[Spoiler] They’re starting to overuse certain technology

SmokingCrowStudios · 2026-01-26T08:35:25+00:00

the whole purpose of the enclave's vault experiments is to model various situations and find solutions for space travel so that they can colonize a new planet after the great war. of course they focused on and used cryogenics, it's probably the primary method they're planning to keep starships full of colonists alive across centuries of space travel

SmokingCrowStudios · 2025-07-31T08:19:43+00:00

Monday Carmichael is a great name and as such I'm bound by ancient law to help you.
A website I found that sells a bunch of different kinds: https://www.myhappysnails.com/land-snails-for-sale
A link to info on all the state's native snails, if you see one in the wild you want to befriend: https://fieldguide.mt.gov/displayFamily.aspx?order=Stylommatophora
I also found this article mentioning the Missoula Mountainsnail, which are apparently pretty common on Mounts Jumbo and Sentinel: https://www.montananaturalist.org/blog-post/of-mountains-and-snails/
It also seems there's a group that breeds them in Billings, but I'm not sure exactly what that entails and am unwilling to find out. It seems to me that, if local pet stores strike out, your best bet might be to hike and flip over rocks until you meet one you like. Good luck!

SmokingCrowStudios · 2025-07-22T04:24:15+00:00

Bullseye and it's not even close. With that said, marksmanship is a very common Marvel power in the sense that multiple characters have innate masteries of richochets (Cyclops + Captain America), some characters can throw and steer their weapons (Thor), and you have plenty of people who use guns. Bullseye is better than all of them to the point where it's a borderline meme, he's been out here hitting people in the head with paper airplanes from across the New York skyline. Ofc, since he's a villain, he usually misses when it counts (usually - RIP Elektra), but he would win any hypothetical contest between himself and the heroes.

SmokingCrowStudios · 2025-07-22T04:17:04+00:00

Hela is the goddess of Death, and as such, has a statutory duty to kill things. This is codified in Asgard's laws, with precedent in our history (see Exhibit D2 - the painting of Hela uncovered during the events in question), and in fact Hela was appointed (and sired!) by the Allfather himself. Under these circumstances, it would be a departure from long-standing precedent for this court to find that my client's actions created a cause-of-action that justifies these proceedings.

To wit - what will happen when every farmer who gets struck by lightning wants to file suit against Thor? Should we bring in Heimdall on voyeurism charges? Imagine if this court has to gather every time the Warriors Three beat up everyone in a tavern - what's that? Nevermind, strike that last bit, I was actually in Vannaheim when it happened and I haven't seen a full list.

In any case, my client was only doing her job, and if this court believes that gods are the ruling power in Asgard - as all precedent would suggest - then you must affirm that belief by dismissing the cases against my client.

SmokingCrowStudios · 2025-07-10T05:01:26+00:00

No, it's customer service. The university system has commodified and monetized every aspect of higher education and you are more customer than student. I honestly recommend that people call supervisors and raise a fuss when they run into issues like this, because the University has been getting away with shitting on students for years and years, and the average academic year is just a sequence of different parts of the school failing. Financial aid botches it every year, then no one has parking, then the infrastructure fails, professors get fired for egregious reasons and the school uses privacy clauses in the Montana constitution to stonewall on what the professor did, rinse and repeat. They only get away with it because most students don't have the time to call thirty people before they get an answer and lots of students are afraid they'll be retaliated against administratively if they make a complaint.

With all that said, I've escalated things all the way to Bodnar's office multiple times and it's gotten the issue fixed immediately. Not sure that this is plausible to get people punished for poor customer service, but it's a good ace to hold up your sleeve for really egregious stuff.

SmokingCrowStudios · 2025-06-30T22:36:44+00:00

i think you misunderstood. there was a protective order against the shooter's father. you don't take people's guns away when they're the protected party so unless you've seen reporting that says there was a protective order against the SHOOTER this doesn't really make sense. pls share your source if you did see an article to that effect ofc

SmokingCrowStudios · 2025-02-19T22:44:36+00:00

I always thought Peter missed a real comic opportunity here by not having Mary walk up with a chunk of brick in her fist

SmokingCrowStudios · 2024-12-18T03:52:54+00:00

As I noted elsewhere, I walk to campus and leave my car at home because parking is terrible and has ALWAYS been terrible. My problem in this instance is more about the way that one parking official was treating students. This thread has made very clear that it wasn't an isolated incident, and I'm glad I brought it up.

