We hear beeping sounds of monitoring devices; voices from the nearby nurse's station. The lighting is yellowish flourescent in the hallway for a sad, depressing atmosphere. It's a public hospital, so no one thought to have an interior designer make happy colors. The interior of the room is bright with white flouresent light.
POV: facing LAUREN, just inside doorway. She's just been crying and is still wearing her street clothes.
POV: LAUREN, looking into room.
ANDY has just been wheeled into the room with a major gun shot wound to the chest. The wound is covered by a washcloth and shows some blood, but not a lot. He's behind a curtain setup so only his lower body is clearly visible.
A NURSE (Asian female, early 30's) is facing away from us and is adjusting a piece of equipment.
A DOCTOR (White female, 40's) is facing away from us and illuminated behind the curtain. She's dictating into a tape recorder between probing ANDY's injuries: "Bleeding from perforation of the left thoracic cavity 8cm from center of sternum." Pause. "Fracture of the fourth thoracic rib." Pause. "Wound track and cavity visible. Left lung perforated approx. 4 cm from inner side." Long pause. "Laceration of the circumflex coronary artery. Fragment not found." Pauses tape. (To NURSE) "Get me the chest x-ray please." Starts tape and continues indistinctly.
Fade to black.
Fade back in. More people are in the room. An X-RAY TECHNICIAN (Black male, 30's) is wheeling out the x-ray machine. It's digital, so the results appear on a CRT monitor in the room. The DOCTOR and SURGEON (white male, 50 and graying) discuss the x-ray and gesture to parts of it. They are ignoring LAUREN, who is still standing in the doorway. Finally, DOCTOR comes over to LAUREN and removes her bloody gloves.
DOCTOR: Are you Mrs. Watters?
LAUREN: Yes.
DOCTOR: I'm going to explain what happened and what your options are.
LAUREN: (Bravely) ok.
Blood begins to drip onto the floor, which LAUREN doesn't notice but we do (center of frame between DOCTOR and LAUREN). NURSE puts absorbent towels onto the small pool that's forming.
DOCTOR: Your husband was shot in his chest area fairly close to his heart. The bleeding is serious and we're trying to stop it. The biggest problem is that the heart was injured and we can't repair it completely without stopping it.
NURSE comes up to both of them and stands there.
LAUREN: What does that mean?
DOCTOR: (ignoring her question) You have three options. The first option is for us to try open heart surgery. That is risky and means we have to stop the heart and use a heart-lung machine. The second option is for us to do what's called a "saline evacuation," which means we essentially put the body on ice for a couple of hours while we try to repair the heart. That's the most risky by far. The last option is for us to end treatment now.
LAUREN:...which one do you recommend?
DOCTOR: I'm afraid I can't tell you that.
LAUREN: (Confused) Why not? I have no idea which one I should do.
DOCTOR: Liability reasons. (To NURSE) Come get me when she chooses.
DOCTOR leaves the room, giving the impression of indifference to ANDY's condition and LAUREN's confusion.
NURSE: Ok Mrs. Watters, you need to decide what to do now.
LAUREN: (Confused) Well what did she mean by "put him on ice?"
NURSE: It's where we take out all his blood and replace it with icewater.
LAUREN: (Dumbfounded). Doesn't that mean he would die?
NURSE: Not exactly. It's a technique they did a few years ago to save wounded army people. The heart stops but everything stays preserved and then you can restart the heart after surgery.
LAUREN: Surgery?
NURSE: To repair whatever damage there is. Your husband has a cut in his heart and they can't do anything about it as long as the heart's beating
Re:Why do we measure things with money?
on
Star Wars Sickout
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· Score: 1
eh, 6 hours is cool. I remember when Episode 1 came out, there was a line at my local theater over 2 months in advance, and those guys would have failed except for that they had internet access and couches. That's all I'm saying.
Re:Why do we measure things with money?
on
Star Wars Sickout
·
· Score: 1
The trifecta of happiness, as it were, in many people's view is money, sex, and power. If you have two of those, it's easy to get the third, I'm told. So if you have sex and power, you don't need money, etc etc. Depending on your priorities, you may disagree but those who are influential seem to agree.
I'm thinking that people camping out for tickets to star wars have none of these three things. If they did, they would pay someone to get tickets for them or they wouldn't be worried about getting them. I'd like to be in that category.
