I don’t know the exact date but it was a spring day a little over 20 years ago now. I was in my early 20s and spent a lot of my free time hiking, camping, etc. At that time I was really heavily into caving, especially vertical caving where we would use ropes, harnesses, etc to explore chasms.

This particular day I was on a several day camping trip to a really popular area in a national park. In the night a big rainstorm came and everything flooded. I had been there several days with my friend and we didn’t get the memo about the storm coming and were curious why nobody else was camping there when it was usually packed that time of year.

The next morning we awoke and this campground (on the banks of a river) was halfway underwater. We soon learned that our road out was also underwater so we were trapped at the campground. We had plenty of supplies as we had been there several days with intentions to explore caves, etc.

Now from this campground there was a really popular hike through a canyon with stone arches, cool caves, waterfalls, etc that was normally packed. Since we had the place to ourselves we decided to do the hike. I should mention that this was quite dangerous as the first mile or so of the trail was now under 2+ feet of moving flood waters. We had wetsuits (for caving) and ropes so we geared up and braved the flood waters.

Dear reader it felt like such an epic adventure. I knew the landscape well from being there many times but this time was magical. There were massive waterfalls everywhere rushing through the green spring foliage. We had to use our technical rope skills to safely cross rushing white water streams but everything was so beautiful and dangerous.

I haven’t done it justice of course but it was just this perfect day where everything came together. I was young and healthy, I had my best partner with me, we had all of the right gear, the road being underwater meant we had the whole area to ourselves, and everything had been magically transformed into a waterfall adventure park for us to play.

I’m still chasing that feeling of pure joy I had that day.

I started the same thing earlier this year when my subscription to Prime was expiring. So far it really hasn’t been a big problem and has the nice perk that it encourages me to shop less at Amazon.

* looks around and gestures broadly in agreement*

+1 for Winix. I’ve had several of the 5500-2 units for 2-3 years now. They do a good job and I appreciate that they have HEPA + charcoal filters so eliminates more than just particulates. My main complaint is that the lights don’t fully turn off at night so I always have to cover them with something (usually a T-shirt). Otherwise I really like them.

Probably not that hard if you don’t care if the patient survives.

¯\(ツ)/¯

I generally like the picture quality from my LG OLED but the interface is not great and you are sooo right about the updates. My SO constantly complains about turning on the tv and it needs an update.

The machine is only loud when it is actively scanning a patient which it doesn’t seem like was happening in this case. Otherwise it’s relatively silent. Also the big button is (in my experience at multiple hospitals) always in a different room behind a box that you have to open. My point being this wasn’t some knee jerk reflex where he had the gun pulled out of his hands and he slapped the button. He physically had to leave the room and find the button to do this.

The mechanism they are describing here is the emergency one (like if a human is trapped against the machine by something metal and is being crushed - you need to kill the magnet NOW). There is a slower, much safer mechanism for deactivating the magnet that should have been used here but that would require the officer admitting he had made a mistake and asking for help.

Also I just want to point out that the rifle should be considered no longer safe to use unless thoroughly inspected by an expert. In a similar case some years back, the police officer’s sidearm was pulled into the machine. After retrieval it was found that the weapon had been magnetized by the scanner and as a result the firing pin was able to spontaneously release.

I’m biased but putting the onus on doctors here completely misses the point in my opinion. Let me just point out that this isn’t a “policy change” - these states have made it illegal to perform these procedures. In at least one state the physician can go to prison.

In an idealistic worldview we can expect every person to do the morally optimal thing every time without regard to consequences but that simply isn’t realistic. You are basically advocating that physicians should be jumping to break the law and therefore endanger themselves. That just is not a realistic expectation of any person.

Tl;dr - Physicians are just people and are not the ones that created this situation. They are normal people and expecting them to sacrifice career/freedom to help one patient is beyond what is realistic.

They almost made a truck with the Silverado EV but then they had to turn it into whatever the Avalanche is supposed to be with fins coming off the cab that get in the way of things. Anyways, not to sound bitter but some people like to be able to put camper shells, tool boxes, or other accoutrement on the back.

R1T is decent, just really expensive.

TIL, thanks for the explanation!

He’s not a robot though, right? I though replicants were genetically engineered humans?

Remember, it’s not just fun. It’s contractually obligated fun fun fun!

Even if it ends up NOT being ankylosing spondylitis exactly - you should know that there are some hereditary factors that predispose to AS but also to other, similar conditions which are collectively called “inflammatory spondyloarthropathies.” Given your brother’s diagnosis you probably have a higher chance of one of these conditions because of your shared genetics. So yeah absolutely ask another physician until someone investigates your symptoms!

It’s really interesting to me that you have provided this additional clue because ankylosing spondylitis was literally the first thing that popped into my head reading your story. I agree with others that your story sounds much more than typical aging symptoms and you should seek the opinion of another physician.

But how the information was presented matters, especially when people are unfamiliar with the topic.

He wouldn’t admit it. He would find something to blame on Vance (probably wouldn’t be a strain) and then “You’re Fired!” and the red hats would chuckle and never miss a beat.

No going off-grid is a substantially larger investment than most people can afford. To be off grid you have to be able to make enough electricity even on cloudy, short winter days. That means your system must be massively oversized for your needs during most of the year. You also need adequate batteries to store energy for overnight.

Instead people get enough solar to offset some or all of the electricity they use - but on average over time. So they produce a ton during the day and then draw from grid at night.

Interesting read, thanks for sharing.

Do you have scoliosis?