MavisBacon

cool. just saying- consider yourself fortunate as I was born in one of the most violent cities in the world (Baltimore) to an over-bearing mother who had a very hard time with me leaving despite the riots, corruption, and nightly gunplay I could hear ring out from my row home. We are quite close but she didn't speak with me for months when I moved.

I do sympathize though. I do not have kids (yet) but our move from TN > Maine is definitely partially motivated by the fact that I said I would absolutely never raise a child in the south due to gun culture and archaic legislation in general. For example most states in the south still allow school teachers and administrators to hit children- most of this happens in Mississippi and TN, then basically other states where lots of poverty, christianity, or mormonism are.

I’m in the middle of dealing with this as I’m not a proud nor rich man and always keep crawling back to Southwest. Flying Nashville > Phoenix > Oakland right now. As far as I can tell they just delayed all flights by 30 mins which set things back in place somehow

Not sure if there was much need for snark, I was simply stating some positive aspects of living in the U.S. (becoming increasingly difficult) - would be nice to not have the violence piece thrown in my face. There are also plenty of cities with “culture” and low levels of gun violence here. San Diego, Denver, Portland, Austin for example of bigger cities.

Some of us have family and friends here or simply can’t afford to live in or move to the EU if we wanted to.

Definitely this. I grew up outside Baltimore and went on to live in Boulder CO, Orange County CA, moved back home and then to LA on a whim. Finished school in Nashville, TN and my wife and I are about to get out and move to Maine. Zero red tape whatsoever- the flexibility and ease of traversing and moving around the USA is definitely awesome and rarely discussed in terms of the benefits of living here. There’s something for pretty much everyone and the culture varies greatly from region to region, city to city.

and the biopic just premiered at SXSW. amazing.

https://www.chron.com/food/article/flamin-hot-movie-17843954...

I think most people are going to give up before they find that link in the footer, and regardless these themes still present accessibility issues, especially that static image background. I personally find even the "mostly monochrome" style very difficult to read through and I'm guessing I'm not the only one.

this generally isn't how designing with cognitive or neurological disabilities in mind works, we don't want the user to have to make adjustments in order to use a website as this only creates more friction. Not to mention the fact that we don't assume that the user is knowledgeable on how to make those adjustments, especially with the senior population which is a large segment of the cognitively impacted population who are using the internet.

unlike with the blind or low vision population, those with cognitive and neuro issues often aren't aware of assistive tech, often aren't familiar with the accessibility settings on their devices, and sometimes aren't even aware of the disability they are dealing with and are undiagnosed.

Per original link

>>Arghhhh! Your pages give me a headache, and/or eyestrain.

>Stop using the site immediately and consult a qualified ophthalmologist. Seriously, no static display on a modern and correctly adjusted VDU such as a computer monitor or phone screen should ever be inducing headaches or eyestrain in a healthy individual when properly used for reasonable time periods, and with sufficient breaks. If it is, you may have an underlying health condition which has otherwise gone un-noticed.

this statement basically implies that you have no intention of creating a website that is accessible to all users, and to all of those users with cognitive, vision, or neurological issues: "tough luck, go see a doctor!". Though I understand the goal here in terms of style and this page is indeed WCAG friendly enough in terms of some of the most obvious success criteria- this website is an objective nightmare for those with a variety of cognitive disabilities.

My background is I used to run a national harm reduction org and I’ve also spent countless nights and mornings in AA and NA meetings in cities and towns throughout the country- places like Baltimore, Miami/Dade County, Tucson, Santa Ana, Denver/Boulder, Newport Beach and nearby suburbs of all these places

That’s great you were able to access secular meetings in SF/LA/NYC, but the reality for most Americans is that those meetings you attended might as well not exist, they are elusive, infrequent, and make up a tiny percentage of the total meetings online or otherwise

Having said all that. and while we are nitpicking- it’s probably worth mentioning that “secular” meetings still have 12 steps and still involve handing your will and life over to a higher power of some more palatable flavor (such as “the program”)- so definitionally we are still talking about faith-based treatment. This will never work out well for atheists and that’s the point me and others are making.

