UofM-StL

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Date	Title	Body
5 days 20 hours ago	Most interesting quarterback in the world
1 week 19 hours ago	Got it.	Thank you. That would have bothered me otherwise.
1 week 20 hours ago	I'm so close to this one	Can you give me a hint? What does the "s" stand for? That's where I lose it. Can you at least tell me what part of speech it is?
1 week 20 hours ago	Pride from strange places	I am surprisingly proud that I figured this out.
1 week 1 day ago	I can relate	I've lost respect for so many open source projects when I see they've bundled some stupid fucking bloatware into their installer. I know you need to raise money and stuff, but seriously find another fucking way. Along those lines, bloatware in general. It's not as bad on desktop PCs anymore, but remember back in the day when every PC manufacturer would bundle all sorts of worthess shit into their operating systems? That was terrible. And now Android manufacturers seem to be doing the same goddamned thing. HAVE YOU LEARNED NOTHING? I feel like I'm on a roll now so I'm going to keep going. Companies that refuse to learn from the mistakes of companies that came before them. Watching the movie industry follow the same fruitless path of the music industry in their attempts to stop piracy/sharing, and now the book industry is starting in on it the exact same way. DRM DOES NOT WORK! IT HAS NEVER WORKED! There are better ways to go about this. This has gone a little more off-base than I'd originally planned, but switching back toward the original point, people who think that computers are magical, indecipherable back boxes and that because I do something related to computers for a job I must be able to solve all the problems they're having. Seriously, all I do is this: http://xkcd.com/627/. If you can't do that yourself, it's not because you're "computer illiterate," it's because you're dumb.
4 weeks 19 hours ago	Bonus in that 2003 Purdue Michigan Replay	At around 5:25, freshman Lamarr Woodley flies into the backfield and forces Kyle Orton to dodge and make a hurried pass that is intercepted just outside the endzone by freshman Leon Hall.
4 weeks 1 day ago	This is awesome	We couldn't possibly heap enough praise onto this piece. A one-on-one with Michigan's offensive coordinator to discuss the detailed minutia of how this football team works. I hope there are many more parts to this series. And maybe this series could lead to similar ones with other assistant coaches? Man, this is just such good stuff, I don't want it to ever end.
4 weeks 4 days ago	I looked through the website	Can't really tell exactly what it is they do... Could one of you maybe provide a little insight there? What role might there be for a web developer?
4 weeks 4 days ago	We're trying to avoid this	Because we're a one-car-household right now and we'd like to stay that way. the hope is to get somewhere near an AATA bus line so she can take the bus to campus.
4 weeks 4 days ago	Lots	I'm getting my website put back together, it's been in a little bit of disrepair over the last few years because I haven't needed it. The blog is still a pretty good representation of what I can do (even though there's probably only a dozen or so posts), but the home page and work experience sections are basically empty right now. It should be running full steam within a week or two: bendemeyer.com I mentioned above, I've got a pretty wide array of experience. My primary employment right now is as a SharePoint developer, so I do a lot with C# and the .NET platform. I also do a ton of frontend web development work, I've got tons of experience (and if I may say so, mad skills) with JavaScript and jQuery, CSS, and HTML. I've also worked on a bunch of PHP and MySQL projects, and I'm pretty good at that stuff too. Like I said above, I really love writing code and solving complex problems, and I don't want to end up in a glorified data entry position which has happened before. Thanks for taking an interest, I appreciate it.
4 weeks 4 days ago	Yup, tried that	It was the first choice. There's still a small chance it will work out, but unlikely. My boss's boss's boss's boss is talking to HR about it today, but the word that's trickled back to me is that there would be some tax issues that will likely prevent it from happening.
4 weeks 4 days ago	Thanks	I actually work for a University now, on the team responsible for primary development of hundreds of the University's public-facing websites. It sounds like this "central web development service" might be something similar? Do you have any more information about this? A quick Googling didn't turn up much.
4 weeks 4 days ago	Thanks	Do you know of any companies that rent said duplexes?
4 weeks 4 days ago	I don't have a set number in mind	But one problem is I'm a little spoiled by the extemely low cost of living in St. Louis. Right now we have a 650ft2 one-bedroom in a fantastic area of St. Louis City and we pay $600/month, which I'm aware is not something we'll be able to even approach in Ann Arbor if we want to be close to campus/downtown. I've seen a couple outliers with pretty good location for $700 - $750, but they of course have their drawbacks as well (usually size). I'd like to stay under $800 if possible.
