Posts made by Shebakoby

@Ganymede said:

@Shebakoby said:

I'm not saying American health care is perfect, or anything close. Far from it. I have relatives in the states, so I have heard a few horror stories on the other side of the border. But neither am I saying that Canada's sucks (or sucks worse). The US system has pros and cons, and same with the Canadian system. But we shouldn't pretend that there are no flaws, or that the flaws are insignificant, in the Canadian system.

So, then, we concur on this point.

Canada's problem with access in remote (or rural) areas is a huge problem. That's not what is raised down here in the United States as an issue, though. Americans are paranoid for all the wrong reasons, which is why I feel it is important to point out that those fears are insubstantial.

It's a little different down here because there are large populations where access isn't the issue; cost is. And yet, there are still access issues in places like Nevada, Wyoming, and Montana.

So, if I were to trade the American private system with Canada's public system, I'd take the latter because the American private system still suffers from the same problems as Canada's.

(Edit: My brother is a Canadian physician who has worked in Vancouver and now Ottawa. He gives me updates from his end, along with my schoolmates that are also in the medical profession.)

There's maybe only one thing that the US system, as flawed as it is, has over the Canadian system. Money available for R&D. One of my relatives who lived in the United States (now deceased) used to work for a company called Sea-Med. That company developed something that my relative referred to as a "roto-rooter" for blood vessels and it was superior to balloon angioplasty in removing fatty artery blockages. It drilled right through it, leaving the artery wall undamaged because it was designed to not damage the artery. We saw a video about this device back in the early 1990s.

Canada still doesn't have this technology.

The biggest problem I have is the resistance to change in the system, changes that would improve the system. My community, about 15 years ago, had a HUGE kerfuffle over a CT scanner. A private citizen donated 60,000 dollars to the local hospital. They said the money should be used to buy a CT scanner. The government at the time (NDP) refused to allow the purchase, because OMG PRIVATE MONEY (even though it was a charitable donation) will ruin the system or some sort of invalid slippery slope argument like that.

Two separate MLAs fought each over the issue, each wanting credit for bringing a CT scanner in before they would consider voting to approve one, and both ended up quitting politics forever (one before the other, though). The Hospital did eventually get a CT scanner (though via the provincial government, not the money donated to the hospital).

Some fear that any 'taint' of "private money" (rather than from tax dollars), including charitable donations (which is CRAZY to oppose), in the health system will ruin it forever, but we could have had a CT scanner way sooner than we did if they weren't so ideologically rigid and stubborn.

@WTFE said:

@Shebakoby said:

Some Canadians actually have to go have important tests (MRI, for instance) in the USA because the waiting list for the same test in Canada is over 2 years now.

Ah, this old Tea Party shibboleth.

No. No, this is flatly untrue. If you want an MRI test against the advice of your doctor, then yes, you'll wait forever. But when my father had his stroke, in the depths of the wilds of B.C. (Prince George), he was in the MRI in under four hours.

I call Tea Party bullshit here.

People who need knee replacements have had to endure even longer waits (up to 5 years).

Docs or it didn't happen. ("I saw it on Fox" doesn't count as docs, just to be clear. Hell, "I saw it on an American news channel" doesn't count as docs.)

People have died of cancer before they could get some kinds of tests.

Yeah. If you don't go to your doctor for twenty-five years and come in when the cancer has already passed the point of no return, you're probably fucked. You'd be fucked in the USA too, but at least your wallet will be hoovered clean first.

So again, "docs or it didn't happen". (And again, "Fox News" or American news in general doesn't count.)

What are you even talking about? What is this Tea Party you're on about? I'm talking about stuff I've actually seen/experienced/was in the paper. And I live in pretty much total NDP land. I personally waited for an MRI, TWICE, for 2 years each time. And NO, it was NOT against the advice of the doctor.

People who are in the emergency room tend to get expedited tests. When I injured my eye two years ago, and went to the emergency room, I was at the opthamologist on instant referral the same day. Emergency room care for serious things, is VERY GOOD, mostly. But unless cancer lands someone in the emergency room, it's highly unlikely that it'll be expedited as quickly as an MRI for an immediate stroke. You are comparing apples to oranges.

We do not even get Fox News. We do not watch US news except for maybe CNN if something major is happening like 9/11, so uh what? This was a person I personally know. When the person turned 80 they just said "F it, we're not giving you surgery to fix your knee". This happened. The person is now 95. This could have been fixed BEFORE they turned 80 if the system gave a crap, and it would have made a HUGE difference in quality of life.

