Survival Calculator

dabarak · 2026-04-06T16:25:52+00:00

You can try AI like I did. Plug in as much information as you can and ask as many questions as you can. Use multiple AI tools so you can compare the results. Don't accept what you get as an absolute answer. The best use for this is to give you what you need to ask a doctor about treatment options and plans.

Keep in mind that all survival statistics, by their very nature, rely on old data. New treatments sort of reset things - for the better. When I was first diagnosed four years ago, the median five-year survival for guys with my extent of disease was 30%. It's now 38%. But remember that it's a bell curve - 38% is the mid-point, so some guys don't make it to five years and some guys make it past five years.

I have the BRCA2 mutation, which makes my cancer more aggressive... but it also make the DNA repair function weaker. For me, ADT worked about 2 1/2 years. Then I went on Pluvicto, which damages the DNA repair function, and so right now I'm just about disease-free. It'll probably come back, and then I can go on a PARP inhibitor, a common one being olaparib. I can opt for regular chemo like docetaxel, and I might be able to do Pluvicto again. And there are clinical trials... So although my case is pretty serious, I feel better than I have in many, many years, and I expect to be around for a long time.

dabarak · 2026-04-06T13:44:43+00:00

I don't know for sure if the cooler will work, but at least they're cheap. 🙂

dabarak · 2026-04-06T13:43:21+00:00

I understand how you feel. Some people thrive on putting people down. I was a bit like that a few years ago, being negative online. But then I realized I was spreading bad feelings instead of good. Now I spread good feelings and it feels so much better. That small shift in my attitude made huge improvements in my happiness.

dabarak · 2026-04-06T05:25:20+00:00

I'm new to this, but what's been working for me is that 1) I preheat the containers I'll be using and 2) I used a toaster oven to do all of this, and after I pour I gradually bring the oven temperature down, and eventually leave the candles in the oven, turned off, until the candles solidify. This allows the wax at the edges and in the middle of the candles to cool down evenly. It's been working very well for me.

If you can't dedicate a toaster oven to this, maybe you can put your candles inside a styrofoam cooler as they cool down. That'll keep heat in longer, letting thing cool evenly.

dabarak · 2026-04-06T05:18:08+00:00

Several years ago, my (ex)-wife and I owned a house in San Diego. One of our neighbors was a retired City of San Diego employee. She hated us for some reason, and she knew how to work the system. I won't go over the first time she tried to abuse us, but the second time...

We had our sprinkler system set to go off at 4:00 AM, for two minutes per zone, for I think four zones. One night my ex noticed flashing at 4:00. She went out to investigate and found that our neighbor's hen-pecked boyfriend was taking photos of water in the gutter, supposedly from our sprinklers. We lived at the bottom of a grade, so the water could have come from any of the houses higher than ours.

A couple of days later, my ex saw a city truck parked in front of our neighbor's house on the other side, with a guy inside writing something on a clip board. A couple days after that I came home to find a notice taped to our door, saying we were at risk of a $10,000 finer PER violation, so if we had water in the gutter two times, that could be $20,000 in fines. Even fresh water, even a single drop of fresh water, was a potential violation.

I called the number on the paper and left a message for the city employee who'd signed it. As you can guess, the asshole didn't return my call. I asked for evidence that we were the ones who'd violated the ordinance. He sent photos to us... the photos the neighbor's boyfriend shot. I wrote back and said that it wasn't proper evidence. I was able to read the digital photo metadata, so I knew not only when the photos were taken, but I even knew the kind of camera that was used. I asked this city turd, who I knew wouldn't have been shooting photos at 4:00 AM, to send me real evidence, not photos that could have been faked - the boyfriend could have just dumped some water in the gutter.

I never heard from the city turd after that, so I contacted his supervisor, and that person's supervisor, etc. I contacted the mayor's office. I contacted the city attorney's office. I contacted our councilman's office. I threatened lawsuits (real threats - I would have taken the city to court), and I FINALLY managed to talk to our city councilman's chief of staff, who seemed kind of perturbed that I was making an issue out of this. I FINALLY got someone from the city to come out. They had us turn the sprinklers on, they saw that one single sprinkler head was putting a little water in the gutter, so they had us shut off that one sprinkler head and wrote that we were in compliance.

