Lurker > Soviet_Poland

Manocheese posted...

How do you know those people aren't Hillary supporters trying to make Trump supporters look bad?

How much do the Russians pay these days? Competitive salary? Benefits?
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"He has two neurons held together by a spirochete."

LinksLiege posted...

I'm a nihilist so this question amuses me.

And why are you a nihilist?
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"He has two neurons held together by a spirochete."

Kaiganeer posted...

it is what you make of it

i wasted the beginning of mine and don't care enough to course-correct at 27

You at 37: "Man, I had so much time to get my shit together at 27. Had I done that, I'd be sitting pretty. I don't care enough to course-correct at 37."

You at 47: "I was still so young at 37! But I don't care enough to course correct now!"

No better time than right now.
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"He has two neurons held together by a spirochete."

TC: "Muh feelings and sentiments are more valid than systematic thought and research!"
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"He has two neurons held together by a spirochete."

https://youtu.be/kwlQY8I3Uoo?t=57
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"He has two neurons held together by a spirochete."

I used to ride a motorcycle for 3 years. I never got hurt. So, motorcycles must be perfectly safe. Right?

Issues are complex precisely because there seems to be seemingly contradictory truths. They can be both safe and dangerous, so which is it?

I like to use a poker analogy. You can have pocket aces and still lose a hand. You can have 2-7 offsuit and still win a hand. Is it good to play 2-7 offsuit? Is it ever good to fold pocket aces?

It depends on the case, and people suffer a bad outcome with the "right" choice and vice versa. The whole issue is whether or not a change would affect outcome overall. I'm not vying for any side, because I don't know the answer to that question and I'm not going to bullshit and pretend like I do. I reevaluate my stance on this issue a lot, and have had a lot of back and forth. So no conclusion yet. But really annoys me when people are disingenuous with the arguments on either side.
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"He has two neurons held together by a spirochete."

Pink and purple
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"He has two neurons held together by a spirochete."

Spotify connected to bluetooth
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"He has two neurons held together by a spirochete."

Neither. I wear scrubs
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"He has two neurons held together by a spirochete."

"See you tomorrow"
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"He has two neurons held together by a spirochete."

Haven't read the entire thread, so I apologize if my tips are repeated:

-Buy a controller. If you don't have one. X1 controllers probably have more native support on PC, but you can make a DS4 controller work as well. Just find one on sale. It really will change your experience of the game.

-Quality is a good build for a beginner. This means leveling strength and dexterity equally to about 40. Don't neglect vitality and endurance (in fact, I'd probably level this first, unless you have a weapon you don't meet requirements on that you're interested in using).

-You can summon someone to help on a boss fight if you get stuck. Always do your best to try and do it yourself, as that's most rewarding IMO. But if it's just frustratingly hard, just summon help and move on. You'll most likely replay through Dark Souls or play the other titles by the end of it all. It's an addicting formula.
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"He has two neurons held together by a spirochete."

gunplagirl posted...

Had nothing I wasn't already aware of.

It's still over bloated and larger than necessary, especially in the interest of creating peaceful conditions throughout the world.

If anything, that reddit breakdown is a good example of the ways in which we've become accustomed to the military-industrial complex and can somehow justify spending billions on weapons and super jets that will likely sit in storage for years before being rendered obsolete.

Lol you didn't read the follow up posts.
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"He has two neurons held together by a spirochete."

megamanfreakXD posted...

16

Holy shit, how exhausting was that interview season?
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"He has two neurons held together by a spirochete."

As someone who touted the whole "does the US spend too much on military" stance for a while, this reddit post made me reevaluate my stance.

https://www.reddit.com/r/PoliticalDiscussion/comments/5wopim/does_the_united_states_actually_spend_too_much_on/debzcbx/

I'm not necessarily convinced, but it did make me think twice. Give it a genuine read, gunplagirl.
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"He has two neurons held together by a spirochete."

gunplagirl posted...

Or, get this, we cut our military budget that is larger than the next several highest budgets of military spending from countries across the world. Then we use that money to actually give everyone universal healthcare, streamline it and medicine so people can actually live and not die of preventable reasons, make college or university cost less, and oh, maybe universal basic income which has been shown in practice to boost the economy because more people will have money to actually put back in to the economy.

