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Donaithnen Keirgoogleplus @ May 21, 2013, 11:34 am
Adventures in Bureaucracy and MedicineÂ
So for those who didn't follow the "excitement" on twitter yesterday...
I showed up at the court for jury duty right around the 7:45 time specified on the sheet. I was worried that i might run into traffic and be late, but at worst i was a minute or two behind, and it didn't really matter because everyone else seemed to be getting there at the same time too, and i got to join the huge line going through security. (Going through airport style security, yet another thing made more awkward by having limited function in one hand that i didn't really think of ahead of time.)
So i signed in, heard random judge's welcoming speech (at least i presume they do that on a rotating basis and don't make the same judge do it every time) and watched the intro video, both of which emphasized how important it was to fulfill our civic duty and such. The judge in particular made a point of how important it was for us to be doing this at a time when people in other countries were attacking us because of our freedoms gag
So after that i spent most of the day pacing or standing against one of the pillars in the room. Sit me down in front of a computer at work or home and i'll stay glued there for hours, but in situations like this for some reason i can't seem stay still. (At least walking around so much hopefully burned off some of the calories from the huge lunch i had. Of course maybe part of the reason i felt compelled to eat a huge lunch was because i'd been walking around so much :) I may have been annoying the heck out of the people i was pacing in front of, but of well. The main room was divided into two halves with a wide walkway going across the middle, and that walkway was the only good place to pace without tripping over people.
I did a rough count and estimated there were about 300 chairs in the front half of the room and 200 in the rear half. It looked like about half the seats were occupied, maybe a little over. So a rough guesstimate of 250-300 people. During most of the day they let us wander out into the cafeteria or patio areas, and then every time they had an announcement they'd precede it by announcing that all jurors in the cafeteria and patio should come back to the juror room. Sometimes those announcements were a call for jurors, and sometimes it was to notify us of a break. Which was amusingly ironic, "come back to the juror room so we can tell you you don't need to be in the juror room!"
There were... six court cases that wanted jurors for our day i think, or maybe five? The first two were a ten day and seven day trial. For both of those they listed off criteria for people who were valid for those trials and those people were supposed to get in line. One of the criteria was that if you had a job, that your employer pay for at least 10/7 days of jury duty, so i got off on those. (I guess the government is between a rock and a hard place on this one. If they didn't make allowances for how many paid days of jury duty you get they'd end up really screwing employees over. But since they do take it into account the employers have even less incentive to pay for any days of jury duty.) Halfway through one of those two selection processes they got back on the PA system and emphasized that this was not a voluntary process, and they had the list of how many days of jury duty each of us got paid for, and if they had to they would start calling names, at which point they would have questions about why you weren't in line already. After that a non-trivial number of people got up and joined the line =P
A little while later they announced the first of the random selection trials. They just read off a list of names and those people had to report to the appropriate court room. There was no indication of how long they expected that trial to last. I wouldn't mind ending up on a one or two day jury, but since i had no clue i was hoping not to get called, and got lucky.
I would have had plenty of time between announcements to call the hospital and inquire about the status of the paperwork, but i decided that i ought to wait and see if i could figure out if i was going to have to do more jury duty later in the week, since that would obviously impact when i could make an appointment for. I think they did a second call shortly before the break, though i might be misremembering. Really sitting there listening to a long list of names is kind of monotonous and it all blended together after awhile.
So of course that meant that the hospital decided to call me shortly before the first break =P The person i was talking to this time was not the person in charge of referrals i'd been talking to before, so i don't know if that meant i'd been misinformed about who i was supposed to talk to, or if i'd just already been passed through the first gateway. I also have no idea if they eventually found the first set of faxed documents or if the second fax had started things moving. But in any case now that they had the paperwork they said they wanted to see me as soon as possible! headdesk
I explained that i was at jury duty and wasn't sure when i'd be off, so she said i should call back when i knew for sure, and that it might be possible to set up an appointment at one of their sister-branches closer to the court house.
So we got our first break around 10:30 and everyone came back around 11. And then around 11:45 we were told that they weren't going to do another call until after lunch, so we could all go to lunch early. Lunch ran until 1:30, so there was plenty of time to go out and get food, however i didn't really want to deal with having to come back in through security so i took a look at the cafeteria. It didn't look too bad for government cafeteria food, so i decided to eat there. I got a bacon cheese hot dog (hot dog part was good, bun was a little stale) beef noodle soup (the broth and noodles and veggies were good, some of the chunks of meat were highly questionable and did not end up being consumes) and a piece of chocolate creme pie (which was just all good =) Then i spent the rest of lunch wandering around in the main hallway be the elevators bouncing around to music on my phone and probably getting some strange looks. I would have gone out on the patio, except that was also the smoking area, so... no.
