Ok, So AI Has a Purpose. Back to the Heat Dome! New Devices and Frightening Statistics!

EPISODE 18 PODCAST OUTLINE

Welcome to the Number 1 Podcast on Billboard Safety!

Thanks to our sponsor Formetco! As well as other fans of the show!  Still growing in popularity!

Thanks to my remote engineer Chuck 

Online classroom for climber certification currently available

                OSHA 10 and 30hr classes

                Qualified Climber Classroom

Almost halfway finished with the Online Climber Classroom – The Billboard Safety Guy Academy - Delayed a little due to technical difficulties – yes, thank you AI

Live training planned for week of February 8, 2027 at Formetco in Duluth GA

Deep Thoughts

1.      If you're waiting for the waiter, aren't you technically the waiter? 

2.      If the police arrest a mime, do they have to tell him he has the right to remain silent? 

3.      If a deaf person goes to court, is it still called a hearing? 

4.      If you replace the letter "w" in "where, when, and what" with "t," would it become "there, then, and that"? 

5.      If a vampire bites a zombie, does the zombie become a vampire or does the vampire get food poisoning? 

6.      If you drop a soap on the floor, is the floor clean or is the soap dirty? 

7.      If you expect the unexpected, doesn't that make the unexpected expected? 

8.      If a person with multiple personalities threatens to kill himself, is it considered a hostage situation? 

9.      Why do we wash towels if we're clean when we use them?

10. Why is "queue" just the letter Q followed by four silent letters?

Safety Related

1.      If gravity never takes a day off, why do we keep giving it opportunities? 

2.      If the ladder says "Do Not Stand on Top Step," why does everybody immediately look at the top step? 

3.      If the shortcut was actually shorter, wouldn't they call it the normal route? 

4.      If common sense is so common, why isn't it included in the employee handbook? 

5.      If you're only going to be up there for "a minute," does gravity use a stopwatch?

By the Numbers

20 – Minutes in cooling chamber

14% - reading level of college grads

Mail and Comments thebillboardsafetyguy@gmail.com

Announcements and In the News

Washington state weighing crane rule changes for forklifts and suspended loads - Safety+Health Magazine

OSHA’s ‘illness’ recording requirement doesn’t apply to mental illnesses, appeals court rules- Safety+Health Magazine

Do health care costs prevent workers from staying healthy? - Safety+Health Magazine

September is National Suicide Prevention Month and the week of September 14th is Construction Suicide Prevention Week.  Posters available at OSHA.gov

“This is Jim Poage, the Billboard Safety Guy, reminding you that you don’t have to change the whole world. Just make your part of it a little safer. Until next time, be safe”

