As an early-adopter of POCUS, I can't quite believe we actually still use stethoscopes

I still use one I got in 1994. Replaced the earpieces and diaphragm a few times, but the chestpiece and tubing are original

That's like a little over $3/yr. Can't complain

No competitive distance runner since like Zola Budd ran barefoot or minimal shoes.

The carbon plate revolution is the main driver for drop in times over the last 5+ years

I’d consider the old models of Nike Waffle race flats pretty minimal, and those were ubiquitous 15-20 years ago.

Yeah, I just literally use table sugar, which is 1:1 glucose:fructose. Maurten et al using 1:0.8, close enough! And I don't believe the hydrogel thing is any magic, just marketing.

But yeah, this is a thing. There is some gut distress for sure at higher levels of intake. See guy finishing second -- still under 2 hrs! immediately puking, which is fairly common at the high intakes. I've heard of Blumenfeld (the triathlete) taking like 200g/hr or more. Insane. Though he's had some epic GI disasters too, lol.

The hydrogel textures (not maurten but naak, but close enough), for me, allow while racing to swallow a full 40g gel in half a second without feeling the sugary taste a lot, which is nice. Compared to thick syrup-like gels, it’s a way better experience in a marathon.

But I only buy for actual races, rest of the time, I do my own 1:0.8 mix with a bit of thickener, in soft flasks. Much more cost effective.

If we're just doing fun apocrypha my favorite is the one about the USS Constitution and alcohol consumption

Is this AI writing? Maybe from an outline prompt? I can’t tell

We’re screwed

Nope, not an outline prompt. Just my early morning jumble. (We still might be screwed, but I like to think not!)

I didn't think so, but LLM's have taken so many tropes of a certain style of writing: the bullet points, the contradiction to make a point (not this...but that...) that when I see that style, I automatically question it

But you made actual clear points, so it didn't really feel like it, but honestly I can't be sure anymore!

hell no

I don't think I'm cut out for the modern world

Calais, ME

I’ll give you a counter example. I had an MRI of my neck for unrelated reasons. It found a thyroid nodule with suspicious characteristics. Incidentally I had had an MRI of the same areaa few years before and it wasn’t there.

So I had a biopsy. Which was equivocal also.

So I had it out which involved removing half my thyroid. Turns out it was a cancer but like the least serious kind, in fact the classification of it as actual cancer has gone back and forth over the years

But my other half of my thyroid couldn’t produce enough thyroid hormone, and now I have to take thyroid replacement the rest of my life to start alive

Also the surgery affected my voice and I sound like RFK jr now.

I clearly suffered some harm, and even after having the thing out, it’s unclear if that was beneficial at all. A large proportion of these kind of tumors quit growing and never do anything bad. But some do. So who knows.

Was the tradeoff worth it?

I don’t think it’s possible to say

If one is of a certain age, of course they studied for step I without it

and the classic method was the inspiration for Anki to begin with: making your own flashcards on index cards! You could do a version of spaced repetition by shuffling the deck.

Not sure the digital version is actually easier or more effective

At one time I had more than 20,000 cards that I had >85% recall on after 21 days... Hard to do that without the digital version.