So in minarchy, as we all know, the government is so small that I'm not even sure if homelessness is even considered. Of course in Libertarianism, people have private property and the is maximized to the extent possible under a minarchy framework. My question is, where do the homeless go?
Suppose there are no churches to take them in, no shelters or they are extremely full. Where should he go? Anywhere he goes is a quote "violation of private property", so what should be done? He is still human (and I mean that from a biological point not a moral one), and requires sleep, so he has to lay his head somewhere. If he has no where to go and he is "violating private property" everywhere he goes, then that means by default, homelessness is a crime. You see what I mean? So under a minarchy scheme of government is there some place for the homeless to go if there are no shelters?

It all started with Jelinsky: "Several means seven."
Then, I noticed that there are several quotes that are probably going to survive into future seasons of Survivor vernacular:
Bhanu: "I didn't come here to win a million dollars, I came to win a million hearts."
Ben: "That rocks/does not rock."
Q: "Cancel Christmas." "BIG MISTAKE." "Get your Q-skirt!"
Liz: "I'm PISSED!"
What's your favorite one (or are there more?), and why?

28 MtF, 150 lbs. I take vitamin B and D supplements, zinc and copper, and use an albuterol inhaler as needed for asthma.
I used to take lamotrigine but decided to stop due to side-effects, which were mostly cognitive impairments (which have persisted even after I stopped, so I don't know if it was the cause after all).
In 2016 I was diagnosed by my old Neurologist with Functional Neurolgic Disorder, which I guess some doctors don't even agree is real, and the more I try to learn about it the less I know what to think about it. That will come back later.
In 2012 I got diagnosed with mono. I didn't really feel sick at first, but I suddenly lost a ton of weight and started getting episodes of severe lightheadedness, dizziness, and brain fog.
Over the next couple of years or so I had a ton of different tests done. MRI, CT, EEG, and more that I can't even remember. They couldn't find anything.
These episodes continued until 2016. I was hospitalized (for something unrelated), and they said during what I guess was routine bloodwork that my iron was low, so they gave me supplements and my symptoms improved. My blood pressure increased from being chronically low, and my symptoms became much less frequent and severe.
I thought that it was over with. I continued taking iron, and felt worse on the occasions that I missed a dose, so it seemed pretty much correlated.
That was until a few months ago, I started getting these episodes again. They have been increasing in severity and frequency rapidly. I'm also having increasing problems with my vision, which I thought was unrelated but now I don't know (I don't have a diagnosis but was told my issues are "probably neurological").
I was still taking iron, but a blood test I took about a month ago showed that I actually had way too much in my body so I was ordered to stop. But when I did, my symptoms got even worse than they were already getting. My PCP said he cannot explain why.
These symptoms sometimes get worse from standing or moving around a lot. They also seem to be alleviated somewhat by sodium. My PCP suggested that it was maybe POTS and referred me to a neurologist, who I just saw immediately before writing this post.
I had an awful experience. I couldn't even give a full history or description of my symptoms because she kept interrupting and changing the subject. She was quick to suggest a bunch of expensive tests though, even though they were ones I have already had done before. She did about maybe five minutes of routine reflex tests after cutting me off about 10 times and suggested it was "probably just related to your functional disorder" in a way that honestly sounded more sarcastic and dismissive than anything.
Like I said before, I did get diagnosed with FND in 2016, and my symptoms have gotten better and worse at different times. But the trajectory of my FND has been completely different from the trajectory of my other symptoms, but she didn't really seem to listen or care, or even get all the details. For the record, the symptoms I associate with my FND are problems with my gait, involuntary motions, and a stutter.
I've been dealing with these symptoms for so long and nobody can tell me what the issue is. Some people don't even think the FND is real, and I'm not a doctor so I don't even feel like I know for certain even when I do see physicians and researchers who support it.
My symptoms are becoming unmanageable. I had to call in from work earlier this week because I felt like I was going to pass out and could barely support the weight of my own body. I've fainted and fallen multiple times at home. I already get disability accommodations and don't even come close to working full time and I'm not able to handle it. I'm trying to go back to school but the brain fog I get is so severe that sometimes I can't even do basic math that I could've done as a little kid in my head (I used to be a chemistry major and have literally taken multiple semesters of calculus, I should be able to add and subtract two digit numbers in my head. Something is very wrong).
I'm scared that I'm going to be unemployed and that I'll never be able to go back to school. People treat me differently because of my brain fog. I can barely handle any physical activity some days. I feel like I have lost everything important to me and nobody can tell me half of what is wrong and sometimes I don't even know if what I'm going through is real even though it's destroyed my life. I literally don't know what to do anymore. I'm pretty much out of hope and have no idea what I'm going to do.
If anybody has ANY insight or advice, I would be really, really grateful... I am so tired and so scared... it feels like my life is just over.

Hi folks, I hope everyone is doing well! Personally, I'm going through your average mid-week crisis of faith - not to sound dramatic or anything :) A bit of an introduction, I'm quite new to Christianity, despite being baptised as an infant (I wasn't raised in a religious household despite this - it was a Catholic baptism). I attend an Anglican church, but I've done most of my learning and study through online resources, and I started listening to a bible study podcast that really resonated with me and helped me grow in my faith. That is until the host of the podcast put forward his belief that infant baptism is not biblical, and therefore, those who have been baptised only as an infant are not saved.
I'd never considered this before, and the prospect absolutely devasted me. It has sent me into a bit of a spiral, and I think I need some help in understanding why we baptise infants. I'm afraid that my baptism was not what Jesus commanded of us (it was not preceded by repentance, acceptance of Him as my saviour, followed by immersion), therefore I have not actually "accepted" his sacrifice on the cross, and as a result, the Holy Spirit does not dwell in me. I'm going to go ahead and list out some reasons I'm struggling to accept it as a valid baptism:
1. What 'Baptise' actually means...
When the verb 'baptise' is used in the Gospels, it means to immerse in water. This is what Jesus commands of us, and it is what he did himself. So right off the bat, I don't think my infant baptism is what Jesus commanded of us to do - it was a 'sprinkling' of water, not an immersion.
2. Accepting the gift of salvation as an infant...
Obviously, as an infant, I was not able to comprehend what was happening. Nor could I accept Jesus as my saviour and repent of my sins (talking about original sin here, pretty sure I didn't break any commandments as a baby). I believe this isn't necessarily a problem, because we have seen in Matthew 9: 1 - 7 that Jesus forgives the sins of a paralysed man because of the faith shown by those with him. So I think it's fair to say that although a baby cannot accept the gift of salvation, their parents can accept it on behalf of them. Great! But in my case, my parents did not actually believe in God despite having me baptised. So their reasoning for the baptism was not biblical. I guess I can hope the priest who performed the sacrament believed and that this was enough, but who knows!
3. Biblical examples of the 'household' being baptised...
Another verse often quoted to support infant baptism is Acts 16:15 'And when she was baptized, and her household, she besought us, saying, If ye have judged me to be faithful to the Lord, come into my house, and abide there. And she constrained us.' I suppose it is fair to assume there may have been infants in the household. But there may not have been. I'm worried about basing my salvation on an assumption.
4. Jesus warns the disciples of turning away children from Him...
Again, another verse to support infant baptism is Matthew 19:14 'But Jesus said, Suffer little children, and forbid them not, to come unto me: for of such is the kingdom of heaven.' Again I feel that this is a fair assumption, but perhaps taken out of context? Jesus isn't talking specifically about baptism here.
And those are pretty much the reasons why I'm struggling to accept my baptism was valid and that I have been saved. I understand it's the done thing in Anglican churches, and that it's probably something I should speak to a clergy member about. I'm working on gathering the courage to do that. Am I being an idiot and completely misunderstanding the biblical teaching on this? I'm really struggling with this one, so I'd appreciate any help or words of encouragement. I'm terrified I've been walking around thinking I've been saved, while all this time it was just a delusion.
I'm sure that God is not beholden to baptism, e.g. if it is His will to save someone who is not baptised then He will do it. But then I see a verse like John 3:5 'Jesus answered, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God.' and it fills me with anxiety. I used to love reading the bible, but now that this doubt is in my head, I can't help but feeling dread. Do I need to toughen up and have more faith?

