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I just had a power outage locally, and I'm a little scared with my computer since after it came back, it boots up fine but none of my apps work, and decided to try uninstalling and reinstalling them to see if that helped, but Chrome keeps giving me the error that my connection isn't private at home when I try to go to the download site for Discord and Spotify, I even tried to go to twitch and that doesn't work either. Not all websites appear like this. YouTube and Typing.com are fine but not those other ones. My main concern is that I was downloading a game onto one of my drives when the power went out, and I was foolish to not plug the power into a power bar and more straight into the wall outlet, and I'm wondering about how messed up my computer is. I've tried restarting it multiple times but still no. For reference, Chrome has been saying for these blocked websites that their security certificates aren't certified with this code: NET:ERR_CERT_AUTHORITY_INVALID It's not just Chrome, Firefox blocks them as well

Hello, thanks for all the helpful fb so far.
1.I have reverted to my prev title, given the (very funny) commentary on UNICORNS (even worse wrt ya'll having threeway action/bisxuality evoked is... my MC is bi! No threeway action in this one, but hey, maybe that's the idea I needed to crank out a sequel... )

1. As per prev fb, I've got more in here wrt to Adam. I'm trying to get at him being a being 1. super driven 2. cary being a bit uncertain about him because of image vs. reality 3. that she's totally into him no matter what she says-- and that he IS diffo in private-- that there is a there, there. (is that working?)
   
2. BUT I'm worried this is reading a little too much like a Romance ATP-- there is a strong love story element but it ends with Cary and her work-- not with their reunion. The book is about her creative re-discovery, albeit prompted by her affair w Adam. Maybe I take out "the Idea of you" comp?
   

Any and all other feedback super welcome, of course.
***** Dear Agent,
I like you because [customization TK]-.
From struggling to write a single song to long hours in the studio to The Tonight Show, The Hotel Bel Air, red carpets, Cape Cod hideaways and ceramic dildos (yes really), GETTING READY (85k, Upmarket/Women’s Fiction) is a funny, gossipy novel about self-discovery and creative renewal set deep within the pop music industry. Readers who enjoyed Curits Sittenfeld’s Romantic Comedy, Robinne Lee’s The Idea of You, or HBO’s Starstruck will love GETTING READY.
Songwriteproduceformer one-hit-wonder Cary Mitchell once dreamed of critical acclaim and #1 hits–but the higher you soar, the harder you fall. These days, she’s happily settled for having mid-list Top 40 success down to a science, instead. Besides, phoning it in leaves her with more time for letting it all hang out: her friends, partying, vacation…
Something unexpected happens when she’s brought in to write a song for her former protege, rising pop star Adam King. The first song’s very mid; the second’s too generic… but the third is a definite hit, the kind of song people spend years waiting to write. Suddenly song after song is flowing out of her, like she’s inspired or something. Soon enough, Cary’s executive-producing Adam’s make-or-break third album.
Just as Cary’s building up the courage to explore her new-found creativity, her bonus-track duet with Adam goes social media supernova. Now instead of logging long hours in the studio, she’s juggling gossip columnists digging into her teenage indiscretions, blogspherists questioning her authenticity, frenemies trumping her chart moves, rabidly entitled stans stalkerazzi’ing her every breath. Complicating everything? The situationship she’s fallen into with Adam.
Adam, who’s just always relentlessly, perfectly on. Thirst trap posting first thing in the morning, green juice permanently in hand, panty-dropping smile beaming 24/7. Adam, who spends endless hours making music with her, pushing her to dream bigger, bolder. Adam, who never takes his eyes off the super-stardom prize. That Adam.

OLD: https://www.reddit.com/PubTips/comments/1cz1txc/qcrit_unicorns_85k_womens_fiction_adult_fourth_ql/

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Kinh tế thị trường định hướng XHCN là gì? by inTroChuyenLinhTinh

Ae thông cảm đéo bình luận đc, phải đăng bài mới
u/Bocchi981 Mày tâm huyết vcl, xứng đáng làm ứng viên cho ghế Chủ tịch Hội đồng Ný nuận Trung ương thuộc Đảng uỷ tclt
Theo tao thì nên giải thích thêm về khu vực kinh tế công, khu vực kinh tế tư nhân và khu vực thứ ba.
1) Kinh tế công (Pulic sector):
https://www.britannica.com/money/public-sectorhttps://www.oxfordlearnersdictionaries.com/definition/english/the-public-sector
2) Kinh tế tư nhân (Private sector):
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/private%20sector
https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/private-sector
https://www.oxfordlearnersdictionaries.com/definition/english/the-private-sector?q=private+sector
https://www.investopedia.com/terms/p/private-sector.asp#:\~:text=The%20private%20sector%20is%20the%20part%20of%20the%20economy%20not,to%20be%20the%20public%20sector.
3) Khu vực thứ ba:
https://www.oxfordlearnersdictionaries.com/definition/english/the-third-sector - Cái khu vực thứ 3 này khá khó hiểu, Wiki thì ghi là nó cấu thành Khu vực tình nguyện (Voluntary sector) với Xã hội dân sự, tao chưa tìm hiểu kĩ nên chưa phân biệt đc.
- Trên la bàn chính trị (political compass), tao thấy Khu vực kinh tế công với Khu vực kinh tế tư nó gần với trục với chính sách kinh tế, còn Khu vực 3 nó gần trục chính sách xã hội nên chưa bàn đến cái thứ 3 vội. Vả lại từ xưa tới nay VC vẫn bóp chặt Xã hội dân sự nên Khu vực 3 luôn hẹp đi.
- Nhìn cái la bàn thì ae cũng hiểu kha khá sự khác biệt giữa chủ nghĩa Mác với chủ nghĩa Lênin.
4) Thời bao cấp:

• Thời này thi hành Kinh tế kế hoạch / Kinh tế tập trung, 99% nền kinh tế VN thuộc khu vực kinh tế công, chính phủ dùng chính sách kinh tế (economic policy) để điều khiển 100% nền kinh tế và điều hành tư liệu sản xuất.

- Cái yếu kém nhất của kinh tế kế hoạch là thích ứng với lạm phát, mày làm gì cũng phải xin phép báo cáo, mà bộ máy của CS cồng kềnh quan liêu khỏi nói Đợi đc chỉ thị thì phá sản mẹ rồi, thời buổi internet còn quan liêu lề mề thì thời bao cấp thôi khỏi nói. - Viết về bao cấp mầy nên làm 1 mục lớn riêng.
5) Đổi mới
- Sau đổi mới mày viết rất chi tiết nên tao không ý kiến chi nữa. Đại khái là ĐCS nắm xương sống của nền kinh tế, vẫn nắm lượng lớn tư liệu sản xuất, độc quyền điện, nhiên liệu, viễn thông,... Nhưng mở cửa nền kinh tế và nới lỏng cho Khu vực kinh tế tư nhân. Tỉ trọng bao nhiêu thì thằng nào học kinh tế vi mô, vĩ mô mới biết kiếm số liệu cụ thể chứ tau chịu
6) XHCN (Xuống Hố Cả Nút) - Cái này thì mày viết cụ thể rồi, tao hiểu đại khái là 99% nền kinh tế sẽ là Khu vực kinh tế công, triệt tiêu Khu vực kinh tế tư nhân, lồn nào tư sản thì sẽ bị đấu tố, bắn bỏ.
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/socialism
7) Kinh tế thị trường định hướng (tiến lên) XHCN
- Giờ đến phần gây lú, tao nêu cách hiểu của tao thôi nhé. Thằng nào đọc hiểu đc là cũng hiểu kha khá Mác Lê rồi đó
- Theo Mác thì có 5 hình thái kinh tế - xã hội, cái này bay tra gg ra đầy khỏi link.
. Cộng sản nguyên thủy (công xã nguyên thủy)
+) Gọi là vậy vì thời này không có giai cấp.
. Chiếm hữu nô lệ (La Mã,...)
. Phong kiến, gồm địa chủ và nông dân
. Tư bản chủ nghĩa, gồm tri thức và tiểu tư sản
. Cộng sản chủ nghĩa
+) Thời này "Làm theo năng lực, hưởng theo nhu cầu". Lấy ví dụ thì đó là xã hội con người trong phim WALL-E (2008). Tụi mày sẽ thấy năng suất lao động = 0, nhưng đc hưởng thụ mọi nhu cầu. Con người trong phim đó không lao động, nhìn giống súc vật.
+) Bên Âu các đảng Dân chủ xã hội (Social Democracy) rất thịnh hành vì họ thấy sự ưu việt của kinh tế thị trường (thích ứng với lạm phát) và Nhà nước can thiệp vào nền kinh tế để giảm bớt bất bình đẳng thu nhập (Gini coefficient). Họ hài lòng với việc kết hợp giữa Tư bản và Nhà nước (Mixed economy). Chú ý là "Market economy" là cái cấu thành "Capitalism", "Market economy" không đồng nghĩa với Capitalism.
+) Nhưng CS thì không hài lòng như mấy ông Social Democracy, mày sẽ thấy 1 cụm từ quen thuộc đó là "Thời kì quá độ lên XHCN" (transitional period from Capitalism to Socialism). XHCN là hình thái ở giữa Tư bản và Cộng sản. Muốn tiến lên XHCN theo Mác là phải xây đc xã hội Tư bản mạnh mẽ, tức là của cải, hàng hoá (goods) đc tạo ra dư thừa so với nhu cầu (needs). Những nước phát triển như Tàu Cộng với Mỹ đế, với công nghệ lõi, phát triển AI mạnh mẽ, mới có khả năng này.
+) Nói thêm chút về hình thái xã hội, quan điểm cá nhân tao thì, sau Cộng sản thì sẽ là xã hội của người máy (The matrix). Tiến lên The matrix thì sẽ là các hình thái xã hội trong phim Blade Runner 2049, I, Robot (2004 film)
8) Kết luận: Tiến lên XHCN là sự ảo tưởng của VC, thậm chí tiến lên Tư bản chủ nghĩa còn không thể.

• Công nghệ lõi: Phân lô bán nền
  
• Giáo dục: Thôi khỏi nói cmay biết hết rồi
  

- Năng suất lao động của VN rất thấp, clip của VTV cũng chỉ biết đưa ra 1 giải pháp "đầu tư vào giáo dục", còn thực tế chi ngân sách nuôi bộ nào nhiều nhất thì chúng mày biết rồi đó, hô hào 1 kiểu, làm 1 kiểu.

• Năng suất lao động thấp, giáo dục ngu, theo tao chắc chắn dính bẫy nợ, không có chuyện thành nước công nghiệp phát triển được đâu, bây giờ là 2024 mà vẫn quanh quanh gia công, chúng mày nghĩ tận dụng đc thời kì dân số vàng không? Theo tao là không.
  
• Vị trí địa lí: Cả TQ llẫn Mỹ đế đều muốn 1 VN làng nhàng thôi. Đơn giản nếu VN thành nước phát triển sẽ là kỳ đà cản mũi TQ múa cột ở biển Đông, Mỹ thì không thích 1 nước CS giàu mạnh như Nhật Hàn.
  
• Tây Âu đc viện trợ Marshall (Marshall Plan), Nhật Hàn Đài đc bú công nghệ chip, đc bú viện trợ, bú Đôna, TQ đc Henry Kissinger giúp. Còn Đại Vẹm đu dây thì bú "cây gậy và củ cà rốt" thôi. Chính bản thân những người CSVN, họ biết, nhưng để giữ chố đệ thì chỉ có tiếp tục đu dây. Còn Cam pốt rõ ràng quan điểm rồi đó, hổng có đu như VN.
  

Trên đây là ý kiến cá nhân tao.

