I guess putting ruthless in a question title is like chumming the water. I don't understand all the downvoting going on there. I mean, the answer could be any of those...almost. It's not that critical... He could just call himself my sister; that would work.

@KannE Whatever is this about? Where is this question?

@KannE Never mind, I saw it.

@Xanne I just like to complain, vaguely, once in a while; it eases my feeble mind somehow. They're not real issues, I've discovered; none of them are...eventually. Sorry about that; I should take up sudoku, but it seems boring.

@M.A.R. After they have moved to Devonshire, she meets ....

Because I want to use historical present

@Curio Why not “After they move to Devonshire, she meets”?

@Curio This sounds a bit unnatural to me. My preference would be "After they moved to Devonshire, she met . . ."

Or @Xanne's suggestion

[ SmokeDetector | MS ] Bad keyword in link text in answer, pattern-matching website in answer, potentially bad keyword in answer (161): Are "y", "m", and "d" the singular and plural abbreviations for "year(s)", "month(s)", and "day(s)"? by Sophia Woodstone on english.SE

[ SmokeDetector | MS ] Bad keyword in answer, bad keyword with email in answer, email in answer, potentially bad keyword in answer (248): Meaning of "get somebody back"? by john on english.SE

@KannE I find sudoku really good exercise for eye movements.

But in comparison to crosswords, yeah, there's nothing else there.

Like with crosswords, you could complain about some awful pun on Monday. And then on Thursday not one but two entirely made-up words.

But with sudoku... yeah I finished it and my eyes are tired.

@KannE I find a simple Android app called "Math Tricks" much better

Forget about the tricks themselves; I don't really need to memorize to add weird and random numbers to find an answer for 111 times 222 correctly

But it's pretty good just to exercise the brain

And AFAIK reading and math are scientifically proven to help with dementia (which translates to being good for the brain in general) but crosswords and sudoku, not so much

@M.A.R. I have two questions for you about this. 1) How dare you?

and 2) really, crosswords aren't helpful? I feel attacked.

and math? Pfft.

And pfft? Reading.

@Mitch I was/am an avid sudoku-er, but I think the consensus at the moment (if any) is that these brain games help you get better at them but not at thinking in general.

Other than a mental placebo, that is.

@M.A.R. I've read a lot that says that for a lot of things. Like learning a new language, or playing those idiotic mind games... Librivia? Luminoso? Wingradium LeviosAH?

@M.A.R. Brain candy

Considering the times, to be fair, "Oh man I'm doing something for brains" is a much, MUCH healthier thought than "Oh man I just forgot the anniversary of our wedding's photographer's shop's sale. I have at least three abbreviations that separately translate to dementia in their own right".

The only good preventative for dementia I've read (where good = high corrleation) is to be less demented before hand,

Which sounds dumb but

@Mitch Thank you for your contribution

the downward spiral is supposedly not as fast if you start up higher

@M.A.R. Pozhalvsta

@M.A.R. mnemonics can be trained

Yeah, another thing that seems to work is having an engaged life. Worrying about things is absolutely necessary at a healthy dose

or rather, duh

but mnemonizing can be trained.

Do work, be social, that stuff. Human stuff.

you can train yourself to be better at those neuropsych tests for dementia and fool everyone into voting for you into the White House.

@M.A.R. engaged = worrying?

I'm a bit skeptical of "be social" because it's too broad and general but if you use your brain to have a minimum of tact talking to others I guess it helps the brain

But yeah. Also an often enough social situation.

@Mitch The romanticized stoic nomad is going for Alzheimer's earlier than the rest.

but not established is causation direction. still could be that if you have dementia, you annoy the crap out of people and they avoid you.

Hehe, dropping "disease" was a funny move.

I'm just gonna leave it like that

@M.A.R. It takes a lot of cognitive energy to maintain stoicism.

being a nomad is pretty careless though, sure.

@M.A.R. Where did you drop it? I bet you can't remember.

@Mitch I'm a nomad

Learning a new language was always fun

@M.A.R. You should start training yourself on repeating long sequences of digits backwards

I think I perpetuated that it helps with mental thingies because people need lots of (false) incentives here to do that. And that sucks.

also, check the day of week and date every morning. that's the first question they ask.

Not only do I need to maintain my English speaking ability by talking to myself but soon enough German and Arabic as well.

@Mitch That sounds hard. Me no liek hard.

@M.A.R. One reading of that is pretty ominous.

