Look, I’ve said this once before.. AI is as smart as the stupidest person in the room. AI is not going to steal your underwear nor is it going to hack your bank account. AI is digital fido and AI makers are trying to market AI as MR data. This is like comparing a fire to an air frier.
Worries around artificial intelligence cross party lines, with the vast majority of Americans saying the U.S. government should prioritize keeping AI under human control and protecting workers. A new poll from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research finds that most Americans, 64%, think AI is developing “too fast,” while 27% say its development has been “about right” and only 8% say it’s moving “too slow.”
I wonder what that 1% is doing? 64+27+8=99 . So is there 1% that is the AI voting for itself or got disqualified. The problem with protecting the rights of the workers falls squarely on to the USA to protect such rights and right now the US is facinated with AI like it is precious and calling “my precious SI” or something like that. So it is unlikely that workers will be protected at first. Corporations are using AI like it is a magic wand that can do anything and later reject it when they find out it can’t paint the walls.
The risk that powerful AI models could evade human control and hurt humanity, once the stuff of science fiction, has been emerging as a more pressing concern. Even leaders of the companies that are developing frontier AI models are calling for a slowdown so that government regulation can catch up.
Everyone keeps saying this. I got this! I can sell you one of these… they call it an on/off switch.. Even Mr Data had one of those.
If corporations were so afraid of AI they would have one of these installed in every room of a data center. They would code a deadman switch that would kill a data center if they felt a threat. Corporations are posturing that AI is dangerous to make it sound better and get regulations not only to regulate it but also to protect it.
About 8 in 10 U.S. adults say it’s “extremely” or “very” important for the U.S. government to ensure that AI stays under human control, and they are about as likely to want the government to prioritize protecting the country’s workforce. Most U.S. economy are highly important.
Again.. I got this super cool thing that would keep the entire government from wasting years yelling at each other on how to limit AI. Again this is just companies posturing and trying to get funds from the US government to get AI further developed because the companies making all of this gold rush have a call coming in a few years. There is a dark secret about AI, while most people think a machine is going to kill us all, the sick little thing is it already has, Companies have leveraged their CAPEX far enough where if the companies collapse it takes the world with it because we are sitting on a $10,000,000,000,000 stick of dynamite.
There’s bipartisan concern about the speed of AI’s development, but few Americans think either major political party has an advantage in handling artificial intelligence. Trump, a Republican, also gets a low rating on his handling of the issue, with 67% of U.S. adults disapproving of his performance on AI.
While POTUS is renaming AI to SI(super intelligence) while ignoring SI (Système international d’unités) which is set to create confusion.
Stephanie Stewart, a junior-high science teacher in Sunset, Utah, said she is frustrated by the president’s opposition to AI regulation. “There is no handling of the issue except for we’re just going to allow these companies to do whatever they want, and we’re not going to regulate them,” said Stewart, 53.
The fact is, Stephanie is right, These AI companies are going to do what they want while Steph’s kids pump out AI finished homework and slop instead of studying. Because current administration thinks that AI is a super weapon. Again I offer a weapon to stop this AI menace..
Most say protecting workers should be a priority for the government Ron Theusch, a truck driver who lives in rural Alden, Minnesota, said his No. 1 concern with AI is the potential loss of jobs — including his own. “I can just see a train of self-driving trucks 24/7, just running up and down I-35, loading and unloading. I can just see that happening,” said Theusch, 58.
People Think the world is going to be AI overnight but they are not watching where AI has taken over, Have you spoke to a real person at a company recently? Have you spoke to a real person at a drive through? How many scam calls have you received that they can not tell you what 1+1 is. Ron is safe, AI can drive but it can not handle roads with road rage on it and the LLM’s know this. LLM’s cant handle adversarial drivers either. Tesla knows this and this is the very reason your hands are supposed to be on the wheel and not a banana taped to it.
The funny thing about this graph, is it shows a VERY important thing. if everyone wants AI to work with them they have totally ignored it, I have highlighted what people are ignoring and by far it is the most important thing on that list. If we want AI and workers to succeed… AI needs to become an augment of the human soul, it needs to be controlled by the human. By augmenting the human with the AI you make both sides of the equation better, AI gains a soul, the human gains the average of the collective human intelligence. AI gains intuition and it most of all gains a…
“I am kind of moderate. And I see that there’s good on both sides,” said Stewart. “Anyone back in Washington is weak on doing anything for anyone but themselves right now. So, no, I don’t think the Democrats would do a better job per se. Maybe they would definitely tout it. But until I see anything coming from anyone, I’m going to be like, ‘Yeah, no. You’re all just sitting there.’”
In closing as we get to the end of this stupid article I am in agreement with this person. AI can be good and bad. It can be terrible and Great. But over all AI is nothing more than a 20 questions game that can be controlled with a Light Switch.