It's hardly a false dichotomy. It's literally the facts that people put the blame on those without money, while those who have money can make bad mistakes but get bailed out. There's also studies galore showing that it takes several years of extremely good financial planning and nothing bad happening to get out of poverty.

Lol, you're preaching to the choir, but I'm more interested in feasible baby steps rather than going for such a hail mary. It's never going to be as simple as rearranging a few things in the budget and then implementing these ideas. You sound like me when I was in undergrad and naive to the world.

For the record, I can make a compelling argument why we spend too much on our military budget. I could do the same for why it's a necessary evil. It's not so simple.
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"He has two neurons held together by a spirochete."

IdiotMachine posted...

This is how the medical cost works in the United States:
There is a real break-even cost to a service. Say that's $100. The hospital wants to make some profit, and it wants to cover people that cannot pay, thus they charge $130.

Now insurance companies route all their customers to these hospitals. Because the insurance company gives so much business to the hospital, the insurance companies want to negotiate for a lower cost. They demand a 30% discount, down to ~$90. The hospital says they cannot do that, because they will lose money at that point. The insurance company says they do not want to send their customers if they don't get this much discount.

So what do hospitals do? They raise up the charge price. Now instead of charging $130, they charge $190. The insurance company demands a 30% discount again, and now it's down to ~$130, what they originally wanted. Now the insurance company is happy they got their discount, and the hospital is happy they got what they originally wanted to charge.

Multiply this by literally hundreds and thousands of services, different insurance companies, and hospitals... you can imagine how complicated this whole system gets. And because of all these "negotiations" they have to do, you can imagine just how much bullshit paperwork there is, bullshit negotiations to do, etc. All of this stuff is written into a giant file called the "chargemaster" in each hospital.

TL;DR: Hospitals charge a lot to negotiate it down to what they actually wanted, because the market forced them to do this.

Easier to pitchfork and circle jerk without doing any research though.
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"He has two neurons held together by a spirochete."

gunplagirl posted...

The only "welfare queens" living off the government are multi billion dollar corporations. Especially with the recent tax reforms.

But sure, let's get mad that the people in the lowest rung of society get to eat and have choice in their food, and on occasion may indulge.

Capitalism, where being unable to provide for yourself is bad and you get no help, but if you're rich and fail you get bailed out and get to try again and again and never have to actually create new jobs.

That's a false dichotomy though. And for the record, I don't think they shouldn't be able to ever indulge. Just from personal experience working as a cashier many many years ago though, the funds aren't being utilized as efficiently as they could be in most cases.

A smarter system could mean less people actually go hungry. Are you more concerned over whether people have a certain level of luxury? Or an absolute number of people getting the food they require? Because SNAP that only covers cost effective foods, for say 80% of the allocated funds, with room for a few indulgent purchases would allow either broader/wider coverage of people who are eligible, or to reduce how much is paid out for the system.
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"He has two neurons held together by a spirochete."

Darkrobotisback posted...

It was meant to sustain a person/small family for a couple of weeks or so.
What they chose to buy is no ones concern

Right, but the amount on the card can't sustain a person or a small family if they routinely buy things like prime rib or lobster.

If you blow through your SNAP funds in a week when it's supposed to last a month, it's a fair bet you don't need the funds (because you're still financing the rest of the 3 weeks, somehow, presumably) or have poor judgment and can't budget accordingly.

You can make delicious meals like a thai curry chicken/vegetable soup on the most basic of ingredients (one example of many). Per serving, it's cheap. It's nutritious. And it's just as tasty. So "cheap" in terms of cost doesn't have to be bland or shitty for you.

Buying a filet mignon is not a luxury someone in a difficult financial position ought to be springing for, for the same reason they shouldn't be spending money on expensive massages or other things perceived as luxury, until your financial situation improves.

The whole point of SNAP is to be temporary relief. If you alter your budget to now blow it all off on luxury in the first week and continue to spend money on food for the remaining month, you're not improving your financial situation.
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"He has two neurons held together by a spirochete."

3deep5u posted...

yes, we should give them shit food with little nutritional value instead

Pretty sure the idea is more so about picking food options that are a good cost/nutrition ratio, given that being on food assistance in the first place implies financial trouble.

