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Computer Modification Specialists
2017.06.16 01:37 PPCs-Matt Computer Modification Specialists
Performance-PCs.com is located in beautiful Palm Bay, FL and has been in the computer and networking business for over 20 years. During this time we have grown to now specialize in the modification of high end computer cases and power supplies, as well as, offering a huge inventory of unique specialty hardware items. This includes products for that extremely popular new world of water cooling!
2009.08.17 03:34 epicRelic Reddit's Goth Community
Reddit's Goth Community, for goth music and subculture! Please check out our Wiki which features the rules and FAQ, and our sidebar which features many resources on goth music, (including recommendations and playlists) fashion, history, and scene. Anything relating to fashion when it's not Fashion Friday, please post in GothFashion and if you are looking for a subreddit which encompasses anything dark and spooky, please visit DarklyInclined. We have gothclub for any alternative tunes.
2012.06.10 01:36 Just-Another-Vaper eGos, Twists, VV Mods, Mechanicals, Oh My!
A place for potential and new vapers to learn all about vaping as well as the latest news, products, and tricks in the vaping community. All about e-cigs, e-cigarettes, vapers, vaping, clearomizers, mods, cartomizers, RBA, carto, clearo, carto tank, variable voltage, variable wattage, VV/VW, juice, nicotine, liquid, B&M, vape shop, vape meets.
2024.04.29 05:55 elden_eternal Now that Ryan Cohen is CEO, Let Him Cook, but Watch Closely
Hi All,
When perusing this and other subs, I am often seeing either undue criticism of or complete blind allegiance to Ryan Cohen. I have also been seeing some pretty balanced opinions, but not as much as I would like. I think the all-or-nothing view points do a disservice to us investors because they usually don't tell the complete story and leave us without any clear takeaways. The reality of the situation is the current trajectory is not complete hellfire and brimstone, but it is also not gum drops and rainbows.
Cohen has been Chairman of the board and has had his desired board members in place for almost 3 years now. The board's job is to assess the business's overall direction/strategy and provide strategic guidance, among a number of other functions such as hiring CEO. Theoretically, a board can be quite hands-on in day-to-day operations, but that is generally not the case.
The hiring of Furlong and other executives obviously did not work out. I think the finger can be pointed all around for that. Obviously Cohen wanted things to work out, otherwise why would he have hired Furlong? I think Furlong was trying to tap new revenue streams and grow the business, but it was in such an unsustainable manner. Remember that quarter with a $300+ million loss? Ouch. GameStop is not like Amazon where it could afford to have loads of losses in trying to grow revenue, which is the formula I think he was going for. To be fair, GameStop is much more niche than Amazon and the economy has been in the toilet (especially for retail), plus I'm sure there were other factors to consider. The NFT marketplace, which was extremely hyped, also did not work out for many reasons too lengthy for this post. Who knows, maybe Cohen expected unreasonable results out of Furlong and team. We will never know. I'm sure the truth is somewhere in between. It's pretty obvious that these execs who have been show the door are not being saved for Teddy, etc. like some folks still have delusional thoughts about. Cohen even poked at Furlong and Patel on Twitter after they were let go, which I thought was unprofessional, yet made me chuckle a bit.
After a bit of a transitionary period, Cohen stepped into the CEO role himself in September of 2023. In my opinion, I think why he did not take CEO immediately is 1 of 2 possibilities:
Anyway, now that he is actually the CEO and has taken direct control over the business, this gives him more of a chance to work his strategy as he will be the one implementing it. Yes, there will obviously still be delegation, but it will be done through less layers of management. He is human (albeit a multi-billionaire), so of course he has made mistakes along the way revitalizing the company. I would expect that of anyone. However, I think they have been able to pivot on mistakes in continuing to refine their plans. I like some of the things they have been doing lately and if they are going to do what I think they are, I think they are on a fine track. That doesn't mean things aren't urgent though. Cohen's email to employees from a while back paints things as quite urgent. The fact he sees things that way means he is working hard and wants to succeed.
As far as I'm concerned, Cohen taking over as CEO is almost like starting back at square one. Kinda sucks, but it is moving things forward. It gives him a chance to put his money where is mouth is and to show the world whether he can tackle the beast that is GameStop. Chewy was impressive, but a fundamentally different situation. There is no doubt that if the points made in his original letter to the board can come to fruition, success will be seen. We are hoping Cohen and team can deliver on those points.
2023 was the first profitable year since 2017 (I believe), which is great. However, the way in which it was done will not be sustainable for years to come.
I could go on, but this post is long enough. I touch on a number of different topics which could each merit their own post, so there is plenty of detail I did not include. I plan on a couple more posts relating to some of the subject matter here.
Draw your own conclusions. This is just my opinion and not (financial) advice.
TL;DR - It has been a tumultuous few years where mistakes have indeed been made, but with Ryan Cohen now in the CEO chair, we should be cautiously optimistic.
Previous posts:
submitted by elden_eternal to Superstonk [link] [comments]
When perusing this and other subs, I am often seeing either undue criticism of or complete blind allegiance to Ryan Cohen. I have also been seeing some pretty balanced opinions, but not as much as I would like. I think the all-or-nothing view points do a disservice to us investors because they usually don't tell the complete story and leave us without any clear takeaways. The reality of the situation is the current trajectory is not complete hellfire and brimstone, but it is also not gum drops and rainbows.
Cohen has been Chairman of the board and has had his desired board members in place for almost 3 years now. The board's job is to assess the business's overall direction/strategy and provide strategic guidance, among a number of other functions such as hiring CEO. Theoretically, a board can be quite hands-on in day-to-day operations, but that is generally not the case.
The hiring of Furlong and other executives obviously did not work out. I think the finger can be pointed all around for that. Obviously Cohen wanted things to work out, otherwise why would he have hired Furlong? I think Furlong was trying to tap new revenue streams and grow the business, but it was in such an unsustainable manner. Remember that quarter with a $300+ million loss? Ouch. GameStop is not like Amazon where it could afford to have loads of losses in trying to grow revenue, which is the formula I think he was going for. To be fair, GameStop is much more niche than Amazon and the economy has been in the toilet (especially for retail), plus I'm sure there were other factors to consider. The NFT marketplace, which was extremely hyped, also did not work out for many reasons too lengthy for this post. Who knows, maybe Cohen expected unreasonable results out of Furlong and team. We will never know. I'm sure the truth is somewhere in between. It's pretty obvious that these execs who have been show the door are not being saved for Teddy, etc. like some folks still have delusional thoughts about. Cohen even poked at Furlong and Patel on Twitter after they were let go, which I thought was unprofessional, yet made me chuckle a bit.
After a bit of a transitionary period, Cohen stepped into the CEO role himself in September of 2023. In my opinion, I think why he did not take CEO immediately is 1 of 2 possibilities:
- He initially thought he'd be able to oversee and delegate from the chairman position and have the CEO carry out his vision. He eventually realized this was not going to work and decided he needed to step in to be hands-on in the day-to-day.
- 2. He wanted to serve as chairman for a time so he could focus on building strategy and learning the company before taking over as CEO.
Anyway, now that he is actually the CEO and has taken direct control over the business, this gives him more of a chance to work his strategy as he will be the one implementing it. Yes, there will obviously still be delegation, but it will be done through less layers of management. He is human (albeit a multi-billionaire), so of course he has made mistakes along the way revitalizing the company. I would expect that of anyone. However, I think they have been able to pivot on mistakes in continuing to refine their plans. I like some of the things they have been doing lately and if they are going to do what I think they are, I think they are on a fine track. That doesn't mean things aren't urgent though. Cohen's email to employees from a while back paints things as quite urgent. The fact he sees things that way means he is working hard and wants to succeed.
As far as I'm concerned, Cohen taking over as CEO is almost like starting back at square one. Kinda sucks, but it is moving things forward. It gives him a chance to put his money where is mouth is and to show the world whether he can tackle the beast that is GameStop. Chewy was impressive, but a fundamentally different situation. There is no doubt that if the points made in his original letter to the board can come to fruition, success will be seen. We are hoping Cohen and team can deliver on those points.
2023 was the first profitable year since 2017 (I believe), which is great. However, the way in which it was done will not be sustainable for years to come.
I could go on, but this post is long enough. I touch on a number of different topics which could each merit their own post, so there is plenty of detail I did not include. I plan on a couple more posts relating to some of the subject matter here.
Draw your own conclusions. This is just my opinion and not (financial) advice.
TL;DR - It has been a tumultuous few years where mistakes have indeed been made, but with Ryan Cohen now in the CEO chair, we should be cautiously optimistic.
Previous posts:
2024.04.29 04:42 Mempavrai Dota 2 has consumed my life
This game made me lose my wife, my job, my kids, my dog, my life savings, my temper, my last few brain cells, my will to live, my sense of direction (I'm stuck in the jungle), my ability to trust "I'll support," my once pristine keyboard. I've also lost count of the number of times I've screamed into the void, hoping that IceFrog himself would hear my pleas for a buff. Alas, all I've gained is a collection of commendations from teammates I'll likely never encounter again and a deep-seated fear of the phrase "GG ez." My wardrobe consists solely of T-shirts adorned with heroes' faces, and my dreams are haunted by the sound of "First Blood" echoing endlessly. I've lost touch with reality to the point where I now see Dota 2 strategies in everyday life - "If only my colleagues coordinated as well as my random teammates in a pub match," I mutter as I navigate the office coffee line. But through it all, I remain committed to this game, because deep down, I know that one day, just one day, I'll finally land that sweet Rampage and ascend to Dota 2 godhood. I've become a master of last hitting in the grocery store, strategically timing my reach for the last pack of cigs before another customer can swoop in and deny me. When faced with a long queue, I find myself theorycrafting the most efficient rotation to minimize wait time, much to the confusion of the clerk when I request to swap positions with the guy in the other queue. And don't even get me started on my obsession with "warding" - I've plastered my neighborhood with security cameras, convinced that the enemy team is plotting a gank from the shadows of my own backyard. My friends have staged multiple interventions, pleading with me to seek help, but little do they know, I've already drafted
In addition to my Dota 2-induced escapades, my life has become a series of bizarre parallels to the game. Take my morning routine, for instance. I've turned my breakfast into a drafting phase, carefully selecting which cereal will complement my chosen hero for the day. And just like in the game, I've learned to adapt to unexpected challenges - like when my milk expires mid-pour, forcing me to pivot to a different strategy.
Even my interactions with strangers have taken on a twist. During rush hour traffic, I find myself mentally categorizing fellow drivers as either allies or enemies, weaving through lanes like a seasoned carry navigating the chaos of teamfights. And when a car cuts me off, instead of cursing, I calmly mutter, "Reported for feeding.", or i weave my finger in the air, acting as if i tipped them 50 shards.
My obsession with map control has reached such heights that I've started treating my living room like the lanes of Dota 2. I strategically position furniture to create chokepoints and vision areas, ensuring that I always have the upper hand in any potential skirmish with household pests.
You know I've played too much Dota 2 when I catch myself pinging my GPS for "missing directions" when I take a wrong turn. And instead of asking for help like a normal person, I start spamming "We need wards!" in hopes that someone will magically appear to illuminate my path. But alas, all I get are strange looks from pedestrians who clearly haven't reached my MMR level of navigation expertise. So I forge ahead, determined to stack those jungle camps of life's challenges, even if it means sacrificing my dignity in the process. Because hey, in the game of life, sometimes I just have to embrace the chaos and hope my team doesn't feed too hard.
submitted by Mempavrai to DotA2 [link] [comments]
In addition to my Dota 2-induced escapades, my life has become a series of bizarre parallels to the game. Take my morning routine, for instance. I've turned my breakfast into a drafting phase, carefully selecting which cereal will complement my chosen hero for the day. And just like in the game, I've learned to adapt to unexpected challenges - like when my milk expires mid-pour, forcing me to pivot to a different strategy.
Even my interactions with strangers have taken on a twist. During rush hour traffic, I find myself mentally categorizing fellow drivers as either allies or enemies, weaving through lanes like a seasoned carry navigating the chaos of teamfights. And when a car cuts me off, instead of cursing, I calmly mutter, "Reported for feeding.", or i weave my finger in the air, acting as if i tipped them 50 shards.
My obsession with map control has reached such heights that I've started treating my living room like the lanes of Dota 2. I strategically position furniture to create chokepoints and vision areas, ensuring that I always have the upper hand in any potential skirmish with household pests.
You know I've played too much Dota 2 when I catch myself pinging my GPS for "missing directions" when I take a wrong turn. And instead of asking for help like a normal person, I start spamming "We need wards!" in hopes that someone will magically appear to illuminate my path. But alas, all I get are strange looks from pedestrians who clearly haven't reached my MMR level of navigation expertise. So I forge ahead, determined to stack those jungle camps of life's challenges, even if it means sacrificing my dignity in the process. Because hey, in the game of life, sometimes I just have to embrace the chaos and hope my team doesn't feed too hard.
2024.04.29 00:48 blz8 Could Nintendo really have really pulled out of stores that refused to stop selling unlicensed titles in the late 1980s and early 1990s era? Did the bigger retailers ever call their bluff?
I was in the tub and started thinking about all the occurrences of Nintendo threatening to pull out of stores that refused to stop carrying unlicensed games. [1] What I started to wonder, though, is that while they could push around smaller mom-and-pop type shops, I don't see how Nintendo could just pull out of places like Toys-R-US, Kmart, Target, Walmart, Sears (who still had a big electronics section at that time), KB Toys, and similar without hurting themselves without giving Sega (especially after Sonic the Hedgehog had been released) (and even NEC) more visibility while reducing their own.
I also wonder if any of the big retails called Nintendo's bluff? A lot of the instances that I read about were in the late 80s and early 90s when Sega was already gaining some good traction and the Super Nintendo wasn't out yet or was young. These big stores were how I and many others were able to really see the SNES up close and really get a feel for it and play Super Mario World (or any other title that was in the display kiosk, though my recollection was SMW in every store we went to) so without that visibility in the big outlets, where one could try it out, instead people would be playing Sonic and such at the Sega display.
Could Nintendo really afford to pull out of such places, especially with the SNES coming out soon (late 80s, early 90s) or soon after it launched, and give up the biggest venues for hands-on and general visibility? Or was this just simply scare tactics that they could only really follow through on with small shops?
[1] Interestingly, I can't find any evidence of them doing this for peripherals, and there were plenty not licensed, as I remember seeing many on store shelves back then.
submitted by blz8 to retrogaming [link] [comments]
I also wonder if any of the big retails called Nintendo's bluff? A lot of the instances that I read about were in the late 80s and early 90s when Sega was already gaining some good traction and the Super Nintendo wasn't out yet or was young. These big stores were how I and many others were able to really see the SNES up close and really get a feel for it and play Super Mario World (or any other title that was in the display kiosk, though my recollection was SMW in every store we went to) so without that visibility in the big outlets, where one could try it out, instead people would be playing Sonic and such at the Sega display.
Could Nintendo really afford to pull out of such places, especially with the SNES coming out soon (late 80s, early 90s) or soon after it launched, and give up the biggest venues for hands-on and general visibility? Or was this just simply scare tactics that they could only really follow through on with small shops?
[1] Interestingly, I can't find any evidence of them doing this for peripherals, and there were plenty not licensed, as I remember seeing many on store shelves back then.
2024.04.28 22:46 Chance-Worth-4954 Little story about how it all started..
 | A bit of history.. submitted by Chance-Worth-4954 to IPTVAdviceAndTip [link] [comments] In the 80s and 90s, we have satellite dishes with pirate cards, it worked perfectly, but at that time we didn't have any problems with buffering. ;>)) But there were also people like myself with my own subscriptions to both Viasat & Canal Digital that I paid for. At that time it cost EUR 90 per month in today's currency. If you had the knowledge, you could read the original card and then add another one that you could then sell. The problem then was that anyone who had a little knowledge of how it worked with card readers could then in turn make a copy of what he bought. At that time there was no control over how many users were used. I made my own software so that no one could make a copy of my cards, when it was put in a card reader the card was erased, except for a small "string" where I could see if any attempt to read the card was made... The smartcard used by DirecTV after the “H card” became known by pirates as the “HU” card. This was the third smartcard series for DSS (P3 card - period 3). Sometimes referred to as “the football card” because of the artwork on the back of the card.’ Oddly enough, the “football card” was not the one OJ Simpson was busted for pirating. That was the previous generation of smartcard, the “H card”. https://preview.redd.it/smlkhrx76axc1.jpg?width=680&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=8b037b1d67788d32286def83b97d042b3e38f825 By 2001, “HU loader” pirate smartcard programming software hit the market even before the hacked “H card” swap-out was done. Some pirates still used hacked H cards while others were buying new pirate HU cards that would last through the impending complete shutdown of the H card. For prices in the tens of thousands of dollars, dealers bought HU loaders - slightly modified WildThing glitchers, with new software for the new smartcard. The pirate customer base had grown a lot from the previous hacked cards, so there was plenty of demand for the HU hack. Once the HU loader was in the hands of pirates, it wasn’t long before it was cloned. More sources for HU loaders meant competitive prices. Eventually this led to the secret firmware for the HU loader (the “Atmel code”, for the AT90S2313 chip) being posted on a public website. After the HU loader Atmel code was posted on the “HackHU” website, anybody with the right kind of smartcard programmer could program their own pirate HU cards. Some pirates modified the WildThing unlooper they bought for the H card to be compatible with the new HU loader. In the early 2000s, detailed technical information about new hacks, schematics and software, was being spread via the Internet at an accelerated rate. It was no longer a trickle of information from high level dealers filtering down to end users. A pirate might buy an expensive unlooper or loader, think “I could sell a lot of these”, reverse engineer the PCB and draw a schematic, then a locked chip becomes a dead end. So they post schematics online and hope someone else shares the missing pieces. Many hardware producers (like Mikobu) competed to build and sell ready-to-use HU loaders. By 2002, for under a hundred dollars anybody could get everything they needed to program pirate smartcards. It was never easier to become a DirecTV pirate, or even a pirate card dealer. https://preview.redd.it/pad3rdwc6axc1.jpg?width=1200&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=015bb714ef4b0423a65fdf869403e8aca1eaa5df This is another example, a Mikobu III loadeunlooper. The Mikobu III may have been the top selling pirate card programmer in its time, it was considered the “gold standard” to many pirates. https://preview.redd.it/qsk44k6h6axc1.jpg?width=680&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=3a499a9cc93a2a8bd5467351fc16d9a47768b45a In 2001, the pirates had to deal with something they recognized all too well by now - their hacked smartcards were looped by a countermeasure against them. A lot of people had gotten used to programming their own smartcards, now they had to hope somebody produced an HU unlooper. As was typical, the first HU unlooper was in the hands of a commercial pirate, unlooping cards for a fee. Later on, though, things took a turn - the growing mass of hackers chatting and sharing information online led to a new kind of development. Not just one, but two kinds of HU unlooper were released and shared freely on the internet within days of each other in March 2002. HUFF (to unloop the HU cards responding only FF due to looping) and ul4s (unloop for sure). They both worked great. https://preview.redd.it/axc4rddl6axc1.jpg?width=1200&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=add5fa4f2cbc84a72e9d9a8642f52ed77f25d346 https://preview.redd.it/lb4d86gm6axc1.jpg?width=1200&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=ba55d97148c8ce6e91a420c0ccb16ddd4e14ef04 By this time there was a kind of “critical mass” of hackers online, developing and sharing hacks for the HU card. Web forums, usually vBulletin or phpBB, were numerous and very active. Pirates helped each other use hacks and searched for new fixes when their cards were shut down. Popular forums of the time included The Pirates Den (dsschat .com), Interesting Devices (id-discussions), Innermatrix, DR7 .com, Hitec Sat, and dozens of others. Many forums were owned by pirate dealers, and some acted as administrators or moderators on others. Forums weren’t only for end-user pirates, some of the hackers developing new fixes frequented them also. Over time there was a shift from hacks developed in private and sold through a dealer network, to more widespread, and sometimes free, direct sharing over the Internet. Some of the hackers became known and respected by many other pirates who admired the skills required to create new and improved hacks. Names like no1b4me, aol6945, and RAM9999 were amongst the elite in the online forums. https://preview.redd.it/h0wqaetq6axc1.jpg?width=1200&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=faa66dca9cf2f39a868fbd68776b9795e7231cba Some of these hackers’ names would later show up on a DirecTV website publicizing the many legal actions taken against pirates. DirecTV would proudly boast over 24,000 lawsuits against end users, in addition to action against the hackers and dealers. Satellite TV piracy was big business. In 1998, Canadian pirate Reggie Scullion (V-Cipher) was raided by police and $4 million in cash, bonds, and bank drafts was seized from his home and business, along with over 10,000 DirecTV smartcards. Pirate business was booming. By 2003, satellite TV piracy seemed to have been growing out of control for years, despite increasing legal actions against pirates. There were estimates in the press of over 3 million satellite TV pirates, resulting in pay TV companies losing $4 billion in revenue. Most end-user pirates were paying someone to program, or to unloop, their smartcard. The dealers they paid came in all shapes and sizes - friends, family, small businesses, international pirate dealer networks. Hackers were writing their own versions of 3M code (or ripping off someone else’s), packaging it up in a loader program with a Windows GUI, or in some cases a script for the popular Winexplorer tool, and offering it for sale. Pirate software evolved alongside changes in computers and the Internet. From MS-DOS text interfaces to simple Windows applications with two or three buttons, to integrated environments for developing and testing hacks. For the H card, a software package “BasicH” was been popular for being powerful but also relatively simple to use. Later, with the HU card, even more tools like “ExtremeHU” for programming cards and “HU Sandbox” for developing new pirate code became standard tools for hackers. https://preview.redd.it/07rj9fiw6axc1.jpg?width=766&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=11baf6c8dcea5fc0b124bde1fb7924a35763b58b WinExplorer was a widely used tool for smartcard hackers, for writing “.XVB files”, VBScript programs that talked to smartcards or smartcard glitchers. Hackers would share, study, and modify an overwhelming number of .XVB files, a de facto standard for pirate satellite scripts. https://preview.redd.it/lu7krltz6axc1.jpg?width=760&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=0943808106bba39bcf9f3f0ee7f82adaa612812f Another way used by pirates to watch DirecTV without paying was to use an “emu”, or emulator, system. Using a computer connected to a satellite receiver by a simple PCB interface, the smartcard was emulated to allow all channels to be viewed. Because hackers hadn’t reverse engineered the HU card ASIC, they could only emulate the microcontroller functions while using a real HU card as an “AUX card”, sending data through the hardware ASIC. The emu software protected the original smartcards from ECMs. After each version of DirecTV (or later, Dish Network) smartcard was hacked, versions of emulator hacks were developed by pirates. SLE44 and Pitou were H card emulators, Kryptonite an HU emu. https://preview.redd.it/4mcu5vo37axc1.jpg?width=284&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=f5779dc53fe15b5fc7100e9c66c3b616164c4178 During the era of the pirate HU card, DirecTV may have had a hard time locking out the pirates with glitchers from programming their smartcards, but there was a lot of grief for the pirates in the form of frequent countermeasures shutting down the hacked cards temporarily. A technique used by the HU card against the pirates was “dynamic code”. Instead of key calculation being done entirely in the ROM and EEPROM firmware known to the hackers, short blocks of program code was sent down in real-time over the satellite. Dynamic code meant the pirate hackers had to chase a moving target. The code could be changed at any time, and different versions of dynamic code could be rotated in and out of service at any time. Sending program code over the satellite had been done before, but on the HU card the dynamic code went beyond what pirates had previously dealt with. Let the code run and risk the card being looped. Block unknown code and the card is shut down every few days. Another electronic countermeasure (ECM) used to target pirate H and HU cards was known as “hashing”. Regions of the smartcard’s memory would be used in the key calculation algorithm, so that the correct decryption keys depended on correct (not hacked) data in the card. The pirate hackers rose to the challenge, improving their hacks, adding “stealth” and “AI” features to their 3M code. The level of artificial intelligence implemented in these 4 MHz micros with a total 384 bytes of RAM and a KB or two of EEPROM space seems suspect, in retrospect. Unlike the H card with two chips (microcontroller and ASIC), the HU card only had one chip inside. The HU card had an ASIC on the same silicon die as a Texas Instruments TMS370 microcontroller. 384 bytes of RAM, 16 KB ROM, 8 KB EEPROM. https://preview.redd.it/m5pby1a87axc1.jpg?width=1200&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=e4cb7cb084b5a5604e004c6432187753d6bc6f80 Another tactic used by DirecTV to shut down pirate cards was to more aggressively target smartcards that were inactive or had been deactivated in their system. The satellite receiver itself could be disabled, instead of relying on software inside the smartcard to disable itself. The pirates became familiar with the dreaded “Call Ext. 745” messages when their card ID# was disabled - blacklisted by DirecTV. Pirates cloned cards with different ID# or modded the satellite receiver software, and new hacks were developed to bypass the Ext745 shutdowns. One type of hack was a “no745 board” that acted as a wedge between the satellite receiver and smartcard. The no745 board exploited a bug in the receivers, allowing it to provide the receiver with a fake ID#, to avoid any blacklisting by DirecTV. Pirates continued to hack the HU card to watch DirecTV for free, though sometimes having to update their pirate card daily, until the HU smartcard was swapped out to a new “P4” card. The P4 card had increased the level of complexity again to be better protected against hackers. Support for the HU smartcards was disabled permanently by DirecTV in mid-2004. Since then, there has not been a pirate DirecTV hack on the market, or published online. The new P4 smartcards locked the pirates out. https://preview.redd.it/g2oiemxe7axc1.jpg?width=1200&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=c9872b8a955e71e87b6688a55e24e218e7e66a11 Around that time, a lot of pirates had switched their focus to Dish Network (and Bell Expressvu in Canada), which had been hacked since 1999. That’s another topic with many different stories to be told. In September 2006 at 27 years old, the hacker behind the HU loader, the first pirate hack for the DirecTV HU smartcard, pled guilty to charges carrying up to 5 years in prison. At the time, he was already serving a 30 month prison sentence for hacking DirecTV Latin America. In the years since, he and the other hackers involved in DirecTV piracy in the 90s/early 2000s have completed their prison sentences, been released, and put satellite TV piracy in the past. Then we all had different cards and modules.... Here are some examples that many people probably recognize...' https://preview.redd.it/a1wziizx7axc1.jpg?width=680&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=10309493a65c92d523b18f49c62c673b8c2d9859 https://preview.redd.it/1pq6956n7axc1.jpg?width=1200&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=b874c1fc4b100a30064dda1d255013ccc5196594 https://preview.redd.it/2y580dep7axc1.jpg?width=1000&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=677199c3d1a2c705abb79f4217062e5c1956e718 https://preview.redd.it/5sbfv7ar7axc1.jpg?width=1600&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=1ee313f5b5233e3ca0b417b51f785cfd4c667432 https://preview.redd.it/8fe623vs7axc1.jpg?width=925&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=9c00f5e3488ec8bb6e4c67bc079fd477ab943bcc https://i.redd.it/56phv56u7axc1.gif A little history for those of you who weren't there at the time, when we had to do everything ourselves. Now we have IPTV which is very easy compared to the time before. Next entry, is an IPTV Guide. A jungle for most of them, even those who call themselves Resellers barely know what they are talking about when they advertise.. Most of them do NOT know what it is they have and write what they think, so BEWARE!! |
2024.04.28 22:00 rafi_124 Hiking the AV1 in Late May?
Hi everyone, I'm a young male with average fitness - I work an 80hweek corporate desk job so do not get the opportunity to move around much but if a hike needs to get done then I will typically get it done.
The majority of my hiking experience comes from trips I do a few times a year - have never been wild camping or solo hiked before.
I'm looking to do my first solo wild camping hike on the AV1 from the last week of May - I have about 11 days to work with!
Questions:
Also, I'm on a budget guys T_T Fancy gear (unless essential) and rifugios (even though closed) are out of the pic for me atm
submitted by rafi_124 to CampingandHiking [link] [comments]
The majority of my hiking experience comes from trips I do a few times a year - have never been wild camping or solo hiked before.
I'm looking to do my first solo wild camping hike on the AV1 from the last week of May - I have about 11 days to work with!
Questions:
- Am I fit enough? I will probably do it anyway even if it's said that I'm not but just wanna get an idea of the pace I should go at / rest days etc
- What weather can I expect? - late may / early june
- Should I take a tent? I was thinking this one - OEX Phoxx I v2 1-Person Tent - Olive Tiso UK ? Or lighten my load and stay at the bivaccos with a sleeping bag?
- Is there a bivacco (winter hut) section at every refuge?
- I'll have to carry food for the duration of the trip - I'd rather not starve halfway through so I'd love some tips from people who have been there and done it.
- Backpack reccs? Litres?
- Raincoat, down jacket, longsleeve merino base, beanie, 2 t-shirts, 1 pants, 1 leggings, 1 shorts, 3 undies, 3p socks
- Microspikes (needed?)
- Sleeping bag - Basecamp 250 Summer Sleeping Bag Mountain Warehouse GB
- Electronics - phone, 27,000 mah power bank, tripod, airpods (might go wired to save charge)
- Jetboil stove - how much fuel should I take?
Also, I'm on a budget guys T_T Fancy gear (unless essential) and rifugios (even though closed) are out of the pic for me atm
2024.04.28 21:58 rafi_124 AV1 Late May - First Solo Wild Hike Reccs?
Hi everyone, I'm a young male with average fitness - I work an 80hweek corporate desk job so do not get the opportunity to move around much but if a hike needs to get done then I will typically get it done.
The majority of my hiking experience comes from trips I do a few times a year - have never been wild camping or solo hiked before.
I'm looking to do my first solo wild camping hike on the AV1 from the last week of May - I have about 11 days to work with!
