Vintage Eric

[Eric]

Oh that's because I use a dummy account for my Twitter since I only use it to aggregate esports and gaming news - not really something I want popping up on a job interview as my only hobby lol. I'll shoot you my handle by DM, but my FB/IG are the ones I use mainly outside of Twitter.

[Moonface]

I swear you said somewhere but did you say you worked at a hospital or something like that or am I remembering wrong?

[Eric]

Not sure how I missed this but yes! I work in the emergency room doing what's called "registration": I pretty much check patients in and I go into their rooms to ask them fun questions about sensitive topics like: "what's your name, address, social security number, are you married, may i see your medical insurance cards, and who do you want as emergency contacts?"

Sometimes I get to talk to psych patients with neurological disorders or people that are juiced up on drugs but I still need to figure their story out so that the hospital can begin authorization with their insurance companies...

My job description is essentially a marriage between medical records and billing, and I do what the front desk clerk at any doctor's office does pretty much, but because it's the emergency room and it's not a good idea to have a line of patients waiting, I go to your room instead of you go to me.

It's stressful and it's not where I saw myself 9 years after high school, but it pays my college bills and gives me benefits until I graduate into a real career. It has the small benefit of developing my social skills quite a bit I guess...you learn to be direct and assertive so that both patients nor the medical staff take advantage of you. But that's something you need to do when you work in any role in healthcare, tbh.

[Moonface]

Do you ever have patients who can't or won't give you the details you need? What happens in those cases?

[Eric]

I don't get paid enough to push them any further than "ok cool, next question." If they straight up refuse having anything to do with me, I need to let the doctor know because at that point, they're refused to provide insurance or sign consent, and both are needed if their diagnosis needs further work past emergency stabilization. For the record: it's illegal in the U.S. to turn away any patients if they don't have insurance, but if they need any outpatient procedures to continue care, then insurance kind of matters.

Our system is complete bullshit tbh.

[Moonface]

Our system is complete bullshit tbh.

Do you mean the system where you work or the healthcare system in general?

[Eric]

Our healthcare system. I used to work as a financial counselor where I helped people get on social security benefits, Medicare, or Medicaid. I had people nearly at death's door trying to get authorized for a procedure that would save their lives but simply didn't have the money for it. I've had people that have a LOT of income, but because they have so much debt their income was basically non-existent and were effectively broke.

So many people that our healthcare system ignores and if you make a cent more above the state's definition of the Federal Poverty Level (it varies by state), then you are disqualified from getting healthcare from the state. For the same reason, so many people die because they don't have the insurance and couldn't qualify for the dumbest reasons...I had some people quit their jobs just to sign up for Medicaid or Medicare because otherwise they could not afford to pay for their medical bills. And even then, so many are left for paying for so much out of pocket and are left to die in debt or pass it on to their next of kin.

Seriously fuck anyone that does not see healthcare as a human right.

[Moonface]

Our healthcare system.  I used to work as a financial counselor where I helped people get on social security benefits, Medicare, or Medicaid.  I had people nearly at death's door trying to get authorized for a procedure that would save their lives but simply didn't have the money for it.  I've had people that have a LOT of income, but because they have so much debt their income was basically non-existent and were effectively broke. 

So many people that our healthcare system ignores and if you make a cent more above the state's definition of the Federal Poverty Level (it varies by state), then you are disqualified from getting healthcare from the state.  For the same reason, so many people die because they don't have the insurance and couldn't qualify for the dumbest reasons...I had some people quit their jobs just to sign up for Medicaid or Medicare because otherwise they could not afford to pay for their medical bills.  And even then, so many are left for paying for so much out of pocket and are left to die in debt or pass it on to their next of kin.

Seriously fuck anyone that does not see healthcare as a human right.

I feel that. I made a whole thread on how I felt the system is bullshit a while ago. Recently I got new insurance and they wouldn't give me any discounts because Shira's job offers me health insurance, despite the fact that it would cost me over double as much to take that offer over getting my own insurance.

[Eric]

Yeah dude, it genuinely makes me consider moving to another country some day and trying the world out - I've considered moving in with a friend in Canada or maybe getting a job in computer science somewhere in Europe. Are you guys staying in Florida for the long haul?

[Moonface]

Are you guys staying in Florida for the long haul?

No idea. I know we'll be here for at least five more years because of my school and stuff, plus we only just recently bought our first house. I don't have a clue what other state I'd want to move to though. I feel like a lot at a glance fall into being very expensive or just in the middle of nowhere with little to stand out with. Like for all I know North Carolina could be great but it seems to be one of those places that isn't an instant thought for somewhere to name in the US and so there's not really a common standard of knowledge about it like say, New York or Chicago or New Orleans or Texas.

[Eric]

Are you guys staying in Florida for the long haul?

No idea. I know we'll be here for at least five more years because of my school and stuff, plus we only just recently bought our first house. I don't have a clue what other state I'd want to move to though. I feel like a lot at a glance fall into being very expensive or just in the middle of nowhere with little to stand out with. Like for all I know North Carolina could be great but it seems to be one of those places that isn't an instant thought for somewhere to name in the US and so there's not really a common standard of knowledge about it like say, New York or Chicago or New Orleans or Texas.

Yeah I don't blame you. Most of the U.S. these days is super expensive, and from what I hear of international friends, so are other countries. The world is fucked for young people to live in right now But still, I hope Florida is treating you alright. I do know it's has been uh, quite topical these past few years since I've visited.

