Canopyflyer

Because it is a LOT more complicated than that.

Not all rheumatological diseases are due to the immune system’s memory. As a case in point, Ankylosing Spondylitis is theorized as being caused by a mis-folded HLA-B27 protein response. The mis-folded protein response is caused by cellular stress, at least that is the theory. The lead singer of Imagine Dragon Dan Reynolds suffers from this disease. So there are people out there suffering from it, it’s not just some disease out in left field no one has heard of before.

Are there diseases that could be treated by clearing the immune system’s memory? Possibly, but there would also be consequences for that as well. Mainly, because the actual method by which the memory works is not completely understood.

Disclaimer: My wife is a Rheumatologist that does both basic research and clinical work. What I wrote above is based on what I have gleaned from her over the years. Any mistakes or misconceptions are strictly mine. I’m just an old IT guy and have never studied medicine.

Yes.

Let me tell you when, why, and how I learned that you need to pay attention to taxes.

I was in third grade and my class had a field trip. This was 47 years ago, so the exact details of the trip are lost to time and rusty memory. The lesson remained.

There was something that the class could purchase at the end of the day on the trip and the place only took cash and the school was not doing anything to help, except tell the kids about it and the price. Which was something like $5. I told my Mom and she handed me a $5 bill, plus a quarter, which confused my 3rd grade brain. She said to due to some strange words "sales tax, which was 5% in my state at the time. Got to school that morning and all my classmates were proud that they had their $5 bill, but none seemed to have a quarter. So I kept the presence of my quarter a secret and was a little embarrassed about it. Yes, I was young and stupid. Now I am old and stupid.

When it came time to purchase the whatsit at the end of the day, me and one other of my classmates produced a quarter to buy it. The teachers and chaperones had to cover the sales tax for the other 20 kids and they were pissed.

I went to school and learned a lesson that has stuck with me for nearly 50 years.

Mensa membership is directly correlated to taking online IQ tests.

Truly intelligent people don’t.

I’m a cook as a hobby, so typically the cost of making vs buying does not figure into my decision, except when things at the store get absurdly expensive.

A case in point: Toasted Sliced Salted Salad Almonds from Fresh Gourmet

My wife and I love these on our dinner salads so we go through a lot of them. The cost of a package of these salad almonds has risen to $7 for a 3.5oz (99g)package.

I can buy a 16oz (454g) package of raw almonds for almost the same amount of money, as the 3.5oz (99g) Fresh Gourmet package. I have an electric oven that consumes around 5kwh that runs for roughly 30 minutes during preparation and my daytime electric rate is around $0.13/kwh (I think).

Out of that I get a full pound (16oz, 454g) of salted almonds for ~$7.07 and 30 minutes of my time. I also use about $0.02 worth of salt, bringing the total cost to ~$7.09 for 4.5 times more almonds.

I also can adjust the amount of salt on them as well, as typically my wife and I like less salt that most people.

It’s also fun to do.

Learning how to type.

You either had to take typing, or some other class that I can’t remember during my junior year. The other class didn’t appeal to me at all, obviously as I cannot even remember it now, so I took typing. By happenstance my best friend was in the same class.

The class taught me a skill that I use till this day, some 38 years later.

Transistors.

The first working transistor was created in 1947. Before then it was just vacuum tubes. Less than 80 years later the modern world relies completely on its existence.

You use billions of them in your everyday life.

I’m still here.

I keep reading it, so added for comedic effect…

I’m a Gen X’er… Not sure if the Lemmy’s word limit on posts would allow me to list it all.

So here are a few:

Drank from the garden hose? Check

Rode in a car without seat belts? As a toddler? As a baby? Check

Rode my bike all over town with no helmet? Had an accident that put me in a coma for 48hrs because of not wearing a helmet? Check

Harvested tobacco on my grandparents farm? Check (Anyone who has done this by hand, working with those stakes knows the risks.)

I started skydiving in the early 90’s. My mother was absolutely appalled and constantly berated me about how “dangerous” it is to jump out of an airplane.

The truth of the matter was I was far safer in free fall than I was during most of my adolescence.

1985 Pontiac Sunbird and my parents had a 1986 Buick Skyhawk. Both were exactly the same car, just different front fascia. Same crappy 1.8L SOHC engine and terrible build quality.

Both cars blew head gaskets at 50,000 miles and my Sunbird blew it again at 65,000miles. Neither car were ever overheated. The A/C on both cars died at 60K. Various parts of the exterior and interior were just plain falling apart. The cars’ performance was absolutely abysmal.

