The primary reason I want to remain in the Bay Area is because my family and friends are here. I grew up in the Bay Area and can't imagine packing my bags and leaving them behind. That being said, I'm unemployed and not in a position to be picky. If the opportunity is great, I'll be open to relocating.
As would I in your shoes! The rub is as a potential employer, I would be questioning if you will still be here in 6 months or will you spend your time as an employee looking for something "more appropriate"
I want to be clear that this is not any kind of know on you. You might be the perfect long term person for the job. You just need some kind of hook to convince potential employers that you are not a drive by.
I agree. OP, Use your cover letter to assuage potential fears of the hiring team. These could include:
- show that this company is not just a temporary gap filler until you find a new CA job
- provide evidence that you would stick around for morE than a few months. Outside of SV, I don’t think it is common for tenures to be as short as they are in SV.
Yeah that totally makes sense, I understand why potential employers would have concerns. For what its worth, I was at one company for 4 years and about 1 year at my previous company prior to getting let go. I hope the tenure at my first company demonstrates that I'm not just a job hopper and do prefer to stick around and grow.
I remember seeing similar articles. While I don't understand the science behind these findings, my understanding is that smokers are less likely to catch COVID, but if they do, then their symptoms are significantly more severe than those of nonsmokers.
incorrect; smokers are shown to be substantially less susceptible to both catching covid and developing severe symptoms, a finding that has been demonstrated independently in (at least) france, china, and the USA:
> Conclusions and relevance: Our cross sectional study in both COVID-19 out- and inpatients strongly suggests that daily smokers have a very much lower probability of developing symptomatic or severe SARS-CoV-2 infection as compared to the general population.
> Very recently, the US Center of Disease Control reported an analysis of current smoker rate among US COVID-19 patients which was found to be 1.3% for the whole population of COVID-19 patients, 1% for outpatients, 2% for patients, not hospitalized in an ICU, and 1% in intensive care unit (ICU)-admitted patients
Both SARS-Cov-2 and nicotine bind to the ACE2 receptor. One hypothesis is that because SARS-Cov-2 has to compete with nicotine for the receptor it ends up being less effective. Another hypothesis is that smokers tend to do better because of nicotine's effect of reducing inflammation.
Seems more likely to me they're just lying about being smokers- 60% admit to being former smokers. Inpatient hospitalizations also almost all suffer from serious comorbid conditions like hypertension or diabetes, which probably causes many to smoke less. Less so with the outpatients (<20%) but I would not be surprised if it was because unhealthy people getting sick, and those unhealthy people don't smoke because it would be bad for them.
> Seems more likely to me they're just lying about being smokers
Being a smoker has been a standard part of your medical history for a long time now for obvious reasons. There's no reason to think there is a coordinated strategy for lying about smoking in the context of a pandemic (much less revising patient medical histories, which would be the medical service industry lying).
50%+ lying about smoking in the face of potential (or actual) respiratory failure is laughable.
The study isn't talking about history, it's talking about current smokers and many of the comments on the paper bring up concerns with how specific that is, and how many could have quit days before going to the hospital.
I don't know where you got 50%+. The outpatient group was 5.3% current smokers vs expected (adjusted for age and sex) 26.9%. For inpatient it was 4.4% vs expected 17.9%. The fact that both groups had the same reported rate of current smokers (within experimental error) but very different expected rates says to me that you're only getting the people who are honest or simply incapable of quitting even while sick.
Also, see this concern brought up:
> Finally, and I believe this to be the most significant piece of data supporting the null hypothesis, the prevalence of never-smokers in the general population is approximately 0.75, if one subtracts the smoking incidence rate from 100. In your patient groups, non-smokers are strongly under-represented by about a factor of 2 relative to the general population, with 31% of outpatient and 32% of inpatient being labeled as never-smokers. This suggests to me that any amount of smoking actually puts one at risk for contracting COVID-19 as defined by this paper.
