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219 karma · joined November 8, 2017

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en-us··on Was there PTSD in the ancient or medieval world?
To add to this, there is a book called The Body Keeps the Score that dedicates several of its chapters to exploring the physiological consequences of trauma. Some of the changes are quite profound and I have a hard time believing that just one or two hundred years of evolution would have an appreciable effect in this matter. We can't teleport a combat veteran from antiquity into an fMRI but either the findings would be the same or something very profound changed in the human brain in a very short period of time and it went unnoticed.

I think it is far more likely that people either didn't discuss these things due to stigma, or they conceptualized it as the haunting of demons and ghosts since severe cases of PTSD can cause split personalities and convulsions and things like that.

en-us··on Usage of Masks “Flattened” Growth of Coronavirus Cases in Czech Republic
I think it is about filtering. Even simple cotton t-shirt cloth is about 50% effective at filtering 23nm microbes. Definitely not good enough to give to a healthcare worker in a high exposure environment, but also definitely good enough to flatten the curve when used at a population level.

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/258525804_Testing_t...

en-us··on Usage of Masks “Flattened” Growth of Coronavirus Cases in Czech Republic
As opposed to public outcry from them saying masks don't work while countries with mask usage fare better?
en-us··on Usage of Masks “Flattened” Growth of Coronavirus Cases in Czech Republic
Yes there is: https://www.consumer.org.hk/ws_en/news/specials/2020/mask-di...
en-us··on Usage of Masks “Flattened” Growth of Coronavirus Cases in Czech Republic
That is exactly why I already had masks. I've kept a small stash since the Ebola epidemic.
en-us··on Usage of Masks “Flattened” Growth of Coronavirus Cases in Czech Republic
I read a paper on this last week but I can't find it at the moment. However I recall them polling people on mask usage, and pre-SARS it was single digits percentage, post-SARS it was 85-90%.
en-us··on Usage of Masks “Flattened” Growth of Coronavirus Cases in Czech Republic
We could improvise them though. I know in Hong Kong they have asked people to improvise using layered paper towels and tissues because those are readily available nonwoven fabrics.

It isn't as good as the real thing, but done at the population level I expect it would lower the reproductive value of the virus and thus help flatten the curve.

en-us··on Usage of Masks “Flattened” Growth of Coronavirus Cases in Czech Republic
I have been asking myself the same question. I think it comes down to two reasons:

1. Masks are in short supply and they believed they could save them for healthcare workers by convincing the general population they don't work.

2. If you are measuring efficacy, the general population won't reach the same level as a healthcare worker because they have not been professionally fitted and trained in on/off procedures. So instead of reducing risk by 95% the average person would see something like a 70% reduction, and they decided "perfect is better than good enough".

en-us··on Usage of Masks “Flattened” Growth of Coronavirus Cases in Czech Republic
I will not be surprised if mask usage becomes normalized in Western cultures after this, just as happened in Asian cultures after SARS.
en-us··on How the CDC’s restrictive testing guidelines hid the coronavirus epidemic
What you say is directly contradicted by the researchers at University of Hong Kong-Shenzhen Hospital, as detailed in my link above.

Can you cite a study that supports your claim?

en-us··on How the CDC’s restrictive testing guidelines hid the coronavirus epidemic
Agreed. The US surgeon general lied to the population about the efficacy of masks to try to preserve them for healthcare workers. It would have been better to ask people to preserve N95 for healthcare workers and instead improvise their own. Any reduction in droplet transmission is going to drop the R0 of this and help flatten the curve.

As an alternative see Hong Kong, where they are encouraging the population to improvise masks: https://www.consumer.org.hk/ws_en/news/specials/2020/mask-di...

en-us··on CDC says U.S. gatherings of over 50 people should be put off
The people in at-risk groups are people too. You're acting like their lost lives don't matter.
en-us··on MIT moves all classes online for the rest of the semester
Perhaps partition your hard drive then and dual boot? Then reclaim the Windows partition after the program is no longer needed.
en-us··on Using the hunger I experienced as a kid to teach mine about generosity (2019)
Regardless of whether or not you are right, this is just not an appropriate way to respond to someone who has just shared a trauma. This is a case of "if you can't say something nice, then don't say anything at all".
en-us··on New Battery Technology Coming Soon – A Game Changer
If they already have the batteries and they are this revolutionary, then why wait a year to give a demonstration? Surely a demonstration of such batteries right now would cause the value of their company to skyrocket.
en-us··on The cognitive costs of air pollution
I'm not the OP, but I use this one with similar results: https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B01FYWU2IS

One of these days I'm going to have to rig up something to start the house fan when the CO2 goes above 800 ppm and I think you'd need a different sensor with a realtime output port for something like that.

en-us··on Why Enterprise Software Sucks
Is this the same major EHR vendor that tells its customers to shut the system down and go to backups during the DST fallback hour?

