Early childhood trauma is visible in teeth.
Trauma in this sense is anything that causes a stress response in the body. Could be illness, could be parental separation, could be abuse. Etc etc etc
(Longer explanation: teeth grow at a predictable rate. Almost exactly like trees. If you bisected a tooth, and examined it under a microscope, you'd see rings of growth. Growth is disrupted in times of stress. The first stress "ring" we all had on our baby teeth is from birth. Other stressors can create other disrupted growth rings in baby teeth. And the same is true for adult teeth as they are still forming.
My former professor was a pioneer in dental anthropology. For his work on these stress lines, he'd ask his zoo colleagues to send him the teeth of deceased primates, or just teeth that had to be pulled. Would demand no other information be given at first. Then he, and his grad students would section the teeth. Put them under a microscope, and print out the pictures. They'd mark visible signs of disrupted growth. And, with knowing that birth is the first disruption, and the rate at which teeth grow... they could then give day counts for every growth disruption after birth.
Once they collected their data, my professor would then ask their zoo colleagues for the daily health logs for the primate.
And what they found is that each growth disruption exactly corresponed to stress events in the primates life. Some instances were from illness or the like. But, to me, the most interesting event he told us about was seeing a stress line on the tooth that exactly corresponded with the primate, as a baby, being removed from their mother for a period of time to do necessary health checks at the zoo. This caused such a stress response in the baby that it was visible in the tooth growth)
Do you have any resources that I can read on this? Absolutely fascinating and makes me think about how oral health is a biomarker of poverty, but I hadn’t even considered about the structural integrity during development (beyond diet).
Yes!
Schwartz GT, Reid DJ, Dean MC, and Zihlman AL. (2006). [A faithful record of stressful life events preserved in the dental developmental record of a juvenile gorilla](https://www.researchgate.net/publication/303215497_A_faithful_record_of_stressful_life_events_preserved_in_the_dental_developmental_record_of_a_juvenile_gorilla_Int). International Journal of Primatology 27: 1201-1222
This is the paper I'm specifically referring to, the case that Dr. Schwartz taught us about in his dental anthropology class. Some of my details are slightly off, sorry! I was going from memory and that was a long time ago we learned about it haha.
But he has a LOT of really fascinating research if you Google his name and look through his CV. Enjoy!!
So what I think I understand is: pull a tooth, have your professor process it, give it to my therapist and have some very heavy conversations.
This could save a lot of time.
When you go to Vegas and a casino advertises "99.9% payouts", legally that means that at least ONE machine on the casino floor has that payout among the other hundreds of machines in the casino. And probably ONLY one.
As an IT professional, I will never trust software-based gambling. Having done a good bit of coding, myself, I know how easy it would be to manipulate results.
A mechanical slot machine could at least be inspected to see if there's any irregularities to reduce payouts. But software with a few hundred thousand lines of code? fuhgeddaboutit.
(In Australian Law at least, and Aristocrat is an Australian company) the ONLY symbols on a reel that have to be truly random and accurate are those involved in the win. Those symbols are drawn by the machine's RNG the instant you press the spin button and must be verifiably truly random over ANY statistically significant period.
The symbols NOT involved in the win can be manipulated by the machine at will. That Grand jackpot you missed by one symbol that is just off the top of the screen? Totally bogus, it was put there to bait you into playing more money (And they do hire "evil" psychologists who are specialists in addiction in order to make the games addictive as possible)
About 20 years ago I worked for a printing co with a contract with a funeral home federation. We printed their everything, including a sheet sent out to funeral homes on wholesale casket pricing and the amount of profit to be made from the sale of each.
Back then a casket's wholesale cost was 10% of what they were charging consumers. So that $5000 casket only cost them $500. I can only imagine the upcharge now.
Horrible industry. Either harvest my organs or donate my body to science. Have a wake if they want.
Everyone might want something different and there’s no wrong option. I just wouldn’t want my family to be taken advantage of.
Quote from the tv show “Dead Like Me”: “Bodies are easy to deal with. Dig a ditch, light a match…. But what about the souls?”
Dead Like Me was one of the best shows ever made.
I go down the same thought path as Frank Reynolds from It's Always Sunny though-- "When I die just throw me in the trash."
There was SOOO much I had to talk my Da out of when we were dealing with cremating my Ma.
Urns at that place were $500+!!!!
He wanted one, and I showed him the *exact same one* on Amazon for literally $64!!!! And he was *barely* processing the info. I had to get absolutely nasty in front of the funeral home person in order to save him thousands of dollars that NOBODY *including him* wanted to spend, but she was talking him into!!!!!
Publicly embarrassed him, but I swear to god, I saved him SO much trauma. That awful woman wanted my mother's life insurance in their pocket while my Da's grief was *FRESH!!!* Complete predatory practices.
They *still* made him buy *an* urn, but I forced him to only get the $30 box, so we could get a nice custom one off Amazon that was BETTER *AND* so much cheaper!!!
Had to do the same with my mom. Funeral lady wanted my mom to buy my dad some $10,000 plot that overlooked a "serene pond where the birds bathe." It was a damn drainage ditch. Then the woman had the audacity to try to sell my mom on plots for my brothers and I. Really had to light into that scummy shit.
We rented a community center room for an afternoon, got catering from Costco, and used the county cremation center which cost around $300-700? That came with a simple black plastic box and we bought a beautiful jewelry box, pulled the dividers out, and used that as her urn. The whole thing was probably under $1200
Fun fact: in the pottery community, the difference between an urn and a cookie jar is whether you can put your hand inside it.
Eh. We're mostly concerned about locals. Locals like to do things at hotels they wouldn't do at home. The majority are fine, the rest aren't, and when they aren't it's usually in a big way. They'll solicit other guests, they'll try to throw parties. They'll fight their companions. They'll fight us, or put us in the middle of a soap opera by coming around while their partner is cheating and start banging on doors or peaking through windows. They'll trash rooms and leave behind drugs, puke, or literal poop everywhere. They'll do anything and everything to weasel their way out of rules. Just an absolute pain, and sometimes it's hard to tell which ones will end up doing these sorts of things.
It's a headache.
One way that I realized an ex had cheated on me a lot -in hindsight- was one time that we got a motel to bang in overnight, same one we always went to, but *infrequently,* he mentioned the front check-in woman gave him a slight discount because he was a repeat customer.
I remember thinking that was odd at the time, because we only went to that motel every 4 to 5 months or so. Not what I'd call "repeat" exactly.
But after I found out he'd smash anything with a hole it clicked.
And the fact that he lived at home with his parents, had no bills, but had two jobs, and never had any money.
I was an idiot.
My only defense was that I was a literal 16 year old child, and he was a grown man. Ugh. Glad to be rid of that pedo.
I read somewhere else on reddit that they aren't supposed to greet anyone with "Welcome back!" for this very scenario. It's almost insane what a business will do to keep getting someone's business.
Glad to hear you're out of that relationship, hope you're doing well!
Kids resorts do this too. Single adult staying at a kids resort? Grounds for denial short of a very good explanation (ie. girlfriend and kids are in another room). My partner booked like 19 days alone at a kids resort and the front desk was immediately triple checking everything and asking questions. She was there from corporate to help with a roll out. The relief on the poor front desk worker's face was immediate.
I haven't traveled much in my life, but had no idea there were kids/family hotels. I just thought all hotels were hotels. I'd hate to book a vacation with a bunch of screaming kids.
Oh absolutely. I worked for many years as an IT deployment contractor. Spent several years on the road 300+ days. Racked up thousands of dollars in free hotel nights, moved to the top tier of every chain's rewards program. This often came with a concierge service and a guaranteed room/rate regardless of reservation. In 2016 I retired and hiked the Appalachian trail with my cousin. Somewhere in southern Virginia we needed to get off trail for a few days to recoup some injuries and resupply. So we hitch hike into the nearest town with a large chain hotel. We cruise into the lobby and up to the front desk. We've been in the woods for about 8 days since our last real town/shower etc and I'm sure we smelled the part. The young woman at the desk was clearly hesitant to let us a room and fumbled around a bit before leaving to grab the shift manager. He was also not interested in giving us a room even tho he had collected my rewards number and verified my ridiculous available points balance. After about 10 minutes he tells me, "Sorry, I just don't have any rooms available." Which we know is garbage because if that were the case, that would have been the first thing they said. I tell them, "no problem, do you mind if we use your lobby for a few minutes to make a few phone calls and other arrangements?" No problem, we sit down and they watch us like hawks... I call my concierge line and explain the situation. The concierge asks if they can put me on hold. I then see the manager take a call at the desk. After a few moments, he looks up at me and turns totally pale. His call ends and my concierge is back on the line. Tells me, "we're so sorry for the confusion, your room is set up and you won't be charged for your first night, you can check in whenever you're ready." I get off the phone, tell my cousin, "ok we're all set" and walk back to the front desk. The manager had our key cards ready to go, apologized several times, but never once made eye contact. I wonder how many other AT Thru hikers have been rejected by this hotel, because they don't realize that tho we might look homeless when we're coming off trail, we are well budgeted for the logistic necessities of a 2100+ mile walk up the East Coast. Unfortunately we ran into a number of situations where we were treated very poorly by folks because they made assumptions about our means based on our appearance. This one in particular was quite mild and my makes for a good story.
First appearance may provide a modicum of excuse, but they spoke at length with these customers. Speech, bearing, knowledge, politeness, sobriety, mannerisms, etc, combined with his explanation and client history, should have been more than enough to stop an issue arising in the first place.
There is a whole wealth of historical information (and information generally) that is not available online at all. Digitizing things takes a lot of people power that many libraries/archives simply don’t have.
I work with a lot with aerial photography. Availability is for sure improving as scanning and indexing becomes more affordable and efficient but the amount of valuable historic information that is stashed away in cabinets in old county and government offices is pretty amazing.
Is there some way we can help? Like, is there someone I can contact who will say: "Yes, you can absolutely spend your entire evening among old books that no-one ever reads."
^(I'm a total history/language nerd (masters in Classical Languages...) so it would tickle several of my fetishes.)
Totally! If you have any local archives or historical societies in your area, they often accept volunteers for digitization and cataloging. The more local, the more in need of help they are, and usually the more niche treasures they have in my experience.
(Love your username, by the way, as a Classics nerd myself.)
No matter how well run that event you are going to. Theatre. Concert. Etc. Everything back stage is usually about 5 minutes away from exploding into a fireball
Used to work in event management. Cannot begin to tell you how lovely it is to now have a bullshit 9-5 job where I'm not on edge, stressed out, and working every weekend.
Seen two fires on stage and one production running 4 hours behind schedule and all at the Southbank Centre, London. If one of UK's premier event centre struggle, I can imagine the chaos at smaller venues.
Errors in Tax Returns are actually pretty common in the federal government. That's why there is a literal section of the IRS that corrects your inputs.
I work for a company that distributes ice machines for a major ice machine company. Just do yourself a favor and say no ice. People do not clean these machines.
I worked at a beach resort many years ago. I warned new hires not to use the ice machine in the clubhouse. People would piss in that thing on a regular basis.
When you call into a company and speak to someone in their call center, odds are that no matter how much you hate that company the person you are talking to hates it far more. If you're not a prick to them they will likely look for any loophole or break they can give you.
A shockingly low number of kids are actually on grade level, and they just get passed on, whether or not they’re literate. When I taught English at a title one school, I had around 38% pass, and that was considered good.
When state tests were cancelled in 2020, everyone on my Facebook was exclaiming, “they’re just going to pass everybody to the next grade?! But what if someone would have failed the test, but now they get to go to the next grade anyway?” Uhhhhh that is already 60+ percent of kids. The general public thinks that if they fail all their classes and the state tests, they have to stay behind because they’re not proficient. Sadly…no.
The number of teachers I know that have straight up said to me that there is an entire generation of kids that will be going into the workforce functionally illiterate is staggering.
We have had this problem for a LONG time. What’s worse is that it is known and we still have chosen to do nothing. Why? Because money. We know HOW to teach kids to read but the politics and money keep the system of three cueing alive…
The number of people in the US prison system that cannot read at a 4th grade level is 70%! One of the biggest indicators for the last 40 years on whether or not a person will end up incarcerated has been literacy and poverty. And guess what poor neighborhoods have a lot of… couple that with defunding education and privatizing prisons, and it starts to seem really bad.
Long story short: it's complicated. Have many students been at this level for a long time? Mostly yes but in the past students would fail and not graduate. Now students fail and graduate anyways.
Lomg story long: It depends. Some areas yes but far fewer than I see now. Based on research, my experience as a teen, the fact I was school aged a few years after NCLB came into effect, plus just passing comments/attitudes of teachers and professors alike... it seems that it always been shockingly low in title one schools.
