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Biohacking Chronic Disease Medical Uncategorized

Day 1476 and Don’t Stop Till You Get Enough

I’m thrilled to see that the very week I began my hyperbaric chamber oxygen therapy that we’ve had multiple experiments and data come in.

Bryan Johnson helped answer a few questions in my set up so I was delighted to see he himself was just wrapping up a major experiment with HBOT.

Step into my hyperbaric chamber courtesy of Bryan Johnson’s Twitter

Earlier in the week Harvard professor David Sinclair tweeted a thread on with links to the newest scientific literature on treatment. Stuff with names like Activation of SIRT1 by hyperbaric oxygenation promotes recovery of motor dysfunction in spinal cord injury rats

Esssays

A lovely meditation on what happens when you write 11,000 blog posts. In this case startup blogging. I’m written an order of magnitude less so hopefully I can avoid some of the negative consequences and enjoy the lessons.

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Biohacking Chronic Disease Medical

Day 1473 and Sunday Slumber

I dislike having to set specific wake times up for early morning obligations. It always disturbs my sleep the night before as my mind convinces my body I must avoid missing the obligation. I’ll wake up 3-4x more than average to check the time and I’ve not oncd overslept.

As I’ve been doing an intensive course of HBOT (hyperbaric chamber oxygen therapy), I’ve been obligated to show up at a specific time and place each day. And it’s really messed with my sleep as my mind seems intent on reminding me to wake up early enough to be on time.

I’ve got a day off today and I’m happy to be spending it sleeping and browsing the news.

News

A bear steepening or selloff of longer duration bonds is freaking markets out. The WSJ thinks maybe you should take the other side of the trade. Knowing what government will be functional and fiscally stable in 30 years is a hard bet for anyone to make.

Remember GameStop frenzy trying to mess up Steven Cohen and his hedge fund Point72? Well he beat other funds with 5 billion in profit this year and increased fees. But diamond hands are forever.

Trends

Disaster girls are the new professional girlfriend.

Nuclear energy is making a comeback according to Bloomberg. I’ve got an SPV for you if you are looking for early stage projects. HMU on DMs and I’ll send you along.

Luxury is tanking so maybe cater to older shoppers with money?

Reading

One of my favorite founder/authors Hannu Rajaniemi has a new book called Darkome. It’s not available in the American markets yet but he’s hosting a book party for the JPM Health Conference in San Francisco on Tuesday. I have a few invites. Again DM me for the hook up. It’s a fantastic thriller

Categories
Medical

Day 1467 and Hyperbaric Chambers

I had a pretty rough anaphylactic experience over New Year’s Eve (fireworks are pretty but dusty) that has me reaching for steroids to calm the hives. My autoimmune response was awful

Not being one to take being sick laying down, I decided to make a run to a clinic that has a hyperbaric chamber. I’ve known a number of athletes who use them as well as those who suffer from rheumatoid diseases. I signed up for ten sessions as frankly I need to recover from the horrors of the corticosteroids I took. 

Happenings

Salt Typhoon is much worse than we thought (WSJ)

The number of people searching for office jobs for at least six months is up by 50% since 2022. (WSJ)

Justin Trudeau resigned today (WSJ)

Other Cool Stuff

 The Open Longevity Project

Categories
Chronic Disease Medical

Day 1456 and Altered Window of Immunity

You ever push yourself so hard (physically, emotionally, mentally) that you crash afterwards? This is a common human experience. It’s called an altered window of immunity. Over exert yourself and you get sick.

I’ve come to understand the Christmas Break period as my yearly window of altered immunity. One reason I like to fast during the Holy Nights is to bring down my own physical and emotional reactivity.

When basic functions feel stressful and even small involuntary processes like digestion feel inflammatory then the work of living feels toxic. At that point one hopes rest is enough to get it out of your system.

The human tendency to ignore small problems until they become big problems is surely part of a wider cycle of disease. We wait to rest and repair till it’s too late and find ourselves crashing. For everyone bobbing along on the waves of life be sure to take a deep breath before plunging back under. It just might save your life.

Categories
Biohacking Chronic Disease

1452 and Bone Deep Weather

When the weather begins a shift to wet, cold or otherwise stormy, I feel it like some poor grandmother in a folktale.

My joints begin to ache, I feel swelling across my fascia and my ankylosis pain intensifies. Why do joints hurt when a storm system moves in? We’ve got a couple plausible explanations for all too common phenomena.

Barometric Pressure Changes: Before a rainstorm, barometric pressure (the weight of the air) typically drops. This decrease in external pressure can allow tissues surrounding the joints to expand.

Humidity and Inflammation: Rainy weather often brings high humidity, which may worsen inflammation in joints, particularly for those with conditions like arthritis.

