Autism; how to talk about it?

For a variety of reasons, I think I've been that way my whole life, though it was undiagnosed in my childhood. I think I'm now what they call "high functioning" autistic, which just means I've gotten really good at hiding it, to the point where people think I'm neuro-typical, not neuro-divergent. And when I get over-stressed beyond my limits, everyone wonders what's wrong with me? Because they haven't a clue I've been coping all along, just squeeking by, passing for neuro-typical.

I Don’t ‘Have Autism’ —I’m Autistic. Here’s Why That Matters

As more and more people acknowlege whatever degree of autism they may be expriencing... the language to talk about it, will continue to expand. Which is what I think the above-linked article is getting at. It's food for thought, for those who are dealing with it, in themselveres or those that they know. 

Some people with Autism are never professionally assesed or identified as children, and are now adults that may be struggling with some issues.  If now, as an adult, you think you might be one of those people, you might find these links of interest:

https://www.additudemag.com/autism-spectrum-disorder-in-adults/

https://www.healthline.com/health/aspergers-symptoms-in-adults#takeaway

On-line tests. They don't prove or disprove autism, but if you get a high score, it might mean you could benefit from having a professional assesment done:

https://www.aspergerstestsite.com/75/autism-spectrum-quotient-aq-test/

https://musingsofanaspie.com/2012/11/20/taking-the-aspie-quiz/

Temple Grandin was a woman who was high up on the autism spectrum.  As a child, she failed to learn how to talk, and just made beeping noises instead.  Doctor's told her parents that she was severely mentally retarded, and would have to spend the rest of her life in an mental institution.

Her mother said that was nonsense, that her daughter just needed some extra help.  She and hired a speech therapist to help her daughter learn how to make words and speak.  It worked, but Temple still had many other challenges to face.  Fortunately, she had a supportive family, and eventually became a researcher and college professor.  The movie about her life, was quite inspiring.  Here is the trailer:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cpkN0JdXRpM

Dan Jones, is a hypnotherapist, author, and an autism expert/advocate who has written extensively about his own autism and autism generally, as well as hypotherapy and learning hypnosis.  He has much material available online, including a youtube channel, and the Kindle version of his books are very affordable on Amazon.  His website is here:

https://danjoneshypnosis.com/

His interest in hypnosis, and desire to learn how to hypnotize, helped him understand his own autism better, and how to cope with it, and lead him to becoming a professional hypnotherapst and hypnosis teacher.     

High Power SHTF Walkie-Talkie - HYS 25 Watt UHF HT - The Ultimate Surviv...

These look powerful and flexible.  More specs and user reviews on Amazon:

HYS 25Watt Super Long Range Handheld 16Channel 400-480Mhz UHF 4000mAh Battery Walkie-Talkie Two-Way Radio (2Pack of TC-H25W Black)

Woman Destroyed Her Kidneys (in 2 months) By Taking Common Vitamin

Actually, the video talks about 5 different vitamins you have to be careful not to overdue, especially if you have kidney disease, but sometimes even if you don't have kidney disease.  It's good stuff to know.

GMRS, FRS, Bubble Wrap, HAM - Which Should You Buy? And Is the Baofeng UV-5R Radio Illegal?

I liked this, it's a lot of information presented very clearly, about the differences, advantages and disadvantages of these various types of radios.

Also, he has an introduction to GMRS radios that is very detailed and thorough:

In the video he says the GMRS license purchase price was still $70 on the FCC website, even though the price had been lowered.  But that's been updated since this video was made, I recently got my license there for $35.

Pizza, with Carnivore Flat "bread"

The pizza crust was the Carnivore Diet flat-"bread" recipe that I linked to, that is on YouTube.  It's made from mozzarella cheese, yogurt and eggs, looks like flatbread, with a good firm texture.  I didn't think to photograph it when the pizza came out of the oven, but I did take a photo of the last piece, before it disappeared:|

We were really pleased with the result!  The post about the Carnivore "bread" we used as a base for it, is here: 

Carnivore AND Keto Flatbread - make it with only 3 INGREDIENTS!

Full recipe can be found here:  https://lowcarbabode.com/carnivore-flatbread-keto-grain-free/

The Refreshing Frankness of the Younger Generation

     

Coffee on a Carnivore Diet: Is It OK? The Best Coffee and Alternatives

Coffee on a Carnivore Diet: Is It OK? The Best Coffee and Alternatives:

Can I drink coffee on a Carnivore diet? If yes, what are the best kinds of coffee in Carnivore? If not, what are the best coffee alternatives? [...]

