I have been experiencing my hair thinning for a while now and I am kind of worried because I have no clue on what it is. It’s not like a normal pattern on the temples, it’s rather in front and above my ears. It’s actually scaring the crap out of me, and I wanna figure out how to fix it. (I can dm you pictures if you want, idk how to link them) people have told me that it is retrograde alopecia, but I don’t think that it is. I think that it may be diabetic related (I’m a type one diabetic) and I think it may have something to do with a hormonal imbalance, or maybe even something with my immune system but I have no clue. I have an endocrinologist appointment soon, and I was doing to ask them about it but they might not know (I’m getting blood work done too) please help me I’m actually so scared

^{Warning! This will be a long ass post that goes deep into the subject, so proceed with caution. Thanks in advance to those that'll read the whole thing.}
New player onboarding is arguably one of the biggest issues plaguing the game right now, especially on the back of three deep sales over the past 5 months.
It's clear that the old system of using the existing playerbase to do the onboarding just doesn't cut it as the situation only deteriorates as the playerbase grows.
The unfortunate thing is that the tutorial is outdated (virtually unchanged from 2019), poorly structured and ultimately provides only minimal help in understanding the game. Let's take a closer look.
What does it actually teach you? In order of appearance:

• Move orders and use of compass
• Basic movement and adjacent mechanics (buddy boost). Also indirectly suppression in the crawling sequence.
• Recognizing bleeds, bandaging yourself and others.

So far so good. After that your enter an open area, where you can walk up to different stations that explain

• Shooting various guns and associated mechanics (ranging, bipods, grenades, launchers)
• HAB/FOB/Ammo crate/Rally points
• Communication and map reading
• Vehicle identification with notes on weak points
• Forces identification

After you finish you get to pick your kit off an ammo crate and walk up to a logi, load it up with ammo and build, then drive off to a FOB, drop them and build a HAB.
After that you get to "suppress" emplaced weapons, reach and clear a capture point, cap it and then destroy the enemy radio.
Looks good right? On the surface it seems like a perfect introduction to the game, but unfortunately it isn't because there's many things that it doesn't teach or explain. Let's remember, this is from a perspective of a new player who doesn't know what he doesn't know. I'm not here do discuss how much research one should have when checking the game out, that's irrelevant in this case. It's purely about how does the game explain itself to newcomers, regardless of external sources.

What's wrong with it?

Problem #1 is a disorganized structure of everything when you enter the motherbase. The open area approach doesn't provide enough structure to highlight the importance of every aspect covered in this area, making them roughly equal, when they arent. I remember that I spent way more time at the shooting range than the other stations combined, because I just didn't know any better.
It's evident on the first and most important station in the tutorial - spawn points. You have a HAB, Radio, Rally Point and Ammo crate all clumped in one place.

• Are they pre-placed? Or are they created by players? No explanation on the entire paradigm of the game irrespective of the game mode!
• Who can place them? No explanation that it's exclusive to SL's
• Where can you place them?
• How close to one another can you place them? No explanation about the exclusion radius
• Can you just build X? "Heart of the FOB" is as vague as it gets
• What do you need to place them? No explanation about the proximity to a logi or heli with build or having a teammate nearby
• How can you do that ? No explanation of the SL radial menu
• Can you place them alone or do you need teammates? No explanation about the need for teammates with shovels

Some of that is implied later in the tutorial but never explicitly mentioned. In preparation to this post, I ran the tutorial a few times and only after the third time did I realize that when you get up close to a radio or a HAB it shows you a tooltip with details about it, and unfortunately this isn't obvious. When you stand beside the loudspeaker, you get the tooltip only for the rally point.
Next station tackles communication and map reading. This is mostly fine, although the grid subdivision station is a bit redundant as few people actually use it. That said, it could be handled better.
The adjacent station detailing vehicles and forces is probably the weakest one.
It does contain a lot of information about the vehicles, but it's presented in a very undigestable way for a new player. Being outdated is one thing, but if you look at the board the problem is that there's way too many issues bundled up into one.
First, vehicles are presented as a flat sideview on a board, where it's difficult to judge the size, scale and the sillhouette of a vehicle at different angles. When you walk up to it you get explanations of different types o vehicles, but in the forms of icons placed on the tactical map without a solid way to marry the two pieces of information together. It's a good piece of knowledge overall, once you have a footing in the game.
The billboard showing off uniforms also misses the mark because it's not how you see them in the game. It's almost impossible to discern the differences in uniforms as you only see them as a series of flat desaturated pictures. The pre deployment screen does a way better job at showing the differences between forces uniforms.
The shooting range is fine, but at the same time it's nothing beyond standard fps tropes so hard to fuck that up.
After you do all of that, you're asked to change to a rifleman kit before going out for a logi run. This is generally ok, however my only nitpick is that the selection is limited to only 3 kits. In game when you approach the ammo box you have way more options to choose from, which was quite confusing the first time I started. I think it would be better if you had all the kits available, but everything aside from rifleman greyed out.
After that you have an extremely important section of the map where you get to do a logi run, get to build a hab, push a capture point, clear it out, capture it and take down a radio after which the tutorial concludes. Again, surface level it might seem ok, but it has a whole host of gaps, things that are implied at best and stuff that isn't even explained.

• Where do I get the supplies from? No explicit mentioning of the concept main or the ability to resupply from another FOB.
• Where do I get the supplies to? Ok, I have a move marker that I follow and a mentioning that the FOB needs supplies, but often you don't have that and you're asked to bring supplies to the FOB at E8 for example. There's no mentioning of the build/supply radius.
• The order of events is backwards - you arrive to a FOB that already has the radio put down and the stakes for the HAB on the ground. That gives you the impression that you can put the HAB and Radio down and have the supplies later. But we all know if the stakes are there, the supplies have been consumed already. Who put down the HAB and radio if the logi wasn't there? Does it have to be right next to the radio?

By the time you have internalized everything, you are earraped by gunfire and are hurried to capture a point. I know it's supposed to simulate putting down a hab under duress, but at such an important topic that's illadvised.
Pushing a capzone is mostly fine, although I don't think the tutorial makes a strong enugh indication that capzones come in many shapes and forms and they are areas, rather than landmarks. At least I didn't understant that first.
Then comes the last confusing part - you destroy a lone radio with C4. Again so many questions.

