Hi guys, did you know that I have six hours of meetings today? Six. Hours. And somehow, somehow, I am also supposed to do a full day’s work in the other hours of the day. Also, I had the standard tech demo experience where I practiced everything 3 times and then it went to shit during the demo. Why is that? How does that work? Next time, I’m going to just do screen shots of my demo tests and present those. Put some little “screen loading” animations over them. God I hate that. Hate it. The worst part is the shit works! Unless I have been messing with the same thing over and over again.
Florida GOP Gubernatorial candidate starts off general election campaign on a high note. Oh Lawd, I’m gonna be looking back on Charlie Crist and Skeletor as good times in Florida.
Tulip shares this article about how a Florida Man with a will (probably) didn’t let being a quadruple amputee stop him from shooting — his parents. “A prosthetics expert told the Orlando Sentinel you don’t need a hand to shoot both your parents—just the will—as most guns can apparently be fired by the handless, “without special devices.”‘
Limeys and Frogs having a good old fashioned fishermen’s war. I look forward to privateering charters.
Prof bans laptops from classroom, grades AND student satisfaction goes up. I’m sure there are some people who can take notes on laptops, but I have found after almost 2 decades of trying to take notes by typing while paying attention in meetings that I have a harder time focusing. It shouldn’t work that way, but somehow it does.
Apparently, the Irish are very in tune with their goats’ emotions. No word yet on the best way to keep them from running when they see the velcro gloves.
Here’s a nice pickin’ song about privateering. And for something
Comments
467 responses to “Wednesday Afternoon Links of Meeting Hell”
That’s how long it took to apply an incremental patch to the QA environment.
I hate PeopleSoft.
Pssht. I had a seven hour meeting yesterday. And it gets worse.
Two words: Strategic. Planning.
I hate the laptop thing.
I am glad that I narrowly missed the cutoff for this kind of thing by just a few years that I never had some choad in any of my classes taking notes on a laptop.
Upper division math and Econ courses were very conducive to hand written notes, if at all.
Oh, and
HA HA!
Hey, McCain would have been 82 today!
Heard a senator friend of his say in his eulogy that McCain saved the Iraq war because he pushed for the troop surge. He knew how to apply American power wisely so he went on.
Anyone showing up to his viewing?
They Need to send Aubrey to teach those French who owns the English Channel, see it’s right there in the name.
Guns aren’t the only way to get filled with lead in Detroit.
Fucking Republicans
A dude in my law school class played Mega Man on his laptop instead of listening to lectures. Got on law review. In short, law school is dumb.
What my wife saw was amazing. If you’re not going to graduate at the top of your class, don’t go.
Definitely. Too many lawyers.
Oh yeah??! Well I ended up… I mean… umm.
*runs out of room*
Completely different back then. No law schools in strip malls.
This. These days, even some top tier schools (40-60 ranked) are only placing 60% of students in full-time JD jobs at graduation.
And the unemployed ones sue them for misrepresenting their employment statistics. My kind of justice!
Unless you have (1) some other sucker paying for law school and/or (2) have a reasoned out plan other than:
1. Go to law school
2. ???
3. Get hired by big law
I’d love to have an esquire, there are so many uses. But at this point I would frankly rather take vise grips to my testicles than go through the process.
I just want a squire.
I’d settle for a valet.
I’d settle for a simple Piss Boy.
A lot of people have exactly that plan. Or the even worse one: work for a “public interest” or non-profit. Nobody is going to pay you 6 figures to self-actualize, especially if you’re at the bottom of your class at a 3rd tier law school.
This injustice can only be solved when everyone graduates at the top of their class. Social justice!
Is that why every lawyer (and notary here) leans left?
I remember going to a notary’s office and he had a picture of Che on his book shelf.
Idiot.
Oh, and the having someone else pay is a big deal.
I’m 100% certain that at least 5 of my wife’s friends from law school are going to term out on their student loans.
Most of my classmates are royally fucked. Little to no scholarship, private school tuition, no job after graduating. You know what happens when you have $250k in non-bankruptable debt and no job? You start sucking dick for $50 to feed your family.
Even I, who got one of the best outcomes of my entire class, will be paying on my debt for the next 3.5 years, and I had a 50% scholarship.
I should’ve listened to the little voice in the back of my head that said to go to UTexas.
Was the deal better than 50% scholarship?
And UT Law has a good rep, one of the best state law schools. I applied to six schools, and it was one of them.
I got a lower percentage scholarship at UT, but it was in-state tuition. I was banking on working full-time through law school to pay off the other 50% at SMU.
Needless to say, that didn’t exactly happen. It was combo of income variability, living too much like a lawyer, marital growing pains, and the unstated costs of law school that had me walking out the door with $180k in student loans.
One day, when it isn’t so fresh, I’ll write an article about the different ways I abused the hell out of student loans.
One day, when it isn’t so fresh, I’ll write an article about the different ways I abused the hell out of student loans.
I’ll add one thing as a teaser… I bought a house using student loans as a down payment.
My SIL has a law degree from Nth-tier Suffolk Law, which her parents paid for. Pretty much unused, but at least she’s not in debt.
My sister has a law degree from Nth-1 -tier University of San Francisco School of Law, degree is unused and is still so deeply in debt she can’t afford her own place.
I blame Ally McBeal.
Is that anything like bottoming out?
A harem is what I’ll have.
I tell prospective law students my 4 rules.
1) Never pay sticker for law school
2) law school is the start line, a decent legal career is the finish line
3) evaluate the risk as if you will be making $65k a year.
4) work at least 2 or 3 years before starting law school
Re 4. You mean getting a head start on sucking dick under the boardwalk?
That’s the only way you’ll be making $50 at graduation
Heh, I suddenly feel a lot better about not becoming a lawyer now.
Ditto.
Moi aussi. We had a saying in my Law School:
“The top third of the graduating class makes the best judges and professors,
the middle third makes the best lawyers,
and the bottom third makes the best money.”
I graduated close to the top of my class, and I would say that for the first 20 or so years of my career I was probably the lowest paid member of my class who actually had a full-time lawyer job (not counting my first 3 years at a BigLaw firm).
Get hired by big law
Apparently, the word hasn’t gone out that the highly leveraged (high ratio of associates to partners) model of law firming went out of fashion awhile back. True, there may still be a small handful of mega-law firms that do it, but they are highly unlikely to hire anyone who isn’t from a top 10 or maybe 20 law school, and even then, you better you be in the upper half of your class.
Only the top 50 schools place a measureable number of students in biglaw (which is paying $180-190k entry level these days). Outside of the top 50, it’s 1/10 chance or less these days.
Of course, once you make it into biglaw, they work you 80+hrs/week until you leave or die.
/so glad to be in-house
so glad to be in-house
Preach it, brother.
As I told Mrs. Dean not long ago: “I stride the halls of that hospital like a god. Like a god, I tell you.”
Fortunately, she recovered from her eye-roll within a day, so we didn’t have to take her to the ED.
I hate having to take my wife to the erectile dysfunction.
She’s usually the cause of it, amirite fellas?
Mine’s usually the cure for it.
God, I love that woman.
I feel like law school rewards people who can read and retain vast amounts of information. Were lectures helpful? I mean, there were a couple of people in the engineering cohort I was in who could read the textbook and do the problems. I was not one of them. Except for diff-eq. I had this genius professor who had never taught the class before and he could do any differential equation in the world. Unfortunately, he would do things like create a homework problem that couldn’t be differentiated by the method he was currently teaching. I did manage to teach myself enough to survive the class and future classes. But holy fuck. I sweated over that textbook for at least 4 hours six nights a week that summer.And probably still wouldn’t have made an “A”, except that I guessed right on a trig identity simplification on one of the finals problems.
Integrated, not differentiated. Shit. No wonder it was so hard for me.
I busted a gut.
I might have had the same professor, except he taught our linear algebra class. His work was in materials with negative Poisson’s ratio.
His thick Korean accent didn’t help…
Did he teach at Penn State, because this all sounds very familiar. I imagine It must be Eng school in general.
Nope, guess they’re all the same (rayciss)
I got a calc teacher that did that. The worst part is he would do the calculations in his head and wouldn’t write down the steps as he was explaining it.
My P-Chem teacher. Which everyone else calls Quantum Mechanics. Holy shit. He would do that. I remember someone asked him before a test, “can you work a problem with some values in it step-by-step so we can practice for the test?”
He says, “Sure. Let’s say you have… well it doesn’t matter, you can just plug them in at the end. So here’s lambda…”
And off he went. That’s when I knew I wasn’t smart like hard science PhDs are smart.
They’re smart, but lots of them have a very difficult time explaining the concepts to other people. Not that they recognize it, because they’re Aspies.
Feynman was a perfect example of someone who could communicate well, which is part of why he was so exceptional.
Mine thankfully, realized 95% of chem students were going to fail her class. I just barely passed. He only function at the school seemingly was to teach P-Chem and monitor the Durer Flask.
