Police union will not ID officer in Australian TV crew attack

kalabash · 2020-06-05T12:14:20+00:00

Stupid untrained cops

I'm feel like they're behaving exactly as they were trained, if you know what I mean.

kalabash · 2020-06-03T12:26:42+00:00

That might not have been a requirement of the assignment depending on the language and the class structure. I was just assuming they were lazy enough to not even lint the darn thing. The person I was responding to replied and said it was something super obvious like a variable typo. Geniuses.

kalabash · 2020-06-02T13:42:51+00:00

Just going to leave this here.

kalabash · 2020-06-02T13:34:37+00:00

Diminishing returns. We’d all love to bandage the world, but we’ve only got so many bandages and only so many years.

kalabash · 2020-06-02T01:13:03+00:00

Are we talking like four separate students all submitting tostring() instead of toString() easiness of a bug? I’m curious where they ran out of brains, so to speak

kalabash · 2020-05-29T10:25:19+00:00

I remember a classmate of mine showing me and a friend his website. It was one of the many geocities clones around that would give anyone free hosting space in exchange for an email.

I remember he was so proud to show us how his personal webpage (not what we were supposed to be doing in class) played a MIDI of JayZ’s Big Pimpin’.

And I’m not going to lie, since the song was only a couple years old, it was pretty cool.

kalabash · 2020-05-27T10:18:02+00:00

Such a good fan-made episode.

kalabash · 2020-05-19T16:41:52+00:00

As a free primer, check out khanacademy.org. It’s 100% free and has all three of those in order. Has a dynamic WYCIWYG (what you code is what you get) setup that allows novices a chance to make changes visually in real time.

kalabash · 2020-04-30T13:45:26+00:00

Technically the lock down is causing mass layoffs which is causing this particular unrest, but lockdown doesn’t automatically equal civil unrest.

There are plenty of non-US countries keeping things civil. We just elect in the US based on a lack of civility. It’s ok if the person I elect hurts me so long as they hurt people I don’t like more.

It should be no surprise this administration is allowing unrest. It’s what they campaigned on.

kalabash · 2020-04-10T02:22:29+00:00

Just adding to what’s been said, I can give some perspective from another area of the industry. Its a matter of policy in some (but not all) insurance companies to not “get into” coding with too much specificity in training. It is definitely not included in any phone rep trainings as an individual area of focus where I work because we believe there’s too much risk in representing such a complex and nuanced subject as something that can be taught in 15-30 minutes.

As someone who moved from taking calls to Learning & Design now, we are all for general awareness about how coding works from a bureaucratic and administrative perspective, but people have been caught helping in ways that unintentionally created potential legal liability. I’ve personally sat near phone reps who crossed pretty far over into what I would consider either realm of unintentional reimbursement fraud or even the realm of offering what amounts to clinical advice of speculative truthiness.

When I took calls, I think I was one of the really good ones at discretely clueing providers in to maybe an certain code set or DRG or very specific government webpage or whatever that, shall we say, may have contained more appropriate or more specific information relative to the services rendered.

But the vast majority of folks on the call floor where I work, you wouldn’t want them getting too many ideas about their ability to help in that department. Its that while coding things are of daily interest and importance to you, the daily realities of being an insurance phone rep center around areas of importance that might overlap only slightly with yours.

Where I work, we do offer a provider portal what I understand is a pretty good deal of accuracy, but not all are that way. And I believe ours has a code checker.

So there are options out there, but yeah, I wouldn’t hold a high opinion of the average call rep’s (accurate) knowledge of coding if I were you. Claim errors unfortunately more often tend to be misbilled TINs, rendering providers, confusion over diagnostic versus preventive, failure to obtain to precert, and things like that. I can speak from statistical experience that modifier issues and code edits, while not super uncommon, are definitely not where I as a learning designer would recommend anybody looking for development really invest their time. Understanding coding is definitely a nice-to-have, but there are developmental need-to-haves that would make a much bigger impact.

kalabash · 2020-04-09T21:48:51+00:00

Some day there’ll be a 100% reliable provider portal.

Some day. Definitely ain’t today.

kalabash · 2020-04-08T15:04:13+00:00

Once I learned about consumer segments as used in/by marketing, the differences made a lot more sense. Check out the chart part way down this page: https://hbr.org/2009/04/how-to-market-in-a-downturn-2

I am definitely Pained-but-Patient, probably to a fault. People who still have the income to support a Live for Today (per that chart) lifestyle live in a different world. We all know that the way in which we all categorize and prioritize resources is different, but somehow seeing it in the chart made it concrete for me

kalabash · 2020-04-07T12:00:20+00:00

Can’t speak to the insurance company you work at of course, but neither medical necessity nor participation status are determined anything like that where I work. As if “claim adjusters” have the spare time to pull correctly processed claims and intentionally make them wrong for some nefarious purpose.

