A landlord has the power to enter your "home," and is specifically granted this power under some state laws. At least in my state, they must have a reasonable justification, AND give advance notice; they can't just barge in willy-nilly (IANAL).
Still, even if you rent rather than own, even your local police department needs a search warrant to enter your apartment. Also, if a person legally consents to a search, that consent can be withdrawn at any time. At that point, a search warrant is required. How is some kind of private "trade group" going to bypass that little requirement? Even if you clicked some EULA, I don't see how you can give up your Fourth Amendment rights with the click of a mouse. The police have much more power than some trade group, and if they need a warrant, how can some trade group skate by without one? Any lawyers want to comment?
I'd like to see these guys try it, quite honestly... just like that rental car company that was levying fines based on their GPS spy-unit speed measurements... they were denied. Private organizations/businesses don't have the power to levy a fine; that power belongs to the State.
If they were bold enough barge into your home unannounced, with no legal authority to do so, it would be at least Breaking and Entering, or even Burglary (if you were home at the time). If they threatened you in the process, it would be Aggravated Burglary, and you might even be justified in some self-defense. Somehow, I suspect a bunch of software-licence-hunting bean counters are not up for that kind of action.
Even if they do have some sort of "compliance inspection" in their EULA, it's just begging for a court challenge if they force the issue.
If you click a button saying "it's OK to shoot me," don't doubt for one minute that somebody would go to prison for a very long time if they actually pulled the trigger.
the robot can't tell what medications are what? Can it be discrete when you bring home the ladies?
Senior Citizen to Date from other Nursing Home: "Oh no, baby, you're the only one for me" *Whisper to robot* "Robie! bring me my Viagra!"
Robie in loud hard-of-hearing voice: "Same Viagra dose as the last six times, master?"
Senior Citizen: "Um..."
Re:If only they could help compliance
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"an attitude like his"
Excuse me? Did I insult anyone? Did I call anyone stupid? I simply expressed my frustration at one of medicine's biggest problems, that of noncompliance with treatment.
In fact, I believe it was you who characterized doctors as "self-righteous drug dealers"...
Who has the attitude here?
Re:If only they could help compliance
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"It must be from a Doctor"
Figured that out all by yourself, did you?
Well mister trolling anonymous coward... allow me to retort.
Patronising and self-righteous? Please... If you really think I'm a self-righteous drug dealer, then why do you keep showing up in my office? If you don't think I'm going to be able to help you, and don't trust my treatments, then why are you wasting your time and mine? There are plenty of people out there who want to get better, and are willing to give me the benefit of the doubt for my decade+ of training. Yes, you spent years and years training for what you do... that's why I'll take your advice on how to configure a kernel, and why YOU should take MY advice when it comes to medications. Where I have enough insight to know when I don't know, you are apparently an expert on everything.
If you are so cynical and paranoid that you aren't even willing to follow your medication instructions because you think I might be poisoning you (do you think we just make up dosages and treatment intervals?), then trot on down to the herb-and-crystal store and try your luck.
If this seems patronising, and you don't want to be treated like a 4yo, then start behaving like an adult. Don't waste your time going to the doctor if you think he's a quack... if you've got something better, have at it. Don't waste your doctor's time if you aren't going to listen, and don't have a modicum of trust for what he's going to tell you. I seriously doubt your doctor came over to your flat and dragged you to his office.
YOU sought HIM out, did you not?
Good grief... blaming your doctor for your own ignorant non-compliance. That's called projection... and it means you have the problem, not your doctor.
Troll.
Re:Serious medications already have this (in a way
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Those are actually a real godsend to senior citizens, just like those "a box for every day of the week" pill boxes. They are mostly for the people who are non-compliant through sheer forgetfulness (which includes a lot of us as we age...).
Even so, I wish they could do something about the "hassle factor." People simply don't take their meds because it's inconvenient, or too much hassle.
A good example is Acyclovir for herpes... you have to take it five times a day. People don't take it because it is inconvenient, and I tend not to prescribe it for this very reason. If I have my choice, I make it as easy as possible for the patient; given the option, I opt for something like Famcyclovir (can be given three times a day, compared to five).
