Posts made by Ganymede

@tinuviel

In legal writing, you pick just one.

@derp

Honestly, the styles I am referring to are “persuasive,” “analytical,” and “readable.”

@aria said in Real World Peeves, Disgruntlement, and Irks.:

FOR FUCK'S SAKE, JUST TELL US WHAT YOU WANT.

See, this is sort of the crux.

In my opinion, in law school, when a professor gives you weekly assignments it is to test your mettle as a lawyer. After two years of law school, I would expect that a student who know what that means. Students are required to take a full-year of writing and research courses.

But as a practitioner, I don't expect shit. Really, I just want them to hand in an assignment that wouldn't get them fired from a firm. So timeliness, writing style, and grammar are more important than legal analysis.

Should I expect this from 3Ls? Yes and no. I am not going to flat out tell them:

"Look, losers, you don't know shit about shit. You really don't. I don't want to make you all into emo-kids, but you're going to need to suck it up and realize that nothing you produce will ever satisfy your legal partner the first day in. Take your lumps, adjust, and adapt. That's how you survive. But the first step is doing shit quickly and meeting deadlines, so give me something and I probably won't flay you alive."

But that's really kind of the truth; I want work-product I can cut to pieces to help them become better lawyers, and the main goal is to get that shit to me in a timely fashion and be ready to learn the hard way.

If I tell them that? I'm going to get absolute garbage because they know I'm not going to hammer them for garbage. So it's sometimes best to keep vague about that shit and let them rely on what they know.

@jeshin said in Real World Peeves, Disgruntlement, and Irks.:

I'd like to know more about this Zorro reference. Why Zorro specifically?

It's a bit from the 90s.

@derp said in Real World Peeves, Disgruntlement, and Irks.:

I strongly desire professors like this. Can I sign up for your class? (j/k, that would be weird or whatever.)

Sorry, this is for 3Ls only. But if I can teach openly at the college level, sure.

@aria said in Real World Peeves, Disgruntlement, and Irks.:

If you ask open-ended questions, then you need to expect variability in the answers and grade based on whether they've presented logical, well-supported arguments. If you want your students to approach a problem using a specific lens, then just tell them that.

I think the difference is that I'm teaching law students, who will be going into their 3L year and should have been indoctrinated by now into approaching problems with a specific lens.

Thankfully, I'll have 3 hours with them each week.

@auspice said in Real World Peeves, Disgruntlement, and Irks.:

My best instructors were the ones who gave me honest, thorough feedback. Who were willing to take the time to talk to me when I had questions. Who provided a cut-and-dry syllabus (really, there is no need for cutesy shit with a syllabus: there's a reason there's a formula. it works and people understand it).

Well, I can give honest feedback because there are two kinds of students:

1. Students who think I am their friend, and are sorely disappointed; and
2. Students who think I am not their friend, and are never disappointed.

My syllabus will be tough to get done, I'll admit, but I'm probably going to tell them: "Look, I know you have 12 weekly assignments for 12 weeks, but get them done and in on time and you'll get the full 5% per, up to a max of 50%, then we grade your final assignment for the remaining 50% because whether I give you an A or a D won't matter if you can't pass that bar exam."

I may ride their asses like Zorro, but those students are going to have a nice portfolio of work, some worthwhile feedback, and know how to litigate a whole slew of real estate lawsuits.

@auspice said in Real World Peeves, Disgruntlement, and Irks.:

She refused to yield, so it ended up having to go to mediation.

So, I'm going to be a professor in a few weeks, and y'all have me spooked.

@dreampipe said in General Video Game Thread:

Not every mage gets possessed by bad spirits, though. See Anders in Awakening before Justice went full Punisher-mode in DA2. Wynne also has a healing spirit that's keeping her alive and helping the party through the first game.

This is kind of the point with the Circle.

