I won't call clickbait on this as it is a personal site and the headline is accurate. I saw another article recently with the same issues.
He is dead from a heart attack. If dispatch, EMS, hospitals, etc. didn't exist doesn't mean he would be alive. They didn't kill him, they failed to save him.
The other article I saw was how the hospital "killed" a drowning victim. Water was never mentioned.
There are many failures in our systems. There will always be exceptions to rules. It is a heart-breaking story but at the same time it is impressive. Maybe the system failed on this call but the fact that their is a system with this many resources is amazing. Hit 3 digits on the phone and LEO, EMS, Fire are all alerted 24/7 us pretty impressive to me.
It isn't all about getting somebody TO the hospital but getting them INTO the hospital/ED/ER. EMS in an ambulance who are alerting a hospital of an MI enroute will get their attention, a walk-in will have to wait unless there are obvious signs.
Calling 911 will normally get LEO on scene that know CPR and can do radio communications. A lot of dispatchers are EMDs (emergency medical dispatchers) that can start helping immediately. You may have off duty EMTs nearby that are scanning the radio. Finding a fixed target it much easier than finding a moving target (white car headed towards hospital), you are on your own if you get stuck in traffic. Statistically, 911/EMS is the best outcome. I agree with another commenter, exceptions do exist.
I wonder how much of Meta the corporation is a scam waiting to crumble. Hundreds of billions of dollars can make people do questionable things.
-their revenue is 99% ads with more than 80% coming from FB and IG
-they can only sell ads if they have a large and active user base
-DAP (daily active people) is reported publicly but calculated internally
-ad spending, views, and engagement are calculated by Meta's own platform
Anecdote (why I think it is a scam)-
I had a FB account, I needed it for a previous job but didn't want it. I set up a random email address at a host I had never used, had a made-up FB name, and used a password generator for both the email address and FB accounts. My FB account had almost no activity besides viewing company posts. FB was only used from a single desktop computer. Passwords were stored in my (local only desktop) password manager.
After a couple years, FB emailed me and claimed my account was hacked. The "hacker" changed my profile picture (was a blank avatar icon) to an AI photo of a random guy. Facebook says it is hacked but they keep it visible, my two friends are still friends with the old account (they know it was hacked). FYI - I didn't care enough to send them a copy of my ID, nor did my ID match my user name, so I couldn't reclaim my account.
How would a hacker combine a random username, with a random email (has not been pwnd) only used for FB, guess a ~20 character random password, etc? And why, to steal an account with no followers and to do nothing with the account? That is a lot of work and criminal charges for nothing.
I am fine with FB saying the account was hacked and closing it. It has been years and the account is still live. Is it "active" and counted towards their users? They have a HUGE financial incentive to keep and count all accounts, and they have no oversite to verify accounts since it is all calculated internally with opaque algorithms.
My two cents of info as mildly informed. I am a volunteer ff/emt.
My department is very well funded compared to the rest of our county. Compared to cities, it is laughably underfunded. We are 90 percent volunteer. We have zero paramedics, only EMTs (about 4).
An Engine not only has to run but has to pump. An engine may drive 3 miles but then run for 20 hours without moving but pumping water the entire time (using the transmission to do so). If the pump is not up to standards, FFs do not enter a building. No water, no entry. If the pump isn't compliant then it is not longer an "engine". Mileage is irrelevant. A low mileage engine (10k) might have a million other problems after 100k hours. Who fixes that in a volunteer department?
Ambulances are the same. The drive may be short but the engine never stops idling or charging the equipment on board. In the city the answer is always transport. If you have 1 ambulance and 6 hours round trip, you may stay on scene for a while to avoid a transport (assuming you don't risk the patient's life).
Most volunteer departments have 1-2 engines, and those are aging. If an engine goes out of service without a replacement, we stop responding.
This is not a city/rural problem. If you have ever taken a road trip, gone camping, visited relatives in "the country", then then you are relying on, and praying they have the equipment and staff to respond. Go outside the city for a rafting trip- swiftwater, rope rescue, EMS, traffic... all in the hands of volunteers with no resources.
Back to the article- we have one engine out of service. We can't buy 20x our tax revenue. Yes, everything has gone up in price. When EMS and Fire becomes unpurchaseable, there are (dire) consequences.
