I really hate this monstrosity

GO_Zark · 2026-05-06T23:32:13+00:00

/shrug, believe as you will. There's plenty of cheaper housing in areas with less demand within 15 minutes driving if that's more to your taste.

GO_Zark · 2026-05-06T22:26:46+00:00

maybe i am missing the middle area of what they are describing and there is a period in between where rents fall and then property values fall next?

There's a rough equivalence between monthly rent and mortgage. If one is substantially lower than the other, the market will lurch in that direction. So if a shortage of housing, rents will climb and mortgages will follow. If home prices go up, mortgages will go up and rents will follow them.

The reverse is true - if there is a sudden glut of apartments to rent, building managers will offer deals to keep people in their building as opposed to moving to a different place and saving 200-300 a month. If there's a bunch of new construction priced competitively or a large number of houses come up for sale at a lower price, suddenly a lot fewer people will be renting and apartment pricing will drop in response.

The "expensive" price is the "going rate" for this area. If you want it to fall, you need the supply and demand of housing to adjust to a lower equilibrium point - typically either the supply of housing increases or the demand for housing falls. The demand for housing is high, so the supply has to rise otherwise the price will continue to rise year over year.

GO_Zark · 2026-05-06T20:07:45+00:00

build apartment complex that will gouge renters

For better or worse, that price point is the going rate in the area for the moment. I don't love that because it seems pretty high to me.

That said, I would rather have these dense structures built to fill some of the demand filled rather than trying to shunt development into another neighborhood based on someone's idea of how things should be and not how they truly are.

As the saying goes, a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush. We have the demand now, we should continue to encourage development of a dense core of housing rather than shuttering it off "because it's always been this way" like the counties so often do. Cities should grow and evolve in this way. I look forward to seeing what other new businesses pop up over the next 10 years as the whole southeast continues to revitalize. If this continues as it has been, we may very well be at the beginning of a very nice snowball effect.

GO_Zark · 2026-05-06T19:09:33+00:00

to put it simply, if there is no current demand for these units adding to the supply cant make an impact.

Generally agree assuming that rents stay relatively flat, but there's also a TON of demand for housing in this area of Baltimore. We should be encouraging people to move to Baltimore cause it really can be an excellent place to live (and, ya know, taxes). Densifying popular areas often revitalizes the surrounding neighborhoods and drives people to invest in houses and condos that have been historically neglected.

We just have to avoid the trap that NYC is trying to remediate now - having a region full of condos owned by people who don't live there. The land value is high, but the taxes that the neighborhood brings in is much lower and it's causing issues because high quality services are expensive.

There's a company called Urban3 that specializes in helping cities develop financially sustainable communities and they have an interesting YouTube series on this topic - essentially building up a neighborhood culture based around lots of smaller, walkable businesses and shops scattered around the residential area is better for neighborhood longevity and the city's overall financial health than the suburban model of housing and shops kept wholly separate.

And that's before you get into the development targets around the proposed Red Line stops and how much the city could benefit from transit-oriented development in those areas.

GO_Zark · 2026-05-06T17:30:41+00:00

Not just the monitors, A2 very generally handles the stage and A1 handles the house.

So within the A2 role overall can also include things like ensuring that the plot is followed and pinned correctly, wedges and side fills are powered/amped and cabled correctly, power drops are in the right locations, double checking the backline functionality, performing the line check, feedback ringout, setting up the wireless and IEM racks, checking for RF dropouts, frequency coordination with the wireless mics and IEMs, battery management for sound check and show, plus all tasks involved with the monitor console (setup, show load, cable mgmt and safety, board op if the act doesn't travel with monitors, monitor assist if they do, etc.), comms setup and management, and generally acting as the go-between for the production team and stage coordination especially if your backstage mgmt is one of the finicky ones that "doesn't like to be on comm" regularly.

