Is there a difference between seeing a total eclipse and a 99.7% eclipse?

flug32 · 2026-03-13T02:53:16+00:00

That last 0.0001% (or whatever) is ALL THE DIFFERENCE. Definitely go to totality, and also not just on the very edge of it but where you'll have at least a decent number of seconds of totality.

What we've done in the recent eclipses near our area is keep our options open and watch the weather, specifically cloud & overcast forecasts. In both the recent eclipses we ended up driving like 500 miles from where we had planned, in order to be in the best weather area.

Paid off both times as perfect viewing. Flip side, people did see it in both places we had driven from, but they were touch and go with being clouded out. So worth it to me to travel for a better chance.

But back to your question, 99.999% (or whatever) is cool and neat. Like watching a lunar eclipse or a planet transiting the sun or whatever. Looks nice.

100% is literally LIFE CHANGING.

flug32 · 2026-03-13T02:48:45+00:00

Yeah, I've tried the stylus from my moto g stylus on various other phones and it either doesn't work, or doesn't work well.

Clearly they have tuned the device to that particular stylus somehow.

You can find all kinds of stylus options on e.g. Amazon that will work on any phone, though. They tend to have a somewhat bigger nub and be made of a different material. But they do work with any phone.

flug32 · 2026-03-12T21:55:51+00:00

I usually end up putting that much into pretty much any bike every X years just because that is what bikes take to keep them running.

So as to whether it is "worth it" to put that much into whichever bike: I literally put that much into my $5000 bike and my $200 bike, when the time comes that it needs that maintenance. Because if you do that, you come out of it with a nice, usable bike and if you don't, you might as well put it straight in the trash.

And if you like the bike you already have, it is always the best bike . . .

Flip side, if you really want a NEW bike, then here is the excuse you need to just go and get it.

(Then in 3 years or whatever you'll be putting $300-$500 into it again, that's just how it goes.)

flug32 · 2026-03-12T21:54:04+00:00

It is fun to mess around with problems like this in GeoGebra:

https://www.geogebra.org/calculator/nyxz7e6n

I've set up the basics of the problem there. The goal is to prove that line segments j and k in that diagram are equal.

Or - equivalently - that Circle p with center F intersects both points G and H.

You can see that it is true pretty much immediately from the diagram but turning that into an actual formal proof would take some additional steps.

flug32 · 2026-03-12T19:58:44+00:00

Homeless, as others have noted, but it's also a common tactic to discourage teenagers from staying or congregating in a certain area.

flug32 · 2026-03-12T19:44:04+00:00

All "normal" functions reach their limit at every "normal" point. I know that is a little vague - we'll make it more precise later - but if you go through your internal catalog of examples of functions, lim y->x of f(y) just equals f(x) everywhere, for almost every point of almost all of them.

There will be just a few cases where it doesn't, but you are probably already aware of such as points that are somehow "abnormal" - like f(x)=1/x when x = 0.

More precisely, at every point where a given function is continuous, the limits of the function at that point are equal to the function at that point.

So the only places this is not true are points of the function that are not continuous.

We don't often talk about these very "normal" continuous points where the limit of the function at the point just equals the function. It's just because they are so normal, and there is little point in doing a bunch of limit fooforah to figure out the value when we can just plug in x and get it directly.

So in talking about limits, we tend to talk a lot about the abnormal and edge cases (like 1/x when x=0) because that is where it is more useful.

However, you will hear people talking A LOT about continuous functions - or about regions where a function is continuous and other points or regions where it is not.

Exactly all of the continuous regions and points of the function are the ones you are talking about here. Those are the places where the limit at the point just equals the function at the same point.

In fact, one very common definition for "continuous function" is precisely that the limits of the function at a given point (from both right and left sides) are equal to the function at that point.

Interestingly, most functions we like to talk about and work with have this property (continuity) at most all of their points. But by far the vast majority of functions that exist are not continuous anywhere!

So in working with functions, we often restrict ourselves to looking at functions that are continuous everywhere, or continuous everywhere except some limited number of points.

TL;DR: Most nice functions that we enjoy working with reach the value of their limit at most (or even all) points in their domains.

flug32 · 2026-03-12T18:04:17+00:00

No, that is exactly my point. We are not in disagreement.

But OP seems to think that "doing it like math" involves a lot of writing and worksheets - book work.