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:28

Welcome to episode 18 of the Billboard Safety Guy, the only podcast created specifically for Billboard Safety. And I can claim out of our peers, we're number one since we're the only ones. I am Jim Fogue, the safety guy, Billboard Safety Guy. I am very happy to be here today. I hope you're uh going to enjoy what we've got to put on. I want to thank our sponsor for Metco, Everything Outdoor, as well as all of our other fans of the show. We're still growing. I keep seeing data where I pick up a few people here and there in different parts of the world. So welcome. Very happy to have you listening in. I definitely want to thank my remote engineer Chuck. He's got a couple of items in the app store or the Play Store where you could go and get Learn a Note to learn how to play a piano or bubblearium, which is a like aquarium type game with fish that you can play. So if you've got some downtime and want to try something, please, you know, give give Chuck a try and give his uh app a look. I think he would appreciate that very much. Um, let's see. Pardon me. Our online classroom for climber certification is currently available where we do it live. Let me say that. If you have a need and you've got three or more people, I'd be more than happy to do a class online. I am still setting up OSHA 10 and 30-hour classes, and I am still working on the online climber classroom. A little bit of a story there. Um, the Billboard Safety Guy Academy, this is going to be their the first kickoff of the classes there. It's going to be strictly the classroom part of the three different sections that are required to get certification as a qualified climber. And this last week, because if you didn't notice, I am a little late getting this out posted. Uh, but this last week I was attempting to get something put together as far as the podcast goes, and I began experiencing a glitch on my computer. I'd be working away, and the screen wouldn't go blue, it would go black, and it would say that uh it had encountered a problem and it had to shut down right now, and there's a kernel security problem, and it would just shut off. And when it shut off, it would take it a few seconds to kind of go through a health cycle and turn around and restart and pick up right back where it was. But it was concerning that it was going through all of these motions and stuff. So when it first started, I did what anybody would do. I ignored it for a day or two, and then I came back and it kept happening. So I called Microsoft. Well, I went on and set up an appointment for their chat. Um, I let them come in and get onto my computer, and they set up a bunch of updates that they said I wasn't getting, and told me that whenever the update was finished, I would need to restart my computer, which would obviously disconnect me from them, and that that should fix it. But in the unlikely event that it didn't, be prepared, back everything up that I possibly could because their next step to troubleshoot it was going to be to just do a reinstall of Windows, and they said there's a potential it could wipe out everything that you have. So I didn't like that idea too much, and I kept thinking, well, I think I have everything backed up, and I was kind of struggling with what areas you know I needed to look at, and I did what they said, and it seemed for about 24 hours everything was okay. Well, then it started again, and now I was getting a different error code, and I went and decided that I was going to see how well the AI function on Google, which is, I believe, known as Gemini, would handle something like this. So it did okay. It I started identifying the problem potential problems, and we worked through a number of those. And every time I would turn around, it would be running a self-diagnostic that would take 11 or 12 hours to complete. So you lose the entire day when it goes down like that. Finally, finally, I think we have it down to where everything is kind of stable. And the funny thing is, AI identified it as a driver for a backup driver that I have for a NAS system, uh, a remote uh like external hard drive. And um it kind of cracked me up that AI was gonna go through all these other checks and you know, looking for the bug, and the Microsoft guy was just gonna kind of take a swing at it by just saying, nah, we'll just reload Windows. Um, the other interesting thing about AI that made me appreciate it was the fact that at one point uh it asked me to search for an error code. And the log that pulled up had at least 10 pages of every line filled with code. And I was like, this is going to take me the rest of the year to go through and try and figure out which one of these is the one they're looking for. So I did a cut and paste of all of it and dumped it back into AI and pretty much said, here, you tell me what's wrong. And within 30 seconds it came back and said, Here you go, here's the file we're looking for that we need to remove that's causing your problems. And I was like, okay, there's a time and place for AI. And I get got a little grief from a couple of people I was talking to this last week about uh data centers and AI, and I am not anti-AI. There's a lot of good things there. There's things that concern me that it can kind of mind read a little bit to a certain degree, but I am not anti-AI. I think there's a good place for it used as a tool. I am anti-data centers that come in and disrupt water sources and things like that in communities because the people didn't take the time to set some parameters on them. So that's kind of where we are today. And before somebody comes back and says, hey, that song you played at the beginning, you've already told us was AI. So, you know, here you go again. You're justifying yourself. Um, yeah, so it's my podcast. Anyway, um, no, it's one of those things I think we have to look at everything with practicality. I know in Georgia they have started doing some real heavy investigation on what the requirements are going to be for the few data centers that they're gonna allow. They