I have noticed this too. I really hope that it is some kind of bias on my end and not the phone listening to serve ads. When trying to bait the phone it does not work though. Ie. having a fake conversation and then reviewing the subsequent ads.
If they have figured out a way to listen, it is likely a single data point in a quant formula so you would need to be talking about something already close to your interests.
That is why I dont think baiting alone could prove it. But it doesnt mean it is really listening or not listening either.
I have found people typically have a certain way of paying. Some companies pay late on principal, some pay early on principal, some pay late due to dysfunction or cash problems, some pay on time on principal. Over time I think you learn to set prices accordingly, offer small discounts for timely payment, and big discounts for prepayment.
I have Celiac. Unfortunately immunotherapy is not currently done in a way that would make much of a difference for us. Celiac is typically an autoimmune response to Gliadin protein as a result of human leukocyte activation genes HLA-DQ2.2/2.5 or HLA-DQ8. In either case, it is happening at the cellular level for every cell that comes into contact with the protein. The intestines are hard hit mostly because they spend the longest time with exposure. I found for the first year or so I simply could not eat anything made by a restaurant or friend because of cross contamination. My resilience went up over time though, it takes a few years for inflammatory activation to come back down to a subclinical level even if the gut repairs in 3-6 months. Gut bacteria change in response to all the immune activity, but damping the immune response would not necessarily fix the issue of the protein destroying the cells it comes into contact with. The immune response is therefore not entirely autoimmune in nature but necessary to protect the cells. The vili are being destroyed directly, essentially. You could develop a drug that would dampen the immune response (I think a few others posted links) but you could not realistically get to a point where you can eat gluten. The antigen will always destroy your cells, autoimmune response or not. Sensitivity depends on how many (one or two) of the HLA genes you have that react with gluten. I have one out of two so my reactions are less severe (only 2-3 days with symptoms). If you have both Celiac HLA genes, it will always and consistently harm you.
< The antigen will always destroy your cells, autoimmune response or not.
In regards to autoimmunity, antigens themselves don't destroy cells--antigens only provoke a pathogenic immune response when presented to the immune system.
< Celiac is typically an autoimmune response to Gliadin protein as a result of human leukocyte activation genes HLA-DQ2.2/2.5 or HLA-DQ8. In either case, it is happening at the cellular level for every cell that comes into contact with the protein.
You're not wrong with regards to the celiac, gliadin, and the association with the HLA alleles that you've mentioned. However, I'll point out that those particular HLA genes make up MHC class II proteins. These are the proteins present on what are known as professional antigen presenting cells, a small group of specialized immune cells throughout the body. MHCII proteins present foreign antigen to TH4 cells (helper T cells) which can then activate a larger immune response.
Epithelial cells of the intestinal villi have not classically been thought to be professional antigen presenting cells, and thus should have very small levels of expression. I found one older study (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC508181/) that suggests these intestinal villi cells can express class II but nothing since. All of this suggests that the pathogenesis of celiac disease is not as simple as intestinal villi cells expressing high levels of the HLA proteins encoded by the genes you mentioned and provoking a direct immune response--rather, like seemingly every autoimmune disease, the story is much more complicated and likely involves the activation of CD4+ T cells, generation of pathogenic autoantibodies, and a larger network of pro-inflammatory players.
> The immune response is therefore not entirely autoimmune in nature but necessary to protect the cells. The vili are being destroyed directly, essentially.
Isn't the damage to villi a byproduct of the (auto)immune reaction? I haven't studied it in depth, but what I've read seems to indicate that the damage is caused by inflammatory reactions (as part of the immune response) rather than directly from the prolamins.
> The antigen will always destroy your cells, autoimmune response or not. Sensitivity depends on how many (one or two) of the HLA genes you have that react with gluten.
The gluten is not reacting with genes, but the genes help determine how your immune system responds to the antigen, so it's still entirely an immune response, at least as I understand it.
Thanks for this- it sounds like I need to do some more research to completely understand whats going on, but this is very helpful. If you dont mind my asking, are your symptoms mostly GI related? Ive heard others can have symptoms that manifest in things like sinuses getting plugged up or skin rashes. Also sounds like a drug similar to Humara may be something that could provide at least some relief to the immune response.
