GrapheneOS and stock Android are both OS options for phones. GrapheneOS focuses on keeping your info safe. Stock Android, on the other hand, offers many handy features. Let's dive into how these two differ in privacy, security, and what you can do. This way, you can pick the one that suits your needs best.

Key Takeaways:

• GrapheneOS places a strong emphasis on privacy and security, while stock Android focuses on providing convenience features.
• GrapheneOS stays close to upstream and delivers regular updates before stock OS.
• Google apps work on GrapheneOS, but some apps need special permission to install.
• Some banking apps might not work on GrapheneOS. This is because they lack a certification from Google. You might be able to make some of them work by using special settings in the apps.
• Unfortunately, GrapheneOS misses on Android Auto and easy backup solutions.

GrapheneOS Features

GrapheneOS is known for its strong focus on privacy and security. This makes it perfect for those who want to keep their data safe. Now, let's look at what makes GrapheneOS stand out from the rest.

Sandboxed Google Play Services

One of GrapheneOS's key features is sandboxed Google Play services. This means apps can't freely access your private data. They're limited to a safe area. This helps prevent data leaks and stops apps from seeing more than they should.

Regular Updates for Security Maintenance

GrapheneOS keeps devices safe by offering frequent security updates. These updates fix any new vulnerabilities that might arise. This way, the system is always up-to-date, keeping your device secure.

Attack Surface Reduction Measures

GrapheneOS uses techniques to reduce the chances of different types of attacks. It limits how much apps can interact with the system, blocking some attacks right at the start. It also includes special features that make it harder for attackers to exploit the system.

Enhanced Heap Memory Corruption Defense

Heaps are a common target for hackers, but GrapheneOS strengthens against this. It uses its own memory management system to protect against heap corruption. This includes special memory handling to make attacks harder.

Robust Memory Exploit Detection and Prevention

GrapheneOS is ahead of the game in detecting and stopping memory exploits. It has tools that spot and fix important memory bugs. This helps keep your device safe from complex attacks that target memory use.

Official Production Support for Pixel Devices

GrapheneOS supports many Pixel devices officially. This includes the Pixel 8 Pro and other new Pixel devices. Users of Pixel devices can get the added security and privacy GrapheneOS offers.
After learning about GrapheneOS, it's time to look at Stock Android's setup and features in the next section.

Stock Android Setup and Features

Setting up Stock Android on your device is simple. Its user-friendly interface makes it easy. When you turn on your device, you'll follow some steps to make it yours. This includes picking a language, connecting to Wi-Fi, and signing in to Google.
Stock Android works perfectly with Google's many services. Thanks to Google Play services, you get millions of apps and games from the Play Store. Just sign in with your Google account to start downloading your favorite apps, from work tools to social apps.
Stock Android also brings you Google Maps. It gives you precise directions and updates on traffic in real time. It's great for finding your way in a car or on foot, showing you the best routes and interesting places nearby.
With Google Keyboard, typing is easier and better. It guesses your next words, lets you swipe to type, and supports different languages. This means typing on your phone is faster and more accurate.

Key Features of Stock Android:

• Simple and user-friendly setup process
• Integration with Google services, including the Google Play Store
• Google Maps for navigation and exploring new places
• Google Keyboard for enhanced typing experience

Features	Stock Android
User-friendly setup	✓
Google Play Store access	✓
Google Maps integration	✓
Enhanced typing experience with Google Keyboard	✓

Functionality Comparison

GrapheneOS and stock Android are much alike in basic phone tasks. Yet, they have key differences.

GrapheneOS Functionality

GrapheneOS values substance over flashy marketing. It cares deeply about privacy and security. By not including Google services, it focuses more on protecting users.
Its main goal is making your device safe from attack. It does this by limiting what attackers can do and safeguarding the core part of the operation system.
It also stops attackers from taking full control even if they somehow get in. This is done through a feature called verified boot.
By removing unneeded code, GrapheneOS makes attacks from far away, close by, or online less likely. It adds layers of protection to apps and the system, making them much harder to exploit.

GrapheneOS Functionality Features	Description
Sandboxed Play Services	A sandboxed Play Services feature that provides better app compatibility, functionality, and security compared to MicroG.
Push Notifications without Play Services	GrapheneOS allows push notifications to work fine without Play Services for many apps.
Privacy-Focused Network Toggle	GrapheneOS offers a network toggle without leaks and prefers fine-grained VPNs for enhanced security.

GrapheneOS finds a sweet spot between being private, easy to use, and secure. It designs features to challenge any threats.

Stock Android Functionality

Stock Android, made by Google, aims for everyone. It has many features that cater to diverse needs.
One highlight is Android Auto, making your phone and car work together. This way, you keep your hands off the phone while driving yet enjoy many useful features.
Another cool feature is Now Playing. It shows what song is playing without you needing to open your phone. This is handy for finding new music.

Stock Android Functionality Features	Description
Android Auto	Android Auto provides seamless integration between Android devices and compatible vehicles for hands-free access to navigation, communication, and entertainment features.
Now Playing	Now Playing feature The identifies and displays the currently playing song on the lock screen.

Such features make stock Android attractive for those who want a versatile system. It's packed with tools and tricks to make your life easier.
Remember, GrapheneOS and stock Android are both good for getting things done. Yet, GrapheneOS shines in protecting your privacy. This might mean fewer but more secure features.

Privacy and Security

When you pick a system for your phone, think about privacy and safety. GrapheneOS and stock Android protect your data in unique ways.

GrapheneOS Privacy and Security Features

GrapheneOS focuses heavily on keeping your data safe. It offers many tools to boost your privacy and security. These include limiting data collection and secure updates.

• Limiting Data Collection: GrapheneOS cuts down on what data gets collected, lowering the chance of others getting it.
• Secure Updates: It ensures your system stays safe by giving you regular, secure updates.
• Restricted Google Services Access: GrapheneOS limits how much Google can see of your personal data.
• Permission Controls: You get to decide what info apps can use. GrapheneOS gives you strong controls over this.

Stock Android Privacy and Security Considerations

Stock Android, made by Google, has its security perks. But it's heavily tied to Google's services. This can lead to less privacy.

• Google Services Integration: It comes filled with Google tools. While convenient, it does raise privacy worries.
• Privacy Settings: It does have some privacy settings. You can adjust app permissions a bit and limit some data access.
• Regular Updates: Google works on updating stock Android often to fix security issues.

Both GrapheneOS and stock Android care about security. However, GrapheneOS's special focus on privacy sets it apart. It's great for anyone who really values their data privacy.

Comparison Table: GrapheneOS vs. Stock Android Privacy and Security

Privacy and Security Features	GrapheneOS	Stock Android
Data Collection	Minimizes data collection	May collect user data through Google services
Updates	Regular secure updates	Regular updates to address security vulnerabilities
Google Services Access	Restricted access to Google services	System-level integration with Google services
Permission Controls	Strict permission controls	Permission customization options

Table: A comparison of privacy and security features offered by GrapheneOS and stock Android
In summary, if you're big on privacy, you'll like what GrapheneOS offers. It's a top choice. But if Google's services matter a lot to you, stock Android might be the way to go. It's not as privacy-focused, but it's great for those that love Google's features.

App Compatibility

GrapheneOS and stock Android both excel in app compatibility, but GrapheneOS faces challenges with some banking apps. These apps need special access. Yet, GrapheneOS aims for the highest privacy and security, sometimes making these needs clash.
Many apps are compatible with GrapheneOS, and the project actively works with developers. It encourages them to make their apps work with GrapheneOS. This allows users to enjoy the operating system's enhanced privacy and security safely.
Stock Android, on the other hand, has superior compatibility with all apps, including those from banks. It works across many devices and is chosen by developers. Its wide use makes it easier for developers to ensure app compatibility.
To make the app experience smoother on GrapheneOS, users can choose alternative apps that work well with the system. Also, the project is always updating to boost app compatibility through community efforts.

Recommended Banking Apps for GrapheneOS

Many banking apps face issues on GrapheneOS. Still, several banking apps perform well on this system:

• Banking App 1: This is a secure and reliable app made for GrapheneOS.
• Banking App 2: It provides an easy and smooth banking experience on GrapheneOS.
• Banking App 3: This app focuses on keeping your financial info secure and private.

Remember, although these apps are compatible with GrapheneOS, it's wise to confirm with your bank or financial institute for the latest compatibility updates.
As GrapheneOS grows, its app compatibility, including banking apps, is expected to get better. The project is dedicated to offering an experience that values security and privacy while ensuring apps work well.

User Feedback and Experience

GrapheneOS is great for privacy and security, which users love. They feel their data is safer and that Google tracks them less. Plus, it works well with most Android apps. This means users can still do what they want while keeping their privacy a top priority.
Some say that stock Android is smoother and has more useful features than GrapheneOS. They think that GrapheneOS focuses too much on privacy and misses out on some key features. For example, it doesn't work as closely with Google services and apps.
GrapheneOS users share their thoughts in forums, social media, and by talking to the team. They give detailed advice, like how to make permission prompts even safer. They also want the Auditor feature to be better explained, especially to journalists.
Users often request a better way to know when there are system updates. They want to be able to choose when to update, so it doesn't disrupt their day. They also ask about how to use the app pinning and auto-reboot timer, looking for more info.
Users also need more info about the Android Recovery system in GrapheneOS. They want to know more about its role in updating the system. And they worry about any issues the updates might bring.
Some users find features in GrapheneOS that remind them of Google. They want clearer information about these features. This way, they can understand them better.
App compatibility is an issue for some. A few apps won’t work on GrapheneOS because they fear security risks. Some just crash. This is why some users carry a second phone for specific apps, like banking or gaming.

User Profile Usage on GrapheneOS

GrapheneOS encourages the use of separate profiles for different apps. This keeps your privacy and security levels high. Users should have profiles for general use, social media, work, and private matters.

GrapheneOS Installation Ease

Installing GrapheneOS is known for being easy among custom OSes. The web interface makes the process straightforward. However, installing it on various computers might need extra steps sometimes.

GrapheneOS Benefits and Drawbacks

Why do people like GrapheneOS? It's great with most apps, makes you more secure, and doesn't let Google track you much. Plus, it backs up your apps very safely.
But it's not perfect. Some apps, like Facebook Messenger, have issues. The fingerprint sensor on the Google Pixel 6 isn’t the best. And sometimes you might face problems with internet when using a VPN.

Google Pixel 6 User Experience

The Google Pixel 6 is seen as a good buy by users. It offers good features and performance for its cost. However, the fingerprint sensor and the size of the phone get mixed reviews. The camera's quality also varies among users.

Overall Recommendation

Despite some issues, GrapheneOS is recommended by many for its strong privacy and security. It's a good choice for those who worry about Google spying on them.

User Feedback Overview

Feedback	Request/Suggestion
Implementation of safeguards in on-demand permission prompts	Enhancing permission controls for improved security
Better explanation and marketing of the Auditor feature	Targeting investigative journalists as potential users
Proposal for a notification system for system updates	Allowing manual installation of updates
Inquiry about the functionality of app pinning with auto-reboot timer	Clarification on how the feature works
Request for clarification on Android Recovery system	Understanding its role and potential issues with OTA updates
Identification of features resembling "Googlisms"	Clear explanations and disclosures for informed usage
Challenges with app compatibility on de-googled version	Issues with banking apps, food delivery apps, Uber, and mobile gaming

Future Development and Updates

GrapheneOS gets better thanks to the hard work of gifted developers. They're always updating it to make it safer and easier to use.
Updates bring new security patches, app changes, and more. For instance, new kernel updates might change to versions like 5.15.151 or 6.1.80. Apps like Vanadium might jump to new versions like 124.0.6367.159.0.
They use tags to give updates for certain devices. For example, a tag like 2024040100 might mean a special update for certain phones. These updates are meant to make your experience even better.
Recently, they made sure that VPN apps can't accidentally leak your web requests. They also update apps like PDF Viewer to make sure they run smoother. These updates are all about making your phone more enjoyable to use.
GrapheneOS also pays special attention to certain phones. For example, the Pixel Fold might receive updates specific to its design. This keeps your device running well and safe.
They change settings to make your phone safer and easier to use. For security, a new memory tag setting is available. You might see different settings based on what phone you have, making everything more user-friendly.
Improving apps is just as important to GrapheneOS. Apps like TalkBack, which helps by reading the screen, might get better with version 14.1. These changes aim to make using your favorite apps a smoother experience.
They also make technical updates to stay cutting-edge. A recent kernel update, like 5.15.149, makes your device more secure and faster.
Even the Camera app and GmsCompatConfig (used for Google services) get updated. This ensures your phone is more dependable and full of new features.

Official Device Support

GrapheneOS officially supports many Pixel models including the Pixel 8 Pro and Pixel 5a. These devices let you make the most of GrapheneOS's features.
Some Pixel phones, like the Pixel 5, won't get any more updates. Yet, the Pixel 4a and 4 XL keep getting support, like better security. This means you can still use these devices safely.
The 8th generation Pixel devices offer top security levels. They're supported for 7 years from their launch with features custom-tailored to protect your device.
Pixel devices get different levels of support based on their generation. The 8th generation has a longer 7-year support compared to 6th and 7th generation models, which gets 5 years. This shows GrapheneOS's focus on lasting security and usability.

Future Focus and Community Support

The team behind GrapheneOS aims to make major improvements in device, system, and software security. Their focus isn't on supporting every device but on ensuring profound security.
GrapheneOS has a strong community that loves its security. This community's dedication to privacy drives the project's advancement and success.

Related Alternatives

CalyxOS, RattlesnakeOS, DivestOS, and Ubuntu Touch offer different privacy and security features. Exploring these options can help you find the right system for your needs.

Benefits and Drawbacks of GrapheneOS

GrapheneOS offers big benefits for privacy and security. It keeps your data safe and lets you control your online world better. But, there are drawback to consider too.

Benefits of GrapheneOS

• Enhanced Privacy: It reduces the chance of your data being stolen. You get to control what apps can and can't do on your phone.
• Innovative Security Features: It's really good at stopping new security threats. This makes it hard for bad guys to find ways to harm your phone.
• Enhanced Security and Privacy Settings: You can do cool stuff like turn off Wi-Fi automatically or only use the internet through certain apps, making your phone safer.
• Dedicated Effort to Prevent Memory Corruption Bugs: It works really hard to keep its system safe from bugs. This means fewer chances of someone breaking into your phone.
• Secure Apps: It comes with special apps that keep your phone safe. This includes a secure web browser and camera app that protect your data.

Drawbacks of GrapheneOS

• Limited Google Integration: It doesn't come with Google's usual apps. You can add them but this might mean giving up a bit of privacy for certain features.
• App Compatibility: You might struggle to use some apps, like banking apps, because GrapheneOS isn't the regular Android. But, more and more apps are being made to work with it.
• Lack of "Smart" Features: You won't find fancy features, like Google's smart phone answering feature or advanced keyboard tools. You might need to choose between these extras and your privacy.
• Troubleshooting Required: Sometimes things might not work perfectly. You might find some emojis missing or have to fix some app issues yourself. So, some tech skills could come in handy.

