I really only have experience with GameMaker, Unity, and Godot. And I only really have extensive experience with
GameMaker, although I'm building a game with Godot 4 right now.
But you came to my website, so I'm going to give you my opinion. (And I have been coding for 30 years, of which the
first ten years were mostly building games!)
These are in order of how much I recommend them based on my experience. They are not necessarily in order of how
good they are for your game. I also don't cover consoles, as I don't know much about those.
Godot
With the release of Godot 4, Godot is now well on its way to competing with the big boys. It started out as a 2D
game engine but has added some really great 3D support.
It's similar in some ways to Unity but open source and just works the way I think. I'm very impressed so far with my
game!
It's also pretty beginner-friendly, and I found that git version control works great on it.
Editor: works on Mac/PC/Linux and can deploy to desktop, mobile, VR, and web.
Downsides: still being developed, very few assets in their library, much smaller (but very passionate) community.
You also can't make super high-fidelity 3D games like Unreal.
Cost: totally free. You can donate (I intend to, once I get to revenue with my game.)
GameMaker
GameMaker only does 2D. If you need 3D, move along. It costs money to buy, you use their GML language, and works
well with 2D sprites and whatnot.
I've built many games in GameMaker over the last 20 years. Famously, Thor from Pirate Software
is using GameMaker for
his game, Heartbound. It's a good system and I know it very, very well. It's very beginner-friendly.
Editor: works on Mac/PC, Linux with some effort, and can deploy to desktop, mobile, and web. No VR.
Downsides: only 2D, GML is quirky, the editor is quirky, and they don't seem to really listen to the community IMO.
Also, git doesn't work very well with it if you have more than one person contributing.
Cost: $100 one-time for a lifetime license. Pretty good deal!
Unity
The most beginner-friendly that also supports 3D. It has the biggest community. It has a massive catalog of assets,
many free. There are more tutorials than any other. It uses C# which is a fine language.
Editor: works on Mac/PC/Linux and can deploy to desktop, mobile, VR, and web.
Downsides: you can't make super high fidelity 3D games like Unreal. I found it very difficult to use version control
with others.
Cost: It's free to get started, but then they have a very confusing (to me) pricing scheme that nobody seems to like
all that much.
Unreal
I haven't used Unreal ever. It seems like the most capable on this list, with triple-A titles being regularly made
with it. You can build nearly anything and their tech seems unmatched (except maybe by CryEngine). Their editor has
a pretty good "Blueprint" system for wiring up things without code.
Editor: works on Mac/PC/Linux and can deploy to desktop, mobile, and VR. Can deploy to web with some effort.
Downsides: uses C++ which is hard to learn and a massive language.
Cost: free until $1M in revenue, then either 5% royalty beyond that (or a per-seat license).
CryEngine
I don't know much about this other than it's well-regarded in the serious game industry and the games made with it
look pretty darn good.
Editor: only works on PC. Can deploy to desktop, and I think it can go to mobile and VR.
Downsides: smaller community, not sure what else
Cost: free up to $5k annual revenue, then 5% for anything after that
Armory
I only learned about it doing research for this article. It looks cool; it plugs into
Blender, which is a very popular 3D and animations design software.
I don't have much other info; go check them out if this sounds interesting to you!
I’ve suspected for many years that I have ADHD of some sort.
Note: if you think you have ADHD and are reading this article, it might seem way too long — I
understand. I did my best to write it in a compelling way, and I think it might be helpful for you to understand
what a pathway toward treatment looks like!
Note 2: nothing in here is medical advice; seek a professional.
When I was a kid, I’d get really sucked into what I was doing and live in my own world. I would read voraciously,
but I would skip past “boring” paragraphs and essentially skim-read my way to the end. When I discovered computers
in 6th grade I would spend hours every day coding, and only my mom forcing me to go outside would break my
concentration. Despite the invested hours, I made probably 200 games and only finished 2 or 3 in my whole teenage
years. I’d always want to move on to the next one.
I also grew up a PK (pastor’s kid), and just couldn’t really concentrate during hour-long sermons. I’d imagine
playing basketball, coding, flying helicopters, whatever else caught my attention. I’d also fidget slightly but
constantly — I was never a hyper kid, in fact a fairly calm kid (and person in general), but I do fidget a lot.
