Day 2951

I'm mad at the FDA. I got a letter today saying that Nokia was removing the ability to measure Pulse Wave Velocity from my nifty WiFi scale. The company is apparently worried that they will be in violation of several new FDA rulings regarding medical devices. Why? I have read numerous reviews from well respected doctors saying that the Nokia scale is surprisingly accurate for a consumer device and that Pulse Wave Velocity measurements are a valuable tool to evaluate hypertension and heart health. Since the ability to measure Pulse Wave Velocity was the only reason I bought the scale, this decision makes me angry. It also illustrates the tenuous relationship we now have with the things we buy. Tesla can instantly change battery life and the performance of its cars through software patches. Apple can download U2 songs to your phone whether you want them or not. Apparently Nokia can remove features from its products whenever they wish. This all started with music and movies. You don't really own anything anymore. You are just allowed to use it. Now I have one more reason to hate bureaucracies, digital rights management, and any and all information stored in the cloud.

I still don't understand why the FDA wouldn't want people to have valuable information about their own health. I have a feeling that there is a lawsuit at the bottom of this decision. Maybe there are doctors who feel this new generation of home health tools will cause their patients to self diagnose. Who knows? The sad thing is that Nokia wasn't even forced to remove the Pulse Wave Velocity feature. They proactively trashed their own popular product because they were fearful of future regulations.

Probably this product will reappear for dogs soon. There aren't nearly as many regulations for pets. Sometimes I wish there were fewer regulations for humans, but more for pets. I'm never really sure whether what Dash is taking is safe. Vets have often suggested Gabapentin for our dogs. Apparently it is very effective at reducing some types of pain. I never gave Gabapentin a second thought until I started reading about how horrible it was in articles about the opioid crisis. It is an addictive drug with some frightening side effects. I would never give it to Dash after what I've read.

Life has become entirely too complicated. Some things are over regulated. Other things are under regulated. Everybody means well, but very few of us actually know what we are doing. Just look at our legislators. They are supposed to be our best and brightest, but they continue to act like idiots.

I try to keep things simple. I walked and fed Dash today and finished one of my two articles. I also sent an e-mail to Dash's vet with some questions about his upcoming exam. It wasn't a terribly busy day, but I didn't feel bored or unproductive. The weather still has me confused. It was warm enough yesterday that I could wear shorts and a t-shirt. Something apparently changed overnight. When I woke up this morning, Winter had returned.

I'll finish my remaining article tomorrow and probably brood about Nokia some more. What is wrong with that company? Don't they realize they are no longer in the cell phone business because of their cautious, backward attitude? I wish they had never bought Withings. Withings had some really cool, innovative products and now Nokia is ruining them.

Raider is today's Dalmatian of the Day

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Day 2865

There was frost on the ground this morning. That's close enough to Winter for me. I was cold when I woke up this morning, but was happy to hear the furnace running. Cold weather brings back memories of recurring furnace problems, ice storms, and power outages. My memories of snow are fading. It just doesn't snow down here anymore.

We got an early start this morning. Even though Janet got up extra early to go to this year's Race For The Cure, Dash still wanted her to feed him breakfast before she left. Since Dash was wide awake, I ate breakfast early as well. We were both ready to walk before the sun came up. Dash has a coat he usually wears in the Winter. So far, I can't figure out how to put it on over all his other gear. Luckily, it wasn't that cold this morning. I did wear a down ski jacket and wool hat though. I like to stay warm.

When I took an Instagram picture this morning, I noticed that something had changed. The format of the pictures was different. Why do people keep changing things? The old Instagram pictures were the perfect size for the blog. These new ones looked like they would have to be cropped and enlarged. After I thought about it a bit, I realized what Instagram had done. They'd changed their latest app update to optimize pictures for the newest iPhones. Since I have an older phone, I got left in the dust.

There were more app update surprises when I checked my blood pressure later in the day. The Withings app on my phone now had a Nokia brand. Didn't Nokia used to make phones? When I put the wireless blood pressure cuff on my arm, I got a message saying that I need to update my hardware before I could proceed. If I knew it was going to be this much trouble, I would have waited until next month to take my blood pressure.

At least nothing has changed with the refrigerator. It still appears to be keeping food cold. Based on the last tike I defrosted the evaporator coil, the temperature should be warming up again if there was still a problem. The temperature in the refrigerator is still 40 degrees and there is no visible ice on the back side of the freezer compartment, so maybe everything is working properly again. I hope so. There are plenty of other problems to solve.

We forgot that today was National Drug Take Back Day. There was a pile of expired meds that we wanted to get rid of and the collection location was near our house. It's too bad we forgot. Everybody probably has expired meds in their medicine cabinet. You usually end up taking all the antibiotics you were prescribed, because doctors make a point of telling you to take them all. Pain pills are different. They usually just say "take as needed" on the bottle. Dentists are notorious for prescribing too many pain pills. You don't tend to throw these pills away when you quit taking them. Instinctively, you keep them in the medicine cabinet, thinking "Well, what if I'm in pain again. I may need them." Usually you forget about them after a while and they go bad.

I looked on the DEA website to see if there was another collection location and it just said to throw the unused pills down the toilet. What? I thought the whole point of the take back program was to keep you from throwing pills down the toilet. I've always thought throwing pills down the toilet could pollute the water supply. Shows what I know. It turns out that the real pollution problem comes from people peeing. I guess this makes sense. Millions of people are taking millions of meds and their bodies aren't processing everything. Neither is the sewage system. One more reason there are to many people in the world.

On that happy note, I'll call it a day. I got one more pair of rubber dog boots repaired today and found everything on my grocery list. not bad. It was a little cold, but I'm not complaining. The furnace still works.

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