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PaperclipPerfector  18hr ago (text post)   656 thread views

Friday Fun Thread for October 10, 2025

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Court opinion:

  • An officer finds a woman asleep in her still-running car in a parking lot. When roused, the woman appears to be intoxicated, and admits that she used methamphetamine 16 hours ago. The officer arrests her and takes her to a hospital for a blood test.

  • At the hospital, the woman consents to the blood test. However, after four failed attempts to draw blood, she withdraws consent due to the pain. The officer gets a warrant and the woman cooperates with a fifth, nonconsensual attempt to draw blood, but that attempt also fails. (Some cursory searching indicates that (according to various reputable-looking sources, including this paywalled standard) the normal maximum number of attempts is three.) The woman refuses to cooperate with any further attempted blood draws. She offers to take a urine test, but the officer doesn't take her up on that offer.

  • The woman is convicted of driving while intoxicated (sentence six months of jail with the possibility of parole after three days) and obstruction of justice (sentence two years of probation concurrent with the jail time; the appeals panel notes that this appears to make no sense). However, the appeals panel vacates the obstruction conviction (and remands for resentencing).

    Norris did not commit an unlawful act concurrent with, physically interfere with, or attempt to thwart the investigation at the outset by refusing to cooperate with the police's effort to execute a valid search warrant. Instead, Norris complied with the police officer's investigation until the point that the multiple failed blood-draw attempts became painful and, it appears by any reasonable and common-sense standard, futile. Under these circumstances, we believe: (1) the statute does not compel a person subject to a DUI blood draw to submit to an unreasonable number of attempted blood draws, as was the case here; and, more importantly, (2) a defendant's refusal to cooperate after five failed attempts does not prove her intention to obstruct the trooper from obtaining a blood sample.

RSMeans is an authoritative source of cost-estimation data for construction contractors in the US (and Canada). The current residential dataset costs about 0.5 k$/a in paper or 1 k$/a online. However, a paper copy for year 2019—just before the pandemic produced a paradigm shift in construction costs—can be purchased for just 25 dollars. Even if such an old version cannot be used for current cost estimates, it still is interesting to look at for comparison purposes.

For example: Let's say I want to build a house for seven occupants. I have three designs.

  • One-story: 1182 ft2, three bedroom+bathroom suites

  • 1.5-story (finished attic under steep roof): 1560 ft2, one bedroom+bathroom suite on floor 1, two bedroom+bathroom suites on floor 2

  • Two-story: 1541 ft2, one bathroom on floor 1, three bedroom+bathroom suites on floor 2

The book indicates that the second story of the two-story design can be built in three different ways—above ground (standard), below ground (finished basement), or halfway below ground (bi-level). That yields five different cost estimates.

  • One-story: 1182 ft2 × (115.45 base* + 4.95 for air conditioning) $/ft2 + 2 extra bathrooms × 6489 $/extra bathroom = 155 k$

  • 1.5-story: 1560 ft2 × (111.3 base + 3.69 for air conditioning) $/ft2 + 2 extra bathrooms × 6489 $/extra bathroom = 192 k$ (+24 %)

  • Two-story, standard: 1541 ft2 × (111.55 base + 3.01 for air conditioning) $/ft2 + 3 extra bathrooms × 6489 $/extra bathroom = 196 k$ (+26 %)

  • Two-story, finished basement: 770 ft2** × (135.5 base + 31.7 for finished basement + 4.95 for air conditioning***) $/ft2 + 3 extra bathrooms × 6489 $/extra bathroom = 152 k$ (−2 %)

  • Two-story, bi-level: 1541 ft2 × (103.25 base + 3.01 for air conditioning) $/ft2 + 3 extra bathrooms × 6489 $/extra bathroom = 183 k$ (+18 %)

So, according to this dataset, moving all the bedrooms into the basement has approximately the same cost as keeping them on the ground floor. (Beyond cost considerations, having a smaller footprint on the plan view may free up space under the "maximum impervious coverage" prescribed by the local zoning or environmental regulations, while sticking to a single story may be preferable from a long-term "aging in place" perspective. But cost still is an important factor that one should consider.)

