Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Miscellaneous/2022 January 28

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January 28

at-home drug injection

I just saw a TV ad for some drug administered as a once-monthly at-home injection. I knew that diabetics have to inject themselves with insulin daily, but whenever I've had an injection (e.g. covid vaccine) I've had to get it done at a clinic. I thought also that The Authorities(tm) wanted to keep syringes away from people because they might use them for street drugs. I had figured diabetics were an exception because they need injections so frequently. I'm wondering:

• Do people who self-inject need much training before they can get the prescriptions and paraphenalia for that?
• Are needle drug (e.g. heroin) abusers still a big thing? I had thought opiate pills like fentanyl were abused a lot more these days.

I've been pretty uncomfortable getting covid shots and helping family members get them, because they are done in rooms full of people potentially spreading virus. Being able to do it at home would be a lot safer from my perspective. No that's not a real possibility, just one that has some attraction in an imagined world. 2601:648:8202:350:0:0:0:C115 (talk) 00:32, 28 January 2022 (UTC)

Self-injection doesn't seem to be that hard. See, for example:

• "Self-Injectable Drug List" (AmeriHealth)
• "A Patient Guide to Properly Administering Medications Requiring Self-Injection" (Walgreens)
• "Self-Injection Guide: How to give yourself a subcutaneous injection" (Alberta Health Services). Clarityfiend (talk) 08:13, 28 January 2022 (UTC)

However, Covid vaccines are probably not available to just anyone. Clarityfiend (talk) 08:17, 28 January 2022 (UTC)

I'm a diabetic who injects daily. I only needed to be shown once how to do it, and have never had any problem with it. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 08:33, 28 January 2022 (UTC)

But it's important to understand that there are many different types of medical injection.--Shantavira|^{feed me} 09:28, 28 January 2022 (UTC)

Needle drug abuse is still prevalent. This report: www.amfar.org/uploadedFiles/_amfarorg/Articles/On_The_Hill/2013/fact sheet Syringe Exchange 031413.pdf urges that needle exchange programs have been proven to reduce the transmission of blood-borne diseases. A number of studies conducted in the U.S. have shown needle exchange programs do not increase drug use. Philvoids (talk) 10:57, 28 January 2022 (UTC)

Just to emphasise Shantavira's point, as per the article they linked, insulin is generally injected subcutaneously. For recreational drugs, it can vary but intravenous is fairly common (hence IV drug users etc) since it provides the quickish "hit". Again as per our article, some vaccines do use subcutaneouus injection, but (I think most vaccines and) nearly all of approved COVID-19 vaccines use intramuscular injection including Pfizer–BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine, Moderna COVID-19 vaccine, Oxford–AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine, Janssen COVID-19 vaccine, Sputnik V COVID-19 vaccine, Sputnik Light, Sinopharm BIBP COVID-19 vaccine, CoronaVac, Covaxin, Sinopharm WIBP COVID-19 vaccine, CoviVac (Russia COVID-19 vaccine), Soberana 02, ZF2001, EpiVacCorona, Abdala (vaccine), Novavax COVID-19 vaccine. While mistakes happen, [1] [2] subcutaneous injection of these is definitely not something recommended. There is some work on developed nasal spray vaccines, e.g. Convidecia, but also Oxford–AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine, Sputnik V COVID-19 vaccine however I don't think any of these have received approval and definitely not in the US or Western Europe. The one exception to intramuscular injection seems to be ZyCoV-D which requires intradermal injection via a jet injector to ensure the DNA penetrates the nuclear membrane. OR here but even with a nasal spray vaccine, it seems unlikely this would be approved for home application in most of the developed world unless there is some sort of catastrophic breakdown or situation since the risk of some serious acute reaction is not zero, hence vaccinations nearly always require some waiting time post vaccination. Nil Einne (talk) 14:35, 28 January 2022 (UTC)

Don't know if anyone will read this, but I just noticed recently that our article on subcutaneous injections that I linked above claims:

As opposed to intramuscular or intravenous injections, subcutaneous injections can be easily performed by people with minor skill and training required. The injection sites for self-injection of medication are the same as for injection by a healthcare professional, and the skill can be taught to patients using pictures, videos, or models of the subcutaneous tissue for practice. People who are to self-inject medicine subcutaneously should be trained how to evaluate and rotate the injection site if complications or contraindications arise. Self-administration by subcutaneous injection generally does not require disinfection of the skin outside of a hospital setting as the risk of infection is extremely low, but instead it is recommended to ensure that the site and person's hands are simply clean prior to administration.