The cars were so bad that I haven’t purchased another GM product since, nor will I ever buy another product from GM. My Dad had bought a mid-90’s Oldmobile 88 and it was actually OK for the most part. It just ate alternators, until I convinced him to put an upgraded aftermarket unit on and that problem was solved. Later he bought a Chevy Traverse and that thing was an absolute piece of trash. He had to put timing chains on it at 70k and that was a $2500 bill. The power steering also went out on it multiple times. He had the steering rack and power steering pump replaced multiple times.

I traded my old Sunbird in on a 1985 Toyota Corolla GT-S and THAT was my absolute favorite car of all time. I autocrossed it for several years and it never broke. I’d love to find one to restore. I have owned multiple Toyotas in my 39 years of driving. My current car is a Camry Hybrid.

Used to work for a company that started out as a US startup for IT Services, later it was purchased by a large German company.

During its startup days, you did not dare drink alcohol at lunch time.

After being bought by the German company, you did not dare NOT to drink alcohol at lunch time. Especially if someone from Germany was visiting. They viewed it odd that we had an aversion to drinking beer at lunch.

Told a janitor to not unplug the equipment rack in a closet to plug in their vacuum cleaner. Why they thought that plugging in their vacuum there, rather than just using the outlet not 6 feet away outside the closet is beyond me.

Further, why that closet wasn’t locked in the first place. But this was almost 30 years ago and it was another time in IT.

I spoke with the janitor and she started plugging in her vacuum in the adjacent outlet. Then I went to the director of IT and got the capitol cost approved to secure all of the networking closets in the building, which there were 6, one for each floor. Only the one floor was an issue as that closet also house a sink and drain for the janitors to use. There wasn’t another place we could move the networking equipment to without laying out a lot of money.

I find distressed audio equipment and bring them back to life.

Here is a photo of some of the pieces I’ve worked on:

Top Shelf:

Adcom GP-555 It’s actually dead. I cannot get the left channel to work at all. Resoldered the entire signal path, replaced the opamps, cleaned the controls, bypassed the controls… Just cannot find where the issue is…

McIntosh MC7108: On/off circuit issues. This one I didn’t really fix, just bypassed the affected circuit, because I don’t care about turning it on and off via a switch. I use it every day.

Second Shelf:

Carver TFM-15cb: Needed new lights in the meters and the input level pots cleaned. That is all the one pictured needed. I have another one that required the same things, but also had to recap it. The one in the photo will need new capacitors before too long. Great sounding amps, but not very well built.

Bottom Shelf:

Soundcraftsman PRO-PA2X200: This is actually an amp my wife has owned for over 30 years. The power supply caps went out and needed to be replaced.

Here is a photo of said capacitors:

Been in a plane crash.

It was a Beech 18 that experienced fuel starvation on climb out. The pilot raised the gear and belly landed it in a freshly tilled corn field off the end of the runway. It was a lot like being in a car accident, just lasted longer with a lot more rending metal noises. The port engine was ripped off and was sitting about 50 feet behind where the plane came to rest.

It wasn’t cool, believe me…

Got to see Chicago/ Beach Boys double headline back in 1989 (I think). Both bands were great. Saw the Beach Boys at the old Riverfront Stadium in Cincinnati, OH about 5 years later and it was a great show.

Bad Company Holy Water tour. Brian Howe was front lining the band and he was great, but really would have preferred to have seen Paul Rodgers.

Black Crowes opening for ZZ Top on the Recycler tour. ZZ Top had a great show, but musically, Black Crowes was much better.

Duran Duran … I was a closet fan of theirs back in my teens. I’m not in the closet any longer. Soup Dragons opened for them and they suuuucked.

Linkin Park opening for Metallica at the Atlanta Braves stadium in 2003. They were great, Metallica was meh, but I’ve never been a huge fan of theirs.

Live… Not a big fan of theirs, but they did have a good live show. (see what I did there! Yes, I’m a Dad.) They opened for the Counting Crows who were great too.

Santana is a lot better live than anywhere else. I saw him on the Supernatural tour, or at least that was the album he had just released. Funny side story about this concert. This was in 1999 and was there with a friend. 25 years later, my wife and I were talking about concerts we have attended over the years. She mentioned she went to see Santana when she first moved to Cincinnati, which is where I lived at the time… Turns out we were at the same concert 5 years before we met and didn’t realize it until last year.

Yes, I’m old.

My college girlfriend bought me a tri-fold wallet for my 20th birthday. It is still in daily use.

Why? It is an expensive and well made wallet and it has always felt “right” in my back pocket. While it shows obvious signs of wear, all the stitching is still in perfect shape.

That girlfriend dumped me, after 3 years of dating, for a guy that owned a fancier car. She contacted me two years later looking to get back together. I told her to pound sand, but I still use the wallet.

