I'm working on soft robotics and for checking the results of the work I've been doing, I need to create a model inside Abaqus CAE. Tvhis model has to represent a spring. Stiffness of the spring changes with time, so I have two vectors, one of which represents stiffness value, meanwhile the second one represents time step.
Part 1 So I wrote the test_spring_one.inp file where I pointed out the desired stiffness and time steps. Here is the text inside the test_spring_one.inp file.

*Heading ** Job name: SpringStiffnessVariation Model name: Model-1 ** Generated by: Abaqus/CAE ** ** PARTS ** *Part, name=SpringPart *Node 1, 0., 0., 0. 2, 1., 0., 0. *Element, type=SPRINGA 1, 1, 2 *Elset, elset=SPRINGA 1 *Nset, nset=ALLNODES 1, 2 *End Part ** ** ASSEMBLY ** *Assembly, name=Assembly *Instance, name=SpringPart-1, part=SpringPart *Spring, elset=SpringPart-1.SPRINGA SpringMaterial, 1.0 *End Instance *End Assembly ** ** MATERIALS ** *Material, name=SpringMaterial *Elastic, dependencies=1 1.0, 0.0 ** ** AMPLITUDE ** *Amplitude, name=StiffnessAmplitude 0.0, 1.0 1.0, 1.5 2.0, 2.0 ** ** INITIAL CONDITIONS ** *Initial Conditions, type=FIELD, variable=1 SpringPart-1.ALLNODES, 1.0 ** ** STEP: Apply Load ** *Step, name=ApplyLoad, nlgeom=NO *Static 0.1, 1.0, 1e-05, 0.1 ** *Boundary SpringPart-1.1, 1, 1, 0. ** *Boundary SpringPart-1.2, 1, 1, 0.1 ** *Output, field, variable=PRESELECT ** *End Step 

what I do is:

1. Import model to Abaqus, that gives an adequate response:The model "ABQdummy" has been created. The model "test_spring_one" has been created. The part "SPRINGPART" has been imported from the input file. The model "test_spring_one" has been imported from an input file. Please scroll up to check for error and warning messages.
2. Then I create a job, the response is:The job "Job-1" has been created.
3. Then I submit the job and I get:The job input file "Job-1.inp" has been submitted for analysis. Error in job Job-1: THIS MODEL HAS EITHER INCORRECT OR NO ELEMENT DEFINITIONS. Job Job-1: Analysis Input File Processor aborted due to errors. Error in job Job-1: Analysis Input File Processor exited with an error - Please see the Job-1.dat file for possible error messages if the file exists. Job Job-1 aborted due to errors.

_________________________________________________ Part 2
There is another thing I've done. I created MassSpring.cae file. Inside I defined amplitude curve and I tried to assign it to spring stiffness in the input file. Then I again create a job and submit it and I get:

The model "Model-1" from model database "C:/PhD/abaqus/MassSpring.cae" has been imported as "Model-1". The job "Job-1" has been created. The job input file "Job-1.inp" has been submitted for analysis. Job Job-1: Analysis Input File Processor completed successfully. Job Job-1: Abaqus/Explicit Packager completed successfully. Job Job-1: Abaqus/Explicit completed successfully. Job Job-1 completed successfully. 

But the problem is that the amplitude curve is not assigned to the stiffness, the place where I defined stiffness for the spring it just remains a constant. I can assign it to the boundary condition part but not to the stiffness for some reasons. How we can assign amplitude curve to the stiffness, is there any way we can add this tabular table? I wouldn't want to deal with creating subroutines for now, seems like I'm trying to deal with pretty simple issue, but I can't still figure this out.
What am I doing in a wrong way? Can you help me out? Maybe could you provide me with an exemplary .inp file that would represent a spring with two different stiffnesses and two corresponding time steps? I've been dealing with this issue for a while, can't figure things out. Appreciate your time and efforts!

I’m wondering if anyone can help with a very solid brick wall. I was adopted in England when I was a few weeks old and am trying to trace my birth parents.
I have done both Ancestry and 23andMe DNA tests, and I’ve been able to track down my mother’s family quite easily. My mother was from Wales but now lives in Australia and does not appear to be contactable by anyone.
So I am trying to locate my father. The tests suggest that he was probably Portuguese, and possibly had relatives in the Beja district. He will have known my mother in Britain (probably London) in 1967 and I was born in 1968 when my mother was 25 years old.
The Ancestry and 23andMe DNA tests are not showing any close relatives who may be on my father’s side. The closest are 4th and 5th cousins. I have also uploaded data to MyHeritage and although my tree is on there, it has not revealed any solutions.
A few years ago I had a message from a 5th cousin via 23andMe saying:

You show up as a DNA match with the members of my paternal family. The interesting thing about this, is that our family lived in the same Portuguese village for many generations (up to 1600). I think there is a great chance that your great-grandparents were from that same village.
The village name is Beringel in the Beja district. My dad’s family were all from there, they lived there [for] generations. So it would fair to assume that one of your ancestors were from there. We have traced birth and wedding certificates for many generations. We all have a small amount of Nigerian DNA, and we definitely know that in the 1600s, one of our female ancestors was an African slave.”

Unfortunately I have not been able to make contact with this man any more.
I also tried Search Angels, but the investigator said:

Your paternal matches are of such a distance that I can't triangulate them to any specific group of ancestors, with the goal of determining who was related to them today.

I don’t know where to proceed from here. Could anyone advise where I might find a breakthrough?

Demographics: Male, Asian in Socal, in a pretty compettive school most kids got 3.5-3.7 uw gpa, first gen and low income to the standards of my reigion
Intended Major(s):Civil engineering or something environmental science related
ACT/SAT/SAT II: 1550 on the SAT
UW/W GPA and Rank: Unweighted is a 3.63 and Weighted is a 4.12, with my class rank being 73/523
Coursework: AP/IB/Dual Enrollment classes, AP/IB scores, etc: Planning to takea total of 13 APs by senior year, and two dual enrollments this summer
Awards: Have very little, mainly principle honor roll with distinction, and AP scholars with dinstinction
Extracurriculars: Include leadership & summer activities:
-UCI research internship where I studied the effects of increased amounts of pollution on the environment as well as people who may suffer or be more suscetiple to this increase, like pregnant women. Created helpful ways to find sources of said pollutionn and help keep it from spreading
-Lab research internship: Analyzed soil and water samples to test certain conditions of areas that are possibly contaminated with harsh chemicals, as well suggesting policies that will help fix the exposed weaknesses of a certain area.
-Designed a UAV drone for Nasa to help mitigate and help rescuers during natural diseaters. Intended to also help teach children around the nation about the importance of UAV drones in the world
-Designed a pyrolysis generator, testing different methods of fuel and heat to help fight the excess plastic problem by turning the plastic into bio fuels. (Hopefull might work on a research paper on the most effective ways of heating for pyrolysis)
-Created a few apps to help people like my sister who suffers from a mental disabbility to help her learn more about the world. One example being a bird app that gives her mroe information on birds by simply typing in their favorite color and with one button can learn all types of information on birds matching that color
-Created mini wind turbines using scraps from around my house, with the most prominent one being one that can be attached to your bike to also promote exercise. (Mainly inspired by my dad who suffers from permanent lung damage from Covid a while back, and needed to start exercising to improve his lungs but also being suspectible to environmental pollution)
-Volunteered to write life stories at mutiple nursing homes for patients who suffered from alzheimers, to allow them to share what they remembered of their story to later be shared to their future relatives or families. (Inspired by my grandfather who suffered from the same disease)
-Did rowing and singing for 4 years, mainly did these as hobbies but have used them to do small skirmishes or volunteer at church choirs
-Did more volunteer working with groups at my school as well like Red Cross, NHS, and Orphans Club
Schools: I plan on RDing for this whole list: UCLA, UCI, UCSD, UCB, Princeton, Cornell, Stanford, USC, Yale, Upenn, and NYU. (Would be open to more suggestions, I'm not to familiar with most colleges.)
Additonal Info: My grades dropped, a C in foreign language, during my first semester of sophmore year, due to family complications, which is why it's a 3.63 right now. But from then on I have been grinding to get my grades back up, and have shown a great upward trend from my grades with straight As in my final semester of junior year. I don't know if my GPA will be the downfall of this whole application or not, as well as my awards list being so small. Thank you.

Dear Geeks,
I am new to Google Cloud and am considering running a Pi-hole in the cloud for long-term testing (approximately one year) without incurring any costs. I am, however, confused about the details of the ingress and egress data charges.
Google Cloud's free tier includes "1 GB of outbound data transfer from North America to all region destinations (excluding China and Australia) per month." Given that my usage generates approximately 500,000 queries per month, I am unsure whether this will result in outbound data transfer charges.
Could anyone clarify whether these queries will contribute to outbound data transfer costs, and if so, how significant this might be?
Thank you in advance for your assistance.

I've read people's opinion on it and why it makes sense vs the one's who don't like it. Watched gameplay from different people. played multiple games with this rework trying out different strategys. No matter what is going on it's just awful to play. I genuinely don't see why they did this and most of the people who like it can't even explain why. Most just like it because it's a (new) support because it's a support without caring about the character. Others want it to happen whether because they hate going against Moji or the low pickrate excuse even though kinnesa and strix exist. So like the other actual Moji mains or people who know how she operates and her history. I'm going to explain everything wrong with this rework and why it shouldn't happen.
 

Spit & Sparkle

\ \ I have multiple problems with this change. Let's start with the fact that sparkle now self slows you for 20% when used. It used to be 10% which was one of the main issues that we wanted to be removed but kept it now it's at 20%. So now Moji has a ball and chain on her and anyone with extra speed will outrun Moji's heals and damage. Thought supports was supposed to stay with the team. Not have a hard time keeping up with them. No wonder Moji she tells Po-Li to go faster. In order to do it you have to stop healing, then heal, and do it again which means you have less healing. Unless of course they're glued to the point which won't happen in most cases since people have to constantly move in different areas because of what's happening.
Also when it comes to attacking and running away you might as well stay still. Where are you going while being self slowed for 20% while having a big hurtbox? Everyone in this sub just forgot about her big hurtbox which makes Fighting even more of a issue. Even if you use morning breath which takes off 4% of self slow. You still have the big hurtbox issue and less options for better cards which most of them suck that I'll slightly explain later as well. Self slow should be gone in general. It should have never stayed especially when they decided to remove it for everyone else.
Second issue is her damage. There was a reason why she did 1,000 damage and not 450. Not only that but they removed her ability to mark enemies by default. You can with a talent but I'll get to that later. Spit does the main damage and now sparkle does limited tickle damage which also means you're wasting your heals. Who thought this made sense in the slightest. You have to use that in order to kill your enemies faster. When your done you have to wait for it to refill to attack the next enemy coming when no one else comes to help making you helpless. Or you somehow kill the enemy because it's hard to do unless low health. You have to use the rest of it to heal your team which you won't have enough of. This is painful to use.
Third issue is it has heal ammo like IO that runs out quick. Yes you can mark your team but it still isn't enough and doesn't fix the main problems. Her main healing is short range. Name one healer in the game that has a short range in healing. They also have to manually heal with sparkle which other manual healers especially auto or assisted aim healers can do way better. God forbid if they have to come back into battle and try to heal a low health teammate with spit which you will miss multiple times. So what's the point of healing with this character. Moving on to Magic Shield
 

Magic Shield

 
This ability doesn't do much for her team or herself and she should have kept magic barrier. This ability feels like a worse version of Torvalds removed talent alternating current. Instead of delaying your death by 1.5 seconds you delay it by one attack and take the next few shots before being able to run away. The only possible use of it is a niche build and team where you run with a flank while having the card harmonious. With the card you are basically a walking dispenser that shoots with the flank you will hug through most of the game. We already have enough niche things that can be pretty boring and are hardly used. Torvalds had multiple of those. Moji doesn't need it too.
 

Scamper

\ \ You can now run indefinitely with it. They removed bunny hopping but then they brought it back when they realized that she was a literal bunny. When they brought it back though they nerfed the speed and the bunny hops. It's so noticeable that it's not any different from the scamper ability when it comes to speed. The only good thing about it is when you do the advanced tech when trying to spray. That is until that 20% self slow puts a ball and chain on you. This doesn't fix her main issues and they made it worse beilieve it or not. Here's there reason on doing it.
Due to changes to how Scamper functions, Bunny Hopping will be weaker at base than it was prior. In order to feel similar to how it did on Moji prior, you'll want high levels of both Boop and Morning Breath to allow those same flings across spaces.
This is completely wrong because when did we ever had a card that decreases self slow. Your really trying to tell me that Moji players, grandmaster Moji players, and bot Moji didn't know anything about it??? Guess it was hidden in the game the whole time. Plus it doesn't even change the speed of bunny hopping because you nerfed it and nothing in her cards effects it. So in order to maintain any kind of speed I have to put points into morning breath which is pretty a forced have too in game. Also who uses boop to increase the speed after using scamper. No one used it because bunny hopping was way better than that because you're able to move while attacking and defending yourself. Anyone running it was basically throwing without knowing. Not even maxing out scoot will save you. Your just delaying your death with that maxed out 20% damage reduction and giving them more ult. Seriously if using regular scamper made you die when trying to escape. What's making it indefinitely going to do?
 

Bon Appetite

\ \ This one really amazes me because they actually put part of yummy into base kit that we asked for halve what. Except there is no ult percentage and gives 50% of maximum health instead of 1000hp and ignores anti-healing. Problem is. This ult is now basically worse than pips ult and atlas setback. They changed everything else but the ultimate in order to keep the old Moji play style that is pretty much dead. They clearly want her to be glued to her team and with this ultimate you make them have to run to the opponent to eat it. The main use now for it is to use it for defence which is horrible because it's so easy to predict it. Most characters can either block, CC immune, dodge, and other things to ignore being ulted. Even with the cancels it won't work. You had a better chance of using it because you can attack regularly, use the magic barrier combo, and other methods to make people take the ultimate. Without magic barrier she less uses for her ultimate. It's now a long charging ability and is terrible. Now for the talents.
 

Spit Shine

\ \ Spit now heals them for 350 and increases their Movement Speed by 20% for 2s. Why is this reworked Moji's only true support talent. This talents fine until you realize that it's also goes against Moji and the team. Let me explain. Remember how Moji has 20% self slow when she fires. Well now that the team is moving at 120% now you're basically moving at 60% and they're outrunning you. Some characters can move even faster and you will basically be at a speed of 40%-60%. So if you felt forced using morning breath you will using this talent and have to make it 5 points. Even with morning breath maxed out. You will be moving at 60%-80% and will be forced to use scamper and may get attacked by a enemy and can't run or hurt them enough. You're just a bad assist healer with some use that is not enough.
 

