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January 21, 2004
The Hacker's Diet
dave
02:31 AM
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The Hacker's Diet is a great, no nonsense tool to look after your weight. It's basically very simple: reduce what's going in until your weight is what you want, then increase your intake gradually until you don't gain any weight.
Update: The defining paragraph from that page is here: http://www.fourmilab.ch/hackdiet/www/subsection1_2_2_0_8.html.
August 11, 2003
Chinese Medicine
dave
12:21 AM
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I guess I should blog a little about Chinese Medicine, as my father in law is actually a Chinese Doctor.
Since I've been married, whenever I've been feeling a bit under the weather, the wife drags me over to her father's little shop in Kwun Tong. He's a Chinese Herbalist and he'll usually make up a bundle of herbs for me which sorts out whatever has been troubling me. So far, he's sorted out my persistent backache, some colds and flu, as well as my psoriasis. If I go over with something specific, like an ear infection, he generally says that Western Medicine is better for that. In general, I've found that Chinese Medicine is extremely good at dealing with ailments where your body is out of balance (colds, flu, aches and pains) and restoring that balance, while the Western Medicine is best at dealing with immediately life threatening symptoms, but not necessarily with the underlying causes. Of course, it doesn't help that the typical Western Doctor in Hong Kong feels obliged to prescribe antibiotics for everything and also to give patients a lucky number of medicines. Usually, three, five or eight. I've actually argued doctor down to four medicines (Four is a very unlucky number in Cantonese, sounding like the word for 'death') before and I could see the superstition running across his features before I said "I'm not Chinese, four medicines won't kill me."
Similarly for the kids, he's very good on general wonkiness, but some things are better treated by going to a hospital. For example, some months ago Conor had a very high fever and went into seizures. His advice was to call an ambulance and then pump his lungs to keep him breathing. The ambulance crew agreed that that was extremely sensible advice, and just gave him some oxygen to help him breathe. The cause turned out be be some gastric bug he picked up from somewhere. Meanwhile, Roxanne and Conor have both had digestive problems or skin problems which he's sorted out very quickly.
July 22, 2003
Ears
dave
08:25 PM
Comments (1)
As many who know me know, I'm horribly prone to ear infections. I also get blocked up with earwax a lot and this affects my hearing. I got my first ear infection when I was in University, then I was ok for a few hears until I had a really bad one in Saudi Arabia. Ever since, I get them regularly. Living in a hot and humid environment doesn't help very much. I've tried lots of things over the years, with varying degrees of success but today, I found an almost instant cure for wax, so here's some tips on what to do with ear infections and excessive earwax.
- Earwax - Cerumol is rubbish. I've finally found something that works: Hydrogen Peroxide in a 3% solution. ...the fizzing noise can be somewhat alarming... Put some drops in your ear with your head turned sideways and wait for the foaming to stop. It gets a little warm and the fizzing noise can be somewhat alarming, but don't worry. After the fizzing has stopped, tip your head over and allow the mess to dribble out. You probably want to sluice out your ear with warm water too. It's best to do this in the shower, as it can be a little messy.
- Ear Infections - Otosporin is yer only man. I first had this in Saudi Arabia, and everything else has been completely useless. Otosporin is a prescription medicine, so you'll need to get it from a doctor. Many doctors (especially in Hong Kong) will pile you down with anti-biotics and other medicines. You will probably need the anti-biotics, but always ask the doctor if they're really necessary. Hong Kong Doctors over prescribe like nobody's business, especially anti-biotics.
April 05, 2003
More SARS
dave
12:00 AM
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The building where I work has people lurking in the lift lobbies to clean the lift buttons after you press them. In fact, if you apply a little charm, i.e. say 'Jou San! (Good Morning!)', they'll push the button for you. All part of the new, hygienically aware Hong Kong.
Of course, I've never seen them clean the buttons *inside* the lift, so it's probably a good idea to wash your hands after you get to work anyway.
Personally, I wear a mask in the MTR because its crowded, and if some twit with SARS were to start coughing on one train, he could infect 84,000 people, which is the capacity of one MTR train when fully packed. And, believe me, it's fully packed in the mornings when I'm going to work. So I wear a mask. And I keep it on when going through the station because, again, it's a pretty crowded situation. I keep it on while getting my coffee from the local Starbucks and going into work, because, having been in a situation with dense crowds, my mask would be contaminated, if there were any contaminants around. When I get into work, I chuck the mask, and wash my face and hands (my face feels icky after having re-breathed air on it for the 20 minutes into work.)
