good2go

iTrader: (2)

^^ Related:

According to the recent documentary "Steve Jobs: The Man In The Machine", Jobs and Woz got their early start making and selling those blue boxes, and thus is considered to be what originally inspired Jobs make computers.

BTW, of all the bios on him, I thought this was clearly the best.

Joe Perez

iTrader: (8)

This is true. It's been written about in a number of the histories.

I'll have to check out the doc you linked to. I don't watch a lot of TV these days, still haven't even started Halt and Catch Fire, Manhattan, or Silicon Valley.

mgeoffriau

iTrader: (7)

Read this as "BIOS" and was momentarily confused.

good2go

iTrader: (2)

Given the context, that's not at all surprising.

Joe Perez

iTrader: (8)

An open letter to the parents of children with a peanut allergy:

I get it. Your kid has the bad luck to be one of the 0.6% of the US population with a peanut allergy. It sucks, and he/she/it has my sympathy. As one of the 10-15% of the population who is allergic to cats and dogs, I know how it can make life difficult.

But please get off your pedestal. Just because a certain company chooses to use an ingredient which is both delicious and non-harmful to 99.4% of the population doesn't make them evil, any more than PetCo is deliberately trying to crush my spirit by placing adorable rescue kittens within my view as I walk down the street.

And stop writing things like "During this time when the incidence of peanut allergy is EXPLODING, Kellogg's has decided it would be a GOOD idea to add peanut flour to MORE of their product line." The incidence of peanut allergy isn't exploding (source), you've just gotten more vocal and annoying about it since you learned how to use FaceBook. Ironically, your kind do have it within your power to make the situation far worse, and increase the number of peanut-allergy sufferes by convincing everyone NOT to eat peanuts (source), but I really don't care.

Allergic to something? Avoid it. Is your kid allergic to peanuts? Teach them not to take candy from strangers. This was good avice 40 years ago, and it's still good advice now. Nobody's protecting companies which make bleach, even though roughly 100% of children will suffer a terrible reaction if they drink it. Heck, bleach is even found in schools, churches and hospitals nationwide.



[/rant]

Erat

iTrader: (5)

They're starting to phase out bleach in public schools. At least they are around here.

Ionizers is what they are moving to.

hustler

iTrader: (6)

OMG, I am crying.

hustler

iTrader: (6)

Approximately 1428, I don't think the author knows what that word means.

sixshooter

iTrader: (12)

I've grown to be allergic to a few things over the last decade I was not previously bothered by. Doc says many allergies onset with age. I began taking a series of sublingual drops two years ago that exposed me to the allergens every day, initially in small amounts and gradually strengthening. I am no longer sensitive to many things that gave me trouble previously. Some things only bother me a little. Desensitization works.

I wonder what kind of training the smuggler undertook to prepare himself for that line of work?

y8s

iTrader: (8)

1. apparently giving young children stuff early on (first year of life) can dramatically reduce the likelihood they'll be allergic.

2. Are cat/dog allergies life-threatening? Pretty sure a runny nose is not on par with anaphylaxis or death.

In other words, people give a **** about peanut allergies because they don't want to die. Truly nobody cares that you're allergic to cats. Take a Zyrtec.

Erat

iTrader: (5)

Just came across this, wasn't someone in here doing something similar?

Gizor?

Joe Perez

iTrader: (8)

When I was 3 or 4 years old, we went to a Christmas party at the home of friends of the family. This was when we lived in Ohio, so of course the windows were closed. There was a fire in the fireplace, a natural Christmas tree, and two large dogs.

We spent that evening in the emergency room after my throat closed up and I stopped breathing.

Lesson learned: avoid that specific combination of allergens.

I was also allergic to cow's milk. Not lactose intolerance, more like "if you get this on your skin, you'll break out in a rash. And if you drink it, you'll suffocate to death." Fortunately, this one eventually went away with a combination of time and immunotherapy (allergy shots.) I was simply made to understand that I needed to avoid milk and cheese. My parents did not, however, petition the school to eliminate milk entirely from the lunchroom- that would have been silly.