A family can stretch lean chicken, rice, lentils, and vegetables far more than going for high end/top shelf cuts that are meant to be more of a treat than a staple. It's really the other end of the argument to people who get upset people buy chips/candy/cookies/soda/etc with food stamps. Should delicacies or luxuries be covered?

Like someone else in the thread mentioned, it would be hard to regulate.
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"He has two neurons held together by a spirochete."

4D chess!

I'm thinking the original proposals were just to quell his base, which includes people like this:


Then backtrack and hope they don't notice. Either that, or enough people in the administration finally impressed upon him how monumentally stupid such a cut would be in the first place.
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"He has two neurons held together by a spirochete."

How many programs did you rank?
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"He has two neurons held together by a spirochete."

Poor/broke people don't pay that price since they have medicaid. Low to middle class people are mandated to have insurance, so their out of pocket costs will depend on plan/deductible.

And the sticker price is never = actual cost of the care, since insurance usually lowballs reimbursements for providers, so the price is artificially high to arrive at an industry-accepted standard (again, nowhere near that sticker price).
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"He has two neurons held together by a spirochete."

Bruh, Rainbow Six: Siege
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"He has two neurons held together by a spirochete."

AvantgardeAClue posted...

Rainbow Six Siege

Idk, siege can get pretty bad. Between all the TKs, screeching, votes to kick people for asinine reasons. I still love the game, but there is a reason all these online games allow you to mute everyone and disable text chat. One can be as isolated or as exposed to the toxicity as they so choose.
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"He has two neurons held together by a spirochete."

Proudclad:

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"He has two neurons held together by a spirochete."

gadgaurd posted...

It's interesting to see people skip medications entirely because they don't want to pay the copay. One thing when people can't, another when they just won't. See this every now and then with people who don't want to pay, say, $40.00 for a 30 day supply of Novolog. Maybe one of the doctors here will enlighten me, but if you're a diabetic and your doctor decides you need insulin... isn't it best to get the insulin?

yes, but in general, people have this expectation that health care won't cost them anything. They want "the best" care, but they don't want to pay for the best. Now, granted, other developed nations have found a way to subsidize healthcare, or otherwise include supplemental options to a bare minimum. Generally speaking though, people won't bat an eye at eating out twice a week for the same cost, but the insulin is "too expensive."

Though I bet mechanics go through the same thing. People just generally put off any sort of maintenance unless the problem is staring at them right in the face.
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"He has two neurons held together by a spirochete."

Unsugarized_Foo posted...

Doctors are just a suggestion. What do they know?

This is more so reflective of insurance companies need for the bottom line. Physicians employed by insurance companies are not acting in the best interest of the insured, but to maximize their company's profit. It's not at all the same as a doctor in practice.
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"He has two neurons held together by a spirochete."

IdiotMachine posted...

How common is this with other insurance carriers?

Common.
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"He has two neurons held together by a spirochete."

This is what I'm talking about. Everyone thinks its the sniffles, and it's not.
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"He has two neurons held together by a spirochete."

ForestLogic posted...

If you're trying to throw a lot of medical terms at me to confuse me, it's not necessary since I used to be a medic. (If not ignore that, lol)

Why would I be trying to confuse you? I was answering your question.

You might have been a medic, but I suppose that training didn't give you enough of a physiology background to understand why someone "healthy" might end up on dialysis due to influenza complications.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4382767/
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"He has two neurons held together by a spirochete."

I want to buy a 1080 Ti for $50
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"He has two neurons held together by a spirochete."

Some posters have a certain degree of tangentiality or an otherwise disorganized thought process. It often isn't recognized as genuine mental illness, but still gets targeted for bullying due to the content. Persecutory delusions, for example, are very quickly jumped on by other posters.

My advice for anyone with a genuine mental illness is to stay away from these kinds of online communities like CE. It's pretty toxic and without the ability to distance oneself from the trolling and to not take it personally, it can take a toll on someone (if the OP is to be believed).

It would be moving a mountain to expect the community to conform to an environment that is cognizant of what subtle mental illness might look like and to make exceptions in their posting to accommodate for it.
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"He has two neurons held together by a spirochete."

