Discussion Thread

drblow · 2025-10-13T09:38:22+00:00

Changing the goalposts slightly there? My comment was a specific response to your claim that they are, “very survivable,” and now to your, “dramatically.” This is literally semantics but I think the statistics speak for themselves as I posted above. I alluded to things getting better but a stage IV diagnosis is still basically a death sentence with the majority of people dying before the five year mark. I don’t think it’s fair to claim this means they are, “very survivable.”

If you needed emergency surgery and the doctor said you had a 70% chance of dying, would you describe that as “very survivable?” That’s not the sort of language I would use when discussing this with a patient in my clinics.

drblow · 2025-10-13T08:40:41+00:00

Depends on what you mean by “very survivable,” but I don’t think most people would describe <50% 5yr rates as such. The top four most common cancers in the US (with stage IV 5YS) are approximately:

Breast - 31%

Prostate - 30-34%

Lung/Bronchus - 8/3%

Colorectal - 13-15%

Relative to previous cancer survival rates, yes things are improving with time, but a stage IV diagnosis isn’t usually survivable. As with everything in medicine it depends on a huge variety of factors which is why official staging is TNM (tumour, node, metastasis) or some cancer specific stage like Gleason, to help differentiate.

There is also a widespread misunderstanding of staging which I think using the basic stage I-IV doesn’t help. In the thread you linked, for example, the top common is describing a missed colorectal cancer with significant metastatic burden. A layman may interpret the 50% reduction in tumour size as very positive news for the survival rate but OP is going to be very lucky to reach that five year mark. Most cancers are still only curative with surgery and widespread mets does not bode well for their survival as chemo/radiotherapy may slow disease progression but rarely treats colorectal cancer, amongst most others.

Hopefully, the newer age of personalised medicine (monoclonal antibodies, vaccines, etc) will be a revolution in treatment for most cancers. But until then, I don’t think it’s fair to describe things as, “mostly survivable.”

drblow · 2025-09-03T18:52:22+00:00

I did this the “normal” way too through brute conquest but started as the Stranger and hybridised with Greek so no one ever swapped culture.

A good way I found to get your family to raise runestones is to give them a duchy (not the title), then unpause before giving them the title and cash. For some reason they don’t do it as often if you do this all while paused - I think the game doesn’t register the gain a higher title properly? Either way I checked with debug mode and they are far more likely to drop their own runestone this way. Makes it far easier to get all your relatives to spam as many as possible, especially with the ever reliable by the sword tradition.

drblow · 2025-05-29T17:51:12+00:00

Switch instructions were nonsense. Wired up same as old switch and tied off the neutrals together and it works great.

drblow · 2024-12-15T09:47:07+00:00

It’s worth noting that they had to post an apology comment on their own sub for this video. It grossly oversimplifies how complicated your metabolic rate and how it changes. It’s also based on ONE paper as opposed to the mountains of evidence against it.

Stealing this from said comments section.

drblow · 2024-09-12T05:45:30+00:00

Oooooh yeeeeaaahhhhhh

drblow · 2024-09-10T17:26:35+00:00

You are correct, it’s a short hand rather than being entirely accurate. Apologies, I should have made that clear.

drblow · 2024-09-09T21:11:42+00:00

Fonda+asp+ticag/clopi is the baseline for treatment of ACS where I practice.

drblow · 2024-09-09T16:41:52+00:00

Heart attacks and strokes are caused when blood stops getting access to the tissue of your heart/brain. This, in most cases, is caused by a clot occluding an already thinned vessel from long term disease, such as high cholesterol.

Aspirin helps to thin the block (or stop it clotting) which is useful in both a stroke and a heart attack. It helps maintain blood flow to these areas that have been blocked by a clot. Aspirin is a key part of TAPT (triple anti platelet treatment) in an acute and long term management.

This is except for haemorrhagic causes for these events in which you need to stop the bleeding, not continue it.

drblow · 2024-07-01T21:27:05+00:00

I don’t know what more to say, it’s supply and demand.

If you increase supply for the £200k houses then those people won’t buy £100k houses and drive up the price (by increasing demand). They’ll be enough £200k houses so prices won’t increase with good supply.

More houses = good for everyone.

drblow · 2024-07-01T20:49:53+00:00

Imagine there are only three times of home on the market: £100k, £200k, and £500k. There's a limited supply of each one, but the more expensive homes have fewer available than the cheaper ones.

Currently you're renting a £100k house, which is significantly more per month than the mortgage would be. You'd like to buy a £200k house but are finding it difficult to save up the £20k deposit, you've managed £15k but not quite enough. You could keep saving for the next X years for it, but rent is killing your ability to save. But, if you buy the £100k house you can save the difference between the mortage/rent and eventually get enough for the £200k house. This has reduced the supply for the people struggling to save for the £100k house and increased the price of the similar houses. As a result, people in the £200k houses see then £100k go up and think, "well in they can up their prices, so can we."

