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On being different

10 Jun

I think a lot of people operate under the misconception that there is this group called ‘NT’ and this group called ‘ND’ and that all in the ‘ND’ group are the same as each other. Not so. The way I was taught to think about neurodiversity is that it is comprised of a group of people with differing neurologies. So to me, anyone who’s difference is primarily stemming from a neurological difference belongs in that wider grouping. Autism. Schizophrenia. Learning Disabilities (retardation in US-speak). Tourettes. OCD. Bipolar. Blindness (where the blindness originates from the optic nerve). Down Syndrome. Epilepsy. Dyscalculia. A hundred more I can’t think of right now.

Autism is not the most or the least of these subgroups encompassed by neurodiversity. It’s simply one amongst many.

This is what I was taught about neurodiversity and this is what I hope it is about. If it isn’t then I have misled an awful lot of people over the last 3 years, including myself.

I carry one of the diagnosis’ listed above. I have type 1 rapid cycling bipolar disorder (Wikipedia). The first time I can remember feeling that I was decidedly different in outlook, thought patterns, behaviour and generally _being_ was when I was about 9 – 10 years old. However, I have not carried an official diagnosis anywhere _near_ as long as that. I’m nearly 40 now. 25 – 30 years ago, just as with autism, there weren’t the same amount of diagnostic specialists who knew the signs and symptoms. Meh. Such is life. It’s well managed now which is a massive relief.

I don’t want to wallow in myself too much but I want to provide some context for how I feel about neurodiversity and how I felt last week when everything kicked off.

Occasionally – and not very often – I may need to take a neuroleptic. These are serious drugs, administered (hopefully) with great care. There are very good reasons why they should be prescribed as an absolute last resort to autistic people.

That said, for people with _my_ neurology they are sometimes necessary.

I had an email exchange last week with someone who put forward the idea that the continued use of neuroleptics to autistic people was an issue of great importance that needed to be discussed. This is something I entirely agree with. My own medication is carefully reviewed every 2 months. I hate taking pills and the less I have to take, the better.

In the course of this exchange, the phrase ‘brain damaged’ was used in a way that seemed to indicate to me that those who may have to use neuroleptics have damaged brains. I was somewhat taken aback by this. My immediate association was the idiotic null comparisons of John Best of autistic people having ‘rotting brains’. It seemed to me that using overly inflammatory and denigrating language such as this was not a good way to promote the idea of neurodiversity. I fully accept that neuroleptics are far from ideal and that there is good emerging science to indicate chronic overprescription of neuroleptics to autistic people but the use of the phrase ‘brain damaged’ was a step too far. Was this really how this person saw me?

I don’t think that this person meant to be offensive in any way. But let me tell you a story.

My grandad (now dead) served in WWII and had a British Asian man in his regiment. My grandad used to refer to him as ‘Chinky Charlie’ until one day I asked him why he was called that – it was then I learnt that ‘Chinky Charlie’ was of Chinese descent. His other nickname was ‘Yellow Charlie’ apparently. I was really shocked and told my grandad that I considered that racism. I asked him what ‘Chinky Charlie’s’ real name was – he couldn’t remember. But he said ‘he didn’t mind – he laughed it off’. I’ll bet he did. What option did he have?

My grandad didn’t _mean_ to be racist. He wasn’t intentionally trying to denigrate his fellow soldier in terms of his race. He also told me what a deep respect this man carried amongst the regiment. However, the intention – or lack of it – is irrelevant. He _was_ being racist. He was characterising someone on their race. He couldn’t even remember this guys actual name!

I hope my point is clear. Words matter. Their intent may not be to offend (its easy to tell when someone is purposefully being offensive) but if neurodiversity truly is an umbrella community for a wide variety of differing neurologies as I thought it was then care is needed. We don’t have to tip-toe around each other (that would just become a PC nightmare) but the willingness to not generalise and not use comparisons that a truly ignorant man like John Best would use are not only necessary but vital.