[Strangelove's plan for post-nuclear war survival involves living underground with a 10:1 female-to-male ratio] General "Buck" Turgidson: Doctor, you mentioned the ratio of ten women to each man. Now, wouldn't that necessitate the abandonment of the so-called monogamous sexual relationship, I mean, as far as men were concerned? Dr. Strangelove: Regrettably, yes. But it is, you know, a sacrifice required for the future of the human race. I hasten to add that since each man will be required to do prodigious... service along these lines, the women will have to be selected for their sexual characteristics which will have to be of a highly stimulating nature. Ambassador de Sadesky: I must confess, you have an astonishingly good idea there, Doctor. [from Dr. Strangelove (1964)]
> Just curious, this Starbucks doesn't contain remarkably similar looking people to the one you are currently in? > >... but the other you is wearing a big cowboy hat?
> The best was the sound for winning a level it was a comical "Ahhhhh!" sound.
I always thought the sound was orgasmic, because the level exit gates were shaped like labia, which the player had to penetrate to go to the next level. The exit is at the bottom of this picture, but it's shown closed before killing all the enemies (cherry, anyone?).
Looks like all he has to do is install some GPS or map software and run it while he's driving. Not that your typical highway patrolman has even heard of the bill or exceptions...
The funny thing is, you're right! The O.C. is one symptom of Southern California's shift from being a defense manufacturing center to a solely entertainment-based economy (as explained by a professor of mine). We have these irrelevant characters playing people who are obsessed with status, money, and clothes rather than the things that matter in life: self-development, learning, and friendships.
As someone who went to college in southern california (UCLA '02), I have to say that The O.C. exaggerates only slightly the lives of the children of moderately wealthy parents living in Newport Beach. I've had a moderate amount of contact with people who grew up in Orange County. The great part is, these kids are often unmotivated and/or moronic so it's satisfying to have a sort of "revenge of the nerds" going on. Someone said the main character is a geek; the only reason he could be a geek is by being an outsider (I seem to recall he moved to the O.C. from somewhere more normal). It's not "normal" to be a geek in Orange County, is what the writers are telling us. Well whatever, the kids there go to USC and grow up to work in sales and marketing.
At the same time, there's something in most of us that likes to see people succeed in adversity. To me that explains why we have hero comic books and movies like Spider Man 2. I've concluded that there are several fundamentally different types of people, separated mainly by the differences in value they place on being "cool." I've long since accepted that I'm one of the ones who cares less about being cool. Of course, in the O.C. that's what matters. That's why I only spent 4 years in Southern California.
Hilarious. Do we think the network that runs "The O.C." had to pay for the chance to double its viewership in the 18 and under demographic, or is it a symbiotic relationship?
I would take the higher paying job, and not just because 2X or 3X is a lot of money. I'm not clear on who the higher-paying employer is, but you obviously impressed them with not only your programming experience but they like you personally as well. As a manager with technical experience you'll be deferred to all the time by those without technical experience-- which can be invaluable. You can take night classes on the side to finish the college degree and who knows, they may pay for you to go to business school. You're in a good position: an experienced developer ready to make the jump into managing projects rather than writing code directly. Not to mention you are young with plenty of career left, and that is why they want you (my apologies to our elders!) Best of all, you'll know what each person's skill set actually means and you'll be able to manage them effectively. E.g. "Ok you write me a module that does X. You over there, write me a module that does Y." And you'll understand both the trees and the forest, so to speak. I don't presume to be in the same position myself but in my side job I've started to appreciate how important technical expertise is before doing project management. Good luck.
> So can you also set up a cron job to clean the litter box?
No need for cron even-- just get Litter Robot, the self-cleaning robotic litterbox! It looks futuristic...oddly like one of those pods from 2001: A Space Odyssey. But does it run linux?
Naturally. It's like insurance, so if you really order a lot of items, you're subsidized by the vast majority who don't use up the whole $79. More importantly, they get your $79 _now_ and can use it for other purposes as you gradually deplete it with shipping costs, kind of like how the post office sells stamps:/. What's $79 x 250,000 interested users? Or think of it as an easy way to borrow money without going to a bank...
I know-- I didn't intend to confront her, I just wanted the evidence so someone could think about auditing her. She happened to be looking right when I starting taking pics so she got mad, go figure:/
That's true, which is why I didn't approach her or say anything to her until she got in my grill. Vigilantes by definition act outside the law. Vigilante action would be if I had slashed her tires, which would have been going too far. My point was nothing I did was illegal.