I've been on a variation of the carnivore diet for about a month now. My version, includes lemons, limes, oranges, apples, and blueberries. I recently added bananas, so I can make smoothies using A2 milk, A2 yougurt, blueberries and bananas. I have an under-performing thyroid, and bananas offer support.

I've also continued to drink morning coffee, with butter and oil (Bulletproof Coffee), which I've done for years. But I'm thinking about eliminating it for a while, or altering the coffee receipe. This article was helpful in making decisions about that.

Carnivore AND Keto Flatbread - make it with only 3 INGREDIENTS!

How to reverse diabetes (longer version)

How to reverse diabetes (short summary)

Two Easily Remembered Questions That Silence Negative Thoughts | Anthony...

I enjoyed this!

The Real Causes of Gout, and Practical Solutions

I've been struggling with gout for years. There is so much contridictory information out there, about gout and it's causes. These videos by Dr. Kim, make more sense than many things I've seen. It seems like sound, relatively easy advice to follow, so it's my current guide on the subject:





I've already been doing some of these things, but I think it's a question of finding the right balance, and keeping an eye on the larger picture, of how many things work together.

     

Ukraine's goals, and NATO's goals, are not identical

And pretending that they are, is dangerous for all concerned. From the Cato Institute:
We're Not All Ukrainians Now

[...] Ukraine, with its independence on the line, wants all the NATO help it can get — escalation serves its interests. NATO countries on the other hand, sensibly wary of Russia and its nuclear arsenal, rightly resist.

So, a gap has opened in Western capitals between deeds that suggest an outer limit of involvement and words that suggest a harmony of interests.

In large part, this is just politics. Leaders of democracies tend to oversell the stakes to promote policies that entail great risk. But such a gap is dangerous.

For one, it attracts domestic calls for escalation, including demands for maximal war aims, from the restoration of Crimea to direct military intervention. Secondly, the White House’s rhetoric also undermines its own refusal to comply with Ukraine’s demands for high‐​risk assistance in the form of no‐​fly zones, the complete economic shutdown of Russia or actual troop deployments, undercutting its own restraint.

But if Western stakes were indeed as dire as Ukraine’s, if the future of the world order hung on the course of this conflict and our democracy was at stake along with Ukraine’s, then why wouldn’t NATO be willing to join the fight for it?

Crucially, this rhetoric‐​policy gap could also raise excessive Ukrainian expectations of support. But those insisting the West should give Ukraine whatever it wants ignore that what Ukraine wants partly depends on what the West will give them — or at least what it says it will. And claims of fully aligned interests may fuel Ukrainian dreams of total victory that are probably untenable and only conducive to prolonging war.

Though peace talks are now at a standstill, they may revive when Russia’s Donbas push either succeeds or ends in stalemate, and Ukraine may again be presented with an unpleasant peace offering — lose Crimea, accept more autonomy for much of the Donbas, commit to neutrality. If Kyiv thinks Western support is endless, or likely to grow more direct, it may end up rejecting a deal it should have taken and suffer for it when the help it banked on doesn’t materialize.

The problem here isn’t helping Ukraine, it’s pretending the help is unconditional. [...]

In short, pretending Western interests are fully aligned with Kyiv’s risks further escalating and prolonging this dangerous war, with consequences far beyond the borders of the countries directly involved. Read the whole article, for embedded links and more.      

Napping for Adults; it isn't just for old people

Science shows there are many benefits to taking afternoon naps, for health, creativity and productivity:

The Reasons for Regular Napping, and the Science to Support It

[...] Not that any of us are necessarily looking for an excuse, but napping has been proven to dramatically increase and improve learning, memory, awareness levels and more. Unfortunately, due to our corporate, modern day, fast-paced lifestyles, a mid-day nap has been overlooked, seen as a luxury, sometimes frowned upon and in some cases even considered a sign of pure laziness. People have become so consumed with their 9 to 5 that they see napping as unproductive, without realising that napping is actually very good and a completely natural phenomenon in the circadian (sleep-wake cycle) rhythm and makes a lot of sense when you examine the evidence to support it. [...]

The article mentions historical references to well known people who were known to take naps to solve problems, such as Thomas Edison. It's not hard to find articles about that:

Spark Creativity with Thomas Edison’s Napping Technique

[...] Edison may have relied on slumber to spur his creativity. The inventor is said to have napped while holding a ball in each hand, presuming that, as he fell asleep, the orbs would fall to the floor and wake him. This way he could remember the sorts of thoughts that come to us as we are nodding off, which we often do not recall.