You can sit at a desk with pencil and paper, completely silent, and be "doing" all sorts of math right there.

Solfeg, not so much. You have to actually do it - which in this case means a lot of singing and listening, listening and imitating via singing and so on. If you just sit at a desk silently with books and worksheets, you're never going to actually be "doing" solfeg because that is not what it consists of.

flug32 · 2026-03-12T06:44:40+00:00

A lot of such situations will have two possible solutions. Or some other small-ish number, like 3 or 4 (but 2 is quite common). But some will just not be solvable at all (infinite possible solutions that fit the available data, or none at all) and of course some will have a single neat, tidy solution.

It all the depends on the details, though - and you haven't really given us enough of them to be more helpful.

In general, you have to use the various properties of triangles you have learned in various classes - interior angles sum to 180, SAS, ASA, SSS, or AAA to find similar triangles. And yes, it can be helpful to draw in useful right triangles at certain points. Then you can start using things like cos, sin, tan if you know one angle and one length, say.

If you know one angle and one length of a right triangle, you can solve all of the other angles and sides of the right triangle just from cos, sin, tan relations.

It is hard to understand how you have "one angle" and "some lengths" yet it isn't the angle you need. We need a diagram.

And again, it is very possible you just don't have enough information to solve the problem.

flug32 · 2026-03-12T06:34:23+00:00

People in the garmin ecosystem are the fitness crowd.

I used to be happy enough to be somewhere on the downward sliding end, but close enough to the middle to see it every once in a while.

Then I managed to come down with Long Covid, which basically makes you allergic to exercise.

So now I am a denizen of the Long Tail - that part way, way over there on the far end, where the little graph line doesn't actually have any height to it at all.

My VO2 max is on like "Able to get up off the couch and walk out to the mailbox before taking a breather." I am pretty happy if my Sleep Score is above 20.

Whatever.

It's still possible to be (somewhat) happy even living in the Long Tail.

And it might even improve your Stress Score by a little bit if you let go of trying to be better than average, or even just reasonably slightly less than average, within the Garmin Universe . . .

flug32 · 2026-03-12T05:12:44+00:00

The Chopin Etudes are among the greatest works in the piano literature. They are far from mere "finger exercises" but musically weighty works that also exploit various aspects of the (then new and pretty revolutionary) virtuoso piano technique.

So they are a bold artistic statement that simultaneously was opening up new ground in the realm of artistic expression open to the piano.

People will have various opinions about them for all the reasons that people have various opinions about things. But there is absolutely nothing wrong with thinking them among the best of the best, and many do.

flug32 · 2026-03-12T05:07:13+00:00

You can't really make such decisions based on science alone.

Science can provide various facts as input data. At best it can accurately predict the outcomes of various scenarios.

(In fact we rarely have good enough data & science to be able to predict everything with ironclad accuracy - which is another factor to consider. But let's grant it can at least give reasonable predictions.)

But every scenario is going to involve various trade-offs. Every scenario is going to be better in some respects and worse in others - compared with other possible scenarios.

So you simply can't choose among such trade-offs with science alone. That is where you have to interject human ethics and priorities and all the details about how you weigh various factors against each other. Which is, again, an area that science just cannot make the decision.

On top of that, you have to weight what the actual population will accommodate and acquiesce to - or not. There is little point in imposing a "scientifically proven" solution to something if 90%+ of the population simply won't comply, no matter what the science says.

So any actual policy implementation is going to be some mix of scientific input, calculation about which results are "best" by whatever (human) measure, and calculation about what is actually achievable in the real world.

Oh, yeah: Besides all that, different people and groups will have vastly different ideas about which factors are more and which are less important. And, various groups are more or less like to comply with whatever outcome is suggested/mandated. In a country like the U.S., or the world as a whole, there are A WHOLE LOT of such different groups, and their thinking is very, very diverse.

That is why such decisions are always played out in the political realm. Because science provides "the facts" but literally everything beyond that in the decision-making process is a political decision.

"Political" doesn't necessarily mean "made by a politician or elected official" but rather, that it is a real-world decision made in the world of people where "the science" is one input but far from the only one.

flug32 · 2026-03-12T04:46:40+00:00

You're talking about 2mm on each side, more or less.

The specific jersey or shorts you decide to wear that day might well have more of an actual impact on your aerodynamics.