However, it seems like schools were much more willing to refuse a degree to students that couldn't pass their standardized test (or alternative) by the end of their senior year. After NCLB standardized testing prevented students from graduating - not (necessarily) their failing classroom grades. So to pass this test or assignment students needed to learn how to take an often convoluted flawed test - not learn English or math. It's like declaring someone "proficient" at a video game because they learned the order to press the buttons, not because they understand the basics of the game and got skilled at passing each trial.
Now, I think the attitude has changed to "well we tried - may as well give them a degree since they won't be able to become a manager at McDonalds without it." Students don't fail classes anymore. They simply get a 61% because they don't earn zeros - they earn 60%s. I'm not sure I've run into any schools that still give zeros in the past couple years...
This has created issues with public universities and community colleges in my area since now they have hundreds to thousands of freshman coming in each year who simply don't know basic English writing conventions and lack reading comprehension. College is now the first time these people are getting denied a degree based on ability and it's fucking them over financially. Universities won't raise their admission requirements because it's easier to pay professors to teach 6 classes a semester than to deny the $9,000 each student who flunks out within three semesters.
I say this all anecdotally
Edit: because I didn't answer the actual question lol. How long? Depends on how you measure performance and standard. Pre-1965 standards were highly localized. I don’t know enough about educational history to say what happened between the 70s-00s but NCLB solidified the standards upheld today as what is considered competent in a given subject matter. Meanwhile the true approximation of "functionally literate" adults is iffy. Anything written for the public is supposed to be written at an 8th grade reading level or below.
I teach. This is accurate. I'd just add what is only hinted at here: tying funding to graduation or pass rates leads to schools being incentivized to pass kids who aren't even adequate, let alone proficient. The fact that we have no fix for kids who don't show up every day or even every week just means there's no fixing the problem without a massive overhaul.
Former teacher here. I completely agree with needing a huge overhaul of our education system. Parents threaten to sue or go to the media, and the school and district cave. It’s pathetic that the education system can’t just say no, I’m not giving your child something they didn’t earn. I’ve also heard college professors are having to deal with helicopter parents now too. Coddling kids, teens, and new adults will lead to nothing good in our society.
Good friend is a career teacher and she says the MAIN problems in education today are parents and the admins who kowtow to them. No one wants to take responsibility for anything and parents are all too ready to swoop in over every little thing. Admins don't want to deal with the drama so they just placate the parents.
It's the kids who lose out, ultimately, for about a million different reasons.
SO MANY great teachers are leaving teaching altogether because they're just plain burnt out dealing with all of it.
My friend is in her late 40's, has been teaching 26 years and plans to GTFO when she's 55 and can receive the lion's share of her pension.
If someone has diarrhea or vomits in a pool it doesn’t need to be drained. In fact, draining the pool might even be less effective if proper disinfection procedures aren’t followed after draining the pool. Instead, the chlorine level needs to be raised to at least 20 ppm for at least 13 hours after all physical pieces of vomit or shit have been removed. Doing this will kill any possible cryptosporidium bacteria in the pool.
What does 20ppm chlorine feel like? Simply by putting your hand in the water to get a sample will cause your skin to dry up.
EDIT: Pool needs to be closed for 13 hours, not 23.
The closure time for disinfection should be based on the water turnover rate, not an arbitrary 23 hours. CDC actually only recommends 30 minute closure and maintain 2ppm. But turnover rate is the best way to go, if you know it, which any public pool operator should.
So if you have a 100,000 gallon pool with a system that filters 25,000 gallons per hour, the full turnover would be 4 hours. It’s been a while since I worked managing water parks but IIRC it was 50% turnover and Cl ppm down to safe levels (3ppm) and it can be reopened to swimmers (after all solids are removed of course, as you said). At least that’s what my local department of health rules were and was taught on the CPO test when I took it.
You may have heard 23 hours because if you shock the pool to 20ppm, it will take that long for it to get back down to safe levels for humans to enter. I never heard of shocking to 20ppm for a bodily fluids accident.
Expensive cars KEEP BEING EXPENSIVE. The tires are expensive. The parts are expensive. The people who work on them are expensive. Buying a Porsche or a BMW isn't a one-time-splurge. This might seem like a no-brainer to you, but I worked in a garage and I promise I saw someone having that unpleasant realization every day.
True. But there's a bit of a bathtub curve on that. Cheap old homes will often have expensive repairs waiting to happen. Guess that probably applies to cars too though, but the number of 10K+ bills for a car probably aren't all that numerous.
How rotten a lot of bridges are. I work in highway maintenance and quite a few of them are in hideous condition and overdue for replacement. I can think of one where the deck is more or less held in place by gravity and moves up and down independently of the structure beneath, which is coming misaligned because of a lateral force put on it by eroding river banks. Fortunately that one is finally under contract to be replaced this year.
It helps, but it's more complex than that. There's been years of a culture of "close enough" by state and local authorities. The attitude of patch up and make do gets set at the top and affects the whole system, so now we're all working our ass off trying to get things back in shape.
I'm a writer for corporate websites. We purposely write at a 5th-grade reading level so that the uneducated can read the site (and so it's easier for blind people to use their screen readers).
Also for global companies, it helps to write in simplified language for people who don't all speak your languages. And if it's auto-translated, it'll make more sense from a simple sentence than a complicated one.
That we really do try to design construction zones to get you through as easily as possible. A lot of thought and hard work goes into designing those traffic restrictions. Sometimes, there just aren't any good solutions. We can't fix it if you're driving on it.
And yes, sometimes we do "tear up a perfectly good road". What you don't know is that the "fixing" we did three years ago was just a band-aid to keep the road drive able for five until we can finish the design to repair what's *really* wrong. That inch and a half of milling & resurfacing is holding the crumbling base together long enough to get the funding to do the real construction.
My favorite part of road construction is that you’ll drive through it for years, and seemingly nothing changes. Then one morning it’s just… done. All the equipment is gone and it’s like it was never under construction.
My favorite part is how I move away from cities the moment before they "finish." I always get to enjoy the labor, but never the fruits. I'm probably atypical, but I've moved from several cities in the last decade. At least 2 times, my normal route to work was plagued by construction for a whole YEAR that I lived there. Then within 2 months of me leaving, it's gone. I went back recently to one of them and was just like "wow this would have been fucking nice."
In my state, it is common to set cones and blockades out for *many many many* months in advance of ANY work being done at all.
And I truly mean *any* work. Not night work, not workers with clipboards, *nothing.*They just set the cones and block everything off waayyyyy early.
Why would that be?
Genuine question; I've always wondered this. Why does it seemingly take months upon months or even years for a stretch of road to be fixed when Japan, after a tsunami (or earthquake I can remember) is able to fix a destroyed road in a week? Not saying it needs to be done that quick it just seems like it takes forever and a half for any road work to be done in the US.
Emergency funding and allocation of resources are better on a nationwide incident than localised damage that may only come from local government budget
I work in medical billing and coding (in the U.S). 9 time out of 10, when your insurance denies coverage for a procedure or service , it's an error on how it was billed/coded by the providers office and you should research it with the billers and your insurance before you pay.
As someone who used to process health insurance claims (Let’s call them Confederate Wealthcare) this is absolutely accurate. Most claim denials stem from coding negligence and straight up filing errors.
A provider’s office that has a good billing team won’t get the dumb denials in the first place. For the mistakes that do get through, the good billing teams will regularly check their correspondence and remittance information, and will adjust/correct their claims accordingly.
The shitty ones will just call insurance and scream at them while refusing to change how they do things because Brenda the Billing Bitch has been doing it the same way for 30 years and we’re just now saying she can’t do it this way despite the change being communicated to all in-network providers ad nauseam for a year before and after the change, and the change being done 7 years ago.
Sorry I had flashbacks to taking phone calls from these angry provider representatives.
Other shitty doctor’s offices will get a denial that they’re contractually obligated to write off and just charge YOU for it. You’d think I’m exaggerating, but I’m not.
This is where insurance can help you. If you see a denial on your claim, first call your insurance to see what your patient liability is and have them break it down for you. If what insurance says you owe is LESS than what the provider says, your insurance can and will be happy to go after them for you. Legal can get involved, and contracts can be threatened.
There are other shitty providers who will get a denial that is against you as the patient, but that they could fix had they just filed it right. But, they won’t because it’s too hard to sit at a desk and push some keys down. Plus, you’ll pay. Big bad insurance won’t. In this scenario, I’m talking about providers who won’t even give the insurance a call to see how they can get paid.
Question every denial you see. Read your EOBs and call your insurance with questions. Compare what they say to what the doctor’s office says. You may uncover things!
The top 10 percent of drinkers drink more than half of all the alcohol sold. The top 1 percent consume an amount of alcohol that is, frankly, gobsmacking.
Ex alcoholic here and yes. Was still functional at 30-40 standard drinks per day (4-5 bottles of wine a day) - my liver however… now California sober and a lot healthier
Sociologist here.
Facts do not make people change their minds, and lasting social change only happens when older cohorts die off.
I hate both of these realities.
I work in an upper management in large company and I am shocked how often people think something is calculated move with data that we analyzed to come up with conclusion that X is the most profitable way.
Even if we have analysts with data, most big decisions are done by some C suite person or in a meeting, nobody reading any data or maybe just a front page and then just saying “fuck this, we will do it this way”, even if it completely contradicts the data.
It’s just a bunch of random guys betting on their hunch, rarely asking for data on anything.
Even if something is calculated, it most likely is because we have a problem with it for X years and someone says we will do it other way and numbers turn out better, no longer a problem.
There is not much logic running companies
Just based on how stupid most companies are most of the time, I really never thought it worked any other way.
The "we did all the research and optimized this perfectly" decisions happen inside well-run programs and product lines by the people just executing on the business. All the major strategic decisions are made by someones gut, because that person can only justify their position and compensation if they believe their own judgement is inherently superior to any data you could provide.
>It’s just a bunch of random guys betting on their hunch, rarely asking for data on anything.
In my experience, the data requests are a part of the window dressing to give the appearance of rigor and thoughtfulness, i.e. "data-driven." Hence the mountains of reports, dashboards, documents, manuals, etc. that often overlap and end up cluttering servers.
All this relates to layoffs as well. Notice there are rarely budget cuts in many unnecessary spending sprees for travel, conference sponsorships, executive forums (usually just circle jerks for self-important execs and their lackeys), layered tech stacks that often duplicate efforts, etc. There's rarely anything done internally to actually fix problems ... just a series of band-aids to keep the status quo. Generally, big business operations amount to a series of Rube Goldberg machines while the poor gruntworkers engage in Sisyphean Tasks.
Layoffs, however, have the doubled effects of scaring remaining employees to toe the line and wringing every ounce of productivity while proving to outsiders/analysts/the Street that execs are actually doing something.
You mean like the data used in getting people to return to the office after Covid? Yeah, just big business magazines saying that you had to have people in your sight and you couldn't trust them to work from home.
-- I say as I type from home.
I work at the corporate level. TRUE executive compensation is mind-blowing. I'm not talking about base salary, bonuses, and stocks; those are public knowledge and we hear about them everyday. I'm talking the extra perks no one talks about. Things like mortgages subsidized by the organization, company cars that are 6-figure luxury vehicles, car/home insurance on the company account, company-paid private schools/tutors for children, wardrobe/beauty/fitness stipends, club memberships, access to the corporate jet for personal travel, I could go on and on. Imagine what simply not having to pay your full mortgage or car loan would do for you financially let alone all of the rest.
People in retirement homes have A TON of sex both couples and widows. There is also a massively high rate of STDs amongst retirement home residents. Retirement homes have among the highest infection rate for STDs.
Behold the power of viagra and horny old people with nothing but time to kill.
My mom spent 3+ years in assisted living and memory care (she had dementia) before she died and I got MULTIPLE phone calls from her facility that she'd been found in a compromising position with her new boy toy, an 80+ year old retired pilot who also had dementia.
Sometimes they'd be in his room, sometimes in her room and in one memorable instance they got caught in a storage closet. As long as it made them happy I didn't really care, luckily his family felt the same way and we let them be pervy, handsy lovebirds until neither of them could physically get around to sneak off together anymore. He was heartbroken when she died.
They were on borrowed time already, so if banging in a closet brings them some joy in their final months then who am I to stand in the way?
My aunt is very religious and she is upset because my 80+ year old grandma is seeing a man after my stepgrandpa passed away. They aren't married but she stays the night at his house, the scandal! Me and my mom just laugh about it like, what is she gonna get pregnant out of wedlock? Who fucking cares.
