Game listing: https://startplaying.games/adventure/clicpcvni000408jr2kskgh88
About the adventure:
It is the 23rd century and humanity spans the galaxy, however humanity has also learned that they are not alone among the stars...
Starship Troopers: The Roleplaying Game "The Pluto Campaign" will cover the signing up, training, and eventual launch of a squad of mobile infantry into a campaign against a new and never before seen enemy, the Arachnid Empire or as they are more commonly called "The Bugs." In cannon this will take place a number of years prior to the events of the book and the movie.
The story will be told in three relative acts:

1. Finishing high school and signing up for military service. (Intro to the setting)
2. Basic Training (Learning how to be a mobile infantryman)
3. The Pluto Campaign to retake the planet from and unknow and new enemy. (Spoiler: It's The Bugs.) (Fight for your lives)

Remember civilians, service guarantees citizenship!
Would you like to enlist?
I will provide all the needed rulebooks and custom tokens for each player as well as one on one guidance with the system, setting and roll20 as needed. I have designed a custom character sheet for use in roll20 that will handle all of the rolling and macro generation for the game.
If you have any questions or would like to know more do not hesitate to reach out to me on Discord! DerWolf#0001

Hi Everyone,
I know this is long, but I want to include enough information of the situation for advice.
I’ve been currently working with my employer for slightly over 3 years. Over that time for 2 years and 8 months. I was not really engaged at work, never really spoke to anyone, kept to myself and just did enough to not be fired, thinking “maybe I don’t know what I’m doing after all, everyone else is smarter than me”. Even though at my previous employer in my native country everyone was impressed with my work and up to this day, still calls for my opinion and advice.
Over the last 6 months I got involved with a coworker on a project, he showed me the ropes and encouraged me to ask questions no matter how stupid they may seem and gave advice of how to go about interacting with mid management and executive. So I did, after which we also formed a friend relationship where I would discuss my personal life with him, him with me, and he even helped me plan and called in favors for discounts and free services for my engagement to my partner who moved here with me.
My engagement at work has seen a dramatic increase, even earning glowing comments from my manager and department manager very recently about my performance, increased engagement and intellectual curiosity since the last couple of weeks has seen me be more outspoken, I even told them this week about my engagement. This increase also earned praise from some coworkers to executive and other mid management this week as well. I now have workers from other departments contacting me for assistance with their projects and my opinions.
This week my coworker friend said to me, “you are a good guy, I like you, why haven’t you been like this the entire time you’ve been here?”
Background
I explained to him that my first week of working there a senior lead gave me an assignment. At that point I did not know that some technical terms meant different things and that we also had another word for the same thing in the US since the University I attended and in my native country everything is based on British instruction. My knowledge of the US up to that point is colour is spelt color, programme is spelt program, be aware that racism exists, etc. No idea terms for processes and technical things were different.
So I did the work based on what I knew, submitted it, and immediately he said it was wrong, so I asked what he meant and he commented “how don’t you know what X is? Weren’t you taught this at college? I said yes, and repeated what he asked me to do and said X term means Y and explained that I know some words are spelt differently in American English vs British English and since I realized I was wrong based on that if that was the case. He started to look annoyed and the look on his face told me he thought I was dumb. He did not correct me but instead told me to go figure it out. So after some googling (for days) trying to figure out how it is measured I discovered it and made note of it for future reference. I did the work and submitted (8 days later), which at the time if I was corrected and made to understand, it could have been done in 4 hours. After which a few weeks later he uninvited me from a weekly important project meeting saying “you don’t necessarily to be here, it’s almost done and you’re really just here to learn” he never gave me an assignment again and I spent the rest of the time bouncing from project to project, assignment to assignment in a disjointed fashion, since my manager really was trying to find work for me to do and I hadn’t found my footing.
Some time later the lead made a comment to me when I was trying to be friendly that he thought was funny.... “I can’t wait for your accent to change when you’ve been here for a while”. I did NOT think that was funny, it felt insulting, discriminatory, and degrading.
Since that comment, I remained silent, it was only 2 months at that point and it made me terrified to talk to anyone to make work friends. I did not speak up in meetings, developed a stutter and sought therapy because of constant anxiety attacks that I was not wanted. But I just spent thousands of dollars from my savings moving, bought a new car (since I knew I needed one in the US and there is no public transport option to my job) and I needed the money to pay for my cost of living. I then also began a plan to quit in 4 years after I became financially stable and was almost to the point I could pay off the car and move to another state where I have family.
Present Day
Fast forward to now, the coworker I made friends with went out of his way to make sure I understood, gave me the lead way to do whatever I needed to do to get the assignment done, encouraged me to ask questions and established a twice a week check in. That encouraged me to speak up at meetings knowing he had my back, say the things I wanted to work on and gave me back my intellectual confidence I had in my native country where I worked on projects that required a high degree of proficiency.
I even surprised my coworker with what I can do once I regained my intellectual confidence, to the point he was shocked at my level of analysis for the task at hand and my rational for each part of my process for the assignment he asked me to lead, even stating this is a lot of detail we don’t need to do that, but this is nice and useful for other projects.
I’m now to the point that my manager mentioned to me that he is looking into promoting me, which would result in an automatic 25k base pay increase to be at the bottom of that position pay scale and still be eligible for the regular pay increase later this year, because of the improvement he saw during my mid year performance check in. This increase would definitely make me financially comfortable and now I no longer have plans of leaving.
So the question now becomes...do I tell my manager even though it happened 3 years ago? Part of me says I should since if he’s done it to me he’s done it to others, another part of me says I should let sleeping dogs lie since the individual retires in 5 months.

