[Winstonm]

How capitalism caused two airplanes to crash.

Airbus improved one of their planes by adding larger engines that reduced fuel usage by 15%. This gave Airbus an advantage.
Boeing tried to compete by adding the same engines but their airplane was not as tall as the Airbus so the new larger engines did not fit.
To solve the problem, Boeing place the engines higher on the wing, leading the top of the engines to be above wing height.
This change cause an imbalance that caused the Boeing planes to tend to tilt nose up.
To solve the nose up problem, Boeing added software that would automatically force the nose down to compensate.
This forced nose down created by the software is being found to have been a potential cause of the two recent crashes.

Two deadly crashes from a need to compete. It is not that capitalism itself is bad, but capitalism without proper oversight and proper regulation is dangerous.

[johnu]

The Republican College for Advanced Clown Training is running overtime training new clowns:

GOP congressman climbs 'border' wall, doesn't actually make it to Mexico

Right fringe congressman Duncan Hunter posted a video showing how easy it was to cross the US-Mexico border by allegedly going to a stretch of the border fence which was about waist high, and then hopping over to Mexico.

Unfortunately Hunter is under Federal indictment for misusing campaign funds and cannot leave the country while awaiting trial.

Quote

GOP Rep. Duncan Hunter is facing backlash for pretending to cross the U.S.-Mexico border — something his Democratic opponent says would have violated the terms of the congressman's parole stemming from federal charges of misusing campaign funds.

...
"Congressman Hunter said on video that he was 15 meters from Mexico, then proceeded to walk over to the border in what appeared to be, by his own admission, crossing into Mexico," he said. "Hunter either broke the law and violated conditions of his release issued by a judge not to leave continental U.S., or he was pulling a political stunt and lied."

OK, to save everybody the suspense, it was purely a political stunt and Hunter was caught in an embarrassing lie.

Quote

Border Patrol officials told The Times of San Diego that the official border is the Colorado River, which is further away from the vehicle barrier Hunter crossed.

"What [Hunter] crossed was a vehicle barrier," said Border Patrol spokesman Vincent Dulesky told the paper, who helped lead a tour Wednesday night for members of Congress at the border. "That is approximately 75-100 feet from the border — the border is actually the river that's west of that."

Hunter represents a strong law and order Republican district. Those voters didn't seem to care so much about law and order since he was under Federal indictment when he was reelected in 2018.

[y66]

Today is Earth Day. To mark it, David Leonhardt at NYT devoted his newsletter this morning to the final paragraph of Nathaniel Rich’s new book, Losing Earth, which Leonhardt says is the most powerful paragraph he's read recently:

Quote

Everything is changing about the natural world and everything must change about the way we conduct our lives. It is easy to complain that the problem is too vast, and each of us is too small. But there is one thing that each of us can do ourselves, in our homes, at our own pace — something easier than taking out the recycling or turning down the thermostat, and something more valuable. We can call the threats to our future what they are. We can call the villains villains, the heroes heroes, the victims victims and ourselves complicit. We can realize that all this talk about the fate of Earth has nothing to do with the planet’s tolerance for higher temperatures and everything to do with our species’ tolerance for self-delusion. And we can understand that when we speak about things like fuel-efficiency standards or gasoline taxes or methane flaring, we are speaking about nothing less than all we love and all we are.

[y66]

From John William's mostly positive review of Michael Lewis' new podcast series Against the Rules at NYT:

Quote

The author’s first foray into podcasting, the seven-part series “Against the Rules,” is about a subject that is, by his standards, only medium-wonky. It’s about authority, or “all the poorly refereed corners of life,” as he puts it. Lewis is interested in the current (sour) state of our relationship to authority and to regulation — our mistrust of them and, in some cases, our full-throated hostility toward them.

He focuses in each episode on a different profession, and somewhat awkwardly insists on calling all these professions “referees” to fit his rubric: financial regulators, experts on language usage, fine-art authenticators — “enforcers of rules and preservers of fairness.”

