LAPTOP QUESTIONNAIRE

• Total budget (in local currency) and country of purchase. Please do not use USD unless purchasing in the US:

Around $600-750 preferred but willing to go up to $950 if necessary

• Are you open to refurbs/used?

Yes

• How would you prioritize form factor (ultrabook, 2-in-1, etc.), build quality, performance, and battery life?
  performance is the priority, it’s mainly going to be sitting on a desk so battery life doesn’t matter
  
• How important is weight and thinness to you?
  

Doesn’t matter to me

• Do you have a preferred screen size? If indifferent, put N/A.

15.6” or larger

• Are you doing any CAD/video editing/photo editing/gaming? List which programs/games you desire to run.

Mainly Adobe suite (Photoshop, Illustrator, Premiere Pro, and Aftereffects) and basic office/student functions. I also have some light steam games that I enjoy

• If you're gaming, do you have certain games you want to play? At what settings and FPS do you want?

Mainly just light stuff (Stardew Valley and Suzerian are my top two). I can play them on my 2018 surface pro so I don’t think I’ll have any issues

• Any specific requirements such as good keyboard, reliable build quality, touch-screen, finger-print reader, optical drive or good input devices (keyboard/touchpad)?

Input for Mouse, Keyboard, and camera memory card (I’m okay with an adapter though). 1TB of storage preferred. Touch screen is a benefit but not required. Nothing that will overheat like crazy.

• Leave any finishing thoughts here that you may feel are necessary and beneficial to the discussion.

I own an iPad setup for school but am looking for a laptop for video editing, graphic design, and occasional light gaming. It will be sitting on my desk 95% of the time so weight and battery life aren’t really important.

Attention -> This guide is highly opinionated, if you're looking for a post from a perspective from a highly experienced dev then you should probably stop reading and check out other posts. I've been working full-time for over 2 years only but I've been a part of startups in different capacities for the past 4 years, either as an intern or a contractofreelancer. Resources might be outdated but still check them out and decide accordingly, but in my opinion you should read my post since, I fall under these buckets ->

1. NON CS and Tier 2/3/4.. College -> I had 50k+ rank in JEE and was only able to land Civil in a Tier 3 college due to home state quota, later got a circuit branch from branch upgrade.
2. Off Campus Placement -> I had already started freelancing since culture at a company is a very very crucial to me and I loved the freelancing lifestyle this I skipped on campus placements altogether. Also due to freelancing I was making more than what all the companies who were part of our placement drive were offering.
3. Got placed primarily due to my past experience and projects as opposed to my CP ranking -> I asked my HR why was I hired and she mentioned that it was my past experience + projects which caught their attention, of course I went through their standard selection rounds but they still preferred my profile over Tier 1 students with good coding platform ranks due to my past work experience.
4. Consistent earning -> While someone can dismiss my current job as a fluke I've a history of making good money($20K in 6 months from scratch) through freelancing with multiple clients and was able to translate that experience into a job at a startup as well. My PPO comp was 40 base and a very sizeable portion of equity of a very fast growing startup. If we were to do the cringy CTC calculation it was a 1 CR+ job offer.

What makes someone hire a candidate?

I've interviewed over 40+ people and 4 batches of interns. Working at a startup has allowed me to be very close with recruiting process and work with recruiter with over 10+ years in premier MNCs and startups and there's a lot that goes into hiring but I think it can be put into some buckets.
Hiring for interns/freshers -> We personally don't hire for freshers roles and instead all junior devs go through our intern process but this is where the most non traditional profiles can break in tech early. I've noticed that for senior roles a lot of emphasis is given to the the companies they've worked in and which team were they a part of. Working folks might be aware that for senior roles usually the hiring manager personally have a chat before adding the candidate in interview pipeline and based on our debriefs I've noticed that institute rarely comes up but rather their work at the teams that they've been a part of takes the highest priority. Now a argument can be made that being from a Tier 1 institute allows the ability to get a headstart but a lot of folks are able to breakthrough into big tech even after working at WITCH so entering into high paying startups isn't that big of deal for them as tech profiles converge the more experienced one get. For interns and freshers a solid development and a mix of coding platforms experience should get you a job in startups with a very high probability.
To put more emphasis in why profiles matters let's take a look at a couple of profiles that I'm personally aware of ->
My friend working at a High Growth Seed Round
Highlights of his profile ->

1. Very very low ranking Engineering College.
2. No prior intern at a big company instead mixture of work at small startups and his own ventures.
3. Didn't apply for a job at all since he was also happy as a freelancer but finally decided to work at a startup and got a job in flat 16 days.
4. Comp-> 16 lpa base + seed round equity.

