TC_Halogen - AMA

[AlexDest]

Re: TC_Halogen - AMA

How are you doing with school?

[___________]

Re: TC_Halogen - AMA

How has life changed over the past two years?

[Zapmeister]

Re: TC_Halogen - AMA

The year is 2059. Mankind has long since commercialised inner solar system space travel, and set up permanent colonies on the Moon, Mars, and Titan. However, commnication between different colonies is difficult, and lifestyles between the planets are hugely different, so that since your migration to Mars, you've found it hard to relate to your Earthling friends on more than a superficial level. Meanwhile, you've still been playing rhythm games the entire time because the enticing lure of FFR keeps drawing you back there no matter how much you try to retire. As a result of your natural improvement, you have just been elected as President of Mars after SDGing the fiendishly difficult exam to become President of Mars (which has obviously got harder since 2012). Unfortunately, intergalactic police forces have been inspecting Earthling procedures to infiltrate other colonies in the Solar System, and have just clamped down and held hostage FFR, Stepmania, KBO, osu!, and NoseDancer (which is a rhythm game created in 2027 where you use your nose to hit the rhythm), citing them as secret training bases to train people to have the necessary skills to colonise the galaxy, and consider them extremely dangerous weapons. They have also taken hostage anyone in d6 or higher. I suck at creative writing, because I haven't taken a class in that since I was 14. Since you're president of Mars, you have more political power than other Earthling and Martian ffr/stepmania players, but the police claim a rigged election and want to overthrow you. What do you do?

What is something you've done that you'd say is a lot more difficult than it looks, but someone would find it hard to believe you until they try it for themself?

You seem to be a really busy person - so I was wondering how do you motivate yourself when you've got a lot of work to do but don't have motivation to do it? Or does that not happen to you? I'm a masters student who's been losing motivation for working for a few months now and at this point I'm getting REALLY desperate - I haven't really done any work for like two weeks, out of complete and utter demotivation. If you want to know exactly how desperate I am, the fact that I'm asking a random internet stranger on his AMA gives you a pretty good idea

Can I be a difficulty forum mod?

In your last response to my post you talked about four-barrelling in poker. I know three-barrelling is when you c-bet the flop, turn and river, but what is four-barrelling? Didn't you mean four-betting?

Why are divisions in ffr tournaments labelled backwards so the highest number division is the best one, which never happens anywhere else?

You wake up one morning and there is a tin of tomato soup stuck to your bedroom ceiling. You're not sure how it got there, but it seems likely that it was superglued there. You think nothing of it. The next day you wake up and there are 2 identical tins of tomato soup, one underneath the other, stuck to your bedroom ceiling. Again, you're not sure how, but you ignore it. The next day there are 3 identical tins of tomato soup forming a tower extending down from your ceiling, and so on. You get to the day when the tower has reached the point that there's not enough space for another tin between the bottom of the tower and the floor. What do you expect to see when you wake up the next day?

EDIT: I'm considering making money by sending helium balloons in the post to New Zealand. The idea behind this is that I can argue at the post office that I should be charged a negative amount of postage because the postal aircraft would in fact be lighter with my balloons in it than without. Now I know what you're thinking - you're wondering whether I'd be able to make enough money from the postage to offset the cost of the balloons and the helium. To solve this problem, I'd have to find someone living in New Zealand to co-operate with me and we'd send the same balloons back and forth to each other, thus making more money out of the same balloons. With enough dedication I think I'd be able to make a living out of doing this. What do you think?

[MikeShinoda12345]

Re: TC_Halogen - AMA

Do you have any advice for a college freshman?

What would be your favorite place to live? to visit? Why, and what would you do?

What do you do to relax and recharge?

[TC_Halogen]

Re: TC_Halogen - AMA

Why web design?