Deciding on GrapheneOS means balancing privacy with how easy your phone is to use. It's great for keeping your data safe. But, you might not find all the apps and features you're used to.

Conclusion

After using GrapheneOS for a year on a Google Pixel 6A, its focus on privacy and security shines. It updates quickly, in about 5 minutes, keeping your phone safe. Occasionally, small graphical glitches happen but are easy to fix.
Most day-to-day apps work well from the Google Play Store and Neo Store. The battery life is outstanding, lasting days even with lots of use.
It integrates well with Google's main products like the Play Store and Calendar. Yet, using these services means thinking about your privacy trade-offs.
When making privacy choices, think about how you use technology and what you're comfortable with. The author has used Apple phones for privacy extensively, which informs this perspective.
GrapheneOS makes Android more secure by adding extra permission controls, reminiscent of iOS. It lets users manage apps' accesses like location and storage.
A Google Pixel phone is a good choice for GrapheneOS because it supports other operating systems. Though some users find the user interface a bit challenging, they like its simple design.
To get push notifications working, the author installed Sandboxed Play Services. Going without Google Play Services can be hard due to its deep ties to Google.
With Android 12, apps start to adapt to your phone’s colors, which looks great, especially on the Pixel 7 Pro. This new look makes the home screen feel personalized and clean.
GrapheneOS takes security and privacy seriously, stepping beyond regular Android. Its multiple profiles help keep your data isolated, enhancing privacy.
Setting up GrapheneOS is easy, thanks to a user-friendly web interface. Most apps work well, giving users a satisfying experience, even with compatibility.
Battery life and performance are as good as regular Android systems, showing it can be just as efficient, with better privacy controls.
With GrapheneOS, users have less tracking and more privacy, surpassing typical Android’s privacy. Yet, there are issues with some specific apps and services.
GrapheneOS with a VPN sometimes has connectivity problems, possibly due to app compatibility. Generally, using it on a Google Pixel 6 is a good experience, despite minor issues.

GrapheneOS	Stock Android
+ Strong focus on privacy and security	+ Wide range of features and convenience
+ Streamlined updates with quick completion time	+ Regular updates and feature additions
+ Smooth app compatibility for day-to-day apps	+ Better compatibility with all apps
+ Impressive battery life	+ Similar battery life and performance
+ Seamless integration with Google products	- System-level integration with Google services
+ Additional privacy controls and permissions toggles	- Limited privacy control over Google services
+ Multiple user profiles for enhanced privacy	+ Standard user profile and features

Considerations for Choosing an Operating System

When you compare GrapheneOS and stock Android, think about what matters most. If you are very concerned about privacy and security, GrapheneOS is great. It keeps your data safe and your device secure. However, if you like having many features, stock Android might suit you better.
GrapheneOS is especially good for Pixel devices. It promises many years of support. For example, 8th generation Pixels get 7 years, while older models get 5 years. GrapheneOS might not work with Android Auto or some banking apps. But it's very secure and focuses on keeping your privacy safe.
Stock Android works well with Google apps and has lots of features. You can use Google Maps and Google Keyboard easily. But, if you switch to GrapheneOS, you lose things like Google Pay and some unique Google features.
Choosing between GrapheneOS and stock Android is all about what you need and like. Think about your privacy wishes and how much you value convenience. Then, you can make a smart choice that meets your needs.

FAQ

What are the key distinctions between GrapheneOS and Stock Android?

GrapheneOS focuses on keeping your data safe and private. Stock Android, on the other hand, comes with many useful features.

What are some of the features provided by GrapheneOS?

GrapheneOS gives you a more private and secure playground. It does this by keeping Google Play services separate. It also keeps your phone updated regularly.

How is the setup process and what features does Stock Android provide?

Stock Android is easy to get started with. It includes popular Google services like the Play Store, Maps, and Keyboard.

What are some of the functionalities offered by GrapheneOS and Stock Android?

Both operating systems let you do the basic stuff. But GrapheneOS skips Android Auto and Stock Android has a cool Now Playing feature.

What distinguishes GrapheneOS and Stock Android in terms of privacy and security?

GrapheneOS works hard to make sure your information stays private. It does this by not sharing much with Google. Stock Android, however, is closely tied with Google services, which might affect your privacy.

How is the app compatibility for GrapheneOS and Stock Android?

GrapheneOS might not work with every app. Some banking apps might not fully function on it. Stock Android usually works well with all apps.

What is the user feedback and experience for GrapheneOS and Stock Android?

Users really like GrapheneOS for its commitment to privacy and security. Stock Android is preferred by those who want a smooth experience with lots of features.

How are the future development and updates for GrapheneOS and Stock Android?

GrapheneOS depends on donations to improve with new features. Both systems get updated regularly. Stock Android gets these updates from a bigger team.

What are the benefits and drawbacks of using GrapheneOS?

Using GrapheneOS means your data is more protected. But you might miss out on using some popular apps and features.

What should I consider when choosing between GrapheneOS and Stock Android?

Think about what matters most to you. If privacy and security are top concerns, GrapheneOS is a great choice. Stock Android is better if you want a smoother experience with many features.

I need cat help. I have two cats and they are great but they are destroying my sanity. Also, we move in less than a month and I have wonder if this is the chance to improve some tricky behaviors that have emerged.
They are always under my feet. I trip over them in the baby carrier and feel terrible but I don’t see them with the carrier on. I walk on eggshells. This might not be fixable, but it’s worth mentioning.
They constantly try to escape. Leaving and coming home is SO HARD just from dealing with the cat escapes. I have to leave at minimum 4 times a day for school drop off and pick up. They escape a LOT. I made them a catio. They liked it initially but now have broke out of it a million times …they like it but not as much as escaping. Part of me wonders if I could let them outside with an air tag and a better collar (I heard some are possibly better than the three I have tried so far), but we will be on a very busy fast street and we have a train on the other side. I think coyotes will be less inclined to be near our house but the cats are not conditioned for traffic and could run in front of a car. But I do wonder…
I read a self help book on cats (Total Cat Mojo) and followed the recommendations. I got cat toys and play with them every day. They still zoom and meow at night. I made vertical spaces and cat scratch spots. They still prefer the kitchen counters and scratching the couch and carpet. (I might try a motion air spray for the counters and a scent spray for the couches. I also have some fun hide-y holes and perch/tower ideas in store for the new place). I have had to replace so much furniture that they have destroyed. I got a cat-proof couch and they are really testing the limits of it.
They are fed well and loved immensely by the family, but if they are outdoor cats they will likely die (it is considered inhumane to have them as outdoor cats in this area on account of the coyotes , but we have a stray cat problem so it is also very encouraged to adopt, which is what we did). They are a bonded pair that was fostered indoors since birth from a feral mom, but they hate being indoor cats now. We got leashes thinking we could train them and walk them but they hate the leashes. They break out of breakaway collars. They are so sad inside. I just feel like there is no fixing it unless I let them outside but we are on a busy street and if a coyote doesn’t get them, a car definitely will.
They drive me crazy but I love these little buddies and want them to thrive. How do I set this new living situation up for success? We have a smaller home and no longer have the views/vaulted ceilings/second floor…but we have a big yard and could make a bigger catio and could update the new spot to be more optimal possibly. I love the cats and I want them to love their lives with us. I do believe they are mostly happy. They get treats and pets and they are played with and snuggled by all of us.
One more note (kudos to you if you read all this. I feel like I’ve written a book at this point): in the last year we were gone for about seven weeks at which point we had two different cat sitters. Anytime we go on trip we get the same cat sitters who know them at this point. We also have visitors a lot. Like all the time. Also I was pregnant and had a new baby in the last year. So the cats have dealt with a ton of change over the last year and they’re only two years old. I can honestly say that we will be slowing down the rate of change a lot in the new house (but will still have the occasional trips and house guests).
Thank you for reading this. Any advice is welcome and appreciate it for our sweet little buddies.

Posting here because I need help/advice. I 28f have been with my bf 27m for 5 years now. My bf has difficulty holding down jobs. He was always looking for something better which was fine. However last year he quit his job and took on drinking and taking edibles daily. It’s embarrassing to admit but I stayed thru it all. He used insta cart and doordash to make his monthly bills but it’s not enough. I’ll pitch I here and there to help with his car payment. I’ll break down in bullet points bc i don’t know how else to tell my story.
Holidays: For Christmas I bought his family gifts and had him say it was from both of us. I knew they were getting us gifts and I didn’t want to get something without giving them something?? None of my family knows how bad it is. I’m really close to them and I just brush things off. I lied and told them he finally found a job but he hasn’t. I didn’t get a Christmas gift. But I gave him money. He took me to a steak house for my birthday. Paid for it. Then asked I pay back for my meal bc he miscalculated and needed the money. He did buy me flowers for Valentine’s Day. I bought us an expensive dinner for his bday. I will admit I like a certain type of lifestyle even if I can’t afford it so I may overspend on things.
Addiction: Recently he lost his wallet which meant no Id which meant he couldn’t go to the dispensary or buy alcohol. He ended up finding his wallet but I offered to hold onto his id. It was going well but one day I left an expired id with him so he could buy a beer. I left and came back 24hrs later and he was drunk at 5pm. He gets overly emotional and depressed when he’s drunk and I don’t know what to do other than comfort him. Before I would say I was going to storm off or leave him and that would send him into a deeper spiral so now I nod and try to appease him.
Credit card debt: I’ve been swiping my card for food and drinks for both of us. He uses my car for DoorDash which means I pay for the gas. Before he quit his job (he had been unemployed for 3 months before his most recent job) he really wanted and oled tv and asked I put it on my card and he would pay me back. He made payments for the three months that he was employed then stopped. He ended up selling the tv it was $1,100 he kept the money to pay his bills and buy weed. I finished paying off the card myself. I’m in such a hole borrowing money in hopes I can cover my ass until the next paycheck. I got a part time job im starting soon which should help me a lot. I make a decent wage.
Financially irresponsible: we went on a trip to the casino (he was still employed at this time) I booked the hotel on my credit card. He ended up winning $5,000!!! The first night there. Want to guess what he did next??? He took copious amounts of edibles and blew $3,000 of it on more gambling. He won another $1,000 and also blew that. With the remainder he bought a pc AND I had to beg him to pay me for his half of the hotel room. He did pay for dinners and lunch while we stayed there.
Promises: he says he’ll pay me back. I’ve helped him make his car payments. I help him with food. He says things are going to change. He paints this really pretty picture that I so badly want to be true. But it’s MAY 2024. He quit his job June 2023. He promised me Christmas he promised me my birthday gifts. All which fell flat. And now I just feel like a fool. He says once he starts working he’ll pay me back.
I’ve been helping him apply to place none call him back. He also can’t pass a drug test currently.
Relationship: aside from the money I think we’re okay? We trust each other we love each other. When we’re together we’re always laughing and having a good time. We get along. On weekends we take turns on who gets to pick the movie. He’ll watch twilight and mean girls with me.
The only thing is when he is in withdrawal or hungover he becomes easily agitated and needs space to calm down. The worst he’s done is raise his voice and so do I. Normally he just needs to walk it off or blow off the steam and things get better. He’ll hyper fixate on something I did and call me out on it. I’ll apologize but he won’t let off of it when he gets like that there is nothing I can say to change things. In my mind if I did something wrong I get it I’m sorry but there’s nothing I can do to change it? But if he lies or does something he brushes it off and gets upset with me for being upset at his lying?! He’s a terrible texter and never answers his phone. If I needed immediate help I’d be out of luck. But I always have to be there for him. Let’s say he’s having a bad day he needs me there and wants me there. I have to drop everything and if I don’t he feels bad and guilt trips me.

