RUNNER JIVE's

1. Wolf 359 is amazing. It’s the only one I’ve fallen for in a fandom sense so far, and I love all of the characters (and deeply appreciate that it’s a sci fi piece with an even gender divide, where the women are treated very well). I was pretty much hooked from the second episode, with its snarky humor and deft characterization among a small cast, and binge-listened to the whole thing. Highly recommend that you do too.

2. Our Fair City is a post-apoc dystopian story with a ton of short episodes, six seasons to date. I’m almost all the way through Season 2 and enjoying it well enough. True to the title, it’s telling the story of a whole underground city rather than latching onto individuals, so there’s a lot of bouncing between story lines (three eps from the end of Season 2, and neither of the lead characters from Season 1 have appeared yet). It’s fun and quirky, but I’m finding that I’m listening to it in bursts more than anything. Plus the multiple plotlines means that you end up with ones you like more and some you like less, making for an uneven listening experience. It does take a bit to get used to having a narrator, but it fits well with the framing device of the episodes being historical reenactments. And like I said, it’s fun and worth a shot.

3. EOS 10 is also a sci-fi podcast taking place in a space station, but couldn’t be more different from Wolf 359. Where Wolf 359 takes place in a present day alternate reality, with a space station that’s fairly realistic but for the presence of an advanced AI and implied faster than light travel, EOS 10 takes place in a Star Trek sort of universe, far in the future with quirky aliens from all over the galaxy hanging around. It follows the story of two human doctors on the station, and it took me a bit to realize that it’s basically a bawdy 70’s hospital comedy, just set in the far future (with the exception of a plotline about two characters dealing with addiction, which is handled surprisingly well and without much of a tone shift). The humor is lower brow, and I’m not a fan of how it tends to treat the few female characters it has, but I find myself smiling and snickering more often than not. I just started Season 2, and I’m intrigued to see where it goes.

I tried a handful of episodes of Thrilling Adventure Hour, and just couldn’t really get into the comedy style; I feel like the punchlines just get really overworked and driven into the ground, plus the awkward pauses in delivery annoy me. Is there a point to jump in later where the bugs gets worked out?

As a feminist I think women should also be drafted if necessary.

As a feminist I think women should not be given a lighter sentence compared to a man who did the same crime.

As a feminist I think female abusers should be held at the same level as male abusers

As a feminist I think male rape victims are just as equal as female rape victims and deserve the same attention.

On the set of Mad Max: Fury Road, the stunt actor for Furiosa and one of the stunt actors for Max fell in love. 

and not be a flabby weakarmed weenie anymore like I want to be an endurance athlete and do a pullup (reach for the stars amirite dare to dream lol)

AND IVE BEEN SITTING AROUND DOING NOTHING BC THESE DANG BOATS WONT LEAVE AND ALSO I HAVENT GOT FRIENDS UP HERE SO I GUESS HELLO ENDLESS TIME WITH WHICH TO WORK OUT

The Global Seed Vault. 

This is a thing that exists right now and was created as a safeguard against accidental loss of crop diversity. 700,000+ seed samples from all over the world are stored inside a giant concrete vault in a remote location in permafrost conditions so in case we fuck up everything like we’re probably going to we’ll be able to re-invent agriculture from scratch.

Also it looks like this

and it might as well have FREE PLOT DEVICE TO GOOD HOME written all over it, because can you imagine a bunch of exhausted, discouraged, hungry and injured kids travelling thousands of miles in search of this place they weren’t sure even existed, coming up a frozen slope and finally seeing it

walking through this tunnel in stunned, reverent silence because they’re afraid to let themselves believe this is real

coming inside the actual vault that’s lined floor-to-ceiling with the stuff that’s going to feed what’s left of humanity and jump-start new ecosystems.

If you know about this place and can’t imagine a fantastic post-apocalyptic story of hope and discovery and spiritually-tinted science about the equivalent of present-day millenials pulling the world out of darkness by learning to grow kidney beans

Ore Monogatari!![Ore no Tomodachi]

EDIT 24/04/14: Whoah, this is still getting reblogged a year on :) few people have asked me if they can use the images in things. Yep, everyone has permission to repost and reuse this wherever. Just provide a link back to the post (URL shortener links are fine)

This post is some personal observations I have made about people’s perceptions of The Autism Spectrum. When I refer to “people”, I don’t mean “all people”, I just mean the people I’ve encountered personally, whether in real life or talking to online.

