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This is probably redundant, but seems worth mentioning: I just got email reminding me that the Massachusetts voter registration deadline is Oct. 29th, and encouraging me to check my voter registration. I know I'm registered, because I have a vote-by-mail ballot sitting on my desk, but am passing this along in case it's useful to anyone else here.
The French minister of health is advising people who have, or think they have, coronavirus to avoid anti-inflammatory drugs because they can reduce the body's immune response. So, if you need/want to reduce a fever, he advises paracetemol (=acetominophen = Tylenol). What the article doesn't mention is that it's often better not to reduce a relatively mild fever, because the fever is part of how the body fights infections.
I tend to be a bit nervous about acetominophen, because it's relatively easy to take more than is safe while thinking you're following the package instructions. So, the standard warnings: watch out for pills with more than one active ingredient, and don't mix acetominophen and alcohol. And, if you're like me, keep a record of how much you take and when. And of course consult your doctor, pharmacist, or other qualified health care provider for advice.
I tend to be a bit nervous about acetominophen, because it's relatively easy to take more than is safe while thinking you're following the package instructions. So, the standard warnings: watch out for pills with more than one active ingredient, and don't mix acetominophen and alcohol. And, if you're like me, keep a record of how much you take and when. And of course consult your doctor, pharmacist, or other qualified health care provider for advice.
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The last few years, there's been a lot of encouragement to cough into your elbow instead of covering your mouth with your hand or a tissue. It sounds good, but does it help?
A team in Edmonton compared different "cough etiquette" maneuvers to see whether they would prevent the spread of viruses. Covering your mouth with both hands, a tissue, a clothed elbow, or the usual , including covering your mouth with both hands, a tissue, a clothed elbow, or a surgical mask are all equally ineffective.
The basic problem is that aerosol drops are too small to be blocked by any of those things.
So that leaves us with vaccination, hand-washing, and staying home when sick, which of course many people can't afford to do. (And that person on the bus who is coughing or sneezing might be reacting to an allergy, which is not contagious.)
As a side note, you have read every scientific study that supports coughing into your elbow. Really. There aren't any.
After noting the problem, the authors encourage research to find evidence-based procedures that do block the transmission of respiratory disease. In the meantime, I think I'm going to start carrying hand sanitizer. If you're in the Northern Hemisphere and haven't already gotten a flu vaccine, they're widely available in the U.S. and Canada (I haven't checked on other countries). If you're in the U.S. and have health insurance, it's probably covered. If you're in Canada, the categories of people who can get it free vary by province.
[Via the Science-Based Medicine blog, tucked in near the end of a piece about osteopathic manipulation.]
A team in Edmonton compared different "cough etiquette" maneuvers to see whether they would prevent the spread of viruses. Covering your mouth with both hands, a tissue, a clothed elbow, or the usual , including covering your mouth with both hands, a tissue, a clothed elbow, or a surgical mask are all equally ineffective.
The basic problem is that aerosol drops are too small to be blocked by any of those things.
So that leaves us with vaccination, hand-washing, and staying home when sick, which of course many people can't afford to do. (And that person on the bus who is coughing or sneezing might be reacting to an allergy, which is not contagious.)
As a side note, you have read every scientific study that supports coughing into your elbow. Really. There aren't any.
After noting the problem, the authors encourage research to find evidence-based procedures that do block the transmission of respiratory disease. In the meantime, I think I'm going to start carrying hand sanitizer. If you're in the Northern Hemisphere and haven't already gotten a flu vaccine, they're widely available in the U.S. and Canada (I haven't checked on other countries). If you're in the U.S. and have health insurance, it's probably covered. If you're in Canada, the categories of people who can get it free vary by province.
Conclusions
All the assessed cough etiquette maneuvers, performed as recommended, do not block droplets expelled as aerosol when coughing. This aerosol can penetrate profound levels of the respiratory system. Practicing these assessed primary respiratory hygiene/cough etiquette maneuvers would still permit direct, indirect, and/or airborne transmission and spread of IRD, such as influenza and Tuberculosis. All the assessed cough etiquette maneuvers, as recommended, do not fully interrupt the chain of transmission of IRD. This knowledge urges us all to critically review recommended CE and to search for new evidence-based procedures that effectively disrupt the transmission of respiratory pathogens. Interrupting the chain of transmission of IRD will optimize the protection of first responders, paramedics, nurses, and doctors working in triage sites, emergency rooms, intensive care units, and the general public against cough-droplet-spread diseases.