The moral of the story is people fall through the cracks in both systems. Way more in the other one because of the whole money thing (not to mention a MUCH larger population), but still. Improvements could be made to prevent this.

@Ganymede said:

@Shebakoby said:

As a result, millions of canadians can no longer find a family doctor, and thus have precisely 0 access to specialists.

Are you one of those millions of Canadians? Because, as a Canadian, I was, and am, not.

Nor was my mother, who was diagnosed (again) with thyroid cancer. She was diagnosed within 2 weeks, and had surgery scheduled 3 weeks later. She could have gotten in earlier, but she was busy traveling.

The funny thing about these stories is that I've never actually met a Canadian that ever had a problem getting a required surgery done. I've also never actually met a Canadian that ever had to wait for a cancer scan longer than 2 weeks. And I've known plenty of them.

I have, however, met and read the records for dozens of Americans who have been the victims of medical malpractice. I've read medical malpractices cases for scores more. And this is only in the State of Ohio.

People like to attribute the Canadian horror stories to OMG Canada's health care system sucks. You should check out the actual number of Americans who have been the victims of their own health care system. I think you'll conclude, as I have, that whether the system is a single-payer public system or a oligopolistic private system is immaterial. You will likely conclude that doctors, nurses, health care professionals, and their patients make mistakes.

I think you will also conclude, as I have, that medical professionals that don't have to worry about coverage issues or costs will be able to spend more time training and researching than balancing monthly budgets.

Yeah but where in Canada are you? A large city in a well-populated province? It really all depends on where you live. Large provinces with enormous population centers such as Ontario, Quebec, and big cities in the well-populated Maritimes won't have as much trouble as say, someone in a western community with less access.

I know several people, some in my own community, who have had trouble, and LOTS of it, getting care for various things. Not everyone has trouble getting care, true, but I've seen it happen. I myself have been on the recieving end of long wait times. I had an MRI scheduled...TWO YEARS to wait. I am not even joking. Then I had a follow up, two years after that. It was snowing pretty good on the day of my second scan but I got dad to drive me in his 4 wheel drive and we MADE it. (this was not for cancer, it was for suspicion of Multiple Sclerosis, but still). A family member's wait to have orthoscopic knee surgery took so long that they simply refused to do it because of reaching a certain age. It should have been done.

I'm lucky, my doctor hasn't retired yet. But in another few years, I MIGHT wind up as one of those millions of Canadians.

I'm not saying American health care is perfect, or anything close. Far from it. I have relatives in the states, so I have heard a few horror stories on the other side of the border. But neither am I saying that Canada's sucks (or sucks worse). The US system has pros and cons, and same with the Canadian system. But we shouldn't pretend that there are no flaws, or that the flaws are insignificant, in the Canadian system. Several things need addressing, not the least of which is the problem of attracting new doctors, and doing something about allowing immigrants who would be perfectly qualified doctors to actually practice as doctors (after say a preliminary examination to ensure their knowledge is up to par). We need to acknowledge the problems so that we can pressure our various members of parliament to get it fixed.

Doctors retiring and not having locums to fill in for them or even anyone to take over their practice are now a serious problem near where I live. There aren't enough doctors to fill in the gaps. There was a huge story in the paper about it several weeks ago, in fact.

@Ganymede said:

@Shebakoby said:

Some Canadians actually have to go have important tests (MRI, for instance) in the USA because the waiting list for the same test in Canada is over 2 years now.

Why were the tests needed?

People who need knee replacements have had to endure even longer waits (up to 5 years).

Why were the knee replacements needed?

People have died of cancer before they could get some kinds of tests.

For how long did they suffer undiagnosed before seeking tests?

Occasionally stories will pop up in the newspaper, and the waits in question tend to be over 6 months. Depending on the type of cancer, the more aggressive kinds can progress to stage 4 in that time.

This isn't a question of waiting to seek a test. This is a question of waiting after seeking a test, to actually get the test scheduled and then performed.

Some of this wait is often waiting to see a specialist, because some things can ONLY be done by specialists rather than General Practitioners, both of which are in short supply because some idiot bureaucrat in 1991 thought it was a great idea to "save money" by the government restricting how many people could become doctors and specialists. Specialists can ONLY be seen through a referral by a general pracitioner. The current waitlist for dermatologists, where I live, just to SEE one, is two years. Imagine how much skin cancer can advance in that time.