While this is in theory true, and as much as the literature of AA attempts to separate itself from Christianity or any other religion, the reality is that the 12 steps of Alcoholics Anonymous were derived from the 4 steps of the Oxford Group- an Evangelical Christian organization. The word god is constantly thrown around in meetings and throughout the literature and, make no mistake, that is a Christian god they are talking about. Christian prayers are fairly common in meetings as well, especially the Lord’s Prayer- and 12-step meetings are typically held in churches.

>12 step can be a lifeline for people at the end of their rope who have no other options, but it also inevitably fails anyone who doesn't buy into the narrative about a higher power. [I would argue it fails even those who do, as it teaches powerlessness.] Some may benefit from such an extreme approach, but it is deeply, deeply flawed. The main strength it does have is connecting you with other people and being very accessible. But we can & should do better.

oh indeed. I found myself in the rooms of AA/NA at the age of 19, still very foolish in my youth, confused, pretty desperate. Even in that state I had such a hard time buying into just the first few steps. it all seemed so utterly nonsensical to me and I realized believing in god was a prerequisite I could never meet. for those unfamiliar with the 12 steps of alcoholic anonymous this is how they begin...

1. We admitted we were powerless over alcohol—that our lives had become unmanageable.

2. Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.

3. Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood Him.

yeah Bicycle and Ophelia are a few other U.S. suboxone telehealth startups that seem to be doing good work as well (if anyone is interested, it's worth checking each of these out as their coverage varies in terms of which states, last I checked)

I’m unsure of the situation in other countries but getting adequate treatment for substance use disorder in the U.S. is terribly difficult (nearly impossible for some) and faith-based 12 step programs such as AA/NA dominate the landscape and effectively replace mental healthcare in many situations. The poor utilize 12-steps because it’s free social support which is great, but for-profits do the same thing (because it’s very cheap to just implement 12 step thinking) and rehab patients are often handed a “big book” (AA/NA’s main text) well before they get a psych evaluation, if they get one at all

In short, substance use disorder is treated as a primary condition here, there’s a massive high-profit industry built around it and specifically treating it using faith-based 12 step methodology so a lot of mentally ill people who use drugs never receive proper treatment

+1 on Clifford Brown. I think he wrote some of the most brilliant bop melodies and his death was probably one of the more tragic that music ever saw

What about imitating Coltrane’s Classic Quartet? That would be INSANE

these are fair points, I suppose I was more addressing this with the "classical fan" user in mind given the context of the discussion, idea of a platform that serves these users. It definitely is true though that a huge portion of music listeners in general would rather throw a random playlist on than select an album and it would be interesting to somehow see how many classical listeners on say Spotify are doing so through playlists vs selected albums.

I personally would love to see some AI model imitate Thelonious Monk compositions and solos. The result would probably be hysterical

>I suspect focused, attentive listening only makes up a small minority of the total streams

The inverse is likely true with the classical audience. Just like with jazz, although there will be a portion of users seeking “vibey jazz” sort of playlists to use in the background while working, the majority of jazz fans consume jazz as albums and are still concerned with things like personnel and liner notes, perhaps even who mastered this recording. Classical fans are similar except I would say even more picky IME (worked in a jazz and classical CD store/venue for a number of years)

I spent a few weeks at an MGH affiliate hospital that had since my last stay began using Epic and from what I could tell all it did was muddy things up. The staff all seemed to fumble through use of the interface, even those who had spent years with it. From the nurses to the medical director of this particular program, everyone was always complaining about using the software

As a patient I never really set eyes on the interface but there seems to be a UX nightmare afoot. Once I was unintentionally dispensed 3x the intended dose of a stimulant medication due to a “default dose” feature in the interface that my physician admitted to accidentally submitting based on

This is such good news, I was planning on keeping my used Volvo for decades as I love my buttons so much

Sarcasm, and my apologies. Rough morning tbh

It’s used all the time in the freshwater aquarium hobby, which still kinda blows my mind. I use it to attach certain species of live plants to rock and driftwood

It’s actually a pretty effective design pattern if your goal is for your users to not finish reading what you wrote (and therefore be less likely to share it)

I think the question also needs to be asked of- can GPT-4 write accessible/WCAG compliant code? I just spent the last two days at a digital accessibility conference called axe-con, financed by a firm called Deque who primarily make AI/ML powered software for the detection of accessibility issues in code