[Via the Science-Based Medicine blog, tucked in near the end of a piece about osteopathic manipulation.]
I just got my flu shot for the current/upcoming flu season. The supermarket downstairs has a pharmacy, so I didn't have to go out of my way (I was in there anyway buying bread and yogurt and tissues), just wait a couple of minutes for the pharmacy to open, then fill out the form and have the information entered into their computer system.
Not only is the vaccine covered by health insurance, but they gave me a 10% off grocery coupon (which I am saving for a trip where I'm buying/spending more to start with). Either there's a better mark-up on vaccines than I'd previously heard, or this is some weird combination of loss leader (when she gave me the coupon, the pharmacist also invited me to bring my prescriptions there) and doing the right thing in health/epidemiological terms.
If you want to be vaccinated as early in the season as possible, note that pharmacies already have the flu vaccine, but doctors' offices may not yet. (Also, there is a new four-strain vaccine, but that's not as widely distributed.) More info available at flu.gov.
Not only is the vaccine covered by health insurance, but they gave me a 10% off grocery coupon (which I am saving for a trip where I'm buying/spending more to start with). Either there's a better mark-up on vaccines than I'd previously heard, or this is some weird combination of loss leader (when she gave me the coupon, the pharmacist also invited me to bring my prescriptions there) and doing the right thing in health/epidemiological terms.
If you want to be vaccinated as early in the season as possible, note that pharmacies already have the flu vaccine, but doctors' offices may not yet. (Also, there is a new four-strain vaccine, but that's not as widely distributed.) More info available at flu.gov.
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Body Impolitic's Guide to Sane Holidays. Laurie and Debbie posted this for the Christmas season, but chunks of it are applicable to other occasions as well.
Tomorrow (Tuesday, 2 November) is Election Day in the United States.
If you're eligible, please vote. I know it seems hopeless sometimes. But when in doubt, vote against: I am not exactly delighted by the Democratic candidate for governor in this state, but the Republican is a Tea Party billionaire whose history of sending out bestiality porn is one of his better points. (A friend looked at the polls and is voting against them both, which also seems reasonable.)
I don't know whether the Murdoch paper headlining that the Democrats will be in trouble tomorrow is just spreading fear, uncertainty, and doubt and trying to demoralize their enemy, but let's not let them make that a self-fulfilling prophecy.
Also: there are a lot of offices and sometimes ballot questions in most places. You may not care about all of them, but that doesn't mean none of them matter. Go in, vote just for state senate, and leave, if that's how you feel about it.
If anyone is looking for suggestions in New York:
I'm voting what amounts to a straight Democratic ticket, though I may fill in the ovals under "Working Families Party" instead [1]: Cuomo for governor [2], both incumbent Democratic senators (as far as I can tell from here, their opponents' campaign strategy seems to have been "maybe the incumbent will drop dead and/or be caught with an underage prostitute"; they've certainly done nothing to make me think of them in terms other than "don't give the Republicans the Senate"), diNapoli for comptroller because he seems to have done a good job for the last four years, Eric Schneiderman for attorney general because I liked him as my state senator, and the Democrats for state senate and state assembly because if the Democrats manage a useful majority of the state senate [3] the state legislature might actually get something done up for a change, and that "something" might include same-sex marriage.
We have two city ballot questions, both of which were well described by an article I read a couple of days ago: you have to be both intelligent and deliberate to come up with things this confusing. The first is doing something with term limits, changing them but not for incumbent members of the City Council; Bloomberg seems to have again decided he's in favor of them, as long as they don't apply to him. I may abstain on that. The second has seven different changes, as an all-or-none deal; I'm voting in favor because one of the seven will reduce the number of signatures needed to get on the ballot for city offices.