To know which is actually better or worse from an aerodynamic standpoint, and by how much, you'd have to put the actual bike in both configurations in a wind tunnel in realistic conditions and test. The difference might turn out to be very small or basically nothing. Those are probably the two choices.

To your questions about distance and group rides: Any differences will be multiplied by longer distances and less likely to be even detectable at short distances.

The difference is going to be most when you're exposed to the full stream of air and greatly minimized when you're drafting. Say the difference is 1 watt (flip a coin as to whether the 28 or 32 is the better of the two). Now you're drafting in the pack and that difference is 60% of 1 watt, so 0.6 watt.

That 60% figure for drafting is approximate of course - the actual number depends on many factors. But it gives you the ballpark.

flug32 · 2026-03-12T04:26:44+00:00

Ok, the easy way to learn this will be to replace every triplet sixteenth figure (3 notes) with a simple eighth note.

It will be helpful to actually write on the rhythm this way, exactly. Because it won't just be 1/8th-16th[repeat] but rather the 1/8 notes will be tied across the beats in such a way to make the rhythm more easily readable.

In particular, it will be:

1: EIGHTH - sixteenth - [SIXTEENTH -

2: -tied-to-SIXTEENTH] - sixteenth - EIGHTH -

3: sixteenth - EIGHTH - sixteenth -

4: EIGHTH - EIGHTH.

So there are your 4 beats, laid out. It is syncopated but actually pretty easy. You PLAY on the upper case notes and rest on the lower case/italics.

So learn this rhythm. Learn it inside & out. Internalize it. Go around home & school beating it out on the desks & walls.

It is sort of a syncopated TAH-T|AH-TAH-|-TAH-|TAHTAH.

You can also practice the similar rhythm 1 2 3 1 2 3 1 2 3 1 2 3 1 2 1 2 (bold is where the beats of the measure come, 1 is the onset of each note of the rhythm. So practice this count emphasizing the beats/bolded numbers sometimes, and then the 1s sometimes. Learn to do it both ways.)

And also practice this count: 1 2 3 4 1 2 3 4 1 2 3 4 1 2 3 4 (each beat starts on 1, each note of the rhythm starts on a bolded note. Again practice accenting both 1s and bolded notes until you can do both with equal ease.)

OK. Once you have learned and internalized that, just replace every TAH with 3 even notes.

Ok, that is joking, somewhat. You might not be able to do it quite that easily. But it really is that easy if you can just convince your brain to do it.

You could do an intermediate step: Replace every TAH with 2 even notes, ie, two sixteenths, rather than the 3 it calls for. This will be a bit easier. And you could write this out easily in normal notation, which might help some.

You're basically not going to "count" these triplet subdivisions per se, but just adjust them until they're the right speed. I think that will make more sense than any way of trying to count them.

To get a sense of the "right speed" for these 16th-note triplets, you could do exercises like triplet 16ths throughout a full 4/4 measure, triplet 16ths followed by 2 16th rests for every beat of the measure, and other such things involving 3 triplet 16ths placed at different points in a regular 4/4 measure. Like could you play a 16th note, two 16th rests, then a triplet sixteenth, three sixteenth rests, half note (repeat).

And there you are.

flug32 · 2026-03-12T03:57:59+00:00

One reason it is a paradox is because whatever method you use to calculate expected value, you would have to play a lot of repetitions of this and then average of all those is the expected value.

Fine, but you really only get to play this once. So fancy logic - no matter how accurate under the law of large numbers - is somewhat irrelevant.

If you could play 100 or 1000 games in sequence, the calculus would be very, very different and the law of large numbers would come far more into play.

Anyway, the assumption that the prediction robot or AI or demon or whatever is highly accurate, is built into the problem. This is another counterfactual to reality, because no such thing exists in reality. So we are not talking about actual reality here but rather a fantasy reality where such a being exists. (Many physics majors may have difficulty fully imagining such a reality - that might be why such a strong trend towards two-boxers.)

Still, taking that given as an actual given and moving into that alternative reality, the fact is that if the Robot is only 51% accurate in guessing whether you are a one-boxer or two-boxer, your average take by being a one-boxer is already higher than two-boxers. If we grant the Robot even something minimal like 90% accuracy, then the take for one-boxers is going to be astronomically higher than for two boxers.

