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“You really should take care of this.”

Today I finally decided to do something about it, even though every part of me wanted to postpone it until “later”. And when that later comes, it turns into another later, and another, and another...

You know how it goes.

But somehow, I managed to sneak past the resistance and get things done. In total, it took me (drumroll)... 57 minutes. Less than an hour!

I’ve probably spent four times as long just thinking about it. What a waste of time and energy. So stupid.

And speaking of stupid, I know I’ll do it all over again.

 

Oh dear, a new daily post here? Are we doing that again? Seems so.

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I spent four hours at an intake screening for ADHD. Two hours of interview and two hours of testing. The person running the tests said that the doctor wanted to “include a few additional tests, so it might take a little longer.” Fine with me.

It felt like an IQ test. Lots of “What’s the next shape in this series?”. There was word associations and vocabulary questions. I even had to organize blocks to match printed patterns.

At the follow up appointment a few weeks later, he informed me that it’s not ADHD at all. What I suffer from is Major Depressive Disorder.

So…depression, then.

He said that during the entire interview he was mentally checking off boxes in the “depression” column.

This was a surprise to me, at first. I mean, I don’t feel sad or (what I thought of as) depressed. I don’t have trouble getting out of bed or anything. Didn’t sound like depression to me, but then he started pointing out some of the things I had said and how they relate to depression, and it began to make sense. It’s not just about feeling sad. One doesn’t need a “reason” to be depressed.

When I asked the doctor about my ADHD-like symptoms, he told me that it was early in the process, but, “Testing shows you’re very bright. Your brain wants things to do, but the depression prevents you from maintaining interest, so you bounce around a lot. This must be frustrating.” Indeed!

I haven’t liked the way I’ve felt for years. My brain hasn’t been behaving, but I assumed it was normal for me, and did my best to ignore it. A diagnosis has helped me put a framework around it all.

Anyway, he put me on some medication and I’m going to therapy.

Why am I telling you this? I’m not sure. Probably because writing in public helps me get my head around it.

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Look, I don’t really care about new UIs; I’m not one of those people who complain simply because things are different. I know software changes over time, that’s fine. But this UI is bad for one simple reason: you can’t access all tabs when using the phone one-handed in a convenient way. And before you start typing «Hey idiot, have you tried tapping that button with the three dots?» I can tell you that yes, I did. I know the missing options are there. But this means that literally every operation now takes two taps instead of one, and I also have to sit through an excruciatingly slow animation every time that stupid menu opens up.

If, like me, you hate this, I just wanted to let you know that there is a solution.

Go into settings -> apps -> Safari, scroll down a bit till you find the Tabs section and in there, there’s an option to change the UI with something that’s so much better.

This is the end of the PSA. Now, let me rant.

Look, I don’t think I’m an amazing designer. Or a designer at all these days. But I think I do possess at least one redeeming quality: some design-related common sense, thanks to a professor who, for 5 years, bashed me in the head constantly while I was studying design.

The main purpose of a browser is to provide access to the web. You do that through a paradigm called tabs. It’s been like that for decades. Creating a tab, closing a tab, and moving through tabs are the minimum functionalities needed to have a proper browser UI. Ok, I guess you also need to have an address bar where to type something, but I consider that part of the tab.

You cannot hide the controls for those interactions inside a menu. You just cannot. Imagine if the shutter button in your camera app was hidden behind a pop-up menu. You’d chuck that piece of shit of an app in the digital hell it belongs to. And for good reasons.

If I’m using a browser, I need to be able to create a new tab with just one click. I need to be able to access all the open tabs in one click. That’s a non-negotiable imo. And this alternative Safari UI is not perfect, mind you. The new tab button is still hidden behind an extra tap, while the middle spot in that UI is taken up by a completely useless share button, because Apple is apparently run by people with infinite wisdom.

And this is not fucking rocket science. Basically, every other browser out there is managing to do this just fine. New tab in the middle, arrows to navigate on one side, all tabs button on the right.

The point of a UI in something like a browser is not to wow or to provide joy. The point is to fucking work. How about you first do that, and then you figure out how to pour all your stupid molten glass on top of it?

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Source: Joan Westenberg, Why Cynicism is Just Moral Cowardice

We could use less of it.

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The same energy that forced Biden off the ticket should get Schumer and Jeffries out of the top seats. Replace with people who can speak plainly about what's actually happening.#

I stop reading every piece that begins by wondering if the Dems or Repubs are "winning" the shutdown. Anything the Dems can do that has anything to do with governing is a win for all of us, including the Repubs, but esp the Dems. This is a new world, the old one is gone. Every day is a new reality.#

Fellow humans. If we're competing with AI, and to some extent it seems we are, consider that they have much better writing tools than we do. If we are to put up some kind of resistance to our cyber-domination, shouldn't we invest in better writing tools for bodied-intellects like us?#

I try not to run away from controversy when conventional wisdom is in the way of progress.#

The big deal with WordPress, as outlined in the Think Different piece is that the strong API makes WP into something quite different from what most people think it is. I think of it as an OS for writing on the web. Very analogous to what we use(d) PCs and Macs for before networks were everywhere. This came up in a thread on Bluesky about MicroPub which appears to be a redo of Metaweblog, with better identity system. #

The ActivityPub world, which MicroPub is part of (I guess), could benefit from reading Joel Spolsky's piece about Architecture Astronauts. #

Road House

The other day, a friend mentioned he recently watched Road House, and that inspired me to give it a rewatch. I’d only seen both the original and the remake once, and so I began with the original. I found I enjoyed it more this time around than my first watch a few years ago, although it gets a bit hokey the longer the film goes on. Then again, that’s part of the charm of it.

The remake doesn’t try anything new, but is enjoyable for what it is: a popcorn film. I do wish Amazon would have sprung for a bit better CGI in a couple of spots, but overall the film is an fun watch, although Connor McGregor is still a disappointment. His over-the-top character feels out of place, even amongst a ton of over-the-top characters.

Shameless

Despite being a fan of William H. Macy, I’d never given Shameless a watch. The only reason I did recently is because I thought my wife would like a show that featured Jeremy Allen White and Emma Kenney since we watch The Bear and The Conners. It was made pretty apparent with in the first few episodes the show’s humor was more to my liking than my wife’s, so she moved onto something else, and I kept watching. I’m on season six now, and while the show’s tone shifts quite a bit and every season is just the characters not being able to get out of their own way, I really like it. It offers a more relatable (well, maybe the early seasons) life than what passes on most television shows.

I doesn’t matter if it’s comedy or drama, I appreciate media that tell stories from lower class families, shows like Roseanne, Raising Hope, or My Name is Earl. It’s nice to see folks worry about everyday items like paying bills and working jobs they hate just to make it through the week. Shameless is great at this type of storytelling, just with gratuitous sex, tons of drug use, and a lot of crime thrown in.

UpNote

I went looking for a note-taking app that met my needs, which is kinda like trying to find a mattress. You’ll find a bazillion different opinions, a bazillion different options, and yet the only way to truly decide if you like it, you’ll need to try it for yourself. So, I spent a few weeks, test-driving all sorts of note-taking apps and UpNote ended up being the one for me.

It organizes things in a clear, concise way. It has a one-time fee (no subscription), and features great export options. I originally wanted to use it to help me track some thoughts on The Tools, but I enjoy the app so much I ended up porting most of my Apple Notes over and even began journaling within the app. Simple, affordable, cross-platform… UpNote is worth a look if you need a new note taking app.