The University of Wisconsin system of schools is well known for being good for the sciences, while still being state colleges, and thus more affordable for average individuals, particularly residents of the state.

However, in pursuit of profits, some of their academic hiring decisions have been…. Unfortunate. I won’t name the specific school this occurred at as the problem occurs across the board for associate+/-lecturer positions. And it occurs in most states. Education as a whole in the US has been commodified, and thus reduced.

The kind who uses their platform to spread misinformation, in my experience. :)

I mean… my bachelors was largely neglectful tbh… if I didn’t know what I wanted to learn and how to learn it, it would have been nothing more than an extension of k-12.

They will let just any old shitbag teach certain credits… like my natural science 101 class, taught by a guy who bought into “organic is better”, “mindfulness will fix all your problems”, and various other pseudoscientific bullshit… such that my final essay (science is my auti special interest; I couldn’t ignore it…) was dedicated to pointing out each and every one of the pseudoscience claims he made in class which were demonstrably false (with citations). He initially gave me an A on the paper and then thought about how much I was insulting him and downgraded it to a C. That C was so worth getting. Fuck that guy. I learned more disproving his nonsense than I ever would have listening to him about anything…

But I also took a biostatistics course where the professor led by asserting creationism. Dropped that bitch right quick and complained to faculty about it (feel free to believe whatever nonsense you like, but I’m not paying tuition to hear your pet theories about thermodynamics proving creationism). Fortunately that was day two of the class, and still within time to drop. Unfortunately replacing that class fucked up my schedule for the semester big time.

And those are just two of a handful of issues with higher ed, and my school was actually one of the better for science curriculum… I started a masters program and dropped it when I got bad grades on papers for using accurate but simplified language (I’m a science communicator; using esoteric language is not something I do, even if I can easily do so. My life goal is to make science approachable for the masses, not a clusterfuck of specialized terminology that doesn’t even resemble the same term from another field)

I did this with my shark(nado) bagless vacuum. :)

Mmmm you gotta do the twist break, where you push sideways on the bottom part to see if you can snap off the entire clip piece, rather than having that shitty nub left.

But if you end up with the shitty nub by accident, you gotta bite that bitch off.

In college I bought myself a 50 pack of those cuz I lose shit a lot, and that clip never lasted more than a few hours on any new pencil…

Consider getting a toaster oven the next time your toaster dies.

I’ve had mine for like 15 years now, use it all the time, and it’s still chugging along despite being $25 new. They are built a lot better than toasters because they are made for multi-purpose use, and the heating element is much more robust. Plus no springs to fail.

I know that doesn’t help the overall problem, but it might solve that one problem :)

What’s up with the nose flamingo?

Its stakes go to nothing.

Is it just like… taped on or something? (VHB/silicone?)

I have a necronomicon, but it has very basic binding, and I haven’t read it.

It was a housewarming gift that made me go “the fuck mate, you want me to die and leave the house to you or what?” Which was apparently the exact right response.

Same because the only answer is “someone who hopes it’s sentient”.

😂 that sounds horrible.

I’m not super into frustration, and it’s gotta be a good game for me to replay it… I have -so many- options…

But that does sound like the sort of spiteful thing I’d do… like I can’t even tell you how many new kongregate accounts I made back in the day so I could play the same games over again and get all the achievements… and if you can get them once it tends to be easier the second time…

When you say dupe game achievements, do you mean you had to get all the achievements on the same game multiple times? That sounds hellish, if so… but I’m a bit curious…

I have bought a few duplicates over the years, but started using gameye to prevent duplicate purchases (I only do physical games, mostly used, so it helps a ton)

I have 4 and haven’t even played it yet!

That’s actually true… I had it for 360 and forgot about it so bought it again for ps3 and promptly forgot about it, then got a copy for ps4 from a friend… Played a bit, but it’s not the same as playing on PC, which is how I played morrowind and oblivion so never got into it, then I bought the ps4 vr version because it seemed like it was the perfect type of game for VR, being first person and all… nope that was a mistake, the texture in vr version makes me seriously motion sick… can’t get past the intro scene.