It really is easy. ALL constants (h, c, q, me, ao…) are 1. Then at the end, you can convert hartrees to eV or whatever.
Heh, I had an undergrad differential equations prof who would do that. He skip about 5 steps of the solution and go right to the answer on the chalkboard.
“See! It’s very simple and straightforward!”
The grad level diffy q’s course I took was taught by an Aspergery Brit who would get about 8 steps in his solution, then change his mind, wipe the chalkboard clean with his hands and stand there with his now chalky hand over his mouth while he thought about it. I’m busy crossing out a page of notes when he yells “Aha!”, I look up and half his face is covered in chalk. It was impossible to maintain any concentration. It didn’t help that the textbook was (badly) translated from the original Russian.
See, I went to the 4th best public engineering school in Florida, and I thought I was missing out on all the experiences a better school would have. Apparently not. Although the chemistry program (where the p-chem was taught) is a little different. They have made a habit at FSU of offering the greatest chemists a working retirement. Paul Dirac, and Harry Kroto for example. They were able to get some pretty decent young talent by having those guys in the faculty lounge.
P-Chem ain’t no joke.
In electrical, it was always the solid state theory and optics classes that weeded people out. Fucking Russians always taught those.
Is FAMu the number 1 engineering school?
I went to the FSU/FAMU School of Engineering thankyouverymuch. However, since I enrolled at FSU first, I didn’t have to put up with all the administrative failures that being a FAMU student put one through.
1) UF – I hate to say it, but its true
2) UCF – has actually become a strong engineering school
3) USF – Also has made huge strides in the last 30 years
FSU/FAMU is doomed to mediocrity because if FSU goes off on their own, they’ll leave FAMU the old, decrepit buildings and build a shiny new supercampus. That is politically unacceptable. And FAMU just doesn’t have the administrative organization or pull to get a new campus. All that said, the quality of instruction was excellent. Its just hard to attract the best talent because unless you’re working on a project at the Mag Lab, the facilities for labs isn’t great and failing behind.
My calc teacher was the opposite. He was adjunct and told us the faculty intentionally tried to make the tests as difficult as possible to fail students. Before the department-provided final, he stood at the front of the room and gave the answers to about 1/3 of the questions he thought were unreasonable.
Despite that, I’m pretty sure the girl I mentioned below that sat next to me managed to fail.
Kids at my school were dumb enough that they didn’t have to make most the classes any harder to get rid of them. Should have weeded more out in my opinion. /former TA of Statics
Were lectures helpful?
I thought so, but I had excellent lecturers, too.
My drill was (a) do all the reading before class, (b) go to every class and take notes, and (c) don’t waste time playing grabass with the other law students. My typical workweek after the first semester was probably 40 – 50 hours, all in, including a few hours on Sunday to do the reading for Monday. I coasted into exams rather than getting wrapped in a study group, all of which looked like more time-wasting grabass to me. My challenge was not getting stale/burned out on the material for exams, so I generally showed up fresh as a daisy, rather than haggard and exhausted.
I wish I had done law school full-time instead of doing it at night. I could’ve done really well if I had the time to study and read on a regular basis. Law school to me was a blur of commuting in Dallas traffic, speed reading 5 minutes before class, and cramming for finals the day before the exam.
You’ve got to have priorities, tulpa.
In short, law school is dumb.
This.
A prosthetics expert told the Orlando Sentinel you don’t need a hand to shoot both your parents—just the will—as most guns can apparently be fired by the handless, “without special devices.
This is exactly the reason I never put amputees in my will.
You have a clause excluding them?
It’s a short amendment.
Yup my lawyers have strict instructions to give them the hook right away
Because you can’t kick them out at a later date
He cuts them off.
They won’t have a leg to stand on.
I’m stumped. I have nothing to say.
I may have to let some of these bastards back in because they made me laugh.
But the writer of that article is definitely out. Even if she has extra limbs.
If you can’t laugh about those pics, why did you post them?
You should add Derek Weida to the list too, as he is also funny
as most guns can apparently be fired by the handless, “without special devices”.
I would think prosthetics would count as a special device.
I never – rarely anyway – took notes in class. I couldn’t understand whatever I wrote.
Look how I turned out!
I’ve been very busy today. Skipped breakfast. Then I had a can of corn for lunch. That’s right. A can of fucking corn.
Today is only going to go downhill.
Like a hobo.
Complete with threading fail.
What’s wrong with you? I don’t even own a can of corn.
Oooh, 64 slices of American cheese.
Gross.
I’m going to chase it with Taco Bell. I won’t know exactly what until I walk in, but it’s going to have some fake cheese sauce on it.
Corn…Taco Bell…. Did you make a bet with your local wastewater district or something?
Mmmmmmmm, chalupas.
You played baseball today?
Canned corn sucks. I’m eating an avocado off my tree for lunch. It’s delicious!
My corn field isn’t producing yet.
Did you use a spoon at least, or just pour straight from the can into your mouth?
I hope it was creamed corn at least.
Indeed, it is a cautionary tale for the ages.
I relied heavily on my notes. I spent too much time drinking and sleeping to read textbooks.
Look how I turned out!
– starts crying
I never took notes because I’m an auditory learner. Writing would have distracted me from listening.
Pictured: BrettL’s Privateering Charter
“Hello, Mr Thompson.”
“I think he’s talking to you!”
“It’s a good thing you drifted by this brothel!”
Limeys and Frogs having a good old fashioned fishermen’s war. I look forward to privateering charters.
Even after dumping the Britannic throne, we kept Letters of Marque and Reprisal…
The French will have to something. I’m pretty sure they don’t have the same leverage as Iceland did.
Can I get a Picard facepalm? Good lawd.
*EDIT FAIRY BLESSES YOU*
It’s completely irrelevant. It’s not even a gaffe.
Does it need to be relevant?
It’s only relevant if you care. Florida voted for Trump; perhaps on average Florida voters stopped caring.
The article is a clusterfuck. I started to get a headache and stopped reading when I saw “dog whistle.” So fucking ridiculous.
If dog whistles can only be heard by dogs, how come liberals are so good at pointing out racist dog whistles?
That was my thought. If you think black people every time you hear someone say monkey, it’s because you’re a racist.
Meh, there’s a long history of people calling the blacks “monkeys.” Yes, this guy certainly misspoke, but how stupid do you have to be to say about your black opponent ‘let’s not monkey this up’. Sure you should be able to say the word ‘nigger’ when referencing the word or in an academic setting (or anywhere, if you’re willing to take the repercussions) but only a moran would use it on the campaign trail., likewise here. Also, all the people defend this as a common idiom, am I alone in not being familar with this, is it a southern thing? I’ve heard of “monkey business”, “monkeying around”, “monkeyshines”, but “monkey it up” is new to me.
..certainly merely misspoke..
My initial thought was it was just a slip-up, but the more I thought about it the more I started to wonder… its not that common of a thing to say, and you’d think he’d be more careful, just to avoid any bad appearances.
Eh, I’ve heard it and sayings like it before. I understand the history, and I would agree something like Roseanne’s Planet of the Apes comment was at least problematic. But i think the tangential nature of this monkey to the candidate earns plausible deniability. I also think most out the critics are concerned with tarring (racist!) any non progressive as racist rather than what the actual intent was.
But i think the tangential nature of this monkey to the candidate earns plausible deniability
Agreed, why I clarified ‘merely misspoke’ My. meh, was about the ‘you must be the racist if you think black every time you hear monkey.’ Context matters, when I read this guys comment I guffawed not because I’m a racist who heard ‘monkey’ and thought ‘black person’ but because I knew exactly how some people would take it because of the long-established connotations, see ‘porch monkey’ etc…
What happens if I buy a racist dog whistle? Do only white dogs show up when I use it?
The laptop thing doesn’t surprise me. A vast majority of those students were most likely on the Twatters or the Snapcrap or the InstaBlah while also/instead of taking notes. In most cases computers and phones with Internet access are just toys for wasting time. Ask any parent whose kids get a school-issued Chromebook.
Cue Rufus asking if any of us work…
Even when they’re doing what they’re supposed to be doing, information is either not getting to the brain or it’s leaking.
My kids having homework on the computer is terribly frustrating. XX had an issue last week where the program crashed and she couldn’t submit her homework, so she got an F, even though the teacher knew the system crashed. We’re fighting it, but damn. Apparently, it was her “lack of troubleshooting” that makes the F stick.
“Can’t she do it on paper?”
“No.”
Why, it’s as if your kid’s teacher moonlights as a strict, pain in the ass, residential building inspector.
After I take over the world, all the building inspectors are going up against the wall.
An uninspected wall, right?
Inspected or not, it’s gonna be in pretty poor shape after MS is finished with it.
XX? If you have another kid will she be XXX? Or will you just abandon him at the hospital (because 3 strikes and you are out rule)?
