Hey, Kids, Did You Know...?

     A couple of medical researchers won a half-share in a Nobel Prize in 2015 for work on the use of an Ivermectin-family drug against parasitic infections in humans.  No, it's true; their work was on river blindness and elephantiasis, but the stuff works great on parasitic worms in general and bodily infestations like scabies.  The link goes to the Nobel committee's website, which we can take as definitive.

     However, this family of drugs still doesn't do squat for viral respiratory infections -- and that's been shown by controlled experiment.

     This is in response to the same lunatic who keeps returning to my comments section like a dog to its vomit (that's Shakespeare), and whose falsehoods can be refuted in seconds with access to a decent search engine or even a recent encyclopedia.

     Y'know, it's one thing when people believe fringe stuff that is difficult to look up or figure out, wacky quantum theories or whatever; it's one thing when people choose to believe religious mysticism that is inherently impossible to refute.  But opting for comic-book level crap that makes zero sense, pushed by blatant quacks out to profit from the credulous, years after the rug's been yanked out from under it by genuine, verifiable science -- why?  As some kind of banner of group affiliation?  Give it up, loser.  It's just one more dead end, right down there in the slime with the Stars & Bars and the horrible hooky cross.

     Fun as it is to mock this kind of deliberate ignorance, this is his last appearance, even as an offstage source of goofiness.

Oh, Fer Theluva....

      Made a nice big breakfast, hacking and a bit dizzy, sat down, ate about half of it...and my temperature spiked.  Badly.  Sweat just pouring off.

     So much for the whole "fever broke."

Maybe I Broke

     Still having a little of the up-and-down, hot-and-cold sweats and shivers, but far worse, I'm still sneezing and coughing up eech.  So I'm still home.  No point in spreading that if I can avoid it, and I certainly don't want it coming back around with a new set of mutations.

     I did get a couple of fairly solid chunks of sleep last night and this morning.  One of them was over three hours!  That cats have about had it with me; Holden spent a little time sleeping at my feet last night but eventually gave up because I couldn't keep still.

Fever Broke

     The fever broke for me about three a.m., leaving me sweat-slick and weak but in the moment.  I still felt sick, but I felt normal sick, not like a puppet being alternately dangled over the cookstove and the icebox.

     It's both better and worse; being so much more present means accepting that I feel like I have been beaten up, or maybe tried to run yesterday's mini-marathon and collapsed.  I'm sore all over, joints and ribs especially, and I'm still coughing and sneezing.

     But it seems as if an end to this cold is possible, as opposed to the last two days of grimly hanging on.

Oh, Fun

     Not only am I still sick -- last night was miserable, though slightly less so than the night before -- I'm still getting comments from the Ignorant Peasant contingent.

     Hey, I get it: you jerks are so full of yourselves that you cannot conceive that you might be wrong and hundreds of thousands of actual experts in various fields of study might be right; I understand that you believe your stinking, unwashed thumb is one standard inch wide and no icky centimeters need apply.  But the reality is, you're wrong, you're annoying and you need to go away.

     You had your chance and you blew it, not once but thousands of times over.  You showed yourself to be prejudiced dupes.  You turned your back on the Scientific Method and the Age of Reason.  Go howl in the darkness, losers, and not at me.  Your way brings nothing but terror, pestilence and early death.

     (And for the aghast few, wondering "Is this me?"  The answer is easy to find: do you think vaccines work?  Do you think we had a real, actual global pandemic?  Do you think our elections are generally honest?  If so, it's not you.)

Call Me "Lucky"

     Yes, Lucky.  Not only have I picked up a cold or flu, I have now got a commenter who wants me to know that since "pharma did not fix you," the obvious next step is (drumroll, please!)....

     Horse dewormer!

     Yeah, no, and here's why:

     It doesn't work.  It got serious study by serious medical types, in actual double-blind studies, and it did not work.  And do you know how we can tell that?  Because if it worked, the pharmaceutical companies would have fiddled up proprietary versions of it, patented them and sold them to you, me and everyone for big bucks.  Not because they're eeeeevil but because they are morally neutral and exist to make money, period.  And they can't make a single skinny dime from a "miracle cure" they are suppressing.  Dead people don't have health insurance.  Dead people don't write checks.

     If you've got horse worms and you are the kind of cheap-ass who values saving money over risky treatments, then by all means, take the veterinary medicine and good luck. You may find the dosage is a little high.  Your judgment may improve once you get those worm cysts out of your brain.

