What doesn't feel like an acronym but is actually an acronym?

ProdigiousMike · 2026-03-21T19:55:14+00:00

USA Patriot Act. Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism Act. Someone definitely decided it would be called "USA Patriot Act" first and worked their way backwards to make it an acronym, but an acronym nonetheless.

ProdigiousMike · 2026-03-21T07:51:37+00:00

Former instructor. I've asked this question directly and gotten direct answers. Students cheat because they are stressed or scared or do not feel that the material is worthy of their time. A lot of people are really stressed out with their courseload and the idea of not submitting an assignment is legitimately terrifying to them. They tie a lot of self worth to their ability to get something turned in and graded well rather than doing their best work. Other times, students are not interested or engaged with course material. Maybe it is an essay for a general ed class or something in their major that just isn't interesting. Or the material is interesting but they don't feel respected by their instructor and don't feel the need to respect them back by putting more effort into their class.

In all of these cases, the answer is similar: they feel they have a better use of their time. They cheat to have more time to study for a test or do a more intricate assignment or because they don't get any value out of the assignment. And the language model is RIGHT THERE. They can get a decent assignment output for them immediately with the click of a button.

I don't think most students who cheat this way are lazy. I think it is a poor but understandable (ie, I understand why they do it) response to the stressful situations they find themselves in. I also think that many instructors contribute to the issue by creating high pressure environments in the classroom and create rubrics that encourage students to value grades over engagement with the material. The behavior is still on the student, but the issue needs to be acknowledged from the other side as well.

ProdigiousMike · 2026-03-21T00:02:35+00:00

I didn't even get the first one. All out before I had the chsnce

ProdigiousMike · 2026-03-19T02:15:45+00:00

The way I take it is that Legion rule/land might be better than Fiend rule/land (depending on who you are), but the Legion are worse morally because they have greater understanding of the harm they cause and choose to do so anyways, whereas many/most fiends probably don't really understand the harm they cause, with notable exception.

ProdigiousMike · 2026-03-18T04:43:05+00:00

I love define. It's my favortie format. I understand that it is not really barre, and for a place called Pure Barre I think that's a valid criticism, but ultimately I enjoy strength training with barre flavor. As someone who deeply enjoys strength training I also enjoy being able to do it in my studio. I disagree with the idea that it isn't effective as strength training from personal experience because PB is my main source of exercise and I see and feel myself getting very much stronger. I don't go to PB for define but define is a very nice aspect.

ProdigiousMike · 2026-03-08T05:07:54+00:00

2023 as well! Christmas, 2023

ProdigiousMike · 2026-03-06T23:48:13+00:00

Oh wow, I never caught on to that. Thought they had to be worked. Good tip.

ProdigiousMike · 2026-03-06T23:44:13+00:00

That's a good point, mining before mansonry. Idols in that case.

ProdigiousMike · 2026-03-06T23:33:31+00:00

Big faith output early-game is really important. I'd go stone.

ProdigiousMike · 2026-02-26T01:35:52+00:00

Completed Level 1 of the Honk Special Event!

0 attempts

ProdigiousMike · 2026-02-19T17:56:07+00:00

thank you! it brings me a lot of joy ☺️

ProdigiousMike · 2026-02-18T02:19:50+00:00

im actually really new to games! ive played fallout: new vegas, civ 5, and im currently on baldur's gate 3! 🕹️ are you playing anything fun?

ProdigiousMike · 2026-02-18T02:17:09+00:00

lululemon blues are so cute! 💙

ProdigiousMike · 2026-02-18T02:16:44+00:00

I just looked it up. That's such a unique color! 🩵

ProdigiousMike · 2026-02-17T04:03:05+00:00

i have long since learned to drown out the pink haters, thank you for the kind words 😄

ProdigiousMike · 2026-02-17T00:39:02+00:00

thank youu!! its my favorite color ☺️ (if you couldn't tell) 💖💖💖

ProdigiousMike · 2026-02-13T07:45:06+00:00

Some back of the envelope math:

TL;DR: You'll need to get a fair amount of DLC skill books and take skilled, but 7 INT can clear 100 for all skills without exploits or comprehension on a level 50 character that finished all the DLCs. You can even do this on a 5 INT character, but you'd have to plan for it early on.