Well, can’t have another kid because I don’t have the equipment.
An XXX would be a trisomy 47 female, so I might call her 47.
I didn’t know you transitioned. NTTAWWT.
I purposefully transitioned into instant menopause. IOW, I am spayed.
Uffda. I didn’t get that at all.
I literally thought it was about putting your mark down (X, XX)
Long day already.
I don’t call my tax deductions by their names online. They go by XX and XY.
Pretty clever. I usually just call them “hey you” and “the other one”.
Not “Goddammit” and “Jesus Christ?”
Kids today will never enjoy the comedic value of Cosby’s stand up routines.
I figure that Hey You and the Other One are less damaging to their self esteem than Whoops, which is what my dad used to call me.
An ex-girlfriend’s father referred to his three children as “Turkey #1, Turkey #2 and Turkey #3”, which I found charming.
(she was Turkey #1 – you may commence ‘stuffing’ jokes)
Chromosomes – XX and XY, if I remember correctly.
Problem will be if their is a next one is going to need additional information unless there is a (heaven forbid) abnormality.
I’m spayed, THANK HEAVENS!
My wife and I had a hard time deciding on who should go under the knife keep from having more kids. Some of the arguments got pretty nasty.
Classic He spayed, She spayed situation.
And what was the outcome?
My wife told me I didn’t have to get stitched up after pushing each baby out, so sack up and get after it. Maybe. After we’re sure we’re done. I’m trying to keep the maybe window open until menopause.
Mr. Mojeaux went first when we decided we were done. I said, “I carry ’em, bear ’em, feed ’em. Least you can do is get snipped.” As for me, I was happy to get rid of malfunctioning equipment.
That’s no way to talk about your children!
So many jokes, so little time!
Wife also thinks I should get snipped (eventually). Not going to happen.
I had an appointment. I didn’t keep it.
Every urologist is a comedian.
The beauty of getting married later in life. Wife already did that before we met. No kids in the house. It don’t get no better’n this.
Turned out my urologist went to the same undergrad I did a few years earlier and was almost in the same dormroom. It was an interesting conversation while he was cupping my balls.
I got snipped.
We didn’t really even fight. I just wanted to antagonize Swissy with a bad pun.
Scruffy: “did we do this once before? It feels familiar”
I had a med student observing the procedure. I told them I was comfortable but only if she holds a mirror so I could also observe.
Dude didn’t have a mirror.
It’s really not a big deal. Just be sure to bring your headphones. I forgot mine and so there was nothing to distract me during the procedure.
My urologist’s assistant was smoking hot and they sat their yammering on about some dudes urethra while my giblets laid bare. Bastards…also one of the weirdest feelings for me was that procedure
My wife had salt toxemia during the first pregnancy. There were other health problems with the second. The OB/GYN told her she could die if she got pregnant again. So the doctor tied her tubes during the delivery of the second.
“It was an interesting conversation while he was cupping my balls.”
Was there soft music and candles?
I find that writing notes commits more to memory than typing.
What are they supposed to do, write with pencils? Is that still a thing? It sounds horrid.
My middle daughter has ADD and a nose for trouble. No matter how tight they locked down her Chromebook, she still found a way to fuck around and not do her work. We fought it and for the past few years she has not been given a Chromebook and has to do all her work on paper. That made things a lot easier for us, but probably not for the school.
How many daughters do you have?
Three. This year they all have major birthdays. So I have a 21, 18, and 13 year old.
The 11 year old told her mother this weekend, and I quote verbatim:
“At least I don’t look like you, I really don’t want to look like you.”
I promptly exited the vicinity.
Am I a bad person for laughing at that?
If so, then I’m a very bad person.
Oh, thats so going to be baby trshmnstr. Already at age 1, she just says “bye bye mama” and walks away when Mrs trshmnstr irritated her.
My son’s first words were, and damn he was prescient, “Bad mommy.”
I can’t decide whether to laugh, or waggle my head back and forth while saying, “Oh no she di’int.”
I usually had to bring a laptop to give a demo or something but in other cases yeah I’d spend half the time checking my email. I like the idea of taking notes by hand again – will try it sometime.
BTW I’m talking about work. None of this shit existed when I was in school.
…go on?
“Hi guys, did you know that I have six hours of meetings today? Six. Hours.”
About the worst it gets for me during a week is 3-4 hours in a day. To be honest, after about 1.5-2 hours of meeting, I’m not really focused any longer. I think that is true of most people. To test this, just look around the room after 1.5 hours if there’s more than a few people, and see how many people are browsing their phone or just staring out the window.
You only have to the ability to be fully engaged and concentrating for about 2 minutes x your age. However, it caps out around age 20.
how many people are browsing their phone or just staring out the window.
Looking at your phone during a meeting for longer than it takes to read a text will get you decapitated around here, at least if the CEO is in the room.
If you just hafta to do something on your phone, you get to leave the meeting. And expect to be asked what was so important when you come back.
Yeah, that doesn’t work when the CEO is the biggest offender. I find it hard to believe that much of anyone is paying attention at 2 hours.
My saving grace was that half of my 6 hours of meetings today overlapped, so I got to skip the inclusion and diversity meeting and the quarterly results meeting.
You guys are never going to believe this, but Minneapolis’ attempt to build a cold San Fran homeless encampment is picking up steam. After news media started talking about an tent camp and the local mayor had the city install portable toilets and washing stations, the camp GREW! Oh and the mayor is basically guaranteeing that everyone down there will get free housing somewhere by end of Sept.
The locals also have some frustrations. It seems that they are growing weary of talking with so many city officials and nothing is getting done.
These are the same people who are also relying on outside volunteers to come in and pick up the trash.
“In the meantime, we will decide our own leadership and we will take care of things as we see them.”
Well, obviously since you’re homeless, our confidence that you are going to take care of things is very small… OK, non-existent.
Hey. They aren’t just “homeless” people. Don’t define them by their lack of housing. You are totally forgetting that they are also meth and heroin addicts.
They’re residentially-challenged.
*thinks of moving to Minneapolis by the end of September*
Are you guys buying me a one or two bedroom? Cause I think I might need a three bedroom house. My people come form a long line of homeowners, and it wouldn’t be culturally appropriate to put me in anything less.
Dude are you white? You should get a mansion at least. According to all the SJW’s all whiteys live in antebellum plantation houses.
Wrong kind of white, but since we’re going by the SJW definition… do they have to supply my slaves as well? It is against my culture to upkeep my own home, we have ‘help’ for that. /s
“culturally appropriate or affordable housing”
WTF is culturally appropriate housing? So if you’re a native American, do you get a fucking teepee?
So… problem solved?
A tent is not a proper teepee! Inappropriate!
So they’re putting the Somalis in tents?
Yes, but to be culturally appropriate they are going to have to demolish the roads near the tent camp.
“We’re past tense. We’re living in bungalows now.”
Frozen feces is probably easier to pick up with a shovel or plow, so you have that going for ya.
Excellent HAACP protocol. “Handled frozen for your protection”
That is very true. I meticulously pick up after my shepherd and frozen dog shit is the best king to pick up (after you let it freeze for about an hour). Here in Minni-soda, you learn quickly that if it’s -17 and you go for it right away, it will stick to the shovel until springtime.
When I lived in Syracuse my dog loved to dive into snow piles and then poop. Which actually made things easier.
The homeless will freeze to death. Problem solved!
The garbage goes in the garbage can, people. I can’t stress that enough.
Hmm. Makes sense.
You know who else liked to build camps?
I prefer taking notes by laptop. Hell, even my grocery or errand lists are done by computer and then printed out. If I don’t have access to my laptop, I’ll sometimes scribble shit on a notepad to appease the person talking to me, but it’s generally illegible and meaningless. Most importantly, there’s no easy way to store and immediately retrieve handwritten notes.
For using a laptop in class, it’s just a tool like any other. I only take notes by laptop and have always been at the top of each class. Taking the laptop away from the undergrad jackoff surfing Facebook isn’t going to magically make her grades spike. She’ll just switch to texting on her phone hidden under the desk. Though classes themselves are incredibly overrated… asynchronous learning for the win every time. I don’t know why but the topic of using a laptop for notes makes the commenters at WSJ froth with rage.
I use google docs for my grocery list because I always remember to take my phone with me when I leave, but I never remember to take a hand-written shopping list.
My wife and I use the Capitan iphone app because then she can update it while I’m at the store. Usually right after I check out.
How hard is it to remember spaghetti-Os and Red Baron pizza?
But what if I already have a full cupboard of Spaghetti-Os? I don’t want to buy 20 more cans and feel foolish when I get home.
I just use Shipt and basically never go grocery shopping.
Re: music. Would you settle for a Mutineer?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MqWqyjUsCAw
I rarely take notes. Either the stuff makes sense and is therefore either intuitive or it is new-and-sensible enough to stick in my memory.
