willedoo

Cholesterol levels are only a guide. Some people with high levels never have a problem and others with low levels can still get blockages. When I had the stroke caused by an almost blocked carotid artery, my total cholesterol was 5.5, so it was still within target levels. Regardless of that, I had an 85% blockage in the right artery and still have 40% in the left. They were and are cholesterol/plaque blockages and not calcium buildups. Even if a GP didn't want to order a carotid artery ultrasound under bulk billing, it's not that expensive and gives good peace of mind if you can get a referral as a paying patient. If there's any build up of plaque the images will show a fairly accurate image of it. The specialists get concerned when a blockage reaches 70%. That's the level at which they recommend surgery. After my experience, I think an ultrasound of both carotid arteries is a good idea even for unsymptomatic people past a certain age. There's a lot of blood pressure pushing past plaque buildups in carotid arteries and if they are unstable and a piece breaks off, it can be in the brain in a flash. I was just lucky the piece lodged in the retinal artery and not a major brain blood vessel. Blockages can be fatty cholesterol plaque, calcium or a mixture of both. The calcium/plaque mix is the most unstable as the two materials don't bond very well. They also sent me for a calcium score test for the coronary arteries. It wasn't available under bulk billing so with the medicare refund I was out of pocket about $70. According to that, my calcium deposits were half that of average for my age, so good news. I still don't think that tells if you have plaque deposits in the carotid arteries, maybe a stress test is the one for that. The thing I learned is that a good cholesterol reading doesn't necessarily mean that you don't have a growth building up in the artery. Scans and tests is the only way to know that. Weird things can happen with cholesterol deposits. The one I still have in the left carotid artery is fairly typical - 50mm long extending vertically to block 40% of artery diameter. it's a reasonable distance inside the inner carotid artery and is long and low making it stable. They have said it is unlikely to ever be a problem. The bad one they cut out was just inside the doorway of the inner carotid artery where it branches off the outer artery. It was only 12mm wide but extended up almost to the top of the artery. Right at the V where the two arteries divide it was like having a door almost shut and would have been copping a heap of vortex forces from the blood pressure. The constant battering it was copping broke a small piece off it which caused a blockage in the retinal artery further up the line. It was an unusual growth to appear in someone with good cholesterol levels.

I'm not sure if they do it by cookies or IP address. I'd say browser cookies because having a dynamic IP address, I get a new address every session. Regardless of IP address, the cookies stay in the browser unless deleted.

It's a good example of DEI in the workplace. Sky not only provides jobs for mentally disabled people, they go straight to the top of the recruitment list.

I usually carry mine in the right side trouser pocket. I mainly only need to be careful with it in that location if I'm rolling around on the ground or slithering under a vehicle so I don't crack the screen. Top pocket is no good for me. With the side pocket, a long phone tends to get up a ratchet effect with movement. While I'm working a long phone it's like an invisible winch is working it out of the pocket. The Galaxy S10e I have is only 140mm long so short enough to stay in the pocket. It's only drawback is that it's not 5G capable, only 4GLTE. Most phones now are around 160mm to 165mm long.

A bearded soccer ball who thinks he's only being kicked by left feet.

Having said that about HDL levels, the level of HDL still adds to total cholesterol which has to be under a certain limit. If the overall level is too high, lowering the bad LDL would be the plan. Having HDL high enough to cause a problem in the total figure if LDL was low would be unusual. It would be hard to get it that high through diet. Eskimos might do it.

HDL is the good one. If there's a problem with it, it would be because it's too low. I don't think they have an upper limit for HDL, the more the better. That's where stuff like olive oil and Omega 3 come into the picture - it raises HDL levels. From what I understand, the HDL works in transporting excess LDL back to the liver for excretion.

They say diet only accounts for about 20%-30% of blood cholesterol, the rest being made in the liver. I've heard of vegetarians who have to take statins because their livers produce too much. I'm sort of in that category, not a vegetarian but a pescatarian and eat almost no food containing cholesterol but still have to take statins to keep total cholesterol under 4. Because I've had arterial disease I'm in the same target category for cholesterol as Aboriginals and Torres Strait Islanders and diabetics. For others the target is 5.6. I don't like being on statins because of the side effects but don't have a lot of choice due to a flaky liver that makes too much and has trouble excreting excess cholesterol. Statins are a last resort treatment if things like diet and exercise don't do the job. I think the olive oil and fish oil helps.

Same here.

Thanks ome, that might be worth a try.

Thanks octave. A mate of mine has an Oppo and is quite happy with it. The problem with Oppo phones for me is that they are quite long screens, about 25mm longer than the size I'm looking for. It's back to the same problem of pocket insecurity.

It's hard to find a good small phone these days. Most of the market is for people who use their phone as computer, TV and sound system hence the trend toward bigger screens. I've been checking out small 5G phones and there's not much available in a small size for an affordable price. The only viable one I could find similar in size to what I have now is the Samsung Galaxy S24. The only catch is it's $1,400 which is way out of my budget for a phone. My only requirements are for calls, sms, the odd photo and using it as an internet mobile hotspot for the laptop. That and a size that can be easily carried around in a pocket while working and not fall out. As far as phones working their way out of your pocket, I don't think it's the width that's the problem but rather the length. The larger screens are on average 20mm longer than my Samsung Galaxy S10e and the old S5 but it's enough to cause the phone to gradually work it's way out of the trouser side pocket. I know this because I bought a Nokia a year ago that was too big and only used it for two or three weeks as it was continually escaping from the pocket. It now lives in a drawer as a backup phone.