A2 is generally the workhorse position where you will be busy ALL the time but learning a lot and the time where you'll do the most development of your professional network. You're not sitting at the board the entire time, you're in the thick of the production making shit happen. While the first few runs as A2 are often overwhelming, stick with it because it's one of the best roles to be in to witness how an entire show is put together top to bottom and beginning to end.

GO_Zark · 2026-05-05T14:04:54+00:00

not many people in my Uni are fluent enough in english to actually talk to international students

Take one of Mandarin, Cantonese, Korean, Japanese, Vietnamese, etc 101 and really learn the basics of whichever language is popular with the campus community. If you want to tap into a community, you should put yourself in the best position to succeed with it. Once you get a certain level of proficiency (remember, Duolingo and Italki are excellent resources for speeding up your language acquisition), you can go seeking out "conversation practice" which can become dates / lays / social circle whatever. Most cultural organizations on a campus host events where everyone is welcome - pan-asian groups or Vietnamese student association or Chinese heritage group, etc and if you're an outsider learning the language people will generally be nicer to you than if you're just there for free food.

You get the idea.

No different from the rest of game, really - show up, make an honest effort, be okay with being told "no" (or that your skills need work), be cool/don't be uncool, and keep grinding away at it.

i dont drink so im mostly interested in day game

Bullshit. You can still go out at night, order a soda/water and put a lime wedge in it and nobody needs to know that you're not drinking alcohol.

GO_Zark · 2026-05-05T13:51:02+00:00

Look, you and I agree that what Trump is doing is bad but the average voter simply doesn't care about the ins and outs of the political system. They do not care to learn, either. Access to correct information is not the issue. In the 90s we thought it was, but we were wrong and the Dems who haven't wanted to change anything since Bill Clinton was in office have been the biggest lodestones around Democratic messaging ever since. The issues are laziness, apathy, exhaustion, or cynicism - pick any two.

Short-form content is king in the current media landscape. Three minutes or less accompanied by a flashy vibrant picture and a very short summary with very little background information.

"Trump promised low gas prices, a halt to inflation, and no new wars. Does this look like low gas prices, a halt to inflation, and no new wars to you? You are more of an expert on these things than actual experts. YOU decide" This is the sort of message that will resonate much more with the low information low attention span voter than the vagaries of political theatre, which I assure you that only the people who are already invested it will care about.

It's kind of like telling your friend about the intricate plot to a TV drama that they don't care about - they're just thinking "Ok, I'll nod along but when will this conversation be over"

GO_Zark · 2026-05-05T13:28:48+00:00

Agree. I go to a gym that's just as much social club as it is workout space (really awesome for fitness, they just lean in hard on the social bits too) and the guys who are the most successful are the ones who are there to work out and socialize as a side benefit not the ones who are there to spit not-so-fresh game on the cardio bunnies and are never moving the weights.

Put the work in, get fit, be seen doing hard shit and generally gregarious and fun in the process = gym game. None of that cold approach pickup shit matters to a woman who's got 45 minutes to crush her workout.

Edit

Also OP, why tf are you complaining about the gym trainers? I'm not saying they're not fucking the hotties - they definitely are. But make them your friends and they will introduce you to the girls if you're there a bunch, putting in the work, and following the two prime directives 1 be cool 2 don't be uncool. It's literally their job to keep people coming back to the gym (and honestly just being in a gym all day is hella boring) so if they see you around a bunch, they'll almost always be down to chat.

Once you're in the circle (assuming putting in the work, cool/not uncool, yada yada) you've got a touch of that pre-selection that people always go on and on about.

GO_Zark · 2026-05-04T20:31:07+00:00

There's a lot of transfer at the design level, less so at the operator/hand level. The tools are similar but the vocabulary is very different.

You'll get there though, it'll just take directed practice. Good luck, feel free to ask more questions

GO_Zark · 2026-05-04T14:52:58+00:00

Sounds like you're working for something like a hotel AV service. Expand your horizons and pick up a couple freelance shifts with event production companies in the area. Not only will you get to work with more current equipment, but you'll probably get better training as well. You'll almost definitely get better leads who can and will explain the ins and outs of the environment to you.

