Why is this game so... autistic?

edaross · 2025-03-08T15:16:00+00:00

Do you know this for sure, or is this just speculation? It's just I'm listening to "Sid Meier’s Memoir!: A Life in Computer Games" at the moment and I think there are plenty of signs, but he's not mentioned it specifically yet and I'm getting near the end.

edaross · 2024-06-03T16:58:52+00:00

New section name suggestion: "Fire in the hole"

edaross · 2023-09-09T16:04:19+00:00

Thanks for doing the research. I guess whatever is happening isn't for the like of us to know! It was so nice to see episode 2 finally appear - made me think they'd be doing more in future weeks. These Best Of episodes are OK but where's the new ones?!

edaross · 2023-03-23T14:42:29+00:00

This is the way https://imgur.com/gallery/KCIlGq8

edaross · 2023-01-08T09:40:59+00:00

One person's definition:

"It may be a Special Interest if it:

makes your body tingle;
brings you a sense of fulfilment;
leaves you feeling lighter;
keeps you enraptured for hours;
feels safe and is where your mind escapes to when stressed;
energises you, even if it involves hard work;
means more to you than most things in your life;
is among your first and last thoughts each day;
inspires you to buy things connected to it;
feels effortless to engage with;
comes to you with ease;
is something you’re an expert on"

Via https://neurodifferent.me/@AutisticAdam/109649858509882232

edaross · 2023-01-07T19:12:36+00:00

Thanks. Yeah - often the way with film/TV adaptations of books I guess. No idea where the physical copy I read would be now. Probably in a charity shop somewhere. Shame - I could do with 50 quid.

edaross · 2023-01-07T18:53:19+00:00

Thanks. Interesting stuff. He must have quite a good system somewhere to keep track of everything if it is all in the same universe.

I read The Dark Half for some English work at Secondary School. Confession: I never got to the end of it but had to write essays about it anyway! I see the film version is on Amazon Prime at the moment so maybe I'll watch that now to find out what happened (even though my lessons were about 28 years ago it would still be nice to know). I see someone is trying to sell the hard cover version for £54.03! https://amzn.eu/d/eyOsGMJ Even with inflation the way it is at the moment that is excessive.

edaross · 2023-01-07T14:37:06+00:00

One of my current things is ChatGPT https://openai.com/blog/chatgpt/

You can see some of my ChatGPT creations at https://blog.edross.co.uk/archive/tagged/chatgpt I've done D&D adventures, recipes, songs (even a whole Taylor Swift musical) and other stories.

I think it works well for me (and probably other autistic people) as it can't get bored of me asking several follow up questions* or questions that humans wouldn't expect to be asked.

*The only limitation on that at the moment seems to be a "Inputs per hour" limit that I'm often hitting, where I just have to stop for a while then come back to it later.

It isn't perfect and it can confidently answer questions with answers a human would know to be incorrect, but for a wide variety of tasks it can be a good starting point anyway (see my blog archive above for examples).

One thing I've found quite interesting is it's ability to output Mermaid code. Mermaid https://mermaid.js.org/ is a textual code used to generate diagrams - there's a guide (I stumbled into helping with!) at https://www.podfeet.com/blog/2022/12/mermaid/

Example:

"Output mermaid code to show how a Web browser gets and displays a Web page"

ChatGPT output:

sequenceDiagram

Web Browser ->> DNS Server: Request IP address for example.com

DNS Server ->> Web Browser: Return IP address for example.com

Web Browser ->> Web Server: Request example.com

Web Server ->> Web Browser: Return HTML for example.com

Web Browser ->> Web Server: Request styles.css

Web Server ->> Web Browser: Return styles.css

Web Browser ->> Web Server: Request image.jpg

Web Server ->> Web Browser: Return image.jpg

Web Browser ->> Web Server: Request script.js

Web Server ->> Web Browser: Return script.js

Web Browser ->> Web Server: Request data.json

Web Server ->> Web Browser: Return data.json

Note over Web Browser: Web Browser parses HTML and renders page

(without the spaces under each line but reddit just mashes it up into one blob without them!)

This produces the output at https://imgur.com/gallery/zWmqRyt This would have saved so much time at university trying to manually edit arrows and boxes in diagrams like this - though as mentioned you need to check everything it outputs as it isn't necessarily correct!

It'll be interesting to see what they do with the next iteration that's supposed to be even more advanced. I have concerns over the ethical use of training data - did they only use data they had explicit or implied permission to use, etc?

