Good morning. Hello. How are you? #416
Feeling Friday. Travel excitement and anxiety. aducanumab absurdity. A repeated plea for cell companies to let me only change my account details IN PERSON. Apple hypocrisy. A pleasant walk.
Good morning. Hello. How are you? Feeling Friday? Ooo that’s a good name. For something. Not a band. But… a porn star, I suppose. Feeling Friday. Maybe a screwball comedy. I did that “movie that was number one when you turned ten years old” thing and it was… Porky’s. So, yeah. Okay.
Question: Do any of my Alaskan friends know the current situation with COVID restrictions and travel? Is my vaccine card enough? Should I try and get a test right before I go? Does anyone care anymore?
Getting excited to head up there and also terrified and sad and I am going to miss my wife and my baby but it will be good to see my mother and sister and nephew and aunt and uncle and say goodbye to my dad and go to Ivory Jack’s and man Sam’s Sourdough Café has just closed, I have learned, and that is really sad and I’m still sad about the Marlin and the Loon so I guess I will just go to Freddys or something. Maybe I’ll drive out to Chena Hot Springs and back. Oh wait there are no car rental places in Fairbanks anymore. I am gonna borrow one from my sister but I shouldn’t be driving that thing all over creation, right?
And I’m super nervous I’ll forget to pack something because I haven’t packed a bag in, like, twenty years, because I hadn’t unpacked a bag in like twenty years before the pandemic, but I have definitely unpacked my bag in the last sixteen months. Plus I’m totally going to lose things and forget things in irretrievable places like airplane front seat pockets and such.
Our cat is a daredevil, look:
Have you been following this aducanumab situation? This is… not good. I have a distinct uneasy feeling that this is the situation that is going to spring us into some sort of GATTACA-type dystopia. Every possible outcome of this is messy. Put succinctly, the FDA just approved this drug, brilliantly named aducanumab, I mean come on, for Alzheimer’s. The name sounds like an Autechre album. It does not particularly work. They did this over the objections of the near-unanimous (10 no, zero yes, one uncertain) advisory vote by the relevant specialized committee.
And it is really, really fucking expensive. Like $50,000 for a run of treatments.
And Medicare essentially always uses FDA approval as a proxy for “necessary and relevant” treatment when deciding if it will pay for it.
And the best outside research say it probably costs around $8,000 to actually make the drug. Maybe as high as $20k, but nowhere near $50k.
And a lot of people, a lot get Alzheimer’s.
And they really want some hope.
So now we are looking down the barrel of spending over a hundred billion dollars on buying an insanely overpriced drug for a bunch of people that by and large will do absolutely nothing.
Oh, sorry, correction: we are looking down the barrel of spending over a hundred billion dollars a year on buying an insanely overpriced drug for a bunch of people that by and large will do nothing.
Oh and did I mention that in America Medicare can’t negotiate with drug companies on price? Because of lobbying?
Fantastic, just fantastic. Here is a slightly longer article on the topic, if you are interested.
This is not going to end well. I mean, it should end well. It is easy to make this end well. All you gotta do is let Medicare negotiate on price. Boom! Bob’s your uncle! But we are a broken country and the odds are 50:50 at best if we pull that off. Because there are a lot of people who think it would just fine to gut Medicare and line the pockets of plutocrats at the same time. That is a two-birds-with-one-stone situation for them. An unmitigated good.
On a completely different ranty topic, it irks me to no end that the cell phone providers and banks of America don’t offer the option to not let any account changes be made on your accounts, at all, unless you show up in person at one of their retail locations, with suitable ID. Why on earth is this the case? Why on earth should AT&T allow my passcode to be changed, my billing address, anything without showing up in person? It is the easiest, simplest form of security, and no one offers it. I mean, I’m annoyed enough that banks are, like, the shittiest institutions on the planet when it comes to consumer-level accounts and 2FA. Just let me use my freakin Yubikey and be done with it. But even better: stop letting people change account settings over the internet. Just make me come in in person. I mean, sure, okay, maybe you can’t do this for everyone, but it should at least be an option.
But as far as I know, no one does this. God, I would turn this on so fast at every financial institution I use, on my cell phone, on my Apple ID. Apple, if you want to really care about security, offer this.