The best part about this friend why how deep his profile was. He has always been passionate about computers since school time and had experience in cyber security, crypto, fullstack-development,etc. As you can guess the secret of how quickly he was able to get a job was how many past experiences he had. When he started finding jobs at wellfound.com he was able to get calls from a couple of startups and he had a offer within 20 days. Wellfound was a a suprisingly good place to find jobs at small startups since my friend was able to receive a lot of calls for interview rounds.
My batchmate working at a FAANG equivalent MNC ->

1. Same college as mine.
2. Prior intern at a MNC but overall mid projects and a couple of development profiles and hackathons under his belt.
3. Average codeforces profile but experience of solving a lot of questions hence able to breeze through leetcode rounds.
4. Got a on campus placement here so didn't apply anywhere.
5. Comp -> 20l base + ~60l in equity.

His profile is a mix of development and a lot of coding rounds but the curious case in his case was how a lot of candidates with similar profiles in coding platforms or even better were knocked out from the selection process in the system design round. His previous experience in development surely helped him here in comprehending system design case studies and hence he was able to ace this round whereas others with better coding profiles weren't able to do so.
My batchmate working at FAANG and now a high growth startup ->

1. Same college.
2. Prior intern at startups and deep experience in development since school which includes projects in full stack development, compilers and couple of hackathons.
3. Better than average codeforces profile and breezes through standard OA rounds due to lots of practise.
4. Comp -> 50+ CTC at FAANG earlier and 25l base at a startup now.

His profile is similar to the first profile but way more competitive coding experience as well. Similar deep experience in projects and very passionate about software engineering and computer science in general.
A common pattern amongst the profiles posted above and mine is development experience allowed us from low tier colleges to be able to get a job quickly. This matters a lot since you'll get calls for interview rounds doesn't matter how tough the market is though what will fluctuate is how much are these companies are offering.

All of your eggs in one basket

It's pretty easy to see how big the market for DSA and Algorithm is. Youtubers are popping left right and center, but is it worth investing all of your time in getting a great rating in Codeforces. First thing first let's make this very clear that standard interview questions are very different than competitive questions and while it is true that due to market saturation some companies have resorted to asking questions that you would see as part of codeforces rounds in their OA. This though isn't the norm and you can do fine if you're good enough for Leetcode rounds. My whole post can be described that we need to stand out from other profiles if we fall into buckets of Low ranking colleges , Non CSE branches, etc.

Resources

The following section is a collection of resources that I and my friends used during the placement process ->

1. Roadmaps -> Roadmaps, Roadmaps, Roadmaps. Youtube is filled with didi bhaiya trying to come up with the best roadmap that they can. Honestly speaking while there's nothing wrong with that I always prefer roadmaps which are open source and updated time to time by community or the author to stay relevant. Go to roadmap.sh and pick paths. Focus more on topics rather than content, find whatever resource you can to read up on topics rather than sticking to one youtube channel. Similarly for people who might not be from a CS background the Open Source Society University is a very popular roadmap to follow.
2. Resume -> I used the variations of the following template. Overleaf is a solid platform for creating resume in latex. Keep your resume simple and keep on iterating with what you should and shouldn't have. If you want you can always ask recruiters what they found nice in your resume and double down on expanding those sections.
3. Freelancing Platforms -> Personally for me Upwork worked very well, I was able to get the chance of working on a lot of high paying jobs but based on what I've heard from candidates and personally managing profiles for a couple of friends the platform seems to have shifted in terms of job quality a lot. I'm noticing a lot of low quality jobs, underpaid jobs which has made it highly unlikely for new candidates to break through here. I would personally not recommend Freelancer and Fiverr since they have low quality, low paying jobs as compared to Upwork. Also fiverr follows a marketplace model so hard for non experienced folks to get discovered.
   1. If you're a experienced dev and have a solid profile and need a better platform as compared to Upwork checkout Toptal and A.team.
4. Job Platforms -> I personally had a great experience with Cutshort since it apart from applying on jobs as a candidates also has a strong emphasis on recruiters reaching out to candidates. Apart from that I've had a good experience with LinkedIn jobs purely in terms of response times. Atleast recruiters reached out quickly even though the quality of jobs wasn't great. As mentioned above wellfound.com is also a good resource for finding startup jobs. Apart from this cold mailing recruiters should be a part of your job hunting cycle. We used to go over startups which were recently funded and then messaging their client or staff for queries regarding openings.
5. Youtube channels -> I usually relied on the following channels during my prep and I what I usually watch as well.
   1. Traversy Media -> Followed his tutorials the most.
   2. Academind by Maximilian Schwarzmüller -> For learning full stack development I've mostly used his courses and honestly speaking they are amazing. I've also heard great things about her courses, Dr. Angela Yu.
   3. Tech News and General Tech Videos -> Fireship.io, Ben Awad, Devon Crawford, ForrestKnight. They Ben and Devon aren't posting these days but they are the reason why I found tech to be super cool.
   4. DSA and Algo Training -> Stick to no nonsense channels like TUF, Back To Back SWE, CS DOJO, Tushar Roy, NeetCode, Nick White, Priyansh Agarwal.
      1. Couple of websites which I liked a lot of practise includes USACO Guide, CP Algorithms, CSES.

The above post is a very opinionated post about what helped me, let me know what helped you in your job hunt.

Here is a fan made creation on a speculation of the Timeline between Season 4 and 5. Hope you enjoy!!!!

