Do employee background checks show up on credit reports
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2024.05.15 18:56 cerberaspeedtwelve What does a movie producer actually do?
This is a question that I have tried to figure out for years, and have never found a good resource on.
Really, my question is about creative and financial control of movies. Back in the 1950s, you had the studio system. Studios were pretty much factories that made movies. They owned the sets, the cameras, the scripts, the whole shebang. Actors were literally just employees. They would show up one week and be told "this week, you're acting in a cowboy movie. Next week, you're in a space movie." Producers were the guys who decided what kind of movies to make. They hired and fired screenwriters, actors, directors, poster artists etc. Therefore, they had creative control over the movie. Sure, if you were a good screenwriter you were more likely to be hired again, but ultimately the studio had the power.
At some point in the 1970s, the studio system broke down. This is where it gets confusing for me. The best explanation I could ever find was that successful creative directors (Stanley Kubrick, George Lucas etc) became more like movie stars. Their name on the poster could draw in crowds and sell the movie. They leveraged this power to get much more creative control over the movies they were making. Suddenly, the studio couldn't just say "this movie needs more kid characters and a fun talking monkey! Write one in!" Directors could insist on bringing in their preferred screenwriters, actors etc.
At this point you have a conflict of control. Presumably the studio are still financing the movie, but they are handing over creative control to someone else. I have heard lots of stories about studio interference on movies. Is this interference coming from producers? Do producers still work for the studio? Or did they form themselves into little independent production companies, who the studio hire like contractors?
Today, I have no idea who really finances and really has creative control over a movie any more. When you watch any mid budget movie, there are half a dozen production companies credited before the main title. Are these companies helping to finance the movie? If so, do they get some say over the script?
Is an auteur-driven movie like Oppenheimer produced in a very different way from something like Barbie?
I appreciate this is a very long and complex question, but if anyone knows any good resources that explain how all this works, it would be hugely appreciated.
submitted by cerberaspeedtwelve to movies [link] [comments]
Really, my question is about creative and financial control of movies. Back in the 1950s, you had the studio system. Studios were pretty much factories that made movies. They owned the sets, the cameras, the scripts, the whole shebang. Actors were literally just employees. They would show up one week and be told "this week, you're acting in a cowboy movie. Next week, you're in a space movie." Producers were the guys who decided what kind of movies to make. They hired and fired screenwriters, actors, directors, poster artists etc. Therefore, they had creative control over the movie. Sure, if you were a good screenwriter you were more likely to be hired again, but ultimately the studio had the power.
At some point in the 1970s, the studio system broke down. This is where it gets confusing for me. The best explanation I could ever find was that successful creative directors (Stanley Kubrick, George Lucas etc) became more like movie stars. Their name on the poster could draw in crowds and sell the movie. They leveraged this power to get much more creative control over the movies they were making. Suddenly, the studio couldn't just say "this movie needs more kid characters and a fun talking monkey! Write one in!" Directors could insist on bringing in their preferred screenwriters, actors etc.
At this point you have a conflict of control. Presumably the studio are still financing the movie, but they are handing over creative control to someone else. I have heard lots of stories about studio interference on movies. Is this interference coming from producers? Do producers still work for the studio? Or did they form themselves into little independent production companies, who the studio hire like contractors?
Today, I have no idea who really finances and really has creative control over a movie any more. When you watch any mid budget movie, there are half a dozen production companies credited before the main title. Are these companies helping to finance the movie? If so, do they get some say over the script?
Is an auteur-driven movie like Oppenheimer produced in a very different way from something like Barbie?
I appreciate this is a very long and complex question, but if anyone knows any good resources that explain how all this works, it would be hugely appreciated.
2024.05.15 18:51 aizlynskye Potential $39K Elder Fraud dating back to Summer 2022. Unauthorized ACH from Credit Union checking to Wells Fargo Mortgage acct discovered after death.
TL;DR- all signs indicate deceased Grandma’s account was being charged for unauthorized ACH to Wells Fargo mortgage loan from unknown person dating back to June 2022 and roughly ~$39K in damages. What do I (next of kin, first in succession - Colorado) do to stop the continuing withdrawals and recoup funds? More detailed questions at the end of this novel.
I have reached out to our Estate Attorney who helped us with Grandma’s paperwork prior to death/dementia, but I’m still waiting to hear back from them and this is a little out of their arena as well so trying to get wisdom from you all. Any wisdom would be appreciated! I’m out of my depths here…
My Grandma recently passed away. Her estate wasn’t complicated and so was set up (with the guidance of an Estate Lawyer) with NO will and NO trust - everything was set up POD/TOD/Beneficiary with me (last of kin) 50% and 50% Aunt (by marriage, divorced uncle/grandmas son who died in 2020). I am the next of kin as both of my Grandmas children preceded her in death and I have a (Colorado) small claims affidavit entitling me to any assets discovered under $82K which entitles me to funds but not account access/details/changes/statements. I do not have any Personal Representative or Executor paperwork as there was no will/trust. The intent was to avoid probate through POD/TOD/Beneficiary.
Two weeks after Grandma’s passing we discovered a local credit union checking + money market account that no one knew existed. A statement was sent to my Aunt (by marriage, since divorced, Uncle passed in 2020) showing two accounts (checking and money market) and a ~$2400 ACH transaction from the credit union to an unknown Wells Fargo Mortgage account. No one knew this credit union accounts existed. There is no TOD/POD/beneficiary. No one had any idea to check this account or that these deductions were coming out. Credit union confirmed the ACH originated at Wells Fargo.
My grandma had no mortgages. She did bank with Wells Fargo but they confirmed in writing that she has no open accounts there (Aunt and I already closed her accounts at that institution) and never had any mortgage products, including co-signing. Grandma is in no way associated with this Mortgage account, from what Wells Fargo can tell. Last I heard, Wells Fargo was working on their end to identify who signed the authorization for the monthly mortgage ACH withdraw and how a red flag didn’t pop up indicating the payee and payer accounts have different names. We have also been to the tax assessors office who confirmed Grandma owned no other property or had no other mortgages in the state. My Aunt and I are the last living members of the family.
From what little I’ve been able to gather (given that I do not have personal representative or executor paperwork), the credit union account once stood at $40K (a new banker accidentally shared this info not knowing it was privileged) and has been depleted down to $1K since the ACH deductions began in June 2022. Grandma was in an assisted living & memory care facility beginning January 2021. I assume that Grandma’s dementia diagnosis would have negated her ability to sign for a loan/cosigner of any kind if some sort of “authorization” DID occur? I am also highly suspicious that Grandma had no knowledge of this, she didn’t authorize anything, and this is all in error or her info was stolen from the assisted living facility or elsewhere.
It turns out Grandma’s tax accountant who has done her taxes for many (10 ish?) years did know about the existence of the Credit Union account, but only through annual interest earned statements, meaning there was no visibility to total account value. However, with this, we can be relatively certain that my Grandma owned this account for many years, it was set up and maintained by her, etc.
I have visited both institutions multiple times over the past week. Wells Fargo is opening a case and will assign a case manager today. Theoretically they will then call me to get any info and begin their investigation. I am told they are “working on” stopping the ACH on their end, but my personal banker contact isn’t able to provide a timeline or process for what this looks like. The banker I’ve been working with indicated this may take a year or longer to resolve. I don’t know if he is trying to “under promise and over deliver” or if this is a genuine possibility for the resolution timeframe?
I brought the paperwork from Wells Fargo confirming no accounts/mortgages in Grandma’s name to the Credit Union yesterday in hopes they can stop the ACH on their end. The next withdrawal will be June 2 if neither institution is able to stop this, putting the Credit Union account negative and accruing fees as a result. I am unable to dispute transactions from the credit union side (no PR paperwork) and have basically been told that it’s in legal’s hands.
I’ve been told the Credit Union account must legally be closed within a year of Grandma’s passing and I’m hopeful we can get the funds returned to this account within that timeframe. Otherwise my understanding is that any funds may be provided via check to the “estate” thus requiring expensive and time consuming probate, which we very much hope to avoid. I’m reluctant to remove the existing $1K in the account for fear they will auto-close the account (a very real possibility according to my banker at the Credit Union) and this will cause additional hurdles in recouping any potential funds from Wells Fargo in a timely manner.
I know this is a super rare and strange situation, but it is infuriating bouncing from Wells Fargo bank to Credit Union and back and getting no further in the process. I’ve now spent 22 hours across 4 business days at banking institutions trying to resolve/stop this. So, my questions to those savvy with these situations are:
submitted by aizlynskye to legaladvice [link] [comments]
I have reached out to our Estate Attorney who helped us with Grandma’s paperwork prior to death/dementia, but I’m still waiting to hear back from them and this is a little out of their arena as well so trying to get wisdom from you all. Any wisdom would be appreciated! I’m out of my depths here…
My Grandma recently passed away. Her estate wasn’t complicated and so was set up (with the guidance of an Estate Lawyer) with NO will and NO trust - everything was set up POD/TOD/Beneficiary with me (last of kin) 50% and 50% Aunt (by marriage, divorced uncle/grandmas son who died in 2020). I am the next of kin as both of my Grandmas children preceded her in death and I have a (Colorado) small claims affidavit entitling me to any assets discovered under $82K which entitles me to funds but not account access/details/changes/statements. I do not have any Personal Representative or Executor paperwork as there was no will/trust. The intent was to avoid probate through POD/TOD/Beneficiary.
Two weeks after Grandma’s passing we discovered a local credit union checking + money market account that no one knew existed. A statement was sent to my Aunt (by marriage, since divorced, Uncle passed in 2020) showing two accounts (checking and money market) and a ~$2400 ACH transaction from the credit union to an unknown Wells Fargo Mortgage account. No one knew this credit union accounts existed. There is no TOD/POD/beneficiary. No one had any idea to check this account or that these deductions were coming out. Credit union confirmed the ACH originated at Wells Fargo.
My grandma had no mortgages. She did bank with Wells Fargo but they confirmed in writing that she has no open accounts there (Aunt and I already closed her accounts at that institution) and never had any mortgage products, including co-signing. Grandma is in no way associated with this Mortgage account, from what Wells Fargo can tell. Last I heard, Wells Fargo was working on their end to identify who signed the authorization for the monthly mortgage ACH withdraw and how a red flag didn’t pop up indicating the payee and payer accounts have different names. We have also been to the tax assessors office who confirmed Grandma owned no other property or had no other mortgages in the state. My Aunt and I are the last living members of the family.
From what little I’ve been able to gather (given that I do not have personal representative or executor paperwork), the credit union account once stood at $40K (a new banker accidentally shared this info not knowing it was privileged) and has been depleted down to $1K since the ACH deductions began in June 2022. Grandma was in an assisted living & memory care facility beginning January 2021. I assume that Grandma’s dementia diagnosis would have negated her ability to sign for a loan/cosigner of any kind if some sort of “authorization” DID occur? I am also highly suspicious that Grandma had no knowledge of this, she didn’t authorize anything, and this is all in error or her info was stolen from the assisted living facility or elsewhere.
It turns out Grandma’s tax accountant who has done her taxes for many (10 ish?) years did know about the existence of the Credit Union account, but only through annual interest earned statements, meaning there was no visibility to total account value. However, with this, we can be relatively certain that my Grandma owned this account for many years, it was set up and maintained by her, etc.
I have visited both institutions multiple times over the past week. Wells Fargo is opening a case and will assign a case manager today. Theoretically they will then call me to get any info and begin their investigation. I am told they are “working on” stopping the ACH on their end, but my personal banker contact isn’t able to provide a timeline or process for what this looks like. The banker I’ve been working with indicated this may take a year or longer to resolve. I don’t know if he is trying to “under promise and over deliver” or if this is a genuine possibility for the resolution timeframe?
I brought the paperwork from Wells Fargo confirming no accounts/mortgages in Grandma’s name to the Credit Union yesterday in hopes they can stop the ACH on their end. The next withdrawal will be June 2 if neither institution is able to stop this, putting the Credit Union account negative and accruing fees as a result. I am unable to dispute transactions from the credit union side (no PR paperwork) and have basically been told that it’s in legal’s hands.
I’ve been told the Credit Union account must legally be closed within a year of Grandma’s passing and I’m hopeful we can get the funds returned to this account within that timeframe. Otherwise my understanding is that any funds may be provided via check to the “estate” thus requiring expensive and time consuming probate, which we very much hope to avoid. I’m reluctant to remove the existing $1K in the account for fear they will auto-close the account (a very real possibility according to my banker at the Credit Union) and this will cause additional hurdles in recouping any potential funds from Wells Fargo in a timely manner.
I know this is a super rare and strange situation, but it is infuriating bouncing from Wells Fargo bank to Credit Union and back and getting no further in the process. I’ve now spent 22 hours across 4 business days at banking institutions trying to resolve/stop this. So, my questions to those savvy with these situations are:
- What is the likelihood of recouping these funds? Potential timeline?
- What is the likelihood stopping the ACH? Surely (perhaps I am naive) these banking institutions have some sort of obligation to investigate and stop fraud if it is identified?
- Are the banking institutions required to report this to authorities if fraud has occurred?
- Should I notify authorities (police, Attorney Generals office, other?). My assumption is that the victim (Grandma) would typically report this crime but since she has passed away, do I meet necessary thresholds to report this as her next of kin? Is there a value or risk to making this notification sooner than later?
- Is there anything else I can or should be doing to be proactive about this situation?
2024.05.15 18:50 thetypicalguy1056 Chilis Massachusetts Experience
I dont normally do things like this, but after the most flippant careless call from the person that runs the Chilis in Massachusetts as a whole, im left no choice. I know some people wont like it, but you need to be made aware of the business and people you support.
Chilis Braintree Massachusetts.
It starts with the to-go meal I had picked. I got two orders of burger sliders, to which both patties were burnt to a char, and rock hard. The salad had about 10 pieces of wilted brown, white lettuce stocks, covered in raw onion and tomato. The Ranch Dressing I ordered was Sour Cream, and the salsa opened in the bag and spill all over the the containers. People make mistakes, althought its a big mistake, Im understanding, I hate confrontation, and and I hate complaining about food unless I absolutely have to if its just totally unedible, or not my order. When it comes to small things, IE missing lettuce, too many pickles, whatever, I will not say anything. I let it slide because I know everybody is human and we all mistakes.
So I contacted the help line about this meal and then sent me a $15 BoG. I paid a lot more than $15 for the meals that neither me or my kid wasnt able to eat. But I disregarded it. I went back a few days later to use the BoG. I ordered the same two sliders, and asked for them to please make sure these were not burnt, to which it was agreed without issue. I recieved the burgers, again, burnt beyond belief. So I kindly notified the kid working up front. He went to the back and got the upper manager on duty, To which later I found out she was some sort of "Co-Partner" I forget exactly how she worded it, but well get to that. She comes out with the same burgers, and rather than address the situation she already knew about, she loudly says "Did you have a question about the burgers?" To which I said, "Not a question, the burgers are just burnt, and too hard to bite." To which she immediately argued with me, without hesitiation, over what a cooked burger is. Im already caught off guard at this point. This is when I understand we are having a problem. I pointed out that a well done burger is when the burger is cooked the same amount on the outside as it is on the inside, usually done on a lower tempurature to asure the outside doesnt.
She stopped, and went to kitchen, she came out. Again with the same burgers, and told me that "They push a timer button and thats it they cant cook them any other way" To which I replied "Can you replace with something else then" She says "I can do whatever I want, but I dont have to do anything." At this point im guard even more off guard at whats happening. I asked her "Why are you talking to me like that?" She answers "Im the Co Partner and ill talk to you however I want to" I say "This is really how you treat customers?" She says "Yup thats really how I do it." I say "You can refund the burgers then" She says "There you go with can again" She checks the register and sees that I paid with the BoG, and says to me "Oh so youre one of those" I said "What?" She said "You paid with BoG so I cant give you anything" I said "You can refund me store credit or offer me a different meal, I dont see why this is such an issue" She loudly says "DONT, im not giving you anything, Go call coroprate." I said Okay, and walked out to my car. As I walking in the parking, I was chased by a younger employee, who yelled "Ill tresspass your ass, im gonna tresspass you" I mentioned, You can only trespass a customer who refused to leave after you ask them to. Minding, that not once had been asked to leave, not been loud, verbally abusive, or threatened.
So yes, I did call corporate about it, mostly because I want my monetary refund for the initial meal we not able to eat.
So a few days later, I get called by somebody who says they run all the Chilis in Massachusetts. He starts by saying "I skimmed the email but didnt really read it, tell me what happened" Great start. So after being on the phone over an hour explaning to the customer service representative who took the time to type out everything I said for a formal complaint, he wants me to say it all over again, right on the spot. After giving the short story version, hes got a very flippant and careless attitude. Asking ME if I called someone a name or not, like hes ready to reprimand me, and then offers me $25 in Chilis BoG credit. I couldnt help but laugh. Offering me credit to a restaurant that ive had the worst food, worst customer, and worst experience in general, is laughable. I declined his BoGs and told him I would never be back to another Chilis again, I told he should be offering credit the original meal that I paid for that caused this mess in the first place. So rather than find the inital ticket number that was given on the first complaint, he asked me to go into my email and find it myself.
Im done with it, I wont be pursuing anything further. My family and friends who go to chilis almost every Friday on that dot have all agreed that they wont ever step foot in a Chilis again. And I hope you wont either. These are people that do not care about you, their service, or their food, and they do not deserve to be supported.
submitted by thetypicalguy1056 to massachusetts [link] [comments]
Chilis Braintree Massachusetts.
It starts with the to-go meal I had picked. I got two orders of burger sliders, to which both patties were burnt to a char, and rock hard. The salad had about 10 pieces of wilted brown, white lettuce stocks, covered in raw onion and tomato. The Ranch Dressing I ordered was Sour Cream, and the salsa opened in the bag and spill all over the the containers. People make mistakes, althought its a big mistake, Im understanding, I hate confrontation, and and I hate complaining about food unless I absolutely have to if its just totally unedible, or not my order. When it comes to small things, IE missing lettuce, too many pickles, whatever, I will not say anything. I let it slide because I know everybody is human and we all mistakes.
So I contacted the help line about this meal and then sent me a $15 BoG. I paid a lot more than $15 for the meals that neither me or my kid wasnt able to eat. But I disregarded it. I went back a few days later to use the BoG. I ordered the same two sliders, and asked for them to please make sure these were not burnt, to which it was agreed without issue. I recieved the burgers, again, burnt beyond belief. So I kindly notified the kid working up front. He went to the back and got the upper manager on duty, To which later I found out she was some sort of "Co-Partner" I forget exactly how she worded it, but well get to that. She comes out with the same burgers, and rather than address the situation she already knew about, she loudly says "Did you have a question about the burgers?" To which I said, "Not a question, the burgers are just burnt, and too hard to bite." To which she immediately argued with me, without hesitiation, over what a cooked burger is. Im already caught off guard at this point. This is when I understand we are having a problem. I pointed out that a well done burger is when the burger is cooked the same amount on the outside as it is on the inside, usually done on a lower tempurature to asure the outside doesnt.
She stopped, and went to kitchen, she came out. Again with the same burgers, and told me that "They push a timer button and thats it they cant cook them any other way" To which I replied "Can you replace with something else then" She says "I can do whatever I want, but I dont have to do anything." At this point im guard even more off guard at whats happening. I asked her "Why are you talking to me like that?" She answers "Im the Co Partner and ill talk to you however I want to" I say "This is really how you treat customers?" She says "Yup thats really how I do it." I say "You can refund the burgers then" She says "There you go with can again" She checks the register and sees that I paid with the BoG, and says to me "Oh so youre one of those" I said "What?" She said "You paid with BoG so I cant give you anything" I said "You can refund me store credit or offer me a different meal, I dont see why this is such an issue" She loudly says "DONT, im not giving you anything, Go call coroprate." I said Okay, and walked out to my car. As I walking in the parking, I was chased by a younger employee, who yelled "Ill tresspass your ass, im gonna tresspass you" I mentioned, You can only trespass a customer who refused to leave after you ask them to. Minding, that not once had been asked to leave, not been loud, verbally abusive, or threatened.
So yes, I did call corporate about it, mostly because I want my monetary refund for the initial meal we not able to eat.
So a few days later, I get called by somebody who says they run all the Chilis in Massachusetts. He starts by saying "I skimmed the email but didnt really read it, tell me what happened" Great start. So after being on the phone over an hour explaning to the customer service representative who took the time to type out everything I said for a formal complaint, he wants me to say it all over again, right on the spot. After giving the short story version, hes got a very flippant and careless attitude. Asking ME if I called someone a name or not, like hes ready to reprimand me, and then offers me $25 in Chilis BoG credit. I couldnt help but laugh. Offering me credit to a restaurant that ive had the worst food, worst customer, and worst experience in general, is laughable. I declined his BoGs and told him I would never be back to another Chilis again, I told he should be offering credit the original meal that I paid for that caused this mess in the first place. So rather than find the inital ticket number that was given on the first complaint, he asked me to go into my email and find it myself.
Im done with it, I wont be pursuing anything further. My family and friends who go to chilis almost every Friday on that dot have all agreed that they wont ever step foot in a Chilis again. And I hope you wont either. These are people that do not care about you, their service, or their food, and they do not deserve to be supported.
2024.05.15 18:50 Spooker0 Grass Eaters 52 Just Passing Through
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First Series Index Galactic Map State of War Map RoyalRoad Patreon Discord
Vastae, eyes glued to his console, replied without hesitation. “We have just enough blink fuel for one jump, but we aren’t going anywhere once we get to the other side without a refueling ship.”
“One blink is all we need. And if the Oengro is good to go, the other, smaller ships should be fine too then,” Grionc responded, bringing up the system map on screen with her paws. “Four minutes to blink limit. Have the ship’s crew secure themselves for the blink and get ready for shift change to execute post-blink procedures when we arrive.”
“Yes, High Fleet Commander,” Vastae acknowledged with a brisk nod.
Suddenly, three quarters of the sensor readings on her sensor board disappeared, and the fidelity on the remaining took a nose-dive in accuracy. A low murmur ran through the sensor stations, which she waved away with a paw. “No need to panic. It looks like our friends jumped before we did, as arranged. Our sensors are on their own for now.”
Vastae swallowed hard. “Are you certain about this plan, High Fleet Commander?” Vastae asked nervously. “Not that I don’t trust what Sphinx— Speinfoent cooked up, but this is a last-minute plan modification we haven’t rehearsed. And with our fuel situation, we only get one chance here.”
Grionc put a calm smile on her face. “Remember that exercise we did with the Grass Eaters a while back?”
“Which one?”
“Teambuilding exercise?” Grionc asked suspiciously.
Mark didn’t let her skepticism color his enthusiasm. “Well, I’m not sure how much teambuilding it does, but it is fun. And I have never seen aliens do it. In fact, this might be the first time this has ever been done outside of Sol!”
“Fine, fine. What are we doing?” she relented.
“This exercise is what we call the trust fall.”
“The trust fall?” Grionc repeated. “It’s about building trust? Like trust in your crew?”
Mark nodded vigorously. “It’s supposed to. I’m not sure if it truly works, but it truly is fun. You and I can demonstrate for the crew.”
Grionc sighed. “Sure. What do I do?”
“Come stand over here,” Mark pointed to a spot on the floor, and then stood in front of her with his back to her. “What I’m going to do is I’m going cross my arms… like this… and on the count of three, I’m going to fall backwards, and you have to catch me when I do.”
“Huh. That seems dangerous. What happens to you if I don’t catch you?” Grionc asked, mild concern creeping into her voice.
“Traumatic brain injury, probably. Something similar for your species too, I assume,” Mark shrugged nonchalantly. “But don’t worry about that. We have good medical facilities on the Nile, and you will catch me. That is the point of the exercise. Alright, you ready?”
Sensing his insistence, Grionc sighed and held her paws out, bracing herself. “Ready.”
“One, two, three…” Mark did as he described, crossing his arms, and falling backwards into Grionc’s outstretched arms. She grunted with slight effort as she intercepted his fall and then gently lowered him onto the ground, “Oomph. Huh. You Terrans are lighter than you look.”
“Yeah, my bones are nano-grafted,” Mark grinned, bounced up to full height, and circled around her back. “Okay, now it’s your turn.”
Grionc crossed her arms and held her breath for a moment. “One, two…”
She didn’t move. A few seconds later, she let go of her held breath. “I can’t.”
“What? Why not?”
Grionc muttered excuses. “No, it’s just— my tail— our balance mechanisms are different, I can’t just fall backwards on purpose—”
Mark insisted. “It’s not that difficult. Just let go. Don’t worry. I’m right here. I promise I’ll catch you.”
She held her breath once again, psyching herself up for a few more moments.
“One, two… doh, I can’t.”
Mark lightly patted her on the shoulder. “That’s okay… don’t worry… Hey, Speinfoent, come over here and give her a light shove. Alright, on the count of three. One, two—”
“Oh, no. Don’t you dare! No! Don’t touch— Yowwwwwww!”
Grionc continued, “And now… we fall. And we trust that our new friends will be there to catch us.”
“Did we catch their blink vector?” Skvanu asked urgently.
“Calculating… got it! We triangulated their blink vector and probable destination! Entering it into our fleet navigation computers,” she responded, paws flying over the controls.
“How long before we can execute the blink?” Skvanu pressed.
“Two minutes before we hit the limit ourselves,” she replied, not looking up.
“Good, get the crews ready and start the countdown. I want to blink the millisecond we are clear of the system limit. And get all systems ready for what’s on the other side. They almost definitely have an ambush waiting for us. I’m guessing that’s where the remaining nine or so squadrons of Sixth Fleet are waiting for us,” Skvanu said confidently. “Twelve Lesser Predator squadrons to twenty-six of ours. Doesn’t matter how many upgrades they have, we will defeat them, especially since the first three will be within railgun range. Get those gunnery crews and point defense computers ready.”
“Blinking in seventy seconds,” she announced. “Sixty-five seconds—” Suddenly, she stood up, “Eight Whiskers, our FTL communications are open again! Both Datsot and Gruccud have just responded to our last message!”
Skvanu spun around to face her. “That makes sense. Whatever device they used to stop our communications must have been on one of the ships that just blinked out. Is there any priority intelligence from either?”
“Yes! Datsot has an emergency transmission for us. It’s from Ten Whiskers Ditvish!”
“What is it?” Skvanu asked, his voice serious.
She began to read. “Lesser Predators have entered Datsot system in force. Nine squadrons spotted so far. They may attempt to engage our garrison force there… His guidance is that we return immediately to trap these aggressor ships, but leaves the decision up to you…”
Skvanu absorbed the information with shock. If those ships are really in Datsot, they must not be on the other side of wherever the Oengro is blinking. And with that context, this now smelled exactly like a planned trap.
He thought out loud. “This must be what the Lesser Predators planned from the start. If we chase, we have no idea what they have on the other side. There may be refueling ships. They may have already gotten away. By the Prophecy, they may even be sacrificing three squadrons to get us to blink through a singularity or anomaly. But wait… If we return to Datsot immediately, we might catch those squadrons split from the rest of their ships and cripple their fleet!”
Having made up his mind, he shouted urgently at the navigation station, “Navigation, hold the blink!”
“Halting the blink procedures.”
“A handful of ships have already completed the blink!” the computer officer reported, almost in a panic.
“Cease blink procedures! Fleet-wide, cease the blink!”
The order went out immediately, and it was a testament to the discipline of the Znosian Navy that most squadrons managed to stop the countdown just seconds before it went through.
“How many ships went through?” Skvanu asked urgently.
“We managed to stop most of our ships, Eight Whiskers. Only five combat ships from Squadron 6 went through.”
He sighed in relief. “Only the Prophecy can help them now… Turn us around. Let’s get back to Datsot.”
“Yes, captain. Emergency drop-out in five… four… three… two… one… now.”
The ship shuddered and creaked as the emergency-stop was activated. The blink engine wound down, forcing the ship back into normal space.
Gregor turned to his navigation officer. “How far from Plaunsollib did we travel, in regular space?”
“Two months on their Alcubierre drives if they combat burn with all their fuel. Four if they plan on stopping,” she replied immediately. “They’d be going too fast to aerobrake anyway.”
“Good,” Guerrero said, gluing his eyes to his sensor board. Ships in FTL are difficult to detect, even on gravidar, but the state-of-the-art technology on the Nile gave them a few seconds of warning.
A few seconds later, the sensor officer’s voice cut through the tense silence. “I’ve spotted the Puppers in blink! All of them, tight formation. They’ll pass us in about fifteen seconds.”
Guerrero nodded his pleasure. “Good, let them pass. Tell me when they’re out of range.”
The seconds ticked by. “Ten… five… they’ve passed our position… and now they’re out of range.”
“Now, switch on the blink disruption field,” he ordered.
The hum of the ship’s ambient noise went up an octave, signaling maximum power drain as the ship’s thirstiest system kicked in.
Gregor looked at his information panel. “Full emissions control. EMCOM Alpha. Deploy the FTL jammer drone and then shut off our engines. If things go well, we’re about to be joined by half the fucking Bunny Navy in a minute.”
“Aye, Captain. EMCOM Alpha.” The rest of the crew nodded, working their controls with practiced competence.
“Jammer drone out. You think they’ve got wild weasels, captain?”
“Unlikely, but we take no chances. If they don’t…” He shrugged. “… we’ll just get our drone back later.”
A tense minute passed, then the sensor officer reported, “Captain, Znosian ships spotted on gravidar! Two… three… five in total… They’ve just been forced out of blink.”
