Vanessa's Domain

Do what thou whilt shall be the whole of the law.

I still do not understand putting First Person Shooters on consoles that aren’t the Steam Machine. Controllers that only have joysticks are simply unsuitable to the task. All the games that use it anyway involve the game cheating for you to make up for the imprecise movement of a joystick. In order to avoid constant joystick drift, controllers have a dead zone in the middle where moving it within that range doesn’t send any output. This is necessary to ensure the joysticks aren’t sending inputs when you’re not moving it, which makes it impossible to get the kind of fine control needed to be accurate since it ignores the fine movement by design necessity. Autoaim is such a common feature in these games on console that most people don’t even notice when it’s happening, but give that to someone who primarily plays PC FPS games and they’ll notice immediately. The only answer to this that I’ve ever used that was on par with the classic WASD + mouse input method is the Steam Controller (and presumably the Steam Deck since it also has this) which replaces the right joystick with a trackpad like on a laptop. With a little practice, one can quickly be just as accurate in ways controller joysticks simply can’t. As a result when I’m playing console games I can get pretty frustrated that I can’t just connect my Steam Controller to the console and use that instead of the regular controller when playing these kinds of games.

Love is the law, love under will.

Keep shooting,
Vanessa

Do what thou whilt shall be the whole of the law.

This was written in response to this article (link below) and I thought it worth sharing here since there seems to be a lot of ambiguity between what people are saying and what corporate is hearing.

https://www.inc.com/kelly-main/an-anonymous-survey-of-about-500-employees-exposed-a-bizarre-truth.html

I I would actually prefer more isolation in terms of the workspace. When I’m in office the thing I want most is proper cubicles instead of this open office format nonsense. It’s very distracting and obnoxious. I always end up putting in headphones to tune it all out so I can actually focus. Half the time I’m not even listening to anything, I just have them in for the noise cancellation. You don’t solve isolation with meetings or with making every God damn thing you’re coworkers do a potential distraction. You solve it by being more kind and compassionate. You solve it by not being so anal about metrics and report cards. You solve it by making what your employees say and do matter. Your solve it by giving people raises so they don’t feel so exploited and can thereby afford to live more comfortably. You solve it by giving better benefits so they can get access to things they need as human beings. You solve it by not turning everyone into a number on a spreadsheet but rather thinking of them in human terms. You solve it by letting them form unions so they feel like they’re represented in ways that matter. You solve it by reducing the wealth disparity so employees don’t feel like they’re in a feudalist dystopia. You solve it by making sure their boundaries and religions are respected. You solve it by actually caring about them beyond their labor. You solve it by making sure their needs for accommodations are met. You solve it by making sure they’re being listened to and their complaints are being addressed in a speedy manner. In short, you solve it by human decency, compassion, recognition, equity, and understanding. And by never letting getting to know them as a person and being open and honest to become a weapon against them later on when the belt is being loosened. Plus giving them a 2 weeks notice before you let them go if you’re laying them off so they have a chance to find a new job first, just like you expect from them when they’re leaving of their own accord.

Love is the law, love under will.

Hopefully,
Vanessa

Do what thou whilt shall be the whole of the law.

Sometimes I think allism needs to be classified as a disorder characterized by an inability to communicate clearly, directly, deliberately, and effectively then expecting the other party to be able to read their mind to understand what they really meant. Then when the other party misinterprets their vague double-speak they have a meltdown and act like you’re the problem when they’re the ones not just saying what they mean. If you don’t say what you mean you have no right to act surprised when they can’t read your mind.

Beyond that, there’s also the aspect of them not being able to handle straightforward, direct, clear, and truthful speech. They can’t just accept new information and move on. Instead they think they have to read into it a hostility that may or may not exist but is definitely unimportant. They’ll not acknowledge what you’ve said, just staying silent, and you’re left guessing what they didn’t get and trying to repeat stuff to get a response so you know they heard you. Apparently repeating things is one of the things that can trigger them into this rude silence, which is absurd because you start repeating yourself because you think they didn’t hear you because they didn’t do the polite thing of just acknowledging what you said. If they did, you wouldn’t have to repeat yourself in the first place. They do the exact opposite of what you should do to get someone to stop repeating trying to make sure you heard and understood what they said and took the information in.

