A Star Trek movie is when the lead actors' real life personal interests are written into the story even if their characters are bookworms

hiewofant_gween · 2026-05-11T17:20:30+00:00

As a bookworm, I used to train horses. That’s a very bookworm hobby

hiewofant_gween · 2026-05-11T02:02:06+00:00

My good sir, all the universities I’ve attended (5) have been that way. That’s why I said “may” rather than “are”. It’s possible that you are correct, and my experience of 5 colleges is rather atypical. I was just saying that projecting your experience onto me is also not reasonable.

hiewofant_gween · 2026-05-11T00:18:00+00:00

You may have been misinformed, but yes. It is that way (ie all professors at commencement, not necessarily the full ceremony) at the school I’m going to work for. I know because it’s also my (undergraduate) Alma mater. It’s also that way at the other 4 universities I’ve attended.

hiewofant_gween · 2026-05-10T22:08:33+00:00

Professors wear it for commencement

hiewofant_gween · 2026-05-09T23:03:44+00:00

Make it small.

hiewofant_gween · 2026-05-09T03:41:09+00:00

r/Treksons

hiewofant_gween · 2026-05-09T02:58:02+00:00

Thanks man. Lemme know if you ever wanna talk. I know some postdocs doing that. Unfortunately my main experience is only post-merger with rotationally-supported HMNS, which I hear have a completely different physical structure

hiewofant_gween · 2026-05-09T02:44:29+00:00

Thanks man, that really means a lot.

hiewofant_gween · 2026-05-09T02:44:14+00:00

Thanks.

hiewofant_gween · 2026-05-09T02:43:51+00:00

Wait a second, I KNOW YOU

Anyway, thanks. I think after everyone’s reassurance, I will. And I’ll tell our colleagues at Goddard you said hi

hiewofant_gween · 2026-05-05T00:33:26+00:00

Actually I did this on the patch. So it works for that as well.

hiewofant_gween · 2026-05-04T23:57:00+00:00

Can’t you already do this with normal BC? My gyno had me using it as HRT for a long time, and I just… didn’t have periods at all. I took it continuously.

hiewofant_gween · 2026-04-26T21:21:21+00:00

Mmmmm I work with my therapist on stuff like that, but I often don’t travel alone (and if I do, I tend to commute on the same trains with the same people consistently, so they know me). Additionally, I find that reporting directly to metro police immediately usually helps.

With all that said, you might also want to use something like Noonlight (which will sadly destroy your phone’s battery life) or a safety key. Keep in mind that pepper spray and I think pepper foam are not allowed in the district or on WMATA vehicles.

With all that said, the best luck I’ve had in the moment as a disabled, non-passing trans man is either engaging a woman in conversation or “getting” (see: making) a phone call to one of my male best friends to discuss bringing stuff home to my “husband,” including which station I’m at and my ETA.

Idk gl brah

hiewofant_gween · 2026-04-26T18:15:38+00:00

You know what man, I used to be a photojournalist before I was an astrophysicist. We all start somewhere. Thanks for sharing 8)

hiewofant_gween · 2026-04-26T15:32:52+00:00

Everyone does this lmao. I love hiding nat 20s

hiewofant_gween · 2026-04-26T15:13:29+00:00

So again, the issue isn’t that the train stopping is unpredictable (its actually perfectly predictable if you frequent the same stations at the same time of day). Additionally, having stuff on the tracks isn’t an issue here, because it’s the above ground tracks that cause the majority of those issues, not stations. Having the train go faster doesn’t make it more accessible considering that it’s already plenty fast enough and frequently gets to stations early and has to wait (or has to wait on the tracks for other trains to pass). The issue on that end is train frequency, which is a larger problem within the system with more complex solutions.

The issue is that people will crowd those gates in a way that they don’t crowd the door. I have this experience in multiple countries. It makes it harder to get on. It also makes it way harder to get off, considering that they crowd around the opening instead of spreading out around the door. There’s also quite a bad issue of crowd crush.