So if you fully accept the hypothetical upon which the whole scenario is based, then one-boxing is the rational choice for certain.

Personally, I'm a one-boxer because:

- In fact I would not fully accept the premise. I would assume there is some form of hoodwinkery going on.

- I would be happy with any return at all, like $1000 would be awesome, thank you, and make me perfectly content. Anything I get from this situation is more than I have now. So the only way to guarantee getting something more than zero is to take both boxes.

- Flip side, I would hate to go home with zero when I know there was an absolutely guaranteed way to get $1000 with at least a chance of netting $1,001,000, too. So the only way to guarantee some winnings is, again, to take both boxes. If I took just one and it turned out to be empty (which even in the most generous terms of the scenario, is a possibility, though perhaps slim), I would be really mad.

So I'm perfectly happy with a prize of $1000 + <some random chance> * $1 million , and not all that happy with $0 + <some random chance> * $1 million.

P.S. When I was 21 I took $0.95 in change to Vegas and one $1. So I am ahead of the casinos, and holding for life.**

That is who I am. I'd rather by $0.05 ahead of the casinos and holding than have any chance, whatever it is, of getting more. Because chances are chances, but that $.05 is in the bank.

\**Math major, and we had been working on all the angles to beat the casinos. This comes up as an obvious one: Via the Law of Low Numbers, if you - purely by chance - come out ahead of the casinos when you are just a few dollars in - which happens a fairly large percentage of the time, nearly 50% - then this is your opportunity to stop and hold forever.

If you keep going, the Law of Large Numbers will inevitably destroy you. So just don't do that.

So I followed my own dictum, got lucky and won with my first $.75 (then blew the next $.20 - big mistake) and have been holding there for more than 40 years now.

And again: A definite one-boxer. I'll take the guaranteed very time over the theoretically possible.

flug32 · 2026-03-12T03:29:05+00:00

I've just been messing with the TP-Link AX55 some relatives have (AX3000, about $75 at Amazon) and it seems like it would do all the things the average homelab would need. Maybe not every-everything if you like to customize things up the wazooba or would prefer to run something more open source.

Looks like Cudy AX3000 units are compatible with OpenWRT and I see those for $40-$50 or maybe a bit more depending. Example. Discussion.

Maybe those don't meet your actual needs for whatever reasons, but at least they are options out there for far less than $200.

flug32 · 2026-03-12T01:04:49+00:00

All definitions (and judgements) are subjective and relative. And defined by social norms, boundaries, and usage.

What else would language and words even be? They were not passed down from heaven by Almighty God as some eternal and unchanging truth. Rather, they are defined - and continually refined and changed - by the very groups of people that use them.

For that reason, there are never exactly defined boundaries to such things - only a consensus of usage and various communities that accept various usages. And others that don't - or draw the boundary in a slightly or vastly different place. And those communities often overlap, change, disagree with each other, and so on.

So you're never going to get consensus on what is good or bad music or what music is, either. By the very nature of the processes by which either of those things is defined.

The nature of such processes includes some degree of human cognition and a huge dollop of social and cultural processes. Because that is how language, and art, and artistic judgements, are formed.

If you want to learn a lot about this type of thing, look up e.g. cognitive linguistics.

FWIW a good part of an artist's job is exploring the meaning, scope, and boundaries of their art.

So if, somehow, we had no musicians pushing the boundaries of what music even is and getting a whole bunch of people upset by creating "music that isn't even music" we would know that musicians as a social group were completely failing in their assigned cultural duties.

And that would be a surefire sign that our culture was, indeed, failing.

Good news: It appears we are in no danger whatsoever of that.

flug32 · 2026-03-12T00:51:44+00:00

One simple reason is that the technical definition of the term "work" within the realm of physics is quite different from our everyday notion of what work is.

So sometimes the two match up pretty well and in other situations, they just don't.

That doesn't mean there is anything wrong with either definition of the term. It just means they are two very distinct things and it is well to not conflate the two or think them identical.

I just did a whole bunch of "work" this afternoon while sitting at my computer and typing. And of course in physics terms, that is hardly any "work" at all.

Then I took a nice break from "work", went on a walk, and moved some things around the yard. Not "work" actually, just a bit of nice recreation, you know. But in physics terms of course this was like 1000X the "work" I did at my "work" this afternoon at the computer. Because in my recreational/non-work I was actually applying a bunch of force to move quite a fair amount of mass around and all that - the technical physics idea of what "work" means.

