Defibrillators: now kinder and gentler?

    Wow, first bi-phasic defibrillation (see the subsection of the Wikipedia article on this per link) to reduce required delivered energy and now this to go way further in reducing same. "Rather than one big shock to the heart, a series of 5 small pulses can also restore our heart beats, scientists show. And it uses 84% less energy".  

    The thing about defibrillation is that, yeah, it saves the patient's life but with myocardial tissue damage from the defibrillator's energy injection. Less energy required to normalize the heartbeat = less tissue damage.  The tissue damage reduction may even be exponential!

 

    For AEDs, the ones in public places, the risks to "amateur" users giving care on the spot is greatly reduced by lower energy delivery. Newer Defibrillators are of designs that may allow conversion to this new lower energy technique via mere software upgrade!

   The greatest effect may be in the area of implantable defibrillators.

  The new lower energy method may allow smaller implantables that run longer on battery charge and whose actions may go undetected by their patients. They may be able to react and defibrillate without the patient sensing any symptoms of the event.

GARDEN GROOM MISHAP

  

    Just got back from my Doctor's office for my 2nd day later examination of my 12 stitch wound. Per him my assignment for the weekend is to sit around with my hand up like a student who is trying to get the teacher's attention. Fool that I am I mowed and raked debris off the front lawn and vacuumed up the debris from the yew trimming yesterday. When I got inside and sat down in my recliner my body just crashed. I wasn't ready to move for a couple of hours. Later I had a serious coughing episode such that I couldn't go with Jeanne to see Geoff's new condo. Based on what Dr Nelson said, it's all my body's normal reaction to the wounding. Such events kick all of the body's defense mechanisms into overdrive to protect the body and heal the wound. Luckily these wounding episodes are rare enough to forget that. Rarity + remembrance? One can always hope.
    The wounding occurred when I was about 98% done trimming the yews that grow in front of the house. I started the job on Tuesday using the chute/tube/bag setup shown in the last Garden Groom photo above. I "finished" (it finshed me?) on Wednesday when I was using the on-board receptacle for the trimmings instead. As I said at the point of ~98% completion the receptacle was full so I stopped cutting, I lifted it to empty it whereupon I somehow managed to get my left hand longest finger into the business end of it before the blade stopped. My left hand had been gripping the large looping handle which has a whole front surface grip switch. Releasing same stops power to the motor but does not brake the blade. My finger did that. 
    The Garden Groom does the tidiest, cleanest cutting job on my yews of anything I've used for the job in the 28 years we've lived in this house. It's a great tool, as long as you keep your fingers away from the blade, something I hope I can now manage to do.
    I have sent a web message to the Garden Groom folks about the accident, suggesting they look into incorporating a blade braking function per safety switch release.

My Garden Trellises, D.I.Y.

       This is a re-post from last year with some added material.

        Follow the instructions on the picture I made and mount the netting loaded top with #10 or #12 sheet metal screws. Then pull the netting down the sides to complete the trellis. Once installed one can either plant climbers under it or tie up the netting to the top of the frame per whatever the plan for the year is. They have lasted ~ a decade so far. at least 2 of the original trellises just got their first re-netting.

     Once you drive the 3/4" conduit into the ground with the fence post driver, you'll want to cut the top to your desired height with a tubing cutter(for metal tubing see the pics above, which you spin and tighten to make the wheel cut deeper each revolution). The fencepost driver can sometimes make the top of the pipe "mushroom" a bit. In any case you'll need to use a ladder to work with the top of the "posts". Otherwise you'll have a terrible time trying to drill the pilot hole for mounting 1/2" X 5' top. 
  These become part of your garden's "permanent bones" so install these only where you want them present for many years. I have a line of 3 of them along the east edge of both 16' long veggie beds and a pair of them on the south side of our brick home to grow self seeding morning glories to shade the wall. I think it saves a bit on the air conditioning bills. The latter are full 8' height trellises.

New Universal Corporate Paradigm: Customer Dis-service

   

   This is a classic example of where customer assistance has gone in the last decade and a half, not just at AT&T but all of corporate America. It would surprise me if half of the AT&T individuals this customer talked with via phone on this matter were located in the USA and not some Asian telephone answering sweatshop. 

   There is always a maze of automated messages one cannot bypass in pursuit of a conversation with a knowledgeable live person. Then one is confronted by the fact that knowledgeable isn't an option on the other end of the phone line for at least the first 2 levels of live human responders. They are all totally ignorant of anything but the SCRIPT they all MUST follow! At the point of their contact with the customer, the customer is by far the more knowledgeable of the 2 of them on the phone.