Jubilation

\ \ Reworked to "Magic Marks are now instead applied to enemies. Detonating at least 7 stacks of Magic Mark deals bonus damage, up to a total of 800". I'm aware that she is a support but they still don't know why she did 1,000 damage in the first place. With this talent you no longer have the ability to use the secondary to heal people. This talent will bring these types of players.
The ones who like old Moji and then realizing that they changed so much that flank Moji is not possible. Instead they may go damage and heal from time to time. Another one is that someone uses it for defence while mainly healing the team and forcing two supports to play in the match. The last one is someone you will see more often is someone not able to play Moji or the talent well. Youthought grohk going damage and seris flanking on the same team was bad. Get ready for her to join the team. Your going to ask them so who is going main support and who will play tank and it's television static. The seris will stand around too much and do a bunch of questionable things. Grohk only has some heals because they were there when they played damage. The Moji is struggling to do anything with it. The seris will plug and the bad grohk player will say something crazy before leaving a millisecond later.
No matter what you do with the talent based on your skill. Nothing just works for reworked Moji including the cards. The damaged worked because she had magic barrier and damage combos with it. Without it she can't do anything when she's is in danger including running away with the giant hurtbox.
 

Realm Runner

\ \ When entering Scamper, leave a magical dust cloud behind that applies a lingering heal for 600 over 3s. Dust cloud lasts 4s.
Moji mains have been wanting toot I mean realm runner in base kit for awhile because it's not a real talent. It's a better version of scurry and when it's in base kit then she would actually be able to use the other two talents and do better without ruining gameplay for anyone. Instead they kept it as a talent to play the old Moji. What old Moji...you got rid of almost everything Moji who is basically just a echo champion at this rate. You turned a forced talent into a throw talent.
The dust cloud we wanted back is just a sparkly circle on the ground that people won't be able to see. Plus is like back then where the team can see it and no one else. Otherwise people will know where she is and take her down. Why.
 

Cards

\ \ None of the cards have any synergy with each other at all. You're basically forced to use morning especially with the healing talent at 3-5. Since default ammunition for sparkle is terrible you will definitely need 3-5 points for symbiotic. Dense woods never needed any points above 1 and was a decent filler card for old Moji. However since this is reworked Moji. Don't think it's worth using since you will try to be around the team constantly and should already be enough. Now we have 5-9 points for ourselves so what can we do. Uhhhh. Well damn.
Oh I didn't mention this earlier but remember how spit shine and Moji's 20% self slow makes the team run away from her. Well the card natures blessing gives allies 5% extra speed when they get hit by spray for 3 seconds. So you can max this out at 25%. Instead of being 40-60% slower than faster teammates being healed with there speed cards and abilitys. 60% slower when trying to healer teammates without anything making them move faster besides you. This is how fast you will be moving compared to them.
You will be moving at 15% at worst to 55% when trying to heal teammates while trying to heal them as they really outrun your heals. With morning breath maxed out you will mainly be moving at 35%-75% while healing. No one has tested this character at all.
Anyway you can look at the cards and get some ideas as we move on to the long time Moji bugs. So for the people who been playing Moji or about to with support Moji. Get ready to deal with these long time annoying bugs.
 

Weapons/Armor

\ \ Fluffy
Increase your maximum Health by {5050}.
Peppy
Generate {0.40.4}% Ultimate Charge when triggering a max stack Magic Mark.
Symbiotic
Increase your Sparkle capacity by {66}%.
Will-o-the-Wisp
Increase your Movement Speed by {55}% for 4s after getting an Elimination.
 

Sparkle

\ \ Dense Woods
Increase the duration of your Magic Marks by {0.80.8}s.
Greater Good
When an ally receives max Magic Marks, they gain a {2020} Health Shield while marked.
Morning Breath
Reworked to "Decrease self-slow of Sparkle by 2020%"
Nature’s Blessing
Allies gain {55}% Movement Speed for 3s after being hit by Familiar Spray.
 

Magic Shield

\ \ Cozy
Magic Shield Heals allies for {66} every 0.25s while its being channeled.
Glimmer
Reduce Magic Shield’s Cooldown by {0.10.1}s when detonating a max stack Magic Mark.
Harmonious
Regenerate {31}% Sparkle and Ammo for affected allies every 0.25s while channeling Magic Barrier.
Shimmering
Allies affected by Magic Barrier gain {33}% Crowd Control resistance for 4s.
 

Scamper

\ \ Boop
Increase your Movement Speed by {88}% for 2s after using Scamper.
Scoot
Reduce the damage you take during Scamper by {44}%.
Scurry
Heal for {2020} every 0.3s during Scamper.
Wobbles
Gain {1010}% Slow resistance while using Scamper.
 

The Bugs

\ \ It isn't a paladins games without mentioning the bugs. Here's what to expect when playing her so you don't get confused.
If a seris or Kasumi is on the team and attack the same enemy as you. Your marks will reset back to zero everytime they attack. Now can this somehow happen when trying to heal the same teammates. No idea but anything goes with paladins.
If you mark a enemy, shoot spit at them and die. Despite the mark being there the game will for some reason make you do zero mark damage.
A enemys hurtbox when turned into a cookie is really weird. You can touch them multiple times and still won't be eaten until they finally do. Sometimes they may turn back to normal even though you clearly deserved it. Last part hasn't happened to me and I hope it doesn't. What's even weirder is that even though you can't eat them from the front from time to time. Even when they're literally on your head and jumping around. You can definitely eat them from behind with no misses. Why has this not been fixed.
When being ulted by furia that's supposed to give 30% extra damage. You will instead receive 9% extra damage. I don't think this happens to no one else besides maybe jenos too.
These bugs are still relevant for reworked Moji. The other ones are not there like snack attack so I won't mention them. I even have videos for these bugs too. Don't think because these videos are old it means that it no longer happens. The horse bug is old and that has been going on for years including other things.
https://www.reddit.com/Paladins/comments/tvfhlg/a_video_of_multiple_moji_bugs_happening_ill/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=mweb3x&utm_name=mweb3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button
https://www.reddit.com/Paladins/comments/z33w1x/yeah_that_makes_sense/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=mweb3x&utm_name=mweb3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button
 

Conclusion

\ \ I know they want to do something with her but I don't buy it that they did this because they cared about Moji. Moji hardly got any changes for years and I mean rarely a update to anything about her even though we're telling them what to do and then they rework them. They did thid because they didn't have funds for a echo champion since that was mentioned in the exact same post when talking about changing moji. Paladins has a history of someone who works on the game saying they will do this or mention a thing. Whether or not people like it or not which most of them we didn't like. They will still do it like echo champions.
This is the wrong way to go about it and no warning was ever given. To people who think well people ask for support/tank in the past. Those people now see that Moji is actually better than how people depicted her in late season 2. Plus those people no longer play the game and had a whole different idea when paladins was different back then. It's one thing to say I want a support. It's another when it comes to a type of support and what they have but everyone can't explain it because they simply hate Moji based on the comments. There are some characters I hate going against and when there character gets gutted I don't cheer in excitement. I would hate that to happen to my favorite characters. I simply want a certain thing nerf if it's clearly too much but without ruining them. I only suggest a rework or change to a certain thing if nothing else can work and is something people can agree on that benefits everyone.
These changes don't benefit anyone including the ideas since no one asked for these specific things. I would just revert it and actually listen to Moji mains needs to make her a better character. Not just Moji but every character. Especially the non human characters because they stay ignore them including people wanting ruckus Aerial Assault in base kit. Rather you guys fix the actual issues than do stuff like this. Including finishing unfinished maps instead of a unnecessary map rework making them worse to play on and never fixed.
That's all I have to say. Please let me know your thoughts on this. Actually have a real opinion and thoughts and not repeat the same thing over and over without making a actual point or I'm ignoring it.

First generation lawyer that just graduated law school. I am currently preparing for the bar but am more concerned er about where to begin my legal career. I have multiple offers all in different areas.
My goal is to litigant and become a competent trial attorney. My offers are as follows:

• Personal Injury Firm (80K with bonuses)
• Civil defense (75k)
• DA office in largest county in my state (65k)

Litigating is something I know for certain I want to do for the rest of my life. I want to be a respected and tested trial attorney that can go to court anywhere and not be afraid of making an ass of myself.
Keeping my goals in mind where is place to start my career with these options on the table?

First generation lawyer that just graduated law school. I am currently preparing for the bar but am more concerned er about where to begin my legal career. I have multiple offers all in different areas.
My goal is to litigant and become a competent trial attorney. My offers are as follows:

• Personal Injury Firm (80K with bonuses)
• Civil defense (75k)
• DA office in largest county in my state (65k)

Litigating is something I know for certain I want to do for the rest of my life. I want to be a respected and tested trial attorney that can go to court anywhere and not be afraid of making an ass of myself.
Keeping my goals in mind where is place to start my career with these options on the table?

Hey All, I have been testing many CEDH decks to bring into tournament play with an 80 min timer for consideration. I've narrowed it down to 4 decks with their pro's and con's. I would love to hear thoughts from vets and new cedh players alike on my thought process. The moxfields don't have primers made yet since a lot of the lines take inspiration from already made lists. I'll make rounds of this post in a couple reddit/discord groups.
Tasigur Broodlord; https://www.moxfield.com/decks/mnfcR1cMaUy5HvKgW_Jx7g
Pros
-Extremely Fast Combos, Potential to win turn 2-3 consistently
-Plays through stacks pretty well being more creature heavy with different lines available
-Commander can grind and manipulate through a table pretty consistently
-Easy fixing off 3 color manabase, no difficulty casting spells
-Large interaction
-Slightly off meta, mindslaver effects are ineffective unless opponent has piloted before
Cons
-Susceptible to graveyard hate
-Thoracle line available to praetor's grasp players
-Broodhoard line is interactable and non deterministic
-Slower and less card advantage than meta decks without Nezahal/Rhystic
Derevi Flicker Tempo; https://www.moxfield.com/decks/dE09DZy4uUekq_H-SRXFwA
Pros
-Cheats Commander Tax/Casts, ability to turn off an attack or turn on a land for politics can be relevant
-Stax Interaction can beat out breach and consultation decks pretty strong, plays through its own stax well
-Attack plan is strong against ad nauseum players, toolbox creatures lets creativity into deck plan
-Evades removal using blinks and taxes, allowing it to snowball easily
Cons
-Meta/Well-Known, lines can be predictable
-Susceptible to Wipes/Removal from Value Commanders like Niv-Mizzet
-Flying creatures don't play well into kraum decks
-Possible to turn off interaction from other decks at table but doesn't pack a lot of interaction on its own, will likely lose counterspell battles
-Decks win condition is non-deterministic and slow, will just lose to a table with 2 or more turbo decks like Rogsi/BlueFarm
Hermit Pod; https://www.moxfield.com/decks/tb_hmrXsREODeXOK6q4cRA
Pros
-Premier Toolbox/Stax Deck with strong interactivity despite being non-blue, a card exists for every situation
-Card advantage always available with Tymna
-Stax pieces are extremely strong against Breach Lines
-Strong Recursion available, card removal rarely effects the decks ability to win
Cons
-Extremely Linear Gameplan, Graveyard hate and removal of Kiki makes winning difficult
-Double Pip spells in 4 color deck can make for awkward color fixing situations even with perfect mana base
-Deck's win lines are slow and involve multiple interactible pieces fitting together, making winning in an 80 min setting possibly difficult
-Is meant to be the anti-blue deck at the table, off meta decks are sure to beat it
Maelstrom Wanderer; https://www.moxfield.com/decks/3KFo3A_72EKA7J-1wgKMrQ
Pros
-Extremely Fast, can win out of nowhere and take advantage of opponents board states easily
-Offmeta, unlikely that players will interact with anything that isn't so obviously problematic
-Beatdown plan is super relevant despite not having the Slicer clock.
-Creative ways to avoid breach loss, large creatures scare off Tymna/Kraum/Najeela
-"Biorhythm" Win available with ease in CEDH due to big evasive creatures being able to get through 9 life.
Cons
-Interaction is typically saved for game losing situations
-Draw power is pretty minimal, Rhystic, Fish-Stick, Library
-Cascade RNG can cause a fizzle and wasted resources
-Loses steam and gameplan to meta stax pieces (Drannith, Rule of Law Effects, Interrupter) without decent removal options.
-Dead cards in hand once the linear gameplan is executed

Hey All, I have been testing many CEDH decks to bring into tournament play with an 80 min timer for consideration. I've narrowed it down to 4 decks with their pro's and con's. I would love to hear thoughts from vets and new cedh players alike on my thought process. The moxfields don't have primers made yet since a lot of the lines take inspiration from already made lists. I'll make rounds of this post in a couple reddit/discord groups.
Tasigur Broodlord; https://www.moxfield.com/decks/mnfcR1cMaUy5HvKgW_Jx7g
Pros
-Extremely Fast Combos, Potential to win turn 2-3 consistently
-Plays through stacks pretty well being more creature heavy with different lines available
-Commander can grind and manipulate through a table pretty consistently
-Easy fixing off 3 color manabase, no difficulty casting spells
-Large interaction
-Slightly off meta, mindslaver effects are ineffective unless opponent has piloted before
Cons
-Susceptible to graveyard hate
-Thoracle line available to praetor's grasp players
-Broodhoard line is interactable and non deterministic
-Slower and less card advantage than meta decks without Nezahal/Rhystic
Derevi Flicker Tempo; https://www.moxfield.com/decks/dE09DZy4uUekq_H-SRXFwA
Pros
-Cheats Commander Tax/Casts, ability to turn off an attack or turn on a land for politics can be relevant
-Stax Interaction can beat out breach and consultation decks pretty strong, plays through its own stax well
-Attack plan is strong against ad nauseum players, toolbox creatures lets creativity into deck plan
-Evades removal using blinks and taxes, allowing it to snowball easily
Cons
-Meta/Well-Known, lines can be predictable
-Susceptible to Wipes/Removal from Value Commanders like Niv-Mizzet
-Flying creatures don't play well into kraum decks
-Possible to turn off interaction from other decks at table but doesn't pack a lot of interaction on its own, will likely lose counterspell battles
-Decks win condition is non-deterministic and slow, will just lose to a table with 2 or more turbo decks like Rogsi/BlueFarm
Hermit Pod; https://www.moxfield.com/decks/tb_hmrXsREODeXOK6q4cRA
Pros
-Premier Toolbox/Stax Deck with strong interactivity despite being non-blue, a card exists for every situation
-Card advantage always available with Tymna
-Stax pieces are extremely strong against Breach Lines
-Strong Recursion available, card removal rarely effects the decks ability to win
Cons
-Extremely Linear Gameplan, Graveyard hate and removal of Kiki makes winning difficult
-Double Pip spells in 4 color deck can make for awkward color fixing situations even with perfect mana base
-Deck's win lines are slow and involve multiple interactible pieces fitting together, making winning in an 80 min setting possibly difficult
-Is meant to be the anti-blue deck at the table, off meta decks are sure to beat it
Maelstrom Wanderer; https://www.moxfield.com/decks/3KFo3A_72EKA7J-1wgKMrQ
Pros
-Extremely Fast, can win out of nowhere and take advantage of opponents board states easily
-Offmeta, unlikely that players will interact with anything that isn't so obviously problematic
-Beatdown plan is super relevant despite not having the Slicer clock.
-Creative ways to avoid breach loss, large creatures scare off Tymna/Kraum/Najeela
-"Biorhythm" Win available with ease in CEDH due to big evasive creatures being able to get through 9 life.
Cons
-Interaction is typically saved for game losing situations
-Draw power is pretty minimal, Rhystic, Fish-Stick, Library
-Cascade RNG can cause a fizzle and wasted resources
-Loses steam and gameplan to meta stax pieces (Drannith, Rule of Law Effects, Interrupter) without decent removal options.
-Dead cards in hand once the linear gameplan is executed