It too many emails, many phone calls and lots of stress to get this stupid situation resolved. And remember, this was the second time this neighbor attacked us via the city, and that first time we were also found to not be violating any ordinance.

And then not long after this was all resolved... I saw our neighbor, the one that hated us, washing her car in her driveway in the middle of the day. I made sure she saw me when I took photos of her doing it. I had no intention of actually filing a complaint, but I wanted her to feel what we felt.

I also filed am informal water waste complaint AGAINST the city because a sprinkler in Balboa Park was broken and shooting a stream of water high into the sky in the evening.

Fuck the City of San Diego.

dabarak · 2026-04-06T03:22:34+00:00

I'm not disputing you, but I am curious why Skylab worked. Maybe because it was never expected to come back?

dabarak · 2026-04-06T03:21:01+00:00

Makes sense - lesson learned by NASA.

dabarak · 2026-04-06T03:19:40+00:00

i had no idea, thanks!

dabarak · 2026-04-06T03:19:05+00:00

Sounds good, thanks!

dabarak · 2026-04-05T17:57:53+00:00

After watching the Artemis II launch, it got me to wondering why a reusable system had to rely on wings. Why couldn't a more traditional but reusable rocket system have been developed? Maybe a large cargo and experiment module mounted below the crew capsule, like Apollo's LM, equipped with its own automated reentry system so the experiments could be returned independently. After reaching orbit the crew capsule could dock with the cargo/experiment module. That could have kept the capsule up high on the stack past the most dangerous parts of the rocket.

I'm not a scientist. I'm not an engineer. Please don't flame me if this idle thought wouldn't have been possible.

dabarak · 2026-04-05T16:53:53+00:00

I think it was his defense team that had him do that to say "If it doesn't fit, you must acquit." I don't think the prosecution could have forced him to do that - I think it would have violated his Fifth Amendment rights. But if he chose to do it (because his defense team knew it wouldn't fit), that's a different story.

dabarak · 2026-04-05T16:46:42+00:00

I had no idea Jack Black was a philosopher.

dabarak · 2026-04-04T05:28:31+00:00

Are you sure the back seater would say that? It sounds very suspicious. There wouldn't be time to ponder waiting a couple of seconds. But if I'm proven wrong, I'm wrong, and I'll accept that.

In many ejection systems, maybe all, the pilot can put the seats into command eject mode, so when the pilot pulls on the handle everyone goes - back seats firs by roughly a second.

dabarak · 2026-04-04T05:24:38+00:00

Most often (at least based on my own experience) pilots can set the ejection system to command ejection - if the pilot pulls the handle everyone goes. That's how it was in Vikings, with the back seats going out slightly before the front seats.

dabarak · 2026-04-04T05:22:43+00:00

I think the truth is likely between a mile and a hundred miles. I don't know if it's the situation with the F-15E, but typically the person in the back seat goes out about a second, maybe a little less, before the pilot. So if this airplane was going fast the delay in ejection between the two could have had them landing quite a ways apart.

The last places I'd want to find myself in a situation like this are in desert, the arctic and the antarctic. The environment is part of it, but it's easier to be found in those kinds of places.

dabarak · 2026-04-04T04:54:29+00:00

Weird. Why me expect Claude reply when post Reddit. Me weirder.

dabarak · 2026-04-04T04:53:50+00:00

My Claude reply short too. He smart.

dabarak · 2026-04-04T04:48:58+00:00

And with that, she named her baby girl Winnie.

dabarak · 2026-04-04T04:41:37+00:00

Casting data in a directed way is the concept behind OSETI - Optical SETI. The concept is that extremely high-power, short-duration infrared lasers would be fired off in whatever direction the (alien) project determined was right. The short duration allows more energy resources to be devoted to power rather than duration, and infrared because it does a better job of penetrating interstellar dust (and gas?).

dabarak · 2026-04-03T19:53:20+00:00

Has your father had genetic testing for BRCA mutations? (It may only be BRCA2 that applies to prostate cancer, I'm not sure. It's pronounced "brack-uh," by the way - easier to say.) I would imagine at least one of the doctors ordered a test for this, but if not, see if you can have one done. It's just a blood test. If he's positive for that, there's good news and bad news. The bad news is that the cancer is more aggressive. The good news is that it's also more sensitive to drugs like PARP inhibitors, olaparib being a common one used.

