Current mood:	thoughtful
Entry tags:	events-ryan, rec-internet, topic-lj

Specialists Are Useful
Having found myself unable to work effectively today on either pooting or finishing my game prep I figured I might as well do an LJ update...

An Expert on Hippoes
To the West, a beach of perfect, white sand. To the North, a snowy mountain rose above the plains. To the East, wavy patterns and spirals on the ground hinted at rituals far beyond my understanding and to the South there was salt all over the XBox. The evidence all pointed to one thing: not content with tipping out a substantial fraction of our new table salt on the kitchen table earlier that day, Ryan had decided to finish the job in the lounge.

I told the story as concisely as I could, because there was still more to relate. And there were pictures to show. And there were questions about the past and about family and all sorts of other things. This was yesterday, when Dawn and I went to talk to Dr Tennant^[1]. The appointment was supposed to take an hour and a half but actually lasted all morning. Dr Tennant is a specialist in diagnosing autism and related conditions. And when I say specialist, what I really mean is that's the main part of her job. Every day. She's good at what she does.

As it turns out she's also a really nice person, which may have contributed somewhat to the length of the interview.

But at the end we did get what we came for - a diagnosis. So, does Ryan really have an autistic spectrum disorder? Well... sort of. In fact his symptoms are a very strong match for childhood autism. This wasn't clear to us previously for a number of reasons (not least that various behaviours of Ryan's didn't seem to fit). But in fact in retrospect this says more about urban myths concerning autism than it does about either Ryan or our assessment of him. There were also some interesting indicators we missed entirely - apparently a fondness for walking about on tiptoe suggests autism, for example!

So what does this mean for the Hippo? Well, it removes all doubt as to whether he'll receive a statement. Clearly he will. It also means that the concept of keeping him in mainstream education with a one-to-one helper will have to be abandoned. He will need specialist tuition. This in turn will mean he'll need some kind of transport provision to get him to school and back (and might have to commute a fair distance). But counterbalancing these various inconveniences is a future for the Hippo. He can already talk (albeit not well). He has a high level of independence and is capable of self-care. He is good natured. All of these factors are strong positive indicators in terms of how his life will proceed from here.

The autistic spectrum is sometimes drawn as a line with profoundly autistic individuals at one end to normal people at the other. Dr Tennant explained that she has a different view of things. She drew a line with profoundly autistic people at one end. And at the other end people like mathematicians, scientists, statisticians and programmers. Somewhere along the line she drew an 'X' and explained "At a point along this line we feel a need for whatever reason to start classifying a condition as a disorder". Personally I could think of some pretty objective reasons for thinking of autism as a disorder, but already having encountered some of the debate on treatment of autism I understood what she was getting at. And yes, autism does have a strong genetic component.

Ryan's very fortunate to be living when and where he is. He will get the support he needs. And as he grows up he will have incredible tools at his disposal like computers and the internet to live a life as rich and interesting as anyone else's. Or, if we're being honest, more interesting. Because his ability to focus on what he's doing is far beyond anything I'll ever achieve.

It's not all happy, though. The main sad element being that he'll lose touch with all the friends he's made over the past two years. The way they treat him is remarkable - the exact opposite of the cruel, selfish stereotypes one might associate with children. They constantly provide him with help and love in every form, involve him in their games, ask me concerned questions about why he doesn't talk much. And he loves them back. When he's at home he will ask "Where's Lauren? Where's Cameron? Where's Elizabeth?" and we talk about how they're at home doing the same sorts of things as Ryan. I wonder if he'll still ask when he hasn't seen them in five years.



What Gerstmann Did Next
Remember Jeff Gerstmann getting fired from GameSpot for writing an honest review? Well... he's setting up his own review site. Although technically Giant Bomb hasn't launched yet it's already got a few reviews up. So far it looks like being a good resource. Maybe the first review site more useful than Metacritic? Time will tell.

A fairly amusing stream of other staff members have been leaving GameSpot. Now it's mostly just the rats left on the sinking ship. Interestingly, a lot of the good people who've left have allegedly signed up to write for... Giant Bomb. It's a small world.


Crossing the Central Reservation at 150mph
Ever wanted to drive from Lambeth to Ashford in under ten minutes? It might sound convenient, but it included some astonishingly illegal manoevres such as driving across Hyde Park and some highly impossible things like navigating the M25 by driving along the central reservation at a profoundly ridiculous speed^[2]. You have to be careful as you pass junction 14 Southbound, because the central reservation suddenly gets wide enough that you can't drive through it anymore.

If you too want to try these stunts... Google Drive is for you. (Note: Doesn't work properly on Firefox/WinXP, you'll need to use IE. Not sure about other OSs.)

(Thanks to the_elyan for the link!)

Mobile Stupidstick
Advantage of using a mobile phone for gaming: you were probably carrying it anyway^[3]. Disadvantage: horrendous controls mean you can't actually play anything worth playing (except maybe Sudoku... which you could still play better with pen and paper).

What you need (like a fish needs a bicycle) is a mobile joystick. Combines the convenience of a separate mobile gaming device with the inadequate gaming experience you've come to expect from a mobile.

But wait, it gets better! Only works with games specially designed to support it!

EPIC FAIL!

LJ Storm-in-a-Teacup
Quite possibly none of my readers at all care about LJ's current storm in a teacup over the disappearance of basic accounts on LJ. But I still feel like commenting on the situation because in any debate it always irritates me when both sides completely omit a key point.

In this case: absence of basic accounts is effectively a massive change to the environment in which paid accounts exist. A big problem suffered by many online systems is the way that social networks themselves are non-portable. I like chatting to you lot online, but if other people I know choose to use different systems the two networks remain perpetually disjoint and communication is hampered. Previously it was always the case that if someone wasn't on LJ I could recommend that they get an account. Now that's not really possible, because either they have to pay money (almost certainly not worth it) or they have to endure a crazy level of highly intrusive adverts.

Combine this with the high level of must-lock-everything mindset amongst amateur bloggers and the result is that LJ's content has just become largely inaccessible.

Does that matter to me? Yes, potentially it matters a lot because all the value of LJ is in the interaction tools for me. Without other people using the system I might as well host this blog on my own site. It's not like I can't write HTML.

LJ was a commercial project from day one, they say. If that's the case, I can see why it was kept as quiet as possible, because the first hundred thousand members would probably have gone elsewhere had they considered the present situation likely.

Castle Crasher Map Drawing
Quite an interesting video is up on (the invariably slow) GameTrailers site showing map drawing for Castle Crashers. Basically an accelerated screen capture of their artist using Photoshop. Recommended if you make digital art yourself, if only so that you can feel smug about how much better your own workflow is. (Only joking, I like Dan Paladin's work.)

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[1] Not David Tennant (who is Dr Who). Yes, I know it's confusing.
[2] Though what a reasonable speed might be for that feat I have no idea.
[3] Unless, like me, you don't have one.