Sleep researchers now suggest that Edison might have been on to something. A study published recently in Science Advances reports that we have a brief period of creativity and insight in the semilucid state that occurs just as we begin to drift into sleep, a sleep phase called N1, or nonrapid-eye-movement sleep stage 1. The findings imply that if we can harness that liminal haze between sleep and wakefulness—known as a hypnagogic state—we might recall our bright ideas more easily. [...]

I'm going to try napping more...
     

MoneyManager Ex: A Free Alternative to Quicken

If you dont want a program as complicated as Quicken, but want/need something more complex than a spread-sheet, you might want to consider the open-source accounting software "MoneyManager Ex". I've been using it for a bit, and it's quite easy to use:

It has features that allow generating reports, making budgets, etc.
A window opens, when you want to make transactions, which is easy to learn and use:

It doesn't have a balancing feature like Quicken, for checkbook reconciliation.  But you can reconcile the account by matching your transactions to you bank statement and checking them off as "reconciled" when they match.  Unless you write hundreds of checks or have hundreds of online transactions, it shouldn't take long to do.

If you think it might meet your checkbook register management needs, download and use it for free, and give it a try:

https://moneymanagerex.org/

https://sourceforge.net/blog/july-2020-community-choice-project-month-money-manager-ex/

     

Balancing your checkbook should be easy. And with this spreadsheet, it IS.

I was a big fan of quicken in the early days, because the program was so simple and easy to use.  Over time, it grew more sophisticated and complicated, and offered a lot of new features I didn't want or need.  It also required upgrades to work with newer operating systems.  Eventually, I longed for the simple programe I once knew and happily used.

Have I found a solution?  Perhaps!  Spreadsheets, can be set up as checkbook registers.  There are some free checkbook templates for open source business suites like OpenOffice.org and Libre Office.  I've tried several, and this one, seems to come closeset to my original Quicken experience, with ease of use and functionality:



It's called Simple Checkbook by Joe Barta.  It's a spreadsheet template, that is available to download for free, from some websites.  Here is a good review about it:

https://cervete.wordpress.com/2010/01/10/working-checkbook-spreadsheet-a-rare-bird/

There is a warning, about transatctions that have not cleared yet, and ways to deal with it, with out corrupting the file; this is a spreadsheet, not a computer program.  But if your checking account is simple like mine, this could work very nicely.  It can be dowloaded here:

https://templates.openoffice.org/en/template/checkbook-register-and-balancer-joe

The original website by the creator is gone, but there is a copy of it on the webarchive site:

https://web.archive.org/web/20210619153249/https://www.htmliseasy.com/checkbook/index.html

The page offers some tips and hints for using it, and talks about it's limitations and advantages.

It seems there can be a false error report involving Macros when using it with Microsoft Excel.  Version 2.1 had a fix for it, but that version is no longer available.  But on this page, he has a link to instruction on how to fix it yourself, if it's an issue for you:

https://web.archive.org/web/20190408221414/https://www.contextures.com/xlfaqMac.html#NoMacros

COVID: An Equal Opportunity Infector

Whites now more likely to die from covid than Blacks: Why the pandemic shifted

SOMERVILLE, Tenn. — Skill Wilson had amassed more than three decades of knowledge as a paramedic, first in Memphis and then in Fayette County. Two places that felt like night and day. With only five ambulances in the county and the nearest hospital as much as 45 minutes away, Skill relished the clinical know-how necessary to work in a rural setting. Doing things like sedating patients to insert tubes into their airways.

[...]

The imbalance in death rates among the nation’s racial and ethnic groups has been a defining part of the pandemic since the start. To see the pattern, The Washington Post analyzed every death during more than two years of the pandemic. Early in the crisis, the differing covid threat was evident in places such as Memphis and Fayette County. Deaths were concentrated in dense urban areas, where Black people died at several times the rate of White people.

“I don’t want to say that we weren’t worried about it, but we weren’t,” said Hollie, who described her 59-year-old husband as someone who “never took a pill.” After a while, “you kind of slack off on some things,” she said.

Over time, the gap in deaths widened and narrowed but never disappeared — until mid-October 2021, when the nation’s pattern of covid mortality changed, with the rate of death among White Americans sometimes eclipsing other groups.

A Post analysis of covid death data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention from April 2020 through this summer found the racial disparity vanished at the end of last year, becoming roughly equal. And at times during that same period, the overall age-adjusted death rate for White people slightly surpassed that of Black and Latino people.