When people first learn about autism, it’s because their new friend [be it a real person or a fictional character] has been described as “having autism”. These people, not really understanding what autism is yet, look at their friend’s characteristics and decide that all the traits they have are autism - that’s what autism is, it’s being like Sherlock, Abed Nadir, Einstein, that quiet kid in class, your friend’s nonverbal son. The stereotypes can be nice (look at all the aspergers characters in film, books and television, which paint most of them as eccentric, bad with people, but nevertheless geniuses) or they can be bad (like “Autism moms” complaining how difficult it is for THEM to raise their child… or Louis Theroux’ documentaries painting a bleak portrait of autism “sufferers”).

At this stage, the person learning about autism usually seems to think of it as a binary state… like a lightswitch. They’ll tell you you either HAVE AUTISM and are therefore exactly like the stereotype they’ve created (lights on) or you DON’T HAVE AUTISM because you’re not exactly like that stereotype (lights off).

If they’ve read up a little more, they might have seen the word “spectrum”. Now they have a more generalized view of autism. But they get the idea of “spectrum” wrong - they see it as a linear thing: a number-line, a scale, a dimmer switch or volume control, from Zero to Autistic — or from “low-functioning” to “high-functioning”. At that point they say silly things like “You’re very high-functioning!” or “No, but I mean like, the really really autistic kids, who, like, can’t do anything because they can’t talk”. They invent this linear relationship between a person’s verboseness and “how autistic they are”.

A lot of people seem to get stuck at this point, so I think the word “spectrum” requires some explanation.

When I see the word “spectrum” I immediately imagine a rainbow, or light being split from a prism. I’m sure most people do. And sure, the spectrum of colours is derived from the electromagnetic spectrum - we get different colours at different wavelengths - it’s a continuous range.

BUT- where does white light come from? White light is a combination of all those different wavelengths. You can create new colours by mixing different colours together. You can make colours brighter by adding a little bit of the other colours. You can mix the wavelengths together at different intensities. There’s a lot of ways of combining colours.

Which essentially what the autism spectrum REALLY is. Which is why labels like “high functioning” and “severely autistic” are dumb labels. Just because one autie excels at public speaking doesn’t make them unanimously “high functioning”. Conversely, I know of nonverbal auties who are masters of writing. To tell someone with a vibrant imagination, intense emotions, passionate interests and brilliant intellect that they’re “low-functioning” because they don’t vocalize their thoughts out loud is a massive insult. To refuse someone’s pleas of help because they’re “too high functioning” is also a shitty thing to do (I’m looking at you, ATOS).

There’s lots of ways in which we function, some of which are interdependent, others independent, and the levels vary wildly between autistic people, and they also vary wildly in non-autistic people too:

- Long-term memory

- Short-term memory

- Socializing

- Physical awareness

- Spatial awareness

- Vocal ability

- Verbal reasoning / ability to understand instructions

- Linguistic skills

- Mathematical and logical skills

- Executive function / Planning

- Ability to filter information

- Processing speed of sensory input

- Ability to focus / attention span

- Emotional self-awareness

[These might not be the exact distinct cognitive ‘functions’ as according to all the sciencey literature, this was verbatim]

I see my functions as a bar chart. In the version I drew it’s a prism splitting white light into the whole spectrum, but the different colours fade out at different places (and it’s a homage to Pink Floyd :p). That bar chart can vary throughout the day, be markedly different on different days, and is always changing over time.

In times of anxiety all the functionality unanimously drains out of me. In a nice chilled out environment it all comes trickling back.

When I’m in the zone doing something I enjoy, some of those rays of colour will be shooting off the image :D

(Note how there’s no lines on the image denoting the “average person“‘s ability towards a particular function, because this shit is nigh on impossible to quantify person-to-person. All you can do is compare yourself to yourself)