How are you all? How’s it been going?
I got diagnosed with an ocular melanoma in the middle of COVID which was a bit of a shock. It was discovered incidentally during an assessment for treatment of a complication of cataract surgery in the other eye. Which was lucky, and I was treated very promptly, despite COVID restrictions, and all seems well, although it’s left me with somewhat impaired sight.
A momentous few years for us all, in small ways and large. It’s good to be back. The Evolution debates seem all a bit small scale in the face of climate breakdown and rising fascism, and yet again a serious threat of global nuclear war.
But good to see some familiar names still here. Thanks for keeping the penguins warm!
Hi Elizabeth,
I found this site shortly after you took a hiatus. But given the praise about your approach by the regulars, I look forward to your contributions.
Thats sad and disappointing to hear you git this problem. Glad it seems under control. I have had eye trouble all my life and so thats not so bad. I;m blind in one eye.
Yes origin contentions continue, (creationists are winning but keep it under your hat).
I don;t see any nuclear threat, nor rising fascism, nor global climate problems but there are many problems. They did dumbly interfere with peoples health needs based on the covid stuff. Lord bless.
We missed you, Lizzie! I see you were last active here (apart from a couple of comments during a kerfuffle on moderation policy) at the end of 2015. As you say, momentous years. Brexit, Trump, COVID, Ukraine, climate change, democracy under threat.
Sorry to hear about your eyesight problem. I lost the sight of an eye completely over twenty years ago and I can say there are worse handicaps. I’m a disaster when it comes to pouring wine but otherwise I’ve adapted. I’m now learning to adapt to hearing aids as deafness has crept up on me.
I just hit twenty years living in France today and will be taking my first visit back to Blighty in six years in a couple of weeks. I guess that will be a shock.
TSZ is much quieter now, partly because a major topic, the “Intelligent Design” movement, has faded into obscurity, and partly because the concept of blogs and forums does not attract younger people. It’s a shame but I don’t have an answer for that.
Robert Byers,
Didn’t know you also had eye problems, Robert. I just try to make sure nothing happens to my good eye.
Charmed, I am sure. I started participation at this site during your absence, so I guess I am an unfamiliar
faceavatar to you.Sorry to hear about your health problems. I am glad things are better now.
Robert, you never told us you had a sense of humour.
Gosh, all these eye problems!
I got off lightly. The initial problem with my eyes was straightforward cataract, and I had both lenses replaced with plastic ones which was great. Unfortunately one complication of cataract surgery is that sometimes the remaining lens cells regenerate chaotically and make the lens capsule opaque. It’s easily treated with a YAG laser, which basically makes a hole in the capsule so you can see through it again
It was being assessed for that in my right eye that led to the discovery of the melanoma in the left, and the treatment of my right had to be postponed until the melanoma had been treated – and after treatment of the melanoma, I didn’t have great vision in the left either! So I was quite sight impaired, and unable to drive. Computer work was also quite a problem. But once I had the YAG on my right, I could see again, pretty well, albeit with a visual field deficit on the left.
But after a while, left needed YAG too, which they were reluctant to do in case it was problematic for the left. But they finally let me have it and I had it done last week, and I’m back to clear vision in both eyes with only that visual field defect in the left, so I’m a lot better off than either Robert or Alan! Having even partial sight in one eye is a lot better than having none, as I now realise! And the visual field deficit is in the nasal field, so it’s no worse than having a large nose.
So I’m fine, and there’s no sign of any metastases from the melonoma, so I think I dodged a bullet by sheer good fortune.
Hope it leads to overfilling rather than underfilling.
Elizabeth,
Hi! I’m also sorry to hear about all those eye problems — I’m happy your condition is finally stable and functional.
I’m doing OK over here in the States, though keeping a watchful eye on the political scene. I’m on sabbatical this semester which means I can just focus on my research. Recently I’ve been going deeper into philosophy of biology and philosophy of cognitive science.
