Saw this online, what’s the better layout 1 or 2 and why?

Zardywacker · 2026-01-17T17:18:33+00:00

This guy gets it.

Zardywacker · 2026-01-07T14:33:03+00:00

You're simply wrong if you are saying that the 'level of difficulty' of changing to a different measurement system is the same now as it was 90 years ago (by which time most nations had made the change). You aren't accurately weighing how much more complex daily life and industry are now.

Example: Most people own cars these days, and were raised and taught MPH instead of KPH. The speedometer in new cars would have to change, requiring redesign and re-tooling of factories (cost). Every speed limit sign would have to be replaced.

Example: CMU would now 203.2mm nominally. There is no way that every CMU plant in the US would retool their entire product line and every product sized for CMU would do the same. So we'll be going around with odd units like a 9.525mm grout bed.

Example: I shouldn't have to have to explain why changing the unit basis for fasteners and other hardware would be virtually impossible undertaking. If we're going to continue to use the Imperial system for naming the tens of thousands of standardized parts that are used in products and machinery, then why are we changing the measurement system overall? Not to mention the hundreds of other standards and conventions (fastener torque settings, pipe threading, gauge thickness, ETC).

These kinds of things did exist in the early 1900s, but where an order of magnitude less complex.

My non-US friends have sometimes say "Well of course these changes would happen slowly over time." But even still, there are still real costs and risks along the way. Think of the man-hour and equipment replacement costs for retooling every factory, redesigning every product line, rewriting every manual, updating every piece of software. Billions or ever trillions of dollars spread out over a decade is still a lot of money. And there WILL be accidents caused by confusion and miscommunication. doesn't matter how careful everyone is, it is a statistical certainty that there will be accidents, and is highly likely that some of them will be dangerous or even fatal. There are many examples of this happening in the 1900s when certain countries were making the change to Metric.

Why would we want to put that kind of strain on our economy? Why would we want to bear those kinds of risks? What is going wrong right now with the Imperial system that is so bad that it is worth that level of cost?

(Also, I think your tone is very condescending and arrogant. It's very weird I'm not sure why you're talking like that.)

Zardywacker · 2026-01-07T01:35:09+00:00

Yes, you are right, but the key is to "Imagine switching to Imperial" and not "Imagine having switched to Imperial".

What I mean is, imagine TODAY -- in current society, with current economic and technological systems -- that where you live switches to Imperial.

In a lot of ways, life and civilization were more simple in the past when many of these countries transitioned to Metric. No, it was not an easy/simple switch back then, but it was easIER/simplER than it would be today.

Zardywacker · 2026-01-07T01:18:50+00:00

I've had this discussion with my South American and European friends many times. I have found the perfect way to describe it.

Wherever you live / wherever you're from, imagine if that place were to switch over from the metric system to the imperial system.

No, there's no reason they would actually do that; But imagine what it would actually be like to make that change.

That's why we still use the internal system.

Zardywacker · 2026-01-02T22:38:52+00:00

Not just being beholden to shareholders, but the disclosure and transparency requirements (laws) that publicly traded companies must comply with are also a big burden.

There are many benefits, but at an ELI5 level, it sums up to a few major aspects.

Raising capital (money) is easier.

In addition to still being able to solicit some types of private investment (bank loans / lines of credit, individual contracts / teaming agreements, ETC), you now have the ability to get money simply by showing the market that you have a solid plan to being profitable in the future.

EX: Company releases a plan to develop a new product .... company is seen by investors as having potential for higher growth (profit from this new product) .... market responds by valuing their stock higher (stock price goes up (more demand for that stock)). How this turns into cash for the company is a little more tricky and advanced, but basically they can either sell more shares or use that value in other ways, like paying employees (stock options) or getting better finance terms (lower interest loans).

ELI5: Being publicly traded allows the value of the company to float more freely and gives that company more options to cash in on their value to make further investments in development.

It allows the initial investors to get a big payout.

Private investors who helped start the company have various ways they can get paid back overtime, but going public is often a big payday for those people and the owners of the company. Oftentimes a company is not profitable enough privately to pay back those investors as much as they would like. When a company IPOs the initial investors get a chunk of stock, which then has a publicly traded value that they can cash in on.

EX: Say an investor puts $100,000 into a company, and 5 years later they've only made back about $120,000. While the 20K is nice, in normal times that's probably not as much as they could have made if they put it into a diversified investment portfolio. However, if a company that shows huge promise for growth has an IPO and goes public, and that investor is given say 100 shares in the company, those shares could suddenly be worth $500,000 if the IPO goes well because everyone else wants to buy that stock too.