As a result, millions of canadians can no longer find a family doctor, and thus have precisely 0 access to specialists.

@WTFE said:

@HelloRaptor said:

@WTFE said:

@Ganymede said:

@Corruption said:

We were scheduled for a noon pickup. We finally got home around 2PM. I was beyond pissed and filed a complaint. Of course, that had no effect. FUCK this cheapass, moronic service.

This is what happens when you privatize what has traditionally been a public good.

You don't understand! Privatization is always more efficient, and always provides better service than publicly-funded stuff!

The Tea Party tells me this!

Hospitals in the US certainly did an awesome job as for-profit entities for a long time. A++.

See? Raptor gets it! Privatized medical care in the USA is so much more efficient than the creaky, ready-to-collapse shit north of the border! FREEDUMZ!

Both systems have their flaws. Some Canadians actually have to go have important tests (MRI, for instance) in the USA because the waiting list for the same test in Canada is over 2 years now. People who need knee replacements have had to endure even longer waits (up to 5 years). People have died of cancer before they could get some kinds of tests.

The sky has been smoky for the past 4 days (since Sunday Morning) because of several forest fires, ALL of which were human-caused. Dammit, people, when the grass and the bush is tinder-dry, and fire-risk danger level is PAST extreme, you do NOT take a walk through them SMOKING, and then ditch your cigarette butt into them!

The fires are far away enough that this house isn't in danger of burning down, and the smoke has been up fairly high, though at its worst the air totally reeked of smoke. I swear you could have hung up fillets of salmon and smoked them right outside.

I remember one year it got this dry, but there was not even this amount of smoke in the air from distant forest fires, and maybe only for 2 days, and they said we should not go into the back forest behind our house, so I didn't.

@HelloRaptor said:

@WTFE

Spoken like someone who's never watched a dozen "modern" replacements come in at ten times budget (in both time and money) and still not actually managed to replace the system that it was intended to replace.

Spoken like someone who's never dealt with budgets (in both time and money) based on unrealistic expectations for what things should cost or how long they should take, or situations where 'not actually manage' is just code for 'awkward due to unfamiliarity'.

A decade? That's what you think is old and decrepit?

Read for comprehension, you curmudgeonly fuck. I was pretty clearly speaking about software systems built for functioning within an OS with a modern counterpart, not embedded systems probably built in the 50s.

Further, 'shit that became common 10 years ago' is not the same thing as 'a decade old makes something old and decrepit' by any reasonable standard of understanding what the fuck someone is saying, especially when speaking about technology.

In either case, examples of shit like code written before Unix was even a thing were clearly well outside the realm of what I was talking about in that quote.

I know techies love to use the latest hotness, but only a dumb businessman listens to techies breathlessly talking up their grand future vision of modern hardware and modern software. If you have a system that works and does what you need, you don't replace it. You introduce a new system iff you have clearly-identified business needs that are not being met by your existing system. And even then, you probably start by having the new system only augment what you've got until it has proven itself and can be expanded to replace.

All of which completely ignores the fact that I flat out said that what you had said was true, so why you thought you had to rehash that shit here I have no idea.

What I was talking about, and why @Shebakoby's gripe is still perfectly valid, are companies running old ass programs that are so far past no longer supported and quickly reaching the point where they aren't going to be compatible with a modern OS in any reliable way while still needing to use a modern OS for everything else. And specifically, as I already said, when there are viable modern alternatives even if they aren't perfect.

This is especially a problem when the industry you're a part of is moving forward with that modern alternative regardless of its imperfection. It doesn't really matter if what you're trying to do was best done on an original Macintosh or Windows 3.0 machine, on Version 1 of whatever program you're using, when the people you're in business with are on Windows 7 using Version 8 of whatever that program is, and those versions are incompatible due to changes in how the program works and organizes data. At some point you're going to have to suck it up and move forward.

If you've seriously, for real, in all honesty never run into one of the many examples of organizations running wildly outdated software that they can and should have moved on from, but haven't due to a combination of fearing the unfamiliarity of the new and being unwilling to pay employees to learn a new system before it gets implemented and a million other examples of them just clinging to the past 'because it works' even when it is clearly not going to keep working for much longer? Then really, you have lived a charmed fucking life.