No one has the right to attack me for taking a picture. I don't care who they are or what I'm taking a photo of. Had someone attacked me, they would have gotten a lot more than they bargained for.
The exact phrase was "This f***ing b****." And if the 911 center had received a call saying "there's a guy taking pictures of my car!" they probably would have laughed.
> Would you have been happy if your picture was taken and shown to people as "watch out for this jerk, he abuses the disabled"? No?
As far as I know, that's what she's doing with the picture she took of me. I have no problem with her taking a photo of me, but I see a difference between -me posting a picture of her car along with a true account of what happened -and her putting the pic of me on the internet and saying I abuse the disabled, which is false.
I didn't think of the stalker dimension-- that is interesting. I wasn't trying to confront her either, it's just that she happened to be looking right when I started. But to be honest, it's not my problem if someone is offended that I take their picture in public. She's free to wear a mask or a Burkha (sp?)
Valid points, I know. I had been sitting in a restaurant waiting for my take-out when I saw her pull up and walk around normally. I happened to have my camera on me so I figured why not. I'm aware that not all disabilities are visible-- my intention was simply to photograph her car and not confront her for precisely the reasons you mentioned-- I suppose I just wanted to send the pics to the local parking placard abuse program so they could audit her. It did strike me that someone with a disability could have picked an easier vehicle to get into and out of. I didn't even see it as a big deal until she made it a big deal. I suppose there was even an ethnic dimension to it. One time a young Persian woman threatened to have someone kill me because I had her midsize Lexus SUV towed from my driveway. Ever since then I've been a little sensitive to the Persian mafia's various machinations, especially when I believe they are in the wrong. I'm just doing what I think is right. It's a fun story to tell also:-P
P.S. props to you on your own version of parking vigilantism-- that is original!
Slashdot Mirror
Interior, large hospital emergency room
...which one do you recommend?
We hear beeping sounds of monitoring devices; voices from the nearby nurse's station. The lighting is yellowish flourescent in the hallway for a sad, depressing atmosphere. It's a public hospital, so no one thought to have an interior designer make happy colors. The interior of the room is bright with white flouresent light.
POV: facing LAUREN, just inside doorway. She's just been crying and is still wearing her street clothes.
POV: LAUREN, looking into room.
ANDY has just been wheeled into the room with a major gun shot wound to the chest. The wound is covered by a washcloth and shows some blood, but not a lot. He's behind a curtain setup so only his lower body is clearly visible.
A NURSE (Asian female, early 30's) is facing away from us and is adjusting a piece of equipment.
A DOCTOR (White female, 40's) is facing away from us and illuminated behind the curtain. She's dictating into a tape recorder between probing ANDY's injuries: "Bleeding from perforation of the left thoracic cavity 8cm from center of sternum." Pause. "Fracture of the fourth thoracic rib." Pause. "Wound track and cavity visible. Left lung perforated approx. 4 cm from inner side." Long pause. "Laceration of the circumflex coronary artery. Fragment not found." Pauses tape. (To NURSE) "Get me the chest x-ray please." Starts tape and continues indistinctly.
Fade to black.
Fade back in. More people are in the room. An X-RAY TECHNICIAN (Black male, 30's) is wheeling out the x-ray machine. It's digital, so the results appear on a CRT monitor in the room. The DOCTOR and SURGEON (white male, 50 and graying) discuss the x-ray and gesture to parts of it. They are ignoring LAUREN, who is still standing in the doorway. Finally, DOCTOR comes over to LAUREN and removes her bloody gloves.
DOCTOR: Are you Mrs. Watters?
LAUREN: Yes.
DOCTOR: I'm going to explain what happened and what your options are.
LAUREN: (Bravely) ok.
Blood begins to drip onto the floor, which LAUREN doesn't notice but we do (center of frame between DOCTOR and LAUREN). NURSE puts absorbent towels onto the small pool that's forming.
DOCTOR: Your husband was shot in his chest area fairly close to his heart. The bleeding is serious and we're trying to stop it. The biggest problem is that the heart was injured and we can't repair it completely without stopping it.
NURSE comes up to both of them and stands there.
LAUREN: What does that mean?
DOCTOR: (ignoring her question) You have three options. The first option is for us to try open heart surgery. That is risky and means we have to stop the heart and use a heart-lung machine. The second option is for us to do what's called a "saline evacuation," which means we essentially put the body on ice for a couple of hours while we try to repair the heart. That's the most risky by far. The last option is for us to end treatment now.
