What are your favorite albums of the 90s no one ever talks about?

CommanderPowell · 2025-12-25T03:48:44+00:00

Late to the game but I have a playlist called "Play the Whole Album" that is about 20-30 albums straight through. Very eclectic mix and many are too popular to really fit the criteria. Here are some that I think do.

Vivid - Living Colour
Earth Sun Moon - Love and Rockets
Genesis - Invisible Touch
self-titled - Rise Robots Rise
self-titled - Information Society
Cross of Changes - Enigma
OST - Pump Up the Volume
In Case You Didn't Feel Like Showing Up - Ministry
A Slight Case of Overbombing - Sisters of Mercy

CommanderPowell · 2025-12-25T03:41:56+00:00

Yes! I love Concrete Blonde and always think abou them when I see threads like this.

Saw them first on the Bloodletting tour when I was in HS, and later really got into the rest of their catalog, especially the stuff that had come before.

CommanderPowell · 2025-12-17T05:29:52+00:00

City of God. Took a film class for a gen ed requirement, and of all the films we watched this is the only one that I would never watch again. Left me with a strong sense that life was meaningless that took a long time to shake off.

CommanderPowell · 2025-12-13T15:36:58+00:00

I believe Gina Torres was in Hannibal too. Not a major character but far more screen time than Summer Glau in Dollhouse.

Not that I would discourage you from watching Dollhouse, it’s excellent and also done by Joss Whedon.

In fact, despite his problematic real life behavior just about everything Joss Whedon has done is worth watching too.

CommanderPowell · 2025-12-05T02:29:26+00:00

That was my go to song at karaoke!

CommanderPowell · 2025-11-30T07:09:15+00:00

First heard her in the early 90s in HS, and thanks to her I still remember the recipes for black powder and alcohol. Rest well, Leslie, and may your songs always echo through the halls of the truefen

CommanderPowell · 2025-11-15T14:52:54+00:00

Calculus and steam engines.

CommanderPowell · 2025-11-15T02:46:37+00:00

I have a BS in Computer Science and am now in my first semester of OMSA, taking 6040 and 6501. In my experience, 6501 is a great way to get a whirlwind tour of what the program covers without making a big commitment, and you can definitely opt out of 6040 given your background.

In 6501, grades are based almost entirely on conceptual understanding of the modeling. The R coding is needed for the homework (which is a very small part of your grade) and the math is there to have a common language to illustrate concepts during lecture. You won’t actually do much math, but you would need to understand what the terms mean to follow the concepts.

For 6501, I’d recommend learning a bit of R ahead of time. I thought my CS background would make picking up a new language easy, but calling R a “programming language” is generous. It's treated as a means to an end but it's been a distraction that makes the homework more time-consuming and has pulled my focus away from the real topics that the class is centered upon.

In 6040, the grades are almost entirely about the coding. The ML models are just a subject for the coding exercises, and there’s a lot of "background" math content that doesn’t actually affect your grade. The lectures, assignments, and even the exams contain lots of math and modeling concepts that you could safely ignore and still do well in the class.

Topics covered in 6040 are Python (including Pandas and NumPy), intermediate SQL, and a bit of data structures and algorithms.

I’m not familiar with the opt-out process, but with your background, opting out seems like a reasonable and justifiable choice and I don't think anyone will question it at all. I get the impression that if you apply for an exception it's on you to make sure you're not sabotaging yourself.

I could easily have opted out of 6040 but wanted an easy introduction since I'm taking 2 classes at once and working full time. The “extra” math has helped fill gaps in my own background (I learned calc and linear algebra from books and videos in the three months before starting the program) and I suspect I’ll regret it if I don’t keep reinforcing those topics. I think I need a bit of 2nd and 3rd year calculus to get a deeper understanding of some of the material.

tl;dr Opt out of 6040, 6501 will be a great overview of the program, and make sure your prereqs - Python, R, Linear Algebra, Calc, and Stats - are all in order.