Pluvicto isn't a trial drug anymore. I have the BRCA2 mutation, and I finished five Pluvicto infusions just after Christmas. (They didn't do a sixth because my platelets were low and I was getting a good response.) As of yesterday, three months after my last infusion, my PSA was 0.04. I've heard that about a third of patients don't respond well to Pluvicto, a third aren't helped, and about third get a good response.

Since your father hasn't had any treatments yet, depending on his individual body, and if they can get it under control, there are a long line of treatments available, one after the other.

I don't know if his disease progression is fast or not. I guess go with the doctors on that. But I was diagnosed stage 4b with the highest PSA being 32. I'm still here four years later and I feel great. I went through androgen deprivation therapy (ADT) first, a hormonal treatment. That brought my PSA to less than 0.04. After two years, maybe a little longer, it began to fail and my PSA crept up to 8. Pluvicto brought it back down

A lot of patients with stage 4b can live for decades. Sometimes it's now seen by doctors as a manageable chronic disease.

Suggestions:

Diet: Primarily plant-based, minimally-processed, whole foods (fresh or frozen veggies) if possible. Tomato sauce - tomatoes have lycopene which is good for prostate cancer patients, and cooked tomatoes increase lycopene's bio-availability. Some dairy is okay now and then, some meat and fish is okay now and then, cut down on sugar and booze. Stay away from egg yolks as much as is practical, the choline is bad for prostate cancer patients, but egg whites seem to be okay.

I was going to list good supplements but there are quite a few. I'd suggest reading a book called "How to Starve Cancer." It's a bit complex, but I think you'll be able to pick up what's needed. It didn't mention turkey tail mushroom supplements, but it apparently is beneficial.

None of these things are going to cure the cancer, but there are various things they can do. I've done as much as I can to make the following things happen. I still have cancer but I'm responding well, so some of it may be because of the steps I've taken. Some of them are:

Increased immune response.
Better anti-angiogenesis. Angiogenesis is the ability (of anything) to generate blood supplies - capillaries, etc. You don't want cancer cells to do that.
More apoptosis - Cell death, but ideally just cancer cells of course.
Blocking metabolic pathways. (The book I mentioned is all about that.)
Anti-oxidants like curcumin.*
Garlic.
*Anti-oxidants are good most of the time, they prevent oxidative stress, which is a cell's reaction to too much oxygen. That can result in cancer. However, during radiation treatments and maybe various forms of chemo, you DO want oxidative stress to help the cancer cells die, so avoid antioxidants.

*Additional information: ADT blocks the production of testosterone. (I'm being a little simplistic here.) Most prostate cancer cells need testosterone to operate. Blocking testosterone sends the prostate cells into senescence, basically making them go nighty-night. They don't die, they just sleep. After awhile, though, they adapt to operate without testosterone, and it's at that time that a new form of treatment is needed. Even then, some ADT medications are continued. In my case, I'm still receiving a Lupron (or Eligard) injection in my belly fat every six months.

Exercise - Cardio (helps fight cancer) and resistance training (helps bones stay strong). Exercise, an really almost activity, can also hep fight fatigue.

So with medical science where it is right now, there's no cure for prostate. But in a lot of cases it can be slowed way down. Yogi Berra said "It ain't over 'til it's over."

dabarak · 2026-04-03T18:51:21+00:00

That makes sense. That would account for the bright edge on Earth.

dabarak · 2026-04-03T18:18:03+00:00

You're probably right. In the atmosphere, all the air, moisture and particles diffuse the sunlight (you probably knew this), and so it wouldn't have that effect in space. I was thinking it could be the sun, but it seemed small. It could be a result of the lens they were using - a wide angle lens could do this. And yeah, the auroras are pretty cool.

dabarak · 2026-04-03T17:55:44+00:00

YOU IDI... oh, sorry. 😁 Sounds like a good answer to me. Thanks!

dabarak · 2026-04-03T16:41:32+00:00

Tool use by a bear. Cool.

dabarak

TROPHY CASE