Of course, the highly simplified numbers demonstrated above are open to question. (Does it really make sense that putting the bedroom floor halfway below ground is significantly more expensive than putting it all the way below ground?) But the book is divided into four main sections:

  • 96 pages of uncomplicated per-square-foot prices, as demonstrated above (including materials, installation, and contractor's overhead and profit)

  • 186 pages of moderately complicated per-assembly prices (cost per yd3 of excavation, per ft2 of 2×6 wall, per water heater, etc.; including materials and installation)

  • 384 pages of very complicated per-unit prices (cost per ft of 2″×4″ stud, per ft2 of sheathing, per yd3 of concrete, per acre of topographical survey, etc.)

  • 82 pages of reference: equipment-rental costs, crew listings (e. g., a topographical-survey crew consists of a chief, an instrument man, one or two rod men, and an electronic level, for 954–1232 $/d if employed or 1550–2008 $/d if subcontracted), location factors (e. g., multiply prices for materials and installation by 1.21 in Newark, NJ, or by 0.92 in Wilkes-Barre, PA), reference tables (state sales tax rates, state workers' compensation insurance rates, typical architectural fees, etc.), estimating forms

So, a dilettante who doesn't trust the per-square-foot prices can dig deeper into the per-assembly prices, and a true contractor can use the per-unit prices. I'm too lazy to go any further here, though.

*The base $/ft2 number is taken from a list of numbers that decrease as area increases—e. g., from 150.15 $/ft2 at 600 ft2 to 82.2 $/ft2 at 3200 ft2. This list can be approximated with a quadratic equation in a spreadsheet—e. g., 28.55 $/ft2 + 3052 $/ft ÷ √(area) − 1482 $ ÷ area—but I have not done that in this example. There are separate lists based on quality (economy, average, custom, luxury), story count (1-story, 1.5-story, 2-story, 2.5-story, 3-story, bi-level, tri-level), and material (wood studs + wood siding, wood studs + brick veneer, wood studs + stone veneer, painted concrete block, solid brick, solid stone).

**The book's estimating procedure is based on the non-basement living area, even if the basement is finished.

***The book does not give a separate number for adding air conditioning to the finished basement. If I naively double the number that it gives for adding air conditioning to the non-basement living area, the final cost is 156 k$ (+1 %).

/r/hailcorporate

Man, I remember when I was trying to give blood one time, but I was dehydrated so my veins kept collapsing. I think they might have tried 3 times before they said I simply cannot give blood that day. You'd think it wouldn't be that bad, but for whatever reason the relatively minor pain inflicted on my arm left me woozy, nauseous and I'd broke into a cold sweat. They wouldn't let me leave until I'd recovered. There is some kind of extra shit going on when it comes to your veins.

Absolutely.

I used to get real close to passing out even from the briefest of blood samples. Turns out the secret was just not looking at the needle. Doesn’t matter if I’m otherwise distracted, if the nurse has a hard time finding the vein, whatever. As long as I don’t see the needle in my arm I’m fine now. Magic.

We used to volunteer at a blood drive every year for scouts, and every year this guy would show up and pass out. Every year. Without fail. But he showed up. I still think of him.

I was deeply amused when I needed stitches on my lip after a BJJ mishap that despite the amount of pain being clearly less than I endure during BJJ, I was squirming and whimpering like a bitch to avoid the needle. while in the gym or working on a car I will voluntarily take larger quantities of pain without comment, I'm a whiner for needles.

I could never get large tattoos.

That reminds me of the time I sliced my toe open. I go to the hospital to get it stitched up, and the lady tells me I should lie back. Being in my early 20's and cocky as fuck, I go "It can't hurt worse than when I sliced it open, right?"

She just looks at me, gives up arguing, goes "Whatever" and gets to work.

She got about 1/3rd of the way through just numbing it before I tapped out and had to lay down, sweating bullets and nauseous as fuck.

Though I did remove them myself a few weeks later with some nail clippers and pliers.

Yeah, I do that too for run of the mill blood draws. Yearly physicals, stuff like that.

But man, when things go off the rails and some inexperienced nurse really has to start poking around, no amount of not looking seems to help.

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