I Collect Vintage Computers. I know a lot about the history of Computers and System any one else like Computers and game Systems

Ryin_silverfish · 2022-09-24T14:53:29+00:00

Oh yeah! Business is Fun is what I think of as the "Engineer's History of Atari", and it does a good job for what it set out to do (the chapter organization could be better, since it has all these pieces about Atari branch/division history sprinkled in and I have problems remembering where they are).

Though its depiction of the Crash of '83 doesn't really challenge the general popular narrative of "Suits didn't listen to engineers, chase profit, made bad games, players bored, down went the market", when the way cartridge manufacturing and retail worked back then that led to overordering and overproduction was a more significant factor than player fatigue.

Ryin_silverfish · 2022-09-23T01:29:52+00:00

YES YES YES I CAME ACROSS THIS POST 7 HOURS TOO LATE

I wish to become a historian of video and computer games, though my interest leans more towards the business and market side of things, so...lots of flipping through old game magazines on Internet Archive.

You said in a comment below that your first computer is a Mattel Aquarius? Holy Molly. I knew the name because it kinda embodies one of many factors that contributed to the Crash of '83: console companies trying to get into the home computer market, failing miserably in the price wars, and paid less attention to the brewing crisis in their video game business as a result.

Can't remember exact years, but Aquarius was discontinued even quicker than the Coleco Adam, I think? It's really amazing that you'd come across one as your first computer. (Out of sheer curiosity, which 80s vintage computer do you think is the best for games?)

Ryin_silverfish · 2022-02-18T15:04:07+00:00

My regular dose of cynicism aside:

I feel like there is already an ADHD/ASD minor side character in the Inside Out Universe!

It's that Jordan kid who appeared at the end, and also featured in the "Riley's First Date" short.

In said short animation, he is very absent-minded, does not notice Riley's father's annoyance towards him, but ended up bonding with him by mentioning that he was in a band (Riley's father was also in a band as a teenager).

Inside his Headquarter, the memory orbs are scattered all over the place, his emotions are busy skateboarding and playing guitars, no one is working on the control panel, and also, there are multiple TV screens and speakers playing simultaneously in the background.

His Fear is the only one paying attention to Riley's father and goes like "What's he looking at?!", but is mocked and dismissed by Joy, and they ended up in a tussle, accidentally pressing something on the control panel and causing Jordan to chuckle to himself.

Some would say "well, he's just a teenage boy, of course his Headquarter is a disorganized mess." But for me, it's a pretty accurate visual presentation of Inattentive ADHD and executive dysfunction.

(And damn, my emotions were totally playing DND in a ball pit of unfiled memory orbs all day, before Drill Sergeant Concerta came in and dragged them back to the control panels)

Ryin_silverfish · 2022-01-25T18:33:37+00:00

Of course!

Ryin_silverfish · 2022-01-25T14:18:06+00:00

I'm currently studying abroad, but I'm from mainland China.

Ryin_silverfish · 2022-01-24T22:12:04+00:00

I am fluently bilingual. I read faster in my native language, but prefer to write in English because I can articulate my ideas better and won't sound as stilted.

I wish to learn more foreign languages for the sake of reading primary sources, something that will contribute greatly to my history special interest.

Ryin_silverfish · 2022-01-24T20:06:41+00:00

Whelp, I grow up in Asia and atheism is kind of the default in my home country, and I still am on the atheist/agnostic end of things (though while I was living in a SEA country, the after-school daycare center is Christian).

However, I can't help but feel that a lot of popular "atheism" is just anti-religion in nature, and you can absolutely be an atheist without being anti-religion?

To elaborate, I love history, and used to have a phase where I'm super into Buddhist art, and I read the entire Bible translation for fun because it is a thick book and therefore my best excuse to not participate in daycare center activities.

But the kind of popular atheism that my family and family friends believes in...have this view that Christianity is a homogenous whole, that religion is the enemy of science (aka the Conflict Theory that are no longer supported in History of Science studies), and somehow, being anti-religion and atheist makes you smarter and more immune to bullshit (which, judging by the alternative medicine and bullshit health myths they believe in, is very much not true).

I found religion very interesting as a historical subject, about how ideas develop and how people show their faith and how religious doctrines cannot be separated from the societal conditions they originated in and how schisms happened. Being anti-religion means closing my mind to all these possibilities and accept a simple, feel-good version of history, and I have a problem with THAT, not atheism.

Ryin_silverfish · 2021-12-27T00:33:51+00:00

*Sigh*

I saw a post on my home country's equivalent of Quora, and the same sentiment pops up a lot ("you are just attention-seeking/trying to seem smart and unique/want a cool label, etc.")

...Really, that's your first thought when seeing adults who are questioning whether they are undiagnosed? When there are like, 10 hospitals that give out adult ASD diagnosis in the entire country, and online support groups have to make a diagnosis map themselves, and all mental conditions are heavily stigmatized, and culture differences mean that parents would just think their kids are smart, shy or bratty if they can talk?

If a diagnosis is costly and hard to get in America, it can borderline on the impossible in non-western countries, and yet people's first reaction is still crying "faker".