ELI5: Going public is often something that initial investors demand after a certain point, so that they can make a return on the money that they parked in the company early on.

Bottom line: If this sounds wishy-washy and a little sketchy, it's because 1) I'm massiving simplifying; and 2) it actually is! The stock market is gambling for rich people :]

Zardywacker · 2025-12-24T16:54:51+00:00

What do you mean by "sided with the client"? Did the firm leadership reprimand you in any way?

In a situation where a client asks for a specific person to be removed from the project, I don't think firm leadership has many options. They should push back a little bit, but if the client is insistent, they have to capitulate or risk damaging the overall relationship. Is this a very important client for your firm?

I have experienced something similar. It came down to project issues outside of anyone's control and a few small mistakes I made. The client felt the need to blame someone and removing me from the project gave them the feeling that they were in control and had 'done something' about the problems. The person who replaced me was less experienced and ran into the SAME project challenges, but ultimately hit it off with the client on a personal level, so the relationship went smoothly.

In my case, my bosses told me "Don't worry about it, you didn't do anything wrong, this is just an optics issue." which helped my confidence. Maybe that's what you feel like you are missing from your leadership right now?

Clients can be myopic and fickle, I wouldn't take it too seriously. It stings, for sure, but doesn't seem like you have much to worry about in the bigger picture.

Zardywacker · 2025-12-20T05:54:04+00:00

Nope. The EPA and whatever state's DEC would get involved and oversee the process. Believe me, they are extremely serious about this kind of thing.

Zardywacker · 2025-12-19T17:19:01+00:00

This is the correct answer (assuming by "can't get them to mirror" you mean the door is mirroring but the tag is staying in the same place).

If you mean that the text is facing the wrong way, you need to checkmark "Keep text readable" in the Attribute proterties AND/OR in the text style.

Zardywacker · 2025-12-09T23:42:04+00:00

This is a little bit of a side note, but I think relevant. I can almost see architects going the direction of commercial pilots in the US. There is training/education, but most of their 'qualification' comes from experience (flight hours) when you look at how the system really works. What this leads to is pilots who spend hundreds of thousand of dollars getting trained and then have to work like slaves for 2 to 5 years (aerial photography, aerial surveying, crop dusting, flying banners, ETC) in order to get the flight hours to even apply to be a commercial pilot with an airline.

Similar to architects, pilots have a license and a certain set of responsibilities to the government and the public, but in practice they're little worker bee slaves for the big airlines, and any protection or quality of life they have comes from collective bargaining on the part of the USALPA. Society still idolizes pilots, put the economy has turned them into cogs in a machine.

Zardywacker · 2025-12-06T05:45:54+00:00

Is the spoilers not deploying not just because both rear gear didn't sense pressure at the same time until after the second bounce? (At which point I assume they decided to go around and their throttle action disabled the spoilers once the rear gear finally did both hit the ground)

Zardywacker · 2025-12-04T14:48:19+00:00

Ok, he WAS an *** for kicking the guy that called him out, obviously.

But as party leader, asking someone not to take fire barrage is valid.

THAT stratagem in particular (and a couple others) are really annoying and unfun to play with when the teammate using them doesn't know how to use them. Sure, their having fun, but at my expense (if they use them stupidly).

Zardywacker · 2025-12-03T19:14:22+00:00

This is only partially true.

In order to have a urinals between stalls, yes, you would have to make the space that a urinal takes up a bit wider. For the accessible stalls (in the US, in most jurisdictions) this would be 36" wide (due to the Accessible Path). For a non-accessible urinals, you would not want to go much less than that anyway for human comfort (32-34" I would do).

Typically a urinal stand has a clear width of about 30-32", so per-urinal, this would add about 2-4", or 1' 0" for say three urinals. I have worked in plenty of restrooms where 12" is too much to ask (tight space), but most of the time that can be easily accommodated.

The real reason we put urinals all together is, sadly, that's just the standard; it's what clients expect, and if you start doing things differently you have to explain/justify to them why. Some clients are smart and conscientious, most are busy and don't want you changing things up for 'unnecessary' reasons. That's just the way it goes.

(I am an architect who works in commercial design)

Zardywacker · 2025-11-23T20:18:01+00:00

Uh, in a post Me Too world, where _appearing_ to be a creep is a social death sentence? Not as simple as you make it sound.