Questions:
Also, I'm on a budget guys T_T Fancy gear (unless essential) and rifugios (even though closed) are out of the pic for me atm
submitted by rafi_124 to hiking [link] [comments]
The majority of my hiking experience comes from trips I do a few times a year - have never been wild camping or solo hiked before.
I'm looking to do my first solo wild camping hike on the AV1 from the last week of May - I have about 11 days to work with!
Questions:
- Am I fit enough? I will probably do it anyway even if it's said that I'm not but just wanna get an idea of the pace I should go at / rest days etc
- What weather can I expect? - late may / early june
- Should I take a tent? I was thinking this one - OEX Phoxx I v2 1-Person Tent - Olive Tiso UK ? Or lighten my load and stay at the bivaccos with a sleeping bag?
- Is there a bivacco (winter hut) section at every refuge?
- I'll have to carry food for the duration of the trip - I'd rather not starve halfway through so I'd love some tips from people who have been there and done it.
- Backpack reccs? Litres?
- Raincoat, down jacket, longsleeve merino base, beanie, 2 t-shirts, 1 pants, 1 leggings, 1 shorts, 3 undies, 3p socks
- Microspikes (needed?)
- Sleeping bag - Basecamp 250 Summer Sleeping Bag Mountain Warehouse GB
- Electronics - phone, 27,000 mah power bank, tripod, airpods (might go wired to save charge)
- Jetboil stove - how much fuel should I take?
Also, I'm on a budget guys T_T Fancy gear (unless essential) and rifugios (even though closed) are out of the pic for me atm
2024.04.28 21:57 rafi_124 Hiking the Alta Via 1 in Late May
Hi everyone, I'm a young male with average fitness - I work an 80hweek corporate desk job so do not get the opportunity to move around much but if a hike needs to get done then I will typically get it done.
The majority of my hiking experience comes from trips I do a few times a year - have never been wild camping or solo hiked before.
I'm looking to do my first solo wild camping hike on the AV1 from the last week of May - I have about 11 days to work with!
Questions:
Also, I'm on a budget guys T_T Fancy gear (unless essential) and rifugios (even though closed) are out of the pic for me atm
submitted by rafi_124 to Ultralight [link] [comments]
The majority of my hiking experience comes from trips I do a few times a year - have never been wild camping or solo hiked before.
I'm looking to do my first solo wild camping hike on the AV1 from the last week of May - I have about 11 days to work with!
Questions:
- Am I fit enough? I will probably do it anyway even if it's said that I'm not but just wanna get an idea of the pace I should go at / rest days etc
- What weather can I expect? - late may / early june
- Should I take a tent? I was thinking this one - OEX Phoxx I v2 1-Person Tent - Olive Tiso UK ? Or lighten my load and stay at the bivaccos with a sleeping bag?
- Is there a bivacco (winter hut) section at every refuge?
- I'll have to carry food for the duration of the trip - I'd rather not starve halfway through so I'd love some tips from people who have been there and done it.
- Backpack reccs? Litres?
- Raincoat, down jacket, longsleeve merino base, beanie, 2 t-shirts, 1 pants, 1 leggings, 1 shorts, 3 undies, 3p socks
- Microspikes (needed?)
- Sleeping bag - Basecamp 250 Summer Sleeping Bag Mountain Warehouse GB
- Electronics - phone, 27,000 mah power bank, tripod, airpods (might go wired to save charge)
- Jetboil stove - how much fuel should I take?
Also, I'm on a budget guys T_T Fancy gear (unless essential) and rifugios (even though closed) are out of the pic for me atm
2024.04.28 21:07 MarkedMatt Sidorovich - Scammer or Respected Trader?
Many people say that he's a scammer. Today I'll be uncovering whetever that accusation is true or not.
Gameplay
I did some research, and in Clear Sky Sidorovich actually pays for artifacts more than other traders. Even Sakharov buys artifacts for lower price.
Proof: https://snipboard.io/OQzK4f.jpg (Sakharov's price) https://snipboard.io/dMHPYU.jpg (Sid's price)
Lore
Sidorovich isn't the most moral person, however, he's most respected trader (more about it later tho). He doesn't cares about well being of others nor will he do something for free:
"Got a job for you, Marked One... I want you to find a stalker called Nimble, he was carrying some very important information. He disappeared somewhere near the bridge. Find him, dead or alive - I don't care, I need the flash drive with the info. Visit Wolf from the local camp, and ask him. He certainly knows where that guy can be."
Additional proof: https://snipboard.io/GRy6Sg.jpg
"So, Marked One, I saved you and I'm not going to pretend I did it to win favors upstairs. You do some jobs for me, and we're even."
"Well, for one thing, it does exist. And given that, we definitely ought to clear a path to it. A single clan should have enough muscle to get it done. But if all the clans joined forces, we might even be able to get through the Scorcher. The way things are now, each faction knows something, but they'll die before they share it with one another. Each faction is holding on to their secret. Add to that an imbecile as bad as our Mitay and you've got real dead heat. Sidorovich is the only one collecting intelligence, piece by piece. Hard-headed as they come, heh. But then again, it's Sidorovich: don't expect something for nothing." - Duty Barman Kolobok answering Scar's "And what do you think about the Wish Granter?" question
Additional proof: https://snipboard.io/uzR2i6.jpg
But despite all the accusations, no one actually complains about his prices. Even more: Jupiter Stalkers say that Sidorovich's tools aren't expensive:
"To be honest, the last place I saw decent tools was in Sidorovich's bunker at the Cordon. Sure, you have to pay for them, but they're new and not all that expensive either." - Random stalker NPC answering Degtyarev's "Where can I find tools around here?" question
Additional proof: https://snipboard.io/UhX24p.jpg
Sidorovich paying well is also something that's implied in dialogues. For example Father Valerian said the following:
"The Cordon really is the Zone's front entrance. We stalkers come here a lot. It's a nice place to relax, stock up on ammo and get an honest coin for your loot from Sidorovich. And if you need a partner, the Cordon's got a number of rookies who'll go through hell and high water for an old-timer. To them we're like living legends."
Additional proof: https://snipboard.io/pAhxtn.jpg
Moreover, Valerian seemed upset about possibility of not being able to have business with Sidorovich:
"Yeah, I guess we got a little carried away... Can't figure out what to do now. We're holding the commander hostage, which is a kind of guarantee that the army's not going to bomb our asses back to the Stone Age with their choppers. We can't kill him, but we can't let him go either... The sly son of a bitch knows that we need him alive, and he's not caving in a damn inch. Trouble is, he's the only one who knows where the loot is hidden. If we don't deliver that loot to Sidorovich, he won't do business with us ever again. If we could only make this army bastard play by our rules, it would be a whole different ball game, believe me."
Additional proof: https://snipboard.io/qUeMxn.jpg
His reputation and connections
"That's a strange question coming from you. It ain't your first day in the Zone, but you're asking me about Sidorovich? Hell, everyone knows Sidorovich! He's the most respected trader in the whole Zone! If he can't fulfill your shopping needs, nobody can." - Wolf in Clear Sky
Additional proof: https://snipboard.io/T3GFyY.jpg
"Thanks for returning the case, merc. Now I can settle up with my client. The reason I've survived in the Zone as long as I have is that I always keep my word. You screw a client in this place and you're pretty likely to find a knife in your back real soon. Anyway, that's enough about me... About your stalker - he was here. His name is Fang, and he was looking for tube amplifiers and some other electronic crap... I'm not an expert in that sort of thing. I sold him the amp, but I didn't have the other stuff he was after, so I told him to visit the diggers at the Garbage. Recently, some stalkers at the Garbage have dug up old buried equipment from after the accident at the Chernobyl NPP, and now the place is filled with all kinds of ancient components. Look for him there. And remember, if you want to trade - I'm your man."
Additional proof: https://snipboard.io/piHsac.jpg
He also maintains his reputation and doesn't like others ruining it:
"Imagine this: there's some weirdo running around here who introduces himself as my sales representative, uses my reputation, and then tries to hand off second-rate stuff! Broken barrels, the armor that's falling apart, expired canned goods. I've already had to deal with a few unhappy clients. Bottom line, I need a man to have a little chat with that "sales representative", whatever it takes." - Description of "Kill the sales representative" sidequest
Additional proof: https://snipboard.io/dbVS5Z.jpg
"I'm having a confrontation with this one trader. Well, if he doesn't want to cooperate, the hell with him! But I won't let anyone start filthy rumors. In short, he needs to be wasted so the others don't get out of hand. Let them all know who's the boss here." - Description of "Kill the trader stalker" sidequest
Additional proof: https://snipboard.io/nysjQe.jpg
"The few soldiers there have been ordered to shoot on sight, so you'd better walk around it and try not to show your ass. If you piss them off, they may call for the Spetsnaz from the further cordon. Those guys can brew up such shit that I won't have any customers for a month... I know the commander a little: he likes to take a swig as much as the next man. I'm surviving on here thanks to him."
Additional proof: https://snipboard.io/fQN8Ez.jpg
"They guard and protect, what else? No one really knows whether they're guarding the Zone or protecting the rest of the world from it. Sometimes they send whole expeditions here to look for something... But I'll tell you something: they don't respect the Zone and the Zone doesn't like them either, that's why they return home in body bags very often. What else is there? Well, they look down at everyone and act like gods or something. They have no respect for stalker rules and won't ever help you even if you're dying right in front of them. They'll gladly shoot you themselves tho', and they don't get reprimanded for that... I've got a few contacts among them...you know, people always need vodka and...umm, magazines, right? Don't annoy them - they'll whack you for nothing."
Additional proof: https://snipboard.io/CJ6r7O.jpg
Other than the military, Sid has contacts with all kinds of clients outside the Zone:
"A long, long time. I was one of the first in the Zone. Back then we didn't have radiation detectors or suits, so your life expectancy in this place was real short. That's why I've never been past the Garbage. That sort of thing isn't for me. I've got the brains for a different sort of business: I'm like engine grease, without me the engine falters and that means people start fighting. But when I'm around everyone's happy. Even though the Zone is full of wonders, the demand for these wonders is even bigger - be it from governments, special services, private agencies or fat cat collectors. I'm their link to this place: I facilitate trade between the Zone and the outside world. I know all the right people and I can solve just about any issue without leaving this room. That pretty much sums me up."
Additional proof: https://snipboard.io/uAwJ63.jpg
Sidorovich's impact on other traders
Nimble in Call of Pripyat heavily implies that his stuff is going through Sid's routes:
"Right now is a bad time... the military are making things hot at the Cordon. Someone attacked their outpost the other day, which made them even more difficult to deal with." - Nimble when Degtyarev buys all assault rifles from him and asks for another one
Additional proof: https://snipboard.io/sxi7pR.jpg
Shilov directly states that he buys his stuff from Sidorovich:
"I'm a trader, although I haven't been one for long. As you can see we only just got here. Father Valerian said that you can be who you want to be, and I decided that I'm a trader there and then. And why not? I've got the skills and have known Sidorovich well enough to do as he does. Heck, I was renting out comic books for cash to students back at grade-school. Eh, those were the good days. Anyway, I'm kind of a natural businessman, you know? So here I am, getting my head around a new profession, so to speak. Right now I buy my stock from Sidorovich, so the prices ain't great, but I do have things that might interest you - some of the loot our boys brought back from the raids."
Additional proof: https://snipboard.io/XBPwNh.jpg
And lastly, clients outside the Zone wait in line, while stalkers from all over the Zone are willing to sell their stuff to Sid. For example, in Clear Sky, "Zaporozhets car at mine entrance" stash, that is located in the Red Forest says the following:
"I stashed my loot under the seat of that Zaporozhets car next to the mine entrance. I'll pick it up again before I go see Sidorovich."
"Why am I here? Well, I like the weather and the scenery is just beautiful. Ha-ha! The truth is, I'm too old to wander the Zone as a stalker. Plus I'm hardly the kind to survive an encounter with a controller. It's calm around here, that's the main reason. People who need me will find me no matter where I am. If someone's got a serious order or they need some quality goods, they come to me and only me. And sometimes they even wait in line, too. Why? Because if I can't get loot through the Cordon, nobody can."
Additional proof: https://snipboard.io/OeYl8w.jpg
submitted by MarkedMatt to stalker [link] [comments]
Gameplay
I did some research, and in Clear Sky Sidorovich actually pays for artifacts more than other traders. Even Sakharov buys artifacts for lower price.
Proof: https://snipboard.io/OQzK4f.jpg (Sakharov's price) https://snipboard.io/dMHPYU.jpg (Sid's price)
Lore
Sidorovich isn't the most moral person, however, he's most respected trader (more about it later tho). He doesn't cares about well being of others nor will he do something for free:
"Got a job for you, Marked One... I want you to find a stalker called Nimble, he was carrying some very important information. He disappeared somewhere near the bridge. Find him, dead or alive - I don't care, I need the flash drive with the info. Visit Wolf from the local camp, and ask him. He certainly knows where that guy can be."
Additional proof: https://snipboard.io/GRy6Sg.jpg
"So, Marked One, I saved you and I'm not going to pretend I did it to win favors upstairs. You do some jobs for me, and we're even."
"Well, for one thing, it does exist. And given that, we definitely ought to clear a path to it. A single clan should have enough muscle to get it done. But if all the clans joined forces, we might even be able to get through the Scorcher. The way things are now, each faction knows something, but they'll die before they share it with one another. Each faction is holding on to their secret. Add to that an imbecile as bad as our Mitay and you've got real dead heat. Sidorovich is the only one collecting intelligence, piece by piece. Hard-headed as they come, heh. But then again, it's Sidorovich: don't expect something for nothing." - Duty Barman Kolobok answering Scar's "And what do you think about the Wish Granter?" question
Additional proof: https://snipboard.io/uzR2i6.jpg
But despite all the accusations, no one actually complains about his prices. Even more: Jupiter Stalkers say that Sidorovich's tools aren't expensive:
"To be honest, the last place I saw decent tools was in Sidorovich's bunker at the Cordon. Sure, you have to pay for them, but they're new and not all that expensive either." - Random stalker NPC answering Degtyarev's "Where can I find tools around here?" question
Additional proof: https://snipboard.io/UhX24p.jpg
Sidorovich paying well is also something that's implied in dialogues. For example Father Valerian said the following:
"The Cordon really is the Zone's front entrance. We stalkers come here a lot. It's a nice place to relax, stock up on ammo and get an honest coin for your loot from Sidorovich. And if you need a partner, the Cordon's got a number of rookies who'll go through hell and high water for an old-timer. To them we're like living legends."
Additional proof: https://snipboard.io/pAhxtn.jpg
Moreover, Valerian seemed upset about possibility of not being able to have business with Sidorovich:
"Yeah, I guess we got a little carried away... Can't figure out what to do now. We're holding the commander hostage, which is a kind of guarantee that the army's not going to bomb our asses back to the Stone Age with their choppers. We can't kill him, but we can't let him go either... The sly son of a bitch knows that we need him alive, and he's not caving in a damn inch. Trouble is, he's the only one who knows where the loot is hidden. If we don't deliver that loot to Sidorovich, he won't do business with us ever again. If we could only make this army bastard play by our rules, it would be a whole different ball game, believe me."
Additional proof: https://snipboard.io/qUeMxn.jpg
His reputation and connections
"That's a strange question coming from you. It ain't your first day in the Zone, but you're asking me about Sidorovich? Hell, everyone knows Sidorovich! He's the most respected trader in the whole Zone! If he can't fulfill your shopping needs, nobody can." - Wolf in Clear Sky
Additional proof: https://snipboard.io/T3GFyY.jpg
"Thanks for returning the case, merc. Now I can settle up with my client. The reason I've survived in the Zone as long as I have is that I always keep my word. You screw a client in this place and you're pretty likely to find a knife in your back real soon. Anyway, that's enough about me... About your stalker - he was here. His name is Fang, and he was looking for tube amplifiers and some other electronic crap... I'm not an expert in that sort of thing. I sold him the amp, but I didn't have the other stuff he was after, so I told him to visit the diggers at the Garbage. Recently, some stalkers at the Garbage have dug up old buried equipment from after the accident at the Chernobyl NPP, and now the place is filled with all kinds of ancient components. Look for him there. And remember, if you want to trade - I'm your man."
Additional proof: https://snipboard.io/piHsac.jpg
He also maintains his reputation and doesn't like others ruining it:
"Imagine this: there's some weirdo running around here who introduces himself as my sales representative, uses my reputation, and then tries to hand off second-rate stuff! Broken barrels, the armor that's falling apart, expired canned goods. I've already had to deal with a few unhappy clients. Bottom line, I need a man to have a little chat with that "sales representative", whatever it takes." - Description of "Kill the sales representative" sidequest
Additional proof: https://snipboard.io/dbVS5Z.jpg
"I'm having a confrontation with this one trader. Well, if he doesn't want to cooperate, the hell with him! But I won't let anyone start filthy rumors. In short, he needs to be wasted so the others don't get out of hand. Let them all know who's the boss here." - Description of "Kill the trader stalker" sidequest
Additional proof: https://snipboard.io/nysjQe.jpg
"The few soldiers there have been ordered to shoot on sight, so you'd better walk around it and try not to show your ass. If you piss them off, they may call for the Spetsnaz from the further cordon. Those guys can brew up such shit that I won't have any customers for a month... I know the commander a little: he likes to take a swig as much as the next man. I'm surviving on here thanks to him."
Additional proof: https://snipboard.io/fQN8Ez.jpg
"They guard and protect, what else? No one really knows whether they're guarding the Zone or protecting the rest of the world from it. Sometimes they send whole expeditions here to look for something... But I'll tell you something: they don't respect the Zone and the Zone doesn't like them either, that's why they return home in body bags very often. What else is there? Well, they look down at everyone and act like gods or something. They have no respect for stalker rules and won't ever help you even if you're dying right in front of them. They'll gladly shoot you themselves tho', and they don't get reprimanded for that... I've got a few contacts among them...you know, people always need vodka and...umm, magazines, right? Don't annoy them - they'll whack you for nothing."
Additional proof: https://snipboard.io/CJ6r7O.jpg
Other than the military, Sid has contacts with all kinds of clients outside the Zone:
"A long, long time. I was one of the first in the Zone. Back then we didn't have radiation detectors or suits, so your life expectancy in this place was real short. That's why I've never been past the Garbage. That sort of thing isn't for me. I've got the brains for a different sort of business: I'm like engine grease, without me the engine falters and that means people start fighting. But when I'm around everyone's happy. Even though the Zone is full of wonders, the demand for these wonders is even bigger - be it from governments, special services, private agencies or fat cat collectors. I'm their link to this place: I facilitate trade between the Zone and the outside world. I know all the right people and I can solve just about any issue without leaving this room. That pretty much sums me up."
Additional proof: https://snipboard.io/uAwJ63.jpg
Sidorovich's impact on other traders
Nimble in Call of Pripyat heavily implies that his stuff is going through Sid's routes:
"Right now is a bad time... the military are making things hot at the Cordon. Someone attacked their outpost the other day, which made them even more difficult to deal with." - Nimble when Degtyarev buys all assault rifles from him and asks for another one
Additional proof: https://snipboard.io/sxi7pR.jpg
Shilov directly states that he buys his stuff from Sidorovich:
"I'm a trader, although I haven't been one for long. As you can see we only just got here. Father Valerian said that you can be who you want to be, and I decided that I'm a trader there and then. And why not? I've got the skills and have known Sidorovich well enough to do as he does. Heck, I was renting out comic books for cash to students back at grade-school. Eh, those were the good days. Anyway, I'm kind of a natural businessman, you know? So here I am, getting my head around a new profession, so to speak. Right now I buy my stock from Sidorovich, so the prices ain't great, but I do have things that might interest you - some of the loot our boys brought back from the raids."
Additional proof: https://snipboard.io/XBPwNh.jpg
And lastly, clients outside the Zone wait in line, while stalkers from all over the Zone are willing to sell their stuff to Sid. For example, in Clear Sky, "Zaporozhets car at mine entrance" stash, that is located in the Red Forest says the following:
"I stashed my loot under the seat of that Zaporozhets car next to the mine entrance. I'll pick it up again before I go see Sidorovich."
"Why am I here? Well, I like the weather and the scenery is just beautiful. Ha-ha! The truth is, I'm too old to wander the Zone as a stalker. Plus I'm hardly the kind to survive an encounter with a controller. It's calm around here, that's the main reason. People who need me will find me no matter where I am. If someone's got a serious order or they need some quality goods, they come to me and only me. And sometimes they even wait in line, too. Why? Because if I can't get loot through the Cordon, nobody can."
Additional proof: https://snipboard.io/OeYl8w.jpg
2024.04.28 20:51 Cryptosmasher86 Paintball in the US since the 1980s - Why the Game Isn't what it used to be
Storytime for an genXer who has been playing Paintball since the 80s and Airsoft since the 90s
The question comes up all the time why isn't paintball as popular as it used to people but people tend to forget what made it popular to begin with (it's ok, we get it some of us are old)
The business side
In the US a large part of the country paintball is a seasonal business at best spring to fall
Field insurance isn't cheap
paying staff to run the field isn't cheap
land certainly has not decreased in cost and likely is more valuable to sell off to a developer
Fields that are successful in seasonal areas have multipurpose businesses not just paintball
One field in my area that's been open for 40 years now - has paintball, airsoft,halloween events, big games, corporate outings, birthday parties and camping, they do close for a few months in the winter, they also run a retail/online store year round
Airsoft
Alot of woodsball players moved to Airsoft in the early 2000s and many newbies went to airsoft instead of paintball for the same reasons paintball took off in the 80s
Alright so what does this mean in 2024 to grow the business
Admit that speedball on its own, isn't the answer to grow the game
The game needs to support NEW PEOPLE (yes teens and college kids) and that means
-Weekend open play
-Weekend kids parties
-Weekday corporate rentals for team building/outings
-Scenario play to bring back the airsoft players or the field can also host airsoft
-Big games or seasonal events
When you have a healthy stream of new players then you can support speedball and tournaments, but to go along with that - all the industry people need to get off their fucking asses and go to high schools and colleges and actually SPONSOR clubs and teams - If you want people to take this game seriously for tournaments and making money - they in needs to be competitive for kids to get started
You are competing for kids time with all the other year round sports - how many parents here have kids in a sport or multiple sports throughout the school year? I know my son played basketball, soccer and ran track, did martial arts a few years, like paintball but all his friends were doing other games/sports
Right now its seems like the industry side is living in denial in the past thinking the game as it popular as it was in the late 90s/early 2000s and time has past them buy
submitted by Cryptosmasher86 to paintball [link] [comments]
The question comes up all the time why isn't paintball as popular as it used to people but people tend to forget what made it popular to begin with (it's ok, we get it some of us are old)
- Paintball used to be dirt cheap - 10 round markers, co2 cart and tubes of paintball were affordable, add some googles and that's all you needed to play - it was no more expensive than buying a BB guns and certainly cheaper than getting into other youth sports at the time
- You could play anywhere - someone's backyard, local woods, pop up fields with rentals or more formal fields
- You could buy paintball stuff everywhere - department stores, sporting goods stores, mail order - any place that sold airguns/bb guns probably had paintball at the time
- Print magazine - Remember Action Pursuit Games? - https://www.mcarterbrown.com/forum/paintball-news-aa/the-dead-zone/126134-action-pursuit-games-magazine-archive I remember buying this from the grocery store magazine rack - many magazines followed - but this is where anyone could find out about the game - find fields, find catalogs, etc
- The game itself focused on simple play - basically capture the flag, some fields, went all in on scenario play and big games, but most fields throughout the 80s were for casual play
- High schools and colleges had paintball clubs
- Speedball didn't come on the scene until the first event at SC village in 89 and going into the 90s it when the game started to change, but not for the better
The business side
In the US a large part of the country paintball is a seasonal business at best spring to fall
Field insurance isn't cheap
paying staff to run the field isn't cheap
land certainly has not decreased in cost and likely is more valuable to sell off to a developer
Fields that are successful in seasonal areas have multipurpose businesses not just paintball
One field in my area that's been open for 40 years now - has paintball, airsoft,halloween events, big games, corporate outings, birthday parties and camping, they do close for a few months in the winter, they also run a retail/online store year round
Airsoft
Alot of woodsball players moved to Airsoft in the early 2000s and many newbies went to airsoft instead of paintball for the same reasons paintball took off in the 80s
- Cheap to get started - a basic electric gun, 5000 bbs and googles you're looking at a few hundred bucks
- You can play year round
- You can play indoor or outdoor
- You can buy airsoft stuff everywhere - Outdoor and Sporting goods stuff still carry airsoft, many dropped paintball, Some wal mart stores have airsoft - https://www.cabelas.com/SearchDisplay#q=airsoft
- Airsoft still has print and digital magazines to promote the game -https://www.ai-mag.com/product-category/magazines/ and yes you can find those at bookstores like Barnes and Noble
- Airsoft has casual play, milsim, big events - something for everyone and they don't care if its all ages
Alright so what does this mean in 2024 to grow the business
Admit that speedball on its own, isn't the answer to grow the game
The game needs to support NEW PEOPLE (yes teens and college kids) and that means
-Weekend open play
-Weekend kids parties
-Weekday corporate rentals for team building/outings
-Scenario play to bring back the airsoft players or the field can also host airsoft
-Big games or seasonal events
When you have a healthy stream of new players then you can support speedball and tournaments, but to go along with that - all the industry people need to get off their fucking asses and go to high schools and colleges and actually SPONSOR clubs and teams - If you want people to take this game seriously for tournaments and making money - they in needs to be competitive for kids to get started
You are competing for kids time with all the other year round sports - how many parents here have kids in a sport or multiple sports throughout the school year? I know my son played basketball, soccer and ran track, did martial arts a few years, like paintball but all his friends were doing other games/sports
Right now its seems like the industry side is living in denial in the past thinking the game as it popular as it was in the late 90s/early 2000s and time has past them buy
2024.04.28 17:51 TXNatureTherapy Best Portable Bidet Setups as of April 2024
Let's start with the options I recommend, and then I'll explain HOW I tested and why I picked these.
Best Option (if you can get by with a little more $$$ and bulk):
WaterPik ION - $100
Collapsible Stool - 15 inches or higher - $20 - $30
BabbleRoo Diaper Bag Backpack - $35
32 oz water bottle - $20
Almost as good (better if you're on a tight budget or really need something slim):
INSOLIFE Electric USB Rechargeable Travel Bidet (2nd Generation) - $55
WATERFLY Fanny Pack - Water Resistant - Large - $20
2 SPECIAL MADE Collapsible Water Bottles - $30
The reality is that I work a job with a decent bit of travel, and often visiting clients for a day or so at a time. I have a skin condition that was wreaking havoc on my bum for years until I switched to a bidet, and now I rarely have problems. So I needed something I could take with me that didn't have to be installed.
For testing, I purchased several squeeze bidets (both full bottle and bottle inserts), several electric handheld bidets/"showers" (including the Toto and Panasonic model as well as some clones), a couple of handheld "water irrigators" (water flossers), as well as the two models listed above.
Testing was over a couple of weeks where I would alternate between different models and types through the day. I also did a test at the beginning and end of the time to see if there was any appreciable pressure difference after use.
None of the squeeze bidets would get me appreciably clean by themselves. In addition to being a bit awkward (particularly the models that have to be inserted into a filled bottle), I could rarely get more than a couple of squeezes out at decent pressure. If you used wipes first, these might help with refreshing your skin and using fewer wipes in total. But if you are trying to avoid wipes in the first place (that pesky skin condition again), then you can cross these off the list.
The Toto and Panasonic models were designed when AA batteries in hand electronics were the rage, and their motors are limited to the power that two AA batteries can produce. They both have small reservoirs, although the Panasonic is designed to also fit on certain water bottles. Even with the increased water amounts, there just isn't enough pressure to really wash anything off. Making these only slightly better (and much more expensive) than the squeeze bottles.
The clones are even worse as many of them have rechargeable batteries, but still use (steal?) the same motor design even though they could clearly be more powerful.
The oral irrigators generally have an issue that they first have to be hacked a bit as they are designed to be used upright, while as a bidet you are using them flat or even a little inverted. For most of them this means cutting their feed hose so that it feeds from the top of the reservoir. Unfortunately most of these have small reservoirs (to make them easy to carry), and most often have only two power options - which are usually way too weak, and way too hard.
For the last couple of years, this has meant my "go to" travel bidet has been the WaterPik ION. It's a rechargeable "flosser" (so you can just charge once a day), has a decent 20 oz reservoir, and a dialable power option that can let you adjust the strength to your heart's content. It also has a second "on/off" switch on the handle of the tip to minimize spraying places you don't mean to. Unfortunately since it isn't designed as a bidet, you also have to carry a small stool (folding or telescoping) to make sure the hose from the tip to the tank isn't stretched too far. Fortunately, the BabbleRoo bag is large enough to hold all of this as well as a filled water bottle if you don't want to setup and then run to the sink. It also is pretty much waterproof/leakproof as long as you pack up the ION without water in the reservoir.
Sometimes a backpack is a bit much, and I am fortunate that I found a variety of electric handheld bidets have been introduced in the last year or so that look like oversized lipstick tubes with an angled end. Most of these do not have enough pressure to really be much better, but the Insolife comes with some replaceable face plates that let you choose a single hole option that has a max pressure only slightly less than the WaterPik ION. The fanny pack I recommend can hold the Insolife and its bottle assembled with no leakage (again, presuming you mainly have the bottle empty), as well as the two collapsible bottles. I recommend these particular collapsibles as they stand reasonably well when filled, can take the top off which makes filling them easy in almost all sinks (as opposed to rigid ones that may not fit), and they have a spout to make it easy to move water from those bottles to the one for the Insolife.