The common thread is a robust defense of these enforcers. Lewis says that pro-basketball officials, for instance (thanks to increased scrutiny of their work and the use of instant replay) are getting more calls right than ever before, even as they are vociferously attacked by fans and aggrieved players (especially the biggest stars). And he clearly believes, along with Elizabeth Warren, whom he interviews in the second episode, that the financial industry remains dangerously under-regulated.

Good title.

[y66]

From How Did James Holzhauer Turn ‘Jeopardy!’ Into His Own A.T.M.? We Asked Him by Victor Mather at NYT:

Quote

ames Holzhauer has dominated “Jeopardy!” like no one else since the current version of the television game show had its premiere in 1984. He won again on the episode that aired Wednesday, pushing his total earnings above $1.1 million, second on the all-time list behind the legendary Ken Jennings.

And the remarkable thing is that Holzhauer, a 34-year-old professional sports bettor from Las Vegas, has reached that mark in just 15 games; Jennings’s $2.5 million came in 74 games.

Holzhauer is extraordinarily knowledgeable, of course, but his huge scores — he now holds the top seven best daily totals in “Jeopardy!” history — come largely because of his aggressive strategy. He seeks out the high value questions first, and when he finds a Daily Double, which allows contestants to bet as much of their winnings as they like, he bets big.

Your strategy on “Jeopardy!” has drawn a lot of attention.

You could make an analogy to sports betting or poker tournaments. There are big advantages to having a lot of chips early on in a poker tournament. You can make plays that other people can’t.

When I was just getting started in sports, I didn’t have a huge bankroll, and there were times when I would see a good betting opportunity and didn’t have enough to put down on it.

Hitting a Daily Double on the first clue is nice I guess, but you can do a lot more damage if you have $5,000 in front of you already.

Why doesn’t everyone come out and bet very aggressively?

You have to be comfortable. Some of the opponents I’ve been playing, you can see they are visibly shaken by what’s going on onstage. Of course, you’re not going to play well if you’re up there trembling. And if you make yourself tremble by playing more aggressively than you are comfortable with, that’s so much the worse.

No. 1 is making sure you’re in your comfort zone. My comfort zone is very different than the typical contestant. I think that’s a huge advantage for me.

What sports do you focus on?

When I started 14 years ago, the biggest edges were in baseball, and that’s what I focused on. But the market’s really caught up with advanced statistics, and they take bigger bets on games like football and basketball, so I’m focusing more of my attention there. Hockey I’ve been trying to work on lately. You can find some inefficiencies in team totals [how many goals will be scored in a game] and the puck line [betting that a team will win by a certain margin].

How does being a professional sports bettor connect with the strategy you developed for “Jeopardy!”?

“You have to be comfortable,” Holzhauer said. “Some of the opponents I’ve been playing, you can see they are visibly shaken.”

“You have to be comfortable,” Holzhauer said. “Some of the opponents I’ve been playing, you can see they are visibly shaken.”CreditCarol Kaelson/Jeopardy Productions, via Associated Press

There’s a few things. The fact that I win and lose money all the time helps desensitize me, so I can write down $60,000 as the Final Jeopardy wager and not be trembling at the thought of losing that money.

And thinking: “This isn’t a trivia question. It’s a coin flip that’s going to land heads for me a lot more often than it’s going to land tails, so I’m going to bet as much as I can on heads.”

How has this run of success changed your life?

I’m still in my normal life now. If the right opportunity comes along I would of course consider it, but if I get to a point where I can’t drive my own kid to class, then I think I’ve really screwed up. I want to not lose what makes me be me.

Good sense of what really screwing up means.

[kenberg]

 y66, on 2019-April-27, 05:28, said:

From How Did James Holzhauer Turn 'Jeopardy!' Into His Own A.T.M.? We Asked Him by Victor Mather at NYT:


Good sense of what really screwing up means.

