Why assume malicious intent? I am well aware that the test isn’t just some Math.random() and even includes quotes from the official site that talk more about how their scoring engine works.
I don’t think I was trying to “outsmart” anything, I’m just a naturally curious person
I don't think you had bad intentions. You may know the testing is more involved but there is a common perception that people can just do a single online test and get a diagnosis. People should be informed that it's just one indicator of many. I apologize for my "writing fodder" phrasing though, that was rude on my part.
Agree with original commenter but +1 to reframing the language. I was very afraid to begin medication because I would always hear about how addicting this medication can be. But like you say, you wouldn't tell someone with diabetes that they're addicted to insulin.
fully agreed with this. it's the same stigma that I see get applied to SSRIs - that you become 'dependent' on medication, it's not 'natural', etc
in reality, if the side effects are minimal and you function better on it, it's a sip of water and a pill a day and that's largely it for health outcomes. most drug interventions are generally extremely well-studied with very large sample sizes. there's a reason why clinical research is considered gold-standard - the regulatory requirements to even get a drug to market is monumental and some of the most rigorously audited and vetted processes in the world
the ironic thing is that most of the big pharma detractors are also ingesting dozens of supplements, the vast majority of which have little to no good empirical evidence backing them (and very small effect sizes to boot) along with even less regulatory oversight for issues like contamination, formulation, or if it even contains the active ingredient. which isn't to say that 'big pharma' doesn't often pursue avenues for profitability reasons instead of the public good but that's not the typical critique that an anti-empiricist brings most times
That's not really an "addiction" by any reasonable meaning besides "something I do often".
The actual meaning is more complex, involving inability to stop, negative effects on your life, etc. - none of which apply to wearing your glasses or breathing.
You... don't think there are negative effects to stopping breathing?
If you can be behaviorally addicted to gambling, or even more aptly eating, you can be behaviorally addicted to medication that doesn't give you any physiological dependency.
> The DSM-5 has re-classified the condition [ed: gambling addiction] as an addictive disorder, with those affected exhibiting many similarities to those with substance use disorder. They both activate a reward mechanism in the brain, causing dopamine release to reinforce repetitive behavior. Both often lead to loss of control.
Edit: to engage more substantively, imagine if your glasses gave you, say, mild skin irritation that progressively got worse with wear, but you chose to mitigate that and wear them anyway. I would rate it at that level.
it's not good to flame people for things they can't control. I also think it's not fair to compare insulin (life saving non synthesizable hormone) vs amphetamine (hard drug that helps people better cope with a society expressly designed to beat them down), because then we forget that dosing amphetamines daily comes with its own price of damage to the body. drugs prescribed for adhd are also very much addicting - if one lets an amphetamine script run out, symptoms of withdrawal will take place, regardless as to how the condition is verbally labelled (which while horrible is also to me not fair to compare with a diabetic dying without insulin)
To your point about life saving - untreated ADHD folks have a 2-3x mortality rate, generally due to accidental cause or risky behaviors. Studies have shown that medication can have a significant statistical decrease in the overall mortality rate. So while it's not a cut/dry as insulin, it is still "life saving" for many.
The reasons you cite are why it is a controlled substance, and why it should be taken under supervision of a doctor. But they aren't arguments against the drug itself or that it is in a different "category" of drug. It is a treatment, and like any treatment, the pros/cons should be discussed with medical professionals and appropriate decisions made for each individual.
And yes, sadly our society fails people who are different and our medical system fails people with regards to their medication all the time - that can happen with any medication though. And yes, consequences vary greatly depending on the medication.
I've never heard of anyone with ADHD on prescription amphetamines experiencing withdrawal when stopping. At least, not with any symptoms worse than just having ADHD and being unmedicated.
People with ADHD are often amused by referring to amphetamines as a "hard drug" since it has practically none of the typical hard drug effects on them.
No questions, but feedback for you from an engineer in a similar situation (late diagnosis), make sure you go back and get them to check for every other thing under the sun. You really don't want to dive into the ADHD side and find out it was something else (other things can masquerade as ADHD), so a good neuropsychologist is critical. And "body medicine", too, for example adrenal disorders. It's worth being extremely thorough at this point - you're off the standard path, embrace it.
Also, congratulations, once you figure it out your life is going to change for the better in a way you can't currently understand (literally, lacking the brain regions and/or development for it, take it from me), but the process can kinda suck a lot, so stick with it, it's worth it in the end, wherever you end up.
I have a question (and please take it in jest)! In between buying a telescope, seeking out an opinion on ADHD, accidentally hacking an online test, and then blogging about it, how many things on your todo list(s) did you not do?
Following through on the top comment, surely you realized when you decided to forgo the back half of the test that, had the program compensated for it, you were consciously leaning into the ADHD diagnosis, right?
Which is exactly how it manifests, at least for a lot of people. ADHD isn't just "I can't focus lol", it's "trying to focus feels like dragging myself through broken glass"
One of my kids got diagnosed with ADHD and autism/asperger. He can sit for hours reading IF IT IS INTERESTING. But homework? Impossible. Even if it's just reading a couple of pages of a book it's nearly impossible for him to do it and it takes so much energy and suffering to get through it.
Have you got some fancy scroll thing for your blog? Something in my brain is noticing that scrolling feels smoother than your average site, though maybe im crazy.
Someone mentioned this as well in another comment. Turns out most of this could’ve been done as an extension after all :-)
edit: actually, wouldn’t you still need to override the global you’d like to instrument? At that point, the toString of the modified function would leak your hook.
Thanks for sharing some examples! Someone shared a similar project in the other thread. I didn’t realize this at the time of writing haha.
FWIW I still think modifying the browser has some positives wrt stealth and hooking out of process frames (could be wrong on the second part, haven’t actually tested!)
Still good to know though will leave a note in the article :-)
Yeah, there's a pretty overwhelming amount of browser APIs and functionality which isn't always (well-)documented to learn about. If I recall correctly Proxies wouldn't be detectable (seems to be supported by https://exploringjs.com/es6/ch_proxies.html#sec_detect-proxi...) so long as your injected content script runs first (otherwise other code could presumably override the Proxy constructor). You should also be able to hook any embedded frames by setting `target: { ..., allFrames: true }`.
To note, there are undocumented detections to even Proxys, for example using `in` operator in v8 (such as `proxiedFunc in 1` for some proxied function). Really cool to see a project like this.
How do you use `in` in v8 to detect proxies? I assume its a difference in the exception, but the message and the cause were the same in both direct and proxied `x in 1`.
I don’t think I was trying to “outsmart” anything, I’m just a naturally curious person