     As for "pharma" and the flu, every year's formulation for the flu shot represents the expert best guess about what varieties we will be facing in the coming year.  It's a gamble, and not only is there an occasional big miss, there are small misses every year, limited-circulation special editions of the virus.  I might have one of those.  I might have a bad cold.  I might even have COVID-19, though I doubt it.  Hell, maybe I'm a lunger and the TB has finally flared up so bad I won't be able to ignore it.  I will find out using a classic medical approach endorsed by doctors the world over when they haven't any "silver bullet:" The Tincture Of Time.  I'll either get better (hooray!) or I won't (boo).  If I'm not on the mend by Sunday morning, I'll inflict myself on a telecdoc of some flavor and go from there.  But it's 2024, in one of the most advanced nations on Earth, and I have access to decent care.  The odds favor getting through this with nothing more than OTC palliative relief.

     Last but not least, my clever correspondent breathlessly informed me, "kind of odd that the year of Covid was also the year of no other flu...."  Nope, it wasn't odd at all.  It was predictable.  The measures we put into place, however imperfectly (looking at you, would-be commenter) of distancing, masks, handwashing, isolation of the sick and so on are exactly what you do to control the spread of a respiratory virus -- like, for example, the flu.  It worked so well that we appear to have wiped out one strain of Yamagata Type B.  What, did you think these blind biological robots knew which ones we were trying to control, and all the rest were olly-olly oxen free?  That is not how it works.

     I can't stop you being an idiot and I wouldn't even if I could.  But all your attempted comments are going to get here is mockery -- if they get even that.

     Science works.  Medicine works.  Prescription drugs work -- they may charge you all they can get away with, but they had to prove the the stuff works or they wouldn't be allowed to sell it.*  It's not some kind of scam deal where you pick the scammer who best appeals to your preexisting prejudices.
______________________
* In the case of COVID-19 vaccines, they got to jump the line based on promising early results and the magnitude of the threat -- but approval was conditional and they still had to keep on running the process of proving the vaccines were safe and effective.  Which they did, hooray, and yet still the idiots try to cast aspersions.

I Am So Sick

     I have no idea with what.  Probably not bird flu; the 2023-24 flu shut included protection again H1N1 family viruses, which it is.

     Tam has been coughing and achy for nearly a week, and had blamed it on kicking off the covers on a cold night and getting super-chilled.  I'm not so sure.  Based on my experience last night, that might have been an effect, not a cause.

     All day yesterday, I was kind of achy and coughing a little.  But it's allergy season and that's what happens, so I ignored it.  By the time I was home and in the thick of Trash Night -- policing the refrigerator and freezer for me, plus changing two litterboxes -- I was miserable.  Slogged my way through it, took acetaminophen and went to bed.

     Nodded off and woke a half hour later, freezing.  Teeth chattering.  I added a blanket and went back to sleep, tucking it under.  I was tortured by joint and muscle aches.  After an hour of that, I gave up and changed to heavy flannel nightgown and managed to fall asleep, waking every few minutes to try for a more comfortable position.  But hey, I was sleeping!  Kind of.

     Started to warm up, hooray!  Except it went past comfort to too hot.  I peeled back covers and sweated.  Took off the nightgown and pulled the sheet over.  Nope, too hot.  Finally fell asleep uncovered for a couple of hours.  I never ever sleep that way.  I can't.  I get too cold.  But there I was.

     Woke up chilled.  Added a blanket.  Nope.  Put the heavy nightgown back on, pulled the quilt over and fell asleep, waking every hour to try to find a better position where I ached less.

     All this time, I'm coughing, clearing my sinuses, and so on.  As you might guess, once again, I woke up too hot (not as bad as the previous time) and adjusted covers, ending up with none.  I managed about three hours sleep straight through before waking-up time.  I fed the cats and went back to bed.

     The only way though this is going through it.  I got every shot recommended for old folks and something slipped by.  I haven't had any majorly feverish episodes for some time and I am alternating aspirin with acetaminophen, but the sore throat, dripping sinus and aches continue.

Frustration

     I've been clumsy this morning -- dropping a nice thin slice of ham intended for my breakfast sandwich, spilling coffee and generally off-balance.  I seem to have picked up a touch of whatever Tam's been ailing from and that's not helping.

