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dillydogg

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The AirPods Effect 1 month ago

This is how I interpret headphones in/on people's ears. I live in a mid-sized town in the US and I swear it's over 80% of people I see walking through the forest trail system have headphones in. I wave and say hello to everyone without headphones. I find it bizarre how many people go outside and walk in the forest just to block out the natural sounds. Or how everyone in the grocery store has them in. I feel like I'm surrounded by androids without an interest in human interaction. Or maybe more generally, I'm suspicious of the impulse to always have something to listen to, like music, a podcast, or an audiobook. Oh well, I suspect I'm just being an old man. I'm glad they have found a way to make going out more enjoyable.

These are pretty common, physiologic structures associated with infections. They can be just a handful of cells on a slide or be quite large, and I don't know what they found in these infections. I didn't read the original paper. The ectopic lymphoid structures go away after the infection resolves. It seems that the immune system has ways to set up mini lymph node architecture right by the site of infections, which is very sensible. The same process is going on in a more organized way in the draining lymph node in parallel. Research into these was really hot in the 2010s, but people don't seem to be as into them anymore (but my research has also transitioned to innate immunity from adaptive, so it's likely that I'm no longer in that universe).

In general, it doesn't surprise me that when you prime the innate immune system, the adaptive immune system works well. The problem is that pathogens have an incredible suite of tools ready to evade these mechanisms. The doses of the pathogens are typically insanely high too, which I do not think model natural infections well. Anyways, this is intriguing, so I'll take a look at the original paper one of these days. Vaccine research generally is so boring. It's like, we vaccinated, and it worked, or didn't, no mechanism.

MacBook Air with M5 5 months ago

I have noticed something similar. With the computer science undergrads and grad students I work with, Air is much more common than with the premeds and med students, many of whom have MBPs (who I am presuming do not need that much power).

I thought about defining it up front but decided to move it to the second paragraph.

I would say it's worth talking to a doctor about how you feel. There are many things that can help. If you are in the USA, if is likely that they will use the PHQ-9 form, so consider looking at that questionaire to see how it aligns with your mood. medcalc is a common site that many of the residents at my institution use for these questionaires and other various scoring systems.

It's true. You wouldn't believe how many people I've SIGECAPS'd during my medical training. I didn't realize this article was the beginning of this approach, but it certainly helped get care to people who previously wouldn't have received it. Though I'm sure there are also many who may require intervention that aren't captured by a SIGECAPS exam. The double edged sword of the checklist manifesto, though I overall think it has been beneficial.

SIGECAPS is an acronym taught in US medicine for the diagnosis of major depressive disorder: Sleep disturbance, Interest loss, Guilt, Energy loss, Concentration loss, Appetite changes, Psychomotor agitation, Suicidality. And must have Depressed mood or Anhedonia (inability to enjoy things previously enjoyable).

The history of the SIG E CAPS acronym is also interesting, I've heard it was short for SIG (old shorthand for "to be prescribed") Energy CAPsules.

It is a good point. It depends on how regressive is defined. There are many competing arguments here, but two I am aware of are

1. Regressive deals with % of income spent.

2. Regressive deals with an ideal state where those with more excess income contribute more than those with less.

In both of these, I suppose sales tax is regressive if it applies to all items, but only 2 is regressive with sophisticated rebates and untaxed categories.

It's funny, because sales tax is considered among the most regressive form of taxation we employ from my understanding, which is supported by my econ friends. But I'm certainly not an economist.

Eat Real Food 7 months ago

I totally agree on all three accounts: unprocessed foods are great, organic wheats are good, and the concerning focus on abundance of red meat. I think we are going through a fad of "we need to gobble down as much protein as we can". I agree it's reasonable we need more, and especially older adults at risk of falling. I am concerned that there are so many junior residents that I work with that are throwing back protein shakes because they are "optimizing their macros". So many of these protein powders have added sugar and are contaminated with heavy metals! I will commend the guidelines for supporting lentils, beans and other pulses.

Eat Real Food 7 months ago

I really don't see how this is so different than what nutritionists have said for years. This reads as if the guans before was to drink soda and eat fat free candy all day. The three sentence dietary guidance still holds:

1. Eat food 2. Not too much 3. Mostly plants

Though the government's position seems to be at odds with #3. I would encourage more beans and greens, personally.

“Descriptive names are boring!”

>Yes, and surgical instruments are boring.

I'm absolutely certain that this person has never been (awake) in a surgery suite because all of the tools people use have eponymous names.

There are a billion little grabbers that all have silly names like Adson, Allis, Babcock, Kocher etc. which are all meaningless until you just know what they are. And don't you grab the Mayo scissors when they ask for Metzenbaum. In med school we had a flashcard deck that just had a picture of the tool and what it is called on the other end.

In the end, I think the author has a point, but then doesn't really make it that well. I think using awk as a good example is a bit silly. diff is a good one though!

I think the most straightforward way to a solid Emacs config is to use emacs-bedrock [1]. It's a very well curated set of packages that enhance the basic experience. It does leave you with plenty of room to fiddle, which is the beauty of Emacs to my mind. I personally use doom because I built my config on it for years, and am happy with my current setup, but if I started again I would go with emacs-bedrock to keep it more minimal.

[1] https://codeberg.org/ashton314/emacs-bedrock

This sounds like the argument during the pandemic, "If masks work, then why didn't we evolve permanent masks? Checkmate atheists." Though I do understand the impulse that evolution is working towards some unknowable perfection because of how I was taught evolution during high school, that is, of course, not how it works.

Unfortunately, I was unable to follow this comment because eating ice cream may be healthy :) Here's a gifted link from the Atlantic which I sure hope is true because now I let myself eat a little ice cream every night. But otherwise, I agree, I cannot imagine what it would be like interacting with another intelligent life. It is also interesting to consider how different any travelers may be from their original colony, if faster than light travel is not possible.

https://www.theatlantic dot com/magazine/archive/2023/05/ice-cream-bad-for-you-health-study/673487/?gift=6EKMJibpmKCfcPyLaO_bP7FbQ_X-xjAyMuvHMMdnIes

The acid base balance of the cerebrospinal fluid is the primary driver of the respiratory drive, like allude to with your comment on the CO2. I did want to add that the lack of oxygen can affect respiration, which is detected by the peripheral chemoreceptors, like in the carotid bodies.

Additionally, the thoracic stretch receptors are important for respiratory drive, where the lack of expansion of the chest will promote respiration. When a healthy young person holds their breath for short periods, say 30 seconds or so, their blood CO2 and O2 are not much different, but they still will have to fight the instinct to breathe!

In my thoracic surgery rotations in med school I was taught that the strongest stimulus for increasing the respiratory drive was the acidification of cerebrospinal fluid. Which, of course, correlates with the blood pH. This information comes from some studies in the 60s with goats, and the old guard are happy to hang their hat on it.

There are also chemoreceptors for oxygen concentration in the circulatory system as well.

I think everything you have said is correct, I just wanted to add a few more details for anyone who is interested.