# Dox your professional insider secrets here



## Pargon (Feb 7, 2020)

People who work in specialized industries learn shit all the time that regular people can use to make shit easier. Talk about what you know here so people can hack the planet and be less likely to shoot up a Whammy Burger.

Mine:

- for the love of God you have no idea how much time and work it is to push an insurance referral through on the referring party's side. Insurance company drones are perpetually swamped so on a good day provided your shitty doctor's office actually has the order in and we're unlucky enough not to have the referral automatically approved you're looking at two to three days. Much, much more if we need to actually speak to your insurance on the phone. By a magnitude of ten if your insurance is out of state. Do not assume you'll call the day before your colonoscopy and everything will be hunky fucking dory because every office and every insurance plan is different and exactly none of them follow procedure consistently. Your Insurance is likely also A Bastard and will actually reject your claim or pre-auth if one "I" isn't dotted. This is often written into their own internal procedures because their lawyers advise them so. Forcing perfect paperwork is how they limit liability on their end, but the side effect is that it makes some poor fat-fingering clerk inadvertently responsible for your claim getting denied. If you think you may need a referral, confirm with your insurance. Then maybe just get one anyway, unless your provider or the referred office confirms it too.

- states have fucktons of heating assistance programs. Don't make your kids go cold if you don't have money to heat your house. Swallow your pride and make phone calls; everyone needs help sometimes. Again, you have to reach out to them as soon as you know you'll need it because there's processing time involved and they have to talk to your utility company. Don't stop looking at the local level, either; check for county and state as well. Unless you're just a rich fucker and you spent too much and now you can't get heating oil for your pole barn or something. In that case go fuck yourself.


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## Justtocheck (Feb 7, 2020)

Psychologists often times have a chart as they interview you so they can draw and doodle since most patients are boring as fuck. It prevents them from going insane. Very rarely do they actually need to be writing most of the time about your inner demons.


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## Tootsie Bear (Feb 7, 2020)

Even though I have never worked at a casino, I do something that I'm amazed most people-regardless if they gamble or not-never usually do at a casino. Well, unless they cash in a small amount of change...

A few years ago I had the option of cashing my change in at a Coinstar before my parents and I went to the casino but I decided against it because the machine would probably been down and I didn't want to have wait in line. We ended up going to the casino because I had cash already. However, I remembered before I cashed in a little over $20 for cash at a different casino in Reno without hassle, so I took a big bag of change that amazingly gave me over $100 worth in extra cash. Hey, extra money to gamble. I'm not complaining. 

What I learned is that casinos, unlike Coinstar, do not take a percentage off top or make you cash in a limited amount of change for cash. And the icing on top is that I don't have to be disappointed to discover the Coinstar machine was down and now have to find a different one at another location. Talk about a clusterfuck. 

So if you ever in the need of cash and have a lot of loose change, take it to the casino. You don't even have to be a member or a regular to cash in your change.


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## Radical 38 (Feb 7, 2020)

Most case law can be handled by a scrivener with an age-old thesaurus. Scant few can actually recall what they had studied at their university, and ethics are non-existent in virtually any large law firm.


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## HeyYou (Feb 7, 2020)

Everything you've heard about liberal arts "professionals" being petty and vindictive partisans is true. Getting a history degree was a complete nightmare.


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## whatever I feel like (Feb 7, 2020)

I work at a distributor of sporting goods. If we have questions about a product we open one up and look, then put it back in the box and sell it as new.

Our biggest secret? Trumps tariffs are working and everyone is scrambling to get out of China and into Vietnam/Thailand.

No optimist, I deal with the overseas shipments. Everyone is in a mad scramble to GTFO.


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## Synthetic Smug (Feb 7, 2020)

If you're an artist, don't go into game development. There are better paths.

Everybody wants to do it, and the money and stability isn't there as a result. Further, the field is consolidating to a few big corporations and most of the opportunities are in a handful of expensive cities. Austin is a sweatshop. Woke minorities are used as human shields for sharp business practices. It's no longer a prestigious profession, but it's still regarded as such by low-information students that are sold a bill of goods by colleges.

EDIT:The 3D tools are becoming good enough that the art pipeline is no longer deep and difficult enough to make positions in it secure. Good for memes and modders, bad for good pay.

Currently working under the assumption that 'learn to code' isn't just a meme.


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## Captain Manning (Feb 7, 2020)

There's an absurd amount of kabuki theater in healthcare politics. A common misconception peddled by the left is that Republicans want sick poor people to die.

The state's resistance... overwhelmingly from the GOP... to the legalization of assisted suicide and voluntary euthenasia is largely driven by the fact the managed healthcare corporations can't make money off a dead person. A disturbing number of politicians are in their pocket.

The Christfag arguments you hear are a canard to make all this seem more palatable to the base. The alternative would be confessing that they place their corporate benefactors _above_ fiscal conservatism and empathy for people's suffering. To them, ideally, a sick person must be fully milked by Wall Street, often at taxpayer expense, before it is permitted to die.

Dems don't chimp out over euthenasia because they don't get nearly as many gibs from that particular business sector. Hence, they're more receptive to things like the legalization of assisted suicide. 

I got redpilled (blackpilled?) on this when I worked monitoring the performance of the indigent health care system in Arizona (a deep red state), and saw the actual political priorities manifest. I am also sorry to say I am experiencing the fallout from it first-hand.


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## Neon (Feb 7, 2020)

Synthetic Smug said:


> If you're an artist, don't go into game development. There are better paths.


From my experience in the industry I don't disagree. Out of curiosity, what alternative paths are there that you would recommend for someone with that 3D skillset?


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## Cynically Insane (Feb 7, 2020)

I was a casino dealer for more than a decade.  The best way to win is not to play or use it for entertainment only.  Go in with a set amount prepared to spend it like you are buying dinner or drinks.

If you want to play, here are a few pro tips:

The higher the denomination of slot machine the larger the payout percentage.  Play the highest denomination per play you can afford.
Craps has the best odds but requires an insane amount of knowledge and math skills to reach said odds. Not for uneducated players.
Blackjack is easy, odds not great but OK.  Avoid the side bet scams.
Let it Ride, Caribbean Stud and other in pit pokers have horrible odds.  Avoid. Learn Texas Hold'em instead.
If you want to play for comps, Pai Gow poker is your best bet.  Easy to learn, use house ways.  7/10 hands end in a push.  You can earn lots of play time and get dinner, shows and rooms for free without risking as much as other games.
Go in with a budget and do not deviate.  If you lose, you lose and it's gone.
People who attempt to have fun generally fare better than pricks.  Don't know why. Don't be a dick.
Tip your dealer.

Edited for grammar


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## Synthetic Smug (Feb 7, 2020)

Neon said:


> From my experience in the industry I don't disagree. Out of curiosity, what alternative paths are there that you would recommend for someone with that 3D skillset?


I could be talking out of my ass here, but my money is currently on learning the web stack in addition to what I do right now. I can't be more specific without doxing myself by triangulation.

EDIT:This is what I'm learning right now, so if my advice is bad I'll suffer for it too FWIW

Depending on what sort of 3D you do and what else you know, you might want to look at tech artist or UI skills to stack on top. There's a lot of variables.


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## JULAY (Feb 7, 2020)

If you're looking for a job on Indeed, don't click on "Apply now with Indeed"... Recruiters might look at Indeed applications once a week (or less). Instead, go to the company's website and apply directly through that. Applications that come through the website go into the company's applicant tracking system, and those are the first ones that recruiters are going to see. Also, if a job has been posted for more than five days, don't waste you time applying for it unless it is a very specialized position. After 5 days, most job postings will have dozens of applicants, and at least a few who are viable for the position. Anyone who applies after that isn't even going to have their application seen by a person, let alone get selected for an interview.


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## Hellion (Feb 7, 2020)

When you read about a 'new' scientific study that has just been published, the research itself could be years old.



Spoiler: Explanation



First you have to find time to actually write up the study. Then you have to deal with peer review:

1)  The manuscript has to be in the correct format for the journal you're submitting to. Many journals with a high Impact Factor reject a paper without even sending it out to reviewers, so you'll have to reformat the paper again before you attempt to submit it somewhere else.

2) If your paper is accepted for review, it then takes time for the journal to find scientists with expertise in your study's area. Reviewers are not paid, so the journal may have to reach out to a lot of people before enough accept. You then have to wait for all the reviewers to finish and submit their review. They may outright reject the paper at this stage and you go back to square one.

3) Even if your reviewers don't reject your manuscript outright, it's very unlikely they'll recommend accepting the paper as is. Most likely you'll get the verdict of 'Revise and Resubmit'. This means making changes to the paper that they've suggested (these may be extensive), or arguing why their suggestion is incorrect in your reply. The reviewers then have to re-review the paper in light of the revisions you just made. You may go through this step multiple times. The paper can be rejected at this stage by the reviewers/ editor if the revisions aren't up to par.

4) Once the reviewers, the editor, and yourself/collaborators are all happy, your paper will be accepted for publication. However, you still have to deal with issues like paying the associated fees (especially in open access publishing) and liaising with the journal about final edits / the typesetting of the article. Finally, you have to wait for the publication of the volume/issue that your study will be featured in.

Mileage may vary by subject.


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## Ellesse_warrior (Feb 7, 2020)

Data breaches happen more often than you think. We only ever hear of the big ones where there's fines or sanctions. Most organisations couldn't tell you what they do with your information, where it's stored, if it was sold to a third party. It's very much every individuals own responsibility to be aware of what information organisations collect about them and what happens to it, if a company can't tell you why they need certain information, they don't need it, don't give it to them because it's likely being sold on or used for profiling.


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## Christ Cried (Feb 7, 2020)

In the grand scheme of things physicists roughly understand the universe as much as any layperson


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## Papa Adolfo's Take'n'Bake (Feb 7, 2020)

1. Actually Making the Active Pharmaceutical Ingredients for Gene Therapies is actually really mundane. The main reason that specialists are needed for it is that if something goes wrong, you risk losing raw material solutions worth upwards of $900,000.00. Other than that, if the operator knows what he's doing, it's multiple hours of monitoring various data points just to watch them do the same thing over and over again. For something I am told is "really interesting and cool sounding" it actually turns out to be incredibly boring to actually do.

2. :Gene editing" as understood by the general public won't be a thing for many, many, MANY more years. The reasons for this are two-fold:

Sense-Antisense therapies achieve the same effects while being reversible, a lot less risky, and much better understood.

