Sebastian Krzyszkowiak @dos@librem.one

Something I've found interesting about ADHD is one of the most ignorant comments "adderall is literally just meth lite" isn't really wrong, and most of the response to it, imo, do more harm than good. I think a lot of the issue is there is a huge stigma surrounding meth, and people taking adderall don't want to be associated with that stigma, so they have a extremely negative response to this statement (it is also typically made in bad faith, so there's that too).

But I think people would benefit from understanding a bit about ADHD, rather than fearmongering. Meth is actually an FDA approved treatment for ADHD, for exactly the same reason that all the other stimulant medications are. Adderall is a mix of amphetamine and dextro-amphetamine. Meth is methamphetamine, a much more potent amphetamine. It's not a coincidence or a side effect that highly addictive drugs treat ADHD, they treat ADHD for the same reason they're highly addictive drugs.

I'm going to oversimplify a bit for laypeople, but essentially a lot of the ADHD symptoms stem from their brains having a natural deficit of dopamine and norephedrine. Dopamine is involved in regulating the reward system (motivation & feeling of accomplishment from achieving goals). Whereas norephedrine regulates the fight-or-flight system (which also affects motivation and energy levels). The deficit of both of these neurotransmitters is largely responsible for people with ADHD having extremely low motivation and executive function. The deficit of norephedrine, I suspect, is why people with ADHD are able to treat some of their symptoms by deliberately putting themselves into stressful situation, thereby naturally boosting norephedrine.

Anyway, when it comes to stimulants, being "high" is essentially just your brain experiencing above baseline levels of dopamine and norephedrine. Stimulants boost dopamine and norephedrine, which is what is why they get neurotypicals high. But when given to someone with a deficit of those neurotransmitters, such as someone with ADHD, it simply just boosts them closer to normal levels. Because the symptoms of too high and too low levels of those neurotransmitters can be similar, it led to the myth that "adderall has the opposite effect on people with ADHD".

What's actually happening is the restlessness/disorganized thoughts/lack of motivation in people with ADHD comes from having a deficit of dopamine and norephedrine. So, as you increase the dose of stimulant medication, their neurotransmitter levels get closer and closer to a regular baseline level, leading to a reduction in symptoms. But if you give someone with ADHD a too high dose of stimulants, it's possible to increase their dopamine or norephedrine levels above baseline, leading to them becoming "high", and their ADHD symptoms returning.

This is likely why many studies show that Adderall doesn't actually boost the productivity of neurotypicals. What's likely happening is the excess levels of norephedrine and dopamine negatively impacts their performance, but since dopamine interferes with the brains reward system and increases feelings of gratification, they simply perceive that they are accomplishing more than they actually are.

The reason why people with ADHD don't find their medication to be addictive is because they're not taking recreational doses of it. They're only taking the appropriate dose to boost their neurotransmitter levels up towards the normal levels, which allows their brain to function similar to a neurotypical's. There's essentially no non-recreational dose of stimulants for neurotypicals (any amount will get them at least a little bit high), but people with a deficit of those neurotransmitters can take low-medium doses of stimulants without getting high, hence the difference in effect and outcomes.

As a Blind person i never thought i would be on social media savoring photos. But the communal Mastodon alt text game is so strong that sweet, poetic or silly descriptions abound on my timeline. Thanks to legions of people who take time to write a meaningful description of the ephemera they post, i learn so much about insects, plants, buildings, memes — all dispatches from a dimension of the world that i otherwise wouldn't experience. If you're wondering whether anybody reads these things: YES.

I updated the #Freedesktop specifications website, to build it with some more modern tools - please let me know if you notice any issues! 🙂

https://blog.tenstral.net/2024/08/freedesktop-specs-website-update.html

#postmarketOS & mobile #GNOME running on a Librem 5 10 km in the air over the Pacific ✈️

i hate how home consoles now are just "pc with fucked up freebsd/windows".

they should make another console that has 7 cores of an architecture you've never heard of

games should run at kernel level and have to include their own scheduler. don't worry, you can have 3 cores of 3 different architectures to manage filesystem access and such.

@ptrc @jeffhatz @ben @alice Unfortunately a nuanced take doesn't spread as much even here on the fediverse compared to a rage based toot speaking to what folks want to hear and evoking emotional responses 🌝

electronics puzzle:

you find a circuit with a modern CMOS hex inverter IC. it has an 0402 package 1uF decoupling capacitor connected between VCC and GND, placed close to the IC package.

all but one of the inverter inputs are driven by an MCU, with their outputs driving (arbitrary) devices that pull 50mA.

oddly, one of the inverter inputs is directly wired to GND, and its output is wired to another 0402 1uF capacitor.

can you guess why someone might do this?

AAARRRGGGHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!

Channel 4 News, in talking about today's #Microsoft #CrowdStrike fuckup, stated that the expected Y2K effect was imaginary.

No! No! NO!

We did a massive amount of work to update and ensure systems would keep on working. And more importantly WE TESTED EVERYTHING FULLY BEFORE GOING LIVE.

Can't join #GUADEC (https://events.gnome.org/event/209/) this year but at least I can watch the live stream on a 📱 running a #gtk based shell (#phosh) and lots of #gnome components with a video player using GTK and #gstreamer (#livi). Life could be worse.

#LinuxMobile