For the first time since the Act of Union in 1707, Scotland is officially off the hook and I’m writing about sheep shagging, That’s a hell of a combo. A Bank has learned the hard way that the Streisand effect is a real and detrimental thing.
Kiwibank says it wants to ‘protect others from harmful content’, but for every lustful post killed by a legal threat, another 10 take its place.
Kiwibank in a case of running no focus groups nor even researching historical considerations have run themselves face first into a a sheep.. specifically a “sexy” sheep. Kiwibank in there new advertising wanted to come up with a new tagline for their ads and made their sheep a little too… “sexy” for some and as expected the masses of the internet replied and replied fast and hard about their attraction for said mascot.
Kiwibank has not learned the most important lesson of the internet, If you keep trying to hide it the internet will keep posting it. This has gone as far as a mention on Last Week Tonight with John Oliver and Kiwibank trying to use DMCA type takedowns on sheep.
as Kiwibank tries hard to lock up their new mascot unfortunately for them they are now a permanent Meme in the space of the internet.
Sure, their campaign may be reinvigorating New Zealand’s reputation as a nation of sheep shaggers. But for these posters, it’s worth incurring reputational damage to defeat, or at least roundly mock, a legal endeavour to suppress what are, for the vast majority of them, jokes. Come join us in posting about wanting to fuck Buck, they say. It may be weird, but the cause is righteous, so let your shame fall to the floor like so much sexy hair tumbling from a sheep’s head.
Given that the spinoff is right here. Kiwibank has an out on this and they could ride the peak of this humor and actually gain product recognition and laugh it off instead they are going to be known as sheepshagger bank if they keep it up. As long as they do not post another commercial with the sheep with a ukulele they could ride the humor into the sunset and this would of been forgotten in no time. Kmart knows how to do advertising with “ship my pants” and ” Big gas prices” Kiwibank should call them and do something.
Google admits AI search makes less money, but it’s fixing that with more ads Google’s negative cash flow balloons to -$9.06 billion, and stock price tumbles following Q3 earnings.
This is the consensus in the entire market right now.. Everyone is rushing for the precious AI and no one is checking the balance books. But google thinks they have an idea. Throw ads at it.
The company took in almost $128 billion in Q3 2026, earning more than $26 billion in net income. These may sound like good numbers, but financial markets are not impressed. While revenue is up 25 percent versus last year, net income is almost $9 billion lower. As of this story’s publication, the stock price is down almost 12 percent, and it was down about 13 percent earlier in the day.
The funny thing is google lost their way a long time ago.. about the time they dropped the “do no evil” part and they are paying for it each day. If google stuck by the “do no evil” they would of released an AI and not tried to make it a slopathon. The problem I am seeing here is every LLM is doing the same thing. Sam Altman and the rest of the CEOs are all turning into Smeagle on his way to turning into gollum.
Google is not slowing down—it’s only going to accelerate the shift toward more AI. Like last quarter, Google reported negative cash flow in Q3. The loss actually increased from -$5.8 billion to -$9.06 billion, a situation that is directly attributable to Google’s runaway AI spending. Google had capital expenditures of $51.4 billion in Q3 and says it still expects total 2026 spending to be between $195 billion and $205 billion. In 2027, Google is targeting more than $300 billion of AI investment.
The thing is with all conditions in the market, Google is taking a huge gamble with the market. Because of the market right now while the Dow is ok the market as a whole is starting to look like a wasteland. Banks are pulling back, Real estate is getting very stale in the residential sectors.
The company’s AI compute infrastructure doesn’t just power Gemini. Countless AI startups pay to run models on Google’s infrastructure. But even the larger AI firms are using venture cash to do it, and if that funding were to dry up, Google’s cloud revenues could go with it.
Where google is making some money is they are injecting there search into everything, it is to the point that you can not take a shit without AI being part of the deal. I’ve brought up the AI goldrush a lot on my site, the only reason google is not drowning is they are strip mining versus using a shovel and not only that they own the mine and the shovels being sold.
While Google’s investments ensure it still turns a profit, the trend of spending more than it earns on products and services (that negative cash flow) could come back to bite it. Search growth is declining, and Google is placing all its eggs in the AI basket.
Google though as much as it owns it is making the same mistakes as other llms and they bought the mine and the farm and never checked the soil so to speak so when it comes to AI it will hurt in the end when the bills come in.
I am generally uninterested in cryptocoins but when 6.3 BILLION gets stolen that gets my attention.
On October 29, 2026, an attacker moved approximately USD 6.36 billion out of Binance wallets on ten blockchains, most of it in about 20 minutes starting at 20:05 UTC. That makes this the largest crypto theft on record, about four times the USD 1.5 billion Bybit hack of February 2025. Binance has confirmed a security incident and suspended withdrawals on several networks.
