Sterile_Technique

Just switched to a new phone carrier, and they had a promotion that included a free phone: the Google Pixel 8. I'm not a fan of Google, but I am a fan of free, so I took the bait.

It's already bombarded me with pitches for their new AI bullshit. I've opted out of as much as the settings allow, but I'm under no illusion that doing so actually provides any real privacy.

So, damage control time.

On my previous device I used YouTube Vanced for music and videos, but I guess Vanced isn't around anymore, and I'm pretty out of date on what the current options are... any insight on streaming specifically?

*I'm a medic who's only surface-level competent with tech, so please idiot-proof any instructions.

Thanks all!

I've heard of things like Nair that make it fall out... if that was a one-and-done solution I'd be all for it, but I'm hoping for something that slows or stops it from growing.

I go clean shaven, but I get the '5 o-clock' shadow the second I put the razor down, and look homeless if I skip a day or two.

Tried growing a beard - looked alright, but the amount of product and effort I shoved into that thing was ridiculous. And it was maddeningly itchy the entire time (lasted about a year putting up with it).

I've spent the last couple years with the conclusion that hair is just annoying, and I want it gone with as little effort and expense as possible.

Kinda partial to keeping the eyebrows and lashes cuz they keep shit out of my eyes, but honestly if losing them is the cost of getting rid of the rest of it, I'd call that a fair trade.

Some initial searching shows there is a market for hair growth suppressants, but chewbaccoids like myself might not be among the target audience lol.

Anyone got a recommendation or cautionary tale?

Remember like Rooster Teeth's Red vs Blue?

Looking for something like that. Episodic use of a videogame for some light-hearted story driven cinema.

The only good modern example I can think of is Neebs Gaming's Subnautica series, but that's kind of an outlier in their channel since everything else they've done (that I've seen at least) is more of a "let's play" type of video than the kind of cinematic roleplay they do for Subnautica.

Hard to screen for quality on channels I'm not familiar with, since 99% of YouTube's gaming content is hot garbage.

Anywho, the combination of school and work is melting my brain... I don't trust my time management skills to dive back into actual gaming, but the occaisional episode to get that little half-hour-mind-vacation would be a godsend.

Thanks, all!

I just recently learned that this is a thing that exists. I've had a couple audiology tests that use these weird headphones with firm rubber balls where normally expect to see the speakers; the rubber balls sit on your temporal bone, and there's a metal bar the wraps around your head connecting them and giving them pressure to kinda squeeze your head.

The sound experience was pretty wild - my ears were completely open, so I could still hear ambient noises, but the sounds from the headphones were just kinda there... like it didn't sound like they were coming from anywhere, but like beamed directly into my brain.

I was curious if these were exclusive for audiology testing or if there were commercial variants for listening to music and such... hit the ol' search engine, and lo and behold: there are actually quite a few commercial variants!

- TLDR -

Anywho, I'm intrigued as hell, and am curious if anyone here has experience with bone conduction headphones. Lots of questions:

Which brand/model are you using?

How's the sound quality?

How's the sound leak?

What kind of music do you use it to listen to? (my poison of choice is symphonic metal, with emphasis on the symphonic bits -- looking for that full range hit everything from the flutes to the howler monkeys :P)

Are they comfortable to wear? For how long?

Do you get any skin irritation or even breakdown where it contacts your temple?

Does the hook part wrap around your ears without any pressure points?

Does the behind-the-head band bounce around when you're walking or running?

How much space is between the band and the back of your head/neck? (I think my noggin is a bit on the smaller side, and I have basically no hair... one of the manufacturers makes one with a smaller sized band, which might be a good selling point for me)

How's the battery life?

How long have you had it?

When do you use it? (working out, at work, etc)

Do they stay put, or do you need to reposition them frequently?

Anything else to comment on?

Print-to-PDF is locked down. There's a print option as part of the software, but it slaps my student email diagonally across every single page, which makes reading it kind of obnoxious.

I don't intend to distribute (which I'm assuming is why it's locked up so tight), but needing to log in and navigate to the text is getting cumbersome, so I'm hoping to just save a chapter at a time to my phone and whip that out to tackle my reading assignments.

Also hoping to preserve images, since a lot of the info is charts and such, so PDF seems like the best target, but open to any ideas.

...I suppose I could just suck it up and deal with their annoying software, but at this point I hate to admit defeat lol.

Like in the Home tab, the "Styles" seems like exactly what I need, but it applies the changes to the entire paragraph vs just the selected text.

Pic below of what I'm trying to do:

Just started nursing school (woo!!) and I'm trying to make review guides for my class. There are like 50 of those questions for every chapter, ~10 chapters for every unit exam, and a unit exam every couple of weeks. ...for the next two years. >_>

There are a metric FUCK TON of these questions, so I'm trying to make them as easy on the eyes as possible so that we can review them as quickly and effortlessly as possible.

