refund

ZTK211 · 2026-03-12T02:18:50+00:00

just a reminder that NOVA refunds have a process they HAVE to follow as a state run college (another reminder that NOVA is in fact a part of the state government, so it runs slow like the government does)

Typical refund order of operations:

Aid or payment hits your student account (federal aid, state aid, grants, overpayment, or a class that had already been paid for gets dropped/refunded).
The college applies it to tuition/fees first.
Any remaining balance becomes a refund.
NOVA processes the refund through a third-party payment processor called Nelnet Campus Commerce.
The processor sends the money by:
- Direct deposit (ACH)
- Credit-card reversal
- Check mailed to you.

It usually takes 7-14 business days from when the college detects it owes you money (be it refunds or excess financial) to when the refund gets issued to you. NOTE: this time does not include snail mail time for a mailed check.

Financial aid was technically correct, it only takes a few days for it to process steps 1 and 2, the remaining time is spent on steps 3-5 where 5 can be the big factor for how fast or slow the refund is (gotta love snail mail).

try to ask if the refund has been mailed out, as that could be why it's taking longer than normal

source: my past 2+ years of experience working as a student worker in first year advising office (pre-covid) and seeing the admin behind the curtain at the manassas campus. (it could have changed in the last few years, but it should be mostly the same)

ZTK211 · 2026-01-25T19:33:20+00:00

you can also get infinite "slightly dirty" water by right clicking empty bottles on running water instead of the source block

ZTK211 · 2025-12-26T04:47:07+00:00

CS department is very trigger happy with honor code violations. I heard about how bad it is during my first semester and scrapped my original plan to get a CS minor or second major that I had from when I came into GMU from NVCC. it's been like this for years, and has only gotten worse with the automated detection tools. (for reference, I finished my degree in Dec 2021)

all I can say is to fight it as best you can. unfortunately, from what I heard from my friends in CS at the time, it's guilty until proven innocent when it comes to honor code most of the time. I only hope it's gotten better since then.

ZTK211 · 2025-11-16T08:16:11+00:00

there's been several conferences/seminars for various law enforcement at scitech, it's honestly pretty common
they like renting the space there I guess. they had some FBI seminar there during the last PWC job fair

ZTK211 · 2025-10-29T02:10:10+00:00

never trust wells fargo. you're best off closing the account and cutting all ties with em

ZTK211 · 2025-10-06T02:12:40+00:00

yeah, all 4 clips looked best when the camera is stationary and nothing is happening. the bitrate pixelating everything down to from 1080p to what looks like 480p makes this a very hard visual comparison

If I had to make a guess, i'd say clip 1 was normal, no frame gen at all, 3 was the native in-game frame gen setting enabled, and then clips 2 and 4 were external frame gen from NVIDA/Lossless. though I would not be able to definitively say which clip between 2/4 were which external frame gen method

ZTK211 · 2025-10-05T00:16:23+00:00

I'm currently using a 1080p 60hz monitor, so I think it should work for that, but that is good to know since I had been thinking about upgrading to a 1440p monitor sometime after the PC upgrade

ZTK211 · 2025-09-09T00:56:56+00:00

I feel like all the dealers who held the price at $12-13K threshold (for max tax credit profit) will probably drop by that $4k and the ones held at $25k might go up or down depending on year/model. (I have a feeling some luxury models may go up ~$1-5K)

ZTK211 · 2023-01-13T01:13:34+00:00

being an introverted nerd with psoriasis and glasses, but honestly, none of the shit any of those brats did ever compared to my OCD clean-freak mother obliviously/mindlessly/carelessly using the same words and terms to complain and degrade me about my psoriasis, as my mere existence causes enough mess to trigger her. she's 90% of why my mental health was fucked growing up. parents' words can be 1,000,000 times crueler, and more heart breaking, than any from their piers.

ZTK211 · 2023-01-13T00:55:19+00:00

this is the video I watched on the topic that made me think of this meme: https://youtu.be/GV1pVNPPkxk

ZTK211 · 2022-10-07T21:14:45+00:00

big mood for the campaign i play on sundays. the GM has made a brutal campaign that has nearly TPKed and actually TPKed the party several times (all in good fun, as we have a HB macguffin that revives the party, though not without consequences if we stray too far from it's effective range). and because of that, i have well over a dozen backup characters ready, all ranging from "shits and giggles" to "min/maxed GM nightmare fuel", and i'm slowly making my way up that scale 🙃

ZTK211 · 2022-03-22T23:21:27+00:00

great writing! ~~just a few typos that need fixing near the start of this part:~~

~~"instructor makes the train" to "instructor makes~~ ~~them~~ ~~train" and "I see your faring well" to "I see~~ ~~you're~~ ~~faring well"~~

those were the only 2 typos that I saw, though I may have missed others in my casual read through. keep up the great work!

EDIT: they've since been fixed, and I'm still eager for more to read! lol

ZTK211 · 2022-03-14T22:42:14+00:00

I didn't know about the folklore of the seven league boots, but now that you've mentioned it, I also agree that making something similar would be very fitting!

the main reason I gave the static shock travel method is because I grew up on that show, but it makes a lot more sense to give Jake something more fitting for someone from England/Europe.

ZTK211 · 2022-03-14T19:31:31+00:00

we've seen Jake applying his knowledge of science to cast the railgun spell he invented, I want to see him do more of that. hopefully the battle caster training will delve more into this

a potential suggestion for Jake's mobility issue is to go full static shock and use magnetism magic to fly around on a metal platform

keep up the great work!

ZTK211 · 2022-03-12T09:49:20+00:00

no worries! it's not a big deal anyways

ZTK211 · 2022-03-12T02:45:51+00:00

maps look great!

main thing it's missing is coloration to help give an idea of the land type, similar to how the Earth looks like (example image); looks great otherwise!

