be focusing on features but now need to get a legal team too.
The other advantage to Facebook of age verification is that they don't need tracking cookies and other hacks to know what you're doing online. They'll have your fucking driving license, passport, or gov ID. For them it's a massive bonus
This genuinely tickled me
youtube.com/shorts/0-3vCf-ZNq8
I think someone is following me around and making a documentary. But I can't be sure.#vr #vtuber #furryš§WATCH LIVE 5 NIGHTS A WEEK!š§https://www.twitch.tv/c...CorgiCam (YouTube)
š¤£š¤£š¤£ #SurveillanceCapitalism
Rockwell - Somebody's Watching Me #yt
youtube.com/watch?v=ESdkAsBCZlā¦
Profitez des vidƩos et de la musique que vous aimez, mettez en ligne des contenus originaux, et partagez-les avec vos amis, vos proches et le monde entier.RockHype (YouTube)
What the title says. Well intentioned, often other "neurodivergent" people look at your life, your autism, and say: "you should mask harder."
For example, I accidentally said something that offended a friend. Won't go into detail, but it was me unintentionally coming off as arrogant, not something bad like a slur or hate speech.
I asked for advice (elsewhere) and the advice was universally, "you see, NT avoid this topic at all costs. Going forwards, know it is best to avoid this topic."
But isn't this just saying "mask harder and be more palatable for everyone else"?
Every piece of "autism advice" I see even in "neurodivergent friendly" communities is basically "how to be less autistic."
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Well, NT people mask too. I thought the goal of these communities was "ND dont need to mask 24/7! Accept who you are!" and then I hear "But limit your personality in public, it makes others uncomfortable."
People (including other autistic people) treat my autism as a liability and a nuisance. Thanks! I knew that!
I think there are situations where consciously choosing to follow a social convention against one's "natural" inclination (which I think is a type of masking) is a good idea. For example, if someone has recently experienced a death in their family, I might think twice about making death-related jokes, or even bringing up the subject of death at all. I don't think these rules are inviolable; with the right context I think humor can help with grief. But I think it requires a level of intimacy with the person grieving and their relationship with the deceased, and thoughtlessly saying any thing that comes to mind can cause fresh hurts for someone already hurting a lot. That's a rule that I consciously try to follow and think very carefully before I break it.
There are other rules that I will willingly and gleefully break because I think they're harmful, e.g. "It's [unpatriotic / blasphemous / rude] to criticize [the government / church leaders / authorities]". That rule is bad and exists to reinforce the power of people who already have power, so I deliberately try to break it, and I try to catch myself when I find myself unintentionally following it.
I think a lot of "just mask harder" advice comes down to people's (well-founded or otherwise) belief that a certain rule should be followed, sometimes without question (I often find this axiomatic take explained with some variant of "that's just the rule"). I like learning about the rule even if I take the implicit recommendation of following the rule with a grain of salt, but I do find the implication that rules have to be followed because they're rules tiring.
Don't call your mother fat, don't push the person standing at the crosswalk in front of a bus, don't cut someone's hair when sitting behind them because it bothers you... Socially unaccepted actions, why, because they are. In another universe they all may be acceptable. Our cultures calls them rude, murder, and possibly assault or maybe just impolite. Why. Because stuff and things. Mostly, it'll hurt someone's feelings.
Really I think it is, our freedom ends where anothers begins. Thus, we are free to do what we wish, but if your happiness impeeds on anothers happiness, then there is an issue.
Edit*. When the law doesn't match that, then I feeo government has failed
New information coming to light is 90% propaganda, 10% truth. If we got rid of all borders and made all insurance companies illegal while saying denying a person care in terms of health would put your organization in prison. It would fix nationalism immediately, drag health costs down, and fix many issues people struggle with. The person who works for their family isn't an issue, the government that doesn't let them is. It doesn't matter where or who they are, they were segregated due to old rules, mainly the British decision to segregate to isolate and isolate and divide to rule. Did wars happen before then, yes. But the way to end all wars isn't through segregation, but rather assimilation throughly so all are accepted without question.
Sorry, end rant
It's a skill that we find harder to master than others. That's all.
