How likely or close are we to another pandemic? What would be the most likely government responses?

I've seen videos on it from leading YouTubers. They do a good job at covering the maneuverability of it, but they don't explain enough of the electronics to satisfy my appetite. I understand that it's is great at electronic warfare due to advanced processing power from advanced chips. What are they doing with all that electronic power, running an LLM chat bot to deceive the enemy in their own language and ray tracing graphics on the helmet HUD?

There is an extension/add-on for Firefox called Video Download Helper that lets users download embedded videos from all sorts of websites. While it works as a simple Firefox add-on sometimes, for a remarkable portion of sites (e.g. on Vimeo) it says that it cannot do so as installed and states that the user has to install the companion app to their computer. Does anyone know if this is safe or is installing it placing myself in any risk? If you suggest against installing the companion app, do you have any other recommendations on how to download videos embedded videos from websites?

Edit: I'm on a Debian-derivative distro.

In other words, is there any individual cell that can decide between two or more options, or all they all solely chemical and mechanical reactions without any self-determination at all?

Referee, umpire, official, judge, etc. Why are there different names rather than just one?

edit: by request, stewards also.

Ok, the title was an overuse of emojis as a joke. But seriously, I like some limited use of emojis because it helps me convey intention/emotion so that I'm less misunderstood and also adds some more feeling/fun to text content 😄

Car insurance is relatively simple. I shop around, telling them how much coverage I want. They request my driving history, and give me a quote. At any time, I can shop around and change insurance policies without any problems. Once it's time to collect payment, it's a relatively simple matter. What makes health insurance so difficult, controlling, unreliable, and expensive? For example, with health insurance:

• Can only shop during a specific enrollment period

• Policies are so complex, the vast majority of the population can't understand them

• It's commonly provided in part by the employer because buying a policy otherwise is prohibitively expensive

• Insurance companies are notorious for denying payments

It's basically the same thing, but out of the other end of the GI tract 👌💦💩

I'm asking because as a light-skinned male, I always use the standard Simpsons yellow. I don't really see other light-skinned people using an emoji that matches their skin tone, but often do see people of color use them. Maybe white people don't naturally realize a need to be explicit with emoji skin-tone or perhaps it's seen as implicitly identifying or requesting white privilege.

• Is there a significance to using skin-tone emojis, and if so, what is it?

• Assuming there might be a racial movement attached to the first question, how does my use of emojis, both Simpsons yellow and light-skin, interact with or contribute to that?

Note: I am an autistic white Latino-American cis-gendered man that aims to be socially just.

Autistic text stim: blekh 😝 blekh 😝 blekh 😝 blekh 😝 blekh 😝 !!

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/16132498

> How was this show made

Say there's a forest, but there's a small cleared area where a family can build a place to live. What's the geographical term for that?

Edit: The word I was looking for was a clearing. A glen was suggested as well, but that is a space between rolling hills, while the space I was thinking of was on flat land.

Thank you everyone!

Just out of curiosity, I'm interested in understanding the experience of running a franchise as an "owner" of the location. I have no intention or desire to run one myself, yet I find it interesting. From the outside, it seems like a weird relationship in which you are the owner and not at the same time. You own the location, but mostly everything major is decided and dictated by the franchise company. So, what's it like?

• How do you view your relationship with the franchise and your employees?

• What do you label and describe your position as?

• What are your responsibilities?

• What is it like to manage your employees?

• What are the benefits of running it?

• What are the downsides?

• Is it a lucrative investment?

• Was it hard to get into and start up? Were there any major barriers initially?

• It is easy once you get used to it, or is it a lot of work?

• If you suddenly didn't have the franchise, would you try to start it again?

• Anything else I might not have thought to ask?

I'm interested in hearing about the personal experiences of living in the USSR without making it a political conversation. Rather, just what life was like, the good and the bad, from a nonjudgmental human perspective.

Corporate online social networks ultimately aim to increase profits, so they inevitably enshitify themselves. Meanwhile, the federated system allows users to switch instances or even create their own should their current main instance become unappealing. It also allows users to join several instances simultaneously, allowing users to tailor their experiences based on purpose and privacy.

Purpose

I have been doing some thinking on how the social world works, and wrote down my thoughts to help organize them. I am sharing them here in case anyone can help me build on them, find any issues, or benefit from these observations and conceptualizations. I think that building on this will help us understand our lives better and can also contribute to developing a culture that is more accepting and inclusive of our neurotype, so here it goes.

Intro

Having autism is a set up to live in an unreliable and chaotic social world that can become threatening at any moment and to define yourself as unworthy of attention, inclusion, and love. This is based on the well-established phenomenon that we do not understand NT cues and implications, so we miss out on a lot of their communication. This results with NTs making meaning out of our behaviors and statements that we absolutely did not mean or foresee, which leads to misinterpretations on both sides.

To help convey my ideas, Yippee will be the name of a hypothetical autistic person in the following examples.

Example 1

In the first example, an NT could take offense to something Yippee said innocently and pridefully of their authenticity even after assessing for all of the possible ways the statement could be offensive or rude. This is likely to happen in a situation where the NT is asking something indirectly, while Yippee only understands the direct question. It will not be until much later, even days to years, that Yippee will realize the true intention of the question. Let’s say someone creates a PowerPoint presentation and runs it by Yippee. The NT would ask at the end what Yippee thought of it. However, it is possible that the NT is actually saying, “Tell me this is good so I can feel confident.” What Yippee heard was, “How can we make this better?” What could follow is Yippee pointing out all the issues they saw with it, and Yippee would be doing so to demonstrate how hard they focused and thought about it because that costs them mental energy and they are spending it on the NT. Yippee is telling them how much they care about the NT’s production. What the NT experienced was that rather than make them feel confident, Yippee made them feel worse! Yippee did the exact opposite of what the NT was requesting. Naturally, the NT will be offended, which will cause them to be upset with Yippee. Yippee would then feel offended that their efforts were not only dismissed, but attacked out of nowhere.

