f13.net

New concept.  Things that irritate/ worry you from your field, shared for the rest of us and why we should worry and how it affects us.   Idea from: Trippy's concern about the Blizz win over the Botters, and my recent education on a few "minor" upcoming building code changes.

Concern:  The building code is getting stupid, and too many special interest groups are getting their fingers in the pie with an unregulated code group that most states adopt. The group I'm talking about is the ICC (http://www.iccsafe.org/news/about/).  They've got a noble idea, standardize building codes so that across the country you're assured the same standards of housing.  They accomplished that about 10 years ago, however, and now have simply been adding things that only add cost to construction, for marginal safety.

The latest examples are: Lateral Load (Wind) Bracing, Structural Load, Soils composition and Fire Suppression systems.  I could go off on the first few, but it's really detailed and I don't want to hit TLDR.  That last one is the one that really gets me, though.

The latest code revisions that will be adopted by states sometime next year for inclusion by 2010 mandate a home sprinkler system in every house in America. This isn't being driven on any scientific study or a plethora of statistics that say fire suppression systems would have saved lives in hundreds of home fires.   It's being driven by that video of the Stanton club fire in 2003 that's been shown at several code meetings and the FPS lobby.

Why does this concern me and you?  Because municipal water systems CAN NOT handle a FPS in every new home in a subdivision.  They also add about $15k to the base cost of homes.  That translates to about $30k for homeowners prior to the taxes that'll have to be raised to upgrade water systems.  This puts all houses even farther out of range of blue-collar people, because new home values set the standard for all homes. It also completely ignores that some cities in the West and South West are already having enough problems meeting their current water demand.

 Then you come to the problem of, "Well what if a small fire sets off the system and extinguishes it?  Lack of fire doesn't shut off the system, so does homeowner's insurance say "Fuck you, it's flooding" or cover all damages.  If they cover all damages, water is one of the worst things to have in your house, the repairs are extensive and expensive to undo that kind of mess, so  this will only serve to raise the rates of everyone in the end to cover the increased dollar amount of payouts.

This troubles me greatly. 

Why should we give a shit about what happens to people who buy into cardboard McHousing/urban sprawl?

edit: that's a rhetorical question.

The person behind the keyboard.

[edit] Damnit! Merusk, I won't fuck up your thread.  :grin:

I actually do care about you, y'know?

I'm concerned about American businesses eventually switching from US GAAP to IFRS in order to more standardize total global accounting practices. While this is a good idea in theory, it basically fucks all current accountants into learning something else, which sets us further back in the global economy. On top of that it opens the door for many more grey area accounting frauds because the IFRS system is much more principles-based, rather than rules-based. Making accounting more a judgement call than it already is, which almost nobody outside of the field realizes, is a bad thing in my view.

Yeah this should have been started in politics.

I am not posting until this gets moved to politics.

Whoops!

Isn't it kind of costly to force cold weather building standards on warm weather areas? Or building standards for humid areas on stuff built in dry climates?  Shit seems like some of the cold dry states building practices would be mold heaven in a gulf state.

Well, I might as well get my shots in before the jackals pick over the remains.

We can move it if that's what Merusk wants.

If that's what he wants he'd have started it in that retched cesspool.

I'll bite here, with 2 concerns from the 2 different fields I've worked and studied in.

Firstly, antibiotic resistant bacteria and drug development. Because of 60 years of over-prescription of antibiotics we are now seeing an increasing incidence of resistance to multiple antibiotics in community-acquired infections. Some common infections, e.g. Staphylococcus aureus, when in difficult infections such as biofilms in prostheses, catheters, etc, are now so hard to treat that there is only really one drug (linezolid) available, and use of that is being tightly controlled in an effort to delay widespread resistance developing.

