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That Daily Shower Can Be a Killer

nytimes.com

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Re: That Daily Shower Can Be a Killer

#181

Post by snogglethorpe »

pnathan wrote: post #153
driverdan wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yoga, perhaps, but it's on par with other low impact physical activity and stretching. The other two are just pseudoscience.

Chiropractic is often very effective for manipulating bones and muscles into a correct alignment. While there is a part of chiropractic that is, imo, alchemy, don't disregard the rest.

I've actually been to a chiropractor, as a sort of desperate measure once when I had really horrible back pain, could barely stand straight etc—exactly the sort of thing you'd think chiropractic would be perfectly suited for. I was skeptical about chiropractors, given their reputation, but I figured it couldn't hurt to try (er, probably... :).

The chiropractor I went to was in a fairly wealthy neighborhood, had a nice office, and seemed "respectable." However, once he actually started, it very quickly became clear he hadn't the faintest clue what he was doing, didn't care much, and was just going through some very simplistic motions. He not only failed to have any effect on my problem, but he was singularly ineffective in even trying to track down the issue. It was a very different experience from a normal doctor: almost every real doctor, even when completely confused and out of his depth, at least has clear techniques for probing and trying to figure out what's up or at least figure out the next step to take or who to ask—and they will very freely refer you to someone else if that's called for. This chiropractor: nothing. Zero. Nada.

After 30 minutes of painfully obvious hand waving, he then said "ok, well I guess you'd better schedule another appointment." I then went out into his waiting room, and heard another patient chatting with the secretary, and it became clear this patient was a "regular."

It seemed fairly obvious that the whole scam was to get patients on the appointment treadmill, offering promises, but no relief, continually dangling in front of them the hope that "next time" things would get better...

Maybe not every chiropractor is this way, but my experience perfectly matched their generally poor reputation, so I suspect it's more common than not.

[I didn't schedule another appointment... :]

Re: That Daily Shower Can Be a Killer

#183

Post by chii »

sp332 wrote: post #147
sopooneo wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am a little skeptical of this idea. We should spend no money fighting one threat until all greater threats (as measure by deaths/year) have been eliminated? I think rather we should spend money proportionally. And I do not think that we should completely ignore the fears of irrational people. If our citizens are unhappy because they fear something, it is worth some expense to set them at ease. Though perhaps a care…

Well it's a little more complicated: you should always spend money where the most deaths prevented per dollar are achievable. So if you can save 1 life per $20 spent on thing A, and 1 life per $100 spent on thing B, you shouldn't spend any money on thing B. That's because each life saved via thing B means five people died from not having thing A (net loss of 4 lives).

while that is good in theory, the reality is that the $100 spent on thing B is much more visible. The action from money spent saving thing A could be less visible, lower profile and generally more pedestrian, so politicians who makes these decisions go for the more flashy option and therefore garner more votes or credit.

The goal has never been to save more lives - which is the root cause of the TSA's problem.

Re: That Daily Shower Can Be a Killer

#184

Post by macrael »

phil wrote: post #66
mauvehaus wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the climbing example as presented, you should be at least three mistakes away from injury. The belayer should check the climber's harness and knots before allowing the climber to climb. Naturally the climber should check that the belayer's harness is fastened securely and that the belay device is rigged properly before climbing too. Realistically, there are still several single points of failure in the system: 1)…

I'm pretty sure it's climber error and mis-rigging by at least 10x. Gear failures of all kinds are extremely rare. Edit: objective hazard is significant, too: rockfall, afternoon thunderstorms, etc.

I'm not a very serious climber but have friends who really are. Apparently the lessons from reading this book: http://americanalpineclub.org/p/anam are that the vast majority of climbing deaths are due to one of two reasons:

1. Belaying off the end of your rope (Always tie a safety knot!)

2. Not wearing a helmet.

So, yes: climber error.

Re: That Daily Shower Can Be a Killer

#185

Post by doki_pen »

When I here a statistic like, your chance of falling and getting an injury in the shower is 1 in 1000, I assume they mean over my lifetime, not each day. There is not way in hell it's 1 in 1000 per day. I don't buy it. That said, I get the point of the article.

Re: That Daily Shower Can Be a Killer

#186

Post by pnathan »

snogglethorpe wrote: post #181
pnathan wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Chiropractic is often very effective for manipulating bones and muscles into a correct alignment. While there is a part of chiropractic that is, imo, alchemy, don't disregard the rest.

