Should Kath Be Allowed To Continue As Moderator?

[Smitty-48]

what we should do to make everyone happy is institite a broad 1-post per 10 minutes rule to cut down on spam and off topic posts. that would also abide by the calls for consistenty.

the dude abides, this aggression will not stand man

That's a dumb rule, then we can't have proper conversation flow.

i agree completely but obviously we cant handle the freedoms of free speech responsibly so some order must be instituted. most importantly it would be consistent

Consistently no restrictions was working fine, until Monty showed up and overthrew Liberty Nation with a flick of his child sex predatory speech banning limp wrist.

[K@th]

Hockey is a Stupid Sport
Recently, a friend of mine encouraged me to become a hockey fan. "It's the fastest game in the world!" he exclaimed.

Hah!

Maybe he was referring to the speed of the puck, that flat, poor-excuse-for-a-ball — the size of a ham sandwich — that they use in the sport. Heck, when I watch hockey on television, the snow on the screen is larger than the puck. The fact that it moves so fast is hardly something to be proud of. After all, I don't go to skeet-shooting competitions to watch the bullet glide through the air. Why should I watch a hockey game when the puck slides across the ice at about the same speed as a 747 at takeoff?

Maybe he was talking about the speed at which a forearm hits another guy's face. I guess that would be exciting if it was legal. I mean, isn't the idea to get the ball — I mean, puck — in that little net thing at the end? If you put an elbow in somebody's ribs, you should have to go sulk in timeout or something, shouldn't you?

And that's another thing. You know why hockey games are so low-scoring? Because the net is too small. The idea is to move the ball — I mean, puck — down the field — I mean, the ice — and deposit it in a little net with a 300-pound gorilla standing in front of it. Isn't that called goal-tending? Wait a minute, that's basketball. But isn't that illegal? More timeout time, I guess.

Anyway they shouldn't make them put it in a net; just crossing the end-zone line should be enough. It works for football. You can cross the plane of the goal line anywhere between the two out-of-bounds lines and it counts. Even in baseball, you can hit it anywhere between the foul poles. But no, in hockey, they give you a target the size of a car door.

But I digress.

Maybe he was talking about the speed of the action. Yeah, that's it. A game that ends with a score of 1-0 is exciting because it has a lot of action in it. Uh-huh. Sounds like a soccer score, and that's not any better. At least with soccer, the ball is the size of a cabbage so you can see it. And those little kids look so cute in their shorts. Oh, do grown men play soccer, too? I didn't know that.

Sorry, hockey is not the fastest game in the world. Nor is it the most exciting. Nor is it one that makes any sense at all.

People can't even play hockey, they can only watch it. When you were growing up, did your neighborhood friends ever knock on your door in the middle of July and invite you to play in a pick-up hockey game on the school grounds? Heck, they didn't even do that in January.

Nope, hockey is a stupid, wimpy sport. Everything I need to know about sports I learned by watching Tom Landry coach the Cowboys from the sidelines. When his guys got into a fight on the field, did he throw trash cans on the field? No, he stood there with his arms crossed and a scowl on his face.

[K@th]

Flight efficiency theory[edit]
Forces2.gif
A powered aircraft counters its weight through aerodynamic lift and counters its aerodynamic drag with thrust. The aircraft's maximum range is determined by the level of efficiency with which thrust can be applied to overcome the aerodynamic drag.

Aerodynamics[edit]
Drag curves for aircraft in flight.svg
A subfield of fluid dynamics, aerodynamics studies the physics of a body moving through the air. As lift and drag are functions of air speed, their relationships are major determinants of an aircraft's design efficiency.

Aerodynamic drag comes from parasitic drag and lift-generated induced drag. Maximizing lift-to-drag ratio augments the aircraft efficiency, and this is attained by minimizing either. As parasitic drag increases with speed and induced drag decreases simultaneously, there is an optimum speed where the sum of both is minimal; this is the best glide ratio. For powered aircraft, the optimum glide ratio has to be balanced with thrust efficiency.

Parasitic drag is constituted by form drag and skin friction drag, and grows with the square of the speed in the drag equation. The form drag is minimized by having the smallest frontal area and by streamlining the aircraft for a low drag coefficient, and skin friction is proportional to the body's surface and can be reduced by maximizing laminar flow.

Induced drag can be reduced by decreasing the size of the airframe, fuel and payload weight, and by increasing the wing aspect ratio or by using wingtip devices, at the cost of increased structure weight.

Design speed[edit]
By increasing efficiency, a lower cruise speed augments the range and reduces the environmental impact of aviation, however, a higher cruise speed allows more revenue passenger miles flown per day.

