oddcog celebrates 1000 Ausome Things #AutismPositivity2013

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Today is the day for the Autism Positivity Flash Blog 2013. The idea is to blog about something ausome. By the way, “ausome” is my new favourite word, whenever I say it, that spelling will be what I mean.

As the URL of this blog suggests, I had always realised I was a little different to most folk. Some would say weird, some would say special. The road to diagnosis was very much a voyage of discovery, learning which aspects of me where traits associated with autism. For the most part, I knew which things about me were different and so it was mostly just finding out which ones fit into the category of autism.

There was one thing though, that I was totally not expecting.

Some people, in fact most people, don’t think in pictures. They think in words. No, really, it’s true. I promise you, they think in words. This was a totally mind blowing discovery for me. My initial reaction was “Holy crap, how does that even work?” and to be honest I still think that today. The first nurse I spoke to at the hospital where I was diagnosed came at the topic as if I was at a disadvantage because I think in pictures. I think this is a brilliant example that illustrates the idea that autistic people are not wrong, we’re just different! There is an upside and a downside to it, the down being that it takes a lot of effort for me to communicate in words. If I am tired or stressed then speaking can become impossible and texting gets a lot tougher. I absolutely hate it when this happens. The upside though is that I can attack problems in a totally different way to a someone who thinks in words and I believe that this is extremely beneficial to me in my chosen career as a Software Developer. If someone offered me the chance to be normal, to take away my powers, then thinking in pictures is something I would list as a pro, something I would not want to lose. Thinking in words seems so incredibly inefficient to me. I definitely don’t want it. :)

I have blogged before about my memory boxes and how my brain is like a big PVR full of pictures and videos. Recently I realised how this impacts the way that I take photographs. I have a friend called cosmic badger, he is an intergalactic space badger with a passion for graphic design. He takes the most amazing photos. Just so, so pretty. A few weeks ago, he came over and he showed me the photos he had shot on holiday. Later, we went for a walk down to the beach and I got an opportunity to see first hand how he takes photos. So I should explain, I remember a guy I worked with once, laughing about the photos I had taken on holiday: the composition, the subject matter. I was a bit hurt, but I didn’t say anything. Looking at the way that Cosmizzle worked I suddenly realised that my photos and his photos seemed to be taken with completely different intentions. I wanted to catch things exactly as they were, cold and scientific, almost like mugshots. His photos were more about capturing beauty, they were artistic. I wanted to take photographs of all of the tiny details that my brain is constantly capturing, categorizing and filing. This is why I have photographs of taps and shower heads and things that nobody else would ever think to take a photo of. My photos are triggers for my brain, one quick look and I am replaying full videos (thoughts/memories) in my head. My own private cinema. I think this is quite ausome.

#AutismIs

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I remember the feeling of relief that I felt when I started reading about autistic spectrum disorders.

I had spent a long time knowing that there was something different about me, whilst at the same time not being able to pinpoint what that actually was.

It was an amazing feeling to realise that I wasn’t alone. There were other people who experienced the world in the same way that I did. Discovering there were words to describe things that I would have invented words for if I had ever been brave enough to talk about them.

I felt a sense of belonging. And worth.

The actual diagnosis process was terrifying because having come so far, there was a chance that I could be denied. That someone might tell me that I didn’t belong. That I was just broken and wrong.

Further relief when my suspicions were confirmed.

I took great comfort from being part of the vibrant online community of people from all across the spectrum.

Not broken, just different. Better at some things, worse at others. But somehow, accepted.

But inevitably, talk of causes and cures. People openly discussing how it should be possible to screen for ASDs before birth to allow for pregnancies to be terminated. Registers for people with Aspergers, just in case we get violent.

Not just different, but broken, wrong and unwanted. Not considered useful to society.

Try reconciling that in your brain.

Parlez-vous l’anglais?

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This post was inspired by a thought I expressed on twitter today that really deserved more than 140 characters.

In both spoken and written (or typed) conversation I require massive amounts of information outside of the actual words in order to understand what is being said. Smileys, hashtags, daps and even extra words, can all help to provide me with this context. It’s like the communication is happening in a foreign language that I learned at school and haven’t used since, I understand a lot of what is being said, but the subtleties and details that provide the context, and hence the meaning, are missing.