I hope this helps those of you who may be looking for a bidet answer when you're away from home!
submitted by TXNatureTherapy to bidets [link] [comments]
Best Option (if you can get by with a little more $$$ and bulk):
WaterPik ION - $100
Collapsible Stool - 15 inches or higher - $20 - $30
BabbleRoo Diaper Bag Backpack - $35
32 oz water bottle - $20
Almost as good (better if you're on a tight budget or really need something slim):
INSOLIFE Electric USB Rechargeable Travel Bidet (2nd Generation) - $55
WATERFLY Fanny Pack - Water Resistant - Large - $20
2 SPECIAL MADE Collapsible Water Bottles - $30
The reality is that I work a job with a decent bit of travel, and often visiting clients for a day or so at a time. I have a skin condition that was wreaking havoc on my bum for years until I switched to a bidet, and now I rarely have problems. So I needed something I could take with me that didn't have to be installed.
For testing, I purchased several squeeze bidets (both full bottle and bottle inserts), several electric handheld bidets/"showers" (including the Toto and Panasonic model as well as some clones), a couple of handheld "water irrigators" (water flossers), as well as the two models listed above.
Testing was over a couple of weeks where I would alternate between different models and types through the day. I also did a test at the beginning and end of the time to see if there was any appreciable pressure difference after use.
None of the squeeze bidets would get me appreciably clean by themselves. In addition to being a bit awkward (particularly the models that have to be inserted into a filled bottle), I could rarely get more than a couple of squeezes out at decent pressure. If you used wipes first, these might help with refreshing your skin and using fewer wipes in total. But if you are trying to avoid wipes in the first place (that pesky skin condition again), then you can cross these off the list.
The Toto and Panasonic models were designed when AA batteries in hand electronics were the rage, and their motors are limited to the power that two AA batteries can produce. They both have small reservoirs, although the Panasonic is designed to also fit on certain water bottles. Even with the increased water amounts, there just isn't enough pressure to really wash anything off. Making these only slightly better (and much more expensive) than the squeeze bottles.
The clones are even worse as many of them have rechargeable batteries, but still use (steal?) the same motor design even though they could clearly be more powerful.
The oral irrigators generally have an issue that they first have to be hacked a bit as they are designed to be used upright, while as a bidet you are using them flat or even a little inverted. For most of them this means cutting their feed hose so that it feeds from the top of the reservoir. Unfortunately most of these have small reservoirs (to make them easy to carry), and most often have only two power options - which are usually way too weak, and way too hard.
For the last couple of years, this has meant my "go to" travel bidet has been the WaterPik ION. It's a rechargeable "flosser" (so you can just charge once a day), has a decent 20 oz reservoir, and a dialable power option that can let you adjust the strength to your heart's content. It also has a second "on/off" switch on the handle of the tip to minimize spraying places you don't mean to. Unfortunately since it isn't designed as a bidet, you also have to carry a small stool (folding or telescoping) to make sure the hose from the tip to the tank isn't stretched too far. Fortunately, the BabbleRoo bag is large enough to hold all of this as well as a filled water bottle if you don't want to setup and then run to the sink. It also is pretty much waterproof/leakproof as long as you pack up the ION without water in the reservoir.
Sometimes a backpack is a bit much, and I am fortunate that I found a variety of electric handheld bidets have been introduced in the last year or so that look like oversized lipstick tubes with an angled end. Most of these do not have enough pressure to really be much better, but the Insolife comes with some replaceable face plates that let you choose a single hole option that has a max pressure only slightly less than the WaterPik ION. The fanny pack I recommend can hold the Insolife and its bottle assembled with no leakage (again, presuming you mainly have the bottle empty), as well as the two collapsible bottles. I recommend these particular collapsibles as they stand reasonably well when filled, can take the top off which makes filling them easy in almost all sinks (as opposed to rigid ones that may not fit), and they have a spout to make it easy to move water from those bottles to the one for the Insolife.
I hope this helps those of you who may be looking for a bidet answer when you're away from home!
2024.04.28 16:31 Radiant_gamma Lahore airport customs experience
Hi everyone,
I’m planning a trip to Lahore and I’ll be bringing a few items with me that I’m a bit concerned about getting through customs. I have a PlayStation 5 console and two controllers, which will be unpacked but look new, along with it I will also be carrying 10 kilograms of whey protein powder for my brother who is a gym freak.
Has anyone had experience traveling with similar items through Lahore airport? I’m curious about whether there might be any customs issues with either the electronics or the amount of protein powder. Any advice or experiences you could share would be really helpful!
submitted by Radiant_gamma to Lahore [link] [comments]
I’m planning a trip to Lahore and I’ll be bringing a few items with me that I’m a bit concerned about getting through customs. I have a PlayStation 5 console and two controllers, which will be unpacked but look new, along with it I will also be carrying 10 kilograms of whey protein powder for my brother who is a gym freak.
Has anyone had experience traveling with similar items through Lahore airport? I’m curious about whether there might be any customs issues with either the electronics or the amount of protein powder. Any advice or experiences you could share would be really helpful!
2024.04.28 14:18 LastWeekInCollapse Last Week in Collapse: April 21-27, 2024
Bird flu in the milk, an Israel-Lebanon War draws closer, and the worst-case scenarios get even worse.
Last Week in Collapse: April 21-27, 2024
This is Last Week in Collapse, a weekly newsletter compiling some of the most important, timely, useful, soul-crushing, ironic, stunning, exhausting, or otherwise must-see/can’t-look-away moments in Collapse.
This is the 122nd newsletter. You can find the April 14-20 edition here if you missed it last week. You can also receive these posts (with images) every Sunday in your email inbox with Substack.
——————————
The EU Green coalition claims that the Green Deal is probably dead now, since conservatives are projected to make small gains in this June’s EU Parliamentary election.
Gullies are becoming more common across Brazil and several other South American states, a crisis worsened by climate change & deforestation. One coastal municipality in Brazil has seen 50+ homes eaten by new holes; 100+ families have been displaced there as well. The process happens when large quantities of rainfall, unable to be absorbed into the soil (because of overdevelopment & deforestation), run off, carrying the dirt away with it. In the Himalayas, glacial lakes are growing from the massive meltwater piling up in the mountains.
Climatologists believe this summer is going to break records for temperature and/or humidity, with a 70% chance. A study in npj climate and atmospheric science determined that AI holds great potential in forecasting future storms…An analysis of the November 2023 Storm Ciarán predicted its 48-hour trajectory with reasonable accuracy.
A dust storm blew into Athens from Africa, the worst such incident in 6 years. The images look like they’re straight out of a cli-fi movie—or from Mars.
Taiwan felt 6.3 magnitude aftershocks from its 7.3 earthquake 3 weeks earlier, rumbling buildings. Thailand [issued an extreme heat warning](https://phys.org/news/2024-04-heatstroke-thailand-year-kingdom.html) after temperatures surpassed 40 °C (104 °F) this week, with a heat index expected to break 52 °C (125 °F). In the first 108 days of the year, Thailand recorded 30 deaths from heatstroke—compare that with 37 in all of 2023. Meanwhile, the heat index in the Philippines hit 47 °C (117 °F), forcing the government to close thousands of schools; one scientist said there was a 50/50 chance it the heat worsening in the coming days. Drought in the Philippines got so bad that an old settlement, flooded by the construction of a 1970s dam, resurfaced after El Niño-aggravated Drought dropped reservoir levels.
The CDC and the U.S. National Weather Service released a new heat scale, with another color representing the most dangerous level of heat. You can search your zip code here to check for your heat alarm level. Meanwhile, the famed climate scientist Michael Mann is predicting the most storms on record this hurricane season, estimating 33 in total.
Water shortage in Scotland. Drought in Spain & Greece expands; one major Spanish wine company laid off 80% of its staff indefinitely because the vines are barely producing anything. In Thailand, sugar farms are drying up. In France, a strange kind of “last chance tourists” from all over are converging on the Alps to see once-epic glaciers before they’re gone forever… Europe, the fastest warming continent, is seeing more days of heat stress than ever before.
A study in Earth’s Future examined the effect of wildfires in Greater Siberia, and found that they are projected to create a cooling effect over part of the northern hemisphere, along with the more obvious: lowered air quality & economic damage.
The total area of oases across the world expanded from 1995-2020 by 220,000+ km² (85,000+ mi²)—an area larger than the size of the island Britain, or Japan’s largest island, Honshu. Most of this expansion was the result of artificial expansion. However, the study from Earth’s Future also says that the risk of desertification is quite high, owing to mismanagement of water resources.
Wildfires in British Columbia & Alberta, including dozens of carry-over fires from last year. Record night temperatures for April in parts of West Africa—Chad even tied its hottest day in history with 48 °C (118 °F). Six countries in southeastern Asia recorded their hottest April night temps. Türkiye felt its hottest day ever in April last week: 39.2 °C (102.5 °F). Drought in Mexico is causing conflict between subsistence farmers and the cartel-linked avocado plantations. Sea surface temperatures remain at record highs for this time of year.
A 14-page article in Science Advances claims that deep sea troughs ferrying circumpolar deep water (CDW) (often warmer & saltier) to the undersides of ice shelves is causing concerning levels of melt. Making the problem worse is an upwelling of an ice shelf’s newly melted freshwater, which rises and pulls the salty water upwards. The study summary explains better, and warns that this feedback loop may reduce the stability of our ice shelves, leading to their Collapse. Some experts are proposing a large geoengineering attempt, spraying aerosols in the stratosphere atop ice shelves within the next 25 years—although they warn such efforts will not be productive unless they are also accompanied by massive CO2 emissions reductions.
Anchovies traditionally found in the Mediterranean have been detected off the Irish coast—about 750,000,000 of them—and scientists are baffled. They say that rising ocean temperatures are probably not enough to attribute this habitat change, since fewer than 150,000,000 anchovies were detected in those waters four years ago.
South Africa & Namibia saw record autumn temperatures. Flooding in Mauritius forced the shutdown of many banks & offices, and flooding worsened in East Africa, where 90+ have been killed by storms in the last fortnight. Tobacco plantations in Uganda killed off the usual animal food sources, forcing local species to eat virus-thick feces...yes, really. Meanwhile, one of the largest mountains of trash in India has been on fire for a few days, spewing toxic fumes into the atmosphere; and it’s still growing by 2,000 tons of garbage every day.
NASA released before & after images from Dubai’s historic flooding.
Foreign diseases & pests are damaging EU agriculture—some 70 new threats each year. In Botswana, Drought is evaporating muddy ponds, trapping hippos; those which escape, desperately thirsty, become aggressive and invade nearby villages.
Over Antarctica, the ozone hole is stretching into December, the start of summer—and the breeding season. Scientists say the exposure to extra radiation is affecting the eyesight of animals, and may threaten their general health. They also blame Australian wildfires for the longer-lasting ozone hole.
——————————
Drinking water in Bangladesh is being poisoned by rising salinity in drinking water. Women are especially affected, particularly pregnant women, who suffer complications resulting from malnutrition, hypertension, menstrual interference, and more.
Residents of an old neighborhood in Ethiopia were given 5 days notice before demolition—ostensibly to rebuild a modern city center……including a $10B (USD) palace complex. Standardized test scores in the UK are at appalling lows—a result blamed, myopically, mostly on COVID school closures.
A study summary from the UK claims that 28% of COVID survivors will develop some form of Long COVID—25% of those will experience brain fog, and 75% some form of depression and/or anxiety. Examinations into the variant of COVID which infected an old Dutch man—and persisted in his body for 613 days—found that the COVID strain mutated into a new immuno-evasive strain inside his body…before killing him.
A 75-page report from the International Organization for Migration (IOM) concluded that migration has now rebounded completely from its COVID dip. The U.S. FDA announced that food recalls hit a new high in 2023, the most since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Scientists claim bird flu was in cows last year, probably. The U.S. FDA also announced that traces of bird flu were found in pasteurized milk—some 20% of samples—but the milk is still safe to drink. Nevertheless, the USDA is doing ongoing milk testing, albeit less than they first promised. The spread of Asian tiger mosquitoes farther northward in Europe portends the spread of malaria and dengue fever to areas where it has never before reached.
Shadow banking relates to non-bank lenders: mostly private investors, and unregulated institutions. Shadow banking is supposedly a $63 trillion (USD) problem worldwide—and the shadow real estate market in South Korea has central banks concerned. Delinquency rates are up, and shadow banking in real estate totals almost $7 trillion (USD). The Bank of England is warning about massive job losses if trends in shadow banking turn sour. Commodity prices worldwide are supposedly going to drop slightly, but inflation will remain.
In Scotland, rising numbers of youths are smoking marijuana. Across Great Britain, child alcohol abuse has become a serious problem; the UK has the highest rate worldwide, according to the collected data. In France, youth curfews have been imposed to keep unaccompanied children under age 13 off the street—more for the safety of adults than the kids.
——————————
Two Malaysian helicopters collided mid-air, killing 10. The UK once again vowed to move forward with deporting migrants to Rwanda this summer. Protestors clashed with police in Venice over a modest €5 fee to enter the historic city on the front lines of climate change. Espionage against Germany, by Russia and China, is growing—or at least being identified.
Haiti continues to get worse as famine continues eating away at the population. 90% of Port-Au-Prince lives under control of the gangs; the other 10% lives under fear of gang expansion. Gangs forced the stop of the unloading of fuel at a port terminal on Monday so they could better wield their fuel as leverage. Haiti’s new transitional council has been sworn in, but is impotent on arrival.
Rebel groups in Sudan, including but not limited to the RSF, attacked 11 settlements in Darfur, following an old anti-black pattern practiced by the Janjaweed. In addition to potentially thousands of lives lost, the traumas of War threaten to perpetuate generational tensions from which new conflicts could sprout. A city that once held half a million people (many of whom were themselves displaced earlier) was razed and the people scattered or killed. And barely a peep of this makes the weekly news…
In Balochistan, a large region of Pakistan, an insurgency is growing, targeting Pakistani security forces and Chinese workers. Killings and IED detonations are said to be reported almost every day. Recruitment into the terror group, several thousand members, has been increased in response to the government’s militarized approach to counterinsurgency. Years of somewhat porous borders have also allowed abandoned American weapons to transit from Afghanistan into the region, empowering rebels.
US-Philippines military drills began the biggest ever between the two nations. Hundreds of people are flowing into Thailand from Myanmar every day, many of them wounded by the heavy-handed ruling junta forces. “This is the worst in my time in 35 years here,” one doctor said of the spike in patients. The junta is becoming so desperate that they are trying to draft Muslim Rohingyas into their forces, some of the very people they attacked, and denied citizenship to, several years ago.
Donald Trump is building a team of China hawks for his potential cabinet, and allegedly planning a more aggressive stance towards China, should he return to power. Reports emerged that, on the day Iran launched 300+ drones against Israel, a simultaneous crackdown began in Iran against women flouting the country’s strict hijab laws. More details are emerging about a massacre in Burkina Faso from February: “They separated men and women in groups…As we started moving forward, they opened fire on us indiscriminately,” said one survivor.
The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights announced the discovery of mass graves at two hospitals in Gaza—”buried deep in the ground and covered with waste.” An official from the United Nations announced that clearing all the rubble and unexploded bombs from Gaza could take 14 years. And the War isn’t over yet. A growing number of analysts say War against Hezbollah is inevitable as both sides have recently escalated strikes over their 130 km (81 mi) border barrier, the so-called Blue Line.
Hundreds of student protestors were arrested across a number of universities, demanding the institutions divest from Israeli corporations, and generally opposing Israel’s actions in Gaza. Hundreds of thousands of students in Argentina protested against cuts to universities.
Ukraine suspended consular services for some men aged 18-60 living outside Ukraine, as part of a pressure campaign to get them back to Ukraine, where they can be conscripted. Russia warned that every action has an equal and opposite reaction, threatening an unspecified retaliation if Ukraine’s allies seize the roughly $300B frozen assets formerly under Russia’s control. On the battlefield, momentum is moving against Ukraine, although small victories remain. Ukraine is pulling back its Abrams tanks because Russian drones are too easily taking out the tanks. Five of the thirty-one $10M-apiece tanks provided in September have been destroyed so far. Reports emerged that the U.S. sent long-range ATACMS to Ukraine secretly; the ballistic missiles can strike targets up to 300 km away. Ammunition for Patriot systems is now being rushed to Ukraine.
Russia vetoed a resolution to ban the use of nuclear weapons in space. Worldwide, defense spending hit new all-time highs in 2023—about $2.44 trillion USD. (The U.S. accounts for $850B of that total.)
Amnesty International released its enormous, 418-page State of the World’s Human Rights Report for 2023, with 155 country-specific rundowns of selected human rights violations. Search for your own country and judge for yourself how accurate their report is. The general worldwide picture is one of regression to old norms and the breakdown of international law.
“...authoritarian policies ate away at freedoms of expression and association, hit out at gender equality,and eroded sexual and reproductive rights. The underlying public narratives, based in hatred and rooted in fear, encroached on civic space and demonized marginalized individuals…Climate activists were branded “terrorists” for denouncing governments expanding fossil fuel production and investment…States turned increasingly to facial recognition technologies to aid policing of public protests…in Afghanistan, being a woman or a girl has been de facto criminalized…To be a Palestinian in Gaza today is to be plunged to a far more violent and destructive version of the 1948 Nakba...Russia’s aggression has continued to manifest itself in deliberate attacks against civilians, the killing of thousands, and widespread destruction of civilian infrastructure…” -selections from the executive summary
——————————
Select comments/threads from the subreddit last week suggest:
-There will (probably) be signs before SHTF—so say these comments in a thread about horizon scanning a doomsday event. But for some crises, like earthquakes, they spring up suddenly and unexpectedly. This is the very nature of an emergency.
-Household financial troubles are mounting, getting a decent job is nigh-impossible, everyone is coughing, demoralized people are throwing away their lives, trust is gone, most people seem exhausted, and there’s bird flu in the milk—says this essay-length weekly observation from the United States.
Got any feedback, questions, comments, complaints, upvotes, crystal ball predictions, etc.? Check out the Last Week in Collapse SubStack if you don’t want to check collapse every Sunday, you can receive this newsletter sent to your (or someone else’s) email inbox every weekend. What did I forget this week?
submitted by LastWeekInCollapse to collapse [link] [comments]
Last Week in Collapse: April 21-27, 2024
This is Last Week in Collapse, a weekly newsletter compiling some of the most important, timely, useful, soul-crushing, ironic, stunning, exhausting, or otherwise must-see/can’t-look-away moments in Collapse.
This is the 122nd newsletter. You can find the April 14-20 edition here if you missed it last week. You can also receive these posts (with images) every Sunday in your email inbox with Substack.
——————————
The EU Green coalition claims that the Green Deal is probably dead now, since conservatives are projected to make small gains in this June’s EU Parliamentary election.
Gullies are becoming more common across Brazil and several other South American states, a crisis worsened by climate change & deforestation. One coastal municipality in Brazil has seen 50+ homes eaten by new holes; 100+ families have been displaced there as well. The process happens when large quantities of rainfall, unable to be absorbed into the soil (because of overdevelopment & deforestation), run off, carrying the dirt away with it. In the Himalayas, glacial lakes are growing from the massive meltwater piling up in the mountains.
Climatologists believe this summer is going to break records for temperature and/or humidity, with a 70% chance. A study in npj climate and atmospheric science determined that AI holds great potential in forecasting future storms…An analysis of the November 2023 Storm Ciarán predicted its 48-hour trajectory with reasonable accuracy.
A dust storm blew into Athens from Africa, the worst such incident in 6 years. The images look like they’re straight out of a cli-fi movie—or from Mars.
Taiwan felt 6.3 magnitude aftershocks from its 7.3 earthquake 3 weeks earlier, rumbling buildings. Thailand [issued an extreme heat warning](https://phys.org/news/2024-04-heatstroke-thailand-year-kingdom.html) after temperatures surpassed 40 °C (104 °F) this week, with a heat index expected to break 52 °C (125 °F). In the first 108 days of the year, Thailand recorded 30 deaths from heatstroke—compare that with 37 in all of 2023. Meanwhile, the heat index in the Philippines hit 47 °C (117 °F), forcing the government to close thousands of schools; one scientist said there was a 50/50 chance it the heat worsening in the coming days. Drought in the Philippines got so bad that an old settlement, flooded by the construction of a 1970s dam, resurfaced after El Niño-aggravated Drought dropped reservoir levels.
The CDC and the U.S. National Weather Service released a new heat scale, with another color representing the most dangerous level of heat. You can search your zip code here to check for your heat alarm level. Meanwhile, the famed climate scientist Michael Mann is predicting the most storms on record this hurricane season, estimating 33 in total.
Water shortage in Scotland. Drought in Spain & Greece expands; one major Spanish wine company laid off 80% of its staff indefinitely because the vines are barely producing anything. In Thailand, sugar farms are drying up. In France, a strange kind of “last chance tourists” from all over are converging on the Alps to see once-epic glaciers before they’re gone forever… Europe, the fastest warming continent, is seeing more days of heat stress than ever before.
A study in Earth’s Future examined the effect of wildfires in Greater Siberia, and found that they are projected to create a cooling effect over part of the northern hemisphere, along with the more obvious: lowered air quality & economic damage.
The total area of oases across the world expanded from 1995-2020 by 220,000+ km² (85,000+ mi²)—an area larger than the size of the island Britain, or Japan’s largest island, Honshu. Most of this expansion was the result of artificial expansion. However, the study from Earth’s Future also says that the risk of desertification is quite high, owing to mismanagement of water resources.
Wildfires in British Columbia & Alberta, including dozens of carry-over fires from last year. Record night temperatures for April in parts of West Africa—Chad even tied its hottest day in history with 48 °C (118 °F). Six countries in southeastern Asia recorded their hottest April night temps. Türkiye felt its hottest day ever in April last week: 39.2 °C (102.5 °F). Drought in Mexico is causing conflict between subsistence farmers and the cartel-linked avocado plantations. Sea surface temperatures remain at record highs for this time of year.
A 14-page article in Science Advances claims that deep sea troughs ferrying circumpolar deep water (CDW) (often warmer & saltier) to the undersides of ice shelves is causing concerning levels of melt. Making the problem worse is an upwelling of an ice shelf’s newly melted freshwater, which rises and pulls the salty water upwards. The study summary explains better, and warns that this feedback loop may reduce the stability of our ice shelves, leading to their Collapse. Some experts are proposing a large geoengineering attempt, spraying aerosols in the stratosphere atop ice shelves within the next 25 years—although they warn such efforts will not be productive unless they are also accompanied by massive CO2 emissions reductions.
Anchovies traditionally found in the Mediterranean have been detected off the Irish coast—about 750,000,000 of them—and scientists are baffled. They say that rising ocean temperatures are probably not enough to attribute this habitat change, since fewer than 150,000,000 anchovies were detected in those waters four years ago.
South Africa & Namibia saw record autumn temperatures. Flooding in Mauritius forced the shutdown of many banks & offices, and flooding worsened in East Africa, where 90+ have been killed by storms in the last fortnight. Tobacco plantations in Uganda killed off the usual animal food sources, forcing local species to eat virus-thick feces...yes, really. Meanwhile, one of the largest mountains of trash in India has been on fire for a few days, spewing toxic fumes into the atmosphere; and it’s still growing by 2,000 tons of garbage every day.
NASA released before & after images from Dubai’s historic flooding.
Foreign diseases & pests are damaging EU agriculture—some 70 new threats each year. In Botswana, Drought is evaporating muddy ponds, trapping hippos; those which escape, desperately thirsty, become aggressive and invade nearby villages.
Over Antarctica, the ozone hole is stretching into December, the start of summer—and the breeding season. Scientists say the exposure to extra radiation is affecting the eyesight of animals, and may threaten their general health. They also blame Australian wildfires for the longer-lasting ozone hole.
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Drinking water in Bangladesh is being poisoned by rising salinity in drinking water. Women are especially affected, particularly pregnant women, who suffer complications resulting from malnutrition, hypertension, menstrual interference, and more.
Residents of an old neighborhood in Ethiopia were given 5 days notice before demolition—ostensibly to rebuild a modern city center……including a $10B (USD) palace complex. Standardized test scores in the UK are at appalling lows—a result blamed, myopically, mostly on COVID school closures.
A study summary from the UK claims that 28% of COVID survivors will develop some form of Long COVID—25% of those will experience brain fog, and 75% some form of depression and/or anxiety. Examinations into the variant of COVID which infected an old Dutch man—and persisted in his body for 613 days—found that the COVID strain mutated into a new immuno-evasive strain inside his body…before killing him.
A 75-page report from the International Organization for Migration (IOM) concluded that migration has now rebounded completely from its COVID dip. The U.S. FDA announced that food recalls hit a new high in 2023, the most since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Scientists claim bird flu was in cows last year, probably. The U.S. FDA also announced that traces of bird flu were found in pasteurized milk—some 20% of samples—but the milk is still safe to drink. Nevertheless, the USDA is doing ongoing milk testing, albeit less than they first promised. The spread of Asian tiger mosquitoes farther northward in Europe portends the spread of malaria and dengue fever to areas where it has never before reached.
Shadow banking relates to non-bank lenders: mostly private investors, and unregulated institutions. Shadow banking is supposedly a $63 trillion (USD) problem worldwide—and the shadow real estate market in South Korea has central banks concerned. Delinquency rates are up, and shadow banking in real estate totals almost $7 trillion (USD). The Bank of England is warning about massive job losses if trends in shadow banking turn sour. Commodity prices worldwide are supposedly going to drop slightly, but inflation will remain.
In Scotland, rising numbers of youths are smoking marijuana. Across Great Britain, child alcohol abuse has become a serious problem; the UK has the highest rate worldwide, according to the collected data. In France, youth curfews have been imposed to keep unaccompanied children under age 13 off the street—more for the safety of adults than the kids.
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Two Malaysian helicopters collided mid-air, killing 10. The UK once again vowed to move forward with deporting migrants to Rwanda this summer. Protestors clashed with police in Venice over a modest €5 fee to enter the historic city on the front lines of climate change. Espionage against Germany, by Russia and China, is growing—or at least being identified.
Haiti continues to get worse as famine continues eating away at the population. 90% of Port-Au-Prince lives under control of the gangs; the other 10% lives under fear of gang expansion. Gangs forced the stop of the unloading of fuel at a port terminal on Monday so they could better wield their fuel as leverage. Haiti’s new transitional council has been sworn in, but is impotent on arrival.
Rebel groups in Sudan, including but not limited to the RSF, attacked 11 settlements in Darfur, following an old anti-black pattern practiced by the Janjaweed. In addition to potentially thousands of lives lost, the traumas of War threaten to perpetuate generational tensions from which new conflicts could sprout. A city that once held half a million people (many of whom were themselves displaced earlier) was razed and the people scattered or killed. And barely a peep of this makes the weekly news…
In Balochistan, a large region of Pakistan, an insurgency is growing, targeting Pakistani security forces and Chinese workers. Killings and IED detonations are said to be reported almost every day. Recruitment into the terror group, several thousand members, has been increased in response to the government’s militarized approach to counterinsurgency. Years of somewhat porous borders have also allowed abandoned American weapons to transit from Afghanistan into the region, empowering rebels.
US-Philippines military drills began the biggest ever between the two nations. Hundreds of people are flowing into Thailand from Myanmar every day, many of them wounded by the heavy-handed ruling junta forces. “This is the worst in my time in 35 years here,” one doctor said of the spike in patients. The junta is becoming so desperate that they are trying to draft Muslim Rohingyas into their forces, some of the very people they attacked, and denied citizenship to, several years ago.
Donald Trump is building a team of China hawks for his potential cabinet, and allegedly planning a more aggressive stance towards China, should he return to power. Reports emerged that, on the day Iran launched 300+ drones against Israel, a simultaneous crackdown began in Iran against women flouting the country’s strict hijab laws. More details are emerging about a massacre in Burkina Faso from February: “They separated men and women in groups…As we started moving forward, they opened fire on us indiscriminately,” said one survivor.
The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights announced the discovery of mass graves at two hospitals in Gaza—”buried deep in the ground and covered with waste.” An official from the United Nations announced that clearing all the rubble and unexploded bombs from Gaza could take 14 years. And the War isn’t over yet. A growing number of analysts say War against Hezbollah is inevitable as both sides have recently escalated strikes over their 130 km (81 mi) border barrier, the so-called Blue Line.
Hundreds of student protestors were arrested across a number of universities, demanding the institutions divest from Israeli corporations, and generally opposing Israel’s actions in Gaza. Hundreds of thousands of students in Argentina protested against cuts to universities.
Ukraine suspended consular services for some men aged 18-60 living outside Ukraine, as part of a pressure campaign to get them back to Ukraine, where they can be conscripted. Russia warned that every action has an equal and opposite reaction, threatening an unspecified retaliation if Ukraine’s allies seize the roughly $300B frozen assets formerly under Russia’s control. On the battlefield, momentum is moving against Ukraine, although small victories remain. Ukraine is pulling back its Abrams tanks because Russian drones are too easily taking out the tanks. Five of the thirty-one $10M-apiece tanks provided in September have been destroyed so far. Reports emerged that the U.S. sent long-range ATACMS to Ukraine secretly; the ballistic missiles can strike targets up to 300 km away. Ammunition for Patriot systems is now being rushed to Ukraine.
Russia vetoed a resolution to ban the use of nuclear weapons in space. Worldwide, defense spending hit new all-time highs in 2023—about $2.44 trillion USD. (The U.S. accounts for $850B of that total.)
Amnesty International released its enormous, 418-page State of the World’s Human Rights Report for 2023, with 155 country-specific rundowns of selected human rights violations. Search for your own country and judge for yourself how accurate their report is. The general worldwide picture is one of regression to old norms and the breakdown of international law.