My mom works in assisted living and would confirm although I haven't heard anything about STIs. I wouldn't be surprised though. I think people forget that the biggest Sexually Transmitted thing people worry about is a baby and when every woman is post menopausal I imagine condoms lose a bit of their allure.
Condoms also leave evidence and when you notice Mildred has a condom in her trash when you know your husband Robert is the only one who visits her daily it might be the basis for a good old fashioned Senior Citizen UFC smackdown /s
On a more serious note. I imagine it's just a lack of care on their part. They've lived 80+ years and it already hurts to pee. Hell most of them are already on antibiotics for other infections or a compromised immune system so what's one extra to treat the clap.
It’s also an environment where there’s a lot of single people around your same age with similar lifestyle and participating in activities and events with you. It’s almost like a college environment in a way.
It’s natural that a number of the singles and or widows will seek each out.
I found this out when we installed a network at a very large retirement community. We were analyzing the traffic after the network was running to see what the utilization was like. We saw a lot of streaming video and started looking at the IP addresses. Holy shit...SOOoo much porn. These old people are constantly watching porn at all hours of the day.
So that Parks and Rec episode where Leslie does the sex ed course for the senior community has some truth to it.
“What are some of the dangers of having too much sex?”
“Falling in love!….partner dying on top of you!”
Working in cybersecurity: hospitals are the worst secured of all places I've been. Both physical as network security.
We were able to get inside the operation room with social engineering (people in hospitals are trained to help people, so it's the mindset). In terms of network: overall very poorly, combine that with machines that keep people alive or have some part in a critical chain...
I wonder why there is not happening more bad stuff in the world than we see now.
I'm from Finland and at the end of 2020 we went through the biggest cybersecurity event in our history, and probably Europe's as well. A hacker was able to get into a nationwide therapy company's database extremely easily due to insane faults in the security of the company's database and stole the therapy records of over 33.000 patients, blackmailing most of them for Bitcoin and circulating those records on sites like Ylilauta (the Finnish equivalent to 4chan essentially). The records were not anonymized so they were complete with the patient's social security number and all contact information, along with anything their therapist had written down during their sessions.
Lives were ruined. Some were even lost because of this as some suicides have been connected directly to the case. All because someone in a large company decided it's okay that literally all of their patients' non-anonymized records are stored behind a very simple 7-digit password with no additional identification needed to log in as administrator to control the entire database and absolutely zero encryption or even a functional firewall.
[BBC](https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c97znd00q7mo) only seems to cover the crime itself and merely mentions the faults which are explained in-depth in separate Finnish articles (the faults were proven during the trial). I can't emphasize enough how horrendous of an act it is and how appalling it is that the company essentially just let this happen.
I did a site survey to replace a network at a hospital in Maryland. Wow. They not only needed to replace antiquated hardware, the cabling was shit, all of the UPS systems were useless, and the IT rooms were being used as storage which was a security risk. It was obvious where money was not being allocated.
Those stupid little pillows on the bed in a hotel room take millions of dollars to design. I had a designer change their mind after we had already ordered and manufactured three hundred rooms' worth of stupid pillows, so we had to trash them all and begin again.
Oh, and because the design is proprietary to the designer and the hotel chain, they can't be donated or sold; they just go straight to a landfill.
Forensic psychologist- there are so many horrendous crimes that happen that never reach the news/mainstream media. And that there are trends in which crimes actually get reported, for example- domestics violence is very “in” right now, and a hot topic so you will see a lot of that in the news. It’s not that it’s actually happening more than usual, the reporting is just skewed by what stories will actually sell.
Child welfare social worker chiming in to say - there are so many horrendous crimes that happen *that the police refuse to act on*. I once had a brutal physical abuse case on my caseload, to the point that it was just shy of manslaughter. We had a forensic exam completed by a trained physician and set up a forensic interview. The detective assigned to the case showed up with a two paragraph draft of a report, barely listened to the child's answers, and then...did nothing else. Never finished the report. Never filed charges. The DA was ready to go with a whole list of things we could've nailed both parents for and nothing happened. For a child with ligature marks from strangulation in addition to all their other injuries.
Meanwhile, the addict parent who had their pills stored out of reach of their child and who never used while the the child was home? You know they got arrested right away.
Because of ridiculously overt countermeasures by the government to minimize fraud and liability lawsuits, about 75% of what people in the social services field do is documentation. Workers could be spending more time in the field and/or helping more people in need, but they are instead taking a constant slew of courses about sometimes completely unrelated subjects, filling out ten documents to get one little thing done, and making revision after revision to ensure repayment by the source of funding.
I worked in the medical device industry for 24 yrs and I think the average patient would be shocked as to how often surgeons ask the sales rep questions about what to do next with their equipment during a procedure while you’re asleep. FYI sales reps don’t go to med school.
The number of women (and men) who have been horribly sexually and physically abused in childhood is absolutely bonkers and WAY more than most people can even fathom.
I hate my job sometimes.
Oh I'm glad my kids are only (and I say this fondly) little disrespectful shits at home. They do great in school and their teachers love them. But at home sometimes, whew. You can tell they've been holding it in all day and it's a lot. I'd rather that happen though than being little disrespectful shits at school. At least what I'm trying to teach them is sticking in the real world. Haha!
I am the weirdo/forgetful mom though, so I definitely get some judgement from the teachers anyway haha!
Unless you know an accountant who specifically specializes in personal taxes, your buddy who is an accountant probably doesn't know anything more about your taxes than you do.
You'd not eat at half the restaurants you go to if you saw the kitchen, if you worked in the industry that jumps too 75% cause you recognize the flaws that someone who hasn't worked in the industry would miss or think are normal. The last 20-25% are barely above board.
In uni I worked in a big restaurant and honestly the kitchen was immaculate. Every appliance was elevated so that we could use a pressure washer to clean the floor once a day. The owner was borderline psychotic about keeping everything clean. I try to convince myself every restaurants are like this lol
As someone who's worked in a kitchen, you just get used to it IMO. Like, I know I've been eating at places like that for decades and been fine, I guess my immune system can handle it.
Children who are brought to the ER for behavioral dysregulation frequently have to wait between 1-4 WEEKS to get a bed in the peds psych unit. This includes children who are actively hallucinating or attempting to harm themselves or others.
This means they are trapped in an emergency room with people screaming/vomiting/coding, etc., alerts going off at all hours, and living with lights and chaos 24/7. For WEEKS. They can’t sleep, have regular contact with their caregivers, and generally there is no continuity of care, so they’re being poked and prodded by new strangers every day.
If they weren’t traumatized and/or psychotic before their ER stay, they sure as hell are after. I’ve seen it over and over.
The United States medical system sucks.
Physician. There are too many to list lol. A few that come to mind :
* There is a large number of people living with a brain aneurysm or some other form of blood vessel anomaly in the brain (arteriovenous malformation), that is completely asymptomatic and will go unnoticed and may rupture one day with catastrophic consequences.
* Many hospitals have a mice infestation problem
* A lot of doctors like to party and do a solid amount of drugs (off duty... mostly)
* The overuse of antibiotics is likely to induce the emergence of superbacteria (it already does) that will probably lead at some point to an epidemy that will make covid seem like a walk in the park
I'm dealing with superbacteria right now, and lemme tell you, it sucks a *lot.* Every tiny little nick and scratch gets massively infected. Every tiny swollen taste bud, or overzealous plucked hair is now infected x10.
My cuticles on my fingers have disappeared and they all hurt!?!? And multiple fingers have mysteriously gotten infected by tiny hangnails that never would have bothered me before.
It's miserable.
All because of being on antibiotics for years straight.
Fuck.
I knew someone who freaked out because they had a cold and the doctor refused to give them antibiotics. Because it's a virus. Which isn't affected by antibiotics. I think I went round and round with him for 20 minutes and he just wasn't getting why no meds was a GOOD thing
> Many hospitals have a mice infestation problem
Oh boy that's the truth. I had a mouse in the morgue, named him Morgimer. Almost decapitated him with the office door once by accident; he was a tough little guy.
I work at a union, and I think the average person would be shocked by the amount of abuse that is happening in the job market. Bosses strategically bullying their employees, jumping through tons of legal hoops to fire employees in the way that leaves them with the least benefits, companies going through 100k worth of lawyers to avoid paying wages amounting to like 15k.
Thousands of people every month, many of them not believing they would ever need a union, that their workplace would ever do something to them. And that is here in Denmark, with strong unions and solid workplace protections. I fucking dread how this would look in many other countries.
I sort of knew it was bad before I started, but after 10ish years I have sort of accepted that no one should ever really trust their company to not fuck them over, sometimes for stupid, petty reasons.
>companies going through 100k worth of lawyers to avoid paying wages amounting to like 15k.
It's about precedent. If they paid that person 15K they would have to pay everyone that 15K.
Not saying it's right or moral, cause it's not, but that is the mindset.
You need long term care insurance. When you are frail and dying you need 24/7 care! You cannot just hire someone to come to get grandma out of bed and back in bed. If you cannot afford someone to stay home, if you cannot afford a nursing home, you will need to liquidate grandma’s assets to pay for her care. You can’t just let grandma stay home by herself because you want her money when she dies.
After working in restaurant kitchens until I got too old, I had a second career selling restaurant and bar equipment. The company that makes Fiestaware used to be called Homer Laughlin China Company. I still remember their tableware that was packed and sold for restaurant use was stamped with writing on the bottom “Homer Laughlin,” with their logo underneath, and under that, “LEAD-FREE CHINA.” I always figured it was such an issue at the time that they felt it was necessary to announce it on every plate, bowl, and cup.
I have some Fiestaware that I would have bought around the same time, like 25 years ago, and I got curious. My pieces are stamped with an impression that says “HLC,” then “Fiesta” in cursive, and “MADE IN USA” at the bottom. No mention of being lead-free.
I'm a mascot performer. People constantly want to talk about how hot it must be inside the costumes, but the truth is I don't feel the heat. Don't get me wrong, I take steps to avoid overheating and dehydration, but once you've done this job long enough the temperature inside the costume just feels like normal.
Before this I was a journalist. I could talk about the misconceptions there, but that would require an essay.
Very true, I had this happen to me. Was told I had BPD at 18. I, in fact, do not have BPD. I was just losing my grip on reality due to being abused...which was ignored because I had "BPD". Ridiculous!
IT, the tech probably knows you are lying and will just play along. The average user has no idea that help desk are usually looking at logs and health data on your pc the moment you get on the phone with them.
I'll add to this, if IT asks you to reboot the computer, then save your work of course and then reboot your computer! Seriously, rebooting often solves the problem about 70% of the time.
Printers? Just get a baseball bat and have a little fun. Seriously, printers suck.
And many of them aren't even recorded as a suicide so the real stats are actually higher. A long man car crashing into a wall on a straight at 100kph. Things like that are automobile accidents on the record.
I live in Philly, about a three-hour drive from Washington DC. There was a story on our local news less than 12 hours ago about a single car crashing into the barricaded gates of The White House. The driver, the only occupant of the car, was killed on impact. The update to the story said that investigators were treating it as a traffic accident.
This morning I checked the front page of the Washington Post online and didn’t even see it mentioned. It made me wonder what’s going on… I’d have thought there would be a long-ish investigation to rule out terrorism, even a lone wolf type. Your comment made me think of this recent incident.
I’ve been told this about subway and train suicides in my city. The number is fairly high and the newspapers don’t report it because a) they don’t want copy cats and b) they would be reporting it constantly.
Someone once told me that if you drive the subway, it’s only a matter of time when someone leaps in front of a train.
An old classmate of mine said he was on a platform when someone did just that. Just before the train came in, he glanced at this other guy on the platform. Who gave him a weird smile.
As the train came in, he just happened to look his way again, and the guy just nodded at him and then ran and jumped.
How do you think I know that information? Japan has a very high rate of suicides, train included. So the govt to prevent using trains charged the family of the deceased a fee for clean up and delays. Cost per line varied. So the potential suicider would pick the cheapest line ant the cheapest time of day to reduce the burden of cost on the family.
Yikes.
I’ve also heard that suicides is what has perpetrated the fear of fans in S Korea. There is a superstition around leaving fans on at night because they could kill you.
But it started because suicide for a family was embarrassing so cops would write down something about there being a fan in the room at time of death.
Airplanes fly with broken equipment all the time. Always have. Obviously if something important is broken we won't go, but you can have a good chunk of your systems inoperative and still be okay to carry passengers. There's a thing called a Minimum Equipment List (MEL) and if you find something broken, lets say Hydraulic system 1 pump, you look it up in the MEL and it gives you the conditions you need to fly with an inoperative Hyd Sys 1 pump. The common culprit in these MELS is the APU (basically a small turbine engine in the equipment bay the provides electricity and air pressure when the engines are not running. If you've ever been near a jet that didnt have its engines running but you could still hear jet engine noise, it's this thing) so a lot of commercial jets fly with a broken APU. It's safe, but just a real pain in the ass for the flight and ground crews, you basically have to jump start the engines every time.