Hey guys, need advice. So after a complete 3 year shit storm of awfulness from BM, including my two SS being rewarded every time they came over to ours and beat me up (luckily they were 5 and 3) we finally went to court with BM to settle child arrangements, and my other half was granted 50/50 custody. This is a week on week off arrangement. On our week off, our SS zoom call their mum on a Wednesday evening for 30 mins and vice versa when they're at hers. I have a real issue with how they treat my other half when they zoom call him from mums house. They ignore him most of the time, can be very rude, show no interest in what he says and can be sarcastic and mean. This gets to me so much. Because they are SO unlike that when they are here!!!!! They are the most amazing, lovely boys. I know it's a pure act in front of their mum, they are PETFRIED of upsetting her. But I get so protective over their dad and it really winds me up each week? How do I let it go? Their dad isn't as frustrated as me and knows it's just an act in front of their mum in order to "survive". He gets it as he was trapped with her 14 years. I need to let it go but I get anxious every Wednesday before the call with them and I'm fuming afterwards. They'll come over on a Friday so loving and excited to see us, like the wednesday call never happened. Can I also point out that when they're at ours and they zoom her, they are very attentive with her. Ask her loads of questions and listen to everything she says. I know it's out of fear but it just adds to my frustration! Anyone else experienced this?

I've recently been reflecting on my efforts at being more productive and started writing some longer form content to help structure my thoughts.
I wrote up the below in the past few days and wanted to share. Perhaps some of you have also found yourself hindered by an ongoing search for the ideal life path vs. just enjoy the journey.
Hope you find this helpful!
Despite your inflated sense of yourself, you are not, amongst all other humans, impervious to being brainwashed. This is a hardwired feature of your mind and a circuit that is operating at all times, if you allow it to do so. You aren’t being brainwashed in the cartoonish mode of being made to act like a chicken or empty your wallet. However, you are being brainwashed nonetheless.
Replace the word “brainwashed” with “influenced” and you may start to see my point. If you read me, you are not a fan of the influencers for stupid people (a la Andrew Tate) but perhaps you have more refined taste (Huberman, Attia, Ferriss, Jocko, Peterson, Newport). If there are any such personalities you are a fan of, I assure you that in your efforts to live a more productive, successful, disciplined life… you have been brainwashed.
I want to focus on how quickly the messages that you hear from these sources transition into “shoulds” that run in the background of your daily self-talk. These sources are an unending stream of great ideas for how you should wake up, how you should work, how you should eat, how you should exercise, how you should have sex, how you should meditate, how you should partake in leisure and so on. Notice that they don’t always come in the form of a statement that says “you should do x.” They may come in the form of “my typical daily routine looks like y”. Either way, your mind is primed and ready to sponge it all up.
If you were but a simple peasant farming in Ye Olde England six hundred years ago, your life was governed by a very rigid set of “shoulds”. There was the Bible, there were social norms, the rules of the king, and so. However, these were still a relatively manageable list of rules that one could live by, and it was not unreasonable to assume that you could mostly stay on the Righteous Path. Fast forward to the algo-influencer age and all bets are off. Open up any platform and within minutes, you’ll be bombarded with more “shoulds” than you can possibly keep in mind at once. This observation comes with no value judgment on the quality of what we are being told, I am only commenting on the volume.
You are wrong if you tell me that you are effective at curating the good stuff that will improve your life from the algo-influencer-Youtube-podcast-x regime. I know you think you are because, as we noted, you are a fan of the high class, refined content. The good stuff. The science backed stuff. Here’s the thing, once a source of information finds some sort of “resonance” with your subconscious, you are going to suck it all right up. All the great stuff you hear will immediately seep into your subconscious and become a constant quiet voice in the back of your mind berating you with a litany of “shoulds.”
Alas, you object - it’s all good stuff. Huberman has me locked onto managing my dopamine levels, Attia has me optimizing my diet, Dr. Zoidberg has me keeping limber, and Cal Newport is showing me how to live a deep life. I want to point out three problems with what is going on here.
Problem #1 - Your mind is not actually asking what end purpose is being served by adopting the idea that you “should” be doing a given thing.
Let’s cue Jocko Willink on this one. I am someone who, for many years, felt it was important to wake up at 4:30am because of… discipline. Why? Well, I must get up early to be up before the enemy and for freedom. I note that discipline is the ultimate meta-”should”. Discipline means getting yourself to do all the “shoulds” on your list. Can anyone tell me what outcome I’m missing out on by not partaking in a daily cold plunge, heat plunge, ice bath, or looking at the sun within 15 minutes of waking up?
Problem #2 - Even if you have a desired end goal, your mind is not doing a rigorous job of assessing whether or not a given “should” will get you there.
Most of us would like more control of our daily schedule in order to have more freedom and flexibility. The grindset types on Youtube, or on X have a common solution for us. I am not likely taking a huge leap in that one “should” you have picked up is something to do with entrepreneurship. Ok, have you really considered whether starting your own business will give you more freedom? Maybe it will… I just suspect you picked up this idea without really looking at the pros and cons.
Problem #3 - Even if you’ve been bequeathed a fantastic, grade A, “should” from someone… you’ve got more than you can handle already.
If a “should” that you heard on Youtube or read in a book resonates for some reason, your mind will take it up and start beaming you subconscious messages to do that thing. Your mind will also happily send you 10 of these at once. Are they contradictory? Who cares? I “should” wake up at 4:30, and I should sleep at least 8 hours with no alarm clock. I should also consider being a night owl creative type, and stay up late to grind if life demands it. Some “shoulds” probably aren’t even really defined to any precision. I should be more driven, more mindful, more dynamic. I genuinely feel all those impulses and can’t even begin to tell you what it would like to actually do them. Mr. Brain has no problem with cognitive dissonance, and will dutifully tell me to live up to all of these.
Let’s now talk about Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden (as an aside, yes I also feel a “should” to be more religious, spiritual, and penitent). Well, really I want to talk about The Promised Land. I know you… you are the hard driving, disciplined type. You like to punish yourself for not living up to your expectations. Alas, you are on the verge of getting there. If you could just get a few days in a row where you nail all your “shoulds,” it will all fall into place. One perfect day will lead to the next and the next. Then, I’ll have made it. I’ll be in the land of enlightenment (and oh so productive). Fellow pilgrim, I’m right there with you on the Righteous Path.
Wait a second, something feels off. Did I say above that our mind will happily adopt any set of “shoulds” no matter how contradictory or ill-defined they may be? And, did I also say that I’m striving to get to The Promised Land by doing “All the Shoulds”? If The Righteous Path is the road that leads to The Promised Land, I’ve got some bad news for you. You are permanently off The Righteous Path. This, my friend, is why you constantly feel like you are not living up to your expectations. They are impossible - you never had a chance. It’s ok though - Jesus died for your sins and there is still a path to salvation.
Oh, but, I’m not ready for salvation, I want to rock on. Here’s what we’d all prefer to do when faced with that sensation of being off the Path. It’s time to hunker down, and go to war, and GRIND. Don’t tell me I can’t do it all. When fate whispers, “You cannot Withstand The Storm,” the Warrior Whispers, “I am the Storm.” I’m feeling chills (no really, it’s a great quote). That’s how we roll. We man up and get that shit done. Well, I hate to be the one to break it to you, but if that worked you wouldn’t still be in the market for motivational content. You are still lost… no Youtube video is going to get out of the bottomless deep of the “should.”
Back to Jesus (gasp - you didn’t warn me this would be a borderline sacrilegious article). It’s okay, Jesus is fair game in the algo-world. This is that obnoxious pause point in a self help book where there’s a worksheet page and you are asked to write stuff down. Take 10 minutes and make yourself a list of all the “shoulds” that you are feeling at this point about your life. I’ll help you get going with some prompts: businesses to start, podcasts to create, books to read, daily rituals to adopt, food to eat/not eat, workout routine to start, races to run, people to call, projects to do. You get the idea.
More work for you. Now imagine your perfect day. I mean a day that checks all the boxes. I despise rap, but seek inspiration in imagining the productivity version of the Ice Cube hit, “It was a Good Day.” How would you spend your time? Think about it hour by hour, minute by minute. When do you wake up? What do you do after waking up? How much time do you spend working? What sort of work? What else do you do? Map it all out. Imagine this as a day where you fully control your schedule.
Are you still with me? Probably not. This is too many words for the internet and I’m asking too much of your lazy ass. You should be less lazy. See what I did there? Ok, next step. Map your perfect day onto reality. Take any of the days from the past week where you had real life commitments such as work meetings, errands, childcare and ask yourself how you would map this perfect day onto that reality. Where would the three hours of Cal Newport Deep Work fit? How would you wake up at 4:30am after being up late because your kid was sick or your friend from out of town was visiting?
My point is, of course, obvious. However, don’t underestimate what I am saying. I am not saying that you can’t always have your perfect day. I am saying you can never have the perfect day. You are imposing unrealistic expectations upon reality. This conflict has always existed and you had two choices: 1) Dig deeper and muscle through because you are failing as a person to be sufficiently disciplined, or 2) Accept that your “shoulds” were always impossible to fully satisfy, and try something different.
Here’s the last thing I want you to do for now. Go back to your “should” list from the first step and take a critical eye. I give you permission to cross out as many as you’d like. If you are unsure before you cross it out, ask yourself: Where did this idea come from? Does it help me lead a happier life? Do I even agree with the premise? When in doubt, cross it out and feel the freedom.
I’ll leave you with one last message - you are probably doing just fine. Are there improvements you can make in your life? Sure, we all can. However, you aren’t failing, you aren’t straying from The Righteous Path, and there is no Promised Land. There’s just the lower case p path, and that is alright.

