#he was meant to be a healthcare tool

[tentaclecats]

rewatching big hero 6 rn because im babysitting a toddler (no excuse, i would be anyway) and im honestly upset because TADASHI NEVER WANTED BAYMAX TO BE USED AS A HERO. i know this is common knowledge and its theme of the movie how hiro was going against baymax's coding and healthcare routine, but its so much worse than that!!!! baymax wasn't invented specifically FOR HIRO. he was MEANT to be a public healthcare assistant!!? he was SUPPOSED to be mass produced, and help in doctors offices, and be a PUBLIC TOOL TO HELP PEOPLE. baymax was supposed to revolutionize modern medicine. but hiro is keeping him to himself. misusing his technology. i think tadashi would be proud of him anyway, but that's because tadashi is a good person and a good older brother, not because hiro is doing the right thing and preserving tadashi's legacy

[odinsblog]

Can we please get something straight here??

Mitch McConnell has supported Donald Trump and will support him again if Trump wins the Republican nomination. I have never supported Trump and I never will.

Mitch McConnell has been a willing tool of the NRA and helped pass countless stand-your-ground laws, he has helped pave the way for laws like permitless carry, and he has helped make guns easier for anyone to get. I have not.

Mitch McConnell has helped pass laws that intentionally suppress the votes of millions and millions Black people. I have not.

Mitch McConnell has helped write or pass laws that deny millions of women access to reproductive health care. I have not.

Mitch McConnell has helped write or pass laws that deny basic healthcare and living wages to millions of poor people. I have not.

I AM NOW AND I WILL ALWAYS BE BETTER than Mitch McConnell and Republicans, because my wishes do not have any material impact on anyone, unlike the myriad of hateful draconian laws that Mitch McConnell has helped to pass.

I could continue, but hopefully I’ve made my point: people sending Mitch McConnell “ill wishes” IS NOT being “just the same” as Mitch McConnell and Republicans, and it doesn’t make anyone “as bad as” McConnell and the GOP.

Are you fucking kidding me??

Saying that my wishes = McConnell’s actions is a false equivalence. It’s false, it’s offensive and it’s gaslighting.

Mitch McConnell is an elected politician who has a very long history of using his political power to actively harm the poor, marginalized communities, women, LGBTQ people, and non-Christian, non-white people. If you cannot differentiate between the words and the unenforceable “wishes” of the oppressed vs. the actions of an oppressor, then you have some serious problems to unpack.

I could ~almost~ see it if there was some chance that a Republican would go, “Oh wow, those progressives are being nice to Mitch McConnell, maybe I’ll stop being a racist and vote for a Democrat now.” But that almost never ever happens, does it??

You are not going to win over a Republican by being kind. Their entire ideology is based on racism, misogyny, homophobia, transphobia, and cruelty.

Look, I’m not tryna write a dissertation here, but please believe me when I say that this neoliberal knee jerk Pollyanna reaction of, “turn the other cheek” and “be kinder to your oppressors” is very much rooted in Christofascism + white supremacy. It’s a weaponization of the “hate breeds hate” trope and the “forgiveness narrative” meant to tame slaves, and I refuse to fall for it.

I absolutely positively do not wish Mitch McConnell well, and HELL NO, I am not being a bad person for hoping that a racist, evil, old white man suffers a fraction of the pain he has inflicted on others for decades and decades.

I am a proud member of the #MitchMcConnellDieChallenge community.

That all said, at the very least, Mitch McConnell has unintentionally provided us with a teachable moment: please learn to spot the warning signs of someone having a stroke

[moodymisty]

In one of the Lorgar fanfics you wrote it was mentioned how the reader recently found out she was pregnant with Lorgar’s child… Now why don’t we combine that with the temporary wife steal idea?

The only reason He stopped hurting you was because of the later stages of your pregnancy, He didn’t care for the child, it was just that you were supposed to be brought back (relatively) unharmed. Honestly He was surprised that His son even had the ability to make one in the first place. He especially didn’t care for it after He found out it was going to be a girl (not His offspring, not His problem). Plus, it meant that there was one less problem causing tool child for Him to deal with.

When your nine months are over and your child is born (with the help of the best healthcare in the galaxy. honestly Lorgar should be thankful to Him for providing you with that) the Emperor demands to hold her, to always be around her. He would’ve straight up named her if you didn’t constantly insist that Lorgar wished to be the one to choose it (and you always say it’s what Lorgar wants, because He’ll never take what you want into account).

But still, you can’t object to Him carrying her around the palace, gently holding her tiny form in his arms. He’s The Emperor, He’s her grandfather. He’s allowed to do whatever He wishes, and you’re left with the abysmally low bar of being glad that He decided to let her live. He promises to return you and her to Lorgar (you as agreed upon, and her as an extra gift). You really hope He truly means what He says to you, because you can’t handle seeing Him sing her centuries old lullabies, kissing her tiny forehead and softly cooing at her like He’s her father, like He has any right to act like he could ever be her father.

Emperor Of Mankind unhinged father in law arc when.

this is unhinged, i love it. I also love how when these random plotlines take off all of you guys clearly have super specific headcanons and ideas that you all throw into my askbox and i think it's super cute how we all build off of eachother. I dunno i just had to say i think it's sweet

And you know damn well Emps would hold the fact that he made sure his child was birthed ok over Lorgar, referring to perhaps Lorgar's homeworld's lack of top of the line medical care. He provided that for her, and for that lorgar should thank him.

Also what would hurt of this even worth is if neither or at least Lorgar didn’t know that you were pregnant at the time, and that it's a horrifying surprise for Lorgar when Emps tells him you had his child. Because you know he would take away that sort of intimate moment that Lorgar would find so dear from both of you.

Lorgar is fuming because you had to deal with all that alone, as well as he never got those moments to do what a good husband does for his pregnant wife, he wasn't there say that first hello, meanwhile Emps is just carrying her around not giving a shit.

[greenwood106-blog]

Memories Live On

December 7th is quite possibly the strangest day of the year for me. As you may have read in my previous posts, July 20th is right up there, but I think this one still holds the title.

I saw flags everywhere at half staff, remembering one of the darkest days in this country's history. The attack on Pearl Harbor was brutal, calculated, and so deadly, taking 2,390 American lives and tormenting countless others for years to come.

I worked in healthcare for over 30 years, 20 of those for a home healthcare agency. One of the many memorable moments in that time was when I filled in for a caregiver to help a gentleman do some shopping as he was blind. When I pulled up into his driveway, there's no way I could have been prepared for who I was about to meet.

This gentleman served in the military and was stationed in Pearl Harbor on December 7th, 1941. We discussed the events of that day while we did his shopping, and he told me about having to jump off the deck into the water and then having to swim through the dead bodies to shore. Hearing about this event from him was more informative than any book or video or movie I could have ever seen.

Like many of the surviving men that day, this guy was still in the service 3 years later when the door to his "U" boat slammed down and he charged toward the beaches at Normandy. I was simply in awe.

We finished shopping somehow, and when I was done helping him unload his groceries, he said he really appreciated the help. I chuckled and told him it paled next to his help, and headed out to try and wrap my mind around surviving both of those events.

While my Grandmother was still with us, she would occasionally joke that the Japanese weren't the only ones that dropped bombs that day. You see, my father was born on the same day.

He lived an eventful life for sure, fathering 5 sons, adopting a daughter, and impacting countless lives before he left us in July 2007. Countless memories, good and bad, flood my mind (as feeble as it can be), and like happens too often these days I laugh and cry in memory.

