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Snark

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Status Replies posted by Snark

  1. Will anybody notice my comments? ;.;

    1. Snark

      Snark

      Well, gotta say from the status updates above that those looked like perfectly reasonable questions to me.  Same sort of stuff I see from full-grown adults in Gameplay Questions all the time.  You're fine, dude.  ;)

    2. (See 7 other replies to this status update)

  2. Yesterday was a rough day. I think I might owe @TeslaPenguin1 an apology for a snarky comment (no offense meant to @Snark as I was referring to the action of being snarky :blush:). When I was saying "I can't wait to read @Just Jim's next chapter, it was not meant as the "I want the next chapter, now!" comment it was taken to be. It was meant to be taken as a "I'm looking forward to reading it whenever it comes out" because as a fan fic author on this forum, I, too, must deal with time constraints.

    Now for why yesterday was rough. I'm not tenured and is why I teach at two separate universities. The week before the semester started, I was notified that I was losing one of my classes (it had 27 students registered) because a tenured professor's class did not have the required number of students registered in it. Because tenured faculty are required to have 15 hours of courses, I was bumped from my course. Being bumped from one course reduces my pay by around $700 per month.

    So, yesterday, my department chair called me up. She wanted me to authorize two students to transfer out of the course which was taken away from me and allow them into the course I still teach for the university. No problem. She then told me that since the course reassignment was made, the course has dropped from 27 registered students and was now (as of yesterday) at 14 (that's a loss of 48% of the students within the first week). Yes, you've read that right. The class has lost 13 students since the first day of classes. And many are telling the registrar the reason is because I am not teaching the class.

    So, to add insult to injury, they took a class from me and I get a lecture about having a cult following on campus. The reason I have a "cult" following on campus is because:

    • I take time to listen to a student who comes to see me during office hours.
    • I return emails within three hours of receiving them. My average would be lower if I factored out the weekends. I don't email on Sunday.
    • I am consistent in my grading.
    • I do not make excuses when I screw up, I admit them and fix them.
    • I don't assign busy work. The first day of class (and in the syllabus) I explain to students why I assign certain things.
    • If needed, I will allow a student to schedule an appointment outside of my normal office hours.
    • I teach the course materials and do not indoctrinate. I allow a free and open discussion in my classroom.
    • I don't do the "Bell Curve" thing. If the entire class earns an A, then that's what I do.
    • And I have a heart. I remember what it was like in graduate school going through a divorce, custody fight, bad car wreck, and the death of a close family member.

    And most importantly, I remember that my students are human, too. People want to be around others who value them as people. And when it comes to taking a college course, students want a professor who they can relate to, who is approachable, and most of all, who they believe is going to treat them fairly. And that's what I do.

    1. Snark

      Snark

      No good deed goes unpunished.  Sorry to hear you had such an execrable experience, and I can't even imagine how galling that must be.

      On the other hand... sounds like you're an awesome prof, and you're making a difference in your students' lives, and they recognize this.  To be able to see how much they appreciate you must be emotionally rewarding-- hope that can bring you some comfort.  (Yeah, I know, "emotional rewards" don't pay the mortgage.  But they're not "nothing", either.)

    2. (See 6 other replies to this status update)

  3. Does anybody have any ideas on what planets to send a manned mission to first? I have sent a probe to Jool and Duna but no Kerbals yet. I'm putting it off because I don't want to fail and strand anybody there. I've already got some Kerbals stuck in a solar orbit that I'm trying to save...  :/ Also any tips for interplanetary rockets?

    1. Snark

      Snark

      By the way, Eve is a pretty easy place to land a probe... as long as you're not coming back. Great for early game one-way missions.

      Just don't send anything you want to bring back, until you're a KSP expert. Getting to Eve orbit from the surface is a real bear, and takes a lot of skilled design and piloting.

    2. (See 2 other replies to this status update)

  4. Does anybody have any ideas on what planets to send a manned mission to first? I have sent a probe to Jool and Duna but no Kerbals yet. I'm putting it off because I don't want to fail and strand anybody there. I've already got some Kerbals stuck in a solar orbit that I'm trying to save...  :/ Also any tips for interplanetary rockets?

