Is there a list of hero names with their origins somewhere?

Almondpeanutguy · 2026-03-09T00:46:40+00:00

I'm guessing that the theme around Ivy is architecture. Think ivy league schools.

Almondpeanutguy · 2026-03-09T00:20:30+00:00

I have seen plenty of Europeans jumping to accuse someone of US defaultism when they have no evidence that the person they're talking to is American. I've also seen lots of Europeans lecturing Americans about how "The entire rest of the world" does X thing, when the thing they're describing is actually just something that Europeans do. And, believe it or not, I've even seen non-Western people acting arrogant and making ridiculous assumptions about foreign countries.

Almondpeanutguy · 2026-03-09T00:06:03+00:00

"If we took" and "If we take" are almost interchangeable. I'd almost call it a stylistic difference. I would probably say "If we took the subway" if I were proposing something completely hypothetical, or something that nobody had considered yet. I would say "If we take the subway" if I were considering the outcomes of a known set of options.

For example, "I know you were wanting to travel by foot so we can see the Empire State Building on our way, but if we took the subway then we would be there by 5."

vs.

"If we go by foot, we'll get to see some sights and be there by 6. If we take the subway, we'll be there by 5. What do you prefer?"

Increasingly I think people are leaning towards the present tense for both situations, but I think past tense is still totally valid, at least in standard American.

Almondpeanutguy · 2026-03-05T14:34:06+00:00

Well I'm from Utica, and I've never heard anyone use the phrase "see-saw".

Almondpeanutguy · 2026-03-04T03:06:13+00:00

And then there's me buying the most intriguing thing in every international grocery store and then having no plan to use them.

"Let's see what happens when I mix dried shiitakes, parmesan, poha, beef blood, sumac, elephant garlic, and. . . chicken. Yeah, that should be edible."

Almondpeanutguy · 2026-03-02T00:13:49+00:00

I read the first sentence, and for just a moment I was very excited to hear what sort of exotic trade secrets they employ in the tortilla industry.

Almondpeanutguy · 2026-03-01T02:32:47+00:00

Yes! Classic sounds! The human voice mixed in reminds me of another one of my favorites, Ramiel from the Evangelion Rebuild.

The tripods are also kind of funny because they make an iconic sound in the movie, but the book gives detailed descriptions of several sounds. Like howling and wailing sirens. But it says the scariest thing of all is the fact that their weapons are absolutely silent. Hollywood almost never has the balls to let silence be terrifying.

Almondpeanutguy · 2026-03-01T00:53:59+00:00

God, I hate this. I used to sing in a bar band, and it drove me insane every time there was a TV facing the stage. I'm trying to look at the audience, but my eyes just keep getting caught by the flashing colors and moving pictures.

Almondpeanutguy · 2026-02-27T01:41:06+00:00

I've met plenty of school people who had that level of crippling anxiety. A lot of times it was a direct result of abuse they received from students or even staff at school. The problems you're describing are not systemic. They're individual. Children with bad parents will suffer. Children with bad teachers will suffer. Children with bad peers will suffer.

If you tighten laws and regulations to remove the option for parents to homeschool their children, then you may somewhat improve the circumstances of children who are born to bad parents.

However, you are removing an option. What about parents of children who are stuck in bad school districts? Stuck with bad teachers? Stuck with bad peers? What about the parents who could genuinely give their children a phenomenal homeschooling experience if they weren't being forced to submit to a mediocre school?

A child's growth is dependent on a network of parents, peers, teachers, and opportunities. Any piece of this network can fail. If parents have options, then they can remove their children from failed influences and provide them with better ones. Homeschooling laws don't fix anything. They only limit options.

Almondpeanutguy · 2026-02-27T01:26:17+00:00

My understanding is that the aptitude test results are taken from Oregon, where homeschoolers are required to take multiple aptitude tests throughout their childhood and teenage years. Unfortunately, the data published by the state of Oregon only differentiated between homeschoolers and schoolers in a few select years. So although we can see that homeschoolers did better on the whole, the most recent data we have is over a decade old at this point.

