General Random Conversation..

[The Fish 8998]

13 minutes ago, Meenzer said:

 

It really is. You sometimes wonder how you're supposed to plan for anything in life or feel secure when there's so much out there that can happen to you or your loved ones, but that's the nature of it all, I suppose.

 

Aye exactly. I honestly started to spiral a bit after the call I had with my old boss.  I obviously making it all about me then feeling guilty about doing that which compounds the anxiety and blurgh), but I come back to that, what's it called? Prayer of Serenity or something? 

"Have the courage to change the things I can change, the serenity to accept the things I can't, and the wisdom to know the difference." 

 

Honestly had second thoughts about posting this for fear of being mocked, but then I realised that, on here, that ship has sailed, discovered new lands, and been ridiculed by the locals.

 

[The Fish 8998]

On 06/01/2023 at 22:28, Renton said:

 

That's awful, sorry to hear it. Yeah, this stuff just increases exponentially the older you get unfortunately. Found out today that my dead sister's fiance (also mentally disabled) passed two days ago. No idea what the cause was yet. Feel really guilty because when she died I had promised to take him to the match, but I never got round to it. Now that chance is gone and both of them are just memories. 

 

Regarding cancer, yeah it's so cruel. As a matter of fact I'm currently working on a potentially curative treatment for advanced testicular cancer. Seems like progress is glacially slow but I actually think we may be pretty near a paradigm shift on treatment for a lot of cancers. But I guess even if we are something else will kill us. Erm yeah, happy Friday everyone! 

Ah man, that's awful.

 

A paradigm shift on cancer would be amazing and it's cause for optimism, right?

[Gemmill 34533]

17 minutes ago, Toonpack said:

Christ a politician who seems a bit "human"

 

 

 

 

 

 

[The Fish 8998]

On 06/01/2023 at 23:16, Ayatollah Hermione said:

Shit news, that mate. Very sorry to hear it, especially with such young kids involved.

 

In a weird coincidence, was going to post something similar. My mother rang me before to tell me that my best mate throughout primary school (I kna but stick with it) has died. Had a terrible upbringing and my mother used to always look out for him and his siblings by giving out some hand me downs, things like that. Anyway, that struck me in a similar way as, obviously, we’re the same age and by no means old but it does make the brain tick over in uncomfortable ways.

 

Cheers, sorry to hear about your news too.

[The Fish 8998]

12 hours ago, Gemmill said:

You'll never truly live the dream with that attitude. By which I mean telling Alexa goodnight and having her power down all the downstairs lights and TV and simultaneously turning on both the bedside lamps.

 

Or having an outside light which turns on when the back door is open and off when it closes. 

 

Keep using your light switch, old man. 

 

 

Which security system are you using for that? I'm assuming you'll need contact sensors on the door?

 

 

 

 

[RobinRobin 9235]

22 minutes ago, The Fish said:

Honestly had second thoughts about posting this for fear of being mocked, but then I realised that, on here, that ship has sailed, discovered new lands, and been ridiculed by the locals.

 

As if anyone would do that.

[Gemmill 34533]

7 minutes ago, The Fish said:

 

 

Which security system are you using for that? I'm assuming you'll need contact sensors on the door?

 

 

 

 

 

Aye I've got a Ring alarm so it's all just built through routines in the Alexa app. You can get it to turn lights on when you walk in the room using the alarm motion sensors too. 

 

Or you can use light switches. LIKE A CUNT. 

[Renton 17811]

43 minutes ago, The Fish said:

A paradigm shift on cancer would be amazing and it's cause for optimism, right?

 

I think so but with two huge caveats unfortunately. Firstly, there is a tendency for people to group all cancers together whereas in fact I think they represent about 100 distinct types of disease with some common modalities (immune system evasion, invasive). So there will never be a magic bullet for all and all will have to be tackled seperately. But I do expect immunological cures to work on most kinds on some level. Secondly, and of more concern to me, is the health economics question (which I now work on rather than primary research). These treatments are eye wateringly expensive and I can't see that chnaging for a very long time for the rarer cancers. This poses huge questions of how we pay for this. Given the way the World is going, I strongly suspect only the rich will benefit, at least initially. 

[Renton 17811]

27 minutes ago, Gemmill said:

 

Aye I've got a Ring alarm so it's all just built through routines in the Alexa app. You can get it to turn lights on when you walk in the room using the alarm motion sensors too. 

 

Or you can use light switches. LIKE A CUNT. 