You are correct; compliance can be improved somewhat with the type of product you mention. but there is still that hassle factor, and the fact that unused medication accumulates in people's medicine cabinets, waiting to be used inappropriately. I still would like to see the self-destruct option, it might save someone's little nephew when he goes looking in the medicine cabinet for some tic-tacs. That happened to me as a very young child... I sucked down a whole bottle of thorazine. I was lucky enough to survive. Some kids aren't so lucky...
If only they could help compliance
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· Score: 4, Interesting
I don't know about other applications, but I'd like to see something like this to help patient compliance.
over 50% of patients are non-complaint with their drug regime and/or instructions. I am not sure if some pill-pak reminding the patient would help or not.
I provide printed medication instructions, verbal instructions, and instructions on the bottle... and people STILL don't take their medications like they are supposed to. This leads me to do things like treat Strep throat with single-dose Intramuscular Penicillin injections... one dose, done... takes non-compliance right out of the picture.
No matter how many times I tell people to take all their medication... they take it 'till they start feeling better, then stick the rest in the medicine cabinet. The next time they get a "sore throat," they promptly bust out the old prescription and start taking pills. I find this out when they show up a few days later, wanting to know why their sore throat isn't clearing up like last time (answer: because it's viral). Of course, we'll also never know if it's viral or not, because the antibiotics they are taking screw up any throat culture I might do.
They either need to make a pill-pak that self-destructs after a period of time, or one that repeatedly screeches "I'm expired! Throw me away now!" in a high, fingernails-on-the-chalkboard voice.
Perhaps it's the depersonalization of it all. Some of the objections to this may have to do with people's fears of becoming numbers, rather than people (If you've ever dealt with the phone company, you know exactly what I mean).
A more-secure driver's license is probably a good thing... but it's only as secure at the procedures required to obtain one. If any Tom/Dick/Harry can simply trot down to the DMV with a birth certificate and get their spanking-new Biometric-secured(TM) Driver's License... then we are wasting our time and money. If someone DOES steal your identity, (or the computer mixes up your name with the other Dave Smith's fingerprints) getting it fixed may take some fairly extraordinary measures, particularly if these secure cards are "always right."
The other, more-interesting question that should be asked is this: What will this super-secure "identity card" be used for, and what circumstances will require you to produce it?
Yeah, it's supposedly illegal, but why not archive your DVD's as DivX movies? Potential DVD damage seems like a pretty stinkin' good reason to me.
DivX quality is pretty good, it's playable under linux (I like Mplayer, myself), and you don't have to worry about your DVDs getting scratched/broken/lost/stolen when they get handled.
Nothing like having your entire DVD collection available on every computer in the house, served straight from your file server.
This used to be a big problem with bedridden, hospitalized patients. It still is to a degree, but we're smarter about it now.
Once upon a time, hip fractures were treated with bed rest for weeks and weeks until they healed... the mortality rate of hip fractures used to be enormous, and many died from DVT/PE, exactly because of the prolonged immobilization. Hip fractures are now treated, whenever possible (it depends on the configuration of the fracture), with surgical pinning/hip replacement, and rapid mobilization. Some of these people are up and walking the day after surgery. It may seem a bit barbaric, because it's often very painful, but it's better than dying from a blood clot.
Almost all surgical patients are treated this way now. Surgery by itself is a risk factor for development of DVT/PE, and most surgical patients are aggressively mobilized after their surgery, exactly to prevent this deadly complication.
It sounds like your friend had a TIA... a TIA is defined as a stroke-like picture that resolves within 24 hours. If your friend was better in only a few hours, he had a TIA; MUCH better than a stroke. TIAs require a fairly standard workup: Carotid artery ultrasound, cholesterol and clotting studies, EKG, Echocardiogram, etc.
High cholesterol is highly correlated with atherosclerotic disease of the arterial system, so this is probably the main problem with your friend. High levels of LDL cholesterol are correlated with stroke, heart attack, peripheral vascular disease, and so forth (BTW, atherosclerotic disease doesn't happen in just one vascular bed... it happens in all of them. If your cholesterol is bad enough to have a TIA, it wouldn't hurt to have your heart checked out as well).
Of course, there is high cholesterol, and there is REALLY HIGH cholesterol. There is a disorder known as familial hypercholesterolemia, where people have cholesterols in the thousands... they often don't survive past their early 20's.
