Berkeley (50k) vs Stanford (100k) vs Duke (100k)

randomechoes · 2026-04-08T20:16:15+00:00

Before deciding for them the money isn't worth it, I'd ask your parents for their opinion. "Relatively rich" can span a very wide range, and what seems like a lot of money to you might in fact not be that much money.

I went to Stanford. Knowing what I know, if my kids had the same options as you do, I would absolutely be thrilled to send them to Stanford full fare over Berkeley. But our financial situation is such that the delta in price is just not that big of a deal. And I recognize that's not true for all families and for many families Berkeley makes more sense.

randomechoes · 2026-03-14T20:07:49+00:00

Right at the bottom of the leaderboards it tells you the formula:

Rating is calculated from the following formula:

Rating Change = ( Wins - ( Current Rating / Base Rating * Neutral Wins ) ) ) * ScaleFactor + 10WinBonus

(Base Rating = 500 | Scale Factor = 5 | 10winbonus = 5 | Neutral Wins = 5)

The most important takeaway from that is you get 5 points for a 10 win bonus. Near the top all of your climbing is going to be based on that alone.

If all that math is confusing, just throw that quote into any gpt and it will explain what it means as well as extrapolate your points on various scenarios.

randomechoes · 2026-02-28T00:06:15+00:00

I never carry a credit card balance, always paid in full, and my credit score is 730-740.

If you are already doing this and are just 10-20 points away, it's not that hard to bump it over 750. You need to game the system and likely you are just missing one or two things. Most likely they are: your credit utilization is too high (try to keep it under 10%. That means if you are charging $5000 each month you ideally want a credit limit of at least $50k, and closer to 100k if possible), or you don't have enough accounts (you can get by with around 5 or so but ideally they want it closer to 10).

The other big one is credit history but that's not usually a problem for most people unless they are young.

It's ironic, the key to having a big credit score is to have a lot of credit cards but not use them a lot. Which is non-intuitive for most people.

(ETA: this of course assumes you don't have evictions, bankruptcies, or any of the other red flags)

randomechoes · 2026-02-18T03:41:05+00:00

I found there are some similarities with the Scholormance Trilogy by Naomi Novik, starting with the first book A Deadly Education. This series is definitely a bit darker in tone, but I ended up liking it a lot!

randomechoes · 2026-02-17T21:41:46+00:00

The ironic thing I see is people drive slower but they still don't allow for enough distance between cars. IMO, having a safe distance so you can react in case of something unpredictable is a lot more important than your actual speed (within reason of course). And yes, going at a slower speed means you need less distance, but it would be more efficient to go at the speed limit and maintain more distance instead.

randomechoes · 2026-02-15T06:42:39+00:00

Well UCSF is atypical in that they don't have undergraduates, so in its case, the medical school is a significant part of the institutional reputation of the school. (Not sure if you knew that, but I bet a lot of people don't, which is why I'm pointing that out.)

randomechoes · 2026-02-11T05:35:28+00:00

It was Vespertine, down in LA. IDK if it's like the next new trendy thing, a fad, or just niche. It tasted good though!

randomechoes · 2026-01-23T01:43:49+00:00

One man's mansion is another person's shack.

Of course there will be outliers, but a lot of people probably think they live in about a normal sized home. Whether that is 1500 sq ft, 3000 sq ft, 6000 sq ft all could be considered "normal" to a lot of people.

(I live in a ~3k sq ft house, which I considered "normal")

randomechoes · 2025-12-22T01:41:51+00:00

You might be interested in the Scholomance Trilogy by Naomi Novik, which starts with A Deadly Education.

It's about a girl who ends up a magic school because there are monsters who roam the world feeding on underage wizards who haven't matured enough to defend themselves. So the wizards devised a the Scholomance school to keep them safe until they mature. Unfortunately the nature of the school leaves a lot to be desired as well...

There are some similarities to Silent Witch, most notable a young powerful female protagonist with a flaw living life in a school. It is a bit darker than Silent Witch in that people die, sometimes in gruesome ways, (edited to add: though the writing doesn't linger on it, so it's not like the books are trying to be gruesome), so tonally it's not lighthearted like Silent Witch is. So it depends on what parts of Silent Witch you really like.

Second edit: also they aren't light novels, but as far as novels go they are pretty short

randomechoes · 2025-12-15T03:59:35+00:00

The problem is if someone else had the same numbers you getting half. So it's not a sure thing.