Nothing is decided here

3 Jun

I’ve done a lot of thinking over the last couple of days. I’m trying to get my head around the events and make some kind of sense out of them before I make any decisions on my own future association with neurodiversity and in particular the Hub.

I’ve read and re-read a lot of the threads and comments that preceded and also followed mine and I have come to a few conclusions that have not made me happy in any way but I intend to speak my mind.

The first conclusion that I have come to is that Larry is a pseudo intellectual poseur. I’ve looked carefully at what he has written both now and in the past and applied his own criteria to his words and actions. I find him duplicitous – dishonest and narcissistic.

This does matter. Larry makes some strong allegations. It is these allegations and his subsequent behaviour that led me to my conclusions about him.

A prime example of Larry’s purposeful misinterpretation lies in this comment in which Larry berates me thusly:

…the battle is not being fought or won on the scientific front it is a political battle, and economic one, about education, welfare, employment rights, housing, you name it. Scientists are a small cog in a much larger machine and the media is where the battlefield lies. NT’s are not the heroes in this battle either.

I was very puzzled by these words as the post Larry was referencing made no claim that the science of autism was ‘the battle’. I also found his comment that ‘NT’s are not the heroes in this battle either’ bizarre as I don’t think I’d even brought neurology into the post. Larry had built himself a couple of strawmen which he could make himself look clever with by taking down. This was just needless narcissism.

Next, Larry made a post on his own blog in which he states:

…I am becoming critical of a lot of posting in the autism hub itself, because I believe in the reasoning behind the slogan “nothing about us without us”

I have to say it, but the problem is that important though it is to disabuse the public of the notions that mercury poisoning = autism (which nobody much believes in the UK as we are still too busy blaming MMR) , important though that is, that is not where the main fight is, and that is to realise that autism is for life, and because most of us spend more of our lives as adults than children, that there we must have proper recognition and a place in society.

Furthermore, that although there are ‘good parents’ who agree with that and want it as an aim for there as yet young children, the message has to come primarily from us not them. If the parents continue to evoke that old line “but you can speak for yourself my child cannot” they run the risk of effectively taking our voice away, because we are the ones with the condition?

I tried to engage Larry on his blog about why I believed he was right and wrong (something I still believe). He is right that there should be ‘nothing about them without them’. He then infers that there is a problem associated with this statement originating from some parent blogs in the Hub. He then goes on to expand on his comment on my blog about how vaccines/mercury/science is not the main fight. He closes by saying that ‘the message’ should come from ‘us’ not ‘them’ (parents).

All of this was couched in Larry’s usual pontificating prose style. At no point did Larry ever mention any specific examples of these parent blogs he was so concerned about. He makes no explanation or examples of blogs in the Hub that abuse the notion of ‘nothing about us without us’.

I was concerned about this enough to want to write my own blog entry about it and try and get as many views as possible, particularly from autistic people.

During the course of the comments I read some of the statements Larry had made on Steve’s blog – a harmless enough post Steve had made promoting a few of the things going on. This was Larry’s first comment:

I happen to believe in the promotion of the case of autism from an autistic viewpoint contra mundum and in spite of everybody. This is Cosa Nostra, our thing, autism advocacy will only ever be advanced by ourselves speaking for ourselves and so I don’t go a bundle on NT’s even if they are on our side, being promoted to hero status.

Again, Larry seems to be building strawmen for himself to knock down. No where in Steve’s post did he advance an opinion that promoting the case of autism should _not_ be made primarily by autistic people. Nowhere did Steve refer to anyone as a hero.

I left that whole post taken aback by the use of the phrase ‘cosa nostra, our thing’. It seemed to me that Larry was claiming that Neurodiversity was solely the province of autistic people. This opinion was reinforced when Larry followed up his first comment on Steve’s blog with this:

Your blog which I have commented on talks about parents, it seems to me that neurodiversity has been hijacked.