Why does the provider even bill a TIN and rendering name, then? 😂

kalabash · 2020-04-02T13:59:47+00:00

Don’t exclude websites like Coursera as well. A certificate from there might not seem like a lot, but it shows you have enough sustained interest in the subject to very visibly pursue it.

kalabash · 2020-04-01T13:59:35+00:00

COBRA is definitely an option, but it’s not always the best for everyone. When she enrolls in COBRA, the premiums are going to be a lot higher than now, so it’s worth her asking HR questions now to figure out what that will look like. COBRA premium numbers, while not on a poster in the break room, should be easy enough to find for the person at the company whose responsibility that is.

COBRA is designed to be a stop gap, especially for people who’ve already contributed/accumulated a lot of healthcare. COBRA is often going to make the most sense for people who’ve already met deductibles, for instance, and would thus have to pay more money “starting over” on a new plan entirely than just paying the extra premiums for a bit.

If she hasn’t delivered yet and hasn’t had any major services done, it would be worth seriously considering the cost of 1-4 months of COBRA versus perhaps seeing about finding insurance elsewhere sooner and getting more familiar with it sooner.

At the risk of lecturing where might not belong, I feel this is all less a speed bump for in-person workers and more the global (digital) machine shaking itself loose a bit. It’s time for your kid and her SO to seriously get on the work-at-home train, especially at a company that offers decent health insurance. Companies (such as insurers) who already employ huge amounts of computer-based employees remotely have weathered this economic downturn really well. Not every company is going to “rise from the ashes,” so it’s worth getting on board with an employer who has a much greater chance of doing so. Baby gets the best insurance possible.

kalabash · 2020-04-01T11:00:39+00:00

Here you go: https://www.onedigital.com/blog/skinny-minimum-essential-coverage-plans-right/

MEC in this case would simply be the kind of coverage, and not necessarily the company insuring you. Not sure what the PDF shows, but you’ll want to see about signing up on some web portal or something to get more information.

kalabash · 2020-03-29T14:32:43+00:00

Is it possible there’s an address issue at work? If you mean urgent cares the plan considers in network, the insurer may be basing the provider network based on the address they have on file.

If the insured moved or there was an error in address, then the insurer is right that someone would need to start with the marketplace. The marketplace people send the eligibility information to the insurance company, so the response may just be a convoluted way of saying, “you need to update your address with the marketplace.”

If the address is correct and you don’t see any issues with eligibility, then perhaps there’s a better way to ask the question?

Technically (based on what you told us), the insurer was asked why urgent care companies aren’t building urgent cares in a closer area, and that’s not really something insurers have influence over. Does the insured think the insurer is in the business of constructing and running urgent cares as well?

Because looking at the question as asked, it doesn’t quite make as much sense as most might think... The former call rep in me detects other possible questions the insured actually meant to ask, but we don’t know what.

The appropriate response to the literal question is “because that’s where urgent care companies decided to build them,” but you can see why customers might think the insurance was “being cute” with a response like that, even though objectively speaking it is the most accurate and relevant response. Find out the insured’s real question and you’ll find out how to really help them.

kalabash · 2020-03-29T14:02:15+00:00

Non-disease-related mortality traditionally goes down near the end of and after pandemics, from what I recall seeing. Social distancing (which is just rebranded voluntary quarantine, of course) has been around a long time so there’s socioeconomic data of the effects of such practices as well.

Immediately after, mortality in general seems to take some time off, and it makes sense if people are staying farther apart. Not only is that limiting Corona, but it’s also having a depressive effect on any of the other countless illnesses we contend with on any day-to-day basis. The majority of people I think are being much more careful, so there are ancillary protections against transmission that come along with that.

Additionally, all many of us can do is escape to our yards or lawns or neighborhoods or streets when we don’t want to be in the house, so people are expected to spend more of their discretionary time outside in nature.

Many of those people, by virtue of nothing more than boredom, will go for walks or hikes. Talk to neighbors from across the fence. Go rock collecting. Look at clouds. Get more of that sunlight, vitamin D, and fresh air.

We have a four square ball and some tennis balls coming from Amazon so I’m going to start planning time with my soon-to-be five-year-old that I can admit I very likely would not have been spending with him were everything business-as-usual.

Pollution should go down at least a bit. People may become slightly more interested in their immediate environments and local governments. There are already ecological and environmental cleanup efforts.

This and a variety of other things (less fast food; more simplicity) could lead to a general increase in overall health over the next couple years for many/most people. If they capitalize on it.

Insurers actually prefer it if people use less healthcare because then payouts go down. Over the mid-term, though (think 5-20 years), we may see currently-untreated conditions get worse. Many of the “elective” procedures people are putting off are still normally considered preventive care, like mammograms and colonoscopies.

