Mostly-smooth night of sleep

I had a mostly-smooth night of sleep last night, my first since my sinus surgery. I kept my head propped up on three pillows and cranked the humidifier in my bedroom to help keep my throat from getting dry. Largely it worked. I managed to sleep by breathing sometimes through my mouth, sometimes through my nose.

My Zeo sleep tracker says my sleep score last night was about 60 and normally it scores me above 80 (and sometimes in the 100s). It also shows I didn’t get but about 2 minutes of REM sleep opposed to my typical 60-90 minutes. So I slept lightly but I did sleep.

My nose still is bleeding a bit today but the heavier bleeding of yesterday is no more. A drip or two is all I’ve had. I’ve also been flushing my sinuses every few hours with saltwater applied by bulb syringe.

Right now, my nose is congested and I’m mostly breathing through my mouth. My oxycodone is keeping the pain at bay and the wet weather outside is keeping humidity levels high all by itself. I’m happy to be eating and drinking again and have lots to keep me from being bored. Overall things are going better than I expected.

Septoplasty at 5 hours, so far so good!

Well, five hours after sinus surgery I’m pleased to say the most annoying thing at this point is my dry throat from all the breathing though my mouth. My nose is still bleeding but that seems to be tapering off. The Percocet is working, I’ve got a humidifier cranked and a small hill of pillows to keep my head up tonight. I’m moving around normally, thinking clearly, and looking forward tonight to digging into the excellent bio of the Wright Brothers, The Bishop’s Sons. Very happy with how things are going so far!

The surgery began about 30 minutes past schedule due to the previous patient being a little long in shaking off his or her anesthesia but once they got me in it all happened so quickly. I will blog more about the process as I’ve been recording some thoughts as I go but for now I need to get some rest.

Septoplasty surgery tomorrow

Tomorrow I go under the knife for only the second time in my life. The first was my fundoplication surgery in 2003 to fix my hiatal hernia. Tomorrow’s surgery fixes my deviated septum, or in other words, sinus surgery.

As my ENT doctor, Dr. John Garside, explained, I’m one of those people who were born with an extra sinus, this one on my right side. This sinus eventually grew to the point where it shifted the septum (the divider between my sinus cavities) almost all the way over to the left side, restricting my left nostril’s breathing passage. The steps of the surgery are to remove part of the right sinus, carefully detach the tissue lining the left nostril, remove some of the left nostril’s cartilage, then put everything back together. The procedure takes about 45 minutes under general anaesthesia (likely propofol).
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U.S. predicts zero job growth for electrical engineers | Computerworld

This doesn’t surprise me. Electronics has been transformed into whole computers on chips, while computers themselves have become capable of supporting nearly unlimited creativity. Today anyone can perform on a smartphone what was once considered miraculous work, without knowing anything about circuitry or how to solder. Software is the new electrical engineering.

Two occupations long associated with innovation — electrical and electronics engineering — has stopped growing, according to the U.S. government.T

he Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), in an update of its occupational outlook released Friday, said that the number of people employed as electrical and electronics engineers is now at 316,000, and will remain mostly unchanged for the next decade.

Source: U.S. predicts zero job growth for electrical engineers | Computerworld

What really attracts business to North Carolina?

Flag-map_of_North_CarolinaThe front page of the News and Observer trumpeted that North Carolina’s population has finally exceeded 10 million. The story, written by Charlotte Observer reporter Ames Alexander and News and Observer reporter David Raynor, quotes a number of experts for their opinions about what brings them here.

Gov. McCrory says it’s the economy and quality of life (and he even works in a cheesy mention of the new state marketing motto):

“With our growing economy, great colleges and universities and quality of life, from the mountains to the coast, nothing compares to North Carolina,” Gov. Pat McCrory said.

Chuck McShane works for the Charlotte Chamber and should know what attracts people here:

“People are flocking for jobs, opportunities, mainly to our urban areas,” said Chuck McShane, the director of research at the Charlotte Chamber.

