In our modern quest for sustainability, composting has emerged as one of the simplest and most effective ways to reduce waste and nourish the earth. Among the various composting methods, natural composting stands out for its simplicity, affordability, and environmental friendliness. Let’s explore the world of natural composting, its benefits, how to get started, and why it’s an essential practice for anyone looking to make a positive impact on the planet.
What is Natural Composting?
Natural composting with natural composter , also known as traditional or manual composting, involves the decomposition of organic waste materials using natural processes. It relies on microorganisms, insects, and earthworms to break down waste into nutrient-rich compost. Unlike advanced composting systems that require mechanical or electrical aids, natural composting harnesses the power of nature to recycle organic matter.
Benefits of Natural Composting

1. Environmental Sustainability:

By diverting organic waste from landfills, natural composting reduces methane emissions, a potent greenhouse gas. It also lowers the overall carbon footprint by recycling waste into valuable compost.

1. Soil Health:

Compost improves soil structure, enhances its water-holding capacity, and provides essential nutrients. It promotes healthy plant growth and reduces the need for chemical fertilizers.

1. Cost-Effective:

Natural composting requires minimal investment. You can start with a simple compost pile or bin, making it accessible for anyone.

1. Waste Reduction:

Composting significantly reduces the volume of household waste, leading to fewer trash pickups and lower disposal costs.

1. Educational Value:

It’s an excellent way to teach children and communities about the cycles of nature and the importance of sustainability.
Getting Started with Natural Composting

1. Choose a Composting Method:

• Compost Piles: Ideal for large yards, simply pile your organic waste in a designated area.
• Compost Bins: Suitable for smaller spaces, bins can be made from wood, plastic, or metal.
• Trench or Pit Composting: Dig a trench or pit, fill it with waste, and cover it with soil.

1. Select a Location:

Choose a well-drained spot with good air circulation and partial sunlight. Ensure it’s easily accessible but not too close to living areas to avoid potential odors.

1. Collect Organic Waste:

Gather kitchen scraps (vegetable peels, fruit cores, coffee grounds) and yard waste (leaves, grass clippings, plant trimmings).

1. Layering:

Alternate layers of greens (nitrogen-rich materials like kitchen scraps) and browns (carbon-rich materials like leaves and cardboard). Aim for a 2-3 parts brown to 1 part green ratio.

1. Maintain Moisture:

Water it occasionally if it becomes too dry, especially in hot weather.
Turn the Pile:
Regularly turning the pile aerates it, promoting faster decomposition and preventing odors. Turn every 1-2 weeks.

1. Harvest the Compost:

This typically takes several months to a year, depending on conditions.
Tips for Successful Natural Composting

1. Balance Materials:

Ensure a good mix of greens and browns to maintain the right carbon-to-nitrogen ratio, which is crucial for effective decomposition.

1. Shred Larger Items:

Breaking down large items like branches and cardboard speeds up the composting process.

1. Avoid Pests:

Bury food scraps in the pile and cover them with browns.

1. Monitor Temperature:

A healthy compost pile will heat up due to microbial activity. If it cools down, turning it can reactivate the process.

1. Compost Activators:

Adding garden soil or finished compost introduces beneficial microorganisms to jumpstart the process.
Real-World Applications

1. Home Gardens:

Enrich your garden soil with homemade compost, promoting healthy plants and reducing the need for chemical fertilizers.

1. Community Gardens:

Engage your community in composting efforts, turning local organic waste into valuable compost for shared green spaces.

1. Schools:

Incorporate composting into environmental education programs, teaching students about sustainability and natural cycles.

1. Small Farms:

Utilize compost to improve soil health, enhance crop yields, and promote sustainable farming practices.
Conclusion:
Natural composting is a powerful tool in our sustainability toolkit. It turns everyday organic waste into a valuable resource, enriching our soil and reducing our environmental impact. Whether you’re a homeowner, a teacher, a farmer, or a community leader, embracing natural composting can make a significant difference. Start your composting journey today and join the movement towards a greener, more sustainable future.

Hi! A week ago I decided, under suggestion from a fellow redditor, to overclock my cpu (5.1ghz 1.35v) and well.. I did. I followed this guide from youtube using the "no hyperthreading" one; everything worked fine and it's still working fine, except that from the day after my pc started to power on then off and then power on normally like nothing happened. Other than that it doesn't have any problem.
Is this a problem? What can I do to fix it?
I'll leave my pc specs below
PCPartPicker Part List

Type	Item
CPU	Intel Core i7-10700K 3.8 GHz 8-Core Processor
CPU Cooler	Deepcool Gammaxx L360 V2 69.34 CFM Liquid CPU Cooler
Motherboard	Asus ROG STRIX Z490-H GAMING ATX LGA1200 Motherboard
Memory	Corsair Vengeance RGB Pro 16 GB (2 x 8 GB) DDR4-3600 CL18 Memory
Storage	Samsung 970 Evo Plus 500 GB M.2-2280 PCIe 3.0 X4 NVME Solid State Drive
Storage	Western Digital Caviar Blue 1 TB 3.5" 7200 RPM Internal Hard Drive
Video Card	Gigabyte GAMING OC GeForce RTX 2070 SUPER 8 GB Video Card
Case	Thermaltake View 71 TG RGB ATX Full Tower Case
Power Supply	Corsair HX750 Platinum 750 W 80+ Platinum Certified Fully Modular ATX Power Supply

Hi everyone! Ready to explore the Galactic Empire? Here is the Schedule for our next Evergreen read!
Join me (u/IraelMrad), u/latteh0lic and u/towalktheline in this incredible journey.
Here is the summary from Goodreads:
For twelve thousand years the Galactic Empire has ruled supreme. Now it is dying. But only Hari Seldon, creator of the revolutionary science of psychohistory, can see into the future--to a dark age of ignorance, barbarism, and warfare that will last thirty thousand years. To preserve knowledge and save humankind, Seldon gathers the best minds in the Empire--both scientists and scholars--and brings them to a bleak planet at the edge of the galaxy to serve as a beacon of hope for future generations. He calls his sanctuary the Foundation.
Discussion Schedule

• June 1st - Start through Part II: Chapter 7
• June 8th - Part III: Chapter 1 through Part IV: Chapter 6
• June 15th - Part V: Chapter 1 through End

Hope to see you soon!

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For those of you with no patience to read
After releasing two more dlc in the style they did thrones of decay with patches afterwards.

1. Add cinematics and opening speeches.
2. Change end times
3. Create lore filled victory conditions that combine with the unique item battles to give purpose and story to the campaigns.
4. Unique turotorials for factions.
5. Add read alongs to the lore page in the faction selection menu

So I am on reddit alot reading a lot like most of us here, Outside of some of your "extra curriculur activities" that some of you may have that is. I think it's clear for us here that play wh3, it's easy to say that we all have a ton of opinions that would make wh3 better.
Let me also say. We will never all agree and there is always room to improve just about anything in life let alone games.
With that being said. I a long time gamer at this point do not expect anything to be released perfectly. Most games that drop now a days that aren't small time indie games. Have bugs and fixes that need to be done. So I think this last dlc CA dropped was wonderful. It is obvious that to get the right touch they need us, the players to let them know what's going on after a release. So I think they are headed in the right direction currently.
Anyways. I think if they drop two more dlc similar to the last one. Then there updates for the bug fixes and slight balance changes. I think a lot of us would be happy.
With that being said. I think that before dropping the rest of the dlc's after (like nagash and such) that maybe it would be best to focus on some other things in the process. But not needing to be in this particular order btw.

1. Hit us with cinematics and opening speeches for all the factions. Bring that back. Not just the factions being touched in the dlc's.
   
2. Change the end game scenario situation. I understand the point of the end game scenarios is to make it less "steam rolly" and throw in a nice curve ball allt you. For me it does just that. But most the time I don't play with it on. From reading most of your post. It seems others have thoughts of them being meaningful. So like most things in life, the best things have real purpose. Most players enjoy games that immerse them and give them depth. So I think adding true purpose in the end game scenarios would be great for most of us. Maybe instead of just boom spam doom stack, it be boom give a few stacks to order or to chaos, make them allies and bring on a tide.
   