Thanks to Perplexity the bone deep discomfort of a storm front becomes much easier to understand.

Cold conditions can stiffen joints by thickening the synovial fluid that lubricates them. Reduced blood circulation may also contribute. Changes in weather can make nerves more sensitive which amplifying pain signals.

The remedies for these changes are pretty basic. Stay warm, get your blood flowing with some light exercise, stay hydrated, stretch and take anti-inflammatory medications like NSAIDs to mitigate discomfort.

I asked Grok to draw me as a cyborg granny out in front of a storm

Prompted Grok to draw me as an arthritic cyborg granny in a rocking chair waiting and watching as a storm comes in.
Categories
Aesthetics Culture

Day 1448 and Overhead Lighting

A quibble I have with modern industrial living is the prevalence of overhead lighting. I know we have to tolerate the bright lights in public and institutional spaces for reasons of cost, efficiency and clarity but why on earth have we found it to be acceptable in the home?

I’m grateful our divas bring their significant cultural gravitas to this debate. Bless Mariah Carey for leading the charge on this assault on the senses. I’ll let her not terribly articulate quote from a podcast speak the truth.

”I can’t with the overhead lighting. Why do they do it to us?,” Carey, 55, said. “But overhead lighting I don’t think so honey. Please stop it!…Everywhere I go, shut the lights! I don’t want to see them no more. Overhead lighting, it makes me sick.”

I was delighted to read this synopsis of the overhead lighting hate debate in the Walk Street Journal. They quote a few psychologists and photographers who sum up the debate as diffuse lighting is more relaxing while cool focused lighting is better for concentration.

However it is relatively challenging to do cool focused lighting well. Yes it possible to do overhead track lighting in ways that bring focus and don’t overwhelm your senses. But it’s harder to do right.

You’d probably have to literally light Mariah Carey for a living to do it in a way that’s comfortable for someone with sensory issues. I developed migraines in my thirties and combined with my spectrum level sensitivity to noise, sound, taste and light I don’t need to push my luck. .

Given that us mere mortals without expert lighting design have to live comfortably, I fully stand by my preference for lamps and multiple light sources in my private spaces. It’s just going to be less of a headache. Literally.

If you light from overhead with bright cool tones bulbs so you can see the details I get it. I can’t fathom why I’d want that for anything but cooking, cleaning or sewing.

When the it’s time to relax and interact you are damn right I want a nice warm lamp. Now I’ve got double the lighting. No wonder the topic gives so many of us headaches.

Categories
Internet Culture Politics

Day 1447 and LARPing To Death

Do you know what LARP means? If so, do you remember when you first heard the term? Think back and recall the context of your first exposure to the term. I’ll give you a couple hints for history.

Maybe LARP was used to describe playing a tabletop game like Dungeons and Dragons. Perhaps you went to a Renaissance Fair and encountered the melees put on by Society for Creative Anachronism. If you remember Dagohir you are a real OG & also old.

LARP stands for live action role-playing. It originally involved fancy dress, maintaining character and strict but fantastical rule sets. Its not much different from what children call “make believe” except it’s done by adults who presumably understand the difference between fantasy and reality.

It’s likely if you are younger and extremely online, your first encounter with LARPing was less “gamers dressed up with swords” and more “anon pretending to be some type of identity” on a social media platform. Like based and woke, LARP is a term that has had a lot of semantic drift.

Increasingly it feels as if some of us aren’t sure what is shared consensus reality and what is fantasy anymore. We used to call that “crazy” but it’s so prevalent one has to wonder if whole categories of otherwise sane people have gone nuts. People become convinced of fantasy they have made in their identities and are acting out on them.

Even the FBI is concerned about the blurred lines between fantasy and reality in LARPing. In 2023 they discussed the potential threat of violent extremism emerging from LARPing

Violent extremists will extensively engage in confirmation bias prior to the implementation of their plan. However, in this context, it becomes confirmation violence, or the use of targeted violence to impose social and political beliefs onto others and, therefore, change their behavior — in a grandiose sense, perhaps even the course of history

I personally can’t think of a more chilling term than confirmation violence in the wake of the public reaction to the assassination of United Health Care insurance CEO Brian Thompson. We are now LARPing ourselves to death. A bit too “if you die in the Matrix you die in real life” vibes if you ask me.

Think about how we went from digital mobs to physical riots to the dangerous new trend of assassination as cancellation. Vaguely defined members of today’s outgroup are no longer merely targets of online criticism but actually targets of stochastic terrorism. This is leaderless, decentralized violence. No one person held up a hand to start it, and no one person can easily stop it.