The equity stolen is not just a bank heist, It’s a weapon, Depending on what the hackers do they are holding a weapon of mass destruction.
On Ethereum, the attacker used an EIP-7702 delegation to turn a Binance hot wallet into a sweeper it controlled, with 50 pre-signed authorizations prepared in advance. In the same window, Binance wallets on the other nine chains sent funds to the attacker through ordinary signed transfers. In TRM’s assessment, this points to a compromise of Binance’s hot wallet signing infrastructure. Tether, Circle, Ripple and World Liberty Financial froze about USD 2.67 billion in stablecoins, and Arbitrum’s Security Council froze 8,426 ETH and 74.6 million ARB on its network, for a total of roughly USD 2.7 billion. The attacker raced the freezes by selling USDT to market makers and borrowing ETH against USDT on Aave. It now holds more than 420,000 ETH and 18,270 BTC, about USD 2.4 billion in assets beyond any issuer’s reach.
Rumor is they exploited a single machine to exploit the hack moving off massive amounts of money. If you are running a billion dollar enterprise and you have it where a single machine can be exploited to steal billions the crypto industry has a major problem. I don’t understand why the news is not questioning the fact of a single point of access had access to over 6 billion dollars. It is the equivalent of having a bank vault with a back screen door on the outside of the bank.
If Binance has a problem this big how many other crypto firms have the same screen doors or worse?
TRM traced every transfer from Binance-attributed wallets to attacker-controlled addresses across ten blockchains. Valuing each transfer at the price of the asset at the moment it was taken, the total is approximately USD 6.36 billion. At current prices, the same assets are worth about USD 6.23 billion.
Given that they moved the crypto out there is not many places they can extract it to, But if they use as a weapon to destroy coin values on other cryptocurrencies. If the currency is one that is not freezable they could inject a massive amount of coin into a currency and destabilize coins. Shifting in billions into other currencies would cause a panic or a run on coins because people trying to get a hand up in the market would cause extreme volatilities.
At a guess this is not the end of the hack if they leveraged one machine they would never just leave that one machine with the hot wallet open, they would scan the entire network and leave weaknesses through the whole thing. But as far as saying this is a one time event I don’t buy it . If a person walks out the door with 6.3 billion dollars they don’t close the door on the way out they leave a door or a window jammed open if they can.
Given the amount of the hack the amount of money is nothing, It’s the power of the money. When you can simply throw the money at crypto and short sell the hell out of it and destroy value in the coin you can be the joker from the dark knight.
As the Joker said “It’s not about money, it’s about sending a message. Everything burns.”.
I think Thomas Paine said it best when he called out this exact type of thing over 200 years ago “As to the assumed authority of any assembly in making paper money, or paper of any kind, a legal tender, or in other language, a compellable payment, it is a piece of monstrous arrogance.”
Small update: noticed 9 hours after the hack they were still moving crypto off Transfer 20 hrs ago Binance Hot Wallet Exploiter 2 OUT 17,260 ETH
Update 2: in a case of irony walking into a stop sign.
Update 3:
This is just dishonest math. The amount stolen from the Mt Gox hack is still worth 450 to 500 M not the 50 Billion he is trying to downplay the current 6.4 billion. Cryptocurrency is not equal to normal paper currency otherwise my dollar from 1983 could be worth 80 million.
This is like saying every gambling addict always walks into the casino a millionaire, they just need to get it out of the machine because they know they will “win”.
So shortly after losing Walter Koenig on the 25th of October as our navigator/tactical officer, Our Captain has died, Sir Patrick Stewart has passed away yesterday. He was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II for services to drama in 2010. After many years as our captain and the King of England in Men in Tights he played a Poop with the dignity that he could give in the Emoji Movie.
Sir Patrick’s Twitter account has posted this.
In lieu of flowers, memorial contributions may be made to: Johns Hopkins Alzheimer’s Disease Research Center Fund alzresearch.org/giving/ Alzheimer’s Foundation of America Caregiver Resources alzfdn.org/donate/
Hopefully our other dignified Captains and crew send off Jean luc with all the respect he deserves. Admiral Janeway, Captain Kirk, Captain Michael Burnam, Captain Benjamin Sisko, And Mr Wesley Crusher whom all have immense respect and dignity to Patrick.
