[Gregg]

Originally Posted by Thorzdad 

I doubt the cell phone is the issue. People have been driving and using phones for ages. Are these all newer cars? Like, maybe cars with hand-free driving assists? I could see them wandering a bit before self-correcting.

I can't say that I've been struck by observing that all these drifting cars are newer models. I don't think hands-free driving is the culprit. It's more like brain-free driving.

[ghporter]

It seems that not all “sweetened, no calorie, sparkling water” is alike. We’ve been drinking the H-E-B branded products in a variety of flavors, but their availability was kind of sparse for a week or two, so we bought some flavors from a WalMart Neighborhood Market that’s quite close to home.

They tasted OK, but it turns out that WalMart’s product is sweetened with aspartame, while H-E-B’s uses sucralose. Interestingly, aspartame is associated with digestive issues, while sucralose is not. We found this out “the hard way.” Nothing major, but it was unpleasant.

Now I gotta pay attention to a different set of ingredients in a whole different class of foods.

[Spheric Harlot]

Why would water need to be “sweetened”??? Wut?

[subego]

Originally Posted by Spheric Harlot 

Why would water need to be “sweetened”???

For soda.

[ShortcutToMoncton]

That’s soda water, not sparkling water

[ghporter]

Unsweetened sparkling water is available, even flavored, unsweetened sparkling water. I don’t really care for most plain sparkling waters - the carbonation lends a “flavor” that is sort of odd. It’s related to how carbonation works…the water is suffused with carbon dioxide gas, some of which dissolves in the water.

The issue is that carbon dioxide is processed by a mouth enzyme, releasing protons. These protons stimulate “sour” flavor sensors, so plain carbonated water can taste sour. Read this article from Wired for details.

Biology trivia: the stomach’s acid production is through what are called “proton pumps.” The acid/base measurement “pH” means “the inverse log of hydrogen ions” - which are simply protons. More protons drives a lower, more acid pH, and acid is sour.

The thing about this “aspartame in the water” issue is not just that we tend to buy flavored sparkling water, but that it’s been hellishly hot here with typically very low humidities, prompting more than just normal water consumption. Today’s high is expected to reach 105F (44+C), and the current humidity is only 27%.

There have been a lot of strategies suggested over the years for maintaining hydration in hot weather. The best performer for maintaining hydration, especially in moderate exertion situations is “have a bottle of water with you all the time.” It’s often recommended to add fruit juice for flavoring. Having that bottle with you apparently prompts you to subconsciously assess thirst, and typically triggers a consistent level of intake. And getting back to my issue, we haven’t found a good flavoring agent to put in still water, nor any uncarbonated (sweetened or not) flavored water that was worth buying.

By the way, it’s actually possible to drink too much water. “Forced drinking” proved to be a horrible idea; there have been deaths caused by this strategy at the US Air Force’s Basic Training facilities here at Lackland AFB. As this article discusses, forced drinking can dilute the level of sodium in the blood (hyponatremia). Sodium is essential to life functions, especially heart muscle action and to maintaining an osmotic balance within the cerebrospinal fluid that surrounds the brain and spinal cord.

That was long, and I hope not too rambling, but I think it explains “why sweetened” water…

[ShortcutToMoncton]

Feels like a lot of mental gymnastics?

If you’re actually concerned about hydration, drink a bottle of water. Plain old water. It’s literally the best.

Adding aspartame or sugar to the most healthy thing you can drink seems silly, but I guess if you’re comparing it to a Pepsi or fruit juice…? I’d recommend just getting a regular San Pellegrino or Perrier instead….some of them come in unsweetened flavours, or you can just squeeze in some lemon or lime yourself.

[Spheric Harlot]

Originally Posted by ShortcutToMoncton 

Feels like a lot of mental gymnastics?

If you’re actually concerned about hydration, drink a bottle of water. Plain old water. It’s literally the best.

Yeah. I’m a little confused. Mineral water, if you’re concerned about calcium or magnesium.

[Laminar]

I always hate hate hated (unsweetened) sparkling water. Then 2020 WFH hit and I started drinking beers while I programmed. That became...unsustainable. I cracked a sparkling water and got the same satisfying ka-chssst popping the tab and the fizzy feeling with each sip, and since then I've been fine with them. We do the Aldi brand or La Croix if we can't find Aldi. My main complaint is that they go flat really fast - if you don't finish it off in 5-10 minutes, the last sips are bland and unfizzy. I swear it goes flat faster than beer or soda.