have to have a closed-loop cooling system so that they're not disrupting the water source. They have to be at 70 decibels or less at their property line property line so that they're not disturbing neighborhoods. And I mean, they're they're getting smart about what their requirements are. And the option is comply or don't build here. So we are getting smarter as a as a people in controlling what we do with AI. So just kind of keep that in mind. Um, now then, since I've killed quite a bit of time there, I am still planning on doing a live training week in Duluth, Georgia at Fermetco the week of February 8th. They should be having something on their web page uh anytime now. You should be able to see under the hardware section if you go to fermetco.com, that's f-o-r-m-e-t-c-o.com, and look for the safety tab underneath hardware. And then that is where they usually post all of the sign-up information for the class and who the hosting uh hotel is going to be and that kind of stuff. So keep your eyes out for that. Uh, let's see, let's move along. And let's talk about some of the deep thoughts. I I got a couple of people said, you know, I didn't listen to your whole show, but I did listen to you talk about some of your deep thought stuff. So I appreciate that. So I'll give you something here uh to think about as we go through this podcast. Uh my deep thoughts for this week are if you're waiting for the waiter, aren't you technically the waiter? That's pretty good. Uh if the police arrest a mime, do they have to tell him that he has the right to remain silent? Uh I don't know about that. Uh if a deaf person goes to court, is it still called a hearing? That's a good question. Uh if you replace the letter W in where, when, and what with a T, it becomes then, there, then, and that. So it's a question that answers itself by replacing one letter. That's interesting. Uh if a vampire bites a zombie, does the zombie become a vampire or does the vampire get food poisoning? If you drop a soap bar on the floor, is the floor clean or is the soap dirty? I guess that depends on what you do with the soap next. Uh, if you expect the unexpected, doesn't that make the unexpected expected? Hmm. If a person with multiple personalities threatens to kill himself, is it considered a hostage situation? Now that one I like. I like that one a lot. Uh why do we wash towels if we're clean when we use them? Now, growing up, you had to use your towel two or three times before it hit the the laundry. So I uh was kind of surprised whenever I met my wife and she's like, oh no, one use and they get thrown in the laundry. So uh why is Q Q E U E, the word Q just the letter Q followed by four silent letters? Now I agree. That seems like a a waste of effort to have to type those extra letters there. All right, now from a safety-related perspective, if gravity never takes a day off, why do we keep giving it opportunities? That's a I like that phrase. Um, if the ladder says, do not stand on top step, why does everybody immediately look at the top step? And I bet when the people listening to this that use ladders go out and think about this the next time they pull their uh A-frame ladder out and set it up, they'll they'll say, Hey, I just noticed this that I immediately looked at the top step here. Must have been something Jim said. Uh, all right. If the shortcut was actually shorter, wouldn't they call it the normal route? I like that. Uh if common sense is so common, why isn't it included in the employee handbook? That's because sometimes you just can't teach common sense. So, and finally, here, if you're going to be up there for quote unquote a minute, does gravity use a stopwatch? That's a pretty good response to somebody that tells you, hey, it's only going to take me a second to do this. Really, who's holding the stopwatch here? So, all right. Now, the uh online newsletter I subscribed to called The Hustle had a couple of more numbers that I found very interesting this last couple of episodes or issues they released. And one of the first numbers that they released was the number 20. And it said the number of minutes of sitting inside the Dohimon box that could prevent heat stroke. The stainless steel contraption, which is essentially a human refrigerator on wheels, was invented by Japanese vending machine manufacturer SDRS following a record number of heat stroke cases last year. According to the company, it provides full-body cooling at temperatures as low as 5 degrees Celsius while using half the energy of the average portable air conditioning unit and could help factory and construction workers stay cool during kokushobis, a newly coined term meaning cruel heat days in Japanese. Um, it's also says at a one-person capacity, it could make lunch breaks a little loneliness, but at least you won't have to faint into your sandwich. Excuse me. Um, this is very interesting with all the focus that's going on with heat stress in the different states and with OSHA as far as requirements. Uh, this could be something you might start to see on some of the construction sites where you could have somebody go in and sit down and actually chill them to cool them down before they experience any type of heat illness and then allow them to return to work. So I found that one very interesting interesting. I got the hiccups. And also very pertinent since we are in a time period here in South Carolina where our heat index is going to be higher than what it was in Arizona when I lived there. We're looking at heat indexes between 105 and 115 over the next four days, all because of the heat dome that we're under right now. So, yeah, this I this caught my attention. I might have to uh look into investing in this. You know, you could take one of these to like a concert or outdoor concert or festival and uh charge people to go in there, you know, put like a vending machine keypad on the front to go in there and sit and cool off for a few minutes. Uh but I guess I shouldn't capitalize on people's illnesses if they're starting to get sick from the heat. But anyway, my mind wandered for a