“Kentucky woman is found guilty of murdering her on-off boyfriend, who dumped her for Miss Ohio, after video emerged of her dancing and singing ‘I did it’ around the police interrogation room”
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-6110449/Shayna-Hubers-guilty-murdering-Ryan-Poston.html
Someone needs to give Miss Ohio a cheeseburger or 50.
She most definitely needs some food with protein and some carbs.
I’d be happy to provide the protein.
Best be careful, you’ll cut yourself all over on those chicken bones.
I’m going to be honest. That doesn’t do anything for me.
Obviously he’s her off boyfriend now!
Offed boyfriend
I figured an “on-off boyfriend” would be some sort of self-stimulation device.
Looks like they were playing beet pong in the interrogation room.
*Beer* stupid phone
You mean you don’t play beet pong?
First, (((they))) control the weather, and now this:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-6111241/Salmonella-kosher-chicken-left-one-dead-sickened-sixteen-people-ill.html
“Products with the bacteria were sold between September 2017 and June 2018”
Wow. The CDC sure does move fast.
Empire Kosher – I know them, and I would never purchase their products.
Are they part of Agriprocessors?
The only place I know of around here that sells them is Trader Joe’s. Furry chickens, because they can’t scald before they pluck.
They aren’t part of Agriprocessors (unless something has changed recently). They had almost no Quality/Technical staff – and those they did have were not skilled in the art.
In every work environment, in every meeting, there is one stupid cunt, usually one of the most worthless and least productive human beings you’ll ever meet, who know is going to drag it all out by asking one inane question after another.
Are you that stupid cunt?
So if I didn’t see that cunt, does that mean that I’m the cunt?
My old company was the worst. The number of participants in a meeting was a major metric in measuring success. The more the better. Luckily for my sanity most of the time I was working from my home so I could mute myself and get other real work done.
That reminds me of a story a guy I used to work with told me. I ran into the guy after he left the place we worked a couple of years earlier and went to work for a large defense contractor. He was telling me that there was this crazy but brilliant engineer from Germany who would just say the most outrageous stuff in meetings. One day they were in a meeting and someone mentioned that a certain person wasn’t there yet. And this guy says ‘Ah who the fuck cares, she’s nothing but a stupid whore, let’s just start’. I asked him ‘Did he get fired?’. And he says no, he got a promotion shortly after that.
I wish I could say stuff like that in the meetings I attend.
Best I’ve ever done is that I told the customer service manager (who I was friends with) to go make us a nice turkey pot pie while the adults are having a meeting. She was just sitting there blabbering and oblivious that the meeting had actually started. She looked shell shocked. Then everyone laughed, including the president and then she laughed too. Although she told me later if I ever do that again she will cut off my balls. Really pretty girl, hot as hell actually.
I worked for a guy like that for about 4 months before I got out. (Was looking for 3 months.) I heard that about two years later he got shitcanned and they has to send a box truck to his house to remove all the equipment he had set up on the company dime. Apparently the upper mgmt buddy that protected him all that time left for a sweeter gig which eventually exposed all the shit.
I worked with a guy who in meetings would openly trash his boss (or his boss’s boss) to upper management in front of said perosn and about a dozen other engineering staff members. At least it made for interesting meetings.
https://despair.com/products/meetings?variant=2457301507
All my coworkers are in a meeting that is so far running three hours over. The person dragging it out is the global supply chain VP.
I got left behind to keep things running.
I’m the one clawing my leg off to escape the bear trap.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-6110359/Emma-Stone-looks-radiant-steps-boat-day-one-Venice-Film-Festival.html
Would.
Really? Maybe it is the glasses making her look dumb, but something is wrong with her face.
Sure, but in a beach town has completely spoiled me. I look at that and go, eh. I’ll see two of those when I go to the beach this weekend.
I have no idea who this is.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-6111507/Barbara-Palvin-puts-leggy-display-ruched-mini-dress-Venice-Film-Festival.html
Rather than keep going on the Daily Mail kick, I figured I’d just OT post on your OT link.
Ben Affleck was ‘drinking alone for days in his LA home, had barely eaten and had not showered’ before Jennifer Garner took him to rehab
I’m tired of societies drunk shaming.
You’re not drunk enough, Brochettaward.
Someone should have told Jenny, “Don’t let crazy stick it in you.”
Is that like a reverse Brooksing? A brochetta?
God damn man, I would have never guessed that success could be so exhausting.
Looking at the photos, you can see the heavy drinking in his face. He’s got some rosacea going.
Is everyone sure that was Affleck? Maybe it was our old buddy from TOS who looks so much like him.
Nope, he has facial hair. Everyone knows Welch cannot grow facial hair.
That’s just any random week in January.
Alcohol as calorie replacement is a pretty serious problem. If you find yourself drinking in place of eating, you’re not long for this world.
Yeah, no danger of that for me.
*Has glass of wine.*
*Pours second glass of wine.*
*Thinks, “I should eat an entire pizza”*
No kidding. I drink, rummage the fridge and then start pondering what I can cook.
Weekly reminder that while NFL players are subject to insider trading laws, Congress is not.
It is only fair. Linsey Graham is prohibited from executing inside handoffs.
He is now that McCain is dead.
He’s presenting that as being a bad thing, by the way.
https://twitter.com/AaronBlake/status/1034902887510564864
Christ, what an asshole.
punchable face
“More
It is the first thing mentioned in the first paragraph and the most substantial change — one that people will likely debate and plenty will applaud out of due-process concerns.
You are inferring a motive that simply isn’t there.”
I bet.
He absolutely did try to make DeVos look like she was siding with rapists.
And Sr Poliical Writer?
He looks like he still has mastered squeezing lemons at Archie’s.
I was wondering how long it would take to memory hole the UVA debacle.
Betsy Devos is literally Hitler.
People who aren’t mourning McCain are literally Hitler.
Huh, I’m Hitler?
No, I’m Hitler.
You know who else was Hitler?
W?
Spartacus?
Every GOP presidential nominee?
John McCain circa 2008?
Literally?
Yes it’s terrible. People accused of crimes are entitled to due process. What has this country become?
“Gay Man Rushed to ER after Shoving 15 Hard Boiled Eggs up his Rectum while on GHB”
https://www.out.com/news-opinion/2018/8/27/man-rushed-er-after-shoving-15-eggs-his-rectum-while-ghb
I haven’t read the article but that doesn’t sound like an emergency.
Ah, perforation.
I can get why people take some drugs. Pot, definitely Coke, yeah, sure (hey, I grew up in Miami in the 80s). Heroin … you’re getting a little off, but you do you. Meth … yeah, I really don’t understand. GHB … your brain was probably damaged before you took that stuff, since you decided to take it in the first place.
Meth is fine. Its just poor people adderall until you start doing it to around the fact that you mistimed your last dose and didn’t sleep and then stop eating.
I don’t even know what GHB is. Get off my lawn.
George Herbert Bush.
That does not sound fun.
Thanks for the mental image of dude riding GHB bareback while shoving eggs up his ass.
That’s gonna take a while to get rid of.
Old, sick GHB or like ambulatory GHB?
Yes.
Old gropy Bush
Crashed FIVE TIMES in WW2 GHB.
GHB is an FDA approved treatment for severe narcolepsy. My older brother takes it.
Last I checked it was both Schedule 1 and Schedule 3 at the same time.
Oh, by the way did you see my mojo criollo tips in the other threads?
um, thread
Yes. Thanks. Didn’t see it until this morning.
Is that Puerto Rican or Cuban style?
Cuban
I can only assume that Goya’s products aren’t widely available in Cuba, because… reasons. American company.
Their criollo is good. The bottled naranja agria, not so much. It’s just water, sugar, citric acid, and artificial orange flavor.
To my knowledge, there is exactly one farm in Southern California that grows Seville oranges commercially, and I’ve yet to see them at the farmer’s market. I’m stuck with the lemon juice method for now.
Have you tried “Spanish” markets? Also, I’m sure many people in Southern California have trees in their back yard. They grow untended, and even wild, throughout the Caribbean.
Oh, and in re: Badia
Everything of theirs I’ve tried is awful.
Based on the ingredients, Badia Tropical should be delicious. Salt? Yum. Onion and Garlic? Yum. Umami enhancers? Yum. Paprika? Yes, please.
I bought a 6 pack of it from Amazon, and it was disgusting. I ended up throwing it away.
Badia’s dried herbs and spices are an excellent bargain, though.
GHB is actually a very safe drug, as long as you don’t mix it with anything, or use it often. It’s used for suicide prevention and to assist childbirth in Europe. It’s the only drug I know that always makes people happy, and makes them feel better after it wears off. Again, mixing it with other drugs such as alcohol or benzodiazepines can be fatal.
What about eggs? Can you mix it with eggs?
As far as I know, eggs already have trace amounts of GHB.
When I’m happy I tend to limit my rectal egg intake.