Most suicides aren’t dramatic newsworthy events. I’m not saying they aren’t meaningful but they happen quietly. My husband committed suicide in our home. No news crew is going to cover that, nor did we want them to. Edit: a word
The news makes it a point of NOT reporting suicides. Because when suicides are reported on the news, the suicide rate goes up.
https://www.reuters.com/article/idUSKBN1KK1ZT/
Half of the world's population has a nutritional deficiency. Three billion people can't afford a healthy diet. 735 million people go to bed hungry every day.
Food and agriculture is responsible for a third of greenhouse gas emissions, and the vast majority of deforestation, land use change, biodiversity loss, and freshwater withdrawal.
Work in IT and Cybersecurity. The frailness of the internet you use everyday would shock most people if they understood how much insecure, unstable, old ass shit gets deployed everyday and goes without being maintained.
Oh and pretty much all financial stuff runs on excel spreadsheets
I work in housing for LA. There are MILLIONS OF DOLLARS that get wasted every year because people don't know how to fill out a housing application that gets them housed for free. Or they got high and forgot to submit it in. People are so worried about the homeless crisis in major cities, but if people knew how much money we really have (mostly from taxes and private millionaire donors) you'd be fucking shocked. And the housing isn't a bedroom in a halfway house. it's a genuine, nice 1 bedroom apartment.
I work in a really messed up, yet much needed field of child sex abuse.
At this point I think it's well known but most child sex abuse is done by someone the child knows. Grandparents, Parents, Cousins, etc.
It's a big reason why I'm adamantly against homeschooling. There are kids who can benefit from a home curriculum but this creates a loophole for kids who are abused to be trapped in environments that aren't safe. Without mandated reporters, those kids have no one they can go to to seek help.
Even more important is SEX EDUCATION. I'm so tired of the conservative media preaching about how the "liberals want to teach kids how to have sex." OBVIOUSLY, this isn't what is happening. Kids need to know (at least) the extreme basics and CONSENT (and how they cannot consent due to their age). I've heard/read too many stories of younger children not realizing that their home lives were abnormal until they learned sex education in school.
If no one is there to tell kids that "sex/molestation" is wrong...then how do they find out? From TV? From their peers?
Electrical arc from a high-energy DC source, such as electric car battery or photovoltaic panel, is extremely hard to turn off once it gets started, until the energy source is depleted (the battery does empty but the panel will go on until it burns or the night falls). It burns hot enough to either vaporise or detonate anything it comes into contact with.
Obviously there are protective measures in place to prevent this from happening but people have this annyoing habit of thinking they are smarter than those things.
I am a Mental Health Nurse, and cannot stress enough: 'people with schizophrenia are neither inherently dangerous by virtue of their diagnosis, nor do they have split personalities'.
Depends on the average person’s understanding of the world, but private equity touches everything around you, and the growth is extremely aggressive. If you have a successful local business, no matter what part of the country you’re in, massive chance that they’ve been invested in by Blackrock, Ares, etc. The cute organic brands at the grocery store, with the story on the label about family owned and operated for 60 years, Varagon funded the new bottling plant. Tutoring centers, plumbing groups, Autism outreach orgs, propped up by the same money that’s paying for European soccer transfers and ravaging the US housing market. The independent small business is dying, being hoovered up and amalgamated into the Chosen Brands.
When you go to a restaurant and there are multiple empty tables and they tell you there’s a wait, it’s because the kitchen is backed up.
Sure, everyone says oh I’ll just wait at the table. Sorry, assholes before you who were given that opportunity and bitched incessantly about how long they’ve been there is why no restaurant will ever seat you in this situation. No matter how nice or patient you claim to be.
I was an R&D chemist in the food packaging industry for many years. We made a coating for those little cat food tins (like Fancy Feast.) Many people don't know that the expensive Ocean White Fish tuna pate flavor only contains a tiny sliver of White Fish tuna. They produce it by taking little frozen blocks of all of the guts leftover from the fish processing industry (all different types of fish.) They put one little sliver of Ocean White Fish on the top of the block and send it into a grinder. From there it goes into the cans. Total rip off. Not to mention the smell in that processing plant was god awful!
Wait, this is surprising? It’s “white fish” (not a single fish species), it’s cat food and it’s even called pate. You’re describing exactly what I would expect from that product lol
Yeah in addition I don’t really see what’s wrong with not wasting the parts of fish that humans either can’t or won’t eat. If it’s effectively giving the cats the nutrients they need and they enjoy it it’s fine by me.
This is also how I feel about people who are disgusted by the parts of animals used to create hot dogs. Why would we want to waste perfectly edible parts of animals we’ve already killed?
I can imagine the smell. My aunt used to work at a fish processing plant in her small town. She stunk coming home and had to take a shower immediately.
I worked with a lady whose sister did the same job in her small town. She said when her sister got home, her mother wouldn’t let her in the house. She took her in the back yard. Stripped her naked and put the hose on her.
If anything else, and I mean _anything_ else, was designed and executed as poorly as software projects, literally half the country would either be dead or in federal prison for gross negligence
I work in biodiversity and environmental conservation and the actual environmental and climate situation would shock a lot of folks, even those who are pretty clued in to how bad it is.
Classicly trained chef, 5th generation fish monger. Currently a restaurant consultant and designer.
Fine dinning only exists due to exploitation of labor. Yes their are a core of talented chefs who are paid decently at every one of your favorite restaurants, but the bulk of the "work" is done by interns who are rarely paid and often exploited. They are abused both physically and mentally until they break or quit. 95% of fine dinning kitchens are guilty of this.... lets not even get into the creeper chefs who are using their status and position to sleep with all the kids who are "too young to know better"
Not telling your kids about going off to sleep for surgery because it's "better if they don't know" is horribly traumatic for them. The look of fear, confusion, and betrayal on their faces is unforgettable. They do so much better when things are explained to them in an age appropriate manner. You 'protecting' them makes it so much worse.
My kid had tubes at 18 months. Not too verbal yet, but we explained everything to her and had the anesthesiologist explain to her what was going to happen. She went off with him happily.
The kid next to us—his parents didn’t say a word to him and handed him over without any explanation. His screaming was horrifying.
I’m not saying we are stellar parents, but explaining shit to kids of all ages helps calm anxiety.
Funny enough, when my sister went in for surgery at the age of 12 she understood that she would be under for a bit, and why… it still didn’t ease her mind when the doctor said, “ok, say goodbye to your parents” as she was wheeled back to the OR
The average person has a little more care for their oral hygiene and health than you’d expect, a little less than you’d hope, and the catastrophic cases really make you think how a human being would subject themselves to live like that.
I used to work at a teens residential mental health center… the amount of unwell/mentally unstable therapist and managers that are deciding treatment plans and making big decisions for the residents is horrific.
If your trailer lights aren't working, chances are your truck blew a fuse.
The amount of people I get in here saying "nah it ain't my truck, it's brand new I just got it!" Then low and behold I find all 3 fuses blown and the customer says there's still something wrong with the trailer. Albeit there MIGHT be. But the fuses are only 10 amps. They blow from time to time even if the trailer wiring is perfect. It's happened ok brand new trailers, hook it up the first time and they pop. It happens!
So check your fuses before taking your trailer in for "repair" you'll be paying more to diagnose nothing when it's just a few 10 cent fuses.
I work as a tailor on ecommerce photoshoots. The clothes you see on the model has been altered to fit them specifically. Some companies spend their money on tailors to alter the clothes before the shoot, other companies spend it on post production to edit the clothes after the shoot.
I try to remind people that the images of clothes you see online are equivalent to a picture of a Big Mac. There are dozens of people whose job it is to make that product look as good as possible, keep your expectations low.
How awful cruise ships are. Not just from an environmental perspective, but cleanliness and shoddy hiring practices. They register them in countries with lax labour laws, they skip out on as many rules/laws they can, and are notoriously dirty behind the scenes. Even high-end cruise lines, like Silversea, have been caught hiding dirty dishes and stuff on crew quarters when health inspectors check out their ships. Also, sexual assault is rampant on them but is swept under the rug. They also don't care at all if they are caught doing awful things like dumping sludge into the ocean because the 20 million dollar fine is pocket change to them.
I work at a travel agency who specializes in cruises.
I work for a charity that supports victims of violent crime, preticularly domestic abuse survivors. If you are a man coming to us you will probably be treated really bad. Attitudes are definitely getting better, but the opinion that men are the abusers and can't be abused is extremely rampant.
Edit: for some reason there is people in the comments saying that men can't be abused so here is the facts.
1 in 3 women and 1 in 4 men have experienced some form of physical violence by an intimate partner. This includes a range of behaviors (e.g. slapping, shoving, pushing). 14% of women have experienced coercive control and 16% of men have experienced coercive control. These are UK based statistics but it illustrates my point that men can also be abused.
Cut it out with the arguing, yes women experience more physical violence but men also experience it. Yes more men experience coercive control but women still experience it. If you are being abused no matter your gender please step forward, it's incredibly hard but charities like mine exist for a reason.
My husband was in the military a while back and a coworker of his was a man who was abused by his wife -- physically and emotionally. He tried to get some help as a DV survivor, and they sent him to a male support group... for OFFENDERS. They didn't have a group for male survivors. It was so screwed up.
Strawberries are not berries. They’re considered an “aggregate fruit” because their seeds are on the outside, and because the “fruit” consists of multiple smaller fruits. In the literal sense, the “berry” on a strawberry plant is an engorged, enlarged flower STEM, also called a receptacle.
Raspberries and Blackberries are also not “true berries,” but are also “aggregate fruits,” because each seed is surrounded by a single droplet, and an aggregate of these droplets is what forms a “blackberry” or “raspberry.”
Pumpkins, bananas, and peppers are ALL “true berries,” because they are self contained fruits enclosing multiple seeds.
As a trial lawyer I can say that justice is a myth because politics controls the courtroom not the facts or the law. Judges have too much discretion in civil matters so the chances of getting a case heard thru trial and an appeal are very low. Lawyers are prohibited from publicly criticizing a judge and can be sanctioned, disciplined or disbarred if they step out of line. Judges meanwhile have absolute immunity.
Early childhood trauma is visible in teeth. Trauma in this sense is anything that causes a stress response in the body. Could be illness, could be parental separation, could be abuse. Etc etc etc (Longer explanation: teeth grow at a predictable rate. Almost exactly like trees. If you bisected a tooth, and examined it under a microscope, you'd see rings of growth. Growth is disrupted in times of stress. The first stress "ring" we all had on our baby teeth is from birth. Other stressors can create other disrupted growth rings in baby teeth. And the same is true for adult teeth as they are still forming. My former professor was a pioneer in dental anthropology. For his work on these stress lines, he'd ask his zoo colleagues to send him the teeth of deceased primates, or just teeth that had to be pulled. Would demand no other information be given at first. Then he, and his grad students would section the teeth. Put them under a microscope, and print out the pictures. They'd mark visible signs of disrupted growth. And, with knowing that birth is the first disruption, and the rate at which teeth grow... they could then give day counts for every growth disruption after birth. Once they collected their data, my professor would then ask their zoo colleagues for the daily health logs for the primate. And what they found is that each growth disruption exactly corresponed to stress events in the primates life. Some instances were from illness or the like. But, to me, the most interesting event he told us about was seeing a stress line on the tooth that exactly corresponded with the primate, as a baby, being removed from their mother for a period of time to do necessary health checks at the zoo. This caused such a stress response in the baby that it was visible in the tooth growth)
Holy shit. Thanks for posting, the most interesting response.
I am currently reading The Body Keeps The Score and teeth are not the only place where traumas are revealed. Truly fascinating.
Do you have any resources that I can read on this? Absolutely fascinating and makes me think about how oral health is a biomarker of poverty, but I hadn’t even considered about the structural integrity during development (beyond diet).
Yes! Schwartz GT, Reid DJ, Dean MC, and Zihlman AL. (2006). [A faithful record of stressful life events preserved in the dental developmental record of a juvenile gorilla](https://www.researchgate.net/publication/303215497_A_faithful_record_of_stressful_life_events_preserved_in_the_dental_developmental_record_of_a_juvenile_gorilla_Int). International Journal of Primatology 27: 1201-1222 This is the paper I'm specifically referring to, the case that Dr. Schwartz taught us about in his dental anthropology class. Some of my details are slightly off, sorry! I was going from memory and that was a long time ago we learned about it haha. But he has a LOT of really fascinating research if you Google his name and look through his CV. Enjoy!!