This may however not make sense for some factions who usually stay independent like green skins, even tho in the lore technically Grimgor was working for the good guys. But it was for his own purpose. Now this particular category I feel like I really don't have too many ideas for. But if it were to be a focus and some polls were to be released on the matter. I think it would settle down the community a little, for those that are getting "bored" of the current situation.

1. Since wh3 is the largest total war I believe to date with the most playable factions, that also have the most unique variety compared to any other total war game. I think a very ambitious thing to do. Would be to then go back to every factions, and completely change the Victory conditions. Not only change them. But give them a very great lore specific goals. If they take victory conditions, and there current unique battles (the ones that you normally obtain your lord items with) and bring them together. I think we can give every faction it's own little immersive lore filled story.

The trick how ever is to make it so the AI controlled factions don't become predictable from this situation. Which for that idk how it would go. But you don't want players to be able to predict, oh I know Vlad is going to try and aim for this because that's part of his victory condition, Because maybe that makes the game easier? Or maybe you do add it because then you have a strategy to focus on with the people who start around you. I feel like automatically giving the AI there unique weapons even at a specific level point is meh by the way.
But imagine if you will that along your usual conquest, you have goals. That not just unlock items like we currently have, but also faction based rewards like how they do with skarsnik, queek, and belegar. I think making it so the battles can't be teleported too (this I am unsure of), and make them go along with your victory conditions. Could be great. Imagine your playing belegar you take eight peaks and a nice speech happens and you claim that condition properly. Basically instead of it feeling like an instant royal rumble we bring it all together to give an amazing lore filled mini objective based campaign. Not that your stuck doing it btw. If you still want to conquer in another direction by all means. Hell maybe make rumble mode its own mode. So basically it turns off all that stuff, victory conditions and all, at the menu you check off a box and you just load up and go straight to conquering. But for the rest of us, and I'll boldly say most of us. It feels Grindy and too simple for what Warhammer has to offer.
This can be applied to faction based mechanics as well. Grudge books, elector count system, even triggering waaaaghs. Anyways for those who have played Warhammer battle march, you'll see that a game like total war could greatly benefit from some good lore filled objectives. I however do not think it would be wise to do it in the same way and make it more linear like battlemarch.

1. I thought why not have little intro for the factions, kind of like the tutorial. Which btw I love that they did give us a nice tutorial in this game. Without giving the player a running start and expand your territory in the beginning of a campaign, instead make it it's own thing. Example, you load up Karl Franz (stupid umie), his amazing cinematic plays then he says some really great speech when you get on the map (referencing 1.) and instead of just that first initial battle with the initial enemy. It's more like "zoomed in" on the map, so like the tutorial is not going to shape the map at all. It's just a quick this is who Franz is and how this faction plays sort of deal. A little lore, a little lord how to guide, a little faction how to guide. Maybe make it skipable? Or make it a box you check before loading up if you want to play it, have it start before the cinematic and speech. But the current tutorial is more battle specific. This would give each faction a more interactive guide not just a here read this, and give you a nice little story. Not to mention it can feel like it unlocks the faction and it's mechanic.
   
2. When your looking at a faction you have three tabs. The Lord details and such, the starting position and the little lore page. I would love that you could click a button and the character or maybe the old man thats been in the three titles reads the lore for us. A simple nice gesture for ca. This is not just for the lazy people who don't want to read, because I how ever did read them all. I even read them to friends when I am talking to people about Warhammer fantasy. But I am sure a lot of us would love to just be able to sit back and listen.
   

I think that adding 1 through 4 will change how dlc is released because obviously they have to add these things as well like the cinematics and stuff. But it will make that dlc feel less like oh here is just another faction obstacle for my campaign. Just more map clutter.
If they ever released a total war: Warhammer 4. One thing they could for sure do is fill out the map more. Like does anyone imagine how beautiful the forest was in wh1 wood elves dlc campaign? Imagine if the whole map was zoomed in, with its entire map. Then obviously they can add the small factions in that might not have enough lore or units to make them playable. But they can ty into other people's victory conditions. And be apart of faction stories during the tutorials and unique battles and such.

This article, predicting much greater coal consumption by China and India than the IEA, Yakov & Partners, and Sinopec, was posted to this subreddit before, but there was little discussion of the actual arguments made by the "superforecasters", probably because they were hidden away in the graphs showing the predictions. Here they are (each forecaster gave six predictions in total, covering China and India's coal consumption in 2026, 2030, and 2035) - do you think they are good arguments?
From forecaster predicting 4,963 Mt of coal consumption in China in 2026

The main two questions dominating this forecast for me are general predictions of peak coal and the relationship between coal consumption and economic growth (coupled with forecasts of Chinese growth over the next years). First, China’s ‘Dual Carbon’ goals set out by Xi Jinping in 2020 outline peak carbon emissions by 2030 and carbon neutrality by 2060. Of course, coal is not the only contributor to Chinese carbon emissions, and this goal might be unrealistic given the growth of coal consumption since 2020. SINOPEC on the other hand puts the predicted date of peak coal at around 2025 (https://daxtromn-power.com/blogs/news/sinopec-forecasts-peak-in-china's-coal-consumption-around-2025). This prediction is somewhat more optimistic than that of some recent academic research using optimized grey model that predicts that “coal consumption in China and India will continue to rise over the next five years” (https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0360544221030358), though this builds on 2020 data and as such may be consistent with the former. This rough peak date of mid-to-late 2020s is also supported by academic work using system dynamics analysis putting the predicted time at 2027 (https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fenvs.2022.974763/full). Second, there has been quite some discussion in the academic literature on the relationship between economic growth and coal consumption in China. One strand of work looks at intensity effects (investigating how changes in coal consumption may result from changes in coal intensity, i.e., the amount of coal units used per economics output). This paper (https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0301479721019745?casa_token=JBy-zAuscS4AAAAA:2XeKft1HtziolUxdhzkDz0nr8B0ecjJvdCALy-G2IpXJmlZ1J1zfKv7kuIdGWy3KIIKoE3Rv2cA#bib55) finds a positive effect, suggesting that improvements in efficiency and secondary industries can reduce overall coal intensity. However, economic growth remains the main driver of this, even though the relationship between economic growth and coal consumption has weakened (though proper decoupling has not happened). This result has also been found by other papers (https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0301421522000374?casa_token=ur4I9csWPxMAAAAA:XvDnZS6_X4l6EF3B_cUEFbj37kZI-yj05pZekJnnRrpOpaQ8oJir3EQyqQXWLHavl3USIpYsMtE). Overall, these results point to a consistent relationship between economic growth and coal consumption, though this relationship is expected to weaken as the Chinese economy advances technologically. Putting these together as a baseline with respect to our forecasting questions, I agree with the rough picture that peak coal before 2026 is very unlikely (10% at best). I also think that the academic results with respect to the weak(ening) relationship between economic growth and coal consumption are likely to hold. However, I do anticipate Chinese growth to slow down substantially over the next years, with there already being quite substantial heterogeneity as to their current growth rate, reported to be over 5%, though unlikely to actually be that. Additionally, while renewable energy is unlikely to replace coal consumption any time soon, their status in the Chinese economy is likely to have substantial effects from around 2030 onwards (both in terms of price pressures in the context of solar but also with respect to the country’s image and the subsequent subsidies afforded to the renewable sector and away from coal as citizen’s concerns for clean air are likely to become more relevant as the rest of the economy advances). For 2026, I anticipate a slowing but consistent growth to about 4950 Mt, with a substantially heavier right tail.