🛠 UNDER CONSTRUCTION ⚒️

The information detailed in this narrative is undergoing review and in the process of being updated.
Our philosophy within the SSDI_SSI Subreddit is to share our experiences to try to assist others. It does not necessarily mean that any shared experience will be a duplicate of your current experiences or outcomes.
Sometimes?
Just knowing that someone else has made it through similar difficult processes may make a huge difference to the stress you are currently (or soon will be) experiencing.
While I was going through some really rough times? I kept notes regarding some of the issues I was having, the numerous helpful resources I came across, and the search techniques I utilized.
Some of the resources I came across had nothing to do with a specific issue that I was experiencing.
However? If I thought the resources could be:

■ helpful to others?	■ relevant?
■ informative?	■ significant?

I kept track just in case the resources could be of assistance to others.
I gathered all of the notes / links I had collected and created this narrative through the years.
These resources are relative to people who live in the USA.
Although other countries may have such programs, they would (most likely) not share the same links.
You could utilize similar techniques (not the exact same links found here) to search for helpful resources in your community, perhaps.
In the USA? If you have a SmartPhone or a computer? You can actually call / locate sites that offer assistance and / or let your fingers do the walking!

This is a living document and will be changed as needed.

Type your zip code and the type of assistance that you need in your browser.
12345 affordable housing
12345 electricity / bill assistance
12345 find housing
12345 free dental care
12345 free eye glasses / lens
12345 free therapy
12345 free transportation
12345 paratransit services
You get the idea!
You can use different terminology during your search.
I have found that each city / state is different throughout the USA.
You never know what your community has already established for people who need help.
You will find that some communities offer more assistance than others.
If you don't have a SmartPhone or a computer?
Go to the library. There are all kinds of resources there - most of which are free.
While there? Pick up some books!!

Always keep looking for solutions.

Reach out to others.
We are a community on Reddit - created to help each other.
Don't give up!
No matter what!
I've compiled a list of helpful information / sites that I add to periodically. Some may help you now / some may not (but could nevertheless provide assistance in the future).
It's always good to know about these resources in case you ever need them.
Programs / headings are in alphabetical order:

Children

There are organizations specifically geared towards the needs of children. A few are detailed below.
National Diaper Network.
Women, Infants, and Children (WIC).
US Department of Agriculture (USDA) Food and Nutrtion Services - Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) - WIC Eligibility Requirements.

Disability Eligibility Requirements

If you or a loved one are 💯% disabled? You should consider applying for SSA disability benefits.
All SSA disability programs have the same criteria in regards to eligibility. If unable to work because of a medical / psychological condition, you are eligible for SSA disability benefits.
■ You have to be 💯% disabled (SSA does not award benefits for partial disabilities).
■ Unable to work.
■ Have a disability that will last for at least a year or end in your death.

We pay disability benefits to people who can't work because they have a medical condition that's expected to last at least one year or result in death. Federal law requires this very strict definition of disability. While some programs give money to people with partial disability or short-term disability, we do not.

If you have not already done so? Sign up for mySocialSecurity, with the ability to provide secure online access to your current earnings record and history. Information regarding your retirement, disability, and any survivor benefits that you and your family may be eligible for will also be accessible. Also? Your potential monthly benefits will be calculated.

Education

Continuing your education is a great way to learn.
You can go to school online and not even leave your home. Take a class here and there. Go to school at 3:00 am on a Wednesday or 4:00 pm on a Saturday.
There are no worries about parking, transportation, or rushing to make it to a class from your job.
Some states offer free college tuition for the first two years. There are other charges like room and board, textbooks and transportation (which will need to be paid for out of pocket).
Apply for Pell Grants or other types of assistance. Ask the school for whatever other programs may be avaliable to you.
Accredited Online Colleges.
Apply for Financial Aid.
Avoid fake degree burns by researching academic credentials.
The Best Online Colleges 2022.
Is Community College Free? In These 19 States, Yes.
Federal Pell Grants Are for Undergraduate Students.
Top 35 Tuition-Free Colleges For 2022

Food Assistance / Food Pantries

There are numerous resources available for food shotages. You do not have to go hungry. Don't be afraid (or ashamed) to ask for help.
14 Companies That Will Give You Food and Other Products For Free.
16 of the Absolute Best Freebies We’ve Ever Found Online.
23 Restaurant Apps That Get You Free Food.
60+ places to get FREE food via app or email signup!.
Find Food Pantries.
Find Your Local Food Bank.
Food Stamps - SNAP Food Benefits.
SNAP Eligibility Requirements for your family. In your state? There may be requirements that you have to work or other eligibility criteria that have to be met before SNAP is provided.
US Department of Agriculture (USDA) Food and Nutrtion Services Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP).
US Department of Agriculture (USDA) Food and Nutrtion Services Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) Facts About SNAP.

Health Insurance

If you need health insurance? You might want to consider applying for the Affordable Care Act (ACA), which is income based. Benefits are different for each state. Depending on:
■ what agreement your state's Governor signed and your state's legislatures approved?
■ if the last administration allowed insurance policies (that cover nothing) to proliferate your state?
Your options are variable. Meaning? Your benefits will be uniquely tailored for your financial qualifications and your state.
A lot of people are turning to the reliable ACA because of everything that has transpired.
The ACA mandates that therapy be covered, too.
Affordable Care Act (ACA) Guarantees.
Apply for the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, also known as the Affordable Care Act (ACA) or Obamacare.
Everything to Know About Obamacare (ACA) Subsidies.
Health Care Rankings - Measuring how well states are meeting citizens' health care needs.

Medicaid Expansion

Medicaid Expansion and What it Means for You
Red states that have resisted Medicaid expansion are feeling pressure to give up.
Status of State Medicaid Expansion Decisions: Interactive Map.
What Marketplace Health Insurance Plans Cover.

Homelessness

HH Help for Every Casualty of Homelessness: Including Disabled SSA Applicants, Disability Recipients, and Veterans.

Housing Issues

Sometimes, there are huge differences in the types of housing / assistance you may be eligible for (depending on the state or community that you live in).
There may be a waiting list in your area, but you should at least apply for all programs.
Concerned About Eviction.
Find Your Local Public Housing Agency (PHA).
HUD Eviction Guidance.
Learn More About Renting and HUD Rental Assistance Programs.
Rent Relief Resources.

Interested in Moving?

We decided we needed to move when we noticed that the community we lived in did not provide the support we needed to have a better life.
We wanted to move to a location that offered exposure to better healthcare, health insurance, housing and paratransit services.
So?
Make a list of items that are important to you and your family. Rank them in order of importance.
Remember? Each community is different and offers different services.
Each jurisdiction has a Chamber of Commerce page or other similar resource that lists issues you might be interested in.
I searched the internet, made lists, and came up with the following resources (presented in alphabetical order) that were important to our family. You and your family might have other criteria.

(1) Helping Hands

Helping Hands Action Group monitors the benefits landscape for updates and changes to policies and programs. Depending on the jurisdiction? They offer transportation and other services. You should check 12345 Helping Hands in your area.
Check out the Helping Hands Action Group - click here.

(2) Medicaid Expansion

The Affordable Care Act’s (ACA) Medicaid expansion expanded Medicaid coverage to nearly all adults with incomes up to 138% of the Federal Poverty Level ($20,783 for an individual in 2024) and provided states with an enhanced federal matching rate (FMAP) for their expansion populations.

To date, 41 states (including DC) have adopted the Medicaid expansion and 10 states have not adopted the expansion. Current status for each state is based on KFF tracking and analysis of state expansion activity.

Check out the Status of State Medicaid Expansion Decisions: Interactive Map - click here.

