Wednesday, September 30, 2020

End of Q3 2020 Links

  • I'm really surprised that Tesla knows that these control arms are prone to cracking and has issued the Service Bulletin, but isn't replacing them voluntarily. I'm surprised that this isn't an actual recall item given the consequences if it fails when the car is at speed, which obviously could be catastrophic. I filed a notice with NHTSA about this failed part. I've written back to the service rep explaining this, and asking to escalate the discussion to someone in management. I expressed my deep enthusiasm for Tesla and my "dream car," and mentioned that I've installed two 50 amp charging circuits at my home in anticipation of purchasing a second Tesla, likely brand new this time, but that this experience risks dampening my enthusiasm. [Tesla Motors Club]
  • Justice Clarence Thomas: Well I am very fortunate to be the Grand Marshal of the great Daytona 500, and I am not taking a position! I will tell you though that my nephew’s name is Mark Martin. For those of you who follow Nascar, he drives the number six Valvoline car. The funny thing about him though, this seven year is a funny kid. He met Jeff Gor-Don, as he calls him. He drives a twenty-four Dupont car. He met Jeff Gor-Don. So he loves Jeff Gor-Don, because he shook his hand, even though Mark Martin is his namesake. But I wouldn’t take a position on that. I just look forward to having some fun there and being there with 200,000 other people watching these cars hurl around the track at 200 miles per hour. There’s something that takes guts. I’ve got a Corvette CR1, and I get up to 65 and I think I’m humming. That’s pit speed for these guys. [Ashbrook]
  • Rutabaga and other cyanoglucoside-containing foods (including cassava, maize(corn), bamboo shoots, sweet potatoes, and lima beans) release cyanide, which is subsequently detoxified into thiocyanate. Thiocyanate inhibits thyroid iodide transport and, at high doses, competes with iodide in the organification process within thyroid tissue. Goitres may develop when there is a dietary imbalance of thiocyanate-containing food in excess of iodine consumption, and it is possible for these compounds to contribute to hypothyroidism. [Wiki]
  • Organizations like Pew Research Center often give demographic statistics for the U.S. Congress and it's usually about age (boomers, millennials etc.), sex, wealth, race and ethnicity, or religion. I don't know if there's an overview of how many kids these politicians have. I did some research of my own for the Senate because it's the smaller legislative chamber. I don't take ''independents'' seriously so I lumped them with their de fact affiliation. I'll present my findings in a short thread. 53 Republicans have 139 children. 47 Democrats have 95 children. Republicans needed 106 children to replace themselves and the other parent. A surplus of 33 children. Democrats needed 94 children to replace themselves and the other parent. A surplus of 1 child. Quite a difference. Idaho, Indiana and Utah are the best performing states. A total of 8 children from each. Arizona and South Carolina are the worst-performing states. None of the senators from these states have children. [Zvari72]
  • Commercial agriculture is a lucrative industry, at least for those who own the orchards, cold storage units, processing facilities, and the large businesses that cater to them. They have a trusted and reasonably well-paid cadre of managers and specialists in law, finance, and the like - members of the educated professional-managerial class that my close classmates and I have joined - but the vast majority of their employees are lower-wage laborers. The owners are mostly white; the laborers are mostly Latino, a significant portion of them undocumented immigrants. Ownership of the real, core assets is where the region’s wealth comes from, and it doesn’t extend down the social hierarchy. Yet this bounty is enough to produce hilltop mansions, a few high-end restaurants, and a staggering array of expensive vacation homes in Hawaii, Palm Springs, and the San Juan Islands. [Patrick Wyman]
  • One of the comments I often hear from people that have gone on low-carb diets is that musculoskeletal pain lessens or completely resolves (a small subset will however report the opposite, which I believe may be related to a temporary relative decrease in uric acid excretion due to competition with increasing urinary ketones). It is also interesting to note that many, if not most, report these improvements prior to or in the absence of significant weight loss. To me this certainly has several implications regarding the causes of musculoskeletal pain. I was always perplexed by the fact that one person could have an X-ray that looked like a rabid dog had chewed on their knee joint and yet have relatively minor pain versus another patient whose x-rays would be almost perfect and yet would have unremitting and debilitating pain. My current belief is that metabolic health plays a significant role here and likely can potentially explain the difference. It’s is also interesting to note that if the second patient goes on to have a knee replacement (after exhausting all other options) he or she will be at much higher risk for continued postoperative chronic knee pain. Again I think this has to do with failure to address a metabolic component of the joint disease. [Shawn Baker]

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