Picture the following: you have a computer system, but for this scenario it is NOT CENTRALIZED AT ALL. There are 70 trillion plus terminals, all with a discrete series of effects tied to what you think is a certain block (or, often certain blocks) of code. Your solution is to send 350 trillion programmers (in this scenario, think of them as human programmers prone to human error. This is easier than explaining how hard it is to perfect the chemical kinetics, quantum mechanics, and resulting errors in control of Biochemical processes.) You have to get 70 trillion of them to implement a coordinated fix at the same time to full extent, at the right terminal, simultaneously or damn near close. When this is done, it cannot be undone except for repeating this strategy you just attempted. The icing on the cake? Neither you or the programmers actually understand the programming language of the underlying code being run particularly well. Oh, and if you fuck up, the patient is dead and the company goes tits up 7 ways to sunday.

Good luck.


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## RapeMan (Feb 7, 2020)

Nobody wants your "recyclable" materials except for the metals. Best case scenario your paper and plastic is incinerated for energy but mostly it's dumped.


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## A Cardboard Box (Feb 7, 2020)

When a cop asks you "do you know how fast you were going?" Or "do you know why I pulled you over?" Don't admit anything. This is regarded as a "spontaneous utterance" which is exempt from miranda rights.

Radars do not work accurately in the fog. If you are pulled over in the fog and you receive a ticket and it is marked "radar" as the method of measurement, you can take a weather report of the day and locale to traffic court and beat the ticket.

If you REALLY want to fight a ticket, radars are supposed to be calibrated at the beginning of every shift and they never are. You can go to traffic court and subpoena the maintenance logs and win that way. If they did maintain it you're fucked though.

Edit: a clarification on spontaneous utterance. Basically any time a cop talks to you outside of cuffs, he can use that against you in court and as a "law enforcement professional" his testimony is already worth more than yours, legally and to a jury. You do not have to be mirandized until you've been cuffed and they are preparing to interrogate you. The days of the "dumb American cop" are gone. Cops are generally smarter than the people they police. Most of them have degrees and most police academies nowadays focus more on law block and how to fuck you than traditional stuff like shooting and driving. 

If you are on the receiving end of a police action: NEVER talk to the cops, but don't be a dick, either. Simply say "unfortunately I've been advised by my legal counsel to defer answering any questions until they are present." They will try to get you to think you're on the same team. DO NOT fall for it. They will say things like "listen man you got a little weed? I understand, it's just weed it isn't a big deal. You give it to me now it's easier than all the searches and stuff, you know?" Bullshit. There is no legal difference between "he gave me the weed" and "I had to take the weed." It's the same charge and the DA's office doesn't give a fuck about the officer's opinion.

Cops are good at getting things done even if it's by dubious means. If you are a concerned citizen TALK TO THE COPS. Even if it is out of boredom, those type A fuckers will find a way to do something about your concern. Give them as much detail as possible and appeal to their humanity.


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## Radical 38 (Feb 7, 2020)

Papa Adolfo's Take'n'Bake said:


> “Gene editing" as understood by the general public won't be a thing for many, many, MANY more years. The reasons for this are two-fold:
> 
> Sense-Antisense therapies achieve the same effects while being reversible, a lot less risky, and much better understood.
> 
> ...



Is it even feasible in the way most laymen understand gene editing? I don’t doubt the technology will be available eventually. But I have every reason to doubt that, even if all had understood the language within the underlying code in your scenario, it will result in a game-changer inasmuch as an amplifier of the “beneficial” traits. And even then, I see such “amplifications” as simply spreading the potentials of human outliers (be it intellectual or health-related traits) as opposed to the bullshit being conjured by some up-jumped transhumanist clique.


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## Bunny Tracks (Feb 7, 2020)

The Big Lots' rewards card does basically nothing, and is just used to send you targeted ads. You might get a coupon to use eventually, but they expire very fast, and usually have requirements that make them very annoying to use. Employees are forced to ask you to sign up for ones so their store can reach their quotas. Employees are punished for not getting enough sign-ups by having their hours cut. The same thing happens if they don't get enough donations for charities when they come around.

The term "Bookseller" at Barnes and Nobles just means general employee, and that they can put you where ever they want, even if you have literally no experience in said area. This also applies to the ones with in-store cafes. Especially the ones with the cafes. There is no formal training for them, and you're basically left to figure it out by yourself. That's why the turn-over rate is so high. Quit as soon as they dump there for more than a week. You're never getting out of there otherwise.


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## Papa Adolfo's Take'n'Bake (Feb 7, 2020)

Radical 38 said:


> Is it even feasible in the way most laymen understand gene editing? I don’t doubt the technology will be available eventually. But I have every reason to doubt that, even if all had understood the language within the underlying code in your scenario, it will result in a game-changer inasmuch as an amplifier of the already existing traits. And even then, I see such “amplifications” as simply spreading the potentials of human outliers (be it intellectual or health-related traits) as opposed to the bullshit being conjured by some up-jumped transhumanist clique.


Not really, but I won't say it is totally impossible, as that would be intellectually dishonest. The problem is that the way the layman understands gene editing (which affects the crazy amount of bureaucratic bullshit I deal with regularly) is a deep lack of undertanding regarding just how hard the actual physical constraints really are.

Even if I understood what every base pair in the human genome did, what happens next is to actually do something about it. I'll briefly outline the 3 biggest issues with the "layman" understanding of the process, and then talk about the killing blow to this technology being developed at least in our lifetime.



Spoiler: I said 'Briefly.' I lied.



The first issue is with the extent of reaction. ("Reaction" herein referring to a hypothetical gene edit.) To complete this reaction with no adverse effects to the patient, the reaction must be completed 100% across the entire body of the patient. Primarily, this is because while the trouble gene may not be expressed significantly across the entire body, it will be expressed enough to leave a cytoskeletal signature. If the cytoskeletal signature is not attuned to what the immune system is programmed by the genome to recognize as native, there will be attack by the immune system. Imagine the immune system attacking nerve cells for a worst case scenario. Furthermore, should the bad gene not be edited where it is significantly expressed, there will be consequences across all biological processes that particular gene is implicated in. This include malignant side reactions, incomplete reactions, etc. Thus, if you edit the genome you must do it across the entire bodies with all possible forces of Chemical Kinetics, Thermodynamics, and fluid mechanics working against you. If not impossible, this is at the minimum unbelievably difficult to overcome.

Secondly, genomic editing as we understand it, especially in CRISPR cas-9 enzymes, is effectively irreversible. You start that process, you better finish it and there is no room for significant error. This means that GIVEN the error that this hypothetical process would have, any corrective action will propagate such error further, possibly with fatal results. In biopharma, if your product kills a patient, You're done. That's it, your firm ceases to exist and your technology is immediately shit-canned. Not having a method to deal with a patient not responding well to your therapy means you basically must achieve perfection, which again, if not impossible, unbelievably difficult.

Finally,there is selectivity. This is the one where we have a fighting chance. The main reason the He Jiankui incident is so bad is that the CRISPR CAS-9 enzymes he used were absolutely nowhere near selective enough to only act on the base pairs he wanted to target. This means the patients experienced gene editing in the wrong places. Couple this with the extent of reaction problem, and the irreversibility of it and most people are sure his patients are dead or severely adversely affected. We still have problems with selectivity when working with gene therapies because Watson-Crick base pairing alone simply is not enough. There are issues with the molecular structure of the genetic material itself, the kinetics of the Watson-Crick binding (which we don't understand very well, given that chemical kinetics is effectively it's own complex, painful, and tedious field of study), and the simple statistical issue of finding a treatment with enough base pairs to be unique, but small enough to be feasibly delivered to be considered. And this is just scratching the surface, I haven't even gotten into the mathematics, the problems with the mathematical models, or the logistical problems of performing the experiments needdd to get the mathematicd and our understanding of the science to the level needed to being working selectively.

Now for the big issue with developing gene EDITING tech: Sense-Antisense technology. (Herein:"S-AS") with this, I can make a small, synthetic strand of DNA, chemically attuned to be delivered to the body systems of the patients where its effect is relevant. S-AS  tech uses these DNA strands to bind to the mutated gene during it's expression, when the polymerase has unzipped the helix, and thus silences the mutation because the polymerase will not read the resulting double-strand. With annealing procedures, the phosphothioate backbone can be modified to have a sense strand, which the polymerase would read and express instead. This sense strand thus acts to "repair" the mutation. As the helix is zipped back up, the S-AS oligonucleotide is kicked off of the strand. Thus there are two advantages immediately: the S-AS tech does not leave a significant cytoskeletal signature, and if they patient responds adversely, the solution is to deliver the complimentary oligo to the S-AS strands, the result is then digested and ceases to work, yielding reversibility. All that's left is to play with selectivity and you can achieve close to, if not the exact same affect as the editing technology with far less risk involved, so why fund develolment of the Gene editing tech? Pharmaceutical investors don't give a shit how sci-fi and cool gene editing sounds, and neither does uncle sam.



That's about as layman as I can put it, feel free to DM and talk about this stuff. It's fun


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## Picklechu (Feb 8, 2020)

Most politicians are dumb as fuck when it comes to public policy. The skills it takes to win election to public office are not the same skills that translate over well to policymaking and governing. In my experience, having worked on both the campaign side and the public policy side, this is especially notable when freshmen are elected to state legislatures and the U.S. House of Representatives, especially because of the scale of the issues that they have to deal with. Some can be there for decades and still be dumb as fuck - they just like being important and collecting paychecks and gimmedats, and don't even try to learn, specialize in a policy area, etc. It's less relevant when it comes to stuff like the Bumfuck Egypt City Council, since they're just deciding community center hours and shit like that, so it generally doesn't matter if Councilman Cletus literally has an IQ of 70.

There are _tons _of statewide elected offices all across the U.S. where the officeholder _literally does nothing_ while collecting a $50K-$100K paycheck; the worst offender, to my knowledge, is the Wisconsin State Treasurer, who literally just has to participate in a handful of conference calls a few times per year.

Banks and credit unions rely on the fact that most people are easily confused and overwhelmed by finances to offer mediocre products that make them more money off of consumers. Like, for example, unless you're a complete fuckup, or a multimillionaire with complex financial needs, you should never have to pay for a checking account - banks should actually be paying _you _for that. Unless you're an 18 year-old or a complete fuckup, that shitty little credit card with no rewards is just there to generate swipe fees and interest, and paying interest on a credit card (in most situations) is stupid anyway. Annuities are a com-fucking-pletely terrible investment unless you're a Chris-tier/Phil-tier impulsive retard who can't keep themselves from spending money. I could go on and on. This isn't to say that if a bank has shitty products like this that _all _of their products are shitty, although it does certainly help fund the less shitty products (which relates to bundling risk and whatnot).

Most dieting advice is bullshit. Literally, to lose weight, burn more calories than you consume - that is it. Your body can't break the laws of physics, and if you're "totally burning more calories, but I keep gaining weight!" then you're miscalculating how much you're eating, how much exercise you're doing, or both. On that note, personal trainers are generally a waste of money. They won't tell you anything that you can't learn online for free, and aren't some magical, secret shortcut to becoming pretty.