I'm not sure I understand the quoted concern? The study they referenced[1] showed that France was ~37% never smokers average over all ages (nowhere near 75%), and their in- and out-patients were about the same fraction (Table 2) for male, a little lower for female. The big discrepancy is under-representation of current smokers, and over-representation of former smokers. But their patients are old, and I'd expect older people to have more former smokers, since they've had more time to start and stop and since the general trend in smoking is down. I don't see that broken down by age in the paper they linked though. Maybe we'd have to dig in to the raw data, or maybe it's just not available?
In any case, many other studies of COVID-19 have found similar results, and studies of different respiratory diseases have not. I'd initially just thought people were lying too, but at some point the evidence becomes overwhelming--if the protective behavior were anything but smoking, then people would have accepted it long ago.
Of course smoking is far deadlier on average than the coronavirus, per my calculation elsewhere in this thread. No one should start smoking because of this, but I do see enough evidence e.g. that a nursing home patient (who's at very high risk of death from coronavirus, and likely to die of something else before smoking-related diseases could develop) shouldn't quit. Vaping probably gets any benefit with almost none of the health risk, though that's speculative.
Maybe they just drop dead immediately in their homes? /s
Seriously though, it's baffling because smoking causes so many underlying health problems that don't go well with COVID. Also, smokers have a depressed immune system compared to nonsmokers, so it would seem to suggest they'd be less likely to fight off an infection like this.
In a lot of cases, COVID-19 symptoms involve an immunesystem overreaction, which causes massive inflammation and organ damage all over, so having a depressed immunesystem might help there.
i don't think it is a contradiction; "a very small fraction of smokers contract covid or end up in the hospital due to it; those that do are more likely to die"
Also in countries like India and Pakistan with very high percentage of smokers, we are seeing very low COVID19 cases.
While a lot of people are skeptical of the official numbers from these countries, I think they have free media and if cases were high, we would have known.
I haven't read this article in-depth, but at a glance I did not see this discussed there: can't this simply be explained by smokers generally having a lower life expectancy than non-smokers?
If most people that have severe COVID complications and end up on the ICU are aged 80+, and generally smokers die before that age from smoking-related complications, doesn't it naturally follow that most people on the ICU will be non-smokers? Smoking will have killed the smokers before they become part of the high-risk group, after all.
Correcting for something is much easier said than done, and it is very often done incorrectly. Blindly trusting researchers to do so is a mistake.
Here is a quote from the abstract of the paper linked above:
> Results: The inpatient group was composed of 343 patients, median age 65 yr: 206 men (601%, median age 66 years) and 137 women (39.9%, median age 65 years) with a rate of daily smokers of 4.4% (5.4% of men and 2.9% of women).The outpatient group was composed of 139 patients, median age 44 years: 62 men (44.6 %, median age 43 years, and 77 women (55.4 %, median age 44 years). The daily smokers rate was 5.3% (5.1% of men and 5.5 % of women). In the French population, the daily smokers rate was 25.4% (28.2% of men and 22.9% of women).
The average daily smoker rate is taken as-is over the whole population, and compared to the smoking rate of people of age around ~66 years, despite the article itself stating that the percentage of daily smokers is lower for old people and higher for young people.
So already in the abstract they have made a mistake and forgot to correct for age. I have not read the rest of the article in enough depth to judge fully, but I would absolutely not blindly trust researchers to always do this correction in an appropriate way.
I saw an analysis from a epidemiologist who said the result is due to naive over adjustment for confounding variables. Specifically if you treat related confounding variables as if they are independent you end up with garbage.
They also said elsewhere that a lot of researchers from outside epidemiology are running really bad studies and publishing papers.
Even with conservative assumptions, smokers in this French study were 4 to 5 times less likely to be infected.
Keep in mind that drugs being tested are considered good when they reduce mortality by 10%. We're talking 75% reduction in infection rate here, and no increased mortality in those who are infected. It's really really hard to imagine what sort of confounding factor that could be at play here that would make the effect insignificant.