From forecaster predicting 5,020 Mt of coal consumption in China in 2026

IEA's consistent under forecast factor of 2.8%, as mentioned by my fellow forecaster, would yield a corrected forecast of 4,927 MT for 2026. The slow down in the Chinese economy, particularly in the housing market, should lead to a slow-down in demand. This is likely to be offset by an increase in military production and a post-Covid peak return to normalcy of movement within China. Paradoxically the move towards EVs will diminish gas consumption at the cost of electric energy demand, partially driven by coal. China plans to increase their coal plant capacity by ~1/3. Why would they do this is if they do not expect a significant increase in demand? The current average age of coal plants in China is 13 years. They already have this sunk cost, with nearly 3 decades of life remaining in the existing capacity. Anything short of massive calamitous events that force a political recalculation, are unlikely to see a short term decrease in coal consumption. Green energy capacity is increasing, but not at a rate to cover the additional demand for energy, especially in a warming world. https://globalenergymonitor.org/projects/global-coal-plant-trackedashboard/

From forecaster predicting 5,022 Mt of coal consumption in China in 2026

In forecasting it's actually a good thing if you can find a person or institution that is consistently wrong. Fivethirtyeight had this insight with certain pollsters, finding that if they adjusted for partisan biases, the pollsters became a lot more reliable.The China 2026 coal forecast is therefore fairly straightforward, since I found that the past forecasting errors on the part of IEA offer a remarkable consistency of about 2.8 percentage points per year. My guess is this is basically the optimism bias that one finds in forecasting, often by people who admittedly have good intentions. Using that method a floor would then be 4,927 Mt for 2026, assuming no errors for IEA's 2023 estimate. Assuming that error does apply for 2023 (which would have been a winning strategy in past years) gets me to 5,022 for a 2026 median, which is higher than the IEA's 4,535 Mt. Then I have the right tail be longer than the left, given the experience of the past couple years. So overall the compound annual growth rate (CAGR) for these years should come to around 2.6%. This makes intuitive sense, since the long-term CAGR through 2017 was 2.7%, with an acceleration to 4.0% for the 2017-22 period.
According to globalenergymonitor.org, China has maintained a pace of issuing permits for 2 new coal power plants per week. Some of this is simply an offsetting of decommissioned old plants of course--according to the coal plant tracker dashboard, 2023 is looking like 136 GW in new construction for China but 120 GW of retirements. With China's energy consumption growing by 6% in 2023 according to IEA though, coal will remain part of the mix for the time being.
On the steel side of the ledger (this being the other major use of coal, to heat the metal), China's steel industry has been in the doldrums for a few years now, with only a slight increase in production in 2023. There are no expectations by the steel industry of higher profits or more stimulus coming (source). So because of all that, I don't expect much increase in coal consumption from that sector.
Finally, it's notable that ten years ago the forecasts for the peak were for around 2020, including by the Chinese government (see pages 3 and 45 here) At the moment Sinopec forecasts peak coal consumption for China to come in 2025. I would probably go more for the latter part of this decade given the momentums, but I think the key point is that the clean energy takeover in China has indeed been pushed back 5 to 10 years.

From forecaster predicting 5,038 Mt of coal consumption in China in 2026

As another forecaster points out, China has been on a bit of a coal burning spree recently: the pre-2017 CAGR was 2.7%, but it accelerated to 4.0% for the 2017-22 period. This was partly due to power shortages that some provinces of China experienced, particularly in 2021 and 2022. Meanwhile, poor rainfall in recent years combined with a decline in Chinese dam projects since 2015 meant that hydropower was unable to pick up the slack; as a percentage of electricity production, hydro actually fell from around 19% in 2014 to less than 16% in 2022, and utilisation was close to historic lows. Rainfall picked up in the summer of 2023, however, and this may stay high in 2024, which is one reason we might expect coal consumption not to increase too sharply and why the IEA might even be right that coal consumption will have peaked in 2023.
How did China increase its coal power generation? According to Global Energy Monitor’s Global Coal Plant Tracker, they revived previously cancelled and shelved projects and approved brand new ones. In 2023, it added almost 50,000 MW and retired less than 4,000 MW.
But just as renewable electricity capacity is not the same as renewable electricity generation (it makes up over 50% of China’s capacity but only about 26% of its generation), additional coal capacity doesn’t necessarily mean that it will be drawn on, as Hannah Ritchie points out. Indeed, coal consumption and coal-based electricity generation did fall around 2014 despite much more coal power capacity having been added than retired in the years preceding this. If the increase in renewable generation can outpace the increase in power demand for the first time, this could happen again.
That said, if Ritchie is right about coal plants being uneconomical (China is offering coal producers capacity payments to keep their plants online even when they’re not being used), this is arguably a sign that China is serious about utilising them at the expense of solar and wind (which have their own economic problems, absent good storage capabilities). Since power plant approvals are now decentralised, provincial leaders may judge that it’s better for the economy as a whole to avoid blackouts of a few hours even if coal plants become stranded assets. Most of the countries (Switzerland, France, Sweden, Iceland) that have managed to create a low-carbon or zero-carbon electricity system rely heavily on some mix of n***, hydro and geothermal, and China is only planning on producing 10% of its electricity from n*** by 2035.
Also, the IEA has been too optimistic in the past as a colleague notes, and I’d give more credence to the analyses cited by my colleagues suggesting that coal consumption will peak later this decade (although some these analyses seem to think coal consumption will ‘peak’ at a figure lower than the 2022 and 2023 figures, which is a bit confusing). Finally, a conflict between China and Taiwan could cause demand to stagnate or fall, as could a lacklustre economy (which will also impact steel production). On the other hand, it could cause China to ramp up coal production.
Overall, I don’t think coal consumption in 2026 will be as high as some forecasters are predicting (based on an extrapolation of recent trends), because hydropower may regress toward mean utilisation levels after falling close to historical lows during the drought in 2021 and 2022, while additional solar and wind capacity (even with low utilisation rates) may finally start to shoulder a significant part of the extra demand. However, I don’t think it will be as low as the IEA is projecting because solar and wind still have limitations (as discussed by others), n****** and hydropower probably aren’t sufficient for coal to peak in 2023, and the IEA has historically underestimated coal consumption. A peak in the latter half of the decade appears more plausible, especially as this is what China itself is signalling will happen.

continued in comments

Hello! I am a researcher student from a university in the Philippines working on a research project. We are currently looking for botanists and/or water experts/chemist that can spare their time with us and is open for interviews. With atleast 1 or more than years of experience. And must know about Moringa Seeds and Coconut Shell in purification processes. Kindly leave a comment on this post if you happen to know one of them. Your help would be greatly appreciated. Need lang po namin sila mainterview even via online platforms

Yes, I know. There are dozens of posts about which is correct... "different from" or "different than". I've read many, and thought of something I'd like to add to the discussion.
So I am putting this out there as just another penny in the jar.
There is a simple way of determining when to use "from" or "than":

• If you are describing one thing as being different from its group... "from" is more appropriate than "than".
  
• If you are describing one thing as being different from another thing... "than" is more appropriate than "from".
  