DVT is virtually never the cause of a stroke, primarily due to anatomic reasons. In order to reach the arterial side of your circulation, your venous blood must pass through the lungs, where the capillary beds catch the clot (this is why DVT leads to a pulmonary embolus). There is one exception to this rule: A person who has a structural abnormality of the heart... such as a atrial or ventricular septal defect. Such a "hole in the heart" may allow a clot to bypass the lungs and go directly to the arterial side.
High cholesterol is usually a larger risk factor for arterial disease than venous insufficiency.
If your clot was in the portal venous system, a sedentary lifestyle should have had absolutely nothing to do with that particular thrombosis.
So they never came up with anything? Most people that get PVTs have cirrhosis (probably why they did the liver biopsy), some kind of intraabdominal infection... something.
What you had is extremely rare in normal people...I'm not presuming to tell you what to do; your doctor knows you better than I do. Still, you might consider following up on it sometime, just to make sure everything is kosher.
"Blood thinners" is a very general term. Blood clotting is a fairly complex process, involving one of two clotting cascades (intrinsic and extrinsic). One can inhibit one of these two protein pathways, or one can attack the platelets themselves. Platelet inhibitors are often lumped into the general category of "blood thinners" (asprin is a platelet inhibitor).
Coumadin attacks the vitamin-K-dependent clotting factors (factors 2, 7, 9, and 10) where they are manufactured in the liver. This is why coumadin takes a bit of time to take effect. Heparin is much more immediate, but requires close monitoring of the Partial Thromboplastin Time to ensure adequate anticoagulation. However, there is a different preparation of heparin, called "Low-molecular-weight heparin" that is preferred, since you don't have to monitor it, and as a result it's often used in the outpatient setting to treat DVTs.
The factors that contribute to DVT formation are stasis, injury (I've seen a DVT from being hit in the leg with a baseball), and hypercoagulable state (blood is too thick, or platelets are too sticky). The more factors you have, the greater your risk... but sometimes it's not simply additive. For instance, young women that smoke AND take birth control pills (both make you hypercoagulable) are at greatly increased risk for clots... those two particular risk factors seem to have a synergistic effect.
Most geeks should not get these... Pulmonary Emboli are rare in healthy people. However, if you get a big one (a so-called "saddle embolus") it can turn you out like a light. In the case of large emboli, "clot buster" thrombolytic drugs ARE used, but usually only on a truly unstable, dying-in-front-of-your-eyes patient. Clot buster drugs are NOT benign, and can cause strokes, and uncontrollable bleeding. You'd hate to fix a guy's emobolus, only to have him die from an intracranial bleed. There's a reason those drugs are given very cautiously.
Certain genetic susceptibilities also exist that can make you prone to DVT/PE. Protein C, Protein S, Antithrombin III, Factor V, just to name a few (I'm not a hematologist). If someone in your family gets an unexplained DVT, your doctor will probably be checking all of these and more. If a first-degree family member has one of these that is abnormal, you might consider getting your own blood checked.
one more thing... I have to take issue with the name "E-thrombosis"... sheesh. Why couldn't he just call it a Pulmonary Embolus? Then any doctor would know immediately what he was talking about... God save us from neeto buzzwords.
Where this libertarian argument breaks down is when you consider the healthcare dollars.
Anyone can go to any ER in the United States and they HAVE to be seen and appropriately treated (all that stuff about uninsured people having no access to medical care is crap)... it's federal law. I can't tell you how many illicit drug-related illnesses I've treated; overdoses, infections, complications, drug-induced abortions, etc, etc... the monetary cost is huge.
When someone, decades ago, decided to fund healthcare for society out of public funds (we are about half-socialized already), I don't think they had any idea what they were buying into. Funding healthcare for everyone, regardless of their unhealthy habits, is astronomically expensive. Naturally, this leads to the plea from people who either don't want to pay for the stupidity of others, or want to control the behavior of others
Cmon... even with all absurdity aside, demanding 2.5 million dollars (plus 100k from the actual comment writer) is a bit much. Is this guy so pretentious that he thinks the value to his precious reputation is worth 2.6 million total dollars? Unless this guy sells Monets, I'd say he's bidding a little high.
