Notices by artsyhonker aka Kathryn (artsyhonker@mastodon.art), page 13

@amphetamine It looks like basically a smol thing you breathe into, with a chip and a battery. And it talks to a smartphone app via Bluetooth.

A 250ml water bottle could probably hold all the bits? The software would need writing too.

@amphetamine I don't know.

I expect the sensor itself is a chip that can be acquired, but then one has to build housing for it etc.

@amphetamine *nod*

I have a bunch of issues around hunger and anxiety, and something like this might help me to calibrate what I need to eat and when to manage that much, much better.

But the weight loss part of it means it's probably not safe for me.

@JigmeDatse It really is excellent.

Chronic stuff isn't always treated well, because chronic stuff is actually hard to treat.

But I never ever worry about whether I will get sick and not be able to afford drugs. When I lived in Canada, I did worry about that. (It was a long time ago; mostly Saskatchewan and Alberta.)

@JigmeDatse If you're low income or have a pre-pay certificate or certain chronic illnesses you can also get the GP to prescribe certain over-the-counter medicines (various painkillers; vitamin supplements if there is clinical need e.g. vit D deficiency, topical creams), making them effectively free.

@JigmeDatse Of course, that mostly isn't necessary: for the vast majority of long-term drugs, the GP can prescribe 4 or 6 months at a time. A prescription fee for 6 months' worth of tablets is the same as the fee for 6 months' worth.

@JigmeDatse That's what I thought.

Oh, also here if you use a lot of prescriptions (or think you might), you can buy a pre-pay certificate, which I think is £100 or £104/year and covers all your prescriptions for a year. It's basically useful if you get more than 1 prescription/month.

@shoutcacophony Go ahead.

@JigmeDatse In Canada you still pay for your prescription medicines, IIRC. That was certainly the case when I lived there, anyway.

Here there's a flat-rate prescription charge which is somewhere under £10 (but not, I might add, in Scotland, where it's free), and a bunch of chronic conditions are exempt from prescription charges.

I have literally no idea how much my medicine costs.

@artsyhonker s/think/thin

@Avalon *nod* I was pretty sure it would happen -- my brushes with private medicine here have been abysmal -- but was thinking that a lot of people would simply not go to the doctor at all for things like fatigue if they are paying per visit.

I'd like to design some greetings cards and have some kind of drop-ship arrangement but also have them look like they are part of my (WordPress) website. Is there a trivial way to do this or is it a massive pain?

Now I feel as if I ought to be "done" work for the day; but I've actually done very little.

Podcast interview recorded. I think I babbled a bit. That's OK.

@hollyamory Thank you.

@artsyhonker OK I think I'm done now. Sorry about that.

@artsyhonker Because if you blame people and make out that it would be simple for them to be healthy, if only they were thin, and you do it enough times, pretty soon all the research is into how to make people think rather than how to make people well.

@Angelofthenorth Yes, but I don't currently have permission to write a new tune to fit those words.