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smokebomb

Certifiably Surly
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Posts posted by smokebomb

  1. I had knee surgery to fix a torn meniscus as well as a calcium phosphate injection to address cartilage loss in February. The total bill for the 8 hour hospital stay & surgery was $120k. 

    The medical center where the surgery was performed was a single $89k line item. The insurance company ended up paying $15k for the entire procedure while my portion was $2k. 

    I realize I went to a highly rated surgeon but I don’t understand the pricing scheme at all. 

  2. Texas Monthly now has a story about it:

    https://www.texasmonthly.com/politics/heres-what-texas-das-think-of-the-new-hemp-law-that-accidentally-decriminalized-pot/

    Quote

    Hemp is now legal in Texas, thanks to House Bill 1325, which sailed through the Legislature earlier this year. Supporters hailed hemp’s potential economic benefits as a drought-resistant cash crop from which products like clothing and twine, protein powder, moisturizers, and essential oils can be made.

    Even though hemp and marijuana come from the same plant, Cannabis sativa, lawmakers had little issue with legalizing hemp because the two have an important inherent difference. You can’t get high from smoking or ingesting hemp or hemp products, because its THC content is just 0.3 percent, whereas marijuana usually contains between 5 and 25 percent of the mind-altering agent. But the Legislature has a knack for inadvertently screwing up a good thing. In the same session that lawmakers managed to temporarily turn every Texan into a plumber, they also effectively decriminalized hemp and marijuana.

    HB 1325 essentially changed how the state defines marijuana by legalizing any substances from the cannabis plant with 0.3 percent or less THC content. That unwittingly placed the burden on prosecutors to prove a substance is marijuana based solely on its THC level. Few local agencies in Texas are outfitted with the equipment required to determine THC levels, and outsourcing those tests could prove costly. As a result, some district attorneys are dropping misdemeanor marijuana cases altogether, even as the state’s top leaders sent a letter to prosecutors earlier this month to emphasize that the drug remains very much illegal in Texas.

    Still, the five most populous counties—Harris, Dallas, Travis, Tarrant, and Bexar—have announced that they’re dismissing hundreds of charges and will decline to prosecute minor marijuana possession in the future. While the reactions of prosecutors in the big cities have garnered most of the headlines, Texas Monthly reached out to prosecutors for every county in Texas seeking to find out how they plan to cope with this new legal landscape.

    Officials with 93 of Texas’s 254 counties responded to inquiries. (Officials from the remaining 161 counties either did not respond or declined to comment.) Twenty-six counties—a mix of urban, suburban, and rural areas—are no longer prosecuting low-level marijuana cases as a result of the new law. Nine of the state’s twelve most populated counties—representing nearly 15 million people, or more than half of Texas’s total population—will no longer prosecute low-level marijuana cases, and some have pledged to dismiss pending cases. However, almost three-quarters of the counties we contacted, 67 in all, indicated they will continue business as usual.

    Perhaps reluctant to shed a tough-on-crime approach popular among Texas conservatives, some officials in smaller counties were critical of their urban peers dismissing cases. Bill Helwig, DA of Yoakum County, a square patch of West Texas with population 8,500, said the new law likely won’t affect how marijuana cases are prosecuted there. “We’re a very conservative county, and I believe that rural counties may view the situation from a slightly different set of glasses,” he said.

    Kendall County DA Nicole Bishop, whose county just north of San Antonio has a population of about 45,000, likewise intends to continue misdemeanor marijuana prosecutions. Her office also will request restitution from any defendants who insist on lab testing, including seeking more severe punishment in plea deals. “I will not act as an unelected legislator by unilaterally deciding what laws I deem worth it to enforce,” she said. “I will not abandon my sworn duty to follow the law.”

    Yet the new law could disproportionately strain the resources of these smaller counties, which are more likely to lack the equipment and the funds to outsource testing. In Beaumont’s Jefferson County, for example, the crime lab recently requested nearly $500,000 for new equipment, employees, and training for distinguishing marijuana from hemp, according to the Beaumont Enterprise. Steve Houston, the DA in Brewster County in far West Texas, said the Legislature created another unfunded mandate for local governments. “It requires testing, and they didn’t provide funding for testing,” Houston told Texas Monthly. “I’m not paying for a bunch of testing.”

    This month’s letter to prosecutors from Governor Greg Abbott, Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick, attorney general Ken Paxton, and House speaker Dennis Bonnen both disputed claims about the high costs of lab tests and downplayed the necessity for any additional testing, suggesting that DAs use “the tried and true use of circumstantial evidence.”

    Several DAs pushed back against these assertions. Hardeman County DA Staley Heatly said the fact that hemp and marijuana come from the same plant makes testing “absolutely” a must. Patrick Wilson of Ellis County, where Waxahachie is the seat, called the governor’s advice misguided. “There is no circumstantial evidence of which I am aware that would prove the chemical makeup of a substance beyond a reasonable doubt,” he said.

    The variety of responses among prosecutors seems to have been a consequence unforeseen by many of the legislators who voted for HB 1325. “It’s one of those things that we did and now we’re looking back saying, ‘Well, we didn’t think about that,’” state representative J.D. Sheffield, R-Gatesville, told Waco’s KWTX.