(3) Paratransit / Transportation

Another thing you should consider adding to the list? Check to see what type of transportation services are offered.
You never have to worry about parking, blizzards, running out of fuel or parking meter money, taffic or anything else that would be a hindrance.
If your community has bus routes? You might have paratransit services available to you.
The fair is reasonable (much better than ubers, taxis or something else).
You do not need to be in a wheelchair for paratransit services.
The driver will walk you to and from the door of the building (your home and the appointment and vice versa).
You can use the services for anything you want to, such as vists to:

beauty parlors	parks
community events	physical therapy
library visits	school events
medical appts	shopping excursions
movies	veterinarian appts
museums	volunteer work

Anything you can think of - it is such a blessing.
I have lived in areas that had paratransit and areas that did not offer paratransit. It makes a huge difference in your sense of independence to be able to attend appointments and go places you need to. Without the interference of worrying about reliable transportation.

(4) Social Security Taxes

Moving to a state where they do not charge social security taxes dramatically increased our overall income. If you are interested in moving to states that do not require taxes on SSA benefits?
Check out 39 states that do not tax Social Security benefits - click here. Consider moving. It saved us a lot of money every single month.

(5) State Income Taxes

Moving to a state where they do not charge state income taxes dramatically increased or overall income. If you are interested in moving to states that do not require state income taxes?
Check out 9 states with no income tax - click here. Consider moving. It saved us a lot of money every single month.

Miscellaneous

Dial 211 Not sure where to turn? We are here for you.
Dial 988 Suicide and Crisis Support Lifeline.
Affordable Connectivity Program - Broadband Connection.
Ask Your Free Legal Question (licensed attorneys in your state / free).
Assurance Wireless - Lifeline Free Government Phone Program.
Find Help.
Go Fund Me.
Help with Bills.

Note

We work very hard to ensure all narratives are up to date.
Periodically? Guidelines, policies, processes or referrals may change.
Each time Reddit is updated and / or SSA guidelines / policies change? Or referrals are obsolete? It will affect the hyperlink and it may no longer be viable.
All links / sources are free. Never pay a fee to access these sites.
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06-12-2018 Created 05-16-2024 Updated

Chapter 3: Dynamic Exist
Memory transcript : Farusl Archivist Tyka Date: 2277 August 21st [human standard time]
Tyka yawned, he had been monitoring several of the predator cages for a while trying to gauge their reactions, these were new catches from another region which was vastly different to the other side of the continent which by comparison was stable, these more eastern humans were almost all completely feral, ascribing totemic tribal practices with lethal weaponry, it was saddening.
“Terrifying creatures these humams….even the Arxur wouldn't be able to survive a total atomic annihilation yet these humans, who by all accounts are physically weaker than the Arxur, seem to have survived remarkibly well”
The calculating tone of the elder Officer Netly said peering over into the security monitor watching the newest catches, most of whome seemed to be violent marauders of some kind,and if the toxicology reports were to be believed extremely intoxicated prior to capture
“Well HC-1380 was clean….it why we've placed HC-2251 with them, they both passed with a clean bloodstream and 1380 seemed….mildly more docile than the other recent arrivals”
Tyka said as Netly raised her muzzle in contempt
“A predator is a predator, docile is not in there nature no matter how docile it may seem”
She said as Tyka openly scoffed
“I will admit many new acquisitions may be more feral than expected but the fact that we HAVE found humans who are not as violent should be seen as a boon, infact the nuclear devastation could be a benefit, they may be more willing to partake in the cure if it means that they can live out of the Wasteland”
“And how exactly would we do that, most of there genomes Are irreparable damaged by atomic Fallout and residual radiation, it would take decades to repair there existing genome let alone provide an appropriate Cure for eating flesh. Let alone there awful gaze” Netly spat indignantly, clearly insulted at the notion of a feral species could ever be uplifted to a proper sentient species is laughable
“Ahh But that's where you are misinformed Netly, you see her?” Tyka said tapping a paw to the monitor, it was the two new arrivals he had discusted eariler
“The scavenger and the pale one? What significant are they?” She asked confused as Tyka let out a slight smirk
“There genetic code suggests limited to no genetic damage, HC-2251 for example has no significant radiological degradation, she's as close as clean as you can get, And according to the lab, her UV intake, the thiny that gives humans bare skin there pigments? Its limbited suggesting a sheltered lifestyle, possibly one with a stable, equally pure gene stock of other untouched humans!”
Netly was shocked to say the least, from virtually every other predator they had captured they had all shown signs of genetic damage or severe mutation due to radiological exposure, of Tyka was correct…there was a possibility that the Original cure that was designed for humanity could be distributed
“If that is true, where could they possibly be located? We have satellites pointing All over the continent and wed be able to see a large, functional human tribe, like those desert tribes to the east” Netly said as Tyka nodded
“If they were on the surface, i postulate that they may be subterranean and i believe the answer likes in 2251s arm mounted computer. We plan on removing it after another checkup but the lab has had troubles devising a method of removing it without killing her since the device Is somehow attached to her by some biometric seals were having difficulties cracking but by her next interview”
Tyka said, and before Netly could respond a security alarm blamed, forcing the two to shift their focus away from there Conversation to the monitors, it was HC-2251 and HC-1380, the two were fighting, Tyka could only imagine it was for dominance, predators were such a precious bunch but at least they lacked claws, that was the thought until a trial of blood was seen spilling from 2251's nose!
“Ancestors! Netly send a security team to break that up and isolate 2251 as soon as possible, if she dies then we loose any lead on finding more undamaged human stock!”
Memory transcript: Abigail Nelson, vault dweller and current show fighter
The hits were all staged but every so often to get across the idea they Were real every other hit randomly connected with enough force to show it, that was Somah’s plan, make them think They were fighting for some reason, Somah had said that fights like these were was drew in security to stun them and break up the fight, which was also Why they didn't want to actually hurt one another, because if one or both of them got hurt they'd not only be separated and isolated like Somah was after her first attempt, and after getting socked In the face and giving her a light bloody nose. It worked as the door opened and in poured…..cocker spaniels? Chest-tall, wall eyed, cocker spaniels in rubber suits welding cattle prods.
In a flash Somah kicked up the metal tray that the measly alien veggies were delivered on, using it to bash in the muzzle of one, drawing the other three's attention away letting Abigail slam her bawled fisted into the temple of one of the aliens, causing it to slam into another causing them both to frankly…..easily drop to the floor, the lot of them whining and whimpering, clutching their heads as Somah grabbed one of their weapons, tossing one to Abigail as Somah made for the exit, having to brush off the shock of alien dog men she followed her new companion close behind.
“Were those…..dogs?” Abigail asked in surprise running along side Somah as the two raced down the hall as alarms blared overhead
“Yeah, I kinda forgot to mention that, didn't I? They look like Pre-War dogs with weird Brahman eyes,” she shrugged nonchalantly to Abbies confusion. The two suddenly stopped in a side room with an air vent, somah watched the corners and seemingly satisfied pulled Abigail in, and motioned her to be quiet. Before she could question why she heard the squeaking of booted paws run past them and somah only spook once the sound seemed sufficiently distant.
“Alright …..we're in the clear, are you ok-” Before Somah could continue she was meet with a smack across her face from Abigail
“That was for hitting me in my nose!” She spat rubbing her once prestigious white jumpsuit with her red viscous fluid leaking from her nose.
“Okay…I deserve that,” Somah admitted, rubbing her cheek “Honestly, I expected something worse, but I deserved it,” She says as Abigial noticed exactly where they were exactly. “Wait….are we in a alien supply closet”
Somah looked around, noticing the abundant sealed boxes written in alien script, one slightly open revealing some kind of rag or cloth That Abigail readily swiped to help stem her nose’s red trickle.
“Okay so, back on track, we need to find a way off this ship, last time I checked were still over Earth” Somah said as Abigail looked back at her
“How would we know?” She asked pinching her nose*
“Because you can feel when the ship moves, and they have announcements in English” She says which just made Abigail’s eyes go wide.
“They speak english?!” Abby said shocked as Somah nodded, “Then why the FUCK would they lock us up without saying anything?!”
She spat as Somah tried to get her to calm down “Honesty, I don't know, the only thing I do know is what I've heard from some of the guards, something about us being Acquisitions and a cure…I think there trying to collect us a labor force for whatever reason”
That reason resonated with Abigail in a disturbing way, the way the cells were arranged reminded her uncomfortably of Paradise Falls
“But why us?” She asked as Somah began looking around the small storeroom
“It makes sense to me, humans survived a nuclear apocalypse and they want a slave force for there homeworld, it's not like humans can fight back in any way, swoop down, suck up a town into your hold and zip away. They're probably checking to see what diseases we have to make sure we don't bring back any plagues and to inoculate us to theirs.”
The logic tracked, Paradise Falls had a rigorous system for assessing new….cattle to ensure they weren't feeble or lame, Just thinking that alone made her sick to her stomach.
“Alright, but we should stop them, force them to capitulate, somehow, and free everyone onboard!” Abby declared as Somah scoffed.
“And how exactly do we do that, Vaulty? “Ask nicely and hold out a flag of peace and tranquility?” She asked sarcastically as Abigail tried to rack her brain. What would Dad do in a situation like this…. This wasn't like the vault….but that's when it hit her. This alien ship…. Maybe it was like a vault, if it's so big and would need alot of…. Well, everything, to move from planet to planet. Maybe, like a vault, if they crippled certain systems, maybe, they could stop them.
“As a matter a fact, I do have a plan”

Abigail said with smirk, removing the now stained towel as Somah raised a brow to her as Abigail regained her plan to her scribe accomplice.

