Tired of Your Bullshit, Asshat. (Australia Gun Control Edition)

A long-time friend and dis-honorary guest member of the ODMQD Breakfast Club, is a staunch repeal-the-second-amendment, Gunz-R-Bad, dope-smoking, granola munching, NYC/LA wannabe, and as such, we just let him babble on and pretty much ignore his crap...
He usually confines himself to basic inanities about how guns should be outlawed, then just collected up like in Australia and all will be right with the world.
Seems a lot of politicians (Obama included) would embrace the Australian model...
Unfortunately, they only hear anecdotal evidence, not hard facts-
(Like that famous '97%' of scientists that feel the science is settled about Anthropological Global Change [obvious horseshit - read HERE], and that 40% of guns are sold without background checks. [Again- Bullshit - Here.)

So Skippy (an obvious nom de idiot, since I don't want to embarrass him too badly) is going on and on about USA shootings in Virginia, Charleston, Aurora, ad infinitum and speaking in glowing terms about Australia, and I just want to smack him in the head and remind him about the Lindt cafe incident last December...

I keep hearing all about how the Australia mandatory gun buy-back confiscation program is just the model we should embrace...Mostly because Obama said so on a podcast with a bullshit moron unfunny soi-disant 'comedian'. (I'm not going to link to it- fuck 'em. You want to read it, GIMF.)

It was soooooo effective...
They got about 1/3 of the outlawed weapons, so in the US it might be about 100 million of the 300+ million guns. And if history is any indicator, US gun owners will not go quietly into that good night. (I do hope that my man Skippy, Bloomberg, Pelosi, Obama, Feinstein, and Sarah Brady are the people going door-to-door to ask people for their guns.)
Interestingly, if somehow, you get a special dispensation to have a gun in Australia, the ploice can come at any time and search your house and property without any kind of a warrant. Is that REALLY what people want?

People think gun crime is non-existent in Australia...
Think again.

Exercise a little Google-fu:
Here, I 'll even help you out. (Gotta be specific about what KIND of shooting or you'll get basketball results for Woollarra and Bundaburg...)

Brisbane
Melbourne
Sydney

How's about these apples for 2014:


Is Australia staring down the barrel of a gun crisis? (news.com.au)

* There have been 39 people shot in Sydney (in 2014), most related to an ongoing bikie war.
* Conservative estimates say there are more than a quarter-of-a-million illegal firearms in Australia.
* Gun ownership in Australia is back at pre-Port Arthur massacre levels.
* Carrying a gun is becoming more common and ingrained in outlaw culture.
* Gun amnesties barely put a dent in the number of weapons.
* Innocent people are being caught up in gun battles.
* There has been a steady increase in gun-related crimes over the past seven years.

Sydney gun crime: city suffers three shootings in three hours

Sydney home invasions and drive-by shootings whitewashed by NSW Police

Look, Oz isn't the gun-free utopia that Obama, Bloomberg and the rest of the anti-gun proponents believe it to be. Firearm-related incidents don't get the airplay on the US MSM because it doesn't fit the narrative...

Back to Skippy for a minute-
His position is the need to implement the Aussie-style Draconian measures, force a buy-back on a national level, then after the results are sofa-king ridiculously poor, then go door to door to get the rest of the 200 million firearms that possession was, until this little imaginary exercise, a God-give and constitutionally protected right. And he thinks that's doable.

But, on another note, he doesn't believe rounding up the 11 million (more like 20 million, amirite?) illegal aliens (you fuckin'-a right I said it - ILLEGAL. ALIEN.) is remotely possible. We shouldn't even try.
I really don't think he know what a really motivated gun-owning, 2A proponent is capable of, and prepared to do... Because when push comes to knock-knock-give-me-your-guns, I have a feeling Joe USCitizen will not go all round-heel like the Sheilas Down Under.

Gah- I am surrounded by morons.

- Or... Wait. Is it just me?
A fictional Deputy Marshall, Raylan Givens (more on him in a later post) had some great writers doing his dialog from the TV show Justified on Fox.
He once opined:
"...you run into an asshole in the morning, you ran into an asshole; you run into assholes all day, you're the asshole."
Lots of truth there, it seems.

I'm going to have to rethink my whole personality evaluation paradigm.
Seems like there are some inconsistencies in it...

(Shit- This post wandered quite a bit... Sorry for the digressions.)

tl:dr  Hey Skippy: Fuck off and die in a fire.