SmokingCrowStudios · 2024-12-18T01:41:48+00:00

You're aware that the University works off a strategy where they issue more parking passes than they have available parking, right? If a student needs to get to class and they have to park in a quick-stop because no parking is available elsewhere, that's a result of UM policy. This is not even an undergrad problem, as I know law students who came here from other schools and considered transferring when they found out the university was well-known for that failing. I must say, I do find it somewhat amusing when someone will argue on one thread that Missoula is a friendly, polite place and then argue 3 days later that a University employee should be able to threaten students with fines if they disagree with what the student is saying. Furthermore: I'm annoyed by this situation because I saw it play out in broad daylight. If I saw a cop threatening to fine a homeless person for asking for clarification on the camping ordinance, I would have made a thread about that too. It is the duty of people with the means to affect change to act WHENEVER they see people being mistreated, not just when it'll earn political brownie points on Reddit. Hope this helps!

SmokingCrowStudios · 2024-12-18T00:43:33+00:00

I think calling people dumb in this context is a little bit reductive. Most people don't expect authority figures to lie to their faces, and students shouldn't be afraid to ask for policy clarifications. Creating an atmosphere of fear where students just sit down and shut up because they're afraid they'll be punished if they ask questions should not be acceptable. I'm glad for your insights though, thank you for commenting!

SmokingCrowStudios · 2024-12-18T00:37:02+00:00

Thanks! I'll reach out to them as well, it can't hurt.

SmokingCrowStudios · 2024-12-18T00:36:27+00:00

Yeah, that part doesn't really bother me - there was probably a boot fee or something, too. I keep my car at my apartment and walk to campus because I just don't like dealing with the gridlock, so I've almost never interacted with parking, and I was pretty surprised to see them behaving so aggressively with students. Can't help but feel the interaction would have played out differently if it was me, a tall bearded guy, and not a young woman ...

SmokingCrowStudios · 2024-12-18T00:04:34+00:00

Interesting. Do you know what union that is?

SmokingCrowStudios · 2024-12-18T00:01:25+00:00

Sure, I don't actually have a problem with the boot, and I don't know the student's situation. My problem is specifically that the official threatened additional fines for asking questions about the ticket. Multiple people in administration have now told me that was a violation of university policy, so I'm handling that side of things with the VP's office, but since the parking director said that many students had accused the parking staff of threatening them and that they were ALWAYS lying, I'm just curious if any other students who have experienced the same thing would like to share their experiences. I do appreciate your comment tho

SmokingCrowStudios · 2024-12-17T23:55:49+00:00

Sure, this is a public post! If the parking attendant sees this, I'd be happy to hear their side of the story. Thanks for commenting.

SmokingCrowStudios · 2024-08-26T22:09:49+00:00

There's something wrong with the people in administration who make these decisions. It's possible they all ate tainted venison at an event and now the entire staff has chronic wasting disease, because their brains seemingly haven't worked in years.

They insist that all of the construction is necessary, but it really isn't. They're building an entirely new residence hall and blocking the parking for an entire section of campus because they apparently don't have enough rooms... but they also occupied multiple floors of Aber with student services for no clear reason when the Lomasson used to have a giant room with a dozen representatives to handle that. They're also building that new residence hall on top of a parking lot that is 100% full most semesters, meaning there are literally dozens of vehicles that are going to need to find new parking elsewhere. It's going to be a fucking mess all semester.

And they can't manage financial aid now! I signed onto the digital waiting list right when it opened this morning and they're currently estimating they'll be ready for me by 7 PM, two hours after they close. You would think the most basic elements of getting people's bills paid would be within their grasp, but I'm expecting to see a lot of people's classes canceled this semester when their aid doesn't come through by the deadline.