Your local tax firm is staffed by a sleepy, elderly man who sits on his ass for 8 months a year and a bunch of part-time/temporary Kengles. Most of them have next to no idea what they're doing, and are essentially just going down a list and checking boxes. Unless your finances are incredibly complex, you can do that shit yourself. On that note, you can do your taxes for free directly with the IRS; TurboTax and stuff like that will hold your hand a little bit more, but if you've been filing taxes for years and are used to it, and assuming you don't have anything crazy going on, there's literally no reason to pay.



JULAY said:


> If you're looking for a job on Indeed, don't click on "Apply now with Indeed"... Recruiters might look at Indeed applications once a week (or less). Instead, go to the company's website and apply directly through that. Applications that come through the website go into the company's applicant tracking system, and those are the first ones that recruiters are going to see. Also, if a job has been posted for more than five days, don't waste you time applying for it unless it is a very specialized position. After 5 days, most job postings will have dozens of applicants, and at least a few who are viable for the position. Anyone who applies after that isn't even going to have their application seen by a person, let alone get selected for an interview.


And if you _do _use the "apply through Indeed" button, at least attach a generic cover letter, which increases the chance of the application being looked at.


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## Captain Manning (Feb 8, 2020)

Picklechu said:


> There are _tons _of statewide elected offices all across the U.S. where the officeholder _literally does nothing_ while collecting a $50K-$100K paycheck



Oh, here in Arizona, we pay our elected idiots about what they're worth. Our dumbass state representatives get $24,000 a year. Every year or two they put a measure on the ballot begging us to raise their salary, and every year we vote "Lol. Get fucked." I want them to just print that next to the checkbox instead of "No" from now on.

The Governor draws a $95,000 a year salary. Which is probably fair, considering he's supposed to be akin to a CEO. It's actually the third lowest salary for a governor in the nation.


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## Smaug's Smokey Hole (Feb 8, 2020)

Synthetic Smug said:


> If you're an artist, don't go into game development. There are better paths.
> 
> Everybody wants to do it, and the money and stability isn't there as a result. Further, the field is consolidating to a few big corporations and most of the opportunities are in a handful of expensive cities. Austin is a sweatshop. Woke minorities are used as human shields for sharp business practices. It's no longer a prestigious profession, but it's still regarded as such by low-information students that are sold a bill of goods by colleges.
> 
> ...



Unless you're a god tier artist, then unemployment doesn't exist. The company folds, no big deal, other companies have always been sniffing around. That's always been true for those at the top of the heap though, but if someone is that skilled and versatile as an artist wtf are they doing working on video games.

In my experience lead concept artist is the best position to have in video games, it's a specialized skillset that translates across other fields like movies, commercials, music videos, tv and so on. Outside of games it's usually contract work that pays very well for an individual and if someone is really good they will always have clients lining up, no need to hustle or sell pictures of foxes fucking on deviantart.


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## Synthetic Smug (Feb 8, 2020)

Smaug's Smokey Hole said:


> Unless you're a god tier artist, then unemployment doesn't exist. The company folds, no big deal, other companies have always been sniffing around. That's always been true for those at the top of the heap though, but if someone is that skilled and versatile as an artist wtf are they doing working on video games.
> 
> In my experience lead concept artist is the best position to have in video games, it's a specialized skillset that translates across other fields like movies, commercials, music videos, tv and so on. Outside of games it's usually contract work that pays very well for an individual and if someone is really good they will always have clients lining up, no need to hustle or sell pictures of foxes fucking on deviantart.


Yeah, you have some guys that are big exceptions and are really the face of a lot of big money franchises. Good work if you can get it. Even then you see interviews with guys like Craig Mullins and Feng Zhu and it's not hard to read between the lines that even they find teaching to be more stable and less stressful. Everybody wants to be them, but they themselves are weary of the hustle. It seems like the money is great, but the hours are killer at the top of the heap. If you're hot, you have to keep your presence out there to stay hot.

You're also locked into a particular set of industries, and are tacitly underwriting their behavior. It's not for everybody.


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## Malodorous Merkin (Feb 8, 2020)

Here's one that's sure to give you the warm fuzzies.

I repair the anesthesia machines that do the breathing for you when you're knocked out on the operating room table. Very often when I take apart the breathing circuits to do repairs/maintenance, I find lots of furry black mold.

Yum.

All that exhaled moisture and lung funk from all those gross humans just breeds inside the tubes and pumpyworks of the machines.

Sure, there's a HEPA filter they put between the patient and the machine for each case, and in theory that keeps you from breathing all the little fuzzy black beasties.

That's the theory anyway.


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## Agoraphobic Bullshit (Feb 8, 2020)

In prisons, there's often more crime occurring between staff and inmates or staff and staff than inmates and other inmates. Also, about 5% of inmates are in a relationship with a staff member at any given time. This always baffled me since.... the MRSA, Hep C and HIV run rampant.


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## Smaug's Smokey Hole (Feb 8, 2020)

Synthetic Smug said:


> Yeah, you have some guys that are big exceptions and are really the face of a lot of big money franchises. Good work if you can get it. Even then you see interviews with guys like Craig Mullins and Feng Zhu and it's not hard to read between the lines that even they find teaching to be more stable and less stressful. Everybody wants to be them, but they themselves are weary of the hustle. It seems like the money is great, but the hours are killer at the top of the heap. If you're hot, you have to keep your presence out there to stay hot.
> 
> You're also locked into a particular set of industries, and are tacitly underwriting their behavior. It's not for everybody.



Well, if you start doing web development then you are locked into that industry. Same thing if you become a plumber or a doctor. The only way to not be locked into a profession is by exclusively doing unqualified labor. That might not be the wisest choice.

Besides, running a 100% workload is not necessary. There are some stellar artists that isn't gunning for work on the new Star Wars, instead they work on smaller productions. I knew a guy that charged $4k-6k per piece depending on the complexity, with a minimum of eight images produced per job, and he never lacked work nor was he overworked. He was a phenom though, you've probably seen what came out of his art but never heard his name.


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## Picklechu (Feb 8, 2020)

Captain Manning said:


> Oh, here in Arizona, we pay our elected idiots about what they're worth. Our dumbass state representatives get $24,000 a year. Every year or two they put a measure on the ballot begging us to raise their salary, and every year we vote "Lol. Get fucked." I want them to just print that next to the checkbox instead of "No" from now on.


I mean, that's a way to guarantee that _only _idiots, retirees, and the independently wealthy run for the legislature. I actually like what we do in Alabama - the pay is tied to the state's median income, making it about $49K/year right now.


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## LazloChalos (Feb 8, 2020)

This is mostly for people who live in small cities but may apply to other places.

Many places that sell computers (or any other high-ticket items) keep their stock locked up, many of them also sell the units at a loss but try to sell them with their own warranties (which only activate AFTER the manufacturer's warranty and you still have to pay shipping and handling) so if you walk in and show interest in a machine the associate is trained to browbeat you with a lot of information, including accessories and warranties and quickly attempt to make the sale before even showing you the product.

Tell them you just want the machine? "Sure, one second while I bring it out"
After a few minutes? "*sucks air through teeth* It seems our inventory malfunctioned and we do not have that model available, you are welcome to use the website"

Best thing to do, walk in, say yes to whatever they offer, tell them to have everything ready as you have to pick up additional things.

Once you arrive to pay (make sure the hardware is present, even ask to see the box serial just so they show you they have the item) tell them you just got an urgent message and have to go (so they stop pestering you) and that forgot your other card and will only be taking the machine.


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## Robert James (Feb 8, 2020)

Hewlett Packard Enterprise sales is a complete mess and you should probably just go with dell. I won't go too deep into how fucked up their system is but to give you a few highlights outside and inside sales never communicate with each other, they want you to call at least 60 clients a day which is no big deal unless your like 50% of the staff that has >70 clients in total. The head of inside sales is a PR wet dream as she is a female POC and will soon be head of sales for HPE. She has no experience in sales and for some reason thinks calling clients on an almost daily basis in an industry where your mid-sized clients buy once a year will get more sales. She also has a habit of firing off 30% of the staff right before the end of the fiscal year so it looks like she cut down staff but increased profits. There top sales people are leaving and the people they have left are often glorified secretaries. Just invest in dell, HPE is fucked for the server market. 

Also sales, in general, is a fucking awful job to have. Doing well one year will often lead to your next years expectations to be higher then you can muster and you are incentivized to hide your number and space out your sales if you have a good quarter so you aren't fucked. Its especially bad if you have a set number of clients that are buying a product that will last them a while. Youcan have an amazing quarter and convince your client to entirely refresh their datacenter and make enough to fill your quato for a year and a half yet you have to lie about it since there not going to buy from you again for five years and you're expected to do better than that sale next quarter.


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## Whatsup bud? (Feb 8, 2020)

I work in public schools and can say that kids are getting stupider in reading comprehension, research, and note taking.


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## Rudol von Stroheim (Feb 8, 2020)

A lot of dog groomers don't know dick about what they're actually doing because you don't need a qualification to start grooming somebody's dog, this means you need to be shop savvy and if you care about the look of your dog - ask for pictures or a groomer's portfolio before committing. So many rip people off, £40 / $50-60 a pop just to shave a dog off (which is the easiest form of grooming and can be done at home). 
If your groomer tells you they need to shave off the dog, tell them to SHOW you why.  If the dog is severely matted, fair enough. If the dog has a matt under the arm or in the genitals, the dog does not need shaving off - your groomer's being lazy or stupid. 
Poodle cut means different things and so does 'teddy cut'. Teddy cut is a traditional poodle cut (long body w/short ears, poodle face/feet). Don't ask for it if you don't want the 'poodle' look. So many people do and some groomers take it literal. 
Your dog is not a 'miniature labradoodle or cockapoo' - if you say this, the groomer is judging you. 
If a groomer offers a teeth clean, a facial wash - any bullshit pamper treatment, it's probably totally redundant and wont help your dog in anyway. It just makes more money and sounds good. Most products they use require repeated uses to actually make a difference. 
Dog grooming is entirely subjective regardless of what breeders or groomers might say. Keep your dog brushed and have whatever style you want; there's a guideline for breeds but it's your dog, you don't have to drop coat your yorkshire terrier just because a groomer said so.


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## Pissmaster (Feb 8, 2020)

Picklechu said:


> Most dieting advice is bullshit. Literally, to lose weight, burn more calories than you consume - that is it. Your body can't break the laws of physics, and if you're "totally burning more calories, but I keep gaining weight!" then you're miscalculating how much you're eating, how much exercise you're doing, or both. On that note, personal trainers are generally a waste of money. They won't tell you anything that you can't learn online for free, and aren't some magical, secret shortcut to becoming pretty.