Here's what I mean through examples.
Different "from" a group
In my opinion, "from" fits better when differentiating one thing from the group it belongs to.
Looking at a litter of newborn puppies you would say, "That puppy looks different from the other puppies." You would not say, "That puppy looks different than the other puppies."
The reason why "from" is better than "than" is because you are differentiating one puppy from the rest of the puppies it belongs to. You are taking one puppy and separating it from the group it is part of. You are taking it from that group.
Another example, watching a group of performers on stage you would say, "That dancer is different from the other dancers." You wouldn't say, "That dancer is different than the other dancers."
Again, this is because you are indicating one dancer is different from the other dancers in a group they are all part of. You are making a distinction of one from its group.
Another example, "The 20th century was different from all other centuries in technological advancement." You wouldn't say, "The 20th century was different than all other centuries..."
Again, this is because you are differentiating one century as different from other centuries, all of them being centuries.
Different "than" another thing
Again I stress - in my opinion, "than" fits better when comparing things that are separate from each other.
While shopping for a car you would say, "This car is different than that car." You wouldn't say, "This car is different from that car."
This is because you are differentiating between two cars which are not considered as part of a group.
If, however, you were comparing one car to the rest of the cars on the entire lot, then you would use "from", as in: "This car is different from the rest of the cars on the lot." This is because you are now differentiating one car from the entire group of cars it is part of.
Another example of "than"... "Canadians are different than Americans in many ways." You wouldn't say, "Canadians are different from Americans...", since you are differentiating two things that do not belong to a singular group; you are comparing two separate things.
If, however, you were comparing Canada to all the countries in the world, you would use "from", as in: "Canada is different from all other countries in many ways." This is because you are now differentiating one country from the entire group of countries it is part of.
Simple rule of thumb
In my opinion - I can't stress that enough - I would say we could use a simple rule of thumb... If you are differentiating something "from" the group it is part of, use "different from". If you are comparing two things that are separate and distinct, use "than".
Examples from Darwin
At this point, I would like to provide a couple of examples from Charles Darwin, which I found to be very interesting. I found these examples in an article I read about which is correct, "from" or "than". (https://www.merriam-webster.com/grammadifferent-from-or-different-than)
The article seems to be using these two examples to indicate that sometimes people will use "from" and "than" interchangeably, without any real rule behind the use of either one. It then quotes these two passages from Darwin, which on the surface seem to indicate Darwin simply used the two terms interchangeably without giving them much thought.
Quote 1: "What can be more different than the immensely long spiral proboscis of a sphinx-moth, the curious folded one of a bee or bug, and the great jaws of a beetle?"
Quote 2: "Natural selection may modify and adapt the larva of an insect to a score of contingencies, wholly different from those which concern the mature insect."
— Charles Darwin, On the Origin of Species, 1859
However, it seems quite clear to me that Darwin is indeed following rules in his use of "from" and "than" - which rules seem to me to follow those described in this post above.
In quote 1, Darwin uses "different than" to indicate that one thing (the immensely long spiral proboscis of a sphinx-moth) to other things that are separate and distinct from it (the folded [proboscis] of a bee or bug, and the jaws of a beetle).
So in quote 1, Darwin uses "than" as indicated above, as he differentiates one thing from other things that are distinctly separate things.
In quote 2, Darwin uses "different from" to indicate that the features of one thing (features of the larva of an insect) are different from those of a group it belongs to (features which concern the mature insect).
So in quote 2, Darwin uses "from" as indicated above, as he differentiates one set of features as being different from the features of others in the class or group it belongs to.
It appears to me - I won't stress again what I have stressed before, to avoid stressing you out any more - that Darwin doesn't seem to be using "from" and "than" interchangeably after all; that he is indeed using them according to the rules noted above - they being...
... use "than" when differentiating two things that are not related, that are separate things,
... use "from" when differentiating one thing from the rest of similar things in a group it belongs to.

As we all know, boards result was really bad for some of us (mere liye), i missed the PCM eligibility criteria by 6 marks. But am not opting for re-evaluation, thus
I would like to sell my MATHANGO BITSAT MOCK TEST SERIES:
I have solved: FT-1 to FT-6 (Available- FT-7 to FT-20) Previous year papers of 2022 and 2023 (Paper 2) (Available- baaki sare) Chapter wise tests of 2 math chapters and logical reasoning.
i was scoring around 260 average in the exams, but thats the other part i have no use of it rn and instead of it going waste and expiring on its own, i would like to sell it for:
2000/- (negotiable) (i can do 1800 aswell)
Also, BITSAT Busted i had solved only one mock test- I have 4 mocks remaining. Anyone interested i can sell it for as low as 750-600 /-
Not needed to buy both together, alag alag buy karna hai toh bhi krskte ho :)
DM karo, i had no clear idea of the price, but still we can negotiate.