Smoking decreases the amount of certain enzymes that COVID binds to in order to infect the lungs. Less enzymes means a lesser chance of catching the virus, but if caught, the person will likely have a more severe case due to the decreased lung capability.[0][1]
The figures that I have seen previously did show a very significantly decreased risk of catching COVID, and I'm surprised it hasn't been investigated far more.
Edit: I had that wrong, it seems nicotine increases ACE2, but also binds with ACE2 decreasing the amount of available enzymes overall that COVID could bind to.[2]
Yup. I used to smoke 1-2 packs per week for many years (mostly in social settings), then went up to 1 pack per day due to general life stress pre-COVID19. When shelter in place began I freaked out, quit cold turkey, and immediately started running and lifting. The first few weeks were rough but I've been totally smoke free for about 4 months now and am in the best shape of my life!
Me, I ditched junk food (used to do taco bell drive-thru pretty regularly when coming home from work, stopped cold turkey too!). Doing a lot more salads now, I'm so happy that I'm developing a taste for healthy foods!
For years I had on/off tummy trouble and yesterday I had the realization that I couldn’t remember the last time I was seriously hurting in the gut. I haven’t done carryout since February. I never believed that modest dietary changes really could have that big of an effect but kinda a believer now.
Having been deeply skeptical of “gluten intolerance” (as contrasted with coeliac) for many years, I eventually realised wheat was causing me chronic heartburn after I cut it out as part of a low-carb diet undertaken for other reasons. Having had much the same thing happen with eggs and eczema, and not having made the link before that, I guess I’m now an advocate of people trying exclusion diets
Two things I can say as someone who went this route:
* Try a gluten test if you have had exposure recently enough to do it. It’s good to know.
* A sizeable chunk of people who have trouble with gluten may actually have trouble with fodmaps. They’re in everything wheat except sourdough bread.
Why does this matter? In the case of celiac you can’t have a crumb. In the case of fodmap trouble you can’t have a bunch of wheat, but a trace amount won’t hurt you.
I now have found gluten not to be an issue, and was able to identify a bunch of food triggers due to them being in the fodmap family. It’s made life simpler in that I know for sure I don’t have to worry about exposure, and can have moderate fodmaps as well.
Fodmaps are hard to get a handle on. There are good apps where you can quickly look up things you eat. Before that I never managed to try fodmap elimination because it was too complicated.
Note that I am not saying you, OP, don’t have a gluten problem. But there will be many people reading your post, who have digestive discomfort and other issues but nothing life threatening. To those people I would strongly recommend a gluten test before you quit, and check fodmaps if you test negative.
I had a wide variety of digestive symptoms that are similar to some celiac symptoms, but that was not the cause. And gluten being nearly all high fodmap makes for possible confounding.
(Fodmaps are mostly in carbs, so a low carb diet can also be a fodmap reduction diet)
> They’re in everything wheat except sourdough bread.
Why is that? The only difference between sourdough bread and non-sourdough bread is yeast vs starter (and some people still use yeast in addition to their starter).
That's related to what FODMAP are: fermentable carbohydrates. They'll be decomposed in the fermentation process for sourdough bread.
It has been noticed by many people who think they're gluten intolerant that they digest sourdough bread much better. The likelyhood that this is linked to the changes incurred by the fermentation process is high, since, as you said, that's the only difference.
It's more the opposite: FODMAPs are non-fermentable carbohydrates. If they were fermentable by yeast, they would be fermented and you wouldn't be eating them. The whole point is that yeast doesn't metabolize them but your natural intestinal flora does.
Sourdough is a mixture of yeasts, lactobacter, and acidophilus in various proportions. The latter two will metabolize the FODMAPS, either while proving the bread or in your gut. One of those choices can cause discomfort and the other a delicious food product.
Sure, and dust, and any other spores or pollutants in the air, I didn't mean to provide a pure and complete list, I just meant that it's not some magic yeastless concoction that also happens to make bread rise. It's still yeast doing the work, it's just naturally occurring, rather than added from a packet of commercially grown and sold yeast.