It's a very interesting article and "You have to be comfortable. Some of the opponents I've been playing, you can see they are visibly shaken by what's going on onstage" resonates with me. I mess up a lot of bridge hands through lost focus. Sometimes this is laziness, sometimes I am sitting at the computer drinking wine and playing bridge, but also sometimes I let anxiety get to me. This loss of focus has cost me far more boards than outright stupidity. Apparently he is able to keep this at bay. Whether we are speaking of bridge, or Jeopardy, or scoring well on SAT exams, I think that focus, or loss of it, is crucial. I realize that I am sounding a bit like the Chris Meloni character (another sports guy) in Runaway Bride, but the humor works there because it is an exaggerated version of some truth. The trick is to treat something as important enough that you are willing to put effort into it, but not let this sense of importance drive you around the bend.


I indeed like "I want to not lose what makes me be me". He seems to have it right. Best wishes to him.

It's been a long time since I have watched Jeopardy. Or any quiz show.

[Cyberyeti]

 kenberg, on 2019-April-27, 07:44, said:

It's a very interesting article and "You have to be comfortable. Some of the opponents I've been playing, you can see they are visibly shaken by what's going on onstage" resonates with me. I mess up a lot of bridge hands through lost focus. Sometimes this is laziness, sometimes I am sitting at the computer drinking wine and playing bridge, but also sometimes I let anxiety get to me. This loss of focus has cost me far more boards than outright stupidity. Apparently he is able to keep this at bay. Whether we are speaking of bridge, or Jeopardy, or scoring well on SAT exams, I think that focus, or loss of it, is crucial. I realize that I am sounding a bit like the Chris Meloni character (another sports guy) in Runaway Bride, but the humor works there because it is an exaggerated version of some truth. The trick is to treat something as important enough that you are willing to put effort into it, but not let this sense of importance drive you around the bend.


I indeed like "I want to not lose what makes me be me". He seems to have it right. Best wishes to him.

It's been a long time since I have watched Jeopardy. Or any quiz show.

There's another thing at play here. He is much more experienced than many of the people he plays against. Talking as a some time Countdown contestant in the UK I underperformed massively mainly because there are some things that you can only work out by playing in front of the cameras however many times you've watched the show.

[y66]

Timothy Egan discusses How to Be the Perfect Grandparent in his column today which ends with this suggestion: "You can do one big thing, as a wise friend told me some time ago. That is: With every action, political and personal, try to ensure that you will be thought of, after you’ve passed, as a great ancestor." Great is a stretch for me. Kind and fun to do stuff with might be achievable. It's definitely a fun problem.

[kenberg]

 y66, on 2019-April-27, 10:49, said:

Timothy Egan discusses How to Be the Perfect Grandparent in his column today which ends with this suggestion: "You can do one big thing, as a wise friend told me some time ago. That is: With every action, political and personal, try to ensure that you will be thought of, after you've passed, as a great ancestor." Great is a stretch for me. Kind and fun to do stuff with might be achievable. It's definitely a fun problem.

Between us, Becky and I have 12 grandchildren ranging in age from 7 months to 26 years. I am sure none of them think of us as great and really they don't all that often think of us at all. And that is absolutely fine. Kids that are busy with their own lives are a pleasure. I think that the best thing you can do for kids and grandkids is to enjoy them and to be clear that you enjoy them. The parents might sometimes appreciate a little help so give it. And then relax. You don't have to be great.

Here is a grandfather story. When the oldest was 7 or so her parents made sure that she was involved in many activities but I noticed that she had not yet learned to ride a bike so I announced that I was going to teach her. And after a bit I was allowed to give it a shot. So we went out, she was doing great until she hit a bad spot and went flying off landing painfully on the pavement. I figured this is it, I will never be allowed to have her again. We got back and her parents asked how it went. "Great. It was really fun". Not a word about the spill. Years later after a long ride she mentioned to her friends "My grandfather taught me to ride." A good feeling.

[y66]

From Sitting all day ruined my health. VR saved me. by Shawn Kittelsen at Polygon:

Quote

Although BoxVR joined Holopoint and Thrill of the Fight as a permanent fixture in my workouts, it could not recreate the rhythmic flow conjured by a sublime session of Audioshield, which had been my perfect workout. Would I ever fall in love like that again?