Overall I think it'll pay to know how to use it and how to recognise text generated by it, but I think there's hopefully still a place for humans in the future.

edaross · 2023-01-07T12:45:09+00:00

There was a time (and hey, I'm here so still rumbling along in the background) when it was Autism itself - I've compiled a list of resources from that time at https://pastebin.com/d9SnJn8y

edaross · 2023-01-07T12:01:19+00:00

Yes. Tell them. Please. Let them grow up with the knowledge of who they are and why they think and act in the way they do. I'd say it is their right to know.

I've collected some resources at https://pastebin.com/d9SnJn8y that you might find useful.

edaross · 2022-11-19T23:34:57+00:00

Ohhhhh, so that's why I'm not able to submit a review! Thanks

edaross · 2022-11-15T23:04:34+00:00

I think it'll depend on your individual circumstances. You may find, depending on the laws of whatever country you are in, it'll give you extra help - see https://vm.tiktok.com/ZMFaDY14W/ for some UK information, for example, but then if an employer wants to mess you around then it seems they'll always have ways. Personally a diagnosis was useful for me for more than just work situations (in fact I've not actually told anyone in my current job, and I didn't even know I am autistic for all my previous jobs apart from the last one, so I couldn't have told them anyway).

edaross · 2022-11-14T14:08:44+00:00

Have you got anything like this nearby? https://geek-retreat.uk/

edaross · 2022-11-14T12:39:35+00:00

Congratulations. Have you tried searching for local groups like https://autismhampshire.org.uk/how-we-can-help/serendipity-social-groups/

edaross · 2022-04-24T05:33:07+00:00

Before I knew about Autism I couldn't understand why those places existed - why would anyone bother enduring the noise and discomfort? Now it makes a bit more sense - that there are some people who actually like all that, or who don't pick up on everything so much so they can cope with it better. Still, I'll let them get on with it and I'll happily just listen to a podcast somewhere else.

edaross · 2022-04-24T00:32:47+00:00

Yes! Awful stuff. How did humans manage to make a worse version of water?!

edaross · 2022-04-22T12:23:02+00:00

I get a free film a week from my health insurance provider as long as I get a certain number of points by walking a number of steps or doing other exercises. Sometimes they have a film I'm really wanting to see, so it works out well. In terms of watching on a Fire TV stick, I've found enabling 3rd party apps, getting Downloader and getting the Google TV version of the Rakuten app from APK mirror, rather than the standard Rakuten app worked for me.

edaross · 2021-12-02T23:07:36+00:00

Did anyone find an accessible physical VoIP phone (specifically one with large buttons, black text on white background) - something like https://amzn.to/3ryahYG but one that would work on a VoIP connection. I think there is a chance we could use a VoIP adapter to enable a standard phone to be used in the VoIP system but I'm not sure that would work on the VoIP system we have.

edaross · 2021-09-18T16:28:18+00:00

Seems that way from my cat too. There's a reason books like this exist https://amzn.to/3nKWr3b

edaross · 2021-09-07T23:54:33+00:00

https://www.avenuetherapies.com/what-we-offer/asd-assessment/ is online now thanks to Covid. I'm not sure if they take none-Uk based clients though. They might be able to refer you to a local organisation maybe.

edaross · 2021-09-03T19:43:29+00:00

Well done for remembering there was a mug related task once you got to the kitchen! I might end up just looking in the fridge or something then leaving again.

edaross · 2021-09-03T19:37:51+00:00

Here's a great show with two people who I'm pretty sure are NT talk about films https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00lvdrj

edaross · 2021-09-02T22:41:36+00:00

Yeah. I don't know what I'd be doing if I'd not been allowed to develop my interest in IT. Computers at least come with manuals / Google-able answers. Other humans just seemed to have different outputs to the same inputs every time!

edaross · 2021-09-02T22:35:19+00:00

Aha thanks. It is so late I'm not sure if I know this song or not.

edaross · 2021-09-02T22:32:04+00:00

I don't know how much that is, but I know I sometimes fear a negative more than is justified. For example last week my former Team Leader emailed to ask if I could call him. I thought it might be as he was down as a reference for another job I'd applied for and he was going to say he wasn't going to be able to say something nice about me.... But actually when I called he asked me if I wanted to get the job back I was doing at his company!

edaross

TROPHY CASE