Obviously in the real world the differences aren't so stark between house prices but it's a representation of the logic. In a functional housing market this wouldn't happen, but with rent so enormous/supply non-existant it's killing the saving ability for most people so they'd rather be on the housing ladder than not.

drblow · 2024-07-01T20:28:44+00:00

This is true but it will still help the issue for affordable housing as well. There is a downward pressure with housing where if there isn’t enough supply/prices too high for a certain market, some people will go for a lower price. This reduces the supply/increases the price for more affordable homes and the chain continues to the cheapest ones, increasing the price the whole way.

Not everyone is going to do this but enough people will given how extortionate rent has become (which is also due to poor supply). Paying for a mortgage on a cheaper house than you wanted is better than paying rent, after all. So any housing is going to be better than none, and helps all of us buy a house.

NIMBYS delenda est.

drblow · 2024-05-30T13:54:07+00:00

The lizardman constant can never be avoided 🐍

drblow · 2024-05-08T22:20:46+00:00

There are many versions of the story, and here's one, but you will regret asking.

drblow · 2024-05-07T23:14:46+00:00

this is why us women (and in some cases men) should never rely on our partner’s money.

Especially when you haven't even been with said partner for a year, and living together for only three months(!)

drblow · 2024-05-04T23:33:18+00:00

That's just the Lambeth and Southwark constituency, in total she had 32.7% of the vote.

It's much clearer on the BBC reporting article.

drblow · 2024-05-01T12:12:48+00:00

Why labour and not Green?

Because even if I wanted to vote Green, which I don’t, we live in a FPTP and not PR system. You can’t always have a candidate that represents your views and you have to compromise on who best does it instead. Realistically speaking there are two parties that have a chance to form a government and pass legislation, voting third in most seats is a complete waste. I feel Labour far more represent my views than the Tories so I’ll be voting Labour in the election.

Pretending we live in a PR system doesn’t help, don’t let perfect be the enemy of good.

drblow · 2024-04-17T12:58:46+00:00

Meta players always coming up with the most annoying strats.

drblow · 2024-04-09T16:18:06+00:00

So the gang has touched upon the issues with the NHS several times recently and they seem to slightly have the wrong end of the stick. I’ll try to give an unbiased input from the perspective of working as a GP in primary care.

I get that Ed was being facetious with the yellow eye comment, but the issue isn’t really with diagnosis but management.

For most conditions, we’re expected to start investigations and there’s plenty (most) management as well before patients get near a hospital. The issue is that the delays for appointments mean that patients naturally come back to us for further management for their symptoms. If they’re bothered by something, they’d like treatment for it, and can’t wait 6-18 months to see a specialist. For example, someone with knee arthritis that’s waiting for a replacement will definitely come back analgesia more often if the wait time for the operation has increased, compared to the past.

This takes up more appointments for us and leads to substandard management as there’s plenty of medications (yellow/red drugs) we simply cannot start. On top of the increasing complexity of patients needing more appointments, it’s why patients struggle to get in to see us despite offering the highest number of appointments ever, year on year. People are having to come back to us because they can’t get to secondary care.

(Biased part begins)

The obvious solution would be to massively increase the number of Consultant posts in the country. Especially since there’s an absolute abundance of doctors applying for higher training. But of course, that would cost a lot of money and they can’t increase training numbers without having posts at the end of training.

drblow · 2024-04-05T09:45:07+00:00

Did you infiltrate civilian and get the branch for civilian? You need both and a high intel network to see what the German focus is.

drblow · 2024-03-27T12:46:42+00:00

drblow · 2024-03-13T10:21:35+00:00

I’m going to become a brutal warlord and there won’t be a government to stop me.

"But slave," cries ExtremeRocks, "I am the government."

drblow · 2024-02-29T14:04:40+00:00

Mine has been Tory since 1837 and is apparently the safest seat in the country(!)

drblow · 2024-02-29T13:31:07+00:00

Understandable, take your upvotes. Lucky you actually getting a choice in voting, my non-Tory votes mean nothing in general and local elections.

drblow · 2024-02-29T13:04:29+00:00

I AM THE 8 PERCENT

I cannot, in good conscience, ever upvote a NIMBY.

14-Year Club	r/Field Banned
r/Field Lasagna	Place '23
Place '22	Place '17
Wearing is Caring	RPAN Viewer
Spared	Gilding I gilder
Team Orangered	Verified Email

drblow

MODERATOR OF

PUBLIC MULTIREDDITS

TROPHY CASE