There is, I think, a few things that contribute here.

The US has a very stupid “bigger is better” mentality. So if you go out you expect a large portion because that translates to better (and more value). This is of course not true, but culturally it’s very embedded.

almost everyone I know takes home some portion of their meal from a restaurant. So that single portion is really two, or maybe three.

IME people don’t usually have giant portions at home, they sometimes do of course, but things tend to be more sane for home cooked meals for your family. They also tend to be a lot more balanced, with more veg and grain.

what you see on TV is often sensationalized, and not fully indicative of normal here.

It’s 100% this, it’s the folks that bounce their kegs and fidget in their chairs but don’t feel the urge to actually get up and move. The ones that read 3 books a week in high school because our brains just need something to stimulate them and doing the same math exercises for the third week in a row isn’t cutting it. We are the ones that work in IT now, jumping from fire to fire but never being able to fix the underlying issues (but that’s okay since there isn’t money, time, or people to fix them anyways). We learned to hide the struggle because otherwise we were just called lazy, told to focus more, or work harder. Often we are pretty smart since instead of running in circles at lunch we read yet another book on some esoteric subject (and now have access to Wikipedia whenever we want which is not a blessing). In older parlance we have ADD, not ADHD, in modern terms we are often inattentive type, or combined. If we did well in school and weren’t the TV trope ADHD kid, no one bothered to check us.

Maybe my experience is out of the norm, but I did some searching online for recommendations of psychologists that do ADHD evaluations. I called the most recommended and was told they had no open appointments but recommended three others that often have availability. I checked those out, chose one, and made an appointment online. They specifically have adult ADHD evaluation as a service they provide with a defined set of appointments and processes. I did an online appointment first, followed by a ton of surveys and questionnaires (it was I think 5 different forms with 30-50 questions each). My wife also did one. I had an in person appointment with some testing over the course of an hour or so, then a follow up to discuss my diagnosis. Of note, it was a few hundred dollars, paid out of our HSA and covered by insurance as mental health services. I didn’t need to “game” anything. I was on time for appointments, honest, and upfront about everything. I discussed why I was looking into this at 30+ years old (I was noticing it interfering with my work and home life more, and through talking to friends and seeing videos online I started to suspect ADHD was a likely explanation for struggles and experiences I’ve had my whole life). Medication never came up during the evaluation, and afterward it only came up in terms of an option for treatment but advised as part of a larger regime of therapy. Psychologists can’t prescribe anything anyways. I do take medication now though it isn’t a stimulant (what OP refers to as pharma speed which is a gross mischaracterization of stimulant medications for ADHD, but it seems they are aware of that and don’t care about continuing to stigmatize ADHD treatments) and both my wife and I have seen a huge difference in my ability to generally function in ways that are healthy, productive, and much more pleasant. I still need to find a therapist though, been meaning to get on that for the last year or so…

For those in the US looking into this, check out psychologists, they are fully equipped and qualified to evaluate and diagnose various types of neurodivergence in people and are easier to get appointments with than most psychiatrists (if you are diagnosed and want to try medication as a treatment option you’ll still need to find a psychiatrist, but that can be easier with a diagnosis in hand). They are generally cheaper since they aren’t medical doctors, and many insurance plans still cover their services. Don’t skip or miss appointments, especially on purpose. It isn’t going to help in a diagnosis and is likely to just make it harder to get help you need and are trying to get. Lock in on that hyper focus and be that person that’s there 20 minutes early (because with an appointment in the afternoon can you really do anything else that day anyways?). Call around, or email, most offices want to help and seem willing to point you to other providers if they can’t help you. Be prepared for a wait though, it’s common to get an appointment 3-6 months out in many areas (more reason not to miss appointments on purpose!).

I would hazard to guess they are investigating how the use of AI was missed in their editorial process, how they missed the incorrect quotes, and who violated their journalistic standards by using an AI to directly write article text since it’s a coauthored piece.

In typical Ars fashion, the editorial team appears to be looking into what happened and are being fairly open about at things: arstechnica.com/…/journalistic-standards.1511650/

I will be very disappointed if this was BenJ or Dan using AI to write their article since both have had really good pieces in the past, but it doesn’t sound like this is some Ars wide shift at this point. Like all things, it makes sense that it will take time for them to investigate this, Aurich (the Ars community lead and graphic designer) was clear that with this happening on a Friday afternoon and a US holiday on Monday, it’s likely to be into next week before they have anything they can share.

Eh, it can be a lot of work but doesn’t have to be. I’ve automated backups, and if you follow current best practice guidance from industry, you should use long pass phrases and not worry about regularly rotating them. For things like SSH keys, you can rotate them if you think you’ve had a breach but in normal usage there isn’t a huge benefit security-wise since they functionally can’t be guessed and would need to be stolen. If an adversary steals your SSH keys then you’re already pretty hosed as the next step is for them to establish another backdoor to access your server without needing your key.

Yes, hail is from thunderstorms and is generally larger, ice pellets are winter precipitation and almost always smaller. Hail usually lasts only a few minutes, ice pellets can last many hours.

Honestly it’s not a ton of time. A few minutes to run patches every few weeks, and the initial investment to plan, install, and configure your services (but then that’s the fun part no?). Self hosting IMO isn’t a great way to save time and money, or even to get out of the pocket of big tech. If those are your goals you’re better off looking at hosted solutions that are Open, and likely paying for it since running IT stacks isn’t free. Self hosting is a hobby, something you do to learn and because you enjoy it. It is hard sometimes, takes time, and comes with risks, but so do most other hobbies.

It doesn’t usually matter what the service is, the basic concepts are the same. If you want to access a service you host on your internal network from another external network you either need to use a VPN to securely connect into your network, or expose the service directly. If you are exposing it directly you should put it (or a proxy like NPM) in your DMZ. The specifics of how to do this though will vary from service to service and with your specific network config.

You can run a port scan against your public IP from another network to see what is open. But if you haven’t specifically set something up for external access through port forwarding you are probably fine.