At the same time, the vast majority of drug development research is profit driven because.. well... capitalism, yo. Drug development is costly and time consuming. It can cost 10's of millions of $ and 10-15 years to get a drug to market. With antibiotics the chances are that your drug will only be useful for another 10-20 years due to the aforementioned resistance development. So drug companies put their R&D dollars where the profit is - viagra clones and diabetes drugs. The $ returns on willy drugs are so huge that that's all the drug co's want to know about. Type 2 diabetes and other obesity related drugs are also big. Diabetes takes 30 years to kill you, you never get better from it and you need constant medication to control it - i.e. drug development nirvana.

So, we've got a rapidly increasing bacterial resistance to the drugs we have and very few new drugs being developed. Apocalyptic scenarios are easy to create in those circumstances and after having worked as a molecular biologist for 15 years it scares the shit out of me. Back before we developed the first antibiotics life was very different. Things we see as minor today, like an infected wound, become regularly fatal without good antibacs.

Unless we start devoting serious resources to developing drugs that will probably be highly unprofitable in the long run then we're all going to die in a bubbling, pustulent mess of hardcore ninja bastard gangrene.

I was gonna write about how difficult it's becoming to take photographs in public now because of the whole terrorism paranoia and fear crap but I've gone on long enough already :)

Humanity.

A career plan.

Damn man, you're starting to sound like me.

Must be a Texas thing.  :awesome_for_real:

edit:

On a serious note ..

animal cruelty... i just can't make the leap to vegetarian, let alone vegan... but a part of me would like to. so much bad shit goin' on

It's not a Texan thing. I am apathy incarnate.

Well, I'm right there with ya.

What was your degree in btw? Film studies, right? We should make a horror movie. About apathy.

Art Studio, minor in film history.

My penis.

Well, yeah that was my initial thought.  Then I realized I didn't want it to get so overtly political, partisan AND ignored by a large chunk of the boards which dropping it in politics would do.  I thought about Gen.Disc but figured it'd wind-up in Politics within two posts if I did that.  I'd rather this say quasi-serious but not turn into a series of flames and back-patting.


There are provisions for cold weather, the nation is divided into "Zones" according to your latitude and traditional weather patterns.  Humid/ dry areas  concern the location of vapor barriers but not much else.  The cold weather thing does bring up a question of "what happens to a house with a sprinkler system in Minnesota/ Alaska? Do you have to build a chase wall below your ceiling since you can't run water pipes through an attic.

Fine, I'll bite. The number of Realtors I deal with every day that are utterly shocked when I tell them that the software subscription they purchased is under a one year contract. When I bring up the EULA, they respond with "no one ever reads that". These are people who are dealing with half million dollar contracts for people, and they do not think to read a license agreement, or I don't know, maybe ask questions before handing out thier credit cards?

On the same vane, I am frightend by the number of Realtors that run thier businesses out of checking accounts that go in to over draft on a $30 double billing.

But it's a great opportunity for anyone who's just started learning accounting recently.  :grin:

Money.

Women.

The obvious solution is halon.

Okay, it's not that rhetorical.

I'm concerned that American obesity is driving the need for a family of three to demand to live in 3000+ square feet of urban sprawl that a) they can't afford (see current financial crisis) b) takes up space formerly occupied by trees and wetlands (see aftermath of Hurricane Katrina), and c) their asses shouldn't be big enough to require in the first place (see current food crisis).

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<runs>

I never considered obesity a factor in the desire to buy a large home.  Or do you mean 3000sqft of yard?  I'm not arguing against either position, just having a tough time with the link.

I think obesity should be a factor, but it's more the metaphorical gluttony that I was talking about (but not articulating very well before coffee). And I meant 3000 sq.ft. homes, not lots.

echoing this 100%.

No it's power. Then women.

No it's Sugar -> Power -> Women.

Fine...

International logistics security

Airlines in America

The growth of Islamic banking

Cuba, post-Fidel

Alien Invasions.

I should care about my credit rating, but I don't.  I also don't care about dead celebrities. 

typical. you probably only care about undead celebrities.

(http://www.zomgstuff.net/forum/images/smilies/emotboingpn7.gif)

Edit: Late to the party.

PS: That smilie is awesome.