I did great in school — graduated near the top of my class, Honor Graduate, 3.9 GPA, high SAT scores. But homework
was really tough for me. The only saving grace was that I had a long bus ride, so I’d frantically finish homework on
the bus every morning. But I aced nearly every test and got numerous awards.
When it came time to apply for scholarships and colleges, I procrastinated and completely missed any chances;
somehow I still got one $1500 scholarship which was enough to pay for the one semester of community college that I
eventually completed.
ADHD is often labeled a “superpower”, and in some ways I did feel like it was, but it still has had a lot of
negative impacts on my life. I have forgotten very important appointments, unintentionally ignored my wife when
she’s talking (so many times), been stuck to my phone when I should have been talking with the people around me, and
there are other aspects that have led to negative consequences: social media addiction, difficulty regulating diet
leading to weight gain, and an annoying habit of arguing with people on the internet for hours at a time that I have
within the last few years been able to work through and correct.
At work, it shows up in losing attention during meetings that I find less engaging, getting distracted by
notifications, difficulty when people are speaking too slowly (I’ll “finish their sentences” for them, which can be
rude sometimes), and forget all about action items once I close Zoom.
In addition, studies have shown that people with ADHD live shorter lives and make suboptimal long-term decisions.
So, ADHD isn’t really a superpower.
Over the years I’ve built tons of structures to help me avoid the negative consequences of my inability to regulate
my attention (which is really more accurate than “attention deficit” — you still have attention, it’s just very hard
to direct/regulate). I use calendar reminders, timers, I enforce a very streamlined Slack culture at work, and I
avoid playing games that hack dopamine like MMORPGs and whatnot. I write notes in Apple Notes, take lots of photos
to remember things that happen, and have a running note of my highest priority tasks.
I’ve also used it to my advantage — I’ve tweeted nearly 100k times and built up a sizable following over there,
partially because of how quickly I respond to people. I will think of a tweet and send it out in a couple seconds,
even when I’m supposed to be doing something else.
I drank a lot of coffee and soda over the years; caffeine really helps me focus, but getting too much of it does
eventually prompt some general anxiety.
Diagnosis
So; that’s the preamble, and brings me to this year.
My wife Chyra has been going down her own journey with ADHD, and suggested that I get evaluated. She also had me buy
the audiobook “How to ADHD” and listen to it. (Sidenote: for
stay-at-home parents, she also highly recommends the book
“How to Keep House While Drowning”.)
I also discovered Dr. K on YouTube (Healthy Gamer
) and watched several videos where he talked about ADHD and Adderall/other prescriptions. Highly recommend checking
it out.
I eventually scheduled an appointment with a local ADHD treatment center, which specializes in diagnosis and
treatment of ADHD of all forms. There were a few steps to get through:
Scheduling an appointment through their app — they use Spruce, which mostly uses a chat interface (brilliant idea
— worked well with how I operate), and their staff was super responsive.
Filling out multiple forms, which were repetitive and a poor UX (tweet) — mostly questions like “How often do you have trouble wrapping up the final details of a project, once the
challenging parts have been done?”
They messaged me on the app several times to finish the forms, and then eventually texted me outside the app — I
really appreciated the persistence, but I suppose they deal with people like me all the time.
The appointment itself was a 90-minute video call through the Spruce app. The specialist asked me a lot of
questions about my childhood (what you read above).
At the end of it, she diagnosed me with ADHD (inattentive).
According to the specialist, there are three main types of ADHD — inattentive (which used to be called ADD),
hyperactive, and combined (both). My memory isn’t great on this point, but I believe she said I scored a 42 on a
scale where 25 was considered ADHD. So I’m well into this category. It runs in families and is, I think, a form of
neurodivergence, somewhat like autism. And like autism, it can vary widely in symptoms and severity between
individuals.
Treatment
ADHD is often attributed to a lack of dopamine/norepinephrine in your brain.
There are essentially two main medication types for treating ADHD of all 3 types: stimulant and non-stimulant.