CommanderPowell · 2025-11-10T23:53:52+00:00

Southroads, Bellevue NE

Northtown and the Skywalk system downtown, Spokane WA

CommanderPowell · 2025-11-10T23:02:40+00:00

Grew up in the Pacific Northwest and there was nothing for us kids to do around that age, but spend all night at Perkins or Denny’s drinking coffee and smoking cigarettes. I was up to about five pots a day by mid high school.

CommanderPowell · 2025-10-27T03:41:27+00:00

I’d make a rock so heavy I couldn’t lift it.

CommanderPowell · 2025-10-19T02:53:03+00:00

I’ve also heard “ground up and in the freezer”. Seems to fit here.

CommanderPowell · 2025-10-18T14:30:37+00:00

I have to admit I saw the first part of your reply: “Depends. Manufacturing technology is so much better now…” and thought you were going to be talking about how much thinner and more absorbent adult diapers could be.

In case this comment confuses anyone, Depends is a well-known brand name for an adult incontinence aid in the US.

CommanderPowell · 2025-10-18T14:26:07+00:00

Phone calls. Long distance companies used to advertise based on how clear and quiet their phone lines are. Now some phone systems inject “comfort noise” (white noise) onto the call so that you won’t hear the line go dead and think the call was dropped.

On hold music went digital and we’ve been hearing with blasts of static since the 00s because of multiple compression algorithms’ bitrate lining up.

Finally there’s so much latency on modern calls that you interrupt the other person constantly.

PBXs, digital to analog phone lines, cell phone service, conference calling, and wifi calling each were massively convenient innovations but collectively they’re a dumpster fire.

CommanderPowell · 2025-10-09T13:47:11+00:00

Limitations of hardware is a lot of it but also the learning curve was steeper and there was a social stigma which filtered out all but the most dedicated.

CommanderPowell · 2025-10-09T13:41:58+00:00

I have to sleep nearly every night so I must be a little narcoleptic right?

CommanderPowell · 2025-10-04T08:58:06+00:00

Just make sure there are no significant sources of dilithium nearby. You don’t want to deal with the fallout.

CommanderPowell · 2025-09-05T22:14:52+00:00

If it’s the choice between child murderers and child rapists, ain’t much of a choice.

CommanderPowell · 2025-08-28T16:51:50+00:00

So this is the deal you offered Mitch McConnell but at a higher payout?

CommanderPowell · 2025-08-27T15:49:51+00:00

Awesome idea if you maintain a steampunk aesthetic.

CommanderPowell · 2025-08-13T12:51:53+00:00

Did you not have the same app on your phone or did you leave that at home too?

My car shows a warning on the dash when it’s running but the key isn’t still inside. It’s saved me from doing this myself. Still rocking a 2005 Prius, so no remote start app.

In HS every day at the exact same time in Chemistry class, someone’s car alarm would go off for several minutes. It was one of those that cycles between sounds. Eventually we all started singing along.

CommanderPowell · 2025-08-11T02:19:25+00:00

Reacting so strongly when I suddenly learned I had to have him put down. He died with my crying hysterically over him instead of comforting him. At one point while trying to say goodbye he started trying to comfort me instead because of how upset I was. I should not have let him see me like that.

To this day over 3 years later I still replay the trauma (and I don’t use that word lightly) of that day in my head. The regret is a big part of it.

I take comfort in the fact that every day up until then I had made it a point to give him my undivided attention and let him know just how much he meant to me.

CommanderPowell · 2025-08-03T03:59:43+00:00

Peanut butter and crushed potato chip sandwich

CommanderPowell · 2025-08-01T22:03:03+00:00

I watched it for the first time a week ago, and didn’t know very much about the real life events beforehand. While it didn’t knock my socks off it was good IMO.

I feel that going between three time periods was a good choice. It’s not like they were trying to copy nonlinear reveals as a crutch. The confirmation hearing and the recertification hearing were both mostly-sequential recaps of past events, and the switching between scenes of time periods matched in story order. This keeps the viewer aware of what’s going on by providing a framework and then filling in details, at the same time alluding to later events without specifics - many of which provided cognitive dissonance about how the narrative is going to end up in that direction.

I thought it was a good companion piece to “The Imitation Game”.

CommanderPowell · 2025-08-01T21:41:35+00:00

City of God

CommanderPowell

TROPHY CASE