There were many potential patient safety issues due to mishandling of times during that hour and the suggestion to just use the backup worked because it happens at 1 AM when little is going on other than emergencies which simply have to to manage with read-only access during that time.

en-us··on Student rating app penalizes fifth-graders who need bathroom breaks
Wow reading this just brought a kindergarten memory for me.

We had laminated apples on the wall, and if we were bad we got a worm sticker stuck on it for a week, we called it getting a "wormy apple".

One day I was listening to an audio book with headphones and didn't hear the teacher call us back, so all at once she snatched the headphones off me, asked me why I don't listen, and gave me a wormy apple. I remember it to this day, I felt so wronged because I was doing an "approved activity" and felt I was punished for it. Seeing the worm on my apple made me cry and I never listened to audio books in that classroom again.

So I don't know if making that sort of stuff electronic will be better or worse but I know I didn't like systems like that at all.

en-us··on The effect of meditation on brain structure (2012)
The left brain / right brain thing is wrong, but different functions of the brain are definitely localized. This is seen in studies of people with unusual brain damage, and sometimes when sticking an electrode in a certain part of the brain has an effect.
en-us··on Automattic raises $300M at $3B valuation from Salesforce Ventures
Actually I can't guess, go ahead and tell me which demographic do you think that is?
en-us··on Gitlab More Than Doubles Valuation to $2.75B Ahead of Planned 2020 IPO
IMO at that point since you have to rebuild everything anyway, just rebuild it with a different vendor. No reason to stay with a company that treats you like that.
en-us··on Richard M. Stallman resigns
There is a huge difference between an organization saying they no longer want you as their leader and a government trying and imprisoning someone.
en-us··on Nearly 90 percent of Peruvians want members of Congress to step down
Disclaimer: I know nothing about Peruvian politics. But it could just mean each new administration jails and prosecutes the former administration.
en-us··on 100 million dollars to reshape the economics of the web
> A simple, anonymous way to pay 10 cent or so.

Pretty sure it solves that.

en-us··on Saudi Arabia Shuts Down About Half Its Oil Output After Drone Strikes
None of the 9/11 terrorists were Yemeni, but if they had been then yes they're a terrorist. Hijacking a plane to kill 1000s of civilians is clearly terrorism.
en-us··on Saudi Arabia Shuts Down About Half Its Oil Output After Drone Strikes
I see this in discussions about 9/11 all the time, where someone will express incredulity that it would be possible for a bunch of "goat farmers" to execute such a plan. But if you actually look at those terrorists, many were educated and from well-to-do families.
en-us··on France and Germany Agree to Block Facebook's Libra
> And in the US, the President oauth is on the Bible and "under God" if I remember clearly. So, in a way, it is still the case: how would a Jew or Muslim or Buddhist be able to do that?

Federal public officials in the US can swear on anything they want to, the Bible is not a requirement.

en-us··on The CIA's Secret Quest For Mind Control
The making fun part doesn't apply, but my point is that just because this isn't new to you doesn't mean it is something "everyone knows". So when you say "There's nothing in that article that we didn't already know" it is both incorrect and dismissive of those who haven't learned of this yet.
en-us··on Mayo Clinic to partner with Google
ML won't be used to find cures, but to diagnose and classify disease. For example, CNN features could be applied to medical imaging to learn to detect various diseases, and that algorithm could replace the "quick read" that physicians order when the Radiologist isn't available to do a full read.

Another possible use would be to identify septic or nearly septic patients and alert a clinician to intervene.

en-us··on Mayo Clinic to partner with Google
Interesting decision considering Mayo is an Epic customer, and Epic has their own cloud AI product. I guess Mayo doesn't have much confidence in them to deliver?
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