Is Covered California a government entity, for profit, non profit, other...? Not that it matters.
"Leak" is not the right term. By default a "website" is a 404. Throw some HTML on there and users can see something. Adding LinkedIn tracking is a deliberate choice. Calling the data "leaked" is like saying a raft sprung a "leak" when the person in the raft punctured it 60 times (number of trackers). The data was shared and pushed to LI, on purpose. They (Covered CA) installed LinkedIn's code on their site. The code did exactly what it was intended to do, send data to LinkedIn.
A leak is accidental, this was a choice by Covered CA.
Appreciate the response. Wow, not going to happen. I am a (self deprecating) script kiddy. This is overkill for me. Everything you said was over my head. On a positive note, I don't feel bad for failing to figure it out.
Business Idea- I would pay 10-15 dollars per month for a managed hosted Immich (or similar) instance. (I "own", you manage) Minimal processing, minimal sharing (no social), but big storage.
I tried NextCloud + Memories but multiple hosts said the facial recognition app wouldn't work. Face recognition is important. I tried Librehost for Nextcloud, seemed great until face recognition didn't work and support said it wouldn't.
I can't self-host hardware, my home internet is shat.
I really want to run a managed-host instance of Immich (or NextCloud) but am struggling. This is for family photos shared by 3 siblings. 100GB+ of storage is ideal, cpu and connections isn't as important since at max it will be 3 users.
All these programs looks great and have easy Docker setups, but I can't figure out Docker storage. Docker seems to be more about running the app, not storage. If I install Immich on a Docker instance, do I have to connect it to external storage? If so who and how?
I love the war stories people are sharing. I am surprised nobody is addressing the main point of the article- the frustration of being blamed.
Mistakes and technical limitations are understandable, but why blame the customer? An automated error message was still written by a human. Human people decided the response to "invalid characters".
Subbing in a computer for a human doesn't create a valid excuse. Saying, "being nice doesn't scale", doesn't make things right.
My war story- tried to get a copy of my birth certificate. My mother doesn't have a middle name. Never did. First and last only. The county office required me to tell them her middle name. After much arguing they said her last name was her married name and her middle name was her maiden name. When I asked what her name was before marriage, I finally got it much to the dismay of the employees.
At least I had a human to look at. That eventually, with much work, used common sense over programmed logic.
The main navigation on my site is: Thoughts/Ideas/Stuff.
Thoughts- serve no purpose, brain dump so I can stop thinking about them.
Ideas- I wish I could make but can't.
Stuff- things I have made, mostly pointless and stupid
My mom said my website was fantastic. Other than her I doubt anyone has ever seen it and that is fine.
I had a recent experience with Venmo, owned by Paypal. Not sure if it is related but it was very frustrating.
I thought I already had Venmo so when I customer asked I said yes. Turns out I had a Zelle account. So I quickly set up Venmo. They did a business and personal account by default. I went through all the steps and Venmo said everything was working and ready.
The customer transferred me the money and boom, my account was frozen for "violating the ToS", no more explanation. They transferred money to an account Venmo said was fine. Transferring money IS their business so I thought it weird that this violated their ToS. Also weird that nothing violated the ToS until they had my money.
There is no phone number to call. Chat doesn't help.
Somewhat related- I am often disappointed and surprised at how many new houses are being marketed as "green". 4200 square feet, 3 bed 4 bath, 3 car garage- but it has solar panels, low-flow faucets, and "natural" granite counter tops.
New houses and neighborhoods are cookie-cutter to reduce costs. The land is flattened and natural vegetation removed. Three floor plans with tons of windows are repeated, regardless of orientation to the sun. Then concrete roads, lawns, ornamental plants are added.
Recycling addresses the symptoms but not the cause. Reducing addresses the cause.
There are probably national, regional, and local laws preventing this but why is property taxes not progressive? Ignoring lobbying, is there a legal reason why progressive property taxes can't be created? Is there a region that does this?
Publii. It has a WP Importer tool. Your site layout looks similar to some of the free themes. The "old school" simplicity of using a desktop CMS is great in my opinion.
I have no issues with the wine before hand but here is an alternative.