Like somehow you're losing German and Arabic speaking partners.

Ur ox face is ominous

@Mitch Shh

@M.A.R. also shuffling decks of cards and then repeating back the sequence.

I can't do it but it's supposedly a trainable skill

I have built lots of LEGO trains already

Dude. ELU chat is the place for you

Few years ago

Now I mostly confuse myself with organic chemistry

University starts in 12 days or so.

Regdwight. Robusto. Some other R guy. Mr. Shiny.

@M.A.R. what program?

pharmacology?

The obscure absolutely unnecessary lessons will taunt me next

All academia is like that.

But some academia is more like that than the others.

The things you need in real life aren't taught in academia but in some sense you already know them before the first day.

Video games man

BRB

Like most engineering class is about learning and proving some weirdo equations (or how the database sorting algorithm works or the stress function of plain vs reinforced concrete follow some third order differential equation), and the first day at work you just look up how to format a SQL query or you just use prefab steel girders whose weight iimits are right there in the manual or something.

@Mitch well, we're gonna have perfectly level hands in our lab course

And screwing up titrations

Are you teaching?

BTW, I just watched The Big Lebowski again

I have a sudden urge to give out low-pitched hums and eat my own facial hair

@Mitch Wha, no, first day of university dude.

@M.A.R. I don't know. TAing counts. Which is sometimes possible at that level.

So. Inorganic Chem? Organic Chem? Physics I, II, III?

I dunno. Well, I'm planning on being a rock star already. Of organic chemistry and pharmaceuticals.

It's a common trend for rock stars to be consumers of chemicals, organic or otherwise.

The two most dreaded courses are actually my forte: Pharmacology and organic chemistry.

I recommend copious amounts of Dihydrogen Oxide.

Unless you're taking MDMA. I've heard that one can overindulge.

There were these grad students who were serving their mandatory "field training". Gosh, a bunch of noobs.

Confusing drug names I frigging juggled when I was seven.

@M.A.R. In US contexts, I hear that Organic Chem is considered 1) a weedout course for pre-meds (if you can't do OK in this class, you're prevented from going on to a medical career), and 2) is considered mindless trivia by those same pre-med students.

My dream is pursuing "pharmaceutics" now, which I'm told is the one where you make new drugs.

@Mitch Of course. They wouldn't require organic chem in their job unless they're making drugs.

Both my mom and dad definitely don't need it right now.

@M.A.R. Not a defense of them, but I hear that the multitude of very closely spelled but very distinct med names is causing non-trivial prescription errors.

@M.A.R. They should at least recognize them (so that the class isn't entirely useless, which is the impression I get that they think).

@Mitch That's B.S. Few edge cases. I can't even recall off the top of my head right now.

BUT

God bless doctors' handwriting.

The general humorous remark that the bigger name the doctor has, the worse their handwriting becomes is actually true though, good correlation.

'bless' -> 'goddam'. ftfy

They have people to 'interpret' for them

Makes sense too. More experience and a bigger name and brain translate to trying to cater to as many patients as possible, and usually in a good way.

No time to write legibly

No tmie to wtire lblgiey

My nephrologist, for example, spends most of his time patiently listening to the very odd remarks illiterate old patients come up with regarding medication etc.

Kidneys can go bad with old age so a large portion of kidney patients are the elderly.

Why are you sitting in one his meetings with his other older patients?

No I just overhear them. There's this big hall and every three patients go to a smaller hall and the doctor receives them one by one

Yeah. I've heard that kidney damage isn't always reparable.

Somewhere

When I'm in that smaller hall I can hear him, and the patient. Sometimes.

@M.A.R. haha. yeah. They totally think they're private, but everyone knows what's going on.

@Mitch I think the same goes for every internal organ that does something (looking at you, appendix)

Kidneys just go bad really easily.

I thought the liver was selfrepairing.

Pissed on all the time. What would you expect.

or at least if a piece is removed, other liver grows to replace.

Why do we have liver transplants?

That is true. Sometimes. I'm not sure about that one. I've heard it too but the few liver transplant patients I saw weren't all that happy.

I have no idea about fatty liver disease or ... whatever other gross thing can be done to a liver.

@M.A.R. I'd expect not.

Pain killers. I hate pain killers.

ibuprofen?

or the stronger opiates?

with respect to livers

because livers is the context

of what we're talking about

Ibuprofen too. I hate it with a passion.

because of what it does to the liver?

