Wondering if any #ActuallyAutistic or #ADHD people have ideas that I'm missing.

My day job is supporting disabled university students. We have increasing numbers of autistic/ADHD students who are too anxious to attend classes. So they miss class 1, and then can't understand content of classes 2 onwards so get more anxious - and it spirals.

It's HUGE uni, often 100+ in class. Most buildings are HUGE, with vile acoustics and visual stress - can't change those. We do have quiet/sensory spaces.

There's no shortage of reasons about why I absolutely despise LLMs and what people now call "AI", but this is a pretty good one that I'll bet few in the Western world think/know about or perhaps even care about.

https://www.404media.co/ai-is-african-intelligence-the-workers-who-train-ai-are-fighting-back/

Story of loveliness for you all because you've been so well behaved recently.

I dated an Italian guy for about 3 months six years ago, and my mum decided it was time to start learning Italian.

The relationship didn't last but my mum never stopped learning Italian by herself in retirement. She's never had a teacher or been to a class; she's taught herself from apps and lots of books I've thrown at her.

She speaks Italian with the strongest English accent you've ever heard. There's no doubt to anyone that she is not a native speaker.

So last week she went to Turin for a couple of days, and she came back *buzzing*. She's been to Italy before and spoken Italian but this time was different.

She was having conversations in Italian with everyone about everything. Basic conversations but she was doing it and loving it.

In one restaurant the waiter couldn't possibly believe that she was an English person speaking this language. English?! English people only speak English! What the actual?! He was so overjoyed at her efforts that he kept bringing her all sorts of free food and limoncello until she asked him to stop.

When I spoke to her a couple of days ago she said it's so weird that you sit at home and learn this language but it doesn't mean anything. It's all nonsense. But then you go to a different country and say the nonsense words and people actually understand you!

I've always loved learning languages and this just warmed my cold, dead heart a wee bit.
#LanguageLearning #Italian #languages

"Platty joobs", "genny lec", "menty b" & co.: I wrote about this British slang fad
https://stancarey.wordpress.com/2026/02/10/dont-have-a-menty-b-about-this-bloggy-p/

#slang #language #words #phrases #hun #linguistics #wordplay

"The land was a living force and it demanded a level of respect that shaped how people lived. There is something deeply compelling about traditions that centre nature in this way, that see the landscape not as something to serve us but instead it should be worshiped.

Any belief system that places the natural world at its core I find myself drawn to, perhaps because it feels less like authority being handed down and more like wisdom rising up from the well."
Aislínn Kelly
https://aislinna.substack.com/p/ribbons-at-st-beraherts-well

While this High Court decision is obviously great for #trans folks' access to #Hampstead Ponds, there's a point that I'd like to particularly pull out. A point which strengthens the decision.

Quoting from the BBC:

"A consultation run by the City of London Corporation and published on Thursday found that nearly 90% of respondents backed trans-inclusive access to the ponds.

More than 38,000 people took part in the consultation over a period of two months.

Of those, 84% of respondents to the consultation had swum at the bathing ponds and 74% lived in London, the City of London said."
[The exact figure is 86%]

The point to raise is that this isn't a piffling consultation that no-one bothered with.

38k respondents is significant, as is the % support.

This is a clear vote of confidence in #TransRights and #TransEquality.

Everyone should feel safe and secure, and have their voices heard.

That's been done now, so I hope everyone can swim in peace & comfort.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c70lyrpekr2o

The artificial island where The Bridge becomes The Tunnel is named Peberholm, to complement the preexisting island of Saltholm, which lies next door.

Something thematically appropriate I released from the paywall while in Copenhagen

https://jonn.substack.com/p/a-dispatch-from-the-resund