My parents were great, but if we were forced by circumstance to live in the worst parts of the US (e.g., Appalachia), then no amount of having a "good upbringing" would shield me from having a peer group which would routinely put it to the test.
I was obsessed with both history and computers when I was young. I've stayed a little close to history by building my career around problems domains in which C is the language of choice.
It's not quite Software Archaeology, but I've run across enough "old code" [1] in my career to keep me happy.
[1] One example is: In 2008 I had to modify code written in 1991 for a long-term Psychology study on rats. It had executed hundreds of times per day for ~17 years at that point. Fun times.
A professional scientist I know (tenured, professor) recruited me to set up a backtesting framework for a predictive finance model. When the results were not as they expected (this person does not work in finance and never has), they asked to see the code, then told me that claude had found a problem with the way some of the calculations were done (there was actually no problem), supplied the claude comments, and told me to change the code to match what they thought was correct. I did it anyway. Had they had more expertise in the domain (finance), they likely would have been able to leverage claude as a tool rather than inadvertently pursuing a very stupid mistake. Domain experts tend to doubt their ability to excel in other domains which is amplified by LLMs.
This sounds rather similar to the form of scientific fraud where you first create a conclusion, then invent/manipulate the data until it supports your conclusion.
They suddenly act as if Claude has awarded them with a second PhD in CS. Now they know everything and everything you tell them gets filtered through Claude.
It's like "software dude thinks he can do hardware", but on steroids. They don't know what they don't know and they think they have a panacea in their hands.
Don't you know? Software is beneath them and the fiddly bits are just standing in the way of them getting their BigImportantWork™ done.
You would have? I don’t necessarily think I like the idea of using AI for anything that I’m going to send to anyone else, be it prose or code. But I’d rather get an AI generated pull request than have anyone in my medical team using it for, well, anything.
20 watts ignores the startup cost: Tens of millions of calories. Hundreds of thousands of gallons of water. Substantial resources from at least one other human for several years.
By giving a patient the ability & skills to establish a less dopamine-seeking lifestyle while temporarily relieving them of the deficit.
Its use is supposed to be coupled with therapy and/or coaching (e.g. https://www.thriveemerge.com) to ensure that the patient isn't just using it as a lifelong crutch.
That's how it's supposed to be done. This approach is more effective in children for obvious reasons. Persons diagnosed later in life are therefore more likely to require it permanently.
Why do you need amphetamines to do this? Why not a legal stimulant? Even something as trivial as coffee can be effective if you take it strategically, i.e. stay off of it completely until the rare times when you need the turbo boost.
There's also atomoxetine, but it's not very effective.
> Why not a legal stimulant?
Which ones? People absolutely do self-medicate with coffee, ephedrine, or even cocaine where it's available (coca tea). And these stimulants do work, but they have _more_ side effects than amphetamines when used in theurapeutic doses.
Yeah, that's what I did. Back before I started ADHD treatment I was averaging about 12-14 cups of coffee a day, and that's before chocolate. That was the only thing that ever calmed me down. My heart pain eventually got so bad that I had to switch.
I love them and I spend a lot of time with them, but I have no idea what you're talking about.
My 11 year old has Level 2 Autism, ADHD, and crippling anxiety. The pediatric psychologist & psychiatrist team we've assembled between Johns Hopkins & Kennedy-Krieger have finally lowered his suicide risk status from high to low last week.
My 9 year old has such extreme ADHD that you would think he has Akathisia; compulsive running. He's constantly fighting with his younger sister because... why not? Dopamine is dopamine.
The best part is that we have the privilege of doing it all on our lonesome despite having retired parents and no siblings with children of their own. Perhaps babysitting costing us more than the date night itself is the satisfying part.
Oh, no, I've got it! The satisfying part is not having a real vacation in 11 years.
I wonder how satisfying it's going to be when we finally have to face the reality of never being able to have an empty nest.
If you have easy kids everyone wants to help. If you have difficult kids no one else is going to want to help you, especially if they fight because that's liability they don't need (CPS will blame the caregiver if one of the child is beat up by their own sibling). Also if you have difficult kids not only will no one help, they will damn you for having been a terrible parent for circumstances outside your control, crushing your self esteem even though you're trying harder than perhaps most others. This is part of what makes difficult children exponentially harder. Sucks but that's the reality.
I noticed as soon as our child became better tempered things were 100x easier because suddenly people that were previously out of the picture were willing to look after the child. For every 1% better the child behaves life is 10% easier for everyone.
I didn't say all, and I knew someone would chime up, good job. If you want a healthier view of companies with their QA groups, Food Safety, and medical devices are two where I've at least seen signs the culture is still active and healthy.
reply