The backstory of Methuselah’s Children, by Heinlein, involves a foundation to promote human longevity. Among other activities it studies natural long-lifers, creating its research material by paying a bounty for marriages between people whose grandparents all lived 100 years or more.

Now here’s a stack of wacky ideas of mine. ( . . more . . )

Looks like I’m staying home alone until a vaccine comes; it’s what I mostly do anyway, though I miss the weekly card games. As a libertarian, I do not presume to know what’s best for others. So, lucky me, I need not obsess about policy.

This morning I saw a series of flashes (both bright and dark) in my left eye, along a peripheral arc. They’ve stopped for now but I also have some new floaters. I have a recurring urge to clean off the spectacles I’m not wearing!

For years I’ve occasionally had a mysterious itch at my lowest left rib, nothing showing on the skin. Now it has spread rightward at the same altitude, making me think: could this be mild shingles?

blogpost on medical licensing

surprisingly sane Atlantic article on the structure of the health biz

Update: Twice in 2018, people urged me to improve this page by adding links about addiction and vaping.  If it happens again, I’ll suggest that they do so in the comments.

Without serious effort, I seem to have lost a tenth of my peak mass in three years. I think the main change is that I no longer eat rice most days.

My left arm is very sore today, making me notice how many little things I habitually do with my ‘wrong’ hand. I wonder whether this says something about my brain.

They say women’s hemispheres are less specialized; maybe my partial ambidexterity, the weak dominance of my left eye, and the sparseness of my body hair are all related.