Now I was genuinely alarmed. Firstly by the thought that autistic people might think that parents on the Hub was hijacking the issue of neurodiversity but even more so by Larry’s obvious and growing inference that neurodiversity was strictly something to do with autistic people and no one else.

That bothered me a lot. It is most certainly not what I thought neurodiversity was and most certainly not how I had had neurodiversity explained to me.

It was at this point that I first began to suspect that there was considerably less to Larry than I had ever thought. However, I asked in my next comment if autistic people would tell me their thoughts. They were pretty much in line with my thinking. Four commenters who are autistic essentially said that autistic people should lead but they were very happy with how the Hub worked.

So now I was perplexed. What was _really_ going on here?

Larry’s next few comments were about his personal history with the disability movement and how it evolved. They seemed to be an exercise in meaningless verbiage.

I still had no idea why Larry felt that neurodiversity was solely something that belonged to autistic people or what specific thing(s) had happened to make him think parents were taking over the agenda. The opinions of the other autistic people who had posted seemed to reflect my bewilderment. In short, everybody agreed – as they always had – that the agenda of autism advocacy should be set by autistic people.

Larry’s next comment simply added to the strawmen.

What is worrying is when the outside world, the press will seek out non autistic representatives of this blog world to represent what neurodiversity is about.

The autism hub is not the be all and the end all of neurodiversity anymore than the aut-advo list is the sum total of autistic self advocacy.

Again, it is clear from the first quote that Larry firmly believes that neurodiversity is the sole province of autistic people. His second quote is a total strawman – who ever claimed that the Hub was the be all and end all of neurodiversity?

By this point I was getting frustrated and increasingly annoyed at Larry’s evasion. His further comments only served to increase that annoyance:

As far as neurodiversity not being an autistic only thing, that is a comment I have been making for sometime with my dyslexic hat on.

This is at direct odds with Larry’s previous statements such as : _”What is worrying is when the outside world, the press will seek out *non autistic representatives of this blog world to represent what neurodiversity is about*.”_

It was becoming increasingly clear to me that Larry was being evasive and dishonest when representing his own opinions. I had made the point numerous times by this time that Larry was failing to take into account the fact that neurodiversity was _not_ solely about autism, that there were lots of other ways of not being NT and also that there were plenty of bloggers on the Hub that were both autistic _and_ parents.

All in all, I asked Larry about eight times to provide examples of what he was talking about e.g. where bloggers on the Hub that he knew were definitely NT were trying to wrest the agenda away from autistic people. He never did.

There was plenty more bloviating passages of prose about the history of the disability movement but that was about it. There was – after I pinned him down – an admission that:

neurodiversity does not belong exclusively to autistics it is an evolving culture

Which was a great relief to hear.

However, I’d reached a pretty firm conclusion by this time on what Larry’s motivations were based on his words and deeds. He is an attention seeker who is annoyed that he isn’t the story. Throughout this entire episode he has made accusations that he is unable to backup, he has switched positions when exposed in his illogic and has demonstrated a nasty tendency to turn neurodiversity into The Larry Arnold Show.

The final straw for me was when he told me that the work that some of us had done with mercury/vaccines was actually misrepresenting autistic people and/or neurodiversity.

Since than I have been inundated with email, primarily from autistic people, telling me that my suspicions are correct. Larry like to ensure that Larry is the show. These are people who have known Larry online I’ve also heard from one person that Larry comes from a philosophical perspective that likes to blow things up and then see whats still standing to work with. That isn’t a philosophical perspective, thats just stupid.

Lets boil down Larry’s actions and words into a nutshell. He invented a problem and then couldn’t back up his claims. The guiding principles of the Hub are laid out on its homepage. If Larry or anyone else can show me where there is a growing cadre of parents abusing those ideals then we can act. Until then, the only issue is how Larry deals with his tendency to overblow nothings into somethings in order to bask in the attention.

