She would just hit harder and tape more. Quitting doesn’t work this way.

Just because a thing has been done in the past does not mean it should be done in the future.

It’s also not a “battle”. It’s not like stopping use of plastic or whatever. Clinics cpuld just stop collecting DoB and use some other attribute.

It is broken though.

You only feel like DoB is low level personal information because you tell it to everyone. According to Australian Provacy Principles it’s “sensitive” which means it should only be collected when required.

At my podiatrists office it’s simply not required.

Does that really matter?

Differentiate some other way.

Firstly, I’m a weirdo and my preferences aren’t indicative of “what makes people comfortable” generally.

Secondly, in some cases DoB is really just a code number. Over the last year I’ve started providing an incorrect DoB at new clinics I attend. It’s never caused any problems. As long as I can provide the right code number when asked it has served its purpose.

If “them” means me… no my GP didn’t ask me to fill out a form authorising the recording.

It seemed obvious to me that GP didn’t really know much about it, like how data stored, how data used, et cetera.

DoB is considered sensitive personal information in the Australian Privacy Act.

Other identifiers might be street number or last three digits of phone number.

I’m certain that fewer than 0.1% of patients at a small medical clinic would share the same first and last names. In those cases, you could differentiate by address and age if necessary.

To be clear, I don’t refuse to provide my Day and Month of Birth, simply because I don’t want to be some kind of privacy pariah.

That said, while it may have been a reasonable point of ID in the 90s, I don’t believe that remains the case in 2024.

The basic concept of Australian Privacy Legislation is that organisations ought to collect only that information which they require, and they should disclose the reason why they are collecting that data.

If the only reason to collect ones Day and Month of birth is so I can repeat it back and confirm it later then that seems very pointless to me. There are other details which they do require which can be used to confirm my identity.

I think this statement is far too broad.

It might be good to have AI review some imaging someone has had done to examine some particular ailment.

It’s definitely not good to have a LLM review conversations with my GP and send me targeted marketing for “potential” ailments.

Surely, surely law enforcement can’t investigate you for missing a period?

It’s not uncommon to choose to skip periods to keep iron levels up, et cetera.

This.

I have a (well managed) chronic illness. I have to go to lots of doctors at different clinics. All of them are in the habit of just collecting all the information.

For example, as a patient, there’s no benefit to me whatsoever of the doctor being aware of the day and month of my birth. That’s just the start though, they have my medical concession id number, addresses, et cetera.

If you express any reluctance at all, you’re made to feel like a pariah. Like a COVID denier or something. For example, there was one clinic I want sure I would continue with, so when I was asked to fill out my details I asked whether it was really necessary given that I might not come on board as a patient, the receptionist and doctor just couldn’t understand why I might be reluctant.

Last time I saw my GP he asked whether he could record our conversation… “it’s some AI thing we’re trialling”. OMFG. Why on earth would I want that? Why would anyone want that? I want my GP who is an actual person to listen to my circumstances and determine the best course of action.

This is just nuts. Absolutely bonkers.

How is it possible that the voting public could just overlook this.

Oh man.

It’s only recently that the idea of “archaeology” has been a thing. Before then there were only “antiquarians” which were just looters.

Often they had royal backers. There’s a podcast series called “stuff the British stole”

There’s pretty well documented instances in the 1800s in Egypt, and pompeii.

Honestly the amount of amazing stuff that has just been “collected” is just eye watering.

IMO EVs are going great but adoption / implementation is struggling in some use cases, and hydrogen might be a nice alternative.

I wouldn’t describe it that way, no.

I’d like to preface this by saying that I’m not some kind of mindfulness / meditation guru and have no business trying to explain such things to anyone else given I have such a poor understanding myself.

I think really I’m just talking about feeling feelings. The monologue might be reporting on sensory inputs “that spoonful of peanut butter has a very sticky mouthfeel!” but there’s an underlying feeling. You can kind of feel the feeling and disregard the chatter.

I struggled with insomnia a lot.

Podcasts and audiobooks helped me immensely. I have wireless headphones but I don’t “wear” them, I just rest them on top of whichever ear. I turn the volume down to a level where I need to concentrate to hear the words. It’s exceedingly rare that it takes me more than 15 minutes to fall asleep these days. Staying asleep is another story though.

What happens to your monologue when you’re not thinking about it though?

When your senses provide information about tastes or sounds, isn’t that a kind of thinking without the monologue?

Embrittlement is a problem but it can be mitigated with careful selection of materials and ceramic coatings et cetera.

Sure did yes sir. I’m off to buy 3x pallets of toilet paper to Starr my new arbitrage business.