• 0 Posts
  • 8 Comments
Joined 1 year ago
cake
Cake day: July 24th, 2023

help-circle

  • Amazing quality of life upgrade. It feels like a million bucks to have hot water instantly. However, when I looked into this for my home it seemed like it saves water at the increased energy expense of heating your pipes, right? For me it would end up costing more than living without it.

    Do I have this wrong?



  • Bought a new keyboard a few weeks ago. Had function keys set to alternative hot keys. Only way Logitech offered to change that was to download their “options+” software. Don’t remember for sure, but the final download size was MASSIVE. The software included AI tools, but had bare minimal settings options. It added support for additional gestures on the keyboard’s track pad, but made the track pad jittery. Made the fn key switch, then uninstalled the software. The setting change didn’t stick once the utility was gone.

    Returned the keyboard. So excited for the day when my shoelaces and sunglasses require an Internet connection.


  • Your guesses might be right, but most likely you are talking about the questionnaires about your medical history and what’s called the “review of systems”.

    In the US, medicare and most other insurances require those questions be asked every visit, however stupid that feels. Since your doctor may only get 10 minutes face to face with you, most of us will have an assistant or a paper ask those questions, so that we can say it was done but still have as much time as possible to talk about the more meaningful stuff.

    Some places do it better than others. Usually, though, the form is hard to follow and photocopied to the point of total illegibility.


  • The best way to fix this is to cancel the appointment if they make you wait. If enough people did this the clinic loses money which should cause change. Unfortunately, patients are largely a captive clientele, having already waited months and canceled work and with few if any alternative providers.

    The next best thing is much more realistic. Plaster the internet with reviews complaining of the wait. If your doctor (or more likely your doctor’s employer) does not respect your time, let everyone know.

    Many of the other comments are also correct. I have worked in clinics in government, military, academic centers, venture capital, physician owned, and even free community health centers, all in the USA. Doctors running late is going to happen. I’ve kept patients waiting while in the operating room, while telling someone they have cancer or are losing a limb, and by my burnt out underpaid government scheduler incompetently overbooking. I will also tell you that when I have at least a little control over my own schedule, I’ve never made a patient wait an hour, even with the above happening. It can be done, it just isn’t because for decades timeliness has not been a financial incentive.

    Make it one. Name and shame on google, yelp, zoc doc, wherever. Do it gracefully and sensitively, recognizing that there is a high chance the delay is not the doctor or nurse’s fault. Done right, you’ll do them a favor when their employer feels the sting of lost patients.


  • The World Health Organization said it was safe up to a certain level. The people in the WHO who said that work for Coca-Cola.

    This means we can’t rely on the recommendation, and the actual “safe” amount may be much lower than that. The article goes into good depth and gives counterarguments too.

    It is important to note that in reality there is no safe amount for a carcinogen. Sometimes a threshold is set to reduce risk to a reasonable amount in necessary workplace exposure or medical treatments.

    The truth is, I think we’ll all eventually realize any sweetener should be seen as candy, not a thirst quencher.