TBG - - ΜΟΛΩΝ ΛΑΒE

Expensive Weekend

TL;DR
My shits f'ed up, yo.
Working on correcting it.


Longer:


The weekend started well- the Friday night Ingress get-together was good right until the end when I tried to do an equipment drop with Steve from Houston...
I couldn't get my Samsung S2 to synch up and behave enough to do the swap.
This should have been a harbinger of Things To Come. 

(I hear you saying: What?! An S2? No one uses the S2 anymore. This is 2014, Dumbass. 2010 called, they want their phone back.)

Saturday started a bit late, but good- I met up with the crew for breakfast and we got to work. Good times, good times.

Checking messages during the day, my phone was still acting up- never a good sign..
Worse- it felt like it was running hot... Well- hotter than usual.

Well- screw it. No time to worry now-the project waits for no man. I'll have to do with what I have. 

As we were knocking off for the day, my smartphone dies.
Like dead.
Completely dead - screen black.
And hot? Holy crap it's burning hot.
Like can't-hold-it-without a 2d6 damage roll.

Power?
No- it's on the external battery. 4 blue lights.
It is vibrating now and then, just slightly. Like a mackerel laying on the dock- twitching occasionally as it slowly expires.

Great. What the hell else can go wrong?

Everyone has taken off- so I head back beach-bound...

I missed my turn off one street heading for the bridge out of downtown (not paying attention, wound up in wrong lane, dumbass move 1) and just figured I'd circle back by going around the block. (Typical 'downtown' layout, lots of one way streets.

This is when it really got fun. And expensive.

Coming up to a stop, Soccer Mom was in front of me in her MiniVan- taking the right on red...
I'm looking left after seeing her pull into intersection- all still clear so I start to roll on the throttle and look back right....
Soccer Mom was only halfway into the intersection and I was .000002 inches from her bumper.

BANG! Ow!

Oh. Shit.

F'ing lovely...

She pulls up into the parking lot...
I push my FUBARed bike up to the curb.

Bike's not rolling anywhere anytime soon. Left fork is mangled, front fender is in 4 pieces, cracks in faring. Front left brake is toast.

Personal physical harm... Yeah- there's damage.
Deceleration trauma where my cojones hit the gas tank as the bike impacted the back of Soccer Mom's car.
There is going to be some swelling... And not the good kind.

Damage to Minivan- a bare scratch in the vinyl of her back pseudo-bumper.
Virtually nothing.

Me- I'm screwed...
And it hits me... I am in Dark Territory. No cell phone. No camera to document damage.
Shit... no contact list (it's on my phone) of people to call.

Soccer Mom lets me use her phone-
"But only for a minute- I have to go pick up the kids!"

I find an old receipt with the number to the bike repair place in my case on the back of the bike...
I call them, explain the situation and ask them if they can send their truck and bike trailer to pick up my heap of twisted metal...
No- truck is out on another pickup. They'll send a wrecker.

Great.

I got Soccer Mom's info and she took off.
I'm on the curb, pissed.

It was especially frustrating as I have no way to alert anyone as to my predicament...

Have you noticed a dearth of payphones now days?
Used to be one on every corner.
Now you can't find them for love nor money.
Besides- even if there was a phone, I didn't have any numbers memorized, they're all on my contact list on my phone... (Or my iPad back home.)

I'm screwed.

90 minutes (or thereabout- I was about to pass out from the heat)
the tow truck showed up.

We wrestled my FJR up on to the flatbed and strapped it down, then headed off to the cycle repair shop in Atlantic Beach.

On arrival I realized Dumbass Mistake #2 - I hadn't latched my "trunk" on the bike. it had blown open and all my shit was strewn along I-95 & Atlantic boulevard...
Things like my riding glasses, gloves, some of my tools, and my bike manual.
Just #$%@*&^!ing lovely.

At the shop, The Mechanic looked at the remains of my bike as one would a bad cheese.

"Yeah, well- the one fork we can fix with new seals.
That other fork and brakes- pretty sure I can get those used locally.
Prolly gonna be 500 in labor and parts. Git it back to ya on Wednesday.
The fender and the other plastic- yeah- that's really gonna cost ya.
Gonna be around 1500 for the new fender & farings.
Lucky the headlights and lenses are ok- that's grand right there."

Lucky?

That's my middle fucking name today.
Lucky.

