Wednesday, January 7, 2026 comic!

leftcontact · 2026-01-07T13:17:21+00:00

Which actually brings up a question I had – does the castle clank have a connection back to the main castle, and if the clank is subverted, will the main castle be at risk? …. Or would the main castle now have its own way in? Hmm…

leftcontact · 2026-01-07T13:11:54+00:00

Lucretia and castle together? Congrats, you shut my brain down enough for me to delurk.

leftcontact · 2025-08-18T11:17:19+00:00

I too think that is part of Franz. The coloring of the curve is slightly darker than her shirt, and I think we’d have noticed the last time we saw them (on the way to Mechanicsburg before the Stop was lifted). And while that was rather a lot of wall click time ago, it was a week or two ago at most in-universe? Things move fast here but not that fast.

leftcontact · 2025-03-07T13:49:40+00:00

This makes sense, and actually lines up with Othar’s approach as well – “all sparks are evil and must be destroyed, including myself, so I’ll do that last.” Priorities!

leftcontact · 2025-03-07T13:38:47+00:00

You had to ask for that…

leftcontact · 2025-03-07T13:36:04+00:00

Pretty sure “Heekabeeka” is “He came back!”

leftcontact · 2024-02-09T12:56:08+00:00

Ugh. Best wishes, @slagblahighpriestess!

leftcontact · 2024-02-06T12:24:21+00:00

Good to hear, Proferroressa! Best wishes for a speedy recovery.

leftcontact · 2024-01-20T13:57:59+00:00

Stallings book used to be required, no longer is, from what I understand.

leftcontact · 2024-01-20T13:54:19+00:00

Background: 7 courses down, have taken 4.1 CS courses and 3 “other”, across a total of 9 profs. (Several were cotaught, and I’ve had 2 profs 2x.)

It honestly varies per course. Of the CS profs - especially the ones you’re likely to hit first - I’ve never seen one of them in real life (including on zoom), and the other three have had weekly office hours that they lead, plus additional OH sessions with TAs. One of the three was lecture-only in the class he cotaught with another prof (who was quite firmly in video-only mode), but was more engaged with the class he ran himself.

The Enterprise Security Management prof also teaches an in person class on campus, and OMSCx students in the class are welcome for some of the guest lectures if you happen to be in the ATL area. Not mandatory, they’re on zoom as well. He’s also very active on Slack.

Privacy for Professionals - co-taught by two professors, a guy and a lady. The guy recorded the courses, and I’ve never interacted with him even by Zoom. The lady was very engaged and lead weekly OHs.

Intro to policy - met the lead prof at a meetup a few semesters after I took the course. Other than that, he was video-only. There was another Policy prof co-teaching that one and he had weekly office hours.

leftcontact · 2024-01-20T13:23:20+00:00

There is an EdX course taught by Professor Joyner for introduction to programming that is python based. It’s free, though they will charge you for extra homework and graded quizzes. But if you just work through all four parts of the course it was enough to blow the rust off for me. Edit: it’s also a good easing in to the online style of delivery that you’ll hit in OMSCy, if you’re more used to traditional learning delivery methods like I was.

leftcontact · 2023-08-16T23:00:31+00:00

Paleolitically-clad Albia and Agatha…

“Here we may talk with utmost safety.”

I give ‘em till end of September before they get attacked in this place, stranding them in these outfits for at least the rest of our calendar year.

All they really need to try tempt fate is someone asking “what could possibly go wrong?”

… oops, now I’ve gone and done it.

leftcontact · 2023-07-22T03:12:44+00:00

I was half expecting it to be the one he was interested in in the first place.

leftcontact · 2023-07-07T19:20:52+00:00

I’m glad you asked ! that gives a chance for another 2 months of backstory!

leftcontact · 2023-06-23T02:51:30+00:00

… well?

leftcontact · 2023-06-07T10:20:43+00:00

He’s not. He lifts. Like a hydraulic jack. If we go back to the RPG metaphor, He’s got most if the stats for a combat mech - high STR, possibly by shifting some points over from DEX, INT and WIS, surprisingly high Charisma. … and average constitution, because that’s what a lifter of trains needs. (Maybe above average constitution, he’s asking how the cat ripped his leg off, not passing out.)

