A word of advice. If you've been strimming/weed whacking an extensive patch of land in the hot sun without wearing a full protective suit, do not wait before cleaning yourself up. I forgot once as I was tired and ended up in hospital for a week with blood poisoning and a cytokine storm. On the third day when I was feeling a bit better the Doc told me I had a 5% chance of snuffing it. Don't be an idiot, take a shower you smelly git.

Utter, utter, scumbags

ProPublica

Inside the Company Helping America’s Biggest Health Insurers Deny Coverage for Treatments

When companies like Aetna or UnitedHealthcare want to rein in costs, they turn to EviCore, whose business model depends on turning down payments fo...

Super excited about the amateur autopsy club I just joined. Tuesday is open mike night!

Have just been chatting with some people about near misses and actual run-ins with the law. I've only had two... As a teenager I was quizzed for a couple of hours by two rather thick rozzers who thought I'd committed a burglary. And nearly got arrested for spying in a top secret defence facility abroad for sniffing their network. Unfortunately I can't really say much more about that. Anyone else with such tales of mild peril? Or actual horror stories?

Does anyone know a good visual modelling tool for patent claims? I've got a fairly complex one to flesh out with quite a few sub-claims and embodiments and pretty complex relationships to child claims. It would be nice to be able to put a description of each claim, plus embodiments and their description, and to be able to link either to sub-claims. Ideas? It's not for the actual patent application itself, more as a sort of organising tool for me and my collaborators. Edit: re-upping this as it's now my go-to excuse to not make any progress...

Another banger from George Monbiot: "If such claims arose from any other sector, we would recognise them for what they are: industry lobbying. But because their bucolic imagery chimes with deep cultural themes, enthusiasm for such non-solutions extends all the way from McDonald’s to King Charles. The phenomenally complex challenge of feeding the world without devouring the planet will not be met through wishful thinking and romantic simplicities."

the Guardian

New reports tell us cattle and sheep farming can be sustainable – don’t believe them, it’s all bull | George Monbiot

Feeding the world sustainably is an incredibly complex challenge, yet some people are trying to sell us a bucolic fairytale, says Guardian columnis...

I don't buy toilet paper there any more.