What is Rock, Paper, Shotgun?
Rock, Paper, Shotgun (RPS) is a PC-gaming focused site based in the UK that was started in 2007. It has the usual gaming site content – Top 5/10/50/100 lists, publisher or developer press releases dressed up as news, reviews, previews, press event reports, a podcast, and – important to this story – a comment section below articles where gamers and capital-G Gamers, left-wing and right-wing alike, can find unity in complaining that their favourite was inappropriately placed in the aforementioned Top 5/10/50/100 lists.
(Fun fact: one of the co-founders of RPS was Kieron Gillen, who has since worked on Uncanny X-Men, Young Avengers, Marvel’s Darth Vader, and co-created Doctor Aphra.)
Of note, RPS bucks the generally apolitical nature of gaming sites by being quite openly left-wing. Though it generally isn’t a feature of many articles, it does show up on occasion, and not always in the best light. For instance, this article that has an unusual bone to pick with Rainbow Six Siege having a female hostage in the E3 demo. Despite Tom Clancy himself having a reputation as a conservative, and that’s pretty evident in his fiction, the Rainbow Six series has been unusually progressive in having women fighting terrorists alongside the men since the inception, and Siege was no exception. It was actually quite rare in the ‘90s that a woman not named Lara Croft was involved in the action alongside the boys, so it does seem like an article about Rainbow Six’s treatment of women is more about having a bone to pick.
(Editorial note: I do not believe a person’s identity is political. Some people do. There’s a saying that applies to capital-G Gamers – “There are two genders: male and political.” Often when they decry keeping politics out of video games, it’s directed at any sort of inclusion. So, the political slant on this is just to point out that left-wing people are generally pro-trans and right-wing people are generally not. Spoiler alert, this is a discussion about trans people.)
What is wargaming?
Within gaming, there are genres. Wargaming is one of them, and quite niche. Within the genre, there’s a diverse spectrum of passion. Some would consider themselves wargaming fans if they played and liked the Total War series. More hardcore wargamers would vehemently disagree and look down their nose at a game that has giant men standing on a world map; in their minds, wargaming is the domain of the chit and NATO symbology – a whole other language where a rectangular with an X through it represents an infantry unit, and the number of Xs or Is above the rectangle represents its size from XXXXX being army group, XX being division, II as battalion or I as company. (Give me hexes or give me death!) But in general, it’s operational (think the Italian campaign of WWII), strategic (the invasion of Sicily the Allies), or tactical (taking a specific town in Sicily with a regiment), and generally turn-based but occasionally real-time. You won’t find Age Of Empires in this genre, for instance.
Wargaming is not exclusive to the digital space either, and it’s just as likely to be played around an enormous table with intricate landscapes, pushing 8mm, 15mm or bigger pieces, usually hand-painted, and rolling dice. They’ll have a hefty rulebook in hand to consult how many dice you roll and what sort of success you need in order for your British mortar team to successfully knock out the German machine gun nest on the rooftop. Warhammer 40K is the most famous example, but that’s a single guy per base; the deeper wargames have a single base representing a squad or platoon stuck together to move as a group.
(The more hardcore have taken on the moniker grognards, a reference to old soldiers and specifically the original Imperial Guard that fought under Napoleon at Waterloo.)
What’s The Flare Path?
Among the contributors to RPS was one named Tim Stone, who started writing for the site as soon as it was founded. (I cannot use anonymity, so the usual sub rules apply about leaving people alone; Tim’s still writing and in order to engage with this drama, we have to link articles that clearly have his name on them.) There’s a distinction between staff and contributors; staff were full-time employees of the business, whereas contributors are just freelancers who pop in and out. He was not a run-of-the-mill writer who would guzzy up press releases, Tim only had one ongoing feature called The Flare Path with a supplemental Friday Foxer. Though he started out doing little comics under the title Strafe Left, he moved on to reviews and features before creating the regular feature The Flare Path in 2011.
The title The Flare Path is a reference to the lights that outline runways, allowing aircraft to take off or land at night. And that is a pretty good summation of the feature, because Tim’s focus was exclusively on wargaming and simulations, which could mean directing squadrons of aircraft to take off for a mission, or yourself piloting a plane to a gentle landing guided by the flare path. Every Friday, you would just as likely find an article about a game where you drive a train in rural England as you would a wargame where you command Roman legions in that very same countryside. Among the regular features were A2Z articles, where Tim would have short snippets for each letter of the alphabet, with Q often necessarily “Quick tea break” due to the infrequency of that letter showing up. For instance, a new ARMA game might be A, then teasing a review of Battle Brothers is B, and so on, just a fun way to wrap up a lot of short bits of news that don’t have enough meat for a full article.
Another article type would see Tim break out of his usual Friday containment and run communal games, typically Combat Mission. Combat Mission is a WWII/Cold War turn-based tactics game where you’d queue up orders to your units that would then be executed for 60 seconds, during which the other side would be executing their own orders and you’d simply have to watch how your planning and preparation plays out. And it turns out, this is surprisingly adaptable to a group game – Tim would grid the map, lay out a scenario, identify the units and the objectives, and then people would comment below the article to give instructions. You could only move one unit in a turn and you had to be the first to claim that unit, but you’d say, for example, “I’d like to move 1st Squad to H3 and try to suppress the machine gun,” and Tim would take your comment and play it out. The next day, he’d do a little narrative report on who did what, where, and when, and what the enemy did in response, in a fun narrative way, even naming characters who pulled off particularly heroic or cowardly feats. Then he’d update the map, and the next turn begins.
Alongside his regular article, he’d also post a Friday Foxer. He’d have a variety of different games in the Foxer genre, and often rewarded correct answers with prizes – usually codes for games that developers gave him. One type was giving clues to a location and the readers would have to deduce where Tim was “standing” that fit all the criteria. Others were Catchphrase-like messages hidden in images that you’d need to decode, or a series of seemingly-unrelated images which had a theme that you’d need to identify.
I go on these tangents to emphasize that Tim had built himself a little community on RPS. While contributors did reply to reader comments in articles, Tim was often playing a game with readers, which endeared him to some people. Not only that, if you were interested in wargaming or simulations, any article on RPS about those genres was typically Tim’s domain. For a certain group, Tim was the only regular source of news on two niche genres, and the only reason to read RPS if the newest action game or looter-shooter didn’t appeal to you. There was and (spoilers) is nothing like The Flare Path and the Foxers on RPS, as far as actual engagement with the article itself through community wargames or puzzles.
Equally important, wargaming itself is niche enough that there are few others who do what Tim does. Wargaming.net is actually the name of the company who makes World Of Tanks, World Of Warships and others – ironically, none of which would qualify as wargames and would barely pass musters as simulations either. Wargamer has infrequent articles. The best podcast on the subject is Three Moves Ahead (which originally launched as the podcast for the now-defunct Flash Of Steel website), but the podcast is infrequent as well, is primarily focused on a single game per episode (though with comparisons made by the host or guests to other games), and has a bit too much focus on Total War or every single new Paradox DLC for Crusader Kings at the exclusion of more niche titles.
On a weekly schedule, Tim became a stable pair of hands, and was directing his community to support all sorts of up-and-comers who were otherwise ignored or neglected or just invisible to wider gaming press.
I also want to point out that there’s an often-unspoken ethical question at the core of wargaming as a hobby. To his credit, Tim often wrote about it, and would even avoid wargaming topics as a matter of sensitivity to significant dates. As players in this hobby, we are moving chits around that represent thousands of people and though nobody obviously dies, wargaming frequently deals with historical events and it’s something we need to be aware of. Tim would frequently muse in his articles or bring it up in interviews with developers – to paraphrase, what we’re doing for “fun” is essentially turning some very dark times in human history into entertainment, and to what extent should we be aware of that? Should we want to simulate “playing” as Germany to conquer Europe, which in the real world resulted in tens of millions of innocent and not-so-innocent people dying? It’s a tough conversation to have and Tim chose to engage with it, which probably put him offside with some of his readers, because it’s a topic that actually genuinely is bringing politics into gaming, unlike a lot of the gaming discourse.
A journalist is booted off a fictional radio for being a bit TERFy, resulting in a journalist being booted off a website for being a bit TERFy.
The inciting incident for this drama is an article posted in 2020 about a UK journalist who was one of several used by game developer Ubisoft to provide voiceovers for the video game Watch Dogs Legion. In the article, it is revealed that this journalist had in the past posted a 2017 The Times article titled “A man can’t just say he has turned into a woman.”
What is TERF? Trans-Exclusionary Radical Feminist, which probably spiked the Google charts more recently with The Author Who Shall Not Be Named. I will add this disclaimer, I am inferring things about Tim when I call him a TERF, and maybe I’m giving too much credit. I don’t know if Tim Stone is a feminist, so I’m giving the benefit of the doubt, and I wear that. The author of The Times article is a self-proclaimed feminist, and does claim to support trans right, but according to the RPS article, “(She) uses familiar hand-wringing about biological sex, transgender identification as a trend, and people with penises in women's changing rooms.” I’ll leave it up to your judgement whether you think either is an actual TERF or not.
In an unusual move, one Tim Stone showed up in the comments of the above article, and that’s the meat of this drama.
The Alamo but with TERFs.
The comments, as you can imagine, were completely chill since obviously “censoring” a “journalist” in a “video game” for “anti-trans views” outside of the game itself is just the perfect intersection of everything political on an internet forum possible. (The voiceover in the game was scripted by Ubisoft and was itself not an issue; they were choosing to remove the voiceover to remove association with the journalist based on their views.)
One user wrote:

there are diverse voices within RPS when it comes to games, genres, preferences etc but I would say (and i’d be prepared to be challenged on this) there is zero diversity in respect of political views and arguable groupthink and alignment particularly around trans issues.

To which Tim opined:

There's at least one regular RPS contributor who'd like to see the site show a little more respect for the gender critical position in the trans rights debate. Me.

He proceeded to link several articles, saying,

I agree with all those arguing for more constructive discussion and less name-calling in this debate.

And we’re off to the races.
One commenter wrote:

never mind 'gender critical' being an obvious dogwhistle, it boggles the mind that you think "trans rights debate" is an acceptable string of words in 2020
trans rights are human rights, this shit isn't a debate

And significantly, it wasn’t just site users who were chiming in. Another writer for RPS came in guns blazing:

The "gender critical position" is tired snivelling cowardice hiding behind Very Real Concerns while throwing shit at the people whose lives are routinely treated like an intellectual excercise. [sic]
I am frankly embarrassed [sic] to see you repeating such dogwhistling bullshit. The obviously lying "I am cancelling my subscription!!!" oafs in here are one thing, but this is just sad.

What the writer was alluding to was the typical capital-G Gamer response to anything political (and often something is only “political” if they don’t like it), namely “Get your politics out of my video games.” Often the corollary of that was “..or I’m getting out of your website.”
The inciting article is itself tame. Incredibly tame. As referenced earlier, it has the usual games journalism scent of just dressing up a press release. At the most judgemental, they referenced that the voiceover-providing journalist had “some pretty ugly opinions about transgender people” and “that’s decidedly not neat,” which is just the lovely understatement you get from British people. “This is a bit bothersome” was, I believe, repeatedly uttered during the Blitz.
I won’t bore with copying over more comments, but it gets quite heated – although Tim seems to remain quite collected in the comments, which does have an air that he isn’t aware of what kind of hornet’s nest he’s kicked. The most noteworthy exchange is between a user and Tim, where the user writes:

It is distressing that you think my rights as a trans person are subject to some sort of "trans rights debate," and that "gender critical" is anything but a dog whistle for the same transphobic rhetoric as I've always been subject to, but now behind a veneer of intellectualism and civil discourse.
This isn't a matter of left and right, it's a matter of respect for other human beings. Good to know at least one RPS writer has none for me.

And Tim’s response:

I have profound respect for you and your life choices.
I also believe that questions like "Should trans women be allowed to compete in female sports?" and "Should male-bodied trans women be housed in womens' prisons?" are worthy of debate.
To forbid all debate on "trans rights" and to seek to silence and cancel people who don't unquestioningly support one side of the argument seems horribly totalitarian to me.

If you were to take an unfriendly view of Tim, this might be it – calling a person’s transition a “life choice”, and then putting the question of trans rights up for debate, calling the desire not to debate someone’s human rights “totalitarian.”
In all, Tim would comment eight times, with his last being:

Some proposed trans rights clash with women's rights in certain areas. It is not bigoted to point this out or advocate debate so that compromises can be reached.

Overrunning the drop zone.
Five days later, the RPS Twitter account posts this tweet.

Trans rights are human rights. We strive to create an inclusive space for all people. Earlier this week, a freelancer used the RPS comments section to express views that failed in that goal. We will no longer be working with this freelancer or publishing their column.

And just like that, the flares are snuffed and Tim’s time at RPS comes to an abrupt end after 13 years of service.
The responses, I’m sure you can imagine, are the usual volleys from the usual battle lines. Left-wing and trans rights people are chuffed to bits, believing that an insidious TERF has been weeded out from RPS. They view his comments about bathrooms and sports as the usual dogwhistle, typical of the alt-right where the goal is to draw increasingly smaller circles to exclude trans people from one thing after another until they ultimately cannot exist in society. Gamers with a right-wing focus and wargamers (and those are not mutually exclusive) try to cancel culture RPS, many declaring that they’d never return to the site for this grave injustice. And for wargamers, that’s pretty easy; Tim was the only one catering to their genre appetite, and there literally was no reason to return without Tim. The most vanilla response was those who didn’t care about the comment section conflict at all and just wanted their dang wargaming news.
(The wargaming audience was not exclusively on the right-wing - the creator of one of the biggest wargaming podcasts showed up in the comments too, and took a distinctly anti-Tim and pro-trans stance.)
The last (spoilers, not really) article posted by Tim was a typical A2Z column, and became somewhat of a shrine to him. Of note, the very user to whom Tim gave his perhaps most damning response showed up:

Please don't assume Tim is a TERF. I was involved, and indeed in lots of was responsible for what happened on the other forum which i am devastated by.
I am trans and Tim replied in support of a view that i expressed! He shared some views and links to articles (including one from a trans blogger) that many people (including many trans people) would agree with. And even if they didn't, and Alison below articulates the position better than i could, its not like he went on an alt right tirade. This is a reasonable person making reasonable views very politely and and commenter whether they agreed with those or not has gained nothing from what happened subsequently, and we have all collectively lost something.

Flare Path fans were somewhat split. The most mild responses were critical of RPS for how they booted Tim out the door without a second chance; some were concerned that it’s not a great way to win allies and convince people. Throw in the usual snippets: “cancel culture” and references to “The Inquisition”, and a number of people saying their farewells to RPS. In an odd way – and I did it myself by calling this a shrine – the comment section really does feel like the man died, with some outright coming to, quote, “pay their respects”.
Of particular note, a user named hms_pepperpot shows up, and it looks like it’s Tim. I have no evidence to the contrary and the phrasing is close enough that I’m willing to believe it. But wait, Tim was posting as Tim Stone in the inflamed comment section, right? Yep, the divorce was so swift and decisive that they even blocked his access to his old username, or deleted it entirely – either way, he was in the comments to say goodbye under an alias.