But they do exist, and it is pretty common to run across, and it is pretty fucking frustrating. Especially when they want all the bells and whistles and advancements a modern OS provides but don't want to let go of some shit that came out the same decade as the original version of the OS.

HERE IS SOME BOLD TEXT TO INDICATE YOU SHOULD PAY CAREFUL ATTENTION TO THE FOLLOWING:

Much like I said before, everything you described is true, from the catastrophic results of trying to update embedded systems by companies more interested in showing off those bells and whistles than creating a functional replacement (they often get paid regardless), to the techheads who will want to replace everything with the most cutting edge modern version of itself even when it's not necessary or even detrimental to the process.

But what I said, and what @Shebakoby was griping about, are also true. We're just talking about different aspects of the same general issue, and none of us are wrong. Aside from the bits where you were wrong about what you quoted.

I know someone who works for the government, who was still using old ass computer cassette tapes and the old ass types of computers that use them, at least up until maybe 2-3 years ago (idk if that's changed since then, since they changed workplace)!

@Misadventure said:

That is just so tasteless. Even as a gesture of grief, it's inappropriate, selfish and blind.

I cannot fathom a reasoning that would justify that.

I can fathom a reason, and it's a really bad one. Like ghoulishly bad. They (likely the wife putting pressure on her husband, the son) can't wait for the mother to bequeath it, and are afraid Sunny will eventually get it instead when that time comes.

@Ganymede said:

@Sunny

I'm sorry to hear you're going through a rough time. My advice is probably not something you should follow, but, having removed any semblance of empathy or a soul in exchange for a profession, I generally have nothing good to say about or to any person that has meaningless injured another.

You may want to remind your brother that families, unlike marriages, are not contracts.

You are a better person than I. I love my family, but I remember how they neglected to tell me that my cousin, with whom I grew up and went to school with, committed suicide until after the funeral.

WHUT. Just. Whut. That's.......I dunno, maybe they thought they were keeping the person's memory pure or something until after the funeral? I don't even anymore.

@HelloRaptor said:

TV shows in 2015 which depict any business with modern office spaces using dot matrix printers for anything but large scale data logging. What the fuck?

I guess they think it's funny to use outdated, noisy printers? Either that or their props department is seriously underfunded...

@silentsophia said:

Fucking summer colds. My throat is sore, sinuses are raw, eyes are burning and I feel like ass warmed over.

@Sunny Vent away. We're here for you. It sounds like an incredibly rough situation. My sympathies.

Man that's almost indistinguishable from when i get allergies.

@Silver said:

@Roz said:

Pancakes. I just fucking love pancakes and I really want some right now.

Click click bloody click pancakes!

Donnez-moi pancakes! :9

"Aww poor thing. Pancakes must be slang for crack."

@Sunny said:

@Silver said:

@Sunny None of my business, or any of our businesses really, but I'm going to ask anyway: What part does sister-in-law have to play in this?

Because it sounds suspiciously similar to a few events in my own family.

She took care of my mom for a few years while my mom was sick. There were things that my mom wanted her to have, but they're sentimental to my father in a huge way. He's not going to be around forever; it's not like she's not going to get it eventually (I'm executor of the estate when all is said and done, down the road). I promised her she would. Promised mom, too. I did NOT promise that it would be while my father was still around, because that's like shoving a knife into his heart and twisting. I mean, I love her, too. I thought it was mutual. I mean, these people are my family. Or at least, that's how I feel.

I really don't have any idea what I might have done wrong. Everything was great yesterday. Then today, threats are being leveled and I apparently didn't love her and so much other crap. It's SO freaking hurtful.

And yeah, I kjnow it's none of anybody's business. I really shouldn't have aired this in public and I know it but there was going to be a meltdown if I didn't vent somehow.

ima take a wild guess and propose that they're mad that you're the executor (and they're not).

@Roz said:

You've never had my patented rozcakes. They have converted people.

tiny stegos want nummy pancakes! :3

@silentsophia said:

In fairness, PCOS can make it a complete bitch to lose weight. Fatpeoplehate was less about actually helping fat people and more about shaming them, making fun of them and people wishing they would just die. Fatpeoplehate got banned when they doxxed Imgur staff and had a habit of reposting people's private pictures, among other harassing behavior. They were pretty shitty in general - to the point of making fun of people who DID try to better themselves by living healthier and exercising.