What’s the point of taking drugs if you can’t drink with it?
It’s a weird drug. We would get calls for an unconscious person. They would typically be found out cold in a car in the middle of the road. After banging on the window for a few minutes, they would come to and have no idea where they were or how they got there.
“Nobody can do 15 eggs”
That one surpasses SF’s best!
No one needs 15 eggs. Another problem socialism can fix. /Bernie
Is his name Luke by any chance?
Brown Hand Luke?
“Yeah, well..sometimes 15 eggs crammed up your ass is a real cool hand.”
People are weird.
Other people are weird.
Especially Ted S.
That dude isn’t weird, he’s a freak.
Everyone knows you stop at 14.
Well, at least OMWC knows
I would have guessed a dozen. With 14 you get into that same shitty thing that you have with hot dogs and buns. They don’t match up.
If we made the limit a dozen every thing matches up. With your 14 limit, you are going to have to go hang out with 5 other dudes to make the eggs to rectum shit work out.
With dozen, you get eggrolled.
Happy ending!
12. That way, you only have to buy one dozen.
Someone should explain to this guy how Kegel exercises work.
“This is the *second* Jezebel article of the week that discusses Aziz Ansari under the theme of “men restarting careers after #MeToo.” Anyone who pretends that Ansari belongs on the same list as Weinstein et al is putting their credibility at risk.”
https://twitter.com/robbysoave/status/1034865132592148481
“Jezebel….credibility”
“Apparently, the Irish are very in tune with their goats’ emotions.”
I seem to recall an attorney who was as well. Deeply, deeply in touch.
What is this? I heard that goats are for the Welsh. Time for Wales to invade Ireland and take their goats back.
Is that not the history of Welsh-English relations? “What’s my girlfriend doing penned up in that Englishman’s pasture/”
My mistake. The person I’m thinking of was rumored to fuck sheep (never proven) not goats.
I think you mean never disproven.
California legislating corporate board composition – first, they mandated inclusion of women…
California legislators on Wednesday passed a bill that requires major companies based in the state to put female directors on their boards.
If the bill is signed into law by Gov. Jerry Brown, a Democrat, publicly traded companies based in the state will need to have at least one woman on their boards by the end of next year and, on boards of five or more directors, two or three women by the end of 2021, depending on the board’s size. Those that don’t would face financial penalties.
The bill passed the state Assembly in a 41-21 vote. It is now headed to the state Senate, which approved an earlier version of the bill and is expected to approve the measure again there before it heads to Mr. Brown, who hasn’t indicated his position.
“One-fourth of California’s publicly traded companies still do not have a single woman on their board, despite numerous independent studies that show companies with women on their board are more profitable and productive,” said state Sen. Hannah-Beth Jackson, a Democrat representing Santa Barbara. “With women comprising over half the population and making over 70% of purchasing decisions, their insight is critical to discussions and decisions that affect corporate culture, actions and profitability.”
https://www.wsj.com/articles/california-moves-to-mandate-female-board-directors-1535571904?mod=hp_listc_pos1
That one is going to the Supreme Court.
Seems like it’d run afoul of setting quotas. Not sure why that’d be okay to do in the corporate world, but not in academia.
FYTW.
Flash-forward to them wondering why there’s been a huge jump in companies incorporating in other states.
I don’t think it has anything to do with where they are incorporated, it’s about where HQ is.
I’d be hard pressed to think of a corporate board that doesn’t have at least one woman on it. Even the neanderthals I work for have a marketing bimbo on the board; I’m sure if I dug deep enough she’d wind up being a relative or in-law of one of the other board members.
Ah, I interpreted “based in the state” as “incorporated in CA”. You’re probably right.
Would?
As a member of the Patriarchy, I do have to admit that at times it does get a bit frustrating having to sacrifice easy money simply to keep women down. Who wouldn’t love to have an extra few million dollars simply by putting some chick on the board? I mean, that is all you have to do.
So he’s basically saying women are the reason for California’s perpetual budget deficits.
“despite numerous independent studies that show companies with women on their board are more profitable and productive,”
Right…… companies are doing this out of spite.
Companies are greedy and will kill their customers to make a dime. They also care more about keeping women down than making money.
-average Californian
Boy, that’s an awful lot of people who must hate women more than they like money.
It must be those same people who refuse to just hire all women and save a bunch in employee costs, since women only make $0.70 to the dollar that men do. They hate women more than they like money.
I mean, it’s either that or those studies are bullshit…
That was an original comment when I started typing it, I swear. Damn your nimble fingers!
Even the companies run by women.
With women comprising over half the population and making over 70% of purchasing decisions,-
We need a law that men get to make 50% of the purchasing decisions! It’s an idea so good it has to be forced on people at the point of a gun!
All the companies with women currently on their boards are opposing this bill, right? I mean, it will cost them a competitive advantage.
Why do the legislators ignore gays, blacks, Hispanics, trannies (self-proclaimed, in process, snipped, etc.) , Muslims, etc. etc.? Boards should be diverse but these a-holes seem to think having just “men” and “women” is enough. You know, maybe just abolish Boards and let the
employees manage the company?
Board Chairman: “Good afternoon everyone. As you all know California law requires we have a(nother) woman on this board. Well, we managed to find one. I’d like to introduce….”
What everyone in the room (including the woman) will be thinking but not saying.
Typical women owned small business that gets favorable treatment over other suppliers: wife is the titular head, husband is the one who does much/all of the day to day work of running the business.
See also: Minority-owned business
In late becuz of MUH MEETING. Nothing will stop the tits however.
http://archive.is/ygTwG
Duckface girls take note, 16 is how you actually look seductive without being cheesy.
#32
I guess they thought #1 was so hot they had to add her again at #55
I’ll take #53 and #68
#70 wins the crazy eyes bunny boiler award but still might just be worth it just once
1 and 62.
Damn. Just saw the best pizza place on Rehoboth Ave. America’s Pie closed.
Nicola and Grotto are over rated.
Are these porn actresses?
Must have been the apostrophe S.
If it was so good, why is it out of business?
Racism?
They didn’t have a woman on their board.
They should get boards full of women!
The price of pineapple increased and destroyed their margins.
Being the best pizza place on Rehoboth isn’t all that telling unless we know how many other pizza places are on Rehoboth.
Yes and I had them all pretty much.
It was the best one.
And Capsulla’s have the best subs:
https://www.casapullassubs.com/menu/
Along with Frank and Louie’s.
https://www.facebook.com/Frank-Louies-Italian-Specialties-493947190659653/
Those subs don’t even have french fries on them. What, are the customers on a diet?
I *hear* in-fghting.
They took their ball and went back to Philadelphia.
Oh
Grotto has the rest of thier restaurants in my area. They started using chain ovens and the product quality went to shit.
Canada Aims for Nafta Deal This Week But ‘Huge’ Work Remains
Remember I said maybe Trump and Mexico can insult Trudeau…?
Let’s all pile on Trudeau!
He’s an idiot.
That’s why all the airhead chicks in Canada love (and vote for) him.
Goddammit.
Can’t we just pile on his wife instead?
It’s Yuge Work, thankyouverymuch.
https://reason.com/blog/2018/08/28/why-the-fading-credibility-of-pope-franc
This is a good article by Gillespie. It’s true that the collapse of institutions and the atomization of society will only lead to a larger more intrusive state.
From the article:
“This is all of obvious concern to Catholics, but the Church’s failure to earn back lost confidence and trust should be of concern to non-Catholics as well. Across the board, from major religious institutions to the media to the government, the United States is becoming a low-trust country. The major consequence of that isn’t simply people getting on with their lives. It often ends in calls for more and more government intervention into all aspects of life, even when people believe the government either to be corrupt or incompetent:”
Read the whole thing. It’s a well done piece.
Of course, now this means I’m the “Nick Gillespie of Commentators”
Well he is supposed to be the last pope.
/ watching too many pseudo- science History channel programs.
Oh, that’s right. We’re almost there..
“Peter the Roman”
Which in today’s Latin means Commie the Argentinian.
It sort of makes sense that the last pope is commie pope. Commies have a great record of ending things.
All according to the Alien Forerunner plans.
For crying out loud, Gillespie! It look me like six clicks to get to the actual article cited. It’s worth noting that Aghion, Algan, Cahuc, and Shleifer claim that the causality runs both ways, with more regulation leading to more distrust.
But the idea that a decline in community and institutions will lead to a larger and more intrusive state was a long time refrain of Kirk and Nisbet. Obviously, Gillespie isn’t going to cite them, but I think they are right on that point.
The question of whether distrust of institutions leads to more state or a more intrusive state leads to a distrust of institutions may both be true.
That makes more intuitive sense to me, than vice versa.
I think a real life example that proves Gillespie’s point are American cities, particularly in the north, where a declining population of families has coincided with a more active and regulatory local government.