“...authoritarian policies ate away at freedoms of expression and association, hit out at gender equality,and eroded sexual and reproductive rights. The underlying public narratives, based in hatred and rooted in fear, encroached on civic space and demonized marginalized individuals…Climate activists were branded “terrorists” for denouncing governments expanding fossil fuel production and investment…States turned increasingly to facial recognition technologies to aid policing of public protests…in Afghanistan, being a woman or a girl has been de facto criminalized…To be a Palestinian in Gaza today is to be plunged to a far more violent and destructive version of the 1948 Nakba...Russia’s aggression has continued to manifest itself in deliberate attacks against civilians, the killing of thousands, and widespread destruction of civilian infrastructure…” -selections from the executive summary
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Select comments/threads from the subreddit last week suggest:
-There will (probably) be signs before SHTF—so say these comments in a thread about horizon scanning a doomsday event. But for some crises, like earthquakes, they spring up suddenly and unexpectedly. This is the very nature of an emergency.
-Household financial troubles are mounting, getting a decent job is nigh-impossible, everyone is coughing, demoralized people are throwing away their lives, trust is gone, most people seem exhausted, and there’s bird flu in the milk—says this essay-length weekly observation from the United States.
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2024.04.28 09:56 siderealsolitude I just don't belong
Or at least that's what my mom meant when she said I'm crazy and a burden on speakerphone, within earshot.
She's right, in an accidental way. I've never belonged. I didn't belong in my family, whose dysfunctionality made me who I am today. I've never belonged in elementary and middle school, both as a result of the above and neurodivergence. I've never belonged in high school, when the other kids were going out to get plastered, and I was just huddled up inside with my then uncontrolled OCD dialed up to 11. Still, that's when I felt the first embers of what truly belonging must feel like. Honest, straightforward kids. Would talk to me in spite of my social anxiety. Had a little fun in between breaking down.
Then school ended. I almost never saw them again. Instead, what I was doing was play Minecraft all day for a year because I felt like I deserved a sabbatical after the torture that was pushing my disabled mind through the educational system. I sort of didn't belong in society, given that what I was doing already entailed seclusion and choosing the virtual because I didn't know what to do in the real world. Whatever, teenager. Still managed to get a couple skills, more on that in a minute.
Then I had my first panic attack, which lead to traumatic agoraphobia, derealisation, depersonalisation that forced me to spend one year recovering from. 3 mg of Klonopin was not even enough to calm down the chaos inside. I definitely didn't belong, then.
Then, after that... I just chose to live my life in an anxious, hypochondriac and paranoid limbo that i justified to myself as being a post-teenage years life journey to find myself, and maybe even become... the videogame composer I was clearly meant to be. I was going to the gym and making progress. I stopped when the Ebola scare hit. I tried however many random university courses, I couldn't take it. I couldn't deal with because I didn't belong, and thus I could never interact or act normally, spontaneously.
Then I decided to fix my life. No more aimless goals. First university I enrolled at for game design wasn't a great place at all. Then I tried again, but something completely arbitrary got in the way. Then I tried graphic design, and again something completely arbitrary got in the way. Clearly, I didn't belong in the overall pattern I was trying to give to my wrecked life.
I wonder if that last one was for the better. After trying driving school and failing to pass the driving exam, I pushed it forward a little bit. I was 25 and determined to make my life better. There was still time. I desperately enrolled in a kind of mediocre graphic design university course. I was doing well.
But then the pandemic hit that year. All of my hopes of belonging to an actual flesh and blood group of people going in the direction I was going in evaporated. But whatever, met my classmates online. My professors were a joy. I was doing well!
Then the pandemic got me, too. It didn't put me in the hospital or anything. It all seemed fine, and I was wrapping up the semester. Oh, how mistaken I was. About 1 month after I had COVID my previously benign solar urticaria morphed into an uncontrollable multiallergy beast that quite literally chokes me out every single day. I now didn't belong to the world of the physically able, and I've mourned it ever since.
Still, one foot after the other. I toughed it out. Had a therapist tell me I deserved praise for still choosing to carry on. Maybe she wss right? I continued stubbornly, got my degree through sheer tenacity in face of the abyss. While being asked by a professor what I was doing in GD, since I was clearly a much better fit for gamedev. Could sprite, could do music, could design. Didn't really belong in GD, as I'd come to lament later.
So, I'm holding my degree, right? Except I'm not really. I have to wait on them a while. It's fine, I tell myself even as I got wrecked by my physical condition that I still desperately try to treat. I'll wait a bit, get that degree, and get cracking!
Except it doesn't work that way. By the time I have my hands on it I'm 28, still ill, and I haven't a clue how to even start. Then I realised I didn't start. I did not belong in the corporate to and fro of GD, especially as techbros and AI make it more and more insufferably yuppie. All of that effort was simply wasted. Wasted. Except for yet another glimmer of hope. I did learn a lot about design, so maybe I could do something else with it. Also, I hold a degree!
The entirety of 2023 consisted of me downgrading both my expectations and what I was left of my dignity until there was nothing left. Not eating anything that could've been a potential allergy trigger left me looking really thin and good the prior year. Once again I now felt as if I had the tools to get a move on. If not moving countries, then moving states. If not as an office worker, then as something similar. If not that then as a retail worker! Anything!
Until I felt the weight (quite literally) of my illnesses as I put on some pounds on Paxil, robbing me of my ok, still boyish looks and leaving me in a terrible state of confusion and dysphoria as I watched my sorry self degenerate into a misshapen blob in horror. A blob with knee issues. A blob with ever worsening fatty liver - had it even when I was thin, it's now severe. A blob, truly. One that has a mouth but can only really scream at the walls. I've been isolated. With every step I take forward, I get hit with some of the worst life has to offer. It's excruciating, and the only worse thing, the one that makes me cry sometimes is counting down the months to 30 while seeing the people around me living eventful lives. While seeing them belonging even as I choke on food, and am thought of as just a crazy hypochondriac who cried wolf one too many times. Having fun, playing sports. All of those things I could just never do again.
Hell, I don't even belong in my niches anymore. I do not have the health and energy to deliver a game jam game on time. Or even the interest, given that currently my prime concerns lie in surviving this awful prelude to the definitive end of my youth. Additionally, I think that all the online friends I still have left think I'm an annoying chatterbox, so now I just shut up. A lot of them are also moving on with their lives, as they mature, and mature beyond me. Those who aren't are sometimes worse off than I am mentally, and for that reason some are no longer even my friends. And thus I've come to feel like I live between normality and divergence, thus not belonging to either. An "offbeat" dude strapped to a torture chair.
I've finally done it, I've managed to not belong anywhere! I wonder what awaits me next. Probably some other thing that will rob me of what little I have in this paradigm, and will make me look back on these days as the late halcyon age of my life. Let's just say that I don't expect to have a middle age crisis, like I had and am having a quarter life one. By then I'll most likely be insane or dead.
submitted by siderealsolitude to depression [link] [comments]
She's right, in an accidental way. I've never belonged. I didn't belong in my family, whose dysfunctionality made me who I am today. I've never belonged in elementary and middle school, both as a result of the above and neurodivergence. I've never belonged in high school, when the other kids were going out to get plastered, and I was just huddled up inside with my then uncontrolled OCD dialed up to 11. Still, that's when I felt the first embers of what truly belonging must feel like. Honest, straightforward kids. Would talk to me in spite of my social anxiety. Had a little fun in between breaking down.
Then school ended. I almost never saw them again. Instead, what I was doing was play Minecraft all day for a year because I felt like I deserved a sabbatical after the torture that was pushing my disabled mind through the educational system. I sort of didn't belong in society, given that what I was doing already entailed seclusion and choosing the virtual because I didn't know what to do in the real world. Whatever, teenager. Still managed to get a couple skills, more on that in a minute.
Then I had my first panic attack, which lead to traumatic agoraphobia, derealisation, depersonalisation that forced me to spend one year recovering from. 3 mg of Klonopin was not even enough to calm down the chaos inside. I definitely didn't belong, then.
Then, after that... I just chose to live my life in an anxious, hypochondriac and paranoid limbo that i justified to myself as being a post-teenage years life journey to find myself, and maybe even become... the videogame composer I was clearly meant to be. I was going to the gym and making progress. I stopped when the Ebola scare hit. I tried however many random university courses, I couldn't take it. I couldn't deal with because I didn't belong, and thus I could never interact or act normally, spontaneously.
Then I decided to fix my life. No more aimless goals. First university I enrolled at for game design wasn't a great place at all. Then I tried again, but something completely arbitrary got in the way. Then I tried graphic design, and again something completely arbitrary got in the way. Clearly, I didn't belong in the overall pattern I was trying to give to my wrecked life.
I wonder if that last one was for the better. After trying driving school and failing to pass the driving exam, I pushed it forward a little bit. I was 25 and determined to make my life better. There was still time. I desperately enrolled in a kind of mediocre graphic design university course. I was doing well.
But then the pandemic hit that year. All of my hopes of belonging to an actual flesh and blood group of people going in the direction I was going in evaporated. But whatever, met my classmates online. My professors were a joy. I was doing well!
Then the pandemic got me, too. It didn't put me in the hospital or anything. It all seemed fine, and I was wrapping up the semester. Oh, how mistaken I was. About 1 month after I had COVID my previously benign solar urticaria morphed into an uncontrollable multiallergy beast that quite literally chokes me out every single day. I now didn't belong to the world of the physically able, and I've mourned it ever since.
Still, one foot after the other. I toughed it out. Had a therapist tell me I deserved praise for still choosing to carry on. Maybe she wss right? I continued stubbornly, got my degree through sheer tenacity in face of the abyss. While being asked by a professor what I was doing in GD, since I was clearly a much better fit for gamedev. Could sprite, could do music, could design. Didn't really belong in GD, as I'd come to lament later.
So, I'm holding my degree, right? Except I'm not really. I have to wait on them a while. It's fine, I tell myself even as I got wrecked by my physical condition that I still desperately try to treat. I'll wait a bit, get that degree, and get cracking!
Except it doesn't work that way. By the time I have my hands on it I'm 28, still ill, and I haven't a clue how to even start. Then I realised I didn't start. I did not belong in the corporate to and fro of GD, especially as techbros and AI make it more and more insufferably yuppie. All of that effort was simply wasted. Wasted. Except for yet another glimmer of hope. I did learn a lot about design, so maybe I could do something else with it. Also, I hold a degree!
The entirety of 2023 consisted of me downgrading both my expectations and what I was left of my dignity until there was nothing left. Not eating anything that could've been a potential allergy trigger left me looking really thin and good the prior year. Once again I now felt as if I had the tools to get a move on. If not moving countries, then moving states. If not as an office worker, then as something similar. If not that then as a retail worker! Anything!
Until I felt the weight (quite literally) of my illnesses as I put on some pounds on Paxil, robbing me of my ok, still boyish looks and leaving me in a terrible state of confusion and dysphoria as I watched my sorry self degenerate into a misshapen blob in horror. A blob with knee issues. A blob with ever worsening fatty liver - had it even when I was thin, it's now severe. A blob, truly. One that has a mouth but can only really scream at the walls. I've been isolated. With every step I take forward, I get hit with some of the worst life has to offer. It's excruciating, and the only worse thing, the one that makes me cry sometimes is counting down the months to 30 while seeing the people around me living eventful lives. While seeing them belonging even as I choke on food, and am thought of as just a crazy hypochondriac who cried wolf one too many times. Having fun, playing sports. All of those things I could just never do again.
Hell, I don't even belong in my niches anymore. I do not have the health and energy to deliver a game jam game on time. Or even the interest, given that currently my prime concerns lie in surviving this awful prelude to the definitive end of my youth. Additionally, I think that all the online friends I still have left think I'm an annoying chatterbox, so now I just shut up. A lot of them are also moving on with their lives, as they mature, and mature beyond me. Those who aren't are sometimes worse off than I am mentally, and for that reason some are no longer even my friends. And thus I've come to feel like I live between normality and divergence, thus not belonging to either. An "offbeat" dude strapped to a torture chair.
I've finally done it, I've managed to not belong anywhere! I wonder what awaits me next. Probably some other thing that will rob me of what little I have in this paradigm, and will make me look back on these days as the late halcyon age of my life. Let's just say that I don't expect to have a middle age crisis, like I had and am having a quarter life one. By then I'll most likely be insane or dead.
2024.04.28 09:23 avgweedfan Ethical Adaptation: A Study of the Miracle in the Andes
Hi SocietyOfTheSnow , I hope you're all having a great night. I've been lurking on this subreddit for a few months while I was working on this, so I figured it was only fair for me to share it here now that it's done (I think?). I am an undergraduate student at an university in the U.S., and I wrote this for my media ethics class. If you don't wanna read it, that's cool! If you do read it, thank you, and if you have any suggestions feel free to let me know (but be nice about it pls! I worked hard and am sensitive!)!! <3 also formatting is weird sorry I don't feel like fixing it lmfao, films are in italics, books are in bold
On October 12, 1972, a chartered Fairchild FH-227D departed from Montevideo, Uruguay en route to Santiago, Chile. The plane carried forty passengers and five crew members, including the nineteen members of the “Old Christians” rugby team, the team physician and his wife, as well as some supporters, family members, and friends of the team. Although scheduled to land the same day, the pilot decided to make a one-night stopover in Mendoza, Argentina due to bad weather. The plane departed again on October 13, 1972, at 2:18 pm. Because they couldn't go directly over the towering peaks of the Andes Mountains, the plane was supposed to take a 370-mile route south to Malargüe, west through the Planchon Pass to Curico, and north to Santiago. This should’ve taken an hour and a half. Clouds were obscuring the mountains, so the pilots were likely using radio navigation to get through the pass. Here, one of the pilots made a deadly error, incorrectly piloting the plane north and beginning the descent. Due to the heavy cloud cover, they didn’t realize their mistake until it was too late. The plane slammed into a mountain, losing both of the wings and the tail, causing seven passengers to fall from the open fuselage, all of whom were later found deceased. The crash is briefly described in an excerpt from a 2016 National Geographic interview with survivor Dr. Roberto Canessa. It reads:
Inside the fuselage, the survivors had found a meager amount of chocolate bars, jam, almonds, and dried fruits, as well as several bottles of wine. They rationed what they had, but it lasted only a week, and so, left with no alternative, the survivors resorted to anthropophagy. Survivor Dr. Roberto Canessa writes of the situation in his book I Had To Survive: How A Plane Crash In The Andes Inspired My Calling To Save Lives, excerpt adapted for The Daily Mail:
On October 29, a bit more than two weeks after the crash, tragedy once again befell the group when an avalanche struck the fuselage, burying it in snow and ice, and filling the cabin within just a few feet of the ceiling. This disaster killed eight and trapped the remaining survivors inside. Survivor Nando Parrado describes the aftermath in his book Miracle in the Andes: 72 Days on the Mountain and My Long Trek Home:
The plan was to allow the expedition group that was selected before the avalanche to get more rations, the best sleeping spots, and excusal from chores to build up their strength. The survivors agreed that the expeditionaries would travel east. Since the mountain peaks were slightly less daunting in this direction, the group hoped that once they got over the mountains they could find a valley that would turn around and bring them into Chile. Antonio “Tintin” Vizintin also joined the expedition, however, Adolfo “Fito” Strauch became afflicted with a severe case of hemorrhoids and needed to stay behind. It was also decided by the expeditionaries that Numa Turcatti would stay behind as well due to an infection in his leg, which, due to his aversion to eating the human flesh that was necessary for their survival, his body was unable to fight off. On the morning of November 17th, the remaining group of three expeditionaries set off away from the crash site. After about an hour and a half of hiking, Roberto Canessa, who was in the front of the group, spotted the tail. In the tail, they found luggage with more clothes, some rum, a box of chocolates, three small meat patties, a moldy sandwich, some cigarettes, a small camera loaded with film, and the batteries needed to power the radio in the fuselage. With no turning point towards the west in sight, the expeditionaries decided it would be best to turn back towards the crash site with the stuff they had found. However, the batteries were too heavy to carry all the way back in the snow, so they left them and decided instead to grab the radio from the Fairchild and bring it to the tail. The group made it back to the crash site on November 21st, and a few days later, they went back to the tail with the radio to try and get it to work. Unfortunately, these efforts were in vain, as the electronic components were too damaged to repair.
The expeditionaries returned to the fuselage, and at this point, the survivors realized their only chance at survival was to head directly west and find help in Chile. During the first week of December, they began to prepare, cutting extra meat and storing it in the snow, as well as sewing a sleeping bag using quilted batts of insulation and a sewing kit taken from the tail. On December 12, Nando Parrado, Roberto Canessa, and Antonio “Tintin” Vizintin left the wreckage of the Fairchild behind and began their trek up the mountain to the west. On the third morning, the expeditionaries reached the peak. Expecting to find the green valleys of Chile just beyond the mountain, they were shocked as they were faced with a seemingly never-ending view of the snowy cordillera. Despite the seemingly impossible circumstances, Canessa and Parrado still believed they could make it to the Chilean countryside, but didn’t have enough food to sustain all three of the expeditionaries for a trek of that caliber. So, it was at this point that the group decided to send Vizintin back to the crash site, while Canessa and Parrado would continue to the west. Three days after Vizintin had turned back and six days after they began the hike, the pair found a river with running water, which they began to follow down the mountain, and the day after they found an empty soup can, a horseshoe, a pile of feces, trees, and they even saw some cows from a distance. On December 20, after setting up camp for the night, Canessa spotted a man on a horse on the opposite side of the river. The man yelled to them but was drowned out by the river, however, they made out one word: “tomorrow”. The next day, the expeditionaries awoke at dawn to find three men around a fire on the other side of the river. Since the roar of the river was so loud, one of the men threw a pencil and paper tied to stones across the river, and Parrado wrote a message. That message read:
Ethically adapting true events for cinematic or literary purposes, especially in cases where lives were lost, raises complex questions about representation, storytelling, and the responsibilities of creators to both the subjects of the events (alive and deceased) and their audience. The TARES test is a framework that media professionals use to help assess ethical communication and influence. TARES is an acronym that stands for Truthful, Authentic, Respectful, Equitable, and Socially Responsible. These five elements represent the ethical communication criteria that are used to evaluate the ethical impact of a message. I will be using the TARES test to analyze the films Alive (1993) and Society of the Snow (2023), both based on the Miracle of the Andes, intending to empirically determine which adaptation is more ethical.
Alive, directed by Frank Marshall (Arachnaphobia) and written by John Patrick Shanley (Moonstruck, Doubt), was released in 1993 by Paramount Pictures. The film features an all-white cast, including stars Ethan Hawke and Josh Hamilton and narrator John Malkovitch. The film is named after and based on the book of the same name by Piers Paul Read, a British novelist, historian, and biographer, which was published in 1974. In the dedication, the survivors write that they “decided this book should be written and the truth known because of the many rumors about what happened in the cordillera”. Grossing slightly less than $37 million domestically, the experience of watching the Hollywood-ified adaptation of Read’s award-winning book is most aptly described by Robert Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times film critic, in 1993. He writes:
Society of the Snow was directed by J. A. Bayona (Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom, The Impossible) and released in 2023 by Netflix. It features 40 actors of Argentine and Uruguayan nationality, many of whom made their debut in this movie, and had an estimated budget of $65 million. The film is named after and based on the book of the same name by Pablo Vierci, a Uruguayan journalist who grew up with many of the people who were on Flight 571 and is credited as one of the associate producers of the film. The book also includes reflections written by some of the survivors. In a 2023 interview with The Hollywood Reporter, Director J. A. Bayona said that “at the heart of the book, there is this message that says that when everything has been taken from someone, you still have a chance of deciding what to do — why do you want to live? For whom do you want to die for?”. Bayonoa described the shoot as an exploration looking to answer these big questions, and it was with these questions in mind that they began doing interviews with all sixteen of the survivors, collecting over one hundred hours of recordings. Throughout the process of making the film, all the actors were in contact with not only the survivors, but also the families of the deceased, and the development and release of this film marks the first time all the survivors and families of the deceased have allowed their real names to be used. In an IndieWire exclusive, survivors Roberto Canessa and Gustavo Zerbino write of the film:
The first element of the TARES test that will be assessed is Truthful. This element questions whether the claims, both verbal and visual, are truthful, and, if the film communicates only part of the truth, if any omissions are deceptive. However, even if some facts are omitted, a film would pass the test if it meets a genuine human need to provide truthful information. Additionally, filmmakers should be able to verify with viewers the truthfulness of claims, and they should provide information to their audiences that will allow them to verify the truthfulness of claims in messages aimed at the public. "Unlike Alive, which is based solely on the facts of the story, Society of the Snow offers a much more philosophical take on what happened…It's not just about reiterating the facts. It's about engaging philosophically and spiritually on a deeper level with the story and exploring the true meaning of what happened in those mountains", Society of the Snow director J. A. Bayona says of the books that inspired the films. Despite this, after reading not only the books each movie is based on but additionally books written by survivors, Society is overall a more accurate depiction of the ordeal that the survivors went through in the Andes. There are always going to be differences when a book gets adapted for film, however, the differences between Paul Piers Read’s “classic” work of survival literature and the lukewarmly received 1993 adaptation are astounding. David Ansen summarizes it perfectly in an article for Newsweek, where he writes:
The second component of the TARES test, Authentic, suggests it's important not only to do the right thing, but also “to do it with the right attitude”, and is closely linked to the concepts of sincerity and disclosure. In a 2023 interview with The Hollywood Reporter, when asked about how he convinced the survivors and their families that he was going to handle everything sensitively and not in an exploitative way, Society of the Snow director J. A. Bayona responded that “[he] was worried…but the fact that [he] was putting the point of view from the other side made them very interested…somehow it’s the first time [they’re] telling the story of the whole society and that was very important, not only for the survivors but their families.” In the same interview, it gets brought up that the story of this disaster had been told before, so was it that he felt it needed to be told from a different perspective? He responds:
The next component of the TARES test deals with respect. When adapting true events, especially tragedies such as this, it's important to show respect to the people involved, both living and dead. This aspect has the creator consider if they are willing to take full, open, and personal responsibility for the content of the film. Frank Marshall’s Alive was aptly described in a review by Janet Maslin of the New York Times upon its release in 1993, which reads: “Alive, an account of plane-crash survivors who had to resort to cannibalism to last out their ordeal in the Andes, is a study in madness, not on the parts of the Uruguayan rugby players who are the film's principals but on those of the Hollywood filmmakers who felt this story had the makings of upbeat, big-budget entertainment”. Indeed, even Marshall himself insists “it’s one of those great Hollywood stories”. In his book, survivor Carlitos Páez writes that in Alive, “the magnitude of the avalanche was not portrayed in full force[, and] when he mentioned this to director Frank Marshall…he answered [that] he needed light to shoot and besides, it wasn’t his fault what [they] went through”. Society of the Snow seems to laugh in the face of this, depicting the avalanche in a horrifying and believable fashion. Additionally, as previously stated, director J. A. Bayona based much of his film on testimony from survivors, both from Society of the Snow and footage that they compiled during pre-production, as well as maintaining lines of contact between the actors portraying the people and either the people themselves or their families, if deceased. Through J. A. Bayona’s meticulous attention to detail, a general sense of empathy toward the passengers of Flight 571 from the entire cast and crew, and a thorough commitment to honoring the experiences of the victims and survivors, Society stands as a poignant example of how to show respect to the people involved in the real-life tragedies that are being adapted for the silver screen.
Equitable generally means dealing fairly and equally with all concerned, but in relation to the TARES test, it refers to whether the viewer is on the same level playing field as the film’s creator, or, in order to correctly interpret the film, must the viewer be abnormally well informed, unusually bright or quick-witted, and completely without prejudice. When comparing two films based on equitability in the context of ethical adaptation, the film that allows a wider range of viewers to engage with its themes and moral complexities without requiring exceptional cognitive abilities or specialized knowledge would be deemed more ethical. In this case, the films are evaluated based on how well they convey the survivors' experiences, challenges, and moral dilemmas without requiring viewers to have extensive knowledge of survival techniques or deep insights into the human psyche. One of the main differences between the two films is that Frank Marshall’s Alive has two distinct main characters - Nando Parrado and Roberto Canessa, the two survivors who would eventually trek 38 miles to find help, portrayed by Ethan Hawke and Josh Hamilton, respectively, whereas J. A. Bayona’s Society of the Snow focuses instead on the group as a whole, with the only possible main character being the film’s narrator, Enzo Vogrincic Roldán’s Numa Turcatti, the last passenger to die on the mountain. Although some criticize Society for this decision, citing that it is harder to connect with each of the individual characters, this is the story about the survival of a group of people, not just two. Although Canessa and Parrado’s efforts to get the survivors off the mountain were invaluable, it cannot be understated the importance that each person in the society had, a sentiment the viewer comes to understand by the end of Society. Viewers may not emerge from Society knowing everyone's names, but they will have a significantly better understanding of what the passengers endured and what it took, mentally and physically, to get off the mountain than if they watched Alive.
The final component of the TARES test is Socially Responsible. This element questions whether if everyone who was able to view this film did, if society as a whole would be improved, keeping in mind that recreation and self-improvement are worthy social goals. Additionally, it asks if the film increases or decreases the trust the average person has for persuasive messages, and if this film takes the notion of corporate responsibility, both to make money and to improve human life and welfare, seriously and truthfully. It emphasizes the significance of considering not just the content of persuasive messages, but additionally their broader impact on societal values, trust, and ethical considerations, highlighting the importance of responsible storytelling in the media landscape. A major distinction between the two films is the way in which they each handle religion. As Richard Lawson says in his review of Society of the Snow for Vanity Fair, “maybe the 50-year span has given [Pablo] Vierci’s recounting a crucial perspective that Alive often lacks. [John Patrick] Shanley’s adaptation swaps in grand platitudes about God where specific human dimensions are better suited.” It is true that a majority of the passengers on the Fairchild were religious and relied heavily on prayer, and it is an important part of both films, however the degree to which religion is emphasized in Alive is laughable. It would be easy to convince a first-time viewer with zero knowledge of the production of the film that it was created by some sort of church organization. In the same article, Lawson also states that “Marshall’s film is demure, casual in comparison [to Society]. Alive is more concerned with human spirit than human suffering; it’s lit and warmed by Tinseltown glow.” It is clear that Frank Marshall’s 1993 adaptation lacks the essence of what draws people to this story in the first place, instead creating a white-washed religion commercial that reeks of early 90s Hollywood and big corporations. Society, on the other hand, handles religion delicately and efficiently, not spending a second longer on it than necessary while still emphasizing the passengers’ faith. As survivors Roberto Canessa and Gustavo Zerbino write, “[i]t is not a film that aims to make the audience suffer. It is a film that aims to rouse the viewer’s faith in the person sitting next to them.” If everyone with access to Netflix watched Society of the Snow, society as a whole would be improved, not only for recreational reasons, but additionally because Society is a film that promotes empathy, resilience, and the strength of human spirit in the face of adversity.
The story of the ethical dilemmas, survival, and resilience of the passengers of Uruguayan Air Force Flight 571 has been the subject of many media adaptations, such as the films Alive (1993) and Society of the Snow (2023).Through the lens of the TARES test, which evaluates the truthfulness, authenticity, respect, equitability, and social responsibility of communication, it becomes clear that Society of the Snow emerges as a more ethical and responsible adaptation. The truthfulness of Society of the Snow lies in its deep exploration of the survivors' experiences, not just in terms of facts but also in understanding the emotional and psychological impact of the ordeal. Society director J. A. Bayona's approach in creating his Spanish-language disaster film, which was based on extensive research, interviews with survivors, and sensitivity to their perspectives, creates a more accurate and meaningful portrayal of the events than in Frank Marshall’s award-losing survival drama. In terms of authenticity, Society stands out for its genuine commitment to representing the survivors' story with respect and empathy. The filmmakers' engagement with survivors and their families, as well as their dedication to portraying the internal struggles and moral complexities faced by the passengers, reflects a sincere effort to do justice to the real-life experiences. Respect is a key aspect of ethical adaptation, and here again, Society excels. The film treats the subject matter with dignity, avoiding sensationalism or exploitation. By focusing on the collective experience of the survivors and honoring their journey, the film earns the respect of both the audience and the survivors themselves. Equitability in storytelling refers to the accessibility and relatability of the narrative to a wide audience. While Alive may have focused more narrowly on specific characters, allowing the audience to have individual characters to connect with, Society takes a broader approach that allows viewers to connect with the overall themes of survival, camaraderie, and resilience without requiring specialized knowledge or biases. By emphasizing themes such as empathy and the strength of the human spirit and promoting a deeper understanding of the survivors' experiences, Society of the Snow contributes positively to societal values and encourages empathy and compassion. Society is not only well-written, well-acted, and well-shot, but also sets a high standard for ethical adaptation through its thoughtful and sensitive portrayal of a harrowing ordeal and how it fictionalized the survivors' very real experiences respectfully and accurately. The film leaves a lasting impact on its audience, fostering empathy, resilience, and a deeper appreciation for the human capacity to overcome adversity.
sources: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1G-B8BPNSLy1RC9y5M4pPddZAiKuOsRaxnL65Z5rRnOk/edit
submitted by avgweedfan to SocietyOfTheSnow [link] [comments]
On October 12, 1972, a chartered Fairchild FH-227D departed from Montevideo, Uruguay en route to Santiago, Chile. The plane carried forty passengers and five crew members, including the nineteen members of the “Old Christians” rugby team, the team physician and his wife, as well as some supporters, family members, and friends of the team. Although scheduled to land the same day, the pilot decided to make a one-night stopover in Mendoza, Argentina due to bad weather. The plane departed again on October 13, 1972, at 2:18 pm. Because they couldn't go directly over the towering peaks of the Andes Mountains, the plane was supposed to take a 370-mile route south to Malargüe, west through the Planchon Pass to Curico, and north to Santiago. This should’ve taken an hour and a half. Clouds were obscuring the mountains, so the pilots were likely using radio navigation to get through the pass. Here, one of the pilots made a deadly error, incorrectly piloting the plane north and beginning the descent. Due to the heavy cloud cover, they didn’t realize their mistake until it was too late. The plane slammed into a mountain, losing both of the wings and the tail, causing seven passengers to fall from the open fuselage, all of whom were later found deceased. The crash is briefly described in an excerpt from a 2016 National Geographic interview with survivor Dr. Roberto Canessa. It reads:
“It was a very abrupt moment. We had rented an air force plane to go from Uruguay to Chile. We were trying to cross the Andes when the pilot said, “Fasten your seatbelts, we are going to enter some turbulence.” Rugby players like to fool around and play macho. So we were throwing around rugby balls and singing a song, “Conga, conga, conga: the plane is dancing conga.” The next thing, someone looked out the window and said, “Aren’t we flying too close to the mountains?!” The pilot had made a huge mistake: He’d turned north and begun the descent to Santiago while the aircraft was still in the high Andes. He began to climb until the plane was nearly vertical and it began to stall and shake. Then we smashed into the side of the mountain. I was thrown forward with tremendous force and received a powerful blow to my head. I thought, “You’re dead.” I grabbed my seat and recited a Hail Mary. Someone cried out, “Please God, help me, help me!” It was the worst nightmare you can imagine. Another boy was screaming, “I’m blind!” When he moved his head I could see his brain—and a piece of metal sticking out of his stomach.”The plane's fuselage came to rest in the cirque of the Glacier of Tears, at an elevation of 11,710 ft. Including the aforementioned seven that fell out of the plane during the initial impact, twelve passengers died in the crash and five more died from various injuries and ailments over the next few days.