    But according to a Fort Worth Star-Telegram editorial, lawmakers received some inkling of the potential confusion the bill could cause. At a hearing in April of the House Agriculture Committee, Department of Public Safety crime lab director Brady Mills explained that his lab would need to buy new equipment for testing THC levels. There were no follow-up questions from the committee members.

    “I’ve never seen a drug case, marijuana or any other type of drug, prosecuted without a lab report,” Hamilton County District Attorney Adam Sibley, a former defense attorney, told Texas Monthly. “I don’t think it’s a good idea for us to go to court and ask our juries to convict people when I can’t put a lab person on a witness stand to definitively say, ‘Yes, this substance is illegal.’”

    Charles Mendeke, the sheriff in Uvalde County, was more direct in his criticism. “It is the worst bill they have ever passed,” he told the Uvalde Leader-News earlier this month. “They passed it without rules or regulations established, and it has created a law enforcement nightmare.”

    Map from the article:

    hemp-texas-counties-map-1600x0-c-default

    • Like 2
  3. Jaxson comes in at #2 of the 11 best summer league rookies:

    https://www.sbnation.com/nba/2019/7/16/20689944/nba-summer-league-rookies-brandon-clarke-grizzlies-jaxson-hayes-pelicans-rj-barrett-rui-hachimura

    Quote

    2. Jaxson Hayes, C, New Orleans Pelicans

    The term “elite athlete” gets thrown around a lot during the draft process, but it absolutely fits for Hayes. It’s not just his incredible run-and-jump ability, but also his rare coordination and great hands he developed as a former high school wide receiver and the son of a long-time NFL tight end. He put it all on the display to create the best highlight of Summer League.

    Whether he’s pushing the break himself or cleaning up for his teammates, there is no precedent for Hayes’ open floor ability as a 7-footer. His production is already showing signs of matching his physical tools. After leading all of DI in true shooting percentage as a freshman at Texas, Hayes again scored efficiently in Vegas

    It may take a couple years before Hayes is able to make an impact at the NBA level. He needs to add strength — particularly in his lower body — to handle traditional bigs in the paint. When it happens, there is no telling how high his ceiling might be.

     

    • Like 1
  4. 5 hours ago, Biff Tannen said:

    Then how do buildings in other places that are way taller deal with sway?  I've always thought being at the top of this building in Manhattan would be fucking terrifying.  That shit has to sway a ton right?

    52e2aa98eab8ea8d24a0b30b-750-563.jpg

    https://science.howstuffworks.com/engineering/structural/skyscraper4.htm

    Quote

    Some buildings already use advanced wind-compensating dampers. The Citicorp Center in New York, for example, uses a tuned mass damper. In this complex system, oil hydraulic systems push a 400-ton concrete weight back and forth on one of the top floors, shifting the weight of the entire building from side to side. A sophisticated computer system carefully monitors how the wind is shifting the building and moves the weight accordingly. Some similar systems shift the building's weight based on the movement of giant pendulums.

     

    • Like 1
  5. 20 minutes ago, Buzzrock said:

    Can two players save their progress on Zelda or will we have to play it one at a time?

    You can only have one game under a single profile but you can create multiple profiles for multiple players. 

    • Like 1
  6. On 6/13/2019 at 6:39 PM, HornsOverIthaca said:

    I really hope that Elon Musk does eventually fly to Mars, so that right before lift off he can say "I have to go now, my planet needs me."

    And launch note - there is a Falcon Heavy launch tonight at 10:30pm CDT:

    https://www.spacex.com/webcast 

    • Like 2
  7. On 5/13/2019 at 9:27 AM, Burt Macklin said:

    So what are the odds we can convince Michigan to hire Shaka?

    https://gbmwolverine.com/2019/05/14/michigan-basketball-5-realistic-options-wolverines-next-head-coach/5/

     

    Quote

    Shaka Smart

    One name that keeps popping up is that of Shaka Smart, the Texas head coach that just missed out on the NCAA tournament with the Longhorns this past season.

    Smart has won only 51 percent of his games at Texas but that also includes a painful 11-22 season in his second year. He also led Texas to a pair of 20-win seasons as well as two trips to the NCAA tournament.

    On top of that, Smart coached VCU to five NCAA tournament appearances and two conference tournament titles, as well as a trip to the Final Four. He’s another guy that has won at two places, which makes me worry less about his transition over to another program.

    Smart is also a proven recruiter and has some innovative ideas, especially when it comes to defense and style of play. He would be an interesting hire and he would be a good fit after going to a football-first school like Texas. His buyout, which UCLA balked at paying, may cause Michigan to look elsewhere. But if not, he could very well be the guy.

     

  8. It's not SpaceX but it's Jeff Bezos & Blue Origin:

     

     

    A bit more info: https://www.blueorigin.com/blue-moon 

    Quote

    The Blue Moon lander can deliver large infrastructure payloads with high accuracy to pre-position systems for future missions. The larger variant of Blue Moon has been designed to land an ascent vehicle that will allow us to return Americans to the Moon by 2024.