Allistics really need to grow a thicker skin. If someone just telling it like it is offends you, that’s on you. You’re the one who can’t take hearing facts. You’re the one who overreacts to information. You’re the problem. Don’t dis on the normal autistic person and pretend it’s their fault you don’t know how to deal with your emotions in a healthy way. Somehow they’ve gotten it so twisted that they think someone having a breakdown or a shutdown is the problem when the actual problem was the people and/or environment around then that caused it. It’s like cornering a dog and screaming at it and then being surprised when it barks and growls. Of course if you point that out to them once you’ve calmed down, they get all defensive as if you just pissed in their cereal.

“People are so used to others being indirect and phony that clear, direct communication appears aggressive.”
-Unknown.

Love is the law, love under will.

Frustrated,
Vanessa

Do what thou whilt shall be the whole of the law.

I think the thing that pisses me off quickest is when someone is being belligerently ignorant and are so set in their delusions that they won’t look at the facts even when you put them directly in front of them. Several times recently I’ve gone into lengthy explanations about why something is wrong and doesn’t fit the facts and they just get mad at you and refuse to even consider the facts, much less update their views to match reality. If we could just do away with this human tendency we could advance the species significantly overnight. I make it a personal rule that I never accept anything too much as to make me immovable, and that I will remain always open to change my views in light of new information if it is confirmed to indeed be substantiated fact. I don’t understand why most people seem incapable of doing this. You should always maintain a healthy level of skepticism and intellectual curiosity. You should always go where the facts lead. To do otherwise is to be belligerently immobile no better than a stubborn ox.

Of course there’s always also the knowledge that comes from gnosis, but such knowledge cannot be shared unless substantiated externally. Nobody should be expected to accept your gnosis as fact for themselves without their own independent investigation if that is even possible. Don’t just dismiss it out of hand, and believe people when they tell you about their experiences, but never expect someone to take your words as gospel when all they have to take them on is your word that you’re telling the truth. However, that on its own is one thing but once you start having a lot of people having the same experience, even if it cannot be measured, then that becomes a form of information substantiation in itself.

Love is the law, love under will.

Frustrated,
Vanessa

Do what thou whilt shall be the whole of the law.

My favorite genre of games are first person shooters, but not just any old first person shooter, specifically that kind that predominantly came out on MS-DOS and those games that mimic that style of play. They’re fast paced and intense with absurdly powerful weapons largely fighting hoards of zombie-like enemies with your circle strafe. However, the name of the genre…well…they’re calling it “Boomer Shooters” for some reason. Don’t know who came up with that but they were an idiot.

I hate the term “Boomer Shooters” because it just plain doesn’t make any sense and it annoys me that it has become the name of the genre. Boomers weren’t the ones who grew up with those games, they grew up with stuff like the Atari 2600. It was Gen X that grew up with them. If we’re naming them based on a generation title then they should be called “X-Games” but I think that term is already taken.

Personally, I’ve started to bring back the term “Doom Clones” since that was the term they used back when those games were new. All first person shooters were called that even if they were very different from Doom. It was just the language of the time. To me, it fits way better and is more authentic.

Love is the law, love under will.

In the name of our BFG,
Vanessa

Do what thou whilt shall be the whole of the law.

I got scammed by social engineering. Long story short someone who I though I had been friends with for months and months but who was apparently just waiting to scam me had me convinced he was sending me money to pay off some of my credit card debt. He submitted a fake check and my account got locked down. There was more to it but honestly it’s too embarrassing to talk about in detail. Now I have to go through a lot of rigamarole to deal with it.

It’s so frustrating. I thought I was smarter than this but nobody is smarter than social engineering, especially when you’re in debt. You’d think with all the trainings work has given me over the years, with how many scam baiting videos I watch, and with how smart I’m supposed to be that I would be better than this but he knew the exact buttons to hit to get me to believe him. We met over mutual interests, not through channels you’d expect for such a thing like shoddy emails or phone calls. If I’m being honest, thinking that I was too smart to get scammed was actually a factor in making me more vulnerable to this particular kind of scam.

The entire way he set it up was nothing like anything you read about or hear about. I almost thought it was a false alarm before they told me that the reason it was marked as fraud was that it was obviously photoshopped. Before then I thought he was telling me the truth. It was a good thing that I was broke so he couldn’t take anything because there was nothing to take. sigh I’m just so frustrated more than anything. The way he framed it is what got me. I genuinely thought he was trying to help me with my finances.

