I'm asking cuz the 194% CD one has 4 pc echoes (Yeah its unorthodox but it works) with R5 purity while the 198% CD one has 2 pc echos n vermillion with R5 boundless
Both at 2100 atk and 76% crit rate too. If we take out the 4 pc echoes buff, I usually hit around 500 damage less with the 4 pc echos one than the mixed pc one but I more than make up for it with the constant echos buff (14 to 23K NAs and 33k CAs)
What do y'all think ? Is the 500 damage difference big in the long run or I'm fine where I'm at when it comes to damage. Have 0 resources to go for his weapon right now

We own our 1800 sqft home close to the city but know we want to move closer to my husbands school (he's a teacher) and closer to family about 30 minutes away. I bought our current house in 2018 so we have a great interest rate and the area continues to improve, and the value of our home has almost doubled. We've put a good deal of money into this house to improve it and have really made it a home we love. It's got great character (built in 1940) and is in a great location, close to all our fav restaurants. We know we don't want to raise a family in this house and have been talking about moving for a couple years whenever the market slows down a bit.
As of this week, we are looking at and considering a home that would be an upgrade for us: built in 2004, 2100 sqft, more land and a little bit bigger house, great neighborhood, in the town we want to end up in. It seems to be a great house at a great price point, but we'll definitely need to put some money in it to make it what we want.
Any tips/advice for us to think about with our situation? Would love to hear from those who loved their house before they moved and how that experience was. Seems like there will always be a mourning period every time you move but want to make sure that we're thinking all of this through!
TL:DR - considering moving from an 1800 sq ft house to a 2100 sq ft in a neighborhood we want to build a family in and wondering what we need to be thinking about to make the right decision!

I got this for $20 at a garage sale over the weekend. Everything is there but the tank of course.
It’s a 1938 Briggs WMB 1/2 horsepower washing machine engine. The serial number on this is before the first number on the Briggs date chart in October of 1938. From what I understand, production started in September of 1938.
Everything but the throttle moved when I got it home, and I got that moving pretty good earlier today. Hopefully I'll be able to get her running without too much trouble.

Hey worldofpvp,
I was listening to the latest Technically PvP podcast episode, and they touched on the PvP reward structure a couple of times, which got me thinking about what kinds of improvements could be implemented for rewards in PvP, and I thought I'd write a hopefully quick and to the point post to open up the topic for discussion (or have it be lost in the abyss of the subreddit).
A big problem I see with the current implementation is how "top heavy" the rewards are. This subreddit is very guilty of declaring 1800 the point where the game begins, and regularly call it the beginner threshold, whereas mathematically that's more often than not the top 10%-20% of the ladder. The problem is that Blizzard's reward structure actually supports this, because they only (really) start giving meaningful and unique rewards at or above this rating. Contrast this with League's reward structure, where SilveGold players (top 40-60%) can get season specific rewards, like crests and skins.
Now I'm not arguing that Gladiator should be easier to obtain, or that in general the existing rewards should be shifted down, and I say that as a career Duelist -- if they made Glad available at the 2100 equivalent, it would cheapen it for me personally, and I wouldn't want it that way. What should however be done, in my opinion, is giving more unique rewards in the 1000-1800 range.
If new players are to be attracted and retained, we need to recognise 1400, 1600 etc as valid achievements, because, well over half of the ladder will end up at or below these ratings. We should want these players striving for higher ratings and the ultimate prestige, but still be rewarded for the milestones they reach along the way.
There have been many calls for a PvP specific traders post, which I think is a great idea. I've also got a couple of ideas on what creating unique rewards for the mid table could look like, and I'd like to hear everyone's opinions!

Rank specific cosmetics

Currently, there is one tint of the seasonal set for PvP, which you get (in full) at 1800. You do get bits of it on the ranks below this, but getting a pair of trousers and a set of bracers is not a real reward.
Blizzard could create rank-specific tints of the set that you would unlock, in whole, at Combatant, Challenger, Rival, etc.
For instance, you might get the Unranked gear that is greyish tinted, the Combatant gear that is bronze tinted, Challenger gear that is silver tinted. At Rival or Duelist, you might unlock a roided version of the mog (like it was in WoD or Legion), and you get new tints of that mog at Duelist, Elite, etc.
This means that new players might look at a mog that will be available for them at 1400 and aim for that in their first season, which is completely attainable. Next season they might aim for the silver one at 1600. Contrast that with the current system where they might not get anything until 2-3 seasons in (and yes I know there are gamers out there reaching 2.2k in their first season but that's not the majority).
The same approach could be taken with the vicious mounts. You get a naked snail at unranked, and at each new rank you add more/different colour armour to your mount.
Now I know nothing about modelling for games, or graphic design, but I imagine this takes minimal effort. The only complication might come from marrying this system up with the PvE tints.

Season specific titles

Currently, outside of the top 0.1% of the ladder, the titular rewards we get are both temporary and not season specific. This would be fine, but getting the Rival title for the 6th time loses some of its value, not to mention that many people only reach their peak towards the end of the season, meaning they get to rock that Elite title for a whole day or two (during which they're probably burnt out and won't be logging in anyway).
What if we made titles outside of the rank 1 range season specific too? We could have Crimson Duelists, Verdant Rivals and even Eternal Combatants. These titles could persist after the current season, so the achievement would feel more rewarding and permanent.
This would also, implicitly, help with the ever changing disparities between seasons due to inflation and deflation. A Verdant Rivals might be more rare and valuable than an Unchained Duelist, for instance. Or, imagine flexing a Wrathful Elite from when in 2009 you missed Glad by 6 points.
Giving titles their season specific versions (and retrospectively too) would reinforce the validity of "mid table" ratings and send a message that you're worthy of a permanent title before you reach the top 0.1%. The obvious puzzle to solve with this one will be the Gladiator Vs R1 gladiator titles, but I'll let someone on the payroll figure that one out.

N wins at or above the rating

Lastly, and while I'm in two minds about this, I'd think about making the cosmetics require certain wins at or above that rating, same as with glad currently. So in order to get the Rival tint, you'd need to win, say, 10-20 wins at or above Combatant, then 10-20 wins at or above Challenger, then 10-20 wins at or above Rival.
This doesn't directly improve low ratings but it does inject a bit more life into the ladder throughout the season I believe.
To reiterate/summarise, what I think needs to be done is an expansion of the reward system lower down the ladder to give new players things to strive for immediately, without compromising the prestige of existing rewards.
I said the post wouldnt be long but it kind of ended up being that. Appreciate if you got this far and keen to hear anyone's thoughts!
Cheers

MCU F411 Clock=108MHz (PLLP-HSE), Vref=3.28V, Core temp=75degC Stack size: 2048, Stack address: 0x2001fff0 Configuration: CONFIGURED, size: 3994, max available: 16384 Devices detected: SPI:1, I2C:0 Gyros detected: gyro 1 locked dma GYRO=MPU6500, ACC=MPU6500 OSD: MAX7456 System Uptime: 14 seconds, Current Time: 2024-05-11T19:38:28.567+00:00 CPU:78%, cycle time: 125, GYRO rate: 8000, RX rate: 15, System rate: 8 Voltage: 1526 * 0.01V (4S battery - OK) I2C Errors: 0 SD card: Startup failed Arming disable flags: RXLOSS CLI MSP 

defaults nosave # version # Betaflight / STM32F411 (S411) 4.3.2 Nov 28 2022 / 07:27:10 (60c9521) MSP API: 1.44 # config: manufacturer_id: DAFP, board_name: DARWINF411, version: bff306ae, date: 2022-11-15T12:36:53Z # start the command batch batch start # reset configuration to default settings defaults nosave board_name DARWINF411 manufacturer_id DAFP mcu_id 003100353233510a34393532 signature # name: DarwinFPV # serial serial 1 2048 115200 57600 0 115200 serial 30 1 115200 57600 0 115200 # beacon beacon RX_SET # map map RTEA1234 # aux aux 0 0 0 1700 2100 0 0 aux 1 1 1 1350 1600 0 0 aux 2 13 3 1600 2100 0 0 aux 3 35 1 900 1200 0 0 aux 4 39 2 900 1250 0 0 # vtxtable vtxtable bands 5 vtxtable channels 8 vtxtable band 1 BOSCAM_A A FACTORY 5865 5845 5825 5805 5785 5765 5745 5725 vtxtable band 2 BOSCAM_B B FACTORY 5733 5752 5771 5790 5809 5828 5847 5866 vtxtable band 3 BOSCAM_E E FACTORY 5705 5685 5665 5645 5885 5905 5925 5945 vtxtable band 4 FATSHARK F FACTORY 5740 5760 5780 5800 5820 5840 5860 5880 vtxtable band 5 RACEBAND R FACTORY 5658 5695 5732 5769 5806 5843 5880 5917 vtxtable powerlevels 4 vtxtable powervalues 0 1 2 3 vtxtable powerlabels 25 200 400 600 # master set gyro_lpf1_static_hz = 312 set gyro_lpf2_static_hz = 625 set dyn_notch_count = 2 set dyn_notch_min_hz = 100 set dyn_notch_max_hz = 1000 set gyro_lpf1_dyn_min_hz = 312 set gyro_lpf1_dyn_max_hz = 625 set acc_calibration = 34,-30,72,1 set mag_hardware = NONE set dshot_bidir = ON set motor_pwm_protocol = DSHOT300 set simplified_gyro_filter_multiplier = 125 set osd_units = IMPERIAL set osd_vbat_pos = 2455 set osd_link_quality_pos = 2082 set osd_tim_2_pos = 2433 set osd_flymode_pos = 2105 set osd_throttle_pos = 2401 set osd_crosshairs_pos = 2253 set osd_craft_name_pos = 2442 set osd_altitude_pos = 2114 set osd_warnings_pos = 14697 set osd_avg_cell_voltage_pos = 2423 set osd_nheading_pos = 2381 set osd_flip_arrow_pos = 2222 set vtx_band = 4 set vtx_channel = 1 set vtx_power = 4 set vtx_low_power_disarm = UNTIL_FIRST_ARM set vtx_freq = 5740 set vcd_video_system = ###ERROR IN diff: CORRUPTED CONFIG: vcd_video_system = 3### set gyro_1_sensor_align = CW90 set gyro_1_align_pitch = 0 set rpm_filter_harmonics = 2 set name = DarwinFPV profile 0 # profile 0 set vbat_sag_compensation = 100 set anti_gravity_gain = 10000 set iterm_relax_cutoff = 10 set p_pitch = 75 set i_pitch = 134 set d_pitch = 76 set f_pitch = 199 set p_roll = 71 set i_roll = 127 set d_roll = 67 set f_roll = 191 set p_yaw = 71 set i_yaw = 127 set f_yaw = 191 set d_min_roll = 67 set d_min_pitch = 76 set thrust_linear = 20 set dyn_idle_min_rpm = 35 set simplified_master_multiplier = 160 set simplified_d_gain = 140 set simplified_dmax_gain = 0 

What will you be doing with this PC? Be as specific as possible, and include specific games or programs you will be using.

• Mainly for work - 3D VFX artist Works including Modelling, texturing, animation, lighting, particle/haifx simulations and importantly rendering

Softwares I used 1. Maya 2. Houdini 3. Blender 4. Unreal engine (requires higher VRam ) 5 most Adobe software including substance painter and premier pro 6. Nuke
Also Gaming, not hardcore but more than casual gamer...( Apex legends, farcry or any other story based)

What is your maximum budget before rebates/shipping/taxes?

• 2 lakh rupees, but trying to do some cost cutting ( only in GPU) to make it 1.8 lakh(2100$) only for TOWER.

When do you plan on building/buying the PC? Note: beyond a week or two from today means any build you receive will be out of date when you want to buy.

