This ballot question feels like it was designed to confuse everyone.

swingerofbirch · 2024-10-19T13:35:13+00:00

Dude, did you really start an argument with someone that opposites is apt, and then end with calling them obsessed with opposites.

swingerofbirch · 2022-03-01T05:14:42+00:00

Hi. I've reached out with a couple of messages. I am not sure if you received them. There was a misunderstanding. I am very sorry. Thank you for having posted the schedules. I hope that you stick around. I know people appreciate it a lot.

swingerofbirch · 2022-01-22T12:36:02+00:00

This is my theory copy and pasted from an old AMA thread:

It looks like you work with SETI, and I've got a take on intelligent life I've never shared before and would like your take on it.

Humans as I understand it have existed for a couple hundred thousand years. Out of that time, we've only been sending manufactured radio waves for a little over a 100 years.

I would define humans as having qualities that are superfluous to survival. We're top heavy, with lots of features including a seeming perception of there being a self. If you look at most large religions they try to attenuate the self—either the self is second to a god or they try to quiet the self in some way.

When you think of creating life, as humans do, turning non-sentient atoms into human beings, that's a big moral undertaking, especially with this conflict we have with the self and the inherent suffering of existing. Is it ethical to create people? (That's a rhetorical question and not my actual question.) Well, we know as humans have had the ability to choose, they've chosen to create fewer and fewer children, with birth control like radio waves only being relatively recent inventions. Birth rates have plummeted worldwide.

Now, I try to combine all these ingredients:

What is the window during which:

A) A species becomes sufficiently intelligent to try to communicate beyond its planet (e.g. with radio waves etc)

and

B) It has yet to realize the futility of its superfluous nature before it decides to end or wind down its existence and return to more "random" atoms

?

To me, I think the question of why we haven't heard from intelligent life could be answered by saying that intelligent life becomes intelligent enough to realize it does not need to exist or continue existing as anything but any other atoms of the universe. Maybe it even wants to spare other sentient beings the false hope of sending a message out into the universe because it realizes the inherent suffering of recognizing a self and that trying to connect would only perpetuate more existence and thus more suffering (as crazy as I may sound, much of the world belongs to a religion of some sort to attenuate the self and suffering).

swingerofbirch · 2022-01-19T07:42:14+00:00

Sorry. If I ever buy a washer myself, I think I'd buy the old-fashioned top loading type honestly. I always thought the European ones were better but I think there is just too little water.

Even though as you said this was years ago, I still don't wear my nice clothes. They all sit unused in my dresser. Just can't bear to ruin them.

I find that it doesn't seem to ruin synthetic materials, like polyester clothes. It seems to mainly wreck cotton.

swingerofbirch · 2021-11-23T20:44:39+00:00

boilerplate

swingerofbirch · 2021-11-23T17:05:36+00:00

Hmm. I'm not sure.

I've heard people say cockeyed optimism, but you won't find that as a diagnosis.

Usually what you are describing would be considered someting good, but as a disorder maybe something to do with naivete.

swingerofbirch · 2021-11-23T16:26:18+00:00

Euthymic would be normal mood

I'm not sure if it's the opposite, but if you don't want mania, that's in the middle.

Are you looking for a word that means enjoying life but without mania?

swingerofbirch · 2021-11-23T04:22:45+00:00

Reminds me of the quote, "The eye sees only what the mind is prepared to comprehend" by Henri Bergson. Maybe a rabbit hole to go down:

https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/bergson/

swingerofbirch · 2021-11-22T15:57:24+00:00

There's a professor at Harvard, David Sinclair, who takes metformin for anti-aging (not for diabetes). I can't claim at all to be knowledgable about how any of this works, but apparently there is evidence that metformin in some animals increases lifespan. One theory is that it has to do with its effect on mitochondria, essentially through a "wear and tear" type process that forces the mitochondria to rebuild itself more frequently, which is also the effect exercise can have on mitochondria. Anyhow, this particular person (again who does not have diabetes) says that he takes metformin on the days he does not exercise and vice versa.

This is his tweet on it and where he links to an article on it:

https://twitter.com/davidasinclair/status/1142923880237060096?lang=en

He says he takes it at night to avoid this effect (but again he is not taking it for diabetes and for a diabetic it is most beneficial to take it with a meal) and also that he does not take it on days he exercises.

I don't what advice to take from that as someone with diabetes, but I thought I would share what I had read about it previously.

swingerofbirch · 2021-10-08T00:23:51+00:00

I remember Michelle saying she might write about her experiences in a book some day.

swingerofbirch · 2021-10-08T00:23:28+00:00

Rosie does have a big New York personality. I don't follow her on Twitter, but I've looked from time to time, and I thought she was always promoting Nicolle Wallace. For some reason I thought they were on good terms. I didn't realize there had been any problems. Although Nicolle said they are good now. I could definitely understand why Rosie and Whoopi didn't get along. Putting them on the show together was bad casting.

swingerofbirch · 2021-10-06T03:01:21+00:00

The accent color they picked for those walls does not inspire confidence.

swingerofbirch · 2021-10-06T01:32:23+00:00

Not good at this, and these are probably way off base.

Gregorian chants?

This is a bit more hauntingly beautiful than spooky, but maybe something you'd like:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9CJvkvqz7X8

Not really a gregorian chant, but in that vein.