Inside the fuselage, the survivors had found a meager amount of chocolate bars, jam, almonds, and dried fruits, as well as several bottles of wine. They rationed what they had, but it lasted only a week, and so, left with no alternative, the survivors resorted to anthropophagy. Survivor Dr. Roberto Canessa writes of the situation in his book I Had To Survive: How A Plane Crash In The Andes Inspired My Calling To Save Lives, excerpt adapted for The Daily Mail:
“Our common goal was to survive — but what we lacked was food. We had long since run out of the meager pickings we’d found on the plane, and there was no vegetation or animal life to be found. After just a few days we were feeling the sensation of our own bodies consuming themselves just to remain alive. Before long we would become too weak to recover from starvation. We knew the answer, but it was too terrible to contemplate. The bodies of our friends and teammates, preserved outside in the snow and ice, contained vital, life-giving protein that could help us survive. But could we do it? For a long time we agonized…Maybe a miracle might occur just in time to avoid what seemed to us a hideous transgression. Never had the consequences of time seemed so gruesome. But true hunger is atrocious, instinctive, primordial, and God witnessed the groaning of my insides. In time, a rational and loving answer emerged to calm my fears and give me inner peace…Gradually, each of us came to our own decision in our own time. And once we had done so, it was irreversible. It was our final goodbye to innocence. We were never the same again.”Aircrafts from Argentina, Chile, and Uruguay searched for the missing flight for 8 days, after which they decided to call off the search under the assumption that there were no survivors and resume looking when the snow starts to melt to recover the bodies. The survivors saw aircraft fly over the crash site on three separate occasions, but the rescuers were unable to spot the white fuselage against the snow. Intense snowstorms often kept them trapped inside the wreckage of the plane for twenty-four hours at a time. During these first few weeks, the survivors began making small excursions to explore the general vicinity of the airplane. However, they didn't have any clothing made for the cold weather, causing hypothermia, and also struggled against snow blindness, dehydration, malnourishment, altitude sickness, and the extreme nighttime cold, which made it impossible for them to travel a meaningful distance away from the fuselage. Despite this, by the last week in October, a group had been chosen to leave the crash site and try to reach help - Nando Parrado, Roberto Canessa, Adolfo “Fito” Strauch, and Numa Turcatti - and the survivors had begun to make preparations for the impending trek.
On October 29, a bit more than two weeks after the crash, tragedy once again befell the group when an avalanche struck the fuselage, burying it in snow and ice, and filling the cabin within just a few feet of the ceiling. This disaster killed eight and trapped the remaining survivors inside. Survivor Nando Parrado describes the aftermath in his book Miracle in the Andes: 72 Days on the Mountain and My Long Trek Home:
“The snow that invaded the fuselage was so deep that we couldn’t stand; we had barely enough headroom now to crawl about the plane on hands and knees. As soon as we had the stomach for it, we stacked the dead at the rear of the plane where the snow was deepest, which left only a small clearing near the cockpit for the living to sleep. We packed into that space - nineteen of us now, jammed into an area that might have comfortably accommodated four - with no choice but to squeeze together, our knees, feet, and elbows tangled together in a nightmare version of a scrum.”After three days, six survivors worked together and managed to dig their way through the cockpit, squeeze past the dead pilots’ bodies, push through the window and the snow, and reach the surface, only to be met with a blizzard that kept them in the fuselage under the snow for another three days. Upon emerging from what could’ve easily become their tomb, the nineteen remaining survivors were filled with determination to survive this ordeal and once again began preparing to search for help.
The plan was to allow the expedition group that was selected before the avalanche to get more rations, the best sleeping spots, and excusal from chores to build up their strength. The survivors agreed that the expeditionaries would travel east. Since the mountain peaks were slightly less daunting in this direction, the group hoped that once they got over the mountains they could find a valley that would turn around and bring them into Chile. Antonio “Tintin” Vizintin also joined the expedition, however, Adolfo “Fito” Strauch became afflicted with a severe case of hemorrhoids and needed to stay behind. It was also decided by the expeditionaries that Numa Turcatti would stay behind as well due to an infection in his leg, which, due to his aversion to eating the human flesh that was necessary for their survival, his body was unable to fight off. On the morning of November 17th, the remaining group of three expeditionaries set off away from the crash site. After about an hour and a half of hiking, Roberto Canessa, who was in the front of the group, spotted the tail. In the tail, they found luggage with more clothes, some rum, a box of chocolates, three small meat patties, a moldy sandwich, some cigarettes, a small camera loaded with film, and the batteries needed to power the radio in the fuselage. With no turning point towards the west in sight, the expeditionaries decided it would be best to turn back towards the crash site with the stuff they had found. However, the batteries were too heavy to carry all the way back in the snow, so they left them and decided instead to grab the radio from the Fairchild and bring it to the tail. The group made it back to the crash site on November 21st, and a few days later, they went back to the tail with the radio to try and get it to work. Unfortunately, these efforts were in vain, as the electronic components were too damaged to repair.
The expeditionaries returned to the fuselage, and at this point, the survivors realized their only chance at survival was to head directly west and find help in Chile. During the first week of December, they began to prepare, cutting extra meat and storing it in the snow, as well as sewing a sleeping bag using quilted batts of insulation and a sewing kit taken from the tail. On December 12, Nando Parrado, Roberto Canessa, and Antonio “Tintin” Vizintin left the wreckage of the Fairchild behind and began their trek up the mountain to the west. On the third morning, the expeditionaries reached the peak. Expecting to find the green valleys of Chile just beyond the mountain, they were shocked as they were faced with a seemingly never-ending view of the snowy cordillera. Despite the seemingly impossible circumstances, Canessa and Parrado still believed they could make it to the Chilean countryside, but didn’t have enough food to sustain all three of the expeditionaries for a trek of that caliber. So, it was at this point that the group decided to send Vizintin back to the crash site, while Canessa and Parrado would continue to the west. Three days after Vizintin had turned back and six days after they began the hike, the pair found a river with running water, which they began to follow down the mountain, and the day after they found an empty soup can, a horseshoe, a pile of feces, trees, and they even saw some cows from a distance. On December 20, after setting up camp for the night, Canessa spotted a man on a horse on the opposite side of the river. The man yelled to them but was drowned out by the river, however, they made out one word: “tomorrow”. The next day, the expeditionaries awoke at dawn to find three men around a fire on the other side of the river. Since the roar of the river was so loud, one of the men threw a pencil and paper tied to stones across the river, and Parrado wrote a message. That message read:
“I come from an airplane that crashed in the mountains. I am Uruguayan. We have been walking for 10 days. I have a wounded friend up there. In the plane, there are still 14 injured people. We need to get out of here quickly and we don't know how to. We don't have any food. We are very weak. When are you going to come to get us? Please, we can't even walk. Where are we?”The men across the river threw the expeditionaries some bread and made motions indicating they understood, and that the duo was to wait. Less than 12 hours later, the men had helped Canessa and Parrado to the huts they used when tending to the flocks in the high pastures, and the pair got to eat real food and sleep in beds. The police showed up the day after that, along with Sergio Catalan, the man they had originally spotted on horseback, who had ridden 10 hours each way to the nearest police outpost to get help. A heavy fog descended on Los Maitenes, the mountainous region of the Chilean province of Colchagua, and so Canessa and Parrado went on horseback down to Puente Negro, they hoped the helicopters would be able to take off for the rescue operation. After the fog had cleared a bit, the helicopter crews, along with Parrado, took off for the crash site. The two helicopters reached the crash site on the afternoon of December 22nd. Because of the steep terrain, the pilots were only permitted to touch down with a single skid, and due to the altitude and weight limits, this first rescue mission was only able to take half of the survivors. Four of the rescuers volunteered to stay behind with the remaining eight survivors for their last night on the mountain, and the second flight of helicopters arrived the following morning at daybreak. The last of the survivors were rescued on December 23, 1972, more than two and a half months after the crash.
Ethically adapting true events for cinematic or literary purposes, especially in cases where lives were lost, raises complex questions about representation, storytelling, and the responsibilities of creators to both the subjects of the events (alive and deceased) and their audience. The TARES test is a framework that media professionals use to help assess ethical communication and influence. TARES is an acronym that stands for Truthful, Authentic, Respectful, Equitable, and Socially Responsible. These five elements represent the ethical communication criteria that are used to evaluate the ethical impact of a message. I will be using the TARES test to analyze the films Alive (1993) and Society of the Snow (2023), both based on the Miracle of the Andes, intending to empirically determine which adaptation is more ethical.
Alive, directed by Frank Marshall (Arachnaphobia) and written by John Patrick Shanley (Moonstruck, Doubt), was released in 1993 by Paramount Pictures. The film features an all-white cast, including stars Ethan Hawke and Josh Hamilton and narrator John Malkovitch. The film is named after and based on the book of the same name by Piers Paul Read, a British novelist, historian, and biographer, which was published in 1974. In the dedication, the survivors write that they “decided this book should be written and the truth known because of the many rumors about what happened in the cordillera”. Grossing slightly less than $37 million domestically, the experience of watching the Hollywood-ified adaptation of Read’s award-winning book is most aptly described by Robert Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times film critic, in 1993. He writes:
“The problem is, no movie can really encompass the sheer enormity of the experience. As subtitles tick off ‘Day 50’ and ‘Day 70,’ the actors in the movie continue to look amazingly healthy (and well-fed). Although some despair, most remain hopeful. But what would it really be like to huddle in a wrecked aircraft for 10 weeks in freezing weather, eating human flesh? I cannot imagine, and frankly, this film doesn't much help me.”Alive had a budget of $25 million and was shot on a glacier in British Columbia, and the cinematography by Peter James (27 Dresses, Meet the Parents) featuring this landscape is arguably the best part of the entire movie. With its poorly written dialogue and questionable acting choices, this film not only struggles to keep the viewer’s attention, but additionally doesn’t do much in the sense of helping the viewer understand what the passengers of Flight 571 went through.
Society of the Snow was directed by J. A. Bayona (Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom, The Impossible) and released in 2023 by Netflix. It features 40 actors of Argentine and Uruguayan nationality, many of whom made their debut in this movie, and had an estimated budget of $65 million. The film is named after and based on the book of the same name by Pablo Vierci, a Uruguayan journalist who grew up with many of the people who were on Flight 571 and is credited as one of the associate producers of the film. The book also includes reflections written by some of the survivors. In a 2023 interview with The Hollywood Reporter, Director J. A. Bayona said that “at the heart of the book, there is this message that says that when everything has been taken from someone, you still have a chance of deciding what to do — why do you want to live? For whom do you want to die for?”. Bayonoa described the shoot as an exploration looking to answer these big questions, and it was with these questions in mind that they began doing interviews with all sixteen of the survivors, collecting over one hundred hours of recordings. Throughout the process of making the film, all the actors were in contact with not only the survivors, but also the families of the deceased, and the development and release of this film marks the first time all the survivors and families of the deceased have allowed their real names to be used. In an IndieWire exclusive, survivors Roberto Canessa and Gustavo Zerbino write of the film:
“We and others have been telling our story for half a century, but the filmmaker J.A. Bayona has captured it in ways that we find inspiring and fresh all over again…But more importantly, he has captured the spirit of what got us off of that mountain. Society of the Snow reflects our experience in how we refused to give in to the bleak nature of our plight.”Society was shot mostly in Sierra Nevada, Spain, but additional scenes were filmed in Montevideo, Uruguay, and in different locations in the Andes, both in Chile and Argentina, including The Glacier of Tears. With breathtaking cinematography by Pedro Luque (Don’t Breathe, Antebellum), and a chilling score by Michael Giacchino (The Batman, Star Wars: Rogue One), J. A. Bayona’s Spanish-language disaster film should be known going forward as the principal film about the Miracle of the Andes.
The first element of the TARES test that will be assessed is Truthful. This element questions whether the claims, both verbal and visual, are truthful, and, if the film communicates only part of the truth, if any omissions are deceptive. However, even if some facts are omitted, a film would pass the test if it meets a genuine human need to provide truthful information. Additionally, filmmakers should be able to verify with viewers the truthfulness of claims, and they should provide information to their audiences that will allow them to verify the truthfulness of claims in messages aimed at the public. "Unlike Alive, which is based solely on the facts of the story, Society of the Snow offers a much more philosophical take on what happened…It's not just about reiterating the facts. It's about engaging philosophically and spiritually on a deeper level with the story and exploring the true meaning of what happened in those mountains", Society of the Snow director J. A. Bayona says of the books that inspired the films. Despite this, after reading not only the books each movie is based on but additionally books written by survivors, Society is overall a more accurate depiction of the ordeal that the survivors went through in the Andes. There are always going to be differences when a book gets adapted for film, however, the differences between Paul Piers Read’s “classic” work of survival literature and the lukewarmly received 1993 adaptation are astounding. David Ansen summarizes it perfectly in an article for Newsweek, where he writes:
“Piers Paul Read's acclaimed 1974 book… paid special attention to the social structure that evolved among the group: the emergence of a warrior class and the counterbalance of a civilian government that looked out for the welfare of the weak and wounded. Marshall downplays the fascinating sociological details-and the ambiguities of character-in favor of action, heroism and a vague religiosity that's sprinkled over the story like powdered sugar.”Meanwhile, Society is remarkably reflective of the experiences Pablo Vierci captured in the pages of his 2009 book. Whereas its predecessor Alive is known for being commercialized, religious, and at times shockingly lighthearted, Society of the Snow is a brutal, dark, horrifying, and immersive viewing experience, which more accurately reflects the nightmare that the passengers of Flight 571 went through.
The second component of the TARES test, Authentic, suggests it's important not only to do the right thing, but also “to do it with the right attitude”, and is closely linked to the concepts of sincerity and disclosure. In a 2023 interview with The Hollywood Reporter, when asked about how he convinced the survivors and their families that he was going to handle everything sensitively and not in an exploitative way, Society of the Snow director J. A. Bayona responded that “[he] was worried…but the fact that [he] was putting the point of view from the other side made them very interested…somehow it’s the first time [they’re] telling the story of the whole society and that was very important, not only for the survivors but their families.” In the same interview, it gets brought up that the story of this disaster had been told before, so was it that he felt it needed to be told from a different perspective? He responds:
“I had the impression when I finished Pablo’s book that what was in that novel was something I hadn’t seen in a film. [Pablo] was great at getting into the minds of the characters and explaining not only the facts but what happened to them on the inside. And then we found a perspective that gave me the key to tell the story in a way that I hadn’t seen before.”On the other hand, according to an article from The Baltimore Sun, Frank Marshall chose to direct Alive for different reasons. In 1991, Disney offered Marshall, longtime producer for Stephen Speilberg, several projects, including Alive. The passage describing Marshall’s rationale reads:
“Mr. Marshall chose Alive for a number of reasons: the challenge of shooting 10,000 feet up in the Canadian Rockies; the opportunity to film one of the most dramatic — and prolonged — plane-crash sequences in movie history; the story of “ordinary people in extraordinary, impossible situations”; and the fact that just as Mr. Marshall was on the car phone with Disney’s Jeffrey Katzenberg, a pickup cut in front of him with a bumper sticker that read: ‘Rugby Players Eat Their Dead.’”Moreover, in the acknowledgments for Alive: The Story of the Andes Survivors, Piers Paul Read reveals that when he showed the manuscript of the book to the survivors, “some of them were disappointed by [his] presentation of their story”. Alive is a film made by a director who seemingly chose the project on a whim, based on a book that, according to the survivors, doesn’t convey “the faith and friendship which inspired them in the cordillera”. It is evident, not just through interviews, but through the film itself, that J. A. Bayona not only made Society of the Snow with “the right attitude”, but is able to justify making yet another feature film about the passengers of Flight 571.
The next component of the TARES test deals with respect. When adapting true events, especially tragedies such as this, it's important to show respect to the people involved, both living and dead. This aspect has the creator consider if they are willing to take full, open, and personal responsibility for the content of the film. Frank Marshall’s Alive was aptly described in a review by Janet Maslin of the New York Times upon its release in 1993, which reads: “Alive, an account of plane-crash survivors who had to resort to cannibalism to last out their ordeal in the Andes, is a study in madness, not on the parts of the Uruguayan rugby players who are the film's principals but on those of the Hollywood filmmakers who felt this story had the makings of upbeat, big-budget entertainment”. Indeed, even Marshall himself insists “it’s one of those great Hollywood stories”. In his book, survivor Carlitos Páez writes that in Alive, “the magnitude of the avalanche was not portrayed in full force[, and] when he mentioned this to director Frank Marshall…he answered [that] he needed light to shoot and besides, it wasn’t his fault what [they] went through”. Society of the Snow seems to laugh in the face of this, depicting the avalanche in a horrifying and believable fashion. Additionally, as previously stated, director J. A. Bayona based much of his film on testimony from survivors, both from Society of the Snow and footage that they compiled during pre-production, as well as maintaining lines of contact between the actors portraying the people and either the people themselves or their families, if deceased. Through J. A. Bayona’s meticulous attention to detail, a general sense of empathy toward the passengers of Flight 571 from the entire cast and crew, and a thorough commitment to honoring the experiences of the victims and survivors, Society stands as a poignant example of how to show respect to the people involved in the real-life tragedies that are being adapted for the silver screen.
Equitable generally means dealing fairly and equally with all concerned, but in relation to the TARES test, it refers to whether the viewer is on the same level playing field as the film’s creator, or, in order to correctly interpret the film, must the viewer be abnormally well informed, unusually bright or quick-witted, and completely without prejudice. When comparing two films based on equitability in the context of ethical adaptation, the film that allows a wider range of viewers to engage with its themes and moral complexities without requiring exceptional cognitive abilities or specialized knowledge would be deemed more ethical. In this case, the films are evaluated based on how well they convey the survivors' experiences, challenges, and moral dilemmas without requiring viewers to have extensive knowledge of survival techniques or deep insights into the human psyche. One of the main differences between the two films is that Frank Marshall’s Alive has two distinct main characters - Nando Parrado and Roberto Canessa, the two survivors who would eventually trek 38 miles to find help, portrayed by Ethan Hawke and Josh Hamilton, respectively, whereas J. A. Bayona’s Society of the Snow focuses instead on the group as a whole, with the only possible main character being the film’s narrator, Enzo Vogrincic Roldán’s Numa Turcatti, the last passenger to die on the mountain. Although some criticize Society for this decision, citing that it is harder to connect with each of the individual characters, this is the story about the survival of a group of people, not just two. Although Canessa and Parrado’s efforts to get the survivors off the mountain were invaluable, it cannot be understated the importance that each person in the society had, a sentiment the viewer comes to understand by the end of Society. Viewers may not emerge from Society knowing everyone's names, but they will have a significantly better understanding of what the passengers endured and what it took, mentally and physically, to get off the mountain than if they watched Alive.
The final component of the TARES test is Socially Responsible. This element questions whether if everyone who was able to view this film did, if society as a whole would be improved, keeping in mind that recreation and self-improvement are worthy social goals. Additionally, it asks if the film increases or decreases the trust the average person has for persuasive messages, and if this film takes the notion of corporate responsibility, both to make money and to improve human life and welfare, seriously and truthfully. It emphasizes the significance of considering not just the content of persuasive messages, but additionally their broader impact on societal values, trust, and ethical considerations, highlighting the importance of responsible storytelling in the media landscape. A major distinction between the two films is the way in which they each handle religion. As Richard Lawson says in his review of Society of the Snow for Vanity Fair, “maybe the 50-year span has given [Pablo] Vierci’s recounting a crucial perspective that Alive often lacks. [John Patrick] Shanley’s adaptation swaps in grand platitudes about God where specific human dimensions are better suited.” It is true that a majority of the passengers on the Fairchild were religious and relied heavily on prayer, and it is an important part of both films, however the degree to which religion is emphasized in Alive is laughable. It would be easy to convince a first-time viewer with zero knowledge of the production of the film that it was created by some sort of church organization. In the same article, Lawson also states that “Marshall’s film is demure, casual in comparison [to Society]. Alive is more concerned with human spirit than human suffering; it’s lit and warmed by Tinseltown glow.” It is clear that Frank Marshall’s 1993 adaptation lacks the essence of what draws people to this story in the first place, instead creating a white-washed religion commercial that reeks of early 90s Hollywood and big corporations. Society, on the other hand, handles religion delicately and efficiently, not spending a second longer on it than necessary while still emphasizing the passengers’ faith. As survivors Roberto Canessa and Gustavo Zerbino write, “[i]t is not a film that aims to make the audience suffer. It is a film that aims to rouse the viewer’s faith in the person sitting next to them.” If everyone with access to Netflix watched Society of the Snow, society as a whole would be improved, not only for recreational reasons, but additionally because Society is a film that promotes empathy, resilience, and the strength of human spirit in the face of adversity.
The story of the ethical dilemmas, survival, and resilience of the passengers of Uruguayan Air Force Flight 571 has been the subject of many media adaptations, such as the films Alive (1993) and Society of the Snow (2023).Through the lens of the TARES test, which evaluates the truthfulness, authenticity, respect, equitability, and social responsibility of communication, it becomes clear that Society of the Snow emerges as a more ethical and responsible adaptation. The truthfulness of Society of the Snow lies in its deep exploration of the survivors' experiences, not just in terms of facts but also in understanding the emotional and psychological impact of the ordeal. Society director J. A. Bayona's approach in creating his Spanish-language disaster film, which was based on extensive research, interviews with survivors, and sensitivity to their perspectives, creates a more accurate and meaningful portrayal of the events than in Frank Marshall’s award-losing survival drama. In terms of authenticity, Society stands out for its genuine commitment to representing the survivors' story with respect and empathy. The filmmakers' engagement with survivors and their families, as well as their dedication to portraying the internal struggles and moral complexities faced by the passengers, reflects a sincere effort to do justice to the real-life experiences. Respect is a key aspect of ethical adaptation, and here again, Society excels. The film treats the subject matter with dignity, avoiding sensationalism or exploitation. By focusing on the collective experience of the survivors and honoring their journey, the film earns the respect of both the audience and the survivors themselves. Equitability in storytelling refers to the accessibility and relatability of the narrative to a wide audience. While Alive may have focused more narrowly on specific characters, allowing the audience to have individual characters to connect with, Society takes a broader approach that allows viewers to connect with the overall themes of survival, camaraderie, and resilience without requiring specialized knowledge or biases. By emphasizing themes such as empathy and the strength of the human spirit and promoting a deeper understanding of the survivors' experiences, Society of the Snow contributes positively to societal values and encourages empathy and compassion. Society is not only well-written, well-acted, and well-shot, but also sets a high standard for ethical adaptation through its thoughtful and sensitive portrayal of a harrowing ordeal and how it fictionalized the survivors' very real experiences respectfully and accurately. The film leaves a lasting impact on its audience, fostering empathy, resilience, and a deeper appreciation for the human capacity to overcome adversity.
sources: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1G-B8BPNSLy1RC9y5M4pPddZAiKuOsRaxnL65Z5rRnOk/edit
2024.04.28 08:01 newsu1 An Overview of Smooth Jazz Click here
 | Imagine a musical landscape where cool sophistication meets red-hot rhythm, where melodies caress your soul like a lover's embrace. Welcome to the sublime world of smooth jazz, a genre that has seduced listeners for decades with its intoxicating blend of fusion, R&B, funk, and contemporary jazz. This is a story of innovation, passion, and an unwavering commitment to sonic perfection. submitted by newsu1 to Music_Playlist_YT [link] [comments] The Birth of Smoothness Smooth jazz traces its roots back to the 1960s, when pioneering artists like Miles Davis and John Coltrane began experimenting with electronic instruments, funk rhythms, and a more accessible sound. These musical trailblazers were the architects of a new sound, laying the foundation for what would eventually become smooth jazz. As the 1970s dawned, the fusion movement took hold, with artists like Weather Report, Chick Corea, and Herbie Hancock fusing jazz with rock, funk, and world music influences. This fusion ignited a spark that would soon engulf the entire jazz world, paving the way for the smooth revolution. The 1980s: A Decade of Seduction It was during the 1980s that smooth jazz truly came into its own, emerging as a distinct genre with a devoted following. Artists like Grover Washington Jr., David Sanborn, and Bob James captivated audiences with their sultry melodies and infectious grooves. Radio stations dedicated to this new sound began sprouting up across the nation, introducing the masses to the irresistible allure of smooth jazz. Legends like saxophonist Kenny G and guitarist Larry Carlton became household names, their recordings shattering sales records and cementing smooth jazz as a commercial powerhouse. Each note they played was a seductive invitation, beckoning listeners into a world of sophistication and sensuality. The Contemporary Landscape As the 21st century unfurled, smooth jazz continued to evolve, embracing new influences and pushing boundaries. Artists like Rick Braun, Peter White, and Gerald Albright carried the torch, infusing the genre with their unique styles and keeping the smooth flame burning bright. Today, smooth jazz is a global phenomenon, with artists from every corner of the world contributing their voices to this ever-expanding tapestry. Festivals and concert venues dedicated to the genre have sprung up worldwide, attracting devoted fans who revel in the shared experience of musical bliss. The essence of smooth jazz lies in its ability to transport listeners to a realm of pure sonic pleasure. Each note is a caress, every melody a love letter to the senses. It is a genre that celebrates the art of seduction, inviting us to surrender to the pure ecstasy of sound. So, whether you're a lifelong devotee or a newcomer to this sensual world, prepare to be swept away by the smooth grooves of jazz perfection. Close your eyes, let the melodies wash over you, and bask in the glory of a musical journey that knows no bounds. |
2024.04.28 07:59 ultracute007 Serolean Reviews 2024– Real Ingredients for Natural Weight Loss Support OR Scam?
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2024.04.28 04:55 nulloperator_ Found Out my Parents used the Bible to justify Child S3x Crimes on Me
TW//Sexual Abuse//Physical Violence
Hi All, I'm a male between ages 20 and 30 and this is my childhood experience. I could use as much support as possible since I’m catching some backlash from my family for bringing this up.BACKGROUND: CHILD ABUSE CULT
When I say cult, I don't mean a cult in the sense of David Koresh compound style cult, I mean more so in mindset and fringe religious practices. My parents believed in the doctrine called "mortification of the flesh", which basically states that people are born evil, and to make them not evil, you have to hit them. See [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Discipline\\\_(instrument\\\_of\\\_penance)\](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Discipline\_(instrument\_of\_penance))My parents are extremist fundamentalist Christians. My dad was basically a pastor, and my mom "home schooled" us. When I say home school, I'm being very generous on the school part. They were part of the Quiverful evangelical home school movement and held to the teachings of people like Jonathan Lindvall, Dough Philips, Tedd Tripp, Mike and Debbie Pearl, Stan and Brenna Jones, and Dennis and Barbra Rainey, among others.
Basically, I have solid proof my parents were using these books on me.
TEACHINGS OF TEDD TRIPP
The teachings of Tedd Tripp are certifiably insane. I'll provide several quotes here from his book, "Shepherding a Child's Heart":* "Spanking is most effective in dealing with young children. They fear being spanked. The spanking gives weight to your words. The spanking sobers and humbles the child. As children get older they get more stoic about spanking. They learn how to deal with it. The intensity of spanking required to make the same impression on a 12-year-old that you make on a 2-year-old would be excessive.”
* “Remove his drawers so that the spanking is not lost in the padding of his pants.... It is best to lay the child across your lap rather than over a bed or a chair. This puts the spanking in the context of your physical relationship. He is not being removed from you to a neutral object for the purpose of being disciplined.”
* “I have witnessed spankings administered through a double layer of diapers to a child who never stopped moving long enough to know he had been spanked. The spanking was ineffective because the parents never made the rod felt.”
* “When your child is old enough to resist your directives, he is old enough to be disciplined. When he is resisting you, he is disobeying. If you fail to respond, those rebellious responses become entrenched. The longer you put off disciplining, the more intractable the disobedience will become.”
* “Rebellion can be something as simple as a small child struggling against a diaper change or stiffening his body when you want him to sit on your lap. The discipline procedure is the same as that which is laid out above. You have no way of knowing how much a child less than a year old can understand, but we do know that understanding comes long before the ability to articulate. Your temptation will be to wait until your children are speaking and able to articulate their rebellion before you deal with it.”
* “When our oldest child was approximately 8 months old, we were confronted with parenting our first mobile child. He crawled everywhere. We had a bookshelf constructed of boards and bricks. Fearing the shelf would fall on him, Margy told him not to pull himself up by the shelf. After moving him away from the shelf, she left the room. As she peeked in on him, she observed him surveying the room. Not seeing her, he headed back toward the forbidden bookshelf. Here was a young child, not yet able to walk or to talk, looking to see if the coast was clear so he could disobey. Obviously, he was old enough to be disciplined.”
