That’s the bit I don’t get: isn’t glucose testing by the health care system fairly common with any sort of “I don’t know what’s going on, let’s order some labs and see what comes back” screening/testing panel?
I was told I had 'prediabetes' and actually got my own glucose testing kit. It didn't seem far off at that time, though, possibly because I was having such a difficult time eating anything. I didn't really know what to look for, though. Glucose being above 100 when I woke up? Over 180 a couple hours after eating? I tested a lot but didn't have any doctor support or interpretation.
At the hospital, I saw a gastroenterologist who specialized in Celiac, because I had just been diagnosed with Celiac a year earlier and many of my symptoms seemed related to digestion. He absolutely should have done diabetes tests. On the last day of the 2 weeks I was there, he said "It could be type 1 diabetes... some people get that too" but didn't order any tests. When I was diagnosed at the ER another year later, my glucose was 650 (very high) and had been averaging 300 (it should be ~85). So yeah, the doctors were negligent, in my assessment.
OP mentioned being told he was just worrying by a psychiatrist. They're used to seeing all sorts of psychosomatic issues caused by stress and anxiety. The old 'think horses not zebras' puts blinders on, especially when there's also claims that the US health system over-tests for things.
I told my gastro that I was on a very restricted diet. I had lost a ton of weight from not being able to swallow food and though it was related to Celiac or food allergies, and they really didn't listen to what I was saying. The psychologist told me that I was "so worried about gluten that I was starving myself", which was quite offensive, actually. I had been in phsyical pain every day for months and went from 180 lbs to 120 (at 5'10") until I found a liquid diet that worked for me and regained weight. I had no idea carbohydrates were an issue.
It's common to get a spot/random glucose test as part of a metabolic panel, but not that common to get an A1C or certainly auto-antibody tests, in my experience.
A1c has become a lot more common over the last 20 years… adoption of new standards can take a while in healthcare, even stuff that has existed for a while
I’m looking forward to cell phones un-shackling themselves from telecom oligopolies through a mix of repurposed satellite uplink and where available: some FM spectrum downlink utilization.
Just stream me the weather, traffic, text msgs & some news stories that a TTS can read out to me.
Won’t work well for streaming a video but for most of us generally on wifi except out-of-doors, I can live with it.
Just stream me the weather, traffic, text msgs & some news stories that a TTS can read out to me.
SiriusXM is half way there. It supplies weather and traffic as a data service.
I knew about traffic from way back when the service was new, and found out Sirius Marine Weather a few years ago, but recently rented a car that also had Sirius-delivered weather and traffic alerts.
It was very useful as I was deeply off the grid (no radio stations at all during the day and AM skywave only at night), and the car alerted me to nearby lightning and thunderstorms that I couldn't see because of the terrain.
Ads are usually the workaround where you don’t deliver enough value to get people to subscribe or payments are unavailable for some reason.
It makes sense to show some ads and get some money at low volume (like a faraway reader wanting to read a story in your local newspaper) but taking money from regular users directly will pay much more.
Newspapers are happy to cannibalize 99% of their ad revenue with a paywall if that 1% subscribes because that’s how much more money you make from someone paying $10-$20/month vs ads.
But yeah, if people use it as a buying recommendation engine, that’s where the money is on ads/referrals but a lot of AI use has little/no connection to buying intent touchpoints.
Newspapers had no choice after craigslist and later Google/Facebook took all their classified revenue.
LLMs may or may not be able to cover their costs with it. We'll see - I suspect product placement as recommendations will become a thing as it won't take as much GPU to give a "recommendation" on "the best widget for X". I firmly expect it to become enshittified the same way google and amazon search has.
Restaurants in Quebec are similar: forcibly integrated into a provincial sales tax system and part of your receipt has some government segment.
Largely because unscrupulous restaurants had, I think they were called “zippers” to perma-erase revenue/transactions.
Some EU countries did a “if you don’t get a receipt, you don’t have to pay”, which erased the concept of a bar tab. During a drinking session with friends, you’d end up with a stack of receipts to pay as you got a receipt with each beer request.
Income taxes are a similar idea: employer pays on your behalf and then you do some manual or virtually automatic reconciliation at the end of the year. Canada is pretty much the latter where the gov already has all the info and you can import it into your tax software where most people don’t have to change anything.
I dunno why countries like sales taxes but low tariffs. Would be easier to tariff imports at a small number of points and let everything internal run free. Why have sales tax on local production.
The more “tax points” you create, the harder it’s going to be to enforce it all.
In Canada, I have to report my (small) self-employment income.
The other thing I have to do is enter deductions like moving expenses, tuition, charitable donations, medical expenses, etc., which the government doesn't have direct access to.
profits are taxed, but VAT captures turnover or revenue, not profits, otherwise if everyone spends all their profits there would be nothing left to tax.
That's exactly what my child did with friends a few years ago when they were 19. I know that college students in Vermont frequently go across the border for the same reason.
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