aw, man, i had completely forgotten about the cloud appreciation society. and i can’t believe i did. their cloudspotter’s guide book is on my amazon wishlist, still want to get.

i remember driving thru the streets of san francisco, and then road trip thru nevada, utah, my girlfriend at the time and i excitedly grading the clouds in the sky above us, absolutely beautiful puffy white clouds against achingly blue sky. i think it’s fascinating that we live in a world where there is continually art above our heads in the sky.

one task this year to to, by end of the summer, have designed a promotional calendar for my nonprofit. of course, if someone were to’ve set up a basic 2009 calendar in indesign already, that’d save me a lot of work. thankfully, some people have.

2009 InDesign Calendar Template (adobe exchange)

2009 Photo Calendar (adobe exchange)

i find psprint to be helpful sometimes for certain template needs, but currently they only have 2008 calendars available. they’ll probably add calendar templates for 2009 later this year, and it’d be worth a look.

i had issues with malcolm gladwell’s discussion of autism in his “blink” book, though can’t quite pinpoint why. i read thru the book last night, was on the floor of a temporary sublet i’m currently at, picked it up for something to do for the evening.

i think possibly it was his treatment of autism as an unavoidable disability. i’m aware of my… idealistic reaction to this. there’s so much heroic talk about how people with autism and asperger’s are just like everyone else, not disabled, just different, but… i don’t know. we do deserve respect and to be treated as equals. but… so many difficulties, so much struggle with day to day tasks, i can understand the audacity of a neurotypical to walk in and with a snap judgment pronounce people on the autism spectrum as being disabled, not ideally functioning. i can see the practicality in it. to use an analogy, if the entire world were curved surfaces and flat, people with wheelchairs would be just like everyone else. but the world, a lot of it, is not accessible to people in wheelchairs, and so technically, within the context of the current world’s structure, people in wheelchairs are effectively labeled as disabled. and so it is with those on the autistic spectrum.

my mind was a bit fuzzy and distracted as i read thru the book, as i’ve got a lot going on, but i just kept screwing up my face thru the chapter or two where he kept blithely talking about the limitations of autism.

the limitations of autism, as he saw it: the inability to pick up social cues. the literal-mindedness. not seeing the affectations of people, only seeing people as equal objects along with everything else in the environment.

now, yeah, you could go at that one way, but in a completely valid alternate way: how in the hell are such traits considered as liabilities? i, being on the autistic spectrum, am very honest, very to the point, mean what i say, little in the way of subterfuge, believe in honest, open communication with people, make few judgments, am rather non-pretentious, accept people as they are, don’t get sucked into stereotypes and judging people based on what they look like or what they’re wearing.

again, how in the hell are traits such as these considered a disability? to flip the postulation, when i look at the lying, double-handed, inability to clearly communicate or even recognize what’s in front of them all around me in the so-called “normal” world, all i wish, with all heart and soul, is for these people to not be so crippled, disabled by their limitations. i wish they could remove the blinders from their eyes, actually talk with words that mean something, stop judging people based on stupid fallacies and cliches. i see the world around me as so incredibly murky, nobody speaking words that mean anything, looking at each other with sideways eyes, so many miscommunicated things, misunderstandings, lies, denial, and all i want to do is turn on the light, have people see what’s actually in front of them, start speaking a language that’s open and honest and makes sense.

in much of the book gladwell talked about how impossible, or nearly impossible, it is for people to see past the snap judgments humans tend to make, and actually see what’s in front of them for what it is.

reading thru this book, as someone on the autistic spectrum, all i could think thru chapter after chapter was, while some of it was true, and relevant, especially the parts about racial and gender prejudice, telling an autistic person that they are incapable of seeing past subterfuge…

somewhat incorrect, yes? i can’t tell you how many times, yeah, i miss out on the small talk, the unspoken body language, the little soft “clues” people use to communicate, but i am extremely good at seeing past peoples’ dissimulations and seeing the situation for what it really is. i continually run into problems where i am crucially aware of the wrong-ness of a situation, cuz i see straight thru to the actuality of the matter, but no one else around me can see it, cuz they’re too caught up in the soft and warm fuzzy subterfuge, and it only hits them way too late, sometimes months, a year later, the reality of what’d going on all the time. which i’d seen, but no one believed me, cuz all anyone knows about me is i’m a stickler for detail and highly, almost unrealistically hypersensitive to what goes on around me. no one believes the person seeing things all the time. even if the person is seeing things that are actually there.

i did find it interesting one thing gladwell mentioned, however, that it’s in high stress situations that people get into black and white thinking, snap judgments, etc, where the heart rate gets way above a certain rate, people think in straight literal lines. he says this is much like the autistic mind. my mind was too fuzzy last night to disentangle the multi-threaded nature of this, but it was a curious proposal, because it is quite true that every day i’m in such a hyper state of awareness, constantly on edge, cuz everything hits me so hard, and it’s easy to see how this would lead to a specific kind of thinking, perception of one’s surroundings. somewhat fight/flight, i’m not sure about this, but i think he mentioned that autistic people, in their linear way of thinking, think like people who are abused as kids, the state of hyperarousal, hyperawareness.

