Also, to add to this what we’ve learned about fires and houses is that.. it’s less about how the house is built.
Whether a house catches fire or not is almost always due to the landscaping, maintenance, and roof of the house.
Traditional house siding and roof will resist flames and fires. However, if an overgrown bush catches fire it will cause enough heat to the side of the house to break down that protection and set it aflame. Same with leaves in gutters, etc.
> Why do we permit such fire prone housing to be built just to save a few dollars.
I know you didn’t mean it, but this question isn’t a question. It’s a statement formed as a question. It’s a judgement. It’s not a curiosity legitimately asking why.
There are so many good reasons why houses in the US are built the way they are. Some of which are…
1. Concrete/Brick houses retain heat and are often harder to cool. They also don’t insulate well. US Houses have been built as a means of controlling moisture, humidity, and cooling efficiently.
2. Stick built houses cost less to repair. Brick/Concrete houses require much more demolition to repair, rebuild, or change. While replacing a load bearing wall in a stick house can be done easily, concrete and brick require the entire wall to be torn down.
3. Humidity, Moisture, and Wind matter. When moisture gets into concrete and brick then freezes it can cause huge structural cracks. Whereas in stick houses, it’s not as big a deal. I had a house with a raised driveway and a walkout basement. The basement and driveway had to be completely demolished due to moisture cracks. If the entire house was concrete it would have been a write off.
4. Soil composition matters. In some areas the soil is not capable of holding the weight of all the concrete and brick. Causing structure issues later and endangering folks.
Modern building codes today in most places are pretty solid. They require 2x6 framing, they require testing of the airways in the house to ensure proper air leaking/sealing. They require the structure of the house be built with specific bolts. They require the framing to be done in a way that resists wind sheer and twisting.
The US Building codes have been revised consistently over time. This started with the nuclear bomb testing in the 40s and onward. They built houses, and then bombed them to find out how to make them better. We’ve learned from Tornados, Hurricanes, and more. These all have resulted in major improvements to building houses.
Today in the US we have no shortage of housing methods. We have SIP Framing, ICF Concrete Framing, Recycled ICF, Modular designs, etc. Most still go with stick built because it’s the better option for the majority.
I lived in a 2x4 house in TN that was built poorly and improperly. I spent 200k in 4 years repairing that house. Now I live in a 2x6 built slab house. This house was built by a luxury builder properly.
The difference between the two is astonishing. The TN House couldn’t go less than 82 degrees when it was hot and humid. The luxury house is in Vegas, it can be 50 degrees inside when it’s 120 outside. You can cut costs on stick built, but you can also make some of the best houses with it.
It's worse than this. Their cap is 80% of the Insurer's profit. Not the Insurer's Parent company. So often the parent company will own the Insurer as a subsidiary and own the Pharmacy, Hospital, Healthcare etc under the parent company.
This way as costs go up, it's really just bypassing the 80%. Because the hospital can charge the insurance subsidary X amount, and then the hospital profits to the parent company.
There needs to be a law in the US that health insurance organizations cannot be owned by anyone who owns a healthcare provider. Nor can the insurance company own healthcare providers.
Two things to remember. First Tulsi Gabbard has significant Russia connections. She’s also a member of a prolific cult. She’s been protective of Russia for quite some time.
Second, the USSR had biolabs in Ukraine. Ukraine was a central hub for all their bio R&D. When the USSR collapsed these bio labs lost their funding. These bio labs contained many different pathogens and bio-weapons.
It was in the US and the worlds best interest to fund them and wind them down safely and securely.
You mean the bad neighbor whom Iran has constantly funded attacks on from those other neighbors? The bad neighbor who has IRGC Funded terrorist and militant cells along its very border? You mean the bad neighbor whom comes under rocket fire on a routine basis?
Are we forgetting that Iran is the one who has funded Hamas and Hezbollah and provided them safe haven?
Maybe that bad neighbor wouldn’t be a bad neighbor and be attacking the other neighbors. If the other neighbors did not provide shelter for those who wish to burn down the bad neighbors house?
Point is - Iran plays a SIGNIFICANT role in the destabilization of the region. That bad neighbor might be a good neighbor if Iran wasn’t attacking it via proxies.
But I suspect we’re not ready to have that nuanced conversation yet.
Yes, but also no. For example in GitLab a user who’s infected could push code to a branch. Then it could even make a merge request to pull that branch into main (if main is protected).
But then someone else on the team should have to manually approve that MR to allow it to be merged to main.
This kind of defeats the ability of malware to push stuff out automatically.
I believe you’re right, it’s not great to assume this beforehand. Many things are negotiable, but there are a whole lot of things that aren’t.
When you’re faced with convincing someone of $TruthA or $FactA and one of those two collides with a persons worldview, makes them uncomfortable, or causes them pain. Sometimes that truth or fact will be thrown out because of its ramifications.
For example, if we’re in Iowa, and you prove to me that plastic straws don’t kill turtles.. but as a kid my first trip to the ocean resulted in seeing a dead turtle die to a straw. It’s going to be very difficult for me to believe otherwise.
My statement about a person not accepting something because they won’t want too… is less about them.. and more about the person trying to argue/explain/etc.
It’s important to identify when a topic won’t be accepted by an individual and to move on. It’s something I’ve struggled with in life. If you don’t identify it, you can risk overstaying your welcome. Which can lead to losing a trusted advisor status. It’s far better to keep the trusted advisor status and tackle the issue another time.
There is no guarantee of this. The only guarantee is that if you put yourself in a vulnerable state, and someone abuses that, you now know their true intentions and can adjust accordingly.
I am biased in this answer on vulnerability, and I know it. I’ve lived a full life. I’ve nearly died multiple times, one instance was on my knees with a SWAT Team standing behind me with rifles pointed at back.
