Oh right, this thing

[solarbird]

Hey, guys, I’ve been kinda distracted. Everybody I know in Japan is fine, but it’s still been very scary. I suggest Médecins Sans Frontières/Doctors Without Borders as an aid organisation. Right now, for Japanese people, the biggest problem by far is the cold and lack of shelter. It’s been a cold winter and spring, and snow is on the ground in a lot of affected areas, and whereever the tsunami hit, there’s nothing left. It went 10km inland. That’s… it just blows my mind.

Oh, and an aside to all the panicking Americans: THIS IS NOT ABOUT YOU. STOP PANICKING, SHUT THE HELL UP, AND HELP. Seriously, Americans and French dropped about a billion A- and H-bombs in the Pacific (and two in Japan) in the 40s and 50s, and how many of those necessitated KI tablets in North America? None.

Hell, there were above-ground tests in Nevada. They were tourist events. This was a really bad idea for lots of reasons but you didn’t need to be popping iodine in Las Vegas, much less 7,000km away.

In band news, the CD duplicator has been difficult to work with, but Acronova has been very highly responsive in trying to figure out the problems. The data sides have been perfect, but getting labels to write has been a real trial. They’re now sending me a replacement writer unit, despite the fact that:

…we finally got it working. \o/ Spool 1 is printed! Both sides! And passes validation/verification 100%!

Now I just have to get paper printers to talk to me. H8. DX

Mirrored from Crime and the Blog of Evil.

Comments

[epawtows.livejournal.com]

I wonder how many people are overdoing themselves with table salt; trying to get at the iodine in it.

[solarbird]

That's been happening in parts of China, or so I heard.

Also, http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/42135438/ns/health-health_care/ - people getting sick from dosing themselves up with KI.

[dpawtows.livejournal.com]

I've actually got a bottle of potassium iodine pills. It's still shrink-wrapped.

[solarbird]

It's not a bad idea to have some around if you're close to a nuclear plant or waste facility or whatever. It's just this reaction that's stupid.

[sarakate.livejournal.com]

The kelp pills have all flown off the shelves at the local health food or vitamin places here. This is TEXAS, 11000km (or, you know, more than 1/4 of the global circumference) away. People are idiots.

[epawtows.livejournal.com]

Kelp? The seaweed? Is this some sort of extract, or just compressed leaves?

[sarakate.livejournal.com]

Yep, the seaweed -- dried, powdered, compressed, and stuffed in a capsule. They get about the same amount in a capsule (by weight) as a quarter of a sheet of nori.

I take them regularly, because my diet is unusually low in iodine (I grew up in a sodium-restricted household, and don't eat a lot of prepared foods, so I don't get the benefit of the iodine added to salt), and I'd reached the point where my thyroid numbers, while still in "normal" ranges, were obviously trending weird, and I was mildly symptomatic (cold, tired, and the possible beginnings of a goiter!) of hypothyroid, and in a way that suggested it was iodine deficiency rather than actual thyroid malfunction. So I had a conversation with my doctor wherein he visibly tried and failed to make himself say something like, "Well, why don't you just eat more salt?" and then he was casting about for other food sources of iodine (he really likes diet adjustments as the first line of attack, before medicating), and suggested that I try eating nori. I responded that regularly inducing vomiting is otherwise referred to as "bulimia" and generally regarded as a bad idea -- in other words, no, I can't eat that. So then we compromised on the kelp capsules, which basically amount to eating a half sheet of nori a day but in a form that won't make me whulp, and it turns out that my thyroid works just fine once given adequate feedstocks, so we're both happy.

Except I am less happy because when I needed more of them this week I had to buy a different brand than I usually get (see the aforementioned "flying off the shelves") and ohgodIcantasteit and I would like to kick someone in the shins.

[maellenkleth]

oh, btw, that was a brilliant idea to try polishing the CDs. Is unlikely to have occurred to me.

Hmm...

[ysabetwordsmith.livejournal.com]

If it will get the idiots to stop subsidizing nuclear reactors because they finally realize that, oh yeah, those things can melt down and kill people ... then their freaking out over the meltdown in Japan will have some good results.