Stopped watching around where Glenn died. I know for many, the formula fatigue set in much sooner. But I viewed it more of an interpersonal drama in the backdrop of a zombie setting, rather than a primarily zombie series. Therefore a lot of the criticisms of how events played out make sense, because it's following imperfect actors/agents and the story of the outcome of those imperfect actions, rather than what someone more competent might do in that situation, which would make for a more 1-dimensional action series.
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"He has two neurons held together by a spirochete."

ChainedRedone posted...

Sure. I'm just pointing out that it's definitely possible. We just don't know the effectiveness in reducing mortality. It would make sense that is has some effectiveness, even if it's just modest.

Tamiflu isn't also without it's risks too, if we're being pedantic. It's a risk/benefit assessment, and at the moment, it errs on the side of benefit. That being said, he never disagreed with it's usefulness. Just that doctors are very specific when they reference evidence-based medicine and don't just go off of inferences from mechanisms alone.
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"He has two neurons held together by a spirochete."

ChainedRedone posted...

And so am I, you dingus. Like I said, tamiflu is recommended in patients with such risk

Soviet_Poland posted...

Despite what he said, he would still recommend tamiflu if indicated.

He never said, "don't give it." He just said, it hasn't been shown to reduce mortality. Sure, from a theoretical standpoint, it's very valid to assume a reduction in symptom duration and severity would mean less chance of complications and therefore mortality if given in that early window period.

From an evidence-based standpoint, it's too much to assume that is the case. From a clinician standpoint, it's still a good idea to give it.

ChainedRedone posted...

It's an antiviral so naturally it's going to help destroy the virus.

Yes, I am aware of how neuraminidase inhibitors work, tyvm.
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"He has two neurons held together by a spirochete."

ChainedRedone posted...

That's because there haven't been studies on it. Health professionals all agree that patients at high risk should get tamiflu. Not sure why you'd argue something so stupid.

He is a health professional, you dingus.

Despite what he said, he would still recommend tamiflu if indicated. Mostly because it's the only thing we got in addition to the vaccine. But he's responding to the layperson perception that this is medicine you give to everyone with the flu and might be perceived as being more of a panacea than it really is.
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"He has two neurons held together by a spirochete."

FluttershyPony posted...

>medicine for the sniffles costs 150$

america, everyone

Thanks for another nickel.
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"He has two neurons held together by a spirochete."

For all the criticisms and faults of the ACA (obamacare), it did mandate insurance that puts a cap on out of pocket medical expenses to about ~6k (about double if it's a household). The whole 100k medical bill is a relic of the pre-obamacare era that people so pine about returning to when they complain about their current premiums.
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"He has two neurons held together by a spirochete."

MrPeppers posted...

So much misinformation in this topic

If I had a nickel for every time someone mentioned something wrong about influenza, I wouldn't have any student debt.
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"He has two neurons held together by a spirochete."

ForestLogic posted...

Exactly. This is what I don't get.

How do healthy people die from the flu? I totally understand it being dangerous to elderly people or persons with compromised immune systems and shit but like if you're a healthy adult human you just rest and take care of yourself, your body will do the rest.
The woman in this story was 38. For her to end up on fucking dialysis within days of feeling ill doesn't add up.

One thing to understand about influenza is that even in healthy individuals, it predisposes you to catch a secondary viral or bacterial pneumonia. Most often, it's staphlococcus aureus which is a very nasty bacterium.

It's usually the secondary staph pneumonia that does people in. Complications can include toxic shock syndrome.

Or just when you have a severe case of influenza, someone is more likely to not take in as many fluids as they should. Could cause acute kidney injury, which is why this lady might have needed dialysis. Of course, she may have had some pre-existing condition that predisposed her to this complication, like some sort of kidney disease. Or just taking too much Ibuprofen to manage her symptoms. It could be a bunch of reasons.

Now you're right in that elderly and babies are more likely at risk for these secondary complications, things like being immunocompromised either through medications, history of organ transplants on immunosuppressive medications, having diabetes, being a smoker, etc, etc. Tons of risk factors that open up potential even in "young, healthy" people.