Hey All, I have been testing many CEDH decks to bring into tournament play with an 80 min timer for consideration. I've narrowed it down to 4 decks with their pro's and con's. I would love to hear thoughts from vets and new cedh players alike on my thought process. The moxfields don't have primers made yet since a lot of the lines take inspiration from already made lists. I'll make rounds of this post in a couple reddit/discord groups.
Tasigur Broodlord; https://www.moxfield.com/decks/mnfcR1cMaUy5HvKgW_Jx7g
Pros
-Extremely Fast Combos, Potential to win turn 2-3 consistently
-Plays through stacks pretty well being more creature heavy with different lines available
-Commander can grind and manipulate through a table pretty consistently
-Easy fixing off 3 color manabase, no difficulty casting spells
-Large interaction
-Slightly off meta, mindslaver effects are ineffective unless opponent has piloted before
Cons
-Susceptible to graveyard hate
-Thoracle line available to praetor's grasp players
-Broodhoard line is interactable and non deterministic
-Slower and less card advantage than meta decks without Nezahal/Rhystic
Derevi Flicker Tempo; https://www.moxfield.com/decks/dE09DZy4uUekq_H-SRXFwA
Pros
-Cheats Commander Tax/Casts, ability to turn off an attack or turn on a land for politics can be relevant
-Stax Interaction can beat out breach and consultation decks pretty strong, plays through its own stax well
-Attack plan is strong against ad nauseum players, toolbox creatures lets creativity into deck plan
-Evades removal using blinks and taxes, allowing it to snowball easily
Cons
-Meta/Well-Known, lines can be predictable
-Susceptible to Wipes/Removal from Value Commanders like Niv-Mizzet
-Flying creatures don't play well into kraum decks
-Possible to turn off interaction from other decks at table but doesn't pack a lot of interaction on its own, will likely lose counterspell battles
-Decks win condition is non-deterministic and slow, will just lose to a table with 2 or more turbo decks like Rogsi/BlueFarm
Hermit Pod; https://www.moxfield.com/decks/tb_hmrXsREODeXOK6q4cRA
Pros
-Premier Toolbox/Stax Deck with strong interactivity despite being non-blue, a card exists for every situation
-Card advantage always available with Tymna
-Stax pieces are extremely strong against Breach Lines
-Strong Recursion available, card removal rarely effects the decks ability to win
Cons
-Extremely Linear Gameplan, Graveyard hate and removal of Kiki makes winning difficult
-Double Pip spells in 4 color deck can make for awkward color fixing situations even with perfect mana base
-Deck's win lines are slow and involve multiple interactible pieces fitting together, making winning in an 80 min setting possibly difficult
-Is meant to be the anti-blue deck at the table, off meta decks are sure to beat it
Maelstrom Wanderer; https://www.moxfield.com/decks/3KFo3A_72EKA7J-1wgKMrQ
Pros
-Extremely Fast, can win out of nowhere and take advantage of opponents board states easily
-Offmeta, unlikely that players will interact with anything that isn't so obviously problematic
-Beatdown plan is super relevant despite not having the Slicer clock.
-Creative ways to avoid breach loss, large creatures scare off Tymna/Kraum/Najeela
-"Biorhythm" Win available with ease in CEDH due to big evasive creatures being able to get through 9 life.
Cons
-Interaction is typically saved for game losing situations
-Draw power is pretty minimal, Rhystic, Fish-Stick, Library
-Cascade RNG can cause a fizzle and wasted resources
-Loses steam and gameplan to meta stax pieces (Drannith, Rule of Law Effects, Interrupter) without decent removal options.
-Dead cards in hand once the linear gameplan is executed