* “After you have spanked, take the child up on your lap and hug him, telling him how much you love him...On some occasions I have had to say to our children: ‘Dear, Daddy has spanked you, but you are not sweet enough yet. We are going to have to go back upstairs for another spanking.’”
Tedd tripp said in an interview on desiringgod: “But what is the purpose of it? I think spanking is most effective with younger children. Spanking gets their attention. It gives weight to your words. It humbles them. They want to avoid it. And it becomes very effective, particularly with little children where you can’t really reason with them, and they are not capable of complex reasoning.... So I think that it is indispensable in those early years particularly.”
MIKE AND DEBBIE PEARL:
The book, "To Train Up a Child" is also particularly nasty, and 1994 edition especially so. In the 2015 version, they tried to smooth over some of the more abusive passages because parents were hitting their kids to death and they were using this book.The book emphasizes the doctrine of the mortification of the flesh, stating:
* “A spanking (whipping, paddling, switching, or belting) is in-dispensable to the removal of guilt in your child. His very conscience (nature) demands punishment.”
* “If God’s love is expressed by the ‘whippings’ He gives, then can we not also love our children enough to chasten them unto holiness?”
* “The very nature of the child makes the rod an indispensable element in child training and discipline....“They go astray as soon as they be born, speaking lies” (Psalm 58:3).”
More messed up stuff includes:
* The opening line of this book states, “SWITCH YOUR KIDS”
* “Training does not necessarily require that the trainee be capable of reason; even mice and rats can be trained to respond to stimuli. Careful training can make a dog perfectly obedient. If a seeing-eye dog can be trained to reliably lead a blind man through the obstacles of a city street, shouldn’t a parent expect more out of an intelligent child? A dog can be trained not to touch a tasty morsel laid in front of him. Can’t a child be trained not to touch?”
* “A dog can be trained to come, stay, sit, be quiet or fetch upon command. You may not have trained your dog that well, yet every day someone accomplishes it on the dumbest mutts. Even a clumsy teenager can be trained to be an effective trainer in a dog obedience school. If you wait until your dog is displaying unacceptable behavior before you rebuke (or kick) him, you will have a foot-shy mutt who is always sulking around seeing what he can get away with before being screamed at.”
* “Where there is an absence of training, you can no more rebuke and whip a child into acceptable behavior than you can the family dog. No amount of discipline can make up for lack of training.”
* “Proper training always works on every child. To neglect training is to create miserable circumstances for yourself and your child. Out of innocent ignorance many of you have bypassed the training and expected the discipline alone to effect proper behavior.”
* “There is much satisfaction in training up a child. It is easy and challenging. When my children were able to crawl (in the case of one, roll) around the room, I set up training sessions. Try it yourself. Place an appealing object where they can reach it, maybe in a ‘No- no’ corner or on an apple juice table (That’s where the coffee table once sat). When they spy it and make a dive for it, in a calm voice say, "No, don’t touch it." They will already be familiar with the ‘No,’ so they will pause, look at you in wonder and then turn around and grab it. Switch their hand once and simultaneously say, ‘No.’”
* “Remember, you are not disciplining, you are training. One spat with a little switch is enough. They will again pull back their hand and consider the relationship between the object, their desire, the command and the little reinforcing pain. It may take several times, but if you are consistent, they will learn to consistently obey, even in your absence.”
* “As the mother, holding her child, leans over the crib and begins the swing downward, the infant stiffens, takes a deep breath and bellows. The battle for control has begun in earnest. Someone is going to be conditioned. Either the tender-hearted mother will cave-in to this self-centered demand (thus training the child to get his way by crying) or the infant is allowed to cry (learning that crying is counterproductive).”
Further evidence of the abusive nature of Mike & Debbie Pearl’s teachings is found in a video clip of Mike Pearl speaking at a seminar, demonstrating with a child doll, where he stated, “I'm gonna get this rod if he screams too hard with the first five \[and\] gets hysterical... wait... you know a little psychological terror sometimes more effective than the pain.”
See [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wt0QOKbEj7A\](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wt0QOKbEj7A) for a solid video by the channel Fundie Fridays on the Pearls.
Furthermore, Mike Pearl has explicitly justified domestic violence. In the book, “Created to be His Help Meet” by Debbie Pearl, described on the cover page as a guide to “Discover how God can make your marriage glorious”, Mike Pearl writes a section explicitly advocates for women to endure domestic violence:
* “Has your husband reviled you and threatened you? You are exhorted to respond as Jesus did. When he was reviled and threatened, he suffered by committing himself to a higher judge who is righteous. You must commit yourself to the one who placed you under your husband’s command."
* “Your husband will answer to God, and you must answer to God for how you respond to your husband, even when he causes you to suffer. Just as we are to obey government in every ordinance, and servants are to obey their masters, even the ones who are abusive and surly, ‘likewise, ye wives, be in subjection to your own husbands’...”
* “You can freely call your husband ‘lord’ when you know that you are addressing the one who put him in charge and asked you to suffer at your husband’s hands just as our Lord suffered at the hands of unjust authorities...”
* “When you endure evil and railing without returning it, you receive a blessing, not just as a martyr, but as one who worships God.”
The Seattle times actually wrote about the Pearls and their book: [https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/did-hanas-parents-train-her-to-death/\](https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/did-hanas-parents-train-her-to-death/)
* “‘It’s truly an evil book,’ said Michael Ramsey, the district attorney for Butte County, Calif.Ramsey successfully prosecuted Kevin and Elizabeth Schatz for hitting their daughter Lydia to death in Paradise, Calif., in 2006 with a plastic plumbing-supply tube — the kind the Pearls mention in an article on their website called ‘In Defense of Biblical Chastisement.’”
* “In Washington state, the death of Hana Williams marked the third time the Pearls’ names and their book have surfaced after the death of a child....”
* “Pearl encourages parents to think of the switch as a ‘magic wand’ and says teaching a child to obey is like training an animal: ‘A dog can be trained not to touch a tasty morsel laid in front of him. Can’t a child be trained not to touch?’”
JAMES DOBSON & FOCUS ON THE FAMILY
James Dobson is the founder of the religious organization and lobbying group Focus on the Family.Here's a video of Dobson with Ronald Reagan in the Oval Office of the White House: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4hGZvawO1V8
The first chapter of his book, the New Strong Willed Child, describes Dobson beating his dog:
“He was a stubborn, twelve-pound dachshund named Sigmund Freud (Siggie), who honestly believed that he owned the place.... On the night of our great battle, I told Sigmund to leave his warm seat and go to bed. Instead, he flattened his ears and slowly turned his head toward me.... That was Siggie’s way of saying, “Get lost!”
I had seen this defiant mood before and knew that I had to deal with it. The only way to make Siggie obey was to threaten him with destruction. Nothing else worked. I turned and went to my closet and got a small belt to help me “reason” with ’ol Sig. My wife, who was watching this drama unfold, told me that as soon as I left the room, Siggie jumped from his perch and looked down the hall to see where I had gone. Then he got behind her and growled....
When I returned, I held up the belt and again told the angry dog to get into his bed. He stood his ground so I gave him a firm swat across the rear end, and he tried to bite the belt. I popped him again and he tried to bite me. What developed next is impossible to describe.
That tiny dog and I had the most vicious fight ever staged between man and beast. I fought him up one wall and down the other, with both of us scratching and clawing and growling. I am still embarrassed by the memory of the entire scene. Inch by inch I moved him toward the family room and his bed...
This is not a book about the discipline of dogs. But there is an important aspect of my story that is highly relevant to the world of children. Just as surely as a dog will occasionally challenge the authority of his leaders, a child is inclined to do the same thing, only more so.”
JONATHAN LINDVALL & BOLD CHRISTIAN PARENTING
My parents would play tapes of Jonathan Lindvall when we went on road trips. He advocated for a radical evangelical homeschool lifestyle, social isolation of children from other “worldly” children, having as many children as possible regardless of financial means, explicitly denounced the socialization of children, and stated that children’s education should focus primarily on the Bible.I couldn't find the actual tapes they played but I found his old website: [https://web.archive.org/web/20120829030118/http://boldchristianliving.com/\](https://web.archive.org/web/20120829030118/http://boldchristianliving.com/)
Some outstanding bits include:
* “We all want our children to have the skills and disciplines to provide for their familiessome day. But job preparation is similarly not worthy as a primary goal of homeschooling. Jesus explicitly warned us not to be concerned with how our food and clothing are supplied (Matt. 6:19-34). This, in fact, is the context in which he called us to ‘seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness.’”
* “There are many desirable, God-pleasing results likely to come from our obedience to God in choosing to personally disciple our children. But no matter how good they are, if they are the focus, rather than our aim being to bring Jesus pleasure, they can become idols for us. Many homeschoolers have become enamored with the vision of the long-term societal (political/economic) impact our practices can have. May the Lord bring all this about, but may our hearts be set on Him more than on the impact we can have.”
* “Another objection virtually every homeschooler in western society has been confronted by is the ‘socialization’ question. In our society is assumed to be essential for children to spend time with peers to be properly adjusted. Yet the preponderance of scripture cautions from the opposite perspective. Proverbs 12:26 warns, ‘The righteous should choose his friends carefully, For the way of the wicked leads them astray.’ Proverbs 13:20 is even more pointed, saying, ‘He who walks with wise men will be wise, But the companion of fools will be destroyed.’ Paul was apparently quoting an accepted proverb at the time when he wrote, ‘Do not be deceived: ‘Evil company corrupts good habits’’ (1 Cor. 15:33).”
* “No doubt the Lord wants our children to learn to benefit from edifying fellowship, just as He wants this for us. However, positive social skills are generally not learned from children. God intends for fathers (not peers) to shape their children’s values and tendencies ‘in the training and admonition of the Lord’ (Eph. 6:4). This requires protecting our children from peer domination, and instead structuring our family lifestyles to facilitate intense, intimate relationship between our children and ourselves.”
* “Sadly, perhaps as a result of the world’s challenges regarding ‘socialization,’ many homeschoolers feel pressure to provide settings where their children can spend large amounts of time with peers. Thus, over the years we have seen homeschool support groups move from supporting the parents to supporting the children with extra-familial activities like sports teams, group music experiences, and cooperative classes. There are probably times when it is appropriate to expose our families to teaching situations where the parents are not necessarily doing all the teaching, but it is a significant danger to fall into the habit of exposing our children to the addictive peer group influences.”
• “Virtually every homeschool parent will easily identify the most frequently asked question about their homeschooling as, ‘What about socialization?’ When people ask this question, what are they wondering about? Are they worried that our children will not be capable of displaying lifelong servanthood for the glory of God? Generally not. They are shocked that we are not intimidated at the thought of our children being different from everyone else.”
• “Socialism is the attempt to equalize everyone--make everyone alike. But God didn't make us alike. He made each of us, including our children, to be unique. And we are not to minimize, but maximize our distinctives for the glory of God. We are not to try to mask our uniqueness beneath a facade of timid conformity. We are to SHINE! Jesus said (Mat 5:16), ‘Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works and glorify your Father in heaven.’”
STAN AND BRENNA JONES
First of all, here’s a photo of the author: [https://www.christiansexed.com/about-the-authors/\](https://www.christiansexed.com/about-the-authors/)Their book, “What’s the Big Deal: Why God cares about sex” identifies as a christian sex education book for children as young as age 8. The cover of the book states, “Ages 8-12”.
The book states in the introduction, “We believe that God means for Christian parents to be their children’s primary sex educators. First messages are the most powerful-why wait until your child hears distorted views and then try to correct the misunderstanding? Sexuality is a beautiful gift-why not present it to your child the way God intended?”.
This book contains passages explicitly describing:
* How pleasurable sex is;
* The location and pleasurability of the clitoris;
* The sensitivity of the penis to pleasure
* What porn is and where it's found
* What rape porn is
* What sex slavery is
* Explicit descriptions of orgasms, including describing them as a sudden burst of pleasure
My dad read me this book when I was 8, 3rd grade.
TEDD TRIPP & BDSM P0RN SITES
What really got me thinking about this was the fact that in my state, the statute of limitations to sue in civil court for assault and battery was up, however the statute of limitations on sexual abuse was not.
So obviously all of this stuff is pretty messed up. But what takes it to the next level of messed up and makes what they did a sex crime (I'm hoping the DA sees it the same way), is when you really look at what Tedd Tripp advocates parents do to their children:
“Remove his drawers so that the spanking is not lost in the padding of his pants.... It is best to lay the child across your lap rather than over a bed or a chair. This puts the spanking in the context of your physical relationship. He is not being removed from you to a neutral object for the purpose of being disciplined.”
Which basically means:
* Take off the child's clothes
* Place them on your lap, fully or partially naked
* Strike them with what could legally be classified as a deadly weapon
So I started thinking about how spanking is a BDSM kink and fetish. Which was weird to think about in the context of what your parents did to you.
Then I thought, well damn there are tons of BDSM p0rn sites, there have to be some with what happened to me on there. It turns out that there are TONS of videos of exactly this on sites such as p0rnhub and heavy fetish .com.
For example:
* “Hard belt spanking for cheating” (porn hub)
* “Spanked to Tears with the Bathbrush - Real Tears for Letting Him Down” (porn hub)
* “Hard paddle spanking in the principal's office” (porn hub)
* “SPANK CHINA - Hua’s first spanking session”, (heavy fetish)
* "Spanking Jane" (heavy fetish)
I tried putting the links in but reddit flagged my post so if you’re really curious just search by title and website
These videos appear on the same site as stuff like real hardcore BDSM stuff like electrocution torture and people in cages, tied in the air and having their genitals electrocuted. Basically real torture like in this video: "WIRED PUSSY - Sandra Romain andSara Scott" (heavy fetish)
And then you realize, "oh, if they filmed what they did, it would be child p0rn_".
18 U.S. Code § 2256:
- ‘child porn0graphy’ means any visual depiction, including any photograph, film, video, picture, or computer or computer-generated image or picture, whether made or produced by electronic, mechanical, or other means, of sexually explicit conduct, where- the production of such visual depiction involves the use of a minor engaging in sexually explicit conduct; such visual depiction is a digital image, computer image, or computer-generated image that is, or is indistinguishable from, that of a minor engaging in sexually explicit conduct; or such visual depiction has been created, adapted, or modified to appear that an identifiable minor is engaging in sexually explicit conduct.”
- sexually explicit conduct” means actual or simulated—
- sexual intercourse, including genital-genital, oral-genital, anal-genital, or oral-anal, whether between persons of the same or opposite sex;
- bestiality;
- masturbation;
- sadistic or masochistic abuse; or
- lascivious exhibition of the anus, genitals, or pubic area of any person;
TORTURE
The next shoe to drop was when I read the legal definitions of torture.Torture is defined as “the infliction of intense pain (as from burning, crushing, or wounding) to punish, coerce, or afford sadistic pleasure”. -Merriam Webster
The U.N. Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment says:
“For the purposes of this Convention, the term ‘torture’ means any act by which severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental, is intentionally inflicted on a person for such purposes as obtaining from him or a third person information or a confession, punishing him for an act he or a third person has committed or is suspected of having committed, or intimidating or coercing him or a third person, or for any reason based on discrimination of any kind, when such pain or suffering is inflicted by or at the instigation of or with the consent or acquiescence of a public official or other person acting in an official capacity.”
The U.S. Federal torture 18 U.S. Code § 2340 says,
"'torture' means an act committed by a person acting under the color of law specifically intended to inflict severe physical or mental pain or suffering (other than pain or suffering incidental to lawful sanctions) upon another person within his custody or physical control"
The study “Child Torture as a Form of Child Abuse” from University of Wisconsin School ofMedicine and appearing in the Journal of Child & Adolescent Trauma states:
- "Child torture is defined medically as...At least two physical assaults, occurring over at least two incidents or a single extended incident, which would cause prolonged physical pain, emotional distress, bodily injury, or death... And...
- At least two elements of psychological abuse such as isolation, intimidation, emotional/psychological maltreatment, terrorizing, spurning, or deprivation...
- Inflicted by the child’s caretaker(s)”
* “Stover and Nightingale (1985) state: The purpose of torture is to break the will of thevictim and ultimately to break his or her humanity...through infliction of severe or acute physical pain and mental suffering...and requires that the torturer exert physical control over his or her victim. (p. 4–5)”
* “Campbell (2007) adds: ‘The act of torture is carried out for the purpose of physically and psychologically ‘breaking’ an individual’ (p. 633).’”
* “PTSD is the most commonly diagnosed psychological disorder among adult torture victims (Allodi and Cowgill 1982; Herman 1992). In addition to torture, polyvictimization has been recognized to be associated with worse mental health outcomes in child abuse victims (Finkelhor et al. 2011). By definition, all of \[the study participants\] have suffered polyvictimization as defined by Finkelhor.”
See [https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s40653-016-0108-x\](https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s40653-016-0108-x)
GRANDFATHER MANDATORY REPORTER
Also, in this fucked up land of fucking crazy shit, I realized that my grandfather, who we saw all the time, was a mandatory reporter THIS WHOLE TIME. He also had a masters in Psychology, so that's extra WTF.DAD MENTAL HEALTH COUNSELOR
Another wild thing is that my dad just got his masters in counseling (christian counseling ofc) and is now working as a mental health care provider.CONCLUSION
I was just diagnosed with Chronic PTSD a few weeks ago and have been out of work on treatment ever since.But basically none of this feels real to me. I find it interesting in a sort of detached way that every time I detail what my childhood was like, they're shocked and appalled. I could see the female detective's eyes tearing up a bit. But I suppose it shouldn't be so surprising. After all, they put my sibling in the psych hospital 3x before the age of 18.
Please let me know what you all think. One of the silver linings on all this is because of my time in the military, I can get a free PTSD service dog which I'm excited for.
The crazy thing is that one of the counselors in the PTSD program is a former cop and sex crimes investigator and even he was shocked by how bad this whole thing is. So that's my life right now. :)
TLDR: Parents in child abuse cult; did S&M acts on us as kids; police investigating.
2024.04.28 04:49 nulloperator_ NEED SUPPORT: Grew up in a child abuse cult; just reported parents to the police for sex crimes against children
TW//Sexual Abuse//Physical Violence
Hi All, I'm a male between ages 20 and 30.I'm writing this after I drove down to the police station this morning and reported my parents for sex crimes against children, so this is all very fresh in my mind so it will be a long post.
BACKGROUND: CHILD ABUSE CULT
When I say cult, I don't mean a cult in the sense of David Koresh compound style cult, I mean more so in mindset and fringe religious practices. My parents believed in the doctrine called "mortification of the flesh", which basically states that people are born evil, and to make them not evil, you have to hit them. See [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Discipline\\\_(instrument\\\_of\\\_penance)\](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Discipline\_(instrument\_of\_penance))My parents are extremist fundamentalist Christians. My dad was basically a pastor, and my mom "home schooled" us. When I say home school, I'm being very generous on the school part. They were part of the Quiverful evangelical home school movement and held to the teachings of people like Jonathan Lindvall, Dough Philips, Tedd Tripp, Mike and Debbie Pearl, Stan and Brenna Jones, and Dennis and Barbra Rainey, among others.
Basically, I have 100% proof my parents were using these books on me.
TEACHINGS OF TEDD TRIPP
The teachings of Tedd Tripp are certifiably insane. I'll provide several quotes here from his book, "Shepherding a Child's Heart":* "Spanking is most effective in dealing with young children. They fear being spanked. The spanking gives weight to your words. The spanking sobers and humbles the child. As children get older they get more stoic about spanking. They learn how to deal with it. The intensity of spanking required to make the same impression on a 12-year-old that you make on a 2-year-old would be excessive.”
* “Remove his drawers so that the spanking is not lost in the padding of his pants.... It is best to lay the child across your lap rather than over a bed or a chair. This puts the spanking in the context of your physical relationship. He is not being removed from you to a neutral object for the purpose of being disciplined.”
* “I have witnessed spankings administered through a double layer of diapers to a child who never stopped moving long enough to know he had been spanked. The spanking was ineffective because the parents never made the rod felt.”
* “When your child is old enough to resist your directives, he is old enough to be disciplined. When he is resisting you, he is disobeying. If you fail to respond, those rebellious responses become entrenched. The longer you put off disciplining, the more intractable the disobedience will become.”
* “Rebellion can be something as simple as a small child struggling against a diaper change or stiffening his body when you want him to sit on your lap. The discipline procedure is the same as that which is laid out above. You have no way of knowing how much a child less than a year old can understand, but we do know that understanding comes long before the ability to articulate. Your temptation will be to wait until your children are speaking and able to articulate their rebellion before you deal with it.”
* “When our oldest child was approximately 8 months old, we were confronted with parenting our first mobile child. He crawled everywhere. We had a bookshelf constructed of boards and bricks. Fearing the shelf would fall on him, Margy told him not to pull himself up by the shelf. After moving him away from the shelf, she left the room. As she peeked in on him, she observed him surveying the room. Not seeing her, he headed back toward the forbidden bookshelf. Here was a young child, not yet able to walk or to talk, looking to see if the coast was clear so he could disobey. Obviously, he was old enough to be disciplined.”
* “After you have spanked, take the child up on your lap and hug him, telling him how much you love him...On some occasions I have had to say to our children: ‘Dear, Daddy has spanked you, but you are not sweet enough yet. We are going to have to go back upstairs for another spanking.’”
Tedd tripp said in an interview on desiringgod: “But what is the purpose of it? I think spanking is most effective with younger children. Spanking gets their attention. It gives weight to your words. It humbles them. They want to avoid it. And it becomes very effective, particularly with little children where you can’t really reason with them, and they are not capable of complex reasoning.... So I think that it is indispensable in those early years particularly.”
MIKE AND DEBBIE PEARL:
The book, "To Train Up a Child" is also particularly nasty, and 1994 edition especially so. In the 2015 version, they tried to smooth over some of the more abusive passages because parents were hitting their kids to death and they were using this book.The book emphasizes the doctrine of the mortification of the flesh, stating:
* “A spanking (whipping, paddling, switching, or belting) is in-dispensable to the removal of guilt in your child. His very conscience (nature) demands punishment.”
* “If God’s love is expressed by the ‘whippings’ He gives, then can we not also love our children enough to chasten them unto holiness?”
* “The very nature of the child makes the rod an indispensable element in child training and discipline....“They go astray as soon as they be born, speaking lies” (Psalm 58:3).”
More messed up stuff includes:
* The opening line of this book states, “SWITCH YOUR KIDS”
* “Training does not necessarily require that the trainee be capable of reason; even mice and rats can be trained to respond to stimuli. Careful training can make a dog perfectly obedient. If a seeing-eye dog can be trained to reliably lead a blind man through the obstacles of a city street, shouldn’t a parent expect more out of an intelligent child? A dog can be trained not to touch a tasty morsel laid in front of him. Can’t a child be trained not to touch?”
* “A dog can be trained to come, stay, sit, be quiet or fetch upon command. You may not have trained your dog that well, yet every day someone accomplishes it on the dumbest mutts. Even a clumsy teenager can be trained to be an effective trainer in a dog obedience school. If you wait until your dog is displaying unacceptable behavior before you rebuke (or kick) him, you will have a foot-shy mutt who is always sulking around seeing what he can get away with before being screamed at.”
* “Where there is an absence of training, you can no more rebuke and whip a child into acceptable behavior than you can the family dog. No amount of discipline can make up for lack of training.”
* “Proper training always works on every child. To neglect training is to create miserable circumstances for yourself and your child. Out of innocent ignorance many of you have bypassed the training and expected the discipline alone to effect proper behavior.”
* “There is much satisfaction in training up a child. It is easy and challenging. When my children were able to crawl (in the case of one, roll) around the room, I set up training sessions. Try it yourself. Place an appealing object where they can reach it, maybe in a ‘No- no’ corner or on an apple juice table (That’s where the coffee table once sat). When they spy it and make a dive for it, in a calm voice say, "No, don’t touch it." They will already be familiar with the ‘No,’ so they will pause, look at you in wonder and then turn around and grab it. Switch their hand once and simultaneously say, ‘No.’”
* “Remember, you are not disciplining, you are training. One spat with a little switch is enough. They will again pull back their hand and consider the relationship between the object, their desire, the command and the little reinforcing pain. It may take several times, but if you are consistent, they will learn to consistently obey, even in your absence.”
* “As the mother, holding her child, leans over the crib and begins the swing downward, the infant stiffens, takes a deep breath and bellows. The battle for control has begun in earnest. Someone is going to be conditioned. Either the tender-hearted mother will cave-in to this self-centered demand (thus training the child to get his way by crying) or the infant is allowed to cry (learning that crying is counterproductive).”
Further evidence of the abusive nature of Mike & Debbie Pearl’s teachings is found in a video clip of Mike Pearl speaking at a seminar, demonstrating with a child doll, where he stated, “I'm gonna get this rod if he screams too hard with the first five \[and\] gets hysterical... wait... you know a little psychological terror sometimes more effective than the pain.”
See [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wt0QOKbEj7A\](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wt0QOKbEj7A) for a solid video by the channel Fundie Fridays on the Pearls.
Furthermore, Mike Pearl has explicitly justified domestic violence. In the book, “Created to be His Help Meet” by Debbie Pearl, described on the cover page as a guide to “Discover how God can make your marriage glorious”, Mike Pearl writes a section explicitly advocates for women to endure domestic violence:
* “Has your husband reviled you and threatened you? You are exhorted to respond as Jesus did. When he was reviled and threatened, he suffered by committing himself to a higher judge who is righteous. You must commit yourself to the one who placed you under your husband’s command."
* “Your husband will answer to God, and you must answer to God for how you respond to your husband, even when he causes you to suffer. Just as we are to obey government in every ordinance, and servants are to obey their masters, even the ones who are abusive and surly, ‘likewise, ye wives, be in subjection to your own husbands’...”
* “You can freely call your husband ‘lord’ when you know that you are addressing the one who put him in charge and asked you to suffer at your husband’s hands just as our Lord suffered at the hands of unjust authorities...”
* “When you endure evil and railing without returning it, you receive a blessing, not just as a martyr, but as one who worships God.”
The Seattle times actually wrote about the Pearls and their book: [https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/did-hanas-parents-train-her-to-death/\](https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/did-hanas-parents-train-her-to-death/)
* “‘It’s truly an evil book,’ said Michael Ramsey, the district attorney for Butte County, Calif.Ramsey successfully prosecuted Kevin and Elizabeth Schatz for hitting their daughter Lydia to death in Paradise, Calif., in 2006 with a plastic plumbing-supply tube — the kind the Pearls mention in an article on their website called ‘In Defense of Biblical Chastisement.’”
* “In Washington state, the death of Hana Williams marked the third time the Pearls’ names and their book have surfaced after the death of a child....”
* “Pearl encourages parents to think of the switch as a ‘magic wand’ and says teaching a child to obey is like training an animal: ‘A dog can be trained not to touch a tasty morsel laid in front of him. Can’t a child be trained not to touch?’”
JAMES DOBSON & FOCUS ON THE FAMILY
James Dobson is the founder of the religious organization and lobbying group Focus on the Family.Here's a video of Dobson with Ronald Reagan in the Oval Office of the White House: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4hGZvawO1V8
The first chapter of his book, the New Strong Willed Child, describes Dobson beating his dog:
“He was a stubborn, twelve-pound dachshund named Sigmund Freud (Siggie), who honestly believed that he owned the place.... On the night of our great battle, I told Sigmund to leave his warm seat and go to bed. Instead, he flattened his ears and slowly turned his head toward me.... That was Siggie’s way of saying, “Get lost!”
I had seen this defiant mood before and knew that I had to deal with it. The only way to make Siggie obey was to threaten him with destruction. Nothing else worked. I turned and went to my closet and got a small belt to help me “reason” with ’ol Sig. My wife, who was watching this drama unfold, told me that as soon as I left the room, Siggie jumped from his perch and looked down the hall to see where I had gone. Then he got behind her and growled....
When I returned, I held up the belt and again told the angry dog to get into his bed. He stood his ground so I gave him a firm swat across the rear end, and he tried to bite the belt. I popped him again and he tried to bite me. What developed next is impossible to describe.
That tiny dog and I had the most vicious fight ever staged between man and beast. I fought him up one wall and down the other, with both of us scratching and clawing and growling. I am still embarrassed by the memory of the entire scene. Inch by inch I moved him toward the family room and his bed...
This is not a book about the discipline of dogs. But there is an important aspect of my story that is highly relevant to the world of children. Just as surely as a dog will occasionally challenge the authority of his leaders, a child is inclined to do the same thing, only more so.”
JONATHAN LINDVALL & BOLD CHRISTIAN PARENTING
My parents would play tapes of Jonathan Lindvall when we went on road trips. He advocated for a radical evangelical homeschool lifestyle, social isolation of children from other “worldly” children, having as many children as possible regardless of financial means, explicitly denounced the socialization of children, and stated that children’s education should focus primarily on the Bible.I couldn't find the actual tapes they played but I found his old website: [https://web.archive.org/web/20120829030118/http://boldchristianliving.com/\](https://web.archive.org/web/20120829030118/http://boldchristianliving.com/)
Some outstanding bits include:
* “We all want our children to have the skills and disciplines to provide for their familiessome day. But job preparation is similarly not worthy as a primary goal of homeschooling. Jesus explicitly warned us not to be concerned with how our food and clothing are supplied (Matt. 6:19-34). This, in fact, is the context in which he called us to ‘seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness.’”
