http://www.idkfa.com/v3 idkfa: syndicated http://www.idkfa.com/v3/v_thread.php?thread_id=87&msg_id=826 I think it depends on genetic heritage as well. I have no allergies that I know of (other than to an antibiotic as an infant, which I overcame and can no use said antibiotic). I am usually cleanly, sort of a germiphobe... although I typically get sick about once a year, its almost always a sore throat. It's definitely a complex issue. Scrotor@idkfa.com (Scrotor) Status Report, 2010 Wed, 29 Sep 2010 18:50:53 -0800 http://idkfa.com/v3/v_thread.php?thread_id=87&msg_id=826 http://www.idkfa.com/v3/v_thread.php?thread_id=87&msg_id=824 I'll buy that. Ever since I was a kid I've been eating whatever weird food I could fine including live earthworms on more than one occasion. I have a pretty good immune system in that I rarely get sick and if I do it never seems to last all that long. Plus I only have two allergies that I know of and both are to antibiotics. In some small way I thank my eating habits for providing this measure of immune protection and lack of bs allergies. MrFood@idkfa.com (MrFood) Status Report, 2010 Wed, 29 Sep 2010 18:45:59 -0800 http://idkfa.com/v3/v_thread.php?thread_id=87&msg_id=824 http://www.idkfa.com/v3/v_thread.php?thread_id=87&msg_id=812 Seriously? Oh my. Scrotor@idkfa.com (Scrotor) Status Report, 2010 Wed, 29 Sep 2010 16:56:14 -0800 http://idkfa.com/v3/v_thread.php?thread_id=87&msg_id=812 http://www.idkfa.com/v3/v_thread.php?thread_id=87&msg_id=811 I may have to check that out, this all sounds pretty fascinating. Scrotor@idkfa.com (Scrotor) Status Report, 2010 Wed, 29 Sep 2010 16:56:00 -0800 http://idkfa.com/v3/v_thread.php?thread_id=87&msg_id=811 http://www.idkfa.com/v3/v_thread.php?thread_id=87&msg_id=285 Nice user image. And we can talk about my paragraphs if you really want. Potentially, sure. Normalcy can mean happiness in some cases. Understanding isn't prerequisite, but pretty damn nice. I don't understand why WD-40 cleans oil-based paint off of your hands, but it's a hell of a lot better than trying to use water and soap. However, my misunderstanding is probably the root cause of some of the most uncomfortable parts of my life I can remember. For instance, I can never understand "dancing," because it isn't something that can (easily) be systemized or quantified, so I really can't enjoy it. Some systems my own, some pre-fabricated, I guess. Like wrapping my glasses around my alarm clock at night so I always know where they are in the morning, or designing a sensor and monitoring system to keep myself going on an exercise bike. Stuff to make things go more smoothly or efficiently, and to spend less time in tedium. I probably don't understand the definition of existentialism, but if Wikiepedia tells me anything, I would probably agree that a person is responsible for their own meaning, and in the context of this post, their own happiness as well. kaiden@idkfa.com (kaiden) Status Report, 2010 Fri, 27 Aug 2010 17:42:58 -0800 http://idkfa.com/v3/v_thread.php?thread_id=87&msg_id=285 http://www.idkfa.com/v3/v_thread.php?thread_id=87&msg_id=283 Because it generally falls to me to make the esoteric observations that aren't worth actually discussing, may I raise issue with the penultimate paragraph here? Can we discuss the existentialist undercurrent here, or at least the lack of recognition thereof? Specifically, a series of questions for you: Do the "normal things in life which bring others happiness" seem like they are potentially happy-making for you? Is understanding life a prerequisite for enjoying it? Are the systems you reference ones of your own making, or pre-fabricated? What I mean is, can you expound upon the idea of "life system?" I'm pretty sure that the problems you mention solving are the problems of young adulthood, about which (in an effort to make this post even more pretentious) I might suggest a recent NYT article which outlines some of them. Also, I'm a little ashamed that this quasi-combative, probing, pretentious post is my first on v3. I guess that's what they call "setting the tone." Wilber@idkfa.com (Wilber) Status Report, 2010 Fri, 27 Aug 2010 17:15:10 -0800 http://idkfa.com/v3/v_thread.php?thread_id=87&msg_id=283 http://www.idkfa.com/v3/v_thread.php?thread_id=87&msg_id=280 Refurbishing? As in, taking information off of it? Or just blowing it all away and starting anew? And