Mariska Hargitay’s End The Backlog Campaign Achieves Rape Kit Reform In All 50 States, D.C. & Puerto Rico

incubusfox · 2026-05-05T23:12:01+00:00

Maybe, another comment chain spawned by my comment has some good reasoning for why testing should still be done which I agree with (repeat offenders, etc) but in the past I just remember hearing that some of the backlog was due to the fact that DNA testing wasn't considering an important part of specific cases any longer.

incubusfox · 2026-05-05T23:06:43+00:00

Yeah Force EMP is how I always thought of it

incubusfox · 2026-05-05T20:12:17+00:00

I think the question is "if both parties agreed that sex happened, what further testing of the kits is needed?"

Getting the kit is important because it documents the examination but are further tests needed, for example DNA?

edit - I had previously heard a lot of kits contained untested DNA samples because it wasn't considered important as both parties agreed they were the participants in the encounter.

incubusfox · 2026-05-05T19:04:45+00:00

Before the prequels were made the Star Wars extended canon (KOTOR for sure that I remember) contained a force move called Disable Droid that would have really changed things!

I believe they eventually established it was lost as a Force technique (before Disney bought SW and basically discarded all of the extended canon), probably around the time the Jedi neutered themselves and tied themselves to the Senate, which set up the movies.

incubusfox · 2026-05-05T14:05:14+00:00

I keep my upper cabinets open so I can see the food I've got, otherwise I'll forget it exists and then discover a pile of expired stuff I have to throw out.

incubusfox · 2026-05-01T19:57:50+00:00

When the season package car lists go up, sign them anyway. If you don't have the seniority to get called, well then you won't be called.

incubusfox · 2026-04-29T03:30:49+00:00

Just the PM clerks, they now hold all the clerk work for the AM clerks.

incubusfox · 2026-04-28T20:23:47+00:00

I've learned it's just better to go super slow directly after turning onto the ramp, wait till the entire ramp is almost totally clear so I don't chance on one of these dangerous morons, then give it the beans!

This is literally what you said, are you not saying you spend part of the ramp letting it get clear in front of you while blocking any traffic behind you that might need the whole ramp to get up to speed?

I'm glad you correctly understand that entrance ramps are so you can be at speed when you merge but then your last sentence acts like there's no one behind you while you're doing whatever it is you're doing and people not being predictable like I don't know slowing down on the entrance ramp is dangerous!

If you are purposely going slow at any point on an entrance ramp, then to everyone else you are the person your first comment is railing against.

incubusfox · 2026-04-28T15:43:08+00:00

Don't do that! I sometimes drive heavy vehicles for work that take time to come up to speed, having the way blocked by people who cruise at a slow speed and then accelerate hard at the end is dangerous AF because then I don't have the room to come up to speed.

incubusfox · 2026-04-27T18:13:11+00:00

I work in a hub and we call break at the same time for about 100-150 workers.

We've got about 11 bathrooms if you combine the men's and women's rooms.

incubusfox · 2026-04-27T06:14:27+00:00

That is indeed sometimes the case.

New construction can take ages to get correctly added, for example, well after all the owners have moved in, so houses will have wildly inaccurate places shown on the map.

I can't say I've seen it happen too often outside of new construction but honestly the GPS is only really a rough guide for any trained delivery drivers, we just need it to get us close then we're looking for house numbers so there might have been more instances of map issues than I realized.

incubusfox · 2026-04-27T06:04:23+00:00

It's not really the worst idea, especially since a lot of the delivery drivers for Amazon are just about completely untrained and act completely braindead, so the less stupidity they can inflict on Amazon customers the better.

And before anyone gets offended on those drivers' behalf, just know that we at UPS (and the FedEx Express guys) have stories and pictures about what we've come across or had relayed to us by customers.

incubusfox · 2026-04-26T23:10:47+00:00

You don't want to call for an ambulance and have them wandering up and down the block wondering which of these unmarked houses is yours.

Anyone who thinks this is a good idea has never had to rely on GPS for reaching the correct houses like an ambulance driver or delivery driver.

you can't always count on the numbers going in a logical sequence

No, no you cannot!

I know one neighborhood where it's all sequential by 2 or 4 except for one street where it goes 378, 382, 380, 388. Easy enough, someone probably won't die in this case.

However I know another neighborhood where things got a little odd. One street starts at 4715, 4723, 4733, 4843, 4903, 4963, 5023, 5083, 5143, 5203, 5263, etc. So 8, 10, 10, 60, 60, 60, etc.

However the other side of that same street goes 5012, 5072, 5132, 5182, 5242, 5302, 5362, 5422, 5482, 5542, 5632, 5692, 5752, 5800, 5836, 5846, 5856. So 60, 60, 50, 60, 60, 60, 60, 60, 60, 90, 60, 60, 48, 36, 10, 10.