You see some silly things on the net. This photo was on one of those clickbait sites where you end up scrolling through photo after photo while being bombarded with the intended advertising. The article was titled '50 hilarious security fails we couldn't make up if we tried -they’re so ridiculous it just becomes funny.' The heading for the photo was '1. Inefficient System - There has to be a better way to secure the gate than using six different locks. If you unlock just one lock, the gate is able to be opened. Whoever designed the system failed big time.' As most would know, they're individual safety lockout locks. Each worker attaches their own lock and removes it when they exit the job. Six locks means six people are inside the plant or machine and it can't be operated until the last lock is removed. It prevents someone starting up a plant or machine and gobbling up some workers who are still inside.

I liked his idea of including dental in Medicare coverage. We're a first world country with bad teeth.

I remember watching the Shorten election count on the TV. At Labor campaign headquarters people were popping the champagne before the polls were closed. Three quarters of an hour later those same people were wandering around in a state of shell shock.

The nbn has different speed levels. The more you pay, the faster it is. This chart is from iiNet nbn and shows typical speeds. On the lowest tier, wireless is 9.3 Mbps download average compared to 12 Mbps with all the fibre types of connection.

That's not too bad compared with what I get. The NBN is 6,8, or 10ish. The phone data with Aldi is 17 to 20 on 4G. The NBN technician who was here the other day said he was getting 5G on his phone at my place. A mate is going to bring his 5G phone over so I can try the download speed as I suspect it might be limited by signal strength. If the speed is worth it, the next step is buy a 5G phone and stick to that.

It's sad to see good companies go bad. I've been with the same server since we first had ADSL. They were Adelaide based, and employed locals with no foreign call centres. They even used to have little old ladies post them a cheque for their monthly plan fees. The customer tech help was done mainly by IT uni students working to pay their way through their uni course. None of those jobs exist any more. It's all hard to understand people from India and the Philippines who struggle to get a grip on the issue. The company doesn't have a very good reputation these days and that started when one of the big mobs bought them out. One thing you learn is that it's pointless harbouring misguided loyalty to any particular company or brand as it's not reciprocated.

Jerry, I'm rural on fixed wireless. FTTN, FTTP, FTTC and HFC in the cities probably don't have as many reliability issues. A mate and his wife just came back from a couple of months in Thailand where they were getting 300Mbps. He was a bit shocked when I told him the NBN fixed wireless delivers 10Mbps at best.

A bit off topic, but I occasionally encounter a bloke in our local shopping centre car park. Every time he has the same old story - he's lost his job and is putting the bite on people for money for groceries. Same story month after month. The first time I thought he might be a druggie or an alcoholic, but after a subsequent encounter I formed the opinion he was neither, just a professional bum who prefers it to working at a job. I've never been dumb enough to give him any money. If you tell him about the free groceries donation bin outside Coles just 50 metres from the patch he works, he thanks you for telling him. Naturally he doesn't go over there; he heads straight to the next potential sucker he spots in the car park to put the bite on them. It's a steady income he's after, not food. Good luck to him.

Still no joy from the NBN. I'm trying an upgraded phone plan for the month to see how that goes. $49 per month gets me a 5G enabled plan of 120GB of data with unlimited rollover, unlimited phone calls and SMS in Australia and 20 other countries, and seemingly no problems. I had 30GB of rollover data from my old phone plan so started the month with 150GB of data up my sleeve for $49. It's plenty fast enough and virtually 100% reliable. On the other hand, my usual server charges me $50 per month for an unreliable 100GB slow speed, no rollover, sometimes connection with the added bonus of customer service via overseas call centres manned by people extremely difficult to understand and who seem to delight in jerking customers chains. Observing them trying to resolve an issue reminds me of Winnie the Pooh and Piglet following their own footprints around and around in the snow. The choice is rapidly becoming a no brainer. If the NBN and the server can't combine to fix it in the next week or so, I'll ring them up and tell them to come and get their junk off my roof.

I saw some video a while back of the Ukrainians floating captured Russian tanks and other heavy equipment back to Ukraine. They seem fairly well organised. In Soviet times, a lot of the tanks were built in Kharkiv. I think the tank plant is still operating there.

spacey, another one that's popular for that is Whatsapp. My sister uses it all the time to video chat to family members who live overseas. I use it without video to ring a mate who has bad mobile phone reception.

Trump's former lawyer Michael Cohen said when Trump plays the air accordion, it's a tell tale sign he's lying: “When you see the accordion hands start going, what that means is that he’s lying,” Cohen, who was Trump’s longtime fixer and personal attorney, told CNN’s Jim Acosta on Tuesday. “It’s a tell with Donald. Anytime that the accordion hands start, that means that he’s not telling the truth.”

FB is awful for that side of it. Posts on FB groups are like ADD; they disappear down the whirlpool one after the other, here today, sucked into the abyss and forgotten tomorrow. I've found some older posts by using terms in the search box, but it's difficult to track things down. I think FB is a terrible format for certain things. Maybe it's ok for small single topic niche groups.