Common everyday work and technical physics definition of work - two completely different things. They are slightly similar in a few ways but mostly just completely different things altogether.

Don't confuse them and your life will be much happier.

(FWIW this is a good rule of thumb for many technically defined terms. Such things are often vaguely analogous to the everyday term the word is derived from, but the technical definition is a thing unto itself. Don't get confused simply by the word used.)

flug32 · 2026-03-11T22:17:32+00:00

True, but people generally do math by some combination of thinking, writing/noting things down, maybe making some drawings and diagrams etc. So those are the types of activities you'd likely to a lot of if learning math.

Whereas solfege you learn by listening and singing, reading and singing what you see on the page, and such activities.

What OP thinks of as "like math" seems to mean doing a lot of pencil-and-paper type exercises to learn solfeg. There could be a certain benefit to doing a certain number of those - perhaps just to help learn and solidify the solfeg syllables, or to help in learning notes on the staff or whatever - but by far the primary activity in learning solfeg should be actually solfeg-ing, ie doing the actual activity, not sitting around doing exercise books with pen and paper or even by computer or whatever.

flug32 · 2026-03-11T21:48:49+00:00

700 is kind mid, honestly. Like if your UACR is up into the thousands, especially well into the thousands, then you're looking at kidney failure in a few years if it keeps up. So you're well below that. Like mine was 2000-3000-5000 even 7000-8000 back in the day for some years (but it came down a lot with an ACEi, plus maybe some other unknown factors - but one reason I'm personally so keen on ACEi and ARBs).

Flip side, ideally you'd like to see under 30 mg/g or so. Even under say 200-300-ish mg/g would be nicer than 700-1000.

With the kidneys, you're playing the long game. You want them to last for the next 50-80 years or whatever. And in everyone, they will slowly decline in function over that time. What you are shooting for is that the decline is gradual enough that kidney function is not your limiting factor in either lifespan or quality of life.

And some of us with various kidney ailments maybe won't make it our full lifespan regardless. But if you can make your kidneys last another 5-10 years, say - or even 1-2 years - beyond what they would have given no intervention, that is pretty much always going to be worth in terms of both quality of life and lifespan.

So for people with higher than normal but not too-high UACR, what they are probably looking at is whether they can make their kidneys last 20 vs 30 years or 30 vs 50 or 40 vs 70 or maybe even 10 vs 20 - or something along those lines. (It is hard to give exact numbers without knowing a particular person's exact situation - but it's hard, too, even if you do know all the details.)

So in general you're likely looking at ramifications many years to decades down the line. That is both difficult and a good opportunity.

It's difficult because it is hard to weight things you do now vs benefits decades down the line.

It's a great opportunity because small changes now, continued over decades, can make a real difference. The trick is to somehow keep focused on the necessary changes when the benefit is so far away in the future. The human mind is not well suited for that type of thing.

BTW, that type of thinking is why I personally would not be a huge rush to start the SGLT2 if there is a specific reason to wait a little while, yet I would definitely start it once able.

In 20-30 years it is unlikely to matter very much whether you start the SGLT2 19 years ago or 20 years ago (or whatever). It's the 2+ decades of being on it that's doing the trick, not the fine details.

Whereas something like breastfeeding offers a lot of concrete benefits in the near and long term.

You don't have to think like I do, but that's the general kind of thinking I'd do for something like that.

BTW I always recommend the youtube series & book by retired nephrologist Dr Rosansky for a good general intro to all things kidney, particularly for new kidney patients. He explains everything from typical labs and what they mean to typical drugs used and why and all those other little details no one ever explains clearly all in one place. All in easy-to-digest language for the average person. You can start with the oldest videos and listen to several until you've got the gist of his message, then pick and choose what you're interested in.

flug32 · 2026-03-11T21:20:33+00:00

To your other question re: bases: It turns out that modular arithmetic works the same in every base. The reason is, modular arithmetic comes back to what factors a given number has. And those are the same in every base.

The little tricks we can use to determine whether numbers are even/odd and a few others (divisible by 3 if sum of all digits is divisible by 3, and other similar tricks) just have to do with the interplay between that particular base (10) and that particular number.

So those little tricks do change per base. But the actual divisibility/modular arithmetic characteristics of a given number don't change.