My bf (M23) goes to uni about an hour away. I (F23) will drive up to see him over the weekend at least twice a month, the other weekends he’ll usually come back to our home town. He’s sharing a campus apartment with three other people, two guys and one girl. I’ll call the girl E.
Everyone has people over, one guy’s gf is here all the time. My presence has been cleared with all roommates. The issue arose last weekend, during my recent visit. Bf and I left a condom wrapper on his nightstand on accident. On Saturday, we went to get lunch and while we were gone, E entered his room to borrow his charger and must’ve seen the condom wrapper. When we returned, she asked to speak to my bf privately. They stepped out in the hallway and I went to chill in his room.
Bf returned he told me what the conversation was about. Apparently, E is asexual and everything related to sex makes her violently uncomfortable. She saw the condom wrapper that day and it hit her that we were doing the nasty while I’m here. E told my bf that since her room is right next door and they share a wall, she wants us to stop having sex because she won’t be able to sleep knowing that someone might be getting laid on the other side of the wall.
Bf asked her if she’s ever heard anything and she said no, but just knowing that someone is doing that makes her feel gross. She went as far as to suggest we leave his bedroom door open overnight or one of us sleep on the couch in the living room to give her a peace of mind.
In my opinion, that’s ridiculous. It’s none of her business. Bf shares my opinion. I ran into his other suitmate, later that night. We hung out in the kitchen area and I told him about the situation. He was appalled and backed me up, saying that it’s an insane request.
Well, I don’t know if E heard me and the guy talking or if he told her, but she approached me Sunday morning. She essentially reiterated what she’d already told my bf but was quite rude about it. I told her that it’s none of her business what my boyfriend and I do in his bedroom, we’re both adults and she literally wouldn’t even know if she hadn’t entered his room without consent to get the charger. I emphasized that I will not stop sleeping with him and that while I respect her identity, she needs to acknowledge that most couples do have sex regularly and won’t stop because she personally doesn’t like it. She said that it’s her apartment and I’m a guest here so I need to respect her wishes, and if I can’t do that, I’ll need to stop visiting.
I’m kind of conflicted now. I still think that what my bf and I do in his room is not her problem.
But then again, she is right that this is her apartment and I’m just a guest. I won’t listen to her demands of leaving the bedroom door open or sleeping on the couch because that’s just ridiculous, I’m 23 not 15 and she’s not my mom, but I’ve been thinking about not spending the night anymore. AITA for what I told her? Should I respect her wish and stop sleeping here?

This is a full explanation as best as I can recall this dream that is slowly leaving my mind. The “-“ are added details i remember from thinking about it more. Anyway, my brain is evil and out to get me. Thanks for reading my fucked up dream.
it was halloween and i went to a haunted house puzzle escape room thing with friends
-i remember the first room was a white square room with square and rectangle pockets and secret press in doors in the walls, we pressed one in and saw a man with clown makeup smiling on the other side, also in a white room.-
and in one of the parts there were scare actors running around with knives getting up close and personal
-this room was after a passage in the white room turned into a hallway, up and down the hallway scare (men) actors with clown makeup were taunting us running up and around the left and right of us as soon as we got into the kind of yellow lit room with clear tarps and wooden tables and metallic trays thats when someone got cut-
it got way to personal the scare actors turned out to be actual psychopaths trying to kill me and my friends
-one of them had stabbed me with a knife in the side or at least cut me, i was fighting this man off with both arms holding his hand from stabbing me, i pushed him off but they had us cornered.-
and it escalated to them trying to transport us into a small plane to fucking kidnap us for whatever fucked up reason they had bigger plans
such a detailed dream
but i crashed the plane in a field and it exploded and i was the only survivor, and in my dream my legs got fucked up badly i didn’t want to lose them forever so i like grabbed my limbs in arm and crawled towards society i ended up making it to a store and was crying and begging someone to call 911 and help me but everyone thought i had a fucking good costume and thought i was trying to be scary
-i remember a boy and his mom were walking by and i was in between cars trying to make it to the building, the boy was like ohh shit cool costume!!”-
by the end of it i was literally propped up against the building with my fucking pieces of severed legs in my hands crying and begging
and also i forgot that towards the end of all that when i was propped up i was inside the store partially and people were just talking to me like normal one store associate lady even said please dont block the bathroom door and i was trying to make it inside so i could die privately, laying there with a literal bone sticking out my thigh and legs in hand and then some lady gave me a rememberable dirty look and went into the bathroom thats when i woke up
i had thoughts during the end of the dream, like actual thoughts that felt like i was in reality for a moment thinking ; “how long can my legs stay separated from me i don’t want to lose them” “god i hope someone helps me” “my legs are gone i will never be normal again” “why have i not bled out yet” “why is nobody helping me”
So yeah, remind me never to nap again.

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Do you know what Blackstone is? They are the largest private equity firm that owns the most properties in the United States. They are also part of the WallStreet elite. Be careful what you wish for my fellow Americans:
https://www.forbes.com/sites/mollybohannon/2024/05/24/billionaire-blackstone-ceo-schwarzman-will-back-trump-after-donating-millions-in-2020/?sh=444d62173404

Lots of people who post are always in the pools or going to the shows or sitting at the bars all night. We are busy at the ports and don't do much of the usual cruise stuff. We have been sitting on our aft balcony a lot, go tot he buffet because it's causal and we can sit outside, or will grab a drink and sit off by ourselves. Real exciting, right?
So what I have noticed is the pool deck is an impossibility unless you wake up at dawn. There is some chair saving but I can't really say it's bad. It's just jam packed with wall to wall people. But then 3pm comes around and it's a ghost town. Which is great for us! At night we have literally had the entire Solarium to ourselves and one evening on the pool deck it was us with a handful of folks I was in the pool floating around with 3 other folks. I have carefully staged photos that makes it seem like we have a private ship.
We went to the main dining room once, buffet nightly, did the Le Petit Chef dinner (and loved it), was in the Eden area once randomly one night, haven't seen any shows, have the premium drink package, an aft balcony, and a kid in the older kids kids club, the one right before being a teen. I have stopped at the Martini bar a few times, went to the bourbon sports bar place a couple of times to grab an old fashioned or Manhattan, and have been drinking a lot of Coke Zeros, with and without Bacardi 8 rum.
So if anyone has any boring questions let me know!

This might be a weird question. Let's say you want to make a program that is a template of a house, but the user should be able to design the house as they want. You could create Objects for some of the most common features of a house such as area, number of rooms, colour of the walls. But what if they want something really specific? Could you make some sort of feature that would let the user themselves be able to create a new type of Object.
What I mean is that the user might be able to input the name of the Object they want to create, and for every new Object the code could look like:

public class XXX{ private name;
public XXX(String name){
this.name = name;
} public String getName(){ return name; } ...

Like an abstract class but which the user themselves can implement and make an Object through a feature where they can just type the name of the new type of Object they want to create? Is it possible to create this sort of feature?

I’m 27 and work in health care as a nursing assistant. I started my job here about 7 months ago, and things have been good for the most part. Ever since I got transferred to a different floor, I’ve been working with this other male nurse, I help him if he needs help with some of his patients as they sometimes have a better understanding with me. We were great co workers before and everyone else who works with us, we all got along great. One time I was helping him by preparing some things we were going to use and we were in an empty patient rooms washroom and he pinned me against the wall, and started touching my breasts. I was in shock and didn’t enjoy it and said stop it or I’ll complain on you. He is going to do his RN exam in a few months and I didn’t want to see him destroy it by doing something stupid. He’s also married with kids, and has showed us his wife and kids pictures before. Now I guess from my own stupidity by trying to save someone after they did me wrong, he did it again. He touched my private area and tried hugging me on this shift and also rubbed my breasts as I was pulling away from him On tonight’s shift. I was in shock and I said leave me alone and I had to leave the floor and go catch some air. I know I need to complain and do it fast, but I need some advice. Will I get in trouble if he denies it? I have a feeling he will and he always does it in places that there are no cameras, so it is hard to gather proof. I want this to end and I know I shouldn’t have ever gave someone like this a chance to be better without creating something big that might hurt his career. I feel so stupid and like I didn’t even stand up for myself cuz I was thinking about other people in this situation ike his wife and kids and also how he can have a great career ahead of him. My workplace is unionized and is apart of a big organization. What would be the next steps that I do moving forward with the complaint? I don’t want too much time to pass on from this. Thanks , any advice is appreciated

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Focus on the local, small community you call home. That is something we are constantly bombarded with when discussing ways to effectively combat climate change. I don't think this is entirely a bad argument, however I personally believe the climate deniers, and in relation the right wing is heavily focusing on this aspect of politics.
I live in a town of about 30,000 people. We are in a very interesting situation, as our town is wonderfully split between two counties and sandwiched between two larger cities. One one hand we have one city/county that is very progressive, heavily focuses on social issues and environmental issues and the other city/county that is one of the most conservative counties in our state.
My town mostly leans left at least for the most part, however we have a very active and vocal conservative population. The issues started a couple of years ago. We have an empty dirt lot between our downtown district and the main draw of our town: a lake. The state I live in created a program called the Downtown Development Authority. The way it works is the downtown business get to collect 100% of their sales tax to reinvest in the downtown area. This has been wonderful. It has allowed our downtown businesses to do complete face-lifts and allowed them to purchase that empty lot. They had a number of potential ideas, but eventually settled on a mix use development with both apartments and retail space. It was going to be about 4-5 stories tall, however the conservatives were not too happy. The called it "The Wall", said it would privatize our lake, bring in crime, and make our downtown area feel like a large city (I mean they even compared it to Manhattan!). They eventually got enough signatures to force a special election, which essentially voted to re-zone the area as a permanent parking lot. Now this violates state law and in fact that type of zoning doesn't even exist here, but the people spoke. Now keep in mind only about 3,000 people voted and they only won by a small margin.
It has now culminated in our most recent mayoral election. Now the mayor really only has a single vote on our town board, however they do set the direction for the town. It is a part time position that pays about $12,000 a year, but it is important. During our most recent election in May we had two candidates running for election. One who has served on the town board, he is the current president of a non-profit that protects a very important river that runs through our town, and is in all good guy. The other kind of came out of nowhere. He had a significant amount of support from a large residential developer in our area. He also received a decent chunk of change from a dark money republican PAC in our region. To put it in perspective his campaign funds were even higher than the campaign funds for the mayoral races in either of the neighboring cities, they both have populations over 100,000 people and in fact one is nearing 200,000.
Even with all that money he lost. And he lost by a decent amount. The losers couldn't accept defeat and looked into our town charter and found a weird rule. Basically an elected official cannot serve more than 2 terms consecutively or more than 10 years total. The person who won mayor had served two terms as a town board member, but would not be hitting his 10 years until the very end of his mayoral term. This has happened multiple times before with prior mayors, including the last two. Plus the person who won did verify with both the town clerk and the town attorney prior to running. This was never an issue brought up during the election campaign, only after he won. Instead of trying and amending the town charter to make it more clear, an "independent citizen" (I put that in quotes because he is clearly being funded by the developer and he doesn't even live here, he owns a piece of property in the downtown district and occasionally stays in town with his mistress) sued the town and both the town clerk and new mayor personally. Unfortunately the courts decided against the town. This was decided in the conservative county and the town has decided not to escalate to the supreme court because of the costs. We are now in a very weird situation. By town charter we cannot have a special election, the mayor will have to be chosen and appointed from the current town board, but it will have to be near unanimous.
The people of the town voted for a progressive and especially an environmentally focused mayor. Dark money, conservative ideologies, and misinformation has started to tear our town apart. Currently our town is working with the river authority (the non-profit the elected mayor is on the board of) to expand an area around the river into a park focusing on supporting and redeveloping a natural wet land. I had heard the developer had wanted to buy the land to make into a housing development. My guess is this was mostly personal.
I guess I am feeling pretty disheartened. We constantly get told to vote and to focus locally, however that seems to be an increasing difficult and fragile task. I am trying to get my community to be more sustainable and environmentally focused. We are succeeding in some ways, but seem to be getting blocked at every opportunity.