Often I will end up asking questions or just re-examining the conversation in my head to try and decipher the message hidden within it. This can be quite frustrating. If the conversation is continuing at a rapid pace, it can be quite tough for me to keep up. I end up drowning in words. Overwhelmed by the conversation.

In direct physical conversation a lot of the context is conveyed by body language and facial expression. Unless these are intentionally exaggerated, then they too are part of the foreign language. With facial expressions this is partly due to me doing my best to look anywhere but directly in to the other persons face, or worse still, their eyes. Yuk! I have to concentrate hard during a conversation and this is just not possible if someone has engaged their eye probes and is attempting to scan me.

I know that me walking around, or looking in to the distance may appear to show a complete lack of interest, but really the opposite is true. I have taken to playing with something with my hands whilst in a conversation in order to aid my conversation. At work, this normally means occupying my hands with my pen. The pen allows me to stim in a non-obvious and not self damaging way.

Black Ops 2

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This post has been quite a while in the making, it is my thoughts on Call of Duty Black Ops 2. I’m a CoD veteran, I love this series. Let’s get in to it.

A little bit of history. My initial exposure to a Treyarch CoD game was World at War. Whilst I loved the campaign, I found the multiplayer hugely frustrating. There were numerous glitches and none of them ever seemed to get patched. It got to a point where I stopped playing the game and waited for the next Infinity Ward CoD, which was Modern Warfare 2. There are only so many times you can get stabbed by a man hiding inside a rock or shot from under the map before you rage quit the game for good. My opinion of Treyarch was low at this point. Fast forward past MW2 and on to the first Black Ops. Amazing game, by far my most favourite Call of Duty title. I loved the campaign; I feel like I am living through an experience in a Treyarch campaign, I feel like I am playing my way through an Infinity Ward campaign. Treyarch make the experience so much more immersive. I loved the multiplayer in Black Ops. The maps were almost all excellent*, I loved the variety of big and small, different scenery, elevation changes that weren’t just ladders and stairs. I loved the playlists; Team Tactical is where it’s at for me and my clan mates, a variety of objective based game modes with small teams. There was a good balance of weapons, with each class being balanced and usable and with there not really being anything to OP (over powered).

So, Black Ops 2.

I have broken this down into a short bit about campaign mode and then a break down of multiplayer. Whilst I think that the game is worth the £30 I paid for the campaign alone, the vast majority of my time is spent in multiplayer. Aside: Zombies is a signature of the Treyarch CoD games, but I won’t be including it in my breakdown because I literally never play it. I hate zombies. It is just not for me and I am incapable of giving a balanced analysis of it.

Campaign
With the exception of the strike force missions I am enjoying the campaign mode. The strike force missions represent a distraction from the main campaign in my opinion, they are awkward to control and not much fun. If I wanted that sort of strategy experience then I would play C&C or something similar. On a more positive note, being able to customise my load out for the campaign is great.

Multiplayer Overview
Treyarch have done some great things with the multiplayer mode. The new scoring system which rewards players who are actively engaging the objective is a brilliant thing. It encourages people to play the objective and that is what the game is all about in my opinion. That being said, I think that in game modes where the objective is to kill, kills should be worth more points, I’m thinking more of FFA (free for all) and TDM (team deathmatch) than KC (kill confirmed).

Maps
The maps are good, but there just isn’t enough variety. Not enough variety of size, not enough variety of landscape, not enough change in elevation (that isn’t stairs and ladders). Where is the snow and the jungle? Where are the hills, the lifts, the cable cars, the garage doors?

Score Streaks
Specialist and support kill streaks have not made it across from MW3, neither have death streaks. No more death streaks, awesome. I will not miss martyrdom, or that nonsense with the C4 for a single second. I am not bothered about the loss of the support kill streaks either, the changes that reward players playing the objective mean that you are not penalised with a lack of kill streak assistance for doing so. The specialist kill streak has been rendered moot by the new load out system, more on that later, but it is not missed either. Devastating kill streaks are harder to get, I have yet to see a single dog, although I have seen a fair few lodestars and warthogs.

