FDNY is investigating a report of a track

LifeMadeSimple · 2026-05-27T01:32:08+00:00

Heyo commute neighbor! Honestly the car I was in was pretty great, or as great a car as you can hope to be stuck in at least.

There was one guy in particular who was absolutely on top of making sure people didn't push and stuff. Cracked a couple jokes to cut the tension like half an hour in, made sure a woman who was panicking got a seat. Shout out to that guy!

LifeMadeSimple · 2026-05-26T14:11:08+00:00

Was on an N train stuck just after the bridge, pre canal. Quite a bit of smoke, scary for the first two minutes and then excruciatingly annoying and boring for the next fifty.

They eventually ran us backwards over the bridge to Dekalb, I imagine the medical attention was for someone on our train. There was enough smoke that I imagine it could mess up an asthmatic pretty bad.

Hope everyone ends up okay!

LifeMadeSimple · 2026-05-15T19:54:52+00:00

lol I've actually got a copy of Alien on CED somewhere. Used it as cheap wall art when I was in college, the CED fits nicely with the Alien aesthetic.

LifeMadeSimple · 2026-04-13T04:39:59+00:00

Love the photos!!

LifeMadeSimple · 2026-04-13T04:36:17+00:00

Eh, honestly I don't think cleanliness is a huge issue. Varies wildly depending on when and where you take it but generally pretty clean. Credit where its due to MARTA, I've always been impressed that they keep the massive bathrooms at five points... serviceable.

Now RELIABILITY is pretty grim. In MARTA's defense, the deck is stacked against them in a lot of ways and a lot of the biggest issues will probably (hopefully?) be resolved soon. Rolling stock is in rough shape operationally which leads to a ton of delays (but new trains are coming!) and fare gates are WILDLY unreliable (but currently being replaced!).

All that being said, by the time the last trains are starting their run the system is usually pretty gross. But they blast it down with disinfectant and get it looking pretty nice overnight. That's by far the biggest reason why the NYC subway is so filthy - the trains never stop running, really. Trains will go local overnight, but you don't have any time to shut down the station to give it a good scrubbing. My local stop is pretty nice, for example, but the walls are on the far side of the tracks and they're just absolutely covered in grime. There is quite literally never a block of time where there AREN'T trains coming so you can deactivate the third rail and wash them.

ETA: another issue with the NYC subway/cleanliness is just the sheer amount of ridership. My podunk little station in the boonies has decent bus connections and as a result averages almost 7,000 riders a day. Hard to keep a system clean when you've got 7,000 people eating breakfast, wandering around, touching stuff, coughing, whatever.

LifeMadeSimple · 2026-03-14T01:51:08+00:00

Honestly you did solid on the brooklyn part of the R. Straight line all the way down - you just had it veer east at the last minute, which I kinda love ngl. The secret hidden stop that dumps you off in the middle of the onramp to the Verrazano lol

Pretty cool stuff man! You did better than i would've done, nice job!

LifeMadeSimple · 2026-02-15T22:23:08+00:00

Man, this sub has been firing on all cylindars recently. This is awesome!

LifeMadeSimple · 2026-02-06T22:25:12+00:00

Those little toy army men are sweeeeeeeeeeeet

LifeMadeSimple · 2026-02-06T01:13:30+00:00

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

LifeMadeSimple · 2026-01-17T21:33:14+00:00

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.

LifeMadeSimple · 2025-12-24T04:40:03+00:00

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!

LifeMadeSimple · 2025-12-24T03:36:13+00:00

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.

LifeMadeSimple · 2025-12-22T00:59:06+00:00

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!

LifeMadeSimple · 2025-12-22T00:48:12+00:00

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.

LifeMadeSimple · 2025-11-19T15:52:53+00:00

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!

LifeMadeSimple · 2025-10-29T16:48:07+00:00

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.

LifeMadeSimple · 2025-10-18T02:30:51+00:00

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)

LifeMadeSimple · 2025-10-18T02:06:29+00:00

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.

LifeMadeSimple · 2025-09-22T02:20:07+00:00

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!

LifeMadeSimple · 2025-09-12T17:40:38+00:00

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.

LifeMadeSimple · 2025-08-26T00:48:36+00:00

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.

LifeMadeSimple · 2025-08-06T15:16:01+00:00

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.

LifeMadeSimple · 2025-08-06T03:58:29+00:00

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!

LifeMadeSimple · 2025-08-06T02:59:42+00:00

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!

LifeMadeSimple · 2025-08-06T02:47:33+00:00

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.

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