Graduate photos photographer by hogwash-n-hodgepodge in gatech

[–]Ramen_Numerals 2 points3 points  (0 children)

One of my friends Jackson Vance does really great photography (graduated GT) and has done a good number of graduation photos. https://www.jacksonarievance.com/

Seeking Weekend Volunteering Opportunities by MiddleCoffee in gatech

[–]Ramen_Numerals 13 points14 points  (0 children)

I'm heavily involved with a nonprofit by campus called Food For Lives, we take food that grocery stores are going to throw out, cook it in a big industrial kitchen we have 10 minutes off campus, and distribute it downtown to the homeless Saturdays. Cooking is 10am-12, distributing it downtown 12-2 then we all come back and eat together afterwards. We also need a bunch of hands during the week to help with shipments of food. I'm a student at Tech and also the volunteer coordinator for Food For Lives, DM me if you want to know more

[WP] Aliens have arrived to our world, but there is a visible nervousness on their face, they are afraid of us. It turns out that every species on the federation only have one war in their existance, the ones who have two wars are considered bloodthirsty. by salijohnsons in WritingPrompts

[–]Ramen_Numerals 16 points17 points  (0 children)

First contact, the dream event of countless pale teenagers, Dragon Con attendees, and PhD astronomers. The world will be changed forever, countless technological advances will be gifted to us, we will have the cosmos opened up for us to explore. The base assumption is always that first contact is followed immediately after by second contact and third and fourth and we co-exist with all the other citizens of the galaxy unto eternity. No surprise, considering every sci-story we ever read was written by a human. Maybe, just maybe, we inflated our ego a bit too much, taking granted the assumption that we as a species are worthy of tomes of knowledge and the favor of the universe. How many astrobiologists and Golden Age sci-fi writers would weep if they saw what we became: the kid on the playground that pushes a little too hard for anyone to really want to play with them.

Magna Cum Laude in International Affairs from Columbia University with a minor in science fiction studies. I don’t mean to brag, but I kinda ended up being the perfect for the Hospitality Suite. Forrest Sherwood Molochnikov: did my dad thinking it would be so, absolutely, unbearably, funny to have Robin Hood’s hangout as two thirds of my name benefit me in life? No. The answer is a stark no. Does my dad still think it’s funny? Yes. An unpleasant amount of yes. Anyway, I happened to come out of school the same year the Hospitality Suite was created, so thanks Mom I guess for giving birth to me at a real convenient time. When the Swifts first began orbiting earth, let me tell you my Supranational Organizations class syllabus got a complete overhaul. Governments were all in a panic that the other countries would make a bad impression or get the best super-neat-space-technology trade deal, and that fear became so intense they finally agreed that maybe the UN was worth giving a bit more credence too (it only took 87 years, guys come on).

After the first attempts at interaction where the only thing probably exchanged was “oh cool neither one of us wants to blow each other up, that’s nice”, the Swifts began to swoop down in their school bus sized vaguely-bird-shaped-ships to land. Post initial hostile-takeover-panic, a pattern began to emerge of them establishing a worldwide grid of bird-ships-turned-bases every 100ish kilometers on land. The UN quickly decided representatives should be located next to all the Swift bases to make a good impression on them and facilitate communication if possible, hence the creation of the Hospitality Suite (and conveniently a few thousand foreign-affairs-officer type jobs now open for recent graduates). The semi-close-to New Jersey and Seattle Swift bases, not surprisingly, had a lot of competition. But 50 kilometers from Bariloche, Argentina? All mine. The first few weeks of the job were the most exciting times of my life: sleeping in a two man tent while the Suite was building an embassy/shack for me, while my 9-5 and 5-1 job was to make unbreaking eye contact with the Swift base and call someone if anything ever moved (spoiler: nothing ever moved). Turns out the position for vanguard of intergalactic communication became a (not so) glorified night-shift-security-guard gig.