Think I’m being too harsh? Well, I’m just emulating Larry and trying his trick of pretending everything is a pseudo-intellectual exercise in destructive philosophy.

Larry once said:

As for what people consider people to be, the evidence is in the actions not the protestations of innocence.

Which I’m guessing is his way of saying ‘actions speak louder than words’.

This parent blogged about the Judge Rotenberg Center.
This parent blogged every time an autistic child was murdered.
This parent blogged when quacks abused autistic people.
This parent blogged when autism was misrepresented in the media.

Those were this parents actions. I’m not sure what Larry’s were.

NT Parents cannot be leaders when it comes to autism advocacy. Did they ever want to be? Were they trying to be? No. I’ve seen nothing that would indicate they were.

The events of the last few days will have an impact. This was played out – and will continue to be so played out – against the backdrop of the web. The web was the enabler that brought autistic people and the parents of autistic people together. As this plays out, the web will record everything. Parents who ‘found’ neurodiversity via the web will find this too.

Right now we stand at a crossroads of opportunity. Right. Now.

Autistic people have had a horrendous time in the past. I know as much from reading the emails and blogs of those who survived it. They have been let down by parent organisations time and again.

But that was the past. At some point autistic people who do not trust parents are going to have to start. We are not those same people who let you down. We came to autism advocacy via the words of autistic people. We did not come via parent led organisations. You call the shots. We get it. Continually harping on what parents have done to you in the past is pointless in this respect. A non-autistic parent being interviewed about a website he created is not a threat to you or your autonomy. Please stop living in the past and try to see the opportunity of right now. Again, we do not want to lead you, we want to support you.

What do you want? An opportunity to wield the power of both autistic and non-autistic people? Or do you want to carry on putting your hands over your eyes, ears and mouths and reminiscing about ‘the bad old days’? Has it really got so bad that now you actually have the opportunity to use this power that you have to invent factions where none exist in order to escape the responsibility of using it? Now that you are very close to getting what you say you’ve always wanted from parents are you worried about accepting the mantle?

Parents are not perfect. We are much newer to this than you. Even those of us who, like me, are not NT but are not autistic either, and who have fought our own battles through the decades are not spat out of an allies-factory somewhere, ready made with all the right answers and actions. We *will* screw up. We *will* get it wrong. We need you to guide us in these times. If you want to lead, then act like leaders.

And the last thing we need is vainglorious challenges to our non-existent actions when you are unable to point out exactly what it is we’ve apparently done. This world we cohabit in is difficult enough without having phantoms to fight.

I would also urge some of you autistic people to be very careful of your own neurobigotry. One person has said that my actions are a total overreaction. Maybe. However, my own neurology makes this impossible for me to avoid sometimes. Would this person be happy with me if I said that their actions were totally antisocial? Or if I said that their inability to perceive a differing neurology indicates their lack of theory of mind? Or would I be accused of ableism? This person also said I should make every effort to separate the message from the personalities involved. I have. My neurological make up makes that very, very difficult to do but if I want to try and pass as normal I can sometimes do it. However, I was surprised to hear such encouragement to assume normalcy from someone I always considered a strong advocate for being who you are at all times.

This entry will solve nothing. Its not intended to. Its merely me letting off steam. I still have no idea about what neurodiversity is anymore or my role (if any) in that movement. I still have no idea what to do with the Hub. However people can rest assured Larry will have no role in deciding its future.

Father knows best?

31 May

Larry made a couple of comments on my last but one post regarding the vaccine/autism link that puzzled me a bit. I thought at the time that he’d missed the point.

Larry is not quite as enamoured of science as I am – fair enough – although he sees the dangers of the anti-vaccine lot he sees a wider picture. Thats what he was trying to get at.

