Autoimmune diseases are illinesses where your own body starts producing natural chemicals that attack your body by mistake. It is thought that there is a genetic factor in all autoimmune diseases, although the same disease may not be passed down.

For example, my father had a very severe and rare autoimmune disease called Polymyocytis where a natural occuring enzyme was attacking and distroying his muscles, rendering him unable to walk or care for himself. My autoimmune disease was Grave's Disease which develops in the thyroid. Graves causes your thyroid (which regulates metabolism) to overproduce the thyroid hormone and can lead to severe heart problems, eye problems and a host of other diseases.

My Father's disease was not diagnosed in time to stop it's onslaught. Mine was and was treated by killing my thyroid with radioactive iodine. There is an un-proven coorelation between Grave's Disease and Breast Cancer (which I had both at the same time).

Most autoimmune diseases effect women.

Other autoimmune diseases include:
Fibro Myalgia
Lupus
Chronic Fatigue Syndrom
Multiple Sclerosis
Rheumatoid arthritis

But there are many, many more.

Oh, and somewhere in a box in my condo is my translation of Beowulf from old english into modern. Done by me. The whole damn thing.

And that little "hat" over the 'o' in the french word hotel indicates that an 's' used to follow: hostel.

I know I know gobs more of these, but I'm so accustomed to knowing them that it doesn't seem odd. Doesn't everyone know this stuff? is what my brain says.

The maximum ammount of RAM a standard home computer (and most high end servers, for that matter) can have installed is 4 gigabytes. This is because they use 32-bit adresses to reference locations in the RAM. Each address points to 1 byte of memory. So there can be a maximum of 2^32 bytes, which is 4 gigabytes. There are 64-bit systems being made which use memory addresses that are 64 bits long. That's approximately 18,000,000,000,000,000,000 bytes of possible memory.

Very cool. I really like Beowulf. Heaney's translation is lovely. I was also quite taken with his introduction.

That took me right back to my high school experience on the Northen Oregon Coast! Yeehaw!!

Speaking of the Northern Oregon Coast, that whale in Free Willy that made that big leap out of the water and over the Columbia River Bar and jetty? A robotic whale. Yes. A robot.

My brain says the same thing for a lot of my esoterica. So if I post something everyone knows, it's because I can't tell the difference.

I just added "The Outsiders" to my Netflix list. I've never seen it. :eek: Claire, your mentions of this movie finally piled up enough to make me want to see it. :D

Lewis Carroll did take pictures of little girls, but it is still widely believed that he was not a true pedophile and never did anything to a child. He may have done hallucinogenics, as many druggies claim, but there is no good evidence for this.

I would go on about Carroll and Alice but I know Prudence could easily nail me on screw ups. I have a copy of Annotated Alice and I love it, but I definitely bow to Prudence's obvious superiority on the topic. :cheers:

People always complain that computers and the internet are going to make books extinct. Yet what was the first truly successful internet business? Amazon.com, who originally sold only books.

The library I work in is 120 years old. Ok, not the building, but still. For you non-So-Cal people - 120 is OLD out here.

Eucalyptus trees absorb tons of water. They were used by Israelis to clear out swamps and help stabilize marshy land into a place to grow crops. I don't know if Irvine used to be a swamp, but it's covered in the damn things. Mr. Irvine loved them and used them to mark off the land in rows. Many of these rows are still there with 100 year old trees along them. I believe the rows make mile squares, but I'm not totally sure.

Farenheit 451, a book about censorship, has been censored many, many times.

After the Northridge quake the insurance industry shut down earthquake insurance for some time (I think 2 years) while they restructured the entire system. They were forced to cover all kinds of stuff that wasn't clearly worded in their policies. When they did offer it again, for years afterward it was very expensive and covered barely anything. I don't know the status now, as it's been years since I've worked in insurance.

When Progressive Insurance's commercials say that they tell you what the competitor's rates are just to be fair, they're being misleading. When you call "Progressive" you're actually calling an insurance agent who sells insurance with many different companies. Of course, he looks at all the rates and offers you the best one, not because he's a nice guy from Progressive, but because he isn't from Progressive at all. Same goes for Mercury and tons of other companies.

Ringo was the first to quit the Beatles. He said he quit and stayed away from the studio for a few weeks during the recording of the White Album. The drums on "The Ballad of John and Yoko" are played by Paul McCartney. Ringo was very hurt by the fact that they could get along without him. Eventually they sweet-talked Ringo back.

When you take "Glass Onion" and try to extract hidden meanings from it, John Lennon is laughing at you. He said as many "hidden" things as he could, since he was sick of everyone making every song sound like it was about drugs or band drama or what have you.

Cinderella's slipper was probably fur; the french words for "fur" and "glass" sound very similar -- probably identical to the english-speaking ear. Ermine slippers are a tad more practical than glass. (Actually, the word for "earthworm" also sounds very similar. There's an interesting visual.)

... including Idiopathic Thrombocytopenia Perpera (ITP.) This is my mother's auto-immune disease. If she were not taking steroids for it, her immune system would be, in essence, consuming all of her blood cells. It still is, but instead of having between a normal 200 and 500 part-per-(billion?) count, she's having a good day if it's above 50. This causes extreme exhaustion and fatigue, bleeding from mucous membranes, and other internal bleeding.

There is no cure for ITP. It's idiopathic; they don't know what causes it. It is not genetic. There are links between use of blood thinners and auto-immune diseases but no concrete research has been done. Mom's been on blood thinners since 1979.

Few ITP patients have lived longer than ten years with the disease. Generally, patients die from complications from the steroids, not from internal bleeding; addiction to steroids requires a continual raising of the steroid level. Possible complications include: diabetes, high blood pressure, water retention, weight gain, changed appetite, general fogginess and memory loss, loss of vision, arthritis, and cancer.

In the eight years Mom has had ITP, she's had all of these side effects.

You know what's weird....I'm waiting on Courtney to clean her room right now so we can watch it together in a few minutes. She got in the car after school and asked if we could watch it when we got home, and I started thinking about this thread and it sounded pretty good to me. Hope you like it! It's a little schlocky, but very true to the book and fun to watch all these actors as they were starting out.

More "White Album" trivia:

The bass on "I Will" is just Paul sing "dummm, dummm, dummm, dum dum..."

Martha in "Martha, My Dear" is Paul's sheepdog

Sadie in "Sexy Sadie" is the Maharishi

Prudence in "Dear Prudence" is Mia Farrow's sister

"Don't Pass Me By" is the only Beatles song for which Ringo received full writing credits

The 'Number nine, number nine... ' in "Revolution #9" is said to have come from a BBC recording. When reversed, many believe that it says "Turn Me On Dead Man"

There are many "clues" to the "Paul is Dead" rumor on the White Album. Another one is the spoken bit after "I'm So Tired," which, when played backwards conspiracy theorists claim says "Paul's a dead man. Miss him. Miss him. Miss him."

"Blackbird" is a song about equal rights.

Eric Clapton plays the guitar solo on "While My Guitar Gently Weeps"
(Later, Clapton will write "Layla" about his love for George Harrison's wife Patti, who he would eventually hook up with)