dysamoria

petri said:

patchythepirate said:

FWIW, he came out with a social media post late last year (edit: maybe in 2019 actually) showing a tattoo spelled “whackd”, I think, and warning ppl that he would never commit suicide, so if he mysteriously died of suicide, it wasn’t him. Pretty strange stuff. To his credit, he seemed to have called it. Makes me more curious about whatever he was getting into. I didn’t follow him so I’m not really sure. 

Did he “call it” or was he cornered, suffering paranoid delusions and reacting publicly to his own private thoughts of suicide?  Governments don’t kill people for tax evasion.  

I suspect your entirely reasonable and rational argument will be mostly ignored because people don’t like rational and reasonable when they can promote crazy and outlandish crap.

jeffharris said:

Boo Hoo.

We ALL die. So what?

He was notable because of both computer industry fame and controversy. So, news.

No matter what kind of a nutbag McAfee was, your comment says something about YOU.

Suicide should be a right (otherwise what’s the point in the freedom to live?), but that doesn’t make suicide a casual thing. The guy had problems (self-inflicted, as they may have been after he attained some money and influence), and now he’s dead. It should be instructive, at the very least, about what wealth and ego does to people.

We can question the taste of joking about tax evasion via suicide (I made the joke myself), but somehow your comment feels worse because it seems like a callousness toward humanity itself. Have you attended a funeral lately?

iadlib said:

Another crazy rich person 🥸

Yeah. Excessive wealth brought on by some skill and a lot of luck teaches all the wrong lessons to people who are vulnerable to ego inflation and logical fallacy. The same trend of human frailty is well observed in fandom (actors, music acts, etc).

GeorgeBMac said:

dysamoria said:

GeorgeBMac said:

Mike Wuerthele said:

Happy_Noodle_Boy said:

I remember when the ECG feature was first announced there was a bit of skepticism about the product actually doing what it claimed and  some concern about doctors offices being flooded with false positives and the like but I haven’t seen much follow up on the subject since. I’m inclined to think that means the fears never manifested themselves.

I can give my experience. I could feel my heart doing something funky and decided to use the ECG feature as a way to reassure myself it wasn’t serious. That isn’t the most sound thinking but it was 2 in the morning and funky heart woke me up. I wasn’t thinking clearly. Anyway, the watch said i was in afib. So I hauled myself to to the ER and was admitted, the watch was correct. When the doctor came in she literally asked “Did you use the watch to tell that you had afib?”, Kinda sheepishly I said “Yes” and she said, “Everone I have had come in because of their watch has actually had it, I didn’t think it would work that well”.  As a follow up I had to start seeing a cardiologist and a similar thing happened with him. He said “When they announced that feature I thought it was bullshit and there is no way it would work. It totally works.”  In dealing with my off and on heart funkyness he has just relayed on the watch for monitoring and the PDFs generated by the health app. No other equipment needed. So in my limited sample the doctors seem to see on team watch with one being an admitted skeptic. Not bad. 

Sporadic problems are the worst to figure out, no matter if it's hardware, software, or people.

The main difference between the hardware and software in people versus computers is that that in people can, if given the chance, repair itself.

I was shocked when I transitioned from a systems analyst to a nurse that the process of fixing problems remained essentially the same:   Collect the data, identify the problem, identify alternatives, implement a solution and then re-evaluate.

It took me years though before I realized that the big difference was that, in many cases, the body, unlike a car or a computer can repair damaged and worn out parts.  We just need to give it the tools it needs:  namely a healthy lifestyle:  diet, exercise, sleep, stress reduction, etc...

Yeah, up to a point. Systemic failure, scar tissue, cancer growth, and the thousands of things that make up the aging process... The sooner we take seriously our health, the younger we are when we do (for those who ever do it at all), the better-off they’ll be and the better the long-term outcomes will be. And that’s not considering the environmental issues constantly assaulting us (our toxic civilization & culture, its pollution, and forced behavioral choices, and lack of choice). In the USA, the culture itself actively suppresses any preventative or forward-looking thinking and reasoning. This is especially the case with people in poverty.

Anti-intellectualism and anti-science (including “woo”, which isn’t limited to either side of the political spectrum) is part of that toxic culture.

Don't wait for your body to start showing serious signs of problems. Get in shape now and make it a LIFESTYLE, not just a moment of focus.

Yes, but also:  Youth and its perpetual health (regardless of the foolish decisions we make) tends to lure us into a false sense of security:   Then, our culture doubles down on it when they tell you:  "Well, you worked hard, now is the time to sit back and enjoy your life.   You earned it!"

Then, as you point out, by the time we realize it, it can be too late.

My own wake up call came at 62 when a friend gave me a bike. I thought I was in decent shape -- until I rode that thing 3 miles and pretty much fell off it with my head spinning and my knees wobbling.   It woke me up....

Today, I'm working hard at it, and I am in far better shape than most 71 year olds -- but I can't hold a candle to those who have been taking of themselves for most of their adult lives. 

It differs from person to person. I’m not saying I disagree that youth creates illusions of immortality. I’m saying the effect is reduced for those of us who grew up with health issues like asthma and developmental disorders (motor skills, made far worse with poor depth perception due to wearing glasses).

Childhood physical issues made me hate sports. Yeah, it was mostly because of the toxic masculinity douchebags who bullied me for not performing to their specifications, but I definitely also felt a lack of physical robustness. I think I’ve a higher pain tolerance than the average person simply because I’ve lived with random and persistent pains & discomforts all my life. Exercise is unpleasant enough for most people who don’t make it their regular lifestyle, but it really SUCKS for me.