When you’ve lived through such events your risk calculus changes. Things that seemed terrible like being fired or laid off, tend to feel not as insurmountable or scary.
I say this to outline my bias, but also add evidence to my view on vulnerability. I’ve seen both sides, and while being concerned about abuse when vulnerable is a concern that should be seriously considered.. often people who are forced to make that decision miss the other part. The audience.
Vulnerability will almost always grant you the favor of the audience. If you work a job with half decent people, being vulnerable and abused when exposed will cause leadership to side with you. In my experience, most people are decent and want to cause the least harm to others in personal and intimate settings. So being vulnerable is almost always a win, even if it’s not the win you want.
And the place/scenario in which you’re purposefully vulnerable results in abuse/neglect without recourse for action… well.. then unfortunately you’ll know that situation is untenable and unlikely to change. So you can react accordingly.
Even here in the comments you see people who have read this article and fall victim to the very things it’s pointing out. It’s ironic.
Let me add a couple to this list.
1. No amount of knowledge or discussion will make a person accept something they don’t want to accept.
2. To truly listen means to place yourself mentally and physically in a vulnerable state. Because you will likely hear things that run contrary to your experience, beliefs, and worldview. Judging people is often a self protection mechanism; which means you will almost never listen to someone.
3. Listening often means not jumping to a solution; but absorbing and processing someone’s pain. Product managers for example are quick to jump to a solution, a new feature, or they’ll push the request off as “oh, ok, we’ll make a ticket for that ”
When in actuality, they should be listening to the use case, looking for the pain, and finding a way to solve the pain points. As opposed to trying to understand what feature the user wants to request.
What OP said is true. You’re forgetting that health insurers are just one organization in the corporate chart. They often work to own the providers as well to funnel money to parent corporations.
So if United is the insurer they’re owned by an umbrella, that umbrella takes 20% or less. However United makes special deals and steers people to providers owned by the Umbrella. So that the Umbrella makes more money as well. This is true for medicine as well. For example Cigna requires all maintenance medication be purchased through express scripts as a means to retain or increase profit.
United has a history of also squeezing organizations by forcing them into pre-payment review when they’re high volume. This causes the providers to basically not have no revenue for months on end until it gets sorted. Then they might get a chunk or settle out of court. Often they go bankrupt and are purchased by the umbrella.
In terms of Medicare/Medicaid another catch-22 is that insurance handles the claims for providers. The insurance can recode claims and pocket the difference without telling the provider. It’s on the provider to catch it.
There is a tremendous amount of dark money, shadow games, hidden corporate structures, Wyoming and NM LLCs with Anonymous owners, etc.
Insurance as a whole tries to own the entire feedback loop for healthcare. They don’t like you going out of their feedback loop.
FWIW - A whole host of the pre-IPO GitLab folks went to Chainguard. A lot of them, many in leadership roles. Most importantly, In Sales Leadership. These are people whom don’t really believe in high-pressure sales. Rather they aim to show the value and not squeeze customers for profit or making a number on a chart go up.
That second paragraph is what scares me the most about pure public healthcare options. The following isn’t to compare/contrast systems.. it’s just a viewpoint.
My cardiologist went “tests look fine, heart looks fine, there’s no reason for you to take colchicine. No clue why you have issues, everything is fine. Just take this brand new beta blocker to manage your heart rate.”
Meanwhile, there’s no answer why my heart rate rises 30-40BPM randomly when I stand. Why my heart rate drops to a very difficult detectable rate when I sleep. No answers as to why two sips of wine causes my body to go into shock. - All resulting post-Covid.
That same doctor told me to discontinue colchicine; yet without colchicine most medications, inc. ADHD, are maybe half as effective.
These are items which deserve answers. Not an answer of “just take another pill”. Some of those “unnecessary” tests can provide inclusion/exclusion information. Yet just refusing that knowledge denies answers.
In the US I can just find new doctors. But in other systems it’s either difficult or impossible.
Provided someone told GitLab Support. This was likely fine. GitLab can handle this much load. The platform as a whole has increased and improved over the years as new customers are added.
Think about this… every CI/CD Job runs a clone. That’s a lot..
They’ll know because in the US and abroad the banks send the balances and transactions to the IRS. I get letters every year/6 months that I’m subject to additional withholding because they haven’t gotten any $$ but they show I have.
Commenting to add - Insurance negotiated rate may actually be 1500$. If it is and they charge insurance 1500$. They legally cannot charge an individual a different or lower rate. Even if that person doesn’t have insurance and offers to pay cash.
This is one of those weird horrible traps health insurance puts you into. OP may charge insurance 1500$, insurance may only pay 20%. But that now means they have to charge individuals the full 1500$ price.
So honestly, Cudos to the OP for identifying this trap and then moving to just charging a reasonable flat rate.
This is a valid story, and I have no doubt it’s real. I’ve heard and seen many stories like this that have happened.
But… I’m going to say the dirty, quiet, and unlikable thing out loud.
That had nothing to do with DevOps or its philosophies, processes, or patterns. That was bad leadership from the top down plain and simple. It’s likely not even the individual engineers faults. It’s leaderships fault for not setting clear objectives, implementing them, ensuring that the engineers had a real plan before beginning, and making sure no individual was too in charge of things.
Leadership in your case was likely career management who knew very little about technical items. Managers who were technical were probably shot down for not playing politics properly, not producing the correct “metrics” and “kpis”. So they moved on.
That’s a company culture issue that has little to do with tech.
Whether a house catches fire or not is almost always due to the landscaping, maintenance, and roof of the house.
Traditional house siding and roof will resist flames and fires. However, if an overgrown bush catches fire it will cause enough heat to the side of the house to break down that protection and set it aflame. Same with leaves in gutters, etc.