Then, at work, the first thing I have to do of a morning is to muck out the spam traps. (Anything tagged by the SpamAssassin system is passed on to me, to check that it's not tagging legitimate mail as spam.) This is probably more damaging to my health that any virulent disease. I can usually count on many offers of penis or breast enlargement, free mortgages, and tons of spam in Chinese send to non-Chinese users. Not to mention clueless local businesses who try to drum up work and suddenly find themselves without internet connections. (Most HK ISPs will respond to a LART: it's just the really bad few, like hutchcity.com, who either don't understand or don't care that they're blocklisted worldwide. Note to self: make a page of decent Hong Kong ISPs. Start with netfront.net, who are clueful, intolerant of spam, and reliable. Their servers run FreeBSD. After using Netvigator for a while, dealing with guys with Clue was great. Their broadband service is good: I think I've had only a few outages in the eighteen months or so I've had their broadband service.)
April 04, 2003
More SARS news
dave
12:00 AM
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Well, another 26 people sick, one more death, and no more recoveries today from SARS. I've actually got a relatively complete list of the daily totals, so I may make an RRDTOOL database and graphs of this thing.
Meanwhile, it's disgustingly hot and muggy here in Hong Kong: We've had the air-con on in the bedroom for the last two nights, but personally, I find that having a large fan blowing cold air on me cools me down enough to lie around like a beached whale. If I have to get up and do stuff, I'll overheat very quickly. This is mainly due to the humidity, which is always very high in Hong Kong. We usually only complain about it when it's over 90%.
Conor is home now. He went back into hospital today for observation and then the hospital appeared to be getting rid of all non-essential cases. They also announced that they were restricting visitors to one at a time, no more than one hour each. Now, I find that sort of thing suspicious as hell. I'm very seriously thinking about working from home for a few weeks... Just need to sort out the VPN connection. Our current setup uses a Win2k client, which isn't a lot of use to someone who spends the entire day ssh'd to 20+ linux boxes.
And we also probably need an Inflatable Gwailo so people are reassured that the Network Guys are all in the office.
April 01, 2003
Conor
dave
12:00 AM
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Right at the moment, Hong Kong is in a state of panic over this SARS bug. Everyone is wearing breathing masks, some people are starting to wear surgical gloves, and no one wants to open a door with their hands. I wear a mask when conditions mean that infections are possible, i.e. in crowded areas or enclosed spaces. Some people get paranoid about it: I was on the Star Ferry last Sunday, as it was the safest way to cross the harbour: plenty of fresh air around, and not too many people. I took off my mask around the middle to get some fresh air, but most people kept theirs on.
In a way it's good, though - It's making Hong Kongers realise just how filthy the city is. For example, it was on the local news today that this Amoy Mansion, where 231 people are now ill from SARS had major hygiene problems from people throwing their garbage out the windows. From 20+ stories up! and not just paper: Sanitary Napkins, used Nappies (Diapers), kitchen waste, etc. They're lucky they haven't had Cholera outbreaks or worse there. Animals.
That sort of behaviour is common in Hong Kong - there's a culture of having servants to pick things up and rubbish being someone else's problem.
So against this backdrop, you can imagine what it would be like if someone suddenly got very ill...
Tonight, after having a mild fever all day, Conor started having convulsions and difficulty breathing. He was drenched in sweat and burning up. We took an ambulance to Ruttonjee hospital, where they checked him out, and sent us on to the Paedriatric ward in Pamela Youde Nethersole in Chai Wan, where he's sleeping now. By the time the ambulance got us to Ruttonjee, he'd started breathing normally again and cooled down. My guess is that his fever was breaking, which explains the rush of sweat and convulsions. The short duration of the illness means it was more likely food poisoning of some sort - probably from something he put in his mouth - than any virus. He has gastroenteritis (i.e. leaky bum) as well, which is normally your body's reaction to eating something off. He'll stay overnight in hospital - Sanley's staying with him - and he'll be back home tomorrow.