I've actually been to a chiropractor, as a sort of desperate measure once when I had really horrible back pain, could barely stand straight etc—exactly the sort of thing you'd think chiropractic would be perfectly suited for. I was skeptical about chiropractors, given their reputation, but I figured it couldn't hurt to try (er, probably... :). The chiropractor I went to was in a fairly wealthy neighborhood, had a nic…

Hunh. I've been to a variety of chiropractors. In general, they have usually yanked my body into position. Usually they have a mechanism of analysis and then cracking the body based on that. There are hokums out there, that is for sure. I hope that next time your back is tweaked you can find a competent one.

Re: That Daily Shower Can Be a Killer

#187

Post by phil »

gregholmberg wrote: post #175
phil wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm pretty sure it's climber error and mis-rigging by at least 10x. Gear failures of all kinds are extremely rare. Edit: objective hazard is significant, too: rockfall, afternoon thunderstorms, etc.

Here is a story is about equipment failure. http://www.sfgate.com/news/article/Fatal-fall-at-Yosemite-sh... There are also errors in judgment, but the gear is the center of this story. The final paragraphs are still hard for me to read, six years on. edit: adding National Park Service summaries . NPS Morning Report for October 26, 2006 Yosemite National Park (CA) Noted Climber Falls To His Death An experienced rock c…

Did you know Todd Skinner? (I didn't except by reputation & his accomplishments). That was a tragic accident and definitely shook every climber I know.

I think it's the exception that proves the rule though. Word when it happened was he'd been cleaning loose rock on rap, and was not only wearing a blown-out harness (with a replacement on order at the time) but also apparently had a haul bag full of rocks clipped off to himself.

So -- if you are one of the world's most prolific climbers, use gear you have already decided to retire, and have an unusually high working load, you can maybe get your gear to fail. But it's still incredibly rare.

Re: That Daily Shower Can Be a Killer

#188

Post by RobAtticus »

shin_lao wrote: post #82
sparky_z wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're apparently the one who doesn't understand how statistics/probability works. You're correct about his chance of dying once, but there's also a chance of dying twice, a chance of dying 3 times, etc. The expected value of the number of times he would die is 5000(1/1000), or 5. If you replaced "deaths" in your post with "coin flips", this becomes obvious. I'll repeat your post with some different numbers so you ca…

Sorry, I understand what you're trying to say, but I don't think your example serves your point. I don't think I mixed up expected value and probability of occurrence, if I did please point out where. You don't care too much about expected value because once the event occurs (death), you can't play anymore... If you were playing money, on the other hand, expected value would be much more interesting. I think probabil…

He actually says "I’d die or become crippled about five times before reaching my life expectancy." Being crippled does not necessarily preclude you from taking a shower. Therefore, if you look at his expected value of "having a significant fall in the shower" instead of "dying in the shower", it doesn't have the same problem of being impossible. Obviously all 5 can't be fatal events.

Re: That Daily Shower Can Be a Killer

#189

Post by yen223 »

msellout wrote: post #102
yk wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think Collapse is better than Guns, Germs and Steel . It is about the end of isolated settlements, and the path which lead them to their demise. And I think it should be mentioned that Guns, Germs and Steel is rather extreme in suggesting an 'geological determinism.' [1] While his arguments are generally quite good, there is simply quite a bit more happening. A nice book to balance this is Ian Morris, Why the West…

I thought Diamond's comparison of Europe and China was especially weak. He wrote it off as that China had an emperor, and thus a single point of failure. He didn't do enough to explain why Europe did not become an empire, or to explain why China's immense bureaucracy did not avoid such a single point of failure.

I remembered he did explain why Europe failed to become a united empire - geography.

According to the book, the reason China has a large stable empire was because of China's geography, which was mostly flat and well-connected by the Yangtze and the Yellow river. With few geographical segments, this led to the people being less likely to form 'tribes' and more likely to be united culturally.

This is in contrast to Europe, which has a large impassible mountain range in the middle, and lots of peninsulas and small rivers, forming natural boundaries. This led to Europe being more diverse culturally.

Re: That Daily Shower Can Be a Killer

#190

Post by Evbn »

mkl wrote: post #180
jlgreco wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The theory of acupuncture places rules and requirements on how the needles are placed. You can of course stick needles in wherever you want but that is not acupuncture in the same way that cracking my own neck is not chiropracy and cutting myself with a knife is not surgery. Any study that just says random needle sticking might work (in addition to being flawed due to the issues you've laid out) is not really any mor…

Yes, the locations can be and have been tested. The needle action itself is what can't be properly tested, though there have been plenty of attempts with various types of sham needle, etc. I'm not trying to claim it doesn't or can't work (since I don't know), just that it's frustratingly difficult to research important bits of it.

You can compare to to deeper (in safe) or shallower insertions, and not tell the patient which is official acupuncture. You can apply anesthetic s first. These give clues.
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