    Pretty ambitious if true.

  9. 2 hours ago, Lobo said:

     What about the scuba divers  that died saving most of eastern Europe ?

    Apparently they didn't die - here is an article from last year that discusses what they actually did and where they are now:

    https://www.businessinsider.com/chernobyl-volunteers-divers-nuclear-mission-2016-4

     

    Quote

    A Chernobyl 'suicide squad' of volunteers helped save Europe — here's their amazing true story

    It's been 32 years since the Chernobyl disaster, a nuclear reactor meltdown caused by a mix of design flaws and human error.

    The event immediately killed dozens and scarred the lives of tens of thousands of people over the ensuing decades.

    Chernobyl is still considered the worst nuclear accident in history — but it could have been much, much worse, if not for a so-called "suicide squad" of three brave volunteers.

    Build-up to a nightmare

    In the early hours of April 26, 1986, a test gone awry caused two explosions that took out Chernobyl's Unit 4, killing two workers instantly and 29 more in the next four months. Though the long-term death count is still growing, all estimates are disputed among scientists, government officials, and international bodies.

    Together, the explosions released 400 times as much radioactive fallout as the bomb the US dropped on Hiroshima in 1945.

    All fires were extinguished or contained within 6 hours, but few anticipated a second, more dangerous problem would soon appear. In early May, Unit 4's reactor core was still melting down.

    Under the reactor was a huge pool of water — coolant for the power plant. The continuous nuclear reaction, traveling in a smoldering flow of molten radioactive metal, was approaching the water.

    "If that happened it would have triggered a second steam explosion that would have done unimaginable damage and destroyed the entire power station, including the three other reactors," author Andrew Leatherbarrow wrote in an email to Tech Insider.

    Leatherbarrow recently published a book, called "1:23:40: The Incredible True Story of the Chernobyl Nuclear Disaster," that recounts the catastrophe's history on its 30th anniversary.

    By most estimates, such a blast may have wiped out half of Europe, leaving it riskier to live in for 500,000 years.

    The apocryphal tale of the Chernobyl 'suicide squad'

    In order to prevent the steam explosion, workers needed to drain the pool underneath the reactor. But the basement had flooded, and the valves were underwater.

    The most popular (and likely apocryphal) version of events then goes something like this: One soldier and two plant workers, all volunteers, bravely strapped on wetsuits and clamored into the radioactive water. Even though their lamp died and the crew was left in darkness, they successfully shut off the valves.

    They knew the basement was highly radioactive, but officials promised that if they died, their families would be provided for. It was, indeed, very possibly a suicide mission.

    By the time the team left the pool, this version of the story goes, they were already suffering the effects of acute radiation syndrome (ARS). All of them supposedly died within weeks.

    What really happened

    Leatherbarrow has spent five years researching the disaster. His book gives a slightly different, but no less heroic, version of events.

    "The basement entry, while dangerous, wasn't quite as dramatic as modern myth would have you believe," Leatherbarrow said.

    Firefighters had tried a couple of times to use specialized hoses to drain much of the basement. The three men were, according to Leatherbarrow, all plant workers — no soldiers — who happened to be on-shift when the firefighters' draining procedure stopped.

    They weren't the first in the watery basement, either. Others had entered to measure the radiation levels, though Leatherbarrow said he could never discover who they were, how many had entered, or what their conclusions were.

    "Some water remained after the firemen's draining mission, up to knee-height in most areas, but the route was passable," Leatherbarrow's account reads.

    "The men entered the basement in wetsuits, radioactive water up to their knees, in a corridor stuffed with myriad pipes and valves," he continues, "it was like finding a needle in a haystack."

    The men worried they wouldn't be able to find the valves.

    "When the searchlight beam fell on a pipe, we were joyous," mechanical engineer Alexei Ananenko said in interview with the Soviet press, as quoted by Leatherbarrow. "The pipe led to the valves."

    The men felt their way to the valve in the dark basement. "We heard a rush of water out of the tank," Ananenko went on, "and in a few more minutes we were being embraced by the guys."

    Definitively, Leatherbarrow said, none of the men died of ARS. The shift supervisor died of a heart attack in 2005. (Leatherbarrow attributes this to a mix-up with an employee with the same surname who did succumb to ARS.)

    Where they are now

    As for the other two men, Leatherbarrow said one is still alive and working in the industry, but he hasn't released his name because of privacy concerns. Leatherbarrow said that he lost track of the third man, but that he was alive at least up until 2015.

    Complicating this is the contradictory reports from English media and the Soviet government, which famously tried to downplay the disaster. In addition, Leatherbarrow said the best sources out there have yet to be translated from Russian — including the accounts of senior managers, state-run media reports, and a book by an engineer who's been blamed for the disaster, but insists he was scapegoated by the government.

    Even so, Leatherbarrow added, these men risked their lives to save untold millions of lives during a disaster of unheard of magnitude.

    "They still went into a pitch black, badly damaged basement beneath a molten reactor core that was slowly burning its way down to them," he said.

    Like many of the workers in the hours, months, days, and even years after Chernobyl, their bravery led them to a situation that required unimaginable acts.

     

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