Hi - I'm Paul and I follow the e-commerce industry closely for my Shopifreaks E-commerce Newsletter. Each week I post a summary recap of the week's top stories, which I cover in depth with sources in the full edition. Let's dive in...
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STAT OF THE WEEK: Kohl's sales have shrunk by $2.3B since 2019. During that same period of time, the company lost 1.3M customers who no longer shop with the retailer.
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BigCommerce is exploring a sale after attracting takeover interest, according to sources who chose to remain anonymous due to the confidentiality of the information. The sources said that BigCommerce asked investment bank Qatalyst Partners to solicit interest from potential buyers that include private equity firms, but that the discussions are at an early stage and no deal is certain.
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Squarespace announced that it will be going private in a $6.9B all-cash deal with private-equity firm Permira, who agreed to pay $44 per share (a roughly 30% premium). Although Squarespace never lost 90% of its share price like BigCommerce, it has experienced a tumultuous time on the market since its IPO in May 2021 — opening around $49.50 and at times trading in the low $20s. Shares rose nearly 13% to $43 in pre-market trading upon release of the news.
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ByteDance filed a lawsuit in US federal court seeking to block the new law that would force the sale or ban of the app within the country. The lawsuit challenges the law on constitutional grounds, also citing commercial, technical, and legal hurdles, as well as opposition from Beijing. Legal experts say the legal battle will play out in the courts in coming months and likely will reach the Supreme Court.
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OpenAI unveiled its newest model, GPT-4o, designed to turn ChatGPT into a digital personal assistant that can engage in real-time, spoken conversations and interact with users using text, screenshots, photos, documents, and charts. The new version of ChatGPT also has memory capabilities, which means it can learn from previous conversations. It will be available to both unpaid and premium customers alike. OpenAI also announced that it would be launching a desktop app with the GPT-4o capabilities, giving users another platform to interact with the technology outside of a web browser.
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Amazon launched in South Africa last week, marking its first marketplace in sub-Saharan Africa, and bringing its total number of marketplaces worldwide to 22. To launch the new marketplace, Amazon is offering free delivery on first orders and on subsequent orders above R500 (about $27), access to 3,000 pick-up points, status updates via WhatsApp to track orders, 30 day refunds, and 24/7 customer support. The marketplace was supposed to launch in the country in 2023, but got delayed due to changes in priorities within Amazon.
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In an unlikely partnership, Instacart is partnering with Uber Eats to expand into the restaurant delivery business. Instacart will add a new tab for restaurant delivery to its app in the coming weeks, the listings will be provided by Uber, and the food will be picked up and delivered by Uber Eats drivers. Customers will receive the same prices on both apps and Instacart will receive an affiliate commission on orders. It's a strange partnership though given that Instacart and Uber Eats actively compete on grocery delivery. Are they planning to merge? Uber says no.
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Apple's advertisement for its latest iPad Pro sparked criticism for showing an animation of musical instruments, paint cans, cameras, record players, and other symbols of creativity being crushed by a giant machine, with the output being the new iPad Pro, which the company says is the thinnest Apple product ever. In this context, “crushing” was supposed to symbolize “consolidating” and “compacting” — with the visuals meant to showcase how the new iPad Pro puts the power of all these tools into the hands of creators in one thin device. However online commenters criticized the ad as insensitive and as symbolizing a “destruction of the human experience.” The ad hit the web on Tuesday, and by Thursday, Apple issued a mea culpa and apologized for the campaign.
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Google is encouraging merchants to enable conversion annotations on their Google Shopping ads, which offer social proof that highlight a product's popularity. Conversion annotations like “best selling” or “3K shopped here recently” would provide visual cues about a product’s popularity or sales performance directly in the ad unit. Annotations like these are par for the course with e-commerce retailers including Amazon, Walmart, and Temu, which all employ similar tactics. They can provide valuable info for shoppers and also help with conversions. However they also open data privacy concerns, given that Google is not the actual retailer or marketplace selling the items, so a merchant would have to share this purchase history data from their e-commerce platform with Google — which technically most already do by giving access to GA4.
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Shein is attempting to join the National Retail Federation as it pursues regulatory approval to go public in the US. The company believes that NRF membership would boost its chances of receiving SEC approval. However so far, Shein has been rejected numerous times. An anonymous source familiar with the matter said someone with heavy influence at the NRF is strongly against the Shein's admittance. However board members who spoke to CNBC said that Shein's membership application hadn't come up in meetings, and that they aren't involved in deciding which companies are granted access.
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Amazon is leading the way with selling home goods, capturing 18.8% of consumer home furnishings spending, compared to Walmart's 7.3% market share. Notably, Amazon’s gains in the furniture category come in spite of the company’s decision to phase out two of its three furniture brands last year.
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Stanley, which is projected to do $750M in sales this year, up from $73M in 2019, after seeing its water bottles become a status symbol thanks to TikTok, is now expanding into trendier accessories. The company is launching a line of bags called the All-Day Collection which include a mini cooler, backpack cooler, and Quencher Carry-All, designed for someone to sling their Stanley over their hip.
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Jack Dorsey left the Bluesky board and deleted his account on the service he helped kickstart, claiming that Bluesky was “literally repeating all the mistakes” he made while running Twitter. Dorsey says he never intended Bluesky to be an independent company, but rather, an open source protocol that Twitter was supposed to be the first client of. He also confirmed that he is financially backing Nostr, another decentralized Twitter-like service popular among crypto enthusiasts and run by an anonymous founder.
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Amazon is deploying 50 electric trucks in California, which it claims is the largest EV fleet in the country, as part of its mission to eliminate pollution from its global operations. The trucks will be integrated into first-mile operations, moving goods from container ships at the ports to fulfillment centers, as well as middle-mile operations, transporting packages from fulfillment centers to delivery centers.
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Wix launched a new tool called AI Portfolio Creator, which allows a user to upload and organize large-scale image collections, select the type of portfolio they want, and then have the AI tool sort and generate a portfolio with clustered images, recommended titles and descriptions, and personalized layout options.
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Amazon is now requiring all dietary supplements to be verified by a third-party testing, inspection, and certification organization — which is something that not even the FDA requires. Amazon is the largest supplement retailer in the US ahead of Walmart and Target, and its new requirements are expected to put more pressure on the industry, which is being scrutinized more than ever.
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Alibaba is revamping its flagship retail website Taobao for the first time in seven years with a focus on providing a smoother search and buying process. The website overhaul comes ahead of the 618 sales event, China's second-largest annual shopping event. A few weeks ago I reported that Eddie Wu, the CEO of Alibaba Group, would now be directly overseeing its domestic e-commerce arm which includes Taobao and Tmall Group, and it sounds like he's hitting the ground running with his new responsibilities.
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Amazon is hosting its first-ever Amazon Book Sale, a new shopping event starting on May 15th that offers up to 50% off print best sellers and up to 80% off Kindle Books. The six day shopping event will exclusively run in the US, and Prime-membership is not required to take advantage of the deals.
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FTX reported that nearly all of its customers will receive the money back that they are owed, two years after the cryptocurrency exchange imploded. The company owes about $11.2B to its customers and estimates that it has between $14.5B and $16.3B to distribute to them. The caveat is that customers will receive the USD value of their holdings at the time of the exchange collapse, and not the actual crypto holdings themselves, which means that they'll miss out on all gains during the past two years during which BTC went from around $16k to now over $60k. Better than nothing though, that's for sure.
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800,000 consumers in Europe and the US were duped into sharing card details and other sensitive personal data with a network of fake online designer shops operated from China, which comprised one of the largest scams of its kind with 76,000 fake websites created. The scammers used expired domains to host its fake shops in order to help avoid detection by websites or brand owners, and more than 1M orders were processed in the past three years alone.
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Beyond Inc, which owns Bed Bath & Beyond, Overstock, and Zulily, reported that its Q1 net loss swelled to $72M from $10M a year ago, while its operating loss widened to $58M from $8M. The company's active customers grew to 6M, up 26% from nearly 5M a year ago, however, its average order value dropped to $173 from $220 a year earlier.
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TikTok will begin automatically labeling AI generated content when it is uploaded from certain platforms like DALL.E 3, Adobe Firefly, Photoshop, and Microsoft Copilot. TikTok will also start attaching Content Credentials to content, which will remain on the media when downloaded, allowing other platforms to read the metadata.
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eBay is testing an Add To Cart button in search results that opens a Quick View window, allowing buyers to skip the listing page. Technically the button should probably not be labeled “Add To Cart” since it doesn't perform that action, but rather, displays a quick view window with three buttons: Buy It Now, Add To Cart, View All Details. Sellers are worried that buyers will miss crucial details in the product description that may lead to increased returns and negative feedback.
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Amazon is planning to launch its fleet of drones in Tolleson, Arizona, but the city's extreme temperature is hampering its efforts. Drones can't operate in temperatures exceeding 104 degrees Fahrenheit, a temperature that Tolleson crosses for a full three months of the year.
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A US district judge dismissed X's lawsuit against Bright Data, a data-scraping company accused of improperly accessing X system and violating X terms and state laws when scraping and selling data. The judge basically said that if X owned the data, it could perhaps argue that it has exclusive rights to control it, but then X wouldn't be able to enjoy the safe harbor of Section 230, which allows the platform to avoid liability for third-party content. Can't have it both ways!
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Nintendo is discontinuing its X integration for the switch on June 10th, which means users will no longer be able to post screenshots or videos to the platform from their device. The drop in support also affects games like Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, which had game-specific options to send out tweets. Microsoft Xbox dropped support for X in April 2023 and Sony Playstation dropped the service in October 2023 due to the increase in X's API access fees.
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Amazon claimed that its recordable incident rate — a metric that comprises all injuries requiring “more than basic first-aid treatment” — at its US warehouses has improved by 24% since 2019. However the National Employment Law Project challenged Amazon's injury data in a report last week, claiming that Amazon's overall injury rate in 2023 was 71% higher than that of other employers in the sector at 6.5 cases per 100 workers.
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Amazon Ads announced three new advertising formats for streaming TV including shoppable carousel ads, interactive pause ads, and interactive trivia ads. Amazon did not say when the new ad types would officially launch, but noted that it will formally present them at a presentation on May 14th.
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Meta is rolling out an expanded set of generative AI ad tools that can create full image variations with text overlays, expand images to fit across different aspect ratios, and generate alternate versions of headlines and other ad text. The features will become available globally to advertisers by the end of the year.
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Square introduced a tool called Square Kiosk to allow self-service ordering at fast food restaurants. The device is a combined software, hardware, and payment solution that allows customers to select exactly what they want with customization options, upgrades, and add-ons.
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The European Parliament announced new measures to make packaging more sustainable and reduce packaging waste in the EU, including reduction targets of 15% by 2040 — which sounds far away but is only 16 years away?! As part of the new rules, the EU will set maximum empty space ratios for e-commerce transportation, ban certain single-use plastic packaging types, and beverage distributors and take-away food will have to offer consumers the option of bringing their own container.
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Indians who pre-ordered Teslas in 2016 are giving up and seeking refunds of their deposits after Elon Musk canceled another visit to the country last month. Disillusioned Tesla enthusiasts in India say they will now buy a car from the company only if they see it in a showroom, or they'll buy a different electrical vehicle from a company that actually exists in the country.
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Target is limiting its Pride Month collection to select stores this year instead of rolling out the merchandise nationwide like it typically has for the past decade, due to backlash the retailer experienced last year. Last May customers in certain stores knocked down LGBTQ+ merchandise displays, angrily approached store employees, and posted threatening videos on social media from inside the stores.
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E-commerce spending from Jan 1 to April 30, 2024 rose 7% YoY to $331.6B, according to Adobe Analytics. One trend Adobe identified during the period is a shift of online spending to purchasing the cheapest goods across personal care, electronics, apparel, home & garden, furniture, and grocery.
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Plus 7 seed rounds, IPOs, and acquisitions of interest, including Shopify's acquisition of Peel, a tool that integrates with a merchant's tech stack including Klaviyo and Recharge and helps them analyze their sales data to improve customer retention.
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I hope you found this recap helpful. See you next week!
PAUL Editor of Shopifreaks E-Commerce Newsletter
PS: If I missed any big news this week, please share in the comments.

Hi! My fiancée (33M) and I (25F) have talked extensively about emigration. We’ve looked at so many different countries over the past year and a half-ish but recently we visited a country that my fiancee has been to many times and he told me it’s been his dream since his early 20s to move here, I instantly fell in love with the country and mentioned that maybe we should emigrate there, my fiancee agreed straight away and we began looking into it, even secured jobs before we left with a woman from the UK who emigrated and has her own business over there, she’s giving us a couple of months to sort out stuff back home and she said she’ll have jobs there for us both when we come back, she’s even going to help us apartment hunt! So we came back home and I started learning the native language and we started to cancel contracts and write out the notice for our rental property, here’s where it gets tricky,(( keep in mind my fiancee has always said he wants to emigrate )) He has a small son(4m) from another relationship, he only sees him every second weekend and the child seems to hate coming over to us, constantly telling us that he doesn’t want to see us and he wants his mam, still despite all of this my fiancee was ready to emigrate with me, he even spoke to his sons mother and she agreed it’s a once in a lifetime opportunity and we should go, she’ll make sure we can still talk to (4m) and see him for at least 2 weeks every year and he can come visit us (it’s important to know she’s nice about us leaving but he’s been in and out of court with her for 2 years trying to see (4m) more and she does everything she can to stop it unless he gives her extra money on top of his child support) I’m going to miss (4m) of course! We’ve got a pretty okay relationship, and my fiancee has expressed that he’ll miss him too but tonight when I mentioned sending in our notice to our landlord my fiancee dropped the “I don’t think I want to leave I’ll miss (4m) too much” he also mentioned that he posted on here and he got mixed opinions that gave him a lot to think about but I can’t find his post What do I do? I love my fiancee but I hate where we live and I’ve always been very honest about wanting to emigrate and he was always with me on it. I don’t want to do this without him. I’m not going to give him an ultimatum or anything but AITA for still wanting him to come with me?

Hey everyone, i know this topic has kind of been exhausted, but i just finished there’s something wrong with aunt diane, and let me say, it was devastating and incredibly hard to watch. also, the photos of her body were not necessary, especially for that long, and were really upsetting and kind of disrespectful to the dead (?) she did kill 7 people, so idk. 1. just to get this out of the way—diane was clearly a closet alcoholic. was it to deal with her husband? the stresses of basically raising 3 kids? her routine getting thrown off? honestly i’m not sure, however, i do have a personal theory. 1A. Personally, i know a lot of people say that diane’s behavior was uncharacteristic for an alcoholic, but isn’t that EXACTLY what you would expect from an alcoholic who was thrown off their normal routine?? she and her husband worked opposite schedules, so it was probably a lot easier to hide her drinking. that weekend? not so much. idk if it was a hair of the dog thing, or if she was playing catch up, but i think we can all agree she was drinking to ease something. 2. the timeline is what really does throw me off. a 35 minute drive that took 4 hours?? there’s lots of holes between phone calls and where she was spotted. in my opinion, her smoking or taking an edible was likely at the mcdonald’s, hiding it in the OJ, for whatever reason. she also may have thrown up an edible on the side of the road, which could explain no stomach contents. i can speak from personal experience that edibles hit different than smoking, they would have found some sort of paraphernalia in the car, so she likely had it hit her like a fucking brick right before she went on the highly for that 2 mile stretch. all the other time holes, i’m not sure. maybe she tried to sober up, maybe went somewhere else, did she buy an edible? i have no idea. 3. whatever was said on that last phone call is key whether it was an accident or murder suicide. i don’t want to assume, and the brother she talked to last lost all three children, so im not going to say what was said or i think was said. it probably pissed her off to the extent that she drove so determined. maybe she had tunnel vision down the highway: “i need to get home so no one finds out. i will stay in the slow lane and go until i see this exit” and then boom doesn’t register a car. i also see a scenario where she throws the phone on the rail, jumps in the front seat, chugs the equivalent of 10 shots and then crashes. 10 un digested shots is significant. and the bottle being found in the passenger seat. she wasn’t hiding it well, or she was just pounding away as she drove. 4. her husbands a real piece of shit. i think she acted like a man-child and resented his wife more for leaving him the pieces to pick up rather than killing his child and nieces. i also think he knows more than he is saying. did he know diane drank? idk. but i do think he knew she wasn’t well to drive, and left her anyway so he didn’t have to deal with the kids. 5. does any one have sources on what people in her work circle said? i can’t find much, but i have a feeling they would be more in tune of her life because they are not in her close social net, so she can let her guard down. 6. i feel so much for those children. i also think they were not wearing car seats correct? diane fell out of the car, and the kids were in a pile? that could either be her negligence or purposeful. i’m not sure. whatever it was, i hope those children died quickly and didn’t know it was coming. i hope they rest in peace. 7. the accident photos broke my heart. seeing the man hanging out of the car. i can’t even imagine what they must have experienced. i wish well for bryan. he would be my age today, and i was always wonder if he went to college, or if we’ve ever crossed paths.
please pick this apart. i missed so many details, but im a little bit high right now and dumping my thoughts.
i dont hate diane. i think she had an illness and was in such a perfectionist mindset that asking for help was unfathomable. i understand. i had to black out and almost die before i got help for my ED. hiding it isn’t as hard as you guys thinks. i hope they all rest in peace, and i sincerely hope that diane did not mean the harm she caused. ❤️
wiki link: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2009_Taconic_State_Parkway_crash
another of her: https://allthatsinteresting.com/diane-schuler
here is, in my opinion, one of the best write-ups included.