Speaking from personal experience:  If you think you're doing everything right but you're not losing weight, start using an app where you log _every single thing you devour._ Every last one.  You're probably not counting certain things, and you can easily do that on accident.  Even the food samples at Costco or a random piece of candy you got at the bank need to go on your log.   Coffee goes on your log, along with exactly how much creamer and sugar you used.  It is ridiculous how many extra calories here and there you'll discover. 

If you have a newer Samsung phone, Samsung Health has a built-in food log.  If not, MyFitnessPal works too.


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## Smaug's Smokey Hole (Feb 9, 2020)

Robert James said:


> Hewlett Packard Enterprise sales is a complete mess and you should probably just go with dell. I won't go too deep into how fucked up their system is but to give you a few highlights outside and inside sales never communicate with each other, they want you to call at least 60 clients a day which is no big deal unless your like 50% of the staff that has >70 clients in total. The head of inside sales is a PR wet dream as she is a female POC and will soon be head of sales for HPE. She has no experience in sales and for some reason thinks calling clients on an almost daily basis in an industry where your mid-sized clients buy once a year will get more sales. She also has a habit of firing off 30% of the staff right before the end of the fiscal year so it looks like she cut down staff but increased profits. There top sales people are leaving and the people they have left are often glorified secretaries. Just invest in dell, HPE is fucked for the server market.
> 
> Also sales, in general, is a fucking awful job to have. Doing well one year will often lead to your next years expectations to be higher then you can muster and you are incentivized to hide your number and space out your sales if you have a good quarter so you aren't fucked. Its especially bad if you have a set number of clients that are buying a product that will last them a while. Youcan have an amazing quarter and convince your client to entirely refresh their datacenter and make enough to fill your quato for a year and a half yet you have to lie about it since there not going to buy from you again for five years and you're expected to do better than that sale next quarter.



The HPE sales department can suck my ass. I don't know what it's like in the US but here the sales people gets(or used to get) a commission of their sales. This means that they are chasing the big sales, buy for less than $50k and they won't give you the time of day. There's also another thing, HP not only sells servers directly to customers they also offer installation and support so if you're trying to sell HP gear to someone and HP is trying to sell the same gear to the same customer then you can never, ever beat them in price even if you sell at cost. Fair enough, but here's the worst part: if those rat fuckers figure out who your customer is they will go directly to them with an offer you can't beat.


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## Robert James (Feb 9, 2020)

Smaug's Smokey Hole said:


> The HPE sales department can suck my ass. I don't know what it's like in the US but here the sales people gets(or used to get) a commission of their sales. This means that they are chasing the big sales, buy for less than $50k and they won't give you the time of day. There's also another thing, HP not only sells servers directly to customers they also offer installation and support so if you're trying to sell HP gear to someone and HP is trying to sell the same gear to the same customer then you can never, ever beat them in price even if you sell at cost. Fair enough, but here's the worst part: if those rat fuckers figure out who your customer is they will go directly to them with an offer you can't beat.



I fucking feel for you, I can't tell you the number of times I've had to tell my boss to fuck off about undercutting our partners. Especially when they give you four fucking states to cover and on sales rep you need the field to help you out and the moment you undercut them your fucked for every other partner.  Our services fucking suck, unless you get the top of the line or the second-best your screwed. Bottom of the line service does nothing and we throw it into skew with the hope people don't notice. Also I don't know how hard they've been pushing green lake on you but my god does management not understand our partners do not want to sell a service that will keep them from selling to a customer ever again.

Also since you got me thinking about our services I can't count the number of times I've been screaming at support to help a client that buys roughly 500K of product a year. They always use the fucking line that the client doesn't have the top of the line service so we cant help them. I have to fucking explain to them that the clients a fucking hospital that will go down if we don't fix this problem immediately and that I don't give a shit that they didn't buy our premium service because dell will fix the problem for free within the hour. It happens way more than you'd think and usually ends with the regional manager giving you a talk about how you cant bend the rules for clients, and that's not how we do business and you have to keep from telling them to fuck off.

If it makes you feel better us ratfuckers hate our job and most pray for a heart attack.


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## Smaug's Smokey Hole (Feb 9, 2020)

Robert James said:


> I fucking feel for you, I can't tell you the number of times I've had to tell my boss to fuck off about undercutting our partners. Especially when they give you four fucking states to cover and on sales rep you need the field to help you out and the moment you undercut them your fucked for every other partner.  Our services fucking suck, unless you get the top of the line or the second-best your screwed. Bottom of the line service does nothing and we throw it into skew with the hope people don't notice. Also I don't know how hard they've been pushing green lake on you but my god does management not understand our partners do not want to sell a service that will keep them from selling to a customer ever again.
> 
> Also since you got me thinking about our services I can't count the number of times I've been screaming at support to help a client that buys roughly 500K of product a year. They always use the fucking line that the client doesn't have the top of the line service so we cant help them. I have to fucking explain to them that the clients a fucking hospital that will go down if we don't fix this problem immediately and that I don't give a shit that they didn't buy our premium service because dell will fix the problem for free within the hour. It happens way more than you'd think and usually ends with the regional manager giving you a talk about how you cant bend the rules for clients, and that's not how we do business and you have to keep from telling them to fuck off.
> 
> If it makes you feel better us ratfuckers hate our job and most pray for a heart attack.



I'm not in that business anymore but HP made my blood boil for so many reasons. Their enterprise networking gear seemed good though.
Fujitsu/Fujitsu-Siemens was a dream to work with, they only sell to partners(might have changed) and even if we were just buying a server for 10-12 grand they told us that they would configure one to our spec and we could come try it out in a couple of hours at their office, with one of their hardware guys there to ask and answer questions, then we could borrow it if it seemed like the right fit but more testing had to be done, no problem. Great sales team, really chill, for us they really delivered and were easy to work with. Their regional head of sales also picked up my bar tab a couple of times and that doesn't hurt, I didn't even know the guy but he remembered me and that really leaves an impression.

I love them like I love my mother.


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## Bunny Tracks (Feb 9, 2020)

Malodorous Merkin said:


> Here's one that's sure to give you the warm fuzzies.
> 
> I repair the anesthesia machines that do the breathing for you when you're knocked out on the operating room table. Very often when I take apart the breathing circuits to do repairs/maintenance, I find lots of furry black mold.
> 
> ...


I'm sorry, but do you fucking report this? Because if not you're just as liable for it.


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## Piss Clam (Feb 9, 2020)

Scientist and Mathematicians, and doctors make poor programmers. I can't tell you the amount of spaghetti code I and others have had to unwind.

If you run across them...and they start bitching about their shoddy shit tell them to go read about Lorenz. Maybe they will come back with a theory.









						Edward Norton Lorenz - Wikipedia
					






					en.wikipedia.org
				






Bunny Tracks said:


> I'm sorry, but do you fucking report this? Because if not you're just as liable for it.



Well he appears to be American so if he works in the medical device field he has to report it under FDA rules. Don't do that, and your company and along with you are fucked, as the FDA will shut you down.

If anyone dies you have to file what is called a MDR.









						Medical Device Reporting (MDR): How to Report Medical Device Problems
					

Requirements for reporting medical device problems, including malfunctions and adverse events (serious injuries or deaths) associated with medical devices.




					www.fda.gov


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## Dom Cruise (Feb 9, 2020)

Whatsup bud? said:


> I work in public schools and can say that kids are getting stupider in reading comprehension, research, and note taking.



I have a cousin who's wife is a kindergarten teacher and although it may sound like Boomer political cartoon nonsense, kids thinking they can swipe books is in fact a real thing.


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## Malodorous Merkin (Feb 9, 2020)

Bunny Tracks said:


> I'm sorry, but do you fucking report this? Because if not you're just as liable for it.



It's every anesthesia machine(ventilators too). It's just an inevitability. The moisture in exhaled breath gets into the machine's breathing circuit, and it does what it does. It's absolutely not feasible to clean the circuit between each patient, because it's a procedure that takes about an hour.  There are condenser gizmos on some machines that demoisturize the exhalations, but even that doesn't stop the problem of mold and mildew.

It's just the way it is, and the HEPA filter in the circuit apparently does work. Injury/infection from anesthesia machines isn't a problem, and life-support medical equipment such as anesthesia machines are regulated up the ass by all sorts of agencies and associations. If there was some sort of epidemic problem related to the mold, it would be discovered and addressed.

The mold isn't a problem, but it's just gross and scary knowing it's there.

Enjoy the brain spiders I've gifted you.


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## Spunt (Feb 9, 2020)

Speed cameras in the UK are calibrated to activate using the following formula:

Activation speed = Speed limit + (speed limit/10) + 2mph

So a camera on a 30mph road will go off at 35mph (30+3+2), one on a 70mph motorway will go off at 79mph (70+7+2). This is because speed cameras, especially older models, are incredibly inaccurate. One guy was clocked on his motorcycle going 180mph (the highest speed ever "recorded" in the UK) but the case was thrown out of court because the bike was tested and was physically incapable of going more than 150mph. In percentage terms, that's a huge margin of error and that's how notorious celebrity lawyer Nick "Mr Loophole" Freeman gets his clients off speeding charges.

Also, "Penalty Fares" on trains are completely unenforceable. If you refuse to pay and say you would prefer to go to court, they will drop the case because they will lose. A penalty fare has NEVER gone to court. Ever. It's just bluster and hot air and they will try to intimidate you into paying. The press has a complete blackout on this fact. Another fact the press has a complete blackout on is the fact that Cherie Blair was cheating on Tony Blair with Lord Falconer throughout Tony's stint as PM. Because both Cherie Blair and Lord Falconer are two of the most powerful lawyers in the country and Blair was the Prime Minister, the press was too frightened of increased government regulation and/or legal action to print the story, even though there is incontrovertible evidence of it.


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## Bunny Tracks (Feb 9, 2020)

Malodorous Merkin said:


> It's every anesthesia machine(ventilators too). It's just an inevitability. The moisture in exhaled breath gets into the machine's breathing circuit, and it does what it does. It's absolutely not feasible to clean the circuit between each patient, because it's a procedure that takes about an hour.  There are condenser gizmos on some machines that demoisturize the exhalations, but even that doesn't stop the problem of mold and mildew.
> 
> It's just the way it is, and the HEPA filter in the circuit apparently does work. Injury/infection from anesthesia machines isn't a problem, and life-support medical equipment such as anesthesia machines are regulated up the ass by all sorts of agencies and associations. If there was some sort of epidemic problem related to the mold, it would be discovered and addressed.
> 
> ...


You didn't answer my question. Do you report it when you find it?


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## Malodorous Merkin (Feb 9, 2020)

Bunny Tracks said:


> You didn't answer my question. Do you report it when you find it?



Report it to who? The Commissioner of Moldy Anesthesia Machine Affairs?

I've talked to a couple of anesthesiologists about it, and they were like "Yup. That happens." 