• 1 week

What, exactly, do you need included in the budget? (ToweOS/monitokeyboard/mouse/etc)

• Just tower for (1.8 lakh/2100$) But also looking for an ultrawide monitor 34/38inch (35k/450$) Decent mouse and keyboard (4+4=8k/100$)

Which country (and state/province) will you be purchasing the parts in? ?

• India (Telangana or Andhrapradesh)/Hyderabad

If reusing any parts (including monitor(s)/keyboard/mouse/etc), what parts will you be reusing? Brands and models are appreciated.

• I have a new (1month old) Crucial T500 1TB Gen4 NVMe M.2 Internal Gaming SSD, Up to 7300MB/s Monitor - Acer VG27U 2k 144hz gaming monitor ( willing to sell this to compensate for the new ultrawide monitor)

Will you be overclocking? If yes, are you interested in overclocking right away, or down the line? CPU and/or GPU?

• Yeah I might overclock especially for speeding up the rendering process.

Are there any specific features or items you want/need in the build? (ex: SSD, large amount of storage or a RAID setup, CUDA or OpenCL support, etc)

• Yes looking for a good 4TB HDD

Do you have any specific case preferences (Size like ITX/microATX/mid-towefull-tower, styles, colors, window or not, LED lighting, etc), or a particular color theme preference for the components?

• Not much interested in RGB, also don't mind if it is there, but cooling is main preference over RGB lighting or even size..

Do you need a copy of Windows included in the budget? If you do need one included, do you have a preference?

• I already have one windows 11 connected to my Microsoft account, which came with my old laptop ( currently dead- since one month)

** So one of my main preferences is powerful cooling, because the rendering will use high power and produce extreme temperatures so I want a cooling unit that can handle extreme temperatures...
So I am considering 1.2 lakh (1400$) to the PC, excluding graphic card and with the choose the graphic card based on the remaining amount....
Current build preference:
CPU - ryzen 7950x or 7950x 3D( if better for work load)
MOTHERBOARD - which can handle the full potential of both processes and gpu without any tweaking(undeover clocking ) also should support atleast 128GB of RAM(4800-6000MT)
RAM - 128/64GB ( 4800-6000MT) will choose bigger RAM over faster Ram because of the constrains in simulations.
PSU - need something future proof (1000wt) preferably..
CABINET and COOLING UNIT - performance (cooling) over looks
GPU - need atleast (16GB ) or (12GB) VRAM
STORAGE - 4TB SSD or HDD (Seagate IronWolf 3.5 Inches SATA 6 Gb/s 5900 RPM 64 MB Cache - current preference)
MOUSE : durable middle button ( Logitech - G402 - current option )
Keyboard : including numpad
MONITOR : ultra wide monitor with good refresh rate and colour accuracy... Prefer ips ( Current options GIGABYTE G34Wqc A 34" - not available online LG ultra Gear 34" ultrawide Samsung Odyssey G5 - ultrawide )

As I wrote in my previous post ( https://www.reddit.com/Tekken/s/LKeoN7naLT ) I have downloaded almost all data of player matches from wavu wank website and ready Glicko2 algorithm to calculate player rating.
I was wondering what if I apply the Glicko2 algorithm to calculate character rankings.
I used data from March 23 to May 3. That's about 590k players and 60 million matches.
The values of hyperparameters in Glicko2 are standard from the original article.
To calculate the rating I took the following formula:
RealRating = 50 + Glicko2Rating - 3 * Glicko2Deviation
With:
Rating period = 1 day
First I calculated the RealRating for all players with deviation <= 35. Players were distributed with RealRating values: 700 - 2100.
I categorized all players into the following ranges based on RealRating:
1800 - 2100 - High
1600 - 1800 - Intermediate
1200 - 1600 - Medium
700 - 1200 - Low
PS. 1450 is Mighty Ruler-Battle Ruler for comparison.
Separately for each range and for all players I calculated the RealRating value using Glicko2.
These are the results I got:
All skill levels:

 1. Kuma: 1569 2. Devil Jin: 1564 3. Raven: 1562 4. Panda: 1560 5. Dragunov: 1559 6. Victor: 1559 7. Alisa: 1559 8. Feng: 1559 9. Yoshimitsu: 1558 10. Lee: 1558 11. Lars: 1558 12. Jack-8: 1558 13. Jin: 1557 14. Xiaoyu: 1556 15. Nina: 1556 16. Zafina: 1555 17. Hwoarang: 1554 18. Leo: 1554 19. King: 1552 20. Shaheen: 1552 21. Claudio: 1551 22. Law: 1550 23. Eddy: 1547 24. Asuka: 1546 25. Lili: 1546 26. Steve: 1546 27. Azucena: 1545 28. Reina: 1545 29. Bryan: 1544 30. Jun: 1543 31. Kazuya: 1541 32. Leroy: 1539 33. Paul: 1531 

High:

 1. Jin: 1514 2. Feng: 1503 3. Reina: 1501 4. Kuma: 1490 5. Hwoarang: 1481 6. Steve: 1480 7. Lili: 1479 8. Yoshimitsu: 1475 9. Dragunov: 1467 10. Raven: 1457 11. Jun: 1451 12. Bryan: 1449 13. King: 1446 14. Kazuya: 1440 15. Jack-8: 1439 16. Paul: 1435 17. Nina: 1434 18. Shaheen: 1427 19. Law: 1427 20. Xiaoyu: 1423 21. Alisa: 1421 22. Lee: 1419 23. Leroy: 1417 24. Azucena: 1415 25. Leo: 1415 26. Asuka: 1413 27. Eddy: 1412 28. Claudio: 1401 29. Lars: 1388 30. Victor: 1383 31. Devil Jin: 1361 32. Zafina: 1358 33. Panda: 1301 

Intermediate

 1. Devil Jin: 1524 2. Victor: 1524 3. Lars: 1523 4. Dragunov: 1522 5. Alisa: 1519 6. Nina: 1519 7. Xiaoyu: 1518 8. Reina: 1517 9. Feng: 1516 10. Leo: 1516 11. King: 1516 12. Jack-8: 1514 13. Lili: 1514 14. Jin: 1513 15. Yoshimitsu: 1513 16. Eddy: 1512 17. Law: 1511 18. Steve: 1510 19. Lee: 1510 20. Panda: 1509 21. Kuma: 1509 22. Zafina: 1509 23. Asuka: 1509 24. Raven: 1508 25. Shaheen: 1507 26. Jun: 1506 27. Kazuya: 1505 28. Hwoarang: 1505 29. Claudio: 1502 30. Paul: 1500 31. Bryan: 1498 32. Leroy: 1498 33. Azucena: 1491 

Medium

 1. Kuma: 1561 2. Devil Jin: 1557 3. Raven: 1554 4. Yoshimitsu: 1553 5. Panda: 1553 6. Dragunov: 1553 7. Alisa: 1551 8. Jin: 1550 9. Feng: 1550 10. Victor: 1550 11. Lars: 1550 12. Lee: 1549 13. Xiaoyu: 1549 14. Hwoarang: 1548 15. Nina: 1546 16. King: 1546 17. Leo: 1545 18. Claudio: 1545 19. Law: 1543 20. Shaheen: 1541 21. Eddy: 1540 22. Lili: 1540 23. Azucena: 1539 24. Reina: 1539 25. Zafina: 1539 26. Steve: 1539 27. Bryan: 1537 28. Asuka: 1537 29. Jack-8: 1535 30. Kazuya: 1534 31. Jun: 1533 32. Leroy: 1532 33. Paul: 1525 

Low

 1. Kazuya: 1439 2. Azucena: 1424 3. Steve: 1420 4. Jun: 1412 5. Feng: 1409 6. Jin: 1404 7. Law: 1402 8. Alisa: 1401 9. Paul: 1397 10. Asuka: 1396 11. Hwoarang: 1392 12. Reina: 1379 13. Leo: 1378 14. Claudio: 1376 15. Bryan: 1375 16. King: 1374 17. Nina: 1371 18. Lili: 1367 19. Leroy: 1366 20. Panda: 1364 21. Lee: 1363 22. Lars: 1361 23. Xiaoyu: 1360 24. Raven: 1359 25. Dragunov: 1358 26. Jack-8: 1350 27. Zafina: 1347 28. Yoshimitsu: 1343 29. Victor: 1341 30. Devil Jin: 1333 31. Shaheen: 1316 32. Eddy: 1307 33. Kuma: 1263 

PS Still couldn't get in touch with the author of the site wavu wank :(

I have 1 acre and a 46" tractor currently. Tons of things to cut around and and a ton of wasted time making turn arounds to cut odd shaped sections. That being said it's only about an hour job with the tractor.
I'm looking at used zt1's and am most drawn to the 46" model with a kawasaki engine (reason being inhsve a kohler in my tractor and my opinion of it is TRASH). I'm drawn to the 46" as its the largest with 2 blades. My logic there is 1. less blades/spindles for replacement/maintenance and 2. With similar horsepower ratings to a 50-54" model it would seem that a 2 blade mower would offer more power per cutting inch due to significantly less rotating weight as well as significantly less "drag" (for lack of a better turn) against the lawn.
I would imagine a 42" zt1 would still cut my yard a good bit faster than my 46" tractor so I'm not opposed to that either.
However in shopping for zt1s it seems like 46" is exceedingly less common than 42", 50" and 54". Prices don't seem to vary drastically so I'm wondering if I should consider a 50" or 54" model?
What would the drawbacks be to them as opposed to a smaller one? Are they any less maneuverable? Is my logic on 46" having more umphhh per square inch vs a 50-54" valid? Is there a difference in cut quality/how the lawn is left with a 2 blade vs 3 blade zero turn?
Thanks in advance.

So I make $22.25/hr for 40 hrs with 1.5x for OT which is maxed at 8 hrs/week, my bills each month average about $2100 for necessity/regular bills(not including food or extras), monthly pay for base 40 hrs/week is $3560(gross) and $2314(take home). Debt is 2 credit cards ( 1st @ $4500/5000 and 2nd @ $2480/2500), car(about $20,000), and home($150,000). I feel like i don't have anything too crazy for an average American. Recently got out of a 2 income relationship/lifestyle and now I got left with most of the bills without the extra income. I've been trying to do delivery services on the side(doordash, uber eats) as well as sell spare items. I wanna break that debt down relatively quick or lower my monthly necessity bills, only thing I can really lower is my car(2023 elantra w/ 14k miles & warranties for $391/mth) but with my debt being so maxed out my score is dropping and interest rates will go up and I won't be able to save money on my payment but rather spend more on interest for a worse/less reliable vehicle. Idk what to do and before I do anything stupid I'm trying to ask for help before making a decision. Thanks in advance for your time.

Less than a year ago, I bought my first home! As such, I didn't really have any yard equipment to bring with me. Well, it's that time of year now where I desperately need to start mowing. I've used a zero turn in the past on someone else's property, and it was a blast compared to the traditional-style rider. As my yard is mostly flat with few obstacles, I decided I wanted to get one of my own.
The following are options which seem highly rated online and are within an hour or two's drive of me. What are your thoughts on them?

1. Bad Boy BMZ4219BG - Tractor Supply - $3600
2. Gravely ZT X 918010 - Local store about 1hr away - $4000
3. Husqvarna Z254F Special - Tractor Supply - $3200

These are options which seem decent from my limited understanding and research (which mostly says to avoid the Orange/Blue stores). I'm trying to stay around $3-4K, but will happily entertain suggestions for other options with better build/longevity/maintenance. A slightly more expensive mower that will last twice as long is better than $2500 in repairs in the next 5 years!
Bonus question: I don't imagine a ZT mower would be any good at pulling things, would they? Things such as a log splitter, small trailer, and a garden cart using a ball socket.

