No, not a great choice. I’m sure I’ll have to consent at some point too. If I want healthcare in this part of the state, eventually I’ll need treatment there. 
6 Likes
Only a minor grinding this time, but…
He also suggests people travel with a first aid kit, but more importantly, a cell phone, which [the girls who got lost in Algonquin Park] did not have.
“That’s a number one recommendation is carry a cell phone with you if you’re going into the woods,” Dickson said, although he acknowledged that some organizations prohibit the use of electronics on trips.
More to the point, there are no cell phone towers that deep into the wilderness of Algonquin Park.
I understand that they’re offering general advice for trips into the woods (which only rarely take people this far out of cell phone range), but they’re doing so in such a way as to imply that this could have helped these particular girls get rescued sooner, when that’s almost certainly not the case.
12 Likes
True, but to your further point, this is Canada. We have a lot of wilderness, and a relatively small population. Unless people are bringing a satellite phone with them, a lack of cell phone towers is an ongoing issue. My neighbourhood has so-so reception at best, and it’s central-ish Toronto – but right by the lake. It’s not weird to lose signal sometimes when you’re walking along the boardwalk.
There’s also the power issue. A cell phone won’t save you if you run out of power and can’t recharge the batteries. Or if you just accidentally drop the thing in water, which is easy enough to do in an urban environment and even easier in the woods.
12 Likes
The article does mention bringing along a means to charge the device. And there are ways to waterproof a cell phone - I wore my own phone on a lanyard around my neck, in a waterproof pocket, during my own recent trip to Algonquin Park (the step count must be recorded!).
A satellite device might indeed be a better recommendation - we brought one along, and used it to text parents that we had safely reached each of our campsites; we could have used it to send a distress signal and location had it been necessary. I don’t think that would have helped the girls much, either, though, unless one had been purchased for and given to each of the different groups when they separated (which seems unlikely, given the expense).
8 Likes
And don’t forget the weight. If you’re backpacking, that’s a lot of weight to carry that will not feed you or keep you warm and dry, just in case.
10 Likes
I’m not thinking of a full-sized phone; the one we brought (something like this) was much smaller, on the order of half a pound. It doesn’t function as a phone, and was even supposedly quite the pain to type text messages on, but I’d imagine sending out an SOS would be much easier.
10 Likes
Another small grind: too many parents are giving their kids two-syllable names that start with an accented syllable and end in “en” or “in” or “an” or “on” or “yn” (which, being an unaccented syllable, is pronounced with a schwa no matter which letter is used).
In my Cub Scout pack, the last few years, we’ve had:
Ronin
Soren
Aidyn
Mason
Evan
Landon
Dylan
Grayson
Cameron
Kieran
There’s also a Colin a few years older, and I’m pretty sure I’m forgetting a few because all these names run together.
Which is the problem. The more similar names are, the more difficulty I have remembering which name goes with which person.
I don’t know if it’s a local thing, but man, is it annoying.
11 Likes
At least there’s more variety than Roman names.
4 Likes
My daughter has a popular name. She introduces herself in school as “The Alpha (name)”. It helps he stand out in a sea of similar names. She has a friend with the same name who is in her phone as Beta (name).
8 Likes
What the actual fuck is going on in your medical system? Seriously?
And you guys¹ are worried about government run healthcare?
¹generic, as in that’s one of the major US foibles.
11 Likes
Even without cell service, GPS and compass functionality is still available on most smartphones.
7 Likes
Yeah. We’re collectively insane.
Surgery Tuesday went off fine except now I’m sentenced to ten days of no sweating until it heals. Since this is summer in the south, with days in the 90Fs and nights at 99% humidity, I can’t do much.
When I was in the bed ready to be wheeled into surgery, with an IV ready to send me off to dreamland already in my arm, I was given two more documents to sign. This seems skeezy AF. Why couldn’t they have given them to me in the waiting room? Before I paid the surgery center co-pay of $600? I was handed a tablet showing the documents in little tiny print that I almost couldn’t read. I interpret this as the hospital’s last grab to shift as much risk as possible onto the patient, as much as their risk minimization system - was the document dynamically generated? - judged I would accept. So I lay there and read it all, hopefully making the whole team - I was first in line for the day - wait for me to finish. The one good thing is that the tablet did allow me to make amendments, a pleasant surprise, with a stylus, so I did, and these (NO FACIAL PHOTOS) were transcribed by the attending nurse into surgical instructions.
And that, friends, is how I went from showing a lump over my sternum to my family doc, to walking into a surgeon’s office for a consult and expecting an in-office procedure, to agreeing to surgery with the surgeon, an anesthesiologist and assistant, to being rolled into surgery with ever more people in the room as I drifted off. Soon I’ll know if I was assaulted while I was out.
16 Likes
It sounds like you were pretty sanguine about it, but that’s terrible health care. You’re supposed to reduce the patient’s anxiety.
Hope you have a speedy, comfortable recovery, but yeah, that’s just bizarre.
12 Likes
Seems to me that you already had a contract and anything in that additional stuff you had to sign was non-enforceable. But IANAL. I’m glad you read it, making them wait. Reading it out loud in a slow, Shakespearean actor’s accent would have made it even better.
9 Likes
True, but the former is not so helpful unless you have the maps for the area downloaded, and I think a physical compass would be more useful (especially since it won’t run out of battery).
7 Likes
Neighbor: “Ahh, 7:45 am. Time to blast some “corridos” for the entire neighborhood to enjoy.”
9 Likes
my grand-nephew’s name is Ronin. being that he’s got something like 1/16th japanese genes, i think it’s a kickass name for him.
7 Likes
I’m not saying it’s a bad name; I’m begrudging having to cycle through a dozen similar names before I hit upon the right one.
7 Likes
What I found really hilarious about your list is that I know a couple who just named their newborn Evan because the didn’t want the “same old name choices”.
9 Likes
Unfortunately, bureaucracies and computer systems may not work with certain names. And not just Little Bobby Tables. I’ve mostly encountered problems with passwords. It’s a lot worse when it happens with names.
https://www.kalzumeus.com/2010/06/17/falsehoods-programmers-believe-about-names/
9 Likes