• Is the radio always next to the cap zone? No HAB next to it?
• Is that the typical sequence of events? First you capture a point and then take down the radio?
• Why give C4 which is only given to the combat engineer? I was shouted on the first time I got to a radio becase I was confused where is my C4 as I couldn't find it in my inventory. Only once I saw someone else shovel it down I did the same.
• No explanation of the radio bleedout mechanic. (outdated)

Problem #3 - none of the game modes are explained in any detail
Even though the game modes are fairly straightforward, they're not explained anywhere in the game, beyond the one sentence description on the deploy screen.
When I started playing I got into a logi, looked at the map and saw the SL place a random move marker. And I was wondering - why is he going there particularly? I don't even see the flags yet.
Because here is the biggest deficiency with the game - there's no explanation of the gameplay loop. In the most basic scenario, the game doesn't even explain it's main unique feature - the fact you build your own spawns.
And on top of that we have the whole ticket system that drives a unique pseudo-economy of meta-appropriate activities.
Then there's micro level mechanics like - speed capture scaling, proximity HAB disable, proximity HAB disable scaling, HAB activation timer, rules for caping neutral flags, rules for capping enemy flags, double neutral and how to break it up, radio bleedout vs HAB proxy, radio bleedout time, digging down friendly radios, etc etc.
The mechanics themselves are not complicated, but all together, at game speed and in context of an ongoing match it’s quite a complex web of interdependencies.
The key to better gameplay is better understanding of the gameplay loop, which is severely lacking in the playerbase.
Problem #4 - There is no onboarding for Squad Leads
This ties in with the previous point but this time specifically towards SL’s. What are you supposed to do? Where are you supposed to go?
Oh what’s this notification? Someone wants a vehicle, yeah, sure go ahead buddy. What’s that? Someone is shouting that they have "claim" for it? Huh? I dunno man, Oh, I’ve been kicked for “vehi steal”?
Being a good SL is knowing the gameplay loop and reacting accordingly, but it’s also knowing the responsibilities and limitations of the role. Putting down a rally point is easy enough, but a HAB is a bit more complex and requires a specific sequence of events that’s not explained in the game. There isn’t even a tooltip anywhere to point you that it’s under the T button.
And I dare you to ask 10 random SL’s how does the build refund mechanic work and tell me how many know the right answer.
How many people forget that there’s still a buddy rally mechanic on Insurgents and they can build 2 HABs that only cost 100 build?
Problem #5 - Jensens Range is just a big sandbox without guidance.
Yes, you can run around and play around with the toys, it has a whole host of underutilized features that can enhance learning, but needs guidance. It's just "dump everything on a map and have people figure it out". It’s a good tool to experiment once you have a solid footing in the game, but not before really.
Problem #6 – There is no official, in game, definitive source / manual for game mechanics
Since OWI updated their webpage, you can’t even check patchnotes older than V7 (sic!). So if you want to have an argument how long is the radio bleedout timer, then your only source is the community driven wiki / fandom. But still an external resource. Not to mention common community myths like the need to dig the radio back up before digging it down. I could go on, but the gist of it is the same – lack of an official, accessible in game, field manual explaining everything in game.
How to make it better? Well, I have some ideas, but that’s for a whole other topic that I will probably address in a separate thread. Thank you for coming to my ted talk.

Hello! Kind of unsure as to how to start this but I'm going to give it my best shot.
About me:
I am 24 years old and I currently work as a Preschool Facilitator in a Reggio Emilia -inspired IGCSE school. I absolutely love my job and workplace and would not consider shifting or relocating, as I have plans of continuing in this organiztion for a long time if God wills it. I was born and brought up Catholic, but I lived in lukewarm faith till I was about 18. I cannot share the entire journey here as it is going to go in a book I am writing :) I can never boast of how much I love God because no matter how deeply I love Him, I can never match up to how much love he has shown to me. My whole spiritual journey, like many others, has been a series of highs and lows, but currently God is teaching me to love - Him, others and myself and life itself. Around Easter Last Year, God completely healed me. After living every day of my life begging God to take me away, I woke up completely free, and filled with a joy that stays with me even today. I want to try my best to spread this joy to anyone who needs it.
I enjoy going to Mass, and listening to sermons or worship music. I am open to experiencing worship in other denominations, because there is beauty in worship, but I am firm in my Catholic faith, and my love for Mama Mary and would absolutely love to have a partner that is too.
Physical Description:
5'2, black curly/wavy hair. I wear glasses, I am a plus-sized woman working to bring down my weight and take care of my body because it is the Temple of The Holy Spirit, but its so hard to do when your'e a FOODIE! That's right, I love food, especially good non vegetarian food.
Oh I am Tamilian, by the way but I talk only in English - a story I will save to share on DM! I love to talk, but I also love to listen. I am learning to speak my mind and communicate clearly. I love all types of cuisine, and am open to trying anything, but I especially love kerala cuisine, being 1/4th Mallu - My family tree story is also a fun brain twister that I will be saving for the DMs.
I did Science till 12th grade and then made a shift to Psychology, English and Journalism in my Bachelors - (I kinda miss learning Science so I read a lot of research articles xD. I also love Calculus) - during my Bachelors' I did an Advanced Diploma in Montessori Teacher Training and saw that I enjoyed working with children and did my Masters of Arts in Education in Azim Premji University - Specializing in Early Childhood Education. I had a dream to join the school I am currently working in (I went to a summer camp here when I was 13 and loved it so much, I went again) but felt they would only take experienced Facilitators (Not teachers, will Explain on DM) but I applied, shared how deeply this school has impacted my life and cleared my interviews and now I am deeply integrated into the fibres of the system of that school, and I hope to impact someone the way I was impacted. I hope to experience Preschool and continue exploring the older grades too as time goes by (Maybe, I'll get to use my love for Science and Calculus here)
Looking for:
A family-oriented, leader-like (not bossy) Catholic Man, slightly older than me. I would prefer if you are from Bangalore and/or have plans to stay in Bangalore permanently. Someone who wants children and who will understand and respect my boundaries. I am not looking for casual encounters and I will not meet up with you early on, for safety's sake, till I am certain that our intentions align. I am looking for a serious relationship that will lead to marriage. Know that, if we dont align, or if we dont work out, I will inform you respectfully.
PS I will Verify myself by sending a picture, if you will be able to do the same!