That said, the part on "as opposed" seem unsourced since this source [3] doesn't seem to mention it. Instead it only discusses the risk of accidentally injecting intramuscular when you're attempting to subcutaneously and ways to reduce it and recognise it. It does mention the obvious namely that subcutaneous injection success depends somewhat on location chosen and how fat the person is, as the more fat present the harder it is to accidentally inject into a muscle. (But those who inject regularly especially those who need insulin do need to rotate sites as also mentioned in our article.)

Mostly pure OR here, but for comparisons with intravenous injections, while it may be a common route for recreational drug users, it strikes me that most Iv drug users are regularly injecting themselves. It should be possible to tell if they were successful from the effect but in any case, AFAIK (see e.g. [4]) you should be able to test whether you've successfuly found a vein before injection. (A common trope is that some Iv drugs users are better at finding a vein than inexperienced medical staff.) It's unlikely this applies, to someone given themselves a vaccine 3 times, infact even 1000 times I'm not sure how easy it's going to be to tell if they were correct administered the vaccine without access to stuff a random person is not going to have access to. (With Iv, the target while a lot smaller, is also something you can see.)

BTW, that link mentions hormone users are one group of people who may regularly self administer intramuscular injections (although they may be targeting specific muscles).

Nil Einne (talk) 02:10, 8 February 2022 (UTC)

Regarding training - like any other activity, people get better with practice. On those occasions when I have to give blood samples, nothing reassures me more than seeing a 60-year-old nurse who's probably done it fifty thousand times because I know it will more likely be quick and painless. There are lots of activities we do that were uncomfortable at first until we got used to them. For example, I'm mystified that people are able to insert and remove contact lenses without twitching. On the other hand, my daughter was 19 when she finally figured out how to swallow a pill without choking on it, but now it's no big deal. Matt Deres (talk) 16:34, 28 January 2022 (UTC)

Walking on a Manhattan road

It seems that pedestrians here (Theater District, Midtown, Manhattan), instead of just crossing, walk on this road, despite car traffic. Is it a pedestrian zone or something else? 212.180.235.46 (talk) 15:44, 28 January 2022 (UTC)

The photo was taken on Monday, July 15, 2019^[5] at 246 West 44th Street. Occasionally, parts of Manhattan become car-free zones, but I cannot find evidence that this location was one on that date. 2603:6081:1C00:1187:556B:ECE2:6EC5:4832 (talk) 19:10, 28 January 2022 (UTC)

Here is the same view in 2021 at Google Street View. As noted above, however, many parts of the theatre district at various times are closed to vehicular traffic when there are expectations of heavy pedestrian use. All but the main thoroughfares may be closed down. This part of 44th street is a narrow, 1-lane 1-way street, and is not really used for high volume thru traffic. East-west traffic in this area is more likely to use 42nd Street anyways. I will also say, even if the street wasn't closed to traffic, the area can be so pedestrian-dense that you often find vehicles and pedestrian share the space. See this page which has images of nearby Times Square showing pedestrians and vehicles sharing the space. From personal experience, there are a few places in the US like this, usually places frequented by numerous tourists walking about. The Theatre District in Manhattan, the French Quarter of New Orleans, River Street in Savannah, and Beale Street in Memphis are places that I've been that seem to work like this; often they do close the roads, but if they don't, in the narrow streets people just walk down the road; cars just travel along at walking speeds (for people foolish enough to drive through the area). --Jayron32 19:41, 28 January 2022 (UTC)