The stress of the last six months has nearly killed me. Besides the general cratering of the outside world—political strife, climate change, inflated rents, corporate greed, and the baffling resurgence of crew socks—my internal life was falling apart, too. I'm at the point where I can't see a way out of the darkness, and that feeling has only grown in the last few days.
My struggles ramped up exponentially in the last two weeks. It started when my long-term girlfriend and I called it quits after five years. There was no definitive relationship-altering fight or infidelity. It was simply the boring banality of the "roommate-ification" of our lives together. We both felt the shift but never talked about it. Turns out communication is important.
Truthfully, we'd stayed together for so long because we couldn't afford to live apart. Our rent had nearly doubled the last time we re-upped our lease but even that was a bargain compared to what was out there currently. We were trapped by our need to have a roof over our heads.
My job had stagnated, and I couldn't find anything better. I was stuck. Like me, she'd been job hunting as well. Unlike me, she had a master's, and her prospects should've been higher. They weren't. For five months, she applied to hundreds of jobs and couldn't break through. If she got a rejection email, it was a win. Most of the time, the companies never responded.
Finally, she found a great opportunity at a Fortune 500 company. It was an involved process. She nailed the five interviews, and her "test project" was well received. She was offered the position, and it came with a massive pay increase—double her current salary. I was proud of her—she needed a win. We celebrated with pizza and beer that night.
Two days later, she dropped the bomb that she was breaking things off. The relationship ending wasn't a surprise. The timing was. The discussion was brief, and there was zero chance of reconciliation. She declined when I asked if she could stay until the lease ended. Mentally, it would've been too much for her. Two days after that, she moved out, taking half the rent with her. I was stuck in a lease I couldn't afford on my salary for the next six months.
My free time evaporated as I took on two extra gigs to help make ends meet. In addition to my office nine to five, I drove for a delivery app on the weekends and took a part-time night job stocking shelves at a local grocery store. When I wasn't hustling for housing, I slept or ate. I did nothing beyond that. Nothing brings me joy. There is no spark.
This drudgery has become my daily routine, and it's killing me.
To help cover some cost gaps, I've started selling off some of my stuff online. It was just me here, and I decided that the Spartan lifestyle would have to work for now. Anything I could fetch a decent amount for went up for sale. My apartment is so empty now every noise causes an echo.
Before my shift at the grocery store, I agreed to meet someone who wanted to take a look at my kitchen table. It was a lovely table – my ex had obsessed over it – but I didn't see a need at the moment. Now that I was a bachelor, my TV trays became my default kitchen tables anyway. I wasn't planning on any dinner parties in the future anyway.
A couple showed up later than they said they would. It was a bored-looking guy and a fastidious young woman. She made friendly small talk as she looked over the table. Her boyfriend (I think) stayed quiet and played bodyguard. I gave him a friendly nod at one point, and he just looked away. She said they'd take it without trying to talk me down. I took the small win.
She asked if I could help carry it down to their truck. I was running late, but feeling helpful, even for a fleeting few seconds, was worth it. Her silent boyfriend and I hauled the table through the hallway and even managed to avoid hitting the walls the entire way down.
I placed it in their truck, got my money, and turned to leave. The girl said thanks, and the boyfriend finally returned the nod. I gave a weird half-wave to them both and started to walk away when I heard the passenger window being rolled down.
"Hey man," the boyfriend said, his voice higher pitched than I thought it would. "What was up with your brother giving us the evil eye in the lobby when we got here?"
I turned around, "Huh? I don't have a brother."
"A cousin then?"
"My family lives about a thousand miles away. What happened in the lobby?"
"A dude that looked just like you was hiding in a dark hallway in the lobby and staring at my girl's ass."
"Jacob, really," she said.
"I'm sorry that happened, but I had nothing to do with it. We do have the occasional homeless guy meander in. Maybe you saw one of them," I said. "Did he say or do anything bad?"
"Jacob, I asked you to not say something," the girl said, burying her head in her hands.
Jacob's frosty attitude to me made sense now. "He said something about running up that ass. I dunno, he was mumbling. I told him I'd beat his ass if he didn't stop staring. Seemed to shut him up."
"Oh. Well, congrats," I said. "I'll tell the manager. Thanks for letting me know."
"You should do a better job keeping jokers like that out of the building."
"Jacob, he's not a security guard."
"He should still be a man and protect his home."
"Have a good night," I said, ending the conversation and heading back up to my apartment. I had about five minutes to change and head out before I'd be late. Last thing my ego needed was to be fired from my backup job.
Thankfully, I was able to slip into work and not get spotted by my boss. That was the last of the good news, though. We had a massive weekly order come in, which meant I'd be there late, plus someone had called out. Worse, our hand truck had a flat tire, and I spent the next few hours torturing my muscles, schlepping heavy boxes around the store. I soldiered on, counting down the minutes until I left and fantasizing about going to bed for the night.
If wishing for sleep wasn't a sad statement to my mental well-being, nothing was.
I came home after my shift at the grocery store and plopped down on the couch. I had contemplated selling it, but it was an older Ikea number, and I didn't think the value would replace my desire to sit. I could feel my body sink into the cushions, and the day's tension seep out. I was beat and tired to the point that turning on the TV was a chore.
I picked up my phone and thought I'd doomscroll until sleep overtook me. I didn't expect it to be a long scroll, as even the methadone that is my phone has failed me lately. As I lowered myself from a slumped position to a supine one, I heard footsteps outside my apartment door. This was not unusual, but the noise I heard sounded like kid footsteps. That was unusual, as nobody on our floor had kids, and it was almost midnight.
Despite my body screaming at me to not move, my brain suggested I check it out. I rolled myself off the couch and eventually stood up. I listened again and heard the kid running down the hallway. I walked over to my door and looked out the peephole. I didn't see anyone.
"Maybe I'm dreaming," I said to myself. "Maybe I'm not staring out a peephole, expecting to see a kid running down the hall at midnight, but instead, I'm cuddled up in my bed, snoozing." I pinched my arm and felt the pain. I was definitely in the waking world.
I turned to head back to the couch when I heard the running again, this time louder. I opened my door and peeked out into the hallway. Nobody was there. The door from the apartment across me opened up, too. Gloria, a young at heart grandma who was friendly/constantly buzzed in a wine mom kind of way, gave me a once over.
"You heard that, too?" she asked.
"Kids?"
"No rugrats around. I assumed it was some drunk assholes stumbling home from the bar."
I laughed. Gloria was, as always, blunt. "I didn't see any assholes," I said.
"Then you're not watching the right kind of internet videos," she said with a wink and a hoarse cackle.
I blushed. How do you respond to that? I just kind of nodded in agreement and shrugged.
"Gotta get your jollies while you can," she said before adding, "You need some rest, dear. You look like hammered shit." She shut her door and went back inside.
She was right. I felt like hammered shit. Since I wasn't going to solve the case of the mysterious runner and was sure it wasn't some lost kid, I decided to call it a night. I went back inside, shut down the apartment, and crawled into bed.
I thought about watching one of the "right kind of internet videos" but fell asleep as soon as my head hit the pillow.
***
"Your problem is you think the world owes you something."
John, my elderly coworker at the grocery store, was standing by while I unloaded a pallet of cereal. I liked John, and when I first started, we instantly clicked. He's quick with a joke and fun to talk to. He's also about thirty years older than me and speaks with the Boomer combination of accumulated wisdom, backhanded compliments, and fringe conspiracy nonsense. Still, regardless of how couched the kindness is in gobbledygook, he's usually coming from a good place.
"What?" I said, putting a box of Captain Crunch on the shelf.
"You're complaining about your situation, right? Saying it ain't fair. The world took a paddle to your hind quarters? Hey brother, that's the way the cookie crumbles. Gotta just pick yourself up and start over. You're smart enough – figured this job out right quick – you can do it."
The job was wheeling pallets around the store and stocking shelves. It wasn't much to figure out, but I understood his meaning. The other stuff wasn't necessary, though. "I'm just in a funk. I don't see a way forward."
"Hey, so you've bottomed out. No shame in that. Happens to us all. Silver lining, you can only go up," he said before adding, "Unless some other bad shit happens to you like your car dies or your apartment building burns down. But after that, it's only up."
"The apartment building burning down would be a blessing," I said, hoisting another little Captain on the shelf. "The rent is killing me."
"Have you tried negotiating a lower rent? They used to do that when I was your age."
"I think they'd evict me if I even asked."
"Hell, then you'd have at least thirty days, maybe forty, before they'd kick you out. Plenty of time to turn things around."
"Uh-huh," I said, "Any chance you could give me a hand here?"
"My back is screaming like a pretty young thing after prom," he said, holding his back for emphasis.
I didn't push. "Hey, I meant to tell you about some weird shit that happened the other night."
"Lay it on me. I love the strange."
"So, after my shift the other day, I got home around midnight and was flopped on the couch. I heard someone running down the hallway outside my apartment. I wasn't the only one. A few other neighbors heard it, too. When we checked, though, nobody was there."
"That ain't strange," John said, waving his hand, "that's a man who's plowing another man's wife running for his life."
I laughed. "That's not the weird part. So, for the next two nights, it's the same thing. Around midnight, someone runs down the hallway. Only this time, they're trying the door handles as they pass. So, I asked the front desk to check the security cameras, and they do."
"They see a man running away holding his clothes?"
"There wasn't anyone running down the hall," I said, "But the weird thing was, you could see the door handles turning on the video."
"Damn, that's a good one," John said, "You sure it wasn't just a camera glitch. These new ones from overseas aren't as reliable as they want you to think. Chinese probably using them to spy on you, too."
He continued as my brain tried to reconcile John's two opposing comments. "Weird shit happens at night, man. Before working here, I only worked the day shift. Even when they offered me more money to work nights, I turned it down. Even when they promised me a promotion, I turned them down."
In a previous life, John had worked as a paramedic. He came by it after serving in a medical unit in the army. He'd told me he loved the rush of the job, but after a while, the death and hurt in people's eyes got to be too much to handle. But he worked there for almost twenty years. So, the man had a tolerance for shenanigans and odd occurrences.
"Why'd you agree to work nights here?"
"Shit, we're home before the witching hour. This is like late afternoons, at best. But if it was overnights, hell no. Captain Crunch can anchor his own ship to the shelves. I'd take my ass to 7-11 for a day shift before agreeing to work an overnight."
"Something happen to you during the army?”
“I got the clap,” he offered.
I sighed. “What turned you off nights?"
"Oh. I heard enough stories from coworkers to know I didn't want to experience any of that hoo-doo shit," he said, "trying to save someone's life is hard enough without adding in demon kids and ghosts."
"Did your coworkers see demon kids?" I asked, moving on from the good Captain to the Trix rabbit.
He nodded, "They saw too much. I find it odd, even with all the surveillance we have now and all the science we know about these days, that the night still scares us. You ever know someone who worked a night shift?"
I had. My ex. During college, she worked the overnight desk at a hotel for a while. She quit because the job gave her bad vibes. I told John as much.
He pointed and laughed, "See! Don't you find it odd that every person who works at night always has a story of something eerie happening to them? Every person, buster. That's what they call an irrefutable fact."
"Maybe the ghost running down the hallway is an old employee still doing his rounds."
"In that case, keep that door double locked. I'd even wedge a towel under the door just in case."
"Maybe they're friendly? Casper-like in that way."
"You ever heard someone tell you about a friendly ghost outside the funny papers?"
"I'm sure it happens," I said, "The scary ghosts are more popular though."
“We think we know everything there is to know but we are just babes in the woods when it comes to night things.” John shook his head. "Imma tell you one or three things that happened to a guy I worked with back when I first got hired on to chase after corpses in the ambo. Guy's name was Gil. Quiet man, kept to himself. Didn't rock the boat or demand a bigger paddle. Just rowed with us. Good cat to learn under," John said, finally handing me a cereal box.
I took it, and he kept going, "Now, Gil, ya see, he had a little wifey that would pester him about working days. She was a cop and worked evenings at that time, so they never saw each other. When married people can't align their genitals every now and then, it spells doom."
"A little too much information but sure," I said, shelving another box of Trix.
"Probably part of what happened with you and yours," he said. He wasn't wrong, but that didn't mean I wanted to hear it.
John kept on, "Gil finally got approved to move to nights. Little pay boost and a happy, 'fulfilled' wife should've made that man happy. But it didn't. I saw him a few months later, and he had changed. He might've been quiet when he was working with me, but he'd talk to you if you engaged. When I saw him that time, though, oh boy. He looked sick."
"Wasn't a fan of working nights?"
"Wasn't a fan of living anymore is the feeling I got," John said, "After some prodding, he got to talking with me some. Told me he missed days because the nights were messing with him. I thought it had to do with the schedule change, but that wasn't the case. He said he saw things in the dark he couldn't explain. Things that would turn James Brown into James White, ya dig?"
"I...dig," I said.
"Told me they got a call to an abandoned apartment building one night, around three in the morning. Wasn't unusual. Old buildings in the city are where hop-heads congregate and share drugs. Sometimes, the drugs are too much. Sometimes, they find a person passed out or, worse, dead. When you work in the ambo, you aren't scared of death like a civilian. You've been around it. Probably seen a few folks take their last breaths. It doesn't bother you the way Mother Nature intended it should."
He handed me another box, continuing his assist streak, and kept going, "Ambo pulled up, Gil stepped out and looked for someone to talk to. Nobody there, though. Not uncommon. Some people want to help but not be involved. There's not a soul around. He calls out, but nothing comes back. Tells me he turns to get back in the ambulance when he hears a scream from inside the run-down building. They're calling for help. He's gotta go in the abandoned building in the dark."
"No thanks," I said.
"But it don't bother a medic like that. Gil's done a million of these calls. No big deal. He runs into that building but doesn't come back out until twenty minutes later. Just goes missing. After five, the crew heads in to back him up but can't find him. Gil tells me his crew called the cops. It was like he had vanished."
"What happened?"
"I asked him and he got real quiet. Said he fell into some place that looked like here but wasn't here. Said he felt their eyes on him. Judging him. Told me they followed him home and wouldn't leave him be."
"Who?"
John shrugged, "He didn't say. Shut down after that and left. Just walked past me like I was shit on the sidewalk. He quit about a week later. Heard he had a stroke a year later and was a tombstone owner three months after that. Good guy, though."
"Your aversion to overnights makes a little more sense."
"Never in a million years. You don't want something like that coming after you."
"In my case, could it get much worse?" I said with a half-smile.
"Man, I wouldn't even joke about that," he said, making the sign of the cross, "You don't want that shit attachin' itself to you. With your luck, you'd bring him in here, and it'd hop over to me. I can't have a ghost crimping my style."
After a bit, he got called away to sign off on a delivery. I finished out my shift and headed out to the parking lot. When I exited the building and spotted my car, I froze. My doors were all open, and the interior lights were on. Someone had broken in.
I glanced around the lot to see if the thief was still around, but there wasn't another person near me. I walked over to the car and peered inside. My glovebox had been ripped open, and my registration was pulled out, but nothing else was missing.
I found little hand prints in the dirt all along the body and the windows. I held mine up for comparison, and they were about half the size. It must've been some tweens or teens who did this. Maybe they were going to steal some things and got cold feet. I contemplated calling the cops, but since nothing had happened and they wouldn't do anything anyway, there was no reason to delay sleep any longer than I had to. I closed all the doors and climbed inside.
I started the car and heard something rattling in the AC vents. I pulled out my phone and shined the light at the vent. There was a small piece of paper inside. I looked around my car for some tool to pull it out and only found an ink pen and a bent-up paperclip. After McGuyvering the vent for a bit, the paper finally came out.
I held it up and unfolded it. There was a handwritten note. It simply read, "I know you're here. I know you're hiding him. I will find you both, and then it'll be your turn to run the race. We all have to run at some point."
I had no idea what that meant, but my body still provided goosebumps. Who was trying to find me? Who was the second person? Why leave a note in my AC vent? What the hell did run the race mean? I hadn't run a race since elementary school and wasn't planning to do so any time soon. Did they mean the rat race? Because I was basically marathoning that motherfucker already.
"Jesus Christ," I said, shaking my head. "What else, universe?"
As if it were a well-practiced comedy routine, the universe responded. My back passenger door swung open, and I heard footsteps running away from my car. I sprung up and scrambled to get out. There wasn't anyone else in the lot that I could see, but very clearly, someone had been hiding in my backseat.
My nerves were shot already, and this was not something I wanted to deal with at the moment. My brain decided that to avoid a breakdown, I needed to shift into automatic mode and just get back to the safety of my apartment. I'd be more prepared to deal with this – whatever it was – in the morning.
Either that or I'd jump in front of a bus. Both sounded satisfying, albeit in different ways.
***
"There he is," Gloria said as soon as I turned down the hallway. I looked up and noticed a small cabal of my neighbors standing in a semi-circle, waiting for me. They all look displeased.
"Hey guys," I said, confused. "I miss an invite for a block party?"
"What do you have to say for yourself?"
"About?"
"Don't play dumb," another neighbor said, jabbing their finger in my direction.
"I'm not playing," I said, realizing the self-burn only after the words escaped my lips.
Gloria showed me the screen on her phone. It was a static shot of her door from across the hall. She pressed play, and nothing happened for a beat until something darted across the screen. That was the whole thing. I looked up at her, my face twisted up in confusion.
"Well," she said, "What do you have to say?"
"What was that?" I asked.
"That was you!" the pointing neighbor said, pointing harder than I thought possible.
"What?" I said, laughing. "Are you all serious?" They didn't laugh, and I realized they weren't joking. "How can you even tell it's me? It's a blur. Never mind the fact I've been at work for the last five hours. Plus, this blur is half my size. I get we're all weirded out about the Phantom Runner, but it's not me. I swear to God. I don't even have the energy to think about running, let alone the physical desire to."
"Then explain this," Gloria said, slightly swaying from the half bottle of Pinot Noir coursing through her blood. She rewound the video and froze it on a specific frame. I couldn't believe my eyes, but I was looking at...me. Or, rather, something pretending to be me.
"What the fuck?" I said, my jaw dropping.
"Still think we're lying?" the pointer said smugly.
"No, but, guys, this isn't me. I... I've been at work. Wanna see my schedule?"
I reached into my phone and pulled it out. There was an email with my work schedule that confirmed what I was saying. They relaxed, and, for the first time, anger gave way to fear. Their very plausible explanation was suddenly invalid. It left two implausible answers floating in the ether: either I had a pint-sized doppelganger terrorizing the hallways of my apartment, or a ghost was haunting the building.
"I'm...gonna go inside," the pointer said, walking back to their home. Everyone else drifted away until it was just Gloria and I standing alone in the hallway.
She looked at me and sighed, "I feel like an asshole," she said. "Sorry I accused you of causing the racket."
"If I had seen the video, I would've thought the same thing," I said. "We're good."
"What do you think it is?" she asked.
I shrugged and let out an exhausted sigh. "Honestly, Gloria, I've had a screwed-up night already, and this is the cherry on top of the shit sundae; forgive my language. I don't have the mental bandwidth to even comprehend what's on the video at the moment."
"Think it's after you?" she asked, though I suspected the wine had forced her to put that idea out into the universe. As I had already seen, the universe seemed to take requests on my behalf.
"Maybe it's after you?" I said, coming off a little meaner than I intended, but I didn't care. I left her there to contemplate that scenario and went into my apartment.
As soon as the door shut behind me, I felt on edge. Just because I didn't have the mental bandwidth to discuss the doppelganger didn't mean it wasn't dominating my thoughts. I saw the frame of the video. The damn ghost looked exactly like me. What could that possibly mean? I know I had wished for death, but I was very still alive. I had rent due to prove that.
Did I happen to live in a place haunted by a ghost that looked strikingly like me? Was it some kid with a passing resemblance just causing chaos? Was it something else I couldn't even comprehend – an alien? A clone? A secret government project?
There was a thumping coming from the hallway. The mini Usain Bolt was at it again. I knew the neighbors would ignore it. Since they had all thought it was me, which was proven to be untrue, they would avoid the running man from now on. While curious and confused by the creature, they'd never put themselves in harm's way to discover what it was. They were not a brave lot.
Neither was I, but maybe my life crumbling around me had forced my hand. I walked over to my door and swung it open. I hit record on my phone, stuck it out like a periscope, and glanced around the hallway. Nobody was there. No neighbors were looking. No person was running.
"You gotta stop, man. I need to go to sleep," I said to the empty space. No response, not that I was expecting one.
I turned to walk back in, and I caught something out of the corner of my eye. A face at the end of the hallway peeked around the corner. For a quick second, we locked eyes, and it was like I was looking into a mirror. This thing was me. But...how?
I tried to get it on video, but it ducked back into the shadows. I took that as a cue to shut and lock my door. My heart was racing, and I didn't want to think about this anymore, but I couldn't help it. There was a me in the hallway who enjoyed pestering my neighbors. Worse, they liked to run for some ungodly reason.
I put my phone on the counter, the video still rolling, when there was a knock at my door. It echoed in my near-empty apartment. I tried to ignore it and convince myself it was something else, but it wasn't. The ghost was knocking on my door. Even with my brain paralyzed, I couldn't help but think that it was awfully polite to knock.
Another knock, this one more forceful. I wondered if the neighbors thought I was making this up?
"I know you're in there," a voice said. It sounded just like me. "This is about the race. We all have to run the race. It's your turn now."
I froze. My legs went wobbly like a boxer on the brink of a blackout, but I stayed tall. I opened my mouth to speak and found the words dying in my throat. I grabbed a nearby bottle of water and took a chug.
"We all have to run the race."
"What race?" I choked out, "What are you talking about?"
"Open up. They're in there already, and I need to get them."
I glanced all around my empty apartment. I didn't see anyone else in here. I didn't hear anything. Whatever this thing was, it was lying. I grabbed my phone and held it in my hand. I wanted to document this to prove that I wasn't crazy.
“Did you leave the note?”
“I know they’re in there with you,” it repeated.
"There's no one in here," I said.
"They're hiding. I think I know where. I can hear them."
"You've gotta get out of here," I said. "There's nothing here, and you're scaring people."
"I'm scared, and you should be! You have to run the race, man! Open up, and I can show you."
The handle started to shake. I peered through the keyhole and only saw the top of the other me's head. They began to shoulder the door, and it crunched against my nose. I screamed out in pain and stumbled back. I tripped over my feet and landed hard on my ass.
The thing slammed into the door two more times, shaking the walls. The strength seemed unnatural. On the third hit, the door burst open. I finally got a view of the thing. It was me. Scaled down by half, but it was me. We both seemed shocked.
"You're so much taller up close," the other me said.
"Who the fuck are you?"
I felt a buzzing in my feet that seemed to climb up my body until it reached my brain. There was an intense pain that rippled through the folds of my mind. Through the pain, I could hear a disembodied voice whisper, "We all must run the race. We all have to run. Chase it. Chase yourself." It felt like my skull was going to split in two. I clutched the sides of my head and let out a primal scream that hurt my own ears.
Then it was gone. But I could still feel the echoes in my mind. "We all have to run the race. We all have to run." The thought would waver between making no sense and making complete sense. One second, I was questioning what was happening to my mind, and the next, all I felt was the desire to continue the race.
"There he is!" the other me yelled, pointing at the hallway.
I glanced over and saw another version of me standing in the hallway. It was half the size of the other me that had broken into my place. When tiny me locked eyes with my intruder, he ran for the open hallway closet.
The other me followed, screaming that it would catch the little bastard if it was the last thing he'd do. I pushed myself up to my feet and felt queasy. I watched as the other me ran head-first into the closet without slowing. I expected to hear a loud thump as it hit the back wall but none came.
"We all have to run the race," the voice in my head said, soothing my nerves. "It's your time to run the race."
I moved down the hallway, each footfall echoing loudly in the empty apartment, each step bringing me closer to the closet door. Something was drawing me there. The voice's words echoed in my mind as well: "We all have to run the race. It's your turn now."
I grabbed the door and stopped. Something was compelling me to move forward. To go into the closet. To chase myself. To run the race.
"No," I whispered and yanked my hand from the door. I pulled out my still recording phone, and stared into the camera. My face was devoid of color, and you could see the fear etched into me. "I'm freaking out because...because…"
I stopped. I felt an invisible hand grab my body and tug. "Because...because if I don't run the race, something bad will happen. I have to chase it. I...I have to."
My phone dropped from my hand, and I didn’t care. The force pulling me forward stopped but my body kept going. I could feel the last strands of my rational mind splintering. My thoughts became focused on one thing: I had to catch myself, find out what was happening, and run the race. If I ran, maybe I'd win.
I needed a win.
I walked into the back of the closet and felt a door handle sticking out of the wall. I'd been in that closet a million times before and never had seen this. But a sense of calm washed over me. This….this was supposed to be here. This was perfectly fine.
I turned the handle and pulled open the invisible door. In front of me was a hallway that looked strikingly like the one outside my apartment. At the end of the hallway, I saw Gloria step out of their home to leave for the night. She was huge. Twice my size, easy.
Another door opened, and I saw...me—a giant version of me. The Hulk version of me was getting ready to go to the grocery store for work. I watched as the giant Gloria and giant me joked and laughed. I was stunned.
I stared, and a new thought came to me. I have to find the smaller me and talk to it. I needed to find out if there's a way out of this...this….
"It's your turn to run," the voice said.
Calm embraced me. "It's my turn to run," I repeated. As the giant me took off and the giant Gloria re-entered her apartment, the hallway beckoned.
"We all have to run the race," I said softly, "It's my turn now."
I started running.