As a little kid, my memories are of World Series games in Oakland followed by the parades, of sitting on the sky cycle of Evel Knievel, and enjoying our "Reggie" candy bars while we wrote with our "Reggie" pens (don't ask me where they ended up). My love of baseball was born during this time and it's still raging today.

My father was a custom painter/pinstriper who did incredible work despite having his fingers chopped short by a tool press accident. He was the type of guy you would take high dollar customs to in order to finish them off just right. His work was in shows all over, and his love of the arts still lives in us.

Like so many people, my parents divorced when I was young. They both remarried, with my mom taking us and relocating to Phoenix in 1977. This meant that there would be summer trips where my brother and I would go and stay with our father and his new wife for a couple weeks. We had a blast, year after year.

As I became a teenager and then a young adult, my stupidity created a gap in our relationship. I blamed him for all my shortcomings and basically tuned him out. I visited for the last time in 1993. There would be random contacts after that, but I think the last was around 1999 or 2000.

I remember the call I got to tell me he had passed away. It was such a weird feeling, like an old friend you were close with in high school, but hadn't talked to since you graduated. I felt bad for my brothers and sister, but it wasn't until after I had gone to California to go to my brother's wedding that it hit me.

The older I get, the more times I think it would be nice to chat with him and share stories, looking back and laughing at our amusing lives.

Happy Birthday Pop!!

[butchdomesticwhore]

As far as I can tell, this person being a provider wasn't a tool they used while talking to the AG about this billing issue. I have yet to talk to the AG about a medical billing issue, but I have otherwise said much of the same that OP describes while discussing billing with hospital reps, their billing departments, my insurance company, and my insurance company's appeal department, and seen success. It may have taken a couple tries and a stupid amount of phone calls, but it still worked. I learned how to how to do this kind of thing not from this post, but rather a few internet articles, the experience of a few friends, and the advice of yes, another medical provider (though in this case, IRL.) If I had seen this post back then, it would have helped me navigate healthcare efficiently sooner, so certainly I am biased in its favor. However.

What's important here I think is not the bit where the OP is a medical provider, but rather the bit where the OP is a medical provider and is therefore familiar with how the billing rules work and is able to give you an inside scoop on what your options are. Which is to say that like--this actually is the truth, man, it's not a restricted possibility for only the medically-licensed.

I now work in healthcare in a customer service/tech-y position, and while I'm very unqualified to give out any kind of medical advice, something that I now know a lot about is stuff related to transferring patients, setting up surgeries or emergency interventions, getting doctors to agree to take on a pt's case, how to get a patient into a hospital sooner and what would work and what wouldn't, etc. I don't have insider approval to make anything happen, I just know the rules of why something would or wouldn't happen. (i.e. why was it decided that you needed to go to a different hospital, why did a doctor refuse to operate on you, etc.)

And you could say, "Well that would only work for you because you work in healthcare!" But no one's checking my badge and scanning it to make sure it's legit before they interact with me. When knowing some healthcare stuff changes how I talk to my doctor and what questions or help I ask for at an appt, my doc doesn't ask for my employee ID # before we can proceed. I've learned some of these tricks and silly but vital details because of how I've seen things work out at my job. OP is just trying to tell you about what some of the rules are, man. I could give examples of times where my knowing about x, y, z healthcare thing meant I could help a friend figure out how to get their insurance to cover something, or which ER to go to, or how to get their mom transferred to the hospital they really want or something, but I feel like that's just too much talking & probably not that helpful.

Basically, apologies for rambling and thank you for your patience/attention, but what I'm trying to say is--when I got mad here because of that other person's quip about the evils of American healthcare, it wasn't because I disagreed with anyone on that or thought different but because--if OP is a provider, then yeah they're probably qualified to tell you about this rule with the AG because they see it come up all the time.

For ex., thinking about a situation I saw the other day where pt needed an emergency surgery but was refusing, concern was that pt might die due to blood loss if he didn't get it, etc., etc. Eventually it was found out that pt was refusing due to insufficient translation and explanation (there was a language barrier), and pt thought he was fine and everyone was over-reacting. They had to go over his lab results and CT scans with him again to try and explain what was going wrong with him & what the dangers were if he didn't get surgery STAT.

But like OP points out, if pt had been given unreasonable, unnecessary, or unwanted treatment, then yeah, being able to say "I wasn't asked for consent before this happened, I never asked for this or wanted it" would be critical in avoiding a bill and/or getting justice for whatever happened to you. The AG is important here because they're a legal authority with more power than any one pt and their family. The AG could cause problems for a hospital in a way that your average person could not, so when the AG comes a-knocking, it's important that a hospital proves it's acting legally and fairly and not doing anything they shouldn't lest, you know, said hospital gets heavily fined, sued, shut down or otherwise punished, etc. Which, in this case, knowing that a hospital could be the one in the wrong for giving you a treatment you didn't consent to would be vital for helping protect yourself and/or, say, getting more back-up from the AG.

For ex., let's say that with the pt I mentioned he was terminally ill and had been in pain for a long time, and maybe surgery would help him prolong his life but life was so miserable for him that he was okay with passing on. Maybe the things that would become harder for him post-op were something he didn't want to go through life with. This could be a reason he might refuse surgery. Knowing stuff like "I can report this hospital to the AG for operating on me without my informed consent," would be the kind of thing that could successfully get this guy out of a $20k+ hospital bill after the fact, stop billing departments from hounding him because actually, they're the ones in legal trouble now, etc. Poor people rights, man. Don't let a doctor or hospital charge you for stuff you didn't want.

Not sure how useful this is. Saying it with the hope that this is helpful in some way to you and hopefully not coming off patronizing or egotistical in some way. Apologies if this all felt like unnecessary/useless rambling.

Ok so my kid had an ear infection, right? As kids often do.

The doctor scraped out a bit of earwax to have a better look inside.

I was sent a bill for $200 PER EAR for this 5 second procedure which I did not give permission for them to do.

That was key- they did not ASK me if they could do this "procedure". And, as I OWN a medical practice (it's me. The medical practice is me, sitting in my house on video calls) I knew to call them when this bill came in to be like "You did not obtain informed consent for this procedure, and it was not en emergency procedure. You had full ability to gain my consent and didn't. I'm not paying."

And the massive hospital who owned the bill said "yuh-huh you do have to pay."

And I said "I own a practice. I know these laws. I do not owe you money for this."

And they conducted an "internal review" and SURPRISE! Decided I totally owed them money and they had never done anything wrong ever.

And so I called my state's Attorney General office, and explained the situation because, as I mentioned, I know the law. The AG got in touch within a couple days to say they were taking the case and would send the massive hospital conglomerate a knock it off, guys letter.

Lo and Behold, today I have a letter where said hospital graciously has agreed to forfeit the payment.

"How not to get screwed over by companies" should be part of civics class.

Know your rights and know who to call when they're infringed on. This whole process cost me $0 and honestly less effort than I would have expected.

May this knowledge find its way to someone else who can use it.

[nickanderdson]

Mohammad Alothman on How AI Usage Challenges Modern Networks

Progress in artificial intelligence is transforming industries and daily life, but at an unmet heavy price: overhauling the "plumbing" on which AI systems depend. Ratcheting up AI chatbots, agents, and communications between machines strains data centers and underpinning networking infrastructure to their limits. 

A new challenge demands both innovative solutions and strategic investment in network capacity.