“Five squadrons?”
“No, Captain, five ships.”
Gregor furrowed his brow, surprised, and took another glance at his console. “Only five ships?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Alright, keep the disruption field up, and analyze the drive signatures on them. Maybe one of them is this Skvanu guy we’re supposed to hit,” he speculated hopefully.
After half an hour, Guerrero finally called it quits. “No more guests are showing up. Looks like they must have wizened up at the last moment.”
“Aye, sir,” the executive officer said, shaking her head in disappointment as well. “It was a good plan. Could have stranded their whole fleet out here.”
“Well, bad luck— these things happen in war, Lieutenant. Don’t worry. We’ll get them next time. How are the guests we did get doing?”
“Out of blink fuel, as expected. They’ve been dumping cargo in an organized fashion. I think they’re planning to see if they can reach Plaunsollib with their subspace drives in a reasonable amount of time and call triple A.” Then, she asked, “Where do you think the rest run off to?”
“Probably Datsot,” Guerrero guessed. “Phone Sphinx and tell him he’s probably got the whole shit storm heading his way, ETA about a couple days. Get the estimates to him.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Now, we just need to silence the witnesses so we can use this trick again. Bridge to CIC: let’s keep it simple. One Kestrel for each of the targets. We’ll swiss-cheese them with railguns after. Just in case.”
“Aye, Captain. We’re not dropping off those TRO drones here, are we?”
“Nah. Too much work. No one is finding these guys ever again anyway.”
Speinfoent sighed, and suggested, “If we burn closer for just half a day more—”
“No more,” Loenda declared. “We are already risking nine squadrons coming this far into the Datsot system limit.”
“Alright,” Speinfoent agreed reluctantly. “We can still give them a present they won’t forget any time soon.”
“That, we will. That we will.” Loenda turned to her console. “All ships in Battlegroup 2, dump your payloads as quietly as you can. Then wait half an hour to change your vector and make your way to the system blink limit.”
“Yes, Battlegroup Commander.”
“What? Where are they heading now?” Ditvish asked, confounded.
“Towards the shortest path to the system blink limit, I think.”
“That’s it? They’re just leaving now?”
“Combat computer speculates that they might have seen that Eight Whiskers Skvanu is heading back to Datsot, so they are breaking off the attack,” the officer offered.
“That’s… not very Lesser Predator of them, but very logical,” he admitted. “They must have realized their plan failed and are now cutting their losses.”
He didn’t mention that his fleet was the one that came out behind, losing yet another precious supply convoy and then sending the whole combat fleet on a wild predator chase for nothing. That State Security goon might start to become a problem if he didn’t spin this well in his after-action report.
A few hours later, a foreboding feeling coloring his mood, he ordered, “Sensors, boost our radars towards where they changed vectors. I want to check to see if they dropped any drones or traps.”
“Yes, Ten Whiskers.”
The 1841 boosted its radar towards the direction, blaring out signals on maximum strength and—
“Incoming… missiles? Ten Whiskers, many missiles! Dozens! Over a hundred! They’re well within our minimum abort range!”
“By the Prophecy!” Ditvish exclaimed. “All ships, execute combat burn away from them! Countermeasures and fire counter-missiles, at the ready! Track those missiles!”
Fortunately, the garrison fleet was still in high readiness from before. Their engines were ready to light up to full acceleration immediately.
Unfortunately, the missiles were already close. In desperation, his ships began dumping their entire loads of radar chaffs and flares into space behind them as they maneuvered away from the threat. Counter-missiles sped out of their tubes towards their rear, relying on their motherships’ sensors and radars to find the tiny alien missiles for them to engage.
Quietly gliding through space towards the enemy on inertia inherited from their motherships was the sizable swarm of Terran-made missiles. Obsolete for military purpose in Sol but still produced for the civilian and gray market, they were an easy addition on the TRO’s shopping list. Vast quantities of them had found their way into various shell corporations and dead drops all over Sol, then onto hastily constructed exterior pylons on Sixth Fleet ships.
While they were indeed several times outside of the maximum effective range of the Znosian ships at launch, missiles technically did have unlimited ballistic ranges in space — if their enemies were not moving and they did not need to constantly fire their thrusters to adjust course. Relying on a short first burn and then inertia, they flew most of the way towards the stationary enemy fleet completely undetected. By the time they were spotted, it was too late; the Znosians were well within their effective ranges.
Their intelligence chips might not have been super-Terran state-of-the-art computers, but the Pigeons had no problem realizing that they were discovered. They had been tracking the enemy targets using passive infrared sensors that did not alert enemy threat sensors to their presence. But the second that the targets started dropping flares to blind them, they activated their primitive late twenty-first century radars and homed in onto the priority targets they’d been given. Their main thrusters began their burns, adjusting their vectors to intercept the now-finally-moving enemy ships.
Then, they saw the incoming counter-missiles — fired by the enemies sporadically, obviously in panic.
The makers of the Pigeons might not have bothered to include next-generation electronic dazzlers on them, but penetration aid on missiles had been standard in Terran warfare for a century. They littered the space they were in with chaff and their own bright flares, coordinating with the other missiles in the area with short range laser communication to ensure that none in the swarm would confuse or disrupt each other.
The Znosian counter-missiles were certainly confused and disrupted though. Many veered off into phantom signals. Some lucky ones did manage to find their targets. When a few of their comrades dropped off their impromptu mesh net, the Pigeons constantly corresponded with laser communications to re-prioritize their targeting.
At the top of the list was the fattest, easiest target of them all: the enemy flagship 1841.
Seconds before impact, the missiles finalized their targets, and they spent every drop and fume of their remaining fuel on terminal maneuvers.
The Znosians’ close in weapons systems had milliseconds to engage the incoming threats. They performed admirably… for trying to deal with this unknown alien threat for the first time. A couple dozen more missiles were plucked out of space, but it was not enough.
Not nearly.
The rest slipped through the net.
Miraculously, the 1841 managed to survive initially. Despite it being the primary focus of the Pigeon mob, the other ships did their best to shield its most vital components in its rear with their own point defense. And the Pigeons — like most missiles of its era — were loaded with just enough firepower to destroy much smaller Terran ships. The larger hulls of the Znosian ships gave their obsolete mid-century intelligence chips a slightly more interesting exercise in module identification and targeting.
The massive Thorn-class battleship took fourteen hits to varying systems that the missiles visually identified as “that looks pretty important” on their final approach: its primary missile and gun tubes were trashed, venting atmosphere to space in those compartments. A proximity hit near the stern took out four of its eight massive main thrusters and several system modules at the rear of the ship. And perhaps worst of all, one Pigeon managed to zero in on its vulnerable front bridge, the explosion emptying its contents and occupants into vacuum.
Luckily for Ten Whiskers Ditvish, none of them hit the armored flag bridge where he was in the belly of the ship, vindicating the Znosian Navy’s practice of separating the two for redundancy.
Nonetheless, Ditvish fell to the ground as the simultaneous impacts temporarily overloaded the inertial compensators and shook the ship to its core. Sparks flew around him, and he smelled a pungent stink as the automated fire suppression systems kicked in to save as much as they possibly could.
He slowly climbed to his feet and looked at the scene around him. A sensor officer was spraying foam at a small fire with a handheld device, successfully extinguishing it in seconds. Several other of his crew were recovering and returning to their stations with remarkable calm. After all, they were elite, well-trained spacers and officers of the Znosian Navy.
Ditvish did the same, propping himself back into his command chair with slight effort. He operated his console in a concussed daze. One glance at the status board told him that the 1841 was a write-off. It wasn’t going to be combat effective ever again. At least its life pod systems were working, and he watched in relief as dozens then hundreds of crew members in the damaged sections of the ship climbed into theirs and ejected into the relative safety of vacuum.
He checked up on the other ships: several others were hit. Six had outright detonated: no survivors nor signals came from them. Two were irreparably damaged, their remaining crews also abandoning their ships in an orderly fashion. And another six had visible fires or scorch marks on their damaged hulls, but those crews were still valiantly fighting to keep their ships alive.
Ditvish noticed that the missile didn’t go for all his ships, just the ones on the outer edge on his sensor board— wait, the missiles—
To his horror, several more dozen missiles they’d detected were still active, and they were going for—
He looked at his computer officer’s station and yelled, “We have to warn them!”
She yelled something back at him, but he realized that he couldn’t hear her. Hitting the floor must have injured his hearing organs. He yelled again, hoping that she could still hear. “Warn the orbital support fleet! The logistics and fire support ships! Evasive maneuvers and take cover in the atmosphere!”
Her lips moved again. He got out of his chair and stumbled over to her in a daze, trying to hear what she was saying.
She was saying something.
It must be important.
“… not reach them. Our communication array… destroyed! Ten Whiskers, we need to get… We don’t have much time!”
Ditvish finally understood her from reading her lips. He didn’t respond. Just numbly watched the planetary battlemap of Datsot on the main screen.
It didn’t take long. They were completely defenseless.
The remaining missiles plucked every last orbital fire support and logistics transport ship out of the skies of Datsot. Most detonated; a few left behind trails of black smoke as they sank uncontrollably towards the planet’s surface.
Then, Ditvish’s hind legs gave out and he crumpled onto the bridge floor.
He was dimly aware of one of his subordinates dragging him towards the bridge escape pod as he blacked out.
“That we will, Loenda. That we will.”
Coercion or retaliation against Malgeir employees who refuse to participate in trust fall exercises may be considered investigable or actionable violations of workplace safety regulations by the Republic Office of Occupational Safety or anti-discrimination regulations by the Office of Equal Opportunity.
Whistleblowers are entitled to up to 25% of monetary penalties recovered. If you see something, say something.
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Chapter 53: Apostasy
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MNS Oengro
“How’s the fuel status of the Oengro?” Grionc asked.Vastae, eyes glued to his console, replied without hesitation. “We have just enough blink fuel for one jump, but we aren’t going anywhere once we get to the other side without a refueling ship.”
“One blink is all we need. And if the Oengro is good to go, the other, smaller ships should be fine too then,” Grionc responded, bringing up the system map on screen with her paws. “Four minutes to blink limit. Have the ship’s crew secure themselves for the blink and get ready for shift change to execute post-blink procedures when we arrive.”
“Yes, High Fleet Commander,” Vastae acknowledged with a brisk nod.
Suddenly, three quarters of the sensor readings on her sensor board disappeared, and the fidelity on the remaining took a nose-dive in accuracy. A low murmur ran through the sensor stations, which she waved away with a paw. “No need to panic. It looks like our friends jumped before we did, as arranged. Our sensors are on their own for now.”
Vastae swallowed hard. “Are you certain about this plan, High Fleet Commander?” Vastae asked nervously. “Not that I don’t trust what Sphinx— Speinfoent cooked up, but this is a last-minute plan modification we haven’t rehearsed. And with our fuel situation, we only get one chance here.”
Grionc put a calm smile on her face. “Remember that exercise we did with the Grass Eaters a while back?”
“Which one?”
4 months ago
“Since it’s New Years, it’s time to have some fun,” Mark announced with a grin to Grionc and the rest of the curious bridge crew. “I’m going to show you guys a fun teambuilding exercise we did on Terra.”“Teambuilding exercise?” Grionc asked suspiciously.
Mark didn’t let her skepticism color his enthusiasm. “Well, I’m not sure how much teambuilding it does, but it is fun. And I have never seen aliens do it. In fact, this might be the first time this has ever been done outside of Sol!”
“Fine, fine. What are we doing?” she relented.
“This exercise is what we call the trust fall.”
“The trust fall?” Grionc repeated. “It’s about building trust? Like trust in your crew?”
Mark nodded vigorously. “It’s supposed to. I’m not sure if it truly works, but it truly is fun. You and I can demonstrate for the crew.”
Grionc sighed. “Sure. What do I do?”
“Come stand over here,” Mark pointed to a spot on the floor, and then stood in front of her with his back to her. “What I’m going to do is I’m going cross my arms… like this… and on the count of three, I’m going to fall backwards, and you have to catch me when I do.”
“Huh. That seems dangerous. What happens to you if I don’t catch you?” Grionc asked, mild concern creeping into her voice.
“Traumatic brain injury, probably. Something similar for your species too, I assume,” Mark shrugged nonchalantly. “But don’t worry about that. We have good medical facilities on the Nile, and you will catch me. That is the point of the exercise. Alright, you ready?”
Sensing his insistence, Grionc sighed and held her paws out, bracing herself. “Ready.”
“One, two, three…” Mark did as he described, crossing his arms, and falling backwards into Grionc’s outstretched arms. She grunted with slight effort as she intercepted his fall and then gently lowered him onto the ground, “Oomph. Huh. You Terrans are lighter than you look.”
“Yeah, my bones are nano-grafted,” Mark grinned, bounced up to full height, and circled around her back. “Okay, now it’s your turn.”
Grionc crossed her arms and held her breath for a moment. “One, two…”
She didn’t move. A few seconds later, she let go of her held breath. “I can’t.”
“What? Why not?”
Grionc muttered excuses. “No, it’s just— my tail— our balance mechanisms are different, I can’t just fall backwards on purpose—”
Mark insisted. “It’s not that difficult. Just let go. Don’t worry. I’m right here. I promise I’ll catch you.”
She held her breath once again, psyching herself up for a few more moments.
“One, two… doh, I can’t.”
Mark lightly patted her on the shoulder. “That’s okay… don’t worry… Hey, Speinfoent, come over here and give her a light shove. Alright, on the count of three. One, two—”
“Oh, no. Don’t you dare! No! Don’t touch— Yowwwwwww!”
ZNS 2228
“They’ve blinked,” the computer officer reported.“Did we catch their blink vector?” Skvanu asked urgently.
“Calculating… got it! We triangulated their blink vector and probable destination! Entering it into our fleet navigation computers,” she responded, paws flying over the controls.
“How long before we can execute the blink?” Skvanu pressed.
“Two minutes before we hit the limit ourselves,” she replied, not looking up.
“Good, get the crews ready and start the countdown. I want to blink the millisecond we are clear of the system limit. And get all systems ready for what’s on the other side. They almost definitely have an ambush waiting for us. I’m guessing that’s where the remaining nine or so squadrons of Sixth Fleet are waiting for us,” Skvanu said confidently. “Twelve Lesser Predator squadrons to twenty-six of ours. Doesn’t matter how many upgrades they have, we will defeat them, especially since the first three will be within railgun range. Get those gunnery crews and point defense computers ready.”
“Blinking in seventy seconds,” she announced. “Sixty-five seconds—” Suddenly, she stood up, “Eight Whiskers, our FTL communications are open again! Both Datsot and Gruccud have just responded to our last message!”
Skvanu spun around to face her. “That makes sense. Whatever device they used to stop our communications must have been on one of the ships that just blinked out. Is there any priority intelligence from either?”
“Yes! Datsot has an emergency transmission for us. It’s from Ten Whiskers Ditvish!”
“What is it?” Skvanu asked, his voice serious.
She began to read. “Lesser Predators have entered Datsot system in force. Nine squadrons spotted so far. They may attempt to engage our garrison force there… His guidance is that we return immediately to trap these aggressor ships, but leaves the decision up to you…”
Skvanu absorbed the information with shock. If those ships are really in Datsot, they must not be on the other side of wherever the Oengro is blinking. And with that context, this now smelled exactly like a planned trap.
He thought out loud. “This must be what the Lesser Predators planned from the start. If we chase, we have no idea what they have on the other side. There may be refueling ships. They may have already gotten away. By the Prophecy, they may even be sacrificing three squadrons to get us to blink through a singularity or anomaly. But wait… If we return to Datsot immediately, we might catch those squadrons split from the rest of their ships and cripple their fleet!”
Having made up his mind, he shouted urgently at the navigation station, “Navigation, hold the blink!”
“Halting the blink procedures.”
“A handful of ships have already completed the blink!” the computer officer reported, almost in a panic.
“Cease blink procedures! Fleet-wide, cease the blink!”
The order went out immediately, and it was a testament to the discipline of the Znosian Navy that most squadrons managed to stop the countdown just seconds before it went through.
“How many ships went through?” Skvanu asked urgently.
“We managed to stop most of our ships, Eight Whiskers. Only five combat ships from Squadron 6 went through.”
He sighed in relief. “Only the Prophecy can help them now… Turn us around. Let’s get back to Datsot.”
TRNS Nile
“I think we are in sufficiently deep space,” Captain Gregor Guerrero said to his crew. “Drop us out.”“Yes, captain. Emergency drop-out in five… four… three… two… one… now.”
The ship shuddered and creaked as the emergency-stop was activated. The blink engine wound down, forcing the ship back into normal space.
Gregor turned to his navigation officer. “How far from Plaunsollib did we travel, in regular space?”
“Two months on their Alcubierre drives if they combat burn with all their fuel. Four if they plan on stopping,” she replied immediately. “They’d be going too fast to aerobrake anyway.”
“Good,” Guerrero said, gluing his eyes to his sensor board. Ships in FTL are difficult to detect, even on gravidar, but the state-of-the-art technology on the Nile gave them a few seconds of warning.
A few seconds later, the sensor officer’s voice cut through the tense silence. “I’ve spotted the Puppers in blink! All of them, tight formation. They’ll pass us in about fifteen seconds.”
Guerrero nodded his pleasure. “Good, let them pass. Tell me when they’re out of range.”
The seconds ticked by. “Ten… five… they’ve passed our position… and now they’re out of range.”
“Now, switch on the blink disruption field,” he ordered.
The hum of the ship’s ambient noise went up an octave, signaling maximum power drain as the ship’s thirstiest system kicked in.
Gregor looked at his information panel. “Full emissions control. EMCOM Alpha. Deploy the FTL jammer drone and then shut off our engines. If things go well, we’re about to be joined by half the fucking Bunny Navy in a minute.”
“Aye, Captain. EMCOM Alpha.” The rest of the crew nodded, working their controls with practiced competence.
“Jammer drone out. You think they’ve got wild weasels, captain?”
“Unlikely, but we take no chances. If they don’t…” He shrugged. “… we’ll just get our drone back later.”
A tense minute passed, then the sensor officer reported, “Captain, Znosian ships spotted on gravidar! Two… three… five in total… They’ve just been forced out of blink.”
“Five squadrons?”
“No, Captain, five ships.”
Gregor furrowed his brow, surprised, and took another glance at his console. “Only five ships?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Alright, keep the disruption field up, and analyze the drive signatures on them. Maybe one of them is this Skvanu guy we’re supposed to hit,” he speculated hopefully.
“Aye, sir,” the executive officer said, shaking her head in disappointment as well. “It was a good plan. Could have stranded their whole fleet out here.”
“Well, bad luck— these things happen in war, Lieutenant. Don’t worry. We’ll get them next time. How are the guests we did get doing?”
“Out of blink fuel, as expected. They’ve been dumping cargo in an organized fashion. I think they’re planning to see if they can reach Plaunsollib with their subspace drives in a reasonable amount of time and call triple A.” Then, she asked, “Where do you think the rest run off to?”
“Probably Datsot,” Guerrero guessed. “Phone Sphinx and tell him he’s probably got the whole shit storm heading his way, ETA about a couple days. Get the estimates to him.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Now, we just need to silence the witnesses so we can use this trick again. Bridge to CIC: let’s keep it simple. One Kestrel for each of the targets. We’ll swiss-cheese them with railguns after. Just in case.”
“Aye, Captain. We’re not dropping off those TRO drones here, are we?”
“Nah. Too much work. No one is finding these guys ever again anyway.”
MNS Trassau
“I just got off a call with the Nile,” Loenda announced. “Looks like the Grass Eaters have discovered our ruse in the other system. The main enemy fleet is heading our way right this second.”Speinfoent sighed, and suggested, “If we burn closer for just half a day more—”
“No more,” Loenda declared. “We are already risking nine squadrons coming this far into the Datsot system limit.”
“Alright,” Speinfoent agreed reluctantly. “We can still give them a present they won’t forget any time soon.”
“That, we will. That we will.” Loenda turned to her console. “All ships in Battlegroup 2, dump your payloads as quietly as you can. Then wait half an hour to change your vector and make your way to the system blink limit.”
“Yes, Battlegroup Commander.”
ZNS 1841
“Ten Whiskers, the Lesser Predators are turning around,” the computer officer declared, doing her best to hide her relief.“What? Where are they heading now?” Ditvish asked, confounded.
“Towards the shortest path to the system blink limit, I think.”
“That’s it? They’re just leaving now?”
“Combat computer speculates that they might have seen that Eight Whiskers Skvanu is heading back to Datsot, so they are breaking off the attack,” the officer offered.
“That’s… not very Lesser Predator of them, but very logical,” he admitted. “They must have realized their plan failed and are now cutting their losses.”
He didn’t mention that his fleet was the one that came out behind, losing yet another precious supply convoy and then sending the whole combat fleet on a wild predator chase for nothing. That State Security goon might start to become a problem if he didn’t spin this well in his after-action report.
A few hours later, a foreboding feeling coloring his mood, he ordered, “Sensors, boost our radars towards where they changed vectors. I want to check to see if they dropped any drones or traps.”
“Yes, Ten Whiskers.”
The 1841 boosted its radar towards the direction, blaring out signals on maximum strength and—
“Incoming… missiles? Ten Whiskers, many missiles! Dozens! Over a hundred! They’re well within our minimum abort range!”
“By the Prophecy!” Ditvish exclaimed. “All ships, execute combat burn away from them! Countermeasures and fire counter-missiles, at the ready! Track those missiles!”
Fortunately, the garrison fleet was still in high readiness from before. Their engines were ready to light up to full acceleration immediately.
Unfortunately, the missiles were already close. In desperation, his ships began dumping their entire loads of radar chaffs and flares into space behind them as they maneuvered away from the threat. Counter-missiles sped out of their tubes towards their rear, relying on their motherships’ sensors and radars to find the tiny alien missiles for them to engage.
While they were indeed several times outside of the maximum effective range of the Znosian ships at launch, missiles technically did have unlimited ballistic ranges in space — if their enemies were not moving and they did not need to constantly fire their thrusters to adjust course. Relying on a short first burn and then inertia, they flew most of the way towards the stationary enemy fleet completely undetected. By the time they were spotted, it was too late; the Znosians were well within their effective ranges.
Their intelligence chips might not have been super-Terran state-of-the-art computers, but the Pigeons had no problem realizing that they were discovered. They had been tracking the enemy targets using passive infrared sensors that did not alert enemy threat sensors to their presence. But the second that the targets started dropping flares to blind them, they activated their primitive late twenty-first century radars and homed in onto the priority targets they’d been given. Their main thrusters began their burns, adjusting their vectors to intercept the now-finally-moving enemy ships.
Then, they saw the incoming counter-missiles — fired by the enemies sporadically, obviously in panic.
The makers of the Pigeons might not have bothered to include next-generation electronic dazzlers on them, but penetration aid on missiles had been standard in Terran warfare for a century. They littered the space they were in with chaff and their own bright flares, coordinating with the other missiles in the area with short range laser communication to ensure that none in the swarm would confuse or disrupt each other.
The Znosian counter-missiles were certainly confused and disrupted though. Many veered off into phantom signals. Some lucky ones did manage to find their targets. When a few of their comrades dropped off their impromptu mesh net, the Pigeons constantly corresponded with laser communications to re-prioritize their targeting.
At the top of the list was the fattest, easiest target of them all: the enemy flagship 1841.
Seconds before impact, the missiles finalized their targets, and they spent every drop and fume of their remaining fuel on terminal maneuvers.
The Znosians’ close in weapons systems had milliseconds to engage the incoming threats. They performed admirably… for trying to deal with this unknown alien threat for the first time. A couple dozen more missiles were plucked out of space, but it was not enough.
Not nearly.
The rest slipped through the net.
The massive Thorn-class battleship took fourteen hits to varying systems that the missiles visually identified as “that looks pretty important” on their final approach: its primary missile and gun tubes were trashed, venting atmosphere to space in those compartments. A proximity hit near the stern took out four of its eight massive main thrusters and several system modules at the rear of the ship. And perhaps worst of all, one Pigeon managed to zero in on its vulnerable front bridge, the explosion emptying its contents and occupants into vacuum.
Luckily for Ten Whiskers Ditvish, none of them hit the armored flag bridge where he was in the belly of the ship, vindicating the Znosian Navy’s practice of separating the two for redundancy.
Nonetheless, Ditvish fell to the ground as the simultaneous impacts temporarily overloaded the inertial compensators and shook the ship to its core. Sparks flew around him, and he smelled a pungent stink as the automated fire suppression systems kicked in to save as much as they possibly could.
He slowly climbed to his feet and looked at the scene around him. A sensor officer was spraying foam at a small fire with a handheld device, successfully extinguishing it in seconds. Several other of his crew were recovering and returning to their stations with remarkable calm. After all, they were elite, well-trained spacers and officers of the Znosian Navy.
Ditvish did the same, propping himself back into his command chair with slight effort. He operated his console in a concussed daze. One glance at the status board told him that the 1841 was a write-off. It wasn’t going to be combat effective ever again. At least its life pod systems were working, and he watched in relief as dozens then hundreds of crew members in the damaged sections of the ship climbed into theirs and ejected into the relative safety of vacuum.
He checked up on the other ships: several others were hit. Six had outright detonated: no survivors nor signals came from them. Two were irreparably damaged, their remaining crews also abandoning their ships in an orderly fashion. And another six had visible fires or scorch marks on their damaged hulls, but those crews were still valiantly fighting to keep their ships alive.
Ditvish noticed that the missile didn’t go for all his ships, just the ones on the outer edge on his sensor board— wait, the missiles—
To his horror, several more dozen missiles they’d detected were still active, and they were going for—
He looked at his computer officer’s station and yelled, “We have to warn them!”
She yelled something back at him, but he realized that he couldn’t hear her. Hitting the floor must have injured his hearing organs. He yelled again, hoping that she could still hear. “Warn the orbital support fleet! The logistics and fire support ships! Evasive maneuvers and take cover in the atmosphere!”
Her lips moved again. He got out of his chair and stumbled over to her in a daze, trying to hear what she was saying.
She was saying something.
It must be important.
“… not reach them. Our communication array… destroyed! Ten Whiskers, we need to get… We don’t have much time!”
Ditvish finally understood her from reading her lips. He didn’t respond. Just numbly watched the planetary battlemap of Datsot on the main screen.
It didn’t take long. They were completely defenseless.
The remaining missiles plucked every last orbital fire support and logistics transport ship out of the skies of Datsot. Most detonated; a few left behind trails of black smoke as they sank uncontrollably towards the planet’s surface.
Then, Ditvish’s hind legs gave out and he crumpled onto the bridge floor.
He was dimly aware of one of his subordinates dragging him towards the bridge escape pod as he blacked out.
MNS Trassau
“Don’t worry, Speinfoent,” Loenda said, putting her paws around the junior commander looking glumly at the image of Datsot retreating from their view as the rest of the bridge cheered the better-than-anticipated success of the raid. “We’ll come back, and next time, we’re coming back for everything.”“That we will, Loenda. That we will.”
Meta
There is no research that shows the effectiveness of trust falls for building trust in a team and plenty of research showing that falling backwards from a full standing position without adequate bracing or padding can lead to serious brain, spinal, and back injuries.Coercion or retaliation against Malgeir employees who refuse to participate in trust fall exercises may be considered investigable or actionable violations of workplace safety regulations by the Republic Office of Occupational Safety or anti-discrimination regulations by the Office of Equal Opportunity.
Whistleblowers are entitled to up to 25% of monetary penalties recovered. If you see something, say something.
