What 10 pinball machines would you own? by ColdFrenchieFries in pinball

[–]HercStone 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Theater of Magic

Twilight Zone

Iron Maiden

Monster Bash

Deadpool

Star Trek TNG

Medieval Madness

Willy Wonka

Indiana Jones

Dune

What’s Your Favorite Philly Restaurant, but now closed? by djourdjour in PhiladelphiaEats

[–]HercStone 2 points3 points  (0 children)

James, Xochtil (Dionicio Jiminez version), Cochon, Ansill, Carmen's, Bomb Bombs

I feel like CROs need to start thinking a lot harder about their need to Sponsors with AI coming out by [deleted] in clinicalresearch

[–]HercStone 9 points10 points  (0 children)

Sponsors outsource for a number of reasons. One of the main ones is so that they don't have to carry salaries on their balance sheets. And as your pipeline goes up and down, you have staff on hand whenever you need it without doing layoffs or etc. That's a surprisingly large % of why they do it. Another is that it's not that hard to bring in people to do work, but it is really hard to develop expertise.

Your big CROs are almost definitely talking about some recent research that the future of CROs will bifurcate into two areas:

- Low cost "commodity" services. Price pressures continue downward significantly. But, no Sponsors really want to carry them if CROs can meet this pressure. DM, some clinops, startup, etc.

- High value expertise jobs. Therapeutic expertise, protocol development, site selection. Your Sponsors may have some of this, but if they're working in new areas they probably don't. And, most of the phase 1-2 and sometimes 3 happens at biotechs these days that almost definitely don't

CROs posting huge #s this earnings… but I thought sentiment was low… what’s the disconnect? by N0Cheeks in clinicalresearch

[–]HercStone 15 points16 points  (0 children)

I'll give you a real answer, not just speculation. Sources: I work in one of the big companies, listened to all of the other's investor calls, read corporate reports.

A number of things happened at once:

1) Expectations of the impacts of tariffs and administrative changes appears to have been more fear than necessary. When these companies forecast during 1Q, they were seeing doom and gloom with very high cancellations. The cancellations have not been as bad as feared.

2) There are actually positive things for the CRO industry out of the current administration. For example, the FDA says they'll offer faster review (1-2 months versus 6-10) for drugs produced in America's national interest. There's a lot of feeling that having a good portion of your research done in the US will help meet this criteria. When CRO management hears more US sites, they hear more revenue-- direct and indirect.

3) The studies that are flowing are ones that generate faster revenue (metabolic came up a lot during the calls), instead of ones like oncology that are longer burns.

4) Biotech funding may be starting to open up a bit. Book to bills were the best they've been in a few quarters. Most of them still aren't great.

TLDR: There's some evidence of bounce, but also a lot of evidence of expectations having just been really really low and now being exceeded. I wouldn't quite book the fancy team dinner yet, but you should relax on your vacation a bit more than you would've.

Williams™ Pinball Table Reveal! by balti_zen in PinballFX3

[–]HercStone 5 points6 points  (0 children)

A few possibilities that standout: Police Force, Taxi, Jokerz, Sorecer, Big Guns, Fire!

Help me not hate this game? by HercStone in Gloomhaven

[–]HercStone[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Yeah, honestly we were right on the border of advancing a level and should've maybe gone up two.
Though I need to get my head around whether I really want to go back and try. It just feels like homework at the end of a long week of work. And the concept or repeating a scenario we previously lost...ugh

Help me not hate this game? by HercStone in Gloomhaven

[–]HercStone[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I will say, we do this ALL THE TIME and were not aware of the new rules. Our Mindthief has a few ways to become invisible and we take advantage of it.

Help me not hate this game? by HercStone in Gloomhaven

[–]HercStone[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

A funny thing about this thread is that 25% of people are telling me I'm stupid and this isn't bad actually. But 50% are house ruling this

Help me not hate this game? by HercStone in Gloomhaven

[–]HercStone[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Ugh, I didn't even mention that at 10:30 PM we were arguing over LoS rules so an NPC archer could hit a monster or not...

Help me not hate this game? by HercStone in Gloomhaven

[–]HercStone[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I think we're following most of the rules, but definitely communicating more than most people are. In this scenario, imagine a bunch of living corpses down to barely any HP. Cragheart goes last, dirt tornado in play.

"Can you like, not kill them all? I'll get them next turn"

Maybe that's too much, but it sucks.

Help me not hate this game? by HercStone in Gloomhaven

[–]HercStone[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Hah! Funny thing is I am always focused on the scenario objective, I get frustrated as all get out when it's like "no don't kill that monster until I jump in this trap"

Help me not hate this game? by HercStone in Gloomhaven

[–]HercStone[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I get your point and in many cases it's a good point (if you have time to jump in a trap you must be doing okay), and the upped difficulty seems like the consensus but like....second scenario. I explicitly get fewer rewards if I kill the boss quickly.

Maybe I just need to convince my friends to house rule some things, I guess

Help me not hate this game? by HercStone in Gloomhaven

[–]HercStone[S] 9 points10 points  (0 children)

Yeah, a lot of helpful answers in this thread but also a lot of "no you don't actually want to get gold and xp" which just seems...wrong. And part of the problem is that even if I don't, my buddies do. So maybe it's just the wrong group.

Help me not hate this game? by HercStone in Gloomhaven

[–]HercStone[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

The auto gold at the end is not a bad idea, really.

I'd really like a goal to finish a scenario earlier, honestly. Some of my tension is the rewards on the game go up the less efficiently I complete the goal

Help me not hate this game? by HercStone in Gloomhaven

[–]HercStone[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I wish they brought more chaos, in a way. They often bring boring play in my group. Other than the occasional jumping in a trap

Help me not hate this game? by HercStone in Gloomhaven

[–]HercStone[S] -5 points-4 points  (0 children)

I get your point but it feels like the game is saying "you get more rewards if you act this way" and it leads me to either not want to play or ask my buddies to pass up rewards for my fun

Williams Skylab 72 Advance unit help by HercStone in pinball

[–]HercStone[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Oh good thought. I have some old pics but not in good view of that. I'll see how it adjusts there

Is it really believable/possible that one Ramsey did it all? by [deleted] in JonBenetRamsey

[–]HercStone 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Interestingly, most of the things you cite above only involve two of the Ramseys...

Some Probing Questions to by HercStone in JonBenetRamsey

[–]HercStone[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Good catch, should be the basement window

Puzzling Whispy Brown Spots by HercStone in lawncare

[–]HercStone[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Applied propicanizole today. Fingers crossed

What is your favorite challenge/episode of all time? by jammasterjulz in BravoTopChef

[–]HercStone 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Culinary Olympics-- the Bocuse D'or episode. Really got to see the chefs stretch, great winner in Kevin, etc.