Anywho, in the pic, question 3 is the format I'm shooting for - letter answers bolded, red, and caps; answer key tucked away with right side alignment, small, light grey, and italicized so we don't prematurely see the answer as we're scrolling.

Question 4 is how the text appears in the textbook, which makes it hard to scroll though them without seeing the answer prior to considering all the options, and seeing the answer early kinda sabotages actually learning the content.

The ideal study scenario being read the question, discuss which answer we think is right and why, check our answer against the grey text, and move on.

I know you can change formating with find and replace, but then the entire document is filled with sentences that end with things like "fractured bonE." so afaik the best approach is to just ctrl+click/drag to select the letters, then then click the bold/red/Aa and move on to the next one and repeat.

Any tips to automate this would be outstanding, since there will literally be thousands of these throughout the entire program.

Thank you!!

When I separated, a few things on my initial claim fell through the cracks - they weren't denied or anything, they just didn't appear at all despite definitely being brought up in those first VA apts.

When I noticed they were missing, I put in the intent to refile, went through the hoops to get my DBQ's and all the appointments and such, and resubmitted. Took about 8 months.

Fast forward to just recently: percentage was increased!! Got a pretty decent chunk of change retroactively deposited to the bank account, and I'm now eligible for VA healthcare, so FUCK YEAH!! This is an unbelievable weight off my shoulders!

Last Friday, I got an email from the VA saying to be on the lookout for a call or letter scheduling the C&P exam. I've been working through the VA up to this point, so I'm not sure what the C&P would cover that their own docs haven't already, but w/e, I'm not opposed to going in for another look.

...but it's super weird to me that the C&P exam would be scheduled after being awarded a new rating. I've heard that not everyone has to do the C&P if your DBQs are good enough, so I figured I fell into that category... but now I'm getting nervous: was I given the new rating in error?

My plan as of now is to just not touch the money that was deposited, since I'm not sure if I'll be allowed to keep it... but I'm also tempted to just dump it all into my student loan debt, since it's enough to bring that almost to $0.00 and even if I do end up having to repay, it'd effectively just make my loans reset to 0% interest (or would it be 0% if I have to repay the VA?).

Does that email go out to everyone regardless of whether or not you actually need the C&P? If they are going to call me in for the exam, how long does it typically take to get that phone call? Like if I go a full week without hearing anything, safe to assume all is well? Month? Longer?

My anxiety is through the roof right now. I've pretty much been poverty or paycheck-to-paycheck my entire life - the prospect of actual financial security has always been a pipe-dream fantasy, but fuck... here it is. But I don't trust that I'll get to keep it.

Any insight would by much appreciated!!

Thank you, all!

Piss-broke nursing student, here.

The amount of reading I'm having to crank through on a weekly basis is pretty insane - I've been leaning heavily on text-to-speech software to knock the chapters out as fast as possible.

The best I've found so far - which isn't FOSS - is https://speechify.com/text-to-speech-online/ ...enough of it's free and accessible to get the job done, but it's got some pretty instrusive "buy me!" features built in, like if I'm listening to a large document and hit the pause button, I'm basically screwed because when I click play I get a prompt for "To continue listening, sign up for premium!"

Hoping to find better options if there are any, especially for ones that offer decent voice options. Some of them are impressively near-human sounding, while others sound like Microsoft Sam from like 1998; the quality and variety of voices make a big difference in retention for me (replaying a lecture with different voices is proving to be a pretty effective study habit).

More focused on the 'free' part vs the open source bit, but the latter would ofc be a good perk.

Know of any good options?

Thank you!!

Marking as solved! The solution is a tad cumbersome (can't directly control in-browser), but it comes with a bonus I didn't even think to ask for (mp3 files that I can save to my phone and listen to in the car!).

Using the extension Video Download Helper, I can yoink the sound files right off the website. I've got mp3's set to open with Firefox, so when I open one it launches in its own tab, where I can use the extension Video Speed Controller to manipulate the playback speed; click back to the original ATI tab and read along.

Thanks for the help, all!!!

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Just started nursing school (fuck yeah!!) and it's looking like a lot of our material is via the website https://www.atitesting.com/ (couldn't find any examples of the audio feature that don't require you to be logged in).

It's basically a textbook, broken down into modules, and click through them as instructed. There's a "play audio" feature that provides audio of the wall of text, which is great! ...except that whoever made the recordings sounds like the fucking sloth from Zootopia.

Occasionally there're videos too, which also don't have built-in playback speed options, but I found an HTML5 video speed controller extension for Firefox that works a charm on those; I've tried about 10 similar extensions trying to hit the text audio, but it remains stuck on sloth.

I also tried a program called Cheat Engine - used that about 50,000 years ago to skip ads on YouTube when YouTube was first infected with its ad disease: set the runspeed of Firefox to like 100x and the ad would be finished in about half a second. Doesn't work anymore for ads, and didn't work on ATI's audio either.