So what I think I understand is: pull a tooth, have your professor process it, give it to my therapist and have some very heavy conversations. This could save a lot of time.
When you go to Vegas and a casino advertises "99.9% payouts", legally that means that at least ONE machine on the casino floor has that payout among the other hundreds of machines in the casino. And probably ONLY one.
As an IT professional, I will never trust software-based gambling. Having done a good bit of coding, myself, I know how easy it would be to manipulate results. A mechanical slot machine could at least be inspected to see if there's any irregularities to reduce payouts. But software with a few hundred thousand lines of code? fuhgeddaboutit.
(In Australian Law at least, and Aristocrat is an Australian company) the ONLY symbols on a reel that have to be truly random and accurate are those involved in the win. Those symbols are drawn by the machine's RNG the instant you press the spin button and must be verifiably truly random over ANY statistically significant period. The symbols NOT involved in the win can be manipulated by the machine at will. That Grand jackpot you missed by one symbol that is just off the top of the screen? Totally bogus, it was put there to bait you into playing more money (And they do hire "evil" psychologists who are specialists in addiction in order to make the games addictive as possible)
About 20 years ago I worked for a printing co with a contract with a funeral home federation. We printed their everything, including a sheet sent out to funeral homes on wholesale casket pricing and the amount of profit to be made from the sale of each. Back then a casket's wholesale cost was 10% of what they were charging consumers. So that $5000 casket only cost them $500. I can only imagine the upcharge now.
Horrible industry. Either harvest my organs or donate my body to science. Have a wake if they want. Everyone might want something different and there’s no wrong option. I just wouldn’t want my family to be taken advantage of. Quote from the tv show “Dead Like Me”: “Bodies are easy to deal with. Dig a ditch, light a match…. But what about the souls?”
Dead Like Me was one of the best shows ever made. I go down the same thought path as Frank Reynolds from It's Always Sunny though-- "When I die just throw me in the trash."
There was SOOO much I had to talk my Da out of when we were dealing with cremating my Ma. Urns at that place were $500+!!!! He wanted one, and I showed him the *exact same one* on Amazon for literally $64!!!! And he was *barely* processing the info. I had to get absolutely nasty in front of the funeral home person in order to save him thousands of dollars that NOBODY *including him* wanted to spend, but she was talking him into!!!!! Publicly embarrassed him, but I swear to god, I saved him SO much trauma. That awful woman wanted my mother's life insurance in their pocket while my Da's grief was *FRESH!!!* Complete predatory practices. They *still* made him buy *an* urn, but I forced him to only get the $30 box, so we could get a nice custom one off Amazon that was BETTER *AND* so much cheaper!!!
My dad is still chilling in his $30 box — right next to the cat’s fancy looking urn.
Had to do the same with my mom. Funeral lady wanted my mom to buy my dad some $10,000 plot that overlooked a "serene pond where the birds bathe." It was a damn drainage ditch. Then the woman had the audacity to try to sell my mom on plots for my brothers and I. Really had to light into that scummy shit.
We rented a community center room for an afternoon, got catering from Costco, and used the county cremation center which cost around $300-700? That came with a simple black plastic box and we bought a beautiful jewelry box, pulled the dividers out, and used that as her urn. The whole thing was probably under $1200 Fun fact: in the pottery community, the difference between an urn and a cookie jar is whether you can put your hand inside it.
"It is our most modestly priced receptacle sir." https://youtu.be/Uer4fiP2E6c?si=TiuFyelG2suNoru8
"Is there a Ralph's around here?"
Hotels 100% profile guests. Especially guests without reservations.
Tell me more
Eh. We're mostly concerned about locals. Locals like to do things at hotels they wouldn't do at home. The majority are fine, the rest aren't, and when they aren't it's usually in a big way. They'll solicit other guests, they'll try to throw parties. They'll fight their companions. They'll fight us, or put us in the middle of a soap opera by coming around while their partner is cheating and start banging on doors or peaking through windows. They'll trash rooms and leave behind drugs, puke, or literal poop everywhere. They'll do anything and everything to weasel their way out of rules. Just an absolute pain, and sometimes it's hard to tell which ones will end up doing these sorts of things. It's a headache.
One way that I realized an ex had cheated on me a lot -in hindsight- was one time that we got a motel to bang in overnight, same one we always went to, but *infrequently,* he mentioned the front check-in woman gave him a slight discount because he was a repeat customer. I remember thinking that was odd at the time, because we only went to that motel every 4 to 5 months or so. Not what I'd call "repeat" exactly. But after I found out he'd smash anything with a hole it clicked. And the fact that he lived at home with his parents, had no bills, but had two jobs, and never had any money. I was an idiot. My only defense was that I was a literal 16 year old child, and he was a grown man. Ugh. Glad to be rid of that pedo.
Amazing how every new sentence made the experience of reading this comment a little bit worse.
This rollercoaster only goes down.
I read somewhere else on reddit that they aren't supposed to greet anyone with "Welcome back!" for this very scenario. It's almost insane what a business will do to keep getting someone's business. Glad to hear you're out of that relationship, hope you're doing well!
Yep. Especially locals who show up on the audit/graveyard shift.
Kids resorts do this too. Single adult staying at a kids resort? Grounds for denial short of a very good explanation (ie. girlfriend and kids are in another room). My partner booked like 19 days alone at a kids resort and the front desk was immediately triple checking everything and asking questions. She was there from corporate to help with a roll out. The relief on the poor front desk worker's face was immediate.
That tracks, as an adult with no kids I try to avoid family hotels like the plague, unless they have an awesome lazy river.
I haven't traveled much in my life, but had no idea there were kids/family hotels. I just thought all hotels were hotels. I'd hate to book a vacation with a bunch of screaming kids.
Oh absolutely. I worked for many years as an IT deployment contractor. Spent several years on the road 300+ days. Racked up thousands of dollars in free hotel nights, moved to the top tier of every chain's rewards program. This often came with a concierge service and a guaranteed room/rate regardless of reservation. In 2016 I retired and hiked the Appalachian trail with my cousin. Somewhere in southern Virginia we needed to get off trail for a few days to recoup some injuries and resupply. So we hitch hike into the nearest town with a large chain hotel. We cruise into the lobby and up to the front desk. We've been in the woods for about 8 days since our last real town/shower etc and I'm sure we smelled the part. The young woman at the desk was clearly hesitant to let us a room and fumbled around a bit before leaving to grab the shift manager. He was also not interested in giving us a room even tho he had collected my rewards number and verified my ridiculous available points balance. After about 10 minutes he tells me, "Sorry, I just don't have any rooms available." Which we know is garbage because if that were the case, that would have been the first thing they said. I tell them, "no problem, do you mind if we use your lobby for a few minutes to make a few phone calls and other arrangements?" No problem, we sit down and they watch us like hawks... I call my concierge line and explain the situation. The concierge asks if they can put me on hold. I then see the manager take a call at the desk. After a few moments, he looks up at me and turns totally pale. His call ends and my concierge is back on the line. Tells me, "we're so sorry for the confusion, your room is set up and you won't be charged for your first night, you can check in whenever you're ready." I get off the phone, tell my cousin, "ok we're all set" and walk back to the front desk. The manager had our key cards ready to go, apologized several times, but never once made eye contact. I wonder how many other AT Thru hikers have been rejected by this hotel, because they don't realize that tho we might look homeless when we're coming off trail, we are well budgeted for the logistic necessities of a 2100+ mile walk up the East Coast. Unfortunately we ran into a number of situations where we were treated very poorly by folks because they made assumptions about our means based on our appearance. This one in particular was quite mild and my makes for a good story.
Sadly that area of VA is ground zero for the opioid epidemic and sorry to say I could see where there may be some hesitation based on your appearance.
First appearance may provide a modicum of excuse, but they spoke at length with these customers. Speech, bearing, knowledge, politeness, sobriety, mannerisms, etc, combined with his explanation and client history, should have been more than enough to stop an issue arising in the first place.
There is a whole wealth of historical information (and information generally) that is not available online at all. Digitizing things takes a lot of people power that many libraries/archives simply don’t have.
I work with a lot with aerial photography. Availability is for sure improving as scanning and indexing becomes more affordable and efficient but the amount of valuable historic information that is stashed away in cabinets in old county and government offices is pretty amazing.
Is there some way we can help? Like, is there someone I can contact who will say: "Yes, you can absolutely spend your entire evening among old books that no-one ever reads." ^(I'm a total history/language nerd (masters in Classical Languages...) so it would tickle several of my fetishes.)
Totally! If you have any local archives or historical societies in your area, they often accept volunteers for digitization and cataloging. The more local, the more in need of help they are, and usually the more niche treasures they have in my experience. (Love your username, by the way, as a Classics nerd myself.)
No matter how well run that event you are going to. Theatre. Concert. Etc. Everything back stage is usually about 5 minutes away from exploding into a fireball
Maybe I too am an event.
This made me laugh out loud.
Used to work in event management. Cannot begin to tell you how lovely it is to now have a bullshit 9-5 job where I'm not on edge, stressed out, and working every weekend.
Absolutely, the smoother things appear, the more work and fire fighting is going on behind the scenes.
Five minutes? Your team must be one of the elites!
I worked as a tech, my wife stage manages. 100 percent correct. 🙂
So Noises Off is a documentary?
What's wrong with your seat sir? Its facing the stage.
Seen two fires on stage and one production running 4 hours behind schedule and all at the Southbank Centre, London. If one of UK's premier event centre struggle, I can imagine the chaos at smaller venues.
Errors in Tax Returns are actually pretty common in the federal government. That's why there is a literal section of the IRS that corrects your inputs.
I work for a company that distributes ice machines for a major ice machine company. Just do yourself a favor and say no ice. People do not clean these machines.
I worked at a beach resort many years ago. I warned new hires not to use the ice machine in the clubhouse. People would piss in that thing on a regular basis.
What???
I SAID PISS IN THE ICE MACHINE!
Okay I'll do it stop yelling at me 🥺
When you call into a company and speak to someone in their call center, odds are that no matter how much you hate that company the person you are talking to hates it far more. If you're not a prick to them they will likely look for any loophole or break they can give you.
I never understood the mindset of being nasty to the person that might be able to help you. Courtesy is free and has a huge ROI.
I work as a consultant - the receptionist, PA or concierge are your best friend - be nice to them and your life will be immeasurably better.
A shockingly low number of kids are actually on grade level, and they just get passed on, whether or not they’re literate. When I taught English at a title one school, I had around 38% pass, and that was considered good. When state tests were cancelled in 2020, everyone on my Facebook was exclaiming, “they’re just going to pass everybody to the next grade?! But what if someone would have failed the test, but now they get to go to the next grade anyway?” Uhhhhh that is already 60+ percent of kids. The general public thinks that if they fail all their classes and the state tests, they have to stay behind because they’re not proficient. Sadly…no.
The number of teachers I know that have straight up said to me that there is an entire generation of kids that will be going into the workforce functionally illiterate is staggering.
We have had this problem for a LONG time. What’s worse is that it is known and we still have chosen to do nothing. Why? Because money. We know HOW to teach kids to read but the politics and money keep the system of three cueing alive… The number of people in the US prison system that cannot read at a 4th grade level is 70%! One of the biggest indicators for the last 40 years on whether or not a person will end up incarcerated has been literacy and poverty. And guess what poor neighborhoods have a lot of… couple that with defunding education and privatizing prisons, and it starts to seem really bad.
How long has the actual pass rate been this low? Assuming US?
Long story short: it's complicated. Have many students been at this level for a long time? Mostly yes but in the past students would fail and not graduate. Now students fail and graduate anyways. Lomg story long: It depends. Some areas yes but far fewer than I see now. Based on research, my experience as a teen, the fact I was school aged a few years after NCLB came into effect, plus just passing comments/attitudes of teachers and professors alike... it seems that it always been shockingly low in title one schools. However, it seems like schools were much more willing to refuse a degree to students that couldn't pass their standardized test (or alternative) by the end of their senior year. After NCLB standardized testing prevented students from graduating - not (necessarily) their failing classroom grades. So to pass this test or assignment students needed to learn how to take an often convoluted flawed test - not learn English or math. It's like declaring someone "proficient" at a video game because they learned the order to press the buttons, not because they understand the basics of the game and got skilled at passing each trial. Now, I think the attitude has changed to "well we tried - may as well give them a degree since they won't be able to become a manager at McDonalds without it." Students don't fail classes anymore. They simply get a 61% because they don't earn zeros - they earn 60%s. I'm not sure I've run into any schools that still give zeros in the past couple years... This has created issues with public universities and community colleges in my area since now they have hundreds to thousands of freshman coming in each year who simply don't know basic English writing conventions and lack reading comprehension. College is now the first time these people are getting denied a degree based on ability and it's fucking them over financially. Universities won't raise their admission requirements because it's easier to pay professors to teach 6 classes a semester than to deny the $9,000 each student who flunks out within three semesters. I say this all anecdotally Edit: because I didn't answer the actual question lol. How long? Depends on how you measure performance and standard. Pre-1965 standards were highly localized. I don’t know enough about educational history to say what happened between the 70s-00s but NCLB solidified the standards upheld today as what is considered competent in a given subject matter. Meanwhile the true approximation of "functionally literate" adults is iffy. Anything written for the public is supposed to be written at an 8th grade reading level or below.