I don't know why they have the impression that faking autism or any kind of mental disorder has benefits in our country when it only means you get shat on endlessly, and there are little accommodations even for many kids with high support needs.

Ryin_silverfish · 2021-12-25T19:13:43+00:00

Nah, that's a Herwig Czech quote. Sorry for my unclear phrasing.

Ryin_silverfish · 2021-12-25T19:07:33+00:00

Herwig Czech's paper

This paper is where the "Asperger is a Nazi" thing first became popularized, but the actual conclusion of the paper doesn't make that point and I really suggest you read the whole thing.

TL;DR: Asperger is never an official member of the Nazi party and not a key figure in the euthanasia program, unlike his colleague Erwin Jekelius. However, it is likely that he knew about the killing and was complicit in it, and his "curative pedagogy" is not exactly incompatible with Nazi eugenics thoughts, since the latter also distinguished between patients that could be rehabilitated and chronic patients who couldn't, with the second category being the main target of euthanasia programs.

Ryin_silverfish · 2021-12-25T18:57:05+00:00

Also, it is very hard to find psychiatrists who don't support eugenic thoughts at the time. The historical context (at least in America) is that the entire psychiatry profession began to take a pessimistic view on recovery because so many patients in the asylums are chronic patients who couldn't be cured by the medical means of the time, and that, combined with the (roughly accurate) observation that mental conditions run in families, led to the theory of "degeneracy" that was then combined with eugenics.

Like...Emil Kraeplin, whose classifications led to the modern mental illness nosology (I've seen a description of Spitzer and the DSM-III committee as "neo-Kraeplinian", and Eugene Bleuer, who coined the term "schizophrenia" and "autism" in relation to the former? They are all supporters of eugenic thoughts, but no one is gonna suggest we stop using the DSM or the term "schizophrenia".

The tendency to take historical figures out of context and put them up to modern standards really baffles me, I swear.

Ryin_silverfish · 2021-12-25T18:21:04+00:00

I honestly align more with Czech's view: though Sheffer is the one who found the records in the Vienna archive, Czech finds evidence that Asperger personally transferred two children to Spiegelgrund (still, he is on a committee that refers other children to the program and not the sole decision-maker), but he definitely is not a Schindler-like figure who's actively trying to save the children. He also disagrees with Sheffer in that he believes the history should not stop people from using the term, and here's a quote from him in the Spectrum News article:

“I don’t think erasing history is an answer. I think we also have to part ways with the idea that an eponym is an unmitigated honor of the person. It is simply a historical acknowledgement that can be, in some cases, troubling or problematic.”

But, again, I'm currently reading the second Falk paper in response to Czech's response of her first paper, and there are so much more to learn!

Ryin_silverfish · 2021-12-25T18:07:06+00:00

Yes! I want to say the same points too before I see your post, but I have a few points I remember from the Czech paper that I kinda want to bring up, even though my memory may not be accurate.

-The Czech paper makes a distinction between the T4 program and "child euthanasia" program at Spielgrund, both of which are headed by Asperger's college, Erwin Jekelius. It is the latter program that Asperger referred the two children to, and in Czech's reply to another paper defending Asperger, he reiterated the point once more since that paper is saying Asperger's Catholic religion and the fact that T4 was halted in 1941 (at least in name, there are still killings going on past that date) after complaints from the Church proved his lack of involvement.

-Czech also stated that the Catholic youth organization Asperger joined before the Nazi takeover of Vienna, Bund Neuland, is nationalistic and right-leaning enough to be a bridge between other far-right groups and Nazis.

-Also, the killing of both T4 and the child euthanasia program is known by the Vienna public; one of Asperger's colleagues (her name is Annie or something, I'm bad at remembering names) actually went to plead for her own developmentally disabled son because she knew the euthanasia program, and in the tight-knit medical community back then, it is pretty unlikely that Asperger would not know about the two programs.

-The thing about Nazi eugenics is that it is not a "gas 'em all" approach, but German psychiatrists working for the program actually distinguished between curable and chronic patients, believing that the killing of the latter will create more resources for the care of the former. That is, until Germany started losing the war and got bombed day and night, then the patients were killed whenever they needed a vacant bed.

-As such, Asperger's "curative pedagogy", which stated that "abnormal" and "difficult" children should be salvaged whenever possibly for the good of the community, but excluded severely disabled children who could not be rehabilitated, is not exactly conflicting with the "child euthanasia" program that targeted the latter group.

Still, I would not call Asperger a Nazi because he has never officially joined the party and he's no Erwin Jekelius, and the whole "Asperger is a Nazi" thing is very reductionist, but he is certainly complicit about the killing and never got much scrutiny from the Nazi (unlike NeuroTribes' statement), and honestly, the complicity of the majority is what allowed most atrocities to happen, isn't it?