Mohammad Alothman, the founder and CEO of AI Tech Solutions, shares his expert opinion on this topic, breaking it down and making it easier to understand. 

The Burden on Networking Infrastructure

As AI usage speeds up, it is bound to produce gigantic amounts of data traffic. Industry expert Mohammad Alothman stresses that the data explosion results not just from the transactions between humans and AI but also from the astronomical growth in AI-to-AI communications. Machine-to-machine communication, although vital for the efficiency of AI, causes a tremendous strain on network infrastructure.

Networking, often viewed as the "plumbing" of data systems, enables data to move around both within and between data centers and internet-connected devices. Still, none of this infrastructure has been built with scale or complexity in mind for AI-powered workloads. According to Chris Sharp, CTO at Digital Realty, AI traffic is about to be not just unprecedented but grossly fundamental enough to demand changes in networking systems.

The Need for Improved Networking Solutions

Mohammad Alothman explains that AI workloads are unlike other applications in the level of demands they require. Unlike typical applications, AI systems need low-latency and high-bandwidth networking to process large amounts of data in real-time. AI Tech Solutions is a company that is intimately involved in monitoring AI trend engagements and observes that the move to AI-first in such industries as finance and healthcare has further accelerated the demand for innovative networking solutions.

Market trends reflect this urgency. The global data center networking market, which stands at $34.61 billion today, is estimated to grow to as high as $118.94 billion in 2033, according to Straits Research. 

Such specific technologies, such as data center switches, which do routing of traffic, and back-end switches, which connect AI chips, will probably see superhuman growth. BNP Paribas predicts that sales of back-end switches could quadruple in the next few years, underscoring the scale of the opportunity.

Innovations in Networking Technology

Industry leaders like Nvidia and Cisco are at the forefront of addressing these hurdles. Nvidia has introduced special data center switches, which are meant to handle unique demands in AI workloads. Infrastructure demand is credited to Cisco's steadiness despite its drop in quarterly revenue.

According to Mohammad Alothman, this technology advancement is not only about increasing its capacity but also about increasing its efficiency. "AI workloads require precision and speed," he explains. "The industry must focus on solutions reducing bottlenecks and ensuring seamless data flow."

AI Tech Solutions also boasts that their research shows an increasing interest in software-defined networking (SDN) and AI-driven network management tools. These technologies enable networks to adapt dynamically to changing workloads, optimizing performance and reducing latency.

The Economic Implications

The investment in upgraded AI networking infrastructure is not just a technological necessity but rather an economic opportunity. According to International Data Corp., spending on AI data center switches worldwide will surge from $127.2 million this year to $1 billion by 2027. This is indicative of a growing understanding of networking as a vital enabler of AI innovation.

Mohammad Alothman highlights that this shift will have ripple effects across industries. Enhanced networking capabilities will enable faster deployment of AI solutions, improving productivity and driving cost savings. However, he also cautions that the cost of these upgrades could be a barrier for smaller organizations, underscoring the need for scalable and affordable solutions.

Case Studies: Industries Adopting AI-First Networking

Upgraded networking has become one example of a transformation the financial sector could potentially undergo. Teachers Insurance and Annuity Association of America (TIAA) recently upgraded its networks to support its AI-first strategy. According to Sastry Durvasula, Chief Operating, Information, and Digital Officer at TIAA, such upgrades are needed because the nature of AI workloads requires them.

AI Tech Solutions witnessed similar trends in healthcare, where ultra-reliable networks are needed for AI-driven diagnostics and treatment planning. The improvement in patient outcomes and reduced costs on operations do demonstrate the further benefits of robust networking infrastructure.

Challenges and the Road Ahead

Where the opportunities are significant, overcoming the challenges of upgrading networking infrastructure is no small feat. One major impediment cited by Mohammad Alothman is that organization budgets are typically limited. Partnerships and collaborative investments could help mitigate such costs and allow more users to adopt advanced networking technologies.

Another challenge involves the difficulty of integrating new technologies with an existing platform. AI Tech Solutions points out that most organizations find it difficult to achieve compatibility and attract requisite skills for managing transitions. The inability to address the skills gap will undoubtedly become a critical success factor for networking upgrades.

The Role of Policy and Regulation

Policy and regulation are key influencers of the near future regarding AI networking. Governments and regulatory bodies have to develop a framework that promotes innovation while staying secure about data security and privacy. Mohammad Alothman recognizes the urgent need for a balanced approach that does not compromise between scientific progress and ideological considerations.

Echoing the same view, AI Tech Solutions advocates strong cooperation between key players in the industry as well as policymakers; they can take steps to develop rules that foster sustainable development and resolve issues that are unique to AI-driven networking.

Conclusion

The rise of AI is revolutionizing industries, but it also exposes the limitations of existing networking infrastructure. As Mohammad Alothman aptly puts it, "AI’s potential can only be fully realized if its plumbing is robust enough to support the flow."

AI workloads require significant investments in upgraded networking technologies. Players such as Nvidia, Cisco, and AI Tech Solutions are revolutionizing technologies to ensure that data is transmitted and processed with innovative delivery speed, promise, and difference.

Of course, though the journey will be challenging. There are challenges such as cost, integration, and regulatory issues that need an all-round concerted effort on multiple fronts. With these steps, we might create a platform for the future of more disruptive potential from AI, underpinned by a resilient and efficient network infrastructure.

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[etruatcaelum]

JAX ASTURIAS

PHYSICAL

Of average height and athletic build. Olive complexion. Black hair, shoulder-length, usually in a topknot. Thin face. Deep bags under dark mauve eyes. Small birthmark, shaped like a crown, on the inside of his right wrist.

Jax is a faunus: his feet are those of an addax, with dark cloven hooves and light, sandy fur from his ankles down.

STYLE

Blue and silver—colors of the ancient Vacuan royal crest. Eschews any and all "modern" or "foreign" dress, very narrowly defined; this includes traditional Vacuan styles he deems to have been corrupted in some way by foreign influence or inspiration, and garments produced by machines. (The ample archaeological evidence indicating that konurgy was a widespread practice in the old kingdom of Vacuo, long before its conquest, matters to him not at all. He is a fanatic.)

On the streets of Vacuo, he appears ordinary if a little old-fashioned for a man in his early twenties: thobes are timeless and practical, although few of his generation concern themselves much with tradition when it comes to the details.

Because of his hooves, he prefers to go barefoot.

SELENE

His weapon is a kopis sword, which Jax forged himself during his years at Shade Academy. Though simple, lacking any of the tricks and transformations popular with modern huntsman, Selene is well-made and, in Jax's hands, quite deadly.

AURA

Bright blue—like a swimming pool.

The twins' mother, Luna, suffered from a rare autoimmune disorder known as Corbeau's Disease, wherein the body's immune system attacks aura-saturated tissue; in other words, Corbeau's patients are essentially allergic to their own auras and cannot amplify without becoming ill. For those with severe cases, merely experiencing strong emotion—which stirs the aura—can trigger flare-ups.

Corbeau's is lifelong, but manageable if diagnosed early and properly treated. However, its rarity together with the rather decrepit state of Vacuo's healthcare system meant that for most of Luna's life, as far as she knew, she was just a little more fragile, more prone to sickness than most. She was no huntress and no trained auralerist; and so her condition went undetected...

...until she became pregnant about a year after marrying Finn Asturias. The hormonal and auraleric changes associated with pregnancy resulted in a severe flare-up, and Luna grew very sick very swiftly—in time, sick enough for her to to defy Finn's suspicion of modern medicine and go to a clinic. She was diagnosed and stabilized, although her health never quite recovered; in the end, labor complications required that the twins be delivered surgically, despite the major risks involved in surgery for Corbeau's patients.