Balaji on Decentralized Violence

As centralized authorities are going through significant challenges to their authority we are probably in for a lot more LARPing to death. I’d be prepared to see a lot more violence emerging from LARPers convinced of their own story’s moral superiority.

And I’d be careful about buying into anyone’s story as we adjust. If all the world is a stage but the characters have real weapon’s we are in for a world of hurt.

Categories
Travel

Day 1445 and Sprint

It’s rare that I need to make an all out physical effort. My competitive fitness days are long beyond me thanks to my ankylosis. Most of my exercise is focused on mobility, strength and low impact cardiovascular work.

Thanks to a confluence of chaotic travel issues I had to sprint a full 2 kilometers across an airport with a backpack and roller bag. Which is a little bit more of a full body high high impact workout than I would prefer to do with a red Whoop recovery.

I had 20 minutes to make a flight connection. The next available flight was 8 hours later so there was no way I was missing this connection. It wasn’t clear I had a shot with so little time to spare but I intended to try.

I haven’t sprinted so fast or so hard in ages. I had a 40lb backpack on my back, a winter coat and scarf along with my trusty Muji roller bag so picking up speed was hard but not impossible.

Imagine a 5’3” woman sprinting up airport stairs with roller bag on one arm and a backpack on her back yelling “pardon” and “excuse me” as I huffed my way through the terminals. Hilarious objectively I’d say.

I made it though. I got the flight. I was the last person on the airplane but I did it. Sweaty and disheveled, my paper ticket crumbling in my hand the gate agent congratulated me. “You made it with a minute to spare!”

Categories
Startups Travel

Day 1442 and EOY Yet

The pace of 2024 hit me like a ton of bricks today. I haven’t fully unpacked my suitcase since September and honestly I couldn’t even really tell you my full schedule without checking my calendar.

I’m pretty sure it was only New York, Miami, Los Angeles and San Francisco but it sure feels like more. It’s been a lot.

I am coming around to enjoying some aspects of travel again but I feel like the only way to get deep thinking done is when you are able to stay put for at least a month.

I’d rather pack in multiple weeks on the road and then hunker down and assimilate. Others seem to do well with breaking travel up more. They do a week on and off.

I find that I don’t adjust in and out of travel quickly enough for that. It feels like state of perma-travel to my mind and body. I like to have a lot of steady continuous routine. My workload is literally chaotic (aka our preseed venture fund) so I don’t actively seek stimulus.

I just have a few more things to get through over the next couple of weeks but I am getting glimmers of stability and quiet. Which I very much want and need. Just need to hold it together a little longer.

Categories
Politics Travel

Day 1425 and Doorknockers

Yesterday I had one of those Lyft driver experiences where your life changes from what you learned. While driving to the airport, our very chill Zoomer driver explained the different financial incentives he got for ground game political canvassing in the Montana Senate race.

He mostly canvassed for the Sheehy campaign working for two different political action committees. It was a record breaking race for political spending in Montana.

As our driver explained it, Sheehy (the Republican candidate) paid fewer people more ($22/hr) than Tester (The Democratic candidate) with more flexibility and a higher number of hours, but more aggressive requirements (20 doors/hr) for success.

Naturally the young man being ambitious and motivated to earn (he clarified he was an independent politically) he chose being on the Sheehy teams as it rewarded his desire to make money. Though he did pick up some hours for Tester it just wasn’t much.

That’s the difference in the ground game in a nutshell. Ambition from a young man was rewarded and he aligned with those incentives. And the candidate won.

Im certain he was a terrific door knocker. He has the easy social graces of a local. He felt PacWest Missoula than over the divisive to plains kid but still as Montana as they come. He was white boy with face tattoos & piercings in the way of Zoomers.

His whole energy seemed to be aligning to vibes. He told us he came in to run ride shares for the big football game in Bozeman. It was a busy night and he ran out of hours (Uber tops you at 12). He was media savvy. Theo Von had just played Missoula and he was sad to miss it. Kendrick Lamar played on Spotify.

His attitude was so positive. He liked Uber, Lyft and Dashing for the flexibility. He said it didn’t feel like work because you are helping with the daily life of people. Helping others be responsible appealed to him. It’s nice to get someone who shouldn’t be behind the wheel home safely.

He used to make prosthetics but this paid better & was more social. It was fascinating learning how he picked up Uber & Lyft regionally in Montana and decided to run longer shifts for events. His attunement to supply and demand was keen. He seemed determined to maximize his time as it was his preferred lifestyle. He noticed incentives and it moves him.

If he ever see this “Hi Jacob!” It was great ride. Seeing viscerally how Montana’s senate race played out across the waves of rational economic actors living their American lives.