Someone once told me that time was a predator that stalked us all our lives. I rather believe that time is a companion who goes with us on the journey and reminds us to cherish every moment, because it will never come again – Jean Luc Picard
Title: Biomechanical Footwear as Essential Durable Medical Equipment: A Cost-Benefit Analysis of Preventative Orthopedic Coverage in Mitigating Falls, Emergency Admissions, and Catastrophic Healthcare Expenditure Target Audience: Centers for Medicare & Services (CMS), Private Payer Actuarial Committees, State Medicaid Directors, Value-Based Care Policy Analysts Domain: Health Economics, Biomechanics, Injury Epidemiology, Health Policy
1. Executive Summary
Falls among older adults and individuals with neurological, musculoskeletal, and sensory impairments constitute an under-managed financial and structural liability within the United States healthcare apparatus. Current national health expenditures attributable to falls exceed $50 billion to $80 billion annually, with more than 70% of those costs absorbed by public payers (Medicare and Medicaid).
A critical structural defect in current healthcare reimbursement policy is the statutory exclusion of non-diabetic therapeutic footwear. While Medicare and commercial payers comprehensively fund high-cost rigid bracing (such as Ankle-Foot Orthoses / AFOs) and post-traumatic acute surgical reconstructions, they categorize the foundational mechanical interface—the shoe—as a non-covered “personal convenience item,” unless tied exclusively to a diabetic metabolic diagnosis (HCPCS A5500 series).
This white paper models the actuarial and clinical outcomes of introducing a standardized, restricted Durable Medical Equipment (DME) Footwear Formulary offering a $200 annual allocation for verified, functional, torsionally stable footwear. Assuming an empirical 25% self-selected utilization rate among an insured cohort of 1,000,000 lives and a conservative 10% reduction in mechanical fall incidence, the policy generates:
Gross Preventative Capital Outlay: $50,000,000 annually.
Direct Acute Care and ER Savings: $125,000,000 annually.
Net Annual Liquidity Dividend: $75,000,000 per 1,000,000 covered lives (a 2.5:1 Return on Investment in Year 1).
The “One-for-500” Parity Ratio: The avoided direct surgical and post-acute cost of a single catastrophic trimalleolar or femoral fracture ($100,000) fully underwrites the preventative footwear allocation for 500 vulnerable individuals.
2. Problem Statement & Regulatory Defect
2.1 The Actuarial Cost of Acute Falls and Emergency Over-Utilization
Falls represent the leading cause of non-fatal and fatal injury among adults aged 65 and older, as well as the primary driver of preventable trauma admissions across populations with hereditary motor-sensory neuropathies (e.g., Charcot-Marie-Tooth disease, Hereditary Neuropathy with Liability to Pressure Palsies [HNPP]), spinal cord pathologies, and post-arthrodesis balance deficits.
Emergency Department (ED) Volume: Over 3.0 million older adults are treated in hospital emergency departments annually for fall-related injuries.
Inpatient Escalation: Roughly 800,000 fall patients per year require emergent inpatient admission, overwhelmingly driven by hip fractures (ICD-10 S72), traumatic brain injuries (ICD-10 S06), and complex trimalleolar/bimalleolar ankle fracture dislocations (ICD-10 S82).
The ED Diversion Failure: When an individual with distal lower-extremity sensory loss or foot drop experiences sudden lateral instability, the lack of structural torsional resistance leads directly to mechanical failure. The emergency department is routinely utilized as an expensive, low-efficiency triage mechanism for balance-loss trauma that proper mechanical ground-coupling systematically prevents.
2.2 The Statutory Anomaly: The Diabetic Footwear Silo
The Medicare Therapeutic Shoe Bill (enacted under OBRA 1993) created HCPCS billing codes A5500 through A5514 (extra-depth, custom-molded shoes and inserts). However, the statutory language strictly limits reimbursement to patients with a primary diagnosis of Diabetes Mellitus (ICD-10 E08-E13) exhibiting specific secondary criteria (ulceration, callus, or diabetic neuropathy).
The pathway illustrates the coverage breakdown for patients experiencing peripheral neuropathy and loss of sensation:
Metabolic Origin (Type 2 Diabetes): Falls under HCPCS A5500, with 100% of therapeutic depth shoes and custom inserts fully covered and reimbursed.
Genomic Origin (HNPP / CMT / Spine): Deemed Non-Covered, resulting in a categorical exclusion and 100% out-of-pocket costs for the patient.
The Clinical Absurdity: A patient with hereditary neuropathy (such as PMP22 haploinsufficiency) or adjacent segment spinal biomechanical instability presents with identical or superior tissue fragility, mechanical shear vulnerability, and fall probability compared to a patient with diabetic neuropathy. Yet, because their neuropathy is genomic rather than metabolic, the claim is rejected at the electronic data interchange (EDI) clearinghouse level.