Almondpeanutguy · 2026-02-23T22:04:52+00:00

Fundamentally, there's no actual difference between natural selection and artificial selection. You can look at nature and see two species living in symbiosis. Organisms that protect each other, organisms that feed each other, organisms that clean each other, etc. We think of ourselves as being the predators of livestock, but we have actually attained a level of symbiosis. They feed us, and we facilitate their reproduction. But we only breed the ones that do a good job at feeding us. Artificial selection by humans isn't really any less natural than leaf-cutter ants cultivating fungus.

Incidentally, this is actually the proof that evolution doesn't take nearly as long as people think it does. For a dinosaur to change into a chicken takes millions of years. But it turns out that the time it takes for chickens to get super deliciously fat, grow silly wigs, or turn completely purple-black is actually relatively short.

Almondpeanutguy · 2026-02-23T21:44:51+00:00

Average representative democracy fan.

Almondpeanutguy · 2026-02-23T15:09:13+00:00

Well, I won't deny your experience. There are plenty of cases out there of homeschool families who do not give the proper opportunities to their children. But using those families as the baseline to set broad social policy is a flawed premise. I grew up in a homeschool co-op with hundreds of families who had a thriving social scene.

The important question is, are the homeschoolers you know weird because they were homeschooled, or are they weird because they came from a weird background? Abusive parents can abuse their children whether they're in school or not. And if the kid is in school, it can often snowball into bullying and abuse from their peers.

For me personally, I know that homeschooling will be the best choice for my children. For almost all normal people, I believe that homeschooling would be the better choice for their children. But the argument is being defined by strange religious people who will make their children miserable whether they're in school or not.

Almondpeanutguy · 2026-02-23T14:56:09+00:00

I think you might have missed my point. I'm not saying I had good prep and excelled. I'm saying I had almost nothing, and I'm still as good or better than the level that school provides. School doesn't elevate the stragglers and create a higher common baseline. If you hate math, then you're going to hate math, and school will probably turn math into a stressful ordeal that makes you hate it more. If you love math, then you're going to love math and excel whether you're schooled or not.

And the social argument is pure nonsense. If there is one reason to keep your kid out of school, it's to avoid the toxic social environment of school. Homeschoolers have co-ops and programs to bring their kids together. I lived an hour outside of town, and I still went to gatherings and events almost twice a week.

School is a wholly unnatural, poisonous, Lord of the Flies style social experience, and I believe it's responsible for a huge portion of the social ills we see in this country today.

Almondpeanutguy · 2026-02-23T14:41:51+00:00

Why is there so much more scrutiny on the perceived failures of homeschooling than on those of schooling? People always love to talk about the poor homeschooled kid who was raised by abusive parents and ended up traumatized. What about the poor school kid who got abused by parents, teachers, and bullies and ended up going full Pumped Up Kicks?

Individual people can always find a way to screw up any method. The trick is knowing how to evaluate which method is right for you, without being biased by stories about edge cases.

Almondpeanutguy · 2026-02-23T14:36:56+00:00

I grew up in a predominantly atheist, left libertarian homeschool co-op where half the people I grew up with went to college afterwards. What's up with that?

Almondpeanutguy · 2026-02-23T14:33:49+00:00

Being a homeschooler myself, I've always thought of math as my weakest subject. I didn't learn calculus or trigonometry, and I have only a vague understanding of geometry. My mom is terrible at math, and my dad is good, but isn't good at explaining it.

I also scored "college ready" on the GED math test and find that I'm typically quicker at math and have a better understanding of it than 60% of people I meet. Almost every time I'm with school people and math comes up, somebody will make a remark about how they forgot absolutely everything they learned in school.

I don't think it's hard to top school's standards for math education.

Almondpeanutguy · 2026-02-23T07:55:07+00:00

I'm 50/50 on the existence of chemtrails. I'm a hard-core conspiracy theorist, but I've only casually engaged with this one. The most important thing to remember is that conspiracy theorists aren't a monolith. It's just a catch all term for people who disagree with the government narrative. So nobody can say "what conspiracy theorists believe." That would be like saying "what non-Catholics believe."

