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#91
General Discussion / - What is collapse?
Last post by Surly1 - Jan 03, 2025, 11:49 AMI tend to be more tolerant of academia as a reaction to the hard-right war on expertise, and by extension, war on objective reality. Yet Mammon's greed reaches within those halls as well. You might enjoy this about Elsevier, a major publisher and thus academic gatekeeper:
https://www.theguardian.com/science/2023/may/07/too-greedy-mass-walkout-at-global-science-journal-over-unethical-fees
'Too greedy': mass walkout at global science journal over 'unethical' fees
This article is more than 1 year old
Entire board resigns over actions of academic publisher whose profit margins outstrip even Google and Amazon
Some lowlights:
-From 2014 to 2017, Elsevier put some articles behind a paywall that should have been open access.
-Elsevier rejected a paper for publication because it didn't cite enough of the journal's previously published papers.
-More than 40 leading scientists resigned from the editorial board of the journal Neuroimage in protest at what they described as Elsevier's "greed".
-Elsevier published six publications between 2000 and 2005 that were sponsored by pharmaceutical companies but did not disclose sponsorship.
-Elsevier has campaigned against openness to protect its paywall-based business.
-Universities have canceled their Elsevier subscriptions, citing costs and lack of open access.
Another symptom of late-stage metastatic capitalism.
https://www.theguardian.com/science/2023/may/07/too-greedy-mass-walkout-at-global-science-journal-over-unethical-fees
'Too greedy': mass walkout at global science journal over 'unethical' fees
This article is more than 1 year old
Entire board resigns over actions of academic publisher whose profit margins outstrip even Google and Amazon
Some lowlights:
-From 2014 to 2017, Elsevier put some articles behind a paywall that should have been open access.
-Elsevier rejected a paper for publication because it didn't cite enough of the journal's previously published papers.
-More than 40 leading scientists resigned from the editorial board of the journal Neuroimage in protest at what they described as Elsevier's "greed".
-Elsevier published six publications between 2000 and 2005 that were sponsored by pharmaceutical companies but did not disclose sponsorship.
-Elsevier has campaigned against openness to protect its paywall-based business.
-Universities have canceled their Elsevier subscriptions, citing costs and lack of open access.
Another symptom of late-stage metastatic capitalism.
#92
General Discussion / - Bugout Machine Subdivision...
Last post by Surly1 - Jan 03, 2025, 11:39 AMQuote from: RE on Jan 02, 2025, 07:35 PMConsidering the fact they have now criminalized being homeless, it's just a matter of time before one is cop-shot for "resisting arrest". Particularly if guilty of multiple crimes, such as "Black while Homeless".
RE
#93
Eco Socialism / Treated like shit.
Last post by K-Dog - Jan 03, 2025, 11:06 AMQuoteOh yeah, I was contract at Microsoft. I was treated like shit. I worked next to H1-Bs and was treated like them.
I made the most per hour that I ever did at Microsoft. But I did not know that my contract times would be manipulated so craftily that working contract jobs at Microsoft would be a waste of my time. My years working contract jobs at Microsoft would result in work years that do not even count on my SS statement in determining my SS check. 2007 - 2011. I have other older years which adjusted for inflation bump my Microsoft years off of my 35 year SS work history list.
Thanks to my erratic earnings record, my current part time job has already replaced one of my lower earning years and SS upped my payment $18 a month because of it. The years being bumped have large inflation adjustments, and are old. SS takes the highest 35 years and my years 31-35 are low enough so that after adjustment for inflation these years remain in the ball park of what I earn with my part time job, and can be replaced if I earn more now. I should see another $18 a month or something like that in about a year because of last years work. The lowest year currently is 24K and some change and last year my job paid at least $27K.
With normal inflation I will be replacing SS years in my list as long as I work. I will earn more every year, though the difference will soon enough be measured in pennies.
Now I am doing better at half the pay than ever did at Microsoft. The Microsoft hire and fire cycle saves Microsoft a lot of money, and lets Microsoft have a reputation they do not deserve since hourly rates look so good. I am only part time at a McJob, but I work year round and am not laid off between the times our 18 wheeled trucks arrive like I would be at Microsoft if I were doing the same thing there.
People do not understands the devastation a revolving door employment policy does to workers, And to people not paid benefits. Something else a high hourly rate can hide.
Am I bitter at Microsoft? The answer is in a very qualified absolutely. The years I worked for Bills ex-partner Paul Allen after Microsoft are my highest earning years, and as my SS check is healthy, my anger is academic. Bill would have had me eating dog food in my retirement. Instead I eat better than most dogs.
Neener neener.
The video neglects to mention how years are adjusted for inflation and the retiring at 62 info is off topic.
