We’re all familiar with bags of potato chips, having cried out in irritation upon opening a large puffy bag of salty cholesterol, only to find a lackluster final count of individual product settled in oily mylar at the bottom of the false abyss.
Boo! Hiss!
And we accuse Lay’s of shrinkflation, and they say “Nuh uh! We didn’t do that.”
And we post pictures of historical trends in product reduction, and they say “We didn’t decrease the percentage of product to packaging ratio.”
And then we say “Nuh uh! You totally did!”. And while not experts, none of us buy into 1.034569 ounces being a standard serving size, to which Lay’s replies “Okay, we reduced size but it was to be more aligned with healthy serving size diets. See, we’re actually looking out for your wellbeing. You’re welcome.” And we might almost believe that, were it not for the price increase alongside product size reduction.
But potato chips are just the most obvious example, because the size reduction also made slack fill more obvious. When a bag was big and product content was 50%, we didn’t notice as much because faces could still be stuffed. When bags shrunk 30%, it didn’t matter if product content may have actually remained at 50%, because faces couldn’t be as effectively stuffed. And then we noticed!
Surely some government agency is out there to protect us from these shenanigans!
And indeed there is: the FDA:
So presumably, while shrinkflation is totally legal, slack fill isn’t necessarily, so if indeed the percentage of potato chips has remained constant, then Lay’s is in the right, despite the public’s resentment on limited face-stuffing. But they’re still jerks.
Anyway, on to the next point. One might notice that nowhere in this document is the word “medicine” used. Obviously prescriptions wouldn’t fall under this, but one might assume that OTC medications – a consumer retail product – would. And yet, it doesn’t.
Even ignoring the packaging waste, it’s rather egregious that everything in the left highlighted box easily fit into the bottle on the right. And there were already prior pills still in that bottle!
So why don’t these anti-consumer rules apply to medicine? Why did the FDA, whose very name has “Drug” in it, make this decision? I don’t know, because I can’t find any such explanation on their website. Someone tell me if you find out. Until then:
Fuck you, FDA
Fuck you, Lay’s (Frito-Lay/Pepsico)
And fuck you, Astra AB/AstraZeneca
And maybe Costco too, because they might have had a hand in it.
“Wow Simon, this is such an enticing title for a blog post!”
“I know, right?!”
Okay chill out. This is indeed mildly interesting, at least to me, because the thought never occurred to actually measure this. That is, until some time following the events of March 17, 2024:
Das blood!
A slipup washing knives, totally unrelated to this being St. Patrick’s day, resulted in 3 stitches.
Ouch!
Here’s a better pic, 4 days later:
Twitches get stitches
The wound, being a clean incision brought to me by alcohol-impairment and fine German steel, closed within 2 weeks. But as my fingernail grew out, I noticed that it had been damaged behind the cuticle. What started as a divet turned into a flaking nail as the damage neared the fingertip.
So much for being a hand model
Eventually though, the damage grew out and was clipped away. And unlike my toe which slid under the bathroom door while exiting the shower some 30 years ago, the growth cells were not permanently rendered incapable of uniform nail growth. Huzzah! At long last, the injury is fully healed.
Except for that small split on the side, which might be permanent. But it’s not very noticeable and the skin doesn’t even have a perceptible scar, or more importantly, lasting numbness (I was worried about that for a while).
So how long did this injury take to completely heal? 181 days! Essentially two full seasons. So back to the original line of thought: what is my nails’ growth rate, and naturally – is that normal? Squander not an opportunity, for I have definitive empirical measurements based on when that crack grew out.
This was a difficult picture to take myself
It would appear that, based on photos of the original injury’s location, that between March 17 and September 14, 15 millimeters’ worth of nail grew out. So if we apply some basic math, that’s…
~2.5mm per month, or…
~0.08mm per day.
Which seems like a long damn time to be catching that cracked nail on things. But is that normal?
According to healthonline.com (seems like a legit website), the average nail grows 3.47mm per month, or “roughly a tenth of a millimeter per day”. My math works out to 0.12mm per day, so they’re using fuzzy math, but whatever. Dear God! My nails are growing at 2/3 the average rate for a healthy human! Do I need more alpha-keratin in my diet?
Okay, so digging deeper reveals that’s a rough estimate and nail growth peaks at age 10. I’m 40, so not exactly in my prime anymore, granted. So that means, if my nail growth indeed peaked at age 10, then for each decade since, my nail growth has decreased by 22.2%, if we’re assuming a linear function, which I can only do with two data points. 66.7/3=22.2.
Now the important question: can I use nail regeneration rate as a benchmark for all my cellular regeneration? And if so, can I use that to predict the point at which I’ll no longer be able to adequately heal – i.e. die?
Let’s try. So for X, when X = current percent rate of nail growth (66.7%)…
And when Y = # of decades passed since X, then…
My predicted rate of cellular regeneration, C, = 100-((X/3)*(1+Y))
Then we see where C falls to zero. Then I can simply narrow it down by dividing (X/3) by 10 to determine degeneration rate per year.
My conclusion: I will die sometime just before my 75th birthday!
Not very encouraging. I think I need more data points. Give me another 10 years and I’ll complete another measurement. I hope the prediction is a little more encouraging, otherwise I’ll be looking at early retirement!
I’ve given a lot of thought to the quality of the air inside the house. Usually, this train of thought occurs after a sneezing/coughing fit, or after jumping awake due to the early stages of hypoxia. Which begs the question: why as a species do we even suffer from allergies? I’m guessing that the dust we choke on is largely a result of the artificial domiciles that we inhabit, and that our ancestors were never terribly concerned with this quandary whilst fleeing lions.
