Posts by Donna Fowler7

rustydrifter10 said:The rule here is that if an off-topic post is actually decent and adds value, we spin it off into its own thread. If it’s just noise, it stays put. Can you drop a link to one of those discussions you think deserved its own space?

Unfortunately, it was deleted. We're talking about that FedEx PDF where our informal "Gas Prices" chat went on its usual detour—you can check the thread history; the off-topic stuff goes on forever—only to be "corrected" by getting shoved into a "new sub-thread" that basically vanished into a digital black hole. That FedEx PDF used to be famous for spawning new topics from old ones; honestly, some of the biggest threads started exactly like that (just look at the early posts). But the old moderators handed the keys over to the new kids, and things have changed.

It’s incredibly annoying when you spend two or three pages dismantling technical misconceptions, only for the whole thing to get wiped out. I haven't had much motivation to write lately, and this just kills what little drive I had left.

Here’s an example of one of the best threads we ever had, which actually started as off-topic:

And here is our informal chat topic, though the new moderator clearly doesn't realize how different it is from the old way:

It might actually be a good idea to formally add "Chat" to the title, since that's exactly what it is—a chat thread that served as the foundation for tons of other topics...

Best,

I’ve got a request for the mod team here, and honestly, it affects pretty much everyone.

Here’s the deal: discussions often veer off course and essentially turn into an entirely different conversation. A handful of mods (and it’s been a while since I saw this happen) actually take the time to split a thread—meaning they take a bunch of off-topic posts and move them into their own dedicated topic.

It’s obviously way easier to just drop a snarky comment like, "The last 40 posts have been total nonsense, so here are warnings for everyone for being off-topic," and then just nuking those 40 posts from existence. That completely kills what could have been a perfectly decent, high-quality new discussion.

I’m a member of several other niche forums, and that kind of thread-splitting is standard practice there (it used to happen more often here too, but lately, it's rare). Look, I get it—trolling and being obnoxious needs to be handled—but when a debate shifts gears, it’s actually super helpful to start a new thread and move the relevant posts over instead of just deleting them.

Now, if we’re being strictly by-the-book, what I’m saying might technically be irrelevant, but it would be great if mods put in a little extra effort to spin those "40 off-topic posts" into a new topic rather than just handing out warnings or hitting the delete button.

At the end of the day, this forum is basically a digital dive bar, and we all know how those conversations go. You start talking about changing a tire on a Ford F-150 and somehow end up arguing about political extremists and civil war factions—classic Godwin's Law.

The latest BIOS update actually fixed the issue 😁

I’ve been dragging this old rig around with a Core 2 Duo dual-core and 8GB of RAM (four 2GB sticks) for ages now. I haven't pulled the trigger on an upgrade yet because, honestly, it still runs perfectly fine.

So, I decided to grab some 4x4GB High Density modules from Amazon (supposedly compatible only with certain chips, but let's see), thinking everything would be smooth sailing. My motherboard has an Intel APU chipset (GA-MA78GM-S2H, rev.1.1, BIOS F5) and it's rated to support these modules.

I popped them in, hit the power, and after the initial memory check, it displays 16GB, 800MHz, 128-bit, and then—nothing. Just dead. Total silence. When I pull two of the modules out, macOS boots up just fine, but I'm stuck at 8GB. If I swap those two out for the other pair, it works perfectly again.

In both scenarios where I have half the RAM installed, the memory tests pass without a hitch.

But the second I try to run all four modules together? It dies. It hangs right after reporting the total memory capacity. This machine has been running on four 2GB sticks for nearly seven years without a single hiccup until now.

Does anyone have any bright ideas? I'm trying to avoid a BIOS flash if possible, mostly because I can't find a working floppy drive, and this stubborn BIOS refuses to accept anything other than a floppy disk.

I actually tested this on a buddy's computer—he's got a similar setup with an Intel APU, but it's an ASUS board. He was getting constant Blue Screens of Death because his original setup only had two slots filled (2x2GB), and the other two slots probably had oxidized contacts or something. One time the memory test passed, the next time it failed, so I just gave up on that one.