Right, but that article claims that lactobacilli are critical to make the bread actually taste like sourdough at the end, whereas presumably dust isn't.
I did realise your main point is that it does include yeast, and I agree with that.
Oh yeah, absolutely, I just meant that all (leavened) breads contain yeast, I suppose it's a defining feature; so it's not 'yeast vs. starter', it's 'yeast from a packet vs. yeast from the air'.
Did the Whole30 diet. No gluten, no dairy for 30 days. Life of allergy pills and skin cream (6 shots a week as a kid in the 80s) Got worse as I got older (40s now). 20 days in no ezcema no pills. Day 31 you add something back. Had some udon and a beer. 5 minutes later turned red, had issues breathing and itchy all over. Hum. It’s gluten. Test (blood) from doc no celiacs. WTF? Do some research, get butt scope to look at my intestines. Hum, looks like you should not eats stuff with gluten. I miss beer and the perfect cheese steak (the roll is a major factor in the yum level). Feel so much better. It’s a pain to eat out. Cross contamination is a bitch.
Still drink wine every dinner and smoke a cigar everyday :)
After 40-odd years of suffering, you must be elated!
I've not much to add other than to say I'm very happy for you - it's hard to comprehend what a torment it is to have deal with conditions like that on a daily basis.
So at the dark end you can find good gluten free beers. The heavy beers help hide the taste of things like sorghum, however there is nothing similar to a Modelo or Pacifico that gluten free that taste decent, which is want I want on a hot summer day. Oh well.
I have started to really enjoy cider. There are some good ones from small makers. Golden State Cider makes some nice ones. All the big company ones (American) are crap full of sugar.
Someone close to me was having issues with Gluten for years. Went gluten-free for most of the last decade to stave them off. Had chronic heartburn and difficulty swallowing in some situations (throat felt “too small”).
Turns out it was some sort of allergy resulting in Eosinophilic esophagitis. Now that they are medication, most all of the symptoms have dissipated.
If you are experiencing throat issues related to gluten (or other things in the exclusion diet) it may be worth getting checked out.
Here the same, deeply sceptical of the gluten intolerance stuff, also looking at the research. Jumping on and off of Keto I am now very sure that either carbs in general were the source of my stained underwear problem. Haven't' made the differential test yet whether its gluten or carbs in general but currently don't really feel a need for it because I continue to lose weight on keto + fasting
That applies to food. It applies to reading, watching, and listening. It applies to your environment (e.g., friends).
The pandemic is a wakeup call. Let's hope - in some regards - we never go back to normal. The data is clear, that old normal (i.e., preventable preexisting conditions) played a key role in getting us here.
That would help. But even more so US citizens need be mindful of the importance of diet and how it relates to health.
It doesn't help that the narrative continues to focus on the healthcare system. Yes, it can be improved. But supply is limited. We keep increasing demand. And expect prices to fall? That's not the way it works.
The fact that doctors generally don't ask about a patients diet says more about doctors than it does about the importance of what you eat. Diet has a huge influence on so many aspects of health and well being.
Doctors (the allopathic ones) spend hardly any time studying nutrition. So it’s more the system that doesn’t expose them to much. They also tend to believe the marketing they see on TV, magazines, etc.
Used to eat out for lunch most days (felt like middle-of-the-road options, maybe rarely fast food) and now mostly eat sandwiches with lean meat (and homemade levain bread, the parallel comment on fodmaps intrigued me around this line).
We used to cook I would say 5/6 dinner meals a week but it’s strictly 7 now. Not too much change there, not intentional anyways. Maybe less snacking too but the only big intentional change has been the eating out.
not the guy you are replying to but a bit of a similar experience so I can answer from my perspective. I went sort-of keto + fasting (inspired by Dr. Jason Fung, primarily for weightloss but with the side effect of having better bowels after 2-3 months of adjustment to the high-fat moderate-protein low-carb diet.