When I was 18, I joined high school track & field. I wasn’t able to rate for competition in ANYTHING. I was faster than my small circle of friends, but NOT faster than other people who signed up for track & field (being better than one’s friends can be illusory). I also ended up with shin splint pain, putting end to any fantasy of competing in distance or sprinting events. While I had FAR better abdominal muscles & flexibility than my track & field buddy (the guy I signed up with), I didn’t have the upper body strength to throw shot-put like he could. He sucked at warmups, but I sucked at anything needed for actual competition.

The women on track & field were far better suited to every event than I was, and the competition was gendered; men & women didn’t compete against each other. So there was another reason why I seemed to be particularly weak as a young man. Luckily I wasn’t a subscriber to toxic masculinity & misogyny or that might’ve been a real ego strike. It just made me respect those women more.

Now at age 45, with a lifetime of experience with my weak and non-robust body, I’m struggling to make jogging a regular activity after realizing that walking isn’t doing anything about my belly fat (nor the organ fat, which is notoriously worse than external fat). Aerobic exercise is constantly noted as critical to control so MANY health issues.

I used to be thin. My belly fat was suddenly put on at age 30, due to mertazepine & stress. Psych drugs almost killed me on at least two occasions (with “proper” usage). Getting off of all that shit was the best thing for me, and I never should’ve let myself be coerced onto it; it did so much damage, on top of my existing frailty, and I still haven’t yet recovered. Probably never will.

The jogging recently started causing pain in the left-back of my right knee. It’s a knee I’ve always had issues with, but this is pretty obstructive to my efforts at regular jogging. I suspect it’s nerve pain, but I’m not sure (my nervous system sucks!!!!). I’m trying to do walk-only days and rest days between jog-&-walk days. I’ve yet to see if it will improve with time.

i guess what I’m getting at is a lifetime of NOT feeling robust actively pushed me AWAY from physical activity. I never felt immortal or invulnerable. I felt the opposite: frail & at risk. It’s only gotten worse as my PTSD experiences piled on. Even before my horrific 30s, my teenage middling health only got worse when every job after high school was a tech job where I sat almost all day. My hobbies are also sedentary, largely because my body always hated physical activity.

The only benefit I had from youth was a lack of body fat. That’s currently the thing I hate most about my physical appearance, and I’m aware of how bad organ fat can be with regard to digestion & cardiac health.

The only illusion of youth was “there’s time to work on this some day”. Well, I have fewer days left than I’ve had so far. I had grey hair as a teen, but it’s clear I’ll soon have no color at all. And my skin and face are changing. The (mostly internal) fat gut interferes with recognizing proper hunger (pressure from fat confuses whether I’m empty or not, so I eat more for boredom & pleasure-seeking than from knowing I’m actually empty).

Men live into their 70s and not far beyond. I’m beyond middle age. The body is much less pleasant in the second half of life, which scares me because of knowing how non-robust my youthful body was. I also watch my mother suffer every possible ailment and I’m afraid of turning into her. With fibromyalgia, it seems the best course of action is subjecting one’s self to the pain & other discomforts of forced activity. Letting pain & discomfort make us sedentary results in a FASTER decline. I do not want this!

shit, this post is even longer than my tech rants.

GeorgeBMac said:

Mike Wuerthele said:

Happy_Noodle_Boy said:

I remember when the ECG feature was first announced there was a bit of skepticism about the product actually doing what it claimed and  some concern about doctors offices being flooded with false positives and the like but I haven’t seen much follow up on the subject since. I’m inclined to think that means the fears never manifested themselves.

I can give my experience. I could feel my heart doing something funky and decided to use the ECG feature as a way to reassure myself it wasn’t serious. That isn’t the most sound thinking but it was 2 in the morning and funky heart woke me up. I wasn’t thinking clearly. Anyway, the watch said i was in afib. So I hauled myself to to the ER and was admitted, the watch was correct. When the doctor came in she literally asked “Did you use the watch to tell that you had afib?”, Kinda sheepishly I said “Yes” and she said, “Everone I have had come in because of their watch has actually had it, I didn’t think it would work that well”.  As a follow up I had to start seeing a cardiologist and a similar thing happened with him. He said “When they announced that feature I thought it was bullshit and there is no way it would work. It totally works.”  In dealing with my off and on heart funkyness he has just relayed on the watch for monitoring and the PDFs generated by the health app. No other equipment needed. So in my limited sample the doctors seem to see on team watch with one being an admitted skeptic. Not bad. 

Sporadic problems are the worst to figure out, no matter if it's hardware, software, or people.

The main difference between the hardware and software in people versus computers is that that in people can, if given the chance, repair itself.

I was shocked when I transitioned from a systems analyst to a nurse that the process of fixing problems remained essentially the same:   Collect the data, identify the problem, identify alternatives, implement a solution and then re-evaluate.

It took me years though before I realized that the big difference was that, in many cases, the body, unlike a car or a computer can repair damaged and worn out parts.  We just need to give it the tools it needs:  namely a healthy lifestyle:  diet, exercise, sleep, stress reduction, etc...

Yeah, up to a point. Systemic failure, scar tissue, cancer growth, and the thousands of things that make up the aging process... The sooner we take seriously our health, the younger we are when we do (for those who ever do it at all), the better-off they’ll be and the better the long-term outcomes will be. And that’s not considering the environmental issues constantly assaulting us (our toxic civilization & culture, its pollution, and forced behavioral choices, and lack of choice). In the USA, the culture itself actively suppresses any preventative or forward-looking thinking and reasoning. This is especially the case with people in poverty.

Anti-intellectualism and anti-science (including “woo”, which isn’t limited to either side of the political spectrum) is part of that toxic culture.

Don't wait for your body to start showing serious signs of problems. Get in shape now and make it a LIFESTYLE, not just a moment of focus.