My Parkway Elm's Future

  O.K. I know 2 independent arborists brought in by the village said it should come down, but being the stubborn cuss that I am, I came up with this plan to save it and eliminate up to ~90% + of the risk (0% risk being impossible for even the most ideal old trees)to passing motorists and pedestrians via storm winds. Note that the upper limb shown to be cut sort of twists around a more vertical one ~ same size at that crotch. The second picture is of the 3 generations of the von Rentzell boys around the tree on Mothers Day.

   I spent 2-3 hours studying (not to mention previous hours doing same) this morning, trying to figure the various loading factors and probable effects of actions of various limbs of the "problem" trunk branch of the tree in severe winds. I assumed torque to be the most important factor promoting failure per the "fault" involved and more horizontal limbs the likeliest to exert the torque.

  I just found out that the story about this tree loss is appearing in this week's issue of "The Doings", one of 2 prominent local papers.

AMERICA'S FUTURE, IN OURS OR CHINA'S OR MIDDLE EAST HANDS?

   We have a national choice to make. Either we allow ourselves to be the victims of change by taking no measures to wean ourselves from carbon fuel burning for our energy needs or we incentivize change away from carbon fuel use. There is a double whammy vs double benefit between these options. As a nation we depend on petroleum, coal and natural gas for the bulk of our energy use. These are GLOBALLY PRICED fuels. The US is becoming less and less influential on that global price! Biofuels are largely dependent on what we now use as food crops. If we use crop plant "waste" for the carbon fuels we deprive the soil we grow the crops on of much needed restorative organic matter, jeopardizing it's ability to sustain production of the crops. 
   Leaving carbon fuel use behind us will allow us to determine our own economic future instead of having it dictated to us by carbon fuel producing or consuming foreign economic powers.
   Then there's the environmental damage of contributing to "Global Warming". There are serious arguments about the human influence on global temperatures rising and falling, but the science is pretty definitive of the currently rising temperatures world-wide. It seems ridiculousness to me that humanity would have no influence on at least the speed of that process by release into the atmosphere of trillions of tons of carbon that was stored for eons in subterranean deposits!

    Here's a take on the consequences for our State of Illinois and opportunities for avoiding them, the "pay now or pay later" list.

E-readers onThe Stormy Sea of USB

       Our son Jon and I discussed getting his mom a reader/tablet for her birthday (St Patrick's Day no less). I had asked Jeanne if she'd like a reader/ tablet for her birthday. I'd seen a "Cruz",  7" Reader at Tigerdirect  for $120. She said she wanted to wait since the product type was too young and likely much more expensive than it would become. Jon called a couple of days later and said he had a Kindle someone just gave him that had no charger. He said he'd give it to me to give Jeanne. We figured "how difficult can it be to get a charger?". Yesterday he just sent it home with his mom who was at their place to see the light of all of our lives, our only grandson Liam. So I started investigating a charger for it. It is a thoroughly intact 2nd generation 6" Kindle. The current one is 3rd generation I believe. It works except it's battery is too far discharged to do any reading. It turns out it uses a USB charger/ interface port to charge. That means any 1 amp USB adapter should work, right? I mean USB is USB right? WRONG PILGRIM, here's where it gets interesting. There are a plethora of USB connections and standards. See the Wikipedia page which covers it in depth. Here's the standard connector end views.

      I bought Jeanne a Blue Microphone "EyeBall" web-cam for her PC for Christmas which had only a 3' cable for use with laptops. I ended up having to order a 6' USB A male -Mini-B male cable + a spare to make it work . I had forgotten which non ordinary type it was. I also have a D,C,AAA,AA battery charger with a USB charging port. I figured I was set for the Kindle charging. Yeah , sure, guess again. Wonder of wonders, the spare cable i had didn't fit the Kindle on the small end. It needs a Micro-B not a Mini-B like I already had. 

Then I remembered the Universal Samsung Cell Phone Car Chargers both Jeanne and I have. There is a micro USB connector adapter in the kit I was able to use to charge my Bluetooth headset with. It is a Micro-B male which fits the Kindle just fine.

I still have to get a USB A male to Micro-B male cable to use to charge the Kindle indoors but at least I've navigated the Stormy Sea of USB successfully.