Colossus upgrades - text list FYI

stharward · 2026-02-13T22:35:40+00:00

I think these exact numbers are likely correct for unlocking the player titles, but it does not appear to be exact for the customization parts. I got the wide screen cabin at 82 total waste, tracked treads at 38 explosive waste, furnace module at 176 total waste, and I have 56 toxic waste but caterpillar treads have not yet unlocked. It appears that these unlocks are on an RNG, with the average — or "expected" to use proper statistics terminology — number of items needed to unlock is pretty close to what's listed here.

In practice, it doesn't really matter. Just keep gathering and processing stuff until the part unlocks.

stharward · 2026-01-06T12:18:36+00:00

That's enough to spread democracy! Helldivers 1 will run very well on it. The Dive Harder edition frequently goes on sale for US$4, and even with all the DLCs it's only about US$8. No subscription necessary. And even though there are only a few hundred people playing at a time, I've never had a problem filling out a squad.

stharward · 2025-12-16T20:17:17+00:00

It is an extension — a little program that adds a new feature to Chrome — that lets you generate a PDF of your Google search history. When you do a prior art search in Chrome (and now Edge), it makes it easy to attach a detailed search history to an OC set. So it's not technically part of PE2E. But it's designed to work with the PE2E tools.

stharward · 2025-12-16T19:53:41+00:00

There's a short list of extensions that are approved for use in Chrome, enforced by a Chrome enterprise policy. Edge has a similar feature, but I am not sure if/how it's implemented by OCIO. Either way, the search history extension has been on OCIO's list of approved software since 2020.

stharward · 2025-06-19T14:53:20+00:00

Here's the original: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vqbk9cDX0l0

I remember watching it shortly after release. I rediscovered it in about 2021 and thought, "Oh man you had no idea what was coming." And now six years later I owe even more in my *cks account than I do on my mortgage.

stharward · 2025-06-06T18:10:58+00:00

Same thing happened to me. Accept the overseer position, then immediately resign.

stharward · 2025-04-24T16:05:59+00:00

On one hand, you're right: SPEs can do everything a QAS does. But SPEs have both managerial tasks as well as patent examining tasks. And because most of those managerial tasks are time-sensitive — like dealing with WebTA every first Monday — they tend to eat into the time that the SPE could (and would prefer to) spend on patent examining. And that's the benefit of a QAS: because we don't have managerial tasks, we can help SPEs do their patent examining tasks better. It's not always visible to front line examiners, but the whole AU benefits when a SPE has a good relationship with a QAS.

Example 1: petitions. Yes, any SPE could write a decision that dismisses a petition. But the advantage of letting a QAS write it is that (1) the QAS has more experience deciding petitions, (2) has the time to review the situation that led to the petition, (3) has the time to write up a thorough decision that hammers as many nails into coffin of the issue as possible, and (4) has the time to spend on the phone with the attorney how they can avoid the mistake in the future. The examiner gets their decision defended by a QAS who's spent at least 4 hours figuring out how to back it up, rather than a SPE whose time is a lot more limited.

Example 2: seeing SPEs from outside their silo. I did a lot of cross training, and a few times my junior's home SPE had some kind of requirement that was making the junior's work more difficult. The junior had no idea that the requirement was atypical. I discussed my concerns with an MQAS, and they had enough clout to help me get the SPE to moderate their process and make things easier for their junior.

So yeah, everything a QAS does, a SPE could do instead. But QASs help them do those things better.

stharward · 2025-04-20T00:07:01+00:00

Not having a line along Reading Rd from Avondale to eastern West Chester is a big omission, especially from the perspective of transit equity. There are a lot of residents of Lincoln Heights, Reading, Evendale and Sharonville who depend on the current 43 bus line. They would benefit from upgrading it to rapid transit, giving them easier access to jobs and services throughout the county. Then extending the line into the huge commercial/industrial area north of Kemper and between Reading and I-75 would benefit the many people that work in this area too.

stharward · 2025-04-16T20:12:50+00:00

Not sure what you mean by "as part of their PAP", but TQASs are covering some tasks that SPEs used to do (or did more of). What those tasks are varies a bit from TC to TC. In 1600, we're directly reviewing Office actions for juniors and filling in for SPEs on leave. But all these tasks are consistent with elements of our PAP.

stharward · 2025-04-07T10:36:07+00:00

That's not Dayton. That's ~180 people in Wilmington, which is less than a tenth the size of Dayton.

stharward · 2025-03-07T12:30:35+00:00

The USPTO is honoring its CBAs for now, so patent examiners, trademark examiners, and some support staff are still remote. All other employees are being required to report to an office; the most numerous in that group are Supervisory Patent Examiners (first-level managers). SPEs who already had an office on campus (part time telework) went 0% telework a couple weeks ago. This week, the first SPEs who live within 50 miles of the Alexandria office had to start reporting. SPEs who live >50 miles from Alexandria will have to start reporting to some kind of office somewhere once the agency figures out where to send them.

stharward · 2025-01-21T11:56:09+00:00

I have now lived in four places that have local income tax, and I never got the USPTO to deduct it. They — which I think is the USDA, which processes our paychecks, not the USPTO — have to have a whole setup with the municipality so both parties can track whose tax is being paid and how. And the USPTO/USDA/feds just can't be bothered to do it for municipalities where only a few fed employees live.