The answer was no. Instead of falling in love, I was about to find religion.

THE GOSPEL OF BEAT SABER

If Audioshield was Guitar Hero mixed with boxing, then Beat Saber is Guitar Hero mixed with the Jedi arts. It’s the high-intensity, low-impact holy grail of cardio.

You play while standing on a platform in a neon-lit industrial void. There’s a red plasma-saber in your left hand, and a blue plasma-saber in your right. Beats fly toward you in red and blue boxes as your choice of music plays. You have to slice each box in half, while matching your saber colors to the colors of the beats.

Playing Beat Saber can look very silly ...

I used short, tight motions to play at first, until I found that a perfect 50/50 slice and a 150-degree arc on each swing would maximize my score. The beats came at me so quickly in later levels that I had to master complex swing patterns, two-handed slashes, crossovers, and drumlike trill strokes. Energy walls sometimes flew at me with the beats, forcing me to squat and dodge while swinging my sabers.

Beat Saber became the new centerpiece of my daily routine. I played it for over an hour on my best days, swinging through songs again and again to master them as the sweat fell on my yoga mat. I found myself catching a runner’s high about 40 to 50 minutes into most sessions, causing the whole world to melt away as the Force flowed through my body, guiding my sabers to their beats. No aches, no pains, and no strains. Just pure, kinetic flow.

Optimizing my Beat Saber sessions required optimizing everything outside of the game. I diversified my VR workouts and supplemented them with a DDP Yoga subscription to build joint support and range of motion. I finally prioritized eight hours of sleep each night, and stuck with a diet with lots of proteins, healthy fats, and vegetables instead of excess carbs and sugar. Fortunately, I can burn enough calories to earn a scoop of ice cream most days.

I have ascended the Beat Saber ranks from D scores to S scores, from relatively accessible Expert levels to astonishingly difficult Expert+ challenges. I’ve even sliced my way onto the Expert+ leaderboards among the top 150 best players in a few songs. I’m still pushing against my physical limits, day after day, and getting better.

MY RESULTS

It’s now been over two years since I coughed and hit the kitchen floor. How am I doing?

average standing heart rate, January 2017: 85-90 bpm
average standing heart rate, April 2019: 67-72 bpm
weight, January 2017: 216 pounds
weight, April 2019: 201 pounds
average daily workout, January 2017: 0 minutes, 0 calories
average daily workout, April 2019: 45 minutes, 500 calories (minimum)

I never reached my goal weight of 196 pounds, but that’s because I’ve replaced most of the extra fat with muscle fiber. At 35 years old, I feel and look better than I have in 10 years.

My back still hurts, sometimes quite a bit. I exercise until it feels better.

I can pick up my son again. Despite being two years older and several pounds heavier, I can hug him, carry him, play with him, and enjoy myself. I’m also there to help my wife literally and figuratively carry the load of parenting, housework, or heavy objects.

[y66]

This post contains spoilers regarding the third episode of Game of Thrones’ eighth season.

Alex Ward at Vox discusses the military strategy of the Army of the Living with military experts: Ryan Grauer, an associate professor of international affairs at the University of Pittsburgh, and Mick Cook, an Australian combat veteran who fought in Afghanistan.

Spoiler

Quote

Alex Ward -- How well prepared was the Army of the Living heading into the Battle of Winterfell?

Ryan Grauer -- The Living, at a superficial level, did about as good as could be expected with commanders who haven’t spent a lot of time leading large forces in the field. It was surprising to me that there was very little effort made to figure out what was going on with the Army of the Dead.

We saw, over the last couple of episodes, lots of efforts to fortify Winterfell and a couple feints toward discussion of tactics. But, especially given that they know a massive army is coming, they seemed remarkably unprepared for just how massive it was, and when they would be there.

Mick Cook -- The way you prepare for a siege is you don’t march your forces out into the middle of the open to fight a numerically superior enemy. You let the enemy invest in trying to beat your defenses, and the defenses were all back to front from my point of view. Having the cavalry out in the front, then their infantry, then their defenses behind their whole force, it seemed like they decided to plan backwards, and it didn’t really pay off for them.