I’m trying to get a solid recommendation and get some questions regarding my 3^rd foray into the plunge world.
I’ve just been burned over the past 6 months by a terrible all in one experience. I watch David Maus cold tub videos and a lot of folks are not fans of Chinese made all in ones, I want to make sure my next decision is the correct one. And hopefully, this can give some context to you and your viewers about experience if you ever get questions about this.
With that being said here is some context (not necessary to read, but does give some details):

• · I live in Austin, TX enough said about weather. Hot as heck for 8 months, cold for 4…below freezing probably 3 – 4 times a year
• · I’ve been an avid DIYER for over 2 years having built my own chest freezer
• · In October I decided to (I bet you hate this pun by now) take the plunge and go with an inflatable and all in one

o I decided on Redwood Outdoors because they had the biggest xl and highest horse power and heater+chiller, because I do use heater all winter long since I have a pool that gets ice cold so I can plunge in there, then go to the tub for hot
· My experience with Redwood

• o 1. Got sent the wrong all in one….it was regular not deluxe, so had to ship it back and get the correct one
• o 2. Got the new one that worked for maybe a month until it had flow rate issues that went down to zero sent back
• o 3. Got 3^rd one that lasted 4 months until present time. Cleared out inlet filter basket changed filter. Flow rate 0…complete failure
• o Sent back. Gave me a full refund allowed me to keep the tub
• o Their customer service and communication is excellent.. Their cold tub products suck.
  • Observations about the Redwood product
• Chinese all in one that fail frequently and hard to diagnose
• § Tub was ok…deflated a bit and had to air up to full psi about once every two weeks
• § Their covers are garbage, regular material, non inflatable and pooled water every time in rained

§ TOTAL COST: $5,181.84 USD, not including cost spent in building fencing around to cover up the tub and chiller
§ TOTAL TIME SPENT: HOURS, installing, setting up, diagnosing, disassembling, having to mail heavy chillers back and forth, building a setup and coverup of green walls to cover an ugly tub, that are now gone to waste

So now moving forward and attempting to upgrade to yet another product. Right now I have narrowed down my options to:
1. BrainPod 2.0 Commercial
2. Plunge XL Evolve
I have categorized with some general questions as well as questions regarding each specific unit. The answers in blue are answers that I have gotten from the companies, but would like your validation to ensure they are accurate.
MY WISHLIST:

• · Under $8000, but really shooting for between $5k - $7k
• · Non-inflatable, permanent – I already have inflatable tub and don’t like having to reinflate constantly
• · Low maintenance: Just like to change filter and add chemicals. Constantly checking of inlet basket and painful drainage is not desired
• · Heater Option – Seems like most of the high quality heaters don’t heater for the purpose of a hot tub but just for antifreeze, but nice to have as an option
• · Completely submerge above shoulders
• · Less than 2 months wait preferably?
• · Military discount, as I’m active military
• · Somewhat narrow in width for where I’m putting it. The 70+ inch length is long but the width of the commercial brainpod seems not feasible.

GENERAL:

• · Do you find ozone cleaning to be a necessary option
• · Does horsepower make a difference in cooling or cooling time in your opinion?
• · Do you have any recommendations for submersible heaters or heating pumps that I can add to a tub aftermarket, to use as a hot tub during winter months, and do you recommend this or have you tried?
  • o https://www.amazon.com/XCLBTFDC-Submersible-Thermostat-Electrical-Anti-Corrosion/dp/B0CGK6Y1XF/ref=sr_1_9?crid=3C2Y3RZ1CFIE8&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.fXLY6agTJHjqzcBa-yyC-XSfJRtV_VErv3An660VBCkHHBV3IDQG6G89n8yXKu7lFGpuVedYFnID4XLuhoDaBavUlBh0Ws4Pn7vIwQpxBt7dWm1gTT0SAJSmm5QCB3mgDB6YZWqIe64709Fhc8F_F2oyNLk_jFazxTmCLXVBVuK7yaoQHus-Nq0O86eNfaoeHvTIiNsUejZzMz5vIn2pQATXBvs3xeq95Kc5czBLyic.cQW-pR_DTCeRgpNivlDQl-qJHtj0UoGxWdFaJvMqo5k&dib_tag=se&keywords=submersible+heater+for+hot+tub&qid=1715226502&sprefix=submersible+heater+for%2Caps%2C410&sr=8-9

BRAINPOD
· What is your overall impression of the commercial unit?
· The salesperson I’m coordinating with says they’ve never had a return or repair of a commercial unit?
· It seems like for commercial they just use the 1hp ecoplus chiller?
· He mentioned with the commercial filtration you only have to change filter every month?
· Are you aware if this commercial unit has ozone?
· Does this unit need to be covered outdoors?
o Salesperson said no, but could help
· This unit has no defrost or freeze protect option correct?

PLUNGE EVOLVE XL
· Is the all in the same as evolve just with the chiller built in
o Yes pretty much same thing
· I know this chiller is brand new so not familiar with failure rates?
· Are you aware of maintenance routines on these other than chemicals and changing the filter?
o Above two are only requirements
· Are filters on this proprietary or can you buy aftermarket
· Are you familiar with the repair on these?
o Plunge said they said techs out within a day, and it is rare to have to mail back chiller?
· Are you aware of how this thing holds up outdoors?
· Are you aware of what happens after the 1 year warranty and how much repair cost is?
Also if there is a unit that you like that I haven’t considered here, feel free to specify.

Thank you so much for reading this novel and your help in getting back to me.

you can get the whole entire changelog at https://calamitymod.wiki.gg/wiki/2.0.4.001. i just what i can to reddit
The 2.0.4.001 (or 2.0.4) update rebalanced hundreds of bosses and enemies through health changes and removing several forms of contact damage, implemented Master Mode changes for vanilla bosses, and gave new AI changes to most vanilla bosses. It also rebalanced hundreds of weapons, armors, and debuffs, including tiershifting Depth Cells crafts to post-Leviathan and reworking the Depth Crusher line and most ammos, and fixed several lingering bugs from previous updates.
Additions

• Added Arietes 41, Chronomancer's Scythe, The Dark Master, Lilies of Finality, Nitro Express Rifle, and Teslastaff.
• Added Hallow-Point Round.
• Added Eutrophic Crate, Hydrothermal Crate, Monolith Crate, and Slag Crate.
• Added Activated Auric Panel, Astral Projector, Auric Absorber, Auric Console, Auric Display, Auric Panel, Auric Platform, Auric Reinforced Crate, Auric Repulser Panel, Auric Screen, Auric Server, Auric Terminal, Blue Distorted Monolith, Boss Rush Monolith, Brimstone Lava Fountain, Cirrus Couch, Deep Sea Anchor, Draconic Incense, Exo-Auric Panel, Exo Obelisk, Frigid Monolith, Music Box (Codebreaker), Plague Humidifier, Purple Distorted Monolith, Slab Crab Banner, and Wulfrum Plating Wall.
• Added Desert Nuisance (Young) and Slab Crab.
• Added Crystal Heart Vodka.
• Added the following new sounds:
  • Anahita hit and death sounds, Astrum Aureus laser, flame crystal, teleport, and death sounds, Astrum Deus hit and god ray sounds, Deus Mine explosion, Dragon's Breath's beam of fire starting, Frigidflash Bolt use and projectile death, Perforator Hive spawn sound, Perforator Hive hit, death, blood shot, ichor blob, and worm spawn sounds, small Perforator hit and death sounds, medium Perforator hit and death sounds, large Perforator hit and death sounds, Storm Weaver armor shed and death sounds, Stormlion idle, hit, and death sounds, Stygian Shield dash charge, dash, dash hit, shield throw, and shield catch, Supreme Calamitas summon rumble, Cataclysm and Catastrophe hit and death sounds, and Tears of Heaven use.
• Added Rotdog gores.
• Added a Codebreaker UI option to communicate with Draedon, which appears after defeating the Exo Mechs.
• Added a section in the bestiary displaying NPC vulnerabilities and resistances to debuff types.
• Added buff icons for Betsy's Curse, Celled, Daybroken, Dryad's Bane, Frostbite, Hellfire, and Oiled on the NPC debuff display.
• Added custom text on the world selection screen for Calamity difficulties.
• Added configuration options for removing lava drops from Lava Slimes, and toggling new vanilla textures.
• Added Mod Calls for getting and setting permanent health and mana upgrades, consuming stealth, and adding custom solutions to the Androomba.
• Added support for average, true melee, and rogue damage colors for the Colored Damage Types mod.
• All Calamity bosses now properly scale their health in Master Mode. This should result in lower health overall.
• All vanilla bosses outside of Revengeance Mode can now turn the Calamity Boss Health Bar red when enraged, and gray when gaining a temporary defense boost or invulnerability.
• All bosses no longer use a global scaling contact damage formula based on boss velocity.
  • Aquatic Scourge, Armored Digger, Astrum Deus, Cosmic Guardian, Desert Nuisance, Desert Scourge, The Destroyer, The Devourer of Gods, Eater of Worlds, the Perforators, Storm Weaver, and XM-05 Thanatos now use a different formula for scaling contact damage based on velocity, which scales from half damage to full damage on the head, and 0 to full damage on the body and tail.
• Increased the Early Hardmode Progression Rework's health and damage multiplier from 0.8x to 0.9x for the first mech, and from 0.9x to 0.95x for the second mech in Expert and Master Mode.
• The following bosses no longer enrage based on time in the Don't dig up seed:
  • Astrum Aureus, Astrum Deus, Calamitas Clone, Rev+ The Destroyer, Rev+ Eye of Cthulhu, Providence, Rev+ Skeletron, Rev+ Skeletron Prime, and Rev+ The Twins.
• Buffed most boss contact damage values in Classic Mode:

Aquatic Scourge

• Added a glowmask to toxic cloud projectiles.
• No longer drops Deep Diver.
• Now takes 75% damage from Snowstorm Staff, 60% damage from SHPC, and 50% damage from Adamantite Throwing Axe's lightning and Mounted Scanner.

​
Astrum Aureus

• No longer deals contact damage while not jumping.
• Now takes 70% damage from The Ballista's greatarrows instead of 65%.

Astrum Deus

• Can now be summoned at all times in the Don't dig up seed.
• Boosted damage reduction on spawn now smoothly scales down to its normal damage reduction.
• Buffed body damage reduction from 20% to 25%, and tail damage reduction from 30% to 40%.
• No longer takes 80% damage from all sources in phase 1.
• Now takes 80% damage from Cluster Rocket fragments, 65% damage from Icicle Arrows, 45% damage from Flak Kraken, and 30% damage from Charged Blaster Cannon.
• Now takes 40% damage from Aurora Blazer instead of 30%.
• No longer takes 75% damage from Resurrection Butterfly.

