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Cake day: June 23rd, 2023

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  • My mom used to talk in code a lot for no fucking reason. She’d throw out the weirdest segues and irrelevant stories. When I (barely) graduated from a gifted kids high school, she jumped from telling me she was proud of me, to telling me that when my sister was little, all her teachers told her that she should be “tested” - heavily implying it was for learning disabilities - and added that “none of [her] babies are retarded.”
    2 things - that sister had dyscalculia and never got beyond an associates degree because she kept failing math. And it took until she died to figure out she was also talking about me - and every one of my siblings.

    When going through my mom’s things, I found out that she ignored the advice of several teachers and school counselors to get me tested for ADHD. Because she didn’t want a ‘damaged’ kid.



  • That’s completely fair. I was unfamiliar with Done until I searched for them just a few moments ago.

    The service I used offers diagnosis for a one-time fee, and does not dabble with prescriptions at all. The diagnosis came from a practicing psychiatrist that is licensed in my state. Those factors, plus the doctor’s recommendation are what made me comfortable enough to go with it, but I normally don’t love going with online options for stuff like this. I just was tired of the runaround.

    The diagnosis - which did not include treatment recommendations - was transmitted to my GP from the psych. And my GP worked with me on treatment options.
    I assume if the website got shut down, it would be inconsequential to my diagnosis unless the psychiatrist was found to have fraudulently issued diagnosis’. (Which is always a possibility.)

    But that is a very good cautionary tale. Done didn’t just say they would diagnose ADHD in 30 minutes or less, but they utilized a subscription model and issued Adderall on an auto-renewing basis.
    That whole thing seems pretty sketchy to me. It appears they were trying to tie your health care to their subscription model. They can go kick rocks.


  • It took me over a year to get a diagnosis from my initial inquiry with my doctor. She gave me a referral (otherwise it would not be covered by insurance), and a list of practices that did ADHD testing (not every psychiatrist does it), and I stumbled on picking a place for a few months. When I picked a place, their wait list was 3 months and I never pursued testing.
    The testing process in my area takes a few hours - my wife’s took 3 on a video chat, and it took about 3 months for them to send their report to her doctor.
    Cut to a year later, my old doctor had retired, and I had a new one. She gave me a new referral for testing, but cautioned me that the wait list for most places was now 6 months. Checking around with other folks in my area confirmed this. But while at that appointment, she recommended an online company, who - after a few weeks of weighing options, I did pursue, and tested/evaluated me (no video chat, just an online survey - about half was written responses - that took about 4 hours to complete), and got results back in a week. It was $180, and may have been eligible for a reimbursement from insurance, but I have ADHD, so I never bothered.

    And like - I guess I appreciate it. It does seem like whoever made those policies made them so that the diagnosis won’t be given lightly, but it creates issues. I sorta feel that I cheated, but my test was actually reviewed by a psychiatrist, and when I told friends of my diagnosis, the most common response was ‘Duh. You didn’t know?’ - so even though the online approach is sorta ‘cheating,’ I know that it’s definitely a warranted diagnosis in my case.


  • Man. I hate to shill, but…

    I faced many of those same issues, and after a year and a half of failing to set up testing, my doctor told me to go to adhdonline.com - they offer online testing for $180, and give you results back in like a week. She’d already given me an ADHD testing referral, and she suggested that my insurer would probably reimburse me for the cost, but I have ADHD, so I never bothered with it.

    It took me about 4 hours to do the test (but I did it while I was sitting through a day-long virtual meeting where I had to be present, but not ‘present’. So like, it probably won’t take focused people that long.)

    And - yeah. Morally, it sucks. It’s feeding into the commodification of someone’s job and is morally kind of like using Uber or AirBNB. It’s convenient and maybe cheaper. Maybe it upsets a system that could use a little upsetting, but will likely upset it too much and have unforeseen impacts.
    But it worked for me.




  • So - I don’t think Firefox would be generating captions for PDFs on PDF creation.

    But of the major ways that PDF’s do get created - converted from text editors or design software, I know that Microsoft Word automatically suggests captions when the document creator adds an image (but does not automatically apply captions), and I believe that some design software does, as well.

    I think that, functionally, both suggesting captions at time of document creation, or at time of document read are prone to the same issues - that the software may not be smart enough to properly identify the object, and if it is, that it is not necessarily smart enough to explain it in context.
    By way of example, a screenshot of a computer program will have the automatic suggestion of “A graphical user interface” (or similar), but depending on the context and usage, it could be “A virus installer disguised as ___ video game installer.” Or “The ___ video game installer.” Between the document creator and the creation software or screen reader, only the document creator would really know the context for the image.

    Which is all to say that I think that Mozilla has the right idea with auto-tagging, but it will always fail on context. The only way to actually address the issue is to deal with it within the document creation software.
    But I wouldn’t be opposed to ML on those that can auto-suggest things or even critique how content authors write their descriptions.











  • We recently had a presentation covering burnout and strategies to overcome it.

    It was sort of hilarious.
    They correctly identified that burnout is rooted in excess responsibilities, but neglected to mention that feeling a lack of control plays an huge part. They also covered that people can feel unrecognized for their efforts but weirdly seemed to skip over any mention of how an insufficient reward for efforts plays a part, too.
    Their suggestions to address it were all employee-focused: Stay away from negative people. (What, so you all can’t talk about how much the job sucks?) Mediate. Practice gratitude. Set boundaries in your home life, so you’re not so stretched thin. (But not your work life?)
    They clumsily and quite obviously avoided the question of what role the employer plays in workplace burnout.

    It was a bit sad to watch the poor trainer in action. I know they’re just trying to make sure the gleaming maw of capitalism remains unblemished by the flesh of those it consumes, but woof.
    I actually walked away from the presentation with a less positive outlook on my employer than I had before I attended.



  • To buy weed, my state requires folks hand over their ID, and the shop records the person’s info to make sure they’re not selling to a minor.
    For someone that doesn’t want their info anywhere, I’m mildly annoyed by this, but I understand it.

    My weed shop had a loyalty program where (because obviously they have to track your purchases because of state law), you got points based on how much you spent. It was automatic. No opting in or out or whatever. They had to collect the data, and figured they’d reward their customers for coming back.

    Last week, they told me they were discontinuing the existing rewards program, and spinning up a new one that customers have to sign up for.
    To me, that means they’re not just handling the data they’re required to maintain in house, but need me to opt in to something or otherwise waive my right to privacy in some fashion. I scanned the QR code they referenced and the page (off-site from their actual website) wouldn’t even load unless I disabled tracking protection/ad-blocking.
    I closed the tab and am now wondering if I need a different weed shop.