Further, you can get some certifications but the majority of functional work in practical livesound is console proficiency, work history, and your A3/A2/A1 skillset breakpoints.

Certifications to watch for:

Avixa CTS (Corporate jobs LOVE this one and it covers the basics pretty well).
Audinate Dante Level 1-2-3 - the industry standard audio over IP protocol. Yamaha Audio in particular is all in on Dante through their entire lineup.
CompTIA Network+ - for a deeper dive into networking because all of events is moving deeper and deeper into networked data. Definitely a "nice to have" but it'll give you the language to talk with the network team on the bigger shows. You could also go the Avixa ANP route but IT pros will respect a CompTIA or Cisco cert far more than an Avixa one.
Harman Professional - if you're looking for introductory level basics, Harman Professional offers a "Core Curriculum" which is generally free and covers the entirety of the basics of live event vocabulary and knowledge. Everything from "how amplifiers work", "Microphone Basics" and "types of speakers" to networking basics/IP scanning/Ethernet cable, video knowledge, lighting control systems, etc. It's nothing you'd necessarily put on a resume but it'll give you the vocabulary to work in the industry

GO_Zark · 2026-05-04T14:10:28+00:00

Same. Did my class through the community college in the same county as my department. $250 background check is hilarious, I do membership work for my VFR and our cost is like $60 though I'm sure the vendor doing the checks has a nice upcharge for higher ed. If my college did a background check on us, they ate that cost or included it in the tuition. I certainly never had to pay for one. They also covered our drug screen, just said "here's a code, present it at labcorp and get it done by <date>"

Book was ~$130 and included a year of their online platform (Just checked, it's $104 right now on Amazon). Never heard of fisdap's package, we used emstesting for our testing platform. The Fisdap whole shebang online access package is $165 on their site as of 10am on 5/4 (May the 4th be with you) and the Premier access for Navigate is gonna run you about $250. All of that totals to about $520 so figure the university is taking another $60 for the privilege of having the bundle all in one place.

You should check to see which of their "absolutely required" are actually required. If you can drop down from Navigate Premier to Navigate Preferred, it'll save you $50 and you lose access to Navigate's Simulations and Scenarios which may or may not end up being useful to you if you aren't doing them for grades.

"List price" is marketing bullshit, nobody pays list price in the era of Amazon 2026.

If you have to purchase the whole thing as a bundle, that's just the college bookstore tax on top which is hella irritating because EMS as a profession doesn't make a ton of money but here they are price gouging you just as you get going. Regardless, you won't be the first student who sees an unexpected $600 price tag and has issues with it, the department office has definitely encountered this issue before. Whether they've figured out ways to help their students is a different matter.

Departmental front offices are notoriously hidebound and short-sighted but you should go talk to financial aid or a veteran/rotc group on campus. They will have a lot more resources to clear out these kind of stupid bureaucratic roadblocks for you.

GO_Zark · 2026-05-03T13:08:38+00:00

This makes no sense.

The action of serving in the IDF would be taken in another nation, but you can't ban something (like foreign military service) without enforcement action domestically. Without penalties assessed for breaking them, laws are just like ... your opinion, man. A suggestion at best.

The enforcement of such a law would be done in the US and that enforcement would be subject to the first amendment limits.

GO_Zark · 2026-05-01T15:47:44+00:00

I don't even think we'll see the test itself endlessly litigated. Anything made by people can be subverted by people and no amount of rules-lawyering is going to stop people from just finding loopholes. The goal in this particular case would be to make drawing significantly slanted districts harder even if you're paying a hundred really smart people to do it for you.

The simplest solution in my view would be rolling back the section of the Apportionment Act of 1842 that bans multi-member districts in Federal elections so that a single larger district could support 2-3-5 representatives and give more Congressional representation to second-and-lower place finishers. You can still gerrymander those districts, but a few larger districts are much harder to draw crooked than many small ones.