So shortly after 1:30 when we got back they did a roll call of everyone who was still supposed to be there. Unlike all the other name calls this one was not alphabetical, and my name was second from the last. I wasn't sure if that was a good omen, or if it just meant i'd just used up some of my placement luck on a totally useless ordering :) They said they had two more trials to fill, and shortly thereafter they did the next random selection, and i escaped once again. So one more to go. I did a quick head-count and saw about 85 people left. I hadn't been keeping track of exactly how many people they'd called for the previous selections. Depending on exactly how many people there were to begin with and whether there's been four or five previous calls it seemed like they were calling at least 30 people per trial, quite possible more like 40-50. (Although i also don't know if they did equal numbers of the 10 and 7 day trials and the random selection ones or not.) But in any case it didn't seem like i was doomed, but it didn't seem like i had great odds either. Then around 2:15 or 2:30 they announced that for some reason the last trial was canceled for the day or something like that and the rest of us could all go home. If they gave a more exact reason than that, but if so my mind was too busy going "score!" to process it.
So i got in line to pick up my certificate of doneness, went back to the parking garage and called the hospital. I got in contact with the person i'd talked to before and told her that we'd gotten out early and i could probably be there by 3:30, so she set me up for an appointment at 4 but said it would be okay if i got there earlier. I actually got there at 3:15, but killed some time in the car so i at least wouldn't show up any earlier than my original estimate.
So i got signed in, got called in to wait, got all my vitals taken, the usual. (The scale said my weight with clothes and shows on was 190, which makes me sad. The nurse said my BP was 120/80, which i've been told by akiko and sithjawa is almost exactly normal, which makes me wonder if i heard right. I thought my BP was somewhat high last time, since they were threatening to make me cut back on caffeine.)
So when the doctor got to see me, he took a look at my wrist, poked at it, asked how it felt, and asked me to rate the pain on a scale of 1 to 10. (cough which is something i was much more used to having shelleycat ask me under entirely different circumstances cough) I said it hurt a bit when i rotated the wrist, hurt a bit more when i raised my hand back, and hurt quite a bit more if i kept my hand level and raised my thumb, to which he took the opportunity to give the quip "well don't do that" :)
He said that given what the radiologist said and the fact that it was still hurting over a week later it was almost definitely a fracture. He said the radiologist had said it looked like there was a fracture in direction X, and possibly also a fracture in direction Y. The doctor told me that if it was a clean fracture in direction X they would just slap a cast on it and call it done. However if there was a fracture in direction Y it might lead to arthritis later in life if not handled properly.
So he's going to refer me to an orthopedist who will take a look and decide if they're just going to put a cast on, or if any bone bits need to be rearranged. Which given the scale we're talking about i'm guessing would mean cutting up my hand =P If so that means i get to have my first bone fracture and my first surgery all in one go, yay! =P
I did also ask him about the twinges in my left thumb since i was there. After poking at my thumb and asking a few questions he decided it was probably just an irritated nerve (at least i think that's the term he used?) and would probably go away on its own without treatment, so that part was actually good! Actual yay!
Cross-posted from:Â http://donaithnen.livejournal.com/1119805.html
So for those who didn't follow the "excitement" on twitter yesterday...
I showed up at the court for jury duty right around the 7:45 time specified on the sheet. I was worried that i might run into traffic and be late, but at worst i was a minute or two behind, and it didn't really matter because everyone else seemed to be getting there at the same time too, and i got to join the huge line going through security. (Going through airport style security, yet another thing made more awkward by having limited function in one hand that i didn't really think of ahead of time.)
So i signed in, heard random judge's welcoming speech (at least i presume they do that on a rotating basis and don't make the same judge do it every time) and watched the intro video, both of which emphasized how important it was to fulfill our civic duty and such. The judge in particular made a point of how important it was for us to be doing this at a time when people in other countries were attacking us because of our freedoms gag
So after that i spent most of the day pacing or standing against one of the pillars in the room. Sit me down in front of a computer at work or home and i'll stay glued there for hours, but in situations like this for some reason i can't seem stay still. (At least walking around so much hopefully burned off some of the calories from the huge lunch i had. Of course maybe part of the reason i felt compelled to eat a huge lunch was because i'd been walking around so much :) I may have been annoying the heck out of the people i was pacing in front of, but of well. The main room was divided into two halves with a wide walkway going across the middle, and that walkway was the only good place to pace without tripping over people.