Stimulants include Adderall, Ritalin, and Vyvanse, among some lesser-known ones. Non-stimulants include Guanfacine,
Clonidine, and a few others. You can also do behavior therapy which can be effective as well, and a combination is
often most effective.
Stimulants work, as I understand it, by boosting dopamine and norepinephrine in your brain, which boost your energy,
helps you pay better attention, and keeps you alert.
I was prescribed Guanfacine (1mg) and Vyvanse (currently on 40mg, which is a common dose — can go up to 70mg). I
have hypertension (and take medication for that — also runs in my family), and Guanfacine was originally developed
to help treat hypertension, but was later found to have an effect on ADHD. So this seemed like a good bet for me —
low side effects, well understood, treats the two main issues I have. I did have to stay on my other hypertension
medication as Guanfacine by itself isn’t enough to fully control it.
Vyvanse is like Adderall and Ritalin in that it’s an amphetamine. This made me really nervous; I pretty much never
take drugs outside of caffeine and my hypertension medication, and there’s a history of drug abuse in my family. I
asked several doctors and other medical professionals about it and did a lot of research on YouTube. From what I
understand, it’s not particularly addictive, especially if you have ADHD and take a prescribed normal dose. However,
like any drug of this category, it can be abused and you can develop addiction/dependence, and thus it is tightly
controlled.
In particular, I was worried about long-term effects. This is what my specialist sent me:
Hi Jamon! Great questions. Studies have actually seen that individuals treated for ADHD through their lifespan
actually fair better then if not treated. One main reason being is that your executive function is better, you are
more aware and make better decisions, your mood tends to be less labile, and you sleep better. There is always a
risk with stimulants and cardiovascular health, but it is a risk to benefit thing. In terms of growth, I watch
younger children closely, as it can suppress growth. Especially as appetite is challenged with a stimulant in
place. I have not had long term issues with stomach problems. As for dependence....well you function better
cognitively on it and your mind and body tend to appreciate that. So, one could consider it dependence. But on the
other hand, without it individuals may seek out food, substances, etc to fill the void and give the brain what it
needs. Tolerance can come during titration, and you may need a tweak here and there, but many adults stay on the
same amounts once we find the sweet spot for some time.
There’s also short-term release and extended release. Adderall and Ritalin have short-term release versions as well
as extended release, but Vyvanse is only extended release. The difference really has to do with how you intend to
use it. Extended release can be 8-14 hours depending on the drug, while short-term is somewhere around 3-6 hours.
From what I understand, short-term works best if you want to target specific times of the day but not have the
effects all day, while extended-release is sort of an every day all day thing that wears off just before bed.
Since I’m on Vyvanse, I am on an extended release. I have to take it right after waking up; otherwise it’ll last too
long. Vyvanse is harder to get in some areas; there just isn’t as much supply and demand is high. But so far I’ve
been able to mostly stay ahead of it.
I am not currently doing any behavior therapy, but might look into it at some point. Tell me if you think it’s
helpful and any advice you have there.
Effects
Guanfacine initially just made me tired in the afternoons/evenings. It helped lower my blood pressure a bit. It’s
been hard to really notice major changes, although I do feel pretty calm in the mornings, which is its intended
effect. It can take many weeks to fully work. Since it’s helping me control my hypertension, I’ve just felt like
it’s worth taking even if I can’t easily feel the effects.
Vyvanse at 10-20mg didn’t have a noticeable effect, but at 30mg and 40mg I notice. I’m calmer, more focused, can
direct my attention on things. I feel more peaceful and happy in general. I’ve lost weight, improved my
productivity, and am more likely to pay attention in meetings and not get distracted by notifications. I do tend to
hyperfocus for long periods of time — I recommend in the morning starting on what you want to be working on all
morning. Like, get rid of the candy crush / chess / YouTube habit in the morning, because you’ll be on it all
morning if you’re not careful. Take the pill and start working on something productive and it’ll carry you through.
Regarding weight loss — I am much less hungry. From what I understand, my urge to snack or overeat was my body
looking for dopamine and energy and sending signals, thinking that eating was the pathway toward that. It was
constantly undermining my efforts to lose weight to a healthy level. I’m down about 6-7 lbs in 2 weeks and it seems
likely I’ll continue that trend for a while. However, I’ve heard the effects on weight loss will fade a bit over
time; we’ll see how that goes.