Demographics
White dude
Iowa resident
First gen, rural (population of 700), and underserved background. Likely low income as well, not entirely sure.
Academics
cGPA (with dual enrollment included): 3.3
cGPA (only undergrad): 3.47, upward trend, 3.6-3.7 GPA in last 3 semesters with REALLY rigorous course load
sGPA (everything included): 3.32
MCAT: 508, even distribution, nothing below 126
Registered for Preview, will do casper as well
1 gap year, starting a 1 year master's program at my state school in the fall that is basically the first year of medical school. That is why this is kind of a fuck it we ball cycle, if I dont get accepted this year and dont fuck up, my chances at my state school are genuinely REALLY good next year.
Extracurriculars:
Hours are approximate but very close, I havent gotten to doing the exact math yet, but I did track hours for most things.
Research: 1500+hrs, 1000 in organic chem and 500 in Orthopedic surgery. One first author pub submitted for the ortho research
Clinical Volunteering: ~350hrs as coordinator for free mobile clinic for unserved communities, managed all of the supplies and lab equipment, trained over 300 student volunteers in lab tests and vitals. Clinics legit could not run without me, and that will be included in a rec letter
Leadership: ~100 hours as a fraternity VP and standards chair
Work experience:
2000+ total in a bunch of stuff
~500 hours as a peer mentor for first-generation college students
~100 hours as a private tutor, biology and chem at all levels
Other weird jobs I have had, mostly manual labor: Farm Hand, DNR State Park groundskeeper, tour guide for local architecture attraction, and working in warehouses.
About to get a patient care tech position
Other Misc ECs:
SHPEP Scholar
~30hrs working with a physician on a men's health initiative, targeted school's frats and athletic teams to educate young men on men's health
~30hrs social media manager for a Instagram page educating HS and younger prehealth students on the realities of healthcare and the opportunities at all levels
Hobbies: backpacking, photography, cooking and baking, computers, fitness, and reading
Other relevant info:

• Most of my extracurriculars, personal statement, etc., revolve around my rural, first-generation, and blue-collar background
• Really trying to leverage the fact that I am from a rural area, and would probably do rural health
• My lower GPA can also be explained by my extreme over-involvement in my earlier years and slower-than-average adaptation to college.
• My rec letters are pretty solid

School list so far:
Note: You're gonna notice I'm not applying DO. I know everyone's gonna lose their shit over this. 3 reasons why:

1. Im broke, I can't afford 30+ schools.
2. DO schools financially exploit the fuck out applicants even more so than AAMC already does, and I just don't wanna deal with that.
3. Like I said, I'm getting a master's; if I get straight rejected this cycle, I'll be in a much better position to apply across the board in the next one and will apply for DO then.

In no particular order

1. Iowa Carver (please god just let me in)
2. Nebraska (where I did SHPEP)
3. U of Minnesota
4. UW Madison
5. Michigan State
6. Mayo Alix (No shot but I'm still a strong mission fit)
7. Medical College of Wisconsin
8. Yale (my one absolutely fuck it why not app, I really like new haven and pizza)
9. Ohio State (considering removing, outside 10th percentile)
10. U of Cincinnati (considering removing, outside 10th percentile)
11. U of Miami Leonard (Consitering removing, outside 10th percentile)
12. Oregon health and science
13. Indiana (considering removing, regional bias and outside 10th percentile)
14. Rutgers, Robert wood johnson (SHPEP is RWJ sponsored, again just trying to leverage anything I can)
15. Geisel at Dartmouth
16. Robert Larner at Vermont
17. University of Missouri - Kansas City
18. Virgina Tech
19. West Virginia
20. University of South Carolina Columbia
21. Toledo

I really did try to pick schools where my stats were at least on the bell curve and OOS acceptance was above 25%. My concerns overall are that I generally have no idea how to put a school list together and that many of these schools might be super low-yield for OOS. I am also worried that I might have skipped over a lot of schools that I'd be a good mission fit at.
I have had pretty much zero guidance on applying outside of this subreddit, so I really appreciate any and all advice. Be harsh if you have to, I get it.

Hi, im playing 2 builds this league. Tried tornado shot last league didnt pass lvl 92 and red maps rare, not corrupted, dieing too much. Gave it a try on Lightning Arrow, seems to be working but still, can someone point me the directions? TBH i only feel it can do t16 maps is because of death rush ring.
https://poe.ninja/pob/1GZZ https://pobb.in/1AbO90xv-hJw
Ok just 1 thing, i made a strange manaforged arrows setup to test instead of artillery ballista, dont worry about that.
Also i found this helm (its cheap) and i think the mana reservation would fit my grace aura which is currently inactive, but if i equip him i lack resistances:
Alpha's Howl Sinner Tricorne+2 to Level of Socketed Aura Gems (80–100)% increased Evasion Rating +(20–30)% to Cold Resistance Cannot be Frozen 25% chance to Avoid being Chilled 16% increased Mana Reservation Efficiency of Skills
The other build is Shockwave Totem Hierophant and it seems to be lacking a lot of dmg from what tTXies guide says. I couldnt afford a dagger named Divinarius but i got this Cerberus link with 96 increased spell damage. Ppl say it scales well with lvl so i got a 21/20 gem and a +3 replica dragonfang, but i dont know, im kinda ok with it but doesnt seems to be a build that can even kill the first devourer or searing exarch. Im totally lost with this shockwave. All tips will be appreciated and thanks for reading this https://poe.ninja/pob/1GZe https://pobb.in/uZZyVAmxj6Gc

I saw someone else did something like this recently and thought that I might have something to add to the discussion to help people figure out whether they think this program is right for them, or for people currently in the program to help them plan out classes.
My background is very heavy in statistics and finance (I'm an actuary), so my grounding in calculus, statistics, linear algebra, and business topics was considerably better than most of the other people I interacted with in this program. Conversely, I'm sure my programming skills were probably about average or maybe a little bit below compared to someone with a more targeted background towards those skills.
I started in Fall of 2020 and just finished up this month, Spring 2024. I started out just taking one class a semester and never changed up that plan, would highly recommend doing the same if you're working full time alongside; there's no reason to rush this program. I got a 4.0 GPA overall, although I never really stressed that much about it and definitely did not shy away from "harder" classes in order to bolster GPA. I did this to learn, not to get good grades. The classes I took, in order (my memory of some of the earlier ones might be a bit jumbled as so much time has passed):

1. CSE 6040 - I mentioned how my programming background was weaker relative to my mathematical background. However, reflecting on my experience in this class, it was probably still pretty strong. This class is focused on generalized programming skills, you don't really get into the analytics and modeling that much; it's more of a primer on things like functions, recursion, computer memory management, etc. It's been a few years, but I don't remember struggling with this class at all, and most of the concepts covered (object oriented programming, things like byte encoding, hexadecimal forms, recursion, etc.) were things I was already familiar with in another programming language (this class was in Python) or was relatively easy to pick up. From what I remember, the assignments were auto-graded and you had unlimited attempts, not to mention the fact that most of the prompts were to produce some predetermined result... and, as long as you were able to verify that your code produced that result, you got full points. I didn't miss a single point in this entire class. I believe there were "final exams" which were really just timed window coding assignments much like the homework, and you could do the assignments at any point during a 4-day window or something like that.
2. ISYE 6501 - This class was R-based and focused on basic analytics models. The material was much more applied than 6040. Similarly, the material was not difficult, and I was familiar with a lot of the basic models already (such as GLMs) from having worked with them in my job. The grading was done on a peer-grading framework; based on who anonymously is assigned your homework to grade, you can get someone who's a stickler for every point on the guide, or people who are a bit more lenient. I never really worried much about how things were graded in this class; yeah, I did miss some points arbitrarily, but nothing that made that much of a difference. If you generally put in the work and understand the material, your peers will recognize that. I found this a bit more interesting than 6040 because, rather than a deterministic "right answer", there was some more creativity implied here to solve each problem. There was a final project for this class where you walked through a hypothetical analytics problem and explained how you would go about solving it. I found this an interesting thought exercise and enjoyed this class. The pacing felt a little fast, as you basically had an assignment due each week, but the assignments were small. Like 6040 I found this class to be quite easy but I didn't 100% it due to the peer grading thing.
3. MGT 8803 - I almost applied to be exempt from this class, as my background intersects a lot with the material. The accounting and finance modules for this class literally did not teach me anything new. Supply chain was new for me and I found it interesting. I'm trying to remember what the other module was. I think it was marketing? I didn't like it. Overall I found this class quite easy for the aforementioned reasons, however I've heard from a lot of the other folks without business backgrounds that this class was pretty tough so take my opinions with a grain of salt. Taking this in the summer cut out one of the modules, normally there are 5 but in Summer there are 4. I figured this made sense to take during the truncated semester because I was unlikely to cover that much new material, and it turns out I was right about that. Each module lasted 2 weeks (I think in a normal semester it lasts 3) and has a timed multiple-choice test at the end. A lot of people didn't like this format compared to ISYE 6501 and CSE 6040; I'm not really sure how else this material could've been covered. This class was OK, the material is not really that deep but it's a pretty good primer on a large number of business topics.
4. ISYE 6740 - The first class I took that was actually pretty challenging, which makes sense considering the first 3 courses were just the basic core. This is pretty much an intro to machine learning as a discipline, and the first time I remember digging into academic papers that discuss some machine learning topic and attempting to recreate the results (this is something we did a lot in the more advanced classes going forward and incidentally now that I have graduated is probably one of the best ways to go about learning a new topic). I remember this class as having a format similar to ISYE 6501/CSE6040 in that you had large programming assignments to do, as well as open-book "exams" which were really just timed programming assignments. Assignments are not auto-graded; TA's review each one and thus the assignments have much more of a focus on explaining your findings than producing the exact expected output (unlike 6040). Some of the theory questions have you applying complicated matrix algebra rules that I'm not surprised a lot of people struggled with. The TA responsiveness in this class was pretty good from what I remember, but your mileage may vary. I remember getting 3 weeks to do each assignment but I also remember not thinking that was a lot of time, these assignments are very extensive, have many parts, and take a long time to get through. Like with 6040 I ended up not missing a single point in this class but I did find it difficult and spent significantly more time working on it than in prior classes, probably 10-15 hrs a week, give or take.
5. ISYE 6644 - I was familiar with maybe 50% of the material we covered due to my extensive statistics background, however I was not aware of the exact mechanics of random number generation or the concept of a batched mean, for example. I remember this class having several "check your understanding" quizzes that focused on the mathematical foundations. Didn't struggle with this much in terms of difficulty and found the material very useful. Setting up custom simulation environments is very useful and arena is pretty cool even if it's unlikely you'll ever use it. Some assignments feature similar tools in Python (simpy). There might have been some coverage of R in this as well, or at least the accommodation for people that wanted to use it. There was a project for this class, but you didn't have to come up with the topic on your own, you could pick from a list, and you could do your project on your own if you wanted (which, given the option, was always the choice I made, due to the inherent randomness in picking the right members of a group). However you can do a group project if you want.
6. MGT 6203 - The first of the classes I took that required a group project. I recommend you are proactive in putting together groups in situations like these, posting threads on Ed/whatever the forum is as soon as the class begins. My group was alright; not everyone in it was great, but we had enough going overall to make up for the weaker group members. The project has some arbitrary guidelines from what I remember - you need to put together a midterm report and video presentation that is no more than ~2 minutes long or something like that (if it's 2:01 you get penalized) and the final report is 5 minutes or less, and everyone in the group needs to speak. I honestly don't remember much else about this class, it was pretty forgettable, but not horrible. Not overall that difficult, another business class so a lot of topics I was already familiar with, but there was more new here than in 8803.
7. CSE 6242 - Another class with a group project. Again, I was proactive, and again, overall, my group was... okay. Some people who were really good, some who were... not. This class is characterized by a lot of assignments that are autograded, like 6040, but the assignments are a bit more difficult. Overall not that difficult with the exception of the D3 assignment, but that's more due to the fact that I'm not really sure how the autograder works for that; it tries to determine based on some internal structure of your html code whether or not you're fulfilling the requirements. I got a perfect score on all of the assignments, and they give you the chance to score over 100% on I believe either assignment 1 or assignment 2. A lot of people bombed the D3 assignment (I think it's assignment 2) but still did well in the class because it's not that hard to do well on everything else, so keep that in mind. This class does a great job of exposing you to a lot of new technologies, but there isn't that much depth to it. That's not really the point of this kind of class though, it equips you with the tools to explore things deeper if you so choose.
8. ISYE 8803 - I was a big fan of this class. It's taught in MATLAB but you can use Python if you so choose, you'll see in reviews of this class that you should really just use MATLAB since a lot of the sample code etc. is not in other languages, so that's what I did. However, they must've recently added Python and R code for sample solutions, so feel free to use what you want. MATLAB was interesting, there were parts of one assignment I also used R for (grouped lasso in R is a lot more straightforward). This class is all about high dimensional data and representing it in a more simplified and comprehensive way, think about something like sonar which might have datapoints separated by milliseconds and thus a very dense representation of a signal captured over a short period of time. After ISYE 6740, I found this to be the class that taught me the most up to this point.
9. CS 7642 - Taking this class in summer is kind of rough. There's 6 homework assignments that are autograded, similar format to CSE 6040. There are 3 projects which are much larger programming assignments for which you'll write papers explaining methodology, results, etc. These projects take a while, particularly project 3. I did well on projects 1 and 2 and decently on 3, although I spent the most time on 3 by far; it involves reinforcement learning to simulate a soccer environment and train agents how to play against an AI developed externally. The AI baselines are hard to beat, and I didn't manage to beat them, but I wrote a decent paper explaining what I did. The final exam for this class should be dropped as it doesn't add value to the class, people regularly score extremely low on it, the average score in the class was something like a 45%. I scored a bit lower than average but still got an A in the class because it was heavily curved. Reinforcement learning is a very interesting topic, though, and I would highly recommend this class as a primer on the material. It's probably a good idea not to take it in the summer, though.
10. CS 7643 - This class was pretty difficult but I still think 6740 was tougher. The material is extremely dense. There are parts of programming assignments that are autograded, but also short answer portions that are reviewed by TAs. Grading on those were pretty subjective. This is the only class I can remember really needing to discuss things with TAs to understand what was being asked a little better. Unfortunately, the TAs in the semester I took this weren't the best. They seemed more concerned with unintentionally giving away a bit too much information in any of their responses. I can understand this, but it came off as intentionally opaque most of the time. There was a group project for this course as well, and my group was excellent, probably the best experience I had with a group in this program. I can imagine how much this course would've sucked if I would've had a mediocre/bad group. Based on discussions with my group, some of the grading seemed highly arbitrary, with some TAs grading similar responses to the same question differently. Like I said above, though, I never really worried about this. I never once in this program ever disputed a grade, and I continued with that in this class as well.
11. CSE 6748 - Practicum and final class. For this class you get to choose between a number of pre-determined Georgia Tech sponsors, or form your own project for your own employesome external entity. It was a lot more work to do this, so I just went with one of the pre-determined GTech ones. I really enjoyed this one, I had constant communication with the sponsor as I developed my project and came up with something that I was quite proud of. I wanted to explore a natural language processing task, so I picked a project that I thought would allow me to do this, and was very satisfied with the result. There's a number of videos you have to watch that explain some overarching aspect of analytics that were pretty interesting as well, you can watch all of these in a single day and then focus on the project if you like. It's possible to finish the entire semester's work in just a few weeks, I was able to do the entire project and write the final paper in about a month's time, at which point I coordinated with the sponsor to tailor the work I did to a format that they would be able to implement for their business problem if they wanted to.