Luna died during the procedure. The twins survived, and within the hour the attending physician had diagnosed Jax with Corbeau's. Finn, who had long viewed the medical profession as a fraudulent, dogmatic tool of covert Atlesian imperialism and regarded Luna's medical team as her murderers, ignored this and burnt the packet of medical advice and treatment recommendations the hospital had provided the moment he brought the twins home.

Several years later, when Gillian discovered her semblance—the ability to siphon aura from other living things—Finn came to believe that his daughter had manifested this ability in the womb and fed upon Luna's and Jax's auras. This explanation became the family's reality for years, until Gillian happened to stumble across a blog written by another Corbeau's patient living in Mistral. Recognizing eerie similarities between the symptoms this person described and her brother's mysterious fragility, Gill pushed aside her reservations about outsiders and reached out; the twins were eleven at the time, and over the course of the next two years, she pieced together the real story.

The first-line treatment for Corbeau's is a combination of medication and auraleric therapies that aim to alter the natural wavelength of the patient's aura, as people with Corbeau's are often only reactive to their own auraleric signature. Upon learning this, Gillian hit upon the idea of using her semblance to swap auras with Jax: she drains his, and passes her own back to him.

Doing so almost completely eliminates his symptoms, although it also makes Jax physically dependent on his sister; he cannot get further than a few miles away from her without disrupting the link formed by her semblance, and the physical shock of their auras snapping back would certainly make him very sick, and might outright kill him. Still, they both agreed it was a marked improvement over the painful frailty he had suffered in childhood, and made a pact never to abandon each other—no matter what.

SEMBLANCE

Jax has never registered his semblance, but he privately—and somewhat sarcastically—describes it as heteroamnesistic manipulation: if he touches someone while that person looks into his eyes, he can induce a trance-like state which allows him to manipulate their memory.

Before the Dawn depicts his semblance as being tantamount to outright, nigh-absolute mind control; however, this does not make sense to me given its basis in the distortion and falsification of memory, so I'm taking it in a different direction. Jax cannot fundamentally change a person's mind or the way they think, nor can he wholly fabricate and rewrite an individual's history to plunge them into an alternate reality in which they're a fanatic devoted to his cause, as he does in the book.

He can induce false memories, as well as cause people to forget or misremember the details of their real memories, although he isn't powerful enough to wholesale erase memories.

In the broader sense, what he can do—what Jax mainly uses his semblance to do—is radicalize people. If a person is already sympathetic to his cause, he can sway them to offer more active support, and he can very easily fire up supporters into devout, even rabid loyalists. Likewise, if someone disagrees with him, he can push that feeling to irrational extremes—and thus, cause his opponents to appear like hysterical fools.

His semblance is most effective on those who hold deep convictions or feel strongly about whatever cause or belief he's trying to influence. If a person is inclined to neutrality or indifference, Jax might sway them in his favor, but only for a short while. Someone who values careful deliberation, critical thinking, consideration of opposing viewpoints, and so forth, will similarly be better equipped to resist his manipulation.

Because Jax relies on his sister's aura to use his semblance, Gillian is completely unaffected by it.

HISTORY

The Asturias family has long claimed descent from Malik the Sunderer, the legendary—quite possibly, outright mythical—first king of Vacuo, said to have founded the nation during the Third Era, several thousand years ago. This claim is founded on mythical accounts of a "kingly mark" upon Malik's brow, which the family takes to be a crown-shaped birthmark: the very birthmark they allege to have been inherited by the first-born of every generation of Asturiases since time immemorial, to mark the kingdom's rightful ruler.

Of course, there is no real proof, and the modern-day Vacuan Federation has no need for kings. Nevertheless, Finn Asturias believed in the family myth so fervently that he went as far as to brand his infant daughter—the stronger, healthier twin—with the mark, on the opposite wrist from her brother's natural birthmark. He raised them both to believe it, too, although only Jax believed with the same fervor.

To Jax, the idea that he was of royal blood—that he had been destined to rule Vacuo—offered an escape from his miserable childhood reality: frail, sickly, weak. Despite Finn's belief that Gillian had caused Luna's death and her brother's sickness, their father held to certain attitudes, typical of Vacuo's post-war urban zeitgeist, extolling the ideals of physical strength, harsh individualism, and survival of the fittest. Gillian was his golden child, and he never hid his disdain for his son's fragility.

Jax, therefore, spent his youth lost in fantasies of becoming strong; dreams which developed over time into more elaborate fantasies of claiming his royal birthright and ushering in a wonderful new era of Vacuan power and prosperity. Once he and Gillian began swapping auras, these fantasies—which seemed, suddenly, so possible—gradually became an all-consuming obsession.

While Gillian had little in the way of personal ambition, she cherished her brother and believed, as he did, that Vacuo had lost more than it gained from signing the Vytal Accords and entering into a global partnership with the very kingdoms that had once conquered it, bled it dry, and crushed its people underfoot. It was her idea to enroll in Shade Academy in order to train and find like-minded people with whom they could ally—although she imagined they would champion popular reform, at the time, while Jax was already daydreaming of revolution.

They were placed together, alongside Rosa Schwein and Argento Pocoron: Team GRAJ, pronounced "Gray-Jay." Gillian adapted to living outside the isolated, rabidly anti-modern bubble in which Finn had raised them with far more ease than did Jax, whose views became increasingly radical and who came to be widely disliked by the school's faculty.

Halfway through their fourth and final year at Shade, Jax injured a huntsman during a training exercise and was summarily expelled, in spite of his (truthful) insistence that the man had attacked him first; Gillian, Rosa, and Argento dropped out in protest, and the team disappeared into Vacuo's underworld.

This humiliation—and nakedly unfair treatment, as there had been no real investigation into the incident and Jax had been given no chance to argue his case simply because his professors didn't like him—was the final straw for Jax. He decided then and there that Shade Academy, for all intents and purposes the ruling political power in Vacuo, needed to fall.

So the Crown came to be.

For the next three years, Gillian and Jax worked tirelessly to strengthen discontent with Headmaster Theodore's leadership of Shade Academy and rally support for their cause: they would topple the illegitimate "throne" of the school and the impotent democratic council to restore the Vacuan monarchy of old.

Just a year after Beacon's fall, and only a matter of weeks before Atlas would fall and hundreds of thousands of refugees would flood into the desert, the Crown attempts to do just that; however, the tide turns against them, and both Jax and Gill are captured and imprisoned in Coquina.

OTHER NOTES

The faunus woman who led the Vacuan rebellion against Mistrali occupation during the Great War was Meriem Asturias, Finn's grandmother. During the rebellion, she styled herself the Queen of Vacuo; the family had preserved the memory, if none of the trappings of its aristocratic ancestry even through the Mistrali occupation, but Meriem understood the political importance and power of myth-making, and the legend of descent from Malik the Sunderer originated with her.

The book elides this by putting so much emphasis on the mind control, but the Crown has very real, significant popular support in Vacuo: there are a lot of people who are not happy about the complete political irrelevance of their elected representatives and the effective consolidation of political power by Shade Academy, and a lot of people who feel abandoned and betrayed by the promises of the Vytal Accords.

While Jax makes liberal use of his semblance to intensify this support, the Crown is not a fringe movement even before Atlas falls—and once Atlas falls, reactionary backlash to the refugee crisis provokes a massive explosion in the Crown's popularity.

