Similar vein: when dealing with fraud, etc. I was victim of credit card and identity theft and found that businesses and credit cards took my disputes more seriously when I informed them I had contacted police already.

I’m a radiologist and our group uses an LLM tool to assist with generating reports on imaging studies. Our reports have a body that includes all of the imaging findings (which we dictate) and then a conclusion/summary calling out what is most important (and serving as a tl;dr for other physicians). The LLM tool analyzes the body to generate that summary of important findings. It certainly is not perfect and frequently requires some editing. Overall it is faster than me creating the summary each time though.

I don’t know the exact date but it was a spring day a little over 20 years ago now. I was in my early 20s and spent a lot of my free time hiking, camping, etc. At that time I was really heavily into caving, especially vertical caving where we would use ropes, harnesses, etc to explore chasms.

This particular day I was on a several day camping trip to a really popular area in a national park. In the night a big rainstorm came and everything flooded. I had been there several days with my friend and we didn’t get the memo about the storm coming and were curious why nobody else was camping there when it was usually packed that time of year.

The next morning we awoke and this campground (on the banks of a river) was halfway underwater. We soon learned that our road out was also underwater so we were trapped at the campground. We had plenty of supplies as we had been there several days with intentions to explore caves, etc.

Now from this campground there was a really popular hike through a canyon with stone arches, cool caves, waterfalls, etc that was normally packed. Since we had the place to ourselves we decided to do the hike. I should mention that this was quite dangerous as the first mile or so of the trail was now under 2+ feet of moving flood waters. We had wetsuits (for caving) and ropes so we geared up and braved the flood waters.

Dear reader it felt like such an epic adventure. I knew the landscape well from being there many times but this time was magical. There were massive waterfalls everywhere rushing through the green spring foliage. We had to use our technical rope skills to safely cross rushing white water streams but everything was so beautiful and dangerous.

I haven’t done it justice of course but it was just this perfect day where everything came together. I was young and healthy, I had my best partner with me, we had all of the right gear, the road being underwater meant we had the whole area to ourselves, and everything had been magically transformed into a waterfall adventure park for us to play.

I’m still chasing that feeling of pure joy I had that day.

I started the same thing earlier this year when my subscription to Prime was expiring. So far it really hasn’t been a big problem and has the nice perk that it encourages me to shop less at Amazon.

* looks around and gestures broadly in agreement*

+1 for Winix. I’ve had several of the 5500-2 units for 2-3 years now. They do a good job and I appreciate that they have HEPA + charcoal filters so eliminates more than just particulates. My main complaint is that the lights don’t fully turn off at night so I always have to cover them with something (usually a T-shirt). Otherwise I really like them.

I generally like the picture quality from my LG OLED but the interface is not great and you are sooo right about the updates. My SO constantly complains about turning on the tv and it needs an update.

They almost made a truck with the Silverado EV but then they had to turn it into whatever the Avalanche is supposed to be with fins coming off the cab that get in the way of things. Anyways, not to sound bitter but some people like to be able to put camper shells, tool boxes, or other accoutrement on the back.

R1T is decent, just really expensive.

Even if it ends up NOT being ankylosing spondylitis exactly - you should know that there are some hereditary factors that predispose to AS but also to other, similar conditions which are collectively called “inflammatory spondyloarthropathies.” Given your brother’s diagnosis you probably have a higher chance of one of these conditions because of your shared genetics. So yeah absolutely ask another physician until someone investigates your symptoms!

It’s really interesting to me that you have provided this additional clue because ankylosing spondylitis was literally the first thing that popped into my head reading your story. I agree with others that your story sounds much more than typical aging symptoms and you should seek the opinion of another physician.

But how the information was presented matters, especially when people are unfamiliar with the topic.

No going off-grid is a substantially larger investment than most people can afford. To be off grid you have to be able to make enough electricity even on cloudy, short winter days. That means your system must be massively oversized for your needs during most of the year. You also need adequate batteries to store energy for overnight.

Instead people get enough solar to offset some or all of the electricity they use - but on average over time. So they produce a ton during the day and then draw from grid at night.

Interesting read, thanks for sharing.

Don’t get me wrong I’m 100% behind renewable energy but do you seriously not understand someone saying ‘hey I like this beautiful natural scene without machinery all over?’

TW: I am going discuss some of the specifics of Sandy Hook.

Just conjecture on my part but it probably was because Sandy Hook was a little unique in that there were twenty victims between the ages of 6 and 7 and the shooter was 20 years old. Many American school shootings involve a teenage or young adult perpetrator targeting victims that are of similar or slightly younger age. I suspect that makes it easier for some sociopaths to dismiss these incidents as potentially retribution for bullying or interpersonal drama.

This incident was unique in that it was just a grown man murdering little children. There is absolutely no way to blame the victims in any way, shape, or form. There is nothing a 6 year-old could possibly have done to cause this. Not only that but it holds the ignominious distinction as the deadlist shooting at an elementary school.

So I suspect they targeted this incident in particular because they feared it was going to serve as a powerful catalyst that would sway public opinion in the debate on gun control. By trying to convince people that it was not real they hoped to decrease the impact it might have had.

Damn you really nailed it. This is something that has bothered me a lot but I’ve never found a good way to explain it. Your analogy is perfect.

But what about….

Yes we know that Hamas is awful, evil, etc. That doesn’t give a moral pass to do just whatever to people who aren’t Hamas.

Or the law will be conveniently structured in such a way that once again makes it more difficult for people who are minorities or live in urban centers to vote.

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I think we need to make it illegal to use financial holdings as collateral for loans, at least for starters.

And maybe a tax on assets over a set limit. Own more than $10M in assets? Time to start paying back society.