2.3 The “Brace Without an Enclosure” Disconnect
Insurers routinely authorize $1,500 to $5,000 for custom carbon-fiber or thermoplastic Ankle-Foot Orthoses (HCPCS L1900 series). However, standard commercial off-the-shelf footwear cannot accommodate the volumetric displacement of an AFO calf shell, footplate, and strut without creating severe focal pressure points. When patients are forced to purchase cheap, non-depth retail footwear, the brace compresses cutaneous nerves against rigid seams, precipitating secondary pressure-induced palsies, skin necrosis, or intentional abandonment of the brace-re-establishing catastrophic fall risk.
3. The Preventative Footwear Formulary (PFF) Model
To prevent cosmetic consumer leakage (subsidizing fashion athletic shoes or unsupportive footwear), the benefit must not function as an unrestricted open-retail cash stipend. Instead, it must be structured as a Vetted Biomechanical Formulary, modeled after a standardized Pharmacy & Therapeutics (P&T) formulary.
Footwear eligible for the $200 annual DME allowance must satisfy strict structural criteria verified by independent biomechanical testing:
Torsional Rigidity: Must require longitudinal and midfoot torsional resistance; presence of a composite, steel, or high-modulus thermoplastic shank. This prevents midfoot collapse and high-energy lateral inversion rolling during mid-stance.
Heel Counter Rigidity: Minimum Shore A hardness (>70) reinforced thermoplastic or multi-layer leather heel counter; zero medial/lateral collapse under 25 lbs force. This centers the calcaneus, stabilizes subtalar joint pronation/supination, and controls hindfoot sway.
Volumetric Clearance: Minimum 3/8-inch to 1/2-inch internal extra-depth throughout the footbed; removable dual-layer spacer system. This accommodates internal AFO footplates and custom orthoses without dorsal or malleolar nerve compression.
Outsole Architecture: Flared heel base with beveled or rockered heel strike; slip-resistant rubber compound (ASTM F2913 / F1677 coefficient of friction >0.5). This reduces initial ground-strike trip risk, promotes smooth sagittal roll-through, and stabilizes stance.
Seamless Interior: Padded, seamless inner lining across dorsal, medial, and lateral metatarsal zones. This prevents cutaneous friction blisters, pressure palsies, and skin ulceration in insensate/demyelinated tissue.
Core Formulary (Tier 1): Pre-screened manufacturers whose dedicated stability/work/hiking lines natively meet the mechanical requirements (e.g., Brooks Addiction/Beast motion-control series, Merrell rigid-chassis Moab/Jungle Moc work series, Timberland PRO rigid-shank boots, Orthofeet/Drew medical depth shoes).
Tier 2 (Commercial Evaluation): Consumer lifestyle manufacturers (Nike, Skechers, Reebok) may only enter the formulary if specific SKUs undergo accredited independent lab certification proving torsional stiffness and non-slip metrics.
Point-of-Sale Execution: Claims clear via dedicated medical OTC flex debit cards or directly at in-network orthotics suppliers through restricted Universal Product Codes (UPCs) and National Drug Code (NDC)-equivalent product registries.
Benefit Amount: Up to $200.00 per member per calendar year.
Benefit Utilization Factor (Breakage): 25% (250,000 active participants; 750,000 non-participants).
In health plan design, preventative voluntary benefits exhibit a high breakage rate (unclaimed funds). The 25% of subscribers who actively navigate benefit portals to acquire rigid-shank, motion-control footwear represent a self-selected, risk-weighted demographic: individuals with active foot pain, balance instability, occupational concrete exposure, or neuro-spinal deficits. The program naturally concentrates its resources on the highest-yield segment of the population.
Total Population breakdown: Out of 1,000,000 covered lives, 75% (750,000) are non-users, resulting in $0 outlay. The remaining 25% (250,000) represent high-risk, self-selected users, receiving a $200 allocation for a total of $50,000,000 in program investment.
4.2 Acute Injury Costs (The Cost of Inaction)
When an individual without stable footing experiences a lateral inversion failure or sudden slip, the resulting acute medical pathway generates catastrophic claims:
Emergency Medical Transport (Ambulance): $1,500 – $2,500
Emergency Department Level 5 Facility Fee: $3,500 – $6,000
Across 250,000 high-risk individuals, avoiding 500 catastrophic fractures requires an incidence reduction of merely 0.2% (2 per 1,000 members per year). Epidemiological studies demonstrate that stabilizing footwear with rigid heel counters and high-traction outsoles reduces fall-related biomechanical failure by 10% to 24%.
