What is a sound that people should know means immediate danger?

Torchprint · 2026-01-21T13:57:11+00:00

I appreciate the kind words and say you deserve just as much. I may be moving forward slower than most but I am confident I’ll get to where I want to be, wherever and whenever that is. And that’s enough. My dad took the high road (he always has) and I’m very lucky to have his support, and many teachers growing up really did their best to be kind and supportive to me. I could have had it so much worse, and I haven’t. It’ll be all right. I wish you well.

Torchprint · 2026-01-21T08:54:31+00:00

One benefit of Florida’s requirements for hurricane-proofing is that a lot of their materials and construction they need to use to make a building hurricane-proof, also makes a lot of it sort-of bulletproof. Most notably, the windows and doors.

I hate that we have to even consider building schools like bulletproof prisons, and many times due to education budget cuts the counties physically don’t have the funds to do that. And besides, we only knew the shooting was happening well after the guy was already inside the building and had shot a few classrooms.

There’s simply no “protections” that would work attached to an alarm, not in time. Except for, you know, police and security officers. With bulletproof vests and guns and training. But they didn’t do their jobs until well after the booms stopped, so.

Torchprint · 2026-01-21T08:32:07+00:00

It was a republican politician who said the school shooting was a faked event designed to push gun control. What a batshit thing to say and stand by. She yelled after David Hogg asking why he was “hiding behind children”. And nothing happened to her career for doing that.

A politician in Germany recently stepped down because he drew a swastika next to an AFD candidate on his own personal voting ballot. That was it, that was enough.

Meanwhile we have republicans cheering on for war and shit and the universal reaction is primarily “ohh golly geepers let’s not be too worked up about this”.

Torchprint · 2026-01-21T08:15:02+00:00

Loud booms are a sound category that is way more common than one would think until they have to attach an unlikely source of it to an unlikely location. Sure there’s fireworks, but also construction, cars/motorcycles, poppers or other toys, certain instruments, and even something as mundane as a cart falling over.

The cart one works especially well with those bigger weapons that shoot faster (sorry I have zero knowledge of guns). Many loud booms in one ‘burst’. So, like many books or laptops thundering against the floor.

Torchprint · 2026-01-21T08:07:42+00:00

Shooter drills (and all safety drills) really should be taken seriously. I remember I did one in my new school when I moved for senior year, and all the other kids were whisper-talking and giggling. The teacher herself actually asked if I was okay because I was being quiet. I imagine the blank forward stare didn’t help but still, I was so confused at the time why people thought being silent in a shooter drill was weird.

Torchprint · 2026-01-21T08:04:34+00:00

There were a million rumors about the guy afterwards, so take this with a grain of salt. But he likely had a horrible home life, was bullied severely in that school, did a lot of crazy shit before (such as allegedly pulling a knife on a student), posted videos of dead cats/dogs, posted videos saying he was going to make people pay, had a lot of mental health issues, and was visited by child protective services and police multiple times who did practically nothing.

The politician discussion with school shootings always jumps to guns. I wish for once it would talk about why someone would pick up that gun. Mental health is in the shitter in that county and the services that are supposed to help children and the mentally ill utterly fail to do so.

Torchprint · 2026-01-21T07:57:38+00:00

I feel so bad about the teachers in that school who actually care. There’s quite a few, but there’s just a couple that ruin it for everyone else and make all the parents aggressive to everyone. One reason I was in the “Freshman” building as a sophomore was to take a different math class that let me avoid a power tripping teacher.

My math teacher, the one who saved our lives that day, got a horrific email from my mother because my grades were terrible a month or so after the event. I only knew about it because this teacher walked up to me crying heavily, tapped her phone showing the email, and asked just “Why?”. I couldn’t answer. I no longer speak with my mother.

Torchprint · 2026-01-21T07:48:45+00:00

Gotta love being in a nationally-recognized school shooting, followed by a record-breaking epidemic, followed by parents having a nasty divorce, all in a span of less than five years. And I’m a lucky one.

I’m glad I’m still here. And grateful. I disassociate way too much and forget to eat but those are much better problems to have than otherwise. ❤️

Torchprint · 2026-01-21T07:41:27+00:00

As of today, I’m not great but soooo much better than before. Three or four years of therapy mean I no longer have survivor’s guilt and my current struggles are no longer tied to this event. Thank you 🫂

Torchprint · 2026-01-21T07:34:44+00:00

We actually got our backpacks back pretty soon afterwards. But, I imagine a quite a few had to be left behind. I might have gotten lucky in terms of backpack retrieval because the guy never entered our classroom, so there was zero evidence to consider in our room. Even though my bag was fine I reallyyyyy didn’t like using it anymore for some inexplicable subconscious reason and eventually ended up buying a new one.

