Unless you were a tech at NASA back in the day, when one time some hydrogen a) escaped in a particular building, and b) caught on fire. This was extremely difficult because hydrogen does NOT burn on the visible spectrum humans evolved to see (and flee). Rather, it technically does, but it’s so pale that in practice, no one could see it. Additionally, pure hydrogen burns without smoke and with so little ambient heat that you can’t really sense it till you walk into it. So, per the lore, for a few days all the techs in that building just walked around brandishing brooms in front of them like lances. If your broom lit on fire, congrats! You have located more burning hydrogen! Do not proceed!
1948 Ford Sportsman Super Deluxe Convertible Coupe
Issued by Danbury Mint in 2008. It is 1:24 scale.
A Limited Edition, # 572 of unknown total amount.
The model is finished in Maise Yellow and features genuine wood trim.
The idea of clones having absurd tan lines has been amusing me lately. Just think of a group of guys who grew up indoors without sun exposure and probably had supplements for the vitamins instead of actively getting UV. Their Māori genetics have been itching for any single ray of sunlight. So when they get out, and the only part of themselves they somewhat regularly expose is their face, they tan immediately. Like a dry sponge unfurling at a drop of water. Meanwhile, the rest of their body that’s covered in armor still has a slow way to go
I think the reader's response to this post is probably going to either be "That's incredibly minor" or "Holy shit YES I'M ALSO PROUD", depending on people's personal experiences with academia, but:
Today I am incredibly proud of one of my students.
In the interests of disguising identities, let's call them Ceri. Ceri is one of my third year undergrads (meaning their final year, for anyone unfamiliar with UK uni systems.) They transferred to us last year, and within two weeks I was giving them the contact info to get to Student Services and get themself screened for ADHD; they have some mental health struggles, but I clocked pretty quickly that they STRUGGLE with procrastination, and punctuality, and attending 9am lectures in particular. Naturally, as is the way of my people, it took them a further four months to remember to go to the screening. Lol. Lmao. Rofl, in fact.
But, they did it eventually! Their screening lit up like a Christmas tree at the ADHD section, and they got a free laptop and optional one week extensions and a study support worker named Claire. This has helped tremendously, and although mental health + until-then-unsupported ADHD meant their academic profile had slid sideways somewhat, with the new tools available and a couple of resits they passed the year and hit this year running.
Until, that is, the last fortnight.
Now, I take them for a Habitat Management module that has two assessments: an academic poster presentation before Christmas, and a site-specific management plan in May. Naturally this means we are at that happy point in the year for the poster presentations. I give out the briefs at the start of the year, so they've had them since October; I've also been periodically checking in with them all for weeks, to make sure they don't have any major burning questions. The poster presentation was to pick a species reintroduction project, pull the habitat feasibility study out of it, and then critique that study; Ceri chose to look at the hen harrier reintroductions proposed for the southern UK. All good.
Which brings us nicely to today! Ceri's presentation is scheduled for 2.30. At 11am-1pm, I am lecturing the first years on Biodiversity, while Ceri is learning about environmental impact assessment with a colleague I shall call Aeron. This means we are separately occupied during those same hours.
Nevertheless, Aeron messages me at about 12.
"I think Ceri needs to see you after your lecture," he writes. "They're panicking, I genuinely think they might cry. I'm worried. Are you free at 1?"
I say I am. At 1, I get lunch and sit in the common area; Ceri comes to see me. To my personal shame, imagine all of the following takes place while I stuff my face with potato.
Now: this part is going to be uncomfortably familiar to anyone who has ever tried higher education with ADHD, especially unmedicated. It certainly was for me. All I can say is, I never had the courage to take the step here that Ceri did.
"I have to confess," they said quietly, and Aeron was right, they were fighting back tears. "My mental health has been so, so bad for the last fortnight. I've left it way, way too late. I don't have anything to present."
"Nothing at all?" I asked.
"I've been researching," they said helplessly. "I found loads on the decline of the hen harrier. But it wasn't until last night that I finally found a habitat feasibility study to critique. Generally... I've been burying my head about it, and it just got later and later. I thought I should come in for Aeron's lecture, and I should at least tell you."
This part is a minor thing, right? But honestly, I remember being in the grip of that particular shame spiral. I never did manage to tell my lecturers to their faces. I just avoided. I honestly can't imagine having the courage it took them to come in and tell me this, rather than just staying home and avoiding me.
"I think..." they said hesitantly, "I know I can submit up to a week late, for a capped mark. I think I need to do that, and apply for extenuating circumstances. But then I'll have both Aeron's assignment and yours due at the same time."
