Aesculapius

Especially if it’s a cock ring

Security risk is the bigger concern IMHO. These devices are often a security weak point for networks. Putting them on their own wifi network and then isolating that network is critical.

Tek-knight has entered the chat

Be sure to drink your ovaltine

Deep cut! I first heard of and saw that show in college. It’s great!

You are correct. But what Austin Powers was referencing was this scene from The Prisoner. Top notch 60’s TV!

In the context of insurance, absolutely.

When it comes to health care delivery (clinics, hospitals, etc), you have to define more of what you mean. These places need to make a little money on the care they provide because they need to buy new equipment when the old stuff dies, fix the roof, repair stuff, etc. If those places are not making a profit, they will eventually die.

Now if you mean a profit that goes to anything but maintaining the ability to deliver care (e.g. shareholders), that is despicable. There is no place for shareholders in a healthcare company.

That is why Medicare can administer funds cheaper than an insurance company. No shareholders!

Do the police compare DNA to genealogy databases? The odds the person used one is low, but maybe a family member?

Grifters gunna grift

For those wondering about nuclear options, Wired did a nice write up recently.

Arris makes good stuff. But that is just the cable modem. It will NOT provide any router protection for your home network. Your network topology should look like this:

ISP -> your cable modem -> your router -> everything else

Honestly, if you don’t have need for many ethernet connections, just get a wifi router with good reviews and the arris cable modem. Make sure the cable modem you pick up has the right DOCSIS version for the speed you are getting or plan to upgrade to. Your ISP will be able to tell you what version they are on.

One of the issues you are touching on is what we refer to as Medication Reconciliation. At least in the US, the standard of care is to verify the current medications a patient is taking at every visit - whether it be an office visit, ED visit, or a hospitalization. Our local pharmacies also play a part in checking for medication interaction. This does not extend to over the counter medications however.

The US is the same in that the patient owns their own information. However, private entities are charged with the responsibility with holding and securing that data. Unfortunately, there is no central repository for it here.

More advanced systems in the US do allow for data access via phone. But it is not uniformly available or applied.

Physician here. Masks absolutely reduce transmission and the chance of contracting COVID.

Here is the definitive study on the subject.

Here is a video of a presentation by one of the authors along with some demonstrations and explanations.

TLDR: Here is the Abstract:
There is ample evidence that masking and social distancing are effective in reducing severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) transmission. However, due to the complexity of airborne disease transmission, it is difficult to quantify their effectiveness, especially in the case of one-to-one exposure. Here, we introduce the concept of an upper bound for one-to-one exposure to infectious human respiratory particles and apply it to SARS-CoV-2. To calculate exposure and infection risk, we use a comprehensive database on respiratory particle size distribution; exhalation flow physics; leakage from face masks of various types and fits measured on human subjects; consideration of ambient particle shrinkage due to evaporation; and rehydration, inhalability, and deposition in the susceptible airways. We find, for a typical SARS-CoV-2 viral load and infectious dose, that social distancing alone, even at 3.0 m between two speaking individuals, leads to an upper bound of 90% for risk of infection after a few minutes. If only the susceptible wears a face mask with infectious speaking at a distance of 1.5 m, the upper bound drops very significantly; that is, with a surgical mask, the upper bound reaches 90% after 30 min, and, with an FFP2 mask, it remains at about 20% even after 1 h. When both wear a surgical mask, while the infectious is speaking, the very conservative upper bound remains below 30% after 1 h, but, when both wear a well-fitting FFP2 mask, it is 0.4%. We conclude that wearing appropriate masks in the community provides excellent protection for others and oneself, and makes social distancing less important.

The issues you bring up are well known and I couldn’t agree more. Interoperability needs to be better. See my comment further up.

Right now US privacy laws aren’t compatible with one overarching centralized healthcare record.

Short of that, however, would be an interoperable system. Epic, which is the largest US medical record system, allows for different facilities on the same platform to share information. It is up to the specific facility if a records release is required. Most systems in a given region will have that worked out ahead of time and build it into their general consent for treatment (a form everyone signs). It works quite well. Where I practice, I am able to get all the information I need from across the country, assuming they are on the same platform at the time I am seeing the patient.

For other platforms, it’s more mixed. Federal law requires certain interoperability, but it is fairly limited and not real time. Generally it involves a flash drive with the info on it.

As for the comment about changing platforms in a similar system, that is a struggle. Hospitals are required to keep patient information forever. When they first started going up on electronic systems, they only went back so many years as the scanning costs were huge. As time has moved forward, many systems are bringing all the information over to the new system so they don’t have to maintain more than one electronic system for archive purposes.

Source: I am a physician and chief medical officer.

We use Fluency Direct, but you are correct. Dragon is quite popular too.

Physician and Chief Medical Officer here. I started my practice on the tail end of paper records and I have been through, and led, several different renditions of electronic medical records. Like any other software, the technology has evolved and matured over the last 20 years. Electronic Health Records are just about patient information anymore either. They incorporate patient info, clinician orders, billing, and also provide numerous cross checks and safety systems to improve patient care.

The article discusses the issue with digitizing handwritten notes. This is always problematic as they are not searchable, indexed, etc. and can be very difficult to work through. The system where I work has been on the same medical record system for over 10 years. This provides an efficiency that I didn’t have when I was working in a paper system. The entire chart is searchable. Medical history sections are filled out and robust.

From a safety perspective, these systems give us so much more than we had. One prime example is bedside scanning. When a nurse administers a medication in a hospital environment the medical record plays a pivotal role. As a physician I enter and order for a medication. If there is an allergy, medication interaction, or a host of other things, the system will alert me to it before the order is signed. Once signed, the order then goes to a pharmacist to review and approve. The patient’s nurse will then be notified of the order and be able to pull the medication from an integrated medication storage unit with multiple drawers and compartments to ensure the right medication is taken. Finally, the nurse must use the EHR to scan the patient’s armband and the medication barcode. If there is any discrepancy, the medication is not given until the issue is resolved.

From a user perspective, I can now create notes and write orders faster than I could in a paper world, even with dictation. Most docs use a combined template/voice recognition approach which works well. There has been a great deal of work in the Epic world (one of the largest EHR systems) to increase efficiency and improve the user experience.

Are these systems perfect? Far from it. But things are better now, at least where I work, than this article makes it seem.

Woodworker here. Building with “wet” wood will always result in some wood movement. For exterior applications, wood with around 9-14% moisture is reasonable. For interior applications, more like 6-8%. You can get moisture measuring devices to give you an exact reading.

Green treated wood is not great as most box stores will not allow it to dry properly before putting it up for sale. You can plan for this will corner bracing and such, but it will move on you if too wet. You can find stacks in the lumber yards that are drier than others which can help. Another option for exterior applications is to use kiln dried wood such as cedar and then apply a good sealer to it. If you really want to use the green treated stuff and it’s too wet, stack it with shims between the layers and allow it to air dry until you get to the desired moisture. That should minimize the movement after building with it.

There is a good article here.

Interesting fact: Israel does not have a formal written constitution. Instead, they have a series of Basic Laws which is like rolling out a chapter at a time. Very interesting reading here.

I have mixed feelings on this. On one hand, she didn’t delay it until after the election which is wonderful. However, I am not confident that the trial will be over by the election. Trumps team will keep trying to delay the clock with jury selection, continuances, etc. which may push it past the election.
edit: typo