Looking back upon the last few months of my life, I now feel a peculiar clarity upon the once foggy and suspicious events which have suspended my life for their allotted time. The cause of my suffering is now evident beyond all reasonable doubt. There is a man living in my closet, of that I am certain.
Six months ago, at the dawn of September, I had finally moved away from the safe nest of my mother into my own apartment in a small town just off the eastern sea of North Carolina. Befitting of the small town, my apartment was a quaint place, consisting of only three small rooms; a kitchen, a bedroom, and a bathroom attached to the bedroom. Money had been tight, and any ambitions of scholarly advancement had been snubbed out by the absurd toll it asked of me. I resigned to focus on my work life until I had acquired a suitable amount of savings to pay off college. As for my job, I had chosen to work at the local library. It was a small and mundane place, hardly ever visited by the locals. In truth, the building stood more as a historical landmark than anything else, for many years ago it was deemed historically important, and the government had barred any change in the building's appearance from that point onward. The town praised it as a pillarstone of the community, yet the few employees who worked there could attest that such sentiments were merely hollow praise.
Speaking of my coworkers, there was naught but four. First and foremost was the head librarian, Esmerelda Grimshaw, whom every man with his head on correctly called Miss. Grimshaw. She was a stern old woman, about age 70, yet I never dared to ask her exact birthdate. She had never bothered to marry, for in her own words her “only love was books” and to that, my coworkers can attest. Her knowledge of literature was deep and vast; one could often find her at the front desk burning through the works of Shakespeare and Orwell. I had a certain sweet spot for what many would consider a mean old crow, perhaps due to her sharing a sweet spot for me. She was the foundation of that library and did well to honor its legacy.
After her was her son, Tony, a bastard on all accounts, who wholly disproved the common theory that all apples fell near their tree. A young chap of 17 years, he spent his time finding new and creative ways to waste time and wreak havoc. I wholly suspected that he had been working at the library due to being unable to hold down any other job, with the upside of his mother keeping an eye on his behavior. Despite his apparent behavioral issues, I found the boy to be quite charming and intelligent, approaching ideas in ways I had never considered, he often held the key to a nuanced perspective, even if he himself did not quite grasp this concept.
Attached to Tony at all times was his girlfriend, Lilly, a more straightforwardly bright young girl. Having some of the best grades of her high school, she stumbled into her job through many long nights of studying at the library. After one particularly long night, Miss Grimshaw had reprimanded her with the phrase “If you want to stay here all night, why don’t you just keep a set of keys for God’s sake!” Lilly had obviously taken up this offer as it was in no time at all that she had begun working at the library, where she soon after began dating Tony. The two of them could not be more opposite yet together they seemed natural. Lilly was the best employee of the library, being perhaps the only one to consistently find work to do during her shifts.
Finally was Ted, the man who I firmly believe is the cause of my suffering. Ted was a twisted man on all accounts, the type of person to idolize Dahmer and Bundy, the latter of whom he madly believed to be the inspiration for his name. He worked in the library, yet his home was what I assumed to be the local prison. Having been unfit for physical labor, the jail had resigned to send him to the library, a deal which Miss Grimshaw only accepted after she had been handed a generous donation from Ted’s wealthy father and had purchased a low-caliber pistol to store permanently in her front desk. Of his crimes, I am not entirely sure, yet in hushed whispers between Tony and Lilly, I head all manner of rumors ranging from petty burglary to brutal murder of the first degree. His frame was peculiarly small, standing only about 5’4, and weighing what I can only assume to be under 100 pounds, though I never directly asked. Despite this his presence in a room was rarely unnoticed, and with it came hushed tones and thoughts of immediate evacuation. Even thinking of his odor now makes my stomach churn, he smelled strongly of dead fish and iron, with a third rancid smell unplaceable in my mind. His attire consisted of his prison jumpsuit, which loosely hung over his tiny frame, and a peculiar necklace, colored a freakish red and depicting an unknown symbol that had the faintest resemblance to a fish. Ted rarely worked, yet whenever he did days slogged on, and nobody could ever feel entirely safe, even with Miss Grimshaw keeping a watchful eye, hand always primed to grab her gun.
My first two months living in North Carolina had brought with them a freedom that I hadn’t yet experienced in my lifetime. My journey towards inhabiting this new town was greatly helped by my co-workers, all but one of whom helped me learn the customs of the small town, eventually allowing me to blend myself into its natural ecosystem. In this environment, I was living a thriving and fun life. I had made new acquaintances throughout town and had become favorable to the local university students, which I now planned to attend come the next year. It was at this university I met what would soon become my closest companion: Richard, Dick for short. We had become acquainted through a night of debauchery and alcohol, our bond cemented by sunrise, at which time both of us were in the back of a police cruiser, loudly and oafishly singing “My Heart Will Go On” voices cracking upon every note which could be considered remotely high. The two of us spend a great deal of time together, enjoying our newly found freedom and all the perks of a young adult’s life.
My life looked to be going upwards, and befitting of this trend my apartment had become quite the cozy little place. The walls had become filled with posters defining my interests in music and literature, a few of which were heavily influenced or altogether put in place by Dick. Particularly the poster of Michael Jackson which hung slightly crooked on my kitchen wall, placed one hazy night while I was passed out at the foot of my bed. Dick had shared this interest with me through a conversation about the King of Pop’s ailing health and appearance, remarking how sad the day will be when he draws his last breath. Dick then proceeded to show me concerning and offputting pictures of the popstar, which I remarked looked strikingly similar to Ted. Intrigued by my comment, Dick wrestled all that I had known about Ted that night, eventually turning the conversation onto the local urban legend, the night watchman.
Dick relayed to me the tales he had heard growing up in the town. Tales of a wicked man who had spent upwards of a year living underneath the house of his victim. A victim who he had relentlessly stalked, following them around in public and watching them sleep. Eventually, the night watchman had grown bored and decided to play with his victim by moving household objects around, occasionally stealing the ones he found particularly interesting. The cops upon hearing this, believed none of it to be a reality. That was until they had found such evidence within the house of the nightmarish terror of the night watchman. The case was deemed too gruesome for the public, and the whole matter had been settled privately, leaving the civilians the wonder who the night watchman truly was. Dick then, in a matter which unsettled me deeply, proposed that Ted was the night watchman. Disturbed by this thought, I wholeheartedly disagreed with this horrifying statement. Dick agreed, jesting that he knew Ted wasn’t the night watchman, because he was.
The two of us began to laugh and continued the rest of our night without mention of the night watchman. The next day I woke up and went to work, slightly late and hungover. As I walked in Miss Grimshaw asked me why I was late. I evaded telling her the truth, lying that I had simply forgotten to set my alarm, yet in her eyes I could see she didn’t believe any of what I was saying. As I was leaving to begin my daily cleaning ritual she told me the good news that Ted was finally done working at the library. I asked why and she simply shrugged, attributing it to him finding another job to do, one more befitting of an inmate At the time I agreed, but even then I had already known the truth, Ted was out of prison.
Tony began exhibiting odd behavior following Ted’s leaving of the library. More days than not he would come in substantially late, if he bothered to show at all. When he did show his attire was disheveled and his mind unfocused, his evenings of mischief turned to quiet days, where more often than not he would resign himself to a corner of the library and simply stare. On one such night, I asked him what the bother was, and he complained of a failing relationship with Lilly and problems concerning his house, notably that of the drinking water and the chilling breeze that now freely flowed through the house. He then checked his surroundings, as if looking for an intruder, before leaning into me and whispering in a dreadfully hushed tone about feelings of being stalked.
I was taken aback by such a suggestion and commented that in all likelihood, he was not being followed or stalked by anyone, but was rather just feeling paranoid due to stress. He seemed to believe me, thanking me for my words, yet after our conversation, I could not help but wonder if his words had genuine weight to them. For the remaining time of his employment, he and I would share a few other words, and his behavior would only become worse and more frequent.
My work aside, it seemed that every day my small apartment became more like a real home to me. Besides the multitude of posters Dick and I had placed on the walls, filling up nearly every inch of space on the plaster, the rest of my house began to fill itself up with homely items. Kitchen utensils, foodstuffs, and many other miscellaneous items necessary to a true home all naturally worked their way in over time, giving the small place a cozy feel. I worked my best to never allow clutter to take over the place, but by my nature, it eventually worked its way in. My closet in particular was busy enough to put a minimalist into cardiac arrest, with various clothing items, cleaning supplies, and various knick-knacks scattered chaotically around the small interior.
My apartment had been a safe haven for me, until one day, during my routine cleaning Dick had made a chilling observation. He had noted that a CD he had gotten for me was strangely missing and after spending upwards of two hours looking for the thing, we both found nothing. The strangest matter of all was how cherished that CD was to me. It had been the first gift Dick had given to me, and with that status, I kept it safe in my nightside cupboard, taking care to never misplace it. Dick eventually chalked it up as “One of those things” before we both quit our search in favor of an exploratory night in the town. Upon returning the next night, I once again searched for the thing but never found it. I couldn’t think of it as “One of those things” but my obsession with the search bore no fruit, and I began to think that perhaps it had been stolen by some malicious force. This obsession led to the purchase of a new set of locks on my doors, which I hoped would prevent any further incident.
There was, however a most annoying issue which began to form in my apartment. A mere three months after my move in the water started to taste and smell terribly. I asked my landlord about this and he responded that there was no issue, and if there was it would soon be resolved. His ineptitude and clear lack of care for his tenants made me curse my beloved home, yet my financial situation and sentimental attachment made me cautious of a move, resigning me to simply accepting the oddity.
As November passed and the town became acquainted once again with Christmas cheer and Mariah Carrey, Miss Grimshaw burst through the doors of the library, unusually late and fuming out the ears. She relayed to me that Tony had not only failed to show up to her family’s Thanksgiving party but was flat-out missing from her home. I displayed nervousness for the safety of the boy, and Miss Grimshaw responded, telling me she was far too angry at her son to care about his safety, and that he had plenty of friends to stay with if he chose to run away. I was still deeply concerned for Tony’s safety but did not dare press the furious Miss Grimshaw further.
Upon my next meeting with Lilly, I inquired about Tony and she responded, telling me that the two hadn’t been speaking for the past month and that she had no idea where he was or what he was doing. I relayed the information Miss Grimshaw had told me, and she responded with a mundane voice that she was not surprised, as Tony had begun exhibiting erratic behaviors, eventually leading to their breakup. I gave my apologies for the situation and changed the topic to the Christmas season, lending into a nice conversation about holiday cheer and gift-giving. From both accounts of Miss Grimshaw and Lilly, it seemed Tony had gotten into trouble not too atypical for a boy his age, yet my mind could not resist thinking about his statement early into November, shuddering at what implications it left.
Throughout December, my apartment began showing strange behavior. The CD had only been the first of many objects which would be unceremoniously stolen from me in the dead of night. In total, five objects were taken; the aforementioned CD, a pair of headphones, a polo shirt, a bottle of counter cleaner, and the most striking of the bunch, a kitchen knife. Beyond the thievery, which my new locks had failed to protect against, strange notes began appearing throughout my apartment, left in odd places where they were particularly difficult to find. They had bizarre utterings written repeatedly onto them, phrases such as “The Joys of Peace” and “The Freedom of Falling”. Their perplexing nature led to me asking the landlord once more. He simply looked at me as if I were crazy and told me that if I were truly worried I should call the police. I did exactly that, and after a quick search, they left without finding any hint of foul play. I hoped they were right, and continued in my life, attempting to find a sense of normalcy once more.
This attempt at finding what I had just a few months prior was stomped out by Dick, who I noticed began to drift further away from me. What was once a daily friendship became a weekly facade, where in Dick kept me at arm’s length and left before we could do anything substantial. Our short friendship ended two days before Christmas when the two of us exchanged gifts. I had gotten him a collection of H.P. Lovecraft books, an author I had tried perhaps too hard to get him to read, while he had gotten me a CD, the same CD I had lost in November. As I opened the gift my heart sank, slowly realizing what he had done. I immediately burst out at him, accusing him of stealing the CD only to re-gift it to me. He argued that he had simply gotten another one to replace the one I had lost, but in my anger I rejected his claim and furiously yelled at him, accusing him of stealing from my house and writing those strange notes. He looked at me with a mix of sadness, confusion, and anger, before bursting out that he didn’t know anything about notes or other stolen objects, telling me that I was crazy and needed some serious help. On that note, he left, and in the aftermath, I realized he wasn’t the likely cause of my suffering, and that I had ruined my only true friendship over nothing.
After my tragic parting with my beloved friend, my days began to blur together into one monolith of monotony and suffering. I can hardly now recollect my last weeks working at the library. My time in there now blurs together, yet in this hazy fog, I cannot help but feel disturbed, as if those days were spent in Demonic ritual, my only protection against the act the amnesiac state I had taken following the heinous acts. On my final day of work, I entered the library in a fog, only to be snapped to by Miss Grimshaw, whose eyes conveyed a veritable disgust and hatred for me. I knew what was going to come out of her mouth before she said it, and soon my suspicions were confirmed. She fired me, for reasons still partially obscured in my mind, and on that note, I left the library forevermore.
Depressed and disturbed, not desiring to go back to my home just yet, I decided to stop by a local bar for a drink. As I sulked my way towards to place, I heard a voice spring from an alley I was passing by. The voice called to me once more, and I realized who it belonged to. I turned and saw the face of Tony in the ally beside me. He was wearing raggedy, torn clothing, holding a blanket around his shoulders and chest, shivering all the while. We conversed for a short time about his current situation, in which I learned he was now homeless, having been kicked out by Miss Grimshaw, and rejected by all his friends. As he got closer I noticed his skin looked blotchy and leathery, now hanging loosely over his malnourished face. He talked of his problem, most concerning of which was the continuing fear of being stalked. This time I did not offer any reassuring words to the boy, instead looking at him with glassy eyes. As our conversation ended I wished him a recovery from his horrid situation, in response, he looked and me and wished the same thing, claiming that we were in this together. A perplexing statement, considering the full extent of my misery was not known to the boy.
Upon entering the bar I got nothing but frightful glances from the inhabitants. I took my seat at the bar, and those around me noticeably moved away. After finishing my first drink, failing to strike up any meaningful conversation with the bartender, I paid my bill and headed into the bathroom. It was here while looking into the mirror I realized how ill I appeared. My hair had grown out to an unnatural length, being oily and ratted throughout. My face was thin and frail, its lines now perpetually conveying misery and dread. My body looked the same way, my clothes hung loosely over my frail and unwashed body, I looked like a skeleton underneath it all. I did my business and left, resigning to return immediately to my home, where those frightful eyes could not reach me.
Crestfallen and with much time to spare, I decided to spend a few days organizing my abode, in hopes of finding the cause of its many oddities. I soon realized that the house had a peculiar way of keeping itself cluttered. Days I would spend cleaning and organizing would be unearthed upon my waking the next day. It wasn’t until mid-January that I finally managed to get the place neatly packed up. With no sign of the missing objects, and having found many more strange notes, I was more convinced now than ever that foul play must be present. I didn’t trust the police, so I decided to hold off on informing them until I found something more substantial, a wish that would soon be fulfilled.
It was within my closet that I found the strange trapdoor leading to a tiny room. The door had been hidden with all manner of items, and upon finding it my bones chilled and a tingle crept up my spine. I opened the door to find a small space, barely enough to fit a huddled-up body inside. Lying on the floor in the space, placed in a ritualistic manner, were all the miscellaneous items that were stolen from me, and along with them was a pack of sticky notes and a pen. The walls of the place were filled with the same type of notes scattered through my home, two peculiar ones stuck out, one being a rudimentary map of my apartment with small dots scatted throughout it, and another being what seemed to be a grocery list. The discovery made me frightened, but more so it made me angry.
I backed away from the crawlspace and began ranting and raving, stomping through my home and screaming out threats towards whoever may have been in my home at the time. It made all the sense in the world, if there was one hidden cubby, there very well may have been more. I did the only thing I could think of and threw all my organized mess around, frantically searching for another cubby, one that might’ve had the perpetrator within it. I knew who was stalking me, it was the night watchman, Ted, he had to be the one behind this terror. I screamed threats toward him as loud as my lungs could muster while continuing my search for further hidden artifacts and rooms.
I was unable to find another such chilling abode before I heard a knock on my door. It was two police officers, sent here due to a complaint by my neighbors. I thought them fools for disturbing my important search, and I flung open the door to relay that to them. Upon viewing me their faces twisted into disgust and fright, and upon asking me what I was doing I told them in a cold and callous tone. They were doubtful of my truth, believing me mad just as they had the first victim of the night watchman. I took them to my closet and revealed to them the frightful cubby, however upon viewing the nightmare they looked at me with apparent concern, their eyes betraying their belief that I was the one responsible.
The two officers eyed me down in between glances at one another, before telling me that they needed to take me in for a psych evaluation. I vehemently refused, and when the officer reached to try to calm me down I smacked his hand away and pushed past them both before they could take me away. I burst through my door to find the whole hall peering through their doors towards me, their horrible, intrusive eyes peering through my body and into my soul. I ran as fast as I could, bolting down the steps ignoring the screams of my neighbors and cops as I went. I made it outside, taking a sharp right down a dingy alleyway, running as fast as I could through the shadowed streets.
I lurked in the darkness for quite a while until I was sure I had lost the police. I crept about, I knew I couldn’t return to my apartment, either the police or Ted would be waiting for me when I did, so I decided to find an alleyway where I could make my new home. After much careful creeping about, I did exactly that. It was a damp, dark place, illuminated by neither sun nor moon, I needed that, I couldn’t let them find me. I moved some trash into position to make a suitable bed, obscured beneath the shadows and garbage of the alleyway, and slept, pondering what I was to do next.
My dreams have become a hellish nightmare. Every time I close my eyes I’m back in that apartment, but not where I normally resided, I’m hidden away in that cubby. I hear myself walking about, continuing the life I had just a few months prior. I write notes, some the insane ramblings that push their way into my mind, others warnings to my previous self about his future. Sometimes, I dream of being outside that cubby, lurking about my apartment as my other self sleeps soundly on his bed. I take what I need and leave the warnings where I hope my past self can find them, before resigning once more to my hiding place. There is not a night where I sleep soundly, these insane dreams haunt my rest, reminding me of my suffering, reminding me of the night watchman who lurks ever near.
My waking hours are hardly better. I never move about during the day, I’m entirely nocturnal. I need the cover of darkness to hide me from those who want to take me. I creep about the town, stealing anything that I can use. Houses are easy to break into here, nearly every one has a crawlspace beneath it, a crawlspace I can quietly sneak into and use as an access point for the home. I steal food, clothing, tools, anything that can keep me alive for another day I take as I please. On a few occasions, I’ve been caught in my acts, leaving the homeowners screaming, terrified at merely viewing my putrid form. So far none has been quick enough to catch me, I’m always able to slink away back into the cover of darkness, back where I belong. I’ve sustained myself like this for weeks now, leeching off the sane in a desperate plea to save my maddened self, but in my heart, I know the end of my escapades is not far off.
Occasionally I hear of myself from the townsfolk. Listening in from an unseen position, I hear rumors of the night watchman, of the cursed beast who roams the town at night. In their assertion they are correct, this torment has turned me into a beast beyond all reason and sanity. Occasionally I see myself, reflected in pools of water in the pale moonlight. In those puddles, I see a true beast, one more horrifying than the worst nightmares of man. For the sanity of man, and the safety of myself, I hide myself, as there is no place safe for a monster such as me.