I wear a leopard print thong to interviews, they are my interview man-panties. (I do wear pants over them) I am a large, hairy, ugly man with no reason to wear this under normal circumstances. No matter how much wine my wife drank she would not be impressed. On the day of the interview, I feel special. Not sexy, but special. I know something the interviewers don't know. The pinching of my ding and dongles reminds me of this. It also makes it hard to take the interview too serious. Bonus, when you get home and take them off, any stress is instantly relieved.
This may sound like a joke but I am serious. I think the reason it works for me is because it reminds me that I am in charge. I do what I want. I am literally not dressing to impress.
An interview is often perceived as a candidate trying to impress the employer. BS. It is two (equal) parties trying to find if they are a good match. I don't want to work in a place if I am not a good fit, not skilled enough, or not wanted. If I don't get offered a job then I am not wanted there or valued by the company- well I wouldn't want to work at that place. If I don't get the job, I didn't want it anyway- I see this as truth. Perhaps a mental trick on myself but if so, I fall for it every time.
I think the wine solution would mesh well with my man-thong technique. I may add wine to my system. I am currently drinking Keystone (piss-water) beer. If I drank a couple glasses of fancy-pants 2022 refreshing white Franzia while donning my undergarments I would be unstoppable.
Your mileage may vary. I am currently unemployed but happy as hell so... whatevs, grain of salt. Best of luck.
What are you trying to achieve, or what do you mean by "give back"? Which is more important, helping people or sticking with your SE skills? There isn't a wrong answer- I sincerely can't tell your priorities, goals, etc.
Who do you want help is the first question, then figure out how based on their needs. Who is in "the community" you want to give back to? I think one of the reasons you have come up dry is because there isn't a true need in the communities you are looking at.
I know this sounds critical, which it is, but hopefully not too critical. SE is fluff, those that desperately need help, they don't need code. People need shelter, food, water, health, safety- the rest is gravy. Money, which you have, can provide these basic needs. Donate money to charities that specialize in providing these things. Volunteer with the charities of your choice. Convert your skills and experience as a SE into cash (a placeholder for value), let the charities use your value to help people. It doesn't sound as satisfying or glamorous as teaching/mentoring but it will probably have a much greater impact. If you can make $300 per hour do that and hire 10 teachers/tutors instead of teaching yourself.
Other thoughts
-your money gives you time, time for you to volunteer and help
-Empower small local business, true mom and pops (build free websites, inventory tracking software, etc.)
-Software/sites for local charities (maybe as simple as etting up square donations on their site)
Wikipedia being a starting point is one of my favorite things about it. I really like that all their sources are cited and linked to. It always amazes me that news organizations don't cite their sources or have links to the original source.
On that same note, could that be why your family history gets rolled back? No doubt it would be frustrating to have a change you know is real get rolled back but it would make sense from an objective editorial standpoint. That said, I get why you wouldn't want to donate. I personally come from a long line of nobodies (and am proudly carrying on that tradition) so I will never have this problem!
Wikipedia/Wikimedia is worth hundreds of dollars per year to me. I occasionally throw $20 at them. It is a steal. I never asked myself if they have too much money or if they are using it "correctly".
The main donation page doesn't seem bad to me. Nowhere do they claim they are struggling or may go under. In fact, they say "thriving" and that a small donation will keep it thriving for years to come.
To those upset with them, what would you do? All of their other projects are about free information. Are people upset about wikidata or wikiversity exist? Should they have only done Wikipedia and stopped? Should they not ask for money until they are desperate and in a dire situation? Should they not use any marketing speak and say, "we have hundreds of millions of dollars but would like more please."
Comparing them to FAANG/MAMAA, it is no comparison at all. The value is great and pure: nice, fast, simple, useful interface. They don't have malware, ads, tracking scripts, popups, spam, or dark patterns. Unlike social media there is no envy/depression side effects. They don't try to get you addicted and gamify it. They don't push controversial news just to boost engagement. They respect your privacy, ublock origin has nothing to block on their site.
It seems like Wikimedia is getting hell on here for having very high standards and maybe not quite living up to people's expectations. Whereas the FAANGs have zero standards, don't respect users at all, are 100% profit driven (and already have vastly more money), but they are ok because... some reason.
This says he "commits" 10B to a new initiative named after himself. What do terms like "commits" and "pledges" mean? From the article it looks like all he did was post on Instagram.
Is there more to this than an IG post? Is there anything legally binding, anything that actually moves the money outside of his control? Did his networth just drop 10B?
