Notices by Jonathan Kamens 86 47 (jik@federate.social), page 4

#healthcare #elderCare #enshittification
My uncle had a doctor appointment scheduled for today. Because he's currently in rehab, the rehab was responsible for transporting him to/from the appointment.
The appointment was documented in the discharge notes the rehab was given by the hospital last week.
I reminded the rehab's "patient ambassador" about the appointment at least four separate times. She assured me that of course it would be taken care of. (1/5)

"Of course" when I visited my uncle today, the first thing I did was ask the nurses to confirm arrangements for the appointment had been made.
"Of course" they had no record of the appointment, and if I hadn't shown up and told them about it he would have missed it.
I emailed the patient ambassador told her what had happened and "When something like this happens it makes me feel I can't actually trust anything you tell me." (2/5)

She called me a few minutes later. The first thing she did was not to apologize for my uncle nearly missing his appointment, but rather to defend herself. "Well, I told the unit manager, so I don't know what happened." What the fuck good does that do me or my uncle? It doesn't matter whom you did or didn't tell. (3/5)

All that matters is that your organization failed to do its job. It's your job as "ambassador" to acknowledge that, accept responsibility, and say that you'll get to the bottom of it and ensure it doesn't happen again.
She literally said to me, "It's in his chart and he went to his appointment." Yes, as I said in my email, it's in his chart because I SHOWED UP AT THE REHAB IN PERSON AND GAVE THE APPOINTMENT INFO TO THE NURSES AND THEY ADDED IT TO HIS CHART. (4/5)

Then she said to me, "I don't know what happened but I will have the unit manager call you." No, I don't want you to pass the buck again and make me wait for days for a call that will probably never come. I want YOU to fucking apologize, take responsibility, and get to the bottom of it.
Fucking healthcare system in this country is shit. (5/5)

I mean, if my boss reminded me about an important deadline five times, and I assured him every time that it was taken care of, and then I blew through the deadline with no advance warning or explanation, and that happened repeatedly (and you KNOW this has happened repeatedly; it's inconceivable that my uncle just happens to be the one person whose appointment wasn't handled properly), I'd be fucking fired. Why is this level of incompetence tolerated from a company whose product is life-or-death?

Some #infosec bro in Israel just reached out to me cold on #LinkedIn and asked if I could spare 15 minutes to give him feedback about the product idea his new stealth startup is working on.
This is how I responded.
#politics #Israel #Gaza #WestBank #genocide

RE: https://mastodon.social/@Migueldeicaza/115713071946346627

Please, please, please don't rely on big tech to keep your data safe. They will carelessly cut you and laugh while you're bleeding.
#backup #dataSovereignty #Apple #bigTech #selfHosting

RE: https://federate.social/@jik/113675796112304164

It is time for my exciting annual #PSA: #GirlScoutCookies time is here! Time for all of you in the U.S. to buy delicious cookies and support a national treasure, the Girl Scouts of America.
If there's a Girl Scouts Store near you, you can stock up there. If you know a Scout, you can order cookies from them. You can find a nearby scheduled booth or buy online. Start at https://www.girlscouts.org/en/cookies/how-to-buy-cookies.html, then either pick a booth or click through to your local council to find out if they are selling online.

I am admiring the restraint of the reporting I'm seeing of Kohler's false security claims about their toilet-bowl camera. I can't understand how every headline isn't an END-to-end encryption joke. It's right there.
#infosec #Kohler

This is your periodic reminder that when posting a link of any sort you should include at least a sentence or two describing what it's about, because many fediverse apps (including e.g. the Mastodon web app) don't display useful previews for many types of links.
Be polite: don't make people click through the link just to find out whether they actually care about what's in it.
#fediquette #feditips

#TFW the hospital moves your uncle to a different room and changes his bedside phone number without telling you, even though you're his healthcare proxy and you're in contact with people from the hospital on a nearly daily basis, and you don't find out for like five days, when you finally figure out something's fishy and call the patient information line and ask what's going on.
#healthcare #caregiver

Sigh. Running errands, stop at a Walgreens, get back on the #motorcycle to leave, one of my uncle's doctors calls just as I'm about to press the starter, I take the call without turning off the bike, when I get off the call I've apparently drained my battery and the bike won't start.
Looks like I waited too long in the season to start connecting the battery tender when not riding.
Waiting for AAA to come give me a jump, then I'll just have to hope I don't stall on the way home.

More than an hour later, AAA truck still hasn't shown up, and I haven't even been notified they're en route. I called back AAA and they said they'd have the dispatcher call me. Ten minutes later, no call. In this time I could have taken the bus home, gotten my jump pack, and come back to the bike. Son of a bitch.
#AAA #motorcycle

The new battery for my #Garmin Forerunner 45 watch arrived today, and I'm about to attempt to install it. This could go anywhere from flawlessly to very badly. Wish me luck.
#DIY

What the actual fuck.
"I noticed that your record currently shows 'Do not email anything' but I'm emailing you anyway."
This was my reply:
--
Wow, this is embarrassing.

"I noticed that your record currently shows you've opted out of email updates ('Do not email anything')" and yet you emailed me anyway?

The lack of self-awareness is astounding.

"Do not email anything" means DO NOT EMAIL ANYTHING.

Sheesh.
--
Btw it's not actually the 35th anniversary of my graduation.
#spam #LeaveMeAlone #MIT

I don't post a lot about work here, because that's often a bad strategy (especially when your boss and one of your coworkers follow you 😉), but here's a huge shout-out to #4DMedical for the #kindness of sending me this gift box in acknowledgment of the difficult time my family is going through right now with my ailing uncle.
They even made the effort to make sure it was kosher. Truly above and beyond.
1/2

So, I've been wasting time on my phone with this silly little tube sorting game called "Kitchen Sorting" at GameSnacks (game at https://gamesnacks.com/games/757entlesmh4g).
I managed to solve all the game levels until 150 relatively quickly, but level 150 stumped me for DAYS. And I couldn't just skip it: you have to finish each level to be allowed to play the next one.
It finally pissed me off enough that I wrote a Python program to solve it. Two hours, 121 lines of code, and level 150 is done and dusted.
1/3

Remember: the only reason that makes sense why #ICE would deny clergy access to the #Broadview detention facility to minister to the detainees is because they believe the substantial bad press and messaging damage from publicly denying clergy access is less bad than the damage that would result from the clergy seeing inside the facility and telling people what they saw.
#politics #USPol #Chicago

The thing is, even if #Trump rolls back #tariffs, most companies that have raised prices because of the tariffs are not going to lower them back down, because we don't actually live in a real "free market" economy. The system is rigged, and #greedflation is the name of the game.
How do we know this? Because they raised prices during COVID and never lowered them afterward. This is no different.
So the damage is done, whether or not the tariffs go away.
#politics #capitalism #USPol #economics