again, fuzzy mind when reading the book, and might be recollecting what i read wrong, but there you go.

i just spent the last 4 hours putting together furniture from ikea. largely, it was a good experience, very easy, just the time spent assembling. 4 pieces of furniture, very big bookcase, a chair, a desk, and some rolling drawers.

the desk, however. fredrik. i am posting this because i know that someone else had to’ve gotten as angry at that desk as i did, and if they google it, i don’t want them to feel alone. cheap metal parts that bended the pieces out shape, then they wouldn’t fit into their slots, the directions were so bad, the metal pieces, being assembled above the desk surface kept falling off and denting the desk surface, trying to slide the metal parts into each other, assembly is so misdirected the metal parts scrape all the way, supports scratched to hell…

i found myself whaling at the floor with one of the wooden pieces at about the 45 minute point, which i’ve only seen done in movies (usually comedies, now that i think of it). i haven’t cussed that much in quite a while.

hopefully ikea does something about that desk, to prevent catastrophe and destruction. the finished product is what i was looking for, but the assembly, cheap metal and poor directions requires anger management classes, and a hefty series of drinks afterwards, if you actually manage to put it together.

the nonprofit i work for, someone forwarded to me a small film short one of our clients had made, and the video honestly made me cry. to hear the words, the voice, of someone who was homeless for 10 years, sleeping in cardboard boxes in the rain, and then cracking with pride when he talks about receiving the help of my nonprofit and is now in college and working as a counselor, helping other people who are where he was 10 years ago… i don’t see how anyone can’t be hit by it, and not feel the urge to cry in an “oh my god” kind of way.

so i asked the coworker who’d forwarded me the video where i could find the original source for it, as i want to convert it to a format we could use and put it up on our website, via our youtube nonprofit account. and my coworker told me it was the center for digital storytelling that had helped my nonprofit’s client make the video. apparently they had worked with him and given him the tools and programs he needed in order to tell his story and create the film piece.

if that’s the kind of work they do all the time, i give them total props, incredible work.

The Center for Digital Storytelling is a California-based non-profit 501(c)3 arts organization rooted in the art of personal storytelling. We assist people of all ages in using the tools of digital media to craft, record, share, and value the stories of individuals and communities, in ways that improve all our lives.

Many individuals and communities have used the term “digital storytelling” to describe a wide variety of new media production practices. What best describes our approach is its emphasis on personal voice and facilitative teaching methods. Many of the stories made in our workshops are directly connected to the images collected in life’s journey. But our primary concern is encouraging thoughtful and emotionally direct writing.

here’s another word i keep coming across in books i’m reading recently, and its exact meaning and etymological context has been escaping me. which is odd, given what appears to be its definition, according to wikipedia:

Semiotics, semiotic studies, or semiology is the study of sign processes (semiosis), or signification and communication, signs and symbols, both individually and grouped into sign systems. It includes the study of how meaning is constructed and understood.

those are general words, and still don’t relate to the exact “what”-ness of what it is. any obscure concept can relate to a wide number of objects, but sometimes it helps to study the historical usage of a word to find out its more direct application. part of my problem in trying to figure out what exactly semiology (or semiotics, which may or not be the exact same thing) is that the word seems to be involved in many online tracts that deal in so much of what i try to avoid: obscure jargon. i know some people delight in huge books of obscure, difficult to figure out what they’re actually saying prose, but i prefer more to deal with outright facts, context, details, meat of the matter, avoid the fluff.

here’s something that makes a little more sense, from philweb:

Semiotics (from the Greek σημειωτικός, semeiotikos, an interpreter of signs) or Semiology studies the nature of signs, both individually and grouped in sign systems, by exploring how the meaning of a given sign is a function of its relation to other signs within the sign system in question. Semiotics studies how meaning is accordingly produced, conveyed and interpreted. Semiotics differs from linguistics in that it expands the definition of the sign, sign systems and sign relations beyond mere spoken or written words.

again, i see no actual details, though, how this word has had practical relevance, actual studies done, knowledge gained.

Semiology // Semiotics, by Robert M. Seiler:

We can define semiology or semiotics as the study of signs. We may not realize it, but in fact semiology can be applied to all sorts of human endeavours, including cinema, theatre, dance, architecture, painting, politics, medicine, history, and religion. That is, we use a variety of gestures (signs) in everyday life to convey messages to people around us, e.g., rubbing our thumb and forefinger together to signify money.

We should think of messages (or texts) as systems of signs, e.g., lexical, graphic, and so on, which gain their effects via the constant clashes between these systems. For example, the menu we consult in a restaurant has been drawn up with reference to a structure, but this structure can be filled differently, according to time and place, e.g., breakfast or dinner (Barthes, 1964, p. 28).