Chapter 3 is done and I feel pretty good about it but escape scenes Aren't my forte im afraid, as usual I adore everyone who reads and enjoys it, I'll have proper links set up to go back to previous chapters sometime later I hope yall enjoy!

I hear this all the time at work and I cannot possibly fathom caring whether or not someone else is wearing a jacket. Maybe I am cold, maybe I want to cover my arms, maybe it's comfortable, or maybe I just saw Sleep Token and want to wear the cool new jacket I got from the show. Who gives a singular crap why someone else wears a coat and what purpose is commenting on it supposed to serve?

I'm 23 minutes in and the narrator who I think is the guy wrote the documentary has already made two factual errors to make film essentially come across as cooler and idk why you'd even have to bother.
The first one was that film invented narrative flashbacks which have been around since the Ramayana and Mahabharata so thousands of years. Also some Arabian Nights stories have it in them. His quote was something like Shakespeare doesn't have flashbacks. I can see where this one is kind of debatable so it's not as agregious as the second example.
The second one was that Einstein said light is the only constant in the universe which makes no sense at all and just sounds like someone who misunderstands science trying to use it to make themselves sound more intelligent. There's plenty of constants depending on what you mean by that. Plank constant is one there's dozens or hundreds. What Einstein really said was that the speed of light is constant in that it doesn't change not that it's only thing that doesn't change. Hopefully there isn't more of this but idk since I'm only 24 minutes into a 12 hour documentary.

I hear this all the time at work and I cannot possibly fathom caring whether or not someone else is wearing a jacket. Maybe I am cold, maybe I want to cover my arms, maybe it's comfortable, or maybe I just saw Sleep Token and want to wear the cool new jacket I got from the show. Who gives a singular crap why someone else wears a coat and what purpose is commenting on it supposed to serve?

A client asked to purchase some and I quoted them the price which I got from official channels. They showed me something selling online for extremely cheap which got me wondering if it was legit.
https://glamtechenterprises.com/product/windows-server-2019-remote-desktop-services-50-user-cal-license-key-instant-email-delivery/?gad_source=1&gclid=EAIaIQobChMIj4ioloCThgMV9KRmAh2eewGrEAQYASABEgIlFvD_BwE
Is this for real? I mean, has anyone here purchased something similar or used this site before?

Hey everyone,
I joined this subreddit because I haven't been successful finding many resources online that could help me. A little background on me:
I'm 34, turning 35 very soon, and I was diagnosed with ADHD this year. I've been on medication for nearly 2 months which has improved a lot of my symptoms, especially at work. I only was assessed for ADHD because I didn't bring up that I also suspect comorbid Autism. I am still unsure because many of the "common" symptoms are very mild with me. I thought posting here could help me figure out if other diagnosed people have experienced it, or if it has no relation to autism at all. But it's been on my mind for months, there's just a lot that I can't explain with ADHD. I need to mention that I was diagnosed with BPD in the past due to extremely poor emotional regulation, but always felt like it was a misdiagnosis (even my therapist at the time said I barely scored over the required points).
Here's the things I have experienced my whole life (I know some of them are related to ADHD, but this is where the symptoms overlap):
Stimming: I've done it since I can think. As a kid I constantly ran my hands against certain textures I found interesting. I still do it, like when I work on my PC I have to run my fingers across the keys, especially where the keys have bumps, or scroll the wheel on my mouse or run my fingers across the plastic. I also pick the skin of my heel all the time, the rough bits, and sometimes so much that it hurts to walk on it. When I'm out I always have to touch rough surfaces. There's more I'm embarrassed to talk about, but in the past it caused my classmates to make fun out of me because I didn't notice it was out of the norm to do.
Eye contact: Talking to someone and looking them in the eye makes me incredibly uncomfortable and I really have to force myself to do it. When I'm in conversation I usually never directly look at someone's face, it makes me so anxious to do.
Special interests: I had these since I was extremely young and while I know this can also be attributed by ADHD, it is both a hyperfocus for me as well as an extreme hyperfixation. When I'm interested in something it completely absorbs me. I can't stop thinking about it, I have to learn everything I can about it (usually that's where my ADHD kicks in tho, because I get bored very fast and then I move onto the next interest) and, especially in the past, it used to be all I talk about, even to people who are not in the matter. For me it's gone from Disney movies as a child (Disney's Hercules especially, I was nonstop about it), to books, to video games, to anime, you name it. When I'm into it, I am so fixated that everything else is uninteresting. That has gotten better as I got older - I guess I learned to hide it better, or maybe it helps that my partner shares my interests so I don't have to hold back. But also because I have become so non stop exhausted that talking in general is hard these days lol
Things that make me uncomfortable: when I was in my teens, I hated being touched by people and it made me angry when my friends tried to hug me. This has been remarked upon by my friends at the time, after which I tried to mask it better. I am still uncomfortable with hugs at times. I love cuddling my partner and I give my friends or family brief hugs if I know them very very well. If I don't, I still fucking hate hugs. I am, for some reason, especially awkward around my mother. Showing any affection with her is so hard for me and makes me feel extremely bad. I suppose it is because we did have a very difficult past and I had lost trust in her for a long time, so somehow I still cannot associate her as a safe space. But it's so damn hard. Also other people being upset makes me super uncomfortable. I used to not really know how to react, I've taught myself to be better about in the last years, but it is still a very awkward position for me to be in. That said, I definitely feel empathy and sympathy to an extreme degree sometimes. I know when people are mad or upset, sometimes long before they say anything. But that, in my opinion, is a survival mechanism. I had to teach myself to be vigilant to people's emotions due to past trauma.
I also really hate certain textures. Cream or anything oily makes me feel really uncomfortable and I used to not be able to moisturize myself during my younger years because I hated the feeling sooo much. It's better now but I still have to wash my hands immediately if I touch something oily lol
Food wise I'm okay. Textures don't bother me and I can eat almost everything (apart from peppers and spicy food). But I did cause some big scenes in the past when my mum and brother tried to get me to eat something spicy lol
Speaking of outbursts, here we come to why I was diagnosed with BPD before.
It is a LOT better now (unless something really triggers me) but I had the worst emotional regulation for the longest time. Stuff that threw me off was often:
Being made to do something I didn't want to do. Having a plan in my head that I wanted to do and then being told no or something getting in the way/plans falling apart, even if the plan was only in my head. Being slighted. People acting different towards me than they did before. Injustice, personal or at work. Drastic changes with my work routine and not being told early enough. Very loud noises or music. Rejection
I had an incredibly difficult relationship with my mother for the longest time due to my outbursts. My impulsivity definitely has played a major factor here, but also it always was so hard to feel understood. I was told all my life to act and behave a certain way, if I didn't I was in trouble. I was always the odd one out, especially at school, but also within my family, which is why I cut off contact with everyone but my mum and my brother.
It is hard to make friendships because masking is hard and I usually spend so much energy doing it at work that my social life is barely existent. My boyfriend always jokes about me taking things very literally because I can't figure out he's being sarcastic and this has become an inside joke between us.
But there are things that I do that argue against autism. Here is where I'd like some insight from others. I can be pretty spontaneous - however, if I think about it, even my "spontaneous" trips have at least a little mental preparation behind it. I don't have difficulties figuring out how a person feels by their body language, tone or expression. I am quite quick to spot how a person is feeling. I can do small talk (although it literally has no meaning to me, I just do it to have some social contact from time to time). I like routine but due to ADHD I am used to not having one. But I like to do things a certain way I guess and I have a hard, hard time breaking out of that way, or thinking out of the box. I just am unsure if that ticks the list or not because I don't get too upset if I have to do something differently.
Sorry, this got longer than expected. But any insight or your personal stories are extremely appreciated!