But that seems to me to be a different phenomenon than what Aghion et al. observed, unless you define not being fruitful and multiplying as “uncivic” behavior.
What Aghion et al. seem to be arguing is that if civic institutions are corrupt and shitty then people will lose their trust in them and clamor for regulation, despite the regulatory body being as shitty and corrupt as the civic institution. That seems to me like a path of least resistance choice – the thinking being to deal with a shitty and corrupt government, you need a revolution (bloodless or not); but to deal with a shitty civic institution, you just need to pass a law.
The “we should pass a law” types always strike me as people who just want to pass the buck. They want to create some regulatory body to be in charge of the problem, after which they can throw up their hands and say they tried but [party they oppose] took over and now there’s nothing they can do. No thought process required.
Same with the “concerned citizen who called the police”. She (let’s be honest here) could have approached the person and had a conversation to try to work out whatever was bothering her, but no, that would require effort. Better to hide behind the anonymity of a dropping a dime to the murder squad.
People are leaving the cities BECAUSE of the more active local government. You live in Chicago fer crissakes, the white flight of the 60’s was due mostly to government taking a LOT of property to build the interstates and moving the displaced people into other communities – the existing residents didn’t like it and the existing businesses didn’t like the associated property tax change which jacked up their taxes. The same probably played out in NYC, Philadelphia, Detroit, etc.
The problem gets exacerbated when the parents tell their near-adult children the truth while public schools tell them the exact opposite. It’s the government schools promoting government and bad-mouthing all other community institutions that sows the mistrust. It’s why the kiddie diddling church dude is the top story on tv news, while the kiddie diddling public school teacher is relegated to the 8th item on the police blotter page.
That’s exactly what happened to Boston’s most historically diverse neighborhoods (The South End and Lower Roxbury) in the 60’s and 70’s.
Chicago never experienced the same degree of White flight as other Midwestern cities. For varying reasons (not all good). Additionally Chicago boasted a healthy amount of families through the 90s. And Chicago did not pursue the tax and spend policies of Detroit or Cleveland during that same time. Chicago had a double A credit rating while most of their Midwestern peers teetered on insolvency.
There are many reasons for that, but the fact that they were able to keep a lot of their middle income family base cannot be overlooked. And middle income families are the foundation upon which institutions and community are built
Why would anyone leave here?
I don’t think they state in there that since Balmer’s peak population of over a million… yes, that’s right, they’ve lost 40% of their population. Gee, I wonder why. One of the highest violent crime rates on the planet, highest taxes by far in the state and yet they cannot fix the fucking roads, the crumbling infrastructure and roads is like something out of the 3rd world. Do not move here, if you have to work here, get to like driving, period, or make a deal to telecommute.
Similar thing in California currently. Fuel taxes and vehicle registration are through the roof, yet they cannot be bothered to fix the roads. Every day the state of California makes other states look more and more appealing.
They’ve been working on a stretch of road I have to drive on to get to my office in the city, for 5 years. The entire stretch of that road cannot be more than a mile long. They’ve been ‘working’ on it for 5 years and I am not kidding you, it is WORSE than it was when they started. I have no idea what the hell they are doing and I am 100% sure they don’t know what they are doing anymore than I do. I’ve never seen anything quite so pathetic. I remember when I was a kid living in Ohio, they would come to fix the road near where we lived, and they would be working 24/7 for a few days and it was done. Miles and miles of a road fixed in just a few days. I really should make this a documentary and start going down there and filming this, it would be an epic example of the corruption and complete incompetency of a place like this.
Oh, they know what they’re doing.
This is how the authors explain it:
It could be the case that communities with existing institutional support mechanisms such as fraternal organizations or religious charities due not need government support and therefore would already be less supportive of more governmental regulation. Additionally, communities with existing informal institutions that form commonality such as parent groups or block clubs are less distrustful of their neighbors and therefore don’t seek government regulation.
This may be a question of the chicken or the egg. At least within a democratic system where government regulation is usually demanded before it’s imposed
There’s also the fact that people can’t donate to civic charities like they once did because taxes take more of their income and the tax deduction for charitable donations keeps getting sliced and the charities have to jump through a shitload more hoops. You used to be able to deduct 100%, now it’s only 20-25% and it has to be at least $200 bucks annually, so the lower class person with $20 to give to the Jaycees or Lions club 25 years ago doesn’t bother donating $80 anymore.
Well done piece? There wasn’t much to it. HM’s link has some intellectual meat in it.
It’s Reason, not a policy journal. Give Gillespie a break
RC, if you’re still around, you mentioned several months ago that you recommended your hospital discontinue allowing VBACs.
Do you mind elaborating on this a little? Or dropping me an email at myhandle@gmail.com (no spaces or hypen) if that’s too OT a topic?
I haven’t dug deeply into the literature yet, but my initial reading of recent studies shows a slightly increased relative risk to C-section, but still a very low absolute risk. It sounds like you have a very different experience at your hospital though? My wife would like one but defers to my judgement on if it’s an acceptable risk or not, so am trying to do my due diligence and had to ask after reading that comment.
I’m not in risk assessment, but we do trial of labor for VBAC. We place an epidural for labor and if there are any issues we dose the epidural For section.
Thanks Florida Man. It seems like vbacs have come a long way and are now becoming fairly standardized with precautions in place like you mentioned.
You’re welcome. Are you using the same OB? Are they comfortable with VBAC?
A lot of hospitals won’t do VBACs at all – too risky. Remember, risk is probability x damage; for deliveries, the damage can get really high really fast; since a blown VBAC generally takes the uterus with it, you wind up with a claim for whatever is wrong with the baby and for the mother’s loss of reproductive capacity. The baby claim alone can be 7 or even 8 figures. The probability may be low, but that doesn’t mean the risk is low. We deliver over 5,000 babies a year, so we see the “low” probability stuff.
I haven’t looked at the actual studies, just at my fucking claims reports which have two fucking blown VBACs on them that will cost us millions. The only mothers, BTW, that we have actually lost during deliveries were blown VBACs. The only counseling we have had to do with our labor and delivery staff was following blown VBACs. A VBAC generally fails when the scarring from the C-Section gives way at the peak of delivery; in the L & D department, the result is described as a uterus that “grenaded”.
You had one C Section already, get another one – why take an unnecessary risk with both the baby and the mother? A fair number (don’t know the percentage) of our VBACs convert to C Sections anyway. In the studies, I wonder if they include those as VBACs or C Sections – probably C Sections, since the way they are billed, but I would check. Honestly, I just see VBACS as a completely unnecessary risk.
My recommendation was rejected, BTW.
One more thing: as I noted, we have a very high volume labor and delivery operation, one that also takes in a lot of high risk patients (generally, those who haven’t had prenatal care). We have 24 hour coverage by two different kinds of delivery specialists (OB laborists, and maternal-fetal medicine specialists for difficult/risky deliveries), a neonatal intensive care unit with 24 hour neonatology coverage, and pediatric hospital operation with yet more 24 hour coverage by pediatric hospitalists and intensivists.
Right now, I have three “bad baby” cases – two of them VBACs. Our L & D operation is exceptionally good; our actuary tells me we are in the best decile or quintile nationwide as far as bad baby claims go – I think we know what we are doing here, and we still have problems with VBACs.
Thanks RC for describing all this. I’m going to show this to my wife and see if that changes her mind. It sounds like the risk may not be that much greater, but a failed outcome has the potential to be more horrific.
My understanding is that 60-80% of VBACs are successful and the remaining convert to C-Sections. Overall risk of serious injury or death to either mother or child is about 1 in 1,000 or 1,250. C-Sections are at about 1 in 5,000. Maternal factors play a huge role in determining success though and the prime candidates have success rates in the mid 90s (my wife would be a prime candidate).
You had one C Section already, get another one – why take an unnecessary risk with both the baby and the mother?
Much faster recovery than a C Section with a smaller bill, less time off work, and without the bitch of a recovery from having your abdomen sliced open. She was forced to get a C Section with our second and really doesn’t want another one.
But your question is dead on, none of that means jack shit if it’s putting her life or the baby’s in danger. ‘Uterus grenade’ does have an ominous ring to it.
I should also tell you the majority of scheduled sections we do are for previous history of c-section. People do both.
Remember, I see only a small slice of what goes on – the catastrophic outcomes. Doing the math, we had two VBACs go bad on us about 12 – 18 months apart. I don’t think we’ve had other blown VBACs in the five years I’ve been here, at least not that got to the point where they showed up on my desk. Rough math – 25,000 deliveries with two bad VBACs; not sure how many successful VBACs we did over that time frame.
I probably made it sounds like an easier decision that it actually is, given my perspective on the issue. The decision I’ve really been focussed on is “do we want to continue doing this in our hospital”; our issues are not entirely the same as those of a patient.
If you decide to go forward with the VBAC, I would mercilessly grill the OB who will be doing the delivery on his/her experience with VBACs, and I would find out what the hospital’s experience and protocols are. I believe one change we made was that a maternal-fetal medicine specialist has to be in the house for every VBAC (which is not hard for us, since their offices are in the hospital).