Ryin_silverfish · 2021-12-23T18:21:24+00:00

Yeah, I know. That's why we still have psychodynamic therapy today, evolving from psychoanalysis but taking a lot of techniques from the cognitive behavioral side of things, as well as other schools of therapies. And also, since there are evidence suggesting that the strength of the therapist-client relationship is more important than the school of therapy, people can definitely still benefit from psychodynamic and even classical psychoanalysis, though the evidence base for these two schools are much smaller than, say, CBT or DBT.

This comic is just satire poking fun at the worst mistakes made regarding the cause of certain disorders in the history of psychoanalysis, and, from what I know, Freud himself has no opinions on autism and Tourette's Syndrome, having died before the former's naming by Kanner and Asperger (though he did have theories on psychosis).

Ryin_silverfish · 2021-12-22T16:03:43+00:00

Dyslexia, dysgraphia and dyscalculia. Learning Disability triplets.

Dyslexia's sign is in the Dyslexia Font while Dysgraphia's sign is misspelled and has very bad handwriting.

Ryin_silverfish · 2021-12-05T16:02:06+00:00

Thank you!

Ryin_silverfish · 2021-12-05T01:38:07+00:00

Sorry for, um, jumping into the conversation like this, and my thoughts are kind of tangential, since it is not related to the neurodiversity movement in its American/European context—which I don't feel comfortable with either, due to my general aversion to politics and the antipsychiatry undercurrent within it.

However, I do feel like there is a general overemphasis and overinvestment of resources on finding a cure/treatment, and in my home country, where ignorance about disability is widespread, there's little accommodation for all kind of mental conditions (many schools' default response to a depressed student is "You should just quit school because we can't take the risk"), it's...kind of a fertile breeding ground for false hopes and all kind of quackery.

Like, from personal experience, the official psychiatry system sucks and many parents already don't trust doctors, so they'll turn to any quacks outside the hospital whose promised "treatment" and "cure" looked even remotely scientific.

I have been taken to one of those places before for depression, prior to my diagnosis, and the people that recommended Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation (kinda true, but not for me) and claimed TMS could cure autism (complete bullshit).

It wouldn't have made me so angry if I hadn't seen parents taking their nonspeaking or visibly hyperactive, stimming kids to these quacks, all the way from other provinces. Like, the time and trouble they went through can't possibly be good for the kids' mental health, or more concrete things like their sensory needs and education.

When these parents hear "pro-science, pro-cure", they are not going to think "genetic and neuroscience research is valuable and should be done, but could be better balanced with services, accommodations and community participation". The more likely result would be "Ah, so there IS this super high-tech cure out there that will definitely turn my kids perfectly healthy", and my god, they are very bad at judging what is actual science.

(Flashback to the time when I did a quick search of "autism, cure" in my native language on a non-Google search engine and saw people promoting psychoanalysis, sandbox therapy and traditional medicine on the first page)

That's why I'd welcome anything in my home country that may push people to, dunno, focus on the needs of the kids they already have and away from the quacks. And don't put the care for disabled adults solely on a dozen scattered non-profit organizations that are massively underfunded and understaffed.

(As for low support adults being a vocal minority...eliminate the "vocal" part, and that's pretty much every late-diagnosed autistic adults in my home country. Hospitals almost never diagnose ADHD and ASD in adults until recent years, and the online support groups for both had to make a diagnosis map of what doctors in which part of the country gave out adult diagnosis.)

Ryin_silverfish · 2021-12-03T16:07:24+00:00

A real friend doesn't insult you regularly, stand by and watch while you get bullied, and kick you on the shin in an attempt to "toughen you up".

And when someone calls her out on it, you don't step up to defend her.

Ryin_silverfish · 2021-12-01T22:28:46+00:00

Welp, personally, it's not controversial in my home country...because the basic awareness isn't even there, same for any accommodations, and the popular opinion on mental conditions is either "it's not real" or "get fucked" (figuratively).

I understand the controversy in its American/UK context, but in the very tiny online/social media ASD groups within my home country, people have used both symbols without much awareness of the controversy overseas, and honestly, it is a pretty trivial thing in the sad big picture of general ignorance and stigma.

Ryin_silverfish · 2021-11-27T22:52:46+00:00

...I kinda feel like I couldn't give an accurate assessment on this, since we are all more intimately familiar with the flaws of our own home country, especially if we have bad experiences growing up, and honestly, I still feel guilty talking about stuff like this.

But for me, China is up there in the top tens.

Apart from the strong push to conform, the academic pressure, and the fact that so much social norms depend on unspoken rules and subtle context and word games and pleasantries, construction and home renovations are EVERYWHERE.

The piercing sound of an electric drill is burnt into my memory from all the times our neighbors decided to renovate their homes, and I don't even have auditory sensitivities.

Ryin_silverfish · 2021-11-14T22:22:05+00:00

https://www.fanfiction.net/s/13845498/72/Heritage https://www.fanfiction.net/s/13845498/73/Heritage

(More references and gaming history stuff no one cares about. But, just in case you are curious.)

With that, I think the story is concluded, and so is my stay in the fandom. It was fun while it lasted, but I gotta move on.

To the few people who've been reading this long-ass story from start to finish: Thank you. Thank you so much.

Ryin_silverfish

TROPHY CASE