4 weeks 4 days ago	Thank you	This is a ton of useful information. That property company is one I haven't seen yet, so I'll look through their stuff and see if I can find something. As mentioned above, the Google office isn't really a development office, it's admin and sales. Specifics on what I'm looking for are a little hard to give, because I don't really know myself. I've spent the last few years doing a lot of SharePoint and .NET development, also a ton of JavaScript, with a decent amount of PHP, and all sorts of other web technologies. So my first instinct was to look at consulting firms, because I figured a wide array of experience would go well for something like that. Mostly I just want to do development. I love writing code and solving complex problems. I've had jobs before that look promising and then turn out to be glorified content entry, and I want to make sure I don't end up in that situation again. One of the first things I did when we decided on the move to Ann Arbor was read that "where to eat" piece. There is one apartment we're looking at right now that is absurdly tiny but also 2 blocks from Frita Batidos, so that's one for the "pro" column. We don't know our exact move-in date yet, it kind of depends on where/when I find a job. Latest will probably be mid-August. When is student move-in?
4 weeks 4 days ago	Hmm...	Interesting idea, and while that certainly is a simple fix, I have a feeling it would just turn out as exchanging one form of stress for another.
4 weeks 4 days ago	Thanks	I've never heard of this site before. I already see a couple things that look promising.
4 weeks 4 days ago	I know	But it's an admin/sales office. Unless that changed really recently, there's either no or very few actual development jobs there.
4 weeks 4 days ago	I think we'll be back eventually	The fiancé grew up in St. Louis, and she's much more attached to it than I am to Michigan (the state, that is). Also I've really enjoyed my time in this city, so I wouldn't be surprised if we came back here and settled down after the grad school thing is done. I am excited to have more options than Buffalo Wild Wings when a game is on BTN though...
6 weeks 20 hours ago	This was my initial reaction	But reading more of the stories which make references to lots of false reports in the past that would get the families' hopes up, I imagine frantic calls to 911 claiming to be one of these 3 girls might not have been that uncommon of an event. You can't expect a person to instantly realize that this one is the real thing when there have been a bunch of false positives in the past. The dispatcher comes off as a little bit of a douche, but as long as they (he? she? I can't really tell from the voice) did their job and made sure the police got there as quickly as possible I don't think they should lose their job.
6 weeks 4 days ago	I use a few	I've actually done some relatively recent research into this, because my fiancé and I decided that we should start doing finances like grown-ups and stop putting everything on our debit cards. We got a few rewards cards between us that we use for different things. A lot of cards are doing targeted rewards now, so you can get more back by using certain cards for specific things instead of one card for everything. AmEx Blue Cash Preferred This is my favorite, because its returns are highest on gas and groceries, which are huge recurring purchases. It does 6% back on groceries and 3% back on gas. Chase Amazon Visa Pretty much any "stuff" I buy is online, and usually through Amazon. This card does 3% back on any Amazon purchases, and rewards can be applied directly to future Amazon purchases. Citi Forward The drawback with this one is it uses Citi's "Thank You Points" system, which kind of sucks, but if you always redeem for gift cards or loan payments they work out to the same '1 point == 1 cent' that makes for good return value. That said, this card does 5 points/dollar on restaurant purchases, so if you eat out a lot, this is a good one. Capital One Venture The one in all the commercials! This is our fallback card for buying things that don't fall into any of the above categories. It doesn't do any targeted rewards that I'm aware of, but it does 2% back on everything. Most rewards cards do 1% back as their catch-all, so this card basically doubles that.
7 weeks 19 hours ago	Well played sir.	Reminds me of a friend of mine who once responded to being called immature with "I know you are, but what am I?"
7 weeks 1 day ago	This is wildly inaccurate	If YouTube was still a startup they would have no resources to fight copyright claims, and would have to pull videos even more often than they do now. As it is, Google has used its clout to get some copyright holders to allow videos to stay up in exchange for a percentage of ad revenues. This DOES NOT happen if YouTube is still a small company. Also remember that before Google bought YouTube there was very little copyrighted content on it. Back in those days it was still serving its original purpose, which was essentially a dump for home videos and the like.