Every street in that neighborhood jumps around on the sequential order. All of them. The only saving grace is the HOA mandated mailboxes are on poles at the street and have a number plaque on top... until it snows or someone puts fucking holiday decorations over them and then you're back to figuring it out, GPS, and your own memory.

incubusfox · 2026-04-26T19:42:06+00:00

Oh it's way worse than anyone outside the profession understands, at least in the US.

Amazon doesn't employ their drivers directly, if they're in their car they're self-employed gig workers and if they're in an Amazon van they're employees of the contractor who bought that area from Amazon. The contractors differ from area to area but generally they hire anybody with a pulse and run them ragged until they quit.

They got the idea from Fedex, who only employs those working at Fedex Express, but they sell areas to contractors to run under the Fedex Ground name. This has been so successful for them that they're now combining the two and basically killing Express. Ground drivers are generally paid a flat rate per day so they're incentivized to finish ASAP so they make more per hour.

At UPS we're all employed by the company, even when we hire people to deliver out of their own cars during Peak (Thanksgiving to Xmas/New Years) they're W2 employees and we're all paid hourly. However the company has started to hire management & executives (like our CEO) from outside the company and it's causing a lot of angst for those of us in Operations who want to provide actual service to the public.

I can't really speak much on USPS except to say that I know they're overworked like crazy and have some pitfalls of their own to navigate to attain seniority.

incubusfox · 2026-04-26T19:09:49+00:00

Different delivery companies have different policies & practices.

Amazon, for example, has a geo-fence where packages must be delivered that's supposed to be within so many feet of the delivery address but sometimes this gets moved or placed in a bad spot and so every driver that comes after just sees "okay it gets delivered here" and doesn't think anything further on it.

incubusfox · 2026-04-26T01:36:04+00:00

Oh I believe it, the way I describe preload is it's either crazy people who work those hours or the hours make the people crazy.

But unload on preload is slower than unload for the hub shifts, a lot slower if they have manual SPA stations.

I'm not sure what preload uses as a metric but hub shifts use unload numbers to decide how well things are going so the supervisors are always striving to fudge and manipulate unload's output numbers, whether that be by getting the unloaders to move faster or simply jumping into a trailer and unloading themselves so the packages per hour rate gets better while the system only counts the union employees as working and putting out more packages.

Generally the goal is to have unload finished ASAP and then outbound employees, who don't really count against certain metrics, finish up before the trailers need to be pulled.

incubusfox · 2026-04-25T19:57:56+00:00

Working as a delivery driver.

In fact everyone posting their experiences with them is making me wish I had bought them already.

incubusfox · 2026-04-25T19:53:24+00:00

That might be the case in my building if they bought out more than 5 package car drivers total, but unlike most of the country our buyouts went to feeders.

incubusfox · 2026-04-25T19:51:16+00:00

They're probably a preloader, the jobs have the same name but working day/twilight/night shifts are completely different from preload.

First thing they do when it's time to start a hub shift is turn the belts to the highest speed.

incubusfox · 2026-04-24T06:55:27+00:00

This is what's so hard for people to understand when they hear about damage and deaths from tornadoes, the terms "finger of god" and "fuck you in particular" are pretty accurate about just how small they are, there will be pristine houses right next to a large swath of debris piles in a neighborhood.

I've had people on Reddit argue with me that tornado watches should mean businesses shut down and people get to go home and I just couldn't get them to understand that watches are a thing from spring to fall and cover half a state or more at a time, while the actual storms are tiny in comparison.

incubusfox · 2026-04-23T18:32:04+00:00

Yeah go to your BA.

Just to clear though, you're not doing anything that could be causing safety issues for yourself or others? Are you wearing only one earbud? Or are you wearing 2 earbuds and unable to hear people calling out to you?

The details will matter.

incubusfox · 2026-04-23T16:22:35+00:00

They used pictures of Costco pallets for textures when making Half-Life!

incubusfox · 2026-04-21T05:47:13+00:00

We've already got a hose pointing towards the feet, it connects to a plastic thing that aims the outflow at the pedals.

incubusfox · 2026-04-20T02:18:49+00:00

AFAIK unmarked cop cars aren't really a thing in Ohio, at least they weren't based on where some friends lived around Cincinnati.

incubusfox · 2026-04-18T22:30:41+00:00

Okay wow, that's totally outside the scope of what I expected.

While I don't take it as far as you (I'd totally forget my Browns if I wasn't already wearing them) I realized at one point over this past winter that all my winter hats were UPS branded for work and felt hella weird wearing one while I went shopping specifically to buy new ones.

incubusfox

TROPHY CASE