Parts of Broadway have been permanently closed to traffic for many years, that's a major thoroughfare. They even close 4-5 continuous miles of major thoroughfare for a few half days a summer and put posters in advance just so people can know what it feels like to use a street like God intended. That's literally pretty much the reason, so pedestrians can experience the novelty of long walks down a 100+ foot wide street with no cars whatsoever (not even parked ones) though the schedule posters don't joke about the using the street like God intended part. They've been doing this since at least the 2000s decade. You can even walk up on viaducts in the very tall street canyon where Park Avenue becomes a rain gutter hanging from a neoclassical Grand Central Station cause the building's on the street axis and is a landmark that cannot be pierced, it does pierce a slightly steampunk 1920s skyscraper though. This is otherwise only experiencable in a car or bike as there are no sidewalks there. Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 02:55, 29 January 2022 (UTC)

As a lifelong New Yorker I know the main reasons are 1. everyone except the below are in parking lanes 2. the lady is crossing the street, she can clearly see upstream cause the huge antenna is in Times Square, Times Square is 200, this is 246 and minor streets divisible by two go east 3. if anyone else is in the driving lane they're barely in and facing traffic but even more downstream than the woman, they can see cars coming. Cars don't move fast around there, especially on minor streets, they're narrow and you could hit some earbudded extrovert distracted by deeply moving music or something. There's a long queue of cars in the background so it's not closed to traffic when the photo was taken, just no parkers for some reason. One side of the street without parkers happens all the time, it's to allow street cleaners, maybe the alternate side parking just changed from one side of the street to the other? I don't pay attention to if this is possible because I don't drive. I guess it'd be convenient, show up, realize you can't do your errand cause the car could be towed before you finish, hide the car somewhere, return soon enough after the noisy machine and have a better chance of getting a parking space cause not everyone has put their car back yet. Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 02:55, 29 January 2022 (UTC)

I see you're in Poland and therefore think you may be asking about jaywalking in which, as I understand it, it's not allowed to cross a road wherever you want if you can use a designated crossing point. (Going to Poland was, I think, the first time I encountered the concept-I walked across a road and a cop shouted at me. When he realised I didn't speak Polish he gave up on trying to tell me off.) The first time I went to New York I had never heard of the idea of jaywalking; in the UK it's not a thing, you can cross a road at your own risk wherever you want. The next time I had, and asked a long-time resident I was with about it as we walked across the road. He told me "nobody cares here about it". Blythwood (talk) 03:29, 29 January 2022 (UTC)

Technically New York City cops can fine for jaywalking, I wonder if they even bother if they saw you, decided to frisk cause you look like a gangster and found crack. The less pedestrian-friendly a part of America is the more likely it is for jaywalking (or even just walking period) to attract police attention. But probably less often than in Poland from the looks of it. Trying to cross busy motorways attracts attention anywhere, but that might be true in Britain too. I've done it before, it's fun but wow you really have to adjust your car dodging instincts from the 30 mph cars you're used to in New York City. I didn't get arrested, as even if someone called they wouldn't go on a manhunt just for that. I don't recommend doing that in a way that might cause an accident though, i.e. when traffic is heavy or the opening is too tight so someone brakes hard or gets too close to the car behind or swerves. _{Brackets suddenly refer to my experience with speed limits of about 30 mph for some reason, though mentally multiplying distances you're used to by healthily more than the ratio of speed limits is better than no experience}[It takes experience to know which opening you can take without risking any of those things.] I've also walked in the middle of the motorway on Christmas at 3am till the first car saw me to see what it's like, that's fun too. I'd really like to see what it's like to drive a Ben Hur chariot at a gallop in the day but to do that without risk of getting caught would likely require a level of societal collapse that I don't want to happen. Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 04:33, 29 January 2022 (UTC)

In Britain it is illegal (see Rule 6) for pedestrians to access motorways (and a few other roadways), and their approach roads and surrounding road and footpath layouts are designed to make such access as difficult as possible: the only time you would normally see someone (road maintenace crews aside) on foot by one is if they had escaped from a broken-down or crashed car, or if they were officials dealing with such a situation. Where motorways have to be crossed by pedestrian routes, there are underpasses or overbridges for the purpose. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 90.213.224.157 (talk) 23:36, 29 January 2022 (UTC)