To clarify, I now know that there are different definitions of the word “ship”, but for the purposes of this article and to keep things simple I will use the definition of “a relationship that’s rushed and/or forced with no real development.” I hope you can understand as I do not know of any other single word to describe that concept. If you do, perhaps you can tell me. Also, fair warning, this is long form content (some 10 pages), if you like it but can’t read it all at once you can save it and come back to it over a period of time, or you can stop reading whenever you get tired of it and still discuss those parts of it with me that you have read. But keep it civil if you want a civil response.
With that, to qualify the title, no, Ezra and Sabine do NOT absolutely have to be a couple, but if they were to become one, it would NOT be a ship. Ezra and Sabine’s relationship has had years of development. Could they remain as simply friends? Yes, but ironically, it was their “friendship” that felt like more of a ship. It felt like the Ahsoka show, helmed by Dave Filoni, was going out of its way to tell us: “no, they’re not a couple, they’re just friends.”
I believe that Filoni made some very poor writing choices to stress something that didn’t really need to be stressed, such that it almost felt like he was in denial. The line “I love you like a sister” was never in Rebels, Filoni essentially had that retconned in, and like many I was put off by their (largely) emotionless reunion. Even if they were “just friends” I believe there would be a great deal more emotion displayed between two people that hadn’t seen each other in some ten years, especially when one of them was in a precarious situation when they parted. I also believe Ezra would be far more curious about Sabine being Force sensitive, perhaps even offering to help train her when she told him that her training hadn’t gone as well with Ahsoka. He did help to train her with the Darksaber, didn’t he? Why that never came up is another discussion, but for now, let’s focus on shipping.
In case you think I’m desperate to have them as a couple, no I’m not. I’m about the furthest thing from it. Like many millennials and Gen-Z’ers (and perhaps some Gen-Xers and boomers) I DESPISE shipping. Absolutely DESPISE it. With a flaming passion. Perhaps for this reason, and maybe some others, like many millennials and Gen-Z’ers (and perhaps some Gen-Xers and boomers), I’m generally wary of nearly all romance in fiction, and generally avoid it in my own work. The sad reality is that romance is perhaps the most abused genre in all of fiction, all throughout history. It has been so badly abused that many people, including myself for the longest time, have equated romance with shipping, though I’m slowly beginning to see that they are not the same thing, and one does not necessarily have to go with the other.
But sadly, many writers, through time immemorial, have not been able to separate them, going back into ancient times and perhaps even into pre-history, that is before languages were actually written down. Some of what is considered great literature; classics like Romeo and Juliet, are predicated on shipping, though at least the consequences of this “whirlwind romance” are shown to be fairly stark. Star Wars itself is no stranger to shipping, resulting in a very awkward incestuous kiss when Luke was shipped with Leia, then Leia was placed with Han and Lucas made Luke and Leia brother and sister, apparently having forgotten his original ship. Later Lucas essentially shipped Anakin and Padme, resulting in some of the most cringeworthy dialog in the history of film. Many fans of the Prequels even have been somewhat critical of Anakin’s portrayal, particularly in regards to the “romantic” scenes, with many describing them as “creepy”. Some have speculated that this was intentional, though personally I think it was just the result of bad writing on the part of George Lucas, and an impatience on his part for Anakin and Padme to become a couple, hence “shipping”.
One might wonder why this is so prevalent in fiction, and tragically, one does not have to look far. Fiction is merely a reflection of reality, therefore the reason that shipping is so common in our stories is that we fall so easily into it in real life. Indeed, entire cultures may be based around shipping, or at least very heavily wrapped up in it. Throughout history arranged marriages have been the norm, and the idea of marrying for “love” is something relatively new. To be fair, I’ve actually met people in arranged marriages who seemed to be fairly happy, but those same people were very open in telling me that many despise that aspect of their culture, and that it is quite normal for those in an arranged marriage to try to get out.
People might come together for “love” without marrying, but even then it often creates expectations that might turn into a burden. Even when a marriage is voluntary and for “love”, people are often left unsatisfied, such that today in the West the divorce rate is something like 50%. Happy, stable, long term relationships seem to be the exception across cultures and across the breadth and width of time. And yet pursuit of love and some kind of relationship seems to be the highest calling for many people, both in real life and in fiction. And it could be that the accumulated disgust is finally starting to boil over.
To be fair, this may not be the first time in history that the pendulum has shifted. You may recall that in Victorian times attitudes changed drastically, as compared to the previously bawdy Elizabethan times. Looking at a play from Shakespear, if you can understand the language, you’ll see all kinds of vulgar references, as well as what I believe are fairly sappy romances like in the aforementioned Romeo and Juliet, though I can’t say for certain whether Shakespear was actually endorsing that type of attitude towards “love” or presenting it as a cautionary tale, maybe even something to be ridiculed in some of his other plays.
But regardless, Victorians as you may well know had a very conservative attitude towards anything to do with romance, and would often avoid the subject in many places, or tread very carefully around it, as if walking on eggshells. It’s not that people stopped being romantic, in fiction or real life, but it was treated as something very serious and even dangerous, with many urges repressed or even suppressed entirely. This had all kinds of effects on society, both positive and negative. On the positive side, it reinforced the ideal of people being committed to their partners, and of marriage as a sacred institution rather than a “casual hookup” as was more common in Elizabethan times. Likewise it reinforced ideals of modesty and chastity, which may be coming back into vogue, though under different names. But just as there were positive aspects to these attitudes, so were there negative ones.
Just because the urges I described were repressed did not mean that they disappeared. In fact, they often morphed into things that many would consider “unhealthy”. From one statistic that I saw, in Victorian times about one in every 60 houses was a brothel, with the modern rate being closer to one in 6000. Additionally, the rights of women were often repressed, such that they could not fully express themselves and find their own identity, and path in life, as individuals. Just as Elizabethan ideals gave way to Victorian ones, so did the Victorian ideals gradually begin to erode.
Perhaps it began with the Jazz Age of the 1920’s (the “Roaring Twenties”), or with the increased interconnectivity of people traveling to different parts of the world during World War I, not to mention the cynicism that pervaded throughout the West in response to failed old ideals leading to the deadliest war in history up to that point, but many Victorian ideals began to be seen as a joke, and even resented for their “oppression”, which to be fair was not entirely unjustified. But regardless, people gradually, and at times not so gradually, became more and more “liberated” and promiscuous. This culminated in the Sexual Revolution in the late 1960’s, when what had previously been seen as a vice and even a sin was now seen as not only “normal” but as a healthy form of expression, a virtue even. And just as these ideas were embraced in real life, so too were they reflected in our films, TV shows, and other media, often to the consternation of older people and institutions, like the Vatican. The Catholic Church even went so far as to “ban” certain films, that is to declare them immoral for good Catholics to watch. Many of the films that were banned back then, or at least controversial, like The Graduate with Dustin Hoffman, are fairly tame by today’s standards.
It continued through the 70’s, at times warming and at times cooling through the rest of the century, until you could argue it reached a kind of crescendo in the early 21st century with the advent of so-called “dark romance” and the publication of books like Fifty Shades of Grey. (Ironically, many of the themes within this “dark romance” can trace their roots back to the Victorian era, yet another indication that repressing urges without addressing them often doesn’t work out as one might hope.) But as happens all too often, just as something reaches peak popularity is when it begins to go out of style, and that is what we may be experiencing right now. As weird as it may sound, we may actually have come full circle and may be on the cusp of a “New Victorian Age” (complete with “dark romance”, even). Web sites like Porn Hub and OnlyFans, as well as other similar sites, may be the new “brothels”, and what was once openly celebrated may be going underground, to an extent. The effects of this on society have been interesting to say the least, and at times I would even say bizarre.
Whilst many younger people seem content with these changes, many older people are concerned. I’ve seen a number of books, films, and other media receive positive reviews for example based specifically on their lack of romance. Many of these books/films, etc. fall into the “young adult” category, meaning that it is young adults obviously who mostly consume them. At the same time I’ve heard a number of older people, mostly boomers and Gen-Xers, criticize these same books/films for their lack of romance. Even some older millennials seem upset by the changes, as perhaps evidenced by Jennifer Lawrence’s latest film No Hard Feelings (though to be fair that film may be lampooning the older generation’s frustration as well as the younger generation’s frigidity). So just as in the past older people were concerned about the promiscuity of the youth, now it actually appears that many older people are concerned about the youth’s lack of promiscuity.
Who could have seen that coming? But to be fair, the younger generation hasn’t gone completely frigid. As stated earlier, much of the promiscuity has gone “underground”, or online, which many would argue is not very healthy as it might undermine actual relationships, whether they are romantic in nature or simple friendships. And speaking of that, friendships within stories nowadays often aren’t portrayed in a very authentic or compelling manner, perhaps because in ditching romance modern writers haven’t quite yet learned how to replace it with something else. In other words, the “New Victorian Age” may not be an exact repeat of the previous one, but may have its own twists and turns, for better and for worse.
This may all essentially be a manifestation of the Human Condition, in that we just can’t seem to find a happy medium, neither in real life nor in fiction. Thus we keep swinging from one extreme to the other, apparently getting wilder with each swing.
So where does all this leave us? What is it that we really want in our lives, and in our stories? Especially in regards to relationships? I think at some level we all want to see good and healthy relationships between people and/or characters, whether romantic or platonic. I believe at some point we would like to see good examples of both friendship and romance, and I would argue that the best examples of romance have them combined. Even a toxic relationship, if well portrayed or documented, can be instructive and serve as a good example of what to avoid in our lives that we might be happier and relate better to each other. A good relationship, by contrast, can give us something to aspire to and inspire us to not only look for the right kind of person to complement our lives, but to make ourselves worthy of that person. And here I’ll add that I’m perfectly aware that in real life (and thus in fiction) relationships can be very complicated and heavily nuanced, with elements of both “good” and “bad” in them. Just as people change over time so can the relationships between them change, at times getting better and at times worse, sometimes breaking entirely and sometimes growing stronger. Relationships can have just as many layers and dimensions as characters, more even perhaps, and a skilled writer should be able to reflect this complexity. At other times a relationship can be fairly straightforward, simplicity sometimes being the best approach. But regardless, the audience should be able to relate and identify with what they are seeing, such that hopefully they can incorporate the lessons from it in their own lives.
Where can we find good examples of relationships to study? There may be a number of them in the real world, but the trouble with studying real world relationships is that they’re often much more complicated than fictional ones (just as real people are more complicated than fictional characters), and for many of them it is almost impossible to know all the details and nuances because they are often kept private, understandably so, and even if they aren’t it can still be difficult, due to unique circumstances, to see how to relate them to our own lives. Additionally there may be far more disagreement about a real life situation than a fictional one, with many more points of view. To keep things simple, for the purpose of this article I would like to focus on fictional relationships. (And fair warning, there will be some spoilers.)