Trouble is, of course, that blogging is not a great medium for seeing a wider picture. Blogs of all kinds tend to hone in over time on a very particular idea. For this blog, its become the poor science sometimes associated with autism. This is inevitable as a blog ‘ages’. I write about this as I feel it is vital to expose the end result of autism related quackery. Injury, abuse and death.

Around the same time, there was a brief flurry about an article concerning Sigourney Weaver’s take on autism, which is refreshingly positive.

I was going to blog this article myself a few times but there was something bothering me about it that prevented me. I click on to what it was yesterday after thinking about Larry’s comments. Here’s an excerpt from the article:

The movement has a strong Web presence at such sites as Neurodiversity.com, Left Brain/Right Brain, Autism Diva and The Autism Acceptance Project, http://www.taaproject.com

So what’s wrong with that? Its great to get a mention, of course it is. But what bothers me about it is that, of the four sites listed, only _one_ is owned and run by an autistic person.

That isn’t right. That’s wrong. Something has gone wrong when the web presence of ‘the movement’ is painted as being mainly non-autistic.

Larry wrote a piece yesterday that elaborated on his thinking.

I am there for the same reasons as I am becoming critical of a lot of posting in the autism hub itself, because I believe in the reasoning behind the slogan “nothing about us without us”

I have to say it, but the problem is that important though it is to disabuse the public of the notions that mercury poisoning = autism (which nobody much believes in the UK as we are still too busy blaming MMR) , important though that is, that is not where the main fight is, and that is to realise that autism is for life, and because most of us spend more of our lives as adults than children, that there we must have proper recognition and a place in society.

Furthermore, that although there are ‘good parents’ who agree with that and want it as an aim for there as yet young children, the message has to come primarily from us not them. If the parents continue to evoke that old line “but you can speak for yourself my child cannot” they run the risk of effectively taking our voice away, because we are the ones with the condition?

I’ll be frank, it took me aback to think that Larry though that way about the Hub. However, he does and it needs addressing. And as much as I might want to take the easy way out and pooh-pooh it, my mind keeps coming back to that article listing the web presence of ‘the movement’ as mainly non-autistic.

This is not to say I agree 100% with Larry as I do not. I do not think that ‘the message’ should come primarily from autistic people, not parents. I believe it should come from both, equally. However, I believe that the message should be formed by autistic people and those of us who are not autistic should support that message. I also know that Larry’s assessment of the situation in the UK regarding mercury is sadly wrong. It is getting worse, not better and it needs to be actively challenged and fought.

However, I _do_ agree that the science/medical issues are very much secondary to the fight as Larry defines it. I _do_ agree that no parent who claims to be an ally of autistic people should be using the line “but you can speak for yourself my child cannot” and I would be horrified to think that any parent on the Hub _has_ used that line or any equivalent of that line. I _do_ agree with the adage (to paraphrase) “nothing about them without them”.

So what do we do? I cannot ignore this, but at the same time I will not stop blogging about what _I_ care about.

What needs to change? I think the Hub needs some addressing. I have a loose system in place wherein any entry I’m unsure about I refer to two other people, at least one of whom must be autistic for their decisions. If it requires a casting vote then I do that.

Maybe the Hub requires more direct control from its autistic members? How would that happen?

Any other ideas? What else can happen to address concerns like Larry’s?

Lenny Schafer’s Delicious Cheap Shot

24 May

It’s no secret that I don’t think much of either the reasoning powers, nor general behaviour, of the collection of individuals that populate David Kirby’s ‘Evidence of Harm’ Yahoo Group. Every time I think they can’t surprise and disgust me more, they manage it.

This is the group of people from which sprung an anonymous email referring to Megan as a ‘little bitch’. This is the group of email who have attacked autistic people viciously and repeatedly. It beggars belief that a group of people who are parents to autistic people could be so disrespectful to autistic people when they claim to be ‘the autism community’. But then, how could anyone expect anything better from parents who refer to their own children as ‘dull witted’.