If you're a conservative or a libertarian, please think before voting: small government may be one of your values, but some of the Republican candidates this year seem to be opposed to paving the roads, and others want a government just big enough to fit in our bedrooms. This is a special case of my "when in doubt, vote against," above. I'm a socialist: I almost never get a chance to vote for someone I actually agree with.
[1] This has to do with details of New York election law; a party that gets at least 50,000 votes for governor has an automatic ballot line for the next four years, and may hold primaries for specific offices, instead of having to circulate petitions for each candidate it wants to run.
[2] If Cuomo is far enough ahead in the polls, I might vote for the Black Panther instead. Just because. (I think he's using the label "Freedom Party," but the only party name that means anything here is the "Rent Is Too Damn High" party, which is a guy with one issue.) The ex-madame [4] is taking advice from the same Republican operative who is advising Carl Paladino, which is all I need to know.
[3] Useful majority as opposed to the mishigoss we had some months ago.
[4] The best moment of the campaign: she threatened to sue a New York Post columnist for referring to her as a "hooker," asserting that there was no evidence she had been a prostitute, only promoted prostitution. I don't know what if anything has come of that, but my thought was that he should offer to run a correction: "I apologize for referring to $candidate as a prostitute. She was actually a pimp." Or possibly just run it, without contacting her people first. It's a matter of legal record: she pleaded guilty to promoting prostitution. (I am omitting her name not to make a point, but because I don't remember it, though it's also true that I don't feel like giving her the publicity.)
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If you're eligible, please vote. I know it seems hopeless sometimes. But when in doubt, vote against: I am not exactly delighted by the Democratic candidate for governor in this state, but the Republican is a Tea Party billionaire whose history of sending out bestiality porn is one of his better points. (A friend looked at the polls and is voting against them both, which also seems reasonable.)
I don't know whether the Murdoch paper headlining that the Democrats will be in trouble tomorrow is just spreading fear, uncertainty, and doubt and trying to demoralize their enemy, but let's not let them make that a self-fulfilling prophecy.
Also: there are a lot of offices and sometimes ballot questions in most places. You may not care about all of them, but that doesn't mean none of them matter. Go in, vote just for state senate, and leave, if that's how you feel about it.
If anyone is looking for suggestions in New York:
I'm voting what amounts to a straight Democratic ticket, though I may fill in the ovals under "Working Families Party" instead [1]: Cuomo for governor [2], both incumbent Democratic senators (as far as I can tell from here, their opponents' campaign strategy seems to have been "maybe the incumbent will drop dead and/or be caught with an underage prostitute"; they've certainly done nothing to make me think of them in terms other than "don't give the Republicans the Senate"), diNapoli for comptroller because he seems to have done a good job for the last four years, Eric Schneiderman for attorney general because I liked him as my state senator, and the Democrats for state senate and state assembly because if the Democrats manage a useful majority of the state senate [3] the state legislature might actually get something done up for a change, and that "something" might include same-sex marriage.
We have two city ballot questions, both of which were well described by an article I read a couple of days ago: you have to be both intelligent and deliberate to come up with things this confusing. The first is doing something with term limits, changing them but not for incumbent members of the City Council; Bloomberg seems to have again decided he's in favor of them, as long as they don't apply to him. I may abstain on that. The second has seven different changes, as an all-or-none deal; I'm voting in favor because one of the seven will reduce the number of signatures needed to get on the ballot for city offices.
If you're a conservative or a libertarian, please think before voting: small government may be one of your values, but some of the Republican candidates this year seem to be opposed to paving the roads, and others want a government just big enough to fit in our bedrooms. This is a special case of my "when in doubt, vote against," above. I'm a socialist: I almost never get a chance to vote for someone I actually agree with.
[1] This has to do with details of New York election law; a party that gets at least 50,000 votes for governor has an automatic ballot line for the next four years, and may hold primaries for specific offices, instead of having to circulate petitions for each candidate it wants to run.