In the book, Jax uses his semblance to turn Xanthe Rumpole, deputy head of Shade Academy, into his double agent and places Yatsuhashi under mind control for a significant leg of the story. Since I'm taking less of a straightforward mind control approach with Jax's semblance, my portrayal is slightly canon-divergent from Before the Dawn:

1. Upon determining that Rumpole is a spy, Jax feigns ignorance and begins to use his semblance on her—subtly, but often—to gradually intensify her fear that Shade Academy will be torn apart by divisions between its own student body and refugee students from Beacon and Haven, while reinforcing her distrust of outsiders (quite a common attitude among city Vacuans) and "tough-love" pedagogical approach. Her behavior throughout the story is the same, but she isn't deliberately acting as a saboteur on Jax's behalf; her descent into paranoia and slide from "tough love" to "harsh abuse masquerading as tough love" is genuine, but fueled by his semblance.

2. Jax uses his semblance to exacerbate Yatsu's trauma from the Fall of Beacon and Team CFVY's harrowing efforts to help Glynda reclaim the school in the immediate aftermath, then makes his pitch that the Crown is the best, and indeed the only, chance Vacuo has to avoid the same fate while Yatsu is still reeling in terror—not mind control, but instead using his semblance to push Yatsu into a mental state to be vulnerable to normal manipulation. Yatsu falls for it for a short while, until he faces his teammates on the battlefield and Coco helps him ground himself.

Due to the nature of Jax's semblance, it won't be used in threads without specific prior discussion. However, as a rule of thumb: if we do plot it out and agree on Jax using his semblance on your character, its influence will intensify your character's natural decision-making, not force them to think or do what Jax wants. The effect will be subtle and start to fade within a few days without reinforcement, although repeated, consistent reinforcement can build up to much more dramatic shifts in behavior over time. Think similar to "what might my character think or do if they'd missed a night's sleep or not had a chance to eat today?"—Jax is a skilled manipulator who uses his semblance to render his victims more vulnerable to manipulation, but he cannot directly control thoughts, feelings, or actions.

[otiskeene]

KKR Invests In Healthcare Revenue Solutions Provider Infinx

KKR, a big investment company, and Infinx Services Private Limited, a healthcare company that uses AI, have said that a fund managed by KKR has bought a good amount of shares in Infinx. Norwest Venture Partners, who already owned some shares, also joined in. This investment is meant to use KKR's knowledge in healthcare and technology to help Infinx grow faster, make its network bigger, and buy more companies.

Infinx was started in 2012 by Sandeep and Jaideep Tandon. They offer new ways to manage money in healthcare using data, especially in the US. Their Healthcare Revenue Cloud system helps manage money from start to finish using AI, machines, working with insurance companies, and managing workers. Infinx helps 172,000 healthcare workers in 4,000 places, like clinics, hospitals, and places for aftercare. They work with over 400 healthcare groups, including hospitals and clinics. In 2023, Infinx was named one of the best companies for managing money by Everest Group and Black Book Research.

Akshay Tanna, who works at KKR in India, talked about how important it is to use technology to make work easier and faster. He believes in Infinx's tech tools and its good leaders. Tanna said that KKR will help Infinx grow and get better.

Jaideep Tandon, who is the boss at Infinx, is happy to work with KKR. He thinks KKR knows a lot about healthcare and technology all over the world. Tandon talked about how Infinx is a leader in managing money in healthcare and using new tech like AI. With KKR's help, Tandon wants Infinx to grow faster, keep making new things, and help healthcare workers make more money.

Read More - https://www.techdogs.com/tech-news/business-wire/kkr-invests-in-healthcare-revenue-solutions-provider-infinx

[hardynwa]

NSSF makes case for use of technology, AI, to drive vaccine uptake in Africa

Speakers at the Nigeria Solidarity Support Fund (NSSF) fire chat on vaccine uptake have canvased for the use of technology and Artificial Intelligence (AI) to drive vaccine uptake in Africa. The speakers drawn from different walks of life spoke on Thursday during the NSSF fire chat webinar with the theme: "Innovating for Healthcare in Africa: Using AI and Tech to Drive Vaccine Uptake. The General Manager/ Chief Executive Officer (CEO) NSSF, Dr. Fejiro Chinye- Nwoko, in her remarks, said that as the world advances in an Artificial Intelligence (AI) revolution, the advantages of these innovations must reach every part of the globe, especially Africa. Chinye- Nwoko said that vaccination is one of the most impactful and cost-efficient public health interventions known to prevent mortality and reduce morbidity. According to her, despite increased global vaccination coverage, Africa is still lagging. "This is due in part to the low vaccine production rate on the continent itself," Chinye-Nwoko said. The CEO said that there was an urgent need for African countries to develop strategies that effectively address these limitations in vaccination uptake and coverage to achieve a reduction of vaccine preventable diseases. She noted that AI could help in the conversation on vaccine production in the African continent. Also speaking, Cyril Seck, Strategy Advisor, Africa Center for Disease Control (CDC), said that digitising healthcare in Africa would require focus on the patients. Seck said that one of the roles of the Africa CDC was to strengthen member states workforce development and innovation. According to him, it is important to encourage the emergence of the adoption of digital innovations aimed at improving health systems and outcomes. He explained that to digitise key elements of health systems would require the enablement of a more interconnected, data driven approach. He noted that the digitisation of the Primary Health Care centers was critical, adding that the diversity of apps and programmes need to be more coordinated. He said that there was the need to align the many stakeholders available in the healthcare space in Africa to leapfrog digital innovations to meet the healthcare needs of Africa. In his intervention, the Ekiti State Commissioner for Health, Dr. Oyebanji Filani, noted that aggressive work has been done by the state in fighting vaccine hesitancy. Filani said that vaccine hesitancy is made worse by what he described as the dark side of social media. He said that to tackle misinformation of vaccine uptake in the state, the ministry introduced media monitoring outreach to scout for misleading information on vaccine in Ekiti. He added that religious and traditional leaders were admonished to speak to their subjects on the importance of vaccine. He advised healthcare workers not to refuse anyone vaccine on the guise that they came on a date that is not meant for vaccination. He said that there was the need to improve the attitude of healthcare workers in the state that were in charge of delivering vaccines. Also speaking, Dr Lawal Bakare, CEO, Epid Alert, said that Epid Alert is big in using easy to adapt technologies, adding that sometimes they deploy offline systems, guided by GPS. In her contributions, Ana Fernandes del Rio, Principal Data Scientist, Causal Foundry, said that her organisation builds data centric digital solutions. Rio said that digital tools need to be used for the end users, adding that the digital tools have regular information on what is going on. Also Dr. Chioma Nwakanma Akanno, Founder, Medically Speaking Services/ Executive Director, SMILE WITH ME Foundation, said that one of the beautiful things in data is that it helps you have tailored made strategies that also applies to health outcomes. Akanno said that every other vaccinations that we have had and still having in Nigeria is not been made easy by the information and dissemination we have been seeing. According to her, people have general distrusts for the system. She said that the speed of social media can be a blessing and a curse , adding that it's impact could be felt not just in vaccines, but in every other aspects of health. With regards to health messaging, Akanno said that all hands must be on deck with the proper constitution of stakeholders engagement. "We need to empower every stakeholder, collaborate with key influencers. "If we must combat vaccine hesitancy ànd increase vaccine uptake; we need to be very strategic in our messaging. "And you cannot be strategic if you have no data, no messaging. " Our messaging needs to be very tailored: strategic content dissemination is very key as regards vaccination. " First go to the people, find out and feel their pulses, and that is through research, and data is going to be very important," Akanno said. The webinar was well attended by numerous persons who agreed that technology and AI, indeed can be of imense help in upscalling vaccine uptake in the country. Read the full article

[rye-in-a-coat]

Mr. In A Coat I am running up to yo< with a mictophone ummmm what iz sparklecare hopscicle Ms. In A Coat

Sparklecare is a webcomic created by Kittycorn Sansom who as kits bio details:

I started this comic originally after a traumatic experience as a way of coping with it. When I realized my story resonated with others, I wanted to use it as a tool to spread messages that I believed in.