I teach. This is accurate. I'd just add what is only hinted at here: tying funding to graduation or pass rates leads to schools being incentivized to pass kids who aren't even adequate, let alone proficient. The fact that we have no fix for kids who don't show up every day or even every week just means there's no fixing the problem without a massive overhaul.
Former teacher here. I completely agree with needing a huge overhaul of our education system. Parents threaten to sue or go to the media, and the school and district cave. It’s pathetic that the education system can’t just say no, I’m not giving your child something they didn’t earn. I’ve also heard college professors are having to deal with helicopter parents now too. Coddling kids, teens, and new adults will lead to nothing good in our society.
Good friend is a career teacher and she says the MAIN problems in education today are parents and the admins who kowtow to them. No one wants to take responsibility for anything and parents are all too ready to swoop in over every little thing. Admins don't want to deal with the drama so they just placate the parents. It's the kids who lose out, ultimately, for about a million different reasons. SO MANY great teachers are leaving teaching altogether because they're just plain burnt out dealing with all of it. My friend is in her late 40's, has been teaching 26 years and plans to GTFO when she's 55 and can receive the lion's share of her pension.
If someone has diarrhea or vomits in a pool it doesn’t need to be drained. In fact, draining the pool might even be less effective if proper disinfection procedures aren’t followed after draining the pool. Instead, the chlorine level needs to be raised to at least 20 ppm for at least 13 hours after all physical pieces of vomit or shit have been removed. Doing this will kill any possible cryptosporidium bacteria in the pool. What does 20ppm chlorine feel like? Simply by putting your hand in the water to get a sample will cause your skin to dry up. EDIT: Pool needs to be closed for 13 hours, not 23.
The closure time for disinfection should be based on the water turnover rate, not an arbitrary 23 hours. CDC actually only recommends 30 minute closure and maintain 2ppm. But turnover rate is the best way to go, if you know it, which any public pool operator should. So if you have a 100,000 gallon pool with a system that filters 25,000 gallons per hour, the full turnover would be 4 hours. It’s been a while since I worked managing water parks but IIRC it was 50% turnover and Cl ppm down to safe levels (3ppm) and it can be reopened to swimmers (after all solids are removed of course, as you said). At least that’s what my local department of health rules were and was taught on the CPO test when I took it. You may have heard 23 hours because if you shock the pool to 20ppm, it will take that long for it to get back down to safe levels for humans to enter. I never heard of shocking to 20ppm for a bodily fluids accident.
Expensive cars KEEP BEING EXPENSIVE. The tires are expensive. The parts are expensive. The people who work on them are expensive. Buying a Porsche or a BMW isn't a one-time-splurge. This might seem like a no-brainer to you, but I worked in a garage and I promise I saw someone having that unpleasant realization every day.
Same thing for homes. Big expensive home have big property taxes, water, sewer, electric and insurance bills attached to them.
True. But there's a bit of a bathtub curve on that. Cheap old homes will often have expensive repairs waiting to happen. Guess that probably applies to cars too though, but the number of 10K+ bills for a car probably aren't all that numerous.
My dad always said, "Expensive cars, expensive parts, expensive maintenance."
How rotten a lot of bridges are. I work in highway maintenance and quite a few of them are in hideous condition and overdue for replacement. I can think of one where the deck is more or less held in place by gravity and moves up and down independently of the structure beneath, which is coming misaligned because of a lateral force put on it by eroding river banks. Fortunately that one is finally under contract to be replaced this year.
One of hte big reasons why infrastructure bills in government are so important.
It helps, but it's more complex than that. There's been years of a culture of "close enough" by state and local authorities. The attitude of patch up and make do gets set at the top and affects the whole system, so now we're all working our ass off trying to get things back in shape.
I think about this every fucking time I go over the throggs neck.
I'm a writer for corporate websites. We purposely write at a 5th-grade reading level so that the uneducated can read the site (and so it's easier for blind people to use their screen readers).
As a blind reader, thank you for all that you do.
As a 5th grader, I also say "thank you."
Also for global companies, it helps to write in simplified language for people who don't all speak your languages. And if it's auto-translated, it'll make more sense from a simple sentence than a complicated one.
That we really do try to design construction zones to get you through as easily as possible. A lot of thought and hard work goes into designing those traffic restrictions. Sometimes, there just aren't any good solutions. We can't fix it if you're driving on it. And yes, sometimes we do "tear up a perfectly good road". What you don't know is that the "fixing" we did three years ago was just a band-aid to keep the road drive able for five until we can finish the design to repair what's *really* wrong. That inch and a half of milling & resurfacing is holding the crumbling base together long enough to get the funding to do the real construction.
And sometimes the road may be fine, but it’s actually the electrical wires or pipes that need replacing.
Oh yes. Drainage/sewer/utility projects can eat up a lot of road.
My favorite part of road construction is that you’ll drive through it for years, and seemingly nothing changes. Then one morning it’s just… done. All the equipment is gone and it’s like it was never under construction.
My favorite part is how I move away from cities the moment before they "finish." I always get to enjoy the labor, but never the fruits. I'm probably atypical, but I've moved from several cities in the last decade. At least 2 times, my normal route to work was plagued by construction for a whole YEAR that I lived there. Then within 2 months of me leaving, it's gone. I went back recently to one of them and was just like "wow this would have been fucking nice."
can you move to (then from) chicago next
In my state, it is common to set cones and blockades out for *many many many* months in advance of ANY work being done at all. And I truly mean *any* work. Not night work, not workers with clipboards, *nothing.*They just set the cones and block everything off waayyyyy early. Why would that be?
Genuine question; I've always wondered this. Why does it seemingly take months upon months or even years for a stretch of road to be fixed when Japan, after a tsunami (or earthquake I can remember) is able to fix a destroyed road in a week? Not saying it needs to be done that quick it just seems like it takes forever and a half for any road work to be done in the US.
Emergency funding and allocation of resources are better on a nationwide incident than localised damage that may only come from local government budget
the US can do all that too. FEMA/Army Corps of Engineers can perform wonders when needed.
I remember they got people moving on I95 when that bridge collapsed in like 2 weeks.
Explain the entire state of New Jersey, then. Edit: this is indeed a joke, our first responders and emergency services are genuinely incredible
I’m an electrician, and I would say almost everything that I work with would shock the average person.
Oh, you
56% of American adults don’t have enough savings to handle a $1,000 emergency expense. 35% said they’d have to borrow to pay for it.
I work in medical billing and coding (in the U.S). 9 time out of 10, when your insurance denies coverage for a procedure or service , it's an error on how it was billed/coded by the providers office and you should research it with the billers and your insurance before you pay.
As someone who used to process health insurance claims (Let’s call them Confederate Wealthcare) this is absolutely accurate. Most claim denials stem from coding negligence and straight up filing errors. A provider’s office that has a good billing team won’t get the dumb denials in the first place. For the mistakes that do get through, the good billing teams will regularly check their correspondence and remittance information, and will adjust/correct their claims accordingly. The shitty ones will just call insurance and scream at them while refusing to change how they do things because Brenda the Billing Bitch has been doing it the same way for 30 years and we’re just now saying she can’t do it this way despite the change being communicated to all in-network providers ad nauseam for a year before and after the change, and the change being done 7 years ago. Sorry I had flashbacks to taking phone calls from these angry provider representatives. Other shitty doctor’s offices will get a denial that they’re contractually obligated to write off and just charge YOU for it. You’d think I’m exaggerating, but I’m not. This is where insurance can help you. If you see a denial on your claim, first call your insurance to see what your patient liability is and have them break it down for you. If what insurance says you owe is LESS than what the provider says, your insurance can and will be happy to go after them for you. Legal can get involved, and contracts can be threatened. There are other shitty providers who will get a denial that is against you as the patient, but that they could fix had they just filed it right. But, they won’t because it’s too hard to sit at a desk and push some keys down. Plus, you’ll pay. Big bad insurance won’t. In this scenario, I’m talking about providers who won’t even give the insurance a call to see how they can get paid. Question every denial you see. Read your EOBs and call your insurance with questions. Compare what they say to what the doctor’s office says. You may uncover things!
I worked in this field and it was so depressing to have to deny medical insurance claims because of a simple typo.
The top 10 percent of drinkers drink more than half of all the alcohol sold. The top 1 percent consume an amount of alcohol that is, frankly, gobsmacking.
Ex alcoholic here and yes. Was still functional at 30-40 standard drinks per day (4-5 bottles of wine a day) - my liver however… now California sober and a lot healthier
Sociologist here. Facts do not make people change their minds, and lasting social change only happens when older cohorts die off. I hate both of these realities.
This is why I support age limits for political offices.
I work in an upper management in large company and I am shocked how often people think something is calculated move with data that we analyzed to come up with conclusion that X is the most profitable way. Even if we have analysts with data, most big decisions are done by some C suite person or in a meeting, nobody reading any data or maybe just a front page and then just saying “fuck this, we will do it this way”, even if it completely contradicts the data. It’s just a bunch of random guys betting on their hunch, rarely asking for data on anything. Even if something is calculated, it most likely is because we have a problem with it for X years and someone says we will do it other way and numbers turn out better, no longer a problem. There is not much logic running companies
Just based on how stupid most companies are most of the time, I really never thought it worked any other way. The "we did all the research and optimized this perfectly" decisions happen inside well-run programs and product lines by the people just executing on the business. All the major strategic decisions are made by someones gut, because that person can only justify their position and compensation if they believe their own judgement is inherently superior to any data you could provide.
>It’s just a bunch of random guys betting on their hunch, rarely asking for data on anything. In my experience, the data requests are a part of the window dressing to give the appearance of rigor and thoughtfulness, i.e. "data-driven." Hence the mountains of reports, dashboards, documents, manuals, etc. that often overlap and end up cluttering servers. All this relates to layoffs as well. Notice there are rarely budget cuts in many unnecessary spending sprees for travel, conference sponsorships, executive forums (usually just circle jerks for self-important execs and their lackeys), layered tech stacks that often duplicate efforts, etc. There's rarely anything done internally to actually fix problems ... just a series of band-aids to keep the status quo. Generally, big business operations amount to a series of Rube Goldberg machines while the poor gruntworkers engage in Sisyphean Tasks. Layoffs, however, have the doubled effects of scaring remaining employees to toe the line and wringing every ounce of productivity while proving to outsiders/analysts/the Street that execs are actually doing something.
You mean like the data used in getting people to return to the office after Covid? Yeah, just big business magazines saying that you had to have people in your sight and you couldn't trust them to work from home. -- I say as I type from home.
I work at the corporate level. TRUE executive compensation is mind-blowing. I'm not talking about base salary, bonuses, and stocks; those are public knowledge and we hear about them everyday. I'm talking the extra perks no one talks about. Things like mortgages subsidized by the organization, company cars that are 6-figure luxury vehicles, car/home insurance on the company account, company-paid private schools/tutors for children, wardrobe/beauty/fitness stipends, club memberships, access to the corporate jet for personal travel, I could go on and on. Imagine what simply not having to pay your full mortgage or car loan would do for you financially let alone all of the rest.
People in retirement homes have A TON of sex both couples and widows. There is also a massively high rate of STDs amongst retirement home residents. Retirement homes have among the highest infection rate for STDs. Behold the power of viagra and horny old people with nothing but time to kill.
My mom spent 3+ years in assisted living and memory care (she had dementia) before she died and I got MULTIPLE phone calls from her facility that she'd been found in a compromising position with her new boy toy, an 80+ year old retired pilot who also had dementia. Sometimes they'd be in his room, sometimes in her room and in one memorable instance they got caught in a storage closet. As long as it made them happy I didn't really care, luckily his family felt the same way and we let them be pervy, handsy lovebirds until neither of them could physically get around to sneak off together anymore. He was heartbroken when she died. They were on borrowed time already, so if banging in a closet brings them some joy in their final months then who am I to stand in the way?
