DrNeurohax

joined 2 years ago
[–] DrNeurohax@kbin.social 9 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Thank you so much for this! It reminded me to revisit my library's general resources and look specifically for which archive collections they had available. I'm 1 state over, so I figured there was a good chance we would have Newspapers.com Library Edition access here.

The main/default collection my library sent me to was no help, but they had a Newspapers.com Library Edition portal listed further down. Final-fucking-ly got it. I really, really appreciate the help.

[–] DrNeurohax@kbin.social 8 points 2 years ago (1 children)

I'm sure it's a fine service, if you want to use it regularly, but I just wanted 1 tiny thing. If they had a $1 for an obit or a page deal, sure. Instead, there's this whole microcosm of bullshit where some are archived, others available, some omitted from public collections, some on different 3rd party sites, etc.

The family paid for an obit. It wasn't in the 1800s. The paper has been digitized. I should be able to go to the paper with the name, exact date, and city and find it. They literally say it doesn't exist. Not that it's on our archive site or our partner site, just nothing.

I would have thrown a couple bucks to any of the sites for access, but no, I need to sign up for a subscription, give them all my details, get spam calls for the next 100 years, just no. Super frustrating.

[–] DrNeurohax@kbin.social 4 points 2 years ago

Exactly. I stumbled across this report from the AZ Dept of Health which breaks it down into per 100k people and the data still supports the author's point. The report then goes on to divide up the population by age, residents vs visitors, county, etc.

Hell, the FT author could have just included a plot of the population growth, which was pretty linear. Not great, but better than nothing.

Grinds my gears.

[–] DrNeurohax@kbin.social 32 points 2 years ago

Just thought I'd add this report from the AZ health department. This breaks down the factors MUCH better and comes to a similar, but not quite as extreme, conclusion. Only part is normalized for population, but it gives an idea of how to scale the numbers.

[–] DrNeurohax@kbin.social 5 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Yes. Hot air is thinner, so there's less lift on aircraft wings. There's actually a conversion they're supposed to use that basically says, 'At this temp, treat the plane as if it's actually at this other, much higher, altitude."

Here's one of the recent videos I've seen mentioning it (around 5 min in they mention the "density altitude"). I'm not a pilot and just find the stuff interesting.

[–] DrNeurohax@kbin.social 5 points 2 years ago

I'm not advocating for better or worse. In the end, the data shows what it shows. I'm just saying that there was essentially no "analysis", making any interpretation inappropriate.

Hey, more people should survive, thanks to newer medical treatments and more concentration of populations around cities.

On the flip side, there's a larger portion of the population that's older and from out of state.

In between there's the chance that the threat of heat-related health problems should be much diminished due to widespread access to air conditioning. But, that also means more people haven't had first hand experience with heat exhaustion/stroke, and don't realize how quickly things can go from kinda bad to dead.

[–] DrNeurohax@kbin.social 4 points 2 years ago

Yeah, it can be as simple as the death certificates requiring only a primary cause of death.

Old man collapses from a heart attack while trying to change a tire on a hot desert road? Cause of death: heart attack. If more details are requested, they could probably get away with just claiming age-related health issues. The guy is dead, no foul play, the case is closed.

[–] DrNeurohax@kbin.social 2 points 2 years ago

The libs are making us slaves to those damn thermomasters! They better not take away my freedom to boil off those 3 remaining brain cells!

[–] DrNeurohax@kbin.social 1 points 2 years ago

Very much this, and especially over this period. More universal diagnostics, more emphasis on secondary causes and contributors, etc.

And it works the other way, too. Fewer people should die per capita based on faster EMS response times, better medicine, more urban living, etc.

The big one for me is age. I never really heard of people retiring to Arizona until the late 90s. It was always Florida before then. The over 50 crowd is 36% now vs 23% in 1970.

[–] DrNeurohax@kbin.social 0 points 2 years ago

I agree. And shit like this makes me trust financial reporting in general. It's akin to not accounting for inflation in financial graphs.

And yes, the risk adjustment can be as complex as they want to make it, but when I clicked, I was expecting a study of some type. Probably my bias kicking in. My first thought was, "Are they kidding?" Then I saw it was from a news source and thought, "Oh, okay... no wait. Still, they know this is bad, right?"

Still gets those nummy clicks, I guess.

[–] DrNeurohax@kbin.social 140 points 2 years ago (20 children)

I'm 110% on board with global warming, but this graph is misleading.

The author needs to at least correct for population changes (heat deaths per X residents). Even better would be to account for changing demographics, like age and county. From this random stats website, it looks like there has been a dramatic increase in proportion of older residents since 1970. Old people are more likely to die, so more elders = more deaths.

If I wasn't about to head to bed, I might try to fix it, but.... sleep.

Oh, and I'm pretty sure there has been an increase in small plane crashes in AZ. The hot air is much thinner than most pilots are used to, so they tend to forget accounting for changes in thrust and climb rates. I'm pretty sure a couple happened in just the last few weeks.

[–] DrNeurohax@kbin.social 11 points 2 years ago

Haha, that just made my day. I'm among my own kind here.

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