Posts

The Friend Illusion

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There were many odd experiences and thoughts I had over the years which I either assumed everyone felt — or if I was feeling low that it was just me. I’d usually try and discount the latter because as one of eight billion people I was fully aware I was statistically insignificant and nothing special. Either positively or negatively. Of course since my diagnosis a third and more obvious explanation presented itself. If it wasn’t a common experience (which I could usually tell if I got odd looks when trying to talk about it) then it was probably an autistic thing. Some of these were textbook, things that might even be used as diagnostic criteria; others were not on any official list of indicators but nevertheless hauntingly familiar to almost everyone in the room when I was meeting up with other autistics. I’ve just thought of another one; something which has been bothering me for years. It’s only now that I realise that they were doing a neurotypical thing all along and that I’ve only j...
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The Weird Case of Weirdcase

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This may well end up being one of the oddest and perhaps most anal-retentive blog posts I've ever written, but it's an anomaly I noticed early in life and have never been able to find a satisfactory answer for.  Perhaps unsurprisingly it involves the London Underground tube map. As I've discussed elsewhere the iconic tube map captured my imagination at an early age and it was at this early age that the anomaly itself was in full swing.  It was all to do with the way the stations were labelled. Up until the end of H C Beck's reign as tube map designer the station names on the map were all written in uppercase. Presumably all the better to read you with – although not if you have dyslexia. Unfortunately at that time accessibility wasn't high on the list of London Transport's priorities, as can be seen from the fact no stations had step free access – despite the fact that so many of them had been originally been built with lifts. Nevertheless, the all uppercase pa...
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Discomfort zone

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Any regular readers of this blog ( even typing that sentence makes me cringe - as if there could possibly be such a thing as a "regular reader" what arrogance on my part etc ) will have noticed that I occasionally blog about autism . This actually started before my diagnosis when I merely suspected that I was autistic, but naturally accelerated once I had the validation of the letter from a psychology professional which meant that the nagging little voice of impostor syndrome in my head had to shut the fuck up just this once. I should have it framed like a degree certificate so I can look at it every time I'm plagued by self doubt. My posts on this subject so far have been about the experience from my perspective. What it's like from the inside. How little things that I thought were just me – or which I thought were common experiences – turned out to be autistic things. There are many aspects to neurodiversity in general and autism in particular. In general I'd sa...
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Linear time as a revolutionary act

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These days if something changes for the worse it's usually because the people behind it are cutting costs and corners. The feature that has been retired or removed simply cost too much and is now being eliminated in order to shave off a minuscule amount of expense in order to increase the profit margin by a tiny increment. Any pretence of providing good customer service and better products has disappeared from many businesses as they wring out the last few droplets of money from their business model as the pyramid scheme of "buy low sell high" collapses. However there's one kind of business where they're constantly scrambling to implement a feature which it would be far easier and cheaper to just leave out. Social media companies appear to be desperate to scramble the chronology of people's timelines despite the fact that leaving it chronological would almost certainly be cheaper from a programming point of view. Linear time is the default - it comes free with...
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Which Universe Are We In Again?

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When considering the many worlds of the multiverse the picture that probably springs to mind, born of a thousand popular physics documentaries, YouTube videos or books, is of the universes like a sheaf of A4 paper or the pages of a book, all stacked neatly on top of one another, running in parallel, minding their own business until the science communicator sticks a sharp pencil through the stack for some reason. It's not that though. Another common mental model is of a constant bifurcation and splitting so that whenever a decision is made a new universe is created (which seems a bit of a waste if the decision is just about which pair of socks you're going to wear that day). It's not quite that either though. The multiverse is much more like a dark smoke-filled room, a continuum of possibility, probability and particles that simultaneous contains all conceivable universes and sock choices. What you decide doesn't create a universe, it just moves you into that part of the...
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The Invisible Sign

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For a long time I was conviced that I was simply rubbish at life. Throw me into a social situation with a whole bunch of humans and I didn't have the first idea how to even begin to attempt to join in. People would seem to collapse into these stable little groups of two or three leaving me floating around like a stray electron. Against my best instincts I often tried attaching myself to these groups but joining in with the conversation was impossible. Besides, I really felt like I was interrupting. It was rude . Even if I did dare to say something I'd get odd looks. I still consider my crowning achievement in this Biggest Outsider Challenge to be when I ended up spending time standing around on my own at the very bash being held for me leaving a job I'd been in for 16 years... Now that was impressive. Of course well-intentioned people kept telling me to try harder, giving me tips and tricks, but nothing really seemed to work. I'd hear variations of "We all feel aw...
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Don't Peel Off the Hype

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As somebody who has amassed a large number of CDs and records over the years, one of the minor problems I've come across is what to do about Hype Stickers. No, I didn't know that was what they were called until now. These are little – often very nicely printed and designed – sticky labels attached to the exterior of the CD or record. Sometimes (more often in the old days) they'd read something like: " Contains the hit single : Hitty McHitface!" but more often these days they give the name of the album and artist (and sometimes catalogue number) as the album cover design is a work of art in itself which doesn't want to be sullied by text. All well and good. However, the problem arises when said record or CD is sealed in cellophane and then the sticker is put over the top of that. You need to remove the cellophane to get at the album but that means disposing of the sticker. Which some people are fine with and all power to them. However as a collector there is d...
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