• November 2003- Al Gore gives a White House press conference saying that anyone involved in the Asteroid Heist will be convicted to the fullest extent of the law if they step foot on Earth again.
  
• December 2003- An NSA classified document revealed the harsh interrogation of two Helios employees at Happy Valley Base on Mars during the Goldilocks Asteroid theft by the hands of the CIA and KGB, which ultimately led to the riot that caused one death and multiple injuries, including astronaut Danielle Poole
  
• January 2004- A similar Russian intelligence report revealed the KGB’s interference in both US and Roscosmos space agencies forcing both Madison and Nikulov to trade classified information with each other at the cost both of their careers and lives. The report revealed that forced Madison into an asylum in the USSR and were responsible for Nikulov’s apparent suicide.
  
• February 2004- Administrator Hobson was fired by NASA and former astronaut Will Tyler became the first African-American administrator.
  
• April 2004- The Internet goes public. Facebook, Google, and Amazon are founded that same year.
  
• May 2004- Gore and Korzhenko Riga Summit Talks are a success. They set aside their differences and agreed for the M7 to put billions of dollars into constructing and assembling a permanent mining operation and station on Goldilocks.
  
• June 2004- Ronald Regan dies of Alzheimer's at 82 and the same day former VP James Bragg dies on the campaign trail from a heart attack. the same day. Former POTUS Wilson pays her respects to Reagan. John McCain emerges as the presumptive frontrunner
  
• October 2004- The Boston Red Sox failed to win the World Series as the Mariners beat them in 4-0. Michael Jordan announces retirement from MLB.
  
• November 2004- Incumbent President, Al Gore has narrowly defeated Senator John McCain, 270-268 to win a second term as President. His narrow win comes from easing post-Cold War tensions and advocating for more jobs on Mars and addressing the water crisis in Flint.
  
• December 2, 2004- The “Trial of the Century” ends as Margo Madison was sentenced to up to 20 years in prison and up to an additional 8 years for her role in the asteroid theft in a Houston courtroom in which her trial divided the nation.
  
• December 2004- The Indian Tsunami hits but it saved countless lives as seismic technology sensed activity in the ocean and evacuated people there.
  
• February 2005- Construction at Kuznetsov station commences.
  
• March 2005- Michael Jackson is found guilty in his civil trial, five years on probation.
  
• April 2005- Britain leaves the European Union and forms the British Coalition of Commonwealth Countries for Spaceflight (BCCS) with countries such as Canada, New Zealand, and Australia which joins the M7, becoming the M8.
  
• June 2005- Happy Valley undergoes a five-year major expansion that could house up to 50,000 people and families who would be employed to mine iridium on Goldilocks. It will have mass dormitories, cafeterias, gyms, libraries, classrooms, four greenhouse domes with biospheres, a , a theater, and a spaceport with a Mission Control monitoring air traffic.
  
• September 2005- Hurricane Katrina hits New Orleans. President Gore ordered a full evacuation of the city before the levies burst and the water rose which saved lives but damages cost over 20 billion.
  
• November 2005- Calypso which is called Starship by the media reached Mars in 10 days with 500 people breaking the speed record and people. It can transport up to 1,200 people at a time and has the space to transport over 50 billion tons of iridium.
  
• February 2006: Brokeback Mountain wins Best Picture at the Oscars.
  
• March 2006- The first supply of iridium is mined at Kuznetsov Station on Goldilocks as partial construction has finished and economists believe that this iridium could lead to an economic boom on Earth in the coming decade.
  
• May 2006- Life found on Mars! Major microbial algae cells found at the Surface of Korelev Crater.
  
• June 2006- The iPhone is previewed at Apple’s 2006 event. YouTube, and Twitter hit the worldwide web.
  
• August 2006- Pluto demoted as a planet.
  
• September 2006- The Crocodile Man Steve Irwin died.
  
• November 2006- The first supply of iridium from Goldilocks returns back to Earth.
  
• January 2007- Brazil, China, South Africa, Indonesia, South Korea, and Nigeria join the M8 which becomes the M14. The United Nations and the M14 Alliancet came up with the Mars Confederation to oversee governmental and everyday affairs on Mars.
  
• April 2007- Virginia Tech shooter Seung-Hui Cho is arrested and convicted to life in prison.
  
• May 2007- Madeline McCain disappears from Spain.
  
• June 2007- Transformers premieres.
  
• August 2007- Al Gore wins a Nobel Peace Prize for hosting peace talks between opposite forces in the Saudi Civil War, effectively ending the war and his continued environmental activism
  
• September 2007- Prince Charles and Camilla die in a Paris car crash leaving millions of fans heartbroken.
  
• 2008- The global and US economies experience the largest economic boom with the mass deposits of iridium from Goldilocks having multiple effects on government agencies and industries around the globe
  
• January 2008- Dark Knight actor Heath Ledger was found dead in his home.
  
• April 2008- Mining operations begin on Phobos and Deimos.
  