I’ve written two articles about naturalizing teleology (one of them was co-authored) and one article about some debates in the philosophy of cognitive science, about the idea that brains are computational in some important respect.
Right now I’m writing about how the rise of scientific worldview affects the kind of narratives that philosophers offer about what they are doing when they do philosophy.
So, I’m being reasonably productive and enjoying my first few months of married life (we got hitched in June). I have a big research trip in Europe coming up soon — five cities in five countries in two weeks!
Exciting!
Would love to re-take up a discussion about computational brains!
[full disclosure: I don’t think brains are computational, at least I don’t think they are like computers. I think the most interesting thing about brains is how they differ from computers.]
Congratulations on your marriage!
I’ve been reading Piccinini’s Neurocognitive Mechanisms. Briefly, he argues that the rates at which neurons fire comprises computational signals but that they are sui generis, being neither wholly digital nor wholly analog. But he also puts a lot of emphasis on how brains are carrying out biological functions, which makes them very different from machines in the ordinary sense, including computers in the ordinary sense.
(And thanks on the congrats!)
Hey Lizzie!
Very sorry to hear about the eye issue, but glad it was caught early! Spent some time doing the hospital rounds (and not professionally, if you know what I mean…) over the past few years, so I’m both sympathetic and empathetic. Nice to see you make an appearance here!
A very happy Halloween! May the day usher in a time of quiet piece and autumn/winter delight!
Great to see you back. Perhaps now I’ll come back more often.
The world has been one damn thing after another for half a dozen years.
I had uneventful cataract surgery on both eyes. YAG follow up on both. Minor “puckering off one retina, which doesn’t seem to be progressing.
One eye drifted slightly nearsighted, so I have reasonably good vision at driving distance and at computer distance. That was offered as a feature, and I declined. Got it anyway.
I can’t with either eye, any point to the evolution debate. We’ve had a fine example of evolution in action with covid.
Just glanced at the statistics graph that should be visible to logged-in users. There seems to be a recent increase in site visits. Lurkers, we’d love to have you join in (or rejoin in the case of former contributors who may be looking back in) the conversation.
I had personal experience of COVID just a month ago. After four vaccinations, I’d become too relaxed about precautions. I’ve dispensed with mask wearing except where still obligatory (here: hospitals, surgeries, govt offices) and was never convinced on spread by surface contact. We’ve hosted and been guests at plenty of social gatherings over summer (outside until September). Then four weeks ago, I noticed a very sore throat and cold symptoms. Took a test, negative. But symptoms worse and tested positive the next day. Wife put me in isolation and was negative after 8 days. Throat got less sore and was fine within a week but brain fog and joint ache persisted and have still not completely gone.
My wife was, and still is, fine. No hint of symptoms and tests all negative.
Now I’ve been offered a fifth vaccination. Any reason not to?
We had a similar story, but it was the wife that got it, not I.
Well, if you had a rough time with reactions to the booster, you might hold off…
Myself, I’ve been wondering about waiting for a re-tooled mRNA, but it appears that omicron killed more by being a partial vaccine escape variant, whilst having lower M&M on a case-by-case basis. So waiting is a toss-up.
DNA_Jock,
Ah, OK. I think I remember (bloody brain fog) both my wife and I felt a little under the weather with the first couple of jabs, but definitely no adverse reaction to the last booster. I did hear there will be (if not already) improvements to vaccines to make them more effective with variants, but not sure how much choice I have over which vaccine I get. Presumably, the strain I caught was likely to have been omicron. Would an antibody test be helpful? Does having caught it recently give added protection?
Not really sure what this means. Are you saying whilst not more lethal, the higher prevalence statistically of omicron increases overall mortality?
My take on omicron is everyone has had it. Including the director of CDC. Twice,
I’m not convinced that young healthy people are benefitting from additional boosters, and it’s a quandary for high risk people.
The death rate has dropped to approximately double the traffic death rate, which puts it into the realm of noise for most people. I’m not hearing anyone talk about it, except in past tense.
