Larry’s Comments (group member since Nov 23, 2020)

Larry’s comments from the Nonfiction Reading - Only the Best group.

Carol & John, many thanks for your well wishes. It means very much to me.

We have been in the hospital all week due to cancer related problems for my wife. Yesterday we actually had 28 separate medical staff (doctors, nurses, techs, etc.) come to my wife’s room. Virtually all were relevant and did necessary things. Stuff like draining fluid from a lung (that took three people). But still … an hour after lunch was delivered to my wife,three separate staff came … I finally explained to the last one (an occupational therapist) that maybe that visit could occur later so that my wife could eat.

Ron, I am so sorry about the school problems. Based on what you have posted here, we know that you are a great student. Schools sometimes just can’t see that. Hang in there.

My own news is that my wife's cancer has returned and spread to her lungs and several lymph nodes. What makes this so hard is that after the chemo cycles that ended in December, her PET scan was normal. But blood wok after that showed something was not right ... and so the PET scan in March showed the spread of cancer.

Chemo with a new drug began last Tuesday. She tolerated the new drug well, and now we'll see how effective it is.

Ron,

I hope you are back to normal ASAP. Good advice to yourself.

Larry

Carol wrote: "I thought the poet, Brian Bilston, kept his identity secret but I see that he is going to recite his poems at Lyra Bristol Poetry Festival. A witty and thoughtful poet. He always makes me smile."

He truly is one of my favorite poets ... just the wittiest that i know of.

Ron wrote: "Larry, sorry about you having shingles. My parents both had it, my dad was worse off than my mom to the point of physical pain. Hope you're on the mend.

*****

Ugh I hate my state. A friend sent me a message yesterday about a bill that's being introduced that will target bookstores in their whole book banning vendetta. This will target books viewed as "obscene" so goodbye art books, romance, anything that has even the slightest nudity in it.
..."

It will hurt bookstores so much. You can still get the books you want from online merchants, but this kind of legislation will put a lot of physical bookstores out of business.

Carol wrote: "Larry wrote: "I'm finally recovering from shingles. I've been in a good bit of pain for more than four weeks, but it's subsiding ... but I haven't really had a good night's sleep in a month."

4 weeks seems to be the magic time unless you are unlucky. ..."

Carol, I think that is excatly right. I know the medical literature says 3 to 5 weeks. But as I am moving into my fifth week, the frequency of my pain has lessened a lot. Instead of lasting 22 to 24 hours per day, it just has dropped over the past three days down to about four hours per day.

John, I had the original Shingles vaccine about 10 years ago and both doses
Of the Shingrex vaccine. My internist indicated that the more recent vaccine probably did result in a milder case … that and a antiviral that I took a few days after my symptoms began. It’s been bad enough as a “milder case.”

John wrote: "Rick Atkinson’s second volume in his planned trilogy is due out soon.

The Fate of the Day: The War for America, Fort Ticonderoga to Charleston, 1777-1780"

I've pre-ordered that book. The first book is brilliant but sometimes I wondered about the accuracy of the recounting. I don't know that he was wrong about anything, but the level of detail in the hour by hour recounting of a battle just is astonishing.

I'm finally recovering from shingles. I've been in a good bit of pain for more than four weeks, but it's subsiding ... but I haven't really had a good night's sleep in a month.

Just a brief note that we've had another health setback. I was diagnosed with Shingles on Sunday. A good bit of pain but it could be a lot worse. I'm on antivirals and painkillers.

I think that a few decades earlier the thought of being bombarded by even small amount of antimatter would be assumed to result in the destruction of one's body.

I need to catch up and finish. We've been dealing with some serious health issues, namely a return of my wife's cancer. We are so grateful for modern medicine, including imaging technology. PET scans involve the use of antimatter, namely positrons.

This is from Co-Pilot, the MS AI: "It seems like you're referring to PET scans (Positron Emission Tomography). Yes, PET scans do involve antimatter! They use positrons, which are the antimatter counterparts of electrons. Here's how it works:

A radioactive tracer is injected into the body, and this tracer emits positrons. When these positrons encounter electrons in the body, they annihilate each other, producing gamma rays. These gamma rays are then detected by the PET scanner to create detailed images of the body's internal processes."

But then trying to understand the radiologist is something else. I can understand a radiologist's MRI or CT-scan pretty easily, but the terminology for a PET scan is REALLY, REALLY different. I mentioned this to my wife's roncologist and he said, dump the report into an AI and ask it to summarize. I dumped the three page report into Co-Pilot and asked for a summary. In about 30 sends it gave me a five paragraph summary that was much more accessible.

Back to reading.

Ron wrote: "Finished this one:


In the Shadow of Quetzalcoatl: Zelia Nuttall and the S..."</i>

Ron, if you get a chance do read [book:Fifth Sun: A New History of the Aztecs by Camilla Townsend. This blurb gets it right: "Fifth Sun: A New History of the Aztecs. Fifth Sun: A New History of the Aztecs is a 2019 book by American historian Camilla Townsend. The book utilizes indigenous, as opposed to European, sources to tell the history of Aztec civilization. The book won the 2020 Cundill History Prize." An amazing read.

Anisha Inkspill wrote: "Larry wrote: "Aniska, the Lisbeth Salander trilogy is an amazing trilogy.i read them when they first came out and ordered the third one from the UK because i didn’t want to wait six months for the ..."

Anisha, I really enjoyed the movie trilogy also. I just may watch it again.

Aniska, the Lisbeth Salander trilogy is an amazing trilogy.i read them when they first came out and ordered the third one from the UK because i didn’t want to wait six months for the U.S. publication. Maybe the most amazing thing is the three are in slightly different genres. One a mystery, one a police procedural, and one a thriller.

Just one general comment. Hawking’s writing skill (or perhaps there is just much more editing) grew as he approached the end of his life. I was like most who purchased his first book and never finished it. I found it so dry as to be boring. This book is great in how it diverged to one interesting thing after another. Again, I’m not sure how much of this is Hawking and how much is the editor. But I’ll give Hawking the credit.

Great article by Ed Yong (all articles written by Ed Yong are great) that explains why complex, that is Eukaryotic, life can be traced back to one event. What it means about life in the Universe may be this ... simple life may be widespread, while complex life may be exceedingly rare.

"The transition from the classic prokaryotic model to the deluxe eukaryotic one is arguably the most important event in the history of life on Earth. And in more than 3 billion years of existence, it happened exactly once."

https://getpocket.com/explore/item/th...

Mer, my own guess is that it will be much more like ARRIVAL … but even stranger. I think we have been visited regularly for centuries by aliens but they are not likely to threaten us. We aren’t so much like Native Americans meeting Europeans … as we are like ants looking up at humans for the first time.