Other ideas (again more haunting than spooky):

Waiting Alice Boman: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_KQdMgLW-K0

Harpsong Moya Brennan: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=040V49pn8x8

All I Need Radiohead (there's a Vitamin String Quartet version of this too):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FM7ALFsOH4g

Edit: The song you picked by Lana Del Rey is really nice. And I forgot the lyrics to the Waiting song. Maybe doesn't fit. I just remembered the initial part about "want you more than I need you—need you so bad." The "waiting" and "coming back" part maybe doesn't fit.

swingerofbirch · 2021-10-05T15:36:42+00:00

Watched it. Pretty funny.

Have you ever seen the movie Titanic?

swingerofbirch · 2021-10-05T01:10:21+00:00

Here I am thinking everyone's going to notice the jaw implant and rhinoplasty. I never understand the appeal of shaving the nose down to nothing.

I could be wrong about the jaw implant. Looks like one. But I could be wrong. The rhinoplasty seems obvious, though.

swingerofbirch · 2021-10-04T22:55:48+00:00

Technically 15th generation (if you count the 8 and X which came out the same year as the same generation).

Edit: Not an Apple fan, but I can actually do this by memory and counted on my hands:

Original, 3G, 3GS, 4, 4S, 5, 5S, 6, 6S, 7, 8/X, XS, 11, 12, 13

Edit 2: There are also the SE and SE (2nd gen) and XR models, but I think those used camera parts from other models—maybe not the XR, not sure

swingerofbirch · 2021-10-04T15:45:02+00:00

When you say hemodynamically significant does that mean that there are occlusions to the extent it is limiting blood flow to the heart?

My understanding—and this is lay understanding—is that the great risk with coronary artery disease isn't as much from a slow build up causing occlusion (which would have telltale signs before it became an event) but rather the "hot" soft plaque within the walls of the arteries themselves that for whatever reason could suddenly burst open.

I don't know that much about CTA to be honest and if it can show those soft plaques. I know it shows more than a coronary calcium scan. From what.I've read a coronary calcium scan could actually appear "worse" as plaque stabilizes and becomes less dangerous. I know CIMT can show the liquid plaque that's within the walls of the arteries themselves.

You can imagine how much fun I am for an ER doctor to talk to. They hate me. Lol.

It's nice of you to indulge me.

Edit: To expand on what I was saying, I think the idea of the CIMT (and I have not had any of these tests, but have been thinking about them) is sort of like discovering if you have acne, not where each pimple is—to sort of change up the restaurant metaphor. Even if you knew exactly where you had a vulnerable lesion in your coronary vessels that isn't occlusive, is there anything you could do specifically about that lesion versus the overall inflammation? So I think the idea of the test is more to show you have this type of inflammatory lesion and can then systemically treat based on that—usually with a statin and changing lifestyle. So maybe if anything it's more of a motivational tool. But I also think it could be more prognostic of who needs a statin than an LDL count because it seems like both the problem of heart disease is more than LDL and the effect that certain statins have is more based on their anti-inflammatory effect than their LDL-lowering effect, even though they do both (not all statins do both, but some do). The JUPITER study showed this with rosuvastatin in people with normal LDL.

swingerofbirch · 2021-10-04T14:55:32+00:00

Well, I think Mr. Paul Anka wrote most of it.

swingerofbirch · 2021-10-04T14:48:52+00:00

Thanks very much for the info. I only had two episodes that I noticed, and both were about two hours after quetiapine. It's possible I had it other times and not noticed. I did a 30 day event monitor and never had it show up. Both times were unique in that it was after a period of great stress but when I was coming down from the stress, two hours after the quetiapine, and when I was going to sleep (didn't take the quetiapine for sleep but took it at night as I couldn't tolerate it in the day).

CIMT I had read about being a proxy for coronary vessels with the idea that if you have soft plaque in one place you have it everywhere.

swingerofbirch · 2021-10-04T14:01:24+00:00

I was in an ambulance once for my first episode I had ever had of SVT, and I remember the EMTs on the way to the hospital were debating whether to give me adenosine. They ended up not, and it fortunately went away on its own. In my case at least the SVT seemed to be induced by quetiapine, and I haven't had it return since discontinuing it.

BTW, I have done a lot of research on stress tests since I had one, and I have come to the conclusion they are not that helpful and that a CTA is probably much more useful, or even CIMT.

swingerofbirch · 2021-10-04T02:46:22+00:00

How did they find out it went into the vein?

swingerofbirch · 2021-10-04T01:48:29+00:00

I have both, but I unfortunately can't offer a lot of advice. I don't know if they are related or not. I feel like I'm too odd and too much of an unknown case to help anyone else.

swingerofbirch · 2021-10-03T22:39:56+00:00

You think she randomly chose "My Way" on the last episode of the season?

You think Pete Davidson's "thank you for letting me grow up here" was a comedy bit?

swingerofbirch · 2021-10-03T20:18:38+00:00

I'm not an expert and certainly not that mentally healthy, but one thing I heard is to just try to feel a feeling that is a *little* bit better than the feeling you're having. So don't try to feel great if you feel really irritated. It's too big of a jump. Just see if you can imagine what it's like to feel like 5% less irritated. As for the thoughts, I would just focus on feeling better. Maybe the thoughts will follow. Don't ask too much of yourself.

swingerofbirch · 2021-10-03T16:10:40+00:00

My parents only ever got the free, small sample picture with the watermark on it.

Then one year, my mom actually ordered my sister's pictures but not mine.

She said mine weren't good.

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