If he misrepresented his items, and the buyer didn't like it, he can't very well sue the buyer for speaking the truth. Always remember that truth is the ultimate defense against slander/libel. This case, while ridiculous, should come down to the merits... either the items were misrepresented, or they were not. If the seller tried to pull a fast one, and is just upset that he got called on it, then tough... he should be countersued by all parties involved, including Ebay.
Honest feedback is the only thing that Ebay has going for it. Think how great it would be if every place you bought stuff from (car dealers, mechanics, electronics stores, LAWYERS, etc) had this feature...
The article is about a new exploit they are talking about... nothing to do with the current mess.
I'm watching my firewall logs fill up even as I type, and all the 1434 hits are coming from different IPs... no dupes yet that I can see (maybe there are... but I'm not planning on sitting here all night reading logs).
These SQL attacks are coming from a plethora of different ports on the machines that are hitting me... anybody know if this is a normal part of this worm's behavior?
people apparently left out the "nurture" part of the equation entirely.
It seems to me an incredible stretch that people actually believed their pet's behavior/personality was hard-coded in the DNA.... but maybe that's just my studied-the-hard-sciences-all-my-life bias.
Behaviors are very complex things... both genetic tendency and environmental interaction play important roles. Even in psychiatric disorders that have strong genetic links (schizophrenia, bipolar disorder) having both parents (or an identical twin) afflicted will only buy the child or sibling a 50-60% chance (give or take 10%) of developing the disorder.
Yes, genes are the building blocks of our bodies... but you have to give nurture its chance at bat.
Cars already have unique identifiers (license plates), but those have to be visually read and interpreted by a human being... THAT'S the difference.
It's the work of 2 minutes to swap plates with a similar-appearing car in some parking lot... but a bit harder to swap out tires; most people keep the same set for years... 50-60K miles is 3-4+ years of driving for the average american. If implanting microchips in the human body hits a roadblock (privacy concerns, "number-of-the-beast" arguments), then why not track the vehicle? It's practically the same thing.
Vehicles are used mostly by single individuals, or single households with driving-age teenagers. Knowing where a vehicle goes is knowing what the household does. Marketing types have feverish dreams about the kind of demographic data you could gather with this.
This could also be useful for law enforcement, but not in the immediate future. What the law-enforcement-as-big-brother scenario lacks is a network of tranmitter/receiver modules embedded in the roads and curbs. Once those are commonplace, automated tracking of a vehicle becomes a piece of cake.
Most people don't realize just how labor-intensive a good surveillance operation can be. You need multiple teams, several different vehicles, and personnel skilled in the art of being unobtrusive. Visually surveiling someone requires manpower, training, and can be difficult under the best of circumstances (let alone at night, or in bad weather). GPS units are being used for this, but planting them can be a challenge, and a technically saavy target could detect or jam the transmission. Unique IDs in the tires and a network of readers might not give up-to-the-second velocity and position data, but they might be good enough...
Car 1: "I got caught at the traffic light... lost 'im"
Dispatcher: "He just took 131st street west... Car 2, turn right and pick him up at the next cross-street"
I hope every wanna-be sniper reads that article in Time Magazine.
The DC "snipers" were anything but. They were amateurs through and through, and showed no real knowledge or expertise in precision shooting.
I hope every nutcase who want to snipe does what they did... it will significantly limit their damage potential. Look at Charles Whitman, the University of Texas shooter. He did much more damage in a much shorter period of time, at much longer distances, and with MUCH greater accuracy than the DC snipers. He knew how to shoot, had the appropriate hardware to do it, and was motivated (he also got what he deserved).
This is often the problem with "free" information... you never know whether it's any good or not.
Violent crimes would be Aggravated Burglary (which requires force or threat of force against the occupant of the dwelling being burglarized), Robbery or Aggravated Robbery (depending on severity of the injury/threat to the victim).
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A landlord has the power to enter your "home," and is specifically granted this power under some state laws. At least in my state, they must have a reasonable justification, AND give advance notice; they can't just barge in willy-nilly (IANAL).
Still, even if you rent rather than own, even your local police department needs a search warrant to enter your apartment. Also, if a person legally consents to a search, that consent can be withdrawn at any time. At that point, a search warrant is required. How is some kind of private "trade group" going to bypass that little requirement? Even if you clicked some EULA, I don't see how you can give up your Fourth Amendment rights with the click of a mouse. The police have much more power than some trade group, and if they need a warrant, how can some trade group skate by without one? Any lawyers want to comment?