if it's a Windows 98 hard drive, there may be... slight complications in introducing it to newer hardware in a newer computer (for instance, an older IDE hard drive generally isn't compatible with motherboards that only support newer SATA hard drives). And what kind of software were you thinking of putting on there? Before I work myself to a froth trying to put Linux on it, I'll warn that I no longer have any copies of Windows I can part with. Finding necessary software will be a big question. As for price, you're grandfathered under previous business policy. kaiden@idkfa.com (kaiden) Status Report, 2010 Fri, 27 Aug 2010 14:49:08 -0800 http://idkfa.com/v3/v_thread.php?thread_id=87&msg_id=280 http://www.idkfa.com/v3/v_thread.php?thread_id=87&msg_id=279 I like your business! Are you interested in refurbishing an old hard drive for my mom? She's currently running Windows 98. She needs a new computer. And I have one. I think it just needs software. I probably can't afford your services, though. sexretary@idkfa.com (sexretary) Status Report, 2010 Fri, 27 Aug 2010 14:34:12 -0800 http://idkfa.com/v3/v_thread.php?thread_id=87&msg_id=279 http://www.idkfa.com/v3/v_thread.php?thread_id=87&msg_id=159 Parents are doing great, and yes, still living in Anchorage. Both are a few years away from retirement, and having as much fun as possible doing home improvement projects and watching mischievous grandchildren. And I am planning on travel here in October, as I guess we're having a family reunion in Hawaii. I'm looking forward to it. Though, I still do need to think on where my next "disappear for a week, alone, into a strange land" trip will occur. If I'm in the DC area again, I promise to bother you guys. kaiden@idkfa.com (kaiden) Status Report, 2010 Sat, 14 Aug 2010 14:22:52 -0800 http://idkfa.com/v3/v_thread.php?thread_id=87&msg_id=159 http://www.idkfa.com/v3/v_thread.php?thread_id=87&msg_id=154 That must be so exciting for your family to have two little ones running (or soon to be running) around! Aubry looked beautiful in the pictures on your Picasa account. I wish your nephew all the best in hopefully overcoming at least some of his allergies. I have worked with children who are allergic to everything on the face of the planet, and it always makes childhood so terribly difficult... How are your parents doing? They are still in Anchorage too, right? You know... if you ever find yourself sitting around Anchorage with too much time to think and worry about not solving a problem in life, maybe you should just put a stop to that by doing some traveling! (I know if I ever have too much time to just think, I drive myself insane...) If you ever find yourself in the DC area, you always have an open invitation to Dan/my place. :) CapitolZebra@idkfa.com (CapitolZebra) Status Report, 2010 Sat, 14 Aug 2010 09:42:13 -0800 http://idkfa.com/v3/v_thread.php?thread_id=87&msg_id=154 http://www.idkfa.com/v3/v_thread.php?thread_id=87&msg_id=153 I read a book that relates to this idea, and it was quite interesting. It was called "Survival of the Sickest" and basically talks about exactly what it sounds like. Not only are we living in a world today where the basic "survival of the fittest" premis of Darwin's evolution theories is being thrown to the curb, but we are also helping this process along by making ourselves weaker with all the disinfectants that you mentioned. I know it's definitely true with me... My mom is a complete germaphobe, so I grew up in what Dan equates to a "bubble." Not surprisingly, I developed all sorts of allergies. I spent my first two years of college basically sick from something ALL the time. Then somehow I just started getting sick less and less as I lived in dirty and cramped college house after dirty and cramped college house. Something I also found interesting was in regards to what impact all these sanitizers are having on the ecosystem. As you all know, my stepdad is a marine biologist. He sent me a publication a while back about how many bacteria, fungi, and algae that thrive in sea waters are undergoing chemical and biological changes caused by their exposure to intense loads of sanitizer by-products being leaches into the water systems when people are washing their hands, clothes, everything else, etc. CapitolZebra@idkfa.com (CapitolZebra) Status Report, 2010 Sat, 14 Aug 2010 09:37:44 -0800 