A lot of people who are a lot smarter than me know all about it. If I reported it, it'd be nothing but a "No shit, Sherlock."


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## Bunny Tracks (Feb 9, 2020)

Malodorous Merkin said:


> Report it to who? The Commissioner of Moldy Anesthesia Machine Affairs?
> 
> I've talked to a couple of anesthesiologists about it, and they were like "Yup. That happens."
> 
> ...


To the Health Department. To any of the higher-ups. To the press. To fucking anyone. Fucking hell, you not reporting it is just as horrific as it being there in the first place. How the fuck are you so nonchalant about shit like this? Black mold of a huge fucking deal, dude, and the fact that neither you, nor the anesthesiologists seem to give a shit is completely unprofessional, immoral, and an inexcusable.


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## Etrian Autistry (Feb 9, 2020)

If you have a car or some reliable means of transportation, being a guard is basically being paid to be a NEET. You futz about with getting a guard license for a couple weeks (it costs about 50 USD) but most security companies are desperate to get as many guards as they possibly can. All you do is go to a site and sit down for 8-12 hours and read/play video games. Plenty of opportunities for overtime too, but we'll get to why that is.

The management for most of these security companies are complete shit for employees. You'll put in your form for taking PTO a month early, and you won't hear anything back until the week of, with the branch manager begging you not to take off because "we have nobody to fill in waahh waaaah."  They take months to deliver new uniforms to you, and they do everything they can to sneak off with your money when payday comes by not adding in overtime hours, not giving you PTO hours, etc. 

There are four types of people who sign up; cop wannabes, obnoxious little shits who usually have a history of misdemeanors and who wanna get 'experience' being a cop despite police stations actively avoiding hiring former guards because they know they're incompetent as fuck; former military lads, usually get out of their branch and either are riding penchents or just wanna act as some kind of commander who bullies the newer guards; proto-neets who give no fucks about their jobs because they know the management is so desperate for guards that they won't be fired; and lastly relatively normal people.

It is incredibly common for people to simply not show up to their job, and nothing will ever be done about them. This leads to you having to stay after for several hours while your dispatcher clamors around for someone to come fill in, as you are not allowed to leave until you are relieved.



Spoiler: Minor Powerlevel



At one point we had a new guard at my assigned site who used the company computer to look up MLP hentai and got our computer a virus, who was found out one of the IT people. He was kicked out of our site, and last I heard he is now stationed at a hospital somewhere nearby. For an entire week until they got rid of the virus, every 20 minutes we had a little pop up window in the bottom right of our computer screen that would advertise pastel pink pony puss.


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## Malodorous Merkin (Feb 9, 2020)

Bunny Tracks said:


> To the Health Department. To any of the higher-ups. To the press. To fucking anyone. Fucking hell, you not reporting it is just as horrific as it being there in the first place. How the fuck are you so nonchalant about shit like this? Black mold of a huge fucking deal, dude, and the fact that neither you, nor the anesthesiologists seem to give a shit is completely unprofessional, immoral, and an inexcusable.



There is nothing unique about the situation with the anesthesia machines in just my one little hospital. It is literally the same situation as every single anesthesia machine in the entire world. It's not a dark and nefarious secret, it's just simple fact that mold and yuckies grow inside the breathing circuits, and a HEPA filter in the circuit keeps those yuckies from doing harm to the patients.

It wouldn't make me Erin Brockovich if I started REEEEing about it like a sped. It'd just make me a sped REEEEing about a problem that's already solved.


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## 1Tonka_Truck (Feb 9, 2020)

Always call 811/Digsafe. Even if you're just digging with a shovel. Service lines for gas, phone, and cable are almost always hilariously shallow and are easy to damage. I cut a poly gas service line by sticking a shovel in the ground. It was less than 6" deep and 30" off from where it was marked.


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## Twinkie (Feb 9, 2020)

Malodorous Merkin said:


> There is nothing unique about the situation with the anesthesia machines in just my one little hospital. It is literally the same situation as every single anesthesia machine in the entire world. It's not a dark and nefarious secret, it's just simple fact that mold and yuckies grow inside the breathing circuits, and a HEPA filter in the circuit keeps those yuckies from doing harm to the patients.
> 
> It wouldn't make me Erin Brockovich if I started REEEEing about it like a sped. It'd just make me a sped REEEEing about a problem that's already solved.



I'm curious, do you have to wear like a respirator or any kind of equipment to protect your own health when working on the machines?


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## Malodorous Merkin (Feb 9, 2020)

SAVE TWINKIE! said:


> I'm curious, do you have to wear like a respirator or any kind of equipment to protect your own health when working on the machines?



Nope. I just take the whole breathing circuit off the anesthesia machine, put it in the OR scrub sink, and then I take it all apart and wash all the parts with antibacterial soap just like I'm doing the dishes. But I only do that as part of the annual maintenance, so it's only really squeaky clean and sanitized once a year.


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## Shield Breaker (Feb 9, 2020)

Slot machines are programmed to pay out regularly. There's literally no luck involved except for not picking one that paid out recently. Casinos can also claim that the software is malfunctioning and deny that big jackpot you just won. Sure, you can sue them, but I hope you are not playing in a tribal casino. They are a sovereign nation, and so your suit will be thrown out of US court. There is the tribal courts, but if you are not a member of the tribe, good luck with them ruling in your favor.


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## AnOminous (Feb 9, 2020)

Shield Breaker said:


> Slot machines are programmed to pay out regularly. There's literally no luck involved except for not picking one that paid out recently. Casinos can also claim that the software is malfunctioning and deny that big jackpot you just won. Sure, you can sue them, but I hope you are not playing in a tribal casino. They are a sovereign nation, and so your suit will be thrown out of US court. There is the tribal courts, but if you are not a member of the tribe, good luck with them ruling in your favor.



It's not quite as simple as that.  They're programmed to pay out a specific percentage of what they take in over time, but it's over a sliding period of time.  If it were just as simple as not paying out regularly, it would be easily exploitable by simply having groups keep track of recent payouts and long runs of small payouts and sending in one of their guys for the machines about to hit.  In fact, this has been done in the past when methods were more simplistic.  Without (illegally) hacking or otherwise cheating, you can't really do this any more (without using insider knowledge which again would be actually illegal unlike simply observing).

The only real edge you can get on slot machines (legally) is on progressives with high payouts, especially those with multiple machines qualifying for the jackpot, sufficient that the size of the jackpot is higher than the take on the machine itself.  Then the group goes in and heavily plays those machines, which can be difficult when they're usually incredibly popular at that point because the advantage is obvious.

Casinos love progressives because they don't have to pay for these jackpots, they're entirely formed from the drop paid by previous players.  That's why you see things like bad beat jackpots at poker and huge jackpots on progressive slot machines.  Even when they're entirely on the up and up (which I would not assume at an Indian casino) it doesn't actually cost the casino anything when someone hits it.  By comparison a crazy Arab who goes on a run at baccarat can put a serious dent in profits.

One way to actually make money at slots, although it isn't always available, is some casinos will have a slots "tournament" from time to time where you pay a fixed fee to play and after the rake, the buyins go into a pool, then by meeting some criteria (like getting the most winnings) you get a cut of the prize pool.  Then you play higher variance machines more likely to hit big while the rest of the pool is playing nearly at random.

Slots are otherwise virtually never worth playing because all the obvious methods of exploiting them or predicting their behavior are long closed and the ones remaining are mostly illegal and will get you arrested or worse.  I'm sure someone out there is still exploiting some of them and not getting greedy enough to get flagged, but those people don't talk.


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## IAmNotAlpharius (Feb 9, 2020)

Every hotel gets bed bugs. It doesn’t matter how expensive it is. The really nice places will require pest control employees to dress up as staff or to come at midnight. Often they’ll put the rooms up after a single treatment and hope you don’t notice or feign ignorance. If you do notice they’ll give you a refund and additional nights. Also a nice hotel doesn’t mean that the restaurant is nice or clean. It’s not that uncommon for a good hotel to be relatively clean and run well, but the restaurants are a complete mess and attract pests. That’s because the restaurants will have different owners than the hotel and are renting out space.

People die at hotels all the time. They usually will try to make it look like the person is just sick. They’ll take the body down a work elevator and during low traffic hours to reduce the chances of patrons freaking out. The other dark side about hotels is that they care less about human-trafficking than they let on. They’ll act all high and mighty about it in training but in practice they’re very slow, calloused, and indifferent.

Tech companies at the end of the day are for profit organizations. This isn’t a surprise unless you’re a blind fanboy or ideologue. All the grandstanding is for internal and external PR. They only care about money. All the diversity and green stuff is to placate HR and to get anti-corporate leftists on their side. They have no issues selling products to totalitarian states like Saudi Arabia or even China if the bill is big enough. Also, all the tech companies have broken processes and are more disfunctional than the public thinks, it doesn’t matter if it’s Google, Facebook, or Microsoft. They *all* have major issues.


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## Shield Breaker (Feb 9, 2020)

AnOminous said:


> It's not quite as simple as that.  They're programmed to pay out a specific percentage of what they take in over time, but it's over a sliding period of time.  If it were just as simple as not paying out regularly, it would be easily exploitable by simply having groups keep track of recent payouts and long runs of small payouts and sending in one of their guys for the machines about to hit.  In fact, this has been done in the past when methods were more simplistic.  Without (illegally) hacking or otherwise cheating, you can't really do this any more (without using insider knowledge which again would be actually illegal unlike simply observing).
> 
> The only real edge you can get on slot machines (legally) is on progressives with high payouts, especially those with multiple machines qualifying for the jackpot, sufficient that the size of the jackpot is higher than the take on the machine itself.  Then the group goes in and heavily plays those machines, which can be difficult when they're usually incredibly popular at that point because the advantage is obvious.
> 
> ...



I was being a bit too simplistic, but yeah. My main point was that it isn't random like most people would think that it is. Also, if the software screws up in your favor, then they will almost certainly not honor it, and screwing up can simply mean paying out a larger amount then it should have at the time.

I didn't work with the software or machines, btw, I handled paperwork. All that really tells you is that people are not winning the casino's money, just a little bit of the other suckers who visit.


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## AnOminous (Feb 10, 2020)

Shield Breaker said:


> I didn't work with the software or machines, btw, I handled paperwork. All that really tells you is that people are not winning the casino's money, just a little bit of the other suckers who visit.



That's true.  You're never going to have a situation where the casino loses money because a bunch of slot machines all suddenly got super lucky, because they're ALWAYS, over whatever period of time they choose, guaranteed to make their profit, which is the hold on the machine, i.e. the amount that doesn't get paid out.  They can set that to whatever they like.  They generally have to be accurate and disclose that, although the rules vary place to place.  They usually don't lie about that because there's no good reason to, but a few truly scummy places do.

