Bulgaria: No need to sign anything, it’s already done. Everyone has the equal right to marry the opposite sex, and nobody can change (de facto) their legal gender. Everyone is already accepting of the LGBT people, as long as they don’t show it publicly.

Jokes aside, outside of Sofia the public opinion is that there are matters much more important than that. Homophobia is also widespread so it’s a political suicide to ratify something like this. The Istanbul convention was a huge “scandal” for just mentioning that it applies to trans women as well. There was a huge disinformation campaign and it worked. We ratified it anyways because it was integrated into an EU directive so yay?

But you can get progressively worse dementia faster from these meds if the other side effects don’t get you. And the meds to counteract the other side effects they give you. Fun stuff the anticholinergic effects.

How do you even curate a fb feed. When I tried that I got an algorithm that shoved “recommended” posts down my throat that got worse the further down I scrolled. Not to mention looking for posts older than a day is a pain because they’re not chronological. AND the cherry on top is when you finally reach the place where that post might be and the page just decides to reload. Awful, awful user experience.

Few places have secure DMs.

Oh, the patent expired? No problem, we’ll just methylate the structure, see that it makes no difference and put it out on the market as a new drug. Or maybe take the active part of a racemic mixture and half the dosage. Same drug double the patent. Semisynthetic insulin is even worse in that regard.

Duda is childspeak for vagina in my language. Appropriate.

Our insurance system IS the government program. The government negotiates prices with the manufacturer. This is also the reason we have drug shortages. Cheaper drugs get re-exported legally by third parties to countries with higher prices. Abbvie straight up made a system where their new drugs would be delivered personally to the individual patient via a personal code to circumvent what happened to Humira.

Tresiba, Insulatard, Actrapid and a couple of other insulins, as well as antibiotics like Augmentin (which is in short supply to begin with) also suffered from re-export until the government issued a temporary ban.

The wholesale companies’ response? Stockpile and wait for the ban to expire.

1000$? It costs 80$ here. Insurance covers the 1mg injection completely. Drug prices on the US market are inflated as hell. Also it can be made for 5 bucks but the decades of research and billions poured into said research and testing is what raises the price.

Regardless corporate greed is corporate greed and big pharma is into some really shady stuff. Especially when we get to biologicals.

What is the concept behind “oil free”? Peanut butter is quite fatty and also has unsaturated fat. Is it avoiding vegetable oils? I’m genuinely curious. I thought it was avoiding fat altogether.

I backed up my data and downloaded the iso before going to work, once I get home I’ll give it a shot.

I just want my computer to do what it’s told. Putting it to sleep and turning the mouse off doesn’t mean it should wake up, download and apply updates and remain awake only for me to find the search bar appeared again and a big red dot telling me what the former orange president of a country one continent and an ocean away said about something.

I used linux mint long ago. My biggest worry about a linux system is my Nvidia card.

My coworker opened edge when they added the new ai bullshit and thought the desktop was infected by a virus and started panicking.

Removing all the popups at work about scheduled updates, news, ads in a workplace with 8 desktops and zero people who speak English is my favourite past time. Thanks Microsoft.

Also that post prompted me to remove windows from all my devices that still run it. Not that I didn’t think of it yesterday.

I’m familiar with debian-based Linux distros and run Xubuntu on my travel laptop. It occasionally freezes and needs a forced reboot but otherwise runs ok. Any suggestions on what to install on this more powerful one? I use it for gaming but play older games.

Lately when I’m looking for tutorials, my search results are overwhelmingly weird question and answer style “articles”, akin to chatgpt prompts, some of which are barely related to what I’m looking for. I’m having a hard time looking for articles written by a human. In fact oftentimes I question whether or not the article is written by a machine or a person who sucks at writing.

Eh… it might. Harvoni and its relatives are a cure for HepC. They charge about a lifetime’s worth of liver treatment for a 3 month supply after which you’re most likely cured. Over here one course of Harvoni is worth over 110 average monthly supplies of Humira (a rather expensive biological blockbuster RA/Crohn’s drug). Insulin costs 5-10 times less depending on the user… I’m comparing apples to orange but you probably get the idea. Chronic illness is profitable but curing it yields a higher margin as your patient will likely survive the full course.

If/when it hits the market the pricetag would be about a lifetime’s+ supply of insulin probably.

Rather not say but across the border south, about 4-5 hours from Bucharest.

It was fun having to go to work yesterday morning. Nothing was cleared up, no way for cars to get to my house so I had to make a trek by foot. This morning was worse because some of the snow had melted during the day yesterday and it refroze. Everything is slippery now.

One thing outside observers need to know is how incompetent the municipality services are. They knew in advance that this storm was coming. There were warnings all week. It came a day late here so they had extra time. The municipality website showed no information, just some cultural events and an article from two days ago that “the municipality is ready for the winter”. At this point we have a saying for poor organisation during winter time when everyone knows it’s coming in advance:

“The winter surprised us again!”

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While it really does feel like it, as a person working in healthcare, I do see some change after the whole shitstorm from recent years.

• There are people who actually wear a mask, few, but they are around.
• A lot more people seem to be conscious of spreading their illness to other people be it a cold or COVID.
• People definitely wash their hands more often. I know we do.
• Some people started getting their annual shots when they didn’t intend to before.
• Local businesses open their windows and doors a lot more than they used to.

But also I also see some negative tendencies:

• Interest in flu shots has waned. That might have something to do with the govt introducing a free flu shot programme from your GP if you’re above 65 or with specific conditions (which is a great thing) But I definitely see a lot more vaxx-scepticism and fear of combining both shots (infant vaccination plans are a lot more intense and the vast majority are fine).
• People politicising a disease.
• This is country specific but food supplement companies aggressively promoting “immune system stimulants” to the point where in the beginning of The Plague™ they somehow managed to include them in hospital treatment plans.

This came out longer than intended but there were some things that I needed to get out of my system.

While I agree, I live in an area where the tech I can afford is similar to what seems popular in India and SEA. I’m a visual learner and often times I end up on that part of YouTube when I need to repair something, and the best I’ve got is an Indonesian dude breathing solder fumes in the backyard of his makeshift shed at night. And you know what?

That was the most useful repair video I found and it helped a lot. And I found it because the title was in English.