No one asked, but today, I was thinking about my #ActuallyAutistic journey, such as it is.

For those who don't know, I have multiple disabilities. I've always been totally blind. Around age 11, my hearing started deteriorating. There are other things happening as well.

I have a rare condition, called Norrie Disease, often referred to as ND, somewhat ironically, because I am also very much neurodiverse, which is also ND. Autism is a thing that often coincides with Norrie Disease, and it definitely runs in my family on my mother's side to varying degrees.

When I was a kid, I often found myself relating to older people, and not well, if at all, to my theoretical peers, with a few exceptions. I obtained an amateur radio license when I was nine years old, and the majority of those I communicated with were older... sometimes, much, much older. I distinctly remember, on my first day as a licensed ham, one of my first contacts was 81 years old, and we both had a laugh over the fact that he was nine times older than me.

I found school boring. I got good grades without really trying, acted out frequently, got suspended for doing stupid stuff a few times, but still maintained some of the best grades in school over all, at least until I was in high school and pretty much gave up any pretense at caring, let my grades slip, and nearly failed the eleventh grade. Honestly, I think the only reason I past was because my Algebra II teacher threw me a curve on my grade in her class.

A perfect example was my U.S. history class, which I took as a senior. I spent all semester failing the class, but got the highest grade on the final test with all the possible extra credit, so I passed with a C anyway, pretty much dead average.

Point is, I was that polarizing kid in school that teachers either loved or hated, sometimes both.

I enjoyed taking things apart, figuring out how things worked. Sometimes, this also included relationships with other people, as well as technology. How far could I push boundaries? What could I get away with? How do certain people respond to certain things?
Naturally, this both gained me friends and got me into a lot of trouble. I suppose I've not really deviated from that, now that I think of it.

In elementary school, from Kindergarten to second grade, I was the only blind student in my particular school. Second and third grade, there was one other. We were friends for years.
When fourth grade came around, my school district merged with another, and they decided that, in order to more efficiently, at least theoretically, serve the visually impaired students, to throw all of us kids in one place, which, naturally, was conveniently not located near anyone, way out in the middle of nowhere. Yep, I had to ride the short bus, and I hated every minute of it. The stigma, the kids around me, the driver, the distance compared to my two block journey at the old school... Everything about that experience was miserable. Hell, we had to wear seat belts! Seat belts? On a school bus? "It's for your safety... so you don't hurt yourself," they said. And why would I do that? I know how to sit still on a bench seat. This is stupid!
There were some kids on my bus who had some pretty severe cognitive disabilities, and I wasn't like them. So why was this also being applied to me? I'm just blind, that's all.

I had friends at my neighborhood school, almost all of whom I would now consider ND, looking back at things, and I absolutely didn't want to leave, but such was life that I found myself in a new school with a bunch of additional blind kids.
In a way, this was good, because I had more in common, at least with some of them. In another way, it wasn't, because, quite honestly, there was less I could get away with in that environment.

This situation went on for two years, during which time I made a few more friends, which I would then lose contact with again as I switched back to my neighborhood middle school, which, again, really upset me. This is when the serious depression that has still never quite gone away hit. I had a relatively good support system, as far as my needs as a blind student were concerned, but I also was bullied frequently, being once again the only blind kid in my school for the next two years. This is also right around the time my hearing took a serious hit for the first time that didn't involve an ear infection, after my left ear started ringing in class one day, and didn't stop for a week, which left my entire left side sounding weirdly distorted for about the next five years. This eventually cleared itself up, very gradually, but things would never be the same again, and it would get worse. Still is getting worse to this day.

Also at around that time, I was prescribed Paxil by a child psychiatrist. Not only did this not help, it actively made things worse. I became suicidal. The answer was, apparently, to take more Paxil pills, because clearly, the dosage wasn't enough. This turned into a spiral of badness all on it's own.

Then, eighth grade came around, and my best (blind) friend from elementary school joined me. I could say that things got a little better after that, but not really. This was around the time I finally was allowed off the Paxil, probably because it was costing my parents a small fortune without the desired result, and they were going through bankruptcy, not that I knew this at the time.

High school happened, and I was once again the only blind kid around, which would stay the case for my remainder of school attendance.
During that point, the depression was pretty bad still, and I continuously acted out in class. Called the assistant principal an asshole to his face once, because he stopped me in the hallway for doing something stupid. That's a great way to get yourself on the short list for suspension, in case you were wondering, and apparently, I was done with internal filters.

I think, in retrospect, the only reason I made it through high school was because I had some classes that matched my interests in music and technology. I attended a magnet school for one class a day during my junior year, two classes for the first half of my senior year, then all day for the second half of that year. Along with the more interesting classes, the actual students there generally were more interesting to me.
These classes encumpassed my love for computers, and anything to do with sound and music.