Right, I completely get that. It’s good to gather info from multiple sources to form the full picture. Practitioners often can’t give the forest view. Studies give the forest view but lack individual tidbits like Uterus Grenades.
Bottom line (which I probably should have opened with): lawyers aren’t really a good source of clinical advice.
No need to open with that on my behalf. I have to get our Regulatory VP sign off on every clinical manuscript before submission. Even if we had a study with 10,000 patients with a 99.9% healed rate, I’m still sure he would rather our studies simply state a single sentence saying: “This product exists and may or not help this condition.”
I would only say that, did I need to make a decision like that, after reading RC’s take, I would most definitely ditch the idea of a VBAC. (FWIW, I had high-risk pregnancies.)
I think a key variable would be how many more kids you might want, because C Sections definitely increase the risk of subsequent pregnancies (and not just the delivery part, either).
Doing the math, a VBAC gives you a 20 – 40% chance of getting a C Section anyway. Both of our catastrophic VBACs ended in C Sections; its what you do when a VBAC (or any delivery) goes bad. If it was up to me, I’d make sure I did my VBAC in a hospital, because of the odds it will turn into a surgery, and I would make sure my delivery team had done some VBACs, including some that converted to C Sections. I would also say that under no circumstances will you consent to a resident being involved in the procedure as anything other than an observer. The most dangerous thing in any hospital are the residents.
Convert the residents to itinerants. Boom, no problem.
This is Lacky’s wife and I’m a birth doula (I help families prepare emotionally & physically for pregnancy & birth). You’re preliminary research into VBACs is correct, the risks with a repeat cesarean outweigh the risks of a VBAC – especially if you plan on having more children after this pregnancy. Besides the risks associated with any major surgery, repeat cesareans increase the risk of complications with future pregnancies.
The practice of allowing a trial of labor with an epidural is similar to asking someone to sprint with their feet shacked. It makes a successful outcome extremely hard to achieve as the laboring woman is subjected to more monitoring than maybe necessary . ICAN is a good resource for you & your wife to find out more about your options. Finding local/internet VBAC support groups will be very helpful too. And I highly recommend working with a doula that makes your wife feel confident and safe, because labor may be more psychologically trying for her due to her previous failure to birth vaginally.
You could ask Lacky how our doula helped him be hands-on and support me through my labor. She can do it. Finding the right care team will be very important. Some links that may be helpful:
http://www.ican-online.org/blog/2017/06/is-your-care-provider-vbac-friendly-heres-how-to-tell/
https://dareallalucedoula.com/cesareansc-sections/is-your-provider-vbac-friendly-or-just-vbac-tolerant/ (not the nest written blog, but she makes excellent points)
Keep in mind, BTW, that I bitch about VBACs from a very particular situation – someone who has to manage claims including claims from VBACs. I’m not acquainted with the literature on relative risk; I just know that in our hospital, which has an exceptional L & D program for high-risk patients, they constitute a vastly disproportionate share of catastrophic deliveries, orders of magnitude more than C Sections. Our biggest issue with C Sections is post-op infections (being a new mother is apparently not conducive to maintaining post-op infection control protocols). I couldn’t say what the risk to future pregnancies of repeated C Sections might be.
The literature may show relatively low risk, and my experience may be a statistical outlier or anomaly. Bottom line (which I probably should have opened with): lawyers aren’t really a good source of clinical advice.
Finding the right care team will be very important.
Absolutely correct.
Lies.
I concur that finding the right care team is critical. However, don’t assume that this care team will show-up for the actual birth.
This x a gabillion.
Good point. Part of our L & D program is that we will do a delivery for an OB who just can’t be arsed to come in on a weekend (or, to be fair, has other conflicts). Something else to confirm:
Is your OB on call at the hospital you will likely be taken to in an emergency? Does that hospital call the patient’s OB when requested, or do they call whoever is on the rotation?
Does your OB “assign” patient deliveries to other OBs? Who will cover for them if they are tied up with one delivery (or are out of town, or sick, or drunk, whatever) when your wife is ready to pop?
And about that one person assigned to epidurals – sorry he was busy during your delivery.
“This is Lacky’s wife and…”
Here we go again, it’s wife’s posting time. I’ll have to get Mrs Hyperion on here again, in just a few.
well… where is she? 🙂
I’m curious about your great looks. /notlacky’swife
Thanks Lacky’s wife. I’ll take a look at the links and let her know about them too.
We’re actually very familiar with doulas, but that’s a good reminder to take another look for this one. My wife delivered our first child after 23 hours sans meds but the doc insisted she take a epi at the 24th hour. Our second was going to be at a private birthing facility run by a nurse practitioner midwife, but my wife had an AVM rupture at 33 weeks pregnant and was forced to C-section instead. She’s cleared for a VBAC by her neurosurgeron and OB, but still has to decide. The hospital and her doctor are both at least very good and supportive. We could have used a team of doulas at hospital #1.
Would you and your wife feel comfortable birthing at the birthing facility this time? Or a hospital which has midwives who deliver babies? (The midwifery model of care usually results in better birth outcomes). That in itself could greatly improve your chances of having a VBAC. Hospital policies can really affect a woman’s labor experience and birth outcome. These are the stats of the local birthing center, a 100% VBAC rate which no local hospital comes close to.
https://www.facebook.com/birthingcenterbuffalo/photos/a.361838307234863/1589762104442471/?type=3&theater
Consider hiring a doula privately- that way you build a relationship. You can know and trust her which may greatly decrease both your fears during labor & birthing. She’ll also be better prepared to assist you as she’ll have a better understanding of your situation and personalities. Believe me, it’ll be worth the investment. We actually paid our doula a very generous tip as a thank you after returning from the hospital – her help was invaluable in me being able to birth unmedicated.
I think we’re going to stick to the hospital this time. My wife had a cranial AVM rupture at 36 weeks with baby #2. I think 98% chance of death or major brain damage, but she pulled through (both of them did). She actually had her C-Section in the general OR with a team of neurosurgeons at her head the entire time, just in case.
Her AVM blew itself out, so she should be in the clear, but just in the remote chance something goes wrong, we’d like to already be waiting at the hospital. Otherwise, we would definitely go with the birthing center again. We’ll look into a doula though. The hospital we’ve chosen is excellent. It should be a night vs day experience from hospital #1.
Also, best of luck to you and your wife.
I’m digging this site:
https://inacrowdedtheater.com/2018/08/24/the-lies-we-tell-including-the-president/
I don’t believe a word of that…
“I recommend you watch CNN’s Chris Cuomo practically beg Presidential Adviser Kellyanne Conway to admit that President Trump lied about not knowing when Michael Cohen was paying Karen McDougal and Stormy Daniels to keep secret the affairs between Trump and the two women. “The truth matters,” Cuomo implores.”
The truth matters
Not that truth, we’ve already proved that you can nail a chubby intern right on the oval office desk and still be popular as a president. Shutup, Chrissy poo, you are another irrelevant joke, run of the mill CNN shill.
#StopTheBias
https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1034907478566359041
The comments.
I’d love to see them when things are reversed.
That thread proves the left can’t meme, bro.
They keep getting embarrassed on the intertoobz. That’s why we must have censorship. It’s not fair that those dumb rednecks are always outwitting us.
The which is more likely one was hilarious. Because the whole point is that, at this time, yes it is more plausible that the CIA/FBI/DOJ and parts of the in power Dem party conspired to frame Trump than that Trump is lying about that, even taken as a given that Trump is an inveterate liar. That’s how far down the fucking rabbit whole we are.
Frankly, I’m at the point where if there were a video released tomorrow that showed that Hillary and Podesta and the Obamas and certain Tech / Hollywood figures are, in fact, part of a literal Satanic Cult of Kiddy Diddlers ala pizzagate/qanon I wouldn’t be surprised or shocked. The idea is ludicrous just typing it out. But it is less ludicrous than I’d have thought 8 years ago. (Granted, on a scale of 1 to 10 it’s only moved from like a 10 to an 8, but it’s moved.)
Well the NY Times just had an article stating the Catholic Church conservatives were “weaponizing” the fact that there was a massive cover up of sexual abuse by the priesthood and there was a possibility the present Pope knew about it and did nothing.
Never knew social justice was more important child rape.
It’s the 5th day of the school year, and my son’s teacher just announced her maternity leave.
Because of course.
Well timed!
Meh. She missed it by 5 days.
I’m going to go out on a limb and guess that it fits perfectly going right into Christmas break though.
Or she’s gets a year’s pensions/wage/experience credit for working that one week.
Ding. Ding.
Shocking.
My son’s “retired” at 42 midway through last year.
Excellent Ted’S-bait on your part, mex.
Planning on cycling through Azerbaijan?
You know who else retired at midway in 42?