I'd like to see these guys try it, quite honestly... just like that rental car company that was levying fines based on their GPS spy-unit speed measurements... they were denied. Private organizations/businesses don't have the power to levy a fine; that power belongs to the State.
If they were bold enough barge into your home unannounced, with no legal authority to do so, it would be at least Breaking and Entering, or even Burglary (if you were home at the time). If they threatened you in the process, it would be Aggravated Burglary, and you might even be justified in some self-defense. Somehow, I suspect a bunch of software-licence-hunting bean counters are not up for that kind of action.
Even if they do have some sort of "compliance inspection" in their EULA, it's just begging for a court challenge if they force the issue.
If you click a button saying "it's OK to shoot me," don't doubt for one minute that somebody would go to prison for a very long time if they actually pulled the trigger.
Heh... reminds me of that old (but strangely memorable) Melanie Griffith movie.
the robot can't tell what medications are what? Can it be discrete when you bring home the ladies?
Senior Citizen to Date from other Nursing Home: "Oh no, baby, you're the only one for me" *Whisper to robot* "Robie! bring me my Viagra!"
Robie in loud hard-of-hearing voice: "Same Viagra dose as the last six times, master?"
Senior Citizen: "Um..."
"an attitude like his"
Excuse me? Did I insult anyone? Did I call anyone stupid? I simply expressed my frustration at one of medicine's biggest problems, that of noncompliance with treatment.
In fact, I believe it was you who characterized doctors as "self-righteous drug dealers"...
Who has the attitude here?
"It must be from a Doctor"
Figured that out all by yourself, did you?
Well mister trolling anonymous coward... allow me to retort.
Patronising and self-righteous? Please... If you really think I'm a self-righteous drug dealer, then why do you keep showing up in my office? If you don't think I'm going to be able to help you, and don't trust my treatments, then why are you wasting your time and mine? There are plenty of people out there who want to get better, and are willing to give me the benefit of the doubt for my decade+ of training. Yes, you spent years and years training for what you do... that's why I'll take your advice on how to configure a kernel, and why YOU should take MY advice when it comes to medications. Where I have enough insight to know when I don't know, you are apparently an expert on everything.
If you are so cynical and paranoid that you aren't even willing to follow your medication instructions because you think I might be poisoning you (do you think we just make up dosages and treatment intervals?), then trot on down to the herb-and-crystal store and try your luck.
If this seems patronising, and you don't want to be treated like a 4yo, then start behaving like an adult. Don't waste your time going to the doctor if you think he's a quack... if you've got something better, have at it. Don't waste your doctor's time if you aren't going to listen, and don't have a modicum of trust for what he's going to tell you. I seriously doubt your doctor came over to your flat and dragged you to his office.
YOU sought HIM out, did you not?
Good grief... blaming your doctor for your own ignorant non-compliance. That's called projection... and it means you have the problem, not your doctor.
Troll.
Those are actually a real godsend to senior citizens, just like those "a box for every day of the week" pill boxes. They are mostly for the people who are non-compliant through sheer forgetfulness (which includes a lot of us as we age...).
Even so, I wish they could do something about the "hassle factor." People simply don't take their meds because it's inconvenient, or too much hassle.
A good example is Acyclovir for herpes... you have to take it five times a day. People don't take it because it is inconvenient, and I tend not to prescribe it for this very reason. If I have my choice, I make it as easy as possible for the patient; given the option, I opt for something like Famcyclovir (can be given three times a day, compared to five).
You are correct; compliance can be improved somewhat with the type of product you mention. but there is still that hassle factor, and the fact that unused medication accumulates in people's medicine cabinets, waiting to be used inappropriately. I still would like to see the self-destruct option, it might save someone's little nephew when he goes looking in the medicine cabinet for some tic-tacs. That happened to me as a very young child... I sucked down a whole bottle of thorazine. I was lucky enough to survive. Some kids aren't so lucky...
I don't know about other applications, but I'd like to see something like this to help patient compliance.
over 50% of patients are non-complaint with their drug regime and/or instructions. I am not sure if some pill-pak reminding the patient would help or not.