Chapter 53: Apostasy
2024.05.15 18:46 Plus_Mastodon_1168 AITA for letting a friend's place be damaged to the tune of a couple thousand?
for a brief background, i'm staying at the unused condo of friend A for about half ($250) the going rental rate ($500). i take care of the place and get a discount, he gets a hassle free tenant.
recently the neighbor situation became a problem but friend B came home from overseas (work situation) and we had a mini reunion sort of with A and a bunch of others. B has an unused condo near A, better location and amenities, and the going rate is about $800. thing is, it's been sitting empty since he left because he can't find a tenant he can trust. because of that, he had to come home to renovate it because of issues with being empty (smoke alarm going off for no reason, termites, a window that broke and let rain and all the elements inside and no one noticed for months) and fixed it up for a significant amount. i offered to move to his place for the same deal i had with A (with permission from A of course), half the going rate ($400). he said sure, we can check out the place the next day, and discuss it.
i went on an ocular of the condo and i liked it enough to say i could move in ASAP. B however wanted me to pay $950 as he just spent a shitload renovating it, and felt i was taking advantage of him with my offer of $400. while i liked his place, i didn't like it enough to be paying 4x of what i was currently paying and declined, telling him if he had no intention of giving it at $400, he could have spared me the trouble and i was a little annoyed he'd wasted my saturday (i had had plans prior). he argued that he was sure i would change my mind once i saw the place since he made it really nice and easily worth the $950.
because i lived close by however, he asked me if he could leave a set of keys with me and if he could coordinate with me to show prospective tenants around (his sister has another set but she lives about 2 hours away). i said yes, but with a minimum 1 week notice because i needed to fit it into my schedule and i couldn't do it at the drop of a hat.
he want back overseas later that day and just a day after, called me at 1am. i checked my messages and he was asking me to check out his condo because the smoke alarm had gone off again. i was up at 1am, feeling annoyed, sleepy and petty, so i told him he wouldn't be having this issue if i was staying at his place, to go bother his sister instead, put my phone on silent and went back to sleep. he called like another 20x because apparently the smoke alarm wouldn't stop. i woke up around 10am to see a lot of angry messages.
apparently he tried his sister after i wouldn't pickup, who went to the unit first thing in the morning. when she arrived around 8am, the unit had suffered significant water damage because the sprinklers had gone off around 5am or so and soaked everything. apparently building maintenance could've gotten in and fixed it before the sprinklers had gone off if i'd just taken 10mins to drive over to let them in.
now he's telling everyone i let his unit burn on purpose because he wouldn't give me a discount on rent. AITA?
submitted by Plus_Mastodon_1168 to AmItheAsshole [link] [comments]
recently the neighbor situation became a problem but friend B came home from overseas (work situation) and we had a mini reunion sort of with A and a bunch of others. B has an unused condo near A, better location and amenities, and the going rate is about $800. thing is, it's been sitting empty since he left because he can't find a tenant he can trust. because of that, he had to come home to renovate it because of issues with being empty (smoke alarm going off for no reason, termites, a window that broke and let rain and all the elements inside and no one noticed for months) and fixed it up for a significant amount. i offered to move to his place for the same deal i had with A (with permission from A of course), half the going rate ($400). he said sure, we can check out the place the next day, and discuss it.
i went on an ocular of the condo and i liked it enough to say i could move in ASAP. B however wanted me to pay $950 as he just spent a shitload renovating it, and felt i was taking advantage of him with my offer of $400. while i liked his place, i didn't like it enough to be paying 4x of what i was currently paying and declined, telling him if he had no intention of giving it at $400, he could have spared me the trouble and i was a little annoyed he'd wasted my saturday (i had had plans prior). he argued that he was sure i would change my mind once i saw the place since he made it really nice and easily worth the $950.
because i lived close by however, he asked me if he could leave a set of keys with me and if he could coordinate with me to show prospective tenants around (his sister has another set but she lives about 2 hours away). i said yes, but with a minimum 1 week notice because i needed to fit it into my schedule and i couldn't do it at the drop of a hat.
he want back overseas later that day and just a day after, called me at 1am. i checked my messages and he was asking me to check out his condo because the smoke alarm had gone off again. i was up at 1am, feeling annoyed, sleepy and petty, so i told him he wouldn't be having this issue if i was staying at his place, to go bother his sister instead, put my phone on silent and went back to sleep. he called like another 20x because apparently the smoke alarm wouldn't stop. i woke up around 10am to see a lot of angry messages.
apparently he tried his sister after i wouldn't pickup, who went to the unit first thing in the morning. when she arrived around 8am, the unit had suffered significant water damage because the sprinklers had gone off around 5am or so and soaked everything. apparently building maintenance could've gotten in and fixed it before the sprinklers had gone off if i'd just taken 10mins to drive over to let them in.
now he's telling everyone i let his unit burn on purpose because he wouldn't give me a discount on rent. AITA?
2024.05.15 18:45 prkskier Chase Ink strategy after recon denial
Hey all, I'm currently at 4/24 so wanted to jump on the Ink train for a few months until my 5/24 stats drop a little lower before opening new personal cards. I applied for the Chase Ink Preferred a couple weeks ago and was initially denied, so I called up recon and asked for a review. They asked a few questions about my business and then put it into review again. I just got a 2nd denial letter with the following reasons:
For 4, my business is a small Etsy shop that I've been running for about 2 years now, so maybe their just being more strict on business metrics? Regarding 1, seems strange to me but not sure what I can do about that one? For 2, I never carry a balance (interest incurred) but do let me monthly statements post before paying the full balance. Finally, for 3, I guess I can see this as I did open the USBAR and the Venture X earlier this year.
So, I guess I'm looking for what my next steps should be, I feel like I see a couple options:
submitted by prkskier to CreditCards [link] [comments]
- You have too many active accounts or too much available credit
- Too many accounts with balances
- Credit report shows too many recently opened accounts
- Business too new
For 4, my business is a small Etsy shop that I've been running for about 2 years now, so maybe their just being more strict on business metrics? Regarding 1, seems strange to me but not sure what I can do about that one? For 2, I never carry a balance (interest incurred) but do let me monthly statements post before paying the full balance. Finally, for 3, I guess I can see this as I did open the USBAR and the Venture X earlier this year.
So, I guess I'm looking for what my next steps should be, I feel like I see a couple options:
- I have another small business (freelance software engineering) that's been on hiatus for almost a year but I totally will take on new clients when they come up. I've been doing this for longer and it makes more money when I get a job, so maybe this would look better in Chase's eyes? How would Chase feel about me applying for another Ink card with the same social but different business?
- Forget about Chase Inks and apply for other business cards like AMEX, US Bank, etc. I've been approved for an AMEX business card for this business and just opened a US Bank checking account for this business as well, so maybe they'd be more favorable to issuing a credit card.
- Forget about business cards and just apply for a new personal card (like the CSP with its higher SUB right now).
2024.05.15 18:41 oxtailsfortwo Identity Thief helped by Credit Karma?
Posting this to see if anyone else had their identity stolen using Credit Karma.
Background: An identity thief got a hold of some of my personal info (SIN, DOB, Old Address, Name).
Step 1 was to try and open a credit monitoring account using Equifax. But Equifax denied the account because Thief registered w/ a phone number and email that did not belong to me.
Step 2 was opening a Credit Karma account. This time it was successful despite supplying the same phone number and email that failed Equifax's verification. CK uses TransUnion.
With my credit karma report in hand, the thief learned a lot about me, including all my lenders/utility providers, registered addresses (they were using the my old address before), balance, limit, account status, payment history.
Thief was able to use the info Credit Karma disclosed to create a more realistic profile of me, including applying for credit cards with a phone number that was only 1 digit off my real number. They applied to for credit with a bunch of banks that I did not have a relationship with to make it harder for me to discover the breach. They successfully opened 1 credit card in my name before I was able to put a stop to everything.
I'm furious that CK disclosed all this additional information to someone fraudulently registering a free account in my name. I don't think CK verification checks are up to snuff. I believe they violated various privacy laws in Canada in disclosing this info. The whole process has been a time consuming nightmare for me.
On an individual basis, I can't see this being worth a lawyers time. But I'd like know if there were other victims who have been burned by Credit Karma's shoddy security practices. Maybe we can start a class action lawsuit?!
submitted by oxtailsfortwo to PersonalFinanceCanada [link] [comments]
Background: An identity thief got a hold of some of my personal info (SIN, DOB, Old Address, Name).
Step 1 was to try and open a credit monitoring account using Equifax. But Equifax denied the account because Thief registered w/ a phone number and email that did not belong to me.
Step 2 was opening a Credit Karma account. This time it was successful despite supplying the same phone number and email that failed Equifax's verification. CK uses TransUnion.
With my credit karma report in hand, the thief learned a lot about me, including all my lenders/utility providers, registered addresses (they were using the my old address before), balance, limit, account status, payment history.
Thief was able to use the info Credit Karma disclosed to create a more realistic profile of me, including applying for credit cards with a phone number that was only 1 digit off my real number. They applied to for credit with a bunch of banks that I did not have a relationship with to make it harder for me to discover the breach. They successfully opened 1 credit card in my name before I was able to put a stop to everything.
I'm furious that CK disclosed all this additional information to someone fraudulently registering a free account in my name. I don't think CK verification checks are up to snuff. I believe they violated various privacy laws in Canada in disclosing this info. The whole process has been a time consuming nightmare for me.
On an individual basis, I can't see this being worth a lawyers time. But I'd like know if there were other victims who have been burned by Credit Karma's shoddy security practices. Maybe we can start a class action lawsuit?!
2024.05.15 18:40 writteninlilac My response to a thread where my PM was posted!
So, I sent a PM to someone after he asked a stupid question. I called him out on it, but I did it privately.
He posted it publicly in the filmmakers sub, and a bunch of people, who don't know what they are talking about, fell for it hook, line and sinker (and the people who supported my truthful answer all got downvoted for not being part of their hivemind).
The thread is gone now after the OP broke Reddit's terms of service and is harassing me by PM, but here is the thread:
https://www.reddit.com/Filmmakers/comments/1csj61d/the_hate_you_get_for_asking_simple_questions_is/
Below is my main response to it and all of them (and I'll maybe try to draw a few of them here to see my reply by tagging their usernames):
Hey, I'm the guy that wrote a private message to the OP, rather than call him out publicly (which is the last time I'll ever do him a favor).
Furthermore, as a working writer, the people telling me I'm wrong is laughable.
The OP, who has never written a script before in his life, and did zero research into the industry, is looking for a quick and easy break rather than putting in an ounce of work:
"Can I simply come up with an idea and just pitch the show and sell it and make lots of money while others do the hard work" is essentially the question he was asking, and you all fell for it.
No, he can't, is the answer. And the people egging him on to continue down this false track are 100% wrong.
People like myself and others have spent YEARS putting in the work into our craft, having written endless script after script after script, most of which lead absolutely nowhere, for the longest time. Now, eventually, after doing this for long enough, and gaining endless practise at this craft, you start to get good. Good enough to be hired as part of a writing team. After several more years of grinding away working within a team on multiple television shows, with enough credits and experience to your name, you can then find yourself in a position to write your own original material and pitch it. And if you're extremely lucky, you might even sell a pitch and get hired to run the room, because the money people trust that you can actually write a tv show, not just come up with ideas for a tv show, and not just the pilot itself, but also multiple episodes after that, guiding a room full of other writers to create a show under your singular vision.
The reality is a long hard slog, that some of the best writers in the business often don't ever reach. That's how hard it is. That's the reality is I was giving the OP. The guy who tramples in without a care in the world and doesn't want to put once an ounce of effort in, or even the most basic research himself, while others slave away at this business for years.
And the people saying how wrong I am, are, hilariously, wrong themselves. They just don't know it.
Studios, producers and production companies do NOT buy completed seasons of scripts from writers, especially writers who are new to the industry.
Professional writers write only a pilot script. That is it. The pilot script has to sell the show. No other episodes. Along with the pilot episode, you are often expected to provide a pitch deck or show bible, giving a grander vision of the series. Here, you explore the shape of the series, characters, character arcs, future episode, future seasons, some include images, and all kinds of other stuff.
People who write more episodes than the first one are laughed out of the room (which they'll never get into anyway), because that is not how things are done in the business.
Hey, filmmakers, can I pick up an iPhone, make a feature film this afternoon and then win an Oscar for it?
No? How hard can it be?
I don't actually need to go and learn the craft of filmmaking like the rest of you, do I?
Come on, guys, surely it is all that hard. Maybe someone should actually help me out and give me a reality check, by PM, and then I'll post it here and you can try to mock the guy and stalk him in retaliation if you like. What do you say?
Tagging a bunch of random people from that thread:
u/ThaiLassInTheSouth u/zweigson u/root88 u/therealhilaryeduff u/thisMatrix_isReal u/maxmouze u/Emergency_Pay3110 u/fthisfthatfnofyou u/keep_trying_username u/holdontoyourbuttress u/rjmacready u/low_flying_aircraft u/SanitariumJosh u/Speedwolf89 u/Less_Boat7175 u/23trilobite u/CatcherInMySyntax u/djkmart u/Dull-Woodpecker3900 u/openroadopenmic u/Cinemaphreak u/Limp_Career6634 u/Ashamed_Ladder6161 u/Friend-Haver u/WolfensteinSmith u/gynoceros u/Big_F_Dawg u/lovetheoceanfl u/RealTeaStu u/VNoir1995
submitted by writteninlilac to everything [link] [comments]
He posted it publicly in the filmmakers sub, and a bunch of people, who don't know what they are talking about, fell for it hook, line and sinker (and the people who supported my truthful answer all got downvoted for not being part of their hivemind).
The thread is gone now after the OP broke Reddit's terms of service and is harassing me by PM, but here is the thread:
https://www.reddit.com/Filmmakers/comments/1csj61d/the_hate_you_get_for_asking_simple_questions_is/
Below is my main response to it and all of them (and I'll maybe try to draw a few of them here to see my reply by tagging their usernames):
Furthermore, as a working writer, the people telling me I'm wrong is laughable.
The OP, who has never written a script before in his life, and did zero research into the industry, is looking for a quick and easy break rather than putting in an ounce of work:
"Can I simply come up with an idea and just pitch the show and sell it and make lots of money while others do the hard work" is essentially the question he was asking, and you all fell for it.
No, he can't, is the answer. And the people egging him on to continue down this false track are 100% wrong.
People like myself and others have spent YEARS putting in the work into our craft, having written endless script after script after script, most of which lead absolutely nowhere, for the longest time. Now, eventually, after doing this for long enough, and gaining endless practise at this craft, you start to get good. Good enough to be hired as part of a writing team. After several more years of grinding away working within a team on multiple television shows, with enough credits and experience to your name, you can then find yourself in a position to write your own original material and pitch it. And if you're extremely lucky, you might even sell a pitch and get hired to run the room, because the money people trust that you can actually write a tv show, not just come up with ideas for a tv show, and not just the pilot itself, but also multiple episodes after that, guiding a room full of other writers to create a show under your singular vision.
The reality is a long hard slog, that some of the best writers in the business often don't ever reach. That's how hard it is. That's the reality is I was giving the OP. The guy who tramples in without a care in the world and doesn't want to put once an ounce of effort in, or even the most basic research himself, while others slave away at this business for years.
And the people saying how wrong I am, are, hilariously, wrong themselves. They just don't know it.
Studios, producers and production companies do NOT buy completed seasons of scripts from writers, especially writers who are new to the industry.
Professional writers write only a pilot script. That is it. The pilot script has to sell the show. No other episodes. Along with the pilot episode, you are often expected to provide a pitch deck or show bible, giving a grander vision of the series. Here, you explore the shape of the series, characters, character arcs, future episode, future seasons, some include images, and all kinds of other stuff.
People who write more episodes than the first one are laughed out of the room (which they'll never get into anyway), because that is not how things are done in the business.
Hey, filmmakers, can I pick up an iPhone, make a feature film this afternoon and then win an Oscar for it?
No? How hard can it be?
I don't actually need to go and learn the craft of filmmaking like the rest of you, do I?
Come on, guys, surely it is all that hard. Maybe someone should actually help me out and give me a reality check, by PM, and then I'll post it here and you can try to mock the guy and stalk him in retaliation if you like. What do you say?
u/ThaiLassInTheSouth u/zweigson u/root88 u/therealhilaryeduff u/thisMatrix_isReal u/maxmouze u/Emergency_Pay3110 u/fthisfthatfnofyou u/keep_trying_username u/holdontoyourbuttress u/rjmacready u/low_flying_aircraft u/SanitariumJosh u/Speedwolf89 u/Less_Boat7175 u/23trilobite u/CatcherInMySyntax u/djkmart u/Dull-Woodpecker3900 u/openroadopenmic u/Cinemaphreak u/Limp_Career6634 u/Ashamed_Ladder6161 u/Friend-Haver u/WolfensteinSmith u/gynoceros u/Big_F_Dawg u/lovetheoceanfl u/RealTeaStu u/VNoir1995
2024.05.15 18:32 mike3486 Do we need to file an old 1099-g for tax year 2022 with return?
My partner didn’t file taxes for a few years in a row and we are trying to get him caught up. For tax year 2022, he took FMLA leave and was paid through an insurance company that the state works with to pay employees for a state medical leave program.
I have his W2 from his employer that year but when I check his transcript on IRS.gov website, I can see that he was issued a 1099-G from that insurance company, which includes the dollar amount he received but some details are truncated (eg full name of the issuer of the 1099-g, Tax number). It shows that no tax from that income source was withheld.
I am using FreeTaxUSA to try to prepare his return, and he does not have the 1099-g form. Is this something I need in order to file? Can I just report the income that I see on the IRS website or will need to submit the 1099-g to actually file? I’ve been trying to get it online but can’t figure out where to get it from.
He will almost certainly owe taxes for the year rather than get a refund, not sure if that makes a difference.
Thanks!
submitted by mike3486 to tax [link] [comments]
I have his W2 from his employer that year but when I check his transcript on IRS.gov website, I can see that he was issued a 1099-G from that insurance company, which includes the dollar amount he received but some details are truncated (eg full name of the issuer of the 1099-g, Tax number). It shows that no tax from that income source was withheld.
I am using FreeTaxUSA to try to prepare his return, and he does not have the 1099-g form. Is this something I need in order to file? Can I just report the income that I see on the IRS website or will need to submit the 1099-g to actually file? I’ve been trying to get it online but can’t figure out where to get it from.
He will almost certainly owe taxes for the year rather than get a refund, not sure if that makes a difference.
Thanks!
2024.05.15 18:16 DrPepperMadam Remote video editor job scam- Awestruck
I have never had to deal with something like this before, I thought I knew EVERY tell for a scam. But I got sucked into one and I’ve spent the better half of my day having a full blown panic attack at work.
I applied to a bunch of jobs last year and eventually gave up on my job hunt. Got an email from someone named Courtney at Awestruck. Awestruck is a very real, very legit company in destination marketing. They were not behind this scam, but someone was using their images, people, and assets to pose as them.
I was emailed by Courtney, who IS a real person (but not the one contacting me) on gmail saying I was shortlisted for an interview. My first red flag should’ve been that they gave ME a time to hop on and didn’t ask for a scheduling time. I did it anyways. The pay was super good and it was for a remote video editor position, in my field.
The interview itself was the other red flag. I never spoke to or saw a live person. It was Courtney, the original person who emailed me, who I was messaging over…Microsoft teams. They gave me very basic questions and I had to answer with a video response
Then they called me the next day to say I got it, and that I had to start pre-training IMMEDIATELY after signing an offer letter and tax/banking form. They kept using very urgent phrases like “do it now” “have it done right away” and had a bit of broken English. They asked me to do a mobile deposit check of $7,600 to pay vendors to buy equipment, by printing it out and scanning it with the app. I’ve never heard of this before but I assumed it was kosher bc my bank app accepted it.
The next day, today, they asked me if the check showed up and asked me to Venmo their vendors. That’s when I finally got some sense in me and blocked him. Called my bank and they confirmed it was a bad check. The hard part is I wanted this job to be real so bad. It would’ve made my entire dream come true. So it hurt but whatever. Thankfully I didn’t send them a penny but they do have my most important info like bank numbers and even my SSN. I know how to protect my bank account but if anyone has any comprehensive advice on what to do about the SSN , I would be grateful. I keep getting sent to the same places to “learn more” about protecting my identity rather than reporting something. Nothing fishy has happened with my credit or bank account yet, but I don’t know what to do if they just keep my SSN?
Anyways, I hope this alerts some people and I don’t wanna hear it about how dumb I am, I know, trust me.
submitted by DrPepperMadam to Scams [link] [comments]
I applied to a bunch of jobs last year and eventually gave up on my job hunt. Got an email from someone named Courtney at Awestruck. Awestruck is a very real, very legit company in destination marketing. They were not behind this scam, but someone was using their images, people, and assets to pose as them.
I was emailed by Courtney, who IS a real person (but not the one contacting me) on gmail saying I was shortlisted for an interview. My first red flag should’ve been that they gave ME a time to hop on and didn’t ask for a scheduling time. I did it anyways. The pay was super good and it was for a remote video editor position, in my field.
The interview itself was the other red flag. I never spoke to or saw a live person. It was Courtney, the original person who emailed me, who I was messaging over…Microsoft teams. They gave me very basic questions and I had to answer with a video response
Then they called me the next day to say I got it, and that I had to start pre-training IMMEDIATELY after signing an offer letter and tax/banking form. They kept using very urgent phrases like “do it now” “have it done right away” and had a bit of broken English. They asked me to do a mobile deposit check of $7,600 to pay vendors to buy equipment, by printing it out and scanning it with the app. I’ve never heard of this before but I assumed it was kosher bc my bank app accepted it.
The next day, today, they asked me if the check showed up and asked me to Venmo their vendors. That’s when I finally got some sense in me and blocked him. Called my bank and they confirmed it was a bad check. The hard part is I wanted this job to be real so bad. It would’ve made my entire dream come true. So it hurt but whatever. Thankfully I didn’t send them a penny but they do have my most important info like bank numbers and even my SSN. I know how to protect my bank account but if anyone has any comprehensive advice on what to do about the SSN , I would be grateful. I keep getting sent to the same places to “learn more” about protecting my identity rather than reporting something. Nothing fishy has happened with my credit or bank account yet, but I don’t know what to do if they just keep my SSN?
Anyways, I hope this alerts some people and I don’t wanna hear it about how dumb I am, I know, trust me.
2024.05.15 18:12 wifeThrowaway04 Potential Scam? RealityAI, RadicalX
Writing a post about what strongly seems like a scam ( I don’t want to say it’s a scam for legal reasons but…) I am seeing a lot of my CS peers fall for this on linkedIn and I wanted to warn others to be weary.
The company goes by the name of Radical AI and was ALLEGEDLY (more on this below) founded by
Joseph F. Krause, LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/josephfkrause/
&&
Jorge Colindres, Linkedin:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/jcolindres/
&&
Gerbrand Ceder:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/gerbrand-ceder-9b1b5721/
This the company website:
https://lab.radicalai.app/
company linked in page:
https://www.linkedin.com/company/radicalai-li/about/
Job postings on their website (all unpaid):
https://lab.radicalai.app/careers/ai-engineer
https://lab.radicalai.app/careers/software-engineer https://lab.radicalai.app/careers/ai-product-manager
https://lab.radicalai.app/careers/ai-product-designer
Here is a LinkedIn job posting for an intern position (unpaid of course):
https://www.linkedin.com/jobs/view/ai-engineer-intern-at-radical-ai-3921496808/
Allegedly claim to be a part of radical ventures which are a legit business:
https://radical.vc/teams/
But not listed as part of Radical Venture's companies:
https://radical.getro.com/companies
One of the "cofounders" of RadicalAI (Joseph F. Krause) posted this:
link to post: https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7193987173241520129/
"
Big update: I have co-founded a new company with Jorge Colindres and Gerbrand Ceder that is changing the way materials are designed, developed, and discovered through the integration of artificial intelligence, engineering, materials science, and applied research. Jorge and I bring deep expertise in materials science, engineering, and building technical teams, and Gerd is world-renowned for his pioneering research in high-throughput computational materials design, and in the development of autonomous labs for materials discovery. Radical’s goal is to build self-driving labs: from AI-generated materials to autonomous, high-throughput experimentation.
We are thrilled to be supported by Kevin Ryan and the AlleyCorp team, who bring world-class experience in starting, building, and investing in startups. We incubated Radical AI at AlleyCorp, and are excited to remain in their portfolio.
We are hiring: if you work at the intersection of machine learning and materials science, please reach out.
“
Interesting 😒 that they created this company recently but so did another guy: Talha Sabri (more him below) several years prior.
It seems this company use to go by the name of RadicalX but they became known for their scam and had to rebrand with new faces as the CEO. Here are some posts on the original company:
Here’s a post talking about how they used to be Radical x: https://www.reddit.com/csMajors/comments/1cno28c/radical_ai/
Some past reddit posts discussing RadicalX:
https://www.reddit.com/nyu/comments/wuclrb/what_is_radicalx/
https://www.reddit.com/csMajors/comments/1856knw/radicalx/
https://www.reddit.com/webdev/comments/17akjvh/wtf_has_this_ever_happened_to_you/
The radicalX CEO: Talha Sabri (typing out names so that if someone googles any of them, they see this post and are aware)
Seems to work with:
Areeb Tariq
Ines Prates
Yunus Jamal
some info I found on Talha: https://theorg.com/org/radicalx/org-chart/talha-sabri
AND Here is his linked in with RadicalAI as his job Listing himself as chairman and CEO: https://www.linkedin.com/in/talhasabri/
Interesting that Joseph, Jorge, and Gerbrand claim they started the company yet Talha also started it 7 years ago…. and yes it is the same company Talhas page links to the same company page as Joseph and Jorge. They have the same logo and they use the same shitty AI art (you would think 7 years would give them more time to better their blender skills).
Note that Talha continues to say he works there, but he also now works at a new company RealityAI. I’m guessing now Talha felt the need to expand his scamming under the name RealityAI. I don’t know if we will be seeing unpaid job postings for reality or if it is the final product under a different name so that people who will use the service will not know its background.
Here is Reality AI’s website: https://www.realityai.tech/
(Notice the same art as RadicalAI)
Also I found this. But, I am nsure if it has anything to do with any of this: https://listingspy.net/token/0x8b762ca4746b342d131b64670a3a3a866326fb46/
In conclusion, this honestly all seems really scammy and predatory. A friend told me they are promising visa’s and college credit to foreign workers/ students, I don’t know if they are actually going through with it, but if they aren’t it is extremely messed up and all of these people should be black listed.
As an aside i found this comment in another post about radicalx and thought it was good advice to keep this in mind
Taken from a comment by u/beginning-comedian-2:
Red flags in job interviews (and sometimes dating):
submitted by wifeThrowaway04 to AICareer [link] [comments]
The company goes by the name of Radical AI and was ALLEGEDLY (more on this below) founded by
Joseph F. Krause, LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/josephfkrause/
&&
Jorge Colindres, Linkedin:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/jcolindres/
&&
Gerbrand Ceder:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/gerbrand-ceder-9b1b5721/
This the company website:
https://lab.radicalai.app/
company linked in page:
https://www.linkedin.com/company/radicalai-li/about/
Job postings on their website (all unpaid):
https://lab.radicalai.app/careers/ai-engineer
https://lab.radicalai.app/careers/software-engineer https://lab.radicalai.app/careers/ai-product-manager
https://lab.radicalai.app/careers/ai-product-designer
Here is a LinkedIn job posting for an intern position (unpaid of course):
https://www.linkedin.com/jobs/view/ai-engineer-intern-at-radical-ai-3921496808/
Allegedly claim to be a part of radical ventures which are a legit business:
https://radical.vc/teams/
But not listed as part of Radical Venture's companies:
https://radical.getro.com/companies
One of the "cofounders" of RadicalAI (Joseph F. Krause) posted this:
link to post: https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7193987173241520129/
"
Big update: I have co-founded a new company with Jorge Colindres and Gerbrand Ceder that is changing the way materials are designed, developed, and discovered through the integration of artificial intelligence, engineering, materials science, and applied research. Jorge and I bring deep expertise in materials science, engineering, and building technical teams, and Gerd is world-renowned for his pioneering research in high-throughput computational materials design, and in the development of autonomous labs for materials discovery. Radical’s goal is to build self-driving labs: from AI-generated materials to autonomous, high-throughput experimentation.
We are thrilled to be supported by Kevin Ryan and the AlleyCorp team, who bring world-class experience in starting, building, and investing in startups. We incubated Radical AI at AlleyCorp, and are excited to remain in their portfolio.
We are hiring: if you work at the intersection of machine learning and materials science, please reach out.
“
Interesting 😒 that they created this company recently but so did another guy: Talha Sabri (more him below) several years prior.
It seems this company use to go by the name of RadicalX but they became known for their scam and had to rebrand with new faces as the CEO. Here are some posts on the original company:
Here’s a post talking about how they used to be Radical x: https://www.reddit.com/csMajors/comments/1cno28c/radical_ai/
Some past reddit posts discussing RadicalX:
https://www.reddit.com/nyu/comments/wuclrb/what_is_radicalx/
https://www.reddit.com/csMajors/comments/1856knw/radicalx/
https://www.reddit.com/webdev/comments/17akjvh/wtf_has_this_ever_happened_to_you/
The radicalX CEO: Talha Sabri (typing out names so that if someone googles any of them, they see this post and are aware)
Seems to work with:
Areeb Tariq
Ines Prates
Yunus Jamal
some info I found on Talha: https://theorg.com/org/radicalx/org-chart/talha-sabri
AND Here is his linked in with RadicalAI as his job Listing himself as chairman and CEO: https://www.linkedin.com/in/talhasabri/
Interesting that Joseph, Jorge, and Gerbrand claim they started the company yet Talha also started it 7 years ago…. and yes it is the same company Talhas page links to the same company page as Joseph and Jorge. They have the same logo and they use the same shitty AI art (you would think 7 years would give them more time to better their blender skills).
Note that Talha continues to say he works there, but he also now works at a new company RealityAI. I’m guessing now Talha felt the need to expand his scamming under the name RealityAI. I don’t know if we will be seeing unpaid job postings for reality or if it is the final product under a different name so that people who will use the service will not know its background.
Here is Reality AI’s website: https://www.realityai.tech/
(Notice the same art as RadicalAI)
Also I found this. But, I am nsure if it has anything to do with any of this: https://listingspy.net/token/0x8b762ca4746b342d131b64670a3a3a866326fb46/
In conclusion, this honestly all seems really scammy and predatory. A friend told me they are promising visa’s and college credit to foreign workers/ students, I don’t know if they are actually going through with it, but if they aren’t it is extremely messed up and all of these people should be black listed.
As an aside i found this comment in another post about radicalx and thought it was good advice to keep this in mind
Taken from a comment by u/beginning-comedian-2:
Red flags in job interviews (and sometimes dating):
- They ask you to send money.
- They won't talk on the phone.
- They are very interested but never want to meet you.
- They require a 2-day take-home assignment before they'll get on the phone.
- "We're a fast-paced shop." (meaning you'll be working all hours.)
- When you ask what they like about working there, they say "the insurance".
- They want to pay you all in stock.
- All the devs have been there less than a year.
- Beds in the office.
- When you talk to ex-employees and they start with "It might be different now, but when I was there..."
- They say, "We're like family" (meaning, we'll likely expect more from you than 9-5 work.)
- "We often buy dinner for everyone as a perk." = you'll be working late.