And kidneys

puts cap back on ibuprofen bottle

Coincidentally, I was talking about this on Skeptics.SE's chat

picks up aspirin bottle

looks around hesitantly

Well if you have a strong stomach, I don't object.

@M.A.R. Oh...yeah... if you stop smoking, the lungs can heal themselves (but not necessarily to perfect and still, higher chance of cancer, emphysema, COPD etc)

I take prednisolone as an immunosuppressor and my stomach is like Pompeii ruins.

@M.A.R. tips head back

@Mitch The etc part gets me

@M.A.R. can you take additional things that ameliorate those effects? Like what do they call them, proton pump inhibitors?

@M.A.R. well, I'm oversimplifying

@Mitch Omeprazol. Pantoprazol, lansoprazol and so many other prazols are good drugs as well.

But they're usually preventive. When I'm taking this stupid corticosteroid for the rest of my life, damage is bound to happen

How about just calcium carbonate or what ever that simple one is for generic stomach upset?

Al MgS?

Just a bit weaker, actually.

Is that Kaopectate?

I have no idea how the terms might translate/

@M.A.R. No weaning off?

I had to Google it

I'm going off half remembered things from childhood.

I'm not sure about that one. It's no way administered as commonly as the other ones.

which is a lot longer ago than... which is a while ago.

So some side effect or special use case make it special

You know how like 2010 feels like only a couple years ago?

Wait.. maybe you don't

but anyway a lot of people think of 2000 as only about 10 years ago

Actually, that's funny. I started seriously using Gregorian after 2015 or so

I'm just here to say that

I'm so old, I still think of the 90's as the future.

So 2010 is infinitely old for me

@M.A.R. Don't everybody there tend to use Gregorian as a secondary calendar?

@Mitch When everyone is busy discussing this celebrity's dress and that celebrity's marriage rumors time goes by really fast.

Uh, no.

@M.A.R. You're so young, you probably think of a year ago as forever.

Most people are not even that sharp about Hijri.

Shamsi first, Hijri second, and Gregorian can wait.

actually, thinking about the news, I do too kind of.

@Mitch Ha, not for the same reasons though. I was on dialysis then.

I could never stand up because of very low BP.

@M.A.R. Yep, that's pretty tough.

Shamsi is one of the few things that's so solid people don't complain about. Considering most people, especially the youth, are departing from traditional values and tossing almost everything that smells like home out of the window, and westernizing instead, that's pretty impressive.

I didn't know it was called shamsi. (not that I should know but, well, you know)

@Mitch Oddly enough, I have kinda good feelings towards that time.

@M.A.R. Not exactly, but like the metric system it makes more sense than the alternatives.

@M.A.R. Did you at least get to read lots of books?

It might be because I'm in a good mood overall lately. But it was kinda freeing to be a leech all the time and not worry about any sort of progress in life.

@Mitch Nope, not really.

The best it achieved was decreasing my creatinine levels to 13-something, which is absolutely disastrous for any other patient

And that clogs up the brain pathways or something and you can't think clearly.

@M.A.R. I have had (certainly no way near the seriousness that you had) a long time in the hospital with which I have counterintuitively not terrible memories.

When I was there and I had absolutely no idea I was ever going to get out (I just had no idea, not that there was a question one way or the other.. holy shit I'm glad I didn't consider that then)

... but when they told me I was going to be able to go home in a week, that was the worst.

There was also the recent study Cowper shared that said white brain matter of people on dialysis actually shrinks probably due to less blood getting to the brain . . .

-that-'s when it became unbearable.

That'd kill Einstein's brain

@Mitch HAHA EXACTLY.

@M.A.R. Is that good or bad? White matter seems like it's just support structure.

Or is it the cerebellum?

There's so much I can't remember

I have the same feeling towards the post-operation hospital stay

I should study card shuffling sequences

@Mitch Well you could say the insides of the walnut are support shrug

@Mitch Are you a nomad.

I theorized that it's because the pain itself is usually just at that moment.

@M.A.R. Yeah. That's the worst part of eating walnuts, getting those little shards.

You don't feel it anymore while recalling it

@M.A.R. No. But I'm stoic?

In my case, I also don't recall the LETHAL boredom. So soul-scratching that I had actually developed a habit of staring blankly into the wall for a good 30 minutes or so and it took some time to get rid of that habit

@M.A.R. I can recall both good and bad memories.

haha I just remembered one fondly that I should have not been so fond of.

Lol, did you see another patient pee

Because I did

@M.A.R. I don't remember that part. though surely it must have been there.

