Using Tor Browser with default settings is probably the least time consuming way of reducing a site’s ability to uniquely identify you.

Aww please give Rizzo a hug and tell him he’s the best.

Beehavioural even?

I’ll show myself out…

There are sides?!

You know, I love those albums where they fucked around did things like hard-pan all the drums to the right channel. I’m here for the experimentation.

There are a lot of reasons, but I think this article does a good job of listing the main criticisms: https://www.themarysue.com/the-autism-speaks-controversy-explained/

But in a nutshell:

• They frame autism as a disease that needs curing
• None of their board members are autistic
• They spread fear and misinformation about autism
• As a charity, embarrassingly little of their money goes to actually doing anything for autistic people

Looks like Lejek finally got their own human. Good job Lejek!

I’m really sorry, I had colitis and it was awful. I really hope you find some relief from it.

Yeah covid was worth vaccinating against if you were above 50 or had other deceases since before, or were overweight and so on.

It was also worth vaccinating against if you were none of these things to ensure that people who couldn’t take the vaccine would benefit from herd immunity.

Gary Oldman is younger than Gary Numan.

Oh wow I never realised I was missing tornado facts from my life but I am genuinely loving learning about this.

I’ve had a lot of good experiences with ear plugs. I’ve used musician’s earplugs to help reduce noise without blocking it out entirely, and while I don’t have personal experience with Loop earplugs I’ve heard a lot of positive things about them.

Regarding seeming “rude” by wearing earplugs: I completely understand the concern here. All I can really offer is that you’re doing something to look after and care for yourself: if other people have a problem with it then its a “them” problem, not a “you” one. This is just a personal method I use to help me get over the worry: I think of myself as a child, and consider how validating it would feel to see an adult wearing hearing protection/whatever else to make them feel comfortable, and how it would help child-me feel more empowered about my own comfort and needs. So I do it for child-me, and if that also gives anyone else a boost or helps them not to feel so awkward then that’s just a win for everyone.

Thank you, that’s all really helpful.

Thanks very much, I’ll try that out

Thank you for the suggestions! I’m trying to recreate one of the pads - the more ‘organ’ sounding one. The other more ambient pad sounds to me like it’s actually a guitar played with some form of tremelo picking/strumming, with a lot of reverb and delay.

Well I don’t know if it helps, but the way I think of that is that if I didn’t stick to the times, I’d be letting me down.

Yeah, I understand that. I haven’t found an easy solution to that.

With hobbies, the thing I’ve found most useful is to set a structure of making that time for myself to do the thing I enjoy. Even if it’s just an hour or two, one evening a week. That way I’ve mentally created the space where I can say “that time is for me, to do my hobby”. Sticking with it, even if I think “I’d rather be with my favourite person at this time” helps add some balance (plus it’s a defence against that feeling of neglecting myself when I’m hyperfocused on someone else).

I do this, and can relate with how nerve-wracking it is. I’m afraid I haven’t hit on any techniques to stop it entirely, but for me I found things like mindfulness practices help with some of the runaway or obssessive thinking. Also, finding hobbies or activities I can do by myself has helped me feel less like I’m only happy when I’m with/talking to my “favourite person”.

It sounds like you’re getting a specific kind of headache, perhaps a migraine or a cluster headache, that can be debilitatingly painful. The fact that you throw up sounds a lot like it’s a migraine.

I can’t function with a migraine. I have to take pain medication, lie down in a dark room and hope I can sleep it off.