One of the best places to look, I would argue, would be the films of Hayao Miyazaki. (And this is pretty significant to Star Wars as you will see in a bit.) A film of his that stands out to me the most is Princess Mononoke. Like many of Miyazaki’s films it has elements of romance, and yet subverts them in a way that makes complete sense and feels very genuine, without taking away from any of the accompanying charm. It starts with two young people, San and Ashitaka, and as soon as they encounter each other there is a kind of expectation of romance. This may be inevitable to some degree when you have a man and a woman of about the same age encounter each other in a story, especially if they happen to be adolescents. The expectation may not be inherently bad, and Miyazaki does play with it. Both characters are thrust into dangerous situations, at various points end up saving each other’s lives, and at a certain point I think it is obvious that they have feelings for each other. I was certain that at the end of the film, they would be together, and if things had gone that way, it would make complete sense. Instead, they go in different directions, but remain good friends, and considering their backgrounds and differing worldviews, this ends up making even more sense to the story.
Essentially, Miyazaki could have gone for the more conventional, tried and true “love conquers all” narrative, where the characters’ feelings for each other would negate everything that comes between them, they would somehow find a common ground in spite of their differences, the romance would not only take over the narrative but somehow also solve all the problems in the story, and then the couple would live “happily ever after”. Such an approach is not inherently bad or wrong, and is fairly common in Western media and storytelling. We can see it in films like Fern Gully, and more recently James Cameron’s Avatar, both of which have been compared to Princess Mononoke. As you can probably guess, the problem is that at a certain point such a narrative can become fairly simplistic, and lack nuance.
Miyazaki’s films, by contrast, are very heavily nuanced, and are anything but simplistic. In Princess Mononoke the characters San and Ashitaka don’t help each other simply because they are “in love”, but because it is the right thing to do, regardless of how they might feel about each other. Yes, romantic feelings are certainly alluded to, but they are not essential to the plot, for it could have worked just as well without any romantic allusions. And ironically, this makes those allusions even more valid, even if they are unrequited. How so?
Consider that if love is essential to a given narrative, is it not relegated to being nothing more than a plot device? Again, this is quite common in Western media and storytelling, and is not inherently bad or wrong, but when it becomes a trope or cliche, I believe it is the essence of where shipping comes from. Many storytellers get caught up in this, usually without realizing it, and while a story can still work even with shipping, I believe that it usually works that much better without it.
This extends not only to Miyazaki’s handling of romance but also to other things like environmentalism, the conflict between man and nature, and the contrasting ideals of human progress vs. preserving the natural order. Movies like Fern Gully and Avatar, as already mentioned, handle these themes in a fairly simplistic and I would even say hamfisted manner, whereby all progress and technology is shown as being inherently “bad” and in service to “evil”, while everything that’s “natural” is shown to be inherently “good”. Even our notions of good and evil, and right vs. wrong, are challenged by Miyazaki, with nearly all of his characters having complex motives and multiple dimensions to them, as well as understandable reasons for doing the things that they do. Rarely can any one of his characters be branded as a simple “villain”, and rarely is any one individual the source of conflict in his stories, again in contrast to most Western narratives.
I’ll reiterate once more, a simple, straightforward narrative is not inherently a bad thing, whether the themes being dealt with are romantic or anything else. Sometimes it is in fact the best approach. But the best stories in my opinion are usually the most nuanced, that challenge our notions of what we believe to be true, and that force us to think about what we do with our lives and what we could do differently. To that end Miyazaki introduces all manner of themes and motifs within his films that are familiar to us but shows them in a light most of us might not have considered, thus giving more dimension to our understanding of things.
“How is any of this related to Star Wars?” you might ask. It is quite related, and you don’t even have to look all that closely to see it. A very influential figure within Star Wars was very heavily inspired by the works of Miyazaki, and that figure is Dave Filoni.
This video shows the connections in some detail:
https://youtu.be/Q_4L0BbSpHo?si=04jDo6qFCnZT135w
But to summarize if you’ve seen any of Miyazaki’s films, especially Princess Mononoke, I think the callbacks in Filoni’s work will be all too obvious, especially in Star Wars Rebels. Some of the scenes in Filoni’s work look like they were taken directly from Miyazki’s films, and many of the same themes and motifs often come up. The relationship between San and Ashitaka I would argue is very similar to the relationship between Ezra and Sabine, and not just because both couples rode wolves together.
Incidentally, Dave Filoni was also heavily involved in Avatar: The Last Airbender, which I would also argue was at least to some degree inspired if not by Miyazaki then by Japanese anime in general. The relationship between Aang and Katara was developed with great care and was allowed to build very slowly, as opposed to simply shipping them. Likewise other characters very gradually developed as individuals and in their relationships, at times stumbling as they did so, and making mistakes, before finding their way back to the right path.
All of this is in stark contrast to George Lucas, whose character development is often very rushed at best, and at times some might say almost non-existent. So essentially, even though Lucas has said that Filoni has been “like a son” to him, and I believe referred to Filoni as his “padawan”, I would argue that Filoni is ultimately as much a student of Miyazaki as he is of Lucas.
Again, you might ask, “What does all this mean for Star Wars?” It means a great many things. It means that Dave Filoni has taken Miyazaki’s lessons to heart, and can handle things like romance, as well as other kinds of relationships, quite well most of the time. Like Miyazaki he can play with romance, tease the audience with it at times even, leave the romance unrequited, and yet still have it feel satisfying. A prime example of this is the love triangle that Ahsoka was involved in with the young Separatist Senator, Lux Bonteri, and Steela Gerrera. As wary as I am of romance and as much as I despise shipping, love triangles I normally despise even more, but this one seemed to actually work. It never took over the main story, and even though Ahsoka’s feelings were ultimately not reciprocated, she still learned from the experience, and grew and developed further as a character because of it. The other characters involved in this triangle also grew and developed from their involvement, though unfortunately not all of them made it. All in all it was a good bit of storytelling and gave the audience something to consider.
When a relationship in one of Filoni’s stories does bloom into a full blown romance he also generally handles it quite well. For one Filoni is sparing with actual romance, so that when it does occur, it can be that much more appreciated. And rather than rushing or shipping it, Filoni normally takes his time to build it up. An example of this is the relationship between Kanan and Hera. Some might argue that this is perhaps the best developed romance in all of Star Wars, at least in Canon. Built up over four seasons, at times it wasn’t certain whether it was a romance or a friendship, or perhaps even a professional partnership. Perhaps even the characters themselves were not certain, though it was hinted all throughout the narrative that something was going on. To this day I don’t believe anyone can say definitively when it became an actual romance, and I believe Filoni did this intentionally because he wanted to be subtle, rather than making things too obvious and having the romance take over the narrative, as it usually does. When it finally did become obvious as to what was happening, it felt very much earned, in a way that is seldom accomplished in other works of fiction, including Star Wars.
The relationship between Ezra and Sabine was also fairly well written, for the most part anyway, at least in Star Wars Rebels. Ezra was almost immediately smitten with Sabine, but being a young teenage boy, it was understandable that he would feel that way about an attractive girl. Over time he learned to see her more respectfully, as a colleague and even as part of his adopted family, not just as a pretty face. Sabine for her part found Ezra annoying at first (c’mon, what teenage boy isn’t?), but as he matured and she found out more about him she came to understand and respect him more, and see him as a friend and almost a brother, with there being potential for something more.
There were times when the relationship could have been better written, like in the episode “Blood Sisters”, where Ezra was written to be a bit too immature to make Sabine look wiser. But overall, the bond between them developed fairly well; both saved one another at various times, and took risks and made sacrifices for each other’s sake. Both reassured and comforted the other when they needed it, and it was endearing to hear their banter when they became more familiar and trusting of each other.
So why then was I so disappointed in how they were portrayed in the Ahsoka show? The thing is, after how well their relationship was built up in Rebels, as I’ve already mentioned it was strange to see how lackluster and uninspired their reunion was.
Within the Ahsoka show itself Sabine was shown to be almost obsessed with finding Ezra, living in what used to be his home, watching a recording of him over and over again, and calling out his name as she woke up in the middle of the night. She even risked bringing Thrawn back into the Galaxy, which ultimately happened, just so she could see Ezra again. After all that, when she finally does encounter him, her reaction seems fairly casual, as does his, as if they’ve been apart for no more than a week, rather than 10 years. Not too much happens between them afterwards either. Like I said Ezra does not appear all that curious about what happened with Sabine, how she found him, and how it was that she was now Force sensitive. Sabine likewise did not seem curious about what had happened with Ezra, and how he had gotten away from Thrawn. And with Ezra rescued and returned home, suddenly it didn’t seem as though Sabine was all that interested in him anymore, nor he all that concerned with her, though they were just as far apart as they had been at the start of the show. To be completely honest it made me wonder what the point of the whole show was. Were they just working to set up Thrawn’s return to the Galaxy? As some have said, Ezra felt like nothing more than a Macguffin in the show. Was Sabine and Ahsoka’s search for him just a plot device?
Considering how skillfully Dave Filoni had written his stories in the past, what happened in this latest project of his does not make much sense. Was he so concerned about “shipping” and so desperate to avoid it that he inadvertently “shipped” them in the other direction? Was there some sort of external pressure on him about how to write this story to have more of an appeal to “modern audiences”? Maybe some combination of those factors?
And here I’ll add that when I say “modern audiences” I don’t mean that in a contemptuous sense, though you may think I do. If there is any contempt on my part it is for those in charge of telling our stories, or those in charge of those telling our stories, who do not seem to grasp these basic truths. The truth is that audiences at their core don’t really change throughout the ages, only superficially so. Trends come and go but certain truths and ideals are eternal, and universal. How people relate to each other fundamentally does not change, whether they are friends, or more than friends. And deep down, I believe everyone (or nearly everyone at least) wants the same things. Nearly everyone at some point wants some kind of a connection with another human being, to know that they are not alone in the world, and to know that there is someone else who sees and understands things as they do. While this desire can certainly lead to abuse, and absolutely has, it is still innate to us and is not inherently wrong. Finding ways of connecting and relating to other people is one of the great challenges of life, but many would argue it is the most worthwhile of challenges. It may be the whole point of life if you think about it. As complex as it may be, many would argue it is what makes life worth living, and likewise makes for the best stories. Just as it may be the whole point of life many would say that is what most stories are about at their core: people trying to relate to one another.
Sadly, just as in real life, most stories unfortunately don’t quite get it, and the Ahsoka show in my opinion was an example of this, made all the sadder by the fact that Dave Filoni had done quite well with these characters up to that point. We may never know for certain what exactly went wrong and why, or if it can ever be “fixed” at this point, but I can’t help but feel curious. Maybe in the future Filoni will find a way to make it make sense, but I’m not sure how. And to be completely honest I don’t feel quite as enthusiastic to find out as I used to.
Also for the record I would like to add here that there are other factors that put me off from the show, such as Sabine’s Force sensitivity, that came about without much build up. But in this article I specifically wanted to focus on shipping because there seems to be so much misunderstanding around it.
I hope that I was able to clarify some, if not most of this misunderstanding, so that people could better appreciate what shipping is, where it comes from, as well as what it isn’t. Many people today are understandably sick of shipping characters, myself included. But I hope people realize that in overcompensating for something, we often come back around into the very thing that we are overcompensating for. Or sometimes, into something even worse. This may apply to nearly every facet of life, by the way, not just shipping. Finding a happy medium in how we portray our fictional relationships may help us to better understand relationships in real life, as well as how to navigate them. Neither fictional nor actual relationships can ever be perfect but they can always be better. To this understanding then I hope that I was able to give my own modest contribution, and if nothing else I hope we can connect on that.