With currently three finished volumes and an on-going fourth one, hosted in https://sparklecarehospital.com/ , the comic details the story of our protagonist Barry Ill, who after he feels like his current medical attention is insufficient; self-admits himself to the Sparklecare Hospital.

The Sparklecare Hospital from outside is known as the best medical institution in the nation, with a fully clean image, offering the best possible attention with the best possible quality, safety, care and hygene to all patients lucky enough to receive it.

However, as Barry crosses those gated pink walls, he discovers the horrible truth. The hospital actually works more like a prison; the doctors harm, injure, mutilate, deteriorate, impair, experiment on, and kill the patients. And the patients are trapped in, not being allowed to leave. A handful have actually escaped, and told their stories; only to be deemed as just "crazy people out of their mind who need help" and be persecuted. At the end, the hospital does care, but only about two things: money (by draining money from their patient's families) and looking good (keeping their clean image through propaganda, and all media agreeing with them).

As the website explains:

Sparklecare is a webcomic that is meant to be social commentary on various things, including the healthcare industry, ableism and attitudes about mental health, and trauma and the experience of being a victim of trauma.

[husnaot]

Therapeutic Use of Self: What is it?

Occupational therapy is a holistic approach to rehabilitation and healthcare that focuses on helping individuals achieve independence and improve their quality of life. One of the unique and powerful tools within the OT’s toolbox of techniques is the therapeutic use of self. It honestly took me a long time to grasp what this meant and how to use it in practice. After many learning experiences and guidance from my supervisor, I think I have a decent understanding of what it means. So for this blog post, I will explore what the therapeutic use of self in OT is, its importance and how it can elevate your treatment. 

The therapeutic use of self is a fundamental feature of occupational therapy practice. It refers to the deliberate and purposeful use of one's own personality, emotions, and experiences to create a therapeutic relationship with clients. We use our empathy, compassion, and genuine interest in our clients' well-being to establish trust and rapport. This connection forms the foundation upon which the therapeutic process is built.

Why is the therapeutic use of self so important? 

It helps to establish trust. Trust is essential in any therapeutic relationship. Clients are often vulnerable, facing physical or emotional challenges, and need to feel safe and supported. By using themselves therapeutically, OTs can create a secure space where clients feel comfortable sharing their concerns and working towards their goals. 

It assists with client-centred intervention. Every client is unique, with their own set of needs and goals. The therapeutic use of self allows OTs to adapt their approach to each individual, making interventions more effective. By understanding the client's background, preferences, and motivations, therapists can create customized treatment plans that resonate with the client's personal experiences. 

It promotes independence. Occupational therapy is all about helping clients regain independence in their daily lives. Through the therapeutic use of self, therapists can empower clients to take charge of their own recovery. By fostering a sense of autonomy and self-determination, OTs enable clients to make informed decisions and work towards their goals with confidence.

It brings out effective communication. This is vital in occupational therapy. The therapist's ability to listen actively, provide constructive feedback, and offer emotional support is greatly facilitated by the therapeutic use of self. This open and honest dialogue encourages clients to express their thoughts and feelings, leading to more productive therapy sessions.

How do we use it in practice:

One of the most important aspects of the therapeutic use of self is active listening. OTs must not only hear what their clients are saying but also understand the underlying emotions and concerns. By actively listening, OTs can respond empathetically, validating the client's experiences and emotions.

OTs must also demonstrate genuine empathy and compassion for their clients. This means acknowledging their struggles and celebrating their successes. By showing empathy, we can create a sense of understanding and connection that motivates clients to engage actively in therapy.

We must engage in ongoing self-reflection to understand their biases, emotions, and reactions. This introspection allows them to maintain professionalism and avoid projecting our own beliefs onto clients. It also helps OTs to stay emotionally resilient, as the work can be emotionally demanding.

We should also try to build a strong therapeutic alliance is key to successful outcomes in occupational therapy. OTs can use their personalities and interpersonal skills to build rapport with clients. This rapport fosters a sense of trust and collaboration, making it easier for clients to work towards their goals.

At the facility I currently am in, I struggled with grasping this concept. Because despite listening to the client, gaining her trust, and giving her the most client-centred treatment I could offer, it goes beyond that. I struggle to use myself as a therapist properly during sessions due to worry of pushing the client’s boundaries, but, most of the time, it needs to be pushed to create the best intervention. 

In conclusion, the therapeutic use of self is a powerful and integral aspect of occupational therapy. By harnessing their personality, emotions, and interpersonal skills, OTs can create a nurturing and supportive environment for their clients. This approach fosters trust, empowers clients, and enhances communication, ultimately promoting independence and improving the quality of life for those in need. In the world of occupational therapy, our ability to use ourselves therapeutically is a bridge to recovery, helping clients navigate the path towards a brighter future.

References:

Abson, D. (2019, March 3). Therapeutic Use of Self. The OT Hub. https://www.theothub.com/article/therapeutic-use-of-self

Ch, M., & OTR/L, ler. (2018, April 18). Therapeutic Use of Self: What Does That Even Mean for OTs? Myotspot.com. https://www.myotspot.com/therapeutic-use-of-self/#:~:text=The%20most%20widely%20cited%20contemporary

MOTR/L, M. C. (2023, April 27). How To Use Therapeutic Use Of Self In Occupational Therapy | OT Flourish. Otflourish.com. https://otflourish.com/therapeutic-use-of-self-occupational-therapy/‌

[cyarskj1899]

Sounds like a stroke! He’s already done a lot of evil in his time on earth, so BYE Demon! Don’t let the door knob hit you on the way out or better yet the way down

Can we please get something straight here??

Mitch McConnell has supported Donald Trump and will support him again if Trump wins the Republican nomination. I have never supported Trump and I never will.

Mitch McConnell has been a willing tool of the NRA and helped pass countless stand-your-ground laws, he has helped pave the way for laws like permitless carry, and he has helped make guns easier for anyone to get. I have not.

Mitch McConnell has helped pass laws that intentionally suppress the votes of millions and millions Black people. I have not.

Mitch McConnell has helped write or pass laws that deny millions of women access to reproductive health care. I have not.

Mitch McConnell has helped write or pass laws that deny basic healthcare and living wages to millions of poor people. I have not.

I AM NOW AND I WILL ALWAYS BE BETTER than Mitch McConnell and Republicans, because my wishes do not have any material impact on anyone, unlike the myriad of hateful draconian laws that Mitch McConnell has helped to pass.

I could continue, but hopefully I’ve made my point: people sending Mitch McConnell “ill wishes” IS NOT being “just the same” as Mitch McConnell and Republicans, and it doesn’t make anyone “as bad as” McConnell and the GOP.

Are you fucking kidding me??

Saying that my wishes = McConnell’s actions is a false equivalence. It’s false, it’s offensive and it’s gaslighting.