Some are naturally gifted at math. Some can learn a new language effortlessly. Others have to practice and pay attention carefully or they make an error.
It took me 30 years. My personality is now permanently different. It's no longer a mask just like learning a language and culture eventually becomes normal.
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Where's the line? I'm rude because I don't pick up on social cues....that's literally what I am diagnosed with.
"I think depressed people just need to be happier to avoid depression"
There is no objective line, but if your actions result in your friends getting hurt that is sad, and if your friends decide not to hang out with you because of the chances you'll hurt them again that is a fair choice. You may choose not to put effort into understanding other people's perspectives but this means most people with healthy boundaries will either get hurt at some point and leave, or recognize that is bound to happen and leave pre-emptively. So if you want friends that treat you right or a partner who isn't miserable, then you will have to put effort into understanding other people's perspectives.
Your friend was offended for a reason. People assume you care why or how to avoid it because that is a necessary part of any healthy friendship. If you do not care, then I hope your friend finds friends that do care so they, at least, can be happy. I also hope that you have friends and you are happy, but an unhealthy friendship does not make you happy and it barely counts as friendship anyway.
The situation really wasnāt as bad as I made it out to be. I was just talking about how I was doing in a course and my friend got jealous because I am doing much better. I didnāt brag, just like āOh I did great on the examā
But apparently GPA and pay are two things you can never discuss with anyoneā¦.for some reason.
I asked for advice (elsewhere) and the advice was universally, āyou see, NT avoid this topic at all costs. Going forwards, know it is best to avoid this topic.ā
I don't think of that as masking actually. NTs run into the "said something they shouldn't have" error quite a lot... i think of that as just learning new social nuance. If social interactions are like kayaking in ooen water, this is the equivalent of bumping (gently) into a wall that was already there, but being given instructions to mask more is like them putting down barriers to reduce the amount of water you have available to maneuver in.
But I do think in your example that the best course would be for NTs to just be more aware of and accepting of ND saying things they consider weird. Would be the most efficient course of action and is more of a solution than "Add this to the mental list of things you can't talk about!"
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you see, NT avoid this topic at all costs
I don't think this is a NT vs Autism thing. There are topics that, depending on the environment, are taboo and not to be discussed. Figuring out these rules is confusing (or at least, not automatic) for Autistic peeps, but actually following the rules is something both NT and autistic people must do. Whether or not you call it masking, it's still something that both groups are subjected to.
I don't see how it can't be a NT vs autism thing.
They're only taboo subjects because society (primarily NTs) decided they were taboo.
Autistic people have to follow the rules set by NTs, not the other way around.
Theyāre only taboo subjects because society (primarily NTs) decided they were taboo.Autistic people have to follow the rules set by NTs, not the other way around.
I'm 50/50 on this.
People running a social scene (generally NTs) set the cadence, yes.
Thoughts/questions/ponderings:
Some taboos exist for good reason and apply across the board. We don't greet strangers by asking them how their genitals are feeling, for example (although that would be hilarious).
I think I agree with Savvy more.
Do autistic people, as individuals, not have rules in their own head about how people should interact with them?
Autistic people generally have either far fewer than allistics or if they have some kind of social obsession potentially they have a whole world of rules of their own that even allistics will struggle with.
But yeah generally, in my own case: 1) Don't be irrationally or sadistically mean.
That's basically it. You can be irrational/strange around me and at most I'll be surprised due it being unexpected and my "mask software" wont have a response to load and I'll freeze up for a bit. You can even be mean if there is sufficient justification for it. Maybe I fucked up bad.
Now, "being mean" a fairly broad category and I have specific obsessive silos of topics I don't want broken, but that's on the basis of a "info hazard". Mainly: discussions of poop or story spoilers. But if someone ends up breaking those "Rules" I don't hold it against them because they could not have known that I have a severe aversion to both of those things, I just warn them and move on.
In social groups composed entirely of autistic people, would another set of norms emerge that could get someone in the group scolded if they broke them, just like in the rest of society?
Yes but they'd probably be documented, FAQ'd, etc. Autistic people would tell rule violators to RTFM.
When a NT person upsets an autistic person because they broke a norm they werenāt familiar with, wouldnāt they also feel bad and try to remember not to do that in the future?