Load Out System
The new points based load out system is excellent. It allows you to really tailor classes to different game modes. Full of win, not a single downside. I do wonder if the new load out system means fewer people are carrying rockets and so these things stay up in the air longer though?

Weapons
There is a nice variety of weapons with some in each class that are very much usable as a primary, heck even some of the secondaries make reasonable primaries. I don’t think there is anything that is too OP, Treyarch have been very good at buffing and nerfing weapons to maintain a balance. I think they have been a little hasty with the most recent nerf of the FAL though. For me, I know a weapon is OP when I see everyone using it, even players with low skill levels, at the moment that means the AN94 and the silenced PDW and not the FAL. Quick scoping is not as prevalent in BO2 as it was in MW3, but more so than in BO1. Rapid fire sniper rifles. Just no. Honestly, take these out of the game.

Game Modes
Hardpoint is a nice addition to the game, I find it more enjoyable than Headquarters. I would suggest that the average SPM is a lot lower in TDM than in objective based games, it encourages campy, spawn trapping behaviour. The occasional game of TDM can be fun, but only when mixed in with other objective based game modes, that way it doesn’t hammer your SPM, besides which you are more likely to be playing with #PTFO type players who won’t attempt to pitch a tent in a corner (not a euphemism).

Glitching and Boosting
I am very pleased to report that so far, I have not really been glitch killed by anyone, nor have I found anyone boosting in a game. I think the reporting system that came in in BO1 has helped to reduce this problem as has the genuine care that Treyarch seem to have for the community.

Hopefully, you can see from this post that I am very much enjoying BO2. It is a great game which represents a massive leap forward in the evolution of the series. I do not prescribe to the belief that Infinity Ward brings the innovation and Treyarch bring the polish, Treyarch have brought both things to this game.

Having covered some of the good and the bad, I must now cover the ugly.

Being dropped in to a game where you have a full team on one side and just one or two guys on the other side sucks. I cannot tell you the number of times I have spawned in to a game of domination or demolition where a loss is already guaranteed and the opposing team is just stacking kill streaks on top of each other. If more than x% of the original team quits the match then it should end. Do not spawn me in to a game where the odds are not just against me, but where the result is already firmly decided.

Why does Team Tac have a maximum party size of 1? This is insane. I originally thought (hoped) that this was a bug, but it seems to just be the way it is now. I used to play this mode exclusively with my friends, but now we end up playing domination most of the time. We could just manually select different game modes to get the variety, but we don’t like to try and find a new lobby once we have found one with good/nice players and to which we have a good connection. We leads me on to my final point.

The biggest issue I have with BO2 is something that seems to get worse and worse with every CoD title. Lag, or more accurately lag compensation. There is nothing more annoying than putting an entire clip in to someone and not getting a single hit marker, only for them to then turn around and drop you with a single shot. A quick watch of the kill cam seemingly revealing you standing static, never firing your weapon and instead waiting to be hit like a piñata. With BO2 there seems to be an additional problem if you are host. I think I get host quite a bit, I have a good connection and in this game being host seems to put you at even further disadvantage, although I cannot think of why this would be. The best gun to demonstrate the issue of lag comp with is the KSG. Single slug, pretty much a one shot kill. If you are a good shot and the lag Gods are with you, then you can beast with this weapon, but if the lag is against you then expect to get slaughtered. You can hit people in the centre of the body and not get a hit marker. Don’t believe me, go watch some of WoodysGamertag’s videos. Lag comp is real and it ruins the game. I really hope that in the next iteration of CoD it is turned way down. People with a bad/slow connection can always upgrade, but if your connection is good then there really isn’t much you can do.

* Nuketown was, is and always will be a pointless experience. If this map ever finds it’s way back in to general rotation on any CoD game then I am done with that game. There is only one tactic for playing on Nuketown: be the first to call in kill streaks, use them to spawn trap the other team. Whilst this is true to a certain extent on all maps, you at least have a chance to break the trap, but not on Nuketown.

It might snow tomorrow.

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It might snow tomorrow.