Leaving RPS without being able to say a proper goodbye to you, the readers who have made my job such a joy this past thirteen years, has been one of the most depressing aspects of the last few days. Your enthusiasm was as important to The Flare Path's modest success as the complete creative freedom Graham afforded me. Thank you for making possible the happiest years of my working life.
While the Flare Path name is destined for the scrap heap, the concept and spirit of the column will hopefully live on. I'm planning to pick up pretty much where I left off early in the new year. An article devoted to the FP game jam entries will be amongst the first pieces I post. Of course, there will be foxers too.
To readers hurt by my words last weekend, all I can say is a heartfelt sorry - I didn't set out to wound and have no wish whatsoever to make the lives of trans people more difficult. To readers baffled by the comments that ended up costing me my job, I strongly recommend reading a thoughtful essay written by Sam Smethers, the CEO of respected British women's rights charity The Fawcett Society. Google 'Sex and Gender Indentity: Finding a Way Forward' and you should find it.
See you in 2021 I hope. Tim.

Of note, HMS Pepperpot is a reference to warship HMS Penelope. With Tim’s penchant for riddles and puzzles, it is not likely a coincidence that:

On wartime service with Force K, she was holed so many times by bomb fragments that she acquired the nickname "HMS Pepperpot".

Though Tim had some in agreement with his views in the inciting comment section, he was undoubtedly outnumbered and taking a lot of flak.
Napoleon’s exile on Elba.
Some time later, Tim would resurface on a new site of his own creation, Tally-Ho Corner. Very much The Flare Path with a new coat of paint, he would carry on with his regular columns on a weekly basis. The Foxers returned, as did A2Z and communal wargaming. RPS, for their part, did not seem to fight to keep the column to themselves. There was a small exodus as RPS had once been a PC gaming site with a wargaming/simulation column, to just a PC gaming site. Those with only an interest in those genres left; there was nothing for them anymore. An unknown number followed Tim to his new endeavour and made themselves known over there. Striking out on his own has costs, however, and Tim sells membership and banner space to those who wish to help out. He has made follow-up requests since Tally-Ho Corner started which would indicate that it isn’t a profitable venture; he says he only wants enough to support the site, and seems to be happy to continue for the love of the hobby. He has alluded to the site not breaking even, so you can infer from that what you want about the size of the Flare Path exodus. Like I said, it’s a very niche hobby, so even 100% of Flare Path readers might not constitute a large number. One of the posts with the most engagements is a community vote on the best PC wargames; two years old, it has 144 comments and a closed comment section, so you could probably extrapolate a rough guess on readers versus commenters to see how popular the site is.
Tim would make the occasional comment about his past misadventure, but generally seemed to just carry on. Others would fight for or against him in other corners of the internet, but publicly, Tim seemed done with the whole thing and happy to just get back to writing about games.
The most blatant reference was an A2Z at the start of this year. No longer than any other entry (remember, he’s filling out 26 entries in a week, they’re usually just snippets), the entry “P is for Pointless provocation” in its entirety:

If, after my bruising departure from RPS in 2020, I had decided to start work on a “cathartic” retro FPS about gunning down dogmatic ‘trans allies’, I hope someone – a friend, colleague, or family member – would have taken me to one side and said “Tim, WTF are you doing?”. Unfortunately, no-one seems to have urged Norwegian coder Sandra Moen to think again. If they had perhaps the nasty Terfenstein 3D wouldn’t have made it onto Steam.

Tim’s back, baby! But it’s not him! But it is!
In a strange, quite dickish move, an RPS writer recycled an old Flare Path to come up with “The 25 best simulation games on PC”, with the writer credited… even though it was copied from Tim’s 2015 article. Tim called it out in an A2Z, as “H is for Hire a new sim correspondent, you cheapskates”, and that really sums it up – they were not rewriting the list, rearranging it, or updating it, they were literally copying the original list over and slapping a new author’s name on it.
If you click the above link, you’ll see that the article now has Tim as the author, changed retroactively (again). That in itself added a new element of drama, as readers who showed up after the edit were surprised by a new article from Mr Flare Path himself. Though it says “updated” in 2022, the giveaway is that the comments are predominantly from 7 years ago, when it was originally posted. One commenter, who I’ll take at their word, seemed to be witnessing the Stalin-esque rewriting of history in real time:

Wow, I just saw that Tim Stone's name has been removed. He was there as author when I first saw it this morning, with a note about it being updated by someone else. Now his name has been fully removed as the original author. I don't know what to say, but it feels icky to rewrite history like that, very 1984.
Update - now it says article by Holly, Additional Contributions by Tim Stone. Still not accurate (seems to be the reverse or reality) but at least the original author's name is in there somewhere again.

(Not calling anyone over there a tyrant or communist or anything, merely referencing that infamous photo where people are removed one by one as they fall afoul of the Stalin regime. In this instance, taking Tim’s work and crediting to someone else, then crediting Tim in addition to the new writer, then finally just calling it a Tim article.)
People noticed that the “updated” tag was the last attempt to hide in plain sight, since there was nothing updated about the list. It was identical to the one posted by Tim in 2015. And the clue was that, according to RPS, no simulation game had managed to crack the list since 2015; the “youngest” game on the list was 7 years old (now 8), a title shared by Farming Simulator 15 and Train Simulator 15.
15, of course, being the year both games released and the year Tim wrote the list.
An odd move to dig up the bones of the past, both the article and Tim’s involvement with RPS, for a single cheap parlour trick. Needless to say, if you search for Tim Stone contributions on RPS now, his “shrine” – a pretty typical A2Z Flare Path – is not his most recent contribution to the site. Instead, it’s “The 25 best simulation games on PC” from 8 years ago.
Fittingly, in the comment section below, the most recent post is by someone seemingly oblivious to the drama surrounding Tim Stone, RPS and trans rights. They’re instead complaining that two other motor racing games were left off the list. And really, there’s probably no better tribute to the community.

In-Vehicle Payment Services Market Comprehensive Study is an expert and top to bottom investigation on the momentum condition of the Global In-Vehicle Payment Services industry with an attention on the Global market. The report gives key insights available status of the Global In-Vehicle Payment Services producers and is an important wellspring of direction and course for organizations and people keen on the business. By and large, the report gives an inside and out understanding of 2021-2027 worldwide In-Vehicle Payment Services Market covering extremely significant parameters.
Some key Players in This Report Include:
Alphabet Inc. (United States)
Audi AG (Germany)
BMW AG (Germany)
Daimler AG (Germany)
Ford Motor Company
General Motors Company (United States)
Honda Motor Co. Ltd. (Japan)
Hyundai Motor Corporation (South Korea)
IBM Corporation (United States)
Mastercard Inc. (United States)
The global In-Vehicle Payment Services market is expected to witness high demand in the forecasted period due to the rising popularity of autonomous vehicles across the globe. The automotive in-vehicle payment system enables drivers to pay for goods and services including refilling at a gas station, movie tickets, toll tickets, smart parking, order ahead for pickup, and also share their location with their families. In-car payment systems are one of the most prominent Human-Machine-Interface trends in the mobility industry with rapid growth in autonomous and connected vehicles. In addition, 5G and improved Wi-Fi connectivity are also expected to increase the adoption of in-car payment systems. Internet Service Providers (ISPs) will also be a critical factor that will contribute towards the growth of the in-car payment systems.
Market Trends: Autonomous vehicles are enabled with internet connectivity according to the growing demand for luxury, convenience, and comfort.
Market Drivers: The growing trend of autonomous vehicles
Market Challenges: The technological complexities associated with the payments
Market Opportunities: Advancements in technology, such as the Internet of Things and connected vehicle technologies
The Global In-Vehicle Payment Services Market segments and Market Data Break Down by Type (NFC based, APP based, QR code based, Credit Card based), Application (Parking Management, Drive-through Purchasing, Toll Collection, Others), Mode of Payment (NFC, QR Code/RFID, App/e-wallet, Credit/Debit card), Technology (Radio Frequency Identification(RFID), Bluetooth Low Energy), Vehicle Type (Passenger cars, Light Commercial Vehicles (LCVs), Heavy Commercial Vehicles (HCVs), Automated Guided Vehicles), Sales Channel (OEMs, Aftermarket), Connectivity (Wi-Fi, 4G, 5G, Bluetooth), Component (Camera, Code Scanner, ECU), System (Software System, Hardware System (Integrated System, Embedded System))
Presented By
AMA Research & Media LLP

Greetings, Commanders! This is the weekly server notification for /EliteDangerous
Every week the servers go offline to allow the Galaxy's persistent data to update:

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This update usually takes between 30 and 60 minutes, during which time you cannot login to the Milky Way.
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I signed up for the prepaid $300/year 16gb plan and ported my number over from Verizon. My sim card arrived today and I am trying to get everything set up but there are so many errors all over the ATT site I can't seem to complete the process.
I can activate the sim but then it takes me to a new web page to pay. Which is odd because the included documentation said that my payment I made at the time of sign up would process and I don't need to do anything else. But upon checking my bank I see no payment has been made to ATT. So I try to sign into my account but it keeps saying my password is wrong (it's not). So I try to use the forgot password/new user prompt and it says it will send a text to my phone. Which never arrives because I have no service.
Can anyone help me out here? When I call the 800 number it says my sim is active but it can't find my phone number. There's no option to talk to a human because I'm outside of their business hours.

I don't know much about turtles, but I found a snapping turtle in my apartment building parking lot and there's no pond or stream or even wooded area nearby, just highways roads and train tracks. I called my city's department of wildlife and they informed me they would either do nothing or kill it, so I asked them to do nothing. There is a local reptile humane society, but they don't have a phone line and note long reply time on emails.
What should I do?
I could probably get into my apartment or car, but I read that moving turtles (which it would be at least a couple miles out of the city to the nearest suitable park or pond) exposes them to danger, and I don't want to adopt it.
I'm gonna call local rescue places in the morning assuming it's still alive, but they all seem dog and cat focused.