• Summer 2008- Breaking Bad, Lost, Mad Men, Battlestar Galactica, and HBO’S One Small Step (an alternate TV show wondering if the US landed first on the moon) dominate primetime ratings and Iron Man is the biggest summer event.
  
• August 2008- JFK Jr wins the Democratic nomination for President and chooses Barack Obama as his running mate. Later that month, Mitt Romney chose Sara Palin as his running mate.
  
• November 2008- JFK Jr beats Mitt Romney (306-232) and becomes the 43rd president of the United States.
  
• January 2009- US Airways flight 1549 crashes into the Hudson River killing everyone on board in “The Tragedy on the Hudson”
  
• June 2009- Analog television ends
  
• June 2009- Michael Jackson makes a comeback.
  
• August- October 2009- Usain Bolt beats his time, Balloon Boy, and Party in the USA are the biggest pop culture moments.
  
• Late 2009- The 2010 census reports that over 100,000 people are in space with 55,000 on the moon and over 45,000 on Mars.
  
• January 2010- Haitian Earthquake
  
• Feb 2010- Avatar wins Best Picture and Jodie Foster wins her third Oscar for “Ellen and Pam” as Ellen Wilson beating fellow Best Actress nominee and Emma Thompson as Pam Horton and other actresses Sandra Bullock and Gabriela Sidibe
  
• April 2010- An Oil Spill in the Gulf of Mexico is avoided.
  
• July 2010- Nobel Prize Winners Kelly Baldwin and Aleida Rosales announces a scientific space mission to Ceres in 2013 in order to study outer solar system life form to question whether space travel to the outer solar system is possible and a space exploration to Europa could happen in the end of the decade.
  
• February 2011- Construction of the extended colony of Happy Valley is completed and Kuznetsov Station (is up to par with the S4 flash forward )
  
• February 2011- Tejano singer Selena performs at Super Bowl XLV.
  
• March 2011- Seismic radar senses the Japanese Earthquake plus evacuating everyone and preventing the nuclear disaster.
  
• 2011- South Sudan becomes a new country.
  
• June 2011- Sea Dragon is decommissioned after making its last trip to NASA’S Jamestown base.
  
• October 2011- Old Man Mars celebrates his 80 birthday and Alex Poletov celebrates his Sweet 16 on Mars. John Lennon performs at their birthday.
  
• End of 2011- JFK JR state of the Union address says that “Space Travel is not only possible, but worth it because as my father said, “We chose to go to the moon because it isn’t easy but because it is hard” We have made it far so let’s not sit down and rest. Let’s do this.”
  