 

So my external lights have switches next to the ir respective doors, with the front one having an automatic sensor (I could get this fitted for the back doors as well). If for some odd reason I want to go ut in the garden after dark, I flick them on. No effort, works. It strikes me like with your useless Roomba you are looking for solutions for problems that don't exist. And probably cauing unintended problems. For instance, What If you want to go out to observe the night sky? You'd have to go to the effort of disabling your Alexa routines, rather than just not flicking a switch. Oh. 

 

[The Fish 8998]

27 minutes ago, Gemmill said:

 

Aye I've got a Ring alarm so it's all just built through routines in the Alexa app. You can get it to turn lights on when you walk in the room using the alarm motion sensors too. 

 

Or you can use light switches. LIKE A CUNT. 

 

We've got the Ring Doorbell and I'll be adding to that with the alarm stuff. Still back and forth on a smart lock though.

 

 

[The Fish 8998]

6 minutes ago, Renton said:

 

So my external lights have switches next to the ir respective doors, with the front one having an automatic sensor (I could get this fitted for the back doors as well). If for some odd reason I want to go ut in the garden after dark, I flick them on. No effort, works. It strikes me like with your useless Roomba you are looking for solutions for problems that don't exist. And probably cauing unintended problems. For instance, What If you want to go out to observe the night sky? You'd have to go to the effort of disabling your Alexa routines, rather than just not flicking a switch. Oh. 

 

 

"Alexa, outdoor light off" isn't the ordeal you think it is. 

 

My wife was hesitant and brought up similar challenges to modernisation, but now she's using the big Echo Show in the kitchen to give her step-by-steps for new recipes that it suggested the day before, while playing her favourite music. She's telling the postie to leave the parcel on the step while she's upstairs with our son. She's a total convert. 

 

Join us, don't resist.

[The Fish 8998]

20 minutes ago, Renton said:

 

I think so but with two huge caveats unfortunately. Firstly, there is a tendency for people to group all cancers together whereas in fact I think they represent about 100 distinct types of disease with some common modalities (immune system evasion, invasive). So there will never be a magic bullet for all and all will have to be tackled seperately. But I do expect immunological cures to work on most kinds on some level. Secondly, and of more concern to me, is the health economics question (which I now work on rather than primary research). These treatments are eye wateringly expensive and I can't see that chnaging for a very long time for the rarer cancers. This poses huge questions of how we pay for this. Given the way the World is going, I strongly suspect only the rich will benefit, at least initially. 

 

 

If only there was a vainglorious billionaire who recently discove3red it's not as universally adored as he believed. If he threw a couple billion at the problem, that could go some way to offset costs to the people who need the most help, right?

[Renton 17811]

2 minutes ago, The Fish said:

 

"Alexa, outdoor light off" isn't the ordeal you think it is. 

 

My wife was hesitant and brought up similar challenges to modernisation, but now she's using the big Echo Show in the kitchen to give her step-by-steps for new recipes that it suggested the day before, while playing her favourite music. She's telling the postie to leave the parcel on the step while she's upstairs with our son. She's a total convert. 

 

Join us, don't resist.

 

I'm using a Google nest hub to do all those things (except the front door, although I will get a nest door bell soon when my front door is replaced). Also got integrated Nest thermostats. Love the slideshow showing my favourite photos too, and video conference on it is good. All useful stuff. Just the fucking lightbulb and having to "split" my router to pair it is fucking me off out of principle. There's an obvious solution to it as well. Just allow me to force my phone into 2.4 GHz mode, problem sorted. But I've searched the internet and you can't do this on Android or IoS. So the light has gone back, its a step too far. 

[Renton 17811]

6 minutes ago, The Fish said:

 

 

If only there was a vainglorious billionaire who recently discove3red it's not as universally adored as he believed. If he threw a couple billion at the problem, that could go some way to offset costs to the people who need the most help, right?

 

Not really, only so much Musk, Bezos, Gates et al. can do, and I don't want their charity anyway. The problem is a structural isssue with capitalism itself and upcoming market failure in pharmaceuticals. Actually, the problem is much worse in antibiotics which has the making of a genuine catastrophe in waiting, the end of modern medicine as we know it. Human beings have taken the wrong political choices and we will all literally pay for it. 

[Alex 30440]

13 hours ago, Kid Dynamite said:

It was ‘spackers are deaf’ when I was a young kid. 

[The Fish 8998]

19 minutes ago, Renton said:

 

Not really, only so much Musk, Bezos, Gates et al. can do, and I don't want their charity anyway. The problem is a structural isssue with capitalism itself and upcoming market failure in pharmaceuticals. Actually, the problem is much worse in antibiotics which has the making of a genuine catastrophe in waiting, the end of modern medicine as we know it. Human beings have taken the wrong political choices and we will all literally pay for it. 