I did a rough count and estimated there were about 300 chairs in the front half of the room and 200 in the rear half. It looked like about half the seats were occupied, maybe a little over. So a rough guesstimate of 250-300 people. During most of the day they let us wander out into the cafeteria or patio areas, and then every time they had an announcement they'd precede it by announcing that all jurors in the cafeteria and patio should come back to the juror room. Sometimes those announcements were a call for jurors, and sometimes it was to notify us of a break. Which was amusingly ironic, "come back to the juror room so we can tell you you don't need to be in the juror room!"
There were... six court cases that wanted jurors for our day i think, or maybe five? The first two were a ten day and seven day trial. For both of those they listed off criteria for people who were valid for those trials and those people were supposed to get in line. One of the criteria was that if you had a job, that your employer pay for at least 10/7 days of jury duty, so i got off on those. (I guess the government is between a rock and a hard place on this one. If they didn't make allowances for how many paid days of jury duty you get they'd end up really screwing employees over. But since they do take it into account the employers have even less incentive to pay for any days of jury duty.) Halfway through one of those two selection processes they got back on the PA system and emphasized that this was not a voluntary process, and they had the list of how many days of jury duty each of us got paid for, and if they had to they would start calling names, at which point they would have questions about why you weren't in line already. After that a non-trivial number of people got up and joined the line =P
A little while later they announced the first of the random selection trials. They just read off a list of names and those people had to report to the appropriate court room. There was no indication of how long they expected that trial to last. I wouldn't mind ending up on a one or two day jury, but since i had no clue i was hoping not to get called, and got lucky.
I would have had plenty of time between announcements to call the hospital and inquire about the status of the paperwork, but i decided that i ought to wait and see if i could figure out if i was going to have to do more jury duty later in the week, since that would obviously impact when i could make an appointment for. I think they did a second call shortly before the break, though i might be misremembering. Really sitting there listening to a long list of names is kind of monotonous and it all blended together after awhile.
So of course that meant that the hospital decided to call me shortly before the first break =P The person i was talking to this time was not the person in charge of referrals i'd been talking to before, so i don't know if that meant i'd been misinformed about who i was supposed to talk to, or if i'd just already been passed through the first gateway. I also have no idea if they eventually found the first set of faxed documents or if the second fax had started things moving. But in any case now that they had the paperwork they said they wanted to see me as soon as possible! headdesk
I explained that i was at jury duty and wasn't sure when i'd be off, so she said i should call back when i knew for sure, and that it might be possible to set up an appointment at one of their sister-branches closer to the court house.
So we got our first break around 10:30 and everyone came back around 11. And then around 11:45 we were told that they weren't going to do another call until after lunch, so we could all go to lunch early. Lunch ran until 1:30, so there was plenty of time to go out and get food, however i didn't really want to deal with having to come back in through security so i took a look at the cafeteria. It didn't look too bad for government cafeteria food, so i decided to eat there. I got a bacon cheese hot dog (hot dog part was good, bun was a little stale) beef noodle soup (the broth and noodles and veggies were good, some of the chunks of meat were highly questionable and did not end up being consumes) and a piece of chocolate creme pie (which was just all good =) Then i spent the rest of lunch wandering around in the main hallway be the elevators bouncing around to music on my phone and probably getting some strange looks. I would have gone out on the patio, except that was also the smoking area, so... no.
So shortly after 1:30 when we got back they did a roll call of everyone who was still supposed to be there. Unlike all the other name calls this one was not alphabetical, and my name was second from the last. I wasn't sure if that was a good omen, or if it just meant i'd just used up some of my placement luck on a totally useless ordering :) They said they had two more trials to fill, and shortly thereafter they did the next random selection, and i escaped once again. So one more to go. I did a quick head-count and saw about 85 people left. I hadn't been keeping track of exactly how many people they'd called for the previous selections. Depending on exactly how many people there were to begin with and whether there's been four or five previous calls it seemed like they were calling at least 30 people per trial, quite possible more like 40-50. (Although i also don't know if they did equal numbers of the 10 and 7 day trials and the random selection ones or not.) But in any case it didn't seem like i was doomed, but it didn't seem like i had great odds either. Then around 2:15 or 2:30 they announced that for some reason the last trial was canceled for the day or something like that and the rest of us could all go home. If they gave a more exact reason than that, but if so my mind was too busy going "score!" to process it.