Casinos love these things because they can guarantee profit, they can tweak it however they like within a few limits, and the zombies who play these things are usually not particularly boisterous.  They just sit there losing money until they're done.  And you don't need people to babysit them either.  These are all things you can't say about traditional table games.


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## Dr. Sexbot (Feb 10, 2020)

More often than not, police departments do not give any kind of shit about alarm calls from ADT or Brinks.  Their dispatch rates are slow, and their false alarm rates are high -- they are simply not worth the officers' time to respond, and the 911 operators will straight-up tell you that.

If you want a home or commercial alarm system that gets a real response from police, go with a smaller, local or regional alarm monitoring company that is UL CERTIFIED.  Yes, UL also certifies alarm central stations, and their shit is strict.  A local company that's got their UL certification is going to be taken a lot more seriously.  You will pay more, you will get a more comprehensive system, and it will be less false-alarm prone.

That said, the fire department will respond to every fucking alarm call they receive, whether you know it's a false alarm or not.  That's a whole 'nother matter.

In many jurisdictions, the fire marshal has the same authority as the chief of police; in addition to having the authority to shut down a building, he can arrest your ass for a crime like any other officer.  Often in places like New England, these cushy jobs are handed out to the most insufferable assholes with union ties.

Many retail locations still rely on land lines for their alarm systems.  Cellular backup, alarm signals over IP and other forms of redundancy are still surprisingly uncommon, despite being supported by the hardware.  Cheaper jurisdictions even allow for the fire and burglar alarm systems to be combined into one point of failure.


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## NOT Sword Fighter Super (Feb 10, 2020)

Most of the time when you're on the phone with customer service people they ask you for the same information over and over again because their systems are slow and they're just stalling you for time so their information can load.


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## Pargon (Feb 10, 2020)

NOT Sword Fighter Super said:


> Most of the time when you're on the phone with customer service people they ask you for the same information over and over again because their systems are slow and they're just stalling you for time so their information can load.


That, or the last rep you talked to was an utter cunt and didn't document properly or cold-transferred without filling the poor bastard in.


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## Angel Dust (Feb 10, 2020)

"No Kill" humane societies in fact do not euthanize animals, however, that doesn't mean they don't send animals to a different shelter that does euthanize. A problem dog or cat might be sent to a kill shelter so it's no longer their problem and they can still claim to be no kill.

Edit to add: add 2 years on the age of the animal from whatever shelter your adopting says it is.


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## Freedom Fries (Feb 10, 2020)

Unless you personally know the management or are high net-worth and are looking for special treatment, don't invest in an actively managed publicly available investment securities funds. I think they have largely lost popularity, but make sure. They historically have done no better than passively managed ones, and the extra fees means you're actually getting less from your investments. Schwab actually has pretty good investor tools, workshops, and advice.



Malodorous Merkin said:


> It's every anesthesia machine(ventilators too). It's just an inevitability. The moisture in exhaled breath gets into the machine's breathing circuit, and it does what it does. It's absolutely not feasible to clean the circuit between each patient, because it's a procedure that takes about an hour.  There are condenser gizmos on some machines that demoisturize the exhalations, but even that doesn't stop the problem of mold and mildew.
> 
> It's just the way it is, and the HEPA filter in the circuit apparently does work. Injury/infection from anesthesia machines isn't a problem, and life-support medical equipment such as anesthesia machines are regulated up the ass by all sorts of agencies and associations. If there was some sort of epidemic problem related to the mold, it would be discovered and addressed.
> 
> ...


Going under next week. Thanks for that.


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## Disgruntled Pupper (Feb 10, 2020)

Every national park, every area of conservational interest, and a vast amount of DNR/USGS/USFW/BLM offices have teams whose sole purpose is the mass genocide of feral and outdoor cats. Shooting cats, poisoning cats, trapping cats, gassing cats. Just a lot of dead cats. It's kept very hush hush because it upsets the normies and cat people are particularly crazy, but they're so destructive it has to be done to even slightly control the population and keep them from collapsing the ecosystem.

If you're ever in a park and see some dreary looking sheds tucked away behind the main office or visitor center and notice one has some vents or pipes out the roof that's the building with the gas chamber and incenerary for all the dead fucking cats.


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## RapeMan (Feb 13, 2020)

The only good cat is a hat.


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## Questionable Ceviche (Feb 13, 2020)

All of the major tech infrastructure in the US is subcontracts all the way down, and almost all of it ends up in India. All the big tech companies, banks, etc. all outsource their infrastructure maintenance either by paying consultants on work visas or contracting it to another company that itself has a long daisy chain of subcontracting. The contracts, especially ones for finance and government, may expressly forbid this. Everyone knows this is happening, and nobody enforces any of the no-subcontracting clauses.  Big organizations protect themselves with liability clauses that flow down the supply chain that hold vendors responsible for problems. Those vendors in turn hold their suppliers responsible, and so on.

A lot of these contracting IT service companies have American-sounding names and have stock art of smiling white people on their website. They'll have offices in Virginia or New Jersey or Delaware that look real nice in photos. Don't be fooled. The same people that run them are also running the code sweatshops in India where the actual work takes place, and they skim off most of the money as profit. The workflow is routed through chains of shell companies in order to obfuscate what's actually happening. When there is a breach, the person responsible can simply close that shell company and move business operations over to another one. It's common for one person to own multiple companies.

The only possible way to avoid this is to do everything in-house. Companies don't want to do this because paying Americans who know their shit is expensive. Doing the work in-house also exposes a company to liability when something goes wrong. Big tech companies actively lobby against greater oversight or immigration restrictions so they can have their cake and eat it, too. All of that talk about how there's no qualified Americans is a big crock of shit. Facebook, Google, et. al. hate Trump so much because he's tightened the restrictions on work visas.

No IT services or consulting company is immune to this. They may have these processes documented on paper as company policy. Enforcement of them is largely up to the team that you end up working with. A lot of recruiters at these big companies will just fudge paperwork. There's supposed to be security and process audits; everyone lies on them. There is no password hygiene and no security oversight of any kind.

There's a ton of problems in the entire industry related to shitty Indian subcontracting, but you can't talk about it anywhere because you get unpersoned as a racist. The censorship of critical discussion about it has let these illegal, unethical processes continue without any kind of check or oversight. Most people simply aren't aware. Everyone wonders why computers are so shitty. This is a huge contributing factor. 

I actually feel really bad for the people who want to come here, work hard, and just want a better life for their families because the extreme corruption in the industry hurts them as well. Indians who have the "wrong name" from a different ethnic group or caste won't get hired even if their skills are solid. Almost all the Indian tech workers in the US are from just a couple of ethnic groups and castes due to discrimination. The amount of nepotism is staggering.

tl;dr everything you do everywhere is visible to some pajeet. Turn off your computer, throw your cell phone into the sea, and go outside.


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## lightswitchdoll (Feb 13, 2020)

Spunt said:


> Also, "Penalty Fares" on trains are completely unenforceable. If you refuse to pay and say you would prefer to go to court, they will drop the case because they will lose. A penalty fare has NEVER gone to court. Ever. It's just bluster and hot air and they will try to intimidate you into paying. The press has a complete blackout on this fact.


Is that just on railways or does that include underground/metro lines? Because I got stopped for not having a ticket on the metro in Newcastle about 10yrs ago and I'm sure I ended up having to pay a court fine. But I'm guessing that might be different regulations or something?


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## Spunt (Feb 13, 2020)

lightswitchdoll said:


> Is that just on railways or does that include underground/metro lines? Because I got stopped for not having a ticket on the metro in Newcastle about 10yrs ago and I'm sure I ended up having to pay a court fine. But I'm guessing that might be different regulations or something?



As far as my knowledge goes it only applies to the National rail network, I don't know for sure about anywhere else. But did you actually physically get found guilty in an actual courtroom, or did you just cough up money in response to a threatening letter with court mentioned on it? It could be that your fare was converted to a civil debt rather than a criminal "penalty fare" (which are not really legally a thing, fare-dodging is not a criminal offence, at least not on National Rail) and you ended up with a county court or small claims judgment against you, just as if you hadn't paid your gas bill or whatever, it's not the criminal prosecution the warning signs talk about. But all you would owe in that case would be the fare, interest on the debt, and court fees. Your credit rating would be hit, but you wouldn't have a criminal record.


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## lightswitchdoll (Feb 13, 2020)

Spunt said:


> As far as my knowledge goes it only applies to the National rail network, I don't know for sure about anywhere else. But did you actually physically get found guilty in an actual courtroom, or did you just cough up money in response to a threatening letter with court mentioned on it? It could be that your fare was converted to a civil debt rather than a criminal "penalty fare" (which are not really legally a thing, fare-dodging is not a criminal offence, at least not on National Rail) and you ended up with a county court or small claims judgment against you, just as if you hadn't paid your gas bill or whatever, it's not the criminal prosecution the warning signs talk about. But all you would owe in that case would be the fare, interest on the debt, and court fees. Your credit rating would be hit, but you wouldn't have a criminal record.


Ahhh, I see. I honestly can't remember the details because it was so long ago - all I really remember is that I had a payment card with HM Courts written on it that I had to use to pay the fine which I thought was quite funny. But I was never arrested or anything like that, I just paid the fine and forgot about it.

I just remembered that back then I think they used to name and shame the people who got caught without a ticket by listing their name and partial address on big posters at the metro stations. So I got fined AND doxed. Fuckers.

I'll stop derailing now but thank you. 

edit: it was one of these cards


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## AnOminous (Feb 13, 2020)

Spunt said:


> As far as my knowledge goes it only applies to the National rail network, I don't know for sure about anywhere else. But did you actually physically get found guilty in an actual courtroom, or did you just cough up money in response to a threatening letter with court mentioned on it? It could be that your fare was converted to a civil debt rather than a criminal "penalty fare" (which are not really legally a thing, fare-dodging is not a criminal offence, at least not on National Rail) and you ended up with a county court or small claims judgment against you, just as if you hadn't paid your gas bill or whatever, it's not the criminal prosecution the warning signs talk about. But all you would owe in that case would be the fare, interest on the debt, and court fees. Your credit rating would be hit, but you wouldn't have a criminal record.



There are similar things in the States.  For instance, there are light rail systems where they operate on an "honor system" where you buy a ticket and then, before boarding, get it canceled by some machine which stamps it with whatever they need to know it's valid for that ride, but nobody checks it.

Sometimes, rarely, they send someone through to check tickets.  They do this rarely enough a lot of people won't have a stamped ticket (or any ticket at all) because people often cheese this.  Then they fine everyone.  And the law abiding types who only cheat a little pay that, while most of the rest just ignore it and nothing happens.


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## Wraith (Feb 13, 2020)

The silly: The California Achievement Test is not meant to show if you are being taught right in public schools, but to know who will be a potential threat to the elite later down in line. Watch out for anybody at an early age who suddenly gets 12.0+ on skills when they are still in grammar school. If they have the personality that would lead them to be a leader, yeah that person will be quietly isolated and stomped out into nothingness.