I left the bike at the shop (duh) and got a ride home from The Mechanic. It was almost 5:30.
Had a looooong chat with Captain Morgan, with an icepack on my crotch the rest of the day and most of the next.

I didn't leave the house again until Monday morning.

Epilog:
Wednesday AM. I am mostly phoneless...
The S2 screen is FUBAR as are some of the comms features- I can plug into it into my laptop and see the device - so it looks like the data is intact.
It can't make or recieve calls.

I've moved my SIM into an old Samsung phone our Phone Maven had on hand for emergencies.
I'm eligible for a new phone (according to our corporate package) in July...
I've already been assigned a new Galaxy S5.
(Phone Maven: No choice- you'll get that one and you'll like it. Or you can go buy your own.)

Picked up my bike Wednesday AM-
Cosmetically, it's bad - duct taped fairings, missing fender, etc.
But I'm back on two wheels, and the swelling has subsided enough that riding is not uncomfortable.

The new farings are ordered and will be here in 3 weeks.
Yay.

So-
Between parts, labor, taxes, towing, etc...
About a $2500 weekend for me...

The Moral of the story:

PAY FUCKING ATTENTION WHEN YOU ARE ON THE ROAD.

TBG- ΜΟΛΩΝ ΛΑΒE

The Cure Is Worse Than The Malady

Need an antidepressant?

Stay the hell away from Anafranil (clomipramine).

I'm going to list this first because some Constant Readers are TL;DRs-

Genitourinary Effects-

Decreased nocturnal penile tumescence and delayed ejaculation have been reported.
Cases of spontaneous orgasm associated with yawning and clomipramine (the active ingredient contained in Anafranil) therapy have been reported.
Genitourinary side effects have been reported frequently and have included sexual dysfunction (involving anorgasmia, impotence and decreased libido). Urinary retention has also been reported.

Spontaneous orgasm due to yawning? Are you kidding me? Don't take this stuff on Sunday morning before heading off to church, Jocko.

Yeah- it'll ease your depression, but at what cost?

From the listed side effects at Drugs.com

More common effects:  (Emphasis mine)

• Bladder pain
• bloody or cloudy urine
• blurred vision
• body aches or pain
• burning, crawling, itching, numbness, prickling, "pins and needles", or tingling feelings
• confusion
• congestion
• continuing ringing or buzzing or other unexplained noise in the ears
• cough
• difficult, burning, or painful urination
• discouragement
• dizziness, faintness, or lightheadedness when getting up suddenly from a lying or sitting position
• dryness or soreness of the throat
• excessive muscle tone
• fear or nervousness
• feeling sad or empty - I thought this stuff was supposed to prevent this?
  
• fever
• frequent urge to urinate
• hearing loss
• hoarseness
• irritability
• lack of appetite
• loss of interest or pleasure -  Same as above.
• lower back or side pain
• muscle stiffness
• muscle tension or tightness
• muscle twitching or jerking
• pain or tenderness around the eyes and cheekbones
• poor concentration
• problems in urination or increase in the amount of urine
• rhythmic movement of muscles
• runny nose
• shortness of breath or troubled breathing
• sneezing
• stuffy nose
• sweating
• tender, swollen glands in the neck
• tightness of the chest or wheezing
• tiredness
• trouble concentrating
• trouble remembering
• trouble sleeping
• trouble swallowing
• unusual tiredness or weakness
• voice changes

Less common effects:

• Anger that is hard to control
• anxiety
• bloody nose
• breast enlargement
• burning, dry, or itching eyes
• burning while urinating
• changes in vision
• chills
• crying
• decrease in the frequency of urination
• decrease in urine volume
• depersonalization
• difficulty in passing urine (dribbling)
• difficulty in speaking
• discharge or excessive tearing
• dry mouth
• dysphoria
• earache
• euphoria
• fast, irregular, pounding, or racing heartbeat or pulse
• feeling of unreality
• headache, severe and throbbing
• hyperventilation
• increased clear or white vaginal discharge
• increased watering of the mouth
• irregular heartbeats
• irritability
• itching of the vagina or genital area
• mental depression
• nausea or vomiting
• numbness, tingling, pain, or weakness in the hands or feet
• pain during sexual intercourse
• pale skin
• panic attacks
• paranoia
• partial or slight paralysis
• quick to react or overreact emotionally
• rapidly changing moods
• redness or swelling in the ear
• redness, pain, or swelling of the eye, eyelid, or inner lining of the eyelid
• restlessness
• sense of detachment from self or body
• shaking
• swelling of the face, fingers, feet, or lower legs
• thick, white vaginal discharge with no odor or with a mild odor
• troubled breathing with exertion
• unusual bleeding or bruising