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In a fascinating study, evidenced for a possible landing sight for Lehi in America has been discovered within easy travel distance to Palmyra, NY. If substantiated, it could add weight to an Atlantic migration, the controversial Solutrean Hypothesis, in addition to the traditional Siberian route. https://www.washingtonpost.com/science/2024/05/19/first-americans-chesapeake-parsons-island/
The link is behind a pay wall. Here’s the article
PARSONS ISLAND, Md. — With the Chesapeake Bay sloshing at his knee-high boots, Darrin Lowery stood back and squinted at a 10-foot-tall bluff rising above a narrow strip of beach. To the untrained eye, this wall of sandy sediment is the unremarkable edge of a modest island southeast of the Bay Bridge. To Lowery, a coastal geologist, its crumbling layers put the island at the center of one of the most contentious battles in archaeology: when and how humans first made their way into the Americas. The story of the first Americans has long been a matter of public and scientific fascination, undergirded at times by vicious disagreements. The timeline of when people arrived has shifted earlier in grudging steps over the past century, and scientists today mostly agree people were in the Americas at least 15,000 years ago. Story continues below advertisement
Lowery’s site and others like it could revise the story again, pushing back the timeline earlier than most experts thought possible. In total, Lowery and a motley crew of collaborators have discovered 286 artifacts from the site on the island’s southwestern edge. The oldest, they reported, was embedded with charcoal dated to more than 22,000 years ago, a time when much of the continent would have been covered in ice sheets. If Lowery is right, Parsons Island could rewrite American prehistory, opening up a host of new puzzles: How did those people get here? How many waves of early migration were there? And are these mysterious people the ancestors of Native Americans?
Casts of tools found at Parsons Island are seen on display. Lowery and his team have unearthed 286 artifacts from the site so far. (Michael Robinson Chávez/The Washington Post) New claims of sites dated this far back face a wall of skepticism, rooted in legitimate scientific scrutiny and in the threat they pose to long-entrenched views. To complicate matters, Lowery — who has been affiliated with the Smithsonian but does much of his work independently — presented the results of his study of Parsons Island in a 260-page manuscript posted online rather than in a traditional peer-reviewed journal. The peer-review process is designed to help validate scientific claims, but Lowery argues that in archaeology it often leads to a circle-the-wagon mentality, allowing scientists to wave away evidence that doesn’t support the dominant paradigm. He says he isn’t seeking formal publishing routes because “life’s too short,” comparing this aspect of academic science to “the dumbest game I’ve ever played.”
The island is also a challenging site to study for a variety of reasons — most poignantly because it is rapidly eroding as the land subsides and sea level rises. The spot where the artifacts were found is now covered by the choppy waters of the bay. “The visit reinforced my will to invest my time into this time period, because it’s a very fragile record,” said Sebastien Lacombe, an archaeologist at Binghamton University, who visited the island in 2017. “It’s at risk of disappearing, and we’re at risk of [allowing] these sites and artifacts to lose their meaning forever.” ‘A weirdo kid’
Darrin Lowery walks a beach on Parsons Island. Most of the artifacts were excavated by erosion, discovered on the beach after they had already fallen out of the bluff. (Michael Robinson Chávez/The Washington Post) Lowery began exploring the Chesapeake shoreline as a child, wandering his backyard on Tilghman Island, about 15 miles southwest from Parsons Island. In 1977, 9-year-old Lowery picked up a distinctive fluted stone projectile point. A few years later, he saw something similar on a documentary on public television, in which a Smithsonian archaeologist explained it was a Clovis point, a relic of what most people then believed were the first Americans. For the last half of the 20th century, the peopling of the Americas followed a tidy narrative. Humans traveled from Siberia across a land bridge that connected Asia and North America during the last Ice Age, when sea levels dropped. They then migrated southward around 13,000 years ago, when the ice sheets covering the continent retreated and exposed a previously impassable inland route. These people — named after a site in Clovis, N.M. — left behind distinctive, fluted stone points that have since been found scattered across North America. Story continues below advertisement
Lowery turned to his dad and said, “I found one of those.” He found more by walking the shoreline every day. Lowery made discoveries as he meandered, and he began to understand how seasonal patterns, sediment movement, wind and waves could unearth ancient treasures. “I was a weirdo kid,” he recalled. He trained as a geologist, and it was geology that initially attracted Lowery to study Parsons Island. In 2010, he published an article in Quaternary Science Reviews describing layers of windblown silt deposited between 13,000 and 41,000 years ago at Miles Point in eastern Maryland. But the geological record is like reading the CliffsNotes version of a book, and he was frustrated by an “unconformity” in the sediment layers where thousands of years were missing, like someone had ripped out those chapters.
Parsons Island is rapidly eroding. The archaeological site is now covered by the Chesapeake Bay. (Michael Robinson Chávez/The Washington Post) Lowery and a colleague were prowling around in a whaler, looking for a spot that might fill in the blanks, when they spotted a black streak of sediment rising up out of the bay. They pulled up to Parsons Island and thought they had found “the Rosetta stone” to decode the geology. Parsons is a 78-acre island less than a mile offshore that is privately owned by the Corckran family, which uses it as a family retreat. With the Corckrans’ permission, Lowery and colleagues began to visit regularly. The bluff layers preserved a remarkably intact geologic timeline going back more than 40,000 years. Then, one morning in August 2013, the team discovered a leaf-shaped prehistoric stone tool jutting out of this crumbling wall. They knew from the work they’d already done that it was probably quite old. Story continues below advertisement
On a recent visit to the island, geoarchaeologist Daniel Wagner demonstrated why. He stepped back to scan the cliff, then tapped a narrow spade into a light tan sediment layer just above his head. That, he said, is the geologic “chapter” where they’d expect to find Clovis artifacts. Lower layers were set down before Clovis. The palm-size tool Lowery and his colleague found came out of the dark sediment layer near their knees. The scientists used two methods to date the sediment around the artifact, both showing it was more than 20,000 years old. They scoured the beach on 93 visits and conducted a formal, top-down excavation, collecting the 286 artifacts. They sent out sediment to labs that specialize in studying ancient pollen and microfossils called phytoliths to help reconstruct the ecosystem at the time. Back then, this region wouldn’t have been a coastline. The sediment the tools are embedded in dates to the “last glacial maximum” — the scientific term for the most recent coldest period of the Ice Age. In the final analysis, Lowery thinks the artifacts may have been transported downslope before they were buried, making them between 15,000 and 20,500 years old. “This was a swale, where water was collecting,” Lowery said, envisioning the ancient landscape. “You’ve got a dune. It’s got sedges and small trees on it that are windblown and all contorted, and then behind it you’ve got a little pond.” That pond may have attracted prehistoric bison, musk ox and llamas, whose fossilized molars he’s found scattered on the island shore. And it may have been what attracted the mysterious people who left behind a cache of stone tools. A story in flux