Well they are definitely diluting the stock at this point, there is no question about that. Which if you have been holding for 3.5 years and your cost basis is around $50 that doesn’t feel very good. But for now the stock is performing and Ryan Cohens hands are most likely tied.
I’m assuming a deal was struck with certain entities to allow them an exit while at the same time providing GameStop with massive amounts of capital. From purely a business standpoint, of which Ryan Cohen must adhere to if he doesn’t want to get involved in a stock manipulation lawsuit, it wouldn’t make sense for him not to take the opportunity to build capital.
Unfortunately we know the regulators will do anything to attack retail investors, Keith Gill, Ryan Cohen and GameStop itself before holding the corrupt greedy illegal naked short selling hedge funds accountable. Because at this point they literally cannot without nuking the entire stock market, the entire global economy and monetary system along with it.
That is where we are actually at at this point, many people don’t believe it because it sounds silly but it’s true. The regulators themselves have stated multiple times that “meme stocks” pose an idiosyncratic risk to the markets. Peterffy said we were dangerously close to a domino collapse.
We’re going to have to accept that our goal of phone number digits would ultimately destroy the entire monetary system leaving us with hundreds of billions of dollars that have no actual value. We’re going to have to trust Ryan Cohen will use the absolutely mind boggling amount of capital he is going to raise through giving short sellers an exit to build an empire, a legacy of which we will all benefit from in the form of dividends. I am confident in his ability to make that happen.
And ultimately there will be accountability. The SEC, DOJ and several other private entities (Wes Christian) are actively investigating the top market manipulators involved and the entire world will be watching in confusion and disbelief as GameStop becomes the largest market cap company and financial institution in the world. They won’t be able to make this go away. There have already been 3 documentaries and a movie made about the 21 sneeze. This is going to be so much bigger than that.
There will be defaults, there will be bankruptcies, there will be lawsuits, there will be accountability, there will be justice delivered to frauds on Wall Street. And most important there will be tendies. The MOASS will not be a moment in time, the MOASS will go on forever.

[Part 1] [Part 2]
Admiral Pyraxis drummed his talons on his desk. A rhythmic sound, which he found quite comforting. Arranged on his desk stood various fine wines he had procured by means of ordering mass confiscation of alcohol from the Humans.
“Sir, are you sure the local drink isn’t affecting your judgement?”
And that was the sound of Pyraxis’s greatest headache - his incessant subordinate, Krystak, who was only one rank lower than him and undoubtedly waiting for the perfect opportunity to usurp Pyraxis.
“No, Krystak, I am quite unaffected by these beverages,” he lied, “also - you’re out of line speaking to me like that.”
Krystak bowed his head in apology. Taking a glug from a bottle gripped in his right hand, he gestured for Krystak to begin his debrief.
“Well, we have seen a 6.2% increase in attacks since last month. Of those, most have been unsuccessful, but we took approximately 17,800 fatalities this month, which is an 8% increase from last month. Efforts to locate major concentrations of exiled army units have failed, however, we succeeded in raiding weapons caches on all settled continents. Counter intelligence is working diligently to root out urban resistance, but rural resistance is unfortunately going to take a lot longer than predicted to eradicate.”
“We also managed to get some industrial and mining operations going without them being immediately blown up, which is good progress.”
Pyraxis took another long gulp of wine, before standing up, “I need you to get this damned planet under control! Is that clear? Because in five local cycles, the colonisation fleet will arrive. If they get here and it’s still a warzone, we will both be replaced. I don’t care how many people you have to kill to do it. Exterminate even more if you have to. Understood?”
Krystak opened his mouth as if to speak, then closed it and nodded.
“Dismissed.”
He saluted, then marched out of Pyraxis’s office.
“Fucking Humans,” he muttered to himself. At least they had some decent swear words. Staring out the window at Earth, he downed the rest of his bottle, and passed out.