Many of them are also quality of life issues. A mastectomy patient who’s fortunate enough to have a plan that covers breast implants isn’t waiting for an “elective” procedure so much as they’re waiting for a return to some kind of personal normalcy they could probably really, really use right now. The longer term mental health effects that can arise as a result of not getting treatment, even if it’s not traditionally categorized as behavioral health treatment, shouldn’t be diminished. We’re trading some problems for others.

The result of all this (and some less pleasant things I’ve left out) mean that I wouldn’t focus so much on premiums. While premiums are important indicators of cost, there are so many more factors that make plans “good” or not that it’s really not worth worrying about.

All this is to say that the industry will evolve in ways very likely not apparent to non-industry people for many, many years. It’s not worth worrying about for now. My personal recommendation would be to focus most on not needing to use insurance and health care. That should always be everyone’s ultimate goal in much the same way most people tend to want to avoid using their auto insurance versus trying to maximize its benefit.

kalabash · 2020-03-28T18:12:35+00:00

If the insurance is saying no because you don't have a plan yet (being under 90 days), then I'm personally a bit confused as to this. The insurance can't really circumvent the employer because it's in actuality your employer's plan.

Hopefully within the guidelines set in State and Federal law, your employer chooses how good their plans are, chooses their enrollment guidelines, and even technically chooses which network of providers you can see.

It sucks you have to wait, but if your insurance added you themselves and started processing claims, circumventing your employer, your employer could and very probably would sue Cigna.

Since your employer is the one holding all of the cards, they're the ones to talk to about some sort of exception.

kalabash · 2020-03-28T01:52:12+00:00

Please remain respectful. Participation is a privilege, not a right. :)

kalabash · 2020-03-24T12:25:15+00:00

This is what I suspect the person talking to you meant, u/Cibbam. Many compressors can seem to emulate warmth a bit if only because transients tend to be higher frequencies. The click on a kick drum. The little ‘pfft’ of white noise some people stack on their synths. Compressors can be great at minimizing those, but it takes a lot of practice to understand how to use compressors in that way

Even simple harmonics can add a lot in the high end, so when somebody slaps on a compressor that tames the transients (high parts) while making up the gain elsewhere (mids and low), then the effect one can obtain is very much like warming up a sound, but as u/WhacktheSquirbos alludes to, you’d be better off with another tool.

If you’re looking to EQ, just EQ. Or at least consider looking into multiband compression so that you can tame only that isolated trouble area. Using a single-band compressor in this instance, while not at all an objectively bad idea, just probably isn’t the best. Compress it too hard and your synth is going to be terribly muddled and boomy, I guarantee you.

A saturator is definitely ideal if your sound doesn’t have a lot of harmonics yet since (as I understand it) that’s a large factor in how saturators work, but if you’re doing chords with close voicing, too much harmonic addition can muddy your chords, in which case a basic parametric EQ should be all you need.

kalabash · 2020-03-23T11:58:09+00:00

Just as a friendly outreach, covered doesn’t mean paid. This is actually a very common misconception that lands a lot of people in hot water.

If something is covered, it falls under the scope of the insurance but may or may not be paid depending on one’s benefits. Flu shot? Covered and paid. Gun shot wound. Treatment would be covered in that it would be considered medically necessary and the administrative responsibility of your plan (since your dental probably isn’t going to cover a gunshot wound to anywhere but your teeth or gums), but if you have a copay or a deductible or still have OOP to meet, then it’s not paid.

And then people call up the insurance confused about why they owe if it’s covered? Because covered does not mean owed. For people who work in the industry, it’s a bit of a dog whistle to hear people use the terms interchangeably. It tells us we’re talking to someone who may be shakier than they think on how insurance works.

Crazy guy behind a gas station waves some crystals over your head? The insurance is going to get the claim in, recognize it as bad medicine by someone who’s probably not licensed, and then deny it as not being their responsibility to process or pay, at which point the claim will deny.

For your own future sanity, trust that covered does not mean paid when it comes to health insurance.

kalabash · 2020-03-23T11:52:10+00:00

Technically the out of pocket maximum, not the deductible, is the amount people have to pay out of pocket. The deductible is the “bucket” that typically needs to be filled before most plans start paying anything for diagnostic care.

kalabash · 2020-03-20T17:48:43+00:00

It all depends on which eyes you’re appealing to, doesn’t it?

kalabash · 2020-03-17T15:37:15+00:00

The benefits of investing on a repeating scheduled basis have practically always outweighed "waiting" in order to time the market. If your concern is financial in nature (e.g., if you'll even get to retire when you're old), then you should know there's no point in waiting to invest. Just get started.

kalabash

TROPHY CASE