http://idkfa.com/v3/v_thread.php?thread_id=87&msg_id=153 http://www.idkfa.com/v3/v_thread.php?thread_id=87&msg_id=150 I get confused on which Carolina people are in. I apologize. kaiden@idkfa.com (kaiden) Status Report, 2010 Fri, 13 Aug 2010 20:29:26 -0800 http://idkfa.com/v3/v_thread.php?thread_id=87&msg_id=150 http://www.idkfa.com/v3/v_thread.php?thread_id=87&msg_id=149 Sounds like you're doing great man. I'll try to hit you up when I'm in Alaska for any length of time...you should've called me when you were in NC! Locked@idkfa.com (Locked) Status Report, 2010 Fri, 13 Aug 2010 20:28:30 -0800 http://idkfa.com/v3/v_thread.php?thread_id=87&msg_id=149 http://www.idkfa.com/v3/v_thread.php?thread_id=87&msg_id=125 If you think about how your immune system should work, being an active and healthy person actually should boost response, if anything making you more likely to develope innappropriate responses to allergens. A sedentary life should be worse for your bodies ability to have a strong immune response. If there is any culprit from industrialization its all the random crap in the air and living in cramped closed spaces most of our lives. Living and working indoors with poor air circulation. Food allergies are wierd though, your body normally sees things that it eats as kind of immune privileged, meaning it should rarely even be processed in a way that your body could ever become alergic to it, there are some notable exceptions though like the small and highly diffusable proteins from shellfish. Allergies in babies is even wierder, babies have very weak immune systems, in fact its quite hard to make vaccines for them because their ability to develope immune memory is difficult and therefor require multiple boosts to get immunity. Babies and even toddlers should not be having any allergies, the most likely cause of which is because anymore baby food is so sterile and the environments that babies grow up in are so sterile that they are developing inappropriate immune responses to benign things because its not being challenged enough with legitimate pathogens. If this is at all interesting you should take a look at this book I read a while ago, Parasite Rex. I goes over the evolutionary role parasites have played in the developlement of pretty much everything alive. Good read. MrFood@idkfa.com (MrFood) Status Report, 2010 Wed, 11 Aug 2010 17:02:42 -0800 http://idkfa.com/v3/v_thread.php?thread_id=87&msg_id=125 http://www.idkfa.com/v3/v_thread.php?thread_id=87&msg_id=124 I've read a few articles that advise people to eat dirt every once in a while in an attempt to rebuild some of these natural defenses that we've sterilized out of our lives. I pass on this advise but it's still interesting to know about. J_Maru@idkfa.com (J_Maru) Status Report, 2010 Wed, 11 Aug 2010 16:49:05 -0800 http://idkfa.com/v3/v_thread.php?thread_id=87&msg_id=124 http://www.idkfa.com/v3/v_thread.php?thread_id=87&msg_id=123 I imagine lifestyle in general plays as big a part to the contribution of allergies as much as health care (natural selection). Sedentary ease, diet and indoor air quality. We're simply not exposed to the same things our predecessors experienced. Green Man@idkfa.com (Green Man) Status Report, 2010 Wed, 11 Aug 2010 16:16:12 -0800 http://idkfa.com/v3/v_thread.php?thread_id=87&msg_id=123 http://www.idkfa.com/v3/v_thread.php?thread_id=87&msg_id=122 Thats it, good health care, clean food and clean water. Oh yeah and a rediculosely overzealos market for home cleaning products that have gone above and beyond the actual need for home sanitation. One of the most interesting cases of this is Poliomyelitis (polio) which used to never be a crippling disease. Infants would usually contract it during the first few years and the disease was limited to a dirrheal disorder. It wasn't untill the turn of the century when stuff like chlorox became available in middle and upper middle class homes as a sanitizer that babies no longer contracted the disease as was normal. The older a peson gets the more likely polio is to cause paralysis. It's pretty devestating between the early teens and late 20's, look at FDR and any stock Iron lung photo's. MrFood@idkfa.com (MrFood) Status Report, 2010 Wed, 11 Aug 2010 16:14:11 -0800 http://idkfa.com/v3/v_thread.php?thread_id=87&msg_id=122 http://www.idkfa.com/v3/v_thread.php?thread_id=87&msg_id=121 Ahh, ok. So, allergies, being an immune system