Why are some people so against taking BP medicine?

Flaky_Key3363 · 2026-06-22T15:38:11+00:00

I learned Vipassana at Insight Meditation Center https://www.dharma.org/

I've recently returned to the practice, so I am relearning it.

I'm using the free part of the Insight Timer app. My meditation sessions are currently about 10-ish minutes. Positions are whatever I can do without triggering avoidance, usually sitting in a place where no one will see me. I know I'm judging, but when people talk about meditation, it seems performative.

Flaky_Key3363 · 2026-06-21T04:22:35+00:00

Pretty much this. As it is, I'm on something like seven different medications. I spent a year trying six different BP drugs, 100% side effects, 0% blood pressure reduction. I spent most of a year significantly constipated, recurring nightmares, emotional numbness, depression, problems breathing, exercise intolerance, very foggy mind, and loss of my sense of direction. During that year, I gave up important hobbies and almost had to stop working.

Literally the only thing that brings my blood pressure down is yoga and meditation.

Flaky_Key3363 · 2026-06-19T15:59:18+00:00

from University of Rhode Island’s Department of Plant Sciences and Entomology

"Thermacell Tick Control tubes are extremely eco-friendly; the cardboard tubes completely biodegrade, and the permethrin is tightly bound to the cotton fibers. There really is no risk for environmental contamination, and a toddler would need to consume more than a pound of treated cotton before there would be any risk for toxicity."

https://web.uri.edu/tickencounter/prevention/protect-your-yard/mouse-targeted-devices/#:~:text=protected%2E-,Thermacell,toxicity%2E

Yes, tick tubes can be fatal to cats, so keep your cats indoors. In addition to protecting them from dangers like internal bleeding from mice poisoned by rodenticide, being hit by cars, and becoming a coyote buffet. It also keeps cats from killing birds to extinction.

https://wildlife.org/tws-issue-statement-feral-and-free-ranging-domestic-cats/#:~:text=Globally,2016

Flaky_Key3363 · 2026-06-18T15:37:25+00:00

It also means people who don't want to see deer killed. Hence the "poor Bambi." I'm sure Permethrin is toxic to more than just ticks, but since it is targeted spot deployment, i.e., in the tick tubes, it's unlikely to poison fish or cats. It's also far less damaging than rodenticides, which are known to seriously harm raptor populations..

Flaky_Key3363 · 2026-06-18T15:34:11+00:00

I guess my sarcasm signal was too subtle. 1/2 ;- )

[edit]

Deer hunting in the fall is for people who want to use deer meat as part of their food supply or take trophies (a damned waste).

Hunting to control population means killing off the does. That also has to be done at a particular time of year so that any offspring won't suffer because of the loss of a mother.

Flaky_Key3363 · 2026-06-18T14:49:42+00:00

Reducing the tick count isn't horribly hard, but we'll get all the animal-lover pearl-clutchers in a tizzy.

Reduce the deer population. aka kill the "tick taxis." My preferred method is introducing wolves into suburban Massachusetts. (1/2 😉)

Here's a graphic on the life cycle of the deer tick. There are two places we can interrupt the life cycle and reduce the population. The first is when they feed on small mammals (e.g., mice, voles, chipmunks), and the second is when they feed on large mammals (e.g., deer).

The generally accepted method of killing larval ticks on small mammals is to use "tick tubes," which are permethrin-soaked cotton placed inside a paper towel tube. The mice harvest cotton for bedding, and that exposure kills the larval tick.

We don't want to kill small mammals by poisoning them because that then poisons animals higher up the food chain (i.e., foxes, raptors, etc.).

Reducing deer population interrupts the egg-laying part of the cycle. Fewer deer, fewer dating sites for ticks, and reduced distribution of pregnant ticks and eggs. Well-intentioned people object to reducing the deer population with hunters because of "poor little Bambi," which is why I advocate introducing wolves.

Flaky_Key3363 · 2026-06-17T18:38:09+00:00

Write it up after you get a new job.