LAUREN:
DOCTOR: I'm afraid I can't tell you that.
LAUREN: (Confused) Why not? I have no idea which one I should do.
DOCTOR: Liability reasons. (To NURSE) Come get me when she chooses.
DOCTOR leaves the room, giving the impression of indifference to ANDY's condition and LAUREN's confusion.
NURSE: Ok Mrs. Watters, you need to decide what to do now.
LAUREN: (Confused) Well what did she mean by "put him on ice?"
NURSE: It's where we take out all his blood and replace it with icewater.
LAUREN: (Dumbfounded). Doesn't that mean he would die?
NURSE: Not exactly. It's a technique they did a few years ago to save wounded army people. The heart stops but everything stays preserved and then you can restart the heart after surgery.
LAUREN: Surgery?
NURSE: To repair whatever damage there is. Your husband has a cut in his heart and they can't do anything about it as long as the heart's beating
This is the single most informative post I have ever read on Slashdot. Thank you.
Yet another successful prediction by The Onion!
eh, 6 hours is cool. I remember when Episode 1 came out, there was a line at my local theater over 2 months in advance, and those guys would have failed except for that they had internet access and couches. That's all I'm saying.
The trifecta of happiness, as it were, in many people's view is money, sex, and power. If you have two of those, it's easy to get the third, I'm told. So if you have sex and power, you don't need money, etc etc. Depending on your priorities, you may disagree but those who are influential seem to agree.
I'm thinking that people camping out for tickets to star wars have none of these three things. If they did, they would pay someone to get tickets for them or they wouldn't be worried about getting them. I'd like to be in that category.
[Strangelove's plan for post-nuclear war survival involves living underground with a 10:1 female-to-male ratio]
General "Buck" Turgidson: Doctor, you mentioned the ratio of ten women to each man. Now, wouldn't that necessitate the abandonment of the so-called monogamous sexual relationship, I mean, as far as men were concerned?
Dr. Strangelove: Regrettably, yes. But it is, you know, a sacrifice required for the future of the human race. I hasten to add that since each man will be required to do prodigious... service along these lines, the women will have to be selected for their sexual characteristics which will have to be of a highly stimulating nature.
Ambassador de Sadesky: I must confess, you have an astonishingly good idea there, Doctor.
[from Dr. Strangelove (1964)]
> Just curious, this Starbucks doesn't contain remarkably similar looking people to the one you are currently in?
>
>... but the other you is wearing a big cowboy hat?
Or worse, the the other you is invisible...
> The best was the sound for winning a level it was a comical "Ahhhhh!" sound.
I always thought the sound was orgasmic, because the level exit gates were shaped like labia, which the player had to penetrate to go to the next level. The exit is at the bottom of this picture, but it's shown closed before killing all the enemies (cherry, anyone?).
Looks like all he has to do is install some GPS or map software and run it while he's driving. Not that your typical highway patrolman has even heard of the bill or exceptions...
The funny thing is, you're right! The O.C. is one symptom of Southern California's shift from being a defense manufacturing center to a solely entertainment-based economy (as explained by a professor of mine). We have these irrelevant characters playing people who are obsessed with status, money, and clothes rather than the things that matter in life: self-development, learning, and friendships.
As someone who went to college in southern california (UCLA '02), I have to say that The O.C. exaggerates only slightly the lives of the children of moderately wealthy parents living in Newport Beach. I've had a moderate amount of contact with people who grew up in Orange County. The great part is, these kids are often unmotivated and/or moronic so it's satisfying to have a sort of "revenge of the nerds" going on. Someone said the main character is a geek; the only reason he could be a geek is by being an outsider (I seem to recall he moved to the O.C. from somewhere more normal). It's not "normal" to be a geek in Orange County, is what the writers are telling us. Well whatever, the kids there go to USC and grow up to work in sales and marketing.
At the same time, there's something in most of us that likes to see people succeed in adversity. To me that explains why we have hero comic books and movies like Spider Man 2. I've concluded that there are several fundamentally different types of people, separated mainly by the differences in value they place on being "cool." I've long since accepted that I'm one of the ones who cares less about being cool. Of course, in the O.C. that's what matters. That's why I only spent 4 years in Southern California.
Hilarious. Do we think the network that runs "The O.C." had to pay for the chance to double its viewership in the 18 and under demographic, or is it a symbiotic relationship?