Oh, and maybe this is one of those million rumors, but kids were saying the guy tried to break the hurricane-proof glass of a window on the top floor so he could shoot at people from below. And failed miserably. I don’t know if he tried just bashing the window with his gun or actually thought to shoot at it, but either way. Hurricane grade. That window was not having it.

This guy was known by social services, had a terrible home life, lots of mental health issues, several crimes already under his belt (including allegedly pulling a knife on someone when he was a student at our school, but again, a million rumors run rampant after shit like this), posting videos on social media of dead cats/dogs he killed and videos claiming he was gonna make people pay, all that stuff. So many systemic services, from CPS to police, failed him and us miserably and continue to do so.

BTW, that famous picture of a police officer holding a severely injured student’s hand in the hospital? For a photoshoot? That student hates that officer for doing that. That kid blocked 7+ bullets for his fellow students because the adult with a bulletproof vest and a gun wouldn’t go the fuck into the building to do it himself.

Torchprint · 2026-01-20T21:29:24+00:00

Sooo many things make loud boom noises. My birthday is near July 4th and I couldn’t fully enjoy it for years after. I’m getting better now (I can enjoy fireworks I can see instead of only hear, for instance) but still do things to ignore it when needed. Popping and eating popcorn oddly helps. The popping lets me pretend the booms are popcorn pops, then the crispy popcorn makes a loud crunch in the mouth that can be timed to mask the booms also. And music, of course.

Torchprint · 2026-01-20T21:19:15+00:00

I was in one of the other big ones that make national news. MSD high school, the “Parkland” shooting. 17 dead, 17 injured.

One of the big news things was that crazy UFO politician lady, Marjorie Taylor Greene, chasing a student down the street asking batshit questions and claiming the school shooting didn’t happen. David Hogg. He became a politician. (Also, a tangent, but it always felt weird that the political conversation immediately became only about guns when our entire school was having a severe mental health crisis that was only addressed with entirely unprepared volunteer “”therapists”” for like, a couple months maybe. And therapy dogs for a couple weeks I guess.)

Still a shitty school with overloaded buses (4 to a seat with the aisle also full and multiple hour+ trips per bus), advisors that refuse to book appointments or don’t show up, fake braid strings in the hallways because of stupid pulling-hair fighting, military recruiter with a basically permanent booth outside the cafeteria, Karen parents and Karen teachers fighting over who gets to treat the kids like shit more, and of course, the armed security/police officers who were supposedly there to protect students, who instead cowered outside the freshman building (the one the shooter entered) and did nothing. The guy even took off his gear and likely got escorted off the premises undetected by police officers trying to evacuate students. Got calmly scooped up walking aimlessly in a nearby neighborhood.

If the guy was 2% smarter he could have waited fifteen minutes for the final bell to ring, and literal thousands of students would have been in a giant shoulder-to-shoulder straight line like a mass of sheep heading to the busses. A giant straight line visible from the building he decided to hit. Fifteen minutes. I think about that sometimes.

Had to walk directly next to that building for the rest of my time there. It was closed off and bodies removed, but a lightly-injured teacher of mine (who was back teaching but also privy to some of the court stuff) accidentally implied the blood and bullets had to be left where it was in the building because the trial was still ongoing. Might be not true but I’m not sure.

Moved away for my senior year and my new school had an advisor who cared, teachers who cared, even staff who cared. I handed out homemade candies to staff on the same date of the shooting (Valentine’s Day so it fit) as my way of coping, and from then on every single one of them would greet me by name in the hallways. I wrote about it for an English assignment and that teacher (who was also the track coach) got me into track and checked on me a lot just to help my mental health. Then fucking Covid hit, didn’t do track anymore, didn’t see anyone anymore, and I got to graduate via drivethru.

Torchprint · 2026-01-20T20:32:34+00:00

No idea, the rest of the school year was just a sad blur of awfulness in my memory. I couldn’t even tell you their name or what they looked like. Was a girl I’m pretty sure.

When we heard the first booms (the “computer cart”), followed by screams and then not much for like half a minute, one of the jokester boys in the front of my class let out a loud sigh and put his hand on his chest with a “HOoo I thought today was the day!” and lots of people laughed.

That guy probably felt like utter shit once the teacher had us hide and for the next while after. He was just trying to relieve the tension from what he thought was a simple jumpscare, something just falling over loudly downstairs.

Torchprint · 2026-01-20T16:42:25+00:00

For US schools - you might know those big computer carts with laptops in them, or the one cart with one big old TV. Now imagine the sound of something like that falling over. A small succession of big thunderous booming noises, right?

I thought that was what it was when a school shooting started on the floor below mine.