Some other side effects of clomipramine may occur that usually do not need medical attention. These side effects may go away during treatment as your body adjusts to the medicine. Also, your health care professional may be able to tell you about ways to prevent or reduce some of these side effects. Check with your health care professional if any of the following side effects continue or are bothersome or if you have any questions about them:

More common:

• Acid or sour stomach
• bad, unusual, or unpleasant aftertaste
• belching
• blemishes on the skin
• blistering, crusting, irritation, itching, or reddening of the skin
• bloated
• change in taste
• change or problem with discharge of semen
• changes in vision
• constipation
• cracked, dry, or scaly skin
• cramps
• darkening or lightening of skin color
• decreased interest in sexual intercourse
• diarrhea
• difficulty with moving
• dry skin
• excess air or gas in the stomach or intestines
• feeling of warmth
• full feeling
• heartburn
• heavy bleeding
• hives or welts
• inability to have or keep an erection
• increased appetite
• increased in sexual ability, desire, drive, or performance
• increased interest in sexual intercourse
• indigestion
• joint pain
• loss in sexual ability, desire, drive, or performance
• pain
• passing gas
• pimples
• redness of the face, neck, arms, and occasionally, upper chest
• redness of the skin
• shakiness in the legs, arms, hands, or feet
• skin rash
• stomach discomfort, upset, or pain
• swelling
• swollen joints
• trembling or shaking of the hands or feet

Less common:

• Absent, missed, or irregular menstrual periods
• breast pain
• increased yawning
• pinpoint red or purple spots on the skin
• sores, ulcers, or white spots on the lips or tongue or inside the mouth
• stopping of menstrual bleeding

Oh HELLS no!

I'll just stick with my regular depression...
Rum & Coke with a twist of lime (to prevent scurvy)

Screw modern medicine- that shit will kill you.


TBG- ΜΟΛΩΝ ΛΑΒE

Engineers Explained

-This is not original content, just though some folks here might enjoy it.-


TL;DR: Engineers are weird, don't try to figure them out.

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

People who work in the fields of science and technology are not like other people. This can be frustrating to the nontechnical people who have to deal with them. The secret to coping with technology-oriented people is to understand their motivations.  I learned their customs and mannerisms by observing them, much the way Jane Goodall learned about the great apes, but without the hassle of grooming.

Engineering is so trendy these days that everybody wants to be one. The word "engineer" is greatly overused. If there's somebody in your life who you think is trying to pass as an engineer, give him this test to discern the truth.

Engineer Identification Test

You walk into a room and notice that a picture is hanging crooked. You...

1. Straighten it.
2. Ignore it.
3. Buy a CAD system and spend the next six months designing a solar-powered, self-adjusting picture frame while often stating aloud your belief that the inventor of the nail was a total moron.

The correct answer is "C" but partial credit can be given to anybody who writes "It depends" in the margin of the test or simply blames the whole stupid thing on "Marketing."

Social Skills

Engineers have different objectives when it comes to social interaction.
"Normal" people expect to accomplish several unrealistic things from social interaction:

• Stimulating and thought-provoking conversation
• Important social contacts
• A feeling of connectedness with other humans

In contrast to "normal" people, engineers have rational objectives for social interactions:

• Get it over with as soon as possible.
  
• Avoid getting dragged into something unpleasant.
• Demonstrate mental superiority and mastery of all subjects.

Fascination with Gadgets

To the engineer, all matter in the universe can be placed into one of two categories: (1)things that need to be fixed, and (2)things that will need to be fixed after you've had a few minutes to play with them.
Engineers like to solve problems. If there are no problems handily available, they will create their own problems. Normal people don't understand this concept; they believe that if it ain't broke, don't fix it. Engineers believe that if it ain't broke, it doesn't have enough features yet.
No engineer looks at a television remote control without wondering what it would take to turn it into a stun gun. No engineer can take a shower without wondering if some sort of Teflon coating would make showering unnecessary. To the engineer, the world is a toy box full of sub-optimized and feature-poor toys.

Fashion and Appearance

Clothes are the lowest priority for an engineer, assuming the basic thresholds for temperature and decency have been satisfied. If no appendages are freezing or sticking together, and if no genitalia or mammary glands are swinging around in plain view, then the objective of clothing has been met. Anything else is a waste.