reaction, would be suppressed by the parasites (or preempted altogether). And have they identifed what it is in industrialized nations that does this to us? Aside from halting natural selection by way of health care and such... kaiden@idkfa.com (kaiden) Status Report, 2010 Wed, 11 Aug 2010 15:21:00 -0800 http://idkfa.com/v3/v_thread.php?thread_id=87&msg_id=121 http://www.idkfa.com/v3/v_thread.php?thread_id=87&msg_id=120 That would depend on your preference, though there is a link to increasing rates of autoimmune disorders and various allergies and a lower parasite burden in industrialized nations. Allergies and various other autoimmune disorders are almost unheard of in underdeveloped nations not because there is less diagnosis and reporting but more because it doesn't really happen. MrFood@idkfa.com (MrFood) Status Report, 2010 Wed, 11 Aug 2010 15:13:03 -0800 http://idkfa.com/v3/v_thread.php?thread_id=87&msg_id=120 http://www.idkfa.com/v3/v_thread.php?thread_id=87&msg_id=119 Isn't that bad if the parasite suppresses the immunos? kaiden@idkfa.com (kaiden) Status Report, 2010 Wed, 11 Aug 2010 14:29:07 -0800 http://idkfa.com/v3/v_thread.php?thread_id=87&msg_id=119 http://www.idkfa.com/v3/v_thread.php?thread_id=87&msg_id=118 Nothing a good dose of immunosupressing intestinal parasites can't fix one day. MrFood@idkfa.com (MrFood) Status Report, 2010 Wed, 11 Aug 2010 14:22:56 -0800 http://idkfa.com/v3/v_thread.php?thread_id=87&msg_id=118 http://www.idkfa.com/v3/v_thread.php?thread_id=87&msg_id=117 Some of the stuff that he's allergic to the doctors said he was the most likely to grow out of. I'm hoping that's the case. kaiden@idkfa.com (kaiden) Status Report, 2010 Wed, 11 Aug 2010 13:26:48 -0800 http://idkfa.com/v3/v_thread.php?thread_id=87&msg_id=117 http://www.idkfa.com/v3/v_thread.php?thread_id=87&msg_id=116 So now you've both a niece and nephew? That's fun. I'm sorry to hear that Khalil is allergic to everything. My sister and cousin were/are that way. They've decided to ignore all the stuff that won't kill them as adults figuring the headaches/tummy aches are worth it more often than not. I hope he grows out of it. J_Maru@idkfa.com (J_Maru) Status Report, 2010 Wed, 11 Aug 2010 04:33:42 -0800 http://idkfa.com/v3/v_thread.php?thread_id=87&msg_id=116 http://www.idkfa.com/v3/v_thread.php?thread_id=87&msg_id=87 Well, I guess I'll start from the beginning. Following my update in August of last year, I ended up succeeding at buying a house. I now live by myself, midtown Anchorage, near a mega-church, two top-soil plants, and Sara's Sandwich Shop. Living here now nearly a year, I'm still enjoying it quite a bit. With a lot of help from friends and family, I'm slowly making the place into a normal home, and not just walls and surfaces with peeling paint and silly electronics. As mentioned previously, my sister had a son in November: Khalil Makai, and married his father, Dante, in December. Khalil's a happy baby despite having more allergies than I can count, and looked a little bit like one of the alien characters in Star Wars when he was first born. My sister didn't appreciate me informing her of the latter fact. I tried this last winter to get outside as much as I could. In addition to family snowmachine trips, I played a weekly outdoor pickup hockey game, and further bullied others to try it as well. I kept busy otherwise with weekly movie nights and book clubs and a short-lived indoor soccer season. I think at some point I even went to a dinner theater in Eagle River. Sometimes you just have to get out. In May, I went down to North Carolina to see my friend Paul Kukes get married. He married his now-wife Abby on May 1st on the Biltmore Estate near Asheville, NC. It was my first time being to any Carolina, and I would definitely recommend visiting the North one if you have the opportunity. It was also my first time being in a wedding. Being a groomsman isn't so bad. Just be nice to the bride's dog, and move anything they ask you to. It's cake besides that. This summer has been pretty standard. Ultimate frisbee a few evenings a week and biking around town (466 miles so far this summer). Just returned from a trip to my family's cabin, taking friends along with the grim purpose of fixing the cabin's kaiden@idkfa.com (kaiden) Status Report, 2010 Mon, 09 Aug 2010 03:49:23 -0800 http://idkfa.com/v3/v_thread.php?thread_id=87&msg_id=87