​
Brain of Cthulhu

• Buffed health from 1500 / 2550 📷 / 3060 📷 / 3251 📷 / 3901 📷 📷 to 1500 / 2550 📷 / 4207 📷 / 3251 📷 / 5364 📷 📷.
• Buffed Creeper's health from 100 / 170 📷 / 187 📷 / 216 📷 / 238 📷 📷 to 100 / 170 📷 / 238 📷 / 216 📷 / 303 📷 📷, and damage from 20 / 36 📷 / 54 📷 / 72 📷 / 90 📷 to 24 / 36 📷 / 66 📷 / 96 📷 / 120 📷.
• Decreased Creeper amount from 25 📷 / 30 📷 to 20 📷 / 30 📷, in the For the worthy seed from 40 to 35, and in Legendary Mode from 50 to 40.
• No longer deals contact damage during phase 1, and Creepers no longer deal contact damage while not charging in all difficulties.
• Creepers now take 25% damage from damaging debuffs.
• Revengeance Mode changes:
  • Decreased enrage scale boost while on the surface, and surface enrage no longer triggers when in front of unsafe Crimstone walls.
  • Increased teleport distance and maximum velocity in phase 1.
  • Creepers now teleport with the Brain when not charging, and have a telegraph when they're about to charge.
  • Increased Creeper velocity, and velocity scales with how many Creepers are alive, but velocity is now less affected by enrage scale.
  • Decreased the maximum time before Creepers return to the Brain, and Creepers now fire blood shots when returning.
  • Increased knockback resistance, and now creates 4 additional clones in the cardinal directions in phase 2.
  • Now starts performing spinning lunges at 80% health instead of 60%, and fires a spread of blood shots during spinning lunges.
  • Now has a smaller spin radius, and waits longer before teleporting after a spinning lunge.
  • Now fires blood shots from 2 directions when below 60% health, and from 4 directions when below 40% health.
  • Now lunges faster, has a smaller delay between spinning lunges, has increased blood shot velocity, and can teleport to the cardinal directions when below 25% health.
  • Now lunges even faster and has an even smaller delay between spinning lunges when below 10% health.
  • Increased minimum backup distance before performing a spinning lunge from 25 tiles to 40.
• Now has more knockback resistance at the start of phase 2, creates 8 more faint illusions, has an even smaller delay before the spinning lunge, lunges even faster, shoots more blood shots in a larger spread, blood shots have increased velocity, Creepers charge even faster based on how many are alive, and Creepers no longer push away from each other in Death Mode.
• Now spawns 30 Creepers, it and Creepers gain a small boost to enrage scale, Creepers have immunity to knockback and less inertia, charge more often, and can charge for longer, and moves faster in phase 1 in Master Mode.
• Now makes Creeper charges predictive, has a faster phase 2 move speed and less inertia, spawns additional Creepers during phase 2, shoots more blood shots in a wider spread, charges at the player longer after spinning lunges, and spinning lunges are predictive in Revengeance Master Mode.

​
Brimstone Elemental

• No longer deals contact damage while not directly moving towards the player.
• Nerfed Brimling's knockback resistance from 100% to 50%.

Calamitas clone

• Can now be summoned at all times in the Don't dig up seed.
• No longer deals contact damage while not charging.
• Cataclysmic Construct and Catastrophic Construct now deal half contact damage while not charging, and are now affected by the Boss Health Boost Percentage config option.
• No longer has reduced acceleration while holding a true melee weapon.
• Soul Seekers now have 25% less health and 10% less damage in Master Mode.
• No longer drops Broken Hero Sword.

​
Ceaseless Void

• Buffed contact damage from 150 / 300 📷 / 330 📷 / 348 📷 / 450 📷 to 240 / 360 📷 / 396 📷 / 432 📷 / 720 📷.
• No longer deals contact damage during Dark Energy phases.
• Dark Energies now have 25% less health and 10% less damage in Master Mode.
• Dark Energies now take 60% damage from Stellar Torus Staff.

​
Crabulon

• Changed health from 3350 / 5360 📷 / 6400 📷 / 8040 📷 / 9600 📷 📷 to 3700 / 5920 📷 / 7040 📷 / 7548 📷 / 8976 📷 📷.
• Buffed Crab Shroom's health from 15 / 30 📷 / 45 📷 to 30 / 60 📷 / 67 📷, and knockback resistance from 25% to 50%.
• Decreased how far above the player it spawns.
• No longer deals contact damage while not jumping.
• Significantly decreased how long it idles before cycling its attack pattern, but hitting it no longer speeds up the idle timer.
• Increased walking speed, and walking speed now increases in higher difficulties.
• Decreased how long it stays in the walking phase and how long it takes to turn around while walking in Revengeance Mode.
• Now spawns 3 Crab Shrooms in Expert Mode instead of 2-3.
• Decreased how high mush bombs aim. Mush bombs are now shot at a faster rate in higher difficulties, and mush bomb speed now increases when below 66% and 33% health.
• Upwards speed, vertical acceleration, and fall speed while moving through tiles now increase in higher difficulties.
• Increased how often it jumps in Expert Mode and Boss Rush.
• Horizontal and vertical speed on jumps now scales based on health in Expert Mode and higher.
• Now spawns falling mushrooms on jumps when below 33% health in Expert Mode.
• Now idles for less time, spawns 4 Crab Shrooms instead of 3, shoots mush bombs lower and mush bombs decelerate less, has a higher horizontal speed while jumping, falls faster when directly above the player during a jump, increased number of falling mushrooms and their velocity, spawns falling mushrooms on every jump when below 66% health, and final jump spawns even more falling mushrooms when below 33% health in Death Mode.
• Crab Shrooms now spawn every 2% of health lost in the For the worthy seed instead of 2.5%.
• Crab Shrooms now have a faster horizontal velocity and a slower vertical velocity in Revengeance and Death Mode.
• Crab Shrooms now have 25% less health and 10% less damage in Master Mode.
• Crab Shrooms now spawn less dust when hit and killed.

Cryogen

• Buffed health from 30,000 / 48,000 📷 / 57,600 📷 / 72,000 📷 / 86,400 📷 📷 to 40,000 / 64,000 📷 / 76,800 📷 / 81,600 📷 / 97,920 📷 📷.
• No longer deals contact damage while not charging.
• Cryogen's Shield no longer deals contact damage unless it is fully opaque.
• Now slows down and spins for 1.5 seconds before charging at the player at the start of phase 6.

​
Deerclops

• Nerfed health from 10,000 / 17,000 📷 / 20,400 📷 / 21,675 📷 / 26,010 📷 📷 to 10,000 / 17,000 📷 / 21,675 📷.
• Revengeance Mode changes:
  • Ice spike attack now covers a larger distance when below 50% health.
  • Rubble now appears translucent before dealing damage. Rubble attack now makes rubble fly up faster as health lowers.
  • Shadow hand circle attack now spawns between 5 and 16 hands depending on health instead of always spawning 9, shadow hand rotation is now randomized, and their velocity now scales as health lowers.
  • Number of shadow hands spawned when directly above it now scales between 3 and 10 as health lowers instead of always being 6.
  • Can now despawn if all players are dead.
• Now moves faster, ice spikes last longer, passively spawns shadow hands faster, shadow hands move faster, spawns more rubble in a denser spread, and makes rubble fly up faster and at a faster rate in Death Mode.
• Now spawns even more rubble in an even denser spread, rubber flies up even faster, ice spikes last even longer, spawns more shadow hands in the shadow hand circle attack that have faster velocity, and spawns more shadow hands when directly above it in Revengeance Master Mode.

​
Desert Scourge

• Buffed health from 2500 / 4000 📷 / 4800 📷 / 6000 📷 / 7200 📷 📷 to 4200 / 6720 📷 / 8000 📷 / 8568 📷 / 10,200 📷 📷.
• Buffed Desert Nuisance health from 1120 📷 / 1680 📷 📷 to 1500 / 2100 📷 / 2520 📷 / 3150 📷 / 3780 📷 📷.
• Buffed Desert Nuisance's head defense from 2 to 3, body defense from 4 to 5, and tail defense from 7 to 8.
• Decreased total segment count from 26 / 31 📷 / 36 📷 / 41 📷 to 16 / 19 📷 / 22 📷 / 25 📷.
• No longer gains increased size in higher difficulties.
• Increased velocity in all difficulties, but decreased how fast velocity increases as health lowers.
• Head no longer fires spreads of sand blasts.
• Burrow attack timer now only increments if the head is below the player and far enough away, increased the delay between burrow attacks, burrow attack no longer has a shorter delay in Death Mode, and increased speed during the burrow attack. Burrow attack now spawns a visual sand splash when emerging from the ground.
• Increased velocity of sand blasts in the burrow attack, and increased number of sand blasts from 12 / 16 📷 / 20 📷 / 24 📷 / 30 in Boss Rush to 12 / 18 📷 / 21 📷 / 24 📷 / 30 in Boss Rush.
• Decreased enrage scale's boosts to velocity and turn speed.
• Desert Nuisances are no longer summoned at the start of the fight in Revengeance Mode, and instead are summoned at 50% health in Expert Mode. While Desert Nuisances are alive, Desert Scourge is immune to damage and hides underneath the ground.
• Killing one Desert Nuisance now gives the other a slight boost to enrage scale in Revengeance Mode. Both Desert Nuisances always have this boost in Death Mode.
• Now forced to turn around if it gets over 125 tiles away from the player.
• Now gains increased turn speed in Death Mode.
• Now gains increased velocity in For the worthy and Get fixed boi.
• No longer drops Aero Stone.

​
The Destroyer

• Boosted damage reduction on spawn now smoothly scales down to its normal damage reduction, and it now has this damage reduction outside of Revengeance Mode.
• Reduced laser spread, and lasers now start slow and accelerate over time while outside of Revengeance Mode.
• Changed laser fire rate to be more random in its timing.
• Decreased red laser On Fire! duration from 4 seconds to 3.
• Buffed red laser damage in Expert Mode from 72 📷 to 96 📷, cursed laser damage from 76 📷 to 108 📷, and electric laser damage from 80 📷 to 116 📷.
• Revengeance Mode changes:
  • Body segments now have a reticle telegraph and glow the color of the laser they will fire before firing.
  • Slightly decreased maximum velocity of lasers.
  • Segments now smoothly transition color when entering the flying phase, and decreased speed in the flying phase.
  • Body segments no longer shoot any projectiles if their Probe has detached.
  • Now gains increased speed and acceleration and shoots lasers faster based on how many Probeless segments there are.
  • Nerfed size modifier from 150% 📷 / 170% 📷 to 120% 📷 / 140% 📷, and in the Get fixed boi seed from 250% to 200%.
• Buffed Probe size modifier in Death Mode from 130% 📷 to 140% 📷.
• Now has higher velocity and acceleration, has a smaller distance before flying towards the player, fires lasers faster as health lowers, lasers move at a higher velocity, and Probes have increased velocity and acceleration in Expert Mode.
• Tightened the spread of head lasers in Death Mode. Head laser spreads can now fire cursed lasers when below 85% health, and electric lasers when below 70% health.
• Now has higher velocity and acceleration, turns around faster, falls faster, has an even smaller distance before flying towards the player, lasers are shot more often and move at even higher velocity, can always fire cursed and electric lasers, Death Mode head laser spreads have more lasers in a wider spread, body segments can regenerate Probes if there are less than 40 alive, Probes have increased velocity and acceleration, and Probes no longer have their laser firing interrupted when hit in Revengeance Master Mode.
• Nerfed Probe's health in Boss Rush from 10,000 to 5000.
• Increased Probe velocity and acceleration in Revengeance Mode and Boss Rush.
• Now takes 75% damage from SHPC, 55% damage from Mounted Scanner, and 50% damage from Adamantite Throwing Axe's lightning, Aftershock's rocks, and Avalanche's ice bombs.
• Now takes 75% damage from Snowstorm Staff instead of 85%.
• No longer takes 85% damage from Mineral Mortar, or 60% damage from Cryophobia.

The Devourer of Gods

• Tail no longer deals contact damage during the phase 2 transition or during its brief invulnerability after a teleport.
• Increased the speed of body lasers.
• Phase 2 transition teleport now occurs on the drop of Universal Collapse instead of the 3 note buildup.
• No longer uses dialogue during Boss Rush.
• Changed the color of the buffed Solar Eclipse status message from orange to yellow.
• Now takes 20% damage from Wave Pounder instead of 60%.
• Cosmic Guardians now have 25% less health and 10% less damage in Master Mode.

Dragonfolly

• No longer deals contact damage while not flying quickly at the player in phase 1 or charging. Dragonfolly deals half contact damage while flying quickly at the player in phase 1.
• Nerfed Draconic Swarmer's knockback resistance from 100% to 85%.