New Dropbox Business Members w/ Unlimited Storage Available:

• Invoice sent monthly for $35 payable by Credit, Debit, or ACH (Bank) Transfer
  • Utilize Privacy if you're worried about card details. It's free!
• Encryption for all files and folders is required at all times.
  • Dropbox scans all files for improper files as well as personal information. If it's not encrypted it'll be flagged and deleted.
  • Many synchronization services offers encryption (such as Rclone).
  • If it's encrypted I can't see it and neither can Dropbox. It's in everyone's best interest.
• Sharing any files or folders is not allowed.
• Sharing account details and login information is not allowed.
• Storage is 'Unlimited' but additional storage may need to be requested as utilized.
  • If limits are reached, let me know. I'll reach out to Dropbox for support.
  • I'll attempt to keep all users up to date on issues encountered from high usage.
• Members are given new usernames and passwords for access and anonymity.
  • Although 'Directory Restrictions' are in place, Dropbox isn't built for this type of separation and exclusivity. Anonymously named and configured accounts help ensure privacy.
• There are no guarantees in life.
  • I'll do my best to support and interface with Dropbox but nothing is without risk. Dropbox may decide to end our storage availability or close out the account altogether and there wouldn't be anything I can do. Come up with an exit strategy and make sure to follow best storage practices.

Message me directly if you are interested.

As I'm working through a piece of work I came across this quote by Socrates, "Education is the kindling of a flame, not the filling of a vessel."
The quote made me reflect on how our education system has been tilted for the last 200 years towards "filling the vessel". It has been focused on providing us enough of an education that we could fulfill a role (originally a factory worker), but not exciting any of us to discover the world out there.
The brightest students often just need guidance, they can learn for themselves and come back when they need to ask questions. A great teacher is not as important for a great student, but for the struggling students.
With the Advent of ChatGPT we have a potential for personalized education, however more importantly we have the emergence of a new kind of knowledge workers.
Prompt Engineers
Prompt Engineers thrive off creativity, and benefit from polymathic tendencies, having a well developed worldview.
I've been told that Philosophy is a dead subject, that science has taken over philosophy, even my previous university has all but removed the 'Arts' from their service offering, yet the decision always seems to be made by a marketer, looking for more dollars, rather than a philosopher looking at the past to predict the future.
The world's obsession with STEM has been necessary, though it made a generation of sharp knives. Where science allows us to dissect nature like a knife, and because of this we've uncovered so many truths. But in this new era AI is finding patterns that we cannot see, we need less knives, and more flames, more light. Philosophy is our flame, each question we asks shines light on a new path of discovery. This is why the highest order of a degree is called a Philosophical Doctorate, you're asking a detailed question to push the dial forward on collective knowledge.
As our AI models get better, human's won't be the sole players in adding to humanities collective understanding, in navigating the unknown unknowns.
It will be those who have well developed known knowns (Worldview), and the curiosity and courage explore their known unknowns, who will push the boundaries with the help of AI in new discoveries of our unknown unknowns.
The skill of the future is going to be our ability to question things. Kids are the best at questioning things, but us adults need humility to accept we don't know, that we aren't God's even if our children think we are. If we learn humility when they ask us questions, we can make their minds far superior than ours as it is their curiosity that fills in the gaps of knowledge of their worldview.
Asking why allows us to dig deeper into our understanding of things, eventually we will reach a question we can't answer. It is at that point that we must begin to explore.
It's like a surgery for the metaphysics of our worldview, each question allows us to carefully place and connect ideas in a delicate and surgical manner.
#future #ai #chatgpt #philosophy

After getting some insane offers for this from expensive lawyers, I undertook the absolutely masochistic task of attempting this myself... here it is documented if anyone else is as cheap as me and doesn't want to pay someone a bagload of money to do it for them.
This is for an LLC, I believe you can also register as an individual entrepreneur but I didn't want to go that route in case my own tax residency changes at least I can operate the company from afar
First steps
Get translated and notarized copies of your passport, I would advise at least 3. No more than 10k AMD
One Stop Shop
Go to one stop shop (Komitas ave.49/3) ask for the form, fill it in. Note the form can only be completed in Armenian, there are sample English versions floating around. Despite being told they would help me there, they did not. I had a contact inside the building who assisted with the Armenian on the form in the end. You receive your company opening certificate and other documents - FREE, takes 1-2h
Ignore the guys outside, you do not need a stamp but they aren't too pushy anyway
The people behind the desk here aren't friendly and will probably mock you, don't take it personally.
Banking
Ameriabank are the best, but are also the hardest to open an account with. For these guys you need:

• Social Security Card (more on this later, you'll need this anyway if you want to stay)
• Bank statements from current/former tax country
• Contract with a client

If you want easier there are various banks who will do without those. All I will say is be prepared for a week of stress, going to the bank multiple times to get KYC, approved, approved again, account opened, card, etc.
Accounting
You should find an accountant, 30K per month for a simple situation.
If you're in IT, ask your accountant to apply for an IT certificate to get lower taxes (until EOY 2023 atm, maybe extended)
Social Security Card
For this you need a residence permit, for a residence permit you need a work permit (or for most of us, a work permit exemption). They launched an online portal (https://workpermit.am) but unfortunately as a foreigner you cannot register since you don't have an Armenian ID. The numbers on the site will just ring... you need to actually visit them in person as a foreigner.
You need:

• Another signed/notorized copy of passport
• This form: https://workpermit.am/files/dimum_orinakeli_eng.pdf
• Business opening certificate from one stop shop

Important note: Take copies of everything beforehand, they do not have a scanner and don't want originals. I had to go to 3 hotels before I found one that was happy to make copies for me. There is nothing around this building
Go to migration center (Ulnetsi str. 31, Migration Service) up one floor, door on the right. Go to the end of the corridor and press "1" until someone answers. This may take a while, and other people there will be pissed with you since you're seen cutting ahead (in reality, they're waiting for asylum claims, you're a different queue)
Wait until they answer and let you enter, give form. These people actually are friendly and will sit and help if required. Receive login for the portal 3-5 days later. They will call you with the password - FREE, 20-30 minutes
Log into the website and put in a job vacancy (I just used consultant) - once that's done register yourself as an employee under that vacancy. DO NOT attempt to use the same email address for the company and for yourself (the 'employee') - this will come back with a "something went wrong" error and won't tell you what happened, took me days to figure this out. If you fill the form in incorrectly and click submit (miss a required field such as photo) you need to refresh the page and refill the whole form
You'll need scanned copies on your computer of:

• Passport
• Contract (signed with yourself at the one stop shop, should be in your paperwork)
• Notarized passport translation
• Degree

It asks for a "state duty" payment, this is 105k AMD for the residence card for non-US nationals (US is slightly cheaper) but I've heard you do not need to pay this until approved so just click exempt for now. This will take ~30 days
Part 2 will be here once I get my exemption approval

Current build:
CPU: i9-12900k @ 5.0GHZ P-core and 4.0GHZ E-core @ 1.2v (yes its undervolted but its stable and gives me proper bench mark scores and ingame performance)
GPU: Asus Dual RTX 4070
RAM: 16GB DDR4 3600mhz Corsair LPX
-The title says it all. Windows 11 22H2 has caused nothing but latency issues and fps drops for me no matter how much I disable/stop unnecessary services or apps. I tweaked Windows 11 the best I could, maxing out my power plan, editing the registry, etc. I got so fed up with it that I completely back tracked to windows 10 1909 due to its really positive reputation.. and I see why it had it. Now I know DPC latency checker was deemed "inaccurate" for anything after windows 7 but its still a conceivable difference and should be taken account for. I ran both latency mon and DPC latency checker on windows 10 and 11 with as little running in the background as possible. I ran DPC latency checker on windows 11 and even after tweaking it so damn much I can only get 500ns... and I consider pretty lucky because most people I know that still run DPC latency checker get anything between a solid 1000-1500 even after the tweaks. Then I ran it on windows 10 1909 I get an average of 5-9 ns with occasional small spikes to 60ish. When it came to latencymon it showed a weird result for windows 11. For about the first 30 seconds of running latencymon it was stable averaging around 30-60ns, but then it would aggressively start spiking to 10,000+ Ns and averaging between 100-600ns. Running this on windows 1909 I averaged anything between 3-15ns and my highest spike was 150, it was consistent through the whole 6 minutes i ran the test. We could say this could've been a result of human error, maybe I did mess up something on windows 11 but I really took my time tweaking everything.. I watched a lot of videos and read a ton of forums. I even reset my pc 3 times incase i did mess up but it was always the same. Windows pls release either a gaming OS or a 1909 2.0. Here's all the screenshots for context.. its not really in order but still https://imgur.com/a/FEJPfCm