Which meant they would crumble under the pressure and likely struggle to pass both; so me, being as noble and heroic as I unarguably am, stopped eating potato and said, "Let's make that plan B."
(It was good potato. I am a hero.)
So, we made plan A: I moved their timeslot to 4.30, giving them three and a half hours. The shining piece of luck in this whole thing was that this was the crunch time assignment - if it had been Aeron's, they'd have had to try and write a 3000 report in that time. But for me, all they had to write was an academic poster, and those things are light on words by design. We found them a Canva template, and then we quickly sketched out a recommended structure based on the brief: if it's habitat feasibility, look at food availability, nesting site availability, and mortality risks in the target release site. Bullet point each. Bullet point how well the study assessed each. Write a quick intro and conclusion. Take notes as you go, and present the poster itself at 4.30.
"You think I should try?" they asked doubtfully, looking like I'd just asked them to go mano-a-mano with a feral badger.
"If you run out of time, so be it," I said. "But your brain is trying to protect you from a non-existent tiger. That's why you've procrastinated - it's been horrible, and you've been shame spiralling, and your brain is trying to shield you from the negative experience; but it's the wrong type of help for this situation! So while you're sitting there working on it, hating life, every time your brain goes 'This is hopeless, I can't do it', you think right back 'Yes I can, it just sucks.' And you carry on. Good?"
"Good," they said. "I'm going to mainline coffee and hole up in the library. Enjoy your potato."
And then, of course, I had to go and watch the other students' presentations, so that was the end of me being any help at all. I spent all afternoon wondering if they were going to manage it, or if I would be getting a message at 4.25 telling me they'd failed, and would have to submit late and hope for an EC.
And Tumblrs
Tumblrs
Let me FUCKING tell you
They turned up at 4.15, fifteen minutes early, wearing a mask of grim, harrowed determination and fuelled by spite and coffee, and they pulled up that poster and started presenting and yes, okay, I'll admit their actual delivery was dramatically unpolished and yes, they forgot to include the taxanomic name for the hen harrier on the poster and yes, fine, I admit that there were more than a few awkward moments where they lost their place in their hastily scribbled notebook but LET ME FUCKING TELL YOU -
They smashed it. It was well-critiqued, it had a map, it had full citations, it had a section on the hen harrier's specific ecology and role in the ecosystem, it had notes on their specific conservation measures. They described case studies they'd read about elsewhere. They answered the questions we threw at them with competence and depth. There was analysis. All that background research they'd done came right to the fore. They were even within the time limit by 15 seconds.
You would never have known they'd produced it in three hours, from a quivering and terrified mess fighting the bodily urge to dehydrate via tear ducts. After they left, the second marker and I looked at each other and went "So that was a 2:1, right?"
I caught up with Aeron downstairs and he was beaming. Apparently Ceri had seen him on their way out, and had gone over to talk to him. Aeron said the difference between the Ceri of this morning and the Ceri of then was like two different people; in four hours, they'd gone from their voice literally breaking as they admitted the problem, ashamed and broken, to being relaxed and happy and smiling.
"I reckon I've passed," they apparently told Aeron, pleased. "Maybe even a 2:2. There's things I wish I'd had the time to do better, but I'll be happy if I passed."
They won't know until late January what they got, because we're not allowed to release marks until 20 term days after hand-in, and the Christmas holidays are about to hit. But I'm really hoping I can be there when they're released.
But mostly, I'm just... insanely proud of them. I cannot tell you how happy I am. And I know, I know, obviously this is not a practice I would want to see them do regularly, or indeed ever again, and it only worked because they were fucking lucky with the assignment format, but like... when life is just punching you in the face, and you hit a breaking point... isn't it nice? That just this once, you pull off a miracle, and it's fixed? The disaster you thought was about to ruin you is gone? To get that relief?
upon reviewing the notes I'm changing my position. games must be <50GB. no more mandatory 8k uncompressed textures!!! I don't believe in 8k I think it's fake
to be clear games really ought to be around 20 gigs or less. but I think in the spirit of generosity and mercy we won't criminally prosecute the developers until the file sizes breaks 50
just looked it up. holy fuck. they did it by de-duplicating assets. I'm just. my jaw is on the floor. supposedly duplicating assets helps load times on HDDs but. holy fuck at what cost
it's worse than that: The Helldivers devs were told that duplicating assets would help HDD load times, but then they actually tested it and it had basically zero effect on load times!
So they had more than sextupled the size of their game by following industry standard practice that actually did basically nothing!
romaincrisis
pixelskylines
izzy806
theartofmadeline
snowghoul
gamechangershow
2087
