I dislike this idea that government run is bad.

I recently changed my name and had to call several government agencies and found them competent and helpful every time.

I’m a GP, here’s my opinion

Can’t have eaten/drank anything for the last half hour

• in principle could alter your BP but I wouldn’t worry too much unless it’s quite a large meal

Feet flat on the floor

• yes, this is important

Lying down but sitting up

• for some purposes docs want lying/sitting/standing but for home measurements do them sitting

Back against the chair

• yes

Don’t cross your legs/ankles

• yes, feet flat on the floor

Only use your left arm

• myth, if there is a significant difference between your left and right arms there is something funky going on with your subclavian arteries

Hand facing upward/downward

• not super important

Keep your arm down/raised

• keep your arm relaxed, ideally resting on a table or desk at close to 90deg or hanging straight down

Most important is be relaxed, sit still, don’t move your arm, if you get a high reading calm yourself and take it once more then leave it.

When I’m taking a BP in clinic the most important thing I do most of the time is distract the patient from the machine with some patter as for most people the biggest confounding factor is stressing about what the reading will be, I don’t correct posture etc unless they are substantially moving their arm around.

I have taken my own BP manually, it ain’t easy

The guy at Jaycar reckons he’s never seen anything other than MC4 and it was difficult to find anything different online

Living in a tiny home, yep, on the ground on a frame

Good article.

As an aside I wonder how common it would’ve been to be communist without being an official member. A lot of people would’ve had a lot to lose of they were proven to be communist and felt safer without a paper trail.

Not saying that Rosa Parks was necessarily a communist, just as likely she just held common cause.

You’re probably talking about the Chinese social credit score, not a replacement for currency but is up and working.

That is just beautiful 😍

I think this is true and until we have easily accessible and free mental health services it is the next best option and far more likely to do good than harm.

I don’t think the downvotes are because you’re misgendering them. It’s just baffling why you’ve gendered them at all. It’s unfunny and out of place.

Good work comrade, this is the way to live.

Modern guns a extremely precisely engineered devices that are incredibly easy to use, for better or worse. I know modern sporting bows are also but it’s no contest in my opinion.

I’ve shot both, bows as a complete amateur and relatively competent with a rifle. There is no question that a modern gun is way easier to pick up as an amateur and hit what you want to hit and I cannot possibly believe there are anything other than extremely niche uses where a bow is superior.

I’m very much a privacy amateur but am interested in comments on my set up, I’m sure it’s not ideal.

I use firstname@lastname.tld for personal email. Anything @lastname.tld forwards to my main email so for the rare occasion I need to access Facebook my account is facebook@lastname.tld and so on for any other untrustworthy sites.

I can easily block emails from a leak or just if unsubscribing is made difficult.

It’s really common to get weird dreams when quitting smoking. Especially if you’re using nicotine replacement and extra especially if you’re using a patch and not taking it off before bed.

Changes in the amount of nicotine in your blood disrupts REM, it’s more fragmented and this seems to have the effect of more intense dreams.

Ug r the khez th ia2zugk8

Hate for Wikipedia comes from a few places.

The first and most important is that most people who have tried to edit Wikipedia have their first edit reverted, usually with good reason, because they don’t understand the procedures and policies. Unfortunately these procedures and policies are what maintains high quality.

Related is news articles and blogs about edit wars and less frequently that an article or group of articles is genuinely captured by one volunteer who will protect their own little fiefdoms and not allow anyone else to edit them. This happens but it’s pretty uncommon and the structure of Wikipedia means that it only really stands on fairly obscure articles.

It’s also true that Wikipedia does have an inherent western liberal bias. It’s subtle but it is there and results from the fact that for the majority of Wikipedia editors western liberalism is the water they swim in. Any claim that is counter to this ideology needs to be cited up the wazoo whereas claims that are confidant with it will often slide without citation. Those with a strong attachment to an alternative ideology often find it infuriating.

Finally there are individuals who would rather have the arbiter of truth be the powerful rather than a relatively democratic institution.

All that said Wikipedia is a remarkable achievement and an invaluable part of the internet.

I understand why you are putting them together but I think only the CPI measures inflation, there are other indexes also but inflation has to do with the value of money decreasing over time.

The supply of money is inextricably linked to inflation but an increasing money supply is not inflation, under certain circumstances you could have no, or negative inflation, with increasing money supply. If you had high demand for currency due to large volumes of exports for example.

In short the terms you want are inflation and money supply.

Disclaimer: I dropped out of an undergraduate economics degree about 2/3 through around 15 years ago. I believe this is correct but please anyone correct me if not.

I adored the Mars trilogy as a teenager, it’s hard for me to be objective about it as it’s such a comfort read.

I know a lot of people feel the series loses steam part way through Green Mars, and I can see why, but I love all three books unconditionally 🥹

I’m just about done with Shaman by Kim Stanley Robinson, I’ve read most of his work and this might be his strongest work. It’s clear from the Mars and science in the capitol trilogies that the man is obsessed with stone age culture so it’s an obvious choice of setting for him and unlike much of the rest of his work it’s a simple and self contained story.

I’m also a few chapters into Julia by Sandra Newman, a retelling of 1984 from Julia’s pov. Very evocative and well written so far, looking forward to the rest of the book.

Looked this up as I optimistically thought it might be an unfortunate still that looked nothing like a nazi salute on video, but nope.

Elon’s Nazi salute