I remember being visited a lot. And being in a room with other kids. But as to being bored...I can only assume that was a lot but I just don't remember.

@Mitch I'm actually guessing your hospitals would have more ways of entertaining you than a small screen hung from the roof filled with bad signals of a propaganda news network for most of the day

@M.A.R. uh... that was me.

No radios, no internet, no clowns, no internet

@Mitch This is awkward

@M.A.R. aha... this was so long ago, I don't think they had TVs for us.

But they did have 'occupational therapy' which at the time I thought was like 'dude, you're not a real doctor' but of course I understand the utility now.

@Mitch That was my first time three years ago. Ugh. 4th floor, kidney ward. No one leaves you at peace and they're all "OMG WHAT HAPPENED" when you have a hard time digesting the news yourself.

@M.A.R. it ws the 'haha' memory I just remembered.

Transplant ward, almost no one from outside was allowed inside. That was freaking awesome.

I don't remember anyone noticing, but I do remember politely telling a nurse.

Even if a nurse is a jerk, they are amazing.

Nurses are awesome, yeah.

Men nurses typically suck here though.

One ruined my vein for blood test for 8 months. It's recovering only now.

The idiot just inserted the needle and took it out. Inserted it, went deeper, took it out. Rinse and repeat. 20 times.

I remember a couple of nurses asking me which one I liked better (that seems a little weird), and I replied (also weird) that it was the one who didn't scrub so hard.

Scrub?

yeah for like a weekly scrub bath

That's kinda new to me

when you can't get ourt of bed to take a bath or shower

or some kind of scrubbing

But I'm just gonna add that one to the list of conversations I wish I heard

@Mitch Ooof, so yours was kinda serious too.

Did you take too much aspirin?

@M.A.R. a long time ago I used to know all the good veins on both arms.

Now I look at them and wonder how a nurse can possibly find anything to draw from.

@Mitch I haven't tried it on anyone but I think by now I can inject small needles and take small blood tests by myself.

@M.A.R. it was a bad burn.

Probably nothing else is so much "don't let the damn hand shake" than this.

large and serious but not debilitating so no one would know just by looking at me.

@Mitch Ow. Makes for cool scars though, unless it's too distracting

@M.A.R. I always used to like watching them stick the needle in, you know because it was science, but now I don't want to make them nervous like they're on stage.

@M.A.R. Knife scars are cooler

Burn scars are like 'Oh, I can see Elvis in there'

I have scars on my neck and abdomen (yeah, weird, that's where the transplanted kidney goes), weird scar-like lines on my stomach (some even form a "HI" shape) and needle scars on my arms

Fistula needles are really scary.

@M.A.R. All coverable except for maybe the neck. Chicks dig that kind of thing.

Oh, and a pretttty neat AVF scar on my left wrist.

It's so neat it looks like it was manufactured in Switzerland.

Medicine is great.

Swiss-made scars

About that HI thing, I sometimes think the whole alien abduction thing might be legit

HI?

Homocidal Ideation?

Hawai'i?

Hypochondriac incident?

Weird lines on my stomach that I have no idea where they come from. 4 of them form a "HI" at an angle

(that's an emergency malaise)

@Mitch Hamill, Idris

@M.A.R. Oh. I could speculate, but ..

Think about it. Those two combined would be a pretty good jedi.

OK I'll speculate

it's the door they put in for the bot controller.

watch:

Move left and right fingers randomly

Well?

and... it's Wed afternoon and I have to go otherwise I'd tell you my life story and tomorrow's lottery numbers.

Which are:

Well, good for you. I wish we had lotteries here so people would stop talking about Geneva Convention in cabs.

TTYL

Point sellage unique.

@MattE.Эллен I can be that enemy. You don't even need to create one. That's my whole job here.

Can do with my hands closed and both my eyes tied behind my back. While watching YouTube, fast asleep.

Piece of brioche.

hey guys

is this sentence too long? "One of the reasons that have made people support the creation of a standard English spelling system is the abundance of sounds for just 26 letters that the language possesses in its Roman alphabet, which, in turn, has generated another cause to support the aforementioned standardization, and that is the fact that, sometimes, spelling and pronunciation had little in common."

any idea how I can make it shorter

@Luyw it flows pretty well (lengths is not an issue) right up until "and that is the fact"

Do you really need to include the part after "which" in this very sentence?

I mean, there's lots of more beautiful sentence structures for pairs like these