“I feel I have to tell you that what you are about to embark on is a suicide mission. Not one of you is expected to come back alive. If that isn’t your cup of tea, there is no shame in backing out now.” A few people in the back surreptitiously left the hall everyone had gathered in.
After a moment, the speaker - one general Mathews - resumed his briefing.
“This attack is one of many coordinated strikes which will - if successful - cripple the enemy’s ability to fight, and may just win us the war. Of those of you gathered here, most will partake in the main attack. The target is located on the Isle of Man - specifically, the old RAF base Jurby. It has been converted into a base of operations. All you need to know is that another, smaller force, will infiltrate the base. In order to complete their objective, you will need to divert as many troops away from the north of the base as possible.”
“Jurby has been turned into a fortress - our intel says there are at least five thousand Salvad troops on the island, and of those, one thousand are located within or near Jurby. Your goal is not to beat them, but distract them. You will be granted heavy weapons - in fact, everything we have at our disposal is going into this attack.”
Robert stood in the back, leaning against the wall, observing the reactions of the men around him.
“You will have the aid of local resistance forces, but they are not to be relied upon for anything other than intel - they are not combat troops. You will deploy under the cover of night. Our numbers should double when we reach the rendezvous point at Kidsdale prior to departure - we’re calling in everyone for this. The Salvads don’t have a seaborne navy, which is important for us, since you will be landing by boat.”
This had an interesting reception - mostly of shock, a bit of scorn. Once the chatter had died down, the general continued.
“We have commandeered numerous small civilian boats. There should be enough to carry everyone over to the Island. You will land on the west coast, south of Jurby. From there, Alpha team under Johnson will advance north to Jurby, where you will attack with everything you’ve got. Use the element of surprise, draw the enemy out. Beta team under Simmons will advance to St. Judes to cut off enemy land reinforcements. Charlie team under Smith will protect your rear from attack. There can be no radio chatter on the way over - we really need the element of surprise. Once they know you’re there, try to limit comms since we have no idea if they can decrypt our signals.”
“Hold out for as long as possible. The attack is scheduled to begin at 2400 hours two days from now. Gather your equipment, and prepare for a long march to the rendezvous. I will follow you up to that point. Questions?”
Robert lost interest at that point. He shook the ache out of his legs and walked through to the gathering spot for the infiltration team. He knew a few faces. A couple of Royal Marines were present, and some exiles from mainland europe. There were eight of them total, although apparently their team was thirty strong.
Where the rest of this little suicide squad was, he had no idea.

Robert decided he really didn’t like whoever had come up with this part of the plan. They were not going with the main force, but were instead going to a different rendezvous to board a submarine. They would then ride this submarine to the Isle of Man. It would be 2 AM when they disembarked three kilometres north of Jurby. This would give the main attackers two hours to draw away the majority of the guards.
Robert did not like submarines. They would be boarding HMS Anson at HMNB Clyde. The reason this base hadn’t been destroyed by the Salvads was because out of sheer luck it was empty during the landings. They would have to be there at exactly the right time, as the sub would only wait for twenty minutes maximum, before leaving to do the mission without them.
The journey would be about eleven hours. That meant eleven hours cramped inside a submarine, underwater. Because of course they would be submerged for the whole journey. It only made sense, after all.
This was going to suck.

Admiral Pyraxis was in an irritable mood. He’d had to learn the meaning of another Earth word: drunk. Then he had to learn the meaning of hangover. Then he spent more time than necessary examining the capacities of his own liver.
He knew he was letting the drink get to him. But he was too stressed, and needed a way to relax. He was still somewhat sure that it wasn’t affecting his decision making that much.
Picking up his communicator from the floor, he punched in a code, then held it up to his head.
“Report on the project.”
“Understood. I’m coming down to inspect it.”
Putting in a different code, he once again spoke into the device, “Prepare my shuttle for departure. Destination is Immunisation Facility 3.”

Robert decided if he survived this, he would never ride a submarine again. The boarding had gone like clockwork. He now had half a day to become acquainted with the rest of the team.
One guy stood out - he was wearing a gas mask and spoke with a muffled accent. Perhaps German?
“Guten Tag, Gentlemen. My name is Corporal Müller, but you may call me Tobias - I am in charge of this operation. We will split into three teams. In the hold are three backpacks - these have the bioweapon. I would be very careful not to drop them. The strongest guy in each squad will carry one. There are three main silos. Deploy the weapon, then get out. Any questions?”
Robert raised his hand, “Yeah, what's with the mask?”
“I wear this because I am hideously deformed! Ja, I was in France, and received a large dose of radiation from the…erm…fireworks. I have about five days until I suffer critical organ failure, so I figured I would go out on my own terms - in glorious combat!”
“Oh. Right.”
“I nearly forgot! Here, you all need to take a cyanide pill with you. We cannot risk anyone being captured,” he said, taking out a tray from behind him and enthusiastically offering the pills up to everyone.
Well, that's just wonderful. Robert took one and put it in his jacket pocket.
Robert acquainted himself with the rest of the team, and found somewhere to lie down. He knew it was going to be an arduous journey.

General Mathews stood dramatically at the head of his force. The wind was strong, but the surf was calm enough to board the boats. It was dark as well. He had requested a red cape for his speech, which was billowing behind him. It would have been a more potent image if it wasn’t so dark. As it was, he could barely see to the end of the crowd gathered before him.
There was no moonlight either - the strike had been carefully planned to take place under heavy cloud coverage. And so far, their luck had held. Standing on top of some crates, with a microphone connected to a meagre sound system, he puffed up his chest.
Tapping the mic, he winced as it squealed. Slapping it a couple more times, he began to speak.
“Before me, I do not see an army. I do not see the best of the best. I do not see heroes; for the heroes died in the first attack. They died on the front lines, charging into certain death. We are the ones who remain. And you ask yourself, what can a couple of thousand men do?”
“Fighting an enemy we cannot beat, with weapons we can’t match and resources we can’t equal, not for a thousand years. What is the point? Madness!”
“We are martyrs. The heroes have fallen long ago. It falls to us to do the dirty work. We are the ones who ask for no thanks and will go forgotten by all; but do not fear! Our actions stand in place of our identities, and they will echo through the annals of history, for today we take the fight to them! Today, we charge into the jaws of death, just like our countrymen, only this time we can win!”
“You heard me right! We can win this war. Our job is simple. Fight, and die. And God willing, our comrades will complete their mission, and sentence the invader to eternity whichever hell they belong in. Today, we die. This is not a battle we can possibly survive, but we will sure as hell fight. Remember those words of Churchill, spoken so many years ago.”
“Feel the defiance of humanity coarse through your veins! Cast your thoughts to the Greeks at Thermopylae, or our forefathers at Rorke’s Drift! Pavlov’s house! Invoke the spirit of Saragarhi! Remember the Guards’ last stand at Westminster, where the road ran slick with Salvad blood!”
“For today, we cast our die for a future we will never see, and children we will never meet! We will not go quietly into that good night! Rage! Rage against the dying of the light!” The men cheered, overpowering the scream of the air and the rage of sea.
“To arms!”
Adrenaline swells in tensed muscles.
“Blood will be spilled!”
The clatter of weapons ringing in ears.
“On this day, our blood will stain the streets!”
They don’t cheer now; they roar.
“The blood of Terra will flow!”
They surge forward to the boats, a force of nature, with the defiance of a cornered beast.
“Rise, defenders of Earth! From every corner of our planet you came, and to the seas you will return! Fear no death, for death is on your side! If this is to be the dying gasp of Humanity, then let it be the greatest last stand in history!”
And as the warriors boarded their craft, general Mathews tossed away the key to his jeep, and slipped into the crowd. Which was impressive, given his rather pompous appearance.

Jacob, an absolute unit of a man - who never seemed far from getting his huge frame stuck in the doorways - yelled down the length of the compartment we were staying in.
“Captain says fifteen minutes to drop site!”
Tobias stood and said, “All right gentlemen, gather your equipment and prepare yourselves - the sea is cold this time of year.” Robert froze. “We’re not landing?” Tobias laughed, then suffered a bout of wet coughs. Recovering, he looked up, “No. The submarine will drop us off as close as possible, and we will have to wade the rest of the way. Maybe swim a little.”
This day just kept getting worse and worse.
Admiral Pyraxis was having yet another argument with Krystak when an aide came with alarming news.
“I’m sorry?”
“It's immunisation site three, sir! They’re reporting an attack on the island!”
Krystak, ever the opportunist, spoke up. “Correct me if I'm wrong, admiral, but is that not the location of project-”
Pyraxis snapped.
“I KNOW, SHUT UP!”
Taking some time to gather his thoughts, he spoke in a more reasonable tone.
“Summon the Zirrack, get them on my shuttle.” The aide looked shocked, “Y-you’re going down there?”
“Yes, now hurry up.”
Pyraxis dismissed Krystak and marched to his shuttle, seething with rage. Obviously, there was no way the Humans could know about what was hidden under the facility. It was probably just a few militants trying to sabotage operations in Europe. However, it pays to be cautious - hence Pyraxis bringing the Zirrack Crimson Brigade, his personal bodyguard.
An elite unit made up of the best Salvad troops, subjected to genetic enhancement and wearing crimson ceremonial armour - which was very much not for show.

Robert waded through the breakers, soaked all up his back with ice-cold water. The whole group panned out, advancing slowly up the beach, rifles at the ready. Robert was using a British army L85A1, along with a Glock 19 as a sidearm. They all had NVGs, although they wouldn’t be massively effective considering advanced Salvad thermal-concealing clothing.
The surf was calm, and distant rumbling of the clouds could be heard. He wished he’d worn thicker socks to protect against the biting cold of the sea. Dead quiet, they ran up the sand and into the grass. The crackling of gunfire could be heard fairly close by.
Jacob glared at a sign. “You can’t seriously expect me to believe that this place is called Cronky Bing,” he whispered. Robert squinted at the sign, and sure enough, it read: Cronk y Bing Nature Reserve.
"At least we're where we need to be," Tobias said. "Now let's get moving."
The team began a careful march through the fields, towards their target at Jurby. Deploying his night vision, Robert could see the silhouette of the Silos to be targeted, a large building that must have been the factory, and some squat structures which were most likely barracks.
The gunfire became louder the closer they got, with erratic explosions keeping Robert on edge. The flash of muzzles and bright light of Salvad plasma weapons became visible, reflecting on the clouds. Advancing to the last hedgerow before the base itself, the team’s sniper and spotter set up, easily disappearing into the bushes thanks to their ghillie suits.
“Okay, everyone split up into your teams. One target for each team. Get in, deploy it, and get out,” Tobias said. “Do not destroy the silos. Best of luck.”
Splitting up, the teams sprinted towards the border fence of the complex. No Salvads were spotted until they were halfway there, but the moment weapons were raised, the sniper took them out in quick succession. Tobias led Robert’s team up the fence, where they cut a hole with bolt cutters and crawled through. Tobias motioned to spread out, while Jacob and a couple of others moved towards their designated silo. They would have to climb the ladder to the access port at the top in order to deploy the payload.
It was just as they reached the ladder that they all heard the hum of engines approaching.

“Where the fuck is the rest of Beta team?” Johnson yelled at Simmons.
“They must have been blown off course-”
Johnson cut him off, “How do you lose half your team? You're needed at full strength!”
“Calm down! They probably just landed further south than intended. I’ll take what men I have and we’ll just have to wait for the rest to catch up.”
Johnson seethed. But eventually, he just growled and ordered his men to move out. They had gathered in the centre of a little town called The Cronk, which lay about three kilometres south of the enemy compound. Alpha team set off at a brisk pace north, while the weakened Beta team moved northeast to cut off the Salvad route of reinforcements at St. Judes - reinforcing Salvad troops would most likely come along the main road from Ramsey on the east coast, where they would meet a nasty surprise.
And Charlie team were ordered to stay right where they were, and protect from an attack in the rear.
Johnson’s force lined the hedgerows facing Jurby. He had dispatched a portion of his force to secure the church sitting on a slight incline, which used to overlook the prison before it was demolished by the Salvads. Johnson checked his watch, then gave the order. Three rocket launchers fired into the base - two hitting guard towers, and the third hitting a barracks and caving in the roof.
Alarms blared, and Salvads rushed out - many without any of their armour - and frantically tried to find out where the attack was coming from. They were met with machine gun fire from the Humans. Johnson grinned as he watched swathes of enemies get mowed down. Hefting a grenade launcher, he began to help blow them to pieces. Gunfire at the church suggested that the squad sent there had encountered resistance.
His eyes bulged when a Salvad in the complex levelled the church with an anti-tank weapon.
That guy didn’t stay alive for long, as the marksmen among Alpha team exacted revenge. Once the shock of their attack began to wear off, deadly accurate return fire began to rain on them, plasma tearing through their superficial cover.
The real battle had started.