Duke Fishron

• No longer deals contact damage while not charging in all difficulties.
• No longer becomes invincible during phase transitions outside of Revengeance Mode, and instead gains 62.5% damage reduction.
• Sharkrons can no longer be homed in on.
• Nerfed Sharknado damage in Revengeance Mode from 184 📷 to 150 📷.
• Sharknado and Cthulhunado spawners now break when touching water in Revengeance Mode.
• Decreased how long Sharknados and Cthulhunados do not deal damage after spawning from 2 seconds to 1, but they now appear translucent before dealing damage.
• Now charges faster, has a shorter delay between charges, spews Detonating Bubbles faster, spawns sharknados faster, enters phase 2 at 60% health, enters phase 3 at 25% health, Cthulhunado spawners always move at maximum speed, and Cthulhunados and their Sharkrons are larger in Master Mode.
• Now starts in phase 3 which lasts until 90% health, enters phase 3 at 30% health, starts his final attack pattern at 10% health, Detonating Bubbles are immune to damage, chase for longer, and push away from each other, and spawns Detonating Bubbles during charges in his final attack pattern in Revengeance Master Mode.
• Now takes 120% damage from The Hive's plague bees.

Eater of Worlds

• Decreased number of segments in Revengeance and Death Mode from 79 📷 / 69 📷 to 64 📷 / 59 📷. This nerfs overall health from 11,725 / 17,640 📷 / 23,226 📷 / 20,286 📷 / 22,464 📷 / 29,388 📷 📷 / 25,668 📷 📷 to 11,725 / 17,640 📷 / 18,816 📷 / 17,346 📷 / 22,464 📷 / 23,808 📷 📷 / 21,948 📷 📷.
• Vile spit now inflicts Brain Rot for 3 seconds. It also always inflicts Weak for 1 second, with a 50% chance to inflict it for 2 seconds, a 20% chance to inflict it for 12 seconds, and a 10% chance to inflict it for 1 minute.
• Revengeance Mode changes:
  • Splitting segments now regain health based on overall health.
  • Surface enrage no longer triggers when in front of unsafe Ebonstone walls.
  • Now always fires vile spit instead of only firing them below 90% health, and fire rate now increases as its health lowers.
  • Now starts firing cursed fireballs when below 80% health instead of 75%, cursed fireballs always inflict Cursed Inferno for 1 second, fire rate now gets slower as health lowers, and Death Mode no longer increases fire rate.
  • Slightly increased velocity given when a new head spawns, but it now only gains this velocity if far enough away from the player.
  • Now gains increased speed and acceleration when below 20% health instead of 10%.
  • Increased speed and acceleration boosts given when below 40% and 20% health.
• Slightly decreased its maximum falling speed, heads now push away from each other, and fires shadowflame fireballs instead of cursed fireballs in Death Mode.
• Now moves and accelerates faster, starts flying at a smaller distance, and shoots vile spit twice as fast in Master Mode.
• Now spawns as 4 smaller worms, gains an extra 6 📷 / 3 📷 segments, always fires cursed fireballs and has its first speed and acceleration boost, gains a quick burst of speed and accelerates its cursed fireball timer when a head is hit, gains its second speed and acceleration boost at 50% health instead of 20%, gains additional boosts to speed and acceleration at 10% and 5% health, and predicts the player's movement below 5% health in Revengeance Master Mode.
• Initial damage reduction in Boss Rush now smoothly scales down from 99% to 80%, and decreased aggression in Boss Rush.
• No longer takes 70% damage from Jester's Arrows.

Empress of Light

• No longer deals contact damage while not charging, and no longer becomes immune to damage while charging in all difficulties.
• Now gains 57.5% damage reduction during the sun dance, and 99% damage reduction when reaching the phase 2 threshold but not in phase 2 in all difficulties.
• Increased how far away she hovers during attacks in all difficulties.
• Buffed rainbow bolt and everlasting rainbow damage from 100 / 140 📷 / 160 📷 / 176 📷 / 234 📷 to 100 / 152 📷 / 172 📷 / 192 📷 / 234 📷, sun dance damage from 120 / 160 📷 / 184 📷 / 200 📷 / 270 📷 to 120 / 180 📷 / 204 📷 / 228 📷 / 270 📷, and lance damage from 130 / 120 📷 / 140 📷 / 176 📷 / 234 📷 to 130 / 196 📷 / 216 📷 / 236 📷 / 288 📷.
• Projectiles no longer gain damage in phase 2.
• All projectiles and charges now inflict Nightwither while not enraged and Holy Flames while enraged, instead of at nighttime or daytime.
• Decreased Nightwither or Holy Flames duration from charges from 5.33 seconds to 4, from sun dance from 3.33 seconds to 3, from everlasting rainbow from 2.67 seconds to 2, and from rainbow bolts and lances from 2 seconds to 1.
• Decreased how long rainbow bolts home, and they no longer deal damage before homing, but they now accelerate quicker, have a higher maximum velocity, and rapidly accelerate after they stop homing.
• Everlasting rainbows no longer deal damage for 1 second after spawning.
• Decreased her attack cooldown after charges in Revengeance Mode.
• Straight lance attack now additionally spawns lances from the opposite direction.
• Can now enter a "phase 3" when below 15% health. In phase 3, she has 20% less defense, has a higher chance to skip ahead an attack in her pattern, replaces the second and seventh attacks in her pattern with a charge and lance walls respectively, rainbow bolts are spawned slower but there are twice as many, charges faster, spawns twice as many lances, straight lance attack spawns lances from the opposite direction faster, spawns rainbow bolts during the everlasting rainbow attack, spawns more lances in lance walls, lance wall directions are randomized, lance walls are more spread out, and spawns twice as many rainbow bolts during the stationary version of the attack..
• Now enters phase 2 at 60% health in Expert Mode and Revengeance Mode.
• Now has a smaller delay between attacks, has a higher chance to skip ahead an attack in Revengeance Mode, rainbow bolts move and accelerate faster, lances spawn more often and in a wider area, everlasting rainbows move and accelerate faster, enters phase 2 at 70% health, enters phase 3 at 30% health, and lance walls in phase 3 have a smaller distance between lances in Master Mode.
• Now takes 75% damage from Abyss Blade's projectile.

Exo Mechs

• Added Signal Received as a new ambience theme before the fight.
• Changed the sound used when hovering over Artemis and Apollo's choice icon.
• Nerfed Apollo's rocket damage in Expert Mode from 476 📷 to 468 📷.
• Thanatos' Gamma Disintegration Beam and its side lasers are now blue instead of red. Laser telegraph and head glowmask now smoothly scale from red to blue as the beam charges up.
• Gamma Disintegration Beam now inflicts Miracle Blight for 4 seconds instead of Brimstone Flames for 3 seconds, and side lasers now inflict Miracle Blight for 2 seconds instead of Brimstone Flames for 1.5 seconds.
• Ares now takes 80% damage from Rancor.
• Ares no longer takes 85% damage from The Enforcer's essences flames or Murasama.
• Thanatos resist changes:
  • Now takes 75% damage from Mirror of Kalandra's Paradoxica minion, 70% damage from Ultima's beams, and 35% damage from Stellar Torus Staff.
  • Now takes 65% damage from Prismatic Breaker's laser beam instead of 70%, and 50% damage from Rancor instead of 60%.
  • Now takes 80% damage from The Anomaly's Nanogun's right click bombs instead of 65%.
  • No longer takes 70% damage from Pulse Rifle.

Eye of Cthulhu

• Buffed health from 3000 / 3900 📷 / 4680 📷 / 4972 📷 / 5967 📷 📷 to 3000 / 3900 📷 / 5460 📷 / 4972 📷 / 6961 📷 📷.
• Changed contact damage from 15 / 30 📷 / 40 📷 / 60 📷 / 51 📷 to 24 / 30 📷 / 40 📷 / 50 📷 / 50 📷.
• Buffed Servant of Cthulhu health from 8 / 12 📷 / 15 📷 to 8 / 12 📷 / 48 📷 / 15 📷 / 61 📷 📷.
• No longer deals contact damage while hovering above the player or slowing down after a charge in phase 1. Now deals half contact damage while hovering above the player, slowing down after a charge, or when lining up a horizontal charge in phase 2. These changes apply to all difficulties.
• Revengeance Mode changes:
  • Decreased how many Servants of Cthulhu can be alive at once from 12 📷 to 4 📷 in phase 1, 4 📷 / 3 📷 in phase 2, and 3 📷 / 1 📷 when below 15% 📷 / 10% 📷 health.
  • Servants of Cthulhu now gain increased velocity and acceleration while enraged, and now push away from each other.
  • Now fires blood shots if at the maximum number of Servants.
  • Increased charge speed, and successive charges now increase in speed, but it now backs away to at least 20 tiles of distance before charging if too close to the player.
  • Now enters phase 2 at 60% health instead of 75%.
  • Now fires spreads of 3 blood shots while hovering above the player, and inflicts Bleeding for 3 seconds on contact in phase 2.
  • Now starts performing chain dashes and horizontal dashes at 30% health, instead of chain dashes at 65% health and horizontal dashes at 40% health.
  • Now performs less chain dashes before a horizontal dash when below 15% 📷 / 20% 📷 health.
• Now hovers above and charges at the player faster in both phases, spawns Servants faster, shoots Servants and blood shots at a faster velocity, charges four times instead of three, has decreased charge delay as its health lowers, has a faster phase 2 transition, and lines up closer to the player during horizontal charges in Death Mode.
• Now gains a small boost to its enrage scale, has increased Servant velocity, and enters phase 2 at 75% health in Master Mode.
• Now spawns Servants even faster, can spawn stronger Bloodletting Servants that charge at the player, switches between attacks faster, has increased blood shot velocity, has a smaller delay between charges, fires 4-5 blood shots in a wider spread in phase 2, starts performing chain dashes and horizontal dashes at 40% health, has a chance to do two consecutive horizontal dashes, and spawns less Servants below 20% 📷 / 15% 📷 health in Revengeance Master Mode.
• Increased Servant spawn rate in the For the worthy seed.
• Extra blood shots in Legendary Mode now travel faster and are shot more rapidly.

Golem

• Buffed body health from 30,000 / 45,000 📷 / 54,000 📷 / 57,375 📷 / 68,850 📷 📷 to 30,000 / 45,000 📷 / 67,500 📷 / 57,375 📷 / 86,062 📷 📷.
• Buffed head health from 20,000 / 30,000 📷 / 36,000 📷 / 38,250 📷 / 45,900 📷 📷 to 20,000 / 30,000 📷 / 45,000 📷 / 38,250 📷 / 57,375 📷 📷.
• Buffed body fireball damage in Classic and Expert Mode from 58 / 116 📷 to 72 / 132 📷, laser damage from 56 / 112 📷 to 80 / 140 📷, head fireball damage from 48 / 94 📷 to 60 / 120 📷, and inferno bolt damage from 64 / 128 📷 to 88 / 156 📷.
• Attached head no longer deals contact damage, body no longer deals contact damage while not jumping, and fists no longer deal contact damage while not punching in all difficulties.
• Fireballs and lasers no longer gain damage as its health lowers.
• Revengeance Mode changes:
  • No longer enrages if the head does not have line of sight with the player.
  • Decreased vertical jump velocity, but increased horizontal jump velocity.
  • Increased fist punch and return speed, and they no longer take knockback while above 50% health.
  • Increased fireball and laser velocity from the head.
  • Increased velocity of fireballs spawned when landing from a jump after the head is killed.
  • Increased free head's speed and acceleration, overall making its movement more rigid. Increased how long it takes to switch positions at lower health.
  • Free head can no longer fire projectiles if too close to the player.
  • Inferno bolts from the head now use yellow dust instead of orange, and now additionally emit spark particles.
• Now makes fists punch more frequently, lasers have a higher velocity, jumps more frequently and with a higher horizontal velocity, and falls faster in Master Mode.
• Now spawns with 4 fists, fists have a random punch delay, fists spawn explosions when punching, shoots 2 fireballs which increases to 3 after the fists are killed, gains a new jump attack where he rises above the player before slamming down on them and firing lasers, spawns more fireballs when landing from a jump after the head is killed that have higher velocity, freed head moves faster and always has its final movement pattern, freed head lasers travel at different speeds, and freed head can always fire inferno bolts in Revengeance Master Mode.