Hi - I'm Paul and I follow the e-commerce industry closely for my Shopifreaks E-commerce Newsletter. Each week I post a summary recap of the week's top stories, which I cover in depth in the newsletter. Let's dive in...
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STAT OF THE WEEK: Kohl's sales have shrunk by $2.3B since 2019. During that same period of time, the company lost 1.3M customers who no longer shop with the retailer.
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BigCommerce is exploring a sale after attracting takeover interest, according to sources who chose to remain anonymous due to the confidentiality of the information. The sources said that BigCommerce asked investment bank Qatalyst Partners to solicit interest from potential buyers that include private equity firms, but that the discussions are at an early stage and no deal is certain.
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Squarespace announced that it will be going private in a $6.9B all-cash deal with private-equity firm Permira, who agreed to pay $44 per share (a roughly 30% premium). Although Squarespace never lost 90% of its share price like BigCommerce, it has experienced a tumultuous time on the market since its IPO in May 2021 — opening around $49.50 and at times trading in the low $20s. Shares rose nearly 13% to $43 in pre-market trading upon release of the news.
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ByteDance filed a lawsuit in US federal court seeking to block the new law that would force the sale or ban of the app within the country. The lawsuit challenges the law on constitutional grounds, also citing commercial, technical, and legal hurdles, as well as opposition from Beijing. Legal experts say the legal battle will play out in the courts in coming months and likely will reach the Supreme Court.
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OpenAI unveiled its newest model, GPT-4o, designed to turn ChatGPT into a digital personal assistant that can engage in real-time, spoken conversations and interact with users using text, screenshots, photos, documents, and charts. The new version of ChatGPT also has memory capabilities, which means it can learn from previous conversations. It will be available to both unpaid and premium customers alike. OpenAI also announced that it would be launching a desktop app with the GPT-4o capabilities, giving users another platform to interact with the technology outside of a web browser.
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Amazon launched in South Africa last week, marking its first marketplace in sub-Saharan Africa, and bringing its total number of marketplaces worldwide to 22. To launch the new marketplace, Amazon is offering free delivery on first orders and on subsequent orders above R500 (about $27), access to 3,000 pick-up points, status updates via WhatsApp to track orders, 30 day refunds, and 24/7 customer support. The marketplace was supposed to launch in the country in 2023, but got delayed due to changes in priorities within Amazon.
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In an unlikely partnership, Instacart is partnering with Uber Eats to expand into the restaurant delivery business. Instacart will add a new tab for restaurant delivery to its app in the coming weeks, the listings will be provided by Uber, and the food will be picked up and delivered by Uber Eats drivers. Customers will receive the same prices on both apps and Instacart will receive an affiliate commission on orders. It's a strange partnership though given that Instacart and Uber Eats actively compete on grocery delivery. Are they planning to merge? Uber says no.
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Apple's advertisement for its latest iPad Pro sparked criticism for showing an animation of musical instruments, paint cans, cameras, record players, and other symbols of creativity being crushed by a giant machine, with the output being the new iPad Pro, which the company says is the thinnest Apple product ever. In this context, “crushing” was supposed to symbolize “consolidating” and “compacting” — with the visuals meant to showcase how the new iPad Pro puts the power of all these tools into the hands of creators in one thin device. However online commenters criticized the ad as insensitive and as symbolizing a “destruction of the human experience.” The ad hit the web on Tuesday, and by Thursday, Apple issued a mea culpa and apologized for the campaign.
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Google is encouraging merchants to enable conversion annotations on their Google Shopping ads, which offer social proof that highlight a product's popularity. Conversion annotations like “best selling” or “3K shopped here recently” would provide visual cues about a product’s popularity or sales performance directly in the ad unit. Annotations like these are par for the course with e-commerce retailers including Amazon, Walmart, and Temu, which all employ similar tactics. They can provide valuable info for shoppers and also help with conversions. However they also open data privacy concerns, given that Google is not the actual retailer or marketplace selling the items, so a merchant would have to share this purchase history data from their e-commerce platform with Google — which technically most already do by giving access to GA4.
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Shein is attempting to join the National Retail Federation as it pursues regulatory approval to go public in the US. The company believes that NRF membership would boost its chances of receiving SEC approval. However so far, Shein has been rejected numerous times. An anonymous source familiar with the matter said someone with heavy influence at the NRF is strongly against the Shein's admittance. However board members who spoke to CNBC said that Shein's membership application hadn't come up in meetings, and that they aren't involved in deciding which companies are granted access.
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Amazon is leading the way with selling home goods, capturing 18.8% of consumer home furnishings spending, compared to Walmart's 7.3% market share. Notably, Amazon’s gains in the furniture category come in spite of the company’s decision to phase out two of its three furniture brands last year.
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Stanley, which is projected to do $750M in sales this year, up from $73M in 2019, after seeing its water bottles become a status symbol thanks to TikTok, is now expanding into trendier accessories. The company is launching a line of bags called the All-Day Collection which include a mini cooler, backpack cooler, and Quencher Carry-All, designed for someone to sling their Stanley over their hip.
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Jack Dorsey left the Bluesky board and deleted his account on the service he helped kickstart, claiming that Bluesky was “literally repeating all the mistakes” he made while running Twitter. Dorsey says he never intended Bluesky to be an independent company, but rather, an open source protocol that Twitter was supposed to be the first client of. He also confirmed that he is financially backing Nostr, another decentralized Twitter-like service popular among crypto enthusiasts and run by an anonymous founder.
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Amazon is deploying 50 electric trucks in California, which it claims is the largest EV fleet in the country, as part of its mission to eliminate pollution from its global operations. The trucks will be integrated into first-mile operations, moving goods from container ships at the ports to fulfillment centers, as well as middle-mile operations, transporting packages from fulfillment centers to delivery centers.
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Wix launched a new tool called AI Portfolio Creator, which allows a user to upload and organize large-scale image collections, select the type of portfolio they want, and then have the AI tool sort and generate a portfolio with clustered images, recommended titles and descriptions, and personalized layout options.
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Amazon is now requiring all dietary supplements to be verified by a third-party testing, inspection, and certification organization — which is something that not even the FDA requires. Amazon is the largest supplement retailer in the US ahead of Walmart and Target, and its new requirements are expected to put more pressure on the industry, which is being scrutinized more than ever.
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Alibaba is revamping its flagship retail website Taobao for the first time in seven years with a focus on providing a smoother search and buying process. The website overhaul comes ahead of the 618 sales event, China's second-largest annual shopping event. A few weeks ago I reported that Eddie Wu, the CEO of Alibaba Group, would now be directly overseeing its domestic e-commerce arm which includes Taobao and Tmall Group, and it sounds like he's hitting the ground running with his new responsibilities.
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Amazon is hosting its first-ever Amazon Book Sale, a new shopping event starting on May 15th that offers up to 50% off print best sellers and up to 80% off Kindle Books. The six day shopping event will exclusively run in the US, and Prime-membership is not required to take advantage of the deals.
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FTX reported that nearly all of its customers will receive the money back that they are owed, two years after the cryptocurrency exchange imploded. The company owes about $11.2B to its customers and estimates that it has between $14.5B and $16.3B to distribute to them. The caveat is that customers will receive the USD value of their holdings at the time of the exchange collapse, and not the actual crypto holdings themselves, which means that they'll miss out on all gains during the past two years during which BTC went from around $16k to now over $60k. Better than nothing though, that's for sure.
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800,000 consumers in Europe and the US were duped into sharing card details and other sensitive personal data with a network of fake online designer shops operated from China, which comprised one of the largest scams of its kind with 76,000 fake websites created. The scammers used expired domains to host its fake shops in order to help avoid detection by websites or brand owners, and more than 1M orders were processed in the past three years alone.
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Beyond Inc, which owns Bed Bath & Beyond, Overstock, and Zulily, reported that its Q1 net loss swelled to $72M from $10M a year ago, while its operating loss widened to $58M from $8M. The company's active customers grew to 6M, up 26% from nearly 5M a year ago, however, its average order value dropped to $173 from $220 a year earlier.
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TikTok will begin automatically labeling AI generated content when it is uploaded from certain platforms like DALL.E 3, Adobe Firefly, Photoshop, and Microsoft Copilot. TikTok will also start attaching Content Credentials to content, which will remain on the media when downloaded, allowing other platforms to read the metadata.
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eBay is testing an Add To Cart button in search results that opens a Quick View window, allowing buyers to skip the listing page. Technically the button should probably not be labeled “Add To Cart” since it doesn't perform that action, but rather, displays a quick view window with three buttons: Buy It Now, Add To Cart, View All Details. Sellers are worried that buyers will miss crucial details in the product description that may lead to increased returns and negative feedback.
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Amazon is planning to launch its fleet of drones in Tolleson, Arizona, but the city's extreme temperature is hampering its efforts. Drones can't operate in temperatures exceeding 104 degrees Fahrenheit, a temperature that Tolleson crosses for a full three months of the year.
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A US district judge dismissed X's lawsuit against Bright Data, a data-scraping company accused of improperly accessing X system and violating X terms and state laws when scraping and selling data. The judge basically said that if X owned the data, it could perhaps argue that it has exclusive rights to control it, but then X wouldn't be able to enjoy the safe harbor of Section 230, which allows the platform to avoid liability for third-party content. Can't have it both ways!
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Nintendo is discontinuing its X integration for the switch on June 10th, which means users will no longer be able to post screenshots or videos to the platform from their device. The drop in support also affects games like Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, which had game-specific options to send out tweets. Microsoft Xbox dropped support for X in April 2023 and Sony Playstation dropped the service in October 2023 due to the increase in X's API access fees.
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Amazon claimed that its recordable incident rate — a metric that comprises all injuries requiring “more than basic first-aid treatment” — at its US warehouses has improved by 24% since 2019. However the National Employment Law Project challenged Amazon's injury data in a report last week, claiming that Amazon's overall injury rate in 2023 was 71% higher than that of other employers in the sector at 6.5 cases per 100 workers.
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Amazon Ads announced three new advertising formats for streaming TV including shoppable carousel ads, interactive pause ads, and interactive trivia ads. Amazon did not say when the new ad types would officially launch, but noted that it will formally present them at a presentation on May 14th.
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Meta is rolling out an expanded set of generative AI ad tools that can create full image variations with text overlays, expand images to fit across different aspect ratios, and generate alternate versions of headlines and other ad text. The features will become available globally to advertisers by the end of the year.
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Square introduced a tool called Square Kiosk to allow self-service ordering at fast food restaurants. The device is a combined software, hardware, and payment solution that allows customers to select exactly what they want with customization options, upgrades, and add-ons.
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The European Parliament announced new measures to make packaging more sustainable and reduce packaging waste in the EU, including reduction targets of 15% by 2040 — which sounds far away but is only 16 years away?! As part of the new rules, the EU will set maximum empty space ratios for e-commerce transportation, ban certain single-use plastic packaging types, and beverage distributors and take-away food will have to offer consumers the option of bringing their own container.
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Indians who pre-ordered Teslas in 2016 are giving up and seeking refunds of their deposits after Elon Musk canceled another visit to the country last month. Disillusioned Tesla enthusiasts in India say they will now buy a car from the company only if they see it in a showroom, or they'll buy a different electrical vehicle from a company that actually exists in the country.
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Target is limiting its Pride Month collection to select stores this year instead of rolling out the merchandise nationwide like it typically has for the past decade, due to backlash the retailer experienced last year. Last May customers in certain stores knocked down LGBTQ+ merchandise displays, angrily approached store employees, and posted threatening videos on social media from inside the stores.
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E-commerce spending from Jan 1 to April 30, 2024 rose 7% YoY to $331.6B, according to Adobe Analytics. One trend Adobe identified during the period is a shift of online spending to purchasing the cheapest goods across personal care, electronics, apparel, home & garden, furniture, and grocery.
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Plus 7 seed rounds, IPOs, and acquisitions of interest, including Shopify's acquisition of Peel, a tool that integrates with a merchant's tech stack including Klaviyo and Recharge and helps them analyze their sales data to improve customer retention.
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I hope you found this recap helpful. See you next week!
For more details on each story and sources, see the full edition: https://www.shopifreaks.com/bigcommerce-for-sale-openai-gpt-4o-instacarts-unlikely-partnership/
What else is new in e-commerce? Share stories of interesting in the comments below (including in your own business) or on shopifreaks.
-PAUL Editor of Shopifreaks E-commerce Newsletter
PS: Want the full editions delivered to your Inbox each week? Join free at www.shopifreaks.com

I've had my protune now for 10 months and just wanted to do an update. This is my second car tuned by him the first was over ten years ago a 2010 Mazdaspeed 3. I had a wonderful experience tuning my car with Will from Pd-tuning.com. Some of you have seen my videos online revving out to 7k. I'm still extremely pleased with my tune and the power that I'm making is phenomenal. I wanted to give my coupon code to anyone who wants a protune dylanvbwrx this will get you 20% off any tune, so one fuel protune only $240 after discount or two fuel protune only $350 after protune.

Been married to Mary for 2 years now. Her mother is... a bit dramatic. Always has been. I always liked her, but she has a sort of 'real housewives of new jersey' kind of attitude about things. She was a bit distrustful of me because of the age difference and the fact that my wifes previous boyfriend cheated on her, but she eventually came around. Until recently.
​
I went out for drinks with 3 coworkers one night. Two of the people went outside to smoke cigarettes at various points, leaving me alone with one coworker, a woman. Mary's mother apparently drove by and saw me sitting with her. This had to have happened when the other two were smoking. She took a picture of me from her car and sent it to my wife with a whole essay about how I was a cheating asshole and she should leave me and should have never have trusted me.
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My wife took my side right away. And I had evidence on my phone. A time stamped picture of the four of us posing for a pic like 20 minutes before my MIL sent the pic. My wife has also hung out with this group before and knows that the other two people smoke cigarettes. Nothing about that picture was suspicious to my wife, she knows everybody involved quite well. When she replied and showed the timestamp to her mother, her mother flipped out at her, calling her naive and saying I could have 'edited the time and date'. She didn't even know what a timestamp is. She thought I photoshopped it. She accused me of manipulating her, brainwashing her etc, saying that no normal girl would tolerate this behavior. For some context, the mother is very much the type of person to think men and women shouldn't ever socialize outside of family and marriage. The image of me sitting at a table with just one woman is crazy to her no matter the context. But even then, she doesn't believe the context.
​
Her thinking this is one thing. But she spread this rumor to everybody. My wifes entire family on both sides is now convinced I am a cheater. And my MIL very specifically told them that I used a 'photoshopped image' to deceive my wife and that my wife is being brainwashed by me. My wife has gotten calls from cousins and aunts telling her to leave me. They will not listen to any reason. Its become such a problem that its become basically open hostility between her family and her, with everybody constantly nagging at her to leave me. We had multiple plans with them. We were supposed to go away on a vacation to Miami in august with her family, we were planning BBQs and rooftop parties with them, and now? Nothing.
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This is especially a problem considering her previous boyfriend also cheated on her and she apparently stayed with him and defended him for years, which makes everybody extra suspicious of this. Everybody is just telling her its the same thing over again with me, that she is making excuses and ignoring reality just like with her previous boyfriend. They will not trust anything she says as a result.
​
What the hell do we do? My wife is just torn to bits over this. It makes me horribly depressed knowing how much I have indirectly hurt her, even if I didn't technically do anything wrong that day. Almost every day she has been arguing with her family about this. Her words just come off hollow after she said effectively the same words about her last boyfriend.
​
TL;DR - - mother in law saw me alone with another woman and thinks I cheated, and now its caused a huge rift between my wife and her family.

Hey Sportsfans — it's time for Week 7 of baseball Power Rankings: These baseball numbers have been forwarded directly from Manfred's office. They are accurate and caanot be questioned.
Every voter has their own style / system and the only voting instructions are these:

"To an extent determined individually, you must take into account how strong a team is right now and likely to be going forward. You must, to some degree, give weight to the events and games of the previous week."

