metasean

There's a day every decade where the U.S. Census does their best to get an accurate count of every human in the U.S. [0]

Combine that with the data from the correspondinc Apr 15th, and we should have something pretty close to a "poverty election day".

[0]: cell phone and spotty network made it too hard to look up a good source - please feel free to add them if you can)

I had a professor who was adamant that we think of all design as "Constraint-based design". I've definitely found it a useful approach - but I still benefit from the reminder to use it in personal projects.

Please provide some links to these projects.

There's a start-up called Daplie building such a system of hardware and apps. It's open source and the founder has a focus on user-owned data and data security.

(I know several teammembers and preordered via Indigogo, but am otherwise unaffiliated.)

re: Discussions of death

I completely agree that it should be talked about more and plans made. Unfortunately several family members don't see things the same way and this provided the impetus for discussion.

> You should stop thinking that way. A decade past the initial scare, you're likely no more at risk than anyone else.

I'm not an expert, but the last time I researched it, I wouldn't even develop symptoms for at least a decade. So I'm actually at the point where I could actually find out that I have it.

> You weren't given the disease, you were exposed to a small possibility of it.

I absolutely agree! That said, my probability is still drastically higher than the _average American_. I was dating a science teacher at the time and she did some research into it. Basically the only other Americans with similar odds are military personnel stationed in Europe during the Mad Cow scare. There are other populations, e.g. Europeans during the Mad Cow scare, that are at similar or higher probabilities. But among Americans my odds are definitely higher than average.

> but as far as your day-to-day life goes you should consider yourself squarely in the "average" category.

I'm anything but average ;-) but I definitely don't let this impact my day-to-day life. It's much more of an intellectual curiosity and medical awareness for my family and doctors in case I should become symptomatic.

Thank you!

I definitely went through a range of emotions from confusion to anger that more wasn't done to minimize the likelihood of incidents like this.

As I learned more, I realized how improbable this situation was in the first place. My current understanding is that while our* probability is higher than the average American, we're still highly unlikely to develop CJD. More importantly to me is that there isn't anything I can do about it, so I try not to let it consume a lot of my mental energy.

*I think there was a two week window, so anyone operated on at that hospital during that window is in the same situation.