Love of "Star Trek"

Engineers love all of the "Star Trek" television shows and movies. It's a small wonder, since the engineers on the starship Enterprise are portrayed as heroes, occasionally even having sex with aliens. This is much more glamorous than the real life of an engineer, which consists of hiding from the universe and having sex without the participation of other life forms. (TBG Note: Anyone who believes this is a moron. There may be a Trekker subset of Engineers, but it's not a universal trait. Any good Engineer will tell you that Absolutes are B.S.)

Dating and Social Life

Dating is never easy for engineers. A normal person will employ various indirect and duplicitous methods to create a false impression of attractiveness. Engineers are incapable of placing appearance above function.
Fortunately, engineers have an ace in the hole. They are widely recognized as superior marriage material: intelligent, dependable, employed, honest, and handy around the house. While it's true that many normal people would prefer not to date an engineer, most normal people harbor an intense desire to mate with them, thus producing engineer-like children who will have high-paying jobs long before losing their virginity.
Male engineers reach their peak of sexual attractiveness later than normal men, becoming irresistible erotic dynamos in their mid thirties to late forties. Just look at these examples of sexually irresistible men in technical professions:

• Bill Gates.
• MacGyver.
• Etcetera.

Female engineers become irresistible at the age of consent and remain that way until about thirty minutes after their clinical death. Longer if it's a warm day.

Honesty

Engineers are always honest in matters of technology and human relationships. That's why it's a good idea to keep engineers away from customers, romantic interests, and other people who can't handle the truth.
Engineers sometimes bend the truth to avoid work. They say things that sound like lies but technically are not because nobody could be expected to believe them. The complete list of engineer lies is listed below.

• "I won't change anything without asking you first." 
• "That's a simple fix. It'll only take me ten minutes."
• "I'll return your hard-to-find cable tomorrow."
• "I have to have new equipment to do my job." 
• "I'm not jealous of your new computer." 
• "I have read the terms and conditions and will abide by them."
• "I will write up the documentation for you over the weekend."

Frugality

Engineers are notoriously frugal. This is not because of cheapness or mean spirit; it is simply because every spending situation is simply a problem in optimization, that is, "How can I escape this situation while retaining the greatest amount of cash?"

Powers of Concentration

If there is one trait that best defines an engineer it is the ability to concentrate on one subject to the complete exclusion of everything else in the environment. This sometimes causes engineers to be pronounced dead prematurely. Some funeral homes in high-tech areas have started checking resumes before processing the bodies. Anybody with a degree in electrical engineering or experience in computer programming is propped up in the lounge for a few days just to see if he or she snaps out of it.

Risk

Engineers hate risk. They try to eliminate it whenever they can. This is understandable, given that when an engineer makes one little mistake, the media will treat it like it's a big deal or something.

Examples of Bad Press for Engineers

• Hindenberg.
• Space Shuttle Challenger.
• SPANet(tm) 
• Mars Climate Orbiter
• Hubble space telescope.
• Apollo 13.
• Titanic.
• Ford Pinto.
• Corvair.

The risk/reward calculation for engineers looks something like this:
RISK: Public humiliation and the death of thousands of innocent people. REWARD: A certificate of appreciation in a handsome plastic frame.
Being practical people, engineers evaluate this balance of risks and rewards and decide that risk is not a good thing. The best way to avoid risk is by advising that any activity is technically impossible for reasons that are far too complicated to explain.
If that approach is not sufficient to halt a project, then the engineer will fall back to a second line of defense: "It's technically possible but it will cost too much."

Ego

Ego-wise, two things are important to engineers:

• How smart they are.
• How many cool devices they own.

The fastest way to get an engineer to solve a problem is to declare that the problem is unsolvable. No engineer can walk away from an unsolvable problem until it's solved. No illness or distraction is sufficient to get the engineer off the case. These types of challenges quickly become personal -- a battle between the engineer and the laws of nature.
Engineers will go without food and hygiene for days to solve a problem. (Other times just because they forgot.) And when they succeed in solving the problem they will experience an ego rush that is better than sex--and I'm including the kind of sex where other people are involved.