There was Network Administration, where I obtained both a Microsoft MCP and a Novell NCNA. I was the first student in the state of North Carolina to do this, apparently, which got me some money, a fancy award for workforce development from the governor of North Carolina, though the governor himself couldn't attend the banquet at which this award and several others were presented, so he sent the lieutenant governor in his place, and a scholarship for any community college in the state that I never really took advantage of. Anyway, that all got me a job straight out of high school, and I thought I was hot stuff for a minute.

I also took a Visual Basic programming course, for lack of anything better to do. My brain is not wired to think like a programmer, I decided after taking this class. It didn't help that some of the assignments were actually inaccessible to me, the person writing the code, so I did snarky things, like putting labels like "obviously inaccessible button number 1," or "maybe this will actually work if you click it. I have no idea, because it's a picture. Why do you have a blind guy designing UI elements like this, anyway?"

My favorite class, by far, was electronic music production and performance, where I was a combination session player and studio maintenance guy, along with my friend Charlie, who was my age. We met via ham radio when we were both eleven. Dr. Moss was a great musician, arranger, etc. but don't get the guy near the studio gear! Charlie and I would come to the studio before classes would start sometimes, running around going "What did Dr. Moss break this time?"
I think I learned more in that class by fixing stuff than I was supposed to by actually using it.

Near the start of my twelfth grade year, I did something that warranted my suspension again, got myself sent home and all the rest. My mother took me to some sort of clinic, where I was apparently diagnosed as autistic. The fun part, though, is that no one ever told me this at the time. I visited the place a few times, didn't think about it again, until one day, when I was 25 years old, it somehow came up in conversation, and my mother said something like "Oh yeah, they diagnosed you as autistic, but I don't think that has any merit. After all, your little brother is autistic, and you don't act anything like him, so there's no possible way you could be autistic, too. So, I just never told you, because it wouldn't have changed anything."
I believe this is a case of both gaslighting and denial. Needless to say, I was pretty pissed at the time. It still makes me angry years later that such a vital piece of information was not only deliberately withheld from me, but also outright tossed aside, whether or not the diagnosis was accurate, and I now very much believe it to have been so.
Much later, this came up in conversation again, and my mother claims to have no knowledge of this. My brother can't live independently. I was having a bad day. She said something like "the choices you make are your own. Your brother can't make those decisions because of his autism, but you are not autistic, so you can."
I said "uh, actually, I am autistic, in case you forgot." Apparently, she did. This made me angry all over again.

What would I have done with that diagnosis at the time if it wasn't withheld from me? I really don't know. Even back then, when it was finally revealed, under the anger and frustration, I sort of went "well, that kind of explains a few things," and didn't really think about it again for a long time, until I started talking to a few other autists who pointed some very obvious things out to me about myself. One of you in particular, you know who you are. I'm sure you're reading this now.

So, yeah, it turns out I have been masking my entire life without realizing it, and now that I'm hyper aware of it, to the point where I have several different scripts that get loaded for various types of people and situations, where the intersections are discrete enough that I now think of myself as at least four different people, but only sometimes, not enough to be a system, I think, combined with the fact that the older I get, the less I care about societal norms, I have this odd combination of feeling the most free I've ever been, along with feeling ever more confined. It varies from minute-to-minute somedays.

As someone with a syndrome that is still not very well understood, because there just aren't a lot of case-studies, I often wonder how much Norries contributes to it, how much is just who I would have been regardless, and how much any of it matters in the first place. After all, everything that makes me who I am can't be separated from any other part of me as a distinct entity, except for when it can, which is really confusing, but it's the best way I can describe how I feel about everything right now.

I have no idea what purpose this post serves, but I'm putting it out there anyway, for what it may or may not be worth. I'm not looking for any particular thing here, just felt the need to put these thoughts into writing.

Gajim 2.0.1 has been released 🎉

This release resolves an issue with Gajim’s preferences window and fixes some bugs. Thank you for all your contributions!

Support Gajim: liberapay.com/Gajim

#gajim #xmpp #chat

gajim.org/post/2025-03-03-gaji…

Gajim's profile - Liberapay

Gajim is a fully-featured XMPP client.

^Liberapay

Falsehoods programmers believe about languages

lexiconista.com/falsehoods-abo…

Falsehoods programmers believe about languages

This is what we have to put up with in the software localisation industry.

^{www.lexiconista.com}

Rubrik disclosed last month that one of its servers hosting log files was breached, causing the company to rotate potentially leaked authentication keys.

bleepingcomputer.com/news/secu…

"Ik neem deel aan deze Code Rood-actie omdat de noodzakelijke veranderingen er niet zullen komen door het vriendelijk te vragen", zegt Thunberg."We blokkeren Cargill, een van de grootste bedrijven uit de agrobusiness. Zijn onethische praktijken buiten de planeet, de boeren én de consumenten uit."

vrt.be/vrtnws/nl/2025/03/01/co…

Honderden activisten van Code Rood blokkeren voedingsbedrijf Cargill in Gentse haven, ook Greta Thunberg ter plaatse

^{VRT NWS: nieuws}

It's time the world had a rethink about the dependency on a payment processing duopoly. The American payment processing duopoly.