2024.05.15 18:12 adulting4kids Flash Fiction Prompts
This is taken from and is copyright protected by globalsoup.net, a website that promotes flash Fiction with annual writing contests.
I am reprinting these Flash Fiction Prompts because they are outstanding ways to freewrite and offer plenty to work with for those who want to learn how to write Flash Fiction.
So check out these prompts and the article and work some of them into your journal! Post the best responses!
100 Awesome Flash Fiction Prompts - Plus Bonus Prompts!
We’ve put together 100 flash fiction prompts, each one designed for a very short story. These prompts will probably be best suited to a story of between 300-1,000 words. If you want to write a longer story using these prompts, you can easily expand these ideas to fit a story of any length.
What is flash fiction?
Flash Fiction is defined as a very short story that can be anywhere from just a couple of words to about a thousand in length. The beauty (and difficulty) of writing flash fiction lies in trying to tell a complete story in so few words. Great flash fiction is succinct, emotive, thought-provoking, and impactful.
What’s the difference between flash fiction and a short story?
The only difference between flash fiction and a typical short story is the word count. However, this scarcity of words means that writing flash fiction can feel like a completely new skill. Just like the short story is a different animal to the novel or novella; flash fiction is kind of unique.
When writing flash, you’ll need to use fewer characters, a simpler plot, and you’ll have to make each word count. This is why editing is so important. You have to be brutal. Cut out everything superfluous and really make sure each and every word is performing an important function in the story. If you’re interested in writing very short fiction, why not check out drabbles? Drabbles are stories of exactly 100 words in length, and they can be a great way to practice keeping your stories very, very short.
How to plot a flash fiction story
When you sit down to write flash fiction, you must begin by choosing an appropriate plot. You cannot simply use a short story plot and tell it using fewer words. A typical flash fiction plot is like looking at one part of a story under a microscope.
For example, let’s look at prompt #21 in our list of 100 Flash Fiction Prompts:
All stories need a good climax. So, you would find the most dramatic moment in the story and build up to it. Perhaps your climax would be the two main characters having to decide who will take the remaining seat on the last lifeboat.
Finally, you need a resolution. In a longer short story you do have time to bring in some kind of satisfying resolution at the end.
But, if you’re writing flash fiction and your story is only a few hundred words, you really need to zoom in on one tiny moment in that story.
You don’t have time to tell the entire story of a sinking ship, but you can turn one moment into a story.
We’ve chosen the lifeboat situation as the key moment in this hypothetical story. Two characters must decide which one of them will take the last seat on the last lifeboat. This is an appropriate plot for flash fiction because it’s simple, high-stakes, dramatic, and thought provoking.
Not all flash fiction will have a plot quite this dramatic, but all great flash fiction will have a plot that can be expressed in just one or two sentences.
If you have a plot in mind, but it seems more suitable for a longer story, you can sometimes find several flash fiction plots hidden within it. Just look for little stories within the story, like the lifeboat moment in our hypothetical tale of the sinking ship.
This brings us to our top tip for coming up with ideas for flash fiction stories:
if you’re ever stuck for ideas, you can find little stories within the story in books, movies, and TV shows. A full length feature film might have as many as 20 little incidents in it that could easily be flash fiction.
Don’t directly write a story based on the film, though. Just carefully pick out those little moments, write down what’s happening as a one or two sentence plot, and then use it to inspire your own, completely original flash fiction story.
One of our 100 Flash Fiction Prompts was actually taken from the movie Pulp Fiction!
How to write very short flash fiction
There are several reasons writers might start writing flash fiction. Of course, it could be that they just love and enjoy the form, but sometimes they’ll be a more strategic and practical reason at play.
Perhaps they want to practise the process of writing stories within the confines of a certain word limit. Maybe they are trying to develop a daily writing routine and they don’t have a lot of free time. It could be that they’re trying to break a habit of not finishing writing projects, or perhaps they are entering a flash fiction competition.
Whatever the reason, very often when we sit down to write flash, we must work under an imposed or self-imposed word restraint. We’ve set ourselves (or been set) the task of keeping the story under a particular number of words.
So, how do you plot a flash fiction story when you have to keep your story very, very short.
We’re not going to discuss stories of 100 words or fewer here. Technically, those stories are still flash, however, we prefer to categorise 100 word stories as drabbles and anything under 100 words as micro fiction.
But what if you have to keep your flash fiction story under, let’s say, 300 words? How do you write a flash fiction story that short?
The answer is: get your microscope out again. Remember earlier when we said writing flash fiction is like looking at part of a story under a microscope? If you have to write very short flash fiction, you’ll need to zoom in even further.
Let’s look at a couple of examples from our 100 Flash Fiction Prompts:
In a longer flash fiction story you might have time to go into detail about why he’s in this situation and why he’s so conflicted. In a 300 word story, you might only devote one or two sentences to his gambling debt and the large sum of money waiting for him if he goes down in the third round, as instructed.
With only 300 words, it would be advisable to zoom in on one member of the family and to focus on one profound and important choice.
How to write a flash fiction story
Now you have your mini plot, you still need to make sure your flash fiction feels like a complete story. It should still have a beginning, middle, and an end.
Just like a short story, you may need to bring in a little exposition here and there to give texture, context, backstory, and to bring some depth to the characters. But, unlike a short story, you won’t necessarily need to end with a full, detailed resolution. It’s quite common for a flash fiction story to end with a quick twist or plenty of ambiguity.
Flash Fiction is much more about eliciting emotions and provoking thought, than setting up and resolving a complex story.
100 Awesome Flash Fiction Prompts
A young ballet dancer chooses not to tell the other dancers in her troop about a loose paving stone outside their dance studio.
Two sisters realise they’ve both been on a perfect first date … with the same man.
On the car journey home, two parents realise they’ve left their child’s favourite teddy on a park bench several hours away.
A writer suffering from writers’ block looks for inspiration in a strange place.
Set 200 years in the future, a young man realises he’s too emotionally dependent on his robot assistant.
A young woman discovers she’s taken the wrong suitcase home from the airport. The contents of the case make her question her own life choices.
A murderer realises he has only 10 minutes to dispose of a body.
A child decides to walk home by themselves after their parent forgets to pick them up from school … again.
Your protagonist manages to talk the grim reaper out of collecting their soul.
Your protagonist suddenly realises they’ve been living in a simulation.
A young couple has chosen to spend the night in a haunted house to fix their marriage. Your story starts just as things get very weird.
Your protagonist finds a letter they wrote to themselves when they were a teenager.
Your protagonist must decide whether or not to drink from a fountain that erases all painful memories from the mind.
Your protagonist comes across a street called ‘Memory Lane’. They quickly realise the name is eerily apt.
A bride finds out something startling about her future husband an hour before the wedding.
Your protagonist finds an advertisement for a company that promises everlasting youth.
A youngest sibling shows up at a family reunion they weren’t actually invited to.
Your protagonist finds a piece of paper with a spell on it. If they say the words out loud they aren't sure if something terrible or wonderful will happen.
Your protagonist is watching a jazz band play when they realise they know the drummer from somewhere — but where? It takes a whole song for them to figure it out.
Your protagonist must meet their ex for lunch to tell them they’re now engaged. It’s been just a few weeks since they split up.
Two people on a sinking ship must decide who should take the last seat in the last lifeboat.
During a match, a young boxer must decide whether to throw the fight.
Your protagonist must pack their belongings before moving to a new colony on mars.
A pilot realises they have lost control of their aircraft.
Your protagonist doesn’t want to attend their 100th birthday party — and for good reason!
Your protagonist gets stuck in a lift with their ex … 5 minutes after breaking up with them.
A child says goodbye to the fairies in his garden before moving to a new home.
Your protagonist saves someone’s life … and then wishes they hadn’t.
Your protagonist arrives at a blind date. They’ve been set up with someone they actually know a little too well.
Set in a dystopian future in which public displays of affection are banned, your protagonist faces an agonising choice.
An agoraphobic must face their fear in order to save something important.
Your protagonist must make her partner fall out of love with them. Both their lives depend on it.
Your protagonist is hiking with her small children, they come face to face with a grizzly bear and her cubs.
Cinderella and Prince Charming realise they got married too quickly.
A message written in graffiti on a bathroom wall has serious implications for your protagonist.
Your protagonist finds a bag, looks inside, and realises the owner might just be their soulmate.
Your protagonist has been seeing the same stranger everywhere they go for months. They finally decide to confront them.
A couple realise their relationship is over during the trip of a lifetime. They’ve been saving up for the trip for years.
A public debate sees two previously married people letting their private grievances come into their arguments.
Your protagonist plans their escape from a retirement home.
A couple realise their fundamental beliefs are at odds with each other.
An artist develops an obsession with drawing a next-door neighbour.
Your protagonist finds themselves trapped in a cabin with a group of hikers during a heavy snowfall.
An ice skater must face going back on the ice after a dangerous fall.
A couple must decide their plan for New Year’ Eve. They both have secret reasons for their choice.
A family must decide what to take and what to leave behind as a wildfire approaches their home.
Your protagonist is waiting for someone important at the airport. They begin to think that person isn’t going to show up … and then they realise why.
Your protagonist must find their way through a maze. What they find in the middle of the maze is the last thing they were expecting.
An actor waiting in the wings has forgotten his first line.
Your protagonist is wrongly identified as a hero. Do they come clean?
Your protagonist realises their past is catching up with them.
Your protagonist overhears something that has serious implications for them while trying on clothes in a changing room.
Your protagonist is in a costume shop trying to decide what to dress up as for Halloween.
Your protagonist realises they’ve slipped into an alternate dimension.
A surgeon must make an impossible choice on the operating table.
A pregnant journalist interviews the mother of a missing child.
Your protagonist must ask his girlfriend’s father for his blessing, only to discover the father knows his deepest secret.
Your protagonist sees something on social media that will change their life forever.
Two work colleagues realise they’ve been dreaming the same dreams for weeks.
A reluctant daughter comes to terms with having to carry on the family business.
Your protagonist realises she must go on the run.
Two bank robbers disagree on their plan to rob a bank. This leads to a disastrous consequence.
A strange case of deja vous leaves your protagonist convinced of supernatural interference.
A sceptic begins to question their beliefs during a psychic reading.
Your protagonist uncovers a scandal at their workplace.
A hapless cook tries to recreate her late father’s favourite recipes in an effort to feel connected to him.
Your protagonist has a premonition that makes them certain they can’t visit their mother-in-law for Christmas. Now he must convince his husband.
A young backpacker discovers something unexpected in a cave.
An impulsive character and an indecisive character are brought together by chance. They must make an important choice.
Two characters cleaning up after a party discover an object that sheds light on something strange that happened earlier.
Two strangers are trapped together during a blackout.
Your protagonist must take a leap of faith in order to save something important to them.
Your protagonist discovers a huge part of their life has been a lie.
Your protagonist has set up an elaborate way to propose. Inexplicably, everything goes wrong.
Your protagonist must buy a dress for her mother’s funeral.
Your protagonist goes back to her favourite city in the world, only to find it has completely changed.
While stargazing, your protagonist realises the stars are forming secret messages in the sky.
Your protagonist hears a news story on the radio that will mean the world changes forever. However, she seems to be the only person who heard it.
Your protagonist is crossing a frozen lake. They see something under the ice that definitely shouldn’t be there.
A workaholic must come to terms with retirement.
An Olympic athlete must decide whether or not to report their teammate for doping.
A young mother feels isolated from her childless friends.
Your protagonist is about to realise their greatest ambition. Will it be everything they were hoping for?
Onboard a spaceship, a couple prepare to go into stasis for hundreds of years.
Your protagonist has an obsession with thinking about the past.
Set in a post-apocalyptic future, your protagonist meets an unlikely love interest.
Your protagonist visits a place from their childhood and realises their memories of that time might not be accurate at all.
A small child has decided to run away from home. Her parents watch on with amusement as she decides what to put in her backpack.
On a whim, a bus driver decides to radically change his route, much to the chagrin of his passengers.
Dystopian. A couple in love are only allowed to spend time with each other one day a year.
A shapeshifter begins to realise their powers are fading. They must decide what form will be the last one they take before they cannot change again.
The devil visits your protagonist with an offer on her soul.
Your protagonist suddenly has the ability to read minds. There’s only one place they want to go now!
Your very wealthy protagonist has designed a simple test to see who will inherit her estate.
An archaeologist discovers something that will change how we see the history of the world. It could be dangerous. Does he keep it to himself?
Your protagonist must clear out their late mother’s house. She discovers an incredible family secret.
Your protagonist is meeting his brother. They haven’t seen each other for 20 years.
Your protagonist develops the ability to see the world literally through someone else’s eyes.
Your protagonist starts to believe their partner might be a spy.
Your protagonist discovers a hidden camera in their living room.
Looking for a flash fiction competition? Check out our ‘Big List of International Writing Competitions!’ Looking for inspiration? Why not check out our list of the 20 Greatest Short Story Writers of All Time! Just received another short story rejection? Here’s our post about ‘How to Deal With Story Rejections’ Bonus Prompts! Two characters waiting by the side of the road realise they are both meeting the same person.
A woman loses her young niece in a busy shopping mall.
Three strangers must solve a riddle in order to gain entry to a secret club.
A poor woman must borrow ingredients from her neighbours to bake her husband a birthday cake.
A waiter finally finds out why an old man has been coming to the restaurant where he works every day at exactly the same time.
Two work colleagues must decide which of them is to take the blame for a terrible mistake at work.
Your disgruntled protagonist goes to confront the couple next door about the strange noises they’ve been hearing at night.
A family dinner party sees three characters make three very surprising announcements.
Two women argue over who should get to buy the last dress available in a store. How do they decide who should get it?
A young couple find out they knew (and disliked) each other vehemently as children.
Love writing stories? Register now for our free 7 Day Story Writing Challenges. Write a short story in a week, get extensive feedback on your entry, and compete for a prize of £500 in each round of the challenge. Register today!
Mastered the art of flash fiction? Now you can try submitting your stories to literary magazines! We’ve compiled a list of the best literary magazines that don’t charge a reading fee! Check out our Big List of No-Fee Literary Magazines.
submitted by adulting4kids to writingthruit [link] [comments]
I am reprinting these Flash Fiction Prompts because they are outstanding ways to freewrite and offer plenty to work with for those who want to learn how to write Flash Fiction.
So check out these prompts and the article and work some of them into your journal! Post the best responses!
100 Awesome Flash Fiction Prompts - Plus Bonus Prompts!
We’ve put together 100 flash fiction prompts, each one designed for a very short story. These prompts will probably be best suited to a story of between 300-1,000 words. If you want to write a longer story using these prompts, you can easily expand these ideas to fit a story of any length.
What is flash fiction?
Flash Fiction is defined as a very short story that can be anywhere from just a couple of words to about a thousand in length. The beauty (and difficulty) of writing flash fiction lies in trying to tell a complete story in so few words. Great flash fiction is succinct, emotive, thought-provoking, and impactful.
What’s the difference between flash fiction and a short story?
The only difference between flash fiction and a typical short story is the word count. However, this scarcity of words means that writing flash fiction can feel like a completely new skill. Just like the short story is a different animal to the novel or novella; flash fiction is kind of unique.
When writing flash, you’ll need to use fewer characters, a simpler plot, and you’ll have to make each word count. This is why editing is so important. You have to be brutal. Cut out everything superfluous and really make sure each and every word is performing an important function in the story. If you’re interested in writing very short fiction, why not check out drabbles? Drabbles are stories of exactly 100 words in length, and they can be a great way to practice keeping your stories very, very short.
How to plot a flash fiction story
When you sit down to write flash fiction, you must begin by choosing an appropriate plot. You cannot simply use a short story plot and tell it using fewer words. A typical flash fiction plot is like looking at one part of a story under a microscope.
For example, let’s look at prompt #21 in our list of 100 Flash Fiction Prompts:
- Two people on a sinking ship must decide who should take the last seat in the last lifeboat. If you were writing a novel about a sinking ship, you’d probably want the actual sinking to be the climax of the story. Of course, there are infinite ways to write a novel about a sinking ship, but this would structurally be the most obvious. You’d use the first part of the novel to introduce your characters and describe the voyage leading up to the sinking and the sinking of the ship would be the dramatic climax, leaving the last part of the book as the resolution.
All stories need a good climax. So, you would find the most dramatic moment in the story and build up to it. Perhaps your climax would be the two main characters having to decide who will take the remaining seat on the last lifeboat.
Finally, you need a resolution. In a longer short story you do have time to bring in some kind of satisfying resolution at the end.
But, if you’re writing flash fiction and your story is only a few hundred words, you really need to zoom in on one tiny moment in that story.
You don’t have time to tell the entire story of a sinking ship, but you can turn one moment into a story.
We’ve chosen the lifeboat situation as the key moment in this hypothetical story. Two characters must decide which one of them will take the last seat on the last lifeboat. This is an appropriate plot for flash fiction because it’s simple, high-stakes, dramatic, and thought provoking.
Not all flash fiction will have a plot quite this dramatic, but all great flash fiction will have a plot that can be expressed in just one or two sentences.
If you have a plot in mind, but it seems more suitable for a longer story, you can sometimes find several flash fiction plots hidden within it. Just look for little stories within the story, like the lifeboat moment in our hypothetical tale of the sinking ship.
This brings us to our top tip for coming up with ideas for flash fiction stories:
if you’re ever stuck for ideas, you can find little stories within the story in books, movies, and TV shows. A full length feature film might have as many as 20 little incidents in it that could easily be flash fiction.
Don’t directly write a story based on the film, though. Just carefully pick out those little moments, write down what’s happening as a one or two sentence plot, and then use it to inspire your own, completely original flash fiction story.
One of our 100 Flash Fiction Prompts was actually taken from the movie Pulp Fiction!
How to write very short flash fiction
There are several reasons writers might start writing flash fiction. Of course, it could be that they just love and enjoy the form, but sometimes they’ll be a more strategic and practical reason at play.
Perhaps they want to practise the process of writing stories within the confines of a certain word limit. Maybe they are trying to develop a daily writing routine and they don’t have a lot of free time. It could be that they’re trying to break a habit of not finishing writing projects, or perhaps they are entering a flash fiction competition.
Whatever the reason, very often when we sit down to write flash, we must work under an imposed or self-imposed word restraint. We’ve set ourselves (or been set) the task of keeping the story under a particular number of words.
So, how do you plot a flash fiction story when you have to keep your story very, very short.
We’re not going to discuss stories of 100 words or fewer here. Technically, those stories are still flash, however, we prefer to categorise 100 word stories as drabbles and anything under 100 words as micro fiction.
But what if you have to keep your flash fiction story under, let’s say, 300 words? How do you write a flash fiction story that short?
The answer is: get your microscope out again. Remember earlier when we said writing flash fiction is like looking at part of a story under a microscope? If you have to write very short flash fiction, you’ll need to zoom in even further.
Let’s look at a couple of examples from our 100 Flash Fiction Prompts:
- During a match, a young boxer must decide whether to throw the fight.
In a longer flash fiction story you might have time to go into detail about why he’s in this situation and why he’s so conflicted. In a 300 word story, you might only devote one or two sentences to his gambling debt and the large sum of money waiting for him if he goes down in the third round, as instructed.
- A family must decide what to take and what to leave behind as a wildfire approaches their home.
With only 300 words, it would be advisable to zoom in on one member of the family and to focus on one profound and important choice.
How to write a flash fiction story
Now you have your mini plot, you still need to make sure your flash fiction feels like a complete story. It should still have a beginning, middle, and an end.
Just like a short story, you may need to bring in a little exposition here and there to give texture, context, backstory, and to bring some depth to the characters. But, unlike a short story, you won’t necessarily need to end with a full, detailed resolution. It’s quite common for a flash fiction story to end with a quick twist or plenty of ambiguity.
Flash Fiction is much more about eliciting emotions and provoking thought, than setting up and resolving a complex story.
100 Awesome Flash Fiction Prompts
A young ballet dancer chooses not to tell the other dancers in her troop about a loose paving stone outside their dance studio.
Two sisters realise they’ve both been on a perfect first date … with the same man.
On the car journey home, two parents realise they’ve left their child’s favourite teddy on a park bench several hours away.
A writer suffering from writers’ block looks for inspiration in a strange place.
Set 200 years in the future, a young man realises he’s too emotionally dependent on his robot assistant.
A young woman discovers she’s taken the wrong suitcase home from the airport. The contents of the case make her question her own life choices.
A murderer realises he has only 10 minutes to dispose of a body.
A child decides to walk home by themselves after their parent forgets to pick them up from school … again.
Your protagonist manages to talk the grim reaper out of collecting their soul.
Your protagonist suddenly realises they’ve been living in a simulation.
A young couple has chosen to spend the night in a haunted house to fix their marriage. Your story starts just as things get very weird.
Your protagonist finds a letter they wrote to themselves when they were a teenager.
Your protagonist must decide whether or not to drink from a fountain that erases all painful memories from the mind.
Your protagonist comes across a street called ‘Memory Lane’. They quickly realise the name is eerily apt.
A bride finds out something startling about her future husband an hour before the wedding.
Your protagonist finds an advertisement for a company that promises everlasting youth.
A youngest sibling shows up at a family reunion they weren’t actually invited to.
Your protagonist finds a piece of paper with a spell on it. If they say the words out loud they aren't sure if something terrible or wonderful will happen.
Your protagonist is watching a jazz band play when they realise they know the drummer from somewhere — but where? It takes a whole song for them to figure it out.
Your protagonist must meet their ex for lunch to tell them they’re now engaged. It’s been just a few weeks since they split up.
Two people on a sinking ship must decide who should take the last seat in the last lifeboat.
During a match, a young boxer must decide whether to throw the fight.
Your protagonist must pack their belongings before moving to a new colony on mars.
A pilot realises they have lost control of their aircraft.
Your protagonist doesn’t want to attend their 100th birthday party — and for good reason!
Your protagonist gets stuck in a lift with their ex … 5 minutes after breaking up with them.
A child says goodbye to the fairies in his garden before moving to a new home.
Your protagonist saves someone’s life … and then wishes they hadn’t.
Your protagonist arrives at a blind date. They’ve been set up with someone they actually know a little too well.
Set in a dystopian future in which public displays of affection are banned, your protagonist faces an agonising choice.
An agoraphobic must face their fear in order to save something important.
Your protagonist must make her partner fall out of love with them. Both their lives depend on it.
Your protagonist is hiking with her small children, they come face to face with a grizzly bear and her cubs.
Cinderella and Prince Charming realise they got married too quickly.
A message written in graffiti on a bathroom wall has serious implications for your protagonist.
Your protagonist finds a bag, looks inside, and realises the owner might just be their soulmate.
Your protagonist has been seeing the same stranger everywhere they go for months. They finally decide to confront them.
A couple realise their relationship is over during the trip of a lifetime. They’ve been saving up for the trip for years.
A public debate sees two previously married people letting their private grievances come into their arguments.
Your protagonist plans their escape from a retirement home.
A couple realise their fundamental beliefs are at odds with each other.
An artist develops an obsession with drawing a next-door neighbour.
Your protagonist finds themselves trapped in a cabin with a group of hikers during a heavy snowfall.
An ice skater must face going back on the ice after a dangerous fall.
A couple must decide their plan for New Year’ Eve. They both have secret reasons for their choice.
A family must decide what to take and what to leave behind as a wildfire approaches their home.
Your protagonist is waiting for someone important at the airport. They begin to think that person isn’t going to show up … and then they realise why.
Your protagonist must find their way through a maze. What they find in the middle of the maze is the last thing they were expecting.
An actor waiting in the wings has forgotten his first line.
Your protagonist is wrongly identified as a hero. Do they come clean?
Your protagonist realises their past is catching up with them.
Your protagonist overhears something that has serious implications for them while trying on clothes in a changing room.
Your protagonist is in a costume shop trying to decide what to dress up as for Halloween.
Your protagonist realises they’ve slipped into an alternate dimension.
A surgeon must make an impossible choice on the operating table.
A pregnant journalist interviews the mother of a missing child.
Your protagonist must ask his girlfriend’s father for his blessing, only to discover the father knows his deepest secret.
Your protagonist sees something on social media that will change their life forever.
Two work colleagues realise they’ve been dreaming the same dreams for weeks.
A reluctant daughter comes to terms with having to carry on the family business.
Your protagonist realises she must go on the run.
Two bank robbers disagree on their plan to rob a bank. This leads to a disastrous consequence.
A strange case of deja vous leaves your protagonist convinced of supernatural interference.
A sceptic begins to question their beliefs during a psychic reading.
Your protagonist uncovers a scandal at their workplace.
A hapless cook tries to recreate her late father’s favourite recipes in an effort to feel connected to him.
Your protagonist has a premonition that makes them certain they can’t visit their mother-in-law for Christmas. Now he must convince his husband.
A young backpacker discovers something unexpected in a cave.
An impulsive character and an indecisive character are brought together by chance. They must make an important choice.
Two characters cleaning up after a party discover an object that sheds light on something strange that happened earlier.
Two strangers are trapped together during a blackout.
Your protagonist must take a leap of faith in order to save something important to them.
Your protagonist discovers a huge part of their life has been a lie.
Your protagonist has set up an elaborate way to propose. Inexplicably, everything goes wrong.
Your protagonist must buy a dress for her mother’s funeral.
Your protagonist goes back to her favourite city in the world, only to find it has completely changed.
While stargazing, your protagonist realises the stars are forming secret messages in the sky.
Your protagonist hears a news story on the radio that will mean the world changes forever. However, she seems to be the only person who heard it.
Your protagonist is crossing a frozen lake. They see something under the ice that definitely shouldn’t be there.
A workaholic must come to terms with retirement.
An Olympic athlete must decide whether or not to report their teammate for doping.
A young mother feels isolated from her childless friends.
Your protagonist is about to realise their greatest ambition. Will it be everything they were hoping for?
Onboard a spaceship, a couple prepare to go into stasis for hundreds of years.
Your protagonist has an obsession with thinking about the past.
Set in a post-apocalyptic future, your protagonist meets an unlikely love interest.
Your protagonist visits a place from their childhood and realises their memories of that time might not be accurate at all.
A small child has decided to run away from home. Her parents watch on with amusement as she decides what to put in her backpack.
On a whim, a bus driver decides to radically change his route, much to the chagrin of his passengers.
Dystopian. A couple in love are only allowed to spend time with each other one day a year.
A shapeshifter begins to realise their powers are fading. They must decide what form will be the last one they take before they cannot change again.
The devil visits your protagonist with an offer on her soul.
Your protagonist suddenly has the ability to read minds. There’s only one place they want to go now!
Your very wealthy protagonist has designed a simple test to see who will inherit her estate.
An archaeologist discovers something that will change how we see the history of the world. It could be dangerous. Does he keep it to himself?
Your protagonist must clear out their late mother’s house. She discovers an incredible family secret.
Your protagonist is meeting his brother. They haven’t seen each other for 20 years.
Your protagonist develops the ability to see the world literally through someone else’s eyes.
Your protagonist starts to believe their partner might be a spy.
Your protagonist discovers a hidden camera in their living room.
Looking for a flash fiction competition? Check out our ‘Big List of International Writing Competitions!’ Looking for inspiration? Why not check out our list of the 20 Greatest Short Story Writers of All Time! Just received another short story rejection? Here’s our post about ‘How to Deal With Story Rejections’ Bonus Prompts! Two characters waiting by the side of the road realise they are both meeting the same person.
A woman loses her young niece in a busy shopping mall.
Three strangers must solve a riddle in order to gain entry to a secret club.
A poor woman must borrow ingredients from her neighbours to bake her husband a birthday cake.
A waiter finally finds out why an old man has been coming to the restaurant where he works every day at exactly the same time.
Two work colleagues must decide which of them is to take the blame for a terrible mistake at work.
Your disgruntled protagonist goes to confront the couple next door about the strange noises they’ve been hearing at night.
A family dinner party sees three characters make three very surprising announcements.
Two women argue over who should get to buy the last dress available in a store. How do they decide who should get it?
A young couple find out they knew (and disliked) each other vehemently as children.
Love writing stories? Register now for our free 7 Day Story Writing Challenges. Write a short story in a week, get extensive feedback on your entry, and compete for a prize of £500 in each round of the challenge. Register today!
Mastered the art of flash fiction? Now you can try submitting your stories to literary magazines! We’ve compiled a list of the best literary magazines that don’t charge a reading fee! Check out our Big List of No-Fee Literary Magazines.
2024.05.15 18:11 wifeThrowaway04 Potential Scam? RealityAI, RadicalX
Writing a post about what strongly seems like a scam ( I don’t want to say it’s a scam for legal reasons but…) I am seeing a lot of my CS peers fall for this on linkedIn and I wanted to warn others to be weary.
The company goes by the name of Radical AI and was ALLEGEDLY (more on this below) founded by
Joseph F. Krause, LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/josephfkrause/
&&
Jorge Colindres, Linkedin:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/jcolindres/
&&
Gerbrand Ceder:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/gerbrand-ceder-9b1b5721/
This the company website:
https://lab.radicalai.app/
company linked in page:
https://www.linkedin.com/company/radicalai-li/about/
Job postings on their website (all unpaid):
https://lab.radicalai.app/careers/ai-engineer
https://lab.radicalai.app/careers/software-engineer https://lab.radicalai.app/careers/ai-product-manager
https://lab.radicalai.app/careers/ai-product-designer
Here is a LinkedIn job posting for an intern position (unpaid of course):
https://www.linkedin.com/jobs/view/ai-engineer-intern-at-radical-ai-3921496808/
Allegedly claim to be a part of radical ventures which are a legit business:
https://radical.vc/teams/
But not listed as part of Radical Venture's companies:
https://radical.getro.com/companies
One of the "cofounders" of RadicalAI (Joseph F. Krause) posted this:
link to post: https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7193987173241520129/
"
Big update: I have co-founded a new company with Jorge Colindres and Gerbrand Ceder that is changing the way materials are designed, developed, and discovered through the integration of artificial intelligence, engineering, materials science, and applied research. Jorge and I bring deep expertise in materials science, engineering, and building technical teams, and Gerd is world-renowned for his pioneering research in high-throughput computational materials design, and in the development of autonomous labs for materials discovery. Radical’s goal is to build self-driving labs: from AI-generated materials to autonomous, high-throughput experimentation.
