feijoa

feijoa, 12 days ago to Israel

The capacity of the #Malmo Arena is roughly the same as the number of children that #Israel have killed in #Gaza

#eurovision

msquebanh, 15 days ago to random

My worst surgical living nightmare is a walk in park, compared to what children undergoing surgeries without anesthesias are suffering right now.

I had multiple surgeries in childhood for my polio paralysis. During one foot bridge surgery, I woke up in massive pain & was screaming from pain & felt terror upon seeing my foot all opened up with blood, bones & everything else showing. I was sedated again quickly but still remember that clearly.

#KidsInGaza are the strongest kids in the world.

feijoa, 19 days ago to skateboarding

The weather is finally nice, so off to my happy place. #skateboarding #surfskate

feijoa, 1 month ago to Watches

My birthday present arrived. Baltic Aquascaphe

#watches 🇫🇷🤿⌚

The same watch, with a classic blue rubber Tropic strap, making it look much more casual.

feijoa, 1 month ago to VideoGames

This is an actual structure that exists at the Museum of Natural History in London, and is not in fact a screenshot from a video game. #museums #videoGames #architecture

feijoa, 1 month ago to Podcast

Terrific #podcast: "Why did #Russia Invade #Ukraine?"

I had a preconceived notion, but no appreciation on what led us here. There's a strong argument of differing visions of nation and state, and that it's not about land, but about installing a puppet government ("denazification") and subjugation to vassal state. Any peace proposal based on offering up land fundamentally misunderstands the situation. Putin will stop where he is stopped.

Well worth listening to.
https://on.soundcloud.com/JQy1E

rbreich, 2 months ago to random

-Threatening a “blood bath” if not elected
-Saying migrants are “not people”
-Vouching to release violent Jan 6 insurrections

This is a man who is out of his mind and utterly desperate.

All Trump knows is that his freedom and fortune both depend on winning in November.

feijoa, 2 months ago to Russia

Colour me unsurprised that immediately after the pseudo-election in Russia, they declare full-blown war, announced additional "recruitment" into the army, etc. #Russia #Ukraine

feijoa, 2 months ago to ai

Dumb question - if you take two copies of an LLM engine and feed in the same data, will each version behave in an identical way? That is, will you have the same model? #ai #llm

kravietz, 3 months ago to random

Just had probably one of the most disappointing UK #NHS GP visits, which is unfortunately also quite representative. Coming with a kid that had been through a severe bacterial infection in December, ended up in hospital on antibiotics, then for the last months suffering from a chronic abdominal pain. After listening for 15 seconds to the description of symptoms the GP already knew everything:

GP: - Oh okay, you’ve got gastritis! If you remember from chemisty, there’s this acid… [primary school level biochemistry lecture for 3 minutes] and I’m going to prescribe you Lansoprazole and it’s going to help in no time.

Me: - Ahem, but he had Lansoprazole prescribed by this very GP practice already a month ago over telephone, not sure if we talked to you or someone else…

GP: - Ah, okay then… Well, then we’ll prescribe a stronger one, Famotidine…

Me: - Thanks, but are you sure this is enough? It’s not only the abdominal pain but also he had bilirubin levels elevated, which is mentioned in this letter I filed here when we booked this visit.

A bit of context: in the NHS GP, nobody ever does even basic diagnostics like general blood test. At least I’ve never seen that done for myself or any of my relatives. I’m used to how healthcare works in Poland (and generally EU), where a blood test is the first thing to be done when you come with anything else than wounded knee. So when my son’s initial symptoms started and GP simply prescribed Lansoprazole without even seeing the patient, I just went to a private GP and paid for the blood test, which indicated a number of irregularities. And then we booked the GP visit with an indication that these irregularities should be examined further.

Back to the GP:

GP: - Ah yes, here’s the letter… So yeah, you know, elevated bilirubin could be actually beneficial [another 3 minute digression on entirely hypothetical genetic factors that could potentially cause raised bilirubin]

Me, a bit annoyed already: - Thank you, but how do we know if this is actually this genetic factor without doing any tests?

GP: - Well, okay, if you really want, we can do a blood test!

And he prescribed the blood test, exclusively for the bilirubin 🤷

Just to be clear, NHS also does regular blood test, just like every other healthcare service - but only in hospitals. You have to go to A&E and be actually severely suffering (or pretend to) to get admitted and have some actual diagnostics. I don’t even want to go into digressions about the cost of early diagnostics and treatment being orders of magnitude lower than advanced treatment in advanced stages of disease - that seems to be an obvious evidence-based medicine to every single healthcare service in EU, but not to NHS.

Want some more anecdotal evidence? Last year NHS announced a NHS Health Check program and actively encouraged people to do… well, essentially a basic blood test. So of course I subscribed, got my blood test done and I was told to call for results. I did, and the dialogue took roughly 15 seconds:

Me: - I’m calling for the results, here’s my DOB, name etc Receptionist: - Oh yes, I’ve got it here… you’re all fine! Thank you, bye.

