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glfharris

112 karma · joined August 3, 2014

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glfharris··on Anki ownership transferred to AnkiHub
Sadly, their entire business is built on paywalling content the community built and distributed for free.
glfharris··on Fish have a brain microbiome – could humans have one too?
CSF sampling is a routine investigation in most hospitals. We don't typically see bacteria in these samples, when we do, its in the form of bacterial meningitis, hence the skepticism.
glfharris··on The lumbar puncture that changed my life
I'm a doctor training in anaesthesia. The idea with epidurals is to introduce local anaesthetic outside the compartment where the spinal cord is, literally epi-- --durally.

To sample the CSF, or to give a spinal anaesthetic, the needle needs to be introduced into the subarachnoid (one of the membranes that surrounds the central nervous system) space, but at a level below where the spinal cord has terminated. This is why they're done in the lower back typically.

Bending over is a totally legitimate way to perform them, and doesn't really alter the complication rate, while making the procedure easier. Also, there isn't really any realistic option to perform them in real time with imaging guidance. The author is right in that larger cutting needles are associated with increased rates of PDPH.

glfharris··on Mistral Large
I was thinking the exact same thing last month[1]! It's really interesting what the implications of this might be, and how valuable human-derived content might become. There's still this idea of model collapse, whereby the output of LLMs trained repeatedly on artificial content descends into what we think is gibberish, so however realistic ChatGPT appears, there are still significant differences between its writing and ours.

[1]: https://www.glfharris.com/posts/2024/low-background-lexicogr...

glfharris··on Vice website is shutting down
I suppose that's where things like tip jars work quite well. To reward useful but otherwise niche content.
glfharris··on German credit agency earns millions through unlawful customer manipulation
It's very similar in the UK. Most estate agents will use a third party these days, but the amount of information you have to hand over is ridiculous.
glfharris··on The appendix is not, in fact, useless
Just making a dumb joke that if it's the pathologist that's the person removing an appendix, they're probably dead already.
glfharris··on I designed a cube that balances itself on a corner
Totally does work, lots of spacecraft use reaction wheels to control attitude.
glfharris··on The appendix is not, in fact, useless
There are lots of ways things don't work. The plumbing can be connected up wrong or the pumps can not work.
glfharris··on The appendix is not, in fact, useless
He's a pathologist, so if he has removed someone's appendix they'd probably be dead. Pedantry aside, your point still stands.
glfharris··on Show HN: Improve cognitive focus in 1 minute
Interesting, I saw the same!
glfharris··on Vesuvius Challenge 2023 Grand Prize awarded: we can read the first scroll
I'm pretty sure there are academics who would bite their own legs off for tax records from this period.
glfharris··on Beeper – Moving Forward
Does this matter to them though? Does apple care about having the dominant messaging platform if it's no longer a hook to get people to buy apple devices.
glfharris··on Ivan Illich’s radical critique of modern certitudes (2021)
That's so much more readable, even as someone who's read some Illich.
glfharris··on Google can turn ANC earbuds into a heart rate monitor with no extra hardware
There's unfortunately only so much you can achieve with scalp-based electrodes. The applications everyone dreams about - like fine BCI or controlling robotic arms - are hard to achieve with signals once they've had to pass through the cranium.
glfharris··on Focused Ultrasound
Describing it as a best kept secret seems unnecessarily adversarial. The medical community aren't jealously guarding treatments from the populace.

Arguably shock wave lithotripsy, a common method for breaking up kidney stones, could be described as focused ultrasound.

glfharris··on TV doctors say annual checkups save lives – real doctors call bullshit (2016)
It's not as simple as you're suggesting. Take cancer screening for example. Doing more investigations and more procedures for things that weren't going to become problematic puts people at risk for the complications of those procedures.

Screening programmes need to be carefully thought out, not only from a cost-benefit, but from an actual risks vs benefits perspective.

glfharris··on Significant breakthrough in search for Parkinson's biomarker
I think that is being unfair. It's the sad reality that for many neurological conditions we don't have good treatments or cures. However, things like levodopa are godsends for many with Parkinsons, for example.
glfharris··on Vesuvius Challenge
Fantastic project. Amazing to think that there's an entire first century library just waiting for the technology to be read.
glfharris··on A Welsh firm breeding maggots to heal wounds
I'm a doctor in the UK. We used them for vascular patients with poor wound healing/ulcers.
glfharris··on A Welsh firm breeding maggots to heal wounds
I've prescribed these for some patients. Always funny when they arrive in little sachets to the wards, and sometimes takes a little bit of explaining just what we're recommending!
glfharris··on Less gym time, same results: Why ‘lowering’ weights is all you need to do
I'm not sure linking to a post detailing the PEDs alongside their routine is typical of the average person who does bodybuilding style training.
glfharris··on Fencer Matthias Behr takes in relatives of the opponent he stabbed (2022)
The foils can break, leaving a sharp tip that is more able to pierce protective clothing.
glfharris··on What’s the strangest thing you ever found in a book?
I have an interest in medical books from the first half of the 20th Century. It's fascinating what you can find, even in books that have been passed through many sets of hands.

In one, I found a stockbrocker's letter and managed to trace the owner to his historic pubmed articles (all > 100 years old), as well as obituaries and probable descendants on WikiTree.

glfharris··on Medical student surgically implants Bluetooth into own ear to cheat in final
By chance, I am a doctor. I spend a lot of time looking things up, even things I'm 80% sure about.

Yes, it's useful to have that knowledge already, and to that I'd say that copying out a textbook is a poor way to learn. It's far better to know the processes behind things or to learn through experience.

glfharris··on Medical student surgically implants Bluetooth into own ear to cheat in final
How is that any different from the rote memorisation that's been the mainstay of most education systems up to the 21st century?

It doesn't really aid understanding, doesn't incorporate active recall, and tends to become inefficient for a large corpus of knowledge.

glfharris··on Statement from Poland on providing airplanes to Ukraine
This is how I see it too. It'll be obvious to anyone where those aircraft have come from. Poland isn't going to deflect responsibility this way.

Poland can't afford to donate it's air power so readily, but the USA allows them to with this move. It will also shift their military to be more on spec with other NATO countries.

glfharris··on China asked Russia to delay war until after Olympics, Biden officials say
Today Kherson has been captured, and Mairupol has been surrounded. hardly what id call a reversal.
glfharris··on China asked Russia to delay war until after Olympics, Biden officials say
Russia does not need allies to defeat the Ukrainian army. Given enough time they will win, even if sanctions/aid to Ukraine make it a pyhrric victory.

Part of the sluggishness has been the desire for the "targeted strike", something that appears to have been reversed with the less discriminate bombing of the last 24 hours.

glfharris··on Amazon to close all of its physical bookstores and '4-star' shops
This is partly what's driven me to second hand/charity bookshops.

No, they don't have exactly the book I've been looking for. But occasionally they have absolute gems that I'd never have found independently.

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