* If Microsoft hires you for three contracts in a year and you are laid off between contracts three times in a year for an average of six weeks each time, pay must be adjusted for equity. 52 * rate1 = (52 - (3 * 6)) * rate2. Rate2 over rate1 is a 1.5294 ratio.
Meaning a $40 an hour an hour job at a regular employer would require a contract rate of $61 for parity given this layoff scenario.
** Actually workers do a little better if they can get some unemployment when they are laid off. Microsoft has corporate welfare from the state of Washington. Regular people end up subsidizing part of the layoff cycle.
*** The relevance of all this is that H1Bs are used in a labor market that allows employers to punch down rates and employment security to benefit the employer. This labor market is created by the employer and is an artificial construct.
**** I know exactly what Musk is up to.
#94
Life on the Doomstead / - Death on the Doomstead
Last post by RE - Jan 03, 2025, 04:03 AMQuote from: 18hammers on Jan 02, 2025, 10:25 PMQuote from: RE on Dec 19, 2024, 01:20 AMQuote from: 18hammers on Dec 18, 2024, 11:40 PMWell it looks like a death is coming to the doomstead again. My mother took a fall a few months back, she is in her 90's. Didn't break anything but I moved her in with me as I could see she could not continue living on her own. 6 weeks ago I had to call the ambulance when she again fell hitting her head on the floor. She has been in the hospital ever since, with issue after issue, been called a couple times to come in as they thought she might not make it. I have visited every day and watched her condition go down hill. I suspect she wont be leaving the hospital.
I got the call today for a meeting with the doctor Monday. They said it is to talk over options as they cant do more for her. She had lots of problems as someone in there 90'S does but was able to get around her house, cook, garden and look after herself very well for someone that age, now she can't stand or take a step. This loss of independence has hit her hard. I know I can't care for her in the way she needs, can't even go to the bathroom without help now. I suspect they will tell me she needs palliative care. This will hit her hard as she still thinks she is going to be going home. This is likely the future for many of us, one day you are getting by and the next you are in a hospital and will have to accept the fact you are not going to leave. It will break her heart if this is what the doctors tell us Monday, I have known this seeing her condition slide so I am braced for the news, but it has not sunk into her how far her abilities have fallen.
Probably in her condition she will qualify for a Post Acute Care facility. This is the step right below Hospital care but above Assisted Living. There is a higher standard of care with nurses on duty 24/7 along with the CNAs. Assisted Care facilities generally only have PCAs on duty 24/7. PCA is an even lower certificate than, requiring only a few days of on the job training. CNAs have a 6 week curse and a state test to take.
PAC facilities vary in quality, but they are far better than AC Gulags. There usually isn't much choice in a given area, and beds aren't always available. If that's the case or if Medicare will not foot the bill for a PAC, your only choice is an AC unless you have a lot of money. I am told there are some decent ones out there, however I have yet to see one. If she does end up being sent to one, check it out carefully and shop the ones in your neighborhood for the best looking dog in the pound. Don't just look at the menu, ask to eat all 3 meals with the residents and see if you can stomach the food. See if they serve real Juice, or just Kool Aid they call juice. Check out their Call Button system, whether they have 2 way intercom or just an audio buzzer. Find out their official staff resident ratios on all shifts, then ask to see their attendance records for the last month for how many call in sick and what the actual on-duty numbers were. Check out how many bathrooms are available in the facility, there usually are not bathrooms for every patient. Often because many residents cannot get to the bathroom themselves, there is a schedule and the PCA bring them and leave them on the toilet for a half hour, so the baathroom becomes unavailable for long periods. This is not usually a problem in PACs where ther is a bathroom in every room or suite shared by 2 people only.
Let me know what happens, and what they bill Medicare/Medicaid. I'll let you know if it's in line with the current standards.
RE
I don't know your system in detail, only generally but it it sounds like ours are somewhat different. Every patient in this ICU have a Proper RN qualified looking after them, they do have what's called nurse practitioners but they to my observations appear very well trained but act under the direct supervision of the RN. The Rn herself aids my mom in showering and using the toilet.
The RN is full present in the bathroom at all times or right outside the door waiting until the patient is ready to exit the bathroom. I have been told that the cost I am going to have to pay is 80 dollars a day once she is stable and moved to the palitive care wing of this hospital.
That 80 dollars a day gets her 2 people a RN and nurse practitioner available 24/7 to attend to her needs. This 80 dollars a day includes meals and any needed meds as well. Because this is a rural hospital there are full in house cooking done with custom meals for all patients, delivered by the cook herself, The food is first rate, I have tried it myself, and I give it a full thumbs up. This is not so in the city hospitals, the food is contracted out in some city hospitals I have been in and tastes like crap, but out here in this hospital it is good. Call buttons are two way communications, and they respond fast. I have spend weeks there and watched people die (this is the ICU) and seen how it is handled. I could never do the job theses nurses do after what I have seen.