Jet engine efficiency increases with velocity because the speed difference between the flight and the exhaust is lower. However, above the drag divergence Mach number, the aerodynamic drag on the airframe overwhelms this effect because supersonic shockwaves begin to form, greatly increasing drag and needing supercritical airfoil designs for transonic flight.

For supersonic flight, drag increases at Mach 1.0 but decreases again after the transition. With a specifically designed aircraft, such as the (in development) Aerion AS2, the Mach 1.1 range at 3,700 nmi is 70% of the maximum range of 5,300 nmi at Mach 0.95, but increases to 4,750 nmi at Mach 1.4 for 90% before falling again.[1]

Wingtip devices[edit]
Wingtip devices increase the effective wing aspect ratio, lowering lift-induced drag caused by wingtip vortices and improving the lift-to-drag ratio without increasing the wingspan. This is limited by the available width in the ICAO Aerodrome Reference Code. Airbus has installed wingtip fences on its planes since the A310-300 in 1985, and used today on the A320, A330/A340 and A380. Sharklet blended winglet for the A320 were launched during the November 2009 Dubai air show. Their installation adds 200 kilograms (440 lb) but offers a 3.5% fuel burn reduction on flights over 2,800 km (1,500 nmi)[2]

Weight[edit]
Takeoff weight diagram.svg
As the weight indirectly generates lift-induced drag, its minimization leads to better aircraft efficiency. For a given payload, a lighter airframe generates a lower drag. Minimizing weight can be done through its configuration, materials science and construction methods. To obtain a longer range, a larger fuel fraction of the maximum takeoff weight is needed, adversely affecting efficiency.

The deadweight of the airframe and fuel is non-payload that must be lifted to altitude and kept aloft, contributing to fuel consumption. A reduction in airframe weight enables the use of smaller, lighter engines. The weight savings in both allow for a smaller, lighter fuel load for a given range and payload. A rule-of-thumb is that a reduction in fuel consumption of about 0.75% results from each 1% reduction in weight.[3]

The 84 ton maximum payload of a modern Airbus A380 represents 14.6% of its 575-ton maximum take-off weight. There remains considerable room for future improvements in fuel efficiency. The weight of an aircraft can be reduced by using light-weight materials such as titanium, carbon fiber, and other composite plastics. Expensive materials may be used if the reduction of mass justifies the price of materials through improved fuel efficiency. The improvements achieved in fuel efficiency by mass reduction reduce the amount of fuel an aircraft must carry. This further reduces the mass of the aircraft, and therefore provides further gains in fuel efficiency. For example, the Airbus A380 design includes multiple light-weight materials. The Boeing 787 Dreamliner was the first major commercial airplane to have a composite fuselage, composite wings, and use composites in most other airframe components.[4]

Flight distance

[TheReal_ND]

what we should do to make everyone happy is institite a broad 1-post per 10 minutes rule to cut down on spam and off topic posts. that would also abide by the calls for consistenty.

the dude abides, this aggression will not stand man

Hello reddit

[K@th]

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10 Best Practices for Increasing Hospital Profitability
June 17, 2009 | Print | Email
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Hospitals today face many challenges including an economic recession, increases in uninsured care and growing competition for outpatient services. However, there are still many steps hospitals can take to increase their profitability amid these economic conditions.



Industry experts say that hospitals wishing to increase their profitability can focus on two key areas — reducing costs and increasing reimbursement. Here are 10 best practices for increasing hospital profitability by reducing costs and increasing revenue and reimbursement.

1. Reduce staffing costs by using data to drive staffing decisions. Because labor is the largest single expense for hospitals, it is critical that hospitals are not over- or under- staffing their facilities.

Hospitals leaders can cosider the use of flexible staffing, such as part-time or hourly employees, and adjust staffing based on patient census data. Leaders should also monitor the efficiency of this staffing by continuously reviewing benchmarking data such as hours worked per case.

Amy Floria, CFO of Goshen (Ind.) Health System, says that her facility monitors patient volume on a daily basis and adjusts staffing accordingly. "We adjust our nursing staffing every eight hours after looking at our inpatient volume and expected discharges and admits," she says.

Kevin Burchill, a director at Beacon Partners, a healthcare management consulting firm, agrees that staffing must be adjusted daily. "The easiest thing that a hospital can do to improve profitability is for the senior management team to assume responsibility for the day-to-day performance of an organization and look at the organization's performance in real time," he says. "You must shift to an emphasis on the day-to-day, not pay-period to pay-period or month-to-month."