Example 2

It can also happen in situations where the NT will take Yippee’s statement to be overly nice as if Yippee were trying to establish a closer relationship. For example, Yippee may notice that an acquaintance changed their hair and looks nice. Trying to be comforting and complimentary, Yippee tells them, “Your hair looks nice!” What Yippee thought was occurring was that the NT went out of their way to change their appearance, which Yippee understands has high value in society, and Yippee was trying to help them feel comfortable with the change. What the NT might have understood was that Yippee was trying to flirt. If the NT is not interested in Yippee romantically, they might feel uncomfortable and start distancing themself. If the NT is interested, they might start making attempts to flirt back with Yippee. Yippee likely will not pick up on those, so the NT may feel tricked or rejected. If Yippee does happen to pick up on them, then Yippee might feel confused because Yippee did not think they flirted with the NT. Yippee could even feel uncomfortable enough to distance themself from the NT, which would be confusing and insulting from the NT’s perspective. Regardless of the intentions, the social interaction that started out as innocent and caring turns into a displeasure for both sides.

The situation for Yippee could even get worse if the NT starts telling other people, some of which have likely had similar experiences with Yippee, that Yippee is a meanie. They start validating each other, so they do their NT thing and establish a truth based on social construction. If everyone believes it, it is true. Yippee the Caring is now deemed to be Yippee the Meanie.

For the NT, these interactions with an autistic person like Yippee are rare and odd interactions with a person they might see as a meanie. Yet, to Yippee this is a regular experience. This was another interaction in a lifelong set of interactions that go sour out of seemingly nowhere. As such, Yippee may have developed a view of the social world as being unpredictable, unreliable, and dangerous.

This can result in further exacerbating Yippee’s difficulties. As an autistic person, they may need the support of NTs. However, it may take Yippee a long time to attach because they are constantly waiting for the relationship to go bad at any moment without warning. They may even see that people are generally mean and manipulative. It can also result in Yippee being mute in new social settings or social groups that meet infrequently because they don’t want to speak since they don’t know what will be seen as rude or offensive, further limiting Yippe’s ability to make social connections.

Abuse

Here comes a potential dark side of this. With a lifelong history of Yippee being told they are careless and rude, of course Yippee would integrate some of that into who they believe they are. Additionally, since relationships could flip out of nowhere, Yippee doesn’t feel valued or worthy. Yippee feels like more of a utility or placeholder. This then can lead to even further damaging social patterns to obtain greatly desired social connection, such as people-pleasing, placing more effort into relationships than others, and tolerating mistreatment. These patterns make Yippee more vulnerable to predatory abusers that have learned to capitalize on individuals by strategically attacking their vulnerabilities and relentlessly benefiting from their efforts to counteract perceived failings. Relationships with these predatory abusers tend to make matters much worse as they work toward isolating their victims to have complete control over them. If the autistic person is capable of escaping that, they may still be torn apart socially and decide that the social world is just too dangerous, doomed to live a life of social isolation unless there is some very deep mental work completed along with professional and social support.

Tentative Conclusion

The above examples illustrate how different social expectations based on neurotype can lead to harmful outcomes. I argue that these outcomes would not have been as likely should the interactions had taken place between two NTs or two autistics. It still could have, but less likely. Therefore, one of the factors that we could consider when improving social interactions is to consider ways in which we can help develop understanding of each others neurotypically-based cultural differences. As far as what the autistic person can do is to find places that are safe for them. Once there, the autistic could mask less and let people know their neurotype so that others know to be aware of cultural differences. Other autistics can also identify themselves and be a source of inclusion, support, and dvocacy. NTs can help by becoming educated in autistic culture, using direct language, clarifying in odd situations, and educating and encouraging other NTs to do the same. Unfortunately, autistic people will have considerable limitations with doing the same for NT culture because they are physically incapable of doing so, just like many NTs will have a lot of difficulty with developing special interests, being brutally authentic, or avoiding small talk. Still, if we find where we can work to come together, we can work to make things better for both groups.

Author's Note

I think the tentative conclusion is that part that needs the most work. Knowing myself, I will be obsessively thinking about this for a few weeks, so I might have updates. In the meantime, I would welcome any helpful critiques, suggestions, or insights.

I always thought that didn't happened, but based on what I've seen on the Internet, it seems like it is possibly more common that I thought.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.dbzer0.com/post/17147012

> > "Sometimes people use “respect” to mean “treating someone like a person” and sometimes they use “respect” to mean “treating someone like an authority” > > > > and sometimes people who are used to being treated like an authority say “if you won’t respect me I won’t respect you” and they mean “if you won’t treat me like an authority I won’t treat you like a person” > > > >and they think they’re being fair but they aren’t, and it’s not okay." > > > >-a 15yo autistic girl experiencing ABA therapy > > Source

I'm not a tech person, so I used to use Linux Mint. LM is a simple and easy distro with relatively minor issues for the average user. Additionally, their main forum was active and quite supportive of noobs/non-techies. However, I have switched over to KDE Neon and not found similar support yet. Is their a site that is active and supportive of noob questions?

When I say supportive of noobs, I mean I need people to give me the exact commands to enter into the terminal. Guidance such as, "Just check to see what driver you're using," will not really help me.

PS - I would be happy to give a regular donation to said sight for their support.