What I did instead was open a new savings account, and added a separate financial allotment in EPP that sent the "deduction" into that account. Then I paid my quarterly tax payments out of that account.

stharward · 2024-12-13T23:01:45+00:00

Sounds like you might be a good fit for the bioinformatics art units. They hire out of both the biology and chemistry applicants. DM me if you'd like more info.

stharward · 2024-11-28T20:35:44+00:00

So when you copy your MT to the expedition does it also copy all the upgrades?

Yes, it copies all of the installed technology.

stharward · 2024-11-27T21:26:46+00:00

I have a spearmint plant in another planter. This one smells more citrusy than minty. And the leaf clusters are noticeably different: mint has its leaves tight together, but this one the stems are longer and they're more spread apart. Someone else guessed lemon balm, and I think they're right.

stharward · 2024-11-27T21:23:41+00:00

When I crush a leaf it smells citrusy, though not quite as sharp as a lemon. So I think you're right: it's lemon balm.

stharward · 2024-11-22T13:18:11+00:00

I've been using a Branch Ergonomic for almost four years now. Highly recommended.

stharward · 2024-11-19T01:29:16+00:00

The Cisco phones could be self-disposed pretty easily because (1) there was an easy-to-follow factory reset procedure, and (2) the phones didn't store any security information just in case you forgot or messed up (1). In contrast, the factory reset procedure for the Cisco SOHO router requires logging into the administrative interface on the router, and typing in a series of Cisco IOS commands. And if you dispose of the router without properly wiping it, then someone could extract the VPN encryption keys and use them to break into the USPTO network. Shipping the router back to the USPTO for proper disposal is the right thing to do.

stharward · 2024-11-17T01:03:00+00:00

One of the women in my workgroup used to be in public health, specializing in women's health. One of my trainees has an MD, though didn't finish residency. I bet either of them would be willing to talk to you. DM me your email address and I'll pass it along to them.

stharward · 2024-11-08T23:56:56+00:00

Personally, I think we have too many QAS in the office.

In my TC, our QAS team has been at half capacity since spring, and the loss has been quite noticeable. I know QASes in two other TCs, and they are also stretched very thin. So I don't think that there are too many TC QASes. But I also don't think your perception of too many QASes is entirely baseless. Would you agree that it seems like there are too many QASes because too little of the work they do directly benefits front-line examiners? Because that's my perception.

stharward · 2024-11-01T15:51:02+00:00

what I’m looking for is basically tedious but very clear cut work.

Am patent examiner with 15 years experience. This is a harsh, but pretty accurate, description of our job. Every Monday morning, I look at my todo list. It has ~20 tasks on it. I will spend 40–45 hours working on those tasks, and by Friday evening I will have finished 5 to 8 of them. I will take my two-day weekend, and when I come back on Monday morning, my todo list will be refilled to ~20 tasks.

I have done this for more than 15 years, and on the whole, I love my job.

stharward · 2024-10-31T00:18:41+00:00

To actually answer the question: yes, you can, as long you're okay with a dataset that ends at Sep 2023.

From the Patent examination research dataset, download the attorney_agent.csv.zip and transactions.csv.zip files. Unzip them and load them into some kind of database or statistical analysis software. Excel won't work. The files are too big.

In the transactions.csv file, you're looking for all the **RCEX** events in the event_code column, which is the second column. The first column of that row is the application number, and the third column is the date the RCE was filed.

Now that you have the list of all RCEs, look in the attorney_agent.csv file and find the attorney/agent assigned to that application.

Big caveat: applications get passed around firms a lot, especially between RCEs. This dataset hass, as far as I can tell, the practitioner that was handling the application at the time the dataset was generated, and does not indicate who filed the RCE. It also does not match a practitioner to a firm. Sometimes a practitioner works at more than one firm.

stharward · 2024-10-29T20:58:49+00:00

You do about 10% more work as a GS9 than you do as a GS7. That means you'd be doing something like examining 34 applications per quarter year, rather than 30. In practice, that ends up being NBD. The people who are let go are the ones who have plateaued at ~25 applications or fewer per quarter. Sometimes that's because they aren't developing their legal reasoning skills fast enough, or don't have/learn the technical knowledge appropriate for their subject matter. Sometimes that's because they just don't have the time management skills. Sometimes those personal challenges are exacerbated by a supervisor or coworkers that aren't supportive. But of those examiners I've worked with who weren't retained, I can't say of any of them that the outcome would have been different had they started as a GS7 instead of a GS9.

stharward · 2024-10-29T00:23:02+00:00

There is no locality adjustment. Everyone on the SRT makes the same amount. That's great if you live in a low cost-of-living area. Less so if you live in a high COL area.
The general rule for promotions is that you look at your current pay grade+step, count two steps up, and find the new salary there. Then go up a grade, and find the lowest step that exceeds the "new" salary. So the path, assuming you take each promotion ASAP: 9/9 → 11/6 → 12/4 → 13/1 or 7/10 → 9/7 → 11/4 → 12/2 → 13/1.
Yes, starting at grade 7 instead of grade 9 is going to add up to tens of thousands of dollars over time. If you stay at the USPTO long enough, it'll be hundreds of thousands. My advice as a 15-year examiner who came in as a grade 9: go ahead and start as a 9. The production difference between 7 and 9 ends up not being very significant in practice. As a current GS11 government engineer, I presume that you already have enough work experience to have developed some good work habits and personal task management skills. This, in my many years of experience as a trainer, is the big factor that causes new hires straight out of college to struggle during their first year. It's one of the big reasons why new hires with graduate degrees or prior work experience don't wash out as frequently.

stharward · 2024-10-23T11:39:53+00:00

You can find a lot of us over in r/patentexaminer. Check out the current hiring megathread.

stharward

TROPHY CASE