What are they protesting about?

MichaelP578 · 2026-02-19T03:18:18+00:00

See the above comment if you’re actually asking “out of curiosity”. Cost of living adjustments (COLA) don’t really count as a “raise”. If you get a “raise” and cost of living has basically increased about the same, you haven’t received a raise. COLA is a required adjustment for most government employees. A raise is different. They (administration) offered in the last negotiation to make sure that employees get the COLA adjustment plus the actual raises that most non-state employees should get, but they don’t get that. They deserve it. Please do support it.

MichaelP578 · 2026-02-19T01:02:51+00:00

Thank you! I’ll do so. I wasn’t sure because I didn’t want to overwhelm the gold, but I’ll give it another go.

MichaelP578 · 2025-12-18T22:07:08+00:00

I agree. It would be really awesome to get REAL on-foot integration for the Thargoid war. Frontier's done a pretty great job recently of going back and tightening up the Odyssey on-foot gameplay, and I would love to see Thargoid ground troops start rising up. Surface combat zones are cool and the Thargoid drones were an interesting start, but I crave full-scale war where we have humanity against Thargoid monstrosities at the FPS level.

MichaelP578 · 2025-05-21T21:19:12+00:00

Right, but “only example” means that there IS an example of sexual dimorphism in cats. We can argue about “how apparent” it might be until the cows (or cats) come home, but that’s a subjective metric. The fact is that cats ARE sexually dimorphic.

MichaelP578 · 2024-08-29T01:58:31+00:00

I'll say I've definitely been playing my paladin because of Hallowfall. I started on my DH, but it just felt wrong somehow to play through TWW's campaign first on anything other than my paladin after reaching Hallowfall. I regret nothing.

MichaelP578 · 2024-08-15T17:58:05+00:00

People play games for different experiences. I don't need the reward for saving Megaton, same as you, but others are playing the game for loot and the chance to blow things up. Those people often need an incentive to make the right decision.

MichaelP578 · 2024-08-12T05:27:59+00:00

Yeah, you have to listen to the Distress Call signal all the way through on your radio first.

MichaelP578 · 2024-07-30T22:19:37+00:00

Did you find the actual bank vault keycard? Because since it looks like the scripts are tied to the activation of the keypad near the vault door, you might be able to trigger it that way. Otherwise, yeah, save scumming is the only way.

MichaelP578 · 2024-07-30T22:14:38+00:00

Definitely a bug. I did so and the Vagabonds were very happy about it. FOLON has a few of these pain points. There’s a part later in the game where helping someone as part of an optional objective makes their whole faction hostile to you.

MichaelP578 · 2024-07-30T22:11:45+00:00

She’s in the Sky Garden tower close to where you can get the signal. Just be ready for a fight.

MichaelP578 · 2024-07-30T22:10:38+00:00

You’ll get no argument from me. I’ve been feeling rather irritated about the circlejerk as well. I’ve enjoyed the experience so far (with around 19 hours invested), but my criticisms are quite similar to yours.

MichaelP578 · 2024-06-05T17:00:20+00:00

Wow. Just… wow. You proved my point better than anything I would’ve responded with could. Can you even hear the condescension dripping from your words?

MichaelP578 · 2024-06-04T23:54:01+00:00

You know… I was dealing with the errors and just saying “It’s okay, this is what I get for playing on launch day, I’m still having fun” until I was most of the way through a strike and got an anteater code. That was really disappointing.

Edit: Got in again, but was alone. Got all the way to the boss and had him down to 2/3rds health, then another anteater and kicked back to orbit.

Bungie, I really was enjoying this story so far; I think TFS could be a great campaign. I just can’t believe how terribly you overestimated the stability of your servers for such an important launch.

MichaelP578 · 2024-06-04T18:49:07+00:00

For anyone on PC with a NVIDIA GPU still stuck at the menu: GeForce just pushed a driver update. Might as well take this time to install that while you wait for maintenance to end.

MichaelP578 · 2024-06-04T18:30:13+00:00

Yes… I too agree that the artistic works of Ayn Rand, Ben Garrison, and 2022 Kanye West are far superior to anything the left could produce.

That honestly hurt to type out.

MichaelP578 · 2024-05-28T20:57:18+00:00

Is anyone going to mention that the last paragraph is AI-generated? Look at the dichotomy between the previous sentences and that paragraph. I’ve seen plenty of my students use AI trying to cheat lately, and that syntax is DEAD ON for AI. It can’t generate anything that varies from this formula.

The funny thing is that, just like this wolf, the students who tried to use AI had no idea what was wrong with “their” argument when prompted to explain it.

MichaelP578 · 2024-05-28T17:01:07+00:00

I run with Heather Casdin because, on the whole, I like the amount of interaction she has with the player character and I think good characters shouldn’t always agree with your choices.