If the autistic person got upset at the person for breaking a norm the allistic was unfamiliar with they'd be being unfair assuming there was no good reason for them to have known in the first place.
Some taboos exist for good reason and apply across the board. We donāt greet strangers by asking them how their genitals are feeling, for example (although that would be hilarious).
I unironically would be pretty comfortable in a society that did that. At worst I'd probably be confused by why this was the thing people asked about but if I encountered a society that did such and I learned that as a common greeting I'd settle in fine.
- Do autistic people, as individuals, not have rules in their own head about how people should interact with them?
I'm sure most do, but it's far more likely for their rules to be ignored/overridden if they don't fit in with society's idea of normal.
For example, an autistic person who does not like being touched is more likely to be seen as the "problem" than someone who tries to shake their hand or give them a hug. People who are close to them will probably learn to respect to that individual's personal rules, but NTs seem to less adaptable to social change, particularly if it's inconvenient to them.
Are there not rules that both autistic peeps and NTs have in common?
Definitely, but a lot of them exist for good reasons. I suppose I'm talking more about the seemingly arbitrary rules here.
In social groups composed entirely of autistic people, would another set of norms emerge that could get someone in the group scolded if they broke them, just like in the rest of society?
In my experience there just generally seem to be fewer "global" rules, but when rules are broken people get over it more quickly.
When a NT person upsets an autistic person because they broke a norm they weren't familiar with, wouldn't they also feel bad and try to remember not to do that in the future?
I guess this depends on the person, but that applies to everyone, not just NTs.
āRead the roomā is not a rule. āRead the roomā is a skill of knowing how the people in the room are feeling.
The rule that skill serves is, ādonāt say things that people in the room canāt handle hearing right nowā
Obvious example: avoid chattering happily about your recent raise in front of people who are miserable they just got laid off.
Usually, people dismissively saying āread the roomā mean, āI know that you are capable of feeling and understanding other peopleās emotions, would you please fucking pay attention to that skill right now?ā (This is plenty common even for not-autistic people) But of course for autistic people that assumption is just incorrect. People saying that to autistic people need to read the room.
I'm sorry but I completely disagree, read the room is entirely a rule. If you think social expectations are merely skills and not rules then idk where to really take this because society, socializing, it's all rules of which skill can allow you to bend and sometimes break. For instance it's against the rules to be happy at a funeral, even if you're happy but if you're socially skilled you can manage it.
I think you're getting stuck on people saying "read the room" not all the unspoken rules that ND people have to navigate simply because not doing it is rude. If I get asked "how are you" and I reply "I don't know why I'm alive anymore" I am considered an asshole not the person asking questions they don't want answers to. I have to follow the unspoken rules that they don't really give a fuck about me, they don't care how I'm doing, and that I need to lie even if I'm uncomfortable with it because they forced me to.
I would argue that it's moreso that there are many more specific and clear social rules, but most people don't know how to explain them, so when asked, they just say "read the room". As another person said, it might also be a reminder or shorthand of something that you are assumed to already know intuitively.
I think part of the skill is tone, which is kinda dumb since the truth you communicate is basically the same. Even so, something like "I don't know why I'm alive anymore" might be considered rude while something like "eh" or "not great" or "same as usual" (hopefully that's not your usual) or even something like "well, I've been a bit overwhelmed by current events recently" would generally not be seen as rude.
You can still say something that's true; you just have to soften things. It would be easier if the softening was not necessary, but as people have gotten at earlier, you have more power to change yourself that to change how the rest of the world reacts to things.
I'm not diagnosed autistic or any other form of neurodivergent. To the day if someone asks "how are you?" I might give a real answer. "Not good, my cat is sick and I'm worried he might be dying" was one I gave last year, to a food service worker. He gave me a discount that day, acknowledged that that doesn't make it better but he did something to show he saw me and we have been a lot more friendly since then.
I don't dump on him every time I see him, because I genuinely have good days, but he lights up when he sees me, and that makes me happy too.
Well intentioned, often other "neurodivergent" people look at your life, your autism, and say: "you should mask harder."
Yeah pretty much, right? But is any other advice possible?