I would take the higher paying job, and not just because 2X or 3X is a lot of money. I'm not clear on who the higher-paying employer is, but you obviously impressed them with not only your programming experience but they like you personally as well. As a manager with technical experience you'll be deferred to all the time by those without technical experience-- which can be invaluable. You can take night classes on the side to finish the college degree and who knows, they may pay for you to go to business school. You're in a good position: an experienced developer ready to make the jump into managing projects rather than writing code directly. Not to mention you are young with plenty of career left, and that is why they want you (my apologies to our elders!) Best of all, you'll know what each person's skill set actually means and you'll be able to manage them effectively. E.g. "Ok you write me a module that does X. You over there, write me a module that does Y." And you'll understand both the trees and the forest, so to speak. I don't presume to be in the same position myself but in my side job I've started to appreciate how important technical expertise is before doing project management. Good luck.
> This is just another instance of "hot coffee; do not spill!" and it truly saddens me to know that some people actually have to be told these things.
McDonald's purposely kept its coffee at 185 degrees, which is a lot higher than the homebrew temperature of about 140 degrees-- high enough to produce third degree burns, despite having received hundreds of complaints and injury reports and knowing that the temperature was likely to cause injury to the purchasers, just so they could save money on their electric bill. Admittedly the true.com label is stupid, but there _are_ some things people can't figure out themselves until it's too late. Considering that McDonald's only paid $600,000 for that one case, I'd say they did o.k.
> So can you also set up a cron job to clean the litter box?
No need for cron even-- just get Litter Robot, the self-cleaning robotic litterbox! It looks futuristic...oddly like one of those pods from 2001: A Space Odyssey. But does it run linux?
That should narrow things down somewhat!
> Would the author let her walk SF's Tenderloin after dark in a halter, leather mini & fishnets?
:-)
Have you read any of Mark Morford's other columns?
> Is there any money to be made in this for them?
:/. What's $79 x 250,000 interested users? Or think of it as an easy way to borrow money without going to a bank...
Naturally. It's like insurance, so if you really order a lot of items, you're subsidized by the vast majority who don't use up the whole $79. More importantly, they get your $79 _now_ and can use it for other purposes as you gradually deplete it with shipping costs, kind of like how the post office sells stamps
I know-- I didn't intend to confront her, I just wanted the evidence so someone could think about auditing her. She happened to be looking right when I starting taking pics so she got mad, go figure :/
> You have no idea why she had the placard,
That's true, which is why I didn't approach her or say anything to her until she got in my grill. Vigilantes by definition act outside the law. Vigilante action would be if I had slashed her tires, which would have been going too far. My point was nothing I did was illegal.
No one has the right to attack me for taking a picture. I don't care who they are or what I'm taking a photo of. Had someone attacked me, they would have gotten a lot more than they bargained for.
The exact phrase was "This f***ing b****." And if the 911 center had received a call saying "there's a guy taking pictures of my car!" they probably would have laughed.
> Would you have been happy if your picture was taken and shown to people as "watch out for this jerk, he abuses the disabled"? No?
As far as I know, that's what she's doing with the picture she took of me. I have no problem with her taking a photo of me, but I see a difference between -me posting a picture of her car along with a true account of what happened -and her putting the pic of me on the internet and saying I abuse the disabled, which is false.
The exact words were "This f***ing b****," which seems a lot less harsh to me, but that's just me.
I didn't think of the stalker dimension-- that is interesting. I wasn't trying to confront her either, it's just that she happened to be looking right when I started. But to be honest, it's not my problem if someone is offended that I take their picture in public. She's free to wear a mask or a Burkha (sp?)
Valid points, I know. I had been sitting in a restaurant waiting for my take-out when I saw her pull up and walk around normally. I happened to have my camera on me so I figured why not. I'm aware that not all disabilities are visible-- my intention was simply to photograph her car and not confront her for precisely the reasons you mentioned-- I suppose I just wanted to send the pics to the local parking placard abuse program so they could audit her. It did strike me that someone with a disability could have picked an easier vehicle to get into and out of. I didn't even see it as a big deal until she made it a big deal. I suppose there was even an ethnic dimension to it. One time a young Persian woman threatened to have someone kill me because I had her midsize Lexus SUV towed from my driveway. Ever since then I've been a little sensitive to the Persian mafia's various machinations, especially when I believe they are in the wrong. I'm just doing what I think is right. It's a fun story to tell also :-P
P.S. props to you on your own version of parking vigilantism-- that is original!