I'm not sure why I keep disappearing. For all intents and purposes I really like it here, but man, school just feels like a never-ending grind that everything else just takes a backseat. I should be done in about a year or two, but we'll see. I'm majoring in Computer Science so it really feels like I'm jumping off at a terrible time while the tech industry suffers blow after blow anymore, so I can only hope it gets better when I do finally graduate.

This past year has been nothing but side projects as I approach my twilight years at university. Recently I started reverse engineering Zoo Tycoon (my username elsewhere is Goosifer ) an old game released in 2001. The modding community has never had access to scripting or a modding API like SKSE for Skyrim, so I thought I'd try making one. It's been an addicting project and I'm lucky to have attracted a small team to work on it, including a dev from OpenRCT2. Our hopes is to one day, maybe a year or two from now, upgrade the API to a full-fledged OpenZT--a project that would take a lot of inspiration from OpenRCT2, OpenTTD, and OpenLoco. We'll see!

Glad to be around again. I hope I can keep myself around a little longer this time.

[Moonface]

Yeah I don't blame you. Most of the U.S. these days is super expensive, and from what I hear of international friends, so are other countries. The world is fucked for young people to live in right now But still, I hope Florida is treating you alright. I do know it's has been uh, quite topical these past few years since I've visited.

I know the price of stuff in the UK went up since I left, and even if it hadn't just the fallout from Brexit is causing enough problems of its own.
As for how Florida is treating me, I think it's okay on that front for now? Not that this makes these things any less worse than they are but any of the idiotic things Florida is doing haven't directly affected me I think, but despite that I'd still rather the stupid stuff would go away. Alas, stupidity seems to be all the rage everywhere these days it feels like.

I'm not sure why I keep disappearing. For all intents and purposes I really like it here, but man, school just feels like a never-ending grind that everything else just takes a backseat. I should be done in about a year or two, but we'll see. I'm majoring in Computer Science so it really feels like I'm jumping off at a terrible time while the tech industry suffers blow after blow anymore, so I can only hope it gets better when I do finally graduate.

Well at least you didn't forget about us!  I always do find it funny though when someone is entirely off the radar for months on end and then comes stumbling through the front door out of the blue. For some reason my mind always imagines it as if one of those rare guest characters shows up on a TV show and the crowd cheers for it. XD
Is the growing trend of AI usage something that could pose a problem for you in your field, or is whatever aspect of Computer Science you hope to get a job in pretty safe from that trash?

This past year has been nothing but side projects as I approach my twilight years at university. Recently I started reverse engineering Zoo Tycoon (my username elsewhere is Goosifer ) an old game released in 2001. The modding community has never had access to scripting or a modding API like SKSE for Skyrim, so I thought I'd try making one. It's been an addicting project and I'm lucky to have attracted a small team to work on it, including a dev from OpenRCT2. Our hopes is to one day, maybe a year or two from now, upgrade the API to a full-fledged OpenZT--a project that would take a lot of inspiration from OpenRCT2, OpenTTD, and OpenLoco. We'll see!

Glad to be around again. I hope I can keep myself around a little longer this time.

I'm surprised to hear ZT hasn't really had that sort of thing done for it, since I always assumed it was a pretty popular game and would attract a lot of modders. Then again maybe the scene has died down over time and an API wasn't a consideration when the scene was bigger or something?

[Eric]

Well at least you didn't forget about us!  I always do find it funny though when someone is entirely off the radar for months on end and then comes stumbling through the front door out of the blue. For some reason my mind always imagines it as if one of those rare guest characters shows up on a TV show and the crowd cheers for it. XD

lmao that's a hilarious image. May I be bumped up to series regular?

I'm surprised to hear ZT hasn't really had that sort of thing done for it, since I always assumed it was a pretty popular game and would attract a lot of modders. Then again maybe the scene has died down over time and an API wasn't a consideration when the scene was bigger or something?

Yeah sadly at 22 years old, the game has all but lost its modding scene, but there are still a few holdouts. My hopes are that if we are ever able to pull this project off, it'll renew interest and we'd see more activity again. Hell, the API alone I'd hope would inject some life into it, but I don't know. Not too many programmers in the scene really, mostly artists. Roller Coaster Tycoon 2 is an interesting parallel that has a similar age. OpenRCT2 has a flourishing modding community these days so I have hope. We'll see!

Aren't you a programmer these days? Maybe you'd like to learn some reverse engineering? Join the dark side Moony. Let's see the dark side of the moon. (lmfao...I deleted this twice but no no, it is staying...)

Is the growing trend of AI usage something that could pose a problem for you in your field, or is whatever aspect of Computer Science you hope to get a job in pretty safe from that trash?

I'm actually not too sure what industry I want to get into yet. Lately I've clearly been flirting with game dev, but I'm also doing computer science research over the summer and some web dev projects. I'm kind of all over the place. AI is definitely a concern and something that might influence where I end up going. For example, my reverse engineering might have interesting career prospects in malware analysis or embedded systems (firmware developers), but it I'm not sure either option sounds too attractive yet. Both I think might be safe from AI for now...but are any of us really? lol'

There's also the question of whether AI as we know it (ChatGPT, etc) is good enough to be a production-ready on its own. Sure companies are experimenting right now to see what all they can get away with, but time will tell.

[ShiraNoMai]

Seeing your interest in Open Source Software, have you ever heard of this wonderful project called Archipelago? Imagine playing Super Mario World with a friend who is playing Hollow Knight, and another friend plays Ocarina of Time - and you get each other your in-game progression items to beat your games!

[Eric]

That sounds hilarious. Sadly I don't think I'd convince my friends to try it with me but mostly because I'm terrible at selling fringe concepts I like. Does it actually work well? It's almost hard to believe lol.