Dox your professional insider secrets here - KiwiPros do some good

[Malodorous Merkin]

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.

 

[Spunt]

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.

 

[Bunny Tracks]

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.

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

 

[Malodorous Merkin]

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."

 

[Bunny Tracks]

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."

View attachment 1137005

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.

 

[Etrian Autistry]

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.

 

[Malodorous Merkin]

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.

 

[1Tonka_Truck]

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.

 

[Twinkie]

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?

 

[Malodorous Merkin]

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.

 

[Shield Breaker]

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.

 

[AnOminous]

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.

 

[IAmNotAlpharius]

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.

 

[Shield Breaker]

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.

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.

 

[AnOminous]

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.

 

[Dr. Sexbot]

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.

 

[NOT Sword Fighter Super]

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.

 

[Pargon]

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.

 

[Angel Dust]

"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.

 

[Freedom Fries]

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.

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.

Going under next week. Thanks for that.