"Here's how to appear less autistic" is really the only usable piece of info when the problem is "I'm autistic and that's never going to change but it sometimes causes problems".
"Learn how to politely say Fuck you deal with it it's definitely going to happen again" is the only other realistic option but that strategy is only effective in limited contexts.
I see it more like "those poor NTs can't help it, here's how you deal with them" in the sense of, they're not smart enough to understand you, so you have to understand them. If I run into a problem where a child doesn't understand me, I don't expect the child to understand me better, I expect to explain it better.
If literal aliens visited the Earth, I would try to understand them, and at the same time I hope they'd try to understand me, but I can only control my own understanding, not "make them understand me".
It's not so much about "what you're doing is wrong" more about "you can control yourself but not them, so you can do better". At the same time, if you notice they're not even making an effort, and they should know better, you're in your right to point that out. If you talk with someone reasonable, they'll understand.
Which is a shame, because it means more of the effort falls onto us. We have to be extra careful of what upsets NTs, but NTs aren't instructed (nor expected) to be careful of what upsets us. To be fair, what that is can differ strongly from person to person.
It just sucks when you run into a spot where either side needs to give - like when your energy is low and somebody complains about your vocal tone. On your side, you're already extending as much energy as possible and falling short. On the NT's side, they don't necessarily know that the reason for the change in tone is because of something you can't control, and it has nothing to do with your feelings toward others. I ran into this issue recently and it basically meant I had to entrust someone else to explain to the other person what the issue was, because I didn't have the spoons to explain why tone is a lifelong issue and why mentioning it triggers me. Thankfully, my workplace is understanding, but I've been in countless more situations where I'd be expected to somehow give more of myself just to appease the NTs who don't consider what their words mean to me (even though I've been made acutely aware through life of what my words can mean to others.) These situations usually fall 100% onto us to resolve, even when we aren't capable of it in any given moment. Which sucks so hard.
I wish there was more public understanding of our struggles. I wish masking so well didn't result in harsher social punishments when our masks inevitably slip. It would be a fairer world if NTs were taught and expected to respect our sides, instead of just us being expected to navigate the minefield of NT socialization. Alas, we're not there yet. But, the more we talk about our sides, the more NTs may come to understand us. Hopefully.
Yes, and I'm afraid that I (LSN, self-Dx with high certainty, awaiting formal Dx since early 2023) been guilty of giving this advice until some time last year, when a user on this very platform informed me that what I was suggesting was masking.
One major factor in this problem, I believe, is that a lot of the "raising awareness" stuff I've seen over the years tends to focus on just one part of our demographic (namely young, medium support needs boys), which is quite counter-productive. This is likely the main reason why none of my teachers ever thought to have me tested, and why I was 17 before I thought "Hmm, I can't shut up about Linux, I have a bunch of autistic friends, and I just watched three solid hours of old PSAs. I wonder if there's a reason for all that?"
There are times when masking is a good idea, this potentially being one of them (I do not know the context); but on the whole, it really isn't fair to do it all the time just to placate neurotypicals when they are more than capable of dealing with it without long-term psychological harm.
Sometimes the advice isn't centered around interactions with other people.
Like - wearing sunglasses can help with feelings of overstimulation during the daytime.
My problem is that so much of discussion about autism is centered around social interaction, that people begin to think autism is just a problem of fitting in, and if only other people could be more receptive everything would be better... well it wouldn't make the sun any less bright!
Yep, that's why I only choose to hang out with other neurodivergent people or people who are willing to treat ND people's needs as at least as important as their more toxic social norms.
Public interactions you have to conform to survive, but personal connections are your choice.
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their more toxic social norms
I wouldn't say politeness and tact are toxic.
Help me understand.
What is not toxic to you:
- A person has a disability which makes task x difficult to perform.
- Everyone agrees that this person has this disability and that this disability makes it hard to perform task x
- If they try to perform task x they may not understand they are doing it incorrectly, again because of the disability that everyone agrees is real and this person has.
- no one is expected to create an environment where task x is made easier
- when this person fails at task x, it is treated as a moral failing
- inability to perform task x puts access to fundamental needs at risk
What is toxic:
- being told that you do not understand the experience that someone is trying to express
Is this accurate?