An ICU is an Intensive Care Unit in a hospital here. The won't keep you in one of those here for long term care unless you need to be on a respirator. Usually the limit is about a month for normal recuperation, then you get transferred to Post Acute Care facility.
ICU costs are far more than $80/day here. Just a normal bed in a private room in a hospital is around $3000/day here. Cost to keep me here in a Post Acute Care facility is ~$650/day. Most of it gets paid by Medicare/Medicaid, I end up paying around $100/day of it.
Even in hospitals here, the RNs do not give showers or bed baths or change diapers and linens. That work is always done by the Nurse Assistants. Nurse Practiotiners don't do hands-on stuff, they can adjust medications and do most of what the doctors do on a daily basis. Doctors set the overall plan of care.
Post Acute Care facilities at best have a supervising doctor on call, these days they often contract that out to an agency. Hospitals have Attending doctors, and residents and interns in a teaching hospital.
I'm sure due to the socialized system the costs in the Great White North are much less. I do wonder about the staffing issue though, since the nursing shortage is global. Also the number of available beds in ICUs is even lower there than here, and it didn't seem like your mom needs intensive care, just help and 24/7 monitoring.
RE
#95
Life on the Doomstead / - Death on the Doomstead
Last post by 18hammers - Jan 02, 2025, 10:25 PMQuote from: RE on Dec 19, 2024, 01:20 AMQuote from: 18hammers on Dec 18, 2024, 11:40 PMWell it looks like a death is coming to the doomstead again. My mother took a fall a few months back, she is in her 90's. Didn't break anything but I moved her in with me as I could see she could not continue living on her own. 6 weeks ago I had to call the ambulance when she again fell hitting her head on the floor. She has been in the hospital ever since, with issue after issue, been called a couple times to come in as they thought she might not make it. I have visited every day and watched her condition go down hill. I suspect she wont be leaving the hospital.
I got the call today for a meeting with the doctor Monday. They said it is to talk over options as they cant do more for her. She had lots of problems as someone in there 90'S does but was able to get around her house, cook, garden and look after herself very well for someone that age, now she can't stand or take a step. This loss of independence has hit her hard. I know I can't care for her in the way she needs, can't even go to the bathroom without help now. I suspect they will tell me she needs palliative care. This will hit her hard as she still thinks she is going to be going home. This is likely the future for many of us, one day you are getting by and the next you are in a hospital and will have to accept the fact you are not going to leave. It will break her heart if this is what the doctors tell us Monday, I have known this seeing her condition slide so I am braced for the news, but it has not sunk into her how far her abilities have fallen.
Probably in her condition she will qualify for a Post Acute Care facility. This is the step right below Hospital care but above Assisted Living. There is a higher standard of care with nurses on duty 24/7 along with the CNAs. Assisted Care facilities generally only have PCAs on duty 24/7. PCA is an even lower certificate than, requiring only a few days of on the job training. CNAs have a 6 week curse and a state test to take.
PAC facilities vary in quality, but they are far better than AC Gulags. There usually isn't much choice in a given area, and beds aren't always available. If that's the case or if Medicare will not foot the bill for a PAC, your only choice is an AC unless you have a lot of money. I am told there are some decent ones out there, however I have yet to see one. If she does end up being sent to one, check it out carefully and shop the ones in your neighborhood for the best looking dog in the pound. Don't just look at the menu, ask to eat all 3 meals with the residents and see if you can stomach the food. See if they serve real Juice, or just Kool Aid they call juice. Check out their Call Button system, whether they have 2 way intercom or just an audio buzzer. Find out their official staff resident ratios on all shifts, then ask to see their attendance records for the last month for how many call in sick and what the actual on-duty numbers were. Check out how many bathrooms are available in the facility, there usually are not bathrooms for every patient. Often because many residents cannot get to the bathroom themselves, there is a schedule and the PCA bring them and leave them on the toilet for a half hour, so the baathroom becomes unavailable for long periods. This is not usually a problem in PACs where ther is a bathroom in every room or suite shared by 2 people only.
Let me know what happens, and what they bill Medicare/Medicaid. I'll let you know if it's in line with the current standards.
RE
I don't know your system in detail, only generally but it it sounds like ours are somewhat different. Every patient in this ICU have a Proper RN qualified looking after them, they do have what's called nurse practitioners but they to my observations appear very well trained but act under the direct supervision of the RN. The Rn herself aids my mom in showering and using the toilet.
The RN is full present in the bathroom at all times or right outside the door waiting until the patient is ready to exit the bathroom. I have been told that the cost I am going to have to pay is 80 dollars a day once she is stable and moved to the palitive care wing of this hospital.