I don’t blame myself. I got taken in by someone really good at scamming in a way I’d never heard of before so didn’t know how to guard against. I just wish I wasn’t like this. I’m tired of being taken advantage of. I’m not sure what hangup I have that makes me so vulnerable, but it’s exasperating. I’m sure some combination of factors is what did it. I think it likely autism played a part. Worst thing is, I don’t know how to protect myself. That’s the scary part.

Love is the law, love under will.

Crushed,
Vanessa

Do what thou whilt shall be the whole of the law.

I know the Mandella Effect is no longer part of the current cultural conversation but this occurred to me and I felt like putting it somewhere. This one is just gonna be a brief note of something I realized while watching AVGN’s Berenstain Bears episode. We never knew what it said written out as kids back then when we were at the age of the target audience. It was written in cursive and most of us didn’t learn that until much later. For whatever reason “Berenstein” became the common pronunciation so we just assumed that’s what the cursive said and that got saved in our heads but once you know how to read you can never get back to the mindset of when you couldn’t. We see the cursive now and know how to read it so we’re surprised why it doesn’t match the pronunciation we were accustomed to and many of us insist it must have been spelled the way we had assumed it was spelled as small children, but it wasn’t.

Love is the law, love under will.

Satisfied,
Vanessa

Do what thou whilt shall be the whole of the law.

When I was young I was all about technology, especially electronics, but I find the older I get the less I like it. These days, I find myself loathing every new electronic innovation. Primarily it’s out of concern for how it will be exploited at the expense of the working class and how it’s often released unfinished and buggy making us be the guinea pigs. But also I don’t always want to have to fiddle with these things when they bring me no substantial benefit.

I hate that Kroger got rid of their normal grocery checkout lanes in favor of more self checkouts and these weird hybrid things. I’m the customer. You shouldn’t be making me do your job for you. It’s one thing to have the option but it’s another thing entirely to force you to do it. I come into your store and select some items to buy then you want me to fiddle around with a computer thing to tell you what I want to buy instead of you just doing it? Feels pretty exploitative. This is a big part of why I prefer to shop at Meijer but unfortunately that’s not always practical. Self checkout is nice when I only have a few items and there’s not much of a line but if I have a lot of stuff or heavy stuff I really don’t want to have to be the one to deal with scanning it all. Plus sometimes I prefer to interact with a real human rather than fiddle with machines.

I have just been made aware that they have driverless Ubers now. Not content to put classic taxi services out of business, Uber now wants to eliminate the drivers entirely. That’s absolutely terrifying! Nobody’s at the wheel! That’s incredibly dangerous! How is that even legal!? It shouldn’t be. Tesla’s failed self-driving launch should have been a clue. There should ALWAYS be a real human at the wheel to correct for when the computer inevitably fails. There should always be a manual override for EVERYTHING mechanical. Nobody should trust a computer to do anything without oversight by real humans. So now we have to look out for sleeping Tesla drivers and driverless Ubers. This is not ok.

Also seeing a car driving itself is incredibly creepy.

Self-driving failure related video clips:

Watch the related video reel here

Video shows moments before fatal Uber self-driving crash | ITV News

Cop Struggles To Pull Over Driverless Car

Driverless taxis in San Francisco cause traffic jams, chaos

Tesla Autopilot Crash FAIL! #Shorts

Love is the law, love under will.

Concerned,
Vanessa

Do what thou whilt shall be the whole of the law.

By the power of truth I while living have conquered the universe.

I really fucking hate the way anti-intellectuallism has spread in this fucking country. People seem to think facts are just opinions and that any belief is justified even if it goes against reality. Proof holds no weight with these people because they don’t actually care about what is but rather what they want it to be, truth be damned. It’s scary and disgusting. The conservatives are the biggest offenders but I’ve seen it from all over the place on all kinds of things. I’m sorry but no that’s not how reality works. You can disagree until you’re blue in the face but that doesn’t make false things true or make it ok for you to cling to such ignorance and stupidity. I’m sick of it. People need to learn to be intellectually honest.

Love is the law, love under will.

Frustrated,
Vanessa