In my mind, the only thing worse than sugary beverages is artificially sweetened beverages. Aspartame has had cancer warnings on it for decades and the WHO just came out reaffirming that advisory, though you'd have to drink 9+ cans a day of typical diet soda to exceed the recommended daily limit.

[subego]

I do close to a gallon of aspartame soda a day.


Edit: oddly, I dislike carbonation. I keep it at room temperature, so it’ll melt the ice (preferably chips) quickly and get watered down.

[ghporter]

A sparkling water is optional; yesterday I used my thermal mug and downed almost a liter of plain water (on ice) in the late afternoon while doing some office-type tasks.

We usually only drink the flavored stuff with lunch or dinner, but we’ve gotten into the habit of grabbing a cold bottle from the fridge instead of using the ice maker and filling a mug. That never seemed to be a problem until the weather got so hot, and we both tend to realize later rather than sooner that we needed to hydrate.

I do h ave to say that a cold water drink of any kind beats the pants off of plain tap water, or water from a non-cooled 5 gallon dispenser. Cold is necessary; flavors, sparkle, etc. are merely options.

[ghporter]

And today I experienced a not-so-minor irritant. Computerized traffic lights “should” monitor traffic, and adjust cycles to improve traffic flow. But only if they’re set up correctly.

My wife and I sat through at least FIVE cycles of a light. We were on a cross street to a large thoroughfare, and we could see traffic getting green lights in both directions on the main road, as well as left turn lights on both our side and the other side of the main road. But while the cross street traffic in one direction got green lights, OUR direction did not. For at least five cycles.

We notified the city’s public works department, as well as calling the police non-emergency number. By the time we had finished that (at least) fifth cycle, enough people ahead of us had turned right for us to do so. As I turned, it was clear that the part of that cross street that we’d been on had backed up four to five blocks.

[subego]

Do not Disturb decided to let a random text through because fuck your nap.

[ghporter]

FedEx.

OK, I should be more specific. I bought a refurbished 2022 MBP and paid the extra $8 for next day delivery. I actually got an email from FedEx about the shipment before Apple’s email that it had shipped. The FedEx estimate was for delivery between 8:10am and 12:10pm today. Yeah, no.

It got to Memphis just past midnight, and the next scan was at about 4:30am with “in transit” status. Then nothing until almost 1:00 this afternoon. “Your package from Apple Inc is delayed.” “Updated delivery July 19 by 8:00 PM, estimated 8:20-12:20.” For. Crying. Out. Loud!

No explanation, just “too bad.” Apple did say that they’d refund my $8 if it wasn’t delivered today, so there’s that.

[ghporter]

An update: The package got to San Antonio at about 2:45 this morning. At least that’s when they noted it was here, since they never updated the tracking to say it had left Memphis.

Status this morning was “at local facility” at 7:00, and “on FedEx vehicle for delivery” at 7:03. Their web site said “estimated delivery 8:20-12:20”. And the site (the app, too) let me see where the truck was, too. It was going all over the place around my neighborhood, but not into my neighborhood.

At about 1:00pm the tracking map disappeared. Web site, app, everywhere. The tracking still says “by 8:00pm”, so it’s supposedly still going to be delivered today. But since this is FedEx, I have trust issues.

Added: The FedEx guy showed up about 10 minutes after I posted this. The computer is beautiful, and I'm typing this on it right now.

No, I'm not all super happy with FedEx now. I have my package now, but that's at least 24 hours later than I should have had it. But at least I have it.

[Waragainstsleep]

Originally Posted by ghporter 

A sparkling water is optional; yesterday I used my thermal mug and downed almost a liter of plain water (on ice) in the late afternoon while doing some office-type tasks.

We usually only drink the flavored stuff with lunch or dinner, but we’ve gotten into the habit of grabbing a cold bottle from the fridge instead of using the ice maker and filling a mug. That never seemed to be a problem until the weather got so hot, and we both tend to realize later rather than sooner that we needed to hydrate.

I do h ave to say that a cold water drink of any kind beats the pants off of plain tap water, or water from a non-cooled 5 gallon dispenser. Cold is necessary; flavors, sparkle, etc. are merely options.