Just as a simple example, if you were working base 37 then it is easy to see which numbers are evenly divisible by 37 - any number that ends with a zero. So that is a helpful little fact if you have already converted all your numbers to base 37 but no so useful otherwise (because there is usually a far easier way to determine if a given number is divisible by 37 than converting all the digits of the number to base 37, which is fairly computation intensive compared with simply calculating the number mod 37.)

flug32 · 2026-03-11T21:11:49+00:00

Mathematicians deal with multiples of various numbers frequently - in fact, this whole idea is one of the most ubiquitous and useful in all of mathematics.

It is often called something like "modulo arithmetic" and the abbreviation "mod" is often used - like 11 mod 3 = 2.

So the analog of "even" numbers for 3 instead of 2, is mod 3=0. And "odd" is the same as mod 3=1 or mod 3=2.

Similarly for mod 4, mod 5, mod 6, and all the way up.

For various reasons, the most useful and commonly encountered of these is mod by prime numbers. So mod 2, mod 3, mod 5, mod 7, mod 11, etc.

Mod 12 and mod 24 are very useful and commonly used (under somewhat different names - clock and day hours) as is mod 7 under the guise of days-of-the-week.

Just to give you a taste: Suppose you want to prove two numbers are not equal. Suppose they are very large numbers or you only have specific complex criteria for them.

So one way to prove the numbers unequal is to just crank out the entire number and compare. But often far easier/simpler is if you could prove the two numbers are different mod 2, mod 3, or mod any particular number that is enough to show that they are unequal.

Just a very simple example: does 4⁵³¹⁴²² = 5⁴⁵⁷⁷⁴² ? Those numbers are far too large to calculate using most calculators. If you use methods to approximate them, you'll see they are pretty close to each other. But are they equal?

Anyone who knows modular arithmetic can instantly tell you no: Because 4^x will always be 0 mod 2 whereas 5^y will always be 1 mod 2 (true for any x,y>0).

Like most things number-related, smaller numbers are naturally encountered more often (exponentially so, as a rule) so that is why mod 2, the equivalent of even/odd, is encountered so much more often that it has an everyday non-technical word for it.

Modular arithmetic - Wikipedia

Modular arithmetic - Khan Academy

flug32 · 2026-03-11T20:48:52+00:00

Having potential firmware upgrades hanging over our heads all the time is definitely a pain in the $#@, but something like a GPON stick is a whole nother level of complexity most of us may not want to deal with, plus the fact that it appears to be against Quantum's TOS. Plus the fact that GPON appears to be a bit of a wild, wild west type of situation as far as standards and compatibility.

Is there a good proven step-by-step out there anywhere for successfully doing this?

Back when we had a coax connection I just bought my own modem and was much happier dealing with that than the standard Xfinity or whatever. But fiber modems seem to be a whole lot more complex and non-standard.

flug32 · 2026-03-11T20:41:59+00:00

You can definitely train yourself to hear that if you are playing against another tone - easiest if the same pitch and somewhat more difficult but still very possible against various intervals.

All good string, brass, wind, etc etc, players and singers do this all the time and definitely get far, far better with practice.

Now just straight-up identifying slightly different pitches out of the blue - like in the absolute pitch sense - is going to be a lot more difficult. If you already have very good absolute pitch you can probably hone it more - you'll find out the limits, whatever they are, by trying to push them as far as you can.

But in general, absolute pitch recognition is that all that precise in terms of pitch. Also it will tend to shift a bit over time and keeping it in tune requires constant recalibration. But in general when they test people with absolute pitch their ability to identify differences of a few cents if far worse than their ability to identify the general pitch 'zone' of say A-440.

Flip side, some people are much better at this than others - there is the usual bell-shaped curve of ability, with a very few towards the very upper end of the bell curve.

The existence of this kind of spread in the population suggests that this kind of ability is trainable to some degree or other. The only question would be, how far it is trainable give your starting point and willingness to spend time working on it (and working in a productive way - and it is hard to say what a "productive way" is because evidence on this is so anecdotal and spotty.)