Given the way things are moving they have the potential for an outsized influence on our lives.

Ask anyone in the adult content industry about that. The first season of the "Hot Money" podcast covers this in detail. MasterCard and visa impose their mortality upon what you can and can't accept their cards for payment with.

pushkin.fm/podcasts/hot-money#…

1/n

Hot Money: The New Narcos

A middle-aged electrician is murdered in a quiet Amsterdam suburb. The case leads to a web of drugs, money laundering and state-sponsored assassinations that stretches from Dublin to Dubai.

^{Pushkin Industries}

Gemini Will Soon Be Able to Answer Questions About What's on Your Screen
https://www.pcmag.com/news/gemini-will-soon-be-able-to-answer-questions-about-whats-on-your-screen?utm_source=flipboard&utm_medium=activitypub

Posted into Software News and Reviews @software-news-and-reviews-PCMag

Our thanks to David Nason and Thomas Domville for having @gedeonm on the @AppleVis podcast to talk all things Tapestry with a special focus on accessibility and the important role it plays in app design. #TapestryApp

Check out the interview in ep 106 of the AppleVis podcast - applevis.com/podcasts/applevis…

Boost for reach please!

Come join me for a Code of Conduct Enforcement workshop:

otter.technology/code-of-condu…

Discrimination and harassment is rising globally. Join me to learn the skills needed to keep our own communities safe and welcoming.

March 11 - European, African, and North American friendly time (14:00 UTC)

April 2 - European, African, and North American friendly time (13:00 UTC)

No workshop in May

June 26 - Asia / Pacific friendly time (01:00 UTC)

#CodeOfConduct #coc #Community

Show HN: Robyn – “Batman Inspired” Python Web Framework Built with Rust

robyn.tech/

Discussions: discu.eu/q/robyn.tech/

#programming #python #rustlang

Robyn - A Fast, Innovator Friendly, and Community Driven Python Web Framework.

Robyn is a fast, innovator-friendly, and community-driven Python web framework.

^{Robyn Framework}

I rather like this infographic warning to new employees (or candidates) wondering whether a particular firm has a toxic culture (from Victoria Repa/LinkedIn).

Sadly it seems to be widely applicable & certainly would be something for anyone developing a career to be thinking about when considering their next steps....

One way to resist toxic management culture is not to collude with the firms that facilitates it... but if you cannot avoid these firms at least be fore-warned!

#management

Listen, I'm not going to pretend that I'm even remotely surprised, but I will tell you that this is a slap in the face to every person in the infosec community that has worked to track and thwart Russian APTs for the last several decades.

theguardian.com/us-news/2025/f…

Trump administration retreats in fight against Russian cyber threats

Recent incidents indicate US is no longer characterizing Russia as a cybersecurity threat, marking a radical departure: ‘Putin is on the inside now’

^{Stephanie Kirchgaessner (The Guardian)}

The EU is paying a fortune for broken commercial software, criticizes Michiel Leenaars of the Dutch NLnet Foundation in an interview with netzpolitik.org. Together with his team, he supports open-source, free solutions — funded by the EU. But that could soon come to an end.

netzpolitik.org/2025/open-sour…

Open source funding on the brink: „Delivering what’s needed to make Europe sovereign“

^{netzpolitik.org}

R.I.P. James Harrison, Australian hero, whose blood contained a rare antibody used to create medication to protect babies from a rare blood disorder. Having the antibody was just luck. What made him a hero was donating plasma every two weeks without missing one appointment for 60+ years. There's power in just reliably showing up for other people who need what only you can give them.

bbc.com/news/articles/c5y4xqe6…

James Harrison: Australian whose blood saved 2.4 million babies dies

Known as the 'man with the golden arm', James Harrison's blood contained a rare antibody that saved millions of lives.

^{Kelly Ng (BBC News)}

Přemýšlím, jak se na vysoký nárůst teplot doma připravit už teď. Vysázet stromy, ať mám všude kolem domu stín? Instalace klimatizace, když to je právě to, co zvyšování teploty pomáhá? Natřít barák na bílo? Všude trávník místo dlažby a vodní nádrže k zalévání? Venkovní žaluzie? Rekuperace (netroufám si říct, kolik miliónů by taková rekonstrukce jednopatrového desítky let starého baráku mohla stát a jestli se to vyplatí)?

seznamzpravy.cz/clanek/domaci-…

Střední Evropa na tom bude jako člověk s horečkou 41 °C, varují experti

Německá držitelka Nobelovy ceny a klimatoložka Anette Menzel očekává růst teploty do konce století ve střední Evropě o čtyři stupně. Taková varianta je o stupeň pesimističtější než současné odhady.

^{Jaroslav Hroch (Seznam Zprávy)}