I agree with cold. Always, even in winter. People who drink warm or even room temperature water, plus people who drink sparkling water are monsters.

[Thorzdad]

I once worked with a guy from India who never, ever drank cold beverages. Always, at the very least, room temp, but usually hot. His explanation was that cold drinks (and foods) were incompatible with the body’s natural internal temps, and would (somehow) cause issues with bodily functions. This from a guy who would kill an entire bag of cheese puffs on our daily commute, which couldn’t have possibly been good for his body’s functions.

Me, I love my water ice cold. It’s pretty much all I drink throughout the day, save for a coffee in the morning and, maybe, a little ginger kombucha at lunch. Dinner is beer/wine time, though.

[Laminar]

That's a common thing in Chinese culture.

https://asia.nikkei.com/Editor-s-Pic...ders-ice-water

But China's hot water habit is germane, too. The practice has long antecedents, stretching back to the traditional medicine concept that the stomach's energy is upset by food and drink that is overly cooling.

[andi*pandi]

I have a family member who thinks that cold beverages interfere with the body. Like, she made me take her beverages out of the party cooler.

Lukewarm water tastes bad. Cold water tastes ok.

Flavored seltzers, without sugar, corn syrup, or fake sugar, taste a bit better than water. Not quite enough to fool me into thinking I'm having a tasty sugar drink, but enough.

[ghporter]

Cold drinks can lower body core temperature. But only by a little, unless you really consume huge amounts of really cold liquids. And they can’t really hurt you unless you’re getting close to a heat injury. In such cases, it’s important to lower core temperature gradually to prevent some serious issues.

The mouth, esophagus, and stomach quickly bring anything you eat or drink to internal body temperature because their linings are just packed with blood vessels. You can drink liquids that are way too cold in your mouth, but by the time the liquids reach the stomach, their temperature is substantially higher.

I like my coffee and sometimes tea, but those are for the flavors - and to be honest, for the ritual. But room-temperature water just tastes odd to me.

[Spheric Harlot]

Weird. I never imagined that water — fucking WATER — could be an acquired taste.

I drink sugary beverages when I feel like I need a quick sugar rush. (I always have a bottle of Coke or Fanta on stage in case of sugar low towards the end of a set. It’s all water before that.

And beer after.

[ghporter]

New irritant: over-dependence on computerized turn management.

I had to pick up some prescriptions at a local Major Military Medical Center*, after seeing my doctor. The doctor entered the prescriptions in the Enormous Global Medical Record System* in his office, and they “flowed” to the pharmacy.

But…the pharmacy uses a computerized turn management system, unconnected to they Enormous Global Medical Record System. After you’ve scanned your military ID at the pharmacy entrance, a computer inside is supposed to tell the Enormous system that you’re there, and tell someone to start filling your prescription.

Even better, connected to that turn management system is one that lets you text a message to a special phone number, which then does the same thing.

Today, one or both systems glitched. Badly. I tried to scan my ID, and the kiosk was clearly goofed up. So I did the text thing. And it goofed up worse. “Select the facility you will get your prescriptions at” with a list of numbered options. I chose the one for the facility I was literally standing in front of. “Invalid option, please check valid options.” And this message was repeated literally Thirty-Three times!

So this very large pharmacy that handles literally thousands of patients a day had to return to dealing with turns manually. Fortunately the staff managed that nicely. But I had to wait about 2 hours for prescriptions that were filled in about 20 minutes.

*Not the real names of the place or system.

[subego]

Turn?

Like, “whose turn is it?”

[ghporter]

Originally Posted by subego 

Turn?

Like, “whose turn is it?”

Yes. When you handle (as I indicated) thousands of patients a day - and frankly there’s a special kind of “entitled” found in some retired GIs (and especially a small group of retired officers’ wives) - you need to be particularly good at making things as smooth and fair-appearing as possible.

So you go up, scan your ID, and you get a numbered ticked, like P293. And as they get to your particular prescriptions (they know you’re there because getting that ticket checked you in), they call your number to a particular window. This facility has 9 separate windows to hand out people’s meds, and on a typical day they’re calling numbers pretty quickly.

[subego]

Got it! Just wanted to make sure it wasn’t jargon for something else.

[reader50]

Have been using my VPN's Chicago server the last few days. It gets me closer to subego and the big times.