I provide printed medication instructions, verbal instructions, and instructions on the bottle... and people STILL don't take their medications like they are supposed to. This leads me to do things like treat Strep throat with single-dose Intramuscular Penicillin injections... one dose, done... takes non-compliance right out of the picture.
No matter how many times I tell people to take all their medication... they take it 'till they start feeling better, then stick the rest in the medicine cabinet. The next time they get a "sore throat," they promptly bust out the old prescription and start taking pills. I find this out when they show up a few days later, wanting to know why their sore throat isn't clearing up like last time (answer: because it's viral). Of course, we'll also never know if it's viral or not, because the antibiotics they are taking screw up any throat culture I might do.
They either need to make a pill-pak that self-destructs after a period of time, or one that repeatedly screeches "I'm expired! Throw me away now!" in a high, fingernails-on-the-chalkboard voice.
Perhaps it's the depersonalization of it all. Some of the objections to this may have to do with people's fears of becoming numbers, rather than people (If you've ever dealt with the phone company, you know exactly what I mean).
A more-secure driver's license is probably a good thing... but it's only as secure at the procedures required to obtain one. If any Tom/Dick/Harry can simply trot down to the DMV with a birth certificate and get their spanking-new Biometric-secured(TM) Driver's License... then we are wasting our time and money. If someone DOES steal your identity, (or the computer mixes up your name with the other Dave Smith's fingerprints) getting it fixed may take some fairly extraordinary measures, particularly if these secure cards are "always right."
The other, more-interesting question that should be asked is this: What will this super-secure "identity card" be used for, and what circumstances will require you to produce it?
Yeah, it's supposedly illegal, but why not archive your DVD's as DivX movies? Potential DVD damage seems like a pretty stinkin' good reason to me.
DivX quality is pretty good, it's playable under linux (I like Mplayer, myself), and you don't have to worry about your DVDs getting scratched/broken/lost/stolen when they get handled.
Nothing like having your entire DVD collection available on every computer in the house, served straight from your file server.
This used to be a big problem with bedridden, hospitalized patients. It still is to a degree, but we're smarter about it now.
Once upon a time, hip fractures were treated with bed rest for weeks and weeks until they healed... the mortality rate of hip fractures used to be enormous, and many died from DVT/PE, exactly because of the prolonged immobilization. Hip fractures are now treated, whenever possible (it depends on the configuration of the fracture), with surgical pinning/hip replacement, and rapid mobilization. Some of these people are up and walking the day after surgery. It may seem a bit barbaric, because it's often very painful, but it's better than dying from a blood clot.
Almost all surgical patients are treated this way now. Surgery by itself is a risk factor for development of DVT/PE, and most surgical patients are aggressively mobilized after their surgery, exactly to prevent this deadly complication.
It sounds like your friend had a TIA... a TIA is defined as a stroke-like picture that resolves within 24 hours. If your friend was better in only a few hours, he had a TIA; MUCH better than a stroke. TIAs require a fairly standard workup: Carotid artery ultrasound, cholesterol and clotting studies, EKG, Echocardiogram, etc.
High cholesterol is highly correlated with atherosclerotic disease of the arterial system, so this is probably the main problem with your friend. High levels of LDL cholesterol are correlated with stroke, heart attack, peripheral vascular disease, and so forth (BTW, atherosclerotic disease doesn't happen in just one vascular bed... it happens in all of them. If your cholesterol is bad enough to have a TIA, it wouldn't hurt to have your heart checked out as well).
Of course, there is high cholesterol, and there is REALLY HIGH cholesterol. There is a disorder known as familial hypercholesterolemia, where people have cholesterols in the thousands... they often don't survive past their early 20's.
DVT is virtually never the cause of a stroke, primarily due to anatomic reasons. In order to reach the arterial side of your circulation, your venous blood must pass through the lungs, where the capillary beds catch the clot (this is why DVT leads to a pulmonary embolus). There is one exception to this rule: A person who has a structural abnormality of the heart... such as a atrial or ventricular septal defect. Such a "hole in the heart" may allow a clot to bypass the lungs and go directly to the arterial side.
High cholesterol is usually a larger risk factor for arterial disease than venous insufficiency.
I'm not sure if I answered your question or not.
I suppose in the absence of any other pathology, sedentary lifestyle is as good a reason as any.