Amazing thing about this: it actually happened completely by chance! When looking for work around the area, Kayla spotted a job that dealt with web design, development and SEO work. She very forcefully told me to apply for the job, because the worst that could happen is that I never heard back. I reluctantly applied for the job via an e-mail, with very little professional experience but showed various things that I've done on the internet randomly and indicated that I'm a person who is highly adaptable. Next thing I knew, I got an e-mail back to have an interview with my current boss. They knew that I didn't have the experience to do the job right away, but apparently saw a large amount of promise in my capability of picking things up on the job, so they hired me under a consultant contract for a month (more like a probationary period). At this point, I found out that there were three other candidates who were going to interview for the position roughly a week after I got there, so I talked to my boss and asked him for a list of things he was looking for not just out of me, but also for the website.

The opening task was actually an interesting one for me: the website was utilizing a Magento Go eCommerce platform, and, as some store owners came to find out -- Magento Go services were being terminated in February of 2015. I knew what the current content management system was, so I took the time at home to learn it inside and out, and essentially plow through the initial stages of the migration process at such a high speed that it would have been trivial to hire someone else, because I was already familiar with the system and had moved a good majority of their products over from the old site to the new one. When my boss was curious to see how I was doing after a week, I proceeded to show him what I had done.

Two of the interviews ended up not happening, and the other person that interviewed apparently didn't do well. So, while web development is certainly not the career outcome I am looking to have, it's a great launching pad because I will have actual IT experience in my resume from here on out, which is awesome.

Congrats on your new job too, by the way!

How are you doing with school?

I've been better. My grades slipped for a little bit, but I've recently rebounded this term. My priorities really hit me in the face after getting this job and it changed my attitude quite a bit (in my opinion: in a good way).

How has life changed over the past two years?

The year is 2059. Mankind has long since commercialised inner solar system space travel, and set up permanent colonies on the Moon, Mars, and Titan. However, commnication between different colonies is difficult, and lifestyles between the planets are hugely different, so that since your migration to Mars, you've found it hard to relate to your Earthling friends on more than a superficial level. Meanwhile, you've still been playing rhythm games the entire time because the enticing lure of FFR keeps drawing you back there no matter how much you try to retire. As a result of your natural improvement, you have just been elected as President of Mars after SDGing the fiendishly difficult exam to become President of Mars (which has obviously got harder since 2012). Unfortunately, intergalactic police forces have been inspecting Earthling procedures to infiltrate other colonies in the Solar System, and have just clamped down and held hostage FFR, Stepmania, KBO, osu!, and NoseDancer (which is a rhythm game created in 2027 where you use your nose to hit the rhythm), citing them as secret training bases to train people to have the necessary skills to colonise the galaxy, and consider them extremely dangerous weapons. They have also taken hostage anyone in d6 or higher. I suck at creative writing, because I haven't taken a class in that since I was 14. Since you're president of Mars, you have more political power than other Earthling and Martian ffr/stepmania players, but the police claim a rigged election and want to overthrow you. What do you do?

hahahahahahahaha holy fucking shit I have no answer to this, but posts like these are amazing and just make my day <3

What is something you've done that you'd say is a lot more difficult than it looks, but someone would find it hard to believe you until they try it for themself?

This is a pretty interesting question, actually. One of the things that I really feel like people think is difficult but really isn't is actually programming. What a lot of people fail to realize is that programming isn't this arbitrary term for getting computers to do things, it's an actual language that, like spoken languages, can be learned with diligent studies. When I showed my parents some of the work that I've done at my current job, they would both respond in a way that pretty much said they had no idea what I was talking about, but a simple explanation that took literally a minute of my time provided plenty of insight and knowledge. For those who are interested but scared: try learning a coding/programming language. There are a number of sites that give you really hands on experience and make it a relatively enjoyable process.

You seem to be a really busy person - so I was wondering how do you motivate yourself when you've got a lot of work to do but don't have motivation to do it? Or does that not happen to you? I'm a masters student who's been losing motivation for working for a few months now and at this point I'm getting REALLY desperate - I haven't really done any work for like two weeks, out of complete and utter demotivation. If you want to know exactly how desperate I am, the fact that I'm asking a random internet stranger on his AMA gives you a pretty good idea

Believe me, I know exactly what it is like to go under a period of demotivation, and the worst part about it is that it starts this HORRIBLE train that eventually spills into other things you do. In my case, I went from getting lazy in my studies, to being lazy with certain things in my hobbies (FFR is a key example and my decline is pretty visible, hence me stepping away).