Nothing is more threatening to the engineer than the suggestion that somebody has more technical skill. Normal people sometimes use that knowledge as a lever to extract more work from the engineer.
When an engineer says that something can't be done (a code phrase that means it's not fun to do), some clever normal people have learned to glance at the engineer with a look of compassion and pity and say something along these lines: "I'll ask Bob to figure it out. He knows how to solve difficult technical problems."
At that point it is a good idea for the normal person to not stand between the engineer and the problem. The engineer will set upon the problem like a starved Chihuahua on a pork chop.

(H/T - Note: This bit of foolscap has been attributed to Scott Adams. If so- Well done, sir.)

TBG- ΜΟΛΩΝ ΛΑΒE

Jargon, Hacker and Otherwise

The Perfect Child is home from school for the summer - She's working toward her degree in an obscure offshoot of the medical services field that has hooks in the CDC/DHS/Emergency Services industry.

Most of her studies have revolved around hospital operations and control/containment issues, and given that we both posses a somewhat macabre sense of humor, we have lots of fun playing 'What If?' games centering around disaster scenarios. I know- morbid and creepifying.


I have a penchant for etymology and time wasters, evidenced by the fact that I have long possessed a bound hardcopy of the Jargon File (a link to the soft copy can be found over at Borepatch's site here...). Knowing my interest in things of this nature, the PC sent me the following list of terms, which I figured I'd share with you Constant Readers.
(Caution: some terms may be considered extremely tasteless or crass. If you are easily offended, I suggest clicking THIS link instead of reading further.)

Anaerobe: a term borrowed from bacteriology used to refer to a patient with chronically poor lung function whose blood oxygen levels seem too low to be compatible with life, yet who seems to function normally nonetheless.

A.R.T: Assuming room temperature. A recently deceased patient.

Banana bag: an intravenous solution containing a liquid multivitamin that colors the fluid a bright yellow, used in undernourished or alcoholic patients.

Beans: kidneys. "Better watch that Gentamycin level — you don't want to fry her beans."

Bed plug: a low-maintenance patient occupying a bed that might otherwise be filled with a more difficult case.

Bright lights: surgery (also, "bright lights and cold steel"). "The meds aren't doing squat — sounds like this guy needs some bright lights."

C.T.D: Circling the drain. Description of a patient who is slowly deteriorating and likely to die.

Code brown: bowel incontinence that can be smelled throughout the ward. "Code brown on 3 East — better take the back stairs."

C.T.S.: Cut all to shreds. E.R. lingo for victims with multiple lacerations, usually MVAs with through-the-windshield trauma.

Deceleration Trauma: The patient/victim has jumped/fallen/been thrown from from a high location and impacted the ground with high delta-V.
"It's not the fall that kills you, it's the sudden deceleration trauma immediately thereafter."  (See also: Terminal Deceleration Syndrome)

Ditzel: a small, unidentified mass seen on an X-ray, usually benign by implication. "The CAT scan was fine except for a vague ditzel in the parietal lobe, probably a calcium deposit." (See also goombah.)

D.N.R.: do not resuscitate. Instructions allowing a patient to die undisturbed in the event of a sudden catastrophic event; no C.P.R., no respirator, no electric shocks.

Doc-in-the-box: an urgent-care walk-in clinic. "He's moonlighting at a doc-in-the-box downtown."

D.R.T: Dead Right There. Usually the recipient of some type of trauma (GSW, MVA) where the victim has succumbed and is A.R.T. prior to the arrival of the EMTs

Fascinoma: a very unusual or fascinating case. "They're presenting the fascinoma from 4 East at grand rounds this morning."

F/C/S/N/V/HA/C.P.: fever, chills, sweats, nausea, vomiting, headache, chest pain. A list of symptoms so commonly checked off in questioning that the savvy resident can "name that tune" with only one or two letters.

F.D.G.B: Fall Down, Go Boom - Patient (usually a child) in N.A.D. with an overly protective/concerned parent, arriving at the E.R. after a household fall.

Fleas: Internists, because of their constant attention to the minutiae of daily patient care. In a less complimentary light, as a patient's death becomes imminent, the consulting specialists will often sign off the case, which internists, as primary care doctors, are unable to do. So internists resemble fleas, which are — as the saying has it — "the last ones to jump off a dying dog."

Gomer: shorthand for "Get out of my emergency room." Any undesirable patient, usually one that is unkempt, demented, combative or any combination of the above. (The phrase is now sharply discouraged due to a new sensitivity to the image of doctors, in reaction to the uncaring image presented by H.M.O.'s.)