We are thrilled to be supported by Kevin Ryan and the AlleyCorp team, who bring world-class experience in starting, building, and investing in startups. We incubated Radical AI at AlleyCorp, and are excited to remain in their portfolio.
We are hiring: if you work at the intersection of machine learning and materials science, please reach out.
“
Interesting 😒 that they created this company recently but so did another guy: Talha Sabri (more him below) several years prior.
It seems this company use to go by the name of RadicalX but they became known for their scam and had to rebrand with new faces as the CEO. Here are some posts on the original company:
Here’s a post talking about how they used to be Radical x: https://www.reddit.com/csMajors/comments/1cno28c/radical_ai/
Some past reddit posts discussing RadicalX:
https://www.reddit.com/nyu/comments/wuclrb/what_is_radicalx/
https://www.reddit.com/csMajors/comments/1856knw/radicalx/
https://www.reddit.com/webdev/comments/17akjvh/wtf_has_this_ever_happened_to_you/
The radicalX CEO: Talha Sabri (typing out names so that if someone googles any of them, they see this post and are aware)
Seems to work with:
Areeb Tariq
Ines Prates
Yunus Jamal
some info I found on Talha: https://theorg.com/org/radicalx/org-chart/talha-sabri
AND Here is his linked in with RadicalAI as his job Listing himself as chairman and CEO: https://www.linkedin.com/in/talhasabri/
Interesting that Joseph, Jorge, and Gerbrand claim they started the company yet Talha also started it 7 years ago…. and yes it is the same company Talhas page links to the same company page as Joseph and Jorge. They have the same logo and they use the same shitty AI art (you would think 7 years would give them more time to better their blender skills).
Note that Talha continues to say he works there, but he also now works at a new company RealityAI. I’m guessing now Talha felt the need to expand his scamming under the name RealityAI. I don’t know if we will be seeing unpaid job postings for reality or if it is the final product under a different name so that people who will use the service will not know its background.
Here is Reality AI’s website: https://www.realityai.tech/
(Notice the same art as RadicalAI)
Also I found this. But, I am nsure if it has anything to do with any of this: https://listingspy.net/token/0x8b762ca4746b342d131b64670a3a3a866326fb46/
In conclusion, this honestly all seems really scammy and predatory. A friend told me they are promising visa’s and college credit to foreign workers/ students, I don’t know if they are actually going through with it, but if they aren’t it is extremely messed up and all of these people should be black listed.
As an aside i found this comment in another post about radicalx and thought it was good advice to keep this in mind
Taken from a comment by u/beginning-comedian-2:
Red flags in job interviews (and sometimes dating):
submitted by wifeThrowaway04 to csMajors [link] [comments]
The company goes by the name of Radical AI and was ALLEGEDLY (more on this below) founded by
Joseph F. Krause, LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/josephfkrause/
&&
Jorge Colindres, Linkedin:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/jcolindres/
&&
Gerbrand Ceder:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/gerbrand-ceder-9b1b5721/
This the company website:
https://lab.radicalai.app/
company linked in page:
https://www.linkedin.com/company/radicalai-li/about/
Job postings on their website (all unpaid):
https://lab.radicalai.app/careers/ai-engineer
https://lab.radicalai.app/careers/software-engineer https://lab.radicalai.app/careers/ai-product-manager
https://lab.radicalai.app/careers/ai-product-designer
Here is a LinkedIn job posting for an intern position (unpaid of course):
https://www.linkedin.com/jobs/view/ai-engineer-intern-at-radical-ai-3921496808/
Allegedly claim to be a part of radical ventures which are a legit business:
https://radical.vc/teams/
But not listed as part of Radical Venture's companies:
https://radical.getro.com/companies
One of the "cofounders" of RadicalAI (Joseph F. Krause) posted this:
link to post: https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7193987173241520129/
"
Big update: I have co-founded a new company with Jorge Colindres and Gerbrand Ceder that is changing the way materials are designed, developed, and discovered through the integration of artificial intelligence, engineering, materials science, and applied research. Jorge and I bring deep expertise in materials science, engineering, and building technical teams, and Gerd is world-renowned for his pioneering research in high-throughput computational materials design, and in the development of autonomous labs for materials discovery. Radical’s goal is to build self-driving labs: from AI-generated materials to autonomous, high-throughput experimentation.
We are thrilled to be supported by Kevin Ryan and the AlleyCorp team, who bring world-class experience in starting, building, and investing in startups. We incubated Radical AI at AlleyCorp, and are excited to remain in their portfolio.
We are hiring: if you work at the intersection of machine learning and materials science, please reach out.
“
Interesting 😒 that they created this company recently but so did another guy: Talha Sabri (more him below) several years prior.
It seems this company use to go by the name of RadicalX but they became known for their scam and had to rebrand with new faces as the CEO. Here are some posts on the original company:
Here’s a post talking about how they used to be Radical x: https://www.reddit.com/csMajors/comments/1cno28c/radical_ai/
Some past reddit posts discussing RadicalX:
https://www.reddit.com/nyu/comments/wuclrb/what_is_radicalx/
https://www.reddit.com/csMajors/comments/1856knw/radicalx/
https://www.reddit.com/webdev/comments/17akjvh/wtf_has_this_ever_happened_to_you/
The radicalX CEO: Talha Sabri (typing out names so that if someone googles any of them, they see this post and are aware)
Seems to work with:
Areeb Tariq
Ines Prates
Yunus Jamal
some info I found on Talha: https://theorg.com/org/radicalx/org-chart/talha-sabri
AND Here is his linked in with RadicalAI as his job Listing himself as chairman and CEO: https://www.linkedin.com/in/talhasabri/
Interesting that Joseph, Jorge, and Gerbrand claim they started the company yet Talha also started it 7 years ago…. and yes it is the same company Talhas page links to the same company page as Joseph and Jorge. They have the same logo and they use the same shitty AI art (you would think 7 years would give them more time to better their blender skills).
Note that Talha continues to say he works there, but he also now works at a new company RealityAI. I’m guessing now Talha felt the need to expand his scamming under the name RealityAI. I don’t know if we will be seeing unpaid job postings for reality or if it is the final product under a different name so that people who will use the service will not know its background.
Here is Reality AI’s website: https://www.realityai.tech/
(Notice the same art as RadicalAI)
Also I found this. But, I am nsure if it has anything to do with any of this: https://listingspy.net/token/0x8b762ca4746b342d131b64670a3a3a866326fb46/
In conclusion, this honestly all seems really scammy and predatory. A friend told me they are promising visa’s and college credit to foreign workers/ students, I don’t know if they are actually going through with it, but if they aren’t it is extremely messed up and all of these people should be black listed.
As an aside i found this comment in another post about radicalx and thought it was good advice to keep this in mind
Taken from a comment by u/beginning-comedian-2:
Red flags in job interviews (and sometimes dating):
- They ask you to send money.
- They won't talk on the phone.
- They are very interested but never want to meet you.
- They require a 2-day take-home assignment before they'll get on the phone.
- "We're a fast-paced shop." (meaning you'll be working all hours.)
- When you ask what they like about working there, they say "the insurance".
- They want to pay you all in stock.
- All the devs have been there less than a year.
- Beds in the office.
- When you talk to ex-employees and they start with "It might be different now, but when I was there..."
- They say, "We're like family" (meaning, we'll likely expect more from you than 9-5 work.)
- "We often buy dinner for everyone as a perk." = you'll be working late.
2024.05.15 18:09 Ok_Vanilla_8763 Primary on vehicle loan with now ex
Location: Colorado, USA
In August 2023 I agreed to be primary on a car loan for my boyfriend of 3 years because his car broke down and he needed a vehicle for work, and his credit wasn't good enough to qualify on his own.
On the vehicle purchasing paperwork it says we both own the car. I am the primary borrower, he is the co-borrower.
We have since broken up, and it was messy. I will provide context as I don't know if we would be considered common law in Colorado and whether that affects things. We were together for 4 years. He cheated on me, and she was his gf a week later. I had stopped working full time 6 months prior to help care for his son and 2 godchildren, who we had temp custody of. I wasn't able to move out right away and he seemed okay with me saving money for a few months to move out... until he wasn't. He became more verbally aggressive, blocked access to the internet so I couldn't work, cancelled my car insurance even though I was halfway into a 2 week driving test to qualify for new car insurance, cancelled my phone line. He threatened to evict me (he couldn't do this because it was his parents house) multiple times because he felt like I wasn't trying hard enough to find another job. I eventually was able to save up enough to move out.
Last month, he was arrested for domestic violence against his new gf, he tried to kill himself that same night. It turns out he was heavily abusing his ADHD medication and alcohol, as well as other drugs like cocaine and hiding it from everyone for over a year, at least. He admitted to me that he stole ADHD medication from me. I had medication go missing in 2022 and 2023 but I could not confirm it was him. I even messaged his therapist and she was unable to give him a UA because he was also on ADHD medication and so the drug test wouldn't prove he was taking my medication. I plan on filing a police report, but I want to get the car loan situation sorted out because I'm worried about retaliation on his end. The police told me I don't need to file the report right away and that I can wait.
I continue to get notifications when he is late with his payments. He also has an EZ Pass and if he doesn't make the payments on those, the letters get sent to me in my name because I am primary. I called EZ Pass and they said if it doesn't get paid then it could prevent car registration.
When I email him and ask him where he is at on requesting the loan be taken out of my name and put into his, he says he's working on it but won't give me any other information or any sort of timeline. My credit score went down 50 points with the vehicle loan. I was luckily able to move into a private residence that did not require me to do a credit check, but I might need to move again and I will likely struggle to find an apartment with my current credit score.
The last email I sent, I told him if we can't figure it out we can get a mediator but it would be at his expense. He hasn't responded.
The current loan is approximately $30k. Payments are around $600/mo.
Questions
Are there ways I can get off of the loan that do not require him to have good enough credit to qualify?
Can I repo the car? What does that look like?
Does he have to be in agreement with my decisions?
I don't even know if I'm asking the right questions. I am lost in this situation but really need to buck up and get educated on what I can and can't do. He is someone who makes threats and I think what he did to me after we broke up would be considered emotional and financial abuse. I am definitely concerned about retaliation, and so I need to understand what am able to do so I can make the best decision.
Thank you so much in advance
submitted by Ok_Vanilla_8763 to legaladvice [link] [comments]
In August 2023 I agreed to be primary on a car loan for my boyfriend of 3 years because his car broke down and he needed a vehicle for work, and his credit wasn't good enough to qualify on his own.
On the vehicle purchasing paperwork it says we both own the car. I am the primary borrower, he is the co-borrower.
We have since broken up, and it was messy. I will provide context as I don't know if we would be considered common law in Colorado and whether that affects things. We were together for 4 years. He cheated on me, and she was his gf a week later. I had stopped working full time 6 months prior to help care for his son and 2 godchildren, who we had temp custody of. I wasn't able to move out right away and he seemed okay with me saving money for a few months to move out... until he wasn't. He became more verbally aggressive, blocked access to the internet so I couldn't work, cancelled my car insurance even though I was halfway into a 2 week driving test to qualify for new car insurance, cancelled my phone line. He threatened to evict me (he couldn't do this because it was his parents house) multiple times because he felt like I wasn't trying hard enough to find another job. I eventually was able to save up enough to move out.
Last month, he was arrested for domestic violence against his new gf, he tried to kill himself that same night. It turns out he was heavily abusing his ADHD medication and alcohol, as well as other drugs like cocaine and hiding it from everyone for over a year, at least. He admitted to me that he stole ADHD medication from me. I had medication go missing in 2022 and 2023 but I could not confirm it was him. I even messaged his therapist and she was unable to give him a UA because he was also on ADHD medication and so the drug test wouldn't prove he was taking my medication. I plan on filing a police report, but I want to get the car loan situation sorted out because I'm worried about retaliation on his end. The police told me I don't need to file the report right away and that I can wait.
I continue to get notifications when he is late with his payments. He also has an EZ Pass and if he doesn't make the payments on those, the letters get sent to me in my name because I am primary. I called EZ Pass and they said if it doesn't get paid then it could prevent car registration.
When I email him and ask him where he is at on requesting the loan be taken out of my name and put into his, he says he's working on it but won't give me any other information or any sort of timeline. My credit score went down 50 points with the vehicle loan. I was luckily able to move into a private residence that did not require me to do a credit check, but I might need to move again and I will likely struggle to find an apartment with my current credit score.
The last email I sent, I told him if we can't figure it out we can get a mediator but it would be at his expense. He hasn't responded.
The current loan is approximately $30k. Payments are around $600/mo.
Questions
Are there ways I can get off of the loan that do not require him to have good enough credit to qualify?
Can I repo the car? What does that look like?
Does he have to be in agreement with my decisions?
I don't even know if I'm asking the right questions. I am lost in this situation but really need to buck up and get educated on what I can and can't do. He is someone who makes threats and I think what he did to me after we broke up would be considered emotional and financial abuse. I am definitely concerned about retaliation, and so I need to understand what am able to do so I can make the best decision.
Thank you so much in advance
2024.05.15 18:06 DrDoritosMD [Stargate and GATE Inspired] Manifest Fantasy Chapter 16: Power Play (Part 1)
Author’s Note:
If you enjoy the story so far, please consider upvoting and commenting! These go a long way in helping the story reach a larger audience. (Also, reddit removes all my formatting for some reason so if you want a fully formatted read, check out my story on RoyalRoad)
READ 2 WEEKS AHEAD: Season Finale Chapter 17 is now available for Tier 2 Manifest Fantasy Patrons and higher!
Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/drdoritosmd
Discord: https://discord.gg/wr2xexGJaD
First
Three, two, one... execute.
Ron peeked around the corner, his M4E1 Carl Gustaf already loaded with standard HEAT rounds. The rest of Alpha Team stacked up behind him or behind Ryan, who was on the other side of the doorway. Through the opening, they could see a nightmarish tangle of webs and egg sacs, with the skittering shapes of Spiranids lurking in the shadows in the far corners of the room.
The Queen was positioned in the center of the room, completely exposed by a cluster of eggs. Henry watched as Ron leveled his Gustaf, taking aim at the Queen while they stayed along the wall to ensure Ron’s backblast was clear. It should have been an easy kill, but a flicker of movement caught Henry’s eye.
A blob of white flew across his vision, smacking into Ron just as he fired his weapon. The thick strands of webbing bypassed Kelmithus’ shielding and wrapped around him, sending him flying back a couple of meters. He landed on his back, his body and launcher completely stuck to the floor by the condensed silk.
Around the same time, the Gustaf’s projectile struck the Queen’s abdomen section. The resulting blast tore through its exoskeleton but was far from a fatal blow. The Queen shrieked, a sound far deeper than Henry expected.
“Fuck!” Ron shouted, struggling to break free from the webbing.
Henry exhaled. They were a man down, but helping him had to wait; the not-dead Queen and its minions took precedence. It would be great if he had another launcher in his own Holding Bag, but that was something he’d have to bring up to Chief Cole later. Henry tossed his grenades into the room, the pops mingling with the screeches of injured Spiranids. Ryan struck simultaneously, throwing his own collection into the mix. Like firecrackers, the explosives were violent but short-lived.
As the chaos subsided, Henry pushed in. Raising his shotgun, he tore through a Spiranid that pounced at him, its carcass smoldering from the white phosphorous. Beside him, Isaac, Ryan, and Dr. Anderson’s shots rang out, tearing through their own sectors of fire.
Almost immediately upon their entry, the Queen surged forward with terrifying speed. It reared its head back like it was about to vomit, mandibles covered in a sick, yellowish color. Henry recognized immediately what it was trying to do. “Acid, move!”
Henry dove away from his previous position, taking a shot at another Spiranid that had taken the opportunity to jump at him while its master was preparing to attack. He narrowly escaped the lethal spray as it jetted toward him. The acid splattered on the ground where they had stood not even a second before, sizzling fiercely as it corroded the thick webbing sprawled across the floor. He noticed as he ran that, rather curiously, the acid was simply puddling on the floor. There was no damage to the floor itself, but if it could tear apart high-quality monster silk just like that, he didn’t want to find out what it could do to an envirosuit.
Henry glanced back after blasting apart his third Spiranid. His teammates were fine – Ryan helping him keep the Queen’s attention, Sera already on her way to Ron, and the others taking care of the smaller Spiranids. He tried to get a quick headcount of how many Spiranids they’d already eliminated. Between their guns, Kelmithus’ magic, and the grenades, he estimated they had killed at least a dozen so far. Solid progress, but the fact that they weren’t able to take out the Queen with their first strike was an issue.
Henry rolled to his left as the Queen pounced on his previous position. It was fucking fast, like a Goliath birdeater but scaled up – and with nasty abilities that really shouldn’t belong on a creature like this. He recovered quickly and took aim, firing point-blank into its thorax. The white phosphorous pellets hissed as they burned into its exoskeleton, forcing it back.
Beside him, Ryan’s shotgun boomed. He struck the Queen’s legs, which seemed to be more fragile than the thick exoskeleton surrounding the head and thorax. The pellets bit into the chitin, likely striking a nerve as evidenced by the leg’s subsequent buckling and collapse. It was a lucky shot – one that he doubted they could repeat four or five more times.
“Sera, use my knife! Here, right here!” Ron called out.
Sera’s sword must’ve been too large to effectively cut through the webbing. They had to hurry up. He and Ryan had been dodging the Queen’s attacks, but mostly by a hair’s breadth. All it took was one lucky hit from the Queen to put them out of commission, possibly for good. “Sera, status on Ron?”
“One minute!” she responded.
Damn. That was one minute later than he’d hoped. Reacting instinctively, Henry noted the Queen raising one of its legs – a sure sign of it preparing for another attack. The Queen struck again, this time cleaving the air with the leg, aiming to corral him into a predictable escape route. As its leg swept through the air, Henry caught sight of the Queen rearing its head back in a grotesque mimicry of a snake about to strike – another acid attack.
Anticipating the monster’s strategy, Henry feinted to the right, a move he hoped would mislead it about his true intentions. As the Queen’s head followed his feint, Henry twisted sharply, scraping against the rough ground. With a powerful push from his legs, he launched backward just as the Queen unleashed its attack.
Acid spewed forth in a wide arc, splattering where he had just been. The corrosive globs almost instantly melted the webbing on the floor, collecting into pools. And there was the second issue. The longer this fight dragged on, the less room they’d have to maneuver.
Henry unloaded into the creature’s compound eyes before tossing a flashbang near its legs. The creature staggered backward, blinded in both its eyes and its sensory hairs. Henry used the precious few seconds he bought to reload his weapon and check up on his team. “Yen, sitrep?”
“Stragglers neutralized; we’re moving to you now.”
Automatic gunfire erupted as Isaac and Dr. Anderson joined the fight against the Queen, dumping their mags on the creature’s head. The 6.8mm seemed to penetrate well, but he could say the same if they fought an elephant; the Spiranid Queen was simply too large for the relatively small caliber rounds to have any effect besides pissing it off.
The Queen lunged again, its legs surrounding him from all sides. There was only one way out, and it was through the belly of the beast. Henry rushed forward, ducking under the Queen’s mandibles as he slid underneath its abdomen. He fired his shotgun as quickly as he could, unloading pellets into the beast’s underbelly. The white phosphorous scorched the softer flesh, drawing a shriek of pain from the massive creature.
As the Queen writhed under the relentless assault, Ryan and the others seized the moment to reload their weapons and reposition. They poured everything they had into the creature’s cephalothorax, bluish ichor oozing from the hundreds of new wounds that they opened up. Yet, it was like chipping away at a mountain – it simply wasn’t enough. The creature thrashed around violently in response; Henry knew it was only a matter of time before it landed a hit on someone.
And land a hit it did. With a terrifying swiftness, one of its massive legs slammed into Henry’s chest, launching him backward. The shield Kelmithus cast on him flickered as it absorbed the brunt of the impact. He crashed into an egg sac by the entrance – its membrane ruptured on impact, drenching him in a sticky, corrosive slime. The sac provided little cushion, and he hit the ground hard, the breath knocked out of him.
Pain flared across Henry’s chest where the Queen’s leg had struck him. Gasping for breath and battling the encroaching blackness in his vision, he instinctively checked his envirosuit. He started with the areas he could see, glancing down at his chest. It was visibly deformed, dented but not quite a gash.
Still intact, thank goodness. No breach, but another hit like that would be disastrous. He breathed a sigh of relief, his chest hurting like hell as he did so. He checked his sides and back. Parts of his suit were covered in slime from the egg sac. It didn’t seem as corrosive as the Queen’s acid, but it was still a hazard. Quickly, he swiped at it, removing as much as possible with his gloved hands to prevent further damage.
He forced himself up, grabbing his shotgun from the floor. The Queen was already barreling toward him, the damn monster not letting up. He didn’t have time to make a run for it; he needed to jump to one side or the other, and the timing needed to be perfect. Just as the Queen’s shadow engulfed him, the air turned icy cold, frost creeping up on his visor.
Ice formed from thin air, spearing up from the ground and piercing through the Queen’s legs. The spikes rooted the beast in place. Not one to waste an opportunity, Henry dashed away from the entrance, firing at the immobilized giant spider as he linked up with the others.
“Sera?” Henry asked again.
Sera’s voice came in strained. “Almost…” Then, with a triumphant shout, she announced the word Henry had been desperate to hear. “Done!”
“Owens!” Henry said, risking a glance back.
Ron had already grabbed his Gustaf and was in the process of loading another HEAT round. “On it!”
Henry grinned. It was a relief, to be sure. With Ron free and back in the fight, the odds had just tipped heavily in their favor. The Queen was tough, but it wasn’t invincible; they just needed an opening.
Given the damage the Queen sustained to its body, Henry couldn’t imagine it being in peak fighting condition. Even in its weakened state, though, it still had the capability to dodge Ron’s attack, and it seemed to be saving its web ability for that very inevitability.
“Take out the legs!” Henry ordered.
They combined their fire on the left legs, since Ryan managed to break one of them earlier. He heard a crack that might’ve been the chitin giving way or the leg snapping, but it was hard to tell. He was just about to chalk it up to the prevailing gunfire around them, but then he saw it: a brief stumble. The Queen recovered quickly, but it was clear to Henry that it wouldn’t be able to manage any more damage to its legs.
Then, he noticed a blur in his peripheral vision to his right, moving so fast his eyes could barely keep up. Shit, he was certain he kept track of the Queen’s movements. With the existing damage to his envirosuit, he’d be completely fucked. He braced himself for another impact, but it never came.
As he focused harder on the blur, he caught a glimpse of a flash of light that could only be one thing – Sera’s sword, And, just like a flash of lightning, she had already cleared the vicinity of the Queen. The Queen’s foreleg seemed to simply vanish, severed so cleanly that it took a moment for the beast to realize what had happened. When it did, it let out a screech of pain, its balance faltering as it tried to adapt to the sudden change.
While Henry focused on taking out another leg from the left side, Sera had already shifted to her next target. Their assault was brutal: white phosphorus pellets and hard-hitting 6.8mm on one side, ice magic and skilled swordsmanship on the other. And to think, they managed to inflict all this damage by the time Ron completed his reload.
“Clear the way!” Ron called out, his Gustaf aimed right at the Queen’s head.
Henry jumped back, watching as Kelmithus conjured another set of ice spikes to root the beast again, in case the five obliterated legs weren’t enough to keep it down. The Queen thrashed against the icy bonds, its remaining legs slashing through the air in a frenzied bid for freedom. It spat acid – a tactic that would’ve worked effectively on most other materials, but instead simply got diluted with the melting ice. Even as the acid reacted with the ice, the spikes held firm, anchoring the beast in place like steel cables.
Henry’s heart pounded in his ears. Come on, Owens, he urged silently. Take the shot.
As if on cue, Ron pulled the trigger. The Gustaf bucked in his hands as the HEAT round streaked towards its target. Henry barely had time to brace himself before the explosion hit, the shockwave slamming into him and nearly toppling him over. He staggered back, gazing into the settling dust.
When the smoke cleared, the Queen’s head was obliterated – replaced by a gory mess of shattered chitin and pulverized flesh. Blood sprayed from the gaping hole, covering the ground in a pale blue hue. The creature’s body convulsed, its remaining legs scrabbling weakly at their surroundings.
A surge of triumph washed over Henry, but it was fleeting. From the corner of his eye, he locked on to a glimpse of movement. One of the Queen’s legs continued to spasmodically jerk around and spray the ground with blue ichor. He raised his shotgun in a nonchalant motion and blasted the errant limb, watching as it shuddered and went still.
Sera stepped up, her sword barely catching the light as she jammed it into what was left of the Queen’s thorax. A sharp twist, and it was over. She then yanked the blade from the carcass, her grip shifting subtly along the hilt. As she flicked the sword, frost swiftly coated the ichor clinging to the metal. The frozen debris was flung off, hitting the ground and shattering like glass.
He glanced down at his Holding Bag. Damn, the fight took out most of his shells. Swapping out his shotgun for his M7, he turned to his team and took stock of their condition. It seemed everyone had mostly gone unscathed, only debris and dirt scarring their envirosuits. Well, except for himself and Ron. “Think we’re gonna have to start calling you pinata now,” Henry said, clapping his friend on the shoulder.
Ron scoffed. “Yeah? Says the runner-up,” he said, tapping the dent on Henry’s envirosuit. “Better ‘pinata’ than ‘roadkill’, though. But seriously, what’s next? Don’t even know where to start.”
The room was empty, save for the debris strewn about and the singular obelisk standing in the center of the room. He didn’t notice it earlier, but as he got closer, he realized that the obelisk emitted a faint light that barely escaped the canopy of webs. He looked it up and down before turning to the others. “Only one place to start. Let’s clear out the webs, see what’s hiding below.”
“Doc, Kel, clear out the eggs. Hayes, Sera, see if the Queen’s got anything useful. Everyone else focus on the webs,” Henry ordered.
Ron drew his knife and started slicing through the dense cobwebs. “Hey, what y’all think the Queen’s Tier is?”
Isaac paused to consider. “Eh, Tier 8, probably. Minotaur boss and Rillifane boss were both Tier 8, so I’d say the spider’s around the same level.”
“Well, the resilience of the specimen isn’t a definitive measure of the Tier,” Dr. Anderson pointed out. “It’s quite possible that we merely had the most suitable tools at hand in this particular encounter.”
“The scholar speaks truly,” Sera agreed. “There is nary a defining criterion; defense is but one of many that are considered by the Guild. Were it so simple, Kelmithus and I would have attained Tier 9 ere now.”
“So, what do you think the Queen is, then? Tier 7 maybe?” Ron asked.
Henry shook his head. Tier 7 didn’t seem accurate. Using his knife to scrape some of the webbing off his glove, he voiced, “Spiranids are weak in general, but are classified as Tier 5 or higher because of their traps, ambush tactics, numbers, and abilities. Archers can use Wind Snipe and mages can use wide-area spellcasting, but they can’t reliably penetrate the exoskeleton’s armor. If anything, this is probably on the lower end of Tier 9.”
“Tier 9, huh?” Isaac muttered.
Sera smiled as she stood back. She stuffed a frost-covered gland into her holding bag and paused from her work as she chimed in, “Hmm… how keen. I expected nothing less from the first Tier 6 entrants in Eldralore’s history! It shows plain why the Guild did so swiftly raise you.”
“Hah,” Henry chuckled. It was an amusing thought, but… “Say, ya think we can get to Tier 7 after this?”
Sera’s eyebrows shot up. “Tier 7? A mark of no slight merit. What have you achieved since attaining Tier 6?”
Henry reached to scratch his chin, then cursed softly as his glove thudded against his visor. “Well, we took down a Rillifane pack, a Sentinel Lindwyrm, and now this primal Spiranid Queen. That’s not too shabby, eh?”
“Firm victories,” Sera admitted, “but advancement weighs more than battle alone. The Guild also considers quest difficulty, knowledge gained therefrom, and impact – in other words, glory.”
“The Baranthurian Ruins,” Dr. Anderson blurted, taking the words out of Henry’s mouth. He turned to Kelmithus, who approached them after confirming that the eggs had been cleared out. “Surely, working with the Sanctum Arcanum must be quite the honour. The Guild holds their quests with high esteem, wouldn’t you say?”
Kelmithus nodded, burning a clump of disposed webs on the ground. “True as that may be, advancement oft hinges upon the cumulative experience of dozens of quests.”
“Well, ain’t no small feats for us lately,” Ryan remarked. “The quest to the Baranthurian ruins, what was it, Tier 8? Yeah, that was Tier 8. Sentinel Lindwyrm? Hell, Tier Nine. That there beast?” Ryan pointed his gun at the carcass of the Spiranid Queen. “Tier 9 as well.”