Thanks for the wallet Shannon… It doesn’t remind me of you, but it is a good wallet.

Just remembered, she bought me the Led Zeppelin box set for Christmas that same year. It is currently sitting in my closet. I still “use” it, but I’ve long ripped the discs to FLAC files and listen to them via my Plex server.

So two things from the same girlfriend.

I will be turning 55 next month.

Brilliant.

You are the Universe experiencing itself.

Solid recipes that tend toward being simple and easy to make, but still taste great. I have several of his books in my cookbook collection. With that said, I don’t reach for them nearly as much as some others. For reference cooking is a full on hobby for me. I have multiple bookshelves full of cookbooks.

His “Kinda Spaghetti Bolognese” is a family favorite and I make it several times a year.

As to what I think of Jamie himself? Honestly, I don’t know anything about him, other than he’s British. Entertainment celebrities is not a subject that holds any interest for me.

In the pantheon of cooks, whose recipes I’ve made:

He’s a LOT better than Rachael Ray (but who isn’t?).

But not quite as good as a Julia Child, Ina Garten, Charlie Trotter (RIP), or Jonathan Best.

That I’ve met personally?

Don’t know, but here’s a list that I consider the coolest people I’ve personally met and I’ll give a brief synopsis on how I met them:

Neil Armstrong: Went to get a haircut in Loveland, OH where I was living at the time. Walked into an old school barber shop that was on Loveland-Medaira RD, just down from Krogers. There were three men in the shop, the barber, who was cutting the hair of a man in the chair, and one more who was reading a newspaper, so I couldn’t see his face. The barber finished up and looked at the gentleman reading the newspapers and said; “Neil you’re up next.” The man put the newspaper down and I found myself face to face with the first man to walk on the moon. Yeah… It was a trip to say the least. He lived in the town next to Loveland and he was there looking for a new barber, as his previous one was a bit of a creep.

Paul Tibbets: My Demonstration Skydiving team was performing in an airshow at Lunken Airport on the east side of Cincinnati. Col Tibbets was there as part of a Hiroshima presentation. After my team wrapped up after the show I toured the displays. I had my team shirt on and walked up to the table where he was sitting. He asked a few questions and said my team and I were really brave doing demo jumps… Yeah… the guy that dropped the first nuclear bomb called my team and I… Brave… Rather a surreal moment for me. He was really interesting to talk to.

Chuck Yeager: Gen Yeager drove the pace car for the 1986 Indy 500. My high school marching band also was marching in the parades and around the track. Yes, I’m really old, I was 16 that year. Some friends and I were walking around the campus where we were staying and actually just ran into him… Literally. I knew who he was, but none of my friends did not, so I didn’t say anything. He gruffly dismissed us and walked off. Yes, we did apologize for running into him.

James Doohan: He gave a presentation at Indiana University Southeast in the early 80’s and my Dad took me to see it. He never announced that he was staying afterward and for some reason my Dad and I hung around after most everyone left. There was only about 8 people that were in the auditorium and we got time to talk directly to him. He was the type of person that you just… Loved. He was an actual good person who was also very intelligent. I actually cried when he died in 2005.

Anyway, that’s my submission of people that I think of as “cool” that I had direct interactions with. Other’s than that I would consider cool:

John Young: Robert Crippen, in an interview, stated that his heart rate while Columbia was sitting on the pad, for its first launch was over 140. John’s was 70. Yeah, John Young was sitting on top of thousands of pounds of brand new untested rocket and wasn’t bothered in the least… FUCK ME. If that ain’t cool, I don’t know what is. I never got to meet him, unfortunately.

Doing a Horny Gorilla skydive with 5 friends.

Representative photo of a Horny Gorilla not a photo of me or my friends:

We get into the formation, actually get stable and the next thing we all see is a one jumpers deployment bag, with their main parachute in it, come out from his back. Goes above the formation, then the deployment bag comes down into the middle of the formation… goes back up… comes back down. Lines are streaming all around and it’s turning into a really dangerous situation. Getting tied up in the lines, while in free fall has a great chance of being fatal.

But it was just a surreal moment for all of us, seeing this deployment bag dancing around in the middle of the Horny Gorilla.

The person next to the jumper with the deployment bag out, reaches down and pulls the affected jumper’s Pilot Chute, which is what actually deploys the main, and tosses it into the air stream. The affected jumper went flying out of the formation as his main parachute deployed. The rest of us break and track hard.

The guy actually landed his main parachute! He did not end up cutting away and pulling his reserve. The way that deployment bag just danced in an out of the middle of the formation was just unreal and we all just stared at it for what seemed an eternity.

25 years on and we all still talk about it.