Goombah: a large unidentified mass seen on an X-ray, usually implied to be malignant. "He's got some kind of goombah in the left upper lobe on his chest film." (See also ditzel.)

GSW: Gun Shot Wound

Heme: blood, often used as a euphemism in the presence of conscious patients to avoid upsetting them. "A little suction, nurse. I'm getting a little heme at the biopsy site."

HIBGIA: "Had it before, got it again." Serial E.R. customers.

Hit: a new patient. "Better grab some dinner quick — we've got three hits coming up from the E.R."

Incidentaloma: an incidental finding noted on a radiograph performed for an unrelated purpose. "The M.R.I. of the C-spine was normal except for an incidentaloma in the thyroid."

I's and O's: intake and output — a daily count of the patient's total fluid intake and measurable output (urine, blood, wound drainage, etc.). An accurate tally allows assessment of the patient's hydration status.

K: the chemical symbol for potassium. "Mrs. Zilka's K was pretty low this morning — better give her a dose of K-phos."

L.O.L.: little old lady. (Oddly, there is no male equivalent.)

Lead Poisoning: Usually a victim of a GSW.

M.V.A.: Motor Vehicle Accident

N.A.D.: no apparent distress. The classic description of a patient in a state of well-being: "L.O.L. in N.A.D."

Neuron: neurologist. "Better get an M.R.I. before you get that neuro consult — the neurons don't go to the bathroom without seeing an M.R.I. first."

O sign: a persistently open mouth, as seen on a mouth-breathing sleeping patient, or on a demented conscious patient. "He's resting comfortably; positive O sign." (See also Q sign.)

O.C.: obsessive-compulsive. "Dr. Heller gets pretty O.C. about checking I's and O's on his patients."

PBS: Pretty Bad Shape - Kind of self-explanatory.

Pimp: to test the medical knowledge of an underling, usually in a public and unexpected manner. "The chief made rounds with us this morning, and I got pimped wicked about hepatitis."

Pleasantly demented: a standard description of a patient who, though deep in the throes of senility, can carry on an appropriate conversation and occasionally give the impression of having perfect mental capacity.

Q sign: an open mouth with a tongue dangling from it. "Looks like Mr. O'Reilly's not going to need his sleeping pills tonight — he's already got a positive Q sign showing." (See also O sign.)

Rock: a very stable patient, often used at sign-out, when one physician is turning over care to another. "Mr. Green on 3 South just had a hernia repair — nothing to do there, he's a rock."

Scut puppy: an underling, usually a third-year medical student, assigned to perform menial tasks like drawing blood and retrieving lab results.

Snake: to perform a procedure involving insertion of a fiber-optic scope into a body orifice; also, the instrument itself. "Mrs. Goldstein's ulcer seems to be acting up — we better snake her and take a look."

S.O.B: shortness of breath. "Mr. Hanson complains of three weeks of intermittent C.P. accompanied by S.O.B."

Tail-light sign: when a patient (usually elderly) is dropped off at an emergency room by relatives who drive away before an evaluation is complete, forcing the patient to be admitted to the hospital whether or not his medical condition requires it.

Terminal Deceleration Syndrome: Usually a victim of a MVA or Motorcycle accident.

Train wreck: a patient with multiple medical problems. "Dr. Jacobs can't come down right now — he's tied up with a train wreck in the E.R."

Veteran (variant: veteranoid): a grizzled, elderly patient, usually male, who has great forbearance with testing and readily agrees to any procedures that are advised; reminiscent of the type of patient normally found in a V.A. hospital.

Wallet biopsy: checking a patient's insurance or financial status before embarking on expensive procedures. "They were going to keep her a couple more days, but the wallet biopsy showed she could be treated at home instead."

W.N.L.: within normal limits, as in a lab or X- ray result; or, alternatively, "We Never Looked."

W.N./W.D.: well-nourished and well-developed. Standard opening shorthand in any physical examination: `W.N./W.D. female in N.A.D."

Zebra: an outlandish or unlikely diagnosis. A medical school aphorism holds, "If you're walking down Fifth Avenue and you hear hoofbeats, you think of horses, not zebras," meaning that a common diagnosis is more likely to be correct than a rare one.

- Most references by SHEILENDR KHIPPLE

TBG- ΜΟΛΩΝ ΛΑΒE

On Being A Glasshole

-or-

I got them early adopter blues

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Preface: pls pardon the lack of formatting and illustrations.