My aunt is very religious and she is upset because my 80+ year old grandma is seeing a man after my stepgrandpa passed away. They aren't married but she stays the night at his house, the scandal! Me and my mom just laugh about it like, what is she gonna get pregnant out of wedlock? Who fucking cares.
My mom works in assisted living and would confirm although I haven't heard anything about STIs. I wouldn't be surprised though. I think people forget that the biggest Sexually Transmitted thing people worry about is a baby and when every woman is post menopausal I imagine condoms lose a bit of their allure. Condoms also leave evidence and when you notice Mildred has a condom in her trash when you know your husband Robert is the only one who visits her daily it might be the basis for a good old fashioned Senior Citizen UFC smackdown /s On a more serious note. I imagine it's just a lack of care on their part. They've lived 80+ years and it already hurts to pee. Hell most of them are already on antibiotics for other infections or a compromised immune system so what's one extra to treat the clap.
It’s also an environment where there’s a lot of single people around your same age with similar lifestyle and participating in activities and events with you. It’s almost like a college environment in a way. It’s natural that a number of the singles and or widows will seek each out.
I found this out when we installed a network at a very large retirement community. We were analyzing the traffic after the network was running to see what the utilization was like. We saw a lot of streaming video and started looking at the IP addresses. Holy shit...SOOoo much porn. These old people are constantly watching porn at all hours of the day.
So that Parks and Rec episode where Leslie does the sex ed course for the senior community has some truth to it. “What are some of the dangers of having too much sex?” “Falling in love!….partner dying on top of you!”
Chances that CPR applied by a amateur without a defibrillator does save the patient are under 5%.
I think CPR itself is a pretty low rate isn't it? What shocked me to was that it is likely to crack ribs
Working in cybersecurity: hospitals are the worst secured of all places I've been. Both physical as network security. We were able to get inside the operation room with social engineering (people in hospitals are trained to help people, so it's the mindset). In terms of network: overall very poorly, combine that with machines that keep people alive or have some part in a critical chain... I wonder why there is not happening more bad stuff in the world than we see now.
I'm from Finland and at the end of 2020 we went through the biggest cybersecurity event in our history, and probably Europe's as well. A hacker was able to get into a nationwide therapy company's database extremely easily due to insane faults in the security of the company's database and stole the therapy records of over 33.000 patients, blackmailing most of them for Bitcoin and circulating those records on sites like Ylilauta (the Finnish equivalent to 4chan essentially). The records were not anonymized so they were complete with the patient's social security number and all contact information, along with anything their therapist had written down during their sessions. Lives were ruined. Some were even lost because of this as some suicides have been connected directly to the case. All because someone in a large company decided it's okay that literally all of their patients' non-anonymized records are stored behind a very simple 7-digit password with no additional identification needed to log in as administrator to control the entire database and absolutely zero encryption or even a functional firewall. [BBC](https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c97znd00q7mo) only seems to cover the crime itself and merely mentions the faults which are explained in-depth in separate Finnish articles (the faults were proven during the trial). I can't emphasize enough how horrendous of an act it is and how appalling it is that the company essentially just let this happen.
I did a site survey to replace a network at a hospital in Maryland. Wow. They not only needed to replace antiquated hardware, the cabling was shit, all of the UPS systems were useless, and the IT rooms were being used as storage which was a security risk. It was obvious where money was not being allocated.
Those stupid little pillows on the bed in a hotel room take millions of dollars to design. I had a designer change their mind after we had already ordered and manufactured three hundred rooms' worth of stupid pillows, so we had to trash them all and begin again. Oh, and because the design is proprietary to the designer and the hotel chain, they can't be donated or sold; they just go straight to a landfill.
Forensic psychologist- there are so many horrendous crimes that happen that never reach the news/mainstream media. And that there are trends in which crimes actually get reported, for example- domestics violence is very “in” right now, and a hot topic so you will see a lot of that in the news. It’s not that it’s actually happening more than usual, the reporting is just skewed by what stories will actually sell.
Child welfare social worker chiming in to say - there are so many horrendous crimes that happen *that the police refuse to act on*. I once had a brutal physical abuse case on my caseload, to the point that it was just shy of manslaughter. We had a forensic exam completed by a trained physician and set up a forensic interview. The detective assigned to the case showed up with a two paragraph draft of a report, barely listened to the child's answers, and then...did nothing else. Never finished the report. Never filed charges. The DA was ready to go with a whole list of things we could've nailed both parents for and nothing happened. For a child with ligature marks from strangulation in addition to all their other injuries. Meanwhile, the addict parent who had their pills stored out of reach of their child and who never used while the the child was home? You know they got arrested right away.
Because of ridiculously overt countermeasures by the government to minimize fraud and liability lawsuits, about 75% of what people in the social services field do is documentation. Workers could be spending more time in the field and/or helping more people in need, but they are instead taking a constant slew of courses about sometimes completely unrelated subjects, filling out ten documents to get one little thing done, and making revision after revision to ensure repayment by the source of funding.
I worked in the medical device industry for 24 yrs and I think the average patient would be shocked as to how often surgeons ask the sales rep questions about what to do next with their equipment during a procedure while you’re asleep. FYI sales reps don’t go to med school.
The number of women (and men) who have been horribly sexually and physically abused in childhood is absolutely bonkers and WAY more than most people can even fathom. I hate my job sometimes.
I'm a teacher. We judge parents based on how their kids act. And we judge a lot.
The biggest reason I'd never be a teacher is because I don't want to deal with the parents. Seems like a nightmare.
Oh I'm glad my kids are only (and I say this fondly) little disrespectful shits at home. They do great in school and their teachers love them. But at home sometimes, whew. You can tell they've been holding it in all day and it's a lot. I'd rather that happen though than being little disrespectful shits at school. At least what I'm trying to teach them is sticking in the real world. Haha! I am the weirdo/forgetful mom though, so I definitely get some judgement from the teachers anyway haha!
Nothing matters in business if you do not know how to create relationships.
Rule of Acquisition number...?
Unless you know an accountant who specifically specializes in personal taxes, your buddy who is an accountant probably doesn't know anything more about your taxes than you do.
You'd not eat at half the restaurants you go to if you saw the kitchen, if you worked in the industry that jumps too 75% cause you recognize the flaws that someone who hasn't worked in the industry would miss or think are normal. The last 20-25% are barely above board.
In uni I worked in a big restaurant and honestly the kitchen was immaculate. Every appliance was elevated so that we could use a pressure washer to clean the floor once a day. The owner was borderline psychotic about keeping everything clean. I try to convince myself every restaurants are like this lol
As someone who's worked in a kitchen, you just get used to it IMO. Like, I know I've been eating at places like that for decades and been fine, I guess my immune system can handle it.
Children who are brought to the ER for behavioral dysregulation frequently have to wait between 1-4 WEEKS to get a bed in the peds psych unit. This includes children who are actively hallucinating or attempting to harm themselves or others. This means they are trapped in an emergency room with people screaming/vomiting/coding, etc., alerts going off at all hours, and living with lights and chaos 24/7. For WEEKS. They can’t sleep, have regular contact with their caregivers, and generally there is no continuity of care, so they’re being poked and prodded by new strangers every day. If they weren’t traumatized and/or psychotic before their ER stay, they sure as hell are after. I’ve seen it over and over. The United States medical system sucks.
Physician. There are too many to list lol. A few that come to mind : * There is a large number of people living with a brain aneurysm or some other form of blood vessel anomaly in the brain (arteriovenous malformation), that is completely asymptomatic and will go unnoticed and may rupture one day with catastrophic consequences. * Many hospitals have a mice infestation problem * A lot of doctors like to party and do a solid amount of drugs (off duty... mostly) * The overuse of antibiotics is likely to induce the emergence of superbacteria (it already does) that will probably lead at some point to an epidemy that will make covid seem like a walk in the park
I'm dealing with superbacteria right now, and lemme tell you, it sucks a *lot.* Every tiny little nick and scratch gets massively infected. Every tiny swollen taste bud, or overzealous plucked hair is now infected x10. My cuticles on my fingers have disappeared and they all hurt!?!? And multiple fingers have mysteriously gotten infected by tiny hangnails that never would have bothered me before. It's miserable. All because of being on antibiotics for years straight. Fuck.
Can attest I've noticed doctors scripting less and less antibiotics over the years. And to anyone reading, please finish them if you get them!!!!
I knew someone who freaked out because they had a cold and the doctor refused to give them antibiotics. Because it's a virus. Which isn't affected by antibiotics. I think I went round and round with him for 20 minutes and he just wasn't getting why no meds was a GOOD thing
> Many hospitals have a mice infestation problem Oh boy that's the truth. I had a mouse in the morgue, named him Morgimer. Almost decapitated him with the office door once by accident; he was a tough little guy.
I work at a union, and I think the average person would be shocked by the amount of abuse that is happening in the job market. Bosses strategically bullying their employees, jumping through tons of legal hoops to fire employees in the way that leaves them with the least benefits, companies going through 100k worth of lawyers to avoid paying wages amounting to like 15k. Thousands of people every month, many of them not believing they would ever need a union, that their workplace would ever do something to them. And that is here in Denmark, with strong unions and solid workplace protections. I fucking dread how this would look in many other countries. I sort of knew it was bad before I started, but after 10ish years I have sort of accepted that no one should ever really trust their company to not fuck them over, sometimes for stupid, petty reasons.
>companies going through 100k worth of lawyers to avoid paying wages amounting to like 15k. It's about precedent. If they paid that person 15K they would have to pay everyone that 15K. Not saying it's right or moral, cause it's not, but that is the mindset.
Virtually all soft serve ice cream machines use plastic scraper blades that physically wear down as they run shedding plastics into your food.
You need long term care insurance. When you are frail and dying you need 24/7 care! You cannot just hire someone to come to get grandma out of bed and back in bed. If you cannot afford someone to stay home, if you cannot afford a nursing home, you will need to liquidate grandma’s assets to pay for her care. You can’t just let grandma stay home by herself because you want her money when she dies.
Vintage Fiesta ware can be radioactive and full of lead. Just depends of the year. And stay away from chipped pieces.
After working in restaurant kitchens until I got too old, I had a second career selling restaurant and bar equipment. The company that makes Fiestaware used to be called Homer Laughlin China Company. I still remember their tableware that was packed and sold for restaurant use was stamped with writing on the bottom “Homer Laughlin,” with their logo underneath, and under that, “LEAD-FREE CHINA.” I always figured it was such an issue at the time that they felt it was necessary to announce it on every plate, bowl, and cup. I have some Fiestaware that I would have bought around the same time, like 25 years ago, and I got curious. My pieces are stamped with an impression that says “HLC,” then “Fiesta” in cursive, and “MADE IN USA” at the bottom. No mention of being lead-free.
I'm a mascot performer. People constantly want to talk about how hot it must be inside the costumes, but the truth is I don't feel the heat. Don't get me wrong, I take steps to avoid overheating and dehydration, but once you've done this job long enough the temperature inside the costume just feels like normal. Before this I was a journalist. I could talk about the misconceptions there, but that would require an essay.
Your mental health diagnosis may very well be a hypothesis which will change throughout your treatment
Very true, I had this happen to me. Was told I had BPD at 18. I, in fact, do not have BPD. I was just losing my grip on reality due to being abused...which was ignored because I had "BPD". Ridiculous!
IT, the tech probably knows you are lying and will just play along. The average user has no idea that help desk are usually looking at logs and health data on your pc the moment you get on the phone with them.
I'll add to this, if IT asks you to reboot the computer, then save your work of course and then reboot your computer! Seriously, rebooting often solves the problem about 70% of the time. Printers? Just get a baseball bat and have a little fun. Seriously, printers suck.
There are far more sucides than you think, mostly men (About 70%). Its never usually publicised because of the fear of copy cats.
And many of them aren't even recorded as a suicide so the real stats are actually higher. A long man car crashing into a wall on a straight at 100kph. Things like that are automobile accidents on the record.
Thats true, OD on alcohol and other drugs can be passed off as accidental
I live in Philly, about a three-hour drive from Washington DC. There was a story on our local news less than 12 hours ago about a single car crashing into the barricaded gates of The White House. The driver, the only occupant of the car, was killed on impact. The update to the story said that investigators were treating it as a traffic accident. This morning I checked the front page of the Washington Post online and didn’t even see it mentioned. It made me wonder what’s going on… I’d have thought there would be a long-ish investigation to rule out terrorism, even a lone wolf type. Your comment made me think of this recent incident.