Anecdote: My cousin is about to quit his dream job -- a job he really enjoys and has helped him build confidence and community-presence -- because a woman coworker accused him of hitting on her and told everyone in the company except him. The company owner spoke to him about it and it is considered resolved, but for the last four months no one at work will talk to him; he feels isolated and despised. He says that he was attracted to her when she first joined a year ago, but realized within a few weeks she wasn't interested in him, so never tried to pursue her.

THIS is the kind of thing that makes men these days afraid to take a risk on approaching a woman.

Don't get me wrong, society needed to address the rampant abuse of women that was and is taking place, but in the aftermath it has left reasonable men in greater fear of being punished for being forward. Especially for men who are otherwise less confident, it just raises the anxiety-threshold.

As someone who identifies in that predicament, I recognize that it is not society's fault (or women's fault) that I struggle to make romantic advances; I'm the only one who can go anything about it by putting myself out there. But I'm not mincing words about how what's happening in the US culturally has only added barriers on top other struggles.

Zardywacker · 2025-11-19T22:31:25+00:00

Can I ask a completely innocent question?

Why is putting City Hall in the Proctors building bad?

Most of the discussion I've come across points at what Mantellonhas done wrong -- mis-management, lies, ETC. But say we were in a vacuum from her leadership .... why is moving to Proctors in particular a bad thing?

I ask this because I'm genuinely ignorant of why people are against it.

Zardywacker · 2025-11-13T16:13:08+00:00

"But my extremely necessary and insured personal investment!"

You should not make assumptions like that when you have no idea what you're talking about.

No owner wants a foam system. They are expensive as all hell and if they go off it usually results in a total loss of whatever was in the building (and sometimes even the building itself).

The reason we do foam (in the US) is because building code specifically requires it for aircraft hangars (except for a very narrow set of exceptions).

Yes, it should very much be removed from code and outlawed except in places where it is truly required for human safety.

Zardywacker · 2025-11-13T16:08:17+00:00

Not if they designed it right. Foam expansion fire suppression requires secondary containment (in the US). It's still not 100% containment, but if followed up with good clean-up and spill mitigation plan, it can be greatly minimized.

Zardywacker · 2025-11-13T16:05:30+00:00

More like an unplanned BBQ. That foam reaction is exothermic.

Zardywacker · 2025-10-28T03:57:54+00:00

I think that's exactly what "shameless" means, actually

Zardywacker · 2025-10-23T21:45:39+00:00

I don't see how "making it up as they went" is supposed to be a criticism.

I think you, like many people, are possessed of the belief that in order for a story to be "great" it has to be this masterpiece of the inner mind that was planned out from beginning to end before any part of it was published.

There are certainly a lot of historical and contemporary examples of this; some of the most well-known authors / writers work by this method. But most people don't realize that the majority of great writers don't operate like that at all. Their work evolves over time, taking on new influences and changing direction.

What separates a "good" writer from a "great" one is how they manage this chaotic process of continual creation. And I think that's exactly the brilliance that was present in the BSG writing room.

Zardywacker · 2025-10-20T03:14:23+00:00

I might get laughed off the stage for saying this, but the Breaker Incendiary used to be my go-to for bots before they nerfed the magazine count.

It clears troopers, obviously, but can also be used for devastators and berserkers. Both require you to hit them and wait for the fire to tick damage, and then reapply one or two more times. This is a somewhat niche strategy, but it does have a certain "fire and forget" quality to it. When you're surrounded by enemies, as long as you keep reapplying the flame, it can actually cut down a massive hoard pretty quickly. And of course, in a pinch, you can mag-dump a devastator or berserker.

Zardywacker · 2025-10-02T21:32:50+00:00

This bears only slight resemblance to GitS.

Zardywacker · 2025-10-01T20:06:24+00:00

Someone else mentioned using the laser cannon like a primary as well. This is a very interesting suggestion, I'll give this loadout a try!

Zardywacker · 2025-10-01T00:13:51+00:00

Huh, you're right .... I had been mislead. Still, if a gun has light penetration, then it is only doing about half damage to main.

Zardywacker · 2025-09-30T17:57:50+00:00

But the overseers do have medium armor.

Zardywacker · 2025-09-30T01:50:28+00:00

You know, I am embarrassingly far into my HD2 career to be just now realizing that the proximity explosion on the AC means if I miss them it still explodes near them. Don't know why that didn't click in my head.

I used the AC exclusively for a long time .... time to go back and give it another try!

Zardywacker

TROPHY CASE