     To make matters worse, there's a project planned for work today that could go very wrong, and as a matter of practicality, I will be nowhere near it.  Instead, I'll be at the midpoint, between either of two locations where I might be needed.  It could be exciting, or not.  Here's hoping it works as planned.

Not Gonna Do It

     In response to my post yesterday, pointing out that everyone involved in the current round campus protests and responses are more-or-less hapless boobs, coping as best as they can figure out, I got a couple of comments -- comments singling out one group or another as particularly pitiable or despicable.

     That wasn't my point.  It's not even close.  It's just about the opposite.  And I'm not going to debate it.

     Nobody involved is, in actual fact, in Israel or nearby, kicking in doors, taking hostages, breaking heads,* bombing people, animals or buildings, killing or being killed, maiming or being maimed.  The protesters think there should be less damage and killing (and are trying to ensure the institutions they are attending, working for or bothering are not enabling it) and, surprise, so do many of the university administrators and police, only not quite as strongly.  Their clash is over means, not ends.  Or maybe it's over whether you should watch the fire burn or try to put it out, however futile your efforts.

     Many of the people directly involved in the actual conflict think they can kill, maim, kidnap and bomb their way to a better tomorrow -- a plan that has piled up millennia of not working especially well in that part of the world, though who am I to tell 'em?

     I've got about as much right to do so as any random college student in this country.  Or as you.  They're probably not going to listen.
___________________________
* With the possible exception of yet another group (not students, college staff or police) in California, where it appears thugs attacked protestors at UCLA with blunt-force weapons.  Reports have not named any group taking responsibility, but does it matter?  Initiating force against people who have not done so to you is immoral and unacceptable. Wave your own damn signs all you like, but you don't get to hit the other sign-wavers over the head with clubs.

Protest, Protest, Pick Yourself A...Sides?

     What?  Protests on America's college campuses?  Who would'a thunk it?

     Seriously, if the phrase "campus protest" surprises you, you must have been asleep since, um, pretty much forever.  Young people, exploring the anteroom of adulthood, most of them out from under direct parental control for the first time, expressing strong opinions?  Heavens to Murgatroyd!

     And we are, of course, urged to choose a side by the pundits, talking heads, and everybody's opinionated uncle and loudmouthed niece on social media.  Why, one side is clearly wrong and the other is clearly right, and if only we weren't so blind, we'd see that.  And to prove it, we've got politicians and preachers who were having lunch with crypto-neo-nazis just last week tsk-tsking the dangers of unchecked antisemitism on one side, vs. LGBT protesters for strongly anti-gay Hamas on the other (etc.), and so on and so forth.

     Maybe take a step back.  Dead civilians are an offense to common decency, no matter who they were in life or what their own opinions were, and if there's one thing the ongoing conflict between the government of Israel and Hamas has produced in excess, it's the lifeless bodies of the innocent.  Young people occupying open spaces, shouting slogans at one another, waving signs, getting into shoving matches, graffitiing buildings and dorm-room doors isn't going to resolve it -- but neither is sending in police with shields, pepper spray, clubs and guns to roust them out.  It's probably not even going to do a very good job of clearing out those spaces.

     And while it is very easy to cast all sides as monolithic blocks, it's not useful.  Police vary from reluctant to bored to eager; administrators from distantly sympathetic to intransigent to spineless to fearful.  Protestors?  Pro-Israel, Pro-Palestine, Pro-Hamas, antisemitic, anti-Zionist, pacifists to direct action types to jaded children of privilege, excited to really feel something even if they're not clear what.  And they're all jammed in there, on college greens and parks, inside your TV or phone screen, spinning out soundbites like sparks from a forge. No side is all one thing and if you get pulled in, you're only adding to the noise.

     There are occasional public events where one side is clearly bad; there are a few where one side is unmistakably good.  Most of them are far murkier and this set of protests is typical.  Adding bruised, arrested kids (and professors and whoever) here to the toll already piled up in and around Gaza isn't going to reduce the injury, and history tells us it doesn't necessarily end there.

     It'd be nice to get some functional adulting working on this problem before it spins into blood and PTSD for all involved.  We're damned unlikely to get any in the Middle East any time soon.  I'm not much more optimistic about over here.

Oh, Monday

     Not just oh, Monday, but oh, this week.  My employer, like many, is doing more with less, and I am very much one of the few this week.  Probably one of the least busy, but still more than usual, so I'll be posting when I can.