Parsons Island is seen from nearby Kent Island in the Chesapeake Bay. (Michael Robinson Chávez/The Washington Post) Parsons Island is the latest addition to a growing list of what are called pre-Clovis sites. But while the long-held “Clovis First” theory has crumbled over the past three decades, that has only deepened the debate about how much earlier the first Americans arrived. Claims of early sites present a challenge on two fronts. The first is technical: Dating a site convincingly can be difficult, depending on the context. Sediments can shift or be disturbed. What at first look like artifacts can turn out to be “geofacts,” created not by humans but by natural processes or animals. As a result, many pre-Clovis sites “enjoy a Warhol-esque 15 minutes of fame, and then they disappear” because of real problems with the geology or the methods, said archaeologist James Adovasio. In 1973, he began excavating Meadowcroft Rockshelter in Pennsylvania, which dated back 16,000 years. It was instantly mired in controversy, and the site still has its critics today. The second challenge reflects the culture of science. For a long time, people who claimed to find pre-Clovis sites were swimming upstream against deeply entrenched thinking. Tom Dillehay, an archaeologist at Vanderbilt University, began working on a site in southern Chile called Monte Verde in 1977, which was dated to 14,500 years ago. He recalled a group of researchers he calls the “Clovis police,” scientific gatekeepers who summarily rejected any pre-Clovis sites, sometimes for valid reasons and sometimes as a knee-jerk reaction. Monte Verde began to change that. In 1997, a group of respected archaeologists visited the site and declared it authentic. “It took about 25 to 30 years for Monte Verde to be accepted,” Dillehay said. “We went through hell.”
Holly, a German shorthaired pointer, runs across a bluff top on Parsons Island. (Michael Robinson Chávez/The Washington Post) Lowery says he isn’t interested in running that gantlet. He noted that he drew on multiple labs and methods for dating the Parsons Island artifacts in an effort to ensure that any one extremely old date isn’t a fluke. He’s also invited other researchers in to visit and study the site. That approach irritates some scientists. David Meltzer, an archaeologist at Southern Methodist University, said in an email that he would not discuss Lowery’s claims “until they go through the wringer of peer review and get published.” Others like Stuart Fiedel, an independent archaeologist based in western Massachusetts who has been skeptical of other sites, say the site should not fly under the radar just because of Lowery’s unconventional process. Story continues below advertisement
“There are people I know in the field who will not pay any attention to it, because it has not been peer-reviewed, which I think is kind of sticking your head in the sand,” Fiedel said. “It’s there. We can’t act as [if] nothing’s been found there.” Share this article Share
A bigger issue may be the site’s rapid erosion. Most of the artifacts were found after they’d fallen out of the bluff, which means their place in the geologic timeline is obscured. Nine artifacts were found in place, and only three were able to be dated using charcoal flecks found next to them. Steven Forman, a geoscientist at Baylor University, helped date the sediment layers at Parsons Island, corroborating findings from another lab. He said that it’s hard to find the artifacts in the kind of bulletproof geological context needed to support extraordinary claims. “The case is not as tight as we like to see it with other sites,” Forman said. Michael Waters, an archaeologist at Texas A&M University who has worked on pre-Clovis sites and excavated at Parsons Island, thinks he probably got there too late, when most of the artifacts had already been eroded out. Still, he pays someone to monitor the bank profile on a regular basis, because he’s ready to jump on a plane if they see something in place. “Too bad we didn’t get there four to five years sooner,” Waters said. Enter ancient DNA
An ancient bovine tooth is among the fossils found so far on Parsons Island. (Michael Robinson Chávez/The Washington Post) Parsons Island isn’t the only site that could dramatically push back human arrival in the Americas. Last fall, a study published in the journal Science described fossilized human footprints discovered at White Sands National Park in New Mexico that have been dated to between 21,000 and 23,000 years ago. That stunning finding suggests people were here during the Ice Age — much earlier than most experts thought possible if the first humans arrived via the Bering land bridge and inland corridor. The dates at White Sands are still being disputed because of questions about the methods. But the timeline collides head-on with another exciting line of evidence: studies of ancient DNA. By examining genetic material preserved in bones and teeth and comparing those samples to modern populations, scientists have been able to track when populations mingled and became isolated from one another, offering a new window into patterns of human migration. Story continues below advertisement
In broad strokes, they’ve found that the ancestors of Native Americans split from ancient Siberian populations no earlier than 23,000 years ago. The studies can’t say where such splits took place, but many scientists interpret genetic evidence to mean that the ancestors of modern people weren’t in the Americas until much later. Genetic studies suggest that Native American ancestors traveled into what is now the United States between 17,500 and 14,600 years ago. Joe Watkins, a senior consultant for Archaeological and Cultural Education Consultants in Tucson and a Choctaw tribal member, said that he sees a few problems with using the still-evolving DNA evidence to decide how ancient sites are related to modern-day people. “The reality is genetics does not equal culture,” Watkins said. He also argued that there are still too few samples of ancient DNA in the Americas to be sure they capture the whole story. “Trying to create population histories based on 10 people, if you will, is a little bit of a scientific conundrum,” Watkins said. It could be that additional ancient genomes will one day help fill in the blanks. Another possibility is that earlier sites could represent small, isolated groups of people who didn’t contribute to the ancestry of living Native Americans.
A tree-lined path leads to a beach on Parsons Island. (Michael Robinson Chávez/The Washington Post) “Let’s suppose you have a successful population colonizing an area, and then one day, 15 males go out and get eaten by a short-faced bear,” Lowery said. “You reduce the genetic diversity, and bada boom, bada bing, game over.” All this explodes the neat picture of one population migrating into the Americas as ice sheets retreated, hunting big animals like mammoths and giant sloths, driving them into extinction as they went. If there were small groups making their way into the New World, with different stone tool technologies, and far earlier than previously believed, how did they get here? People could have migrated along the coast by boat, following a “kelp highway.” It’s also possible the ice sheet was not as impenetrable as experts have long thought. Lowery’s longtime collaborator, Dennis Stanford, proposed that people crossed the Atlantic Ocean in what is known as the Solutrean Hypothesis, though that idea has been rejected by many archaeologists. To resolve the question, scientists need to keep looking for more evidence. Archaeology is a historical science, and unlike chemistry or biomedicine, where researchers can perform the same experiment over and over again to see if they get the same results, consensus is built by argument, counterargument and new evidence. To a certain extent, older ideas and prejudices also fall away as new people enter the field, said James Feathers, who performed dating on samples from Parsons Island before he retired from the University of Washington. “Sometimes you have to wait for people to die off,” Feathers said.
Alex Corckran, whose family owns Parsons Island, stands on a beach on the southern side of the island. (Michael Robinson Chávez/The Washington Post) Lowery is determined to keep motoring around the Chesapeake, researching the ephemeral landscape that he loves and that may contain clues about human prehistory. He acknowledges that the sites, perhaps a little bit like him, are “persnickety” but that shouldn’t deter interest in them. Instead, it should spur more. He noted that if a pod of silverfish was found gnawing on documents in the National Archives, people would be galvanized to act. “I view it as my swan song,” Lowery said, “to say you can learn a lot from [an] eroding site if you do a little bit of effort and look at it systematically.”
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Hello there,
I was wondering (starting from scratch) what kind of build I'd need for graphic design (programs like Lightroom Classic, Photoshop and Premiere Pro) and gaming (I mainly play Brawlhalla, Valorant and open world and racing games). All budgets are welcome and if you do rec parts or a full build, would you be kind enough to explain why you've chosen this build or part?
Thank you in advance