I guess that’s the most uninteresting thing, but it already has my cogs turning. Running simulations in my brain to try and work out all possible scenarios and plan around them. It’s exhausting. Didn’t have much brain left to concentrate on my work today. Sought relief by tidying and organising some boxes of stuff.

I wouldn’t worry so much if I was at home and had no need to travel anywhere. I have to work though.

I’m pretty clumsy. I hate the feeling of slipping.

I have my Timmys. I will walk extra slowly and extra carefully.

I need to keep watching in case the snow starts, I don’t want to get stuck at work, or worse, caught somewhere between work and home. I live on two hills, the road is never cleared and gets cut off very quickly.

I have my snow shovel and foil blanket in my car. And 4WD. And my headphones and music.

I need to keep my phone near me. The snow is forecast to start first at home and move towards work. Don’t want to miss a heads up message.

Last time it snowed I got stuck. Couldn’t get home for a bit. Slid my car in to some railings and scratched all the wheels.

Snow makes everything different and unpredictable.

ADN

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This post has been a while in the making. I had some initial thoughts about ADN and then I kind of wondered if I was rushing to judgement, so having given it some time and gone back to it, I think I’m in a better position to express my opinion.

For those of you who don’t know, ADN, or App.net (app-dot-net) is a social networking service. It is essentially very similar to twitter, but with two exceptions. Firstly, the character limit is 256, not exactly ground breaking, but it is nice to be able to express an entire thought in one post. Secondly, and more notably, it is a paid for service. The idea behind this seems to be that the users of the service are the customers and not the product being sold. So instead of finding ways to harvest data to sell, or shaping rules to push “paid for” posts in to users time lines, the creators and maintainers of the service would be focussed on making a service that people really want to use. This all resonated with me greatly. I do worry about how my data is being used, but I am also not naive enough to think that services like twitter aren’t ultimately looking for a revenue stream. I selfishly also hoped that if accounts cost money, it would help to dissuade spammers, griefers and ignorant sheeple. I say selfishly, because I subsequently wondered if the fee would provide sufficient barrier to entry to have prevented the spread of information during events like the arab spring. Would people be put off by the potential money trail that could be followed back to them. This is in contrast to Twitter, where anyone can sign up and tweet largely with complete anonymity (note the qualifier used).

Having signed up for an account before the service was launched, I waited with anticipation to see if the funding target would be reached. Along the way I read a blog post that suggested that it would be rich, white nerds creating the service that *they* wanted to use. This struck me as bizarre for a few reasons. Why would people spend time developing a service that *they* didn’t want to use? Why would they spend time developing a service that *nobody* wanted to use, when their ultimate aim was to get people to pay to use it. I couldn’t see the issue, but I would.

The funding target was reached and hence ADN came in to being. I jumped in with both feet. There was initially no tapbots app for ADN and the contrast between Tweetbot and the ADN apps I was using was massive. I knew that with time the apps available for ADN would mature and grow. I hoped that ADN might take better care of the developers than twitter seemed to be and that this could mean that lots of development effort would be redirected by devs in to ADN app offerings.

The majority of the early adopters were all tech folk. A great many of them had ditched their twitter accounts and switched to ADN full time. Many of them seemed to already know each other (maybe from twitter) and it was insanely hard to get people talking outside of their tribal groups. I remembered how hard I found it to break in to twitter when I first joined. I was also now armed with my Aspergers diagnosis, I knew that I found socialising harder than most people. I’ve dipped in and out of ADN a few times since then, including a period recently where I spent a few days using ADN as my only social media outlet. It is still the same and so I don’t think ADN is going to be a long term home for me. At least, not unless all of my twitter friends switch over and I can’t see why they would? I think that the biggest impact ADN can have on my social media life is to keep twitter honest. That alone is worth the money I paid.

Brain dump: too much input

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I’ve been avoiding twitter since news began to break that Adam Lanza, the shooter at the school in Newtown, Connecticut, may have been autistic.

Let me explain that I have been diagnosed for less than a year. One of the things I have already learned is that there are a great many ignorant people out there who are ready to tell anyone who will listen about causes, treatments and cures for autism. I’ve had people call me names too. I’m used to those things; it’s sad, but I expect that behaviour. What I did not expect and took me genuinely by surprise, was the massive backlash against people with Asperger’s Syndrome or High Functioning Autism.

