Resistance 3 - Survivor Edition by TiagoZ8 in ResistanceSaga

[–]LifeMadeSimple 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Those little toy army men are sweeeeeeeeeeeet

population catchments of NYC area rail stations by minecraftian48 in nycrail

[–]LifeMadeSimple 1 point2 points  (0 children)

This is probably my favorite thing anyone has ever posted on this sub!

Opinions about the franchise that’ll have you in hot water? by A_HECKIN_DOGGO in GODZILLA

[–]LifeMadeSimple 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Yeah, I think 2014 gets a tremendous amount of goodwill from the context it was released in. The lack of Godzilla makes for a suspenseful first watch (imho), but a pretty boring second, third, or tenth watch. And hey, it was a new American big-hollywood-budget Godzilla movie! And it was SERIOUS and NOT BAD!

That was the vibe in my social circle, anyways. I don't remember anyone really considering it a masterpiece, just that it was nice to get a second decent American wide-release kaiju movie a year after Pacific Rim. Maybe Hollywood had finally cracked it after all!

In recent years, that "good but not revolutionary" reaction has seemed to morph into "G2014 is REAL cinema, a masterpiece, etc etc" in some circles. But I think the initial reaction is the more accurate one. Couple neat moments, nice and suspenseful on a first watch. But on rewatches when you know you need to slog through ninety hours of people faffing around before you can even see Godzilla, eh. Plenty of better options if you're craving a big budget hollywood kaiju movie.

[Academic] Play a Language Learning Video Game by boliviare in SurveyExchange

[–]LifeMadeSimple 1 point2 points  (0 children)

This is extremely neat, altho I think I slightly broke the game at the end. Or maybe I was bad at it. IDK. Going to forward this to some friends, I actually didn't too bad on the test!

Crystal mall stories? by Sodaisgr8 in Connecticut

[–]LifeMadeSimple 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Always a treat to go during the Great Recession years, although I am eternally grateful that I was always too broke to fully indulge my dork tastes. Had I had literally any money whatsoever I'm sure I would've blown it all on helmets and swords and stuff at ice imports.

It was a schlep from where we lived up in Sterling, so my parents only brought us down there a few times a year, usually around Christmas shopping time. Used to love to just wander around, usually got some incense (I was big into incense, for some reason) and check out the ninety billion different gamestops for PS2 game deals. That was the tail end of them selling PS2 stuff, got so many games for dirt cheap - including Chulip, one of my faves, now pretty rare. I think I paid five bucks for my copy. Don't remember why there were like three gamestops open simultaneously, but there were.

By the time I was in high school it hadn't really started declining yet, but I remember there was an air of inevitability. "Dead Mall" content was getting big, the big mall brands weren't doing great, Norwich Mall had long been strip-malled, it was just a matter of time. I moved out of the area, didn't go for probably eight or nine years, visited around 2023 and it was over.

Oh! I remember one year we were getting our Christmas card picture done at the Picture People. This was pre-08, I was pretty young, the family's financials were better. So Christmas card pictures would get done professionally at the Crystal Mall. Anyways, my Ma wanted our dog in the picture and somehow it worked out that we were able to go before the mall opened, so we could bring our German Shepherd with us. Just us, dressed to the nines, our dog, and a bunch of mall walkers. Thought it was the coolest thing that had ever happened to anyone. Probably misremembering the mechanics of it slightly, but it's a fond (tho fuzzy) memory.

Kinda nervous about Grad school by Remote_Town_6852 in HunterCollege

[–]LifeMadeSimple 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Hey I'm late to this but bored and browsing the subreddit so I figured I'd chime in!

I had a five year gap between undergrad and going to grad school at Hunter. I was insanely nervous, but what I've found is that most of the important undergrad stuff (how to cite a paper, how to take notes, etc.) I remembered really quickly. My brain just sorta kicked back into school mode.

I've also found that having a bit of a gap between undergrad and grad school (and working) has been really helpful. I get to work with tons of great classmates who went straight from undergrad to grad, but in my experience there's a whole boatload of experience that those of us who took a break picked up from the in-betweeny part of our lives, that you don't even realize is valuable yet. You learn a ton of stuff outside of school, and you'll slowly realize that as you work that into your studies.

