Migraine Log – latest research edition

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MarchSo January and February I got a lot of migraines. A lot. I don’t know why I’m getting so many. I guess I can be grateful that many of them are not severe.

Here’s a round-up of articles on migraine research that made me feel better than that graph:

Don’t oversell tech or people might get trapped in their car and almost die

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Last year, an older couple got trapped in their new car in their own garage. It was a car with a remote keyless system that automatically locked once they got in. But they’d left the smart key outside. It’s a brand new modern car, with this fancy wireless computer system controlling everything from the ignition to the locking to the windows. The salesperson had gone on and on about how secure and convenient this new technology was – how their car was basically non-functional without the smart key. They controlled their car through the smart key. Without it, they couldn’t unlock the doors. The solution to their problem had to involve getting that key, getting someone to get the key.

They couldn’t break the windows or attract anyone’s attention with the horn and eventually they’d used up most of the air. It’s a nice, modern, airtight design. The woman lost consciousness and they were both close to death when neighbours rescued them.

This is the interior of a 2014 Mazda 3.

Interior shot of 2014 Mazda 3 with shot of door. Clearly shows door handle and manual lock.

Interior of 2014 Mazda 3

You’ll notice that it has a perfectly normal manual door handle and lock. All they needed to do to get out of the car was manually unlock and open the door.

And they almost died. They tried to get out for 13 hours. AND THEY ALMOST DIED.

This story is being passed off as hilarious, the people, dumb and feeble-minded with age. And ok, it’s definitely no shining example of brilliance. But I think this sort of thing could happen to many people. When you get used to doing something one way, it becomes very, very difficult to see alternatives, especially if you’re tired and stressed, as these people were. Compounding the situation was the fact that they didn’t understand the technology and its limits. That’s something true of basically all of us in some situations.

And yeah, maybe being older made this situation more likely, but they weren’t failing at using a new technology. They were failing at using a very old technology – manual door locks. The problem was that they had seen so many things change so much (and had been told things had changed so much) that they didn’t expect even car doors to work the same way anymore. If we have the good fortune to get old, we may very well be bewildered by technological change, too.

We should be encouraging good UI and basic understanding of the tech around us and punishing dishonest marketers. Also maybe popping in to visit our neighbors more. It is so easy to be stupid. It would be great if it didn’t kill us.

 

While you’re waiting for the bus

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Stuff worth reading

Female amputees grapple with prosthetics for men Good examples of how designing for non “default” identities is good for everyone.

A subtle way to over-fit

Roxane Gay: Margaret Sanger, a Women’s Fighter – NYTimes.com

Nancy Drew and the Case of the Slow Program

Brendan Gregg’s great picture of Linux observability tools

It’s Hard to Believe These Are Migraine Symptoms (But They Are)

Health-Care Deductibles Climbing Out of Reach.
“about a quarter of all non-elderly Americans with private insurance coverage do not have sufficient liquid assets to pay even a mid-range deductible.” And that’s a conservative estimate.

Why the Dismal Science Needs a Richer Moral Anthropology
Fascinating read of Adam Smith with discussion of moral philosophy and implications for modern economics

Ferguson an apartheid police state: 21,000 residents have a staggering 16,000 open arrest warrants

Why Lesbians and Gay Men Don’t Share Space.
Gentrification, sexism (e.g. the wage gap), children

Record First: Global CO2 Emissions Went Flat In 2014 While The Economy Grew.
Goooooo China!

McDonald’s sues to block Seattle’s minimum wage
Law only applies to businesses with more than 500 employees, presumably to satisfy the small business community. I say fuck it, wage hikes for everyone. Also, it is really really awful that the courts let the Equal Protection Clause be used like this.

That’s not my migraine

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What not to do when having a migraine |

What not to do when having a migraine | Photo by Sasha Wolff

This photo is used in article after article about migraine and it drives me nuts. It is of an actual person having an actual attack, but I don’t think it’s at all a representative image for the disease. Shining a light at my face like that – even with my eyes closed – would be shockingly painful during a migraine attack. Like most migraineurs, I’m extremely light sensitive during an attack.  While there is wide variation in how people experience migraine attacks and even between attacks within a person, this photo ignores one of the most defining features of the disease.

Fighting over the scraps

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There’s an article in the Raleigh paper on proposed changes to allocation of the sales tax to be more weighted in terms of population instead of location. It highlights some of the common issues with urban/rural divides, especially when it comes to inequality, and explains the changes clearly, in detail, and with historical context. Go local papers!

I think it is really great that this proposal has started a conversation about the distribution of government resources – whether it should be equitable, how to make it equitable, what that would even look like.

But I thought it was kind of disingenuous to present this fight over sales tax allocation completely divorced from the larger tax collection and allocation picture. Poor people are paying a much higher proportion of their income in taxes in NC than the wealthy, and tax rates are so low that infrastructure needs and services aren’t being met. A lot of Democrats in my circles are crowing about hypocrisy – this is a Republican initiative to redistribute wealth from richer areas to poorer*. However, the sales tax is strongly regressive; you’re really just moving a bunch of poor people’s money around. The impact on wealthy people is indirect via potential changes to their municipal infrastructure. But with tax policies like these they shouldn’t have any trouble affording alternatives like private school and hovercars.

Focusing on this sales tax situation is like taking a box of cookies to your 3rd grade class, hiding almost all of them in your backpack, and then admonishing your friends to be fair when divvying up the remaining 4 (and crumbs).

If I were rich I’d think it was hilarious.

* I am somewhat sympathetic to this. I sincerely doubt this would be happening if the Republicans weren’t trying to shore up support in rural areas.

In which another person assumes I do not know things

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Tonight I was talking to someone working their way through Thomas Piketty’s Capital in the Twenty-First Century, but finding it slow going. I mentioned that, while I hadn’t read it, I was familiar with it, and I understood its major contribution to be the weight of evidence brought to bear on the (not entirely new) thesis. I suggested that once they were convinced, there might not be much point in torturing themselves with the rest of the book very long, dry book.

My conversational partner then spoke a bit about how they’d like to have a deep understanding of the topic and be able to back up their perspectives. I was nodding along, but stopped cold when they pointed out I did not seem very interested in that myself.

The person I was speaking to does not know my political and economic views or depth of knowledge, and yet they assume that whatever views I have are held in ignorance. I haven’t read Capital in the Twenty-First Century, but I have read gazillions of reviews, critiques, excerpts, and descriptions of the work. I wasn’t especially fascinated by this work and seeking it out – I just read a great deal in this area and so such articles were on my radar. 

Their assumption made me pretty mad, but I did not want to discuss my angry feelings. So I said that, indeed, by the time they finished Piketty they would have much more knowledge of the evidence for his thesis than I’d managed to glean from reviews.

I had hoped that they would take that opportunity to offer to share the most interesting tidbits with me as they read, or perhaps apologize. Unfortunately, they decided to twist the knife and mocked my academic training, asking if I’d learned such non-answers from my professors.

Maybe I misinterpreted some of what they said, but that conversation did not feel good