An evolved version of the simple D.eval() app in the previous post can be found on this page. Yes, it’s so cool I had to make a page just for it.
Again, it’s really a simple application, and uses rather little of the API’s capability. Even so, its raises exciting possibilities.
Well, it’s been miserable saying goodbye to Adderall, to say the least; it has turned into a long and drawn out process. I’ve “quit” several times, actually – each time returning to it primarily out of neccessity (i.e. to finish a job, bill a client, then MY bills), but there is also a strong addictive component to my returns.
The last time I gave in (3 weeks ago), I asked the doctor for a 20mg/day prescription, down from 45mg. I did not use it as a continuous taper, but rather as two spaced binge events. My last usage was two weeks ago.
There are two primary withdrawal effects that plague me. First is drowsiness. For the first few days, I slept about 18 hours per day. Now, two weeks after last dose, I sleep about 12 hours a day.
Second is (initially profound) anhedonism and lethargy. And I’m not using the word “profound” lightly.
During the first week, I took about 2 showers. When I wasn’t sleeping, I was playing games on the computer. Or reading. I haven’t worked with music (normally an obscession), programming or anything else. Nothing sounded worth the effort.
Now, two weeks later, the anhedonia/lethargy is strong, but not as crippling. I still have very little interest in “hobbies”, but I have been able to work some.
More and more, I have very brief sparks of inspiration, where hobbies actually sound fascinating again. But it’s a very fleeting feeling. It seems like my brain is an engine trying to turn over; some times it fires a couple of pistons then sputters out.
Forcing myself to do “things” causes intense agitation. Earlier in withdrawal, simply taking a shower would cause feelings of childish tantrum throwing to run through my head. It’s not that severe now, but I still become mildly irritated if I attempt to work at something for any useful length of time.
Appetite wise – well, I’ve gained over 10 pounds over the last two weeks. Most of that was in the first few days. My appetite is currently at pre-Adderall levels.
So, why is this the “almost” epilogue? Because I know from experience that I will at some point face a seemingly irresistable compulsion to ask my doctor for a refill. Overall though, while I may end up doing so (as I have a couple of times already), I am making real progress. Each “quitting” cycle, the urge to abuse decreases, and I use less. I am currently in new territory; I HAVE made it two weeks before, but I didn’t feel this “well”.
Perhaps more encouraging than anything, according to my wife, “it feels like you’ve been gone for a long time, and just came back.” Indeed, my mood has improved – but there are much more vague, subtle ways that Adderall impacts your personality, and it’s in those details that the real changes have taken place.
One last note – I’m experiencing a near-total inversion of normal circadian rythms. I’ve always been a night-owl, but lately, I literally wake up at night as if it was morning, and literally go to bed in the early morning hours. I’ve also experienced some intense sleep-onset paralysis (something I have not experienced for 4 years or so). I read somewhere, once upon a time, that after chronic amphetamine use, sleep patterns continue to be modified for up to several months after stoppage. So I may have a ways to go…
Ah well. One thing at a time.
I couldn’t help it. My hands involuntarily moved and clicked the mouse, entered my paypal login stuff, clicked some more, and suddenly – just as I realized the gravity of what was occurring, it was over.
And what, you ask, prompted appreciation so intense – so primal – that my response was executed as a low-level brain-stem function rather than up there in the prefrontal cortex?
Icons baby. 700 fantastic, generic, free, CC licensed Icons.
I will now go build sweet gui’s for all of my websites. Even websites that don’t need guis.
Thank you Mark!
We commercialize the goodness out of EVERYthing. First Christmas, and now search engines.
Search results for most topics would instantly become far more valuable by simply removing all results that contained anything like “store,” “catalog,” “shop,” “dealer,” etc. Even a simple algorithm that threw lots and lots of babies out with the bathwater would make the search engines far more useful.
***
If you go to Google and type “yahoo”, Google lists search results no differently than usual. But if you go to Yahoo and type “google” – you get a big “Search the Web with Yahoo!” with a conveniently placed search box, inserted obtrusively-prior to the actual search listings. I think someone is feeling insecure.