7 weeks 1 day ago	I'm suppressing a Journalism rant here	Showing "both sides" of an issue (any issue) in no way makes coverage fair, balanced, acceptable, appropriate, or any other adjective you might want to use. Usually issues have way more than two sides. Having some guy spout his opinion, and then having some second guy spout a disagreeing opinion does not make everything OK. Two wrongs don't make a right. This is not personally directed at you, I just quiver every time I see Crossfire-style "debate" treated as news and/or journalism.
7 weeks 1 day ago	If that's worth noting	Then I have to come at you from the other end of the cynicism spectrum and suggest that maybe this is increasing his chances of staying in the NBA. 34-year-old career backups aren't exactly a hot commodity, and now he's got a name and publicity that some team owners are going to want to attach themselves to. Let me clarify here that I am NOT suggesting that this was a factor in his decision to come out, just that if we're considering the implications on his playing career, we should consider them from both sides.
7 weeks 1 day ago	Yeah, it's a big deal	This is the first active professional athlete in one of the four major sports to come out. Retired players have come out in the past, and have often been met with hatred and vitriol by their former teammates and colleagues. Jason Collins is the first person to expose himself to that risk from current teammates and colleagues. I'm glad that you (and hopefully others) have lived in such a way that this seems like a pretty run-of-the-mill event. But if you need to see some examples of what Collins and any other players considering similar action might be up against, look at the reaction when John Amaehci came out a few years ago. The most prominent reaction came from a man Michigan fans should know pretty well, Tim Hardaway Sr., who said "I hate gay people" and claimed that if he was aware of a gay teammate he would try to get them fired. He's since apologized and ended up becoming quite involved in the promotion of gay rights, but that's the kind of reaction Collins will be receiving from at least some subset of current NBA players.
7 weeks 4 days ago	By the way,	Just found this article about the fallout from the Feminist Wire piece, and it confirms the author is a rape victim.
7 weeks 4 days ago	Not "should", but certainly will	This is a serious psychologically damaging event. Obviously it shouldn't prejudice a person against an entire group they identify their assailant as a part of, but it will. Pretty much every time. Logic and reason are notoriously terrible at overcoming visceral fear and emotion in situations like this. I would also argue that in the mind of a victim, the several cases she cites of unethical behavior going unpunished could easily represent evidence that the university essentially sanctioned her assault. To you and I this may seem like a clear misreading of the facts, but (unless you have something you'd like to share) we're not victims of sexual assault. The main thing I would try to get across to you is that you shouldn't assume that if you were faced with this situation you would be able to handle it any more reasonably than she did. She's just another human being trying to cope with a terrible situation. She's now the laughingstock of the internet, and I don't think she deserves that.
7 weeks 4 days ago	You've missed my point entirely.	Imagine for a second that you're a victim of sexual assault, and because your assailant is a member of a sports team you forever associate that sports team with your experience. Then that sports team redesigns their logo with the purpose of making it more "aggressive." I think its perfectly reasonable to expect a severe emotional reaction in that situation, and that is what we're seeing in this piece. She's not trying to promote a rational point that logos promote rape, she's drawing an emotional connection between UConn athletics and her own experience and trying to put that connection into words. That is an extraordinarily difficult thing to do, and I don't fault her in the least for turning out a disjointed, unclear series of comments. Again, IF she was sexually assaulted by a UConn athlete, then I think this piece is part of her personal attempt to cope and come to terms with her experience. And if that's the case, then regardless of its content or how incoherent it seems, I salute her for the bravery it takes to put such a difficult thing into words and post it for the world to see.
7 weeks 4 days ago	Hmm...	First, this is a very poorly written piece that does a terrible job of expressing coherent thoughts. As some have mentioned above, I think the author's point is largely that the university should not be spending its resources on re-branding and should instead focus on addressing serious problems in its athletic culture. However, the reason I felt compelled to post here is that I think there might be a meaning to the last paragraph that we're not picking up on. I think her "real life Husky" line (note the capital "H") is a reference to a specific UConn athlete, and given the context probably one who assaulted/attempted to assault the author. If that's the case, it changes the whole meaning of the piece (at least in my mind) from misguided rant to coping mechanism. I can't fault a victim of assault/sexual assault for having a knee-jerk reaction to something that reminds them of their experience, and the over-emotional, poorly presented argument in this piece reads exactly like that type of reaction. In short, I sincerely hope that if the author of this piece IS a victim of sexual assault that she is receiving support and help in response to her letter as opposed to scorn.

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