We have legal pedestrian crossings like that too, often with fences that look they're trying to make it harder to drop concrete blocks on windscreens. That's actually happened before, we have some horrible people in America. In some parts of America legal pedestrian crossings of motorways can be inconveniently distant, like many suburbs. _{Note:this is partially taking the piss (I'm probably using that British phrase wrong) I've crossed motorways about twice in my life and New York City-speed roads many many times, not that much honking at me actually, I know what I'm doing, I could probably gain a similar proficiency at motorway openings but would need a holodeck, would not want to practice in real life (or live anywhere where motorways would be roadblocks to daily life without a vehicle)}[Plus some of the random configurations of cars are fun to run past, but I'm just a weirdo who likes spatial reasoning problems like this. I really like the ones that remind me of running through a gap in scissors. You have to really "attack the car" by which I mean start sprinting slightly before your self-preservation instinct says you can, cars are so fast that you will not hit the near car at the front of the gap if you bolt slightly before that instinct stops saying "not yet". Or bolt from further back so you're running faster when you enter the front of the gap (but that requires better spatial judgement or erring on the side of suboptimally late and aborting if you come to realize it's too late). Or the ones where the front of a slug of traffic is diagonal, sort of like maintaining x seconds in front of a falling guillotine by running to the side with less blade. I don't think I've ever caused anyone to brake more than softly (or swerve). Often they just reduce or cut throttle, or don't slow down at all. Almost 100% of my experience is running across merely horse gallop or slower cars though, to save time waiting for lights and stick it to the man wealthier while doing it.] Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 01:33, 30 January 2022 (UTC)

Don't try that at home children. Alansplodge (talk) 08:53, 30 January 2022 (UTC)

Yes, this can cause death or car damage if done wrong. It would be an absolutely terrible idea for someone who actually likes dopamine (i.e. extreme sports players, gambling addicts, extroverts in general), gotta be grown-up and neurotic enough to be able to abort at any time, and not be a klutz with moving object extrapolation. The quickest I've changed my mind is about 0.2 seconds. I basically just instinctually went contingent on how the gap looks in the period before you have no choice but to try to make your ground (cricket analogy) and instinctually stopped with 0.2 seconds better information. Sometimes a speculative momentum-building move or correct guess at my reason for watching traffic can scare a car into slowing down but I never try to bluff, "pump fake" or "play chicken" on purpose. I never do anything that'd require any car to deviate from current speed or lane position for it to work. Sometimes you get a more intelligent driver who instead of slowing down simply does a (non-swerve) lane change to a geometrically favorable lane so we can both not lose time! Anyone willing and able to learn the art of waiting for the light time reduction should start with much easier openings and practice frequently (so probably have to live in a big ped-friendly city) increasing practice difficultly very very slowly over at least a few years. Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 16:31, 30 January 2022 (UTC)

And by practice I didn't mean hanging out at busy roads just to practice, that'd be really weird. Any jaywalking skill I have I learned from the times I couldn't just walk on the busy street's sidewalk till crossing becomes legal without making the walk from A to B longer. Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 08:32, 31 January 2022 (UTC)

Stock Market Price Predictions

I am interested in starting to invest in the capital market (crypto / stocks / ETF / etc). For this purpose, I would like to know what the most effective way is today to predict the future price based on a variety of factors (Google Trends, Twitter, VIX, EMA, P/B, etc.).

It is important to me that it be well defined without the need for interpretation, and backed up statistically by accepted statistical methods, and not just on the basis of a few cases as there are in many articles on the Internet.