***
I came across this post by Dave Winer a few days ago – who apparently is considered the “father” of XML. I got to it via the official “JSON” website. I’ve never liked XML – but for pretty superficial reasons. I know very little about it. And I know nothing about JSON… or rather, knew nothing. That’s why I was ON the json site - to see what the buzz was all about. But anyway, that’s all beside the point. Dave’s post is what stole the show. And I quote:
“Gotta love em, because there’s no way they’re going to stop breaking what works, and fixing what don’t need no fixing.”
“No doubt I can write a routine to parse this, but look at how deep they went to re-invent, XML itself wasn’t good enough for them, for some reason (I’d love to hear the reason). Who did this travesty? Let’s find a tree and string them up. Now.”
“Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, this is why I’m fed up with Mountain View, Cupertino, Redwood Shores and Redmond. Give me Berkeley and New York any day….”
Then, a few days ago, I was reading a book (can’t quite remember the name….) on “Intelligent Design.” Again, the topic itself is completely beside the point. What struck me was a quote by Richard Dawkins, among the most prominent and outspoken of evolutionary biologists:
“It is absolutely safe to say that if you meet somebody who claims not to believe in evolution, that person is ignorant, stupid or insane (or wicked, but I’d rather not consider that).”
I have a very vivid mental image pop into my head when I hear adults reacting like that… of a two year old - snot dripping down over his upper lip; a kind of dumb, belligerent look on his face… defending his shiny plastic toy from another two-year old (who may or may not have that dumb, belligerent look).
“And that’s all I’ve got to say about that.”
***
There is a very distinct difference in the way I learned QBasic (when I was 14 or so) , and the way I currently learn new languages/topics.
AutoCAD is a very irritating program.
Even trusty ole’ PHP, with it’s $_POST and $HTTP_POST_VARS… and str_pad() versus strlen()…
Lack of authority, you see, is the common thread. When I learned QBasic, I had maybe heardthe term “internet” or “world wide web” – but when it was time to sit down and do some hardcore nibbles coding – it was just me and the help file. Sometimes maybe an outdated book from the library. Amazingly, I learned so much faster. I didn’t produce as much, mind you – at least not initially.
NOW I have this tendency to grab & hack the first example I find where someone did something similar to what I’m going for. Yes, it does get that little chuck of functionality out of the way real quick. But it’s like building a structure with an assortment of Lego’s, erector set pieces and wooden blocks. The pieces might stack a little at first… but wait till you’re trying to build stairs on the fourth story. That’s when it all starts to fall apart.
AutoCAD is a huge application. Part of it’s hugeness is a result of a massively open API and customization capability. I mean, NOTHING is hard-coded. Menu items, menu accelerators… every last function in AutoCAD can be goofed with, using tools within the application (“meta-tools, we shall call them), or by editing script and data files (which are sprinkled to the four corners of the hard-drive… seriously, it’s maddening trying to remember where all the buggers are).
ANYway, that massive openness to outside development mean a lot of third-parties developed rather large applications that ran within AutoCAD. Naturally, AutoDESK bought them all out, and assimilated them directly into several main applications, all built on top of AutoCAD.
And when you stick that many pieces together from that many different sources – many with overlapping functionality and no standard interface – you get a mess. A buggy, crash-prone mess. There are at least 4 ways to perform most functions in AutoCAD.
The final result is that a modern set of architectural/civil/structural plans looks like crap, because no one does it the same way. Heck, most people don’t even do it the same way twice.
And PHP – I don’t really know the story there, and it’s far more subtle than my learning patterns and AutoCAD – but that disorganization is there.
Decentralization – or de-authoritization – or whatever you want to call it - does lead to theoretically better design (combining the brains of many). But the problem is – doing something one way – even if not the most optimistic way – seems to generally produce better results than producing things the “best” way, but without standards or “best practices.”
One last example – very recent. I had a rather large javascript application to build, and decided to tackle a framework rather than paste it all together like I usually do. After researching several – I settled on jQuery.
I LOVE that almost any functionality I realize I need has been implemented as a plug-in. But by the time I had everything I need, I had a complex web of dependencies, and many of the add-ons have quirky usage.
I still love it of course, it was just annoying.
Hmmm, this post just got to long.