Mitch McConnell is an elected politician who has a very long history of using his political power to actively harm the poor, marginalized communities, women, LGBTQ people, and non-Christian, non-white people. If you cannot differentiate between the words and the unenforceable “wishes” of the oppressed vs. the actions of an oppressor, then you have some serious problems to unpack.

I could ~almost~ see it if there was some chance that a Republican would go, “Oh wow, those progressives are being nice to Mitch McConnell, maybe I’ll stop being a racist and vote for a Democrat now.” But that almost never ever happens, does it??

You are not going to win over a Republican by being kind. Their entire ideology is based on racism, misogyny, homophobia, transphobia, and cruelty.

Look, I’m not tryna write a dissertation here, but please believe me when I say that this neoliberal knee jerk Pollyanna reaction of, “turn the other cheek” and “be kinder to your oppressors” is very much rooted in Christofascism + white supremacy. It’s a weaponization of the “hate breeds hate” trope and the “forgiveness narrative” meant to tame slaves, and I refuse to fall for it.

I absolutely positively do not wish Mitch McConnell well, and HELL NO, I am not being a bad person for hoping that a racist, evil, old white man suffers a fraction of the pain he has inflicted on others for decades and decades.

I am a proud member of the #MitchMcConnellDieChallenge community.

That all said, at the very least, Mitch McConnell has unintentionally provided us with a teachable moment: please learn to spot the warning signs of someone having a stroke

[wsitho123]

My Experience With Business Giants On The Digital Summit Seattle

Luckily for us, immediately under the above metrics are all the competitors that at present rank for our seed keyword.

This device will give you the info to determine the best keywords to get in entrance of the right clients. Though it's meant as an adverts tool, it nonetheless gives you a good idea of how well-liked phrases are. You can use a quantity of instruments to seek out the keywords that persons are utilizing to search out your web site.

Join Courtney, April, and Matt to debate Digital Agency Day, a free present for you here, and what's new in digital marketing (there's a lot!). Alex joins Dan and Courtney for discussion surrounding growing your month-month income in eCommerce. The group investigates how to use tracking tools, multi-channel tracking and blended CPA to increase your eCommerce revenue. Neera joins Dan and Courtney for dialogue internet marketing company seattle surrounding the newest trend of creative disruption. The staff will underline why you will want to not let technology substitute creativity, but rather embrace it. Lastly, the staff will show examples of interactive content that goes a long way.

The trendy marketing boundary is integrated, and we're at a crossroads. The company’s success and enterprise model have garnered Shawn consideration. In 2007 he earned a Business in Vancouver forty internet marketing seattle under forty award, and Domain7 been named one of BC’s Fastest Growing Companies for seven consecutive years.

Dan, Matt and Kristen focus on structuring your Google Ads marketing campaign, and tips on how to bring a campaign from zero to hero. The Team will also talk about how a single webinar can change your content technique, and offer you a full library of content to work with, together with a model new Youtube ads technique. Dan, Matt and Justin focus on going outside of your industry's design standards and standing out out of your rivals.

On the opposite hand, her several years of experience in online media services made her the proper match for writing excellent press releases and weblog articles about completely different trending subjects within the digital media world. KDMC Marketing supplies a full vary of digital and tradition marketing services for companies and corporations throughout the United States. Our group works with healthcare practices, B2B companies in the tech and manufacturing sectors, and non-profit organizations. We attribute our profitable campaigns to our devoted Seattle digital marketing consultants. They have been constant in producing growth-driven digital marketing campaigns for a broad range of purchasers.

While there are many industries that adopt related branding methods for various reasons, the real property sector has its own guidelines. The more you study to stand out from the gang in this sphere, the better. After suffering from some critical Covid-related setbacks in 2020, the global real estate market is bouncing again and its growth is not going to be stopping anytime quickly. In fact, this sector was valued at $6.1 trillion in 2020 in Canada alone. Courtney, Caroline, and Meghan speak about the significance of networking within the marketing business, IKEA's weird advert campaign, and the state of advertising content on media channels like YouTube and Twitter. Matt returns to the present with Courtney and Dan to discuss practical tips for eCommerce, social media updates, and reside streaming for occasion marketing.

Hilary is a freelance journalist, small business owner, and a self-described marketing geek. She loves to put in writing about every little thing from business to parenting, tech, health, and stress. If you’re using a software like SEMrush to monitor world class marketing services your site’s backlinks, you’ll most likely discover when you’re underneath assault fairly rapidly. A sudden inflow of backlinks from low-quality websites is an effective indicator something’s up.

A typical website converts 2 out of each a hundred visitors into a certified lead. Wouldn't it's good if your website had a higher conversion fee than the standard site? How about going from four leads per 30 days out of your website to 10 per week? They inform the consumer what to expect from the web page and increase the likelihood of someone clicking via to your web site.

KWFinder provides you the ability to view the monthly search volume of any key phrase from any metropolis on the earth. We don’t must restrict ourselves to simply seattle online marketing the seed keyword “orthodontist Seattle”. Your website’s area authority is the preliminary benchmark that should dictate which type of keywords you want to attempt to rank for.

[brisbanehipnkneeau]

How Castle Connolly Selects Top Doctors for Spine Surgery

Top doctors greenslopes is one of the most lucrative surgical specialties. Patients pay over $12 billion and 83 million days off work each year to manage back pain.

To stay competitive, spine surgeons are often seeking recognition. This is why you may have seen a doctor listed in a top-doctor magazine or website.

What is a Top Doctor?

A top doctor is a physician who has been recognized by their medical peers for quality of care. Castle Connolly's physician-led research team follows a rigorous process to select top doctors nationally and regionally, based on their professional qualifications, education, hospital and faculty appointments, research leadership, professional reputation and disciplinary history.

These awards often appear in magazines and online listings. They're also given to physicians by hospitals and other health care organizations.

It's important to remember that these lists do not necessarily reflect excellence or expertise in medicine. They may just be a way for companies to promote themselves and their products or services.

For example, a spine surgeon could be listed as a “Top Spine Surgeon” even though he was involved in an incident that resulted in a woman's death and caused a dozen medical malpractice suits. This is because it's a lucrative business and these surgeons need to attract new patients. They can pay for their listings to be enhanced and receive plaques or promotional videos in publications that feature them.

How do I find a Top Doctor?

Many people believe that a doctor's reputation is based on recommendations from friends and family. However, conventional wisdom should be replaced by data-driven research, especially when it comes to finding a doctor with expertise in a particular medical condition.

One of the first places to start is a physician-rating website, such as Healthgrades or Vitals. These websites compile information from state medical boards, federal government websites, hospitals, and other sources.

These sites also feature physician background information, including experience, additional medical training and certifications, published studies, clinical research, hospital affiliations, and more.

A good prospect is a doctor with a teaching hospital affiliation, which may mean that they spend a certain amount of time each week with medical students and interns to ensure they're keeping up with latest developments.

Finally, Jones says, she recommends assessing a doctor's courtesy and helpfulness during an appointment. If they're not comfortable with that, she suggests requesting another specialist. Otherwise, she says, it's a "crap shoot" that can end up in a doctor that doesn't fit your needs.

Are Top Doctors a scam?

If you’ve ever been to a doctor’s office or thumbed through an airline in-flight magazine, you’ve likely seen a number of awards or plaques that celebrate doctors’ accomplishments. Typically, these accolades honor the top-rated physicians in their city or region and are meant to be helpful tools for consumers and the medical community.