It should be noted that many articles I have found have a "prediction" of the current price based on a variety of factors (such as those mentioned above), however this of course does not help me. David (talk) 16:18, 28 January 2022 (UTC)

If I knew the answer to that, I would be a rich man. I suggest you start at Stock market prediction..--Shantavira|^{feed me} 16:26, 28 January 2022 (UTC)

See also Speculation, Gambling and Divination.  --Lambiam 20:33, 28 January 2022 (UTC)

עברית, you may want to look at buy and hold (although that article could do with some expansion). Briefly, the concept is that "beating the stock market" is very hard, and something even top experts with huge amounts of experience, connections, industry and accounting knowledge struggle to do consistently. Therefore, it's often been found that simply investing in a fund that tracks the stock market, saving money and not worrying about it, frequently proves more profitable than doing something more complicated or taking risks. This also ties into the "efficient market hypothesis", that in general big stock markets tend to be fairly valued (shares of successful companies more expensive, etc) and so earning money based on a complicated trading strategy is tough.
From a more personal perspective, you're a young person aged 17, with your life ahead of you and a lot of freedom to choose your path in life. Not that this is necessarily a healthy way of thinking, but if I reran my life from your age specifically with a goal of being richer, taking steps to end up in a higher-paying career (working really hard to get top internships, jobs etc., getting a top university degree result to make me more attractive to employers) would probably have proved much, much more profitable than almost any specific stock market investment. Blythwood (talk) 03:04, 29 January 2022 (UTC)

What you're looking for is called technical analysis, it only looks technical. I used to believe it when I was 18 and stupid, later I realized it's like astrology or those factoids like NFL team so and so is 10-3 against the spread (which is more obviously just chance at work, in this case the at least 1 in 32 small sets of coin flips usually deviates wildly thing) and only slightly useful cause so many other people believe it's useful but it's almost 100% useless. You can ponder the nearly infinite cool-looking mathematical tools forever and it won't predict shit if lightning kills a crucial guy or something. Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 03:45, 29 January 2022 (UTC)

Apparently quantitative analysis is not considered technical, you'd still be fighting trade secret machine learning AIs with the resources of trillion dollar investment banks though, it'd be easier and less of a gamble to just work or work faster (i.e. more dollars per hour). You could find a graduate degree that you'd be good at and like, plan your education around it, get it and then get paid for knowledge. Engineering is 2 years shorter than a doctorate but with anything STEM you'd have to not be too irritated at how the alienese math or code is sometimes gratuitous and could be practically replaced with more well-known symbols, Latin or Greek STEM words (good thing I like Latin and Greek STEM words), or even plain English (personally I like the science jargon but want the math in English when practical when it's symbols I can't understand without the education I missed by quitting high school for "freedom"). If I didn't have to save to replace dropped Wifi stealing laptop to prevent boredom I might've started college before I didn't want to do it anymore, I'd be sure to finish from getting used to it and sunk cost, work 3 to 50 years and retire much wealthier. Or maybe retire and unretire every few years forever and get paid half the time (can scientists do that?). Maybe I should've tried to find a college that doesn't make science majors learn a language for years or share a room (random major?) if too poor to rent and far to commute (I f***ing hate learning new grammars) Sagittarian Milky Way (talk)

Backtesting a well defined trading strategy without the need for interpretation can fail, it could overfit to the past. Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 07:31, 29 January 2022 (UTC)

Well, I thought that there gotta be some way to have a persistent success in the stock market (for example, investing in crypto as it grows more and more). Thank you for your answers! David (talk) 20:38, 29 January 2022 (UTC)

There are limit to the growth of crypto currencies.^[6] Bitcoin already uses more electricity than many countries, such as Argentina and Finland,^[7][8] and also far more than Google.^[9] As the world is scrambling to convert to renewable energy, the continued unbridled expansion of an energy-devouring non-essential application may be impossible. An entirely different issue is that the stock market is highly irrational and volatile. There is no rational grounding for the price of a stock; it is worth what the market is willing to pay, just like for art. Check out £525,000 ($724,837) for a simple geometric abstract oil painting.^[10] A hype can drive up the price of a stock to irrational heights; a mere rumour can make a stock price come tumbling down. The whole market may be bullish, suffering from irrational exuberance, until the bubble bursts.  --Lambiam 22:15, 29 January 2022 (UTC)