Okay. Upon watching the series, it’s not to far of a stretch when Richie sarcastically says “ Yeah I’ll get you the Fuck out of there Donna.” They have the same mindset and when Donna was outside it was almost a word for word when Carmy unintentionally tells Claire how he feels. They both have to come to terms and let go of their past trauma.

Now, as you may know Nintendo series like Mario and Kirby got TV shows, now this has me wondering, what if Miitopia got a TV show, so for that, I have some ideas for it, so I felt like sharing it with you. So the fan of the games can easily understand the plot. Although most episodes will focus on the cast and their goal to save Miitopia, I'll hope include some episodes that'll help character grow and develop. Character cast: Now my idea for a cast is that I'll follow one of Miitopia's best features, being able to put in any character in the story, now I'll only have one original character, being the protagonist, other that that, all other characters would've already exist, now due to copyright, I'll only cast Nintendo characters to fill the roles , I'll also might include some Pokemon characters since Gamefreak is close to Nintendo and some celebrities [Like youtubers, voice actors, etc] here and there, so if you don't like it my casting or think the Pokemon characters will lead to copyright, you can type your own cast down below. So let the madness and fun begin. The cast: Carefree Guide: Mario Cheery Granny: Gardevoir Sassy Child: Goomba Worried Mother: Indeedee Lovely-Dovey Couple: Ash and Serena Sarcastic Guy: Toad Dubious Mayor: Luigi Dark Lord: Louie Roving Photographer: Koopa Quizmaster: Orbeetle Prodigious Postman: Pelipper Roaming Gourmet: Kirby Serious Soldier: Boo Lax Soldier: Monty Mole Royal Supports: Bandana Dee and Escargoon King: King Dedede Princess: Lana Prince from Neksdor: Bulborb Besmirched Noble's Son: Waddle Dee Great Sage: Aphmau Genie: Spike Dancing Guide: Oricorio Rambling Old Man: Jack Black Shady Merchant Family: Toadette and Garos Worried Explorer: Bowser Prickly Couple: Inkling Boy and Girl Desert Celebrity: Chris Pratt Fab Faries: Peach, Daisy and Rosalina Injured Elf: Yellow Pikmin Fab Fairies fans: Regice, Regirock and Registeel Scaredy-Cat: Torracat Green-Eyed Lady: Zelda Lazybones: Ice Pikmin Mischievous Witch: Meowscarada Town Guide: Blue Pikmin Scholary Pioneer: Donkey Kong Dark Curse: Vanillite The Protangonist: Name: Gideon Description: Gideon is a traveling comedian who although laid back, loves to entertain people and make them smile, he went to Miitopia has it heard it was in a bad shape and he thought it meant that Miitopia needed cheering up, although he has a good heart, being laid-back his laziness limits his capabilities where it often leads to him not doing something at his best. After meeting the guardian spirit, he was given the powers of a mage, in Neksdor when Louie sealed away his powers he became a warrior, and in Realm of the Fey when his powers were sealed away again, he became a thief and when his powers were no longer sealed away, he became a wizard once more. Greenhorne Allies: Mallow: Class: Chef Description: Mallow left Alola soon after hearing about the culinary cuisine of Miitopia so she set off to learn the recipes of Miitopia dishes with her family. Sadly soon after reaching Miitopia, she and her family were attacked by the Dark Lord resulting in her family losing their faces and the ambush caused her and her Tsareena to seperate. Now wanting to save them, she wanders around Miitopia look to save her family Steve [Red Pikmin]: Class: Warrior Description: Steve grew up on a long lost land, and is the best knight in his habitat. He left his natural habitat to find a purpose as he felt like his talents were wasting away, so after hearing Miitopia was in danger, he knew what he had to do, he rose to the challenge and set sail for Miitopia. But his main flaw is that he thinks highly of himself and tries to lift super heavy things on his own with little to no success. Nabbit: Class: Theif Description: The infamous thief of the Mushroom Kingdom was able to steal anything and not get caught, so in his hideout, he read of an amulet that grants insane power to control an army, and after turning on the TV, he soon saw the Dark Lord wearing the same amulet, so he set for Miitopia to retrieve the powerful artifact so he can make monsters to steal anything and is capable of reaching high speeds due to his insane energy. Meloetta: Class: Pop Star Description: During her time in Unova, Meloetta was caught by a kind and caring local singer, and soon after, Meloetta and her trainer were the best singers in Unova dropping amazing albums left and right, they came to Miitopia after receiving an invitation to perform a concert but after landing there and got to the meeting spot, it was a trap set by the Dark Lord to use the Mythical's face to make an extremely powerful monster. But her trainer was able to distract him long enough for him to escape, last thing Meloetta saw was the Dark Lord stealing her trainers faces. Being a kind soul, she often tries to stop quarrels and fights and most of the time she's the voice of reason. Neksdor Allies: Olimar: Class: Scientist Description: Olimar and his family set off for Miitopia after hearing it's excellent vacation spots, but soon after landing there, his family's faces were snagged by his coworker Louie, not wanting to be next, he hid until Louie left, and set off to save his family and stop Louie. Purple Pikmin: Name: Purp Class: Cleric Description: On his home town, Purp was a doctor attending to the injured, but after being accused of stealing a patients skeleton, he quickly lost his medical license, so instead of using medicine to heal his patients, he studied in cleric magic to heal his patients way faster, and he set off for Miitopia with his friend Rocky soon after hearing it had lots of injuries. Despite his divine magic his lack of intellect gets in the way leading to dumb scenarios. Ice Cream Sandwich: Class: Imp Description: While in his house, he hears of a land called Miitopia, where it has an animation contest in Neksdor where whoever wins gets a huge cash prize, so he invited his friends, and dog along and soon set off for Miitopia, where during the time he was there, he had a good time, eating snacks, hanging with the boys, messing around. Until after the competition where the winner was about the being announced, the event is quickly interrupted by the Dark Lord where he starts stealing everyone's faces, him, his dog and his friends went to hide in the bathroom since according to his brain, everyone knocks before entering the bathroom, before anyone said something, the Dark Lord busted in and stole his friends' faces and his dog, after checking if the Dark Lord was gone, he swore vengeance, so went around hoping to find people to help him Rock Pikmin: Name: Rocky Class: Cat Description: On Rocky's natural habitat he owned a cat sanctuary, where he helped felines find forever homes and learned how to fight like a cat, so he after hearing about the exclusive cat breeds on Miitopia, he soon set off with his friend Purp but soon after the Dark Lord stole his cat Terry, him and his friend wanted revenge, but just with Purp's healing magic and his feline abilities, it wouldn't be enough, so the set off for heroes to find so they could help them. Throughout the series, Rocky suffers from an extreme lack of IQ so he needs help when it comes to situations that require intellect to solve. And together with Icecreamsandwich and Purp, the three often do dumb stuff together and get into all sorts of trouble. Realm of the Fey Allies: Tsareena: Class: Princess Description: After soon being seperated from Mallow, Tsareena ended up in Realm of the Fey, lost and not knowing where to go, soon she met up with a potion, thirsty and out of options, she drank it where it granted her the magically abilities of royalty. After meeting up with the protagonist she soon set off with him to reunite with Mallow. Lilligant: Class: Flower Description: After stowing away on a cargo ship from Unova to Miitopia, Lilligant started exploring Miitopia and ended up in Realm of the Fey, so after befriending the local elves, she learnt the ways of harnessing the power of nature and really bonded with them, but after hiding when the Dark Lord attacked, she started to leave and set off to retrieve her friends and quickly met up with the protangonist. Having a gentle soul she sees the good in everyone often leading her to spare monsters. Golurk: Class: Tank Description: After hearing about Miitopia's situation, a bunch of Unova scientist got together and turned a Golurk into a weapon of mass destruction and was quickly shipped to Miitopia, after landing there, he started looking for the Dark Lord, and soon got orders from his creators to wait by a local inn to receive some allies to help him. During battle, Golurk will stop at nothing to defeat his opponents, even if it means firing his allies and shooting everywhere to ensure victory. He thinks he doesn't need help and often refuses assistance believing he can be a big shot and do it himself. Other Allies: Litwick: Class: Vampire Description: Litwick was caught by a vampire on vacation in Unova and the two quickly bonded. While in the land of Peculia, Litwick lived a simple life with his trainer in their mansion and his trainer taught Litwick vampire like abilities, until the Darker Lordsent a rat infestation in there, Litwick's trainer told him to get help to stop the rat invasion, soon he quickly met up with the protagonist and quickly asked him for help and after they agreed, they set off and during the journey Litwick quickly bonded with the team and after the rats were defeated, his trainer noticed his bond with the team and told them that if he wanted to go with them he wouldn't stop him, so Litwick quickly joined the party, and during his time in it, he often pulled pranks on his team and during battle, he likes to mix in fun by toying with his opponents and he calls them, his prey. Alchremie: Class: Elf Description: Alchremie lived in Peculia with a baker and together they made sweets for lotsa people. But after the Darker lord stole her trainer's face, she swore revenge, she went off to realm of the Fey to study the ways of elf magic and after learning the elf magic he returned to Peculia to look for her trainer's face soon after seeing the protagonist and his team struggle against a monster with her trainer's face, she went to the rescue and defeated the boss with ease. After her trainer got his face back Alchremie asked him if she could travel with the team to stop the Darker Lord, and her trainer quickly agreed. After this the team notice that Alchremie is a bit cautious, worries about a lot of things and likes to be ready for everything. Episode ideas: Now a lot of the series would be about the team saving Miitopia, but some episodes would be mainly about character growth and stuff like that. Some episode ideas I have: Lilligant the Shy Flower: After a battle with a strong demon, who made Lilligant worried about everything, it wouldn't wear off even in the safe spot, following a montage of the team trying to return her to normal like Mallow cooking her some magic food, Purp, Icecreamsandwich and Rocky pulling a prank on Olimar to cheer her up, Gideon telling a joke to cheer her up, or Steve just downright slapping her and many others, they figured that nothing could work until when the same demon invaded the inn and almost destroyed her team, Lilligant pushed herself and unleashed a hurricane blowing the demon away. Chaotic Tea Time: In the foreground we can see Lilligant and Tsareena having a tea party and chatting, while in the background Gideon and Golurk try to kill a fiend with all sorts of shenanigans, and the episode keeps switching from foreground to background and it ends with Golurk unleashing a powerful laser boosted with some energy cells Gideon has which ended up leveling half the forest.