The problem is that the rules for being "polite" and "tactful" are seemingly arbitrary and impossible to understand.
I know there are facial expressions you are supposed to make in certain situations to make your words work as polite, but I cannot consistently figure out how to do it.
I'm sure this is an inappropriate question, but out of curiosity, are you a man or a woman?
I'm just always curious with this because women are typically diagnosed later or not at all because women figure out masking earlier and better.
I wonder if it's purely self preservation on the part of women or if women are more explicit in social rules with one another?
I am a man.
I think I might be agender though. I find gender roles as confusing and arbitrary as all the other social rules.
Lol sob š
"You need to learn to say no, because you are working well beyond your capacity and you need to take care of yourself"
Literally every time I say no it's seen as the beginning of a negotiation. I'm not being vague either. "Here is some data. I don't have time to review it with you today. Have a look and we'll discuss next week." Somehow that is interpreted as "Waltz into my office right now and ask about the data"
Or "I am not looking after that, go speak to (other engineer)" becomes 'Potato is handling it"
And like, these people are peers at best. They aren't trying to politely tell me I'm not doing my job or something.
The absolute worst is "I'm going to need to sit with the info you gave me before I can respond" becomes them just repeating themselves or trying to tell me what my response might be. Or when I say "I actually can't remember, but I can look it up" becomes them guessing. Not only have they completely ignored what I said to them, I'm now 100% checked out and every last drop of executive function is gone.
Unfortunately the world isnāt made for us and doesnāt understand ā or want to understand ā us. The only thing we have the ability to change is ourselves. Itās tiring and overwhelming and stupid, but using logic to cater to others emotional irrationality is just something we have to do to survive.
Yes, āmask harderā is a bad suggestion, but itās the only one we have the power to do anything about. š
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I'm pretty sure I've annoyed allistics (NT or ND) friends and acquaintances by bringing up philosophy, sex, politics, religion, etc much more readily than normally "appropriate".
I'll continue to otherwise be friendly with them but on this they can get fucked. The only time I'm enduring "safe" small talk is when I'm at work.
The key here is to accept that not everyone needs to be your friend... unless you live in the middle of nowhere or in rural bumfuck (or as mentioned before you are at work). Then because the number of friends you'll potentially have will always be countable on 1-2 hands and you wont be able to afford losing one.
The actual good advice is: move to highly populated areas, accept that you'll alienate a large portion of people, and settle on the percentage of cool ones.
Unfortunately, moving to a populated place is expensive. So first get a job, and save up for the move.
As a non autistic person, we too are thought to fit in since childhood and do learn to wear social masks. It's not something exclusive to autistic people, but I guess you guys have a harder time learning to do it.
Moderate your behavior in public and respect other people is a conscious effort until it becomes "natural".
Just remember respect is a two way street, and everybody usually is trying to play their role.
Yes and no. The advice you received in particular is just as valid for neurotypical people. Knowing what is okay to talk about in different contexts is a learned behavior, not something that comes naturally to everyone.
However it is also true that a lot of advice is just 'mask harder' because... It's really the only thing you can do. You can't control other people and institutional change is slow, so the only option is to affect what you can affect and that will be yourself.
The difference is on WHY you're doing things. Masking is toxic if you're doing it to please other people or because it feels unsafe otherwise.
But adopting different ways of communicating depending on the context is not masking, it's how language works. Nobody speaks to their boyfriend the same way they speak to their Christian grandmother or the same way they talk in Xbox Live .
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Rare clothed piece of me. Micros count as clothing, yeah?
Character credits:
Tyrion (ball) - purple_salami on Twitch
Bocaj (top, stage left) - @Bocaj518
Amane (top, stage right) - @TheTinOfMints
Sariana (bottom, stage left) - @coyoli
Tyler (bottom, middle) - TylerAardvark on Bluesky
Imbellis (bottom, stage right) - Imbellis on Bluesky
There is one from Brandy Bryant where she goes: "People accuse trans women of transitioning so they can beat up women, but if that's what we wanted to do we wouldn't have transitioned, we'd have just become cops"
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Now livestreaming at joystick.tv/u/toplesstopics and for Patreon donors in our Discord room at toplesstopics.org/chat while I clean up some "artistic nude photography" Patreon donor rewards!