[2] If Cuomo is far enough ahead in the polls, I might vote for the Black Panther instead. Just because. (I think he's using the label "Freedom Party," but the only party name that means anything here is the "Rent Is Too Damn High" party, which is a guy with one issue.) The ex-madame [4] is taking advice from the same Republican operative who is advising Carl Paladino, which is all I need to know.
[3] Useful majority as opposed to the mishigoss we had some months ago.
[4] The best moment of the campaign: she threatened to sue a New York Post columnist for referring to her as a "hooker," asserting that there was no evidence she had been a prostitute, only promoted prostitution. I don't know what if anything has come of that, but my thought was that he should offer to run a correction: "I apologize for referring to $candidate as a prostitute. She was actually a pimp." Or possibly just run it, without contacting her people first. It's a matter of legal record: she pleaded guilty to promoting prostitution. (I am omitting her name not to make a point, but because I don't remember it, though it's also true that I don't feel like giving her the publicity.)
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The chip-and-pin authentication system is badly broken, such that a hacker/thief with anyone's chip-and-PIN Visa or Mastercard can make arbitrary purchases. The problem appears to be that these cards can be used with chip and pin, or chip and signature, and by telling the card they're using one and the terminal they're using the other, people who know where it's broken can make purchases using any arbitrary PIN. The problem behind the problem is that there are lots of different, overlapping implementations of the security for chip-and-PIN, and lots of people with unsupported confidence that their implementations are sound.
The researchers reported this to the banking industry a couple of months ago. They note that this may explain at least some of the cases of phantom withdrawals. It may make it harder for the banking industry to deny refunds on the grounds that the challenged transactions were authenticated with a PIN: the researchers demonstrated using this attack on a system that was calling the bank for authentication, getting the authentication, and completing the transaction.
A cancelled card is still a cancelled card, and won't be authorized even with this attack. Also, it doesn't work at ATMs/cashpoints, only at merchants. But there are lots of stores that will sell any number of things that a thief either wants or can resell.
(If you're North American and don't know what chip-and-PIN is, hope that this gets fixed for real, and on a large scale, before it's implemented as "security" for our credit and debit cards.)
[via Bruce Schneier]
The researchers reported this to the banking industry a couple of months ago. They note that this may explain at least some of the cases of phantom withdrawals. It may make it harder for the banking industry to deny refunds on the grounds that the challenged transactions were authenticated with a PIN: the researchers demonstrated using this attack on a system that was calling the bank for authentication, getting the authentication, and completing the transaction.
A cancelled card is still a cancelled card, and won't be authorized even with this attack. Also, it doesn't work at ATMs/cashpoints, only at merchants. But there are lots of stores that will sell any number of things that a thief either wants or can resell.
(If you're North American and don't know what chip-and-PIN is, hope that this gets fixed for real, and on a large scale, before it's implemented as "security" for our credit and debit cards.)
[via Bruce Schneier]
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It being a nice afternoon, I wanted to walk a bit at lunchtime, so I went to the nearest post office and bought ten one-cent stamps from a vending machine. (There's not much you can get out of a machine for a dime anymore.) They're nice stamps, with a Tiffany lamp on them.
When my officemate came back from his lunch, I mentioned having bought one-cent stamps. He asked why. I explained that I had some 39-¢ stamps and didn't want to waste them.
It transpired that he didn't know the postage rates had gone up, and in fact had mailed a bank deposit a few days ago with a 39-cent stamp. In case anyone else didn't know and is affected: the one-ounce rate for U.S. mail is now 41 cents. The second-ounce (and thereafter) rate is now 21 cents an ounce. (Yes, that's a reduction: if you have a two-ounce letter, and a 39 and 23 sitting around from the previous rates, you're fine.) There are also some odd new rules about package and envelope size and shape: if it's something other than a standard-shaped letter or card, check at www.usps.gov for details.
Belated correction: The second-ounce rate is actually 17 cents, as I discovered when I asked a postal clerk for 21-cent stamps. I now have ten of the new second-ounce stamps. (Anyone who put 39+23 on a two-ounce letter will have gotten it through okay, and there's something to be said for using up those old 23-cent stamps.)
