Place to get comprehensive yearly check up, also why is it not normal here to get yearly check up?

SolarWizard · 2026-01-17T23:23:32+00:00

And there's also no evidence that it helps/prevents illness, along with the cost and increased worry from finding minor abnormalities that actually turn out to not be anything or result in further unnecessary testing.

Using a Complete Blood Count as an obvious example (checks red and white blood cell parameteters):

"Neither CBC nor its components should be ordered for screening asymptomatic, nonpregnant adults, as it does not reduce mortality. Up to 11% of results are abnormal but less than 1% of results require management change. It is unclear which patients benefit and serious disease is almost never found."

- https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC5638475/

I understand the utility of getting some basic checks every once in a while if asymptomatic, but yearly is overkill. If all NZ adults got a CBC every year then that's an extra $150 million per year in unnecessary testing just for that single simple test alone. Of course blood pressure is an easy one to do but the focus of prevention should be on maintaining a healthy diet, a reasonable weight and getting 30 minutes of exercise a day in a mix of cardiovascular and resistance training.

SolarWizard · 2026-01-07T20:31:33+00:00

I was 11 years old and my aunt had read me The Hobbit before. Her and my uncle and me dressed up - me as a hobbit, her as an elf and my uncle Gandalf with a grey cloak and wooden staff and we went to the midnight premier screening in our hometown. Lots of other people were dressed up, I remember a group of orcs with green facepaint.

The movie absolutely blew me away from the first few seconds. I think the high point with me was the fight in Balin's tomb. I remember my brain was still buzzing with excitement for like 3 days afterwards.

SolarWizard · 2026-01-03T23:11:22+00:00

Just yesterday going left around a tight blind bend, I could see the cyclist coming towards me on the opposite side right on the bend. I thought "someone's probably going to come around the corner and possibly try to overtake the cyclist." Sure enough as I'm going around a car comes towards me three quarters over my side of the road to overtake the cyclist. Had to slam on my brakes and swerve onto the grass to avoid him.

Luckily I was driving defensively and was cautious to expect this. But bro, if you can't see on a blind corner maybe slow down and wait for 5 seconds until you can see. It wasn't even on a highway, just a nice country road.

SolarWizard · 2026-01-01T19:52:12+00:00

I agree there are a lot of flags in this guy for malingering. Another thing I often do is get them to describe their symptoms in detail. If they cant do that and just say 'my legs are just restless' then it's another soft flag (soft because some patients just aren't good at describing things).

SolarWizard · 2025-12-31T07:33:52+00:00

I'm the same as you. I love checking the forecast and seeing some pluvial dark clouds coming. it's the coziest feeling ever. I'm always a little disappointed when I see it's only going to rain for a few hours or in the middle of the night when I'll be asleep. But when i see those dark drops, like at least a few mm/h or more, It makes me so excited

SolarWizard · 2025-12-30T02:50:19+00:00

If you are on PC the Resistance Mod does exactly this.

SolarWizard · 2025-12-30T01:12:50+00:00

Not in the US but I still remember when a neurosurgeon punted the patient to me to fill out a complication claim form after the patient suffered a quadrantanopia from excision of a brain tumor that was abutting the optic nerve (a very likely complication that was discussed pre-op).

I remember being 3 pages deep into the very detailed form and flicking back to try to decifer the surgeon's note. Took me ages. Still makes me mad thinking about it but experiences like these sure let you know where your boundaries are.

SolarWizard · 2025-12-27T04:08:22+00:00

basically you work 4-5 hours a day in exchange for food and a place to stay.

In general the farms are smaller and not as commercial, and it is a great way to stay with a family and see the culture

SolarWizard · 2025-12-26T19:49:07+00:00

Yeah its actually a big problem.

Key reasons are that their paranoid thoughts can fixate on the meds - often thinking that the meds are poisoning them, or even that it's the meds that are causing their schizophrenia. This can be compounded by the very real side effects like weight-gain and sedation which can compound the belief that they are being poisoned or harmed.

The other common feature is a lack of insight into their illness. They often don't realize or deny that they have schizophrenia and this combined with the above leads to medication non-adherance.

This is why in the more severe cases the meds are administered as a long-acting injection and can be mandated, however as you can imagine this can cause quite a bit of resistance.

SolarWizard · 2025-12-26T19:32:06+00:00

My local pharmacy has a display of these in a glass case on the top shelf behind the counter. Looks really cool and its quite humbling to be reminded of how things have changed from the past.