I have had some sleep disruption. In the past, I’ve slept great almost always. But now, if I’m not careful, I’ll
just be working on things until 2am, and then wake up fully awake at 8am. So I’ve tried to be more intentional about
my sleep to compensate. I have had full 8 hour sleep nights, though; I will continue to monitor that. Sleep is
important!
I also have noticed a higher heart rate on Vyvanse. And even when it’s not that high, say 75 bpm, it seems to be
more “noticeable” … like I feel each heartbeat loudly, especially at night. I’m keeping a close eye on it with my
Apple Watch and also blood pressure monitor (monitor).
With that said, I’ve only been on Vyvanse (at full dose) for a couple weeks and Guanfacine for a bit over a month.
I’ll update this article as time goes on.
Overall
I started writing this article at 10:30am and am wrapping it up at 1pm, having focused on it nearly the whole time.
Far fewer distracted moments and it’s not sitting in my drafts half-finished like so many others.
I’m very happy I was finally diagnosed and treated. I still have a long way to go, but it’s been well worth it so
far.
Feedback
If I’ve gotten anything medically wrong in this blog article, please let me know. You can email me at
me@jamon.dev or Tweet at me at
twitter.com/jamonholmgren. I’ll correct it as soon
as I can.
I also would like to hear from you if this helped you in any way! Hit me up on email or twitter.
(Note: I've posted a follow-up article 4 months later: Link
I’ve always loved gamemaking. When I was a kid, I made around 200 games in QBasic and GameMaker. Almost none
survived to this day — this was before GitHub, and I didn’t keep good backups.
Since then, I have started…and stopped…trying to build games many times over the last 20 years. I just can’t seem to
sustain it to the end without losing interest.
But recently some things have changed and I have more motivation and direction than ever before.
I was finally diagnosed with ADHD and have some treatment in place and it’s helped me
tremendously with motivation and focus
I discovered (through my brother Denton) the Godot Engine,
a free and open source game engine, which is exactly what I want in a gamemaking software
I have more free time, with my kids getting older (youngest is 11) and Infinite Red being more stable, and our
director level leaders have stepped up a lot in the last year to relieve the owners' workloads
The game I’m making is a helicopter combat simulation game. I don’t have a name for it yet. But I’m making good
progress.
This is really my first foray into 3D gamemaking and to my surprise, I’m very impressed at how easy it has been to
build in. I thought having the extra axis would make it much harder. I think 2D games have a smaller barrier in the
initial build but then continue to be a slog; 3D games are harder at first but get progressively easier to build
amazing experiences.
I’ll blog more about this game as I make more progress. I’ve created an Apache helicopter that can fly and there are
some really cool effects that I’ve baked into the game to make it more immersive. Excited to see how far I can take
it.
If you follow me on Twitch, I may live stream some of
the development. Of course mention in chat if you read this blog article — I don’t really have analytics other than
some basic stuff, so I’m not sure how many are actually reading this!
Oh, and one more thing -- I've stealth-launched
a YouTube channel for my game development
journey. I'll be posting devlogs and other content there. Go subscribe!
I’ve been thinking a lot about modularization and integration lately. I think it’s a really important topic that
doesn’t get enough attention.
There's a natural modular/integrated cycle that happens with anything, but it's very apparent in software:
- optimal path not known, modularize
During this time, experimentation, exploration, creativity, and iteration is key. This makes for a messy, chaotic,
uncertain, and stressful time, but it allows many people to explore different pathways and gather experience and
data and try out various pathways.
This is the "modular" era, where having lots of swappable components is super useful because ... well, not every
part of the value chain is fully explored.
Think early days of JS. It seemed like every week, someone was coming out with a new framework, library, pattern. We
complained about it at the time, in fact. It was messy and chaotic.
And libraries that did one thing really well (for example: React) were rewarded, while full stack frameworks that
tried to do everything (think Meteor, Ember) didn't work quite right.
You can even see this in other parts of the stack. Rollup, Webpack were focused on a plugin (modularized)
architecture, because you needed flexibility.
And of course TypeScript was new, and we needed to figure out how people would want to use it. tsconfig options were
very important.