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I've always wanted to learn how to make jewelry and in general I really enjoy doing things with my hands, mostly wood working for now (I'm especially interested in replicating historical methods and designs). I wonder since there's so many jewelry stores in Zurich whether there's a school or some place to learn that is somewhat flexible.
I work 100% so this is a bit of a pipe dream but hey, maybe there's a small community center or group of people who'd be willing to teach in a low stress environment.
I'm aware of dynamo and will go check it out, but online it seemed like it was not so much for smithing or casting (hopefully I'm wrong).
Thanks all and sorry if the question doesn't make sense I'm running on little sleep these days.

Anna Megill, Lead Writer:
QA Tester: Cyberlore Studios, 2004 - 2004:

• Quality Assurance: Playboy: The Mansion.

Various roles: Smith College, 2004-2008.

• Technology Wrangler.
• Provided tutoring and training in technology.
• Advised students on academic paper writing, and taught workshops on grammar and style.
• Editing.

Writers/QA Lead: Pileated Pictures May, 2007 - Sep 2009.

• Writers/QA Lead: Littlest Pet Shop: Marketing and game text, also editing.
• Writers/QA Lead: Planet Cazmo.
• Quality Assurance Insecticide: Primary in-house tester.

Lotcheck QA: Nintendo, 2009 - 2010.

• Editing game text and manuals.
• Compliance testing for all titles.

Writers/QA Editors ArenaNet LLC, Mar 2010 - Sep 2012.

• Writers/QA Editors: Guild Wars.
• Writers/QA Editors: Guild Wars 2.

Writers/Narrative Designers: Murdered: Soul Suspect.
Writers: Ubisoft, May 2014 - Aug 2014:

• Writing for Assassin's Creed Victory/Syndicate (Uncredited on final game).

Creative Director: Project Untold, Nov 2014 - Jan 2015:

• Writing, editing and marketing text for unreleased projects.

Writers/Narrative Designers: Cynixy LLC, Jan 2015 - Jan 2017:

• Writing, editing for interactive media projects, websites, games and installations.
• Work for Arkane Studios, Exploding Rogue Studios (TTRPGs), the Corcoran Gallery of Art, and George Washington University.
• Writing and editing for promotional materials and news releases.
• Ghostwriting.
• Editing.

External Writers: Dishonored: Death of the Outsider.
Pre-Production Narrative Lead: Control:

• Writers on Control: AWE.

Lead Narrative Designers: Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora.

• Left in January 2021.

Former Lead WriteNarrative Lead: Fable:

• Left in Ausust 2023.

August 2023 - prior to joining CDPR: Unknown.
Non-Fiction:
Writer: The Game Writing Guide.
Writer: The Pocket Mentor for Video Game Writers.
Alexander Freed, Writer:
Started off writing short fiction.
Freelance Game Designer, 2002-2006:

• Writing for TTRPGs, developing IP, and editing for various companies, including Alderac Entertainment Group, Bastion Press, CCP/White Wolf Publishing, Dream Pod 9, The Inner Circle, Morrigan Press, and Steve Jackson Games.
• Worked on Tribe 8, Mage Intruders Encounters With the Abyss, The Complete Book of Denizens, Secrets of the Ruined Temple, Omni Eco and Astral Realms.