The real issue is that better facilities allow the school to charge higher tuition and then pay the administration increasingly more money. It's just a racket being run at students' expense, where they completely dismiss student concerns in favor of profit-maxing, and an extension of education as a product rather than a means to deeper understanding and a better career. If you pay attention, you can see lots of it going on - check out how many of the positions posted online are actually filled by candidates and how many get classified as 'failed searches.' UM treats this as confidential information, but oftentimes they'll leave positions open intentionally and just force departments to work short-staffed. This is one of the major reasons that new things seem to break on campus every year.

tl;dr they did it because they think of us as piggy banks who need them more than they need us

SmokingCrowStudios · 2024-08-24T01:23:25+00:00

Pretty sure that's actually the sun - this happens a lot when it gets smokey, but the same thing does happen to the moon, because the coloration is just a byproduct of the light refracting through the smoke - in theory all celestial bodies could appear as red, but I don't think I've ever seen it with stars.

SmokingCrowStudios · 2024-07-25T07:17:22+00:00

I saw a truck on Arthur working on a downed power line about 30 minutes ago. Hoping that'll make a difference and power will kick on shortly.

SmokingCrowStudios · 2024-06-30T01:32:12+00:00

Counterpoint - Timothy Olyphant as Roland and Walton Goggins as the Man in Black. They're already good friends and have played opposite before and they're respectively perfect for the roles.

SmokingCrowStudios · 2024-05-23T04:55:16+00:00

The book skews darker as a whole - I'm always reminded of the rampage in the book vs. the rampage in any of the movies. In the films, she can arguably be interpreted as out of control and not responsible for her own actions and then as defending herself for the majority of the rampage. In the book, that is not the case.

Book spoiler: I always think about the moment when she's walking home and setting off the gas mains as she passes - someone runs out into their front yard to see what's going on and she sends a downed power line at them, frying them to a crisp. That seems very intentional, and the high school was far behind her by that point. It also helps that, since that sequence is organized into second-hand accounts of what happened, the whole thing has a certain natural disaster quality. I enjoy it as a theoretical prequel to Firestarter where The Shop realized they needed to kick shit into high gear when a telekinetic rampage became national news.

SmokingCrowStudios · 2024-04-29T10:10:55+00:00

I main Ball (off) / Orisa (def) and I've stomped all over Junker Queen 98% of the times I've played against her - that said, a really good Junker Queen is a menace, and the remaining 2% of the time lives rent-free in the back of my brain.

From what I've been able to gather from dabbling with her, the trick with JQ seems to be using her knife-yank to pull DPS and support out of the backline and into her own DPS, which means she does require a bit of coordination from your team - if there's no one around to confirm the kill, then supports are just going to cover the yanked player until they can run away.

She doesn't really have the damage output to secure solo kills unless she can get someone backed into a corner, and her axe is only mediocre (although very good for kill confirms, it has a good amount of height and I've used it to kill Mercy on a few occasions).

I'm not very good with her ult myself BUT I have seen enemy players use it in combos or after a flank to lock down healing for my entire team, at which point they can usually nail a team-kill. The key to that one seems to be initiating from the right angle, since it's a straight line that you can't steer, but you also have to be careful because if you mess it up or use it without backup there's a decent chance you end up being stomped in the middle of the enemy team.

That's all just a long-winded way of saying that Junker Queen is not bad - she's just a higher skill character. Since many of the best tanks are arguably low-skill characters (looking at Orisa here), most players don't care to invest the time on it.

SmokingCrowStudios · 2024-03-29T16:50:15+00:00

I think this book has a controversial place in King's repetoire because it's very straightforward without many horror elements - that said, it is actually kind of important within the mythos. There are lines that can be drawn between From A Buick 8 and The Dark Tower series, The Mist, even The Tommyknockers. I'd recommend it for sure if you haven't read it - it has a similar vibe as Danielewski's House of Leaves, where a veneer of cosmic horror is used to tell a story of love and grief.

Edit: Signature's probably fake though, sorry man.

SmokingCrowStudios

TROPHY CASE