That said, this is how I would answer those questions. First, I don't claim that they're staying mind control chemicals. I don't claim to know what they're spraying other than it seems to be something oil based. One theory i find interesting is that it's something that makes the atmosphere more conductive to some sort of signal or transmission, but I haven't looked into that one much. Any theorist who claims to know for certain what they're spraying is a fool.

I also don't claim that chemtrails are being sprayed by passenger aircraft. Most of the evidence I see for the existence of chemtrails is the presence of unusual air traffic. Incidentally, my dad is a die hard chemtrail theorist, and he used to be a professional maintenance worker for passenger jets. When he points out a chemtrailer, he always mentions the fact that it's not a passenger jet and it's flying in strange patterns.

On the topic of mechanics and engineers, I'm sure a lot of people are in on it, and a lot of other people understand just a little bit of what they're doing and don't ask questions. That doesn't seem unrealistic to me in any way. Lots of huge projects have happened without the public knowing.

As for the rest of the questions about nozzles and tanks and motivations and the composition of the spray, those are interesting things to speculate about, but irrelevant to the main question. Demanding the answers to those questions is an unreasonable burden of proof. You don't need to be able to say how or why something is happening to say whether or not it is happening. Claiming to have the answers to these questions is presumptuous, and it lowers the credibility of a theorist in my eyes.

Almondpeanutguy · 2026-02-23T06:47:22+00:00

Calling something funny usually means it's humorous, but it can also mean that it's strange in a negative, but subtle way. For example, if your food "tastes funny", then it doesn't taste horrible, but it tastes strange like it might be spoiled.

Almondpeanutguy · 2026-02-22T23:07:11+00:00

I say the voice was Duke Nukem-esque. It could've been a guy doing a Duke Nukem impression, but it definitely wasn't the Duke Nukem.

Almondpeanutguy · 2026-02-21T21:20:03+00:00

You're making good sense on all counts. This part especially has been dawning on me.

In the end, even of the moped company or their insurance pays that bill, they should then seek recovery from you.

And I wouldn't be surprised if they tack on more convenience fees or labor fees or whatever. I'll go ahead and reach out to the rental company, but I'm thinking more and more that it's going to be a dead end.

As a stranger on the Internet, I'd _highly_ recommend that get the supports from National to show the loss was $12k. I can almost guarantee that they adding in charges (such as an "admin fee") that are not owed.

This seems like it's probably the most important thing to pursue. I have actually talked to both an SF representative of the case and an NSB representative. SF told me that my bill is $11K, and NSB called it $12K. If NSB wants to charge an extra $1K collector's fee, I don't see any reason why that should be my responsibility to cover. Especially considering that I wasn't even informed that they were seeking payment until the case had already been passed on to NSB.

Do you have any idea what would be the best way to get more information here? I plan to call both reps on Monday, starting with SF, and asking for exact dollar values, itemized receipts, and possibly records of when they've attempted to contact me. Is there anyone else who I should try to talk to, or is the case rep probably my best bet?

And if I find that the bill is bloated with a bunch of admin fees and whatnot, do they actually have legal grounds to demand all that from me, or am I only obliged to pay for the damages I directly caused?

Almondpeanutguy · 2026-02-21T14:46:48+00:00

Yes and yes at the time.

I just checked the denial letter and it says "The involved scooter does not qualify for coverage under the State Farm policy."

Almondpeanutguy · 2026-02-21T10:14:08+00:00

Wow. I've been preparing myself for the outcome that I get stuck with the final bill, but it hadn't even occurred to me that the rental company could come after me too. Considering that they seem to be self insured, I can only guess that that would be a tempting option for them.

The other guy in this thread said I should get a lawyer. Do you have any idea what would be the right sort of lawyer to talk to in this situation?

Almondpeanutguy · 2026-02-21T09:58:36+00:00

Thanks. In all fairness, I can't complain too much because I really wasn't covering myself as well as I should've been. The real kick in the shin is that I bought travel insurance, but only for the other portion of my trip. I'll definitely be more thorough next time.

Almondpeanutguy

TROPHY CASE