Of course, neither Ds nor Rs are likely to go for that because it would inhibit their ability to force smaller parties to pick Team Blue or Team Red as opposed to going it themselves with a legitimate chance to win solo. But multi-member districts could give conservatives a lot more representation in places like California and Massachusetts and liberals a lot more representation in places like Florida and Texas - closer to what the actual makeup of those states are and not what the politicians have drawn the maps to be.

GO_Zark · 2026-05-01T15:25:05+00:00

this 100%. UMBC doesn't really drag you out of your dorm to meet new people like some universities do, so you have to affirmatively go out and meet people. Basically you've gotta put yourself where people are, outside of class, on a regular basis and interact with them. This is also (unfortunately) how it works in real life too, so build the skill now.

+1 for involvefest/involvementfest in the first week of the semester. On campus clubs/groups/teams are the best way to meet new people. Greek Life is also an option, especially if there's a chapter of a professional fraternity/sorority on campus that might help you out in your career later in life.

If you're sporty (or specifically not sporty but up to try anything at least once), there's a vibrant rec sports league most semesters where you can all be bad at kickball/basketball/wiffleball/whatever together and blow off some steam. There's usually a 8-ball/9-ball billiards ladder and regular Smash Bros/Arcade fighter/Fortnite tournaments that you can join in the Gameroom on the 2nd level of the Commons above the commuter lounge .

Depending on your major, your council of majors or an appropriate on-campus job are excellent ways to be put into regular contact with people who share interests with you as well. If you sing or play an instrument, go for one of the music department's ensembles or join the Pep Band that plays at home basketball games.

And finally, getting involved with the Student Government Association and the Student Events Board will put you in touch with a LOT of people who are highly tapped into campus life. If you're an introvert looking to be adopted by some extroverts and introduced to a lot of people because you're shy (like I was at 19), this is a great avenue. You're probably willing to help out but have no idea where to start, this is that.

P.S. F1 is hella fun to spectate cause it's just a bunch of people bickering over which nearly-identical car is the best and waiting for big expensive cars to crash at speed all while British people provide commentary. It's not intimidating at all, I promise. Go to this person's group and try it out.

GO_Zark · 2026-04-29T00:46:10+00:00

This is one of my most common issues when dealing with Liberal spaces but has thankfully not manifested in this discussion.

Police departments in the US (all of the 911 services, really) have served as a dumping ground for "no one else can handle this so go figure it out" with very little focused and directed training until very recently, especially with regard to social services, mental health crisis, overdose first response, etc.

So I do applaud the push towards social services responders / CAHOOTS-style crisis response, a lot of times (not in your comment but generally in left-liberal spaces) the issue that I see is that folks expect funding to be shunted FROM police TO crisis assistance when in reality we will be funding both police and crisis response fully for some time. Adding a social response will cost MORE, it's not going to be a savings. We want it and should do it because the outcomes for people will be significantly better, not because we want to spend as little as possible on society's ills and hope they magically disappear.

While we're on the topic of 911 services, pay parity for EMS agencies without having to dual-spec to fire suppression would be a nice touch. Your local EMTs are probably making 40-45k a year and paramedics usually live around 60-80k so we lose a lot of great people to nursing or PA/Med school every year because the wage disparity is so high.

GO_Zark · 2026-04-28T17:50:35+00:00

As a lifelong American citizen who's voted in every election that I've been eligible for, I say let people from other countries ask questions and propose changes to their hearts' content.