While using the Miami server tells YouTube that I'm in Sweden, and serves me ads in Swedish;
Using the Chicago server obviously places me in the Netherlands. I'm getting YT ads in Dutch now. Cool.
Using their Los Angeles server ... gets me YT ads in English. Darn, I was hoping for Japanese or Korean.

It's all good, as I can't understand the non-English ads. Makes them much less distracting.

[subego]

Updated Monterey on one of my render nodes. Went fine.

Figured it was safe to do the other three. They’re all in recovery mode right now. First node I tried to fix just dumped me back into recovery.

[reader50]

Are any of them unsupported installs on older hardware, using OpenCore? If so, some extra steps can be needed. When they have unsupported GPUs or other hardware, the final boot sometimes needs to be done in Safe mode. Then let OCLP patch the drivers, followed by normal booting again.

[subego]

Nope. All final gen Intel Minis.

[subego]

Fixed one. Not sure of the exact voodoo yet, but it’s some combination of multiple recovery mode reinstalls and restarts.

[ghporter]

My 2015 MBP has given me headaches with OS updates. The update will run, then it will restart, the progress bar will make its leisurely way across the screen, then it will restart again. And again. The last one, a security update for Monterey, did at least 4 reboots. For comparison, running a Debian Linux OS update takes two reboots - first in a command line mode to actually install the new stuff, then a full reboot into the GUI - and that takes a minute or so (i3 Dell computer booting from SSD). So I kinda think there’s something not quite as polished in some Apple updates…

I’ve also had issues with hacked OS versions (to allow them to run on “unsupported” machines) where simply doing an app upgrade (particularly Safari) required something like 3+ reboots. It’s like there’s not sufficient internal coordination within the update to make sure every file gets written before the reboot signal is sent.

Since your Minis are relatively current, I can’t imagine there are any hardware compatibility issues. My thought is to keep retrying until you either get it to take, or get an error message/core dump that you can ask Apple about.

[subego]

Thankfully I was able to get them all going last night.

What fixed the first was:

1) Drag out a keyboard, monitor, and mouse
2) Yank Mini from the server rack, connect it to the above
3) Power on
4) Goes to recovery
5) Pick reinstall
6) It tries to install
7) Goes to recovery
8) Pick reinstall
9) It tries to install
9) Goes to recovery
10) Shut down
11) Power on
12) It tries to install
13) Success!
14) Shut down
15) Unplug and return to the rack

Did the same (minus step 1) for the remaining nodes. I might have been able to trim some steps, but I didn’t feel like experimenting.

[Spheric Harlot]

Originally Posted by ghporter 

My 2015 MBP has given me headaches with OS updates. The update will run, then it will restart, the progress bar will make its leisurely way across the screen, then it will restart again. And again. The last one, a security update for Monterey, did at least 4 reboots. For comparison, running a Debian Linux OS update takes two reboots - first in a command line mode to actually install the new stuff, then a full reboot into the GUI - and that takes a minute or so (i3 Dell computer booting from SSD). So I kinda think there’s something not quite as polished in some Apple updates…

Those updates included silent firmware updates, which add two reboots: one to boot into the firmware updater, one to boot back into "regular" software update preparation, which then reboots into installation, and then back into regular operation.

[ghporter]

Thanks. So now I find “silent firmware updates” to be an irritant. Grr.

It kinda sounds like the shutdown step was important. My Linux machine gets stupid from time to time and completely forgets that it has WiFi. Linux has to find the adapter, rather than letting BIOS tell it what’s there, and somehow it can forget about that hardware. No other hardware, just the WiFi. To fix this, I have to unplug the box. I let it sit for 30 timed seconds, then plug it back in. Works every time.

I am a big believer in “unplug the mother for several seconds” as a repair (or restore/upgrade) technique.

[subego]

They did each get shutdowns in step 2, but using the power button.

Agreed though the second shutdown was critical. Something somewhere was supposed to get zeroed out by a restart, and it wasn’t.

[ghporter]

That's one reason I wait a full 30 seconds between unplugging and reconnecting my Linux box's power cord. That something that needed to be zeroed may have been told to zero, but maybe it didn't really "take"? Letting the whole power supply (for lack of a better term) "wind down" ensures that everything has a chance to settle to a cold off state.