Hii everyone!!
This is going to be a loooooooong post but I hope you enjoy.
I made this new account to start posting pictures of myself online as I made so much progress this year in my femboy experience. I thought this little story time post was a good idea to share my insights and maybe ppl can find something helpful.
Context: I am a 20 year old cis-male college student about to finish my second year living in a very accepting area. My friend group from highschool is very close and basically all of us are queer (I’m bi) but in college I’m still kinda closeted even today. I have a very good relationship with my parents and brother and my growth is greatly attributed to the ppl around me <3. I’m 5’4” and haven grown my hair out since the start of the pandemic, so I’ve been confused for a girl before and more frequently when masks were more common.
Start (Summer 2023): I’ve been wanting to try wearing skirts and look cute for a while, kinda since high school even, but it was only last summer where I took steps to make it happen.
I was going to go to an anime convention with my friends from college and we wanted to cosplay… but it was kinda last minute so hard to order anything that would arrive on time. I don’t really know how it happen but a friend had a maid outfit (very generic one from Amazon) already and I ended up with it. Before the convention I tried it on, felt very good about myself, and even took some selfies, but I was nervous for the actual convention.
My mom didn’t really question the outfit as she understands that cosplay is all about dressing up, but even being in public was scary for me. Fortunately though I didn’t have any problems. At the start I was mostly focused on just hanging out with my friends so I wasn’t really concerned about other ppl, but eventually strangers started complimenting me! I brought my small blahaj with me and ppl told me they liked it including another boy in a maid outfit. Thinking about it now I don’t think anyone mentioned how I looked at all, but my friends hyped me up and the positive experience with strangers really boosted my confidence. I even bought thigh highs in the maid outfit which felt awkward but I realized it would’ve been more awkward if I was presenting masc.
Fast forward to later in the summer where some of my female friends from highschool invite me to thrifting. They all knew I’ve been wanting to wear skirts for a while and thinking about it now I feel much less awkward looking for them in thrift stores compared to other ones. In the car ride they were trying to teach me about different skirts and stuff, but the biggest support was that they’d hold the skirts that I wanted to try on and hand it off to me at the fitting rooms. For me, this was a huge help because growing up looking at girl clothing just felt kinda illegal y’know? So this way I’m not worried about people giving me weird looks. After hitting up a few stores I go home with a few skirts, put them on, take selfies, am happy.
Towards the end of summer we’d hang out in public more and I would wear skirts and I felt very comfortable and I know I was with friends so I didn’t have to worry about the opinions of other people. Getting that experience in public was very good for confidence building. For one of the stores as we were leaving one of the cashiers said something along the line of “Bye girls!” And that boosted my confidence a lot.
Fast forward to October 2023 when I downloaded a gay dating app and was able to chat with other femme people online, which helped me be more confident in my femboy identity. It’s not the same confidence as wearing a skirt outside, rather it’s the confidence to be proud of yourself. I went on a little date with a boy who thought I was cute even though I wasn’t wearing my femme clothes, and even talked to a transboy that helped give me the courage to wear a skirt by myself in public (without friends) for the first time.
Something I realized around that time is that the me who wears pants isn’t any less me, but the me who wears skirts is a me I want to see more often. I first thought that the femboy lifestyle would be like a permanent choice, like a big transformation where I would unlock a new personality, but I’m still me. And even though it’s a bit anticlimactic, I think it’s reassuring. It means that even when I couldn’t wear skirts, or purposely hid that part of me to fit, I was always me, always a femboy. So even if you aren’t in a position to wear skirts, or if you don’t look like what you think a femboy should look like, or if you just feel like a phony for some other reason, know that you’re still you, and if you are a femboy no one can take that from you.
Back to the timeline, we are entering our final arc, May 2024. I wanted to buy a femme cosplay for the same anime convention mentioned at the start and some “mature” female clothes, and I figured now is the time to tell my mom since I don’t have a job and my credit card is under hers. I put this off for a while because my biggest concern would be her getting confused and thinking I’m trans. My strategy was telling her in a lowkey fashion to make it the opposite of a big coming out thing. I wanted to be clear that I’m still her son, but I just like wearing skirts. So I told her just that.
“Hey mom, I like wearing skirts, hope that’s okay.”
And…. She was chill with it. I was 99.9% sure she would be cool with it but that 0.1% is still scary. Additionally she understood that I wasn’t trans. To be clear, the reason why this distinction is so important to me is that I know my mom is going to be accepting either way, but I just want to make sure she’s accepting the real me. In other words I just really wanted her to see me for who I am.
With her blessing I was able to buy what I wanted and will be cosplaying as Chiaki Nanami from danganronpa.
Next step in journey: tell my brother since I want him to know the “full” me too, and hopefully find people in college I can be out to.
Long post over, here are my main takeaways: -Cosplay at a convention is a good excuse to wear skirts since it’s not out of the ordinary -Having female friends you can trust is a huge plus (help you get skirts and teach you about them) -Go in public in skirts with friends to build comfort and confidence -Know who you are and own who you are -Finally just a reminder that my journey was possibly because of the strong support systems around me (friends + family). I know not everyone is not as fortunate in this sense, but if you can find people that you trust and are supported by your journey can be endless.
Okay now long post over for real.

Hello everyone, I am thinking of buying a HP Compaq DX2000 computer so that I could use my old floppy disks again. In the pictures of it, it shows it having Windows 7 Professional as it's operating system. I took a look into the model and it turns out it is supposed to run Windows XP or Vista as shown on the official HP website. I am afraid it could be a version of some fake Windows to make it run better, or could it actually run Original Windows 7? Is it original so I should just keep it or is it just fake, or not supported and is just wrong? (sorry don't know much about software) I watched a video on YouTube showing how to install Original Windows XP on your computer which I am thinking of doing when it arrives. From what you see in the pictures, is it original, fake, unsupported, wrong, or ok?
Any help is appreciated, thank you very much!

I thought it would be good to read and think about the suggestions about Palworld,
so I translated it with permission from the original publisher.
The translation may be a little strange. If you have trouble understanding, please let me know! I'm curious about your opinions.
galeclaw
I was forced to carry them in a skill slot that only holds 4.
No matter how you think about it, this is a bad system.
In new generation games, they are completely removed.
Instead, put in another system that replaces it.
Prevents you from having to force yourself to learn skills you don't want to learn.
But it's not even a single skill.
The reason you can't put one pal in it is just for convenience of movement.
I thought it was very uncomfortable
Even if it's not the maximally strengthened galeclaw level
I need to make a glider that is at least as good as a regular galeclaw.
If you use a galeclaw that has been maximally strengthened, you won't be able to use anything else.
For a similar reason, why not block mounts from participating in battle and create a space just for mounts?
it would be nice to be able to put a non-inconvenient vehicle like a bicycle in the inventory.
If you do galeclaw+Fenglope+Jetragon
There are more than ten pals I want to use.
There are only two spaces left.
Even if they give up and just walk around
The problem is that the difference between presence and absence is the difference between heaven and earth.
I literally gave up on flying in the sky.
Have to crawl on the ground like a snail

1. Pal performance buff

Honestly, in a roster that only has 5 players
The easiest way to deal is to shoot with 4 Gobfin.
Don't nerf Shakid.
At least the pals that come out of giant eggs are legendary or level 40.
I think we need to show some fighting ability.
If you get more greedy, the kids below you will
There must be something differentiating.
In a situation where metal ores are automatically farmed,
I wonder if it is worth using a pal that is weaker than a bullet.
I never thought of this before
It's not like pvp anyway.
Just because I carry 5 Pengullets doesn't mean I can't catch Jetragon and Frostallion.
Even though they are moderately weak anyway, I can use the pals I want to use.
Because I can play the game slowly
I didn't think that mattered much.
After trying to catch Bellanoir Libero, which is impossible to catch when playing with 5 pengullets,
Future combat content will continue to be released
Assuming it comes out to this level,
If it's really going to be like this, except for work, movement, and combat.
It's questionable as to why there are about 80% of pals.
In the current pal world, could an unused pal like Grintale suddenly become the core of the next raid? I think a picture like that will never come out.
Currently, Palworld has nothing but tanking and dealing figures.
So much so that it doesn't have much meaning.
The strategic aspect is not good either.
All the powerful pals are decided
All the various pals are meaningless.
Even if I play pvp as is,
To counteract the weakness of the giant alpha
Don't go crazy with Dark Wisp.
Is there some sort of strategy?
First of all, it is basic to add differentiated skills.
It has to be effective enough to be felt.
Rather than giving up one gobfin seat, there are more useful people
At least it should be a lot more than it is now.