It is important that concerns regarding efficient staffing are communicated throughout the organization and that hospital leaders work in collaboration with physicians. Donna Worsham, COO of National Surgical Hospitals, suggests that hospital leaders share staffing efficiency benchmarking data with unit managers and provide feedback regarding the productivity of the unit.

Flexible staffing is especially useful for OR nursing staff. OR managers should review clock-in times versus surgery-start times and determine if their staff is consistently arriving before a surgery actually begins. If this is the case, mangers can utilize flexible staffing to allow nursing staff to arrive later so that when surgeries run over, no overtime expenses are incurred, says Ms. Worsham.

Other facilities are saving in staffing costs by reducing benefits for full-time staff. Goshen Health System, for example, deferred merit increases, reduced paid vacation time and suspended its retirement matching program in response to the current economy, according to Goshen's CEO, Jim Dague. Goshen reduced employee dissatisfaction in response to these cuts by soliciting employee feedback on which benefits to reduce, thereby building organizational support for the changes. In addition, Goshen's executives took a voluntary 20 percent cut in order to help sustain the system through the recession.

Joe Freudenberger, CEO of OakBend Regional Medical Center in Richmond, Texas, agrees that staff must buy in to any reductions in hours and shifts worked that will personally affect them in order for the hospital to remain successful. He says that hospital leaders must communicate the reasoning for these changes to the staff before making them. "If we call off staff, they see it as personally hurting their income when we need to help them understand that it is actually preserving their income by maintaining the financial viability of the hospital," he says. "It may be obvious to us that we're calling them off because we have a significant reduction in patient volume, but we need to communicate that to them for them to understand the financial realties we face."

Although some staffing cuts may be necessary, hospitals should be careful not to take a blanket approach to layoffs or cuts in services. Hospital leaders must take a close look at their business before making cuts.

"Don't make the same mistake everyone else does — don’t look at bottom line, determine that you need to cut $1 million, for example, and then cut 10 percent across the board. Doing so will trim some fat but will cut meat and bone in other areas," says Mr. Burchill.

He suggests that hospitals assess each program individually and determine which ones are what are winners and losers. "You do not want to cut areas that you should be doing more of or that are already profitable," says Mr. Burchill.

2. Reduce supply costs by better managing vendors. Hospital leaders can reduce supply costs by working with vendors to improve contracts and encouraging physicians to make fiscally responsible supply decisions.

"When it comes to supply costs, you must drive this expense or the vendor will drive it for you," says Ms. Worsham.

Hospital leaders should not shy away from approaching vendors for discounts. Goshen's IT director recently requested a discount on the health system's contract for IT maintenance due to current economic conditions and successfully received a discount that saved the hospital 15 percent on this contract, according to Ms. Floria.

Hospitals can also reduce supply costs be reducing the number of vendors. Goshen, for example, is in the process of reducing the number of vendors in its surgical suite and aims to eventually scale the vendors down to 4-6 companies. "This action is expected to save us at least a million dollars in supply costs," says Mr. Dague.

Another way in which hospitals may reduce supply costs is by requiring vendors to submit purchase orders for any equipment or implants that are not included in a negotiated, written agreement with the facility. "All of our vendors sign agreements that any purchase orders must be submitted at least 24 hours before a procedure and must be approved by the materials manager or the CEO, or it's free," says Ms. Worsham. "If you don't require this, vendors will drop off the invoice for a pricey piece of equipment or implant after the procedure has already taken place and walk out the back door, which can greatly hurt your profitability."

3. Ensure that your OR is utilized by physicians efficiently. All hospitals can benefit from tightening up the efficiency of their operating rooms, but it is especially critical that less busy facilities ensure that their ORs are used as efficiently as possible.

"Hospitals need to review block time utilization," says Ms. Worsham. "Physicians who are assigned more time than they are using are hurting your profitability."

Ms. Worsham suggests that hospital OR managers work directly with physicians to make OR utilization more efficient.

"When physicians' schedules create gaps in the OR schedule, it effects a hospital's ability to staff effectively, which can create significant labor costs for the hospital," says Ms. Worsham.

4. Involve physicians in cost reduction efforts. Hospitals should work to encourage physicians to become more concerned about the costs of supplies and other activities, such as unnecessary tests and inefficient coding processes that may drive up hospital costs.

"Hospitals today have a unique opportunity to leverage physicians' interest in having hospitals help to stabilize their incomes with the hospitals' needs to involve physicians in cutting costs and improving quality," says Nathan Kaufman, managing director of Kaufman Strategic Advisors, a hospital consulting firm.