Meanwhile, Beta team managed to sneak unnoticed all the way to St Judes, where they laid their trap - landmines, hidden gun emplacements, the whole deal. Kicking in doors, they took up positions in windows and on roofs. Snipers spread out outside the village in the fields, ready to pick off any reinforcements.
It didn't take long for the call for help to reach Ramsey. It took even less time for the armoured response to come driving up the road.

Admiral Pyraxis gazed out his shuttle window at the storm clouds they were headed into. The power of nature on this planet was truly staggering to him. Of course he had seen storms back home, but those were gusts of wind compared to the thunderstorms here on Earth.
He felt the turbulence as his shuttle descended into the clouds, and part of him became nervous, just for a moment. He soon chastised himself; there was nothing to fear down there. So why did his gut tell him otherwise?
The shuttle smoothly landed at the Immunisation facility, where Pyraxis and his guard disembarked, only to be greeted with deafening gunfire far too close for comfort. As they walked away from the ship, it suddenly got hit with several successive blasts, tearing it apart. Pyraxis dove to the ground, shell shocked. Gathering himself, he screamed at the Zirrack, “Half of you, deal with those humans! Kill them all! The rest of you, with me.”
They silently obeyed, moving towards the sound of fighting. Pyraxis stormed into the facility's command centre, enraged. Barging into the control room, he searched for the base commander. Seeing him, the commander saluted, then - rather pointlessly - said “Sir! The base is under attack!”
Pyraxis glared at him. “I know. All the explosions gave it away.”“What should we do?” the commander stammered.
“What should- what are you, stupid? Deploy the garrison!”
The trembling commander blabbered his apology and scurried away.
Turning to the nearest worker, he ordered them to call in all the troops on the island. It was at this point that Pyraxis may have completely snapped. This is because a private burst into the room, and said, “Hostiles have breached the northern border!”
Suffice it to say, Pyraxis was not happy. Once he was done screaming at his subordinates, he ordered the inoculations extracted immediately to prevent their destruction.
Brandishing his pistol, he stormed out of the command centre with his guards. “Find the saboteurs. Prevent them from damaging anything.”

Robert never thought he would see a man physically tear a Salvad apart with his bare hands, but that is precisely what Jacob did. The victim was running towards the sounds of fighting, when Jacob jumped him from the side and went berserk. Robert stared with morbid fascination.
Moving through the compound, they easily overcame the few guards who stumbled upon them in quick fashion. Reaching the silo, Jacob and two other men began the climb up the ladder while the others secured the area.
“Contact, front! Multiple-”
A scream cut through the air as the speaker was blasted apart by plasma fire. Robert dove for cover, catching a glimpse of some red-clothed figures.
“Who the fuck are these clowns?” he yelled to Tobias, who shrugged from behind the crate he was using as cover.
Peaking around the corner of a wall, Robert saw who they were dealing with.
At least five. More?
He fired a burst at one, and swore upon seeing the rounds deflect harmlessly off of their armour. He motioned to Tobias to provide covering fire. Counting down with his fingers, he nodded at Tobias, and sprinted back through the facility. A couple of stray rounds flew near him as he ran. Finally, he saw what he needed.
A dead guard. And importantly, his weapon. It was worth seeing if it would have an effect. Running back to the fight with his newly liberated weapon, he hid at the edge of one of the barracks. From there, Robert saw Tobais loading an RPG. Quickly and efficiently, Tobias readied the weapon, and peaked round the corner.
Firing, he hit one of the red bastards point blank. It was not pretty - burning flesh and scraps of armour flew in all directions. The others did not like that, and began advancing, spraying fire at anything that moved, resulting in another guy’s head getting blown apart. Robert anxiously watched the group climbing the silo - they were about to be spotted. Pressing every button on the Salvad rifle until it seemed to work, he took a deep breath, and fired at the fancy dress fucks (as he had decided to name them). The first few hits did not penetrate their armour, but with several successive hits parts of the plate began to melt. So, it worked. They immediately returned fire, forcing Robert to duck back behind his corner.
He eyed the wall with fear as it began to melt under the pressure of enemy weaponry, and took a few steps back. He could still see the guys scaling the silo. They were just about to reach the top. Just a little further…
One of the Salvads saw them. It aimed its weapon up, and shot the man behind Jacob. He went tumbling down to the ground, the sickening splat of the impact echoing throughout the facility.
Gritting his teeth, Robert once again peeked from his cover to provide covering fire and distract the Salvads. As he ducked once more, a Salvad shot missed his head by a hair’s width, melting through the wall behind him.
He held his breath, watching Jacob pull himself and the payload up the last few rungs of the ladder. Enemy fire began to rain on them.
Come on…come on!
Just as it looked like Jacob would be hit, he pulled himself over the side and out of the enemy line of sight.

“Fuck! We need support over here!”
Johnson’s men had been repelled and were being forced back in the centre, with their hard-won position at the church’s ruins under threat of encirclement. Casualties were unknown, but high.
“It always sounds better in a speech.” Johnson muttered, “Oh, glory, saving humanity. I don’t see the general out here dying with us-”
Just then, he glanced over at the smouldering church, and saw a ridiculous looking figure, who appeared to be wearing some sort of cape...
“Oh, fuck me.”
He watched, dumbfounded, as general Mathews engaged Salvad troops in hand to hand combat with his bayonet. The fight was obscured by smoke as the general dramatically executed a downed Salvad. If a middle aged man with a bad back and a tendency to favour tea and biscuits over any kind of physical exertion could do that... what was Johnson waiting for?

Beta team was initially successful, destroying or disabling several armoured vehicles as they entered St. Judes in a single file convoy. However, the convoy recovered quickly, deploying their troops and demolishing every building in the town. The vehicles fanned out into the fields, where several more fell to landmines, but the rest were able to provide deadly fire support.
The members of Beta team who had landed too far south caught up only as the fighting began, and found themselves out of position and disorganised, with many fleeing in all directions and any semblance of order evaporating. Having levelled St. Judes, the armoured convoy resumed the drive to Jurby, albeit with significantly more caution.
Beta team radioed all other teams, alerting them of the breakthrough.
Charlie team was effectively holding back Salvad reinforcements in the south, having dug in at the Cronk and Ballaugh. Smith ordered guerrillas further inland to sabotage the Salvad communication array, and succeeded before anyone was the wiser. Salvad armoured columns from Peel lay burning, dotted across the landscape.
This favourable state of affairs only lasted until enemy air support arrived.
It was a slaughter.

“Can we get more men from Charlie team?” Johnson radioed, only to have his spirits sunk as the news came through.
Charlie team had been destroyed by enemy air strikes. Soon after, Simmons radioed to say that Beta team had been smashed, and were retreating.
Johnson’s heart sank. He probably had less than half his own men left, and enemies were closing in on all sides. He sincerely hoped that the mission had been successful.

Jacob yanked open the hatch to the silo, and deployed the payload without further thought, holding his breath as he did so. Tying a rope from his pack to a rail, he repelled down the side of the silo as quickly as possible, immediately taking cover. His comrade was not so lucky, getting shot on his way down. Jacob sprinted to find the others, cursing as a shot grazed his side, sending him sprawling on the ground.

Vice admiral Krystak had a solemn look on his face. Before him were the rest of the Salvad high command, all recalled for an emergency meeting.
“It seems our leader has gotten himself in quite some trouble. We have no communications, and satellite imaging is obscured by the storm. We have no idea the scale of the attack on Immunisation site three, or the status of Admiral Pyraxis. We must consider him compromised. Would you agree?”
Carefully neutral expressions and subtle nods all around.
Perfect.
“In these exceptional circumstances, we must take precautions. It is stipulated that the Vice Admiral must assume the position of Admiral in such circumstances. Agreed?”Careful nods all around. Nobody spoke up.
“As such, does the council agree to grant me the title of Admiral and the powers that come with it, in order to rectify the situation?”
They all looked at each other. Then, one by one, nodded in agreement.
“Then let us make haste. I presume you are all aware of Pyraxis’s little project buried under the facility. The research there must not be discovered by the Humans. As such, I move to allow the retrieval of all usable material from the facility, and to order the subsequent destruction of the facility to prevent a security breach. All in favour?”
The Salvad’s gathered looked weary, but soon crumbled under peer pressure.
All agreed. A rational decision, given the information available. They all knew it was a thinly veiled coup, and none wanted to put a target on themselves.
Krystak, now the Admiral and commander of all Salvad operations in Sol, growled softly as he revelled in his victory.
The foresight of the ambitious is often lacking.