[ewerk 26413]

On 07/01/2023 at 18:01, Alex said:

I think talking about killing 25 people is the only thing that bothers me for the reasons already spoken about.

 

Aye, that really gave the media a license to show their moral outrage. Funny they weren't quite so outraged at the time (not that anyone on here will be surprised).

 

[Craig 6307]

I'm not a royalist, but there's something about this I find uncomfortable. None of us have the perfect family - least of all me, but I'd hate for those issues to be played out amongst a wider audience. 

I have absolutely no interest in reading about it and have avoided it as much as I possibly can. 

[Blastronaut 1236]

Well, shit. Just been told I've got emphysema, which in all honesty isn't a massive surprise given how heavily I've smoked all my adult life. The surprise was learning I've had it since at least 2008.

 

Wonderful start to the year. 

[ewerk 26413]

Sorry to hear that, if you quit the smokes is it likely to get any worse?

[Howmanheyman 26898]

31 minutes ago, Blastronaut said:

Well, shit. Just been told I've got emphysema, which in all honesty isn't a massive surprise given how heavily I've smoked all my adult life. The surprise was learning I've had it since at least 2008.

 

Wonderful start to the year. 

 

Hope it's not too bad, mate?

[Blastronaut 1236]

11 minutes ago, ewerk said:

Sorry to hear that, if you quit the smokes is it likely to get any worse?

 

It will still progress but hopefully not as fast. Good news is it's not COPD (yet) but basically will be if I don't quit immediately.

 

So looks like I'm going be a crabbit bastard this year.

 

10 minutes ago, Howmanheyman said:

 

Hope it's not too bad, mate?

 

🤷‍♂️ Guessing it's pretty bad if I'm already 15 years in. Not sure I'll know much more until the do a CT Scan.

 

[Renton 17811]

1 minute ago, Blastronaut said:

 

It will still progress but hopefully not as fast. Good news is it's not COPD (yet) but basically will be if I don't quit immediately.

 

So looks like I'm going be a crabbit bastard this year.

 

 

🤷‍♂️ Guessing it's pretty bad if I'm already 15 years in. Not sure I'll know much more until the do a CT Scan.

 

 

How have you only found out now if you don't mind me asking? How has it been diagnosed so far?

But definitely quit immediately mate, regardless of the results of any more diagnostic work up. Fingers crossed for you. 

[Blastronaut 1236]

14 minutes ago, Renton said:

 

How have you only found out now if you don't mind me asking? How has it been diagnosed so far?

But definitely quit immediately mate, regardless of the results of any more diagnostic work up. Fingers crossed for you. 

 

Guessing someone's picked something up on one of the half dozen chest x-rays I had a hear and a half ago when one of lungs collapsed (first in about 13 years, but had a bit of a history of them late teens/early 20's). Had a CT scan when I was 22, where you can clearly see the early signs but it seems to have been missed at the time (I'd guess because that's not what they were looking for at the time). Doctor I seen today had the initiative to go back at look at the 15 year old scan.

 

Thought today would be a routine check in at the respiratory clinic. Ended up doing a bunch of breathing tests and then getting shown that ancient CT Scan.

 

Binned the tobacco already. Now fighting the urge to bin-rake and have a smoke. 

[Renton 17811]

29 minutes ago, Blastronaut said:

 

Guessing someone's picked something up on one of the half dozen chest x-rays I had a hear and a half ago when one of lungs collapsed (first in about 13 years, but had a bit of a history of them late teens/early 20's). Had a CT scan when I was 22, where you can clearly see the early signs but it seems to have been missed at the time (I'd guess because that's not what they were looking for at the time). Doctor I seen today had the initiative to go back at look at the 15 year old scan.

 

Thought today would be a routine check in at the respiratory clinic. Ended up doing a bunch of breathing tests and then getting shown that ancient CT Scan.

 

Binned the tobacco already. Now fighting the urge to bin-rake and have a smoke. 

 

So not sure its much consolation but if you had signs that early I'm not sure that would have been due solely to smoking? Lots of drugs to help you quit smoking - bupropion, varenicline, nicotine replacement, all available from your GP if not the respiratory clinic. Use all the help you can get. You've got a family which I'm sure is all the motivation you need. Not saying it will be easy but it is/was enough to motivate me to get off the booze. Ironically my liver scans have shown no physical damage at all which in a way doesn't help in the temptation stakes (!) but I know it will fuck my brain nonetheless so no thanks. Good luck.  

Edited January 10, 2023 by Renton