Australis13

I can empathise. Pumpkin is a particularly strong flavour/smell, and even today I cannot stomach pumpkin soup.

Glad she was able to recover and finish the design. It’s an impressive (suitably creepy and terrifying) result.

That’s quite possible, unfortunately…

I have several use cases, a big one being that it gives me an alternate storage medium for backing up home photos and videos. Obviously there’s caveats on how long BD-Rs last (although M-discs should outlast me) and the issue of needing a player in future, but it gives me more peace of mind knowing that I can backup these sorts of things to different storage types (external hard drives are all well and good until they’re corrupted by power issues or user error, or you want to keep a copy at a relative’s place and it’s a multi-hour trip… with optical media you can just keep adding discs to the offsite backup as needed and update the external HDD less frequently).

The other major use case I have has already been mentioned - backing up Blurays that I’ve bought (or, in the case of a few shows I like, being able to compare the DVD vs Bluray frame by frame).

Interesting to see that demand for optical drives is increasing, although apparently it’s only in Japan: https://www.tomshardware.com/software/windows/optical-drive-demand-surges-amid-windows-10-retirement-japanese-users-switching-to-windows-11-are-buying-up-blu-ray-drives

Still, hopefully that means Bluray writers stay on the market for a bit longer.

I’m sorry to hear that. It’s not your fault, it’s that whoever assessed you did not have a good understanding of autistic masking (nor how difficult it can be to stop masking once you’ve been doing it for decades - it’s not like there’s an on/off switch…).

Physio = physiotherapist, myo = myotherapist. Here in Australia they’re separate professions, but I understand in the US there’s an overlap.

Can you describe the pain? For me at least, muscle pain generally seems to be an ache or there’s a pulling sensation as well as the pain (indicating muscular tension), whereas if it’s nerve pain it can be a burning sensation, really “sharp” pain, or even just “pure” pain.

Also, can you tell us what exercise activities are you trying that cause this pain? Not all exercises work for everyone (e.g. I do not jog or run because I have foot issues and even walking around for a few hours, despite my orthotics, leaves my feet really sore; on the other hand, I enjoy cycling… when I have the time!).

One suggestion I would have is to see a physio or myo if you can afford it and get checked out - see if they can help you identify which muscles are particularly weak and where you tend to carry tension (depending on how well your interoception works, you may not even be aware of it). Addressing those types of issues can help make exercise a lot less painful (particularly if you have muscular tension issues in certain areas, since that makes the surrounding muscles overwork just to compensate).

Oh, I definitely agree. We need better privacy and data protection laws here in Australia too. In the meantime, however, I do what I can to minimise my footprint. I’m well aware that other people are going to be the weak link!

Fortunately not… I’m generally the one responsible for IT maintenance with my parents’ as they get older. Disabled OneDrive long ago since they don’t use it.

Probably right on the money, sadly.

If I hadn’t abandoned OneDrive already, this would make me do so.

I wonder if the concept of identity has anything to do with it (see https://neuroclastic.com/the-identity-theory-of-autism-how-autistic-identity-is-experienced-differently/ )? If advertising focuses on NTs and social/relational examples for the product, perhaps that is why it is less effective on autistics?

The desktop application (both Windows and Linux) allows free users to pick tracks. The mobile application does not.

The mobile application has always had this restriction for free users (as far as I know), but the desktop application has not.

I think the 90 minutes is how long OP took to create the project and write up the document.

This is definitely a decent starting point but not a complete solution, unfortunately. It’s not always cost-effective if you only want a few tracks from an album or need to import it to get it at all (or if it was a limited release it can be hard to find at all).

I agree (for similar reasons).

That is why the DSM has levels 1-3 (classified in terms of support requirements), with level 3 requiring the most support. This classification is actually used (at least here in Australia) with NDIS support.

It’s not a linear scale from “mild*” to “debilitating”. A spectrum just groups closely-related things (e.g. consider the visible light spectrum; red is not more of a colour than blue). The whole point of it was to highlight that autism is a complex condition that has a wide range of presentations.

There is also a good argument that so-called “severe” autism (learning disabilities, etc.) are conditions that are simply more likely to be comorbid with autism (just like many other medical conditions) and are not an intrinsic part of autism itself.

*mild really should just be considered high-masking and indicates that those people have learnt how to “fit in” to a neurotypical society.

This appears to be the research paper in question: https://ehjournal.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12940-025-01208-0

It’s a lot to wade through right now, but it does suggest that this should be investigated further.

Given the highly genetic and heriditary nature of ASD and ADHD, I really wish studies for prenatal exposure included assessments of the mother at minimum and ideally both parents. This would help clarify two important points:

1. Does the child in question already have the genetic potential for ASD or ADHD and if so, does the prenatal exposure to certain medication increase the likelihood of it being exhibited?

2. How much of the correlation between maternal use of certain medications and ASD/ADHD diagnoses is a result of the mother being neurodivergent (but potentially undiagnosed) and hence taking medication for one of the many medical conditions that are statistically more likely to be comorbid with ASD & ADHD? (See https://allbrainsbelong.org/all-the-things/ for details)

Given how genetically complex both ASD and ADHD are (and are clearly multi-factorial in nature) I would expect both of the above points to explain the majority of any apparent link.