Robert watched as the cargo haulers flew in, barely stopping as they lifted the entire silos, and then flying away at top speed. A few half-hearted pot shots were taken at them to reinforce the notion that the Salvads had foiled the dastardly human plan.
It had been a close thing. They hadn’t expected the Salvads to order an accelerated extraction. Robert now hid inside one of the barracks with a couple of others, including Tobias - who was methodically taping a claymore to his chest.
He stopped what he was doing when he heard a clatter somewhere far off, followed by the sound of footsteps.
Robert held his breath. Wiping the sweat from his forehead, he tensed, ready to run.
He could hear their chatter. By the sound of their movements, they had panned out and were searching every nook and cranny.
Gripping his rifle with white knuckles, he waited for the nearest footsteps to near even more, before charging out of cover. Firing his stolen weapon in a continuous burst into the Salvad’s face, forcing him back. The plasma melted the faceplate, and boiled the Salvad inside - evidenced by its' screaming.
Hunched over to avoid the fire of the other Salvads, Robert sprinted to the body and extracted a knife from one of its pockets. The knife had an ornate design, and a thin glowing red rim along the edge. The balance felt completely off.
Diving behind a toppled bunk, Robert tried to make himself as small as possible. A stray enemy shot scorched the side of his abdomen, the intense heat instantly cauterising the wound. A few centimetres to the right, and he would be trying to stop his organs from falling out.
“Fuck!”
A small chunk of flesh had been carved away by the shot, and he screamed as his fried nerve endings made their displeasure known.
“Bitch!”
He half ran, half stumbled through the barracks, crashing through the first doorway he saw. On the other side was a slope, heading down into a lower level. With the sound of fighting, he saw no choice but to go further down. It looked like a laboratory of some sort, with pristine white walls and ceilings. Robert wandered into a vast chamber, where human bodies lay on operating tables in various states of dissection, with more suspended in vats filled with a sickly green liquid. Pausing to take this all in, Robert promptly vomited, and ran in another direction.He was determined to get out of that awful place as soon as possible. Hearing footsteps behind him, he threw himself onto the floor behind a cabinet to hide. Stolen gun at the ready, he strained his ears for any sign of the enemy.He didn’t have to wait long. Striding into the room, three of the red-clothed-pricks fanned out. Sneaking a look, he saw one of them wasn’t wearing a helmet - sign of a comically arrogant superior officer. They were speaking.
The officer sounded angry.
Taking his chance, he peaked his weapon around the cabinet, and nailed one of the soldiers in the head. He crumpled to the floor instantly. The other one, not missing a beat, spun and fired at Robert, forcing him to cower behind the rapidly melting cabinet.
Crawling to the other end, he peaked again, and was able to shoot the soldier’s weapon, disabling it. Unfortunately for Robert, his bad luck once more reared it’s ugly head, and the Salvad rifle stopped working.
Out of charge?
Casting the spent weapon aside, he charged the Red Salvad. *Where's the officer?*All too late, he realised his mistake. As he body-slammed the Salvad, the officer appeared from behind a wall, pistol raised. Robert’s “borrowed” Salvad knife found its way into his grip, and the glowing edge of the blade burrowed through the Salvad’s armour. Robert twisted it into the Salvad’s neck, severing the spine, and shoving the now-deceased body to the ground.
This left him facing off with the officer. Perhaps Robert had seen too many films, as he expected some kind of evil speech. Instead, the officer shot him, and he fell down.
He entered a world of pain, body convulsing on the floor. The once-pristine tiles were rapidly changing colour around him. It felt like some of him was missing. Taking a look at the damage, he wished he hadn’t. His brain sort of stopped working at this point, overwhelmed and high on adrenaline.
Robert fumbled for his Cyanide pill as the Salvad strolled over.
In the corner of his eye, he saw a shape appear at the door in the back. A human, covered with burns and scorched flesh underneath torn uniform. A distinctive gas mask adorned his face. The individual raised a pistol with shaking arms, and fired.
A single bullet hit the Salvad in the neck, spewing a fountain of blood in front of him. The Slavad cried out, and fell flat on his face.
Tobias limped over and kneeled beside Robert.
“Hey, I got you. Look at me. I got you.” he said, panting.
“And here I was, thinking… you were dead, Toby.”
“Heh, I very nearly was. Those freaks had a flamethrower! Here, let me help you up.”
Grunting, Tobias lifted Robert by the arm, supporting his weight. After a bit of rearranging themselves, the two limped their way back into the barracks. Bodies lay strewn everywhere, and the building was on fire and filling with smoke.
Kicking down the door to the outside, they stumbled out into the fresh sea air. The sound of battle could still be heard far off, though they paid it no heed. Stumbling away from the base, the pair made the short journey to the beach.
Robert lay down, and Tobias kneeled beside him. “What time do you think it is?” asked Robert. The Sun was just beginning to rise, with a few rays penetrating the morning sky. The storm had cleared, replaced wth a hesitant blue.
“Not a clue,” Tobias wheezed. The waves were breaking mere metres away from their feet, lapping at the shore and blissfully uncaring of the violence occurring inland.
“Just hold on a little longer. I think we’ll get to see a sunrise, of a sort.” said Robert. His gaze was fixed at a point just above the horizon. From that little point, a speck of light was rapidly growing, heading right for them.
They joined hands, clasping each other in a tight grip.
Here, the man who fought out of spite lay. Next to him, the man who fought out of habit. Both were terrified of dying. Both were now too tired to care. Bleeding and hurting, they finally rested. Their war, at least, was over.
Jacob had died just a few minutes earlier, in the fight in the barracks.
Pyraxis did not die when he was shot in the neck, as the bullet missed his airpipe. He stumbled out a different exit, only to see the sky brighten. Ironically, the killing blow was dealt by his own people. This irony was not lost on him.
The entire island was destroyed, every living thing perishing under orbital bombardment, leaving a crater and no evidence of the deeds done there, heroic or cowardly.
Save for its legacy, in the form of plague the likes of which the Salvad’s had never witnessed.
Author’s note:
I think this may be some of my best work yet. I put a lot of effort into the concepts and -especially- detailing the attack, which I’m quite proud of. It was a bit slower than I wanted getting this one done due to external factors, but I managed it in the end. Given how long it’s ended up, perhaps I should have split it up more, but oh well. I’d like to say thank you to anyone and everyone who took an interest in this little series - the support means a lot to me. If you read this far, thank you.

At the start of this year I decided to get better with AWS as it was an obvious weakness of mine. My background is mainly in JavaScript and I have been primarily a FE developer expanding into fullstack over the last 18 months.
As the title suggest recently I got the DVA-CO2 certificate and I was hoping that this will clear things around AWS and give me some practical skills I can use at my job and personal projects. To an extent it did. I feel much more confident with AWS now and when others are having conversations about it I know what they are talking about. I can also do some simple things like deploying a Next.js/Node.js app on EC2 or ECS, use S3 for storage of static files, deploy a few Lambda functions behind an API Gateway etc.
Problem is that everything is manual and in the console. Nobody does it this way except for tutorials on YouTube. Everything that I have seen professionally has been people using Terraform/Pulumi to keep track of their cloud resources and using a CD pipeline to automate the deployment. This leads me to my first question:

1. Does everything have to be automated with Terraform/Pulumi? I know it's a good practice but it honestly feels overwhelming that I need to spend yet another few weeks (at least!) to get a basic understanding of this aspect. I'd rather focus on writing code and building a product than to spend more months on this but I am worried that all of my efforts for the past 5 months are going to be in vain if I do that.
2. Also say I need to delve into IaC more deeply. How do I even structure my project. I've seen examples of people have an "infra" folder in their codebase but I can't find a straight answer as to how this is actually implemented. Is it a separate repo that your pipelines are using for deploying resources? How does is even connect to the actual code that is being deployed?
3. If I have a Node.js app that is deployed on an EC2 instance, how do I use other services on that app? Most YouTube tutorials install a database and other bits directly inside the EC2 instance but that just feels wrong. Do I just have to give the EC2 instance the right role to have access to say RDS, S3, SES etc. and I just connect to the AWS API from the Node app? If I do that then why does the app have to be in EC2 in the first place then? Surely that isn't the right way to do things either. Maybe I am overthinking this.
4. As a continuation on the last questions. Can't I just deploy on something like Vercel or Netlify and just use the APIs to connect to the AWS services that I need? Would I lose all the benefits of the cloud if I do that?
5. Can I just use the default VPC for everything? While studying for the exam I kept reading that everything has to be it's own VPC and it has to be private and I have to use gateways but this all feels like yet another things that I need to delve much deeper into rather than developing actual apps. How important are VPCs?
6. Is serverless worth delving deeper into? Are companies actually using it? Based on job specs in my area I'd say only about 5% mention it but maybe it's different elsewhere and it's worth exploring it more?

Anyway, I hope those aren't too newbie questions but I just hit a wall and I am very frustrated and disheartened and I don't want 5 months of effort to be in vain.