A few entities do have printing money algorithms but they have to spend most of their free money just to rent space at an exchange for their powerful computers and rent or build lasers or microwaves that go all the way from New York to Chicago (horizon-sized hops of course) to basically make free money from the speed of electricity* being 100 kilometers per millisecond slower than the speed of light in air. The exchange even removes intra-exchange distance differences with exact lengths of wire loops for all but the most disadvantaged renter location. If someone invents a high-frequency trading algorithm that beats the market like a biased coin AND doesn't require unaffordable stuff like the light speed thing then he'd have to keep it secret or everyone doing it would split the profits to almost nothing at best, or computers the inventor couldn't afford might take the inventor's profits for him and of course not give him any. If you buy crypto there's always a chance it'll decrease or crash and never reach what you paid for it again, if that doesn't happen it can get stolen, if you find some form of exposure to crypto prices that insures against theft you'll have to pay for the insurance, manager and wallet security guy salaries indirectly, I don't know what's the cheapest safe-seeming way to do that. Or if it's a crypto exchange stock those things get mass stolen from all the time, even big ones. With any crypto stock you would be need the company to not have a scandal or something too. Something else I don't know is if buying a few hundred or thousand US dollars worth of this stuff causes further damage to the environment and if so how much compared to "mining" the same amount directly with electricity and electronics. Maybe someone here knows. Even if it's negligible (I have no idea, maybe it's terrible) I would not recommend buying crypto now. I recommend buying in 2010 and selling half in 2021 (after learning how to not do that wallet mumbo wrong and lose everything, such a gratuitously complex trinket that's good for nothing but trying to sell for more real currency than you bought) Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 00:31, 30 January 2022 (UTC)

These are the most useful articles for understanding momentum investing and crypto currencies.DOR (HK) (talk) 19:38, 31 January 2022 (UTC)

Aviation terminology

What are the diffferences between "airfield", "aerodrome", and "airport"?

I recently read a statement; "The aerodrome is shared between a civil airport situated to the north and a military airbase to the south of the airfeld." I'm not sure if I'm parsing the statement correctly, or if it even makes sense as written? Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 16:45, 28 January 2022 (UTC)

According to This, an aerodrome is a general term for any place where aircraft can operate from, and includes airports and airfields. An airport must have at least one paved runway, while an airfield does not need to be paved. --Jayron32 19:21, 28 January 2022 (UTC)

• I suggest that an article that uses "aircrafts" as the plural of "aircraft" is not a good source for subtle questions of English usage. --184.144.97.125 (talk) 02:43, 29 January 2022 (UTC)

As that article says about aerodrome, these terms vary in meaning across the world. Here in Australia I have two places officially called airports within 10 km of my home, Coldstream Airport and Lilydale Airport. Neither has a paved runway. On the other side of my city, 40 km away, is Melbourne Airport, Australia's second busiest airport (when we don't have COVID). It has lots of paved runways. That article also says aerodrome is mostly used in the UK and Commonwealth countries. Here in Australia it was much more common early in my life (over half a century ago), but almost never used at all today. Airfield, to me, sounds American. HiLo48 (talk) 23:13, 28 January 2022 (UTC)

Airfield, to me anyway, has a military connotation. Clarityfiend (talk) 05:39, 29 January 2022 (UTC)

"Fil Santé Jeunes" equivelent in England

Hello, could you give me the equivalent of "Fil Santé Jeunes" in England, please ? It would be nice from you ... 131.255.4.148 (talk) 21:54, 28 January 2022 (UTC)

"Youth Health Wire"? What's the context for the French expression? --←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 23:00, 28 January 2022 (UTC)

Fil Santé Jeunes (Youth Health Line) is a remote health assistance system for young people aged 12 to 25. 0800 235 236 toll-free number in France. A comparable service offered by the UK NHS (National Health Service) is Shout 85258, a free, confidential, 24/7 text message support for anyone struggling to cope with issues including suicidal thoughts, depression, anxiety or panic attacks. Philvoids (talk) 23:07, 28 January 2022 (UTC)

Nous avons un article sur tout. w:fr:Fil Santé Jeunes. DuncanHill (talk) 03:57, 31 January 2022 (UTC)

Could I have a live chat , please ? 131.255.4.148 (talk) 13:15, 2 February 2022 (UTC) or a questions box ? 131.255.4.148 (talk) 17:02, 3 February 2022 (UTC)