TRANSPARENCY: This link will show you who voted each team where and has added neat statistics!
Please check this space shortly for a link to the Auxilliary Post for added details and stats!
If something is a little messed up, feel free to pester me let me know.
Total Votes: 30 of 30. Another Perfect Vote!.

#		Team	Δ	Comment	Record
1		Dodgers	0	The Dodgers started off a mediocre road trip by sweeping the Marlins in dominant fashion, followed by a sleepy series against the padres. My early season prediction of the Dodgers's infield defense being the biggest issue was completely wrong. Mookie looks natural at short, and Muncy has been playing pretty darn well at 3rd. We will be using our prayers this week to pray that Shohei is going to be okay	27-15
2		Phillies	+1	It's tough to end the week on a walkoff loss to the Marlins and feel good, but it's hard to complain about a 4-2 stretch. Nick Castellanos might finally not be the worst hitter in baseball after he says he started treating hitting like glorified batting practice again. Ranger Suarez has arguably been the best pitcher in baseball, pitching to a 1.5 ERA and an astounding 0.72 WHIP with team wins in each of his starts. Somehow this performance isn't even all that surprising for a guy with a 4.18 ERA last year. He was this dominant in a half season between the bullpen and rotation in 2021 and has a career 1.62 ERA in 7 postseason starts and 2 relief appearances. This week: another weird scheduling quirk as they play a 4 game set against the Mets with the first two at Citi Field and the next two in Philly before the Nats come to town for a 3 game series.	28-13
3		Orioles	-1	I was hoping the Orioles would go 5-1 this week but they went 4-2. Still nothing to be super upset about. I think the main concerns right now are Mullins is hitting under .200 and Santander still not hitting the way he can. Yesterdays game was just not great so hopefully it was just a one-off and can be flushed and they move on. Blue Jays and Mariners are in town this week so it doesn't get any easier.	26-13
4		Yankees	0	Our pitching is so good right now. Anyone in the rotation could pull a Glasnow and write their number on a ball for a cute girl, and she’d call. Doesn’t even have to have their name. She doesn’t care if its’s Nestor Cortes or Clarke Schmidt. Yankees starter? She’s calling, and she’s shaving her legs beforehand. If we signed Pete Davidson for some spot starts there'd be a second baby boom. By the way, my nickname for Clarke Schmidt used to be Farte Schidt. He has very much made me eat my aforementioned schidt this year, and officially has the second-best starter ERA behind Luis Gil, as we all predicted. In other news, Judge and Stanton both have their pop at once, Soto is doing what Soto does, and Verdugo is playing sneaky good right now. We also officially took the season series against Houston 6-1, which feels GREAT. If only they were a playoff team so we could finally bounce them this year. Oh well. A Yankees-A’s ALCS it is.	27-15
5		Braves	0	The walk off loss hurts, but can't be too upset with a 4-1 bounce back week! Big time perfromance from our SP. Giving up only 4 ERs in 23.2 IP (1.52 ERA) in these 5 games. Our bats are not what we have come to expect, but that can't last much longer. Signs of life from Acuña and Olson and continued performance by Ozuna. If by the end of May we don't see massive improvement to our offensive numbers, I will be surprised. Until then, buckle up because the offense is coming.	24-13
6		Twins	+3	Another great week, Sausage be praised! We took series from the Blue Jays and Mariners with both blowouts and well-pitched close games. I think it's safe to say that the team has found its groove, and this is how the Twins can be expected to perform moving forward. The only blip has been that the bullpen is having a slight slump, but that will even out shortly.	24-16
7		Brewers	0	Paul Who? The only starting pitcher debut I care about is BOBBY GAS who threw 6 innings of 2 hit, 0 run ball in a win against the Cardinals. He fills a much needed spot in the Brewers rotation, and likely would have been up sooner if not for an injury of his own. Rhys Hoskins also had a monster week, racking up 3 HR and 9 RBI in hist last 5 games. I had my doubts this young lineup and shaky rotation actually could be a contending ballclub over 162 games, but I'm not going to argue with the results.	24-16
8		Guardians	-2	Another bad week. The Guardians had rough series against the Tigers and the mighty World Champion favorite White Sox. This coming week, we play the reigning World Series champs and the hottest team in our division. I'm not worried. Not at all.	25-16
9		Cubs	-1	The Cubs went 3-3 this week in what felt like a complete microcosm of their season. While they did get Justin Steele, Cody Bellinger, and Seiya Suzuki back from injury, they lost Dansby Swanson and Yency Almonte, who had been a rare reliable bullpen arm. Christopher Morel also had a scare after tweaking his knee sliding into sexond, but fortunately is alright. Otherwise, the offense remained inconsistent, the starting pitching was outstanding, and the bullpen was abysmal at worst and heart-stopping at best. While he didn't continue his usual dominance against them, Ian Happ extended his streak of 62 consecutive games reaching base vs the Pirates. This week, the Cubs travel to Atlanta to take on the Braves before hosting the Pirates for 4 games.	24-17
10		Royals	+2	The Royals have a chance to be in first place by themselves this late in the season for the first time since 2016. It feels like a lifetime ago. Yes, it is just seven weeks into the season but hopes are usually gone by this point. Maybe this year can be different.	25-17
11		Mariners	0	Apologies for any typos, doing this from mobile is miserable. Not the best week, but given the pitching hiccups I can't complain too much. Woo is back (and hopefully staying back, him getting pulled was a bit of a scare.) The next few series are another gauntlet, and if the M's can make it through playing relatively well they'll be in a good positon to take advantage of their schedule for the end of the month and early June. Up next: 3 vs. Roy L's, 3 @ Oreo L's	22-19
12		Padres	+2	The San Diego Madres beat LA on both día de las Madres (friday) as well as Mother’s Day, wherein both we got great pitching performances from King and Darvish respectively. Arraez capped off the walk-off win on friday, and it was nice to see Bogaerts get one deep on Sunday. So far in ‘24 the Padres haven’t lost a series to the Dodgers, whether in LA, San Diego, or South Korea. It’s a bit cathartic, though I do wish there was less blue in the stands this weekend though. Really interested to see how they come out against the rocks, as SD was only able to split the 4-game series earlier in the season. This one lines up between the series’s vs LA and ATL, it could be a bit of a trap, hoping the Pads continue their series winning streak (which is now at 4) and just take care of business.	22-21
13		Rangers	-3	The baseball gods are unforgiving. Sacrfices have to be made and will continue to be made to the baseball gods. Oh dear baseball gods please forgive our hubris for thinking the baseball suffering was over. It was not but also, flags fly forever.	22-20
14		Red Sox	-1	The Sox have not been having a good May. Losing Casas has been brutal, and the expected bump in performance from Vaughn Grissom at 2nd hasn't happened (well, at least not yet). As a team we have a decent looking triple slash, but situationally they've been horrible. In high leverage PAs, the Sox are hitting .195/.264/.272 in 247 PAs. We have loads of talent, but there's always some issue whether it be defense or clutch hitting that holds us back from being truly competitive.	21-19
15		Tigers	0	The City Connects... phew phew phew. Looks like we got tire tracks laid on us after a truck ran us over. No thanks. I hate it... and that's not even mentioning the dumb hat. In terms of actual baseball, though, Tarik Skubal is still Skuballing. This week: 3 vs. MIA, 3 at ARI.	20-20
16		Rays	0	It was a .500 week for the Rays, and the good news is things are looking better, but only like maybe? Randy and Yandy seem to be coming back a bit; glancing at the lineup's batting avg in the game threads isn't painful anymore. Ben Rortvedt is over .300 in the catcher position which is unheard of for this team. The bad news is pitching is only bouncing back from abysmal to below average. A week against division opponents on the road will test if that improvement is here to stay or if it was just a new uniform bounce.	20-21
17		D-Backs	+3	The Diamondbacks have been winning more games of late but are still underperforming their Pythagorean record and are 3 games below .500 despite a +17 run differential. Reinforcements should be coming back from injury soon which should help.	19-22
18		Mets	-1	I prewrote a big and extremely negative blurb about the Mets getting swept by the Braves. That did not happen, Brandon Nimmo hit a walk off homer on Sunday Night Baseball immediately as I was about to close my computer. Never been so glad to be wrong. Bring on the Phillies and Marlins.	19-20
19		Nationals	0	Two large accomplishments for the Nats in the last week - 1) For the first time since 2021, the Nats climbed over .500 with an opening win over the Orioles in a 2-game series. 2) Patrick Corbin recorded a win this week vs the Red Sox (his first since 9/11/23 vs the Pirates). The Nationals quickly slid back under .500 losing the 2nd game vs the Orioles and then 2 of 3 against the Red Sox. James Wood is hitting everything in AAA (over 1.000 OPS) so there are lots of calls for HRCHU.	19-20
20		Blue Jays	+1	Very up and down week for the Cyrulean Winged Creatures of Ontario. A 1-1 split with Philly and a 1-2 tilt vs Minnesota extended a too-long stretch of not winning series. Turns out, the combination of bad offense and a bad bullpen is bad. But there have been some glimpses of hope, at least. Alek Manoah threw a gem on Sunday, giving up 0 ER and 1 BB over 7 IP with 6 Ks. Also, Vladdy is hot as shit right now; since the last week of March, he's been hitting over .400 with a nearly 1.000 OPS. Still, the Jays in general continue to underperform and hover just below .500. Mid-May is not the time to freak out and this team is in too deep to consider a full tear-down even in a lost year, but things will be getting worrisome if they can't pull out of this middling stretch that has defined the first quarter of the season.	18-22
21		Giants	+4	Believe it or not, the Giants had a winning week. They continue their flirtation with being a decent team. However, we would like the world to know about several issues	19-23
22		Athletics	0	Happy Mother's Day, say hi or I'll drop by. Rough week, our bullpen had some awful games esp w/ Kotsay's choices. Will possibly fall below the Astros this week as we play them along with the Royals, and unlike last year I don't think we're a better team than KC. Toro and Harris have been playing well with Soderstrom getting some reps in (A+ defense from them), but Gelof will likely return and change something there.	19-23
23		Reds	-5	What is the meaning of suffering? This question has stumped philosophers throughout the ages, but nobody has come up with an answer. On the opposite side of this, we have also been in search of evidence of the divine, and we’ve searched for it in things like the miracle of our world. But again, we haven’t found anything. What if we’re looking in the wrong place? What if suffering is the greatest proof of a divine presence? Suffering is an art. Perhaps the greatest art ever devised. Devised by who or what though? Some greater power looming over us all? Some great cosmic being who looks upon us the same way as we do ants? Some primordial consciousness created trillions of years ago in the Big Bang that’s been merely existing all this time and only gets enjoyment out of the suffering of others? How do we figure this out? Who do we ask? I have a suggestion, we can ask baseball fans. We are connoisseurs of suffering. Ask an A’s fan about the meaning of suffering and you’ll get your answer just by looking into their eyes. Ask a Rockies fan, or a White Sox fan, or even a long dead Expos fan. It’s weeks like this that make me ask why do people even like baseball. Why do I even like baseball? Well, I remember my grandfather, since I live in the midwest we always called him Papaw, and he was the biggest baseball nut I know. He got me into baseball at a young age, and I remember one day asking why he loved it so much. When I say he was a baseball nut, I mean he was a season ticket holder, bought all the merchandise, had books about baseball and biographies written by baseball players, he had all of it. He could tell you everything about the sport with ease. So I asked him why did he love baseball so much because at that time I found it boring, and you know I still to this day remember his response. He told me baseball is 3 hours of nothing happening, but when something did happen, it was the most beautiful sport god ever created. I loved that man. Anyway this is all a long way to say the Reds suck ass right now.	17-23
24		Astros	0	Happy Mother's Day to all the moms out there, especially yours. I'll visit her later, don't worry. The Astros continue to take 1 step forward and 3 steps back. Kyle Tucker is the man and we should extend him immediately. Our pitching is still mostly trash and no one deserves an extension.	15-25
25		Pirates	-2	Paul Skenes made his highly-anticipated debut on Saturday, and it was one of two games the Pirates won last week. And they only won that game after first blowing a 6-1 lead thanks to 6 (SIX!) walks with the bases loaded. At one point. Kyle Nicolas threw 12 straight balls with the bases loaded. The bullpen was so depleted that Nicolas had to pitch the next day after Aroldis Chapman gave up 2 runs and 2 walks in the 10th inning, only for Nicolas to give up another run on a wild pitch. The Pirates then hit a 2-run homer in the bottom of the inning and lost 5-4. So yeah, that's how things are going in Pittsburgh right now.	18-23
26		Cardinals	0	Bro, I'm straight up not having a good time.	16-24
27		Angels	0	Hot and then cold and then hot again, Jo Adell hit three homers this past week. With a wRC+ on the season now standing at 134 and a wOBA of .363, the next step for him is now maintaining a level of consistency. With a bottom-ranking farm system, his future may not ultimately be in Anaheim. The looming rebuild is going to be a long and slow process and at the age of 25, it is hard to see much point in keeping him if someone else starts looking his way.	15-26
28		Rockies	+2	We have the longest winning streak in baseball. We just swept the defending champs. I'm pretty sure that means Rocktober is coming. In all seriousness, the Rockies finally gelled for the first time this season. The Rangers didn't play poorly, the Rockies just played well. The concern now is what kind of "Coors Hangover" we'll see.	12-28
29		White Sox	0	The White Sox had a shockingly good week while clinching the season series against the Rays and winning 3 of 4 from the Guardians over the weekend. They have been playing objectively better baseball lately (which means that their 72 wRC+ season stat was at 84 last week, and their pitching has been middle of the league since the start of May). It's not much, but it's something. Myself, I'm excited to attend my first ball game of the year tonight. Of course, I'll be going to the Schaumburg Boomers home opener.	12-29
30		Marlins	-2	So the fish still cant produce runs but at least we got burger back. Luzardo looks much better in his return to the bigs but oof braxton garrett. Somehow miami managed to squeeze out a win this week against two top teams but well see how they do against the tigers and mets this upcoming season.	11-31

How did u feel? I know it’s different for everyone I’m just looking for some experiences bc I’m feeling very paranoid right now because earlier I wiped and had some mucus plug come out? I think. It looks a lot like whenever u ovulate but Ik it’s the plug bc it had like a streak of brown like blood and after that I’ve been super anxious and as if my sugar is dropping when I just ate.. idk. For reference I’m 37 weeks and I’ve had the worst back cramps of my life off and on for a week I think it’s just baby movement. I’m also curious if I’m close to the end because I’ve been struggling with sciatica and meralgia paresthetica and it’s getting unbearable. I want to take leave from work now bc of the pain but I don’t want to go too early if I’m not even going to go into labor and waste part of the 12 weeks I’m granted from fmla.. I feel like my mind is racing otherwise I’d be able to shut off my thoughts and not make this post idk what’s wrong with me

Hi RPG Subreddit,
I'm searching around for another rules-medium (or rules heavy) RPG to try, but, I'm a bit lost. Ideally, the RPG should have the following traits.

