Profiles in Geekdom: Alex Plank of Wrong Planet - wilsonweriatere

The Wrong Planet forums.

For those with autism spectrum disorders, communicating and social interaction can be rough. Autism is a spectrum of disorders–that is, it affects individuals to varying degrees–but those affected by it typically have trouble in social situations and in clearly verbalizing their thoughts, which can make face-to-face interaction challenging.

When he was nine years old, Alex Plank was diagnosed with Asperger's syndrome, a comparatively mild form of Autism characterized by difficulties in social communication, intense interests, and repetitive demeanor. (Unlike classic autism, those with Asperger's syndrome don't receive delays in cognitive or language ontogenesis.) When he was in high schooling, Alex started Wrong Major planet, a website and forum for those with the various forms of autism, as well A others touched by the disorder in some path.

We got the chance to speak with Alex about Wrong Planet, his life with Asperger's, and how the Internet and applied science impingement the lives of those connected the autism spectrum.

GeekTech: What was your inspiration for WrongPlanet? What made you decide to set up the locate?

Alex Plank: I was ever different, and my parents always sort of knew that, but they didn't have the diagnosis, so what they did was try to find out what was going away on with me. And at least initially, they thought I merely had ADHD or something standardized. But when I was nine, I actually did get the diagnosis of Asperger's syndrome. And that was when I saved extinct about autism.

When I was a adolescent, I really wanted to breakthrough new people equal me; I had a hard sentence finding friends in midriff schooltime, and [had] a parcel out of [Asperger's] traits. I was neurotic. I was a prolific contributor to Wikipedia; I edited more than 10,000 articles. I was also an official developer for the Gentoo Linux project. Unnecessary to say, that isn't typical behavior for a teenager.

I started Wrong Planet in 2004 with my friend Dan Grover because I wanted to find other mass like Pine Tree State who were on the autism spectrum. I didn't have a go at it anyone other with autism until I went on the Internet, but it was hard to find anyone with the same interests.

My first electronic computer was a Mac Nonnegative that the schooling evenhanded gave to me for free because they thought information technology didn't crop. But I figured out how to turn it connected reliably–you just had to kick it.

I had a Mac Addition as my first computer, too; it's yet sitting somewhere in my closet—

Yeah, I took information technology aside when we got a newer computer.

Did you ready an aquarium out of it?

No, I didn't but I thought about it. I did hang the motherboard on my wall in college. I put it following to my Think Different posters.

"I think the biggest impact of the Internet and technology for individuals with autism is being capable to communicate in a sense that had ne'er been possible before."

—Alex Plank

So where did your involvement in tech, and–I know you're a videographer–where did your interest in videography and tech stem from?

The technical school englut I was antitrust always involved in it. I had my first computer when I was 8, maybe…that sounds about right. And my parents ne'er got Internet until 1996 or 1995, right around there. Merely I was always mesmerized away computers and technology.

And I always told myself, I'm passing to make a computer programmer, so I started learning stacks of different languages, and at first I started exploitation BASIC because that was there was a compiler on my computer. I thought I was supposed to learn Meeting place first [chuckles]; it just confused me much.

So when I found Standard I was really wild; I started to doing different projects, and mediate school I started composition BASIC, and I made this game for chemistry class, and that was my project for the science sporting. I thought, I want to write a estimator program, and that's computing–that counts as a scientific discipline fair project. And [the teachers] were like, uh, what's your hypothesis?

Yeah, I remember those–I hated, you know, having the—

Yea, that was like the virtually annoying thing, and they fundamentally said that you shouldn't make whatsoever cool software–they were charitable of discouraging me from it. Soh what I did was I ready-made a quiz crippled, and my hypothesis was that people would like the game (maybe I had a left-handed hypothesis. I forget.)

But after my short stint with Staple I started programming in C and then Java and Perl. Perl is my loved language because the sentence structure seems natural to me. It correlates with the way my brain whole kit.

What do you see as the biggest inspiration in your work with Wrong Planet?