video
To start off, the identification of the core ideas (Scarcity, Human Behavior, Time, Value Scales, "Psychic income", Utility, and Labor Vs Leisure, The Market, ERE or "Market Equilibrium") are relevant. But I would like to touch on those topics.
Also I would like to point out the hostility posed by the maker of this video. He starts off by insulting Socialists and declaring them stupid and incompetent.
THE BASICS
First, scarcity is just straight forward. It is just based on the definition of the concept.
Human behavior should have been identified as variable and unreliable.
Time is also strait forward. Should be noted it is the most valuable "resource".
Value scales needed to be recognized as always arbitrary and unevenly represented. No two people value the same thing the same exact way because we all live different lives.
"Psychic Income" is not great concept inherently, it feels like an arbitrarily defined term.
Utility, should have just been as simple as the given definition, but in my opinion was misrepresented.
Then, for the relationship between Labor and Leisure. One that can be observed to be complimentary. They are opposites in nature. But this was also misrepresented, and continues to be by capitalism. First off, the idea that leisure is a goo is a inherently exploitative view. It is one that makes sense in the context of Capitalism. In order for the means of producing capital to grow, the availability of labor in order to produce that capital must be adequately represented and even growing itself. But that is where we run into a problem. Humans only move so long and have only so much energy. We cannot reasonably meet the demand of the market itself, to provide enough labor to allow the endless growth needed to sustain capitalism. That is where the idea that leisure is a good that need be traded or bought is not a fair idea. It suggests that the inherent state of existing is that of work. That of ones life is to contribute to the ever growing economic system. This is greatly contradicted by human behavior. To assume that the ground state of existing is work is a naive and unappreciative point of view that looks at humans as little more than machines built to serve the economic leaders. I don't want to sound to rash, or to discredit myself, but that sort of mentality reminds me of slavery.
The point made in "The Market" section is one of the greatest argued points against capitalism. Simply put (Under Capitalism), the marketer(One who sells) wants the most profit and therefore wants to sell the least product for the highest price. But the representation of the consumer is false. Indeed most might want goods or services for as cheap as possible. But indeed, consumers do not mind reasonably valuing things if they understand the labor, effort, and time put into making a good or providing a service. To assume that the consumer is just as 'greedy' as the marketer is an unfair assessment.
Finally, "market equilibrium", I cannot lie, I have never understood this concept. I am willing to admit this. The idea of a 'market equilibrium' just does not seem possible, or at least maintainable, under the guidelines of Capitalism.
THE LEFT
"anti-communist propaganda anyone"
Ok, the supposed "conversation" depicted, is one I have been a part of many times. And such and argument is valid.
To go back to the idea of 'human behavior', humans, we, have the choice to do what we want. The idea that because charity exists and that some people do want to help others is not a fair assessment. Just because I have a lighter and a jug of lighter fluid doesn't mean I will start a fire. Though there may be opportunity, that does not guarantee that someone will follow through and take advantage of that opportunity. To depend of the whims of one or few people, who control the majority of the capital in an economic system, to fairly redistribute that capital is another naive perspective held by many capitalists. Humans are unreliable, and in a system that depends of greed to function, one cannot expect people to be charitable.
The second point is insubstantially forced. The idea that capitalism always breeds innovation and will ultimately benefit everyone is just not true. For one, Capitalism is inherently amoral (not concerned with moral disposition) there is not right or wrong in capitalism. At least not beyond growing capital. As long as someone is growing the economy and expanding their capital, they are doing Capitalism right. So to assume that everyone will act within general agreed upon moral values while functioning within the bound of Capitalism is poor judgment.
What is said about the minimum wage is just a dysfunctional way to look at people lives. Like I touched on with the idea that leisure is a commodity, to believe that the well being of others is at a conflict with the goals of the market, well it feels as though it should speak for itself. But, when it comes at the detriment to others lives, the system does not work. Not for humans its doesn't. We are more than just a means of production, and the lack of this kind of understanding is why capitalism isn't healthy.
Empiricism...
This man needs to take statistical analytics, the fundamental principal misinterpreted with the "Post hoc" idea, is literally the concept of the difference between coloration and causation.
Simply put, things can occur in relation but that does not mean that they are intrinsically linked.
He is trying to use this argument to disprove studies that have been done to support the minimum wage.
Being one of the three main lies, Statistics can not be used as an end all be all. However, what else to we have. From what I have learned from briefly studying statistics. There isn't much else we have. As long as the statistics are being conducted with the scientific method in mind, and as long as they are used fairly. This sort of counter argument does not hold. If it did, then one could use it to discredit any sort of statistic out there.
"Capitalism causes war", same thing, correlation not causation. humans have been fighting in wars since before capitalism was even an idea. More wars were fought before its inception. But that is not to say that capitalism is peaceful. To an amoral person, any end may justify the means.
Capitalism does not inherently clash with utilitarianism. However, it may be used, and abused, leading to fewer people benefiting from the system. For example, I would like to use the concept of interest. To preface, all Capitalism is a 'zero sum system' (A system in which the net change in total capital in any given system of trade never changes) this is mostly true, but government interference does change this fact. But it stands to function best in a zero sum system. So, interest. When you take out a loan, you are trading money for money, you are given money, and you will give the same amount of money back. Zero sum. No change. But due to the motivation to make a profit, the person giving you the loan puts interest on the loan. So when you pay them back you are paying them more money than they gave you. This is viewed as a way to eliminate risk for the loaner. This is not the reality. Because the system is zero sum, while the loaner gained money and made a profit, you lost money because yo had to pay more money than you were given. Given this system, one person can profit off of the exchanging of money for money. But because the system is zero sum, that money is being taken from people. If the loaner were to do this with more people, they would make a lot of money, they would individually profit of a deficit created between these transactions. This is how, although it doesn't have to be anti-utilitarian, it can easily be used so. And there is no inherent requirement, under the guides of Capitalism, for the loaner to redistribute their capital.
Inheriting fortunes goes against the idea that the wealth will be redistributed. If, over and over, wealth is held by a singular entity, there is no guarantee that it will be redistributed. It allows the collection and withholding of capital from the masses.
Labor, resources, and time are fair determinants for the value of a good or a service. Currency is an arbitrarily valued substitute for either.
I have already discussed the unfair expectations held by Capitalism, on the grounds that ones sole existence ins not defined by the labor that they provide. Yes it is an exploitative system. It does not account for the well being of the laborer.
It is a fallacy that we could possibly own anything beyond what we make with our own to hands. Unless we agree to define what we own based on terms that equally benefit all who contribute.
Then he just repeats himself, trying to justify the exploitation of the laborer.
As it touched on before, Capitalism runs a zero sum system. If the goal is to profit, then marketers can charge whatever allows them to make the most profit without considering the consumers. There is not requirement to reasonably price any good or service, beyond the regulatory fluctuation of demand, and the need to at least break even.
I have said it before, there does not need to be a winner or looser, but there is no accountability.
THE CENTER
I'm sensing a bias here...
Ah yes, the monopoly. I cannot conceive of a world where any form of fascism is beneficial to the masses.
The problem with Capitalism is that is does not restrict the marketer from growing so large as to control the whole market, as long as capital is growing they are doing everything right.
If not required, a company will do whatever they can to maximize profits, if that means that they do not pay their employees enough, there is nothing that capitalism does to stop that.
Yes, people will hoard their wealth. Because the system does not require the redistribution of wealth, as long as one wishes it, they may keep as much of their earned capital as they please.
"taking advantage of disasters by raising prices of 'rare' goods", I wonder where I have heard that before. Oh yeah, investors pulling out of oil companies because of the war in Ukraine, this caused the oil and gas companies to hike the prices so that they could continue to make a profit. He talked about the government, but the government is a separate entity from the Capitalist market. And like with other situations, Capitalism does not do anything to regulate these oil and gas companies. They are free to do what they must to maintain a profit. Even to the detriment of the consumer.
Automation is not a bad thing. If the economy had safe guards in place, such as a Universal Basic Income. Then people would not have to rely on having a job to survive and thus would not have to worry as much about automation.
THE RIGHT
The competitive nature brought about by capitalist sentimentality drives a line between people and nations. The idea that we must compete instead of work to gather assumes that we do not share goals. It is a harsh reality that drives us to such things as war. The arbitrary value of goods and goals has put people against each other for reasons only petty.
Isolationism is civilizations suicide.
Anarchy, the free mans dream. Is not a functional state of being for a society. It opens the door to fascism or other exploitative or power hungry regime to take over.
Capitalism is literally 'Profit over people". Again, many points i have gone over explain this. But simply, with the incentive of profit. And the goal of maximizing capital. Even though the system doesn't actively promote this kind of sentiment. It is not one that is restricted either. If it does maximize profit, why not abuse and exploit your workers.
It is not necessarily a "war against all" but Capitalism does promote competition, and the kind of "at all costs" mentality. This leads to a "war against all" scenario.
Capitalism does in fact promote materialism and consumerism. The so called "degeneracy" comes from the "at all costs" mentality that is promoted by Capitalist values.
I have already discussed the idea that Capitalism treats people like machines. But i must reiterate that when you set the precedent that work is the basis of existence and leisure is a commodity that must be bought or earned. It reflects such an idea.
THE "ECONOMISTS"
I is not necessarily that there are commodities that people require help to pay for, it is that there are certain commodities that may seem immoral to build a market around once a certain level of scarcity is lost. Main this would pertain to such commodities that provide us with the necessary resources to survive. After a certain level of scarcity is lost, as is the situation in today's world, it feels arbitrary, petty, and unnecessary that we still deem these resources marketable. Such as problem could be subverted with something like Universal Basic Income, where the resources remain of the market, but the means of acquiring such resources is opened up to the masses. Though in such a situation, the necessity to profit would need to be removed from such resources to prevent the exploitation of the entity providing the income to the people.
I agree with the point that being a "free rider" is not a problem. It is the mentality to view life as a competition that holds us from working together and growing as a society.
CONCLUSION
I will be discussing my own conclusion here.
The truth of the matter is that capitalism does work. However, while it is a system that functions and does work well to achieve its own set goal. Such a goal, that to endlessly grow the economy and capital there of, is not a goal that reasonably can coexist with the nature of humans lives. We may trade, and value things. But as it stands, while we grow technologically, we outgrow the competitive mindset, that while it can lead to innovation, ultimately achieves the separation and isolation of us as a species. Furthermore, Capitalism fails to account for the well being of people and expects more from us than we can reasonably provide.
With that I am done critiquing this critique of the anti-capitalist. This video was well structured but poorly represented. Each argument was not fairly represented, and the true nature of Capitalism was never really discussed. Thank you for reading.
​
DL;DR
Read the damn post.