Some Mages don't have much power; some have a lot of power. Some can control themselves; others cannot. Those who get possessed sometimes get possessed by bad spirits and do bad things; others get possessed by good spirits and do good things. Some people who practice blood magic do bad things with it; others do good things. Letting the Circle mages snatch up children sounds horrible, but that's how they can indoctrinate and minimize the possibility of child mages getting possessed.

And it is horrible, but that's part of the entire moral quandary behind the Circle.

@GreenFlashlight

Yeah, what the fuck did I just watch a bit of? And why is it 40 minutes long?

Given where we are right now, I’d rather listen to PSAs by Joel Miller about pandemics.

@Sunny

I'm happy for this, of course, but the way you said that makes me mildly concerned.

@ZombieGenesis said in TTRPG's You've Wanted to MU* (But Probably Won't):

It might seem that way but all you'd really need using that system is the core book and whatever supplement you needed for your RCC/OCC. Want to play a Ley Line Walker? Core rules will likely be all you need. You COULD use other books to flesh some things out but they're not needed.

Yes, but you are playing the game with others. Presumably everyone of a particular Tier are playing or competing with one another, it becomes imperative to have the other books, which may have mechanics related how the occupations interact with one another.

@Rucket said in General Video Game Thread:

Eh, I can't blame them for not 'remastering' Dragon Age when Inquisition was a PS4 game.

I guess not, but not re-releasing the Mass Effect series was just stupid.

I suppose my point, if I had one, is that Hudson and Darrah coming on board didn't seem to help, so I don't know their departure is going to signal that the studio is going to start releasing good games. They could have attempted to fix up Andromeda, but instead just dropped the game. And Anthem was objectively terrible.

@Rucket said in General Video Game Thread:

Looks like rough times ahead for Bioware.

Gee, I dunno. Casey Hudson left in 2014, purportedly from the fallout of Mass Effect 3's ending, and he was the GM when the developmental abortion known as Anthem near sank BioWare entirely. About the only thing Mark Darrah did was announce Dragon Age 4's development. Say what you will about Mass Effect: Andromeda, but EA didn't give up on SW:TOR and managed to recover it from the ashes.

BioWare hasn't really done much to any acclaim for over 6 years. They missed the boat when they failed to re-master the Mass Effect and Dragon Age series for the PS4 / XBox One consoles, and are only now re-releasing the former for high-end consoles. Meanwhile, EA has shifted its focus to developing the Star Wars games.

I am truly sorry to hear of your loss.

I love having RP partners whose PCs I can emotionally abuse knowing that I'm not really that way and that I am actually, truly apologetic for using them to explore my PC's emotional growth.

@Derp said in Dice code:

If you're generating a number, and saving it to an array of some kind (presumably) then it's a very small step to save the array results somewhere for the curious.

Yeah, I guess so. Maybe I'm just ornery.

I mean, I don't care if I'm good at sex; what's important is --

@Derp said in Dice code:

Having an extra layer of 'make sure all the moving parts are moving correctly' is good, and some systems have special rules based on how the dice come out.

If a game has special rules about results, such as exploding dice, then I concur.

If you're going to generate the numbers, there really isn't a reason not to show the numbers generated.

Sure there is: in many systems, whether you succeed by a factor of 1 or 10 is irrelevant -- all that matters is that you succeed. On such games, the actual result is irrelevant.

@faraday said in Dice code:

Because players throw fits and cry foul when their McAwesomePants character fails at something if they can't "see" the actual die results.

Constructively speaking, I prefer not knowing the die results and playing through.

@kk said in Health and Wealth and GrownUp Stuff:

Second rant is that I just spent quite a bit of my own money to track down some n95 for my unit since we don't have enough. I am like grr give us more.

Serious offer here, like, if anyone is front-lining -- nurses, teachers, doctors, whatever -- and you need N95s or some shit, one of my clients is in the sanitation business and can get his hands on sanitizer, masks, and other supplies pretty quick.

@il-volpe said in Dice code:

MU dice commands ought to show every individual die's results.

Why?