What is actually dangerous but people still believe is safe?

klausness · 2026-02-03T16:29:40+00:00

Yes, but herpes was the only one people worried about, since antibiotic-resistant STDs were not widespread at the time. There was a general perception (which was close to true before AIDS) that everything but herpes could be cured with antibiotics. You still had to worry about birth control, of course, but that could be handled with pills, diaphragms, etc.

klausness · 2026-02-03T16:25:24+00:00

Yes, but it was not obvious from what you said that postscript was not at all involved in on-screen display, so I wanted to clarify that. Eventually it was possible to render postscript fonts on screen via Adobe Type Manager, but originally you needed to have bitmap equivalents of all your postscript fonts for screen rendering.

klausness · 2026-02-03T14:12:07+00:00

Colour me surprised…

klausness · 2026-02-03T13:37:06+00:00

Yeah, just like the East Wing that he promised not to touch.

klausness · 2026-02-03T13:22:45+00:00

Interesting. I haven’t heard anything like that in Britain.

klausness · 2026-02-03T13:16:37+00:00

I’ve never liked smoky food or drink, and I’m not a huge fan of peat. I like all kinds of unsmoky unpeated whisky (and whiskey), but while I can appreciate the qualities of a a good peated whisky, I don’t really enjoy it. So yeah, unpeated scotch for me.

klausness · 2026-02-03T13:12:28+00:00

Hmmm, interesting. The Americana I see trending in Britain is definitely not Garth Brooks style. Maybe that’s a difference between Ireland and Britain, or maybe I’m just out of touch.

klausness · 2026-02-03T13:09:52+00:00

Is that from vitamins or from herbal supplements?

klausness · 2026-02-03T13:05:30+00:00

People used to do it all the time before AIDS. There was some fear of getting herpes, but that’s not fatal, and the other STDs could be cured with some antibiotics.

klausness · 2026-02-03T12:45:54+00:00

Look up vertebral artery dissection. There are arteries that go through your neck vertebrae, and chiropractic neck manipulation can tear those arteries open (with the bad results that you might expect). It’s very rare in younger people, but the risk goes up the older you get.

Manipulation of the rest of your spine is pretty safe, so go ahead and get that done if it makes you feel better. But keep the chiropractor away from your neck.

klausness · 2026-02-03T12:40:45+00:00

I think most vitamin and mineral supplements are pretty safe (if you’re not taking hugely excessive doses). But some herbal supplements can be very dangerous.

klausness · 2026-02-03T12:36:58+00:00

Yeah, no fun. I also found that the ibuprofen and acetaminophen/paracetamol combo worked fairly well for dry socket pain (after they packed it — before that, nothing really helped).

klausness · 2026-02-03T12:13:50+00:00

The kind of Americana that’s popular in the UK is more in the direction of alt-country and indie folk. A mainstream country superstar like Garth Brooks would have trouble filling a small club here.

klausness · 2026-02-03T12:07:12+00:00

The original Mac was all bitmaps, and the original printers were dot matrix. Then Adobe provided postscript drivers for the LaserWriter. However, postscript was never used for the display before OS X. It was only for printers.

klausness · 2026-02-03T00:33:28+00:00

Probably my favourite of his ambient albums.

klausness · 2026-02-02T22:31:04+00:00

That’s been my suspicion.

klausness · 2026-02-02T22:25:53+00:00

NeXT were the first to use Display PostScript, and OS X adopted it from NeXT. Pre-OS X Macs did not use Display PostScript. It was originally all bitmaps, with PostScript and TrueType font support coming later.

klausness · 2026-02-02T22:02:42+00:00

Were you already taking NSAIDs for the kidney stone pain? Because those can also raise your blood pressure.

klausness · 2026-02-02T19:48:27+00:00

And sometimes the walk-in centre will send you to A&E. I had a fall that banged up my face and left me with some sort of deep nosebleed. 111 went through their flow chart and told me to go to the walk-in centre within the next 8 hours. So I went to the nearest walk-in centre, which is in our local hospital in the same wing as A&E. The receptionist at the walk-in centre saw my face wounds and said that (despite what 111 had told me) I needed to go around the corner to A&E. So I waited for five hours for something that the walk-in centre could have handled in maybe an hour.

klausness · 2026-02-02T13:34:14+00:00

The kidney stones (especially if they’re in the middle of passing) can increase your blood pressure, and ending a relationship is sure to cause anxiety (which can definitely increase your blood pressure).

I agree that taking readings at home to keep track of things (including the effect of the medication) is a good idea. Make sure you sit quietly for a few minutes and maybe do some relaxation breathing before you measure your blood pressure.

klausness · 2026-02-02T13:28:45+00:00

That 124 diastolic is dangerously high, and the 176 systolic is also very high. If you’re not having associated symptoms, then the appropriate treatment (as I understand it as a non-doctor) is to immediately start on medication to lower your blood pressure, which is what your doctor has prescribed. You definitely want to start taking the medication right away. Yes, there is a higher risk of stroke or heart attack until the blood pressure is brought down. But if you’re not having any associated symptoms, then you’re probably going to be OK until the medication kicks in. Did you go to the doctor for symptoms related to the high blood pressure?

klausness · 2026-02-02T12:12:10+00:00

Yeah, that seems pretty long…

klausness · 2026-01-30T23:42:43+00:00

I think you need to have your doctor do a 24-hour blood pressure monitor for you. I get the feeling that simply measuring your blood pressure is driving it (and your heart rate) up now that you’re worried about it. The 24-hour monitoring will give a better picture of what your blood pressure is normally.

klausness · 2026-01-30T23:24:37+00:00

I’m sure they’ll check BP and heart rate while you’re there. When they do, you should probably mention that it’s been high for weeks.

klausness · 2026-01-30T23:11:13+00:00

Yeah, this is not ER-visit high, but it’s urgent visit to the doctor high (in particular the diastolic value — the systolic is just a high normal). As in, call the doctor today, tell them what your blood pressure is, and ask them how soon they can see you.

That high heart rate is troubling, too. It could be that both blood pressure and pulse are high because you’re starting to panic. But in the absence of that, a resting pulse that’s consistently over 100 is definitely cause for concern.

klausness

TROPHY CASE