That 80 dollars a day gets her 2 people a RN and nurse practitioner available 24/7 to attend to her needs. This 80 dollars a day includes meals and any needed meds as well. Because this is a rural hospital there are full in house cooking done with custom meals for all patients, delivered by the cook herself, The food is first rate, I have tried it myself, and I give it a full thumbs up. This is not so in the city hospitals, the food is contracted out in some city hospitals I have been in and tastes like crap, but out here in this hospital it is good. Call buttons are two way communications, and they respond fast. I have spend weeks there and watched people die (this is the ICU) and seen how it is handled. I could never do the job theses nurses do after what I have seen.
#96
International News / - Ukraine
Last post by RE - Jan 02, 2025, 08:18 PMNice coinkidink the Nowegians having a compressor failure exactly when the NG stops flowing thru Ukie pipelines. 
How blatant will the sabotage get? Will somebody blow up an LNG Tanker? If one of those gets detonated in a ship channel anywhere near a populated area, it can level a few city blocks. Basically about the power of a tactical nuke. Also obviously vulnerable and a target are any of the plants that either liquify before or re-gassify the gas after shipment. Then of course the storage tanks and various pipeline networks and hubs.
From a tactical warfare PoV, the nice thing about this type of warfare is there's always a decent amount of plausible deniability and you don't use regular military. It's all Black Ops and can be blamed on 3rd party terrorists.
Far as the economic consequences go, although the higher prices seem to benefit the energy suppliers, the overall negative effect on the European economy probably cancels that out. Obviously also, people will get restless if they start losing lights and heat, followed by political problems in the streets.
Lively start to the New Year.
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/european-gas-rises-following-loss-071410004.html?guce_referrer=aHR0cHM6Ly9uZXdzLmdvb2dsZS5jb20v&guce_referrer_sig=AQAAAMCpCSlc05GHO2Uepowhxxme7gZ-vhdJ96tOvynInaqkG_eAbSDws8gWMuS8Nsy_eJntPYT7JXCZUFXgF9Q4h2du-hNhVSxd8f50JR_juS8HWTrRtnSG8vi8e3siRYWnylD9PbdCd0oKwYtHR07A4IECU_cmVFi3yHWy7HMAFzyh
RE
How blatant will the sabotage get? Will somebody blow up an LNG Tanker? If one of those gets detonated in a ship channel anywhere near a populated area, it can level a few city blocks. Basically about the power of a tactical nuke. Also obviously vulnerable and a target are any of the plants that either liquify before or re-gassify the gas after shipment. Then of course the storage tanks and various pipeline networks and hubs.
From a tactical warfare PoV, the nice thing about this type of warfare is there's always a decent amount of plausible deniability and you don't use regular military. It's all Black Ops and can be blamed on 3rd party terrorists.
Far as the economic consequences go, although the higher prices seem to benefit the energy suppliers, the overall negative effect on the European economy probably cancels that out. Obviously also, people will get restless if they start losing lights and heat, followed by political problems in the streets.
Lively start to the New Year.
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/european-gas-rises-following-loss-071410004.html?guce_referrer=aHR0cHM6Ly9uZXdzLmdvb2dsZS5jb20v&guce_referrer_sig=AQAAAMCpCSlc05GHO2Uepowhxxme7gZ-vhdJ96tOvynInaqkG_eAbSDws8gWMuS8Nsy_eJntPYT7JXCZUFXgF9Q4h2du-hNhVSxd8f50JR_juS8HWTrRtnSG8vi8e3siRYWnylD9PbdCd0oKwYtHR07A4IECU_cmVFi3yHWy7HMAFzyh
RE
#97
General Discussion / - Bugout Machine Subdivision...
Last post by RE - Jan 02, 2025, 07:35 PMConsidering the fact they have now criminalized being homeless, it's just a matter of time before one is cop-shot for "resisting arrest". Particularly if guilty of multiple crimes, such as "Black while Homeless".
RE
RE
#98
General Discussion / - Bugout Machine Subdivision...
Last post by Surly1 - Jan 02, 2025, 05:35 PMPerfect.
#99
Politics / - Is America collapsing like...
Last post by K-Dog - Jan 02, 2025, 01:57 PM
Here I am last spring having coffee in the lobby of the Las Vegas Trump Tower.
This is 40 feet from where the Cyber-Truck blew up. Straight through the golden doors and slightly to the right.
It is hard to see but there is a gold 'T' over the doorway in the background. Top quality wood and stone everywhere.
#100
General Discussion / - Bugout Machine Subdivision...
Last post by K-Dog - Jan 02, 2025, 01:43 PM
Donald J can borrow Marine One from Daddy Orange and do it Ted Nugent style.