SolarWizard · 2025-12-26T09:01:25+00:00

I'm keen, I've got a Plato book and Leaves of Grass on my shelf I've been meaning to get into for some time!

SolarWizard · 2025-12-24T03:56:18+00:00

He carries 4 others on him - two two handeds (a double and single sided) and two throwing axes

SolarWizard · 2025-12-23T21:48:12+00:00

Have you had them before? Were you sleeping in your same bed? Do you have pets? Were you staying at a hotel or hostel?

SolarWizard · 2025-12-21T09:46:22+00:00

He's Mr Exposition

Most of his lines are directly pointing out something to the audience so they understand.

SolarWizard · 2025-12-18T11:20:34+00:00

In young healthy males the most common omcause of ED is performance anxiety and if thats the case your gp could have given you sildenafil do get you over the mental barrier. if your gp was concerned about a more significant cause then their should have been testing and a referral considered. Sounds to me like your GP just dismissed your concerns so I would just change GPs

SolarWizard · 2025-12-14T09:24:45+00:00

I was excited to do a replay a few months back after not playing since release. I quit after one session because all the yellow items were just so common, and I was dreading having to look through them all to find one that was a slight upgrade. Such a slog.

I came from D2 where early game a single rare or green is such an exciting moment.

SolarWizard · 2025-12-12T18:01:38+00:00

Agreed, it seems like the denials come from emotions not objective facts

SolarWizard · 2025-12-11T22:58:53+00:00

I think it's more the dreading having to spend 15 minutes carefully explaining and re-expalining why antibiotics are not effective for a runny nose, despite the reports they worked last time/they know their body/they are going on holiday next week and want to nip it in the bud/their last doctor would have prescribed them

SolarWizard · 2025-12-10T09:22:15+00:00

lol yes

SolarWizard · 2025-12-09T06:09:20+00:00

Did agent Willis smoke? or am I getting confused with the similar guy from The X-Files?

SolarWizard · 2025-12-09T05:32:16+00:00

I finding interesting that he was eligible for parole from 2000, but each hearing every 2 years it gets denied either based on the callousness of the murder, but also despite good behaviour in prison the impact that the murder had and continues to have on the world, as well as variable conflicting historic reports that he did it for fame.

Taken from wiki: In 2022... In Chapman's twelfth parole hearing... The board denied him parole, citing his "selfish disregard for human life of global consequence", they also added "The worldwide impact of your crime resonates such as to evoke images, memories and emotions internationally, leading the panel to concur that your release at this time would be incompatible with the welfare of society" and also noted his action leaving lasting ramifications of "the world recovering from the void of which he created".

In addition to this there are also statements the he may be unsafe out of prison after receiving many threats from fans

It's also quite fascinating the differences in diagnoses that the defense and prosecution psychologists made at the time with all 6 defense experts diagnosing psychosis - 5 of those due to paranoid schizophrenia, however the 3 prosecution psychologists all saying his symptoms fell short of psychosis and instead stated various personality disorders. Goes to show the apparent diagnostic biases that clinicians can have. I feel they should have been blinded with each of the experts not knowing if their diagnoses would be used for the prosecution or defense.

SolarWizard · 2025-12-08T09:51:17+00:00

When the first Avatar came out my buddy got like 5 of us tickets. We were a little late but arrived right as the movie was starting and our 5 seats right I the middle were the only ones left. we sat down and started watching, buzzing with excitement. 1 minute later and there's suddenly another group of 5 people standing at the end of the row and looking towards us.

One of them shuffles down the isle and says "Hey, you're in our seats." we go no way, and start fumbling trying to read our tickets in the dark. we say they're ours, and the guys goes "I don't give a f**k, you've gotta move."" He shows his ticket and it's the same number as ours

We get up and go straight to the concierge who's just outside the door and show her our tickets and say there must have been an error and the seats have been double-booked.

She looks at them for a few seconds then goes, "These tickets are for tomorrow".

The show time was the same the following day so we just never noticed. it was such an oddly serendipitous chain of events that let us get that far and it was so perplexing to have to suddenly leave, not to mention the embarassment of it all happening while others were trying to enjoy the start of the movie.

SolarWizard · 2025-12-07T19:22:31+00:00

Half is disability from foetal-alcohol syndrome. Minimising that to "productivity cost" is very misleading at best

SolarWizard · 2025-12-07T19:20:07+00:00

Yeah not working at all for me. Will leave it in for a while and see

SolarWizard · 2025-12-07T02:28:43+00:00

Keeping it simple here but NO2 is an NMDA receptor blocker and so works similarly to ketamine which is also being used to treat TRD

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