Hey! I'm getting into collage 1st year... I'm looking to buy a new laptop. I'm planning to go for a 2 in 1 laptop for my use.... I'm not into gaming. So there is no need for dedicated GPU for me... Integrated GPU would be right for me i guess.... Intel evo would be much preferred. So please drop your suggestions below for a 2 in 1 intel evo laptop for collage. I'm going for one with touch because note taking in quite important , stylus support should be there and watching online class in tent mode is much preferred. OLED display would be good. Good battery life is needed. So please give your recommendations for such a laptop with a budget of 50-80k.

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My 29m wife 28f and I have been married almost 4 years, together a little over 4 (married after 5 months).
She has had a friend (now 38m) that she was living with when we got together for around 8 or 9 years. They hung out a lot after we got together, but she always complained to me about him. She told me he was obsessed with her and things like that.
Almost 1 year after meeting her, with some advice from friends, I told her that she needed to block him and never see him again. She agreed and let me get on her phone and block his number and all of his socials. I also confronted him the next time I saw him and told him not to contact her. He told me he wouldn't.
Fast forward 3 years and we're expecting our first child. I've been going through our expenses and seeing where we can save a little because kids are expensive. When going through our cell phone bill and checking for any discounts through work, I started looking at usage details. There was a number with hundreds of outgoing calls a month and a few incoming calls over the past few years. I used a website to lookup the number and it was the "previous" friend. I looked more into the call history and saw that most of the calls were well over an hour, with the longest being over 7.
I know I shouldn't have, but last night I got on her phone and looked through her installed apps. On her snapchat I found him. They save their chats, so I looked back and saw that they chat all day every day and have a snap streak of over a year. Most of it is talking about their days and sharing stuff they find online, but some of it is about the baby and other health related stuff. They even shared the logins for their health apps (they use the same provider).
I don't know what to do. There's no indication that their sleeping together. I looked back as far as when the baby was conceived and he was apparently out of town for work half of that month.
Should I confront her or just keep tabs on the situation?
Tldr Wife has kept contact with a friend she said she wouldn't.

I female age 15 was living in a camper in Rhode Island with my mom age 31 and my dad age 33 along with 2 siblings my mom got into a car crash which gave her a concussion so I had to take care of my family and was like a house wife every time I got off from school my dad didn't help unless it involved my siblings with his game console or with nothing other than steal my mom's stuff to go through it to make sure she didnt catch him cheating on her which she did but I hid it all which he had a suspicion of but my mom was acting like a child at the time I wasn't focused on the remarks my dad would make when i was In shorts about how my butt looked like mom's but bigger and how I was better than her while my mom was getting better my was about to be 15 but I notice while my dad made dirty remarks he was reading a online book and I caught him multiple times in my parents bedroom alone rocking his stick and why I mentioned this is because that book he was reading was my whole bathroom situation but with Mafia people in his book while reading my mom was mostly recovered by the week before my birthday and my dad gas lighted her that I did nothing while he did everything and my mom believed him for 2 days before he tattled on himself about looking through her phone and finding evidence of him cheating which make them fight and argue which they were doing before the crash during the week before my birthday I got a road rash which will be a scar for ever a reminder of how my dad was able to look at me in the camper the shower doors were made of glass and if the temperature was lukewarm then you could see everything on the other side I turned 15 on the day of my road rash I got into the shower around 8:00 p.m. while washing my wound my father went in there and didn't say a word and just started brushing his teeth and looking towards the mirror which at the time was not looking my way I was okay with it at first cuz I thought it would just be for that day but the next 3 weeks it went to a transition of him looking at the mirror then to him leaving the bathroom door open lean on the wall towards the shower staring while playing toxic masculinity podcast of how women and Young women should do what men tell them and I wasn't on social media a lot so I didn't know what "alpha" male ment but women would refer them as that or they would refer them selfs as that but then to every couple of days during those three weeks was like him pushing boundary after boundary to the point where I can't handle it cuz he tried to touch the doorknob to open the glass doors I told him that I wasn't comfortable two times along with my younger siblings telling him to get out because they saw him in there because the door was open which he told them that it was okay and that he was my dad and everybody deserve to be in there it was him during the third day of the first week of this happening I wanted to prove to myself that my father wasn't like his stepfather which was a S A @bus€r of mine when I was 4 through 6 and because I thought it was because of my schedule of me getting in the shower late so I changed my schedule throughout the last 2 weeks while he was pushing boundaries I would change the times where it would inconvenience my mother during her naps or whatever she needed to do to get better cuz she had appointments or she would be like dead asleep and she would need me to watch my siblings but I was busy in the shower and they were messing with her while she had a headache and my father was complaining about the hot water for dishes and other women chores I need or my mother needed to complete but the part that makes it the most messed up is that when it was 20 minutes of me being still in the shower he would walk out and I would hurry up and get out and he would go back to his game console or smoke a cigarette and not good to bed or a couple of hours on the last day of the third week my mom asked me about it cuz she was finally starting to be aware of everything and I told her to wait and I would get in the shower as soon as I got home and he will be in there and she didn't believe me but once I got home and got in there he was in there with the door open my mom grabbed him by his shoulder and ripped him out and yelled at him and told him if he ever did that again that she would go get her shotgun cuz now she's more aware than she has ever been after the crash and he said that I was taking a shower late and then maybe I should be taking showers so late and then maybe I should be using all the hot water and that I'm his daughter he changed my diapers so if he wants to be in there he can be in there if you want the door open for some air he can have it open cuz he also pays the bills and owns everything and that I should be grateful which made my mom come up with a plan to start secretly moving after that day I called my aunt and my uncle who did not believe me and thought there was a better explanation but they did see my point of view but still thought I was being dramatic they question my father and he lied and said it was for 3 days more arguments started and one day when I had a school day off my dad as soon as he found out stayed home while my mom had to be at a appointment and thought he already left but instead he went to chill and came back to have a conversation with me and told me that I was delusional and that if I was uncomfortable I should have told him and when I told him I did and that he didn't say a word he said that he must have not heard me and once I told him that I said it loud and clear and that all you did was sigh and looked like he was about to cry and was mad he said that I'm just like my mother and that we deserve each other and then went on to if he had to have boundaries with me then I have to have boundaries with my mother and we can't get changed in front of each other because we are both bisexual and then proceeded to tell me that I don't know what's going on and then told me that I should be ashamed because I don't know how it feels to feel like a predator in your own home which left me speechless because I know what it's like to have predators around you every corner and he knows this and when I told him that he told me to grow up and that my hormones should be kicking in and I should have already forgotten about his stepfather my mom came home and my dad said he wanted a divorce and felt like I would take his side which my mom says working on it and took me for a drive and I told her all about it and then a couple of days later I woke up to my mom crying and naked because my mom had sex with my dad and when he was done and he got her done he kicked her out of the room and when she was wondering why he said she was more convenient then to go get a stranger and do it in the back of a truck my mom told me to go back to bed and I did at the time not fully knowing what was going on till that day that my mom going back on her word thinking she needed him telling me not to break up the family and that if he agrees the counseling we're staying even if I said no and don't like it which he didn't of course and also I told her that I would kill her and him and that I have thought about it and was in their room multiple times with a weapon think about killing them both because of the things they do which made my mom understand that she needed to grow up and leave him now which is sad for me to say but we finished up packing we got a U-Haul and before we left my mom thought it would be fair to him if my siblings had a board game night with him which later I left cuz I couldn't handle that my siblings get a perfect dad well I always got a cursing child beating lying disciplining me for no reason father and couldn't handle that my mom didn't leave them for a military hasn't killed my father or believe me on many occasions or didn't do anything because of him and because of her always needing him he went to go find me a hour later and talked and walked with me said the same things as the other conversation and when I brought up multiple predators in my life and how he did nothing for example I had a high school boy threatened to r@p€ me in the third grade and him and his friends chase me around and has kissed me and touched me multiple times for 2 years and and he said that he couldn't because that high school boy was a friends son but told him to stop but this friend was a mistress of his which later to find out that it would have been 4 years of harassment if my mother didn't threaten to burn his house which again shows that my father is a liar and my mother even proved it to me by showing me pictures of text between the high school boy and the mother and her but at the end of the conversation a dark side of me popped out and just went to try to go grab the nearest gun to shoot him cuz my father has an eye nose twitch when he lies and he has to be active or loud when he's trying to be manipulative and at the end he thought we had a great dad and talk even though I was still crying and he was like a brick wall cuz he thought I was like my mom and I would give up my mom stopped me and told me that I shouldn't go to jail and that we are moving tomorrow she will make sure of it no more delays and no more of letting me down we move to Texas where we're originally from and while living with a relative my little siblings could talk to our father which slowly broke the relationship because he would always try to bring up me and how he wanted to talk to me which later you can't stand not talking to me that he stopped paying child support until I talk to him and in between breaking the relationship with my siblings slowly they started seeing the dad that I saw and while here with my relative my mom got some console and help cuz at the time my dad was paying for child support but there was enough to get me help which my family thinks I desperately need but when child support stopped her console stopped cuz she can't afford it then drama started happening with the relative we were with and we've been moving ever since but now my mom is on the road making a lot of money to make up for no child support until the child support office is get their affairs in order and we are living with relative to relative that will take us in and watches but my mom will be coming back soon to get a rent house so that we can finally settle down after a whole year of dealing with all this without him and I'll be 16 and I don't know how to feel cuz it marks the anniversary of a scar physical emotional and mental and still cuts deep

