Ryan

This is getting ridiculous. The Crowd is going so low in January. * approximate, plus processor fees (.8%-3%)

Health insurance for my family of four in the Netherlands is abour €300 per month. The “own risk” which we in the States call “the deductible+out of pocket” is also about €300-400 per year. Basically a rounding error. Health insurance in the Netherlands is so low that I often don’t even include it in my family budgeting at all. Relative to US health insurance costs, it is relatively speaking… free in the Netherlands. A lot of Europeans have no conception of how expensive health insurance is in the US… And most Americans assume that the reason European healthcare is so affordable is because the quality is poor… I know a ton of European residents will chime in on this and claim waiting time this and shitty situation that… as if the US healthcare system is some sort of utopian high-tech luxury resort experience. Did you know that depending on where you are in the US… If you have an emergency… There’s a 10 to 30% chance that you’re going to be picked up and treated by local residents volunteering on their ambulance and rescue squad in that particular area? Many of them awoken from a deep sleep in the middle of the night to rush to their local squad building and rev up their rig to try to get to you quickly. I’m not saying these people are not trained… I would know because I was one of them for a decade… But a big part of the US healthcare system foundation is built on volunteers… It can’t even pay enough to incentivize people to work in EMS full-time as a career. There is no equivalent volunteer medical system in Europe. It is fully professionalized. Anyway back to insurance.. in the US, we’d probably be looking at somewhere between $3000 and $4000 per month for the exact same level of insurance coverage not to mention the deductible would literally be 1000% higher than in the NL. They’re just completely different planets when it comes to health insurance — driven by culture which then informs tax policy.

LULULEMON GUIDES FOR CONTRACTION Lululemon beat Q4 expectations, but things are still shaky. With all the recent controversy around the brand, especially criticism from founder Chip Wilson, the turnaround is not exactly in full force. One half of the business is booming, the other is not so much. While China Mainland surged 24%, the core Americas business fell 4%, with US revenue specifically down 6% for its second straight year of decline. But what really stands out is the 2026 guidance. Lululemon is projecting EPS of $12.10–$12.30 for the full year, below the $13.26 they just posted. They're guiding to earnings contraction. A brand that once grew 20%+ annually is now asking investors to brace for shrinking profits while it attempts to stabilize its primary market. To lead the reset, the board appointed former Levi Strauss CEO Chip Bergh as a director. Bergh is credited with turning Levi's into a $6B powerhouse, and his arrival comes while Lululemon still lacks a permanent CEO. The move signals a shift from routine governance toward an active brand turnaround.

I had a dream last night that everyone got mad over a clean protein bar

Two doses of magic mushrooms degraded my sperm count from the 99.6th percentile to the 77.7th. This may be a first-in-human observation. Context: we ran the most quantified magic mushroom (psilocybin) experiment ever conducted. We were asking if psilocybin is a longevity therapy. After seeing the data, we think it is (see reply post for the experiment summary). Also, like most things biology: the results are complicated. My data suggests that the magic mushrooms (psilocybin) negatively impacted my fertility markers. Before the first psilocybin dose my motile sperm count was at 99.6th percentile for men under 25 years of age, it dropped to 77.7% and partially recovered to 89.3% following the first dose, and second doses, compared to the same age cohort (numbers compare similarly to my age cohort as well). 3 days following my second dose (first dose 25 mg, second dose 28 mg) . Motility: dropped 51% . Total count: almost unchanged, dropped by 2% . Total motile count: dropped 52% . Normal morphology: dropped by 50% 20 days post 2nd dose, the pattern continued, with typical latent effects on total sperm counts Motility: recovered back to -2% of pre-psilocybin baseline: . Total count: dropped by 38%, latent effect. . Total motile count: remained inhibited at -39% of pre-psilocybin baseline, (despite motility normalizing, due to the total count drop) . Morphology normalized to -10% of baseline levels. Reduction in free testosterone might have contributed to the effect. While total serum testosterone increased by 30% 3 days following the 2nd dose (neither FSH or LH were meaningfully affected either), and continued to be at 11% above baseline, SHBG increased by 37%, SHBG binds testosterone and reduces its bioavailability and activity. My free testosterone (direct) showed 24% and 23% drops at 3 and 20 days post 2nd dose. In light of the neuroplastic, well-being, brain reset, and systemic metabolic and anti-inflammatory benefits, the trade-off is probably worth it. Especially considering that the magnitude of inhibition has no meaningful effect on actual fertility (total motile counts above 50 million are still on the safe side). This is a first-in-human observation, to our knowledge there is no published human clinical study demonstrating that psilocybin diminishes male fertility markers. General mechanistic evidence exists for recreational and psychoactive drugs possibly inhibiting fertility markers due to their effects on the hypothalamus-pituitary-adrenal axis and general hormonal reset.  Yet no direct evidence for psilocybin or other similar psychedelics inhibiting fertility markers exist. A potential mechanism for the immediate inhibition of motility could involve direct serotonergic signaling in sperm. Human sperm express multiple serotonin receptors, including 5-HT2A, and one recent study found that a 5-HT2A antagonist reduced sperm motility, suggesting that 5-HT2A may regulate motility. Psilocybin is known to bind 5-HT2A with high affinity.

Canceling my Function membership. Same labs through my insurance $65. Function charges me $309. Quest appointments are so easy now. I get lab orders for whatever I want from my doc, book with Quest, submit to my insurance and I get $3000 of labs for $65.