I've been having this problem on and off for the past year. So what happens is my wifi icon would suddenly disappear from the system tray and also would disconnect me from the internet. This was easily solved by the laptop on and off. However that no longer works on my laptop.
I've tried resetting the network but it still doesn't work. Help!
Here's the picture of my system tray and also the networks adapters i have after the reset:
https://imgur.com/a/crUVrwd
EDIT: I'm using ASUS TUF Gaming F15

I've been having this problem on and off for the past year. So what happens is my wifi icon would suddenly disappear from the system tray and also would disconnect me from the internet. This was easily solved by the laptop on and off. However that no longer works on my laptop.
I've tried resetting the network but it still doesn't work. Help!
Here's the picture of my system tray and also the networks adapters i have after the reset:
https://imgur.com/a/crUVrwd

Hi Everyone, a bit about me.
I am 5"11", well educated, very muscular and broad-shouldered, not someone you can easily lose in a crowd. I will also say I do not see myself having kids. I have been complimented on my voice quite often, about it being calming. I do also have a British accent of course.
I have done pretty well in life, worked pretty hard to get where I am now and would love to meet someone who appreciates ambition and is an ambitious person.
I moved to Calgary from the UK back in June 2022, I work as a DevOps Engineer and i have been working from home for the past 3 years. Also travel to Dallas a lot for work so I am not tied down for my job, I can easily visit you.
I have been doing alot of traveling recently, I recently did a trip around Iceland, went to Hungary and visited alot of different states last year.
Looking for someone to share experiences with and just enjoy life, feel like I have reached where I need to be in life and I am ready to share that with someone. I am a homebody, I do enjoy staying at home, especially during the winters here, living alone is not fun. I also cook pretty well too.
I do have a nerdy side, I like spending time on my PC, I love board games and I am an introvert at heart but I have no issues talking to people at the same time. I also love cats, I volunteer in my spare time looking after cats before they get adopted. I will also pet any cat I see on the street.
pictures of me: https://imgur.com/a/hJu8JcA

So I'll be finishing my final course at UH ever tomorrow. From the now until I defend my dissertation I'll just be doing research hours and oddjobs (48 credit hour speedrun). As per tradition every few years, here are all the courses I've taken in undergrad and graduate school. I'll also say which prof I recommend for the class. I transferred to UH my Junior year.
COSC 1336: Computer Science and Programming. Professor: N/A, Semester: N/A

• I didn't take this class. This is the class that gets you started in CS. I recommend taking it with Dr. Yun or Dan/Dr. B. This class is also known as "glorified Python programming". This class isn't specifically made for CS Majors, as ANYONE can take this for their Math Reasoning course, and I highly, highly recommend doing so. Programming is invaluable and easier than you think. 70% of Computer Science majors never wrote a single line of code during college. If you plan on doing graduate school or any form of research, you might have to throw some code in there, whether it be software engineering code or data analysis. Fuck R, use Python.

COSC 1437 (prev. 1430): Intro to Programming, Professor: Giulia Toti, Semester: Fall 2018

• Toti has left UH and started teaching at another institution. I recommend taking Dan or Rincon for this course. You will learn C++ and Java through the semester, and most of the code you learn will overlap with each other (with a small change in syntax in each language). ZyBooks was used to do all programming homeworks. ZyBooks is a decent platform that you can go through to read the material, learn it, write some practice code and then do your HW online. It will run your code against testcases. Sometimes you'll get them, other times you won't. So long as you can do the visible test cases, barring any code that's inefficient and takes too long, you'll pass them all just fine. I used DevC++ as my IDE at the time, before transitioning to ReplIt later on. The class wasn't too hard. I liked doing the Tetris project at the end then playing it in other classes that I didn't really care about lol.

COSC 2436 (Prev 2430): Programming and Data Structures, Professor: Nouhad Rizk, Semester: Spring 2019.

• I will always recommend Dr. Rizk for this course. If you can take Rizk, take Rizk. If not, take Dan. This is the weed out class. When I was taking it, the drop/fail rate was 50-60%. It's hard, and if you have to take it again, don't worry. I ended up becoming a PEER mentor and tutored some former classmates. All have walked the stage. This is the class that makes or breaks the CS majors. This class is HARD, but getting through it makes you "internship ready". You're going to need to learn some stuff about Linux to turn in your homework and run the testcases. There's a decent guide on Rizk's site on how to use it, and the TA's/Mentors should give you a guide on how to do it as it isn't too difficult. I used FileZilla and Putty together to get this done. I also used DevC++ in this class. To get into the meat and bones of this class, you're learning everything at a fast rate. Reading input from the files and doing shit with them, all the way up to graph theory (Dijkstra's Alg) with Linked Lists in between. Just show up to class, practice, and if you aren't sure, go to mentor hours, TA hours, or Rizk's hours. Rizk's memory is the level of Mike Ross from Suits so she WILL remember you and the attitude you have towards her class and CS overall. If you answer questions, participate, show your effort and fail everything, she'll pass you because you can demonstrate that knowledge another way. My favorite resource, the hero of CougarCS is Abdul Bari. This YouTube channel will get you through any explanation you need. The exams are pretty hard but sometimes it comes down to memorizing sorts and doing Leetcode problems (which this class will prepare you for). Get started on your homework early, this is NOT one you want to procrastinate on. For reference, I did the Linked List homework for fun three years later and it took about two hours instead of the few days the first time around. There used to be a lot of inconsistencies with this class but it's improved a lot and Dr. Rizk has won an award for her teaching efforts. Take any extra credit you can, sometimes showing up to enough office hours will get you some. There's also some random things she'll tell the Mentors to assign to anyone that shows up that will add points to a test or something. I have a lot of funny memories in this class, too. Crying sessions at the fountains after tests and being hopeful to pass and make it through the rest of UHCS. Heck, there were a bunch of jokes about infinite looping our code to break the Linux server so we can get an extension LOL. I wouldn't be a TA if it weren't for Rizk. She wrote one of my recommendations to grad school. She gave me one of the biggest opportunities I never knew I had to be a tutor and get more involved with the CS department.

COSC 2425 (Prev 2440): Computer Org & Architecture, Professor: Edward Gabriel/Kevin Long, Semester: Spr19/Fall20.

• I took this class in Spring 2019 with Gabriel (has since left) and dropped it, then took it in the Fall with Long. I like to call this the class I never took. Whenever a homework assignment would go out, we could use whatever resources we wanted. Cue the fact that a bunch of students would just work on it together in the GroupMe, and then afterwards I'll take it and turn it in. Everyone worked on the exam reviews together. This was the A I never put any effort into getting. Even if you're in it to learn about Architecture (or whatever concept Long teaches), do it. Seriously, he's an instructional prof and not a research prof. You're going to hear these two terms a lot in these later reviews. Instructional profs are here purely to teach and do research on the side (where most of them are here the other way around). His classes are easy but he WILL teach you. His curve is based on the person with the lowest grade but did every assignment, exam, etc. That person will be raised to a passing grade (or higher), then everyone else will follow that curve. I always recommend Long

COSC 3320: Algorithms and Data Structures, Professor: Ernst Leiss, Semester: Summer 2019.