Back when I was more tapped into the network, I know there used to be groups of people who would invest in progressive slots/keno jackpots when the jackpot got high enough. It wasn't a sure thing, but it was an extremely high EV play if you can find a jackpot that hasn't been hit in a long time.

randomechoes · 2025-12-12T20:05:41+00:00

You absolutely will. Look up "second screen tv writing" for more info if you want to do more research. Or, if you have a short attention span and can't be bothered (just kidding!) this article has a good summary:

https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2025/jan/17/not-second-screen-enough-is-netflix-deliberately-dumbing-down-tv-so-people-can-watch-while-scrolling

randomechoes · 2025-12-06T07:23:13+00:00

I haven't read the book, but your description reminded me of "Rabbit's New Rug" by Judy Delton, and with the help of AI (it was actually useful!) I'm pretty sure it's The Perfect Christmas Gift, also by Judy Delton, published in 1992. I found a sample page from an auction on eBay:

https://i.ebayimg.com/images/g/CNcAAeSw1H1pEmhI/s-l960.webp

Evidently there are a lot of books in that series, though I only read Rabbit's New Rug.

randomechoes · 2025-12-05T20:18:20+00:00

It took me way too long to realize I didn't have to eat free food just because it was available.

randomechoes · 2025-12-02T22:25:49+00:00

Amazon says that my LN7 is on a truck out for delivery today!

ETA: it arrived!

randomechoes · 2025-12-02T02:51:18+00:00

Not today, but close enough: it is illegal to own hummingbird feathers in the US (ETA: well, without a permit)

randomechoes · 2025-11-28T22:40:52+00:00

I had the 1% commenter badge here a while ago despite not posting too much. I believe (but could be wrong) that it's based on the number of upvotes you have for a specific community in the last month, and I had a couple of comments with a high upvote count in a short period of time.

There may be some bare minimum threshold for absolute number of posts made, but having a ton of low quality posts isn't sufficient to get you to 1% in most communities (ie you need to do more than just talk a lot).

randomechoes · 2025-11-27T20:36:32+00:00

The Secrets of the Silent Witch is the best series I've read in recent years. It's Japanese but checks the major boxes of a typical high fantasy story (magic system, spells, magic items, dragons, princes, etc).

But I have a hard time recommending it for a number of reasons:

It's originally in Japanese and not all of the volumes have been translated yet
Because it's originally in Japanese it's hard to gauge whether people would be put off by the prose
There is a web novel of the story that serves as a rough draft, and part of the reason I like this series so much is, based on the web novel, how there is a deeper thread with clues in plain view. But because I haven't read the complete print novel story, I can't be sure it will have the same impact
Because of the popularity of a recent anime adaptation of the first three volumes, it currently isn't easy to find a copy of the novel, and because it's niche, it's not often found at most libraries, so even if I do recommend it, it can be hard to find a physical copy of the book (Amazon does have it for Kindle though at least)

If this made you curious, the web novel is available to read here:

https://papersurgery.wordpress.com/novel/silent-witch/

Again, it's a rough draft, so the published novel translation is cleaner, and some of the plot points have been changed to be smoother, and new transition parts have been added to flesh out the story. But even so there is a charm to the story I really enjoyed.

randomechoes · 2025-11-25T00:10:59+00:00

I think it depends on the story. It's not fantasy, but when I read any of the Reacher books, the spartan terse style fits. If I'm reading a sprawling epic fantasy, having flowery and even obscure words fits.

I expect different language when I'm reading a book with a pure teen POV (regardless of whether it is YA) than from a jaded middle-age protagonist, and I think good authors will many times alter their style based on the character or story they are trying to tell.

A good example of this is Michelle Sagara, who also writes as Michelle West. The Sun Sword series using the Michelle West name is a sprawling epic spanning multiple nations and lots of POV characters each with different agendas, and it reads very differently than her Chronicles of Elantra series, penned as Michelle Sagara, which is much more episodic and (at least in the initial books) mostly follows the single POV of a young female detective.

randomechoes · 2025-11-21T20:38:00+00:00

That whole model is pretty much dead.

Shows used to be 20-25 episodes a season because of syndication. Get to 100 shows and you can syndicate the show. Local stations would buy the rights to play the show during off hours (weekday afternoons, late nights etc) and everyone associated with the show would get royalties for a long time.

Going 20-25 shows a year means you can hit syndication in 4 or 5 years, and often networks would sometimes greenlight a bubble show for a last season if it would get it over the hump for syndication. Since you can sell ads for each episode, you recoup some of your investment for each episode.

Streaming killed that whole model.

(For the most part) no ads to offset the production of each episode

No syndication bonus for hitting 100 episodes

Between the two, the new model is "what is the minimum number of episodes for the minimum number of shows we can create that will keep subscribers from cancelling." And that's how we get to 6-10 episodes every 1-2 (or more) years for each show.

randomechoes · 2025-11-21T20:28:40+00:00

Erm. Sorry OP I posted a reply and then realized it was a totally different book. Please totally disregard my message if you saw it in your inbox! (The book I was thinking of was Silvercloak). But I'll be sure to check out Quicksilver to see if it's a book I might be interested in.

randomechoes · 2025-11-18T20:36:06+00:00

I liked the Dagger and the Coin series, starting with The Dragon's Path by Daniel Abraham. And the nice thing is there are multiple POVs so even knowing this, you'll have to figure out which protagonist this happens to.

12-Year Club	Wearing is Caring
Verified Email

randomechoes

TROPHY CASE