The list of possible causes of PVT contains some pretty bad actors... Glad to hear that they referred and treated you appropriately and found nothing.
MUCH better than the alternative.
"Pricks"
C'mon now... is that any way to speak of the people who were literally saving your life?
But you know... that's the most honest feedback I think I've ever heard from someone getting heparin injections!
Thanks... you brought a smile to my face.
If your clot was in the portal venous system, a sedentary lifestyle should have had absolutely nothing to do with that particular thrombosis.
So they never came up with anything? Most people that get PVTs have cirrhosis (probably why they did the liver biopsy), some kind of intraabdominal infection... something.
Check out this article
What you had is extremely rare in normal people...I'm not presuming to tell you what to do; your doctor knows you better than I do. Still, you might consider following up on it sometime, just to make sure everything is kosher.
"Blood thinners" is a very general term. Blood clotting is a fairly complex process, involving one of two clotting cascades (intrinsic and extrinsic). One can inhibit one of these two protein pathways, or one can attack the platelets themselves. Platelet inhibitors are often lumped into the general category of "blood thinners" (asprin is a platelet inhibitor).
Coumadin attacks the vitamin-K-dependent clotting factors (factors 2, 7, 9, and 10) where they are manufactured in the liver. This is why coumadin takes a bit of time to take effect. Heparin is much more immediate, but requires close monitoring of the Partial Thromboplastin Time to ensure adequate anticoagulation. However, there is a different preparation of heparin, called "Low-molecular-weight heparin" that is preferred, since you don't have to monitor it, and as a result it's often used in the outpatient setting to treat DVTs.
The factors that contribute to DVT formation are stasis, injury (I've seen a DVT from being hit in the leg with a baseball), and hypercoagulable state (blood is too thick, or platelets are too sticky). The more factors you have, the greater your risk... but sometimes it's not simply additive. For instance, young women that smoke AND take birth control pills (both make you hypercoagulable) are at greatly increased risk for clots... those two particular risk factors seem to have a synergistic effect.
Most geeks should not get these... Pulmonary Emboli are rare in healthy people. However, if you get a big one (a so-called "saddle embolus") it can turn you out like a light. In the case of large emboli, "clot buster" thrombolytic drugs ARE used, but usually only on a truly unstable, dying-in-front-of-your-eyes patient. Clot buster drugs are NOT benign, and can cause strokes, and uncontrollable bleeding. You'd hate to fix a guy's emobolus, only to have him die from an intracranial bleed. There's a reason those drugs are given very cautiously.
Certain genetic susceptibilities also exist that can make you prone to DVT/PE. Protein C, Protein S, Antithrombin III, Factor V, just to name a few (I'm not a hematologist). If someone in your family gets an unexplained DVT, your doctor will probably be checking all of these and more. If a first-degree family member has one of these that is abnormal, you might consider getting your own blood checked.
one more thing... I have to take issue with the name "E-thrombosis"... sheesh. Why couldn't he just call it a Pulmonary Embolus? Then any doctor would know immediately what he was talking about... God save us from neeto buzzwords.
Where this libertarian argument breaks down is when you consider the healthcare dollars.
Anyone can go to any ER in the United States and they HAVE to be seen and appropriately treated (all that stuff about uninsured people having no access to medical care is crap)... it's federal law. I can't tell you how many illicit drug-related illnesses I've treated; overdoses, infections, complications, drug-induced abortions, etc, etc... the monetary cost is huge.
When someone, decades ago, decided to fund healthcare for society out of public funds (we are about half-socialized already), I don't think they had any idea what they were buying into. Funding healthcare for everyone, regardless of their unhealthy habits, is astronomically expensive. Naturally, this leads to the plea from people who either don't want to pay for the stupidity of others, or want to control the behavior of others
"Look how much money this is costing society!!"
Cmon... even with all absurdity aside, demanding 2.5 million dollars (plus 100k from the actual comment writer) is a bit much. Is this guy so pretentious that he thinks the value to his precious reputation is worth 2.6 million total dollars? Unless this guy sells Monets, I'd say he's bidding a little high.
If he misrepresented his items, and the buyer didn't like it, he can't very well sue the buyer for speaking the truth. Always remember that truth is the ultimate defense against slander/libel. This case, while ridiculous, should come down to the merits... either the items were misrepresented, or they were not. If the seller tried to pull a fast one, and is just upset that he got called on it, then tough... he should be countersued by all parties involved, including Ebay.