* “There are many desirable, God-pleasing results likely to come from our obedience to God in choosing to personally disciple our children. But no matter how good they are, if they are the focus, rather than our aim being to bring Jesus pleasure, they can become idols for us. Many homeschoolers have become enamored with the vision of the long-term societal (political/economic) impact our practices can have. May the Lord bring all this about, but may our hearts be set on Him more than on the impact we can have.”
* “Another objection virtually every homeschooler in western society has been confronted by is the ‘socialization’ question. In our society is assumed to be essential for children to spend time with peers to be properly adjusted. Yet the preponderance of scripture cautions from the opposite perspective. Proverbs 12:26 warns, ‘The righteous should choose his friends carefully, For the way of the wicked leads them astray.’ Proverbs 13:20 is even more pointed, saying, ‘He who walks with wise men will be wise, But the companion of fools will be destroyed.’ Paul was apparently quoting an accepted proverb at the time when he wrote, ‘Do not be deceived: ‘Evil company corrupts good habits’’ (1 Cor. 15:33).”
* “No doubt the Lord wants our children to learn to benefit from edifying fellowship, just as He wants this for us. However, positive social skills are generally not learned from children. God intends for fathers (not peers) to shape their children’s values and tendencies ‘in the training and admonition of the Lord’ (Eph. 6:4). This requires protecting our children from peer domination, and instead structuring our family lifestyles to facilitate intense, intimate relationship between our children and ourselves.”
* “Sadly, perhaps as a result of the world’s challenges regarding ‘socialization,’ many homeschoolers feel pressure to provide settings where their children can spend large amounts of time with peers. Thus, over the years we have seen homeschool support groups move from supporting the parents to supporting the children with extra-familial activities like sports teams, group music experiences, and cooperative classes. There are probably times when it is appropriate to expose our families to teaching situations where the parents are not necessarily doing all the teaching, but it is a significant danger to fall into the habit of exposing our children to the addictive peer group influences.”
• “Virtually every homeschool parent will easily identify the most frequently asked question about their homeschooling as, ‘What about socialization?’ When people ask this question, what are they wondering about? Are they worried that our children will not be capable of displaying lifelong servanthood for the glory of God? Generally not. They are shocked that we are not intimidated at the thought of our children being different from everyone else.”
• “Socialism is the attempt to equalize everyone--make everyone alike. But God didn't make us alike. He made each of us, including our children, to be unique. And we are not to minimize, but maximize our distinctives for the glory of God. We are not to try to mask our uniqueness beneath a facade of timid conformity. We are to SHINE! Jesus said (Mat 5:16), ‘Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works and glorify your Father in heaven.’”
STAN AND BRENNA JONES
First of all, this dude 100% looks like a pedo: [https://www.christiansexed.com/about-the-authors/\](https://www.christiansexed.com/about-the-authors/)Their book, “What’s the Big Deal: Why God cares about sex” identifies as a christian sex education book for children as young as age 8. The cover of the book states, “Ages 8-12”.
The book states in the introduction, “We believe that God means for Christian parents to be their children’s primary sex educators. First messages are the most powerful-why wait until your child hears distorted views and then try to correct the misunderstanding? Sexuality is a beautiful gift-why not present it to your child the way God intended?”.
This book contains passages explicitly describing:
* How pleasurable sex is;
* The location and pleasurability of the clitoris;
* The sensitivity of the penis to pleasure
* What porn is and where it's found
* What rape porn is
* What sex slavery is
* Explicit descriptions of orgasms, including describing them as a sudden burst of pleasure
My dad read me this book when I was 8, 3rd grade.
TEDD TRIPP & BDSM P0RN SITES
What really got me thinking about this was the fact that in my state, the statute of limitations to sue in civil court for assault and battery was up, however the statute of limitations on sexual abuse was not.
So obviously all of this stuff is pretty messed up. But what takes it to the next level of messed up and makes what they did a sex crime (I'm hoping the DA sees it the same way), is when you really look at what Tedd Tripp advocates parents do to their children:
“Remove his drawers so that the spanking is not lost in the padding of his pants.... It is best to lay the child across your lap rather than over a bed or a chair. This puts the spanking in the context of your physical relationship. He is not being removed from you to a neutral object for the purpose of being disciplined.”
Which basically means:
* Take off the child's clothes
* Place them on your lap, fully or partially naked
* Strike them with what could legally be classified as a deadly weapon
So I started thinking about how spanking is a BDSM kink and fetish. Which was weird to think about in the context of what your parents did to you.
Then I thought, well damn there are tons of BDSM p0rn sites, there have to be some with what happened to me on there. It turns out that there are TONS of videos of exactly this on sites such as p0rnhub and heavy fetish .com.
For example:
* “Hard belt spanking for cheating” (porn hub)
* “Spanked to Tears with the Bathbrush - Real Tears for Letting Him Down” (porn hub)
* “Hard paddle spanking in the principal's office” (porn hub)
* “SPANK CHINA - Hua’s first spanking session”, (heavy fetish)
* "Spanking Jane" (heavy fetish)
I tried putting the links in but reddit flagged my post so if you’re really curious just search by title and website
These videos appear on the same site as stuff like real hardcore BDSM stuff like electrocution torture and people in cages, tied in the air and having their genitals electrocuted. Basically real torture like in this video: "WIRED PUSSY - Sandra Romain andSara Scott" (heavy fetish)
And then you realize, "oh, if they filmed what they did, it would be child p0rn_".
18 U.S. Code § 2256:
- ‘child porn0graphy’ means any visual depiction, including any photograph, film, video, picture, or computer or computer-generated image or picture, whether made or produced by electronic, mechanical, or other means, of sexually explicit conduct, where- the production of such visual depiction involves the use of a minor engaging in sexually explicit conduct; such visual depiction is a digital image, computer image, or computer-generated image that is, or is indistinguishable from, that of a minor engaging in sexually explicit conduct; or such visual depiction has been created, adapted, or modified to appear that an identifiable minor is engaging in sexually explicit conduct.”
- sexually explicit conduct” means actual or simulated—
- sexual intercourse, including genital-genital, oral-genital, anal-genital, or oral-anal, whether between persons of the same or opposite sex;
- bestiality;
- masturbation;
- sadistic or masochistic abuse; or
- lascivious exhibition of the anus, genitals, or pubic area of any person;
TORTURE
The next shoe to drop was when I read the legal definitions of torture.Torture is defined as “the infliction of intense pain (as from burning, crushing, or wounding) to punish, coerce, or afford sadistic pleasure”. -Merriam Webster
The U.N. Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment says:
“For the purposes of this Convention, the term ‘torture’ means any act by which severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental, is intentionally inflicted on a person for such purposes as obtaining from him or a third person information or a confession, punishing him for an act he or a third person has committed or is suspected of having committed, or intimidating or coercing him or a third person, or for any reason based on discrimination of any kind, when such pain or suffering is inflicted by or at the instigation of or with the consent or acquiescence of a public official or other person acting in an official capacity.”
The U.S. Federal torture 18 U.S. Code § 2340 says,
"'torture' means an act committed by a person acting under the color of law specifically intended to inflict severe physical or mental pain or suffering (other than pain or suffering incidental to lawful sanctions) upon another person within his custody or physical control"
The study “Child Torture as a Form of Child Abuse” from University of Wisconsin School ofMedicine and appearing in the Journal of Child & Adolescent Trauma states:
- "Child torture is defined medically as...At least two physical assaults, occurring over at least two incidents or a single extended incident, which would cause prolonged physical pain, emotional distress, bodily injury, or death... And...
- At least two elements of psychological abuse such as isolation, intimidation, emotional/psychological maltreatment, terrorizing, spurning, or deprivation...
- Inflicted by the child’s caretaker(s)”
* “Stover and Nightingale (1985) state: The purpose of torture is to break the will of thevictim and ultimately to break his or her humanity...through infliction of severe or acute physical pain and mental suffering...and requires that the torturer exert physical control over his or her victim. (p. 4–5)”
* “Campbell (2007) adds: ‘The act of torture is carried out for the purpose of physically and psychologically ‘breaking’ an individual’ (p. 633).’”
* “PTSD is the most commonly diagnosed psychological disorder among adult torture victims (Allodi and Cowgill 1982; Herman 1992). In addition to torture, polyvictimization has been recognized to be associated with worse mental health outcomes in child abuse victims (Finkelhor et al. 2011). By definition, all of \[the study participants\] have suffered polyvictimization as defined by Finkelhor.”
See [https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s40653-016-0108-x\](https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s40653-016-0108-x)
GRANDFATHER MANDATORY REPORTER
Also, in this fucked up land of fucking crazy shit, I realized that my grandfather, who we saw all the time, was a mandatory reporter THIS WHOLE TIME. He also had a masters in Psychology, so that's extra WTF.DAD MENTAL HEALTH COUNSELOR
Another wild thing is that my dad just got his masters in counseling (christian counseling ofc) and is now working as a mental health care provider.CONCLUSION
I was just diagnosed with Chronic PTSD a few weeks ago and have been out of work on treatment ever since.But basically none of this feels real to me. I find it interesting in a sort of detached way that every time I detail what my childhood was like, they're shocked and appalled. I could see the female detective's eyes tearing up a bit. But I suppose it shouldn't be so surprising. After all, they put my sibling in the psych hospital 3x before the age of 18.
Please let me know what you all think. One of the silver linings on all this is because of my time in the military, I can get a free PTSD service dog which I'm excited for.
But the thing that finally made me realize this should be referred to the police was that one of the counselors in the PTSD program is a former cop and sex crimes investigator and was shocked by this whole thing. So that's my life right now. :)
TLDR: Parents in child abuse cult; did S&M acts on us as kids; police investigating.
2024.04.28 02:52 thaslaya Campfire Audio Bonneville Review - No Kumbaya For Me
 | 3⭐️ submitted by thaslaya to headphones [link] [comments]
Disclaimer: This set was provided for a trial period through the Watercooler tour. Shoutout to Bloom Audio for providing the Bonneville and to @Rockwell75 for coordinating the tours. Gear used: ●LG v30+ ●Samsung Galaxy s22 Ultra ●Samsung dongle ●iFi GO bar Kensei ●Kiwi Ears Allegro ●Hiby FC4 Source: ●Listening was done through Amazon Music HD or Ultra HD. Introduction: Campfire Audio (CFA) is a US company based out of Portland, OR that has garnered a reputation for uniquely tuned iems that mostly veer away from the standard targets. Their arguably most popular and well renowned set is the Andromeda but they manufacture many other cult favorites (Trifecta, Supermoon, and Solaris to name a few) and even full sized headphones. The Bonneville debuted in 2023 as part of the Chromatic series which also features the Cascara, Ponderosa, and an updated Supermoon. It sports a hybrid configuration featuring a 10mm dynamic driver and 3 custom balanced armatures, 1 for mids and 2 for highs. They are currently available on the Campfire Audio website for $1399.99. That's definitely no chump change and there are no shortage of amazing options at that price and below. Let's see if the sound and overall value warrant the asking price. Build, fit, ergonomics: Keep in mind that this particular set was provided as part of a tour and did not include the retail box or tips but everything else is stock. The Bonneville comes packaged with a 3.5mm cable and 2 mesh storage bags, 1 large and 1 small. The shells are available in classic black or a vibrant pink. The tour set provided is the pink variety and I have to admit it is quite fetching. It's not a color I would normally choose for myself but it's a fun and unique look that fits well with CFA's Chromatic theme. The shells have a semi-custom contour and shape and are constructed of resin with a stainless steel faceplate and nozzle. They are a bit bulky in profile but have a nice sturdy build quality and a great weight balance. The nozzle length is adequate but I would have liked it to be slightly longer for a deeper insertion. The included mesh bags are a pretty mediocre storage option at this price point. The small one has seperate pockets for each iem which offers a little protection but the large one is just a catch-all zipper pouch. I would honestly expect to see a hard case of some kind. Since I didn't have access to the stock tips, I went with my trusty Penon Liqueurs and was able to get a comfortable fit and good seal. The noise isolation is very good and I could hear little of the goings-on around me even with no music playing. Like all of CFA's iems, the Bonneville utilizes MMCX connections. I personally much prefer the standard 2 pin connection but YMMV. The stock cable is CFA's own Time Stream Chromatic cable that retails seperately for $79.99. It's not the standard braided style that I like but the flat, side-by-side wires is a unique look. The housing on the connectors and the chin slider are plastic, the cable itself feels very cheap and low quality, and the bundled cable is only available in 3.5mm termination. Well that's not entirely true; for an additional $200 you can add the "Deluxe" accessory package to your purchase (that's now a $1599.99 price tag). That includes a leather carrying case and 2 additional Time Stream cables in 4.4mm and 2.5mm terminations. The quality of the stock cable is completely juxtaposed to the quality of the iems themselves; it's like selling a luxury car with hubcabs. I have purchased many ChiFi cables at half the price of CFA's Time Stream cable that have vastly better build quality. For an iem retailing at $1399, I would expect metal housing on the connectors and modular terminations at the absolute minimum. Honestly, I'd expect to see the stock cable paired with a >$100 iem and even then I'd swap it out for something better. To be perfectly blunt, the stock cable and overall accessories included with the Bonneville is insulting. I understand that those looking to shell out $1400 for iems probably have other cables they can swap out or even prefer; however, including cheap and inferior accessories based on that assumption is not good business practice and undermines the quality of the product as a whole. Sound impressions: The closest profile to my ears is a u-shape with a healthy bass shelf. There is obviously a ton of low end here but it can approach overbearing and border on gimmicky at times. Pair that with a harsh, grating treble and the product of the tuning is just so strange. Theres a lot of warmth in the low end and even in the recessed midrange but the treble has thin note weight leading to an unnatural presentation. For me It's almost an incoherent tuning that doesn't work at all. I commend Campfire Audio on trying something outside of the box and experimenting with tuning but this is a big miss in my book. If the treble was warmer and less harsh then I think the overall tuning would be more coherent. Yes that tuning might be considered too warm for some, but I think it'd at least be more consistent in presentation across the entire frequency spectrum. The soundstage has good depth but just average width and comes across as intimate on some tracks. Detail retrieval is good but not the most resolving set. It doesn't really aim to be though as it's focused more towards musical enjoyment than critical listening. To my ears it plays very few genres well, most notably orchestra/classical and live performances. But it can be adequate with some R&B, rock, and pop too depending on the listener's level of treble sensitivity. String instruments ranging from stand up bass all the way to violin sound fantastic and have a natural timbre. To their credit, they a very easy set to drive and do not require amplification to get to loud levels so a simple dongle will suffice. ●Lows - Bass is definitely the focal point of the tuning and there's a large bass shelf. The punch and dynamics are good and it feels vivacious and powerful. It's very big and bold but often times I found it to be too thick and syrupy, bleeding into the lower mids quite a bit. For orchestral music the bass reverberates and adds to the weight of the notes but is not overwhelming. Bass strings, brass instruments, and percussion feel heavy and visceral mimicking a live performance. With pop music the elevated bass shelf can present as bloated and intrusive. It has a bit better presentation with rock music where guitars provide a better balance with such a large bass. It's fairly quick and keeps up well in complicated tracks but the decay lingers too long leading to a heavy-handed presentation. In short, it's big and dirty which some listeners might enjoy. ●Mid - Vocals are clear but definitely won't blow anyone away with their presentation on the Bonneville. This is not a vocal forward set. They aren't necessarily recessed but they can sure feel that way when the bass is overpowering. They never come off shouty which is a plus but I do prefer a more vocal forward presentation without mid bass intrusion. Female vocals do a better job of setting themselves apart than their male counterparts. Guitars have a realistic timbre as do piano, violin, and other instruments. ●Highs - The treble is elevated to contrast the large bass shelf. I personally prefer a warmer overall presentation but I understand why CFA wanted to increase the highs so as to balance against the boosted bass and not lose out entirely on upper end detail. Due to this increase though, there is a sharpness and harshness to certain notes, particularly the edges of "s", "sh", and "t" present sibilant at times. Snares, claps, high hats and cymbals can be piercing and splashy too. The timbre can often sound unnatural due to the boosted treble. The note weight is on the thinner side and comes off a bit cold which is a striking contrast from the very thick weighted bass. It's quite an incoherency to my ears. I personally enjoy my music at a farily high volume which may be why I can hear more of a harshness in the treble than some I have talked to about the Bonneville. When I lower the volume, the treble presentation does sound much more even, smoothing out troubled areas. However, I have never been nor will I ever be a low-medium volume listener and I don't want to have to change the way I prefer my music to gel with any headphone or iem. Summary: Ultimately, I give the Bonneville 3 stars which on my rating chart means "there are buyers, but not for me". So who is this set for? Bassheads? Well, yes and no. In terms of shear amount, it's one of the biggest basses I've heard in an iem but it's also not the cleanest presentation. Is it for vocal purists? The mids arent forward enough to set themselves apart from the bass at times and there's some harshness and sibilance at higher volume levels. How about trebleheads? I don't think any treblehead worth their salt would want that bass shelf. So who will get the most from them? For someone who's library caters to what the Bonneville does best and who enjoys a lower listening volume, I think they might be able to find a lot of enjoyment here. But even then, their price to performance ratio is too low and I can't recommend them outright. The superb build quality of the shells is self-evident but the pitiful stock cable and lack of a hard case undermine the overall value and are abysmal at the $1400 asking price. Seriously, there are sets retailing for a tenth of that cost touting better accessories. Personally I was very underwhelmed and disappointed auditioning my first CFA iem. For anyone that enjoys them, I'm glad you found something that works for you. I'm not here to dissuade anyone from making a purchase and can only write about how my ears interpret the sound. The thing I love most about this hobby is how everyone hears things differently. In the end the Bonneville is just not a set that resonates with me nor do I feel like they hold much value at their current price. |
2024.04.28 02:39 maxxor6868 No one cares about the sexism that men face in the workforce.
Both men and women face sexism in the workforce but people only care when it effects women. Creepy guy hits on cashier? Everyone comes to her aid and escorts the guy out. Male cashier get no such love. They get made fun for crying or god forbid they call out someone hitting on them. They than have their sexuality question. How about carry outs? No one will help a guy try to take out an item dangerously heavier than him and instead make fun of him for asking for help. This extends to all the chores that no one wants to do. Taking out the trash? A guy gets volunteer. Cleaning both the men and women restrooms at the end of the night? That right guys get "volunteer" again. All girls shift? Welp everyone was too busy that night and a guy in the morning shift has to do it instead. A guy calls out because he puking his stomach out? He just a liar who trying to get out of work. This extends beyond just basic work. In managmenet, men have to take it all in. If you catch them in their office privately breaking down then they are gossip about being a "sissy" to everyone on the floor level.
There no corporate training videos about men staying at work by themselves late at night or videos about them breaking down crying and why it okay to need a mental health day. If a guy pushes an issue to hr if they are bully they are ignore for weeks and than brush aside and told to reflect if they are making "others uncomfortable". Again this is not saying women do not face garbage in the workforce. They do. The problem is time and time again women get responses to the sexism they face while men get absoltuely zero help and are push down even further for bringing it up. If you dont believe this opinion pay attention to your local retail stores at closing or during peak drama and you notice the lack of care men face daily when it comes to sexism.
submitted by maxxor6868 to TrueUnpopularOpinion [link] [comments]
There no corporate training videos about men staying at work by themselves late at night or videos about them breaking down crying and why it okay to need a mental health day. If a guy pushes an issue to hr if they are bully they are ignore for weeks and than brush aside and told to reflect if they are making "others uncomfortable". Again this is not saying women do not face garbage in the workforce. They do. The problem is time and time again women get responses to the sexism they face while men get absoltuely zero help and are push down even further for bringing it up. If you dont believe this opinion pay attention to your local retail stores at closing or during peak drama and you notice the lack of care men face daily when it comes to sexism.
2024.04.28 00:29 Dandelion_Head Need Help Validating my Symptoms to my Dr. (and myself).
I (35 F) recently saw my massage therapist who suggested I may have Elhers Danlo’s. She noticed the way my body responded to massage and its ability to bend (with ease and flexibility) along with the type of pain I was having (deep hip/SI/Siatica) could be indicative of ED. I told her I had considered it as a possibility in in the past but didn’t think I fit the profile. She told me TMJ is a marker (something she treats me for) and she asked me if I feel dizzy when I stand up, to which I responded “pretty much everytime”. I was unaware this could be a symptom of ED.
I’ve now taken her suggestion seriously and looked into the diagnostic criteria, looked up the symptoms and comorbitities, and read anecdotal accounts of people’s experiences with this disorder on Reddit. I am shook to say the least. When I read the many personal accounts on here, I was so overwhelmed I was brought to tears. For the first time in my life these seemingly disparate set of symptoms make sense. I was reminded of experiences I in my younger years that I’ve forgotten about, or still live with but have written off as anything remotely valid or concerning.
I’m at the point now where I need to gather my case to present to my doctor. Having been dismissed over the years for the symptoms I will outline below, I feel I need to come prepared and well researched. I am open to the idea that I may not have ED, but the similarities are undeniable.
A lot of this is just me flushing out what I want to present to my doctor. What I’m looking for is personal validation and credible sources that could link these symptoms with some form of ED.
Health History that I feel is relevant:
Chronic GI Issues: Saw Dr about GI issues within the last 7 years, was put on wait list to see a specialist for FOUR YEARS (that’s free health care for ya). In that time I spent thousands of dollars on naturopathic care: FODMAP diets, SIBO treatments, IV fluids as I was passing so much undigested food, had slow motility issues as well.
Chronic heartburn and reflux/stomach ulcers: starting in my early teens. Was put on reflux medication, had barium swallows done. My gastric issues were the ones most commonly dismissed by doctors
ADHD: Was diagnosed around 14/15 have only sought proper treatment in the last two years. Currently medicated: Vyvanse
Abnormal ECG/EKG: Cardiologist thinks I have an accessory pathway (Wolff-Parkinson-White syndrome) but there’s no way to confirm without invasive testing. I did not know about mitral valve complications and ED until two days ago. I don’t know if I was checked for this.
Menstrual Issues: PMDD, heavy bleeding and severe menstrual pain. I didn’t realize how much pain I was in until I went into to labour. The L&D Nurse was watching my contractions on the monitor and I was having no visible reaction. She asked me if I was feeling my contractions because they were charting pretty high, to which I responded “ya it feels like period cramps”. She urged me to see a doctor when my period came back because your period should not feel like labour pains - who knew?. Somehow giving birth has seemed to level out my lifetime of period issues.
Reoccurring Strep Infections: As a teen was treated for so many strep infections. Most of these ‘infections’ were probably just inflammation as a result of the reflux that was undiagnosed at the time.
Rolling Ankles/Foot Pain: Again as a teen was in a constant state of recovery from ankle injuries. Some from sports, some from just stepping weird off of a curb.
plantar fasciitis? pain in my feet that I would describe as - it feels like my arches are going to tear apart from my heel. Generally just having sore an achey feet at the end of the day, everyday.
Depression/Anxiety: Debilitating depression mostly in my teens, with short stints of hospitalization. I still have periods of depression but I’m able to manage it with support. Panic attacks well into my 20s. I have been on SSRI medications for anxiety.
Back and Hip Pain: I need to “crack/pop” my hips into place multiple times a day in order to feel comfortable and stable in my body.
My knees and shoulders click and grind (thought this was normal too).
Lower back pain that I can only describe as “it feels like my bottom vertebrae are rubbing together”. The only relief is traction; if I can support my upper body on the corner of a counter and let my legs dangle I have a moment of relief.
Siatica, hip flexor pain, glute pain, that does not get better to any level of stretching, foam rolling or hammering with a massage ball. I could get into the deepest stretch and will feel relief in the moment but it has no lasting effect. This was particularly unbearable during pregnancy.
TMJ, jaw clenching (wore a mouth guard as a kid)
Started Regular massage and acupuncture treatments as a teenager to manage back pain (thought this was a result of being an athlete, and having large breasts at a young age).
Low Iron/Anemia: I’ve always had very low ferritin and blood iron levels (ferritin was a 3 at one point). I had iron transfusions during pregnancy, unfortunately this was the only time a Dr took my iron deficiency seriously
Dizziness/Thirst: I never feeling like my thirst can be quenched no matter how much water I drink (talked to Dr. he tested me for diabetes. I do not have it nor did I ever think I had it)
Dizziness when standing, seeing black spots or ringing ears especially if head was near or below legs (such as when gardening or picking something up). My blood pressure always shows up in the normal range even throughout pregnancy. I’ve had a 24hr heart rate monitor due to the abnormal EKG, as far as I know it didn’t indicated any abnormal increases in heart rate.
Bruises: Less so recently but I’m often covered in bruises and I don’t know how I got them. I thought this was an ADHD thing (low proprioception).
Sleep/insomnia: Generally a shit sleeper. I’ve experienced insomnia before. Despite being so physically exhausted I won’t fall asleep for hours. My mind races and it’s physically painful to sleep on my side without pillow props.
Anecdotal Parallels These are some of the personal experiences I read about that made me feel seen. Unfortunately I can’t go to my Dr with “all of these other people on Reddit who have ED experience these symptoms” so PLEASE if you have any credible info that validates these symptoms please share with me.
Inability to sit ‘properly’ in a chair. I’ve tried my whole life to have better posture but sitting with a leg up, cross legged on a chair or any other contorted position is the only way my body doesn’t hurt. No wonder my teachers clocked this as ADHD - I was fidgeting because I was in pain.
Generally feeling like I can’t support my body. I remember working in retail and having to prop my upper body on the counter because it physically hurt to stand. It still does. It actually hurts less to walk than it does to stand. When I stand I’m constantly shifting my weight back and forth.
Cold hands and feet, feeling ‘cold to the bone’. In the winter my joints ache on cold days. The only way to warm my feet or relieve the discomfort of the to the bone chill is by sitting in hot water or having the hottest possible shower. Never realized how much this affected me until we went somewhere warm for vacation and returned in the middle of winter. I fell into what I thought was depression. It felt like my body could not function. My brain and body went offline. I couldn’t get out of bed.
Not being able to hold a pen properly -this one blew my mind, I had no idea this was a thing. I hold my pen in a very tight griped way, almost in a fist. I have very nice writing but it takes all the muscles in my arm to make it so. After a few paragraphs my hand is in pain. I’ll feel muscle tension up into my neck for days after a lot of writing (a lot is like two pages)
I have always been considered flexible, not party trick flexible but I was praised as a dancer for my flexibility and how easily I could fall into the splits. I thought this was a good thing.
Symptoms don’t align or things that seem to contradict a diagnosis:
-I don’t experience subluxation (knees will hurt but the don’t pop out of place. I’ve never dislocated my collar bone)
-growing up I was quite athletic, I danced, played baseball and rugby. Trained and ran half marathons as an adult. I’ve even in the last 6 years trained and fought for amateur boxing. For the amount I’ve put my body through I’ve had few serious injuries, however when doing these activities my body would always be in a lot of pain. I thought it was the normal amount, I’m starting to realize what I’ve come to tolerate might not be normal.
-I test pretty low on the Beighton Scale
-I don’t experience atrophic scarring
-had no stretch marks from pregnancy and vaginal stitches healed normally
-despite experiencing episodes of fatigue I live a pretty physical life. I’m quite physically strong. I’m often able to push through pain and exhaustion to accomplish physical tasks. My toddler wants to be carried constantly and I’ve been able to do so. I used to work as a tailor, hunched over a sewing machine all day. It was physically demanding and I was always in pain but I thought it was normal relative to the repetitive tasks I was performing…realizing now my baseline for pain is probably so skewed at this point.
Thank you if you read this far. And thank you for you’re able provide resources or personal accounts that validate these experiences.
For those that got a diagnosis - was it worth it? I’m contemplating not even putting myself through this. I’ve managed this long without it. Could I just assume I have it and find exercises to support myself? What was the benefit of your diagnosis?
submitted by Dandelion_Head to eds [link] [comments]
I’ve now taken her suggestion seriously and looked into the diagnostic criteria, looked up the symptoms and comorbitities, and read anecdotal accounts of people’s experiences with this disorder on Reddit. I am shook to say the least. When I read the many personal accounts on here, I was so overwhelmed I was brought to tears. For the first time in my life these seemingly disparate set of symptoms make sense. I was reminded of experiences I in my younger years that I’ve forgotten about, or still live with but have written off as anything remotely valid or concerning.
I’m at the point now where I need to gather my case to present to my doctor. Having been dismissed over the years for the symptoms I will outline below, I feel I need to come prepared and well researched. I am open to the idea that I may not have ED, but the similarities are undeniable.
A lot of this is just me flushing out what I want to present to my doctor. What I’m looking for is personal validation and credible sources that could link these symptoms with some form of ED.
Health History that I feel is relevant:
Chronic GI Issues: Saw Dr about GI issues within the last 7 years, was put on wait list to see a specialist for FOUR YEARS (that’s free health care for ya). In that time I spent thousands of dollars on naturopathic care: FODMAP diets, SIBO treatments, IV fluids as I was passing so much undigested food, had slow motility issues as well.
Chronic heartburn and reflux/stomach ulcers: starting in my early teens. Was put on reflux medication, had barium swallows done. My gastric issues were the ones most commonly dismissed by doctors
ADHD: Was diagnosed around 14/15 have only sought proper treatment in the last two years. Currently medicated: Vyvanse
Abnormal ECG/EKG: Cardiologist thinks I have an accessory pathway (Wolff-Parkinson-White syndrome) but there’s no way to confirm without invasive testing. I did not know about mitral valve complications and ED until two days ago. I don’t know if I was checked for this.
Menstrual Issues: PMDD, heavy bleeding and severe menstrual pain. I didn’t realize how much pain I was in until I went into to labour. The L&D Nurse was watching my contractions on the monitor and I was having no visible reaction. She asked me if I was feeling my contractions because they were charting pretty high, to which I responded “ya it feels like period cramps”. She urged me to see a doctor when my period came back because your period should not feel like labour pains - who knew?. Somehow giving birth has seemed to level out my lifetime of period issues.