The nature of the virus makes the elderly and people with underlying health conditions — including hypertension, diabetes and obesity, all of which beset Black people at higher rates and earlier in life than White people — particularly vulnerable to severe illness and death.

That wasn’t Skill.

The virus also attacks unvaccinated adults — who polls show are more likely to be Republicans — with a ferocity that puts them at a much higher risk of infection and death.

That was Skill.

He joined the choir of critics opposing vaccination requirements, his rants in front of the television eventually wearing on Hollie, who, even if she agreed, grew tired of listening and declared their home “covid-talk free.”

So, she said, Skill commiserated with like-minded people in Facebook groups and on Parler and Rumble, the largely unmoderated social networking platforms popular with conservatives.

“We’re Republicans, and 100 percent believe that it’s each individual’s choice, their freedom,” when it comes to getting a coronavirus shot, Hollie said in January. “We decided to err on the side of not doing it and accept the consequences. And now, here we are in the middle of planning the funeral.”

Capt. Julian Greaves Wilson Jr., known to everybody as Skill, died of covid Jan. 23, a month after becoming infected with the coronavirus. He fell ill not long after transporting a covid patient to the hospital. At the time he died, infection rates in Fayette County had soared to 40.5 percent among people taking coronavirus tests. [...]

There are a lot more details in the article. In short, it is saying it was easier for blacks and latinos and people in lower income brackets to die of Covid, because of crowded living conditions. Middle class and upper class whites had an advantage for a while; it was easier for them to avoid exposure. But if they did not get vaccinated, they remained at risk. Over time, they became less careful about exposure. And now, it's catching up with the unvaccinated.

Viruses don't care about your politics, or what you think and what you believe. They care wether you are a receptive host.

     

Can humanity bring pollution under control, before it's too late? Would you belive the answer is, "Yes, it's likely".

I hate arguing about "climate change". Because whether you belive we are causing it, or whether you believe it's a natural occurance (as pre industrial history supports), it doesn't change the facts that:

a.) Pollution is bad; it kills us. And...

b.) Even if climate change is a natural cycle doing it's thing, our pollution could make the changes even more severe. Does anyone want, or need that?

What I like about the following video is, that it looks at current trends, with an eye to the big picture. What it sees, is more optimistic than you might expect.

Now of course, if Russia or China drags us into WWIII... but that's another story. This story is, we need not die of pollution. Nice to hear some good news, for a change.

     

The Disasterous Concequences of Legal Marijuana in Oregon

‘Talk About Clusterf---’: Why Legal Weed Didn’t Kill Oregon’s Black Market
Legalization was supposed to take care of the black market. It hasn’t worked out that way.

[...] Over the last two years, there’s been such an influx of outlaw farmers that southern Oregon now rivals California’s notorious Emerald Triangle as a national center of illegal weed cultivation. Even though marijuana cultivation has been legal in Oregon since 2014, Jackson County Sheriff Nate Sickler says there could be up to 1,000 illegal operations in a region of more than 4,000 square miles. The Oregon Liquor and Cannabis Commission, which oversees the state’s $1.2 billion legal cannabis industry, estimates the number of illicit operations is double that.

Local law enforcement officials believe that people from every U.S. state and as many as 20 countries have purchased property in Jackson or Josephine counties. Cartels roll in and offer long-time residents as much as a million dollars in cash for their property, and hoop houses follow soon after the sale is complete. Residents have become accustomed to hearing Bulgarian, Chinese, Russian and even Hebrew spoken at the grocery store.[...]

      Read the whole thing for... many stories of lawlessness. Photos of massive amounts of trash and destruction. It's the lawlessness that is the most disturbing, as law enforcent seems unable to deal with it.

There is also the untold story, of mental health problems. Marijuana triggers Schizophrenia in some people with a family history of it. At the very least, there should be warnings about it on Marijuana products.

Marijuana, Mental Illness, and Violence

Oregon also has some of the most mis-guided mental health laws in the country, making it impossible to intervene to help people with illnesses like Schizophrenia. We had a tenant who was diagnosed with it after using legal purchased marijuana products. She lost her ability to work and pay rent, and became homeless. Even her family could not legally intervene. It was tragic, and it continues to happen to many unsuspecting people.

Legalization, and the way it was rolled out and implemented, has been disasterous. Drastic changes are needed, before things get even worse.

Boxabl Factory Update 2021 - Factory Mass Production

Apparently, Elon Musk lives in one of these as his primary residence in Texas, near his space base.
Mass produced on assembly lines, small footprint when it ships, easy to assemble.  Economical. Afordable. Interesting!