Indigo Jo's other blog

Hi everyone.

I am pretty much getting to the end of both the money I got from relatives over Christmas, and the money I actually earned working just before Christmas. I have quite a large family, especially on my Mum's side, and I tend to ask for book tokens rather than presents because I usually can't think of presents I actually want. I asked for a rucksack to replace my 10-year-old one (which works fine except for the zips which are knackered) and got one that was nothing like it, and couldn't find a suitable replacement when I looked for one myself, either.

So, these are the books I've got so far:

- Smashing Wordpress, by Thord Daniel Hedengren (just in case I want to do some serious theme work on my main blog instead of just using a stock theme)
- No Biting, No Fighting, No Screaming, by Hejlskov Elven (which is about ways to deal with difficult situations involving autistic or developmentally delayed people)
- Caged in Chaos, by Victoria Biggs (this is about dyspraxia, which I don't have, but I had to have the book after being contacted by Vicky. Lovely, well-written book. I looked for it in the health section in the local Waterstones and it wasn't there anymore, and the staff told me it may have been put on reserve. I then went to the Psychology section, which is in a totally different part of the shop, and found it right there.)
- Sams' Teach Yourself Android Programming in 24 Hours (or something like that) (since I actually got my Android phone intending to do some programming on it)
- Pornland, by Gail Dines ("How Porn has Hijacked our Sexuality") - I think it was Natasha Walter's Living Dolls which excited my interest in this subject (and in my next choice).
- Delusions of Gender, by Cordelia Fine (an antidote to the Venus and Mars claptrap which has been cropping up on my FB timeline recently)

My plan was then to use most of the remainder on Drupal Building Blocks by Earl & Lynette Miles, which was meant to have been released on New Year's Eve. However, it's still not available anywhere, and I called Foyle's in London earlier and they said it wasn't expected to be released until the 28th. So my next choice is The Net Delusion by Evgeny Morozov, which argues that the net hasn't been the liberating force it was intended to be.

Any thoughts? Anyone read it yet?

As you can tell, I read a lot more fact than fiction. I can't remember if I've even read any fiction since "The Shipping News" and that was in 1999. I can easily recommend the book over the film.

A few months ago I put together a Wikipedia page on Lynn Gilderdale. It contained a potted history of her life, her illness, the events leading up to her death and her mother's trial, sourced from various newspapers, articles reproduced on various ME-related websites and a couple of the transcripts which are available on my blog. Although I found some comments she posted on others' blogs (she had her own, but it was friends only) describing her condition as it had been and as it was then (2005-8), I didn't use any of them as they were on pretty obscure blogs by people who might not want the exposure.

Now, someone (who, like a lot of those on Wikipedia, doesn't give his real name) has added a "notability" warning to the entry, which means that the subject might not have been important enough to merit inclusion. Lynn having been a wonderful person and a great friend to people all over the world doesn't mean she merits inclusion, but having been the focus of a major news story in the UK (not sure which country the person recommending deletion is in) and an important debate about the assisted dying issue, and being the subject of an upcoming book, do. Sophia Mirza (another severe ME sufferer who died in 2005) already has a page and nobody is suggesting that she isn't notable enough.

I intend to try and add more content regarding the post-trial assisted dying debate and the upcoming book in the next few days. It's not the first time someone has tried to trash my Wikipedia work - I did a whole page on Kesgrave Hall, where my old school (the really bad one) was situated, only for it to be carved up and for someone to insert a sneering note about me into one of them. The same person (an old school "friend") also posted a somewhat hostile biography of me on Wikipedia, and justified my notability on the grounds that I'd been mentioned (in passing, and not by name) in the Spectator. The editors of Wikipedia have since seen sense and deleted it.

I had a look through the Android Market today (I have an HTC Hero, or T-Mobile G2 as it's branded) and found two popular LiveJournal clients, LJBeetle and one simply titled "LiveJournal blog client", although its name when it installs is SK-LJ. I tried both and found that neither supported Dreamwidth - they were both for the LJ service rather than any service which is based on LJ, and there have been other LJ-based blogging communities for years now. It would be pretty simple for them to support them, it's just a case of putting a selector in with some of the more popular services, or a text box so you can enter the XML-RPC endpoint.

I did a search for "livejournal android client" and found that exor674 is developing a DW client, but I wonder if that is going to support blogging services other than DW? It would be so much easier to just put in an endpoint selector. After all, the Wordpress Android client has supported self-hosted Wordpress, and other WPMU hosts, for years.

Title says it all really. It's only been open for a year and a couple of months, it was a lively and interesting site, and I didn't always agree with what they said (and particularly some of their opinions on gender politics) but I had some other interesting exchanges and saw many more. They were instrumental in encouraging me to get referred for my Asperger's diagnosis, and I was able to talk about the effect it's had on my life in a semi-public sphere which I didn't feel comfortable doing on my blog. It helped that they were mostly women; I've long found it more comfortable talking to them than other men, even though most Aspies are male. I also found their news round-ups really useful.

I find it puzzling that they just pulled down the shutters without telling anyone in advance. They had posted a few reviews of the year, and there had been lively threads (like the one on high-pressure selling) which still had life in them. I don't think there's anything around right now that fills the same gap.

This is the first post I'm making on my new Dreamwidth blog. I normally blog at Indigo Jo Blogs. I'm intending that this one will be more personal and contain more about my progress with my Asperger's syndrome referral, and my other disability interests. Right now I'm posting simply because I can't sleep! That's been a problem most of this past week. I'm testing out posting to this site with my phone, and sadly they don't have a mobile admin interface.