jc blog - tales of a modern-day nomadic hunter-gatherer

Follow jcomeau_ictx on Twitter This is the weblog of Intrepid Wanderer. You never know what you might find here; graphic descriptions of bodily functions, computer programming secrets, proselytizing for the antichrist, miscellaneous ranting and kvetching, valuable information on living off the land... if you don't share my rather weird interests you may want to try slashdot instead.

You can consider my Del.icio.us links an extension to my blog, as are my LifeTango goals and my other to-do items. My to-buy list is also public, but only for sharing any useful ideas that might be there; I'm not requesting charity, neither do I offer it.

You can find me easily in google searches, as jcomeau, jcomeau_ictx, or jcomeauictx. There are lots of other jcomeaus, but AFAIK I'm the only jcomeau_ictx out there so far.

If you want to comment on anything you see here, try the new Facebook comments, reachable by clicking the "[comment]" link at the end of each post. If for some reason that isn't working, go ahead and email me, jc.unternet.net. You know what to do with the first dot. Make the 'subject' line something reasonably intelligent-looking or it goes plunk! into the spambasket unread.

This RSS feed may or may not work. Haven't fiddled with it in forever. RSS Feed


2020-03-28-0246Z

That one-of-a-kind plant that grows a block or two east of Revolución near 16 Septiembre, the one with the waxy leaves, may be Eucnide urens. It got identified on the Plant ID group page today. [comment]

2020-03-26-0421Z

First day in about 2 weeks that I haven't felt any pain in my throat the whole day. Still the overproduction of phlegm, but not that raw feeling. Big improvement, but now I really want to pursue that biofilm idea and see if I can eliminate it. I tried breathing vinegar, but of course that's not the same as N-acetylcysteine and didn't give the desired effect. [comment]

2020-03-21-0444Z

Fighting with LibreOffice for the past few days. I couldn't get the format correct for my law school paperwork. Finally got it, by adding header and footer to the First Page format, and footer only to the Page Default format. What a hassle. And I didn't feel right about adding that time to my log, so I didn't log hardly any time for today. [comment]

2020-03-18-1705Z

This is the first morning I woke up without feeling soreness in my throat. Now back to the usual overproduction of phlegm, but not feeling like I'm catching a cold any more. That was about 12 days! I'm glad it never progressed to a cough though.

If you didn't see my Facebook post: I'm using normal capitalization rules again in order to get in the habit for my law exams and briefs. Those things have to be pretty damned close to perfect. Also toning down the online cursing in case the bar examiners look at such things with disapproval. [comment]

2020-03-13-1518Z

I just woke up and thought of a way to inject some civility into the vaccination debate. Put out a call for adult volunteers to take the recommended child vaccine regimen, adjusted for body weight, i. e., look up body weight statistics by age, divide each adult's age by that amount, and multiply the number of jabs for that person-year by the ratio.

My prediction is that there would be few volunteers, and none at all from those in the industry with real knowledge of the dangers. And of those that do volunteer there would be some horrific vaccine injuries, including some of the more severe autoimmune reactions, or even death.

Perhaps then, those in charge of deciding such policies, and those blindly agreeing with them, would be a little more circumspect.

I can imagine that once this is set up, the FDA and CDC will come after the organizers saying that this is dangerous and that they must immediately cease and desist. That too would serve the purpose of ratcheting down the incivility in the current dialogue on the subject. [comment]

2020-03-12-2326Z

although I've managed to keep the virus from manifesting anything other than a sore-ish throat, it's still there. this is a bad one. no beer for me for a while, it seems. [comment]

2020-03-10-2304Z

now my rational mind takes over from the mystical mind and discards that previous notion about Mandela effects. if I arrived in the new universe with my old collection of memories, wouldn't I have noticed right away that the clothing I was wearing and the amount of money in my pocket were different?

anyway, having gone 72 hours without the symptoms getting any worse, likely due to assiduously eating and drinking probiotics, and avoiding alcohol and sugar, I had tacos at McFisher today with a Pacifico. hope that wasn't a mistake.

now I've got to see if I can just as assiduously start studying law. my year just began today. [comment]