Alex Ward -- Can you explain that a bit further?

Mick Cook -- Sure, I’ll start with the catapults. The catapults serve to drop explosives right in front of your own forces as they attack the enemy. You try and put them only one-third of the distance behind your lead forces so that they can keep engaging the enemy while your forces are closing in on the enemy. But, to do that, the catapults still need to be protected, so they need to be behind your front lines.

You need your infantry or your cavalry at least in front of your fire assets. Also, with your close air support, like your dragon, you want to use that at the point that’s going to be most valuable to your ground forces, so that your ground forces can take advantage of any destruction that the dragons, in this case, would cause.

With light cavalry, like the Dothraki, their job is to go in real quick, cause damage, and come back — to exhaust the enemy. That’s probably not going to work with the Army of the Dead. Usually, light cavalry will sit out on the wings so they can move quickly without being inhibited by things like the infantry that will advance more slowly, that will get into a thick melee, and generally be a slow, harder slog of a battle.

Ryan Grauer -- I’d have had the trench pushed further out, then I’d have had all of the infantry behind the trench, and then you have the catapults behind the infantry, so that as the dead come, they meet that barrier at the beginning. We saw in the episode that it took them a while to figure out what to do about that, until the Night King saw the problem and directed his forces how to overcome it.

But in that time while they’re held up, you can employ your dragons and start laying waste to the Army of the Dead without worrying about your forces being mixed in with them. And then, when they start to break over that trench barrier, they run into your infantry, and your infantry is fresh because they’re just standing there waiting for the Dead to get over that obstacle.

All the while the Living should be using the catapult behind the infantry to lob flaming stones and whatnot into the ranks of the Dead as the Dothraki cavalry swoop in from the sides and pick away at the edges.

Alex Ward -- So if that’s what the plan should’ve been, what was up with that Dothraki charge at the beginning? Tell me that I’m wrong, please, that there was no real military justification for it.

Mick Cook -- I would love to tell you, because I love a good argument. The way they filmed it was cool, but if the Dothraki were heavy cavalry in armored war horses like knights, and they had that hard-hitting shock power, then it’d make some sense.

But the Dothraki are a lighter, mobile cavalry, so charging them toward the middle of the Night King’s troops is not how you should use them. You’d use them on the wings.

So, I’ve got to agree with you: There’s not really a tactical reason for why you would use light cavalry to charge straight into a numerically superior force of infantry that really can absorb the momentum of the charge.

Ryan Grauer -- The Dothraki had success charging into adversaries like that in the past because they were charging into living humans who are subject to terror and fear, leading to easier deaths. That wasn’t the case here.

And it’s also a little odd to start out with a Dothraki charge given the commanders’ previous experiences. In the Battle Beyond the Wall, Jon and his raiders were saved by Daenerys on her dragon, and in the Battle of the Bastards, they had the Knights of the Vale coming in to save the day at the last moment.

Employing cavalry for the culminating point of battle where they could have the most effect rather than throwing them away at the outset would’ve been a way better play.

Alex Ward -- Did the Army of the Living use their two dragons wisely? There are some who say they should’ve been used a lot more to burn wights.

Ryan Grauer -- I’m persuaded by the argument that dragons function largely as close air support. If we think about how they performed on the battlefield in that role, they didn’t make or break this battle.

And so, especially when you’re fighting an adversary that has effectively unlimited bodies to throw at you, it’s not clear that burning up some reanimated fighters just so others can take their place is a good use of that particular resource, especially if you believe that dragonfire could destroy the White Walkers, and perhaps the Night King himself.

Alex Ward -- One thing I’m still pondering: Was it smart for Jon and Dany to send two dragons after the Night King? Or should one have stayed behind to burn the Army of the Dead while the other chased the undead dragon?

Ryan Grauer -- I think it makes sense to send two dragons after the Night King. They have a special quality that could achieve the ultimate end: killing the Night King — or at least that was the expectation. I think you go ahead and use both of them to double your chances, especially when you know that the Night King is riding a reanimated dragon of his own.