    1. Snark

      Snark

      Hello, and welcome to the forum! :)

      Depends on what you're after, challenge level, etc.  The easiest planet to visit-and-return is generally Duna.  The dV requirements are very modest, the fact that there's an atmosphere makes landing easy (good for aerobraking, helps with landing), but it's thin enough that taking off is easy and you can use "vacuum engines" there no problem.

      It only takes barely more dV to land on Duna (assuming you aerobrake) than it does to land on the Mun.  Coming back takes a fair bit more dV than coming back from the Mun... but less than it would from any other planet.

      Duna's probably your safest bet.

      By the way-- if you've got this kind of detailed question, you'll probably have better luck posting it as a topic in the "Gameplay Questions" forum than here.  It'll get a lot more visibility and you'll have plenty of responses.  Whereas a status update on your profile tends not to get many folks looking at it.  :)

    2. (See 2 other replies to this status update)

  5. Disappointed I can't send a message until my content count is higher??  So I can't ask a question of a member unless i make up some repurposed bovine waste just so I have the ability to do so, even after being a member for 5 years....

    1. Snark

      Snark

      Yep,  it's just a sad example of how spammers ruin things for the rest of us.  :(

    2. (See 3 other replies to this status update)

  6. Disappointed I can't send a message until my content count is higher??  So I can't ask a question of a member unless i make up some repurposed bovine waste just so I have the ability to do so, even after being a member for 5 years....

    1. Snark

      Snark

      Yes, it's one of those unfortunate facts of life.  If we didn't have that restriction, the teeming spammers of the internet would be flooding everyone's inboxes with all sorts of random crap.  I understand that it's aggravating, but with the internet being so infested with spammers, it can't really be helped.

    2. (See 3 other replies to this status update)

  7. Will anybody notice my comments? ;.;

    1. Snark

      Snark

      Dunno, have never used a stock vessel, ever.  Haven't even looked at 'em; I don't even know what those are.  More fun to build it from scratch.

      The nice thing about KSP, though, is that there are many, many different ways to accomplish a goal.  So just pick the one you like best (most fun, most challenging, most humorous, or whatever your thing is) and go with it.  And if it works, yay!  And if it doesn't work, well, you learned something, and try again.  :wink:

    2. (See 7 other replies to this status update)

  8. Will anybody notice my comments? ;.;

    1. Snark

      Snark

      Send an unmanned rescue ship with an empty command pod.  Park it next to the ship, transfer Jeb across (along with any science his ship is carrying), and fly him home.

    2. (See 7 other replies to this status update)

  9. Will anybody notice my comments? ;.;

    1. Snark

      Snark

      Well, not right here, probably no.  :wink:  That's because profile status updates tend not to get looked at-- nobody will see this unless they particularly happen to look at your profile.

      If you're referring to your other recent posts elsewhere, there are a few reasons they haven't attracted attention yet:

      • First, nobody could actually see them until just a few minutes ago, since your posts were hidden.  That's because you're a brand-new forum user, and as a precaution against spambots, the first few posts from every new account are automatically "moderated".  That means that they're hidden until a moderator manually approves them, as I just now did for your posts.  We try to be prompt about approving things, but there are only a few of us and we're volunteers with real lives, jobs, family, etc. so we don't have 24/7 coverage, which means sometimes you may have to wait a bit for approval.  Don't worry, pretty soon you'll have enough posts that the restriction will automatically drop away, and then you'll be able to post as much as you want, untrammeled.
      • Second, have a little patience, dude!  :)  The posts you're referring to are barely an hour old, even if they hadn't been hidden until just now.  No point in worrying that nobody's noticing you if they haven't even had any significant time in which not to notice.  Give it time!

      Anyway, welcome to the forums!  Lots of friendly people here, I expect you'll have fun.

    2. (See 7 other replies to this status update)

  10. Ok, I am at a loss. I know one of the mods is causing this crash, but I have no idea which one. And for some reason, Steam/Windows 10 is doing that crap again where I cannot delete any folder in the GameData folder because I do not have "administrator priviledges..."