Hospitals can encourage the use of products from vendors that are cost-effective, but still high quality, especially in areas such as orthopedic implants, which can be considerably costly for hospitals. In addition, experts say the use of protocol-based care can reduce costs associated with unnecessary tests or treatments.

Mr. Freudenberger says that one of the biggest mistakes hospitals make is not engaging medical staff in profitability. "Physicians have a huge role in maintaining hospital profitability, but unless you give them a reason to be concerned with a hospital's profitability, they will make choices in what and to whom they refer services that will not consider the implications to the hospital," says Mr. Freudenberger. "Hospital leaders should work to help medical staff understand the connection of their referrals to the hospital's viability so that their referral decisions reflect the value they place on the hospital."

[StCapps]

I mean, puck — in that little net thing at the end? If you put an elbow in somebody's ribs, you should have to go sulk in timeout or something, shouldn't you?

Never heard of two minutes for elbowing, have you?

[K@th]

4. Involve physicians in cost reduction efforts. Hospitals should work to encourage physicians to become more concerned about the costs of supplies and other activities, such as unnecessary tests and inefficient coding processes that may drive up hospital costs.

"Hospitals today have a unique opportunity to leverage physicians' interest in having hospitals help to stabilize their incomes with the hospitals' needs to involve physicians in cutting costs and improving quality," says Nathan Kaufman, managing director of Kaufman Strategic Advisors, a hospital consulting firm.

Hospitals can encourage the use of products from vendors that are cost-effective, but still high quality, especially in areas such as orthopedic implants, which can be considerably costly for hospitals. In addition, experts say the use of protocol-based care can reduce costs associated with unnecessary tests or treatments.

Mr. Freudenberger says that one of the biggest mistakes hospitals make is not engaging medical staff in profitability. "Physicians have a huge role in maintaining hospital profitability, but unless you give them a reason to be concerned with a hospital's profitability, they will make choices in what and to whom they refer services that will not consider the implications to the hospital," says Mr. Freudenberger. "Hospital leaders should work to help medical staff understand the connection of their referrals to the hospital's viability so that their referral decisions reflect the value they place on the hospital."

[pineapplemike]

what we should do to make everyone happy is institite a broad 1-post per 10 minutes rule to cut down on spam and off topic posts. that would also abide by the calls for consistenty.

the dude abides, this aggression will not stand man

Hello reddit

fuck r/politics (and that whole network of subreddits) man how am i supposed to respond to all of the paid shills when i'm limited to 1 post per 10 minutes

[K@th]

Feminists are not angry lesbians who hate men. Feminists do not believe women are better than men, or that women deserve special privileges. They do not believe women are victims.

In order to be considered a feminist, you only need to be on board with one idea: All humans, male and female, should have equal political, economic and social rights.

Although more and more people are beginning to understand the true definition of feminism and openly identifying with it, there has always been a negative stigma attached to it. Part of this problem is the way our media sensationalizes things, trying to pass the most radical and extreme versions as the standard which, in this case, depicts a feminist as a man-hater who hates lipstick, crinkles her nose at stay-at-home moms, and unapologetically supports abortions on demand.

2014-09-17-sDOMESTICABUSEsmall.jpg

It’s these false assumptions that cause anti-feminist campaigns, such as the recent “Women Against Feminism,” which consists of people posting photos of themselves with statements such as: “I don’t need feminism because I don’t choose to ignore the fact that men have issues too” and “I don’t need feminism because I already have equal rights.” Reading through the majority of these posts quickly brings forth a glaringly obvious problem: how misguided too many people still are about what being a feminist actually means.

As Lena Dunham pointed out, “Feminism isn’t a dirty word. It’s not like we’re a deranged group who think women should take over the planet, raise our young on our own and eliminate men from the picture.”

Being a feminist has nothing to do with how you look, what you wear, who you date, or how often you have sex. Being a feminist doesn’t mean you think women deserve special rights; it means you know we deserve equal ones.

While a primary purpose of feminism is to empower women, it does not mean feminists view all women as weak and oppressed. Feminists are not aiming to make women stronger; they already know they’re strong. They just want society to see that too.

Empowering women does not mean belittling or punishing men. Men, too, suffer from gender role assumptions that place expectations upon them to live and act a certain way. Feminists believe each person should be viewed based on their individual strengths and capabilities as a human being, not the strengths and capabilities assumed of their gender. They believe every person should be treated equally — not because of gender, but in spite of it.

[StCapps]

Scrolling past posts, that's too tedious, and I'm super lazy, the forum needs censorship instead, to appease my whims.