Can anyone give me a logical explanation for why this GA-MA78GM board is acting like this?

Angela Wright said:Apparently, if you want the best results using an Ozark product, you should be squatting with your head and body tilted slightly forward. Supposedly, that’s how you get the hose positioned perfectly and let gravity do most of the heavy lifting.

That's exactly why I'm looking for a real medical opinion here. My understanding of medicine is basically non-existent. Is this just some alternative health nonsense, or is there actually some logic behind it?

I don't hang out in the Medical subreddits too often, so I'm not sure if this has already been covered here.

Then again, maybe this is just some pseudo-science nonsense and doesn't even belong on this board.

Since my inbox is constantly getting flooded with absolute garbage, I recently caught an email containing a link to some alternative health sites. They’re claiming that sitting on a standard toilet is actually bad for you and that we should be doing our business the "old-fashioned way"—you know, by squatting, like how most of us had to do back when we were serving in the military.

I'll drop the link to those fringe sites here (hopefully I don't get banned for it): http://alternativa-za-vas.com/index....rez-wc-skoljka

I'm also including a link to what looks like a more official study—thank God for Google: http://www.squattypotty.co.uk/downlo...ning-study.pdf

What does the medical community think about this? Anyone have any actual experience with it?

I wasn't talking about textbook definitions. I’m talking about how we actually tell the difference between a vision and a hallucination—specifically from a medical standpoint. How do you distinguish between a byproduct of a mental health issue or substance abuse and an actual, legitimate vision?

How do you even go about questioning someone who claims they saw another dimension or some other world? If we assume that such a place actually exists, how can we determine if they truly experienced a vision or if it was just a pure biochemical, neurological hallucination?

Assumption: The spiritual realm is real.

The question: How can you actually tell the difference between a vision and a hallucination?

Look, why am I even asking this? Because I’ve dealt with psychiatrists who refuse to even entertain my starting premise—to them, "visions" simply don't exist.

Then, on the flip side, you have psychiatrists who happen to be people of faith—whether they're Christian, Muslim, or just spiritually inclined without being part of an organized religion—and these folks are actually capable of distinguishing a genuine vision from a hallucination.

Even Catholic priests—specifically those rare ones authorized to perform exorcisms—work quite closely with mental health professionals. They're remarkably good at telling a vision apart from a hallucination, or at the very least, differentiating between someone experiencing a spiritual crisis and someone suffering from a clinical mental illness. Word is, in only about 2% of suspected possession cases is it actually confirmed, while the other 98% are rightfully referred for psychiatric care.

So, is there a straightforward way to figure out if someone has seen something real—like heaven, hell, or a glimpse of the future—versus just having a hallucination? Psychiatrists who aren't closed-minded about the spiritual world seem to know the difference.

Follow-up question: Is it even possible to have a true vision while under the influence of drugs, or is that ALWAYS just a hallucination?

velvetmoose9 said:Based on those specific numbers, you've basically got every option on the table right now.

I honestly think the next steps for diagnosis and treatment should be...

Yeah, a bone scan 😉

But seriously, does anyone here have actual experience dealing with bone cancer when the Democratic Party levels are that low?

A 64-year-old woman here was dealing with Stage IV large cell lung adenocarcinoma. Things actually looked like they were receding, but now we’re looking at intense pain that makes us suspect metastases in the vertebrae. She’s also been battling osteoporosis for over 20 years, which complicates things. Looking at the MRI, CT, and X-rays, it’s a toss-up—we can't tell if we're seeing an osteoporotic fracture, metastatic osteolysis, or something else entirely, fourth, fifth...

The bloodwork (I only caught the ALP and GGT) shows an ALP of 160. Given that her GGT is 45, can we really expect bone metastases from an ALP value of 160? Or is that number still too low to be a smoking gun for cancer, considering the upper limit for her age and gender usually sits around 140-145?