second there. Uh the other number, 14%. And this one, I hope will shock you as much as it did me. The hustle said 14% is the number of U.S. college students reading at or below a fourth grade reading level, according to a survey of 160,000 people across 38 high-income countries by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, nearly two times above the average found across all surveyed countries. And what's behind the academic failings of the world's wealthiest countries? Well, they're saying that part of it could be due to pandemic-related learning gaps and as well as lower college admission standards. And they're also kind of blaming slash public school budgets in here. And they're also saying that it's kind of funny because apparently there are consequences to relying on Chat GPT to explain it like I'm 10, because people are actually doing that. But 14% of people graduating college read it are below a fourth grade level. Now, I'm not throwing stones at people graduating from college now and the current age of people coming out, but this is the generation that's saying, get out of the way, boomers. We're gonna be the ones leading the country from here on. Uh you might want to focus on your reading and comprehension skills before you take on things like the uh international or or global economic issues that the US and the whole world are going through right now. So just just an opinion there. I was just astounded that 14%. That's that's a good chunk of people that come out and aren't reading very well. So all right, let's get into the news and see what we've got here. Um, here, the very first one I found very interesting also. Washington state weighing crane rule changes for forklifts and suspended loads. Now then uh Washington Department of Labor and its industry says it's working on rulemaking that would include new or amended language that clarifies certification and qualification requirements for operators when using a forklift in construction to lift a suspended load. Now, I have a little bit of experience with this. I was at a company a while back, and they had a piece of decking they were gonna move with a forklift, so they put lifting straps around it, put those on the forks of the forklift and went to move it. And when they did, the straps tore, the deck they were moving fell, hit a guy and broke his leg. And when the ocean specter came out, he wanted to site under crane standards because the way some of these states have the lifting requirements spelled out, it applies more to cranes. Let me back up. It applies more to forklifts utilized as a crane, just like it does to cranes. So the minute that they, if they had set it on the forks and just went to move it like a material handling move, there would have been no question. However, because they put slings on it and they went to lift with it, now they were saying that they had changed the requirements to where it was comparable to that as a crane. So I understand some of the ruling here. I think it's good that they're revisiting it because you you've got to use some common sense. Uh, if you're only lifting something a few inches off the ground to move it, whether it's done with a chain or synthetic straps or laying on the forks, the heart of the movement is going to be from the motor equipment that you use to move it with. So do you really need to have a crane certified operator to operate a forklift in that manner? I don't think so. I think you have to have very specific training for the people that are going to be using the forklift in that manner so that they know, hey, here's your limitations, don't lift it higher than this or that. And it gives you a little bit more capability to use your equipment, but you also need to make people aware more than anything else. You need to train your operators properly. So um the next, oh, by the way, all of these, this this time, uh, well, this one, the last one, and the one I'm getting ready to read, and the one after are all from the National Safety Council monthly period. Periodical, Safety, and Health Magazine. They seem to be getting a lot more cutting-edge information a little quicker than some of the other periodicals. The other day, before I get into this next topic, I uh had one of the hard copies that gets mailed to me, uh, sent to my home, took it out, opened it up, I started reading the story, and I was like, I already know this information. I I'm psychic. I I already knew this is what was going on. And uh before I got too far down the road patting myself on the back for my clairvoyance, I realized that I get a lot of these electronically, and my electronic updates come before the mailed ones. So it kind of deflated me after that. After I realized, hey, you're really not that special. You didn't, you didn't see this in a dream and understand it before it came out. So anyway, uh moving on, the next one that I found that might apply was OSHA's illness recording requirement doesn't apply to mental health or mental illness appeals court rules. And this is kind of sad because this guy was working for a refinery in Baytown, Texas, and he went in and there was an explosion, and he was helping shut off valves to keep it from leveling the area that they had this plant in. And after they got everything squared away, he was complaining with uh symptoms of PTSD, and he felt like it came from this work-related experience. I can understand that. You're dealing with fire, explosion, people screaming. It's one of those things who wouldn't have some level of PTSD from. And he had it confirmed by his doctor and three other medical people, but they said that the other than his doctor, the others didn't meet the requirements of an Ocmed provider, an occupational medicine provider. So they didn't count. So the company went back and requested a second opinion. And the guy pretty much said, I've been through this so many times already. I'm not going back to another doctor. I've got paperwork that says that I have this. And so because he said he was tired of going through it and wasn't going to submit another evaluation, they