Thanks! Congrats on eating healthier as well! There are so many upsides to preparing your own meals, and you'll find that it can actually be a very therapeutic activity.
Congrats!
I quit smoking 11 years ago now, i was smoking a bit more than half a pack a day. I went cold turkey too, originally more as an experiment.
(I wanted to feel how some of everyday actions were not driven by my decision and choices but by habits or physical need).
In the end it was so benificial in just 2 weeks that i never smoked again.
Now i can't stand smoke at all. It takes a while for some of the associative habits to go away though (like while drinking in a party, this kind of thing). I would advise to never tell yourself that you can smoke a cigarette once in a while. I don't know anybody who stopped and didn't go back to full time smoking after smoking a cigarette once in a while for a few months.
I also noticed that it's important to involve smokers around you so that they don't offer you cigarettes. I also noticed a type of smokers who try to get me back to smoking. I found that doing stuff like destroying their cigarette pack when they try to have you get one with insistance was the best way to stop that.
Among my work colleagues, friends, and family, it seems alcohol consumption has either slightly increased or significantly decreased.
I made a conscious choice as Coronavirus was just getting its shoes on to completely stop drinking alcohol. I haven't felt this great in ages and intend to teetotal beyond the crisis.
The occasional dinner out with drinkers since some of the restrictions were eased has not been a problem and - company depending - as enjoyable as usual. I'll probably skip the pub socials when they reopen but dinners, lunches, and sports seem fine. Next stop: more exercise!
Being the one to say 'I don't drink' is generally awkward, as few people expect that response. What I've found is usually at least one other person per ~10 people will follow up and say they don't either.
From there it can be contagious, with others questioning themselves drinking, or at least drinking less.
It's pretty common amongst my geeky social circles in Paris, much less (for obvious reasons) amongst the musicians/partyers social circles, unfortunately.
What's very annoying is the social pressure: feeling compelled to say something, anything, when somebody say they won't have that drink in a social gathering. Just shut the hell up! (Saying that to myself too!)
One thing I've found fascinating since moving to Germany is that you'll be judged here if you say "I don't drink beer", but drinking non-alcoholic beer is perfectly acceptable. It's not the alcohol that people care about.
Depending on the region, "I don't drink beer" can sound a bit snobbish (as in "I only drink wine and champaign"). Other than that I've never heard anything bad when I ordered Apfelschorle (apple juice + carbonated water mix). And I think "Alkoholfreies Weizen" would even be accepted among very beer-centred groups.
One cultural difference between Germany and the states is, that drunk-driving is much more actively shunned so its more acceptable to not drink.
Somebody must be drinking a lot more. Sales at my brewery have approximately tripled over last year. It has become a business challenge in not having the capacity to keep up with demand.
as someone who stopped consuming most alcohol a couple years back: pubs are tough, but depending on the one you choose you may get some non-alcoholic drinks which are ok :)
In France they give nicotine patch to nurses because they discovered, to their horror, that smokers are heavily under represented in critical cases. Something to do with nicotine.
They're annoyed because that would be like asking people to eat raw sugar to stop drinking Coca Cola, but I'm not yet stopping my cigarets :D
I don't know why you are getting downvoted. This is corrected. It is theorized that nicotine represses ACE2 receptor numbers which the virus uses to enter the cells.
Here's a nice big collection of programs that either don't require equipment or use minimal equipment you could improvise - https://darebee.com/programs.html
No account or login, no ads or affiliate sales, and all programs are PDFs you can download.
You can do most workouts with those reusable tote bags at home! You can also do push-ups, sit-ups, pull-ups with no weights. Planks. You can get pretty ripped without workout equipment.
Why do you need to lift weights, exactly? You can get extremely fit with a small set of basic bodyweight exercises and some creativity. All you need is a mat, or even a soft carpet.
I just bought a kettlebell last week on Amazon and it came today. It was the last one of its model, but I'm sure you can find some others.
I've never lifted weights before but the kettlebell sounds appealing because it's supposed to be "functional strength", not overworking a single muscle like big gym machines can.