So i got in line to pick up my certificate of doneness, went back to the parking garage and called the hospital. I got in contact with the person i'd talked to before and told her that we'd gotten out early and i could probably be there by 3:30, so she set me up for an appointment at 4 but said it would be okay if i got there earlier. I actually got there at 3:15, but killed some time in the car so i at least wouldn't show up any earlier than my original estimate.
So i got signed in, got called in to wait, got all my vitals taken, the usual. (The scale said my weight with clothes and shows on was 190, which makes me sad. The nurse said my BP was 120/80, which i've been told by akiko and sithjawa is almost exactly normal, which makes me wonder if i heard right. I thought my BP was somewhat high last time, since they were threatening to make me cut back on caffeine.)
So when the doctor got to see me, he took a look at my wrist, poked at it, asked how it felt, and asked me to rate the pain on a scale of 1 to 10. (cough which is something i was much more used to having shelleycat ask me under entirely different circumstances cough) I said it hurt a bit when i rotated the wrist, hurt a bit more when i raised my hand back, and hurt quite a bit more if i kept my hand level and raised my thumb, to which he took the opportunity to give the quip "well don't do that" :)
He said that given what the radiologist said and the fact that it was still hurting over a week later it was almost definitely a fracture. He said the radiologist had said it looked like there was a fracture in direction X, and possibly also a fracture in direction Y. The doctor told me that if it was a clean fracture in direction X they would just slap a cast on it and call it done. However if there was a fracture in direction Y it might lead to arthritis later in life if not handled properly.
So he's going to refer me to an orthopedist who will take a look and decide if they're just going to put a cast on, or if any bone bits need to be rearranged. Which given the scale we're talking about i'm guessing would mean cutting up my hand =P If so that means i get to have my first bone fracture and my first surgery all in one go, yay! =P
I did also ask him about the twinges in my left thumb since i was there. After poking at my thumb and asking a few questions he decided it was probably just an irritated nerve (at least i think that's the term he used?) and would probably go away on its own without treatment, so that part was actually good! Actual yay!
Cross-posted from:Â http://donaithnen.livejournal.com/1119805.html
Hebattalah Abdelaalgoogleplus @ May 21, 2013, 11:12 am
Software switch
Shortly named soft switch contains a database of users and phone numbers. If it doesn't have the information required, it searches other request downstream to other soft switches until it finds one that can answer the request. Once it finds the user, it locates the current IP address of the device associated with that user in a similar series of requests. It sends back all the relevant information to the soft phone or IP phone, allowing the exchange of data between the two endpoints.
www.engineeringsquare.blogspot.com
Soft switches work network devices to make VoIP possible. For all these devices to work together, they must communicate in the same way.
Shortly named soft switch contains a database of users and phone numbers. If it doesn't have the information required, it searches other request downstream to other soft switches until it finds one that can answer the request. Once it finds the user, it locates the current IP address of the device associated with that user in a similar series of requests. It sends back all the relevant information to the soft phone or IP phone, allowing the exchange of data between the two endpoints.
www.engineeringsquare.blogspot.com
Soft switches work network devices to make VoIP possible. For all these devices to work together, they must communicate in the same way.
Joel Codygoogleplus @ May 21, 2013, 11:11 am
Hail damage abounds, its been a struggle with our insurance company, Farm Bureau Insurance, with our house ANC car. Long story cut short, extremely bad customer claim service, extremely poor communications and on top of that the inability to be on time. I do have to say our agents have been instrumental in finally getting anything accomplished.
In the process of things though I came across an excellent roofing company, Covenant Roofing Services. Ricky Campbell is the owner and has been real good at keeping us updated on progress, but I have to say the the process has just begun.
Due to current weather in our area, product delivery, and consequently, the actual job, is being delayed. Totally understandable, if you're from this area you know what I mean.
If you have need of roof repairs or replacement, contact me at joel.cody@jamcody.com and I will get back to you quickly with information to get you started. Covenant Roofing can work with your insurance company to get you taken care of quickly.
Suggestions:
1. Be sure to get your insurance company to give an estimate on your roof as soon as possible.
2. Obtain several roofing contractor quotes, more the merrier! This will give you a better understanding of overall repair needs and costs. Use BBB to start your search. I only contacted those that have an A+ rating and have been in business for 10 years or more.
3. Make certain each potential company hands you a copy of their insurance and a copy of their OKLAHOMA workers compensation. Do not accept out of state worker compensation.