No. Mine were mostly cognitive. I mean, when I was a kid I had no tooth enamel (had to have surgery to install fake teeth) and puked up everything I ate that had wheat in it, but somehow no one diagnosed it until later. I just assumed it was normal but my symptoms were migraines, anxiety, stomach bloating, joint pain, hair loss, stunted growth, constant fatigue, sleep apnea, nutrient deficiencies, malabsorption. It took about a year to feel better. It used to be cross contamination would mean 3 days of pain, gluten 7 days. Now cross contamination is a worthy trade off for occasional meal out, and gluten is 2-3 days in small amounts. I shudder to consider eating a full bun or something but I haven't tried in years. I know within 10 minutes because the skin inside my mouth peels off. So I kind of have systems for managing it. I have a normal job and would say it has not really hindered me outside of eating a very strict diet. Having support from my partner also helps a great deal. It's good you caught it early.
"I shudder to consider eating a full bun or something but I haven't tried in years."
I have it nowhere near as bad as you (which is why it went undiagnosed until I was 30... although it's still pretty bad). But for about 5 years after I found out I would have recurring dreams where I would be eating a hamburger and realize after swallowing "Oh, crap, that's a normal bun!" I suppose in some sense that might qualify as a nightmare the first couple of times, because it would fully wake me up.
I also have Celiac disease, somewhat less severe than nibstwo, and I also have recurring dreams where I eat something (usually pizza) and midway through realize it is made with wheat dough. This was further compounded when once I ate a package of vegetarian chicken wings (made of wheat gluten) which was mislabeled at the grocery store (gluten free tag on the price label) and next to veggie burgers by the same brand with the same packaging where ARE gluten free and I had eaten before without a problem... I was sick for about a week, couldn't work or think straight. I won't make that mistake twice!
Another funny angle--I also have Type 1 diabetes (diagnosed when I was 9) and for a long time after diagnosis I had dreams about drinking a 64oz soda only to realize it wasn't diet, and panicking since I would probably be in DKA soon after!
Maybe there is some immune system disease/nightmare link that has gone undiscovered :)
Thanks for sharing. Those symptoms sound quite horrific. My daughter had some similar symptoms as well. She had 4 cavities when she was 3. I think she was too young at the time to articulate how she felt but I know she also had some cognitive difficulties(and is only now just getting caught up to grade level despite being a VERY EARLY talker and having a large vocabulary for a toddler)
All school is private. Sometimes you pay tuition, which seems better for accountability, and sometimes you pay more for housing. That people send their kids to school is unfortunate. It seems like if you took the daycare out of it, school would not be structured the way that it is at all. It is a source of daycare for children first, and an attempt at productively using that time second.
I think the parent was saying that they would buy parcels of land where they planned to build stations, and then profit when that land appreciated due to the presence of the station.
The term they're using in Australia when politicians waffle on about an East Coast high-speed rail system that's never going to happen is "value capture".
I had a startup that made software for meat processing companies. It is pretty horrifying being in meat plants but most people are not yet at the point where they can accept not eating it. In my experience I feel better eating occasional offal and grass-fed meat than I do regularly eating meat of any other variety or eliminating it entirely. It is one thing to claim moral high ground and simply avoid eating meat, and we can absolutely do away with it on a taste basis based on what is coming out of vegan restaurants these days, but the cultural shift will take a long time and "good enough" is clearly a higher bar than tofu. I suspect it is somewhat like electric cars. A more political issue than we like to admit and something where assuming the products were comparable in price/taste/texture/experience people might opt for the socially concious choice, that threshold simple isn't there for the majority of people yet. A worthy pursuit but one that is not necessarily limited to startups. Big Food and one off restaurants are pursuing these ideas more fundamentally than anyone else is right now and I suspect that they will be the eventual winners of the race to good enough. The meat industry is fundamentally antiquated the way it is setup now and will simply shrink down to as demand wanes, or more likely just switch to exporting.
I think he thinks differently and on a philosophical level that few in business admit to publicly. I respect the conviction and thinking different and integrity regardless of the content.
If you feel guilty enjoying the product of your work, you were probably doing pointless zero-sum work that did not need to be done. It is fine to say you want other people to be economically empowered, but the amount of guilt flying around here is incredible. Why not apply the constraint of only doing things that actually benefit other real humans at the start of your career, and feel good when you end up being successful at whatever constrained but moral venture you undertake. Feeling guilty about it accomplishes nothing. We made the collective bargain to build a technological society, we cannot go back now. Fix the real problems and it won't feel dirty.
Prior to having read what was written, or seen the company fire him, people generally towed the line of "pro-diversity". Once it was publicly available, and after he was fired as a direct result of it, people took a step back and thought about it. We have more information now, so the tone now is more likely to be accurate.
