The Reverse Graffiti Project
1 comment June 13th, 2008 90 views
When life gives you lemons, make lemonade.
Found via Laughing Squid
Filed under: Random
Archive for 2008
Mac Accessibility
Add comment June 3rd, 2008 45 views
Sometimes, I get bad pain and weakness in my hands. It is some combination of arthritis, carpal tunnel, and overuse. Yesterday, it got worse than it has been in a very long time. I spent most of the day photoshopping and coding (aka typing). I also did karate, which I am sure did not help. Last night, my right hand was stuck in a claw, and this morning I could barely use my mouse at all.
I turned on a couple of the accessibility features that are part of OS X (mac operating system). First, I turned on ‘mouse keys’. This is an amazing feature which allows you to do everything you can with a mouse using the number pad. You can not use the numpad for numbers when it is turned on. I could move the cursor in every direction, click things, drag or resize windows, etc.
I also turned on speech recognition, which allows you to speak commands instead of clicking on them. I could open or close windows and programs, switch between them, save things, copy and paste, navigate menu items, get new mail, and even go back and forward in my browser.
While I was not brave enough to try Photoshop, I managed to work for most of the day using my voice and left hand for everything except typing. I suppose I could have typed lefty too, but since it wasn’t so bad with a wrist brace on, I decided against it. I think much too fast to type slowly.
It was really great that in just a few minutes, I could find an alternative way to use my computer. Unfortunately, I don’t think I can play warcrack without my right hand.
Completely unrelated random mac fact: While I was writing this, I opened the apple dictionary to find out how to spell carpal tunnel and discovered that a Wikipedia search and Apple technical terms dictionary have been added to the standard dictionary and thesaurus. Wikipedia searches stay inside the dictionary window. Nice. I also noticed that the app has become very wiki-like in the way that every printed word is linked to its entry in the dictionary. The links are not obvious until you hover over them which is also very nice. Hard to image reading a dictionary covered in bright blue underlined words!
Filed under: Mac Stuff
Tags: accessibility
Great Person Award
2 comments May 16th, 2008 444 views
As a supervisor, Karen is patient, humorous and is clear about her expectations of the team. She brings out the best in people by looking at issues from different angles and valuing others’ opinions.
– quote from K’s nomination letter
Wednesday was the ceremony for the UCSF Great Person Award that Karen won in December. It is an award given to honor 4 people each quarter who are nominated by their colleagues for the exceptional quality and value of their contributions to the workplace.
To win, people must contribute to programs resulting in tangible added value, serve as a role model, make the department a better place to work, and inspire others to excel.
I am so very proud of K and so happy that she is being recognized for all of the hard work that she does every day.
The ceremony was really nice and there was a reception afterwards. I could not think of a better name for this award unless it was the ‘Greatest Person in the Whole World Award’.
Congratulations K 
Filed under: Random
Tags: life
Thinking About Autism
3 comments May 9th, 2008 377 views
Amanda at Ballastexistenz has written an excellent post for Blogging Against Disablism Day describing what it is like to be autistic and taking a look at the trend of accusing people of using autism as an excuse for having poor social skills, among other things.
The post goes on to talk about techniques used by autistic people to appear “normal” and includes a video that explains how it can take all day to boil a pot of water. If a picture is worth a thousand words, that video is worth a million.
One interesting thought, which I had never heard before, is that some people might choose to be non-conformist as an attempt to mask involuntary weirdness.
There can also be attempts to mask involuntary weirdness by appearing to be voluntarily weird. Since chosen non-conformity can in some circles have higher social status than involuntary non-conformity, and since it can lead to an internal sense of being in control of one’s own weirdness, even though of course the person isn’t really.
I have always been non-conformist. For the most part it has been because I have never fit in with the “normal” people and could never figure out their completely illogical rules and bizarre system of prioritizing things.
In the place where I grew up, fitting in was essential to being treated like a human being. If you looked or acted differently, you could be assured that people would treat you badly, if not to your face, then behind your back. If you were a child who was different, you were doomed to a miserable life of physical and mental abuse where people’s idea of how to help you was to make you look and act like everyone else.
In high school, I became a “burnout”. We were a bunch of misfits who hung out in parking lots and did a lot of drugs. It was the first time I ever felt like part of a group, like I fit in. I wonder if this is the kind of chosen non-conformity that Amanda is talking about.
From that point on, my friends were always part of some nonconformist group or other. The focus changed from drugs to music to peace and love to politics to computers, but the feeling of not being alone and not “having” to fit in have played a large role in my periodic decisions to stay alive and keep trying rather than giving up and killing myself.
The autism community has taken ‘fitting in’ to a whole new level for me. It is not like other groups where I share the focus of interest, but am still kind of clueless about how people’s minds work outside of that focus. It is the opposite. It is an incredibly diverse group of people with all kinds of interests that I may or may not share, a group of people that make sense to me because I can understand how they think and how their minds might take them from fact A to conclusion B.
I think that autism is a whole different way of seeing the world. Whether it is good or bad should not be a question. It affects many people’s lives to a degree where they need help and assistance with basic daily tasks, and other people’s lives in a way where they contribute things to the world that would never exist without them. Some people fall into both of those groups or any point in between. unrulyasides has an interesting post about the idea of automatically classifying autism as a disability.
I don’t really have a point to all of this right now. Reading things written by people whose brains work similarly to mine gets me thinking in a way that other things don’t. It is not that other things do not make me think. Tons of things make me think! The difference is that these things do not need to be translated into a framework that I can understand before they are processed. An entire level of energy expenditure is removed. It is nice. Still, it gets me rambling.
photo credit: Spoungeworthy
Filed under: Autism / Asperger's
4 Good Things
3 comments May 1st, 2008 372 views
My brain has not been cooperating lately, but thankfully it seems to be taking a turn for the better these past couple of days.
Yesterday was the first day I was feeling good enough to get out of the house since Saturday, not including short trips to the BART station. Went to the library in the morning and helped my friend D move stuff in the afternoon. Amazing how a little fresh air can make everything better. The good company didn’t hurt either 
When my brain is not working, it is very hard to get out of the house because I can not organize and implement the steps needed in order to leave the house. Things that should be happening automatically do not. Instead, it becomes a complex, often insurmountable task.
Steps needed to leave the house:
- Remember that you are going to leave the house
- Stop what you are doing
- Get ready to leave
- Put on jacket, gloves, etc.
- Bring anything that is needed, i.e. backpack, library card
- Don’t get sidetracked
- Don’t start working again because you forgot you were going out
- Think about destination or at least what direction to head out in
- Don’t answer the phone because your client has a “quick question”.
- If you do answer the phone, read the email, etc., do not think “This is easy. I will do it real fast before I leave.” because that will place you back at step 1.
- Don’t get sidetracked
- Say goodbye to cats and walk out the door
Speaking of being sidetracked, I almost forgot the 4 good things.
Good thing #1: K, aka Nikkyo, dings 70!
Congratulations K! We can finally quest together for real. Woo hoo
Good thing #2:
Renaeden’s repost of The Top Ten Terrific Traits of Autistic People.
Thanks Renaeden!
Good thing #3: FaceBook In Reality
Got a link to this in an email this morning. Cracked me up.
Good thing #4
Did I mention that I got out of the house yesterday? Old news by now. Good thing #4 is that I am going again out as soon as I complete the 10 steps listed above
Filed under: Autism / Asperger's, Random
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