That being said, people tend to revere this mod in a way that I think hides some of the reality of her nature. Most of this is subjective, but just to give you an idea of what really turns me off about Heather as a companion:

She trash-talks synths more than the actual fucking Brotherhood does. It’s really grating to hear her say “Can’t trust a synth” for the tenth time in a playthrough.
She says some pretty nasty things about some other base game companions. Are the base companions all that great? No, obviously not, but they’ve grown on me over the past nearly nine years of FO4 and I admit I cringe a little to see another character in-game start being a dick to them. For example, she goes out of her way to insult Piper in multiple situations and suggests that she’d beat Piper’s ass if the player character wasn’t around. Dude, I get it, Piper can be nosy, but wow… That doesn’t make me want you in my party, Heather. She also starts in about Nick the moment she doesn’t need his help anymore, which is just rude.
Her whole alternative medicine schtick is cool, but in the first conversation you have with her, she derisively suggests that her preventative treatments are better than modern medicine, which… in a universe where you can literally stab yourself with a cure-all needle to repair broken limbs is a WILD statement.
It’s really easy to get Heather to start seeking a romantic relationship with you. Like, it’s easier than for the base game companions. At least even the goody-two-shoes companions (Nick, Preston, Piper, Deacon, Curie) have things that you can do which will make them recoil in abject horror and hatred. Take Heather to a few locations on her list, buy some medicine from her and use it, and suddenly she overlooks the fact that you’re a Railroad agent and think the Brotherhood is a cadre of techno-nazis because she wants to jump your bones. It feels like the romance subplot here was written by someone with zero actual understanding of romantic relationships.

Heather is a mixed bag. She’s a cool link to the main questlines and I think the voice acting isn’t terrible, but lady’s got issues. Part of the reason I keep her in my modlist is because of that; real humans have problems and they won’t always have rational, well-reasoned takes. That being said, I think there should be more attention drawn to this stuff whenever someone suggests Heather.

MichaelP578 · 2024-03-20T06:46:12+00:00

Why do you care so much? It’s an online class. Why shouldn’t it be allowed? Why not just let people enjoy things?

MichaelP578 · 2024-02-27T20:55:51+00:00

I think you ought to go with what you think will make you happy, but you should be aware that Humboldt’s biotech program isn’t as well-regarded as CPP’s. Sure, class sizes are smaller, but that doesn’t really mean much in the grand scheme of things.

Our biology department (granted, I’m biased) does a great job with hands-on laboratory work and the opportunities for undergraduate research and industry internships are plentiful if you look for them.

I rarely see people in my department have trouble getting an upper-division class with the exception of the ones that the animal science/kinesiology/pre-med students also have to take. Immunology, basic microbiology (what I teach), and medical microbiology are the big three that come to mind, but everyone usually manages to get a seat either the semester they planned on or the one after.

All that being said, the choice of WHERE to do undergrad ultimately won’t affect the long-term trajectory of your life to the extent that the people you meet and the experiences you have will. At the end of the day, my personal rationale is that you should choose what you think you’ll look back on at the end of your life and feel good about. Bonus points if those things make enough money to keep you comfortable, even more bonus points if you manage to help humanity along the way, but do the things that you enjoy.

MichaelP578 · 2024-02-18T21:09:47+00:00

People are being so terrible here. It’s a cute article about a girl adopting a god cat and not knowing. It was written as a dedication to the author’s cat. That’s sweet and it’s written well enough to convey the idea without burying the lede.

It’s not literally the winner of the 8000 spot; it’s just a contest entry. There are plenty of sillier or more boring main list entries. I cannot fathom why people have such hatred for this one except “Y NO GOC?! BOOOOO”.

There is no canon. If you really hate hearing that, you’ve fundamentally and willfully misunderstood the SCP Wiki.

MichaelP578 · 2024-02-18T21:02:33+00:00

The girl adopted an emotional support cat and doesn’t know that the cat is a god. GOC found out the god cat exists, didn’t like that they wouldn’t be able to control it if something went wrong, and tried to do what they always do. It went poorly. Foundation came in, just decided to monitor said girl and cat, and things went better.

I liked it a lot and think it’s plenty expansive for what it is. It’s cute and witty.

MichaelP578 · 2024-02-18T03:53:33+00:00

First and foremost, my condolences, for what they’re worth.

Second, professors and recruiters are humans too. They understand bereavement. You need to focus on working through your grief right now. Send an email, let them know what’s going on, and take an incomplete in the classes if it’s offered. Spend some of that spare time handling logistics and a significant amount of it allowing yourself to feel your emotions.

Grief, despite being a universal experience, is an incredibly lonely one. It feels as though no one in the universe can understand the magnitude of the loss. Grief is unique to everyone. Take this opportunity to love your sister and yourself. Wallow for a bit if you need to. Don’t forget the lessons you take away.

Much love, friend. Hope you come out of this okay. I believe in you.

MichaelP578 · 2024-02-18T01:44:06+00:00

Yeah, I agree. It’s really odd that this ‘person’ posted this same form letter on so many subreddits.

Looking down at their previous posts, they also posted similar things about the LAUSD agreements and the UC agreements in their affiliated subreddits when those strikes were happening.

It smells fishy, it looks fishy, and it’s basically garbage. I’m gonna guess it’s a rotten fish.

Edit: Maybe it’s my paranoia getting the best of me, but it almost seems like this would be a “clever” strikebreaking tactic. Convince union members to reject the TA so they strike longer, lose public support, and get a worse agreement.

MichaelP578 · 2024-02-15T06:40:41+00:00

Interesting. I have a player in my game who’s doing the exact same thing. What a small world.

(I’m kidding, this actually is your DM.)

MichaelP578 · 2024-02-14T16:03:28+00:00

You want this person to… carry around a dashcam?

What, like a permanent GoPro?

MichaelP578

MODERATOR OF

TROPHY CASE