26 March 2025

"There could be billions more people on Earth than previously thought." Not to panic. It's just that they may have counted wrong before. It's not like a whole continent was recently discovered. I won't notice any difference, and neither will you.

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"I traded my U.S. medical career for life in Canada. Here’s how the two health systems stack up." Interesting read on how the two systems compare. This is just an ED doc's perspective. It's sad that Americans have more of an adversarial relationship with physicians. And medicine seems to be increasingly more about the billing codes. This really got worse when Obamacare came on the scene. As physicians became hospital employees and got paid far less than before, all attention was paid to these codes, and ways to game the system to get higher billiing codes.

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“If you’re asking about products over Alexa, you’re going to see that behavior also reflected on the web,” Choffnes says. “If you go to Amazon.com, for example, you’ll see recommendations based on what you asked.”

Even when Google was able to draw on a user’s behavior, it still frequently profiled people incorrectly. According to the study, Google was able to correctly profile a married person with 70% accuracy but could only do so with 10% accuracy for people who are “in a relationship.”
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Nearly 100% of bacteria can be identified in 3 hours. This uses FISH probes using artificial peptide nucleic acids to target sequences in the bacteria. This tech is from South Korea, and reminds me of ddPCR used to identify mutations in circulating tumor DNA. This will be revolutionary if it can be widely adopted, as it may obviate the need for much of empiric antibiotic therapy, and allow for a more tailored approach.

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Wow, this Super Grandma lives in Oregon. Looks like Bend more than Portland. Staying active and avoiding sarcopenia is key.

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Three articles from Fortune paint a gloomy picture for GenZ and millennials:
Not looking good, and Trump will not forgive their student loans.
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Gee, who didn't see that coming?  Seattle’s payroll tax collects less than expected.  Better figure it out soon – those homeless will need their food and supplies.

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We had a taxpayer-funded FHA mortgage program for illegal aliens???  WTF, man.

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