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rokmonster

Lives under a rok.

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joined 2022 October 04 06:01:17 UTC

				

User ID: 1473

rokmonster

Lives under a rok.

0 followers   follows 0 users   joined 2022 October 04 06:01:17 UTC

					

No bio...


					

User ID: 1473

Back surgery works for severe disk herniations, but the mechanism is that it removes pressure on the nerves. The nerves die under pressure resulting in partial paralysis if surgery is not done within 48 (ideally 24) hours. Nerves don't regenerate/grow after age 30 or so.

I'm reading a lot of stories on reddit of people whose back surgeries were delayed 2 to 6 months over insurance stating that a surgery would not be paid for without a diagnostic MRI (which is fair), and a diagnostic MRI would not be paid for without weeks of physical therapy first (which is unconscionable).

There's a lot of detail that hasn't percolated into the Western press yet, but I've been watching the videos, and they are wild. Here's a rough timeline:

  • 10:23 President announces martial law. Some percentage of civilians immediately head to the National Assembly, many of them coming out of bars.
  • 10:?? Police cordon off the National Assembly, barricade the compound's gates.
  • 11:00 Martial law command (military) announces that political activities are banned, public assemblies are banned, broadcasts are to be subject to censorship, people may be arrested without cause.
  • Also, doctors are ordered to return to work within 48 hours (they walked off last year). I'm happy this is now within the Overton Window.
  • Some number of civilians and most Assemblymen jump the National Assembly fence.
  • 11:02 The opposition leader livestreams himself making the jump.
  • 12:?? Special forces land helecopters on the football pitch of the National Assemby.
  • Opposition newscasters and personalities flee their homes and offices. Video of special forces assembling on the street in front of the homes of opposition newscasters and personalities.
  • 12:15? Special forces (armed only with simunition) in shoving matches with drunk civilians over the entrance to the National Assembly. Some actual servicemen appear apologetic, but orders are orders.
  • 12:30? Special forces lose the shoving match with civilians, break a window to get in.
  • 12:40? Special forces repelled by Assemblypeople with fire extinguishers and makeshift barricades. Military didn't look very motivated.
  • 12:45? National Assembly convenes.
  • 12:45 A friend gets a text from their employer not to come into work tomorrow.
  • 01:01 190 votes (unanimous) for a formal request to disband martial law. 18 members of the President's party crossed the aisle.
  • 01:10 Military starts to withdraw. Protestors start chanting "arrest Yoon".

Korea was so close to losing its democracy. If the fence were a few meters taller, if the soldiers had arrived 30 minutes earlier, if they had been given live ammo, or if they had followed orders with intent instead of half-assing the arrests they were told to perform, the Assembly would not have been able to reach quorum.

Going forward, President Yoon is fucked. 200 votes are required for impeachment, and it looks like the requisite 8 representatives from the President's party are already pledged. The Constitutional Court needs to try the case, and with three empty seats they do not have enough members to do so, but no doubt the National Assembly will now nominate the one more justice to have a 2/3 majority for the impeachment trial.

There's a lot of wondering how Yoon got elected, but his opponent in the last election (the Opposition Leader who livestreamed jumping the fence) had ties to organized crime and several of his opponents died under mysterious circumstances. The opposition leader has since been found guilty of a number of crimes, but enjoys immunity as a member of parliament.

Finally, it is interesting to contrast this attempted coup to Jan 6th. It tells us what Jan 6th would have looked like if Trump had been actually malicious and motivated to perform a coup: military would have been storming Congress, not directionless protestors. The President would have been in a bunker, not holding a rally. Congress would have been barricading the hallways to maintain their quorum, not retreating to saferooms and giving up the chamber. The military would have been arresting opposition leaders and shutting down broadcasts, rather than totally absent from the Capitol area.

This is embarassing.

Phone 1: 365, Phone 2: 265, Personal Computer: 84, Work computer Browser 1: 227, Browser 2: 267

In practice, I'm only aiming to close 10% of tabs on the systems I use on days that I use them.

Also, fell into Factorio on the weekend and got nothing done.

I meant tasks due tomorrow. Thanks for holding my feet to the fire, though.

Day 2's tasks:

  • [ ] Language and science reviews
  • [ ] Close 10% of tabs and get inbox to 50
  • [ ] 100 pushups, 100 squats
  • [ ] 1 hr walking
  • [ ] 45 min rowing
  • [ ] Drink 2l water
  • [ ] File reimbursement requests
  • [ ] Data analysis
  • [ ] Holiday shopping

I've been pretty lazy this month. Starting now I precommit to daily accountability updates in this thread. Please hold my feet to the fire.