These two probably hear a lot from the companies that move here, so it’s understandable they were quoted. But then the reporters slipped this in (emphasis mine): Continue reading →

Apple CEO Tim Cook DID NOT say Americans Are Talentless And Taxes Are Dumb (VIDEO) – EgbertoWillies.com

Why do Tim Cook and Apple hate America? Cook obviously misses the connection that the taxes Apple should be paying would go towards better educating and training American workers. Apple’s habit of offshoring its massive profits is just one of many reasons I am not an Apple fanboy.

The reality is, Tim Cooks statements in the whole interview are worse than the article implies. He shows a tone deafness to what is really creating our economic problems, income and wealth disparity and more. His company plays a huge part in creating and continuing the problem.

Tim Cook is a plutocrat and an extractor of resources from America even as he refuses to employ massively here, or give back. Worse is his statement. He shows a lack of understanding of real economics most CEOs fail to realize.

The educational system fails because of corporations like his unwilling to be taxed so that said taxes can be reinvested into educating Americans, rebuilding infrastructure, and just giving Americans a living wage. Those Chinese acquired those skills from both investments by corporations who want cheap labor and a country that accepts it. Tim Cook’s company, Apple, and companies like his keep America’s government and structures underfunded even as they profit massively from our markets and the defense our powerful military provides them implicitly.

Source: Apple CEO Tim Cook DID NOT say Americans Are Talentless And Taxes Are Dumb (VIDEO) – EgbertoWillies.com

The North Carolina town that’s scared of solar panels, revisited – Vox

Vox’s David Roberts takes an excellent closer look at Woodland’s solar vote.

On December 8, a modest local newspaper, the Roanoke-Chowan News-Herald, published a story that ended up going viral, bouncing from Reddit to more than 220 other sites. It caused such buzz that even Snopes checked it out.

The story was about a town council meeting in Woodland, a North Carolina town with just over 800 residents. The council was considering whether to make a zoning change to a piece of land just outside town, to allow a solar farm to be built there. It would have been the fourth solar farm permitted around the town.

Source: The North Carolina town that’s scared of solar panels, revisited – Vox

Fact-checking Sanders’ claim that U.S. spends 3 times per capita what the U.K. spends on health care | PolitiFact

“Why is it that we spend almost three times per capita as to what they spend in the U.K. — 50 percent more than what they pay in France?” Sanders asked. “The insurance companies, the drug companies are bribing the United States Congress. We need to pass a Medicare-for-all single-payer system.”

Source: Fact-checking Sanders’ claim that U.S. spends 3 times per capita what the U.K. spends on health care | PolitiFact

How one ancestor helped turn our brown eyes blue

Everyone with blue eyes alive today – from Angelina Jolie to Wayne Rooney – can trace their ancestry back to one person who probably lived about 10,000 years ago in the Black Sea region, a study has found.

Scientists studying the genetics of eye colour have discovered that more than 99.5 per cent of blue-eyed people who volunteered to have their DNA analysed have the same tiny mutation in the gene that determines the colour of the iris.

This indicates that the mutation originated in just one person who became the ancestor of all subsequent people in the world with blue eyes, according to a study by Professor Hans Eiberg and colleagues at the University of Copenhagen.

Source: How one ancestor helped turn our brown eyes blue | Science | News | The Independent

Shaming Sanders supporters

Some of the reasons I support Bernie Sanders

Some of the reasons I support Bernie Sanders


Some supporters of Hillary Clinton for President are getting annoyed by supporters of Bernie Sanders, accusing Sanders supporters of “splitting the party” and trying to shame them into supporting Clinton. As a Sanders supporter, I’m tiring of this approach and tired of the insinuation that I’m not a true liberal if I don’t support a female candidate for President.

As a liberal who supports gender equality (though I maintain equal pay is fiction), I would be thrilled to vote for a female Presidential candidate but unfortunately Senator Elizabeth Warren opted not to run this year. Instead, I’m going with a candidate who had the courage and foresight to vote against the disasterous Iraq War, voted against the privacy-gutting PATRIOT Act, wants to decriminalize marijuana use, supports reinstanting the Glass-Steagall Act to rein in Wall Street abuses, opposed the Keystone XL pipeline, and opposed the job-killing Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) trade treaty, among other differences.

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