Speaking of Apple, there was a new survey that says what all the other surveys say — sixty-three percent of respondents said they’d be willing to see more ads if it meant lower subscription costs. Super cool that Apple doesn’t allow that. In the name of giving the consumer what they want! YAY!
Okay I will stop ranting today, sorry. I’m actually significantly less depressed today, in a pretty good mood. I used my awesome industrial-strength massager that Emma bought me for my birthday again, on my neck, last night and while I don’t think it solved everything, getting that tension released seems to have lessened my headache today which has commensurately lessened my innate topic-free depression that makes me pre-disposed toward sadness like I have been the last few days. Feeling pretty good today. Let’s get some shit done.
I spent a significant amount of time yesterday on one of those client procurement questionnaires about security and whatnot. Nothing we hadn’t answered a million times except for a weird vague question about “how do you code?” which, you know, what do you want me to say? We could write a book on that specific question. Would you mind being more specific? Me, the CSO and the CTO are all kinda stumped what an appropriate answer would even be to such an open-ended question.
I had a dream about Crook’s Corner last night. I was walking by. It was still open. The patio had extended out and taken over the whole intersection of Merrit Mill, Franklin and Main. It was very full. As was the old patio and the counter. But that little indoor area in the back was open, and we got a table there. It was so great. I am so sad about that place.
In more positive news the Persian Silk tree on our street, down at the other end by the cul de sac, is starting to bloom and I am very excited I love that tree I wish we had a big ‘ole Persian Silk tree on our lot:
We saw a nice bunny on the walk too:
Actually, our walk was kinda nice yesterday. Humid AF, but cool, with a breeze. Well, not cool, but not 95. We ran into three different sets of neighbors. Had chats about, like, travel plans and jobs and school zones and contractors. Neighbor stuff. It was quite pleasant. I like it when we run into neighbors makes me feel like, you know, we live in a helpful community and not a dystopian hellscape where every item in your house got there through exploitation and environmental ruin.
I suppose we can live in both! Who said we can’t have it all.
Hahah god I am sorry I will stop.
Look at this, though:
Aren’t they cute? Emma was totally dressed as if she was attending the first Lollapalooza yesterday. That black mesh shirt is a black mesh Nine Inch Nails shirt and those stripey pants are shorts. It was a fantastic outfit, it has to be said. And Jane was wearing her ALASKA shirt that has a grizzly bear, a polar bear, a moose, a wolf an otter on it etc. And those rainbow tights and that purple hat. What a great dichotomy.
Jane bedtime was pretty pleasant. Pleasant at breakfast —
(oh quick breakfast aside I am convinced that Morningstar Farms has changed the formulation of their Hot and Spicy veggie sausage patties and the new ones are, like, fiiiine, I guess, I am not super happy about it and I think about it every morning now and I need to hurry up and get adjusted and move on in my life, except I have, like, four packs of the old ones in the freezer, so I’ll be going back and forth for a while and this whole thing is going to linger for, like, two months. I am being only moderately hyperbolic when I say this is going to be a huge drag.)
— played by herself during my morning shift, mostly pleasant at bedtime. She wouldn’t put on her pajamas for an hour but I just let her get away with it and eventually she brought them over and asked to have them put on. She is learning the proper use of “I” instead of referring to herself in the third person. It is happening very quickly. She still mimics what I say at bedtime, though last night it was super cute. Once I finally got the pajamas on her, she said “back on track!” And I said “yes!” Then I said “does Mommy say ‘back on track’ at bedtime too?”
“No, just daddy.”
“Well thank you for being back on track.”
“You’re welcome!”
I know, I know, this is not very interesting. But it is to me. I like my kid. Man I am going to miss my kid.
Mix! Now, look. I know that I just did a moody and quiet mix. But I am doing another one. Because I was moody the last few days. But don’t worry, I am mostly over it now. Maybe I’ll do some super happy mix for tomorrow. Hahaha. Yes. I gotta say, though, this is one of the best mixes in a while. If I do say so myself.
Okay! Friday! Let’s wrap this week up. Have an excellent Friday. Finish Friday.