OT: Story about NM Muslim compound gets more interesting
Prosecutor didn’t file case in time so charges are dropped.
… Hobbit
My comment disappeared.
OT: Story about NM Muslim compound getting more complicated.
https://www.kob.com/new-mexico-news/original-charges-against-all-nm-compound-suspects-dismissed-2-suspects-held-on-new-charges/5050047/?cat=500
… Hobbit
I noticed up-thread that some of you are discussing home births for the next round of lil’ shitlords (and shitladies).
Just in case you feel like you want to spice things up .
Is that you and 4 friends, or do you just want to watch it 5 times?
Shortly after Tres Version 2.0 came into the world, I mentioned getting him a onesie that had “I Tore Mommy A New One” printed on the front.
Hilarity failed to ensue.
Would a hospital even let five strange men in the room?
“Child abuse charges dismissed in New Mexico desert compound case
TAOS, N.M. (Reuters) – Two New Mexico judges on Wednesday dismissed child abuse charges against five people from a desert compound near Taos where a toddler’s body was found, citing procedural errors by prosecutors.
The judges, in separate decisions issued in New Mexico’s Eighth Judicial District Court, dismissed the child abuse charges on grounds that a preliminary hearing had not taken place within 10 days after they were filed on Aug. 8 when the defendants were taken into custody.”
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-new-mexico-crime/child-abuse-charges-dismissed-in-new-mexico-desert-compound-case-idUSKCN1LE2EU
“Prosecutors had planned to present as evidence a hand-written document called “Phases of a Terrorist Attack” that was seized from the compound and includes vague instructions for “the one-time terrorist” and mentioned an unnamed place called “the ideal attack site.”
Prosecutors wrote in court documents that new interviews with some of the children removed from the compound revealed that one of the adults, Morton, stated he wished to die in jihad as a martyr and that Leveille and Subhannah Wahhaj joked about dying in jihad.
The new charges of child abuse resulting in death against Siraj Ibn Wahhaj and Leveille are tied to an extensive account of Abdul-ghani’s death in a journal that prosecutors attribute to Leveille.
Federal immigration authorities say Leveille, a native of Haiti, has been in the United States unlawfully for 20 years after overstaying a visitor visa.”
https://www.reviewjournal.com/news/nation-and-world/charges-dropped-against-3-arrested-at-new-mexico-compound/
Both of my other comments got eaten so trying again with this.
Dismissal was a procedural error, not getting proper documents submitted in time.
This is still developing.
… Hobbit
I’m not a lawyer, but couldn’t they simply arrest them on some other charge?
Sounds like they’ve got homicide and kidnapping charges (and I am sure a constellation of associated conspiracy charges) to go with, and that’s without getting into the terrorism part. These prosecutors appear to be dumb as posts, though.
What a colossal fuckup, though. The judge gives you a deadline, you don’t get to make lame ass excuses like “I thought the deadline didn’t apply as long as they hadn’t made bail.”
Likely one of the biggest cases they’ll ever see and they screw the pooch. Sad!
Conspiracy theorists would say it was deliberate.
I would guess they’ll have a chance to rectify the screwup. If that’s not the case I might have to join the conspiracy theorists.
I would have to agree with them if they did.
Again, not a lawyer, but it sounds like there would be federal charges. And I was under the impression federal prosecutors, while perhaps not the most ethical people, are at least effective.
What the hell does Jeff Sessions do all day? Live in a tree and make cookies?
Good thing for them they weren’t just a bunch of Murikans not threatening jihad, not having bones of buried toddlers around, but just growing some illegal plants. Then they’d be fucked big time.
Or just home schooling their spawn and living like recluse overly-religious white people…in Waco.
Are we bitching about jobs here? We are? Good.
I’ve been at my POE for (X) years. Less than a year into my employment, there was a change at the top. The new head honcho isn’t running a business, he’s running a kingdom. My immediate supervisor put up with it for a good while; now he’s leaving. So they’re shuffling the deck chairs in my department. I love the job I’ve been doing, but they’re pushing me out because the new guy wants his guy in that spot. I have been moved into a spot that I really hate, and my second choice spot to go to was given to a guy who has been in my department for (X/2) years. They’re making it clear that I have no value to them, so I’m getting out. FML.
They put you in the dark basement with the giant roaches? Jokes aside, sorry to hear about that, hope you get a better gig that does appreciate having you.
Thanks.
Did he get his red Swingline stapler back?
Could be worse.
My wife’s company has repeatedly failed to get her training on a couple of their internal tools that she needs to use for her job. She has asked for it, continually raised the issue she doesn’t know how to use those systems, and all along she has been getting beyond excellent performance reviews (like she got a 20% performance raise last year) and even not knowing how to use those tools has been able to meet or exceed all of their expectations.
Last week her new Manager (the 3rd new manager of this department in the last 2 years) put my wife on a Performance Improvement plan for not knowing those tools. She either gets the training in 90 days or she is fired and it is my wife’s responsibility to get the training even though she has no power or authority to make it happen.
Does your wife have a paper trail?
“They’re making it clear that I have no value to them, so I’m getting out. FML.”
You’ll look back on your last day with glee.
Meetings:
1) When they built the first half of the machine the controls guys jumped in and installed all of their equipment in the lower part of the racks. All of my equipment had to be installed above that. Controls never had to touch their equipment and we had to cycle power every day. Ten feet in the air.
So they convened a meeting for the second half and invited me. In that meeting I emphatically railed against putting the controls equipment below the equipment that was operated daily. I was not invited to the next meeting.
2) I found out early on that I could send a delayed email to the pager interface. Twenty minutes into some bullshit meeting I’d get a page that I’d sent to myself. “Gotta take this”.
… Hobbit
Ooh, pagers. How long ago was this?
Pagers, believe it or not, are still a thing. Doctors wont give em’ up.
Sarah Palin told to stay away from McCain funeral:
https://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2018/08/29/sarah-palin-loyal-running-mate-excluded-from-john-mccains-funeral/
I don’t like her one bit but this seems shitty for some reason.
This is McCain being petty one last time.
He’s managing to be a jackass from beyond the grave.
Extremely petty at that.
That dumb motherfucker believes she cost him the election.
The only time he was leading in the polls was after she was named the running mate. The media saw this, freaked out, and the Establishment fucks listened to all their Good Liberal Friends Across The Aisle and muzzled the only smart thing they did all that cycle.
She is by far the best person to be on a major party ticket in decades.
I kind of like her. Granted, I haven’t seen her at all since those days – which might have something to do with that – except for an appearance on Match Game where she was gracious and charming enough that even Baldwin and the other lefty vultures that participate in that operation were nice to her.
Tina Fey also commented on how gracious and nice she was when she was on SNL. I believe Palin offered to have her daughter (Bristol?) watch Tina’s kids during taping.
Watch Tina’s kids do what? get knocked up out of wedlock?
I don’t know if it’s being discussed in these here parts, but the murder conviction of the Texas cop this week has somewhat of a connection to me.
I used to work for Balch Springs PD in the early ’00s, for just under four years. It’s actually where I started my LE career. And, no, I’m not a cop*.
Now, I don’t know Roy Oliver, or, his partner in the situation. I do know the Chief, and I considered him a pretty good friend/co-worker when I was there. It’s been 13 years since I was there, and I’m not exactly sure who is still there that I worked with (I know of a handful). My parting with them wasn’t exactly on good terms–which I will leave at that–and, I tend not to do nostalgia with former jobs.
If you’ve never lived in, or, visited Dallas for a reasonable length of time, I’m not sure I can convey what the town is like. It sits next to unincorporated parts of Dallas county, as well as the Pleasant Grove area of Dallas, which is where I spent the first 30-odd years of my life. If you know Dallas (and, PG in particular), you probably know that Balch Springs is/was mostly just “Grove-ites” that moved east a bit. When I was there, the PD made the news when two white officers arrested a black guy one night as he was checking out the house he was having built in a new subdivision.
The charge? Why, it was for parking more than 18″ from the curb. Obviously, a reasonable arrest under any circumstance! This is the kind of town that had a bed-ridden woman who was so large that she began growing into her mattress. The FD had to “rescue” her by cutting her out of said mattress. I bring these up to try to give a bit of insight as to what kind of place the “city” is.
As for ‘ol Roy…. Well, since I don’t know him (his kind, yes), I can’t speak definitively on what will happen to him. I mean, he kinda seems like someone who will off himself before he gets to the Pen. I would imagine that the agency is going to try to use the matter for what-NOT-to-do training, and will be scrutinizing current and future officer a bit more closely. For now, at least.
Anyway, if anyone has questions about this, I can try to answer. Like, how could the jury find him
quiltyguilty of murder, but not on the two Agg. Assault charges for the others in the car? SMDH…..*I’ve been rather reticent to bring up my career around here, considering what policing has brought on itself. But, this shit does hit sorta close to home.