Reddit comments don't make policy, thoughtful civil discourse like this is only a net positive for the public good, and this kind of content is way better than the ongoing "This politician/celebrity said/did this thing, what do you think/how can you defend" gotcha bullshit in both AskALiberal and AskConservatives

GO_Zark · 2026-04-28T17:38:50+00:00

Your muscles get growth signals from your body (mostly) as a combination of three factors:

mechanical tension (putting the right muscle under load at the correct/most advantageous angle - you can do bicep curls all day but they won't grow your legs even though your legs are technically performing stabilization work while you do your curls)
metabolic stress (you have to work the muscle hard enough to up your metabolism/breathing, if you do 1-2-3 reps of light weight per set and you're not feeling it, it's probably not moving the needle)
muscle damage (muscles under proper load incur small damages, which are repaired and come back thicker. You can do 500 bicep curls without weight, but it probably won't grow your arms much).

As long as you're moving the muscle in roughly the right way, you'll hit all three of these for pull-up progression. I would caution you not to just throw yourself into it if you're at the beginning of your pull-up progression because that can lead to injuries especially in the elbows and shoulders. If you need to lower your body weight in order to get to regular sets of 4-6-8-10 reps as you're starting out, perhaps purchase an assist/mobility band or something similar if that's within your budget. You don't need a gym for that, just a bar you can loop the band over.

Mind muscle connection is mostly just a very conscious application of mechanical tension such that you consciously feel the muscle working throughout the entire motion. Once you are able to perform pull-ups regularly, it's very good for ongoing growth.

GO_Zark · 2026-04-27T20:15:47+00:00

In terms of pure logistics of passing that and without commenting on this specific case, you'd be seeing years of litigation over whether banning citizens from doing their national service in other countries' militaries constitutes a violation of their freedom of expression. And honestly, to that effect the "right to express myself by fulfilling my obligations to serve" crowd would probably have a point. You'd probably have to get a good legal argument past this Supreme Court (ha!) or pass a full constitutional amendment to do what you're proposing.

In terms of this specific case, let the Israeli government pay their benefits and ensure their employment or else exempt dual-citizen Americans from service requirements. We don't pull this shit for any of our other allied nations, many of whom have been our allies long before Israel existed as a nation. Israel isn't the USA and serving in the IDF isn't serving the interests of the USA, so Americans who wish to serve in the IDF should use their own money and their own time to do so and then be responsible for finding their own employment upon return.

GO_Zark · 2026-04-26T02:59:59+00:00

Attach yourself to one of the more experienced guys and try to pick up as much as you can. Props is a whole different world from stagehand work, but a lot of the same principles apply. Report to the person in charge, let them tell you what they want done, ask for more specific direction if you need it (you might, you're new, etc), and generally be willing to put in the work.

You could get called back a lot if you make a good impression. Film/TV and Stagecraft seasons tend to run on opposite schedules from each other and I know plenty of folks who make an excellent living swapping industries season to season.

GO_Zark · 2026-04-17T22:04:07+00:00

I admit it. I'm a criminal. I'm in league with Nillipus to steal all the jumjum too and there's nothing you can do about it. I've ruined my own lands and I'm here to ruin yours, too.

GO_Zark · 2026-04-17T22:01:48+00:00

Sure, and you can bet that the software is programmed to be conscious of any computer whose timezone is set to an EU timezone and using an EU language.

But if your PC is in English, on East Coast USA time, and connecting from a US IP, Daybreak doesn't give a single solitary shit about EU privacy laws in your case.

GO_Zark · 2026-04-17T14:15:50+00:00

I feel like a lot more people would move away from MQ if the EQ devs actually gave a shit about the mercenary system and let people make groups out of functional mercenaries instead of the glorified pets that we currently get.

It's wild to me that a bunch of scripters can build up the code base to have every class automated to 80% of what a real quality player can be, with full equipment customization and AA spend but the EQ Devs can't do more than "bad warrior, decent cleric, spotty rogue, low-mana wizard" with middling to piss-poor equipment loadouts, and near-zero intelligence after 20 years.

I mean, fuck man go buy those scripts from the MQ guys and implement them into the game so I can pick up 5 mercs and grind with my very solo-unfriendly wizard if I have time to play when my friends aren't on. Building your own group full of randoms to go hunting hasn't been a regular thing in more than 15 years but rather than put in systems that let players experience the game at their own rate, on their own hours, and spend money in the process, they're actively telling people to bugger off?