Everyone should be concerned about 'all the best intentions"

So has this thread turned from the original concept already? Did people just read the title?

I thought the title was the concept?  :headscratch:

So the title is really, 'things I care about that I don't think most of you do, but should'. Not 'things I know I should care about, but don't'.

Oh.. Well, I'm following the rules anyways, I guess? I don't have a "field" at the moment. Everything is fair game for me to be irritated with/care about/not care about/etc..


Also, just to give another answer:

This thread's rules, for instance..  :why_so_serious:

I don't care what a title reads or what the intent is of the original poster, I bob my head to the beat of a different drum. 

Bob bob bobobobob bob bobobob bob.  So shuddup, lamerasso!

You make it sound like I should be wielded by a cowboy.

Don't mind Signe, she's just a Maverick.

Get involved with local politics.

Our (R) mayor ran unopposed and is now running amok cutting budgets and "ZOMG NO TAXES EVAR". He's about to fuck over the city pretty hard. I'm biased, since part of our revenue is from the city, but he'll hit police and fire, too. I just hope it pisses off enough people that someone better runs next time. I'm betting people are selfish enough to want lower taxes at the expense of police and fire. The focus should be on reform, not budget slashing.

Also, remember libraries are great places for people with lower incomes (well, everyone, really!) and in shitty financial times we help a lot of people with adult education and job location. But we also get hit for budget slashing at the same time. I think my library is almost back to 1980s funding with this year's cuts - we've already had to close one day a week, can't replace two positions and will probably start layoffs next year.

And all those shiny computers at the library? Probably grant money. If we went on public funding, we'd have no computers. At all. Every computer I install, staff or public, every software package and every bit of network gear, is all granted money from charitable foundations.

So I guess the gist is care a bit more about your local community and try to give a little back.

More and more state universities are dependent on private donors and grants for their budgets.  What you're feeling at the library level is similar to what most state universities are feeling as well.  We had an increase of 15% in our teaching loads this Fall and were asked to do it on a 7% budget cut.  This zero sum game is starting to really piss me off.

I completely agree that local governments govern best.  Unfortunately the game show host form of politics usually found in Washington has infected all levels. 

In the spirit of the thread title; people should care about politics becoming a career path resulting in a never ending campaign.  Politics is fun and amusing during elections but just like beer, too much makes you stupid and dangerous no matter what the party affiliation.   

Something that should keep you up at night:

Data backups. Backups are a shitty job that at many companies get foisted off on the most junior member of the IT department, because nobody wants to do it. Just about all of everything in the world at this point relies on these backups for disaster recovery, which means things like your entire financial history might be (and probably are) resting in the hands of the IT employee equivalent of Fry from Futurama. It is really just a matter of time before some big company fails in the wake of a natural disaster like Katrina wiping out their servers and then discovering that, oops, they can't recover.

Someone on here had a lovely story about just that.  They work for some company called "hal" though so they can't talk about it.

Backups are incredibly useless.  It's the restores that are critical.  Few things make executive assholes tighten more than looking at the data storage budget.

I'm actually considering library science as an eventual career. Hopefully they're still around by the time my ass graduates...not that public libraries are the only route, but it's the obvious one.

You're out in the boonies somewhat though, right (no offense.. honest question)? We're I'm at, they're pretty well supported, with over a dozen (city) of them to this city alone, and a huge downtown one. Not that I necessarily plan to be here...

I went to a couple of my local libraries over the weekend and was really pleased to see how useful and popular they seemed to be. It obviously depends on area so I'm not sure what the system is like generally, but I was heartened. Lots of people using the computers and reading areas provided. Efficient, modern and useful technology. And a pretty decent selection of books. Compared to what I remember of them the last time I used to visit a lot, which was when I was a teenager, they've only improved.

My local Alderman (City Councilman type thing) always runs unopposed. People try to run against him every couple years, but bad things tend to happen to them/their families/their property. This is considered 'Politics as Usual' in Illinois.

As long as he supports his local library, then aggressive mob tactics seem OK to me.