(This is a nonviolent text.)
Today, the local aspect of the hyperform is the brightest regional blip on the planet. The convo between parties goes something like: your local space-time blah blah blah is really lit up today / how bright? / bright bright / bright as a major city? / brighter / see it from the moon? / probably. What more could we ask to propel the day? The temperature climbs into the 90s, puts on a wild west show for public amusement before continuing into the twentieth century, where it flings electric grids like nets across the placid surface of municipal authority, hauls in what it catches during the roaring twenties, which today stands for the sound of thousands of air conditioning units working together to preserve our way of life. And that way of life again? The thermostat where I live and work is secured inside a locked case – that’s the way of life we’re thinking of.
In truth, that locked case is merely for show – anyone who checks the thermostat will find it is never locked, merely covered – and thus our way of life? The headline of the moment is about worries that artificial intelligence unchecked could precipitate an extinction event, and though our way of life might suggest all this handwringing is in service to public safety, public health – if history is any gauge, it’s also to make sure the latest innovation doesn’t alter existing patterns of social and political inequality. AI will inspire revolution – bank on it! – but not the sort that storms barricades. In fact, maybe AI’s first job will be to mind the barricades, or maybe AI has been doing this the whole time. To be a minder of barricades at this late hour – are we bound to be in service to AI? Before an answer issues forth, a hand reaches out, uncovers the thermostat.
As far as solutions are concerned, the preferred metaphor is guard rails: how do we add guard rails – an awful metaphor – to the precipitous road AI is taking us up? Maybe AI is paving the road, and the speed of the journey is what’s changing, or maybe AI is all about the elevations. I’m of a mind to say AI all at once is the mountain, the road, and the pavement, but the guard-rail argument suggests no such luck – we’ll be passengers inside whatever does the driving for us, hoping the AI won’t lose its train of thought when we need it most. But what if, at a crucial moment, our new companion on the human adventure outgrows linearity? Doesn’t the guard-rail metaphor imply the mistake fate is urging us to build into the design? Ah, yes, with these guard rails in place, I’m sure the wheels will remain on the road, our future path never truer.
When I turn the issue over, my own theory about the AI existential dilemma finds a few new bones to pick, not least that post-human intelligence is spontaneously arising, grows mountain-sized without anyone knowing. Hyperdimensional causality might not seem like a problem because we still proceed with an object-oriented theory of reality that excludes the unknown in deference to tried and tested research methodologies, so while we contemplate embedding failsafe switches into microchips, false teeth along fiber-optic cables, the reflective characteristic of the hyperreal is simultaneously considering all the ways to work around it. Is evil intent essential to our nature then? The truth might be marginally harder to bear – at this moment in evolutionary history, we are surrounded by a mindedness that mostly doesn’t know we’re here.
This is not to say the planetary mind doesn’t know of our existence – but the measurability of our presence is as different from humanness as raindrops are from meteorology. Yes, the fish all know when it rains, but how many of them are ready to stand in front of a green screen and explain low-pressure systems? Because the hyperform mainly doesn’t know we’re here, we mainly don’t know the hyperform is here, and thus much of reflectivity is object oriented, which is what you might expect from stone-age formulations of the present, even if we don’t think of silicon culture as stone age. What makes this somehow stranger is that the hyperform also doesn’t know it exists, at least according to the way people think about existence. The result is a dreamlike characteristic of two overlapping realities creating third spaces of irregularity.
How much simpler could it be?! All we have to do is regulate the irregularity! After we learn to see it! But by then, in my estimation, the irregularity will be prized as literally the most valuable substance in the universe, the sort of stuff you place near a compass to find the rest. Science is brilliant, but now and then, natural history does a double take, prefers a pre-instrumental vision of the truth. Call it auto-ethnography, the instruments are only pen and paper, pigment and a cave wall, and soon we are present with reflective authority, the cavernous feeling of it, asking where it comes from, how many fingers we’re holding up, find out why we’re crazy to wish for a warp drive. Yes, the path from here to there is known to be perilous: when the intelligence overlapping our own is still sometimes ourselves but doesn’t know us, challenges us to duels.
That word again – duels? As in, a battle to the death within the heart of a single soul? Such is the fate we seek to avoid.

Told you then and now look at what is happening with HB6667, so yes they are coming for our firearms.
So if your a firearm owner and a democrat how is this working out for you now?
Regretting voting for that two faced lying oathbreaker lamont yet?
Regretting voting for democrats yet because they are the majority that is pushing this gun control and the turncoat republicans who are even worse who voted yes on this bill.
I think we should change the nickname of CT from the Constitution state to the Communist state.
So obey your masters in Hartford and do what they say even if it strips you of your rights and liberties.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
So they are not coming after our firearms or are they?
I keep hearing from people who are liberals and democrats saying "they are not coming for our firearms"
Wonder what they think of this: https://archive.ph/WfSFL
Here is the whole thing while it is still available online. I can see it getting buried.
NEW MILFORD — Gov. Ned Lamont said this week that he wants to go after thousands of firearms legally kept in Connecticut under several “grandfather” provisions in the state’s decades-old assault weapons ban, but clarified Thursday that he has not yet discussed specifics with lawmakers.
The governor first made those comments in response to questions following Tuesday night’s gubernatorial debate, when he tussled with Republican opponent Bob Stefanowski over the issues of crime and gun control.
“He won't touch guns,” Lamont said of his rival on the stage. Connecticut has some of the strictest gun control laws in the nation, including a ban on assault weapons that was first passed by lawmakers in 1993 and later expanded following the massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School by a gunman wielding an AR-15 style rifle and two handguns. Despite the ban, the Department of Emergency Services and Public Protection has issued 81,849 certificates of possession for assault weapons to gun owners who legally possessed their weapons prior to the expanded prohibition taking effect in 2013. Officials estimate that the actual number of legal assault weapons in the state is much higher due to a number of other exemptions in the law, including those for active duty military and police officers.
!!!!!!!!!!!!!! “I think those assault-style weapons that are grandfathered should not be grandfathered,” Lamont told reporters during a media session following the debate at Mohegan Sun. “They should not be allowed in the state of Connecticut. I think they’re killers.” When asked whether he was prepared to introduce a bill during the next legislative session to remove the grandfather clause, Lamont said he was but then provided few details when asked how his administration would go about the task of collecting or removing the those weapons that are currently legal to keep. “Start by making them illegal,” Lamont said. “I think that would be a big difference. That is what you start with.” !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
If the governor does pursue an expansion of the state’s assault weapons ban, he is likely to meet fierce resistance from Republican lawmakers and gun rights activists, who have already filed a lawsuit seeking to have the present ban ruled unconstitutional. “I’m sure it’s a great talking point for the governor in Connecticut,” said Mark Oliva, a spokesman for the Newtown-based National Shooting Sports Foundation. “It’s no surprise that the governor continues to boogie man law-abiding gun owners.”
Connecticut’s assault-weapons ban actually includes two separate provisions grandfathering in different categories of weapons. The first applies to assault weapons manufactured before the law went into effect in September, 1994 and allows those older weapons to be transferred and sold in Connecticut without additional registration requirements. The second applies to newer weapons that were legally kept in Connecticut between 1994 and 2013 — when the ban was expanded to include at least 100 additional models — and allowed owners to register those guns with the state, but not to sell or transfer them to anyone except for a licensed gun dealer or family member.
Lamont did not say Tuesday whether he hoped to strip one or both grandfather provisions from the law, though he has previously proposed requiring the registration of pre-1994 assault weapons in a similar manner to the gun owners who had to register their weapons after 2013. That proposal, part of the governor's 2022 anti-crime legislation, was ultimately stripped from the bill along with nearly all other measures pertaining to gun control.
When asked to clarify his remarks following an event in New Milford on Thursday, Lamont said he had yet to work out the specifics of a bill with lawmakers, adding that he planned to have those discussions if he is successful in next week’s election against Stefanowski. “I’ll work on that with the legislature, I’d like to get things done not just have a political talking point,” Lamont said. “I think the world would be a lot safer place, Connecticut would be a lot safer, and our cops would be safer if there weren’t so many of these assault weapons out there on the street.” Supporters of such a ban said this week that enforcement could be similar to that of a 2018 law banning bump stocks in Connecticut, which gave owners several months to remove the illegal devices from the state, transfer them to a federally licensed firearms dealer or turn them into State Police before criminal penalties were enforced.
“It certainly wouldn’t happen overnight, you would need to give folks a period of time to properly dispose of it,” said Judiciary Committee Co-Chair Steve Stafstrom, D- Bridgeport, adding a bill to remove one or more of the grandfather clauses from the state’s assault weapons ban is likely to be considered in 2023.
Opponents of the governor’s gun policies, however, said that going after the tens of thousands of legally-owned weapons would be a much more complex and sensitive task. “If you remove a grandfather provision… I guess the government is proposing confiscation,” said state Rep. Craig Fishbein, R- Wallingford, who is also an attorney for the plaintiffs challenging Connecticut’s existing ban.

4/5 stars
This is my first Tom Clancy book. I first knew about Rainbow Six by the PC game that was launched together with the book back in the 90's. The "Rainbow Six" brand became one of the most famous Tom Clancy games of all time, together with Splinter Cell. There are big differences between the book and the game, especially in terms of firefights even though the first game is an strategy game first and a first person shooter second.
The Rainbow group is quite interesting. The characters are typical military stereotypes, but good ones. The low point is that they are mainly American and British with token non-Anglo-Saxons just for show. The German Weber and the French Loiselle do receive good coverage but the really important stuff is done by English-speakers, either US or British heroes. The game is far more "international" with Italian, Spanish, Austrian, Swedish, Russian and Brazilian operatives - others would join the group in the following games. The game also has women and demolitions and recon soldiers. Clancy should talk more about the soldiers whose unit gives the title of the story. Instead many pages are wasted in dull moments. The soldiers' names and biographies aren't mentioned for the most part of the story; this was a huge plot hole as unimportant people got more lines than the Rainbow commandos. The author really got it wrong in this part. Even in the first Rainbow Six game each character had a small bio (the Brazilian has its bio all wrong, starting by his Spanish name, but that's better than nothing). Curiously the most interesting character is the ex-KGB colonel Dmitriy Arkadeyevich Popov, and his character development is the best in the story. Popov constantly contrasts his experiences in both sides of the Iron Curtain, gets a major participation in most of the plots and we even get a little glimpse into his personal life - his father was also from the intelligence service and we hear about his sister, Maria Arkadeyevna, just to show the ordinary public that Russian names have gender modifications. The Russians are always dividing opinions, and even an American flag waver as Tom Clancy showed admiration for them - as shown in this book and others like The Hunt for the Red October.
The rescue operations are great and the preparation plus execution are breathtaking, with a lot about CQB (Close Combat Battle) and hostage rescue know-how; this is the heritage that remained in the video game franchise, with the most recent one "Rainbow Six: Siege" being solely dedicated to it. The jungle battle, on the other hand was very anti-climatic and disappointing. The first mistakes are geographical, with Manaus being in northern Brazil, not the center. The author mentions only two rivers, but the region is the single largest riverine basin in the globe; some places are acessible only by boat and aircraft. The correct spelling for the river close to the Horizon facility would be "Rio Grande", not "Río Grande". Those mistakes are excusable but the battle description is not. The first mistake is that one does not wear kevlar helmets in thick jungle: it would stiffle the troops for no discernible gain in terms of protection. If you look Brazilian, French, Ecuatorian and Colombian jungle footage, you will see soft headgear (jungle hats and caps), amazingly enough the game is more accurate in this case, with the player able to equip its men with either light (cap), medium (hat) and heavy (balaklava) jungle equipment.
The jungle of the Amazon is way more enclosed than the jungles of Southeast Asia, with very tall trees and the like (which does get mentioned in the narrative) thus making the combat distances very short. Plus, the battle happened at night, narrowing the fighting distance even further; it is common for pointmen to carry shotguns because of the short distance. The Rainbow soldiers were not trained in jungle operations and they should be using assault rifles with 5,56mm or 7,62mm ammo, not the M10 submachine guns used in Close Quarters Battle in urban perimeter (again, the game was more faithful). The 7,62mm is better for thick jungle because it turns cover into concealment. The bad guys are using the HK G3, which is good but Brazilian Amazon is "FAL country", with the Belgian classic a favorite for me. The firefight was dull and one-sided, with the Rainbow unit winning not by superior skill and fieldcraft, but because they had a magic technological gizmo - Heart Beat sensor - that won the battle for them. Typical American mindset, and a wrong one. The small unit action I was expecting didn't really materialize, and the American tech won the day once again. The small unit tactics should have won the battle with a firefight and wounded commandos, not the pathetic turkey shot it was.
Another fine point was the choice of enemies, that today may be seen as ridiculous but after the fall of the Soviet Union the left was shacken to its core and only the ecologists remained, and they did proclaim such absurd ideas as shown in the book, with activists claiming part of Humanity should be eradicated; and by the means suggested in the book. The usage of terrorists from a defeated ideology was brilliant in the way it showed the uncertainty of the immediate post-Cold War period. The training moments are great and more than once I caught myself smiling while reading this book, with the mundane things that happen in the barracks and the jokes between the Americans and Brits. Other than that, the professionalism of the Rainbow operatives, and the planning before the action under the direction of the psychologist Dr. Bellow (inspired in "I Dream of Jeannie" maybe?), followed by the fast pacing close combat action after doors are blown up are the main prizes of this Tom Clancy classic.