• Tactical. I like positioning my characters to get the most enemies clogged in an AoE.
  
• Narrative. There should be dedicated subsystems to conflicts that aren't combat.
  
• Simulationist. To a degree. Some problems encountered in an RP come from logistics, so things like carry capacity and transport speed are nice.
  
• Customizable Characters. Multi-classing with easy homebrewing or point buy are nice.
  
• A Compendium of Pre-built Stuff. Useful to see if I've built stuff properly before I get my engineering brain out.
  

Things I've played before are...:

• DnD 5e. Very first game I played when I got introduced to TTRPGs. While it is easy to tell what the designers intended, it's also easy for players to throw balance out the window quickly. Which is kind of sad because I like some of the homebrew out there.
  
• Godbound. I loved the process of picking out Words, Gifts, and Facts, but the way the game plays (especially in combat) felt... off? That's the best way I can put it. Lexicon of the Throne didn't provide as much guidance as hoped for making DIY Words.
  
• Mutants and Masterminds 3e. Fantastic for power building! Enemies can be prepared on the back of a napkin. It's much easier to eyeball how difficult a fight is. It also has support for the narrative stuff as nicely as the simulationist stuff with the Complication system.
  At the same time, I've... encountered problems with players ignoring how important Complications are or self-declaring that their Complications give themselves Victory Points? It didn't feel right, but, the game's balance also depends on deliberately bringing those to the forefront.
  I do like the idea of gating certain powers behind Victory Points expenditure with Flaws, though. Just the refresh rate can be a pain to figure out.
  

Things on my shelf that I've tinkered with, but haven't played are...

• HERO 6e. I've built a character in this, but haven't played it yet. Does someone have play experience w/Hero to compare with the games I've played? I do remember reading that HERO 6e takes a different approach to their Drawbacks (point discounts that largely stay in the background). Does have a big library of prebuilt stuff.
  
• Wild Talents. I've also built powers in this, but haven't played it yet. It's significantly more gritty, but, it is fun to build powers in there. I remember making a body plan where all the brain boxes were in different places. But I'm a bit confused at how to scale things at the cosmic level (which I'm sure needs more than 10d or several Boosters).
  
• Fabula Ultima. Narrative tools seem a lot more focused than with Mutants and Masterminds 3e. I also like the villain system too since that makes it easier to protect conflict stirrers without as much handwavium. Doesn't have as much simulationist components, but, maybe that can be handled by another system's mechanics.
  

Things I haven't tinkered with, but like collecting for reference are...

• PtbA Games. These are a very good case study for how to emulate a specific genre (or a specific kind of story within that genre). It's a bit hard to plug in characters for a more sandboxy environment, though. I think Calypso (a solo PtbA hack) and City of Mist (and sister games) meet the import whatever requirements.
  
• FATE Games. I like how there's setting books to collect. I like Fudge Dice as a tool since it makes it easy to bell curve positive to negative modifiers. But I don't quite grok Fate Compels?
  
• xWN Books. Stars Without Number, Worlds Without Number, etc. I like the free extensive GM tools they provide.
  
• Cypher. I haven't opened the one setting book I got for Cypher in a while. But I noticed I was doing much of the same math Cypher would do when running other d20 games on my own (including some solo friendly games I play currently). Dynamically calculate the DC, then check how many d20's passed the check. Maybe I should give this system a try?
  

My word, there’s a lot of salt in the air. In my opinion, this subreddit is missing the appreciation of some of the really well done aspects of this game. There are issues, to be sure, but so much of the balance is working as I think Arrowhead intended, and it’s unfortunate that so many of us are missing out on the beautiful team synergy, communication and Fun that my friends and I are enjoying.
I leveled to 50 primarily fighting bugs. You can get away with four people playing relatively independently and still succeed with them. My buddies and I tried bots a handful of times and we would get absolutely overwhelmed. At the time I didn’t feel like it was cheap. I knew they required a different play style, and once I had everything unlocked in the game I set out to find the methods to destroy them competently.
Honestly, it took a good while. I can see why many players don’t get there, and want them to tune the difficulty down, but I disagree. The game has Nine difficulty settings. Nine. And I see them comparing high level players to Dark Souls snobs. Well, Dark Souls snobs relish their single punishing difficulty level and would never condone nine different settings so that you can have your power fantasy.
That said, I like where the bots are at. It’s supposed to feel overwhelming. The teams I see fail at Helldive difficulty are not communicating, they will respawn you and run away, leaving you to retrieve your gear with no fire support. A Bot Drop will scatter their ranks, sending all four players scattering, never to recover. Etc.
The balance in high level play feels right to me. It’s best on mic, but typing a little works, and you can do away with all of it if team lead pings the next location and everyone knowingly fills out their role. The biggest difference is that skilled players know how to prioritize targets, when to push and when to retreat, when and how to split off and regroup, how to choose a load out with squad synergy, when and what to save certain strategems for, how to decimate a Bot Drop preemptively or effectively cover a retreat.
It takes a long time to learn to carry all that out, and be natural at ammo/reload management for many different weapons, aware of cover opportunities, skilled at shooting on the move, taking slight cover for reloads while having the maximum amount of uptime, and how to be aware of what your mates are up to while you’re under your own pressure.
I’m currently a lv 139 10-Star General. A lot of time went into that. Surprised I haven’t gained 20 pounds. What I believe is, this game’s high difficulty levels become manageable with real, actual, utilized experience. The ability to communicate, learn, and apply new information, both acccrued and on the fly. Not just XP.
So many players are essentially saying that they want the guns themselves, and the high level unlocks to manage the difficulty for them. They may not realize it, but they are often playing as four individuals, not a trained squad. That will work alright up to about difficulty 7. After that we need to apply real time experience and skill to the battlefield. We need four people playing as one– a well oiled machine. That concept is what the devs set out to achieve, and for my friends and myself, it seems like they’ve met that goal pretty well. Honestly, if it became “Bigger Boom = Winning Time,” I’d likely have gotten bored and moved on by now.
I certainly don’t feel elitist. I’m not saying “It’s a skill issue, stop complaining.” I just think that a very skillful player, or four of them, will not succeed at high level play or have fun if they aren’t skillful at refining their team dynamic. I think that’s how the game is designed, and for my squad it’s doing its job quite well.
Yes, there are bugs. There are lackluster warbonds. There are balancing issues. No game is perfect. As a Helldivers 1 vet, I felt prepared that high level play would be inaccessible to most. The core philosophy of that game is still well intact here, but the bombastic 3rd person action dynamic attracted a lot of players who mainly want the power fantasy, and frankly, just aren’t very good at teamwork. Of course they will drop off in time. The game really wasn’t made for them. It doesn’t want PvP. It doesn’t want solo play. I’m not saying they should leave, just that for some, it was inevitable.
Helldivers, I implore you to be confident in your critiques, but not to overlook that this game may be achieving its own aims well, even if it doesn’t suit your tastes. For those Helldivers that are still having a riotous time defeating the hordes with their mates, laughing and quipping with friends while the battlefield rightfully overwhelms you, just to see you eek out a successful dive by the skin of your teeth, play on undeterred. Don’t let the squall of the Unsatisfied Gamer Community sour your victories. The Illuminate are coming, and we need reinforcement.
We dive so humanity survives.
For Democracy.

I have seen many people draw speculations about a potential cage match for the past few weeks, but now that we have confirmed dates for the biggest PPV Sunday of the year, thanks to Vince Inkigayo, I thought it would be worth doing a tactical breakdown and preview of the bout.
I think the most significant macro matchup is between Yunah and Hyein. Statistically, the pendulum will swing for who of the two can deliver the most chokeslams across the match. I will give a slight edge here to Yunah as she is starting to touch the hag years and thus has more ajumma strength.
The matchup between Minju and Minji is pretty even, and I believe it will be a dogged brawl to determine the better Minj ("U-Uu-Uu-Uu-you like it's magnetic" vs "Ii-Ii-I-I know what you like boy")
I believe Haerin will be deployed as defence against Wonhee. Wonhee is the master of spitting game, of launching a verbal tirade that obfuscates and befuddles even the most hardened fighter, but you know what is the most effective counter to this? That's right, a furball.
ILLIT however do hold a unique X-factor, or rather the J-factor, in the form of Moka and Iroha. I have no doubt they will be given additional 일본 training by their company sunbaenims, the experienced queen of the ring Cherry Miyawaki as well the fittest former rookie of the year in Lightning McSwan (Kazuha!). I bet they will employ Banzai Drops liberally and will be a threatening physical force in the added verticality that the cage provides.
NewJeans are not without their own advantage though, and that is the massive survivability of the Aussie duo, Hanni and Danielle. They're a hardy bunch, the aussies, and the two of them would already be accustomed to boxing Kangaroos, outrunning Dingos and wrestling with giant arachnids on their way to school.
Of the two, Hanni additionally brings the guerilla fighting tactics of her forefathers to bear, a diminutive danger that ILLIT cannot let fly under their radar.
Which bring us to Danielle, who I believe will ultimate be the one who decides the fate of the match. Why you may or may not ask? Well, everybody knows Dani as the sunshine, the happiest, bubbliest, loveliest kid on the block, bringing the light of life to everyone around her. One would think her entirely innocent and pure of heart. But she has not fooled me. Nobody can possibly be that happy, it is not physically possible. This only points to one thing chingeese.
Danielle is actually the most dangerous one. This is why she can afford to be so carefree. She carries the biggest stick, or the biggest knife as it were, a real knife. I believe on June 2 we will see an entirely different side of Dani. The bright sun will turn red, and just like her fictional namesake who burned down entire cities and armies on the back of dragons for her conquest, we will witness an incineration, some evisceration and ultimately, annihilation. This is what the shaman friend has predicted.
P.S. I got laid off last week and the thought of working class (and also recently unemployed) queen Min Heejin spanking Bang PD (the corporate ruling class) gives me great solace and catharsis.

I've said it before and I'll say it again. The only way I think we can get another legitimately good show about Sheldon would be to wait about 15 years and then do an "Old Sheldon" series with Jim Parsons. I've heard people wanting a series focusing on Sheldon and Amy set a few years after TBBT. I've heard people wanting a series on Sheldon after he leaves Texas, but before meeting Leonard. I truly believe an Old Sheldon would be the superior spin-off.
They could go so many routes with the idea, as there is no existing lore to have to write around. Sheldon could have his genius grandchild dumped off with him because their parent (Sheldon's child) thinks he is the only person smart enough to mentor Sheldon 2.0. Sheldon could be at his wits end because his grandchild is giving him all the troubles that he used to give his own family. Maybe the genius grandchild is more akin to Paige, where they don't indulge in the rest of geek/nerd culture and it makes Sheldon struggle to relate. I could see him consulting missy (or even Paige) for advice on dealing with a "normal child" who wants to have fun and get in trouble when not nose deep in a physics textbook.
They could also ditch the grandchildren story beat and have Sheldon retire. Retirement would NOT suit Sheldon well, and the series could be about his struggles leaving the professional scientific community. Amy would plan a retirement vacation for Sheldon and the gang, which wouldn't go as expected because Sheldon keeps trying to sneak off to conduct science experiments. The gang would try to cover for him, all while things go comically wrong.
There is so many possible story beats and ways to make the original cast shine again, but in a different light.
-Penny checks on Sheldon while Amy is out of town to find him in the shower with a broken ankle. "Well, I guess I owe you," she'd say and she has to help dress a wrinkly old Sheldon and drive him to the hospital. She'd help care for him and sing him soft kitty (even though soft kitty is only for sick). Howard builds Sheldon powered wheelchair (at Leonard's request) so Penny doesn't have to dote on him hand and foot. Calamity would ensue as the wheelchair malfunctions.
-Instead of the Cal-tech cafeteria as a regular group hangout spot, they could all gather at a hospital cafeteria while waiting for Sheldon's doctor to come tell him he's not dying, just getting old. This will be a near-weekly occurrence.
-Raj could be the next Neil DeGrasse Tyson, where he goes in front of huge audiences and talks about astrophysics. He could have his selective mutism re-triggered, but towards large audiences instead of women. There could be a coupe funny episodes where old Raj has to have a few drinks before going on stage, which results in a big "back in my day" rant.
-Howard could go full mad scientist with all sorts of crazy, dangerous inventions that he freely hands out to his grandkids to retain the status of "cool grandpa." You could have a story beat where one of Howard's adult children takes his DeLorean time machine replica for a joy ride to impress a girl. Like any good sitcom, the car gets damaged. Howard gets angry about it, but ultimately uses it as a bonding experience when Howard's son discovers that Howard used to crazy stuff to try to impress women.
-Sheldon teaches physics at Cal-Tech after the passing of Steven Hawking. We find Sheldon at the point where HE is the old man scoffing at these new scientific ideas and calling them science fiction, and getting made fun of by new scholars in the field. He would be in the same position as Dr. Linkletter and Sturgis in the current season of YS.
The possibilities are endless.

I’m getting back into music after a while, and been thinking of getting a cheap bass.
I used to play double bass in middle school before moving away to a school that didn’t have orchestra, and I’ve always kinda missed it.
I picked up a cheap acoustic bass guitar and have been having fun noodling around, and my kids only kind of climb all over it while I’m practicing, so I’m actually surprised how much I’m remembering from my orchestra days.
So I’ve been looking at my budget and feel like I can probably afford to buy something in the $500-700 range. Nothing great, I know, but I only really expect to be playing with family or maybe coworkers.
That said, I have a decision to make. I know I can find a used plywood for around that price range if I keep my eyes open. I’ve seen them before. I know I can also get like… a used Stagg EUB for that price range.
In the plywood plus column… you get the real wood tone and volume. Don’t need an amp ever. Will have the same technique if I ever get to the point I decide to upgrade. Plywood minus column: it’s pretty large for the space I have available, particularly the space I have available where I would trust my kids not to mess with it when I’m not looking. I don’t want peas poured into my f-holes or otherwise get crayon scribbles or who-knows-what happening to it, let alone the risk that it just accidentally gets knocked over due to kids roughhousing. Hard to transport, given my car pretty much always has car seats in it.
EUB on the other hand… sound is wrong from what I’ve heard, but not sure how much I care about that yet. I’d be much more easily to store it in a safe place though, and much more easily transported without disassembling car seats. Technique is different from standard upright? Not sure how different. From what I’ve read bowing typically sounds awful too.
I also have a third option: blowing the money on materials and buying a neck and fingerboard off Ali express and building my own hybrid hollow body EUB.
Thoughts?