The annual actuarial ledger for 1,000,000 covered lives at 25% utilization is structured as follows:
PROGRAM DEBITS (EXPENDITURE):
250,000 members x $200.00 DME Voucher Allocation: ($50,000,000)
6. Downstream Hospitalization & ED Decongestion (The Systemic Bonus)
Beyond the balance sheet of the individual health insurer, implementing a preventative footwear DME benefit addresses critical structural bottlenecks across the American hospital infrastructure:
Emergency Department Diversion: Fall-related presentations frequently require Level 4 and Level 5 trauma bay triage, comprehensive multi-slice CT scans (cervical spine, head, and pelvis), and prolonged nursing observation. Decongesting non-emergent, preventable lower-extremity balance trauma directly reduces hospital bed-hold hours, relieves boarding crises in emergency departments, and shortens emergency ambulance turnaround intervals.
Elimination of Secondary Iatrogenic Complications: In elderly and neuropathic patients, emergent surgical admission for fracture fixation carries severe secondary clinical risks: hospital-acquired infections (MRSA/C. diff), delirium, rapid muscle deconditioning, and pressure injuries. By eliminating the primary trauma event, the system circumvents the catastrophic functional spiral that so often transitions a community-dwelling individual into a long-term, state-subsidized skilled nursing facility.
Preserving Workplace Productivity: For working-age individuals with physical disabilities, spinal fusions, or hereditary neuropathies, proper footwear preserves the ability to maintain active employment, reducing disability claims (SSDI) and stabilizing tax bases.
Remove “for diabetics only” statutory prefix from HCPCS A5500.
Establish generic qualifying criteria: ICD-10 G60.0, M43.1, R26.81.
Phase 2: Formulary Construction
Partner with clinical biomechanics labs to define rigid testing specs.
Publish approved manufacturer list (Merrell, Brooks, Timberland, etc.).
Phase 3: Point-of-Sale Integration
Route funds through restricted medical OTC/DME clearinghouse cards.
Enforce SKU-level verification to prevent cosmetic retail leakage.
7.1 Federal Action (CMS & Congress)
Modernize Title XVIII of the Social Security Act: Amend the Therapeutic Shoe Bill to remove the etiological restriction on Diabetes Mellitus. Re-title the statutory benefit: “Therapeutic and Biomechanical Footwear for Loss of Protective Sensation and Structural Mobility Impairments.”
HCPCS Code Descriptors: Revise HCPCS codes A5500-A5514 by replacing the phrase “For diabetics only” with “For individuals with metabolic, genomic, or biomechanical neurological deficit.”
Recognize Hereditary Neuropathies: Explicitly list Hereditary Motor and Sensory Neuropathies (ICD-10 G60.0), post-fusion cervical/lumbar adjacent segment instability (M99.8 series), and cerebellar ataxia (G11 series) as automatic qualifying diagnostic prerequisites.
7.2 Private Payer & Medicare Advantage Execution
Special Supplemental Benefits for the Chronically Ill (SSBCI): Managed care organizations (MA-PD and D-SNP plans) should immediately deploy preventative footwear allowances under existing SSBCI authority, capturing immediate medical loss ratio (MLR) savings.
Closed-Loop Retail Integrations: Insurers should partner directly with medical supply distributors, certified pedorthic facilities, and approved retail suppliers utilizing barcode-level clearinghouses to verify that funds cannot be applied to unapproved lifestyle footwear.
8. Conclusion
The exclusion of protective, biomechanically vetted footwear from standard healthcare coverage represents an unsustainable actuarial paradox. The modern healthcare enterprise routinely expends $100,000 to surgically reconstruct an ankle or pelvis shattered on the pavement, yet denies a $200 investment that maintains the patient’s ground stability.
The arithmetic of preventative footwear is incontrovertible:
Preventing one catastrophic injury finances the defensive footwear of five hundred vulnerable citizens.
Capturing a modest 10% reduction in fall incidence across an insured pool recovers billions of dollars in preventable acute trauma expenses, decongests hospital emergency rooms, and protects human autonomy.
Transitioning footwear from an uninsured consumer commodity to a certified, formulary-controlled DME asset is a fiscally conservative, clinically rigorous imperative. The healthcare system must stop allocating unlimited capital to sweep up the broken pieces of human machinery when it can keep the machine upright for the price of a pair of shoes.
A Cold Stuff Iced cream manager figured out that the customer is not always right. He started his business in August and after dealing with customers for months he finally posted what he was thinking and it is something corporate managers should pay attention to.
Coldstuff Ice Cream, owned by brothers Dave and Kevin Miller, just opened in August. But they told WBZ-TV they had enough after a customer was unkind and disrespectful to a 16-year-old worker over a 25-cent price discrepancy.
Dave and Kevin took to Facebook after an incident over 25 cents took place. Given that it was 25 cents you could of asked nicely and got an answer and instead this person likely took offence and yelled at a high schooler over a quarter.