Some hospitals are corrupt. I know for a fact one where a relative of mine worked, (this relative was horrendously evil,) had incidents where a person would come into the emergency room and they refused to treat that person. They died waiting for help. My relative openly admitted they walked right by the person and DID NOTHING, and was terrified the hospital would get nailed for it, and they as well. They covered for each other. The story made it onto the news, but ya know how stories like that go. No one wants to investigate past a certain point, ya know? I wish I was kidding.


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## TiggerNits (Feb 13, 2020)

As a former military jet pilot, the step child of another former military pilot and in a family with literally more than a dozen military pilots produced over the last 3 generations I think I know how to 100% game the selection system

Play sports in high school/college. You don't have to be good, you don't have to be on the first string and t doesn't even need to be a team sport. My oldest 2 nephews were trying to go Air Force and Navy respectively and asked me why they weren't getting many serious discussions about it from their officer recruiters. That was the answer. You NEED to be demonstrably physically active to make anyone care and it's been that way for awhile. I know a ton of guys who were 3.0 students with joke degrees like communications, poli-sci and education that managed to get themselves in to flight slots and dudes who had 4.0 aero-sci and engineering degrees that got ignored. The main reason is the guys who could run a few miles without huffing and could work in a physical team always got top seeding

My nephew who wanted to fly Navy started running track and got on the school's BOWLING team and now he's got himself an appointment to a Naval Academy Jr college after his GPA went from a 3.9 to a 3.3.

My AF nephew started wrestling at a low weight class, got 2nd in a state 3A tourney and now he's got a fullride ROTC scholarship to a really good school and his GPA was 3.5ish.

Their friend who had a 4.0 and an Eagle Scout award is currently struggling to get selected for the Army's rotorwing training and he had his associates before he was 18. But since he never played sports, he's having an incredibly hard time getting noticed or "proving himself as a leader".

Shit, I came in to the Marines with over 500 hours of flight time and a chunk of that being as an instructor my senior year of college with a 3.8 GPA from the top school in it's field and they didn't give a fuck about that in any of my interviews, they just wanted to ask about my time running cross country in high school, playing baseball and attempting to learn rugby while drunk through 2 years of college. The colonel I did my final interview with before getting guaranteed a fixed wing turbine slot just bullshitted with me for 2 hours about how to hit an inside slider in to the gap and how awful doing sprints after a loss was.

The military can teach you anything except for social skills, and they know being a "Chad" to use the current parlance can only be learned by sweating with your peers, pushing yourself and partying afterward.


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## Cynically Insane (Feb 13, 2020)

TiggerNits said:


> As a former military jet pilot, the step child of another former military pilot and in a family with literally more than a dozen military pilots produced over the last 3 generations I think I know how to 100% game the selection system
> 
> Play sports in high school/college. You don't have to be good, you don't have to be on the first string and t doesn't even need to be a team sport. My oldest 2 nephews were trying to go Air Force and Navy respectively and asked me why they weren't getting many serious discussions about it from their officer recruiters. That was the answer. You NEED to be demonstrably physically active to make anyone care and it's been that way for awhile. I know a ton of guys who were 3.0 students with joke degrees like communications, poli-sci and education that managed to get themselves in to flight slots and dudes who had 4.0 aero-sci and engineering degrees that got ignored. The main reason is the guys who could run a few miles without huffing and could work in a physical team always got top seeding
> 
> ...


Rugby is such a valuable sport to play.  Aside from keeping you fit, learning to drink without pissing people off and the camaraderie, rugby players lift each other up.  If you have rugby on your resume you will find yourself in interviews that focus solely on the game.  When you are a rugger you can show up at the local rugby club of a new town and they will help you find a job, an apartment or whatever you need.  You don't have to be good.  You just have to show up every Saturday and leave it all on the pitch.

My kid hasn't played for 2 seasons because he switched to motor sports.  We are about to make a big move.  I told him he has to go back and play again because I am too old to go back.  We need the social resources that come with club rugby.  He agreed.  He understands.  I might start a kids program.  This will give us an immediate community and a safe place to party.


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## Spunt (Feb 13, 2020)

Cynically Insane said:


> learning to drink without pissing people off



You didn't go to the rugby club at my uni, clearly.


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## ??? (Feb 13, 2020)

Wraith said:


> The silly: The California Achievement Test is not meant to show if you are being taught right in public schools, but to know who will be a potential threat to the elite later down in line. Watch out for anybody at an early age who suddenly gets 12.0+ on skills when they are still in grammar school. If they have the personality that would lead them to be a leader, yeah that person will be quietly isolated and stomped out into nothingness.
> 
> Some hospitals are corrupt. I know for a fact one where a relative of mine worked, (this relative was horrendously evil,) had incidents where a person would come into the emergency room and they refused to treat that person. They died waiting for help. My relative openly admitted they walked right by the person and DID NOTHING, and was terrified the hospital would get nailed for it, and they as well. They covered for each other. The story made it onto the news, but ya know how stories like that go. No one wants to investigate past a certain point, ya know? I wish I was kidding.


Why do you think the CAT is a social engineering tool?

And tell us more about these incidents.  What sorts of people were they refusing treatment to, and approximately where was this?


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## Smaug's Smokey Hole (Feb 13, 2020)

I never asked if they try to remove the worms and their eggs before making the fish oil, but I doubt it, it would be too tedious.


Spoiler



These are gills though, didn't find a gnarly enough image of a cod liver.






Any kind of processed fish product will be tainted in some way, they try to cut out things like the tumors before processing but no one is perfect. And if they say or claim otherwise it is bullshit, the brazen lies of the people in the fishing industry would make a chinaman blush.

If you're buying wild salmon and the tail is noticeably frayed, it's farmed, don't believe anything else.

If you're buying wild cod and the head is cut off straight, sort of like this, it's farmed.



The head of wild cod is cut at an angle to maximize the weight of each fish. In general, I can't say that's true everywhere but fishermen tend to be salty penny pinchers.

Whatever you pay for fish, like fresh salmon, the fisherman was paid at best 1/20th of the final sales price in a store but sometimes only 1/100th of it. Especially if it is trash fish, the kind of fish with no fishing quota. That's where salmon, cod, halibut and other things ends up if the fishermen would exceed their quota by having it logged as what they actually are. 3 cents a pound is better than no cents per pound and if you have 10,000lbs stinking up the boat...
Strange how the fishing quotas doesn't seem to work as well as they should.

Norway putting a quota on Stalin's murder-crabs is beyond me, they are a migrating menace fucking up the ocean floor and needs to be dealt with. I'm willing to do my part and eat as many of those crabs as I can.


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## Cynically Insane (Feb 13, 2020)

Spunt said:


> You didn't go to the rugby club at my uni, clearly.


Club Rugby is way better than Uni.  In my opinion, to reap the full social benefits of the game you must play club.  All University students are idiots.  At the club level an effort is made to earn acceptance from the community through good works and charity so on the rare occasions that you fuck up the natural order of things the normies will be more forgiving.  My club sponsors a tonne of shit like free skates, sports scholarships (so poor kids can play leagues too), beautification of common land.  You know, like a service club.  

When we would hit the bars for a pub crawl, a pack of 60 men and woman, fit, wearing kilts, attractive and flush, no one batted an eye.  They watched with amusement as we played our silly games and sang our dirty songs.  The minute someone complained we shut them up with free drinks.  Essentially it is learning to balance life/sport/party and moderate your behaviour to still be socially acceptable.


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## Mazinkaiser (Feb 13, 2020)

Every large bridge you drive over is created via an insane balancing act of forces that, if by chance were tampered with even in a seemingly innocuous way, could totally fuck the bridge. Prime example being a bridge an acquaintance worked on got completely fucked 4 years down the line because one of the construction workers put a hole (With a diameter of less than 2 inches) in a wrong spot, sealed it up, then drilled the proper area. Whole bridge had to be shut down for a month when it was discovered that the area was buckling.


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## TiggerNits (Feb 13, 2020)

Mazinkaiser said:


> Every large bridge you drive over is created via an insane balancing act of forces that, if by chance were tampered with even in a seemingly innocuous way, could totally fuck the bridge. Prime example being a bridge an acquaintance worked on got completely fucked 4 years down the line because one of the construction workers put a hole (With a diameter of less than 2 inches) in a wrong spot, sealed it up, then drilled the proper area. Whole bridge had to be shut down for a month when it was discovered that an area was buckling.



This makes how fucking hard they tried to destroy the Thanh Hoa bridge during the war that much crazier, tbh. Like, why bomb it, just hire a drunk farmer to take a drill and fuck around under some struts


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## Freya (Feb 13, 2020)

Whatsup bud? said:


> I work in public schools and can say that kids are getting stupider in reading comprehension, research, and note taking.


Believe it 100 percent. I loved our one old school English teacher because she actually drilled us on vocab and forced us to do some writing in cursive. 
It made a huge difference in being able to write quicker and easier


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## LateNightMuffin (Feb 13, 2020)

Cynically Insane said:


> Rugby is such a valuable sport to play.  Aside from keeping you fit, learning to drink without pissing people off and the camaraderie, rugby players lift each other up.


When I was in college, I happened to have a class that the entire rugby team was also taking, and at one point or another in the semester, every single player showed up with a cast or sling. Crazy! I talked to them about this, and they treated these injuries as a feature of rugby, not a bug.


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## Boris Blank's glass eye (Feb 15, 2020)

Ellesse_warrior said:


> Data breaches happen more often than you think. We only ever hear of the big ones where there's fines or sanctions. Most organisations couldn't tell you what they do with your information, where it's stored, if it was sold to a third party. It's very much every individuals own responsibility to be aware of what information organisations collect about them and what happens to it, if a company can't tell you why they need certain information, they don't need it, don't give it to them because it's likely being sold on or used for profiling.



I can relate, GDPR stirred up the shit-pot here real good. Most kinds of personal data breaches must be reported to the supervising (gov't) authority, and, since they carry a carry a hefty fine, we generally look the other way, and report only the most severe cases - say, someone leaking data to a newspaper. The Ashley Madison case would have been a fucking nightmare under GDPR, since these gov't fines are an addition to other kinds of financial liabilty.

GDPR also doesn't apply to any non-personal (meaning: non-identifying) data, and it doesn't cover data control done by private citizens. While GDPR itself _does_ include natural persons in the definition of "data controller", _its regulations don't always apply to them._ Self-employed people, like hairdressers, plumbers, etc. don't have to give a fuck about it, only when they're employed by a company.