again this isn't everything, but have fun with the new update guys

While I don’t think the gun sucks or is “worst weapon ever”, it doesn’t really do anything that gives it character. I’m also surprised at the values because I expected something completely different based on the design
First, the magazine is obviously designed to handle .308 as opposed to Liberator using 5.56, so I’m genuinely surprised the damage values are the same and recoil is lower. What I was expecting was a high damage weapon with heavy recoil, I’d even keep the light pen so it doesn’t tread into adjudicators realm too far.
The other thing that could be done is pay homage to the BR it’s obviously based on. We know AH not only can access number of bullets fired but also fire rate. My suggestion is keep automatic fire at the same rate of fire but increase burst fire rate to 2100 rpm. If possible, recoil characteristic for burst could be changed to only “kick” when the burst is complete. This is based off the real firearm the G11 which was designed to fire 3 rounds so fast that the third round leaves the barrel before the shooter feels the recoil
I think the two changes above would help give the weapon its own character besides “slightly worse Liberator”

Background: Both my parents retired from government jobs (federal and state). They have a combined income of $5000/month with healthcare for life (they’re able to insure each other so have 3 insurances with Medicare) and keep that regardless if one passes before the other. My mother has dementia and father is primary caregiver. They live in the Midwest in the US.
My partner and I have our own home and got in on with one of those bangin’ interest rates from 2020. Credit score is about 740 and are now single income.
Problem: Parents refinanced their house (which they lived in for 35 years) in 2022 and only have about $80k equity, plus about $30k in credit card debt. Their monthly loan payment is ~$2100 and if one of them passes away, the income is cut in half since they both opted not to take reduced pension to leave anything for the other after death (I think this was an ok decision if they’d thought through how to afford their home w/o the other’s income). They have no savings.
Both have mobility issues and their home has two stories plus a basement. All bedrooms are on the second floor with laundry in the basement. Both have been terrible with money their entire lives.
Options-We’re getting ready to list their house for sale this month. What I’m still confused about are what options make the most sense here:
1) Investment property mortgage (partner and I would purchase property): My partner and I have $100k we can use for a down payment (budget would be ~$200k for a condo) and we’d finance the rest, then collect “rent” from my mom (anything she gives me will be towards the mortgage and/or savings for them/house upkeep). Theory here is that the proceeds from the home sale could be used to wipe out their debt. Anything left could be used for the mortgage or put into savings for any emergencies.
2) Reverse mortgage (parents would purchase property): I know this sub isn’t wild about them, but my CPA mentioned this might be an option if I gifted my parents the money instead and bought with a reverse mortgage to help with cash flow.
Additional details: I don’t think my parents buying a new home with proceeds really makes sense because they don’t have much to put down and interest rates suck right now. They live almost two hours away so I’m trying to get them closer to me with everything (bedrooms, bathrooms, laundry) on the main floor. They are also terrible with money as mentioned above and I don’t trust that they won’t get themselves in CC debt AGAIN.
My questions are really around which option makes more sense to get them out from under that credit card debt and get them into a more manageable (financially and physically) home?
Edit: added clarification on who would be owning the new property my parents would move in to.

Hello, I’m new on Reddit. Reason why I made an account is simple - I’m looking for someone who I’d play, learn and study chess with.
I’m not sure what rating I’d be nowadays (12 years ago, when I played professionally, I was ~2100-2200 FIDE), but since then I’ve not studied anymore, so, my guess is that I’m ~2000 or so rated now.
Something about me: I have a lot of time, no life meaning, nor interest in life itself really anymore. Chess is way of getting “out” for me. I could say that I’m obsessed with chess, so…
What am I looking for?
I’m looking for similar person to me - chess addict, with a lot of time, around my power (I don’t want to waste my time with someone below my power, as well as don’t want to waste anyone’s time who’s way above) —> I’m looking for someone equal to me, who I could spend hours with on the phone by playing, studying, and discussing everything about chess.
I prefer learning by playing mostly (I hate to having to remember hella lot of variations in openings, for me, it feels more natural to play a specific opening(s) with someone, over and over, and getting to learn it this way), and mainly, I am very interested in discussing and learning “plan of the game” (since each opening has unique pieces placement, understanding each opening and getting advantage in middle game is the way to go, in my opinion).
Thank you for reading, sorry for my English (I’m not native).
So, if you found yourself in my post, please, send me a message.

F30/5'3"/SW: 180 CW: 145 GW: 130ish then recomp
I have been losing weight since December 1, 2023 eating 1400-1500 calories a day. In December alone I dropped 9 lbs, but since then I have lost between 4.5-7 lbs per month. I weigh daily, and Happy Scale app estimates my overall rate of weight loss at 1.5 lbs a week. I feel that I have lost weight very rapidly and may have underestimated my TDEE, so I want to eat more. Losing weight fast hasn't been great because I have lost a lot of my hair, but it is what it is.
I get about 8,000 steps a day at work, and on days I go to the gym (3-4 times a week) I get up to 12,000. Based on the rate of weight loss and my activity level, I had considered myself lightly active but this may be incorrect. I believe that by losing about 1.5 lbs a week, I am in a deficit of 750 calories, which puts my TDEE at around 2100-2200 calories a day? Perhaps more on days I work out. I do wear a Fitbit mostly for steps, and I understand that the calories estimates on fitness trackers can be inaccurate, but it also averages 2100-2400 energy spent daily (not exercise, I don't track my workouts or try to estinate how many calories I burned via exercise.)
This may seem obvious, but I have anxiety so I just want to make sure that I'm understanding my data correctly and have an accurate idea of my TDEE. I should be good to eat 1600-1700 and still lose weight, right? I plan to increase calorie+protein intake at around 130 for recomp, maybe to 1900. Thoughts on this?
Thank you in advance!!

Throughout my gamedev journey, I've read dozens of postmortems that inspired me to create my own. These stories have been instrumental to me, and I hope that mine can also inspire and help someone else...
So, my story began one year ago when I started making [Graveyard Gunslingers]
Concept:
"Graveyard Gunslingers" is a 3D survivors-like bullet hell game set in Wild West. You're given 10 nights to survive. During the day, gameplay is kind of chill. You mine resources, explore, and manage your skills preparing for the night. At night, you shoot down hordes of zombies.
The main twist in the game is its day-night cycle. The goal of this mechanic is to keep the player in a state of flow. During the day, the gameplay is relaxed, allowing the player to focus on harvesting resources and managing upgrades. As night approaches, anticipation builds, and when night falls, the tension reaches its climax. By alternating between periods of calm resource gathering and adrenaline-fueled combat, the game keeps players engaged and immersed (hopefully).
Instead of the classic method of leveling up survivors and choosing from three skills, here you can see the entire skill tree. It's the player's responsibility to choose and experiment with the best character-gun-skill combination.
Development:
I'm a solo developer and mostly worked alone, except I outsourced music and bought some visual assets to help speed up development. Also, it's important to note that during this year, I was working a full-time job as a game programmer. I was working on the game mostly on weekends and sometimes evenings after work (if I had energy left). This led to a slow development process. Having discipline helps! There were a lot of days when I was not motivated to work on the game. But if I wanted to get some results, I knew I had to push through and it didn't matter the mood; I had to work on the game.
Marketing:
While I had multiple years of experience making games, I was a total beginner at marketing. So, the results you're about to see are either not impressive or just pure luck. However, just by doing simple posts on social media, applying to festivals, and reading about marketing, I learned a lot during this time and that helped my get some wishlists, so here is the [Wishlists Breakdown]
The first spike you see is after the game announcement. Here, I made a couple of Reddit and Facebook posts and asked my friends to wishlist. Fifty wishlists in the first week - meh. It's worth noting that at this point, the game visually was still rough, in a very early stage. The Steam page looked barebones, with no professional capsule, bland images, and a boring trailer.
Realms Deep Festival - at this point, the Steam page was updated and looked much better. But I didn’t have any hopes for the festival just because in Steam festivals you need wishlists to get featured in popular tabs. And I didn’t have any. It's like with the job market. First, you need experience to get a first job. But you can’t get experience without a job. Same with wishlists…
To my surprise, this theory didn’t work. On the first day of the festival, I got a +230 wishlist bump. I couldn’t believe it. As days passed, wishlist additions faded off a bit, but during the whole festival, I gathered over 650 wishlists. I was really happy, jumping and excited like a little dogo. Wishlist bumps like this really help with motivation! If you're making a game, you HAVE to enter EVERY festival you can. Not every festival I participated in brought results, but it's always worth a shot. You never know till you try.
After the festival, I continued doing Reddit, Imgur, and Twitter posts. It was okay, nothing too special. A couple of dozen wishlist additions here and there. Over time it adds up. If I was not doing any posts, my standing wishlist rate was 0-5 a day. I know - bad, but I wasn't worried too much. I was focusing on making the actual game, and I believed once I had a good game, it would market itself. What naive I was…
Another big spike came from a YouTube video. I participated in a challenge where people made a game without communication. The challenge was hosted by the BlackthornProd channel with 500k subscribers. I did put a little ad break in that video advertising Graveyard Gunslingers. That's how it goes in these types of videos. Youtuber get content and developers get visibility fair trade. So this little video brought +210 wishlists.
The last big spike came from China, that's all I know from Steam analytics. I couldn’t find any video, blog, or any post that could lead to this wishlist bump. Nonetheless, I'm happy that people from the other side of the world are interested. Sometimes it's just random luck like this.
Final Thoughts:
During this year, I gathered over 2100 wishlists. Nothing to brag about but I'm happy as this is my first Steam game. I'm releasing DEMO tomorrow so I hope the game will get more attention then. How much, we'll see… maybe I will write another postmortem about that.
Thank you so much for reading! If you made it this far you must check my game!
Graveyard Gunslingers (game): https://store.steampowered.com/app/2462060/Graveyard_Gunslingers/

Barred From Each Other: Why Normative Husbands Remain Married to Incarcerated Wives—An Exploratory Study – page 1
Tomer Einat1, Inbal Harel-Aviram1, and
Sharon Rabinovitz2
Abstract
This study explores men’s motivation and justification to remain married to their criminal, imprisoned wives. Using semistructured interviews and content-analysis, data were collected and analyzed from eight men who maintain stable marriage relationships with their incarcerated wives. Participants are normative men who describe incarceration as a challenge that enhances mutual responsibility and commitment. They exaggerate the extent to which their partners resemble archetypal romantic ideals. They use motivational accounts to explain the woman’s criminal conduct, which is perceived as nonrelevant to her real identity. Physical separation and lack of physical intimacy are perceived as the major difficulties in maintaining their marriage relations. Length of imprisonment and marriage was found to be related to the decision whether to continue or terminate the relationships. Women-inmates’ partners experience difficulties and use coping strategies very similar to those cited by other normative spouses facing lengthy separation.
Keywords
marriage, female inmates, normative spouses, incarceration, romantic accounts
Introduction
One of the most significant “pains of imprisonment” for female inmates is the separation from their husbands (Farkas & Rand, 1999; Severance, 2005a, 2005b). This disconcerting and frustrating deprivation often negatively affects women’s ability to function as wives while in prison and after release (Dodge & Pogrebin, 2001; Pollock-Byrne, 1990). When a man is imprisoned, the marriage usually remains intact (Dodge & Pogrebin, 2001; Shapiro, 2003; Travis, McBride, & Solomon, 2003), whereas women’s incarceration often results in their abandonment by their partners and termination of their marriage (the term marriage in this study relates to formally wedded couples and common-law couples; Hairston, 1991; Sergin & Flora, 2005).
The abandonment of women prisoners by their spouses has been recognized by researchers and practitioners as a noteworthy component of women-inmates’ subculture (Dodge & Pogrebin, 2001) and a significant factor of their rehabilitation and reentry into society (Visher & Travis, 2003). However, relatively few studies have addressed this topic in depth (Dodge & Pogrebin, 2001; MacKenzie, Robinson, & Campbell, 1995; Sobel, 1982). Furthermore, close examination reveals that prisoners’ marital relationships were addressed mainly from the inmates’ point of view (Girshick, 1996; Hairston & Addams, 2001) and focused, almost exclusively, on male inmates (Accordino & Guerney, 1998; Fishman, 1988; Girshick, 1992). In other words, the study of marital relationships between inmates and their spouses’ neglected women inmates, and the few studies examining female inmates overlooked 50% of the individuals involved in these relationships and possibly affected by them—the husbands.
Thus, in the preliminary research for this paper, we could not find a single empirical study that had focused on the rationale behind men’s decision to terminate or maintain their marital relations with incarcerated wives nor on the impact of such a decision on their emotional and behavioral state. The aim of this exploratory study is to fill this literature lacuna and explore the motivations and justification of men to remain married to their criminal wives imprisoned in Neve Tirza prison—the sole prison facility for women in Israel. By examining these topics, the current study seeks to identify and analyze the significance of marital relationships to women-inmates’ spouses and to describe the dynamics of marital relationships between men and incarcerated spouses, both from men’s perspective, a step that previous research has not taken before.
The following sections will provide information about Neve Tirza prison as well as cover topics relating to marital stability among inmates and offender reentry, drawing on the criminological and correctional literatures.
The Neve Tirza Prison
Neve Tirza prison is the sole women’s prison in Israel. The facility is located in the Central District of Israel, next to the city of Ramla in the Tel Aviv Metropolitan Area, the largest metropolitan in Israel. The prison houses 225 criminal (as opposed to security) inmates at full capacity. Yet, at the time of the research, it housed no more than 180 prisoners. Fifty-two percent of the inmates have been previously jailed, and the average incarceration period is 2.7 years (SD = 2.70). Approximately, 58% of the prison population are incarcerated for drug-related crimes (substance abuse, drug dealing, and possession), 16% are incarcerated for violent crimes, 16% for bodily crimes, 45% for fiscal crimes, and 13% for other offences (Einat & Chen, 2012).1
The ethnic ratio of the prison population is 62% Jews and 36% Arabs, who are Israeli nationals, and 2% foreigners. The marital status of the inmates is 63% single (n = 113), 32% (n = 58) divorced, and 5% (n = 9) married (Einat & Chen, 2012)— comparable, albeit not identical, to U.S. and U.K. prisons. In U.S. prisons, 85% of all women in local jails (4% widowed, 13% separated, 20% divorced, 48% never married), 83% in state prisons (6% widowed, 10% separated, 20% divorced, 47% never married), and 71% in federal prisons (6% widowed, 21% separated, 10% divorced, 34% never married) are not married (Greenfeld, & Snell, 2000). In U.K. prisons, 24% of women-inmates are married or lived together with a spouse prior to their imprisonment, 63% are single, and 12% are either widowed, divorced, or separated (Hamlin & Lewis, 2000).
In Israel, 85% of the women-inmates are eligible for a monthly 30-min family visit and a 24/48-hr furlough. Fifteen percent of the prisoners, who are ineligible for home furloughs, are entitled to a monthly, 12-hr conjugal visit (Ben Avraham, 2012). Such furlough/visitation policy differs significantly from other parallel policies in Western and non-Western correctional facilities (for a comprehensive review, see Einat & Rabinovitz, 2013).
Incarceration, Marital Stability, and Inmates’ Reentry
Incarceration prevents meaningful interaction and limits physical and emotional connections among spouses (Booth, Johnson, White, & Edwards, 1984; Sergin & Flora, 2005), and often changes individuals in ways that make them incompatible with their partners (Comfort, 2008; Nurse, 2002; Rindfuss & Stephen, 1990). Physically separated spouses experience deficits of emotional interaction (Hill, 1988), which increases the number of disagreements and lowers marital satisfaction (Booth et al., 1984). In addition, these physical and mental processes negatively affect the emotional status of the inmates inside the prison (Faith, 1993; Jiang & Winfree, 2006; Thompson & Loper, 2005) and harm the likelihood of their successful rehabilitation and reentry into society after release (Gunnison & Helfgott, 2013; Horney, Osgood, & Marshall, 1995; Laub, Nagin, & Sampson, 1998; Vaillant, 1995; Ward, 2001). Ironically, and irrespective of the negative impact of incarceration and separation from spouse on marital stability (Massoglia, Remster, & King, 2011) and of imprisonment and marital dissolution on prisoner reentry (Laub & Sampson, 2001), several enforcement systems raise various barriers that prevent partners (and families) from remaining in contact while a spouse is behind bars. For example, in the United States, more than 60% of state and 80% of federal inmates are imprisoned in facilities located more than 100 miles from home (Mumola, 2000). Wives (as well as other family members) may lack the time and means to travel these long distances with children on a regular basis (Christian, 2005; Christian, Mellow, & Thomas, 2006). Consequently, 57% of male state-prison inmates in the United States had never had a personal visit with their children since their admission to prison and only a quarter of male inmates with families reported weekly contact by phone or postal mail with loved ones (Mumola, 2000). Pelka Slugocka and Slugocki (1980) qualitatively analyzed female inmates’ viewpoints regarding the relationship between incarceration and marital stability. Most of their research participants (86.3%, n = 282) maintained that imprisonment was the sole reason for the destruction of their marriage, whereas 13.7% (n = 45) asserted that it was the combination of husbands’ personalities and their imprisonment. Moreover, the research revealed that the divorce generated feelings of despair and frustration among the female inmates, and harmed their rehabilitation and successful reentry into society.
Hairston’s (1991) review concluded that the stress and strain that male imprisonment imposes on family ties are due, mainly, to denial of sexual relations and inability to engage in and share day-to-day interactions and experiences. As time passes, the spouse at home visits the prisoner less frequently and many marriages fail. Similarly, Kiser (1991) found that most male prisoners perceived their separation from their families—alongside the realization that they themselves had brought undeserved hardship to their families—as the most difficult aspect of doing time. Therefore, encouraging inmates and families to maintain relationships would benefit most inmates, their families, and the prisons.
Bobbitt and Nelson (2004) portrayed the positive aspects of various family involvement programs (i.e., La Bodega de la Familia and the Greenlight Family Reintegration Program) on drug abuse, recidivism rates, family strength, avoidance of illegal activity, possession of jobs, and obtainment of stable housing. The researchers’ main conclusion was that families can be a powerful material and emotional force for positive change for members making the difficult transition from institutional life back to the community . . . and can significantly assist probation and parole officers in their quest to successfully reenter ex-criminals and ex-prisoners to the community. (Bobbitt & Nelson, 2004, p. 8) In support of that conclusion, Horney et al. (1995) found that living with a normative wife limited significantly convicted felons’ involvement in illegal behavior after release from prison.
The importance of marriage to recidivism rates and reentry was discussed in several cornerstone criminal theories. Hirschi’s (1969) social control theory assumes that individuals are prevented from engaging in delinquency by four social bonds: involvement, attachment, commitment, and belief. When these bonds are weak, and the appropriate motivations rise, individuals are more likely to engage in delinquency.
Individuals with high affection and respect (attachment) are less likely to engage in delinquency because they do not want to harm the approval of people they care about. In their age-graded theory of informal social control, Laub and Sampson (1993) emphasize the importance of quality and strength of current social ties (such as strong bonds of attachment to a partner) in adapting to life transitions more than the occurrence or timing of discrete life events. Hence, marriage by itself may not increase social control, but close emotional ties and mutual investment increase the social bond between individuals and can decrease criminal behavior. Although this issue has been a source of controversy (e.g., Gottfredson & Hirschi, 1990), Farrington and West (1995) also concluded that a stable marriage was nevertheless related to adult social conformity, even in adults who were identified at high-risk as children. Whereas these theories emphasize emotional ties and support, the cognitive transformation theory focuses on the conscious transformation of one’s identity in the process of desistance from crime (Giordano, Cernkovich, & Rudolph, 2002). Thus, through associations
with a spouse who sees them as noncriminals, inmates are exposed to and receive reinforcement for socially approved attitudes and behaviors (Agnew, 2005) and are likely to receive support for not only avoiding illegal behavior but also developing normative self-perceptions.
In summary, identification of various problems faced by men married to incarcerated spouses with regard to the preservation of marital relationships may significantly promote the understanding of the impact of incarceration on marital continuation/dissolution and assist in developing effective policies directed at their maintenance. Such policies appear to be highly important due to the existence of a (correlative or casual) link between continuation of stable romantic relations among normative men and incarcerated spouses, reduction of the negative effects of various “pains of imprisonment” (Faith, 1993; Jiang & Winfree, 2006; Thompson & Loper, 2005), and inmates’ successful reentry and desistance from crime after release (Horney et al., 1995; Ward, 2001)
Method
Research Tool
We used a flexible research design (Briggs, 1986). This methodology enables access to unpredicted subject matter and helps examine it from the perspective of the research sample (Silverman, 1993). Flexible design enabled us to incorporate unexpected contents, accommodating data as they emerged, thereby enhancing the quality and authenticity of the findings (Stake, 1995). The qualitative semistructured interview, based on guidelines that ensure that all interviewees are subject to similar stimuli and create a common basis for data analysis (Maruna, 2001), was found most appropriate for this study. To ensure reliability, all interviews were conducted by the researchers only.
While the semistructured interview maintains a subjective framework, it enables the interviewer and the interviewee to correct misunderstandings or vagueness during the course of the interview (Rubin & Rubin, 1995). This flexibility contributes to the quality and credibility of the interview (Briggs, 1986; Suchman & Jordan, 1990).
Each interview began with a similar open-ended broad question: “Could you please tell us about your romantic relationship with your spouse prior to her incarceration?” Only after the interviewees had answered the question, did we initiate a series of questions on the main difficulties of maintaining romantic relationships with an incarcerated spouse and the strategies used to do so: “How would you define your current romantic relationships with your spouse?” “How do you maintain romantic relationships with your incarcerated spouse?” “Does your spouse’s conviction and incarceration affect your mutual romantic relations?” “What are/were the main romantic crises you experience/d with her and how do/did you deal with them?” “What is your main motivation for maintaining marital relationships with your spouse; do you experience moments where you want to end your marriage?” “Do you experience any regrets as regards to your decision to maintain marital relationships with your spouse?”
Participants
Out of 180 prisoners incarcerated in the single Israeli female incarceration facility, Neve Tirza Prison, only 9 (5%, of whom 8%-4.4% agreed to take part in the study) maintained stable romantic relationships longer than 3 years. One male partner declined to participate in the study after being informed by his incarcerated spouse about the purpose of the study and its procedures, resulting in a final sample size of eight men and a response rate of 88.9%. Thus, the research sample includes almost all partners of female inmates who maintained stable romantic relationships for 3 years and more in Israel.
The participants were eight husbands—six were married to prisoners and two kept stable, romantic—although nonmarital—relations with their imprisoned spouses for more than 3 years (years of relationships range—3.5-35; M = 17.06, SD = 10.14, median = 17.5). Hence, the latter were acknowledged by the Israeli Prison Service (IPS) and by the Israeli ruling as common-law husbands (Israel Prison Service, 2012). Six of the eight couples had mutual children (compared with 61% of the prison population; Einat & Chen, 2012).
The ethnic distribution of the research sample (as well as the participants’ incarcerated spouses) was 75% (n = 6) Jews and 25% (n = 2) Muslim-Arab, all of whom were Israeli citizens. This ratio resembles the ethnic distribution of the general Israeli female inmates’ population (62% Jews; 36% Arabs; Einat & Chen, 2012). Participants had a mean of 9.6 years of education (SD = 1.4); the mean age of the participants is 48.9 (SD = 9.0). The distribution of the socioeconomic status of the research participants—as perceived and described by them—is high (37.5%; n = 3), moderate (12.5%; n = 1), and poor (50%; n = 4). Eighty-seven percent (n = 7) of the participants had no criminal record and 12.5% (n = 1) have been jailed. All participants were legally employed and maintained secured normative housekeeping. The women whose husbands we interviewed have been incarcerated for 21.8 months (M; SD = 9.42, compared with 27 months in the general prison population) and convicted to serve 41.4 months (M; SD = 43.1, compared with 31 of the prison population; Ibid). Twenty-five percent of the women have been previously jailed (compared with 52% of the prison population; Ibid), and 25% were drug abusers (as opposed to 65% drug abusing inmates out of Neve Tirza Prison’s general population). Hence the women whose husbands participated in this study differ substantially from the general female inmate population.
Content analysis revealed five major themes about marital relationships between normative men and their incarcerated wives: (a) perceptions of marital relations with incarcerated wife, (b) perceptions of wife’s criminal conduct, (c) difficulties in marital relationships with incarcerated wife, (d) preconditions for the continuation of marital relationships between normative men and incarcerated wives, (e) ways of preserving the marital relationships with incarcerated wives.
Perceptions of Marital Relations With Incarcerated Wives
Commitment and motivation. Research has repeatedly shown that commitment and motivation are the basis for a good and stable marriage, one which successfully tackles situations of crisis (Hawkins, Carroll, Doherty, & Wiloughby, 2004; Mace, 1982; Sabatelli & Cecil-Pigo, 1985). Commitment and motivation, which reflect the mutual responsibility of the couple to the preservation of their marriage (Clements & Swensen, 2000), are also identified as the best predictors of the quality of such relationships (Sabatelli & Cecil-Pigo, 1985; Surra, Arizzi, & Asmussen, 1988). Similarly, the findings of the present study indicate that the incarceration of their partners led the participants to recognize their obligation to the women and to their marital relations:
All in all, it [the wife’s imprisonment] connected us together as a couple and united our family. That’s the way we behave in our family—when there’s a problem we become united. (I., a 47-year-old Muslim husband, married to an inmate sentenced to 14 months)
During the incarceration, I felt as if I become a part of her, as if we became one. During this time, our romantic relationships grew stronger and stronger. We went through hell and it made us stronger. It intensified our love. (D., a 34-year-old Jewish common-law husband, romantically-related to a prisoner sentenced to a period of 3.1 years)
We overcame all our problems together, and we will overcome all obstacles, including the incarceration, together. It [the imprisonment] even made our romantic relationships grow stronger, made us show how committed we are to each other. (C., a 37-year-old Muslim husband, married to an inmate sentenced to 1.5 years prison.
Nonetheless, and somewhat in contrast to these statements, our findings also suggest that the imprisonment of female spouses generated major dyadic crisis, which, at least temporarily, destabilized the romantic relations. Specifically, all participants noted that the incarceration raised frustration, tension, and lack of trust, which led them to consider and reconsider their motivation to preserve the marital relationship:
There was a lot of tension and pressure the moment they arrested her. We had lots of
arguments, did a lot of shouting and cursing. (T., a 52-year-old Jewish husband, married to an ex-addict sentenced to prison for 14 months)
I love her very much and can’t deny it. But her arrest caused a lot of chaos between us, a lot of stress and arguments. I even remember a moment where I wanted to hit her. (A., a 43-year-old Jewish husband, married to an inmate sentenced to a period of 22 years).
I. expressed a similar viewpoint:
I was quiet disappointed and I stopped trusting her. The fact that she did not share her behavior with me was more disappointing than the acts themselves. I can’t say that she betrayed me . . . after all she did it for the sake of both of us so it’s not a matter of unfaithfulness. But she didn’t tell me right at the beginning, and this is a shame.
Love. Love is one of the most significant elements in the preservation of and long-lasting marital relationships (Mackey & O’Brien, 1995; Sharlin, 1996) and is attributed greatly to successfully dealing with short- or long-term romantic crises. Love is also a meaningful element in partners’ mutual acceptance and support (Meeks, Hendrick, & Hendrick, 1998; Sokolski & Hendrick, 1999). In accordance, the findings of this study reveal that the participants perceive love as a noteworthy character of their marriage and an important factor in their decision to preserve marriage relationships:

With a lot of buzz around this class, I think it would be good to clear up some misconceptions and talk about how EASY this class is.

Grade Breakdown:

Assignments	0%
Syllabus Quiz	0%
Chapter Quizzes	10%
Practice Quizzes	0%
ALL Activities	15%
Exam 1	15%
Exams 2 to 4	60%

Grading Scale: A = (90 to 100) B+ = (87 to 89.99) B = (80 to 86.99) C+ = (77 to 79.99) C = (70 to 76.99) D+ = (67 to 69.99) D = (60 to 66.99) F = (0 to 59.99)

Dr. Whyte sets this class up in favor of the students. There are no tricks. She offers tip sheets with outlines of what will be on each exam, telling you exactly what you need to study to be successful.


What You Need To Know

For this class, you must purchase the 10BII+ Financial Calculator.
You have a total of 6 ALL sessions, where you go over material learned PRIOR to coming to class.
There are lengthy videos for every chapter, where she will go over concepts, formulas, examples, and much more.
The class picks up fast once you get to Chapter 5, where you learn Time Value of Money. This is the MOST important portion of the class. You MUST master these concepts, because everything else is built off of TMV.
Exam 1 is said to be the easiest, as it is mostly vocabulary and conceptual based questions. Start off strong with Exam 1.

How To Pass
I passed this class with an A, receiving a 100% on the final. This is what I did to pass:

• Go through her videos, copying everything down she covers. If she begins a math problem, right down the problem with the work.
• For the harder chapters, I printed out all of the lecture slides she goes over so I have a paper copy to highlight and write notes on.
• She includes chapter-specific problem sets, that go over all the concepts you will need to know. If you watch the videos prior to beginning the problem set, you will have what you need to go over them. If you run into any problems on how to solve them, and you will, she has videos solving all the problems. So solve them with her as you watch her videos.
• When exams come around, she has pages dedicated to giving you what you need to be successful on the exam. Example:

Tip Sheet: Exam 3 covers Stocks, Cost of Capital, Capital Budgeting Techniques and Capital Budgeting Cash Flows. The Tip Sheet she provides, gives you a breakdown of EVERYTHING you need to know. Whether it be 3 math related questions for stocks, or 6 total questions for Cost of Capital including 5 math problems and 1 conceptual question. She lays it out for you, telling you what will be on the exam.
Practice Exam 3 Questions: You open this link and it gives you 42 practice problems, covering everything in Chapters 8-11. Print them out, work through them, know how to solve them. Answers are provided at the end of the page. These practice problems are KEY to being successful in this class, and doubling down on the concepts you need to become comfortable with.
Exam 3 Formulas: Dr. Whyte is kind enough to provide a formula sheet on Exams 2-4, giving you everything you need to know. You don't even have to memorize the formulas. Many people take this for granted, because the formulas look difficult to read. Ex:
𝑉𝑐𝑠 = 𝐷1 / 𝑘𝑐𝑠 − 𝑔
You will work with formulas like these so much (IF YOU DO PRACTICE PROBLEMS) to the point where you will not struggle with knowing what is being asked.
"V" value
"cs" Common Stock
"D1" Expected Dividend
"Kcs" Rate of Common Stock
"G" Growth Rate

Do enough problems to where you know how to find each of them, and then put them together. It is quite literally solving a puzzle. Grab your pieces, put them together, and you have your answer.

Do not take these formula sheets for granted. If you know how to read them, it will make your time in this class 100x easier.


Final Exam

Yes, the final is comprehensive. It excludes everything on Exam 1, meaning you will only be tested on material learned from TMV to the end of the course. (The final exam will cover Chapters 5 - 13.)
Resources for what will be on the final:

• Tip sheet
• Review problems for Exams 2/3
• Terms to know for the final exam
• Practice Exam - Covering Chapters 12 and 13
• Final Exam Formula sheet

The final, if you become comfortable with everything you have learned throughout the course, will be the EASIEST test of the class. You have a little bit of this, and a little bit of that. Do the practice problems, then do the practice exams, then do the problem sets provided in each chapter, and then do it all over again!
The hardest part of this class, is the few conceptual based questions on each test. Why? I chose not to look at the textbook more than a handful of times. So yeah. Read the textbook.

Exams consist of 25 questions each, with a mixture of math and conceptual questions. More math than concepts. Don't take the conceptual questions for granted though, if there are 6 conceptual questions and you get none of them right but all the math questions right, you're down to a 76%.

Review Quizzes are provided for each exam. Do them over and over again. If you don't know how to solve it, skip it, submit the test, see what the answer is, and find out how to work out the problem when you have the answer.

This class is also quite difficult for people because they have to master the calculator in a very short time period. If you don't mind pushing back this class, I recommend taking FIN 2100 with Paul Gregg. You will have the entire class to learn how to utilize this calculator and become comfortable with the buttons and different formulas. Mr. Gregg is very insightful, and this class, while not required, is a great resource if you want to have some background knowledge before taking FIN3403 with Dr. Whyte. I took FIN2100 in Spring of 23, and FIN3403 in Spring of 24, and even with the 2 semester gap, all the knowledge on how to use the calculator remained.

There are some people who recommend utilizing Skoolers Tutoring to help you become more comfortable with the material in this class. I never needed to, but if you need extra help, that resource is there for you.

Dr. Whyte has office hours, and the TAs do as well if you need help. They are there to help. Utilize them!
Do not fall behind. If you have time off from school like Thanksgiving break, or Spring break, study over that time. Get ahead!

Hardest Chapters (Personal opinion):
TMV at first. Can be seen as quite overwhelming with the amount of information, but take It slow and master everything about these 2 chapters. (5 and 6)
Stocks. The only chapter I printed out 77 pages worth of lecture slides to have as I went through the videos. (8)
Cost of Capital. Only because of having to find WACC. Tons of pieces that ultimately need to come together into one number, and it is easy to make a mistake if you are not careful. (9)


Easiest Chapters:
Bonds - Quite repetitive, once you have done one problem and learn how they are setup, it becomes very simple. (7)
Leverage and Capital Structure - When you get to this chapter and you see the triangle diagram she provides in one of her videos, write this down and memorize it. This diagram was the first thing I wrote down on my scratch paper when taking the final. (12)
Dividends - 90% learning concepts and theories, 10% math. The math is something you would see in an Algebra class. Know the concepts though, and what they mean. Don't just be able to move numbers around.


Overall:
There is a lot of hoopla about this course and I truly think it comes down to the way the student studies. All of the resources are provided to you in the course. Do the practice problems, do the practice exams, go over the problem sets, and learn to read the formula sheet. Many people find her videos boring and drawn out, put it on 1.25x or 1.5x speed. All the information you need to know, however, is provided in the videos. Watch them, if she writes something down, I can almost guarantee that you will need to know it. Similarly to other harder courses, this class requires your time. If you have a busy course load or have a lot going on in life, maybe push it off to another semester. It is very doable, however, if you are diligent in your studying and working hard. There are no shortcuts in this class. You get what you put in! Dr. Whyte is a phenomenal instructor and really cares for her students success. She would not provide tip sheets and detailed outlines for all the exams if she did not want you to succeed. Good luck!
Edit: Grammar