The culprit was a broken winding on one of the two secondary high-voltage transformer coils for the CCFL backlight inverter. I went ahead and ordered a replacement off eBay for about five bucks, only to find out later that Goldman Sachs actually carries it for just a few dollars. Honestly, I’m stuck waiting a month for shipping now, but at least I'll save $6.75 😁

The capacitor in this network rectifier seems fine on paper—it’s rated at almost 100uF, 450V. I don't have an ESR meter on hand, though, so I can't tell if the resistance has spiked enough to cause interference. The voltages coming off the power supply look solid (2x22V and 2x5V), but keep in mind I measured those without any load attached, just the unit sitting there idle. Once everything is wired up, I can't get my probes anywhere near the components, and honestly, I haven't had the time to sit around soldering tiny jumper wires just to get a reading...

I'm having some major issues with my monitor and if anyone else has dealt with this kind of headache, I’d really appreciate the help.

Based on actual medical experience, what are the odds that carboplatin chemo actually works to shrink a large-cell lung adenocarcinoma?

Can chemotherapy mess with a standard home glucose monitor and give totally bogus readings? From what I’ve managed to dig up and wrap my head around, you drop blood on a strip, which triggers a reaction that creates an electrical current proportional to the glucose level—something about the oxidation of ferricyanide into ferrocyanide, if I remember correctly. Now, if someone is on platinum-based chemo, and we know platinum is a heavy-duty catalyst used in things like car exhaust systems 😁, is it possible that the platinum itself is interfering with that oxidation process? Could the machine be reading the catalytic effect of the drugs instead of the actual sugar levels?

Sorry if I'm just rambling here; chemistry definitely isn't my forte 🙂

Here’s the situation: a family member currently undergoing chemo is showing blood sugar readings over 27 mmol/L. That's actually the limit of the device, so it just displays "HI." This is happening first thing in the morning, yet they aren't showing any physical symptoms of high blood sugar at all. Their last "real" lab result before starting the second round of chemo was a perfectly normal 4...

Look, I’m dealing with a tough situation here. A family member has been diagnosed with Stage 4 large cell lung adenocarcinoma, and it’s already spread to the lymph nodes somewhere behind the lungs. Since doctors usually dodge giving straight answers because they have to stick strictly to their protocols, I wanted to get some perspective. What are the actual odds that chemo will actually help, versus the risk of just destroying whatever quality of life she has left? We’re talking about a 63-year-old woman. She was supposed to start targeted therapy back in November, but they pushed it off because she had a fever and sent her over to Jordan instead. Word is, she's been "toughing it out" until recently. She hasn't made a final call yet, but she's haunted by what happened ten years ago when her husband passed away from various cancers. They gave him chemo for his lungs, and he basically crashed and died within a few days. He was still functioning somewhat before they started the treatment.

So, chemo—yes or no? I’m not looking for medical advice, just a breakdown of the "pros and cons." She’ll make her own decision eventually.

There are already two threads about radon over on Natural Science, so I won’t bore you with a long intro:

I am honestly "fascinated" by how absolutely nobody I talk to has any clue what radon even is. It’s pretty eye-opening. Because of that, I felt like I should try to spread some awareness here. Honestly, this topic belongs in the Health section since it hits right where it counts. I’m not going to dump a bunch of extra links on you—just Google "radon" or "radon + lung cancer" and everything you need will pop up immediately.

To keep it brief: we're talking about a radioactive noble gas (atomic mass is 222, compared to uranium being 235 or 238, for context) that seeps out of the ground and loves to settle in residential buildings. High concentrations can cause lung cancer, which makes radon the second leading cause of lung cancer in the general population. In fact, for non-smokers, it's actually the number one cause. Those guys drinking whiskey might be onto something regarding "bed placement," but it isn't because of some mythical radiation—it's the very real radiation from radon and its decay products. Since its half-life is less than four days, its decay products—which are also radioactive—get inhaled like "dust." If I remember correctly, the end product of that decay chain is lead.

Think back to what you learned in school, what you heard on the news, or read in the papers... If your answer is "nothing," then you're exactly what the statistics predict.

You can find more details in those two links above.