I'm sitting at a NJ Dunkin' Donuts writing this on the Blogger app on my iPad, which lacks some of the subtlety of the PC Blogger app.

I'd normally eschew dining at a place with such an egregiously grammatically incorrect and misspelled name, but the only other place nearby is Fourbucks, sorry, Starbucks and after 6 weeks of that in Sochi, well, I'd rather drink rainwater out of the gutter on Bourbon Street than give the Seattle mermaid  my money. But I digress...

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I was, briefly, a Glasshole.

I got an email last week from The Google (the G-Spot? The Big G? Need to come up with a properly mildly derisive term for Google) inviting me, for a relatively obscene amount of money, to join the Google Glass Explorer's Club, with all the rights and privileges (like getting thrown out of bars and clubs, or attacked on the street for invading someone's soi disant privacy) thereof.

Stupid expensive, because I could build at least two well-appointed AR-15s, buy a dozen Mosins, or go hafsies on an FN-SCAR if I could find some poor fool that wanted to waste the big wad of cash that Google wants for a pair (?) of Google Glasses.

(Hm. That's uncomfortable to write too... That singular-plural paradox- a 'pair of pants' vs 'a bra'. GGlass is one item. One unit. How 'bout we call 'em 'Glosses'?)

So... Google gets you coming and going... Kinda like them forcing you to get a G+ account in order to comment on YouTube a few months ago. To throw that big wad of your hard-earned rubles (53,650rub) at them, you have to have a Google Wallet. Fortunately for me, I already have a GWallet. It goes well with my G+ account, my GLicense, GMail, GCondoms, and will help immensely with my GLobotomy this summer.

When you do throw your money at them, they have the good sense to really deliver... Like the very next day. I ordered it on Thursday afternoon and got my Glosses on Friday morning.

Yay.

I had had a conversation with The Big Hat (now the 2nd Biggest Hat after our buy-out) regarding Glosses last fall. He had mentioned that it'd be good to get them into the hands of our propeller-heads back in development to see if there is anything they could be useful for in the scoring/timing/stats/sports technology area... We have several folks that applied to Google for Glosses but so far I'm the only one to get one. 

I had to give them a test flight... I got them configured, figured out how to control them- how to get data into and out of them, how to do searches, emails, and took some pictures and videos...

All without leaving my office...

To tell the truth, I was a little hesitant to walk around even in the relatively safe environs of the office mainly because a significant portion of our staff are suspicious to the point of cutting a piece of opaque tape on the built-in cameras on their laptops. They'd most likely freak to see The Office Ogre walking around with a video camera stuck to my forehead.

And this is the problem I have with that kind of mentality in people...

These people freak out when they see new technology that could possibly be used to eavesdrop on them, but have no problem with the thousands of CCTV cameras they walk around and under every day. 

It thinking about this, I did an informal survey as I walked around Jax Airport, EWR & Manhattan yesterday... I stopped counting at 1500 cameras around 3:00pm.

When you stop to look for it, there are an obscene number of cameras watching us at any given moment.

As I write this, I'm in the view of 4 cameras inside the store, there is one that can see me through the front window, one that can probably see me on the ATM across the courtyard, at least 4 more watching the courtyard outside, and no doubt several more at the other stores and restaurants that I will pass by.

What prompted this was a piece on CNN last night that showed video inside the club in SanFran (Molotov) that was made by a girl wearing Glosses as she was attacked, verbally and physically, for wearing them.

People complained that their privacy was being compromised and that they were having their oh-so-precious rights violated. You can see on the video several of those unobtrusive clear hemispheres mounted in the ceiling, each containing a CCTV camera...

I guess those don't count when one is concerned with privacy violations. Hypocrisy much?

I monkeyed around with the Glosses on the weekend... They are cool.

I shot a little video riding my bike (dangerous- need video display blanking app when doing this)... I shot a little video playing the Dark Menace.

They would probably, in the right environment, be more useful (or useful more often) than a couple home-grown ARs... Perhaps not as soul-soothing, but from a opportunity-to-use standpoint I'd get more mileage from Glosses...

They have been factory-reset now and the Chief Propeller Head has them...

I'll be interested to see what he is able to come up with.

I have a new toy to play with...

I got a Google Chromecast unit for Christmas... It's been sitting on the shelf waiting for my return from the Far Side of the World. When I get back from this trip I'm going to see what kind of trouble I can get into with it. 

(Can you say "copyright violation' children? I knew you could.)

Onward, through the fog...

TBG