BroccoliFarts

joined 1 year ago
[–] BroccoliFarts 6 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (2 children)

It's a civil trial. The court won't forcibly take anything from him.

I was defrauded by someone who lied on a house condition report, and the house needed $20k in work to not be condemned. I had paperwork the previous owner left in a closet that showed they were aware of the extent of the damage years before selling the house, but it was not disclosed.

Our attorney said "you can win this case. But you'll win a $20k judgement. If they don't pay, you have to sue again for failure to pay. If they die (they were elderly) legally the estate has to post in the local paper a notice. If you catch that notice within a couple of weeks, you will be able to claim $20k from the estate. If you miss this window, you're SOL."

[–] BroccoliFarts 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

This is about a decade after the Arab Spring though, where Twitter was instrumental in coordinating the grassroots movements that took down governments. Seems a little late?

[–] BroccoliFarts 2 points 1 year ago

I work in clinical (and preclinical) trials. And I have celiac disease. I'm hopeful but not optimistic that I'll be able to eat pasta within the next decade.

[–] BroccoliFarts 4 points 1 year ago

There are immunotherapy treatments for cancer already. Infections and cancer use the immune system the correct way: "tag" the problem cell/virus part with an antibody, make a lot more antibody and flood your body with it to clear the problem cell/virus.

This is the process a vaccine uses. The old vaccine method is to take a bunch of dead bacteria or inactivated virus and put that in your body. Your body should identify it and begin making antibodies against it. If you do get exposed to the disease, your body is full of antibodies which can immediately clear it, rather than letting the infection/cancer work for a few days without much of an immune response.

An autoimmune disease, a body "tags" its own cells. Then the immune system invades the person's own tissue.

I have celiac disease. If I eat gluten, the enzymes I use to digest gluten become tagged. Unfortunately, humans make one gluten enzyme (TG2) that's found everywhere in the body. A third of celiacs will have their thyroid tissue affected if they consume gluten.

One particular antibody, IgE, is known for extreme reactions to antigens. These are the ones known for the immediate and life-threatening allergies (peanuts, shellfish, bees, wheat).

This new stuff appears to be a way to tag antibodies or antigens or memory T cells (they hold the "blueprints" to make antibodies really quickly after your natural antibodies go away) and have the immune system "re-evaluate" the antigen. I'm guessing from the post above and a little of the article. I haven't heard of this process in the body before.

Cancer itself is not autoimmune (autoimmune inflammation can make it more likely to happen, but tumors don't form directly through autoimmune mechanisms). So the first pathway used for normal vaccination is what's needed. The difficulty lies in knowing something in each specific cancer that would make a good antibody target. It is a person's own cells and DNA, so a lot of care has to be taken to find an appropriate antigen. Immunotherapy treatments that exist are really specific to certain types of cancer. They have much less severe side effects than radiotherapy and chemotherapy.

[–] BroccoliFarts 6 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Yeah I have a Thinkpad Carbon X1. It has soldered on RAM.

[–] BroccoliFarts 23 points 1 year ago (7 children)

The US laws on bumpers has been refined in blood over the years. At least 20% of the people I know in my area have damaged their car by hitting a deer.

How will this truck fare if hitting a 90 kg deer? It's different enough that it might be substantially different (better or worse) than a more conventional truck.

I'm also reminded of a famous car made of paneled stainless steel. It was a terrible car and ruined the company that made it. It's only remembered fondly because of a popular movie series.

[–] BroccoliFarts 20 points 1 year ago (11 children)

I don't like Musk, and I'm not a fan of Tesla in general, but I kind of dig the design. Completely understand why it's controversial and how others could perceive it as ugly, but I like it.

Then again, I liked the PT Cruiser when it came out (compared to all the other cars of the era), but within a year it became the car that was falling apart and owners hated it, and within 5 years it looked really dated.

I still like the Chevy HHR and Plymouth Prowler designs. They are truly "bold" designs in that they make decisions that a large percentage of people disliked. Not the marketing "bold design" which means "we slightly exaggerated a popular design feature that's in style right now so no one will object to it".

[–] BroccoliFarts 8 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Habanero tastes pretty great, but the heat is far too much for me. Like most people, I have to have it dialed down to enjoy the flavor.

Someone let me try their "Dumbass Hot Sauce" and it was very spicy, with a gross bitter taste to it. It's made for people to show off in front of others. It's not an enjoyable taste.

This seems like the latter kind of food. It's not spicy as a result of trying to make something that tastes great, it sounds like it was made to be spicy as a marketing gimmick. It sounds like that coffee with "death" in the name that I hear taste nasty. It has added caffeine. It's meant to have the highest amount of caffeine as a gimmick, not to taste good.

[–] BroccoliFarts 6 points 1 year ago

I sat out on a whitewater rafting trip with friends because I couldn't be that far from a bathroom. After many years of testing other problems, I went to a GI doctor for the stomach issues. I had undiagnosed celiac disease.

[–] BroccoliFarts 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Boris Johnson was a natural-born US citizen but gave up his citizenship to hold political office in the UK.

[–] BroccoliFarts 5 points 1 year ago

We're used to viruses that have narrow cell types they can infect. Rhinoviruses can infect mucus membranes in the head and maybe throat. Influenza can infect the same plus lung tissue.

These coronaviruses can infect so many cell types. Because it's spread via the air, it almost always infects mucus membranes of the head first, then moves to lungs (or maybe it infects lungs first in some people). So we think of it as a respiratory virus at first.

Now we know it can infect tissues of the gut, fat, T cells, and the testes. There was a wave of orchitis/epididymitis that was discovered to be coronavirus caused. I'm not sure if it's considered COVID, I think COVID is the respiratory disease caused by coronavirus, but not sure about other diseases. Similar to how the varicella virus causes two diseases: chicken pox and shingles.

[–] BroccoliFarts 9 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (2 children)

When people in the US talk about a classist system, it's more of the structure than the cost. There are state IDs that are inexpensive in most states, but the Motor Vehicles branch (or whatever the state calls their department) that issues the ID are frequently difficult to travel to in lower income areas. Occasionally, the branches are understaffed and information about what can be used as proof of ID isn't communicated clearly. Combine this with the US's poor labor laws, and it means that it's risky for someone to take off work, spend significant time getting to a DMV branch, waiting in line a long time because of understaffing, then be told they need more proof of ID and to do it all over again.

It's frustrating for me and I have a driver's license and a white-collar job so I can drive myself to the DMV easily and not worry about losing my job or losing a half-day's pay.

It's still kind of messy also because proof of birth by birth certificate wasn't required until relatively recently. My grandad was never issued a birth certificate. As far as the government is concerned, he didn't exist until he joined the army. We all have to take his word on when he was born and his name. He told it to the army and had no legal proof before then. So my state establishes identification without using birth certificates, which takes more paperwork and complications.

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