Ron interjected, “Plus we’ve been helping out along the way, like those villagers, and taking on quests others won’t touch. Honestly, the Hardale quest should be pretty weighty too, considering the Nobian shenanigans.”
Sera hummed, mulling over Alpha Team’s experiences. The fact that most of their quests at Tier 6 had essentially been Tier 7 quests or higher in difficulty was probably unheard of in the Guild. Not only that, but they’d been able to complete these difficult quests successfully. Hell, with flying colors, even. That had to count for something.
Henry looked over at Sera, stepping back as he allowed Kelmithus to dispose of the webs that he had cleared out. “So, whaddya think? Based on what we’ve done, you think we got a shot at Tier 7?”
Sera looked up at the ceiling as she weighed her response. “Ehh, you’ve a strong case. Alas, it’s Taldren’s call to make. His favor seems yours, though; I wager he’ll agree.”
Henry grinned. Moving up meant they could have access to more quests. Naturally, that also meant better rewards and in turn, access to some truly magical equipment. “Good to hear. Guess we’ll see to it once we get back to Eldralore. Now, we should probably –”
A soft glow of light gradually lit up the room, interrupting Henry mid-sentence. He squinted, readying his weapon. The light came from the walls and ceiling, illuminating the once-dark chamber. The obelisk, now free of webs, now hummed… healthily? It wasn’t like he had a manual to tell him if this was a good or bad development, but judging from the facility’s reaction, it must’ve worked.
Henry glanced at his HUD. The temperature readings were rising, too. The icy chill from Kelmithus’ magic rapidly dissipated as the environmental controls kicked in. “Well, looks like we’ve done all we can here. Let’s head back to the containment cell room and see if we can find anything else of interest.”
– – –
Outskirts of GB-2, Grenden Forest
Carvus Alnect Virelius narrowed his gaze toward the brightening sky, his eyes cutting through the retreating mist that had long veiled the forest’s canopy. This unprecedented clarity above the ruins was strange. After centuries cloaked in an impenetrable fog, why did the skies clear now?
The Umber Vicearch’s mind worked like a whetstone, sharpening the fragments of reports from his scouts, cryptic as they were. The recent skirmish, occurring concurrently with the lifting fog, could not be mere happenstance. Regardless of the answer, the unexpected fold presented a welcome complexity to test his mettle.
He set his thoughts aside as the sound of footsteps approached.
“Leuarch Eldreyn reporting, milord,” one of his men said. “We’ve word from Serarch Trelian.”
Carvus gave him a nod to continue.
Eldreyn relayed the news. “The scouts espy traces of battle: a fallen Sentinel Lindwyrm and two carriages left abandoned near the cave’s entrance. The land bears scars from some form of magic, strewn with strange metal tubes and other objects unknown to us. Save for the Lindwyrm, no other bodies are to be found. What are your commands, milord?”
Carvus took a deep breath. No other bodies? Two carriages? That such a formidable creature was felled with no apparent casualties among their ranks suggested a small but extraordinarily capable force. Each member was no doubt Tier 7 at the least. The limited number of carriages implied a party not larger than ten. But… what could the metal objects mean?
Powerful though they might be, could such a small group withstand his numbers? Carvus entertained the thought briefly. No, direct confrontation would be unwise. The site bore secrets too vital to squander on rash gambles. Better to maneuver them into a position where the only viable option would be to comply with his demands.
“Hold our position, Lornus,” Carvus commanded. While he preferred the safety of their hidden vantage in the forest, the intrigue of Trelian’s findings – the slain Lindwyrm – was too compelling to ignore. “The contents of Trelian’s report compel our own investigation. Lead us, that we might see for ourselves.”
“As you command, milord.”
It was a short walk to the clearing. As they reached the treeline, Carvus held up a hand, signaling his men to halt – they should go no further than the cover of the forest. The aftermath of the battle lay evident before them. The massive form of the Sentinel Lindwyrm sprawled near the far side of the clearing, its outline murky at a distance.
Carvus squinted, adjusting his position slightly for a better view. He felt his jaw drop, a lapse in composure that surprised even him. Yet, who could fault him? The beast lay nearly torn asunder, its massive body riddled with gaping, jagged wounds that no sword or arrow could inflict. Indeed, not even traditional siege weapons or combat spells could inflict such damage.
The destructive capability of fyric powder was well-known to him – he had seen its use in adamantite mines. The wounds on the Lindwyrm, however, spoke of a force of another Tier entirely. Where fyric powder might clear a path through a stubborn boulder, the agent used against the Sentinel Lindwyrm seemed capable of obliterating several boulders at once, perhaps even an entire cliffside.
Turning his attention from the ravaged beast, he scanned the battlefield. Among the chaos, his eyes caught the glint of metal – strange tubes scattered about, all some lighter shade of bronze. The craters were blackened and littered with debris: shards of metal mixed with wires. This was clearly no ordinary skirmish.
He moved closer to the tree line, cautiously examining the unfamiliar objects. The metal tubes bore no resemblance to any weapons known to Nobian forces. However, their presence here implied that somehow, these objects were related to the catastrophic wounds on the Lindwyrm.
Near the cave’s entrance, two metal carriages lay abandoned. Their exteriors were marred by dirt and marked with an array of dents that appeared to be from the Lindwyrm’s armored tail. The carriages, in style and make, aligned with reports of American machines observed by their Umbercari in distant Eldralore. Mounted atop each was a long cylinder. As foreign as they were, he could tell they were weapons – ones capable of unleashing formidable destruction.
Adventurers throughout the ages had ventured here, all repelled by the formidable Lindwyrm that long guarded these grounds. Had it been folly to devote their resources to the conquest of their neighbors, rather than to mastering and exploiting this site? Such questions surpassed his station, yet irrespective of the answers, the Emperor would surely take no pleasure in learning that he had allowed Americans to plunder the Gatebuilder’s secrets.
Carvus turned to Lornus. “Bid our scouts to investigate the cave.” As Leuarch Eldreyn departed to carry out the orders, he beckoned to one of his serarchs. “Bring me one of those metal tubes. I wish to examine it.”
He sat on a rock, watching the light bend around the man’s form until he vanished from sight. The serarch then adjusted the temperature around his body, matching it to that of the forest. Were it not for the subtle shifts in the man’s mana as he held the spells, Carvus would have surely lost track of him.
The serarch made his way forth, passing through the trees and into the clearing beyond. With haste, he seized upon one of the tubes that lay scattered about, and then, as quick as he had come, he turned and made his way back to the forest’s edge. When at last he returned, Carvus stood up and held out his hand.
The tube, lighter than its solidity might have portended, was chill to the touch and was marked by a patina that showed clear signs of bending. He tried to bend it with his fingers, but the metal resisted. Even when he used magic to strengthen himself, it yielded naught but scant impression. What could have possibly moved the metal?
Looking closely, he noticed that the metal wasn’t bronze, as he had first thought. Though bearing a hue akin to bronze, it was of a kind unfamiliar to him. The surface was engraved with American script – characters and sequences that held little meaning to him. Yet, to deem the letters ‘engraved’ would be to err; it was as if they were imprinted with a craftsmanship nary a smith could rival.
He turned it over in his hands, his eyes drawn to a circular groove near the base. Examining both ends, Carvus noted the open end was distorted as if a great force had expelled something from within – an insight into his previous question. The other end was sealed, marked by a small, precise indentation. He held it up, aligning it with a similarly sized hole in a nearby tree.
This was no common weapon. As a trebuchet releases its load, so too must this tube have hurled its own projectile. It gave him an idea. What if one were to use an adamantite tube with fyric powder, place a keen arrowhead atop, and ignite the mixture below? Would it rival a standard Wind Snipe combined with physical enhancement magic?
Carvus’ thoughts were interrupted by someone calling out to him. “Milord.”
“Hm?” He looked up, finding the face of Leuarch Franus. “What is it, Martano?”
He hesitated, as if second-guessing his words. “The… The Lindwyrm… The men grow restless, milord. They wish to claim the spoils of this battle – the Sentinel Lindwyrm’s materials are prized in many a lore. And these carriages, would it not profit us to salvage what we can? They may hold more secrets – or riches.”
He turned the leuarch’s words over in his mind as he would a well-worn coin. In truth, the idea held merit. Even the smallest measure of a Lindwyrm’s blood was a treasure beyond compare – to say nothing of the other materials, sought after by alchemists and smiths alike. That the Americans had forgone harvest was a curious thing indeed. Could it be that they were ignorant of the creature’s true worth? Or perhaps, had they found something more valuable?
And then there were the carriages, gleaming in the sun like ripe fruit waiting to be plucked. If they could but glean some understanding of how the Americans had so deftly slain a beast of the Lindwyrm’s standing, it would surely prove a boon to the Empire’s own martial pursuits. Perhaps, armed with such knowledge, they might at last gain the upper hand against the accursed Sonarans.
Carvus cast his gaze once more upon the clearing, then turned to face Martano. “Aye,” he said. “Let it be so.”
Yet, as he made to step forth, a low, droning sound beckoned his attention – a buzzing hum that seemed to come from everywhere and nowhere at once. The unfamiliar noise compelled him to halt. He raised his hand, stopping his men as he searched for the noise. He tilted his head skyward, squinting as he beheld a strange sight: a winged thing hanging in the air above the clearing, like an animal circling its prey. As the sunlight reflected off its surface, it became evident to him that this was no creature of flesh, but a machine – much like the metal carriages.
“Hold,” Carvus ordered. “We dare not venture forth.”
Martano stepped forward, doubt and confusion etched across his face. “But, milord, if we shroud ourselves in invisibility, surely they cannot see us.”
Carvus shook his head. “Nay; recall the umbercari we sent to infiltrate the Duke’s mansion. They, too, thought themselves hidden, yet were somehow discovered. We know not what sorcery that flying machine might possess, and we cannot risk exposing ourselves.”
Before Martano could respond or venture any further protest, the scouts returned, led by Serarch Trelian. The search bowed his head before providing his report, “Milord, the cave lies empty, and the Lindwyrm’s nest remains untouched. We discovered footprints leading to a great sealed door, which we believe to be the entrance to the ruins.”
Carvus nodded. The Americans had ventured forth and left the loot behind for a reason. He thought back to a fortress that the Empire once sacrificed to encircle the forces of the now-conquered Kingdom of Durenelle. “So be it. Let us abandon these lesser spoils. As our adversaries have forgone these spoils in pursuit of greater gains, so must we sacrifice Straltus.”
Next
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First
Ron peeked around the corner, his M4E1 Carl Gustaf already loaded with standard HEAT rounds. The rest of Alpha Team stacked up behind him or behind Ryan, who was on the other side of the doorway. Through the opening, they could see a nightmarish tangle of webs and egg sacs, with the skittering shapes of Spiranids lurking in the shadows in the far corners of the room.
The Queen was positioned in the center of the room, completely exposed by a cluster of eggs. Henry watched as Ron leveled his Gustaf, taking aim at the Queen while they stayed along the wall to ensure Ron’s backblast was clear. It should have been an easy kill, but a flicker of movement caught Henry’s eye.
A blob of white flew across his vision, smacking into Ron just as he fired his weapon. The thick strands of webbing bypassed Kelmithus’ shielding and wrapped around him, sending him flying back a couple of meters. He landed on his back, his body and launcher completely stuck to the floor by the condensed silk.
Around the same time, the Gustaf’s projectile struck the Queen’s abdomen section. The resulting blast tore through its exoskeleton but was far from a fatal blow. The Queen shrieked, a sound far deeper than Henry expected.
“Fuck!” Ron shouted, struggling to break free from the webbing.
Henry exhaled. They were a man down, but helping him had to wait; the not-dead Queen and its minions took precedence. It would be great if he had another launcher in his own Holding Bag, but that was something he’d have to bring up to Chief Cole later. Henry tossed his grenades into the room, the pops mingling with the screeches of injured Spiranids. Ryan struck simultaneously, throwing his own collection into the mix. Like firecrackers, the explosives were violent but short-lived.
As the chaos subsided, Henry pushed in. Raising his shotgun, he tore through a Spiranid that pounced at him, its carcass smoldering from the white phosphorous. Beside him, Isaac, Ryan, and Dr. Anderson’s shots rang out, tearing through their own sectors of fire.
Almost immediately upon their entry, the Queen surged forward with terrifying speed. It reared its head back like it was about to vomit, mandibles covered in a sick, yellowish color. Henry recognized immediately what it was trying to do. “Acid, move!”
Henry dove away from his previous position, taking a shot at another Spiranid that had taken the opportunity to jump at him while its master was preparing to attack. He narrowly escaped the lethal spray as it jetted toward him. The acid splattered on the ground where they had stood not even a second before, sizzling fiercely as it corroded the thick webbing sprawled across the floor. He noticed as he ran that, rather curiously, the acid was simply puddling on the floor. There was no damage to the floor itself, but if it could tear apart high-quality monster silk just like that, he didn’t want to find out what it could do to an envirosuit.
Henry glanced back after blasting apart his third Spiranid. His teammates were fine – Ryan helping him keep the Queen’s attention, Sera already on her way to Ron, and the others taking care of the smaller Spiranids. He tried to get a quick headcount of how many Spiranids they’d already eliminated. Between their guns, Kelmithus’ magic, and the grenades, he estimated they had killed at least a dozen so far. Solid progress, but the fact that they weren’t able to take out the Queen with their first strike was an issue.
Henry rolled to his left as the Queen pounced on his previous position. It was fucking fast, like a Goliath birdeater but scaled up – and with nasty abilities that really shouldn’t belong on a creature like this. He recovered quickly and took aim, firing point-blank into its thorax. The white phosphorous pellets hissed as they burned into its exoskeleton, forcing it back.
Beside him, Ryan’s shotgun boomed. He struck the Queen’s legs, which seemed to be more fragile than the thick exoskeleton surrounding the head and thorax. The pellets bit into the chitin, likely striking a nerve as evidenced by the leg’s subsequent buckling and collapse. It was a lucky shot – one that he doubted they could repeat four or five more times.
“Sera, use my knife! Here, right here!” Ron called out.
Sera’s sword must’ve been too large to effectively cut through the webbing. They had to hurry up. He and Ryan had been dodging the Queen’s attacks, but mostly by a hair’s breadth. All it took was one lucky hit from the Queen to put them out of commission, possibly for good. “Sera, status on Ron?”
“One minute!” she responded.
Damn. That was one minute later than he’d hoped. Reacting instinctively, Henry noted the Queen raising one of its legs – a sure sign of it preparing for another attack. The Queen struck again, this time cleaving the air with the leg, aiming to corral him into a predictable escape route. As its leg swept through the air, Henry caught sight of the Queen rearing its head back in a grotesque mimicry of a snake about to strike – another acid attack.
Anticipating the monster’s strategy, Henry feinted to the right, a move he hoped would mislead it about his true intentions. As the Queen’s head followed his feint, Henry twisted sharply, scraping against the rough ground. With a powerful push from his legs, he launched backward just as the Queen unleashed its attack.
Acid spewed forth in a wide arc, splattering where he had just been. The corrosive globs almost instantly melted the webbing on the floor, collecting into pools. And there was the second issue. The longer this fight dragged on, the less room they’d have to maneuver.
Henry unloaded into the creature’s compound eyes before tossing a flashbang near its legs. The creature staggered backward, blinded in both its eyes and its sensory hairs. Henry used the precious few seconds he bought to reload his weapon and check up on his team. “Yen, sitrep?”
“Stragglers neutralized; we’re moving to you now.”
Automatic gunfire erupted as Isaac and Dr. Anderson joined the fight against the Queen, dumping their mags on the creature’s head. The 6.8mm seemed to penetrate well, but he could say the same if they fought an elephant; the Spiranid Queen was simply too large for the relatively small caliber rounds to have any effect besides pissing it off.
The Queen lunged again, its legs surrounding him from all sides. There was only one way out, and it was through the belly of the beast. Henry rushed forward, ducking under the Queen’s mandibles as he slid underneath its abdomen. He fired his shotgun as quickly as he could, unloading pellets into the beast’s underbelly. The white phosphorous scorched the softer flesh, drawing a shriek of pain from the massive creature.
As the Queen writhed under the relentless assault, Ryan and the others seized the moment to reload their weapons and reposition. They poured everything they had into the creature’s cephalothorax, bluish ichor oozing from the hundreds of new wounds that they opened up. Yet, it was like chipping away at a mountain – it simply wasn’t enough. The creature thrashed around violently in response; Henry knew it was only a matter of time before it landed a hit on someone.
And land a hit it did. With a terrifying swiftness, one of its massive legs slammed into Henry’s chest, launching him backward. The shield Kelmithus cast on him flickered as it absorbed the brunt of the impact. He crashed into an egg sac by the entrance – its membrane ruptured on impact, drenching him in a sticky, corrosive slime. The sac provided little cushion, and he hit the ground hard, the breath knocked out of him.
Pain flared across Henry’s chest where the Queen’s leg had struck him. Gasping for breath and battling the encroaching blackness in his vision, he instinctively checked his envirosuit. He started with the areas he could see, glancing down at his chest. It was visibly deformed, dented but not quite a gash.
Still intact, thank goodness. No breach, but another hit like that would be disastrous. He breathed a sigh of relief, his chest hurting like hell as he did so. He checked his sides and back. Parts of his suit were covered in slime from the egg sac. It didn’t seem as corrosive as the Queen’s acid, but it was still a hazard. Quickly, he swiped at it, removing as much as possible with his gloved hands to prevent further damage.
He forced himself up, grabbing his shotgun from the floor. The Queen was already barreling toward him, the damn monster not letting up. He didn’t have time to make a run for it; he needed to jump to one side or the other, and the timing needed to be perfect. Just as the Queen’s shadow engulfed him, the air turned icy cold, frost creeping up on his visor.
Ice formed from thin air, spearing up from the ground and piercing through the Queen’s legs. The spikes rooted the beast in place. Not one to waste an opportunity, Henry dashed away from the entrance, firing at the immobilized giant spider as he linked up with the others.
“Sera?” Henry asked again.
Sera’s voice came in strained. “Almost…” Then, with a triumphant shout, she announced the word Henry had been desperate to hear. “Done!”
“Owens!” Henry said, risking a glance back.
Ron had already grabbed his Gustaf and was in the process of loading another HEAT round. “On it!”
Henry grinned. It was a relief, to be sure. With Ron free and back in the fight, the odds had just tipped heavily in their favor. The Queen was tough, but it wasn’t invincible; they just needed an opening.
Given the damage the Queen sustained to its body, Henry couldn’t imagine it being in peak fighting condition. Even in its weakened state, though, it still had the capability to dodge Ron’s attack, and it seemed to be saving its web ability for that very inevitability.
“Take out the legs!” Henry ordered.
They combined their fire on the left legs, since Ryan managed to break one of them earlier. He heard a crack that might’ve been the chitin giving way or the leg snapping, but it was hard to tell. He was just about to chalk it up to the prevailing gunfire around them, but then he saw it: a brief stumble. The Queen recovered quickly, but it was clear to Henry that it wouldn’t be able to manage any more damage to its legs.
Then, he noticed a blur in his peripheral vision to his right, moving so fast his eyes could barely keep up. Shit, he was certain he kept track of the Queen’s movements. With the existing damage to his envirosuit, he’d be completely fucked. He braced himself for another impact, but it never came.
As he focused harder on the blur, he caught a glimpse of a flash of light that could only be one thing – Sera’s sword, And, just like a flash of lightning, she had already cleared the vicinity of the Queen. The Queen’s foreleg seemed to simply vanish, severed so cleanly that it took a moment for the beast to realize what had happened. When it did, it let out a screech of pain, its balance faltering as it tried to adapt to the sudden change.
While Henry focused on taking out another leg from the left side, Sera had already shifted to her next target. Their assault was brutal: white phosphorus pellets and hard-hitting 6.8mm on one side, ice magic and skilled swordsmanship on the other. And to think, they managed to inflict all this damage by the time Ron completed his reload.
“Clear the way!” Ron called out, his Gustaf aimed right at the Queen’s head.
Henry jumped back, watching as Kelmithus conjured another set of ice spikes to root the beast again, in case the five obliterated legs weren’t enough to keep it down. The Queen thrashed against the icy bonds, its remaining legs slashing through the air in a frenzied bid for freedom. It spat acid – a tactic that would’ve worked effectively on most other materials, but instead simply got diluted with the melting ice. Even as the acid reacted with the ice, the spikes held firm, anchoring the beast in place like steel cables.
Henry’s heart pounded in his ears. Come on, Owens, he urged silently. Take the shot.
As if on cue, Ron pulled the trigger. The Gustaf bucked in his hands as the HEAT round streaked towards its target. Henry barely had time to brace himself before the explosion hit, the shockwave slamming into him and nearly toppling him over. He staggered back, gazing into the settling dust.
When the smoke cleared, the Queen’s head was obliterated – replaced by a gory mess of shattered chitin and pulverized flesh. Blood sprayed from the gaping hole, covering the ground in a pale blue hue. The creature’s body convulsed, its remaining legs scrabbling weakly at their surroundings.
A surge of triumph washed over Henry, but it was fleeting. From the corner of his eye, he locked on to a glimpse of movement. One of the Queen’s legs continued to spasmodically jerk around and spray the ground with blue ichor. He raised his shotgun in a nonchalant motion and blasted the errant limb, watching as it shuddered and went still.
Sera stepped up, her sword barely catching the light as she jammed it into what was left of the Queen’s thorax. A sharp twist, and it was over. She then yanked the blade from the carcass, her grip shifting subtly along the hilt. As she flicked the sword, frost swiftly coated the ichor clinging to the metal. The frozen debris was flung off, hitting the ground and shattering like glass.
He glanced down at his Holding Bag. Damn, the fight took out most of his shells. Swapping out his shotgun for his M7, he turned to his team and took stock of their condition. It seemed everyone had mostly gone unscathed, only debris and dirt scarring their envirosuits. Well, except for himself and Ron. “Think we’re gonna have to start calling you pinata now,” Henry said, clapping his friend on the shoulder.
Ron scoffed. “Yeah? Says the runner-up,” he said, tapping the dent on Henry’s envirosuit. “Better ‘pinata’ than ‘roadkill’, though. But seriously, what’s next? Don’t even know where to start.”
The room was empty, save for the debris strewn about and the singular obelisk standing in the center of the room. He didn’t notice it earlier, but as he got closer, he realized that the obelisk emitted a faint light that barely escaped the canopy of webs. He looked it up and down before turning to the others. “Only one place to start. Let’s clear out the webs, see what’s hiding below.”
“Doc, Kel, clear out the eggs. Hayes, Sera, see if the Queen’s got anything useful. Everyone else focus on the webs,” Henry ordered.
Ron drew his knife and started slicing through the dense cobwebs. “Hey, what y’all think the Queen’s Tier is?”
Isaac paused to consider. “Eh, Tier 8, probably. Minotaur boss and Rillifane boss were both Tier 8, so I’d say the spider’s around the same level.”
“Well, the resilience of the specimen isn’t a definitive measure of the Tier,” Dr. Anderson pointed out. “It’s quite possible that we merely had the most suitable tools at hand in this particular encounter.”
“The scholar speaks truly,” Sera agreed. “There is nary a defining criterion; defense is but one of many that are considered by the Guild. Were it so simple, Kelmithus and I would have attained Tier 9 ere now.”
“So, what do you think the Queen is, then? Tier 7 maybe?” Ron asked.
Henry shook his head. Tier 7 didn’t seem accurate. Using his knife to scrape some of the webbing off his glove, he voiced, “Spiranids are weak in general, but are classified as Tier 5 or higher because of their traps, ambush tactics, numbers, and abilities. Archers can use Wind Snipe and mages can use wide-area spellcasting, but they can’t reliably penetrate the exoskeleton’s armor. If anything, this is probably on the lower end of Tier 9.”
“Tier 9, huh?” Isaac muttered.
Sera smiled as she stood back. She stuffed a frost-covered gland into her holding bag and paused from her work as she chimed in, “Hmm… how keen. I expected nothing less from the first Tier 6 entrants in Eldralore’s history! It shows plain why the Guild did so swiftly raise you.”
“Hah,” Henry chuckled. It was an amusing thought, but… “Say, ya think we can get to Tier 7 after this?”
Sera’s eyebrows shot up. “Tier 7? A mark of no slight merit. What have you achieved since attaining Tier 6?”
Henry reached to scratch his chin, then cursed softly as his glove thudded against his visor. “Well, we took down a Rillifane pack, a Sentinel Lindwyrm, and now this primal Spiranid Queen. That’s not too shabby, eh?”
“Firm victories,” Sera admitted, “but advancement weighs more than battle alone. The Guild also considers quest difficulty, knowledge gained therefrom, and impact – in other words, glory.”
“The Baranthurian Ruins,” Dr. Anderson blurted, taking the words out of Henry’s mouth. He turned to Kelmithus, who approached them after confirming that the eggs had been cleared out. “Surely, working with the Sanctum Arcanum must be quite the honour. The Guild holds their quests with high esteem, wouldn’t you say?”
Kelmithus nodded, burning a clump of disposed webs on the ground. “True as that may be, advancement oft hinges upon the cumulative experience of dozens of quests.”
“Well, ain’t no small feats for us lately,” Ryan remarked. “The quest to the Baranthurian ruins, what was it, Tier 8? Yeah, that was Tier 8. Sentinel Lindwyrm? Hell, Tier Nine. That there beast?” Ryan pointed his gun at the carcass of the Spiranid Queen. “Tier 9 as well.”
Ron interjected, “Plus we’ve been helping out along the way, like those villagers, and taking on quests others won’t touch. Honestly, the Hardale quest should be pretty weighty too, considering the Nobian shenanigans.”
Sera hummed, mulling over Alpha Team’s experiences. The fact that most of their quests at Tier 6 had essentially been Tier 7 quests or higher in difficulty was probably unheard of in the Guild. Not only that, but they’d been able to complete these difficult quests successfully. Hell, with flying colors, even. That had to count for something.
Henry looked over at Sera, stepping back as he allowed Kelmithus to dispose of the webs that he had cleared out. “So, whaddya think? Based on what we’ve done, you think we got a shot at Tier 7?”
Sera looked up at the ceiling as she weighed her response. “Ehh, you’ve a strong case. Alas, it’s Taldren’s call to make. His favor seems yours, though; I wager he’ll agree.”
Henry grinned. Moving up meant they could have access to more quests. Naturally, that also meant better rewards and in turn, access to some truly magical equipment. “Good to hear. Guess we’ll see to it once we get back to Eldralore. Now, we should probably –”
A soft glow of light gradually lit up the room, interrupting Henry mid-sentence. He squinted, readying his weapon. The light came from the walls and ceiling, illuminating the once-dark chamber. The obelisk, now free of webs, now hummed… healthily? It wasn’t like he had a manual to tell him if this was a good or bad development, but judging from the facility’s reaction, it must’ve worked.
Henry glanced at his HUD. The temperature readings were rising, too. The icy chill from Kelmithus’ magic rapidly dissipated as the environmental controls kicked in. “Well, looks like we’ve done all we can here. Let’s head back to the containment cell room and see if we can find anything else of interest.”
– – –
Outskirts of GB-2, Grenden Forest
Carvus Alnect Virelius narrowed his gaze toward the brightening sky, his eyes cutting through the retreating mist that had long veiled the forest’s canopy. This unprecedented clarity above the ruins was strange. After centuries cloaked in an impenetrable fog, why did the skies clear now?
The Umber Vicearch’s mind worked like a whetstone, sharpening the fragments of reports from his scouts, cryptic as they were. The recent skirmish, occurring concurrently with the lifting fog, could not be mere happenstance. Regardless of the answer, the unexpected fold presented a welcome complexity to test his mettle.
He set his thoughts aside as the sound of footsteps approached.
“Leuarch Eldreyn reporting, milord,” one of his men said. “We’ve word from Serarch Trelian.”
Carvus gave him a nod to continue.
Eldreyn relayed the news. “The scouts espy traces of battle: a fallen Sentinel Lindwyrm and two carriages left abandoned near the cave’s entrance. The land bears scars from some form of magic, strewn with strange metal tubes and other objects unknown to us. Save for the Lindwyrm, no other bodies are to be found. What are your commands, milord?”
Carvus took a deep breath. No other bodies? Two carriages? That such a formidable creature was felled with no apparent casualties among their ranks suggested a small but extraordinarily capable force. Each member was no doubt Tier 7 at the least. The limited number of carriages implied a party not larger than ten. But… what could the metal objects mean?
Powerful though they might be, could such a small group withstand his numbers? Carvus entertained the thought briefly. No, direct confrontation would be unwise. The site bore secrets too vital to squander on rash gambles. Better to maneuver them into a position where the only viable option would be to comply with his demands.
“Hold our position, Lornus,” Carvus commanded. While he preferred the safety of their hidden vantage in the forest, the intrigue of Trelian’s findings – the slain Lindwyrm – was too compelling to ignore. “The contents of Trelian’s report compel our own investigation. Lead us, that we might see for ourselves.”
“As you command, milord.”
It was a short walk to the clearing. As they reached the treeline, Carvus held up a hand, signaling his men to halt – they should go no further than the cover of the forest. The aftermath of the battle lay evident before them. The massive form of the Sentinel Lindwyrm sprawled near the far side of the clearing, its outline murky at a distance.
Carvus squinted, adjusting his position slightly for a better view. He felt his jaw drop, a lapse in composure that surprised even him. Yet, who could fault him? The beast lay nearly torn asunder, its massive body riddled with gaping, jagged wounds that no sword or arrow could inflict. Indeed, not even traditional siege weapons or combat spells could inflict such damage.