Cora understands in technology more that I do when try to filter works on AO3. Please share something to read about the dragons duo. We were robbed of their dynamic in the actual show and I feel like they had a potential for something fun, sarcastic, sassy and sweet. But anything will work for me really.
^{Side note: please don't go Lannisters/Craster style about this request, thank you}

(Yes, the creators already did this, but I wanted to try reproducing their results.)
First of all, there's definitely still issues with the dataset.

1. Questions mostly have 10 possible answers, but some have fewer "to remove unreasonable choices". This is supposed to be done by actually having <10 answers (I assume), but in some cases questions are padded with N/A at the end multiple times. Removing N/A from the end of the options list until only one existed resulted in removing 3314 options from the test. AFAIK N/A is never the correct answer to any question (I checked).
2. Some questions are duplicates. I kept only the first instance encountered. This removed 86 questions from the test. I didn't check if their answer options were also duplicates.
3. Some questions have duplicate answer options (i.e. A and C or whichever being the same answer). As this is obviously incorrect I removed these questions from the test. This removed ~400 questions. It should be pretty easy to fix these but I didn't want to spend more time.
4. Some questions are impossible to answer as they're missing info.
   • For example, question ID 2668 is "Which of the following scans can image brain function?" but it does not give further details, and the answer options are things like "I, II and III only".
   • I only noticed one of these but I'm pretty sure there are more.
5. Some questions have very bad formatting, like 11797:
   • \textquotedblleftNew business firms can under price older firms, because thenewer firms can buy the latest equipment and are not bur-denedwith the older, less economical equipment which olderfirms must retire before they can economically adopt thenew. This is why continued technological progress contributesto maintaining a competitive economic system." Explain the er-rors in both sentences.
   • Smarter models will probably do better on things like this, but I don't think the formatting is intentional.

For my first run, I used temperature 0.2 (they used 0.1) and this system prompt:

You are a knowledgeable expert. When given a multiple choice question, think it through then give your single final answer as The answer is ....

Here is their system prompt:

You are an knowledge expert, you are supposed to answer the multi-choice question to derive your final answer as The answer is ....

I'm not a fan of the phrasing, but more importantly in my preliminary testing I noticed that GPT-4o interpreted it to mean that it could give multiple answers. My "single final answer" was intended to prevent that. This mostly worked, but when answering questions that involved a lot of LaTeX in the CoT it would sometimes format the answer using LaTeX, making regex matching unreasonably hard. (I didn't fix those, scoring them as failures.)
For my second run, I used temperature 0.5 (which OpenAI uses in their simple-evals repo) and this system prompt:

Answer the following multiple choice question. The last line of your response should be of the following format: 'Answer: ($LETTER)' (without quotes) where LETTER is a single one of the options. Think step by step before answering.

This is based on this prompt from OpenAI's evals. OpenAI's says to pick one of "ABCD" but I was too lazy to generate that dynamically so I changed it a bit. It seems to work well. I used the regex Answer\s*:\s*\(\$?([A-Ja-j])\) to capture the answer.
If the model's output didn't seem to give an answer at all I manually checked it. This was:

• Mostly GPT-4o saying that none of the answers are correct
• Sometimes the model entering an infinite loop until it ran out of output space
• A few times the model giving a numeric answer, often one that had no correspondence to possible answers. Scored as a failure.
• A few times very slightly bad formatting that my regex didn't match. If the answer it gave was correct I manually fixed it, on the rationale that a slightly better regex could have caught it, otherwise I left it alone (since it wouldn't affect the score either way).

Here are the results I got, plus the original results from TIGER Lab @ UWaterloo.

Models	Prompting	Overall	Biology	Business	Chemistry	ComputerScience	Economics	Engineering	Health	History	Law	Math	Philosophy	Physics	Psychology	Other
GPT-4o (TIGER Lab)	CoT	0.7149	0.8504	0.7852	0.7428	0.7512	0.784	0.5401	0.7152	0.6718	0.5393	0.762	0.6947	0.7355	0.7726	0.7091
GPT-4o (my first run)	CoT	0.7100	0.8441	0.7802	0.7502	0.7404	0.7763	0.5740	0.7061	0.6761	0.5753	0.7901	0.6760	0.7349	0.7611	0.7117
GPT-4o (my second run)	CoT	0.7113	0.8441	0.7725	0.7628	0.7506	0.7662	0.5584	0.6964	0.6641	0.5597	0.7772	0.6474	0.7378	0.7445	0.7041

So I'd say the results themselves are basically "yep, that sure is how it scores". I don't know if my overall scores are actually slightly worse or if it's the effect of removing almost 500 questions from a 12.3k question dataset.
Total cost: maybe $160 based on token counts, messed up cost tracking at first.
The second run had approx 2.17M input tokens and 5.04M output tokens. Naively scaling this to other models (without actually using their tokenizers, and assuming they'll give identical output lengths) gives these approximate prices:

• Claude 3 Opus: $410
• GPT-4-0314: $367
• GPT-4-32k-0314: $608

I don't intend to run those.
I'll post the inputs/outputs of both runs if anyone knows a good place to upload password-protected zips (to avoid accidental scraping, since everything posted to reddit is trained on).

So im a very timid person and i can talk to people comfortable but these past two years I've been verbally bullied by my college piers for example having people come up to my desk just to call me stupid. calling me names behind my back or calling me weird or how 'll shoot up a school.
i had one person i would talk to (as in i would start all the conversations and he'd just listen) sure he helped me with my work but he treated me like i was a job and only seemed to hang out with me out of pitty he never starts conversations never even texted me even lies to me a lot and never defended me when i was being shamed and he would just sit there with the people who bullied me he's even in a group chat with them. Even when i told him about how i was being treated by them he said "ITS BECAUSE I DONT TALK." i remember texting him i liked him (i guess i was feeling lonely and outcasted) and he said he would talk to me about it later but he actually just ghost me for a 2 days before i texted him "yeah I'll just wait." before he could tell me "how he didn't feel the same way and how he just didn't want to deal with it"
i stopped being friends with him after that and he practically helps everyone including me sometimes but i don't accept it. (he acts like he did nothing wrong)
because of this my grades has gone down even worse than before even my college professor seem to be treating me even more harshly i cried in a bathroom stall he came down to check on me and when he saw me crying unable to speak from the tears and heavy breathing he told me i was being rude and being aggressive. i told him how i was feeling the other day and he sarcastically brought it up in class and saying things to me like " anyone wants to go to the bathroom?! *Insert my name* Dont forget your phone this time."
when i call him to help me with a question he sucks his teeth or sighs loudly in annoyance. i talked to him about how im afraid ask him questions now because of him and how he pressures me when i make a mistake( for example *me taking a long time typing something* he says " your wasting my time.") he practically shifted the blame onto me with a question and told me "you hang onto things" he then makes sarcastic remarks in front of the class like " oh am i being to aggressive or im not scaring annoying. the whole class laughs.
anyway this is still going on but this happens all the time i get bullied in every school i go to i don't know why. i assume it's because of how i look but are people really that shallow? or maybe im to sensitive and need to grow up.