When my officemate came back from his lunch, I mentioned having bought one-cent stamps. He asked why. I explained that I had some 39-¢ stamps and didn't want to waste them.
It transpired that he didn't know the postage rates had gone up, and in fact had mailed a bank deposit a few days ago with a 39-cent stamp. In case anyone else didn't know and is affected: the one-ounce rate for U.S. mail is now 41 cents. The second-ounce (and thereafter) rate is now 21 cents an ounce. (Yes, that's a reduction: if you have a two-ounce letter, and a 39 and 23 sitting around from the previous rates, you're fine.) There are also some odd new rules about package and envelope size and shape: if it's something other than a standard-shaped letter or card, check at www.usps.gov for details.
Belated correction: The second-ounce rate is actually 17 cents, as I discovered when I asked a postal clerk for 21-cent stamps. I now have ten of the new second-ounce stamps. (Anyone who put 39+23 on a two-ounce letter will have gotten it through okay, and there's something to be said for using up those old 23-cent stamps.)
It being a nice afternoon, I wanted to walk a bit at lunchtime, so I went to the nearest post office and bought ten one-cent stamps from a vending machine. (There's not much you can get out of a machine for a dime anymore.) They're nice stamps, with a Tiffany lamp on them.
When my officemate came back from his lunch, I mentioned having bought one-cent stamps. He asked why. I explained that I had some 39-¢ stamps and didn't want to waste them.
It transpired that he didn't know the postage rates had gone up, and in fact had mailed a bank deposit a few days ago with a 39-cent stamp. In case anyone else didn't know and is affected: the one-ounce rate for U.S. mail is now 41 cents. The second-ounce (and thereafter) rate is now 21 cents an ounce. (Yes, that's a reduction: if you have a two-ounce letter, and a 39 and 23 sitting around from the previous rates, you're fine.) There are also some odd new rules about package and envelope size and shape: if it's something other than a standard-shaped letter or card, check at www.usps.gov for details.
Belated correction: The second-ounce rate is actually 17 cents, as I discovered when I asked a postal clerk for 21-cent stamps. I now have ten of the new second-ounce stamps. (Anyone who put 39+23 on a two-ounce letter will have gotten it through okay, and there's something to be said for using up those old 23-cent stamps.)
When my officemate came back from his lunch, I mentioned having bought one-cent stamps. He asked why. I explained that I had some 39-¢ stamps and didn't want to waste them.
It transpired that he didn't know the postage rates had gone up, and in fact had mailed a bank deposit a few days ago with a 39-cent stamp. In case anyone else didn't know and is affected: the one-ounce rate for U.S. mail is now 41 cents. The second-ounce (and thereafter) rate is now 21 cents an ounce. (Yes, that's a reduction: if you have a two-ounce letter, and a 39 and 23 sitting around from the previous rates, you're fine.) There are also some odd new rules about package and envelope size and shape: if it's something other than a standard-shaped letter or card, check at www.usps.gov for details.
Belated correction: The second-ounce rate is actually 17 cents, as I discovered when I asked a postal clerk for 21-cent stamps. I now have ten of the new second-ounce stamps. (Anyone who put 39+23 on a two-ounce letter will have gotten it through okay, and there's something to be said for using up those old 23-cent stamps.)
I have a feeling that some of my friends who have paid accounts don't read the ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
paidmembers community. If you had a paid account when LJ was down last week, they'll give you a week's extra paid time, but you have to ask for it. No, I don't know why they don't do this automatically: maybe to encourage people to read that community?
paidmembers community. If you had a paid account when LJ was down last week, they'll give you a week's extra paid time, but you have to ask for it. No, I don't know why they don't do this automatically: maybe to encourage people to read that community?I have a feeling that some of my friends who have paid accounts don't read the paidmembers community. If you had a paid account when LJ was down last week, they'll give you a week's extra paid time, but you have to ask for it. No, I don't know why they don't do this automatically: maybe to encourage people to read that community?
paidmembers community. If you had a paid account when LJ was down last week, they'll give you a week's extra paid time, but you have to ask for it. No, I don't know why they don't do this automatically: maybe to encourage people to read that community?.