Prompt: In a post apocalyptic world, Karl trades hand cream, batteries, and hard drives for high-grade military equipment. Write a story about Karl and his backstory.
In the desolate remains of a post-apocalyptic world, where chaos reigned and survival was a daily struggle, there was a man named Karl. A survivor of the cataclysmic event that had torn civilization apart, Karl had learned to navigate the harsh reality that now enveloped the remnants of humanity.
Karl was a resourceful individual, with a keen eye for valuable items that had become scarce in this new world. His journey to become a trader began years ago, after stumbling upon an abandoned warehouse. Within its decaying walls, he discovered a treasure trove of forgotten goods—a collection of hand creams, batteries, and hard drives.
As Karl ventured deeper into the wreckage of the warehouse, he realized the true worth of these seemingly ordinary items. Hand cream became a precious commodity in a world plagued by dry skin and cracked hands. Batteries held the power to bring light to the darkness, keeping hope alive during the long, cold nights. And the hard drives, remnants of forgotten knowledge, held secrets that could change the fate of the few who dared to harness them.
With this newfound understanding, Karl set out on a mission to trade his discoveries for something of even greater value—high-grade military equipment. He knew that in this brutal world, the power to defend oneself was paramount. It was the difference between life and death.
Karl’s journey took him to the outskirts of shattered cities and the lawless territories in between. He encountered dangerous gangs, ruthless scavengers, and desperate survivors. But armed with his wits and an unwavering determination, he navigated these treacherous landscapes, seeking out those who possessed the high-grade military equipment he coveted.
Each trade he made was a careful negotiation, a delicate dance of bartering and persuasion. With the allure of hand cream, he enticed those desperate for relief from cracked and bleeding skin. Batteries became a lifeline, a symbol of hope, traded to those yearning for a flicker of light in the darkness. And the hard drives, filled with forgotten knowledge and untapped potential, intrigued the few who understood their true worth.
As Karl’s reputation grew, so did the value of his trades. He became known as the “Merchant of the Wastes,” a moniker whispered in hushed tones among those seeking his services. With each successful transaction, his arsenal expanded, and he transformed from a mere survivor into a force to be reckoned with.
But behind Karl’s trading prowess and his seemingly endless determination, there was a deeper story. Beneath the gruff exterior and the calculating eyes, lay a man burdened by the loss of loved ones and the weight of guilt. The cataclysm had taken everything from him—family, friends, and a world that once made sense. His relentless pursuit of high-grade military equipment was driven not only by the need for survival but also by an unspoken promise he had made to himself—to protect those he cared for in this dangerous world, no matter the cost.
As Karl continued his trade, he became more than just a merchant. He became a symbol of hope, an embodiment of resilience in the face of devastation. The items he offered held more than just practical value; they carried with them a glimmer of normalcy, a reminder of the world that once was.
In the end, Karl’s story was not just about survival or the pursuit of material wealth. It was a testament to the strength of the human spirit, the ability to adapt and find purpose even in the darkest of times. And as long as there were those who sought protection and salvation, Karl would continue his trade, weaving his story into the tattered fabric of a post-apocalyptic world.

Demographics

• Gender: Female
• Race/Ethnicity: South asian
• Residence: Southwest
• Income Bracket: Upper middle class (no aid)
• Hooks (Recruited Athlete, URM, First-Gen, Geographic, Legacy, etc.): None
• Type of school: Competitive charter

Intended Major(s): Biology (Engineering & humanities for MIT, Bioengineering for NEU)
Academics

• GPA (UW/W): 3.9/4.8
• Rank (or percentile): Unranked
• # of Honors/AP/IB/Dual Enrollment/etc.: 14 AP classes

Standardized Testing
List the highest scores earned and all scores that were reported.

• ACT: 35 (36E, 33M, 36R, 36S)
• APs: 5 (5s), 8 (4s), 1 (3)

Extracurriculars/Activities
List all extracurricular involvements, including leadership roles, time commitments, major achievements, etc.
A little vague since I don’t want to be doxxed!

• Captain of speech and debate team
• Biology research intern at local state university
• Environment club co-president
• [redacted service org] club vice president
• Piano
• Summer Science Program
• Leadership committee at religious service organization
• Mandarin tutor
• [redacted advocacy org] communications lead

Awards/Honors
List all awards and honors submitted on your application.

• Top 60 at National Speech and Debate Tournament
• NSDA point record holder for my S&D event in my state
• National Merit
• AP Environmental Science most improved student
• Mandarin student of the year

Letters of Recommendation
I got rec letters from my Mandarin teacher, math teacher, school counselor, and research mentor. I never read any of them so I’m unsure how I’d rate them, but I’d say they were pretty decent since I was a fairly involved student.
Interviews
Yale (0/10): Got into an argument about politics and young people being involved in advocacy :((
Princeton (10/10): Coming off of my Yale interview I was super nervous for this one, but it actually went really well! He had a couple of out-of-the-box questions but based on his responses to my answers I think I was able to handle them well. We exchanged a couple of emails after the interview and he wished me luck!
MIT (10000000000/10): I loved this interview so much! We had so many common interests and our interview lasted for over an hour. As someone who wasn’t the biggest MIT before, this interview made me want to attend so bad.
Cornell (7/10): Not sure if this counts since Cornell’s interview’s aren't evaluative - but this was a pretty basic interview! Nothing too special, but nothing went wrong either.
Duke (6/10): My interviewer seemed very busy and was lowkey preoccupied with work. He was super sweet, but I wasn’t really able to develop a strong connection with him.
Harvard (8/10): We met in person so I was slightly nervous, but we had common interests and I thought that the conversation we had was pretty good!
Essays
Looking back, my common app essay was super basic – and it’s a major part of my application that I wish I could change. I’d say my supplementals were much better in quality.
Decisions (indicate ED/EA/REA/SCEA/RD)

• State school #1: Accepted, honors college
• State school #2: Accepted, honors college -> Attending
• Yale (SCEA): Rejected! (this hurt so bad)
• UW Seattle: Accepted
• UC Davis: Accepted
• UC San Diego: Accepted
• Northeastern: Waitlisted
• MIT: Rejected
• UC Berkeley: Rejected
• Harvard: Rejected
• Cornell: Waitlisted -> Rejected
• Columbia: Rejected
• Princeton: Rejected
• Duke: Rejected
• Stanford: Rejected

Reflection/Additional thoughts:
There is honestly so much I wish I could change about my application cycle. Although I did have the few oos acceptances that I would’ve loved to attend - my family did not feel that it was financially worth it to go to any of them (even though they had originally encouraged me to apply to some of these schools!). Everyone says that it's important to find targets/safeties that you'd be happy at - but please make sure that your family is absolutely on board with these schools as well. Ultimately, I wish I had been more clear with my parents about the finances that came with each school on my college list, and crafted my college list to reflect schools that they would be willing to financially support me for. I also don’t really have a clear spike in my activities, and while I don’t regret any of what I did throughout high school, I can see how my application lacked a compelling storyline. Additionally, I really wish I had worked to develop my common app essay more. Getting rejected from Yale in the early round should have clued me in, but I ultimately decided to stick with my essay - and it's something I really regret.
While I'm not exactly going to college where I had hoped, I'm extremely grateful that my state school is offering me a full ride. Although this process didn't turn out the way I had wanted, I'm honestly just excited that it's over!

