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And here's a few random tidbits from the last few days' notes of locked posts:
1. You do not sunburn less if you are (a) running around or (b) shorter. Put sunscreen on your children. Yes, children can also get heat exhaustion.
2. Holiday Weekend + First Of Month = trouble. Lots of folk on assistance get their checks on the first. This coincided with a Saturday, meaning that for a few folks who depend on others for rides and help, they can't get the medicine they've needed since the 30th... until the 4th.
It's not always "full moon crazies" or "holiday nuts." Sometimes it's just people who can't take care of themselves any better than they're already trying to.
3. The ER is not always the proper place to go. It's the Emergency Room, not the I Don't Feel So Good Room or the My Child Is Crying For No Reason Room. If you don't need to be there for an urgent reason, stay the hell out of it.
No, I don't mean if you THINK it might be serious, not to go-- sure, go. But if you know what's wrong, you know why it hurts, and you're just cranky, itchy, hot, or sick of the crying... stay home. Going to the ER is a way to (a) catch something lovely from the people who are there; (b) take up the time of the triage nurses and doctors who really should be catching a breather between REAL emergencies; and (c) giving whatever germs you're carrying around to those who really do have to be in the ER. Opportunistic infections kill people, after all.
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cartesiandaemon posted a very interesting, yet f-locked, discussion of names, from which I started thinking about the following:
We have a whole lot of people in our country with the same name. Currently, we don't have a good way to clarify exactly which John Smith we mean-- the only globally unique identifier is the Social Security number, which is "not to be used for identification."
So, the current workaround is to use name and date of birth, which is okay up to a point-- until, exactly, the point where you have two people with the same, which is entirely possible, and even probable in some cases. Let's take a look at one.
Our friends at How Many Of Me suggest that there may be around 50,000 John Smiths in the United States. Given an even distribution and an 80 year average lifespan, there should be 625 or so John Smiths born in a given year. Since there are 365 days in a year, this means that up to 58% of John Smiths could share a birthday-- day, month, year-- with another John Smith.
So, here's the first solution I came up with, in two parts:
1) Forbid parents to give identical twins, or any other multiple births, the exact same name for each child. They're free to name any two of their children the exact same name otherwise, though.
2) Then, the unique identifier is name/date of birth/place of birth (using city/state, address, or lat/long/height if needed). Two babies could not be born at the same place and time without someone at that same place and time attesting to it, so that would solve the problem there.
1. You do not sunburn less if you are (a) running around or (b) shorter. Put sunscreen on your children. Yes, children can also get heat exhaustion.
2. Holiday Weekend + First Of Month = trouble. Lots of folk on assistance get their checks on the first. This coincided with a Saturday, meaning that for a few folks who depend on others for rides and help, they can't get the medicine they've needed since the 30th... until the 4th.
It's not always "full moon crazies" or "holiday nuts." Sometimes it's just people who can't take care of themselves any better than they're already trying to.
3. The ER is not always the proper place to go. It's the Emergency Room, not the I Don't Feel So Good Room or the My Child Is Crying For No Reason Room. If you don't need to be there for an urgent reason, stay the hell out of it.
No, I don't mean if you THINK it might be serious, not to go-- sure, go. But if you know what's wrong, you know why it hurts, and you're just cranky, itchy, hot, or sick of the crying... stay home. Going to the ER is a way to (a) catch something lovely from the people who are there; (b) take up the time of the triage nurses and doctors who really should be catching a breather between REAL emergencies; and (c) giving whatever germs you're carrying around to those who really do have to be in the ER. Opportunistic infections kill people, after all.
cartesiandaemon posted a very interesting, yet f-locked, discussion of names, from which I started thinking about the following:We have a whole lot of people in our country with the same name. Currently, we don't have a good way to clarify exactly which John Smith we mean-- the only globally unique identifier is the Social Security number, which is "not to be used for identification."
So, the current workaround is to use name and date of birth, which is okay up to a point-- until, exactly, the point where you have two people with the same, which is entirely possible, and even probable in some cases. Let's take a look at one.
Our friends at How Many Of Me suggest that there may be around 50,000 John Smiths in the United States. Given an even distribution and an 80 year average lifespan, there should be 625 or so John Smiths born in a given year. Since there are 365 days in a year, this means that up to 58% of John Smiths could share a birthday-- day, month, year-- with another John Smith.
So, here's the first solution I came up with, in two parts:
1) Forbid parents to give identical twins, or any other multiple births, the exact same name for each child. They're free to name any two of their children the exact same name otherwise, though.
2) Then, the unique identifier is name/date of birth/place of birth (using city/state, address, or lat/long/height if needed). Two babies could not be born at the same place and time without someone at that same place and time attesting to it, so that would solve the problem there.