• My oh my was this the A I had to put a lot of effort into. Leiss is a professor who will come in, lecture, and leave. This entire class was done in a month (afternoon class). It was two homeworks and two exams. You can use any language you want, but I used C++ and Java. That might be 'easy' but, you're going to be doing a lot of writing and programming in this class. The Towers of Leiss problem still lives rent free in my head. His office hours are pretty open and he'll answer questions at the start of class anytime you ask them. You'll hear the words "Any questions?" to start the class and "See you next time" to end them. For all exams and assignments, you're able to use literally whatever you want (with the exception of people and the internet on exam days). His reasoning was that "If I am your boss, I'm not going to lock you in a room and expect you to know the answer!". The TAs are pretty lenient in grading, but sometimes will be wildly inconsistent depending as to how they feel or which one you get. They know about Leiss' policies so they'll just roll with it. The assignments were also turned in on paper lmao. Leiss doesn't like online classes, like at all. He won't teach online. I don't blame him for it. I recommend him. He wrote my second letter of rec.

COSC 3340: Introduction to Automata, Professor: Ernst Leiss, Semester: Summer 2019.

• This would be the morning class during the Summer. All in a month too. Four exams, each at the end of the week. You could use whatever you wanted to, just no internet or other people (one guy got caught cheating on the final and kicked out of the class). The TA, who was the same for Algos too could get strict, but his grading was definitely lenient LOL. You learn a lot of stuff on the 'machine' level of this class. State Machines, Turing Tests, Search Algs. I remember writing like a one page answer on a state machine that was totally shit but I got it right. There was another student who wrote it right with like one character wrong and got docked for it. There were some students at either UT, TAMU, or UTD that would ask "Why does UH want you to suffer!?" when they heard that this class existed. Not too hard, just do the stuff and you'll get through. Nobody really cares about Automata and cheating on the exams was rampant. Now while Leiss is a great professor, I don't know which one of y'all motherfuckers sold their soul so Singh could teach the class consistently. Take Singh and go LOL.

COSC 4351/4353: Fundamentals of Software Engineering, Professor: Raj Singh, Semester: Fall 2019

• This class had three in person meetings. The first class, and the two exams (closed note). Other than that, you were doing homework about software engineering and it's methods (not code, just drawing stuff out), then writing a piece of software to present at the end of the semester. You're in a group of three people max and the biggest thing you learn in here is the Unit Test. Just some code to test what happens when things come in and out. Basically you write the testcases for your 2436 homeworks. In this class, my teammates did the homeworks and I just worked on the project. It was a basic website with a database aspect that would showcase links based on access levels. The exams were easy, heck, they were in ORDER and the reviews were very, very similar if not exact. Someone leaked the exam in the GroupMes so they were finished pretty quickly. You'll see a question about a specific step on the AGILE method, or you'll see "What is not software? Hardware." This is an effort A. Just do what you need to do and you'll be set. It isn't easy, but it just needs effort. I recommend Singh lol. You can use any language. For this one, I used PHP, HTML, and some JavaScript.

COSC 4348: Intro to Game Art and Animation, Professor: Chang Yun/Vincent Donatelli, Semester: Fall 2019

• The class nowadays is a lot easier than it used to be back then. The class nowadays is offered in the Spring with optional attendance, hybrid, and has seven homework assignments that all work with each other. Two are completion, four are drawing, and then the final project which just puts them all in a Unity scene. Back then, it was mandatory attendance with an in person assignment, a homework assignment, and a team based project game at the end. Everyone had to put their own art in the game. Donatelli (no longer here) was the primary professor for the course and would do everything pretty quick. As CS majors aren't really artists, it's good that Yun's taken over. I was on a 15 person team and led the programmers. We had a progress check every two weeks. If you didn't do your part, the professor would tell you to drop the class or face a zero. Donatelli was an industry veteran and there were some other whack hours in the class, such as an 8pm-11pm presentation time in PGH. Stayed all day on campus and ate Bullritos before going into that one. This class is NOT an easy A, even if it's easier than it used to be. Come prepared to get your stuff done. You'll learn basic C# in this course from a Unity tutorial.

COSC 4358: Intro to Interactive Game Dev, Professor: Chang Yun/Zhigang Deng, Semester: Fall 2019.

• If you're a competitive person, take this class. This is THE most fun class in UH CS. You'll be in a team of 4-8 and spend three months building a video game. All homeworks are completion (so just do them). Two individual, five team. Make sure to do your part because there's always a team or group of people that will get into fights and beef every year over it. Anyway, once you finish your seven homework assignments, your team will get into a 'duel' with another team. This means that your team has to show how good your game is against another one. Winner moves from D to C, then the duel later on will be C to B-. At the end of the semester, industry members, influencers, and UH Alumni will come in to playtest and judge your game. There'll be pizza, drinks, and it just becomes one big LAN party. You'll get some mean comments, but then they go into another room and rank your game from B- to A. Even if you have a really shit game, you will get at worst a B- for your project grade. You have the choice of using Unity (C#), Godot (Python), or Unreal Engine (C++/Visual Scripting) to build your game. Nearly everyone sticks with Unity because they already have Visual Studio, and C# isn't that hard to learn with the many tutorials out there. If you can get into this class, you're going to have a lot of fun. Dr. Yun also wrote my letter of recommendation and brought me into the world of video games for research.

In the middle of Spring 2020, COVID happened. The classes shifted online. Any fully online class will be noted from here on out
COSC 3360: Operating Systems, Professor: Jehan-Francois Paris, Semester: Spring 2020

• Oh god, OS. I heard the horror stories about this class but with Paris (retired/sometimes teaches it now), it wasn't too bad. Three homework assignments and three quizzes. The first HW was pretty hard and you could use any language. The other two were in C++ and had a guide to get it done. Quizzes were multiple choice. Paris had great real-world examples when he was trying to explain something. You were able to have a cheat sheet on the quizzes. Make sure to respect his lectures. He uses MOSS to check for plagiarism, and that was rampant in the first homework. The latter two didn't really matter in terms of running it. This also means variable names, nerds. Lots of partial credit available with Homework 1 (some kind of scheduler). I did all my code in ReplIt. Since Paris has retired (if you can't take him), I recommend taking it with Rincon. Cheng only if this is your last option.