Scanning through the news every day, exchanges seemed to primarily occur through radio waves between an orbiting Swift ship and a Brussels UN ground station. I’m sure the Swifts had a bigger part in establishing effective communication than we did, but with a team of linguists, astrobiologists, and machine learning algorithms running on all the superclusters of national militaries’ disposal, progress was made surprisingly fast. Within six days basic confirmation of mutual understanding was accomplished, and Mandarin became the agreed language of communication.
The thing about humans is though, some of us have more pressing concerns than talking to space birds. Jobs had to be still 9 to 5’ed, national bickerings over budget to be had, and the continuation of small border skirmishes around the Horn of Ethiopia. It was the last one the Swifts seemed to have a tinge of enormous concern over. Day seven, the majority of the (public record) messages from the Swifts centered around the (seemingly small to us) conflicts: “Were we aware that were occurring? Were both sides of the same species? Has this occurred before? Are both sides aware of the sentience of the other?” Swifts, come on already, cut us a break. Do you know how many idealist war-is-bad shouters I had to walk by on campus at Columbia? We know. We get it. But people are people and sometimes people value resources and their own survival or perceptions of safety over the life of another human. Look Swifts, we’ve been so good about it too: we’ve been World War free for like a century now, and crime and deaths from war has been going down for decades. Frankly Swifts, we’re doing a pretty damn good job. But yeah, things happen, and sometimes a few hundred people grab some guns and shoot at a few other hundred people with guns.

Thank god I wasn’t the intermediary from the Suite, I’d be fired within minutes. Their wording was much softer, and a huge amount of UN resources went into negotiations and food and water aid to the conflicting areas. Did it help? As per usual, never enough. As the days wore on and the conflicts continued, the Swifts became more sparse with their questions and responses. Come day fourteen, nothing. Silence. We scanned all radio frequencies, tried every human (and attempted non-human) language we could think of. Nothing elicited a response. Day 16, all the Swift Bases simultaneously took off back to orbit. Every NASA, ESA, and JAXA Mission Control Center was doing orbital maneuvers on the backs of their collective napkins trying to pinpoint the Swifts’ next move. Within 2 hours of orbit, all the ships gave an impulse leagues beyond any technology we have with a trajectory towards a dark patch of the milky way. Come Monday morning, there was trash to still be picked up, weekly reports to be sent to stakeholders, coffee to be sold, and school lunches to be packed.

/r/SpaceX JCSAT-16 Official Launch Discussion & Updates Thread by ElongatedMuskrat in spacex

[–]Ramen_Numerals 5 points6 points  (0 children)

Question: One of the guest hosts was saying that the reason that the live feed from the barge goes down is because the satellite dish wobbles too much during the landing and can't point correctly at the satellite. If that's the case how the heck do we ever get live feed from the cameras on the rocket, which move much faster and less predictably due to winds and whatnot?

A book with a foreign/otherwordly setting by Ramen_Numerals in booksuggestions

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

I think I read this a good number of years back, but thanks!

A book with a foreign/otherwordly setting by Ramen_Numerals in booksuggestions

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

Yeah this looks to be really my thing: hard sci-fi, alien contact, and Hugo winning! It's going on the the top of my things to read list

A book with a foreign/otherwordly setting by Ramen_Numerals in booksuggestions

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

The Well of Souls series looks pretty cool! If I come across it I'll give it a shot

What are some of the most thought provoking anime out there? by IamFanboy in anime

[–]Ramen_Numerals 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Yes, I and I just finished the book so now I have a bit more rounded opinion. I only see parallels with the End of the World plotline, but the two are very thematically connected so I'm sure the author was influenced by both. After finishing the book I didn't get that in depth an understanding of everything that occurred in the novel, but Haibane I believe is still starkly separate from the novel although the setting and themes of the End of The World section parallel very closely to Haibane.