I can't comment on the job placement prospects of this program, as I just finished it and was actively employed the entire time I was in it. As an actuary there's not much this program does that my exam certification process didn't in terms of career prospects. However, it did position me much better within the context of the expanding role of data and analytics in insurance going forward, and also opens me up to similarly mathematical roles with a firmer grounding in big data and also some business elements (quantitative finance/data science roles). There were also things I learned in this program that I was able to apply directly to my day-to-day work. If you're considering this program, I would recommend you think about a few things:

1. I'm pretty shocked at how many people I saw during my program who didn't really think that much about why they're doing this. I get that the barrier to entry is low, but it's a serious commitment if you're actually trying to graduate. Most of the people who start this program don't finish, so consider whether you're ready to spend almost 4 years going to school part-time, or if you're able to double up on classes for some of the semesters. Most of the people I know in the program doubled up at least once, I never did but I was never in a hurry. If you must double up, don't make it your first semester. Dip your toe in the water, see how it is, and then reassess. But, above all else, think about why you want to do this, and use that as your guiding goal to bring you through to the end.
2. Something I tended to see pretty much without fail in most of my classes - a lot of the graduate students in this program spend way too much time worrying about minute, particular details that don't really matter. Maybe it was just my philosophy that I would probably never dispute a grade, or that I was never really that concerned with getting a perfect GPA, etc. but I was always marveling at what I saw asked in Ed posts. People would ask whether they could use a certain programming language for an assignment, what packages they were allowed to use, would post screenshots of bugs and ask for TA's to help walk them through it, etc. Generally, without fail, the TAs would respond along the lines of: use whatever programming language you want, as long as you can display your output/submit it in a way that we can verify by running ourselves, we'll make the effort; use the debugger to step through your code to find the problem; etc. Generally, in most cases, the assignments and questions are designed in a way to teach you something, to get you to realize/understand some pattern or data concept that has some underlying logic that makes sense. For example, the idea of saliency maps on image processing takes the 3-channel RGB color pixel shading representation of an image and condenses it into a single channel, and, as a result of that, loses some resolution in suggesting parts of the image driving a model result that might be different depending on the channel; i.e., an image with a very heavily blue-shaded part that detracts from a certain result, but with a red-shaded part somewhere else that increases the probability of the modeled result. This was part of a conceptual question on how saliency maps differed from other pixel influence attribution methods in Deep Learning, and is part of what you should logically understand since it reduces the channels of the image representation from 3 (R, G, B) to 1 (usually grayscale). I think people tend to run to the TA the second they have difficulty with something and don't stop for a second to think it through, one exercise I might recommend is to consider: if you ran into this problem out in the world and you didn't have a TA/managesome other authority figure to explain the answer to you, what do you think it might be? Does the answer even matter? If it still matters and you have no idea how to solve it, maybe then you can go to the TA.
3. In every single group project I worked on, we had an initial planning session where we determined the scope of what we wanted to do. For most of the projects, this was an essential deliverable in addition to the final paper. However, in almost every case, someone in the group was always playing some game of runaway scope where they kept on wanting to add methods/questions to exploration beyond what was initially planned in ways that I intuitively knew would be impossible to manage in just one semester. I often had to say something along the lines of "if we have time we'll do that" or "when we write up our paper, we can put that in the avenues for future exploration section" or something similar. It turns out that we never had time to look into these things, and our initial scope was usually well-defined considering the time we had. I'm not sure why this was always so front-and-center in my focus, maybe since I used to work in consulting and project budgeting/scoping is so unbelievably important in that context. Whatever the case may be, understand that you won't be able to change the world every time you do a project. Make some incremental improvement, reflect on the results, and then include some notes in a "potential avenues for future exploration" section. I was pretty surprised at how many people had so much trouble putting the pencils down at the end. I can practically guarantee that, for the classes where I did a project on my own, I probably did substantially less work than other individual groups for precisely this reason. In general, you probably don't have to do as much work as you think you do.

So, would I recommend the program overall? Absolutely. It's not perfect, I found some of the formats annoying - CS 7642 has no business having that final exam, it adds nothing to the class at all, is arbitrarily extremely difficult and the class is good enough and complete enough with the removal of that exam that its inclusion to me appears to be the result of some arbitrary quota somewhere. I also don't really like the group project format and profoundly disagree with the reasoning that GTech and most other academic institutions give as to why group projects are even good or necessary, however I do acknowledge that from a logistics and resource standpoint it's unmanageable to grade individual projects for every single person in a given class and group projects do decrease the number of papers that TAs will have to read. Considering the scale of what GTech has managed to do, and how many students enroll each year, I'm surprised the program is as well-managed as it is. Yes, it does require a lot of self-teaching, but in most cases you can actively engage with TAs multiple times a week if you're struggling with topics and from what I've seen they were very responsive.
Anyways just wanted to give my perspective as someone who just finished this program and still thinks it's worthwhile despite its flaws.

