Esme Povirk @madewokherd@computerfairi.es

If you are hosting a holiday gathering where #autistic or #ADHD folk will attend (or anyone else who would benefit), please consider setting up a #ChillRoom as a quiet space where they can go to escape the sensory overwhelm and draining socializing. It's not that ND folk don't want to be part of the action, but we can get worn out easily and a place where we can isolate and recharge lets us avoid overdoing things and so get the most out of the party.

You can ask people what they might like in a chill room, but snacks, family photo albums, coffee table books, plushies, puzzles, playing cards, comic books, fidget toys, and lego bricks are all reasonable things to try. And it doesn't have to be a solo space – a quiet, out-of-the-way spot to sit and have a conversation is also nice. Protip: If there is an aquarium in the home, use that to anchor the chill space. Nothing beats a good fish tank for chilling out, though a window with a picturesque view is a close second.

If you're someone who would like to have a chill room available at someone else's holiday gathering, try asking them to set one up, or maybe offer to help set it up if that's not too much trouble. Sometimes all you have to do is ask.

Good luck with your holidays, make an effort to include the people whose needs usually get overlooked, and don't let anyone make you feel bad for not being able to keep up with the neurotypical social norms.

#ActuallyAutistic #AuDHD #neurodivergent

The effect of AI is to reduce the cost of •generating code• by a factor of X at the cost of increasing the cost of •thinking about the problem• by a factor of Y.

And yes, Y>1. A thing non-developers do not understand about code is that coding a solution is a deep way of understanding a problem — and conversely, using code that’s dropped in your lap greatly increases the amount of problem that must be understood.

3/

My latest article is about the shooting of CEO Brian Thompson and how NYC Mayor Adams seems poised to use it as an excuse to bring in a ban on masks (which he’s wanted to do for awhile).

Mask bans are discriminatory, ableist and put lives at risk.

We are still IN an airborne pandemic. Everyone - whether disabled or not - should have the legal right to protect themselves from infection.

People need masks for all kinds of reasons. Pollution, wildfire smoke, allergies AND Covid. No one should be forced to risk their health because a necessary medical device has been criminalized for absolutely no reason.

Make no mistake - these bans won’t stop crime. Studies have shown that sunglasses obscure identity more effectively.

The only reason to ban masks is to pander to those on the right still angry about mask mandates - and to make it easier for the government to surveil its citizens.

Ironically those who screamed the loudest about freedom and bodily autonomy during mask mandates are eerily quiet about mask bans - despite the fact that they represent escalating fascism and government overreach.

We really are on our own.

Please - mask up. Do it in solidarity with disabled people who NEED masks in order to safely access public spaces. Do it to support the Covid aware people who just want to avoid infection. Do it to send a message to the government that you don’t believe anyone is expendable. Do it to protect our right to mask in the future.

It’s not too late - but we must get loud, work fast and wear our masks.

https://www.disabledginger.com/p/nyc-mayor-wants-to-ban-masks-in-the

#maskbans #nomaskbans #noNYmaskban #covidisairborne #covidisnotover #sarscov2 #wearamask #respirator #brianthompson #luigimangione #ableism #discrimination #disabilityrights #disabilityjustice #maskup

now that it has come to light that Luigi Mangione 100%ed FEZ i would like to officially take credit and say that my videogame made him do it

Hate is a sticky substance. It clings to you, seeps into your bones, and becomes the defining feature of who you are if you let it. There’s something undeniably appealing about it — this feeling that your disdain, your disgust, your burning dislike for a person, a group, or an ideology can somehow make you sharper, smarter, or morally superior.

https://www.joanwestenberg.com/how-defining-yourself-by-what-you-hate-makes-you-miserable/

So if any of you were wondering how the hell to get to about:config in firefox for android. Now that it doesn't work since how ever long its been.
This : "chrome://geckoview/content/config.xhtml" is the URL for it now. Idk why they thought only nightly needed about:config.

Not a sub-toot per se, just an evergreen sentiment I think about often:

If sexual orientation was a choice I would still choose to be gay.

I love being gay. I hate bigotry.

I love being a lesbian. I hate a social system that prioritizes cis straight men and actively oppresses everyone else.

I love being queer. I hate rigid expectations and rules about self expression.

I love to love women. My attraction to women is one of my favourite parts of me.

To love women goes against so much of what I was taught about the world.
So many people hate women, including women themselves.

To love women is an act of defiance against so many systems of oppression.

To love women is to love myself.

I am not a fan of the messaging that not having a choice in our identity (gender, race, sexual orientation, etc) somehow makes it more important to protect than if it was a choice.
I want choice and agency to also be important and protected.

We see how dangerous it can be when a person’s choice about their own life is deemed not important.
Entire laws are created to control women and their choices about their own bodies, including their choice to use the public washroom they feel most comfortable in, or going through nearly a year of body transformations to give birth to a child the world will let die to guns or bombs or starvation.

I think about all of this when I think about being gay.

A PSA for people active on #Bluesky: your block list is PUBLIC information.

A website that tracks Bluesky stats – which I am not naming here on purpose – makes this job super easy: you can enter *any* username and see the accounts any user has blocked.

(Yes I tested it with my account and was horrified)

I'm alarmed by this because the information could be weaponized for abuse.

Muting may be the safer choice then?

Please read up about Bluesky here: https://dustycloud.org/blog/how-decentralized-is-bluesky/ (by @cwebber)

This is my tiny hill I will die on.