Honest feedback is the only thing that Ebay has going for it. Think how great it would be if every place you bought stuff from (car dealers, mechanics, electronics stores, LAWYERS, etc) had this feature...
The article is about a new exploit they are talking about... nothing to do with the current mess.
I'm watching my firewall logs fill up even as I type, and all the 1434 hits are coming from different IPs... no dupes yet that I can see (maybe there are... but I'm not planning on sitting here all night reading logs).
These SQL attacks are coming from a plethora of different ports on the machines that are hitting me... anybody know if this is a normal part of this worm's behavior?
I always liked the Darlocks from the original MOO.
You didn't have to develop a stinkin' thing of your own; all you had to do was steal from everyone else and frame other races for the theft
(insert software company comparison here)
You could keep the other races fighting against one another while you built huge fleets full of incredible dreadnoughts. Let the plunder begin!
Ah... I miss that game.
people apparently left out the "nurture" part of the equation entirely.
It seems to me an incredible stretch that people actually believed their pet's behavior/personality was hard-coded in the DNA.... but maybe that's just my studied-the-hard-sciences-all-my-life bias.
Behaviors are very complex things... both genetic tendency and environmental interaction play important roles. Even in psychiatric disorders that have strong genetic links (schizophrenia, bipolar disorder) having both parents (or an identical twin) afflicted will only buy the child or sibling a 50-60% chance (give or take 10%) of developing the disorder.
Yes, genes are the building blocks of our bodies... but you have to give nurture its chance at bat.
Thank God for free online reference.
If you've ever priced a full set of encyclopedia... whew... it's around 1200$
100,000 articles is great... The more the merrier.
Cars already have unique identifiers (license plates), but those have to be visually read and interpreted by a human being... THAT'S the difference.
It's the work of 2 minutes to swap plates with a similar-appearing car in some parking lot... but a bit harder to swap out tires; most people keep the same set for years... 50-60K miles is 3-4+ years of driving for the average american. If implanting microchips in the human body hits a roadblock (privacy concerns, "number-of-the-beast" arguments), then why not track the vehicle? It's practically the same thing.
Vehicles are used mostly by single individuals, or single households with driving-age teenagers. Knowing where a vehicle goes is knowing what the household does. Marketing types have feverish dreams about the kind of demographic data you could gather with this.
This could also be useful for law enforcement, but not in the immediate future. What the law-enforcement-as-big-brother scenario lacks is a network of tranmitter/receiver modules embedded in the roads and curbs. Once those are commonplace, automated tracking of a vehicle becomes a piece of cake.
Most people don't realize just how labor-intensive a good surveillance operation can be. You need multiple teams, several different vehicles, and personnel skilled in the art of being unobtrusive. Visually surveiling someone requires manpower, training, and can be difficult under the best of circumstances (let alone at night, or in bad weather). GPS units are being used for this, but planting them can be a challenge, and a technically saavy target could detect or jam the transmission. Unique IDs in the tires and a network of readers might not give up-to-the-second velocity and position data, but they might be good enough...
Car 1: "I got caught at the traffic light... lost 'im"
Dispatcher: "He just took 131st street west... Car 2, turn right and pick him up at the next cross-street"
Car 2: "got it"
I hope every wanna-be sniper reads that article in Time Magazine.
The DC "snipers" were anything but. They were amateurs through and through, and showed no real knowledge or expertise in precision shooting.
I hope every nutcase who want to snipe does what they did... it will significantly limit their damage potential. Look at Charles Whitman, the University of Texas shooter. He did much more damage in a much shorter period of time, at much longer distances, and with MUCH greater accuracy than the DC snipers. He knew how to shoot, had the appropriate hardware to do it, and was motivated (he also got what he deserved).
This is often the problem with "free" information... you never know whether it's any good or not.
Caveat Emptor.
Those are property crimes.
Violent crimes would be Aggravated Burglary (which requires force or threat of force against the occupant of the dwelling being burglarized), Robbery or Aggravated Robbery (depending on severity of the injury/threat to the victim).
would he use the slashing motion with the knife, or that vicious overhand stab?
I bet he's a bunny-hopper...