How did two broke college students with a failed business end up creating one of the most popular internet forum ever? The story of Reddit is filled with scandals, lies, money and even death - as Reddit has been involved in countless controversies, including turning against its own users. But let’s dive in behind Reddit's insane history to the billion dollar company that we know of today.
In 2001, Alexis Ohanian enrolled at the University of Virginia to study computer science. His destiny changed when he met his dorm neighbor Steve Huffman, another self-taught programmer majoring in computer science.
The two bonded over video games but Alexis felt behind his peers' skills. Fearing failure, he switched to pre-law despite his passion for coding. As he prepped for the grueling law entrance exam, visions of a monotonous future as a lawyer overwhelmed him. Mid-exam, he walked out and envisioned running his own impactful tech company instead.
Luckily, Steve already had a business idea - a mobile app for ordering food ahead from gas stations or any restaurant to skip the line. Excited, they named it "My Mobile Menu" and devoted their senior year to building the startup.
However, smartphones were still primitive with no app stores. Steve struggled to connect their SMS-based system to restaurants'. Meanwhile, Alexis struggled to sell the vision to restaurants. Their innovative idea was simply too ahead of its time.
As spring break arrived, Alexis and Steve embarked on a 500-mile trip to Cambridge, Massachusetts. Their goal? Seeking help for their struggling business from entrepreneur Paul Graham, who was lecturing at Harvard on "How to Start a Startup."
Steve was a fan of Graham's books and hoped to get one autographed. But Alexis saw an even bigger opportunity. After the lecture, they approached Graham, bought him a drink, and pitched their mobile food ordering app "My Mobile Menu." Surprisingly, Graham liked the idea of eliminating waiting in line for food.
The pair exchanged contacts with Graham and returned to Virginia reinvigorated. Weeks later, Graham emailed about launching a new startup accelerator program called Y Combinator, inviting them to pitch for funding. Though confident, the investor panel couldn't envision their app working with current technology nor saw two college kids having restaurant connections.
Rejected but not dejected, Graham revealed he still believed in Alexis and Steve if they conceived a better idea. Literally getting off the train at the next stop, they brainstormed a new concept that would change everything.
Abandoning the mobile app, Graham advised building something web-based to solve "your problem every morning." By 2005, content flooded the internet from multiple sources needing better aggregation. Sites like Slashdot let users submit articles that moderators rated. Delicious bookmarked popular links.
But Alexis and Steve envisioned an open platform where anyone could share any content for users to upvote or downvote - a platform where content is rated by the people. After tossing names like Oobaloo and 360scope, they landed on "Reddit" - allowing people to simply say "I read it on Reddit."
Graduating in 2005 with a new company name and vision, the founders of Reddit were ready to disrupt how content spreads online.
Armed with $12,000 in funding from Y Combinator, Alexis and Steve moved to Massachusetts to work full-time on their new idea. They spent months operating on little sleep, barely leaving as they built Reddit day and night. However, Paul Graham soon emailed questioning why they hadn't launched yet, pushing them to release a bare-bones beta version immediately.
Unexpectedly, Graham then linked to Reddit on his blog, driving their first 1,000 visitors. Ready or not, Reddit was now live - but missing a crucial element: users.
Alexis tried everything to attract an audience - posting flyers around Boston, asking friends to contribute content, even pitching fellow Y Combinator founders. But without an existing userbase, there was little content.
Desperate for traction, Alexis and Steve resorted to creating hundreds of fake accounts to populate Reddit with posts, giving the illusion of an active community. "Reddit's no fun if the page is blank," Alexis rationalized their moves.
At first, there was no evident impact until they started noticing unfamiliar usernames joining the platform. By summer's end, Reddit had amassed over 12,000 daily users.
However, the homepage was simply a jumble of random links voted to the top with no categorization system. This sparked Alexis and Steve's first major clash - Alexis wanted tags for organization, but Steve opposed subjective labeling concerns.
Their compromise? Separate "subreddit" sections for every interest, becoming Reddit's backbone. The first was the not-safe-for-work subreddit, followed by science, programming, politics and many more niche communities united on one novel platform.
With this innovative structure, Reddit's prospects were looking very bright - especially after crossing paths with a pivotal new player, Aaron Swartz.
At just 18 years old, Aaron Swartz was a talented programmer also backed by Y Combinator for his startup Infogami, that built web development tools. However, Infogami struggled - Aaron hadn't launched yet and found himself broke, homeless and partnerless. Paul Graham saw Aaron's potential to help with developing Reddit and suggested merging companies.
Late 2005, around 6 months after Reddit's launch, Infogami merged into a new parent company Not A Bug Inc with Reddit. Steve, Alexis and Aaron each owned 24% of Reddit, with Paul at 7% and the rest reserved.
Alexis and Steve welcomed Aaron's coding skills. As users grew, Reddit added comment sections for discussions, plus a "karma" points system incentivizing quality contributions. The trio collaborated well initially.
However, underlying tensions brewed. Alexis and Steve felt it unfair Aaron publicly called himself a Reddit co-founder when he joined 6 months after their idea's inception. This founder friction intensified as Reddit caught the attention of media giant Condé Nast.
The multi-billion dollar publisher of Vogue, GQ and Vanity Fair sought to acquire the rapidly growing, user-generated Reddit to expand digitally after acquiring Wired. Though not looking to sell their 1-year-old startup yet, the 23, 22 and 19-year-old founders entertained Condé Nast's millions.
After tense negotiations, one hurdle remained - Aaron voicing concerns over a massive corporation controlling the free user-driven platform. His antics like secretly tweaking contracts caused frustration until Steve warned him not to jeopardize the deal.
Relenting, Condé Nast acquired Reddit for around $10-20 million, making the founders overnight millionaires. Though required to remain for 3 more years, they operated independently with resources to grow Reddit. What seemed like a dream quickly turned into a nightmare as the Reddit founders' story took a dark twist.
Everyone worked hard to impress Condé Nast, Reddit's new corporate owners - except Aaron. He had envisioned Reddit as a voice for the people against big governments and corporations. So being owned by a massive media company felt like a bad cultural fit.
Aaron rarely showed up to the office, even blogging about hating the "grey walls, grey desks, grey noise". Finally in January 2007, Alexis, Steve and Condé Nast leadership fired the problematic Aaron.
Without him, the team continued developing Reddit, rethinking core features.
Until 2008, only employees could create new topic subreddits despite increasing user requests. Their solution? Allowing any user to make their own subreddit.
This brilliant move spawned subreddits for every niche interest imaginable, from niche bands to financial advice to bizarre meme topics like "BreadStapleToTrees" with over 300,000 members. Users could now find or create communities for any interest.
Another clever tactic was to let the most active users moderate the subreddits they created for free.
Reddit's popularity soared to over 2 million users and 10,000+ subreddits by late 2008. Yet the company struggled to monetize this traffic.
So despite explosive growth, Reddit remained unprofitable, merely introducing paid memberships and awards. Meanwhile, tensions boiled over between Alexis and Steve - the former grieving his late mother, accusing Steve of mismanagement while Steve felt Alexis schemed behind his back. Sharing an apartment worsened their explosive office fights.
By 2009 when their Condé Nast contracts expired, the fractured co-founders both abandoned Reddit just as a new Congressional bill threatened the site's very existence.
In 2011, Congress proposed the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA), which would hold platforms like Reddit responsible for all user-generated content on their sites - even content they didn't publish themselves. For a site with millions of users freely posting, copyright owners could sue Reddit, potentially leading to massive fines, legal fees or even a shutdown.
At the time, Reddit had over 46 million users but only 20 employees, making it impossible to monitor all content for compliance. Reddit publicly declared SOPA an "all-out war against the internet" they wouldn't go down without a fight.
Many tech giants like Google and Wikipedia also lobbied against the law amid intense public backlash. On January 18, 2012, Reddit took the dramatic step of shutting down for 12 hours in protest, stating in a blog post: "We wouldn't do this if we didn't believe this legislation and the forces behind it were a serious threat to Reddit and the internet as we know it."
Days later, Congress abandoned SOPA after succumbing to public pressure. One key leader emerging from this internet freedom battle was none other than Aaron Swartz. After leaving Reddit, he had become an activist fighting internet censorship and campaigning for an open internet.
But his activism landed him in serious legal trouble in 2011 when arrested for illegally downloading millions of academic journals from MIT to make them freely accessible online. He faced up to 35 years in prison and $1 million in fines.
Aaron was offered a plea deal of just 6 months if he admitted guilty, however he rejects it to avoid being a lifelong felon. As his case lingered, the depressed Aaron became isolated, not wanting to burden others. Tragically, his girlfriend found him dead by suicide weeks before the trial.
Tributes poured in across the internet, hailing Aaron as using "his prodigious skills not to enrich himself, but to make the internet and world a fairer, better place." Though inducted into the Internet Hall of Fame for co-founding Reddit and creating RSS feeds and Creative Commons licenses, Aaron's pivotal role has largely been erased from Reddit's official history.
In March 2012, Yishan Wang from PayPal became Reddit's new CEO as the site reached billions of monthly pageviews and gained cultural relevance. Even President Barack Obama did an AMA ("Ask Me Anything") Q&A on the site's popular subreddit.
However, this immense growth caused problems. Since anyone could create subreddits, many disturbing communities proliferated from watching people die to cannibalism forums. Reddit's anonymity made it ripe for abuse by extremists, hate speech, and controversies.
One tragic example followed the 2013 Boston Marathon bombings killing 3 and injuring hundreds. A "FindBostonBombers" subreddit emerged with thousands speculating and sharing unauthorized personal information against site rules. They falsely accused missing student Sunil Tripathi based on resemblance, leading to vicious harassment of his grieving family before authorities identified the true perpetrators.
When Tripathi's body was discovered on April 23, news outlets blamed Reddit's witch-hunt. As the userbase swelled into the millions, pressure mounted on executives like Yishan to crack down on offensive subreddits. Though believing "we will not ban legal content even if odious," he eventually prohibited forums like "BeatingWomen" with graphic violence.
By 2014, conflicting views on content moderation led Yishan to resign after just two years, citing stress from the internal conflicts and negative publicity scaring investors amidst sexism claims. Ellen Pao soon replaced him as CEO to address Reddit's escalating controversies.
Ellen Pao, formerly Reddit's VP known for suing a past employer over gender discrimination, succeeded Yishan as CEO in 2014. Her hiring aimed to rehabilitate Reddit's concerning reputation.
Around this time, co-founder Alexis Ohanian also returned as executive chairman, hoping to steer Reddit clear of controversies. Shortly after, Pao implemented stricter anti-harassment policies and banned some of the most offensive subreddits.
While some lauded her efforts to clean up Reddit, many core users considered it censorship - especially after Pao stated: "We are not a completely free speech platform." Matters escalated when she fired beloved employee Victoria Taylor, who coordinated high-profile AMAs. In protest, moderators shut down hundreds of subreddits, effectively blacking out the site.
With over 160,000 petitions calling for her removal, Pao resigned after just 7 months amid Reddit's tailspin and uncertain future. The company desperately needed stable leadership after cycling through 3 CEOs in under a year.
Offering a glimmer of hope, co-founder Steve Huffman returned as CEO in 2015 alongside Ohanian's renewed involvement. The original founders' comeback reignited optimism, with design upgrades, mobile apps, and clearer direction initially.
However, in 2016 Huffman himself sparked an ethics scandal. After insulting comments on the controversial "The_Donald" subreddit, he abused admin privileges to edit them, redirecting insults towards the subreddit's moderators instead. Though calling it "trolling the trolls," many felt an admin editing user posts broke trust in Reddit's freedom and openness - severely damaging Huffman's credibility.
In April 2023, Reddit announced it would start charging to access its API - the interface allowing third-party apps and websites to pull data from Reddit. One of the most popular alternative apps was Apollo, offering a different browsing experience by freely accessing Reddit's data when the API was free.
However, Reddit's new pricing of 24 cents per 1,000 API requests meant Apollo estimated yearly costs over $20 million - forcing the beloved third-party app to shut down. Many moderator tools relying on Reddit's API to provide enhanced functionality beyond Reddit's official app were also hit with massive unexpected bills.
Many in the community felt the exorbitant pricing and lack of warning suggested Reddit deliberately aimed to kill competitor apps, not giving developers time to adapt. Outraged moderators and developers grouped together, staging a blackout where over 7,000 subreddits including major communities like AskReddit went dark simultaneously to protest the API charges.
With huge portions of Reddit inaccessible, the company lost substantial ad revenue during one of the biggest online protests ever. Many thought this backlash would force Reddit to rescind the changes. However, since the blackout stated a hard 48-hour timeline, Reddit simply waited it out despite some subreddits staying private longer until threatened with moderator bans.
Post-blackout, animosity towards Reddit's leadership like CEO Steve Huffman has intensified. However, Reddit argued the monetization move was necessary, as the company remains unprofitable while third-parties freely integrated Reddit's entire infrastructure and content without generating any income for Reddit itself.
While Reddit's position is defensible from a business perspective, most agree better foresight like improving their official app with requested features could have avoided controversy. Nonetheless, Reddit achieved its API paywall aims - but at the cost of worsening tensions with its very own community.
Despite nearly 20 years online and around 430 million monthly users as of 2023, Reddit incredibly still operates at a loss and has never turned a profit. However, Reddit's collective community has managed to accomplish some incredible feats.
Users have raised massive amounts for charities and orphanages, organized the world's largest secret Santa gift exchange, and created millions of connections through niche interest communities. Reddit is undeniably useful too - its threads frequently appear as top Google results for inquiries.
But no event demonstrated Reddit's community power quite like the 2021 GameStop stock frenzy. Amateur traders on the WallStreetBets subreddit banded together against hedge funds betting on GameStop's decline. Redditors began purchasing the struggling company's shares en masse, driving its stock price from under $3 to an astonishing $483 peak.
This monumental short squeeze caused multi-billion losses for major Wall Street firms, while making numerous Redditors overnight millionaires simply by clinging together. While Reddit itself has yet to solve profitability, one thing remains clear - the website's most powerful asset and liability is its vast unified user base.
Despite the controversies and roller coaster ride detailed in Reddit's story, the site's populist underpinnings and harnessed collective continue redefining what an online community can achieve, for better or worse. Reddit's unconventional journey is far from over.

I don’t want this to be mistaken as a relationship advice post as that’s not what I’m looking for. But it is related to say I am in a relationship with a man I met at my workplace, going on 2 years. Different teams and managers, we don’t work together, just in the same company.
Yesterday, I was in my home-office speaking to my manager who I regularly have 15-30 minute bi-weekly meetings with. I am a 26 year old associate software engineer 1 (the junioriest of junior positions). And a few other people who were hired in the same position/hiring wave are still having bi-weekly manager meetings as well. We are not quite 1 year as FTEs. Though, boyfriend doesn’t have these scheduled sessions anymore because his manager doesn’t really seem to care all that much about anything really. His manager doesn’t meet with anyone like this.
My manager and I hadn’t spoken in a month due to some conflicting meetings and busy weeks. And, the team I am on is getting absorbed by a parent team next week, so there was a bit to talk about. Honestly, the past few meetings we had were pretty quick and dry because I’d just been working on support and bug tickets. He’s typically always late by 10-15 minutes, but yesterday he was on time for once and we kinda laughed about it when he first got on the call.
My manager and I get along? idk. I don’t have any reason to dislike him. I never have felt any sexism from him, I never felt like he has treated me inappropriately and whenever I’ve had a concern about my work he’s always addressed it. However, my boyfriend has expressed to really dislike him, mind you — they have never interacted. I met my manager in person one time when he came down to our branch, he was super quiet honestly and we didn’t interact all that much. Nothing really to say.
Yesterday, my meeting ran about 45 minutes while we are scheduled for 30. I did point the time out when the meeting was scheduled to be over, but my manager was like “meh it’s fine, I got nothing to do” and we continued to chat about team changes and what kind of work will be expected. Again, we get along, joke a bit but there was never EVER anything inappropriate or anything that was unrelated to work? Maybe some family stuff from his side got thrown in at some point but I’m pretty private about everything so I always bring the convos back to work stuff. Though I don’t think it’s BAD to talk about those things with my manager?
After the meeting my boyfriend was very upset, saying that I was laughing way too much and that the conversation lasted way too long. He doesn’t know why I have to meet with my manager bi-weekly and that I should ask for the meetings to stop because I don’t really need them. When I asked him what jokes or parts of the conversation made him uncomfortable, he told me he couldn’t hear the conversation, but just that there shouldn’t be too much laughing like that. He said it reminded him of two teenagers flirting. Honestly, I thought he was joking at first because I didn’t clock any flirtatiousness at all. But that’s just me.
He says that I can be oblivious to how some men look or think of me. I admit, sometimes I can be I guess, but I’m not completely cartoon blink noises either. From my perspective, I’m not seeing the issue.
I really struggle with how to conduct myself at work. I already am super conscious about how I interact with men, and I really try to keep a professional wall between me and my male coworkers due to sexism I faced in college. I feel like I’m coming across as cold and yeah, I feel even more on the outside because I feel like nobody wants to talk to me, why would they if we have no direct work things to talk about? I NEVER approach any male coworkers for casual conversation, that’s just how it is. I’m not interested in being friends with these men, or my manager. But I don’t want to be perceived as unfriendly either?
He says that it doesn’t matter if my manager likes me or not, and that it’s not like he could or would fire me for not liking me. Am I nuts for disagreeing?
How do you guys generally conduct yourself with your managers and coworkers? Where is the line to where they can get the wrong idea? How do I know if I’ve crossed it? I don’t know how to be a woman in a “man’s world” here. I have had instances where guys get the wrong idea, so now I’m second guessing everything I do.

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