Anecdotally, I got a touch of persistent dizziness after omicron. I presume. I go it, but at the time, testing was unavailable.
I see Japan is being reported as getting near herd immunity after the latest wave of Omicron. I guess if COVID strains become both less lethal and more infective, herd immunity will be reached. Then does it become an inconvenient but survivable hazard, like ‘flu.
Hi, Lizzie! Good to see you, and I’m glad that your health issues are under control.
keiths,
Hello, keiths, did you manage your trailer tour of the US, despite COVID?
Both covid and flu are survivable by most people.
By herd immunity, I assume you mean, most people do not have a fatal or near fatal reaction. I see no evidence that infection can be prevented. Perhaps one of the nasal vaccines?n
Yes. Less lethal, on a per-case basis, but a LOT more infections.
The JAMA article looked at excess mortality, so a population-wide metric, whereas the Lancet article looked at per-case risk of hospitalization and of death.
https://www.bmj.com/content/379/bmj.o2516
Covid can become less deadly, not because it has changed, but because the population has changed due to vaccination and exposure.
So it looks like the vaccines ‘created’ Omicron, and ironically, the antivaxxers got their natural immunity whether they wanted it or not. The ones who didn’t die, anyway.
Alan:
Unfortunately, the pandemic put the kibosh on my traveling plans, at least for now.
The US CDC (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention) recommends waiting at least three months after the onset of symptoms before getting the updated booster. From what I can gather, this is because immunity is already high post-infection, rendering the marginal utility of the booster fairly low at that time. Better to wait until natural immunity starts to wane, at which point the booster can bump it back up. The net effect is a longer window of high immunity.
Not having been infected, and having had my last booster in April, the tradeoff for me was between the risk of getting infected now due to postpoining the booster vs the risk of getting boosted early but then contracting Covid later due to an earlier waning of immunity. I ended up getting my booster last week (along with the flu shot), reasoning that this was early enough to give my body time to build immunity before the germ-spreading holidays, but late enough to maintain high immunity throughout the anticipated winter wave of infections.
Hope it works.
My wife never had any symptoms, but it’s impossible that she wasn’t exposed. Like two months after her booster.
I think most people have had it, most with no symptoms that caused them to be tested. My son-in-law has had it twice, but no one else in the family has had any symptoms.
I’m kind of curious whether asymptomatic exposure acts as a booster. Raise you hand if you know.
Sorry to hear that. Don’t leave it too long. I once had the plan to do a trans-Pyrenees trip on horseback but my coefficient of restitution is too low these days
Thanks for that advice. Makes sense.
Would a blood test show this?
petrushka,
I know that asymptomatic infection produces a robust immune response, though one that differs from the response to symptomatic cases. What I don’t know is how it compares to the post-booster immune response.
Good to see you Lizzie.
I’ve never heard about this type of cancer. It must be really rare. I hope you recover soon.
I hope this disease can not be blamed on the safe and effective gene therapies called vaccines for covid19..
What are you trying to say, amigo?
Are you aware what the “novel covid_19” mortality is according to WHO?
I will give you a hint: after influenzas “vanished” the covid19 that replaced them had the same or even lower mortality rate than influenzas until the gene therapies kicked in…
Elizabeth: It’s good to be back.
It’s great to see you back!
Elizabeth: The Evolution debates seem all a bit small scale in the face of climate breakdown and rising fascism, and yet again a serious threat of global nuclear war.
Yes. Despite everyone’s best efforts, the tard escaped confinement. What a mess.
Zachriel,
Hi, Zachriel, good to see you. It’s been a while. Talking about tard and climate, I’ve seen it being argued that the bomb cyclone hitting the US is evidence that climate change is bogus.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/dec/27/us-braces-for-more-deaths-as-blizzard-of-the-century-grips-nation
To our US readers and contributors, I hope things return to some sort of normal soon and that you are managing to cope in the meantime.
Good to see someone keeping the home fires burning.