Over time, though, common patterns start emerging. And that's when you change to the other part of the cycle:
- optimal path known, integrate
Next.js, Remix, T3, Create React App, RSC/React Compiler, Ignite, etc ... we know at least somewhat optimal/accepted
paths by now, and it's time to make them all work well together. Rome/Biome, Bun, Deno, etc start integrating the
common patterns in a really well-optimized way.
And we now know the optimal way to use TypeScript as well. tsconfig could be standardized. This is reflected in
Adam's tweet above.
During this time, people still experiment, but it's within the bounds of the frameworks and patterns that have been
well-established.
As consumer tech changes, however, new needs arise where the existing patterns aren't quite suited for. Initially,
we work around them, but start feeling constrained by the assumptions and standards built in to our tools.
This leads us back to:
- optimal path not known, modularize
We now have new areas of the stack that we need to experiment with. Configurable, modular / swappable components
become more attractive, even if it means they don't integrate quite as well as the standard stack -- because they
attempt to solve the problems associated with the new technology.
And so on we go.
It's best to recognize where we are in this cycle, and to be okay with the messiness and chaos of the modular era,
and to be okay with the constraints and standards of the integrated era.
I didn't come up with this theory. Many of you will recognize it in various forms; where I learned about it was Ben
Thompson / Clayton Christensen.
I continuously see strong opinions by Twitter devs, said with authority and slamming the door shut on various
technologies. I think it’s hard for newer developers in particular to see through this and understand who to follow
and what opinions to trust.
Here’s how to cut through the noise.
Nothing substitutes for shipping real world software to users.
NOTHING.
Not even YouTube videos. (Shameless plug: go follow my channel at
quests.jamon.dev.)
They’re useful for exploring, for learning, for developing nuance and depth in a subject. But they’re not useful for
developing an actual useful opinion about a technology.
Here’s how I would recommend you develop an actual useful opinion about a technology.
(Hint: while you’re in the middle of this process, it’s okay to say “I’m still researching and learning about
<technology>. My current framing is <opinion>, but I need to know more before I can say that more
definitively.)
Don’t assume your intuition is 100% accurate. It’s okay to go “ew” at first glance, but don’t
mistake that for anything real. Go into it knowing that you may have things to learn and that this journey will
either support your initial reaction or you’ll learn something — both positive results.
Our intuition is noisy and unreliable. When I first saw JSX my intuition was “ew”. Mixing HTML and JS? Can’t run it
in the console? Needing to rename my JavaScript files “.jsx”?
Many of you had the same reaction. And we were wrong about JSX, because our intuition wasn’t reliable there. JSX is
actually a very useful technology and has been used to build all kinds of complex software now.
Learn the context around the technology. Realize there’s almost always a reason something is done
the way it is. Learn the history, what tradeoffs were considered, what bugged the creators of the technology about
existing solutions.
Learn how it actually works, at least at a high level. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard
people issue very strong opinions about LLMs, for example, without understanding the slightest thing about neural
nets and transformers and self-attention.
It’s hard to take them seriously.
Go ship something real with it, to actual users. Try to actually use it in a way that the creators
of the technology would agree is the right way to use it.
And learn the tradeoffs. Because it’s always tradeoffs. What’s good, what’s bad, what is promising but
underdeveloped?
Build in feedback loops. The only real way to get good at something is through tight feedback loops
and iteration. Having someone you can bounce ideas off of and provide feedback as you go is invaluable. It’s
especially helpful if those people have diverse technical perspectives.
For example, when I was writing my article about Flutter, I asked Luke Pighetti and
Theo to review it. Both gave me very valuable feedback and also became friends in the process, people I can trust to
give good insight.
Once you’ve done this, you have a really good foundation to talk about the tradeoffs of that particular technology.
It’ll also give you a lot of useful perspective for other technologies in the future.
BUT…
…technologies mature, they change, and they evolve.
So, realize that your opinion, if you’re not staying up to date after your initial research, can fall out of date.
I’ll give you an example.
I tried react-native-elements back in the day. It was
kind of kludgy and had very few useful features. So I kind of dismissed it as not a particularly good option for a
React Native UI kit, and I would tell clients that.