To start for some context my(26F) parents(59M)(45F) are not bad people, they adopted me when I was 12 and I have had a fairly good life, there were issues as the abuse I suffered in the foster system was worse then what was documented in my file as is most of the time with the foster system. I was cold and standoffish, inappropriate behavior and some degree of autism and ADHD that made it so understanding my surroundings was difficult. My parents were ill equipped to deal with that level of trauma and it lead to our relationship getting worse and worse as the years went. When I was 19-20 I had a break down from the pressure and destroyed my life, my parents took me in and helped me financially get back up but that wasn't easy. My mom made living there awful, they were in control of my finances as I had blown my money in my break down, I was given 50 dollars every two weeks from my paycheck(I was always working while trying to recover financially as not having a job is unacceptable) for any supplies I needed including food as I was over 18 and there were not going to cook for me. my dad did offer to help buy me some toiletries every now and again. It was my responsibility to get up, go to work and figure out everything. My mom wouldn't let me forget she had to "bail me out" and that she would never help again. Then in October 2020 I moved out into an RV someone was offering as a way to have my own space and to stop the constant fights me and my mom would have.
Since then I have been completely finically independent, I do have a phone line through my parents that I pay for monthly, and if they asked I would get my own line, I stay for convivence as the price I get for the data cannot be beat. I got scammed at a dealership and ended up with a high interest rate that my dad worked to cosign elsewhere so I could get a lower rate, it is still my responsibility to pay as the car is mine. I pay for everything I have and it was hard but I buck up and do it. I have friends who have helped me through the years and I view them as family as I truly feel accepted by them despite my flaws and issues. There is one friend I met through a friend's high fantasy roleplay server lets call him peter. Peter and I have never met in person as I live in the USA and he lives in Brazil, but we became friends and through him I learned things I was never taught.
I was taught to love myself and that I don't always need to give 100% all the time and a lot of the times the bare minimum was enough. That I am beautiful and I don't need to fit the image my parents saw as best. We were both dating other people at the time but due to fate both our relationships fell and we grew closer. I know there are a lot of internet scams and whatnot but I truly believe in our relationship as we have both talked for hours, I have video called him impromptu, so no chance for modifying audio or visuals. He has given me what gifts when he can as, he is less well off then I am. Which is fine, my parents had money and I was never happy, with him I am as I feel he genuinely loves me as a person. while he was dating someone else and having zeros eyes on me, as a friend he said he hated to hear me say how much I hated myself, at the time I was angry he implied I didn't deserve the hate, now I don't even remember what hating myself felt like most days.
I have paid for a two week trip to stay in brazil with him so we can meet and see if this is something we want to peruse more seriously. I made the mistake of being more open and honest as a person (peter's fault again), and my parents found out and were not happy. My dad has said he can't stop me as an adult but thinks what I am doing is dumb and dangerous, I can understand my dad's worry as I think any loving responsible parent would be worried to hear their daughter is traveling alone to a country. My mom was a different story, I was about to leave from babysitting my younger sisters, 11 and 5(I do it as a favor and because I love my sisters dearly) . My mom and I are not close, I once when I was first feeling some feelings tried to talk to her as to what made her sure dad was the one and I texted saying I would like to talk about it alone. She then brought it up in front of the whole dinning table as I was visiting in front of my sisters and dad, so I played it off as casual and we left it at that.
She questioned why I would go somewhere I have never been, she brought up all the horrible scenarios that could happen, to lighten the mood when she asked what I would do if I was dead there, I said I would be dead so at that point it didn't matter. Wrong thing to say as she goes off, I try to reassure her that I am taking precautions, I have done the research, the statistics, I looked up the area and airport layout, I know the way to the address he gave and yes, the video I had him take live, I only implied we were friends and not romantically inclined as I don't want to give her ammo to use. She told me why not take a friend with me and I can postpone my trip so they can go. (I brought that up to my friend later and said it was generous of my mom to offer to pay for her trip as she is between jobs and doesn't have her passport). Then my mom said that I would be going to a country without rules, when I brought up that the US has just as many crimes she said that the US is headed that way but we live in a small good town without corruption. To that I told her wasn't true as there is a drug house behind my friends apartment that the cops know about and that I knew a friend whos said his dad used to take bribes while he was a cop in that town.
She then said she may be naïve but she doesn't hang around the "kind of people who would know that". She tried to bring religion into it and asked why I would hang around non believers, I am close to my faith and said that how am I to show our God's love if I only hang out and interact with other Christians, to which she said I had a point and didn't bring up the religious angle again. After that we were going back and forth about finances and how my car is broken how could I think of going on the trip, my car broke about 2 months after I booked and planned my trip, and I am working to fix it. My mom as if it was a threat said to not expect her or my dad to drive anywhere to help me, to which I said I would never expect her to help me, to which her words were good, as she wouldn't bail me out. I am 100% paying for this trip myself, I have worked and saved for it and I have never been out of the country and looking for ways to make my trip as smooth as possible through research .
What I need to know is how do I navigate this situation, my parents are cold to me and I would be ok seeing them less, but my sisters are there and I cannot just leave and not be apart of their life. I love my parents, despite their faults they are the only people I view as my family beyond my found one. Is there a way to make this work?
TLDR: My parents are being cold to me due to a trip I am taking to brazil to meet a male "friend", what can I do to make sure our relationship doesn't fall apart worse so I can be in my sister's lives?

This is an expansion of a recent post and also incorporates some ideas from this theory (by u/ndependent-Design17). Throughout the series the reader is repeatedly reminded that "only death can pay for life" — that magic, especially powerful magic, comes at great cost.

"Only death can pay for life, my lord. A great gift requires a great sacrifice.”

Davos, ASOS
This phrase or variations of this phrase are repeated by Melisandre, Mirri, etc. at various points throughout the series. That which follows is a highly speculative theory on the nature of the cost of magic in the series. Specifically, that souls are central to the exercise of magic and can be used as magic currency.

1. establishing the concept of the soul

Oh, to be sure, there is much we do not understand. The years pass in their hundreds and their thousands, and what does any man see of life but a few summers, a few winters? We look at mountains and call them eternal, and so they seem… but in the course of time, mountains rise and fall, rivers change their courses, stars fall from the sky, and great cities sink beneath the sea. Even gods die, we think. Everything changes.

Bran, AGOT
What happens after we die? Is there some part of us that lives on or do we simply cease to exist. These are fundamental questions that are essentially unanswerable in life but not in ASOIAF. The reader is given a point-of-view account of death in the prologue of ADWD. After unsuccessfully attempting to steal the body of Thistle, a wildling spearwife, Varamyr dies and briefly becomes a disembodied consciousness:

The white world turned and fell away. For a moment it was as if he were inside the weirwood, gazing out through carved red eyes as a dying man twitched feebly on the ground and a madwoman danced blind and bloody underneath the moon, weeping red tears and ripping at her clothes. Then both were gone and he was rising, melting, his spirit borne on some cold wind. He was in the snow and in the clouds, he was a sparrow, a squirrel, an oak. A horned owl flew silently between his trees, hunting a hare; Varamyr was inside the owl, inside the hare, inside the trees. Deep below the frozen ground, earthworms burrowed blindly in the dark, and he was them as well. I am the wood, and everything that’s in it, he thought, exulting.

Prologue, ADWD
Afterward his "spirit," or soul, is eventually transferred into a body of wolf and he begins his second life. This event, and the process of skin-changing more generally, appears to involve projection of a soul from one body into another. The process of transferring souls to either the animal vessels or the weirwoods is central to the magic of the Children of the Forest.

“Someone else was in the raven,” he told Lord Brynden, once he had returned to his own skin. “Some girl. I felt her.”
“A woman, of those who sing the song of earth,” his teacher said. “Long dead, yet a part of her remains, just as a part of you would remain in Summer if your boy’s flesh were to die upon the morrow. A shadow on the soul. She will not harm you.”
"Do all the birds have singers in them?"
“All,” Lord Brynden said.

Bran, ADWD
After death a "shadow on the soul" of the Singers remain in the crows. The soul of Orell is also described as living on in the body of his eagle after his death.
This process appears to take two forms: the soul can be temporarily projected from one body into another (e.g., as happens when Bran skin-changes into Hodor) or can be permanently transferred as is described in the separate examples above.
These transferred souls merge with their recipient, at least to some degree, and may decay over time:

"The wolf is part of you from that day on, and you’re part of him. Both of you will change.”
Other beasts were best left alone, the hunter had declared. Cats were vain and cruel, always ready to turn on you. Elk and deer were prey; wear their skins too long, and even the bravest man became a coward. Bears, boars, badgers, weasels … Haggon did not hold with such. “Some skins you never want to wear, boy. You won’t like what you’d become.” Birds were the worst, to hear him tell it. “Men were not meant to leave the earth. Spend too much time in the clouds and you never want to come back down again.
...
"They say you forget," Haggon had told him, a few weeks before his own death.
"When the man's flesh dies, his spirit lives on inside the beast, but every day his memory fades, and the beast becomes a little less a warg, a little more a wolf, until nothing of the man is left and only the beast remains."

Prologue, ADWD
Bran is provided with similar warnings about the danger of spending too much time in Summer's skin by Jojen.
The Bran that appears to Jon-Ghost in the vision in ACOK is also likely the lingering soul of a non-contemporaneous Bran, contained in the weirwoods and communicating from the future.

The weirwood had his brother’s face. Had his brother always had three eyes?
Not always, came the silent shout. Not before the crow.
He sniffed at the bark, smelled wolf and tree and boy, but behind that there were other scents, the rich brown smell of warm earth and the hard grey smell of stone and something else, something terrible. Death, he knew. He was smelling death. He cringed back, his hair bristling, and bared his fangs.
"Don’t be afraid, I like it in the dark. No one can see you, but you can see them. But first you have to open your eyes. See? Like this." And the tree reached down and touched him.

Jon, ACOK
There is more information about this in the Time Traveling Bran series. Briefly, the version of Bran in this vision does not appear to be contemporaneous because likes the dark, is able to open Jon's third eye, and smells of death. (This is well outside of the scope of this theory however.)

2. shadow magic requires souls

As above the reader is repeatedly reminded throughout the series that "only death can pay for life." What is specifically being sacrificed, though? Is the magic being fueled by the blood of the sacrificed or by something else?
To answer this let us examine one of the most concrete example of magic in the series, the use or exchange of Stannis Baratheon's "life-fire" in order for Melisandre to manifest the shadows used to kill Renly Baratheon and Courtney Penrose.

Shadows only live when given birth by light, and the king's fires burn so low I dare not draw off any more to make another son. It might well kill him."
Melisandre moved closer.
"With another man, though... a man whose flames still burn hot and high... if you truly wish to serve your king's cause, come to my chamber one night. I could give you pleasure such as you have never known, and with your life-fire I could make..."

Davos, ASOS
According to this explanation, the cost of producing these shadow appears to have been part of his "life-fire," or soul. The shadow is also specifically described as having the shape Stannis. Whether this applies to other types of magic — specifically blood magic or fire magic — is less clear but shadow magic very much appears to require the use of souls.
The exchange of seed for soul is also directly referenced in the story of the Night's King.

A woman was his downfall; a woman glimpsed from atop the Wall, with skin as white as the moon and eyes like blue stars. Fearing nothing, he chased her and caught her and loved her, though her skin was cold as ice, and when he gave his seed to her he gave his soul as well.

Bran, ASOS
Stannis is described by Davos afterward as follows:

The look of him was a shock. He seemed ten years older than the man that Davos had left at Storm’s End when he set sail for the Blackwater and the battle that would be their undoing. The king’s close-cropped beard was spiderwebbed with grey hairs, and he had dropped two stone or more of weight. He had never been a fleshy man, but now the bones moved beneath his skin like spears, fighting to cut free. Even his crown seemed too large for his head. His eyes were blue pits lost in deep hollows, and the shape of a skull could be seen beneath his face.

Davos, ASOS
Asha later describes Stannis as appearing life a "man with one foot in the grave."

What little flesh he’d carried on his tall, spare frame at Deepwood Motte had melted away during the march. The shape of his skull could be seen under his skin, and his jaw was clenched so hard Asha feared his teeth might shatter.

Asha, ADWD
These descriptions seem appropriate for a character that has lost part of their "life-fire" or soul.
Throughout the series Stannis is forced to make a series of increasingly difficult decisions. The most significant of these decisions regards the fate of his nephew, Eric Storm. Melisandre repeatedly urges him to "give [her] the boy," presumably to be burned, but is rebuffed by Stannis.

“I know the cost! Last night, gazing into that hearth, I saw things in the flames as well. I saw a king, a crown of fire on his brows, burning … burning, Davos. His own crown consumed his flesh and turned him into ash. Do you think I need Melisandre to tell me what that means? Or you?” The king moved, so his shadow fell upon King’s Landing.
"…what is the life of one bastard boy against a kingdom?”
“Everything,” said Davos, softly.

Davos, ASOS
Is the life of this bastard boy worth the lives of millions that would die if the Others break through the Wall? Making a deal with the devil and literally selling his soul in pursuit of some greater good seems very appropriate for his character, thematically.

3. blood and fire magic

As opposed to the creation of the shadows described above, we are also provided an example of blood magic in the leech burning ritual.

“Give me the boy, Your Grace. It is the surer way. The better way. Give me the boy and I shall wake the stone dragon.”
...
Melisandre bowed her head stiffly, and said, “As my king commands.” Reaching up her left sleeve with her right hand, she flung a handful of powder into the brazier. The coals roared. As pale flames writhed atop them, the red woman retrieved the silver dish and brought it to the king. Davos watched her lift the lid. Beneath were three large black leeches, fat with blood. The boy’s blood, Davos knew. A king’s blood. Stannis stretched forth a hand, and his fingers closed around one of the leeches.
“Say the name,” Melisandre commanded.

Davos, ASOS
Following this ritual all of the mentioned individuals do die but do so as the part of separate conspiracies (e.g., Robb Stark is betrayed by the Freys and Boltons, Joffrey Baratheon by Littlefinger and the Tyrells, etc.). It is left intentionally ambiguous by the author but it does not appear that the ritual was responsible.
The creation of the shadows required part of Stannis' soul. Could it be that the leech burning ritual was unsuccessful because blood alone is not sufficient as a sacrifice?
These forms of magic are frequently described, at least in the community, separately as "shadow magic" and "blood magic." These concepts — "fire and blood" and "flame and shadow" — are highly associated with one another in the series:

“Shadow?" Davos felt his flesh prickling. "A shadow is a thing of darkness."
”You are more ignorant than a child, ser knight. There are no shadows in the dark. Shadows are the servants of light, the children of fire. The brightest flame casts the darkest shadows."

Davos, ACOK
I speculate that these are different expressions of the same concept; that all of these fall under the general umbrella of fire magic and share common principles. Fire consumes.
After Alester Florent is sacrificed on Dragonstone Davos describes "the smell of burning flesh" on the wind:

Melisandre had given Alester Florent to her god on Dragonstone, to conjure up the wind that bore them north. Lord Florent had been strong and silent as the queen's men bound him to the post, as dignified as any half-naked man could hope to be, but as the flames licked up his legs he had begun to scream, and his screams had blown them all the way to Eastwatch-by-the-Sea, if the red woman could be believed. Davos had misliked that wind. It had seemed to him to smell of burning flesh, and the sound of it was anguished as it played amongst the lines.

Davos, ADWD
Whether these forms of magic are actually interchangeable or not — whether they each require the consumption of souls — is difficult to prove based on the text. It appears likely given the association between these concepts that sacrifice that powered this "anguished wind" was that of a soul and not a body or blood.