Mick Cook -- It’s not odd that they decided to have both of the dragons go after the Night King, because what else is the dragon going to do, burn some more dead people? I think the two dragons at the same time was a good choice.

Alex Ward -- Okay, so the two versus one was a good choice. How about putting non-fighters in the crypt? That seems like an all-time blunder? There were dead people in there ready to be reanimated!

Ryan Grauer -- It makes no sense at all. I think it’s evidence of, again, the failure of the Living to figure out as much as they possibly could about their enemy.

They know after the Battle at Hardhome that the Night King can reanimate the dead. But it’s not clear whether he can just raise his arms and raise any dead anywhere that he wants. Maybe there’s some sort of geographical limitation to his power, and depending on how far below the ground the crypts are, maybe it doesn’t reach that far.

That said, you’ve got a massive army marching down on Winterfell and you’ve got a whole bunch of women and children, what are you going to do with them? You don’t want them out in the open, or in spaces where they would get in the way of the fighting. The crypts are really the only place that you can stash them. And so, you risk what you have to.

Mick Cook -- It was probably the best of a bunch of bad options, but we’ve come to expect better from Tyrion, at least, in terms of reasoning. I thought he would’ve at least figured it out.

Alex Ward -- Another head-scratcher: Why put Theon and the Ironborn on the Bran, especially if Bran is the Living’s most valuable asset?

Ryan Grauer -- Well, where would you draw other support from? If the Army of the Dead breaks into Winterfell, it really doesn’t matter whether you have a handful of Ironborn or no one there to protect Bran, unless of course you have Arya hiding in the woods somewhere ready to come and stab the Night King.

Mick Cook -- I agree. I think when they were laying out the battle plan, they didn’t expect that the Night King was actually going to wait for the walls to be breached and then walk on through the front door. They expected him to use his dragon and go straight for Bran.

The other point is that the Ironborn set up a defensive perimeter, but it wasn’t much of a perimeter at all. They’re very skilled with their close-combat weapons like axes, yet they choose bows and arrows in the woods where they can’t see at range. The weapon they chose was designed to fail, almost.

Alex Ward -- I thought a lot was basically designed to fail. If you expected the White Walkers to at one point get to your walls, wouldn’t you have better defense on those walls?

Mick Cook -- Yeah, wall defenses were a big issue for me, as well. I mean, they didn’t even use burning pitch or anything like that, which works on the living as well as the dead. Also, they’ve got all this dragonglass, and they didn’t coat the top of the walls with it. That would stop them crawling over for a bit. It was as if the Living’s attitude was: “They’re going to make it over anyway, may as well just fight them hand-to-hand on top of the walls.”

I suppose, also, it made for good TV.

Ryan Grauer -- I think the tension between good military tactics and good television came into conflict here. Like the two of you, I was surprised not to see pitch, or some other mechanism employed to help defend the walls a little bit more than what they tried.

But again, they were a much more outnumbered force than they thought they were, and for whatever reason they were surprised at how quickly the Dead got to Winterfell. If they’d had another few days, another week, maybe they’d have done a little bit better.

Alex Ward -- It’s not just that the Living were outnumbered, right? It’s that the Night King had absolute control over them.

Ryan Grauer -- We saw that at play in this battle, where you have the Night King who leads a very centralized organization controlling everything. He’s able to be responsive and force his own troops to lay down on the trench fire to make a bridge, for example.

On the Living side, you don’t have anything like that centralization, and you effectively remove the commander from battle with the blizzard. Jon and Dany were flying around looking for the Night King and literally couldn’t see anyone or anything.

Even if Jon could communicate orders about how to adjust to emergent battlefield challenges, he doesn’t know what they are. And so the Night King was better able to cut through the fog and friction of war with his organizational structure, but that resulted in a weakness that Arya exploited and ultimately won the day for the living.

Mick Cook -- The weather effects played a massive role in all of this that would’ve been very had to plan for. The close-air support that dragons provide is not an all-weather option. The same thing that affected those dragons affects jets in the real world. That’s what land-based artillery like those catapults are good for: Even if you can’t see, just lob hot rocks all day long and still cause damage.