Yes, it is pretty much impossible. Buying weights off craigslist or Facebook has always been the better bet anyway, because it's not as if a chunk of iron can get worn out and they are much cheaper. Listings are probably harder to find and more expensive, though.
You can also make plates out of concrete, although that also requires more room than dumbbells and for you to already have a barbell.
Rogue can notify you when their kettlebells come in stock. I managed to nab one the other week. You have to act fast though, because they sell out pretty quick.
I'm 29, live in the Bay Area, and recently moved back to my parents place. At first I was embarrassed, but while running around the neighborhood I keep bumping into old high school and college classmates who did the same thing in order to save money. Like you said there's nothing to do anyway since everything fun is closed. I'm also saving about $2500 per month (more or less) and hanging out with my family is nice. Honestly, your parents will be happy to have you back anyway. There's nothing lame about moving back home since a lot of people are doing it and don't let anyone tell you otherwise.
Yup they're in the Bay Area too, so it wasn't a big move. Not being able to date sucks, but if most people are moving back home, then maybe living with your parents won't have as much of a stigma. But given that we're experiencing a global pandemic, dating is something we should try to hold off on until the situation improves.
SF normalized being 30+, successful, but still living with roommates. As long as you have an adult relationship with your parents (aka they're okay with you having sex, and you're okay with your parents having sex - which they most likely did in order to have you) while all living under the same roof, then it's fine (assuming all parties involved can get over it).
The problem with dating while living out in the 'burbs is that the population density just isn't the same, even if you don't mind driving. Apps help in this regard. There's also the practical matter of alcohol. Taxis (inc Uber/Lyft) just aren't as convenient outside of the city. There are more parks to meet at though!
As someone who does enjoy the Bay Area, it's saddening that as soon as work doesn't require commute, there's no draw. Which I'm sure is the same for many.
Place is not for everyone, but I picked the Bay Area because I do enjoy it.
I don’t live in the Bay Area because I want to work in tech...
I work in tech because I want to live in the Bay Area, and my skill set of technical knowledge aligned with tech pretty nicely.
In San Francisco, when the pandemic ends and everything starts actually getting back to normal, we don’t have to worry about if the weather will be nice that month. We can pick back up where we left off.
I don’t have to cram our outside summer activities into five months anymore.
I just moved from Chicago to San Francisco last weekend and can definitely relate. I had such anxiety as I was locked inside watching the few months where it's enjoyable to be outside pass by. Even without the pandemic, I always felt such a need to go non-stop all summer because I knew the warm days were limited and it got exhausting. There are a number of things that I am going to miss about Chicago, but I really appreciate the fact that I'll be able to enjoy outdoor activities here year-round.
The general area definitely has its attractions. SF increasingly less so. And a lot of SV is soulless sprawl. But if money were no object, there are a lot of places in the Bay Area that are very attractive and the climate is mostly pretty great.
Money usually is an object though and it's not really surprising that people paying $4K a month would depart if they don't need to live there for work any longer and they can't really enjoy at least the non-natural aspects of the area.
I don't understand this forced stigma. You do you man. I'm sure your parents are thrilled. And there's nothing like reconnecting with old friends in familiar places.
Holy shit, this sounds exactly like something I might have written. Feeling exactly the same way right now. I don't have any real advice because I have the same questions and am also trying to figure it out, just wanted to let you know that you're not alone and I'm somewhat relieved to know I'm not the only who feels this way. So thank you for making this post.
No. I started college at 21, got hired as a software engineer at 25 in the bay area, and from 25-28 I dated, traveled, partied, and had a fun time. I worked at most 40 hours a week and viewed work as income for my hobbies. I'm 29 now and get contacted by FANG companies all the time for interviews, so I'm assuming my work experience is somewhat decent. I have minimal savings and a substantial amount of debt and I'm not as good of an engineer as I want to be, but I feel like its not too late to turn things around and start working harder now to advance in my career, and I have no regrets about my life experiences.