4. Very important! Verify number 3! I can't stress that enough. It is easily accomplished by either email or by phone. Just go to the company's website and find the contact page. In your email, be sure to include the company name and relevant account numbers. I had my email responses the same day.
5. Also very important! Make sure you do further research for each company. Find reviews, call them to have them come back out, see how they respond to communication attempts. If possible, contact previous customers for references.
6. After reviewing everything and narrowing the potentials down, make a list of questions not covered before.
Things like:
Do they have a point of contact, a project manager?
Material types available, haggle for best possible. Worse they can say is No.
Extra work that you may need done; gutters, down spouts, flashing, skylights, etc.
Material delivery types, driveway or rooftop?
How long for job completion?
Quality inspection after work is completed. This will most likely be done by your insurance company.
I hope this information, though not exhaustive, helps you on your way.
In the process of things though I came across an excellent roofing company, Covenant Roofing Services. Ricky Campbell is the owner and has been real good at keeping us updated on progress, but I have to say the the process has just begun.
Due to current weather in our area, product delivery, and consequently, the actual job, is being delayed. Totally understandable, if you're from this area you know what I mean.
If you have need of roof repairs or replacement, contact me at joel.cody@jamcody.com and I will get back to you quickly with information to get you started. Covenant Roofing can work with your insurance company to get you taken care of quickly.
Suggestions:
1. Be sure to get your insurance company to give an estimate on your roof as soon as possible.
2. Obtain several roofing contractor quotes, more the merrier! This will give you a better understanding of overall repair needs and costs. Use BBB to start your search. I only contacted those that have an A+ rating and have been in business for 10 years or more.
3. Make certain each potential company hands you a copy of their insurance and a copy of their OKLAHOMA workers compensation. Do not accept out of state worker compensation.
4. Very important! Verify number 3! I can't stress that enough. It is easily accomplished by either email or by phone. Just go to the company's website and find the contact page. In your email, be sure to include the company name and relevant account numbers. I had my email responses the same day.
5. Also very important! Make sure you do further research for each company. Find reviews, call them to have them come back out, see how they respond to communication attempts. If possible, contact previous customers for references.
6. After reviewing everything and narrowing the potentials down, make a list of questions not covered before.
Things like:
Do they have a point of contact, a project manager?
Material types available, haggle for best possible. Worse they can say is No.
Extra work that you may need done; gutters, down spouts, flashing, skylights, etc.
Material delivery types, driveway or rooftop?
How long for job completion?
Quality inspection after work is completed. This will most likely be done by your insurance company.
I hope this information, though not exhaustive, helps you on your way.
Max Huijgengoogleplus @ May 21, 2013, 11:07 am
Name the top three CPU manufacturers; Intel, AMD, Nvidia? Nope!
 The latest figures show that AMD fell back to a 4th place and Qualcomm and Samsung are now ranked second and third. The number five is even harder to guess: FreeScale is in front of Nvidia.
Amazing changes brought by the rise of the mobile market. Worrying as well as AMD is suffering so much on its traditional desktop market that a near monopoly by Intel is close. Looking at turn-over AMD with $3,6 billion is now at 1/10th of Intel´s CPU business.
The interesting question is if Samsung can keep it´s high position on the list when the contract with Apple ends.
Currently shipping CPU´s to Cupertino is responsible for over 80% of sales, but Samsung is selling much more phones and tablets per year. If they would exclusively use their own Exynos processors in the line-up, they could easily make up for the numbers shipped to Apple.
More data over here http://www.eetimes.com/electronics-news/4414756/Qualcomm--Samsung-pass-AMD-in-microprocessor-sales
 The latest figures show that AMD fell back to a 4th place and Qualcomm and Samsung are now ranked second and third. The number five is even harder to guess: FreeScale is in front of Nvidia.
Amazing changes brought by the rise of the mobile market. Worrying as well as AMD is suffering so much on its traditional desktop market that a near monopoly by Intel is close. Looking at turn-over AMD with $3,6 billion is now at 1/10th of Intel´s CPU business.
The interesting question is if Samsung can keep it´s high position on the list when the contract with Apple ends.
Currently shipping CPU´s to Cupertino is responsible for over 80% of sales, but Samsung is selling much more phones and tablets per year. If they would exclusively use their own Exynos processors in the line-up, they could easily make up for the numbers shipped to Apple.
More data over here http://www.eetimes.com/electronics-news/4414756/Qualcomm--Samsung-pass-AMD-in-microprocessor-sales