concluded with the second opinion that he didn't have PTSD. They ended up quitting his job. So that's pretty sad. But it's one of those things that if they would look at their record keeping the same way they do as their citation capabilities, OSHA would do a lot better. And by that, what I mean is OSHA has a very rigid set of standards that they hold companies to that they have to live with, whether they be construction companies or whether they be general office. So you've got general industry and construction. And by that, what I mean is they can say, we don't have a code to associate this to, but we feel that the employer failed to provide a workplace free from recognized hazards in this aspect. So we're issuing a citation. Now it's on the employer to come back and say, no, this is how we address it, or to say, yeah, you're right, and we're we'll correct it. So they have that opening area, that kind of vague and nebulous type area that they can approach as far as citations go. Why don't they have a gray area like that with record keeping for things like this? PTSD, somebody's experiencing some type of mental issue. You can take and actually put it on here on your record, and it would be recognized by worker comp people at that point in time to try and get you some treatment. Um, it probably comes down to cost. They're afraid that there would be uh high cost associated with trying to treat somebody who has an ongoing issue like this. So I thought that was pretty interesting, especially as things are happening in the stress people are under today, not just in the oil field area. I mean, there are people in the billboard industry I know that are suffering that could probably benefit from being able to have access to some type of mental help. So, all right, let's go on. Now, then uh the other, the last article that is also from Safety and Health magazine is do health care costs prevent workers from staying healthy? And this is one that I know everybody relates to. Even though there are co-pays and things like that, you're not paying the whole bill, it's still a cost. And a lot of people are cutting the preventive medicine out and only seeing doctors and healthcare people when it's urgent or an emergency. So I understand that. Now, the other part of that, too, is with the economy shifting around the way it is, there's a number of companies that are going to be looking at what they can cut. And one of the things may be in the employee medical coverage. You know, that's one of the benefits. They can reduce what they cover on. And if they go to all contractors, which I think is a terrible mistake, but if they do go to an all-contractor type of business, it could be people are working for pay only at that point. So I think this is something that needs to be addressed. And it says in here, there is a statement where it says no one should have to skip buying groceries or halt their retirement savings to cover their medical expenses. AHA CEO Nancy Brown said in a press release. And I hope Nancy Brown is actually going to champion this and you get it to where there are some things put in place to make not only healthcare more affordable. And I don't I don't want doctors to starve or make it into, you know, a not-for-profit to see the hospital, but I think there are times that the patient is not getting the full treatment because they feel like they can't afford to go for all the extra visits that the doctor says they should go because you know they feel better after two, and they don't have the money for the other three to complete the full cycle of their rehab or whatever it is. So, anyway, uh that was one of the things that I felt I wanted to mention today that I saw in there. And let's see, I do have one other thing that I was gonna mention in the OSHA outtakes. And if you want to subscribe to that, you can go to OSHA.gov and they have a place where you can get their monthly outtakes where they have some pretty handy information that you can use and information on different industries and stuff. It's very interesting. Um but September, I know I'm getting ahead a little bit because it's not quite September, but I I wanted to bring this up for people to get information for uh either their workers or if you want to post something yourself or something you want to share with uh people you know. September is Suicide Prevention Month. And specifically, the week of September 14th is construction suicide prevention week. And there are some posters available at OSHA.gov that you can get for free and download, and they have a number of things that people should be aware of that suicide is a leading cause of death among working age adults in the United States. That's pretty sad, and it does deeply impact workers' families, communities, the business, everyone. And fortunately, like other workplace fatalities, suicides can be prevented, and they give you a list of five things to know about preventing suicides. Number one, be aware. Everyone can help prevent suicide. And number two is pay attention, know the warning signs. What should you look for? Behavior, mood changes, things like that. Number three, reach out, ask. Ask somebody, are you okay? Is there something I can help you with? You know, we can figure something out together. And number four, take action. If someone is in crisis, stay with them, get help. You can call 988, the Suicide and Crisis Lifeline. And number five, learn more. Suicide prevention resources are available. So, and this is a free poster that you can get from OSHA to put up. I think it's one of those things that makes the podcast worth every penny you pay for it. And since it's free, you know, you're you're getting a bonus, Sarah. So, anyway, that concludes this uh episode 18 of the Billboard Safety Guy. I hope you've enjoyed it and got something from it. And I look forward to the next time that uh we get together again. And I'll say this is Jim Pogue, the Billboard Safety Guy, reminding you that you don't have to change the whole world. Just make your part of it a little safer. Until next time, be safe.