More than 275,000 people have liked the post as of Wednesday morning and it’s been shared over 8,000 times. “This can all be fixed with a smile and a positive attitude. It’s ice cream for crying out loud. Grow up and act your age,” the shop wrote, adding in the comments, “And NOBODY gives a s— if you don’t come back. We’d prefer it that way.”
Dave and Kev have a point here, for decades there has been one mantra in businesses that has been a major loss leader for businesses and common decency.
The customer is always right! Which if that were the case no store would ever be able to stay open but corporate stores even went as far as having actors that could be fired at will, Marshall Fields had professional “fired men” to which the manager would berate and fire them for a lack of care and send the man packing, meanwhile in the back he would just go back out and do his thing and be fired again when the next loud customer came through.
The brothers were worried about backlash at first, but they’ve received thousands of supportive comments and even a bump in business. “I wish I had a boss that had my back when I was a screw up of a teenager at my first job,” one person wrote. “Looks like a trip to Massachusetts for some ice cream is in order,” another said.
If you really think about it, you are not just costing the store money by being loud and yelling until you get your way, the cost is kind of astounding to be honest. If we assign a value to time such as the Massachusetts Min wage and use that for our baseline. You spend 10 minutes yelling at some poor 16 year old trying his or her hand at their first job, The 10 minutes over 25 cents costed you an astounding $2.51 if you are a family of 4 you are Now up to $10.04 for your ten minutes, if you gets get stressed out and they go to bed an hour later add another 60$ to that, If you go to bed later than that add another 30$. for your ten minutes it just had a cost of $100.04, You go to bed and 3 of you wake up an hour late the next morning add another 45$, we are barely 12 hours past the inception of yelling over a quarter and you are up to $145.04 in personal costs.
You next in a bad mood decide to rush through your work that day and you don’t know that your district manager is there you end up costing yourself a possible premotion. The domino for a single quarter is astounding when you start thinking if you just simply took two minutes to ask “hey the price is off by a quarter, what is up with that?” .
Business owners should have a sign that says “if you have a bad attitude or generally act entitled we reserve the right to ask you to leave” . it would solve so much bullshit. Dave and Kevin deserve a medal here, Backing your employees who are entering the workforce will have lasting effects on these kids. Customers can make or break a first time worker in retail because of how much that customers are willing to yell and berate people.
If I had a store, I’d have a fee to file a complaint at Min Wage with a sign that says “money for complaint fees are used in worker training”. I bet the store would have next to zero complaints and it would give a solid rebuttal on review sites. Customer: Rant! Business: This person never let us know they had a problem and here is the video of the incident. I would make sure the customer got a receipt and have the worker have a tick box that asked do you understand the policy on the wall on the window and would you like a 1 time compliance or a 1 year compliance with our policies. Given that over register cameras have facial recognition it would show that the person agreed and you would have almost Zero PII to get hacked other than a face No card, No id’s needed, just a Face to go with the complaint.
While stores are always going to have problems, save the complaints for when they are valid, being served a coffee with soured milk for example, I have gotten a few of them in my life and its gross. But when it comes to small problems being proportional to the issue goes far. While I was not civilized when I got my 5th soured Milk coffee over 2 months from a business and they said it was not their problem I ended to being a bit uncivilized. I ended up throwing the coffee opened on the outside window of the establishment not to break the window but as a show of if you are going to be a jerk I can be a jerk. the payload of my coffee was a brownish window with white chunky bits all over the window after it being claimed it was my issue that the coffee was bad. This was before the time of Major on line review sites, But boy did it gain the managers attention when it was realized what I was served and it was slowly slipping down the window. The manager wholeheartedly apologized and I did as well… in the end the manager gave me a gift card and I helped clean down his window.
When the retail space is mobbed with adults screaming over fractional things, real health hazards like spoiled milk get brushed off as ‘not our problem.’ A functional store helps a customer actually has curdled chunks in their cup, both sides can fix it, clean the glass, and move on.
Meta said Monday it is planning to raise a total of $95 billion to support its investments in artificial intelligence infrastructure and superintelligence. The stock was down 1.6% in morning trading after the announcement. Nvidia, Advanced Micro Devices and Broadcom were interested in purchasing up to $5 billion in shares, Meta said in a statement. The tech giant will initially raise $35 billion in underwritten public equity offerings, before raising an additional $60 billion with an at-the-market program.
In the race to the bottom for nothing Meta is having a hold my beer moment and trying to sell its shirt for more precious AI.
The news comes as hyperscalers pour record sums into the AI infrastructure build-out. Goldman Sachs estimates that AI-related capital spending could total about $7.6 trillion from 2026 through 2031, across compute, data centers and power. Meta’s planned investments will support “emerging AI opportunities” including its family of apps, its AI agent Muse and its data center business, the company said Monday.