Then one day a potential client told me he’d like to use it. I said I hadn’t used it in a while and would need to
see what the latest and greatest version was like.
It turns out that version 3 had been released with a lot of really great improvements and it was actually …
good!
Some of you really want more examples, so I’ll give you an opinion which is based on me going through this process
(above) over many years: Redux.
We used Redux exclusively in the beginning for several years. We switched to MST about 5 years ago, but still use
Redux on projects and have continuously for 8 years. We’ve also used RTK on multiple projects.
Here’s my opinion about Redux:
One of the best core teams of any JS tech — incredibly smart, engaging, driven
Excellent documentation
Github Copilot is REALLY GOOD at Redux
Tons of articles, videos, tutorials
Redux makes the tradeoff of some verbosity for consistency and predictability and explicitness
It’s particularly designed for larger teams where having consistency is more important than expressiveness
It helps ensure that everyone on the team follows the same patterns and principles
RTK is a nicer, more modern pattern that addresses a lot of the concerns people had with original Redux
However:
The verbosity is a cost in and of itself — boilerplate can make it harder to spot inconsistencies and bugs, and
your code base swells
It’s slower to work in. We’re more productive, even on large code bases, with MST
Working with immutable data everywhere is an awkward developer experience and results in a lot of extra
allocations (immer makes this better, but doesn’t fully solve it) (ironically, the guy who created immer also
created MST — Michel Weststrate)
Actions being dispatched data handled by matchers is a less intuitive pattern than simply calling a method on an
object (like MST’s actions)
While it’s totally possible to write performant code in Redux, you have to be very intentional about how you
structure your data models and selectors — MST makes this dead simple in comparison.
So, my opinion (and the majority of my team) is that
MobX-State-Tree is nicer to work in for most projects
than Redux.
Sidenote: if you want to watch a 15 minute intro to MobX-State-Tree, I made one here:
These are real world observations that led to these opinions. These are things that I think I can safely be
pretty opinionated about. But even then, I am open to being wrong about it and open to things changing over time.
And other developers may prefer the tradeoffs of Redux over MST.
There are way too many technologies out there to research them all. So, what if you don’t have time to do all of
this? Can you still have an opinion about a technology?
How I approach this is by … well, just saying that I don’t have a lot of experience with it.
For example, if someone were to ask me about XState, I would say something like
this:
“David and his team are brilliant engineers. I would tend to lean toward trusting their opinions on patterns and
software. With that said, my previous forays into XState haven’t been successful. I think it was because I didn’t
take the time to really learn the best ways to approach state machines and also was probably trying to use it in
ways it wasn’t intended to be used. I also think it was a little too steep of a learning curve and that hurt
adoption. I also think the problems it solves don’t tend to be ones that are immediately top of mind for
programmers. With that said, it looks like they’ve made some really great improvements in recent versions to
simplify it, and I’d be willing to try it again sometime.”
This gives the facts and some opinions without slamming the door shut on it.
Ultimately, everything in tech keeps evolving. Your best bet is to invest in your own knowledge and
experience. And
ship code!
My wife and I started taking a few digital photos (mixed with regular film photos) when we started dating in
2002ish. But we really didn't start taking a lot of photos in earnest until 2005, when our son Cedric was born.
One of the earliest digital photos of me, standing on a ridge in Lava Canyon in southwest Washington state in
2002.
Since that time, we've taken thousands and thousands of photos and videos, amounting to just under a terabyte of
data. Initially they were all uploaded to Google Picasa Web, but then that was migrated to Google Photos.
After deliberating about this for quite some time, I finally decided to back up our entire archive. I chose Amazon
Glacier because it's very cheap long-term storage.
Downloading the archive
I started by buying a 2 TB Crucial external drive that I could
connect to my Mac's Thunderbolt/USB-C port. Having an external drive served two purposes: one, I don't blow up my
Mac's hard drive when I download all these photos and videos, and two, now I have another backup -- this one
locally.
I then went to Google Takeout. (Make sure you're in the
right Google account if you're signed into multiple!). In the "Select data to include" section, I chose the
"deselect all" button first, then scrolled down to Google Photos and checked the box next to it. Then I scrolled ALL
the way to the bottom and clicked "Next step".