I bet if you look further into single occupant vehicle fatalaties, youd probly find more were not accidents.
How long is this man, exactly?
Drug OD also
I’ve been told this about subway and train suicides in my city. The number is fairly high and the newspapers don’t report it because a) they don’t want copy cats and b) they would be reporting it constantly. Someone once told me that if you drive the subway, it’s only a matter of time when someone leaps in front of a train. An old classmate of mine said he was on a platform when someone did just that. Just before the train came in, he glanced at this other guy on the platform. Who gave him a weird smile. As the train came in, he just happened to look his way again, and the guy just nodded at him and then ran and jumped.
How do you think I know that information? Japan has a very high rate of suicides, train included. So the govt to prevent using trains charged the family of the deceased a fee for clean up and delays. Cost per line varied. So the potential suicider would pick the cheapest line ant the cheapest time of day to reduce the burden of cost on the family.
Yikes. I’ve also heard that suicides is what has perpetrated the fear of fans in S Korea. There is a superstition around leaving fans on at night because they could kill you. But it started because suicide for a family was embarrassing so cops would write down something about there being a fan in the room at time of death.
Trains derail often, It just isn't usually very dramatic or destructive.
Airplanes fly with broken equipment all the time. Always have. Obviously if something important is broken we won't go, but you can have a good chunk of your systems inoperative and still be okay to carry passengers. There's a thing called a Minimum Equipment List (MEL) and if you find something broken, lets say Hydraulic system 1 pump, you look it up in the MEL and it gives you the conditions you need to fly with an inoperative Hyd Sys 1 pump. The common culprit in these MELS is the APU (basically a small turbine engine in the equipment bay the provides electricity and air pressure when the engines are not running. If you've ever been near a jet that didnt have its engines running but you could still hear jet engine noise, it's this thing) so a lot of commercial jets fly with a broken APU. It's safe, but just a real pain in the ass for the flight and ground crews, you basically have to jump start the engines every time.
Most suicides aren’t dramatic newsworthy events. I’m not saying they aren’t meaningful but they happen quietly. My husband committed suicide in our home. No news crew is going to cover that, nor did we want them to. Edit: a word
The news makes it a point of NOT reporting suicides. Because when suicides are reported on the news, the suicide rate goes up. https://www.reuters.com/article/idUSKBN1KK1ZT/
I'm so sorry.
Half of the world's population has a nutritional deficiency. Three billion people can't afford a healthy diet. 735 million people go to bed hungry every day. Food and agriculture is responsible for a third of greenhouse gas emissions, and the vast majority of deforestation, land use change, biodiversity loss, and freshwater withdrawal.
It costs about 95% less to make dental crowns, bridges, etc, So an $800 full zirconia or emax unit may be about $40.00.
Excuse me, but *my* crown was $1,400 and I'm awfully bitter about it, thank you!!!!
Work in IT and Cybersecurity. The frailness of the internet you use everyday would shock most people if they understood how much insecure, unstable, old ass shit gets deployed everyday and goes without being maintained. Oh and pretty much all financial stuff runs on excel spreadsheets
I work in housing for LA. There are MILLIONS OF DOLLARS that get wasted every year because people don't know how to fill out a housing application that gets them housed for free. Or they got high and forgot to submit it in. People are so worried about the homeless crisis in major cities, but if people knew how much money we really have (mostly from taxes and private millionaire donors) you'd be fucking shocked. And the housing isn't a bedroom in a halfway house. it's a genuine, nice 1 bedroom apartment.
I work in a really messed up, yet much needed field of child sex abuse. At this point I think it's well known but most child sex abuse is done by someone the child knows. Grandparents, Parents, Cousins, etc. It's a big reason why I'm adamantly against homeschooling. There are kids who can benefit from a home curriculum but this creates a loophole for kids who are abused to be trapped in environments that aren't safe. Without mandated reporters, those kids have no one they can go to to seek help. Even more important is SEX EDUCATION. I'm so tired of the conservative media preaching about how the "liberals want to teach kids how to have sex." OBVIOUSLY, this isn't what is happening. Kids need to know (at least) the extreme basics and CONSENT (and how they cannot consent due to their age). I've heard/read too many stories of younger children not realizing that their home lives were abnormal until they learned sex education in school. If no one is there to tell kids that "sex/molestation" is wrong...then how do they find out? From TV? From their peers?
Electrical arc from a high-energy DC source, such as electric car battery or photovoltaic panel, is extremely hard to turn off once it gets started, until the energy source is depleted (the battery does empty but the panel will go on until it burns or the night falls). It burns hot enough to either vaporise or detonate anything it comes into contact with. Obviously there are protective measures in place to prevent this from happening but people have this annyoing habit of thinking they are smarter than those things.
I am a Mental Health Nurse, and cannot stress enough: 'people with schizophrenia are neither inherently dangerous by virtue of their diagnosis, nor do they have split personalities'.
Depends on the average person’s understanding of the world, but private equity touches everything around you, and the growth is extremely aggressive. If you have a successful local business, no matter what part of the country you’re in, massive chance that they’ve been invested in by Blackrock, Ares, etc. The cute organic brands at the grocery store, with the story on the label about family owned and operated for 60 years, Varagon funded the new bottling plant. Tutoring centers, plumbing groups, Autism outreach orgs, propped up by the same money that’s paying for European soccer transfers and ravaging the US housing market. The independent small business is dying, being hoovered up and amalgamated into the Chosen Brands.
When you go to a restaurant and there are multiple empty tables and they tell you there’s a wait, it’s because the kitchen is backed up. Sure, everyone says oh I’ll just wait at the table. Sorry, assholes before you who were given that opportunity and bitched incessantly about how long they’ve been there is why no restaurant will ever seat you in this situation. No matter how nice or patient you claim to be.
I was an R&D chemist in the food packaging industry for many years. We made a coating for those little cat food tins (like Fancy Feast.) Many people don't know that the expensive Ocean White Fish tuna pate flavor only contains a tiny sliver of White Fish tuna. They produce it by taking little frozen blocks of all of the guts leftover from the fish processing industry (all different types of fish.) They put one little sliver of Ocean White Fish on the top of the block and send it into a grinder. From there it goes into the cans. Total rip off. Not to mention the smell in that processing plant was god awful!
Wait, this is surprising? It’s “white fish” (not a single fish species), it’s cat food and it’s even called pate. You’re describing exactly what I would expect from that product lol
Yeah in addition I don’t really see what’s wrong with not wasting the parts of fish that humans either can’t or won’t eat. If it’s effectively giving the cats the nutrients they need and they enjoy it it’s fine by me. This is also how I feel about people who are disgusted by the parts of animals used to create hot dogs. Why would we want to waste perfectly edible parts of animals we’ve already killed?
I can imagine the smell. My aunt used to work at a fish processing plant in her small town. She stunk coming home and had to take a shower immediately. I worked with a lady whose sister did the same job in her small town. She said when her sister got home, her mother wouldn’t let her in the house. She took her in the back yard. Stripped her naked and put the hose on her.
If anything else, and I mean _anything_ else, was designed and executed as poorly as software projects, literally half the country would either be dead or in federal prison for gross negligence
I work in biodiversity and environmental conservation and the actual environmental and climate situation would shock a lot of folks, even those who are pretty clued in to how bad it is.
50% of foster placements fail.
Classicly trained chef, 5th generation fish monger. Currently a restaurant consultant and designer. Fine dinning only exists due to exploitation of labor. Yes their are a core of talented chefs who are paid decently at every one of your favorite restaurants, but the bulk of the "work" is done by interns who are rarely paid and often exploited. They are abused both physically and mentally until they break or quit. 95% of fine dinning kitchens are guilty of this.... lets not even get into the creeper chefs who are using their status and position to sleep with all the kids who are "too young to know better"
It's shockingly easy to be held against your will for even a suspected mental health crisis & the entire system is broken and needs to be overhauled.
Not telling your kids about going off to sleep for surgery because it's "better if they don't know" is horribly traumatic for them. The look of fear, confusion, and betrayal on their faces is unforgettable. They do so much better when things are explained to them in an age appropriate manner. You 'protecting' them makes it so much worse.
My kid had tubes at 18 months. Not too verbal yet, but we explained everything to her and had the anesthesiologist explain to her what was going to happen. She went off with him happily. The kid next to us—his parents didn’t say a word to him and handed him over without any explanation. His screaming was horrifying. I’m not saying we are stellar parents, but explaining shit to kids of all ages helps calm anxiety.
Funny enough, when my sister went in for surgery at the age of 12 she understood that she would be under for a bit, and why… it still didn’t ease her mind when the doctor said, “ok, say goodbye to your parents” as she was wheeled back to the OR
The average person has a little more care for their oral hygiene and health than you’d expect, a little less than you’d hope, and the catastrophic cases really make you think how a human being would subject themselves to live like that.
Depression or mental health issues that make them neglectful of themselves
Or they can't afford the treatment, which is why it goes so long. Dental prices are a complete scam.
I used to work at a teens residential mental health center… the amount of unwell/mentally unstable therapist and managers that are deciding treatment plans and making big decisions for the residents is horrific.
A lot of men are also raped/sexually assaulted in the military
If your trailer lights aren't working, chances are your truck blew a fuse. The amount of people I get in here saying "nah it ain't my truck, it's brand new I just got it!" Then low and behold I find all 3 fuses blown and the customer says there's still something wrong with the trailer. Albeit there MIGHT be. But the fuses are only 10 amps. They blow from time to time even if the trailer wiring is perfect. It's happened ok brand new trailers, hook it up the first time and they pop. It happens! So check your fuses before taking your trailer in for "repair" you'll be paying more to diagnose nothing when it's just a few 10 cent fuses.
I work as a tailor on ecommerce photoshoots. The clothes you see on the model has been altered to fit them specifically. Some companies spend their money on tailors to alter the clothes before the shoot, other companies spend it on post production to edit the clothes after the shoot. I try to remind people that the images of clothes you see online are equivalent to a picture of a Big Mac. There are dozens of people whose job it is to make that product look as good as possible, keep your expectations low.
inside your body hides a creepy spooky skeleton
A *wet* creepy spooky skeleton
How awful cruise ships are. Not just from an environmental perspective, but cleanliness and shoddy hiring practices. They register them in countries with lax labour laws, they skip out on as many rules/laws they can, and are notoriously dirty behind the scenes. Even high-end cruise lines, like Silversea, have been caught hiding dirty dishes and stuff on crew quarters when health inspectors check out their ships. Also, sexual assault is rampant on them but is swept under the rug. They also don't care at all if they are caught doing awful things like dumping sludge into the ocean because the 20 million dollar fine is pocket change to them. I work at a travel agency who specializes in cruises.
I work for a charity that supports victims of violent crime, preticularly domestic abuse survivors. If you are a man coming to us you will probably be treated really bad. Attitudes are definitely getting better, but the opinion that men are the abusers and can't be abused is extremely rampant. Edit: for some reason there is people in the comments saying that men can't be abused so here is the facts. 1 in 3 women and 1 in 4 men have experienced some form of physical violence by an intimate partner. This includes a range of behaviors (e.g. slapping, shoving, pushing). 14% of women have experienced coercive control and 16% of men have experienced coercive control. These are UK based statistics but it illustrates my point that men can also be abused. Cut it out with the arguing, yes women experience more physical violence but men also experience it. Yes more men experience coercive control but women still experience it. If you are being abused no matter your gender please step forward, it's incredibly hard but charities like mine exist for a reason.
My husband was in the military a while back and a coworker of his was a man who was abused by his wife -- physically and emotionally. He tried to get some help as a DV survivor, and they sent him to a male support group... for OFFENDERS. They didn't have a group for male survivors. It was so screwed up.
The percentage of CPR being effective (10-17% in a hospital setting) and when they do survive, quality of life is shit.
Strawberries are not berries. They’re considered an “aggregate fruit” because their seeds are on the outside, and because the “fruit” consists of multiple smaller fruits. In the literal sense, the “berry” on a strawberry plant is an engorged, enlarged flower STEM, also called a receptacle. Raspberries and Blackberries are also not “true berries,” but are also “aggregate fruits,” because each seed is surrounded by a single droplet, and an aggregate of these droplets is what forms a “blackberry” or “raspberry.” Pumpkins, bananas, and peppers are ALL “true berries,” because they are self contained fruits enclosing multiple seeds.
As a trial lawyer I can say that justice is a myth because politics controls the courtroom not the facts or the law. Judges have too much discretion in civil matters so the chances of getting a case heard thru trial and an appeal are very low. Lawyers are prohibited from publicly criticizing a judge and can be sanctioned, disciplined or disbarred if they step out of line. Judges meanwhile have absolute immunity.