A member of the EoH group has compared my daughter to a monkey when i described how well she was progressing. This same member later said on his own blog:
….My wife bought too many bananas so I’ll send some for your daughter …..

and followed that up with

…Perhaps you can teach your daughter to swing from tree to tree…

This is ample evidence of the sort of people who infest this particular corner of Yahoo.

However, if more proof were needed, today Lenny Schafer, creator of the EoH Yahoo Group established once and for all the level of disregard for children that the EoH group has.

Schafer posted this story to the EoH list today. It concerns a scumbag who has over 100,000 images of child porn in their posession. As part of this scumbags defence, he is claiming he is autistic. Take a place in line behind Cho, scumbag.

Schafer, however, altered the headline so it read:

Prison Ordered for NeuroDiverse Man With More Than 100,000 Child Porn Pictures

and offered this commentary, accompined with a link to this site:

OK, so I added “ND” to the headline to make it more politically correct for all those mercury apologist ghosts lurking on our list. The ND sword cuts both ways. Sometimes you just can’t pass up a delicious cheap shot. Lenny

A delicious cheap shot.

I’m so very happy that Lenny Schafer finds the idea of utilising the torture, rape and suffering of children as an opportunity for a delicious cheap shot as in any way an acceptable thing to do. Schafer doesn’t like neurodiversity. Thats his right. He should campaign against it as hard as he likes. However to utilise the suffering of children in his demonisation is beyond sick.

Lenny Schafer might want to look to the top right hand corner of this website. In it he will find a picture of four year old Madeline McCann, a baby girl who was abducted from her holiday home three weeks ago. That picture has been on my site for almost a fortnight now. Its on the website of many UK residents.

No doubt Lenny Schafer and the antivaccinationist ignorati who surrounds himself with will pat themselves mightily on the back for getting under my skin so much. Because they have. I don’t think you should ever make light of the abduction, rape and torture of children.

I put up that picture of Maddy in the hopes that maybe – a slim hope – someone who knows something might see it and do something which would mean she was returned to the arms of her parents.

I have also colluded with people Lenny Schafer considers friends in the relatively recent past after it was made known to me that an author of an autism book who was friends with a DAN! doctor was a paedophile. I did this to ensure no children would fall into these people’s clutches.

You made your cheap shot Mr Schafer. I hope you found it ‘delicious’.

Thoughts ‘n stuff….

18 May

I haven’t blogged much over the last couple of weeks. I’ve got 4 large projects on at work and truth be told, after long days slaving away over code and imagery and managing peoples expectations I really don’t want to sit in front of a PC in the evenings either.

This is a shame as there’s much to blog about in the world of autism, the evil ND [twirls moustache evilly] and notably autism and the good old feeling-like-an-old-friend mercury uh, connection. I will blog them (an exercise which is becoming increasingly like prodding a dead fish with a stick as it floats on the surface of a scuzzy old pond) but right now I’m as offline as I ever get. Luckily Dad of Cameron is still happily prodding away – most recently at the new Jim Adams study. And of course The Hub is still going well. Also, this site’s daily visitors are still climbing – certainly more than some other sites are. And hey! – by the look of the trends of a certain site it looks like the message about DAN! is getting through.

Anyway, enough cheap gloating. MOM-NOS, in a moment of madness put me forward for a ‘Thinking Blogger’ award.

Thinking Blogger Award

The official rules for participation in the Thinking Blogger Awards meme are as follows:

1. If, and only if, you get tagged, write a post with links to 5 blogs that make you think,
2. Link to this post so that people can easily find the exact origin of the meme,
3. Optional: Proudly display the ‘Thinking Blogger Award’ with a link to the post that you wrote.

MOM-NOS explained her reasons for nominating me as follows:

When I was new to blogging and new to the concept of neurodiversity, Kevin scared the daylights out of me.