A Comprehensive Guide to Alaska Airlines' Cancellation Policy

Introduction
Alaska Airlines is known for its customer-friendly policies, including a flexible cancellation policy that caters to the diverse needs of travelers. Understanding the nuances of this policy can save you time, money, and hassle. In this comprehensive guide, we'll delve into Alaska Airlines' cancellation policy in detail, covering everything from eligibility criteria to refund processes. Additionally, we'll provide insights into how you can contact Alaska Airlines for assistance. Let's get started!
Understanding Alaska Airlines' Cancellation Policy
Alaska Airlines allows passengers to cancel their flights under certain conditions without incurring hefty fees. Here's an overview of the key points:
Hour Risk-Free Cancellation
One of the standout features of Alaska Airlines' cancellation policy is its 24-hour risk-free cancellation window. Within 24 hours of booking your flight, you can cancel it without any penalty, regardless of the fare type. This allows passengers to make changes to their travel plans or correct booking errors without financial repercussions.
Eligibility for Cancellation
After the 24-hour window, the eligibility for cancellation without fees depends on various factors, including the fare type, route, and timing of the cancellation. Passengers are encouraged to review their fare rules and conditions to understand the cancellation policy specific to their ticket.
Fare Types and Cancellation Fees
Alaska Airlines offers different fare types, each with its own set of rules regarding cancellations and associated fees. Let's explore these fare types and the corresponding cancellation fees:
Main Cabin Tickets
Main Cabin tickets are the standard fare type offered by Alaska Airlines. Cancellation fees for Main Cabin tickets vary based on factors such as the time of cancellation relative to the departure date and the specific fare rules. Typically, cancellation fees for domestic flights range from $125 to $200 per person, while international flights may incur higher fees.
First Class and Premium Class Tickets
Passengers holding First Class or Premium Class tickets generally enjoy more flexibility when it comes to cancellations. The cancellation fees for these fare types are often lower compared to Main Cabin tickets and may range from $0 to $125 per person, depending on the fare rules and timing of the cancellation.
How to Cancel a Flight with Alaska Airlines
Alaska Airlines provides multiple options for passengers to cancel their flights conveniently. Here's how you can initiate a cancellation:
Online Cancellation
The easiest and most common way to cancel a flight with Alaska Airlines is through their official website. Passengers can log in to their account, navigate to the "Manage Trips" section, and follow the prompts to cancel their booking. Online cancellations offer a seamless experience and allow passengers to view any applicable fees or credits instantly.
Contacting Alaska Airlines Customer Service
Alternatively, passengers can contact Alaska Airlines' customer service directly to cancel their flights. Customer service representatives are available to assist with cancellations, answer questions about fees or refunds, and provide guidance on rebooking or making changes to travel plans.
Refund Process and Timeline
Understanding how refunds are processed and the associated timeline is crucial for passengers who have canceled their Alaska Airlines flights. Here's what you need to know:
Credit for Future Travel
In many cases, canceled tickets result in credit being issued for future travel with Alaska Airlines. This credit can be used towards the purchase of a new ticket within a specified timeframe, typically one year from the original booking date. Passengers should note any restrictions or limitations associated with the credit, such as blackout dates or fare class eligibility.
Refund to Original Form of Payment
For eligible cancellations, refunds may be issued back to the original form of payment, such as a credit card or debit card. The timeline for receiving a refund to the original form of payment varies but is typically processed within a few business days to a week. Passengers should check their account statements or payment method for updates on the refund status.
Contact Alaska Airlines for Assistance
If you have questions, need clarification, or require assistance regarding your canceled flight or any other travel-related inquiries, Alaska Airlines offers various channels for you to reach out:
Customer Service Hotline
For immediate assistance, you can call Alaska Airlines' customer service hotline at ☎️+1-888-414-1245. Be prepared to provide your booking details and any relevant information to expedite the process.
Online Support
Additionally, Alaska Airlines' official website provides a wealth of information, including FAQs, live chat support, and email contact options. Visiting their website can help you find answers to common questions or direct you to the appropriate support team.
Conclusion
Navigating Alaska Airlines' cancellation policy can seem daunting at first, but with the right information and resources, you can manage cancellations effectively and make informed decisions about your travel plans. Remember to review your fare rules, understand any applicable fees, and utilize the available channels to contact Alaska Airlines for assistance when needed. By staying informed and proactive, you can ensure a smoother experience when dealing with flight cancellations or changes. Safe travels!

Hi guys!
I know it is not suffisticated but I really needed a Tutorial when I`ve just started using an XVATrainer.
SO I`ve decided to save you some timeu by creating a Video Tutorial.
How to Create AI Voice for Skyrim - Part 1 - XVATrainer Tutorial
Hope you like it. The Tutorial teaches you how to upload your Skyrim original voices to the program and train it accordingly.
There are more features in a program but I`ve just shown those which are nessessary.
(You only need this tutorial if your desired Voice Model doesn`t exist) You might want to check Nexus Mods or https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1FeclOeLjVJkmyJnq4HKZZO9hDG7C3dydRG7v9gjBT4Y/edit#gid=0 whether your model already exists (it will save you a lot of time, trust me).

I planted 10 redbuds in March. So far 4 are blooming well, 3 have done nothing (assumed dead), and 3 have only sprouted small shoots at their bases.
My questions are:

1. Are the shoots likely to grow into healthy mature trees?
2. Should I go ahead and cut the dead parts of the trees back to their bases so the shoots have a better chance?

Any help is appreciated!