(image contains censored-out female nipples and implied crotch)
This is the funniest Steam Deck accessory Iāve ever seen!
Donāt get me wrong. I understand why this keyboard/stand exists. It has a practical function.
But imagine sitting down at Starbucks. The room is full of normal laptops. Clean lines. Thin aluminum. Civilized.
You unzip a case that looks like it contains military hardware. Out comes a handheld gaming console.
Then a keyboard.
Then a clamp.
You assemble it in stages like youāre preparing to launch a small satellite.
Click. Lock. Adjust angle. Tighten mount.
The joysticks loom over your Word document like twin anti-aircraft turrets. The ABXY buttons shimmer with the promise of violence.
You begin typing your gentle coming-of-age novel.
Every paragraph is written beneath a D-pad.
Someone glances over, expecting Elden Ring. Instead they see you carefully crafting a metaphor about autumn leaves.
You nod solemnly and continue Chapter 3.
When the barista calls your name, you detach the entire contraption in reverse order like a NASA rollback procedure.
You pack away the clamp. You holster the console. You slide the keyboard into its sheath.
You leave behind only confusion.
No one knows if you were coding, gaming, or coordinating a drone strike.
You were writing poetry.
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It's this for me.
Is it a lunch box? Is it a portable typewriter? Is it a ballistic missile control console?
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But imagine sitting down at Starbucks. The room is full of normal laptops. Clean lines. Thin aluminum. Civilized.
I don't want to imagine it. That sounds terrible. That's not civilized at all.
I'd rather imagine sitting down at a hackerspace. The room is full of crusty old Thinkpads and other weird and obscure hardware. Retro-futurism. Cyberpunk RGB LEDs everywhere.
This fits right in.
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It has come to my attention that mastodon.art blocks a wide variety of the more popular LGBT instances, and so if you happen to be a queer artist there, you may not realize that your queer art gets very limited reach.
Having looked at mastodon.art's block list- which seems to be hundreds of instances long- I can confirm that this is the case.
Remember that server blocks like this are controlled by the staff of your instance and apply to everyone living there. And these blocks cannot be worked around by the user's preferences at all; it's been decided for you entirely. And unless your instance staff is very explicit about why they make these changes on your behalf, it's completely invisible to you as an end user.
You must trust in good faith that these blocks are necessary to protect the instance you live on, and that no other moderation tactic would be sufficient.
You can check the blocks yourself here: mastodon.art/about
Mastodon.ART ā Your friendly home on the fediverse for all things creative, all on a platform that is community-owned and ad-free. NO AI OR NFTs ALLOWED.Mastodon hosted on mastodon.art
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The people at .art aren't "well-meaning allies", they're bigots pretending to be well-meaning.
They block lgbtqia and furry instanses over made bs made by the .art admins and start "call out" (harassment) campaigns agaings furry/lgbtiqia server admins/mods abd project devs until they're out of the fediverse.
Great lgbtqia and/or furry lead instances and projects have died because their main admin and/ir dev has been harassed out of fedi by the .art people.
That's not the behaviour of well-meant allies.
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wp is pretty openly transphobic and has harassed many queers off fedi.
They consider themselves allies but itās contingent on enabling her bullying.
The reason itās malicious is because wp talks over and refuses to listen to folks actively attempting to explain how her behavior hurts some of the most marginalized women.
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lol, my instance was called out 
I was gonna say, we know of several folks who left mastodon.art because they said that the majority of their commission work came from folks on furry instances and on tech.lgbt who have been blocked by mastodon.art.
But to some folks, we'll always be associated incorrectly with "virulent anti-Black racism" š¤·
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Yes, mastodon.art is infamous for blocking other instance based on evidently bad faith accusations of racism and other bigotries.
I wouldn't recommend it to anyone.
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@maddy have a look at the reasons for all those blocks.
every one of them is because an instance harbors (or exists explicitly to service) racists, fascists, transphobes, actual nazis, or the people who do their work for them.
the problem is not with dotArt. the problem is that so much of the fediverse is so hurriedly intent to sweep these things under the rug that they start to see meaningful moderation as their enemy.
consider the kind of fediverse we could have if more instances kept on top of their moderation.
alas, the fedi we have is this mess.