And some people say neurodiversity is a cult – I tell you, after me scaring the living shit out of people and browbeating them into submission, its the work of minutes to get them to sign over their souls to the evil Neurodiverse in blood – MWAHAHAHA!!! come to a rational decision with no coercion at all (free tshirts!!).

In all honesty, being nominated for this particular meme/award by a blogger such as MOM-NOS is humbling. There are several writers on the Hub that I love to read. Amanda, Kathleen, El Diva (for the snark), Mike Stanton and MOM-NOS. This is by no means to suggest the rest are terrible but I would happily buy books written by these people (which is why I excluded Sue from that list – I already have bought a book written by her).

So I will wallow in self indulgence on this, the recognition of my dual good nd/bad nd personality and waffle on for a bit.

Blogging is an odd thing. Its not really journalism (although Kathleen is getting about as close as its possible to get) and its not just a web site. I started this four years ago next month and (as Brad has graphically – and somewhat redundantly – illustrated) it charts a period of my life that has gone from utter ignorance about autism and science to a stage where here, now, I have friends I consider important to me who are either autistic, live thousands of miles away, live a few miles away from me etc. I’ve been quoted in scientific journals, been interviewed, swap emails with scientists and doctors who are active in the autism community.

Damn. How did that happen? I’m not a particularly skilled wordsmith. My grammar sucks donkey balls. I veer wildly between icy, brittle British overpoliteness and the written equivalent of a cudgel. Meh. Such is life.

None of this is a cue to tell me how great I am. I already know I’m not interested in fishing for compliments.

So what did I do to deserve a ‘thinking blogger’ from someone of the written quality of MOM-NOS?

I *hope* what I do/have done is become part of a blogging community of a wide and beautiful diversity of humanity. I don’t know about you Dear Reader but my feed reader is full to bursting these days.

What I hope I have done – what I strive to do every day – is to offer a set of tools for this community to become louder, more communal, to reach out to the untapped natural audience ‘out there’ who believe in equality, diversity and optimism. When I die, my epitaph can read – Here Lies Kev: He Incited An Angry Mob. Thanks. You Bastard.

Enough. I’m supposed to nominate five blogs that make me think. This will be tricky as a lot of my favourite blogs have already had this meme/award bestowed on them. Am I allowed to replicate? I better not.

1: Nidahas is a web development blog run by a Sri Lankan friend of mine – Prabhath. His was the first blog discussing web development I can recall that included the fact that its author came from a developing nation. Insights galore.

2: Juicy Studio is a web dev blog that concentrates on accessibility issues. Gez (the owner) and I have known each other online for what must be about 6 years now. Good grief. Did I say he’s a genius? No? He’s a bloody genius.

3: Dr Crippen. Great name, great blog. If the NHS ever gets sorted out it will be in no small part down to the efforts of John. A one man anti-Hewitt machine.

4: Joel Smith. My first encounter with Joel’s words was via the horribly necessary list of killed autistic people. Shocking and eye opening. Joel writes calmly. I admire that as I struggle with it.

5: Mike Stanton. Again, another calm writer. Dammit. I really must learn how they do that. I often find myself back at Mike and Joel’s sites cross-referencing things.

So – that’s it I think. Back to my temporary hibernation.

Time for changes

23 Apr

For those that missed it, my site got zapped over the weekend. I went over my bandwidth allowance. I usually shift about 14-15GB per month but this weekend I went over my 15gb limit – a whole 7 days early. Yikes.

The culprit was the Chelation video which shifted 5gb on its own and was pushed over the edge by getting linked from Orac. Not his fault at all, I should’ve been keeping a closer eye. Normally, the 5gb that the video took would’ve seen me through to the end of this month but this time I was flatlined.

My host is a good guy and offered me a gig for free to get me through to the end of the month but a gig only lasts me 2 days so I bought another 5gb per month, taking my monthly bandwidth allowance up to 20gb. This will give me a little breathing room.

However, I have to restructure some stuff that’s on here. One of those things is Meg’s blog. I’ve already moved it but in order to preserve its privacy I need you to do a few things if you want to keep on (or start!) reading it.