I felt totally overwhelmed by what I was reading and hearing. I worried in case my friends were reading the same things as me and wondering if I was dangerous. I always feel a certain amount of shame when I melt because I always think that I should be able to control it. Lack of control. That can’t be good, right?

I knew that the shooting would likely be a topic of conversation at work. What should I do if I heard people talking about the shooting and saying things about aspies that weren’t true? Should I keep my head down or should I speak up and maybe reveal to everyone that I am one of those people? I am always totally honest when I am asked about being autistic, it is not something I try to hide, but it is also not something that I broadcast. The people I work with who need to know do. The people I trust to know do. And the people from work who follow me on twitter know also. They don’t necessarily know all of my triggers, symptoms and stims, but they at least know enough to be able to work with me and meet me half way on things.

Then things got surreal. There were Facebook pages being started that were dedicated to the elimination of aspies. Statements like “When this picture gets 50 likes we’ll go and burn an Asperger’s kid.”. What the hell? I went from being overwhelmed that people would be scared of me to being scared of people. Not just on my behalf, but also for the little aspies at school who likely already found school to be a matter of survival. I know it only takes one idiot to start a page like that, but believe me that sentiment was being expressed to varying degrees in alarming numbers.

Then today someone managed to pull me briefly in to a conversation (monologue) on American gun laws and why people with mental illness shouldn’t have guns. I started to explain that autism wasn’t a mental illness and then I realised I just wanted out of the conversation.

And so now this is where we are. Not for the first time I wondered about removing the word aspie from my twitter bio. But it is me, I am it and I haven’t done anything wrong. I’m certainly not giving in to some Minority Report pre-cog bull shit. Show me where there is a link between planned violence and autism. Then we can talk. Until that point, I guess we just work towards repairing the damage done to the image of aspies.

After thought: I listen to hip hop, I watch wrestling on TV, I like UFC, I’ve seen every single episode of CSI, I got full colours at school in shooting, I have a shaved head, wear hoodies and baggy jeans. I have a full time job, I don’t drink and I’ve never had so much as a parking ticket. I am quiet, kind and gentle. The only time I get stopped by the police it’s because they wonder how someone my age can afford such a nice car. I am far more likely to back away from a threat than fight. Mind fuck, huh?

Post Office

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So I just got back from the post office. I had to mail a parcel to my friend. I figured that this event was worth me explaining.

I’m sure lots of people are thinking “What’s the big deal, it’s a post office?!”, well carry on reading and I’ll explain it.

The post office is physically quite small, the current owners have fitted in aisles where there didn’t used to be any. I was immediately wary of my ability to safely navigate the aisles without damaging either myself, the parcel or any of the stuff in the post office. I managed it, which is good because I fell down some steps on holiday this week and hurt my arm and scratched my watch, I didn’t need to be bumping anything else.

Only one counter was open and someone was being served. There is a sign hanging from the ceiling with an arrow pointing down that says “Please queue here.” and so I stood on that very spot. I realised that the person in front of me wasn’t being served, but was actually just chatting. I wasn’t in a particular hurry for any reason other than a desire to get out of there as quickly as I could, so I waited for them to finish. The post office doesn’t have an electronic system to call you to the counter; I’ve been shouted at before in the bank for approaching an empty counter before I was summoned and so I was anxious about this interaction. It’s very hard for me to watch for a brief glimpse of a look on the other persons face, let alone to decide whether that look means “Yep, come on over!” or “Wait, not yet, I’m still sorting stuff out.”. Luckily I nailed it (woohoo, go me!).

I explained to the lady that I wanted to mail a parcel. She asked me to put it on the scale and pointed to one of the two scales on the counter. I placed the parcel on the top and the scale maxed out – it only went up to 1 kilo. The lady was not amused. I had never seen those scales before in my life, if I’d known they only measured up to 1 kilo then I would have explained that the parcel weighed 2.12 kilos. I knew this because I measured the weight very carefully before setting out. In fact, if the lady had asked me how much it weighed I would gladly have volunteered this information. The lady motioned for me to put the parcel on the other scale. I couldn’t read the weight off the scale, but I knew how much it weighed and so I told the lady, evidently with more precision than she was expecting. Go figure. I rounded the weight to 1 decimal place before the ladies brain leaked out of her nose.