Senior Writer and Managing Editor: Star Wars: The Old Republic:

• Original Lead Writer on Rise of the Hutt Cartel left prior to the release of the DLC.
• Freelance Writer on Galactic Starfighter, Shadow of Revan and Knights of the Fallen Empire.
• (Base game) Alongside Hall Hood, he assisted Lead Writer Daniel Erickson in managing the rest of the writing team.
• Lead WriteManager Imperial Agent class storyline and its content during Rise of the Hutt Cartel.
• Wrote three articles for the game's website including one about how to write something within the Star Wars universe and an introduction to the Imperial Agent class.
• Involved with the creation of a large amount of non-class specific content
• Wrote much of the Imperial storyline on Makeb.
• Wrote Wrote KOTFE Chapter 10 Anarchy in Paradise.

Shadow Realms (Canceled game):

• Initial IP and design conception alongside the Lead Designer and Creative Director.

Co-Writer: Star Wars: Uprising.
Editor: The Banner Saga 2.
Editor: Tyranny.
Additional Design: Mass Effect: Andromeda.
Worked on Shuyan Saga.
Writers: Star Wars: Battlefront 2.
Freelance Writer and later Studio Writing Director: Fogbank Entertainment, 2017 - 2020:

• Wrote the entirety of the Eternal City.
• Reviewed final scripts for all their games/shows.
• Wrote additional content for their Storyscape app.

Additonal Design: Anthem.
Additional Writing: Wasteland 3.
Senior Writer: Battlefield 2042.
Freelance Writing/Narrative Design/Consultation for various studios:

• Ranging from AAA to Indie.
• WB Games Montreal, Archetype Entertainment, ZeniMax and others.

Comics/Graphic Novels:
Writer: Star Wars: The Old Republic, Blood of the Empire.
Writer: Star Wars: The Old Republic, Lost Suns.
Scriptwriter: Dragon Age: The Silent Grove.
Scriptwriter: Dragon Age: Those Who Speak.
Scriptwriter: Dragon Age: Until We Sleep.
Writer: Star Wars Purge: The Tyrant's Fist (Story arc).
Writers: Anthem: Strong Alone, Stronger Together.
Writer: Assasin's Creed Valhalla: Forgotten Myths.
Writer: Violet Dawn.
Books:
Writer: Battlefront: Twilight Company.
Writer: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (Novelization).
Writer: Alphabet Squadron.
Writer: Shadow Fall.
Writer: Victory's Price.
Short Stories:
Writer: The Last Battle of Colonel Jace Malcom.
Writer: One Thousand Levels Down.
Writer: The End of History.
Writer: Contingency Plan.
Writer: The Man Who Built Cloud City.
Wrote original short fiction for magazines and anthologies:

• including the magazine Interzone and the anthologies The Book of More Flesh (Eden Studios), Path of the Just (Guardians of Order), and Robots and Time (Altair Australia).

Non-Fiction:
Published articles on Gamasutra.
Wrote blog entries on his personal website.
.
They also have several of the Cyberpunk 2077 writers still at the company, though most of them seem to be working on The Witcher 4, and Mike Pondsmith will likely be involved with the game's development.

Hi! I am a web designer and currently work from home on a desktop.
My job is remote, and I want to be able to work from other places as well from time to time, so I’d love a laptop.
I dont have a lot of money so I was wondering if there was a model from previous years that I could get refurbished, but could

• have a lot of tabs open
• run multiple adobe apps at once (photoshop, illustrator, premiere pro, lightroom)
• still run smoothly

I looked a bit at the macbook air so if there are other products that might fit my needs/budget, I’d really appreciate the help.
Thanks!

Idk if this is the right sub for such advice.
I'm at a crossroads. I'm currently in industrial design and i have the option to learn a language in my last uni year. I was torn between the many languages i wanna learn and my peers convinced me to take italian considering my future plans, in reality i really wanted to take mandarin courses but the system for the chinese program is kind of inconvenient with my industrial design program so before asking for exceptions and whatnot in my coursework, i wanted to see if it's actually worth learning italian for what i wanna pursue in jewelry(keeping in mind i don't even want to live there permanently(cultural clash), i just keep being told that's where the good, too expensive jewelry making schools are). Atp italian feels useless but i'm asking just in case, b4 i fight with my stubborn uni about the lmaguage course issue.
Also. I'm currently in quebec, a summer jewelry for funsies course i took had my teacher telling me that with my skills i'm better off at an actual school and gave me this local school: ecole des metiers du sud west de montreal. Saying it's a good school that's more craftsmanship oriented than design oriented(i wanna do both but i prefer working with my hands).
Idk how to assess what's a good jewelry school and what isn't, esp after being bamboozled with the low design level at my uni. I also wouldn't know what to include in a portfolio with so little craftsmanship experience(i' sure the good schools ask for that).
Thanks for the help