    But if someone smarter than I could take a look and see which one is the problem causing mod, I'd greatly appreciate it...

    https://www.dropbox.com/sh/mcxc4mtp46090j0/AACh4sy8QrSeMF4iVDtKMTnra?dl=0

    1. Snark

      Snark

      Happy to jump in here, but just for the record, @adsii1970, this kind of thing is so much better as a post in the "Technical Support" forum than as a status update.  Nearly anything is better than a status update, for lots of reasons, due to this forum software being really clunky at status updates.  Hard to link to, can't edit, yadda yadda.

      The technique is called a "binary search", and is basically the only reasonable way to isolate "which mod is causing my problem", particularly if you have lots of mods.  Uninstall half of them, see if the problem goes away.  Now you know which half of your mods the culprit is in, so you can split that in half and repeat the process.  Even if you have 1000 mods installed, that means you only need to iterate at most 10 times (because 210 > 1000).

      So, the general recipe any time you have a "Why does my game keep crashing?" question is to do this:

      1. Run with no mods.  Does the problem still happen?
        • If it does, post your question in "Technical Support - Unmodded Installs".  There, you're done.
        • If it doesn't, the problem is with one of your mods.  Go on to the next step.
      2. Use the binary-search method above to isolate the culprit down to one single mod.
        • Yes, it's tedious. Sorry, them's the breaks. But not impossibly tedious.
        • If there's some reason why it went off the rails and you can't narrow it down to one mod, post your question in "Technical Support - Modded Installs", including what you've done thus far (and why you couldn't narrow it down to one mod).  There, you're done.
        • If you do successfully narrow it down to one mod, go on to the next step.
      3. Look at your log file to see if there's anything that jumps out at you, related to that mod, that might be causing the problem.
        • If you're not a guru, chances are good that you probably can't figure out anything.  But it's worth taking at least a couple of minutes to search for references to that mod.  Maybe you'll get lucky.  For example, suppose you've narrowed it down to Joe's Awesome Mod, and when you search the log file for references to that, there's a line that says "[Joe's Awesome Mod] Can't run unless Joe's Other Awesome Mod is installed" immediately followed by the crash.  Well, there's your answer.  :)
        • But seriously, my experience is that usually looking at the log yourself is probably going to be unhelpful unless you are either a guru, or the author of the mod, or both.  Very often there's nothing helpful, so don't worry about it if nothing jumps out at you.
      4. Post in the thread of the offending mod, explaining your problem and providing a link to your logs or whatever.

      That's basically it.

    2. (See 29 other replies to this status update)

  11. Sooooooooo does anyone know how to insert screenshots you've taken into posts on mac?

    1. Snark

      Snark

      You don't actually need an account.  Imgur allows posting things completely anonymously, without needing any account or sign-on or anything, and it's super easy to use, just takes a few mouse clicks.

      Simple instructions here:

       

    2. (See 2 other replies to this status update)

  12. Are the mods at lunch break or what??? Im trying to post helpful things!

    1. Snark

      Snark

      Your various posts were all within the last hour, mate.  Be patient.  :wink:

      Please understand that the moderators are a small handful of unpaid volunteers who do moderating in our spare time, when we're not busy with family, jobs, full-time school, or whatever other IRL commitments we have, same as you or anyone else.

      We do generally try to keep an eye on things, including giving approval to queued posts.  We've even made a point of picking a moderator team distributed around the globe, so that we've got reasonable coverage of as many time zones as possible.

      But this isn't some 24/7 call center staffed round-the-clock by paid employees, so response time is typically going to be measured in something longer than minutes.  You'll just have to wait until the next moderator happens to see your item.  It may be an hour or two, sometimes.

      Fortunately for you, I believe you ought to be unqueued now, given the number of posts you've made.  Welcome to the forums!  :)

    2. (See 1 other reply to this status update)

  13. @Snark Why do I not have followers?

    1. Snark

      Snark

      I believe forum shenanigans are at work.  Mine are gone, too. :wink:

      Give it some time, I expect it'll sort itself out.

       

  14. Where'd you think of the name Snark? Is it a Half-Life reference, or something else?

    1. Snark

      Snark

      No, mine's a reference to the original. ;)

       

    2. (See 1 other reply to this status update)

  15. Who doesn't love tardigrades?

    1. Snark

      Snark

      They're the closest thing to a space alien I've seen ... and it's just a happy coincidence that they're cute, too. :)

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