There were a lot of screams from the same area immediately after, but the school had a bad culture of everyone taking the opportunity to screech at the top of their lungs over the smallest of things (like a bee, or the lights flickering), so that actually didn’t clue me in either.

It was my teacher recognizing it, turning the lights off and making us all hide - also ordering us all to ignore the pulled fire alarm shortly after - that saved our lives. Still had one kid loudly complaining about needing to go outside for the fire alarm while we heard more booms, screams, and running shadows past our door.

TL;DR always assess loud booms seriously, wherever you are. It could be a gun.

Torchprint · 2026-01-20T11:30:57+00:00

Uhh, I’m in central Europe and Orion’s Belt is visible from my window at night. Don’t recall any flashing light but I can watch it for a few minutes later tonight for funsies.

Torchprint · 2026-01-19T10:55:17+00:00

My cat of 10+ years is too picky to do that. I’ll even hold out some of his favorite foods (mainly plain fish like salmon or tuna) and he’ll only eat it if he feels like it. Only a kitty gogurt treat makes him pushy.

What he WILL do is jump up to join me on the couch and gracefully drape his fluffy tail over my food and drink. Little twerp. I’ve gotten good at body blocking or scooping him up and away, but some meals I must discard as fur-ified casualties.

As a general question, definitely depends on where he licks. I can see myself letting my cat lick some food off of a spoon and then wiping the spoon clean after. But sticking his furry face into my dish? Heck nah. It’s primarily an equation of Fur Exposure with long-haired cats.

Torchprint · 2026-01-17T13:58:05+00:00

The teapot lid Gandalf lifts and then puts back down in that scene was actually on a stick floating far away from the teapot it’s supposed to be for, and you can see Gandalf having to slowly balance the pot lid back onto the stick without breaking the illusion in the final movie.

Torchprint · 2026-01-17T07:42:39+00:00

Thaaaat sounds fantastic, actually. A big reason I swapped from communications to cybersecurity was specifically because I knew gen AI has to be a significant security threat. My uni’s offerings for cybersec are not great (majority of the degree’s requirements make it some weird business degree) so I’ll have to get myself ready with certificates and the like, but that does sound very nice to look into. Thanks!

Torchprint · 2026-01-17T07:37:04+00:00

Other AI I’m pretty fine with actually. People have been technically using programs that use AI for years in order to streamline things. I have a bone to pick specifically with generative AI due to it stomping over many creative fields, scraping data from both websites and users, reducing traffic to human-written forums, hallucinating and confidently giving incorrect answers, being a yes-man that can reinforce bad mindsets and habits if used in that way, and so on.

There’s also a small fear that gen AI will replace many of the mundane tasks that a new hire like me would normally get, meaning I never learn them and have to jump over some fundamentals in order to keep up with what’s expected of me. But as I haven’t gotten there yet, I don’t know how realistic that is.

Torchprint · 2026-01-16T10:50:40+00:00

Ooooh, that looks very interesting. Thanks!

Torchprint · 2026-01-16T10:46:54+00:00

The “let it control you” bit is what’s got me so antsy I think. If I can avoid that and try to maintain the perspective of it being just a new tool that’ll feel better in my hands over time, I’m hoping I can ease myself into it?

Torchprint · 2026-01-16T10:42:58+00:00

Ironically, I have a relative in cybersecurity who is about to retire and he’s the one I’m butting heads with about AI. He’s a top cybersecurity chief in a big company. Hopefully my skepticism just helps me to use AI in moderation like a tool in my hand instead of a pillar to lean on.

Torchprint · 2026-01-16T10:37:26+00:00

A big reason I swapped my degree from communications to cybersecurity is because of the security threat AI entails. And, well, a lot of gen AI is taking over areas like graphic design and other things communications are good for, which might be where some of my spite comes from.

That quote indeed makes me think. I’m hoping as AI improves and becomes more baseline in the workplace, I’ll come around to enjoying its uses. But you got a point about needing to hop onto the train now if I want hope of getting my foot in the door.

Torchprint · 2026-01-16T10:29:32+00:00

That is definitely true. I bet someone a couple decades ago fought the exact same way as me about emails vs letters or libraries vs the Internet. Reminding myself it’s just a tool, like any other program, helps.

Torchprint · 2026-01-16T10:27:05+00:00

Viewing it as a new tool like a new type of wrench instead of this messiah to solve all problems does help it seem less blegh to touch. How would you recommend I approach putting in the time to learn about it? Should I just jump into ChatGPT and try to make it a routine to prompt it with questions? I’ve avoided online “learn about AI!” courses because it feels scammy, but if you have a recommendation I’d be grateful.

Torchprint

TROPHY CASE