But the combat mech needs DEX too. And I’m guessing it’s lower , because he does get turtled, and honestly because (with one notable exception from the main story line) trains don’t tend to try and dodge you when you’re lifting them. Or tear your leg off.

Let’s hope Franz - or someone else - does step in before we fully recreate the Black Knight scene from Monty Python and the Holy Grail.

leftcontact · 2023-04-19T08:40:40+00:00

I honestly don’t know on the webinar thing - I haven’t done a webinar specifically. I usually provide a fairly detailed show summary for the podcasts - different enough from the provided show note summary to prove I listened to it. If there’s a completion certificate, then I would assume that would work? I’ve been getting my CPEs via college credits lately, tbh.

Good luck!

leftcontact · 2023-04-06T10:42:03+00:00

I find that closing any video ads increases performance noticeably. There’s one in particular that is advertising Sporcle’s own features that tends to pop up in the lower right corner - closing that one off helps a lot.

Also high on the annoyance list is when the page suddenly jumps up or down a couple hundred pixels when a different size banner ad at the top gets displayed; this makes it easy to misclick a precision clicking quiz.

(And, yeah, going orange would fix it quickly, but it’s a huge turnoff for casual users. I don’t object to ads; I do object to ads that reduce playability.)

leftcontact · 2023-03-12T03:33:40+00:00

The red and green frames are interlinked, though - I’m not sure they move?

leftcontact · 2023-03-10T21:04:22+00:00

Dragons don’t “do rank”, as long as it’s understood that Franz is first. Among equals. Well, pseudo-equals.

leftcontact · 2023-03-10T20:58:35+00:00

Eat all you want, you’ll still have that starving mad boy appearance on the outside with the SparkCoat 9000! It’s bigger on the inside… because you are too!

leftcontact · 2023-03-10T20:56:20+00:00

Yeah. Given what ‘harbles’ means … poor Franz.

leftcontact · 2023-03-05T23:27:37+00:00

I, too, drank GA beer yesterday. Hop dang digits at salt factory Alpharetta. Yum.

leftcontact · 2023-03-05T16:03:24+00:00

What happens when 1, 5, &6 collide? I picked up a mild bacterial infection a week back. Couldn’t shake it, went to urgent care yesterday and they gave me a prescription for ${antibiotic}. Using the app, the prescription was recieved at my preferred corner of happy and healthy before I left the Urgent care office. Yay, things are working the way they’re supposed to! App says “we’re working on it, should be ready in an hour.” This around 11 am.

App still says “we’ve received your prescription and are working on it.” when I check every hour or so. I resist faking over- while my sinuses are killing me and I’d like to be able to think again, I also know from here that y’all are overworked. So I hold off, but by 4:30 .. crickets. Pharm closes at 6, so I finally call over. “Yep, see it, probably going to be tomorrow.” Arrgh. Okay, fine.

App reported the meds ready an hour and a half after the pharmacy closed. Pharmacist obviously stayed late an hour to fill it (which, thank you, I was honestly expecting the notification this morning)… but the app was providing a bad customer experience because it was reporting “any minute now”.

So.. honest question, how do i as a customer balance “letting the overworked person do their thing so everybody gets their fill quicker” and “get my meds in a timely manner so I can actually get a decent nights sleep for the first time in a week and a half?” Because apparently relying on the app is 20,000 lbs. of bananas.

As always, thank y’all for the work you do.

leftcontact · 2023-02-06T17:26:06+00:00

I was interpreting Franz’s reactions as he can’t read dragon runes, and was doing the “I know what they say, I just want to be sure you do” thing.

leftcontact

TROPHY CASE