In the "Choose file type, frequency & destination" section, I chose the "Send download link to email" option. It
would be amazing if they had a way to choose an Amazon S3 bucket (or better yet, Glacier itself), but they only
support Drive, Dropbox, OneDrive, and Box as of this date. I chose the "Export once" option, .zip, and for file size
I chose 10 GB. (I experimented with 50 GB but that was tough to download and upload effectively.)
After that, I waited a few days for Google Takeout to send me a link.
Once I had a link, it brought me to a page where I could download the ZIP exports one by one ... about 85 of them. I
clicked to download about two or three at a time, putting them on the new external drive I bought, and let them
download. It made me log in nearly every time which was annoying. Also, you only have about a week to download them,
and with how many I needed to download, I cut it kinda close.
While you are downloading, you can prepare for uploading with the following instructions.
Uploading to AWS Glacier
I already have an Amazon AWS account, but if you don't, sign up
for one. I won't walk you through that. If you're not able to sign up then this is probably too technical for you.
Here are the steps I took to create the credentials and Glacier bucket:
Go to the
IAM security credentials
section (you can choose a region in the top right, but I just left it as "Global" for this section)
Create an access key and secret there and copy it somewhere.
Install AWS's CLI (these instructions are for macOS):
brew install awscli
Log in using the access key and secret:
aws configure
Change directories into wherever you downloaded your backups. For me, it was in an external volume:
cd "/Volumes/Crucial X8/Backups/JamonAndChyra-GooglePhotos"
Create a Glacier bucket in the region of your choice:
aws s3 mb s3://bucketnamehere --region us-west-2
When your zip files are done downloading, you can upload them either all at once like this:
aws s3 cp . s3://bucketnamehere/ --recursive --exclude "*" --include "takeout-*.zip" --storage-class
DEEP_ARCHIVE
...or one at a time like this:
aws s3 cp . s3://bucketnamehere/ --recursive --exclude "*" --include "takeout-*-001.zip" --storage-class
DEEP_ARCHIVE
...or in blocks of 10 like this:
aws s3 cp . s3://bucketnamehere/ --recursive --exclude "*" --include "takeout-*-00?.zip" --storage-class
DEEP_ARCHIVE
aws s3 cp . s3://bucketnamehere/ --recursive --exclude "*" --include "takeout-*-01?.zip" --storage-class
DEEP_ARCHIVE
aws s3 cp . s3://bucketnamehere/ --recursive --exclude "*" --include "takeout-*-02?.zip" --storage-class
DEEP_ARCHIVE
This part is the most painstaking.
Restoring the backup
I haven't yet had to restore from a backup yet. Theoretically, you could download using a command something like
this to download it to your local folder:
aws s3 cp s3://bucketnamehere/your-backup-file.zip . --storage-class DEEP_ARCHIVE
Earlier this year I was diagnosed with inattentive ADHD, and I
wrote about it
on this blog.
As a recap, I have long suspected I have ADHD, was finally convinced by my wife Chyra to get it checked, was
diagnosed with "inattentive ADHD", and was prescribed Vyvanse (aka "lisdexamphetamine", now at 40mg daily) and
Intuniv (aka "guanfacine", now at 2mg daily).
It's been a few months since then. Here's where I'm at.
🟢 Intensity: The effects of Vyvanse (the stimulant) evened out. Instead of getting a really
intense motivating feel, it's now a bit more subtle, but still present. I like it better this way…it feels more
"normal", to me.
🟢 Creativity: I tend to be more creative and productive and focused while on it. I think of
interesting projects to do and I … just do them. Start to finish, with staying power. It's very nice, and my
productivity at work is at an all-time high.
🟢 Mood: I think I tend to be a pretty happy guy in general, but I think mainly it's helped me
handle stressful situations more calmly. Chyra said that she's noticed I'm more calm and able to handle difficult
things better on it, and others at work have made positive comments. Maybe I wasn't as chill as I thought I was. 😂
🟡 Weight loss: My weight loss continued a bit more and then flattened; around 15 lbs lost, and
then bumped up a few pounds, and stabilized about 12-13 lbs down. However, I feel like more weight loss is very
possible with some lifestyle changes; plus, hockey started again, and that always helps. The main benefit has been
appetite suppression, which at first was dramatic, and is now just more subtle. It also helps with making healthy
choices in general.