In the notes that follow, I will say a few words about structuralism, an intellectual movement which flourished during the 1950s and the 1960s, and semiology, which has been one of the chief modes of this intellectual movement. The major figures in this movement include Ferdinand de Saussure, Roland Barthes, Roman Jakobson, Claude Levi-Strauss, Thomas Sebeok, Julia Kristeva, and Umberto Eco. For reasons that will become obvious, I will focus on Saussure and Barthes, the pioneers. All believed semiology is the key to unlocking meaning of all things.

that page goes into a little more of its historical usage, as related to the structuralist movement.

i keep coming across this word in books i’ve been reading recently, and hadn’t heard of the word until a month ago. for some reason i haven’t been able to get it in my head its actual etymology, meaning. reading up on it today, it seems to be because it’s used in mostly medical and philosophical genres, and though it’s a lofty-sounding word, in common usage anymore it appears to mean mainly this, according to merriam webster:

Etiology: The study of the causes. For example, of a disorder.

The word “etiology” is mainly used in medicine, where it is the science that deals with the causes or origin of disease, the factors which produce or predispose toward a certain disease or disorder.

Today in medicine one hears (or reads) that “the etiology is unknown.” Translation — we don’t know the cause.

Aetiology is the preferred spelling in some countries, including the UK, whereas “etiology” without an “a” has taken over in the US. The word comes from the Greek “aitia”, cause + “logos”, discourse.

that’ll work for me.

pretty funny post over at bigsockgrrrl where she references a study… oh hell, just go read it, basically correlations between autism, oxytocin, ocd, orgasms, being obsessed about a new crush as compared to perseverating, etc. i don’t see the post as being intended to be scientific or widely drawn out or anything, just a random tidbit and “something for the mind to mull over.”

i certainly do a lot better in relationships. i am just as much a mess (stare at the phone in incomprehension, speak all literally, easily distracted, extremely stupid at basic things, brilliant in others, etc) in a relationship as without. but i have a need to always have something going on so i can focus on it, something real in front of me, and having someone in your life to focus on certainly provides that. as i said once before, love is the same as obsession, just with love you’re doing it with someone who’s willing.

and yeah, if all these closeted, social misfit people with asperger’s could actually meet up and have sex (i say that tongue-in-cheek), then we could all post a mass-statistics report about whether aspies feel less aspie after they’ve had orgasms. =).

a friend of mine invited me to a roller derby night this saturday, over in oakland, and after checking out the website, i said to myfriend, “HELL yeah.” bought the ticket right there, hopefully transportation comes thru okay.

the bay area derby girls website is a lot of fun to read. i’m glad to see that the site is well designed, the writing is catchy, the photography is stunning, it’s just very well done overall. hopefully the event is just as good.

if you check out the website, you gotta read the “about us” stories for each team, pretty hilarious. here’s one of them, and that’s just the first paragraph:

Eons ago, beneath the festering shadow of Mount Diablo, the city of Richmond erupted from the rich loam of ancient volcanoes. The virgin land was roamed by pigs the size of rhinos, and rhinos the size of pigs. No shit. Eventually humankind emerged from the earth’s primordial sludge and in nineteen hundred and five the untamed land was formally labeled “Richmond”.

Peaceful years passed until eventually the peanuts of destiny began to be cracked from their historic shells by the angry hands of war. A “nice place to visit” turned into a smoke-belching, arm-severing behemoth of industry as the free world entered the second Great War. Women (quickly deemed unfit to get shot in the face for their country) were enlisted to construct floating machines of combat—great clunking battleships that, in most cases, would play a part in shooting the faces of those not yet shot. However, these mechanical monsters, like so many soldiers, also came to an untimely end. The hulking ruins of these metal giants were laid to rest in desolate ship graveyards tucked along the Richmond shoreline, and were subsequently set upon by a platoon of remorseless females that demolished everything in their path — the Richmond Wrecking Belles. With manicured fists of fury and cankles from hell, the crew had a singular goal: break what “Rosie” built. To speed up the nautical annihilation, the Wrecking Belles traversed the colossal steel corpses and fog-filled yards on roller-skates, each pair forged from the deadliest of cannons and the strongest of hulls. It’s also rumored that each member wore an angry octopus as a necklace, but that is unsubstantiated.

The Wrecking Belles continued the frenzied dismemberment until the surrender of evil in 1945 when suddenly there wasn’t much left to savagely dismantle. The Korean, Cold, Vietnam, cola and culture wars ensued, but none offered the Wrecking Belles the satisfaction of yesteryear.

i got my druid to the outlands last night, and already kazzak yelling was driving me nuts. (as apparently a bunch of other people, though blizzard doesn’t seem to listen to this complaint.) so i searched online for a way to mute kazzak, if possible, and found this addon: stfu kazzak. (i usually prefer curse.com for my wow addons, but at the time of this post the download wasn’t available from there).

i have a mac, and so per the instructions dragged the folders manually (and there was no existing “Sounds” folder in the “Data” folder, fyi), loaded warcraft backup, addon was installed, logged in, and everything worked fine. and since then i haven’t heard a thing from the annoying kazzak, thank the gods.