COSC 3380: Databases, Professor: Uma Ramamurthy, Semester: Spring 2020

• This class was hard but so well worth it. A lot of people like to complain about how mean Uma is. Like wtf? This was the professor a lot of the older students told us to take REGARDLESS if you wanted to learn how to do this shit effectively. I still remember a lot of things about Databases that I use in here and whenever I quickly set up something for a solo project or testing something out. I'll never forget this quote "If you think your code runs perfectly the first time, you must be smoking something". Uma will humble you real quick if you walk in with a shit project before giving you a chance to fix it. Your project will be a webapp with heavy database usage. One challenge I had for this class was to generate 5000 random entries for each of the databases then insert them. The database stuff itself and tying it to the frontend wasn't too bad. It was an employee directory with salaries, jobs, tasks, vacation, etc. The exams were fairly difficult but after it went online, it was obvious what we were all doing. Group Projects can cause tension. This was the first time I had experienced tension with other group members, and we had all known each other in previous classes. This was a result of Uma tearing us each ten different kinds of asshole after seeing our rough draft of the final project. Thankfully, the group member that was our former TA for another class calmed us all down and we got out of the class with an A on the project.

COSC 4349: Game Art 2, Professor: Vincent Donatelli, Semester: Spring 2020

• This class was basically 3D Art and Animation. It is no longer offered. This is sort of what the Game Art 1 class is now, but the entire class worked on the group project at once. Each 'subgroup' worked on furniture for a different room, and we just threw it all in an Unreal scene and got our grade. I still use some of the 3D modeling techniques whenever I build games for educational stuff today.

COSC 4368: Intro to AI, Professor: Christoph "A" Eick,

• I actually remember a lot of this class being more math/theory based instead of writing AI code. I don't even think we wrote code in this class. Just a lot of simulation stuff, reports, and papers. This is a combined class with graduate students and gets you into the art and background of AI, instead of the random tutorials you see on YouTube where you literally know nothing of what it means. You are taking a theory heavy course. Eick has been at UH since the 80s and you can see fun facts about his favorite wines and hiking spots on his website from the late 90s. I remember putting "I don't know" a lot on some homeworks, and after the semester was over, his TA/PhD student reached out and offered to give me any advice or knowledge that I wanted to know about the subject. The exams weren't too difficult and were very similar to the review, I also believe they were open note. It made AI very interesting and I did understand a lot of the stuff. Eick is a pretty goofy prof and he'll just randomly giggle during lectures and put pictures of frogs on his exams. Has a huge similarity to Leiss.

COSC 4398: Independent Study, Professor: Nouhad Rizk, Semester: Spring 2020

• I wrote a paper and did some research for Rizk. This was not my best work, and was done the week before the semester had ended. It was about the diversification of individual skills instead of people/races/ethnicity in projects. Turns out there's more to it than I thought.

MATH 4322/4323: Data Science/Machine Learning, Professor: Poliak/Wang/Weber, Semester: Spring 2020

• A math class but this is the math class most CS majors take to get the minor. Programming is in R, the coding problems are easy, and the professors are great. You do a report at the end and you can walk out with a solid B if not an easy A by putting in the work. They are the Stats profs, so if you took any of them for 3339, you'll have a smiliar time with them. The last in person exam I took for this class before COVID was the Friday before Spring Break. I got a 62 because I was out at Rooftop (RIP) the night before. Just a week before, the exam was extended because of some water issue on campus causing classes to get cancelled. A week before that, Dr. Wang cancelled class beacuse she felt like spending time with her kid. This was the second Friday class I ever took, and was the last one I attended before the pandemic.

At this point, I finished my BS at UH. I took some classes in Spring 2021 'for fun'/prepping for grad school which helped me get a leg up now.
COSC 4370: Graphics, Professor: Zhigang Deng, Semester: Spring 2021.

• You'll learn OpenGL in this class, however I heard it has changed. You'll need to use more C++ knowledge and follow along tutorials on the website and YouTube videos. The tasks itself aren't too hard, and honestly you'll have fun with the Teapot Artwork assignment since you can do whatever mathematical wizardry you wanted to get some shapes on there. Some students were making crazy things. Others did smiley faces. Undergrads did exams while the grad students just presented a paper. Deng is good and this his a fun elective if you're interested in interactive media!

COSC 4377: Networking, Professor: Omprakash Gnawali, Semester: Spring 2021.

• I looked everything up on the exams even when he said he'd figure it out. Gnawali is a great prof. Not much coding, if at all, in this class. But a lot of Wireshark analysis and networking/packet/cybersecurity theory. I recommend Long for this class, though Gnawali is a great alternative. If you are a graduate student taking this course, Gnawali will be the only option for the combined class. Long will exclusively do the undergrad classes. Given the time since this class has been taught, I don't know much about how it goes today. Grad Students in the class were exempt from exams and did a paper presentation instead. If it's hybrid, you'll have an easy time. If everything is in person, a little bit of good luck.

COSC 6397 (Now COSC 4321): Selected Topics: Spatial Tech, Professor: Chang Yun/Faisal Sharif, Semester: Spring 2021.

• I loved this class and am very happy that it got bumped up to an official course. This was in the works for a few years with Faisal and Dr. Yun. Jared, a former Microsoft employee with a decent connection to UH and a huge veteran presence in XR also hopped on to teach the class. This class, our group did a project on an AR Solar System that you could project anywhere in the room and walk around it. There was a 'VR' project as well. I kept the AR app on my phone until I was mugged and the robber shot it. I might still have the file somewhere. You used Unity (C#) with Vuforia for AR and VR stuff. It was fucking cool seeing my little 3d things pop up on the picture of the opera lady. Highly recommend if you're interested in AVR stuff.

COSC 4393: Digital Image Processing, Professor: Pranav Mantini, Semester: Spring 2021.

• If you're interested in learning how Photoshop works in a code sense, this class is for you. The assignments are in Python and you'll be rotating images, cleaning up noise, performing image compression, and gaussian stuff. I still use the output of the botched code I wrote because they all looked like sad potatoes. The exams were online and not too lookup-able. The only sucky part was that it was an 8am. You'd put your homework on Github classroom and Jenkins would grade it for you. The TAs and Dr. Mantini knew their shit. If you were sus on a homework assignment, they'd call you into a meeting to clarify things. This was the case on the image rotation homework, as the slides showed you how to rotate by a corner instead of by the center.

These courses come from the start of my Masters program and the three required ones in the PhD. The reviews will be fairly shorter and straight to the point as you started to dabble in a lot more applied things if the classes were not entirely theory. The graduate program is a near totality of international students, so the work ethic and competitiveness goes up. On the other hand, the back-scratching and helping each other out is probably more rampant in undergrad but nobody really talks about it. This is the time where you see the professors absolutely shine in what they research. When you see a research prof teaching a course, you're going to learn much, much more than you expect because that is what they live and breathe daily here. My complaints about teaching vs research profs went out the window after this first semester of the MS
COSC 6324: Randomized Algorithms and Probabilistic Techniques in Computing. Professor: Gopal Pandurangan, Semester: Fall 2021

• What a tongue twister. This class is one chapter from Gopal's Graduate Algorithms class expanded to a whole semester. You'll learn a lot of concepts about the pure mathematical side of algorithms. That, expected values, randomization, hashing, and complexities you'll not even begin to understand. There weren't any exams. Just a paper presentation, a bunch of homework assignments that were written responses to crazy math problems. You couldn't google these easily, and I found solutions to some HW problems by copying like one line and finding it on a Russian website. The programming assignments were LeetCode questions with some of the most insane requirements you can imagine. The stuff was the most beautiful, digusting, messed up efficient wizardy I've ever had to write and this class absolutely helped me slay programming interviews left and right for the internship cycles ahead. It's hard, but good hard. The class had about eight students and it would go from lecturing to conversation about the topic at hand.