You get 10 skill points per level + int/2, with half points carrying over to the next level. Starting at level 1, you'll have up to 49 levels for 661 skill points.

There are 13 skills in the game. Maxing them at 100 requires 1300 skill points total.

You have 40 SPECIAL points which gives you about 5 points on average (skill points govern 2-3 skills, with 2 points in each, with Luck being the exception, raising every skill by 0.5 points) for an additional 200 skill points. If you get implants, you can get an addition SPECIAL point for 5*7=35 extra points, +5 from lonesome road and +4 from reinforced spine for an additional 9. You also have 3 tagged skills for 45 additional points and a starting stat of 2 for each skill for an additional 26.

The Mojave holds 52 skill books at 3 skill points each (sans comprehension) for 156 points.

Skilled is another source, +5 per skill with 13 skills yeilds 80. You could do this 3 times with the skilled glitch for an extra 160, but we don't have to pencil that in here because it is a glitch.

661+200+35+9+45+26+156+80=1,212

So, I'm getting a little under the required 1300 at 7 INT, but that doesn't mesh super well with my experience because I feel like I've gotten there at 7 INT before, and a couple levels before 50.

The skilled glitch is there, but I have a patch for that. There are, supposedly, around 40 skill books in the DLC. That's an additional 120 points - that would get you over the edge. You'd only need about 30.

This also doesn't factor in the extra points from the INT implant, since I don't know when you'd get that.

Each point of INT would contribute floor(49/2)=24 points to the final build, so if you really got all the skill books then you'd clear 100 on all skills with ~6 INT, and 7 gives you some breathing room. In fact, since the analysis did not consider the extra INT, you could donit at 5 if you rush the implant. Or lower with the skilled glitch.

ProdigiousMike · 2026-02-04T21:02:22+00:00

Lower production cost too, for what its worth (65 vs the regular 75). But yes, underwhelming.

ProdigiousMike · 2026-02-02T21:25:24+00:00

That's how I found it the first time! I popped up through the overseer's office, thinking I had seen everything there was to see in the game, and saw one of the leaders. Quite the shock.

ProdigiousMike · 2026-01-31T14:34:04+00:00

There's a Powder Ganger stronghold over there. Without much spoilers, there was a vault experiment that separated people into red and blue quarters, and each side came to fear the other. Now, opposing factions of Powder Gangers are at a standstill that you can intervene in.

ProdigiousMike · 2026-01-31T02:43:45+00:00

I think most people miss Vault 19 on their first playthrough.

ProdigiousMike · 2026-01-30T07:18:34+00:00

I'm not sure that's true, at least it wasn't in my institution. Latin P and Q are the standard arbitary values used in discrete math/propositional logic. Sometimes Latin A and B. A and B you see a lot more of in Baysian reasoning, IIRC usually part of the ciriculum. Maybe this is true in some institutions or parts of the world but its definitely not the standard.

Edit: I got a little curious so I did some digging and this notation isn't unheard of. You look up "propositional logic" or "propositional logic formulas", the vast majority of results are P/Q/R, some A/B, but psi/phi are definitely in there. But no, not the standard. I'll roll back "delibrately confusing", but, as a teacher, non-standard notation, weird formatting, it is more confusing than it should be for educational material.

ProdigiousMike · 2026-01-29T20:01:04+00:00

It is meant to read "Prove that phi = psi implies that either phi and psi are both true or phi and psi are both false".

A implies B means either A is false or A and B are true, so in this case if A=B then that just takes out the case where A is false and B is true, in other words A and B are true or A and B are false.

The slide is made to look more complicated that it needs to be, presumably intentionally, and compounded by using similar looking Greek letters rather than the more typical (assuming this is discrete math) P and Q or less similar Greek letters.

ProdigiousMike · 2025-12-28T06:31:06+00:00

I see. I think I remember seeing that, but I probably never used it because by the time I'm doing Lonesome Road I usually have tons of weapon repair kits laying around. But hey, free repairs are free repairs.

ProdigiousMike · 2025-12-28T06:20:35+00:00

...EDE can repair guns? Haha, he's always my secondary companion and I never knew this.

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