What are you doing right now?

[EndOfTheEarth]

Besides posting on here and replying to this thread. Original credit for this goes back to Fate and Nathan on MX.

[Omega]

Yeah, but it might not be living, and if it is, it might not be culturable. Still, trying's not a bad idea because culturing shit's cheap.

 

My microbiology classmates say you never forget your first sputum. I honestly think faeces and vaginal swabs are worse.

[EndOfTheEarth]

That's the thing, typically the cough-stuff-up things are based on bronchitis or pneumonia (as I understand it). The antibiotic nullified the possibility of Bronchitis or a post-nasal symptom to a sinus infection, and the chest x-ray debunked the possibility of pneumonia.

 

Trust me, I'm just as curious as you are and have asked a lot of the same questions. The current two competing theories are Cough-Variant Asthma (my dad's idea) and Acid Reflux (my mom's idea). A component of the blood test should be able to prove or disprove the latter. I've also heard non-allergic rhinitus suggested, but I don't trust the background and lack of science behind that.

[Omega]

If we are going down the living things track, it might be fungal - antibiotics don't always have anti-fungal effects, and fungi can be notoriously difficult to detect.

Also, environmental things don't necessarily have to be allergy related. Something we found here in Chch is that because of the amount of liquefaction dust and building-deconstruction dust around, it gets into your eyes, nose and lungs and you wind up with nasty mucus production etc. It's worse for people with allergies/asthma, BUT even those who don't have noticed it.

Heh science? With Medicine? Yeah, not always.

[Omega]

Well hey,

 

First quake we've had in a while, and it was a 4.2! Doozy.

[EndOfTheEarth]

Happy to hear that things have been comparatively calm over there.

[Omega]

We'll go entire days without any now - that's the expected aftershock sequence - and weeks without anything bigger than a 3. It's really quite good.

 

Although, the probabilities still look a bit grim - 15% chance of another mag 6-6.4 (which would throw the whole thing back into another aftershock sequence complete with multiple 4's), and the expectation is another mag 5 IS going to happen.

 

The other thing of interest in shaky-quaky chch, is that the 22/2 6.3 was NOT a result of the 4/9 7.1. The 7.1 brought it forwards, yes, but it was going to happen, and the amount of stress the Port Hills fault was under didn't change significantly after the 7.1.

 

I don't know how interested anyone actually is in this kind of thing - but the site everyone in Chch loves is www.canterburyquakelive.co.nz/ which has a whole pile of information on quakes. On the main page, for example, are three diagrams. The first shows  quakes in the last 36 hours, the second quakes in the last week, and the third shows the aftershock sequence since September. It looks like:

You can see the bigger quakes - they're obvious. You can also see the declines. That last peak on the right-hand side of the graph was the October 9 shake - right on kickoff for one of the rugby world cup games!

Also, that 4.2? Was WAY out of town, about 60km, and not on the usual faults. So, stuff around the region is still moving to cope with the whole peninsula moving. yey.

 

Also, just got back from a driving lesson. No-one died. I consider this a bonus.

[Omega]

And right after I post this, the guy goes and puts in a monthly quake activity!

 

Also, a 3.4 and 3.8 last night. eeeeeh. Felt the latter.

[Contradiction]

Watched season one of Sherlock today.

 

Dear lord.

[Xuut]

Aw fuck. I hate you Chemistry class, forever. 

 

Graphing shit on OpenOffice's version of Excel. 

 

I have around 12 graphs to make. Whee. 

[Contradiction]

12 graphs on excel? Sounds like they might be easier to do by hand.

 

I fucking loathe graphing.

[Xuut]

It only took like half an hour. Wasn't too bad. 

Turns out I did the right graph the first time. 

 

Graphing can go fucking die in a pit. 

[EndOfTheEarth]

Wow, MDW has died.

If you thought it was bad before when it was only RolePlays, now the role plays barely get any action. It's 5:18, and there are only 86 people on, down from nearly double that number from last year.