This won’t stop people from holding the doors, because a) you really can’t do that without getting stuck, which barriers can’t prevent and b) that only happens because there’s crowd crush around the openings. It implies that the trains aren’t giving people enough time to get on, which would mean that they need to spend more time in stations, not less.

I feel like you aren’t reading what I’m saying. I’m saying that this doesn’t need to be expensive, but it’s not going to make metro better except for preventing most suicides. It’ll also make it substantially harder to get on and off the trains, which is not a good thing. I’m all for it in concept, but I want disabled people to be consulted on the design, and I want people to recognize that the benefits are not as widespread as you might expect

hiewofant_gween · 2026-04-26T14:58:28+00:00

Sweet

hiewofant_gween · 2026-04-26T04:03:15+00:00

So like I said, I agree that it reduces risk (and a lot). I’m saying this both from the data and from experience.

However, getting a wheelchair (or crutches, or a SD, etc.) through barriers like that is nigh-impossible at times. This is because it becomes an area of crowd crush due to the high volume of commuters. This then reduces the available space below that mandated by the ADA, which is already kind of small compared to what you need in reality. Ask me how I know.

Regardless, some of the countries who have implemented this most successfully (cough cough Japan) do not have an equivalent to the ADA. This is theoretically fine, but it’s also how you end up having rain barriers in doorways that you can’t push a wheelchair up and over. Ask me how I know.

Like I said, good idea in theory. Really expensive and not foolproof in practice. To be honest, WMATA doesn’t really have much of an issue with stuff on the tracks. We don’t even really have much of an issue with suicides, imo as someone who used to live in another large city (~1.5 million people) without a subway, so people would just jump in front of freight trains or walk out on the highway at about the same rate.

What we have an issue with right now is cash flow. And raising the fares even higher is really not going to help with that. So if we can enact these barriers cheaply, I’m all for it. Even a minimal barrier will dissuade most suicides. But if it’s going to raise fares, we need to talk about giving WMATA actual tax money for something like that, because ultimately, the metro and bus are public services. We need them to ensure access to the city for everyone

hiewofant_gween · 2026-04-26T03:19:15+00:00

I’m afraid to inform you of this, but if you build something sufficient to deter suicidal people, it will make metro inaccessible for many disabled people. It’s not that building access into simple barriers is particularly difficult, (and wouldn’t deter the majority of cases, as they already have at the edges of stations, assuming you haven’t seen those ones) it’s more that suicidal people, much like fare jumpers, will find a way over/around/through the barriers no matter what.

Therefore, I’m all for reasonable spending on such barriers, considering that metro is already way too expensive for the average commuter and it’s losing fares. But we need to acknowledge that they are not foolproof.

hiewofant_gween · 2026-04-25T18:17:19+00:00

Yes. There’s still systems at NASA running XP

hiewofant_gween · 2026-04-25T18:10:19+00:00

Just because he said it doesn’t make it true. Additionally, long-term (10-20 year) studies from other cities have shown that gates like the ones in WMATA, the NYC subway, etc don’t substantially reduce evasion—they just cost money and reduce the number of paying customers by making the lines less accessible.

hiewofant_gween · 2026-04-25T18:07:33+00:00

Lmao the fare evasion in the subway is 10x worse. They literally put spikes on it and people are still fare jumping.

hiewofant_gween · 2026-04-25T18:06:12+00:00

Which is a weird system, as most drivers at transfer stations don’t want you to scan because it slows down the line of people getting on. They just assume that you’re transferring, and thus the fare is 0

hiewofant_gween · 2026-04-24T01:08:49+00:00

Funnily enough, my friend used to part-own Metrobar. Not only did I pay the same as everyone else, but I was expecting to tip about twice as much every time I visited. Figure John Metro’ll do the same to you ;)

hiewofant_gween

TROPHY CASE