The amount of unnecessary surgeries has been a known issue since the 1950s. During the first year of the pandemic, when the amount of non-critical surgeries would have been at a local minima, there were about 100,000 unnecessary surgeries. Spine surgeries came in at about 30,000.

In this article they reference a survey of why surgeons were doing unnecessary spine surgeries:

The two common answers were: USS were done because “we always have done this way” and for “financial gain, renown, or both”.

The article goes on and makes some recommendations. The first of which is:

1.Setting up musculoskeletal clinics in primary healthcare centers to filter spine cases and prevent direct access to spine surgeons.

We continue to undertrain physicians for the US population and many are incentives to go into lucrative specialties leaving primary care physicians to be over booked, and buried in paper work.

I know what I’m doing with my evening now.

I think you’re undervaluing loneliness. Loneliness isn’t just missing some one. Loneliness means there’s no point in connecting with people because they will just die. Loneliness means that no one knows the depth of your condition because it isn’t available to them. It means that as they change and face new obstacles, you’ll be oblivious to all of that. You’ll not only see them die, you’ll see the vitality deep out of their pores as they age. All the while you’ll never know what that means personally or feel that slow slipping.

Also, super weird that your example is a breakup and people dying is something not worth registering.

Whew. Good. I thought it was just me.

Lars van Trier’s Nymphomaniac would be very confusing without sex.

The number of sex scenes are down since 2000 of the movies coming out of Hollywood. But if you’re willing to read subtitles, there’s still a lot of horny videos coming out of Western Europe.

For me, make the sex relevant to the plot and make the sex they have congruent with the characters.

Okay… I’ll give it a go.

As we age, it’s easy to lose touch with something sacred. Certains drugs, in certain settings can remind some people of that. For those people, it can be a way to fend off the embittering nature of the rest of the world. It can put them in touch with that sacredness, reawaken some sense of reverence and awe, and some are able to carry a bit of this back into that into the world.

I don’t partake in drugs or even much alcohol. And I wouldn’t let loose without some sort of backup plan for the safety of my child. But I’m all for people doing what it is that lets reconnect to the sacred.

Personally, I hope it softens our hyper individualism and capitalist values. Hope that gives you an alternative perspective.

To imagine you wrote this sentence by purpose.

I care about my friends. I care about their goals, concerns, trials, joys, and more. I listen and I dig deeper. If I don’t care about what they did, I ask questions that reveal how it made them feel.

Now that’s a lot of emotional labor, but for a select few confidants, I am more than happy to that work. It bonds us and makes each other feel seen and connected.

I wish I had a friend who could just be there while I tried to get it set up. Honestly, I’d peroxide pizza, beer, and video games just so I don’t collapse in a mess of confusion and self doubt when something goes wrong. I don’t mind doing the work, but I don’t know if I have the patience to figure it all out.

I’m not much of wine drinker myself, but I once did a chef menu with the wine pairing. Every two dishes, they’d bring out a new glass of wine. It was kind blowing how the would taste one way with the first dish and a completely different way with the second dish. I’m not sure I can tell the difference between a $12 bottle and $40 bottle, but in that one meal i understood two things: first, if you know what your doing, wine and food pairings can be magical and, second, I don’t know what I’m doing.

Sounds like you had a wonderful patient who was grateful for you doing your craft. Do a compliment sandwich, but do it sincerely.

Complement Boundary Complement

“Oh my. I’m flattered. Thank you, but I’m not comfortable with that right now. You’ve been a wonderful patient and I enjoyed working with you too.”

This is just an example of the compliment sandwich structure and you should adjust the wording to serve you.

As for the phone number, just tell him that you were doing your job and seeing him better is all the reward you need. Again, adjust the wording for your truth.

The author’s photo is of her holding two oranges in one hand. I have unexpected joy from this.

People need to get over the candidate BS

In one sense this true. Policies are set by a small army of party elites and admins. Presidents aren’t just policy makers though. They are the face of a country. Their words are powerful and institutions react to them. They also project a sense of competency and vitality to the world.

it’s the politicians who deliberately trample them and keep these people in a perpetual state of misery, and then use racism to distract them from their pains.

I think this is a one sided analysis putting all the blame on the Republicans. It fails to wrestle with purple states that became red states like Florida and the inability for Democrats to make lasting in roads in purple states.

I just can’t believe the Red party is still given any serious consideration.

Personally, I turn to history when I want to understand something that confounds me. It would be better if I could actually talk to some people and really hear them. But I live a major metropolitan center in a blue state so my access is limited.

Noice.

How do you measure that for weight loss?

Yes! 100% this. The closest thing I’ve seen is Quick Accent in Power Toys for Windows. But something like what you’ve described is what I’ve always wanted.

I also thought about mapping this to Auto Hotkey, but didn’t bother after finding Quick Accent.

The one struggling to keep it’s head above water?

Brazil is no longer a state in Mexico after it moved to China.

This article has a hard paywall, so I found another source.

According to this article it seems the impact was limited because it only effected the most recent Debian server release. So the issue was limited, discovered quickly, and easily fixed.

The recent windows issues was extensive for all windows machines, discovered after massive outages, and difficult to fix.

I’m not sure this is a win for Linux, but there a number of decisions that CrowdStrike made that failed to live up to the trust issue by WHQL certification.

I think that this didn’t have the same extent for Linux is pure luck.