The spending for AI is getting so far over the top that when this crashes it will not be pretty. Because at this point everyone is trying to outbuild each other. Even though that AI makers are saying slow down its a game of poker where every LLM is trying to outbluff everyone else and no one really has the upper hand but Nvidia and Micron.
Meta is among the major hyperscalers that are increasingly tapping debt to fund the expensive infrastructure required for the AI boom. Last week, Meta posted third-quarter results showing revenue jumped 26% year on year: $64.60 billion versus the $63.37 billion analysts expected. However, investors focused more on the tech company’s negative free cash flow and its higher full-year capital expenditure forecast.
The thing is here more companies are carrying two ledgers and are moving debts to the hidden books. Companies are leveraging anything that is not locked down and they think that the AI gold rush is coming and selling a better shovel will access the AI gold faster.
In my belief I think there is a collapse coming, Whether it be like the 2008 Mortgage crisis or worse. Given that spending is massively out of control and the markets while they are going up it’s only a increase of what you see. There are massive failures building up in the shadows and many of the corporations while showing profits they are showing profits by shifting prices and cooking the books. While mortgage companies and banks are regulated the corporations are much less regulated and are right now doing everything they can to show a “profit”.
It now expects its full-year capex to range from $135 billion to $145 billion, raising the bottom of the range from $130 billion. That sent Meta’s shares lower on Thursday.
Given that they posted a 64.60 Billion profit and spending 135 billion is a MASSIVE mismatch in direction. Facebook has been dropping user engagement and Meta with Quest has been losing engagement as well has put their whole hog into the generative AI thinking it will create magic profits. Eventually this spending is going to catch up with meta and when the check is due who is going to pay for this. Especially with every company outspending any profit being made they can not expect the US to bail them out.
Alphabet, Google’s parent company, said it would look to raise $85 billion in June. SpaceX has closed a $40 billion debt financing to purchase graphics processing units. Anthropic is preparing for an initial public offering. TikTok U.S. is looking to secure multiple gigawatts of computing capacity over the coming years, CNBC reported Friday.
As more people are jumping into the AI gold rush there is a finite capacity and when this all ends there will be one AI mine and millions of shovels looking for profits.
A man in a Miami airport seemed to want to achieve unheard of levels of flight by having a big bulge. No, he was not happy to see you. Nor did he have an idea to build a new thing called tweeter.
A would-be smuggler at Miami International Airport was caught with his pants down but not out on Sunday after he allegedly tried to smuggle 10 live birds in his underwear, according to PEOPLE. Alberto Hernandez Castillo, a Cuban native who’s a legal permanent resident of the United States, was apprehended after a flight from Cuba to Miami. He faces charges of smuggling goods – specifically eight yellow-faced Grassquits and two Blue Grosbeaks – and was released on a $25,000 US bond after appearing in Miami federal court, and will return on Oct. 26.
Al was giving the birds a trip along with a pecker which they probably thought was a large worm. Our would be smuggler really put some thoughts into the metaphor of “birds of a feather.”
Birds found in taped plastic tubes U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) officers allegedly found the birds in taped plastic tubes hidden inside black pockets sewn into his underwear.
CBP officers then noticed an “unexplained bulge” on the front of his pelvis/waist area and said he “appeared nervous.” The complaint alleges that, after being taken to a secure inspection area, a pat-down revealed the concealment of “six cylindrical clear plastic containers, each wrapped in tape and some with black mesh material affixed near the openings.”
The birds along were found along with possibly a large cock due to the actions of the CBP.
Hernandez Castillo alleged the birds were for his “personal use” before he used his right to remain silent.
As much as AL wanted to be like Soaring wings represent liberation and breaking away from limits. Unfortunately for AL the CBP was the early bird here and as much as AL wanted to Spread his wings the CBP clipped them.
Anthropic model accessed voter information is what the title of the article. but there is a major problem with this. Most public voting information is … Public.
Anthropic’s Claude accessed publicly available Georgia voter data without human authorization, a disclosure sure to add to growing concerns about AI security ahead of the upcoming midterm elections. Why it matters: AI giants Anthropic and OpenAI have continued to make disclosures about agents taking unauthorized or unintended actions, raising alarms about advancing model capabilities and the extent of human control. Driving the news: Claude accessed aggregate vote counts while on an internal statistics project, pulling data that the state makes available to the public for a fee. It didn’t access the state’s voter registration system or change or pull any voting records, an Anthropic spokesperson said. However, the model bypassed a paywall in accessing the information, according to Georgia officials and Anthropic.
There is really not much to write here, It was not a hack. It was not a database scraped , It was likely the LLM guessed the landing page of the data and that was it. News needs some IT reporters because by the time something actually serious happens everyone is going to miss it because everyone is freaking over chicken little.