Alex Ward -- I’d say the White Walker generals could make important calls despite the weather but, they seemed ultimately useless, especially since the Night King had so much control. Their only use was coming into Winterfell looking like that opening credits scene in Reservoir Dogs.

Mick Cook -- You thought Reservoir Dogs, I thought Backstreet Boys when they came around the corner. Or maybe it’s NSYNC: They were just there to make Justin Timberlake look good.

Alex Ward -- What better way to end than with that?

[shyams]

https://www.bbc.com/...canada-48113953

I believe there have been instances of egregious shootings by cops where the officer was later acquitted. This one didn't.

Regardless of merits of individual cases, could the jury verdict be a reflection of some other biases? I wonder.

[Zelandakh]

 y66, on 2019-April-30, 13:56, said:

This post contains spoilers regarding the third episode of Game of Thrones’ eighth season.

Thank you for the warning but please keep all spoilers in a separate thread where those of us that are waiting can suitably avoid any accidental collateral damage.

[y66]

 Zelandakh, on 2019-May-01, 10:41, said:

Thank you for the warning but please keep all spoilers in a separate thread where those of us that are waiting can suitably avoid any accidental collateral damage.

It is done.

[y66]

Another take on virtual reality from NYT Health beat reporter Jane Brody:

Quote

I was packing up at the end of a family vacation in Florida when my back went into an excruciating spasm unrelieved by a fistful of pain medication. As my twin sons, then 8 years old, wheeled me through the airport, one of them suggested, “Mom, if you think about something else, it won’t hurt so much.”

At the time, I failed to appreciate the wisdom of his advice. Now, four decades later, a sophisticated distraction technique is being used to help patients of all ages cope with pain, both acute and chronic. The method, called Virtual Reality Therapy, goes beyond simple distraction, as might result from watching television. Rather, it totally immerses the patient in an entertaining, relaxing, interactive environment that so occupies the brain, it has no room to process pain sensations at the same time.

“It’s not just a distraction — it’s like an endogenous narcotic providing a physiological and chemical burst that causes you to feel good,” said Jeffrey I. Gold, director of the pediatric pain management clinic at Children’s Hospital Los Angeles. “It’s different from reading a book or playing with a toy. It’s a multisensory experience that engages a person’s attention on a much deeper level.”

Virtual Reality Therapy is the new kid on the block for pain management, now gradually growing in use as the opioid epidemic continues to soar and the price of the needed equipment has plummeted. VR, as it is called, has been most widely and successfully used so far to help children and adults weather acute pain, as can accompany an IV insertion or debridement of burns. But it can also enhance the effectiveness of established techniques like physical therapy, hypnosis and cognitive behavioral therapy to treat debilitating chronic pain.

Hollie Davis, a 41-year-old resident of High Point, N.C., owes her current full mobility and cheerful disposition to a therapist at BreakThrough Physical Therapy in Greensboro, N.C., part of a network of outpatient physical therapy clinics run by Confluent Health. The therapist suggested she try VR as part of her treatment for persistent, life-inhibiting pain following a motorcycle accident. Months after suffering a concussion and extremely painful bruising when a car struck her motorcycle, “the prediction that I’d get better with time just wasn’t happening,” she told me.

“I found VR fascinating. I spent 10 or 20 minutes in a dark room while a head-mounted 3-D screen transported me to a very relaxing place, taught me about the nature of pain, how oxygen travels through the body, then how to breathe, focus on my breathing, relax my body and think of nothing else.” The device engages multiple senses, essentially flooding the brain with so much input that it cannot register pain signals. When pain messages try to get through, “the brain gives a busy signal,” Hunter Hoffman, director of the VR research center at the University of Washington in Seattle, said.

As a tool for overcoming pain and fear of an injection or IV insertion, for example, children may strive to earn points by launching Nerf balls at teddy bears on one VR program, Dr. Gold said. “Kids may say ‘When are you going to do it?’ and we’ve done it five minutes ago.”