Francis Ford Coppola’s ‘Megapolis’ - Review Thread

• Metacritic: 62 (12 Reviews)
• Rotten Tomatoes: 20% (5 Reviews)

Reviews:
Variety (50):

To call this garish, idea-bloated monstrosity a mere “fable” is to grossly undersell the project’s expansive insights into art, life and legacy.

Hollywood Reporter (60):

It’s windy and overstuffed, frequently baffling and way too talky, quoting Hamlet and The Tempest, Marcus Aurelius and Petrarch, ruminating on time, consciousness and power to a degree that becomes ponderous. But it’s also often amusing, playful, visually dazzling and illuminated by a touching hope for humanity.

Deadline:

Megalopolis represents a rare kind of event movie that reinvents the possibilities of cinema to the extent that, halfway through, there’s a very audacious gimmick that tears down the fourth wall in ways younger filmmakers can only dream of. Coppola breaks many of the cardinal rules of filmmaking in the film’s 138 minutes but it upholds the most important one: it is never, ever boring, and it will inspire just as many artists as the audiences it will alienate.

IndieWire (B+):

With “Megalopolis,” he crams 85 years worth of artistic reverence and romantic love into a clunky, garish, and transcendently sincere manifesto about the role of an artist at the end of an empire. It doesn’t just speak to Coppola’s philosophy, it embodies it to its bones. To quote one of the sharper non-sequiturs from a script that’s swimming in them: “When we leap into the unknown, we prove that we are free.”

The Guardian (2/5):

Francis Ford Coppola’s question – can the US empire last forever? – may be valid but flashes of humour cannot rescue this conspiracy thriller from awful acting and dull effects

LA Times:

In a larger sense, Coppola has moved from the cynicism of his greatest films like “The Conversation” and “Apocalypse Now” — so much power doing so much corrupting — and into something that could fairly be called utopian. I’m not sure if that’s what I want from him as an artist, but I thrill to his unbowed aspiration. He’s not going out with something tame and manicured, but an overstuffed, vigorous, seething story about the roots of fascism that only an uncharitable viewer would call a catastrophe. Rather, it feels like a city. It may be the most radical film he’s ever done. He dedicates it to his late wife, who would have smiled at the evidence of her husband still doing his thing 45 years later.

Rolling Stone (80):

Say what you will about this grand gesture at filtering Edward Gibbon’s history lessons through a lens darkly, it is exactly the movie that Coppola set out to make — uncompromising, uniquely intellectual, unabashedly romantic (upper-case and lower-case R), broadly satirical yet remarkably sincere about wanting not just brave new worlds but better ones.

Vanity Fair:

Megalopolis is too confused a film to make a truly odious or dangerous point. (Though the ending of the Vesta plotline is somewhat alarming.) This is the junkiest of junk-drawer movies, a slapped together hash of Coppola’s many disparate inspirations.

The Telegraph (80):

Aubrey Plaza is fantastic in this full-body sensory bath movie which follows a struggle for power among the elites of New Rome.

Screen Daily (40):

But the amount of stray ideas and themes that are introduced, then abandoned — such as the fact that Cesar has the ability to stop time — leave Megalopolis feeling like an unwieldy mess. Cesar and Cicero’s showdown over New Rome is handled in terribly disjointed ways, and the attempts by supporting characters to grasp power add to the picture’s cluttered construction. In recent years, few auteurs have dreamed as boldly as Coppola has with this film, but some visions, as Megalopolis’ characters discover, are doomed to failure.

The Wrap:

After four decades in the making, “Megalopolis” plays as a frustrating and paradoxical affair. The film is expertly assembled and sleepily directed all at once; it wows with its imagination and erudition all while leaving you little more than bemused.

Collider (4/10):

Much like the city being built in the film, it’s all more interesting in theory than it ever is in actuality. Now that we will all have the chance to take it in for ourselves, the greatest revelation is that there just isn’t that much there to see.

Written and Directed by Francis Ford Coppola:

An accident destroys a decaying metropolis called New Rome. Cesar Catilina, an idealist architect with the power to control time, aims to rebuild it as a sustainable utopia, while his opposition, corrupt Mayor Franklyn Cicero, remains committed to a regressive status quo. Torn between them is Franklyn's socialite daughter, Julia, who, tired of the influence she inherited, searches for her life's meaning.

Cast:

• Adam Driver as Cesar Catilina
• Giancarlo Esposito as Mayor Franklyn Cicero
• Nathalie Emmanuel as Julia Cicero
• Aubrey Plaza as Wow Platinum
• Shia LaBeouf as Clodio Pulcher
• Jon Voight as Hamilton Crassus III
• Jason Schwartzman as Jason Zanderz
• Talia Shire as Constance Crassus Catilina
• Grace VanderWaal as Vesta Sweetwater
• Laurence Fishburne as Fundi Romaine
• Kathryn Hunter as Teresa Cicero
• Dustin Hoffman as Nush "The Fixer" Berman
• Sonia Ammar
• Chloe Fineman
• Madeleine Gardella
• Balthazar Getty
• Bailey Ives
• Isabelle Kusman
• James Remar
• D. B. Sweeney

We have a neighborhood fb group and yesterday I almost hit someone because they rolled through a stop sign. So I went on and made a post about stopping at stop signs. It wasn’t directed at anyone specifically and was something to the effect of “This is what a stop sign looks like, it means you have to stop and make sure it is clear before moving” I was a little too sarcastic about it apparently. Someone commented asking if I was just making a post to complain or if I was judging drivers I saw directly. Kind of ironic in my opinion being judgmental about it and asking such questions. So I replied and went into detail about why I posted it, how I almost hit someone because they didn’t stop. Then the person responds and says I’m not being friendly at all and I should “watch more Bluey”
AITAH?

Why can’t we just start over? Pretend like we’re meeting for the first time and fall in love all over again?
I think if I had to do it all over again.. I would’ve gotten you to come for months instead of just days. I have a feeling everything would’ve been different and we would still have “us.”
Idk why life does this to me. And if your life has went like you say it has then idk why life does this to you either. And I’m so sorry that it does it to both of us. We don’t deserve it.
I really do wish we could just forget everything. Start from scratch and see where it went. Bc like I’ve told you plenty.. knowing what we know now I think we would be everything we wanted.
But I know you don’t love me anymore. You told me so. So you don’t want anything to do with me. It hurts. And idk how I’m supposed to get over you, or all this. But I’m gonna have to learn how even though I don’t want to. I’m gonna have to learn how to move on not having any type of closure.
I’m just glad that some day you’ll be able to be happy. You’ll be able to heal properly. You won’t have to spend your life questioning everything. I find comfort in knowing you left knowing everything. No questions unanswered.
You were my favorite person. You were my person, I thought.
I know you didn’t expect this to go on so long.. whatever that means. But I’m glad it did. I’m glad to have met you. And for the lessons I’ve learned. And for the memories you gave me. And I don’t mean that sarcastically. I look at that photo of me and you all the time and I hold it close to mg heart.
I miss you. The one that loved me. And if what’s meant to be will be.. I can only pray to all that’s holy that some day we meet again. When we’re both ready. When we’re both available. And we fall head over heels, getting it right. For good.
At such distance, I don’t see it likely. Which is why I fought so hard. And why I didn’t wanna give up.
Anyways.. I’ll say it for the 12463254 time. I’m sorry for everything. There’s a massive part of me missing with you gone. I’m gonna try and just fill this empty part of me with a better version of myself. So that if by some miracle happens and we find each other again. I’ll be ready. I’ll be who you need me to be.
I love you, darlin. This has been the saddest, most unfortunate relationship I’ve ever been a part of. In all my days.
I’ll always remember that voice. It saved my life. And it broke my heart.
Imy🌙