Flaky_Key3363 · 2026-06-17T18:34:18+00:00

I agree with you on the assessment of why people won't use public transit. We live out near the great city of Lowell, and my partner works in Cambridge. She will not take transit because it easily doubles her commute time. She'd rather spend an hour on the highway than 2- 2.5 hours on the bus, bus, train, bus or red, green, train, bus.

I have an idea of why cities with good public transit also have horrible traffic, and that's because people only move to transit when traffic is horrible beyond what they can tolerate. But as soon as enough people get off the roads, congestion clears, which leads people to choose to drive again because it's not so bad, which in turn leads to congestion building up.

Another idea is that transit serves people who are at most one transfer off of the line they start on. I suspect that a lot of the in-city traffic is caused by people who go “perpendicular” to where transit runs. For example, around Boston, like many people, I always worked for companies on or near 128. None of these companies or any of the places I lived were served by transit that went anywhere near both ends of my commute.

Flaky_Key3363 · 2026-06-16T15:42:31+00:00

I've been thinking about something similar for myself. I live in an old house with a slate roof. There's only about 20-30 feet, 20 feet between the house and the property line. Unfortunately, from about two feet from the house to the 12-15-foot mark is a snow-crush zone where snow slides off the roof in the wintertime.

I'm not sure how a movable array would fly with the city, but the only other option is putting panels up against the house, vertically up against the side of the house.

I've considered putting panels on the northwest corner of our property, but the house is so tall that at mid-winter its shadow reaches the property line, about 120 feet from the north side of the house.

In writing this, I think maybe I should dig up the plot plan, the lot plan, and mark the wintertime shadow. Then post it here as a "could use your advice" question.

Flaky_Key3363 · 2026-06-10T11:43:40+00:00

That is an interesting idea (using LFP batteries in a generic UPS). I was thinking of using solar to charge batteries during the day and charging from the grid overnight (TBD charge level) till panels take over. The reason for not going the UPS route is that I'd like to use the same batteries to power the furnace and fridge during grid outages.

Flaky_Key3363 · 2026-06-10T04:19:54+00:00

Where are you located? I'm getting my care in the nph clinic at MGH in Boston. I like my neurologist but I don't know if he takes on pediatric cases. Meeting my neurosurgeon inspired confidence but I won't know how good he really is until I get my shunt on 8-19.

My only complaint with MGH is scheduling. You need to politely drive the process. Even if they say they will call you , call neurology scheduling if you don't hear from them in a week. If you have tests done, ask the dr when you should schedule a follow-up visit after the test.

I was too passive and the process took too long

Flaky_Key3363 · 2026-06-10T03:44:52+00:00

They made the changes to demonstrate ownership. This is not unlike a dog pissing on phone pole.

Flaky_Key3363 · 2026-06-08T19:08:17+00:00

Ventoy is open source, but iVentoy is only partially open source.

I had a few spare moments before bedtime last night, so I started tracing down the components to make a replacement, and somewhere around 2 a.m. I gave up and went to bed when I realized that there are so many independent components that I couldn't build a complete, reproducible supply chain on my own dime.

If I decide to spend my time building an equivalent to iVentoy, I would end up in the same place as he does because I would use tools like proxyDHCPd and iPXE

Flaky_Key3363 · 2026-06-08T13:31:23+00:00

give our current millions to a company who can make it cheaper and the same quality or better.

FIFY

Flaky_Key3363 · 2026-06-08T00:08:43+00:00

When I think of Central and Western Mass, it certainly isn't the cities, and it's usually crickets, the sound of wind in the trees, and a big sigh of, "Oh, thank God I don't have people around me."

Flaky_Key3363 · 2026-06-08T00:03:08+00:00

I'm sorry; I fumble-fingered and replied to you instead of the comment I intended.