These days, cats / dogs / horses are about the only things I'm still allergic to. Claritin works reasonably well. Much better than whining about it on Facebook, at any rate.

codrus

I have two kids with peanut allergies.

As observed by others, a sniffly nose is a lot less difficult than anaphylaxis and dying. While your childhood incident is significant, that's a very long way from being the norm. I don't have any data, but there's no way that's the level of response than the 10-15% of the population you're talking about have.

The presence of peanut flour doesn't make cereal tastier, it just makes it marginally cheaper..

Your source doesn't say anything about the change in incidence over time. This CDC page says there's an increase in reports of food allergies, but does not address the question of whether that's just a result of increased attention being paid to it. OTOH, that's a fairly obvious and standard question about any rising trend, and I'd like to think the CDC knows enough about the subject not to put misleading articles up on their own web page.

Products - Data Briefs - Number 10 - October 2008

Even if the study you link to about consumption during infancy turns out to be relevant (it's one study, it's definitely interesting, but it's also in contradiction to previous studies that suggest the opposite), we're not in any danger of reducing the quantity of peanuts found in the general food supply to the point of inducing that danger. Have you ever looked at the packaging of foods at the grocery store to determine what contains (or 'may contain', or 'was processed in a plant that also processes', etc) peanuts? I have -- we read the back of every box that goes into the cart, and it's well over half the products on the shelves. It's also constantly changing as manufacturers shift products around from facility to facility, so you have to keep checking.

Ever tried to convince a 5-year-old not to eat candy that his friends are sharing with each other in the lunchroom at Kindergarten when you're not there? I have, it's not easy.

Why the rant? Does the extra $0.12 per box of corn flakes really offend you this much?

--Ian

Joe Perez

iTrader: (8)

One of the downsides of being allergic to milk is that you are also, by default, also allergic to most forms of chocolate. So I was that five year old.

My parents didn't try to ban every other child in school from having M&Ms.



No. Having to force myself to hold my tongue while the spouses ramble on and on about how no one should be allowed to enjoy anything which they or their children are allergic to does.

It's functionally indistinguishable from SJW-types who rant and rave about how no one should be able to say or do anything which offends them.

This isn't a blanket indictment, but those whom it is about will recognize who they are.

aidandj

iTrader: (5)

Except peanuts can kill and words only make you cry.

Monk

iTrader: (3)

Girz0r

iTrader: (1)

Almonds make my lips turn blue & make breathing difficult, should I be worried?

*I think it's almonds, but I'm not sure.... definitely stopped eating trail mix bags with mixed nuts and M&Ms. Went to allergist and he just talked about his new product he was giving me for free & a subscription for a epi-pen that I never picked up. It was easier to just avoid nuts in my mouth as I was never a huge fan anyways

triple88a

iTrader: (2)

I'm running a Fumoto valve. I actually like it quite a bit.

Girz0r

iTrader: (1)

wtf? no lool I am 5, what is this.

Mine was a gate valve for coolant racer reroute I have yet to install....



I just updated my minecraft install & started on a new world.... Still just as scary on a first night in my dirt hut /drunk

p.s. - the dog keeps farting, its worse that mine...

codrus

I'd say that pretty much anything that makes breathing difficult is something to be wary of. Breathing is pretty important, and in your shoes I'd go find an allergist who doesn't suck and get tested.

Some random facts about allergic reactions that aren't necessarily intuitively obvious:

- The severity of the reaction and the amount of the allergen to which one is exposed are not necessarily related

- Once an allergy has developed, subsequent exposures are frequently more severe than previous ones.

- Paradoxically, exposure to really small doses of an allergen can be used to desensitize someone to it. In the case of severe reactions, though, this desensitization can be dangerous and is usually done in a hospital outpatient setting, to reduce that risk.

Also, peanuts and tree nuts are usually all processed in the same factory on the same equipment, and they don't always do a great job of cleaning the equipment afterwards. This means that from an allergen perspective a bag of peanuts should be treated as if it were a bag of mixed nuts of all types.

--Ian