First head to the WordPress.com signup page and create an account. Just select the ‘Just a username, please.’ option and that’s all you need.

Second, when your account is created, mail me your account name and the email address you specified when you signed up so I can add you as a user of Meg’s blog. Only registered users can see her blog and only I can add registered users.

That’s it, that’s all you need to do.

Other changes:

I may be redesigning this site to reduce the imagery. The less large files, the more I can keep my bandwidth drain lower.

The Hub will be redesigned. I want to make it work harder for users and I need to organise how it lists members better. I think there are now too many members to just have one big list. It needs a bit of categorisation.

A little Autism Hub catchup

19 Apr

Thanks to some generous donations I’ve been able to extend the life of the current scripts a bit longer and feel more confident about adding in more members.

To that end, I’d like to welcome you to our latest ‘batch’ of members:

Big White Hat keeps a blog where the good guys where white hats. He has an autistic son and often discusses autism on his blog.

Asperger Square 8 is a site run by Bev where she discusses her life as an Asperger’s adult.

And last, but by no means least, is One Dad’s Opinion – a very new blog started by regular LB/RB commenter and all round good guy Steve D who you might know better as Friend in California.

Welcome all – good to have you aboard! If Hub readers would like to welcome them either here or – even better – on their own blogs I’m sure they’d very much appreciate that.

Oh yeah, if you’re wondering why I’m announcing this here rather than on the Hub site as I usually do, its because the list time I tinkered with the scripts I managed to delete the whole WordPress database. Good going eh? And did I have a backup? No. Truly I am the techno-wizard. Not.

Update

The Bain blog is now authored by Alex. Check it out.

Easter bank holiday

10 Apr

Blog stats for 2006

22 Dec

Of interest to absolutely no-one except me, I thought I’d bore fascinate you with the user stats for this blog. I’ve used a more accurate method this year of eschewing Awstats for a more powerful Logfile analyser called Web Expert which gives more emphasis to useful stats like unique visitors. Its a great tool but only if you have access to your sites raw log files. If you don’t I’m afraid you’re stuck.

OK,

This site has received *1,148,290 unique visitors* this year.

I am damn pleased with this stat. That’s over a million unique visitors in twelve months (minus a few days) and averages out to just over 3,100 unique visitors a day. Stats for late Oct, Nov and Dec are pushing me close to 4,000 per day. However, I think it’ll stable off next year.

It has received *7,021,795 total hits* this year. OK, hits are pretty meaningless.

This sites most popular day is a Wednesday.

More *Americans* visit this site than any other nation.

This site has been visited by people from *240 countries*.

This site has *approximately 510 subscribers via various Feed Readers*

The most popular browser is *IE 6.0* with Firefox coming a very close second.

There have been over 69,436 different phrases used to find the site.

The most popular phrase to find me is ‘autism blog’ which brought 843 people to the site.

*1,250 people* have added this site to del.icio.us

Technorati is broken for me. Not sure why. It says I have 190 links when I actually have close to 600. Weird.

The site has a PR that fluctuates between 6 and 8 on Google.

The site has served nearly 90GB of content this year. Good grief.

Support Autism Hub, Come out as evil ND

10 Dec

As I mentioned awhile ago, in an effort to fund the Autism Hub website I created some T-Shirts which you can buy in both the US and Europe. Doing this saves me from putting ads on the site or in the feeds, both of which I hate.

Anyway, I thought it might be amusing to play on a, ahem, certain sections perception of the Hub and the Hub members are and create a range of T-Shirts to play on that image. They’re not pricey, they’re good quality and they help me devote money to keeping the Hub afloat.

The European shop is here and the US/North American shop is here.

Below are the latest products added. As you can see, there’ a bit of a theme ;o)

European Shop (inc UK)

Male

Female

US/North American Shop

Male

Female

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