4. dancing shadows

The tent was aglow with the light of braziers within. Through the blood-spattered sandsilk, she glimpsed shadows moving.
Mirri Maz Duur was dancing, and not alone.
...
No, Dany wanted to say, no, not that, you mustn’t, but when she opened her mouth, a long wail of pain escaped, and the sweat broke over her skin. What was wrong with them, couldn’t they see?
Inside the tent the shapes were dancing, circling the brazier and the bloody bath, dark against the sandsilk, and some did not look human. She glimpsed the shadow of a great wolf, and another like a man wreathed in flames.
“The Lamb Woman knows the secrets of the birthing bed,” Irri said. “She said so, I heard her.”
“Yes,” Doreah agreed, “I heard her too.”
No, she shouted, or perhaps she only thought it, for no whisper of sound escaped her lips. She was being carried. Her eyes opened to gaze up at a flat dead sky, black and bleak and starless. Please, no. The sound of Mirri Maz Duur’s voice grew louder, until it filled the world. The shapes! She screamed. The dancers!
Ser Jorah carried her inside the tent.

Daenerys, AGOT
The introduction of shadow magic in the series is provided above with Mirri Max Duur. Following this ritual Drogo is described essentially as a lifeless husk:

"He seems to like the warmth, Princess," Ser Jorah said. "His eyes follow the sun, though he does not see it. He can walk after a fashion. He will go where you lead him, but no farther. He will eat if you put food in his mouth, drink if you dribble water on his lips."

Daenerys, AGOT
It has previously been speculated that Mirri "reverse skin-changed" Drogo (e.g., "strength of the mount go into the rider, strength of the beast go into the man."). The description provided is less consistent with a horse soul inhabiting a human body than it is with the complete or near-complete absence of a soul. It appears more likely in retrospect that Mirri sacrificed part of Drogo's soul to summon the shadows, likely as a means to kill Daenerys' unborn child.

“The stallion who mounts the world will burn no cities now. His khalasar shall trample no nations into dust."

Daenerys, AGOT

5. reanimation

If "only death can pay for life" and souls are used as a form of magical currency how does one explain the reanimation or resurrection process?
There is a paucity of information on the reanimation of the dead in the series. The resurrection of Beric Dondarrion, for example, appears to be different in fundamental ways from that of the wights or Cold Hands. (We are potentially given a point-of-view account of this process if you accept that Victarion died in ADWD.)

“Thoros, how many times have you brought me back now?”
The red priest bowed his head. “It is R’hllor who brings you back, my lord. The Lord of Light. I am only his instrument.”
“How many times?” Lord Beric insisted.
“Six,” Thoros said reluctantly.
“And each time is harder. You have grown reckless, my lord. Is death so very sweet?”
Arya, ASOS

There is no immediately identifiable cost for the "kiss of life" and repeated resurrection of Beric. I speculate that Thoros is breathing part of his soul into Beric during this process ("each time is harder").
We are admittedly not given any direct textual evidence of this although Thoros is described as appearing very different after performing this ritual several times in a way that is not entirely dissimilar to the changes in Stannis’ appearance referenced above.

“Here’s the wizard, skinny squirrel. You’ll get your answers now.”
He pointed toward the fire, where Tom Sevenstrings stood talking to a tall thin man with oddments of old armor buckled on over his ratty pink robes. That can’t be Thoros of Myr. Arya remembered the red priest as fat, with a smooth face and a shiny bald head. This man had a droopy face and a full head of shaggy grey hair. Something
...
“Thoros of Myr. You used to shave your head.”
“To betoken a humble heart, but in truth my heart was vain. Besides, I lost my razor in the woods.” The priest slapped his belly. “I am less than I was, but more. A year in the wild will melt the flesh off a man. Would that I could find a tailor to take in my skin. I might look young again, and pretty maids would shower me with kisses.”

Arya, ASOS
Thoros attributes these changes to his renewed devotion to the Red God and spending "a year in the wild" although he is not exactly forthcoming with Arya about the resurrection process. It is also likely that he may not entirely understand what specifically is being exchanged here.
Thoros later describes Beric giving the "kiss of life" to the corpse of Catelyn Stark:

“The Freys slashed her throat from ear to ear. When we found her by the river she was three days dead. Harwin begged me to give her the kiss of life, but it had been too long. I would not do it, so Lord Beric put his lips to hers instead, and the flame of life passed from him to her. And… she rose. May the Lord of Light protect us. She rose.”

Brienne, AFFC
Notably, this process produces a reanimated Catelyn (a.k.a. Lady Stoneheart). The soul of Beric, or at least whatever is left of his soul at this point in the series, is consumed in order to resurrect Catelyn.

6. cold shadows (wild speculation)

The terms "white shadows," "pale shadows," and "cold shadows" are repeated used to describe the Others. The Others are also highly associated with ghosts — the spirits of souls of the dead bound to the earth. (The forrest is literally called the Haunted Forrest.)

The Others made no sound.
Will saw movement from the corner of his eye. Pale shapes gliding through the wood. He turned his head, glimpsed a white shadow in the darkness. Then it was gone. Branches stirred gently in the wind, scratching at one another with wooden fingers. Will opened his mouth to call down a warning, and the words seemed to freeze in his throat. Perhaps he was wrong. Perhaps it had only been a bird, a reflection on the snow, some trick of the moonlight. What had he seen, after all?
“Will, where are you?” Ser Waymar called up. “Can you see anything?” He was turning in a slow circle, suddenly wary, his sword in hand. He must have felt them, as Will felt them. There was nothing to see. “Answer me! Why is it so cold?” It was cold.
Shivering, Will clung more tightly to his perch. His face pressed hard against the trunk of the sentinel. He could feel the sweet, sticky sap on his cheek. A shadow emerged from the dark of the wood. It stood in front of Royce. Tall, it was, and gaunt and hard as old bones, with flesh pale as milk. Its armor seemed to change color as it moved; here it was white as new-fallen snow, there black as shadow, everywhere dappled with the deep grey-green of the trees. The patterns ran like moonlight on water with every step it took. Will heard the breath go out of Ser Waymar Royce in a long hiss. ...
The Other slid forward on silent feet. In its hand was a longsword like none that Will had ever seen. No human metal had gone into the forging of that blade. It was alive with moonlight, translucent, a shard of crystal so thin that it seemed almost to vanish when seen edge-on. There was a faint blue shimmer to the thing, a ghost-light that played around its edges, and somehow Will knew it was sharper than any razor.

Prologue, AGOT
This is again highly speculative but it seems reasonable to consider that these cold shadows are not "ice demons" but are in fact ghosts, the spirits or souls of men that are bound to the earth through magic by the Children of the Forest. (The textual evidence of the creation of the Others by the Children is linked in a separate post here.) Whereas fire consumes, ice preserves.
This would explain several unusual characteristics of the Others as described by Tormund

“Tormund,” Jon said, as they watched four old women pull a cartful of children toward the gate, “tell me of our foe. I would know all there is to know of the Others.”
The wildling rubbed his mouth. “Not here,” he mumbled, “not this side o’ your Wall.” The old man glanced uneasily toward the trees in their white mantles. “They’re never far, you know. They won’t come out by day, not when that old sun’s shining, but don’t think that means they went away. Shadows never go away. Might be you don’t see them, but they’re always clinging to your heels.”
...
Tormund turned back.
"You know nothing. You killed a dead man, aye, I heard. Mance killed a hundred. A man can fight the dead, but when their masters come, when the white mists rise up… how do you fight a mist, crow? Shadows with teeth … air so cold it hurts to breathe, like a knife inside your chest … you do not know, you cannot know … can your sword cut cold?"

Jon, ADWD
A reasonable interpretation of this is that the Others are present during the day, at least in some capacity, and are only able to assume corporeal form at night.
The Others are also described as "going lightly upon the snow" which is in keeping with their nature as spirits.

“The white walkers go lightly on the snow,” the ranger said. “You’ll find no prints to mark their passage.”

Samwell, ASOS

7. conclusions

This highly speculative theory that attempts to reconcile the several seemingly disparate concepts in the series related to magic, namely the actual nature of magical sacrifice ("only death can pay for life") and shadows or shadow magic. More specifically, I suggest that souls are the primary magical currency and can be consumed to summon shadows, create glamours, etc. I also speculate that similar processes took place during Mirri Maz Duur's shadow-binding ritual in AGOT and during the repeated resurrections of Berric Dondarrion in ASOS. I further suggest that the Others are ghosts, the spirits of souls of the dead bound to the earth.

I was curious about how much different fuel modes drop the HP figures of a car, and how it affects the fuel consumption compared to dropping the cars power via the power limiter to a similar performance.
The test method was driving a custom race in Special Stage route X, 0 wind, with a stock Lamborghini Aventador LP700-4 '11, only fitted with the power limiter to adjust the HP figures and find the power limiter setting that match the top speed of the car in 100% setting, but different fuel modes.
This lead me to find that FM2 equals power limiter setting of 96%, both giving the same 371km/h top speed compared to the 374km/h that 100% power FM1 gave. Each FM setting decreasing the power by additional 4%, meaning that FM6 equals power limit setting of 80% with a top speed of 354km/h.
Then I ran the 1 lap race with fuel consumption rate of 2x and varying fuel modes and power settings to see the differences in fuel consumed. Eliminating as many variables as possible, meaning full blast the whole lap, automatic transmission and TC5 to limit wheelspin in start.
The results are as follows:
100% FM1: 74,60% fuel used
100% FM2: 66,02% fuel used --- 96% FM1: 70,87% fuel used
100% FM3: 57,84% fuel used --- 92% FM1: 66,94% fuel used
100% FM4: 50,14% fuel used --- 88% FM1: 62,97% fuel used
100% FM5: 43,05% fuel used --- 84% FM1: 58,84% fuel used
100% FM6: 36,54% fuel used --- 80% FM1: 54,56% fuel used
In summary, dropping the power with the power limiter does give better fuel consumption compared to a full power, but cannot compete with 100% and a leaner fuel mode that yields the same performance.

https://www.halowaypoint.com/news/spotlight-may-2024
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The Halo Spotlight is here, which means it's time once again to dive into the amazing creations made by the community. Feast your eyes!

CRÈME DE LA CRÈME

TackelsHolocron headlines this issue with an Unggoy who is about to unleash perhaps the most devastating fuel rod blast in the galaxy, drawing power from the concentrated tragedy of all their species has suffered...
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AB_RinART has a truly wonderful project going on right now, where she is adding suggested characters to a Where's Waldo -inspired mash-up of different species, characters, fan-made OCs, and more. Track the group photo project here.
(Personally, I think the Didact would have fun chilling among this lovely crowd!)
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GoatsOfHell has jumped feet-first into making this absolutely rad ODST model. Hopefully that purple comes off in the wash!
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Iklungs has a very particular style that we can't get enough of, bringing Halo Infinite 's multiplayer Spartans to life as if they came straight out of a Metal Gear game or a '90s anime.
Art by Iklungs
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BANISHED SPARTANS

Last week, we released our latest Waypoint Chronicle in support of Operation: Banished Honor. Halo: The Third Life tells the story of the rogue Spartan Ilsa Zane following the events of Hunt the Truth and how she came to join the Banished.
Since then, we've seen some incredible fan recreations of Ilsa Zane and other ideas for what Banished Spartans might look like—here's a selection for you to have a gander at!
Silent_SFM is flying an unmistakable flag...
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DaGlassMan4797 was forged in the fiery crucible of Atriox's teachings.
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lllScorchlll is sparring with superheated plasma!
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Misfein has assembled a rather intimidating fireteam.
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ONNNNNEJAM is back-to-back with their Banished brother.
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PalpyTheFrog is about to bring the hammer down with the authority and might of a Jiralhanae chieftain!
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HARUSPINE HANDICRAFTS

Spartan_052's photoshoot in his Mjolnir Mark IV armor conveys the sheer powerhouse nature of this iconic set and shows off just how stunningly detailed it is.
In his own words: "This project was an absolute beast, with so many moving pieces, and it turned out better than I could have ever dreamed! It featured an accurate undersuit, TPU gaskets for the armor plating, a resin printed helmet and visor, AND a crazy chest rig with isolating pec plates and backpack! This is without a doubt the most gorgeous suit I’ve had the pleasure of putting together, and I couldn’t have done it without a TON of help!"
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Bombarisu made a girl a promise and kept it, creating this wonderful model of their girlfriend's Spartan armor from Halo Infinite for her birthday. We hope she loved it as much as we do!
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Busters2005 has a soft spot for some of the GEN2 armor greats, like the Soldier armor depicted below!
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Cyanosaurus_Rex4 has assembled Noble Team, and if you follow the link you'll get a bonus look at Red Team as well.
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When I first glanced at what DonJacobyCreate posted, I thought it was just a screenshot snip of the Sunray 1-1 art from Halo Wars 2. Turns out, this is actually a custom model of Major Vaughan, and so let us regard it with due awe.
Art by DonJacobyCreate
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Evolution2411 has taken the Master Chief down to a deep, dark place within the substructures of a Halo ring...
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theforgerunner has found Jun-A266 keepin' cosy while on a mission.
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TheGcustoms returns once more with figures of the holy trinity of the Banished—Escharum, Jega 'Rdomnai, and Atriox.
Art by TheGcustoms
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VALIANT VIDEOS

Somehow, Halo: Custom Edition turned twenty years old earlier this month. Un-flipyappin-believable!
In many ways, Halo: Custom Edition was the foundation of Halo modding, opening up the beloved original game to an infinite horizon of possibilities. I still vividly remember watching ancient videos of driving Scarabs around, piloting the Prophets' gravity thrones, playing as different species...
In celebration of this milestone, The Vengeful 'Vadam has made a tribute video that beautifully conveys the vibe and energy of the mid-'00s Halo modding scene.
Speaking of the mid-'00s era of Halo, NotPipi has delivered a jaw-dropping fan animation titled "Battle for Mombasa," set during the events of Halo 2 when the Covenant invade Earth. Lend NotPipi just eight short minutes of your life and prepare to be amazed!
Red vs. Blue may have come to a final, poignant end, but the machinima spirit lives on in the hearts of the Halo community, using the medium to ask questions about ( checks notes ) why almost all alien species' biology conforms to inferior bipedal models.
It would appear that even the Unggoy have taken to celebrating a particular date in May...

A GATHERING OF GREATNESS

3clipserenders
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ataboss_3d
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BenedictNeoh
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DoeChops
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evanjpg2
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goku_tshirt
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Hazop_art
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IdealRonyL
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jackdrawss
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lytatroan
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MrChowChowif
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MyteTheGoat
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ryliethewalrus
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SonicTC806
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strider_au
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voidspawn01
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WanderingRonin3
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That's all, folks! We hope you enjoyed this round-up of the community's love and passion for Halo put into artistic expression. We'll be back next month to do it all over again.
All of you who had something featured in this installment should be sure to fill out the submission form so we can grant you your Unicorn of Fire rewards!
This post was made by a script written and maintained by the Halo mod team to automatically post blogs from Halo Waypoint. If you notice any issues with the text output or think this was posted by mistake, please message the mods.