But as Marshall Allen, a health care reporter for ProPublica, recently learned, these award programs often fall short of their promises to consumers and doctors alike.

In Allen’s case, he received a call from a company that said he’d been chosen as a “Top Doctor.” However, the woman who called him told him that he wasn’t selected because of his background – which is true – but because of his peers’ and patients’ nominations.

But this approach reflects a longstanding problem in the healthcare industry, and one that can make finding reliable care difficult: How do you distinguish the good from the bad? Unfortunately, these awards and reviews make this hard – and they’re not the only way to find trustworthy doctors.

Are Top Doctors legitimate?

Healthcare is a notoriously opaque industry, and it’s no wonder that many consumers have difficulty navigating their options. Reviews and ratings are helpful tools for making an informed decision, but these do not always represent a doctor’s true level of expertise or excellence.

The Top Doctor awards that are found on plaques, in magazines and online have been linked to some of the most egregious cases of medical malpractice. ABC news recently uncovered a particularly unsettling story where a doctor was awarded Top Surgeon status even after causing the death of an elderly patient through medical negligence.

These awards are based on peer nominations, which are likely to be gamed by doctors with financial ties to each other. The process is also rife with economic and relationship biases, says Dr. John Santa, former director of consumer health care quality for Consumer Reports magazine.

[tastydregs]

DoNotPay's 'Robot Lawyer' Is Gearing Up for Its First U.S. Court Case

DoNotPay bills itself as “the world’s first robot lawyer.” Now, for the first time, that claim will be reportedly put to the test in an actual courtroom.

Screenshot: DoNotPay / Gizmodo

An AI-based legal advisor is set to play the role of a lawyer in an actual court case for the first time. Via an earpiece, the artificial intelligence will coach a courtroom defendant on what to say to get out of the associated fines and consequences of a speeding charge, AI-company DoNotPay has claimed in a report initially from New Scientist and confirmed by Gizmodo.

The in-person speeding ticket hearing is scheduled to take place in a U.S. courtroom (specifically, not California) sometime in February, DoNotPay’s founder and CEO Joshua Browder told Gizmodo in a phone call. However, Browder and the company wouldn’t provide any further case details to protect the defendant’s privacy.

DoNotPay is also reticent to disclose case specifics because what they’re doing is likely in violation of courtroom laws and protocol. In many countries and jurisdictions around the world, phones and internet connected devices are banned from courts. To get around restrictions on phone usage, Browder explained to Gizmodo that the company is relying on hearing accessibility standards in this particular court, which offer a loophole allowing the use of Apple AirPods. Asked if the court will be aware of the AI-assistance during the hearing, Browder responded, “Definitely not.”

The CEO said the company is also working with another U.S.-based speeding ticket defendant in a case that will go to Zoom trial. In that instance, DoNotPay is weighing the use of a teleprompter vs. a synthetic voice—the latter strategy Browder described as “highly illegal.” But he’s not too concerned about legal repercussions because “at the end of the day, it’s a traffic ticket.” Browder doesn’t expect courts to come down hard on speeding defendants over AI-coaching, and the law doesn’t have explicit provisions in it barring AI-legal assistance. Plus, “it’s an experiment and we like to take risks,” he added.

However, DoNotPay does plan to take responsibility for any resulting fines from both cases, and Browder said that the company is compensating the two defendants for their participation in the “experiment.” He also explained that the company has trained its AI extensively to not lie or stray beyond provided facts, hopefully eliminating the possibility of a courtroom perjury charge.

G/O Media may get a commission

DoNotPay was started in 2015 as a basic chatbot, meant to help users navigate bureaucratic and legal snafus—mostly using conversation templates. And even in its earliest incarnations, the bot was a success. In less than two years, DoNotPay successfully contested 160,000 parking tickets in New York and London. And the company claims it has resolved 2 million cases total since its founding. Then, in 2020, with the release of ChatGPT, the company shifted its focus to AI and upped its potential.

More recently, DoNotPay has gotten attention for its corporate negotiation tactics. In a video posted to his Twitter account, Browder demonstrated knocking $10 off of a monthly internet bill using the ChatGPT-powered bot. The founder also told New Scientist that he recently used the AI and a synthesized voice to reverse $16 worth of bank fees. And these are the types of use cases where Browder imagines DoNotPay being most applicable for the public in the immediate future, though he told New Scientist his goal is for the AI to eventually supplant some lawyers entirely.

The company already offers tools on its site that can produce written communication or scripts for people looking to avoid or minimize fines, healthcare costs, subscriptions, or other common bureaucratic speed bumps of modern life. For now though, at least, the courtroom shenanigans are just a “proof of concept to try to encourage courts to embrace technology and allow people to access justice,” he said.

“We help consumers fight corporations and beat bureaucracy, getting them out of parking tickets and refunds from big companies like airlines...our vision at DoNotPay is to make the law free,” Browder says in a promotional video for the company. But we’ll have to wait until the end of February to know if that lofty vision successfully translates to the courtroom. Browder said the company will disclose details of both the Zoom and in-person cases following their conclusion.

[burnedhousehorizon]

I talk frequently about how ignorant most Global North citizens are about the immigration policies of their own and other countries. When my husband and I (Global North citizens of different countries) got married, we had conversation after conversation with people who assumed that by producing our marriage certificate we could simply become residents of each other’s countries— and that we could not be refused residence in each other’s countries, as separating a husband and wife could surely not be allowed. 

More interestingly, a lot of people seem to refuse knowledge about immigration, perhaps because it can’t be integrated into some deep and important picture of the world that they have. My parents can’t make themselves believe that my British husband would get in trouble if he overstayed his visa “just a couple of days” in the US, or that I (an American) would ever get deported from the UK, no matter what the circumstances. This is not only because they believe that British and American citizens, as Global North citizens, are specially exempt from the systems that are “meant” to regulate other kinds of people, but also because fundamentally they believe that government and its processes are rational and just. They must believe that government and its processes are rational and just, because otherwise their whole picture of the world— the means by which they understand it— would collapse.

This is all fairly simple and obvious. What is not so simple and obvious is the way that their privileged ignorance, the hothouse resilience of their fantasy world, is part of a mechanism through which the "work of knowing” in our society is outsourced to the underprivileged. (The privileged do not have to know in a way that disrupts their fantasy, because not-knowing has no consequences for them.) This is an interesting dynamic, because many postcolonial theorists (Sara Ahmed, Dipesh Chakrabarty, etc) have explored how the Global South is typically portrayed as that-which-is-known-by-the-Global-North, and therefore as not capable of knowing. So what does it mean that the tools of regulation remain in the hands of the Global North, but that the knowledge of regulation is a burden borne by the Global South? There is an element here of knowing as knowing-your-place, for sure— learning to be interpellated as the illegal and the undesirable. The knowing that is happening also constitutes the production of the illusive “just and rational” world that sustains the Global North. I’m interested in the way that the dehumanization of the Global South therefore serves to sustain the rational and just Human and humaneness of the Global North. There’s an abjectification that is necessary for this— as anyone who has experienced universal healthcare knows, more just and equitable care/distribution of resources often means that more privileged people get less-nice things than they have been led to expect, so if they want to continue to enjoy the same standard of living allowed them by unjust and non-equitable care, they must rationalize this somehow. And how does one rationalize having been, by chance, born in the right geographic area? One can’t. One must, instead, believe that this is not how privilege is allotted, which required not-knowing that this is how privilege is allotted.