[subego]

The ER I’m in plays the theme from ER at full blast whenever an ambulance calls ahead.

Bonus irritant: speaker is half blown.

[Thorzdad]

You’re in the ER?

[subego]

Luckily, as a visitor.

[ghporter]

Originally Posted by subego 

The ER I’m in plays the theme from ER at full blast whenever an ambulance calls ahead.

Bonus irritant: speaker is half blown.

“If I’m on edge and dangling from my very last nerve, everybody should be on edge and dangling from their very last nerve.”
—ER registration clerk

[Thorzdad]

Originally Posted by subego 

The ER I’m in plays the theme from ER at full blast whenever an ambulance calls ahead.

I’m kinda impressed you know the ER theme.

[andi*pandi]

there was no music in the edinburgh royal er.

[Thorzdad]

Originally Posted by andi*pandi 

there was no music in the edinburgh royal er.

And, why were you at the ER?

I can’t recall there ever being music in any ER. Or hospital proper, for that matter.

[andi*pandi]

steep hill + uneven 500yo flagstone sidewalk = broken wrist.

sometimes waiting rooms have tvs tuned to horrible stations...

[reader50]

Not sure if this counts as music, but it was rhythmic, and was a live performance. While I was visiting someone in the ER years ago, the nurses wheeled an older woman in. This was maybe 10PM.

She hollered steadily.
"I don't want to die"
"Please bring me a doctor"
"This is terrible"
"Help Me, I don't want to die"

After about 10 minutes of this serenade, the nurses gave her a private room. So they could close the door. I don't know what was wrong with her, voice was healthy. Carried well too.

[Thorzdad]

Originally Posted by andi*pandi 

steep hill + uneven 500yo flagstone sidewalk = broken wrist.

sometimes waiting rooms have tvs tuned to horrible stations...

Damned Scots and their ancient pavements.

Re:waiting room tvs...In my neck of the woods, it’s practically a given that, if a waiting room has a tv, it’s going to be tuned to Fox News. It never makes sense to me. Why not tune the tv to a channel that isn’t guaranteed to make a chunk of your patients uncomfortable or angry? HGTV? TCM? Or maybe just turn the damned thing off?

[Laminar]

Originally Posted by subego 

The ER I’m in plays the theme from ER at full blast whenever an ambulance calls ahead.

Bonus irritant: speaker is half blown.

My old ruby iMac DV sits in the basement, the 5 y/o considers it her computer, while brother and dad have the gaming computers next to it. About the only thing it can still do is play music from its iTunes library. It has the classic iMac DV speaker rot, so anything above 25% volume results in horrific rattling. Can confirm bonus irritant.

[ghporter]

Laminar, "cure" speaker rot with a really cheap pair of external speakers. Even really cheap externals will beat blown speaker cones.

My own "minor" irritant: nomenclature. Specifically, terms for a variety of HTML procedures to do certain things.

I should point out that I haven't coded anything in a couple of years, and both HTML and CSS have rapidly advanced since the last time I did a web page, so I'm playing catch up.

So I've been working on a web page internal to my LAN to just show image files from the elebenty-billion slides and negatives I've been scanning for the past several months. It's easy to just point to a folder and then click on a file name, but it is anything but friendly to use.

The bottom line is that the folks who invented some of the "nuts and bolts" stuff in HTML and CSS have given some things really misleading and/or confusing names... Thanks guys.

[subego]

Originally Posted by Thorzdad 

And, why were you at the ER?

I can’t recall there ever being music in any ER. Or hospital proper, for that matter.

I haven’t either. This is really more of a “ringtone” that happens to be a clip of music rather than actual music.

In the ER because my dad got sick. He was actually in last week, got released, and then landed back in a couple days later. He keeps ending up with bad electrolyte imbalances, some for known reasons, some for unknown. That ends up turning him batshit. Once things rebalance he turns back to normal, but it requires hospital-grade resources.



Edit: that’s been why I’ve been quiet for the last week.

[ghporter]

Sorry about your dad's recurring issues. I hope that he's getting care from the right folks. Electrolyte imbalances can come from kidney issues, intestinal issues, even dietary issues. Having the right specialties involved in his care is crucial, and unfortunately not a lot of people know that their care should be a team effort.

Good luck with your dad, and I hope his care team figures things out.