🟠 Sleep: Sleep is still nowhere near as good as it is when I'm off of Vyvanse. I am getting about
6.5-7 hours a night. It's not quite enough, and I miss getting 8 regularly. A lot of this is due to my evening
projects which tend to go long and my wife being a night owl. If we went to sleep at midnight I'd get 8 every night,
but it's often 1am. One trick I use is to take the guanfacine (non-stimulant) around 4-6pm; it tends to have a
"sleepy" effect around 4-8 hours after you take it, so I'll start getting sleepy in the late evening. But sleep is
still an issue. My doctor told me to take 5mg melatonin an hour before sleep and see how that works, and also make
sure I avoid screens, have a dark/cool room, all the normal good sleep habits.
Misc
I've noticed I don't habitually open Twitter every 5 minutes like I used to. My volume of tweets is down.
I'm much less likely to want to mindlessly watch YouTube or Netflix; instead, I find myself working on hobby
projects (mostly coding related)
Speaking of which, I've rediscovered my love of coding that I've had since I was 12. It's cool.
I'm taking stimulant break days every week or two. These have been helpful, I think, but I am pretty tired and
unmotivated during them. I've thought about taking a bigger (week-long) break too. My doctor told me I can take
half a dose (20mg) each day, if that works better than just going completely without
I've been doing monthly check-ins with my ADHD doctor, and that's now extending to every 3 months. Eventually it
will be every 12 months.
On Amphetamine Addiction
A few weeks ago someone sent me a link to an amphetamine addiction forum, and reading it kind of freaked me out at
first. (Link:
8 stages of amphetamine use/abuse)
Before I get into this, I want to say that this section is just me being very real. I'm not trying to scare
anyone, and I don't think this is a reason to stop all use of ADHD medication. But, I want you to have the same
information I have, if you're considering stimulants to treat your ADHD. Also: read to the end, as I first
describe the problem, and then my conclusions after considering / researching this for weeks.
According to the article, there are stages of addiction:
Stage 1 - Initial euphoria and high motivation, with feelings of love and empathy; peak pleasure phase.
Stage 2 - Diminished empathy, slight euphoria, and motivation; often aimed for in therapeutic use.
Stage 3 - Amphetamine becomes a necessary "tool" for motivation, with reduced euphoria and emerging body load.
Stage 4 - Decline in effectiveness as motivation tool; stronger negative effects like depression, pain, and
anxiety.
Stage 5 - Procrastination due to memory issues; user repeatedly takes amphetamine despite only negative effects.
Stage 6 - Irritability and pessimism dominate; user blames environment and experiences severe restlessness and
obsessive thinking.
Stage 7 - Nihilism and dissociation; psychosis, confusion, paranoia, and mental unraveling intensify.
Stage 7b - Temporary "letting go" provides brief relief and sleep, followed by return to prior state.
Stage 8 - Stupor and potential brain damage; diminished intelligence and mental efficiency, possible permanent
personality changes.
You can see why this is worrisome.
However, I've researched this and talked with my doctor, and here are the conclusions:
Amphetamines have a different effect for folks with ADHD than those without. ADHDers tend to not have nearly as high
euphoria/motivation/pleasure during Stage 1, and they end up staying in Stage 2 and not progressing (if they use it
correctly). Non-ADHDers will have a higher euphoria and are at higher risk of abusing the medication.
Vyvanse in particular is less likely to cause euphoria and addiction than other amphetamines, due to how it works --
it's a prodrug, which means it's metabolized into dexamphetamine in the body, rather than immediately becoming
active.
My doctor told me that the best thing to do to avoid addiction is to:
Never take more than your prescribed dose
Have regular check-ins with your doctor (and be honest about your use)
Monitor effects -- mood, usage patterns, cravings, etc.
Consider therapy
So far, I haven't had any desire to bump up my medication at all. In fact, I've taken days off as mentioned above,
and sometimes cut the dose in half. But it's something I want everyone to be aware of.
