The other day I had to get new glasses, and I braced myself for my lenses to be incredibly thick and expensive to boot again - but then I had them made, they look normal, and they barely cost me a Benjamin. Clearly, the optometrist crowd has made some major developments in the past decade or so, which leads me to ask - if you're working in an industry most people don't really think about, what's happened in your space in the past ten years?

Hey, Tildes! cqns here -
After four-ish years, I've finally sat down and realized that my "novel thing" is...non-conventional at best. As such, it required a whole rewrite of the introduction, beginning with a cold open, an autopsy report. Problem with that is (1) I'm not a medical professional in any capacity and (2) I've already looked up how to do this (Reddit's no help, obviously). Basically, I want this autopsy report to look realistic and to also increase my understanding of how to decipher one so I can get an idea of how to write it...

I'm a pretty introspective person. I grew up with an emotionally abusive parent, struggled with my mental health from teenagerhood, and been to more therapy than I can remember since the time of my parents' divorce when I was eight. My siblings and I have done a lot of deconstructing over the years to figure out what the heck happened to us (the abuse was pretty insidious and, of course, we normalized it) and how it affected us internally. I'm also most likely autistic and have always struggled to socialize correctly, which led to a LOT of observation and imitation that was both conscious and unconscious.

Despite all this practice at introspection though, in the past few years, I've come to realize I am wildly out of touch with my own emotions. I am tempted to blame much of this on the fact that I was always collecting social "scripts" to follow, so that I could react appropriately to jokes, or good/bad news, or whatever. If you're acting, you don't actually need to know how you feel. And if you feel something different from standard, it's irrelevant because it's "wrong" to feel that way, so you ignore it. So it took me a long time to realize that my display for other people was actually pretty disconnected from whether I was actually feeling anything. I don't feel it was dishonest, though, because I still would have wanted to show sympathy, excitement, etc. for the people I care about. It just takes me so long to process things that I wouldn't have been able to do it within the same conversation if I didn't have a ready script.

I know that some autistic people experience alexithymia/emotional blindness, but it doesn't look terribly well understood. I know I should probably get back on the therapy horse, for a number of reasons including this one, but I'm pretty leery. I never felt like it helped me much. (Although most of it, at the time, was to help me with "depression". Which I certainly had, but there was no understanding from either my end or theirs that the cause was likely rooted in ADHD/autism.) And I did try to start up again last year; I found a psychologist who specialized in ADHD and autism, and although she seemed understanding at first, I felt like I couldn't establish any clear communication and we just kept talking past each other. At this time, I super don't have the energy to keep trying new therapists, and waste weeks or months on each one before I figure out we won't click.

So I ask: have any of you folks ever dealt with emotional blindness? If so, how have you learned to identify your emotions? Do you keep a feelings journal, and how do you even know what to put in at first? Any advice is welcome!

Next week we will be discussing the City We Became. Our next book discussion after that will be at the end of January.

I've organized this schedule so that longer books are followed by shorter ones. I look forward to reading with you.

Last week in January : Kim Stanley Robinson Ministry for the Future,

Last week in February: Trevor Noah Born a Crime,

Last week in March: Dan Simmons Hyperion,

Last week in April: Adrian Tchaikovsky Elder Race,

Last week in May: Victor LaValle a People's Future of the United States,

Last week in June: T Kingfisher A House with Good Bones,

Last week in July: James McBride the Heaven and Earth grocery Store,

Last week in August: Cats Cradle by Kurt Vonnegut

Last week in September: Ted Chiang Stories of Your Life and Others

Week 4 has begun!

Post your current bingo cards.
Continue updating us on your games!

Quick links:

• Backlog Bingo Site
• Week 1 Discussion and Event Guidelines
• Week 2 Discussion
• Week 3 Discussion

Week 3 Recap

12 participants played 12 bingo cards and moved 34 games out of their backlogs!
There were 0 bingo wins.

• 4 people played Flow bingo cards
• 8 people played Flux bingo cards

Thus far, a total of 87 games have been played for the November 2024 Backlog Burner.

Week 3 Game List:

• Ariel_Knight’s Never Yield
• BioShock 2 Remastered
• Call of the Sea
• Cave Story+
• Cavity Busters
• Celeste
• Cloud Gardens
• Convoy
• Eigengrau
• FPS Chess
• Garden Life: A Cozy Simulator
• Golf Club Nostalgia
• Hades
• Half-Life 2: VR Mod
• Lost in Blue
• Mining Mechs
• No Man’s Sky
• Paradise Killer
• Party Hard
• PictoQuest
• Portal 2
• Portal with RTX
• Praey for the Gods
• Prey
• Project Borealis: Prologue
• Project Warlock II
• Pumpkin Jack
• Slant
• Subnautica
• The Falconeer
• The Gardens Between
• Victoria 3
• Warhammer 40,000: Darktide
• Warpips

This thread is posted weekly - please try to post all relevant US political content in here, such as news, updates, opinion articles, etc. Extremely significant events may warrant a separate topic, but almost all should be posted in here.

This is an inherently political thread; please try to avoid antagonistic arguments and bickering matches. Comment threads that devolve into unproductive arguments may be removed so that the overall topic is able to continue.

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My mom was interested in a smart doorbell to let her know what’s going on at the house when she’s not there, if a package gets dropped off or if someone tries to in. She does have a number of Google Pucks and an Android phone with some smart plugs set up with Google Home, but also has Roku TVs if that ecosystem is a major value add. I’m not super interested in yet another subscription service, but if it’s a “monthly fee to make the problem go away,” I can be convinced. Are there any must have recommendations or considerations I should keep in mind?

Edit: As far as I can tell, there’s no wire leads on or around the doorframe. The old setup had a chime wired to the wall of the foyer, but that was uninstalled and the wall was repaired, so I don’t think there’s a lead if that changes recommendations.

So perhaps I should have done more research , should have known, etc. But their recent news post took me by surprise:

Your subscription money at work:

Image search enhanced with Yandex

They're just out there bragging about giving money to Yandex. This bothers me.

As I said above, I should perhaps done more to research this before subbing, but that news post.

Shame, as I quite liked the search, but it's back to DDG I guess.

Am I over reacting here? What do others think?