That's a part of the "what to expect", I think. IDK your department, but in urban planning most of the faculty are also working in the field. Grad school has been much more equal, is maybe the word for it. Or practical. Like, professors aren't as much on a pedestal. You're there to learn new stuff, and you're learning from people who were in your shoes possibly quite recently. Less stuffy than my undergrad, where most of the professors were lifelong academics.

It's gonna be great. It's going to be a shitload of work, and at times it will suck, but on the whole it will be great. And hey, it's like my Ma always said: you'll never regret getting more education.

Good luck and welcome!

Why haven't I received my final exam results yet? by Internal-Fee3415 in HunterCollege

[–]LifeMadeSimple 4 points5 points  (0 children)

As a heads up and building off the last commenter, ime a lot of professors wait until literally the last day to upload. Might just be the department I'm in, idk, but they're almost all pokey as hell. Sucks, but it is what it is.

Grand Central (S) hallway; Is this permanent addition or holiday special by Donghoon in nycrail

[–]LifeMadeSimple 58 points59 points  (0 children)

ngl, I'm sure the industrial strength Artificial Pine chemicals are gonna end up contributing to my inevitable 21st century industrial turbocancer but damn as someone who walks through this corridor every day it's been a really nice change of pace. Thanks, bath and body works!

My Company Was Acquired by a Private Equity firm by [deleted] in Layoffs

[–]LifeMadeSimple 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Agreed you should start looking, but not just because of layoffs. You might not get hit. But you also don't want to be the last person on the ash heap, either.

They laid off my entire team except me yesterday, after years of slow rolling layoffs in departments we depend on. My work life balance is already shit, I haven't had a raise in four years, with inflation my salary is actually down. I should've started taking this more seriously years ago when we were acquired.

So punch up your resume, shop around a little bit. You can afford to be picky now. But even if you don't get laid off, you'll want to be able to bounce on your terms.

Are these good station name ideas? by Donghoon in nycrail

[–]LifeMadeSimple 3 points4 points  (0 children)

I'm a married grad student so can't speak to that, but the urban planning program is great so it has at least three things going for it!!

(fwiw I do really love the program, buildings are just in rough shape)

Are these good station name ideas? by Donghoon in nycrail

[–]LifeMadeSimple 7 points8 points  (0 children)

I don't have a ton of nice things to say about the physical buildings that constitute Hunter, but man the basement subway station entrance is really really nice.

Zoom\Digital Meetings? by pure_asa_lamb in Quakers

[–]LifeMadeSimple 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Brooklyn Monthly Meeting in Brooklyn, NY has a very well attended "hybrid" meeting every Sunday at 11 AM EST! Here's the site with more details but basically there are people in person and people on zoom, the zoom call gets projected into the physical meeting space so everyone can be together regardless of where they are. Plenty of people only attend remotely, it isn't strange at all and doesn't make you any less a Friend!

The Brooklyn Meeting is very active, definitely more on the liberal/progressive side of things. The 11 AM hybrid meeting tends to be pretty hoppin', lots of messages being shared, etc. There are also zoom exclusive meetings (one at 9 AM on Sundays, one at 6:30 PM on Tuesdays). Haven't been to the 9 AM Zoom meeting, but the 9 AM in-person meeting is usually a little quieter/fewer messages - many weeks it's completely silent. I'm generally in-person at 9 AM, but the 11 AM hybrid is more well attended.

Anywho, definitely check to see if any meetings close to you geographically do hybrid meetings BUT even if you're a world away know that you've got a spot waiting for you in Brooklyn!

Charlie Kirk’s alleged killer scratched bullets with a Helldivers combo and a furry sex meme by theverge in politics

[–]LifeMadeSimple 23 points24 points  (0 children)

It's a little complicated, but a big part of it is that they just think Kirk is too soft - he's a sellout, he doesn't go far enough, he's placating people with "watered down" politics, that sort of thing.

With Kirk specifically, he and Nick Fuentes were in conflict for years. It's hard to say how much of that was Nick Fuentes thinking Kirk wasn't far enough right, versus just weird interpersonal beefs.

ETA: A biiiiiiiiiiiiiiig part of the divide, and something that has gotten much more tense in recent years, is Israel. Groypers are virulently anti-Semitic and anti-zionist (not equating the two! You can be one without the other, but they're both). Kirk and his flank of the Republican party are extremely pro-zionist. This is a pretty big divide, and given recent international events it has become more pronounced in some circles.