One of the first VR programs, called SnowWorld, was designed by Dr. Hoffman for treating burn patients, who often say “getting their wounds cleaned is like being burned again,” he said. The virtual snowy environment is a stark contrast with the cause of their burns.

Of course, if the treatment of persistent pain only involved virtual reality, once the headset and its computerized program are removed, the pain can and would return. Larry Benz, a physical therapist and chief executive of Confluent Health, explained, “VR is not a cure — it’s an adjunct to other methods that we know work” but that often involve many months of costly treatment and still may not achieve a desired result.

“If I teach you in a virtual environment, you’re more likely to retain it, engage with it and comply with what you’ve been taught,” Dr. Benz said. “When you’re fully immersed in a virtual environment, it’s like a ‘brain hack’ — you can’t be engaged in anything else.”

Too often, patients with chronic pain become afraid to move, which can actually make their problem worse. Various VR programs get patients to gently exercise their injured body parts and extend their range of motion while blocking their brain’s ability to register pain.

“Using VR as an adjunct, we can teach coping skills, techniques patients can use on their own that will help diminish chronic pain,” Dr. Hoffman said. “Learning changes the brain and gives patients something that continues to work when they take the helmet off. When patients realize their pain isn’t inevitable, they’re more receptive to doing physical therapy exercises and more likely to move on their own.”

David R. Patterson, a University of Washington researcher who pioneered the combined use of VR and hypnosis, said the techniques can foster mindfulness, “enhancing patients’ ability to come into the moment rather than pay attention to their pain. Mindfulness can train the brain not to react to thoughts or emotions associated with suffering. Pain may be inevitable, but suffering isn’t.”

Dr. Gold explained, “Mindfulness teaches the mind how to quiet the body and nervous system through breathing and focusing on one’s breath. Thoughts may come into your head but then go out. You don’t obsess about them or catastrophize.”

Still, Dr. Patterson and others said, VR is not yet ready for prime time to treat chronic pain, nor should it be considered a replacement for medication.

“Pilot studies are underway using different kinds of VR content to help patients learn skills for managing their pain and be less quick to grab medication,” Dr. Gold said. With VR headsets now priced around $300 or $400, patients may be able to use them at home several times a day. A number of companies are developing various software programs that create therapeutic virtual environments, with the ultimate goal of using the mind to change the brain — “like learning to play the piano or ride a bike,” he said.

“VR is not a panacea or silver bullet, but a tool to teach many different things,” Dr. Gold said. “Unlike opioids, you don’t become dependent on VR. Rather, you learn skills that can generalize into life without VR. It’s a tool for breaking the cycle of pain and stress that drives the nervous system through the roof. You can learn to think yourself well instead of thinking yourself sick.”

[y66]

Good story about Chasten Buttigieg by Ellen McCarthy at WaPo: https://www.washingt...m=.756907d18fd9

[y66]

kepler.gl by Shan He at Uber is an amazing tool for visualizing geospatial data. If you had latitude, longitude and average ranking data for BBO members in a comma separated file, you could drag and drop the file onto kepler and produce a pretty nifty map showing where the really tough opps are in the free daylongs in about 10 seconds. For geeks only of course.

[Winstonm]

In the news:

Quote

Police believe a 12-year-old in Texas fatally shot his brother on Saturday because he was “mad” at him, The Houston Chronicle reports

In related news:

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The NRA has absolved the weapon used of all blame and responsibility.

[Winstonm]

Scumbag Steve Mnuchin isn't rich enough to buy a vowel?

[johnu]

I've made fun of many Republican politicans in the past. Here's one more WTF moment from a repugnant politician.

GOP state legislator attacks vaccine scientist on Twitter, accusing him of self-enrichment, ‘sorcery’

Equating vaccinations with sorcery,

Quote

“Make the case for your sorcery to consumers on your own dime,” the Republican, who represents an area of suburban Fort Worth, snapped back Tuesday.

Indeed, let's bring back bloodletting and astrology to medicine so we can bring the USA back to the glorious days of the dark ages.