COSC 6347: Cybersecurity. Professor: Laszka, Semester: Fall 2021.

• As Laszka has left UH, I am unsure as to how the class is currently offered. At the start of the semester, he told us about our requirements and threw up a slide saying not to try anything in the class at home. Two programming assigments and the rest was just hacking shit on a VM he'd give us. The tests were multiple choice or fill in the blank, and you could pull them easily from the slides. Almost identical in that case.

COSC 6376: Cloud Computing. Professor: Weidong "Larry" Shi, Semester: Fall 2021.

• The HW in this class was very applied as we would learn new tech stacks and languages, one being 'pig latin'. A lot of the things here were follow a tutorial or look things up. The end of the semester was a huge project. In this project, we compared running an image classification task on separate cloud providers and their tiers. Thank God we had credit from each of the services or else the bills would have ran HIGH. No exams, easy A if you do the stuff. Dr. Shi is a pretty good prof in his line of work. His TAs do run the class and teach sometimes as they are in their final years and taking over the teaching aspect. Save this part for later.

COSC 6339: Big Data Analytics. Professor: Carlos Ordonez, Semester: Spring 2022.

• I have personal opinions about the teaching methods of Dr. Ordonez. Pre-COVID, I had always heard that he was a good prof for Programming Languages and Paradigms. However, after learning how he treated his 3380 class, I started to dread it a little. The homeworks were vague, grades weren't released until after our drop date, and he was definitely caught looking at his course reviews daily and probably writing his own (or having the TAs do it). In homework assignments or test reviews, if you were having an issue and you looked it up, it was literally his research work. I don't find that to be bad, actually, because it did give insight on the stuff that he did and it was definitely interesting. Ordonez is also one of the profs that tried to get undergrads in research along with Gnawali and Yang. I didn't enjoy this class much, at all, due to the exam structure and ways it was taught. But, a memorable homework was some entire Dijkstra's thing but for servers, and that was fun. I got it done while hopped up on whatever the dentist gave me. All was done in Python.

COSC 6373: Computer Vision. Professor, Ioannis Kakadiaris, Semester: Spring 2022

• Dr. K will openly admit to you, either privately or to the whole class that he is very arrogant. You'll see this arrogance but not mind it much if you aren't working with him directly. Kakadiaris is passionate about showing students how to research, especially if you're interested in anything medical. His goal in every class that he teaches is to make you an expert in such field. I don't think there was an exam in this class, but he would assign some of his former students or current PhD students to be a mentor in your final project. The homeworks and in class labs were 'follow the steps'. He and his TA were always available for help and made the class a lot of fun, especially when explaining the mathematical operations behind CV Algorithms. I always recommend Dr. K's classes. Personally, he helped me gain a leg up on how to effectively get through UH's red tape on getting research done involving human subjects. Helped me set up an entire 'research suite' on the computer. Everything was in Python

COSC 7336: Advanced Natural Language Processing. Professor, Rakesh Verma, Semester: Spring 2022.

• Unless you have any form of deep interest in NLP, for the love of Shasta, do NOT take this class. I got my second lowest exam grade ever (the first being Gopal's Grad Algos). Curves were done obviously but the highest grade on any given exam was like a 30 or 40. There were homeworks and paper presentations too. If you skipped X amount of question on the homework, it'd be a 0. If you skipped X items in the class, you'd get an F. I barely squeaked by with a B here. This was also a class with like, ten people in it. One student was an undergrad. She was insane in her craft and I believe ended up working with Verma directly on some research and got paid good for it. This class is another case of Verma being an excellent researcher but not so much a professor. He lived and breathed everything NLP or Cybersecurity and was damn good at it. I also didn't pay much attention in class, so maybe I'm wrong on the teaching part. Everyone struggled in the class as the general NLP class, offered by Dr. Solorio (who was a visiting scientest at Bloomberg at the time) wasn't being offered.

COSC 6351/6353: Software Design. Professor: Raj Singh, Semester: Summer 2022.

• This class is just like the undergrad version. Didn't change much, except the final project was an oil price order thing. I used Flask and Python instead of shitty ass PHP. The exam still featured the famous question: "What isn't software? Hardware". Never change, Raj.

This Summer was the 'great resignation' within UH CS. Toti, Laszka, and Gabriel had left UH for other opportunities. Paris put up for retirement and was promoted to professor Emeritus. Kam-Hoi Cheng left but nobody knew why.
COSC 6335: Data Mining. Professor: Christoph Eick, Semester: Fall 2022.

• Pretty simple class since the exams were open note and the homeworks were answering questions (similar to that of AI) and writing reports. Like AEick, you got more into the fundamentals and how all that stuff works instead of writing code. Lots of frogs on the pages and opportunities for extra credit. This is a good class to get done for your core track and the TA was pretty lenient too. You can get an entire preview of any Eick class from the website.

COSC 6370: Medical Imaging. Professor: Nikolaos Tsekos, Semester: Fall 2022.

• This is a fun class, you'll get an A or A- in it if you do everything. No exams, just a bunch of homeworks and a project. The homeworks were quite fun as we got to do stuff that applied to the medical industry, and the project that my team did was identifying babies at whatever term from an ultrasound. The project itself didn't prove well, but we got an A so didn't matter much. Python was the language to use, and a lot of the homework assignments come with the formulas and theories you needed. Not much of a 'follow the steps' kind of thing, more of a 'here is what you need, good luck' kind of thing. Easy recommend. Tsekos is hilarious. "Do not make your grandmother die twice in a semester!".

COSC 6386: Program Analysis and Testing. Professor: Amin Alipour, Semester: Spring 2023.

• This class had three homeworks taken from a public textbook about software testing. "The Fuzzing Book". Not too difficult at all. What was fun was the paper presentation. I had just bought a Flipper Zero and got to demonstrate it as part of the presentation. The final project was basically the class split into two groups. My group recreated, to the best of our ability, MOSS. We made our own code plagiarism checker using NLP and tokenization of variables. We then saw how much of our own code was plagiarised with each other form old assignments lol, and it picked up on variable changing pretty quick. All was done in Python with AI aspects. All in Python/JuPyter

ENTR 7390: Technology Entrepreneurship. Professor: Tanushree Chatterji, Semester: Spring 2023.

• As a UH CS student, you can find up to six (or twelve?) related credits from outside CS to apply towards your coursework requirements. Anyway Bauer needs to stop being a bitch and let undergrads take their version of this class. I first heard of this course when I took Game Art, when Dr. McCormick came in and gave an entire guest lecture on how to take your startup game into the tech industry. She told us we could enroll but Bauer pretty much stopped any CS major from joining it.Since it was more lenient, I got into the graduate version with Dr. Chatterji. When I say that Bauer has the resources, they've got them. This class consisted of speakers in the startup space, UH alums and not coming in to talk about their experiences and give advice. The assignments were very business and tech oriented. I also got access to RedLabs as the prof is the director of it. She knows who to set you up with if you need it. If only the CS majors could have a piece of this the school could be seeing more money flowing into their donations since a lot of high paid Coogs like to give back. Met a ton in the club section at Fertitta. Holy moly.