The destructive capability of fyric powder was well-known to him – he had seen its use in adamantite mines. The wounds on the Lindwyrm, however, spoke of a force of another Tier entirely. Where fyric powder might clear a path through a stubborn boulder, the agent used against the Sentinel Lindwyrm seemed capable of obliterating several boulders at once, perhaps even an entire cliffside.
Turning his attention from the ravaged beast, he scanned the battlefield. Among the chaos, his eyes caught the glint of metal – strange tubes scattered about, all some lighter shade of bronze. The craters were blackened and littered with debris: shards of metal mixed with wires. This was clearly no ordinary skirmish.
He moved closer to the tree line, cautiously examining the unfamiliar objects. The metal tubes bore no resemblance to any weapons known to Nobian forces. However, their presence here implied that somehow, these objects were related to the catastrophic wounds on the Lindwyrm.
Near the cave’s entrance, two metal carriages lay abandoned. Their exteriors were marred by dirt and marked with an array of dents that appeared to be from the Lindwyrm’s armored tail. The carriages, in style and make, aligned with reports of American machines observed by their Umbercari in distant Eldralore. Mounted atop each was a long cylinder. As foreign as they were, he could tell they were weapons – ones capable of unleashing formidable destruction.
Adventurers throughout the ages had ventured here, all repelled by the formidable Lindwyrm that long guarded these grounds. Had it been folly to devote their resources to the conquest of their neighbors, rather than to mastering and exploiting this site? Such questions surpassed his station, yet irrespective of the answers, the Emperor would surely take no pleasure in learning that he had allowed Americans to plunder the Gatebuilder’s secrets.
Carvus turned to Lornus. “Bid our scouts to investigate the cave.” As Leuarch Eldreyn departed to carry out the orders, he beckoned to one of his serarchs. “Bring me one of those metal tubes. I wish to examine it.”
He sat on a rock, watching the light bend around the man’s form until he vanished from sight. The serarch then adjusted the temperature around his body, matching it to that of the forest. Were it not for the subtle shifts in the man’s mana as he held the spells, Carvus would have surely lost track of him.
The serarch made his way forth, passing through the trees and into the clearing beyond. With haste, he seized upon one of the tubes that lay scattered about, and then, as quick as he had come, he turned and made his way back to the forest’s edge. When at last he returned, Carvus stood up and held out his hand.
The tube, lighter than its solidity might have portended, was chill to the touch and was marked by a patina that showed clear signs of bending. He tried to bend it with his fingers, but the metal resisted. Even when he used magic to strengthen himself, it yielded naught but scant impression. What could have possibly moved the metal?
Looking closely, he noticed that the metal wasn’t bronze, as he had first thought. Though bearing a hue akin to bronze, it was of a kind unfamiliar to him. The surface was engraved with American script – characters and sequences that held little meaning to him. Yet, to deem the letters ‘engraved’ would be to err; it was as if they were imprinted with a craftsmanship nary a smith could rival.
He turned it over in his hands, his eyes drawn to a circular groove near the base. Examining both ends, Carvus noted the open end was distorted as if a great force had expelled something from within – an insight into his previous question. The other end was sealed, marked by a small, precise indentation. He held it up, aligning it with a similarly sized hole in a nearby tree.
This was no common weapon. As a trebuchet releases its load, so too must this tube have hurled its own projectile. It gave him an idea. What if one were to use an adamantite tube with fyric powder, place a keen arrowhead atop, and ignite the mixture below? Would it rival a standard Wind Snipe combined with physical enhancement magic?
Carvus’ thoughts were interrupted by someone calling out to him. “Milord.”
“Hm?” He looked up, finding the face of Leuarch Franus. “What is it, Martano?”
He hesitated, as if second-guessing his words. “The… The Lindwyrm… The men grow restless, milord. They wish to claim the spoils of this battle – the Sentinel Lindwyrm’s materials are prized in many a lore. And these carriages, would it not profit us to salvage what we can? They may hold more secrets – or riches.”
He turned the leuarch’s words over in his mind as he would a well-worn coin. In truth, the idea held merit. Even the smallest measure of a Lindwyrm’s blood was a treasure beyond compare – to say nothing of the other materials, sought after by alchemists and smiths alike. That the Americans had forgone harvest was a curious thing indeed. Could it be that they were ignorant of the creature’s true worth? Or perhaps, had they found something more valuable?
And then there were the carriages, gleaming in the sun like ripe fruit waiting to be plucked. If they could but glean some understanding of how the Americans had so deftly slain a beast of the Lindwyrm’s standing, it would surely prove a boon to the Empire’s own martial pursuits. Perhaps, armed with such knowledge, they might at last gain the upper hand against the accursed Sonarans.
Carvus cast his gaze once more upon the clearing, then turned to face Martano. “Aye,” he said. “Let it be so.”
Yet, as he made to step forth, a low, droning sound beckoned his attention – a buzzing hum that seemed to come from everywhere and nowhere at once. The unfamiliar noise compelled him to halt. He raised his hand, stopping his men as he searched for the noise. He tilted his head skyward, squinting as he beheld a strange sight: a winged thing hanging in the air above the clearing, like an animal circling its prey. As the sunlight reflected off its surface, it became evident to him that this was no creature of flesh, but a machine – much like the metal carriages.
“Hold,” Carvus ordered. “We dare not venture forth.”
Martano stepped forward, doubt and confusion etched across his face. “But, milord, if we shroud ourselves in invisibility, surely they cannot see us.”
Carvus shook his head. “Nay; recall the umbercari we sent to infiltrate the Duke’s mansion. They, too, thought themselves hidden, yet were somehow discovered. We know not what sorcery that flying machine might possess, and we cannot risk exposing ourselves.”
Before Martano could respond or venture any further protest, the scouts returned, led by Serarch Trelian. The search bowed his head before providing his report, “Milord, the cave lies empty, and the Lindwyrm’s nest remains untouched. We discovered footprints leading to a great sealed door, which we believe to be the entrance to the ruins.”
Carvus nodded. The Americans had ventured forth and left the loot behind for a reason. He thought back to a fortress that the Empire once sacrificed to encircle the forces of the now-conquered Kingdom of Durenelle. “So be it. Let us abandon these lesser spoils. As our adversaries have forgone these spoils in pursuit of greater gains, so must we sacrifice Straltus.”
2024.05.15 18:05 Asatmaya Other - Trying To Prevent Violent Crime By Restricting Guns Is Like Trying To Prevent Break-ins By Restricting Crowbars
The US has an infamously high gun ownership rate; 120%, by one measure, although that is clearly and flagrantly absurd (unless there are 75 million armed illegal aliens...). An individual ownership rate of 25-35% and a household ownership rate of 35-50% are more accurate (and legitimate) statistics.
Our violent crime rates are relatively moderate, though; a relatively high homicide rate, compared to most other "advanced" nations, but rape, robbery, and even casual violence are far less common in the US than in most of the world. For all the infamy of cities like Detroit or Chicago, you are unlikely to be the victim of any sort of crime as long as you stay out of the handful of bad neighborhoods at night, which is not something you can claim about London, Paris, Rome, or most any other major First World city.
Better yet, we can compare our history of violent crime to our history of gun control, and they simply do not map to one another, at all; there is no correlation, either way. Up until 1934, you could walk into a hardware store and buy pretty much anything you wanted, even fully automatic rifles (machine guns) and explosives, with no law against it (which didn't mean that the proprietor wasn't going to ask some hard questions and maybe choose not to sell them to you). On the other hand, walking down the street of pretty much any town with a loaded weapon on your person was a crime, but that's how much things have changed.
The 1934 National Firearms Act (NFA) ostensibly came in response to the gangland crime of the Prohibition Era... which ended in 1933. The stated intent was to regulate concealable weapons by requiring a Federal Firearms License (FFL) to deal in them... but it only covered short-barreled rifles and shotguns, machine guns, and silencers, specifically excluding pistols and revolvers, which have represented the overwhelming majority of gun crime since the 19th century.
The Gun Control Act of 1968 (GCA) was supposedly motivated by the assassinations of JFK and MLK (the bill itself was stalled in Congress until the RFK assassination, after which it went through quickly), but its primary focus was to restrict interstate sales of firearms between private individuals... which had nothing to do with any of the assassinations.
In 1986, the Firearm Owners Protection Act (FOPA) had the stated purpose of addressing harassment of FFL holders by the ATF, but actually further restricted firearms, outlawing any civilian ownership of automatic weapons manufactured after 1986, and requiring ATF approval of transfers of any firearm restricted under the NFA, giving them even more tools to interfere with lawful firearm owners.
The Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act (Brady) was enacted in 1993 in response to the assassination attempt on Ronald Reagan, and restricted firearm rights of various groups of people, including convicted criminals, those dishonorably discharged from the military, etc... which notably would not have prevented John Hinckley, Jr. from acquiring the weapon he used to attack Reagan.
This was followed in 1994 by the Federal Assault Weapons Ban (AWB), which even the people who wrote the bill have been unable to definitively state which firearms were banned under, as the definition provided was ambiguous. In any case, these weapons are the least commonly used in crime, by a wide margin.
2004 and 2005 saw the Law Enforcement Officer's Safety and Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Acts, one of which expanded the gun rights of current and former law enforcement officers, and the other protected firearm manufacturers and dealers from liability for negligence... even if they break the law.
And most recently, in 2022, the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act, this time driven by recent mass shootings, but again, did nothing that would have prevented any of the events that supposedly motivated the law; instead, it focused on making it easier for gun rights to be restricted under "Red Flag" and domestic violence laws (which are already grossly abused), weakened Constitutional protections for investigations of firearm-related crimes, and opened up juvenile records to background checks.
None of these laws have ever had any kind of effect on crime, in any shape, form, or fashion, for reasons which are perfectly obvious, when you stop to think about it.
Automatic weapons are not useful for criminal purposes; as a military function, their purpose is to force the enemy to take cover, preventing them from shooting at your soldiers while they maneuver, and various alternatives - bumps stocks, forced-reset or 2-stage triggers, etc - will provide similar rate of fire with less reduction in accuracy.
"Assault weapons" are not even properly defined; an AR-15 is an "assault weapon," but a Mini-14 is not, despite having virtually identical capabilities. They use the same ammunition, can have the same magazine capacity, similar barrel length, size, weight, etc. The AR-15 is sleek, black plastic, though, while the Mini-14 is wood and metal; that is the only real difference, how they look.
Explosives are useful for criminals, but are so easy to make at home (no, I'm not telling you how) that restricting them is absolutely impossible.
None of these laws addressed handguns, at all, despite two of them having the stated intent of addressing concealable firearms and these weapons being used in the overwhelming majority of gun crime.
Background checks were a good idea, but the "private seller" loophole (often mislabeled the "gun show" loophole) is so big that criminals have no problem acquiring firearms, and without any kind of registration, there is no way to hold sellers accountable.
And even background checks become abusive when any opinionated doctor or vindictive ex-girlfriend can have your gun rights eliminated on a whim, when your protections against overzealous law enforcement have been curtailed, and when the system is so rigged that trying to fight for your rights will only result in even harsher punishment.
100 years ago, pretty much anyone could own pretty much any weapon, but you couldn't carry it around with you; today, there are massive restrictions on the types of firearms you can own, but most places allow you to carry them around. How does this make any sense, at all?
submitted by Asatmaya to LeftRightTalk [link] [comments]
Our violent crime rates are relatively moderate, though; a relatively high homicide rate, compared to most other "advanced" nations, but rape, robbery, and even casual violence are far less common in the US than in most of the world. For all the infamy of cities like Detroit or Chicago, you are unlikely to be the victim of any sort of crime as long as you stay out of the handful of bad neighborhoods at night, which is not something you can claim about London, Paris, Rome, or most any other major First World city.
Better yet, we can compare our history of violent crime to our history of gun control, and they simply do not map to one another, at all; there is no correlation, either way. Up until 1934, you could walk into a hardware store and buy pretty much anything you wanted, even fully automatic rifles (machine guns) and explosives, with no law against it (which didn't mean that the proprietor wasn't going to ask some hard questions and maybe choose not to sell them to you). On the other hand, walking down the street of pretty much any town with a loaded weapon on your person was a crime, but that's how much things have changed.
The 1934 National Firearms Act (NFA) ostensibly came in response to the gangland crime of the Prohibition Era... which ended in 1933. The stated intent was to regulate concealable weapons by requiring a Federal Firearms License (FFL) to deal in them... but it only covered short-barreled rifles and shotguns, machine guns, and silencers, specifically excluding pistols and revolvers, which have represented the overwhelming majority of gun crime since the 19th century.
The Gun Control Act of 1968 (GCA) was supposedly motivated by the assassinations of JFK and MLK (the bill itself was stalled in Congress until the RFK assassination, after which it went through quickly), but its primary focus was to restrict interstate sales of firearms between private individuals... which had nothing to do with any of the assassinations.
In 1986, the Firearm Owners Protection Act (FOPA) had the stated purpose of addressing harassment of FFL holders by the ATF, but actually further restricted firearms, outlawing any civilian ownership of automatic weapons manufactured after 1986, and requiring ATF approval of transfers of any firearm restricted under the NFA, giving them even more tools to interfere with lawful firearm owners.
The Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act (Brady) was enacted in 1993 in response to the assassination attempt on Ronald Reagan, and restricted firearm rights of various groups of people, including convicted criminals, those dishonorably discharged from the military, etc... which notably would not have prevented John Hinckley, Jr. from acquiring the weapon he used to attack Reagan.
This was followed in 1994 by the Federal Assault Weapons Ban (AWB), which even the people who wrote the bill have been unable to definitively state which firearms were banned under, as the definition provided was ambiguous. In any case, these weapons are the least commonly used in crime, by a wide margin.
2004 and 2005 saw the Law Enforcement Officer's Safety and Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Acts, one of which expanded the gun rights of current and former law enforcement officers, and the other protected firearm manufacturers and dealers from liability for negligence... even if they break the law.
And most recently, in 2022, the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act, this time driven by recent mass shootings, but again, did nothing that would have prevented any of the events that supposedly motivated the law; instead, it focused on making it easier for gun rights to be restricted under "Red Flag" and domestic violence laws (which are already grossly abused), weakened Constitutional protections for investigations of firearm-related crimes, and opened up juvenile records to background checks.
Automatic weapons are not useful for criminal purposes; as a military function, their purpose is to force the enemy to take cover, preventing them from shooting at your soldiers while they maneuver, and various alternatives - bumps stocks, forced-reset or 2-stage triggers, etc - will provide similar rate of fire with less reduction in accuracy.
"Assault weapons" are not even properly defined; an AR-15 is an "assault weapon," but a Mini-14 is not, despite having virtually identical capabilities. They use the same ammunition, can have the same magazine capacity, similar barrel length, size, weight, etc. The AR-15 is sleek, black plastic, though, while the Mini-14 is wood and metal; that is the only real difference, how they look.
Explosives are useful for criminals, but are so easy to make at home (no, I'm not telling you how) that restricting them is absolutely impossible.
None of these laws addressed handguns, at all, despite two of them having the stated intent of addressing concealable firearms and these weapons being used in the overwhelming majority of gun crime.
Background checks were a good idea, but the "private seller" loophole (often mislabeled the "gun show" loophole) is so big that criminals have no problem acquiring firearms, and without any kind of registration, there is no way to hold sellers accountable.
And even background checks become abusive when any opinionated doctor or vindictive ex-girlfriend can have your gun rights eliminated on a whim, when your protections against overzealous law enforcement have been curtailed, and when the system is so rigged that trying to fight for your rights will only result in even harsher punishment.
100 years ago, pretty much anyone could own pretty much any weapon, but you couldn't carry it around with you; today, there are massive restrictions on the types of firearms you can own, but most places allow you to carry them around. How does this make any sense, at all?
2024.05.15 18:03 yelpvinegar How to Create a Great Website Hero Section
10 practical tips for designing a motivating Hero Image that always works
The Hero Image is the first thing people see when they open your page. It’s your unique chance to win them over — or lose them forever.It takes mere seconds for the user to process the first screen. But behind the scenes, there’s a lot of painstaking work by marketers, designers, and developers. How can you quickly find the right solution and pick the perfect image?
I have compiled the best practices for creating an effective Hero Image to share with you. Let us learn from the best.
1. Don’t lose sight of Hero Section goals
The goal of a Hero Section is to make the user want to learn more and perform the next action. It serves as an introduction and invites further communicat2. Don’t lose sight of user goals
In an attempt to surprise and keep the viewer on the first screen, some designers unwittingly replace the user’s goal with their own: to make an awesome design. But the user’s goal is not design.The user’s goal is to get something he or she needs: a thing, a service, or particular information. The design should facilitate this task rather than hamper it.
Smart design doesn’t draw attention to itself, or distract users from their goals, or make them gape in amazement, forgetting why they came. This is especially true for the hero section.
Here’s a typical case. The key points presented to the user are:
- what the company is offering;
- advantages of this offer;
- reasons to trust the company;
- actions to be performed by the user.
User goals have nothing to do with the goals of website owners, marketers, or designers.
Any info that has no immediate value for the user must be held back. Messages like “We Are the Best,” “Celebrating Ten Years of Success,” “Why People Trust Us,” etc. belong at the bottom of the visual hierarchy.
Hero Section visuals must prioritize user goals.Show the users what they want to see, and make it look really good. That’s your number one priority. All the rest — reliability, trust, guarantees — only serves to cement the user’s conviction that they’ve come to the right place.ion.
At first glance, what users want to see are benefits and problem solutions, not how great the company is or how cool the design looks. :) That stuff stays in the background!
A Hero Image is a visual stimulus. It promises benefits, improvements, and positive changes.
The user will be willing to take a step forward if:
- they intuitively and immediately like the visuals;
- they see a solution to their problem;
- they’re motivated by the image;
- they’re motivated by the heading;
- they understand what to do next.
3. Remember: no clutter
The home screen must be crystal clear and easily navigable for the user. This is where you showcase the very essence of your offer. Do your utmost to maximize readability. This includes:- clean, uncluttered design;
- clear page structure;
- plenty of “air”;
- no distractions;
- hierarchy of highlights;
- motivating, concise heading and subheading;
- hero image that matches the message and copy;
- understandable and predictable navigation panel.
Keep it simple and concise!
4. Turn the user’s goal into a visual magnet
The designer’s task is to visualize the user’s goal, making it look attractive, lively, and catchy. Do a comprehensive study and analysis of your users, product, and competitor sites. This will help you find inspiring images and motivating messages for your audience.Customers often arrive at the page with a specific image of their goal in mind. It’s important to take this into account and meet their expectations. Predictability is what people expect from you. This applies to both visuals and user experience.
Follow the “one idea, one image” rule. Let your heading resonate with, reinforce, and enhance the image. The image and text must stimulate the user’s desire and willingness to take a step toward gratification.
5. Look for specific triggers
As you work on a Hero Image from concept to final design, remember: you are creating a motivational trigger. Feel free to use any and all marketing, design, and psychology tricks to influence user perception.Every audience has its own motivation. Get to know your users and find the best way to engage them, both emotionally and rationally. (An emotional reaction is followed by a rational assessment of the information.)
User emotions need to be designed and incorporated into the project at the concept stage.Specific triggers, such as images and/or text, are especially good for engaging emotions.
To find the best trigger, ask yourself:
- What should the user feel when he/she sees your offer?
- What memories should it evoke?
- What associations should it create?
This is the key to your future conversions and audience love.
The emotions don’t necessarily have to be positive. Apple once successfully exploited fear by designing a blood-red AIDS awareness website with an invitation to become a blood donor. It looked impressive. I don’t know about donations, but a lot of people bought red iPhones. :)
6. Show explicit or implicit benefits
An effective trigger is always associated with user benefits. The trigger pushes users to perform actions that will let them reap these benefits.Popular Hero Images are focused on:
- the product;
- action;
- advantages;
- the context;
- the process (behind the scenes);
- the company’s owner.
Any type of the Hero Image must convey benefits.Explicit benefits: highlighting the apparent advantages of using the product or service.
Implicit benefits: visually and psychologically highlighting the user’s improved status, importance, success, skills, and opportunities.
User analysis will help you decide what should be made explicit or kept implicit on a case-by-case basis. Showcasing an implicit benefit is always a win-win. A website that sells nails, for example, will fare much better if its hero section features an image of a thrifty, smart, and neat worker than if it simply has a photo of a house or a bunch of nails. Customers will enjoy feeling like handy homeowners.
7. Manage the user’s attention
Be clear about where you want the viewer’s eyes to go. What will they see first? What next? Where should their gaze linger? Everything depends on the goals of your website and product. The hierarchy of highlights needs to be planned in advance and then tested to make sure it looks like you need it to.The user’s gaze is controlled by dominance and focal points. Dominant elements are the largest and most attractive ones. Focal points are icons, buttons, and other elements that the user sees after the dominant element. They are responsible for the user’s interest zones and hold his or her attention. They’re typically located at the edges of the screen.
Lifehack #1: Blur your design layout and show it to an average person (not a designer). What’s the first thing they see? What merits more or less attention? It’s a good way to rectify failed ideas before it’s too late.
Lifehack #2: Use eye-tracking software. Even a simple freeware app will help you check if the highlights are in the right places.
If you find that the user’s gaze doesn’t linger long enough on any given element, get to work. Perhaps it’s worth highlighting this element further by making it larger or brighter, adding animation, increasing the font size, and so on. (Test everything!)
Note: Place the main highlight on the emotional trigger, not the CTA button.
All visual composition tricks and instruments must be hierarchically ordered. Shape, color, shade, contrast, size, balance, movement, typography — everything must follow the principle of priority.
Note: Remove distractions. Everything that’s not a first impression priority must have reduced visibility, hidden, or moved elsewhere.
8. Use relevant images
Images are relevant when they match the website’s purpose, idea, and content. Any mismatch between the idea and its visual representation leads to misunderstanding and mistrust. It’s not just out-of-context imagery. A website dedicated to innovation using outdated designs is also an example of irrelevance. Unnecessary wow effects that distract from the message are likewise irrelevant.The Hero Image must visually convey the essence of the content.
9. Use a short, powerful tagline
Use a short, powerful tagline to engage the user. Coming up with it isn’t as easy as it seems. It’s a creative process. Again, I recommend brainstorming. You have limited character space, yet you need to succinctly convey your values, explain some benefit or problem solution, or ask a related question that will pique the user’s interest. Brainstorming is a great way to find an original idea.10. Be subtle with your СТА
You may have a great hero image with a good conversion potential, but it will be worthless without a CTA. However, CTA should be approached with caution.Never use CTA to exert pressure.Design your CTA to be friendly and non-aggressive rather than demanding. Do not pressure the user into learning everything at once, making purchases, or subscribing. CTA is a logical step on the user’s path toward their goal. If you failed to pique their interest with your tagline and visualization, no CTA button or text will work.
CTA is an organic continuation of your design and business idea. Your visitors are welcome. That’s the point of a CTA button or message: it invites the user to join the action.
Focus your UI and UX on making the user’s goal attractive.Only then will your CTA be effective. A button motivates no one. People are motivated by ideas and images of the future.
Thanks for reading. Don't forget to follow analyzeoptimize for more such insightful content to grow your online busines.
2024.05.15 18:02 Cultural_Ad1091 Credit score wrecked because of one $50 payment
Hi everyone - I’m in a pickle and would love some advice.
I make $175k and am looking for a $3k apartment. I’ve rented two apartments in NYC so far and have never missed a rent payment or a credit card payment. So far so good.
Last year Verizon overcharged me by a month for my Internet $50 and sent it to collections when I did not pay.. I grudgingly paid the charge off but Verizon said they could only report that it was paid and not delete the collections on my credit report.
This wrecked my credit score which was 750 and fell to 590 overnight
It has crawled back up to 650 now. I’m trying to move to a new apartment now but my application was not selected. The condo wouldn’t tell me why but I imagine it is due to my sub 700 credit score. I even sent them a note explaining my situation along with my detailed credit report that shows my credit score trend as well as the only missed payment ( exceptional payment history on both credit cards and good reference letters from both past landlords in New York )
Is there anything I can do to not keep losing apartments like this? Is this a real issue? I would really appreciate any advice.
Thanks for reading!
submitted by Cultural_Ad1091 to NYCapartments [link] [comments]
I make $175k and am looking for a $3k apartment. I’ve rented two apartments in NYC so far and have never missed a rent payment or a credit card payment. So far so good.
Last year Verizon overcharged me by a month for my Internet $50 and sent it to collections when I did not pay.. I grudgingly paid the charge off but Verizon said they could only report that it was paid and not delete the collections on my credit report.
This wrecked my credit score which was 750 and fell to 590 overnight
It has crawled back up to 650 now. I’m trying to move to a new apartment now but my application was not selected. The condo wouldn’t tell me why but I imagine it is due to my sub 700 credit score. I even sent them a note explaining my situation along with my detailed credit report that shows my credit score trend as well as the only missed payment ( exceptional payment history on both credit cards and good reference letters from both past landlords in New York )
Is there anything I can do to not keep losing apartments like this? Is this a real issue? I would really appreciate any advice.
Thanks for reading!
2024.05.15 18:00 QuickBooksErrorsSol Resolving QuickBooks Credit Card Payments Not Matching to Transaction
When credit card payments do not match the corresponding transactions in QuickBooks, it can lead to a variety of problems, such as inaccurate financial reporting, difficulty in reconciling bank statements, challenges in tracking and managing your business's cash flow, and potential compliance issues if the discrepancies are not addressed. Identifying and resolving QuickBooks credit card payments not matching to transaction.
When credit card payments do not match the corresponding transactions in QuickBooks, it can lead to a variety of problems, such as inaccurate financial reporting, difficulty in reconciling bank statements, challenges in tracking and managing your business's cash flow, and potential compliance issues if the discrepancies are not addressed.
Identifying and resolving QuickBooks credit card payments not matching to transaction is crucial for maintaining the integrity of your financial records and ensuring the overall health of your business.
Start by carefully examining your credit card transactions in QuickBooks. Look for any inconsistencies in the following areas:
When reviewing your bank statements, pay close attention to the following:
To reconcile your credit card accounts in QuickBooks, follow these steps:
To use bank feeds to match payments and transactions:
Some of the key QuickBooks tools you can use include:
By following these tips and the troubleshooting steps outlined in this article, you can effectively resolve the QuickBooks credit card payments not matching to transaction and maintain the integrity of your financial records.
is crucial for maintaining the integrity of your financial records and ensuring the overall health of your business.
submitted by QuickBooksErrorsSol to QBErrorsSoltnPartner [link] [comments]
When credit card payments do not match the corresponding transactions in QuickBooks, it can lead to a variety of problems, such as inaccurate financial reporting, difficulty in reconciling bank statements, challenges in tracking and managing your business's cash flow, and potential compliance issues if the discrepancies are not addressed.
Identifying and resolving QuickBooks credit card payments not matching to transaction is crucial for maintaining the integrity of your financial records and ensuring the overall health of your business.
Reasons Behind Credit Card Payments Not Matching to Transactions:
There are several potential reasons why credit card payments may not match the corresponding transactions in QuickBooks. Some of the most common causes include:- Incorrect or Incomplete Data Entry: Errors in manually entering credit card transactions, such as incorrect amounts, dates, or customer information, can lead to discrepancies between payments and transactions.
- Timing Differences: A mismatch can sometimes occur between the time a credit card payment is received and the time the corresponding transaction is recorded in QuickBooks.
- Merchant Account or Payment Gateway Issues: Problems with your credit card merchant account or payment gateway, such as delayed or missing payment notifications, can contribute to the discrepancy.
- Duplicate Transactions: Inadvertently recording the same credit card transaction multiple times can create a mismatch between payments and transactions.
- Voided or Refunded Transactions: Handling voided or refunded transactions incorrectly can also lead to discrepancies.
Common Troubleshooting Steps for Resolving the Issue:
To address QuickBooks credit card payments not matching to transaction issue, follow these common troubleshooting steps:Checking for Transaction and Payment Discrepancies:
The first step in resolving the issue of credit card payments not matching the transactions is to thoroughly review your records and identify any discrepancies.Start by carefully examining your credit card transactions in QuickBooks. Look for any inconsistencies in the following areas:
- Transaction Amounts: Verify that the amounts recorded for each credit card transaction match the actual amounts charged to your customers.
- Transaction Dates: Ensure that the dates associated with each credit card transaction are accurate and correspond to the actual dates of the transactions.
- Customer Information: Check that the customer names, addresses, and other relevant details are correctly entered for each transaction.
When reviewing your bank statements, pay close attention to the following:
- Credit Card Deposits: Verify that all credit card payments received are accurately recorded in your QuickBooks accounts.
- Timing Differences: Look for any timing differences between when a credit card payment was received and when the corresponding transaction was recorded in QuickBooks.
- Unmatched Transactions: Identify any credit card payments that do not have a corresponding transaction in QuickBooks.
Reconciling Credit Card Payments in QuickBooks:
Regularly reconciling your credit card accounts in QuickBooks is a crucial step in ensuring that your credit card payments and transactions are properly matched and recorded.To reconcile your credit card accounts in QuickBooks, follow these steps:
- Access the Reconcile page: From the QuickBooks home screen, navigate to the "Banking" menu and select "Reconcile."
- Select the credit card account: Choose the credit card account you want to reconcile from the list of available accounts.
- Enter the statement information: Input the statement date, ending balance, and any other relevant details from your credit card statement.
- Review and match transactions: Carefully review each transaction listed in the "Cleared Transactions" section and match them to the corresponding payments or deposits in your QuickBooks records.