Not sure what else to try, but there aren't enough hours in a day to listen to the assigned material at 1x, so if you've got a fix, you're my hero!

Thanks all!!

Fuck yeah!

I'm a surgical tech now, so going in with a decent foundation; but if anyone's got tips or tricks for a new student, I'm all for it.

Otherwise... just fuck yeah!

Idk if this is the work of AI, or just a 3D artist who didn't get very good instructions for their commission.

At first glance: nothing special, just a collection of random instruments; but when you start to dissect it under the lens of a surgical tech (the target audience for this image) it just gets worse and worse.

So let's dissect it!

First off, that isn't even a surgical backtable - it appears to be on some kind of supply cart, with a raised lip around the edges, and random rectangular holes for handles that have folded sheet metal along the edge. Technically you could throw an impervious drape of that and it'd be fine, but you generally don't see surfaces made to support a sterile field with raised edges that go above the field. The folded sheet metal is also a no-no, as the grooves around it collect and breed the hell out of bacteria.

None of it's draped. There's that greenish material under the tray and instruments, but stops short of the edges of the cart, so there's some REALLY high contamination potential going on there. You could get away with a field like that in dental (which is just 'clean' vs sterile), but again, this wasn't sent for a dental tech position.

Instruments from left to right, we're looking at:

1. a scalpel that's for some reason separate from all the other sharps in the kidney basin.

2. looks like a tissue forcep - that actually checks out.

3. ...the only times I've seen a forcep like have been in ortho sets that have a lot of plates and screws - those forceps are to grab the tiny screws from their caddy, cuz they're hard to get your fingers around, and normal forceps tend to 'slip' around the head of the screw and send it flying across the OR.

4. that's a sponge forcep, but the end is bent in a really odd way; and it doesn't have a ratchet lock, which isn't unheard of, but definitely not common for a sponge forcep.

5. Dental explorer, which checks out with the whole not-really-sterile thing; except if it was a dental setup there'd be a lot more dental instruments.

6. Fuck if I know. Doesn't help that the resolution isn't great, but the operative ends kind of look flat. Bowel clamps are shaped like that, but that is DEFINITELY not an open-belly setup lol. Also - the ringed end where your fingers would go is closed all the way, but the operational end is still open. If a real instrument looks like that, then it's damaged as fuck and needs to be thrown away.

7. Either a kocher clamp or straight hemostat - hard to tell w/ shitty res. But they have have the same weirdness with the ratchet being closed w/ operation end still open.

8. That looks like a potts scissor, which is usually for vascular surgery. Handle is janky as fuck though, and it's doing the opposite weirdness as mentioned before: it's operative end is closed all the way, but the handles are still a tad open.

9. Mayo scissors, which are a go-to for cutting suture. Only weirdness here is the janky handle style.

...and that kidney basin in the upper right of the tray is just chock-full of WTF. So they're using it as a sharps container - that's normal, but they've got the scalpels facing one direction and needles facing the other... that's a good way to get stabbed. ALL of the sharps are resting on the edge, meaning if you bump them just right, they'll do a flip and launch off... that's a good way to get stabbed. They've got all their sharps in one spot, except for that one random scalpel on the left of the tray. Establishing a sharps zone and then not putting sharps in it... that's a good way to get stabbed. The scalpels and needles in the kidney basin all have the sharp end stuck into some gauze or something... that'll dull or bend the super fine end, reducing its effectiveness and generating snag points that'll cause a bit of unnecessary trauma. Between the three scalpels in the basin and the bonus one floating off to the left, a solid third of the instruments displayed are scalpels lol... are they doing a Wolverine cosplay in the OR?? The blades detach... you only need one scalpel handle - maybe two if you want one ready and on stand by. Also all of them are loaded with what looks like a #24 scalpel blade, which isn't very common; and is a fucking massive blade... I could see wanting ONE of those for something like an emergency C-section when you need to rip that skin open fucking NOW, but 4 of those monsters set up with an otherwise tiny collection of instruments? lol no. Those two syringes aren't capped, which is a good way to get stabbed; or labeled, which is a good way mix up your local anesthetic with something that could cause excruciating pain.

...there's just so much wrong with this image it's comical. I can't believe a fucking hospital would choose this over the millions of OR photos already floating around the web lol.

That was a fun rant to type up. If you actually read that wall of text, hope you got a kick out of it lol!

I used to have one of those gaming keyboards that lets you reprogram any key - I'm back to just a standard keyboard, but this seems like the kind of thing a modern computer should be able to do without a "gaming" peripheral.

What I'd really like to do is rebind my caps lock key, because the only time I ever use caps lock is on accident lol. Hoping to rebind it to be my push-to-talk key, so if I could make it do something like a zero-width-space that'll basically turn it into an input key that does nothing except when I tell something like Discord to use that as ptt.

I'm only surface-level competent with computers, so explain-like-I'm-your-grandma or I'll probably fuck something up.

Thanks all!!