if i had a nickel every time someone made a drawing of rocky working at home depot i would have two nickels which isn't a lot but it actually means the entire world and even more to me
i think what makes the black tapes work as a love story where it kind of eventually fails at being a paranormal mystery is ultimately strand's core ethos - his impregnable belief that the supernatural does not exist and cannot be proven to do so - is something he (not unwillingly, but immediately) will abandon every single time for the people he loves. tell me why alex is trying to convince a man who is on the brink of convincing himself the supernatural exists? bc she loves him and so ultimately, he has to choose to believe both of those things.
text: [ “Some of you have forgotten that only three years ago you were perfectly capable of writing an essay, writing a eulogy, telling a bedtime story to a child, and it should worry you that powerful companies have convinced us we can’t do things we’ve been doing for 5000 years.” ]
And they're absolutely specifically pushing it, make no mistake. It's not just a matter of "it's there, it's convenient, so people are going to take the path of the least resistance", it is a legitimate and concerted effort on the part of these companies to get people to outsource all these things to their models.
They're preying on insecurities to do it. Yes, you can write an essay - but can you write a good essay, they ask you. Do you not want to improve your output? Do you not want people to think of you as competent and very clever? Why go through the mortifying process of failing and failing and failing until you succeed if you can just skip the "learning" part of doing, and simply generate a ready-made product?
I'm preaching to the choir here obviously but it's a concerning thing to witness nonetheless. My kid is 6 next week and I've been teaching her that failing at things is morally neutral and in fact necessary even before the advent of AI, but it's becoming ever more important that we teach the kids that criticism and failure and discomfort aren't necessarily bad things, but just a part of the growth process.
AI companies are heavily invested in making themselves relevant. They want people to believe they can't do the things they have done unaided before and to make them become reliant on the AI models, so the AI models' existence is artificially justified.
I saw a comment on your blog that says 'the way you eat does not cause diabetes'...are you able to expand on that or provide a source I could read? I've been told by doctors that my pre-diabetes was due to weight gain because I get more hungry on my anti psychotics and I'd like to fact check what they've told me! Thank you so much!
There are a lot more factors at play in diabetes — more complicated than “I had a cupcake at lunch.”
Pre-diabetes was rejected as a diagnosis by the World Health Organization (although it is used by the US and UK) - the correct term for the condition is impaired glucose tolerance. Approximately 2% of people with "pre-diabetes" go on to develop diabetes per year. You heard that right - TWO PERCENT. Most diabetics actually skip the pre-diabetic phase.
There are currently no treatments for pre-diabetes besides intentional weight loss. (Hmm, that's convenient, right?) There has yet to be evidence that losing weight prevents progression from pre-diabetes to T2DM beyond a year. Interestingly, drug companies are trying to persuade the medical world to start treating patients earlier and earlier. They are using the term “pre-diabetes” to sell their drugs (including Wegovy, a weight-loss drug). Surgeons are using it to sell weight loss surgery. Everyone’s a winner, right? Not patients. Especially fat patients.
Check out these articles:
Prediabetes: The epidemic that never was, and shouldn’t be
The war on ‘prediabetes' could be a boon for pharma—but is it good medicine?
Also - I love what Dr. Asher Larmie @fatdoctorUK has to say about T2DM and insulin resistance, so here's one of their threads I pulled from Twitter:
1️⃣ You can't prevent insulin resistance. It's coded in your DNA. It may be impacted by your environment. Studies have shown it has nothing to do with your BMI.
2️⃣ The term "pre-diabetes" is a PR stunt. The correct term is impaired glucose tolerance (or impaired fasting glucose) which is sometimes referred to as intermittent hyperglycemia. It does not predict T2DM. It is best ignored and tested for every 3-5yrs.
3️⃣ there is no evidence that losing weight prevents diabetes. That's because you can't reverse insulin resistance. You can possibly postpone it by 2yrs? Furthermore there is evidence that those who are fat at the time of diagnosis fair much better than those who are thin.
4️⃣ Weight loss does not reverse diabetes in the VAST majority of people. Those that do reverse it are usually thinner with recent onset T2DM and a low A1c. Only a tiny minority can sustain that over 2yrs. Weight loss does not improve A1c levels beyond 2 yrs either.
5️⃣ Weight loss in T2DM does not improve macrovascular or microvascular health outcomes beyond 2 years. In fact, weight loss in diabetics is associated with increased mortality and morbidity (although it is not clear why). Weight cycling is known to impacts A1c levels.
6️⃣ Weight GAIN does NOT increase the risk of cardiovascular OR all causes mortality in diabetics. In fact, one might even go so far as to say that it's better to be fat and diabetic than to be thin and diabetic.
Dr. Larmie cites 18 peer reviewed journal articles (most from the last decade) that are included in their webinar on the subject, linked below.
yes but be careful not to abdicate your responsibility for healing these wounds once you are aware of them. you deserve better than to live your entire life responding to trauma that happened decades ago. and the people around you especially do not deserve to be held responsible for trauma they did not even put in you.
Drug arrives years after pandemic’s peak, but could still offer protection to vulnerable populations.
An antiviral pill has, for the first time, been shown to prevent COVID-19 in people exposed to the SARS-CoV-2 virus at home, according to trial results published today in the New England Journal of Medicine1.
The drug could be a lifeline for those who still face real danger from the virus, such as care-home residents or transplant recipients on immune-suppressing medication.