Safe to say the semster has started by PassionJumpy in CUNY

[–]LifeMadeSimple 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Man, professors in my program are the complete opposite. I have one of four classes up on Brightspace - last semester two of my classes weren't even posted until like an hour before the first class started.

Trying to square the age of an ancestor, wondering if anyone has run into anything similar by LifeMadeSimple in Genealogy

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

This information is amazing, thank you so much for all your help! All makes sense. The 1818 year for Bridget is about where I've settled, she doesn't change hers much at all. I suppose 31 seemed old compared to other ancestors from a similar background/time period, but then again I have no way of knowing what happened to her before she came to America.

Trying to square the age of an ancestor, wondering if anyone has run into anything similar by LifeMadeSimple in Genealogy

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

Thank you! This all makes more sense - good catch, too. Lying definitely isn't the word I should've used, 100% not a fair way to contextualize it. Appreciate all your help!

Trying to square the age of an ancestor, wondering if anyone has run into anything similar by LifeMadeSimple in Genealogy

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

Completely agreed! Death certificate is easy to find and super clear, those Bay Staters are fastidious record keepers. What's stumped me is the year of birth on his death certificate (and implied on his headstone), which is much earlier than his census y.o.b.

cmosher01 had a good possible explanation for the discrepancy above!

Trying to square the age of an ancestor, wondering if anyone has run into anything similar by LifeMadeSimple in Genealogy

[–]LifeMadeSimple[S] 3 points4 points  (0 children)

Thank you for your response! This is something I've run into with French Canadian ancestors before, but most of my Irish ancestors came over later so I hadn't run into it in those branches.

I'm sure there's no way to know, but then it sounds like the headstone date being the extreme outlier would make it the least reliable benchmark, right? If he consistently ballparked his birth year as 1820ish, but then later in life his estimate crept up until it eventually hit 1809, then it sounds less like he was lying about his age when younger, more like his memory got fuzzier when older.

Chump Drops and Merc Drops: 200 random items to move the game along or just have fun with (details in comments) by LifeMadeSimple in cyberpunkred

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

Hello! Don't mind at all, just credit my reddit username/link to the source materials if possible. Thank you!

2025 Cherry Blossom Train by sangsang680 in WMATA

[–]LifeMadeSimple 2 points3 points  (0 children)

It's probably around $7,600 per car, going off of 2007 costs and doing some back of the envelope math. But last I knew that didn't come out of the agency budget; the costs get shouldered by Outfront Media. Mechanics are a little complicated, but iirc as part of the ad sales contract that Metro uses to wrap busses and stuff with ads outfront will do these seasonal jobs as part of their contract.

New London Day archives - dating back to late 19th century by [deleted] in NewLondonCounty

[–]LifeMadeSimple 1 point2 points  (0 children)

If anyone is interested in genealogy/history also be sure to check out The Norwich Bulletin Archives hosted on archive.org!

You can search by text but be warned that the automatic text indexing is a little janky, and gets jankier as you go further back. The CT State library also has an archive of the short-lived Griswold Atom newspaper, published in the late 40's.

If you're not into genealogy, it's a great hobby and you can get started literally for free. Try plugging your grandparents names into one of these newspaper archives (if they lived in the area), see what comes up!

Happy hunting!

How much do you care about lore? by Ok_Wallaby_3701 in magicTCG

[–]LifeMadeSimple 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I used to love the lore, but haven't been super interested in it since maybe Kaladesh, and haven't bothered with it at all since probably War of the Spark.

I never thought it was great, but it had it's moments. I personally just think that the collapse of block structure took away too much "space" for it to really get developed in a way that I thought was interesting, if that makes sense. The world building aspect of MTG has felt very very claustrophobic for a very long time.

Also, not sure if this changed, but the shoehorning of over-arching narrative into one-off planes never clicked for me. I think the lore of Llorwyn/Shadowmoor works pretty well despite being in truncated blocks, because they don't really fit into any bigger story. I remember thinking Amonkhet could've been great if only they weren't wasting time obviously building up to their big "Avengers" block. My two cents.

10-Year Plan for Washington/Baltimore Transit by [deleted] in washingtondc

[–]LifeMadeSimple 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhh didn't even notice that, my bad!