- Resolve any discrepancies: If you encounter any discrepancies between the transactions and payments, take the necessary steps to resolve them, such as adjusting the transaction amounts or dates or reconciling any unmatched payments.
- Finish the reconciliation: Once you've matched all the transactions and resolved any discrepancies, click "Finish Now" to complete the reconciliation process.
Using Bank Feeds to Match Payments and Transactions:
Another effective way to address the issue of credit card payments not matching the transactions in QuickBooks is to utilize the bank feed feature. Bank feeds allow you to automatically import and match credit card payments to the corresponding transactions in your QuickBooks account.To use bank feeds to match payments and transactions:
- Connect your credit card account: In QuickBooks, navigate to the "Banking" menu and select "Bank Feeds." Follow the on-screen instructions to connect your credit card account to QuickBooks.
- Review unmatched transactions: Once the bank feed is set up, QuickBooks will automatically import and match your credit card payments to the corresponding transactions. However, there may be some unmatched transactions that you'll need to review and manually match.
- Manually match unmatched transactions: For any unmatched transactions, review the details and match them to the correct payments or deposits in your QuickBooks records.
- Categorize and reconcile transactions: As you match the transactions, be sure to categorize them correctly and reconcile your credit card account to ensure that all payments and transactions are properly recorded.
Utilizing QuickBooks Tools for Resolving the Issue:
QuickBooks offers a variety of built-in tools and features that can help you identify and resolve the issue of credit card payments not matching the transactions.Some of the key QuickBooks tools you can use include:
- Find Transactions: The "Find Transactions" feature allows you to search for specific transactions based on various criteria, such as transaction type, date, amount, or customer information. This can be helpful in identifying any discrepancies between payments and transactions.
- Reconcile: As discussed earlier, the "Reconcile" feature is a powerful tool for matching credit card payments to the corresponding transactions in your QuickBooks records.
- Reports: QuickBooks provides a wide range of reports that can help you analyze your financial data and identify any discrepancies. Some useful reports for this issue include the "Undeposited Funds" report and the "Credit Card Charges" report.
Conclusion:
In conclusion, the issue of credit card payments not matching to transactions in QuickBooks can be a frustrating and time-consuming problem, but it is one that can be resolved with the right troubleshooting steps and the use of QuickBooks' powerful tools and features.By following these tips and the troubleshooting steps outlined in this article, you can effectively resolve the QuickBooks credit card payments not matching to transaction and maintain the integrity of your financial records.
is crucial for maintaining the integrity of your financial records and ensuring the overall health of your business.
2024.05.15 17:43 thinkingstranger May 14, 2024
Today the White House announced tariffs on certain products imported from China, including steel and aluminum products, semiconductors, electric vehicles, batteries and battery components, solar cells, ship-to-shore cranes, syringes and needles, and certain personal protective equipment (or PPE). According to the White House, these higher tariffs are designed “to protect American workers and businesses from China’s unfair trade practices.” Tariffs are essentially taxes on imported goods, and altogether the tariff hikes cover about $18 billion in imported goods.
In 2018, Trump abruptly ended the economic era based on the idea that free trade benefited the global economy by putting tariffs of 25% on a wide range of foreign made goods. This was a cap to a set of ideas that had been sputtering for a while as industries moved to countries with cheaper labor, feeding the popular discontent Trump tapped into. Trump claimed that other countries would pay his tariffs, but tariffs are actually paid by Americans, not foreign countries, and his have cost Americans more than $230 billion. Half of that has come in under the Biden administration.
Trump’s tariffs also actually cost jobs, but they were very popular politically. A January 2024 National Bureau of Economic Research working paper by David Autor, Anne Beck, David Dorn, and Gordon H. Hanson established that the trade war of 2018–2019 hurt the U.S. heartland but actually helped Trump’s reelection campaign. “Residents of regions more exposed to import tariffs became less likely to identify as Democrats, more likely to vote to reelect Donald Trump in 2020, and more likely to elect Republicans to Congress,” they discovered.
Now Trump is saying, that if elected, he will impose a 10% tariff on everything imported into the United States, with a 60% tariff on anything from China and a 100% tariff on any cars made outside the U.S.
In contrast, the administration’s new tariffs are aimed only at China, and only at industries already growing in the U.S., especially semiconductors. Tariffs will rise to 50% on semiconductors and solar cells, 100% on electric vehicles, and 25% on batteries, a hike that will help the Big Three automakers who agreed to union demands in newly opened battery factories, as well as their United Auto Workers workforce. “I’m determined that the future of electric vehicles be made in America by union workers. Period,” Biden said.
The administration says the tariffs are a response to China’s unfair trade practices, and such tariffs are popular in the manufacturing belt of Michigan, Wisconsin, Ohio, and Pennsylvania. Democratic senators from that region have asked Biden to maintain or increase tariffs on Chinese imports after “[g]enerations of free trade agreements that prioritize multinational corporations have devasted our communities, harmed our economy, and crippled our job market.”
In other economic news, a new rule capping credit card late fees at $8, about a quarter of what they are now, was supposed to go into effect today, but on Friday a federal judge in Texas blocked the rule. The new cap was set by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), the brainchild of Massachusetts Democratic senator Elizabeth Warren, and was part of the Biden administration’s crackdown on “junk fees.”
The U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the American Bankers Association sued to stop the rule from taking effect, and U.S. District Judge Mark Pittman, appointed by Trump, issued a preliminary injunction against it. His reasoning draws from an argument advanced by the far-right Fifth Circuit, which oversees Texas, Mississippi, and Louisiana, arguing that the CFPB itself is unconstitutional because of its funding structure. "Consequently, any regulations promulgated under that regime are likely unconstitutional as well," Pittman wrote.
On Friday, major airlines, including American Airlines, Delta Air Lines, United Airlines, JetBlue Airways, Hawaiian Airlines, and Alaska Airlines—but not Southwest Airlines—sued the U.S. Department of Transportation over its new rule that requires the airlines disclose their fees, such as for checking bags, upfront to consumers. The department says consumers are overpaying by $543 million a year in unexpected fees.
The airlines say that the rule will confuse consumers and that its “attempt to regulate private business operations in a thriving marketplace is beyond its authority.”
The other big story of the day is the continuing attempt of the MAGA Republicans to overturn our democratic system.
This morning, House speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA), second in line for the presidency and sworn to uphold the Constitution, left his post in Washington, D.C., to appear with former president Trump at his trial for falsifying business records to deceive voters before the 2016 election. The House was due to consider the final passage of the crucially important Federal Aviation Authority Reauthorization Act, but Johnson chose instead to show up to do the work the judge’s gag order means Trump cannot do himself, attacking key witness Michael Cohen, Trump’s former fixer. Johnson described Cohen as “clearly on a mission for personal revenge” and, citing his “history of perjury,” said that “[n]o one should believe a word he says in there.”
“I do have a lot of surrogates,” Trump boasted this morning, “and they are speaking very beautifully.” Senator Tommy Tuberville (R-AL), who was also at the trial this morning, later said on Newsmax that they had indeed gone to “overcome this gag order.”
Johnson went on to call the trial “corrupt” and say “this ridiculous prosecution…is not about justice. It’s all about politics.” He left without taking questions. Meg Kinnard of the Associated Press called out the moment as “a remarkable moment in modern American politics: The House speaker turning his Republican Party against the federal and state legal systems that are foundational to the U.S. government and a cornerstone of democracy.”
Peter Eisler, Ned Parker, and Joseph Tanfani of Reuters explained today how those attacks on our judiciary are sparking widespread calls for violence against judges, with social media posters in echo chambers goading each other into ever more extreme statements. According to her lawyer, Stephanie Clifford, also known as Stormy Daniels, wore a bullet-proof vest as she came and went from court, an uncanny echo of the precautions necessary in mob trials.
In a different attack on our constitutional system, House Republicans are trying to replace the administration’s foreign policy with their own. Over the weekend, they introduced a bill to force President Biden to send offensive weapons to Israel for its invasion of Rafah, overruling the administration’s decision to withhold a shipment of 2,000-pound and 500-pound bombs after Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced his government would invade Rafah despite strong opposition from the Biden administration.
White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters: “We strongly, strongly oppose attempts to constrain the president’s ability to deploy a U.S. security assistance consistent with U.S. foreign policy and national security objectives.”
The Constitution establishes that the executive branch manages foreign affairs, and until 2015 it was an established practice that politics stopped at the water’s edge, meaning that Congress quarreled with the administration at home but the two presented a united front in foreign affairs. That practice ended in March 2015, when 47 Republican senators, led by freshman Arkansas senator Tom Cotton, wrote a letter to Iran’s leaders warning that they would not honor any agreement Iran reached with the Obama administration over its development of nuclear weapons.
The Obama administration did end up negotiating the July 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action with Iran and several world powers, under which Iran agreed to restrict its nuclear development and allow inspections in exchange for relief from economic sanctions. In 2018 the extremist Republicans got their way when Trump withdrew the U.S. from the deal, largely collapsing it, after which Iran resumed its expansion of the nuclear enrichment program it had stopped under the agreement.
Now extremists in the House are trying to run foreign policy on their own. The costs of that usurpation of power are clear in Niger, formerly a key U.S. ally in the counterterrorism effort in West Africa. The new prime minister of Niger, Ali Mahaman Lamine Zeine, whose party took power after a coup d’état threw out Niger’s democratically elected president, defended his country’s turn away from the U.S. and toward Russia in an interview with Rachel Chason of the Washington Post. Recalling the House’s six month delay in passing the national security supplemental bill, he said: “We have seen what the United States will do to defend its allies, because we have seen Ukraine and Israel.”
—
Notes:
https://www.politico.com/news/2024/05/13/white-house-opposes-house-bill-force-israeli-arm-shipments-00157691
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/05/14/nyregion/mike-johnson-trump-trial.html
https://apnews.com/article/donald-trump-speaker-mike-johnson-court-09aef3de395fa77843f2600f40da6ac3
https://www.vox.com/2015/3/10/8182063/tom-cottons-controversial-letter-to-iran-explained
https://www.cfr.org/backgroundewhat-iran-nuclear-deal
https://crsreports.congress.gov/product/pdf/IF/IF12106
https://fingfx.thomsonreuters.com/gfx/legaldocs/zgpokqdxlpd/05102024creditcard.pdf
https://www.texastribune.org/2018/08/30/under-trump-5th-circuit-becoming-even-more-conservative/
https://www.reuters.com/legal/us-judge-blocks-rule-capping-credit-card-late-fees-8-2024-05-10/
https://www.reuters.com/business/aerospace-defense/major-airlines-sue-biden-administration-over-fee-disclosure-rule-2024-05-13/
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/article/2024/may/14/speaker-mike-johnson-house-trump-trial
https://www.cnn.com/2024/03/18/politics/donald-trump-tariffs-trade-waindex.html
https://www.reuters.com/markets/us/biden-sharply-hikes-us-tariffs-billions-chinese-chips-cars-2024-05-14/
https://www.nber.org/system/files/working_papers/w32082/w32082.pdf
https://www.brown.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/05012024section301tariffsletter.pdf
https://www.cnn.com/2024/05/14/politics/new-china-tariffs-biden-trump/index.html
https://www.npr.org/2024/05/14/1251096758/biden-china-tariffs-ev-electric-vehicles-5-things
https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/presidential-actions/2024/05/14/memorandum-on-actions-by-the-united-states-related-to-the-statutory-4-year-review-of-the-section-301-investigation-of-chinas-acts-policies-and-practices-related-to-technology-transfer-intellectua/
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2024/05/14/us-threats-led-rupture-vital-military-ties-nigerien-official-says/
https://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/cutting-the-spigot
https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/usa-election-threats-courts/
https://www.cnn.com/2024/05/13/politics/video/stormy-daniels-bulletproof-vest-clark-brewster-trump-hush-money-trial-ac360-digvid
https://www.automotivedive.com/news/united-auto-workers-electric-vehicle-plant-joint-venture/704275/
https://www.forbes.com/sites/samabuelsamid/2024/05/14/volvo-polestar-tesla-detroit-take-biggest-hit-from-china-ev-tariffs/
Twitter (X):
atrupastatus/1790485101966487881
https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/p/may-14-2024
submitted by thinkingstranger to HeatherCoxRichardson [link] [comments]
In 2018, Trump abruptly ended the economic era based on the idea that free trade benefited the global economy by putting tariffs of 25% on a wide range of foreign made goods. This was a cap to a set of ideas that had been sputtering for a while as industries moved to countries with cheaper labor, feeding the popular discontent Trump tapped into. Trump claimed that other countries would pay his tariffs, but tariffs are actually paid by Americans, not foreign countries, and his have cost Americans more than $230 billion. Half of that has come in under the Biden administration.
Trump’s tariffs also actually cost jobs, but they were very popular politically. A January 2024 National Bureau of Economic Research working paper by David Autor, Anne Beck, David Dorn, and Gordon H. Hanson established that the trade war of 2018–2019 hurt the U.S. heartland but actually helped Trump’s reelection campaign. “Residents of regions more exposed to import tariffs became less likely to identify as Democrats, more likely to vote to reelect Donald Trump in 2020, and more likely to elect Republicans to Congress,” they discovered.
Now Trump is saying, that if elected, he will impose a 10% tariff on everything imported into the United States, with a 60% tariff on anything from China and a 100% tariff on any cars made outside the U.S.
In contrast, the administration’s new tariffs are aimed only at China, and only at industries already growing in the U.S., especially semiconductors. Tariffs will rise to 50% on semiconductors and solar cells, 100% on electric vehicles, and 25% on batteries, a hike that will help the Big Three automakers who agreed to union demands in newly opened battery factories, as well as their United Auto Workers workforce. “I’m determined that the future of electric vehicles be made in America by union workers. Period,” Biden said.
The administration says the tariffs are a response to China’s unfair trade practices, and such tariffs are popular in the manufacturing belt of Michigan, Wisconsin, Ohio, and Pennsylvania. Democratic senators from that region have asked Biden to maintain or increase tariffs on Chinese imports after “[g]enerations of free trade agreements that prioritize multinational corporations have devasted our communities, harmed our economy, and crippled our job market.”
In other economic news, a new rule capping credit card late fees at $8, about a quarter of what they are now, was supposed to go into effect today, but on Friday a federal judge in Texas blocked the rule. The new cap was set by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), the brainchild of Massachusetts Democratic senator Elizabeth Warren, and was part of the Biden administration’s crackdown on “junk fees.”
The U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the American Bankers Association sued to stop the rule from taking effect, and U.S. District Judge Mark Pittman, appointed by Trump, issued a preliminary injunction against it. His reasoning draws from an argument advanced by the far-right Fifth Circuit, which oversees Texas, Mississippi, and Louisiana, arguing that the CFPB itself is unconstitutional because of its funding structure. "Consequently, any regulations promulgated under that regime are likely unconstitutional as well," Pittman wrote.
On Friday, major airlines, including American Airlines, Delta Air Lines, United Airlines, JetBlue Airways, Hawaiian Airlines, and Alaska Airlines—but not Southwest Airlines—sued the U.S. Department of Transportation over its new rule that requires the airlines disclose their fees, such as for checking bags, upfront to consumers. The department says consumers are overpaying by $543 million a year in unexpected fees.
The airlines say that the rule will confuse consumers and that its “attempt to regulate private business operations in a thriving marketplace is beyond its authority.”
The other big story of the day is the continuing attempt of the MAGA Republicans to overturn our democratic system.
This morning, House speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA), second in line for the presidency and sworn to uphold the Constitution, left his post in Washington, D.C., to appear with former president Trump at his trial for falsifying business records to deceive voters before the 2016 election. The House was due to consider the final passage of the crucially important Federal Aviation Authority Reauthorization Act, but Johnson chose instead to show up to do the work the judge’s gag order means Trump cannot do himself, attacking key witness Michael Cohen, Trump’s former fixer. Johnson described Cohen as “clearly on a mission for personal revenge” and, citing his “history of perjury,” said that “[n]o one should believe a word he says in there.”
“I do have a lot of surrogates,” Trump boasted this morning, “and they are speaking very beautifully.” Senator Tommy Tuberville (R-AL), who was also at the trial this morning, later said on Newsmax that they had indeed gone to “overcome this gag order.”
Johnson went on to call the trial “corrupt” and say “this ridiculous prosecution…is not about justice. It’s all about politics.” He left without taking questions. Meg Kinnard of the Associated Press called out the moment as “a remarkable moment in modern American politics: The House speaker turning his Republican Party against the federal and state legal systems that are foundational to the U.S. government and a cornerstone of democracy.”
Peter Eisler, Ned Parker, and Joseph Tanfani of Reuters explained today how those attacks on our judiciary are sparking widespread calls for violence against judges, with social media posters in echo chambers goading each other into ever more extreme statements. According to her lawyer, Stephanie Clifford, also known as Stormy Daniels, wore a bullet-proof vest as she came and went from court, an uncanny echo of the precautions necessary in mob trials.
In a different attack on our constitutional system, House Republicans are trying to replace the administration’s foreign policy with their own. Over the weekend, they introduced a bill to force President Biden to send offensive weapons to Israel for its invasion of Rafah, overruling the administration’s decision to withhold a shipment of 2,000-pound and 500-pound bombs after Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced his government would invade Rafah despite strong opposition from the Biden administration.
White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters: “We strongly, strongly oppose attempts to constrain the president’s ability to deploy a U.S. security assistance consistent with U.S. foreign policy and national security objectives.”
The Constitution establishes that the executive branch manages foreign affairs, and until 2015 it was an established practice that politics stopped at the water’s edge, meaning that Congress quarreled with the administration at home but the two presented a united front in foreign affairs. That practice ended in March 2015, when 47 Republican senators, led by freshman Arkansas senator Tom Cotton, wrote a letter to Iran’s leaders warning that they would not honor any agreement Iran reached with the Obama administration over its development of nuclear weapons.
The Obama administration did end up negotiating the July 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action with Iran and several world powers, under which Iran agreed to restrict its nuclear development and allow inspections in exchange for relief from economic sanctions. In 2018 the extremist Republicans got their way when Trump withdrew the U.S. from the deal, largely collapsing it, after which Iran resumed its expansion of the nuclear enrichment program it had stopped under the agreement.
Now extremists in the House are trying to run foreign policy on their own. The costs of that usurpation of power are clear in Niger, formerly a key U.S. ally in the counterterrorism effort in West Africa. The new prime minister of Niger, Ali Mahaman Lamine Zeine, whose party took power after a coup d’état threw out Niger’s democratically elected president, defended his country’s turn away from the U.S. and toward Russia in an interview with Rachel Chason of the Washington Post. Recalling the House’s six month delay in passing the national security supplemental bill, he said: “We have seen what the United States will do to defend its allies, because we have seen Ukraine and Israel.”
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Notes:
https://www.politico.com/news/2024/05/13/white-house-opposes-house-bill-force-israeli-arm-shipments-00157691
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/05/14/nyregion/mike-johnson-trump-trial.html
https://apnews.com/article/donald-trump-speaker-mike-johnson-court-09aef3de395fa77843f2600f40da6ac3
https://www.vox.com/2015/3/10/8182063/tom-cottons-controversial-letter-to-iran-explained
https://www.cfr.org/backgroundewhat-iran-nuclear-deal
https://crsreports.congress.gov/product/pdf/IF/IF12106
https://fingfx.thomsonreuters.com/gfx/legaldocs/zgpokqdxlpd/05102024creditcard.pdf
https://www.texastribune.org/2018/08/30/under-trump-5th-circuit-becoming-even-more-conservative/
https://www.reuters.com/legal/us-judge-blocks-rule-capping-credit-card-late-fees-8-2024-05-10/
https://www.reuters.com/business/aerospace-defense/major-airlines-sue-biden-administration-over-fee-disclosure-rule-2024-05-13/
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/article/2024/may/14/speaker-mike-johnson-house-trump-trial
https://www.cnn.com/2024/03/18/politics/donald-trump-tariffs-trade-waindex.html
https://www.reuters.com/markets/us/biden-sharply-hikes-us-tariffs-billions-chinese-chips-cars-2024-05-14/
https://www.nber.org/system/files/working_papers/w32082/w32082.pdf
https://www.brown.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/05012024section301tariffsletter.pdf
https://www.cnn.com/2024/05/14/politics/new-china-tariffs-biden-trump/index.html
https://www.npr.org/2024/05/14/1251096758/biden-china-tariffs-ev-electric-vehicles-5-things
https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/presidential-actions/2024/05/14/memorandum-on-actions-by-the-united-states-related-to-the-statutory-4-year-review-of-the-section-301-investigation-of-chinas-acts-policies-and-practices-related-to-technology-transfer-intellectua/
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2024/05/14/us-threats-led-rupture-vital-military-ties-nigerien-official-says/
https://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/cutting-the-spigot
https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/usa-election-threats-courts/
https://www.cnn.com/2024/05/13/politics/video/stormy-daniels-bulletproof-vest-clark-brewster-trump-hush-money-trial-ac360-digvid
https://www.automotivedive.com/news/united-auto-workers-electric-vehicle-plant-joint-venture/704275/
https://www.forbes.com/sites/samabuelsamid/2024/05/14/volvo-polestar-tesla-detroit-take-biggest-hit-from-china-ev-tariffs/
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https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/p/may-14-2024
2024.05.15 17:36 hampired Recos anyone? Internal Site - CX + Analytics Solutions
Hi all - I'm looking for some real-world insight + suggestions from people who might be using these products. I'm a PM, so I also posted in the PM channel, but I know a lot of people with the most in-depth experience are here.
The background: I've been investigating some CX+Analytics solutions for a client - it's for an internal corporate site (all logged-in users), with no revenue, no SEO/ad requirements, etc. Built on AEM Sites (Adobe Experience Manager). Consistent usage of this site by employees is important to the company.
Analytics/CX Requirements + Considerations:
My ask to you: Does anyone have an opinion or wisdom to share?
submitted by hampired to analytics [link] [comments]
The background: I've been investigating some CX+Analytics solutions for a client - it's for an internal corporate site (all logged-in users), with no revenue, no SEO/ad requirements, etc. Built on AEM Sites (Adobe Experience Manager). Consistent usage of this site by employees is important to the company.
Analytics/CX Requirements + Considerations:
- Measurement/Analytics: understand new and ongoing engagement (monthly active users, new users), and the usage of different features on the site, ideally by role/region/etc.
- CX Features: We also want some CX features such as surveys, site feedback, guided onboarding, and NPS/CSAT-type questions.
- Optional: Nice but optional in the solution are session replay, heat-maps, journey analytics, etc - we would not pay extra for these at this time, but would be nice to have them available in the future.
- Flexible/Variable Dashboarding: Ideally the analytics dashboard can be made very simple for the client to view some Key metrics for upper-management reporting, but there could also be a view for me and my team to get more in-depth to individual page and content views and feature usage as we also own content and iterative design.
- Flexible integrations: Something that doesn't lock us into one single product in case we want to change or add something. It's why tagging via Segment appeals to me.
- Cost: I think I can get agreement on any solution or combo of solutions that's less than ~$800-1000/month but the lower the cost, the more chance I have of getting what I want. If something truly did it all and very well, I could potentially make a case for something more expensive.
- Development: We'll have a dev team initially to implement tags but I am intrigued by the idea of a no-code option where we could do it ourselves so that after the dev team is done building our AEM templates and modules and we are adding new pages/content/forms/etc via the AEM platform, I don't need a dev team to get something tagged. But I've never used a no-code tagging solution so I don't know how intense or possible it would be for me to set up events with the properties I want.
- The site is built on AEM Sites but I don't want to use Adobe Analytics and I think their tags are relatively useless without AA? I haven't seen any solutions that use Adobe tags. Usually they work with Segment and occasionally Google Tags.
- Pendo seems to have it all, but it's expensive for our needs and I read some issues about the guided onboarding breaking every time a page was adjusted and the no-code tagging would break as well. Also, I suppose we're relatively locked in if we use their tagging.
- Plausible looks nice and light for the analytics but its seems mostly focused on stuff less relevant to an internal site, such as search terms, conversions, locations, etc.
- One thought is Segment + Mixpanel + ?
- I'm also looking at UserPilot, Mouseflow, Walk-me, Heap, Amplitude, HotJar for some or all of the desired features.
My ask to you: Does anyone have an opinion or wisdom to share?
2024.05.15 17:32 whatsmyage-again I'm pretty sure my boss stole my identity. There are 2 new credit cards on my credit report with a total balance of about $15,000. My credit score dropped from 805 to 550. I was written up when I confronted him about it.
I work for a relatively small business, there's only about 50 of us, and I've been working here for about three years. The owner of the business I know has been stressed out over the financials for the last 6 months, we've gone from fairly profitable to slightly unprofitable since December. Since I've worked here, I can think of one 2 month span of time that the business hasn't been profitable, but even then we were only down a couple thousand dollars total on that second month.
Back in January, we had our worst month since I've worked here and it only improved slightly in February. The credit cards on my credit report were opened in February and looked to have been maxed out by March.
Fast forward to last week and my boss, the owner of the company, is out of the office for a day and a coworker grabbed the mail. It had a Discover bill with my name on it. She gave it to me and I was extremely confused, it was definitely my name but the company's address WITH the suite designated solely for the boss. Open it up and I found out "I" owed more than $10,000 and "my" payment was 2 months late.
I called Discover and they emailed me a description of the charges. About a dozen of them all with the heading of my company. It was clear someone ordered a card in my name and literally "paid" my company about $10,000 from it back in early March. Of course I was livid and immediately disputed all of the charges. I checked my credit report and there was another card which seemed to have been open about the same time with more than a $5000 balance. I called that bank and they sent me the transaction list, same thing.
At this point I was pretty sure it was my boss as I know he has access to my social security number from my hiring paperwork and the address to both cards was his suite in the building. As I'm talking with my workgroup about it, someone else said they had their identity stolen in January but they got it taken care of through Transunion. They said the charges went to a supplier of ours. Turns out, there was a third employee in our workgroup of 5 who had their credit stolen at the start of the year when they checked their credit after hearing us talk about it. For whatever reason, they are having that credit card company send them a statement as they couldn't email them the information.
Last Wednesday, I confronted my boss about the credit cards and he denied everything. He said whoever it was probably just used the work address because they may have found it through my LinkedIn. He also said to wait 120 days before disputing anything, which I found to be extremely weird, but that the credit card companies would take care of everything.
I decided not to take his advice and disputed everything on the credit websites that day. Monday comes along and he calls me in asking if there was anything new on my credit since the other two talked to him about their issues as well. I told him I disputed everything and he got pretty pissed. He was enraged that I disputed it so soon and said something that caught my attention: "So it was you who caused the holds!". I later found out the company's credit card merchant account is now on hold for fraud. This morning, I get called in again and was given a written reprimand for "unsatisfactory performance" due to my lower sales numbers for last month (I've never gotten a written reprimand ever at this job) and a separate one for "unsatisfactory performance" for a recurring customer canceling their subscription because they went out of business.
I guess my question is where do I go from here? I feel a constructive dismissal coming on, if the company doesn't go out of business first. I'm also concerned about the credit card accounts as I haven't heard anything back yet when I disputed them.
submitted by whatsmyage-again to CreditScore [link] [comments]
Back in January, we had our worst month since I've worked here and it only improved slightly in February. The credit cards on my credit report were opened in February and looked to have been maxed out by March.
Fast forward to last week and my boss, the owner of the company, is out of the office for a day and a coworker grabbed the mail. It had a Discover bill with my name on it. She gave it to me and I was extremely confused, it was definitely my name but the company's address WITH the suite designated solely for the boss. Open it up and I found out "I" owed more than $10,000 and "my" payment was 2 months late.
I called Discover and they emailed me a description of the charges. About a dozen of them all with the heading of my company. It was clear someone ordered a card in my name and literally "paid" my company about $10,000 from it back in early March. Of course I was livid and immediately disputed all of the charges. I checked my credit report and there was another card which seemed to have been open about the same time with more than a $5000 balance. I called that bank and they sent me the transaction list, same thing.
At this point I was pretty sure it was my boss as I know he has access to my social security number from my hiring paperwork and the address to both cards was his suite in the building. As I'm talking with my workgroup about it, someone else said they had their identity stolen in January but they got it taken care of through Transunion. They said the charges went to a supplier of ours. Turns out, there was a third employee in our workgroup of 5 who had their credit stolen at the start of the year when they checked their credit after hearing us talk about it. For whatever reason, they are having that credit card company send them a statement as they couldn't email them the information.
Last Wednesday, I confronted my boss about the credit cards and he denied everything. He said whoever it was probably just used the work address because they may have found it through my LinkedIn. He also said to wait 120 days before disputing anything, which I found to be extremely weird, but that the credit card companies would take care of everything.
I decided not to take his advice and disputed everything on the credit websites that day. Monday comes along and he calls me in asking if there was anything new on my credit since the other two talked to him about their issues as well. I told him I disputed everything and he got pretty pissed. He was enraged that I disputed it so soon and said something that caught my attention: "So it was you who caused the holds!". I later found out the company's credit card merchant account is now on hold for fraud. This morning, I get called in again and was given a written reprimand for "unsatisfactory performance" due to my lower sales numbers for last month (I've never gotten a written reprimand ever at this job) and a separate one for "unsatisfactory performance" for a recurring customer canceling their subscription because they went out of business.
I guess my question is where do I go from here? I feel a constructive dismissal coming on, if the company doesn't go out of business first. I'm also concerned about the credit card accounts as I haven't heard anything back yet when I disputed them.