Meanwhile the award for "either most exhausted or least qualified doctor" goes to the idiot who saw Conor in the ward. He asked if Conor had a fever at least three times, if he'd been sick at least twice and once asked if I was a close blood relative of my wife, even though she's Chinese and I'm Irish. Then, he spent about ten minutes trying to take a blood sample from Conor by stabbing him at random looking for a vein. We've never heard Conor cry so loud. He was screaming for me: "DA! DA!", and very clearly angry at the doctor. There's a very distinctive noise an angry baby makes: you can practically hear them trying to swear.
Meanwhile, all the medical staff in the Accident and Emergency wards looked like they were expecting an attack with chemical weapons. If they'd been carrying oxygen tanks, I wouldn't have been surprised. I think this SARS thing is worse then the public is being led to believe. As of today, we're up to 685 sick, 16 dead, with 84 recovered. In under a month.
UPDATE: It looks like Conor's ok now - he's sitting up and being his usual happy self. http://www.chw.edu.au/parents/factsheets/febrilej.htm describes his symptoms perfectly.
March 25, 2003
Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome
dave
12:00 AM
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Well, I'm sure everyone's heard about the Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) which is sweeping across the world at the moment. Hong Kong is currently the epicentre of the epidemic, with 10 dead and 286 or so diagnosed. The number of diagnosed cases is growing at about twenty per day, and there has been about one fatality per day since the reporting started. This drowns out the war reporting on the local news.
So far, all of the cases of infection are among those who have had direct contact with either the index case or someone in a direct chain back to him. Unfortunately, in a place as densely populated as Hong Kong, direct contact with a strange is astonishingly easy, as can be shown by the spread to date:
- The index case was a medic from GuangZhou, who'd apparently been involved in treating the outbreak of pneumonia there around Chinese New Year. He came to Hong Kong and stayed in the Metropole Hotel. He's already dead. The Mainland authorities deny that they had this disease there, but if you can find anyone who believes that, tell them I'm trying to sell the Tsing Ma bridge...
- A Chinese-American business man who stayed in the Metropole Hotel in Hong Kong, then went on to Hanoi, then back to Hong Kong after he became sick. He's dead, and anyone who treated him in hospital in Vietnam or Hong Kong is sick.
- Two Canadians who also stayed in the Metropole Hotel at the same time are dead, and some of their relative are sick.
- Three Singaporeans who also stayed in the Metropole Hotel at the same time are either sick or dead. Singapore has announce a quarantine for anyone who came into contact with them. Anyone sick who goes out and interacts with others will be fined US$ 2800. (They should do this in Hong Kong - anyone spitting or sneezing on others should be liable to getting fined and sprayed with disinfectant, as well as a huge fine. And a good kicking.)
- All the cases in Hong Kong are either hospital staff, relatives of people who were or are sick or unfortunates like the Hospital Authority Chief, who made a point of visiting every hospital and is not sick with the disease. (At last, a Hong Kong politician, who may actually face some consequences from his actions!)
Meanwhile, each day the number of people wearing surgical masks doubles. People on the MTR, or just walking around in Central. (I'll try and take some pictures.) I saw a man earlier on today who was having a quiet smoke in a street corner. He'd move his mask down, take a puff then put the mask back while exhaling...
I've seen people who are coughing in public being avoided. I think that if someone was to try and get on the MTR while coughing and wheezing, they'd be firmly told where to go. (Probably with a boot.)
Meanwhile, the government is giving advice. They recommend that you should avoid crowds, reduce stress and breathe clean air. Hello?! Where the heck do these people live? Let's let the entire population of Hong Kong quite their jobs and live on a beach somewhere. Meanwhile, maybe this is a good time to introduce guidelines on the excessive prescription of anti-biotics in Hong Kong hospitals, tackle the horrific pollution resulting from too many people using their cars with a perfectly adequate public transport system (which is probably the best in the world), and really enforce all those fines on people spitting and littering in public places which are one reason that diseases spread so rapidly here. and maybe they could try and do something about the gullible nature of the populace. People here believe everything fed to them by email, bossy friends or just people they want to believe. Tonight I heard that it's ok if someone is coughing all the time, it's only if they cough sometimes, that they might have SARS. Pardon me while I roll my eyes.
While I'm waiting for the government to take action, I'm buying surgical breathing masks for me and my family.