Maybe...Maybe...?

     The whole "I have thwacked my shin" saga began with me trying to do laundry and the drive belt in the dryer breaking.  It's been an ongoing part of the process.

     Consumer goods fret me.  The stuff I work on for a living is expected to run 24/7/365 with minimal downtime.  It's often more than a little overbuilt and it's not uncommon to find gadgets that are over a half-century old and still in operating condition.  Documentation is usually extensive, detailed and supplied with the equipment.  Consumer stuff is built to a price; it's as sturdy as it needs to be, but no more.  Bend the wrong thing and you can be a long time putting it right.  Service information is spotty, and frequently "universal," covering several variations and counting on your ability to figure out which one applies.  So I go into it worrying.  It's not my milieu and I will hire professionals when I think I'm getting in over my head.  The people who work on this kind of stuff all day every day can do a much better job of it than I can.

     But hey, this was just a broken belt, right?  Once I had the new belt and installed it, I managed to get a couple of loads of laundry done, but the dryer was running rough.  It was shaking and shivering enough that it knocked the duct loose.  By then, I had replacement rollers, a pair of rubber-tire wheels that support the drum at the back, and so I decided to install them.  The online videos that I found made it look pretty straightforward, pull the drum, take off the E-clips holding the old rollers, pull the wheels and a couple of washers, remove the spindle assemblies (little axles fastened to a base that is held in place by two screws), then install the new parts in opposite order and set the drum back in place, thread the drive belt and close up the dryer.  Fiddly but doable.

     First problem: with the bruised leg, I wasn't very mobile.  But hey, okay, I'd work carefully and take my time.

     Second problem: I didn't have much energy.  I made my first try on a work night and had to abandon the effort with the dryer pulled away from the wall and opened up, the belt unthreaded and the drum removed.

     Third problem, seeing doctors about the leg issue.  That took time and energy.

     Fourth problem: Once I got back on the job, I swapped out the roller assemblies -- and the drum would not go back into place.  It just would not fit.  I tried three times.  It hadn't been that hard to remove!  What was I doing wrong?  I looked at the videos, found some others, and the pros were just setting the drum back in like it was nothing.  I gave it another try.  No dice.  By then I was pretty tired.  I posed the question in an online forum and went to bed.

     The next morning, I had the online writer's group -- an hour of manuscript critiquing with a few people, an hour's break, and then the general meeting with an interesting speaker for a couple of hours.  I napped after that, checked the online forum -- no replies -- and went downstairs.  What was I missing?  I'd left the drum sitting in the dryer and I looked it over: the off-center dark mark around it from the belt, and, near the back, the tan mark from--

     What was that from?  I'd been digging around in the dryer for several days by that point, and had looked over drawings and watched videos, and there's nothing, nothing that bears on the drum at that point.  The rollers run in a little gutter at the very back, where the diameter is stepped down, with a similar section at the front, both pressing against a felt seal, and there's a simple curved support at...  At the...  Front.

     Yes, I'd spent a day trying to install the drum backwards.  The front and rear openings are not the same diameter.  The tan mark should have been at the front, where the simple support carries the drum.  I had taken the drum out, turned it ninety degrees and set it down on a laundry basket and then, the next day, lifted it, turned it ninety degrees more and set it in place backwards, confident everything was a-okay.

     Every trade has its tricks, but they all have one in common: pay attention to what you are doing and put things back together the same way they came out.  I hadn't.

     After cleaning the little gutter with rubbing alcohol, Q-tips, paper toweling and elbow grease (there was a lot of lumpy residue stuck in it from the old rubber tires), I lifted the drum out the front of the dryer, turned it one hundred eighty degrees, and it set right back in place nice as could be, supported by the new rollers and up against the rear seal.  I rethreaded the belt, lined up the front of the dryer, fastened it back into place, and lowered the lid onto its clips.  The drum turned smoothly by hand.

     That was late last night.  I went upstairs and made dinner, realized I had misplaced my work gloves, and spent an anxious several minutes thinking I was going to have to open up the dryer again before discovering I had put them on top of a small shop vacuum cleaner.

     This morning, with Tam looking on, I hooked up the exhaust duct (with a new elbow to move it away from the power cord -- I've been disliking that for years) and gave it a test run, without heat and then with heat.  So far, so good.  I've run one load of laundry through it and there's another one tumbling as I type.

     Maybe it's fixed.  We'll see.