This isn't even counting the Spanish Influenza pandemic that caused cytokine storm in primarily adult populations. It was specifically strong immune systems that caused complications leading to death because the particular strain of influenza had a predilection to cause non-specific activation of your immune system. Without going into a huge lecture on how the immune system works, non-specific activation is a very bad thing and leads to a shock-like illness that can bottom out your blood pressure or overwhelm you with pulmonary edema.
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"He has two neurons held together by a spirochete."

Tamiflu only reduces the duration of influenza by a day or two, and only if taken within the first 24 hours or so of symptom presentation. From the sounds of the article, she caught the flu early in the week and wasn't admitted until Friday. Tamiflu wouldn't have prevented this outcome.

What this really highlights is that influenza is a serious illness. It is not your run of the mill cold most people catch during the winter. Everyone calls their mild cold a flu and that needs to stop. If you didn't have a high fever and all-over body aches for a week, you did not have the flu. There is no such thing as a "24 hour flu" either.

scorpion41 posted...

Tamiflu was $35 with insurance when I had to get it so someone is full of shit.

Plus, to all the pro-vaccine people trolling anti-vaccine people, the flu shot was only about 10% effective this year according to my doctor and I got it despite the vaccine. First time in my life with the flu...

And I bet your doctor still recommended you get it. While the flu vaccine isn't the most reliable, it does not cause the flu and some protection is better than no protection. Especially against a seasonal virus that has potential to kill people. Mostly elderly and babies, but adults aren't always out of the woods depending on the strain and whether or not they have some other medical condition that might predispose to complications.

But everyone always complains about the mild achiness or very low grade fever for the first day after the vaccine. Something easily managed with a dose or two of Tylenol or Ibuprofen for the first day. Then they catch a run of the mill cold and think it was the flu.
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"He has two neurons held together by a spirochete."

Join us on the dark side, Coffeebeanz. It's time to go PC.
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"He has two neurons held together by a spirochete."

MagicOracle posted...

Do what makes you happy. That's what life is about.

I mean, ask a teenager between "hey, get a job and learn life lessons. Or sit around and play guitar and video games all day", the teenager is not going to choose the delayed gratification. Should we let a 5 year old eat ice cream for dinner every day? It would make them happy, after all.
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"He has two neurons held together by a spirochete."

knuxnole posted...

I didn't know he did immunowhatever. The kardashians doing it big again!

I have to admit, I lol'd.
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"He has two neurons held together by a spirochete."

Waluigi7 posted...

Guys, Knuxnoll is a troll. He pulled the same act with internet neutrality.

Perhaps, but you'd be surprised at how common myths or general ignorance about health or medicine topics is, even amongst educated people.

Medicine is a complex interplay between dozens of scientific disciplines including anatomy, physiology, histology, biochemistry, genetics, immunology, pharmacology, pathology, etc, etc.

Without a background in all of these, the chances of someone interpreting medical data correctly is basically zero. But for some reason, a few popular science articles, or a 5 minute google search is all someone needs to be way more confident than they have any right to be about any of these topics.
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"He has two neurons held together by a spirochete."

Knowledge_King posted...

Or they're intelligent enough to know that the very concept of a vaccine sounds dumb as hell.

Maybe if you've never been exposed to basic immunology. Edward Jenner is rolling over in his grave right now.
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"He has two neurons held together by a spirochete."

knuxnole posted...

Vaccines does cause autism, people are silly to think otherwise.

There is NO solid proof that vaccines are helpful. It's still a hot debate

I high five people who think for themselves and decide not to vaccinate. It hurts and it's traumatizing.

Think of the HARMFUL stuff they put in there! And besides, when you get the flu shot you can get the flu from it or get sick.

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"He has two neurons held together by a spirochete."

Cross-server instancing.

Don't get me wrong, it basically eliminated queue times and made it feasible to play on low population servers, but it also killed any community/culture unique to a particular sever. I missed the drama in general chat about certain infamous players, and it generally required you to maintain a sort of level of "gaming professionalism", because you wouldn't get invited to end game content if you had a reputation of being a fuckboy.
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"He has two neurons held together by a spirochete."

COVxy posted...

Antifar posted...

median household income is 103k

Median is much lower, that's the mean.

This is important to note too, since the median is less affected by extreme outliers.
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"He has two neurons held together by a spirochete."