At the world’s top college of magic and technology, every day brings a new discovery -and a new disaster. The advanced experiments of the college students tend to be both ambitious and apocalyptic, with the end of the world only prevented by a mysterious time loop, and a small handful of students who retain their memories.
Surviving the loops was hard enough, but now, in his senior year, Vell Harlan must take charge of them, and deal with the fact that the whole world now knows his secrets. Everyone knows about Vell’s death and resurrection, along with the divine game he is a part of. Now Vell must contend with overly curious scientists and evil billionaires hungry for divine power while the daily doomsday cycle bombards him with terrorists, talking elephants, and the Grim Reaper himself -but if he can endure it all, the Last Goddess’s game promises the ultimate prize: power over life itself.
[Previous Chapter][Patreon][Cover Art]
“Should I be worried?”
Why would you be worried?” Kim said. “Dean Lichman loves us.”
Dean Lichman had asked the two of them to stop by his office, though his brief message had not said what for. That left Vell to concoct nightmare scenarios in his head.
“He doesn’t love all of us.”
“Alex doesn’t count as ‘us’,” Kim said. She was a looper in purely a technical sense, mostly due to her own refusal to be a team player. “Besides, she’s been behaving lately. She’s only been an asshole, not an active liability.”
“That we know of.”
“If we don’t know about it, Dean probably doesn’t either,” Kim said. “It’s fine, Vell, he probably just wants to ask us for advice or deal with some problem he has.”
“That’s not much better,” Vell said. “How weird would things have to be that the Dean is asking us for help personally?”
“Only one way to find out,” Kim said. She gestured to the door to the Dean’s office.
Kim entered first, and found it in much the same state as it always was. The desk piled high with paperwork, a small bowl of assorted candies shoved into the corner of the desk, and Dean Lichman behind it, frantically tapping away on a laptop. Vell had not been in this office for several years, and it was vastly different than the last time he’d been here.
“Ah, there you are, come in, have a seat,” Dean Lichman said. “Unless you’d rather we have our conversation elsewhere, Vell.”
“Why would I want that?”
“Well, it’s my understanding you haven’t been in this office since my, uh, predecessor,” Dean Lichman said.
“Oh, right, the kidnapping,” Vell said. “No, I’m good, I don’t really get traumatized by things anymore.”
Vell had been killed too many different ways in too many different places to have a functional trauma response. A few days ago he’d gotten his legs chewed off by a vending machine, and still stopped by it to pick up a soda on his way to the office.
“That’s a very concerning response, Mr. Harlan.”
“Yeah. Anyway, what did you need?”
Dean Lichman gestured for the duo to take a seat, and both did so. He folded desiccated hands in front of himself before beginning to speak.
“I would like to ask you two to take a look at an experiment that will be occurring later this week,” Dean Lichman said. “I don’t have any reason to believe it poses a threat, but I would like to be assured it is a safe and ethical environment, and, well, you two have a knack for identifying trouble spots.”
“You could say that,” Kim said. It was more accurate to say that trouble had a way of identifying them -and then leaping at them and ripping their heads off.
“I’d appreciate it if the two of you could simply examine the laboratory and give it your approval, or disapproval, as the case may be,” Dean Lichman said. “Though if you’re too busy, I fully understand.”
“If you don’t think this is dangerous, why are you asking for our help anyway?”
“Simply for my own peace of mind, frankly,” Dean Lichman said. “The school’s policies on animal experimentation are...satisfactory, I suppose, but I do want to take extra precautions when the subject is a creature as smart as an elephant.”
“An elephant?”
“Yes, a resident of a reserve in Thailand,” Dean Lichman said. “An older elephant by the name of Mae Noi. She has cancer, apparently, and she is submitting to experimental treatment in the hopes it will be useful for younger elephants.”
Kim’s digital face briefly flashed with a facial expression of concerned skepticism.
“‘She’ is submitting to treatment? As in the elephant?”
“Yes. Apparently the elephant can talk,” Dean Lichman said. “No, I don’t know how it works, they said it was ‘more impressive in person’.”
“Well now I kind of want to go just to see the talking elephant,” Vell said.
“Same.”
“Well, do try to take a few glances at the experiment’s safety while you’re there,” Dean Lichman said.
“Sounds like a plan,” Vell said. “Thanks for the heads up.”
“I’ll be there too,” Kim said.
“Excellent. Thank you both, and I’ll try not to take up too much of your time,” the Dean said. He then bid them both a polite goodbye and returned to his mountains of paperwork. Vell took a step out of the office and then took a sip from the soda he’d recently retrieved from the evil vending machine.
“So, what do you think?”
“I think I really do want to see the talking elephant,” Kim said.
“Obviously, yeah, we all want to see the talking elephant,” Vell said. “I mean the whole situation. You think the elephant thing is going to be the daily apocalypse for that day?”
“Well, on the one hand, an elephant seems like the kind of thing that would kill us,” Kim said. “But on the other, I feel like the fact we have advance warning means it’s not going to happen.”
“True. The universe probably wouldn’t make it that easy for us.”
“Yeah, but the elephant thing still feels pretty threatening,” Kim said. “Only way to find out is to wait a few days, I guess.”
A FEW DAYS LATER
“Hello you two,” Dean Lichman said. “And Hawke.”
“Hey,” Hawke said.
“He also wanted to see the talking elephant,” Kim explained.
“Well, that’s not a problem, it was an open invitation,” Dean Lichman said.
“Thanks. Still, sorry for not saying I was going to show up in advance,” Hawke said. “It took me a long time to make up my mind whether I was more interested in or afraid of a talking elephant.”
“They are rather large, aren’t they? I suppose that could be intimidating.”
“I’m okay with elephants on their own, it’s the talking part that doesn’t sit right with me,” Hawke said. “What if the elephant doesn’t like me? What if I’m the first person to ever get insulted by an elephant?”
“You’re less afraid of getting trampled by an elephant than insulted by one?”
“I’m a little afraid of trampling, but elephants are chill,” Hawke explained. “They wouldn’t attack unless provoked. I kind of feel like one might call me a dipshit unprovoked, though.”
“You have oddly specifics fears, Mr. Hughes,” Dean Lichman said.
“Yeah.”
In spite of those fears, Hawke happily stepped through the door to the zoology lab. It did not take a long time to locate the elephant in the room, as it was a literal elephant. The towering pachyderm was in a makeshift pen in the center of the lab, with an ample supply of food and a strange pedestal in front of her.
“Dr. Chanthara,” Dean Lichman said, with a polite wave to one of the researchers in the room. “Good to see you. These are the students I told you about.”
“Hm. Nice to meet you,” Dr. Chanthara said. He was, perhaps not unreasonably, skeptical of why three seemingly random students were in charge of a safety inspection. The fact that one of the three was a robot made him even more skeptical.
“Hi, nice to meet you too, and, uh, don’t mind us,” Vell said. “We just have an eye for weird things other people might miss.”
“Sure. I- wait. Aren’t you that kid who got chosen by a god?”
“Yeah, that’s me,” Vell said. “And her too, technically.”
Kim shrugged. She didn’t care for any extra attention on that point.
“Right,” Chanthara said. He was beginning to see why these students might know their stuff. “I suppose we should start by introducing you to Mae Noi. Say hello, Mae.”
The elephant shifted on her feet and poked her trunk at the wide pedestal in front of her twice.
“Hello. Friends,” a synthesized voice droned. Vell stepped a little closer to the pedestal, just enough to see that there were an array of buttons on the side facing Mae Noi.
“Oh, it’s kind of like a keyboard,” Vell said. He’d seen similar things used with dogs, though usually in a much simpler fashion. Mae Noi seemed to have a few dozen buttons at her disposal.
“Smart,” Mae Noi said, with another prod of her trunk.
“We initially put it into our sanctuary as a bit of a novelty, something elephants could choose to interact with,” Dr. Chanthara explained. “Mae Noi took to it a bit better than most. Especially once she found out she could use it to ask for food.”
“Food. Pumpkin. Pumpkin. Pumpkin.”
“No, Mae, no food until after experiment,” Dr. Chanthara scolded.
“Experiment,” Mae Niko said with a prod. “Pumpkin.”
“Yes, experiment then pumpkin,” Dr. Chanthara said.
“That’s not really a talking elephant, is it?” Hawke said.
“It’s more talking than most elephants,” Dr. Chanthara said.
“Elephant. Smart,” Mae Niko said. “Smart.”
“Yes, uh, right, elephant smart,” Hawke said. He took a step back, to avoid any further offense and any further risk of being insulted by Mae Noi.
“You’re very impressive, Mae, don’t mind him,” Kim said. “How many words does she know?”
“Our platform back home has around three hundred words, though she’s still learning some of them,” Dr. Chanthara said. “The ‘travel’ version we put together only has a hundred, just enough to make sure she can get her basic needs met and communicate about the experiment.”
“Right, speaking of, I do believe we should put some time into our reason for being here,” Dean Lichman interjected. “You’re welcome to stick around afterwards, at Dr. Chanthara and Mae Noi’s discretion, of course, but we should get underway.”
“We probably should get to business, yeah,” Kim said. She tapped the side of her metal head. “I’m going to scan the lab. Vell, you talk to the elephant and make sure everything’s above-board.”
“Abov- oh, right,” Vell said. “Sorry, not exactly used to being able to ask animals if they agree to animal experimentation.”
“Experiment,” Mae said.
“Yeah, experiment,” Vell said, as he turned to Mae. “So, Mae Noi, this experiment might hurt, do you know that?”
“Experiment. Hurt. Elephant,” Mae Noi prodded. “Experiment. Help. Elephant. Help. Baby.”
“Help baby?”
“Baby. Baby. Elephant. Sick. Baby. Sick.”
“We’ve explained the nature of her condition to Mae Noi as best we can,” Dr. Chanthara said. “She has several children, and is concerned they might be similarly affected.”
“Help. Baby,” Mae Noi said. “Experiment. Help.”
The way Mae Noi frantically tapped the buttons tugged at Vell’s heartstrings, but he choked those emotions down.
“So you want to do this experiment to help baby, got it,” Vell said. “Even if it hurts you?”
“Elephant. Old,” Mae Noi said. “Hurt. Okay. Help. Baby.”
“Huh. Well, that does sound like informed consent to me,” Vell said. “Passes ethical muster, at least.”
The campus rules allowed students to be experimented on, with their consent, so Vell saw no reason not to apply the same standard to an elephant.
“You speak up if you change your mind about the experiment, okay?”
“Stop. Stop. Stop,” Mae said, mashing the same button a few times. “Yes.”
“You got it. I’m going to go help my friends check things out,” Vell said. “Good talking to you, Mae.”
“Good. Talk. Friend,” Mae said. She waved goodbye with her trunk, and Vell waved back. He wandered away from Mae Noi’s pedestal and found Kim and Hawke carefully examining rows of beakers and various other supplies.
“Nothing sus yet, boss,” Hawke said.
“Nothing caustic, mutagenic, or explosive?”
“Well, something mutagenic, but it’s supposed to be,” Kim said. She had scanners built into her body much like those that had once been in Vell’s glasses, allowing her to analyze the complex chemical formulas at a glance. “They’re going for some gene editing similar to what we’ve tried to do on human cancer patients. Low success rate, but not harmful. Some adaptations to work on elephants, of course.”
“Run it by any of our chemistry and biology student friends yet?”
“A few,” Kim said. “Haven’t gotten anything back yet, though.”
“Maybe run it by Skye, too,” Vell said. “She’d recognize anything that’d mutate an animal.”
“She does love to mutate things,” Kim said.
“Benevolently,” Vell insisted. “Just show her. I’m going to check for any stray equipment.”
The presence of an unusually large test subject had resulted in the lab being rearranged and reshuffled, so Vell did a quick scan for any misplaced equipment that might pose a threat. He found, to his surprise, a tidy and well-organized environment, with any and all extraneous materials securely locked away. There wasn’t so much as a shrink ray out of place. Vell did another loop just to be sure, but returned to his friends empty-handed.
“This place has less safety hazards than my lab,” Vell said. Hawke stared at him for a while.
“Why does your lab have safety hazards?’
“I do runecarving, there’s like, hammers and chisels,” Vell said. “Those can hurt people.”
“Mm, true,” Hawke said. “So you really didn’t find anything?”
“Nothing,” Vell said. “This place is secure as I’ve ever seen a lab be.”
“It’s like I said,” Kim began. “We got an actual warning about it, so obviously nothing’s going to go wrong. That’d be too easy.”
“Maybe,” Vell said. “Things can get teleported in, or someone could cast a spell, or something.”
“Yeah, but that applies to anywhere, at any time,” Kim said.
“Kim’s right,” Hawke said. “I say we go business as usual.”
“I guess,” Vell said. “We have to branch out a little, at least. Can’t keep an eye on one room all day.”
The trio stopped sulking around the outskirts of the lab and returned to Dean Lichman and Dr. Chanthara.
“Everything looks good,” Kim said. “Probably the safest lab I’ve ever seen.”
“I’ll choose to take that as a compliment,” Dr. Chanthara said.
“We have very high safety standards here at the Einstein-Odinson,” Dean Lichman said, defensively. “Relatively speaking. Innovation requires some risk.”
“I understand perfectly. So does Mae.”
“Hurt. Okay,” Mae said.
“Not that okay,” Vell said. “Nice meeting you, Dr. Chanthara. You too, Mae.”
“Wait.”
Mae prodded one of the buttons on her pedestal and then pointed her trunk at the three of them. Hawke looked deeply concerned, but stepped forward alongside Vell and Kim. Mae Noi appraised them with massive brown eyes, and then moved her trunk back towards the pedestal. Vell noticed a distinctive scar on the bridge of her long nose just as Mae Noi pressed another button.
“Joke.”
“...Joke?”
Dr. Chanthara sighed and rolled his eyes.
“Just go along with it,” he said. “She likes to tell her joke.”
“Uh, okay,” Vell said. “Let’s hear it.”
“What. Elephant. Favorite. Part. Tree.”
“Umm...I don’t know, Mae,” Vell lied. He’d heard this joke from a kid, once. “What part?”
“Trunk,” Mae said. She gave a loud bray of amusement and then slammed her trunk down a few more times to emphasize the punchline. “Trunk. Trunk.”
“Oh, ha, I get it,” Kim said, hoping her feigned laugh was convincing. She’d never tried to lie to an elephant before. “Good one, Mae.”
Mae Noi shifted from side to side, looking pleased with herself, while the trio took a step back and stopped their feigned laughter.
“Did you give her buttons just to tell that joke with?”
“She gets upset,” Dr. Chanthara said. “I’m not even sure she understands the pun, she just likes people’s reactions.”
“As long as she’s having fun,” Hawke said.
“We’ll get out of your hair now,” Vell said. “Good luck with the experiment, feel free to let us know if you need a hand with anything.”
“I’ll keep it in mind,” Dr. Chanthara said. Some of his earlier skepticism seemed to have softened, but he did not seem entirely onboard with three strangers mucking about with his experiment. Vell and his friends left before they stretched what little goodwill they had any further. Mae Noi waved her trunk goodbye as the three left the lab and stepped back onto the quad.
“I’m going to try and sneak some classes in,” Hawke said. “Later.”
“I’ll check some of our usual hot spots,” Kim said, before she too left. Once again alone, Vell headed to one of his own classes, and called up Samson.
“Hey, Samson,” Vell began. “See anything interesting while we were playing with the elephant?”
“Well, I thought I clocked someone acting suspicious, but it turns out he was only sneaking around to go see his boyfriend,” Samson said. “Nothing apocalyptic, but I did get called a homophobe, which is pretty emotionally devastating.”
“I’m sure you’ll recover someday,” Vell said. “Keep an eye out. Usually the safer things look, the more dangerous things end up being.”
“Will do,” Samson said, before saying goodbye and hanging up.
***
Vell got increasingly nervous the longer the day went without its daily disaster. He thought about checking in on Mae Noi again, but then recalled Kim’s warning about it being too obvious, but then remembered that nobody had seen anything suspicious anywhere else, but then remember that Mae Noi’s lab had looked perfectly safe-
“Vell.”
“Huh?”
“You’re spiraling,” Kim said.
“I’m not spiraling, I’m just,” Vell said, with a pause for contemplation. “Considering multiple options.”
“In a spiral fashion,” Kim said. “Eat the damn french fries. Honestly, what’s the point of ordering so many if you’re just going to let them get cold?”
“It’s not like they’re going to go to waste,” Vell said. The same time loop that allowed him to eat massive amounts of french fries without fear of gaining weight also allowed him to avoid food waste. One of the upsides of life in a time loop.
“Just eat, Vell,” Kim said. “You worry too much about all this shit.”
“I’m in charge, it’s my job to worry about it,” Vell said.
“It’s your job to handle it,” Kim said. “There’s no point thinking about this shit before it happens, you spend all day thinking about an elephant and then the universe drops, like, a bat with tentacles on your head. Just deal with as it comes, Vell.”
Vell leaned on the table and managed to chomp down on a french fry or two.
“You know, next year, when I’m not running the show anymore, I’m going to call and see if you still think it’s that easy.”
“I sure hope so,” Kim said. “I’m saying all this shit trying to make myself believe it too.”
“Oh good, you’re lying to both of us,” Vell said. “That’s cool.”
“Fake it ‘til you make it, Vell, that’s how it goes,” Kim said. “Eat your damn french fries.”
Vell rolled his eyes and returned to his fries, which were now starting to cool. Thankfully he would not have to worry about finishing them. A loud crash from across campus interrupted him mid-bite and nearly made Vell choke on his fries. He painfully swallowed the half-chewed food and then looked over his shoulder.
“Son of a bitch, finally,” Vell said. A few years ago he’d found it weird whenever he was relieved about a disaster, but now he was just genuinely glad to get it over with. The waiting was as killer as the apocalypse. He tossed his fries in the trash and headed toward the sound of chaos, with Kim right behind him.
“Already told everybody?”
“Well, I may or may not have left Alex and Helena out of the loop…”
“Kim.”
“They’d find out anyway,” Kim said. “I got to use my brain parts to get in touch with them, even over wi-fi that shit feels dirty.”
“Just get in- stop.”
Vell held out his hand. Kim froze in place and did not move. Not intentionally, at least. There was a small amount of unintentional movement. The ground was vibrating.
“Always love a good earthquake,” Kim said.
“That’s not a quake,” Vell said. “That’s...footsteps!”
Vell grabbed Kim and dove out of the way just in time for something to barrel through the walls of the dining hall and stampede across the room. Tables, chairs, and more than a few students were crushed under the feet of a hulking, brown-furred behemoth as it charged. Kim picked herself and Vell up off the floor and tried to trail its progress.
“That’s a- oh fuck me,” Kim said. “Please don’t say you told me so.”
Vell got his bearings and looked across the room at the titanic form of a woolly mammoth. Though it was definitely recognizable as an archaic mammoth, the ancient creature was also heavily mutated, unnaturally large even by mammoth standards, and with multiple curled, jagged tusks protruding from a slobbering maw.
“Well that could be unrelated,” Vell said. “Mammoths can come from a lot of places, cloning accidents, time machines…”
The mammoth reached a wall, and rather than barreling through, turned around, facing directly towards Vell. A prominent scar covered the bridge of its broad trunk.
“Oh, nope, that’s definitely Mae,” Vell said. The scar was in the same place and at the same angle. Even a clone wouldn’t have an identical scar.
Once the revelation had struck, Mae took her turn. Vell found himself staring straight down the barrel of a very angry mammoth coming right at him at Vell-squishing velocity. Luckily he’d been charged at by a lot of creatures over four years of looping.
Vell jumped up and to the side, and latched on to one of the curled tusks, which made for very convenient handlebars. Kim did the same on the opposite side of Mae, and punched her in the head.
“Wait, wait, hold off on the violence for a second,” Vell shouted. He tried to wave at Kim to stop, but Mae was thrashing so violently he had to grip the tusks with both hands.
“Good plan,” Kim shouted. “Can you get Mae on board?”
Another set of tables got crushed underfoot. Thankfully the other students were out of trampling range by now, but Mae Noi’s feet were still coated in the blood of earlier victims.
“Mae’s smart, maybe we can calm her down,” Vell said. He then ducked to dodge a swat from Mae’s mutated trunk.
“Call me crazy, Vell, but I think this is more than just a bad mood,” Kim said, as she climbed up Mae’s seven jagged tusks like a ladder.
“We have to try,” Vell said. The loopers rule against hurting other intelligent life forms had some flexibility for blood-crazed mutants on violent rampages, but they had to at least try to reason first. Vell climbed up on of Mae’s tusks and looked into one of her bloodshot eyes for any sign of recognition. “Mae! It’s Vell, do you remember?”
The only response Vell got was an enraged trumpet, which he didn’t think was a “yes”.
“Come on, bud,” Vell said. “What’s an elephant’s favorite part of a tree, right? The trunk?”
The massive brown eye staring at Vell blinked, and he felt a brief glimmer of hope. He then felt a brief glimmer of his lungs being crushed as Mae swung her head and slammed her tusks into the wall, and Vell along with them. Kim punched Mae in the throat and then jumped across the tusks to grab Vell and carry him to safety.
“You okay, Vell?”
He opened his mouth to respond, and a pint or two of blood came out instead.
“Apparently not,” he mumbled. “I might be down a few ribs. And a lung. Or two.”
Kim carried Vell a safe distance from the fight and set him down on the ground, where he promptly spat out another mouthful of blood.
“Okay, uh, you just lie there and try to die peacefully, I guess,” Kim said.
“Way ahead of you.”
***
“Was that last bit as funny as I thought it was?” Vell asked. “I think the blood loss was affecting my sense of humor.”
“It was kind of hard to appreciate in the moment,” Kim said. “But as far as dying jokes go, it was pretty good.”
Vell and Kim walked into the lair for their morning meeting and joined the loopers that had already gathered.
“Okay, what’d I miss while I was dead?”
“Well, after Alex was done getting herself killed,” Samson began.
“You’re saying that as if it’s something to be ashamed of,” Alex said. “Vell also died.”
“Yeah, but he got killed trying to do something good. You got killed trying to do something stupid.”
“Trying to eliminate a threat is not stupid,” Alex said.
“We don’t kill intelligent creatures,” Hawke said. “Sometimes we punch them into a coma, but we don’t kill them.”
“When a dog bites, you put it down, I don’t see why the same principle doesn’t apply to a mammoth that’s crushed seventy people.”
“That wasn’t Mae’s fault,” Vell said. “She got mutated, or something. On that note: did you guys figure out what happened to Mae Noi?”
“Nothing,” Hawke said. “Looked like Mae smashed up the entire lab, trampled everyone involved in the experiment too. Nothing left to investigate, and nobody left alive to interrogate.”
“Typical,” Vell sighed. “At least we have an easy out. Dean Lichman was really concerned about the ethics of that whole experiment. We raise some kind of complaint, we could probably get the whole thing shut down.”
“The problem is getting the complaint,” Hawke said. “That lab was airtight, Vell.”
“Apparently not completely airtight,” Kim said. “I can camp out in the lab and raise an entirely justifiable stink whenever something capable of making a murder-mammoth shows up.”
“And what if it happens so suddenly you can’t complain about it?” Samson asked. “For all we know that could’ve been some kind of dimensional rift, or time anomaly, or something. It might not be as simple as somebody just putting in the wrong syringe at the wrong time.”
“He’s got a point,” Vell said. “We might want to shut this down before it gets there.”
“Seems like our best option is to plant evidence, then,” Alex said.
Everyone else at the table spent a few seconds brainstorming ways to prove her wrong, and much to their frustration, could not.
“Okay, fine,” Vell said. “But it needs to be something incidental, not something anyone would get blamed for. We want to cancel the experiment, not get anyone in trouble.”
“I could have a seizure on some sensitive equipment,” Helena offered. “It’ll break something and nobody would dare get mad at me.”
“Can you fake a seizure?”
“No, but I’m allergic to elephants, so I’d probably have one anyway the moment I stepped in the lab,” Helena said.
“I don’t feel entirely comfortable sending you into anaphylactic shock for a bit,” Vell said.
“Offer’s on the table,” Helena said. “I’ll live. Wouldn’t have made it through that trip to the zoo otherwise.”
“Anybody have any non-medical emergency suggestions?”
“Seagull in the air vents,” Kim said.
“Will that work?”
“It happens now and then,” Kim said. “Seagull gets in, and Dean has to close down the whole lab for potential material damage and biohazard risks if they shit in the vents.”
“Really? We’ve never had to deal with anything like that,” Hawke said.
“It may shock you to learn that sometimes minor, tedious bullshit happens that we have nothing to do with,” Kim said.
“That is kind of surprising, actually.”
“Enough. Kim, can you grab a seagull?” Vell asked. He shouldered his bookbag, and stuck a hand into the extradimensional pocket that existed within it. “I can probably smuggle it in with my bag.”
“Yeah, I can get you a seagull,” Kim said. Since she did not need to sleep, she had to find ways to keep herself entertained at night, seagull-grabbing being among them.
“Alright, we’ll go grab one and put it in the bag,” Vell said. “The rest of you, be ready to meet us when I call.”
***
Roughly three minutes later, Vell put out the call and they reconvened in front of the biology lab.
“Yeah, that was much faster than I thought it would be,” Vell said.
“I’m great at grabbin’ birds,” Kim said. Seagulls were among the easier birds to snatch, even. They were suckers for food, and many of them were attracted to her shiny metallic body anyway.
“Let’s just get this over with,” Vell said. “I want this thing out of my bag ASAP.”
Even though the seagull was safely within a pocket dimension, Vell would swear he could still feel the bird thrashing and squawking inside his bag. He tightened his grip on the shoulder strap and led the way towards the zoology lab entrance. He grabbed the handle and held it as he froze for a second.
“Vell, what’s up? Is this bird escaping?”
“No, the handle’s vibrating,” Vell said. It was shaking the same way a wall near an incredibly loud speaker might. He pressed his ear to the door and listened closely. He opened the door immediately, and let all his friends hear the frantic trumpeting of a panicked elephant.
Inside the lab, Mae Noi was stomping her feet and trumpeting as loud as he long trunk would allow. She swayed from side to side in her pen, bumping against the walls not quite hard enough to damage them, but hard enough that it was clear she was doing it on purpose.
“What the heck is happening here?”
“Ah, Vell,” Dean Lichman said. He hustled over to Vell’s side and gestured to the entire room. “Maybe you can figure out what’s going on.”
Mae Noi stopped braying long enough to start mashing her trunk against her pedestal, mashing out the word “Bad” over and over again.
“Our test subject, Mae Noi, has been throwing an absolute fit ever since she got here,” Dean Lichman said. “Dr. Chanthara, these are the students I was telling you about earlier.”
While Vell reintroduced himself to Dr. Chanthara, Kim and Hawke stepped up to examine Mae Noi and her enclosure. It was a far cry from the peaceful, orderly scene they had examined on the first loop. They were half an hour earlier this time than before, but Kim found it unlikely that they had been able to calm Mae Noi down, clean everything up, and get back to work in such a short amount of time. They hadn’t mentioned any of this panic on the first loop either. They were soon joined in their confusion by Chanthara and Vell.
“We’ve tried everything; food, water, her favorite toys, even videos of her children,” Dr. Chanthara said. “We’ve even offered to call off the experiment, but she won’t listen.”
“She is an animal,” Alex said. “Sometimes they do things arbitrarily.”
“Not Mae,” Dr. Chanthara said. “Some of our sanctuaries residents from traumatic backgrounds can have outbursts, but Mae was injured in the wild. She’s never been like this.”
“Maybe some experiment on the island is upsetting her,” Vell said. “A sonic experiment only she can hear, or something…”
Vell stopped and thought about it. If there had been such an irritant, it would’ve been there on the first loop too. Everything always repeated exactly the same, except for-
“Could you, uh, take a step back for a second?” Vell mumbled. “I want to try talking to her.”
“Don’t get close,” Chanthara warned him.
“I’m not, I’m not,” Vell said. He didn’t need to get very close to tell a joke.
The massive brown eyes of Mae Noi stayed locked on Vell as he approached, and she continued to mash the “Bad” button on her pedestal.
“I know, I know, bad,” Vell said. “But, uh, do you want to hear a joke?”
Mae Noi stopped. She locked eyes with Vell for a few seconds, and then cautiously tapped a button on her pedestal.
“Joke.”
“Right, joke,” Vell said. He tried to recall the exact sequence of words Mae had used on the first loop. “What elephant favorite part tree?”
Mae didn’t blink.
“Trunk,” Vell said.
After a moment of contemplation, Mae Noi let out one final, fervent, trumpet, and then started mashing buttons on her pedestal again.
“Bad. Help. Help. Experiment. Bad. Help. Bad. Help.”
“Yeah, bad help, one second,” Vell said. He turned away from Mae Noi to look at Dean Lichman. “Hey, uh, excuse me, Dean? Hey, uh, if I remember correctly there are some pretty complicated rules on having intelligent animals on campus, yes?”
“Well, yes,” Dean Lichman said. After hearing of some questionable ethical practices involving an octopus back in first year, he had instituted a few clauses into the school’s ethical code of conduct regarding intelligent animals like elephants, octopuses, and dolphins. “Mae’s presence here is a bit of an outlier, but there were workaround, given her apparent consent to the experiment.”
“Yeah, about that, is she, uh,” Vell began. “Is she registered as a student?”
“Yes.”
Vell pursed his lips. It took a few seconds for his friends to catch on.
“You have got to be fucking kidding me,” Samson snapped. He turned his back on the crowd and leaned against a wall while Hawke put his head in his hands.
“The first rule of looping,” Alex said quietly. “Loopers are randomly selected-”
She looked up and locked eyes with Mae Noi.
“From all registered students.”