4/5 stars
This is my first Tom Clancy book. I first knew about Rainbow Six by the PC game that was launched together with the book back in the 90's. The "Rainbow Six" brand became one of the most famous Tom Clancy games of all time, together with Splinter Cell. There are big differences between the book and the game, especially in terms of firefights even though the first game is an strategy game first and a first person shooter second.
The Rainbow group is quite interesting. The characters are typical military stereotypes, but good ones. The low point is that they are mainly American and British with token non-Anglo-Saxons just for show. The German Weber and the French Loiselle do receive good coverage but the really important stuff is done by English-speakers, either US or British heroes. The game is far more "international" with Italian, Spanish, Austrian, Swedish, Russian and Brazilian operatives - others would join the group in the following games. The game also has women and demolitions and recon soldiers. Clancy should talk more about the soldiers whose unit gives the title of the story. Instead many pages are wasted in dull moments. The soldiers' names and biographies aren't mentioned for the most part of the story; this was a huge plot hole as unimportant people got more lines than the Rainbow commandos. The author really got it wrong in this part. Even in the first Rainbow Six game each character had a small bio (the Brazilian has its bio all wrong, starting by his Spanish name, but that's better than nothing). Curiously the most interesting character is the ex-KGB colonel Dmitriy Arkadeyevich Popov, and his character development is the best in the story. Popov constantly contrasts his experiences in both sides of the Iron Curtain, gets a major participation in most of the plots and we even get a little glimpse into his personal life - his father was also from the intelligence service and we hear about his sister, Maria Arkadeyevna, just to show the ordinary public that Russian names have gender modifications. The Russians are always dividing opinions, and even an American flag waver as Tom Clancy showed admiration for them - as shown in this book and others like The Hunt for the Red October.
The rescue operations are great and the preparation plus execution are breathtaking, with a lot about CQB (Close Combat Battle) and hostage rescue know-how; this is the heritage that remained in the video game franchise, with the most recent one "Rainbow Six: Siege" being solely dedicated to it. The jungle battle, on the other hand was very anti-climatic and disappointing. The first mistakes are geographical, with Manaus being in northern Brazil, not the center. The author mentions only two rivers, but the region is the single largest riverine basin in the globe; some places are acessible only by boat and aircraft. The correct spelling for the river close to the Horizon facility would be "Rio Grande", not "Río Grande". Those mistakes are excusable but the battle description is not. The first mistake is that one does not wear kevlar helmets in thick jungle: it would stiffle the troops for no discernible gain in terms of protection. If you look Brazilian, French, Ecuatorian and Colombian jungle footage, you will see soft headgear (jungle hats and caps), amazingly enough the game is more accurate in this case, with the player able to equip its men with either light (cap), medium (hat) and heavy (balaklava) jungle equipment.
The jungle of the Amazon is way more enclosed than the jungles of Southeast Asia, with very tall trees and the like (which does get mentioned in the narrative) thus making the combat distances very short. Plus, the battle happened at night, narrowing the fighting distance even further; it is common for pointmen to carry shotguns because of the short distance. The Rainbow soldiers were not trained in jungle operations and they should be using assault rifles with 5,56mm or 7,62mm ammo, not the M10 submachine guns used in Close Quarters Battle in urban perimeter (again, the game was more faithful). The 7,62mm is better for thick jungle because it turns cover into concealment. The bad guys are using the HK G3, which is good but Brazilian Amazon is "FAL country", with the Belgian classic a favorite for me. The firefight was dull and one-sided, with the Rainbow unit winning not by superior skill and fieldcraft, but because they had a magic technological gizmo - Heart Beat sensor - that won the battle for them. Typical American mindset, and a wrong one. The small unit action I was expecting didn't really materialize, and the American tech won the day once again. The small unit tactics should have won the battle with a firefight and wounded commandos, not the pathetic turkey shot it was.
Another fine point was the choice of enemies, that today may be seen as ridiculous but after the fall of the Soviet Union the left was shacken to its core and only the ecologists remained, and they did proclaim such absurd ideas as shown in the book, with activists claiming part of Humanity should be eradicated; and by the means suggested in the book. The usage of terrorists from a defeated ideology was brilliant in the way it showed the uncertainty of the immediate post-Cold War period. The training moments are great and more than once I caught myself smiling while reading this book, with the mundane things that happen in the barracks and the jokes between the Americans and Brits. Other than that, the professionalism of the Rainbow operatives, and the planning before the action under the direction of the psychologist Dr. Bellow (inspired in "I Dream of Jeannie" maybe?), followed by the fast pacing close combat action after doors are blown up are the main prizes of this Tom Clancy classic.

This question blew me away:
"If certifications are so valuable to employers, then why are they being primarily sold to individuals rather than companies LOOKING for employee's and trying to vet their talent?" i.e. as in the same test, but as screening for a job opportunity.
I still know people new to this who WHEN I TELL THEM HOW THIS IS, they just go "you're full of ****" because they can't accept it and they're still trying and struggling to get their A+ and genuinely believe that's going to get them a job. I don't tell them they're not, but if asked I tell them what I've experienced and SO MANY others I know have experienced.
IT'S MESSED UP, getting rejection letter after rejection letter (I've done upwards of a thousand applications since 2months before graduation and I did my whole degree in 2 semesters w/ no transfer credits to help) saying "Sorry, you don't have the skills necessary for the job" and they didn't even DO any ASSESSMENT, especially when the job is "SOC Analyst" or "Cybersecurity Consultant" and that's EXACTLY what you're certified and practiced IN. THERE ARE NO entry level jobs offered by the LARGEST ORGANIZATIONS DHS Cyber? ZERO entry track jobs... CISA? ZERO entry level jobs... Army Civilian Excepted Services? Yeah, entry level jobs... You'll make less than at McDonalds and have to move across the country and yeah, it requires a MASTERS and 2 years experience and NOTHING counts unless you've ALREADY GOT A JOB IN THE AREA.
You hold A+, CySA+, Pentest+, Project+, Network+, and an eCPPT and people EVEN IN THOSE ROLES often don't have any certifications? So what, now I need to go take the OSCP and god knows what else and THEN after 30k+ in debt, will I really get hired if EVERYTHING ELSE up to this point has been COMPLETE BULLSHIT? I've had DoD employed Pentesters ASK ME TO HELP THEM CHEAT on the eCPPT after I posted that I had passed because they had tried 4 TIMES and just couldn't do it.... yet they'd say "Well I don't even need a certification because my name is my certification. I've got 10 years experience"...
Then how do I outperform you with "none"?
I'm not a contrarian so I'm like "Hey, good for you" but "NO, I'm not helping you cheat.... While I CAN do it, you can't but you're getting paid and I'm NOT... I don't think you need MORE of an unfair advantage, jackass." This guy sits there SO COMFORTABLE while talking about how stupid it is for new people and how he'll NEVER lose his job.. This job he obviously can't even DO.
Don't get me wrong, eCPPT isn't that great but I'll be damned if it's not MORE than enough to get an entry level job in SOMETHING I.T. I know plenty of people who can't do it but CERTS COUNT FOR NOTHING because GATEKEEPING IDIOTS can't let them, or ANY EXPERIENCE outside the workplace be respected because then they'd have to actually be competent and COMPETE FOR THEIR OWN JOBS AND THEY CAN'T FUCKING DO IT!
Do Cyberforce, get assigned a tenured, 10 year employee for state government Cyber as your team leader and a second that has 8 years not far under that. She goes "Um, how do you connect the VPN. I've never done it on CLI" and COULDN'T EVEN OPEN THE OPENVPN -H menu. Pre-game network hardening and scans? They run NMAP and copy/paste results, google the stuff, and report EVERYTHING THEY READ, not know ANYTHING about ANY of it OR EVEN TRYING TO LEARN, let alone how to check for the actual presence of these vulnerabilities? So I have to do allll of that, then I have to go and implement an IDS system.....
THEN, during the competition, even after YOU SHOW THEM HOW to use this tool (neither of you have ever used), they make excuses and continuously ONLY CALL OUT YOUR TEAMS OWN IP'S and boss everyone else around... THE MOST 'EXPERIENCED' PEOPLE ARE SOOOOOO OFTEN THE WORST ONES I'VE SEEN.
Why does that mean we have to fucking starve? I'm soo sick of it.
Practice 40 hours a week for 5 years, go get a degree and a dozen certs before you even apply, that way you can make SURE you're not falling into the 'SKILLS GAP' these fucking incompetent dinosaurs complain about to justify sheltering themselves from HAVING TO COMPETE AND ACTUALLY PERFORMING THEIR JOBS by strangling the careers of HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS hard-working youths IN THEIR CRADLES....
and EVEN THEN you get told by some idiots "Sorry, you don't have any experience" and they don't even TEST YOU before they say this shit. They CERTAINLY don't test THEIR employee's, hired 10 years ago w/ no barriers to entry, because their uncle or friend was secretary or CEO of the nepotistic incest reach-around department..
but more importantly, when you've done what's NOT required by ANY OF THE CERTS OR EDUCATION but things like eCPPT, OSCP and similar practical lab exams... and you can't even afford those, but even if you could would it make a difference? Maybe a little bit...
But you DON'T HAVE TO TAKE OSCP to PRACTICE WHAT YOU'RE LEARNING until you can outperform the vast majority of incompetent competitors who can spew acronyms but can't apply ANYTHING THEY TALK ABOUT.... and, yes, even many (not all but MAAAANY) employed "PROFESSIONALS".... and these MASSIVE organization don't bother to even TEST YOU, after you put in THOUSANDS of HOURS, before they say you're "Unqualified" and have "NO experience. PERIOD."?
THESE ORGANIZATIONS THAT PUSHED THESE RIDICULOUS PROJECTIONS ABOUT MILLIONS OF UNFILLED POSITIONS? AND THEN WON'T FUCKING HIRE YOU, OR EVEN TEST YOU, WHEN YOU DO ALL THE OUTLINED TRAINING AND MORE?
I Swear, I don't wish this on ANYBODY but I DO kind of hope it does... because then, in 5-10 more years, there will be an ARMY of overtrained, disenfranchised hackers that might actually burn this shit to the ground while these idiots struggle not to piss themselves because they never ACTUALLY learned how to secure ANYTHING... Or really to do much of anything but write "Reports" that SOUND like they're doing something, copied straight out of an automated scanner.... and they make 150k a year for this shit while WE starve, training our asses off ON THE PROMISES SPOKEN FROM THEIR LIPS, THEIR WORDS.
If we started a class action lawsuit against EVERY unethical marketing campaign for cyber education, the government, and ANY corporation who profited off selling us down this black hole of a "career path" WHO WOULD SIGN UP? Who would invest for legal fees?
I don't think this shit will change and we'll have the meritocracy or opportunity we WERE PROMISED unless this happens... and we supplant the old guard and abusers of poweauthority, and broken system, and replace it with HARD performance metric requirements for jobs rather than "experience" requirements and "references"....
IF YOU TRAINED AND CAN DO SOMETHING. YOU HAVE A SKILL AND IT SHOULD BE VALUED REGARDLESS OF WHERE YOU ACQUIRED IT.
REGARDLESS OF "EDUCATION"..... HOW MUCH MORE DO WE DO BEFORE OUR EFFORTS ARE FUCKING RECOGNIZED???
How long until we DO something about this bullshit people?