Reyali

Many people mentioned clearing ALL the snow off your car, but I didn’t see people mentioning why. Here are some videos to elaborate how terrifying and dangerous it can be when people don’t do that.

One, two, three, four

It takes a lot of energy to clear the car off, but it’s critical. Don’t be the person that harms someone else just to save a bit of time and effort.

A DMV is accountable for driving laws and practices in their own state, not educating people about every possible driving condition anywhere.

Wait, are you saying that Virginia not mentioning what to do if a moose is in the road is “bad”?

Considering that the northern-most part of Virginia is still about 350 mi south of the closest range of moose, it would be pointless if not absurd for them to include it.

I’ve definitely talked about ND behaviors within minutes of meeting strangers at parties (either they bring it up or I do about myself, never calling someone else out for it).

I’m a nerd, therefore most of my friends are nerds, and so too are their friends. While I don’t have data to back this up, I believe most nerds are ND (I literally can’t think of any NT folks in my social circle). We tend to be good at pattern recognition, so identifying similar traits when there’s already the confirmation of being friends-of-friends tends to be enough to get into such topics, lol.

If I think of tasting a lime, my mouth puckers and salivates like I’m about to eat something sour. I could probably say I’m imagining the taste, similar to how you described, like a 1/10.

I think hearing is maybe like that but like 1/100 instead of 1/10? It’s hardest to explain that one because with the stuck song thing, it’s there. I know it’s there. I can’t not imagine the song when it’s stuck. But I don’t “hear” it in any way like my ears hear things?

Smell I can’t imagine at all, but I can usually recognize smells (“usually” because for things that are similar to a memory, like someone wearing the aftershave my dad used as a kid or something that smells like my grandmother’s house from 25 years ago, are likely a miss, but normal things I recognize without question).

Visuals are probably more like smell in that I just don’t have them, but remembering visuals is more critical so I’m better at coping with that one.

I will mention I’ve met people and then instantly forgotten everything about how they looked, like I could only tell you gender and race, but I recognized them when I saw them again. Now, I had context clues. Like I met a couple in a dive shop in town then saw them at the airport on the way to the trip we were both going on through the dive shop. I knew I’d probably see them at the airport and I knew them when I did. But I couldn’t have told you a thing about them until then! It was the weirdest experience, and I think not being able to visualize was the root cause.

I remember their name as a fact associated with the person.

That’s how the way something looks is stored in my head.

Derp, I was exhausted last night and said the wrong shape. But yeah, I just recognize things without needing to visualize it when it isn’t around.

I’ve definitely heard other aphants talk about not enjoying books. I love reading, but I typically don’t care for authors who are overly descriptive about visual things OR I just zone out during those descriptions. Most authors I read stuck to 1-2 sentence descriptions of things and then move on to what’s actually happening. That’s fine, and I might keep 1-2 of those details in mind.

I recently drew what I imagined the layout for a building in my favorite book series to be, then went back and found the text describing it to compare. I was way closer than I expected to matching the description, except I didn’t remember the entryway was a “long hallway” because literally none of the story happens there. If the description matters to the plot, I’m more likely to retain it. If something is only described at the beginning and in a lot of detail, I probably will not retain any of it.

I cannot hear in my head either, but my partner is an aphant who can do that, so they are unconnected. That one is weird too because I have songs stuck in my head all the time and I ‘know’ what they sound like, and my brain keeps the beat with the song, but I’m not hearing it. If anything it’s more like I’m silently singing along to the song. I do tend to get snippets of songs in my head because I can’t always remember where it goes though (I write as one line from a song circles endlessly through my mind).

Can you taste or smell things that aren’t around? If not, do you still know what those things are when you do taste or smell them?

It’s hard to explain how one thinks. But yeah, I think of the words to describe something and they are automatic. I can’t describe a lot of detail about anything unless I’m looking at it, but I know enough of the basics to remember things.

I think the name comparison I mentioned is probably the best I can think of. When you see a person you know, how do you remember their name? Unless you’re a person who imagines their name on their forehead in order to remember it in the first place, I assume it’s just a word you associate with that person? That’s what the details of everything are like for me.

A triangle is a shape with three sides; that’s all I need to know and I can draw it. A stop sign is a hexagon, red, with STOP in the middle.

I can’t draw anything more complex than that unless I’m looking at it. I’m pretty good at recreating images I look at, but I can’t do art from my own head for shit; it’s paralyzing to even consider doing it.

When I’m reading a book, I’ll retain the most often repeated and basic physical traits. Harry Potter had a lightning scar and glasses, Ron Weasley was red headed, and Hermione had crazy hair. If there were other descriptions in the books, they never sunk in; my brain just disregarded them. However, now I think of Daniel Radcliffe and the other actors. I can’t describe what they look like but I can recognize those people with no hesitation.

Not who you asked, but yes I could answer and also yes it’s gone from my mind’s eye. I would be answering from memory.

I have no mind’s eye. Full-stop. But I have memory and can recall details without needing to see the thing.

If you can remember someone’s name after meeting them, that’s the same process it would be for me to remember their hair or shirt color.

Motion sensor and smart light switch. There are two rooms in my house with multiple entryways and awful light switch options, so without these I’d just stumble in the dark.

We also have it for our carport and it’s so pleasant for the light to automagically happen and then go off without needing to remember to change anything.

(And all of this done through local mesh and Apple HomeKit. We do not use proprietary services that can be shut down on us.)

Leadership definitely drives a lot, but even with bad leadership a PM can and should do a lot to help here. I spent 5 of my years of PMing with an operations org that drove every big decision and I still did everything I could to protect my devs. I ended up in major burn out from it multiple times, but I don’t regret it.

Alerts that are waking devs up in the middle of the night have a user impact too, and a PM can and should communicate that impact and risk to the business side as part of why it needs to be prioritized. Alternatively, there might be a reason that the UI change is ultimately more valuable, and it’s the PM’s job to communicate why that is the priority to their devs. If developers with a Product team ever truly believe the reason they’re building something is just “because [insert team here] is excited about it,” then the PM failed at a critical responsibility.

"that's not good, but we'll have to fix the underlying issue after we finish implementing the new UI the design team is excited about"

If this is happening, sounds like you have a shit-ass Product Manager (or no PM).

Signed, not a shit-ass Product Manager

I was going to call it a “small” city but Google told me that 300k is mid-size so I went with that ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

The city is ~350 sq km and our tiny downtown area is probably about 1 sq km, so the entire city is kinda like a suburb. Heck, I’m from Houston which is known for its urban sprawl, and yet there’s lower population density where I live now.