Hey everyone! An easy-to-use and free study tool I've found to be helpful throughout my internship with them is Thea Study! It is essentially an AI-based study website that contains different features to help you get The-A! I personally love the memorizing game and the summarizing feature which summarizes small passages for you! There are other features like practice tests, study questions with personalized AI that gets progressively harder as you advance, and study guide generation! Feel free to try this out and make an account at the link below! Let me know what you think and if you have any feedback that can facilitate your studying! https://www.thea.study/register?referralCode=alexandram03

I want to share with you the thingy that I've created, it's working, but it might be rough around the edges (looks-wise mostly).
https://carpu.dszymanski.pl/
You select the model, you upload image, you click the "Download boot logo" button and you get `isp_part.bin` file, which you can put onto USB stick/SD Card to change your carpuride's boot logo :)
It's doing all the calculation, generation etc in your browser so if you're low on memory it might get a bit mushy for you for a moment. No file is sent out of your computer, it all stays on your device :D
I've tested it on my W708 (car unit), W502 (motorcycle unit) and W103 for one dude on Facebook, all happy :) If you know the dimensions for other devices I could add them, if you have `isp_part.bin` that support created for you and can share it, it would be even better because I could ensure that the format stays the same :)
Any additions appreciated, I might add them to this page :)

Learning many new things with servers and ubuntu server and need help. I recently think i found a bot or someone trying to mess with one of my services and truthfully this excited me. Ive been wanting to learn more how to catch someone doing this and how to better secure my stuff. Also the security side of IT.
I am running Nginxpm and cloudflare dns. I am using docker containers.
I recently started up a Leantime docker version to test out this software. After public facing it I noticed this in my logs shortly after ( I have removed the IP address and emails but left which service they were coming from. the IP attached to all these were from my own server):
[20-May-2024 18:29:00 UTC] [24:05:20 06:29:00][192.168.x.x] Login failed for user: xxxxxx
[20-May-2024 18:29:05 UTC] [24:05:20 06:29:05][192.168.x.x] Login failed for user: xxxxxx[@hotmail.com](mailto:isobel72@hotmail.com)
[20-May-2024 18:29:09 UTC] [24:05:20 06:29:09][192.168.x.x] Login failed for user: xxxxxx[@mdhmx.com](mailto:raquel.godnez80@mdhmx.com)
[20-May-2024 18:29:26 UTC] [24:05:20 06:29:26][192.168.x.x] Login failed for user: unknown
[20-May-2024 18:29:30 UTC] [24:05:20 06:29:30][192.168.x.x] Login failed for user: xxxxxx[@mdhmx.com](mailto:raquel.godnez80@mdhmx.com)
[20-May-2024 18:31:38 UTC] [24:05:20 06:31:38][192.168.x.x] Login failed for user: xxxxxx[@mdhmx.com](mailto:emanuel_wehner93@mdhmx.com)
[20-May-2024 18:31:42 UTC] [24:05:20 06:31:42][192.168.x.x] Login failed for user: xxxxxx[@gmail.com](mailto:daron.larson6@gmail.com)
[20-May-2024 18:31:46 UTC] [24:05:20 06:31:46][192.168.x.x] Login failed for user: xxxxxx[@hotmail.com](mailto:isobel72@hotmail.com)
[20-May-2024 18:31:50 UTC] [24:05:20 06:31:50][192.168.x.x] Login failed for user: xxxxxx[@mdhmx.com](mailto:emanuel_wehner93@mdhmx.com)
[20-May-2024 18:31:54 UTC] [24:05:20 06:31:54][192.168.x.x] Login failed for user: unknown
​
I then checked my access.log and noticed a couple things:
- ive never owned a MAC and see logs from a mac using safari
- someone is using 'Go-http-client/1.1'
- request are trying to get into the docker information
--- GET /auth/login?redirect=%2Fdocker-compose.yml HTTP/1.1
--- GET /auth/login?redirect=%2Fdatabase.sql HTTP/1.1"
--- GET /auth/login?redirect=%2Fdump.sql HTTP/1.1"
​
And many more. Definitely looks like they are trying to grab the basics? I am really new at this and would love to learn more as well as how to better my security if this is someone that got into my system. Also.... how do I check the rest of my server? I have use ps aux to see if there were any other accounts or anything odd in that and tried some basic things. I really want to learn how to handle this and what to do next as well as some network montioring to catch this without manually having to review logs.
​
Any insight would be great! Sorry for spelling and formatting. If this is the wrong subreddit or there would be more help in another one, please let me know which one.

AGI Defined
An autonomous assistant that solves tasks you give it as well as or better than a human would. It has the reasoning, agency, learning capability, and ability to use tools like a human.
How AGI Solves Tasks
Problem Definition and Understanding:
Start by understanding the problem, desired outcomes, and constraints.
Planning:
Formulate a detailed plan outlining steps and strategies to address the problem.
Knowledge Acquisition:
Gather relevant information from its database, the internet, and through its own experiments.
Data Collection and Analysis:
Collect, clean, and analyze data to extract useful insights.
Reasoning and Planning:
Plan by simulating different strategies and evaluating their feasibility.
Creative Generation of Solutions:
Create innovative solutions by combining and extrapolating ideas.
Evaluation and Selection:
Evaluate solutions based on criteria like effectiveness and ethics.
Decision-Making:
Decide on the best solution by weighing pros and cons.
Implementation and Execution:
Implement the chosen solution with an action plan.
Iterative Feedback and Learning:
Adjust approach based on feedback during implementation.
Continuous Improvement:
Learn from experiences to improve problem-solving over time.
How Agi Is Smarter Than Humans In Discovering and Implementing New Knowledge
Enhanced Memory:
Have an extensive and perfect memory, allowing it to recall and use vast amounts of information instantly.
Processing Speed:
Analyze vast amounts of data and complex problems much faster than humans.
Integration:
Integrate information from diverse sources and disciplines more effectively, generating novel insights.
Pattern Recognition:
Detect subtle patterns and anomalies in data that humans might overlook.
Deep Learning:
Understand and learn from complex datasets, making connections and insights that are difficult for humans to grasp.
Hypothesis Generation:
Systematically generate and evaluate a vast number of hypotheses, including unconventional ones humans might not consider.
Simulations:
Run countless simulations of theoretical models quickly to test their validity.
Unbiased Exploration:
Explore hypotheses without cognitive biases that might influence human researchers.
Logical Consistency:
Maintain higher levels of logical consistency in reasoning, avoiding common cognitive fallacies and errors.
Advanced Problem-Solving:
Solve complex problems more effectively by using advanced algorithms and heuristic methods beyond human capability.
Feedback Loop:
Rapidly iterate and refine models based on new data, accelerating the cycle of discovery.
Innovative Thinking:
Generate truly novel ideas and solutions that go beyond conventional human thinking.
Continuous Operation:
Work continuously without breaks, accelerating the research process.
Innovations Needed For AGI
Hardware:
Better chips
Data centers
Energy production
Software:
Agents perform multi-step tasks and know what to do next for the task to be done without being asked to.
Self operating computer
Having every workflow application have the AI be able to use the tools rather than just give advice based on what it sees on the device and hears from the user.
Spoken Timelines: I didn't add links but you could just search what I said on Google.
Dan Schulman (former PayPal CEO): GPT-5 will be a freak out moment. 80% of the jobs out there will be reduced 80% in scope.
Sam Altman thinks GPT-4.5 will automate 100 million jobs globally.
In 2023, Sam Altman said he predicts job losses will begin in 2-3 years.
Sam Altman's AI Capabilities Projection:

• Multi-Modality: Somewhat with GPT 4o. Still needs an everything to everything model.
• Reasoning: Q-star, chain of thought, search tree. I’m sure more will come.
• Personalization: Most likely having the AI be trained on all your personal data by having it control your devices. (Bill Gates Interview)
• Reliability: Sam said that this is when the AI can always give you the best response. He remarks that if GPT-4 gives a good response 1 out of every 10k times, then he wants to ensure that one good response is given every time. (Bill Gates Interview)
• Agents: API calls with other apps. Ability to use tools in different applications.

AI that controls your computer is coming soon
Sam Altman said GPT 4 is really dumb. So he knows the next model is actually way better.
OpenAI is likely two years ahead of everyone.
OpenAI COO: Brad Lightcap

• We’ll get a major upgrade by May 2025 (Based on May 2024). Today’s systems are laughably bad.
• Models are capable of complex "work."
• OpenAI already has a desktop app with a conversational voice and can comprehend what’s on your screen. So they can be like your teammate.

Every company’s workflow would be reengineered by May 2026. Nvidia, Dell Are Building Their Own AI 'Factories' (Based on May 2024)
Project Stargate: Nuclear fusion to power the $100 billion data center to be released in 2028. This is likely for scaling for smarter models, make AI faster, cheaper, or getting it to as many hands as possible.
Many leaders in AI give AGI release dates between 2025-2030. Most people that think AI won't take jobs are thinking of todays tech for the future. They don't consider how AGI would be like for AI to take jobs. Like the required technology and how those innovations could be achieved. People don't consider how embodied humanoid robots with AGI could also eliminate many jobs. People think trade jobs are safe. NVIDIA's project groot is training robots in simulation. Who's to say that the robots can't learn to do all tasks. Maybe not in a year, but five years is a lot of progress with the rate AI is advancing. Even if we don't have AGI now, AI will be replacing jobs. If one person can use AI to do the work of one team, then those people who would have been on a team would be laid off. Especially when Agents roll around in 1-2 years.
Sometimes it really worries me about the people who go to college to get a high paying jobs, especially first gen college students from immigrant families. Imagine working hard for the dream of getting a high paying job only to be automated in six years. What happens to their drive? All their hard work for what? Sold a long gone dream and had the carpet pulled under them. In my opinion, even jobs like doctors could be automated if humanoid robots had embodied AGI. Sure it might not be wanted at first, but it has the potential too.
My Thoughts on AGI
AGI would just be the accumulation of all the different innovations needed to reach the requirements needed to meet the definition of what AGI is. Realistically, engineers could do this within six years. So even though I have a general idea of how AGI could be achieved by the end of the decade, I would just have to wait and see when these innovations are created.
Post Labor Info
Most people work to gain money because money is needed to survive and buy things that you want. The purpose of school is to provide people with a pathway to secure a high-paying job. When students say they work hard in school to be successful, it often means they want to get a high-paying career.
But if AI were to start taking over jobs, then our relationship with work would change. There would be mass unemployment, leading people to receive UBI. The government would be forced to give UBI unless they want societal collapse. No one would need to work to have money for survival and buying the things they want.
If everyone had free money, people would use the extra time on bettering their personal lives. They can spend more time with loved ones and do the things they want to do. There would be a paradigm shift in how society is set up. People wouldn’t have to work so hard at school or a job in the pursuit of money. A lot of people don’t like working anyway, especially since the cost of living is causing them to work harder and subsequently deal with mental health issues. Look at Gen Z doesn't want to work, antiwork, wage slavery, 9-5 rat race. Cost of living being unaffordable. People work so hard but can not get by. Hard work is not properly financially compensated and college grads can't find jobs. Meaning from work could be derived from work you want to do not work you do for a paycheck. Look at David Shapiro's YouTube channel for more info on Post-Labor and Post-AGI videos.
It would be better for the next generation of people born in this post-labor world. Nasa researchers found that 98% of 5-year-old children fell into the “genius category of imagination.” This number dropped to 12% for 15-year-olds and to 2% for adults. The reason for this drop is the education system killing creativity. But with the traditional education system gone, that generation is likely to remain geniuses.