Reoccurring Strep Infections: As a teen was treated for so many strep infections. Most of these ‘infections’ were probably just inflammation as a result of the reflux that was undiagnosed at the time.
Rolling Ankles/Foot Pain: Again as a teen was in a constant state of recovery from ankle injuries. Some from sports, some from just stepping weird off of a curb.
plantar fasciitis? pain in my feet that I would describe as - it feels like my arches are going to tear apart from my heel. Generally just having sore an achey feet at the end of the day, everyday.
Depression/Anxiety: Debilitating depression mostly in my teens, with short stints of hospitalization. I still have periods of depression but I’m able to manage it with support. Panic attacks well into my 20s. I have been on SSRI medications for anxiety.
Back and Hip Pain: I need to “crack/pop” my hips into place multiple times a day in order to feel comfortable and stable in my body.
My knees and shoulders click and grind (thought this was normal too).
Lower back pain that I can only describe as “it feels like my bottom vertebrae are rubbing together”. The only relief is traction; if I can support my upper body on the corner of a counter and let my legs dangle I have a moment of relief.
Siatica, hip flexor pain, glute pain, that does not get better to any level of stretching, foam rolling or hammering with a massage ball. I could get into the deepest stretch and will feel relief in the moment but it has no lasting effect. This was particularly unbearable during pregnancy.
TMJ, jaw clenching (wore a mouth guard as a kid)
Started Regular massage and acupuncture treatments as a teenager to manage back pain (thought this was a result of being an athlete, and having large breasts at a young age).
Low Iron/Anemia: I’ve always had very low ferritin and blood iron levels (ferritin was a 3 at one point). I had iron transfusions during pregnancy, unfortunately this was the only time a Dr took my iron deficiency seriously
Dizziness/Thirst: I never feeling like my thirst can be quenched no matter how much water I drink (talked to Dr. he tested me for diabetes. I do not have it nor did I ever think I had it)
Dizziness when standing, seeing black spots or ringing ears especially if head was near or below legs (such as when gardening or picking something up). My blood pressure always shows up in the normal range even throughout pregnancy. I’ve had a 24hr heart rate monitor due to the abnormal EKG, as far as I know it didn’t indicated any abnormal increases in heart rate.
Bruises: Less so recently but I’m often covered in bruises and I don’t know how I got them. I thought this was an ADHD thing (low proprioception).
Sleep/insomnia: Generally a shit sleeper. I’ve experienced insomnia before. Despite being so physically exhausted I won’t fall asleep for hours. My mind races and it’s physically painful to sleep on my side without pillow props.
Anecdotal Parallels These are some of the personal experiences I read about that made me feel seen. Unfortunately I can’t go to my Dr with “all of these other people on Reddit who have ED experience these symptoms” so PLEASE if you have any credible info that validates these symptoms please share with me.
Inability to sit ‘properly’ in a chair. I’ve tried my whole life to have better posture but sitting with a leg up, cross legged on a chair or any other contorted position is the only way my body doesn’t hurt. No wonder my teachers clocked this as ADHD - I was fidgeting because I was in pain.
Generally feeling like I can’t support my body. I remember working in retail and having to prop my upper body on the counter because it physically hurt to stand. It still does. It actually hurts less to walk than it does to stand. When I stand I’m constantly shifting my weight back and forth.
Cold hands and feet, feeling ‘cold to the bone’. In the winter my joints ache on cold days. The only way to warm my feet or relieve the discomfort of the to the bone chill is by sitting in hot water or having the hottest possible shower. Never realized how much this affected me until we went somewhere warm for vacation and returned in the middle of winter. I fell into what I thought was depression. It felt like my body could not function. My brain and body went offline. I couldn’t get out of bed.
Not being able to hold a pen properly -this one blew my mind, I had no idea this was a thing. I hold my pen in a very tight griped way, almost in a fist. I have very nice writing but it takes all the muscles in my arm to make it so. After a few paragraphs my hand is in pain. I’ll feel muscle tension up into my neck for days after a lot of writing (a lot is like two pages)
I have always been considered flexible, not party trick flexible but I was praised as a dancer for my flexibility and how easily I could fall into the splits. I thought this was a good thing.
Symptoms don’t align or things that seem to contradict a diagnosis:
-I don’t experience subluxation (knees will hurt but the don’t pop out of place. I’ve never dislocated my collar bone)
-growing up I was quite athletic, I danced, played baseball and rugby. Trained and ran half marathons as an adult. I’ve even in the last 6 years trained and fought for amateur boxing. For the amount I’ve put my body through I’ve had few serious injuries, however when doing these activities my body would always be in a lot of pain. I thought it was the normal amount, I’m starting to realize what I’ve come to tolerate might not be normal.
-I test pretty low on the Beighton Scale
-I don’t experience atrophic scarring
-had no stretch marks from pregnancy and vaginal stitches healed normally
-despite experiencing episodes of fatigue I live a pretty physical life. I’m quite physically strong. I’m often able to push through pain and exhaustion to accomplish physical tasks. My toddler wants to be carried constantly and I’ve been able to do so. I used to work as a tailor, hunched over a sewing machine all day. It was physically demanding and I was always in pain but I thought it was normal relative to the repetitive tasks I was performing…realizing now my baseline for pain is probably so skewed at this point.
Thank you if you read this far. And thank you for you’re able provide resources or personal accounts that validate these experiences.
For those that got a diagnosis - was it worth it? I’m contemplating not even putting myself through this. I’ve managed this long without it. Could I just assume I have it and find exercises to support myself? What was the benefit of your diagnosis?
2024.04.28 00:05 nedimzka My Pitch for MCU's Spider-Man 4 - Spider Man: Brand New Day (First Half)
 | My general idea for this movie is part of a three-movie saga where we see Spider-Man a bit more grounded and isolated from the MCU but not fully so. In my view, Spider-Man is more of a street-level hero. I don't care about the full strength of his powers or whatever. In my eyes, he is street-level, and that's what I'm going with this fourth (and the rest of the movies), at least story-wise. I must also say that I am inspired by Raimi's trilogy, Spectacular Spider-Man and Kraven's Last Hunt. I looked what the fans wanted and chose ideas among them. I am adding a cast that I think fits this movie too. Another thing is that I am not doing anything that the other movies did. No Oscorp or Norman or Doc Ock or anything. Aside from Venom obviously because Marvel really wants Venom for some reason. I added him unwillingly to the trilogy, I'd rather not have him but I have a fun idea about him. This is only the first half of the movie. If people are willing. I might continue to the second part too. submitted by nedimzka to Spiderman [link] [comments] The movie takes place after a few years after the events of No Way Home. Peter is still suffering from the aftermath of the events of NWH. He is unwilling to have anyone close to him. The death of Aunt May and losing everyone he loved made him more brutal, more stubborn and more careful. He has trust issues due to Mysterio and Green Goblin and is unwilling to let anyone into his circle. He is afraid that they might get hurt or worse that they might betray him later. As a result of this, he is a bit of an asshole, especially to Daredevil who is in this movie, not as a mentor but as a partner at certain points. Similar to the other Spider-Men in NWH. Daredevil had to deal with the issues of having a double life and he learnt that he needed other people. In the third season of the Netflix show, Matt Murdock was no more but Daredevil lived on. Another important thing is that this movie focuses more on Spider-Man. The ending of NWH's script said that Peter Parker is no more so, we get more Spider-Man than Peter but not always in terms of action. Peter has a similar arc to Daredevil in this sense so, I think Daredevil is the best character to establish his bonds to the larger MCU world but also to MCU's street-level world. I am also warning you this is quite long and a bit more detailed than usual pitches but that's just how I function. I'm also not good at dialogues so don't @ me for cringe dialogue. Finally, (I do not own the image I added. It has the original creator's name on it.) Here is the cast: My cast for the fourth movie which I named Spider-Man: Brand New Way Spider-Man - Tom Holland Black Cat - Sydney Chandler (IDK maybe Anya Taylor-Joy because people really want her) Daredevil - Charlie Cox Prowler - Donald Glover J. Jonah Jameson - J.K. Simmons Turk Barret - Rob Morgan Karen Page - Deborah Ann-Woll Foggy Nelson - Elden Hensen Kraven - Karl Urban (this is undebatable) Plot: The movie starts with a shot of a pier in the night where we see some henchmen carrying stuff to shipping containers. Guns. We see that containers form letters which read: “Brand New Day”. I love the idea of having on-screen texts that divide the movie into six distinct chapters similar to James Gunn's The Suicide Squad. So, I will be using them because I can. Anyway, the shot starts to pan out a bit until the bottom part of the shot is obstructed by a shipping container. We hear some indistinguishable talk about the shipment not being enough and that their boss will be unhappy about this. For a brief moment, we see someone quickly move over the container. The shot changes, and we are at level with the henchmen, they are moving in front of the camera, carrying the guns. In the distance, we see some containers and slowly, but creepily, we see Spider-Man's eyes moving closer and becoming more apparent. The shot changes to Spidey's back, where we see the henchmen from his view. Some henchmen turn to look at him, but he quickly moves out of frame to continue his reconnaissance. They are alerted but they are expecting someone else. The shot changes back to the henchmen where we see Turk Barret. He angrily asks them to continue their job. Turk has enough share of a rough time with superheroes so, he is alert. We return to Spidey. He is perched on top of a shipping container, trying to form a plan. We see him from the front but only from the chest up. This is the first time we see him struggling with his costume as well as his economic status. His eyes start to twitch, the electronic mechanisms that help him with his surveillance imbued in his eyes, which also help them move, are getting old thus, causing him issues. He gently hits the eyes a few times, complaining about this until the eyes go back to normal. His economic status isn't well enough to help him maintain his gadgets. He plans a stealthy approach to take out the henchmen one by one. He puts his plan in motion and his plan is going well. He is tying up the henchmen with his webs without much issue until one of the henchmen realises something is wrong and alerts the whole pier. Spidey is in a tough spot now. The henchmen shout "The devil is here". We are in Hell's Kitchen after all. We are yet to see Spidey in his full glory. We can only see glimpses of him moving in and out of the frame. My initial vision of this scene is quite dark. The henchmen start to fire randomly at where Spidey moves, and we get a stylistic action scene similar to the one in The Batman. I want every action scene to have something unique about them somehow. We see glimpses of Spidey, taking the guys out one by one, having a similar presence to Batman in The Batman. He is a spider, a hunter. The glimpses of Spidey resemble how a spider would move and hunt. Only Turk is left, who escaped once the gunfire started. He starts to move into a warehouse where he can hide and have more visibility. Turk, still assuming it's Daredevil because he saw none of the action, shouts Daredevil to man up and fight him directly. We hear Spidey's laugh, more menacing. He says "You still think I'm the devil but I am far worse". He shoots his web to catch Turk's gun. Turk realising he is meeting with Spider-Man is more alerted. The gun is yanked out of his hand, and the shot changes to the door of the warehouse. In the dark we see Spider-Man's figure moving towards Turk. The shot starts from his feet and moves up his body. Once Spidey’s chest is in shot, he shrugs off as if he injured. He slowly enters the warehouse, where we see him in the costume he was wearing at the end of NWH, a little bit roughed up from a previous encounter. Turk tries to run away but Spidey stops him and hangs him upside down to the ceiling. Spidey talks to Turk and asks him about who got him out of prison to hire him. Turk tries to lie and says that he is innocent and that he is selling the guns on his own but Spidey is not having any of this, mentioning that he is coming from 10th Avenue where there was a shooting and one of the guys mentioned his name. Turk repeats himself. Spidey threatens him but to no avail. Spidey gets ready to beat Turk but is interrupted by someone from behind. Spidey turns around, and there he is with all his glory: Daredevil. Spidey explains the situation to which Daredevil says he knows and shuts him up. Spidey, upset by this, tells him he has everything under control. Spidey also tells him to leave and turns to Turk again. Daredevil says he’s not there to bug Spidey. He’s there to help him and that they are looking into the same thing. Daredevil is sympathetic towards Spidey. He can see the good in him and he can see a piece of himself in him. Spidey ignores him and turns back to Turk to interrogate him and asks Turk who hired him. Turk is scared at this point and tries to bargain. Turk says that he doesn’t know who got him out of prison. He was bailed out by someone he doesn’t know and that this person gave him some money in advance to supervise some shipments. Spidey doesn’t believe him and calls him out but Daredevil says that Turk is saying the truth. Daredevil gets closer to Turk and threatens him about prison and stuff to get more information. Spidey says he got it and gets angry at Daredevil. Turk says he doesn’t know anything but Spidey is not satisfied. He continues to force Turk for more information. While they are talking Daredevil seems distracted and Turk asks about it to which Spidey shuts him up. Daredevil tells them to shut up but they don’t. Daredevil tells Spidey to be ready. Spidey doesn't listen to him and continues until a gunshot is heard, and Spidey is thrown off his feet by Daredevil. Daredevil angrily says, "I told you to get ready". Spidey shrugs him off and gets up to face the new wave of henchmen. Daredevil and Spidey start fighting the henchmen but Spidey insists on fighting alone. We see the two characters from two different cameras all the time. There isn't any shot that they are next to each other and even if they share a frame, one way or another it is divided by a column or something, showcasing Spidey's insistence on working alone and not letting Daredevil in. Daredevil helps him here and there but never directly, through his baton or something because that is the limit he lets Daredevil get close to him. They take out all the henchmen and hear police sirens. They hastily leave the warehouse. Daredevil is upset by Spidey's stubbornness and insistence on acting on his own. Spidey talks back to him and tells him to mind his own business. Daredevil gets angry at this response and says to Spidey, "Get your shit together. Your stubbornness isn’t doing you any good. Remember that you are not alone in this. I'm only trying to help you." Spidey says, "I didn't ask for your help or needed it. I was doing fine until you came anyway." Daredevil says, "Listen, kid, I can guess that you are going through a hard time but your stubbornness will only cost you and the people around you." Spidey says, "You know nothing about me, knockoff devil. Stop poking your horns in my business." and webs away. The scene ends there and as Spidey is swinging away we see a stylistic on-screen text with the movie's name. In the next scene, we are met with Prowler. One of the best things about Raimi's Spider-Man was that it was constantly going back and forth between Spider-Man and the villains so, we’re utilising that. He is talking with the boss. Yet we don't see the boss. We can only see his huge white hands. Prowler says that Turk failed once again but the boss only laughs. He said that was the plan all along. He needed a distraction to carry the weapon across the city. The shooting and Turk's failure were all a plan to carry this new weapon to his scientists. He talks about how this new weapon will change the course of the turf war going on since Fisk became the mayor. Yet, the interruption of "boy-scouts" as the boss says is getting out of hand. The boss gives something to Prowler. It’s a poster of a circus show where we see a man fighting with a lion. The boss says this is the plan. Prowler sees it and understands what he needs to do. The most important rule of film-making is "show not tell" and even though I will get into this turf war in this movie, I prefer to leave it for a further installation and even better, for the Daredevil show, which if I were to write, I would heavily base it on Zdarsky's Daredevil run specifically the issues 1-20. The purpose of this scene is to establish the turf war, the overarching villain of the story and one of the main antagonists of this movie: Prowler. In the next scene, we see Spider-Man swinging through the city, trying to get to his class in time. Again, drawing inspiration from other works, we see a swinging scene similar to the opening of TASM 2 which is still one of the best swinging scenes. We hear police chatter in Spidey's ears who is using the mask's capabilities to stay on top of crime in the city which has dropped considerably since he started to be a friendly neighbourhood Spider-Man instead of going into all the cosmic adventures. Peter sees Empire State University in the distance but he also hears a radio chatter about a bank robbery. He looks at his school and then sighs and swings away to the opposite way, to stop the robbery. The robbery isn’t too complicated scene. Spider-Man fights with a few robbers, he makes jokes and then he sees that some people are in danger. The fight scene, and this goes for any fight scene, shows that Spidey isn’t holding back. He is brutal with his beatings and every hit is felt immensely. At the end of NWH something interesting happened, this Spider-Man tried to kill someone out of pure anger. I want to focus on this anger a bit. That’s why Spider-Man is a more brutal than he was in the previous movies. Anyway, people are in danger. He hesitates for a moment but jumps in to save the innocents. Another one of my favourite things about Raimi’s Spider-Man movies were the moments where we see Spider-Man jump in to stop crime or to save people while doing something. He would choose to save people instead of what he wants to do. This scene serves to be a scene like that. The next scene starts with a shot inside the halls of the university. People are chatting and stuff. All of a sudden, Peter barges in and tries to catch his class which can have some funny moments. Peter gets into his class but he is late which his professor Dr. Miles Warren (yes that one) is upset about. We can have more awkward Peter Parker moments here to add humour to the movie. He says that he is sorry and his professor tells him to sit down. Peter sits to the only available seat which is next to a girl he doesn’t know. The class ends and Peter goes to Dr. Warren to talk to him. Dr. Warren says that this is the fourth time Peter is late to his class, Peter’s grades are declining and that if this continues his scholarship might be cancelled. Peter tries to explain his situation but Dr. Warren is done with excuses. Warren tells him to get his act together and leaves the lecture hall. Peter is left alone. Peter leaves the university slowly where we see him looking at people. He is yearning for the friendships and relationships they have but he can’t have those. He is Spider-Man and Spider-Man only hurts the people around him. He bumps into Flash Thompson while not paying attention. (I know he is said to be going to MIT but I’m stealing troyoboyo17’s idea about how he was expelled from MIT and has to go ESU now). Flash doesn’t remember him but likes him because they went to the same high school. Flash asks him if he is available this weekend. He is having a party and he wants Peter to join too. Peter gives a short cold answer and walks away. He leaves the university and after checking his surroundings, gets into an alleyway before emerging back as Spider-Man. He starts swinging through the city to catch a job interview. He is talking to himself about being late. The shot changes and we see that he is rejected which is followed by a montage of him being rejected for various reasons. We finally see him leaving a building. He looks battered. He gets a message from JJJ, asking him about the next delivery of photos. He swears and says something like “F*ck I forgot about it” or something and rushes to Bugle. This is my movie I can use those words. We see JJJ looking through photos before throwing them on his table. He says they are all crap and wouldn’t do any good to him. He says he would only pay 5 dollars per piece. Peter says he really needs the money. JJJ already knows this but he does not budge because he wants something else from him (not that). Jameson says he can find someone else to take these pictures. He needs something more from him, indirectly suggesting the photos of Spider-Man. Peter brings out a few more photos he took but Jameson isn't biting. He repeats himself and chooses a few pictures to buy from Peter saying the price is the same if Peter does not have anything more to give. Peter is left with no choice so brings out a few photos of Spider-Man from various occasions. Jameson looks at the photos and says they are all crap and says that he'll give 25 per piece for Spider-Man and that he'll pay 10 per piece for the rest (I don’t know how much someone would pay for such images I’m not a photographer these are subjected to change). Peter is not happy about this deal because he knows that Jameson will use those pictures to show his alter ego as a villain but he needs the money and this might be the tipping point for him. He thanks Jameson and takes the cheque Jameson gives him. As he is getting out of Daily Bugle building Peter’s phone buzzes and he sees that there is a crime in progress. He looks at the police car and gets ready to help. The scene changes. We are in a different setting this time. We are at a circus where we see a man wearing a lion's skin talking to the audience. We meet with Karl Urban's Kraven in this scene. An ambitious man who wants to achieve greatness but can only perform in circuses where he tackles lions or other dangerous animals. He gives the same old circus talk until the lion is released. He tackles the lion without much struggle and overpowers the beast. Even though his battle with lion ends, Kraven shows more violence than need, showcasing his violent persona. The show ends with everybody clapping him and he leaves the stage. The scene changes to the outside of the circus where people want signs from him and tell him how great he is. One particular person tells him that he was so great back in the day when he used to hunt animals. This person asks what happened to him to which Kraven responds "The world changed. It has better spectacles than an ordinary man who is hunting animals. It now has people who can turn into green giants and shoot webs." This person says that they can never reach his greatness and he might have an offer for him. Gives him a flash drive (look my other idea was dropping a document to his door which is weird, Kraven needs to choose to look into what he needs to do) and leaves. This person is Aaron Davis, Prowler. (I know that this sounds a lot like Vulture and Mysterio combined but Kraven needs to be in his lowest to parallel Peter’s situation and him performing in circuses makes a lot sense. It makes sense that someone who is doing something extreme before superheroes turns obsolete and is forced to work in a circus after superheroes emerges and does something more extreme than that person. People would lose interest in a hunter when a green giant is fighting with aliens.) Kraven is shaken and confused by this comment but he quickly continues his act of being a circus performer. Fake smiles continues. Later, we see him in his trailer, a crappy and crammed place. It is dirty and disgusting. To Kraven, it's not where he ought to be. He deserves better but his achievements were shadowed by other superheroes Spider-Man. He became nothing compared to those people. He opens the TV and the news about some superhero saving people. He resentfully watches the news while he is filling his glass with whiskey. He sits down and takes a sip from his whiskey as he sighs. To the left of him is a photo of him from his hunting days. Looking at a photo of himself in Africa with a dead lion he killed with his bare hands in 2006. He wishes to be as great as back then. He is angry and resentful towards superheroes. He used to be the one on the news with his conquers but now these people are on there, stealing his spotlight. He takes the flash drive out and looks at it for a moment before plugging into his computer. The drive includes pictures and news that portray Spider-Man as a villain. He sees this as an opportunity to get his glory back. If he becomes a hero himself he will achieve his ultimate glory. This shall be his last hunt. We see Peter in his crappy apartment. The apartment is cramped, messy and not that nice to the eye. Peter is working on the lenses of his mask before his door is knocked. He panics and hides the mask before opening the half-broken door. He sees his landlord who says that Peter is late on rent again. Peter says that he will give it tomorrow but his landlord says he will evict Peter if he doesn’t give him anything today and Peter takes out some of the money he got from Bugle before but his landlord asks for the rest which Peter says he needs it but his landlord insists and Peter is forced to give him the rest of the money. Before leaving to have some fun with the some girls he found on the street his landlord says that there will be a water shortage tonight and calls out to the girls that he has money. Peter goes back to work on the lens but he can’t focus. He sees his image with Aunt May and takes the picture in his hand to investigate it. He takes the mask out and gets out of the window. The scene changes to Prowler. We see Prowler in a garage where he is watching a few people carefully carrying boxes out of a truck. People drop one of the boxes too hard to the ground to which Prowler leaps quickly to grab the man who did it. He asks if the man knows what is in the box but the man can’t answer. Without letting the man go Prowler checks the inside of the box but the shot changes to the inside of the box and we only see a vague figure of what the inside of it looks like before Prowler closes the box again and throws the man on the ground. Prowler says that he will kill the man if he does the same thing again. He says one of the men to carry the box to Dr. Ohnn’s lab (yes that Ohnn. We are dropping a lot of names for the sake of it yes). The next scene starts with Kraven. He is getting ready to leave the circus when his door is knocked. He opens and the circus’ boss is standing there. Let’s call him Max to make this scene easier and also who cares. Max calls out Kraven for leaving him and he says that the circus needs him. Max is upset and says that the circus is a freak show and he doesn’t want to be a part of it anymore. He wants to go on one last hunt before retiring. Max tells him that they have contract and that he can’t leave before it expires. Max is insistent on keeping Kraven and starts threatening him. Kraven unamused by this looks Max directly in the eye and tells him to back off. Yet, Max doesn’t stop and continues to threaten him and we see Kraven’s violent persona. He grabs Max by his throat, throws him to the ground, choking him while Max is trying to get away. Kraven kills Max and leaves the trailer to for one last hunt. The scene ends with Kraven leaving the trailer where the shadow of the trailer casts yet another writing on the ground: "Grim Hunt". We are in a graveyard. Spider-Man is standing before May and Ben’s grave. He talks about how he is struggling to keep on going without them, without anyone. He talks about his loneliness but he also says that he can’t let anyone close to him because he is sick of being betrayed and worse losing those people to his secret life. He is sick of living like this but he doesn’t know what to do. He says that he misses them. He says that he wants to be the great hero they both see in him but he says that it is getting harder to see that hero each day. He says that he sometimes doesn’t want to help people. He says he is already betraying that hero by working to someone like Jameson who slanders that hero’s name. He says that he doesn’t know how to become the great hero they want him to be without them around. He feels lost, alone and battered. He has nobody to talk to, he has nobody to show him the way and he is constantly being hit by everything that is involving Spider-Man. He can’t stop Spider-Man because he made a promise but without Peter Parker, Spider-Man is losing its touch with humanity. Basically, he talks about some of the main themes of this movie: isolation, greatness, trauma and relationships. As I’ve said, NWH left Peter in such a place that he is isolated from any relationship, he is quite alone and has a lot of trust issues and traumas he needs to deal with and my vision of this movie is to talk about how these affect Peter. Peter’s mask catches another police chatter about a burglary. Peter looks at the graves and swings away to help people. Spidey perches on top of a building to scout out the burglar. If someone can get into one of the top floors of a Roxxon (or any other evil company but not Oscorp, we are not doing Oscorp again, no more Oscorp, feck Oscorp) building, they must have some sort of advantage compared to other burglars. Spidey sees a female figure moving inside the floor and nobody else. The shot changes to the inside of the floor where we see the figure without much details. She is moving frantically trying to find something as quickly as she can. She’s muttering stuff like “Where did you put it?” or “It must be here”. We are behind the girl, on shoulder height in the next shot when we hear a soft landing and hear Spidey’s voice “Well, you are a step up from the usual riffraff I deal around here”. Spidey used the hole in the glass Black Cat used to get in. She turns around. This is Black Cat. I want to base Black Cat’s look more on Ultimate Comics so, let’s just assume she looks like that. Spidey is surprised to see a pretty girl in front of her stealing something. Cat isn’t surprised at all though in fact she smiles. She says that he misunderstood the situation and that she is looking for a document about a gun shipment the other day. The one Spidey stopped. Spidey asks why she is interested in that. Cat says that something is going on with the organised crime in the city since Fisk stepped down to start his mayoral campaign, it is way too calm since then. Cat says that if she can find the document here, she can track it down to a shell company and eventually to the boss. She says that he can start looking for the document from there, Spidey is confused and says that he can have her arrested for this and find the document himself but she turns smiles and says “But you won’t do that”. Spidey chuckles and goes to search where she showed him. His plan is to find the document before her and find the boss on his own. While looking for it, Cat flirtly asks Spidey what his story is and Spider-Man gives her the stupid spider-totem thing where he is a chosen one and stuff (I hate this storyline so we are making fun of it). Cat sees through his bullshit and continues flirting with him, asking what brought him here today and if it was her. Spidey is baffled by this question and answers awkwardly about burglary report. Cat says that they need to be quick then. They banter a bit and there is a certain chemistry between them. Their banter bounces well from one another. There is a moment of silence before Spidey asks why she is doing this. She stops for a moment before saying her father. Her father was part of organised crime before he was killed during a gang war. She knows the consequences of a gang war and she can sense one before it starts. She wants to stop it before it can hurt other innocent people. Spidey comes to her and says that he found the document. She smiles but before they leave, they hear something tapping into a glass. They check around to see that it is a black goop-like creature hitting on the glass of the tube it is entrapped in. Spidey is cautious because it reminds him of what Tobey’s Spidey said and wants to leave but before they do they hear something dropping to the ground and before they can react it explodes and smoke emerges. They hear people coming in but they can’t see anything. Spidey closes his eyes and uses his spider-senses to stop them. He sees one of them is about to attack Cat and while helping her he leaves his guard down and gets thrown to the tube which breaks and goop is free. He doesn’t have time to think. He gets Cat up her feet and they leap out of the window to escape. We see a high-octane chase scene where Cat and Spidey are working quite well actually. They are in an almost perfect sync. They both seem to enjoy this chase and the company of each other. Cat might turn to Spidey to say something that would trigger his traumas about MJ and stuff, he is Peter now, which makes their sync to be broken for a moment before Peter pulls himself together and he is Spidey again. The chase scene continues and a scene where Cat and Spidey are uncomfortably close would be cool to add. It would build their chemistry further. In the next scene we see Kraven who is watching Spidey and Cat leaving the Roxxon building. Kraven is smiling because he found his prey. The shot changes to Kraven’s hotel room where he is preparing for the battle. He takes his circus costume out and smiles. His plan is ready. He will trick the Spider to fight him and he will kill that menace. He turns around to the TV where we see Jameson talks about how Spidey attacked Roxxon building and is making deals with criminals. Kraven starts reciting the “spyder, spyder” thing in Kraven’s Last Hunt. He is amused by this. He starts sharpening his spear while reciting the thing. He gets up looking at his spear before heading out the door. The shot changes to the end of the chase scene end. Spidey and Cat are out of breath. Cat says that they make a great team. Spidey is still out of breath and he says “Yeah”. Cat asks for his partnership in this job. Even though Spidey hesitates at first, he refuses. He says he works alone and that Cat doesn’t have to think about the document or anything else anymore. Cat is confused by this. Cat asks Spidey to hand the document but Spidey refuses again and again. Spidey in an asshole like manner says, “You are putting yourself in situations you can’t handle. If I wasn’t there, you were going to get hurt. You don’t need to worry about it anymore. I’ll deal with the war”. Cat is shocked by this attitude and gets ready to fight him but Spidey sees something is happening to his shoes. He sees that they are getting black and he gets confused. Cat seeing this as an opportunity jumps to Spidey and gets the document before leaping from the building. Spidey tries to web away after her but he can’t due to the goop. The goop slowly covers him but it is painful. Once the goop finally covers his body can Spidey get up. He looks at his hands and his costume. It is black. He doesn’t understand what is happening but the pain and all that stuff has stopped. He hears an explosion and he talks to himself, saying he can deal with it later. While swinging away he notices that something feels different about this suit and the shot changes. https://preview.redd.it/aw922scxh3xc1.jpg?width=1280&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=c288261cf310fd3f49272db2524bae8355ac815b |