But the modern man, now living in the filth of his own making, must seek a solution. And naturally, he turns to another creation of man (or retreats to the wilderness for an extended hiatus from all that tuberculosis). I speak of the air purifier.
I’d say it’s a bit of a misnomer really, or at the very least an exaggeration. Does a HEPA filter really cleans the air of microorganisms? But I doubt that’s the problem anyway. What I needed was something to remove airborne particulates–something to cleanse the colloidal detritus from the air column. Something…overkill.
So I bought two air filters. It was intended to be part experiment, really. But after two months I opened one and saw this.
Where does this stuff come from?
Interestingly, the filter in the living room–the one with laminate–clogs the quickest. I’m guessing that, without carpet, there’s a lot less available material to trap the dust and it gets airborne a lot easier. Perhaps once all the carpet is gone, I’ll install more filters. Then, for the first time in my life, I’ll be able to breathe out of both nostrils at the same time! That, and the old lady smell will finally be gone from the house.
Until then, I have good health insurance that will pick up the prescriptions for the antibiotics needed to fight off respiratory infections. Ohio!
I knew that when we purchased a house the demands for my physical labor would skyrocket. As predicted, the chores piled up, and my body, certainly approaching the end of its prime, started objecting by chronically hurting and refusing to operate at peak efficiency. But the body is a biomechanical machine, and while we as a people pretend to understand it way more than we actually do, logical reasoning and experimentation still apply.
I hate physicians as much as I hate hippie homeopathic peddlers. The two represent extremes: the former–an ego-maniacal sellout to the entrenched pharmaceutical overlord, the latter–a manipulative snake-oil huckster who relies upon contradictory medical evidence to spin compelling pseudo-science. They’re more alike than different, really (having the same motivator). And as I always say, the truth generally lies somewhere in the middle. Therefore I considered both positions in my conclusions. So without further ado…
Step 1: determine the source of the problem. Bones, joints, connective tissue, and muscles all suffer from physical punishment. Bones strengthen from impact and aren’t a problem unless broken (and men usually don’t suffer from calcium deficiency). Joints and connective tissue can strain and tear, but the physical therapy applied to fix this problem focuses on strengthening the supporting muscle. My muscles themselves were constantly fatigued and suffering tears. So with my bones not a problem, and the other points of concern all pointing to muscles, I concluded that I needed to focus on said muscles.
Step 2: determine what my muscles needed of which they weren’t getting enough. Presumably, anything my body needs it would synthesize itself from raw organic caloric input. Of course, it doesn’t work that way, and there are things that have to be consumed to be replenished. Since the size of my belly can attest to me receiving sufficient caloric input, I therefore concluded that I needed to focus on the essential, vital components. I know of two: amino acids and vitamins.
Step 3: consider the stages and requirements for muscle growth and repair. Like anything, it needs base components. Then to begin construction, it needs metabolizers. And of course, to operate, it needs an energy source. Starting point now defined, it was time to seek out something that fit the bill in the form of supplements.
Vitamins were pretty straightforward, despite what the supplements isle at the local grocery store might suggest. Like anything, casual interest can turn into obsession, but good lord people–they’re just vitamins. I did, however, choose a name brand. I had found out once from someone on the inside of the pharmaceutical industry that generic brands contain less of their reported active ingredients than name-brands, due to less stringent legal requirements. That right there is a red flag that the industry is fucked up. But anyway, I settled on a standard adult multivitamin.
What the hell is in there?
Amino acids, specifically essential amino acids, usually come as part of protein powder, I guess because amino acids are protein. As I searched for something simple and minimally processed, I ruled out anything generally marketed to meatheads. Also because I hate vegans, I didn’t want to support that in any way–which ruled out a surprising percentage of these supplements too–I guess because vegans are worried about getting enough protein. Finally I found something that fit the bill: brewer’s yeast–the leftover byproduct of beer brewing. It had the added bonus of supporting an industry I’m behind 100%. Is fungi okay to eat as a vegan? I dunno…stupid vegans.
So between vitamins and essential amino acids, I had covered supplementing my muscles with the extra material they needed for growth, repair, and production. It wasn’t until much later that I found the answer to the energy problem, because it’s part of an industry I also despise, and because of my general concerns regarding artificial supplements: creatine.
But as it turned out, it wasn’t the artificial illegal performance-enhancing jet fuel that the 90s and Mark McGuire had led to me believe. In fact, there is almost no evidence of long-term detrimental effects. It is actually a natural distillate (probably not the most accurate word), of animal protein. You can read Wikipedia for a more detailed explanation, but basically it recycles a certain energy transport nucleotide (adenosine triphosphate) that muscles use, while also allowing muscles to store more phosphocreatine, which in turn increases the rate of adenosine triphosphate synthesis. And because it’s the same energy system the nervous system uses, it also has the benefit of enhancing cognition, so win-win.
With this trio of supplements, I now had the building blocks for muscle growth and repair, the ability to synthesize muscular protein for this purpose, and greater muscular energy and endurance–which lessened the total amount of injury I receive from exertion while allowing me the greater potential for exertion. The wood is chopped, the lawn is mowed, and the gardens are being dug. And, I did it all without spending a fortune or taking something dangerous.
And this combo got a true test when the garage door spring broke and I had to open it manually. Turns out, according to the technician, it weighs about 400 pounds. Admittedly, that did make me feel a little like a badass. Vae Victus!