But there were also some pretty good fitness and motivation subreddits. And different people sometimes need more reassurance. It is all good. I'm sorry that people have trashed on you for weight loss. That's rough.

Then again, I've had people make some nasty comments about me deciding to eat a burger, so there's that. I imagine more people need to bug off about what others are doing.

Yeah, this is what I don't get about people that think 'shaming' somehow gets people motivated to lose weight, when it clearly does not work, has never worked, and never ever will work. I personally know someone who is quite large, who responds the opposite way to 'fat shaming' than the fat shamers expect: they cry, and then they EAT, no matter how counterintuitive anyone thinks that reaction to "fat shaming" would be.

@JaySherman said:

Writing decent attempts at a fan novel only to have dust bunnies float by while Starscream-Megatron Rape Mpreg Sparkling Estrus Gangbang MLP crossovers get 10,000,000 reads.

I uh, I think I mighta had a tiny hand in getting the "estrus" thing out there. Oops. sry!

dies laughing forever at the description of the fics that get ALL THE READS, because that's pretty much spot on. The kinkier the fic, the infinitely larger reads/views!
In the space of a few months, for the SAME author, Vanilla fic, 300 reads. Super ultra kinky with extra tentacles, 6,000-13,000 X(

Also, your fan novel. Show me them.

@Roz said:

@HelloRaptor said:

@Roz

I don't actually think all of MU* RP is fanfiction, it's just a dumb sweeping generalization to make that fanficcers are all batshit insane. So I brilliantly countered with another sweeping generalization.

Two wrongs don't make a right. C'mon, we need you to be the adult here.

Ugh fuck you why do I get stuck with it! (╯°□°)╯︵ ┻━┻

Fanfiction often gets thrown under the bus in fandom as kind of a "wrong" way to be a fan, which often means the "female" way to be a fan, so I'm biased in the other direction.

What? I mean, obviously, yeah it's totally the 'wrong' way to be a fan, but what's that got to do with women? Is this a stereotype I've managed to go decades without picking up on? My personal experience with fanficcers has been pretty well distributed between men and women.

I don't really write fanfic myself anymore -- I used to when I was a bright-eyed, eager youngster who needed to write all of her DBZ feels after Toonami -- but I've certainly some bullshit. I certainly know way more female fanficcers than male, but that's just personal experience vs. personal experience. There are definite threads throughout fandoms of criticizing certain WAYS of being a fan, and they all tend to be ways where women are more active than men. It's just fandom policing bullshit, AS PER USUAL.

I don't know how common this is, but when I write a fanfiction, I do try to stay as close to the source material as possible, for the most part. Like, if it's from a TV series, I try to make the story sound as much like a typical episode (or better, if the writing in the TV show hovers around sub-par). I do the stories I think should have been filmed/animated/written but weren't, officially. I've been writing fanfiction since 1989. (and yeah the old stuff wasn't as good, but back then fanfiction I didn't even know was a thing that other people did, and there were no internets in my house until 2000, so I had no idea fanfiction was a term or that it even existed (outside what I wrote)! So thankfully my teenage years didn't base themselves on what anybody thought of what I wrote (and I didn't bother showing it to very many people anyway), so I didn't turn all "fan-bratty", nor did I take severe offense if someone didn't like what I wrote. Hell the whole reason I started writing fanfiction in the first place was The Transformers Cartoon went off the air completely.

I mean sure, I've done a couple "wish fulfilment" style stories, who hasn't? But then comes the internets and I read fanfics of others, and facepalm at the fanbrattiness of some writers who get upset at the mildest of criticisms (such as grammar or text block of doom that should really be separated into paragraphs), as if the critic had kicked their puppy across the road or something. It's like all of a sudden there's a crop of people whose egos need to be stroked constantly or something or they'll get mad, regardless of whether they're putting out something of quality or not (most often not).

I've always liked the bad wife.

@2mspris said:

I got it from @EmmahSue but still it should be shared!

Hermione gives no fucks!

LERL potion cheat codes hahahahah! XD

@Mr.-Pedantic said:

So, what's the story? Where is my beloved WORA? And can I poo in the mud pit?

I think the story is, the person that hosted WORA couldn't maintain it (and also didn't clone their forum files) so we have this instead.

Nobody told me the mud pit was BYOM (bring your own mud)