These last two weeks have been an incredible trial for me of patience and diligence, because I literally spent every day, doing at least 4-6 hours of studies. One of the things that helped me was having music in my background. Something about having a different ambiance just changes my ability to handle workloads -- some other people claim that this helps them as well, but your mileage will certainly vary. You just have to push yourself and tell yourself that your studies are more important than anything else. Isolate yourself from distractions as much as possible if you feel like your demotivation is too great -- travel to a library, work in a focus group, do anything in your power to turn the tables on your lack of motivation.

Can I be a difficulty forum mod?

I don't make those decisions.

In your last response to my post you talked about four-barrelling in poker. I know three-barrelling is when you c-bet the flop, turn and river, but what is four-barrelling? Didn't you mean four-betting?

Yes, that.

Why are divisions in ffr tournaments labelled backwards so the highest number division is the best one, which never happens anywhere else?

I think the divisional numbering system came to life pretty early on but was really loosely used. In my opinion, it just happened to extend arbitrarily once the dashboard was created in the 5th Official tournament, because the buttons used to check divisions were actually labeled "division 1", "division 2", etc. I personally believe that the actual divisional terminology would have been used substantially more frequently if the opportunity to lazily use a number system wasn't so easily provided.

You wake up one morning and there is a tin of tomato soup stuck to your bedroom ceiling. You're not sure how it got there, but it seems likely that it was superglued there. You think nothing of it. The next day you wake up and there are 2 identical tins of tomato soup, one underneath the other, stuck to your bedroom ceiling. Again, you're not sure how, but you ignore it. The next day there are 3 identical tins of tomato soup forming a tower extending down from your ceiling, and so on. You get to the day when the tower has reached the point that there's not enough space for another tin between the bottom of the tower and the floor. What do you expect to see when you wake up the next day?

EDIT: I'm considering making money by sending helium balloons in the post to New Zealand. The idea behind this is that I can argue at the post office that I should be charged a negative amount of postage because the postal aircraft would in fact be lighter with my balloons in it than without. Now I know what you're thinking - you're wondering whether I'd be able to make enough money from the postage to offset the cost of the balloons and the helium. To solve this problem, I'd have to find someone living in New Zealand to co-operate with me and we'd send the same balloons back and forth to each other, thus making more money out of the same balloons. With enough dedication I think I'd be able to make a living out of doing this. What do you think?

- the tomato soup conundrum: you never said that I had to ignore the cans of soup when they neared the floor: I'd purchase some tarps and cover the walls/objects in my room, put on some junky clothing that I have no use for, and then take a baseball bat and swing as hard as I could. The more the mess, the better, because I won't be cleaning it.

- helium balloon situation: are you implying that balloons are weightless/negative in weight? I don't care if you think you should be charged a negative amount of postage, helium balloons still have a weight! Negative density != negative weight, sir.

Do you have any advice for a college freshman?

What would be your favorite place to live? to visit? Why, and what would you do?

What do you do to relax and recharge?

- Don't be a slacker. Get your bearings on how your schedule is so that you can adequately prepare for when workloads get heavier than you expect. If you're a lazy student and procrastinate early, the amount of work you will have to catch up on is horrible, and the feeling of trying to do it will feel twice as bad as the amount of work that you have to do.

- I personally would love to live back in New Jersey again; it is nothing like what people assume it to be thanks to reality television - some areas are incredibly peaceful and quiet. It's also a relatively safe state outside of the main cities -- Kayla and I both lived in Mount Arlington and man, when it was quiet... it was -real- quiet. Having that kind of peace is really nice sometimes.

- If I had the chance to travel internationally, I would definitely want to visit Venice just to see what it's like to legitimately have to travel on a gondola. If Kayla and I are taking a trip together, I'll likely be forced to go to Paris because Kayla has this neverending desire to experience the Paris catacombs. I think the idea is great, but it's certainly not on my bucket list.

- I listen to and try to create music. Anything and everything related to music that I enjoy listening to helps me relax; that also includes things that allow me to interact with music, which is why I badly miss playing ITG regularly, why I play FFR on and off, and why I enjoy judging/creating charts on FFR.