Tomorrow's tasks:

  • [x] Language and science reviews
  • [-] Close 10% of tabs and get inbox to 50: Closed 10% of tabs, but inbox is at 87
  • [ ] 100 pushups, 100 squats: pushups done, squats Fail.
  • [ ] 1 hr walking:Fail
  • [x] Drink 2l water
  • [ ] File reimbursement requests:Fail
  • [ ] Set up beeminder?: Bad idea in retrospect
  • [x] Watch a lecture
  • [x] Outline a lecture

Wait. The NHS thinks semaglutide is cost-effecrive? In what formulation? Could you share the math/link with us?

They might, but that ignores the collective benefits of vaccines. Imagine that our smallpox vaccine from above kills one in ten. Surely, compared to four in ten deaths from smallpox, we collectively are vastly better off with one in ten deaths and immunity to smallpox, or zero deaths if we can beat smallpox and phase out the vaccine. But now the vaccine company has liability for post vaccine deaths, and so a single dose of the vaccine is going to cost... $1M just to cover the liability. No patient/government is going to pay $1M to save a 4/10 of a life when there are cheaper QALYs to save elsewhere, so we will never beat smallpox and we will see 40% fatality rates in perpetuity.

The fair mathematical solution might be to limit the vaccine manufacturer's liability to the collective damages or to damages external to the vaccine (i.e. negligence). So if you have a vaccine which saves lives (or QALYs) on net, you have no liability, but you'd better be sure your vaccine saves lives.

No it doesn't, because people don't pay anywhere near the QALY value of vaccines to the vaccine company.

Let's pretend we have a vaccine for smallpox (40-50% fatality rate in babies). People/governments pay maybe $100 per dose (https://www.cdc.gov/vaccines-for-children/php/awardees/current-cdc-vaccine-price-list.html). The value of a wrongful death is $10M, so you would break even on a $100 vaccine for smallpox at one wrongful death in 100,000, while the vaccine would save 40,000 to 50,000 lives per 100,000.

I actually have to compliment @Quantumfreakonomics here, because until 15 minutes ago I thought liability was reasonable.

I heard rumors that Omicron looked like it was developed through serial passage in lab mice, but do you have any details?

I don't know about New York, but in several states any penetration is legally rape if not consensual. Dildo in mouth could be rape. Finger in bellybutton could be rape. Finger in vagina could definitely be rape.

I think it just doesn't sound right otherwise. To match with the other terms, they need something that is short and not ambiguous. The standard term for the act of sex (sexual relations) is three syllables. They could shorten it to two, but then it would just mean "relationship".

There are also taboos about talking about sex, where even the common euphemisms and clinical terms are not uttered much in public. I guess using the English loanword is the most socially acceptable way to specify "act of sex" in print.

Also radfems seem to get their craziest ideas from their academic connections to the anglosphere, so they use loanwords more than the general public.

Fair point. That text is not in the law. Removing.

Instead, a clinic employee offered Thurman a two-pill abortion regimen approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, mifepristone and misoprostol. Her pregnancy was well within the standard of care for that treatment.

D&C

No abortion is authorized or shall be performed if an unborn child has been determined in accordance with Code Section 31-9B-2 to have a detectable human heartbeat except when

I am in agreement with you that there would have been no violation of the law as you have quoted, and that the hospital's behavior here sounds egregiously negligent. Under what circumstances is it permissible to wait 5 hours to treat acute sepsis? D&C is usually indicated when a fetus has no heartbeat, and the combination of mifepristone and misoprostol will stop the fetus's heart (mifepristone=shed uterine lining, killing the fetus, misoprostol=induce contractions to push the dead fetus out). So when she showed up at a clinic in Georgia, performing a D&C would have been within the letter of the law.

To steelman the opposing side, perhaps there is another exemption in the law for "care which aids and abets an illegal abortion," or the clinic was critically slow in offering treatment because there was no technician available to check for fetal heartbeats (ultrasound), and this nuance was lost on the journalist.

Anyway, after hearing about the sepsis the lesson is to never visit Georgia, and if you do, never go to Piedmont Henry Hospital in Stockbridge. Never know if doctors there will wait three hours to treat your heart attack because your wife is pregnant.