The resounding attitude seems to be that AI/ML is a friend to disabled users and can help do a lot of lifting with writing, maintaining, auditing code- but we are a long long ways away from fully automated processes that account for accessibility and produce websites that will work with assistive tech like screen readers, if it is possible at all

I’ve found that their editorial playlists are pretty badass but the problem is they don’t have obvious names. Like I’ve got one I really enjoy that is basically non-country music with pedal steel guitar that’s titled “Space Western” and there’s a slowcore playlist I dig called “Sad & Slow To The Core”. All of that to say- you’ve just gotta poke around. They didn’t even introduce user-generated playlists until fairly recently I think

Yeah I made the switch to Tidal a few years back and am quite happy. UI is simple, usable, attractive, software works mostly flawlessly, and the algo is indeed amazing. Spotify’s recommendations were so shallow for me compared to Tidal. I actually now discover most of my new artists through the Tidal algo

Oh and my favorite aspect of Tidal is being able to browse the credits for releases and find things like names of producers, writers, session players

Some theorize that gay men historically found themselves pursuing the priesthood because this was a way to not have a romantic life with women without raising eyebrows. There’s also an element of repressed homosexuality that’s sort of difficult to communicate but it’s likely that these gay priests spend a lot of time with thoughts of self hatred, self-doubt, confusion. maybe god can save me from these thoughts?, it’s terribly complex and as much as I generally don’t tolerate Catholicism and what comes with it I truly feel for these priests

> So what has changed since the 1950s?

I think that a major component of the overall mental health crisis for young people is the fact that more and more teens understand mental illness, are able to identify their struggles, and getting a diagnosis for things like anxiety and depression is easy enough- but the situation for treatment, at least in the US, is absolutely abysmal. I was diagnosed with a few learning disabilities at 8, anxiety later on so have been seeing psychologists and psychiatrists for a very long time now. I can afford top-tier care out-of-pocket and am very experienced at navigating this landscape, and at 32, I still struggle to find competent psychiatrists. It's a very complicated field which requires a certain nuance in practice but I usually come across mental health professionals entrenched in pop psychology, not science, so I just have a great therapist and have neurologists handle my meds now. This scenario becomes even more difficult for adolescents because many psychiatrists and psychiatrists do not see adolescents, and even fewer will see children.

tldr; adolescents are more aware of their mental health struggles than they were just 10 years ago but access to proper mental health care has not improved, and finding a psychiatrist or psychologist who is taking new patients is twice as hard as it was before covid

Prior to diagnosis and treatment I was beginning to wake up up pretty much every 60-90 minutes through the night and then I'd do the only thing that helped at the time which is smoke some cannabis, fall back asleep, wake up 90 mins later, rinse repeat until dawn. I always woke up exhausted, even if i managed to only awake a few times through the night. Muscle pain and severe cognitive deficiency

Basically with my disorder (Periodic Limb Movement Disorder or PLMD) it's categorized by episodes of 100s of rhythmic body movements which will sometimes wake me up, but even if they don't I wake up very tired from the movements.

The current treatment has been nightly diazepam (aka valium). The first-line medication for PLMD in the US is actually a dopamine agonist called Mirapex that is often used to treat parkinson's disease. The American Scholar published a piece about Mirapex in September titled "The Degradation Drug," [https://theamericanscholar.org/the-degradation-drug/] It's a medication known to cause dramatic personality changes and life altering compulsions like gambling and even child pornography. Evidence of efficacy for this specific condition is so thin it absolutely blows my mind this medication is handed out thoughtlessly (they really just want to delay prescribing a heavy sedative), I've told my neurologist I will never touch a dopamine agonist again and caution others to do plenty of reading before going on one

This, definitely this. Though apneas aren’t a component, I have a severe neurological sleep disorder that went undiagnosed largely due to physicians not ordering a sleep study. Even a sleep generalist I saw favored assuming psychological insomnia and regurgitated behavioral advice like no screens before bed and asked if I tried melatonin. As my sleep debt piled up and my sanity diminished each day, I threw my hands in the air and checked myself into the best behavioral health hospital in the U.S. They did a sleep study and low and behold I was having 100s, sometimes 1000+ involuntary movements per night while sleeping. On the road to recovery now!