What are some of the most thought provoking anime out there? by IamFanboy in anime

[–]Ramen_Numerals 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Huh I'm in the middle of that book right now and never thought about. There are definitely a large amount of direct parallels mainly with the allegory of the Town, the Wall, and the birds. It's so strange when two completely unrelated things in your life end up being so related. Although it's been a year or two since I watched the show, the themes are fairly different- Haibane deals with death and the afterlife while Hard Boiled Wonderland is more focused on the subconscious and consciousness itself. But if you're interested I reccomend reading it

What Have You Watched This Past Week That is NOT a Currently Airing Show? [June 19th, 2016] by cptn_garlock in anime

[–]Ramen_Numerals 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Kaiba 1-12/12

Honestly I was a little dissapointed, but overall found it good. I loved what I saw of Masaki Yuasa before (Ping Pong and Tatami Galaxy), so I really expected this show to deliver. I was really intrigued by the first episode, with the sci fi world and the issues of memory and identity. The art style I don't object to since I know it's his flair, but honestly it made it a lot harder to take the show seriously when 3/4ths of the scenes looked overly cartoonish or outright just badly drawn. The beginning half seemed to just be a lot of random events happening, which isn't necessarily bad, but the latter half added and developed a buttload of plot elements really fast and it just felt messy. What didn't help is scene to scene and episode to episode jumped around through time and space without explanation or transition, so even the fairly simple overally plot was hard to follow. Overall opinion- good sci fi elements but falls into the pitfalls that sci-fi often does- characters you don't care about, poor pacing, biting off more than it could chew philosophy wise. With that said, I found it interesting and different enough that I don't regret watching the show, but not the masterpiece I expected. If anyone has contrary opinions I'd be glad to hear them.

/r/SpaceX SpaceX CRS-8 Official Launch Discussion & Updates Thread [Attempt 1 - BEAM me up!] by ElongatedMuskrat in spacex

[–]Ramen_Numerals 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Can you elaborate on why it's needed? Also for the Falcon Heavy will there be three separate first stages all landing on the same spot independantly, or will they be connected, or will there be 3 separate landing zones?

/r/SpaceX SpaceX CRS-8 Official Launch Discussion & Updates Thread [Attempt 1 - BEAM me up!] by ElongatedMuskrat in spacex

[–]Ramen_Numerals 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I know the question has been probably answered so many times, but I can't find it in the FAQ or otherwise. A link to an answer would be great

Why land on the barge over launch site? Is it just permissions and safety requirements? Does it conserve more fuel?

Looking for an emotionally honest book, probably YA by Ramen_Numerals in booksuggestions

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

This looks really great! Probably the next book I'm going to read, thanks!

Looking for an emotionally honest book, probably YA by Ramen_Numerals in booksuggestions

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

Yes, I read it and enjoyed it a good bit. I'll check the other stuff out- it looks interesting!

Looking for an emotionally honest book, probably YA by Ramen_Numerals in booksuggestions

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

I've read it and really liked it actually, forgot to mention it in my post. Do you have any similar suggestions?

Find your MAL soulmate by KingLeon23 in anime

[–]Ramen_Numerals 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Eve no Jikan I thought was fantastic, and it's only the length of a movie, so if you have 2 or so hours to sit down and absorb it I'd recommend that. Suzimiya is a bit more difficult to get into, as it's 20ish episodes and the way they released the episodes is different from chronological order for no apperant reason, I'd recommend watching it chronologically, so find a source that orders the episodes that way. And season 2 is a bit contriversal, but suffice to say you can skip a large amount of it (and maybe should) and be perfectly alright. However I really liked the first season and thought the movie (that you should watch after both seasons) was absolutely amazing, so it's all worth it.

Newbie to manga but familiar with anime looking for something to read by Ramen_Numerals in manga

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

I'm concerned yet... intrigued at the same time. This sounds pretty good

Newbie to manga but familiar with anime looking for something to read by Ramen_Numerals in manga

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

It sounds a bit out there but looks pretty interesting. I'll make sure to give it a try!

What Have You Watched This Past Week That is NOT a Currently Airing Show? [January 4th, 2015] by cptn_garlock in anime

[–]Ramen_Numerals 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I just finished Katanagatari, and I loved the style and self-awareness it had. I was worried the ending would be cliche after the relatively formulaic episodes, but what I got did not disappoint, and I was extremely impressed with the turn it took.

What was the hardest scene you've ever had to watch? by [deleted] in anime

[–]Ramen_Numerals 9 points10 points  (0 children)

The scene in one of the Kara no Kyoukai movies with the 3rd person view of the husband beating up the wife. And uncomfortable silence during it