Afib supplement update

I had a bit of afib last night for the first time in quite a while ... I bought a spade and co smartwatch recently thinking that would detect it:

But it registered a faster heartbeat that normal and that was it.

The Apple Watch supposedly will do this, but I have this watch instead.

I have recently been taking 7 x 99 mg potassium twice a day, thinking that was enough.

After this morning's episode, I finally looked at the daily recommendation:

4700 mg! And it's ok to go to 7000 mg! So I am starting with 24 x 2 99mg caps and may well go to 35 x 2 99 caps pretty soon.

Hope this helps all you Afib sufferers out there!

How Tesla finally lost me as a potential customer

 I've been vaguely following Tesla since the original Roadster came out in 2008. I never was too excited about it until this friend of mine got one and I got to ride in it. Wow!

I thought that the blind spot warning display (as above) was worth the price of admission.

I rented a Model Y from Hertz for my birthday last year:

It had an even updated version of the software I had seen before. I just got 220v installed in the garage here and was rubbing my hands until I can get one.

Then this news story came out last week ... to no response at all from Tesla.

That's enough of Tesla for me.

I put $100 down on my next car a while back. Check the video below for details on this one.

If I happen to have $10000 extra lying around I can invest it in Aptera and jump the line. Otherwise mine is supposed to be delivered sometime in 2024.

Dust mite allergy identified after 15 years ...

This is a dust mite:

 I had a sinus infection for most of the period 2008-2010 ... finally started changing my pillowcases every couple of days and got rid of it.

But this winter I started another one, lasting for a couple of months and ongoing.

My go-to fix for any runny nose problem has been

This works well, but caused my first (of my life):

Yep, a nosebleed. So no more Zyrtec.

I visited my "primary care team" and got diagnosed with "rhinitis" (a sinus problem that they don't know the cause of) ... and got supplied with (1) Claritin (works a bit for 3 hours tops) ... was offered Flonase, but major risk factor was nosebleeds so no thanks. Then was prescribed an antibiotic with no extra exam to find out if the sinus problem was bacterial or what ... I took a course of them; no difference.

Finally got onto the Modern Nose Clinic in Bellevue WA, which (a) did a CT Scan of my nose (pretty clear, just a little snurfling) and scheduled an allergy test for the next week.

I got the allergy test, where they put these plastic grids of slightly sharp delivery blobs of allergen into your arms. 

I got my allergy report today, and despite a little technology glitch getting the report to me, I got results that didn't (mostly) surprise me:

Focusing on the dust mites, the solution:

Make sure you have 3 sets of bedding (including the pillowcases); put the one you take off your bed first in the freezer.

Then when you take it out of the freezer, wash the set in very hot water:

Dry that one and keep one fresh one on the bed, the latest off the bed in the freezer, and one folded on the shelf and ready.

Also remove any throw pillows, Teddy Bears, etc. from your bedroom:

And no more dust mites so you can breathe freely!

 

If you have any money at all, you'll want a PPO and not an HMO

I had no idea ...

I generally haven't needed medical care (except ophthamology and dentistry), so it didn't seem to make much difference whether I signed up for an HMO or a PPO ...

It doesn't make a difference until you need it ... several months ago I came down with a non-life-threatening but very annoying set of symptoms and needed to get a referral from my HMO.

This was delayed for 10 days here, 10 days there, etc., with my condition worsening every day .. Finally I had a provider call me to cancel an appointment because the referral hadn't come in yet. In desperation I finally said "what if I pay cash?" She said, OK, let me get that number for you .. it turned out to be ... $274.

Since one of the incentive for signing up with an HMO is one of cost (HMO free, PPO $100 to $200 per month) ... I chose the free version, but to undo the couple of months' delay built into the HMO system, how much would I have paid? $2000? $3000? It's hard to measure, but easily something like that.

Just a warning to anyone considering this choice ...

Scanners don't work across the net for Macs, but Linux is fine (after a driver update for Linux)

 We are on our second recent printer ... the first one was the underwhelming Epson Ecotank 2850:

It sort of worked ... stopped printing and needed to be restarted every time it ran out of paper, scan wouldn't work across the network at all reliably (I may have gotten this to sort of work once on the Macintosh) ... generally a disappointment.

I fortunately got the scan to work on my Linux machine ... more about this one later.

We ordered a "real" printer ... a Brother HL3290CDW ..

This is a newer version of one we used pretty hard for 5 years: MFCsomethingCDW it uses a 4-drum toner system that took a bit more effort than the Epson to get working but works reliably on printing with none of the glitches of the Epson.

But! Scanning from this one to the Macintosh (standard Mac System Preferences) doesn't work either!

This one also works with Linux to scan, but I remember now that there was this "control center" software for the Mac that worked but had a terrible UI and I couldn't expect my nontech wife to use it as she's the mac user left in play ... 

But now there's a new one listed: Brother iPrint&Scan ... looks as though it's had a better UI team than the computer programmers that had control of the last one:

This should make my wife be able to scan happily (I hope!)

You thought Trump was bad? Take a look at Woodrow Wilson and his henchmen

 I just read this book:

You thought Donald Trump and company were bad? During World War I, the Woodrow Wilson administration and its allies ran roughshod over the U.S. Constitution and the rights of U.S. Citizens.

For example this guy expressed opposition to World War I in public:

Eugene V. Debs, American Socialist Political Leader

He was charged under the Espionage Act and imprisoned for 5+ years .. just for expressing his opinion!

The IWW, a union movement, was brutally suppressed, its members tarred and feathered:

 and in many cases even murdered!

All of this was the same impulse that showed itself most recently here in the Trump Administration and its acolytes, especially on January 6, 2021:

It can happen again! Don't forget to vote!

Helium mining: I quit! (Total revenue $17.22 over 8 months)

 I just unplugged my helium miner ... the price crash continued:

I made a total of $17.22 over the 8.5 months I had my miner running ... And then yesterday I turned off T-mobile (which the miner was the last piece of equipment using (see my comparison posted recently) ) 

Then my new wallet (that I set up yesterday when prompted by the helium app) with the exciting $17.22 in it ... went back to 0!

Apparently the miner has to be UP for this to show up ... also the helium app showed the miner UP even though it was unplugged!

So: I give up on this: total loss: