I (46F single) befriended a guy (39M single) at work when I got there an office job about 8 years ago. Like most people, I see him as a kind, quiet guy with a good heart who can be socially awkward, even slow at times.
From the time I got hired at this place (and met this guy) to early 2020 when the pandemic hit, the two of us had hung out for a total of 5-6 times to grab a few drinks, mostly after work. 5-6 occasions of a few drinks in a span of 2.5 years, talking mostly about politics or people at work. No personal or emotional sharing whatsoever. No lunch together at work either, just casual talk here and there. In the past 8 years, he gave me a few rides home (<10) after work. After the pandemic and especially last year, we did try to hang out a few times but never got around to it. Not a big deal, even felt relieved as his conversation has gotten noticeably dull or so I began to feel that way at this point.
I had to take a long leave of absence this fall due to an accident & this guy was one of the few people from work who regularly checked in on me. I made the effort to let him know that I appreciated it. He would call or txt me occasionally, ask if I need anything and offer to take me outside for some fresh air, as I was mostly resting at home due to my injury. The only favor I asked was grabbing a few things from my office and drop them off at his convenience. He made a terrible mess, brought some of my stuff in pretty damaged condition but no surprises there, he can get clumsy at times, so I didn’t say anything. Offered him some tea, about half an hour later, he was gone. This was the first (& last) time he got into my apartment. I don’t have people from work come over to my place, this was an exception due to my injury. Few hours later, I noticed he’d taken my thrash out when leaving, without letting me know. Completely unnecessary since my building has a maintenance guy who takes care of that and I had placed my thrash by my unit door that afternoon for the maintenance guy to pick it up later. Common practice here.
Since his visit, this guy txt’ed me at 8AM on weekends with single liners like “are you back on your feet?” or “how is your recovery going?” Two weeks ago, he called and mentioned within minutes that he was close to my street. I made nothing of it and casually carried on, he then said he was near my building. At this point I noticed the absence of ambient sounds like traffic noise etc., thinking he probably parked somewhere, possibly in front of my building. Didn’t react, tried to carry the conversation until he interrupted me “Want me to come upstairs?” in a really weird excited tone. I got quite uncomfortable, pretended I didn’t hear it and rushed to finish the call. Before he hung up he said “I will come by” which got me creeped out. Since then he txt’ed me a few times and gave me a call yesterday. Didn’t write back, didn’t take his call. I feel somewhat forced into a connection that was never there.

Here are things I tried before getting into this. - Turning off and on my psp - Resetting VSH - Removing the .txt from the game and pops file
and still I cant find it. I already have my VSH file, but anytime I try to rename my file to just game or pops, it says I already have a file named that and forces me to change it? I looked it up and it says it cant find the file designation when I try to open the game.txt file.

I am setting up awesomewm and using Lua and Bash script for the first time. I was able to get this working, so on the one hand it might appeal to other beginners as an accessible project, and on the other this is a good juncture to seek out feedback from those who know better ways. u/digost explained to me about mkfifo yesterday and already that let me do something new in this.
wallpaper can be set up in rc.lua by adding the line awful.spawn.with_shell("feh --bg-scale ~/FILENAME.png"), so if this file is replaced with another png a different wallpaper will load
conky the system monitor is installed from pacman and it can be given its own background by following the installation guide to generate a config file at ~/.config/conky/conky.conf and adding or editing a line to the top of the conky.text section
conky.text = [[ ${image /home/dave/conkies/conkycar.png -p -50,0 -s 450x450}
Where 450x450 is the image size and -50 is an offset to get it to appear in the right place. These small images are about the same size as the cheapest generative-AI option, which I found for fractions of a penny and that's what gave me the idea. I will try not to promote or even mention the particular provider since it is non-Free.
conky configuration is something that some people spend time on as part of ricing. Although a basic process of pulling an image from the internet should stay the same across awesomewm themes, there could be limitless complexity in getting images to reliably visually-cohere. If the conky and the wallpaper come from related prompts into the same Model, then hopefully they can cohere at least sometimes, but for now I've just gone with colour red.
My first step is to create a salt list of theme words. I went to a free/non-passworded chatbot and asked it for a list of words to do with cars and trucks and fire and chrome. These go into a text file with a space at the start of each entry
conkies.top4salt.txt

 Automobile Vehicle Sedan Coupe {etc...} 

These salt words are used to make each generated image slightly different.
First a .json request needs to be generated to a chatbot-type API. This uses a template from their site
conkies.TEXTtemplate

#\bin\bash curl --request POST \ --url PUT THE URL OF THE TEXT-PROVIDER'S API HERE \ --header 'Authorization: Bearer PUT THEIR API KEY HERE \ --header 'Content-Type: application/json' \ --data '{ "max_tokens": 2048, "mode": "python", "model": "icortex-1", "n": 1, "temperature": 0, "text": 

The last field "text" is the prompt, which can be brought in from a separate textfile
conkies.prompt.txt

"A prompt for an artist to design a promotional photograph, of a luxurious red sports car, which must place strong emphasis on:- (1) an Arch, (2) flames, (3) a red background (4)[ 

The " at the start is needed for .json request's format - as can be seen from the other lines. The [ on the end is there as a delimiter but ended up not being used: the API just ignores it.
For this site this is enough to start with. The prompt is set up with a script, which is also used to launch the process once everything is in place:-
conkies.TEXTpromptsetup.sh

#!/bin/bash find . -maxdepth 1 -type p -delete mkfifo conkies.fifo -m 0700 echo $( cat conkies.TEXTtemplate > perl -pi -e 'chomp if eof' echo -n $(cat conkies.prompt.txt) >> echo -n $(shuf -n 1 conkies.topksalt.txt) "," $(shuf -n 1 conkies.topksalt.txt) "," $(shuf -n 1 conkies.topksalt.txt) "\"" "}" "'" >> sh conkies.TEXT-prompter.sh) > conkies.fifo & alacritty -e sh /home/dave/conkies/conkies.IMAGE-promptsetup.sh 

The first line clears any leftover fifo files from previous times the script has run. The main body of this joins the parts of the .json prompt together into a compliant format, in the file conkies.TEXT-prompter.sh The shuf commands pull three salt-words into the prompt. The perl command takes a newline off the end of the conkies.TEXTtemplate which otherwise breaks the format. There are some syntax marks at the end of the file, the " one needs an escape character.
conkies.TEXT-prompter.sh is then run; the data that comes back from the API of the service provider is written into the fifo; and a new shell is opened for the IMAGE prompter.
Hopefully the data that comes back from the API is a prompt. If it's an error-message or the money has run out the resulting images might be very strange!
The IMAGE prompter also has to be set up beforehand. The IMAGE provider I used had a slightly more complex format than the TEXT provider I used, so it had to be made from a start section, the TEXT-prompt, and an end section. The format was on their website and involved some intricacies to do with different Models being compatible with different versions of Lora.
conkies.IMAGEtemplate

#\bin\bash curl -X 'POST' \ 'THE IMAGE-PROVIDER'S URL GOES HERE' > conkies-$(date +"%m_%d_%y_%T").png \ -H THEIR API-KEY GOES HERE \ -H 'accept: */*' \ -H 'Content-Type: multipart/form-data' \ -F 'lora2_strength=.7' \ -F 'lora2=' \ -F 'lora1_strength=.7' \ -F 'prompt= 

example prompt from the TEXT-provider

"The artist should design a promotional photograph of a luxurious sports car, with an arch in the background, surrounded by flames. The car should be in a state of acceleration, with its fenders gleaming and its hubcaps spinning. The flames should be in shades of red, orange, and yellow, and should be emitting sparks. The background should be a deep red." 

conkies.IMAGEtemplate-footer

' \ -F 'width=512' \ -F 'height=512' \ -F 'steps=30' \ -F 'sampler=dpmpp_2m_karras' \ -F 'model=epic_diffusion_1' \ -F 'negative_prompt=ugly, tiling, poorly drawn hands, poorly drawn feet, poorly drawn face, out of frame, extra limbs, disfigured, deformed, body out of frame, blurry, bad anatomy, blurred, watermark, grainy, signature, cut off, draft' \ -F 'upscale=1' \ -F 'seed=4116668295' \ -F 'format=png' \ -F 'guidance=7' \ -F 'lora1=' \ 

These are combined together as follows by the second script:-
IMAGE-promptsetup.sh

#!/bin/bash cat conkies.IMAGEtemplate > perl -pi -e 'chomp if eof' cat conkies.fifo cut -f6 -d":" cut -c 3- rev cut -c 8- rev >> perl -pi -e 'chomp if eof' cat conkies.IMAGEtemplate-footer >> sh conkies.IMAGE-prompter.sh && sh conky-relaunch.sh 

They are launched at the end as conkies.IMAGE-prompter.sh, which downloads a timestamped .png file from the image provider.
and the last script sorts the images and relaunches conky with the most recent.
conky-relaunch.sh

pkill conky mv *.png ~/conkies/conkycars/ && cp -p $(ls -dtr1 "conkycars"/*.png tail -1) ~/conkies/conkycar.png exec conky 

To make wallpaper instead would need to change the image size in the conkies.IMAGEtemplate file and point rc.lua to the folder it's been downloaded into.
To generate a wallpaper and conky background at the same time I think it would be easiest to duplicate everything to another folder, so that the text prompts are not the same.
At the end on an unmodified conky with a free wallpaper from https://www.pixelstalk.net/download-free-arch-linux-background/ it looks like
https://preview.redd.it/iiscm9bifg0d1.png?width=1565&format=png&auto=webp&s=b836c7a6ba3c5df01768e5014d2c3a20ac5601fc
https://preview.redd.it/cbq17sfigg0d1.png?width=1596&format=png&auto=webp&s=72b889bce8fe995ce57a6e4bdd433de4f0c0b505
There are various problems. Any changes to the API will break it but that is in the nature of these things. Both API providers required accounts. With the text-provider I am on some trial limit they have which is more than enough free requests per month to make these conky prompts, but it might be monetized in the future. The image-provider I had to pay for but it's the minimum amount. It might be that the credits expire and my conky becomes a financial commitment. But for this $10 I could generate a lifetime supply of pictures of what AI thinks cars look like... with wing-mirrors only for the passengers :D
From zero-knowledge I've been able to use a named pipe to connect two APIs together, and used bash script to manipulate text into compliant formats for .json requests. I'm becoming conscious that simple tasks have to be broken down into more stages and more files than it initially appears and this becomes messy. I generally have nothing in place to check each script is outputting in the right form, or to give error messages. If I accidentally included one special character in the text prompt, that would break the image output, but if I include any comment lines to warn myself then the script will have to check for those and remove them... so I just have to remember.

The code for this, if anyone wants to check it out for themselves, is in events/machine_age_2.txt. The deposit amounts are in common/deposits/13_machine_age_deposits. The Nanite ship generation is in common/scripted_effects/02_machine_age_effects.
So planet size *really* matters when choosing where to put your Nanite harvesters. Here's what a Nanite deposit goes through as the years pass:
Year 0 (Creating the deposit): If can have mining deposit and no research deposit, 0.1 nanites.
Year 5: Double to 0.2 nanites.
Year 10: If size >= 3, double to 0.4 nanites.
Year 15: If size > 6, double to 0.8 nanites.
Year 20: If size >= 9, double to 1.6 nanites.
Year 25: If size >= 12, 50/50 between spawning two ships or doubling to 3.2 nanites and move to next check.
Year 30+: If size >= 15, spawn 4 ships or double to 6.4 nanites and move to next check.
Year 35+: If size >= 18, spawn 8 ships or double to 12.8 nanites and move on.
Year 40+: If size >= 21, spawn 16 ships or double to 25.2 nanites and move on.
Year 45+: If size >= 25, spawn 32 ships or double to 50.4 nanites and move on.
Year 50+: Spawns 64 ships every 5 years.
To be clear, when a deposit spawns ships, they do not advance to the next tier.
So the big takeaway is that nanites from stations take a long time to actually scale up to decent amounts, and you need at least size 12 planetary bodies for them to produce ships. One thing I hope the devs do is adding planetary size to every planetary body. I dont really see why they would hide it from us since the majority of the time it won't even matter, and it would be really useful for nanotech and for Azaryn as well.
Big thanks to Null Dragon on the discord that turned me on to all of this!
Hope y'all learned something!

I usually put random lyrics in headers or titles of things. But this one lyric I literally cannot figure out what song it goes to. The song is definitely in Korean (maybe a Japanese song by a Kpop artist), and I'm just trying to figure out where it came from.
"If I cover you from stained memories, will you be forgotten?"
Looking it up online does me no good, and genius lyrics don't help me, so I'm thinking it's a rough translation that not very many people actually use, and the actual meaning is something similar.
It sounds like something a BigHit artist like TXT or BTS would use, but I also listen to bunch of other random songs by other artists, so I'm not really sure as to who who when where.

Some detail, I currently have a homelab that I keep in a cupboard, which means heat is a problem. It has 4 active hard drives with some failovers that aren't spun up unless an active drive fails. These are linked to a LSI HBA SAS9300-8i in IT mode.
Now I know there is a lot of debate about whether HDDs should be spun down, but mine aren't actively used, so I have no problem increasing wear and tear. Let's not go down that hot topic (for the time being). However, with the current firmware I dont have support for ASPM. So HDDs are going to spin all day long.
So I followed the following tutorial on Serve The Home: https://www.servethehome.com/flash-lsi-sas-3008-hba-e-g-ibm-m1215-mode/ it looked perfect. FYI: I am attempting to do this in Linux, via the TrueNAS terminal (which I don't believe is a problem but maybe it is). The pool is diconnected. Drives are unplugged. Let's go.
admin@truenas[~]$ sudo sas3flash -list
Avago Technologies SAS3 Flash Utility
Version 16.00.00.00 (2017.05.02)
Copyright 2008-2017 Avago Technologies. All rights reserved.
Adapter Selected is a Avago SAS: SAS3008(C0)
Controller Number : 0
Controller : SAS3008(C0)
PCI Address : 00:02:00:00
SAS Address : 500605b-0-0b2c-9ab0
NVDATA Version (Default) : 0e.01.00.07
NVDATA Version (Persistent) : 0e.01.00.07
Firmware Product ID : 0x2221 (IT)
Firmware Version : 16.00.12.00
NVDATA Vendor : LSI
NVDATA Product ID : SAS9300-8i
BIOS Version : N/A
UEFI BSD Version : N/A
FCODE Version : N/A
Board Name : SAS9300-8i
Board Assembly : H32549903E
Board Tracer Number : SP61926108
Finished Processing Commands Successfully.
Exiting SAS3Flash.
First thing I notice, no BIOS, UEFI BSD or FCODE versions. Which I thought was strange and my attempts to back-up my existing firmeware did not go to plan for example..
admin@truenas[~]$ sudo sas3flash -ubios bios_backup.txt
Avago Technologies SAS3 Flash Utility
Version 16.00.00.00 (2017.05.02)
Copyright 2008-2017 Avago Technologies. All rights reserved.
Adapter Selected is a Avago SAS: SAS3008(C0)
Executing Operation: Upload BIOS
Upload Failed!
Due to error remaining commands will not be executed.
Unable to Process Commands.
Exiting SAS3Flash.
Although I was able to backup the firmware, so there's that.
I looked around for a long time, I didn't see any mentions of backing up the existing info for flashing (which I found somewhat surprising). After becoming frustrated, I figured lets just do it anyway. What's the worst that can happen..
Let's start with flashing the controller..
admin@truenas[~]$ sudo sas3flash -ubios bios_backup.txt
Avago Technologies SAS3 Flash Utility
Version 16.00.00.00 (2017.05.02)
Copyright 2008-2017 Avago Technologies. All rights reserved.
Adapter Selected is a Avago SAS: SAS3008(C0)
Executing Operation: Upload BIOS
Upload Failed!
Due to error remaining commands will not be executed.
Unable to Process Commands.
Exiting SAS3Flash.
I'm either much worse at google (or google's got much worse) recently or maybe I'm missing something really obvious. Usually I find something in these forums or similar places. But I figured I'd reach out to the community for once.
Apologies for the long post.

I had a last chat with my gf today via txt. It`s over. I`m so heart broken. I wanted to get a peace of mind and her come to my place (outside) so i can say goodbye (hug) and give her some of her things back. First she accepted, but after 3hours she sent text she can´t face me now. She is having hard time divorcing from maniac ex who is mentally abusing her and is having therapy so lot of stress. She wants space and being alone so she dumbed me even though we had amazing 4-5months. I was good to her always other than wanting to see more often which pissed her sometimes and i apologized it today. I tried to lay the option that we could continue the way she wants, but no. She just can`t have anything going with any man at the moment and i said i can wait her to get better and be supportive by her side, but she didn´t ask me to wait and wants to set me free which feels like knife to heart.
I can give her things at gym we both go. So my question is should i wait that she would come to meet my place to get the stuff back? Even though she was very against it later today and said throw them away. I could give her things back at the gym, but i can`t say my goodbyes there so that would leave me sad as there is no final closure if this is really the end.
Other question is i can go the gym at the times she goes there and she was actually fine us seeing at the gym going forward as we don´t chat there just say hi. I would love that as for the time i see her i feel better, but i don´t know can i then move forward in life. I don´t think i can anyway for long time as she was so special. I don`t want to let go and watching the YT clips "the power of walking away" so kinda same as no contact to make her miss us and maybe at the end of summer she would understand what she lost and miss me so much to re-think if she feels better at that point. She won´t be living near my area long time so i need to make decision to see her still while i can or go full NC/walk away and hope for the best. I just fear i would regret of not seeing her these few months. This is killing me.
Thanks for comments and thoughts!

dear bean
yknow i know you definitely will not care about this and you will probably tell your friends and say how desperate or annoying or needy or shitty I am, and its fine - say what you want. because honestly I couldn't care less about how you think about me but I just want to be heard from your end one final time. and yea I did say that a couple times, I've tried reaching out a couple times, I've tried being a mature person even though I was actually breaking inside. so yea, I'm sorry I lied, sorry I said it would be my last time contacting you but breaking that promise every time, but this time it really will be the last time.
honestly, I think we had a good run for the what, 4 months we were friends? i have nothing bad to say about you, and even though it was hell after whatever you would call that, I still don't dislike you or hate you or feel negative feelings towards you, cause at the end of the day, we're all humans living life and we can decide when someone isn't worth being in our life anymore (that might sound passive aggressive, it wasn't supposed to sound like that, just read it like I understand the feeling). if you're annoyed by this email - don't keep reading, I'll just go on and on and I guess this email (that I will never send) is just a way for me to reflect and understand my feelings while also giving you, the bean that I knew, a chance to come out one last time before shutting me down once and for all. yea so if you're gonna go beserk from this email, dob me out to all your friends, then I suggest you leave before I pour my heart and soul out.
you were actually really cool in my eyes, talented and smart, it was hard not to admire the determination you had and the willingness to do things. and I hate admitting it, and I know my friends hate hearing me talk about it, but I miss you and your presence. yes, sue me, no I'm not in love with you, yes you made that big of and impact on me. i was scared of you when you first joined honk, you had very sharp and cool eyes. and again - you were talented which intimidated me. but overtime, I understood that you weren't scary, you were actually so sweet and funny and really silly. i liked how you pushed yourself to try harder and new things, like clarinet 1 in honk. i don't even know how we started chatting, I think you were looking for some sheet music or something. honestly it was nice talking to you, even from the beginning. it was fresh talking to someone new, I didn't have high expectations of where this friendship would go but I was happy enough to enjoy the moment while it lasted.
and well, that moment lasted a while. we talked for a week and I could already tell that my crappy feelings would complicate things - I just never met someone so like me before. even though I didn't have strong feelings, I knew they were there, but I still chose to talk to you. how foolish right? i mean we had the same interests, music (clarinet!!), txt, twisted tales, it was a coincidence meeting someone who was like a mini me. and of course, when we started talking about crushes, I felt adrenaline and just kept going until I just puked my feelings over you. I'm not sure how you felt then when I admitted I liked you, but if it was hard for you or if it made you uncomfortable, I'm sorry. putting you in that position must have been hard so i'msorry. you said you weren't ready for anything serious, but I was just excited, too happy to find someone finally, that it didn;t occur to me how fast i might be going.
we had our issues, but i thought that we loved each other. i loved you so i thought that even though i had issues, talking it out with you was always the best way to work things out. communication is key, that's what i told myself. i guess it wasn't key, unless it's the key to making friendships break apart. i guess i just tricked myself into thinking you loved me just as much as i loved you, so i thought you had the same idea of communication as i did. and honestly i think a part of me was right, because you did try. but it was my fault, i kept bringing in other little small things that affected me and you had to put me back together. and i guess that must've been annoying cause at some point you just stopped trying. I'm not saying that that's an issue or that it was your problem, I'm under the impression it was all my doing.
looking past that, i seriously loved you so much. i neglected a lot for you - again not blaming you, i did it because i really really loved you so much and i wanted the best for you in every circumstance (even if it didn't seem like it). i left my friends a lot, my mum noticed i was getting more distant and well, after things ended i got into touch with my loved ones again, so I'm in a way grateful for you for doing that.
love is hard to describe. but i knew i had love for you. i said i loved my other crushes. but they were absolutely nothing compared to what i had for you. i had love for you that was comparable to my best friend (don't tell her that). mayve you can tell but words could not describe how or what i felt after things ended. not sure what your breaking point was, but it must have been a big point. i have 3 main points regarding this end of whatever we had:

1. what is it we even had? you said we were just friends - i accept that - but i feel like it was definitely not what i saw. and yes, maybe this is subjective BUT i don't think friends hold hands (well they do but they're not afraid to), they don't celebrate "months of friendship" (recalling every month we were "together" we would celebrate) and friends don't kiss each other's foreheads like that (and if they didn't like it, they'd stop each other). honestly, I'm cringing recalling the fucking embarrassing things i did but it needs to be addressed. i have to ask you - and there's no shame in being truthful because i don't care anymore - what did you see us as? was i a one time fling? was i seriously just your friend? did you have feelings for me then realise i was too high maintenance to handle and dropped me? or maybe there was another factor. that brings me to my next point.
2. was there another person who you realised was better? again, while an average person might see this as morally incorrect - i do not care - you're human and you can feel whatever you want for whoever you want. But i’m genuinely asking, did you? Was it the guy you liked in year 6? The one who bullied you? Call me a detective but, i remember seqc calling one night after things ended, i was back from vietnam and had slightly accepted the idea of the situation. you pulled out some messages from a boy on discord, it was of him admitting he liked you back in year 6. i looked at the date, it was the 6th of january 2023, 9 days before you had the courage to break it off with me. Did he maybe have a part in this? Did you maybe feel things weren’t working out with me and realised you had a chance with someone else so you took it? AGAIN NO SHAME - you do whatever you want to do in life, i’m not shaming you or judging you I just genuinely want to know. I also saw you posting about a boy on your story - not sure if its the same boy but if it was, i hope it went well for you. Sorry these were all the conspiracy theories i made up to cope - crazy right? Imagine what a person can do to you.
3. why did we stop being friends? Even though things didn;t work out romantically (or what i thought was romantic, you thought of as friendship), i don’t know what happened to us. You told me you wanted to be friends. I also wanted to be friends. The only reason that kept me alright was the idea that even though you don’t think of me more, i could still keep you as a friend - someone i could share my passions with and geek out over txt music with. Thats why i tried to stay friends with you. I really and truly did try to make ‘friends’ work with you. But the more i tried - the more annoyed you got. Or i think you were getting annoyed. I wouldn’t know because you didn’t tell me how you felt afterwards. I tried to make it work because you said we could be friends but you gave up on me. I think that’s what hurt me the most - breaking your word. I keep saying it, but you’re entitled to do whatever you want, but it left an emotional scar on me. I don’t want to admit it, but on the days you started at (bean's new school name), i woke up early just to talk to you, to keep you company on the bus on your first few days. Yea cringey i know, bare with me please. I thought I owed you that, i thought that being friends with you after you ended ‘things’, i had to earn my right so i tried, i really tried to be my best for you, so you felt that maybe it was worth keeping me around. And maybe, maybe i was still in love with you then. But i think you saw talking to me for three days straight at 7am was annoying and you were probably uncomfortable because it was me. I feel like you saw me as a creep - almost like a pedo. But i tried and you gave up on me, and there was a time a couple months later where we were perfectly fine, but then things just went again.

you might think I just had silly little feelings for you. but I didn't. i really had feelings for you. and I don't know if you genuinely didn't see me that way, or you didn't have feelings for me, if you just thought it was a silly little thing we had going on or if you're hiding the fact you did like me at some point. I just know that losing you as a friend really crushed me to pieces. and yes you told people you never want to talk to me or talk about me - which is fine you're entitled to your own rights - but I just wanted to get this off my chest. one last time - I promise.
I don’t know if this will get to you. It probably won’t, theres a bit too much that i wrote in here. Do you care about this still? Definitely not (I’m assuming). It’s embarrassing how much I think about this and how much i regret not letting my feelings out before you removed me as a friend on instagram and discord (or even blocking me on spotify, not sure how spotify was a way for me to get to you but whatever works i guess). This issue has been taking up my mind for the last few years, and it really does suck. But I’m gonna let it out, so im sorry if you got up to here.
Not sure how much this means to you, but you can contact me anytime if you want to let out your feelings (of life, not about this or me), i want to support you as much as i can. I can also help you with coping with school - again i don’t think you’d take me up on that but it’s always an option if you need it. I won’t make it weird, i wont bring this up again, i’ll talk to you like you’re one of my friends.
I haven’t heard much about your feelings in this - feelings of anger, regret, sadness. If you do want to share (you most definitely don’t have to), email me, text me, contact me and we can talk about how you felt too. This email was for me to finally write down what i wanted to let out and finally let go of what happened (even if you think it was miniscule, it wasn’t for me).
Life is hard, and I learnt that through you and the experience of you. So thank you for teaching me this. Thank you for showing me what love felt like, and thank you for being my first love. You made it very hard for other people because i only compared them to what I had with you. But in saying that - I made life long friends who helped me cope. And I hope you found some life long friends as well.
I hope you have a good life (in saying that, i am assuming we will never meet each other ever again - but if we do meet again disregard this).
Thanks for everything (and nothing as well) (while that sounds bitter, its more like a thank you for what you taught me - life lessons and all - but also thanks for the pain i had to feel afterwards, while that pain was not enjoyable, it was what taught me).
kind regards,
toad
to readers: i censored the names for privacy, but i called her bean (as a nickname - it really suited her), and i was known as her 'toad', hence the names.

So basically my waveshare 7 inch lcd dsi (c) screen works perfectly fine on os lite with my raspberry pi 5 4gb ram version but when i launch retropie it crashes and i get the blue background grey text box but it works perfectly fine on my monitor which means it has to be something with the screen, i thought it was a resolution issue but i cant find any dsi resolution changes in config.txt , i can only find hdmi versions which dont work because i tried just in case. I have config.txt completed basic other than uncommenting overscan and putting in the dtoverlay stuff for the screen to work. Im a noob at this type of thing and i really need help because im making a handheld and I was hoping to finish everything tomorrow. If any megabrain people can help me ill gladly appreciate it. Thanks. (If you need any more information or screenshotz ill gladly provide them)

As the title says my Honor phone keeps generating new text files at a specific location daily. It's located in the directory Documents/Crowdtest/com.hihonor.gamecente160014306 and the file is always named gc.today.txt. When the day ends it it rename the file to gc.(date made).txt and I can't figure out what's causing it. I know it must be the gamecenter app but can't figure it out. The oldest text file was the 6th of May even though the Crowdtest file was generated in December 2023. Is this something I should be worried about or is it just the phone doing its own thing and just forget about it?

So ive just dug out my old 9900 (a product of recently watching the Blackberry movie and getting all sentimental) I have the Blackberry id popup happening, I think I hit the correct password but its not progressing. I know that the BBid server is no longer, does this mean I can not get into this phone any longer? I have Z10 Z30 9000 and curve that I can at least open with the bbid thing popping up. Any tips would be most welcome. Would love it to be a weekender for calls and txt but also would love to read old txt threads. TIA

I uploaded a sales post on Instagram since I needed to sell my extra ticket for TXT in LA. I had someone interested in buying it so we had a whole conversation and I showed them proofs. I gave them my PayPal info as they decided they were gonna buy the ticket and they said they were gonna send the money at the moment.
The thing I’m having trouble with is that the user’s Instagram account no longer exists. I’m pretty sure they deactivated. I have no idea if they sent the money or not. On my PayPal account, there is money waiting to be accepted on my end but idk if that’s the money they sent or if that money is from something else entirely. The amount of money shown on my PayPal waiting to be accepted is a bit more than what I was asking for so it makes me skeptical that it might not be from them. (I was asking for $115 and the amount shown on my PayPal is about $150-ish). I still have the ticket sitting on my account as AXS isn’t allowing ticket transfers until 2 days before the concert. What should I do? Should I sell my ticket to someone else?

I uploaded a sales post on Instagram since I needed to sell my extra ticket for TXT in LA. I had someone interested in buying it so we had a whole conversation and I showed them proofs. I gave them my PayPal info as they decided they were gonna buy the ticket and they said they were gonna send the money at the moment.
The thing I’m having trouble with is that the user’s Instagram account no longer exists. I’m pretty sure they deactivated. I have no idea if they sent the money or not. On my PayPal account, there is money waiting to be accepted on my end but idk if that’s the money they sent or if that money is from something else entirely. The amount of money shown on my PayPal waiting to be accepted is a bit more than what I was asking for so it makes me skeptical that it might not be from them. (I was asking for $115 and the amount shown on my PayPal is about $150-ish). I still have the ticket sitting on my account as AXS isn’t allowing ticket transfers until 2 days before the concert. What should I do? Should I sell my ticket to someone else?

First, I'll start off by saying that this is probably a me problem, and that I'm pretty sure I just need to learn how to not get anxiety from this, but I still want feedback to see what other people think.
I've been seeing this girl for a short time now. We're aren't exclusive, just going through the dates to see where it leads. In person and via FaceTime, our chemistry is off-the-charts, and we have both confessed in person that emotions are strong. We have another date planned for two weeks from now (we cant do sooner because of I'll be out of town for work for a bit).
The issue I have is that I'll have one day where she'll txt things like "You’ve been on my mind a lot☺️", or how our next date we have planned to make pizza together for our dinner date, and she says "Thinking about you and I making pizza together now, it’s got me cheesin☺️". There are other examples, and it gives me very strong confidence that she's really into me.
The anxiety starts to kick in though when we are vibing and in the middle of a back and forth thing, and the conversation just stops... she just doesn't reply. Or I'll send her a picture of something cool, and I'll get nothing in return.
For example, this past Friday night I sent her a text immediately after she sent me one (during a somewhat back-and-forth convo), and it was something along the lines of "can you see the northern lights where you are?" I waited about 36 hours for a reply on Sunday (a day and a half later) and it was.... "Hey baby😋". Didn't even respond the question at all. I then asked what she's been up to and she said she's been spending time with her mom for the weekend (because it was mother's day) and proceeded to tell me what they've been up to.
Her communication style is just.... odd compared to what I've seen from other women I've dated. It's not how I would ever communicate via txt at all. She skips questions, or doesn't respond to a picture of something, etc. It feels like she ignores it completely? Or is aloof in some weird way?
Now to be fair, I have brought up the topic of communication already as I was previously kinda worried about how things would go silent for long periods prior to this one, so, trying to be a communicating guy, I said about a week ago:
"I wanted to ask you… how much communication would you like between us while we’re apart? Are you ok with txting and FT’s, and how often? I wanted to check in and see what you’re comfortable with."
and her response was:
"I’m happy with our level of communication:) to be upfront it may get a teeny bit less frequent just because I keep a pretty full schedule. Especially during the summer months. And I’m also not on my phone very much. Tbh most of my phone time recently has been chatting with you, and that’s not a bad thing! I love our conversations and connection. Just wanted to be transparent so you don’t think I’m ghosting or anything haha My social battery isn’t the best so if I ever do need a day or two with no contact, whether that’s because I’m busy or just recharging, I will 100% communicate that😘"
I don't know.... am I overreacting here? Do any other men/women here txt like this? Or just hate txting? Or just are never on your phone? She's 25, and I figured all young women in their 20's would be glued to their phone.
Maybe I'm just being stupid insecure and need to let it go.
Thoughts?

I was friends with a girl a couple years ago and she has bpd. I stopped talking to her bc there was a lot of issues with her back then. She lived with me and her girlfriend. She would always try to kill herself in front of me and guess what I had to stop her from doing that. I’m sorry to those who suffer from this disorder it seems to be one of the hardest to live with. Anyway, she tried contacting me with 2 different apps and I never answered. She "apologized" on snapchat but I never replied. Tbh I don’t think she’s aware of the things she put me through… I’d have to go to work and call hetxt her constantly to make sure that she’s ok. Even if her gf was back at my place with her I still couldn’t count on her gf to watch her. I met her in high school years ago and we stayed friends even after school was over. She had some narcissist traits I would say and it was very hard for me to believe her sometimes… She used to kind of make me feel bad by saying oh u didn’t answer my call and I wanted to kill myself. Like I wasn’t allowed to breathe without having to worry about her. I had my own sh*t to deal with but to her since I wasn’t trying to kill myself I was fine. It’s almost like I wasn’t allowed to not be ok just bc she was doing way worse than me. My sister also has bpd (were not actually related by blood her mom is dating my dad and we grew up together) It’s difficult for me to understand them. I try to educate myself by reading a lot of stuff online about mental health etc.. Does anyone know the differences between avpd and bpd? If you have bpd pls tell me your personal experience with this disorder so that I can understand better. Thank you for taking the time to read this.

So basically my waveshare 7 inch lcd dsi (c) screen works perfectly fine on os lite with my raspberry pi 5 4gb ram version but when i launch retropie it crashes and i get the blue background grey text box but it works perfectly fine on my monitor which means it has to be something with the screen, i thought it was a resolution issue but i cant find any dsi resolution changes in config.txt , i can only find hdmi versions which dont work because i tried just in case. I have config.txt completed basic other than uncommenting overscan and putting in the dtoverlay stuff for the screen to work. Im a noob at this type of thing and i really need help because im making a handheld and I was hoping to finish everything tomorrow. If any megabrain people can help me ill gladly appreciate it. Thanks. (If you need any more information or screenshotz ill gladly provide them)

So I'm sure most people on this sub know of of a few sites that can generate colour palettes:
https://webgradients.com/
https://coolors.co/?home
https://colorhunt.co/palettes/popular
https://gradienthunt.com/
https://colorffy.com/
to name just a few. But what I am looking for is something that will generate a nice UI palette, and then also provide a corresponding dark palate. I'm experimenting with setting all my colours using CSS variables & changing them at the root level for light/dark, and then setting those variables in my Tailwind config. That way I can use things like `text-primaryTxt` and `bg-primaryBg` and have it change automatically (as opposed to having to do something like `text-primary-200 dark:text-primary-800` everywhere.
The closest site I have found is https://aicolors.co/ which shows the colour scheme with a dummy dashboard which I really like, however the only way to get a dark theme is to just choose a similar corresponding colour palate.
So I know I'm probably being a bit lazy looking for such a tool, but does anyone know of anything?
​
EDIT: After some more serious googling I have come across :
https://www.realtimecolors.com
which is pretty close to what I am looking for. Would love to hear any other suggestions though....

I wanted to release an early demo copy of the mod that I'm working on: 𝕷𝖆𝖞 𝕺𝖋 𝕿𝖍𝖊 𝕷𝖆𝖓𝖉
I know everybody on this subreddit is waiting for Mat to drop Hardtime 3d II/Hardtime 3 (whatever yall like to call it)
The progress of the modification

• The Game exe has been updated. The game could run without DGVoodoo + it can run 32bits instead of 16bits.
  
• Textures has either been upscaled or taken from Other Mdickie games to give it that modern-day touch
  
• Added new sound effects
  
• Added ambiance music depending on the situation
  
• Added new face textures + upscaled some face textures
  
• Upscaled GUI Textures
  
• Added Credits that lists every asset that was created by other modders and other sources.
  

W.I.P

• I'm still finding a way to port the whole game onto Mobile devices
  
• Dialog changes
  
• Some textures might receives some changes. Remember this is an alpha release
  
• Some sound effects might be replaced
  

Long story short, what does this modification do. Well it upscales the game and gives a sight modern day touch.
It's still the same old hardtime 3d but the game could run smoothly on Windows 10/11, New textures, ambience noises, and some small addons.
This mod is a complete standalone game, which means you don't have to use the original hardtime game as a directory reference for file editing.
The game is literally in this file. All you need to do is just extract the file and click the exe. Boom you could play.
Also when installing the mod, a pop-up may appear asking you to install DirectPlay. Download it and you'll be able to Play LOTL
I'll like to list 2 things: one, there's a bunch of placeholders in this mod, so everything you see might or might not be there on the next update. Two, this mod contains "suggestive scenes" such as gore, Strong Language, Sexual Images, Racial symbols, textures that use real drug images and such.
This was implemented for realism. im not one of those woke game devs. I had to list this for younger fans and for the Youtubers that don't want their video being hit with an age restriction warning. You've been warned!
Heres the download link: https://www.mediafire.com/file/l4v347td724ltzz/Hard_Time_-_Lay_Of_The_Land_version_0.1.zip/file
If you see your mod on here, just DM on reddit if you want me to take it off. This includes your name on the "Credits.txt".

A month or so ago I busted my phone, and it was a huge pain in the ass. Aside from some lost data which was minor, the biggest PIA was resetting MFA, getting in touch with my US banks, and any other services that were tied to my phone. The experience also made me take a step back and realize I am pretty lax with security, and if someone had gotten hold of my phone and somehow god-forbid gotten the passcode, then I'd be fucked. They could do so much damage with unlimited access to my email + MFA SMS, even in just a few hours.
As a result, I kind of went down the ADHD rabbit hole hyper-fixating on how best to "optimize" my iPhone and iCloud configuration for two things:

1. If it breaks, the transition to a new device will be relatively painless. I won't have to spend several days stressing and trying to find the right international customer support number for a myriad of institutions and services to get into my accounts.
   
2. If it gets stolen and compromised, then there will be enough barriers such that the I'll have enough time to lock down the device and/or my accounts remotely before the thief can get key data or move funds.
   

So I put together this guide and checklist that I thought I'd share with others. I am a programmer but by no means a security guru, and so if any IT, DevOps, or SecOps folks want to chime-in with suggestions or improvements, please do.

Requirements

• an iPhone XR, iPhone XS, iPhone 11, iPhone 12, iPhone 13, iPhone SE (2nd generation), and iPhone 14 or newer for eSIM compatibility.
• a US-based carrier with eSIM support + a pay-as-you-go model for international travel (I use Verizon)
• iOS 17 or above (may not be strictly necessary, but I know my setup works with iOS 17.4.1)
• a password manager. I personally use 1Password because it works, is reliable, has cross-device support, and is easy and intuitive. It's also only $3/month.

Dual Sim Setup

I have been rocking an iPhone 12 for the past few years, and it's served me very well. I know the newer iPhones (14 and up) no longer offer physical SIM card support, but carriers in most developing countries are behind the curve. Even if they offer eSIM support, it's been my experience that it's a major headache to get setup, there is a lack of customer support in English, and they may even require a local ID to register the eSIM. It's way easier to just head to a shop and pay $5 for a SIM card, load some funds onto it, and then you're good to go.
The eSIM has been very helpful for maintaining a US phone number for which I can receive SMS texts from my banks and other financial services as well as continue to use iMessage with all my US contacts since hardly anybody is on Whatsapp.
Most, if not all, carriers in the US support eSIMs now, and so you should try to find a carrier that offers an international pay-as-you-go plan. Verizon offers two international plans - one is a "Travel Pass" where it's a flat fee of $10/day anywhere outside the US or Canada (even for just one text message). The other is "pay for what you use" which has a rate per text, minute, and mb. For my US plan, I only care about receiving SMS texts from my banks and the occasional phone call to a service that doesn't have an international, toll-free number. Data will always be cheaper outside the US, so I disable cellular data switching for my US line.
The last time I was in the US was for the holidays and I bought 2 used iPhone 12's for about $200 each. They have some scuffs, but they're perfectly serviceable. In LATAM, it also doesn't attract nearly as much unwanted attention in the street as an iPhone 14 or 15.
I brought these with me as extra devices. When my phone busted last month, thankfully I had a backup in iCloud and everything was loaded in a few minutes as normal. This was before I was using the eSIM, but if I had the eSIM I could just go to Verizon support online via chat and they could help me switch the line to the new device easily.

Basic Configurations

• Always use the latest version of firmware
• Require a passcode that's unique to that device.
• Use FaceID instead of passcode when possible (a thief can't snipe your passcode from a distance if you unlock your phone with FaceID)
• Set auto-lock to 30 seconds (lowest possible)
• Erase data upon excessive passcode failures note, this is complemented in a later step with daily backups. The odds of you putting in the wrong passcode 10 times is low, but in the event you do and you wipe the device by accident, you should be able to easily load in a back-up from the previous day)
• Turn off "Ask to Join Networks"
• Forget unused networks so that you don't rejoin automatically (airports, hotels, etc.)

Creating Backups

• Set iCloud backups to run automatically every night. This will allow you to load your entire phone as is (contacts, call history, iMessages, apps, even your wallpaper) onto another device during setup. The iCloud backup usually runs at 2am while I'm sleeping.
• You may need to pay for a higher tier in iCloud if you have too much stored on your phone. It's $3/month for 200gb of iCloud storage, and I find it worth it. Though I know some people with tens of thousands of photos for which 200gb might not be enough.

Password Policy

• For any accounts that may contain sensitive data (payments, PII, etc), always generate a unique password with 1Password. Don't reuse passwords. Same goes for PIN codes.
• For core accounts, create a strong but memorable password and then memorize it. The odds of getting locked out of 1Password are low if you're diligent, but for 2 or 3 core accounts (where you access money, your primary recovery email, your iCloud, 1Password), it's worth it to create strong, unique passwords for each core service and memorize them.
• I try not to reuse passwords in general, but I still sometimes am lazy and use one of my handful of typical passwords if there's no sensitive data collected by the service and it's a service I don't use often.

MFA

Set up MFA with everything. Add multiple options if possible. My preferred MFA options are as follows:

1. One-time code that renews every 30 seconds. This is device agnostic and can be stored in 1Password. You could also use Microsoft Authenticator, Google Authenticator, Authy or similar, but there's just more overhead to now recover those accounts if your device becomes inaccessible.
2. One-time code to recovery email.
3. One-time code via SMS to my US phone number. On the pay-as-you-go Verizon plan, I only pay 5 cents per text message received. It's worth it to keep one consistent number.
4. List of recovery codes (stored in 1Password as an attached txt file for the given account)
5. Use another app for verification (Google does this a lot).

Lockdown your iCloud security

• Enable MFA.
• Create a strong, unique password.
• Remove any old or unused devices from the iCloud account (old phones, ipods, etc).
• Enable "Find My" for all of your devices.
• In Find My, configure all devices to send the last known location.
• In Find My, enable the configuration to remotely wipe a device.

In the event your phone is stolen, the idea is you could run back to any of your devices or even use a friend's device to log into iCloud on the web, go to Find My, and then in a single button click you can lock and wipe the stolen device. If the thief turned off the device or disabled wifi/cellular, then as soon as it comes back online it will be wiped.

Final Clean-Up

• Move any compromising photos to the "hidden" folder (which requires FaceID or passcode to unlock)
• Review the Files app for any documents containing sensitive info. If you need these documents to be accessible on mobile, then move them to 1Password and delete them from the Files app.
• Create a shortcut to trigger the lock screen (and thus require FaceID or passcode) when specific apps are opened (banking, email, photos, etc).
• Not sure if this is best practice, but I just keep everything in 1P and turn off apple keychain and the apple built-in password manager. I also don't save passwords in Chrome or Safari.

Extra tips

These aren't really iPhone tips but general tips. They are probably obvious to you if you aren't as scatterbrained as me, but I figured that I'd drop them here in case they help someone.

• Add thorough security measures to iCloud, primary email, and any banking or financial services. Review each account and make sure you have a strong, unique password as well as a unique PIN, MFA configured, login alerts, recovery codes, and an international, 24-hour toll-free phone number stored somewhere to contact the service in the event of a crisis. For banking services, add withdrawal limits, regional restrictions (if you bounce between the same few countries), and SMS notifications for charges over a certain threshold. Open up a second checking account with a separate debit card for trips to the ATM.
• Consolidate and close any unused bank accounts. I realized that on my phone I had Revolut, Venmo, Paypal, Nequi, plus 4 US banking institutions. I took this time to close my Discover account (which is pretty much useless outside the US anyway), close my Revolut account since I'm hardly ever in the UK/EU, and consolidate investment accounts from different institutions into just a handful that's easier to monitor.

I am so confused right now.
I (17f), have a best friend, we'll call her B(17f). We became good friends really quickly and it has just been a year of being close to one other. It all started when we had a free period in school and talked about our family and stuff for the whole time without hesitation. From then on we were inseparable. She means so much to me, really. I was soo lonely before her, never had anybody to talk to or just be with and she changed it so I'm really indebted to her for that.
We have just given 12th boads this year (its bacically final exams of 12 standard which is on a all india bases). During the exam month maybe after 2 of the exams I got to know that my grandmother passed away. It was really shocking because even though she was in the hospital, she was making speedy recovery. The day she got discharged from the hospital, we lost her on the way home.
I wasn't really close to her but this is my grandmother we're talking about. I was really disturbed after hearing this, especially because I hadn't met her for years, neither I was able to bid her a last goodbye. I wasn't even able to participate in the rituals for her funeral.
The day I got this news I told B. I told her that my grandmother died. She said it's okay, and that even though my grandmother wasn't nice it's hard to loose a grand parent and that I should focus on my studies. This is badically all that she said. I had talked to her about my grand mother and told her some questionable things that she has done, so maybe she thought that I wasn't affected with her death but idk why I expected her to console me, to just be there for me. i didn't even get are you OK text from her.
The next day she was texting me about how there is this person she texted on reddit who turned out to be weird. That's what she asked me the next day after my grandmother just died. She never asked me how I was, never. I was not as responsive as usually was but that was because i was bloody alone. My parents had all gone to the hometown for the funeral and i was at my aunt's house because i could'nt leave the exams. I was so alone and not even once she asked me how i was. I even told her after a few days that i am not okay and that it really hurt when she started taliking about a guy to me after i told her my grandmother just passed. To that she replied that I was being cold so she thought she should give me some time and also she was sick with a throat infection do she couldn't wait for me to talk.
That really hurt. I know she was unwell and it must be difficult for her to think about other stuff while being in sickand I also understand that I am not a baby and that I shouldn't expect people to coddle me, but that really hurt. She did apologise and said that she didn't expect that I would be affected by this. But then went on as if it's all normal from the other day. After this incident, I tried to just forget it and move past it, but everything that she did just infuriated me. It never felt like she was sorry, even after she said it. This has just made me feel like she doesn't care at all. She is recently started talking to this guy on telegram. And all we talk about is him. "Should I send him this?" Or " he send me this message what should I reply with" something or the other about him. She tells me that she talked to him for hours one day but she couldn't even txt me once.
I was really trying to just forget it, really but I just felt so off. It's like I have to work to make things no longer awkward between us when she was the one that hurt me. It still infuriates me. Every conversation is about her, how her father demotivates her or how her grandma did this or something something along those lines. I have started to feel as if she doesn't know anything about me. Sometimes it's like she doesn't care at all about me.
I know I'm no angle myself. But when I did something wrong I know that I tried to change that about myself, tried to mend things (atleast in my head i was trying, idk if it was noticeable).
I know her life is harder than me, she has gone through more stuff than I have, but sometimes is it too much to expect someone to just listen and tell you that you aren't being dramatic Or hell's sake tell you that you are being dramatic rather that telling them that worse happened with them?
I am so just frustrated right now. We were on a meet and she started to talk to that same telegram guy in the meet. I have done this too but in my head it's like "i did it only once and then apologised for it, and its not like i always talk about someone else while we are together."
I don't know what to do. I really wanted to tell her that I am hurt but it feels like it has been to long and I shouldn't hold on to something that happened a month ago. I really don't want to loose her. She is that only friend that I have and we have a great friendship apart from some things. Idk if what I feel is justified or if i'm being dramatic and entitled, expecting too much from people Please be completely honest and tell me if I'm wrong so that i can try to better myself or how I should handle this situation. Any advice for this pety situation is welcomed.
Thank you for reading Sorry for the long post and if things are unclear, it my first time trying this so I don't really know how to be presise!