Oh, that's a hard question… my biggest inspiration… A hatful of people inspire Pine Tree State. It's unyielding to say. I was truly into Linux, thusly I was glorious by Linux Torvalds,[…] and I always looked capable Steve Wozniak, and I still do. It'd atomic number 4 soh chill if I had a chance to meet him. I'm also inspired by leaders in the technology community, like [BitTorrent creator] Bram Cohen, who wealthy person spoken publicly about their diagnosing. I interviewed Bram embryotic in Wrong Planet's history and the land site was Slashdotted because of it. We still talk regularly, and I was able to visit him at BitTorrent headquarters when I was in San Francisco.

What do you envision as the most rewardable affair to have come out of Damage Planet?

The most important thing for me was actually being capable to come up friends on the spectrum who share my interests. I ungenerous, there were other sites on the Net for autism, but they had like five people, operating room maybe a couple hundred registered.

Just the unusual important part is, I've had people fall capable me and order me that it's changed their lives. Very much of people are aged when they get wind [they had Asperger's] and their lives completely change because of this realization.

And I've seen this so consistently–it's not just a few people touched by the community. You look at the "Getting to Know Each Other" part of the forum where people post an instauratio such as, 'I am so-and-so and this is my story,' and very much of new members say that they went through their lives thinking they were the only if one exit through these issues and now they've finally found a place they can fit in first.

And sometimes they find Wrong Satellite when they'Re searching for "how to get a girl to same me" or something, operating room some random full term–some unselected long-wool tush search. Those people are people who are often older and get bygone through life spirit ununderstood so they find this set where they kinda feel authorized.

[…]

It's funny because I ne'er expected the site to become so big. I thought it'd be just a suffer group. In realism information technology's an expansive community of interests filled with sol many opposite people who all share a common experience.

This future question kind of ties into that…what ut you see as the biggest impact–good or big–that the Internet and technology have had on those on the autism spectrum?

I believe the biggest impact of the Internet and technology for individuals with autism is being able to communicate in a way that had never been possible ahead. In that location was this one guy on Wrong Planet World Health Organization was a moderator, one of the first members. But helium actually no yearner posts very some because he was chartered by Second Animation to be their community evangelist. And atomic number 2 was found because He had a blog about Second Life, and they decided to hire him. This is a guy who was honourable writing this blog. And Second base Life is a place to get on–and connected Wrong Satellite we experience this also–where you can experience fundamental interaction with hoi polloi, but you could never reckon that writing a web log about your passion could result in a job.

And autistics can feel comfortable speaking openly on the forums, where they don't have to conceive about body speech or that sort of matter. Connected the flip side, you know, there's obviously the drawback that you spend all your time online, so you're non actually interacting with the great unwashe in real world.. Just I think that in this vitrine it's helped people be more social offline as recovered.

I hump you do a rhythmic Web video series, Autism Talk TV. How'd that come about?

Well, I definite that I wanted to have a TV show approximately autism. And it was just me. But past I looked for sponsors–Autism Speaks was the first sponsor and has ready-made it possible to continue to create New computer programing.

The show stars Pine Tree State and two opposite people on the Spectrum; Jak Robison and Kirsten Lindsmith. It's not necessarily the content of the videos that people are raddled to–I ignoble, the content's great, just I feel like it's given junior kids happening the spectrum someone to look heavenward to. People are locution, "look at these aspies; they have a TV usher; they're doing something they consider in, they're prosperous, they're feeling righteous about themselves, and they've been through the same thing I'm going direct exact now."

Do you have any exciting–or even not exciting–future plans for Dishonourable Major planet that you'd like to share?

Yes, there are several things that I have planned that I don't want to discuss publicly yet.

In terms of Maine in person, I just got came from a conference in New-sprung Jersey where Jack, Kirsten, and I spoke on a control panel moderated by [author] John Elder Robison. I also spoke in Chicago, Capital of Tennessee, and Denmark recently.

Do you have whatever tips for anyone who wants to kickoff a community-type website?

My principal tap is mostly to find a niche that you're perfervid about and where there aren't too many other communities that already serve the need.

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Source: https://www.pcworld.com/article/464177/profiles_in_geekdom_alex_plank_of_wrong_planet.html

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