At this point, I had completed my Masters. The next three courses were required for the PhD
COSC 6110: Graduate Colloqium. Professor: Ernst Leiss, Semester: Fall 2023.

• This class was easy. Attend five seminars, write reviews on them, get satisfactory review scores, and present a topic of your choice. You will get roasted by Leiss, but he also teaches you how to roast presenters. PhD students are required to visit five seminars minimum a semester, so you'll see some really good speakers and really shitty ones. This is also an opportunity to see who UH could be hiring on as a prof soon. Dr. Yang, Das, and Lin were all hired on the semester after giving a seminar talk at UH. There are currently two open spots that are looking to be filled, and I was able to sit in and evaluate one of the faculty candidates. This is where you can see the cool stuff going on in University Research.

COSC 6320: Data Structures and Algorithms. Professor: Gopal Pandurangan. Semester: Fall 2023.

• This class is the Algo Asylum. Fucking difficult. But you had Gopal and Khalid. There are no stupid questions in this class, but it was HARD. It made undergrad Algos look like taking candy from a baby. You have to fight your way out of it. Four exams similar to the HW of 6324, and the programming assignments too. God this class was hard. Still recommend Gopal always tho. They were ALWAYS willing to help. Python was the language of choice.

COSC 6342: Machine Learning. Professor: Ricardo Vilalta. Semester: Fall 2023.

• This class was two exams and a few assignments. The exams by the type of question weren't hard, but the questions themselves sucked. You had to memorize a lot of terminology, equations, vocab words, variables, etc. There weren't any word banks or references on the exams though. This, I just didn't know how to study well for. Everything came from the slides but they were very broad. Vilalta is a great prof and does curve. Good at his research.

COSC 6385: Computer Architecture. Professor, Weidong "Larry" Shi. Semester: Spring 2024.

• The end of the road! I dropped this class in Spring 2023 because I didn't need it to graduate, but then had to take it again because it was required for the PhD. The homeworks aren't hard, neither was the paper presentation or the experiments. But the exams did suck. I don't know how it will be tomorrow, but so long as I pass it, I'm good and I just get to research my way out of here and never have to sit a fucking exam ever again. It's been a long time coming and I can't wait to finish it up :) Python is your langauage here.

At this point, I'm doing whatever 8X98 and 8X99 is required of me. I have an RCE (just a long presentation), a doctoral proposal, and a defense, then the academic journey is over. I feel like the biggest hurdle was leapt.
My thoughts on UHCS. In Fall 2018, there were only 1300 students in the department. Everyone in their graduating class knew each other. You'd sometimes meet people in GroupMes to work on homeworks or projects together, but never see each other in real life. Or did you? There was a lot of weird ways to cheat or get by in class. There was a decent community, and people who wanted to help other students definitely did. I'll never forget cramming into a room with a bunch of other kids while the tutor for 2436 held a review session days before the exam. The jokes about overloading the servers, and the hopeful nature before COVID hit. Everyone seemed friendly, and it didn't seem at all like a few complaint posts that were put up earlier about superiority complexes or whatever.
There are now 2300+ students in the department and it will probably be 3k within the next few years. Classes are getting tighter, it's getting more competitive, and UH isn't giving CS the attitude it deserves. MIS and CIS are getting pumped, CS is just... There. NSM took over the Fall career fair like wtf? Cullen and NSM are going to get in competition over this stuff as CS to Cullen should have happened (and on several accounts, was rumored and about to go through the process) but then didn't happen, and CS wants the juice.
I've seen students in 1336 get caught with ChatGPT like fucking dumbasses, but on the other hand, the talent level of the juniors and seniors at UH CS is FUCKING INSANE. The post-COVID generation of UH CS is going to be the reason the rank and perception skyrockets. Alums of years past are surprised with how Coogs are getting picked off left and right from UH compared to other schools.
The department is focusing on hiring new blood that will help push the department to newer heights in terms of more modern research. The older professors are preparing to retire, we just don't know when or if. Tenure is hard to achieve, but the cycle is definitely happening.
That's all, I'm going to bed. Go Coogs!

Was away for a few days, turned PC on and was looping a blue screen which was unable to collect data on the issue. Sat at 0% and would not progress.
After a few hard resets I managed to get into the PIN/login scree,n and then to my desktop momentarily before another BSOD. I also noticed I had no internet connection, nor any lights on my motherboards ethernet socket which I found strange.
I tried to troubleshoot through the advanced menu and it only failed. I then ran a system restore from my last update ~1month ago. After completing the restore it auto reboot straight into another blue screen. I booted safe mode with networking and still could not make a connection. I was spammed with the error in the second photo. I cannot close the window without it immediately popping back up. I ran a search for that CTFMON and have attached the photo. I'm not familiar with these but the top .exe in capitals looks out of place if I were to choose one.
The BSOD error does belong to AMD (rt68cx21x64) and I ran a Clean & Restart through DDU in safe mode. After the auto reboot I was seeing the blue again.
I found the folders containing the errors from the BSOD and have also attached a photo. Once again I do not know if any of these look suspicious.
I am clueless of what to do next. Please send help 🙏
Thank you in advance
EDIT: Pictures and more detailed updates here: https://www.reddit.com/WindowsHelp/s/581TM0DdRV

I have a 2.0 TSI engine (CCZA), and after an oil change, I got a check engine light. The attached pictures are from Carly and show the errors in German. The crankcase ventilation was replaced. The car starts immediately and does not jerk. However, the following errors are present: pressure drop in the connection between turbocharger and throttle, solenoid valve 1, the fuel measurement system is too rich at idle, and the sensor for refrigerant pressure/temperature is faulty.

Even total nanny states like California have phased out many of their camera traffic enforcement systems, but it seems like we are heading towards cameras everywhere mailing people tickets. I haven't heard any concern for this, and it seems like it is sailing through completely unopposed.
These things are extremely problematic, and my friend is already mired in BS because of it. He sold a car over a year ago, sent in the slip for title transfer to DMV, and went about his life. Just received a ticket in the mail with a picture of his old car, now the burden of proof is on him to prove that not only was he not driving, but he no longer even owns the car.
Any traffic enforcement should require a police officer to site the driver of the vehicle, it is unacceptable to just take a picture of any car and send a huge bill to the registered owner.
What if the car was lent out to someone?
What if the mechanic is taking the car for a test drive, and is speeding?
What is the idiot who bought the car didn't transfer the title?
Unless a officer of the law can prove you were driving, a moving violation should not be automatically levied against you.
With all the uproar over van cams, why is no one up in arms about the impending huge network of cameras set to start taxing unsuspecting vehicle owners?
Are there any elected officials pushing back against this?