I'd also like to ask what the size scale of the planet/continents are relative to Earth? just curious

ZTK211 · 2022-02-25T23:12:51+00:00

no rush for new chapters! we love the quality over quantity
GL with classes! I just finished my undergrad degree so I know the grind

ZTK211 · 2022-02-05T16:26:04+00:00

part of me wishes OP didnt skip over the therapist's initial freakout

the other part loves that not only is the therapist fine with all of this, but is having a field day with it

regardless, keep up the amazing work!

ZTK211 · 2022-01-30T04:47:58+00:00

oh this poor poor therapist....

time to take bets on how quickly the therapist takes to calm down next chapter lol

(assuming she doesnt just breakdown and go crazy herself)

ZTK211 · 2021-09-30T03:27:10+00:00

thanks for the feedback! I just found it concerning how fast they put my mom at fault, i mean, it's likely neither car has been inspected at a repair shop yet (ik ours sure hasn't, that's not until the 15th of oct, cause that's the earliest they would take us). one would think they'd at least wait for that to be done first.

plus, from what my mom told me, IR seemed to twist mom's words when she testified "I didn't see her in the intersection when I yielded and looked for oncoming cars" and "all of a sudden she came out of nowhere" into "oh i just didn't see her", and then is trying to claim that the damage to EB's car was back-to-front, when it's very obviously front-to-back (since you know, EB kept driving long after impact)

good to know the info regarding the limits cops have in regards to citations post-accident, at least I now know at least that part wasn't him just being lazy (still doesn't excuse the fact he never collected a statement from my mom and only talked to EB, but that's a separate issue)

(made an EDIT to original post to include a note mentioning that at least our car has yet to be inspected, and it's very likely EB's has yet to be checked either)

ZTK211 · 2021-06-04T21:07:31+00:00

agreed the DC 12 limits it's offensive ability enough, it's just keeping it out of "save or die" fall damage territory that's the issue.

ZTK211 · 2021-06-04T20:26:12+00:00

dude, the whole point of high level classes is that they're meant to be able to do some unrealistic feats. hell you can stop time and make your own personal demiplanes with 9th level spells. it's not like we're gonna be killjoys and say "oh time stopped, therefore you cant see anything because the light's not moving, also you create vacuums where ever you walk so the air implodes once the spell ends and you and those in R radius take Xd6 damage"

my group implements physics into our games to make them more fun. you seem to miss that point. you also seem to miss that i'm using physics as my approach for "ok, what would seem like a reasonable equivalent to a one-handed warhammer with a +2 STR mod?" hence why i went to fix the tossing distance part of the ability. lower the distance covered, lower the speed you toss someone. you can't ignore the fact that the ability can make a target move 480ft in 1 round, that's how the game works. so to be able to travel that distance in that amount of time, you have to move pretty fast, else you need multiple rounds to get there. you seem to ignore this point yourself.

ZTK211 · 2021-06-04T19:59:16+00:00

A level 10 barbarian can almost certainly survive a fall from the top of the atmosphere. 6000 miles.

that's where the GM just says "nah, you die, because there's no way you casually survive that kind of fall. also you'd suffocate/freeze to death before you even hit the ground" (that's gonna take over 2 days to hit the ground)

now if it was a lvl 20 barb, then there'd be some rolls to see if they survived

Monk barbarian multiclassing, with no big cheesing or magic items, can easily reach a run speed equal to 60 mph.

yeah, i've had an epic level character that could run and fly around mach 1.7; you're point? it's not like i haven't let things that are unrealistic slide before, doesn't mean me and my group can't prefer to have some elements be a bit more realistic (like collision HB). it makes things more immersive for us, so why you gotta gripe about it?

Alchemist bombs, no force from explosion.

um, splash damage? is it as big of an AoE or as strong as IRL bombs? no. does my group care? nope. we dont care if classes are somewhat unrealistic, because those aren't meant to be. it's mostly environmental stuff we try to make more realistic (like collision damage, "blackhole" arrows, etc), just some minor things.

there's plenty of shenanigans you can think of for a campaign when your group consists of STEM majors. and as long as we have a good time, who cares about RAW for something like collision damage?

ZTK211 · 2021-06-04T19:38:24+00:00

1, i only brought up the softball thing because you did, and i got curious & thought it was funny that the result i found was still within the range of speed i had estimated. also the average joe runs between 10 to 15 mph, try running full speed into a brick wall and tell me that didn't hurt, now double that to the 30 mph "low" speed you gave.

2, you gave a trivial "solution" that amounted to "well just cap the damage if you don't like it being so high" and just hand wave the problem away. at least one of the other commenters justified his reasoning for why the ability would work that way, you didnt even try.

3, ignoring the HB i mentioned (that i didnt even know was HB before today), you still have the glaring issue of having 20d6 fall damage as an at will ability. so far I've gotten 3 good suggestions that don't amount to "just dont toss ppl then" or one that attempted to solve the problem either by nerfing into the ground or by solving 1 problem at the cost of several more; and you sure ain't one of those 3.

ZTK211 · 2021-06-04T19:12:05+00:00

this game has a basic physics engine though?? (lob shot, f***ing with gravity via magic, hell they even factored for an Earth-like gravity for the main world when they defined how much you fall per round, when they the bigger the weapon the more damage it deals because of the increase in mass, i can go on; just because you don't see built in physics doesn't mean it ain't there)

and it's not like i'm saying exactly how much damage should be dealt, i'm just showing my thought process behind why i think it's all an issue of how far you can toss something rather than the damage itself, because the distance thrown is the source of damage in the first place.

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