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@tully @FlitsFlash@floofy.tech @maddy also .art is a safe space first and foremost as per the about page
Don't know why people act like they have a duty for visibility when that's not what they're advertising they are.
Isn't the very idea of the fediverse that we can diversify approaches? Thus .art is a safe space for minorities with an art focus. Absolutely nothing wrong with that.
We have been on fedi for 8 years now and this is the best instance we've been on wrt moderation
- š
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Mastodon.ART ā Your friendly home on the fediverse for all things creative, all on a platform that is community-owned and ad-free. NO AI OR NFTs ALLOWED.Mastodon hosted on mastodon.art
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Mastodon.ART ā Your friendly home on the fediverse for all things creative, all on a platform that is community-owned and ad-free. NO AI OR NFTs ALLOWED.Mastodon hosted on mastodon.art
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a quick look at their blocklist.
>furry.enginer reason: racism, conspiracy, harassment
>blob.cat reason: freespeechextremist.com association, federating with Kiwifarms
>labyrinth.zone reason: Engaging in racist dogpiling, extreme MH ableism from the admin
>lea.pet reason: participating in harassment of BIPoC
>mitra.social reason: Crypto, conspiracies, ableism
>mk.absturztau.be reason: Reason: interacting with known scum, freeze peach/anti-moderation, cryptocurrency
>outerheaven.club reason: alt-fedi
>tech.lgbt reason: Platforming and excusing racism and racist harassment
>unix.dog reason: alt-fedi
honestly the fact that they are banning so harshly makes me feel like their admins are trying to keep their users from communicating with air.
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lets see, lowering minimum wage, removing the equalities act, insurance based healthcare and butchers aprons for all!
solid policies there, for psychopaths and idiots.
It's something everyone should be concerned about. Even if you don't belong to one of the protected categories, one day you will be older.
Do you want it to be like the bad old days where someone in their 40s or 50s could be told "yes you've got great experience but older people don't fit with our image, I'm sorry but you just wouldn't fit in".
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Let's remind everyone what a safe internet actually means. šš
Share this & Spread the word!
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With the rise of quantum computers, passwords need to be longer - and more complex. These tips help you secure your online accounts.Tuta
For average user, a password manager will be necessary if every pwsd is so long.
Passkey is a good alternative, but how many service providers allow it is an issue.
You missed the most important one.
A safe internet require distributed and transparent ownership, not tight control by secretive for-profit companies.
Without that, none of the rest matters.
short slogans are nice for marketing.
The Internet is not safer for victims of harassment, when the attackers enjoy anonymity and no accountability because of it.
Platforms can't abide by laws, if they can't figure out if their users are legally (of age) visiting.
Brevity isn't winning any arguments.
A safer internet IS MADE BY
Encryption
Privacy
Open source
A safer internet is NOT MADE BY
Age verification
Scanning communication
Tracking & data collection
Besides.. Police already have the rights to go after pedos WHEN THEY HAVE WARRANT.
The essence here is that we remove probable cause, and we make everyone a suspect.
We used to be innocent until proven guilty. Now we have to prove our innocense.
Reminding y'all that:
Discord is not documentation.
ID laws disproportionately harm minorities.
Leaking current ID details constitutes harm.
Data is radioactive.
Complying proactively with fascism is perpetration of harm.
"Legal" and "right" are two very different qualities.
Persephone
in reply to Neil Brown • • •Mark likes this.
Persephone
in reply to Persephone • • •got to say, compromising the projector at a conference centre is a fucking brilliantly sneaky thing.
You're prepping to give a talk, you're already on stage and trying to get things going, nervous and in a rush, you're way more likely to just click ok on a random popup.
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AnneH
in reply to Neil Brown • • •Michael Kohne
in reply to Neil Brown • • •Tony Hoyle
in reply to Neil Brown • • •That's a really niche threat model. If it works at all and isn't just snake oil.
Now not only do I know which are the terminals best selected to monitor HDMI on but I know what to make my device look like so it blends in (and it's a decent size box too).