I’ll probably pirate a pc version at some point… I’ve paid for it enough to not feel at all bad doing that (not that I would anyway). It’s just not great on console.

That genuinely sounds like a good middle point, unfortunately it isn’t actionable for me as I haven’t any friends with whom to play. My humans have drastically different genre interests than I do, assuming they even game.

This is a fact.

When I was late teens I played vanilla wow, but after adapting to adulthood, the idea of playing with or even talking to people decades younger than I am (with maturity to match age) has absolutely no appeal. I really want to play a lot of the multiplayer games out there, but don’t want to play with a bunch of asshole kids with nothing better to do than be assholes.

Face to face, maybe, because there’s a lot more context and social boundaries and stuff, but honestly I don’t even understand a lot of what they are trying to communicate at this point, and I honestly usually don’t care, so it’s not an appealing proposition at this point. That’s the full whole reason I don’t play ttrpgs anymore; can’t find an adult group and can’t stand to be around a group of 14yo boys.

On console you still have to wait an absurdly long time for the ubishit to load, even if you never use any of it. Pretty sure they threw their launcher in there, too, and just hid it a bit.

Fenyx, a game I love from 2020, takes several extra minutes to boot (and the launch screen completely freezes for the duration, so you don’t know if it’s going to launch successfully or hang) because it has to query the server every single damned time to see if there’s new dlc or news nobody cares about or whatever. Like guys, I didn’t care the first dozen times you tried to get me to check out ways to give you money…

The worst part is I actually did buy one of the dlc for it on switch. I was intensely disappointed. It was not just not worth the money, it wasn’t worth the time to download it; I didn’t even bother finishing it. And still every time it boots up it tells me all about this marvelous new dlc I could buy (there’s another dlc I didn’t buy, but that’s not the one it showcases)! So it takes forever to query the server and then does fuckall with that information. Cool.

I feel like the point of that in it takes two is communication. It’s pretty heavy-handed in the whole “sort out your shit amongst yourselves” theme, and it’s sort of meant as a way for a gamer to get a non-gamer into gaming, so you’d have one person with the skillz leading the other through challenges.

Or at least that’s how it played out with me. The person I was playing with is also a gamer but not really environmental/puzzle games (and easily frustrated) so it was sort of playing around with what to do and walking each other through - calling out timing and stuff, etc.

It’s a very interesting take on co-op, imho.

If you like small people in huge environments, exploring, and not being super hand-held, tinykin is a cute game, not super long, it does sort of a bit guide you through some major things but not in a particularly obnoxious way. Mostly just exploring on your own. :)

last time I tried to get help I got profiled as a drug seeker.

This is so dumb and lazy, because of course you are seeking a drug, but they have tests they can throw at you that will pretty readily identify if the drug is appropriate for your needs…

Like if they had another actually workable treatment option that wasn’t just “feel really bad about not being able to do things and we’ll teach you how to live with that feeling!” Then fine, we’d all do that and not seek the drugs… but it’s really not our fault that we need stimulants.

So dumb. Anyway, as others have told you, don’t let that one dumbass deter you. As outlined above, they are clearly dumb.

I would have figured people new to the hobby would go to used game stores first, then new game sections of regular retail stores… maybe swap those around.

I don’t even know that many long-term gamers who preorder…? They might pick it up on launch day but… typically not preorder.

You aren’t wrong. I freakin love mobile games, very addictive. I don’t play them anymore… bad habits form for me…

Roguelike games can have a similar appeal tho; turn it on, do a dive or two for 20-40 min, then come back next time.

I found so many adorable little short games that are nonetheless amazing fun. Tinykin, cat quest, troll hunters, stray… none of those are over 10 hours, even if you achievement hunt. Maybe stray, since you have to beat it more than once.

Like they don’t have to be super long to be super good. And sometimes you only have the energy to play my little pony (actually fun and super quick because it’s made for small kids, and sometimes you just want something that takes 2 hours to get 100% on because that’s the mood…)

I normally prefer super long exploration games, but those get old. Especially when they are all filler content like run here run there kill 5 things then go back to the same place 6 more times for dumb little quests you could have done all at once if they just gave them to you… I like 100%, but man they often make that so very tedious.