2020-03-10-1141Z

I just figured out a possible explanation for Mandela effects.

my hypothesis is that every time you die on a certain timeline, if you're not ready to accept death, you seamlessly get dumped into another universe in which you still live. perhaps your "soul", if such a thing exists, does this for you. small changes in details, Mandela effects, are there each time, since each universe results from one person's conscious decision as opposed to operating on "auto-pilot".

however, it moves you into progressively more dystopian corners of the multiverse each time you die, so that at some point accepting your death becomes more palatable than to continue on living.

that time in Ecuador when I was crossing an empty highway which suddenly filled with cars traveling 60MPH and above, and I started sprinting but the car in the last lane didn't slow down, and I stopped short just long enough to let him by then made it the rest of the way... I probably didn't survive that one.

so if that's the case, the decision to switch is made before the actual trauma, as in the movie Heaven can Wait.

anyway, if the above turns out to be true, then it could also be true that your thoughts and actions truly affect your reality. you could maybe turn around the progression and work back towards an ideal world. after all, if you can switch realities to avoid death, why not for other reasons? [comment]

2020-03-07-2210Z

I don't remember this ever happening back in the States, but in Mexico the white rice bubbles when cooking and boils over; so I have to watch it carefully and turn down the gas to a trickle as soon as it reaches the boiling point. and this doesn't work if the wind is blowing (my kitchen is outdoors) because the flame will go out, so I have to tend it very carefully.

but I was recently gifted some shredded brisket, and some refrigerator space in which to keep it, so I've been adding some before cooking — and it no longer boils over! I'm hypothesizing that the fat floating on top prevents the bubbles from forming, so it's possible that just adding some lipids of any kind could prevent it. but for the next few days at least I've got tastier rice and the added benefit of not having to watch it as closely. of course, it saves a lot of fuel when rice can simmer at the lowest possible setting, so it's good to watch it anyway. [comment]

2020-03-07-1941Z

my NCBE number is N10530626. that was easy. it didn't even cost anything. [comment]

2020-03-07-1447Z

throat is feeling wrong. not the same scratchy feeling it usually gets before a cold develops, but like there's a lump in it. going to have to hit this hard with probiotics. and I probably shouldn't have any coffee, but I think I'm going to anyway.

it's been a year since I was last sick, but I've had viruses attack me since then, and I've beaten them every time. hope I'm as successful this time. [comment]

2020-03-06-1529Z

partied last night with a bunch of folks who flew down from Oregon. I guess I'll know in a couple of weeks if any of them were disease vectors. [comment]

2020-03-03-1539Z

wow, Panera just dropped a disruptive special: $9/month unlimited coffee subscriptions. that ought to shake up the coffee retailing industry a bit. [comment]

2020-03-02-0314Z

just finished all 5 weeks of the immunology course in about 1 week. still far from understanding it, but I got a little more out of it than I did last time. [comment]

2020-03-02-0245Z

from week 5 lecture part 4: "in the intestinal mucosa, the immune system does not respond to non-self such as dietary compounds and mucosal bacteria. The mechanisms for this oral tolerance remain completely unknown."

wow.

I also found out what those scatter plots shown in the lectures are: dot plots and histograms made with flow cytometers. the week 4 lecturer casually mentioned it in part of his lecture, and I completely missed it the first time through the course. [comment]

2020-03-02-0055Z

the more I think about what vaccination accomplishes, and how it does so, the more I wonder if this would work: instead of injecting largely untested and somewhat dangerous combinations of antigens, why not take in the actual live pathogens in the same manner as they are normally spread, but a measured dose of just a few units? for example, the seasonal flu. get samples from the first few victims, multiply it in a lab, and spray precise doses of, say, 10 virii on each volunteer's face. their innate immune response will have enough to work with, but hopefully not too much that it gets overwhelmed.

if someone would be willing to work with me on this, I'd gladly be a test subject. [comment]

2020-03-01-0530Z

I'm taking the immunology course at EDX again before starting law school on March 10th. after that, I doubt I'll have much time for anything else. I'm currently on week 4 of the course, and I'm not sure when I started but it's been less than a week. let's say Monday the 24th of February. [comment]

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