Random Rants ΠΕ': You're standing on my neck.
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civvver
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Oh NO! I am going skiing all weekend up north! I hope you can hit the slopes again soon. Though I'm a very novice skier, so I do only the slowest blue hills, I think I'll be ok.
Friday was the worst day at work, one of those days where you're extremely busy but don't actually accomplish anything. I basically cleaned up everyone else's messes for 10 hours straight. Like how hard is it to choose the right file set to deploy to the server, or update the build version numbers in issue tracking correctly?!?
Where are you going? Depending on where "up north", could be the same place I was.
I can do all blues and the easier blacks. Though I probably won't ski again until next November or December.
hobbsyoyo
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First World Rant:
My university had a three letter acronym from the 60's to about 2010. It was UMR - University of Missouri at Rolla. It is not a famous school, but it has regional recognition and everyone knew it by UMR. The school has ambitions (like they all do) of being the next MIT. They literally tried to rename the school MIT at one point (Missouri Institute of Technology) and were rebuffed when they found a welding school in St. Louis already went by that acronym, much less you know, the MIT.
On top of the national brand recognition they sought, they were trying to fix a practical problem. UMR is separate institution from the University of Missouri, commonly known as Mizzou. They are in the same umbrella of state universities but are run separately. The issue that this caused is that grant funds would often be sent to University of Missouri (Mizzou) instead of the University of Missouri at Rolla and this would cause serious headaches at both schools but especially at UMR as it always meant a delay in receipt of funding.
You would think there would be some sort of bureaucratic solution to this, but since the school already thought a name change was in order they instead undertook one of the best destructions of institutional branding I've ever seen.
They settled on Missouri University of Science & Technology, which they styled as MS&T. The problem is that no one in the midwest had heard of MS&T, you preemptively spell it out for them. This leads to them naturally assuming it's called MUST. Oh and unless you tell them the school used to be UMR, they will think you went to some niche prep school or whatever. Out where I live now, they don't even know what UMR was so they tend to stick with MUST. Nowhere does anyone use MS&T and big chunks of the midwest still refer to it as UMR. But because there is no more advertising around UMR, the brand of the school has seriously faded.
The thing is that I didn't like the school to begin with and now that people call it MUST, I wish I had gone to some other 2nd-tier school!
My university had a three letter acronym from the 60's to about 2010. It was UMR - University of Missouri at Rolla. It is not a famous school, but it has regional recognition and everyone knew it by UMR. The school has ambitions (like they all do) of being the next MIT. They literally tried to rename the school MIT at one point (Missouri Institute of Technology) and were rebuffed when they found a welding school in St. Louis already went by that acronym, much less you know, the MIT.
On top of the national brand recognition they sought, they were trying to fix a practical problem. UMR is separate institution from the University of Missouri, commonly known as Mizzou. They are in the same umbrella of state universities but are run separately. The issue that this caused is that grant funds would often be sent to University of Missouri (Mizzou) instead of the University of Missouri at Rolla and this would cause serious headaches at both schools but especially at UMR as it always meant a delay in receipt of funding.
You would think there would be some sort of bureaucratic solution to this, but since the school already thought a name change was in order they instead undertook one of the best destructions of institutional branding I've ever seen.
They settled on Missouri University of Science & Technology, which they styled as MS&T. The problem is that no one in the midwest had heard of MS&T, you preemptively spell it out for them. This leads to them naturally assuming it's called MUST. Oh and unless you tell them the school used to be UMR, they will think you went to some niche prep school or whatever. Out where I live now, they don't even know what UMR was so they tend to stick with MUST. Nowhere does anyone use MS&T and big chunks of the midwest still refer to it as UMR. But because there is no more advertising around UMR, the brand of the school has seriously faded.
The thing is that I didn't like the school to begin with and now that people call it MUST, I wish I had gone to some other 2nd-tier school!
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Synobun
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Received a debt collection letter in the mail to the tune of $700 from a company I haven't interacted with in over six years... and that I don't owe any money to.
Statute of limitations in BC is six years. But just in case, I checked my credit report. No collections. Get outta here.
They just called me and it was automatically blocked by my provider. Seconds later, another call, this time from a bank (that I don't have an account with), also automatically blocked.
They're committed to the scam, I guess.
Statute of limitations in BC is six years. But just in case, I checked my credit report. No collections. Get outta here.
They just called me and it was automatically blocked by my provider. Seconds later, another call, this time from a bank (that I don't have an account with), also automatically blocked.
They're committed to the scam, I guess.
hobbsyoyo
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In the US there are whole markets for expired debt that people buy up for pennies on the dollar. Here, there are few regulations stopping someone from attempting to collect a debt, even an expired one. So they proactively look for people who can be bullied or convinced that they still owe. It usually doesn't work but it works enough that the cycle continues. This is the sort of the thing the CFPB (Warren's brainchild) geared up to fight before the GOP drown it in Reagan's metaphorical bathtub.
GenMarshall
High Elven ISB Capt & Ghost Agent
In a nutshell, I fell into the alt-right rabbit hole a few years back and only recently gotten out of it through intervention.
I wish I could tell my story and have an ask a thread, but I feel that I’m not ready because I’m still recovering.
aimeeandbeatles
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I had (note past tense) a friend who was alt-right/anti-sjw. It was kind of easy to see how someone could get sucked into that mindset. Bit scaryvreally.
It seems like it is nearly exclusive to young white males and there should be a research paper or something on why exactly that is and how to combat it. Beyond generalizations like patriarchy, more specific.
JohannaK
Heroically Clueless
High-stress situations at 1AM when you want to get some sleep.
GenMarshall
High Elven ISB Capt & Ghost Agent
aimeeandbeatles
watermelon
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Or for the week, according to one very sleep-deprived aimeeandbeatles...As one Civ3 advisor once said: “Sleep is for the weak”.
Luckily there's people such as Narendra Modi who can tell you how it's not a privilege of white male westerners.
Morty
Prince
There's a name I haven't heard in ages - had a pen-friend many, many years ago who studied there...hmmmm...old memories!!
Manfred Belheim
Moaner Lisa
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Pen friends! What a charming old notion, where you actively sought out strangers from far away in order to converse with them, make a connection, and maybe even a new friend (the clue being in the name I suppose). Replaced by Twitter which... doesn't quite operate the same way.
Morty
Prince
Told you it was a long time ago!! Certainly pre-Twitter!!
Certainly pre-Twitter!!
Timsup2nothin
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I tried to pick the most workable time I could find. And at least you spaced a Klingon. Worse things have happened.
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