Except I knew for sure, it’s not “all fine” because I like always had and have elevated cholesterol levels. She didn’t care to even open my results and look at them, because if she did she would immediately see the “High” marks on relevant indicators.

Talking to relatives I friends, it comes out it’s a very widespread practice - the GP receptionists literally lie about test results they lost or didn’t bother to even look for.

Another, entirely cultural factor, shared across the whole NHS and private healthcare too, is a total reluctance to share test results with the patient and red tape when you actually insist to see it, but that’s another story.

My subjective conclusion: NHS GP service is utterly dysfunctional. And it’s not only about “NHS being stripped of funding”, which is an argument often raised by Labour.

People use private GP because NHS GP is dysfunctional and it’s primarily on cultural or professional level, not only in terms of funding.

feijoa, 3 months ago to Russia

‘It was a very hard journey’: Master and Margarita director on its unlikely Russian success #Russia #censorship #totalitarianism #film #arts

“The people who were going after me and the propagandists [didn’t realise] how much they were cosplaying characters from the movie.”

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/feb/23/master-and-margarita-director-on-its-unlikely-russian-success

LeftistLawyer, 3 months ago to random

Techbro: AI is telling you the truth.
World: Ok sure. But how do we know?
Techbro: I just told you it’s telling the truth.
World: But, can we verify the process for ourselves?
Techbro: No. That’s proprietary.
World: So, the truth is yours to determine?
Techbro: Yes. If you’re stupid enough to derive truth from my black box.
World: Perfect. Where do I sign up!

brianklaas, 3 months ago to random

This is a bit surreal. Amazing to see my new book, FLUKE, featured by @amazonbooks on their billboard near Penn Station in NYC. You can order your own copy here: https://www.amazon.com/Fluke-Chance-Chaos-Everything-Matters/dp/1668006529/ref=cm_cr_arp_mb_bdcrb_top?ie=UTF8

feijoa, 3 months ago to mastodon

Here's one that snuck up on me. Mastodon has been as bad for my mental health as Twitter was, only in a different way. Mostly an unending stream of despair over things I have no control over. #mastodon #serenityPrayer #doomerism #climateChange #globalHeating

LeftistLawyer, 3 months ago to ai

An #AI mania explanation thread:

Consider this:
When the U.S. Constitution was drafted human beings were entirely capable of comprehensively understanding nearly every aspect of how the world around them worked.

How to grow food. Run a business. Understand emerging topics in science, math, philosophy and the arts. The optimism running through the renaissance thinkers is not surprising.

The drafters of the Constitution were masters of their world (to often unfortunately include slaves). They were confident in their direction moving into the future because they could predict the future --- based on their comprehensive knowledge of their present.

/1

#elite #TechBros #technology #future #prediction

feijoa, 3 months ago to poland

Polish olives #poland #food

randahl, 3 months ago to baking

#baking

I have really come to hate how much sugar, manufacturers stuff our food with.

But from a YouTube channel I saw some easy-to-make, healthy cookies, so I decided to make some.

You empty your cupboards of all the kinds of nuts you like, plus some raisins or dried apricots to give a little bit of sweetness. You chop everything up, mix it with pumpkin seeds, sunflower seeds, 1 or 2 tablespoons of honey, and 1 egg to make it stick.

Bake for 15 minutes at 180 °C, and you are in heaven.

1/2

feijoa, 3 months ago to Russia

Cancelling Russian Literature, Polish Style! – Lessons from the 19th Century

https://culture.pl/en/article/cancelling-russian-literature-polish-style-lessons-from-the-19th-century #russia #poland #ukraine #literature #imperialism

xvilo, 3 months ago to random

Sorry for the prolonged downtime, the OS disk got full and I was occupied with work questions so I did not notice it being down. Enlarged the disk for now (yes, the postgres db hit a fair 125 gbs)

feijoa, 4 months ago to random

2.5 years ago my wife was diagnosed with pulmonary arterial #sarcoma. It's like winning the lottery in reverse - 6 people a year get diagnosed with it each year in the UK, most posthumously. It's currently incurable and the median expected lifespan is 18 months. What followed was a science fiction surgery to debulk the tumour, multiple rounds of chemo, and radiotherapy. It's been a rough ride, but we're still standing and there are multiple drug options left. #cancer

feijoa, 4 months ago to climate

“Scientists have won the battle to inform the public about climate change and its causes, which is why those opposed to climate action have cynically switched focus to undermining confidence in solutions and in science itself.”

Third of UK teenagers believe climate change exaggerated, report shows
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2024/jan/16/third-of-uk-teenagers-believe-climate-change-exaggerated-report-shows #climateDenial #climateChange #globalHeating #disinformation

feijoa, 4 months ago to random

My wife just fell victim to a One Time Password (OTP) scam.

Someone rang saying that they were from the phone company #EE and told her that she was eligible for a discount, she just needed to confirm a passcode sent to her phone. They knew her email address, name and telephone number. They were very pushy. She gave them the code and only saw later it was a change password code. #scam #socialEngineering 🧵