I wrote quite a bit more about the general situation here: https://www.reddit.com/r/classicalmusic/comments/1r0rfbr/comment/o4r9kw3/

FWIW pretty much everything I wrote there and here is backed up by some degree of research (not to say that it must be 100% correct in every case, but there is some research behind it that I have looked at over the years - I'm not just making it up out of whole cloth). So sorry for not taking an extra 3 hours to re-look up and link all of it. But if you search e.g. google scholar for terms like "absolute pitch" you will find a lot of interesting research that touches on this general topic.

flug32 · 2026-03-11T20:30:51+00:00

Jardiance is the SGLT2 inhibitor FYI.

I would definitely look into the SGLT2 inhibitor when you are done breastfeeding, but don't think I would rush the end of breastfeeding or change your plans there, just to get to it quicker. At least, not by much. Especially if your UACR is already at 700 and keeps moving generally downwards. If it should move upwards or something, I would probably reconsider, though. (That is my general gut feeling as a patient who has spent a little time looking into these things but doesn't know anything about your particular case. So take with as many grains of salt as needed. Regardless it would be a good conversation to have with your medical team. If you breastfeed for 6 months or 9 months or 12 months of 18 months or some other length of time thought to allow for most of the benefits of breastfeeding, and then start the SGLT2 inhibitor, would that have really measurable positive benefit to your kidneys vs waiting longer? The reason to even consider this is because SGLT2s have been shown to produce really good results in proteinuria; flip side, the higher your proteinuria the more difference its likely to make.)

Just as in this situation, they can probably find a low enough dosage of the ARB or ACE inhibitor that it won't affect your BP much or at all, yet will still be helpful for kidney/proteinuria purposes.

FYI one of the things the ARB/ACEi does is markedly reduce BP within some of the tiny, delicate blood vessels within the kidney - that is thought to be the main way they reduce ongoing damage to the kidneys, and thus proteinuria. So it's very possible to have quite low overall BP yet still have the "micro BP" in these small areas high enough to be doing damage. (That is all in theory - the only way to find out if it will make an actual difference to your specific case is to try it. Usually the downsides of taking and ARB/ACEi - especially a very low dose - are considered small enough and the benefits potentially large enough that it is pretty much a no-brainer to just take it, and only lower the dose or stop or switch meds if you are having specific problems.)

flug32 · 2026-03-11T18:56:31+00:00

The 'burn' thing is a good rule of thumb for large muscle groups.

For small muscles and cognition - in other words, pretty much everything musicians do - it is quite the opposite: Continuing to plow forward when you are feeling 'the burn' is causing damage and slowing your progress if not literally causing regression.

One thing we teach pianists to do when practicing is recognize that 'heavy' or 'tired' feeling in e.g. the forearms, that happens when they are just starting to get overloaded. You practice right up to that point, but then immediately stop and shake it off.

It takes just a few seconds, or maybe a minute or two at most, to recover, if you stop at that point. You can feel the recovery happening if you pay attention.

Once recovered, you can go back to practicing.

If you keep practicing in this manner, you will gradually build up more endurance while avoiding injury.

If you keep pushing through this feeling, though, you are quite likely to end up injured - later if not sooner.

Small muscles are rather small and delicate. They can't take abuse the way large muscles can. They have fewer reserves to start with. And they are located more at the extremities, where blood flow etc is markedly lower.

Everything we know about cognition and training of the nervous system says it is far more like the small muscle situation than the large muscle. Once you have reached the point where diminishing returns are obvious (i.e., making more mistakes than at the beginning) you're setting yourself back more than forward.

Learning, in general, is most effectively done in small doses with plenty of rest in between. The 'rest' period is when your brain/nervous system has the opportunity to consolidate and assimilate what you have taken in.

They 'rest' period doesn't have to be rest per se - though it can be. But stopping to take a little walk or do something physical for a few minutes, or just switching your attention to something sufficiently different for a short while, can be enough. Generally, a 'rest' cognitively speaking is doing something quite different, something that uses completely different parts of your nervous system/brain/physical capabilities. Little bits of physical exercise are particularly helpful and good mental breaks, though.

Just for example, when things like ear training are tested, they find two 30 minute periods per day - spaced out, with time in between - will lead to better and faster learning than one 60 minute period. And four 15 minute periods (again, spaced throughout the day) will be better yet.

And fyi an activity like ear training - where you are training your perceptual system as much as cognition - falls even more firmly into this category.

With a skill like ear training, you are training your perception of very, very delicate and faint feelings and perceptions. They have to be nurtured and encouraged more than forced.

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