She opened the hatch and I handed the parcel through. She immediately wanted to turn it on it’s side, even though it was clearly labelled as fragile and had “This way up.” written on all four sides. She observed that it was wet as if I shouldn’t have tried to post something while it was raining. The address was fine because when I carried the parcel to the shops I put one hand over it.

At this point, I began to wonder if something was wrong. The lady was asking more questions about the parcel than I had expected. I thought that maybe she was just being nice and making conversation and so I answered her questions. She had apparently never heard of the destination of the parcel. She asked where it was. This was odd because she had the parcel and the post code and so she could see the parcel was Liverpool bound. She printed the stickers and attached them to the parcel. I handed over my money. “Where did you get this from?”, she asked as she examined one of the notes. “Cornwall”, I replied. She spent ages examining that note. Marker pens, holding it up to the light. My anxiety levels were climbing. What if she said the note was fake and refused to accept it. I could feel my brain spinning up. Eventually she convinced herself that I wasn’t trying to pass off counterfeit currency and gave me my change.

I navigated my way back out of the shop.

Organisation Theory

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Some of you may know already, but I am a Software Developer by day. Part of my role makes me specifically responsible for the quality of the software, although I would argue the entire team shares this responsibility. We have a bunch of QA procedures that are designed to ensure the quality of the software too. The idea is that everyone should follow the procedures and that this should guide us towards producing high quality software. Equally as important although not the focus of this post, the description of these processes allows us to explain clearly to other people what it is that we do to maintain our high standards.

So what happens when people don’t follow the procedures? Well, essentially things start to go wrong. Things get missed. Problems creep in. The quality drops.

This maps on to my everyday life.

I need to be organised. I can’t get focused if there is loads of stuff on my desktop, physical or virtual. I position my stuff on my desk in the same place every day. I guess I can use my muscle memory and it becomes one less thing to think about. I hate having bits of paper hanging around; I take notes in my logbook, but that paper is organised by the metal spiral running along one edge. The first place I worked when I left university was paperless, I loved that and I still try to maintain it today.

All too often the rules of life are unwritten and have to be learned through trial and error. Even then, rules that I have taken as learned I see broken by others.

I have procedures and routines for doing just about everything. I need to stick to these in order to make sure I don’t make mistakes and also to make sure I am in control of what is going on.

It’s not just about being efficient though. I really am unable to tackle something if I am surrounded by chaos. Yes, to me, having stuff all over my desk is chaos. I guess this is where the distinction between neurotypical and autistic falls?

Doing things my way may seem regimented and inflexible, but the flip side is that I know exactly what is going on. I can see things in the finest detail. I know instantly when something is wrong just by the disturbance, it’s a bit like a spider sensing the tiniest vibration on it’s web. If you take away my procedures and routines then you are taking away my spider senses. Not only do I have to deal with the feeling of change and uncertainty but I now have to try and do things in a way which is totally foreign to me. This all feels horrible for me and is extremely overwhelming and so I am fiercely protective of my routine and of the organisation of my world.

Organisation Theory: on one side of the earth an aspie does something using a well worn routine and this results in good things happening.

I love my duvet

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Ever since I was little I have always loved my duvet. The bigger and thicker the better.

It’s actually one of the few things I remember not liking about Florida. I struggled to sleep under the thin covers the hotel provided. I have no idea how people manage to sleep under such thin little covers. How do you snuggle something so thin!?

This is just one of those things that I grew up with. I remember doing a massive smile when I found out about weighted blankets and Temple Grandin’s squeeze machine. It was independent confirmation that my dx was correct I guess.

There is something calming and reassuring about the weight of a duvet. It is like a security layer. My objective is to have as little of me poking out as possible. If there were such a thing as a bed snorkel I would surely get one and then fully cocoon myself.

And this is why I’m rolling with fifty bazillion togs of duvet, even in the summer!