iPad Sketch #3: Two Pumpkins For Pumpkin

Originally published at Absentminded Author, v2.



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Is AI Good for ADHD or Just a Distraction?

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In which Douglas proves he’s not a Boomer I’ve been rethinking my engagement with AI recently. I’m too eager to be an unpaid beta tester for these guys. Companies that have invested billions into AI will gaslight us all day about how imperative AI tools should be in our lives. They’ll force us to deal with their AI, replace perfectly useful services with AI, and cram AI down our throats every time we turn around. (Microsoft 365 Copilot, I’m looking at you.) So what good is AI? Judging by how much trouble it gives me, I’d be tempted to say “not much”. ChatGPT once formatted CSS tables so poorly for me that I spent longer fighting with it than I did just coding them myself. Grok often hallucinates answers, gaslights me until I call it out, then it apologizes and gives me the information that I wanted. Just tonight I asked Siri how many kids Ronald Reagan had and what were their names (since his oldest son passed away today) , and it told me “five”, but withheld the names. ChatG...
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The Car Wreck of My Life Has a Name

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Since the pandemic, I have discovered something harder to deal with than Tourettes. It challenges my efforts to be upbeat and optimistic, and has given me very little to laugh about. I manage my ADHD & Depression just fine—or should I say I deal with them just fine. They represent road bumps that cause me to slow down, but then I get back up to speed. My Tourettes acts more like an IED that blows up my schedule. It takes a bit more effort and time to recover from, but I always get moving forward again. Post Viral Dysautonomia, as I’ve been recently diagnosed with, has been more like a head-on collision with demolition charges for the past four years, taking out both the car and the roads. It leaves me exhausted, susceptible to illness, and with oxygen saturation that routinely drops below 88%. Recently, I had a setback in my efforts to overcome dysautonomia. It was just back surgery. I had a cyst removed. Nothing drastic. It was day surgery. I laughed and chatted wi...
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PEM: Thinking Tactically

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(These AI images make me laugh. Yes, I know the calendar is messed up. Allow me my silly moments.) I’ve decided to think dramatically about my obstacles in my first attempt to blog about my new condition with a sense of humor. Honestly, there hasn’t been much to laugh at. For example, I got distracted playing Chess on Duolingo the other day and gave myself Post Exertional Malaise (PEM). First, I noticed the headache, then I noticed that I was panting, and then I realized that I was dizzy. It was just chess! But I lost track of time, got caught up in it, and overtaxed my brain. Stamina spent. Crash incoming. An entire day wasted. It’s hard to laugh about things like that. I had big plans to implement. Instead, I watched TV—until that gave me a headache, too. Every day I have lists, but I rarely make it to the end of them because of the drain cognitive, physical, and even emotional events have on my stamina levels. Chronic fatigue is complicated. That’s whe...
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