Best thing is: pretty much everything is allowed under GDPR, if you can provide a good explanation (why you store all kinds of medical data, why you transfer said data to China, and so on), or if the subject consents to it. The subject's consent is a blank check, and you can hide a lot of shit behind legalese mumbo-jumbo. Only shit-stirrers read all the goddamn privacy notices, who'd like to get some sweet lawsuit money whenever possible.


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## Fools Idol (Feb 18, 2020)

You'd amazed by how much of manufacturing is tribal knowledge. You would think that it's all written down somewhere but it's not.


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## Angel Dust (Feb 18, 2020)

Humane society: 

When you come in looking to adopt a dog or cat, we are absolutely judging the shit out of you.  Your application may get lost or the animal may become inexplicably unavailable. Don't be weird. 

When you need to surrender a pet, we are not nearly as judgemental as you'd think. We understand these things happen. However, if your surrender reason is something fucktarded like "dog grew up, want a puppy" or "had kid now don't want animal", congrats your name will now be getting passed around as someone to not adopt to. 

Also we know the difference between turning in a found pet and ""turning in a found pet"". Just be honest.


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## MAPK phosphatase (Feb 18, 2020)

Angel Dust said:


> Humane society:
> 
> When you come in looking to adopt a dog or cat, we are absolutely judging the shit out of you.  Your application may get lost or the animal may become inexplicably unavailable. Don't be weird.
> 
> ...


Finally, some optimism in this bleak thread.


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## Angel Dust (Feb 18, 2020)

MAPK phosphatase said:


> Finally, some optimism in this bleak thread.



Well my last thread post was bleak so i decided to share some lighter stuff


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## Pargon (Sep 29, 2020)

This thread is for people to ask questions and for other users in related fields to answer them. Everyone wants to know industry secrets and the Farms has enough autism that some of us must have training and/or knowledge.

I'll start. Doctors/RNs/other clinical health professionals: how much of your day-to-day consists of doing things you actually know versus shit you have to look up? Is medical treatment equal parts knowing how to administer an IV and just knowing how to Google well, or did you actually retain and regularly utilize six years of secondary education?


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## Justtocheck (Sep 29, 2020)

Medical doctors study far longer than 6 years. And most of them start hard in the last 3 years of HS. And most of the time they don't need to look shit up. They already know it and have read and done it 1000 times. Usually they might check up on textbooks if there's not a clear cut diagnosis or symptoms are contradictory or if there's a weird mix of genetic disease and regular one. Then they gather specialists and they all check reference textbooks and protocols. And if they use google for work, it is mainly to find papers.


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## Bob Chipman's Podiatrist (Sep 29, 2020)

Construction workers/architects/civil engineers:

What is the dumbest construction regulation you know of? Is there a regulation you think should exist, but doesn't?


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## Exigent Circumcisions (Sep 30, 2020)

Bob Chipman's Podiatrist said:


> Construction workers/architects/civil engineers:
> 
> What is the dumbest construction regulation you know of? Is there a regulation you think should exist, but doesn't?


Where I am, there's a whole raft of safety regulations that are extremely onerous. Sleeves must be four inches minimum, nevermind if it's 40C and you're about to die of heat exhaustion. No music, even if it's reasonably quiet. Hard hats on any site where there's forklifts or similar, even if you're three floors above. 

My current pet peeve as far as construction goes is the fact that they allow half-round untreated pine for retraining walls: that shit is going to twist, bend and rot very quickly and replacing it is a huge pain in the ass. Go with concrete, concrete block or treated landscape ties if you're building a retaining wall; costs more but it'll hold up nicely over the years.


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## some Sketchy dude (Sep 30, 2020)

Bob Chipman's Podiatrist said:


> Construction workers/architects/civil engineers:
> 
> What is the dumbest construction regulation you know of? Is there a regulation you think should exist, but doesn't?


Affirmative action. The growing popularity of requiring a certain percentage of minority races and females on any given workforce, rather than those best suited for the job.

Imagine you have a 10 person team for a job, but MUST have(under risk of fines, contract loss, and media backlash) 3/10 to 5/10 people be minority race and 1/10 to 3/10 be female(so far, sexuality hasn't been made an obligation). If you're smart, you'll at least try to get the best of those demographics, and even try getting cross demographics(minority + woman) to meet the legally enforced bigotry.

Now imagine that you are a black woman with little skills in the field and even less initiative, but you have the knowledge that these companies are legally required to employ someone like you. Not only that, but dismissing you, even justifiably, could result in media backlash and a lawsuit, but WILL result in fines and contract loss if said minority woman employee is not immediately replaced to maintain the ridiculous quota. And unsurprisingly, there aren't many women, nevermind minority women, who even have a desire to work in the various construction fields, much less be competent in them.

It results in random people being paid overly high wages to sweep floors because they are the only choice to meet the legal requirements. And getting away with not even doing that because they know firing them will be more detrimental to the company than paying them to do nothing.


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## Molester Stallone (Sep 30, 2020)

There are several guitar companies that don't actually build guitars. They contract other companies to do it for them and slap their name on the head stock.


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## Mr. Confederate Man (Sep 30, 2020)

Molester Stallone said:


> There are several guitar companies that don't actually build guitars. They contract other companies to do it for them and slap their name on the head stock.


Such as?


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## Orange Rhymer (Sep 30, 2020)

Molester Stallone said:


> There are several guitar companies that don't actually build guitars. They contract other companies to do it for them and slap their name on the head stock.


I'll do you one better....

Guitar companies that namedrop components on their label...
"Genuine Gotoh vintage tuners" "Genuine Bigsby bridge" "GraphTec nut"
these are partial lies...

Most of the time (esp on <$500 guitars) those parts COME from that supplier, but they are made to spec by a cheap Chinese clone factory. The only thing that is 'Genuine' is the authorized use of the trademark. Otherwise the guitar is 100% Chinese garbage, regardless of the name on the headstock.


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## NoReturn (Sep 30, 2020)

Librarians are really sweet and nice, but they also do NOT trust you any further than they can throw you. The poor librarians are constantly having to call for help with things like cleanups from people doing gross shit in the bathrooms and more secluded areas of the library; assistance when being attacked by hobos; and concerns about their responsibility when people try to kidnap children or commit other crimes on the premises.


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## Orange Rhymer (Oct 1, 2020)

Guitar 'boutique pedals' are a ripoff and you should point-and-laugh at any faggot who buys them. There are exceptions - but most are made by Behringer in China.
Most boutique pedals are made by the same facility in China that make the $100 knock-off pedal.


			https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Behringer
		

The Behringer facility is a LITERAL city of manufacturing in Zhongshan China, all dedicated to the 100+ brands relabeled under the Music Tribe parent company.
Behringer has consistently over saturated their markets therefore @ 40% of their manufacturing is contracted jobs to boutique and common brands (Ibanez, Fender, Dunlop, and that Hipster brand you paid $2000 for)
Pay $80 or pay $1000 the only difference is a sticker and a diff coat of paint.

The exception is any classic pedal pre-2000. Behringer didn't start steamrolling from China until 2002.


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## Exigent Circumcisions (Oct 1, 2020)

Orange Rhymer said:


> Guitar 'boutique pedals' are a ripoff and you should point-and-laugh at any faggot who buys them. There are exceptions - but most are made by Behringer in China.
> Most boutique pedals are made by the same facility in China that make the $100 knock-off pedal.
> 
> 
> ...


At the end of the day, the naked truth is this: if you can't make music on shitty Chinese knockoffs you just can't make music.


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## Eris! (Oct 1, 2020)

I was working organizing major cross-charity fundraising events and I saw for myself in plain financial reports what % was administrative overhead, advertising, and other bullshit. That % was 100%. Not a cent was going anywhere except people's paychecks, fueling the catering industry, and fueling the foldable gazebo industry. If you want to donate money donate it to a church, they are meticulous about reducing overhead and being efficient spenders with your money.


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## Orange Rhymer (Oct 1, 2020)

Exigent Circumcisions said:


> At the end of the day, the naked truth is this: if you can't make music on shitty Chinese knockoffs you just can't make music.


TBH - 'shitty' Chinese instruments are actually the mainstay now - and they aren't bad at all. The quality has improved 1000% from the early 2000s.
I would recommend looking into purchasing the 'illegal' Chinese knockoffs to save even more money
-Certain companies do not honor the copyrights and trademark designs of Fender and Gibson, and they make knockoffs without paying 'shape licensing' fees. Ironically, many true US Boutique luthiers also ignore these fees. Gibson/Fender only sue the brands they can win against.

If you aren't a pro, just buy the Chinese.


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## Questionable Ceviche (Oct 1, 2020)

Erischan said:


> I was working organizing major cross-charity fundraising events and I saw for myself in plain financial reports what % was administrative overhead, advertising, and other bullshit. That % was 100%. Not a cent was going anywhere except people's paychecks, fueling the catering industry, and fueling the foldable gazebo industry. If you want to donate money donate it to a church, they are meticulous about reducing overhead and being efficient spenders with your money.


I was under the impression that the megacharity industry, at least within the US, was just another business model operating under a false not for profit premise. Not sure how it is in other countries.


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## Eris! (Oct 1, 2020)

Questionable Ceviche said:


> I was under the impression that the megacharity industry, at least within the US, was just another business model operating under a false not for profit premise. Not sure how it is in other countries.


If you just call it "raising awareness" you can use any issue as your marketing gimmick, never give a cent to the cause, pay yourself and anyone you want obscene salaries, and still call yourself a nonprofit.


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## AnOminous (Oct 1, 2020)

Erischan said:


> If you just call it "raising awareness" you can use any issue as your marketing gimmick, never give a cent to the cause, pay yourself and anyone you want obscene salaries, and still call yourself a nonprofit.



Case in point that utterly worthless Susan G. Komen breast cancer charity that dresses up NFL players in pink shit, pays itself millions of dollars, and does absolutely fucking nothing of use to anyone.  Just absolute bullshit "charities" like this.  Some of the most famous and well regarded charities are absolute trash.


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## Eris! (Oct 1, 2020)

AnOminous said:


> Case in point that utterly worthless Susan G. Komen breast cancer charity that dresses up NFL players in pink shit, pays itself millions of dollars, and does absolutely fucking nothing of use to anyone.  Just absolute bullshit "charities" like this.  Some of the most famous and well regarded charities are absolute trash.


Susan G Komen and her ilk personally disillusioned me about charity and are essentially responsible for me being economically right-libertarian. All the people who pretend to care are bullshitting you for money. No one cares. Care for yourself. Expect others to care for themselves. Find a small community of people you personally know who will care for you too.


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## D_Tractor (Oct 1, 2020)

Questionable Ceviche said:


> I was under the impression that the megacharity industry, at least within the US, was just another business model operating under a false not for profit premise. Not sure how it is in other countries.


Don't give shit to Goodwill Industries. Give your old shit to Salvation Army even though they believe fags go to hell, even if you are a fag. Salvation army has still helped more fags than Goodwill ever has.


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