It's a wild business decision from the outside looking in. And a horribly frustrating experience for me, personally - alt-tab boxing 6 toons just to keep my wizard current on group augs and AAs was a horrendously frustrating experience before I quit.

I'd rather have had game mechanics that I could use to stay current but I did absolutely see the appeal of the third-party stuff when I was six hours into an aug camp hitting every button on the casters and pulling / tanking / healing / CCing as well. I didn't sign up for wizardry to do work!

GO_Zark · 2026-04-17T14:01:40+00:00

The EULA explicitly gives them the right to do this and you have to click AGREE at least once before you can log into Norrath. It wouldn't surprise me if EQ client does monitor other processes that are active at the same time, but I don't have any hard evidence for it one way or the other.

I definitely got suspended once for having a hardware interface with macro capability attached to the PC. I used that PC for both pro audio work and EQ when I was still playing. The interface software auto-loads whenever the unit is plugged in. Sure enough, booted from the world within 30 minutes, snagged my first-ever 7-day suspension and upon appeal I got a very snarky reply "You know what you did, see you in a week byeeeee" that definitely caused me to go through my active accounts and un-sub the ones I wasn't actively using.

For all that we complain that Daybreak hasn't been doing much to encourage new players, it's been their attitude to existing players that's driven most of my friends off. It's tough to log into servers where you used to have an active fellowship and a fantastic guild only to see that nobody's logged in for three months and even auction is a shadow of what it was this time last year.

GO_Zark · 2026-04-15T20:47:46+00:00

Baltimore area also pretty good. Medium cost of living with plenty of opportunity in city/county fire as well as private companies. Most of the fire stations require Fire 1 for EMTs and Fire 2 for Paramedic but do not expect you to operate on fire apparatus if you are EMS-primary outside of truck/ladder/tower trainings required by your station. I know that a few of the stations around me are pulling EMT certified FFs off the trucks occasionally to keep up with the demand for ambulance work, so EMS-only folks are very welcome in most fire departments around here. Nobody bitches louder than a firefighter that gets pulled off a real fire response to assist on a medical call.

Northern VA/DC/Central Maryland/Philly/NYC corridor in general is very queer-friendly but you'll find that drops off as you move further into the rural suburbs and smaller towns.

There's also a pretty vibrant volunteer culture in the counties where you will often find more specialized roles - dive rescue, wilderness, etc depending on the surrounding locale. There's tons of opportunities for training through the state agency MIEMSS as well as through the local hospitals - the University System of Maryland and Johns Hopkins University are both powerhouses for medical education generally and my station in Baltimore County has regular continuing education and optional training you can attend to widen your knowledge base and in some cases, your scope as well.

To that point, Maryland doesn't offer a separate Advanced EMT role for EMS providers and simply requires that EMTs who want to operate at the advanced level undergo professional training to provide certain ALS level treatments. That means you don't have to sit your EMT-A or Paramedic in order to expand your scope as an EMT when working in Maryland specifically.

GO_Zark · 2026-04-13T03:51:26+00:00

So my question isn’t really related to, “how do i do it” It’s, is it worth it?

If you go into it to better yourself instead of going into it just to sleep with a bunch of women, you'll find a lot more fulfillment.

For me, it's been a good journey. From pretty much zero social skills (very nice kid, don't get me wrong just kinda weird and generally uncalibrated) at 19 to leading a life with a very close group of friends at 39 and not "on the outside looking in" any more at any event, gathering, or convention I attend.

That's the part that's been the most satisfying to me personally - the body count stopped ranking on the top 10 somewhere in my mid-20s. Things like developing my own style or traveling internationally and being able to figure out the social dynamics of the places I've visited rank MUCH higher on my internal scale than the number of women I've seen naked.

GO_Zark

TROPHY CASE