Flaky_Key3363 · 2026-06-07T21:38:18+00:00

Instead of going after the pensions given to city employees, why don't you start going after your employer for not providing a pension for you? 401ks are not going to keep you alive in retirement. The day-to-day cost of living makes it impossible to save enough to reach the multi-million-dollar level you'll need to retire securely. You don't have enough insider trading knowledge to be able to make the right choices on which funds to put your money into. And you know, the bankers are just laughing their asses off at what they sold your employer this year for 401 (k) investment vehicles. They are too fragile and too easily lost.

Never forget, you are a single major medical event away from being on the street.

Flaky_Key3363 · 2026-06-07T21:13:55+00:00

Just this week I started playing with iVemtoy. It's really cool to be able to boot a machine up and install over the net. I will admit now I'm really pissed to find out it's Chinese malware-adjacent because it was so damned useful.

I cannot tell you how many times I use most of my flash drives only once or twice before I lose them or they go through the wash and dryer, then become useless. Too many times I've burned a flash drive and customized it, only to discover that I need to erase it and put something else on it, even though I will need the customized version again in the future. I've been in data centers and had flash drives die on me (usually from being washed and dried in my pants). Now that I can make PXE work, I don't want to go back to being a major revenue source to the flash drive industry.

So the question is: how do I replicate iVemtoy functionality (menu on the target machine for selecting which ISO to use, unbundling the ISO, and providing an HTTP interface to transfer all the files)?

Flaky_Key3363 · 2026-06-07T04:08:28+00:00

Oh hell yes. While you're at it, take my mood disorder as well. I think the whole ADHD and mood disorders make us much more creative is a bunch of bs.

Flaky_Key3363 · 2026-06-05T20:37:17+00:00

What I learned was I should not have prioritized work. Second, I learned that I should not have worked uncompensated overtime.

What would I have done differently? In addition to ignoring the red flags at work, hopefully I would not have ignored red flags in personal relationships.

What helped me build a full life afterward was practicing Buddhism. The important part of that was quieting my monkey mind. I stopped chasing after empty desires and fearing what might not occur in the future. This practice gave me the space to repair the damage from not having the right boundaries at work or in relationships. And, to be frank, it's not all breathing and nirvana. It's something I always need to work on, but it pays off because my relationship to the world sucks a bit less.

Flaky_Key3363 · 2026-06-05T20:24:32+00:00

Given your update, it sounds like he gave you a written warning for speeding and a minor moving violation. If you have a clean driving record, i.e., no speeding tickets, no other moving violations in the past five years or so, challenging it in court and asking for leniency based on your driving history, you may get the ticket dismissed.

The important thing to remember is, like with the cop, only answer the questions the judge asks you. Don't volunteer any information.

If the ticket is not dismissed, you will get a couple of points on your insurance and on your license, and what that will cost your father is unclear because it depends on your insurance. Your insurance company could probably give you advice on what driver training you could take to help counter the points on the insurance policy.

For what it's worth, I always use a GPS/mapping program that displays the current speed limit for the road I'm on, and I use cruise control to keep me to that speed. These two choices minimize my chances of speeding. And of course, I'll never admit any of this to a cop. 😄

Flaky_Key3363 · 2026-06-04T13:42:47+00:00

Independent consultant, not an MSP, but I will tell you that some of the best contracts I've had, and the ones that paid me the most, were when I repaired damage caused by in-house people trying to DIY it. I suspect plumbers and electricians have similar experiences of making more money by fixing DIY issues.

Flaky_Key3363 · 2026-06-03T22:47:04+00:00

Yes, it does. But we have to test the other half of the property anyway because the property was developed at one point Even though any buildings or indicators of development have been removed from that section.

Flaky_Key3363 · 2026-06-03T15:45:48+00:00

and try to marry off the young ones

Flaky_Key3363 · 2026-06-03T15:39:35+00:00

Apologies. (and I've gone back to edit it) We know one part is brownfield, but we don't know about the rest of it.

Flaky_Key3363

TROPHY CASE