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Cake day: July 1st, 2023

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  • you also don’t hear about it as much because people tend to bike more in warm weather so it’s more likely for you to go long stretches of time without biking when it’s getting colder.

    Off topic, but I think it’s funny how cycling is viewed in different parts of the world. You look at it as a hobby that is naturally done less in the winter. For me it’s just a way to get to work and I still have to work when it’s cold, so obviously I’m still cycling just as much. And this is true for a lot of people, the bike rack at my job is almost as full in the winter as it is in the summer.












  • While we’re on the topic of CPR, I want to address the myth that CPR “almost never works”. It’s great at what it does, which is pumping blood through the body enough to keep vital organs supplied with a bare minimum of oxygen so they can survive.

    However, there’s usually a reason why the heart has stopped beating and in most cases, CPR can’t reverse that reason. If the patient is in a car crash and has completely bled out, CPR won’t get any blood back into their system. Or if they’re at the end stage of a terminal disease, CPR can’t magically cure the disease.

    But in cases where the cause for the cardiac arrest is simple and easily reversed, chances of survival are much higher. For example, if someone is drowning and you get them out of the water within a few minutes of cardiac arrest, CPR is very effective, with the majority of patients surviving. Here’s a study with 113 patients who were resuscitated after drowning and only 8 were confirmed dead. For 20 patients, the outcome was unknown, but even if they all died as well, that’s still a 75% survival rate.


  • Yes, a heart that has completely stopped beating cannot be restarted by defibrillation. It only works in a condition called ventricular fibrillation, when the muscle fibers of the heart are still contracting, but are no longer “in sync”. This causes the heart to twitch chaotically, which is not an effective way to pump blood. And without blood pumping, the heart itself does not receive any oxygen as well, so it will eventually go into a complete flatline after a few minutes of untreated ventricular fibrillation.

    The electric shock helps the fibers resynchronize. If you want to see the effect directly, here’s a video:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HCbawp9ZSnY

    Be warned, it shows an open chest and an exposed heart, most likely during heart surgery. They are using spoon-shaped internal defibrillation paddles. In the beginning, you can see the heart in ventricular fibrillation. It’s twitching chaotically and not pumping any blood. After defibrillation, it starts contracting rhythmically again.


  • I’ve never heard of a punctured heart personally, but I do think it’s possible. A punctured lung is much more common. But both conditions are usually treatable if the patient survives.

    CPR does carry some risks, but not doing CPR is guaranteed to be lethal. So any risk (to the patient) is worth taking at that point.




  • You’re generally correct. Insurances are a bad investment from a purely financial standpoint. Never get an insurance to save money or to avoid cost. Don’t get insurance for things that you can easily pay for from your savings or for things you can do without. For example, don’t get insurance for your flagship smartphone. Even if you can’t afford the same model again if it breaks, you can always get an entry-level or used phone for a fraction of the price which will do fine for daily tasks until you have saved up enough money.

    But there are cases where losing money is just part of the problem. For example, health insurance can literally save your life by paying for a treatment you otherwise couldn’t afford. Or personal liability insurance - if you cause more damage than you can afford to pay for, you can lose your house and pretty much the kind of life you may have lived up to that point. On the other hand, if you’re already broke, living in a shitty apartment and hardly own anything of value, then there’s no point getting that insurance.